Alfredo Deambrosi

This morning, I met with a group of friends to discuss a book that we read. This meeting was planned a month in advance, and we’ll meet next month to talk about another read. At the start of the meeting, we decided what book we’ll read for the following month and devoted the rest of our time toward discussing the book. We started the discussion by allowing each person to report his thoughts about the book: its organization, its progression, its emphases, and its contribution to the topic.

I found this time to be very valuable. The only other times that I have met with a group to discuss readings of books was for classes that I was taking. But I see the value in making this kind of activity a regular part of life beyond school.

1. It expands my sphere of interests. From the list of fourteen books that we chose from, the book that we read this past month was not my first choice–or my second or my third. But my interest increased by the combination of the accountability to get the book read and the excitement about the book by the friend who nominated it.

2. Meeting for these kinds of discussions keeps my mind active. I admit that I am spoiled. As a university faculty member, I get paid to research content for courses that I prepare. My level of study, however, depends on my initiative. If I limit myself to the same routine, I can become stagnant. By reading something that I’m expected to report on, my level of engagement in what I am reading increases.

3. The quality of my conversation among friends increases. Small talk has its value, but who wants to live on a fast-food diet? Gossip is even worse. I need a lot more meaningful and significant conversation with my friends. My wife read a great anonymous quotation to me one day this past summer: “Great people talk about ideas. Average people talk about things. Small people talk about other people.”

4. This activity reinforces values that my friends and I have in common. I am a professing Christian, and my friends who are in this group are, too, although the group is open to non-Christians. This morning, I found that we kept coming back to what we know to be true from the Bible. I really need God’s grace, and I am thankful that he uses friends as channels of His grace.

I’m looking forward to many things during the month of September, and my meeting with these friends is one of them.