On the first day . . .

For years I have had people I love encourage me to read the b..b...b...bible. I have been vehemently opposed. Call it self-protection, call it blissful ignorance, call it a case of ostrich mania, I don't give a crap, I just wasn't interested. I think what I really started to cling to was the not knowing. My thinking was along the lines of, "If I don't know what it says, that crazy white man-God can't judge me." Or, "If all those neo-con, right-wing fundamentalists are right, then I'm fucked and I'd rather not know it!"

But I'll admit, there's always been a curiosity, some kind of yearning to know more. But I hesitate to say it was to connect with my christian self. I don't call myself a christian. Just as I don't call myself a meat eater, an Irish American, a recovering catholic, a writer, a closet-lover of Joaquin Phoenix, etc. I may be ALL of these labels, but I hesitate to stick any of them to myself. Sure there's a few labels I can't escape from: wife, mother, employee, alkie, Iowan, dumbass, etc. etc. But christian? Nope. There's too much other spiritual shit out there for me to keep to just one.

So, for many of the last few years, I've grown increasingly more interested in learning about other faiths and am trying, in my feeble attempts, to learn more. But I think it was a few weeks ago, when I first started The Litterbox and happened upon verses 10-12 in the 51st Psalm, that my mind opened that final bit. I loved the message of it and found it comforting, not off-putting:

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and put a new and right spirit within me.

Do not cast me away from your presence,

and do not take your holy spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation,

and sustain in me a willing spirit.

Now I've got a few b..b...b...bibles in my possession, none of which have I cracked. (Any self-respecting catholic, recovering from that scarring or not, will tell you, "We don't read the bible because we don't have to!") But I had a close friend recommend the Life Recovery Bible to give me a starting point. And to start with the Gospels. Now others have disagreed, stating I should jump right into the King James and at the beginning with Genesis. Whatever, I'll get there if I'm meant to. For now, I'm taking the lead from those I trust with my very life. Cheerio!