Beginning

Beginning my studies the first step pleas'd me so much,
The mere fact consciousness, these forms, the power of motion,
The least insect or animal, the senses, eyesight, love,
The first step I say awed me and pleas'd me so much,
I have hardly gone and hardly wish'd to go any farther,
But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs.
—Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

This short canto in Uncle Walt's marvelous epic poem always comes to mind whenever I turn aside from the cares of the world and go to meet my Lord in the pages of His verbal ikon, the Holy Bible. I start reading, and by the third or fourth verse, my spirit almost detaches from me and wants to "stop and loiter… to sing it in ecstatic songs."

I know the feeling, the experience he is describing in his poem, even in the study and contemplation of merely earthly things. I shouldn't say merely, because as Walt tells us on almost every page of his book Leaves of Grass, nothing is merely anything, and everything is, like the grass, "…the handkerchief of the Lord, a scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt, bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?"

Little did he know that he was saying, in effect, it is all ikon. I am not scandalized by the poetic ravings of this great unchristian soul, because I know that he is being elusive in an almost apophatic way. The greatness of his soul and the unqualified yearning for the love of the great Comrade, whom he knew as Christ, speaks to me at least, who also find it unconsoling to hug a statue of Christ to my breast. I want Christ, and only Him, for real.
Back to beginning my studies, as the psalmist chants, "even standing on the threshhold of God's house is better than…" (cf. Psalm 84:10) and you can put there anything you like. Nothing compares even remotely to the joy awaiting us in every verse and syllable of God's precious and living Word, from beginning to end. I never find any of it boring or tedious.

Not boring and tedious? What about the opening chapter of Matthew with all those begats? Don't I find, so they ask me, those repetitions monotonous?

Actually, no, I don't. In fact I love to read the genealogies. Reading them gives my tongue a chance to exercise (if I am reading them in Greek), my memory a chance to relive in brief the stories associated with many of the names, almost like watching a slide show.

And then there's the rhythm or cadence, especially in Greek you can almost dance to it with those lithe steps, arms all linked, gamboling first to the right and then abruptly left for a couple more, before being pulled to the right again, as if a wave of the sea had you by the legs and was dragging you into the deep.

Yes, even the names of the ancestors of God can pause me, "beginning my studies the first step pleased me so much…" How can they not? These are names that are aglow with life, the life of Him who said, "I am the Resurrection and the Life" (John 11:25), and "Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing My day; he saw it and was glad" (John 8:56).

So here am I, stopping and loitering in your sight "to sing it in ecstatic song." Well, not singing exactly, but "at night his song is with me—a prayer to the God of my life" (Psalm 42:8). This is how it is for me. No sooner do I open the Book than I want to read it aloud and share it, for there is no other undying, divine scripture on earth.

I have hardly gone and hardly wish'd to go any farther,
But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs.

Ευχαριστησω Σε, Κυριε…

I thank You, Jesus.