Punctuality

My mother, my late mother, (although I don’t know why I call her late, because she died early), gave her three daughters, each, a copy of The Living Bible the year it was published – 1971 – I was 14. There it lay under the Christmas tree: approximately 8 and a half by 11, and two inches thick; tissue-thin paper hardbound by faux green leather and gold embossed letters.  Happy, happy, joy, joy as they say on the cartoons. Where were the toys and clothes? Something else must have been under the evergreen, but I can’t remember what.

Breathing a polite, “Thank you,” I picked it up and walked to my room, rolling my eyes, heaving a sigh, wondering where She got the idea that we wanted Bibles for Christmas. We were warned about this book at church: It’s not a translation. It’s a paraphrase. That means that it may not say what God wants it to say. It may mean what the paraphraser wants it to mean. It may be incorrect, wrong, filled with error. Be careful.

And so I opened the book.  I got past Leviticus and Numbers for the first time. Yay! Verily! Over a number of months I read the whole thing, the w-h-o-l-e thing! I already knew that the Bible had sections of history, prophets, poetry, and letters spanning a very long period of time, but I thought it was a collection of rules, a code of conduct, a list of human crime and punishment, the wit and wisdom of a highschool athletic association rulebook, the jots and tittles of a legal document, a contract, a source of fear. And then I read the whole thing. It was not a law library after all. I had found a letter of love, a covenant, a relationship.

Thanks, Mom. Her children rise up and call her blessed, but she may have to die first.