Today, in the early afternoon, as a result of working on a holiday, I was told that I would be having a shorter schedule the next three days (I normally have a short schedule only on Friday) in order to avoid crossing over 40 total hours, since I worked about ten hours on a day where I also got 8 hours of holiday pay, and it is not very common for me to get half of my allotted hours in the course of a day. So, since I had been able to finish reading one book during the break time I had been able to take so far in the day, I figured I would be able to stop by the library and pick up the three books that were waiting for me at the library, and then find a quiet place to get ahead on my reading. Despite reading an entire other book and half of another one, though, today was not the sort of day to be able to get ahead on any books. When I came home to write a couple of book reviews on the books that I had finished, I found that I had another book in the mail that I had ordered for research after the first Bible study our new pastor had undertaken on the Book of Romans. As it happens, the third such Bible study was tonight, and I was able to write both of the book reviews and put them in their proper allotted schedule on my blog before heading over to the house of one of my fellow brethren, a deacon, so that we could carpool, because it’s way more fun to get to Bible Study in Vancouver if one does not have to drive through the traffic by oneself.

Before leaving I was able to chat a bit and enjoy some soup and chips, while having to turn down other food because I did not want to overeat. Of course, when I arrived there, after a hike from where the car was parked to the place, I had enough time to chat with one of my fellow volleyball coaches who was happy not to have forgotten his elegantly typed up notes for our Bible Study, and to be handed another two books from one of my friends in the congregation and a fond reader of my blog who appreciates my book reviews [1]. Looking at the alarming piles of books all around my bed, it is clear that no matter how hungrily I devour books, there are always far more to read, to write about, and to reflect and ponder upon. For example, I still need to find some time in my schedule soon to watch a Norwegian movie on my list for one of the books I read yesterday [2] that I managed to find on Youtube thanks to the posting of a Norwegian fellow. I suppose it is rather hipster of me to watch a movie in Norwegian, albeit with English subtitles, even if it was an Oscar-nominated film back almost sixty years ago.

Today’s Bible study was a trip through Romans 2, a chapter that, like much of Romans has been the subject of a good deal of personal thought [3]. While we progressed through the questions on the homework, which elicited some good conversation from those of us there, even if I did not hear any comments from those who listened to the Bible Study on the webcast, it appeared that some subjects were heavily on our pastor’s mind. One of the questioned prompted one of our more noisy and ebullient brethren to refer to a church scandal involving a serial adulterer and a masseuse that took place about twenty years ago when the speaker was a teenager, an age range that is particularly sensitive to hypocrisy among adults. The reference seemed to strike a mood of divine fire in our pastor, who commented that his late mother had stored a large manila envelope full of news clippings about the various scandals of our larger denominational culture, and that it was a matter of the utmost importance for leaders to be people of high ethical character. I wholeheartedly agree, but I often feel a sense of despair at ever being viewed as a person of the highest sort of honor for myself.

As I was driving home from the house of my fellow member, a song played on the radio that I had never heard before. I found the melancholy and reflective lyrics, like the following, to be oddly representative of the sort of reflective mood I often have: “Fragile sound, / The world outside just watches as we crawl, / Crawl towards a life of fragile lines / And wasted time. / And so I cry / As I hold you for the last time in this life, / This life I tried so hard to give to you. / What would you have me do [4]?” Our lives, whether we like it or not, are lived before a great cloud of witnesses. At times the people around us buy some popcorn and watch the drama of our lives because it satisfies them to look down on those who are crawling through the muck. And while some of us live glorious lives of the mind, the realities of our day-to-day existence are extremely mundane, as one enjoys the company of friends, or the omnipresent company of too many books, longing to be read, just as we live our lives as texts longing for those who will take the time to get to know us beneath the surface. What would you have me do?

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/11/17/book-review-bronze-age-america/

[2] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/01/20/book-review-we-die-alone/

[3] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/the-synagogue-of-satan/