The Book of Otter: Libri Stellarum, Part 2
Saturday, July 17, 2010 at 4:00AM | by Otter 
Consider too the humility of the proudest scientist, who has said from the moment that he read Francis Bacon or thought Aristotle’s thoughts after him that the truth will prove itself perhaps over his own dead body, and that this would be a good thing.
Greater love hath no man than that he should lay down his ego for the truth. He serves his friends and enemies alike.
It is not so with scriptures. In them you have memories, not facts. You have stories of such surpassing beauty and power that you will be tempted, like the wise literary thief, to read them like an undiscovered country and to set your flag on the first high knoll you come to, and to infect the natives with your strange diseases and your wonder and the weapons of your rightness.
When you read your scriptures therefore, beware the devil-your-ego, for he is starving and shriveled, but wants the world to worship as he does so that all might bow the knee to him.
It is like when you stare at a bright light for a long time. You sit reading in the sun and you walk inside and are blind.
If you have been reading long and carefully, you are not fit to talk to others for a long time. Let your words be slow, furl your flag for a time, and only shyly unfurl it again, like one who is about to die and does a task half-forgetfully.
And when the natives come to you, do not tell them you have come in peace, but instead make some soup, and lay it on the ground, and motion in signs to them to come and take it, and back away from it, and give them your birthright as well, and walk away, hardly daring to breathe.
Only by reading like this can we be saved from the scriptures.
Reader Comments (2)
This makes me wish I were teaching biblical studies again so I could hand this out on the first day of class.
[every bible thumper is] mad, 'tis true, 'tis true 'tis pity,
And pity 'tis 'tis true--a foolish figure.