Reading

Love this post.2
When I first began these blog posts I wrote about what we read being important. I realise not everyone reads. Many in the world simply cannot read. Others find it tedious. For some there is a preference for television or films or perhaps an audiobook. Each is fin in its own way as a pursuit.
 
And like reading we need always to balance “how much” and “what” we consume in which every form of entertainment we prefer. Reading, I find, helps in many ways. It is an active diversion in that I am forced to think of the words, the paragraphs, the thoughts and scenes presented to me in words seen.
 
Books, if we choose to read them, permit us to increase our vocabulary, gain better syntax in our language, open new places and people to us. Books use our own imaginative senses to “see” what the author has written. The scenes may be written in such a way we can see clearly as the author intended, or it could be seen in our own way. 
 
While studying at university I took an English Literature course. I was asked to read many books but one in particular was “Voss” by Patrick White. It is set in Australia, but because I had not experience of Australia I could not imagine some of these scenes and the barren landscape presented as part of the OutBack in fact came to my mind as the barrens of the northern Canadian Arctic! So we are not always in league with the author when we read but we can work at it. “In general,’ Voss replied, ‘it is necessary to communicate without knowledge of the language.” ― Patrick White, Voss
 
Using our minds in this way keeps them active, rather than passively accepting what the directors produce for us through television and film. The escape books provide are not simply a diversion from this world, but a means to learn and engage with it. One of the greatest gifts we can receive is to be able to read in another language. In this way we expand again our knowledge through literature of another people and culture or that region of the globe. 
 
So it is a great blessing to be able to read and learn; perhaps distraction too. But we have a t our disposal a tool to expand out thoughts and world. Be prudent in the selection, but see it as a means of growth rather than an obligation. 
 
“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.” 
― Groucho Marx

Related

Anger

We have people living in failed states who don’t have the most basic needs met of a human. Basic education and health care are for the elite and no one else. Perhaps these have a right to be angry and seen on television. But they won’t be seen. The scandal is hidden, there is no voice heard.

Love this post.0

Religious Education and the Future

We send our children to catechism (or Sunday School) for a very good reason, to learn the faith we know ourselves. But this early formation cannot be seen as anything more than a beginning. This may not be the case everywhere, but it is a growing crisis in the Church as I see it. And we are all part of the transmission of the faith from one generation to the next.

Love this post.0

A Work In Progress

…the whole of humanity is a work in progress. It has eras of good and periods of horror. In each individual there is the same. Each person can know moments of joy and times of difficulty and sorrow. All this makes the person who they are. And it behoves us to be gentle with everyone because we, like they, are far from complete.

Love this post.0

Pin It on Pinterest