Fill it With Treasure

I decided to take down my post about PJTV. I think it was a good Sabbath move, and besides, people like me, who pointed out PJM’s flaws, received a lot of abuse when it failed to succeed. As if criticism somehow prevented PJM from working. I don’t want to get involved in any more pointless squabbles.

I try not to stir up trouble these days. I try to avoid gossip and instigation.

It’s Sunday. Might as well write about religion.

My new thing is memorizing scripture. I used to do this a long time ago, but I quit. I started again. I think every Christian has a duty to do it. If you have to refer to the Bible every time you need guidance, you’re not very well prepared to face life. Much better to know the answers by heart. The Bible says the Holy Spirit will remind you of applicable passages when you need them.

I’m memorizing some Psalms. What a strange work. I think they got me in trouble a few times in the past. Looking at them, I concluded it was okay to pray for your enemies to be mashed from above. They do seem to condone that kind of prayer. On the other hand, somewhere in there, one of the psalmists says something about saying prayers for his enemies that he could just as easily have said for himself. And we all know what Jesus said about how we should treat our enemies. I now think it’s okay to pray for my enemies to face problems while they continue to do stupid, evil things to harm me. I couldn’t fault someone for praying prayers like that about me, if I were doing something reprehensible.

Another odd thing about the Psalms is their prophetic nature. A lot of the passages in the Psalms seem sort of pointless unless you look at them from your perspective as a believer. If I were an atheist–maybe even if I were Jewish–I would have a hard time making sense of some of the verses. But because I’m a Christian, they seem to confirm that what I believe is true.

For example, the 63rd Psalm. It begins, “Oh God, thou art my god.” Isn’t that an admission that there is idolatry in the world, and that you choose to reject it? Seems like it to me. You could always pick another “god.”

Then it says, “Early will I seek thee. My soul thirsteth for thee; my flesh longeth for thee, in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is. To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.”

Here’s how I see this. The world was given to man to run, and we chose to give up authority. So now it’s a place where the presence of God, which should be with us much of the time, is tough to enter into. The world is a dry and thirsty place, especially when you don’t live right. But from time to time, God manifests Himself. Once you’ve experienced it, you long for it to happen again.

I’m not completely sure what the sanctuary is, but my guess is that it refers to the area in the temple or tabernacle where the ark of the covenant stood. It was a place where the high priest encountered God very directly, perceiving Him with his senses and not just by faith. Let’s see…Google seems to confirm this.

A while back, I wrote about a couple of experiences I had, in which I felt a warm, loving presence in physical contact with me. At the time, I felt certain what I felt was the presence of Jesus. Now that these experiences are behind me, I feel the way the psalmist did. “Thirst” is a good way to describe it. I miss the sensation. I wish it would return. Maybe I’m wrong, but I suspect that what I miss is the same thing a person who had been in the sanctuary would miss. I don’t think I got the same experience the high priests received; I think I just got a piece of it. Nonetheless, it was enough to make me want more. You would have to be crazy not to want to be near a being that radiated peace and love and assurance the way a wood stove radiates heat. The psalm says “thy lovingkindness is better than life.” I have to wonder if that’s a reference to the sensation of being in God’s presence.

The rest of the psalm is also consistent with the experiences of modern Christians. “Thus will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name.” This act is so common, it appears to be instinctive. “My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips: When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches.” That kind of satisfaction is what you feel when God is near. And it’s funny how often these things happen when you’re lying awake in bed, as the psalm implies.

The experience of memorization–the repetition–helps you see new meaning in passages like these. It lifts them off the page and brings them to life. The most important property of great literature is resonance: we read books written by strangers, and from time to time, we realize we have felt things these strangers have felt. This is why people read great works of fiction; we see ourselves in them. We realize we are not unique in our experiences. The Bible has this same property, in a much deeper and more useful way. And memorization amplifies the sensation, making it more vivid and lasting.

I wish I had worked harder at this before my memory got so bad. But it still pays off.

I think having this stuff in my memory will improve me as a person. When you memorize scripture, no matter where you are, it’s always inside you, shaping your thoughts and acts.

I think the King James Version is best for this. It may not be the best translation, but as a piece of writing, it far exceeds anything else on the market. If there are problems with a few of the words, it won’t matter, because surely you’ll remember those problems, just as you remember the verses.