If you are like me then most of what you have read you have forgotten. In fact, I could not even begin to give a reasonably accurate list of the books I have read in the past 18 months, let alone whatever else I may have read, or audio books I listened to. Sometimes I feel bad about this, authors pour their hearts and souls into their work and I can hardly remember the title, or main characters of their books, to say nothing of the storylines or perfectly written scenes, deep insights into life and the like.
Sometimes people pick a book of my shelf and ask about it and I have the sinking feeling, like I am being “found out” just because I cannot recall much from the book. Other times people start talking about a book, assuming I have read and, even if I have, I struggle to grasp the nuances they are discussing because the contents of the book are lost in the mists of time. As someone who reads 2-3 books at a time, all the time, who rarely goes a week without finishing a book or two, I am amazed at how inarticulate I can be about books.
Of course, some people (like my dad) keep lists of books they read each year, others maintain rolling top 10s in a category or two, some use apps or websites to maintain lists and quotes, some write a short synopsis and put it in the book, others write long summaries, we can underline and highlight, if we read on e-readers we can export all those highlights and then have a growing folder of pdfs from book we don’t remember reading, but that is all work and despite doing it the truth remains, the majority of what was read is gone, as if we never read them at all.
So why read?
Before I answer I want to suggest an analogy may be found in the listening of sermons that we will all inevitably forget (preacher included). Essentially, a person can listen to hundreds or even thousands of sermons and struggle to remember the specific point of more than a few. Among those sermons there are even more illustrations and stories, as a sermon often contains more than one, and few of us can remember more than a handful of really well chosen illustrations that hit home for us at some point. Why, if we forget them almost as fast as we hear them, do we listen to sermons?
The most helpful analogy I have ever heard by way of response to either of these challenges is food. I cannot count how many meals I have had in my life, I could make a rough estimate knowing I have rarely ever missed a meal (thank God), but I also know I have had quite a few extra meals (Lord save me from gluttony)…to say nothing of all the snacks that have passed my gullet. This in no way makes me want to stop eating, I do not ask the point of eating; even though I even forget most of the big important meals of my life, the Thanksgivings, Easters, and Christmas meals, the birthdays and anniversaries. I cannot even accurate guess the first meal I ever ate with my wife, I didn’t know it was something worth remembering until it was too late.
My inability to remember any of those meals does not change my interest in eating in the future, nor the reality that they sustained me over the years, helped my body grow, and recover.
It’s the same with all those sermons and books, I might not remember them all, but they have helped my mind and soul grow, they have increased my compassion and understanding, they have built an edifice capable of analogy, metaphor, love and appreciation. Don’t misread me, I am far from perfect and have much reading to do or “miles to go before I sleep.”
Unfinished as I am, I am still in process, as are we all this side of the river. I encourage everyone to read (and listen to sermons!) because reading and listening and preaching have sustained my hope over the years, helped keep my chin up and face whatever is over the next hill, to live a more spacious and expansive life, and I want that for you too. So, no, I do not remember what that book was about, but I am sure it is a good thing that I read it, it’s true of all the reading we don’t remember*
*The title of this blog is a quote from Austin Carty’s “the pastor’s bookshelf” Eerdmans press 2022
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