I’ve been gorging myself on fiction lately, chewing stories the way I chew through biscuits and gravy at a Sunday breakfast with Kate. I am craving the companionship of old friends like Madeline L’Engle, Tolkien, David James Duncan…Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it. L’engle

The world is full enough of hurts and mischances without wars to multiply them. Tolkien

But any gathering of eight human beings has an astounding potential for complication. Duncan (Can I get an “amen” from anyone who lives in an intentional community?)

I heard about a Chinese actress who starred in an English film by memorizing phonetically all her lines, she didn’t understand them she just memorized them. I memorized a lot of Bible verses growing up; I have a kind of pseudo-photographic memory that helped. I’m glad, it’s a gift to know entire chapters of any book! But because I heard and repeated parts of the Bible so much some of the stories seem kind of… boring. Can you say that? The Bible seems boring. My brother and I joked in high school (now I will bring him into my heresy) that some verses should be struck from the Bible because we were so tired of hearing them at schools, churches and youth group events. Among our hit list: “I know the plans I have for you says the Lord, plans to prosper…” Don’t get me started. I envy my friends who started reading the Bible later in life; they get it with fresh eyes and a new perspective.

This Lent I’m inspired by the Ignatian style of praying through Scripture, placing myself in the story as an observer or active participant. It’s sort of a fictional recovery for me. Instead of remembering John 3:16 (which I know in NIV NKJV and KJV), I listen to the insanity of Jesus telling Nicodemus to re-enter your mother’s womb and being born again takes on a whole new (and kind of disgusting) meaning. I like being guided to find new things in familiar stories; sights, smells, tastes, sounds, using the same imagination I’ve practiced all my life in other books, just never with the Bible. Hmmm, who knew? Ignatius must have been a creative guy.

Photo: “A Wrinkle in Time” by “Ariel Ophelia” from Flickr (Used under Creative Commons license)

No related posts.