The children of Israel had slave mentality. Probably not the way Nietzsche would understand it, but so what? They had it. (more…)
The beauty of life is written into their flesh.
Seventeen years ago my little daughter died of cancer. This is what I wrote on the birthday she never quite made it to that year, with slight updates since.
Today she would be 21.
You would be 21, Betsey. Little friends you had are all grown up now.
I miss the life you did not live, I miss your dates and your projects, someday your husband, your children. But most of all, I miss you.
Happy Birthday, Betsey Pearl.
We planted a Pearl Apple for your birthday.
The years roll on, alas.
It’s all over that there is a leaked draft of a Supreme Court decision recalling Roe v. Wade.
This is a major escalation into breaches of norms. Everything old and venerable is being sucked into the war.
(Roe was itself an escalation in its day. Its been around long enough that overturning it is also an escalation.)
Decadence is when everything good anyone tries to accomplish moves everyone closer to the brink.
Exodus 35 and 36 has a heart theme.
whosoever is of a willing heart, let him bring it, an offering of the Lord; gold, and silver, and brass [and other temple construction supplies]
And every wise hearted among you shall come, and make all that the Lord hath commanded;
And they came, every one whose heart stirred him up,
Which do you think is more motivating to a young mother, or a woman on the cusp of motherhood–
That 90% of mothering is showing up–getting married and having the kids and generally being around–everything else is gravy and probably only makes a difference at the margins?
Or that the mother’s labors makes a tremendous difference in the life of each child?
I find that I believe both and I’m not sure how to reconcile them.
Genesis 24:15, a couple of other scriptures.
2. Why would ex-slaves require such detailed instructions on owning slaves?
Exodus 21 is the chapter right after the ten commandments. It has detailed instructions for the law on holding slaves. Verses 1-11, 20-21, 26, and 32. Why? Would the Hebrew slaves have owned a bunch of slaves? It is possible. I get the impression that they were held collectively in bondage but not necessarily individually, which means that as individuals some of them might have owned slaves among themselves. The other possibility is that as ex-slaves they had a bunch of opinions on how slavery should be managed.
3. Exodus 21:20-21, am I reading this right?
And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished.
Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money.
I am reading it to say that there is a punishment for killing your slave. Not death, but a punishment. But if you maul the slave but the slave doesn’t die right away, they linger on for a day or two, then no punishment. Because the money you lose when the slave dies is itself the punishment.
Now, obviously, the world of the Old Testament is very foreign to ours. That’s one of the reasons I have been saying ‘slave’ instead of ‘servant,’ to make the differences more clear. And obviously having a different scale of punishments for offenses against servants/slaves was pretty standard in various areas of the ancient world. Anglo-Saxon law, for instance. Still, the idea that masters can be trusted to treat their slaves well because of the money they have invested in them is a remarkably libertarian view. I.e., probably false.
And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.
….
And the Lord came down upon mount Sinai, on the top of the mount: and the Lord called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses went up.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Go down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish.
-thus Exodus 19:18-21
And the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel.
-thus Exodus 24:17
I don’t think we’ve quite incorporated this into our picture of deity. I know I haven’t.
I happenned to see this displayed today in the Ronald Reagan Airport, across the Potomac from Washington, DC.
This article in the Vanity Fair was something else. It’s about, heck if I know.
In my dream we had acquired an android personal assistant. She was horse-faced and spare, in her 50s.
I had butchered some animal or other. After doing the main cuts, I had a number of scraps left which I had crammed into a large ziploc or freezer bag, something of that kind.
She came to me very worried. She said that multiple sources claimed that packaged food was bad for you, and my meat scraps were clearly packaged food.
I explained that I was going to remove the meat from the package before I cooked it, so it would no longer be packaged food.
This mollified her.
I had an odd dream. In my dream each person in their core had two or three nodes that could be filled with some kind of trait. Judgment, for instance.
Then they had a second layer of nodes that the inner traits were filtered through, leading to a third layer of surface nodes that consisted of actions.
In my dream some people were reproving each other for being judgmental or whatnot. But I could see the inner nodes, and I saw that some people who had judgment on their third surface layer of nodes actually had something different in the interior. Their outer judgment was just inner love filtered through middle layer concern for community norms or vision of the future or whatever it might be. Whereas some of the people who did not have judgment on the exterior layer had it on the inside, it just was filtered and manifested differently.
In my dream, what mattered was what was in the inner layer.
Not a hair of the head shall be lost
He is resurrected, and his body the Church and his footstool the earth and everything that is in it. It is all resurrected, every person, every moment. It is all coming back.
The saints came out of the grave with him. It is a symbol that everything comes out of the grave.. He drew them out, and they are one edge of a great net, tied to everything they ever loved or touched, in turn everything they ever loved or touched tied to what those things ever loved or touched, all one great net that he is drawing out with him, anything and all things that he ever loved, they all come back.
Oh, the glory of it. On Easter we discover that all the little bits of our lives are become the stuff divinity and eternity is made of. They blare with light. And oh the shame, because what have we done with them. He is the resurrection and the life. We are the resurrection . . . but whether of life or death or some ghastly mix remains to be seen.
But the glory overwhelms. If we step out from our little mortal barques onto the shining waters of eternity and are buffeted by the storms we have raised, and sink, lift up your hand and cry for Him. He will pull you up.
This resurrection is not of our own doing. He is making and remaking us.
Christ is risen.
Hallelujah.
Christ is risen.
Hallelujah.
Christ is risen.
Hallelujah.
On and on the chant goes on.
It is sown in death.
I just ran across a rant about how more Disney movies are bad than you think, because they teach that monsters are actually cuddly and misunderstood.
Despite what you’d think, I’m actually pretty moderate and easy-going in real life. But we have a couple of out-there hard rules in Chez G. Meal times, and no books with good dragons.
I mostly pass it off as a bit of a joke, Dad working off his eccentric humors. But underneath all that, I really do feel there is something wicked at work. Monsters are monsters. Dragons are evil.