Strata: The Bible in the News: Balm in Gilead

When I get stressed out, I sometimes find myself asking, as did the Biblical prophet Jeremiah (8:22), “Is there no balm in Gilead?”

Admittedly, that would be in one of my more poetical moments.

In any case, this led to another query: “Do writers in today’s popular press still use this expression?” Based on years of compiling this column, I’m not entirely surprised that the answer is yes.

Unlike other Biblical expressions, which find wide currency among sports writers, I located nary a reference in this usually fecund field. Pride of place in this instance belongs to literary analysis, in particular book reviews.

In a USA Today analysis of Jan Karon’s Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good, the reviewer observes: “Mitford, NC, does not exist on any map of the United States—just in the gentle and warmhearted imagination of best-selling author Jan Karon … Father Tim’s Mitford is as welcoming as Andy Griffith’s Mayberry.” With this warm and fuzzy preamble, it is not surprising to find that “in a world that seems increasingly troubled, the kindness and civility shown in Somewhere Safe feels, as Father Tim would say, like a balm in Gilead. Somewhere Safe hits the sweet spot at the intersection of your heart and your funny bone.” Come to think of it, that’s just the spot I’m aiming for.