Your Caption HereYou've probably heard the expression "...comfortable in his own skin." I've used it myself. But for some reason it occurred to me today what an odd turn of phrase that is. Why is the word "own" in there? Would he be more comfortable in somebody else's skin? No matter how uncomfortable I am in mine I think it would be worse to be in someone else's skin. Never mind the obvious problems that would pose for him.
I got up early and finished the 25th lesson of the first year confirmation curriculum. That's lesson 25 of 25! I still have lots of work to do, beginning with a thorough self-edit. Then I have to make Power Point presentations for many of the lessons, assemble maps and make charts. But this does feel like a milestone of sorts.
The lady for whom I installed all that vinyl flooring owns the house next door to us, where she lived for years. But she plans to sell the house and live in the double-wide where I've been working. She's 88 years old, and keeping up the house is more than she can handle. In fact, the reason for the vinyl was that she feared tripping on the carpet (she drags one foot). Last week she was diagnosed with macular degeneration in one eye, so the timing is especially good.
Her mother was very skilled at making stained glass windows (I've seen pictures of her windows in a church in CA). Our neighbor had two of her mother's windows hanging from the front porch of the house and today I worked on hanging one of them at the mobile home. I'm making a frame out of 1" aluminum angle iron which will hold the 36" x 36" window and attach to a porch railing. But the anxiety of the day was taking down and transporting that window. It's old, it's fragile, and it's very important to this 88-year old lady. Holding it up in the air to take measurements was just a little stressful.
This should elicit at least a smile:
Taking a Nap
Last night's post featured some wildlife photography. Here's a video of some unusual sea creatures.
Unusual creatures from the depths
Lesson 25 is on Hebrew Poetry. I think the form and function of Hebrew poetry goes on the list of the top five things the vast majority of Christians know nothing about. And that's a real shame, because it severely limits the benefits one can receive from reading not just the poetic books, but poetic sections throughout the OT (see, for example, Gen. 4:23-24). I remember when I learned about how Hebrew poetry works and how immensely it opened up those sections of God's Word.
Western poetry - at least the kind most of us actually get - is based on rhyme and rhythm.
The ship sails.
One man bails.
The captain steers the course.
If the ship should sink,
And fall in the brink,
There would be much remorse.
Hebrew poetry has nothing to do with either rhyme or rhythm. It's based on parallel thought. The second line of a pair either re-states ("Completive") or contrasts ("Contrastive") the first line of the two. Consider Ps. 6:1
O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger,
or discipline me in your wrath.
This is a completive parallel; you can see how the second line restates the thought of the first line. In fact, you can match specific words in the first and second lines.
Here's an example of a contrastive parallel, where the second line is parallel in thought but states the opposite of the truth. Prov. 10:1
A wise son brings joy to his father,
But a foolish son grief to his mother.
That's just a most basic overview of the genre. There's a lot more! But try this at home: open to any verse in Psalms or Proverbs and see if you can identify the parallelism. Some are tricky and require additional information on the genre, but see what you can see.
I got up early and finished the 25th lesson of the first year confirmation curriculum. That's lesson 25 of 25! I still have lots of work to do, beginning with a thorough self-edit. Then I have to make Power Point presentations for many of the lessons, assemble maps and make charts. But this does feel like a milestone of sorts.
The lady for whom I installed all that vinyl flooring owns the house next door to us, where she lived for years. But she plans to sell the house and live in the double-wide where I've been working. She's 88 years old, and keeping up the house is more than she can handle. In fact, the reason for the vinyl was that she feared tripping on the carpet (she drags one foot). Last week she was diagnosed with macular degeneration in one eye, so the timing is especially good.
Her mother was very skilled at making stained glass windows (I've seen pictures of her windows in a church in CA). Our neighbor had two of her mother's windows hanging from the front porch of the house and today I worked on hanging one of them at the mobile home. I'm making a frame out of 1" aluminum angle iron which will hold the 36" x 36" window and attach to a porch railing. But the anxiety of the day was taking down and transporting that window. It's old, it's fragile, and it's very important to this 88-year old lady. Holding it up in the air to take measurements was just a little stressful.
This should elicit at least a smile:
Taking a Nap
Last night's post featured some wildlife photography. Here's a video of some unusual sea creatures.
Unusual creatures from the depths
Lesson 25 is on Hebrew Poetry. I think the form and function of Hebrew poetry goes on the list of the top five things the vast majority of Christians know nothing about. And that's a real shame, because it severely limits the benefits one can receive from reading not just the poetic books, but poetic sections throughout the OT (see, for example, Gen. 4:23-24). I remember when I learned about how Hebrew poetry works and how immensely it opened up those sections of God's Word.
Western poetry - at least the kind most of us actually get - is based on rhyme and rhythm.
The ship sails.
One man bails.
The captain steers the course.
If the ship should sink,
And fall in the brink,
There would be much remorse.
Hebrew poetry has nothing to do with either rhyme or rhythm. It's based on parallel thought. The second line of a pair either re-states ("Completive") or contrasts ("Contrastive") the first line of the two. Consider Ps. 6:1
O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger,
or discipline me in your wrath.
This is a completive parallel; you can see how the second line restates the thought of the first line. In fact, you can match specific words in the first and second lines.
Here's an example of a contrastive parallel, where the second line is parallel in thought but states the opposite of the truth. Prov. 10:1
A wise son brings joy to his father,
But a foolish son grief to his mother.
That's just a most basic overview of the genre. There's a lot more! But try this at home: open to any verse in Psalms or Proverbs and see if you can identify the parallelism. Some are tricky and require additional information on the genre, but see what you can see.
No comments:
Post a Comment