arequipa shadows

the sun seems to do things to arequipa i've not seen anywhere else. maybe i just haven't been enough places...

bread

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
though you are small among the clans of Judah,
out of you will come for me
one who will be ruler over Israel,
whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times
…
He will stand and shepherd his flock
in the strength of the LORD,
in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God.
And they will live securely, for then his greatness
will reach to the ends of the earth.
And he will be their peace. (Mic 5.2ff )


Bethlehem: "house of bread". Bread: simple, common everyday food. Bread to fill your stomach when you are hungry; bread to give you strength when you are weak. Bread permeated with yeast, and yeast the symbol of sin. And in the house of bread, would be born the Bread from heaven itself. The Messiah who would fill our hungry souls and strengthen our spirits when we have no strength. But this only because he would take on all our sin; a stable-born king who left his riches and became poor for our sakes, so that we through his poverty might become rich.

Bread for life; yeast for sin and death. Richest of Kings born stable-poor. Sinful man loved by him who knew no sin. He dies; we live.

inn-n-out

Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem only to find that the one place that lodged travelers was full. People must have been there from all over because of this census. No room anywhere. And Mary’s labor had started. Bad timing any way you look at it. So they were given a corner in a stable. Open to the world. Dirty straw instead of a bed. The annoying intrusion of animals. Far away from home. No family or friends to help. Something was surely wrong somewhere. How could the King of the Universe be born in a stable? The Messiah – the long awaited Deliverer, the One promised throughout the ages by the prophets, has only a feed trough for a crib?! Didn’t God himself send an angel to announce his coming? But not this way. THIS is hardly the kind of birth that should attend royalty. It makes no sense.

But then throughout history God so often did things that boggled the mind. Didn’t he back Moses and his people up against the sea with no way of escape when the Egyptian army came in to annihilate them? Quite a poor battle plan. But then he did something else totally unexpected: he opened the sea and led his people across dry land. And when Gideon had 10,000 troops at his disposal to attack the Midianites, didn’t God tell him to send all but 300 away? Bad strategy. But with those 300 God delivered the Midianites into his hand. And here in this very town hundreds of years earlier, didn’t God choose a shepherd boy to be King over the nation, one not even the prophet Samuel would have picked? And yet this was one whose heart beat for God and from his line would come One whose kingdom would never end.

So much that just doesn’t fit our expectations. But then our God is a God of paradoxes. His ways are higher than our ways, his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. It’s THAT – the difference – that sets the stage for our amazement and awe at what he does. That the King should be born in a stable? Yes, on second thought, this too might bear the fingerprints of God.

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.