I have a friend who told me he read book reviews instead of books because it was more important to know about a new book than to have read it.  He called it “fake smart”.  It’s a good phrase.  I do the same.  I don’t want to be caught not having at least some knowledge about the latest book so I snack on the reviews and unfortunately ” lose my appetite for reading.

I was at a conference a couple of years ago and realized we were doing the same thing with speakers.  We were “speed dating” with content.  We were curious about what they had to say but not really interested.  At home we have a bird house outside our kitchen window and I was watching the mother swallow her food and then belch it up into the babies beaks.  They do that because the enzyme mechanism is not fully developed in the babies and they don’t yet have the bacteria that allows them to break food down themselves.  It felt similar. The speaker was chewing it up for us because we didn’t have the enzymes needed.

It feels like ideas have become entertainment instead of an opportunity to think and respond.

Today I read an interview with Eugene Peterson by Owen Strachan that once more emphasized the importance of words” thought and discipline.  “Good writing does not come easy; it takes a lot of discipline a lot of self-criticism.   A lot of people in my position want to know how to write and after talking to them for a while I realize "You don't want to write you want to get published; you're not willing to go through the disciplines…”  That’s the heart of it ” I think.

We have slow cooking and slow church movements.  Maybe I need to work on a slow conference for The Gathering.