Photo and Commentary ©2023 by Maylan Schurch
Sabbath, August 5, 2023
A little over a week ago Shelley and I travelled south to Portland to what is overwhelmingly the mecca for lovers of used books: Powell’s City of Books. This stupendous, multi-floor emporium actually occupies an entire city block.
The room you’re looking at is filled with fiction and poetry, and the staff had chosen several books among its contents to fill the above end-cap shelves with what they considered to be “life-changing literature.” Teaching English lit was my first career, and I nodded my head as I looked at the authors: George Orwell, Sylvia Plath, Victor Hugo, E. B. White, Virginia Woolf, James Baldwin, and so on. Each of these writers—and others I haven’t mentioned—cared deeply about what they wrote, and thus inspired their readers to care as well.
Speaking of life-changing literature (you knew where I was going with this, right?) the Holy Bible isn’t on these shelves, but it ought to be. Literally. To give just one example, there are several human language groups whose speakers first learned to read because sacrificial Bible students created alphabet languages, and then translated Scripture into the warm, familiar tones the people could understand.
What does the Bible have to say for itself? You’ll find some examples at the link just below: