Ordinary Days: Priscilla #1

 Jesus opened their minds

   to understand scripture.

   (Luke 24:45)

Dear Priscilla,

Yes, I can understand why you find Psalm 15 disheartening: “…Who may dwell on your holy hill? Those who walk blamelessly…” That excludes you and me and the writer of the Psalm and the singers of the Psalm. In short, it excludes all mortals: “We have all gone astray” (Ps 14:3).

Jesus teaches us to read all scripture in and through him: “Scripture testifies of me” (Jn 5:39). Our resurrected Lord enables us to read scripture: “Jesus opened their minds to understand the scriptures…” (Lk 24:45). As Christians, we can never read scripture apart from Christ.

What if we were to read Psalm 15 in, through and with our Lord Jesus Christ? How would it read? Would it not speak of Him who knew no sin? The only innocent One?

At least that is the first thing to be said. When Jesus says to the Pharisees: “You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life” (Jn 5:39-40); He claims all scripture for Himself.

In that way, we can read Psalm 15 as the answer to Psalm 14: “Our salvation comes from Zion” (Ps 14:7). Not from our own perfection—even from our knowledge of scripture. Scripture itself cannot save us. It points us to the One who Saves from the “Holy Hill” (Ps 15:1).

Love, Papa

Ordinary Days: Anna #1

For the gods of the peoples

    are idols… (Psalm 96:5)

Dear Anna,

I printed out the two papers you sent and read them this morning at the fire pit. Both reminded me of what Lewis and his Inkling colleagues called “chronological snobbery.” Classicists can’t be chronological snobs, can they? You read Ciscero in Latin because you think he has something worth saying to us today, right?

Your big paper critiquing Steven Ozment’s Magdalena & Balthasar: An Intimate Portrait of Life in 16^th Century Europe Revealed in the Letters of a Nuremberg Husband & Wife; I found most interesting. Sometimes a singular personal story told in letters can be a more honest telling of history than grand labels like “medieval” or “renaissance”. Like Sarah and Abraham, we discover that wherever we find them in history, they are above all humans with passions and feelings just like us. Such readings of history encourage “chronological sensitivity.”

Your little paper for art history was more predictable. From your first sentence or two, I could anticipate your concluding paragraph. Why do we destroy statues? The church has struggled with iconoclasm throughout its history—the Catholic Church enjoys all sorts of images while the Protestant not so much. With some wisdom, the church decided it is okay to use statues and images so long as it is for the purpose of instruction. Thus, all those stain glass windows retelling the Biblical story with images.

Is it better to tear down statues or to leave them up for instructional purposes? When we practice “chronological snobbery” we judge all that precedes our time as falsehood.

Just musing with my granddaughter…

Love, Papa

17th Sunday after Pentecost: Owen #5.

You shall not take

   the name of Yahweh

   your God in vain. (Exodus 20:7)

 Dear Owen,

That is the third commandment—that we might misuse the gift of God’s Name; that we would drag it into our own agenda; that we might think we have some magic power at the utterance of the Divine Name; etc. Because of this, the old people of God, held the name in such awe that they couldn’t even speak the Name. Instead, they simply said “Lord” which is how we tend to translate it to this day: “Lord.”

In deference to our Jewish cousins in the Faith, and partially because I think they may have a point, I try to be careful about speaking the Divine Name. “Jesus” is our Divine Name. The very name, Greek for Joshua; means, “YAH is salvation;” or “Yahweh is our Salvation.” That works:

If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. …The same Lord is Lord of all and bestows his riches upon all who call upon him. (Romans 10:9–12)

Love, Papa

Ordinary Days: Owen #4

I am Yahweh,

   and I will set you free…

   (Exodus 6:6)

Dear Owen,

How do we get the name “Yahweh” from “I AM WHO I WILL BE”—the Divine Name given to Moses at the burning bush (Ex 3:14). Comer, our author, knows that this will be tough going:

Okay, stay with me, this is a little technical. Okay, it’s really technical. But strap in tight, because there’s a huge payoff if you can survive the next page or two…” (pp 048-049).

I’ll let Comer do the dense stuff. The sum of it is, we can’t say “I AM” because we are not God; but we can say, “God is who he chooses to be.” That is the meaning of the Divine Name. God has revealed himself to us as the God who IS and who DOES—Y-H-W-H.

So, the Divine Name, Yahweh, means something like “God is who he will be.” The God who makes himself known to us is the God who IS and who DOES. He is known by his “mighty acts, …wonderous works, …awesome deeds, …and abundant goodness” (Ps 85:4-7). The God who IS, is about to DO:

I am Yahweh, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will set you free from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with mighty acts: and I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God; and ye shall know that I am Yahweh, who will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians and I will bring you in to the land which I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and I will give it to you for a heritage: I am Yahweh. (Ex 6:6-8)

It is the name that is ever present, yet ever new—always up to something big. Hang on, God is saying, watch this. We come to know God by his action. The rest of the Bible will fill us in on his “mighty acts, …wonderous works, …awesome deeds, …and abundant goodness” (Ps 85:4-7). The God who IS “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and bounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ex 34:6); is the God who, out of his absolute freedom, is about to act—to make things happen.

Love, Papa

Ordinary Days: Owen #3

 

 I am Jehovah,

   that is my name.

   (Isaiah 42:8 ASV)

Dear Owen,

Still in chapter one of God has a Name. I am wondering if the author, John Mark Comer. has a point about how we should translate the tetragrammaton Y-H-W-H as “Yahweh” or “Jehovah” rather than “Lord.” Should we?

The 1901 American Standard Version of the Bible did that by translating the Divine Name as “Jehovah” in all 6,800 occurrences of Y-H-W-H. Yet, seventy years later, when the New American Standard translation was first published in 1971, the translation of the Divine Name was changed back to the 1611 King James Version as “Lord”.  You don’t mess with King James.

I don’t recall why the change—what was their reasoning? I’m guessing it has to do with the relentless effort of the 1901 ASV to provide a consistently literal translation. Which it did. However, such a literal translation turned out to be unusable in public life and worship. The church stuck with its venerable 400-year-old King James Version and left the ASV for scholars. The NASV was an attempt to make the old ASV readable. So, they went back to “Lord.” That’s my guess.

As for our author’s argument that “we need to get back to calling God by his name” (p 053); let me save that for another blog. This wares me out.

Love, Papa

 

Ordinary Days: Owen #2

 What is your name?

   “I-AM-WHO-I-AM”

     (Exodus 3:13-14)

Dear Owen,

I couldn’t help myself… I went ahead and read the first chapter of Comer’s “God has a Name.” The chapter tells the story of how it is that God reveals to Moses his name. I’ll stay here and wait for you to prompt me for chapter two. Meanwhile, maybe you will find the following summation of chapter one helpful.

God gives us, reveals to us, his name; but in the revelation, he remains hidden—a mystery: “I-AM-WHO-I-AM.” What kind of name is that? God tells us something about himself; yet we are not sure what. As Augustine puts it, God remains “hidden yet intimately present, steadfast yet elusive.” (Confessions Bk1,4,4)

 After trying to explain how it is that “I-AM-WHO-I-AM” gets turned into the “tetragrammaton” Y-H-W-H and how this tetragrammaton gets turned into “Yahweh” or “Jehovah” and why this is translated in our English Bibles as “LORD;” the writer pauses: “Whew…” Comer sighs, then asks us, his readers, “You still out there?” (p059) What do you think, Owen? Are you still out there?

At Corban University you get to read some theology. No matter how breezily Comer attempts to tell the story, it remains theologically demanding, doesn’t it? And yet, rewarding. So, let us stick with it and see where we end up, okay?

Love, Papa

Ordinary Days: Owen #1.

 

 Tell your children

    what happened that Day;

when you stood

    at the mountain. (Exodus 4:10)

Dear Owen, 

Hey… I got your golf team book: “God has a Name” by Mark Comer. This morning I read the Prologue (pp 1-37). It looks like a great read.

Which means, I owe you an apology. When you asked me if I knew the book, I said something flippant like, “Never heard of it.” Which was true. But in my heart, I was thinking: “I never heard of Mark Comer—can’t be that good.” I take it all back. It’s a great book. Comer gets us to the right mountain and from there only good things can flow. His breezy style of writing is a bit much for me, but so what, his breeziness gets us to the right place.

Let me know your plans for reading and I will follow along, okay? We will both learn something special about our God who gives us His name. Otherwise, how could we know?

Much love, Papa

Eastertide: Anna #28.

There is nothing new

    under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9) 

Dear Anna,

I did my non-biblical devotions this morning from The Portable Renaissance Reader. It’s a collection of short reads from various Renaissance writers and troubadours. So, this morning’s short read came from Niccolô Machiavelli written in 1517—couldn’t help but think of you. It’s called “The Circle of Governments.” Let me send it your way. Maybe we can discuss around the morning fire when you get home, okay?

Machiavelli describes three possible forms of government (I suppose you know all this):

1.     Monarchical         becomes                      tyranny

2.     Aristocratic           degenerates into          oligarchy

3.     Democratic           lapses into                   licentiousness.

Then Machiavelli concludes: “I say, then, that all kinds of governments are defective; those three which we have qualified as good because they are too short-lived, and the three bad ones because of their inherent viciousness. Thus sagacious legislators, knowing the vices of each of these systems of government by themselves, have chosen one that should partake of all of them, judging that to be the most stable and solid. In fact, when there is combined under the same constitution a prince, a nobility, and the power of the people, then these three powers will watch and keep each other reciprocally in check.”

So that’s where we got our notion of checks and balances—written some 270 years before our nation’s Constitution. Now I’m finding out that Machiavelli was merely commenting on Aristotle’s Politics some 2,200 years before our Constitution. Maybe there really isn’t anything new under the sun, as Ecclesiastes keeps telling us. Our nation’s founders must have been classicists like you.

Love you, Papa

Eastertide: Anna #27

 

The Lord has

    made himself known. (Psalm 9:16)

Dear Anna,

Our next big Sunday is Pentecost—seven Sundays from Easter Sunday. Between Easter Sunday and Pentecost, our resurrected Lord, “showed himself alive”.  It is not as if Mary caught him walking down Main Street. It came at God’s choosing: “God raised him up on the third day and allowed him to appear…to us who were chosen by God as witnesses…” (Ac 10:40-41). Mary was the first “chosen by God as a witness.”

Between now and then, Jesus “showed himself alive” to Mary Magdalene first, then to the other women, then sporting with that couple walking home to Emmaus, then a few different times to his disciples while in Jerusalem, then later along the shore of Galilee where he fixed breakfast.  Maybe last, before he ascended, to his doubting brother James (1Cor 15:7). As our resurrected Lord ascends, the Holy Spirit descends making Jesus present for us though he can no longer be seen going before us. That is Pentecost—when the Holy Spirit descends making Jesus known to us.

Our knowing Jesus always comes from God’s side. It is not something we figured out; but rather, something given to us—the gift of faith.

Love,

PAPA

 

 

Eastertide: Anna #26

He appeared first to

   Mary Magdalene. (Mark 16:9)

Dear Anna,

Jesus chose Mary Magdalene to make his first resurrection appearance. Not only that, but the first to proclaim the Gospel—Mary, the first evangelist. Jesus’ second resurrection appearance will be something of the same when he chooses to make himself known to the other women—those who followed Jesus all the way from Galilee to the Cross, to the Tomb. They too, are commissioned by our Risen Savior to proclaim the good news: “Go and tell…” (Mt 28:10).

Pastor Heath Hardisty chose this Mary Magdalene story for his Easter message. He lingered on the part about how Mary saw Him, but thought he was the gardener, caring for the garden tomb of Jesus. Then pastor Heath mused about another garden, the Garden of Eden; from which we had been cast out onto the cursed ground; and, how our resurrected Lord takes us back, or maybe better said, “forward,” to a new Eden. It was a beautiful message. Wish you could have been with us.

Love, PAPA

Easter: Anna #25

 They saw that the stone

   had been rolled away. (Mark 16:4)

Dear Anna,

It happened early in the morning following Sabbath. A very ordinary day, when the women scurried to Jesus’ tomb, with their spices, to freshen things up; like we might bring flowers to the grave of a loved one. But when they arrived at the tomb, surprise! “The stone had been rolled away.” From that moment on, that ordinary day became “The Lord’s Day” (Rv 1:10).

“Easter Sunday” would come later. For the women with their spices, it was just an ordinary back to workday. It became a special day when the reality of our Risen Savior dawned on them. “Easter Sunday” is our invention. The Roman Church set the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox, according to the West’s Gregorian calendar, as Easter Sunday. That’s why Easter jumps around. Our Pilgrim forbearers would have none of it. For them, Easter was too pagan—with its goddess name and strange calculations around the vernal equinox. They didn’t like Christmas either. For them, Sunday, “the Lord’s Day,” was enough.

It is okay for some to follow traditional days and others not: “Do not let anyone condemn you,” writes the Apostle Paul to the Colossian church, “in matters of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or sabbaths. These are only a shadow, …but the reality is found in Christ” (Col 2:16–17). Our Christian faith does not require of us any dietary laws, or observance of special days or festivals. The Puritans were right about that. Nevertheless, I enjoy our Christian traditions of Christmas and Easter. We can’t have Winter without Christmas; and, we can’t have Spring without Easter; can we?

Easter reminds us that, every Sunday is a little Easter when the church gathers because “Jesus has risen” (Lk 24:6). That means that what happened on the Cross was God’s doing. On the Cross God was dealing with us and maybe even Himself. Easter Morning vindicates Good Friday.

Just musing, Papa

Good Friday: Anna #24

The sign was written in

   Aramaic, Latin and Greek. (John 19:20)

Dear Anna,

I woke up strangely spiritual this morning—desiring to go to church and participate in the Stations of the Cross. So, around the fire pit I read again the accounts of Good Friday. Strange name for the Day Christ was Crucified. What is so “good” about the Crucifixion of Christ?  It is what happened three days later, on Sunday morning, that makes Good Friday, good. Easter will be God’s big “Yes” to Calvary and to you and me—to humanity. Easter morning makes the Cross good news—Gospel.

Pilate fastened a notice to the Cross stating “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” He had it “written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek” (Jn 18:19-20). I can’t read “Latin and Greek” without thinking of you. Does it not speak of the Cross as an event meant for all people?

The sign sparks protest: “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that this man claimed to be king of Jews” (Jn 19:21). The political turmoil has to do with who is our king. The Jews cried out to Pilate: “We have no king of Caesar!” (Jn 18:15) When we opt for other kings than Jesus, we end up subservient to Caesar. When, in faith, we accept the kingly rule of Christ in our life, we remain free from the Caesars of our world.

Just musing, PAPA

 

Lent: Anna #23

 It is appointed for us

   once to die;

and after that,

   comes judgment.

   (Hebrews 9:27)

Dear Anna,

No one’s favorite verse: “…once to die and then comes judgment.” I bring it up because the parable of the ring ends with each one “appearing before the judgment-seat—the greater one.” Between now and then, the penultimate “modest judge,” encourages each religion: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, to live according to “the virtue of his ring; with gentleness, benevolence, and forbearance.” It is good advice. As the Apostle puts it: “Do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart” (1Cor 4:5).

All three Abrahamic monotheistic religions share a common belief in a final judgment. It is the thing that bothers people the most about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. They all believe that the One God, created the heavens and the earth when there was no heaven or earth; and that some day, heaven and earth will be no more, and God will make his judgments. Creation has a beginning and an end. Science has come up with a similar cosmology: the universe has a beginning (big bang) and will have an end (fissiles out). Only, we believe creation will not just wind down as science has it but will be wound up redeemed and renewed: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away” (Rev 21:1).

The good news about the Gospel, is that final judgment has been given to God the Son: “The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son” (Jn 5:22). Our Judge is our Savior. That’s Gospel—good news. Remember how Lewis depicts this judgement of our Lord in the last Narniad?

The creatures came rushing on, their eyes brighter and brighter as they drew nearer and nearer to the standing Stars. But as they came right up to Aslan one or other of two things happened to each of them. They all looked in his face. I don’t think they had any choice about that. And when some looked, the expression on their faces changed terribly—it was fear and hatred. …And all the creatures who looked at Aslan in that way swerved to their right, his left, and disappeared into his huge black shadow. …the children never saw them again. I don’t know what became of them. But others looked in the face of Aslan and loved him, though some of them were very frightened at the same time. And all these came in at the Door, in on Aslan’s right.

Then comes Aslan’s eternal romp “further up and further in.”

Love, Papa

Lent: Anna #22

 

 Without faith,

   it is impossible to please God.

   (Hebrews 11:6)

Dear Anna,

We enter the season of Lent that leads us to Calvary and Easter Morning. You can’t skip and just land on Easter morning. We are asked to participate in Christ’s sufferings. Even his Gethsemane struggles, when Jesus cried out, “Take this cup from me!” True faith cannot help but wonder, “Is it really true?” In faith, and with the unseen help of the Holy Spirit, we say, “Yes, it is really so!”

The tale of the ring reminds us that, chances are, we find ourselves born into a particular Faith: Christian or Jewish or Islam. What if I had been born a Jew? Or, what if I had been born a Muslim? In short, what if I had been born and raised in another Faith than my own? It is a fair question—the kind of questioning a mature faith requires.

Our Faith has its reasons—reasons enough to say, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel.” For starters, only our Faith has Lent with Good Friday followed by Easter Morning. And, of course, before that, Christmas Morning. It is also interesting what our Faith does not have: no fast days, no dietary law, no circumcision, no required pilgrimages, no ethnic qualifications. Just you as you and Jesus as Jesus. That is enough.

In the midst of all other options, like Peter, we too confess, “Where else are we going to go? Only you Jesus speak words of eternal life” (Jn 6:68). To ask for more would be to eliminate faith itself; for, as the Bible tells us, “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hb 11:6).

 Love, Papa

 

Lent: Anna #21

Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain,

   but you say that the place where people

   must worship is in Jerusalem. (John 4:20)

Dear Anna,

Okay, let me try to sum up the parable. To the Sultan’s question: “Which faith appears to you the better?” Nathan answers with a parable about an heirloom ring given to a man of the east. The ring had the power to make the wearer pleasing in the eyes of God and mankind. The ring was to be handed down to the most beloved son regardless of order of birth. “At length,” as Nathan weaves the story, “this ring descended to a father who had three sons.” The father loved all three equally and ended up promising the ring to each. To keep his promise, he secretly had a great jeweler make two replicas of the original so that on his deathbed he gave a ring to each. So ends Nathan’s tale, but as Nathan tells the Sultan, “All that follows may be guessed, of course.”

What follows is the predictable quarrels over who owned the real ring. Nathan will pick up the story by bring in a “modest judge” to adjudicate. Since the rings were so perfectly duplicated, the judge points out that all three could be duplicates of the one true ring which has now been lost or hidden. Since one could not decipher the original ring, the judge offers his advice: “Let each vie for the virtues of the true ring” by living lives of “gentleness, benevolence, forbearance with inward resignation to the godhead.” The “modest judge” will leave ultimate judgment to the “greater one” before whose judgment-seat we will someday stand.

The parable is told during an armistice in Jerusalem at the end of the Third Crusade (1189-92). It is a reminder to us that there were times when each of the Abrahamic religions, as you call them: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; lived peacefully together with robust banter and non-violent mischief.

Love, Papa

Epiphany: Anna #20

 

I will speak to you

   in parables. (Matthew 13:34–35)

 Dear Anna, 

We returned from Mount Herman rather late yesterday. Grammy did all the driving. She is exhausted. It was all quite wonderful meeting and loving and renewing old friendships. This morning I spent some time with that parable you want to read, the Parable of the Ring found in the middle of Gotthold Lessing’s 1779 play, Nathan the Wise. Close to 1776 when our founders made a bold decision concerning our own state religion.

I keep trying to get to the parable but get waylaid by all that is before and after and within. What are we to make of all the banter, duplicity and machinations that take place before we get to the parable?  When Saladin, the Muslim Sultan. invites Nathan, a Jew of wealth who folks deem as wise, to his Palace he asks Nathan, “Which faith appears to you the better?” Is that really why Nathan was invited to the Sultan’s Palace?

Nonetheless, Nathan, like the wise often do, answers with a parable; or, as Nathan calls it, “a tale.” To which the Sultan replies, “I always was a friend of tales well told.” Like on most every page of Lessings play, the banter goes on: “Well told?” Nathan responds, “That’s not precisely my affair.” “Again, so proudly modest,” the Sultan responds, and then adds, “come begin.”

Nathan begins. The Sultan finds himself enjoying the tale so much that he laments when it comes to an end: “Thy tale, is it soon ended?” To which Nathan, the storyteller confirms: “It is ended, Sultan.”

Yet, in no time, we discover it hasn’t actually ended for there is a story about the story. Okay, let’s get to Nathan’s parable. Or, let’s not. I best save the tale itself for tomorrow or the next day.

Love, Papa

 

Epiphany: Anna #19

  

One wise in his own eyes,

   is worse off than a fool.

   (Proverbs 26:12)

Dear Anna,

I found “The Parable of the Ring” you wanted me to read—act three, scene seven in Nathan the Wise, right? On my way there—to act three, scene seven; I got to know Nathan the Wise. Though he is called “wise”; he will not acknowledge such for himself. Reminds me of the proverb quoted above. “One who deems himself wise is worse off than a fool.”

That’s the meaning of “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Within the sphere of the Fear, God allows us to pursue wisdom, but he never allows the wise to get the upper hand. Watch how God does away with a good and wise and, one could argue, even true proverb (Ezk 18:1-4):

The word of the Lord came to me: What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel,

    “The parents have eaten sour grapes,

           and the children’s teeth are set on edge”?

As I live, says the Lord God, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. Know that all lives are mine; the life of the parent as well as the life of the child is mine: it is only the person who sins that shall die.

There is nothing technically wrong with the proverb. It is a wise and witty saying. It’s just that God has had enough of it. Or again, like Elrond in Rivendell, when the council of the wise, by surprise, chose Frodo to take the One Ring and cast it into the fires of Mount Doom. Elrond muses:

This is the hour of the Shire-folk,
        when they arise from their quiet fields
        to shake the towers and counsels of the Great.
Who of all the Wise could have foreseen it?
        Or, if they are wise,
Why should they expect to know it,
        until the hour has struck?

(Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, Bk Two, chp. II)

 In short, like Nathan the Wise, wisdom knows it doesn’t know it all: “Where is wisdom to be found?” (Job 24 a repeated refrain) Who knows? It is the wise who wonder where wisdom is to be found.

Love, PAPA

Epiphany: Anna #18

Youth well Versed in literature

    and language. (Daniel 1:4)

Dear Anna, 

Near four years ago, your auntie Rachel set up this blog so Papa could pass on stuff. Since then, there is a handful of folks who have joined us reading along from time to time. And since I have yet to figure out how to set up a blog response; some of those looking on, may wonder if you ever respond to Papa’s blogs. Especially when I end with a “What do you think?” I learned that from Jesus, who liked to tell a parable and then ask, “What do you think?” Isn’t it something that Jesus is interested in what we think?

Anyway, where were we… oh yes, about your response. Even though I get your response via phone text; others, don’t get to see your responses. So, let me slip in your response to our last blog concerning my Renaissance surprise. Leonardo Bruni, writing in 1436, claiming that Latin reached its vigorous refinement and subtleties with Cicero (40bc) during the last days of the Republic; and, how the rise of emperors and the loss of the Republic, led to the demise of the Latin language. Which led to the claim that tyranny ruins language.

You respond: “The Latin I learn in class is the Latin from the age of Cicero… In the passage I translated today, Cicero writes that a good orator will ‘animos audientium tangit’ or ‘touch the spirits of the audience.’ I think a tyrant can use language to suppress political opposition and, in turn, creative literature.” Does that lead us to a fire pit discussion of what kind of government gives us such creative freedom; and, what sort of government suppresses creative expression? Or does political correctness eclipse creative expression?

Love, Papa

Epiphany: Dear Anna #17

 

Please speak in your
   Aramaic language…
Do not speak in the
   Language of Judah.  (Second Kings 18:26)

 Dear Anna,

Look what I came across this morning reading tidbits from The Portable Renaissance Reader:

The Latin language, in all its perfection and greatness, flourished most vigorously in the time of Cicero, for its first state was not polished or refined or subtle, but, mounting little by little to perfection it reached its highest summit in the time of Cicero. After his age it began to sink… (Leonardo Bruni, Patrarca and the Art of Poetry,1436, p. 127).

You are reading Cicero this week, right? Did Bruni have it right? He meshes the vitality of the Latin language to the state of the Republic: “Latin language went hand in hand with the condition of the Roman Republic, which had also grown in power until the age of Cicero.”

With the loss of liberty to the rule of emperors “who did not desist from killing and eliminating men of excellence, the flourishing conditions of studies and of letters perished, together with the welfare of the city of Rome.” Are you not studying political theory as well? Can it be that tyranny messes with the beauty and wonder of language? As our politics goes, so goes our language. What do you think?

Love, Papa

 

Epiphany: Anna #16

 

A decree went out

  from Caesar Augustus. (Luke 2:1)

Dear Anna,

I see you will be reading Cicero, in Latin I presume. John Calvin, in his Institutes of the Christian Religion (5 editions from 1536-1560 published in Latin and French), makes much of Marcus Tullius Cicero. In particular, Cicero becomes for Calvin an example of man at his best, gaining through nature, a certain knowledge of God. 

One gets a feel for how Cicero and Calvin played their roles in the formation of our own constitutional republic. Cicero bravely and repeatedly sought to preserve Rome’s Republic; but in the end, Julies Caesar puts an end to it. Our founders saw our own fledging republic with its natural rights (to protect the individual from the mob), constitutional government (all bound by a higher law), and a separation of powers (to keep us free from tyranny) as a fulfilment of Cicero’s endeavors. Calvin warns of our own will to power—that no person can be entrusted with singular power. 

Near a half century after Cicero, “a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the entire Roman world should return to their hometown to be taxed” (Lk 2:1-3).  That’s how it is when tyrants rule. They bully people about.

I will be interested to hear your take on Cicero.

Love, PAPA

 

Epiphany: Anna #15

And so arrived in.” Rome.

           The believers came as far as the Forum of Appius

 and Three Taverns to meet us. On seeing them,

           Paul thanked God and took courage. (Acts 28:14-15)

Dear Anna,

Thank you for sending me your Spring semester syllabi. I see you have two courses from your favorite teacher: The Roman World and Latin II. From his syllabus, I can see he is a very special kind of teacher. I would like to learn from him. But, then again, I would have to know my Latin.

Which reminds me, thank you again for that very special Christmas gift you gave to Grammy and me—that jump drive with you reading our favorite Bible passages first in English and then in Latin, from your very own translation.

When you come home, I hope to hear a play-by-play around the fire pit. Tell me all about that great city where the Apostle himself made his way: “And so we arrived in Rome.” Maybe you can tell of “the Forum of Appius and the Three Taverns.”

Love, Papa

 

 

Epiphany: Pricilla and basketball.

 

In a race,

   athletes compete.

   (First Corinthians 9:24)

Last night, Grammy and I watched your Baylor Bears compete on the basketball court against Kansas University. The TV camera kept showing Chip and Joanna Gains rooting like crazy for Baylor—that kept Grammy’s attention. Baylor won.

We looked for you in the stands. The gym was packed. I said, “I don’t think she is there.” Grammy said, “She is probably studying.” Which caused me to wonder again why I always choose game over study. Maybe it had something to do with growing up in a pastor’s home—a home in which movies and dancing were “worldly amusements,” and therefor forbidden. Somehow, in that home, football and basketball did not count as “worldly.”

When the Giants moved their team from New York to San Francisco, my parents took me to Seals Stadium to watch. My dad, your great grandfather, turned to me and pointed to center field and said, “Son, that’s Willy Mays.” It’s all his fault.

Much love,

Papa

Epiphany: Anna #14

 The Lord seeks justice

     for all who are oppressed.

      (Psalm 103:6)

Dear Anna,

I read your papers. The one on the Indian occupation of Alcatraz, brought back all sorts of memories for me. Grammy and I lived in San Francisco in those days—the late 60s. A close friend of ours, Ellen Bear (I wonder where she is now?) was a nurse and spent time on the island providing medical assistance to the tribes. She would come back with stories filled with deep concern and activist passion. Lots of activist passion in those days.

Anyway… where was I. I drifted off for a spell. Oh yes, back to your paper. I love your first paragraph, beginning with: “Islands have stood as symbols of resistance and freedom for hundreds of years.” Then you speak of Liberty Island with its Statue of Liberty and Alcatraz, an island of imprisonment. And you spoke of Snake Island and its “brave Ukrainian fighters” resisting the powerful Russian invaders.

What if we held all three of these islands in our consciousness: 1) Liberty Island with her Statue of Liberty—America at her best;  2) Alcatraz with her Indian occupiers reminding us of our faults; and, 3) Snake Island, reminding us that liberty is still worth the fight.

Love, PAPA