“But examine everything carefully;
hold fast to that which is good.”
– 1 Thessalonians 5:21

Last time I introduced the topic of reading and addressed the first of three important issues related to our reading: whether we read. Yet as we know, all reading is not equal. Its benefit–its value to us–varies. Thus, we need to consider what we read.

What We Read

Growth Reading

When my children were younger, we had to teach them about food. They needed to learn the differing values of foods like fruit and vegetables, meat and potatoes, and cake and ice cream. My wife used the term “grow food” to identify foods that are good for helping their bodies develop, to grow big and strong. This helped them learn to distinguish other foods – desserts, for example – whose growth effects tend to be felt more around the waistline; it also helped them understand that such foods, even if enjoyable, needed to be controlled and consumed in moderation.

There is a striking parallel between our food and our reading. Just as we need to judge food by its value to our bodies, we need to judge reading material by its value to our minds. I suggest the term “growth reading” to identify reading material that is good for developing our minds and for building our knowledge and understanding in important areas. As with desserts, we need to learn to distinguish reading that, no matter how enjoyable, needs to be carefully watched and controlled due to its potential effects. Two examples come to mind immediately: amusing reading and superficial reading.

Amusing Reading

I have been challenged by a thought that I found here regarding the use of leisure time – the discretionary time that we have when we are not required to deal with work and other obligations of life. When leisure time is given to reading (which various reports suggest is occurring less and less), the reading is often “reading for enjoyment.” Yet I fear that this term is largely a cover for “reading for amusement.” We often think of the term amusement as indicating something that is mildly fun or funny, but the fundamental meaning is somewhat different. The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary explains that amuse “suggests that one’s attention is engaged lightly or frivolously.” Now, I confess, I can really enjoy reading for amusement. But then I like eating desserts, too. I am not suggesting that either must be totally avoided, yet I must recognize that the failure to control them will have certain consequences for me.

For example, an excess of dessert can yield flabby bodies. Similarly, an excess of amusing reading can affect our minds, for just as muscles weaken and atrophy with a lack of use, minds weaken when they are not worked and challenged. In sum, an excess of amusing reading can dull our mental abilities.

Further, remember your mother telling you to eat your vegetables or your other “main food” first. She did not want you starting with dessert lest you run out of room before you got to the “grow food.” In similar fashion, amusing reading is dangerous when it crowds out better, more important reading: our growth reading.

Finally, an excess of dessert can train our desires and thus affect our appetites. As our desire for dessert increases, our consumption will tend to increase if we do not carefully control it, and this can intensify the overall effect. The same can happen with our reading, resulting in yet greater attraction for the amusing and less for the sober-minded.

Superficial Reading

Superficial reading has two aspects. The first relates to the author’s treatment of the topic and occurs when we choose reading material that treats its subject superficially. It is often said that “a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.” Important areas like theology, philosophy, culture, law, and education do not tolerate superficial treatment well. “Cliff notes” summaries do not provide an adequate foundation for a worthy handling of issues in these areas. Superficial understandings and superficial analyses often miss important details or nuances that can be critical.

Applying this to our reading, we need to evaluate potential reading material before we start it and to continue evaluating our chosen reading material as we read through it, for it is a dangerous thing to treat the superficial as if it were substantial. Thus, we need to be discerning – keeping in mind the authors and their expertise and considering the depth with which they treat the material – so that we identify reading material that is worthy of our time and conducive to our growth and distinguish it from that which is not.

In this analysis should we not also consider the medium in which the writing occurs? Online fora and blogs are grabbing a great deal of attention, and they provide some good opportunities. Yet we would be foolish to ignore the risks that tag along. Just as with other reading material, we need to consider who the authors are and how they treat their subject. In this regard I am greatly concerned that the spontaneity with which many persons participate in online discussions can work against in-depth thought and analysis and create a greater risk of superficial discussion. Again, we need to be discerning and self-disciplined.

The second aspect of superficial reading relates to the reader’s treatment of the material and occurs when we choose to read in a superficial manner. The effective value of even the most excellent reading material can be diminished if we read this way. Whether we are in a hurry because we have many things to do or otherwise distracted, we often fail to engage in the thoughtful analysis and reflection that the subject matter warrants.

Superficial reading is dangerous in at least two ways. First, similar to amusing reading, it can dull our abilities. For example, I find that constant cursory reading can get me into the habit of skimming whenever I begin to read, and thus I catch myself starting to skim serious reading material. I then must force myself to go back, slow down, and read it again. Second, superficial reading can deceive us into thinking we are accomplishing more than we actually are.

In sum, we need to evaluate carefully what we read. We need to consider the topics being addressed, the authors who are writing, the depth of their treatment, and the media they are using so that we choose reading material that is conducive to our growth. We then need to actually read it well, and I will turn to that next.

In the mean time how do you deal with these issues?

But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling, like dew, upon a thought produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions think.
– Lord Byron

There was a day in which information was passed largely through oral communications. Word-of-mouth predominated. A teacher’s disciples sat around him as he taught. Gutenberg’s invention changed this significantly, opening the way for written media like books, pamphlets, and newspapers to move significant amounts of information to large numbers of persons who might never have heard the speaker or even lived in the same place or time. Consider that we probably have greater access to works of Plato, Cicero, and other ancient writers than did their contemporaries.

Written communication brought certain advantages, which we can summarize by saying that it provided great flexibility. Not only was physical presence no longer necessary, a reader was not limited to the speaker’s talking speed. Persons can typically read faster than persons can speak intelligibly. On the other hand, readers can slow, even stop, to analyze, ponder, or reflect in greater depth. A listener doing the same thing would generally miss whatever the speaker was saying at time. Readers can take their books with them, reading where audible conversations are impermissible, or at least impolite. Finally, books could provide depth that would require a series of lectures that would have to be spread over many days, which would be impractical for many listeners.

Unfortunately, many are not taking advantage of the opportunities, it seems. I recently read an article citing statistics indicating that reading is in decline. While we cannot change this for others, but we can for ourselves. Thus, I would like us to consider three aspects of our reading: whether, what, and how we read.

Whether We Read

As a reader of this post and (presumably) other blogs, it seems unlikely that you need to be convinced of the need to read. If you are like me, the issue is not the abstract issue of whether I should read (at all) but rather the concrete issue of whether, at a certain point of time, I will choose to read instead of engaging in other activities. In struggling with this, I encounter challenges relating to discipline and distraction.

The first major challenge relates to discipline, or more specifically, inadequate personal discipline. Few of us need a reminder to eat. God has given us a sense of hunger that reminds us of the need to eat and urges us to go do it. In contrast, we have no corresponding instinct impelling us to read, and consequently, we need to cultivate the discipline of reading. Personally, I am still working on that.

When I was young, I read voraciously. Looking back, I would say that it was out of a sense of desire. I loved it. As I grew, I found an ever increasing amount of reading tied to external requirements, first with school’s significant reading assignments and later with work-related needs (the reading that is a practical prerequisite to getting the job done). The discipline that I learned was not of reading itself but rather of fulfilling the school/work/church requirement. What I have recognized in hindsight was an increasing dependence on the existence of such external requirements so that, when there was no requirement, I was less and less likely to get to reading. My personal reading suffered. I am now having to cultivate the discipline of personal reading.

The second danger that I encounter is a combination of distractions. I am using this term in a broad sense, not merely of bad, dangerous, or trivial things. Maybe it would be better to say competing demands. Even the normal responsibilities of life contribute to this. I spend weekdays at the office (I need to earn a living), I teach my children most evenings (we homeschool), and I need to eat and sleep. These things and others limit my personal time.

When I get into personal time, I have a tendency to want to “relax” and turn to various amusements. Computer games can be a distraction. Once it was Minesweeper, another time it was Pinball, and so forth. I finally concluded that, rather than constantly fighting the temptation, it was wiser for me to just uninstall the software. I kept my Sudoku software on the notion that it required “brain work” that had some value, but after finding that I was spending more time than I concluded was warranted, I uninstalled it, too.

There is also competition from other media. For example, our world has a current fascination with visual media. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but that helps little when the matters to be described or discussed are not readily pictured. Pictures can even be an impediment when ideas are the key. In addition, the computer can also be a competing medium. I find that it can become a distraction, becoming an end in itself rather than a means, i.e., a tool for reaching the desired end. Although I can find some good things to read on the computer, some are much less than optimal. That leads to a consideration of what we read, which I intend to address in the next installment.

Let’s start at the very beginning
A very good place to start.
– “Do-Re-Mi,” The Sound of Music

Titles should, I believe, provide a good indication of what lies inside. I hope that will be true of “Things that Matter,” which I have selected as the initial title for this blog. Implicit within the expression is an important idea: that there are some things that do matter. Of course, by way of contrast, that idea suggests a corresponding idea: some things do not matter.

We recognize this intuitively, of course. Coke versus Pepsi. PC versus Mac. Windows versus Linux. Favorite sports teams. All of have their adherents or “fans.” Some fans demonstrate exceptional loyalty to their choices, and some will readily regale you with extended discussions of why their preferred choices are better than any alternatives. While I would not suggest that these choices have no significance at all, we readily recognize that they do not have the consequences of, for example, the choice of how we judge Hitler’s view (and resulting treatment) of Jews before and during the Second World War. The lives, liberty, and property of many were affected by those choices in the past, and similarly horrific results are likely if the same fundamental ideas are embraced and similar choices are made in the future. In sum, some things really matter, but in the final analysis some things just do not – at least not in a long-term, ultimate sense.

Working back from this intuitive recognition leads us to two basic questions:

• which things matter?
• why do they matter (and others not matter)?

As you read these questions, you may have instinctively begun to answer them. But before we get too caught up with considering answers, we should first push back further toward the “beginning” and consider an even more fundamental question: How do we go about answering these basic questions? To put it somewhat differently (but maybe more clearly), on what basis do we answer them?

Every one of us has what can be termed a world view. This world view provides a context and framework by which we examine and interpret things around us and we analyze, categorize, and answer important questions of life. Thus, we might say, our world view is the “beginning” of our interpretation and analysis. It is typically unstated and often ignored, yet it is nonetheless present.

In our consideration of “beginnings,” we need not stop with the broad notion of world view. We can look back even further and consider elements of our world view. Our view of our present (and future) is greatly affected by our view of how we came to be here. In fact, I suggest that our world view is inextricably tied to – indeed, it flows from – our view of origins. Thus, in some sense our view of origins is the “beginning” of our world view.

Now, why should I work through these basic notions of fundamental ideas, of “beginnings,” in this initial post? Because of the underlying importance of our world view to our analyses and views, I think that persons addressing issues such as I want to address here should be explicit as to their world views. In an effort to do so myself, I wish to use the following statement of Francis Scheaffer, which is much more succinct than I can be at this point:

Christianity is not a series of truths in the plural, but rather truth spelled with a capital “T.” Truth about total reality, not just about religious things.

Biblical Christianity is Truth concerning total reality – and the intellectual holding of that total Truth and then living in the light of that Truth.

(Address at the University of Notre Dame (Apr. 1981), quoted in N. Pearcy, Total Truth). I note that the Bible begins with a specific statement, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1), followed by a detailed account of His special creation of the universe in which we live, including the creation of man by His direct act. I accept this account.

You may not share these views. I certainly hope that this will not keep you from returning. I do think it important, however, that we be clear on these points so that we can communicate effectively on these issues that matter.