Perspectives: Bikes

I'm not sure why this caught my attention - I think it is the idea that there are so many different sized bikes. Not one size fits all - as in life.

Futureholders

Roman Krznaric, in his book The Good Ancestor, writes:

Just as companies have shareholders, societies have futureholders: future citizens whose interests and welfare should be considered in the decisions that will affect their lives.  Some you have already met - your children or other young people you know - while most are yet to be born.

I think this is true, and I think that considering the interests of futureholders is difficult. Just the definition he provides - those "whose interests and welfare should be considered in the decisions that will affect their lives" - illustrates why it is difficult. It is an unselfish and non-self-centered way to think. Maybe too often we pretend our own interests align with the interests and concerns of futureholders so that we don't have to deal with the conflict between what we want and what is good for the future.

We can ignore the interests of our grandchildren when we fail to act to preserve the environment by reducing carbon emmisions, but what I'm talking about has a more pervasive subtext. Do we ever mask the needs of the future generations by "pasting" our own interests over theirs, and fooling ourselves that we are then considering their interests? Maybe, for example, when we tout "progress" we are saying it is important for future generations (and maybe it is, or maybe it isn't), but what we are really doing to placing our own needs and wants over those of the futureholders. 

Krznaric goes on to say that we need to expand "our ethical imaginations forward in time." We have difficulty doing that even in the present, but expanding it to the future - for generations we can't even imagine yet - is particularly challenging.

Book Review: Genesis: A Beginner's Guide to the Beginning

Information about the book

Genesis: A Beginner's Guide to the Beginning by Amy-Jill Levine.  Published by Abingdon Press, Nashville, 2026.  (Amazon / Cokesbury).

Summary

From Amazon: Genesis: A Beginner’s Guide to the Beginning invites readers into the foundational stories of the Old Testament with clarity, depth, and imagination. Amy-Jill Levine presents Genesis as a living text, one that continues to shape faith, identity, and our understanding of what it means to be human. These familiar stories are often heard in fragments; here, they are explored with care, curiosity, and theological insight.

With her signature blend of historical context and engaging storytelling, Levine opens up the book of beginnings, attending to its beauty, tensions, and enduring questions. She invites readers to linger with stories of creation and responsibility, rivalry and loss, judgment and mercy, promise and perseverance, revealing how these ancient narratives still speak with power today.

The book purchase includes access to 6 video sessions of 10-12 minutes each and access to other leader resources.

Impressions

This book examines key stories from Genesis, including The Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, Noah's Ark, the Near Sacrifice of Isaac, Jacob's Stairway, and Joseph's story. (I think she needs to write a volume 2 with more stories!). 

Levine is a professor of New Testament and Jewish studies at Vanderbilt University. I'm not sure how many books of hers I have read - looking at my bookshelf, I see five, but there may be more. I can't recommend this book (or the others I have read) enough. They are inspiring, educational, and enlightening. Any of them are excellent for personal study or group work. 

Posts about book

Levine Genesis

 

Perspectives: Hiding Kitty

 

Self-glorification as Legacy

I'm currently reading The Good Ancestor by Roman Krznaric.  This book was referenced several times by the keynote speaker at a recent Stewardship Conference I attended, so I picked it up. 

The chapter called "Legacy Mindset" begins with the thesis that people want to be remembered.  Krznaric says that there are two ways (in general) that people choose to express their legacy.  Read this quote about the first way:

"Some pursue an egocentric form of legacy, hoping to be remembered and glorified for their personal achievements.  That was the approach of Alexander the Great, who had statues of himself built throughout his empire, including the sacred Greek site of Olympia. The legacy he sought was to be venerated in perpetuity for his heroic actions and brilliant conquests, and to be memorialised like a god -- unsurprising for someone who claimed to be a direct descendant of Zeus. Today's corporate oligarchs who use their philanthropic largess to have buildings, football stadiums, and museum wings named after themselves have similar ambitions."

First, I think dividing people's motivations into two catagories is oversimplified to say the least, and I would never propose that everyone whose philanthropic actions result in a naming opportuity are completely motivated by glorification.  That said, I read this and wondered if this kind of legacy-seeking, when motivated not by service but by self-glorification is a way in which we tend to worship a god other than God - a god we make of ourselves.

That came to mind as I watch the currently elected president work pretty desperately to place his name on multiple buildings, actions, and new construction. Do we see how this self-glorification is not Christian (or anything but self-worship)? I think it is an attitude we would normally not condone.

How do you or I do this ourselves? What can we do to change it?

 

Serve and Guard

Chapter One of Amy-Jill Levine's book, Genesis, was full of interesting and eye opening information. I'm going to focus this post on one aspect of the chapter, but the whole exploration of the Creation stories is rich.

Take a look at Genesis 2:15:  "The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it."  Levine focuses on the word "till."  To me, to till is to dig in the ground, clear out the weeds and rocks, and plant seeds. I'm not a gardener or a farmer, but that's my impression.  Levine says, "The term translated 'til' in in Hebrew eved, a term that appear over one thousand times; it connotes not so much technical gardening...but 'serving'; its noun form gives us both 'servant' and 'slave' as well as 'worker' and, amazingly, the Hebrew term for 'worship."

What does it mean to think that God put people in the garden to till it? If tilling is serving, then what does it mean to serve the earth? It's not just taking advantage of the benefits of soil to grow food, but it means that we are tasked with caring for the earth itself - providing what it needs - serving it.

She goes on to say, "The connection between the land and the connotations of 'work,' 'service,' and 'worship' shared by the same Hebrew root is supported by the Hebrew term in 2:15 for 'keep,' shamar, which conveys 'guard or 'protect."

How does it change our understanding of being in the Garden (and in the world) to till and keep it if it connotes serve and guard?

 

Perspectives: Gone Fishing

 

The Story of God

If we are going to tell the story about God, what story are we going to tell?

This is a line from a sermon given by our pastor, Rev. Sarah Wilmoth.  If we are going to tell the story of God, what story are we going to tell?

There are options, right? Our story can be of the god we make in our minds - a god that favors us, blesses us, and judges others. A god that makes us comfortable and rewards our seemingly attentive use of the word "Christian" to describe ourselves. We might tell of a god that rewards us with riches as a transaction for attending worship, or giving of our gifts. Maybe we tell of a god that judges others harshly but provides us with grace.

If we are going to tell the story about God, what story are we going to tell?

Or maybe, we tell the story of God. The God that has entered our lives to change them. A God that created everyone in God's own image so that all are blessed and sacred. Maybe we tell the story of a God that forgave us and continues to forgive us, even though we sin - a God that offers all of us grace. Maybe we tell the story of a God that loves you and loves me, and loves even those we would, in our sin, despise. Maybe we tell the story of a God that saves us from self-contempt and the contempt of others.  Maybe our story is one of love and not hate, grace and not judgement, belovedness and not rejection.

If we are going to tell the story of God, what story are we going to tell?

 

Logos: Listen

Inspired by Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16

Listen.
Pay attention to what I will tell you.
I will tell you about your history, your faith.
Listen.
Tell your children, tell your grandchildren,
tell those in your neighborhood
who don't know about God.
Listen and speak.

God, the creator of us all,

worked miracles for the slaves in Egypt.

God opened the sea and made a way,

Opened a way to freedom.

God provided guidance in fiery light,

Water from rocks

Abundant life.

From dry nothingness,

God created waters to flow,

streams to answer thirst.

Remember what God has done.

Tell about what God will do.

God will bring freedom from what traps us.

God will bring life from wilderness.

God will prepare a path through obstacles.

God will be present.

How do we know?

Because God is.

Perspectives: Chicken on bike

 

Look Now

Amy-Jill Levine, in the book Genesis: A Beginner's Guide to the Beginning, quotes Isaiah in her introduction:

How you are fallen from heaven,

O Morning Star, son of Dawn?

How you are cut down to the ground,

you who laid the nations low!

You said to yourself,

'I will ascend to heave;

I will raise my throne above the stars of God...

I will ascend to the tops of the clouds;

I will make myself like the Most High.'

But you are brought down to Shel,

to the depths of the Pit.

Those who see you will stare at you

and ponder over you:

'Is this the man who made the earth tremble...'

(Isaiah 14:12-16)

She shares that this passage satirizes the Babylonian imperial goals. 

It's a timeless passage, though, isn't it? It is (to me) a portrait of a person or a nation that strives to rise to the level of god, and then is brought down, so that others stare and ponder.

I can think of nations that step on others to rise high. I can think of leaders who neglect their duties to care for those they lead in order to rise up. I can think of ourselves, who try to lift ourselves up as god-like instead of following God.

And I can picture, at the end, someone looking, and saying, "Is this the one who made the earth tremble? Look at him now. 

The Same Breath

 A couple of lines from our Call to Worship at church in August:

L: The air is precious;

P: For all of us share the same breath.

All of us share the same breath. I read that as part of the responsive reading; it was a stunning statement. The air we breath is the air all of us breath - our common breath. I mean, I know that, but it was still a startling statement. What we do to the air in one place impacts all of our breath.

What we do to the water in one river, impacts all of our drinking.

Of course it does, but do we remember that?

L. For we did not weave the web of life:

P: We are merely a strand in it.

L: Whatever we do to the web

P: We do to ourselves

I wrote this as a blog post with the very unhelpful note to "add reference."  The reference to the Call to Worship in the written bulletin included the reference but I didn't write it down. When I googled it, I found that much of this is attributed to Chief Seattle.  Just know that I didn't write it.

Perspectives: Two roads

 Two roads diverged in a yellow - I mean, green wood...

Book Review: The Hope of Glory

Information about the book

The Hope of Glory: Reflections on the Last Words of Jesus from the Cross by Jon Meacham.  Covergent Books, New York, 2020.  Amazon.

Summary

From Amazon:

For Jon Meacham, as for believers worldwide, the events of Good Friday and Easter reveal essential truths about Christianity. A former vestryman of Trinity Church Wall Street and St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, Meacham delves into that intersection of faith and history in this meditation on the seven phrases Jesus spoke from the cross.

Beginning with “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” and ending with “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” Meacham captures for the reader how these words epitomize Jesus’s message of love, not hate; grace, not rage; and, rather than vengeance, extraordinary mercy. For each saying, Meacham composes an essay on the origins of Christianity and how Jesus’s final words created a foundation for oral and written traditions that upended the very order of the world.

Writing in a tone more intimate than any of his previous works, Jon Meacham returns us to the moment that transformed Jesus from a historical figure into the proclaimed Son of God, worshiped by billions.

Impressions

I was surprised to see this book written by Jon Meacham. I've only read one other of his book, And There was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle.  That book is a biography, as are most of Meacham's books.  The idea of this book intrigued me, though, so I ordered it.

Each chapter is a short devotion or reflection on each of Jesus's last words. The content is engaging and thought-provoking. It comes from a place of faith, and isn't afraid to ask questions so that our faith and understanding can grow deeper. I thought it was excellent, and would make a great book study for discussion. I highly recommend it.

Posts about book

Meacham Hope