Business Up Front, Party in the Back (or, Samson Was a Nazir-what?)
Five posts into the Samson series, and we still haven’t made it to the really big deal, the thing everybody likes to talk about: his hair.
I’m pretty sure we made his hair the big deal about the same time as the flannelgraph and modern Sunday School came on the scene. (Sorry to burst anybody’s bubble, but nope, John Stamos wasn’t really the father of the mullet; Samson was. And yes, I’ve been known to watch too much TV and movies. But I promise, not lately.)
My theory is the prospect of explaining Samson’s whole story for young kids came off a little daunting and so we took the shears to the story, not to his hair, clipping away to something that felt easier to teach.
To prove out my hunch, I did a little Googling and found that after we trim away the sideburns and hard questions, we’re left with Sunday School lesson plans that have learning objectives looking a little something like these:
- Students will recognize that girls are sneaky.
- Pupils will learn not to listen to sneaky girls.
- Learners will discover that sneaky girls will destroy them.
- Students will remember that girls named Delilah are sneaky and deceitful.
- Learners will be reminded not to cut their hair because it makes them more vulnerable to the wiles of sneaky girls named Delilah.
This is what I remember about Samson too. His hair was a really big deal, and he was a sucker for a sneaky girl.
Samson had it all, and lost it all when a sneaky girl tricked him and cut his hair.
But is this it? Have we taken away all we can from Samson’s story when this is all we see?
What about his utter lack of self control? What about his short fuse and relentless drive for vengeance? What about his superficial motion-going with his Nazirite vow?
His Nazir-what?
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Repost: Truth, Lies & Snidely Whiplash
I sit with several unfinished drafts in my folder, none of which I’m able to complete. Somehow, it appears I forgot how to write over the weekend. Begging your pardon while I repost and try to regain my bearings. Only two and a half of you probably caught this anyway when it posted during my first full week of blogging.
And if you happen to see me out wandering around, laptop dangling and drool on my chin, point me back home?
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I grew up watching Rocky and Bullwinkle and loving it.
My favorite is a Dudley DoRight episode. In case you weren’t so enchanted with talking moose and flying squirrels (or too young to know better), let me fill you in.
Snidely Whiplash is the show’s villain, and with his handlebar moustache and black hat is perhaps even the caricature on which so many other villains are based.
The episode opens with Snidely lamenting what a pathetic, disgusting creature he’s become. You see, he has a nasty habit of tying helpless young ladies to railroad tracks. (“I have this thing,” he explains.)
His favorite victim is the delightful Nell Fenwick, a beautiful damsel with lovely blonde curls who is always rescued just in the nick of time by her brave and daring boyfriend, Dudley DoRight of the Royal Canadian Mounties.
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Getting the Monkey Off My Back
I awoke this morning in a stranglehold.
Don’t get me wrong. Lane was sleeping peacefully, at least until he got up at 5:00 to wake Isaac for football practice before school.
And no, the blanket wasn’t tangled around my neck.
But it’s lunchtime now, and the strong hands wrapped around my pencil neck haven’t yet let loose.
It’s time to get the monkey off my back, as there simply isn’t room for both of us in my desk chair. And besides, it’s difficult to breathe.
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I Can’t Handle the Truth
Manoah, on the whole, asked good questions.
His failure to recognize God on the scene wasn’t for a lack of trying.
He knew the guy who spoke to his wife was a man of God, and he went to God and asked to send him back. He wanted to make sure he had it right. “Let the man of God you sent to us come again to teach us.”
We’ve already considered how that’s a prayer God loves to answer.
But Manoah’s inquiry continued while the answers became a wee bit more elusive.
When he asked the man of God his name, the angel shut him down. And I can’t help feeling a little like Col. Jessep just handed Lt. Kaffee his backside when he shouted, “You can’t handle the truth!”
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Bookends
I left the house with three items on my list: soap, bandanas to patch my too-many-years-old threadbare Levis (my favorites, but they’ve gone beyond the point of immodesty in places), and bookends.
Yes, bookends.
L-shaped pieces of metal that sit on either end of a row of books to keep them from Dominoing onto the floor.
I needed some.
The ambitious expectations I had for my recent vacation days dwindled down to just cleaning off my desk. The tower of books stacked behind my computer leaned as though longing for Pisa and convinced me it was time to set them on a horizontal plane.
The books stay with my desk, more convenient than the wall of books in the basement. Some are staples for which I reach often. Others, in various stages of completion, rotate until I reach the last page and they move to the basement wall or out on loan.
There are always others waiting their turn.
But books are like good friends. Sometimes they need a little help standing up.
So I embarked on a quest for bookends so I could be their good friend.
Who knew they would be so hard to find?
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Meet the Parents
They mean well.
But gosh. Samson’s parents strike me as about as unzipped as Ferris Bueller’s mom and dad.
Later on they bear an awkard resemblance to Veruca Salt’s father in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. But that’s to tackle another day.
When Samson’s screenplay was scripted, somehow or other his parents slipped into that two-dimensional caricature of parents who are endearing but just a little empty-headed.
Cute but clueless.
But they mean well.
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The Wasteland: Alternate Ending Edition
This could easily be the earliest “re-post” post ever. At least in these parts. But here’s the thing. I got stumped the other day finishing up The Wasteland. The desert place caught up with me, leaving me a little dry around the edges. I’m not one who often asks for help; too proud for that.
But I did something here I’ve never done before. I asked you to finish the post for me.
And some of you did just that. With cool, refreshing words that filled me up.
But I know not all of you have the chance to come back and splash around in the comments. I didn’t want you to miss out on this chance to soak up the liquid sunshine these readers poured out.
So put on your galoshes and open your umbrellas:
The Wasteland: Alternate Ending Edition.
(And you can still weigh in if you didn’t get a chance the first time around.)
:: :: ::
Parched. Desolate. Impoverished.
Empty. Fallow.
Depleted.
This is barren. This is the wasteland.
This is the woman, standing lifeless in withering field, sunscorched. Hands crack open as she labors to find life among brittle stalks, knowing she will never labor to bring life from her own womb, dry and fruitless as this desolate soil.
This woman is nameless, faceless. Known to us even today only as Samson’s mother.
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Standing in the Water
Stepping aside just briefly from Samson.
If you haven’t had the opportunity to read
the first two, I’d love for you to catch up
with Rhythm and The Wasteland
if you can spare the time.
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I’ve stood three times in the baptismal waters.
Once, I stood in the baptismal tank at the front of my childhood church to make my own confession of faith at the tender age of eleven. Fully submerged, I sputtered back through the water’s surface to hear the congregation sing as one voice.
Jesus my Lord will love me forever, from Him no pow’r of evil can sever . . .
Again in my twenties I stood waist deep in a Twin Cities lake, humbled to hold a dear friend as she descended under the water. She, with hundreds of others, emerged from the cool water proclaiming the joy of her salvation. She stood back on her feet to the cheers and applause of hundreds more on the shore.
And once more, barely a day ago, I stood in the algae green waters of a lake that splits Minnesota from South Dakota. This time, the waters lapped only at my ankles, soaking the hems of Levis I’d failed to roll quite high enough.
Would it trouble anyone if I said that it gets a little sweeter each time I step in?
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The Conversation