Reading the Whole Bible in Less Than a Year

I read my Bible through for Lent this year, and it was so awesome I want to share some ideas with you about one way to get through it. Maybe you have some ideas to share as well??!! 

Read it through like a good book. Don’t bog down in deep study. You can do that later, or in between, but for this project, just take it in. No big analyzing. Just read.  Remind yourself that you DO have time. You might have to give up some YouTube, FB, or TV time. You have to commit to it.

Now get started: In your “regular Bible”, read 5 Psalms and 1 chapter of Proverbs every day. Make this a habit. You’ll be done with both books in a month. Don’t panic over 119. Just steal a few extra minutes that day, or make it up later.

After you read your Psalms and Proverb, read from a NT book. So each morning will be Psalms, a Proverbs chapter, and a NT reading.

MEANWHILE:  Buy an inexpensive Bible on audible.com. Begin the OT in this format, with Genesis. Listen while you drive, while you work out, whenever. Listen as time permits, but EVERY DAY.  Genesis begins the Pentateuch. After Genesis will be Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The story will continue with Joshua and Judges, and then Ruth slips in there like a glorious commercial break. Then back to our story with I and ii Samuel, I and II Kings, I and II Chronicles. Chronicles is a different writer, and honestly, my least favorite, but it does have the infamous “If my people..” passage. Ezra and Nehemiah used to be one book, so read them in order. Esther is another commercial break, (this story brought to you by a God who cares), but ironically, it is the ONLY book in the Bible that never mentions God. Job is profound and sad.

For the NT, start with Jude.

It’s short, and has a groovy name.

Then go to Pauline Epistles:

Philemon - also short.

Now you’re off and running. Make the New Testament books your morning reading. 

Read: I Thessalonians one morning, II Thessalonians the next, Titus after that, I Timothy the next, and then ii Timothy.

Then one per morning:

Galatians - fruits of the Spirit.

Ephesians - helps with identity crisis.

Philippians - good attitude.

Colossians - delicious. 

Now buck up and read:

Romans

I,ii  Corinthians

Try dividing each into two days. For example, Romans is 16 chapters, so read 8 one day, and then 9-16 the next day. Painless.

Now, one per day:

Hebrews - two days if needed for this one. Its deep.

James 

I, ii Peter 

Now the Gospels. Read them in the order they were likely written:

Mark

Matthew 

Luke

Read Acts next because it used to be part of Luke and was written by the same guy.

Now read the Johannine literature. Well worth the wait.

John

I, ii, iii, John

The three Johns are so short God could have texted them to us. 

Also among the Johannine writings…the not so scary after all…

Revelation

By now you’ve probably finished the OT up to Psalms on audible. Read Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon manually, because they are poetic and beautiful.

Back to audible, you’re ready for the major prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, who wrote Lamentations, Ezekiel, and Daniel. 

These start to feel a little long, but don’t give up!

Now, you’ve got 12 books left, all short. The minor prophets. Motifs will pop out if you listen on audible. Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.

Ta dah!!! You did it!! 

Finding Your Life's True Direction

Ever read a book that is so insightful and brilliantly written that it makes your mouth drop open with every page? I felt that way about the Anais Nin Diaries, and, I should say I feel that way about the Bible in a broad sense. And Rilke’s Book of Hours slays me. Oh, and Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water. Well, now there’s another, My Bright Abyss, by Christian Wiman. It is poetic prose, sub-titled, Meditation of a Modern Believer. This book makes me think, makes me feel, makes me want to write.

I looked him up. He is a poet. Has taught at Stanford; has many more books which I will check out. As I was reading about Wiman, I came across this:  

In a 2009 interview with Bookslut editor Jessa Crispin, discussing what he hopes readers might take from his work, Wiman stated, “I have no illusions about adding to sophisticated theological thinking. But I think there are a ton of people out there who are what you might call unbelieving believers, people whose consciousness is completely modern and yet who have this strong spiritual hunger in them. I would like to say something helpful to those people.”

Reminds me of the verse in Mark’s Gospel, chapter 9, verse 24: “I believe; help Thou my unbelief.”

So, I’ll share a poem with you by Wiman, the lines that preface the book:

My God my bright abyss

into which all my longing will not go

once more I come to the edge of all I know

and believing nothing believe in this:

Every time I read those lines, I find another nuance. So I read on. Check this out: 

 “There is nothing more difficult to outgrow than anxieties that have become useful to us [  ] as explanations for a life that never quite finds its true force or direction [ ].”  (p 10) 

 Seems like most days I am in conversations about how to live a life that “finds its true force.” You know, that feeling that you’re on the planet for a reason which only you can quite fill? And the subsequent feeling that you’re not quite filling it?

Belief and unbelief go hand in hand when it comes to living your life's purpose, too. 

I don’t guess I’d ever thought of the way anxieties are the excuse for not “making it.” Anxiety is easily cloaked, buried even deeper than the infamous “fear of failure/fear of success” syndrome.  Anxiety over bills, anxiety over rejection, anxiety over anxiety.

Which reminds me, I left a great book off the “wow” list:  The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield. Same idea about finding your true direction and the myriad ways we resist finding it.

Just some thoughts. 

Hope you enjoy.   

Brain Surgery

from the May issue of Power Source Magazine, UnCommon Sense by Kim McLean

Alright, so you’ve learned the importance of a hook. The hook is the title. It should be “hook-y” which means it “hooks” the listener, the consumer of music, during drive-time, with safely buckled children fussing in the back seat, and to-do lists insisting through Mom’s mind. And yes, they say it’s the women who buy most of the music. Maybe so. But come up with hooks that everybody understands and can wrap around while multi-tasking.

You have a great hook, a great concept and story line. Now you need great verses.

That’s a lot of greatness. Push pause and let me say something about greatness. More than once in my career I’ve been told that a writer should not expect every song to be great. The saying goes this way: “About every tenth song will be killer; the other nine may be good, but they can’t all be great.” Hmmm. Well. I’m glad they don’t expect the same of brain surgeons.

Song writing is not brain surgery. It is art. There is a song for every place and time. Each one can be great in it’s own context. If you finish a song and it does not seem great to you, work on it until it is. Just keep in mind that “great” and “hit” are not synonymous.

That said, let’s talk about the rest of the song. Don’t cop out on the verses. No laziness allowed. Your verses should set up the hook, and your hook should pay off the verses. I know you know what I mean, and if you don’t, write a hundred more songs and figure it out. Practice makes perfect.

Take time to get online and search out what I’m saying. Study some lyrics from several genres and see how these rules apply. Study great songs. Study copyrights. Do you know what I mean by that? One of my great publishers taught me this. A copyright is a song that stands the test of time, a song that matters to the next generation. Copyrights  are not trendy. They tap into that part of humanity that we all have in common. Everybody has a broken heart. Everybody needs love. Everybody relates to a great song. I guess my favorite example is Dolly’s I Will Always Love You or, let’s see, any Bill and Gloria song.

Not every song you write will be, or need be, a copyright (as I am using that term). That does not mean they are not all great, it just means that every song has a place and time. Copyrights cover a broad spectrum. Yes, you’ll need some bell-bottom songs, too. The secret is in the intentionality.

Now, about those verses: stop and read your lyric as you write. Think of the story line. Ask yourself where it’s heading and why. Sometimes I think of it like a conversation, and I read it out loud to see if it makes sense. Would I tell it this way? Does it matter that I’m even telling it? Is it believable?

Though a great chorus may actually stand alone and make sense even without verses, the verses get you there, so MAKE EVERY WORD COUNT; every definite article, every conjunction, and especially every verb and noun. You have a very short time in a verse to develop plot and characters, but the slightest turn of a phrase or choice of a word can do wonders.

A note about worship songs: it is God’s character you are developing in these, so as the Psalmist says, “ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.” (29:1) 

Well, that’s it for this issue. Hope you’re having a creative summer! May your songs be filled with oceans and sandy beaches – and I strongly advise some on-site research!

Choices - With Cliffs Notes

Okay, in case you don't sit around reading Rilke's Book of Hours or The Collected Poems of Sara Teasdale, I thought I'd give a frame of reference for this poem. (I recommend both those books, though, if you like poetry).

It is the season of Lent on my liturgical calendar of faith, and I love this as a time of soul-searching and preparing my heart for the message of the Cross and Resurrection. Before new life, comes death. In Matthew 16:24-25, Jesus said, "If any want to become my follower, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."

There seem to be two equations at play for the human condition: life-death-death, and life-death-life. It all swirls around in physical-metaphysical realities, but if we choose the kind of death Jesus mentions (and you can look up many more scriptures that express this), we get life. If we choose death by depression, fear, anger, poor habits, bad attitudes, or laziness, we get death.

Death by surrender, death by love...this is a spiritual principal, a paradox about real life. It's the Jesus story.

This poem has something to do with all of that, but if I detail it out much more, it won't be poetry!

Love to all of you. Spread the word about this blog! And please share your comments. I love hearing from you.

Have a creative day,
Kim


Choices

Death comes in many jaded forms,

     Sometimes in fury, sometimes reborn

But tyranny's grip, it's talons steel

     Rips through; the heart will be revealed

So choose your angel, dark or light

     To satiate our Maker's right

For death will come; death always wins

     I've died a thousand times again.

I am alive, my soul flies free

     I feed the rivers, bend the trees

I need the darkness veiled in fear

      The icy breath that hovers near

I  dance within the mystery

      That I chose life, and death chose me.

By Kim McLean

© 3/8/14

Deep Thought-y Gumbo - a sneak peek!

from my column for Power Source Magazine, UNCOMMON SENSE: God's Gift of Creativity, for publication in the April 2014 Issue.

I’ve been captivated with this thought lately: We become what we behold.

I know. It’s deep and thought-y, but I didn’t come up with it. It just keeps showing up in whatever I read, whatever I watch, and I cannot ignore it. It’s like the Holy Spirit comes at me with a can of spray paint and writes it in graffiti across my mind so I’ll have to consider it.

I heard it first from a mathematician.  Odd. Or was it even…? Then from a theologian. Then it came up in a movie I was watching, and then I heard it in a sermon. Okay God, I’m listening.

I remember another phrase of the same ilk that came to me in much the same way about twenty years ago, before I could understand how true it was:  That which you take, takes you.

Both concepts are made from the same roux. Deep thought-y gumbo.

Stop looking at me that way, and think about it. Let’s work backwards. That which you take, takes you.   Know much about addiction? Makes sense in that context. Take hold of a thing and it takes hold of you. Reminds me of June bugs. Ever picked one up? They fling themselves into the porch light, hurl themselves furiously away from the shock of the intense bright heat, and land disoriented on your shirt.  Grasp it off, and six creepy legs wrap around your finger.  That which you take, takes you.

So take God.

Better yet, behold God.  THAT, my dear Watson, is the great secret; the secret of creativity, the secret of love, the secret of life. Don’t be waiting around for Revelation to fire up and Sandy Patti to sing another Dottie Rambo song as you parade through the pearly gates.

Behold now.

The place of prayer is a beautiful way to begin to behold. The Bible beholds, too, if you behold it for what it is. Just read it. You know? Like, try to read it like it’s a book, a really great book. You can’t, of course, but this will help you shut up all the bad teaching in your head for a minute, and you’ll be amazed.

Behold the Word, and it will behold you, and you might be surprised by what a beautiful creation YOU are!

It’s Easter. Permission to behold granted. Behold the cross. Do you see you? Have you become the broken sufferer? Behold the grave. Have you died to the desires and ambitions and to the pride with which you tried so many times to offer up Cain’s sacrifice? Remember that story? God wasn’t pleased with Cain. He did all the right stuff for all the wrong reasons.

You’ve got to behold the Lamb, before you can rise again in His likeness.

Ever met those very cool couples who have been married forever and they look like each other? They sound alike, use the same mannerisms, laugh at the same awkward moments? You become what you behold.  Pinocchio should take a lesson! He beheld a bunch of donkeys, and…well, after that his hats never fit right again.

What’s this got to do with God’s gift of creativity? I’m wondering if we might say: We create what we behold?

Every song you write is already written. You just have to find it. You find it by beholding. Some call it staring into space. I call it staring into Heaven. Staring into the space that is here and eternal, the place where dimensions meet and time travels. The place where children imagine and days dream.

For all you songwriters: Want me to stop preaching and give you a pro-songwriting tip?  When you write, start with a title. Almost daily, someone plays me a new song and when I ask the title the response is “I don’t know yet.” I know it will be a weak song; vibe-y and vague.  Sure, there are exceptions; so become an exceptional writer and then you can break all the rules.

Here. Write this:  Love Only Knows.

Free of charge. I gave you a hook. Now develop the concept and write it. 

Happy Easter. God Loves You!