I can’t say I had ever come across the writer Chris Power but I recently read a piece he wrote in the Guardian. It was about his reading experience during the lockdown. He started off with great intentions. This was the opportunity to read the monumental works of literature like Middlemarch and Bleak House among others. Instead he found himself sorting out 1,000 piece puzzles and joining Zoom pub quizzes. He then discovered that he wasn’t alone in this. He began to hear more and more about people who just could not sustain any kind of reading schedule. And the surprising thing was that many were writers like him. Short stories could be managed but novels? Forget it.
I read Chris’ article round about the time when friends, normally avid readers, were telling me that they were suffering from a similar affliction. The one thing that they thought would see them through lockdown just was not happening. So what is the problem? Chris attempts an explanation:
‘ . . . whenever I put a book down, the move from fiction back to reality was so jarring that what I had just read would be overpowered. The space in my mind where novels persisted when I wasn’t reading them suddenly seemed to be missing, or busy with some other task (comparing national death rates, perhaps).’
I can understand this. Personal circumstances and a flood of information can leave little room for recreational reading. When I was a patient in the Stem Cell Transplant Unit there was very little reading apart from short passages of Scripture and the odd magazine article. My intention to keep the blog going soon burned out. Much of this was due to side-effects and fatigue but there is also the possibility that there just was not any room for the alternative reality of a novel or the flow of information you would experience in a non-fiction book.
I was listening to an online sermon of Rico Tice’s recently. He stated that that he was finding it difficult to cope with the amount of Covid-19 information that daily flows out from the media. So it has become important for him first thing in the morning to join an online prayer group with his colleagues in the ministry team at All Souls Langham Place. He says this reminds him who is really in charge during this time.
I can relate to that. Of course I like to keep in touch with what is going on but there are limits. Like Rico I have found it important to build a spiritual foundation for the day right at the beginning. This means spending time with Scripture and in prayer. This helps to remind me that reality is more than just my immediate experience. Faith is essentially an anchorage in the place where God is and from that we are assured that whatever our circumstances a good and loving purpose is unfolding for humankind. The life and ministry of Jesus which encapsulated suffering at every level and His emergence from this as the Risen Lord is our assurance of this.
As for reading in general I am happy to say I am still up for that. I’ve done better than Chris. I got through Bleak House and was in awe at how Charles Dickens could hold in his mind such a vast narrative with its plot and sub-plots and huge cast of characters, some of whom you feel you actually know. In a sense the novelist is reflecting the great Creator who holds in His mind our reality with its present and past and who is guiding that reality towards a future climax where His Son will be seen as the Lord of the Universe. Beginning each day with Him is our strength, our hope and our peace.
