This paper attends to the experience of a communal practice of reading that emerged in the 1980's in a popular neighborhood in Bogotá out of the impulse of liberation theology. Even today, after more than 20 years, the effects are still felt among the community. The practice continues transforming the lives of the people that come together around it. It also gives way to a plurality of practices of care of the self and of others, where a peculiar relation to the transformative potency of “words” has allowed for creative forms of ethical and political