When I was a Junior in high school, I read a lot of amazing books that inspired, taught, and challenged me. These included A Separate Peace, The Sound and the Fury, The Catcher in the Rye, Jane Eyre, The Great Gatsby, and many others. To that point in my life, I had been more inclined to read simpler, one-dimensional books, those containing narratives and plot lines that weren’t likely to have inspired or challenged me in any way. But that Junior year with Brother Joe Gerard changed all that.

One of the assigned books was Moby-Dick, but unlike the others, our task was not to read it through from cover to cover. Brother Joe said that it was too long given the amount of time left in the school year and that the entire first section contained a very long description of the era, the whaling life, and a tortuously drawn-out sequence that did little to advance the actual plot. We were handed a carefully curated and highly condensed list of specific passages to read and so that’s what we did. In those texts, we followed the exploits of an obsessive Captain Ahab as he pursued his nemesis, the great white whale. I discovered that such tales could offer a page turning adventure on the surface while also delving into important topics just below the surface, as was the case with Moby-Dick, which explored issues of obsession, fate, and humanity’s complex relationship with nature. 

Many, many years later, I decided to reread the book. I didn’t have Brother Joe’s reading plan, so I started at the beginning and plowed through all the dry and detailed up-front descriptions. At times, I wanted to skip ahead, but I did not. Eventually, something unexpected happened – I realized that while these sections actually did not seem to be that critical to the plot… now having read them this time all the way through, I had an entirely different experience of the story. I understood the character motivations, the settings, and the context of the plot much, much better. Those long descriptive passages placed me squarely in that world and then once there, I could more actively participate as an imagined member of the crew, I felt the intensity of the chase and its associated peril and could thoroughly immerse myself in that time and place. It was a completely different experience the second time around. It was a better one.

Most of us encounter sacred scripture based on carefully developed and predetermined reading plans. Our Mass readings across the liturgical year are just that and they do give us a great sense of the plot line of our faith. Recently, though, I’ve been thinking that my Moby-Dick experience might also apply to the bible. I have wondered whether more of a thorough and complete exploration of the text might, in fact, offer a greater sense of character motivations, settings, and the context of the full plot. So, I’m setting out to change that by starting at the beginning and working my way through. 

I’ve contemplated listening to Fr. Mike Schmitz’ excellent Bible in a Year podcast which is widely available through a variety of sources. I’ve also considered just picking up the bible and diving in… without any deadlines or expectations; I’ll be open to whatever and however the Lord wants to move or motivate me. We’ll just see how it goes.

Perhaps this is something for you to consider in the coming new year as well?