Have you ever had a conversation with someone who you could tell was just waiting for you to finish talking so that they could say whatever was on their mind?  Or with someone who always responded by correcting you or telling you how you’re wrong?  Or what about someone who seemed to always be telling you what you really meant…or worse, always took your words to mean something they wanted them to mean, but not what you intended to convey? 

These aren’t just annoying conversational habits—they are a lack of virtue.  And, just as good conversation requires virtue, so it is with reading well.

When you open a book, the author has something to say to you.  Sure, you can hurry up and get through it; or scour every page for something to quarrel with; or look for hidden meaning in every word; or only care about what the book means to you, and not what the author means to say to you. 

But the truth is, to read a book in those ways is, well, to not really read the book at all—just like talking with someone in that fashion is really no conversation at all.

In the end, true reading starts with the posture of your heart: Do you desire to know what the author has to say?  Are you willing to consider their point of view?  Will you extend them the courtesy of assuming that the words they have written have a purpose and a meaning?

If not, then you’re hardly different from the person at a grand party full of interesting people, who stands in the corner talking to himself.  Better, I think, to join the conversation.  Don’t you?

Now, for the Friday Funnies

A Sunday school teacher was teaching the Ten Commandments to her five and six year olds. After explaining the commandment to “honor thy father and thy mother,” she asked, “Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?” After a pause, one little boy shouted out, “Thou shall not kill.”

Have a wonderful day.