Thursday, February 4

Well, today was probably worse than yesterday. I just can't catch up with work and I'm stuck in a feeling of constant stress and unease. I think it should calm down after this week, but who knows. One thing I was thinking about today is that last night was the first time during this project that I looked for comfort in the verses I was reading. I think a lot of people, myself included, read the Bible only in times where we are stressed or upset - we want to see or find something that makes sense of our pain. So as I did my reading last night, I tried to do that - but I didn't find anything. Maybe tonight will be different.

Reading for February 4
Exodus 19:16-21:21
Wow. A lot of interesting stuff going on here. The first thing that happens is God comes down from Heaven and meets with Moses on the peak of Mt. Sinai. He tells Moses to go back and warn everyone not to come up the mountain so "the Lord does not break out and destroy them.” He actually makes this warning twice in a row. So the people God loves are at risk of being "destroyed" by the God who created them just because they might get close to him. After giving this some thought, I came to the conclusion that this is because God cannot be in the presence of sin  - God and sin are mutually exclusive - they cannot exist in the same place. At that same time, however, I think this has reshaped my image of God. God may not be, and actually probably isn't, the old human dude we all imagine him to be - he is like an idea but...real...

What I mean by that is people can always change, people can pretend and put on masks to make everything seem OK, but some ideas cannot exist in the plane of other ideas. So the idea of God and the idea of sin simply cannot exist together...

^{After that, God busts out the ten commandments to Moses. And reading them in the context of the two greatest commandments that Jesus mentioned in yesterday's reading, they all actually fit. So after Moses receives the commandments he comes down the mountain and speaks to the people. They are terrified because they just heard the voice of God and saw his entrance with fire and smoke and stuff. Moses says:} 

²⁰ “Don’t be afraid,” Moses answered them, “for God has come in this way to test you, and so that your fear of him will keep you from sinning!”

OK - I was really hoping that the idea of fearing God wasn't a simple scare tactic to keep us on the right path, but at this point it seems like that's the case, and that's disappointing.

Then God gives some really strange rules to the people, mostly about what the sentences should be for certain crimes. Get this though: Anyone who disrespects their mother or father must be put to death. Pretty harsh right? Now check this out:

²⁰ “If a man beats his male or female slave with a club and the slave dies as a result, the owner must be punished. ²¹ But if the slave recovers within a day or two, then the owner shall not be punished, since the slave is his property."

So I can get away with not only owning another human, a human that God created, but I can also get away with beating the crap out of them if they don't die. That just doesn't make sense from a God who created and loved the human race.

Matthew 23:13-39 
Hypocrites!
Jesus just goes off on the Pharisees here for a little bit. Telling them what they're doing wrong and why its wrong - this is an interesting piece right here:

you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens,^[c] but you ignore the more important aspects of the law—justice, mercy, and faith.

He goes on to say we should tithe but not at the cost of following these more important things. I have to be honest, this is what I've been looking for since I began - even though I'm trying to do this in an unbiased way, I was hoping that my current belief system wouldn't be changed or shaken too much. And focusing on justice, mercy and faith is along the lines of where I was, but reading the whole Bible will help me to have a greater understanding of what I can do to practice justice, mercy and faith.


Psalm 28:1-9
This is what I was hoping to find tonight:

 ⁶ Praise the Lord!
      For he has heard my cry for mercy.
 ⁷ The Lord is my strength and shield.
      I trust him with all my heart.
   He helps me, and my heart is filled with joy.
      I burst out in songs of thanksgiving.

I can't read "The Lord is my strength and shield" without thinking about a particular song. It was from another band that appeared on a compilation that Full Surrender (my old band) was also on back in like 2001. The song was also featured in the "Bettie McFeeder" Youth Leader Infomercial - Here it is if you want to watch it. The song is around the 2:45 mark. I just watched it again - its really freaking funny.

Proverbs 7:1-5
A summary of the first 6 chapters of Proverbs in 2 verses.
 ⁴ Love wisdom like a sister;
      make insight a beloved member of your family.
 ⁵ Let them protect you from an affair with an immoral woman,
      from listening to the flattery of a promiscuous woman.

There it is. Good night. I feel better. Colon close parentheses.