my Bible, not yours... a rose is a rose is a rose

I wonder if anyone keeps a family Bible anymore? Michael’s dad gave us an old family Bible and carefully recorded in it are the births, deaths and marriages of a family I never knew. The lettering is carefully done and precise. A family’s history is recorded in the pages of that ornately bound large leather covered Bible. When Michael’s mother died, her Living Bible was full of underlined favorite passages, margin notes, newspaper clippings and handwritten notes. She read that book, loved it, studied it, and her life was recorded in its pages. When I look through her Bible, I can see her sweet, simple faith reflected in the words she left behind.
Baptist children were taught to bring their Bible to church. You marked it off on your eight point record keeping system along with contacts and offering. You used your Bible in Sunday School and worship. The minister asked you to get out your Bible to read along as the Scripture was read aloud. I wore two Bibles out by the time I graduated from high school. As an adult I had a red leather covered Revised Standard Version with my name stamped in gold on the front. This Bible is neat and tidy... no pages for family entries... no margin notes... no poems or clippings inserted in the pages. I used to carry my Bible to church faithfully... underline the text, take notes if some phrase or idea caught my ear. Somewhere along the way, I lost the habit. I want to change that.
When I die, I want my Bible to be chock full of my life... full of little pictures, notes, underlined passages, scribblings in the margins, a love letter left behind for those whom I love. After all, the Bible is essentially a love letter to us from God. In it we find the assurance of our worth as children of God, the loving words of Jesus who could see underneath the leprosy and blindness and social restrictions of his time, the promise of a full abundant life now and after death. Our faith family tree is listed in those pages, the names of our ancestors who told the stories and wrote them down. Margin notes and underlined passages in that ancient book reveal how much we were loved before we came into being.
If I am serious about being a Christ follower, I must be more intentional about reading the Bible. If I can read the newspaper once a day, read the online news, read delicious murder mysteries, read Anne Lamott and Wendell Berry and Henri Nowuen, I can read my Bible. I will read the New Testament again this summer. I will carry my Bible to church and use it while I am there. I will mark up the pages, take notes, underline and highlight passages, save an occasional church bulletin, store my spiritual life in the Book that continues to inform, inspire, challenge and change me.
My theme song for the summer..."The B-I-B-L-E, yes that’s the Book for me. I stand alone on the Word of God, the B-I-B-L-E".