Reading Aloud

 Reading aloud is one of the primary disciplines that I hope to hand down to our children. My best memories from childhood are playing with friends and my parents reading aloud to us. Already some of my best times with my children have been reading aloud. I love children, I love language and noticing how children grow in language and getting excited over their leaps and developments. I love being there when linguistic or literary connections come together in their mind. It is truly one of the most magical things to witness! This love for reading aloud has been a catalyst for so much growth and goodness in our small family, but really it escapes me to try to articulate the best part of what is going on when an adult reads to a small child. It is like a three stranded cord: the author, the reader, the child; mind to mind to mind. It is like magic. It is like participating in something wonderful that cannot be experienced in any other way. It is like swimming in a lazy ocean on a hot spring afternoon....

Wesley and I are still working through the Little House on the Prairie series. We were reading today about one of the blizzards two of the girls experience while they are at school; how the blizzard rushes in without any notice and how the whole class with their teacher try to find their way back to town, "with nothing to guide them," and Wesley pipes up "Except God."

Ya'll. I kept on reading but I had to take a moment and hold it together. I am a fierce believer in not adding commentary to stories, it gets in the way. I don't want to bring God into the story because He's already there, in every story, and if my child can't see that, well, maybe he's not ready. I believe in the Holy Spirit and in revelation and in my child's ability to hear from and respond to that that is outside himself, and I don't want my own ego or narcissism getting in the way of that process or of the story. I just want to hold every Christian parents' hand and assure them that it's really going to be ok. You don't have to do God's job for Him. You don't have to work so hard. You don't have to make the connections out loud, and please God don't turn the stories into a lesson. To see Wesley's confidence in the story, that the kids were going to be ok, that God would lead them home...it filled my heart with joy. We live in an unsafe world that is watched over by a good and loving Lord. 

Further on in the story we read about Mr. Edward's visit to the Ingalls, how he eats supper with them and secretly leaves a $20 bill for them to find after he has left. They have to accept it, reluctantly, because he has already boarded the train and they are unlikely to ever see him again, unless by accident. The amount was nearly a month's worth of man's wages at that time. That stunned me in comparison to today's economy, and sobered me for a good while because today we received in the mail a $20 for Wesley's grand champ showing at the county fair (see my recent blog post). What not long ago used to pay a man 20 days of physical labor is being given to a boy for leading a heifer around a ring for 15 minutes. Sobering, is it not? 

Well, I digress. I will admit that my confidence in our unconventional way of life is sometimes lacking. I experience doubt, sometimes constantly. But also constantly I receive glimmers of joy. Glimmers of hope. Glimpses of ecstasy. And they keep me going. They bolster my faith. As the boys grow, I'll continue to read to them and, though I have not seen the outcome of this, I know it will be ok.


"For we walk by faith, not by sight."

2 Corinthians 5:7

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