“O God, thou art my God, I seek thee…”
Psalm 63:1
I am reading The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow The Bible as Literally as Possible. It has been on my shelf for a few months and I decided what better day, at least for a Christian to read, than on a Sunday.
Distractions in prayer: even Jacobs, an admitted agnostic, confesses that just because a prayer is beautiful, sometimes his mind wanders. After reading Psalm 63:1:
O, God, thou art my God, I seek thee,
my soul thirsts for thee,
my flesh faints for thee,
as in a dry and weary land where no water is.
he says this:
It is a beautiful prayer. It’s got two powerful metaphors at work: first, thirsting, for God, and second, loving God like a man loves his wife. And yet despite the prayer’s power, my mind wanders as I read it. ‘I have to charge my cell phone…We need more quarters for the laundry room.’
As one who underwent The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, I can relate — even now in my prayer life, I experience too many similar moments. As I’m reading this book this afternoon, I have two other blog entries besides this one I need to write…I should be cleaning my offfice…I should turn off the radio (listening to the NFL playoffs) so I can properly focus.
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“You shall not make for yourself a graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water beneath the earth.”
Exodus 20:4
During his musing on this Scripture, Jabobs confesses to liking avoiding images.
First, he says, it suits his job at the magazine, Esquire, where he works and “where images are taking over, and writers are a dying breed.”
Second, I think that there’s something to the idea that the divine dwells more easily in text than in images. Text allows for more abstract thought, more of a separation between you and the physical world, more room for you and God to meet in the middle. I find it hard enough to conceive of an infinite being. Imagine if these original scrolls came in the form of a graphic novel with pictures of the Lord? I’d never come close to communing with the divine.
I am reminded of William Blake who used graven images and text to illustrate God. Perhaps in Blake, Jacobs’ ideas on text and images fall apart because reading and seeing Blake, I still think the abstract thought is there. However, for the most part, I believe Jacobs is correct.
For example, when I am at Mass, I close my eyes during the Scripture readings to listen to the words, to not be distracted by the people sitting across from me (our church is a modern church, in the round). I sometimes start into the pebbles of the linoleum as if staring into stars of sky, and fade out and let the words seep into my being.
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During a second musing on stealing in the first 140 pages of this 332-page book (not counting notes and index), Jacobs relates about his father refusing “to pull over at any old Holiday Inn or McDonald’s to use the bathroom.” If something was bought, then it would be all right, they could then then steal the establishment’s soap and paper towels.
I don’t know if my father ever put that rule to paper. It was unwritten and unspoken, but was ingrained into me. In recent years, I have transgressed that rule after banning eating at McDonald’s. The way I look at it is that places like McDonald’s have stolen years of my life with their life.
Holiday Inn? It might could be argued that they have extended my life the times my wife and I have stayed there. After all, it was the first place we consummated our marriage. I might have a more difficult time pulling into a Holiday In and using their bathroom wantonly.
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A Shabbos well spent
Brings a week of content.
Like Jacobs, I agree with the sentiment, if not the grammar of this ditty used by one of his religious guides, Mr. Berkowitz, on his journey. Berkowitz is telling him how to prepare for the sabbath.
I am hoping this day of reading, most of the day away from the computer (not technology as I continue to listen to the Eagles/Vikings game in the background) will assist me in bringing a week of content.
Amen.
