oooooohhhhhh, such insights!

Jan 7, 2012

I love family read-aloud time. I love reading high-quality literature with my family and having discussions about what we read. We started The Last Battle a few days ago and though we have read it before, we have never read it as the people we are right now. Each time we read a classic, we are reading a new book because we are new people…and a new family…with new thoughts in our minds and dreams in our hearts. We are facing new challenges and so we see new things in the book.

It is one of my favorite things about reading together…to learn about each other through learning what each of us takes from the book.

I have a friend who has been dealing with a narcissistic person and so as we read about Shift and his ego-maniac manipulations of Puzzle, I see narcissism written all over it (if anyone has a narcissist in their life, just read chapter one and their behavior will start making total sense to you!). Fisher sees how wrong it is to dress up like Aslan, and Keziah wonders aloud if Puzzle is weak-minded (he just didn’t know any better) or weak-willed (definitely weak-willed as Blythe passionately informed all of us). We had discussions tonight about dating, idolatry, knowledge of good and evil, courage and lack thereof, listening to your parents when they say that someone in your life is a narcissist, the harm that is done by pretending to be God (1. It’s a big fat lie. 2. People may believe you are God and do the wrong things you say to do. 3. People may believe you are God, but see that you aren’t anything all that great and then stop believing in any God, because if this is what God is, why worship this?), and if intelligence is of any use if the person uses their intelligence to do evil.

This is why family read-alouds are powerful. Its not just the books. Its the books and the people and the discussions, and the issues, and the insights into each others’ hearts that make them powerful.

I love being a mama. I especially love being a mama who reads to her children.