That's a Good One, Emily Dickinson

Editor-in-Chief Brad Fruhauff just figured out that Emily Dickinson was a funny lady. Sometimes.

The Dover edition of Emily Dickinson's Selected Poems contains only 109 of her 1,700 known "poems."1 The other night, I sat down to select those I thought my students should study for the first week of our American Lit class this August. Mind, 109 poems by Emily Dickinson only amount to 49 pages of poetry, all of which features her idiosyncratic style of deceptively simple diction warped into complex syntax within a simple song-like meter. That means you could read it in about an hour and feel pretty good about yourself.

But if poetry is good for anything these days, it teaches us to slow down. The condensation and ordering of language in poetry requires more thought and attention than reading a blog or watching most a film. My need to cull the collection for the "gems worth studying" was additional incentive to take my time and pay attention.

What I found was a new side of Emily Dickinson. I tend to think of her as the poet of death - "I heard a funeral in my brain," "I heard a fly buzz when I died," for instance. But she also writes on nature, love, and the spiritual life, and, most surprisingly, is occasionally even funny.

Granted, it's often a Coen brothers kind of dark humor. Take this poem, for instance, in which a meditation on how death takes us beyond our decadent desires turns suddenly into a biting satire on our vanity:

The dying need but little, dear, -- A glass of water's all, A flower's unobtrusive face To punctuate the wall,

A fan, perhaps, a friend's regret, And certainly that one No color in the rainbow Perceives when you are gone.

Or, in another poem, the speaker imagines being carried through town in her coffin, thinking on all the things and people she'll miss:

'Twas just this time last year I died. I know I heard the corn, When I was carried by the farms,-- It had the tassels on. ............................................ I wondered which would miss me least, And when Thanksgiving came, If father'd multiply the plates To make an even sum.

But since that upsets her, she switches tactics and imagines those she's leaving from another perspective:

But this sort grieved myself, and so I thought how it would be When just this time, some perfect year, Themselves should come to me.

In yet another she apostrophizes the letter she is writing to a lover, asking it to tell him everything that went into the composition of the letter - or, almost everything:

"Tell him the night finished before we finished, And the old clock kept neighing 'day!' And you got sleepy and begged to be ended-- What could it hinder so, to say? Tell him just how she sealed you, cautious, But if he ask where you are hid Until to-morrow,--happy letter! Gesture, coquette, and shake your head!"

For you good Christians out there, she's implying the letter will be kept "next to her heart" (i.e., her breasts, if you're still lost).

I was quite pleased to discover Dickinson's playful side; it gave me license to imagine even the darker poems being written with a certain twinkle in her eye. This is the joy of really studying something--each new approach can reveal something new even in a poem you've read a dozen times.

Incidentally, I think I'll assign the whole book to my students, in two chunks. I want them to look for the patterns and develop a more sophisticated picture of Dickinson than focusing on a few popular poems can accomplish. Plus, it will be a good introduction to the challenge of reading well while reading widely, a skill so hard to practice in our hypertext world.

I'll end with one more poem that I haven't decided whether it's playful in this way or not. If it's not, then it tends toward didacticism. If it is, then it's in that human comedy way.

So proud she was to die It made us all ashamed That what we cherished, so unknown To her desire seemed.

So satisfied to go Where none of us should be, Immediately, that anguish stooped Almost to jealousy.

Brad Fruhauff is Interim Editor-in-Chief of Relief. He has published fiction in The Ankeny Briefcase, poetry in Relief, Salt, and catapult, and reviews in Burnside Writers’ Collective and The Englewood Review of Books. He teaches English at Trinity International University.

1. Many of her poems were actually lines from letters that editors extracted, lineated, and published as we now know them. Incidentally, the Dover edition is a great sampler, but if you're more ambitious, the authoritative complete works is the one edited by Thomas H. Johnson.

Gathering the Kindling

Guest Poetry Editor David Holper shares his experience reading and writing poetry and offers some insight into what he wants for our Fall 2011 issue.

As the guest poetry editor for the upcoming issue of Relief, I want to introduce writers and readers to my tastes and influences as a poet and as a reader of poetry.  Let me start where I typically start with people who ask me who my favorite poet is.  When W.H. Auden was asked this same question in an interview in 1971, he wisely responded, “it suggest[s] that poetry were a horse race where you could put people 1, 2, 3, 4. You can't. If anyone is any good, he is unique and not replaceable by anybody else.”  That’s a good starting place because in reading a lot (and writing a lot), you move beyond gimmicks and you learn to write yourself out of the ruts that often occur in creative work.

As for me, I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area (in a family of devout atheists, a dis-ease from which I eventually recovered as an adult) and was heavily influenced by the Beats (Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginzberg, Gary Snyder), but I was lucky enough to have good writing teachers in high school, college, and graduate school, so all along I was exposed early on to an eclectic variety of styles, voices, and forms.

I began to write my own poetry in high school, but I would say that as important as practicing writing, I regularly attended open mics and poetry readings, put together my own poetry shows (with my other weird poet friends), and often read my work aloud.  That sense of the sound of a poem has been critical to my understanding and writing of poetry.  In college, I also wound up editing the campus literary magazine Toyon, which helped me recognize that quality poetry doesn’t come in just one form, particularly the one with my name on it.  Those habits of reading widely and reading aloud have definitely influenced my craft and my appreciation of other poets.

As an editor, I want a poem to offer me something that I wouldn’t otherwise notice.  I recall hearing a wonderful poem on the radio one day (a poem I’ve never been able to locate afterwards) in which a man describes flying on a plane with his wife who falls asleep next to him.  In staring at her, as well as the sunny space between them, he realizes that in the many years that they have been married, it’s as if a third presence has formed that binds them.  It’s altogether a lovely poem, but lovelier still because it reveals to us something we may have all intuited about couples who have been together for a lifetime and still find themselves in love—that together they seem to form something greater than themselves, and anyone who has basked in such a presence surely feels its blessing.

Then, too, a good poem often has a core: sometimes that core comes in the form of an idea.  Think of so many Wallace Stevens poems or William Carlos Williams’s red wheelbarrow.  Yes, it’s a vivid image that he offers us, but it’s the line that “so much relies upon” that wheelbarrow that tells us what he’s driving at on a deeper level, i.e., the need to notice, to observe image carefully—and yet more carefully still.  But that core may also reside in the form of revelatory emotion, or as Billy Collins said in 2001, “Poetry is the history of the human heart, and it continues to record the history of human emotion, whether it's celebration or grief or whatever it may be.”

Perhaps last of all, poetry for me has become a way to celebrate my faith.  In some way, it should make me sit up and pay attention to life and its sacred dance.  So many people around us go through life on auto pilot, and for me and for many others, poetry is a way to re-awaken us to the holiness that resides within us and all around us.  Whether it’s through picking up the thread of a Biblical narrative, observing life around us, delving into the natural world, or just contemplating Christ’s work in our own lives, a poem should gather the kindling and the wood to reignite that sacred connection that our culture so casually dampens through its superficial, banal concerns.  And when one finds a poem that sets that blaze alight, that poem becomes a treasure not easily set aside.

David Holper has worked as a taxi driver, fisherman, dishwasher, bus driver, soldier, house painter, bike mechanic, bike courier, and teacher. His poems appear in various literary journals and his book of poems, 64 Questions, is available from March Street Press. He teaches at College of the Redwoods and lives in Eureka, CA, far enough from the madness of civilization to get some writing done. He is Relief's guest poetry editor for Issue 5.2.

The New Bible-for Secular Humanist

The Secular Bible - Click here to read the whole story.

This makes me sad that someone has written a “bible” for all the non-religious people, though A. C. Grayling claims that there is something there for everyone.

"The question arose early in British academic A.C. Grayling’s career: What if those ancient compilers who’d made Bibles, the collected religious texts that were translated, edited, arranged and published en masse, had focused instead on assembling the non-religious teachings of civilization’s greatest thinkers?

What if the book that billions have turned to for ethical guidance wasn’t tied to commandments from God or any one particular tradition but instead included the writings of Aristotle, the reflections of Confucius, the poetry of Baudelaire? What would that book look like, and what would it mean?

Decades after he started asking such questions, what Grayling calls “a lifetime’s work” has hit bookshelves. “The Good Book: A Humanist Bible,” subtitled “A Secular Bible” in the United Kingdom, was published this month. Grayling crafted it by using more than a thousand texts representing several hundred authors, collections and traditions."

This bible is a collection of the greatest human philosophies from the east and west and there are probably some interesting or even inspiring ideas but the problem is that they are from men. I believe that the Holy Bible is completely inspired by God that his ideas were put onto parchments and scrolls by men but they were God’s words. I feel that this bible written by Grayling will lead people that have never read the Holy Bible into thinking they are of equal importance.

What do you think?  What impact will it have on our culture?

Bonnie Ponce is the Director of Support Raising for Relief and lives in Huntsville, Texas with her husband and betta fish.  She has a BA in English from Sam Houston State University.  After work she enjoys relaxing with a good book or working on her novel.

The Great Bible Read: Struggling Already

It's been a while since my last update, for which I apologize to the people reading along with me. I am still making progress on my reading and my only excuse for not getting another post up here in the last two weeks isn't really an excuse: life got in the way.

For many people, reading the Bible IS a part of life, but I'm not there. I'm struggling just to make sense and comprehend the parts I have read. One theme, especially, keeps rattling around my head even though I try to just accept it and move on. I can't stop thinking about it, no seem to make any sense out of it.

Why all the sacrifice?

I understand that that theme will hit a climax with the ultimate in human sacrifice by the time I close the back cover on this book, but I'm having a hard time with the sheer volume of human and animal sacrifice just in the Old Testament.

I know I've visited this topic already, but it keeps coming up and it keeps bothering me.

"Thou Shalt Not Kill."

Of all the commandments, that's the one that actually makes the most sense to me. Yet people kill each other. A lot. Even more surprising, they kill each other at God's direction. For example, in Deuteronomy, Chapter 20, God says,

As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all people inside will serve you in forcer labor. But if they refuse to make peace, prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the Lord your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town.

I can give example after example of cases in the Bible so far where humans deserve to be killed. Kill townspeople who don't believe, kill people who do believe but commit certain sins, then kill rams and sheep and goats to absolve those sins. Why all the senseless killing!?

If I try to answer this myself, I tell myself that God's chosen people deserve the land God has chosen for them and the killing is a type of sacrifice  to make sure that happens.

But that answer doesn't fly. Why would one group be worthy of God's love but not another? Why would pagans be worthy of death at the hands of "God's chosen people?"

Aren't we ALL God's chosen people?

I feel like the words I'm reading now have set a terrible precedent of killing and war that has spanned millennia; all of it justified because it's being done in God's name.

God is love. God is peace. I hear those phrases all the time. I read them in greeting cards and hear them in snippets of Christian conversation. But I wonder: is it true? What if you're on the wrong side of God?

Maybe, if back in the time of Deuteronomy, someone had stood up to God when he ordered the mass killing of a town's people, and said, "No, I believe you are a loving God and I will not kill these people. I will embrace them and love them and learn of their beliefs as I discuss with them the wonder that is you."

Maybe God would have been so pleased he would have blessed Earth with an eternity of peace rather than let the consequences of hate corrupt our history.

How do you justify the killing in the Bible? Help me here... I'm struggling.

***

Travis Griffith, Relief’s Blog Manager, is a former atheist now exploring what a spiritual life really means. His children’s book, Your Father Forever, was published in 2005 by Illumination Arts Publishing Company, Inc. Travis works from his home in Spokane, WA as a professional writer.

Sudden Loss

Bonnie Ponce urges Relief readers to pray for the people who have been hit hard by the recent tornadoes. There seems to be a lot of natural disasters happening lately.  Joplin, Missouri was hit hard by tornados last week and the Springfield Massachusetts was also hit hard.  In times of natural disasters we see so many tough pictures of destruction and chaos.  Families left homeless or a loved one gone, they are stunned by how quickly their lives changed for the worse in a matter of minutes.  But also there are pictures of hope, people gathering, hugging, praying, and handing out food and water to survivors.  It is in the times of greatest loss that people often turn to God.  In loss we realized that we are not self sufficient and able to hold everything together and we search for answers.  The deepest longing of our hearts wants to know that God cares about us, our hurts, pains, loss, and needs.  So I challenge you to pray for the people of Joplin and Springfield that they would be comforted while they rebuild their lives.

Bonnie Ponce is the Director of Support Raising for Relief and lives in Huntsville, Texas with her husband and betta fish.  She has a BA in English from Sam Houston State University.  After work she enjoys relaxing with a good book or working on her novel.

Donald Miller is NOT Allowed to Get Engaged!

Stephen Swanson grapples with the fundamental life changes of those he respects from the natural and most meaningful perspective...how they affect him.

Yes, the title of this post is hyperbole.  I enjoy marriage and recommend it to people who are prepared for the sacrifice, communication, and compromise that come with it.  However, I have to admit that I was surprised when Donald Miller announced last Saturday via Twitter that he was engaged.

I do not know Mr. Miller.  I've read a couple of his books, Blue Like Jazz and Father Fiction, follow him on Twitter, and have his blog on my Google Reader, but his announcement and some of the responses I saw made me think.

Donald Miller has 69,000+ followers on Twitter and 52,000+ "likers" on Facebook who all have some interest in his highly-personal writings about his relationship to his faith.  For good reason, Miller, in a time of increased tension between fundamentalism and progressiveness, holds the tensions with admirable and articulate strength.  However, the position from which he holds and views these tensions will change as he changes.

One commenter on his Facebook page posed the quandry best, "And so it happens...my boy, Donald Miller is engaged. heard it via twitter. I wonder if his books will not be as good anymore, cuz he will be preoccupied or if they will be better?"  In other words, will we lose "our" Donald Miller?

"I wonder if his books will not be as good anymore, cuz he will be preoccupied," indicates that Miller spoke to and for the benefit of emergent/hipster/sojourner/thinker/seekers who grappled with singleness and faith in a very complex and shifting world.  He seemed to speak for a faith life for the individual in community.  While not "monastic", Miller had a voice that spoke of possibilities of friendship and discourse outside of a romantic relationship. His writing is "good" because of his ability give voice to this.

The other half of the Facebook comment indicates that there is another potentiality, "or if they will be better?" The brevity of this thought in the comment makes one wonder how much the writer thought of it.

As I have been thinking about Miller and Travis' reading through the Bible, I realize that this tension strikes deep into the heart of debates on faith and marriage.  The relationship between individuals, their families, and God seem to create tensions back to the beginning of Genesis. Does Adam choose to retain connection with his wife, who has disobeyed God, or does he retain his promise and relationship to God? Does Abraham kill his Isaac in sacrifice to God who promised him to you, or do you disobey God?

Lot and his wife, David and Bathsheba, Samson and Delilah, Solomon and (insert woman here) all seem to add to this theme, but it is Paul's first letter to the Corinthians that writes, "I wish that all of you were as I am," that is single and also, "Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do."

Regardless of the debates about the passage's context, Paul argues a tension between ability to serve God (his ideal) and some lesser state of marriage.

WTF, Paul!  What is marriage?  Is it a gift from God or just a sexual release valve for those who are too hot to trot?  Is Donald Miller giving up his calling for a warm snuggle with a different kind of Jazz groupie, or is he deepening the relationship of faith? Is it actually REALLY unfair of me to put pressure on a man that I don't know to represent an entire aspect of faith for the rest of his life?  Is it REALLY any of my business? Would it EVER be possible that a single person who was good at thinking and writing could EVER think and write AND be married? Why must that be a question of right or wrong?

A third option, change, represents the more logical and useful of the choices than a "better/worse" dichotomy.  It makes sense that perspectives will shift when Miller moves to sharing his life in partnership with one other person in a commitment for life.  In fact, it seems that scripture is pretty consistent about relationships changing things.

Even Paul admits it in 1 Corinthians 7 when he gives some directions claiming to speak for God and some that just represents his perspective.  Change happens. People are different.  Situations change and are different.  These might mean that for different people that different things present better choices than for other people, but then that represents a VERY uncomfortable place of uncertainty...a real tension.

Now if we only knew a writer who was good at thinking and writing about tensions in faith and who had been thinking about such things both before AND after being married...hmmm...Anyone?

Relief News Tuesday: 5.24.2011

Now Accepting Graphic Narratives, Images, and Interviews!

Issue 5.1 has shipped, and the submission period for issue 5.2 opened May 1. New work is already flowing in, meaning our editors are starting to think about all the work they have to do again.

This issue we're excited to try out some new content, so we're announcing here that Relief will now accept graphic narratives and images for consideration. This is an experiment, so we won't run anything if we don't find work that meets our standards, but we're optimistic that through this site and word-of-mouth (that means you) we can find some great stuff.

This will make Relief, as far as we know, the only place you'll be able to find graphic narrative of a Christian/spiritual bent. There are others doing images, but we think there are plenty more great artists out there whose work needs a home.

We will also be accepting queries for author interviews. Guidelines for this new content can be found on our Submissions page.

Significant Moments

When faced with a challenge, look for a way, not a way out.

-David Weatherford

You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call “failure” is not the falling down, but the staying down.

-Mary Pickford

This past weekend I had the joy of watching my sister walk across a stage and receive a diploma for her bachelor degree in business administration.  I was so proud of her!  It took her a little longer than some people, but it isn’t how you start that is important, it’s how you finish.  And she finished strong!  When I think back through life, every significant moment is made up of smaller seemingly small moments.  When she filled out the application to go to college, there weren’t tons of people cheering; she was just sitting at the kitchen table filling out a form.  Each test she studied for, each project turned in lead to her walking across that stage.  Isn’t that how life is, though?  For our authors, they wouldn’t be published in our journal unless they were inspired to write, then they wrote out a poem or a story, pushing through writers block and frustrating revisions.  But the final product is to be published.

It’s interesting how all the small choices we make in life lead to the significant moments that we treasure in life.  So maybe instead of just celebrating the big moments we should reflect on the small moments, the decisions that we make every day and cherish those as well.  It is the little moments that lead us to the celebrations.  For Relief, we long for an awesome donor to write us a big check, but realistically, it is the little gifts that add up and make a big difference.  If you didn’t give during our LoveRelief campaign, that is okay because there is still the opportunity to give to Relief.  You can go to our donation page for more information, http://www.reliefjournal.com/buy/support-the-cause/.  Thank you!

Bonnie Ponce is the Director of Support Raising for Relief and lives in Huntsville, Texas with her husband and betta fish. She has a BA in English from Sam Houston State University. After work she enjoys relaxing with a good book or working on her novel.

Week Two: A Disturbing Exodus

I enjoy a challenge. I get off on challenging other people's existing perceptions and smile when my personal views and ideas are questioned.

And so I smiled while reading a comment from reader Marcia on my last post. Part of what she said was,

you must remember as much as you would like to believe that you are coming at this reading with an open mind, none of us is capable of completely being open to ideas that challenge our current views.

While that's a powerful statement, I respectfully disagree. Regular readers know how passionately I once conformed to atheism. Part of me (a lot of me, sometimes) still wants to cling to an atheistic view because it's easier and more convenient and somehow rebellious and cool. However, because my mind was open to entering a new spiritual paradigm, I reject atheism yet still strongly respect those who embrace it.

An open mind led to a new way of thinking.

That is how I am approaching my Bible read. I may not want to believe it, I may point out parts that seem contradictory, but my mind is open to the possibility that the Bible means much more than I've ever given it credit for.

That wasn't easy while reading through Exodus. Frankly, I'm severely disturbed by it. I naturally have more questions, some of which I'll pose here, and hope for a discussion on possible answers in the comments.

Before the last two weeks, there was one section of the Bible that I read: the Burning Bush. Something similar happened to me, which I can pinpoint as the moment I left atheism. That's a long story but it ultimately put me on the path I'm on now. Reading that story with fresh eyes was inspiring and resonated as truth from the loving God who introduced himself to me.

From there, though, something changes in the book. God seems to go from lovingly proving his existence and bestowing hope on humanity to killing them. Why?

Why torture the Egyptians with plagues? Why kill all their first-born babies? If the only answer is simply, "Because they didn't accept the Lord God," then I can only shake my head in disbelief and sadness.

The theme continues through the explanation of Passover, when God passes over the people he likes to go "slaughter" the ones he doesn't. It just makes me cringe.

The Red Sea is another example. The Israelites pass through the waters safely, but God drowns the Egyptians, causing the Israelites to celebrate.

Recent events have shown me that celebrating the death of our enemies makes us no better and I was under the impression that God supported that view. So I'm left confused by the words and events in Exodus.

As horrible as I find the killing of perceived enemies, I'm simply flabbergasted at the timing of the reveal of the Ten Commandments. Number six: Thou Shalt Not Kill.

Is there a difference between human sin and that of the divine?

My disgust went into overdrive when Moses was at Mount Sinai speaking with the Lord and the people below committed a sin: creating a golden calf and worshipping it. God and Moses entered an absolute rage, followed by these words:

Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, Put your sword on your hip, every one of you! Now go up and down the camp, from gate to gate, and slay your own kinsmen, your friends and neighbors!

Are you kidding me? The punishment for one sin is to commit another? Now we're not killing enemies, but our own people! This troubles me.

Then irony presented itself again a page or two later when God says, "The Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity..."

As troubled as I am so far by the content, I am impressed by the depth of characters so far and the continuity between generations of people, and how each contributes to the consequences of the next. The incredible depth of the Bible is beginning to show through.

Exodus: who else is troubled?

***

Travis Griffith, Relief’s Blog Manager, is a former atheist now exploring what a spiritual life really means. His children’s book, Your Father Forever, was published in 2005 by Illumination Arts Publishing Company, Inc. Travis works from his home in Spokane, WA as a professional writer.

Face to Face

We need not exert ourselves and try to force ourselves to believe, or try to chase doubt out of our hearts.  Both our just as useless.  It begins to dawn on us that we can bring everything to Jesus, no matter how difficult it is, and we need not be frightened away by our doubts or our weak faith, but only tell Jesus how weak our faith is  We have let Jesus into our hearts   And He will fulfill our hearts' desires. -O. Hallsby Give us, O Lord, steadfast hearts that cannot be dragged down by false loves; give us courageous hearts that cannot be warn down by trouble; give us righteous hearts that cannot be sidetracked by unholy or unworthy goals.  Give to us also, our Lord and God, understanding to know you, diligence to look for you, wisdom to recognize you, and a faithfulness that will bring us to see you face to face. - Thomas a Kempis

I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces? - C. S. Lewis Till We Have Faces

Till We Have Faces is a book that I highly value.  It is the last fictional book written by Lewis and it is the culmination of his years of study.  It is the retelling of Cupid and Psyche set in a made up country and narrated by Orual, the older sister of Psyche.  She chases knowledge and facts.  Psyche is sacrificed to the gods and Orual hates the gods who "stole" her sister.  She tries to save Psyche from what she believes to be a nightmare.  Psyche is happy but listens to Orual and is punished.  Orual realizes that she has caused Psyche much pain and suffering.  She writes out her complaints to the gods and has a dream in which she is standing before the gods outlining her suffering and the injustices of her life.  But she realizes that all pretension has to be stripped away, any thing she thinks she knows is rubbish.  To face the gods, one must have to be barefaced.

I love this story because of the truths that it presents.  We can chase after knowledge and facts, even theology, but when it comes down to it we have to bear our hearts to God to make ourselves be vulnerable to Him so we can know Him and be honest with ourselves.  When we face God face to face we have to strip away all the masks and veils that we hide behind, other wise we are just standing in the presence of God lying about who we are.

Bonnie Ponce is the Director of Support Raising for Relief and lives in Huntsville, Texas with her husband and betta fish. She has a BA in English from Sam Houston State University. After work she enjoys relaxing with a good book or working on her novel.

Good Questions Can Help

Another suggestion or two for the newbie Bible reader.

The Trouble With Texts

It's pretty neat that Blog Manager Travis Griffith is taking on reading the whole Bible. His eye-opening experience has left him feeling "punched in the face with these taboo topics and left wondering if folks just choose not to discuss this stuff in polite company..."

Perhaps I'm not the only Relief fan uttering a small chuckle. Welcome, Travis, to the foundational Christian writings.

The Bible is difficult. Though many consider it fairy tales for children, others find upon closer inspection a not-ready-for-prime-time experience. But read any ancient tome, from Cicero to Chaucer, and you'll discover a lot we no longer bring up at dinner.

As Christians today, the reason for our indigestion over the Bible isn't usually the racy content, or so I've found. What we shy away from is a truck load of different teachings about why the Bible includes what it does. Thousands of years after Genesis' papyrus dried, we don't remember what issues were being addressed or who the author was speaking to. When it comes to glimpses into the world of Moses (the probable Genesis author), most of us have no clue.

It's as if my grandma came back to life and tried to decipher a text message from my son's girlfriend's phone, but everyone younger than Grandma had died, leaving no one to interpret for her. There wouldn't be much way to understand the real gist of the thing.

I guess to take my analogy further, you could picture Grandma surrounded by people from her time -- each of them with their own guesses as to the meanings of "lol," "jk," and "ftw." Each would guess according to his own assumptions about context and other factors. Someone might insist this wasn't language at all, that it was gibberish or that Grandma made up the idea that people had developed a new code for electric gizmos.

Reading the Bible, we rely on interpretations of ancient Hebrew and Greek by people with their own assumptions. Then we read the English wording according to individual perspectives. Some of us have been served portions or the whole from childhood. Someone like Travis Griffith has only heard of the Bible but has never before tasted it for himself. There are dozens of ways, at least, to begin thinking about the message between the biblical covers, and how are we really to know which one is close to the truth?

The Quality of Questions

Before despairing totally over this situation, I came to see there is hope for an understanding-related reading of the Bible. After all, people translate and read other ancient books with a fair amount of confidence. We don't chuck everything written before the 20th century; there are proven ways to get at ancient meanings. And, yes, I'm one of those who believes the Bible is the unique book in history -- the one God inspired (however that happened). But I think it was written by regular authors for regular readers. There's more work involved in getting at original intent than I might put into reading a text message (though I'm not too good at those). But it's a worthwhile task.

I encourage Travis and anyone looking into the Bible from new or old assumptions to start by asking good questions about the text. This idea I find explored exceptionally well by a teacher from Gutenberg College, a great books school in my town. In 2000, David Crabtree taught a recorded series on Genesis in which he proposed studying the Bible's first book in order to begin discovering answers to basic biblical, faith-related, questions.

Dr. Crabtree's key question for Genesis, and for the Bible is, "Why?" This gets filled out regarding God as, "What kind of being is the Creator? Who is God? What is his nature?" And regarding us: "Why did God create man? What is our purpose? Why do we exist? And what provision did the Creator make for mankind?"

These sorts of questions get at the heart of a valuable Bible read-through. They acknowledge that assumptions exist and that it's valid to work at getting past my own. They're close to the core of a soul seeking spiritual truth.

David Crabtree's complete audio series on Genesis is free and available from this Gutenberg link (it lists sessions in reverse order) and at iTunesU.

Deanna Hershiser’s essays have appeared in Runner’s World, BackHome Magazine, Relief, and other places. She lives with her husband in Oregon and blogs at deannahershiser.com

Murder, Sex, Lies and Incest... in the Bible?

This will not be easy.

As many people might know, I am reading the Bible for the first time and blogging about it here.

The people who are joining me as I read might expect, or maybe even hope for, a certain response. I imagine that's especially true for veteran Bible readers and scholars. Should my response not be what is expected, some people might become defensive and write me off a as a clueless lunatic. Or worse.

My intent is not to trash this book or point out any self-perceived flaws I think it might contain. The reason I chose to embark on this reading is to invoke provocative thought; from myself, from those reading at the same time and from those who have read the book in the past. My intent is to find poetic beauty that resonates within my spirit. To debate, discuss and challenge long-established truths, then dig deeper and find new meaning.

In the first hundred pages or so of Genesis, I'm disappointed. If this were a book I picked up by a new author I wouldn't continue reading. I opened the pages of this particular tome thirsty for beauty and got a mouthful of dust.

Followed by a roundhouse kick to the face.

I'm amused by the account of creation but have a hard time believing that modern humans accept the story of Earth and all life it holds being created within six days. Yes, it's a nice verse that may have convinced people eons ago but today we have science to tell us that the Sun was around well before the Earth and that evolution of the species is a very real concept happening against a well-established timeline.

Where do Adam and Eve fall on that timeline? How many years ago did they take from the tree of knowledge and open their eyes to sin?

The story of Noah holds equal fascination. Why God would create life then decide he screwed up, wipe it away then repopulate with the same species just doesn't make any sense. Then again, making sense and having faith are very different things so maybe there's a deeper meaning here that I am missing. If so, I'd be more than happy to read the section again with a different set of eyes.

The fact that these early human lives spanned 800-900 years doesn't do much for the credibility factor either.

It was the story of Abraham and his descendants, though, that truly disturbed me and opened the floodgates of rhetorical questions.

I read with wide eyes when Abraham shared his wife with other men. I uttered an audible "What?" just below my breath when Jacob took two wives, both of whom let him have sex with other women.

I guess I was under the impression the Bible was against infidelity, but then again I'm early in the story so I'll withhold judgment until later.

My stomach turned in disgust when the two daughters had sex with their father in attempts to get pregnant and felt mortified when Lot offered his daughters in an attempt to stop men from having sex with each other in the city of Sodom.

In that part of the world, in that time period, was forced sex upon females more acceptable than consensual sex between males? I didn't expect this.

It's a moot point, I suppose, because God killed the entire town of men with sulfuric fire rain anyway. (Which sounds more like the devil's work than God's.)

Honestly, I was really nervous to write the post a few weeks ago about pornography, but that's downright tame compared to what I've read in the Bible so far.

However uncomfortable it might be to acknowledge, in these first few chapters, God has committed mass murder (multiple times), feels like he screwed up humanity from the very beginning of creation and seems to condone multiple sexual partners while married.

Wow. This is quite the opening to the story of Christianity.

Maybe the point of Genesis is to establish the point that humans naturally lust for what has been called "sin." To ingrain an immediate fear of a vengeful God. To paint humanity as a disgusting cesspool of lawless evil before being saved by the time the last page is turned.

I hope not. I hope God would instead describe humans as his masterpiece; beings of light capable of experiencing the kind of love he used to create the universe.

Now that I've started this, I'm 100 percent convinced I need support and guidance. Reading Stephen Swanson's advice should really help, along with all the great comments and support posted when this project was announced. I hope (and pray, I guess) that the support continues.

Remember, this truly is the first time I've ever cracked open the spine of a Bible with the intent of reading it with a completely open mind. I was punched in the face with these taboo topics and am left wondering if folks just choose not to discuss this stuff in polite company, haven't noticed it, or just take it all with the same grain of salt I took with the story of a 6-day creation.

I have many, many other questions written down from my reading so far, but I'll end with just one:

Are there any other first-time Bible readers on this journey with me?

***

Travis Griffith, Relief's Blog Manager, is a former atheist now exploring what a spiritual life really means. His children’s book, Your Father Forever, was published in 2005 by Illumination Arts Publishing Company, Inc. Travis works from his home in Spokane, WA as a professional writer.

The Driving Force of Passion

Bonnie writes about the things that she is passionate about. Passion compels us forward into action. While there are several things I support, there are a few that I am passionate about.  I am passionate about being holistically pro-life, my personal theology, and as shallow as it comparatively sounds, reading a good book.

I love to read so when I read a really awesome book or story I am totally absorbed in the plot, the characters, and the emotion – yes, I occasionally laugh or cry as I read. I get so invested in the plot that real life fades a bit – I go through the motions but my mind is on the story. After I finish a novel I always feel a little deflated and sad that my story is over and sometimes I wonder what the characters would do next.

Passion also drives us to invest in the things that we care about, either through volunteering or giving financially. It also means that we invest our time in the things that are important to us. I would like to say that while our LoveRelief campaign is over, consider giving back to a journal that supports great stories.

Bonnie Ponce is the Director of Support Raising for Relief and lives in Huntsville, Texas with her husband and betta fish. She has a BA in English from Sam Houston State University. After work she enjoys relaxing with a good book or working on her novel.

To Travis...About the Bible

Stephen Swanson dispenses kindly advice to Travis to be helpful and avoid the many, many frustrating things in the world today.

So, yeah, there's lots of fun and important things that I could write about: OBL, fake quotes from MLK, end of term, a new son, looking at houses, motorcycles....  Oh, I could go on and on, but I've really been wanting to do something helpful.

I was very thankful for Travis' post last week that gave me a chance to chime in, and rather than just post a comment, I'm choosing to use a column on it.

He's already had some great advice on translations/versions, programs, skipping Leviticus, and other reading tips and hints.  With all the suggestions, I can't but help to feel like it's some sort of Nintendo Power walkthrough.  You know,  "The Bible...the Original Video Game", and Travis is trying to go through Zelda in less than 30 minutes.

I must first disclose that I have never read the Bible cover-to-cover.  I've tried a couple of times, but there's just too many things against it as a practice. My problem wasn't Leviticus or Numbers; they had some cool stuff. It was the minor prophets. "Alright!  We get it!  Bad will be punished...we hope and pray.  Good will be rewarded...we hope and pray.   Yes, yes, G-d IS powerful and amazing."

Yes, there are all sorts of things that will come up.

• There is the frustration with the minute subdivisions of paragraphs and sentences into chapter and verse when the prose just does not support that segmentation.
• There's interminable poetry (LotR's strategy=skip poetry, not necessarily with the Bible), history, law, and prophecy.
• There's a whole mess of some dude's letters that have, for some reason, been shoved between an early history of the Church and a final book of prophecy (You know, just for good measure).
• There's the past 2000 years of use and abuse of the documents in this volume for both great good and great evil.
• There's the present association of the Bible with conservatism, fundamentalism, and evangelicalism.

However, if one looks at it as a wonderful archive, then things potentially begin to change.

• Each book holds a glimpse into generations and generations of real people who struggled to find, understand, and live out some relationship to the infinite.
• Each of  these glimpses comes with loads of historical context where we can really begin to see complex relationships.
• Each one presents an experience into the core questions of humanity as an individual, a community, and a society.
• Each of the books tries to engage in a very real and meaningful way with the questions raised by existence and yet tell gritty stories about hard lives in hard times

It grows easier and easier to equate The Bible with religion.  However, I'd argue that The Bible =/= religion, even though the Reformation used the book as a conduit between the person of faith and their God through their ability, right, and responsibility to read and understand it. I understand that this has morphed into a fascination for those who believe in strict inerrancy and infallibility of The Bible as the Word of God.  I'm not one of them, but I respect that as a position with a lot of power in the world today.

However, regardless of the objective truth of the words, the narratives and arcs that it contains describe the relationship between people and a view of the Divine at the very least.

Many people, therefore, emphasize the epic qualities of The Bible.  After all, it's about "GOD", right?  It's got to be SERIOUS and star Charlton Heston.  The must be heavy, serious music.  It must be in Panavision.  The emphasis has been on the weight and grandeur of a narrative about God and man.

Something about this, though, strikes me as idolatry.  Not in the normal sense, but it's almost like Christians are still competing with the Greeks and Romans to show that their religion is as cool,

"Hey, look!  We've got cool stories too!"

"Do you have a god in the form of a bull raping a woman?"

"No..."

"Well, do you at least have Morgan Freeman?"

"<...>"

"Then I'm not sure how you can call it a religion."

I like to imagine The Bible more like if it was made by HBO or Showtime...maybe AMC, but only if John Hamm and Christina Hendricks were in it.  Imagine if David Simon wrote and directed, maybe with some help from Richard Price.

Connections abound between The Wire, Rome, and The Bible. Family struggles, sex, violence, political intrigue, captivity, and exotic locales abound, but those are points for another day.

Forget the theology for a bit and get to know the people and peoples behind The Bible.  Treat it like The Bible, maybe even the bible.  Think about their lives, thoughts, hopes, fears, and dreams.  Midrash in your mind as you go, and don't be afraid to jump around.

As the Israelites are exiled, jump forward to their prophets who wrote in that time, and then jump back.  As David flees and starts a revolution, read the songs that he composed, perhaps at night.

Works in translation are always hard to really get and feel.  Additionally, the vast majority of The Bible lacks the punch and flow of Elmore Leonard.  However, the people and drama are there.

It's just a matter of letting the other things go, at least for a while.

Stephen Swanson teaches as an assistant professor of English at McLennan Community College. Aside from guiding students through the pitfalls of college writing and literature, he spends most of his time trying to remain aware of popular culture, cooking, and enjoying time with his wife and son. He holds degrees in Communications (Calvin College), Film Studies (Central Michigan University), and Media and American Culture Studies (Bowling Green State University). In addition to editing a collection, Battleground States: Scholarship in Contemporary America, he has forthcoming projects on Johnny Cash and analysis of vampires and gods in terms of hospitality.

A Reaction to Osama bin Laden's Death

Web Editor Ian David Philpot shares his reaction to the announcement of Osama bin Laden's death.

I read the news in a text message from my fiancée late last night.

Shortly after, I was reading Facebook and Twitter updates covered in people celebrating and others quoting Scriptures from Psalms and Proverbs about not rejoicing in your enemy's falls.

And I was torn.

I wanted to celebrate what had happened. I remember nearly ten years ago crying in classrooms with fellow students as we watched the tragedy of September 11 unfold, and I wanted those tears to be wiped away by this step towards a "safer world" (more on that below).

"I don't think it's a day for going to a bar. I think it's a day to maybe go to church." –MSNBC's Chris Matthews

The part of me that wanted to celebrate was the patriotic side. It wanted to write to everyone quoting the Psalms that David's hands were so bloody that God wouldn't let him build a temple. And to those quoting Proverbs, I wanted to remind them that Solomon reigned in peace because of the killings his father was able to execute.

But the patriotic emotions didn't last too long.

Jimmy Spencer, friend of mine and of Relief, wrote a note on Facebook titled "Whose Death Does God Cheer?" (You can read it on Jimmy's Tumblr.) It infuriated me and calmed me at the same time. Those who commented on his post felt either one way or the other.

Here are a two snippets of the comments on Facebook that got my attention:

"Get real. Take your Jesus and stuff it..."

"Thanks for voicing something that goes against what 90% of my facebook feed says."

After reading all of this, the spiritual side of me took over. The side that loves others, no matter who they are or what they've done. I almost feel disappointed that it didn't come out sooner, but I'm just a regular ol' imperfect person.

And it's not that I think we should've let Osama bin Laden continue to murder people. But I think we need to observe a stillness for the loss of life.

I saw this video clip on MSNBC of Chris Matthews talking about what will happen now. He said something that really stuck out to me: "I don't think it's a day for going to a bar. I think it's a day to maybe go to church."

That hit me hard.

Our world isn't any safer. Gas prices won't go down. We still won't be able to get through airport security with a bottle of water. There hasn't been a big shift in how our world works.

But hopefully there can be a shift in our hearts for how we view those who have wronged us.

Coffee Convictions

Last week my husband and I were suffering from cabin fever after a few rainy days, and we decided to get out of the house and grab some coffee and a good book somewhere. Wheeling into the parking lot of Barnes and Noble, we noticed a family of three walking toward their car.

They had just come out of the all-you-can-eat buffet in the strip mall, two parents and a son who looked about eight years old, and all of them a doctor would diagnose with obesity.

So sad, Zach and I said to each other. I wondered what kind of future that child would have, would he be teased? Would he feel like he wouldn’t amount to anything? And what about the parents? What is it they are trying to escape through food? Do they eat here all the time? Do they care that their kid is severely overweight and inheriting their own unhealthiness?

All sorts of disapproving and critical thoughts ran through my head. And then I walked into the bookstore café and bought a $4 espresso drink.

“Are you sure you don’t want a venti, it’s only 60 cents more?” The barista lobbied, as they are trained to do with every customer. I declined. “Do you want a pastry or a sandwich to go with that?” No thanks. They definitely know how to capitalize on the classic impulse buy.

It was only after I was catered to at the coffee bar that I realized I was choosing the same gluttony I had just condemned. I didn’t need an espresso drink topped with whipped cream, I was just indulging. I was paying $4 for something that I knew was overpriced and nonessential.

This year I have been discovering a new way of eating, exploring where my food comes from, the ethics of my culinary choices, such as fair labor treatment and environmental responsibility, and trying to make better food choices in general. And while I am privileged American to be able to choose between pricey organic meat or canned green beans, not everyone has that privilege. Hunger is a real issue in the world just as much as obesity is, and both claim lives.

I’m not against caramel macchiatos, but I hope I don’t consume them ignorantly, as this last experience taught me. I hope I will realize the weight of my food choices, and if I’m going to exercise my privileges, I hope I will also donate to world hunger relief organizations, contribute to my church’s food pantry, and pray for and remember those who don’t have the same privileges God has so graciously given.

Acts of Kindness

Bonnie shares about how an act of kindness can really impact a life. I was standing in line at the grocery store and I noticed how rude the person in front of me was acting to the cashier.  Talking on her cell phone and ignoring the cashier's attempts at conversational pleasantries, she was too busy to be polite.   On the other side, waiting on people who are angry or impatient can be tough.  In college I worked for the university's Information Resources and answered the help desk phones.  Some people were patient as I walked them through the steps to fix their computer problems.  Other people would almost reduce me to tears.  I remember one particularly conversation in which a faculty member accused me of trying to delete all of her emails!

It doesn't take a lot to be nice - a smile, a casual, how are you doing? or a complement can make someone's day.  We often take for granted the people that serve us throughout the day - a waiter, janitorial people, cashiers at Starbucks, toll booth workers, or secretaries.  It only takes a small gesture of kindness to brighten someones day.  But often times it is the rude people we encounter or bad experiences that stick with us an color our whole day.  Which is why I want to share a story about how much it can affect someone or even a whole entity when consideration for others is lacking.  Sam Davidson shares an experience with a non-profit that led him to stop donating.

At Relief, we know that you are the life-blood of what we do. We want to thank you for your donations, for buying subscriptions, for supporting great literature and being loyal to our mission. We want to know what your experience has been with Relief.  We ask for your support so we can continue to provide new stories, poetry, and inspirational creative fiction for you to read. Share your experience with us! If you connect with us, share why you gave or consider giving a gift if you have been encouraged or inspired by Relief.