Random Acts of Scripture

Back in the day there was a bumper sticker that said "Commit Random Acts of Kindness.” This brings up a couple of questions. What's wrong with planning to be kind, and, just how old does something have to be to be "back in the day?" In response to all the random acts of violence we hear about the bumper sticker asked us to counter that violence by randomly acting in kindness. Not a bad idea. But I think - and this is probably what the original author had in mind (is someone who comes up with a bumper sticker an "author") - that if we do random acts of kindness often enough we'll change. The violence (active or passive, overt or covert, in front of your back or behind it) each of us has within us will become transformed by our decision to do "random" kindness. Those kindnesses would cease to be "random" and simply be who we are and how we operate in this world.

And I this may seem rather....um....random, but it is how I experience of the Bible. I have found lo these many years that as I keep immersing myself in the Scriptures they keep doing random acts of......something. Just what is hard to say except that somehow I am changed by that book. There seems to be no rhyme or reason for when or why a certain Scripture passage starts to act on me. It's just totally, well, random. I can be reading a certain book of the Bible and a completely different passage pops into my head; or someone - wife, daughter, friend, student, check-out clerk, whoever - says or does something that reminds me of a long forgotten passage. It can even happen when I am working to stimulate my intellectual and philosophical development through the ministrations of Reality TV. Okay, so I really like Dancing with the Stars; get over it; you have dirty little secrets, too.

Now, I like to think that maybe this Scriptural randomness is God's doing but I suppose it could just as easily be my short attention span. Or that I am closing in on 60 years old. Or that I was raised with five older sisters (believe me, that messes with your mind). Who knows (but guess which one I pick)? Anyway, it happens a lot, this randomness, and I am beginning to suspect that somehow this is the way God operates; God’s got a planned randomness. Or maybe God randomly plans. I don't know. All I know is that that book keeps surprising me, acting on me, making me think, making me change. Pisses me off sometimes.