Q: What was Peter’s favorite sport? A: Football, per Acts 9:32: “And it came to pass, as Peter passed throughout all quarters . . . ” When you know Scripture the way we did, you could play with it, and we did. Here's another one of our jokes: Who was the shortest man in the Bible? We had two possible answers— the Roman soldier who slept on his watch or Bildad the Shuhite (say it aloud to get the joke, pronouncing u as oo). In college, a friend had this advice for anyone with a problem: "Take two psalms and call me in the morning." It was fun to find that other people had this same sense of playing with what we knew about Scripture. We could scramble the passages, mix and match. During my twenties, I’d been looking for my principal at the Christian school where I taught When I finally found him, I cried, “Thou art the man!” To which he replied, “And hast thou found me, oh my enemy?” We thus jammed together a story from the life of David with one from Elijah’s life and had a good laugh. In my thirties, working in the library of my alma mater, I once asked my boss how he was doing, and he said, “Two out of three,” and then laughed. By which I was supposed to know (and did) that he referred to the healing of the maniac of Gadara. After Jesus healed this man who had lived naked in the tombs and had to be chained, it was said of him that he was “seated, clothed, and in his right mind.” In an earlier era, none of this would have seemed unusual. Knowledge of the Bible was cultural among the Anglo world, influencing art, music, and literature. Steinbeck chose East of Eden as a novel's title; Faulkner, Absalom! Absalom! If you knew the Bible stories, you knew what to expect.
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Baptist GirlI was a conservative Baptist girl who grew up to become a career Christian, working first in a Baptist school and then in a Baptist college. For about three decades, it was very good until it wasn’t, and I had to leave. But the Baptists formed me. This is my homage to the good times and good people of the world I left, finally, at forty-three, when I became an Episcopalian. These are my memories; others might disagree with my recollections. So be it. Archives
January 2024
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