“The acquisition of true religion is just like that of crafts; both grow bit by bit; apprentices must despise nothing. If a man despise the first elements as small and insignificant, he will never reach the perfection of wisdom.” — St. Basil, De Spiritu Sanctu
I can’t even count how many of my sermons have centered on something seemingly as mundane as a word, phrase, or grammatical observation. This is in part because I love words, phrases, and grammar. But it’s also because I find that I can easily get lost in meditating on such small matters, if I allow myself to.
I think that the greatest benefit I gained from learning other languages is the ability to slow down when reading. Because English is so familiar, but also because we live in a time when people can spill words onto the virtual page ad infinitum (I mean, look how many blogs I’ve posted in such a short time!), we train ourselves to move faster. I’ve seen several speed-reading programs. “Buy this book, and learn to read an entire novel in five minutes!”
I’m not questioning whether these work. But I wonder if it’s always helpful to move faster. Our whole society aims to move us as quickly as possible through life. Hurry, hurry, hurry!
Maybe some day I’ll write a book on how to read slowly. How to train oneself to take longer than one otherwise would. How to slow down.
When I was first moving through, say, the book of Genesis (my favorite!) in Hebrew, I couldn’t help but slow down. It was all so…foreign. I almost had to stop and look up every word. In the process, I was surprised to see how much more was right there in the text than I had ever seen in English. Since I was forced to slow down, I was able to meditate more deeply on the text.
Basil of Caesarea, one of the most important figures in church history, wrote the above words in the opening of his treatise on the Holy Spirit. The entire work is devoted to exploring the Holy Spirit. And he proceeds by looking closely at words and phrases, at grammar and syntax. He chews slowly.
As I read this, I was greatly refreshed. At first, I was annoyed. But then refreshed. He moves slowly, painstakingly through his examination of the topic by considering details as seemingly mundane as whether the preposition is “with” or “to.”
In general, I’m encouraged by this. It reminds me that life really is in the details. The “big things” really are just the conglomeration of many smaller things.