My Relationship With Literature, Revised

I doubt anyone has seen as much energy as you would if you asked, “Can someone recite John 3:16?” to a room of eager-to-please Sunday school students. In any group of Baptist kids from the ages of 3 to 16, at least half would bark over each other, reciting, “For God so loved the world…” and so on. 

But, could any of them tell you what it means? Or, even more challenging, what it means to them personally? 

Being raised in a church, the Bible is the first Book I ever dated. And we’ve had a long, mixed, and beautiful relationship that’s changed my connection with all literature. Without Scripture, I doubt I’d be an English major at all. Starting at the age of 2, children are taught Bible stories in Sunday School. From Mt. Sinai to Job to Paul’s missionary journeys, the stories of the Bible begin to become familiar tales to small ears. However, at this point, they're just stories. At least, they were to me. 

They were stories I heard on a tape in my dad's Ford truck as we went to Smith's, or shows I watched at home while I picked up my toys. I had never opened a Bible yet, but I was on my way to thinking I knew it pretty well. My children’s Bible was my friend, just like my stuffed tiger that never spoke to me. 

Like most Baptist church kids, from the ages of 5 to 12, Bible memorization was the most important thing you could ever do. Want candy? Tell me three verses. Want to get the blue ribbon at the end of the year? Finish your Awana book. Fun fact: that's about 60 to 70 verses you memorize over the course of a year, many of which contain deep, meaningful thoughts about God, humanity, and the universe. Once, I recited an entire Awana book in 2 months. As a typical 10-year-old, I was not even thinking of the meaning of these verses or the life change their words included—only that shiny prize at the end. Every May for four years, I won ribbons and trophies for standing up and reciting Bible facts in front of audiences of proud adults during the annual Bible Quiz.

I tried to make those verses mean something, but it was just something to know. Genesis comes before Exodus and Isaiah's in the Old Testament rather than the New. It was as simple and dry as that. 

As a young teenager, I began to read Christian living books. The Bible was old-hat to me, even though I had yet to open one for more than 10 minutes. New books on faith were far more interesting. In them, I read that Jesus had changed people's lives, not just fed five thousand or had 12 disciples (and their names are...), but that he had actually altered people on a personal level.  

Jesus and His words in Scripture were more than just things I "knew" better than my fellow classmates. Scripture was something that people would die for, something that people would dig to the bottoms of the Earth to get a part of—because it was so dear to them. I learned that Scripture, like other works of literature I would come to find, was a match waiting to light fires inside of people. The Bible could be my dearest friend and my strongest ally if I would just let it speak to me instead of reciting over it.

Instead of just trying to inject knowledge into my brain, I had to let the words come to life and wrestle with my heart. I’m embarrassed that I ever thought I understood a Book that has altered the course of human history so drastically and contains windows into some of life’s most complex mysteries. 

After ignoring the magic of the Bible, I swore I’d never let words lose their magic. Never again would words enter my ears and eyes without climbing their way down into my heart and soul. Never again would I look to literature as a means to an end, something I crammed into my brain in order to get some prize or praise. I would never recite words without also carrying or dissecting their meaning.

And this creed, this promise to all of literature that I would never again be an apathetic friend who never actually listened, permanently changed how I interacted with everything. I’d fall in love with The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, carrying it with me into every class and letting my pen coat the pages in hearts and notes and intimate affections befitting a lover. I’d immerse myself in the galaxy of Douglas Adam’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, laughing at the stupidity and nonsense of everything along with him. I remember being in sophomore English class, reading a random poem in my textbook out of boredom, and feeling my soul link with this woman from another time who felt as empty, yet as peaceful, as I did. I’d hear lines in video games and ponder their complexity for hours. My prayers became echoes and alterations of Biblical phrases I’d once memorized and recited without regarding their meaning.

Every word, every piece of literature, every stirring work of prose or poetry that asked me to sit with it and let it move me was wrestled with and heard. I kept my promise, and I still do. 

Now an English major, it’s easy to let myself regress to my childish ways. It’s easy to recite the words of Shakespeare, Chaucer, or Marlowe in a paper, get the grade, and move on with my life. Once again, words could easily just become numbers: how many books I’ve read, how many lines I can quote, what grade I got on my analysis — but that’s not how I do things anymore. My Google Home can tell you how often I’d randomly start reading lines of Dr. Faustus, Much Ado About Nothing, or The Tempest, because I felt just scanning over them wasn’t enough. I wanted the words to move me- literally - as I’d often stand up, pacing my room as I emphatically read my assigned literature aloud. I’ve found I cite Shakespeare almost as often as Proverbs, Psalms, or Ecclesiastes when discussing how I feel about the universe and the meaning of life. And, as a freshman at UNLV, I know this is only the beginning. As someone who plans to devote her life to the magic of words, my honest prayer is that my soul will contain multitudes. That my heart, and not just my mind, will overflow with the wisdom, humor, and insight of as much literature as possible. 

As I continue my lifelong relationship with literature,  I’ve learned that that relationship has to go both ways.