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He came running into the church, grabbed my arm, pulled me outside, took me around the side of the building, opened his Bible and began to read. He was Mike. He was my friend who was one of those bizarre mixtures of annoying and amusing.
Now, Mike reading the Bible had absolutely no theological motivation at all–I knew that Mike must have found something questionable. And I was right.
Mike had discovered that the Bible contained the word “pisseth.” Even funnier to him was the fact that the Bible suggested that it was really dumb to “piss against the wall.” Splash-back, I assume. He was laughing uncontrollably as he shared the passage.
That was Mike. If any sentence spoken aloud offered a double entendre, Mike would find it. Mike loved to giggle at words. Mike loved to take normally somber situations and turn them into a comedy club because someone said something that could be interpreted another way. You can imagine what he was like during sex education class in high school. He giggled so loudly that he had to be escorted out of the room by two teachers.
I thought Mike was just going to be an immature guy I met during the process of growing up, and that when I finally became an adult, all the “Mikes” of the world would turn into–well, Michael. You know. Maturity.
But it’s not so.
I am going to make a bold statement: Every book ever written, including the Bible, the Qur’an (the Koran), the Book of Mormon and any number of presumably spiritual volumes, is full of statements that can be taken many ways–and are even occasionally embarrassing.
For instance, I tighten up with discomfort when the Epistle of Timothy is read and Paul suggests that women are supposed to be subject to men because they were the ones who fell to Satan in Eden and are responsible for the decline of humankind. Yet you and I both know there are “Mikes” walking around who pronounce this erroneous idea to be as just as holy doctrine as “love your neighbor as yourself.”
There are millions of Muslims who believe the better parts of the Qur’an and ignore the portions that are out-dated and without practical use. But there are those “Mikes” even in the Arab world who find words to justify hate, bigotry and murder.
And God knows, there are folks who read the Constitution of the United States and discover all the phrases that support their particular form of backwardness, extolling them as noble gestures instead of passed-over practices. The Constitution does tell us we have the right to bear arms, but at no time does it tell us we have the need. The Constitution informs us that we have the opportunity to pursue our own happiness, but it also warns that we have a greater requirement–to chase down the common good.
I guess you and I will have to deal with all those people and organizations who “got the Mike.” For as long as people laugh about “pisseth” being in the Bible, there will have to be someone who comes along who finds the truly important meanings and brings them to the forefront, while warning us all that anything that’s been touched by human hands–even if we think it’s divinely inspired–smells of “people.”
My choice? I choose to believe in what is still human-friendly, scientifically confirmed and God blessed.
So women–relax. Just like both sexes worked together to fall from grace in Eden, if we work together now, we just might be able to plant a new garden.
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