Zachary Peters

I was watching someone on YouTube make beef Wellington and they kept going back to read the instructions, and I thought how astounding that people can make beef Wellington with just instructions and minimal experience. Reading enabled completion of an impressive thing without practice. What else could we do with just some written instructions?

Reading, the ability to read, and all it entails is astounding. I had never really thought about it before, and why would I? We live in the most literate time of all human existence as we know it, so I can, and you can, be forgiven for not being floored by reading and writing.

I am always impressed by skilled people who do hard or complex things, seemingly easily. And I should be impressed by those people, but I should also remember to be impressed that I can learn to do some of those things, or at least a passable approximation of those things, if I can just read instructions.

You can do anything if you can read and write. I am more focused on reading, but writing is just as important and impressive. I don’t have to rely on verbal retelling or visual examples or just watching my dad sharpen lawn mower blades (which I can’t do anymore), but I can rely on the written word to transmit knowledge.

Each generation doesn’t have to start all over. Each generation doesn’t have to worry about the family of millers being wiped out and there being no bread. Mourn the loss of the millers, but for goodness sake get the instruction booklet out and start making flour, however poor the first attempts might be.

Off the top of my head, two great examples of the power of reading are Henry Knox and Nathanael Greene, two highly important figures in the Revolutionary War. They did all their learning entirely through reading, buying books and reading them. No college education, just reading and understanding — astounding!

If you can’t read, don’t feel bad, there is someone around you that can help you learn, and please know that being unable to read is not an indication that you cannot listen, observe, and practice to grow as a human. That is the miracle of the human mind — even without being able to read, people do amazing things.

That is precisely what the vast majority of Christians had to do, and they did it with excellence, but the ability to read God’s word is literally life-changing.

Without delving into the history of the printing press and the translation of Scripture into common languages, let me just say, reading has advanced culture, society, and science exponentially. Not bragging, but all that was largely spurred by the work of Christians and the church.

Anyways, it is crazy that I can read about something I will never see and know something about it. It is amazing that I can read a manual or instructions and do something I have no practical training to do, like cook a beef Wellington.

It is amazing that I can read the journal of someone who was alive centuries ago and know something about a time and place I am separated from. Reading is great — take advantage of it. Go make something you have never made before, like a beef Wellington.