Why I Read

I do not read only to learn.  I do not read to gather facts and information – to hold them and at earliest opportunity, regurgitate.  I do not read or study to capture the world in my mind and define it.  It would be a perverse limitation and I am infinitely limited for the task.

I read to change, to become more than I was when I started the page.  In a paragraph, a sentence or a word, one of the many cracks in my soul will be leaked into and an empty space will no longer be empty.  It will be fuller with the substance of truth filling it now new and bigger both.

I cannot hold these drips of words, ideas and stories.  They are not mine but to be shared.  They connect me to those who wrote and read before me.  It is my only true option to hold loosely, let them flow in and through me, trusting that the aggregate will reveal what portion of itself is called forth at the proper time.

For this, I do not read all books.  There are too many words and they are not all for me.  It is the task afforded me to watch for those who would speak to me.  I am called to listen well and consider what they say for as long as it remains in my awakened soul.  It will dissipate.  Each word and sentence and thought will arrive, increase and burn in its place setting all around it alight.  The words will be consumed by the fire they caused and cease to be separate from the heated, melted amalgamation they influenced.

I read to participate in a life that is worth living.  I read to discover and share with the writer and the listeners around me.  I read so that I can listen better, so I can recognize a story I have heard somewhere and confirm, reassure, question and challenge.  I read because there are no simplistic, easy answers and there are too many questions to ask or answer all of them.

I hope that what I read, when and how much and how it connects with the people I meet and the conversations I have will combine to become, to grow into something alive, powerful, life-giving and inspiring.  I hope the path continues to unfold in front of me with the branches joining and intersecting at just the right places.  I hope, but I hold loosely to the judgment of success for I am not my own and I am too close to the event.  I look forward to the day when I can see the parts of the whole and enjoy the mysterious genius that brought it all together.