Tim Keel's Blog

Attentive Reading

I have been stumbling over the theme of how one engages text (and what is being reflected behind the text) in a couple of different places recently.

I just started reading, little by little, Eugene Peterson's newest book, "Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading." In it Peterson takes the image of physically consuming a book from John's revelation (Revelation 10:9-10). He illustrates the idea by drawing attention to the Hebrew word hagah. In Isaiah 31:4 the text begins "As a lion growls over his prey..." Our word growl is a translation of the Hebrew word hagah. Peterson discovers that this same Hebrew word is usually translated at "meditate." Reference either Psalm 1:1-2 or Psalm 63:6. Peterson states,

There is a certain kind of writing that invites this kind of reading, soft purrs and low growls as we taste and savor, anticipate and take in the sweet and spicy, mouth-watering and soul-energizing morsel words...I am interested in cultivating this kind of reading, the only kind that is congruent with what is written in our Holy Scriptures, but also with all writing that is intended to change our lives and not just stuff some information into the cells of our brains. All serious and good writing anticipates precisely this kind of reading - ruminative and leisurely, a dalliance with words in contrast to wolfing down information. (pp.2-3)

This is how I like to read, and perhaps why I enjoy fiction so much. It refuses to be turned into information. Stories must be entered if they are to be engaged. And it is not just stories, as Peterson says. I opened up Scott Cairns' new book, "Love's Immensity: Mystics on the Endless Life," this morning. The preface opens with a quote from the anonymous mystical classic, "The Cloud of Unknowing."

With love's confidence I'm asking,

if you should offer this book

to another, ask of him

as I now ask of you

to read slowly,

and thoroughly, tasting

each word's trouble.

Without doubt, certain passages

should never stand alone,

but will require assistance

offered by others to further

endow their meaning. I fear

for the reader who dabbles,

who gleans, who hurries to take

and flee, and who by doing so acquires

nothing but a novel form

of his current poverty and error.

Reading as a whole person, engaged and attentive. Reading not just with the mind but with the heart.

Re-engaging the Discipline of Blogging

It has been an enormously long time since I have blogged.

I began blogging in February 2003 and blogged more or less consistently until sometime in 2005. Then the wheels fell off the wagon. It is not strange to imagine that my blog's demise corresponds with the time when I began in earnest to write my first book, Intuitive Leadership. The combination of generating content for sermons and this book left precious little else - especially when one accounts for the kind of personal mining and attentiveness that the discipline of blog writing requires from me if it is going to have any value. I struggled on-and-off (mostly off) for 2006. Then I finally conceded: no more blogging. It was nice to let myself off the hook, though I wish I would have decided earlier when people where still reading along. Unfortunately it just trailed off and when I finally determined a mercy killing was in order, I was the only one to notice.

Okay, enough of a requiem.

I have missed blogging. I have missed interacting with people around ideas, books, movies, music, and current events. Blogging can be more than random musings (though there are several blogs filled with random musings that I enjoy reading). It is a discipline that I love.

I finished writing my book in December, 2006. The editing occupied me until the end of February and then a number of other details like proofing, etc., until May. In that sense I have some freedom, though there are a few writing projects I am involved with that will are both stimulating and challenging. Even so, I have spent some time this summer getting my cyber-house in order (with much help from David Purifoy, Todd Clary, and Leslie Tenjack - thanks!) anticipating a return to blogdom. And so I am happy to say, simply, humbly and gratefully, that it is time to write here again.