If you read my first book, Using the Word, you might remember that I eventually developed a morning time with God built around moving four ribbons through the Bible: Psalms, OT, Epistles, Gospels. Every so often I’d mix in something different: one year I wrote the Psalms instead of reading them, one year I worked through Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises with a bunch of evangelicals, sometimes I read one (or two) of Barclay’s Daily Bible Studies on a particular book, which for a season, slowed down the forward movement of one of the ribbons.
This fall I again felt the need for a change. After reading the Psalms for the day, I turned to The Book of Jesus; A Treasury of the Greatest Stories and Writings About Christ, edited by Calvin Miller. Divided into ten sections, the book has twenty to forty short readings by different people in each section. The line-up of authors includes priests, poets, philosophers, professors, pastors, prisoners, playwrights, journalists, novelists, nuns, doctors, teachers, musicians, missionaries, mathematicians, apologists . . . a whole host of folk traversing time as well as denominational, professional and national boundaries.
While reading, I think about how the word, Jesus, is incarnate also in us. This fine compendium of writings, a jewel of many facets, fractures the light of Christ into rainbows of light that dance around the living room of my heart. How lovely to taste different people, in different times — all beholding the majesty and miracle of God-with-us.
In September I started reading the book at the beginning, but then I skipped over the second section, Jesus: His Birth, thinking it would be more fun to read around Christmas. It is.
May the incarnate word, shine forth from the stable of your heart
May you behold His meekness and majesty
May we rejoice together in Him.
Blessings,
Alliee +