Committed fans of sweetness and light need not consult seventh chapter of the biblical book of Daniel.
Placed in the time of the weak-kneed Babylonian king Belshazzar—it is notable how much the brute power of empire compensates for frailty at the top—the story shows us the Judahite exile Daniel terrified by his bizarre night-time visions.
They are [...]
Archive for November, 2009
terrifying purposefulness: Daniel 7
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Daniel, textures on November 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
commands and the commanded: Daniel 5
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Daniel, textures on November 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Badly as Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar comes off, he is the moral equivalent of a rock star when placed alongside his pitiable son Belshazzar. For all his overweening pride, the pater familias of this dubious tribe at least learned the lesson that ‘the God of the heavens is sovereign over the affairs of men and gives [...]
flirting with (epistemological) disaster: Psalm 119
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Psalms, textures on November 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
One should spare a merciful thought for the writer of an acrostic.
Whether required to bend his pen to the task or the victim of his own enthusiastic but self-incarcerating ambition, the man or woman who sits down to write a poem wherein each sequence of lines begins with the same letter of the alphabet does [...]
deporting, revealing: Daniel 2
Posted in textures, tagged biblical interpretation, Daniel, textures on November 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Babylon’s king Nebuchadnezzar does not come off well in the biblical book of Daniel. It is not difficult to find in the text’s description of his behavior the definition of a neurotic fool.
Yet below the obvious humorous touches in the book’s way of telling a story, a more subtle irony may be detected. Frankly, it [...]
ROI: Proverbs 28
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Proverbs, textures on November 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
We parents watch attentively for the return on our investment.
Parenting is not a catch-and-release endeavor nor a spectator sport. To the contrary, our identity is wrapped up in the results. To some degree, they define us.
Those who keep the law are wise children,
but companions of gluttons shame their parents.
We have tools, with our modern discourse [...]
coherence: Proverbs 28
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Proverbs, textures on November 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
When we unreflectively take ‘democracy’ as our self-evident starting point, we gain individual rights and untrammeled liberties at the loss of other blessings. The economic and social benefits of prizing liberty are so obvious that we absolutize them. We convert the gift into the god. We idolize the product rather than the maker.
We behave stupidly, [...]
the cost of a fool: Proverbs 26
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Proverbs, textures on November 5, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Our tolerant times allow us to smile wanly at the fool’s misalignment with reality, but not to savage him with demeaning words.
Not so the biblical proverbs. In the Bible’s sinecure of realism, the fool represents a rogue threat to communal health. He is not merely exercising individual preferences or making choices that one might not [...]
por invitación: Ayer viajé en tren … (Hannia Ramírez Solano)
Posted in por invitación on November 4, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
A esa hora cuando el atardecer solemnemente da espacio a la noche, cuando la mitad del cielo se pone celeste espejo y la otra toma un tono amarillo celeste, pintado al final de destellos naranja.
A mi lado iban dos chiquillos felices con la expectativa de disfrutar el viaje, el resto era gente como yo, contenta [...]
por invitación: Soy objeto de su amor (Hannia Ramírez Solano)
Posted in por invitación on November 4, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Nos conocimos hace aproximadamente 15 años, cuando yo estaba en los afanes de un matrimonio y maternidad recién iniciados. En ese primer encuentro su entusiasmo fue vehemente, a mí apenas me alcanzó para sonreír fríamente.
Han pasado los años y sin vanidad puedo asegurar que ese entusiasmo continúa allí, a pesar de [...]
por invitación: Sobre aguaceros, neo apóstoles, pastores y misioneros (Hannia Ramírez Solano)
Posted in por invitación on November 4, 2009 | 2 Comments »
No hay cosa más hermosa que ver llover en mi país. No hay cosa más bendita después de los calores de marzo capaces de freírnos hasta los sesos, que escuchar allá en la lejanía, en las montañas, el rugido de los incesantes relámpagos que sin ton ni son descargan su luz intermitente y lo [...]
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