Thursday, August 30, 2007

How a Dutch Son of a Preacher taught me I was a good reader and why I cry when I read him.

Have you ever been drawn to a book? Hopeless in fighting you can’t stop reading it. It haunts your thoughts, it captures your dreams. This has happen to me, just the other day, a friend of mine fought a loosing battle with Russian existentialism and was a wash in melancholy and angst until the last page was read.

Books can be ghosts in need of bodies. Books can be ideas in need of brains. Books live as creatures of one thing. They seek out the individual: the reader that will not remain just an objective observer but travel deep into the cavernous realms in-between the pages and find something of the human self in the work. Books live to seek out such readers and writers hope to be read by such souls. In the preface to purity of heart, Kierkegaard writes on what books seek:

It is in search of that solitary "individual," to whom it wholly abandons itself, by whom it wishes to be received as if it had arisen within his own heart; that solitary "individual" whom with joy and gratitude I call my reader;

The solitary "individual"; the one reader that reads as one, A self open vulnerable, grasped with an infinite concern. A mind that can be captured by way of the heart. A soul awake to ideas that can enchant and like a gypsy’s dance, bring a mystical grace to life and a deep magic to the world. Such is the reader that books seek out. Kierkegaard further describes this type of reader:

that solitary "individual" who reads willingly and slowly, who reads over and over again, and who reads aloud -- for his own sake. If it[this book] finds him, then in the distance of the separation the understanding is perfect, if he retains for himself both the distance and the understanding in the inwardness of appropriation.

Never have I called myself a great reader. Truth be told I am slow clunky and only acquired the ability through blood, sweat, and tutoring. For years I hated reading. Words existed as enemies, little invaders into my world, who popped up all around forcing me to use them. From the menu at a restaurant to the sign on the freeway they taunted me with little moments of confusion and relentless feelings of insecurity. Words worked against me. Like little ADD ants they jumped around, ran away and stood on there head. Later I learn I had what was called dyslexia.

Reading is still hard but not nearly as much of a pain. Yes I am slow, sometimes words are undecipherable, but there is a blessing in my plight. I still get lost in my reading but now it is in a different way. Now I get gloriously lost, in the way Kierkegaard spoke of. I’m made to read from the inside out, following the twisting path that leads from the heart to the head. In reading, I stand alone in the empty space of one and face myself with God above me and my shadow below. My blessing is my cures, my gift is my limp. I am not a great reader but God made me to read great. Before this reality I am humbled. To read as we all should with an inward appropriation that in Kierkegaard’s words, “retains for himself both the distance and the understanding.” is important. In a flowery way He is saying that the reader understands both subjectively and objectively, with the eyes of logic and vision of the heart in one simplistic appropriation.

Getting people to read in this way was important to Kierkegaard. He wrote to call such reading out of them. His books, like all books are for the reader. He aimed to change people. He wrote purity of heart with this purpose in mind. It is not to be critiqued or appreciated but inwardly applied and experienced. Its purpose is not found in the poetry flow or beauty in which it is written but in the purpose it is aimed. He explains this in a parable:

a woman makes an altar cloth, so far as she is able, she makes every flower as lovely as the graceful flowers of the field, as far as she is able, every star as sparkling as the glistening stars of the night. She withholds nothing, but uses the most precious things she possesses. She sells off every other claim upon her life that she may purchase the most uninterrupted and favorable time of the day and night for her one and only, for her beloved work. But when the cloth is finished and put to its sacred use: then she is deeply distressed if someone should make the mistake of looking at her art, instead of at the meaning of the cloth; or make the mistake of looking at a defect, instead of at the meaning of the cloth. For she could not work the sacred meaning into the cloth itself, nor could she sew it on the cloth as though it were one more ornament. This meaning really lies in the beholder and in the beholder’s understanding, if he, in the endless distance of the separation, above himself and above his own self, has completely forgotten the needlewoman and what was hers to do. It was allowable, it was proper, it was duty, it was a precious duty, it was the highest happiness of all for the needlewoman to do everything in order to accomplish what was hers to do; but it was a trespass against God, an insulting misunderstanding of the poor needle-woman, when someone looked wrongly and saw what was only there, not to attract attention to itself, but rather so that its omission would not distract by drawing attention to itself.

A woman doing needlework on an altar cloth does not want the work admired or criticized, but rather that the intent of the work is that it be seen for its higher purpose. Kierkegaard desires his writing receive the same attention. It is sad today that so much talk is of Kierkegaard and so little of the purpose for which he wrote. In my minds eye, I see him pleading, day and night even now at the throne, crying, “How long oh Lord, till you restore your glory! Till your name is glorified! I wrote to change people and they have made me a philosopher!”

We should take a note of such a purpose; we should seek out the higher purpose in our reading. If the book be educational may knowledge for the sake of helping others be our vision. If the book be the bible may transformation capture our heart as the goal of our reading! When the good Spirit enlightens our eyes to the value of truth, when the gem of truth glimmers on the dusty Emmaus road, when we realize it has been there all along, waiting to be found. We are created again in our finding. And the treasure is a new self closer to Jesus in image and to God in heart. From glory to glory we read, discover, and are transformed. I have head it said that we are most changed by the books we read and the people we surround ourselves with. I would add to that, we are transformed by the books we enjoy and the people we endure. (I will save the last for another blog)

I smile when I hear of someone captive to a book. I smile, knowing they touch the deep places where change happens. Where hearts are fashioned and love is galvanized to the human will. When they speak of the angst and obsession, I know it is only the effects of looking into the abyss. It is only mystery smiling back, begging them on; until the story is complete and the only thing left is silence. Much like life. We push into the mystery until THE END. In a book we touch life in its mystery and return from the abyss, changed.

A book is to be at some point shut but the story is never over it continues in the hearts and minds of its readers. They carry it with them in a vision of the heart. They experience it in quiet moments visible only to God. Reading is not an idea of man it is a divinely chosen means for transformation and we need not forget it. A book seeks to live on in the reader. The imprint left on the soul after a read is the reward of a good read. It is a transformation.

I am no expert only one touched with a burden that blesses. I am no soothsayer but I am captured at heart by a message!

I encourage you for I know the truth as My truth. So take caution in what you deeply read for something’s lull the soul to sleep. More importantly use this divinely given means of grace to become more human. Read your soul alive! And awaken the sleeping self that slumber in this cultures trappings. Read so you may be alive in your living days.