Shadrach, waiting to see the king

Daniel 3:16-18

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. 17 If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. 18 But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up."

Fear is a real thing, shaking and changing a man, stripping away what he pretends to see and know, testing the soundness of him. Fear is a sharpener, a magnifier, a divider. Fear lets a man know what can be done.

It was fear that I felt when first the walls of security were shattered, when first I learned that to belong to the people of God would not protect me infallibly from physical harm. After all, the God of my fathers offered no protection when the Babylonians came among us, stealing us away from our homes, though each of us belonged to families unstained by idolatry. This was no defense in the confused terror of those days, when the city fell and the invaders were among us like a blazing fire, killing the righteous and the wicked alike. We were the sons of privilege, of nobility, possessing a further security of piousness in an age of idolatry, as well as the words of God, the promises treasured (my father, my father, sharing with me those precious things from a young age, O Lord, I hope in you). Fear was my possession after all those things seem to vanish, and we were dragged to this pagan place.

We came here in fear, but we were strengthened here by hunger.

Hunger is a driving thing, since it is desire feeling the edge of consequence, the movement of idle desire into instinctual grabbing, like a man needing air. We were never hungry in a desperate way, for there were vegetables and water for us, on a daily basis. But we felt our hunger through a deliberate self-limiting that gave us time to examine the very desire, to analyze and understand it. Daniel told us the only purpose of our limiting was to avoid the defilement of the meats and dainties, prepared by anonymous but likely unclean hands, slaughtered and cooked in unclean ways. But the effect on my heart (and on all of us, for we experienced these things together) was to give space for thought and consideration, to examine this desire, for the satisfaction of eating is not a true satisfaction. How can we call it satisfaction if the desire returns and returns? If it was satisfied, it would extend itself in finality, a block set in place, an object fitted for its location. No food eaten can satisfy in a final sense, only give the frustrating illusion that ebbs and flows until it seems to disappear when the stomach is full. We pound our hunger until it no longer intrudes itself upon us, but this is no satisfaction. A desire satisfied, says the proverb, is like a tree of life, meaning that it springs up into delight, joy, fullness, growth.

Hunger responded to dulls. But hunger sustained allows the mind to focus on the desire and understand it, to know it for what it is, not push it down on the backs of rich things and much wine. Desires were meant to be satisfied, not suppressed. Hunger is one desire only. There are others.

O Lord, you give me these meditations in my fear, in my very real fear, for I have feared fire and burning since the first time I felt it, as a lad in the palaces of Jehoiakim when, running through the kitchens, I felt the sting of boiling water on my hand. A small burn only, but with a frightening intensity it focused me upon itself, drowning out all other things, making my world a feeling, all things encompassed in my hand and the pain. It of course faded, as do all pains, but I never ran through the kitchen again.

Pain and hunger are real things. I have felt them for my body is a unity, existing in integrity (that is, its parts integrated into one whole) and though I am composed of such parts, yet there is one man here, one Hananiah (to use my Hebrew name, bless the sound of it), one person in existence. To experience pain is to live as one whose hand communicates. In our fasting, we do not deny or eliminate our desire for food, nor in our defiance of the king did we deny that burning would be painful, or that death would be the result of burning.

When we stood that day before you, O Lord, refusing to bow before the gods of this empty world, we stood in fear, not in boldness, because when I stood my stomach was in pain, my head was rushing, my heart accelerated, my body responding in the unity of itself so that my fear was known to me. It was a fear of physical power, a fear of pain, a fear of burning. What can man do to me? He can throw me down from my position in this kingdom, he can take away the privileges of my life here, he can inflict pain upon me, and ultimately, he can end my life. I have seen death here in this world, even the death of your dear ones, the ones you call precious.

Yet we stood. We had decided we would do it as soon as the decree was announced. There was never any question in my mind, and I doubt there was in theirs. I say I felt fear not to lay forth the primacy of fear, as if this was a controlling passion. It was not, no more than our hunger controlled our eating when with Daniel we kept ourselves pure. To draw back in fear from pain, fire, death, is natural, normal, an element of existence, a rational act, a wise act, wise in the sense that it conforms with reality, that is, truth. To fear is to admit that the outside world is real. Insane men have no fear, but those of us who can order and comprehend the data of our senses must fear.

Lack of food produces hunger, presence of danger produces fear.

So we stood in fear, with eyes looking scornfully on the idol of gold. If we must acknowledge reality with our fears, then our intellect should also acknowledge the absurdity of bowing before some created thing. Our ears heard the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, the cries of the supplicants (most filled with the pretended zeal of the sycophant, or the real zeal of the terrified), a great noise and confusion pretending to be a show of honor, pretending to glorify something real. We stood in you, O Lord, in that hour, in our fear but deeper in you, for you are the God who is there, that is beyond real, the God that the poets call the Rock, for you are the bottom of all things. You are the one who (so it is said) makes our path broad beneath us, that makes our feet like the feet of the deer.

We stood in fear, yes, we stood in fear. And now we wait in fear, all of us wait in fear for this terrifying interview, the moment when we are brought before the king in his furnace room, the roar of which is already audible. Meshach is scared. Abednego is afraid. We are united in our fear, fear of what comes, fear of the pain of it.

But there is a bottom to our fear. It is the Rock. If we are wise we admit the reality of created things, we enjoy them in proportion to themselves, we fear them in the way of all rational creatures, that is, we respect them for the power each of them possesses. But the fool alone considers them to be his all, and fears them for their own sake. I fear fire for the pain it inflicts, and the nature of the end it produces. But I fear them only in relation to the God who made them, for there is a real real that sits behind the reality of all things, the God who makes them, controls them, orders them, whose power is beyond them. Thus it is said by Solomon that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It is the acknowledgement and incorporation of the base truth, the truth of truths, the root of truth, the vine from which it all growths, this alone allows us to consider and order things rightly, and thus to act in wisdom. To stand in him is to stand with our feet on the rock, to be sheltered from all things, and to say, with a new boldness, what can man do to me? Yes he can burn me, yes he can kill me, yes he can throw my life down to the dust, but what can he do beyond the reality of physical things, what can he do in the greater realm in which there is only one ruler?

Thus we stood in fear, but we stood in boldness to. Our eyes saw the decree, and soon they will see the fire, but they see also a greater thing. There is a property of seeing possessed by few (thus David says, open my eyes), possessed by those who say to the Lord, "Your face I will seek" and in seeking it they find themselves satisfied, satiated, content. Thus our boldness, of a different kind from the physical boldness of superior power (though its power is alike superior), a boldness that takes in fear and subordinates it, as we did our hunger in those days past, days I see now were in preparation for these days, days that quickened our heart-eyes so that they could see not the fire but the One who created fire. Our hearts are sharpened so that they go out to One, and that One is the One who picks us up and makes us stand, in our fear, in the face of that which we fear, fills us with a greater fear that makes us bold, and so we speak with the confidence of those who know they must one day die. We will die, why not today, why not in this way? For surely God will raise the dead! This was the hope our father Abraham, and so it must be our hope too.

Now the moment comes. Lord, you may not save us this day, but we see you. Lord, you may see fit to let us burn, but O Lord, we will bow down before none but you. These considerations lay low our fear though it does not lessen, and still our hearts though they continue to pound. The rock yet is under our feet and we will not be shaken.

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Daniel 1 and Daniel 3 contain the story
There are references to many psalms: 119, 56, 18, 27
Proverbs 1
See also Hebrews 11
Ephesians 1:18
Proverbs 13:12

Boaz, having removed his sandal (revised)

Love is a rare thing in that it is both joyous and excluding. Most joyous things are spilling and overflowing, affections that catch up those around them in their heat, like the rays of the sun which fall alike on all men. Nothing is hidden from the heat of the sun, but love is an interchange, a mutual going forth that is accessible only to its participants. Others stand at a distance and marvel, wonder, for there is nothing on the outside to give away the splendid operations at work. Love is like Benjamin's sack of grain.

I have stood before these men, given my solemn pledge, taken off my sandal according to the customs we have made. Before the gates of the city, this was the circumcision of our love, the seal of my promise to her, this brown woman, this Moabitess, this Ruth. O Lord, I have so often looked out upon the ways of men and maidens mystified and detached, a stranger to them, understanding only in the abstract what I imagined to be some sort of hyper-lust, an infatuation or intoxication like Shechem felt for Dinah. Now I stand in it and it fills me with a joy that feels fresh, as if any words I used to describe it would be new and wonderful, spoken for the first time. Love has a cleanness in it.

I saw her first when she was yet young in the days of her sorrow, having come with her mother-in-law from the land of our foes across the great valley where Abraham once rescued his righteous nephew. Lot's descendants, now among our fiercest enemies, are given over to idols, and though Elimelech went there in search of work and food during that great famine, his two sons took upon them foreign wives, Moabitesses, the offspring of idolaters. I heard the rumors when Naomi returned, but only when I saw Ruth working in the fields did I lay eyes on this foreign woman among us. Foreignness is revealing, because it takes in to itself a certain outward perspective. But we Israelites are the holy ones, the ones set apart, the possessors of the promises and the oracles of God. In Moab they have nothing, spite, dust, the pain of a few short years soon ended. They are not a people, because they possess no reason to exist. All the tribes of men are but a poor imitation of this great family, the family from Abraham, an organic oneness stretching back to him, and through the mystical promises back to Adam. To be among us to be known by God.

She was (is!) beautiful and young, looking no less beautiful in the meanness of the gleaning of the fields. This is a task usually reserved for the older widows and impoverished women, those who could not acquire a husband in the normal way, and thus feared little from working in a field full of men. When I saw her, she was beautiful to me, I looked upon her and loved her even then, though the distance of her youth and ancestry would not permit me to go further. But Naomi was my kin, so her daughter-in-law also, and I protected her that day from my men and provided for her the grain she needed.

A Moabitess. When she came to me later, as I was sleeping, an act both expected and unexpected, I had had time to consider her. Her labor in the fields, the story of her faithfulness to her mother-in-law had touched me. To follow Naomi was to join her, to become her kin in a way that defied the usual understanding we have of family. To envision the family of God as springing naturally from each other was exclusive, dividing. I had heard about her words to Naomi, "Your people will be my people, your God will be my God."

Lord, let your words remain always in my mind as I consider these things. We are the descendants of Abraham, the twelve tribes of Jacob. I myself come from Judah, in the line of Perez and Rahab. My kin are those who come from the same flesh, those of us all once contained in the body of Abraham, those who in him offered to the priest-king a tenth. We are the heirs of the blessing, given to Abraham, repeated to Isaac and Jacob. We are the ones who possess the law. Lot's line, those sons of incest and sin, are cursed. This is family, the bonds of flesh, facts of nature and situation not changeable.

A wild olive branch was this woman, so firm in her faith, for to follow Naomi showed that she trusted in the God of Naomi. She saw our God and wanted him, pursued him, spread herself before him. She had not been told this was possible or permitable but she had done it, not as she came to me of course, but as Jacob came to God, struggling, seizing, not letting go until he blessed him. My father spoke often of this desire for God, the legacy perhaps inherited from his own ancestor Rahab, another woman of desire, who had sought and seized the God who is kind to the seeker.

Thus the path of reflections upon this woman towards whom my heart was already exercised, towards whom already my thoughts were much upon. She was beautiful, certainly, but her character, her strength, her determined womanhood, these also had enlivened her beauty in a way that no outward adornment could. She was gentle, quiet in her heart and posture, submissive in her bearing, but she had thrown of all things to follow the God of Israel. When I compared her to the women of our village, chasing after the young men poor and rich, I saw a heart that beat for the promises of God, a heart that had heard from her godly mother-in-law of the people who worshiped the true God, and she had sought him and found him!

Then last night, she was at my feet. When I saw her, my heart loved her. Before she spoke she was my joy and my delight. When she asked me to take her upon myself, to take her under the shadow of my garment (what does this mean except for me to recreate what Adam had done so long ago when he cradled the woman under his arm, she his, when he named her for she had come from him?), I had already taken her up in my heart. There she was my flesh, my body, one with me in the mysterious pathways of this created love, this act set in place by God so that men would not be alone. Foreign she was no longer, but organic, reborn into our people by the power of God, now joined to me, my noble wife, a woman of nobility. Ruth, woman of God, like Rahab and Tamar she is unexpected in her righteousness, but known by God.

I saw her and I loved her. Then I spread my love over her, to shelter her. Now here in the city gates before the elders of the city I have sealed for all time our love (meaning, of course, as long as time is, until the unmaking of time and the remaking of the world).

O love, love, did I say once that you did not spill over? Perhaps not in the way I once thought, but my love will yet spill out and multiply, the way God's love has. From our love will come the offspring of my line, the line of Judah, the line of the king, the line from which the scepter will not part (how long, O lord, until you act?) Can you celebrate my love, O elders of the city gate? Love is by nature an exalting thing, which raises up and honors its objects.

Moabitess, my love. When God spoke he chose, when he took Abraham he took him freely. We, his people, are his people freely, the people of his love. Every choice of his is free, and if free than it is to us as a foreigner, as one estranged, as one far off. We stand far off but he brings us near. It is he who spreads his cloak over us, who takes us up. When I redeemed Ruth according to the law, I did so in order that she would belong to me. This purchasing was a choice, one I did with joy because of the exercise of my heart towards her.

These elements are all in place, I in love acting towards her, she drawing near in her request, the satisfaction of the law towards her. Now for the celebration of our love, the love that with all my heart I hope will pour forth into fruit, into expansion, into an heir that will stand one day in praise of this woman, this love, this faithfulness of God towards us.

In celebrating our love, we celebrate yours, O God, who made love and made our hearts to love.

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Scripture:

The WHOLE book of Ruth
References to Melchizedek in Genesis 14
Other bits of Genesis
The reference to "brown woman" is from Song of Songs 1:6 "do not stare at me because I am dark, because I am darkened by the sun."
Other bits of Song of Songs also present.

Boaz, having removed his sandal

Love is a rare thing in that it is enjoyed only by those involved in it. It is not a spilling emotion, not one that the others can get caught up into, like the rays of the sun which fall alike on all men. Nothing is hidden from the heat of the sun, but love is an interchange, a mutual going forth, a conversation between the hearts of two which cannot be eavesdropped upon. It is like Benjamin's sack of grain, ordinary on the outset, but inside there is cup of gold.

I have stood before these men now, given my solemn pledge, taken off my sandal according to the customs we have made. This was the circumcision of our love, the seal of my promise to her, this brown woman, this Moabitess, this Ruth. O Lord, I have so often looked out upon the ways of men and maidens mystified and slightly amused! Now I stand in it and it fills me with a joy that feels fresh, as if any words I used to describe it would be new and wonderful.

I saw her first when she was fresh in the days of her sorrow, having come with her mother-in-law from the land of the enemies across the great valley where Abraham once rescued his righteous nephew. Lot's descendents, now among our fiercest enemies, are given over to idols, and though Elimelech went there in search of work and food, his two sons took upon them foreign wives, Moabitesses. I heard the rumors when Naomi returned, but only when I saw Ruth working in the fields did I lay eyes on this foreign woman working among us. She was beautiful and young, taking on her the dangers of gleaning the fields, a task usually reserved for the older widows and impoverished women, those who could not acquire a husband in the normal way, and thus feared little from working in a field full of men. When I saw her, she was beautiful to me, I looked upon her and loved her even then, though the distance of her youth and ancestry would not permit me to go further. But Naomi was my kin, her daughter-in-law also, so I protected her that day from my men and provided for her the grain she needed.

A Moabitess. When she came to me later, as I was sleeping, an act both expected and unexpected, I had had time to consider her. I had surprised myself that day with my words and the unexpected warmth of them. Her labor in the fields, the story of her faithfulness to her mother-in-law had touched me. To follow Naomi was to join her, to become her kin in a way that defied the usual understanding we have of family. I had heard about her words to Naomi, "Your people will be my people, your God will be my God."

Lord, let your words remain always in my mind as I consider these things. We are the descendants of Abraham, the twelve tribes of Jacob. I myself come from Judah, in the line of Perez and Rahab. My kin are those who come from the same flesh, those of us all once contained in the body of Abraham, those who in him offered to the priest-king a tenth. We are the heirs of the blessing, given to Abraham, repeated to Isaac and Jacob. We are the ones who possess the law. Lot's line, those sons of incest and sin, are cursed. This is family, the bonds of flesh, facts of nature and situation not changeable.

My reflections took me to this woman towards whom my heart was already exercised, towards whom already my thoughts were much upon. She was beautiful, certainly, but her character, her strength, her determined womanhood, these also had enlivened her beauty in a way that no outward adornment could. She was gentle, quiet in her heart and posture, submissive in her bearing, but she had thrown of all things to follow the God of Israel. When I compared her to the women of our village, chasing after the young men poor and rich, I saw a heart that beat for the promises of God, a heart that had heard from her godly mother-in-law of the people who worshiped the true God, and she had sought him and found him!

Then last night, she was at my feet. When I saw her, my heart loved her. Before she spoke she was my joy and my delight. When she asked me to take her upon myself, to take her under the shadow of my garment (what does this mean except for me to recreate what Adam had done so long ago when he cradled the woman under his arm, she his, when he named her for she had come from him?), I had already taken her up in my heart. There she was my flesh, my body, one with me in the mysterious pathways of this created love, this act set in place by God so that men would not be alone.

I saw her and I loved her. Then I spread my love over her, to shelter her. Now here in the city gates before the elders of the city I have sealed for all time our love(meaning, of course, as long as time is, until the unmaking of time and the remaking of the world).

Remember when once I was a foreign man, adrift in the world, taken up by the love of God. To know God as a loving God is to know him as a husband. Once I too was the outcast of the peoples, a brown woman working in the fields, my heart hungry but not free. Lord, this woman is mine, my glory and my delight for all time. What do you express to us in this love, this love you created? Man is in your image, and so love must be too, for you have said yourself that in marriage the two become one. Lord, the seeking, the sheltering, the joy, all these are in my experience too.

Moabitess, my love. When God spoke he chose, when he took Abraham he took him freely. We, his people, are his people freely, the people of his love. Every choice of his is free, and if free than it is to us as a foreigner, as one estranged, as one far off. We stand far off but he brings us near. It is he who spreads his cloak over us, who takes us up. When I redeemed Ruth according to the law, I did so that she would belong to me. This purchasing was a choice, one I did with joy because of the exercise of my heart towards her.

These elements are all in place, I in love acting towards her, she drawing near in her request, the satisfaction of the law towards her. Now for the celebration of our love, the love that with all my heart I hope will pour forth into fruit, into expansion, into an heir that will stand one day in praise of this woman, this love, this faithfulness of God towards us.

In celebrating our love, we celebrate yours, O God, who made love and made our hearts to love.

-----------------------
Scripture:

The WHOLE book of Ruth
References to Melchizedek in Genesis 14
Other bits of Genesis
The reference to "brown woman" is from Song of Songs 1:6 "do not stare at me because I am dark, because I am darkened by the sun."
Other bits of Song of Songs also present.

Aside

If you were wondering why my writing tends to include so many commas and sentence fragments, it may be because I have spent the last five years reading the complete works of John Owen. I came across this passage the other day and it made me laugh out loud.

"He is mine, I possess him, I have interest in him, as my head and my husband; and I am his, possessed of him, owned by him, given up unto him and that as to my Beloved in a conjugal relation."

I feel I have absorbed somewhat of the rhythm of Owen's writing, if not anywhere near his depth of insight or breadth of knowledge. I am not 100% sure this is a good thing, since Owen was once described in his writing style thus: "Owen travels through it (his subject) with the elephant’s grace and solid step, if sometimes also with his ungainly motion."

Haha, probably I flatter myself. But Owen is dead and can't complain.


(Compare, for example, to this passage: "This was easier to grasp, but I loved to ask it to hear my father pour forth of the love, the faithfulness, the inexpressible delight that comes from nearness, from speaking, from the sheer knowledge of God, the one so inaccessible, so far off from us. These promises bring us near to him! my father would say, his voice rising. To possess him is all, to possess him is all.")

Rahab, listening to rumors

Three men today. Busy day.

The men returning from the fields said the rumors are picking up. When we first heard about the march of these men, their mysterious emergence from the vast southern desert, I was neither upset nor surprised. Live long enough and you'll see war, as long as men are men, and I have seen many. There is war and there is war, of course, but Jericho has always been a pleasant place for it.

Another squabble, settled in the blood of young men, a struggle for land, for the pride and glory of a few, control of this trade or that trade, sometimes managed by a superior power, sometimes only settled when one side had finally exhausted the strength of the other. Always good for business though! Men will pay more in days of stress and battle, when they fear they may never touch a woman again, or when in the flush of victory they need a place to spend their spoils. A shrewd women can earn a good profit in war, and I have always been shrewd, knowing my best asset in this city is the natural beauty of my form (they say that I am "smiled on by the gods" for this beauty, which is a fancy way of saying that it is unexplainable). I have been successful, taking what I could from the situation, advancing to the place I have now, perched as I am at a key spot near the city gates, in the city wall. A place with a view.

But there is war. Within the walls of this city, war is business. But I know enough of war to consider myself blessed (another mysterious word, the performer of the action left unmentioned) to be living here, a stronghold, an as yet unmastered city. My business would not last long in the chaos of war! In that trial my beauty would change from an asset to a curse (again, unidentified agent), for it takes little to uncover the cruelty at the heart of men. For the sake of peace, stability, and security, they will pay in peace. But remove such constraints for a minute, and they will take what they can, seeking to gratify some natural desire for mastery, the glint in their eyes I see when under the guise of my business I give myself to them reveals that though the can content themselves with the pretended mastery for the sake of a shared security, it is a thin veneer only. I have seen it, feared it, thanked (who?) for the safety of our walls. Here I take refuge from such passions, a measure of control that has given me safety. Violence lurks in the hearts of all men.

But something in the atmosphere of the city tonight worries me. The rumors have a urgent edge to them, not just the nattering of the old women, or the idle chatter of the young men. There is fear, dread, something deeper and nameless. They say this emerging people have a God that fights for them. I asked the man who told me this what he meant but he could say nothing more. The phrase is ominous. A God who fights for them, not just evoked in battle but actually participative in battle?

They say he scattered every people they have encountered. We have heard the reports from Midianites, even received refugees from them who spoke of the might and terror of this mysterious desert race, these Hebrews, these descendants of the long-dead Abraham (that name is familiar to us, though many claim descent from him). But all refugee speak of terror. Still, still.

What if there is something in this? Think on it, Rahab, think on it. This city is a refuge, a stronghold, a shield around me, but what if I am faced with something quite beyond the power of men? Something that defies the normal calculus of my decisions, the careful scheming and planning?

What refuge is this? I remember one night when a summer storm raged, the thunder rumbling, the dark storm clouds illuminated for brief instants by the bolts of lightening. It poured and beat itself against the walls that surrounded me. Reaching my hand to touch the stone, I felt a brief rumble beneath, no more than the vibrations of a strong but distant thunder, but for a moment it felt like the very ground beneath me was unstable, unbottomed, a shifting surface that in the worst moment would reveal itself insecure, undependable, faithless. For a moment the rocks seemed to mock me for my faith in them and I caught a glimpse of nameless forces, older and stronger than the very storm that raged, under which the whole earth shuddered, powers casually hostile, strong but chaotic, like the whims of war from which I had long insulated myself.

I was terrified.

Now I feel the stone under my hands and it feels solid. I can see the defenses this city has, strong, unblemished, a mighty testament to the strength of men. The stone is hard, the ground strong, the walls tall. From them I have seen men perch for years now, laughing at the armies that are so foolish as to besiege its might.

A refuge. Think of a hen with her chicks. This is the city to me, and to many others. We hide here, in the shadows of her wings, sheltered by her power. She is to us a world in miniature, from which those ever-chaotic forces of death, hatred, war swirling unceasingly, unpredictably, are barred, blocked, banished.

It is an illusion.

They say their God dwells among them like a pillar of fire! They say he feeds them every day with bread from the heavens! What is it that is approaching? What power is this?

Rahab, Rahab, think! If this God is real, what can I do? I have heard what they have in store for us. They say this land is theirs, that it was promised to them. They will not stop until they have taken it. And if they truly have a God who fights for them, then what? God is God. I am wise enough to know the uselessness of those wooden carvings the foolish worship as gods. But who can deny that behind all this creation, all this noise and confusion, there is a God? If he is God, than he is maker, and if he is maker, than what can this edifice of stone and clay and wood be to him? If he can part the very seas (for this also has reached my ears) than can the works of man halt him? I would be foolish not to seek him, if there is seeking to be done, and if I could find him.

What could I expect from him, this God of the Hebrews, this mighty pillar of light and smoke? I have sheltered myself all these years in a parody refuge, perhaps the greatest one I could find among the works of men, but even natural forces can shake it, and one earthquake could destroy it. What hope would it have against forces supernatural? No, there must be a better refuge, a stronger one. A rock that is higher than this city, that can set me above all the chaos and pain and death of this poor world.

The God that lives among the Israelites might destroy me. I am unclean after all, stained by the years of living in this city, amongst this people. But what separates me from those others except the accident of birth? I was born beautiful, they were born Israelites. But I see only two options before me: seek the God of these Israelites and risk destruction, or seek safety in the works of men and guarantee it.

What opportunity will I have? Perhaps none. But a refuge that can be depended on, a rock upon which my feet can stand and rest secure, that is something to hope for, something that my heart longs to have. I will wait and watch.

Sarah, holding Isaac

Genesis 21:6-7

6 Sarah said, "God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me." 7 And she added, "Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age."

O Lord, if this moment never ended I would be content! I want to cling to the presentness of what I see, to never move my eyes from this child, my Isaac. There is an aching as the moments pass by, not from any dilution of the joy of it, but from the knowledge that they are passing, that I cannot have them forever!

This sweetness, this dearness, this joy. This half-laughing half-crying emotion, incomparable. This is mine. I have brought it forth for my husband, it springing naturally from our union, love producing life, intimacy reproducing itself, our flesh creating new flesh, new life, this precious thing, squirming in my hands, independent from me yet a part of me, a will given him uniquely, a spirit animating what once came from me, my body, our love creating newness!

He is so beautiful. He is so precious. He is so unique. (Laughter breaking forth) What women has not thought such things! But now it is my turn to say it and think it, and I will not be denied my heritage (more laughter), since it came from Eve has not every woman longed for this? We are created, not just physically but intrinsically, soul and self, for this moment, and it is our crown, our glory! From us comes life, from us the salvation of men! (laughter) O Lord, your mysterious words indicate something deeper for this particular child, but still every woman has given some part of themselves to this great act, this great enlargement, creation of new life, an act in which God himself took part and is therefore blessed, holy, beautiful in itself and good in itself.

This I was long denied.

O Lord, you alone have seen all the tears of barren women. You alone can understand and comprehend the pain of it. I have heard that in the cities there are women who embrace this infertility, who take a perverse pleasure in it, freed as it were from the obligation of childbearing, they claim control over their lives, independence from any responsibility. In its essence this is no different from what Eve did in the garden, taking her independence, liberating herself from her created obligation to her husband, speaking to the serpent and acting out of her deceived understanding. No, barrenness is no blessing but one of the chief signs of the curse. It gives women not independence (what freedom can there be except in what God created us to be?) but makes her less than a woman, incapable of being what a woman was meant to be, a living reality that pained me every time I walked through our tents and saw the women of my master's household, each of them delighting in the children of their quickened wombs. A pain, a longing, an ache.

Women of course exist before you as men do, moral creatures responsible to you for our actions, able to comprehend you and interact with you according to the promises, drawing near in your mercy with the same holy freedom as men. Women apart from men are created in a certain way, and to not marry is a good thing in itself. But a woman in union with man, joined by the Spirit into one flesh, that is another thing, another purpose of God. To be barren in my love is no gift, it is nothing but a sign that creation is cursed, that a thing designed to function in a certain has been stopped up, blocked halted. This is evil, sadness, regret, mourning, a wickedness in which my heart has played its part.

It is not punishment exactly, that is, I had not earned my barrenness by some deed for which I needed to atone, but rather I was experiencing in general the consequence of an ancient disobedience in which I had participated. This had twisted creation (for in itself the rebellion was a subverting of creation), scarred it, created death in general and in particular. Barrenness was a part of this, the slow-dying hope as year after year passes by, love consummated but never made fruitful. Listen to me, love was meant to reproduce itself, to make living and new! This is the nature of love, to quicken and bubble forth.

(laughter)

And now here it is! The years of my barrenness can be laughed at now, at least, my foolishness in them (a laughter with some regret). I remember the slow descent of hope in my early years with Abraham. What a tender husband he was to me in those days, and what a faithful man to me when some men would have thrown me out of their tent, mocked me, and moved onto a woman who could bring an heir. I have seen it before. But not my master, not even when he had received the mystifying promise that he would be made into a great people. I must admit the pathway which this promise has now taken did not enter my mind when he received it. He believed, and in his faith I lived to and followed his heart where he took us, but it was an abstract faith (that is to say, not really faith), a faith not to be fulfilled, but one which we must fulfill. Thus in the days while he waited patiently, I made a plan. My womb was dead, what could bring it to life again? My hope also was dead, the hope of my womanhood, my hope as created, and therefore the promise must come through a different path, we must cause it, work it, earn what God had said he would create by his own power.

Ishmael is the son of my schemes, the son of our work, the son of faithlessness. As soon as he came forth from Hagar the bitterness in my soul, the long-held bitterness, burst forth and I despised the sight of her and her child. He, perhaps in himself no different from this one I now hold (though each is so unique, what a miracle!), but presenting to me my failure, my emptiness, the hopes of my youth now in dust.

Then I despaired. Oh, my life was largely a pleasant one, possessing as I do such a true and tender master, the wealth with which God has blessed us, even the painful and broken intimacy I shared with my Lord in those days (for in every emotion He met me).

Then, laughter (laughter), oh laughter, laughter so different from that which breaks forth minute by minute as I examine this precious miracle in my arms, this lovely child so connected to my soul. There is a laughter that contains no joy in it, a despairing laughter that is a disbelieving unexpectedness. It is a laughter that pains in a way even as it walls itself up against further pain. It is a defensive laughter, defending against a long-dead hope, a long seared emotion, a memory of pain. I would never have a child. When I overheard that man (you, O Lord!) say he would return in a year to find me with a child, I laughed.

(laughter)

Now I sit here in the full flowering of my hope, in the desire fulfilled which brings forth life, fruit, newness, and deeper than that, further hope of a God who can do such a thing! Remember his words, "Is anything too hard for God?" Who in observation of my story can answer anything but no? Oh, the hope in me recovered itself slowly, first in the embarrassed shock of the moment, than in my moments of meditation slowly growing as I remember the past and God's words, his promises. In a strange way, the destruction of the foul twin cities was a great growth in my hope, confirming as it did the unbreakable words of God, which had been focused on me, spoken promises to me, spoken against my disbelief, in and during my disbelief, creating the faith that I now delight in, or rather, nurturing and growing it past my bitterness and years of disappointment!

Oh Isaac, Isaac, child of my flesh, child of my faith and my master's faith! You are beautiful! May this moment never end!

(laughter)

Blog series

As I am sure you can see, I have started a series of blog posts tentatively called "The Inner Life of the Saints." If anyone is reading these, I know they are long, longer than usual blog posts, but if you get a chance to read them, I would appreciate feedback. I am putting a fair amount of thought into each one.

Also, I am thinking of putting all the verses that the blog references at the end, or maybe as the first comment. Do you think that would be helpful?

Phineas, exultant

Numbers 24:10-11

The LORD said to Moses, "Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites; for he was as zealous as I am for my honor among them, so that in my zeal I did not put an end to them.

To burn is a mercy! To be named is my glory!

Sovereign Lord, who dwells among us, what right have I to claim anything? What right do I have to be called zealous, to be separated out from among all the men that know you, to be given the glory of the covenant you gave me? My head is lifted up, yes, it is lifted up, but only because you lifted it! Why do I burn when others do not? Why did I grab my spear while even Moses prostrated himself? I had not thought of gaining something from you then, none of us did!

All our thoughts were on the plague, the spreading contagion running from tent to tent, from clan to clan, from tribe to tribe. Thousands were in its grip and still it spread, threatening to overwhelm us here, on the cusp of our long-awaited victory, the victory for which and unto which we have been purified these past forty years, the victory you promised, which I never doubted, but which we had to be prepared for, created for, burned away for. We could not be swallowed up here, on the threshold of milk and honey. The plague spread, but beneath it spread a different plague, one more deadly and insidious, for those who died from the outer plague were dead simply, fallen in the desert, a sadness but perhaps not permanent, according to the hope of our people. But to fall victim to that other plague was to die finally, to die outside the covenant, to die enthralled to another god. One plague came from God, the other from Balaam, and perhaps forces more nameless behind him.

We had heard the reports, Moses and his circle, Caleb, Joshua, the chiefs among the Levites, the clan leaders. I was among them when we heard of the arch-sorcerer, I saw the fear in the faces of some, so readily contrasted to the calm steadiness of Moses, the grim fire of Caleb, and the quiet passion of Joshua. I admit my heart was shaken a bit, but I have been long taught by my father in the ways of God, even to minister before him. His fire is fierce among us, he would say, but its true fierceness is for our enemies. In us it burns to strengthen, though its pain is felt. For our enemies, it burns to consume. Balaam, I knew, was not to be feared, and when called upon I said as much. What can the petty sorceries of some mere man be against the one who had fed us from his own hand for forty years? Moses nodded approvingly.

We now know Balaam was hired to curse us. When his curses failed, he tried to earn his money a different way. O Lord, surely such deviousness could not have come from a man along! How perfectly did he judge us! Lord, slay him in the coming battle! Such evil must be wiped out, must be destroyed from the face of the earth!

Seduction. Had the Moabites came screaming from their strongholds, a massed attack upon the men of Israel, we would have overcome them in a minute. Balak knew this. He sought to marshal forces he did not understand to his side, perhaps defeating with some unseen power though his own forces were weak. When this failed, he despaired, but the man he hired did not. Seduce them, he said! Make them one of us! Balaam knew the seductive power of their false religion, holding out as it did all the pleasures of the world to men, men who are weak. Force meeting force strengthens.

It was no more than a strategy. Hit them where they are weak. We are weak for men who cannot see. Our religion is not for men who hope here, but only for men who see the future, men who know what is promised. This is the privilege of God among us. So the plague of here, of pleasure, the wretched plague of the Moabites and their sorcerer spread among us, until at last our God's fire also began to spread among us, a fire that would refine us, but that could consume us, consume us as it did my uncles. Surely we follow a God who is to be feared!

When I saw that man, I feared. I feared God as he had been revealed to me. I feared his anger, which I had heard of. I feared that we would not be allowed into the land we had so long desired, that I had so long desired. Fear alone, though, did not move me, did not make me reach for my spear. It was not fear, but a fire, a passion, something within me that thirsted for the God I followed to be exalted, to be respected, to be known in our camp as he was known to the men who had opposed him in the past. This came up within me, strong, mighty, powerful. I recognized it. It was the same fire that I felt every time I entered the tent of meeting, every time father told me of our past, every time I heard about the exit from Egypt, every time the Moses spoke to us of his encounters on the fiery mountain, every time I saw the stone tablets he had brought down with him.

This is what my God called zeal. But I did not create it. I do not know why it burns in me and not in others. But I knew it had to be obeyed, the fire in me making me into a fire for that man and his seductress, and I put in end to their adultery, and inadvertently (for I did not know this would be the outcome) to the plague itself.

Zeal? If zeal, than zeal comes by the mercy of God, but I will bear this title nonetheless, exulting in the convenant now made with me and my children. I recognize my action, the activity of my zeal, even as I recognize the fire as external. To be named by my God! To hear his voice commending me, speaking of me, knowing me, and I him, as never before, but never to be stopped, never to be ended, my line forever serving before the Lord, forever exultant in his presence! From fire to fire, never-ending, ever burning, glowing, glory reflected from his glory, his image in me! It is mercy all, glorious mercy, which creates in me what it desires from me!

God be praised and feared and obeyed.

Manasseh in chains

II Chronicles 33:12

In his distress he sought the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers

It was always hidden in the back of my mind. I would never look there, never examine it. For many years, I did not need to. My mind is easily occupied, and there was always a flood of things to set before it. The mind, after all, is fixed upon what is set before it, and there is a certain consciousness about this act. We are familiar with the act of pushing away an unpleasant thought, or the greater passivity of ignoring what is unpleasant. It is hard to discipline the mind to ignore what is placed before it. This is hard, uncomfortable, and when irrational (that is, against our rational interests, the reasoned response that a situation demands), it makes us feel bad. Better to simply offer a more compelling sight, a more interesting view, to occupy the mind not with what is of greater importance, but what can dazzle and make forget.

This is what the saying of my forefather meant: "the fool says in his heart, there is no God." Of course there is a God. Nothing could be clearer. The unforced mind naturally is aware of God, as a child's is (indeed, I feel almost childlike in my helplessness, childlike in my openness to God, childlike in the freedom that came with my weakness). After a time, we must learn to close our mind to it, because as life is experienced a growing discomfort comes in, sooner for some, later for others, according to the graces experienced, of birth and situation. It took a greater effort of the will to close my mind to the fears and intensities of Israel's laws, for in my nation alone we have moved from a general self-unease to a fully-laid-bare awe at our inability. I remember days in my palaces, days of pretended pleasure when the rememberance of the law would suddenly have arms and feet. It would grab me, shake me, take me like a living thing, exact from me a measure of fear that would for those brief moments almost cast me down physically. I felt it like a sword, dividing to my soul and exposing me.

Then I would drift over to my tables, to my concubines, to my rituals, to my animals, to my couches, a double effort of supression (that is, pushing away and setting before myself new things), and I would laugh at myself for my ancient fear, so like my despised father. God does not exist, my heart would sing. He won't call me to account, I would say. Look at the nature of the world, the violence of it, the pain of it, the inequality visible from every window of my palace. Men toil for nothing all the days of their life and I have taken pleasure as all would do if they could. God has covered his eyes, or at least forgotten.

O Lord, how hard was my heart! What a work of breaking you had to do!

I was king.

Yet I was a man. No more powerful in myself than any warrior, no smarter than my advisors. The position brought with it the power, though in my heart I did not recognize this (this is what is meant in David's words about the throne of his son, and that this son would be given the nations). How could I, after all, born as son of the king enthroned at age 12? Power surrounded me from birth and I swam in it. We do not consider the air we breath.

These things are hard to express. Power came, and with it a type of outward exertion (think on these words, consider them, weigh them), for power in men is not absolute but relatively expressed, my ability to dominate you, to impose myself upon you. Power is like the crashing of armies, or the two young lions in competition. My power was spectacular, but all men possess power, all possess a sphere within which they dominate, relative to some other, whether abstract or real. Power moving outward can absorb while still leaving a realm within for each individual.

Such are my meditations these days. Let me return to my original point and say that I chose that abstracted, relative power, I gave myself to it so that I could dominate, control, build for myself some world, while all the while I knew the truth. Truth can only be suppressed, it cannot, will never, be destroyed, or its effects held back. It is. And so my idolatry.

My sons. I remember the poles I built. The altars. I carved an image and put it in the temple of God. I worshiped the sun and the moon and the stars. I listened to every sorcerer, diviner, witch, demon-caller. I gave my sons to the fire.

Some things cannot be changed no matter how deeply I drink from the well of God's mercy. My sons remain dead.

Mercy. When I think of the word, it extends so deep that I am for a moment lost. But I move ahead of myself.

Idolatry. Idolatry is the suppression. Idolatry is managed. Idolatry is plainest when we see it as a worship of the work of our own hands. An idol, after all, is shaped from wood, iron, gold. But further, idolatry is worship of the work of our own minds. It is the imagined rituals of a man, and therefore the worship given remains here, and the illusion is that something is satisfied, something is ended. Idolatry is my power exerted over what cannot be understood. Idolatry is my consultations, when my diviners and sorcerers and I discussed the gods, their ways, how to please them, while all the time we were conscious in our hearts that God was angry. This was no abstraction of the mind, but a deeper conviction, a rumbling in our hearts, a baseline fear. The fool says in his heart, "there is no God."

I invented what I could (or, more accurately, though in this case accuracy matters little, absorbed the inventions of others) to cover this conviction, to occupy my mind, to set before myself the vanities that would give me a scope and realm to exercise my power freely. I invented a lack of constraint so as to not be constrained.

This is the natural course of man. Reader, it is your course!

So I sat astride the world I had created, in my power and pleasure, giving all that I possessed to my own idols, reigning over them in one sense (though in another sense they were my master, completely, for I didn't I give my sons to them?). In this state I could have died, going down to the dust in defeat, as all men must who seek to create a world to reign, that is to say, who seek immortality.

But instead, the Assyrians struck. I was taken prisoner. They put a hook in my nose (a hook so that every tug would remind me with sharp pain of pleasures I followed, for as my head turned left and right according to the pain experienced, naturally, instinctively, so my soul had turned right and left according to pleasure anticipated). I was powerless.

It was here where I made a discovery. Apart from all fantasy, all occupation of mind, all powers exerted, I existed, as a creature, and I existed before one who would judge. This is called truth, the experience of objective knowledge suddenly made alive, which is to say I applied it, focussed knowledge to myself for the first time (this is to act as a child acts, for children take the world quite intelligently as existing). It is not a comforting discovery, however, for to stand and exist before God is a terrifying experience. The LORD is just (Lord, we say, meaning one with power) and so what is sinful must be punished. How the Law flooded back to me in that moment, in my chains, and I shuddered, despairing.

Now, why should my story move forward from here? Can you give a reason? Why should I make a further discovery of God, I who had for 55 years suppressed every knowledge revealed, who had deceived and led my nation into idolatry, who had sent my own sons to be consumed by fire? My sins are spectacular, no doubt, but I think the question applies to all who make these discoveries of God. Why should we move past our despair, the despair all men will one day face, when their works are dust?

I have not found an answer yet. The process of it was simple. As I sat in chains, my soul in agony and despair, I was moved in my soul to cry out to God. I laid my whole self before him, having been taken down externally, I took myself down internally, I came before him in weakness and poverty, and I sought him. And I discovered him merciful.

Merciful. Mercy. His wrath had simply vanished. It was no longer present. When I lifted up my face to him I discovered him as my fathers once had, his face shining upon me, his love and good pleasure radiating forth, and my breath was taken away. The judge had vanished, and in place was a sense of mercy.

Mercy. I will say it simply because I can think of no better way to put it (why not put it this again? I can think of no reason): I did not receive what I deserved. This is mercy. I deserved death, punishment, a repayment. I received favor, love, acceptance. Mercy! Mercy! What can be said of it? What can express it? I am now over fifty years old, and I have lived all put these past few weeks in the vileness and corruption of failed man. I have looked back at my life and seen no service rendered, no good done. In addition, my sons are gone, my people now wandering among the idols, my own body broken and ruined, and God determined to bring his judgment upon us. That is my legacy! Yet I turn to God and feel only mercy and love!

There is mercy deeper than what can be penetrated. This is mercy to be experienced! To discover God as a God of mercy, how many men have known these paths? Lord, I do not know why (I know how, dimly. The promise). I do not know why. Mercy is not to be understood.

But I will drink it. I will enjoy it. I will draw near to you through it. I will sleep in it, rest on it, swim through it, sing of it. Mercy!

---------------------------------------------------

Story of Manasseh: II Chronicles 33

Cross-references:

Romans 1:19-33
Psalms 14
Matthew 18:1-4
Matthew 5:1-8
(Others, but I am tired)

Samson, his hands placed on the pillars

Judges 16:28-29

Then Samson prayed to the LORD, "O Sovereign LORD, remember me. O God, please strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes." 29 Then Samson reached toward the two central pillars on which the temple stood.


An enemy is an enemy. Hatred is hatred. What can cure it?

All my life I have fought these men. Now they stand around me, laughing, mocking, pissing on me, contempt in every word. They are your enemies, and mine.

When forces oppose each other, what response can we have? I fought a lion once. It came up suddenly, roaring toward me in its strength and fury. It would have had me if it could. There was nothing but hatred, opposition, one life would be taken, no room for mercy in that battle, only the forced submission of death, the dismemberment it experienced, the very life ripped from it, killed until it could no longer oppose me. It was necessary.

It was not always like that. Anyone who knows something of the ways of God can see that this world was not created for the endless flow of death I have witnessed all my days, and which soon I will end myself with. The lion and the lamb. One hears the old stories, me from my parents. We are a people. Chosen. Separated from Egypt. We are a people living in the midst of hostility, a people who possess something, a people who are different, a people who the world hates. We are not like them. We are the hope. We are the ones who know that "from you all nations will be blessed."

What is blessing but an end to this killing, but not the killing itself, but the nature of things that causes killing? Not just in man, but that lion that attacked me. I remember seeing the honey growing from it, and I knew that my killing was God's killing, that he was bringing something from it all. "Out of the eater, something to eat, out of the strong, something sweet." Shadows, shadows.

What can be done about hatred? When two parties are opposed, their opposition only ends when one is dead. Safety is death. There is nothing good about opposition. Creation does not need it, groans under it, for it is repeated everywhere you look. Opposition, hatred, death. It is the way of things.

Out of the strong, something sweet.

My mother told us that our enemies will always hate us. She said by one way or another they will try to destroy us. Where warfare is unsuccessful, she said, they will seduce you instead. Make you into one of them. But what about the promise? I asked. If the nations are to be blessed, won't their hatred be destroyed even by the very nature of a blessing? She did not answer.

I hate our enemies. I have hated them since the Spirit of the Lord first fell upon me, when his power raised these hands into instruments of wrath, this frame into a strong weapon. I am not especially strong for a warrior, but when His power was upon me I could not be stopped. It was my purpose, my calling! I was a deliverer, although the ways and means of this deliverance is obscure to me now, as here I stand with my hands on these two pillars, my enemies still rejoicing in front of me, and my people still threatened.

What power I had! What invincibility! The glory of the Lord could be seen and all men ran before me. No power could hold me, nothing could bind me, no man could overcome me.

There is such weakness in the heart of men. We are such a curious mixture of strength and weakness, boldness and timidity, courage and faithlessness. We are like a hollow statue, impressive to look at, shattering at the first blow. I must be filled, or I am empty, weak, vulnerable. Women do not understand the weakness of men, but it is a treachery, a self-betrayal, a bitter taste. What my eyes saw I wanted. Now my eyes see nothing.

I believe that every power I had came from God. I believe the Word he gave me, that out of the strong would come something sweet. There is emnity in my heart too, emnity against myself, against my God. Opposition must be killed, but when it is in the heart of one of God's people, it is called reconciliation. Why he can do this in me and not in my enemies I do not know.

I was not made to know. Perhaps future generations will see it. I was made to kill. I am the hand of God, his judging hand. Lord, act through me again.

Isaac, meditating in the field

Genesis 24:63

He went out to the field one evening to meditate, and as he looked up, he saw camels approaching.

Sovereign Lord, may I be silent before you for a time?

The breeze is cool, the field quiet, the grass moving gently, slowly. One forgets how still and silent these places can be when my herds are not on them, when I am far from the clamor and concerns of my household.

Stillness, calm, complacency before you, my maker. My soul is at peace.

In moments like these, father always says to remember. Memory is powerful, he says. Where do you think the promises come from? Instruct yourself, subdue your wandering heart. Remember!

I remember you, Lord. From my infancy my father spoke of you, told me of the day when he first heard your voice, the quiet voice telling him to quit the country he had so long known but which in his heart he hated, to come out of the forgetting of that city, the willful ignorance of that city. Father says that men there know and remember in their hearts the acts of God, some of them so recent, and that this forgetting is therefore an act, a choice. Same as in Noah's day, he says, nothing is new.

I remember his story of your voice, o God!

I remember his story of your promise to him, o God!

The promise. Me. Land. Descendants as numerous as the stars. The whole world blessed through this line. The family of Abraham taking refuge in you, shielded.

My father told me once that to understand the promise is to remember the words God spoke to him when he promised ME, when he promised the seed that would one day be like the sand on the seashore. God said to him, I am your shield, your very great reward.

A shield and a reward, both of them found in God, and both ultimately coming through you, my father told me. There is a thought. I know it is not me who sums up the promises, the thought of that makes me laugh. Me, a mere man, Isaac! I think I am the answer to the promise in some sense, for God promised him a son from my mother, and then I was born. But the promises are on such a grander scale! My father would point to the tents we lived in and say we are strangers here, the promises are far off, you can see them, but to lay hands on them is for the future generations.

A shield? I would ask. Then my father would tell me about our ancestor Noah, the great flood that washed the world clean and destroyed so much wickedness. Now a few generations later the world is just as wicked. Do you think God is not just? Do you think he will allow his creation to remain defiled? No, he will cleanse it. If you want to be sheltered from that, you must seek it.

I puzzled over this one for a while. God as a shield from God. It is in the promise, my father would say. We still see it only dimly.

A reward? I would ask. This was easier to grasp, but I loved to ask it to hear my father pour forth of the love, the faithfulness, the inexpressible delight that comes from nearness, from speaking, from the sheer knowledge of God, the one so inaccessible, so far off from us. These promises bring us near to him! my father would say, his voice rising. To possess him is all, to possess him is all.

Lord, my soul rests content here in the field. I know this possession of you, the fullness of this reward is for the future. But to possess the promise of it is enough to satisfy me. The grass, the field, the breeze, the sky, even the sound of approaching camels speak of your promise, the world still so good, even though the stain of our father's sin is present. It speaks promise, hope, newness. I wait for your fulfillment.

Every Television Series I Watched in 2009

I recently put a blog out about all the books I read in 2009. Some people were impressed that I had read 61 books (final tally was 64, hence the so far). I thought I should come clean and post the activities I'm embarrassed about as well as the ones that make me look good.

Also, I should say that this is not typical of my life. Also, that I have resolved to watch only six things in 2010: Lost Season 5, Mad Men Season 3, Chuck Season 2, and the last three seasons of The Wire.

I will not watch anything else this year, except the Super Bowl. So don't even ask me to.

Without further ado:

1. Mad Men Season 1
2. Mad Men Season 2

3. How I Met Your Mother Season 1
4. How I Met Your Mother Season 2
5. How I Met Your Mother Season 3
6. How I Met Your Mother Season 4

7. Lost Season 3
8. Lost Season 4

9. Firefly

10. The Office Season 5

11. 30 Rock Season 3

12. Veronica Mars Season 1

13. Freaks and Geeks

14. Undeclared

15. Torchwood Season 3

16. 24 Season 7

17. Firefly

18. Arrested Development Season 3

19. Chuck Season 1

Please don't calculate how much TV that is. I've come clean. Too much TV. All except 24 were on DVD.

Abel's Dying Thoughts

I am dying.

My blood spills out. My life is in my blood.

Lord, what is this? I have seen it surrounding me, both in my flocks and in the weak. I saw my mother cradle in her arms the sister born dead. I remember her cries deep into the bed, my father shaking his head sadly. He told me that night about the curses, as I huddled frightened under his arm, listening to my mother's pain, waiting for the life that was supposed to come from it.

Death.

My father told me about the words spoken between him and God on that day many years ago, though not so many years really, as we reckon it now, though father said the days then were different, that they changed without really changing, the way the grass grew without growing, and the animals existed together without strife. He laughs with a touch of bitterness now when he speaks of the lion and the sheep--How often have I seen them take the sick from my own herd!--but there is no laughter in this, this now, this real death, this death IN ME.

God said if he ate from the tree he would die. He ate, and now comes death. But in this way! It hurts. The stone on my head, an immediate shock of fear, then the pain, and now this strange pulsing in my ears, louder than all the sounds of nature, and my brother's hate filled eyes, mirthless, angry, staring down at me. Soon even that will fade.

Then...what?

I remember when I found the poor ewe savaged on the outskirts of the herd, the predator surprised when I suddenly appeared, yelling with my staff. It was too late to save her. My father came too, and he wept. I asked him why he cried, and he said it was past words, past understanding, but that the world had changed. It was getting worse, he said. There is a promise, but we must wait for it.

The promise is wrapped up in death. I do not understand, but I know that we must wait for it. Cain never liked this. I tended the flocks, according to my father's instructions, but he was always filling my ear with his own thoughts. We can control this creation, he would say. Look at my plants, my fruits. It was work, but I brought it forth! My father's face would darken then. And the story would pour forth again, the lost world, the broken word, his faithlessness, and hovering over all that was the promise. It thrilled my heart to hear about it, but Cain would only scowl.

Death would be overcome. My father said it, and I believed it (for I too have spoken with God, though not quite in the way that my father did). He showed me the old robes God had fashioned for him, his face still full with the shock that had come when for the first time he had seen death, just the death of a few animals, but death nonetheless. The lifeless flesh, the ceasing of animation--even what death is somehow escapes us, pushed away, mysterious, terrifying, and therefore incomprehensible.

But I saw the plan, or at least I saw it from a distance. Life from death, somehow, wrapped up in the offspring of my own mother, one who would crush the head of the serpent, as the phrase went, repeated over and over again by my parents. So, when I brought forth my finest animal to sacrifice, I was surprised to see Cain with his plants, his fruit, offering to God the work of his pride, an offering so far from what God had revealed, what God had shown us. I was not surprised that God rejected it. It spoke nothing about the promises, and father says we are to worship God only through our hope in these promises.

God was pleased.

There is only a short time left. Death comes, and my own brother stands over me, triumphant. Is this what this new world is like? For I am dead now, the offering I gave to God, the offering he was pleased with, what of it? God favored me, rejected Cain, but now Cain stands over me as my life ebbs away? Lord, is this your justice? Is this our world now?

Lord, my blood is spilled out. Let it cry out to you! Will the strong always triumph over the weak, the strong lion over my sick and weak ewe?

Lord, I know you will receive me. The blood I spilled in my sacrifice was a shadow of the blood to come. This is why you were pleased with it, for it is a blood that speaks forgiveness, a blood that speaks of acceptance, a blood that speaks of worship.

But let my blood speak too, this very blood that spills out of me, let it cry out until you have established your justice! Let it cry out until you have had your vengeance on every wicked man that walks the earth, until you have cleansed the world of every injustice. My blood cries out for you to protect your righteous ones! Lord, your name demands it!

My life ends. Sets things to right, O Lord.

Songs that I have listened until I got sick of them in the last two years

"Stillness is the Move" Dirty Projectors



"Two Weeks" Grizzly Bear



"See You" Dinosaur Jr.



"Sylvia" The Antlers



"Two Doves" Dirty Projectors



"Romulus" Sufjan Stevens



"Empire State of Mind" Jay-Z featuring Alicia Keys



"Skinny Love" Bon Iver



"My Girls" Animal Collective



"Family Tree" TV on the Radio



"Simple X" Andrew Bird



"Swing Tree" Discovery



"Heartbeats" The Knife



"Paper Planes" M.I.A.



Note: This video is before this song blew up. Also, for some reason, CBS decided to censor the gunshots in the chorus. However, the evidently didn't see fit to tell M.I.A. that they were going to change the sound...watch for her look of surprise at the tame popping sound.

"On a Freezing Chicago Street" Margot and the Nuclear So-Sos



"1901" Phoenix



"You got Yr. Cherry Bomb" Spoon



That's a short list. I tend to drive songs into the ground.