walking to Zion
Even at the extreme old age of 91, a person needs to feel active and contributing, at least sufficient to pay for the air one breathes, nomesane?
Forty years ago, in another Time and place but not far down the coast, in my church was a peripheral parishioner, his parents were in church more often but he himself might be called a Holly & Egg Christian, with his own special way of speaking that involved injecting "nomesane?" at the end of every sentence. Not "nonesane?" every now and then, but to conclude every period single period sentence period with "nomesane?" full stop. Because he glanced at my face to make sure I'd understood him, I quickly learned that my expected response was to affirm my following-along-ness, by either nodding my head or grunting "uh-huh" or "mm" in response each Time he came to, "nomesane?"
To this day, I can still hear his "nomesane?" as I let my mindset phase from irritation to acceptance to amusement.
He was contracting, "Do you know what I'm saying?" into one word, "nomesane?" and it worked for him, and after I got used to it, eventually between us, as other tiresome word filler habits work for other people. The annoying over-use of the word "like" for example, and the mind crunching "you know?" of the younger generation forty years ago.
At some point in recent years that young man, as he was forty years ago, came to heart and mind and I adopted his "nomesane?" in tribute to that wonderful, liminal, sacred Space and Time in my life. Where, wandering, an Apalachicola Conference was two pickup trucks meeting and stopped driver to driver, blocking "traffic" on any dirt road in town before, in their own Time, continuing on, carefully, around the dog sleeping in the middle of the dirt road. Also because "nomesane?" is somewhat irritating.
Now you know that much more, yet another thing, about me, eh?
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0731 hours Sunday, 20 September. From across the room comes the rapid tic tic tic tic sound of Linda scrambling her incomparable eggs for our breakfast. Our Sunday custom is her perfect, soft-scrambled cheese eggs, lots of cheese.
To the plate she added a crispy strip of chicken bacon, a flavorful delicacy discovered this week in a gift.
Top photo above: my outlook on life these new days of elevating my right leg to help discourage CHF edema.
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Anyway, here's where I'm going, that I woke up contemplating.
In today's Christianity: the simple continuation of YHVH teraphim household God of Abram from the age of the ancient Mesopotamians and Arameans, into our own life.
Late nineteenth and early twentieth century Bible scholarship (they call it "bible criticism," a perfectly apt term that sets unfortunate on our ears) and study of early human cultures, found that it was anciently common for individual households to have their own "hearth god" within the family - - a god or gods who prospered the household and its members, kept them safe, protected them from sickness and danger, and perhaps took them safely away at death. A family associated with its god(s), and when a family moved along, they'd take their household gods along with them.
Genesis doesn't specifically say so, but many Bible students say that YHVH was the private household God of Terah and his family, whom they took along when they picked up and walked from Ur in the land of the Chaldeans up toward Haran to resettle; that households had their own god or gods, YHVH was the household God of Terah, then Abram. Identically, in Genesis 31, when Abram’s great-granddaughter Rachel leaves her father Laban’s house in Mesopotamia to return to Canaan, she steals his teraphim (household gods).
It was a Time before people assimilated as Hebrews, Israelites, Jews under the One God YHVH, eventually Adonai and Ha-Shem the unutterable Name. For reasons, scholars speculate that YHVH was not always solitary, but had a companion, a wife, a goddess - - a fun and interesting track to trek but not one I'm going down this morning. Also intriguing is the notion that custom was to have several household gods (teraphim is plural) at the hearth, not just one; not going there either except to note it, and that it well could have included Terah, Abram and family, perhaps until such Time as YHVH jealously shut all other gods down.
In the course of the Heilsgeschichte, holy stories that developed for the Jews with the key stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Samuel, David and the Prophets as the Hebrew Bible, basically our Old Testament, God called a group of persecuted folk together as Hebrews, Israelites, with himself YHVH (or YHWH) as no longer just the household God of Abraham, but the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob overarching them all as the God of the nation, and the only God for them to recognize, worship, associate with.
See, my chaotic mind is wandering all over the place, but I'm trying to stay focused on a straight line to my point.
With YHVH Elohim as a divine identity connecting Abraham and stories of origins with Moses and stories of separating from the general population and coming out as God's chosen people under their one God, we have the Jewish people.
With Christians emerging from a Jewish heritage with Paul, Jesus, and the Gospels, we inherit, adopt, are adopted into, the faith of Jesus and acclaim Jesus as Son of God, Son of Man, God the Son, a development of the YHVH cult that is Judaism.
Now trying to dig my point out of this. The similarities between
YHVH the personal household God of Terah, Abram and family, now the unifying God of Israeli households - - Shema, Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad, Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One - -
and the same God now metamorphosed in Christianity as the
Trinitarian Father (YHVH Elohim God of Jesus), Son (Jesus with all his Christian manifestations including LOGOS, the prime moving energizing Word in the beginning of creation), Holy Spirit (divine presence spread among us), not simply the unifying God of our corporate faith, but more, the household God of each Christian household, who loves us, cares for us, protects us, comforts us, knows our needs, hears our prayers. Now I lay me down to sleep ...
I've thought, struggled, worked, written with this until I'm exhausted and it's nap Time. So, I'll post it. If I return later and see holes, I'll reenter and patch it up. MeanTime, maybe there's my point, that when we get off by ourselves, here at home alone we have the same household hearth God that left Ur with Abraham.
T91
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thanks to AI help on line as I tried to recollect things taught, learned, picked up in theological seminary more than half my lifeTime ago