
Books are so valuable. The ideas, thoughts, and dreams of whole generations are inside the covers. To read is to learn, to learn is to grow. Fiction can be just as educational as non-fiction. When you read fiction that was written generations ago, you learn what was valued and what was feared by people of that time. The common experiences of existence cry out to you, “It is now as it was then!”. The freedoms of modernity, the luxuries and comforts our lives contain that never could have been imagined by past generations call out as well, birthing gratitude for all we have been given by brilliant minds. And yet, the simplicity of life is inspiring in old works, where to live often meant simply to survive and to love those around you.
Language is what makes humanity great. Societies that have dominated in literature have changed history. The pen is truly mightier than the sword. Our words with one another are what ultimately end wars. It is thought that births promises that become treaties that eventually bring peace. It is laws written by hopeful leaders that bring about justice.
Words are valuable.
I hope it isn’t too offensive for me to say that you get far less from television and video games than you get from books and meaningful conversations. I also hope that we will be brave enough as parents to put a book in front of our children or engage them in conversation when they would rather escape life and we would love to get them out of our hair.
With portable video players and gaming devices, not to mention cell phones for young children so common, we are cheating them of so many ideas and opportunities. Our pace of life is so fast, we are more focused on how to keep them from slowing us down than on encouraging them that they can keep up. We expect so little from them. No wonder they expect so little from themselves.
We don’t ask them to wait patiently and learn conversational skills in restaurants, we hand them Mario Cart. We don’t learn to walk at their pace, telling them they can make it. Instead we stick grown children in strollers. We don’t seek to unlock their mouths so we can find out what is in their hearts, and so we lose them. The generational gap widens with misunderstanding when we we do not share life with one another.
We must do better. We must show them how important life is, how valuable they are in the world, and how their value increases when their knowledge and wisdom increase.
Today, begin a reading adventure with your children. You will all learn and grow together. Our family has loved the Little House books, the Narnia series and the Lord of the Rings. Pippi Longstocking is fabulously funny. The Tales of the Kingdom series is a fantastical allegory of the Kingdom of God. The author George MacDonald is very popular around here, as is the original Boxcar Children, Black Beauty and the Jungle Book.
When we have dinner we often play what we call “The Happy Memory Game”. We all take turns telling our favorite memory. It sparks gratitude, joy and a deep sense of loyalty to our family.
Most importantly, we leave the TV off most days. We have family movie nights every couple of weeks, and watch sports every now and then, but that’s about it. I know that seems extreme, but once we started living without television, we found out life was richer and more meaningful when we stopped trying to escape reality and learned to face it instead.
I hope your family is continually growing together. May you find joy in words shared around the dinner table, in the car and inside a great book. I pray that as your days are long, and the years rush by you feel connected to one another in deep and meaningful ways, and that the light of your wisdom would reach far into future generations.
Now, I am going to go read The Princess and the Goblin to my children. I can’t wait to find out what happens next in our story….