May I quote you on that?

Well, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, as they say. Look out, y’all. Valerie can now enter new discussions armed with newfound knowledge. I recently felt compelled to join the larger reader community of The Arizona Republic. See my letter (click  Saturday, Nov 1).

Maybe because I’ve spent the last couple of decades teaching high school students how to cite sources, maybe because I am watching a presidential campaign that daily spews inaccuracies, maybe because I am a seeker of truth (hence my biblical study), but I simply cringe when sources are lifted out of context or misquoted or built so heavily on interpretation to promote one’s own agenda. We use this one religious document to establish public policy, invade individuals’ privacy, and “nation build” outside our own borders. Do we look to messages in the Bible to merely HELP guide our current laws or mores, or do some set out to find any Biblical phrasing to assert their pre-set viewpoints?

If the Bible is supposed to be a virtual living, breathing document for today, then we must be living, breathing members of today’s society in our interpretations of it.

On another note, again my circles intersect. On Friday, I had the pleasure of visiting with a most remarkable lady. Helen Handler is a Holocaust survivor who has generously visited my classroom in the past to share her experience in Auschwitz as part of our study of Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night. Now that I am retired and have handed my course to another, I volunteered to chauffeur Helen to class this semester (well worth the 160 mile round trip for me). 

She is a beautiful soul who speaks to students on messages of hope and peace, never vengeance or hatred. She points out that the Jews who survived Nazi Germany put not a gun in their children’s hands, but a book. Education was the key to further their survival. She implores young people to cherish their lives, to live fully, to not waste one minute.

When I told her of my journey into the Bible, we had a spirited conversation about early Jewish history. What’s more, she generously lent me what is, according to her, the essential translation of the Bible with Hebrew and English side by side. Hebrew reads right to left. So one begins at the back of the book and moves backwards.

Helen attributes her survival of death camps to her faith in God.  At the close of each day she would ask Him for one more. Then she committed herself to not waste each one He gave her. For years she has devoted herself to the work of “good word” in bringing messages of understanding and peace to groups everywhere.

Confession #36: I waste a lot of moments in my life. I hope I reach my last day knowing I didn’t waste my life itself.