I enjoy reading, I'm not an avid reader by any stretch of the imagination but I enjoy reading. I like talking about interesting thoughts that I have read with people, I like hearing their thoughts. It definitely can be a bit of a pride issue to be able to drop a Lewis quote into a conversation or Dostoevsky or something. I see it as such, I'm aware I can be pretentious. But sometimes it's just fun to talk with other people who have read the same books as you.
I am mostly out of my league with real readers, they have way too many books to pull from and I must seem amateurish to them. But I like to read.

I asked my Uncle once what made a person able to bend with time, to change and be gracious as Christian thought and earthly culture changed. How was I to resist becoming a cynical old person, how was I to be able to read new authors with new ideas even when I'm 60? I wanted him to give me a list of books that he had read that I should read because that seemed to me the answer, reading more books.

And this is what he responded:
"I think it's largely a spiritual question. I'm not particularly close to God, but the people I knew who were really close to God, who showed it in their lives as people of grace, persistent commitment, joy, humility, also had very open minds.
The people who focused on ideas, on thinking, on being smart and open-minded, didn't stay open and moving. Of course this doesn't mean that you don't think lots or have positions, even strong ones. But they are "softened" somewhat, by Spirit presence.

A side issue and practically speaking, keeping lots of new info going in, keeps you a little off balance, prevents that kind of harsh certainty that is part of eventually rigid positions. So read lots. But more significant to seek Him."

In Zach Braff's movie The Last Kiss one of the characters, after reaching a frustration with the selfishness of Braff's character says this:
"What you feel only matters to you. It's what you do to the people you love. That's what matters. That's the only thing that counts."

Sometimes i find myself reading books and they make me feel a certain way. They make me feel passionate about problems in Africa, enraged by the American government or materialistic people or affluence, cynical about manufactured Christianity, or various political or religious ideas. I feel it, it wells up within me.
And yet....after I have read the book I go to another and even though i have some great quotes or thoughts for the next conversation I have with someone, I will have very little to show in my actions that their words really affected me.

I can talk for hours with people about issues, thoughts, etc. But after a while I begin to look foolish because my life does not reflect these things I am so passionate about.

So the question is today: are you talking and not changing? are the glorious words you find on those pages penetrating your world and actually changing who you are? or are they just put into your brain and causing you to only feel things rather than do something?

Please read. It's important. And talk about it, talk about it lots. Form groups to talk, write e-mails, call people to talk. But allow it to change you.

There seems to be little point in reading with no change, to be moved emotionally but not get our legs in order to actually move forward. seems better to read one book and allow it to change how we live, how we spend our money, how we look at people, than to read thousands and stay where we are.

Better to not talk or share our lofty ideas, then to share them and never be changed, to talk about them and never have anything different. Seems like a work of evil to sit around and discuss these things we read, while Lazarus waits at the gate of our homes, waiting to eat the crumbs of our table.