Five Minute Friday :: Undecided

• Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, California
with legal reuse rights from pxhere

• Five Minute Friday :: Undecided Linkup

As an opinionated person, almost too often I sandwich myself between two or more choices. I usually do that list of pros and cons; I usually get hung up for a while because the total rank of everything usually feels identical.

Some history—ancient and modern:

I can't count the times my offers to participate in church or elsewhere have been refused, often with a rude remark or two or three. I perceive myself as very able; at the same time I'm fully aware how far I still have to go, though I'm exquisitely aware knowing my background could intimidate people… yes, but how many times have I even hinted at much of what I've done in school, at work, in the church? A person (you, me, anyone) can't exit a setting the moment someone looks askance at them, and I've become expert at persisting.

However, as soon as I reflect on yet another rebuff, rejection, or refusal, I always remind myself, "My experience would have been very different in a place like Cambridge or Berkeley." But not once did I ever consider relocating to "a place like Cambridge or Berkeley." Not until a little less than a year ago. As an acquaintance suggested when I told him that particular history, it probably was the Holy Spirit suggesting Cambridge, Berkeley, or related all along. Slow learner, right?

Soooo…knowing I couldn't simply transport myself up north, find housing and opportunities, and settle in, late last fall I finally contacted several San Francisco Bay area entities I hoped would become real connections. Both the responses I got and the lack of responses disappointed me; for several reasons I haven't tried since then. Am I still undecided? No, I am not! I have decided! But practically and financially, my only option for relocating to the north is to have a worship space, working place, and a dwelling waiting to welcome me.

Still undecided? I just told you, no! But I am excited!

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Magical Windstorm

Nahant Watercolor :: Tall

Nahant Watercolor :: Wide

Peaches

February Tree

Autumn Tree Two

Autumn Tree One

Sky • Sun • Sunflowers

Daisies!

Five Minute Friday :: Flee

Whither shall I go from thy spirit?
or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
Psalm 139:7
• Five Minute Friday :: Flee Linkup

Psalm 139:7-10

⁷ Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
⁸ If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
⁹ If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
¹⁰ Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.

Almost every translation of verse 7b says "flee!" That sounds fast—probably desperate and frightened. We claim to know God best in the loving, compassionate Savior Jesus Christ. After all, he lived a human life like ours (though in a very different place and time), so he "gets" pressure, temptation, disappointment, anger, sorrow, and joy. But even so, don't we often look askance on our own shortcomings and try to hide from God as well as from other humans?

This week I've been studying the book of Hebrews in preparation for my weekly scripture reflection. The assigned passage is a study in law and gospel.

Hebrews 4:12-16

¹² Indeed, the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. ¹³ And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.

¹⁴ Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. ¹⁵ For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested [or tempted] as we are, yet without sin.

¹⁶ Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Exodus 25 instructs, "you shall make a cover of pure gold; two cubits and a half shall be its length and a cubit and a half its width." (verse 17) and continues, "there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat... verse 22

Scholars who know Hebrew explain the root of kapporet that Martin Luther translated as Gnadenstuhl or "mercy seat" is a place of covering that logically would extend from the physical gold covering of the ark to covering for sin, made especially clear as every year they sprinkled blood on it.

It's only a slight exaggeration to say Luther perceived Jesus Christ in [almost] every passage in the Hebrew Bible. For Luther the Gnadenstuhl, the definitive mercy seat, the place of grace, was the cross of Jesus Christ.

After explaining that Jesus as high priest, as mediator between heaven and earth in his resurrection and ascension, knows us and sympathizes – resonates! – with us, Hebrews 4:16 advises us to "approach the throne of grace with boldness in order to receive mercy."

Do we still want to flee from God?
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Five Minute Friday :: Two

• Five Minute Friday :: Two

• We Two Form a Multitude
• Nos duo turba sumus – Ovid, Metamorphoses
Two is more than one.

And the Lord God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him." Genesis 2:18

Several translations say "companion." I love the implication in that word of breaking bread together.

"Ezer" is the Hebrew word for helper, help meet. Scriptorians tell us sixteen of the twenty-one occurrences of ezer in the Old Testament refer to God. Although servant God, servant people, is a persistent biblical current, "ezer" implies overall equality rather than the status of a slave or a servant.

Two is more than one. Two is the start of community; the beginning of shared life and the start of the end of loneliness. Two initiates living the way God intended for humanity.

Eating alone is a disappointment. But not eating matters more … Let us sit down soon to eat with all those who haven't eaten; let us spread great tablecloths, put salt in lakes of the world, set up planetary bakeries, tables with strawberries in snow, and a plate like the moon itself from which we can all eat. For now I ask no more than the justice of eating. Pablo Neruda, from The Great Tablecloth / El Gran Mantel

Eating together is equalizing and leveling; it often makes class and economic distinctions irrelevant. A shared meal or snack sometimes becomes a cross-cultural experience!

From "Please come to Boston" by Dave Loggins (RIP)
Please come to L.A. to live forever
California life alone is just too hard to build.

• 1x1=1 1²=1
• Two starts something greater than itself:
• 2x2=4 2²=4

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September 2024

Flowers from Inglewood and Torrance

• Urban Wilderness Lectionary Project – September 2024

• I've little to report for September, the month that's traditionally been my main New Year because that's when we returned to school back in the day.

• You may have noticed I'm continuing to blog some of my best and favorite art from both near and distant pasts.. Having separate blogs and websites for different endeavors was logical, and for sure I'll keep my professional design and music pages. But with this website's subtitle Theology • Ecology • Liturgy • Life; what could be more theology-, ecology-, and liturgy-enhancing, more life-giving than the colors, patterns, pictures, paintings, and designs I've been doing since the dawn of time?

• Please stay tuned for my October rundown. Thanks!

Simple Farm