My Paper

‘Lifting of the Veil’
‘Good Book’ by David Plotz says ‘you don’t have to believe in the Bible, as long as you are willing to debate about it’ (304). Belief in the Bible has never been a strong suit of mine; rather, I have been spending much of my life avoiding the Bible and its contents because of specific occasions during childhood where Biblical tradition was thrown in my face and made me loathe the idea. The apocalypse, for example; I have been hearing about it since I was very young. In the Christian tradition, the word apocalypse refers to the Book of Revelations, the last book of the Bible. Every time I hear the word 'apocalypse', I used to think 'violent end of the world', like God is going to come down on horses of death, causing the sky to rain fire and the earth to start burning from the inside out. Very specific details about the Bible were engrained in my memory, especially the ‘rules’ and what was going to happen to my soul as the sinner I was undoubtedly going to be become. Missing for me were the stories, the lessons, and the depiction of love, family, and unity. Before this class, I had little want to explore the Bible any further and would often engage in debate about the topic when I really had never actually read the contents of the Bible for myself. I would like to say now I have come away with a greater form of enlightenment or very specific connections between the pieces of literature we have read, but I cannot. I can say I have come away with a new-found respect for the contents of the Bible, a more accurate definition for its contents, and a greater willingness to debate on the subject now that I have a foundation the arguments can stem from.
Three separate but interconnected experiences led me down my path of solitude separate from the Bible or anything concerning its contents. Each experience was at the hands of a woman called Donna, a family acquaintance and mother of my best childhood pal. She had moved with her family from ‘the big city’ to experience a simpler life in a quiet mountain town. She brought her family and their energy, but also strong Christian convictions that stood prevalent over everything the family participated in. Like many characters depicted in the Bible, Donna’s life and everything in her being was devoted to God. Lines from scripture littered their house, especially the line from Joshua; ‘As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord’ (24:14, 15). She was a formidable character to begin with.
The First: Donna’s middle daughter and I became fast friends and spent every waking hour together. I would usually opt for staying at their place because her parents bought all the good junk food and soda that my mother often refused to buy. We were constantly busy with something stimulating; video games, four-wheelers, and trampolines among our favorites. One eventful afternoon, my friend had dozed off for a nap and I was left with Donna watching figure skating on television. The skaters looked like graceful dancers to me and soon nothing else existed in from of me but the television. The mother had always been good at making off color comments, but this afternoon she was especially rowdy, madly pointing out a specific male figure skater and telling me he just ‘had to be gay’. There was no doubt in her mind and I was able to shrug off her comments, but she kept going with gusto. Soon, Donna was asking me about my experience with homosexuality, if I knew what it was, and if I knew anyone in my life practicing the ‘sin’. Immediately, I revealed to the mother I had a few female first cousins on my father’s side who were homosexual and never saw anything wrong with it. Citing Leviticus 18:22, Donna explained to me that ‘you shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination’. Basically, my cousins were already condemned to hell and their souls would not even be saved because of their vicious lifestyle. I was left terrified and sad for my cousins, in tears, and ready for the Bible lesson to be finished for the day.
The Second: In a blog I mentioned that I made the decision when I was young to give up the virtuous life and become a Sunday school dropout to explore other options, like Nintendo and literature outside the realm of the Bible. My second experience with Donna proved to be a lesson about the apocalypse, which at that point in my life was a complete mystery to me. Donna was a firm believer in the Bible as a literal piece of documentation; its contents meant to be taken seriously and practiced daily. I think the woman should take a lesson from David Plotz or A.J. Jacobs and realize what a difficult and daunting task that really is. If Donna was living her life that way, her children were certainly going to be living their lives that way, and they talked to me every day about my lack of connection with the Church and the Bible and my doomed soul. Judgment day, to that family, was the day of the ‘apocalypse’, which they explained to me was the time when God would come sweeping down from the sky and scoop all the faithful Christians up and take them to Heaven. The nonbelievers, like me, would be forced to reside on the earth and endure rains of fire and terrible injustice before finally dying, leaving our souls to wander the earth forever, lost and without hope of ever reaching heaven.
I started to wonder why I would ever want to hang out with the family in the first place and subject myself to these horrible stories, but more often than not, I found myself wondering if what they were saying was really true. These people were supposed to be my second family, my home away from home, and they were telling me my parents were doing something wrong raising me without the word of God in my life and also telling me I was probably going to wander the ashen earth a lost and lonely soul. First, my sweet cousins were going to hell and now I was doomed to a fate worse than death. I started to resent them and also the words of the Bible, but I thought I would give myself on last attempt at understanding the Bible and its words.
The Third: Usually, when I'm afraid of something or do not agree with it, I start to study it so I know just what I am up against. I decided to go with the same woman’s daughters to church camp that year and get myself back into the life of the virtuous. I didn't want to be a sinner and I definitely did not want to end up one of the sorry souls left to wander the earth while everyone else was scooped up in God's arms of love and taken to Heaven. Church camp proved to be even more horrifying than spending time with the Mother. I had never been exposed to 'speaking in tongues', and what I thought was evening mass turned into a circus for me. Everyone around me started raising their hands to the sky while a girl in front of us started speaking complete gibberish and then fell backward when the pastor touched her forehead with his fingertips. The girl fell on the floor and started shaking and convulsing back and forth and everyone jumped to their feet, waving their hands form side to side. I was the only one to stay seated in the entire room and remained that way, absolutely horrified. One of our group counselors took me aside later that night and asked me if I wanted to give my heart over to the Lord. At this point, I was not sure. I wanted to secure a spot in Heaven away from the burning damned left on Earth, but I also did not want to be part of the possessed. I gave my heart over to the Lord that night and promptly called my own mother the next day to retrieve me from church camp. I have not been to another camp since and have basically avoided everything about the Bible until ‘Biblical Foundations of Literature’ made me get over my prejudice and really examine the Bible differently.
For much of my life I have ignored the word 'apocalypse' and the phrase 'coming of the Lord' because I just have not wanted to think about it. Honestly, I have ignored everything about it and often been involved in arguments I could not win because I thought I had the correct information about the Bible. I definitely should have dismissed my fears and done a bit more research on the subject. Now I know that 'apocalypse' does not mean 'violent end of the world'. Rather, it means to 'take away the veil', so see the world as it really is beyond our own realm of sight and perception. The apocalypse does not refer to the end of the world, but to the end of an age, and the contents of Revelations can be interpreted in many different ways. I learned the Bible is mostly full of stories about families and people going through the ‘day to day’ process just like everyone else. Sure, there are wild metaphors and some pretty heavy material in the Bible, but it’s not all bad. I still do not and will never agree with Leviticus 18:22, but that is my own personal interpretation of the Bible and its contents.
Like Plotz, I know that ‘the Bible has brought me no closer to God, if God means either belief in a deity acting in the world, or an experience of the transcendent. But perhaps I’m closer to God in the sense that the Bible has put me on high alert’ (304). I never expected to become closer to God throughout the class, but I know now that the class has made a huge difference in the way I approach the Bible and my ability to view the Book as a collection of stories rather than a guideline for my life. If anything, I have gained respect for the Book I never thought I could gain and a foundation for debate on the subject should it ever arise again, and I am more than certain it will. Wonderful pieces of literature have been thrown my way this semester and I have been thankful for the opportunity to read all of them, but rather than talk about a discovery I made about the books, I wanted to talk about a discovery I made within myself. I hope I will be able to carry it forward as my life and education progress.