Open Book
Why do we read? What is it that we find in the words that others have scribbled down which captivates us? For hundreds of years, regardless of culture, nation, religion and education, humanity has written and read. And as literacy levels around the world have improved, our capacity for words has only grown as a species. So, why do we read?
We read to learn about the world, to expand our world, and to escape our world. We read because in the process of reading we gain insight into ourselves and others; how we think, why we think, whether we should think something else. I have often found that I have been awoken to beauty that I had not perceived before through the words of poets. And through reading, I have also entered into the pain and sorrows of others, fictional or not. Victor Hugo, in his great novel Les Misérables, wrote ‘There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees.’ In reading, we see souls on their knees.
But literature, like any other form of art has not only the power to uplift and reveal truth, but also to disturb, haunt, and oppress. It exposes humanity’s flaws, our brokenness, and a world desperately in need of redemption. And so, at times, though we may read from a place of safety, literature needs to be handled with caution. Reading is learning, but we may not always rejoice in what we learn for it shows us the breadth of what humanity is capable of.
The God of the Bible is an author – it’s how he creates the world. He speaks the Word (John 1), and the world comes into being. And the poems that describe how he creates the world (Genesis 1 and 2) tell us that he makes humanity to be like him, to reflect him, the Creator. So for me, words are a gift from God which makes humanity, in some small sense, creators, reflecting the ultimate Creator. Our words may not spark worlds into being, but our words can create wonder, can tell truth, can speak wisdom. And so when you read, and the words reach through the page and hold you, resonate within you, when they hum in your mind and linger in your thoughts because they was just so beautiful, or so apt, you experience something of who God is in what he has made. You are touched by the beauty and power of the world and the humans he has authored, and as he said himself, it is indeed very good (Genesis 1:31).
Literature has been for me an expression of our humanity, a way to wrestle with the world around us and its ideas, an attempt to capture it with words, and silence, and feeling, and much, much more. We can celebrate this gift, but we can also let it teach us about the one who made it. Literature causes us to wonder at the Author of Life.
Patricia Marthinet-Payne