Over The Rhine

Tonight I had the great joy to be at an Over The Rhine concert in Goshen, at the gorgeous Goshen Theater. Ah, life is good. They were jamming just beautifully and they played some new stuff from an upcoming album (due August '07)... my favourite of these is an eschatological piece, mulling over the idea that when the world is reborn, the music shall be with the sound of the trumpet. The lyrics went: "The trumpet child shall play... " and expanded from there. You had to be there, I guess. But it was a good concert, that's what I can say.

Lessons from Third Isaiah

Third Isaiah, (which/who represents chapters 55-66) is a phenomenal bit of Scripture. We were studying passages from Third Isaiah this afternoon in Hebrew class; and what I am so excited about is the way that these passages relate with, expand and re-interpret other parts of the Bible.

Take Isaiah 56:1-8 - one of my favourite texts. The eunuchs and the children of foreigners are clearly invited into the covenant people. Not only that - they're invited into the Temple. Not only that - they're invited to serve in the Temple, like the Levites do. That service or ministry that they are called to join in on, it's from the same root as the Levites.

This is pretty deep stuff, because Deuteronomy 23 clearly says that eunuchs and foreigners are excluded from the Temple, and they're clearly excluded from Levitical (priestly) service.

But here's third Isaiah, opening it all up. Other folks disagree, my prof notes, for example that in Ezekiel 40-48 there's a denouncement of foreigners serving among the Levites; in fact, those particular texts emphasize that only Levites should serve - in fact, only Zadokites should serve, a particular clan within a particular tribe. There's a discussion going on here - who is in and who is out?

And Jesus takes up the refrain from Third Isaiah- "my house shall be a house for prayer for all peoples" - remember that? from, um, the Temple clearing bonanza? Jesus takes the line of opening it up.

Fascinating.

These days, when we're in tense discussions in the church, it's helpful to remember that these discussions exist in the Bible too. The Bible is constantly in conversation with itself; shifting and adapting a position from here to there. That's one reason why it's so dangerous to take one singular text and from that say, "The Bible clearly says...." without having a larger canonical read on the question. What's the larger trajectory that the passage comes in? And if it can be discerned, we need to ask where Jesus lands on the question...

Well, that's your Hebrew lesson for today, boys and girls. :)

sorry for the silence

It's nice to know I've been missed. I had a number of folks let me know that they missed reading my posts. I'm sorry that this one won't be too long, but I thought I'd drop a note so that people know I didn't just drop off the face of the planet.

It's been a busy couple of weeks. Good, but busy.

Two weeks ago Kendall and I had the opportunity to spend a long weekend in Ontario. We saw my cousin Caroline and her family, and spent time with family in Toronto for Saturday night-Sunday. We wanted to particularly spend quality time with the kids - and we did. We went bowling one night, swimming the next afternoon, and had time with Kendall's sister and the kids' dad, and Kendall's mom and dad, and oh, it was so good to be together. I really don't like being far apart. I couldn't look up Toronto friends though, because time was actually pretty tight. But it's so tough to be IN Toronto and not get together and chat with everyone. Next year, I say to myself. Next year. (isn't that what the Jews say at Passover? 'next year in Jerusalem...')

On Monday I went to the Dutch consulate office to renew my Dutch passport - and I said to Kendall on the way there, "I always meet someone I know at the Dutch consulate". I go once every 5 years, what are the odds? But sure enough, I met Eric, who I knew from ICS days in Toronto. He was representing his bike store and his new Dutch import bicycles. Very cool.

That Monday (March 12th) was our 2 year anniversary - and we celebrated with lunch at the Middle Eastern restaurant, who catered our wedding two years ago. It seemed a fine opportunity to us. :) (TWO YEARS! How delightful. It's been a good two years)

The following week, on Monday I was part of hosting Bryan Moyer Suderman in concert at my church, Kern Road Mennonite Church... and that was so much fun. Check out his post on his recent tour to find out more. That was a great deal of fun. I could go on for a while about how much I appreciate what he does with music, church, theology and kids. But perhaps that's another post for another time.

And then on Tuesday I had my senior interview, which is a dialogue with three professors regarding an integration paper on a topic that I am passionate about. I wrote about Sabbath (a huge surprise to those who know me even a little bit). It was a good paper, and I felt good about the interview. They affirmed me as prepared for graduation and said lovely things to me. It was a good experience, but I'm very glad to be able to check that off the 'list' when all's said and done.

This past weekend the sun came out. Ah, Spring. Spring is here at last!!!!! Sunday we played baseball! And we had a BBQ picnic, and stayed outside chatting well into the evening! And we didn't get that cold!

I like winter, but I am ready for spring. Hopefully soon I'll be able to post some beautiful spring blooms from the campus. This campus is gorgeous in springtime.

Well that's the scoop for now. I'll try to avoid a three-week hiatus in the future. CHEERS!

busy dreams

I've been having busy dreams lately. Ordinarily, I don't recall my dreams, so I tend to pay attention when the details stick with me. I'm not a dream expert by any means, but I understand that our dreams are where our psyche process what's going on in our lives. Images, scenes, characters - all these represent various parts of myself, and my efforts to come to wholeness and healing. At least, that's how I understand it.

So - I've had two interesting dreams in the last few nights. Well, I think they're interesting anyway.

Thursday night I dreamed that I was heading to Hamilton District Christian High School with my mother and my cousins Caroline and Cheryl ( from each side of my family) in order to work on a service project there. On the way there, we had to turn around. We had news that the project had shifted location. We were now headed to work on a cruise ship in Chicago - the cruise ship was going to be on its way to Milwaukee. Our job would be to sift and crush the garbage. Half the garbage was American and half was Canadian. We would be crushing the Canadian half, and an American team was caring for the other half of the garbage.

(since when do Christian work teams sift garbage on cruise ships between Chicago and Milwaukee? since when do cruise ships cruise between Chicago and Milwaukee? bi-national garbage sifting?)

Then last night I was on a train with the same folks - Caroline, Cheryl and my mother. The train had no engine, must have been propelled from behind. It had lovely glass windows and we could see in every direction. We were at a small town train station, and folks were crossing the tracks in order to board the train and disembark. Suddenly, around the bend came another train. It was on our track and headed for us. The light got very bright, and then it hit us. But we didn't crash, we just got sent back a ways, like we were in a bumper car ride. We got out of the train and walked back to the station to change trains.

I'm in the middle of some significant transitions in life; anticipating graduation and the beginning of my career as a pastor. We will be moving back to Canada from the US. I'm sure that's all part of this..