In 1971, I was 14 years old; that is when the Bible started to tremble in my hands. Raised in a Baptist church in north Nashville, having “walked the aisle” six years earlier, my experience in and of church was much like anyone else’s. In ‘71, Apollo 15 landed on the moon, James Taylor released “Mud Slide Slim,” and Mount Etna erupted. But all these were insignificant compared to the fact that, in that same year, the Bible began to tremble for me.

Up until that time, it was motionless, lying on the desk beside my bed where occasionally I would scan a paragraph or two before falling asleep. Every Sunday I would carry it, unmoving and inert, under my arm to church. In Sunday school, there was “sword drill.” The leader would command, “Swords up!” as we prepared to race each other to find an obscure verse. My sword, so still and static, was never quite quick enough to win. Though, in obedience, I frequently opened its soft black leather cover, the Bible remained a close book for me. The words on the page remained words on the page. But all that was about to change.
I had heard my mother and her friends talk about “Mrs. Whittemore.” She was elderly and diminutive and blind. She taught the Bible in homes; in hers and several others. I cannot imagine what might have possessed my mother to invite me along, a restless 14-year-old in a room full of older women studying the Bible. What’s more, I have no idea what possessed me to go. But go I did and in that southern bungalow style house in Hillsboro Village, sitting on the floor in a room filled with housewives, listening to a four 1/2-foot handicapped woman… the Bible first trembled in my hands.

the Bible began to tremble for me … weiterlesen