The Bible-For More Than Just Soul Hygiene

So for pretty much as long as I can remember my family (well, specifically, my mother) has had a tried and true method for filing important documents and papers.

That method?



The Bible.

Over the years, nestled safely in between the words of Jesus and the Laws of Moses, we have kept our social security cards, all of birth certificates, my parent's marriage license and a wealth of other important things.
Observe:

Up until now, the system has worked very well. Mostly, because it's not a book we pull out and read regularly so what better way to keep your important crap in place than by putting it in a book you never use? But I do need to point out that it's also a book that ain't exactly meant to be pulled out regularly:


Generally, books that are substantially larger than your face and heavier than your body are meant to like...sit on a coffee table or something (or in your front hall closet, where you have to be careful taking it off the shelf because if it falls...it will kill you).

Important documents are also well-kept in The Bible (especially from children) because there are scary pictures like this:

Oh yes. This Bible has full color pictures and they scared the crap outta me when I was a kid.


Recently, though, The Bible Filing System failed me. Now, it could very well be that The Bible Filing System is no longer maintained by my mother, and in fact, now ruled by the lack of rule that is my brother and my dad. It could be that I took my birth certificate out for something I don't remember and then forgot to put it back in The Bible Filing System. It could be Jesus got sick of my sass and purposely excommunicated my birth certificate from the sanctuary of his pages. Whatever the case, when I went to The Bible to get my birth certificate...it WASN'T there. I combed through The Bible at least six times. It was not there. Jesus hates me. Great.

My birth certificate is lost. But all is not lost. Thank God for modern technology. You can order anything off the internet. Even your own birth certificate.



I might not have found my birth certificate in the Biblical Filing System...but want to know what I DID find in the magical Biblical Filing System?

Prayer cards.

Prayer cards.

Prayer cards.

Holy (pun intended) crap. PRAYER CARDS!



Now, if you are unfamiliar with the Catholic tradition, basically what happens is...whenever someone dies and you go to their wake or funeral you pick up one of these babies. They have the date of birth and date of death of the person, funeral information and a prayer on the back and...on the front, some tight religious iconography. Catholic kids go crazy for these things. They collect them and trade like Pokemon cards in the parking lots of their Catholic grade schools.

There were probably like 40 prayer cards in there. Like every member of my family that's ever died was in there. And there were a bunch of people I didn't know in there too! Oh! And there was like a mini prayer packet in there for Cardinal George. Weird.

I also found this in magical Biblical Filing System:

A giant aerial picture of my great-grandparents farm. Random.