The Word of the Lord

I remember the first time the idea really dawned on me. I was lied up in a hole of a room in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. “Hole of a room” isn’t descriptive enough. The room had a springy mattress full of mites, covered with a dingy floral patterned comforter. I slept in my sleeping bag. The walls were bare, stained yellow and brown from water leaks, and the pain was chipping onto the creaky floor boards through which I often heard mice scurrying. Outside the solitary window in the door leading out to the back lot, the sky remained grey for the full week I was there, and I’m sure this played into much of the gloom I felt in those days.

In those days I did a lot of peering, outside and inside. Under those dingy covers I flipped pages of a book that to me seemed to be much more than a book. I followed the Brothers Karamazov from the depths of sin to the heights of sanctity in pursuit of Truth and Redemption…in pursuit of God. I wept with them, I laughed with them, I learned from them and with them.

The day before I packed up and headed to northern Ethiopia, where they say the Arc of the Covenant lays hidden in the small town of Axum, I finished my journey with the Brothers and their illustrious storyteller, Dostoevsky. Upon finishing the last page I closed the book and whispered, “The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.”

In mass on Sundays there are 3 readings from the Bible. Exempting Easter Season, those three readings are broken down as such: 1) An Old Testament reading 2) A new Testament reading 3) A Gospel Reading. Upon finishing the first two readings, the lector says, “the Word of the Lord,” to which the congregation responds, “Thanks be to God.”

Now some, my mother included, may call me a blasphemer for suggesting that The Brothers Karamazov, a story told by a womanizing drunkard, who by all accounts was brash, anti-social and repulsive by most standards, is equivalent to readings from the Bible. Fortunately for me, I do not fear being called a blasphemer, though true blasphemy is something I should hope to avoid.

In reading The Brothers Karamazov I came to really question what the “Word of the Lord” really was, and in questioning that, I was also forced to question what “The Lord” was. So what is the Lord?

I will not attempt to define God here, because to do so might truly be blasphemy, and because I would be lying to say that I know what God is, when in fact, I have but the slightest inkling as to what God is, and I’m sure something may come to sweep my inkling away.

What I do know is this: The journey towards Truths is a journey towards God, and the Word of the Lord must be something that carries me towards that Truth. So what is Truth? Or, better asked, how do I know if something is leading me towards the Truth?

The Truth is out there, everywhere, around us, and within us, but we don’t see it….why? We don’t see it because it is veiled, by who? by all of us, by our insecurities and our fears. In this context, I believe that the Word of the Lord must be anything that helps to unveil Truth, and so to limit that power to the Bible would be folly and in my opinion blasphemous for it goes to ignore all the other channels through which divinity is constantly speaking to us. Indeed it goes to ignore the fact that we all have the Word of the Lord and the capability to speak It within us.

These are threatening ideas to some, but I believe they can be liberating ideas for all. They are ideas that I have seen further echoed this year as I’ve studied Education, and on which I hope to expound in the coming months.

Today I finished quite possibly the most challenging book I’ve ever read—Walden, by Henry David Thoreau. Upon finishing the book, I felt much the same way I felt 4 years ago in Ethiopia. I closed it, and set it on my floor, ironically, next to my Bible.

“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”—page. 359 Walden, Henry David Thoreau