Summer gets me. In the summer, reading becomes the runner up for America’s national pastime. For three months out of the year, I walk the edge of reality and written fiction the way an intoxicated person deals with the white line on the side of the road: one may as well be the other. Stories invade my mind. I just can't help it.  Every summer culture encourages us to disappear into a book, but reading is not merely an escape (although escape is plenty enough reason to read). Stories have the ability to take us to places where our theology expands further than our own experiences lead. Expositional teaching profoundly impacted…