Tag Archives: History

On the way

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Who do people say I am?

Huh. I admit every time a young celebrity does something stupid I tell my kids they need to prize obscurity.

Getting treated like a god can make you act like a moron.

Jesus, on the other hand, was God. He never acted like a celebrity. In fact, he distrusted the opinions and valuations of men. He knows we trade our souls for trinkets.

Which makes the question all the more interesting–who do people say I am? He is traveling through a region marked by celebrity conquerors and he asks the question-does public opinion matter? Do people get it right? Can we trust ourselves to see the truth?

Bethsaida

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Everything in the Bible is connected–all water leads to other water, all bread leads to other bread.

The symbols are intertwined and all meaning is the purvey of God. God uses the Bible and its narrative voices to call out to us.

Hello! I’m here! I love you.

So when Jesus tells the man not to go back to the village I wondered why?

Sometimes people who want to follow Jesus are commanded by him to return to their communities. Some are enjoined not to. This man is in the latter group. Why?

bethsaida is a city with some history. It means house of fish. Hometown to several disciples, it was also a Geshurite city. Absalom’s mother Maacah was a Geshurite princess.

Jesus fed the four thousand near Bethsaida. But he also rebuked them. The religious leaders were resistant to him and did not trust him.

Why should they? He was a dangerous man. An iconoclast. Don’t go back, he says. I trust him but still long to know these two things–

why? and…
what next?

What next, Lord?

The Syrian Woman

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Mark 7:24-26 (NIV)
Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret. [25] In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an evil spirit came and fell at his feet. [26] The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.

This mama is one of my favorite people ever.

She was a Canaanite, a Syrian, a descendant of the mysterious Sea Peoples, but more than all that, she was a kick-butt mother.

Why?

She traveled to see Jesus. She took the time to find him and then she…

begged

She had no pride when it came to her beautiful daughter.

She knew what was priceless
And so did he.

2/9/2013

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There is something I want to put in this box
A new year
An old debt
Things tangled like a net
Dresses I should sew
Miles I should run
When this sadness is the warm blanket

Remind me why
There are no pictures in this house
Nothing so permanent as you.

Always you.

Elizabeth the 1st and Sally Hemmings

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Sometimes we must revise the focus of history. Sometimes we accept as fact things we should revile as facts:

Both of these famous women were rape victimsby modern FBI definition.

Both women were molested by older men who had all power over them.

If we are to heal the breaches of our own abuse stories, we must take away the power of their rapists, and give these women a new designation–

brave survivors