Now, decades later, that relationship is no more. If relationships develop, how could it be? Both life and education have led me onward, and so everything is with me where I am, not where I was. How can it be other? And, as today in morning prayers, often the words of other books speak to me more than the words of Scripture. Often, I am overwhelmed by the fact that the Scripture simply reads to me like a book from the past. At times, I wonder if but little of it makes any difference in our world now. And I reflect on this, but not guiltily, as once, but freely and openly, as endowed with Grace with a freedom to inquire - again, unlike that past I spoke of, when no one was to question, and honest inquiry was termed heresy.

How can I resolve this tension between life and Scripture? I cannot, I have tried, and tried. Or, better, the resolution is acceptance that I cannot return to a previous relationship with the Bible, the church, or the Christian tradition, as I once knew it, anymore than two lovers can turn back the clock on their relationship to a less knowing time previous - even if that time were more happy. I cannot live the past, even if the past interrupts and informs the present.

And just what does it mean that the Bible is inspired? I, too, have struggled with this much. Now, I have to admit, finally, that Scripture is inspired - I write that with some unease. What does that, however, mean? I have heard this all my life, as a matter, apparently, of settled, final belief, but no one ever explains it or even tries. If this is so settled and final, why this avoidance?

And I sense biblical inspiration is, to most, more a tenet of belief, rather than something they have tried, even minimally, to come to terms with. And faith is more than belief. Whatever it means, I cannot return to a magical understanding of that. Whatever it means, it means this Scripture, like all Scriptures, like all writings and words and thoughts, and your life and my life and our life, is shaped by the realities of time and place, and intensity living in human heart, and that Scripture to be inspired has to be as fully human as anything other than human, as fully ordinary and earthy as otherwise esoteric and heavenly. For it to reflect integrity, at its highest meaning, entails Scripture itself must evoke agreement and disagreement. That many approach it otherwise is not an act of faith, even if of belief, but of unfaith.

This does not make Scriptures less inspired, but is the only way in which they can be inspired. - I have little patience, now, with anything that claims to be ungrounded from the polarities and, so, tensions of human life, in all its joyful transcendences and painful immanences. - The attempted escape into an inspired, inerrant Bible – as well as much faith generally - is another subtle effort of human pride to escape from life into the fairyland of a false, unrealistic faith. And, if faith is to mean anything, it must mean realistic, or it is of no use to humans who are actually trying to live together authentically, meaning really, and not as persons who feel they are too good and holy to live that way.

So, Scripture will mean what it means, or not, to me. Intimacy is not a static relationship, whether with thing or person. Some passages impress me deeply, others float by like debris on the current, and I can see or sense nothing for me to receive or not receive. I cannot create meaning or the intensity of meaning. I can only receive, but to receive means I may not receive anything.

I can allow meaning to be, and be with me – even in - me, without seeking to make anything mean anything, at all. I can be surprised at how meaning seems to have its own way, and that is not the way of my mind, or your mind – regardless of how we try to make it so, and, so, only deceive ourselves. I can realize that in some way I do not understand, for no one can understand, I can hold dearly to the Scripture of my childhood, now in a more mature way, knowing that in that I no longer share the same naïve closeness with it is not a matter of unfaith, but of maturing faith. I can know that this only parallels the changes over time, and my fidelity to change as an act of faith is essential to my integrity among others. This has to be enough for me, for this is. Whether this is enough for those who might wish to judge my fidelity, they can decide. This is the only way I know to live in devotion with Scripture, and to engage it, and let it engage me, Prayerfully.

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