We should be keeping our eyes on the Bible, instead of following the blind…
I’m currently reading A.J. Jacobs’s second book, The Year Of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible. Jacobs is a secular Jewish man (He says he’s Jewish like “the Olive Garden is Italian”) who decided to take a year to immerse himself in the Bible. To see what it would look like to follow the Bible as literally as possible, to the letter. Every jot and tittle, as they say. What results is a sometimes funny, sometimes profound, sometimes moving memoir. I’m about 3/4 of the year through and this passage I read this morning moved me so that I felt I had to put it somewhere for posterity. For context, this excerpt was written from Jerusalem during a short trip Jacobs took there.
Today I’m taking a rest from a walk on a set of stairs near the Jaffa Gate. Or maybe near the Lion’s Gate. I’m not sure. Frankly, I’m lost. But I’m resting here on the stone steps, which are cool and shaded and have a bumpy surface that makes them look like a Rice Krispies treat. I have my head bowed and my eyes closed. I’m trying to pray, but my mind is wandering. I can’t settle it down. It wanders over to an Esquire article I just wrote. It wasn’t half bad, I think to myself. I liked that turn of phrase in the first paragraph. And then I am hit with a realization. And hit is the right word– it felt like a punch to my stomach. Here I am being prideful about creating an article in a midsize American magazine. But God–if He exists–He created the world. He created flamingos and supernovas and geysers and beetles and the stones for these steps I’m sitting on. “Praise the Lord,” I say out loud. I’d always found the praising-God parts of the Bible and my prayer books awkward. The sentences about the all-powerful, almighty, all-knowing, the host of hosts, He who has greatness beyond our comprehension. I’m not used to talking like that. It’s so over the top. I’m used to understatement and hedging and irony. And why would God need to be praised in the first place? God shouldn’t be so insecure. He’s the ultimate being. Now I can sort of see why. It’s not for him. It’s for us. It takes you out of yourself and your prideful little brain.