By Another Light

 

Teva

 "The history of religion and philosophy is really the history of the profound human belief that we have faculties capable of responding to orders of truth which, did we apprehend them, would change the whole character of our universe; showing us reality from another angle, lit by another light."

Evelyn Underhill

     God uses signs, symbols, and stories to speak to His people... imagery of the invisible for visual people.

      In Genesis 6:14, God speaks to Noah, "Make for yourself an ark of Gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch." The Hebrew word translated 'ark' is teva, and is used twice in the Hebrew Scriptures: regarding the 'ark' of Noah and the 'basket' of Moses (Exodus 2:3). A teva is a sacred container, a vessel designed to protect and carry its contents. 

     Teva also means word.

Teva

    
     The three characters in teva- tau, beth, hey- remind me of a night in the life of Moses, the night called Passover.

 

     God instructed Moses to place lamb's blood on the posts and lintels of every Israelite home... forming a cross.

     The Children of Israel were thus protected from the Angel of Death on the night called Pesach- the feast of freedom, by the blood of the lamb.

     As I meditate on teva today, July 4- Independence Day- the characters say to me: 

"Behold, the house whose doorway is covered by the blood of the Lamb who hung on the cross and is the Word; that house is free indeed!"

laundromat Theology

Photograph by

Victor A. Jones, Jr.

"We're all in the same boat,

and we're all seasick."

G.K. Chesterton

     Laundromat chairs are functional, not comfortable. Maybe comfort is overrated. 

I just finished Tell Me A Story, Finding God (and Ourselves) Through Narrative by Scott McClellan. He mentions a group whose theology was 'formed in a season of abundance.' It's dangerous to frame a worldview from a comfortable chair. 

     This is Passover Week. Millions of people this week will retell a story of escape and a story of wilderness wandering. The wilderness is not comfortable. It's also dangerous to frame a worldview in the wilderness. 

     Agur the son of Jakeh, the oracle, said this,

"Two things I asked of Thee, O' God,

do not refuse me before I die:

Keep deception and lies far from me,

Give me neither poverty nor riches;

feed me with the food that is my portion,

Lest I be full and deny Thee

and say, "Who is the Lord?"

Or lest I be in want and steal,

and profane the name of my God."

Proverbs 30:7-9

     In the 1st Century AD, a Jewish Pharisee turned tentmaker wrote these words to a group of people in the Mediterranean city of Philippi-

"I know how to get along with humble means,

and I also know how to live in prosperity;

in any and every circumstance

I have learned the secret of being filled

and going hungry,

both of having abundance and suffering need.

I can do all things through Him

who strengthens me."

Philippians 4:12,13

     And so, as I frame these thoughts from a laundromat chair I am grateful for this remembrance-

I have clothes.