Reading the Bible with the Dead

It's night. Outside my puddle of light, the wind is whining. Leaves swish and tree limbs dance in the dark. And I've just finished Reading the Bible with the Dead. Now I'm just sitting, contemplating. Satisfied. The dead have told me many things. Secrets. Long hidden passions. Conflicting emotions. Uncertainty. Faith in the Unseen.  They whisper now. And the echo of their voices makes me feel that I am not alone, that it's all been said and done before. And that I'm not crazy to be thinking what I am. 

Reading the Bible with the Dead is not hanging out at the cemetery with my Bible, nor invoking the spirits of my ancestors during devotional time. Rather, it's a book with the coolest name ever. I suppose that it would be less confusing if I used proper english and italicized the title: Reading the Bible with the Dead. But no matter how I frame it, it's not a light read. Not the kind of novel you take to the beach. It's a conversation with the Church Fathers, Medievals and Reformers about some of the difficult texts and topics in Scripture. The subjects we don't talk much about in Church. The texts evaded in the lectionaries of Anglicans, Catholics and Orthodox services. After all, who wants to talk about the rape of Dinah and Tamar? Or the seduction (or seducing) of Bathsheba, the expulsion of Hagar into the wilderness, the sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter? And what about patriarchs behaving badly? And let's not get started on the topic of Eve being deceived. (That rhymes by the way.) And speaking of deceived, what about Adam? Does it really matter that he was built first?

In the reading, I am amazed, appalled and undone by the frailty and grace of some of the most brilliant, faithful, thinkers of the ages. Their humanness. How they wrestled with the Biblical texts, their cultures and pastoral concerns. And sometimes falling down spectacularly. (Like when Luther advised the Prince to take a second wife because it was better than committing adultery.)  The voices of the past expose how my ignorance robs of me of the perspectives which could help me deal with troubling issues and texts. These conversations with the dead unearth the truth that some of these items are indeed more complex than I know. That there are serious questions that can and should be asked. It's made me appreciate that I am part of a Church with a long history of reflection and struggle with the issues of life. It's made me appreciate that sometimes I can't really figure it all out on my own. Sometimes I need to read the Bible with the dead. 

To Cut or Not to Cut...

Someone said that when you make a movie, you’re never really satisfied. You just run out of time. In some ways, I suppose that’s the same with writing a book. You get to the end and there is so much more you could add. Or you could muck about with the order. Rewrite paragraphs. Edit. All that stuff. Always more can be done.

One of the places I have spent a lot of mental space is on the chapters called “The Intersection of Science and Belief.” I agonized about taking those several chapters right out because I think they might cause me grief. I originally wrote them because it’s hard to write something on Genesis one without talking about Evolution. The problem is that though I’m quite educated and have a fair amount of understanding about both of those topics, I don’t feel like I have enough. My main purpose was to dance around the edges of the topic and ask some questions, make people think that there might be more to the topic then we’ve really understood. But I have consistently thought that people might get turned off when they get to that section. Or that they will hammer me because I’m not an expert. So I kept thinking I should cut out that section. Besides, the book is too long anyway. But… everybody that read it said “Keep it”. And who am I to argue? Their repeated phrases kept pulling me back from the edge of scissoring that part out.

I suppose I say all that to be a bit vulnerable about it all. And also to say that even up to the last minute, there are things that teeter on the edge of dissatisfaction. To cut or not to cut. That is the question. 

Being Stuck

Writing a book is easy.

NOT!

But once upon a time, I thought that. Really. Until I started to write something. Then I changed my mind. Some days I felt like Leonardo da Vinci or Nikola Tesla. Creativity was spilling out of me so fast I couldn’t get it all down on paper. But that was the exception. Then there were the other days, the days when nothing was happening. If ideas were like water, then someone at municipal services had cut off the flow to my brain. And the little that was flowing through my head had gotten mixed up with the sewage system. It was rubbish. And I was just plain stalled. 

One day, my wife handed me a book to read. I took one look at it and said “ Uhmm...no”. Let’s face it, anything with pastel colours and three eggs on the front is shouting “Run Away!” My impression was that this was another cheesy Christian book. However, I noticed it was a New York Times best seller. So I cracked it open. And ...

... couldn’t put it down!

It was Ann Voskamp’s, 1,000 Gifts. A book about thankfulness and finding God in every moment of life. And it was brilliant. I had stumbled upon not just a good writer, but a great writer. It was freaking amazing! Immediately I started to light up inside. I was inspired to write. I felt free to use big words and grammatically incorrect sentences, and detailed images. Everything came alive again. 

In retrospect, I should have known this would happen. The accumulated wisdom of the writer’s guild says that if you want to write great books, you need to read great inspiring writers. And that’s true. Really, really true. And it got me totally unstuck. It didn't make writing a book easy. But it made it possible.