I've been reading one of the greats this week and so I have been reading about the space between fear and wonder, of giants and heroes and the road of revolution that leads to redemption.  I'm deep in Orthodoxy and muddling my way through Chesterton language and I find myself pausing often, sighing.  Reading something twice and then out loud.  I'm stopping Nate in the kitchen, making him sit down and I'm reading all of the marked pages to him.  Now we're both there, puzzling.  Wondering.

It is possible to grow with text I think.  To stretch yourself alongside great words heavy with ancient wisdom and to fill yourself in ways you did not know you needed.  To answer hungers you did not realize you had.

I sometimes think that it is one of my greatest jobs as a wife is to grow my mind.  To push myself farther.  To take time during the day to be cerebral and intellectual and mindful.  I want to sit down to dinner and grow a conversation.  I want to be engaged with the world He put me in.  I want to be aware of His people and of the shifty culture we live in and of our purpose here as a team of two.

I want to stay large in my interests.  And I need to.  It is too easy to sit at the end of the day and talk of small things: what I heard about her, the shape of my body, the way my insides feel.  It is too easy to complain and worse, tell stories that aren't mine to tell.

And so, it is me and Chesterton this month.  It is me and Isaiah.  It is me and Wild.  It is me and a God who created sharp minds and who has given a discerning spirit to His people.  A gracious God because this learning-- it's such a gift.