Through the Bible in Less Than a Year! part 4

The golden calf episode. A number of interesting things in the story, which I'd known primarily from a Simon & Garfunkel song, "Sound of Silence" (I think my parents had explained the reference to me: "And the people bowed and prayed /To a neon god they'd made" -- though I'm not sure they explained the words immediately thereafter, that the sign "flashed out its warning /With the words that it was forming, /And the sign said 'The words of the prophets are /written on the subway walls /And tenement halls'").

I was a bit surprised by the story of the golden calf. It's formed of the people's gold jewelry -- presumably the spoils they took from Egypt at the end of the plagues? The people are very specific in how they imbue the golden calf with an identity - it is specifically Yahweh God, not some pagan god of their own (or their neighbors') invention. They specifically say that it's the calf who brought them out of Egypt. It's strange, in a way, that even in their idolatry they recognize the one true God. But I suppose that's typical of human nature. We are blind to our own invention of idols and we elevate them while we pay lip service to God. By calling the calf God, they are making their god into something quite a bit smaller and more controllable than God.

Moses learns about the idolatry, initially, not through his own eyes, but through hearsay from God. Though I can't help thinking that might be a bit more reliable than your usual hearsay. Moses pleads with God to spare his people, rejecting the opportunity to have an entirely new line spring from Moses himself. God's pretty quick to cave here, which suggests (as the commentator's notes suggest) that forgiveness was actually part of God's plan, even then. When Moses goes down to his people, however, he goes crazy with anger when he sees it for himself. He destroys the golden calf (made from jewelry melted down from the Egyptians, I think) and then grinds it into a powder and makes his people drink it. They must eat their words, as the commentator notes.

Century Celebration

For my grandfather's 100th birthday, we all joined him on a short cruise to Cozumel on the Carnival line. As it turned out, my grandfather was in much better shape than a lot of the other passengers! He struck quite a figure with his distinctive beret, but was a bit disappointed to find that his 2000+ fellow cruisers were not particularly keen dancers.

The journey started nicely, as five or six dolphins frolicked in the wake of the ship as we left Galveston. (Probably just picking up fish, really, in this particular instance.) I didn't get any pictures of the dolphins, but here's our last glimpse of the sun:

Yes, the weather deteriorated from there. Throughout the journey, the sky was overcast and the seas were a bit choppy at times. On the roughest day, some adventuresome souls ventured out on the sun deck and discovered that a doorway toward the front of the ship created a lovely wind tunnel. My niece kept circling around to run through the doorway with the wind at her back, thus becoming a champion sprinter for the nonce:

It really felt like you could just lean on the wind and just stay there, and a lot of the grownups played with this in different ways:

It was great to see everyone. While most of the grownups and Felix seemed just as I remembered them, I had a great deal of trouble reconciling the Deirdre and Ethan I remembered from two years ago with the Deirdre and Ethan I encountered on this trip. They were probably 10 and 3 the last time I saw them - a little girl and a baby - and are now very clearly a young lady and a boy. It took all my self-control to suppress the urge to say "My, how you've grown!" But they have grown, and it becomes them well.

Highlights of the trip (other than the wind tunnel) included an expedition to the beach in Cozumel where five of us splashed around in tidal pools for an hour, watching snails, hermit crabs, augers, lots of darting little fish, a bright red sea urchin in a crevice, and some things that looked like living trilobytes, although others later identified them for us as chitons.

The cousins all got together for a rousing game of boggle on the final night of the cruise, where I learned some new words such as "ani" and "fado". I can't necessarily define them (other than to note that ani is a kind of bird), but I now know that I can use them in word games...

The Bourne Identity: French Translation

In case you don't have time to watch the entire movie, here's the dialogue in French:

Acte I:

"Qui etes vous? Allez vous en!"

"Tu es la seule personne que je connaisse."

Acte II:

"Jason!"

"Marie!"

"Jason, merde!"

Acte III:

"Est-ce que je peux louer un scooter?"

Fin.

Halloween Weekend

At the art show Thursday night, they chose 3 winners in each of 5 categories (painting, drawing, photography, crafts, and sculpture).* I didn't necessarily agree with their choices. For instance, the two most stunning photographs were of a fjord in Ireland (an amazing moment in time, capturing the smooth lines of a curving wake or tide) and an alligator breaking the surface of a reflected wooden fence (so abstract, it takes a few moments to understand the picture). There were also a few phenomenal photographs of people on display. Overall I was really pleased with the variety of talent and imagination on display - very cool.

Friday, I saw Where the Wild Things Are - the less said about that, the better. Luckily, it was only a $6 nap. And I enjoyed a garden burger at the Tick Tock Diner afterward.

For Halloween, after a scary encounter with my dentist, I took it easy most of the day. Then I went for Ethiopian food at a new restaurant called The Red Sea. I strongly associate Ethiopian cuisine with Washington, D.C., so it was novel (for me) to try it in Manhattan. It was fun to sit by the window and watch all the trick-or-treaters and party-goers traipse by. A lot of butterflies and bees this year. Even more exciting, I finally saw the entire Lion King show (a mere 10 years after seeing only the second half). The music, puppetry, and choreography are so thrilling. I love it. And "They Live in You" took my breath away... it would coincidentally have been a perfect addition to the All Saints' Day service at FAPC (less lugubrious and more moving).

Sunday, some bad news: G-san tried to run the marathon even though she was sick, and got a really bad migraine. As of today, I'm not sure her migraine has lifted... her neighbor apparently decided to do some construction during the day, which didn't help matters. But U-chan and I met up anyway and wandered around Saks for a while (just browsing, thank you) before going to Houston's aka Hillstone's for dinner. Despite the name change, I was able to get my jungle thai steak salad (a dish which by any other name tastes as sweet).

Today, I managed to pull a muscle in my left shoulder and experienced shooting pains most of the day. Ugh. But now, 14 hours later, it seems to have subsided to a large degree, as long as I don't turn my neck, and the upside is that it's just the excuse I needed to go see my G.P. I'm not good with the whole "annual physical" concept, so it's been about 3 years.

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FN* : Predictably, photography was the most popular category -- it's a very accessible art, especially in the age of digital cameras where (even with mediocre equipment) you can literally take thousands of photos and delete all the bad ones.

through the Bible in Less Than a Year! part 3

Tonight I read Exodus 10-12, covering the final plagues on Egypt: Locusts (#8), darkness (#9), death of firstborns (#10). I

Like many of us, Pharaoh sees the consequences of his actions (here, the plagues) and wants to do just enough to get out of them -- without going all the way. For example, in Exodus 10, in response to the locusts, he "[q]uickly" calls in Moses and Aaron and confesses his sin. He asks for mercy ("pray bear my sin just this one time! And plead with YHWH your God, that he may only remove this death from me!"). But then when the plague is removed (via a strong sea wind), Pharaoh does not set the Hebrews free. He wants mercy or forgiveness without true repentance. He wants the benefit of the bargain God is offering… without quite upholding his side of the bargain. This is perhaps the essence of his hard-heartedness. How often do we try to bargain with God (if you will only grant me X, I will do Y), when Y is something we perhaps should already be doing … or will not have the will to continue to do once we get our heart's true desire, X. It's so hard to set one's heart on doing God's will, rather than our own. Part of the problem is discernment; of course we can pray for that as well.

Through the Bible in Less Than a Year! part 2

Today I read Exodus 3 - Moses encounters the burning bush:

And YHWH's messenger was seen by [Moshe]

in the flame of a fire out of the midst of a bush

He saw:

here, the bush is ablaze with fire,

and the bush is not consumed!

Exodus 3:2.

How does Moses react to this? He turns aside from his path (he was shepherding his father-in-law's flock) to "see this great sight". He's just gonna check it out, because it's quite unusual - a fire within a bush, but not actually burning the bush. Once God sees he's got Moses' attention, he calls him by name ("Moshe! Moshe!") and Moses responds with the proper answer: "Here I am."

The right answer, the "classic response of biblical heroes" according to Everett Fox (citing Gen 22:1, 11; 1 Sam 3:4). Why is this the right answer? Well, let's think about the alternatives. If someone calls me, I might:

* pretend I don't hear

* yell back (annoyed) "What do you want?" or even better, "What?"

* ask "What is it?"

* say "Yes?"

(If it's a phone call, I might say, "Speaking." or "This is she" etc. -- probably the closest thing to "Here I am")

"Here I am" answers the call. It doesn't anticipate the demands. It doesn't resist or try to set an expectation that I will do this only under protest. It makes no assumptions, hides nothing, fears nothing. Completely open. Nothing dodgy. Not a bad example to follow, when you think about it.

Through the Bible in Less Than a Year!

I'll be posting very rarely on this subject, but Genesis Chapter 50 was very helpful on a day when I was seething, in a foul mood, tired and resentful of others. After Jacob's death, the brothers who had wronged Joseph (Yosef) are worried that he will retaliate. Instead, he reiterates his forgiveness:

"Do not be afraid! For am I in place of God?

Now you, you planned ill against me,

(but) God planned-it-over for good,

in order to do (as is) this very day --

to keep many people alive.

So now, do not be afraid!

I myself will sustain you and your little-ones!"

And he comforted them and spoke to their hearts.

-- Genesis 50:19-21.

If Joseph can forgive and sustain the brothers who with callous jealousy faked his death and sold him into slavery, surely I can forgive others their much lesser transgressions (which were not even directed at me in the first place) - and I can be forgiven mine.

Joker One (Donovan Campbell 2009)

The subtitle says it all: A Marine Platoon's Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood.
I suspect the original draft had a lot more military jargon (Mr. Campbell used just enough to give civilian readers a sense of the alien context, but not so much as to make the text inaccessible).

The book is well worth reading for its perspective on urban guerrilla warfare where the occupying soldiers quixotically seek to win hearts and minds without any knowledge of the local language and no connections to the culture.

There are also interesting reflections on love from a Christian in combat:

[The Marines of Joker One] loved one another and their mission -- the people of Rimaldi -- in a way that I didn't fully appreciate until just a few days before we left the city.... A good portion of the city's residents hated us just for being American, and a smaller but still sizable chunk of them actively tried to kill us every day. Why would anyone want to risk his
life to help these people? How could anyone love them? ...

[F]or my men, love was something much more than emotion. For them, love was expressed in the only currency that mattered in combat: action -- a consistent pattern running throughout the large and the small, a pattern of sacrifice that reinforced the idea that we all cared more for the other than we did for ourselves. For them, love was about deeds, not words.... 

As time went on, these small acts [of sacrifice] -- so many of which I either failed to notice or simply took for granted -- created something in Joker One that was more than just the sum of all of us. ...  

For me, then, loving Joker One ... meant much more than simply feeling that I cared. It meant patience... kindness ... mercy ... dispensing justice and then forgetting that it had been dispensed, punishing wrong and then wiping the slate clean. ... 

Sometimes [love] meant simply putting one foot in front of the other on patrol. And sometimes it meant continuing the mission when you didn't see any progress, meant protecting the defenseless, refraining from pulling the trigger, putting yourself at greater risk, doing what you knew to be right even though you didn't really want to. 

So that was how we loved those who hated us; blessed those who persecuted us; daily laid down our lives for our neighbors. No matter what we felt, we tried to demonstrate love through our daily actions. Now I understand more about what it means to truly love, and what it means to love your neighbor -- how you can do it even when your neighbor literally tries to kill you.

Donovan Campbell, Joker One, chapter 37.

It seems to me that he has nailed it; men do in fact love through actions, not words. Genuine love (as opposed to the cheap, synthetic version) is not the mere creature of emotions, which are inherently changeable, but is built on choices large and small, day in and day out.

And though it is hard to see Marines as turning the other cheek -- they are after all fully armed, hunting down insurgents and ready to return fire -- the self-sacrifice described here is nonetheless a distinctly Christian love.

10

I've now spent an entire decade in New York City. What do I have to show for it?

Am I wiser or more compassionate? Do I have deeper, more meaningful connections with friends and family? And - under the "if you're not busy living, you're busy dying" philosophy - Is this city making me more alive?

It feels like a time for reflection and recalibration of priorities.

South Mountain Reservation (Millburn, NJ)

I was going to go apple-picking today, but then a moderate 5-mile hiking opportunity opened up at the last minute, and I couldn't resist.

The hike was to go by several lakes, waterfalls, and creeks or rivers - perfect for a warm, late summer day. Unfortunately, the water level was quite low. I missed the first waterfall entirely when we walked past it. The second waterfall was a bit of a trickle, not quite as impressive as it could be, but we had lunch at the base, and watched kids throwing oranges in the murky shallow pool at the base.

Still, it was a lovely walk through the forest, with a bit of a climb for a workout at the start, and an easy, wide path at the end.

We didn't see much wildlife (except a daddy longlegs which was dancing on the sunlit leaves above my head while we ate), but we enjoyed watching these two dogs playing in the water:




They were clearly having a blast (as were we, in a more low-key way).