Take that, Randy Newman

“The Lord does not look at the things Man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

I like this quote. We will come back to it.

Saul turns evil. “Now the spirit of the Lord had departed him and an evil spirit from the Lord God tormented him.”

O.K., I don’t get this one. An evil spirit “from” the Lord or “of”? Is this some separate entity? Does it mean the Lord’s spirit has both good and evil elements? (hmmm, just like man).

I take it to mean that Saul had his own demons, like everyone. Since all things come from our creator, that includes our evil weaknesses. It never describes how this is manifested in Saul; maybe he drank, ran around, talked crazy, got depressed, mistreated people, cried, beat his dog. Who knows?

But the linguistic structure here leads me to a point: There is such inconsistency in this bible regarding God’s will and Man’s. Things that happen or people’s behavior is erratically attributed to God or the people themselves. In other words, sometimes it’s seen as coming from God, other times Man himself gets the blame.

Confession #89: I do believe each of has his/her “demons” but I do not see this as separate entities that “invade” us or that we can blame.

God directs Samuel to anoint David of Bethlehem to be the new king over Israel. But Saul is still technically in charge.

Just as the Philistines prepare to battle the Israelites AGAIN, a champion Philistine, named Goliath (yep, that’s the guy) comes forward and suggests he fight Israel’s best man to let it suffice. (Sounds like Bernardo and Tony to me). The dude was NINE FEET tall and bedecked in majorly heavy gold and bronze armament. His deal? Whoever loses (i.e. dies) subjects his people to be under the winning tribe.

Meanwhile, back at the proverbial and literal ranch, young David, a mere boy and a shepherd, not a soldier, is a dutiful son tending his father’s sheep. But he goes to the frontline of battle to see how his brothers are doing and bring them vittles.

He learns of Goliath’s dubious offer and volunteers to face him. Imagine that. Refusing Saul’s bulky attire, David is confident because he feels he has the Lord on his side “It is not by the sword or the spear that the Lord saves.”

O.K. – pause – this sure hasn’t been born out so far. Quite a contradiction here.

Anyway, back to our story. Then David, true to all the animated bible stories on TBN, takes one of the 5 smooth stones he’d packed and slung it with his slingshot, hitting Goliath in the forehead and rendering him face down in the dirt. Then he killed him with his sword and cut his head off.

Wow.

Those dastardly Philistines turned and ran. The little chickens.

Confession #90: I wonder, was David’s victory due to his faith, confidence, or did he just get lucky hitting that one soft spot in the skull to down Goliath? Was it luck, skill, or Divine Intervention? If David was only successful because God was on his side, then GOD was the giant against the minor Goliath by comparison.

Confession #91: Who doesn’t root for the underdog? I suspect all of us love the David and Goliath metaphor. Especially humble homeowners facing foreclosure who feel powerless against the mega-goliath banks. I wonder, however, why more of the “giants” can’t also be the good guys, with hearts, values, morals, ethics, and courage to act on them. After all, every member of an executive board started out as a little David.  

Confession #92:  As a woman who stands 5'1" and who has spent her adult life teaching high school seniors who all towered over me (even the girls!),  I love the story of David felling the giant, Goliath.  It's a reminder that strength and victory does not always lie in mere size.  Use whatcha got; use whatcha good at.  Right on, David!

[when did i start talking urban?]

Enough for today.

A Taste of Honey

A summary: Saul’s son Jonathan helps him in battle (yes, more war tales), being instrumental in Israel’s latest victories. Saul tells the soldiers not to eat anything until he has. Jon didn’t know this, has a taste of honey to sustain him, Saul finds out and says he cannot live. Saul is willing to kill own son, thinking this would please God. The soldiers come to his defense and he gets to live.

Confession # 86: Geeze, I am glad I didn’t live during Old Testament days (that I know of – wink).

“All the days of Saul there was bitter warring with the Philistines.” Yea, we get it.

Confession #87: I continue to be struck by the monomania for martial events in this document. Was there not ANYTHING else going on of import? Local issues, family dynamics, farming disputes, artistic endeavors, advances in medicine, food production.

Next, God tells Samuel to tell Saul to attack the Amalekites (for old grievances coming out of Egypt) and kill every man, woman, child, infant, and donkey (poor donkey)!

Confession #87: This stuff is really getting hard to read. If you haven’t read it yourself, I do NOT suggest adding to your Beach Reading List this summer.

So, Saul does this, except he keeps some of the finer livestock he says to offer to the Lord. God is furious that he didn’t follow command to the letter and Saul doesn’t get it, thinking he was doing an honorable thing. Saul begs forgiveness, but Samuel rejects him and another is named to replace him.

Confession #88: I think Saul meant well, but I didn’t think much of him as a leader. Funny, too, because God chose him for this position. I guess even when a leader thinks he was “chosen” (again dub-ya.) he can let the big guy down.

Sam and Saul

So, I just had a thought. Being that Hannah (see previous post) gave up her son to the Lord, making good on her promise, what if she wanted this son so badly just to get her sister wife off her back, hmmm?

Well, on through the book of Samuel. He becomes a prophet and his “word came to all of Israel.”

“Now the Israelites went out to fight the Phillistines.” Why, why? More bloody battles with tens of thousands killed and the ark of the covenant captured by the P. As they move it from tribe to tribe, each place is cursed with a multitude of disasters and plagues. Again, I am reminded of Indiana Jones. So they say, hey, we don’t want this thing amongst us anymore, so we gotta give it back. They equip it with “guilt offerings” of model tumors and gold rats (to symbolize what was happening) and put it on a cow driven cart. If it goes to its own territory, we’ll know it was God’s hand in our disasters.

The cart ends up in Beth Shemesh, and they all there say cool for us, but 70 men are killed by the Lord for looking at the ark. (Right, Indiana?)

For twenty years the ark is away from the Israelites. Samuel becomes their leader and inermediator with the Lord even as warring continues back and forth with the Philistines. He was a good judge all his life, but his two sons, whom he’d hoped would succeed him, were not as virtuous. The people beg him to name a king over them. So, it seems a judge makes decisions, but a king rules. He warns them that they don’t want that. That a king will be dictator. But they insist.

[This makes me think of George Washington, who had the healthy ego and lack of arrogance to refuse a kingship when this country started. I always thought how remarkable that was. It would be so easy to be flattered into unlicensed power.]

God picks out Saul to be king (pissed off because He sees this as upstarting Him), giving him the gift of prophecy. But naturally, some of the men reject him and so Saul cuts 2 oxen into pieces and says, “this is what happens to anyone who does not follow Saul and Samuel.” OMG! Then there is the obligatory slaughter of enemies, led by Saul.

Samuel and the Lord really struggle with this king issue. You see, the fear is that there is only one “king” to serve, and that’s God, so having a king leads either to a disconnect with God or idolatry. But God finally tells the Israelites that as long as they still obey Him, they can keep their king.

This whole section sets up the interesting conflict between church and state. We have faced many, many social, legal, moral issues where church and state conflict. When that happens, wherein lay your allegiance and submission?

Consider: conscientious objectors, the Pledge of Allegiance, doctors ordered to perform abortions against their beliefs, being scheduled to work on Sunday, Christian Scientist parents of cancer patients, euthanasia, polygamy, Muslim-American girls being ordered to remove their head coverings in school, and on and on…

It also points to the easy way out using Divine Right of Kings philosophy; if we believe our king is God’s intermediary, then there is only one direction to take: his! Instant infallibility. Boy, that must have solved a lot of problems for those pre-Magna Carta rulers. Life was a little tougher once you had to follow your own rules. It was all downhill from there.

Confession #83: There is a part of me, deep inside, that really detests authority. And this is partly why. Because a king ruling over me could be wrong, could be corrupt, could set himself above the law (yea, I’m talking to you, w.!). And godly authority, when it comes from someone else telling me what God says or wants, smacks of the same potential contamination.

Confession #84: The authoritative structure of most religions mirrors that same design which leads to a suffocating, poisoning relationship between God and a man, vs. God and Man.

Confession #85: That above statement makes sense to me, but I swear it looks convoluted written down. Do your best.

Are You My Mother?

I have a Mother’s Day story for you, just in time. There was a man named Elkanah who had two wives, (again with the polygamy), Penninah and Hannah. Penninah was able to bear many children for her husband; not so, Hannah. “Because the Lord had closed her womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her.” Geeze! This went on year after year until Hannah could not eat. Her husband asked her, “Why are you downhearted, weeping? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?”

This prompts two very different reactions in me. I admire that Elkanah does not value sons over his wife. That he cares about her grief and wishes to mitigate it. That he values their relationship even more than children.

And yet, I also see a man who, like many, has no idea how deep the need for childbearing can be for women. That some women see their supreme contribution in this role and, no, hon, you are not enough.

Year after year, Hannah begged her God for a son, promising to devote his life to the Lord if she were so blessed. Finally the Lord hears her. She gives birth to a son and names him Samuel.

True to her word, as soon as he is weaned, she takes him to the Lord to spend his life in devotion to Him.

Wow.

What a major sacrifice. I admire her remembering her promise. I am in awe of her strength of unselfishness. In these ancient biblical times, she knew what philosopher, Kahlil Gibran said centuries later…

On Children
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts, 
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, 
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, 
but seek not to make them like you.
 For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
 The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, 
and He bends you with His might 
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, 
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

To all mothers out there: Happy Mother’s Day! Bless your little ones, whether young or grown, near or far.

Confession #80: I admire women choosing not to become mothers if they feel that choice is right for them.

Confession #81: I hope those who yearn to be mothers, who are not, do not “give up.”

Confession #82: My first child was born in June of 1977 because I wanted to have the first grandchild in my husband’s family. There, I’ve said it.

the Buddha

Well, kidlins, I hope you are still out there and have been pacing the room waiting for my next bible blog entry. I’ll tell you, April has been a ridiculously busy month for me. Good thing I’m retired! Just got back from a week in my favorite city of all, San Francisco, and wouldn’t ya know it, everywhere I go I find material for this blog.

Case in point: our hotel room in the lovely Hotel Nikko right in the heart of the shopping district had the traditional Gideon Bible in the nightstand drawer. My first thought was, well, now I know exactly who Gideon was and his contribution to the Good Book.

However, there was also a book of Buddha. Hmmm, Japanese hotel, yea, that makes sense. And why not broaden guests’ perspectives. So, during some times when my hubby was at his conference and I had exhausted the shopping district and Fisherman’s Wharf and Chinatown, I felt compelled to examine this document, eager to enlighten myself in yet another religious direction.

The book gave detailed background to the Buddha and then went into his many philosophies and mandates. I will share just one observation here.

So many, many, many references deal with the necessity of denying one’s human desires. All of them! One’s discipline on earth is to learn to suppress all sensory passions. Now, this is shared by many other religions. Even Christians will, I think, distort Christ’s entity. Christians are taught that God became Man, and yet Christians will take that to mean we should strive to become godly. That requires us to suppress human, earthly experiences. It just doesn’t seem logical to me that the purpose of having human traits is to learn to reject them. It’s one thing to strive to be the most fulfilled, enriched, developed human one can be. It’s another to define that only as being “un-human” as possible.

A conundrum, to be sure.

Anyway, the Buddha is a fascinating figure, and though he did not proclaim actual divinity, many of his principles and values are worthy to strive for. Maybe my next blog will be “Confessions of a Buddist Virgin.” Stay tuned (if I ever finish this bible thing!).

Confession #77:  I know, I know, I am pretty ignorant about Buddhism, too.  I'll work on it.

Confession #78: I believe in both my divinity and humanity, and I believe the trick is to embrace every bit of being human in this life, learning its lessons for perhaps the next.  

Confession #79:  My Tai Chi instructor is Jewish and I find it amusing every time she "bows" to the Buddha.