August 11, 2008 by David Baer
Sammy, whose weekend name change from clichéd ‘Simba’ to the humbler diminutive of ‘Sam’ more accurately reflects Midwestern modesty, is a high-stepper. When you’re blind, I suppose, you take whatever measures are necessary. When on unfamiliar turf—which appears to have been Sammy’s lot from birth—and you can’t see it in front of you, you step high as though marching in the hope that your feet will find the terrain’s irregularity before your nose bumps into it.
This, at least, is one of Sammy’s ways of negotiating his fate. Continue Reading »
Posted in fauna | Tagged fauna, The Story of a Rescued Rhodesian Ridgeback | 3 Comments »
August 10, 2008 by David Baer
This is Day Two in the story of a rescued Rhodesian Ridgeback who came to us Saturday afternoon under the name ‘Simba’. Day One was too busy for words.
Nobody knows if Simba is truly the name of this emaciated, scared dog brought to us in response to several phone calls by a caring rescuer volunteer.
In fact, nobody knows anything about Simba except this one thing. Simba is blind. Continue Reading »
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August 10, 2008 by David Baer
Mephiboseth, I was recently reminded by an elderly woman, lived half his life in terror. Dropped by his nurse at five years of age, we next find him crippled and living in Transjordan, far from power and—it would seem—from trouble. Though his life in Davidide circles will seldom prove simple, he becomes in 2 Samuel 9 the beneficiary of uncommon kindness. Continue Reading »
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August 9, 2008 by David Baer
It is difficult to imagine a more splendid introduction to flyfishing in Big Sky country than this thick (472 pp.) 2005 publication in the Flyfisher’s Guide To … series. Like all writing in the flyfishing subculture, a fair amount of knowledge on the part of the reader is assumed, though Robbins is less guilty of talking over the heads of apprentices like this reviewer than most writers on his beloved avocation. Continue Reading »
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August 9, 2008 by David Baer
Evocative of the immigrant-to-America writing of Jhumpa Lahiri, Alaa Al Aswany’s Chicago is a montage of personal stories that takes as its protagonists Egyptian university students in a Chicago department of histology. The writing, at least in the English translation provided, is inelegant and the character development is without nuance. Yet Chicago draws this reader in by the sheer force of personal drama as glimpsed in the lives of men and women for whom emigration—rather in search of a degree or a new life—fails to erase the hold of the old country on one’s soul and fortune. It seems an adaptation of the proverb is apt: you can take the Egyptian out of Egypt but you can’t take Egypt out of the Egyptian. If we are well-rooted, the observation is just as true—mutantis mutandi—of the book’s readers. Continue Reading »
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August 8, 2008 by David Baer
Paul, the quintessential Israelite, finds his vocation outside the boundaries of his land and people. He knows himself to have received a particular calling ‘to the nations’. There is no telling just to what degree—it is likely to be considerable—the apostle saw his destiny mirroring the Isaianic servant of the Lord, for whom it was a ‘small thing’ to restore Israel’s lost tribes. For that enigmatic figure, the properly proportioned calling consisted in taking light to the nations. Continue Reading »
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August 6, 2008 by David Baer
The apostle Paul appears to have been sure of many things. If this certainty stands behind his willingness to suffer to the end for his cause, it doubtless also nourishes that softer strength that is evident in his encouragement to others to live in one way and not in another. People who are sure about lots of things make uncomfortable company. It was probably not easy to spend abundant time with Paul of Tarsus. Continue Reading »
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August 6, 2008 by David Baer
In the biblical milieu, love for God is far from sentimentalism. One attaches himself to YHWH, one adores him, one finds his own story as a subset of YHWH’s adventurous engagement with the world for reasons that are only remotely connected to feeling and what might in some circles be called religious ardor.
These things have their place. Memorably, the prototypical king David dances half-naked around YHWH’s primary piece of furniture as it is making its trek to the place in Zion that it would one day seem always to have belonged. When criticized for his lack of decorum, David responds that he ‘will become even more undignified than this’. Yet it is not the strength of one’s religious affections that matters in the biblical story. They are well and good when they respond accurately to YHWH’s activity in his world. But they are far from a cause. Continue Reading »
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August 3, 2008 by David Baer
The crescendo is a central feature of biblical praise. The dynamic of adoration is such that increasing numbers of worshippers become caught up in its centering force.
Yet if it centers—by this I mean that it fixes the creature’s gaze on what is most true about the created whole of which he is a member—it also de-centers, for its force flows outward. Almost by definition, praise is a centrifugal force, its contagious potency captivating ever larger circles in its noisy work. Continue Reading »
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August 2, 2008 by David Baer
At what is our twelfth chapter in his letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul makes a famous turn from the indicative to the imperative.
Although this bifurcation of the most well known of his letters is criticized by Pauline scholars as simplistic, it captures a distinction between the dominant tone of the first twelve chapter over against the prevailing note in those that follow. Paul moves from a concentration upon God’s redemptive initiative in his world through the cross-work of his son Jesus Christ, on the one hand, to the proper community response of Jesus’ followers, on the other. Continue Reading »
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Canter Bridge 