Wisdom is not so much elusive as hard-won. She cries out in the street far more than she hides in a closet. She is more often mistaken for an unappealing passerby than undiscovered by desperate pursuers. Her beauty is washed out in the neon glare of cheaper glories. Discovering the life that is in her [...]
Archive for February, 2009
finding life: Proverbs 8
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Proverbs, textures on February 11, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
skill sets: Exodus 31
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Exodus, textures on February 11, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
A reader accustomed to the conventional distinction between the priestly and the political or the sacred and the secular struggles to find the proper calibration for a text like this: The LORD spoke to Moses: See, I have called by name Bezalel son of Uri son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah: and I [...]
the net that is hidden for me: Psalm 31
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Psalms, textures on February 7, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Life thrusts upon us a moment when we are alone with God. In the best variants of this crisis of solitude, family and friends stand by with loving hands extended willingly but to no immediate effect. There is nothing they can do. One is alone with God. It is a moment of necessary, unavoidable singularity. [...]
morning: Psalm 30
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Psalms, textures on February 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
‘Can a miracle happen?’, we ask of this or that broken relationship. We linger over the corpse of what was once love and wonder whether there is resurrection or just a bucket of lime to take the edge off the stench. A key link in the chain of trust and conduct that we call biblical [...]
caution’s limited virtue: Exodus 21, Matthew 24
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Exodus, Matthew, textures on February 5, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Caution and precaution are not the central virtue. Yet they are necessary. Without them the life-giving properties of community drain away before time. In their absence, chaos thrives on a rich diet of naiveté, credulity, and unbridled risk. Several of the example-casting treatises called ‘case law’ that we find in the book of Exodus illustrate [...]
the terror of no answer: Psalm 28
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Psalms, textures on February 4, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
We live in fear that the cry of our heart shall go unheard. We could bear up better, perhaps, under mockery or derision than in the face of silence. The dread of no reply is no modern invention. It is bred into the circuitry of humanity’s deep need of conversation: To you, O LORD, I [...]
no need to marry: Matthew 22
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Matthew, textures on February 2, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Jesus’ stunning rejoinder to the conundrum regarding a wife whose husbands seem to fall like raindrops hints at the liability of low expectations. A hostile delegation stages the scene of a serial widow’s multiple marriages and fairly taunts Jesus to resolve the dilemma of which of her husbands will accompany her ‘in the resurrection’.
resisting our freedom: Exodus 14-15
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Exodus, textures on February 1, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
YHVH is almost by definition a liberating God. His name, revealed in the context of the Hebrew slaves’ impending exit from the ‘house of their servitude’, can reasonably be paraphrased to mean ‘the one who is powerfully present’. Where YHVH is, one might say at the danger of lurching towards bumper-sticker ideology, things happen. Freedom [...]
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