Scripture Sunday: The Book of Ecclesiastes

Poor Solomon. King of Israel, son of another legendary king, gifted with supernatural wisdom, blessed with insane amounts of riches, and then he turns around and writes Ecclesiastes, an ode to ennui and sameness. All that Solomon had didn't satisfy him, and that seems to be related to the way he fell away from loving and serving God in his later years.

Solomon starts off his book by saying that everything in life is "vanity" or futility. Nothing is worthwhile. What good is it to work hard at your job when you're just going to die and be replaced by a generation of people doing the exact same thing you used to do? The earth is unchanged by humankind's constant efforts--the sun, wind, storms, and rivers keep on going without end. So far, this could be the subject of some 19th century French poetry (Charles Baudelaire had some choice things to say about the misery of boredom), but Solomon goes on: "the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing" (1:8).

This makes me think of how, even though we always try to please our senses, it can never be done properly. We even talk about this unfulfilled state when we compliment the things we enjoy--we'll mention an excellent meal or book or movie and say "it left me wanting more". All the enjoyable experiences we can possible give ourselves can only sate us temporarily, and even after the best dinner we'll want breakfast the day after, and after hearing the most beautiful song we'll soon be browsing iTunes for the next big find. And I don't think that this is a bad thing, this built-in design flaw we have of being unable to permanently satisfy ourselves. It demonstrates that we're creatures that can't be filled up with anything we find in our own world.

Solomon is so frustrated over the futility of life, he goes back and forth a few times with his positions. In 1:18 he says "For in much wisdom is much grief: he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow" and in 2:13 he says, "Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness". Well, which is it? Is wisdom a burden or a blessing? Both, I suppose. Wisdom comes from God, but it's also very uncomfortable to have a lot of wisdom if you don't also have joy from the Lord, too. Solomon concludes in Chapter 2 that "There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor." Enjoy whatever you obtain, and work hard at your assigned tasks. Sound good enough to me.

Chapter 3 of Ecclesiastes begins to list a famous litany of things that happen in their own particular time and season. Most people know this passage of Scripture through the lyrics of a 1960's song famously covered by The Byrds: "To everything (turn, turn, turn), there is a season (turn, turn, turn) and a time to every purpose under heaven." Except for the "turns", the song is a word for word transcription of some verses in Ecclesiastes. I find it interesting that just when Solomon seems to have established his main argument--"what's good for a person to do in life", he continues talking for 9 more chapters after that, most of them very gloomy.

Solomon's book may be a tremendous exercise in frustration for some readers, but at least it points out one thing--whatever it is that your heart needs, you're not likely to find it here on Earth.

Scripture Sunday: The Book of Proverbs

Proverbs is often attributed to King Solomon the son of David, though at least some of the individual proverb chapters have other authors.  The chief subject of the whole book is wisdom--mostly subdivided into discussions of why wisdom is important and how people can obtain it. Wisdom is something ordained by God, Proverbs says, because "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge" (Prov. 1:7). The fear of the Lord doesn't mean being terrified of God and haunted by what he might do to you if you mess up; it's more about respecting and reverencing the Lord, which involves doing what he says. 

Here are a few of the themes and repeated elements I see in Proverbs:

Openness seems to be a big key to getting wisdom. You have to be willing to listen and take advice to heart:. "A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels" (Prov. 1: 5). We'll never learn to be wise if won't listen to people who have the knowledge we need. It's harder than it sounds to admit that we're wrong and to pay attention to wise instruction.

Foolishness is mentioned a lot in Proverbs, too, because you can't really have a good discussion about wisdom without noting some foolish behavior for contrast. Chapter 1 talks about a bunch of guys getting together for criminal activities, thinking that they won't get caught or suffer any consequences for harming others, and it advises young men to stay away from these guys. "My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path: For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood" (Prov. 1:15-16). These verses are addressing the issue of peer pressure and the intense desire to belong to a group. None of the crimes that the "sinners" in the verses are talking about sound good or appealing, but the "son" character might be tempted to join them simply because they advertise their shady activity as being a secret act of unity, like their own private club. Just like wisdom can be gained by listening to others, foolishness is a communicable disease that we can catch by being influenced by people who want to harm others and serve their own greed.

Short wisdom snippets: A ton of the verses in Proverbs are basically stand-alone quotes with a "This AND That" ("A lying tongue hateth those that are afflicted by it; and a flattering mouth worketh ruin." prov. 26:28) or a "This BUT That" (A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger. 15:1)

structure. There are many short proverbs that cover most any kind of moral problem and how it should be addressed, and I have several favorites among them. One that readily comes to mind is Proverbs 3: 27, "Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it." This reminds me that if it's possible for me to do good for a person, even in a small way, that's exactly what I need to be doing. Benefitting another person isn't just a matter of my feeling friendly and generous--I'm hurting that same person if I don't give them that small piece of help or encouragement that I'm able to provide.

Proverbs has 31 chapters of counsel and advice, all of them well worth reading. Proverbs is one of the cornerstone pieces of wisdom literature in the Old Testament, and it's the sort of jam-packed book that contains an immense amount of helpful information in a small space--it's readable within a few sittings, if you're in the right mindset.

Poetry Review: "The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower" by Dylan Thomas

I love Dylan Thomas' work. He was an early 20th-century Welsh poet, and I'm very enamored of his verbal style with its big emphasis on sounds and images. His most famous poem is probably "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night", but I like some of his slightly more obscure work, like "The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower". I'll try to explicate/critique it a bit.


"The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm."


Technical breakdown: We've got 4 stanzas of 5 lines each, plus an ending couplet. The middle line of each stanza if half-length, for emphasis, and the closing couplet reminds me of a sonnet's ending. "The Force" has an ABABA rhyme scheme, but it's loosely done--"flower," destroyer," and "fever" only sorta-kinda rhyme. The long lines are basically iambic pentameter ("The FORCE that DRIVES the WAter THROUGH the ROCKS").

Thematic breakdown: The poem is mostly talking about life, death, and the way time connects the two. Nature and humanity are also compared and contrasted a good deal.

Stanza 1, Explosiveness: Time is the "force that through the green fuse drives the flower", but time doesn't just nudge or push the flower into the open--it forces it. Time is aggressive in this poem. Also, the flower's middle is a "green fuse"--not a stem, stalk, or tube, but a fuse as if it were a stick of dynamite. Flowers+dynamite=Dylan Thomas' poetry. Time also "blasts the roots of trees", which could mean that it makes them grow or that time sends tree roots slamming through the dirt like shrapnel. Time destroys by pushing life along at such a pace that the living things are worn out and broken by the pace of their development--at the end of stanza 1, the speaker tries to talk to a "crooked rose"and mentions how his own youth is "bent".

Stanza 2, Currents, Drought, and Draining: Time moves the waters, too, in the same rough way that it produces plant growth. The water doesn't flow on its own power over the rocks; it is driven right through the rocks. The running water is compared to the speaker's own bloodflow, but the same force of time that makes water and blood burst along their paths, also dries river beds and solidifies human veins. Creeeepy. The speaker feels time draining him like a vampire, like it drains the mountain springs.

Stanza 3, Divine Destruction: For the first time, the speaker address the role of the Divine in the processes of Time. Unfortunately, though the divine presence can heal and can avert destruction, it also brings about death eventually.  "The hand that whirls the water in the pool" is a Biblical reference to the healing waters of the pool at Bethesda mentioned in John 5:4 --"For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had." The same supernatural intervention that heals some people of their diseases also stirs the quicksand of time, bringing about the speaker's death. I'll be honest and admit that I have no idea what "the hangman's lime" line means. Obviously it's something to do with death, but if you Google "the hangman's lime" you'll find Wesleyan's poetry magazine, and if you try to do other hanging-related web searches, you get disturbing results. So. Draw your own conclusions on this one.

Stanza 4, Scattered Meaning: This stanza is a puzzler, because while time is leaching "at the fountainhead" of something--life?--love is dripping something and easing it's own sores with fallen blood. The blood of what? Of life? Time drains Life, and Love is satisfied by the bits of Life that fall upon it? Dylan Thomas loves his lyrical complexities, and this one is a doozy.


Final Couplet, Love and Death: Well, we've got lovey words like "lover" and "sheet" in these two lines, but both romantic images are directly tied to death. The lover is in a tomb and the sheet seems to be a funeral shroud that the speaker envisions for himself.
What a devastating poem. It's absolutely beautiful, but it doesn't offer even a smidgen of hope about the future. Death is eminent. Time will drive you, force you, and explode you in a direction you don't want to go--straight toward the grave. And along the way, the speaker notes his own loss of choices and his loss of speech, since he can barely convey his sense of growing panic and inevitable doom.
 
On an unrelated note, Happy 4th of July!

Scripture Sunday: The Book of Psalms

Psalms is the longest book in the Bible, and it's one of the most-read and most-quoted books, as well. That's because Psalms is full of praises to God and encouragement for people--it has a reputation as a book you can open up and instantly find something powerful that speaks to you. But while Psalms is known for its comfort, the book isn't focused solely on encouragement. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of dark, depressing moments in Psalms, but they're all there for a reason. It's difficult to say anything cohesive about such a lengthy multi-author, multi-subject book, but I'll highlight a couple of things about Psalms that have come to my mind lately.

Note: Most of the psalms are attributed to King David of Israel, but there are several other authors of psalms.

Psalm 1: The first verse of the first chapter goes like this-- "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the council of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful." I like to pay attention to the opening lines of books, and this is a particularly important opening line. It warns us not to listen to the advice of ungodly people, or to become partners and friends with sinful, scornful people. "Scornful" is one of those slightly old words that we don't hear much anymore, but I always like to read this verse to remind myself that it's not wise or godly to be one of those people who is known for their scornfulness and disdain for others. Psalm 1 uses a lot of parallelism and keeps contrasting godly people with the ungodly, and the comparisons are very stark: "For the Lord knows the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish." I notice that this verse doesn't necessarily say that the wicked will perish, but that their way will perish, their whole lifestyle and mode of operation is something worthless and not built to last.


Oppression and Enemies:  King David had a lot of enemies, so naturally the psalms written by him would deal some with the heartache of being oppressed and the longing for God to save him. But I was surprised at how much these psalms that mention "enemies" might still apply to readers today. When we're in trouble, we often realize that we're not going through any uncommon suffering. It hurts us, but we know it's not personal--more people than just us have lost jobs and more people than just us have been victims of diseases or disasters. But where do we turn when we have an outright enemy, when somebody is actively out to hurt us? When you're the victim of a very personal enemy, you need a very personal friend to counteract the damage, and God is just that, both for David and for anyone else who calls out to him. It's that kind of reassurance that allows David to say in Ps. 3:6 "I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about."

Psalm 23: This is the single most well-known psalm. Even people who are not familiar with the Bible at all have seen bits of this psalm used in movies or heard it read at funerals.

1-The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2-He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
3-He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
4-Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
5-Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
6-Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

This psalm is pure comfort. It's also very relationship-focused, emphasizing the love between God and the speaker. The speaker also changes the way he refers to God--it's all "he" does this and "he" does that until verse 4, where God is addressed directly as "thou". That's kind of sweet, having the speaker talk about God in the third-person, followed by a direct address. The theme here is so beautiful: the people who love God are guided by him and ultimately get to be with him forever. The Psalms are full of these assurances, and they make for excellent reading at any time.

Scripture Sunday: The Book of Job

Job is an interesting book of the Bible because it's essentially a long case study of how God allowed one righteous man's faith to be tested. Job is a man living in the country of Uz, so he's not even Jewish, just a man that loves and serves God. The book tells us that Job has all kinds of livestock, which means that he's rich, because while today's symbols of wealth might be houses, cars, and yachts, back then a person's wherewithal was measured in camels, sheep, and cattle. In addition to his to many possessions, Job is the (apparently) proud papa of seven sons and three daughters, which is also a mark of distinction. And Job's not even one of those greedy, immoral rich guys that every one can feel morally superior to--no, his most unique trait is his holiness. Job is a good, good man and everyone knows it.

Turns out, even Satan knows how good Job is. All "the sons of God" (both angels and demons, it would seem) appear before God and God asks Satan if he has noticed Job's perfection, how there's no sin that taints him. Satan says, sure Job's righteous, but if you let me take away his stuff, he'll curse you. God says Satan can destroy everything that Job has, and Satan is very thorough. In the same day, Job loses his oxen, donkeys, sheep, camels, servants, and all ten children.

After all these disasters befall him, Job speaks the very famous verse, Job 1:21--"Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord". This is an impossibly difficult thing to say, but Job manages to speak it, and I truly believe that he's right in this attitude. Loss and bereavement are so intolerable while we're experiencing them, but we rarely remember to thank the Lord for even letting us have the things and people we love in the first place. Job doesn't completely hold on to this perfectly holy attitude for long, though. His emotional condition worsens when he is struck with a painful skin disease, but he still refuses to curse God.

Job's friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar come to visit and "comfort" him, but they don't do a very good job of it. Job cries out in pain and frustration and his friends basically find diplomatic ways to say that he must have sinned badly in order for God to have punished him so. In fact, Job didn't do anything to earn his misery--the trouble befell him in order for God to make a point. In chapter 38, God himself answers Job out of a whirlwind, and asks who Job thinks he is to question God's decisions. God lists the things he has created, like the stars, the weather and the changing seasons, and he also mentions some incredible animals that some scholars believe are dinosaurs. People have tried to pass off the word leviathan as meaning "whale" or even "hippo", but the monstrous teeth and chaotic movement described in chapter 41 make Leviathan sound more like a kronosaurus:

And the Behemoth mentioned in chapter 40 has been called either an elephant or a really big ox, but its description is closer to fitting a brachiosaurus:

Anyway, as a grown-up who was obsessed with dinosaurs as a kid, I certainly like to follow these interpretations. :-)

Beyond all hope, the book of Job actually ends happily. Job and God are reconciled, God heals Job and gives him twice as much livestock and property as he owned before the big ordeal. Job even has another group of ten children, and his three daughters are so awesome, he gives them each a major inheritance. The story ends on this note: "So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning...After this lived Job an hundred and forty years, and saw his sons and his sons' sons, even four generations. So Job died, being old and full of days"(Job 42:12-17).  The moral seems to be that though the Lord's motives may be unknowable, his ultimate purpose is always one we can trust, and he loves those that love him, even when we can't perceive that love.

Scripture Sunday: The Book of Esther

This is a great book of the Bible for showing just how perfectly God takes care of His people. God's name is never mentioned in the 10 chapters of Esther but His influence is always there, providing a way for the Jewish people to be saved.

The book begins with setting up the situation in the kingdom of Persia. King Ahasuerus (also called Xerxes, I believe) rules over 127 provinces, so his empire is pretty glorious. He throws a giant party for a bunch of men in the palace, and his wife, Queen Vashti, throws a party for the women. On the seventh day of partying, the king calls his wife to come see him, essentially so that he can show her off and brag to his friends about how pretty she is. Vashti says she's not coming, and the king has her thrown out so he can start the search for a new queen to replace her. From the verses, it's not clear whether Vashti was going to be asked to do anything degrading, but the point of this chapter is not about whether she was justified in her choice to disregard the king's summons, it's the fact that her absence makes room for Esther to take her place and do something great.

Esther is among the many pretty girls who are rounded up and taken to the palace during the great search for the new queen. Esther is a Jewish orphan, raised by her cousin Mordecai who works as a gatekeeper for the king. Mordecai advises Esther to keep her ethnicity a secret, and she's the kind of woman who listens to wise counsel. After 12 months of purification (I have no idea what this is...apparently, spending time with the king requires months of rituals involving myrrh), Esther goes to see the king and he likes her so much, he makes her queen. Mordecai overhears a plot to kill the king and he tells Esther, who is now in a position to tell the king. So the king actually owes his cool new wife and his freshly-saved life to Mordecai, but for some reason, he forgets to reward Mordecai for warning him about the plot.

In the meanwhile, the king gets an evil adviser named Haman. Haman hates Mordecai because he won't bow down and reverence him, but he's not content to just kill Mordecai--he concocts a plan to have the king agree to kill all the Jews in all the provinces of Persia. The king seems to trust Haman enough to not check about the details--Haman says "I know of some folks that need killing" and the king says "Okay, go kill them". The king doesn't even know that he has agreed to kill the Jews, but everyone in his royal city of Shushan is puzzled by this decreed massacre.

And here's where the bravery comes in. Mordecai tells Esther that she must intervene for her people before the king. Esther points out that anybody, herself included, who approaches the king without being called will be executed unless the king feels merciful. Trouble is, the king hasn't called for Esther in a full month. Mordecai replies, "who knoweth whether though art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" He means that perhaps the entire reason that Esther was living in Persia and ended up marrying the king of Persia by the weirdest of happenstances, was so that she could be in a place where she could save the Jews from harm.

Esther makes a series of small requests of the king and invites him to a couple of private banquets before making her big petition: she'd like for the king to spare her life and the lives of her people. Now the tables have turned on Haman. The king has him hanged on the same gallows that Haman had prepared for Mordecai. Also, though the king can't quite undo the previous proclamation, he sends out a new one that says that when the Jews are attacked, they are to defend themselves and take their enemies' stuff as spoil. The day comes and the Jews throughout the king's provinces defend themselves and kill their enemies, but they don't take any spoil (again, I'm not sure why--maybe it was just the honorable thing to do). The Jewish people began celebrating the holiday of Purim on the anniversary of the days that were "turned unto them from sorrow to joy, and mourning into a good day: that they should make them days of feasting and joy, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor" (Esther 9: 22). Purim celebrates the time that an early Holocaust was averted, and reading the book of Esther can remind us all of how God can use an intelligent, brave woman to bring about great things.

Scripture Sunday: The Book of Nehemiah

In Nehemiah, the Israelites have survived their 70-year captivity in Babylon, and a few waves of them have been migrating back home to Jerusalem. The trouble with Jerusalem is, it's basically a city-wide wreckage and even after it's been inhabited for awhile, it has no outer wall of defense. Nehemiah is a cupbearer (a fairly high-ranking servant) for the king of Persia, and when he hears of Jerusalem's defenselessness, the book says he "sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven" (1:4). He asks God for help in getting the wall rebuilt, and God delivers.

In chapter 2, the king of Persia himself notices that Nehemiah is sad and asks him what he needs. Well, Nehemiah is a proactive planner-type person and he already has in mind exactly what he needs. He asks the king for letters of passage that will allow him to travel unharmed all the way to Jerusalem, and for lots of timber to help rebuild the wall of the city. And the king agrees! Nehemiah goes home to Judah, surveys what needs to be done, and galvanizes the local forces. Every group of people repairs the section of wall in front of their residence, and the wall is progressing just fine. A few foreign men (Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem) insult and discourage the builders and try to cause trouble for Nehemiah. His response is to have the builders work on the wall with one hand while holding a weapon in the other! And at all times, he reminds his people of how the Lord is their strength.

The wall isn't Nehemiah's only project, though. He has to deal with other serious matters, like how some of the Israelites are impoverished because their own people have basically made them mortgage their properties to the hilt. Nehemiah is a governor who is not afraid to bring the hammer down when he sees people doing wrong. And he never demands a governor's salary or takes advantage of the people under his care, which is an even bigger deal. He's an excellent leader and he repeatedly asks the Lord to look on him with kindness: "Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and wipe not out my goods deeds that I have done for the house of my God, and for the offices thereof". (13:14). And apparently, God did just the opposite of wiping out his good deeds--he made Nehemiah's story part of his holy scriptures so everyone could know what this one man did for the Lord long ago. That's pretty sweet.