Adventures in Bestsellers

So here is my poor abandoned blog. It had been limping along for a while, but over the past few months I simply haven't been able to do anything with any regularity. Apart from showing up at work at the appointed dates and times, nothing else has flowed according to any pre-determined nod to commitment.

That said, it was foolish of me to undertake (again) this whole Read the Bible in a Year project. Since December 1st, some website developed by my alleged brothers in Christ have been mercilessly pelting me with portions of the King James Bible. Such small excerpts, and yet they build up in a mountainous fashion. It seems that a work divinely inspired just can't be read by a secular spirit. Never have I read such a monumental bestseller that is so monumentally dull. (And it is from the perspective of reading a bestseller that I've approached reading the Bible.) What seems so marvelous in the abstract (what lesbian could resist falling in love with Ruth? what moralist could fail to be troubled by Solomon's loss of faith?) is downright uncompelling in actuality.

Here at Day 18, I've skimmed my way past Job (very artfully written but it does carry on past its due date...) and am now back in the thick of Genesis. The names of Sarah and Abraham woefully recall rumor--it's like I remember hearing the names and adventures, but I just can't tell you what exactly it is that I heard...other than that they lived a long time and that Abraham tried to pass his wife off as his sister, which is pretty messed. See?! That is the good stuff of gossip, and yet in reality it plays out so dully. It is my sincere belief that the Bible could benefit from a graphic novel treatment, and I'm not talking about Zondervan's or those freaky comics that the Jehovah's Witnesses give out. I want to see Allison Bechdel do the Bible with pithy references to The Great Gatsby and ironic allusions to "Star Wars," etc., etc.

I wish I could admit defeat now with the Bible in Year project and just cancel my subscription. I'm worried about offending my brothers in Christ though, if I refuse their kind offering of daily slices of a book that answers all of the questions that I don't have. Into the archived section of my Gmail it goes. I suppose that's why Gmail offers over 7531.33506 megabytes (and counting) of free storage.