The Shadow-gloom and Weight of the Sacred

Credit: Megan Dombroski
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At church we've been going through Exodus (I wrote a little about this here) and recently reached an apex in our reading; as the Israelites enter into the desert after their escape from Egypt, we are entering into Lent. Last Sunday we talked a lot about obscurity, about moving into obscurity. This is one interesting statements that guided our pursuit: "There is no love without making room for obscurity. How do you see the connection between love & obscurity?" I've been thinking on this the last few days and wanted to share one example from my own life.

I have read the Bible all of my life. At times, more often than others, but it's always been a part of my life. However, I don't think I knew how to read the Bible until recently. Late 2004 is when I first began to learn how to read the Bible (and it is still a continuing education). Prior to that, I read the Bible as a book of codes and the reading of these codes was to reinforce my own sense of righteousness or to spurn me on to greater levels of piety. In other (paradoxical) words, I read the Bible because I was pious and reading the Bible made me pious. If I read more than someone else, well, I was obviously more pious, more pleasing to God, than that person. The text was something to be mastered, and I was in control.

Credit: Megan Dombroski
http://www.flickr.com/photos/49031386@N07/
CC BY-SA 2.0

In 2004, I began to learn about the Bible, its original languages, how it came together, translations and the translation process. This was one of the most challenging things to my faith that I ever experienced because this process shattered my preconceived/inherited notions of the Bible. Ancient texts that differ in their witness (e.g., Codex Sinaiticus versus Codex Alexandrinus). Words that are not translated into English (e.g., in Greek, in John 11, Jesus weeps for a very different reason than to empathize with the human plight, which is what I was always told was the reason "Jesus wept"). Panels of men deciding what texts are canononical and what texts are not canonical. The nature of ancient literature, specifically biography, is very different than modern literature and the standards of ancient literature are different than our own standards.Men vastly more intelligent than myself endured this same process and came out largely faithless. I was no longer a master of the text. But, I made it through striving to be its servant.

The challenge of the text, its nuances, its history, its inconsistencies (yes, I said inconsistencies)...its obscurity...its obscurity compels me to read out of passion rather than out of a sense of piety. This book is now strange to me; I'm curious about it. I no longer read it out of a sense of duty, but out of ernest longing to step into its obscurity and wrestle with life.