Habits- A series-> Reading- The Bible, blogs and books

Ever since reading the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, habits have been on my mind. Then earlier this year, some bloggers wrote posts regarding their daily habits. That got me thinking about some of the things that I do every day and I thought I’d do one post with most of my daily habits. But the more I thought about it,  I knew a post like that was likely going to be too long. So, I’m going to do three or so posts- each with a different habit. This post is about my reading. I characterize my reading habit in three ways since I read three different things regularly- the Bible, blogs and books.

The Bible-

I’m reading through the Bible in two years per a Bible reading plan that I got at our church.  I started this reading plan in 2023 so I am on year two. Each day, there are reading sections from a book of the Bible in the Old Testament, the New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs. 

If you were to come to my house, you’d see this (the pages of the Bible reading plan) on or near the couch which is where I read my Bible each day. 

I like reading exerts from the Old Testament, the NT, Psalms and Proverbs each day. Kind of a funny story, when looking at the pages of the reading plan, I noticed that Proverbs and Psalms were going to be complete by the end of the first year- the reading plan was going to have me finish reading them. That made me sad. Obviously, I could read them on my own but there was something about having them as part of my daily plan that I knew I would miss. Then I turned the page when the new year started and realized that I would be reading Psalms and Proverbs each day. The plan has readers re-read Psalms and Proverbs in the second year. So, at the end of year two, I will have read the entire Bible once and Psalms and Proverbs twice. The worship focus/ nature of Psalms' verses and the wisdom focus of Proverbs' verses make for excellent reading, meditating on and turning into prayer.

The grass withers and the lowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.- Isaiah 40:8. 

The above verse is comforting to me in the topsy turvy world we are living in when seemingly immutable truths are being disregarded. I was listening to a podcast recently where I learned that a member of parliament in Finland, a country with (ostensibly) free speech, is being prosecuted for a hate crime. The crime she committed was tweeting a Bible verse and asking the Church of Finland why it was supporting a cause that is overtly sinful (per the Bible which the church ostensibly adheres to). The verse offended some people because it called out a particular activity as sin.  The Finnish MP can be persecuted, tried and convicted but the word of God will still endure. Man’s efforts to completely ban the reading of the Bible always fails- ask the Church in persecuted China, North Korea, the old USSR and other countries in the Eastern Bloc when communist regimes prohibited Christianity. As the West becomes intolerant of the message of the Bible, it, too, can try to thwart the word of God; however, I believe the Bible speaks truth and that the word of God endures forever.  

You can read more about the Finnish MP in the Gospel Coalition in an article titled, ‘Christian Nation’ Puts the Bible on Trial.

Blogs-

I’m sure that I’ve told this story before I had never heard the word “blog” before 2008 and, in fact, I have no idea when prior to 2008 blogs began. In 2008, my friend Cory told me that she was starting a blog and she told me her blog’s URL so that I could check it out. I enjoyed reading it a lot... even though I saw Cory almost every day that the weather was nice because Alyssa and her son played together. Cory and her family are our neighbors and if her son and Alyssa played together one hour when they were younger, they played one thousand. When they were in preschool together, they even had *tentative* plans to marry each other one day 😄 (Now they don’t acknowledge each other when they see each other (they don’t go to the same high school so they don’t see each other at school) so the matrimony prospect between the two is significantly more iffy than it was fifteen years ago...). 

Just a few of the many, many pictures I have of these two kids

Anyway, back to the blog, I read Cory’s blog for about a year before deciding that I wanted to dip my foot into the pool of posting cute pictures of my kids with witty(ish) captions, alliterating titles (when reasonably possible!), and writing about our adventures out and about as well as mundane days at home and thus a blog was born!

In maybe 2010, via Pinterest through a recipe, I found a woman’s blog that I enjoyed reading quite a bit. I began to comment on her posts (at least the ones I really liked which were most of them) and she would always reply back (on her blog) in response to my comment. She never commented on my blog and that was fine- I did not comment hoping for a comment on mine; I commented because I liked her content. I never or very rarely commented on the other blogs that I read. Then a few years ago, after reading Holly’s blog for a couple of years, I commented on one of her posts and she commented back on mine which I thought was sweet and just really cool since I was not used to getting comments on my blog. Then I found Jennifer’s blog and the same thing happened. I realized how nice it was to interact with the blogs whose content I enjoyed- especially when they took the time to comment occasionally or regularly on posts that I wrote. It’s great to have a sort of community; it makes reading blogs and writing posts more enjoyable. 

The point of this was actually (originally anyway!) about reading blogs not writing them. Whatever it is that compels people to read about others' lives, interests, activities, travels, recipes, etc. I am in that camp! While I very much enjoy reading fiction books, there is something that satiates my interest in the writing of real life that blog reading provides. I now regularly read quite a few blogs. I enjoy reading encouraging, entertaining, and/ or educational blog posts written by guys and gals who aren’t doing it to make a bunch of money (affiliate links don’t bother me so long as it seems likely that the point of the blog isn’t a money grab). 

Books-

My OG reading love 💕 Reading books has been and is one of my best habits. One of my favorite and nerdy stories from high school is when my favorite bibliophile classmate Tonya called me the night before we were supposed to have finished reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. She asked me to give her a brief synopsis of it. I was dumbfounded that she hadn’t read the book. This was in ye olde days when the web wasn’t world wide and our town was not large enough to accommodate a store that sold Cliff Notes. If you didn’t read the assigned book and didn’t have a friend who had read it and would spill the beans (if I remember, I left out some key events in my synopsis when I told Tonya about it (goodness, I was petty/bratty)) then you were out of luck.  I could not believe that Tonya hadn’t read the book because it was assigned and Tonya liked to read like I did. Tonya informed me that as far as she knew, I was the only one in the class who had read it. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to not finish the book because it was assigned and because I enjoyed reading it. 

In fact, not only did I finish the book but reading The Scarlet Letter began an abiding appreciation in 19th century American literature and soon after that 19th English and Russian literature. I read Hawthorne’s entire oeuvre by the time I finished high school. Not bad for a girl who has in her possession a photo of her sitting on her front porch when she was a child eating a slice of garden grown watermelon without a shirt on with a rifle in the foreground that’s practically touching her foot (I was quite young which makes the shirtless part less problematic (my sibs and I took our shirts off when eating our homegrown, lusciously ripe (and dripping with watermelon juice) watermelon and put them back on when done) but the rifle part more so!). I didn’t grow up high falutin’ that’s for sure but that is the beauty of literature- anyone, anywhere who appreciates beautiful prose and a compelling plot can realize the joy that is reading literature.

Now, part of me wishes I could say that I only read literary books, but the truth is I like a lot of popular fiction which can in no way be characterized as literature. That is OK! I try to avoid raunchy books and focus on enjoyable reads with a good plot or at a minimum beautiful prose (thinking of Rachel Cusk books here). I also do not read from a book every day. I have been writing here more recently which has taken time away from reading and sometimes after I finish a book, I prefer to think about it and not start a new book for a few days. But, notwithstanding not reading every day, I do consider reading books a habit. It is also one of my oldest habits. 

I am grateful for the gamut of reading that I enjoy, some of which I have doing for years- the Bible, books, and blogs. 

I can’t locate the shirtless photo of me on the porch and I don’t think I would put it on the blog anyway. Which isn’t to say that I’m unwilling to put embarrassing pictures of me on the blog...

I dug into my photo archives and found these two pictures from high school. Here I am with my aforementioned friend Tonya at awards night our senior year of high school. I don’t remember what award we received jointly but it’s cool that we got one together.

I received the “Outstanding English” student award. Looks like reading The Scarlet Letter came in clutch! I’m not trying to sound braggy- our school was a small one so winning departmental awards (I also won the Outstanding  Social Studies student award) is not a big flex (though you’ll notice that I did work in winning two departmental awards!🤭)