Lenten Writing Prompt #4
In Genesis 1, we read that God created the world in seven days. It goes over what was created each day, 1 through 7. However, imagine these 7 days as the 7 phases of your faith journey over the course of your life. Or, alternatively, you can imagine that just one of the days independently describes where you are right now. Which day is today? What do the other days look like in your faith journey?
Prompt 4
ReplyDeleteDoug Millar
I’ve always been charmed by the reference to the “Nephilim, the men of old” in Genesis. Clearly they predate Adam and Eve. They were known to the Jews, but didn’t seem to bother them. It turns out the ancients knew of fossil bones that were different than any bones they saw in the present. There had been other worlds that were hidden to them. Adam and Eve was the start of their special world.
It is the same for us. There are other parts of the cosmos in time and space. Much of it is hidden from us. There are many things in knowledge and creation, that because of our intellect and personal culture, are hidden from us. In a solipsistic way they don’t exist. It is fashionable in many circles to make up fearful stories about the unknown, or to deny their existence. However it begs the central point of the Ten Commandments. We must let God be God and we are not privileged to know his thoughts or deeds except as he chooses. The Jews were happy with that, and they perhaps knew him best.
...and the Nephilim certainly knew how to party (Genesis 6:4, if I may prooftext ; )...but you're right. I think the perspective on this is right on.
DeleteThe Gift of Rhythm
ReplyDeleteOf all of the created and wonderful gifts,
which, if it was gone, would I mostly miss?
Certainly written near the top of that list
would be family and friends, very sorely missed,
and the earth and the stars
and clothes and cars
and homes and beds
and tools and sheds!
But what would trouble my soul
and create a terrible toll
would be day without night
no end in sight
no rhythm in the sky
no time measured by.
If there were no changes
no rhythmic rearranges
and all was the same
in this cosmic game
I think, that on this earthly soil
I would grow weary, in that long long toil
But on the very first day God want to see
so light was called forth and came to be!
And just as special, or so I believe,
God gave rhythm to the light we receive.
Night and day and night and day
brought order to this place in a new kind of way
And still to this day we sleep and we wake
we inhale and exhale, we give and we take.
We work and we rest, we fast and we eat
we speak and we listen, we’re alone and we meet.
We come and we go, we live and we die,
and in rhythm life passes, in the blink of an eye.
Like this! "rhythm to the light"
ReplyDeletethinking no song, no heart without rhythm in the dance.
Thanks!
I can't say that I'm fully here but I'm as close to the seventh day as I can get. I am definitely resting...or trying to, anyway.
ReplyDeleteNor can I say the things I've done, said, thought of, wished for, in the seasons before have been good. Far from it. Not for lack of trying, though. Every failure is preceded by good intentions. And we all know what they say about good intentions.
It's exhausting trying to do the impossible, to do just the right thing every time, to meet every expectation, to make everyone happy, to not let anyone down, to be *good*.
So it isn't because of any grand, creative, and amazing work that I'm resting. I'm just trying to fully rest in the knowledge that I do not need to keep trying to achieve the impossible. I'm trying to fully rest in the promise that God's got this covered. I'm trying to fully rest in the truth that God is perfect - perfectly loving, forgiving, healing, accepting.