I think of my mother especially who never graduated
from high school. She had to drop out of
school when her father died and help support the family. Many fields of study were forever closed to
her, but one thing she knew—and that was the Bible. This became her window on the world. One could do worse. I can remember her explaining to me what it
meant when Pontius Pilate washed his hands of responsibility for Jesus’ death. Could there be a better lesson anywhere for
the human tendency to seek to absolve itself of responsibility, the transparent
nature of the attempt, and the sheer futility of it? Yet the practice of self-justification is
kept handy in the toolbox of excuses and rationalizations fully recognizable to
both young and old. It is the ability of
the Bible to thus powerfully affix upon the mind images of human strengths and
weaknesses that has served many well during their lives upon the rugged
frontiers of experience.
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