Reading with the boys

I'm doing my best but it's getting hard keeping up with the boys. They're reading faster than I can and finishing whole novels before I can even start on them. I used to read every book with them together or after, and sometimes, before they did, to check it out. D and I read the first Harry Potter book first before letting them go at it. After that, it has been a losing race for us. They finished Lord of the Rings before D. I gave up somewhere in the first book, and decided to just enjoy the movies. Besides, there was always Elliot sitting next to me in the cinema telling me what was going to happen next or what was not faithful to the book.

Now as we can't keep up, we read book reviews and check out authors online or elsewhere, and teach them to do the same. In view of the limited time we have each day, we have to be selective: some books are worth second and more reads, others only once, still others not worth finishing or even starting on them. We also want to be able to discuss the books and their ideas, to enjoy reading with a critical mind.

So I just finished The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. Ethan had picked it at the Times sales we went to a fortnight ago; it's a New York Times bestseller he had come across and was keen to find out what it's about. D okayed it (he said no to Jeffrey Archer). The boys finished it in days and went online to find out more about Leonardo da Vinci and other parties named in the book, see the places and the paintings, read the reviews. It's definitely a blockbuster suspense thriller, written with Hollywood in mind. In fact, they've already started working on the movie based on the book. But as for the contents: the author and his protagonist, having rejected the Bible and its message about Jesus as the Son of God and the Saviour of the world, are left with a mixed bag of wishy-washy esoteric ideas about worshipping the sun and mother nature, the goddess, murmurs of spirits in the darkness, forgotten words echoed...a woman's voice...the wisdom of the ages...whispering up from the chasms of the earth.

The blurbs praise the book with words like smart, brainy, clever, erudite. Superficially, it appears to be, with scholarly explanations, heroes with spunk and wit, outsmarting their pursuers, solving puzzles and mysteries with their superior intelligence. Question is: Is that true wisdom? The psalmist said, "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.'" Psalm 14:1. The footnote states that the Hebrew words rendered fool in Psalms denote one who is morally deficient. Thus wisdom is not merely intellectual head knowledge; it includes moral character. It's not just words, it's also behaviour and actions.

As it is written in Romans 1:18-32,

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.