Returned

Every once in a while when I get to the church there will be a couple of old Bibles leaning up next to the door. No note. No name. Just a Bible or two on the ground next to the church that a neighbor has left there.

Invariably, these Bibles are in rough condition. They've been folded in odd ways or pages are missing or they're especially musty. They may have even been rained on since arriving at the church.

No matter their condition, I always take them in.

What I've discovered is that people don't know what to do when a Bible has somehow gotten damaged. Maybe it got musty in a box buried deep in the dark, damp basement full of junk. Maybe the cheap paperback binding didn't hold up. Maybe it got bent and creased when it was used to hold up that old, comfortable couch.

No matter how it happened, once a Bible gets damaged, people aren't sure what to do. It just doesn't seem right to throw it in the recycle bin. The content hasn't changed and it somehow seems wrong to just put it out with the newspapers and junk mail.

So they bring the Bible to the church, leaving it at the foot of the door. Somehow in their minds, returning the book's content to its source provides absolution for their neglect of it and hope that it might do someone else some good in the future.

An old Bible is hard for me to deal with, too.

In it are stories I learned as a child and that I teach the kids in the neighborhood today. Yet, when I go back and read them again the lessons are not so clear and the picture the stories paint of God isn't always the same as the one I've painted of Him in my mind.

In it is a repeated call to abandon the ways of the world and to live fully human in light of the Gospel. Yet, I want to live in the light of the Gospel while only abandoning a few of the world's ways, namely the ones that I already don't like anyway.

In it are are stories and words and guidance that I just don't understand and that I want to either shape to my own liking or to discard. Yet, it's those parts of me that refuse to let go and let the text shape me into His liking that need to be discarded.

What should I do with the old contents of the Bible, written all over my heart and mind? Some of it I've let get musty by boxing it up in the dark damp places inside me where I store my junk. Sometimes, like cheap binding, I haven't held very tight to it. Most often, though, I've misused it to prop up something comfortable for my spirit to rest on like an old couch.

Yes, it's hard for me to deal with my old Bible. And many (most?) days I just want to leave it out of sight and get on with my daily tasks. But when the words inside me get folded in odd ways or are missing some pages or get musty I've learned from my neighbors what to do.

I need to take it back to the Source. I put it on the ground before Him. There I can receive absolution for the past and hope for His word's work in me in the future.

No matter the condition of His word in me, He'll always take me in.

Lord, shape me with your Word. Let your mystery not confound me but draw me closer to You.