Sinners and Colorful Characters

Then God rained brimstone and fire down on Sodom and Gomorrah - a river of lava from God out of the sky! - and destroyed these cities and the entire plain and everyone who lived in the cities and everything that grew from the ground.- Genesis 19-24-25 (The Message)

Here we go with "God the Destroyer" again.  It makes for some exciting reading and good movie material for sure.  But this story has also been used by Christians to hurt others.  It is used as "proof" that God hates homosexuals.  And every time a natural disaster brings a lot of destruction to a city or region, you will always hear someone saying that it was their fault because of their sin.  And still.... some of the most sin-filled cities in the world thrive.

Did this story happen just the way it said in the Genesis account?  Or maybe the story got embellished a bit as it was handed down generation to generation until it was finally written down.  Or maybe it was simply a natural disaster and, like what happens today, God got blamed.

However it happened, it should never be used to bash others.  The bible can certainly be our sword, but it is not intended to use to cut  our brothers and sisters. But that is what people do, even if it's not expressed in words.  When something terrible happens to someone else, we want to believe they brought it on themselves.  That way, we feel safe. We can think "God took that couple's child because they weren't good parents." Or, "God caused her husband to leave her because she's not a real Christian" or "God sent that earthquake/flood/tornado/hurricane/wildfire to that city because they legalized gambling (or were mean to Jim & Tammy Bakker! ;) )."

Just knowing that this is the tendency of people, I would bet that God has once again been blamed for a completely natural event.  Perhaps he did send his angels to bring Lot and his family out before it occurred.  God must have really need Lot, after all... he tried to give his daughters up to be raped, and then his daughters tricked their dad into having sex with them so they could get pregnant.  Wow... if God's purpose was to wipe out sin, I'm thinking he saved the wrong family!

But then I remember that the child of one of those daughters was Moab.  And Ruth was a Moabite and an ancestor of King David who was an ancestor of Jesus.  Wow!  Jesus had some pretty colorful characters in his lineage!  You gotta love it!

God of Crazy and Colorful Characters,

Help us to be less judgmental of others, both as groups and individuals.  No matter what kind of crazy or sinful things we have done, you can still use us to further your kingdom and for that, we rejoice.  Amen.

Laugh!

So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, "After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?" - Genesis 18:12

I love the story of Sarah laughing.  It makes her so human.  There are surprisingly few incidences of laughter in the bible and most of them are a derisive, sneering kind of laughter. Didn't they laugh in ancient times? Some of the mentions of laughter make it sound like a bad thing as in Ecclesiastes 7:3 which says, "Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of countenance the heart is made glad."  And Sirach 27:13 (in the Apocrypha), "A fool raises his voice when he laughs, but the wise smile quietly." I wish there were more examples of joyful laughter in the bible.  They had to have laughed!  Some of our finest comedians are Jewish!!

Science says that laughter burns calories, lowers stress and improves memory. It gets that happy hormone called serotonin flowing and gives us increased energy. Who doesn't love to laugh? It's contagious and if you've ever had a case of the giggles, you know it can sometimes take over. My favorite portrait of Jesus is this one:

  

He looks so human and so approachable here. It makes me wonder what would make Jesus laugh with such joy?

We could all use a little laughter in our lives.  You have probably seen this video before and I know I have shared it before, but no matter how often I watch it, it always makes me laugh... enjoy: Laugh!

God of Joy,

Give us many reasons to burst out in joyful laughter today.  Thank you for this gift.  Amen.

More On Ishmael

"As for Ishmael, I have heard you; I will bless him and make him fruitful and exceedingly numerous; he shall be the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation."-Genesis 17:20

I have read that Ishmael is the father of Islam in the same way that Jacob is the father of Judaism. What I never saw in my previous readings of Genesis is that Ishmael fathered his own 12 sons just as Jacob did!  I'm not a biblical scholar, but that seems pretty significant to me.  I have found a couple of web sites that talk about this and if you are interested in reading more about the tribes of Ishmael you can check it out here. It talks about what happened to the different tribes and that they have mostly disappeared from history, but it really doesn't speak to any biblical significance.  It is discussed more as an aside to the story of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

12 is a significant number in the bible.  It is considered a perfect number and symbolizes God's power and authority.  It is also a symbol of completeness and can signify a perfect government foundation. As far as the history of Islam goes, though, there is not quite the same connect of the 12 tribes of Ishmael to Islam as there is of the 12 tribes of Israel to Judaism.  Many of the tribes of Ishmael splintered off or married into other nations and tribes.  There is just not as pure of a line to follow. This helps me to understand God's desire to keep Israel pure and all the laws and commandments dealing with mixing and marrying into other nationalities and religions.  The line of Israel needed to be kept somewhat pure until the birth of Jesus.  Some claim that Mohammed was a descendant of Ishmael, but I found no source showing a direct lineage as our bible gives for Jesus. 

Maybe one day I will dig deeper into this because I just think there must be more to it if God indeed blessed Ishmael and made him a great nation with 12 tribes.  But it looks like a pretty deep study that I'm not quite ready for.

God of All,

I believe that the bible only scratches the surface of what an amazing God you are. You cannot be contained to one collection of books.  Bless us in our pursuit of knowing you more deeply.  Amen.

Do What???

This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised.-Genesis 17:10

Why?  Wouldn't it have served the same purpose to be tattooed or pierced or something not quite so... private and intimate? 

It is interesting to note that God's request of Abraham was not unheard of.  This was actually a practice among some other nations and tribes.  It is thought to have arisen first in Egypt as a purification ritual.  It was also done as a rite of passage or proof of masculinity in other cultures.

Being that Abraham had lived in Egypt for a time, he probably knew a little about it and was not overly surprised, but probably not overjoyed.  It certainly is a means of showing how serious you are about your commitment to God.

But again, why circumcision?  It's not like everyone you meet would see it and know you are a follower of that ONE GOD god.  One article I read suggests that our God is an intimate God and our relationship is one of no secrets and that we should always approach God with a complete openness and vulnerability.

Over time, God asked more... that we circumcise our hearts (Deuteronomy 10:16; Deuteronomy 30:6; Jeremiah 4:4).  So perhaps we (humankind; I cannot claim to have experienced it personally) needed to experience the physical and literal circumcision to understand the deeper figurative request that we circumcise our hearts so that we are not stubborn any longer (Deuteronomy 10:16); and so that we and our descendants will "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live." (Deuteronomy 30:6).

Even females can circumcise their hearts.

God of Covenants,

Help us to remove that covering from our hearts that we may see, hear and touch you more fully. Amen.

Ishmael

Sarai said to Abram, "You see that the LORD has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my slave-girl; it may be that I shall obtain children by her." And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. Genesis 16:2

There is a lot to ponder here.  First, I wonder if anyone in that time and circumstance wouldn't have done the same thing.  Think about it.  When you pray for something you really, really want, don't you look for signs that God might provide it?  Don't you ever wonder... "Maybe this opportunity I see before me is how God plans to answer my prayer."  It wasn''t a matter of impatience... it had been 10 years since God's promise. And if you have ever waited a long time to get pregnant, you know that you think about it every. single. day.  A handmaiden was not an unusual idea in that day or time, so they probably thought that God gave them this opportunity and they have ignored it for ten years!

Then there is the thought of what if.  What if Ishmael had not been born? Would that mean that we would not have Muslims today, so there would not be the fringe fundamentalist terrorist we have now?  Did God just deal with this mistake of Sarai and Abram by creating another religion?  Or was this God's intention after all?  

I do believe that even if the Muslim faith did not exist, we would have those on the fringes of some other religion or ideology that would try to terrorize the world.  It is a sad part of the world we live in that there will always be others who violently try to force others to believe in what they believe in.

If we believe that God is responsible for creating each life, then he must have intended for Ishmael to be born which would suggest that God intended for Sarai and Abram to become impatient and would suppose that God intended for Islam to eventually become a religion.  God could have mad Hagar unable to conceive, right?  So even in their plan to "help" God, God has the last word. Ishmael was the result.

God of All Life,

Help us to embrace every living person as one of your children... no matter their faith, no matter where they come from, no matter how they express themselves.  Let us love the way you love us. Unconditionally.

A One-Sided Deal

(God) said to (Abraham), "Bring me  a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon."  He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two." -Genesis 15:9-10

If you read on for the next several verses, you will know that Abram does not ask God why he wants the animals and God does not instruct him what to do.  I know if God asked me to gather up a few animals, my reaction would not be to cut them all in half!  But because of the time and place of this bible story, Abram knew exactly what God was asking of him.  This was the way they made deals - or covenants - in those days.  This was like a handshake, pinkie swear, cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die kind of deal taken to the extreme so that both parties understand the seriousness of the promise.  Once the animals were cut in two, both parties would walk between them to show their agreement to the covenant. So this was nothing new to Abram.

However.  The story takes a bit of a turn.  Verse 17 says, "A smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces." The firepot and flaming torch are a sign of the presence of God.  God passes through the animals alone.  Abram promises nothing.  God promises all. 

Grace upon grace upon grace.  Even then.

Faithful and Graceful God,

I am so grateful that your love and grace does not depend on anything I promise or agree to.  You just do it.  Amen.

Melchizedek

And King Melchizedek of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was priest of God Most High. He blessed (Abram) and said, "Blessed be Abram by God Most High, maker of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High who has delivered your enemies into your hand!" And Abram gave him one tenth of everything. -Genesis 14:18-19

Most of the commentary I've read about King Melchizedek claims that he is perhaps Jesus.  He brings out bread and wine.  He was priest of God Most High. His name means "King of Righteousness."    He was king of Salem and "Salem" means "peace." He blessed Abram.  Abram gave him one tenth of everything. References to Melchizedek in Psalms and Hebrews add further evidence to this speculation.  I like to think this was Jesus.

How awesome if it was!  The story of God's people often seems so exclusive.  It begins with the Hebrew's being God's chosen people.  The Christian story arises out of it.  There are rules to belonging to either group.  But here comes this guy out of seemingly nowhere who obviously has a close relationship with God.  He is not from the side of the tracks that one would expect.  

I love that we see this appearance of Jesus as an "outsider."  It teaches us that someone we think of as outside the Christian tradition might still know a thing or two about God.  And maybe we can be blessed be them.  And maybe it might be Christ himself blessing us.  

God of All,

Help us to listen to others with religious traditions different from our own.  None of us has all the answers except you and maybe we can have a deeper knowledge of you if we listen.  Amen.

A Family Reunion

Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the Plain and moved his tent as far as Sodom. -Genesis 13:12

So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife.  When they came together, the Lord made her conceive, and she bore a son. -Ruth 4:13

When I told Pastor Chad that I had decided to read through the bible again, he suggested a book that would help me read it in a different way.  I highly recommend it:  What Is the Bible, by Rob Bell.  I have only begun and have gotten many new insights into some of the bible stories.  What we often don't realize is how connected the books of the bible are to each other and how some verses that we might think are unimportant can actually provide deep insight when you know why the author wrote them.

Did you know that the parting of ways between Abram and Lot is importantly related to the marriage of Boaz and Ruth?   As Rob Bell explains:  "Ruth is from Moab, and the Moabites were descendans of Lot.  So when Ruth returns to Israel, this story about this obscure family becomes a story about Lot's tribe and Abraham's tribe being reunited...."  just a couple generations before King David is born into their genealogy.  Ruth, though a beautiful story about faith and loyalty, is also a story about a family reunited and healing.  It's about bringing together what was separated years earlier. 

When we read the bible as a whole, instead of as a bunch of verses that can be taken out of context, we find an incredible story of grace, forgiveness, and love from an amazing Creator God.

Amazing God,

Thank you for new insights to stories I've read and heard over and over.  You do indeed make all t.hings new.  Amen

New Adventures

Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. -Genesis 12:1

In the first half of my life, I've made some significant moves.  As a child, I moved with my parents from Canada to Florida.  As a young adult, I moved with my husband from Florida to Connecticut and back to Florida and finally to Lincolnton, North Carolina.  There were hardships with each move, but overall, I enjoyed the excitement of the newness: new surroundings, new friends, new job, new experiences. Once we decided to settle in North Carolina to raise a family, wanderlust faded.  It's hard enough to raise a family without picking up and starting over somewhere new every 5 years or so. There are just too many practical reasons to stay put.

Now that the kids are gone and Richard is retired, I have felt that prodding now and again... maybe back to Florida to be closer to my sisters and brother; maybe back to Canada to escape the present political climate; or perhaps somewhere in the western part of the U.S. to begin a new adventure.  But the second I start giving it even a little more serious thought, there is just NO WAY!  I can't imagine how much I would miss my kids and grandkids.  Where would I find a job that I could enjoy the way I enjoy my present job?  What about my church? My friends?  A new adventure would be exciting, but the cost is just too high now.  I have roots here that I never really had anywhere else.  I've lived in North Carolina for 31 one years!  That is over half my life!  Where has the time gone?

Abram lived in a time where family was everything.  They worked together, played together, slept together and usually lived in close proximity to one another. They often married within the family... a cousin, inlaw, niece, etc.  It wasn't a terrible thing then.  The genes were purer and it wasn't so easy to meet someone outside of the family because they often lived in communities made up of only family.

How hard it must have to pick up and leave country, family and his father's home for the unknown... "a land that I will show you," said God.  Even when I had little to hold me to a place, I needed to know where I was going and why.  Abram didn't even have that. Abram and Sarai didn't have children or grandchildren though.  That is my biggest reason for staying put.  I wonder if that made it easier for Abram... maybe they were excited to start a new life somewhere new with a vague promise from God that he would be famous and blessed. Moving can be terrifying.  But it can also be exciting.  But if we have deep roots in a place it might seem almost impossible.

Maybe God asks some other kind of great change in our lives?  A change in job or retirement; moving an ailing parent to our own home or a nursing home; taking in a grandchild when our children fail at parenting; the loss of a spouse.  Sometimes we just have no choice but to make big changes in our lives.  We can be terrified or we can be excited for a new adventure.  We can hide or we can trust God to walk with us.

God of Life's Adventures,

Help us to face each change with a sense of excitement and the knowledge that wherever we go and whatever we do, you are there. Amen.

The Story of the Great Flood

And the LORD was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.  So the LORD said, "I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created - people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them." -Genesis 6:6-7

The story of Noah's Ark confounds and confuses me.  It is as if it were pulled from the pages of a book on the stories of the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses.  It is the antithesis of all I have learned about the Judeo-Christian God.

It starts out talking about the "Nephilim" called "sons of God" who mated with human women and created giants.  What????  Why don't we know more about this?  Why doesn't the bible explain exactly who these Nephilim were and where they came from and why we never hear about them again (except in describing the Anakites in the book of Numbers)? This for sure sounds like a story from Greek mythology.

And then we find that God, the omnipotent, omniscient, eternal and perfect God has made a mistake. What???? And then to rectify his mistake he is going to kill every human and animal on earth. What???? (Such a cute story for nursery themes and children's songs, right?). Can you even imagine the scene?  I'll bet the ark had deep scratches in its hull from terrified people trying to hold on or at least trying to plead with Noah to take their babies.

A question to consider:  If God knows all from the beginning to the end of time; if Christ was there at the creation of the world, God must have already known he would be sending Jesus to save us from sin.  So why the flood?  Were these people beyond even the saving power of Christ?  And if so, wasn't that a huge mistake for our perfect God? Then after the flood, God says (paraphrased), "Well humans will be humans.  They are born evil and will always be evil, so I promise I won't kill them off again."  What????  And Noah?  HE found favor in the sight of the LORD?  Abraham and Moses argued with God when they thought God was being too brutal.  But not Noah.  He was okay with the the total annihilation of every living thing. 

There are stories of a Great Flood in a lot of other ancient literature.  I feel pretty sure there was a devastating flood.  But I'm thinking it probably wasn't the entire world and probably wasn't issued as a death penalty from God.  Honestly, if in order to be a Christian, I had to believe this story to be literally true, I would have to walk away from my faith.  It just doesn't wash with the God I know and love. 

God of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,

Help me if I misunderstand this story. If it is not simply folklore that made its way into the bible, please help me understand your love and grace for all people, even in the worst parts of the story. Amen.

Punishment or Consequence?

Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever." -Genesis 3:21

Not fair!  Adam and Eve sinned and now we are ALL punished; generation after generation for millennia after millennia? What happened to grace and mercy and love?  Is this God's wrath?  Was he so angry about his creation wanting to become like God himself that he cast them out of paradise?

God's wrath.  I've always felt that what we call "God's wrath" is really "human sin."  If we leave a candle burning by the curtains, it isn't God who burned down our house.  The house burning is a consequence of our carelessness. So what is it about eating from the wrong tree that led to the consequence of being cast out of paradise?

The result of eating from the tree was to give them the knowledge of good and evil.  This took them from doing everything God tells them to do, to making choices every day.  Although they now had the knowledge, they still had to learn how to use it.  And it is taking us a long time.  We make wrong choices every single day even though we know the difference between good and evil.  Our life is now spent recognizing that difference in a myriad of examples each day. That is what life is about... a sort of perfecting that godliness Adam and Eve thought they could obtain with just one bite.  It was only the beginning.

It was mankind who threw themselves out of the garden.  Not God.  God gave us the gift of redemption even though we don't deserve it.  He is allowing us the opportunity to grow more and more like him.  Eventually, I believe, we will all succeed, but probably not in this life.

Compassionate God,
Help us to use our time here on earth to continue what Adam and Eve started... becoming more like you. Amen.

The God Gland

7 then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground,[b]and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.-Genesis 2:7

I love this line from the creation story. God breathed the breath of life into us.  I wonder if this is what resulted in us being made in his image?  I don't know if the Hebrew words line up, but perhaps it was the Holy Spirit herself that was breathed into us.

I believe that when we were created (however it happened) the one thing God certainly gave us was a desire to know him. Humanity spends so much time thinking about God. Even those who do not believe spend a great deal of time considering why they do not believe.  The hunger for God is every bit as real as the hunger for food.  What a terrible trick of nature it would be to hunger for food if food didn't exist!

There may even be a physical cause for this hunger.  The pineal glad, which helps us to fall asleep and awaken, has also been called "the God gland," and "the seat of the soul."  It has been labeled as a pseudoscience, but perhaps there is something to it.  Perhaps this is the physical cause of our need for a relationship with God, placed there by God.  Perhaps it is the thing inside us that connects the soul to the flesh and communicates with God for us.  Perhaps it's where we recognize that still, small voice.

Humankind has achieved so much since the time of Moses and since the time of Jesus.  We have explored the earth and our solar system and even a little beyond.  We have discovered so much through science and found that creation probably formed differently from the beautiful biblical accounts and that some of the miracles we have read about in the bible might have good scientific explanation.  And yet, for all of our knowledge... the majority of the world still believe in something or someone more. Maybe God placed our need for him within us.

Creator God,

Help us to acknowledge our inborn need for you. Amen.

Remember the Sabbath

 So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.-Genesis 2:3

The Sabbath.  A time to rest.  How applicable to my vacation.  It's hard to get a good, restful beach vacation with my hubby.  He thinks we need to go here, explore there, visit yonder, maybe shop and have a daily walk as far down the beach as physically possible.  My version of a beach vacation is a beach chair, a towel and a book.  Through the years we have mostly learned to meet somewhere in the middle.  But I have to have my chair and book time.  The sound of the ocean soothes my soul and I could sit there and listen forever, occasionally getting up to wade in the shallow surf and look for interesting sea shells.  There is even scientific evidence showing how beneficial time on the beach is for our emotional well-being.

The science goes further to say that time away in nature - period - is of great benefit.  I can attest to that from my hiking by myself days. The peace.  The fresh air. The sense of God's presence.  Who can't use more of that?

I think we don't give nearly enough effort to obeying the commandment to honor the Sabbath Day.  We fudge through it.  Maybe some of us don't mow the lawn on Sunday (or our chosen day of rest), but we don't really get away from the rhythm of weekday life.  And that is what we need.  We need to find some nature.  Weekly is ideal, but we should aim for as often as possible to get away from everything that consumes us in our lives so that we can reconnect with our real selves and with our Creator.

Renewing God,

Help us to remember to take time for renewal and refreshment and re-connection.  It's more important that we often realize.  Amen.

Creation Bumping Up Against Us

God spoke: “Swarm, Ocean, with fish and all sea life!
        Birds, fly through the sky over Earth!”
    God created the huge whales,
        all the swarm of life in the waters,
    And every kind and species of flying birds.
        God saw that it was good.
    God blessed them: “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Ocean!
        Birds, reproduce on Earth!”
    It was evening, it was morning—
    Day Five. -
Genesis 1:20-23 (MS)

Ahhhh...the beach.  I have so many of my favorite things this week: The sand between my toes, family (including grands!) at my side, a glass of wine in my hand, good books within reach, good food on the grill and a beautiful ocean-front view from my deck.  Life doesn't get much better. Each time I read this part of the creation story, visions of the beach fill my soul.

I love the beach, but I am definitely a shallow water bather... like maybe up to my shins.  As much as I love the idea of all that sea life, I don't want any of it bumping up against me!  

That's one of the hard parts of Christianity.  We are supposed to love all of God's creation, including all the different kinds of people.  And as an ideology, we agree.  But not so much when they start bumping up against us!  We love poor people, but perhaps we don't want them asking us for money.  We love people of all colors, creeds, nationalities and so forth, but maybe we don't want them marrying our children.  It's all good until it actually affects our nice, tidy lives.

But that's just it.  God doesn't want our lives to be nice and tidy.  If he did, he never would have asked Mary to mess up her plans... or Moses... or Paul.  God is always challenging us to be more by experiencing more.  We will never know how much we can really love people until we love all sorts of people by touching their lives and allowing them to touch our own.  It's easier to erect walls and keep them out, but we miss out on so much of God's creation and the wonderful things we can learn and the new ways we can love.

I love to watch videos of divers interacting with sea life, and I know I'm missing out on so much by keeping myself out of the sea.  I'm probably not going to change in that respect.  But I do want to keep my life open to new kinds of people.  Being an introvert, that's not the easiest thing for me.  But I pray that my daily interactions will allow others to bump into me occasionally and I won't freak out and run away

Creator God,
Thank you for sea life.  It is so beautiful and fascinating. Thank you for those that love to interact with it so that I may benefit from their work.  Help us to keep the oceans and other bodies of water clean and beautiful.  Amen.

It's All Good

31 So God saw everything that He made, and behold it was very good.-;Genesis 1:31

I love to marvel at God's creation... from the most magnificent, like mountain views and the Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon, bubble netting whales, glaciers, icebergs; to the everyday beauty of cumulus clouds, sunsets, fireflies, babies, wild flowers... both lists could go on and on and on.  And indeed, it is all VERY good.

At the center of my spirituality is gratitude.  It keeps me mindful of all of my blessings.  Creation makes me particularly grateful.  When I take a quiet hike in the woods, my soul fills with peace.  I get that same feeling to a lesser or greater extent when I take the time to marvel at any of the things in my list above.

Being grateful reminds me that there is a Giver.  There is Someone to be grateful to. It takes the focus off what *I* have done for myself and shifts it to the One who has made it possible.  Now, I am not the best at giving thanks at meal time or even expressing out loud when I feel grateful.  But there are times when that sense of gratitude overwhelms me.  It starts at my toes and fills me, body and soul and spirit, until it bubbles out in pure joy.  It happened when I was standing on an Alaskan glacier and looking at the beauty all around me.  It also frequently happens when Richard and I have all our family at the house and we just can't help but see what REALLY matters in this world.  And after 10 years of my husband going back and forth to the middle east for differing periods of time, I often look at him and have that bubble-up gratitude that he is home and retired and by my side.

There is a popular phrase that is used to make those who might have a social slip or other lapse more comfortable... "It's all good."  It is all good.  It is very good.  God said so.

Holy God,
I am humbled and amazed at all of your creation.  Help me to keep that sense of awe and gratitude all of my life.  Amen.

In The Beginning...

Here I am again; hoping to improve my Bible study by writing blog posts.  It worked best for me when I wrote directly from daily Bible readings, going through it, book by book.  So... we'll see.

Today I begin "In the beginning..." Genesis 1:1.  I've been here before!  I can recite the first few verses by heart.  I'm going a little deeper this time, really studying theology that I agree with and theology that I don't so much agree with. 

What's not to love about about this first verse?  A wonderful phrase in the Message from this first verse of the Bible is: "God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see."  All you DON'T see?  I love that.  All we don't see.  Wind. Atmosphere. Microscopic organisms. Maybe the scientific foundations that brought about the earth in the way science has taught us.

Then as we travel into verse two, the pre-formed earth is described slightly differently in different Bible versions.  NRSV says the earth was a "formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep."  The Tree of Life version (which uses many of the original Hebrew words that I can then look up) says it was "chaos and waste and darkness was on the surface of the deep."  But my favorite. again, comes from The Message: "Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness."  I love "soup of nothingness."  In our wildest imaginations, we cannot ever imagine nothing.  We can imagine blank space, but that is not "nothing," it is blank space.  That is the best we can do, because if we can imagine it, it is not "nothing."  But add chaos to that nothing and you get a "soup of nothingness."  Wrap your mind around that!  Imagine nothing (not even blank space) and then make it a soup!

Some believe the opening chapters of Genesis give us the literal and historical version of how the earth came to be.  That's fine, if it works for you.  I think I would struggle a lot more with my faith if I had to believe that.  But I do believe it is a wonderful story of the beginning of God's love for us.  When I feel that we have created total chaos on this earth, I know I can look to the One who brings beauty and peace out of chaos and trust the love that so many eons ago made a place for me.

Holy God, Creator of All:

Thank you for our home and for the amazing beauty that shows up whenever we just open our eyes and hearts to see it:  a turtle struggling through a yard to get to a pond, the birds enjoying the shade of a maple tree, a deer dashing across a country road.... all the way to the magnificence of a mountain glacier, the Grand Canyon and the deep, sparkling blue waters of the Caribbean. Take our breath away with the beauty of your creation today. Amen.