OMG. I was surfing around when I stumbled on this article in Esquire: Ask The Bible. “Its commandments answer many of life’s most challenging questions. But its kitchen and style tips are also quite handy.”

The article itself is quite amusing. A.J. Jacobs answers questions which range from what to do about salt-and-pepper hair (“Give ear, brother: A wise man scorns hair dye. As it says in Proverbs 16:31, “Gray hair is a crown of glory, it is gained in a righteous life.” Keep your hair free from any coloring agents.”) to tips on Biblical pickup lines. And he backs it up with Scripture! Awesome!

It turns out the article is an extension of his new book, The Year of Living Biblically. You know how everyone always says that living according to the Bible is impossible and not really meant for modern times? Yeah, A.J. Jacobs discovers that many of those outdated rules really matter nowadays. I now really want to read this book. But since I don’t have it just yet, I ended up scouring the website. I’m so curious now! Did he take rules from the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation? What did his wife think about the whole experiment? Is he going to keep any of the habits he learned from his Biblical year?

I got some answers from the Rules he lists on his website.

At the beginning of the year, I wrote down every rule, every guideline, every suggestion, every nugget of advice I could find in the Bible. It’s a very long list. It runs 72 pages. More than 700 rules.

Some rules were wise, some completely baffling. Some were baffling at first, then wise. Some were wise first then baffling. Here, some of the highlights, broken down by category.

MOST UNEXPECTEDLY WISE AND LIFE-ENHANCING RULES

• Keep the sabbath. As a workaholic (I check my emails in the middle of movies), I learned the beauty of an enforced pause in the week. No cell phones, no messages, no thinking about deadlines. It was a bizarre and glorious feeling. As one famous rabbi called it, the sabbath is a “sanctuary in time.”
• “Let your garments be always white” Ecclesiastes 9:8. I chose to follow this literally – I wore white pants, a white shirt and a white jacket. This was one of the best things I did all year. I felt lighter, happier, purer. Clothes make the man: You can’t be in a bad mood when you’re dressed like you’re about to play the semi-finals at Wimbledon.
• No gossip. When you try to go on a gossip diet, you realize just how much of our conversations involve negative speech about others. But holding your tongue is like the verbal equivalent of wearing white. I felt cleaner and untainted.
• No images. If you interpret the second commandment literally, then it tells you not to make a likeness of anything in heaven, on earth, or underwater. Which pretty much covers it. So I tried to eliminate photos, TV, movies, doodling. It made me realize we’re too visual in this culture. It made me fall in love once again with words, with text.
• Give thanks. The Bible says to thank the Lord after meals. I did that. Perhaps too much. I got carried away. I gave thanks for everything – for the subway coming on time, for the comfortableness of my couch, etc. It was strange but great. Never have I been so aware of the thousands of little things that go right in our lives.

Seriously, my interest is piqued. I think this will be my next book purchase. Ironically, I have yet to finish Wicked — not because of the name or its subject matter or anything silly like that, but because it has not been easy for me to get into. Sorry Wicked fans.

From Yahoo:

HARTFORD, Conn. – Author Madeleine L’Engle, whose novel “A Wrinkle in Time” has been enjoyed by generations of schoolchildren and adults since the 1960s, has died, her publicist said Friday. She was 88.

L’Engle died Thursday at a nursing home in Litchfield of natural causes, according to Jennifer Doerr, publicity manager for publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

The Newbery Medal winner wrote more than 60 books, including fantasies, poetry and memoirs, often highlighting spiritual themes and her Christian faith.

Although L’Engle was often labeled a children’s author, she disliked that classification. In a 1993 Associated Press interview, she said she did not write down to children.

“In my dreams, I never have an age,” she said. “I never write for any age group in mind. When people do, they tend to be tolerant and condescending and they don’t write as well as they can write.

“When you underestimate your audience, you’re cutting yourself off from your best work.”

OMG. Now, I am so sad.

It just so happens I returned two of Madeline L’Engle’s books — A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door — to the library on Tuesday. That series of books had such a profound effect on me. I could probably credit those books for stoking my interest in subjects like science and biology, and not simply boys, which is what so many other children’s books have for girls.

After I got the books from the library recently (I really shouldn’t have had to borrow Wrinkle, since I bought it and lent it to my pastor’s daughter, but haven’t seen it since), I looked up the most recent news on Madeline L’Engle. Her most recent interview seems to be with Newsweek, after Wrinkle was made into a TV movie. I don’t know about anyone else, but she seemed like a delight to interview.

On the movie, she said:

And did it meet expectations?
Oh, yes. I expected it to be bad, and it is.

And on God and having faith:

Such as?
Such as I sometimes think God is a s–t‚Äîand he wouldn‚Äôt be worth it otherwise. He‚Äôs much more interesting when he‚Äôs a s–t.

So to you, faith is not a comfort?
Good heavens, no. It’s a challenge: I dare you to believe in God. I dare you to think [our existence] wasn’t an accident.

Many people see faith as anti-intellectual.
Then they’re not very bright. It takes a lot of intellect to have faith, which is why so many people only have religiosity.

Reading that interview, it made me want to go out and interview her myself. I think it would have been so much fun.

Farewell Madeleine, see you in heaven!

Photo by the New York Times in 2001, via MSNBC