Jesus Was Way Cool

"Jesus wept."
I remember this verse from the Bible only because of its length. Its the shortest verse in the Bible - John 11:35. Sadly, at this point in my life I do not believe that I can give you the context for his weeping, but heaven knows he had plenty of things to cry about.
I earned my Young Readers Bible by going to Sunday School at Boulder's First Methodist Church. I toiled away in the basement, filling in worksheets and answering questions about the Good Book. It was a fairly self-directed curriculum and I could move through it in much the same way I did math practice pages in "regular" school - I paced myself, but I stayed ahead of the other kids my age. I knew that I needed to finish before summer came because my family would be heading up to the mountains for three months and all that work would be for naught. Well, I suppose I could have come back in the fall and finished it off, but that would have been a hollow victory at best.
In the end, I was successful, and I carried that big old book out into the bright sunshine. And I read it too. I read that Bible as well as any young reader could. I liked the New Testament better than the Old, since there seemed to be more character development in the Gospels. In junioir high, there were a lot of kids who were getting involved in church youth groups - specifically my childhood sweetheart. My family had all but stopped going to church at all, but I had my big book of God and I turned to it for inspiriation. To be more precise, I started in memorizing bible verses again to try to impress a girl. I still remember John 16:24, "Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full." There were others, but it seemed like this was the one that best fit my situation. If I never asked her to go out with me, how could my joy be full? This strategy only got me invitations to Bible study and more youth group meetings (which included Bible study).
In college I took a course called "The Bible As Literature." This renewed my appreciation for the stories - especially the Old Testament. Discovering the density of images and meaning was like reading it again for the first time. The New Testament, with its varied narrative point of view, became an exercise in spin before there was such a thing.
To recap: The Bible is a great book, easy enough to earn, but it will never get you chicks.