[All] reading whatever is an escape. It involves a temporary transference of the mind from our actual surroundings to things merely imagined or conceived. This happens when we read history or science no less than when we read fictions. All such escape is from the same thing: immediate, concrete actuality. The important question is what we escape to… Escape is not necessarily joined to escapism.
- C. S. Lewis, quoted in Leland Ryken’s Realms of Gold, p. 159
The appeal of reading literature is based ultimately on he pleasure of being transported from one’s immediate physical surroundings to a world merely imagined… The prerequisite to such transport is an attitude of leave-taking from the world of ordinary responsibilities. The very attention that reading demands of us ensures such a relinquishing of ordinary concerns. Self-forgetfulness is an essential ingredient of our best reading experiences.
- Leland Ryken, Realms of Gold, p. 159
Neurological studies show that, as we learn to read, our brains undergo extensive cellular changes that allow us to decipher the meaning of words with breathtaking speed and enormous flexibility. By comparison, gathering information through audio and video media is a slow and cumbersome process.
- Nicholas Carr in “The Rapid Evolution of Text”
There’s nothing that can integrate reality in the way that theology can, and so I feel as if I’m reading something whole when I’m reading great theology, and I feel as though I’m reading something very partial when I’m reading anything else.
- from an extended interview with Marilynne Robinson, author of Gilead
I hope to blog more often this year. God willing, I hope to reread Calvin’s Institutes, this time in the Beveridge translation. Also, I plan to read the ESV Study Bible (I gave away my hard bound copy to my pastor and bought a leather bound copy instead) including the notes – hopefully!
Here are some ESV Bible reading plans. And here’s a reading plan for Calvin’s Institutes.
Spiritual reading is mostly a lover’s activity – a dalliance with words, reading as much between the lines as in the lines themselves. It is leisurely, as ready to re-read an old book as open a new one. It is playful, anticipating the pleasures of friendship. It is prayerful, convinced that all honest words can involve us somehow or other, if we read with our hearts as well as our heads, in an eternal conversation that got its start in the Word that “became flesh.”
– Eugene H. Peterson, Living the Message, (Meditation for September 24)
I admit that I am frequently guilty of what Peterson calls “reading as a consumer activity,” i.e., reading for the sake of information that will “fuel [my] ambition or careers or competence.” I think, however, that this cannot be helped if one’s career has become an idol. In today’s competitive world, especially in the field of law, to read “consumeristically” is a necessity if you want to rise to the top. The solution seems to be: not to want to rise to the top. To be sure, one must do one’s work well, excel even! But one must also set limits. I should always remind myself that “Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God,” and “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you as well.”
Last night I attended a study group started by some friends who are members of a local Christian Reformed Church (Ebenezer Christian Reformed Church). Atty. Jerry Basiao was the study group leader. They were studying John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. I thought to myself, “Isn’t this something? Who would have thought that in such a small country as the Philippines, and in a relatively small city like Bacolod City, there would be a study group on John Calvin’s Institutes!” Someone stepped to the front and began reading a portion of ch. 1 of the Institutes on the knowledge of God and the knowledge of self. Then Atty. Basiao took over, explained a bit, and began addressing questions to the other members. Then came the fun part: We began sharing inputs, asking questions, offering our interpretations of what Calvin probably meant – it was fun! There were serious moments too, as when Elder Godfrey Serfino (an elder of Ebenezer) asked the group, How do we apply the things we’ve learned to the life of the church? (We were a mixed group actually: some Reformed, some Baptist; we even had a walk-in visitor from Pontevedra whose denominational affiliation we knew nothing about). The session lasted around 2 hours, after which we closed in prayer. Atty. Basiao encouraged each one of us to get our own copy of the Institutes. A couple of members began inspecting the books of John Calvin which the group reader (Bryan I think his name was) brought with him. We all had an enjoyable time. What a way to spend Phlippine Independence Day!
I’m presently reading A.D. Sertillanges’ The Intellectual Life. I first came to know about this book while reading James Sire’s Habits of the Mind. Yesterday I found a secondhand copy of this book at a local secondhand bookstore. I was so happy with my discovery I felt like kissing the book! I’ve just finished the first chapter – ”The Intellectual Vocation” – and I found it really inspiring. Here are a few quotes I liked:
If you are designated as a light bearer, do not go hide under the bushel the gleam or the flame expected from you in the house of the Father of all. Love truth and its fruits of life, for yourself and for others; devote to study and to the profitable use of study the best part of your time and heart.
Do not prove faithless to God, to your brethren and to yourself by rejecting a sacred call.
Every truth is practical; the most apparently abstract, the loftiest, is also the most practical. Every truth is life, direction, a way leading to the end of man.
Work always then with the idea of some utilization… Listen to the murmur of the human race all about you; pick out certain individuals of certain groups whose need you know, find out what may bring them out of their night and ennoble them; what in any measure may save them.
I’ve just finished R.C. Sproul’s Willing to Believe: The Controversy over Free Will, a clear and balanced presentation of the different views that Christians hold on Free Will. Sproul, of course, prefers the Reformed view, and at a number of places he tries to answer the objections posed by other views. But his critique of other views is I think fair and courteous. A good and enlightening book, whichever side of the divide you belong. Here’s his conclusion:
How we view our fallen condition, then, has radical implications for how we understand both the nature and necessity of regeneration as it relates to faith. This in turn greatly influences how we understand the biblical doctrine of election… [Those] who believe that the fallen sinner retains the capacity to choose what he desires but is enslaved by these desires, rest their confidence in the knowledge that salvation is of the Lord and those whom the Son makes free are free indeed.
I’m almost halfway into Collins and Porras’ business book: Built to Last. I like their idea about the “Genius of the AND,” as opposed to the “Tyranny of the Or.” So, for example, in the matter of profits – profit is not everything, but “a reasonable profit is right, but not too much.” So a visionary company is one which can embrace both idealogy AND profit.
Profit is not the proper end and aim of management – it is what makes all of the proper ends and aims possible.
– David Packard
Here’s another quote:
Profit maximization does not rule, but the visionary companies pursue their aims profitably. They do both.
Profitability is a necessary condition for existence and a means to more important ends, but it is not the end in itself for many of the visionary companies. Profit is like oxygen, food, water, and blood for the body; they are not the point of life, but without them, there is no life.
This is sound and sane business advice, and not greedy at all.
Click HERE to learn more about the book
