In The Beginning, There Was Literature

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Walking across my college campus after one of my Medieval Literature classes, I overheard the following conversation from my fellow students:

“I don’t need to hear this Bible shit,” the young man said.

“Yeah. You’re right. I don’t need this religion bull shit,” his girlfriend agreed.

“How was I supposed to know that unicorns were considered a symbol for that Jesus guy?” he retorted. “Christ!”

I sighed.

First of all, it’s true. Unicorns, in the Middle Ages, were considered a symbol for the God of the Christian faith. They symbolized purity, uniqueness, and holiness.

Later, my Medieval Literature professor sadly informed me, “Linda, every semester, it gets harder and harder to find anyone who’s even heard of Genesis, let alone read it. Try teaching a class on Medieval Literature to people who have no working knowledge of their own heritage.”

And so, it goes.

Once upon a time, the King James’ version of the Bible was our national textbook. We taught children to read from it. We gave them an appreciation of story because of it. We catalogued human nature in it. We shared our heritage through it. And to our children we imparted a basic system of rules that allowed for a common culture.

Literature, writing, poetry, story, message, premise, metaphor, and simile: it’s all in there. The language of the King James’ version of the Bible is challenging and beautiful. The stories are compelling and dramatic. Close to Elizabethan English, it stretches our comprehension. It’s an AP course in words and language, and it’s free.

Reading the Bible doesn’t have to be about religion, if you don’t want it to be. That’s what I wish I would have said to the young man in the above conversation. And then I would have asked him, “Is it any wonder that the average reading level of the American public has fallen to, according to the United Stated Department of Health and Human Services, a seventh-grade level?”

Recently, while reading The New Testament, I came across a phrase that spoke volumes to me as a writer. To the Philippians, Paul said, “I joy.” What a beautiful way to express a fundamental human state of being: happiness. He is happy. Clear. Concise. Elegant. I’ve never read it expressed like that anywhere else, and I’ve read a lot.

In my opinion, I am a better writer for having studied the language and story of the Bible, and I can appreciate the power of symbols—like unicorns.

Free the speech. Read. Everything. Always.

And I hope you will not be afraid to think deeply about, “Why the world wags and who wags it.” (From, The Once and Future King, by T. H. White, published the year I was born.)

Linda (I Joy) Zern

Double Bubble Trouble - Happy Anniversary

In honor of our upcoming wedding anniversary I would like to hie back to a simpler time; a time when my husband and I realized we were outnumbered by the children, and we were forced to institute the following rule: The first one in the marriage to break and run had to take the kids with them—all the crazy, gum chomping, kids. Good times.


When Sherwood and I were young we produced a lot of little kids, a lot of grubby, grimy little kids, who because of their love affair with dirt and grime required a ton of hosing off—also bathing. When these little kids took baths they sometimes chewed huge wads of bubble gum. I didn’t mind; it kept them quiet. (For a while they tried to bring peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with them into the tub, but I put the hoodoo on that right away.) 

In the early days and even though we had a lot of filthy children, we had only one bathroom. It had one bathtub. One fine evening, Sherwood decided to take a bath in our one and only bathtub, the very same tub our children had used earlier that evening. 

From the bathroom I heard the haunting boom of my husband’s voice.

“Linda, get in here.” His voice was thick with some emotion I found hard to identify. It was repugnance.

Naked and dripping, he stood leaning against the sink, his arms braced against the porcelain, bent slightly forward at the waist. He was not smiling or winking. 

“Look at this.” He pointed to his hairy damp backside bits. He added, “Is that what I think it is?”

Me, I’m a funny girl, I asked, “Is this a test?” I did not look.

“No, I mean it. Look at my butt.”

“I’m not looking at your butt. You can’t make me.”

He pointed harder at his backside, completely devoid of any spirit of good-natured high jinx. There was more back and forth, denial and insistence and such, but I’ll spare you. I finally realized that this might be a serious situation causing real distress for my husband because he’d been standing there leaning against the sink, naked and pointing at himself for, well, longer than was good for either one of us. 

I bent down and I did look.

Sure enough, there it was, a wad of Double Bubble chewing gum the size of a hamster’s head nestled in . . . ummm. . . well, just nestled.

I said, “Oops.”

He said, “Get it off.”

I asked, “How?”

It was a good question. I believe I missed the chapter in Home Economics dealing with “butt hair gum removal.”

I’d heard a rumor once—something club soda—stains or something, but I didn’t think club soda was going to apply in this case. I knew you could use ice to freeze gum and then chip it off of stuff, but chipping seemed the wrong sort of action to take. Pulling was right out. Shaving/cutting seemed promising, but it was going to be close work.

I can remember hoping that my hand was going to be steady enough, what with the laughing and all.

The real problem is that there just isn’t any kind of hotline for this. I blame the government.

Let me just report that the operation was a success, and I employed a combination of techniques.

To the children and now grandchildren I would like to say, “Let this be a lesson to you. Never chew gum in the bathtub. Chewing gum in the bathtub can make your father have to have his posterior shaved. There are reasons for family rules. Rules are our friends, and YaYa doesn’t make this stuff up. She has experience. She’s lived.”

Linda (Steady Now) Zern