Reading Aloud

This morning Su read the forward to a new edition of a book as I washed the dishes. Writing about the compliments the author had received on previous editions of the manuscript, he said: "Most heartwarming of all are those countless couples who tell me they have read the book aloud to each other. This amazes and delights me whenever I hear it. It's one thing for parents to read aloud to children. But when adults take time to read aloud to each other, it seems to me some fantastic good must be afoot in the world."

Re-reading this statement, it encourages me that Su and I have been the source of so much positive Zen in the world. It has been our habit to read books to each other since early in our marriage. One of the reasons we began to do this is that we had no television... probably not the worse problem for a newlywed couple. We have now had a television since our girls were little. However, since my own viewing habits are primarily defined as "news, news and more news,"and since most of that so-called news coverage seems pretty silly to me, we still read to each other.

[I must admit, I have never really gotten over Walter Cronkite retiring from the CBS Evening News in 1981.]

When we were younger our reading habits lent themselves to the popular books of the day: J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasies; C. S. Lewis' Space Trilogy; and, we even read some Francis Schaeffer and Watchman Nee to each other. Admittedly, a book by Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn defeated our best efforts to read it aloud. I think Su grew impatient with my pronunciation of the Russian names.

Over the years our habit of reading to each other came to include doing the same with our daughters. I am not sure how many times we went through the Chronicles of Narnia as a family. Of course, we read many classics popular among little girls. I am embarrassed that I still understand so little about the female psyche after reading most of the Anne of Green Gables books.

One of my favorite memories of reading to the girls was the time we chose a popular mystery novel to read aloud on a car trip in the States. As we neared our home we still had about thirty pages to go. Even though Su was hoarse from reading for the past hours, we chose to finish it rather than eat.

Our current reading list is rather eclectic. In the morning we have been reading The Apostle by John Pollock. Since we have less time in the morning, we have been reading it for about ten months. Paul is still with Silas and Timothy in Thessalonica. So, we have a ways to go.

In the evening we have several books in progress. What we choose to read depends on our mood and the time available. Su had been enjoying Introverts in the Church by Adam McHugh. For some unexplainable reason it didn't speak to me in the same way as it did to her. Both of us have been learning from Superfreakonomics. Recently, in honor of the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, we decided to re-read Shaara's The Killer Angels. Now, we are both interested in visiting Gettysburg again.

Jesus read aloud. Of the three things that we know he did regularly - going to the synagogue, praying (Luke 22:39) and, teaching others (Mark 10:1) - two of them included reading aloud from the Scriptures. Once, when reading from Isaiah 61 to a group of people who had known him since he was a young man, what he read and how he interpreted it so angered the listeners that they tried to kill him.

Hopefully, our own reading habits will not have the same impact on others around us.

Oh, wait a second! Maybe that is the whole point. What we read and how we understand it should so transform us that it does impact those around us. Gloria Jean Watkins, wrote: "Life-transforming ideas have always come to me through books." It should go without saying that if our own lives are transformed we should be willing to be an agent of change among those with whom we connect in our everyday lives.