eureka

All righty, so I was just doing some late night reading before going to bed, working my way through Job. I was reading in chapter eight when Bildad instructs Job on exactly what he thinks Job ought to do, the ol' "well if I were you I'd..." shpeel. And I started to get frustrated thinking, "Well, you know what, Bildad? You're not Job. Let's take away every thing you hold near and dear to your heart and see if you thank and praise God quite so easily. Why don't you just take a seat and shutup." Okay, so maybe that's a bit harsh (it is rather passed my bed time). But I came to Job's defense. No one can know just how they will react to any given situation. Sure we'd all LIKE to think we would praise God ceaselessly, but the reality of it is that's not very likely...at all. But, this, of course, we all know, so on to my point. (It's odd, but I find myself getting worked up about this, and even in my blog I babble on and on about how ridiculous it is.)

I didn't get very far into the reading when I realized that I'm so defensive of him because he's a normal man. He's your next door neighbor, Phil. He's merely a decent guy trying to get by in life and live as righteously as possible, so that when he gets to Heaven, God may say, "Well done, good and faithful servant." Now THAT is the icing of the oreo. Professor Sexson keeps talking about this oreo cookie like it's some magical, wonderful thing. But to me, it's just been a plain ol' oreo. Sure, I suppose it makes for a good metaphor, so I'd jot it down in my notes, then start doodling little oreos and other various dessert items all over my notebook while half listening to Prof. Sexson talk about icing and crust and prologue and epilogue and half daydreaming about food...(Sorry, Professor Sexson, I don't really mean it, I'm just trying to make a point. I actually find your class quite riveting!) But then, just now, after all this time and all the stories we've gone over, I've finally figured it out. Everything I've been missing in Sunday school, with their connect the dots worksheets and mini dramatizations and dumb felt boards - it was the icing! Job was an ordinary man, it's not natural for man to endure such pain and loss effortlessly. Yet in the end, he says to the Lord:

"I know that you can do all things [...] Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You said, 'Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.' My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you." -Job 42:2-5

Beautiful. The oreo ends taste so much better with the icing in the middle, don't they?

Well, now that I'm practically drooling all over my computer with all this cookie talk, I can return to bed satisfied.

Ballet vs Heavy Metal

I liked the Stevens poem well enough, much better the second or third time around though. But it is really the first and fourth parts that I find most captivating. I think the first stanza is beautiful. "Just as my fingers on these keys make music, so the self-same sounds on my spirit make a music, too." It's wonderful. These lines alone give me this strange sort of feeling deep in my chest (I mean this quite literally). I didn't know what it was or where it came from. But it felt something like hope. Now, I'm not trying to be all "deep" or anything. It truly surprised me. If this mysterious feeling is one of hope, then what is it that I feel so hopeless about? I'm still not sure, but I can make a few guesses... Perhaps it gives me hope that such romantic language isn't lost - I know that the poem was published back in 1915, but I'm reading it in 2009 and it is hard for me to accept that the world can get lost in a language consisted of "yo," "like," and "roflmao" losing the beauty it once held in "just as my fingers on these keys make music..." Call me a nerd, but I love watching "Dancing with the Stars" to see couples perform the fox trot and waltz, etc. Whereas today's "bump-n'-grind" I find revolting. I'm more of an old fashioned type of person in some ways I suppose, and these lines ignited that old fashioned flame within me. But after the first couple stanzas, the poem is no longer a favorite of mine. The elders really creep me out.

Aside from the actual language of "Peter Quince at the Clavier," this idea that music is everywhere reminded me of a day when my two sisters and I were climbing into the back seat of my parents’ van. On my right, Emily was trying to buckle her seatbelt but it kept getting stuck. Every time she tugged on the strap she let out a little gasp from all the effort it took, making an “eh…eh…eh…” sound. I was in the middle also trying to buckle my seatbelt, but it wouldn’t clasp. Every time the metal tip tapped against the metal of the buckle it made a clinking sound, “tink…tink…tink…” And on my right, Kristin was trying to close a small storage compartment so that she could use it as an arm rest, but it wouldn’t stay shut. So she kept slamming the lid hoping the force would shut it, naturally it never did, “slam…slam…slam…” After a short while we noticed our parents staring at us from the front of the car. Apparently, we made a sort of beat or rhythm from these frustrating things that didn’t even work. “eh tink slam, eh tink slam, eh tink slam” We all started to laugh at the absurdity of the moment. To be honest, it’s one of the few times I can remember us all laughing together like that. Not that we were often cold to one another, but it seemed like there was always somebody not getting along with somebody else.

Though Stevens doesn’t mean to say that actual music is everywhere (“Music is feeling, then, not sound”), this memory in my mind now plays a certain tune to me - a happy one, one that you might play to cheer somebody up. Each memory I have is a different tune. Some of them are loud, dark, and frightening pieces, but then there are the lighter ballets that make all the rest ok. In my mind light is stronger than darkness, though sometimes it’s hard to remember that.

So I suppose I must disagree with Stevens here. Beauty is not “momentary in the mind – the fitful tracing of a portal; but in the flesh it is immortal.” I think it is extremely important to remember that in our minds we can hold everything beautiful, so that when things do turn dark, we can always recall those moments and pieces of light.

A little nature never hurt anyone...

Alrighty, I'm currently a ways into Leviticus, but I still have yet to blog on Exodus. I really enjoyed Exodus (well, the first part anyway. I mean who can really say that they ENJOY reading about how many cubits in length the tabernacle was?). Anyways, at my church we’re currently working on Exodus. Pastor Brian pointed out something that I found interesting: all of the plagues are plagues of nature, which makes sense. If God wants to show man that he is all-powerful, so that we "may know that there is no one like [him] in all the earth" (Ex 9:14), so that we "may know that the earth is the Lord's" (Ex 9:29), what better way than by controlling all the elements of the earth. The first two (bloody water and frogs) are plagues of the water. Four more are plagues of land (gnats, flies, diseased livestock, and boils). And the last four are of the heavens or sky (hail and fire, locusts, darkness, and the death of the firstborn). God could have affected the Egyptians as he did when he instructed the Israelites to march around the walls of Jericho to knock them down in the book of Joshua; this, an act not of nature, one that only God could accomplish. Or, as we’ve already read in Genesis, God confuses the language of men to make a point in the story of the tower of Babel, also an act that can’t be explained but by God’s power. What most intrigued me is how he decided to illustrate his power. Perhaps God’s greatest act is the creation of the heavens and the earth. And here he proves his control over that which he alone created.

In Ex8:16 God instructs Moses to “strike the dust of the earth, so that it may become gnats,” not unlike when “the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground” Gen2:7. A connection is made between God’s authority over both the earth and mankind. Maybe this is what should be most frightening in the story of the ten plagues. If he can control the earth in this manner, what can he do to mankind, weak and helpless as we are? He further expresses his power in Ex9:5 when “the Lord set[s] a time” for the fifth plague.

So, despite all this, what is with the losers who do not heed Moses’ warnings? So they don’t believe in God or whatever, that’s fine. But, by the sixth plague, when God threatens to “cause the heaviest hail to fall that has ever fallen in Egypt [so that] every human or animal that is in the open field and is not brought under shelter will die when the hail comes down upon them” (Ex9:18-19), you think they’d at least bring in their livestock just in case. But what do they do? They screw themselves over. “Those who did not regard the word of the Lord left their slaves and livestock in the open field” (Ex9:21).




Genesis 22: Where are the Lacuna?
I think the significance of this story is that Abraham so willingly obeys God to sacrifice his son Isaac. But I think that the story would be more powerful if we were able to see more of a reaction from both father and son. What sorrow Abraham must have felt to sacrifice his son. And how Isaac must have been torn. I can hardly fathom the faith and trust it would take to make such a sacrifice and to accept being such a sacrifice to God. I guess to fill in the lacuna, I'd like to see more of J's presence. Like in her story of Joseph and his brothers, J describes him as weeping on several different occasions. She's not afraid of a little emotion, one thing that I think this story could greatly benefit from.

Lost in Translation

So I just started reading Frye's The Great Code (finally). Yes, I'm one of the unfortunate few who has not received my copy yet. And right off the bat one of Frye's many observations caught me: "reading a translation is a settling for the second best" (4).

How true. Just this morning I was studying French with a classmate of mine. We were translating a short story into english. Some sentences we had to reword 3 or 4 times until we got an english equivalent that might slightly resemble what the french author originally intended. It was at least enough to get the general gist and meaning. But it frustrates me how much really is lost in translation.

I ran across this verse a few weeks ago. The KJV (King James Version) reads like this: “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.” (Proverbs 15:17) Well that makes good sense. But I originally found it in the NLT (New Living Translation): “A bowl of vegetables with someone you love is better than steak with someone you hate.” This translation kind of made me laugh. I ended up sending it to a friend of mine as a joke in the KMT (Kathryn Macklin Translation): “A bowl of grass with someone you love is better than a cream-filled donut with someone you hate.” Really, as the translation becomes more modern, it just…sounds different to me. I suppose it’s not exactly worse, that’s really a matter of opinion. But it definitely loses something. It’s like in my last post, one reason I enjoy the Bible so much is because it transports you to that time, to the time when Jesus walked the earth. You get to see their values and daily trials – walking to the well everyday to draw water, sacrificing animals, etc. things we just don’t have to deal with in today’s society. But that disappears; it’s watered down with each translation. I found it also in another translation called The Message: “Better a bread crust shared in love than a slab of prime rib served in hate.” What’s with the subject change?? I suppose it doesn’t really matter, but why exactly did The Message find it more effective to speak of bread crust instead of vegetables?

Biblica is one of the largest Bible and Christian literature ministries in the world. They publish, they translate, they distribute, they do it all. But they have recently taken it upon themselves to publish a new translation of the NIV. Christianpost.com quotes Keith Danby, president and CEO of Biblica, explaining Biblica’s stance on the revision, “We want to reach English speakers across the globe with a Bible that is accurate, accessible and that speaks to its readers in a language they can understand.” This is understandable. It made me think of Frye’s idea that “words are ‘put for’ thoughts” (7-8). So does it matter what translation it is as long as it gets the thoughts across? Danby further explains, “We’re looking for a translation that is above all accurate – that says what the original authors said in the way they would have said it had they been speaking in English to the global English-speaking audience today.” Alright then, let’s give this a shot: "So, this one time God, made the earth and heaven and some stuff. And he like made this other dude who ran around naked and God gave him a girl friend. And he looked at all the stuff he made and was like, yeah, this is pretty cool. Then when the dudes on earth sinned he made the one guy a pair of baggy jeans and his girlfriend a mini skirt.” . . . okay, so maybe that’s the stoner's version, but still. Certainly it wouldn’t be my first choice to read the King James Version all the time. I grew up with the NIV and it is still my first choice. But at what point should we stop revising it? Are we losing the root of God’s word with each translation?

Catching Up.

So, all this time I've been reading the Bible and the Good Book but I have not been blogging about it, which kinda defeats the purpose of the assignment and blogging in general. So here are a few things I've taken note of throughout my reading:

The Bible as a Time Machine –

I love history. I love hearing stories about the past and walking through museums stalked full of little tidbits of information and material that make up who we are today as a society. I think it's so cool - though sometimes very boring, I must admit. So, reading through the Bible is kind of like a jump back to that time period. It's so interesting to read about life back then.

First of all there's the whole aspect of how they kind of lived by the sword. On multiple counts men feel the need to pretend their wives are their sisters, just so that they may not be murdered in the night. For the most part, today we don't need to worry about that. However, if your partner is "handsomer" than you, there is the fear of gossip behind your back and of someone stealing your partner away from you, which, admittedly, is sucky. But at least your not Abraham or Isaac who practically give their wives away just to save their necks - which presents a whole can of worms I'm not prepared to open.

Secondly, there's this whole blessing debacle. Certainly today we still look to our parents or some sort of authoritative figure or role model for their blessing. Whether it's with a new job, or special someone, or just with our lives in general. But this, this is just silly. So Abraham accidentally blesses Jacob. Why can't he bless Esau too? What did the blessing tire him out too much for his favorite son? But, that actually wasn't my point. My point is how seriously Esau took the denial of his blessing and to what extent Rebekah will go to give Jacob his father's blessing. And just as a side note, I must agree with Plotz, what is the deal with Isaac being too frail to bless his first born son, but then he goes on to live for at least 20 more years? That’s just plain silly.

God’s Incomprehensibility –

It’s interesting, reading the Bible straight through starting with Genesis in the Old Testament, to really see God working in peoples’ lives, before Jesus ever came around. It reminds me how powerful he is and how, though we may not always be able to understand why he does things the way he does, he knows why and has his reasons. It definitely takes some trust and faith in him. Because God is, well, God and we’re “merely human,” there is a huge gap between us making miscommunications and misunderstandings inevitable. For instance, Plotz was confused when God said to Adam and Eve, “’You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die’” (Gen 3:3). I think God means more of a spiritual death than immediately and physical. Because we ate of the fruit, there is that separation between us and him and therefore we must suffer death to pay for our sins. But because we live in the physical, I think it must often be difficult to understand him in the spiritual.

Which brings up all these acts of “evil” on God’s part. But isn’t that interesting? Neither the devil nor evil in general has been outright mentioned, as far as I can remember from reading anyway. Plotz points out how odd it is that we are told the story of the devil in serpent’s form, but then the Bible doesn’t even say that it is in fact the devil. Huh. However, it is safe to say that in the world there is the ongoing battle between Good and Evil, is it not? Everything seems to revolve around these two staples of morality. So, God created the world and man and all that jazz, and he saw that it was good. Then man ate of the forbidden fruit which was evil, and now evil has taken over the world that was once good. And many years later here we are, still battling evil. Therefore, it is not God that is acting maliciously, but God that acts out of love against the bad things in life.

Quick note on the “P” Writer –

Okay, I think we can all agree, the J writer is a little bit more interesting than the P writer. But the P writer is just as essential as his counterpart. As humans, isn’t it true that we feel the need to dig up history and science and find out where/what exactly we come from? Sure Granny Margaret reciting to you the long, long, long, long, LONG list of ancestors from generations past is boring with a capital ‘B’ but it is important to know and have knowledge of one’s past. So when you find yourself falling asleep to the soothing rhythm of P’s “These are the descendants of so-and-so…” just remember that we, or at least someone somewhere, can take comfort in the fact that we know where we have come from. I think it’s perfectly acceptable to skim (and when I say skim I mean run) over these parts but it just makes good sense to have.

Fear of God –

Now this is a tricky topic. All our lives we grow up hearing “God is love,” then he wipes out the world in The Great Flood. Yes, I can see the conflict that might come up here. I’m not sure how many of you have read The Prince by Machiavelli, but it’s this pretty boring work on how princes should act. One point he makes is that a prince must be respected by his people, he must be kind to them and love them, but he must also instill fear within them. It is just simply necessary that we fear our leaders – to a certain extent. Otherwise we become ignorant of who they really are and disrespectful towards what they stand for. It’s like Jamie said earlier on in the class, if the voice of God commands you through a burning bush, you best have some fear and respect enough to obey. That’s not exactly a moment that you say, “Aw, God! I LOVE you!:D You’re so loving and kind.” Not that he’s not, that’s just not the appropriate time for such a reaction.

Rock on Joseph! –

Can I just say, high-five Joseph! He seems like the first guy to have a little common sense and not sleep with some woman no matter how pretty she is. He actually runs away from his seductress at one point. I gotta say, that put a smile on my face. Well, up until the point that he was thrown in jail…yeah, that was a little unfortunate…And this ability to read people’s dreams, I don’t think I have ever had a dream as interesting as the two men’s whom he meets in jail. Let’s see, last night I had a dream that I was pulled over by a cop, but he startled me and I slammed on my breaks and then the cop rear-ended me. I then had to give him a ride to the hospital…what’s that mean?

Anyways, I know this is a lot and I highly doubt anyone will really read it just because of its gargantuan length, for which I apologize. I’ll try to write shorter entries more often in the future so that this may not be quite so overwhelming.

Psalm 51

So my roommate pumped me full of coffee demanding that I stay up all night with her to do homework. I don't need to but I figured I'd keep her company, why not? So we pop in a movie and ignore the books and papers sprawled out all around us. Then, thirty minutes in she ditches me and goes to bed and I'm left alone, all jittery from the coffee with nothing to do; what a great friend she is. Well, I figured it's about time I get caught up on the reading in Lit240 anyway. But, despite how interesting I think Genesis is (that's right, I'm still in Genesis), I've found that I'm having trouble concentrating on it tonight. Ever since class earlier today, the clip of Psalm 51 Prof. Sexson played has been running in the back of my mind. I've read this passage previously multiple times but couldn't recall it immediately when he brought it up, so I was able to listen to the song with a clear mindset. It was so beautiful it gave me goosebumps. Now, I'm not about to pretend that I know anything about music (whether it's an old Christian chant or some raunchy bump n' grind mix). And perhaps that is what makes me so interested in this song - why did I react the way I did having known next to nothing about it?

So, I refreshed my memory on the chapter - a good one indeed. Gotta say, I'm a fan of forgiveness. And I just love the way it is written. "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me." (Psalm 51:10) The verbs David (or whoever the author may truly be) uses are just wonderful: "Purge me..." vs7, "...wash me..." vs2 & 7, "Create in me..." vs10, "Restore to me..." vs12, and "Deliver me..." vs14. I feel that you can really hear within his writing his desire to become clean and closer once more to God.

I wonder if I would hear this same message if I listened to the song again and could compare the two. Unfortunately, as hard as I have searched, I have not been able to find the song that was played in class. I've searched through everything from mainstream sites such as YouTube and iTunes all the way down to some little high schooler's blog. And yet, I have come up empty handed. Well except for this small clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVeTBqZwjPE anyway. (I'm pretty sure this is the same song). The problem here is that the user only posted a short two minutes of the song, and not even the part with the young boy. It makes me wonder why. What did he see in this small portion of the song that deems it more important than the rest? Or, perhaps he could only get his hands on two minutes worth, just as I now can only dig up two minutes. Anyways, if any of you find it, mind throwing me a line?

Woah, the sun's hot.

I was walking from class today back to my apartment in mid-afternoon. I just got off campus when the heat of the day really hit me. I felt like I had to peel my tennis shoes off the hot concrete in my trudge through the sweltering heat to find a patch of shade. The rays of sunlight pierced through my suddenly ineffective sunglasses, stinging my eyes. Heat wave after heat wave evaporated the thin cotton of my shirt and burned my skin. My throat felt suddenly dry and my hair was one fire. Now, this might sound like a bit of an exaggeration, after all it was a rather lovely day outside. But when I started to really think about it, the heat I mean, I felt like all of my senses were heightened, and I realized how truly hot the sun is. I crouched over in an almost comical half sprint/half walk as I hurried over to the shade of a tree, and the relief I felt was instantaneous. The sun, which is I don't even know how many millions of miles away, managed to heat the sidewalk enough to fry some poor little worm I passed on my way home. It is moments like this when I get that sudden feeling that I am insignificantly tiny, that the world is 100 times bigger than I am. It made me feel like a little kid, staring up at the starry night sky and imagining each twinkling speck to be another universe entirely.

And now, as I re-read the first chapter in Genesis, I get this sense that the world doesn't revolve around me (shocking, I know). And then it gets me thinking about ALL the people in the history of the world that God created, and he loves each one of them just the same. So, of thousands upon thousands of people, how can I matter that much at all? Well, I came to the conclusion long ago, that there is no way to understand God completely; he is physically impossible for the human mind to comprehend. God's just too complex. And so, Plotz questions something like God's order of creation, why create the plants and insects before the sun and moon, does he really love them more? I find that rather hard to believe. But I cannot possibly imagine why he would create them first, so I just kind of think to myself, "it must be a God thing" and move on with my reading. I mean, if God is so strong and powerful that he created the sun which heats up the entire Earth, then what does it really matter the order with which he chose to construct the world?

When I was reading Plotz's introduction, I will admit that the thought, "Uh-oh, what am I getting into?" did enter my mind. I grew up in the Church and am therefore just as familiar with the same basic stories as Plotz was (Cain&Able, Jonah and whale, Noah and ark, etc.) but really, what more do I know? I've learned to look up inspirational verses whenever I've needed the pick me up. I've studied the ten commandments in depth, I suppose so that I may better remember and follow them, at least that's what I've been taught. But really, all I've ever heard growing up is, "God loves you." Which, might I just say, I am eternally grateful for, though I may never fully understand it. But what about the fear we should have for God? What about his wrath and frightening power? What about Dinah's story? Why don't they teach that in Sunday school? For some time now I've been wanting to know more about the "hidden" elements of the Bible better. After all, if this is the book I am going to stand up for, shouldn't I know all of it? I am slightly embarrassed to say that, even now, I don't know it better.

But I have a theory - mind you it's really not that mind-boggling or profound. You know when a friend tells you a story about an argument they got into with someone else? And in it your friend sounds like some sort of saint where as the person they are talking about sounds like some evil-doer out to set the world on fire. Then you hear the same story but from the other person's perspective and it's suddenly the exact same situation but flipped around to suit them better. It's this sort of circumstance that leads me to wonder how something like,say, America's history is taught in Germany or France or any number of countries, versus how it is taught here. It's not like we really want to flaunt our darker days to our younger generations, that doesn't exactly inspire national pride. But is that right? Is it fair to shed light upon the "popular" people of the Bible and leave out victims such as Dinah, who have just as important a story to tell? So the Earth was flooded, big whoop, this poor girl here was taken advantage of! Okay, so maybe I'm not being quite realistic, it is after all 1 something in the morning, but it does make you wonder. For all that we do know, how much don't we know? Just something to ponder.