Reading Again and Groundhog Day
“In a course on contemplative prayer, I assigned just six books – and we read them each twice.”—Stephanie Paulsell, “Faith Matters, Reread it Again, The inexhaustible spiritual practice of rereading,” Christian Century, January 17, 2018, p. 27.
I constantly see more old and new books I want to read. When friends tell me they are rereading a book, I roll my eyes away from them and wonder about the other books they will not have time to read. Stephanie Paulsell, a professor at Harvard Divinity School, tells us to roll our eyes back toward our friends and listen to what they have to teach us.
Indeed, we all experience studying again the Bible, the most reread book, especially if we try to follow a systematic study of yearly lectionary readings. Nevertheless, we never fail to see things the second, third, or tenth time that we never saw or heard previously, probably because our life experiences and concentration are different.
How could we have missed that word, that meaning, or what that person was doing?
For the last several years, I have been blogging about spiritual direction and reconnecting to authors and books I have read in the past that have been meaningful to me. I am rereading material I underlined a year ago, ten years ago, and sometimes fifty years ago. As Paulsell suggests, I have become more intimate with the texts and am called to practice more intently some teachings presented, “continuing to see things I have not seen before. For some reason, the authors and their books now more deeply intersect with my life. Rereading and reconnecting with writers led us to recall truths we had forgotten or previously overlooked.
We might compare rereading books to Bill Murray’s experience in Ground Hog Day. After each new attempt to digest a reading with new glasses, we eventually receive one more truth.
It is also like spending time with a favorite painting. Something new we never saw before illuminates our souls.
