Category Archives: Random

The Bible Meme

Here’s a meme from bls:

1. What translation of the Bible do you like best?

My favorite translation is the Vulgate. Every act of translation is an act of interpretation, and I really like Jerome’s interpretive choices. Once upon a time I was part of a group that read through Genesis, reading each verse in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. I was quite fascinated with the way that Jerome navigated between the Greek and the Hebrew.

As a result, my favorite Bible for study and reading is a facing page NT that has the eclectic Greek text on one side and the Vulgate on the other.

When I need an English language Bible, I prefer the RSV. We managed to get some of the last sets of 2 vol. Daily Office books that use the RSV rather than the NRSV.

2. Old or New Testament?

It’s impossible to understand one without the other. Christians have always contended that you need the NT to understand the OT properly, but what so many of us today have forgotten is how thoroughly the NT is saturated by OT images, thoughts, and themes. As Augustine and Jerome both insisted, the best way to learn to interpret Scripture better is to read more Scripture; I’d put a finer point on it and say that the best way to understand the New Testament better is to read the Old Testament more.


3. Favorite Book of the Bible?

Well, I love the Psalms.

I’m also a big fan of the Gospel of Matthew—which is good since that’s what my dissertation is on…

Deuteronomy is a classic. That’s the book that starts talking about intention—that the Law is about a way of being, a fundamental orientation towards God, not just things you do and don’t do. I see it as the inspiration for a lot of people in our tradition including Jeremiah and Jesus himself.

Recently I’ve been caught up again in Ecclesiastes; I’ve read through it several times since my spider bite. I hear in it a call to humility: all our works, wealth, learning, and accomplishments are ultimately vanity. What is important—and it underlines this by presenting it several times throughout the book, returning to it like a touchstone—is the recognition and enjoyment of the simple facts of reality: good food, good drink, good companionship, and the sun on your face.

Of course, I can’t forget Ephesians, Colossians, 2nd Peter, and Revelation. And the Song of Songs.

4. Favorite Chapter?

That’s hard to say. Rev 21-22 have always been favorites of mine… I’m also quite partial to Ps 107. And Ps 1. And Ps 18. Colossians 1 is also not to be missed. I could keep going for a while but I think I’ll stop there…

5. Favorite Verse? (feel free to explain yourself if you have to)

There’s no way I can answer this one; I have so many favorites. I’ll point to just two: Ps 70:1 (O God, make speed to save me; O Lord, make haste to help me) and Eph 5:2 (Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an fragrant offering and sacrifice to God). The first is commended by Egyptian monks as the ideal breath-prayer in John Cassian in The Conferences. Given Cassian’s recommendation, it’s no surprise that Benedict uses it to start the Offices as we do today. The second, in the words of a wise man of my acquaintance, can be considered the heart of Pauline Spirituality.

6. Bible character you think you’re most like?

I’d like to say David but my life’s not nearly that exciting. I aspire to be more like John of Patmos.       

7. One thing from the Bible that confuses you?

Hey—that blessing that Jacob gave to the twelve tribes this morning (Gen 49:1-28) totally boggled the mind. I’m suspecting some serious textual corruption in the transmission of that passage because some of it seemed to make no sense at all. It made me wonder what the Fathers did with it…

8. Moses or Paul?

Paul.

9. A teaching from the Bible that you struggle with or don’t get?

Teachings around obedience are always hard for me. That’s one of the reasons why I need to follow a Benedictine path. [And one of the reasons why I’m Anglican…;-)]

10. Coolest name in the Bible?

I’ve always been a fan of the three young men: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

I won’t formally tag folks, but if it looks like fun, give it a rip…

Random Stuff

  • I’m really slammed with stuff right now—I’ll not be posting or commenting much for a bit.  I’ll be back before too long, though.
  • I saw the moving from a crib to a big bed that Marshall+ posted in the comments below. I’m not convinced and I’ll tell you why… As far as I’m concerned, a “wrote-down prayer” (as we call ’em down here) ought to be what I’m thinking and feeling, but just more eloquent and with more depth. My crib to big bed transition prayer at 2 in the morning was, “Father in Heaven, please make this darn baby sleep instead of playing, giggling, or roaming around the upstairs. Amen.” And to my eyes, certain elements of that were, well, missing from the suggested prayer below.
  • I was struck the other evening that Ps 59 would make an awesome voice-over at the start of a vampire-slaying movie. I blame it on verse 2…

I’m Back…Sort Of

Hope y’all had a good Christmas as the season draws to a close. I’m back but not really “back”. Things are extremely busy and I won’t be online much. (Except to be loading freakin’ Oracle tables row by row through a PHP portal since my SQL*Loader is messed up…)

Speaking of how hacked off I am at Oracle, I’m thinking that SQLite really should be the hot new thing. And yes, I realize that sentence made no sense to anyone other than computer geeks but there’s a practical(?) payoff—I think SQLite (a small-profile database system) will give me functionality to program a method of calculating liturgical dates that can easily be switched back and forth between different sanctoral/temporal cycles. So moving between calculating a date in the modern revised common lectionary and a 10th century Benedictine kalendar would be fast and simple—and just a click away for a web visitor…

I think my feed reader said I had some 500 items to catch up on and I’ve seen some interesting email to which I’ll respond when able and yes, I’m gonna do our buddy Ælfric Bata for the history meme that Jonathan and Michelle both tagged me for.

Ack… More later.

A Word from Our Sponsor

In lieu of actual content, I bring you two from one our sponsors, Blessed George Herbert:

Church-Rents and Schismes

Brave rose, (alas!) where art thou? in the chair
Where thou didst lately so triumph and shine,
A worm doth sit, whose many feet and hair
Are the more foul, the more thou wert divine.
This, this hath done it, this did bite the root
And bottome of the leaves: which when the winde
Did once perceive, it blew them under foot,
Where rude unhallow’d steps do crush and grinde
Their beauteous glories. Onely shreds of thee,
And those all bitten, in thy chair I see.

Why doth my Mother blush? is she the rose,
And shows it so? Indeed Christs precious bloud
Gave you a colour once; which when your foes
Thought to let out, the bleeding did you good,
And made you look much fresher then before.
But when debates and fretting jealousies
Did worm and work within you more and more,
Your colour faded, and calamities
Turned your ruddie into pale and bleak:

Your health and beautie both began to break.
Then did your sev’rall parts unloose and start:
Which when your neighbours saw, like a north-winde,
They rushed in, and cast them in the dirt
Where Pagans tread. O Mother deare and kinde,
Where shall I get me eyes enough to weep,
As many eyes as starres? since it is night,
And much of Asia and Europe fast asleep,
And ev’n all Africk; would at least I might
With these two poore ones lick up all the dew,
Which falls by night, and poure it out for you!

The Call

Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life:
Such a Way, as gives us breath:
Such a Truth, as ends all strife:
Such a Life, as killeth death

Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength:
Such a Light, as shows a feast:
Such a Feast, as mends in length:
Such a Strength, as makes his guest.

Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart:
Such a Joy, as none can move:
Such a Love, as none can part:
Such a Heart, as joyes in love.

Mind the Trolls

I’m in a northern mood today probably brought on by a sudden temperature drop and the pines and ravens on the way to work this morning…

In any case, I was musing that we’re entering troll season…

Culturally, Celtic traditions have made a certain impact upon American pop spirituality. I’m thinking of Halloween in particular here; that’s the time when “ghouls and goblins” come out due to cultural connects with the Celtic Samhain and the Christian response with All Saints and All Souls (which, as far as I can tell, seems to have early support if not origins in Anglo-Celtic regions—Alcuin was a big earlier promoter).

In Scandinavian traditions, however, the thin time when unnatural critters abound is not the autumnal equinox but the winter solstice—Yule. Quite a number of the beast tales in the thattr tradition are set in midwinter or Christmas. In fact, several Christmas courts of the early kings cower in terror of a trollish beast ravaging the countryside awaiting a hero (often bear-kin, of course) to dispatch it.

No real point—just a passing thought.

I’m Dune with That…: the what spice are you test

Your Score: Spice Melange

You scored 75% intoxication, 75% hotness, 100% complexity, and 75% craziness!

You are Spice.

You’re not from around here, are you? You’re extremely valuable. While you resemble mundane cinnamon, you are much more interesting. People fight wars over you, but your giant worms protect you.

You enlighten people; make them aware, prescient, even clairvoyant. Your pure essence can reveal people’s true selves, if they survive their encounter with the real you. You’re addictive, dangerous, seductive, and above all else, necessary for space travel.

Link: The Which Spice Are You Test written by jodiesattva on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test

h/t Rev. Dr. Mom

A Bleak Glimpse Forward

Lee directs us to this sobering post on peak-oil, population, and food supply.

From the Rule, Chapter 48: On Manual Labor:

And if the circumstances of the place or their poverty
should require that they themselves
do the work of gathering the harvest,
let them not be discontented;
for then are they truly monastics
when they live by the labor of their hands,
as did our Fathers and the Apostles.
Let all things be done with moderation, however,
for the sake of the faint-hearted.

It seems clear from the passage above and others like it that Benedict envisions his monasteries as self-sufficient as possible. Certainly divisions of labor were well known in the economies of his day as well as later periods—but Benedict praises the manual labor that produces the community’s needs as worthy of true monastics.

In this day and age, I don’t see self-sufficiency as practical or even desirable for most of us, and yet I know there’s more that we can do. M and I have always dreamed of being able to have a big garden where we can grow more of our food than we do. M has been working on identifying locally-grown organic foods for our table.

Benedict has examples scattered through the Rule of what simplicity looked like in his time and place. As we consider our response to our various crises, I keep turning again to consider what “simplicity” can and should mean for us. Not just “consuming green” but re-accenting the motto people of our age grew up with: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.