Friday, May 7

Hey-o. Just catchin up here. I'm currently also playing fetch with Kreacher in my living room. His toy is behind my guitar which he is afraid of. That should keep him busy for a minute.


Reading for May 7
1 Samuel 1:1-2:21
Wow - Ruth was really short. Well - another book in the...books...I guess...

OK, new story with new characters. There's a dude. His name is Elkanah. He had two wives Hannah and Peninnah, but I'ma call her Penny. Penny had children but Hannah was infertile. Elkanah treated Hannah with a little more favor because  he felt bad she couldn't conceive. Hannah was still really bummed about not being able to have kids, and apparently, some other chick teased her about it. This made Hannah weep and refuse to eat.

Hannah would pray day after day for the ability to have a son. She made a vow to God that if she ever did conceive that she would never cut the kid's hair. Kinda weird, but OK. Well eventually she does have a son and she names him Samuel. Hey - that's the name of this book!

The second half of this section is a song Hannah sings in gladness of finding out she has conceived. It's definitely a song of praise, but look how she describes God here:

 ⁶ "The LORD brings death and makes alive;
       he brings down to the grave ^[i] and raises up.
 ⁷ The LORD sends poverty and wealth;
       he humbles and he exalts.

This contradicts the other theory that God is all good, all the time. I was talking with my friend Andy and he told me about the "Philospher's God". Basically this Philosopher's God is a theoretical God based on what a group of Philosophers decided would be the criteria for God, were he to exist. They said that if God exists, he must be all powerful, all good/loving, and all knowing. And since there was pain and evil in the world, that contradicted their view of what God should be, and then they decided that God could therefore not exist.

But this is not the Christian God. He is not - well really - he's not any of those things. Not exclusively anyway. He's loving, yes, but he can also get super pissed and take out his rage on people. He's somewhat all knowing based on my perception, but apparently he can't predict the actions of people because he experiences disappointment and regret early in Genesis. And I guess he's pretty close to all powerful - but he can't interrupt me from typing this: "Booty". I suppose he could if he wanted to, but maybe you needed to laugh, and "Booty" did it.

Anyway, my point is I think a lot of people put God in this box and say "he can only be these things" and then when something happens that contradicts those things, people's faiths are shaken - like mine was when reading about the Midianites. I was under the impression that God was all good, all the time. So that contradiction almost made me give up on my faith altogether.

It's my opinion that God is an unchanging being. He is a set of values and abilities and strengths, but also weaknesses and vulnerabilities and loopholes. I don't have a clear picture of him yet, but its certainly a lot broader than what I thought.

John 5:1-23
I think it's often under estimated how much of a maniac Jesus must have seemed to the Jews. Reading the Old Testament and seeing this fervent fear of God and strict regulations and rituals, Jesus coming onto the scene and basically shattering all of that must have been extremely hard to swallow for a lot of people. This line made it pretty apparent to me how much of a bitter pill Jesus' teachings were:

 ¹⁶So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. ¹⁷Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working." ¹⁸For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

On the other hand, to the people who were buying it - Jesus' message must have been extremely liberating.

"You mean I don't have to butcher a cow anymore every time I think about boobs? Sweet!"

Psalm 105:37-45
This continues the same psalm from yesterday. Another historical psalm, but this line stuck out to me:

 ⁴⁰ They asked, and he brought them quail
       and satisfied them with the bread of heaven.

Um, no. The Israelites whined for days about not having meat. Then God flooded their gullet with quails and the people who ate them were completely F-ing destroyed. Don't try to turn that into a "good will" story. It was vicious. 

Proverbs 14:28-29
 ²⁸ A large population is a king's glory,
       but without subjects a prince is ruined.
 ²⁹ A patient man has great understanding,
       but a quick-tempered man displays folly.

OK - a little Zelda: Spirit Tracks before bed, and then it's off to the mother-in-law's tomorrow. NANCE!

They have super slow internet there, so I may not post again until Sunday night, just in case my two readers were wondering.

Much love, yo.