We had a week of silent retreat at the end of last month. Silence, of course, doesn’t mean silence; it means no talking. During meals it meant the clatter of cutlery and the slurping of coffee at breakfast, a selection of classical music at supper, and someone reading to us over lunch – in the monastic tradition.
A pulpit in the refectory of a Carmelite friary in Malta, where a friar would read to the community during meals
It’s very rare, as an adult, that you just sit back (or hunch forward over your lunch) and have someone read to you. One part of the mind is concentrating on the words, and enjoying the language and thoughts and stories. Another part is able to be more attentive than usual to the surroundings, to the senses – the taste of the food, the sheer physical presence of the person opposite you, the sounds of the room and the world outside. And another part of the mind, or perhaps the heart, falls into a semi-conscious slumber, like when you are sitting on the back seat of the car as a child, gazing out the window, as your parents talk about important things you only vaguely understand.
And the soul, somehow, at least in the context of a retreat like this, can be liberated into a kind of domestic contemplation, a stillness that you carry from the chapel into the dining room, that isn’t disturbed by the need to chat over lunch.
It reminds me of the film The Reader (I haven’t read the original novel), where the central part of their complicated relationship is her request to be read to (I won’t give any plot away!). And one of the parents who helped me with the parents booklet gave this simple advice:
Encourage your children to read. Go to the library with them. And continue to read aloud to them, even if they can read well themselves. It gives you an opportunity to talk and learn and grow together. You can usually find a book to read to children of different ages, so your children can be together in this way now and then.
So it’s good to be read to now and then!
Do you have any moments, as an adult, when someone reads to you, or when you are in a group that is being read to? I think it’s quite rare, but I might be wrong.
I remember the beautiful scene in ‘of Gods and men’ where the monks are being read to as they eat. Thanksgiving, absolute awareness of being in the present moment magnified and gentle Love shared.
4-6 times a year I go for a quiet day with the Cannonesses of the Holy Sepulchre. A beautiful tranquil space bathed in warm light. They read poetry or a meditation and they pray, and in silence we release whatever we are holding on tight to, whilst a beautiful piece of music blesses us. Then the whole day is spent in silence, even silent lunch together where every gesture becomes mindful. At the end of the day we are read to again. They are most precious days.
I have happy memories of Paddington bear stories and Hilaire Belloc poems being read to me and the children by my husband, by the fire, in years now gone by, Matilda and jim moments that once delighted us all again and again.
The only books I ever really enjoyed reading to my boys over and over were Dr Seuss. I liked the nonsense rhymes and made up words. My favourite was the Sneetches…
“Now, the Star-Belly Sneetches
Had bellies with stars.
The Plain-Belly sneetches
Had none upon thars.”
I can’t remember anyone reading to me as an adult but I quite like listening to audiobooks. I’ve bought a few lecture series from The Great Courses and I listen to them in the car.
Liturgy of the Word at every mass? (I assume you have thought of this and dismissed it for some reason.)
Fair point!
The closest recent experience I have had is of driving to work, stuck in a queue of heavy trafic and listening to ‘Thought for the Day’ on Radio 4. My only complaint is that there aren’t nearly enough Catholic Priests on it, or do I work the wrong shifts when they’re on?
JRR Tolkein, CS Lewis, Laura Ingalls Wilder all are beautiful read alouds, whether in the shade of a tree on a sunny day or by a fire under a cozy blanket on a wintery night.