Isaac

I’m not sure what I would do if I found myself on an altar, with my father’s hand wrapped around the handle of a knife ready to slit my throat. But that is exactly the predicament Isaac found himself in. Let’s say it is a safe bet that Isaac knew what was going on. He knew they had not arrived at that mountain carrying a lamb (or any other four legged animal). He knew the fire was pipin’ hot ready to go! He knew what usually took place on top of carefully stacked stones. But there seems to be something missing from the story. The chapter doesn’t give any detail of a dramatic struggle between Isaac and his father Abraham. It just says that Abraham bound Isaac. Does anybody else find this strange? I mean, Abraham was no spring chicken, and Isaac was what, a teenager? I’ve seen plenty of 2 year olds quickly outdistance their parents, I’m sure Isaac could have …but… he didn’t. All we know is that his father bound him, and that Isaac would have been a goner had it not been for the LORD’s intervention: an angel who spoke and staid Abraham’s outstretched hand.

I wonder what the walk back down the mountain was like. I wonder if Isaac resented being bound and almost killed; if dinner conversation was reduced to “Please pass the salt.” Or maybe he was impressed that his father withheld nothing from God. Nothing… not even him! Not even his son whom he loved.

More Notebook Notes

In the midst of my notebook sorting and purging, I came across a few quotations that made an impact on me several years ago. Here is one by Amy Carmichael from her book Thou Givest... They gather:

God- let me be aware,
Stab my soul fiercly with another's pain;
Let me walk, seeing horror and stain;
Let my hands, groping, find other hands.
Give me the heart that divines and understands-
Give me the courage, wounded, to fight;
Flood me with knowledge, drench me with light.

Here is a quotation from C.S. Lewis from the same notebook:

...behind all asceticism the thought should be, "Who will trust us with the true wealth if we cannot be trusted even with the wealth that perishes? Who will trust me with a spiritual body if I cannot control even an earthly body? These small and perishable bodies we now have were given to us as ponies are given to schoolboys. We must learn to manage; not that we may someday be free of horses altogether but that someday we may ride bareback, confident, and rejoicing, those greater mounts, those winged, shining and world-shaking horses which perhaps even now expect us with impatience, pawing and snorting in the King's stables. Not that the gallop would be of any value unless it were a gallop with the King; but how else- since He has retained His own Charger- should we accompany Him?"

High School Poetics

I have been digging through old notes and books from back when I was in High School. This process is part of a new effort to widdle down and condense what I own. Flipping through a few notebook, I came across some poetry that I wrote back in the day. It definately has a sober and darker tone to it. I don't think it was because I was perpetually depressed; I just think writing was a way for me to vent at the time and handle difficult experiences. Most of the poems are not particularly special or well written, but for what it's worth, here are two poems from the High School Heather. 

Silent Music

I shed the tears that weigh me down,
So that I can walk lonely halls.
Here, with head held high, I smile,
While frozen faces slip by, I sigh.

Is there an art to learning art?
I train my hands, but my eyes cannot focus.
I play music that most people cannot hear.
I hold my best on a platter,
only to look down and see that it is broken.
But I'll give what needs mending,
And I'll smile as they pass me by,
Here is where darkness cries for light,
And I'll carry a candle gladly.
I'll carry a candle gladly.

Here is another poem that was written shortly after a friend died in a car wreck.

Adrian

Black road
Silence
Crunching gravel
Tempo increases
Racing wheels
Laughing voices
Breathing souls
Spreading tree
Crunching metal
Brief cries
Burning flesh
Answering silence
17 years old
Peircing eyes
Man forever young
Mother's tears
Friends' disbelief
Silence
Black road      ...questions

Being Unbreakable and Getting Shot

I just recently watched the movie Unbreakable. I like this movie, but because of its serious treatment of the storyline and my preference for comedy, I’ve only watched it 2 or 3 times. The movie is slightly depressing to me, but I enjoy stories about super heroes. The cinematography is dark hued and cleverly manipulated; pieced together like illustrated panels found within a comic book.

One of my favorite scenes in this movie is fairly intense. The son of the main character wants to prove that his father is a super hero, and so one day he confronts his dad in the kitchen pointing a gun towards his chest. The boy believes that his father won’t die if he shoots him, thus proving to the world (and to his father) that there really is something ridiculously strong about him. Up until this point in the movie we have a hunch that the boy is right (to some extent), but we don’t want him to shoot his father because we don’t believe it will bounce off of his chest like a rubber bullet. In this nail biting scene the dad starts shouting at the boy to put the gun down- the mother as well is standing by helplessly, every-once-in-a-while saying a few words to try to diffuse the situation. Finally the dad says something to the effect of “I thought we were friends. Friends don’t shoot friends.” And then the mother affirms his words “Yeah, friends don’t shoot friends.” I’m not sure why this cracks me up every time, but I think it has something to do with the absurdity of the situation, and that the parents pick such an obvious truism to say to the boy. It helped calm down the situation, so I guess the son needed to hear it. In his head, the boy had thought through everything semi-rationally, but there was an obvious flaw in his thought process. If he was wrong about his theory, he would lose more than proof of his father’s super hero abilities; he would lose his father.

I believe, every now and again, we need to hear truisms. Sometimes they come in the form or clichés like “It’s not the end of the world.” or “Ya gotta get back on the horse.” or “If you keep doing that to your face it will stay that way.” And sometimes words just need to come in the form of truth. 100%, non-diluted unclichéd truth. We need reminded of the truth because we either forget it, or we haven’t really thought things through. We have somewhere, somehow, left something vital out of the equation.

I was reading 1 Peter this evening with a group of women in a Bible study, and in the middle of reading it dawned on me that it was really important for me to read some of those verses. They hit home. A little bit like bitter medicine; and at the same time, a little bit like a warm blanket. There wasn’t a gun in the room this evening, but I think I just got shot.  

Set on Pilate

Towards the end of summer, I had a taste of what it is like trying to pacify a mob. I was at Kansas Bible Camp, and acted out Pontius Pilate’s role during Christ’s trial. In order to disguise the fact that I’m the wrong gender to portray Pilate, I penciled in a quick unibrow on my face with eyeliner around 5:15 in the morning, and soon found myself staring down from a second story balcony, viewing a sea of bleary eyed High Schoolers, most of them with sheets haphazardly wrapped toga-style on top of their jammies. No decent trial should meet at this time of day!

Being Pilate, I had a few lines to shout to the mob. It seemed like I kept coming back to the fact that we were on the verge of killing an innocent man. Why would Barabbas look good in comparison to this man, Christ? The crowd shouted up to me “If this Man were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered Him up to you.” But the tone and look of the crowd did not necessarily reflect bunny-eyed innocence. What is the definition of “evildoer,” anyway? It was a situation so perplexing that I could see how it could make friends out of enemy rulers.  Another question that weighed on me:  I asked the camper who was portraying Christ, “What is truth?” I wonder if it occurred to the real Pilate that he had posed this question to Truth Himself. During the reenactment I washed my hands in front of the crowd, trying to show either them, or myself, that I was innocent of “this man’s blood;” I wonder if Pilate, in real life, had witnessed a tinge of red in the water, as torchlight flickered and played on the water’s surface.

It is common practice to act out Shakespearean plays in order to better understand what is taking place. I wouldn’t say the literary works are on the same plane, but I think it’s a worthwhile practice to apply to the Bible as well.

What's in a name?

When I think of the name Victoria, I picture the British monarch who reigned over England and Ireland during the latter part of the 1800s. This queen’s portrait comes to mind, as I envision her pursed lips and British reserve; surely anyone named Victoria would have to carry about the same grandeur and starchiness as this woman did… or so I thought, that is, up until the beginning of last week. It was last week when I met another Victoria at Grade School camp. This Victoria was a wild child, with loose unkempt curls, distracted, energetic grey eyes, and a resolve not to listen to adults. This Victoria wasn’t extremely regal, but she definitely livened up the atmosphere. Mid-week, as I was tuning up my violin to help lead music, she told me “Sometimes, when I hear music, I JUS’ GOTTA DANCE!” And dance she did, in the aisle, or in the small space in front of her seat! Maybe it was an outpouring of being a grade schooler who marches to her own beat, or maybe it came from being, as I learned, a Victoria. As I played the music up front, I was able to catch a glimpse of her abandonment- a lack of conscientiousness that she was in a fairly conservative place. It made me glad that the music I played helped give rise to this demonstration of brimming joy and merriment. I was also a little envious. I was too grown up; carried too many inhibitions; had too many reservations; I was too… well, British, to fully connect with the dancing fun. Perhaps, when everything is weighed out, my OWN name is more closely related to that 19^th Century British monarch.

Falling Trees

     A tree almost fell on my car. Nothing life-threatening; nothing while I was driving, but I almost parked in my usual spot at home last evening, and in the middle of the night a Bradford Pear tree in the front yard decided to split from the rest of the Bradford gang.

Actual Front Yard Footage

      To sweeten the situation, I almost, ALMOST, parked in my usual spot, but last-minute was like “Nah, I’ll pull up into the driveway instead.” I’m glad I did, because I might not have a side mirror or windshield in my car right now. I’m lucky, right? I want to bask in this thought for a while, because the last few days I’ve been feeling anything but lucky.

    

     I am guessing you know how these things go. Sometimes feelings of being less fortunate than others can sneak in stealthily, and sometimes hand-in-hand with the sulky tear-stained face of self-pity. Often these feelings come because of circumstances, or simply because we left the back door unguarded and wide open.

     I’ve been reading a few books for the literature class I’m teaching this Fall. One of them is The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis. Reading through it again, I am reminded why it is one of my favorite books. I will try not to give it all away if you’ve never read it before, but one of my favorite parts in this book is when one of the main characters, Shasta, is riding through some fog on a horse, and he is thinking about how unfortunate he is. A majority of what he sees as misfortune were encounters with numerous lions throughout the long journey that he has just taken. In the middle of this fog he encounters Aslan, the Christ figure in the book (who also happens to be a lion), and the conversation he has with Aslan changes everything. Shasta realizes that he has not encountered many lions along the way, but one, Aslan, and all for important reasons. During this time Aslan walks with Shasta through the fog, and the next morning when the weather clears and Aslan is gone, the boy realizes he had been walking along the edge of a cliff, and it was the lion who kept him from careening over the edge. You could say he was a lucky boy, or you could simply say it was Aslan in his life all along.

I'm not going to attribute the tree limb missing my car to luck. I want to be as wise as Shasta, and realize that lions are not always what they appear to be.