Buying My First Bible
It occurred to me the other day that I have never sought out the Bible willingly. Do not be mistaken: this fact does not mean I am unfamiliar with the text. It means quite the opposite.
In my life thus far, the Bible has been a household item, a textbook, a gift, a rulebook, and a multitude of other things I did not choose for myself. I never asked for the Bible, but it was always there. Really, that’s how my whole relationship with religion has been. I believe the same goes for anyone else raised in a religious household or educated in a religious institution. You are constantly surrounded by the imagery, verses, and implications whether you like it or not. I was just beginning high school at a religious institution, when I realized I did not like it.
Though my parents are not overly religious, the school I attended for the ten most formative years of my childhood was. When new people in my life discover this fact about me, it often makes them jump. It’s not necessarily something you would guess about me. And my schooling should not be mixed up with a traditional Catholic school education. My school was Evangelical Christian — different from Catholicism in all the practical ways. I have this memory of my second grade classroom, of this big bookshelf we read from every day, in which half the books were normal chapter books for children and the other half were Bibles. They were kids’ Bibles, of course, with fun animated pictures of Jesus as a tall, bearded white guy, but still Bibles. I remember that year our class had a “Bible reading contest” and whoever read the whole thing got a sticker. This one kid had three stickers and I knew from the bottom of my heart he hadn’t read a single word.
Another memory is that we had to recite the “Pledge to the Bible” every morning alongside the Pledge of Allegiance. Every morning of every year until middle school. It went something like this: “I pledge allegiance to the Bible, God’s holy word. I will make it a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path and will hide its words in my heart so I might not sin against God.” I remember repeating these words as an eight-year-old having not a clue what I was saying. I didn’t know what “unto” meant.
I didn’t really know what any of it meant until I was stuck into my teens. By then, there was little I could do to reverse the tradition ingrained in me. But, oh, did I try. I transferred out of that religious institution halfway through high school and into an incredibly secular school. I refused to go to church. I stopped praying. I hid away all my Bibles. I wanted absolutely nothing to do with any religion at all. Cold turkey.
Things stayed this way for about five years. Then one day, out of nowhere, all of these verses from Ecclesiastes came back to me. In eighth grade, we were assigned books of the Bible to present on and I was assigned Ecclesiastes. I did all this research, read the chapters over and over again, and actually became a huge fan of the book. Of all the books in the Bible, to me, Ecclesiastes is the most honest. I find its depressing words inspiring. The first verse of the first chapter is: “‘Meaningless! Meaningless! says the Teacher. ‘Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.’” As a fourteen-year-old, I loved that.
One of the verses that recently remembered itself was Ecclesiastes 1:17: “And I set my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly; I realized that this also is striving after wind.” I clung on to that quote even into high school when I decided to transfer because I didn’t care if I was striving after the wind — I wanted to know wisdom, madness, and folly. And dare I say I found some.
In the last year or so, something shifted into or out of place to make me want to pick up the Bible again, after literally not touching one for five years. I didn’t necessarily want to reread the whole thing, but more so find those old verses running through my head. Perhaps the “Pledge to the Bible” wasn’t completely off the mark because, despite probably sinning against God, some of those words did hide in my heart. For many years, the way I was educated filled me with anger and embarrassment. Those feelings are taking on a new shape now — a shape close to gratitude. There could be far worse stories stuck in my mind. I wouldn’t say I’m “finding my religion” or converting back to anything, but I would say I’m revisiting old traditions, ones deeply ingrained in me whether I like it or not.
So this week, I walked into my favorite used bookstore in Burbank, with my tip money in hand, to buy my very first Bible.