There has almost certainly never been a time when people read as much as we do today. Adding up all the time we spend reading books, magazines, social media, messages on our devices, or other such texts, we probably spend multiple hours of every week engaged in some sort of reading activity. Despite reading so much, however – or, perhaps, because we read so much – we are often careless and inattentive readers. Indeed, much of the writing we encounter is written for distracted and impatient casual readers, neither demanding nor rewarding close, sustained, and repeated attention.
But this is not what we want. And we know that. We remember, many of us, another kind of reading: the experience of closely reading, alone or with others, a text that seems infinite in its subtleties, meanings, and implications. This craving finds its satisfaction in our engagement with Holy Scripture.
Holy Scripture is not written as a text to be swiftly consumed and digested; you cannot “have read” Holy Scripture, but must always be in the process of reading, rereading, and chewing it over. The skills and habits this reading requires might not only be unfamiliar to many of us, but might often run against the grain of habits that have become second nature to us.
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