A Truly Astonishing Observation

This from Eugene Peterson's The Pastor:

"Pastor John of Patmos knew his Bible inside and out. The Revelation has 404 verses. In those 404 verses, there are 518 references to earlier scripture. But there is not a single quote; all the references are allusions. Here was a pastor and writer who was absolutely immersed in scripture and submitted himself to it. He did not merely repeat, regurgitate, proof-text. As he wrote, the scriptures were re-created in him. He assimilated scripture. Lived scripture. And then he wrote what he has lived....I wrote an article on Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. I recognized it as a tour de force of spiritual theology. I made the comment in my article that there was hardly a page in the book that didn't have an allusion to the Bible, yet there was not a single quote...She wrote to me,"I have been treated very generously by my reviewers. But nobody has ever noticed that the book is saturated in scripture. I wondered if anyone ever would. Thank you for noticing.'"

The Ten Plagues, as Rendered by the Psalmist and Wycliffe

This from Psalm 78:43-52

As he setted his signs in Egypt; and his great wonders in the field of Tanis.
And he turned the floods of them, and the rains of them, into blood; that they should not drink.
He sent a flesh fly into them, and it ate them; and he sent a paddock, and it lost them.
And he gave the fruits of them to rust; and he gave the travails of them to locusts.                            
And he killed the vines of them with hail; and the (syca)more trees of them with frost.
And he betook the beasts of them (un)to hail; and the possession(s) of them (un)to fire.
He sent into them the ire of his indignation; indignation, and ire, and tribulation, sendings-in by evil angels.
He made (a) way to the path of his ire, and he spared not from the death of their lives; and he closed together in death the beasts of them.
And he smote all the first engendered thing(s) in the land of Egypt [And he smote all the first begotten in the land of Egypt]; the first fruits of all the travail of them in the tabernacles of Ham.
And he took away his people as sheep; and he led them forth as a flock in desert.

Ash Wednesday

Here's a great couple of posts from Daniel Montgomery, pastor of Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, about why churches should celebrate Ash Wednesday and observe Lent. Some good insight on a day and a calendar period that many Christians still view with suspicion.

http://daniel-montgomery-sojourn.com/5-reasons-you-should-observe-ash-wednesday/

http://daniel-montgomery-sojourn.com/how-we-do-ash-wednesday-at-sojourn/

Merton on "movements"

"All movements fill me with suspicion and lassitude. But I enjoy talking to people (except about movements). I think the best thing is to belong to a universal anti-movement underground."
     ---Thomas Merton, in a letter written to Walker Percy, 1967

Wycliffe Crushing it Again

This from Psalm 46:4-5:

"The fierceness of the flood maketh glad the city of God; the highest God hath hallowed his tabernacle.
God in the midst thereof shall not be moved; God shall help it early in the gray morrowtide."

Pretty great stuff, for a "heretic".

"But not this time..."

"Usually, I think the Church's motto is The Wrong Man For the Job, but not this time."
      --Flannery O'Connor, in a letter to Elizabeth Hester, commenting on O'Connor's meeting the Archbishop of Atlanta.

A modest, but at the same time worthy, standard for any pastor to live up to.

The World of World

 Bow thou away from evil, and do good; and dwell thou into the world of world.
--Psalm 37:27, Wycliffe version


Reading my Psalms today from a different translation; the verse above touched me as a particularly beautiful way of expressing something: "dwell thou into the world of world." The journey of faith and its culmination.

"The only real city in America"

Reading Paul Elie's The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage. It's an exploration of the lives and work of Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Walker Percy, and Flannery O'Connor. It's been on my shelf for far too long, and I'm thankful I finally decided to crack it open. Here, Elie describes Merton's first visit to Gethsemani, for a Holy Week retreat in 1941:
     "He had arrived at two a.m., gone to sleep, and risen at four to find the monks already down in the church praying the Divine Office. As a layperson, he was restricted to the visitors' gallery in the rear of the church, and from there he watched the long, slow ritual of monastic worship--the sea of white woolen cowls, the chant seeming to rise toward the stained glass.
     'This is the only real city in America--in a desert. It is the axle around which the whole country   blindly turns...'
     The monks had scattered to the separate aspects of the monastic day: private prayer, study in theology, work in the barns and fields surrounding the monastery, a meal of bread and cheese taken in silence at long tables, and at last the night office, followed by lights out.
     Now, with the monks asleep, Merton sat awake, writing.
     'What right do I have to be here?'"

It's Groundhog Day!

Check out this article from a few years back by Michael P. Foley on the theological and philosophical nuggets that perceptive viewers can mine from the classic 1993 Billy Murray film that celebrates everyone's favorite weather-forecasting rodent and the day that bears his name. If you haven't seen the movie, track down a copy and treat yourself.

http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=17-03-012-v