Passion Week Thoughts--Roots
Tomorrow I am supposed to teach Isaiah 53 in Sunday Bible Study. That is an impossible task. Impossible to do in 40 minutes, impossible to do in my human spiritual condition, impossible to do because of the depth of its root system--it reaches into just about every other book in the Bible. For example, it refer to Christ as the Root out of dry ground, a reference we see in Revelation 22:16, "The root of David."
So my lesson will be a feeble attempt. But it is an appropriate passage to start Passion Week, and I would challenge anyone who reads this to make it the focus of your preparation for Easter. As I wrote earlier, I observed Lent this year--not by giving up chocolate or liquor or cigarettes, ha, ha--but by giving up anger. And making that decision has been fruitful. I have not been so angry for the last few weeks, not in the deeply felt root of bitterness sense, just in the slightly aggravated sense (due to an overscheduled semester). Giving up anger for Lent has helped me get through the shenanigans of this administration and the media that reports it.
Whether I will go back to my outrage at what's going on after next Sunday--I don't know. There is good and bad anger. I wanted to give up the anger rooted in a sense of personal victimization (a sense not totally based in experiential reality, by the way, which is a post for another day) and wounded self-importance. I don't want to give up anger based on the injustice in this world, and we are doing an injustice to future generations with all this debt, the unborn, those whose civil rights are violated in China, and possibly to our military safety.
This is not to say I disagree with every Obama has done. Drawing down forces in Iraq is reasonable, as is rooting out Al-Quaeda in Afghanistan, and closing Gitmo. But the impression I get with his decisions is that they are very present-based. He's doing what looks good now, not what will have long-term good consequences.
I can work out some of my frustrations by chopping up the soil in my garden. I have expanded my vegetable plot almost 100% (still small) and may plant today--I fear we will still have a frost in April and I don't want to risk that. I do it all by hand, definitely a work out. Hoeing and raking and digging and dragging bags of dirt and manure. Getting the soil ready and (forgive me) pulling up the weed roots is the hardest part of this process.
I should probably get off of this meditation on roots, which is devolving into silliness. Three more increasingly foolish references--I do not dye my hair, so my hair is always the same color down to my roots (the only value of being a natural blond that I can see), and my favorite music genre is roots music--bluegrass, jazz, blues--probably because of my very Appalachian roots.
So my lesson will be a feeble attempt. But it is an appropriate passage to start Passion Week, and I would challenge anyone who reads this to make it the focus of your preparation for Easter. As I wrote earlier, I observed Lent this year--not by giving up chocolate or liquor or cigarettes, ha, ha--but by giving up anger. And making that decision has been fruitful. I have not been so angry for the last few weeks, not in the deeply felt root of bitterness sense, just in the slightly aggravated sense (due to an overscheduled semester). Giving up anger for Lent has helped me get through the shenanigans of this administration and the media that reports it.
Whether I will go back to my outrage at what's going on after next Sunday--I don't know. There is good and bad anger. I wanted to give up the anger rooted in a sense of personal victimization (a sense not totally based in experiential reality, by the way, which is a post for another day) and wounded self-importance. I don't want to give up anger based on the injustice in this world, and we are doing an injustice to future generations with all this debt, the unborn, those whose civil rights are violated in China, and possibly to our military safety.
This is not to say I disagree with every Obama has done. Drawing down forces in Iraq is reasonable, as is rooting out Al-Quaeda in Afghanistan, and closing Gitmo. But the impression I get with his decisions is that they are very present-based. He's doing what looks good now, not what will have long-term good consequences.
I can work out some of my frustrations by chopping up the soil in my garden. I have expanded my vegetable plot almost 100% (still small) and may plant today--I fear we will still have a frost in April and I don't want to risk that. I do it all by hand, definitely a work out. Hoeing and raking and digging and dragging bags of dirt and manure. Getting the soil ready and (forgive me) pulling up the weed roots is the hardest part of this process.
I should probably get off of this meditation on roots, which is devolving into silliness. Three more increasingly foolish references--I do not dye my hair, so my hair is always the same color down to my roots (the only value of being a natural blond that I can see), and my favorite music genre is roots music--bluegrass, jazz, blues--probably because of my very Appalachian roots.
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