31 January 2006

Again from "Opening the Bible" by Thomas Merton.

Perhaps many modern readers of the Bible will never get around to the classic questions and challenges of faith. Before one can seriously ask about theological belief, one may have to struggle with a more human question: "Must I believe that this is a good book? Must I believe that this is great literature? Must I claim that this book interests me more than my favorite magazine? Can I honestly affirm that I get more spontaneously involved in the Bible than I do in TV commercials?" Once again, this may be made more difficult by the superstition that the Bible has nothing to do with ordinary life and that it is enshired in a special, sacred sphere, that in reading it one is somehow lifted out of time and space and transported to "eternity."

During my third read through of these comments, I was transported back to my youth. My father was given a Bible in a wooden case. I don't remember if it was after my grandfather died. Anyway, I went into my parents room. I knew right where the bible was. I had just watched a Walt Disney show that told the story of Johnny Appleseed. I noticed he carried a Bible with him. I had never read the Bible. I was Roman Catholic and in those years, the only religious reading that we were exposed to was the catechism. I opened the book and tried to read it. It was bad. I wasn't the best reader...but this was nonsense. I don't remember what part of the book I was trying to read. What I remember is that my dad came home and found me sitting on the bed reading that book. For a man who didn't go to church and a "macho" kind of guy, he simply asked me what I was doing and I showed him...end of conversation...end of my interest in that "book." I still do not "long" to pick it up. I find it to be work. I find it to be revealing. I find it to be something that can cut me to the heart and raise my eyes to a new way of looking at life. I must admit...I like TV commercials - some of them. I also must admit that the Bible does help me get a glimpse of eternity. Not something far off, but the eternity that is already all around us and is the place and time in which the Reign of God does open up the day to new possibilities. I also like a good novel...and most time more than a read in the Bible.

Connection: The Bible helps to take us into this day. This day is also a part of eternity. Unfortunately, it takes quite a bit of work to hear what the book brings to us. This may take time and commitment and...patience.

Come, Lord God, and grant us the ability to hear your word of promise and to have that be the word that brings us real courage, love, and mercy into the eternity of our lives that has already started to unfold. Amen.