Jeff and I often wonder why we live in such an unsightly area as the Calumet Region. As we were driving through Tennessee a few weeks ago, I asked again, "Why don't we live in a prettier area?" Although it is fun to be 20 minutes from Chicago, it can sometimes be depressing to drive north down Calumet Avenue in Hammond, or east down Ridge Road toward Gary and see so much metropolitan blight and older buildings and abandoned businesses and untended landscapes.
One of the very fun things about living as an adult in the region where I grew up is to discover natural and outdoor settings that I never knew about when I was a child. There are so many wildlife spaces, you wouldn't expect it! The Calumet Region is known for being very populated with people and quite polluted with oil and steel industry, but it is also known for protected prairie and wetland and wildlife areas which have an incredible diversity of plant and animal species. My father in law is taking a birding class and is learning that bird watching in this area is an absolute thrill for bird enthusiasts because of our special spot next to the big lake on the migratory path. The Dunes Lakeshore, Indiana's shoreline on Lake Michigan, is some of the best beach and dunelands that can be found anywhere. There are beautiful bike trails and big plans for a 50 mile span of connecting bike trails
Our good friends Matt and Linnay have been actively attempting for the last year or two to have their sons spend time outdoors for a minimum of one hour a day, and I have always thought highly of that goal. I'm not a very good outdoor goer when it is cold, but since last week, we've started to try the same ourselves. And there are so many different places to explore for a few minutes or stay longer to set up the picnic basket and blanket! Jeff and I have made an effort to get to know our playgrounds and county parks here in Lake County Indiana, but we are right on the border of Cook County Illinois which has quite an extensive forest preserve district. Some of the local sites we have visited are promoting the Leave No Child Inside initiative to help adults get their kids outdoors more in a generation when most kids do not get unsupervised outdoor playtime anymore, and viewing a tv or computer screen indoors is the preferred "safe" educational activity for kids and their parents.
Right next door to the Hammond Montessori Schoolhouse on Hohman is Harrison Park which has a huge grassy and shady space for running and romping and three play structures. Douwe has been begging to go there every day and is making sure to announce to anyone who will listen: "The park by my school has three playgrounds!" We've gone a few times right at noontime when the full day students are on the grounds playing for their lunch break. Douwe loves running around with the crowds of older kids and trying to do the tricks they do.
We've been to Wicker Park in Highland for a few visits already this spring, which is an absolutely wonderful place to play and picnic. There are always other children here, so Douwe likes that.
Our family lives about 3 blocks from the Little Calumet River at Hohman Avenue, which has a high grassy levee on the Hammond side. We stopped there on the way home from a bike ride and walked along the river for about a quarter mile. The houses across the river were recently demolished to make room for the Levee project that is steadily progressing west to the Illinois state line.
During our walk into the woods, Douwe kept asking "how do we get out?" He was scared of the burrs that stick to pant cuffs after I pointed them out and said, don't step on them! We found an animal skull, some feathery parts of a dead bird, saw geese and ducks, and many deep burrows. It reminded me of one of my favorite outdoor adventures, hiking along the same river with my sisters at its banks in South Holland, right near Veterans Park. It always felt a little bit wild and risky, because you don't see many houses or people once you get right up to the riverbanks in some of these spots. We would pretend we were lost in the wilderness. So fun.
This Sunday when we visited family in Milwaukee, we took a little hike along that city's undeveloped riverbanks and found a father and his boys throwing rock bombs into the water and building a little fire. Douwe had a great time looking for sticks and rocks to toss in.
Today I went to my childhood hometown, South Holland to visit the Sand Ridge Nature Center with Douwe. That town is only a few minutes away from where I live now. The indoor facility, belonging to the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, has been rebuilt since I was a kid, and it is beautifully set up with exhibits and animals and classrooms and a young children's corner. Douwe played for about two hours in the children's corner, which was fine because the temperature was dropping today and it was a little chilly for a longer hike. There is an extensive calendar of events for children and families on all sorts of topics, so hopefully we'll be here a few times this summer! I ran into a family who found all sorts of living and dead animals on their walk today. I also took about 5 brochures which will lead us to many more Cook County and Chicago Wilderness destinations!
Then we had our picnic lunch in Egan Park in Cal City, which is a small woodsy play spot just southeast of Wentworth and River Oaks Drive. It has a huge sandbox, so Douwe played around the sandbox there for a while.
Hopefully this blog will have many accounts of our family's outdoor adventures for spring and summer 2010! Our natural world is so beautiful, even in The Region!
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Legoland
We still have the privilege of spending time with Steve about once a month or so. He is doing the best as his difficult circumstances allow, and he is currently in a school and educational program that is a good fit for him. He loves it and he is ready for his bus long before it shows up at his door. We are so proud to hear reports from him that he is reading at a high-school level and that he is going longer and longer durations of time in home and school settings without losing emotional self-control.
His school was on spring break the week before we had spring vacation, so Douwe and I and Steve and Grandpa and Grandma Groen enjoyed our first field trip to Lego Land in Schaumberg. I think everyone's favorite part was the huge Lego play room at the end of the tour through the building, but overall we enjoyed seeing all the Lego creations from city of Chicago replica to life-size President Obama statue.
Orange Beach has white sand
My last visit to the gulf coast of Alabama was my senior year of high school, back in 1993. Our family went this year and stayed in a beautiful condo on the beach for a week. It is strange to be away from home on Easter Day, but according to the locals, we were there on the first nice weather week since November. We had many options for on-site fun, and here was Douwe's order of recreational preferences: playing with cars and trucks in the condo bedroom, swimming in the indoor pool, playing on the playground, outdoor pool, beach. He did not touch the water of the Gulf of Mexico, it seemed too loud and scary. At the end of a day of fun in the sun (and out of the sun), we all enjoyed watching lots of family favorite movies, making use of the great wet bar in our condo for a daily happy hour, eating lots of good food and appetizers, and reading many books.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Joseph Childrens Museum
Douwe has now been to several children's museums in his short life and he tries to keep them distinct by remembering their names. We visited my friend Amy and her children in St. Joseph in late March and had a great day at the Curious Kids Museum in St. Joseph, Michigan. Douwe's favorite exhibits were the barn and farmhouse, and the volcano, and the ambulance.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Day 46: More to the Story
While the Eastertide recognition of the freed-from-tomb Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah is the pivotal recognition event in the story of the gospel, it is a strange one, because this moment comes to different groups and individuals at different points of time in history. The good news of Jesus is a love story between God and innumerable creatures in his beloved creation, but it is also a mystery, because it seems so abnormal and unfair that not everyone gets to recognize him on that Resurrection day for the most loveable, amazing, trustworthy, awesome, and exciting Person that he is.
The Jewish Pharisee-Christian Preacher called Saul/Paul is a perfect person to wrestle with the mystery of God's choice to stretch out and stagger the timing of recognition. His emotional and intellectual burden is the tragic situation that seems apparent throughout Jesus's ministry and so soon after Jesus's resurrection--his own Jewish family and religious community, God's special chosen nation, is not, in general, recognizing Jesus as their Messiah, while all those Gentile heathens who had never even spent more than five minutes thinking about God or Messiah, much less studied the Law and the Prophets for generations and lifetimes, they see him perfectly clearly as their Savior! What the heck has gone wrong? Is God up to something tricky, or has the God-Israel bond in the whole Old Testament become a failed love affair to forget?
It seems like a cruel trick to ditch Israel now after so many generations of promising and persisting in his faithful love to a nation that was often wrestling with, murmuring against, protesting to, forgetting about, and cheating on her Lover. Has his reputable forbearance finally ended for good, has he moved on to befriend and be enjoyed by everyone else but his first love, Israel?
No! rejoices Paul as he works through the various clues of the mystery and stumbles upon its amazing answer in Romans 9-11. God has not given up on his first love, nor has he failed to achieve what he promised he would do. He is just choosing the long and winding road of a love story with this nation, so that Israel, who was strong on separateness and exclusion, and could get too cocky and self-reliant with her Chosen Nation status, would experience the vulnerable condition being the Not-Beloved-Child for a time. The oh so long time of alienation and silent-treatment with his most special Israel opens up a generous season of gracious inclusion to those outsiders who never before were called any people at all, much less a Chosen People. The cosmic fullness and ripeness of time will bring that ultimate earthshaking moment of recognition and reconciliation that the whole of creation is waiting and longing and groaning for: That future day when all Israel receives the gracious gift of recognizing her re-revealed Messiah and shouts with one voice, "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!"
As Saul/Paul experienced in his own blinding day-of-recognition conversion, there seems to be something going on with God's use of timing and recognition. The time is ripe for love at different points for different peoples, and the most Wise and Forbearing Lover of all knows, as the Song of Songs refrain reminds us, that it is foolish to awaken, stir up, arouse love before the time is ripe.
Just as Aslan chose to be seen by Lucy early on and the others later on their long hike through Narnia, God uses delay techniques like scales upon eyes, or a deafening of ears, or a spirit of stupor, or a hardening of heart, to create a staggered timing of recognition that allows every individual and people to experience that moment of recognition on a day when the time is perfectly ripe in their lives for the best kind of Love to be awakened.
So for those of us who recognize and celebrate the world's Messiah on Easter Day, we get the thrill of getting in on the secret of what is coming next, and anticipating the rest of the story proceed to that locking-of-eyes and passionate embrace and swelling music moment for those who haven't yet recognized him. We can rest today with joy and relief, knowing that the ones who don't celebrate The Easter Messiah with us today are being kept from recognition today for a very good reason, and that their Lover will unmask himself for them at the perfectly right time just as he did for us. Everyone will get their own taste of terror and shame and crisis and confusion, their Emma moment of apocalypse, or their Mrs. Doubtfire moment, or their Susan/Peter/Edmund moment, or their Agent Kujan moment. And because this is a cosmic comedy and fairy tale, for many people that critical moment of recognition will come almost too late. But "almost" is that important, oh so important word. Breathe your sigh of relief, catch any new story followers up on what has happened so far, and other than that, all that is left to do is to sit back and enjoy watching the wisest Author and craftiest Lover use his best tricks of the trade to bring about the conclusion of this satisfying mystery and most celebrated romantic comedy of all time.
Happy Easter! Jesus Christ is risen, and become the firstfruits of the Dead!
P.S
Below is a shockingly graphic but relevant Bible chapter that serves as a metaphorical summary of God's long and winding love story with the Jewish people. The final verses are quite the surprise happy ending after such a long middle portion describing extremely serious love-hate relational issues, issues that would lead most marriage therapists to conclude that reconciliation is impossible. Would Jerry Springer even put a couple like this on his show? It helps us get the picture of Jehovah's mysterious and impetuous relationship with Israel as his difficult-to-love but forever Beloved nation. We Gentile Christians and heathens are eventually introduced into the story, as minor characters called Samaria and Sodom, and with mixed feelings of empathy and gratitude toward Israel, we recognize that the almost-divorce of the lovers gave us our chance to be included in the story too: (pasted in from biblegateway.com)
Ezekiel 16 (The Message)
Ezekiel 16
Your Beauty Went to Your Head
1-3 God's Message came to me: "Son of man, confront Jerusalem with her outrageous violations. Say this: 'The Message of God, the Master, to Jerusalem: You were born and bred among Canaanites. Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.
4-5 "'On the day you were born your umbilical cord was not cut, you weren't bathed and cleaned up, you weren't rubbed with salt, you weren't wrapped in a baby blanket. No one cared a fig for you. No one did one thing to care for you tenderly in these ways. You were thrown out into a vacant lot and left there, dirty and unwashed—a newborn nobody wanted.
6-7 "'And then I came by. I saw you all miserable and bloody. Yes, I said to you, lying there helpless and filthy, "Live! Grow up like a plant in the field!" And you did. You grew up. You grew tall and matured as a woman, full-breasted, with flowing hair. But you were naked and vulnerable, fragile and exposed.
8-14 "'I came by again and saw you, saw that you were ready for love and a lover. I took care of you, dressed you and protected you. I promised you my love and entered the covenant of marriage with you. I, God, the Master, gave my word. You became mine. I gave you a good bath, washing off all that old blood, and anointed you with aromatic oils. I dressed you in a colorful gown and put leather sandals on your feet. I gave you linen blouses and a fashionable wardrobe of expensive clothing. I adorned you with jewelry: I placed bracelets on your wrists, fitted you out with a necklace, emerald rings, sapphire earrings, and a diamond tiara. You were provided with everything precious and beautiful: with exquisite clothes and elegant food, garnished with honey and oil. You were absolutely stunning. You were a queen! You became world-famous, a legendary beauty brought to perfection by my adornments. Decree of God, the Master.
15-16 "'But your beauty went to your head and you became a common whore, grabbing anyone coming down the street and taking him into your bed. You took your fine dresses and made "tents" of them, using them as brothels in which you practiced your trade. This kind of thing should never happen, never.
What a Sick Soul!
17-19 "'And then you took all that fine jewelry I gave you, my gold and my silver, and made pornographic images of them for your brothels. You decorated your beds with fashionable silks and cottons, and perfumed them with my aromatic oils and incense. And then you set out the wonderful foods I provided—the fresh breads and fruits, with fine herbs and spices, which were my gifts to you—and you served them as delicacies in your whorehouses. That's what happened, says God, the Master.
20-21 "'And then you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had given birth to as my children, and you killed them, sacrificing them to idols. Wasn't it bad enough that you had become a whore? And now you're a murderer, killing my children and sacrificing them to idols.
22 "'Not once during these years of outrageous obscenities and whorings did you remember your infancy, when you were naked and exposed, a blood-smeared newborn.
23-24 "'And then to top off all your evil acts, you built your bold brothels in every town square. Doom! Doom to you, says God, the Master! At every major intersection you built your bold brothels and exposed your sluttish sex, spreading your legs for everyone who passed by.
25-27 "'And then you went international with your whoring. You fornicated with the Egyptians, seeking them out in their sex orgies. The more promiscuous you became, the angrier I got. Finally, I intervened, reduced your borders and turned you over to the rapacity of your enemies. Even the Philistine women—can you believe it?—were shocked at your sluttish life.
28-29 "'You went on to fornicate with the Assyrians. Your appetite was insatiable. But still you weren't satisfied. You took on the Babylonians, a country of businessmen, and still you weren't satisfied.
30-31 "'What a sick soul! Doing all this stuff—the champion whore! You built your bold brothels at every major intersection, opened up your whorehouses in every neighborhood, but you were different from regular whores in that you wouldn't accept a fee.
32-34 "'Wives who are unfaithful to their husbands accept gifts from their lovers. And men commonly pay their whores. But you pay your lovers! You bribe men from all over to come to bed with you! You're just the opposite of the regular whores who get paid for sex. Instead, you pay men for their favors! You even pervert whoredom!
35-38 "'Therefore, whore, listen to God's Message: I, God, the Master, say, Because you've been unrestrained in your promiscuity, stripped down for every lover, flaunting your sex, and because of your pornographic idols and all the slaughtered children you offered to them, therefore, because of all this, I'm going to get all your lovers together, all those you've used for your own pleasure, the ones you loved and the ones you loathed. I'll assemble them as a courtroom of spectators around you. In broad daylight I'll strip you naked before them—they'll see what you really look like. Then I'll sentence you to the punishment for an adulterous woman and a murderous woman. I'll give you a taste of my wrath!
39-41 "'I'll gather all your lovers around you and turn you over to them. They'll tear down your bold brothels and sex shrines. They'll rip off your clothes, take your jewels, and leave you naked and exposed. Then they'll call for a mass meeting. The mob will stone you and hack you to pieces with their swords. They'll burn down your houses. A massive judgment—with all the women watching!
41-42 "'I'll have put a full stop to your whoring life—no more paying lovers to come to your bed! By then my anger will be played out. My jealousy will subside.
43 "'Because you didn't remember what happened when you were young but made me angry with all this behavior, I'll make you pay for your waywardness. Didn't you just exponentially compound your outrageous obscenities with all your sluttish ways?
44-45 "'Everyone who likes to use proverbs will use this one: "Like mother, like daughter." You're the daughter of your mother, who couldn't stand her husband and children. And you're a true sister of your sisters, who couldn't stand their husbands and children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite.
46-48 "'Your older sister is Samaria. She lived to the north of you with her daughters. Your younger sister is Sodom, who lived to the south of you with her daughters. Haven't you lived just like they did? Haven't you engaged in outrageous obscenities just like they did? In fact, it didn't take you long to catch up and pass them! As sure as I am the living God!—Decree of God, the Master—your sister Sodom and her daughters never even came close to what you and your daughters have done.
49-50 "'The sin of your sister Sodom was this: She lived with her daughters in the lap of luxury—proud, gluttonous, and lazy. They ignored the oppressed and the poor. They put on airs and lived obscene lives. And you know what happened: I did away with them.
51-52 "'And Samaria. Samaria didn't sin half as much as you. You've committed far more obscenities than she ever did. Why, you make your two sisters look good in comparison with what you've done! Face it, your sisters look mighty good compared with you. Because you've outsinned them so completely, you've actually made them look righteous. Aren't you ashamed? But you're going to have to live with it. What a reputation to carry into history: outsinning your two sisters!
53-58 "'But I'm going to reverse their fortunes, the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters and the fortunes of Samaria and her daughters. And—get this—your fortunes right along with them! Still, you're going to have to live with your shame. And by facing and accepting your shame, you're going to provide some comfort to your two sisters. Your sisters, Sodom with her daughters and Samaria with her daughters, will become what they were before, and you will become what you were before. Remember the days when you were putting on airs, acting so high and mighty, looking down on sister Sodom? That was before your evil ways were exposed. And now you're the butt of contempt, despised by the Edomite women, the Philistine women, and everybody else around. But you have to face it, to accept the shame of your obscene and vile life. Decree of God, the Master.
59-63 "'God, the Master, says, I'll do to you just as you have already done, you who have treated my oath with contempt and broken the covenant. All the same, I'll remember the covenant I made with you when you were young and I'll make a new covenant with you that will last forever. You'll remember your sorry past and be properly contrite when you receive back your sisters, both the older and the younger. I'll give them to you as daughters, but not as participants in your covenant. I'll firmly establish my covenant with you and you'll know that I am God. You'll remember your past life and face the shame of it, but when I make atonement for you, make everything right after all you've done, it will leave you speechless.'" Decree of God, the Master.
The Jewish Pharisee-Christian Preacher called Saul/Paul is a perfect person to wrestle with the mystery of God's choice to stretch out and stagger the timing of recognition. His emotional and intellectual burden is the tragic situation that seems apparent throughout Jesus's ministry and so soon after Jesus's resurrection--his own Jewish family and religious community, God's special chosen nation, is not, in general, recognizing Jesus as their Messiah, while all those Gentile heathens who had never even spent more than five minutes thinking about God or Messiah, much less studied the Law and the Prophets for generations and lifetimes, they see him perfectly clearly as their Savior! What the heck has gone wrong? Is God up to something tricky, or has the God-Israel bond in the whole Old Testament become a failed love affair to forget?
It seems like a cruel trick to ditch Israel now after so many generations of promising and persisting in his faithful love to a nation that was often wrestling with, murmuring against, protesting to, forgetting about, and cheating on her Lover. Has his reputable forbearance finally ended for good, has he moved on to befriend and be enjoyed by everyone else but his first love, Israel?
No! rejoices Paul as he works through the various clues of the mystery and stumbles upon its amazing answer in Romans 9-11. God has not given up on his first love, nor has he failed to achieve what he promised he would do. He is just choosing the long and winding road of a love story with this nation, so that Israel, who was strong on separateness and exclusion, and could get too cocky and self-reliant with her Chosen Nation status, would experience the vulnerable condition being the Not-Beloved-Child for a time. The oh so long time of alienation and silent-treatment with his most special Israel opens up a generous season of gracious inclusion to those outsiders who never before were called any people at all, much less a Chosen People. The cosmic fullness and ripeness of time will bring that ultimate earthshaking moment of recognition and reconciliation that the whole of creation is waiting and longing and groaning for: That future day when all Israel receives the gracious gift of recognizing her re-revealed Messiah and shouts with one voice, "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!"
As Saul/Paul experienced in his own blinding day-of-recognition conversion, there seems to be something going on with God's use of timing and recognition. The time is ripe for love at different points for different peoples, and the most Wise and Forbearing Lover of all knows, as the Song of Songs refrain reminds us, that it is foolish to awaken, stir up, arouse love before the time is ripe.
Just as Aslan chose to be seen by Lucy early on and the others later on their long hike through Narnia, God uses delay techniques like scales upon eyes, or a deafening of ears, or a spirit of stupor, or a hardening of heart, to create a staggered timing of recognition that allows every individual and people to experience that moment of recognition on a day when the time is perfectly ripe in their lives for the best kind of Love to be awakened.
So for those of us who recognize and celebrate the world's Messiah on Easter Day, we get the thrill of getting in on the secret of what is coming next, and anticipating the rest of the story proceed to that locking-of-eyes and passionate embrace and swelling music moment for those who haven't yet recognized him. We can rest today with joy and relief, knowing that the ones who don't celebrate The Easter Messiah with us today are being kept from recognition today for a very good reason, and that their Lover will unmask himself for them at the perfectly right time just as he did for us. Everyone will get their own taste of terror and shame and crisis and confusion, their Emma moment of apocalypse, or their Mrs. Doubtfire moment, or their Susan/Peter/Edmund moment, or their Agent Kujan moment. And because this is a cosmic comedy and fairy tale, for many people that critical moment of recognition will come almost too late. But "almost" is that important, oh so important word. Breathe your sigh of relief, catch any new story followers up on what has happened so far, and other than that, all that is left to do is to sit back and enjoy watching the wisest Author and craftiest Lover use his best tricks of the trade to bring about the conclusion of this satisfying mystery and most celebrated romantic comedy of all time.
Happy Easter! Jesus Christ is risen, and become the firstfruits of the Dead!
P.S
Below is a shockingly graphic but relevant Bible chapter that serves as a metaphorical summary of God's long and winding love story with the Jewish people. The final verses are quite the surprise happy ending after such a long middle portion describing extremely serious love-hate relational issues, issues that would lead most marriage therapists to conclude that reconciliation is impossible. Would Jerry Springer even put a couple like this on his show? It helps us get the picture of Jehovah's mysterious and impetuous relationship with Israel as his difficult-to-love but forever Beloved nation. We Gentile Christians and heathens are eventually introduced into the story, as minor characters called Samaria and Sodom, and with mixed feelings of empathy and gratitude toward Israel, we recognize that the almost-divorce of the lovers gave us our chance to be included in the story too: (pasted in from biblegateway.com)
Ezekiel 16 (The Message)
Ezekiel 16
Your Beauty Went to Your Head
1-3 God's Message came to me: "Son of man, confront Jerusalem with her outrageous violations. Say this: 'The Message of God, the Master, to Jerusalem: You were born and bred among Canaanites. Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.
4-5 "'On the day you were born your umbilical cord was not cut, you weren't bathed and cleaned up, you weren't rubbed with salt, you weren't wrapped in a baby blanket. No one cared a fig for you. No one did one thing to care for you tenderly in these ways. You were thrown out into a vacant lot and left there, dirty and unwashed—a newborn nobody wanted.
6-7 "'And then I came by. I saw you all miserable and bloody. Yes, I said to you, lying there helpless and filthy, "Live! Grow up like a plant in the field!" And you did. You grew up. You grew tall and matured as a woman, full-breasted, with flowing hair. But you were naked and vulnerable, fragile and exposed.
8-14 "'I came by again and saw you, saw that you were ready for love and a lover. I took care of you, dressed you and protected you. I promised you my love and entered the covenant of marriage with you. I, God, the Master, gave my word. You became mine. I gave you a good bath, washing off all that old blood, and anointed you with aromatic oils. I dressed you in a colorful gown and put leather sandals on your feet. I gave you linen blouses and a fashionable wardrobe of expensive clothing. I adorned you with jewelry: I placed bracelets on your wrists, fitted you out with a necklace, emerald rings, sapphire earrings, and a diamond tiara. You were provided with everything precious and beautiful: with exquisite clothes and elegant food, garnished with honey and oil. You were absolutely stunning. You were a queen! You became world-famous, a legendary beauty brought to perfection by my adornments. Decree of God, the Master.
15-16 "'But your beauty went to your head and you became a common whore, grabbing anyone coming down the street and taking him into your bed. You took your fine dresses and made "tents" of them, using them as brothels in which you practiced your trade. This kind of thing should never happen, never.
What a Sick Soul!
17-19 "'And then you took all that fine jewelry I gave you, my gold and my silver, and made pornographic images of them for your brothels. You decorated your beds with fashionable silks and cottons, and perfumed them with my aromatic oils and incense. And then you set out the wonderful foods I provided—the fresh breads and fruits, with fine herbs and spices, which were my gifts to you—and you served them as delicacies in your whorehouses. That's what happened, says God, the Master.
20-21 "'And then you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had given birth to as my children, and you killed them, sacrificing them to idols. Wasn't it bad enough that you had become a whore? And now you're a murderer, killing my children and sacrificing them to idols.
22 "'Not once during these years of outrageous obscenities and whorings did you remember your infancy, when you were naked and exposed, a blood-smeared newborn.
23-24 "'And then to top off all your evil acts, you built your bold brothels in every town square. Doom! Doom to you, says God, the Master! At every major intersection you built your bold brothels and exposed your sluttish sex, spreading your legs for everyone who passed by.
25-27 "'And then you went international with your whoring. You fornicated with the Egyptians, seeking them out in their sex orgies. The more promiscuous you became, the angrier I got. Finally, I intervened, reduced your borders and turned you over to the rapacity of your enemies. Even the Philistine women—can you believe it?—were shocked at your sluttish life.
28-29 "'You went on to fornicate with the Assyrians. Your appetite was insatiable. But still you weren't satisfied. You took on the Babylonians, a country of businessmen, and still you weren't satisfied.
30-31 "'What a sick soul! Doing all this stuff—the champion whore! You built your bold brothels at every major intersection, opened up your whorehouses in every neighborhood, but you were different from regular whores in that you wouldn't accept a fee.
32-34 "'Wives who are unfaithful to their husbands accept gifts from their lovers. And men commonly pay their whores. But you pay your lovers! You bribe men from all over to come to bed with you! You're just the opposite of the regular whores who get paid for sex. Instead, you pay men for their favors! You even pervert whoredom!
35-38 "'Therefore, whore, listen to God's Message: I, God, the Master, say, Because you've been unrestrained in your promiscuity, stripped down for every lover, flaunting your sex, and because of your pornographic idols and all the slaughtered children you offered to them, therefore, because of all this, I'm going to get all your lovers together, all those you've used for your own pleasure, the ones you loved and the ones you loathed. I'll assemble them as a courtroom of spectators around you. In broad daylight I'll strip you naked before them—they'll see what you really look like. Then I'll sentence you to the punishment for an adulterous woman and a murderous woman. I'll give you a taste of my wrath!
39-41 "'I'll gather all your lovers around you and turn you over to them. They'll tear down your bold brothels and sex shrines. They'll rip off your clothes, take your jewels, and leave you naked and exposed. Then they'll call for a mass meeting. The mob will stone you and hack you to pieces with their swords. They'll burn down your houses. A massive judgment—with all the women watching!
41-42 "'I'll have put a full stop to your whoring life—no more paying lovers to come to your bed! By then my anger will be played out. My jealousy will subside.
43 "'Because you didn't remember what happened when you were young but made me angry with all this behavior, I'll make you pay for your waywardness. Didn't you just exponentially compound your outrageous obscenities with all your sluttish ways?
44-45 "'Everyone who likes to use proverbs will use this one: "Like mother, like daughter." You're the daughter of your mother, who couldn't stand her husband and children. And you're a true sister of your sisters, who couldn't stand their husbands and children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite.
46-48 "'Your older sister is Samaria. She lived to the north of you with her daughters. Your younger sister is Sodom, who lived to the south of you with her daughters. Haven't you lived just like they did? Haven't you engaged in outrageous obscenities just like they did? In fact, it didn't take you long to catch up and pass them! As sure as I am the living God!—Decree of God, the Master—your sister Sodom and her daughters never even came close to what you and your daughters have done.
49-50 "'The sin of your sister Sodom was this: She lived with her daughters in the lap of luxury—proud, gluttonous, and lazy. They ignored the oppressed and the poor. They put on airs and lived obscene lives. And you know what happened: I did away with them.
51-52 "'And Samaria. Samaria didn't sin half as much as you. You've committed far more obscenities than she ever did. Why, you make your two sisters look good in comparison with what you've done! Face it, your sisters look mighty good compared with you. Because you've outsinned them so completely, you've actually made them look righteous. Aren't you ashamed? But you're going to have to live with it. What a reputation to carry into history: outsinning your two sisters!
53-58 "'But I'm going to reverse their fortunes, the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters and the fortunes of Samaria and her daughters. And—get this—your fortunes right along with them! Still, you're going to have to live with your shame. And by facing and accepting your shame, you're going to provide some comfort to your two sisters. Your sisters, Sodom with her daughters and Samaria with her daughters, will become what they were before, and you will become what you were before. Remember the days when you were putting on airs, acting so high and mighty, looking down on sister Sodom? That was before your evil ways were exposed. And now you're the butt of contempt, despised by the Edomite women, the Philistine women, and everybody else around. But you have to face it, to accept the shame of your obscene and vile life. Decree of God, the Master.
59-63 "'God, the Master, says, I'll do to you just as you have already done, you who have treated my oath with contempt and broken the covenant. All the same, I'll remember the covenant I made with you when you were young and I'll make a new covenant with you that will last forever. You'll remember your sorry past and be properly contrite when you receive back your sisters, both the older and the younger. I'll give them to you as daughters, but not as participants in your covenant. I'll firmly establish my covenant with you and you'll know that I am God. You'll remember your past life and face the shame of it, but when I make atonement for you, make everything right after all you've done, it will leave you speechless.'" Decree of God, the Master.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Day 45: And their eyes were opened
The Road to Emmaus story is my favorite good news that the event of Jesus's resurection changes everything. I really re-acquainted myself with this story, in Luke 24, in the year 2000, when I tried writing a poem to submit for a creative writing contest that was soliciting pieces under the theme "Road to Emmaus". When I re-read the story, I noticed the phrase, "and their eyes were opened and they knew . . .," and it seemed to be a familiar phrase. I followed a hunch and turned back to Genesis 3 and there that phrase again.
I spent a lot of time with the details of these two stories to write a poem that told the Emmaus story as an echo and reversal of the Garden of Eden story, to describe a vision of Adam and Eve, because it is Easter day, getting a second chance to walk and talk with their God, to be freed from the curse of death and banishment, and to eat of the Tree of Life again.
The Emmaus story is a story of recognition, and it illustrates that the Day of Easter has the power to reverse and undo that curse-weighted death-fated recognition which opened Adam and Eve's eyes to shame and fear and distrust of Creator and each other.
It is a story that celebrates hospitality to strangers. The hosts are amazed and overjoyed when the guest unveils himself as Deity, very similar to the Greek myth I mentioned on an earlier day. It is also a story of timing, as hiddenness is actively sustained by the one who is not recognized until the moment he chooses.
To me it has become the beginning spot for all of my reading and understanding of Scripture. Although Jesus carefully explained the Law and Prophets to this pair of disciples on their walk, and although they felt a strange heartburn sensation as a result, none of it fully made sense or gave comfort or revealed biblical truth until they finally had mealtime companionship with the Truth, Jesus, the human-God whose body was raised from the dead.
All of my assumptions about what the Bible is saying and meaning about God now are founded upon this story, because until I saw Truth as a person, just as the Emmaus couple saw him, the Bible was an old document about static reality rather than a still-happening story about delayed recognition.
My idea of the Bible used to be founded upon a pre-Christian interpretation of Psalm 1: there are the righteous and the wicked, and the careful and obedient journey of the first ends with prosperity, while the sloppy and rebellious path of the other leads to destruction. There has been a pre-determination of who the righteous are and who the wicked are and there is no possibility of changing your or another's status from one to the other. Prosperity is heaven and destruction is hell. I used the Bible as a way to figure out who are the righteous, how can I be sure I am one of them, and how do I keep a safe distance from those who are not? As I became older and more confused and more empathatic and more anxious, I used the Bible to search out if there was any clue that anything could or that anyone would change the status and the destiny of those doomed wicked people?
But after I recognized who the Emmaus couple saw at their dinner table, I re-cognized Psalm 1 in a way that can only happen after you re-cognize Jesus's Resurrection identity within that Psalm. Jesus, because he became Sin on the cross, and because he was redeemed from the Pit as the Righteous One, exists, at the same time, as the two main characters of Psalm 1. The words never change, but in my experience, Psalm 1, along with the rest of the Bible, has been transformed from proof-texts about a static condition of who's good and who's bad, in/out, elect/reprobrate, saved/lost, included/excluded, heaven-sent/hell-bound to a gripping story about how evil is, over the passage of time and events, finally absorbed and overcome by Immanuel. Jehovah himself could show up at our Bible studies to explain Moses and the prophets to us for as long as we like, but until we re-cognize Jehovah as a carpenter-man from Nazareth, who is the Righteous Son of God, but who died of rejection by the Father as The Accursed One, and who then was raised to life as the Victor over death and evil, the whole complicated document of writings just causes an uncomfortable feeling of heartburn.
So much can happen while eating a meal with a stranger!
I spent a lot of time with the details of these two stories to write a poem that told the Emmaus story as an echo and reversal of the Garden of Eden story, to describe a vision of Adam and Eve, because it is Easter day, getting a second chance to walk and talk with their God, to be freed from the curse of death and banishment, and to eat of the Tree of Life again.
The Emmaus story is a story of recognition, and it illustrates that the Day of Easter has the power to reverse and undo that curse-weighted death-fated recognition which opened Adam and Eve's eyes to shame and fear and distrust of Creator and each other.
It is a story that celebrates hospitality to strangers. The hosts are amazed and overjoyed when the guest unveils himself as Deity, very similar to the Greek myth I mentioned on an earlier day. It is also a story of timing, as hiddenness is actively sustained by the one who is not recognized until the moment he chooses.
To me it has become the beginning spot for all of my reading and understanding of Scripture. Although Jesus carefully explained the Law and Prophets to this pair of disciples on their walk, and although they felt a strange heartburn sensation as a result, none of it fully made sense or gave comfort or revealed biblical truth until they finally had mealtime companionship with the Truth, Jesus, the human-God whose body was raised from the dead.
All of my assumptions about what the Bible is saying and meaning about God now are founded upon this story, because until I saw Truth as a person, just as the Emmaus couple saw him, the Bible was an old document about static reality rather than a still-happening story about delayed recognition.
My idea of the Bible used to be founded upon a pre-Christian interpretation of Psalm 1: there are the righteous and the wicked, and the careful and obedient journey of the first ends with prosperity, while the sloppy and rebellious path of the other leads to destruction. There has been a pre-determination of who the righteous are and who the wicked are and there is no possibility of changing your or another's status from one to the other. Prosperity is heaven and destruction is hell. I used the Bible as a way to figure out who are the righteous, how can I be sure I am one of them, and how do I keep a safe distance from those who are not? As I became older and more confused and more empathatic and more anxious, I used the Bible to search out if there was any clue that anything could or that anyone would change the status and the destiny of those doomed wicked people?
But after I recognized who the Emmaus couple saw at their dinner table, I re-cognized Psalm 1 in a way that can only happen after you re-cognize Jesus's Resurrection identity within that Psalm. Jesus, because he became Sin on the cross, and because he was redeemed from the Pit as the Righteous One, exists, at the same time, as the two main characters of Psalm 1. The words never change, but in my experience, Psalm 1, along with the rest of the Bible, has been transformed from proof-texts about a static condition of who's good and who's bad, in/out, elect/reprobrate, saved/lost, included/excluded, heaven-sent/hell-bound to a gripping story about how evil is, over the passage of time and events, finally absorbed and overcome by Immanuel. Jehovah himself could show up at our Bible studies to explain Moses and the prophets to us for as long as we like, but until we re-cognize Jehovah as a carpenter-man from Nazareth, who is the Righteous Son of God, but who died of rejection by the Father as The Accursed One, and who then was raised to life as the Victor over death and evil, the whole complicated document of writings just causes an uncomfortable feeling of heartburn.
So much can happen while eating a meal with a stranger!
Friday, April 2, 2010
Day 44: The Gardener
The four gospels all tell slightly different versions of the Easter morning story, but they all seem to agree that women are privileged to be the very first to discover and pass on the good news upon which the Christian faith depends: "Jesus is risen!" Mary Magdalene is present at dawn in every account, and John's delay of recognition resurrection story has her visiting the tomb by herself in the pre-dawn dark. She runs back to get Peter and John with fears of grave-robbers. The men inspect the potential crime scene then go home. Mary does not. She stays to weep over this further injury done to her friend, and then she sees Jesus, but does not recognize him immediately. She assumes he is a gardener and asks if he knows where her friend's body was moved to. The recognition comes when he says one word, her name. They have a moment of reunion, and then she is authorized by him to be an eye-witness evangelist and deliver the first Easter morning gospel message to the disciples: "Jesus is not dead, he is risen, and I have seen him alive!"
I love that her eyes mistake him for a gardener, because that is not that far off. In the second, more intimate creation story which starts in Genesis 2:4, we see the Creator kneeling in the dirt, forming the clay into a human, blowing life-breath into it, then planting a garden home for the human. Gardener God sculpting the animals out of the mud and breathing each to life. Gardener God digging and forming every living creature out of Mother Earth. Gardener God teaching his apprentice Earthling how to call each creature by a name, then finally making a bone-carving to create Earthling's perfect companion, the only creature not formed from dirt. When he is introduced to this new creature, Earthling names himself "Man", perfectly matched up to the creature he names "Woman".
And here, on Resurrection morning, the Gardener introduces himself to his friend Mary Magdalene as the second Earthson, and when she hears her name spoken, she recognizes her Teacher. He is God born of a woman, but killed by the curse of death upon the human race. Yet the Earth gets to be a mother again, for there is a new fertility given her by the Father, such that the dead body of Jesus which was put into a cave in the ground like a dead seed, emerges as a living thing again.
In another of my favorite Chronicles of Narnia scenes, we visit Narnia when it is a brand new world, in the book The Magician's Nephew. Narnia is so new and so fertile that it responds to the song of the Lion by sprouting life right out of its empty land. Humps of dirt start "bubbling like water in a pot" and out pop fully formed animals of every kind. Even a fragment of a iron lamppost that someone stuck in the ground starts growing into a full fledged streetlamp. This is C.S. Lewis' own creation story for his fairy-tale land, and the eagerness of the land to sprout life and respond to the Lion's song is very exciting to read about.
I now picture eager young Narnia and those bubbling humps of dirt, when I read so many verses in the Bible which mourn the barren and abandoned desert of wilderness land, then other verses which promise a new vitality which will be given to that land so that it again flows with milk and honey. The literal and figurative meanings seem to merge as one vision. I've pasted some verses below which seem to announce that the Gardener who tends his beautiful Earth is able to use a potent fertilizer which causes even dead bones of a human body, when planted, to eventually pop out as a resurrected human:
In Romans 8:
19The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
In Isaiah 45:
"You heavens above, rain down righteousness;
let the clouds shower it down.
Let the earth open wide,
let salvation spring up,
let righteousness grow with it;
I, the LORD, have created it.
9 "Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker,
to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground.
Does the clay say to the potter,
'What are you making?'
Does your work say,
'He has no hands'?
10 Woe to him who says to his father,
'What have you begotten?'
or to his mother,
'What have you brought to birth?'
11 "This is what the LORD says—
the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker:
Concerning things to come,
do you question me about my children,
or give me orders about the work of my hands?
12 It is I who made the earth
and created mankind upon it.
My own hands stretched out the heavens;
I marshaled their starry hosts.
In Isaiah 61:
For as the soil makes the sprout come up
and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise
spring up before all nations.
Isaiah 62:
For Zion's sake I will not keep silent,
for Jerusalem's sake I will not remain quiet,
till her righteousness shines out like the dawn,
her salvation like a blazing torch.
2 The nations will see your righteousness,
and all kings your glory;
you will be called by a new name
that the mouth of the LORD will bestow.
3 You will be a crown of splendor in the LORD's hand,
a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
4 No longer will they call you Deserted,
or name your land Desolate.
But you will be called Hephzibah, [a]
and your land Beulah [b] ;
for the LORD will take delight in you,
and your land will be married.
5 As a young man marries a maiden,
so will your sons [c] marry you;
as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride,
so will your God rejoice over you
I Corinthians 15
35But someone may ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?" 36How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39All flesh is not the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.
42So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"[e]; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. 48As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we[f] bear the likeness of the man from heaven.
50I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."[g]
55"Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?"[h] 56The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
I love that her eyes mistake him for a gardener, because that is not that far off. In the second, more intimate creation story which starts in Genesis 2:4, we see the Creator kneeling in the dirt, forming the clay into a human, blowing life-breath into it, then planting a garden home for the human. Gardener God sculpting the animals out of the mud and breathing each to life. Gardener God digging and forming every living creature out of Mother Earth. Gardener God teaching his apprentice Earthling how to call each creature by a name, then finally making a bone-carving to create Earthling's perfect companion, the only creature not formed from dirt. When he is introduced to this new creature, Earthling names himself "Man", perfectly matched up to the creature he names "Woman".
And here, on Resurrection morning, the Gardener introduces himself to his friend Mary Magdalene as the second Earthson, and when she hears her name spoken, she recognizes her Teacher. He is God born of a woman, but killed by the curse of death upon the human race. Yet the Earth gets to be a mother again, for there is a new fertility given her by the Father, such that the dead body of Jesus which was put into a cave in the ground like a dead seed, emerges as a living thing again.
In another of my favorite Chronicles of Narnia scenes, we visit Narnia when it is a brand new world, in the book The Magician's Nephew. Narnia is so new and so fertile that it responds to the song of the Lion by sprouting life right out of its empty land. Humps of dirt start "bubbling like water in a pot" and out pop fully formed animals of every kind. Even a fragment of a iron lamppost that someone stuck in the ground starts growing into a full fledged streetlamp. This is C.S. Lewis' own creation story for his fairy-tale land, and the eagerness of the land to sprout life and respond to the Lion's song is very exciting to read about.
I now picture eager young Narnia and those bubbling humps of dirt, when I read so many verses in the Bible which mourn the barren and abandoned desert of wilderness land, then other verses which promise a new vitality which will be given to that land so that it again flows with milk and honey. The literal and figurative meanings seem to merge as one vision. I've pasted some verses below which seem to announce that the Gardener who tends his beautiful Earth is able to use a potent fertilizer which causes even dead bones of a human body, when planted, to eventually pop out as a resurrected human:
In Romans 8:
19The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
In Isaiah 45:
"You heavens above, rain down righteousness;
let the clouds shower it down.
Let the earth open wide,
let salvation spring up,
let righteousness grow with it;
I, the LORD, have created it.
9 "Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker,
to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground.
Does the clay say to the potter,
'What are you making?'
Does your work say,
'He has no hands'?
10 Woe to him who says to his father,
'What have you begotten?'
or to his mother,
'What have you brought to birth?'
11 "This is what the LORD says—
the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker:
Concerning things to come,
do you question me about my children,
or give me orders about the work of my hands?
12 It is I who made the earth
and created mankind upon it.
My own hands stretched out the heavens;
I marshaled their starry hosts.
In Isaiah 61:
For as the soil makes the sprout come up
and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise
spring up before all nations.
Isaiah 62:
For Zion's sake I will not keep silent,
for Jerusalem's sake I will not remain quiet,
till her righteousness shines out like the dawn,
her salvation like a blazing torch.
2 The nations will see your righteousness,
and all kings your glory;
you will be called by a new name
that the mouth of the LORD will bestow.
3 You will be a crown of splendor in the LORD's hand,
a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
4 No longer will they call you Deserted,
or name your land Desolate.
But you will be called Hephzibah, [a]
and your land Beulah [b] ;
for the LORD will take delight in you,
and your land will be married.
5 As a young man marries a maiden,
so will your sons [c] marry you;
as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride,
so will your God rejoice over you
I Corinthians 15
35But someone may ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?" 36How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39All flesh is not the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.
42So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"[e]; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. 48As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we[f] bear the likeness of the man from heaven.
50I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."[g]
55"Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?"[h] 56The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Day 43: Cosmic Comedy
Who dares call the Holy Bible a comedy? How could you? What is funny about the curse "you shall surely die" coming true for the first parents and passed on to the whole human race by the third chapter of the first book? What is funny about the fact that everyone ends up dead, and that most people will live unhappy lives, and suffer cruelty, violence, homelessness, execution, poverty, loneliness, failure, leprosy, barrenness? That family after family in every generation have siblings who trick or murder or rape each other or betray each other into slavery? That cities are regularly wiped out by attacking armies or plagues or fire and brimstone or floods? Every single person's story, the Bible illustrates in story after story, has the tragic finality that comes with death. Game over. The End. Who dares call the Bible a comedy?
Well a comedy doesn't have to be a funny story. A theatrical comedy is called such, not so much for its funny moments, but because an unlikely event happens which turns everything quite suddenly from hopeless tragedy into a surprise good ending. People whom we thought were dead come back on stage. The impossible thing happens that is able to work everything out and allow reconciliation for alienated family members or friends or lovers.
There are only a few things that humans can do to deal with the reality that death comes for everyone. We can pass on life through bearing children to keep the human race going. We can eat and drink and party hard enough to forget thinking about tomorrow. We also can search for a fountain of youth, apply various technologies to combat the effects of old age. What can we do if we can't accomplish those things, and find ourselves both barren and old?
Well nothing, unless we hope for something impossible to be done for us. Something surprising, maybe even a ridiculous event, like what would happen in a comedy or fairy-tale or a soap opera. Here is that event in the Holy Bible: A story of two old people who are beyond child-bearing age and when they were young, they were barren. They are as good as dead. What is the point. Abraham can plant his seed, but his seed might as well be dead. Sarah can receive the seed, but her womb is lifeless, dried up, post-menopausal and barren. Dead in every way. Her womb is like a rock, a cave, whatever seed goes in will be dead and will stay dead.
And then they get some pregnancy news. Abraham and Sarah are promised that a multitude of children, more numerous than the stars, will have its source in her womb. Life abundant will come out of her dead cave of a uterus. She laughs at the ridiculous impossible prospect of that idea. She is as good as dead. No way. But it happens. A baby is born and named Laughter. The ridiculous turn of events has happened and for the first time it can not be said that death must be the end of every story. Laughter's birth is like a resurrection, life coming out of a cave that has only ever been sterile and barren.
Think of the most tragic turn of events in any story, or in your life. The reality that today makes you squirmy, scared, terrified, anxious, hopeless, resigned, guilty, heartbroken. The bad thing that you did or that happened to you or someone that brought death to relationships or to love or to bodies. Death. No hope. Game over. Tragedy. But look right at the graveyard where that dead thing was hid away forever. That graveyard is hearing ridiculous rumors like the kind that came Abraham and Sarah's way, a crazy outlandish impossible promise: Out of that tomb-womb, a place from where a living human has never emerged, there shall be fertility, fecundity, fruitfulness, the emerging of a live person, and descendants innumerable.
Barren old lady Sarah or Elizabeth, virgin Mary, cave/grave/tomb, you can't possibly give birth in your condition and that is why life will come from you. This is a comedy. Life and salvation comes from the last place you would expect, right when you thought that Death had the last laugh. In a comedy Life and Love get to have the last laugh. What an unpredictable turn of events. Any curtain that tries to close on the bloody death scene of a tragedy will be required to reopen until the characters sit up and breathe, the celebration music starts rocking the house, and everyone dances off the stage together.
Isaiah 51 begins with a recall of the miracle in Sarah's womb and foreshadows another event which totally destroys Death's power to keep anyone stuck in a tragic ending: the emerging of a resurrected Jesus from a tomb that was hewn in the rock. He, like Abraham's son Laughter, became the first-fruits, or firstborn, of the dead. Watch for the clues in the prophetic chapters 51 through 53 that this story of God and his cosmic kingdom is undeniably a comedy, a story which holds the attributes of all my favorite stories of delayed recognition, a story which is being skillfully executed by an Author who has an amazing way with comic timing:
Isaiah 51 (The Message) www.biblegateway.com
Committed to Seeking God
1-3 "Listen to me, all you who are serious about right living and committed to seeking God.
Ponder the rock from which you were cut,
the quarry from which you were dug.
Yes, ponder Abraham, your father,
and Sarah, who bore you.
Think of it! One solitary man when I called him,
but once I blessed him, he multiplied.
Likewise I, God, will comfort Zion,
comfort all her mounds of ruins.
I'll transform her dead ground into Eden,
her moonscape into the garden of God,
A place filled with exuberance and laughter,
thankful voices and melodic songs.
4-6"Pay attention, my people.
Listen to me, nations.
Revelation flows from me.
My decisions light up the world.
My deliverance arrives on the run,
my salvation right on time.
I'll bring justice to the peoples.
Even faraway islands will look to me
and take hope in my saving power.
Look up at the skies,
ponder the earth under your feet.
The skies will fade out like smoke,
the earth will wear out like work pants,
and the people will die off like flies.
But my salvation will last forever,
my setting-things-right will never be obsolete.
7-8"Listen now, you who know right from wrong,
you who hold my teaching inside you:
Pay no attention to insults, and when mocked
don't let it get you down.
Those insults and mockeries are moth-eaten,
from brains that are termite-ridden,
But my setting-things-right lasts,
my salvation goes on and on and on."
9-11Wake up, wake up, flex your muscles, God!
Wake up as in the old days, in the long ago.
Didn't you once make mincemeat of Rahab,
dispatch the old chaos-dragon?
And didn't you once dry up the sea,
the powerful waters of the deep,
And then made the bottom of the ocean a road
for the redeemed to walk across?
In the same way God's ransomed will come back,
come back to Zion cheering, shouting,
Joy eternal wreathing their heads,
exuberant ecstasies transporting them—
and not a sign of moans or groans.
What Are You Afraid of—or Who?
12-16"I, I'm the One comforting you.
What are you afraid of—or who?
Some man or woman who'll soon be dead?
Some poor wretch destined for dust?
You've forgotten me, God, who made you,
who unfurled the skies, who founded the earth.
And here you are, quaking like an aspen
before the tantrums of a tyrant
who thinks he can kick down the world.
But what will come of the tantrums?
The victims will be released before you know it.
They're not going to die.
They're not even going to go hungry.
For I am God, your very own God,
who stirs up the sea and whips up the waves,
named God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
I teach you how to talk, word by word,
and personally watch over you,
Even while I'm unfurling the skies,
setting earth on solid foundations,
and greeting Zion: 'Welcome, my people!'"
17-20So wake up! Rub the sleep from your eyes!
Up on your feet, Jerusalem!
You've drunk the cup God handed you,
the strong drink of his anger.
You drank it down to the last drop,
staggered and collapsed, dead-drunk.
And nobody to help you home,
no one among your friends or children
to take you by the hand and put you in bed.
You've been hit with a double dose of trouble
—does anyone care?
Assault and battery, hunger and death
—will anyone comfort?
Your sons and daughters have passed out,
strewn in the streets like stunned rabbits,
Sleeping off the strong drink of God's anger,
the rage of your God.
21-23Therefore listen, please,
you with your splitting headaches,
You who are nursing the hangovers
that didn't come from drinking wine.
Your Master, your God, has something to say,
your God has taken up his people's case:
"Look, I've taken back the drink that sent you reeling.
No more drinking from that jug of my anger!
I've passed it over to your abusers to drink, those who ordered you,
'Down on the ground so we can walk all over you!'
And you had to do it. Flat on the ground,
you were the dirt under their feet."
Isaiah 52
God Is Leading You Out of Here
1-2 Wake up, wake up! Pull on your boots, Zion! Dress up in your Sunday best, Jerusalem, holy city!
Those who want no part of God have been culled out.
They won't be coming along.
Brush off the dust and get to your feet, captive Jerusalem!
Throw off your chains, captive daughter of Zion!
3God says, "You were sold for nothing. You're being bought back for nothing."
4-6Again, the Master, God, says, "Early on, my people went to Egypt and lived, strangers in the land. At the other end, Assyria oppressed them. And now, what have I here?" God's Decree. "My people are hauled off again for no reason at all. Tyrants on the warpath, whooping it up, and day after day, incessantly, my reputation blackened. Now it's time that my people know who I am, what I'm made of—yes, that I have something to say. Here I am!"
7-10How beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of the messenger bringing good news,
Breaking the news that all's well,
proclaiming good times, announcing salvation,
telling Zion, "Your God reigns!"
Voices! Listen! Your scouts are shouting, thunderclap shouts,
shouting in joyful unison.
They see with their own eyes
God coming back to Zion.
Break into song! Boom it out, ruins of Jerusalem:
"God has comforted his people!
He's redeemed Jerusalem!"
God has rolled up his sleeves.
All the nations can see his holy, muscled arm.
Everyone, from one end of the earth to the other,
sees him at work, doing his salvation work.
11-12Out of here! Out of here! Leave this place!
Don't look back. Don't contaminate yourselves with plunder.
Just leave, but leave clean. Purify yourselves
in the process of worship, carrying the holy vessels of God.
But you don't have to be in a hurry.
You're not running from anybody!
God is leading you out of here,
and the God of Israel is also your rear guard.
It Was Our Pains He Carried
13-15"Just watch my servant blossom!
Exalted, tall, head and shoulders above the crowd!
But he didn't begin that way.
At first everyone was appalled.
He didn't even look human—
a ruined face, disfigured past recognition.
Nations all over the world will be in awe, taken aback,
kings shocked into silence when they see him.
For what was unheard of they'll see with their own eyes,
what was unthinkable they'll have right before them."
Isaiah 53
1 Who believes what we've heard and seen? Who would have thought God's saving power would look like this?
2-6The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling,
a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his bruises we get healed.
We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost.
We've all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong,
on him, on him.
7-9He was beaten, he was tortured,
but he didn't say a word.
Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered
and like a sheep being sheared,
he took it all in silence.
Justice miscarried, and he was led off—
and did anyone really know what was happening?
He died without a thought for his own welfare,
beaten bloody for the sins of my people.
They buried him with the wicked,
threw him in a grave with a rich man,
Even though he'd never hurt a soul
or said one word that wasn't true.
10Still, it's what God had in mind all along,
to crush him with pain.
The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin
so that he'd see life come from it—life, life, and more life.
And God's plan will deeply prosper through him.
11-12Out of that terrible travail of soul,
he'll see that it's worth it and be glad he did it.
Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant,
will make many "righteous ones,"
as he himself carries the burden of their sins.
Therefore I'll reward him extravagantly—
the best of everything, the highest honors—
Because he looked death in the face and didn't flinch,
because he embraced the company of the lowest.
He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many,
he took up the cause of all the black sheep.
Well a comedy doesn't have to be a funny story. A theatrical comedy is called such, not so much for its funny moments, but because an unlikely event happens which turns everything quite suddenly from hopeless tragedy into a surprise good ending. People whom we thought were dead come back on stage. The impossible thing happens that is able to work everything out and allow reconciliation for alienated family members or friends or lovers.
There are only a few things that humans can do to deal with the reality that death comes for everyone. We can pass on life through bearing children to keep the human race going. We can eat and drink and party hard enough to forget thinking about tomorrow. We also can search for a fountain of youth, apply various technologies to combat the effects of old age. What can we do if we can't accomplish those things, and find ourselves both barren and old?
Well nothing, unless we hope for something impossible to be done for us. Something surprising, maybe even a ridiculous event, like what would happen in a comedy or fairy-tale or a soap opera. Here is that event in the Holy Bible: A story of two old people who are beyond child-bearing age and when they were young, they were barren. They are as good as dead. What is the point. Abraham can plant his seed, but his seed might as well be dead. Sarah can receive the seed, but her womb is lifeless, dried up, post-menopausal and barren. Dead in every way. Her womb is like a rock, a cave, whatever seed goes in will be dead and will stay dead.
And then they get some pregnancy news. Abraham and Sarah are promised that a multitude of children, more numerous than the stars, will have its source in her womb. Life abundant will come out of her dead cave of a uterus. She laughs at the ridiculous impossible prospect of that idea. She is as good as dead. No way. But it happens. A baby is born and named Laughter. The ridiculous turn of events has happened and for the first time it can not be said that death must be the end of every story. Laughter's birth is like a resurrection, life coming out of a cave that has only ever been sterile and barren.
Think of the most tragic turn of events in any story, or in your life. The reality that today makes you squirmy, scared, terrified, anxious, hopeless, resigned, guilty, heartbroken. The bad thing that you did or that happened to you or someone that brought death to relationships or to love or to bodies. Death. No hope. Game over. Tragedy. But look right at the graveyard where that dead thing was hid away forever. That graveyard is hearing ridiculous rumors like the kind that came Abraham and Sarah's way, a crazy outlandish impossible promise: Out of that tomb-womb, a place from where a living human has never emerged, there shall be fertility, fecundity, fruitfulness, the emerging of a live person, and descendants innumerable.
Barren old lady Sarah or Elizabeth, virgin Mary, cave/grave/tomb, you can't possibly give birth in your condition and that is why life will come from you. This is a comedy. Life and salvation comes from the last place you would expect, right when you thought that Death had the last laugh. In a comedy Life and Love get to have the last laugh. What an unpredictable turn of events. Any curtain that tries to close on the bloody death scene of a tragedy will be required to reopen until the characters sit up and breathe, the celebration music starts rocking the house, and everyone dances off the stage together.
Isaiah 51 begins with a recall of the miracle in Sarah's womb and foreshadows another event which totally destroys Death's power to keep anyone stuck in a tragic ending: the emerging of a resurrected Jesus from a tomb that was hewn in the rock. He, like Abraham's son Laughter, became the first-fruits, or firstborn, of the dead. Watch for the clues in the prophetic chapters 51 through 53 that this story of God and his cosmic kingdom is undeniably a comedy, a story which holds the attributes of all my favorite stories of delayed recognition, a story which is being skillfully executed by an Author who has an amazing way with comic timing:
Isaiah 51 (The Message) www.biblegateway.com
Committed to Seeking God
1-3 "Listen to me, all you who are serious about right living and committed to seeking God.
Ponder the rock from which you were cut,
the quarry from which you were dug.
Yes, ponder Abraham, your father,
and Sarah, who bore you.
Think of it! One solitary man when I called him,
but once I blessed him, he multiplied.
Likewise I, God, will comfort Zion,
comfort all her mounds of ruins.
I'll transform her dead ground into Eden,
her moonscape into the garden of God,
A place filled with exuberance and laughter,
thankful voices and melodic songs.
4-6"Pay attention, my people.
Listen to me, nations.
Revelation flows from me.
My decisions light up the world.
My deliverance arrives on the run,
my salvation right on time.
I'll bring justice to the peoples.
Even faraway islands will look to me
and take hope in my saving power.
Look up at the skies,
ponder the earth under your feet.
The skies will fade out like smoke,
the earth will wear out like work pants,
and the people will die off like flies.
But my salvation will last forever,
my setting-things-right will never be obsolete.
7-8"Listen now, you who know right from wrong,
you who hold my teaching inside you:
Pay no attention to insults, and when mocked
don't let it get you down.
Those insults and mockeries are moth-eaten,
from brains that are termite-ridden,
But my setting-things-right lasts,
my salvation goes on and on and on."
9-11Wake up, wake up, flex your muscles, God!
Wake up as in the old days, in the long ago.
Didn't you once make mincemeat of Rahab,
dispatch the old chaos-dragon?
And didn't you once dry up the sea,
the powerful waters of the deep,
And then made the bottom of the ocean a road
for the redeemed to walk across?
In the same way God's ransomed will come back,
come back to Zion cheering, shouting,
Joy eternal wreathing their heads,
exuberant ecstasies transporting them—
and not a sign of moans or groans.
What Are You Afraid of—or Who?
12-16"I, I'm the One comforting you.
What are you afraid of—or who?
Some man or woman who'll soon be dead?
Some poor wretch destined for dust?
You've forgotten me, God, who made you,
who unfurled the skies, who founded the earth.
And here you are, quaking like an aspen
before the tantrums of a tyrant
who thinks he can kick down the world.
But what will come of the tantrums?
The victims will be released before you know it.
They're not going to die.
They're not even going to go hungry.
For I am God, your very own God,
who stirs up the sea and whips up the waves,
named God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
I teach you how to talk, word by word,
and personally watch over you,
Even while I'm unfurling the skies,
setting earth on solid foundations,
and greeting Zion: 'Welcome, my people!'"
17-20So wake up! Rub the sleep from your eyes!
Up on your feet, Jerusalem!
You've drunk the cup God handed you,
the strong drink of his anger.
You drank it down to the last drop,
staggered and collapsed, dead-drunk.
And nobody to help you home,
no one among your friends or children
to take you by the hand and put you in bed.
You've been hit with a double dose of trouble
—does anyone care?
Assault and battery, hunger and death
—will anyone comfort?
Your sons and daughters have passed out,
strewn in the streets like stunned rabbits,
Sleeping off the strong drink of God's anger,
the rage of your God.
21-23Therefore listen, please,
you with your splitting headaches,
You who are nursing the hangovers
that didn't come from drinking wine.
Your Master, your God, has something to say,
your God has taken up his people's case:
"Look, I've taken back the drink that sent you reeling.
No more drinking from that jug of my anger!
I've passed it over to your abusers to drink, those who ordered you,
'Down on the ground so we can walk all over you!'
And you had to do it. Flat on the ground,
you were the dirt under their feet."
Isaiah 52
God Is Leading You Out of Here
1-2 Wake up, wake up! Pull on your boots, Zion! Dress up in your Sunday best, Jerusalem, holy city!
Those who want no part of God have been culled out.
They won't be coming along.
Brush off the dust and get to your feet, captive Jerusalem!
Throw off your chains, captive daughter of Zion!
3God says, "You were sold for nothing. You're being bought back for nothing."
4-6Again, the Master, God, says, "Early on, my people went to Egypt and lived, strangers in the land. At the other end, Assyria oppressed them. And now, what have I here?" God's Decree. "My people are hauled off again for no reason at all. Tyrants on the warpath, whooping it up, and day after day, incessantly, my reputation blackened. Now it's time that my people know who I am, what I'm made of—yes, that I have something to say. Here I am!"
7-10How beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of the messenger bringing good news,
Breaking the news that all's well,
proclaiming good times, announcing salvation,
telling Zion, "Your God reigns!"
Voices! Listen! Your scouts are shouting, thunderclap shouts,
shouting in joyful unison.
They see with their own eyes
God coming back to Zion.
Break into song! Boom it out, ruins of Jerusalem:
"God has comforted his people!
He's redeemed Jerusalem!"
God has rolled up his sleeves.
All the nations can see his holy, muscled arm.
Everyone, from one end of the earth to the other,
sees him at work, doing his salvation work.
11-12Out of here! Out of here! Leave this place!
Don't look back. Don't contaminate yourselves with plunder.
Just leave, but leave clean. Purify yourselves
in the process of worship, carrying the holy vessels of God.
But you don't have to be in a hurry.
You're not running from anybody!
God is leading you out of here,
and the God of Israel is also your rear guard.
It Was Our Pains He Carried
13-15"Just watch my servant blossom!
Exalted, tall, head and shoulders above the crowd!
But he didn't begin that way.
At first everyone was appalled.
He didn't even look human—
a ruined face, disfigured past recognition.
Nations all over the world will be in awe, taken aback,
kings shocked into silence when they see him.
For what was unheard of they'll see with their own eyes,
what was unthinkable they'll have right before them."
Isaiah 53
1 Who believes what we've heard and seen? Who would have thought God's saving power would look like this?
2-6The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling,
a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his bruises we get healed.
We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost.
We've all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong,
on him, on him.
7-9He was beaten, he was tortured,
but he didn't say a word.
Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered
and like a sheep being sheared,
he took it all in silence.
Justice miscarried, and he was led off—
and did anyone really know what was happening?
He died without a thought for his own welfare,
beaten bloody for the sins of my people.
They buried him with the wicked,
threw him in a grave with a rich man,
Even though he'd never hurt a soul
or said one word that wasn't true.
10Still, it's what God had in mind all along,
to crush him with pain.
The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin
so that he'd see life come from it—life, life, and more life.
And God's plan will deeply prosper through him.
11-12Out of that terrible travail of soul,
he'll see that it's worth it and be glad he did it.
Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant,
will make many "righteous ones,"
as he himself carries the burden of their sins.
Therefore I'll reward him extravagantly—
the best of everything, the highest honors—
Because he looked death in the face and didn't flinch,
because he embraced the company of the lowest.
He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many,
he took up the cause of all the black sheep.
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