A lot of prayers are like a truck driving backwards down the highway at maximum speed, and I can prove it from the scriptures.
Author: eejoseph
Idols not an idle industry
One of the books in the Christian library is Bel and the Dragon. It tells of how Bel, a Babylonian deity, is exposed as the product of a fraudulent priesthood. People assumed that Bel, a huge statue of some kind, consumed the food that they placed before him. The book presents the hero as the same figure in the Bible, Daniel, a Hebrew in Babylonian exile. Here are some snippets from the drama.
The exchange between the king and Daniel
Then said the king unto him, Thinkest thou not that Bel is a living God? seest thou not how much he eateth and drinketh every day? (Bel and the Dragon 1:6, KJVA)
Daniel’s smiling response.
O king, be not deceived: for this is but clay within, and brass without, and did never eat or drink any thing. (Bel and the Dragon 1:7, KJVA)
So a plan emerged to keep a close eye on sacrifice and the interval between the sacrifice and the morning, when the food would normally be gone. In brief, the priests were caught devouring the food with their families each night when they thought no one was watching.
So when they were gone forth, the king set meats before Bel. Now Daniel had commanded his servants to bring ashes, and those they strewed throughout all the temple in the presence of the king alone: then went they out, and shut the door, and sealed it with the king’s signet, and so departed. (Bel and the Dragon 1:14, KJVA)
If this story be true then what are we to make of all the idols that are still being made and worshiped across the planet? You can see why such a book is in what we call the Apocrypha. I suspect that there are people who are convinced that idols have a secret life, a dimension we are yet to discover. Idols that walk, eat, drink, asleep, and have children are certainly wondrous, but idols will be shown to be incapable of doing the ordinary activities of the people who worship them. You can see why idols are a thriving business in government, religion, and business.
The past and the future are sometimes necessarily connected
What’s the best advice you’d give to someone younger than you?
We use our experiences to make sense of the path we are on, but sometimes completely new destinations and new companions become central to our agenda. Then the comfort and confidence we expect and are accustomed to are hard to find.
We can make sure we have spiritual, mental and physical refuges when life’s turmoil seems to be in every lane. Live joyfully and confidently.
When you are young, go with the passion that elevates you and your community, and when you’ve matured embrace your youthful gems.
What’s your top tip to be successful in life?
Far too many humans never grow up, and the world is caught in the vices of juvenile pseudo-luminaries. Night life, with its scarce moonlight, has not been able to properly define success. Success, to be identified, needs the light of day. It is shallow and short-lived if its contributors are handrails and training wheels. There comes a time when the child needs no escort to school, and the parents know their supervision of the child ends, and the child’s greatness is in the child’s hands.
Never stop growing your grasp of knowledge, your grace to others, and your greatness.
Jonathan Seagull
What’s a book, movie, or TV show that you wish you could experience again for the first time?
This title belongs to a book, my sister’s, which I peeked at over five decades ago. I am now recognizing that it was the most likely spark for my personal obsession with flight. I do not mean aircraft. I mean flying without wings or other attachments.
I fly in my dreams, in my songwriting, in my pursuit of life-changing truth, and in my imagination of what our world might become.
Phase out and clean slate
We have found a lot of ways to identify ourselves with the demands of the Old Covenant and even sometimes try to align ourselves with people who are in touch with evidence of the promises, but this is a fantasy that flies in the face of the great icon of faith, Abraham. We glibly say that we commit ourselves to the ten Commandments as the foundation of morality, and then we go on to add, according to our own evaluation, festivals, food restrictions, and golden rules. While many of the tenants in the Old Testament and under the old Covenant are accompanied with consequences or sanctions. The phases of life are by design, and so are the solutions of life’s problems. Let us consider that the phasing out of the sunlight brings a clean slate to people who have become unclean under various rubrics of the Covenant, and discover whether we have phased out of the truth.
Sundown: the undisputed cleanser
There were several types of uncleanness that an Israelite in the camp under Moses might have experienced. I will list a few. Ancient Israel appears in sync with the easy solutions repeatedly.
- Touching certain animals
- Eating certain animals
- Bodily discharges
- Contact with a woman on her menses
- Contact with vessels or articles a menstruating touched
- Male ejaculation renders the involved male and female unclean
- A priest performing sacrifice is defiled via contact with blood
With respect to all of these categories of uncleanness, we find the use of water and simply waiting for sundown ushered the defiled into the arena of clean again. Here is a typical scenario of the transition.
Then the priest shall wash his clothes, and he shall bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he shall come into the camp, and the priest shall be unclean until the even. (Numbers 19:7)
Sundown! Everybody waits for you no more
Towards the end of the Tanakh, in Haggai, the prophet is prompted to ask priest a diagnostic question about the transfer of cleanness on uncleanness, and they fail miserably. They do not understand how the thing works.
Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean. (Haggai 2:13) Then answered Haggai, and said, So is this people, and so is this nation before me, saith the Lord; and so is every work of their hands; and that which they offer there is unclean. (Haggai 2:14)
Christians are not better off looking for miracles rather than waiting for sundown, and we are not justified in carrying guilt over external defilements (it makes no sense to ignore a bodily discharge) that require divine atonement. Aligning with this mismanagement of the solutions we find ourselves phasing out the wrong things and majoring in minors. As Jesus puts it, we find ourselves straining out tiny flies but swallowing camels. Surely there is enough sundown to deal with uncleanness.
Happy mourner, gleeful compassionate
What’s a common misconception people have about happiness?
A common misconception people have about happiness is that it can be achieved by accumulating objects that bring delight or satisfaction. Of course that is happiness, but it is transitory because it prepares the field for futility and emptiness when the objects disappear. A variation of this arrangement is that happiness is merely the feeling and that feeling can be experienced at will through chemical means. This approach leads to abuse. Happiness then may be seen and experienced under any of life’s circumstances. Happiness is an emotion and also an attitude. Might I be happy at the funeral because I met the deceased’s son or daughter?
I am fascinated by the biblical reclining to eat
What’s a cultural tradition from another country that you wish existed in yours?
Tables seem to work against the nourishing effects one expects at dinner time. Even the Greek word for the posture at meal time is fascinating.
συνανάκειμαι – I recline, I sit with (to eat) contains two prepositions, sun and ana.
