Conversations with God 1

I do not claim to be a Biblical scholar.

My conversations with God tend to rather one-way–my trying to figure out what would be the right thing for me to do, and, frankly, too often making the wrong choice.

I have read the Bible through a few times–not the King James Version (but, then again, God did not spake in Elizabethan English), but, rather, the Jerusalem Bible, which, as far as I am concerned, is the only modern translation to combine facility of language with poetry worthy of the KJV).

Thanks to my Baptist upbringing, I do know the scriptures pretty well. That doesn’t mean I understand them.

There’s the old joke about the pastor who was asked what he thought of his wife. “Well,” he said, “she’s sort of like the King James Bible.” He paused. “She’s beautiful, but I don’t always understand her.”

As I recall, the Bible recognizes that God spoke directly to three persons: Moses, Elijah, and Jesus.

It is noteworthy that the number of white right-wing Christianist clerics who claim that God spoke directly to them within the past five years rivals the number of persons that the Bible reports God spoke directly with in two thousand years of biblical Old Testament history.

Such as Pat Robertson. Or was that Oral Roberts? Or Ted Haggard?

It must be good to be a white right-wing Republican “Christian” and to know that God is on your side.

That way, you do not have to worry about trying to be on God’s side.