Our fifth child is in the beginning stages of learning how to read. He was sounding out the word on the cover of his book to me the other day: “Cuh-Ah-Ll-Ah-Er-Sss.” The word was “colors.” This is how it always starts—learning to decode letters and syllables into sounds and words.
Once a child is able to decode, we say they can “read,” which is technically true and dangerous at once. No longer can mom and dad communicate in super-secret spelling code—“I-C-E C-R-E-A-M”—and the child who can read becomes vulnerable to every billboard, slogan, and phrase that blips across a screen. In her oft-quoted “Lost Tools of Learning” Sayers writes, “By teaching them all to read, we have left them at the mercy of the printed word.”
It’s true. There are a lot of words sent into the universe to search and destroy, and children who are taught merely to read and not to discern “are sent into the world to fight massed propaganda” with no ability “to ward them off or blunt their edge or fling them back; they are a prey to words in their emotions instead of being the masters of them in their intellects.”
But is all reading a battlefield? And are all words adversaries? And are all books enemies seeking to devour? Something is lost when we march into every text with swords drawn.
Perhaps the problem is how we define discernment. Books are a dialogue, a conversation of two partners. For many of us, discernment is only ever aimed at the text. But proper discernment must also be directed at the second party in the conversation—ourselves.
The medieval way of reading Sayers alludes to is a two-way street: The reader reads the book, and the book reads the reader. After all, her chosen title was “Lost Tools of Learning.” We fail to learn if we believe reading is only discerning truth and error in another—but not in ourselves.
Perhaps we can move toward a less adversarial relationship with the books we read. I’ve always loved this line from Victor Hugo’s Les Mis, “Books are remote but reliable friends.” We don’t always agree with our friends, but even in disagreement we can learn patience, compassion, and sympathy.
In our modern society, Christian and non-Christian alike, I’m afraid the lost tool we’ve yet to recover is the ability to read ourselves.
The Hutch is celebrating its 1st Anniversary this month, and our family wants to invite you to come join us for free pancakes on Saturday, June 24th from 8:30-10am.
We are so blessed to be surrounded by great friends, and we want to celebrate one year of baking for our neighbors.
MARK YOUR CALENDARS: