Plan A: Love, Not Law

1. I AM the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.

2. You shall not make for yourself any carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep my commandments.

3. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

4. Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall not do any work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates, that your manservant and your maidservant may rest as well as you. And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and that the LORD your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

5. Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may be well with you in the land which the LORD your God is giving you.

6. You shall not murder.

7. You shall not commit adultery.

8. You shall not steal.

9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.

10. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, and you shall not desire your neighbour’s house, his field, his manservant, his maidservant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbour’s.

- Moses, recapping the 10 Commandments to Israel in his final sermon in Deuteronomy 6: 6 – 21.

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD your God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.”

- Moses, summarizing the 10 commandments in Deuteronomy 6: 4

image source

In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible – one of the most foundational texts in my personal formation (both as a Christian and as a writer and critic) Reverend Hale, the man investigating the witchcraft accusations in Salem, Massachusetts, asks John Proctor, the only “good man” in Salem, to list the ten commandments. Proctor has not been going to church because he considers his priest corrupt, but feels he has been keeping the faith, even though he has been having an affair with Abigail, the ringleader of the girls accused of witchcraft. He’s going pretty good with his list, until he gets to the tenth one, which he can’t, somehow, remember. It’s a heartbreaking moment when his wife, Elizabeth, quietly reminds him what it is – the seventh commandment, against adultery.

I’ve used this device recently in a couple conversations, and it is very telling what comes at the top and the bottom of the list. It’s pretty fascinating, but for one person in particular, the first that he listed was a sin someone was sinning against him, and the last commandment he listed was the one he was breaking himself. I’m no psychologist, but there’s definitely some relation between the things we forget about God’s nature and the sins we end up mired in. What disturbed me, though, is that in almost no case (including when I make the list myself) do I get a list in the order set by God Himself, as related to Moses. The most common pattern is that the last five commandments make their appearance first – the simple “Do Not’s” – murder, adultery, theft, covetousness, lying. But surely there is a reason why these are the last five and not the first – and surely there is something sinister in the fact that we often think of the first five last. God is an orderly God – He doesn’t simply give us a random order of laws – in the priority there is meaning.

Full article at the Harvard Ichthus

Small World

Achievement

Careful!

Work!

Pleasure.

Vanitas.

All from Little Dudes by JD Hancock, on Flickr. Thanks Janice!

the gardener

by Judith Huang

nothing comes from nothing – King Lear, to Cordelia
nothing comes from nothing – Maria, the Sound of Music

and o in the darkness
i walked out
in fear but love
threw out my fear
for though you died i wanted to
make love to those
your watery wounds
o how i longed to tend and balm
the horrors that
had pierced your palm -
and i brought all my sweet perfume
and i brought my gentle breathless hair
and i thought all the lovely things
about you that i could drag out
of the deep hollow
of my soul
for knowledge was the grief i knew
and o, and o, i did not know
what to say to that big O
the gaping hole in that great rock
and grief swallowed me like a hole
o it consumed me it consumed me
i was left with only
O

O
there was this man standing there
he wiped my tears, he touched my hair
“Maria”
he said, and I saw
Adam waking up to Eve -
“Maria, Maria”
don’t weep for me – O,
weep for the whole world for me -
for how else does your garden grow?
“Maria, Maria!”
don’t weep for me
don’t cling to me
don’t cleave to me – O,
“Maria! Maria!”
the world cries out
for your great love
my little dove – O
“MARIA, MARIA!”
and I did go -
He took my name
and now He and I
and all the world -
are All the Same.

BOAT

I think my mission in life is to build a boat.
A boat is intentional, faithful, true.
It floats. It is apart from the land, and a part of it.
It can move from one campus to another
Up and down the Charles River.

It can move across to California!
- If I learn how to drive properly and take it on a trailer.

.

It is a symbol of Truth in a place
Where Truth is not capitalized on anymore
It will be a thing of Beauty
blurring bright with Love.
It is a symbol of Freedom
and of Responsibility.
A symbol of a time when it will come.
Like Grace -

I realize boats have been in my life.
I want to bless people with this boat.
It will be filled from wall to wall with books.
Like the barge of books that came once to my mum
on a sundrenched island which had just learned to read.
It will be the place of love
where my parents honeymooned in
and when they landed, turned into a pool
in, which I then loved to splash in.

It will be a sanctuary;
It will be a place of joy and beauty.
I do not want, Lord Jesus, to always be
a person who only talks about a boat.
I want to be, Lord Jesus, to really be
a person who, if commanded, builds a boat;
even if it proves lonely and difficult.

I will build this boat to plow the seas -
It will seed seeds which float back to me.
I will heal spirits in this boat -
I will reach new peoples in this boat -
I will speak of heaven in this boat -
It will be a slice of heaven, this this boat.

It will sit upon the banks of the Charles River
And it will gather Christian men all thither
to help to build the voice of love together
To feed and to be fed for once forever -

It is a boat. It is a place of hope.
It is a boat, a temporary home -
A boat in which a restless poet floats
And which must one day beach on some sweet shore
where Jesus o my Jesus went before -

It is a boat, it is simply a boat.
An amalgamation of my every hope
of every boat on which I’ve ever sat
and rocked and puked in, saw a lady’s cloak in,
for every boat whose commerce shipped the ship in -

for this is my dear boat
the one I hope
will be a boat.

And it is my wish
that I may sit in it and fish.

.

People will see us building this random boat.
And they will be like, “Why?!”
And we will say, well, it is a boat.
Its purpose in this life is to float.
It is a thing of beauty, brave and wise.
It is like all creation -
a thing of intentionality.
It did not ever need to be – but look!
It is a boat!
And it will come to be
no symbol
not a metaphor,
but real.

It is a boat. It is a boat.
I never thought I’d be on a boat.
on a big blue watery road…

And everyone will think it foolish and unwise
But when it’s done they’ll be in for a surprise!

.

Picture this:
After the long, dark winter
in which we have lost hope
in which nothing has gone right
about the boat.

But then, in Spring, the river begins to crack
and underneath it there will be this water
and underneath it we will see this water
The living living water which will buoy us
and guide us and persuade us and direct us
the living water flowing flowing through us
and we will take on our shoulders this finished boat
and we will set it on the flowing water
the river’s only water that flows through us -
and we will set it on the flowing river
and we will ship and sail away inside her -

and in it, I will one day reach Ithaca -
And there in a great pyre I will burn her -