4.11.10 may i tremble at Your word!

things that stand out in print this week..

from 'words on fire: the unfinished story of yiddish by dovid katz

i'm going from 'memory' here so obviously you won't want to quote anything written here! hebrew was the language of the jew before the babylonian captivity around 400 bc, aramaic until the fall of jerusalem in about 70 ad, and yiddish since. yid has functioned as the every-day-speaking language which was seen as the bottom rung of a trilingualism which included hebrew and aramaic. the latter were used by men, mostly to study the old testament(hebrew) and the books of 'commentary' on it(aramaic). the diaspora of the jews ironically followed the movement of islam into europe where ashkenaz, current germany, became the center of this ongoing study of the sacred revelation to the jew.

the author uses 'pale of settlement' to describe the jews places of habitation. they have been cruelly treated by general 'christian' society under the charge of being Christ-crucifiers. they have lived as a stateless people many times driven from their homes to another location...if they were fortunate. yiddish was one of the things that enabled jews, wherever they lived, to communicate. katz is good from a scholarly perspective but did not help me understand how exactly this happened, for yiddish borrowed words from every culture the jews lived in...i don't know. maybe some day..

the jews split into various 'sects' all the way from totally secular to the amish-like (adherence to ways of dressing, etc. which clearly mark them as culturally different..in an unchanging-from-generation-to-generation way) haredim. the nation-creating movement in modern israel has developed a type of hebrew which has become the modern language of ivrit (spelling?) hitler's germany was catalyst for the development of ivrit and also the death of yiddish. after the holocaust post-war jewry adopted the languages of their home countries. today only the few remaining pre-war jews and the haradim speak yiddish.

a very interesting thing is discussed on p.375. '..they published a chart in 1995 following the demographic predictions for 200 each of the following categories of jews: hasidic orthodox, yeshiva orthodox/centrist orthodox(neoorthodox)/conservative/reform/secular. according to their projections, by the fourth generation, the 200 hasidim will have produced 5,157 jews; the 200 neorothodox, 692; the 200 conservatives, 48; the 200 reform, 27; the 200 secular, 10. so the projection is that there should be plenty yiddish-speaking into the future.

account of george whitefield's 'thunderstorm sermon..

'on mounting the pulpit near boston, he knelt. to one new observer he looked and sounded rather ordinary as he began to pray aloud. soon he prayed oblivious of his surroundings; 'he seemed to kneel at the trone of Jehovah and to beseech in agony for his fellow beings'. he ended his prayer, knelt a long time 'in profound silence and so powerfully had it affected the most heartless of his audience that a stillness like that of the tomb pervaded the whole house'.

as he rose and began his address, clouds broke the morning sunshine which had streamed thru the tall clear glass of the windows. all the time he laid the solid doctinal foundation on which he built every sermon, it was sun one moment, then shade, then sun, as shadows flitted across. suddently he stretched out his arm at a moving shadow. 'see that emblem of human life! it passed for a moment and concealed the brightness of heaven from our view. but it is gon! and where will you be, my hearers, when your lives are passed away like that dark cloud?

oh my dear friends, i see thousands sitting attentive, with their eyes fixed on the poor unworthy preacher. in a few days we shall all meet at the judgement seat of Christ...every eye will behold - the Judge! with a voice whose call you must abide and answer, He will enquire whether on earth you strove to enter in at the strait gate? whether you were supremely devoted to God? whether your hearts were absorbed in Him?'

by now the sun had gone; the curch grew dark, and in the distance the rumble of thunder. 'my blood runs cold when i think how many of you will seek to enter in and shall not be able. (AND I COULD GIVE A RIP!) o what plea can you make before the Judge of the whole earth?' it was no help that they had read the sacred Word and made long prayers and appeared holy in the eyes of men instead of loving God supremely; they had been 'false and hollow christians'.

the storm was almost overhead. the preacher stood in the eerie light of thundercloud about to break. 'o sinner! by all your hopes of happiness i beseech you to repent. let not the wrath of God be awakened! let not the fires of eternity be kindled against you'.

forked lightning.

'see there! it is a glance from the angry eye of jehovah. hark-'

he lifted his finger. he paused. tension stood at breaking point. a tremendous crash. the thunder pealed and reverberated. as it did away the preacher's deep bell-like tones came from the semi-darkness. 'it was the voice of the Almighty as He passed by in His anger!'

whitefield covered his face with his hands, fell to his knees in likent prayer. the storm passed. the sun shone and the windows reflected a magnificent rainbow. whitefield rose and pointed at it. 'look upon the rainbow and praise him who made it. very beautiful it is in the brightness thereof. it compasseth the heavens about with glory and the hands of the Most High have bended it'.

from the samaritan ministries monthly letter..

health care - galen.org..researching the best ways for patients to be able to exercise individual choice in health care and promotes competition in the private sector

bill frezza, realclearmarkets.com - ...'health care prices are fake, inflexible and inflated because they are set not by the repeated interactions of buyers and sellers but by opaque acts of collusion between goverment bureaucrats and special interests'.

creation.com (creation ministries international, gary bates)..'i realized there wern't any repeatable, experimental types of tests that people equate with science that could be used to prove that the universe is billions of years old.

this being the first year without any tv in, well, i don't know how long, God gave me a nice gift from my sister and her husband: ability to watch march madness from the sweet 16 to the end: duke 61 butler 59 for the national collegiate championship. this year's march madness was some of the best bball i have seen in a while..'my' team, duke, won over a team that may become my second best team in a battle superb. if i could have picked the best championship game match up from my point of view it would have been the one that happened. every butler game and all but one duke game were fantastic. both teams were a 'joy' to watch. a number of other games were a 'joy'...very good bball this year all round...but somehow the old thrill seems gone..strange. a nearly lifelong passion/love fading. if a game was not superb i was able to shut it off. a first. i'm not sure what is happening, but things of this nature have been happening...

i have been struggling with hatred in a growing way for the past year or two. first it was one individual. then two others..another..another etc. this week i became aware that this could easily generalize outward, that it is a very serious heart problem for anyone who professes to love others and to have experienced the love of God. on the one hand i experience God's love at all times. many times it is the only reality i have to cling to. again and again He relates, He forgives, He comforts, He withholds the bad i deserve, He helps and is so patient and gentle and good through it all. this to one who does not love Him at all if judged by what i do (ie. if you love Me KEEP My commandments)..and this goes on and on and on without a hint of Him getting sick of me, without any indication that He's had enough. on the other hand i am so the opposite with other sinners around me. i'm so judgmental..little or no leeway. (a brother recently said, 'why don't you call him again? make allowance for him being human'. i just can't..or i won't. i'm sick of sinners..people, ironically, just like me! i desperately need to be immersed in the love of God is what i feel. i desperately need a touch from God. i desperately need His life within and flowing out. i'm at the end of me. faking being loving just won't cut it any more. i yearn to truly love as i am loved by God. it's easy to love when you are loved, but when you are not it takes a miracle to keep right on loving.

the first time i heard 'sweet dreams' by annie lennox i was struck by the truth of these words and by the horror of that truth. they are words that describe just a part of the truth written in romans 3.10-18 starting with 'they ARE all (and will never cease to be as long as they draw breath) sinners (v9)..

sweet dreams are made of these
who am i to disagree
i travel the world and the 7 seas
everybody's looking for something
some of them want to use you
some of them want to be used by you
some of them want to abuse you
some of them want to be abused..

intellectually i believe the bible is true. i experience God's love and everywhere see many things that confirm the truth of Him and His revelation. but, at heart, i am absolutely empty of the kind of love He has for me and, i believe, for others. in retrospect, i've aped it, imitated it, but am now wondering if i ever have really had it. i know that His love is not feeling-based and maybe i am immersed in a selfish-stew. i just don't know. maybe true, truth-imitating, sacrificial love is never easy and maybe i just want it to be easy. i know that right now i want it to be reciprocated and maybe that too has nothing to do with genuine Godlike love. francis of assissi's ' seek not to be understood but to understand' etc. irritates me at this point. i have no desire or ability to do this or even fake it. I want human love and God seems to cordon Me off from it on every side. i am in crisis over it and hate, hate, hate the continual crucified reality that comes with loving with God's love. may He help me. in the flesh, i want a magic pill so i can love. He wants me bloody crucified.

i know, i know..i have a seemingly incurable negative bend (another of the many things God is showing me). i focus on the negative parts of reality. it's hard, from here, to think that someday i'll finally be cured of who i am. God keeps sending little encouragements to keep going. this spring the bird-chirping has been louder than i ever remember it. it seems like every little one has a little megaphone to it's beak proclaiming, 'everything is just fine!!!' if i could only believe what He is telling me thru His little prophets then out of my innermost being would flow rivers of living water. i long to be a He is....you know, it just occurred to me that in all His faithful, ongoing love for me and for every other person in the world He continually suffers because He never gets back what He would like: a reciprocal true love, in response, from us. if it is true that He continually suffers and yet continually shows love, then there is no way to escape suffering and pain in love or excuse to stop bloody love. right now i'm so thankful to receive this, so unwilling (i would say 'unable') to give it.

have a good week, love, dad