October 6, 2012 by David Baer
James Scott Wheeler’s workmanlike narrative of the First Division’s storied legacy begins with the unit’s July 4, 1917 parade through Paris en route to bloodier encounters along the line that would soon yield to the American bolstering of the Anglo-French defenses. It ends with the Division’s performance in the First Gulf War.
In between, Wheeler chronicles engagement after engagement with phenomenal precision. One thinks with gratitude of the after-engagement reports that became the dull but immensely valuable stock-in-trade of American infantry and the relentless effort required of historians like Wheeler in processing these and other sources. Continue Reading »
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September 25, 2012 by David Baer
¡Qué falta de respeto decir que Jesús estuvo casado…!- Esta fue la reacción de la suegra de un amigo, luego de enterarse por las noticias sobre el supuesto hallazgo: un pedazo de pergamino antiguo escrito en copto, del siglo IV, donde se puede leer: “Jesus y su esposa”.
La nota vuelve a encender el debate de siglos sobre el posible estado civil de Jesús. Y no es para menos, una ligera búsqueda en la red y más de 18. 900,000 artículos o anuncios relacionados, colocan el tema como noticia relevante. Esto a pesar que la investigadora Karen King de Harvard Divinity School, anunció que el documento requiere más análisis y otros expertos se mantienen escépticos. Continue Reading »
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July 29, 2012 by David Baer
The dialect of blessing accelerates quickly to its full cadence. Because the speaker has only good things in mind, no resistance belabors the tongue. None of life’s ordinary anguish burdens the mind as it spins out what it wishes for the ones upon whom its heart’s desire falls.
Blessing, one gathers, consists of two critical pieces: first, the desire of good only and everywhere for the one whom the blesser loves. And second, the willingness to do all that one can to coax those good wishes towards reality in the life of the blessed. Continue Reading »
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July 29, 2012 by David Baer
In ancient Israel as in our day, it sometimes seemed that true religion required the infrastructure of holiness and piety’s ever-grasping bureaucracy. Absent temple, priesthood, and sacrifice, what is one really to do?
The voice of the psalmists brings in prayer—wherever life’s inconvenience locates the one who speaks to God in this naked, untrammeled way—as the good-enough engagement with YHWH when it is all one has at hand.
O LORD, I call upon you; hasten to me!
Give ear to my voice when I call to you!
Let my prayer be counted as incense before you,
and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice! (Psalm 141:1–2 ESV) Continue Reading »
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July 27, 2012 by David Baer
The altitudes of the heart are of massive importance to the biblical witness.
Particularly in the book of Isaiah, the hubris that leads a human being to elevate himself is a certain prescription that he will be brought low. The Psalms also pick up this topic, with uncanny employment of the same vocabulary that Isaiah uses to make the point.
O LORD, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. (Psalm 131:1–2 ESV) Continue Reading »
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July 26, 2012 by David Baer
Ceaseless toil claims to justify itself. Our 24/7 agony shouts its own merit.
Hard, purposeful work is a noble thing, it is true. Only a questing, unworldly stab at false spirituality denies this.
Yet a different truth also intersects with our busy hands and our whirring minds: it is all useless if God is not in it.
Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep. (Psalm 127:1–2 ESV) Continue Reading »
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July 25, 2012 by David Baer
Poetry and redundancy do not play nicely together.
The linguistic discipline of the poet leads him to use repetition sparingly. It is the mark of a clumsy wordsmith to heap the same syllables upon the word-pile over and over again.
Unless, that is, the poet’s purpose demands this. Then to repeat is to speak one’s art, one’s craft, even one’s truth.
Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. (Psalm 121:4–8 ESV) Continue Reading »
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July 24, 2012 by David Baer
Jesus memorably elevates a status that is widely viewed to be lamentable.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3 ESV)
Nobody wants to be so impoverished. Broken down, crushed under an unbearable burden, bereft of emotional strength. It is a state to be avoided when possible, regretted when not, survived if one can.
Or so we thought, until Jesus taught us that holding title to his Father’s rule in this world and the next requires one to experience just such broken poverty. Continue Reading »
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July 23, 2012 by David Baer
Light dawns often in the biblical text.
Whether because the dawn is in human experience such a reliable expectation or because the move from night’s darkness to morning’s shining is so dramatic, the image lends itself to the vocabulary of hope and of hopefulness.
One of life’s great enigmas—and therefore a subject matter for the probing poems we call the Psalms—is why the righteous suffer. Why, in a well-governed world, should good women and men know the darkness and the confusion of night at all? Why is theirs not a perpetual stroll from light to brilliance? Continue Reading »
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July 23, 2012 by David Baer
Biblical wisdom insists that life is a classroom. Those who live it best engage life as its students.
The logic of this approach to living life as a learning experience assumes that the way of things is not immediately apparent. Short attention spans need not apply.
Things that are worthwhile require prolonged scrutiny. Circumstances and phenomena do not give up their truth quickly. The best of reality simmers slowly. The patient cook—and his or her loved ones—enjoy the richest meal.
Great are the works of the LORD, studied by all who delight in them. (Psalm 111:2 ESV) Continue Reading »
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Canter Bridge 