This little blog has been silent for 2014.

Ten days of neglect.

It is not that I haven’t thought about coming over and writing some grand thoughts. It is not that I haven’t thought some thoughts.

I’ve been reading, though, and I’ve been aware that I need to listen. My hunch was right. I have a need to press in and read and to do so without the need to turn around and present my findings. I have wanted a year of more silence for awhile, but my soul has been been antsy and unsettled most years, and I just couldn’t get there…this year feels different.

Maybe I’m finally growing up a little.

Maybe I’m just more tired this year.

No…I’m just a little more ready to listen.  My stack of books is ready. Old friends I have wanted to revisit: Buechner and Chesterton and Lewis and L’Engle and Merton and Packer and Wangerin, Peterson and Berry. New finds…The Book Thief and  Elie Wiesel, Annie Dillard (because I really haven’t read her enough) and a whole stack of fiction.

I have my challenge set for 2014 on Goodreads.

My real goal, though? To feed my soul. To enliven my mind. To quiet and slowdown and remember what it is to sit long with a book and immerse myself in story. To remember what it is to fall in love with reading and story and authors…and to have my children see that again.

It happened for a moment the other day. My oldest and I were alone for a bit. I was reading G. K Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man and I became excited as I remembered how much I was moved by the section on man being marked by creativity. I read the section to him. Then I began telling him about Chesterton. Then I read him some more.

He turned off his iPod. He came over and engaged and laughed and listened.

He got it.

He listened.  And I told him he would be reading Chesterton in just a year or two. And many others…and soon he would have favorite authors as well, and he would be reading me sections of his favorites.

He smiled.

This year his Momma is going to remember that she is a reader. He is going to see her reading and is going to hear passages quoted. He is going to be aware that books are not just to adorn the bookshelves…we have hundreds of books around. He, and the other kids, are going to be aware that life is not driven by Instagram and FaceBook updates, by texts and emails. Life is going to slow down this year.

I am not sure what that will mean for The Small Rain…maybe more biographies and introductions to what I am reading. Maybe longer gaps between articles. We will see as we go. All I know right now is I am drawn back to books and that is a good thing.

The confirmation? Yesterday Maddie, 2 1/2, walked by and noted that I had a book in my hands. “You reading, Momma?”

“Yep, Maddie, Momma is reading”