Dear Daughters and Sons,
I have a confession to make.
If I think about my life I can straight off think of many books that have changed the way I think or the journey I am on. Lady Chatterley's Lover showed me that I didn't have to stay in a marriage with no tenderness. Langdon Gilkey's Message and Existence showed me new ways to think about God and Life. C.S Lewis showed me that we can imagine and live in other worlds. But there are many, many other books that have had an impact on my life. And here is the confession -
I stopped reading books.
When I got a mobile phone.
It didn't happen immediately but over the years I started lying in bed at night reading what I can only describe as crap or worse playing games, on my phone even though I soon realised this was impacting negatively on my sleep, my thinking, my brain. And none of it was life changing.
So a few months ago - desperate for decent sleep, I decided that I would put down the stupid phone and buy real books with pages you can feel between your fingers. After all a book costs no more than a few coffees and less than a cafe meal.
And horror of horrors I found I couldn't focus on more than a few lines without drifting off and losing concentration. I was trying to read Maestra by L.S. Hilton and I gave up after 3 chapters because I couldn't follow it. This is sad but true. My brain was no longer accustomed to reading. I had always heard people say, 'Oh I can't read' but I never understood what they meant until now. Obviously they weren't illiterate so I assumed what they meant is 'I don't like to read' which was just as confusing to me. But now it was me.
But I stuck at reading and forced my way through several well (Voltaire's Calligrapher) and not well chosen books and within a two months I was back where I used to be - unable to put books down and rediscovering the incredible bliss that reading is. I picked up Maestra again and devoured it and despite it not being life changing it was still a rollicking though nasty, nasty yarn.
So my request is this - don't lose the art of reading and don't waste too much time on your phones. Reading broadens your mind and the possibilities in your life and if you too have stopped reading to sit on your phones you can reverse this and rediscover the wonder of reading. Or perhaps discover it for the first time.