I give life half of my attention. I've always been quick on my feet, and most of what I encounter makes sense to me after giving it a few moments of thought, or reading through the instructions, the explanation; write it out to me in words and I get it; explain it to me and I don't usually need to ask you to repeat yourself.

But I don't open myself up; I don't let things change me because I can do them on autopilot. I don't have to dissect words and look them up, for the most part, because I see them and they make sense and in my head I'm already making connections and picking out allusions to T. S. Eliot and Emerson and Thorough.

Reading Reading for Transformation, I just kept thinking about the way I read. Granted, I do get into what I read, I understand it, and I can break it down into thematic elements later, but I rarely give it all one hundred percent, don’t pull it in close and let it change me. I’ve lost that high school breathless wonder that expected each piece of literature to be the one that changed my life, because I was right back then, Whitman and Salinger (PBUH) and Oscar Wilde and The Love Song of J. Alfred; they meant something to me, held me captive while I thought about what they had to say, but it’s never been a spiritual practice.

I’ve never “meditated” on poetry that wasn’t from the book of Psalms, or Song of Solomon (and even that I give sketchy half-attention to because I’m a bona fide child and that book sort of weirds me out sometimes), giving it a chance to reverberate in my bones. I let words into my head, drenching my thoughts, and permeating my language, but not into my heart; my heart is off limits. I’m going to try it that way.