The Next Bishop of Rome

Since the news seems to be dominated by papal speculation and since I've got nothing better to hoot about, I might as well join in.  I imagine that picking a new Pope is not too different from hiring a new manager. I've hired quite a few people in my time, and I usually like to set certain minimum standards for what I consider to be a successful candidate.  I'm hoping that the cardinals that are locked in the Sistine Chapel brought a list like this one with them.

1.  Must have leadership skills. The charisma to inspire combined with the will to get things done.

2.  Must not be a pervert.

3.  Must not feel overly sympathetic to perverts.

4.  Must be willing to make priestly celibacy a matter of conscience and not of obedience.

5.  Must accept that all religions are but creations of mankind and are but imperfect reflections of our attempt to understand, worship, and live as the Creator intended.  As such, doing God's work comes before the Church.

6.  Must understand and accept that when Jesus commanded us to love one another, he meant to love one another, without exception.  A church that excludes anyone or makes clear that it will not give its full love to all, regardless of ethnicity, appearance, sex, or sexuality, is not following this most important commandment.

7.  Must accept that no one person or group of people can possibly understand the ineffable wonder that we call God, and that therefore no one is infallible.  That being the case, while some people may have a degree of moral authority, that authority is one of persuasion and not coercion.

8.  Must understand that different people, all around the world, will understand and express their faith differently.  This reflects the beautiful diversity of our many cultures and peoples.  It is a good thing.  As such, the Bishop of Rome may be in communion with the Patriarch of Moscow, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, and the Senior Pastor of the Belchertown United Church of Christ, but he cannot command them as if he were a medieval monarch.

Truthfully, I'd be surprised if any of the electors will be carrying such a list.  The most we can reasonably hope for will be someone who meets the top three criteria.  Still, there are many who say that the Church is facing a crisis, and that there is a reform movement among the cardinals.  That's an intriguing notion.

And even if they end up choosing someone who thinks that everything is just fine the way it is now, at least it will be a good show.  The Vatican does pageantry better than anyone.

Glenn's Book of Quotes Number Twenty-Seven

"By doubting we are led to enquiry, and by enquiry we discern the truth." -- Peter Abelard

I distrust people who have no doubt.  If you do not doubt, you do not think, and people who do not think proceed with absolute confidence in the rightness of their motives, and absolute blindness to the consequences of their acts.  I have met people of faith for whom doubt is a sin.  Just as the unexamined life is not worth living, the unexamined faith is not worth believing in.  If you have not doubted, you have not really thought about your faith.  If you have not thought about your faith, how do you really know if it is the truth?  Do you not trust yourself?

When someone says that they know that God exists because it says so in the inerrant Bible, I back away.  When someone says that they know that God does not exist because he cannot be dreamt of in their philosophy, I pity them.
When someone says that the political philosophy they subscribe to is so certainly good that society should be re-ordered as they prescribe, I reach for my culture.

When someone says that they don't know, I'm right with them.
When someone says that they believe that they are right, but that they accept the possibility that they might be wrong, I tend to trust them.

I sing the praises of doubt. Thomas doubted, enquired, discerned the truth, and strengthened his faith.  Doubt strengthens the mind, promotes tolerance, seeks diversity, and fights fanaticism.

Question everything.

Unless, of course, I'm wrong.

The Aztecs Had It Right

It's a big consumer orgy, a celebration of life that is also a season of buying lots and lots of stuff. Sure, it's lots of fun (except for the people who work hard to make it happen for all the rest of you), but it is also exhausting and expensive. We do it every year, year after year, and we call it Christmas. And I say it is just too much. Buying ourselves into debt in December, then paying for it all year until the next December, is madness. Which is why I'm advocating a return to a simpler, more American time. I say we should look to Mesoamerica for our authentic traditions and embrace the ways of our Aztec forefathers. Now they knew how to have a consumer orgy/celebration of life.

First of all, they didn't do it annually. They did it only once every 52 years.

The Aztecs knew that the earth would eventually come to an end. Their religion taught that there had been four previous worlds and they had all died. They knew that this one would be destroyed by earthquakes. They knew that this destruction would happen at the end of one of their calendar's 52 year cycles. They just didn't know which cycle it would be. So once every 52 years they would would spend five days getting ready just in case history was ending. They'd get all their stuff, plates and pots and whatnots, break them, and throw them away. They'd clean up, make the house all spick-and-span, douse any fires they had burning, and then climb up on the roof to watch the end of the universe. It was like everybody going off to visit Milliways at the same time.

The priests were also looking to the skies, but they weren't just sight-seeing. They were looking for the Pleiades. When it reached its zenith and continued on they knew that the world had not come to an end and it was time to begin the New Fire ceremony.

First they had to light a fire. This was terribly important because if the fire was not lit the sun would not rise in the morning, having been destroyed forever. Since it was so important they naturally started the fire on some guy's chest. Everyone was pretty nervous as they did their best boy scout imitations, including the guy they were using as a hearth. Once the fire got going everyone would breathe a sigh of relief, then they'd take the fire off the guy and get it good and roaring. The fellow with the burned chest was then cut open and his heart would be removed and thrown into the fire. Let the party begin!

The fire would be carried to a temple in the capital city where it would be used to light specially made torches. Runners would then take the flame to all parts of the empire and it would eventually light every hearth in the land. Imagine the beauty and joy of the ceremony, the New Fire being carried into town, the warmth of the flames, the renewal of life and the connection of every home in country to one another and to the universe.

Then, of course, came the consumer orgy. Since everything had just been broken up and thrown away everybody would need to buy all new stuff. Happy New Fire! Here's a pot. Here's a new obsidian knife. Here's a floor mat. And we've got to pick up a whole new set of household idols.

There would be much rejoicing, especially among the makers and sellers of stuff. And I imagine that everyone was pretty thankful that this wonderful day usually only happened once or twice in a lifetime.

So I say, let's get back to the good old days, the old time religion of the Aztecs. Sure, it had some gruesome bits, but it still beats having to go through Christmas every year.

By the way, what's the Nahuatl word for humbug?

St. Lewis of Black

I've read some of the works of evangelical atheists, so I thought I knew what to expect when I was handed Me of Little Faith, a book on religion by avowed atheist Lewis Black. I was wrong.

Not entirely wrong. I expected funny, I got funny. I expected it to be witty, to use humor to cast a harsh light on some of the more ridiculous aspects of organized religion, and I got that. I expected a classic Lewis Black angry rant or two, and I expected the book to be profane and irreverent. Naturally.

I also expected it to take cheap shots at faith. I expected smug arrogance, like I've heard from Bill Mahr. I expected weak straw man (straw God?) arguments like I've read in Christopher Hitchens. I expected to see the inane “how can you believe in a big buddy in the sky” sort of junk that passes for reason I've seen way too often.

I didn't expect thoughtfulness. I didn't expect self-doubt, which is usually lacking in evangelical atheists and their equally fanatical counterparts, religious zealots. I didn't expect respect for people of faith. But that's what I got.

So forgive me Lewis Black. I should have had more faith in you.

Me of Little Faith is a funny, occasionally laugh out loud funny, collection of very short essays, mostly on the subject of religion. Some are clever, some are terrific, some are just a passing thought on paper. It includes a play that Black wrote a few years ago that he admits the critics didn't like, and I'm afraid I'm with the critics. And near the end it includes Black's idea for a new religion. One based on the idea that God, whatever He may be, wants you to laugh.

In that, I think I think I am luckier than the famously disgruntled comedian. I actually believe in that God already. Isn't that funny?

It's the End of the World, and They Know It

And I feel fine. The other day I was out for a healthy little walk, breathing in the bus and truck fumes of a dull little city just north of Boston. It's a drab, unimaginative place, so any flash of color easily catches my eye. What's this, I say, as I cross the street. Someone has slapped a sticker onto this grimy metal pole. What is it this time? A rock band? A political candidate? Nope, it's the end of the world. Judgment day, it says, is May 21, 2011. Wow. Best get my things together.

Lord, I do love the rapture. The concept that God would call the saved to heaven, leaving the rest of you poor sinning slobs to hell-on-earth, was invented in the 18th century. It was pretty much unknown to Christianity before that fun-loving bunch the Puritans started stirring the theological pot. It was really taken up in the 19th century, of course. What was it about that century? It seemed to be filled with energetic madmen and geniuses, doing wonderful, terrible, creative, destructive, and amazing things.

Take William Miller. His careful study of the Bible revealed that the rapture would occur in 1844. Jesus was coming and you all better get ready, he preached, and a lot of people heard the call. He soon had a national movement of believers, one of the largest Christian sects in American history. The date was finally narrowed down to October 22. And how did that work out? History calls it the “Great Disappointment.”

But that was by no means the end of the end of the world. Careful studies of the Bible has revealed date after date. Do you remember this poster? It was all over the Boston area about 30 years ago.

It's a concept that will never die. And why should it? It's a powerful image, a great motivator, and a real cash cow. It has been the basis of movies, bestselling books, and computer games. But it's all going to end now. After May 21, not even nine months away, things are going to be very different, if you can believe this bumper sticker (and if you can't trust a bumper sticker, what can you trust?).

It turns out the mind behind the sticker is Harold Camping, a radio preacher. His message is that God wants you to quit your church, get ready for the May 21 rapture, and for the rest of us we'll just have to suffer until the end of the world on October 21, 2011 (mercifully short, at least).

Now, you might want to dismiss Mr. Camping, but I'm not so sure. After all, he has a good deal of experience in this predicting business. His original big prediction was that Jesus would return to earth in 1994, on September 6. As far as I can tell, that didn't happen, but he's bound to be right sooner or later. Maybe he's due.

So what can I say? Hope you got your things together. Hope you are quite prepared to die. Looks like we're in for nasty weather. One eye is taken for an eye.

I Don't Care if it Rains or Freezes, Long as I Got My Plastic Jesus

Until last night a 62 foot statue of Jesus rose from a large baptismal pool at the Solid Rock Church along I-75 in Ohio. While the church may be built on a solid rock, the statue was made of styrofoam on a metal frame, and covered with fiberglass. It cost about a quarter of a million dollars.

Touchdown!

Last night it was struck by lightning and consumed by flame.

While some may be tempted to suggest that the Lord was expressing his opinion of the church's theology, I will not. Certainly I disagree with some of their tenets. I don't accept that the Bible is the expression of the mind of God. No book, no matter how revered, can capture the mind of God. Doctrinal and style differences aside, I'm sure that the Lord has a lot more to be angry about than one megachurch in Middle America.

I do think God has a sense of humor. Perhaps he noticed that the number one seller at the church's online store is a CD called Worship on Fire by the Fire Choir.

God may indeed be speaking here, and perhaps I can attempt to interpret what the He is saying.

While it is true that the Bible contains much wisdom and many of God's laws, it is not the alpha and omega in itself. There is other wisdom and there are other laws. For example, if you build a tall metal structure on a flat plain or in a pond, and you locate it in a place that has occasional electric storms, you can be pretty sure that it will eventually be hit by lighting. If that metal structure is covered with flammable material, the result will be flames. In other words:

And the Lord created the laws of physics and probability, and you ignore them at your own peril. And the Lord looked down upon the graven image and spake.

“Shazam!” sayeth the Lord.

Ineffable

I just read Karen Armstrong's A History of God and it is going right onto my to-be-re-read pile. I knew it would be going there when I was only about a third of the way through the book. I was standing in a crowded subway car reading. At the stop before mine a woman who had been sitting across from me got up to leave, saying “that's a great book.” I agreed, telling her that it had got me thinking in new ways about the history of religion. She said that she wanted to read it again. I told her that I thought I would too.

A History of God is not, in fact, a history of God. Nor is it a history of religion, per se, but a history of the concept of God as considered by the three major Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Armstrong begins at the beginning, in the years before the concept of the one God took hold. Our species has always worshiped and wondered about the spiritual matters, the world beyond our senses and the mysteries of existence. It is a defining characteristic of mankind. Built into our DNA, we are creatures that seek God.

All three faiths see Abraham as the progenitor. It was he who began to worship one God. As an old man he heard the voice of God and began to follow him and him alone. Who was this one God? The Bible tells us that Abraham did not know the sacred name of the Lord. He called him “El Shaddai.” Here Armstrong asks a question. Was El Shaddai, the God of Abraham, the same God as the one worshiped by Moses and his followers in the desert? She tells us that scholars think that El Shaddai was a local Canaanite deity.

What was so unusual about worshiping one of the many local deities? Nothing, really. What was unusual was the exclusive covenant Abraham made. He worshiped his God and his God alone. Even more radical, when he moved he and his family continued to worship his God. He refused to pay fealty to the local gods. This was the great difference, this idea that God could more universal, greater than the small regional gods all around them.

By the time of Moses God had become something wholly other. While Abraham's grandson Jacob could have a literal wrestling match with God, such a concept would have been blasphemous to the Israelites who followed Moses. God had developed into a being of such unimaginable power and majesty that He could not even be contemplated in mere human form. He would appear as flame or smoke. To look upon him was more than a man could bear. Moses, who spent time with Him, was physically changed. His face glowed with such light that he had to wear a veil so as not to cause injury to those who encountered him.

What happened to the relatively simple deity of Abraham? Had he evolved? Did he change? Of course not. But as man changes, grows, and becomes more capable, his concept of the divine changes. Armstrong traces a history of these changes, comparing and contrasting the different strains of faith and understanding in its three major expressions. It's a fascinating journey.

Recently the book has been criticized by scholar Stephen Prothero who says that Armstrong stretches to find commonalities that don't exist and ignores significant differences. This strikes me as being deliberately obtuse. Armstrong is careful to point out differences, explaining that core dogma of each faith can be seen as being blasphemous to the others. She also points out the significant splits within those faiths as different groups of people at different times followed their own path toward understanding. What is remarkably similar is the experience, as articulated by some adherents to each religion, of the ultimate, of the feeling of the divine and the sense of the numinous. Those who have have followed the paths of their faith or who have broken new ground within that faith will describe a deep, profound experience that transcends dogma. She writes that it “seems that when human beings contemplate the absolute, they have very similar ideas and experiences. The sense of presence, ecstasy, and dread in the presence of a reality—called nirvana, the ONE, Brahman or God—seems to be a state of mind and a perception that are naturally and endlessly sought by human beings.”

The faiths evolve as man grows. Some adherents follow a path of reason, others of dogma, and some of mysticism. All seem to have their place and all have enriched the history. But Armstrong is not an uncritical observer. She uses the example of St. Bernard's persecution of Abelard to demonstrate what religion can become when dogma rejects reason. She writes of the differences between the mystical, imaginative approach and the path of pure reason.

In the end I see the greatest wisdom in accepting the imaginative power of mysticism while employing reason and engaging in the centuries long conversation that is tradition.

The concept of the divine changes and grows as man himself changes and grows. Now we are in a new age, an age different from all others in history. Today, belief in God is a matter of personal choice. Faith is no longer an societal given. Each generation must create its own imaginative concept of God. God is a subjective experience; he cannot be described by a formula that is universal for all. Our concept of Him is transformed by our own personal religious experience. I wonder what the next generation's expression of the divine will say about Him. And us.

Holy Nail!

Archaeologists working at a site believed to be a base for the order of the Knights Templar have found something interesting. They dug up three skeletons, three swords, and an ornate box. One of the swords bore a Templar symbol. The box, when opened, contained one thing; a nail. They have since dated that nail to the first or second century AD. The implication is clear. This must be one of the great relics of Christendom, one of the Holy Nails with which Jesus was crucified. It can now take its rightful place among the other thirty or so Holy Nails known to exist.

Wonderful things these Holy Nails. They can protect people and horses. They have been known to calm angry seas. But with only thirty of the original four available, you probably think that you can't have one. But wait! Now you too can have a Holy Nail of your very own. Perform miracles! Make your home a destination for pilgrims! A thousand uses! Order yours now, operators are standing by.

Tales From the Crypt

We spent part of an afternoon at the Museum of Fine Arts this week, mostly looking at the new exhibit, “The Secrets of Tomb 10A.” I've always been a sucker for ancient Egypt, so I had a wonderful time. 10A was the tomb of a governor and his wife who were mummified 4000 years ago. Sometime in the distant past Governor Djehutynakht's tomb was tumbled by grave robbers who made a hash of the place, ripping everything, including the chamber's mummified inhabitants, to bits. In 1915 archaeologists working for the MFA found the place, and the museum has spent decades putting things together. It's really quite fascinating. There were dozens of model boats, some symbolizing the boat that the dead would take on their journey in the afterlife, some representing boats used in funerals, and others of a more pedestrian nature, like kitchen barges (upon which little figures can be seen making beer) and fowling boats, used for hunting. Bits of the canopic jars where there, which surprisingly had feet instead of flat bottoms. Models of people about their work, making bricks or farming, were found near tiny representations of jars, bread, tools, weapons, and walking sticks, symbolically giving the deceased the things he would need in the afterlife.

I found the coffins themselves to be the most interesting. Little things, like the liveliness of the painted birds or the details on the doors painted on the inside were strangely moving and beautiful. Little painterly touches give one a sense of connection to a tomb artist of the Middle Kingdom period. I was reminded of Shelly's "Ozymandias." “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains.” Nothing of the power of kings and governors lasts, but art, the work of unknown carvers and tomb painters, that lasts and is still charged with power, millennia later.

The richness and complexity of their religion is daunting. It seemed as if every surface of the coffins were decorated or written on. The robbers had broken the governor's coffin apart, affording us a view of the parts that were never meant to be seen, including the places where one panel was attached to another, forming a join. I was struck by the hieroglyphs scratched into the joins of the coffin's panels. They weren't decorated, as they would be unseen, but it was still deemed necessary to write spells here. The inside of the boxes were virtual spell books, giving the dead all the words he would need to proceed safely through the complicated, hazardous, and wonderful life that awaited Egyptians on the other side.

The complexity and diversity with which human culture makes it's efforts to come to grips with the eternal never ceases to fascinate. The ancient Egyptian effort was, perhaps, the richest and most difficult of all. Intertwining mythologies that changed based on what part of the Nile Valley you came from and what century you where there, with century after century layered on top of that, created one of the greatest wonders of mankind – Egyptian religion, and all that it inspired. Remember, when Djehutynakht died the great pyramids had been standing for about five hundred years. In all that time the culture and religion didn't stand still. It kept evolving, changing, and growing. It's only natural that he needed a guidebook.

I wonder, is religion, and all its expressions, the great collaborative art project of every civilization? In attempting to grasp truths beyond our ability to comprehend, are we in fact creating truths and beauty beyond what would otherwise be our ability to create? Looking at the care and skill that those ancient artists lavished on things both simple and beautiful, reading the the prayers and incantations written for the governor, I am moved by the power of belief.

Bumper Sticker Politics, T-Shirt Theology

Do you remember all those T-shirts and bumper stickers from a few years ago that read “01.20.09?” Did you think they were funny? Well I didn't. I thought they were negative and mean spirited. They brought nothing to the debate but acrimony. You want to criticize the president, his party or policies, then fine, do so. But leave the empty-headed negativity to sports, where you can indulge yourself by saying the team from some other town stinks. It's still obnoxious, but at least it doesn't really matter.

Today I read about T-shirts and bumper stickers that say “Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8” The verse reads “May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership.” I like that one even less. Taken out of context, the verse cited simply calls for another to take his place in the Oval Office, no different than the 01.20.09 signs and the 01.20.13 signs I've already seen. But biblical verses do not exist without context. The next two verses continue: “May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes.”

That isn't even close to funny. It is, in fact, it's a stone's throw from being illegal.

Psalm 109 is a curse, what biblical scholars call an imprecatory psalm. The psalmist calls upon God for help against lying, deceitful enemies who falsely accuse him. He calls down a terrible curse upon those enemies. Its use is nonsensical, as the president, while he may be viewed as an enemy by his political opponents, does not stand accused of bearing false witness against anyone. This disconnect between the quoted verse and the target of the curse suggests a glibness in the use of the Bible that I find to be somewhat distasteful.

Contemplating this, I find myself comforted by another verse -- Proverbs 26:2.

“Like a sparrow in its flitting, like a swallow in its flying,
an undeserved curse goes nowhere.”

My Dear Wormwood

The other day I strolled into my neighborhood bookstore. I had been reading a big history and wanted to take a break, so I was browsing for books that I've always wanted to read but just never got around to. I fell upon The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. That's been on the giant to-be-read list for a very long time.

As is often the case when I do this sort of thing, I feel a bit of a fool for not having read the book before. Perhaps if I had read Lewis's wisdom years ago I'd have not fallen into error, as I certainly have. On the other hand, when I look back at myself as a youth, I see a pretty sharp guy who lacked a good deal of the wisdom I now have. I'm not sure that I would have taken the lessons this book offers. I'm not sure I would have understood. As Edmund Wilson said, “No two persons ever read the same book.” I am not the same person I once was, and neither, I hope, are you. I've already added Screwtape to my to-be-read-again list to see what a grayer me gets out of it. I think it's a rather nice gift to my future self.

The book is in an epistolary form, made up of letters from Screwtape, a senior demon with an administrative post in Hell, to his nephew Wormwood, a young tempter on his first assignment trying to secure a soul for his master and from God, here described as the Enemy. The central literary conceit is that old notion that every person has a guardian angel and a demonic tempter at his side, whispering advice. I think this personification of our internal dialog can be a useful tool. It can throw light on what might otherwise be dimly realized thoughts. It can help us be more aware of the cognitive distortions that often lead to needless anguish. And it can help us to focus on our healthier notions, the “advice” of our “guardian angels.” One caveat though: if you find yourself coming to believe that the voices in your head are really other people, seek professional help.

The cartoon image of the devil on the shoulder is usually seen as advising big, flashy sins of the seven deadly or ten commandments variety. That's not what Lewis was interested in here. In one letter Screwtape tells his nephew that he should create a feeling of dim uneasiness and a numbness in the heart of his “patient.” He will then no longer need to provide pleasures as temptations. Rather than focusing on work or sleep or prayer, the man will waste his time doing things he neither likes nor dislikes.

You can make him waste his time not only in conversation he enjoys with people whom he likes, but in conversations with those he cares nothing about on subjects that bore him. You can make him do nothing at all for long periods. You can keep him up late at night, not roistering, but staring at a dead fire in a cold room. All the healthy and outgoing activities which we want him to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that at last he may say, as one of my own patients said on his arrival down here, "I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked". The Christians describe the Enemy as one "without whom Nothing is strong". And Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man's best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off.

It's the little sins that seem to get most of us. Self destructive habits, mindlessly wasting the little time that we have, not pursuing real happiness, not being about our work, not doing what we know to be healthy, that's what destroys us. It separates us from God, Lewis says. Our own little tempters don't need to counsel violence when despair will do. If we can't be separated from religion, we can at least be separated from God by focusing our minds on how superior we are as Christians. The Enemy would rather have us focusing on mere Christianity and selfless love of others. According to Screwtape:

The Enemy wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if hit had been done by another. The Enemy wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his own favour that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbour's talents—or in a sunrise, an elephant, or a waterfall. He wants each man, in the long run, to be able to recognize all creatures (even himself) as glorious and excellent things.

I don't want to leave you with the impression that the book is a collection of nothing but profound insights. It is a form of novel; it tells a story, cleverly and with some humor. Sometimes Lewis uses Screwtape to comment on matters regarding England and her Church, but most often he is writing about things that apply to the universal human condition. I'm already looking forward to reading it again.

Glenn's Book of Quotes, Number Fifteen

"Fools show their anger at once,
but the prudent ignore an insult." -- Proverbs 12:16

I told you that I'd give you one from the Book of Proverbs. It's pretty solid advice too. Folks who walk around with a chip on their shoulder seldom come to good ends. I've seen a lot of hotheads make a bad situation worse. Keep your cool. This has been a public service announcement from the Committee to Keep You From Making a Fool of Yourself.

Proverbial Wisdom

The Book of Proverbs is a great read, chock full of useful and interesting, um, well, proverbs. Lots of it still speaks to us today. Some of it, not so much. I re-read it the other day and added several lines to my famous Book of Quotes, which I may share later.

It got me thinking about various attempts over the years to produce a gender-neutral translation of the Bible. Proverbs makes clear the futility and folly of the effort. Like a lot of the books of the Old Testament, it is an anthology of writings and wisdom stitched together as one volume, often reflecting different styles and points of view. Much of Proverbs is intended to be advice to a young man about to enter adulthood. The proverbs are intended to remind the fledgling of the way he must follow and the things he must avoid to lead a good life. Some of it is advice on choosing the right sort of wife and avoiding the wrong sort of woman. Trying to pretend that these lessons were intended to be universal takes it out of its context and strips it of meaning. Taking instructions to a young Jewish man of a couple of millennia ago and finding universal wisdom in them is a valuable exercise, but trying to do that in a translation is a mistake.

While the core message of the text is that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, it expands upon that to give advice about not ruining your life by breaking societal taboos. We all know that coveting your neighbor's wife is one of the top ten sins, but it can also lead to a whole lot of messy problems here below. There are several admonitions against giving in to the wicked wiles of your neighbor's wanton wife. I found the advice of 6:25-26 to be particularly interesting:

Do not desire her beauty in your heart,
and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes;
for a prostitute's fee is only a loaf of bread,
but the wife of another stalks a man's very life.

Yes, if you are sorely tempted by a married woman, the Bible's advice is to get yourself a prostitute. This sort of thing tends to create difficulties for people who argue that the Bible is the inerrant word of God and that every passage therein can be used as a guide to life. It is filled with little contradictions. Several other passages condemn those who patronize the oldest profession. Proverbs 29:3 tells us that

A child who loves wisdom makes a parent glad,
but to keep company with prostitutes is to squander one's substance.

Oh darn. I was all set to go check out the naughty pages on Craigslist.

I'm interpreting the meaning of these apparently contradictory proverbs as being that while both are sins, one of them is far worse as it could cost you your very life (few prostitutes have dangerously jealous husbands). I could be wrong about that. Bear in mind --

One who is clever conceals knowledge,
but the mind of the fool broadcasts folly. (12:23)

I have a lot more to say about the proverbs, but perhaps I should just keep it to myself. Don't want to look too foolish.

That Old Time Religion

One of the intriguing things about reading the Bible is the very ancientness of it. It's a little glimpse into the life of a vibrant, interesting tribe of people as they lived thousands of years ago. That alone would make it a fascinating read, even without the fact that it is the most influential book in western civilization. I've been thinking about the Book of Psalms lately. Imagine singing psalms in the Second Temple. Some of them would have been contemporary. Some of them had been sung hundreds of years ago in exile in Babylon, and some would have been sung hundreds of years before that in the First Temple. You would have felt connected by song, ceremony, and ritual to your whole community, the living and the dead going back more than a thousand years.

I wonder what those ceremonies were like. Had you been in Jerusalem, say 2200 years ago, what would you have seen and heard in the Temple? We'll never know for sure. What was the music like? How did they dance, play, and sing? What were the rituals, the gestures and actions, the stagecraft, if you will, of faith? The psalms themselves sometimes give us tantalizing little clues.

Psalms 75, 76, and 77 include instructions at the beginning like “To the leader: with stringed instruments,” “according to Jeduthun,” or “Do Not Destroy.” The meaning of the first one is obvious, the other two might be something like saying “to the tune of . . .” My favorite bit of instruction is in Psalm 118. This one has what many scholars consider to be a textual error. It's going along normally when the poetry suddenly stops making sense. Check out verses 26 and 27:

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD.
We bless you from the house of the LORD.
The LORD is God,
and he has given us light.
Bind up the festal procession with branches,
up to the horns of the altar.

Those last two lines don't make any sense. They are singing the name of the Lord, blessing someone “from the house of the LORD,” that is the Temple, and then, what? What do those two lines mean?

Did you ever read a play? You'll notice that the dialog is interspersed with written stage directions. This is likely the same thing, but in this case a bit of liturgical direction has gotten mixed into the verse. It looks like a transcription error, a biblical boo-boo. Read it this way and you can try to imagine what it must have been like. The choir is singing, blessing the one who comes, probably with a festal sacrifice. They sing that the Lord has given us light. Perhaps one of the priests stokes up the fire at that point. Then the priests would bind the sacrifice to the altar. The song continues:

You are my God, and I will give thanks to you;
you are my God, I will extol you.

Which seems an appropriate verse for a sacrifice.

Interesting isn't it? Those two odd lines might just be giving us a glimpse into a ceremony that was centuries old when Jesus was born.

There are a few other psalms that I find particularly intriguing. Psalm 6, which is sung with stringed instruments; “according to The Sheminith,” whatever that was, is a lament and a prayer for healing. The first seven verses recount the psalmists miseries and ask God for help.

I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears;
I drench my couch with my weeping.
My eyes waste away because of grief; they grow weak because of all my foes.

Suddenly, everything is different.

Depart from me, all you workers of evil,
for the LORD has heard the sound of my weeping.
The LORD has heard my supplication; the LORD accepts my prayer.

What happened between those two verses? I wonder if there was some sort of ritual done at this point to indicate God answering the prayer. Something we can only imagine but can never really know. The psalms were not dry literature or poems quietly read, but an integral part of a vibrant religious service.

Can you hear the celebration of Psalm 150?

Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp!
Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe!
Praise him with clanging cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals!

This was a loud, singing, dancing, fervent musical of a sabbath.

Not all of the psalms were quite this joyful. Psalm 51, for example, clearly comes from the time when the people of Israel were captives in Babylon. The Temple of Solomon had been destroyed. The traditional sacrifices could not be made, the traditional rituals could not be performed.

For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.
The sacrifice acceptable to God is a Broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

It ends with a prayer that the Lord will allow the sacred city of Jerusalem to be rebuilt so that He would again “delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings.” The people yearned for the rituals of their fathers.

Who can blame them? Imagine singing and dancing in the Temple, the spiritual home of your people, the physical nexus of your covenant with God, when number 100 is the song of the day.

Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth.
Worship in the LORD in gladness; come to him in singing.
Know that the LORD is God.

It must have been wonderful.