Normal: y'hVAH is an Ish Milchamah

y’hVah (is) an Ish Milchamah

y’hVah shmo

the Lord (is) a man of war

the Lord (is) his name

Exodus 15:3

Kindly this Sunday morning suffer me to open with a meandering aside about Normal.

From time to Time over my years I’ve thought how nice it would be to have lived in the good old days when my grandfather was a boy and everything was Normal as it always had been, and America was few cities, not so large, not so many of us, small towns and rural, many people living on farms. Families in town had their own chickens for eggs and Sunday dinner, a cow for milk. My grandparents always had chickens, and in The Old Place a cow that wandered in the woods beyond where 9th Street is now. A well with a hand pump and maybe a windmill pump, and a cistern to catch rainwater. There were no airplanes, and while automobiles were a fascinating novelty, they were not to be depended on for long distance, so to travel far, even from here to Pensacola, people went by train, and trains were ubiquitous, you could get to and from anywhere, including St Andrews, Fla. For really long distance overnight you may get a Pullman berth. I prefer a lower berth and raising the window shade to look out when the train slows going through a town or stops at a station platform late at night. In fact, I still best love traveling by train, with a bedroom or roomette and a book, watching the scenery pass all day long and the total privacy that’s only interrupted when the attendant knocks to remind you it’s suppertime and your table is ready in the dining car. My mind loves idealizing those good old days when everything was Normal, and there was peace, wars were in the past and won (for us lost), and unimaginable for desecrating the future.

It’s fantasy, of course, always was, there is no Normal except as a point of view. Normal is what today might be called Virtual, a perception, the instant brief period of Usual when one doesn’t need to realize that life may not always be this settled routine without unexpected jostles from without or within. As to Actually versus Virtually, Normal is a moving target and mine’s not the same as yours. My Normal was 18 years growing up in Panama City on StAndrewsBay, 14 years in Apalachicola, and of the soon 6 years here in 7H maybe 3 years settled peacefully and privately into 7H, paused and unaware that Normal is simply my waiting obliviously for life to strike again. Do my math: 35 years of Normal and 50 years of being jostled and jerked around!

Normal isn’t post-covid19, post-Cat5HMichael, post chasing a screaming ambulance to Pensacola in the wee hours, when life will return to Normal and everything will be as it was Then. Get over it: Normal is What IS, get used to it and live into it, Whatever.

Normal is keeping on finding out that I can still learn. Starting at 75, and still digging at it today at 84 and continuing tomorrow at 85, my effort at Hebrew. Again, if I were starting life over and given my choice, I’d be a Greek Jew so that what interests me most I could first language read. But I can’t start life over any more than I can go back and live life in my grandfather’s generation of America. So I struggle, and may catch on, and sometimes there are surprises that delight.

Because of our abbreviated covid liturgy it’ll be printed in the bulletin but won’t be read in church this morning, but I’m still loving the good old bible story (Exodus 14) of YHWH with Moses leading God’s people Israel out of bondage in Egypt through the Red Sea. And especially the rousing, victorious Song of Miriam (Exodus 15) that Israel immediately raises up praising YHWH with shouts of joy, men and women singing back and forth, that after all these years, generations, even centuries of bondage, YHWH has resumed his love for us and not only delivered us out of Egypt; but now that Pharaoh has changed his mind and sent his army after us, YHWH has led us safely through the Red Sea and, to our everlasting glee, closed the sea in on the pursuing Egyptian army and drowned the lot of them, every man, chariot and horse of them.

So here’s the song, first Moses and the men, then Miriam and the women (Exodus 15)

Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying,

I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously,

the horse and rider thrown into the sea.

The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my victory:

he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation;

my father’s God, and I will exalt him.

יְהוָ֖ה אִ֣ישׁ מִלְחָמָ֑ה יְהוָ֖ה שְׁמֽוֹ

The Lord is a man of war:

y’hVAH is his name.

Pharaoh’s chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea: his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red sea.

The depths have covered them, they sank into the bottom as a stone.

Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power: thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy.

And in the greatness of thine excellency thou hast overthrown them that rose up against thee: thou sentest forth thy wrath, which consumed them as stubble.

And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together,

the floods stood upright as an heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea.

The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them;

I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.

Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: they sank as lead in the mighty waters.

Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods?

who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?

Thou stretchedst out thy right hand,the earth swallowed them.

Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed:

thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation.

The people shall hear, and be afraid: sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestina.

Then the dukes of Edom shall be amazed; the mighty men of Moab, trembling shall take hold upon them; all the inhabitants of Canaan shall melt away.

Fear and dread shall fall upon them; by the greatness of thine arm they shall be as still as a stone; till thy people pass over, O Lord, till the people pass over, which thou hast purchased.

Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance,

in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in,in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established.

The Lord shall reign for ever and ever.

for the horse of Pharaoh went in with his chariots and with his horsemen into the sea, and the Lord brought again the waters of the sea upon them; but the children of Israel went on dry land in the midst of the sea.

And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances. 21 And Miriam answered them

Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously;

the horse and rider thrown into the sea.

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If the song’s images appall you, remember, it may not sound like the God of Peace you visualize, but it sure is victory and peace for Israel: y’hVAH delivers again!