Canter Bridge

Early or instant wealth lies heavily on the shoulders of those who acquire it.

Something venomous lurks in abundance without labor, status unearned, riches without long-sown tears.

An estate quickly acquired in the beginning will not be blessed in the end. (Proverbs 20:21 NRSV)

It is unclear whether the Proverbialist’s words ‘quickly acquired’ suggest an inheritance too hotly pursued by a young man who should have remained content to wait or, alternatively, fortune that simply falls unexpected upon its recipient. Odds favor the latter, for this interpretation does not require more precision than the words themselves offer up. Continue Reading »

The Bible’s Old Testament hints subtly in the direction of incarnation. Just one example: there may be no straight line between the book called Isaiah’s depiction of YHWH speaking in the dialect a responsive servant—’Behold, here I am!’—and the New Testament’s delineation of the risen Christ who at one time ‘took the form of a servant’. But between these two points lies at the least a winding path.

The Hebrew Bible’s occasionally daring portrayals of YHWH as a humble figure can take the slow reader’s breath away. Continue Reading »

We often require no help in order to pave the path to our own ruin. This lamentable task plays to our strength. I can do it all by myself.

The fool is equally adept at locating a scapegoat for the disaster he has brought upon himself. Too often he fingers YHWH for the crime.

One’s own folly leads to ruin, yet the heart rages against the LORD. (Proverbs 19:3 NRSV)

A deep irony of our human condition lies in our tendency to seek our Maker only when things have gone badly. We turn to him in anger and blame after the fact, rather than with our trust and our hunger earlier on.

The wide gaze of biblical wisdom does not imagine that human folly is always the cause of disaster. Life is subject to multiple causes. Yet wisdom knows that we who are foolish often cause our own destruction. The truly foolish then compound their ruin by blaming God.

How different a response is given by repentance and the humility that creates a space for it. If there is ‘rage’ in repentance, it is the dying embers of self-condemnation, not the retrograde misattribution of our pain to YHWH’s doing.

Then—often, if not always—comes fresh air, new light, soft rain, rebirth.

One of the Book of Proverbs‘ most quotable dicta has a meaning more debatable than readers in a quote-seeking mood might prefer.

The most traditional interpretation is captured by the English Standard Version.

A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. (Proverbs 18:24 ESV)

Here the Hebrew להתרעע is understood to derive from רעע, to inflict harm. Continue Reading »

Él es mantequilla, runs an endearing Mexican expression. He’s soft as butter.

It’s a compliment, not a snarky reference to spineless niceness. Niceness has only a little to do with it, and occasionally nothing at all.

Mantequilla (‘butter’) is the gentle though principled capacity to yield, to discover the common cause, to negotiate both fruitfulness and warmth in a human relationship, to prefer the other over oneself. Continue Reading »

Biblical wisdom is loathe to divide the human person into ‘constituent parts’. The main thing about a man is his unity, about a women her cohesion. Precise distinctions between, say, mind, body, and spirit usually pave the first steps on a ditch dressed up like a path, which leads nowhere. Continue Reading »