The test of what we have read doesn’t come in an exam it comes in how we live
I could be relaxing too much as we move toward 12 months of writing. Today at lunchtime I asked myself, “What should I write?” I wrote without much thought, ‘Elijah and the widow.’
Some years ago I discovered Theosophy. It was the old curious mind leading me along another previously undiscovered paths. I decided to visit the nearest local group in Letchworth. I often have found myself in a place once and in that one visit, I will be impressed with something. There was a guy there who had followed Theosophy for years. He told me his wife had too until one day she decided she had read enough about it, it was time to go live it. That story has stayed with me. It presents a good question, “When should you stop reading about something and just live it?”
I think I am feeling that way. Since the age of 3, I have listened to stories from the Bible and from when I was able to read I have read it. I have read it through at least once. It could be the one thing I know most about! I am not saying I am a theologian. I don’t read Greek, Hebrew or Latin but I can read hearts! I am just saying that out of everything I know I reckon I know most about the Bible. If I found myself a survivor in a post-apocalypse age in which no books had survived what stories from the Bible would I remember? The point is after almost half a century of reading it what has penetrated my being and hid in my heart?
We learn a language and then we use it to communicate. The Bible is my more than my language it has shaped how I view the world. It influences every bit of me! Even if I didn’t want it to! But there is more it is only words it is the Spirit that gives it life and so it is those things hid in my heart that the spirit gave life.
Some of the stories can sound as fairy stories. Indeed some fairy stories are hidden in my heart as ‘all truth is truth’. If something is true no matter what the source it is can be of benefit, is there any other point to truth?
So tonight the story of the prophet Elijah and a widow come to mind. There had been no rain and once again there is a famine. Elijah is hungry and God says to him a widow will provide him with food. He comes across a widow who he asks for some bread. She replies that she has only enough flour and oil to cook her and her son a meal before they die. Elijah says that if she makes him some bread she will not run out of oil or flour. What would you or I do? The widow decides to take the risk of believing him or maybe she just decides to be generous. Whatever her motive she feeds him and true to his word her pot never runs dry.
Now, why does that story stay with me? It stays with me because it tells me that even in the most difficult circumstances a miracle can happen. It tells me also that the miracle happens when someone stretches their faith or acts contrary to what would be rational.
My mind returns once again to that irrational hitchhiking trip through Europe. I got to Switzerland though couldn’t get a lift from Basel to Berne. In France, it was easy to get lifts not so across the border in Switzerland. I stood all day with my sign. The only thing that came along was a Polish bloke who had hitched hiked from Poland. This was 1990 so the Iron curtain had only recently fallen. I decided that I would buy train tickets for him and me to get us to Bern. During the trip, he opened his bag and took out Salami sandwiches. I had never tasted Salami before. He offered me half his sandwiches. You know I can still taste those Salami sandwiches in my mouth 27 years on. I gave and I received.
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