Wall

 
I just got done playing the hardest game of Frisbee I've ever played, and I have a hemmorhoid (I've given up trying to spell this damn word) that's on fire. It's a good metaphor for where I am in the scriptures right now. Just when I thought I was getting the hang of this Old Testament thing, I hit a wall. For about three hundred days, I've trudged through 1st and 2nd Samuel and 1st and 2nd Kings, picking up helpful applications for the day as if they were sweet apples dangling off a tree limb. Out of nowhere, I hit a wall.

    The first thing I thought of when I hit this wall was, "Oh, shit." I've been on a roll for this long, and all of a sudden it's like I'm blind. I can't see anything but darkness in what I'm reading. I'm not seeing God. I'm not seeing love. I'm not seeing hope. I'm seeing life in the real world, and I don't like it. It's full of priests who unleash murderous rampages on their enemies in the name of God. It's full of prophets and kings who merely have to say "Go," and the whole country rapes and pillages another. All in the name of God, of course.

     Every bit of me wants to turn to the back of the book. Every bit of me wants to read what I'm familiar with - the Gospels, the Epistles (and not Revelation - at least not yet). I want to see Jesus in writing because I can't see him in real life. I want to see God because I can't hear him or her in real life. The best chance I have is to read about God, but to tell you the truth I can't handle going too many chapters without seeing grace and compassion.

    I'm feeling the antagonism of the agnostic rising up within me. I'm wondering how I could ever believe this stuff. I'm wondering if people really knew what was contained in this book, if they would still believe in God.

    I have to remember that I'm not reading a book that appeared out of thin air, written as if God's hands were a laser printer. I'm reading someone's memoirs. I'm not reading God's memoirs. If God had memoirs, we wouldn't need to read the Bible. I'm taking a step back this week to pray and prepare to hit it again. I'm going to do some writing on the Twelve Traditions of A.A. and how they can possibly help make small groups better. In the meantime, I'm hoping I can recover the open-minded childish take on the Old Testament and stop being so damn serious.