Back on Track

While reading Mark today, I realized that, as part of my Gospel-reading New Year's Resolution, these weekly blog posts have actually ended up distracting me from my original purpose. The reason I wanted to read a Gospel each week is to continually confront myself over the course of the year with the person of Jesus. However, when I'm trying to figure out something to write about for my weekly post, it's really easy to fall back on the way I used to relate to God and think I have to learn something new. It's funny, for me, the fastest way for me to get tired of reading the Bible is to think I have to learn something new every time I read it. In the future, I will try to keep these posts less focused on the text and more focused on the meeting point between Jesus and my life.

Earlier, I was thinking about reading the Bible (while I was still in the feeling stale stage) and comparing it to, of all things, C. S. Lewis. I am now reading another one of his works of literary criticism, and he amazes me in the way that, even in a thoroughly academic book, he always finds a way to thrust spiritual realities in through the barrier of the world so that they touch our lives. For a while when I was reading him, I was feeling guilty that I don't get the same kind of epiphany from the Bible that C. S. Lewis gives me. And I think the difference is, C. S. Lewis brings spiritual truth into parts of my mind that it has never gone before. My mental world is still divided into many compartments, and some are used to thinking from an eternal perspective. I use the spiritual compartments when I read the Bible, so that's why it often feels like I'm not learning anything--that part of my mind has already been exposed to the kingdom of heaven. However, C. S. Lewis brings God into the academic world. Not explicitly, but in a way that is unmistakable to the believing Christian. And it is a great thing, because each time, it is though a part of me has a brand new encounter with the divine. The Bible can have the same effect; I just have to allow it to penetrate the parts of my mind I'm not used to exposing.