On Bible Readings

I have to say this is the only time I will comment on Bible literature.

There is something so beautiful about them, on how just plainly reading them out of context of the history of the people that lived that day, the culture from which the people lived their lives, the importance and precedence they put on every event, detail, and even meanings they put on simple everyday things, and most especially, the language with which they wrote these passages, can utterly lead someone to either the wrong meaning or a superficial understanding of the idea, the event, the importance, and the beauty of the passage.

Yesterday, as I was listening to the priest explaining in his homily each detail, each meaning of each element in the story, I felt my heart move. Move not only with the message that the passage relayed --"a woman unloved, unwanted, meets Christ on the place where lovers usually met, and he tells her, I love you, even if you are a sinner, even if you are from a race that people considered dirty. I will give you life, for you have searched for it in various places and never found it." -- but also with how all these elements come together to form such a simple tale and yet be so rich.

I guess it is because the people who have written these passages have a vast knowledge and understanding of their culture, other than being inspired by the holy spirit. This is their life, their history, and though it sounds too emotional, it is the emotional attachment that we put in everyday life that makes writing it interesting and that makes these scribbles more than scribbles, but a story, a poem, a part of literature.

So I have come to realize that probably one of the reasons I cannot take my pen to write, is because I have lost that, the emotional connection with everyday, the understanding of my own culture, the meaning put in every object to make a metaphor, a metonymy. And so is born a new fire for literary enrichment.