the very simple tasks of book promotion<\/a> that I promised both myself and others I would do. Fortunately, a couple of other people have been doing some of them for me. In this case, calling the paper and telling them they had a hot hot story on their hands, cough.<\/p>\nI sat in the garish light of our parish hall, fiddling with my phone and struggling to say even basic things about my book. \u201cWho are you hoping will read it?\u201d I was asked. And, \u201cWhat is it about?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUm,\u201d I said. And \u201cSo.\u201d
\n\u201cWell, lots of Christians have a hard time reading the Bible. It\u2019s really hard.\u201d I blathered feeling really stupid.<\/p>\n
I mean, is the Bible that hard? I think so. I myself find it hard, and I have an overall understanding of what it\u2019s about. I\u2019m not cracking some massive black family copy open for the first time and trying to read the tiny print. If I was, I would think, \u201c! You Have Got To Be Kidding Me.\u201d I still sometimes think that as I carry on, chapter after chapter, listening to the nice guy read it online.<\/p>\n
I think the Bible is really hard to read. And therefore, like anything that you think you ought to do but don\u2019t really want to, it\u2019s charmingly easy to put little conditions around the task. I\u2019ll read it when I\u2019ve cleared off the kitchen table and done all the laundry. I\u2019ll read it after I finish this one thing. I\u2019ll read it when no one is around. This morning I said, \u201cI\u2019ll read it when Matt goes to work out.\u201d But he\u2019s sick, and he\u2019s not working out, so I\u2019m not reading it.<\/p>\n
But what happens if you don\u2019t bother? And worse, if you have a whole generation of people who haven\u2019t bothered, who don\u2019t know the first thing about what it\u2019s for, who it\u2019s about, or what it\u2019s describing? It\u2019s not just that you have biblical illiteracy\u2013which is tragic when there are more copies and more ways to read it and hear it than ever before\u2013it\u2019s that individual people created by God live unmoored from a true sense of themselves. Which sense is directly bound up in their sense of who God is. I mean, I\u2019m not saying anything new. You have to know God as he is in himself, otherwise you make him to be a reflection of you and who you are, and then you worship that. It\u2019s called idolatry and we all do it, every one of us.<\/p>\n
But the problem with this new modern idolatry\u2013the individual floating around untethered to any real rather than imagined divine thread\u2013is that it\u2019s boring. The selfie, the fifty shades of ugly, the my-feelings-measure-everything-especially-God, all that is so pale and insipid compared to the complexity and strangeness of God as he is revealed in the scriptures.<\/p>\n
He is Other in the land where the other has no room. He is Other in the land where everyone is estranged. He is Other in the kingdom of anxiety where everyone is looking for consolation and comfort. The violence, the difficulty, the long ago and far away of some other culture and language\u2013we don\u2019t have interior room to go and live in a place, through the pages of the scripture, where we don\u2019t know the people and we don\u2019t know the food.<\/p>\n
It is hard. But it is also the only thing. It is the best and most perfect remedy for the shadows and shades and narcissism of this culture. If your feelings measure everything, if they are the norm that norms all other norms, and you can\u2019t bear to admit that you are stuck and unhappy, even so, open the Bible and read. Click open the app and listen.<\/p>\n
The person you will find there is not like you. He is powerful, mighty, perfect. But he was also willing to lay aside the glory of heaven to come and be with you, wherever you are.<\/p>\n
When you open the book, or scroll through the chapters on the screen, that Other Person, so unlike you, will emerge, will say something to you through this ancient and difficult text. That person will add layers of color and richness to the life you are living right now, will tie you to the rock, the cornerstone so that you are unable to drift away or get lost. That person will feed you, will stop you from being so spiritually thirsty and strung out, will clothe your own perception of yourself, will make space for silence when all the world is clamoring.<\/p>\n
Read it. It\u2019s the only thing.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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