My B-U-M-P-S with the B-I-B-L-E

             

   In reflection on my own journey with the Bible, I think of landmarks along the way: hills, valleys, and plenty of bumps. As a child around ten years old, I decided it would be a great idea to read the Bible from cover to cover.  The boring parts did not deter me, but the violence made me give up.  I was sensitive to rape and pillage.  In my teenage years as a Fundamentalist,  I used scriptures as a weapon.  I remember driving off an awkward boy who wanted to hang around my friend and me at the campground swings.  I figured if I quoted enough condemning scripture, he’d convert or leave.  He left.

                In my mellower twenties, thirties, and some forties, the main way I connected with others in the church was in small group Bible studies.  I especially loved how Jesus was always giving it to those haughty Pharisees.  The Bible clearly played a front and center role in my faith.

                I do not remember when the Bible started feeling repressive to me. 

Perhaps I started flinching as I recognized how often people use scripture to control others.  I think of Santorum accusing President Obama of not having a Bible based theology.  Perhaps in my faith development, I needed to relate to the Bible in a new way.

                I heard suggested that a hazard for Protestants is that we can replace God with an idolatrous relationship with the Bible.  One definition of “idolatry” is that we choose to value something in a way that hinders our love and trust of God.  That was a provocative suggestion that struck a chord with me.  One of the attractions of Quakerism is the beautiful belief that we have divine light within us.   I was starving for that point of view because I realized that I had learned not to trust myself.  I was taught that only the Bible was trustworthy.  But reading is an act of communication combining the writer’s offering and a reader’s understanding.   Taking myself out of this equation left me trying to read the Bible without my heart and eyes – without me.  Ironically, it was one of the founding Protestant leaders, John Wesley, who gave me a way to re-enter a relationship with the Bible. The Bible can only speak to us when we let our hearts listen and our lights reveal value.  Without bringing our deep selves, it’s like trying to sit on a one-legged stool. 

                In fact, Wesley’s famous approach is called the quadrilateral approach. It provides four good legs of stability to set theological reflection. He maintained that scripture could best be understood through tradition, reason,  and experience.  I elevate “experience” because (I reason)  it is our internal and external experience that shapes our receptors for what we can receive from tradition and scripture. 

                That works well for discernment processes involving scripture, but for a spiritual practice with scripture, I love the ancient approach of praying the scriptures known as Lectio Divina or Divine Reading.  Here the idea is to read, pray, meditate and contemplate the scriptures. What clings to the reader’s heart and imagination is the gift meant to be offered. The organic poetic openness invites more of our brain than just  left- brain reasoning.  In addition to Lectio Divina, I like to journal or write poetry in response to scripture.  This engages my emotions and helps  me pay attention to details.

          I wrote the following poem a few years ago as I thought of the complicated relationship that the wide variety of Christian believers have with the Bible.

Quarry

I shoulder my pick, rattle my bucket

shuffling into the quarry

beside Jews, Muslims, Mormons,

Jehovah’s Witness, Baptists, Benedictines.

We mine for truth i

in Holy Scriptures.

I stand on stone paths where

pilgrims carry buckets

they thought empty

but in fact were full of desire.

This yearning unrolls the scroll,

shines the eyes of listeners

gazing at stained glass stories

or those chanting the Psalms.

My desire joins me to family

long gone, infant and old,

 and those in time to come

but all mysterious

 – unfathomably:

 Eve, Noah, Moses, Sarai, Abraham,

Deborah, David, me, you.

We raise such a dust

in our digging; billowing clouds

consume us in our search

for justice, justification,

freedom, love,  salvation.

Dust floats with options to become

fertile rain, pink quartz, warm sand,

molten lava or grit to grind in our teeth.

Is the  Divine in each pebbled letter?

 Or does each word glow

with desire’s fire and

eon’s of  intention?

Either way, I’m ready to swing

 and sweat, bump and bruise,

pull and peer to find diamonds.

Surprised, I see you in the glassy cut,

 and mysteriously find myself.