{"id":2571,"date":"2017-06-12T19:55:19","date_gmt":"2017-06-13T00:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/?p=2571"},"modified":"2017-06-12T19:57:35","modified_gmt":"2017-06-13T00:57:35","slug":"only-to-find-gideons-bible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/2017\/06\/only-to-find-gideons-bible\/","title":{"rendered":"Only to Find Gideon’s Bible"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My family rarely stayed in hotel rooms when we were kids, so when I first saw a Gideon Bible I thought that it had been left by a previous occupant named Gideon.\u00a0 I thought nothing more of it until 1968 when I heard the Beatles sing\u00a0Rocky Racoon:<\/p>\n

Rocky Racoon checked into his room<\/p>\n

Only to find Gideons Bible.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A Gideon was not an individual, it was a group and why did these Gideons keep leaving Bibles in hotel rooms?<\/p>\n

The Gideons quickly passed into my brain\u2019s deep storage locker, but after a forty-year hiatus they came bubbling to the surface when Rocky Raccoon popped up again on the radio.<\/p>\n

As a writer on the prowl for quirky characters and story lines, I was intrigued.\u00a0 I discovered that the Gideons were an evangelical Christian organization founded in 1898 by two traveling salesmen who kept bumping into each other on the road.\u00a0 They decided that they could multitask by placing Bibles in hotel rooms.<\/p>\n

I tried to imagine an early scenario.\u00a0 It is 1910; the Gideons have begun to deposit Bibles in bedside drawers.\u00a0 I envision two traveling salesmen sitting at a dreary diner picking at the remains of their apple pie.\u00a0 A persistent fly circles overhead, just missing the dangling flypaper.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey fellow traveler, my name is Daniel\u201d says one of the men.\u00a0 \u201cIt gets awful lonely out here on the road but I always find solace in reading the Gideon\u2019s Bible in my hotel room. \u201cWould you like to join me in reciting some verses after dinner?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHello Daniel, I am James, I \u2018member you from the last town,\u201d says the second man.\u00a0 \u201cI been seeing those Bibles and wund\u2019ring who them Gideon are.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell I am a Gideon, James, and it is my calling to spread the word of the Lord by leaving Bibles in hotels to comfort us weary travelers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The waitress arrives carrying a fly swatter. \u00a0\u00a0\u201cDamn these flies, hard to keep them off the pie and out of the sugar bowl.\u00a0 What are you boys up to tonight?\u201d<\/p>\n

She turns to take another drag on her cigarette and then aims her smoke towards the wayward fly that has escaped the fate of the swarm stuck in the fly paper.\u00a0 As she bends over to swab the counter the men notice her necklace, a cross whose stem has disappeared into her moist cleavage.\u00a0 Daniel turns his eyes away.\u00a0 James is transfixed.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoys, sometimes I am very busy in the evening, but not tonight if you know what I mean,\u201d says the waitress.\u00a0 \u201cA girl just likes to have some fun, and you boys might be just the ticket.\u201d\u00a0 She stares at James.<\/p>\n

Daniel\u2019s stool scrapes the worn wooden floor as he pushes away from the table.\u00a0 \u201cJames will you join me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI sure ain\u2019t no god-fearing man like you, Daniel,\u201d says James.\u00a0 \u201cI think that I will just go to my room.\u201d\u00a0 James nods at the waitress.<\/p>\n

Now I visualize Daniel in his room, counting the weeks that he has foregone the pleasures of the flesh.\u00a0 His resolve slips away as he thinks of across nestled between ample breasts.\u00a0 He opens the drawer, grabs the Bible and opens it to Corinthians 10:13.<\/p>\n

And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted\u00a0beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted,\u00a0he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, deliver me from temptation.\u00a0 Dear lord, the Gideons have saved me once again,\u201d whispers James.<\/p>\n

Down the hall, James sits on his bed wearing a rumpled T-shirt with discolored armpits, sagged out drawers and knee-high black socks.\u00a0 The yellowed toenail of his big toe sticks out through his frayed sock.\u00a0 He thinks, \u201cMight as well read this Gideon thing while I wait.\u201d\u00a0 He idly flips through Bible, calmly killing time while he waits for the waitress\u2019 knock on the door.<\/p>\n

To me, in this scenario, lusty James seems much more likely than the God-fearing Daniel.\u00a0 In fact, the whole Gideon premise has never made much sense.\u00a0 Beyond church, it seems to me that Bibles should be a BYOB proposition, and if you didn\u2019t bring your own, you probably wouldn\u2019t use one anyway.\u00a0 But I must give the Gideons credit, they have one kick-ass distribution.\u00a0 The Gideon website notes that their society has distributed over 2 billion Bibles, translated into over 200 languages.\u00a0 The Gideons have expanded their targets from hotel rooms to various \u201cdesignated traffic lanes of life.\u201d Targets now include jails, domestic violence centers, police and fire departments, schools and the armed forces, whose Bible covers are even decked out in camouflage.<\/p>\n

Other religious organizations have adopted the Gideons\u2019 strategy. Marriott Hotels, whose founder was a Mormon, now place the Book of Mormon in each of the rooms.\u00a0 Scientologists, who finally won a court battle to be recognized as a tax-exempt religion, have begun placing their literature in some hotel rooms.\u00a0 In a nod to pluralism, some hotels also offer Muslim or Buddhist scripture.\u00a0\u00a0 The bedside drawer now overflows, an unlikely battleground for the heart and soul of the weary traveler.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I find the Gideons (and the hotels that accede to them) presumptuous in their efforts to save or even soothe my soul.\u00a0 However, as a writer I am jealous of their distribution, far exceeding the reach of the most determined publisher.\u00a0 How can I grab a hold of the Gideons\u2019 coat tails? \u00a0I bet random travelers mostly read a Gideon Bible out of pure boredom rather than any religious fervor.\u00a0 Wouldn\u2019t a Gideon-inspired novel increase readership?\u00a0 How about a murder mystery with the Gideon Bible as its centerpiece?\u00a0 This would certainly have a broader appeal than a stodgy old Bible.<\/p>\n

The detective could be a Gideon, a salesman who stumbles upon grisly murders as he travels the country.\u00a0 I can already picture it.\u00a0 A body is found in a seedy motel, and the only clue is a bloody fingerprint on the Gideon Bible.\u00a0 The Bible could be opened to a specific passage that provides the Gideon with a lead.\u00a0 He might suspect a sex or hate crime if the Bible is opened to Leviticus\u00a020:13:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a man also lie with mankind, as he hath with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death, their blood shall be upon them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bible could become a calling card for a serial killer.\u00a0 Another body is found at the Gideon\u2019s next stop, this time the smeared blood highlights Deuteronomy 22:5:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe woman shall not wear that which pertaineth to a man, neither shall a man put on a woman\u2019s garment for all that do are abominations unto the Lord thy God.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, I could author a whole detective series called The Gideon Bible Murders.\u00a0 A simple word search of the Bible suggests that there are enough abominations to sustain a long-lived series.\u00a0 In the first book the detective will be stumped by the common thread among the murders, but slowly he realizes that all of them represent \u201cabominations\u201d described in the Bible.\u00a0 He makes a list and then ticks them off as each murder is solved.\u00a0 Proverbs\u00a020:10, which rails against the abomination of \u201cdiverse weights and measures,\u201d is particularly challenging, but the Gideon ultimately reasons that the next victim must be a Wall Street Banker who has cooked the books.<\/p>\n

If I portray my Gideon in a God-fearing and positive light, wouldn\u2019t the Gideons be eager to distribute my novels?\u00a0 I realize I must be careful not to sell-out and become a shill for the Gideons, but, oh, their distribution network is so powerfully tempting.\u00a0 That bedside drawer can surely fit another book.\u00a0 \u00a0I drop to my knees at the thought of a The Gideon Bible Murder nestled next to the Gideon Bible in hotel rooms all over the world.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\nFollow Liza Blue on: \"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>Share: \"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My family rarely stayed in hotel rooms when we were kids, so when I first saw a Gideon Bible I thought that it had been left by a previous occupant named Gideon.\u00a0 I thought nothing more of it until 1968 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pot-pouri"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iVc8-Ft","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2571"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2576,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2571\/revisions\/2576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}