Thursday, 4 p.m. is my unofficial and sometimes unmet deadline for pulpit readiness each week. I like a day to "cool off" and let the work rest. This leaves in these final hours of the day a window for reading. Not sure if it will be a new work of fiction I picked up recently, one of two biographies, or a few more pages in James Davison Hunter's methodical sociology "To Change The World." For some reason I like to read biblical passages in the morning and find myself scurrying for non-canonical material in the p.m.
In a couple weekends my pulpit topic is called "Studying Your Culture"--the idea being that we ought to understand the people around us, the way our society thinks, feels, and acts. First, we do this by listening, I suppose. We hear what people are actually saying. Second, I think we have to ... read. Reading helps us understand people more deeply. Why do great fiction writers shape characters in the way that they do? What is it in lives of women and men famous and not so famous--that we read about in biographies--that give us a clue into human nature, the West, postmodernity, sin, old and new generations, family, etc? Books help us process humanity more slowly. And I love sociological works: well-crafted, well-researched assessments about the way we are as people, together.
Listening to real people is most important. But reading, I think, provides a rich education that helps us become knowledgeable, conversant, and, most of all, empathetic with those we live with in our short few trips together around the sun.
Listen well. Read well.
