I am a discerning eater. That’s what I call myself. Others call me picky.

Nancy and I were at a retreat house, disconnecting from technology, from schedules, from other responsibilities. Walking into the library on the first night was a gift. There were books that I knew but hadn’t read. There were books unknown to me by authors I know well. I will, I thought, enjoy this.

Then someone talked about the meals, prepared and served at noon each day to the twelve of us by a professional chef. Others were delighted. I was scared.

I knew that I was going to be confronted by meals of wonderful food, fixed perfectly, inconsistent with my ‘values’ as a discerning eater. I knew he’d fix stuff that I don’t like.

“I’ll bet,” I thought, “he’ll fix salmon.”

I don’t eat fish. I don’t really like fish. The smell, the texture, the taste, the bones. I don’t like fish.

Nancy wasn’t concerned. She has cooked around my fears for years. It has meant that she hasn’t eaten all she would like to eat. She was, I think, looking forward to whatever would be fixed.

For our first meal together, we sat the long table, set with two forks and two spoons. The salad was perfect. The plates were carried in. As Nancy was served first, across the table from me, I recognized the salmon.

There was wild rice, corn, and salmon.

Not just any salmon, mind you. It was chipotle/apricot glazed salmon.

It was perfect.

I was thinking, as I was looking forward to the meal, about how many times Jesus uses an image of a feast to describe time with him. It would be possible to say, “I don’t like what he is serving” and to stay away.

And miss the feast.

When I was in junior high, I made a big deal about being able to understand the King James Version.  I remember my adolescent pride in being able to understand the 1611-flavoured language. Know that the Living Bible was a paraphrase rather than a translation. And, more recently, being annoyed at all the editions of the Bible that are released. (Editions take a translation and add notes and stories and pictures and large print and maps).

And then I stopped arguing so much. I started reading the Williams translation I found on my Dad’s shelf. And I finally started reading the Living Bible.

There are lots of translations of the Bible. Some into languages, some into cultures. It’s easy to say that we need to go back to something. Back to the King James. Back to the Greek and Hebrew. Back to the tablets.

But those arguments are almost always about the text as an object. They are almost never about what to do with the text as a message. If I can raise questions about which translation you use, then I don’t have to think about what to do with what the words say. If I can spend time learning about translations, then I don’t have to actually learn the stories.

I confess:  I am a better scholar/critic of Bibles than a Bible learner.

When the translation of the Bible you use is someone’s litmus test for whether you truly believe, then we’re on our way to wasting words. Pick a translation. Read. Wrestle. Consider your actions in light of the broad sweep of the story of the Bible. Talk with your friends about whether you understand it as well as you think you do. Look at other translations as lens rather than hammers.

It will do thee good.

–

2011 is the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible.

I’m curious. I wrote a survey about Bibles. Would you fill it out?

I’m flipping through my Moleskine. I’m finding sentences and paragraphs that have the potential for posts but haven’t found 300 words yet. I’ll let you fill in the words.

• The good news of Easter is that it is more like the 4th of July than Groundhog Day.
• If we want to fill every nook, every cranny, we have to be, I have to be, intentional.
• Early Sunday morning, the convertible drove into the sunrise. It was one of the first mornings warm enough to drive with the top down. He looked like a guy in a commercial – independent, a loner. But I realized that he wasn’t alone. I was watching. Just like in all the commercials and movies that create the image of the loner  there are cameras and audiences. Without an audience a loner is just lonely. Even loners need community.
• I’ve often heard a chair used as a metaphor for faith: “You know how you trust a chair? You have to actually sit in it. You depend on the legs to work, the glue to hold. There is faith involved. That’s what faith in God is. You have to let go, sit down.” I’m starting to detest that metaphor. The way I trust my friends is different than the way I trust chairs. In my trust for a friend, I can go to very scary places, I can be rescued from scary places, I have have delight in the interaction. In a chair, I sit. A chair is predictable. Trust isn’t. And that’s a good thing.
• I watched a webfomercial for 45 minutes. It was about the coming economic apocalypse. The presenter kept saying that he would tell us what to do. Finally, it was clear. We should buy his book. That would solve his apocalypse. I wasted that 45 minutes.

If you think you had a hectic weekend, imagine Peter’s.

Supper.

Denial. Despair. Darkness. Death.

Silence. Summons. Sprint.

Wander. Wonder.

OMG (Ghost).

OMG (God).