Those who may have followed this blog for some time may be predicting that I am about to jump into some Christian reflection. At this point, I am sorry to disappoint your expectations. Instead, I’d like to share with you a goal I have for myself during the upcoming year: to read 12 fiction books during 2013.
For some of you, that is no goal at all, but let me explain. My job depends on reading and writing mathematical nonfiction work. I want to continue my running, and with a young family and church, I’ve no time left for much else. So, 12 books is both challenging and achievable.
I was beginning to look at my reading over the past couple years, and I realized I didn’t read enough fiction. Why should that matter?
Consider the nonfiction you have read recently. Very likely, the author was appealing to your reason with facts you could objectively verify. Although your interpretation was free for you to shape, you were probably looking at things as an outsider or a judge. Now, think about a fiction book you have read. Although the author may or may not have been doing the same thing-appealing to your reason-you were probably much more likely to see yourself as a character in the story. At the very least, you could empathize with the characters and take on their perspectives as they developed. As a result, what happened in the story also feels like it happens to you as well.
Perhaps this also happens to some extent in biography. But the point I’m trying to make is that the fiction method of teaching, if you will, is much more effective because fiction is processed by the heart first, while nonfiction is processed by the mind. Thus, you will have forgotten the story well before the lesson stops working in your soul. To remember important truths communicated as stories is much simpler because you can remember the feeling. Whereas facts require you to master the prose.
So, although I started my goal thinking I’d travel in my mind and learn about cultures, I now am continuing because I want truth in my innermost parts more than I want the appearance of intellectual power.
And I also don’t have much free time to waste.