A Different Story

Jephthah.

Just typing his name sits wrong with me. Too many Hs.

Saying it sounds a little like spitting. And I have an gag-inducing aversion to saliva.

Yet for the past two weeks or more, Jephthah has been with me daily, following me, teasing me like Judges does, daring me to make sense of his story.

Would that I were like that writer of Hebrews who could simply name him in a list and claim he lacked the time to say more.

But I do have the time. I must have the time. For the longer I look at him, the more I can’t look away.

Folks who think the Book of Revelation is hard haven’t spent nearly enough time in Judges.

:: Continue reading ‘Jephthah and His Merry Men’

Jephthah is one of the guys that the writer of the Hebrews didn’t have time to write about. There was plenty to say about him. But the writer simply didn’t have time.

Just like he didn’t have time to write about Samson and Barak, and David and Samuel.

And Gideon. Of course, Gideon.

He sits in some good company, Jephthah, there in the cheap seats in the Hebrews 11 Hall of Faith. (No disrespect toward the honorable mentions here. The place is like the Orpheum: there are no bad seats in the house.)

But to tell his story, well, there just wasn’t time.

:: Continue reading ‘Honorable Mentions’

The distress signal came in earlier this evening.

Nobody wants to overreact.

But this was bad.

It was ugly.

She wasn’t sure, but she just didn’t have a good feeling. If it turned out to be what she thought, she’d never sleep again.

Maybe it was nothing.

But what if it were something? The wrong kind of something? The scary kind of something?

The only way to know would be to move stuff out of the way and get a better look with a little more light.

But . . .

But . . .

But . . . if it were really the bad thing, moving stuff and poking around might just wake it up.

And the unspeakable would happen. The horror movie music was already playing in the background.

So the distress signal went out.

The text message buzzed in.

I think I may have found a gargantuan spider.

:: Continue reading ‘Nothing to Fear’

Win some, lose some.

So goes baseball.

The boys held their own against, well, a better team. They were only down 4-0 in the third inning while the last team to face this same opponent went down by 19 runs in the third inning.

But then came the fourth. Balls instead of strikes. Balls in the outfield. Balls in the infield. Pop flies missed. Ground balls passed. Balls thrown too far. Balls thrown too short. Balls thrown to the left or right of the baseman. Basemen nowhere near the base.

Not their finest moment.

Twelve runs later, they reached the welcome end to a long and painful inning.

And the end of the game.

The young boy in the bleachers in front me, distracted by his own self for most of the game, popped up from his seat as folks started to leave.

“It’s over already?”  A quick glance at the scoreboard told him all he needed to know about a game he’d mostly ignored. He paled a little. “Ohhh. The Mercy Rule.”

Ohhh. The Mercy Rule.

::

Continue reading ‘Mercy Rule’

I  went out with the rest of my town to the park to watch the Fourth of July fireworks this weekend. I know, no need to tell me. Fourth of July isn’t until next weekend.

That’s just how we do things around here.

We got a  preview of the light show many of you won’t get to see for days.

Friday night’s show started a little early because a storm was blowing in. The colorful explosions of black powder and stars competed for splendor with the lightshow God put on. Lightning tore open the curtains more than once on the stage the volunteer firefighters built in the heavenlies.

The beauty of the thing was interrupted now and again by the equilibrium tipping sense that the audio and video tracks were not aligned, not unlike seeing the actor’s mouth move first and words follow later in an old late night rerun.

The light burst open, sprayed out and sometimes nearly faded into the night sky before combustion’s crack pounded across the lake.

The soundtrack lagged lazily behind.

:: Continue reading ‘Sight and Sound’

When I win my Academy Award (which will come as a complete surprise because I have no connection with the motion picture industry), they will not need to start playing the make-her-stop-talking-and-get-her-off-the-stage music to get me to quickly wind up my flowery speech. I’m pretty sure I’ll be standing there behind the podium blank faced muttering something like, “Umm . . . how’d this happen?”

No Academy Award to contend with, thankfully, but Jennifer over at Quail and Manna and More Than Just Adam’s Rib was kind enough this week to send the Kreativ Blogger award my way. That kind of left me standing here behind my own little podium saying, “Umm . . . how’d this happen?”

See, I still get pretty surprised every day when anyone shows up to read. So to have Jennifer take note in the first place (she’s smart, and funny, and insightful and loves Jesus), and then stick my name in the company of two of my favorite bloggers out there (and frankly, among the very best), Getting Down with Jesus and What I Learned Today, well, it kind of just makes my head spin. I’m humbled, and not just a little bewildered.

There are rules to this award, rules I’m having trouble following. First one is easy, though. I linked back to Jennifer. Happy to do that.

:: Continue reading ‘1 may be the loneliest number, but 7 is the hardest’

It’s Wednesday and it’s late and I wanted to be done with this already. I’m supposed to be writing about the guy who just moved to the top of my list of the biggest boneheads in all of Scripture.

I’ll get to him. But he’s going to have to wait. Seems what he has to say to me isn’t what I need to hear right now.

Instead of Judges 11, where I’m studying, a friend tells me to read Psalm 139. Asks me to look and see what I might find there.

I know 139 like the back of my hand. There’s no better place to go and roll around in the autumn leaf piles of God knowing us inside and outside and upside down.

He’s searched me. He knows me. When I sit, when I rise, when I go out, when I lie down.

He knows my thoughts before I think them, my words before I speak them.

I cannot go far enough to find myself outside of His presence.

I am fearfully, wonderfully made. Knit together by none other than the Most High.

He saw me before I was anything to see. He’s known all my days since before He made me in the place none could know.

Cherish the words as I do, 139 just seems to have about as much meaning for me today as that dolt Jephthah and his wrongheaded victory bargain.

:: Continue reading ‘139′

I don’t believe I spent nearly enough time with Ernie. That’s to my loss.

Whenever their battle worn bodies allowed them to come to town for services, she would scoot to the tech booth to give me the one of the best parts of my Sunday morning. Braced with one hand on her walker, she’d stretch the other up to greet me, barely able to reach over the wall surrounding my elevated platform. I’d stand and lean over the short wall of my pen to clasp her hand and absorb the light of the most gorgeous smile on the most tested — and found faithful — woman I know.

She’ll catch you off guard, Marge will. Her petite and sometimes unsteady frame belies the rock she houses within.

But if Marge faithfully started my Sunday mornings, Ernie finished them. Our paths would cross week after week as I’d leave the booth and he’d come to return their hearing devices. Always a handshake, more often a hug and for certain an encouraging word. He’d tell me how they were weathering life’s bumps and bruises, which were plenty, and he’d always draw a smile as he prodded me to keep on with whatever it was I needed to keep on with.

I don’t remember when was the last time I shook Ernie’s hand. The last few months kept him pretty close to hospital and home. But whenever it was, I sure didn’t know at the time that I’d not get another big grin from that old cowboy.

:: Continue reading ‘I’ll Meet You in the Morning’

Now and then in the course of my work day I enlist the aid of an interpreter. I have a caller on the line who is not a native English speaker, and we need the assistance of an intermediary in order to communicate.

Despite my Spanish fluency, I do call for an interpreter when I’m working with a Spanish speaker and a formal statement is required. It protects me from later concerns that I misunderstood or misspoke due to the language and also protects me from being strangled by an English speaking transcriptionist who cannot understand a word of it.

The process goes like this:

I speak to the client in English.

The interpreter interprets what I said into Spanish.

The client responds in Spanish.

The interpreter interprets what he said into English.

Repeat.

Well, that’s how it’s supposed to work. The process can get a little wild, especially when the Spanish speaker also has some level of English proficiency. It got a little crazy that way yesterday.

:: Continue reading ‘Intercessory Circus’