There is a well-known expression that you might even have used yourself, when you wanted to provide a judgment on someone's failure to get the "big picture." It can happen that someone (all of us qualify) becomes so enmeshed in all the details of something - something they are studying, or that they are trying to tell someone about - that they fail to grasp the actual meaning and significance of the topic at hand.
I am betting that you have heard the following expression, and may even have used it yourself: "Can't see the wood for the trees."
Sister Penelope, CSMV, who is pictured above, wrote a book called The Wood:
This being Easter, perhaps the most important "Christian" holiday, it seems like a good day to introduce you to Sister Penelope's book, originally published in 1935. The book appears to be out of print, currently, but Amazon is willing to sell you a used copy, and so is AbeBooks - at least that's true as of the time I am writing out this blog posting. Good libraries may well have a copy, too.
Having quite recently read the book, I must say that if you would like a "big picture" statement about the Bible (both Old and New Testaments), Sister Penelope does a great job helping you to see "The Wood," and to avoid the potential bafflement that the Bible may engender, when read straight through on its own, with all of those Kings, Prophets, and other characters, both divine and all-too-human!
I went to theological seminary (just for a year, I confess, but nonetheless), and I don't remember coming across a better explication of Christianity and the Bible.
Anyone "Rounding Third," and many of my friends and I are doing just that, might like to give at least one last look at the Bible, trying to see "the wood," and not get too distracted by "the trees."
Recommended!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for your comment!