March 22, 2009 by David Baer
En su exquisita investigación publicada en 1970, Carroll Stuhlmueller argumentó que la teología de la creación entra en Deutero-Isaías no por sus propios méritos, sino como un apoyo poético a la obra redentora/rescatadora de YHVH frente al cautiverio babilónico de los judíos.
Es un hecho que resulta imposible separar el dialecto y los conceptos de creación en Isaías del predominante enfoque del texto en la redención de Jacob/Israel. Esta integración de la temática de la creación en el marco de la redención, se pone de manifiesto en la contemplación divina de sus intenciones para con Ciro, un ‘ungido/mesías’ poco anticipado en la trayectoria del libro.
Una clave para entender este pasaje es precisamente el uso poco convencional que YHVH hace de un rey pagano, como el monarca perso indicado. Las palabras que YHVH emplea para hablar de su efectividad redentora en favor de Jacob/Israel serían quizás poco excepcionales si estuviera en la mira un Abraham, un Moisés o un David. Pero este personaje no deja de ser ajeno a cualquier geneología del pueblo prometido. A pesar de esta lejanía con respecto a su identidad, Deutero-Isaías coloca a Ciro en el centro del inventario humano al cual acude YHVH en momentos redentivos. Continue Reading »
Posted in textures | Tagged biblical reflection, Isaías, Isaiah, reflexión bíblica, texturas, textures | Leave a Comment »
March 22, 2009 by David Baer
Occasionally a psalm, as though on a sunny afternoon with a glass of Merlot in hand and feet up, allows itself to savor the comprehensive provision of YHWH. Such is not a moment for fretting. There will be time enough for that.
The poet simply allows himself a lyrical sigh of contentment.
Psalm 65, in that vein of relaxed contemplation, casts its eye over the wide, satisfying goodness into which YHWH has brought his people. Continue Reading »
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March 20, 2009 by David Baer
The Austrian Joseph Haydn (1731-1798) and the Italian Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805) eased central and southern Europe through its transition from the Baroque to the Classical periods with considerable aplomb. Fortunately, both of these neatly overlapping composers leveraged the potential of the cello in order to do so.
Ludovit Kanta (cellist), the Capella Istropolitana, Peter Breiner (conductor), and a Naxos executive team that must have had its Wheaties here give us an enormously enjoyable version of Haydn’s concertos no. 1 and 2 and Boccherini’s Cello Concerto in B Flat. More controversially, they provided to their contracted artists—alternatively, the latter may have simply taken it—license to let the tradition grow under foot. Continue Reading »
Posted in reseña | Tagged Capella Istropolitana, classical music, Joseph Haydn, Ludovit Kanta, Luigi Boccherini, music, Peter Breiner, reseña | 3 Comments »
March 20, 2009 by David Baer
Ascribed to David, this psalm fits well into the historicizing tendency evident already in early biblical manuscripts to link each psalm to a moment in the life of the Israelite king. David’s flight into the Judean desert before the insurrection of Absalom, for example, would accord well with the psalm’s cryptic reference to ‘David, when he was in the desert of Judah’.
Yet one wonders whether the enduring power and pertinence of psalms like this one lie in their power to latch themselves onto the circumstances of our lives rather than to cling to the details of his. Whether the psalm’s memorable ‘dry and thirsty land where there is no water’ was for the writer a physical or a metaphorical location, it continues serving as the latter for us. I can walk over, open the tap, and find virtually no end to the flow of pure liquid. But right here, in this chair, on this morning, I can feel far more deeply than that liquid abundance the leering, bone-dry desert that threatens joy and meaning themselves. Continue Reading »
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March 20, 2009 by David Baer
Jesús estuvo en su propia casa en dos sentidos cuando lo descubrimos en su rol de protagonista en el cuarto capítulo del evangelio de Lucas.
La primera vez, después de la ardua prueba a la que fue sometido en la compañía del diablo en los desiertos de Judá, él vuelve a la aldea de su crianza:
Y Jesús volvió en el poder del Espíritu a Galilea, y se difundió su fama por toda la tierra de alrededor. Y enseñaba en las sinagogas de ellos, y era glorificado por todos. Vino a Nazaret, donde se había criado; y en el día de reposo entró en la sinagoga, conforme a su costumbre, y se levantó a leer. Y se le dio el libro del profeta Isaías; y habiendo abierto el libro, halló el lugar donde estaba escrito…
Aunque la historia de su retorno a Nazaret termina mal, estos momentos están saturados de satisfacción y familiaridad. Continue Reading »
Posted in textures | Tagged biblical reflection, Isaías, Isaiah, Lucas, Luke, reflexión bíblica, texturas, textures | Leave a Comment »
March 19, 2009 by David Baer
Courtesy of friendly, helpful van drivers, you can be at the AIrport Hotel Kelsterbach’s tidy, simple, economical location ten minutes from pickup outside the terminal.
This is a hotel for small- to medium-sized meetings, quick transport, and reliable but budget-priced economics.
A Greek and an Italian restaurant are a short walk way in a pleasant residential area.
It’s not easy to find affordable short-term lodging near one of Europe’s principal airports. The Airport Hotel Kelsterbach won’t disappoint.
Posted in two hippos make an island | Tagged Europe, Germany, travel | Leave a Comment »
March 19, 2009 by David Baer
Transparent honesty between God and humankind requires expression. One cannot have intimacy while guarding silence. It is not permitted to us both to hold our guard and dance with our creator.
Both God and man must speak if the perforated boundary between heaven and earth is to yield, if Jerusalem is to descend, if prayers are to reach the altitude where Heaven can hear. Continue Reading »
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March 19, 2009 by David Baer
One of the shocking details of John’s report of Jesus’ first sign, at a wedding in a Galilean village, is the notice that his disciples ‘believed in him’ as a result of his action. One wonders what they were doing prior to the moment:
On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’ His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’ So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.’ Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
One does not accrue the plausible accusation of being a glutton and a drunkard unless one hangs in places known for serious eating and heavy drinking. Jesus’ accusers must have had plausible grounds for such an accusation, reported in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Continue Reading »
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March 18, 2009 by David Baer
Grace is the self-effacing friend at a gathering, lurking profitably behind the scenes, setting the table and wiping away crumbs when no one is looking. Kindness seeks no limelight, calls no attention to itself, is most contented when the hum of lively conversation seasons the room with its own subtle romance.
Grace has no self-exalting agenda. Rather, kindness gives, levels the path of the other, sets the stage for good things in which it calculates no immediate gain save the satisfaction of its companions. Continue Reading »
Posted in textures | Tagged biblical reflection, Proverbs, textures | Leave a Comment »
March 4, 2009 by David Baer
Eight months have now stumbled past since Sammy came to be a provisional part of our family, then a probable member of our family, and finally a non-adjectivized fixture on the leather couch in the ‘Red Room’, where family and friends occasionally assemble themselves among the recumbent canines to watch football games and re-runs of 24.
The Samsters has become a remarkably self-confident creature. He is possessed of that well-honed indifference to norms that characterizes self-assured creatures on both sides of the human-nonhuman perforation that helps reassure those of us who read blogs and, for that matter, read anything that we still cling to our position at the top of the biological heap. Continue Reading »
Posted in fauna | Tagged fauna, Sammy, The Story of a Rescued Rhodesian Ridgeback | 3 Comments »
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Canter Bridge 