heat, light, fire

I am a murder mystery junkie. I have loved mysteries since I was a child reading my way through the Carnegie Library adult section. When I discovered Agatha Christie my fate was sealed. Michael has often said he will die tripping over a plastic covered library mystery book. They never bore me and I am always intrigued by the many different locations, characters and methods of murder used by the clever authors. My favorite books are those set in geographical locations I know and love. Virginia Lanier wrote a series of books set in South Georgia with bloodhounds, and their owner, as the heroes of the books. I have been to many of the places she names, have friends who live there and the swamps she describes have indeed been the scene of many crimes. Western North Carolina mountains, New Mexico reservations, New Orleans, Chicago at the turn of the century, New York city in the early nineteen hundreds... I have time traveled to all these places and more as I read mysteries.
Reading mysteries taught me how to look for clues. As I read a mystery, I am not only following the development of plot and character, I am unconsciously scanning the text for the solution to the problem at hand. All good mystery writers know how to make the obvious disappear. The puzzle of a good whodunnit can entertain me, satisfy my bloodthirsty instincts without harm to any living being and has taught me a new way to read the Bible.
It didn’t take long at the seminary for me to discover I would never be a Greek or Hebrew scholar. If you want to read the Bible in its original languages you have to be willing to devote a great deal of time and have some skill in languages. You also have to want to do that. I didn’t and couldn’t. I marvel at those who read the ancient texts in their original languages. There is a texture and depth in the rich languages of the past that I will never know. One word can mean different things. Cultural meanings peculiar to the time in which the text was written elude me because of my limited knowledge. I have to use translations and commentaries to search out the particulars of a text. But I can know in part some of the meaning of the Bible by reading it as a mystery.
As a child spending the summers with my grandma in Virginia, I discovered the Apocrypha in her bookcase upstairs on lazy morning. Nobody ever told me that was a part of the Bible. Judith and Holofernes (now there is a bloodthirsty story for you) and other characters came to life for me as I read through this new piece of the Bible that summer. And it set me to wondering how many more pieces of the Bible have I not yet read. The Bible is a mysterious book full of mystery, puzzles to be put together and puzzles solved. Clues abound and as I read, I look for the truth disguised in story and poetry and song. Blaise Pascal, mathematician and philosopher, must have read the same book I do and found some clues, too. In the front of a mystery book I found this quote and it caught my soul’s eye. I have this taped to my computer now to remind me during Lent to whom I belong and for whom I am searching.

Heat
Light
Fire
God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob,
Not of philosophers and scholars.
Certainty, certainty, heartfelt joy, peace,
God of Jesus Christ,
God of Jesus Christ,
My God and Your God...
Blaise Pascal
November 23,1654
Found after his death
on a piece of parchment
sewn into his clothes