Feeling the Rhythm Again
Stalled out.
One foot slides forward, the other stays put as the drumbeat of the first verse echoes back, and I stand straddling the text.
I set aside the online Bible, as much as I love my Biblegateway.com. The feel of worn paper better moves in my heart. So I reach for my leatherbound and push fingertips over the words.
Turning pages fails to drown out the drumming while words march in straight lines and the ground rumbles beneath my feet with the rhythm.
The rhythm.
:: (more…)
Bringing Down the House
Samson.
The world was not worthy of him.
So says the writer of Hebrews, bringing me back around to consider just how it was that Samson found himself amongst the honorable mentions in that great Hall of Faith.
For all the desire to which his eyes wandered, for all the rage that rushed through his veins, for all the destruction his vengeful hands wrought, and for all the self he was content to worship, Samson at last found his moment.
And then we see.
We see how this prodigal, shaved and shamed, unearthed faith before he buried the Philistines.
There came a day, Samson’s last, when in faith he brought the house down. (more…)
It Was Never About the Hair
Shocking, I know. But I’ve never been a girly-girl.
Photos like this one, with hair fresh out of curlers and frills on dress sleeves, belie the child who wanted blue instead of pink and chose hand-me-downs from a big brother over those of an older sis.
I played with dolls because we had them, but much preferred building forts and climbing trees in the woods behind our house. When I did play dolls with my sister and her friends, my make-believe role most often permitted me to take my assigned doll with me into the woods, making an occasional appearance just to stay in the game.
My sister had a much better grip on the doll thing. One year she received the coveted Crissy doll, a beautiful girl with stunning red hair. But Crissy also had a mysterious hole in her head and an unsightly button at the small of her back, there by design rather than defect.
The wonder of this doll was her growing hair.
A girl could tug Crissy’s hair, and long locks would emerge from the cavity in her head. Press the button on her back, the hair sucked back into her plastic cranium and she sported a pageboy instead.
Everything else about Crissy was pretty run-of-the-mill doll business. When it came to the Crissy doll, it was all about the hair.
But when it comes to Samson, it was never about the hair.
There. I said it.
I’ve been wanting to say that for months.
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Would I Know? How? And When?
Not long ago my son informed me that I was still talking about Samson out here. He pointed out that I’d been doing that since, when? Summer?
Yeah, something like summer.
“I don’t even read it now, Mom,” he said. “You’re not funny anymore.”
I don’t worry too much. I still catch him reading when he thinks I’m not looking. And blog or not, he never seems to run out of reasons to laugh at me.
But he’s right. Samson is starting to seem like forever.
The problem is, I can’t shake him off. Every time I think I’m about there, it’s something else. I finally got to give him his haircut, and there’s still more before he brings the house down in his big finale.
It’s like this: Samson never did ask a lot of questions after his riddle backfired.
But he sure keeps making me ask them.
Samson has become for me a looking glass. And every time I see something foul in him, I see my own eyes staring back. I see the work God still wants to do in me. Work I need Him to do in me.
And now he’s done it again.
Here’s the question: If all the fullness of God drained out and left me vacant, would I know?
How would I know?
And when would I notice?
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Fool Me Once, Shame on You — Fool Me Twice, Call Me Delilah
Samson has a new girlfriend.
And now we can understand why those Sunday School lessons were so adamant about students learning to stay away from sneaky girls.
Only, really? I’m not so sure that Delilah was sneaky. She seemed pretty forthright about her intentions. Oh, sure, she didn’t tell Samson that the Philistines had offered her a bulging purse and were hiding in the room every time she tied him up. But she left no question that she sought the secret of his strength only to ensure his capture.
She told him so.
So Delilah said to Samson, “Tell me the secret of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued.” (Judges 16:6)
What about her motive remained hidden?
::
Sleeping with One Eye Open
It’s good to sleep with the lights off.
At my house, it helps dispel that nagging sense of being watched.
A few years ago I saw my ophthalmologist for a solution to some headaches that seemed to originate behind my right eye. I rejected the notion that they were tension related or migraines, more out of defiance than anything else.
He reminded me of how people my age start to have trouble focusing, and set me up in some old-people glasses. I was as defiant about the bifocals as I was the migraine. When I pressed him because I was not having any vision changes except when my head hurt, and that mostly related to an eyelid that couldn’t support itself, he dug a little deeper.
I left his office with a bottle of goo to squirt into that eye to help bring moisture to a dry band running across my cornea.
As it turns out, one of my motherhood trademarks is not just figurative.
I do, in fact, sleep with one eye open.
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If I Talked to God Like that When I Was Your Age…
Have you been around long enough to know that Judges is just not safe for me?
Tiptoe as I might, I will one day trip over my own feet and spend some time stretched out with my face in the dirt trying to sort out why on earth God worked like He did.
Or works like He does.
Or is Who He is.
If this is new to you, welcome.
Every now and again, it’s what we do here.
It’s time.
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10 Cool Things You Can Do with 300 Fox Tails
You’re right, the post title is intentionally misleading.
I only have one idea for what to do with a whole bunch of fox tails. It’s been done, and I’m not sure how cool it was.
But I’ve read that list-posts are popular with readers and I’m all about making you happy. So I figured, why not?
What could it hurt if I didn’t deliver the goods?
It’s not like anybody would get mad and take three hundred foxes, tie their tails together, start them on fire and set them loose in my back yard.
Nah, nobody would ever do something like that.
Except, I suppose, maybe Samson . . .
He might just be crazy enough to do something like that.
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Don’t Plow with Samson’s Heifer
This set-apart stuff can sure go to a guy’s head.
Make a guy a Nazirite and give him awesome hair, and Wham! The whole world revolves around him.
It started with a harmless riddle between a bridegroom and his wedding party.
It turned into death threats, a sobbing bride, and Samson kicking the snot out of 30 guys so he could take their clothes and pay his wager.
All because an arrogant fool couldn’t grasp his calling.
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Why I Wash My Hands After Reading the Word
If you blog, you might notice we oft find ourselves as the Wizard of Oz, hidden in the control booth of Blogger or Word Press throwing switches and levers to project whatever image suits our fancy. Even when we do let down our guard and expose our shortcomings, we do so in a controlled environment, putting our best foot forward. Our words are measured, thoughts processed, outbursts edited.
If folks start to see our true faults, we might be quick to turn up the volume and pour out more smoke. Like the frail wizard, we shout into the microphone, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”
Don’t worry, you can keep reading. I don’t plan to reveal any dark secrets today. But I will point out one of my more neurotic quirks that often wedge themselves under the fingernails of those who know me. You who have only a digital image are more often spared such annoyances of day to day life.
Curse you, Samson. You continue to expose me.
I apologize in advance.
::
My coworkers and I paraded to the cafeteria yesterday and stood in a herd like so many cattle. You’d think we never eat. But the cooks whipped up homemade caramel rolls just the way we like them — warm and free — to kick off the annual Combined Appeal (think: small town United Way) campaign.
When it was this glutton’s turn at the table, I took tongs in hand and felt electricity rack my arm. I tried in vain to hold in the guttural half-scream that left my throat. A nearby coworker jumped away as I jerked my hand back but was unable to rid myself of the utensil, now one with my hand.
Caramel Rolls + Hungry Workers = Sticky Tongs
I seized up.
Once done making my scene, I pulled the tongs from my palm, handed off my plate and slunk to the kitchen to rinse the offending glop down the drain.
I’m not a germophobe. I’m not even particularly neat or tidy. And I don’t live in a spotless home.
But sticky does something deep inside me.
It immobilizes.
So, when Samson stuck his powerful paw into honeycomb the bees created inside a lion’s carcass, I started to twitch.
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I Want It Now!
The hair on the back of my neck just stood up.
The same way that it stood up when I was a kid during the Super Bowl. While the Dallas Cowboys kicked somebody’s rear in one room, we non-NFL fans holed up in another and watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Between the Oompa Loompas looking just a little too much like the scary Jolly Troll in the smorgasbord commercials and the maladjusted characters not getting what they deserved quite soon enough, it’s an old movie I love to hate. Or hate to love. Or something.
It’s one of my all time favorites but still one that creeps me out a little.
On today’s reading of Judges 14 (you don’t want to know for which numbered time), Samson’s giving me that same sick chill.
When he demands that his parents fetch him up a cute Philistine bride, it is as though he’s just slipped into Veruca Salt’s prim red dress and Mary Janes and taken over the Golden Egg Room at the factory. As Veruca implores her doting father to procure a goose that will lay golden eggs (one hundred a day) and lay out a feast for her (of beans, no less), Samson joins in with a rousing chorus of I want it now!
All the while, I find myself wanting to nudge them both a hair closer to the Bad Egg Chute.
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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?
:: (more…)
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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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.
::
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.
:: (more…)
The Wasteland
(I’m in the middle of a Samson fixation.
To help keep the “rhythm,” I’d sure love it if you would
read Monday’s post, “Rhythm,” if you haven’t already.)
::
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.
::
Rhythm
(Part 1 of Samson and Me is here.)
::
I come back to read Samson’s story for the 91st time, this time finally to put pen to paper and make some sense of it. Ambitious, I am.
Stalled out as well.
One foot slides forward, the other stays put as the drumbeat of the first verse echoes back, and I stand straddling the text. I set aside the online Bible, as much as I love my Biblegateway.com. The feel of worn paper better ignites my heart. I reach for my leatherbound and push fingertips over the words.
Turning pages fails to drown out the drumming while words march in straight lines and the ground rumbles beneath my feet with the rhythm.
The rhythm.
Rhythm (rith′em) n [< Fr. or L..: Fr. rhyme < L. rhythmus < Gr. rhythmos, measure, measured motion < base of rhein, to flow: see stream] 1. a. flow, movement, procedure, etc., characterized by basically regular recurrence of elements or features, as beat, or accent, in alternation with opposite or different elements or features [the rhythm of speech, dancing, the heartbeat, etc.] b) such recurrence; pattern of flow or movement 2. flow or apparent movement of a work of art, literature, drama, etc. through patterns in the timing, spacing, repetition, accenting, etc. of the elements.
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Samson and Me
How long?
How long?
Twenty-one chapters long.
I just looked.
I just flipped to the end of Judges to see how much longer this was going to be. If I’m on chapter 13 now, that leaves eight more. So then what, another four months?
I have a Bible in 90 Days. I started it about a year ago. A 365-day year, not a 90-day year. I gave it up sometime after the first 90 days when I don’t think I was through Genesis yet.
The point was to simply read. Not delve into study or hop off along rabbit trails. The point was to get a cohesive picture of the whole Word.
But I’m not wired that way. I couldn’t do it. Oh, I read alright. But sometimes I have trouble turning the page. And not turning the page often enough makes it impossible to jog along at a twelve-page per day clip. So I went back to my trusty, worn, marked up Thompson Chain.
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The Conversation