Don’t just stand there, let’s get to it. Strike a pose, there’s nothing to it. The Bible?

Hmm. How can we make the Bible “more relevant” to the modern audience? I know! We can jazz it up. Make it look like an issue of Vogue, add pictures of Bono, Angelina Jolie, and shirtless male models. Sounds perfect. Nothing creepy about that at all.

Actually, I like the idea of people interpreting the message of the Bible through modern art or photography, but something about this seems a little off to me. Can’t quite put my finger on it.

Peace. Out.

Velvet Elvis – Timing is everything…

I don’t know if you’re like this, but I seem to need to a message delivered at just the right time in order to really respond to it. For example, I have owned the book Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell for almost a year. I’ve been meaning to read it, but just never got around to it somehow…until now. And now is exactly the right time. The message of the book (so far…I’m just about a third of the way through it) is just what I’ve been needing to hear.

I’ve talked a bit on the blog about how I’ve been kind of struggling in my relationship with/to God over the past…well, really, it’s been like a year and a half, at least. I have felt like no one understood how I was feeling or the questions I’ve had or the spiritual predicament I found myself in. Reading Velvet Elvis, I’ve discovered that I’m not the only one with questions about God and what a relationship with him should look like. I guess I knew that in my head before, but somehow the words of this book have provided a breakthrough (…I know, I hate that word too, but it’s the right one to describe what’s happened).

At some point we have to have faith. Faith that God is capable of guiding people. Faith that God has not left us alone. Faith that the same Spirit who guided Paul and Peter and those people [who put what we call the Bible together] is still with us today. Guiding us, showing us, enlightening us.

[Truth can only be discovered] if communities are willing to wrestle. The ultimate display of our respect for the sacred words of God is that we are willing to wade in and struggle with the text – the good parts, the hard-to-understand parts, the parts we wish weren’t there.

The rabbis even say a specific blessing when they don’t understand a portion of the text. When it eludes them, when it makes no sense, they say a word of thanks to God because of the blessing that will be theirs someday. [They] have a metaphor for this wrestling with the text: the story of Jacob…He struggles, and it is exhausting and tiring, and in the end his hip is injured. It hurts. And he walks away limping.

Because when you wrestle with the text, you walk away limping…[The] ones limping have had an experience with the living God.

I have no words to describe the walls around my heart that started to crumble when I read this passage. The wrestling, the limping…it’s me exactly. What an inspiration to know and remember others have been exactly where I am. And what a comfort to understand that the questions and the wondering and the struggling are okay. I haven’t given up. I haven’t walked away from the fight. And now, though I may walk with a “limp” for the rest of my life because of this time in the ring, I can at least limp with pride, knowing I stuck it out and that my faith is stronger for it.

Peace. Out.

His Dark Materials…

Having never read the trilogy, His Dark Materials, I don’t know firsthand whether it is anti-God. However, I found a really interesting interview with the author, Phillip Pullman. It seems from this interview that he’s more anti-religion than truly anti-God, however, he is a professed atheist.

I also read an article with the director of The Golden Compass (first in the trilogy, in theaters December 7) who said some of the themes of the book had been toned down for the movie adaptation. They didn’t want to alienate the large Christian-American audience. So, for those bothered by the book(s), the movie may be a little easier to swallow. (The complaint on the Christians’ side, of course, is that the movie will drive people to the book where the anti-organized religion themes are displayed loud and clear.)

So, all of this to say…I don’t know if the stories are about “killing God.” But I’d like to encourage everyone (especially the Christians among my friends list) to actually read the books and/or see the movie before discussing it too much further. That was something that really bothered me about the whole Harry Potter controversy. People were wanting to talk about something they had no personal knowledge of. Please let’s not fall into that trap again. In my humble opinion, it just makes Christians in general seem uneducated, closed-minded, closed-off, and out of the loop.

Peace. Out.

What’s the word?

I’m two-thirds of the way through Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love and I’m enjoying it so much. This will be a go-to book for me from now on. I know that some people will read it and wonder what the big deal is, but I’m reading it at exactly the right time for me.

There’s so much I could talk (gush) about, but one of the things that really peaked my interest the other day was a conversation between Liz and a friend of hers in Rome, Italy. (Liz, the author, documented a year-long journey of self-discovery. Four months in Rome studying pleasure, four months in an ashram in India studying divinity, four months in Bali studying balance. And where exactly do I sign up for a job like that?) Liz tells her friend that even though she loves Rome, she knows it’s not “her” city. It’s not a place she could settle down and live forever and think of as hers. The friend says maybe Liz’s word does not match Rome’s word. You see, he believes every city has a word that can be sensed in the roads, the buildings, the people. If you were to boil everyone in the city’s thoughts down to one thing, it would all be the same, and it would be the city’s word. Every person has a word too, and if your word doesn’t match a particular city’s word, you will never feel at home there.

I think this is one of the most fascinating theories I’ve ever read. It just makes sense to me. The only problem now is…I don’t know my word. At my core, what am I? What is the one word that could sum me up? I’m a little distressed that I don’t know right off the top of my head. Maybe it’s a vocabulary problem, but I feel like it’s also something of a really-knowing-myself problem. This is now a goal for me…to find my word. It’s ridiculous how excited I am about it.

Peace. Out.

Bible Road…

   

This is one book that will definitely be added to my Christmas list. Bible Road: Signs of Faith in the American Landscape is a picture book by sometime artist/photographer Sam Fentress, who spent years photographing religious signs alongside the roads of America. Taking images from all over the country – every state but Hawaii – Fentress posits that the signs represent the singular freedom of expression and religion found in the USA. I can’t wait to take a look.

Peace. Out.