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| Domestic window by Dirck Crabeth for the house of Adriaen Dircxz. van Crimpen, of Leiden. (1543) via Wikipedia |
Van Crimpen was a member of the government. The scenes show seven scenes from the First Book of Samuel in the Old Testament and five scenes from the Acts of the Apostles. Though the house is still standing, the stained glass is now in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.
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| Sebastien Bourdon, Jacob Burying Laban's Images |
Some of us, given the chance to intervene at this point, might choose to punish Simeon and Levi. Justice must be served, after all. But God's ways are not our ways. They will be punished in good time, but Simeon and Levi are not the root of the trouble. To punish them would be a stopgap measure at best. In the same way, destroying sinful man with the flood was not the final solution to the Fall. God planned not to destroy but to save mankind by grace, however undeserved. Wiping out "the bad guys" would leave sin in control of men's hearts, and it was sin itself that had to be dealt with. In this case, God first zeroed in on Jacob's heart, and called him to get right with Himself.All quotes from Genesis, Part II: God and His Family. This series first ran in 2004 and 2005. I'm refreshing it as I go. For links to the whole study, go to the Genesis Index. For more about the resources used, go here.
God told Jacob to return to Bethel, to settle there, and to build an altar to the God who has been so faithful to him. Doing that would do more than remove the family from the scene of the crime, where they could expect further trouble. It would put them where they should have been to begin with, and focus them back on God and on His plan
for them.
It might seem a small thing that Jacob built his altar and settled at Shechem instead of at Bethel. After all, Abraham received the promise of the land at Shechem (Gen. 12:6-7). Jacob did all the right things, just not at the right place. He followed the spirit of the law, we might say in his defense. But God has His reasons for asking particular things, and He requires obedience. Jacob did what God asked but he did it on his own terms. Not going as far as Bethel may be a small thing in and of itself, but it indicates a huge problem inside him: His way, not God's way, took first priority. By returning to Bethel, Jacob will not just obey the letter of God's law, he will humble himself to do things God's way. By settling there he will separate his family from Canaanite influence. And by building an altar and worshiping God he will have the chance to repent, to be purified, and to start again.
In Jacob's response we see that in spite of his mistakes, his heart desire is for God. He acted immediately to move his family to Bethel. In the process he did four important things:
- He had everyone get rid of their foreign gods. Before anything else, they had to get rid of anything that kept them from giving themselves totally to God. Jacob's family divided their allegiance between God and the household gods that were part of the culture they came from and settled in. The other gods had to go.
- Next Jacob had them purify themselves, and change their clothes. That external act was a sign of what they needed on the inside before they could be reconciled to God.
- Now they were ready to go to Bethel, the "house of God." This meant not just doing what had been left undone, it meant putting themselves physically in God's presence in a conscious way. Jacob took them to the place where God appeared to him and gave him the promises, and sought His face there.
- Finally, Jacob worshiped God at Bethel. When you worship, you acknowledge who God is and His greatness and your dependence on him. You accept His will. You throw yourself before Him. You pray when you worship, and as the Catechism says, "Prayer restores man to God's likeness (CCC #2572)." In prayer and in worship, Jacob got back on the road to following God and to becoming more like Him.
Cinder Allia has spent eight years living under her stepmother’s brutal thumb, wrongly punished for having caused her mother’s death. She lives for the day when the prince will grant her justice; but her fairy godmother shatters her hope with the news that the prince has died in battle. Allia escapes in search of her own happy ending, but her journey draws her into the turbulent waters of war and politics in a kingdom where the prince’s death has left chaos and division. Cinder Allia turns a traditional fairy tale upside down and weaves it into an epic filled with espionage, treason, magic, and romance.I really enjoyed Karen Ullo's first novel, Jennifer the Damned, which was a fascinating, unexpected vampire story. So I was interested to see what she'd do putting an "untraditional" spin on a familiar fairy tale (is that a genre yet?).
The French think that a man can face the day with chicory and milk, and a croissant, which probably accounts for their unstable politics.
Robert Heinlein, Glory Road
America is strikingly similar to Corinth. According to polls, most Catholics consider themselves "Americans who happen to be Catholics," rather than "Catholics who happen to be Americans." Two of the words they dislike the most are "authority" (or "lordship") and "obedience." Yet these are precisely what Paul calls for.Everything old is new again!
Christ always sought out the most needy, and His Church has always followed His lead. Christianity naturally flows to the lowest places, like water. Corinth was the world's lowest place, the spiritual gutter. Yet the Corinthians thought of themselves as high, not low — like the high and airy temple of Aphrodite. For one thing, they were rich due to trade and prostitution. For another, they were well educated. Though they did not produce philosophers, many philosophers from Athens taught there. The most prominent philosophical school at the time was probably Scepticism. The last thing any of them would believe was a man rising from the dead.
Peter Kreeft, commenting on First Corinthians,You Can Understand the Bible
The first step is the problem, the “bad news” that we all have a mortal disease called sin, "the Jew first and also the Greek (Gentile)." The good news is that all are offered salvation, "the Jew first and also the Greek. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God."
[...]
The good news makes no sense unless you believe the bad news first. A free operation is not good news if you don’t think you have a mortal disease. In a more realistic age, the main obstacle to believing in Christianity was the good news. It seemed like a fairy tale, too good to be true. Today the main obstacle is the bad news: people just don't believe in sin, even though that's the only Christian doctrine that can be proven simply by reading daily newspapers.
Peter Kreeft, commenting on Romans,You Can Understand the Bible
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| Simeon and Levi slay the Shechemites, Gerard Hoet |
Shechem loves Dinah and wants to marry her. Hamor not only asks for her on Shechem's behalf, he suggests to Jacob that Israel settle among them, intermarry and make their home among them. On the surface this seems a generous offer. But what did Hamor's people have to gain? Why were the men of that city willing to submit even to circumcision so that Shechem could marry Dinah? Clearly they wanted to absorb Israel, which was a potential threat to them, and benefit from God's blessing in people and possessions. This would prove a continuing problem for Israel as it is to us today: the world, if not attacking God's people, seeking to absorb them into itself.Certainly, this is the sort of situation that comes up all too often today. Sadly, we have all too many examples of people who use religion for attacks on others. There is a message in this long ago Old Testament chapter that we can apply to our lives in this very situation.
If Jacob's sons appreciated the true meaning of this Covenant rite, it is hard to imagine that they would ask it of another nation not so they could be joined, but so they could take advantage of the men in their pain and destroy them. They are deceitful like their father, only to an evil end.
... This is the future family of God, His chosen people! Certainly Simeon and Levi are accountable for their own actions. They are deceitful, violent, and lacking in remorse. They use a covenant rite for their own purposes, emptying it of meaning and disregarding its sacredness and value. They show no compassion for Dinah, only outrage. Where there might have been a peaceful solution, she was kept lonely and isolated and shamed. But Jacob must take some share in the blame as well. We have already seen that he has abdicated power to his sons. He does not appear to have brought at least the older ones up in the knowledge and love of God and His commands, as evidenced in their light treatment of circumcision and in the presence in the household of foreign gods (see Gen. 35). When his sons massacre the Shechemites, Jacob's reason for anger seems to be not over the Shechemites' loss, but rather over how the act affects his safety and status in the community. And finally, Jacob seems to have forgotten all God's care and leading over the years. When he hears of his sons' atrocities, his main worry is for the safety of his household -- the household God promised and gave him and promised to protect -- and he does not go to God for help.
How can God allow a bad man to be a pope, or a bishop or priest? Why does He allow sinners into His family at all?All quotes from Genesis, Part II: God and His Family. This series first ran in 2004 and 2005. I'm refreshing it as I go. For links to the whole study, go to the Genesis Index. For more about the resources used, go here.
The obvious answer, that sinners are all He has to choose from, doesn't satisfy. We all know people who are better than others and those, we think, are the ones who should be the Christian leaders. Remember that God called Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Jacob's sons -- and He has called the popes and bishops and He calls us today -- not because we are worthy, but because HE is worthy, and because He loves us. Chapter 34 is not the end of the story. God is constantly calling us as He will call Jacob's family to return to Bethel, to the House of God; to obedience; to worship. As we will see with Simeon and Levi, God does not leave sin unpunished. But His goal is first and always to reconcile his children to Himself.
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| Around the World in Eighty Day, 1873 via Books and Art |
"We-ell, no point in going to war unless you're on the winning side," said Nobby, sticking the white feather in his helmet.
"Nobby, you was always on the winning side, the reason bein', you used to lurk aroun' the edges to see who was winning and then pull the right uniform off'f some poor dead sod. I used to hear where the generals keps an eye on what you were wearin' so they'd know how the battle was going."
Terry Pratchett, Jingo
Ceres is the closest dwarf planet to the Sun. It is the largest object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, with an equatorial diameter of about 965 kilometers. After being studied with telescopes for more than two centuries, Ceres became the first dwarf planet to be explored by a spacecraft, when NASA's Dawn probe arrived in orbit in March 2015. Dawn's ongoing detailed observations are revealing intriguing insights into the nature of this mysterious world of ice and rock.
There was a tension to the thing, a feeling of mute straining and striving towards some distant and incomprehensible goal. As a wizard, it was something Ponder had only before encountered in acorns: a tiny, soundless voice which said, yes, I am but a small, green, simple object -- but I dream about forests.
Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times
Humanity has colonized the solar system - Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond - but the stars are still out of our reach.I couldn't put it down. The combination of space colony/space ship action with the police procedural/mystery proved riveting. It helps that the chapters are short and follow a serial-style cliff-hanger model. This suspenseful space opera is supported by several adventure story arcs within the entire book.
Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. He and his crew stumble upon the derelict ship Scopuli and find themselves in possession of a secret that someone is willing to kill for. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.
Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to the Scopuli and Holden, he realizes that she may be the key to something bigger than just a missing girl.
Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations - and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.
"[The terrorist attack is] all over the TV. If you try to watch anything else, you feel ... like you've lost your humanity."
"Damn if we'll watch it," Jess said. "It's not tragedy, the way they report it, not horror, certainly now war reporting. It's all spectacle, and once you let yourself see it that way, your soul begins to turn to dust."
Dean Koontz, The Silent Corner
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| Isaac blessing his son [Jacob], Giotto di Bondone |
Isaac is the most passive of the Patriarchs. In Genesis 22 he is silently bound by Abraham (though much subsequent Jewish tradition ascribes to him a more active participation). Isaac plays no active role while Abraham's servant acquires a wife for him. A blind and bedridden Isaac is deceived by his wife and younger son. Only in Genesis 26 does Isaac act in his own right -- and here, all the stories are reminiscent of earlier episodes in Abraham's story. Perhaps one implication of Isaac's story is that God's purposes do not necessarily need strong, active, and distinctive people for their continuation and fulfillment.All material quoted is from The Complete Bible Handbook. This series first ran in 2004 and 2005. I'm refreshing it as I go. For links to the whole study, go to the Genesis Index. For more about the resources used, go here.
Jacob is different. His name becomes that of the nation Israel, and his 12 sons become the ancestors of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. In telling of its eponymous ancestor, one might expect the Israelites to tell of a courageous, faithful, God-fearing hero. But Jacob's faults are shown along with his virtues. In his youth, he connives in deception and is a liar as well. When, later in life, he is transformed by a mysterious encounter with God and his name is correspondingly changed, he is still no model. He is a poor parent, showing favoritism among his children and provoking deadly sibling rivalry. The Bible's portrayal of this man as Israel's ancestor is remarkable. It is a reminder that God can use even the weak to do good things. It is a story acting as a reminder that there are many baffling paradoxes in the encounter between God and humanity.
In these narratives, it is made clear from the outset that Jacob and Esau represent the two peoples of Israel and Edom (Gen. 25:23, 30; 27:29a). However much the stories embody the historic rivalries of these two peoples, the chief figures are important in their own right. Their difference is most obvious when Esau forgives Jacob, for in Israel's history -- and especially in Obadiah -- Edom is particularly remembered for its ruthless exploitation of Jerusalem when the latter was overthrown by the Babylonians.
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