Ivy and Dead Trees

What is paper but thin slices of dead tree? Pages cannot breath in carbon dioxide, exhaling oxygen straight into our thirsty lungs. The Bible, as a book, is a collection of slender, two dimensional, pieces of lifeless, breathless limbs. Reverberating in the halls of the hearts of our generation is the desire to see life and for many, that life is only seen in the action of social justice.

Many before and after this writer have noted that today, Christianity is for the most part, a dead religion studied by professional students known as pastors. A sweet drink it is to swallow down the satisfaction of understanding something intellectually. On Sunday nights, when we gather to eat a meal and read the Bible, its easy for our group to slip into a conversation about the pages. What is the context, why is it relevant, where did it take place, who is the writer. Of course many of these questions can serve the purpose of furthering the expedition, but for the most part, they are just a tasty liqueur.

On the ivy covered gates of the ivory towers and the tinted glass windows of church offices, many sit and discuss series titles, sermon ideas. For the restless and curious, these things force withdrawl and a matriculation into the ranks of spiritual ambivelance and social activity. Tragically, we find ourselves quickly seeing the benevolence of seeking justice and are unable to reconcile God's word as alive and active in the same way, because its presented as a text, which a man has interpreted and expects you to absorb from a church sponsored syllabus.

So a proposal to both parties...

To the skeptic: Jesus said the burden of being with him is easy and light. Seek justice like Jesus did, but seek him too, because he is there and he is alive.

To the pastor: Stop talking about the Bible like a simple text. Of course your intellect is born out of reverence towards the book itself, but its no longer percieved as living and active, created before words, when you treat it like a puzzle, a source for material, or something to spend more hours discussing in offices and classrooms than living and loving on the streets of the world.