feature book review, part one of many

I am not your typical Bible reader (not that there is a definition of a typical Bible reader) and I will admit that I have never read the text as a whole. My readings have been limited to hopping around. I’ve read and studied books and chapters as they appear as allusions in other artworks. Nevertheless, my opinion is that it is one of the most enthralling manuscripts ever published. Here is where my inner and outer nerd thumps its little heart: it is quite possibly the product of the greatest (and shoddiest) editorial effort of all time. There are multiple authors, multiple editors, multiple translations, ghost writing, lost pieces, found pieces and canonization (i.e. a big whopper in history). It is an anthology at heart with indelible and honorable scratches, cuts, dings and bruises: marks of survival to modern day. If its stories and letters accomplish anything across religious lines and levels of devotion, they are undoubtedly the calling to action of a person in flawed world, then and now. I found this anecdote to be intimately appropriate for my head space and life space, playing third-world world activist for now...with the notion of possibly becoming a lawyer one day (from my boy Isaiah, 58):

⁶ Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?

⁷ Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

⁸ Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.

⁹ Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
"If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,

¹⁰ and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.

¹¹ The Lord will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.

Very good stuff for my current sun-scorched home, right?

I cannot express sufficient gratitude for the support and encouragement I have received from so many of you and from so many unexpected places as I turn one big step across the ocean into many small steps towards a special kind of justice here in Nakuru.

The only wealth is to be thankful...

tnick