38. Steady Proverbs and Pop-Up Books
Today is 2 days from the first anniversary of Dad’s passing. I’ve committed to writing 40 stories about him as that day approaches. Forty Steady Stories.
I took 661 pictures/videos on Christmas Day last year. I have vivid memories of that entire day.
The next day, December 26th, I simply cannot remember what happened that day. I only took 3 pictures, and all three are of Ed autographing a sweatshirt for Anthony. And I don’t even remember doing that.
I don’t remember anything from that day except a couple of conversations we had with Anthony about taking Dad back to Charlotte for hospice care. Hospice had been involved for about the last year and half, but Anthony strongly felt like we needed to get back home for Dad’s sake.
I do know Dad was in bed and basically asleep the entire day. It made the previous day’s prayer time (yesterday’s post) even more amazing in terms of how alert he was. And I cannot help but think that he had taken to heart what we’d told him at the end of the time: that he’d run the race as well as he could, that we’d take care of Mom and each other, and that it was ok to let go.
So, I thought I’d take this evening to talk about Dad’s love for Scripture. Once he became a follower of Jesus in 1969, he loved to read the Bible. (Sidebar: It’s packed up in a box right now, but amazingly Dad’s story of his decision to follow Christ was a front-page article in the Charlotte Observer paper back then!) He even recorded himself reading the book of Proverbs aloud, and he kept that tape in his car to listen to while driving. I’d give anything to have that cassette tape now.
He memorized a lot of verses of Scripture and could quote it regularly. It was written on his heart and in his head. The inscription on the Bible Mom and Dad gave me on my birthday in 1984 is a great example. He cites four passages that I still use today and have memorized myself —except all of Proverbs 3!) He and Mom both passed on their love of Scripture, but I didn’t always feel the way I feel about it now.
“At one point, I said, “Well, Dad. Really the Bible is just a book with a bunch of words on a page.””
In fact, I distinctly remember a conversation about four years after I got the Bible above that rattled Dad. He, Ed, and I were in a stairwell of a hotel having a conversation about the Bible. At one point, I said, “Well, Dad. Really the Bible is just a book with a bunch of words on a page.” Dad got visibly upset that I’d said that. Not mad. Upset. I could tell it hurt him to hear me say that, but I was figuring out my own faith and that’s where I was in the process at the time.
Well, I’m not at that place anymore. :) Now, as many have heard me say, I have found the Bible to be a wonderful, intriguing pop-up book. I LOVED pop-up books as a kid (in fact, I still do!). The more complicated the better for my mechanical mind. I loved figuring out what would happen when levers were pulled or pushed or when pages were turned a certain way, or when dials were turned — and now I see the Bible that same way. I find that the more I explore and push and pull, the real meaning tends to “pop-up” and reveal itself. I love reading Scripture and making it come alive when talking with others about it. It drives me. It compels me. And my dad and my mom gave me that. They gave me room for doubt in the seasons I needed space, but they never wavered in their own commitments to Scripture — including reading it every night together.
A lot of people see the Bible as just a book with some stories. It’s actually even more simple than that: it’s the story of us. For me, it has become the foundation for how I understand God and how I understand myself in this mosaic-of-a-world we live in. It’s ok if you don’t agree with me on this, but I will ask one simple question: Have you actually read it?
My experience from thirty years of life and ministry is that most people who don’t trust or like what’s in the Bible have come to that conclusion without actually reading it. They’ve heard people — Christians and atheists alike — quote things out of context to prove a point, when the point of the whole thing is to reveal who God really is. To do that, sometimes you have to turn the pages and “pull some levers” and watch things pop-up. I by no means understand everything in the Book, but I sure do love asking and being asked honest questions.
The last thing my wife Emma and I do before we turn out the lights at night is read a Psalm out loud and pray.
Dad passed that torch to me by the way he lived and by the way he loved God through reading the Scriptures.
I don’t remember what happened on December 26, 2020. But I do remember that.
Thirty years after Dad wrote in the Bible pictured above, I had an opportunity to make a two-minute video for the YMCA Community Prayer Breakfast. We used the same passage Dad used in Ephesians 3. Here’s my friend, Estella, reading that passage. What a voice she has!!!
