a prayer for ryan and kenlynn

O Lord, you are the giver of all good and perfect gifts, and Ryan and Kenlynn have been gifts to us. This was your idea. THEY were you idea, for before either of them were even the remotest of our thoughts, you, O Lord, saw all their days from beginning to end. You alone know what lies ahead of them.

You are a severe God, but you are also severely compassionate, and you sent your Son as the ultimate demonstration of your love and determination to provide a way for us to know you. And Ryan and Kenlynn DO know you. And they know that life is not about them; it’s about you.

So I pray for their success, in all ways, of course, but ultimately in the only way that really matters, that their lives together reflect your presence, your power and your grace. Be the center of all they are, and have, and undertake to do.

Be their sufficiency when they lack.

Be their stability when they waver.

And be their hope when they are discouraged.

We commit them to you with great joy and thanksgiving. Keep them firmly in the center of your merciful, loving, gracious, and relentless grip.
Amen.

souveniers and salvation

we’re back. 20 hrs of travelling and with each passing minute – for me anyway – the “normality” of 6 weeks of life there sadly fades. we have several hundred pictures snapped at those instances when your soul says “i want to keep this forever”; experiences and moments too rich and too dynamic to be captured by such simple, static, 2-dimensional arrays of pixels on a screen.

we have a few souveniers to physically extend the visit beyond ourselves and share it with others who stayed here: “here’s a piece of the sea of galilee”; “these are from the ravine near where david fought goliath”; “this is for you. i wish you could have been there.”

we have a collection of new neural pathways that have been etched in our brains and souls, the proof of which are the hebrew-flavored phrases and songs that we hear echoing in our minds when we wake up in the middle of the night, or that spring to life randomly during the day: hatiluni el ha-yam; gol, gol, gol al-adonai darkekhah…

and then we have things like this: reflective post-mortems done in the attempt to trap the evanescent fleeting thoughts that will surely escape if no attempt is made to tether them somehow to some kind of verbal stake, thoughts which no image or souvenier can capture.

i was struck by the veneration displayed for places; churches built on top of rocks where tradition has it that something significant took place: Jesus wept here, Jesus broke the loaves and fishes here, the foot of the cross was here. perhaps more striking was the smoothness of the rocks themselves, the results of hundreds of thousands of visitors over the centuries who at least with curiosity, if not with awe and reverance, have approached the rocks and touched them, and maybe crossed themselves and said prayers in their presence. i’ve wondered what lies behind this. are they attempts at achieving a tangible, physical connection with someone the world can no longer see or touch, to reach back into history and maybe make their faith “real”? is it perhaps a longing for a kind of magic, for a transfer to take place: that maybe there is resident in these rocks a trace of His power – “let it pass to me to help me live a better life”? i felt all this myself, but at different places. not at shrines, but in gardens and sea shores, uncluttered by buildings. “Jesus surely walked up these steps”, “Jesus saw these hills”. and as i sit on the beach at migdal and sift sand thru my fingers i think “Jesus walked along these very shores…maybe he even touched this rock”? and so with my own sense of wonder and reverance i pour sand and shells into a bottle to take away with me…hoping it is not just sand, but a piece of history actually touched by the Master. but then it occurs to me “Jesus DID touch this sand and this rock” realizing that “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” in a real sense all places, whether in israel or here, are holy; all things have been touched by Him; and all souls that have stretched out hands to touch “sacred rocks” – or not – are to Him sacred, the works of his hands, invitees to His mercy and His grace. i save pictures and rocks and sand to remind me of places he may have been; He, on the other hand, saves me, and those like me, and reminds me of his unfailing love and compassion on all in all places at all times. to Him be glory and honor forever. Amen.

“She’s a bad woman; give me the goat!”

learning hebrew
in kibbutz tzuba
near jerusalem
exhiliarating, exhausting, expensive
minimal vocabulary
barrage of verb forms...morphological confetti
truncated sentences
4 hrs a day
monolingual
homework too
very tired
neurons fired
neurons fried
reading jonah
← wrbh n ll ←
little by little
many questions

"אישה רעה; תן לי את העז"

Professionalism and shepherds

We study for years in expensive, prestigious educational institutions acquiring skills and knowledge focused on obtaining and enhancing our future careers. And once employment is secured, we typically seek higher standing in the corporate structure through a combination of improving old skills, gaining new ones and some well-calculated social shmoozing.

Well, what about shepherds? I’m no expert, but it doesn’t seem like it would take much skill to be a shepherd. I mean, after all, what do you have to do but sit around all day and watch the sheep? Oh, I suppose you have to protect them from harm, and lead them to food and water as well. But even so, shepherding certainly doesn’t seem to offer much in the way of upward professional mobility. All things considered, being a shepherd wouldn’t be too impressive on a job résumé.

The irony of ironies is that this is the picture the Lord God Most High, the Creator of heaven and earth, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, gives us of himself. “I am the good shepherd,” Jesus says (Jn 10.11). How odd. Why would he identify himself with an occupation that by most standards is nothing short of a professional black hole? Probably because it’s a clear reflection of his character: unlike the corporate climber, the young urban professional, the CEO of a multi-national conglomerate or the celebrity on a red carpet surrounded by papparazzi, the shepherd is focused not on himself, but on the well-being of weak, defenseless, fairly stupid creatures who get lost easily and do nothing all day but consume to fill their own stomachs. Creatures rather like us, as a matter of fact. Selfish, belly-centric, and prone to take the wrong path. Creatures who need protection and nourishment. Creatures who more often than not do not recognize the extent to which they benefit from the character of their caretaker. Creatures who find themselves in the center of the selfless, constant, loving and compassionate gaze of the Good Shepherd.

Fortresses

Things that are bigger than you will force you to either try harder in an effort to exert control and influence over them – or they will force you to yield. If you do the latter, it matters what you yield to. You can yield to despair – I've done so on occasion. The world will be cold and opaque. You can also yield to God. There is no despair for a beleaguered soul-jer finding protection behind the walls of a fortress. That's what fortresses are for…not some shameful, second-rate "plan B" for the warrior who discovers he is insufficient in and of himself to win the war alone. Come in. Close the door. Welcome to my world.

Holey His

I was thinking this week about failure – personal, professional, just pick a domain – and, in typically morose fashion, began to wallow in a view of myself as nothing but a collection of empty holes, a substance-less interstitial tissue. Hardly healthy.

Then I remembered thinking once long ago "I am NOT the sum of all my failures." Initially a comforting thought. But if holes is what I am NOT, what indeed AM I? Is this comfort in actuality some kind of psychological stowaway, hidden somewhere inside the vague hope that maybe there IS some redeeming element, something worthwhile, some measure of intrinsic value in me, even apart from God?

Thoughts of Grace's teaching on Romans flow thru my mind; if one thing is clear it's that there is no excuse, no cause for boasting, no justification whatsover before God – apart from Him and His intervention I am irrevocably unredeemable.

So the niggling suspicion that I am a collection of empty holes turns out to be, in fact, closer to the truth – except for one thing; it does not end there: the holes are voids, hollow places to be filled by the grace of God. Then let the holes be deep and cavernous and gaping – and let God pour into them, to outrageous overflowing, all the grace that He can muster. Then it will be true that I am not the sum of all my failures – for I am failure met by the unmerited favor of God, and He has made me a vessel of His relentless, unfathomable and incalculable grace that can fill all the holes in me. To Him be all glory and honor.

a thought on psalm 63.1

"...my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water."

a desert wasteland. thirst, hunger pangs, weariness, intense physical longing… you are my "enemies"… bodily stuff to conquer, to avoid, to master in one way or another, and not just for me, but for the world as well. who would ever opt for you if the slightest alternative were offered? but blessed be you, who remind me that I am not perishable flesh and blood only, but also spirit, made in the Image of God. blessed be you, who day by day, hour by hour, second by merciless second, so relentlessly point me to Living Water, Bread of Life, a yoke made easy by my Yokefellow, and pleasures at His right hand forevermore.