Couldn't cinch it too tightly

But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.  I John 1:7

So I spent my formative middle school years right smack dab in the middle of the buckle of the Bible Belt, which for those who do not know, is a long swath of King James only country running across the southern half of the United States, a stone’s toss away from the Scopes Monkey Trial courthouse in Dayton, Tennessee, right across the wrong side of the railroad tracks.    

And the big controversy at our public middle school was how to phrase the dress code to state that girls’ shirts had to be untucked and cover the derrière.  Well, and the time I skated with a colored boy at the school skating party.  And on weekends I competed across the state in Bible Quiz, where we leapt off chairs with buzzer pads on them with answers to the minutiae of The Gospel According to St. Matthew. And I was on the all-State team.  And every Sunday a gangly and awkward clump of us would march up to the front of Morgantown Baptist Church and publicly perform the Salute to the Bible.  After we pledged allegiance to both of the flags up front, the American flag and the Christian flag.  

We would stand tall and erect and say, “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever. Isaiah 40:8,” and then we would hold the Bible firmly to our chest and declare, “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. Psalm 119:11,” and then we would turn the Bible into a flashlight, and hold it out onto our invisible path, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. Psalm 119:105.”

And what is true, is that these verses probably leak into my day, every day at the oddest moments.  I don’t know so much about the not sinning bit, but the Word is sure in mine heart.  And this morning they bubbled out again, as I imagined another clump of the Fellowship of the Unashamed, walking in the light, and He is in the light.  And we would be paying attention to that circle of light right in front of us for the next step.  And there would be joy and encouragement and strength and comfort and unity because He is with me.  With us. And nothing else would matter.