PAGE 2: How Calvin and Hobbes Taught Me How to Read
- You’ll actually have to read it.
Growing up, I was infamous among my friends for being a last-page reader – if I didn’t want to finish reading something, I’d skip to the last twenty pages and just read those.
But if you are reading together, you have just lost the ability to skim, skip, or stop reading. You are both explorers in a secondary world, and you can (and should!) hold each other accountable.
This is advice more easily given than received! Not too long ago, a friend agreed to read The Diary of a Country Priest, one of my favorite books, but told me I had to read one of his favorites: Thomas Wingfold, Curate by George MacDonald, which also happens to be about a pastor. Now, I have a problem – I don’t really enjoy wordy, three-volume mid-19th century English novels (the only Charles Dickens I ever finished was A Christmas Carol because it was short!). But I will read Thomas Wingfold because I am committed to my friend. And because I have no excuses – it is summer, after all…
- You’ll stop thinking you know it all.
Recently, I was discussing sociologist Tim Clydesdale’s recent book The Purposeful Graduate with a friend. Towards the book’s end, Clydesdale argues that both “traditionalist” and “individualist” life trajectories have been rendered economically unstable for the college graduate. While not disagreeing, I criticized the book for not describing clearly a different sort of trajectory.
“Does he advocate a middle way? Or a new, third way?” I rambled on as my friend flipped through his copy. “He just can’t criticize ‘life trajectories’ without offering a better one!”
“Well, look on this page,” my friend said, picking a spot about about halfway through. Lo and behold – Clydesdale describing what he called an “interdependent trajectory.” I had completely missed it. My friend had graciously corrected me.
Moral of the story: I don’t know it all. And friends help show me what I completely miss.
- You’ll deepen and link friendships in unexpected ways.
Here’s the network of friendship created by Tim Otto’s Oriented to Faith: I first hear about the book from Friend A, several months before publication. When the book is published, Friend A loans me a copy. I devour the book in three hours, buy two copies, and loan one out to Friend B. On my way to have dinner and discuss it with Friend B, I have coffee with Friend C. I talk about the book, and spontaneously Friend C asks to read it! I loan out my other copy. Then, Friend B returns the first copy, which I give it to Friend D for keeps.
Oriented to Faith is a very good book. As Christians vocally disagree about LGBT issues, the book is humble proclamation of “the gospel of peace” and its priority in every such conversation. But it’s the sort of book that demands to be read in community. And while friends A, B, C, and D made for a very diverse community, every conversation I had was marked by honesty and willingness to be challenged. And every conversation connected – I’d talk to Friend B and be reminded of something Friend C would say. The conversation I had with Oriented to Faith is tangled up in four friendships – and I am so grateful for those friends who read with me.
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IMAGE CREDIT: Cover detail from The Calvin and Hobbes Lazy Sunday Book
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