How to Read a Book, Religious Writing, Clairaudience and the Noosphere

2:14 PM Friday.

I have until 5:30 PM to grapple with my initial impressions from a quick re-read last night (after perhaps thirty years) of the first chapter of How to Read a Book. Is my reading of this text for entertainment, information, or understanding? Is it sophomoric reading, or properly religious reading?

I'd like to say that I am reading this text for understanding, but my definition of understanding may be different from Adler's definition. I am not sure yet. What do we really mean by understanding?

I am also somewhat fearful that the present state of my reading life may be more sophomoric than religious. Maybe I should take a few moments to map out what I presently have in mind by "religious reading."

Intermission

1:58 AM Saturday. 

Okay, that took a while. I hit a writer's block, which probably means I got off track somehow, and fell asleep from 4 PM to 12:45 AM. Then I spent an hour and 15 minutes in daily prayer. Which is something else I need to define. As I watched my thoughts, I took a few notes on my handy index card:

• What is it time for me to read now?
• Is thinking a kind of reading?
• How do I know what insights in my meditation to fixate on in my next round of writing?
• Do "my" thoughts come from opposite sides of the political spectrum?
• Are they "my" thoughts?
• Clairaudience and the noosphere?

Now I am looking at all of this and investigating how to proceed. I guess I'd like to give myself until 6 AM to complete this post, which is to say this specific religious writing task, before I proceed to draft 2025 Day 312, which will be another religious writing task.

Or will it? This has felt somewhat difficult to get a handle on, because I have a project label on this blog titled "Religious Writing," and it's nested under my Spiritual Direction area of responsibility, and this could give the impression that I only see myself to be engaged in religious writing when I am focused on that specific project. But everything I do on this blog is religious writing. Every post. It's all about my quest to discern and persevere in a particular form of world religious life, whether this is an eremitic, interfaith and blog-based form of life moving forward or not. 

(Maybe the form I am exploring is more Noahide than interfaith at its root. Is this about a messianic blooming of halakha? Where do rabbis deep in contemporary Noahide legal thought stand on the question of Gentile subordination to the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court? Here is what Google Gemini says about this last question: "No, the Noahide Laws do not require Gentiles to obey the International Court of Justice; they require that each nation and society establish its own 'courts of law' to enforce the other six laws. Jewish tradition holds that these laws are a universal moral code for all of humanity, but they don't obligate non-Jews to submit to a specific international court." Sounds like a little bit too much of a hedge against world constitutionalism from my messianic interfaith world federalist point of view.) 

What, then, if everything I do on this blog is religious writing, is the point of having a separate project titled "Religious Writing"? What blog posts do I label with this tag - all of them, or only some of them, and if only some of them, then which ones?

Perhaps from here on out I will understand every one of my posts as a religious writing task, but only some of these posts will be specifically directed at the completion of a "Religious Writing" project. 

And what shall be the purpose of this project? Well, I suppose I could aim at a future YouTube PowerPoint lecture series that teaches students how to define and engage in religious writing. But no, that is probably too grandiose - and circular. At this point, I have not really defined religious writing, beyond "religious writing is what I am doing on my blog." This is a very self-serving definition, and it could completely overlook the point that some, much, or even most of the writing I do on this blog may not be religious - it may be irreligious or even anti-religious. It may, in a word, be neurotic. Then again, this could be an excellent topic for a class. How do we distinguish between neurodivergent religious writing and neurotic pseudo-religious coping in ourselves and others? Most of the time it will be common sense black and white decision-making, but what about cases deep in the gray zone? 

Enough already. When I get to it, "2025 Day 312" will be another religious writing task, as will all of my writing tasks in any future context, unless something rather unforeseen takes me off the religious path altogether. I will henceforth only label posts as "Religious Writing" if they directly address the problem of how to define religious writing, how to organize it, and how to teach it to others.  

It's 3:43 AM and I'd like to come back to the top. What is it time for me to read now? It's time for me to read back over my own writing, from the top of this entry. Okay, done. This is not exactly about How to Read a Book. The title that I am working on here is probably more like How to Pray, Read, and Write in Daily Consultation with Hashem and Authors of the Great Conversation on Interfaith World Federalism. 

Adler, together with Hutchens (1952), has me thinking about how to engage in the Great Conversation between God and humanity: East and West, North and South.

But I really need to wrap up soon with a religious reading next action. I guess my next step is another round of project definition, this time for "Religious Reading."

End 6:04 AM.