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May 16, 2002 : texts inside
I'm almost finished with the book I am reading by Tim Cahill, Road Fever. It's one of those books I could have finished last night but opted to leave a couple of pages so I would still be able to read it tomorrow. It's that good. In the book Tim describes meeting a South American businessman who goes through their process of getting documentation (which is usually an adventure in and of itself) with efficiency and calmness. The man tells a story of going to Japan on business, his only trip out of the country, and how he makes it from his hotel to a Catholic church using only non-verbal signs with his hands, the sign of the cross, walking in place, and looking at his watch. This he does with success in one of the busiest and most people-packed cities in the world...because he wanted to go to mass. This got me thinking to Catholicism and Protestantism, and how I remember sitting through Missions Week after Missions Week listening to stories of preachers guiding their families all over the world, setting up church after church in hopes to sway the most fervent of Catholics to become Baptists. At some point in time it became obvious to me why they wanted to change them. Being a protestant meant personal relationship whereas being a catholic meant rituals and specific prayers. Being a protestant meant pouring your soul out to God and being catholic meant pouring your soul out to someone else who would then make the plea with God. Our version of Christianity sounded so much more personal, and yet when you read about a man trekking across Tokyo just to find a church, you see an obvious form of dedication. A marketable trait. Why would anyone want him to become Baptist? Doesn't God really appreciate the man's misguided form of communication? (if it really is misguided?) Wouldn't God overlook the prayers to Mary if it meant that people were somehow connecting with Him? I don't know where this is going. It just got me thinking. I started thinking about the man in South American and it led to my mother in her Bible Study pouring over the scriptures as I used to do. Words here and there that I would highlight, underline, and cross-reference. My mother, bless her heart, (which was not written in a condescending way) wrote me and email to let me know that she's added Eva and I and our "what to do with our summer" to the prayer list in her Bible Study group. This is somehow comforting, and I'm wondering if it is somehow more comforting to her than it is to me because the end result will now be the will of god regardless. Back to the scripture. Back to the text itself. As I was sitting on the couch today with the Road Fever book kept in page with my thumb...I started thinking about the Bible and it's importance. Not the book, but the texts. How any good Christian man or woman has a line of text for every sort of thought or accident. How my mother read about Moses and discussed the plagues among friends. How it's read to apply instead of read to read. I remember it well. The lines seemed to jump out at me instructing me on how to live, guiding me, reprimanding me, ushering me to the next sentence. It was a book full of hypertext--linking words to other parts and taking on new meaning in light of other passages. Point being the bible is a stream of sentences, some in letter form, some like a page out of a history book, and even a few that are more like children's fairy tales. It is the same, I guess, as someone would have a favorite book of poetry, a poem for every feeling, a line for every purpose, and return to it on a regular basis to gain strength. It is the same as we close our letters with words, or have quotes stuck in our wallets only to remember them when we empty them, but choose to retain the quote for one more season. It's a little private religion, full of quotes from Emerson to ones we made up ourselves. Are they not just as valid? "If you are at peace with yourself, anywhere is home." I kept it in my wallet from summer 1998 till 2000 I guess they are not words of Jesus, if that is what you were after... Today Eva and I stared up the skirts of trees for quite some time. Noticing what her book had told her...the subtleties of the color green, the shadows, the multiplying of shapes and colors. For those of us who no longer go to church or for those of us that never did, these are our QTs (Quiet Times) with creation. The world being full of little monuments to something...it's just up to us to recollect them, to notice. Just like I noticed two guys who decided to celebrate spring today by marching on the sidewalk, one playing his trumpet, the other beating his snare drum...no real destination, just a way to tell the people coming out of their doors to see..."Look up! It's a beautiful day!" Yes, this did happen. IN THE NEWS: |