Christian Life 27 - On My Quotations

 I have been asked about my Scriptural quotations in this blog, or more specifically, the lack thereof.  It seems that my use of quotations from Lewis, Bach, Buddha, et al far exceed my quotations from the Bible, and some of my dear brothers and sisters find this to be disconcerting.  Allow me to explain.

The first thing to bear in mind, as I have pointed out in the past, is that I write this blog largely for myself.  Many of the ideas expressed here are thoughts that I'm attempting to work out in my own mind by putting them on paper (or a computer screen, in this case), and many more are ideas I've thought through over the course of many years, have found to be beneficial, and am attempting to pass along for the possible benefit of others, should they be so inclined.  The long and short of it is this - my musings on these pages are highly personal, and my various quotations - both Scriptural and extra-Scriptural - are those that I have at various points found to be illuminating.  I firmly believe that God speaks to everyone, not just the authors of Scripture.  Yes, the Bible is, in my opinion, the final authority on moral matters, but there are any number of sources from which wisdom might be gleaned.

Secondly, I have a memory from my childhood in the Southern Baptist church of pastors and deacons who were quick to insert Bible verses into every conversation, including chapter and verse numbers.  As a child, I always found this a little intimidating.  I was left with the impression that Really Serious Christians not only knew every single word of the Bible by heart, they even remembered all the little numbers that corresponded to those words.  I have since reasoned out that this idea is both impossible and stupid.  What these folks were actually studying was human intercourse.  They knew the kinds of questions they could expect to be asked in their professional capacities and had memorized a few dozen "general purpose" verses that could be easily slipped into any conversation, usually in the form of a question: "what does the Bible say about that? (pause for expectant stare) It says in Jeremiah 5:12..." Or perhaps they've simply developed a litany of adages onto which they attach book, chapter and verse numbers willy-nilly, assuming their interlocutors won't know the difference.  As for their motivation for doing either, I am forced to speculate, but I can imagine no reason save to illicit from those interlocutors the very sort of reaction I had as a child - an undefinable sense of intimidation and awe on my part and a corresponding assumption of extreme piety on their part.  As much trouble as I already have struggling with my own pride, I don't need to add layers that aren't already inside me, so I'm not going to do that.

In fact, let me make a confession, one I don't believe will come as too big a surprise to my gentle reader:  every single quote in this blog, Scriptural and otherwise, was looked up immediately prior to being typed.  I don't have the ability to instantaneously recall chapter and verse of every good quote I've ever heard, nor can I necessarily remember verbatim the exact verbiage of any given quote, even when I can call to mind the author.  Among the reference materials on the desk next to my keyboard is an exhaustive copy of Bartlett's.

Thirdly, you may find that I quote C.S. Lewis quite a lot, probably as much as or more than I quote the Bible.  Lewis was not an influence on my conversion as may be supposed; I have, in fact, only begun reading him extensively in the last few years.  Rather I find that his conversion experience quite nearly parallels my own.  He and I had used many of the same methods and same arguments of persuasion to come to our conclusions quite independently of one another.  As a professor of English Literature at Oxford (and later Cambridge), Lewis tends to word things much better than I do, so he gets quoted here quite a bit when my own words seem failing.

So, if you're left thinking that I haven't quoted the Bible enough, I regret that I have made that impression, but not the actions I've taken that made it.  Anyone so familiar with Scripture that they are able to make out this distinction will also be familiar enough to realize that everything I've said so far agrees with the teachings of Jesus, even when my chosen source material isn't the Gospels.  Frankly, it takes several hours to write one of these posts and usually several days to edit it. If I've written something without a citation, I probably just got tired of stopping and looking things up.  After all, I knew what I meant, and I suspect a member of this blog's target audience does, too.  And that is all I really wanted out of this.  I'm not trying to be a prophet or shaman or anything other than a fellow who's traveled far enough to learn one or two things.  If my notes make someone else's sojourn a bit lighter, then I will have done everything the Holy Spirit left me here to do.

Pax