To be overly reliant on ancient scripture is a sterile activity. It parallels our desire to preserve ancient buildings in some sort of static but sterile state. Scripture can only be brought alive by allowing it to either crumble away into the dust of ages, or by allowing it to evolve. To allow it to evolve might be difficult, but we are not here to bury our talents in the ground. To cling to ancient scripture, is to run scared of the beautiful growth, the profound spiritual unfolding, that could be achieved.
The unchanging word of God
Only lives through us:
Our ever-changing selves.
Richard Dell in his soon to be reissued book Wild Windows, makes exactly this point, but in a delightful and most engaging way. This is chapter 15. Let us look at it over the next few days:
15
ONE BOOK DOES NOT
A LIBRARY MAKE
LET me take you on a little bit of eavesdropping. Terribly naughty I know, but just this once let us be naughty. So come on, let’s sneak into this café here, and take that table over there, and let’s order some tea and a bit of cake, just enough to make it look as if we have business here: when all the time we have come to listen in to the conversation that is going on at the table next to us. And please understand this: as the couple there are young, and are obviously falling in love, I promise the moment that anything personal is said, our ears will block themselves, and we will not hear a thing. But just for a few minutes, sip your tea, have a bite of that delicious looking cake, and listen.
One of the most beautiful sights in all the world is that of two young people falling in love. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. And this young man and this young woman at the table next to us, are no exception. So, let us listen to them. Do they discuss the weather? Not very likely, unless they are planning to go somewhere outdoors tomorrow. Do they discuss politics? Probably not, unless they both have a real interest in the subject. Do they discuss the food, or the litter in the street, or the price of the latest smart phones? No No No! They discuss each other! Because they want to know about each other. Everything about each other. Parents. Schools. All those silly childhood fears. Interests. Jobs. Likes and dislikes. Everything! Everything! Everything!
Ah, but now he is beginning to tell her what she might possibly mean to him; and she is blushing and lowering her eyes. So time to go. Time to finish our drinks, and pay our bill, and scamper out of that café as fast as we can.
But our eavesdropping is not yet over. For now, I want to take you to a different place, where once again we will find people who love someone, who are besotted with someone. So come with me along the road from the café, and turn this corner and that corner, and let us slip into that fine looking building over there. That’s right, the one with the really big gothic doors and the fine steeple and the notice advertising this week’s services. Let us slip into the back pew of this fine church, where the service is underway, and the preacher or the priest, or whatever you want to call him or her, is about to read a lesson.
Are you listening? Are you ready to catch every word? Good, for now is the moment. See: he or she turns the page; he or she looks quickly around the congregation. And now the lesson is being read. And it is being read from the one single book from which all lessons in nearly all churches are read. From the Bible. And now I sigh and need you to comfort me. For now I think of those young lovers in the café who so wanted to know everything about the person they loved. Everything. But that is not the case, I am sorry to say, for these good people in this fine old church. For they act as if God only spoke to one small tribe during one short period of history. As if God really would have so restricted Him or Herself in such a narrow way! And so I hear the words of the Bible, or instead I think of when I have watched Muslim Prayers and I have heard the words of the Koran, and I wonder why such good people have so limited themselves. Why not beautiful words from the Koran in our Christian churches? Why not beautiful words from the Bible in all other places of worship? Why not the Bhagavad Gita and Upanishads of the Hindus, and the Mahayana Sutras of the Buddhists, and the writings of Kahlil Gibran, and… and…
If you love God, then learn about every aspect of God, from every source you can. For God really didn’t just talk to one small tribe during one short period of history. God spoke to everyone, during all times. And God still does!
Eavesdrop on all the various and multitudinous words of God, and you will at last learn something of that which is unknowable. Listen to just those words of your one tradition, and you will not even get close.
God bless all who take the risk of knowing. God bless our young couple in the café, who wanted to know everything.