Message in a Bible.

I spent the better part of this afternoon going from bookstore to bookstore in search of a copy of The Message bible. Why? Because my father wanted one. Yes, my ridiculously conservative, very-Lutheran father. Last May, we met in St. Louis (where my brother lives) and he hadn't brought dress pants, and he refused to go to church wearing jeans, so he stayed home while his wife and I went. He routinely complains to me about how the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Churches of America?) passed down some directive to make the hymnals gender neutral. And a few years ago, they changed a line in the Apostles Creed to read "the living and the dead," rather than "the quick and the dead." Guess who still says "quick" out loud? Also, he loves the King James Version.

So here's how it happened that my father became a biblical hippie.

He drove down from northern Wisconsin last night, and we met up today for lunch, before I started showing him around Springfield. We got lost trying to find a movie theatre, and ended up in this Christian bookstore somewhere on Republic Rd. He wants to find this particular bible for a group of boys he's mentoring through Lutheran confirmation, so we scout out the chock full o' bibles section. And I say, "Hey, I wonder if they have The Message bible here." I've been hearing more and more from this translation, and while it doesn't seem to be anything I'd use academically, I find some of the paraphrases to be pretty exciting.

Then ensues this outrageously awesome discussion between myself, and Matt, the employee expert on the subject. I verbally grab the guy, and explain that my Dad is a big-time conservative, and I really want to see what he has to say about The Message. So I usher my Dad to his shock...but guess what? He likes it! He thinks it's great! Matt thinks I'm hilarious, and completely agrees with my academic/excitement hypothesis. It's a bang-up success!

As for my father, he'll be wearing "Got Jesus?" tee-shirts, and rockin' out to David Crowder in no time.

In the mean time, we had a lot of interesting discussion about faith and religion tonight. My Dad, though raised in the Lutheran church, did not raise my brother or I there. I was baptized as an infant, an event I've never really given significance. It wasn't until after I started attending church in high school that my Dad returned to the faith. But since then, he has become very involved. Church council, confirmation classes, Divorce Care, and Lutheran Marriage Encounter. The whole shebang. But despite that, we don't often talk about the core of it all.

Actually, no, we never talk about the core of it all. And I can't ever seem to see how his faith affects him. It as though he identified as a Christian, but I still don't have a Christian father. I'm not criticizing him in saying that. Just musing aloud that I don't see how, to him, faith and belief and gratitude in God are different from boards and councils and events. I mean this in the deepest sense of earnestness, and not judgment. But, it all seems somehow tinged with pride.

I don't want to be that way. I feel so fervently that I don't want my faith to show pride, but humility. I don't want anyone to ever get the impression that my faith is less than a personal, whole submission to God. I write that, I know the depths of my own arrogance, and all I can think is.... Father, I can't do this without you. I cannot, on my own, make a heart pure of arrogance, and filled with Grace. Please...