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Learning to read the golden compass

Yesterday, Harry Potter (more on him later); today, a fantasy series written by confirmed atheist Philip Pullman.  If you haven't read the Northern Lights trilogy, you've missed out - get yourself down to a bookshop or the Kindle store ASAP.  Actually, I should probably give a spoiler alert, because I'm going to give away part of the ending.  Just a small part though.

The main character in the Northern Lights trilogy, the first book of which was made into the film 'The Golden Compass' (seriously, don't bother with the film), is 12 year old Lyra.  Early in the first book Lyra acquires an aletheiometer, or truth-teller, a sort of golden compass which can tell you the true answer to any question you ask it.  Lyra finds herself easily able to turn the dials and interpret the read outs and finds this an enormous help on the difficult quest she sets out upon.  Lyra is extremely unusual, however; it takes most scholars a lifetime to learn how to interpret the different layers of meaning in the many symbols on the dial and hence to be able to ask a question and understand the answer.  

Over the course of three books Lyra faces many terrible dangers but manages not only to survive, but to avert a disaster which would have destroyed, not just our universe, but every one of millions of parallel universes.  At the end of the final book, having succeeded in her mission, she looks at the aletheiometer and realises she can no longer understand its meaning.  The symbols are completely incomprehensible to her, where before she grasped their meaning effortlessly.  She is distraught.  Then a professor from Oxford University comes to her and offers her the opportunity to study the aletheiometer under her tutelage.  Lyra can painstakingly learn all the layers of meaning pertaining to all the symbols and, with much hard work, will be able to read the aletheiometer once again.  But this study will take a lifetime.

I am struck by the parallel between reading the aletheiometer and reading the Bible.  Christians believe that the Bible contains important truth, but reading and interpreting it often does not feel effortless, but like very hard work which one builds on over the course of a lifetime.  I have had the privilege of studying the Bible at theological college, but after three years, I simply know how much there is that I don't know.  This week I have been trying to work on a sermon which has been very hard work indeed; the various layers of meaning in the passage I have been working on are confusing and the 'Word' I have been trying to draw out for Sunday's congregation has proved elusive.  Rather than a simple instruction manual, for me the Bible is a truth-teller which will take me a lifetime - more than a lifetime - to master.

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