Spread it with a little margin

I love reading the margins in my Bible. I'd guess I've read very nearly every footnote my Bible has to offer, on account of reading the marginal notes along with the actual text when I read. But I recently came across a good one in Numbers 4. The verse (23, for starters, in case you want to look it up, though actually, several verses in this chapter use this same word) was about entering in to perform the service, to do the work in the tabernacle of the congregation.

Well, instead of just being "service" right there, it's really the Hebrew root word for going out to war. And it sort of makes sense, since now-a-days it's not uncommon to hear someone say, "I was in the Service for six years back in the fifties." We call the military the Service these days, so I guess it makes sense that it all stems from each other.

But I just thought it was hilarious that the word was the same. I'm not typically one to grouse about work, but the point is, work is work. You may be in charge of animal sacrifices (like in this chapter), or you may be the person who checks the chlorine levels at the neighbourhood pool. Either way, sometimes crazy stuff can happen. Half the time it's like organized warfare.

The other thing I was thinking was this: you know how the Levites just did the tabernacle stuff, and didn't go out to war? Well, if this is sort of like war, then did they get to skip out of work for a year after they got married? Because the rest of the tribes got a get-out-of-war-free pass for a year after they tied the knot, so why not the Levites? Their version of war was service in the tabernacle, but hey, no fair that those young dudes from the tribe of Simeon got time off for finding a wife, and the Levites didn't, you know?

Not like life is fair. Or that it was "fair" for the Levites to be the only ones to be consecrated to the work of the Lord. They were just stand-ins, so to speak, for all the firstborn from all the tribes, after all.

So now, in my head, whenever the Levites got married, they were off work duty for a year. I'll get confirmation (or deconfirmation) of it when I get to Heaven, I'm sure, but the thought amused me. Quite frankly, I'd never noticed that verse before.

Isn't reading the Bible grand? Something new every day. I love it!

SO not my home

Some days I just can't even believe we're still here. Not because I'm depressed and can't handle life, but because I miss Heaven. Yes, you can miss Somewhere you've never been. You can miss Someone you've never met. When I consider that one day soon (yay rapture!) I'll be tucked in the Lord's warm embrace, I honestly get Homesick.

When I hear talk of politics and problems, I honestly usually just don't care. This is not my home, I think to myself. When I'm asked why I don't write to my senator to demand that abortions be stopped, I think, but this isn't my home! I'm not trying to hide my head in the sand, but I just don't live here. My heart isn't here. I value this Earth because it's the place I've been placed, but my heart isn't in it. I value the people and lives that surround me because the Lord made them too, but I'm not going to fight for my rights here on Earth. I'm just visiting.

My heart is where my Home is. And my Home is with the One who prepared that place for me on the cross. Earth is nothing but a temporary dwelling. Sorry, politics, you're out of luck.

100

I was already planning on writing about the number 100 this morning before I logged on and realized that this is my hundredth post. Nice.

I was thinking about the parable of the hundred sheep. We all understand that the one lost sheep is you or I, or anyone in need of a Saviour, who was sought out/is being sought out by the Lord. We all know about how the angels in Heaven rejoice over that one sinner that repents.

But... what about the 99? Who are they? Do they represent the pharisees from the Bible, or regular-type people who aren't saved (yet)?

And I know it's "just" a parable. As my dad consistently has to remind me, shadows and pictures in the Bible are just that--shadows. Pictures. Not entirely matching up to the reality of the situation. There's no way to have a perfect picture of Christ, because Christ is perfect. Nothing else compares. So that leaves us with fragments of the story, which is fine, because if we could understand the whole story, then God wouldn't be... God.

But I still don't understand who those 99 are. So if you have an inkling of who they represent, please let me know.

Monday

Mondays are amusing to me. While everyone else is grumping around because they're back at work, I grin a little bit on the inside, because I've started the work week, and I'm no worse for the wear.

I was trying to explain that to someone today, and they just didn't understand. Their loss.

What really gets me are Wednesdays. I always feel like I should be so much closer to the end of the week and yet... I'm not.

Just remember, there are no Mondays in Heaven. Or Wednesdays.

Funny labels

This really has nothing to do with anything, but I happened to notice something amusing this morning that had to do with my labels. Maybe not amusing, but... sad?

I have mentioned Neverland and Nancy Pelosi the same number of times at some point during the last 75 posts on here. (Cars, creation, and insurance are on par with Nancy and the Neverland gang, apparently, though that doesn't seem quite as amusing.)

So this is just a note to say that I'm glad I started labeling my posts. If nothing else, it provides temporary amusement.

I just realized that I think I've mentioned death more than I've mentioned Heaven. I'm not sure how that discrepancy happened... Ipes.

Joseph & co.

The other night our family was having a Bible reading (I like to call it "pre-BOB," a Saturday night gathering where we sing BOB-related songs and read BOB-related verses, etc.) and I got to rambling about Joseph, and we had a rather rousing (not exactly Bob-related) discussion about him and his life.

This is Bible Joseph, just in case that hasn't come across yet.

I was just pondering a few things.

1. Did Joseph ever check in on brother Simeon while he was in prison? I mean, I think if I were Joseph and my brother was just down in the dungeon, and if he missed his family as much as the story indicates, that he would have found some sort of way to get updated on him. Maybe he would have had his Steward make sure that Simeon was well cared for? That Steward, by the way, must have been soo confused about the goings-on of Joseph's life. Seriously. Oh, plus, I would think it would have been super easy for Joseph to check out prisons himself. I mean, he'd been a clever prison-keeper back before his Zaphnathpaaneah days, right? So it would stand to reason that nobody would question if he wanted to poke around in prisons whenever he wanted.

2. Speaking of that. Didn't any of the farmers wonder why in the world they were handing over a fifth of their crops to an ex-con? I think I would have wondered, quite honestly. My brother was rather surprised that I brought this up at all, since Joseph was number two in the land and all. True, brother, but you'd think they'd at least have some moments of doubt or worry or something.

3. I'd think at least some of the wives would wonder why they had to uproot and move to Egypt of all places (you really want our children to be raised in that heathen land, honey?) but my mom thinks they would have been glad to be closer to the corn. I still think they'd have at least one disgruntled wife between the all of them.

4. I liked how Pharaoh had known Joseph for about five minutes and decided that he was the person "discreet and wise" to run the whole Project Survive Famine. Yes, he interpreted your dream, but you don't know much about him other than the fact he'd been in jail.

I'm stuck on this whole jail thing today.

Ah, well. Nobody knows. Maybe nobody ever bothered with these things in those days ("these things" being the moving-to-a-heathen land, visiting-my-brother-secretly, bringing-food-to-an-ex-con things), I don't know.

Ohhhh, but one more thing. Did Simeon (it was Simeon, right?) grow to respect the person Zaphnathpaaneah was while he was imprisoned in Egypt? Did he know what was going on in the land? Hear many current events? I just wonder if he respected Joseph without even knowing it was him, you know?

Heaven will be sweet. For a million reasons, but one being that I'll get to finally find out all this stuff. I've got some questions for Amos, too, actually. Soon!!

Give Thanks!

I just love Thanksgiving! If I had to choose just one holiday to celebrate for a whole year, Thanksgiving would be my top choice--even over Guy Fawkes Day! It's not because I love the food (turkey, blegh), but because it's so... cozy! In a way that no other holiday is, Thanksgiving is without pretensions, I feel. Sure, it's a super shopping signal--but that's just because Christmas is around the corner. Black Friday is more about Christmas than Thanksgiving, in my opinion.

Thanksgiving is what it is: about giving thanks. There's no crazy gimmick, no bunny or fat dude or cupid, there's just family and turkey. How much better could it get? (Well, minus the turkey it could be better, but this isn't the time for me to be worrying about such things.)

Plus, I've been super encouraged recently about how awesome the assurance of Heaven is. Here's the deal--no matter how difficult our times on earth may be, no matter how much we don't feel like giving thanks, we can still rejoice, because it all ends in GLORY! Doesn't that just make every day a million times better?

So this year, if you're not feeling thankful for anything at all, just remember, no matter what trials we may experience, it'll all be worth it in HEAVEN! Even so come!

Summer couldn't last forever...

Well, I had a great summer. I was away from home from May to the end of August, basically, and it was swell. So why is it the end of September and I'm only just now writing? In short, I'm slothful. And sluggardly, actually. A friend and I were discussing the other day whether or not it was a sluggardly sloth, or a slothful sluggard. Suffice it to say, I usually put off until tomorrow what I could have done today. Of course, since I'm actually doing this now, and it's within the first hour of today, I think it's only fair to say that in this case, at least, I've very decidedly NOT put this off.

All that aside, it's good to be back.

If I were a good blogger, I'd write all about my multitudinous summer adventures (and they were many, my friend) but... well, I just don't feel inspired to do so. Which is terrible! I was just looking through some old journals of mine, and I actually feel vaguely cheated out of all the events I didn't bother writing about because of sheer laziness (what was I just saying about the sluggardly sloth? Yeah, I wasn't joking). For instance, one summer I traveled extensively out West, and forgot my journal. So when I got home I wrote a list of the places I went, and that was that, no funny stories, no anything. There's a whole summer of my teenage years I'll never remember. I run across stuff all the time in my journals that I'd totally forgotten about. Sometimes I wish I could have forgotten them forever (read: anything I ever wrote about the male species, ever), but in general, I like to have at least some sort of documentation of my life.

But... like I said, I won't be able to blog all the time. Also, I have a bunch of blog entries I wrote back in the day (uh, earlier this summer...) that are now vastly outdated, but I figure one day I'll just post a bunch, with the appropriate notes stating that these are old and maybe even boring, but words for those starving for copious amounts of verbiage. Ooh, for instance, I wrote a blog post about a book at my grandma's house that I LOVED, and then she died, and I inherited it. Talk about a swell deal: she's in Heaven (!!) and I got a sweet book. Clearly she came out the victor in this situation, but hey, I'm making the best of still being here on Earth. Which is fine, living is Christ, after all...

So, all this was to say, I'm back. For today, anyhow. We'll see how I do as time ticks by. I trust the Lord is coming soon enough to make this post superfluous, but if He tarries, and you happen to read then, well, welcome, and feel free to smack me if I forget to prepare wordy snacks for your eyes every once in a while. Well, maybe minus some actual smacking. I sure do sound violent. I don't try, I promise!

That's actually something I've been meaning to work on, but that's a whole separate story for a separate post...

Christianity Today--November style

I believe I’ve mentioned before that I enjoy reading Christianity Today. It’s a good magazine, I would (usually) recommend it. But since I’m sort of poor, and frugal anyhow (though not a FCP, exactly—it’s in the urban dictionary, look it up), I get the subscription from the library, both to support the library, and also my money-saving habits.

Which means that by the time I’ve read the magazine, whatever it is saying is old news. Since it’s a magazine it’s technically sort of all old news, though, so I don’t feel too badly about it. Especially since most of the things in CT aren’t exactly time-sensitive anyhow. For instance, last month I finally read the November issue, and the cover story was on hunger, which is certainly a current issue (if you don’t believe me, read the article) but one that is just as current now as it was back in November.

Now, I usually really like to read this magazine. I usually go to the library on the second or third day of a month so that I can read last month’s issue once it has been shelved and is available. But for some reason, I could not STAND the November issue. I think I must have been having a bad day when I read it, or perhaps it was still too early in the morning (I’m not exactly a morning person), but whatever the cause, it was not a favorite of mine. A few reasons I disliked it follow.

1) Politics. Yes, okay, it was the November issue, elections were right around the corner (actually, elections pretty much were the corner that month) and it was historical and all that, but I was so tired of hearing about the elections, it wasn’t even funny. Not only that, but I’m one of those stodgy Earth-is-not-my-home Christians, and Christianity Today is decidedly not stodgy in that regard. In fact, they just ran an article about a year ago about how Heaven might be our home, but Earth is our stomping ground, and we should treat is as such, and do things like give it environmental makeovers and get into politics and the such. They were very convinced that Christians who didn’t join city council were in the wrong. Sorry, mister, I’m one of those ones.

2) Secondly (or maybe still firstly, because I’m still on a political kick here) they acted like they were all neutral in the elections, but they totally weren’t. You could see it all over the issue, that they were fervently hoping Obama would win. And I’m fine with that, because, well, I didn’t really care one way or the other. The Bible says that the basest of men are set up in government. Tru dat, Daniel. But really, if you’re going to have an opinion one way (which is what they had) then stop dancing around the bush. That’s what I say.

3) On that same subject, they reviewed a book called “Electing Not to Vote” and gave it a whopping one star. Just to give you a feel for how insane this is, I’ve seen them give morally inappropriate movies many more stars than that. Don’t quite remember how many stars (they base on a five-star system, so I don’t want to go too overboard with generalizations here) but whatever the case, they were not a fan of this book. I’ve never read the book in question, of course, but the author of the article says it’s the smuggest book he’s ever read. He compares the book’s ideology with that of a man being so against the government that he didn’t even get a driver’s license. Uh, last I checked, John Wilson, voting wasn’t a law. They do that in foreign countries, remember? They go so far as to “helpfully” fill out the ballot for the voters, so they still get to vote and the government still gets their person to win. That doesn’t sound very fun to me, sorry.

4) Two words. Ray Boltz. I almost threw up when I read that. What is the world coming to? And why do I expose myself to that sort of information? The magazine touches on that subject fairly often, but I just never learn. Honestly, I think that was what made me dislike the issue so much, now that I think of it.

5) This isn’t a dislike but an amused like. I have several friends who like Dave Ramsey, and I was amused to see him in the magazine. But I loved his point about living on less than you make. Amen, brother!

6) Oh, and Google finally let religious folk advertise stuff about abortion. I knew they were liberal, but I always pretend they secretly aren’t that liberal. Ah, the fake world I construct in my head.

7) I tried to figure out where Christianity Today stood on all that egalitarian stuff, but I can’t figure it out. Personally, I refer to Paul. Women should keep silence in the churches? Okey-dokey. Do women have an integral part in the body of Christ? Uh, yeah. Sounds fairly clear cut to me, fellows.

8) By this point in the magazine I skipped through a bunch of stuff. I skimmed the stuff about the KKK and Timothy McVeigh being Christian, pausing only to wonder if perhaps anyone had stopped to realize that it takes a personal relationship with Christ to qualify as “Christian.” It seems to make sense intuitively that to be a Christian you have to actually be a “Christ One” but I guess if you’re Timothy McVeigh and you say you’re a Christian, then you’re in the club. Sadly, I’m sure there were members of the KKK who were legitimately Christian, but delusional. Which should be a lesson to us: just because we claim we do things in the name of Christ doesn’t mean we can’t be simultaneously delusional.

9) I am so sick of Christianity Today’s movie and book reviews. I’ve already touched on their review of the Election book, but it’s a constant battle for me to not take a black marker to their reviews. They review movies based on talent and such, which is very important (and yes, they love art above all in their movie-reviewing cubicles) but the magazine is called Christianity Today, for crying out loud! Can’t we at least have thoughts on the moral content and the social implications of the movie? And I fall short: I watch some movies with questionable content, but in general, I’d prefer to stick to family-friendly Disney and Hallmark movies and let the Oscars keep their R-rated movies.

10) I like Switchfoot, I really do. I don’t know all their music, but what I have heard, I enjoy. But when Mark Moring (who wrote an article on Switchfoot, though he usually does movie reviews, I’m not a fan of his reviews, but I’m sure he’s a very nice person) referenced “JPMs” I very nearly hit the roof. Although Mark Moring didn’t straight-out say that having lots of “Jesuses Per Minute” was a bad thing, exactly, he did imply such. It made me feel like an inferior person for enjoying music that has a lot of JPMs. The truth of the matter is, as long as the music is clean (and I am insistent on this point, as my friends can attest to) I’m usually fine with it. But I enjoy decidedly Christian music, because, well, I am a Christian. It’s like shampoo. I’m a female, and there’s no rule about me needing to use “special girl shampoo” as opposed the regular stuff, but it smells good, is better for my hair, and since the shampoo is specially formulated for the health of my hair, and I have scads of hair, why not use the special kind? Well I’m a Christian the same way I am a female. Christian music talks about (sings about?) the things I want to be hearing, and it’s better for me than listening to Brad Paisley or Rihanna or whomever else there might be out there. Is there a moral problem with their music? Well, I have no idea, since I don’t really listen to them (though I have heard Brad Paisley songs I am not fond of, and I think I’ve heard a Rihanna song—something about umbrellas?), but providing there isn’t a moral dilemma, I’m sure there’s nothing innately wrong with listening to their music. But I’d just prefer to listen to the Christian stuff, since it usually helps lift up rather than maintain the same status or sink lower. Honestly, it’s like math: it’s not that complicated.

11) And finally, a word to Philip Yancey. He wrote the “Back Page” article in the issue, and discussed some church hopping he and his wife recently did. That’s fine, I mean, it sure did work for the characters in Ray Blackston’s Flabbergasted books, but I have just one question for him. In one of the most liberal churches he went to (complete with a PC Lord’s Prayer, as if the Lord’s goal was really to be PC) he found the most “energy.” I understand that you were looking for aliveness and all that, but if you had wanted to just find energy, try a rock concert, Mr. Yancey. Or maybe just a Switchfoot concert. I hear they have lots of energy, and almost no JPMs. Maybe that’s what you’re looking for.

Anyhow, after writing this entire list of things, I have to sit back and think: why do I read this magazine? I feel like with this issue, especially, I found a bevy of things I disliked, and not so many things I did. For now, I think I’ll continue to read the magazine (yeah, I’m a slow learner), but keep an eye out for further craziness. They don’t say anything overtly wrong (…) but the truth of the matter is, they say a lot of things I could do without.

'Tis (not) the season

On the twelfth day of Springtime my neighbor showed to me
Twelve mosquitoes chomping
Eleven lenting ladies
Ten lovely lilies
Nine eggs a-hatching
Eight rabbits hopping
Seven fish a-swimming
Six drippy rain boots
Five soggy dogs
Four geese heading home
Three thunderstorms
Two daffodils
And a robin in an oak tree

In celebration of the first day of spring, some friends and I composed this little song and went to our local Starbucks to sing it to another friend. All was good and well... until I realized that I had Christmas songs stuck in my head. In March.

Did I mention these were Christmas songs I got stuck in my head?

I don’t even believe in the holidays, pretty much. I mean, come on, Santa Claus? But there is something admittedly pleasant about the holidays. I mean, for a couple weeks in a year, people do the whole thing where they try to be vaguely nice to everyone, spreading the peace-on-earth thing, or at least attempting such. When you’re not a Christian it’s a little futile, but at least they try.

So when I was flying this year on the first of January, it was extremely odd to see the airports take down their decorations at the first possible moment. I’m so used to people keeping their decorations up until February that it seemed a little surreal to see the watchful-eyed TSA guys removing strands of tinsel from around the security check points. Mind you, when I was flying it was about 4:30 in the morning, so they were literally not wasting so much as a minute.

But that brings me back to the holiday spirit thing. It’s always a little depressing to realize that the cozy season in over, and from now until April life is going to be one long episode of angry snowaphobic drivers, regular uncleanly lyriced songs in the stores, broken Christmas merchandise sales, and lots of not-as-cutely-lit snow everywhere. Sigh.

Which is why of the two and a half weeks in the year that I like Christmas music, the half week after New Year’s is one of them. I suddenly find myself saddened by the end of the holidays (which I’ve already admitted to being silly, since I don’t do the holidays) and wanting to bring it back in some small degree. So I depressedly listen to maybe two days worth of Christmas CDs and hope that no angry drivers will slip and slide their way into me, and that I don’t become roadkill.

Not that I’d mind the early admittance to Heaven, I’m just saying, it’s hard on those that survive, and I don’t want to cause that much pain.

Wow, I get really off-topic, don’t I? Not to mention, the weather here is quite nice right now, so my snowaphobic neighbors can (hopefully) put away their fears for another year.