Stop Reading

Fuel

I (Carmen) have been working through the book, “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron. The book is full of tasks to help unleash one’s creativity. One of the tasks I recently completed was a week of NOT reading. If you’ve been paying attention to these emails you’ve probably noticed I’m a big reader! So this week of not reading was a difficult undertaking for me.

I was especially unsettled by not reading the Bible. I have consistently read my Bible since I was in junior high. It has been my central source of spiritual learning and exploration as well as the main way I heard God’s voice. To not read my Bible meant that I had to spend my "quiet times” actually being quiet. I had to sit still attempting to hear God’s voice through the Holy Spirit within me rather than relying on what a biblical author had to say. This exercise made me think of how often I’ve used reading the Bible as a way to NOT hear God’s voice. A way to avoid hearing him through my thoughts and feelings. Reading has frequently kept me from opening myself up and hearing God speak into my void.

I wondered what the early disciples and followers of Jesus had to do after Jesus left the earth. They didn’t have scripture widely available to them. They had to rely on what they—or their friends—remembered of what Jesus had said. They would have shared stories about life with Jesus. (“Hey, do you guys remember that time when Jesus walked on the water? Yeah, that was cool.”) They relied on what they had memorized of scripture growing up in Jewish households and communities. No wonder Paul’s letters to them became a precious source of spiritual learning and direction.

Don’t get me wrong. I will continue to read my Bible. But I will not use it as a substitute for honing in and listening to the Holy Spirit inside me. I will not use the Bible as a way to cherry pick things that confirm my own narratives. Instead I plan to spend more time sitting, listening, praying, connecting with God’s Spirit within me.

Inspire

You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all; and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

2 Corinthians 3:2-3, NRSV

Share

Tell us what reading (of any type) means to you.

How-to

Try a week of NOT reading. Take the time you would normally spend reading and sit quietly. Use your imagination to think of stories of Jesus as though you are one of the characters in the story. Consider what their perspectives and thoughts would have been and how they would have relayed that story to others.