Arrgh! Revising AGAIN???

As I finish up the last three chapters of the long-awaited Son of Man (sequel to Brothers), I run into one snag after another that keep me from progressing as fast as I'd hoped.

My biggest problem?

Unlike Marian Zimmer Bradley, who confessed years ago that she felt no obligation to be consistent within her Darkover series, citing authorial power to change the decisions of the past without going back to correct them in previously published books ... unlike her, I feel compelled to make the universe of Immanu'El as cohesive as possible.

When I began writing the series, however, my knowledge of Hebrew and of the first-century Palestinian culture was significantly less than it is now. I knew that some of my choices would come back to bite me in the nether quarters one of these days, and have been waiting for scholars of greater competence to call me out on my mistakes.

This has not happened.

What HAS happened is that, as I have learned more Hebrew, I have realized that some of my early decisions were poor ones. I can't let that stand. And so, in the middle of finishing up a book I should have published last year, I am instead revising one of my most popular books, The Voice.

This is NOT an effort to get people to spend money buying a new edition of a book they already have. This is simply a case of refusing to give people wrong information.

Interestingly enough, I am discovering in the corrections some information that I really believe makes the story stronger, even though most of the changes are minor. A sentence here, a paragraph there...

If all goes according to plan (when has it ever?) then the new edition of The Voice will be released before the end of this month. To save you the trouble of buying a copy for just one or two little changes (most of them are corrections of typos and formatting errors), I am going to give you my favorite addition right here. It has to do with the translation of Azazel. The blue parts are the revisions. (And I confess, the translation is my own. Which means it could be totally wrong. But I find it satisfying.)

Enjoy!

When Nathan had found me naked in the wilderness all those years ago, the men of the yahad had whispered Azazel at the sight of me, though they are not a superstitious folk. 

Azazel.

To understand the nature of Azazel, you must appreciate the story of his name, and how it was changed—and this means you must know at least some Hebrew.
As it is now spelled, the name means Strength Has Gone, but this is wishful thinking; Azazel may be bound, but he is strong yet. To this I can testify. The priests in the Temple in Jerusalem, safe behind their walls, they call him Az’azel and do not tremble.

If, however, you switch the position of two letters, the alef and the second zayin, though you do not alter the pronunciation much, the meaning of the name is completely reversed. In the beginning, Azazel bore the name his Creator bestowed upon him: Strength of God, Azaz’el, for he was one of Adonai’s servants.

The men of the yahad, who live on the edge of the desert, they call him Azaz’el, but when they say it, they give it another meaning: Strong God, the name they say he took for himself. It does not refer to Yahuh’s strength. Azazel no longer serves Yahuh. His is a spirit of destruction, of devouring and desiccation. He dwells in the arid places of the earth, under God’s eternal curse. Whether he was bound in the desert because of its dryness, or whether his presence has caused the desert to dry up, I cannot say. Perhaps both are true.

He is called god because, in spite of his imprisonment, he has dominion over the wasteland. Its creatures obey him and do his work. Even the sun, which God in His goodness causes to shine on all the earth, does not bring life to the desert but death, maliciously scorching those who are foolish enough to venture forth under its rays, for so Azazel commands in his hatred of men. His fury prowls the wilderness like a lion, seeking men to devour. He is called strong because few can withstand his wrath.  

I traveled in the desert under the seal and protection of El-Elyon, and by His grace only was I safe from the demons of the wasteland, as He had proven to me so dramatically a few years ago. Azazel would not touch me, nor anyone traveling in my company. But now Yuannan was gone, and I didn’t know where to look for him. “Keep him safe from the vengeance of the evil one, Lord. Help me to find him quickly.”

A Great Guy

I've noticed something. Maybe you have, too. The authors of the four gospels didn't like Judas Iscariot. None of them had anything good to say about him, and John flat-out called him a thief.

I think that's the reason we get him all wrong.

This became obvious to me one day as I was lunching with my friend Robin. She was surprised to find that, reading Talmid, she actually liked Yehudah Ish-Kerioth. She started thinking that maybe she was wrong in identifying him as Judas, because he was a fun guy with a sense of humor and Yeshua (Jesus) hung out with him more than anyone else. "No," I assured her, "he's Judas, all right."

"Well," she said, "then that's just one more reason to like this book. I never thought of Judas that way before."

Few people have. Why is this? After all, the Bible is clear when it says Jesus was betrayed by a close friend. He himself quoted the psalm that prophesied this tragedy:

Even my close friend, someone I trusted, one who shared my bread, has turned against me. (Psalm 41:9)

I don't know about you, but I like my close friends.  I even like my not-so-close friends.  That is (in my opinion) the definition of friendship. I can't say the same for all of my acquaintances, nor my family members, nor my students. But my friends ... them, I like. So if Judas was a close friend of Jesus, it makes sense that Jesus actually liked Judas. In my mind, that makes Judas a likable guy.

Betrayal is a funny thing (not funny-ha-ha, but funny-strange). It can only happen where trust exists.  Where there is no trust, there can be no betrayal. Some people think (because of the way John worded his gospel) that Jesus knew right off the bat which one of the Twelve would betray him, and that Jesus chose Judas as his betrayer, and that he never really got close to Judas emotionally because -- after all -- Judas was a scum bag. If this were the case, however, there would have been no betrayal.

Let me use a parable to get this idea across.

Jim was low on cash. He owned an expensive painting but he knew that, in the current economy, he couldn't sell it for even half of what it was worth. "If only someone would break into my house and steal it," he reasoned, "then I could collect the insurance." Jim was no idiot, though. He knew he'd have to involve the police and that whoever stole the painting would have to be caught. Otherwise, the insurance company (and the police) would suspect that Jim had stolen his own painting. So Jim, being no idiot, decided he needed a new friend. He started hanging out in all the wrong places until, sure enough, he became acquainted with a man who was known as only marginally honest. He bought the guy a beer and invited him to go fishing, and within weeks the two of them were inseparable. Jim's other friends were leery of Bob, but since Jim vouched for him, they tolerated his presence at their get-togethers. No one was really surprised, however, when Jim's valuables disappeared ... around the same time that Bob left the state. "He betrayed me!" Jim said again and again. "Well," his friends replied, "next time maybe you'll listen to us."

Betrayed? Hardly. Yet this is the way so many of us have been trained to view the relationship between Jesus and Judas. Now, I don't think I'm contradicting the scriptures here. Jesus DID know who was going to betray him: one of his closest friends. And he chose all twelve of them knowing that one of them was going to turn on him; he chose twelve men who had the capacity for betrayal, and he allowed himself to become emotionally attached to every one of them, accepting the fact that one of them was going to turn against him. Many articles and commentaries have explored the possible reasons Judas had for betraying Jesus, but few have asked the more important question: why was it Judas and not one of the others?

At the Last Supper, each of the disciples asked Jesus who the betrayer would be. "Is it I, Lord? Is it I?"  I wonder how many times, earlier in their friendship, Jesus had looked into each face and asked, "Is he the one, Father?  Is he?" Obviously, toward the end, Jesus knew it was Judas. But did he know this -- would he allow himself to know this -- right from the start? Or would that have negated the prophecy by turning a betrayal into something less painful?

I honestly think the whole betrayal thing started out as a misunderstanding. Jesus said or did something, Judas misunderstood, and the rest is history. Why do I believe this? Think about it ... how many times in your own experience have two good friends become enemies overnight over a simple misunderstanding? Do you think maybe this is the reason Jesus tells us to go first to the one who has wronged us? To avoid a misunderstanding turning into a war?

I cannot think of another thing that's as painful as betrayal. And yet, most betrayals could be averted by clear communication. It is when we rush into reaction -- as Judas did -- that a misunderstanding escalates into something that destroys relationships, destroys marriages, destroys ministries, destroys careers, destroys reputations ... destroys lives.

I don't know you, but I do know this. If you are ever betrayed, it will be by someone you love, someone you like, someone you trust. You can easily avert that betrayal: just stop having friends. (Hermits are never betrayed.) If that seems like too drastic a measure, then try Plan B: when someone you love says or does something that you don't understand, go to that person. Listen more than you talk, and find a way to work it out. Don't let a misunderstanding cause you to throw your best friend under a bus and then hang yourself. Don't follow the example set by Judas ... who, by the way, was a great guy. He had some issues, but don't we all? Don't we all?

Of Roses and Metaphor

"Stop and smell the roses" doesn't mean what it used to mean. At least, not in my experience. I've long made a point of stopping to smell roses whenever I walk past them (beautiful things, aren't they?) but, for quite some time now, I have suffered disappointment at the result. I remember loving the smell of roses as a kid. We never grew them in our yard, so I had to enjoy them vicariously, on the fly-by, stealing discreet whiffs (and occasionally stealing blossoms in thorn-pricked fingers) from neighbors' bushes. A few times during my teenage years I received a bouquet of roses from my father, usually on opening night of a school play or concert, but our family budget didn't allow for such extravagance often. So the smell of roses remains in my memory not merely as pleasant, but as luxurious.

Apparently horticulturalists have devoted considerable effort over the years to breeding ever larger and more spectacular varieties of rose, as well as hardier varieties that will bloom just about anywhere with little or no effort on the part of amateur landscapers. There are even thornless varieties that enable florists to create painless bouquets that strip roses of any poetic or metaphoric depth. In the process of catering to eyes and ease, these scientists have also stripped roses of their fragrance.

You don't have to look too hard to find someone ranting about genetically-modified corn or wheat or cattle of one ilk or another. But where are those who will stand up and express quiet outrage at the mutilation of the rose? "That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," averred Shakespeare's Juliet, and yet, that which we now call a rose has no smell whatsoever.

When I was twelve, I wrote a poem using the rose as a metaphor for life, contrasting its fragrance and its peril (though the flower is sweet / the thorns are sharp). That poem would make little sense to today's youth, who have probably never smelled a rose-scented rose or, indeed, suffered the pricks of its thorns. And so I toss off a new poem for your perusal.

the rose of progress
beckons to me with its splendor
I stop and inhale deeply
then walk briskly on
cheated once again

My Heroes

Who are your heroes? I guess that depends on what things you most value in a person. For me, a hero is someone I want to emulate, someone who represents something that I hold to be good and noble and true. My heroes aren't perfect people (well, one of them is) but they are all excellent people in more than one respect. And so, after much deliberation, I present for your edification ten people whose examples  have edified me:

Sam Gamgee (Sean Astin's interpretation)

10. Samwise Gamgee (The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien). Sam is the only fictional person on my list though I am an avid reader of fiction and could easily have stuffed my hero file with figments of other writers' imaginations. I made an exception for Sam because he is, for me, a paradigm of selfless, sacrificial service born of love. Sam is in way over his head and he knows it, but he sees the mission through to the end simply because it is the only way he knows to express his love for Frodo and all that is good in the world. I want to learn to love like that.

Harriet Tubman

9. Harriet Tubman. Harriet Tubman stands in my esteem not only as a hero in her own right but also as a representative of all the men and women over the ages who have put their lives and liberty on the line -- repeatedly -- to help others escape the bonds of whatever slavery they themselves escaped. She was free, but she risked losing that hard-won freedom again and again because she was unwilling to leave anyone behind. People called her "Moses," but I think she went Moses one better in that respect.

Alan Shepherd, 1961

8. Alan Shepherd. America's first astronaut won my heart and my admiration a few years ago. Watch the footage of the early, unmanned Mercury rockets exploding in all sorts of spectacular failures and then ask yourself if you would have climbed aboard one of them.

Bob Tuttle in Capernaum

7. Dr. Robert Tuttle. You probably haven't heard of Bob Tuttle, but that's your loss. He became my hero about halfway down Mount Sinai. Go buy one of his books and read it. Then sign up for a tour that he's hosting and stick as close to him as your stamina will permit. If you can enroll in a class he's teaching, do so. Pay attention to him. Pay close attention. There's a good chance he'll become one of your heroes too.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

6. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. What can I say? He had a dream, and little by little that dream is becoming reality. There aren't a lot of people in this country who are brave enough -- or who have enough faith -- to put the harder teachings of Jesus into practice. Dr. King was one of them. He took a stand against evil without resorting to the tactics of evil, and because of him I am able to sit next to my friend Joy on a commercial airline -- or anywhere else -- without either of us being afraid of reprisals.

Alexander Megos

5. Alexander the Great. I don't admire Alexander for his military genius, but for his ability to create culture. He was millennia ahead of his time in embracing multiculturalism.

Connie Matejek

4. Constance Schiavi Matejek (my mother). She'll probably be surprised to see herself on this list, but my mother is an extremely creative and caring individual who inspired a love of learning in me. She's also pretty humble.

Paul of Tarsus

3. The Apostle Paul. It takes a big man to admit he's wrong, especially when he's WRONG. (See Acts 9.) It takes an even bigger man to pick himself up and get over it. (See Acts 13-28 and the rest of the New Testament!)

John the Baptist

2. John the Baptist. John understood the meaning of commitment. While we don't know much about him, what we do know is fairly impressive. John was totally sold out to God, and Jesus said of him, "Among men born of women, there has not arisen one greater than John." Pretty solid character reference, if you ask me.

Yeshua HaMashiah

1. Yeshua (Jesus) of Nazareth. This would seem like a no-brainer, but really the things I most admire about Yeshua as a hero have to do with his humanity, not his divinity. He was courageous precisely because he was not invincible. Having voluntarily set aside his power (see Philippians 2) he faced the same temptations and the same hardships that we all face every day of our lives, and he did so in order that we might be saved. That is not only love, it is courage.

The New Virtue

I am an intolerant person.

At least, I aspire to be intolerant. Far too often, though, I find myself embracing tolerance as an easier route than the one laid out by my God. He told me I need to be loving, but that is so much harder. Love cares enough to confront; love cares enough to correct. Tolerance, on the other hand, denies responsibility and relationship. Tolerance says, "Whatever. Not my problem, Jack."

I'm not sure exactly when our society began to view tolerance as a virtue -- and not just any old virtue, either, but the supreme virtue. Ignoring the ancient wisdom inherent in songs that proclaimed, "What the world needs now is love, sweet love," we began urging one another to be more tolerant. Tolerance was held up as the balm that would cure our nation of all sorts of dysfunction. TOLERANCE headlines motivational posters in our public schools and has become the battle cry of millions of malcontents.

I agree that we need to teach our children that hatred and bigotry are poor choices. But before offering up tolerance as the preferred alternative, shouldn't we ask ourselves what tolerance really means? Is it a synonym for love? Or is it, in fact, the exact opposite of love? Is it loving for a mother to tolerate poor hygiene and bad manners in her children, for example?

Take a moment to look up the dictionary definition of tolerate. Then ask yourself what sorts of things you do (and don't) tolerate. How do you feel about those things? Now ask yourself . . . would you rather be loved, or tolerated?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Learning

Skimming back through my older posts, I have noticed that I use the phrase "I'm learning..." quite often.

Side Note: My internal English teacher is screaming at me. "I'm learning..." is not a phrase but a clause, since it contains both a subject and a verb. Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I can go back to writing.

For some reason, this jumped out at me and forced some mental rumination.

Side Note: Ruminate is a lovely word that means, literally, to chew the cud (from the Latin ruminari). When applied to a human being, however, it is purely metaphorical. (Let's hope.) You are about to watch me mentally chew with my mouth open. In other words, what follows is not carefully edited prose but merely stream-of-cud-chewingness thoughts about the phrase clause "I'm learning..." 

My identity hangs on a few key hinges; if you ask me who or what I am, the words that spring to mind are teacher, Christ-follower, human being, tour guide, mother, daughter, seminary student graduate, writer. First and foremost, always, is teacher. Everything else I do seems to spring from that. My mother tells me that I used to teach my dolls to read—apparently they were more cooperative students than my younger siblings. As a sixth grader I attended summer school—voluntarily—not for remediation but to help tutor other students in math. My ministry is a teaching ministry, my writing has an underlying didactic agenda, my children are constantly inflicted with educational outings, guests on my tours express gratitude for how much they have learned, half of my seminary experience involved working as a TA and leading study groups; I've even made it one of my life's ambitions to help my mother realize what a smart and talented woman she is. (My mother is amazingly creative!)

There is only one way to be a teacher—one must first be a learner.

Are you old enough to remember the adage so popular a few decades ago? "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." This was back when it was normal to denigrate the teaching profession in word as well as in remuneration.

Side Note: Nowadays, we pay lip service to teacher appreciation, but that's all we do. Teachers are still overworked and underpaid, and teachers are still blamed for everything that is wrong with the upcoming generation. We tie their hands and then demand that they juggle.

There is some truth in the adage. Some. Most high school math teachers are not professional economists; most middle school science teachers are not NASA engineers; most elementary English teachers have not written best-selling novels. Be grateful for that. The truth is, if some people weren't willing to pass up the big paychecks in order to work in the classroom, the upcoming generation would have no one to inspire and equip them to become economists, engineers, and writers. And if most of the economists, engineers, and novelists I've met were placed in a classroom with children, our education system would be in an even worse state than it already is. Knowing how to do something and knowing how to teach someone else to do it are NOT the same thing.

Teachers—true teachers—teachers who have been designed by God to teach—possess a skill that is not easily taught (if indeed it can be taught at all) although it can be trained. Teaching degrees are usually a Bachelor of Science (mine is, at any rate) but teaching is more of an art than a science. The nationwide attempt to quantify what teachers do and measure it on a standardized test demonstrates a gross misunderstanding of the nature of teaching, learning, and education in general.

A true teacher can teach anything. Before that can happen, of course, the teacher needs to learn. I learn so that I may teach. It is that simple.

I close my rumination with one final chew. Look at the Teacher. Jesus. He was so determined to teach us how to be human beings that he became one. You might want to ruminate on that thought for a while.

TJ10: Home Again

I am home now. Or am I? It could be argued that the “I” who left this place three weeks ago to travel through Egypt, Jordan, and Israel is not the same “I” who sits now at the computer writing this reflection. Experience changes us, inevitably. And for this reason, the “I” who begins this reflection will not—cannot—be the same “I” who will finish it, for the mere experience of writing down my thoughts is a transformative experience. It is this concept of transformative experience that I wish to explore in this blog, and it is my hope that, in reading, you will also be transformed.

On a folding table in my living room sits a collection of rocks, the detritus of weeks of walking, climbing, hiking, searching for myself in the Promised Land that I might build an altar—an ebenezer if you will—as an aid to my ever-failing memory. Rocks. 175 rocks. My nerves were fully engaged as I hauled these mnemonic devices through Israeli airport security, wrapped in my dirty socks and tucked into every available crevice of my suitcase. Perhaps this was just the right thing to do. Perhaps it is why the young Israeli laughed and waved me through without requiring me to open my bags—he recognized and empathized with my desire to hold on to a piece of the Promised Land.  “What is in your shoes?” he had asked, looking at the x-ray image of my luggage. “Are those stones?”

            “Yes,” I’d replied, keeping it short and simple, as I’d been instructed.

            “You have a lot of stones.”

            “Yes, I do.” (Eat your heart out, Charlie Brown.)

            “Did someone give them to you?”

            “No, I picked them up off the street.”

That’s when he laughed and told me I didn’t need to open my bags. Perhaps, like me, he was thinking, These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever (Joshua 4:7).

Am I an Israeli? No, I’m not even Jewish, although when I was a child many people assumed that I was. Perhaps that is where my love affair with Israel began, but I think it really started in 1996, when I fell in love with Jesus. Up until then, I had been serving him, admiring him, respecting him, obeying him (with limited success), following him, and even loving him—but I hadn’t been in love with him. Falling in love with Jesus was a transformative experience, and it drove me into the pages of the Bible with a renewed fervor. I devoured the gospels. Something, however, was missing. Reading the gospels was a bit like watching the news: I was getting sound bites rather than the whole story. Someone else was deciding for me what bits of Christ’s ministry and person were relevant. I wanted more. I wanted to be there.

This feeling has been referred to as “divine discontent.” The result in my life was a season of intense prayer and fasting, from which I emerged even more discontent. Something was growing within me, something that needed to be released, but I didn’t know what it was. One thing I did know: I had only a superficial understanding of Jesus. Eventually I came to understand that I was looking at him through a set of cultural lenses that were so thick as to be distortional. I needed to take off those 20th-century American “Jesus-glasses” and see him as he had revealed himself to humanity. And that meant learning to understand the culture into which he had been born.