I am entering a fourth phase of Hebrew Study.

Phase 1 was the Dabbling phase. I was interested in Biblical Hebrew and someone who teaches the subject recommended Udemy to me. I took a couple of courses and purchased several others that I’ve never done anything with.

One course I took was called “Learn Hebrew with Legos,” which was really interesting. It gave me a sense of how the Hebrew language worked, using Psalm 23. The building block concept is a helpful one. Hebrew is compressed. It’s the condensed orange juice of languages. So for example, we say, “The LORD is my shepherd.” But in Hebrew it’s just two words:
יְהוָה רֹעִי

I also took a course titled, “Meet the Hebrew Alphabet.” My memory of that is that it moves quite slowly. It’s a very gentle introduction, like dipping your toe in the pool. I think it insulated me from the enormity of the subject. At some point you have to jump in.

In this phase I learned something about Hebrew, but I didn’t go very far into it. I didn’t learn to read. I couldn’t say anything in Hebrew. It was sort of like studying a forest by walking along its edge. You discover something about the trees on the edge, but you really have no understanding of how vast the forest is. You aren’t immersed in it. You understand a small part of the forest, but in no way are you actually in the forest.

Phase 2 was the Delusional phase. This phase started with the onset of Covid. I remember having two distinct thoughts back then. The first was, “I could die.” I didn’t have heavy anxiety, but enough to wonder if this could be the end as it turned out to be for so many. (Note: I had Covid twice. Once with the vaccine and once without. My experience was that it was much better—read less worse—with the vaccine.)

The other thought I had was, “Maybe I could do something with this time.” I had just started a program at Northeastern Seminary and while we were locked down I thought I would learn Biblical Hebrew on the side.

I found a tutor through Varsity Tutors and we worked through a textbook called Basics of Biblical Hebrew Grammar. The tutor was great. He was a seminary student with an interest and experience in the Biblical languages. The text was good too. I ordered the DVD’s to watch, although I see you can watch them through a site on Zondervan.

The delusion was in me. Somehow I thought that by merely reading through the material I would absorb it. I suppose it’s the same delusion of thinking you can learn a musical instrument by going to a music lesson every week. If you want to become proficient with the instrument you’re going to have to practice between lessons.

And so this Delusional Phase was characterized by the fact that I was putting in some time, but not consistent time. And I didn’t have anything like a study plan. I think I was hoping I would learn by osmosis. (By the way,  this sort of “learn Hebrew while you sleep” video doesn’t work. That is not a method. The one good thing about that kind of video is it does give you some vocabulary to learn, but you can’t go to sleep and wake up speaking Hebrew, although I tried.)

I also watched a fair amount of Hebrew television and movies, which I will describe at another time. My sense is that these aren’t the greatest way to learn Hebrew, but they are good markers for seeing how much you’ve learned. Some day it would be great to watch without subtitles and understand what’s going on.

I did learn some things in this phase. The most important thing was learning the Hebrew Alphabet (אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי) cold. But the reading was difficult because I didn’t practice regularly and systematically. As far as learning the Hebrew Aleph Bet, I consider two sources invaluable. The first was this lecture by Miles Van Pelt:

The other was a song:

(If this goes by too fast, there is a slower version.)

One thing I learned during this phase is that there is a difference between Biblical and Modern Hebrew. There aren’t dramatic, worlds-apart differences between the two, but they are there. So, for example, there are different approaches to pronunciation, the most striking being how to pronounce the Hebrew letter ו. In Modern Hebrew it’s pronounced “vahv” and those who want an older/classical approach say it’s “wow.” It makes a difference. Is David pronounced “dah-VEED” or “dah-WEETH”?

Miles Van Pelt (and my tutor) learned and favored the older pronunciation, which sounded funny to my ears. It felt very American, but I think it was just that the people I heard speaking it sounded so very American. I wasn’t hearing the language in a way that modern people speak the Hebrew language. It wasn’t that I had that much exposure to the sound of Modern Hebrew. But I often struggled with pronunciation because I didn’t feel I had an accurate sound in my ears and was trying to make a choice in the moment over which pronunciation.

Perhaps I didn’t know which one was correct, either. Turns out you just have to decide, although there are people who insist on preferring the older pronunciation. My thinking is that Hebrew is confusing enough without trying to learn the two different pronunciations for the four letters that are pronounced differently in the classical version. If I was going to read or say something in Hebrew, I didn’t want to first decide whether it was the Bible or not, to determine how I would pronounce the words.

During this Delusional Phase I also did some dabbling with learning systems like Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur. The problem you come to is that there are so many systems and only so much time. To follow multiple systems is an investment of time I don’t have on a daily basis.

I spent about a year in this phase. The main lesson was to learn about the enormity of the project. I think I saw the size of the mountain I wanted to climb. It was a little overwhelming to see how much there was to learn and how little I had actually learned. Hebrew is not an easy language. It’s not the hardest either, but there is plenty of challenge there for an English speaker.

There was also a great cautionary note from the tutor who said not to start infusing sermons with Hebrew. That’s a good word. I haven’t strictly followed the rule, but I am trying to be careful about when I refer to the Hebrew behind an English translation of the Bible.

Along the way I think I decided I wanted to speak better with correct diction. So I made the decision I would speak Biblical Hebrew using Modern Hebrew pronunciation. And that led me to looking for a different Hebrew tutor.

Phase 3, begun roughly a year ago, was the Decision phase. The decision was to get more serious about my studies. I found a tutor in Tel Aviv (she has since moved) whose name is Noya Einhorn, who I discovered through a video she made that teaches English speakers how to make the sound of the Hebrew ר. It’s an “r,” but the way they say it in Hebrew is not how we say it in the U.S. She gets it and teaches it well.

This was a really helpful video, as are the rest she has made. (In addition to tutoring, Noya is a skilled singer/songwriter.) After an interview, she took me on as a student and I have been working with her for the past year. The time difference was the main hurdle for studying with her—my early morning is Noya’s late afternoon. That has seemed to work well.

The decision to get more serious meant not only learning learning a language, but learning how to learn a language. There are some helpful books on the subject:

Benny Lewis. Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World. New York: HarperOne, 2014.

Gabriel Wyner. Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It. New York: Harmony Books, 2014.

YouTube is also a good spot for this sort of “meta” thinking on language acquisition. The danger here of course is obsessing with learning to learn and avoiding the actual learning of Hebrew. The most important thing I think I’ve picked up from from YouTube is the value of regular, systematic practice and the invaluable nature of “comprehensible input.”

I’ve had to come to terms with some things:

1. I am a little older than I used to be and things don’t come as easy as they did. If they ever did. It could be that I have never actually pushed myself this hard to learn something so complicated. You have to be patient. In fact, the more anxious you are about learning, the harder it is to learn. There’s been a fair amount of sadness to this study. It doesn’t come easy and then any time I watch or listen to something in Hebrew, I realize I only catch a word here and there and most of it goes right over my head. It’s like as far as you’ve come you see there is farther to go.

2. I don’t think I ever learned to study in a way to retain things over the long term. I learned to take tests rather than absorb knowledge. Language study means starting sooner and staying with it longer. It’s about regular systematic study, not a cram session. Anki has become my most important study tool. The principle behind Anki is spaced repetition.

3. Language study means you are on a journey for a while. I remember learning to juggle in early 2021. It took just a few days with the assistance of  this YouTube instructor. You can learn to juggle in a few days. You cannot learn a language in a short time like that. Part of the decision phase has been to decide to stay with Hebrew. There are other things I could learn, but those are on hold as I would like to be able to read the Bible and converse in Hebrew.

4. A little focus goes a long way. There are so many apps and programs for learning. I’ve looked at and tested out a number of Apps. The problem is that these can be a distraction from your teacher’s lessons. There isn’t a perfect way to learn Hebrew. If you have a good teacher—as I do—then it makes sense to learn what they are teaching and not get side-tracked on other things.

5. I need a system for learning. This has been a long time coming, but I think I’m almost there. My minimum daily practice includes using three Anki decks for Hebrew. One is a “listen and respond” deck where I’ve taken audio clips and split them into English and Hebrew. I listen to words and phrases in either English or Hebrew and translate. Second is a read and recite deck, again translating either from or into Hebrew. The third deck is a recall and write deck, where I practice spelling my vocabulary words. I’m experimenting with Apple’s Keynote program as a way to study. That is a relatively new tool, but it appears promising as it’s easy to bring new words and concepts into the system. You need a system robust enough to incorporate all that you are learning, but not so complicated that you avoid bringing new words and concepts into the system.

During this third phase I took the first semester of a Biblical Hebrew course through Northeastern Seminary. It went pretty well. The nice thing was that the professor for this Biblical Hebrew course used modern pronunciation. I would like to take the second semester of the course when it comes around again. He also has a Hebrew Club which I am part of. It’s easily the dorkiest thing I’ve ever done, but it’s a lot of fun. We are working verse by verse through 1 Kings—reading and translating. I’m feeling pretty good about my reading and see I have a long way to go with my translating.

I memorized some things in Hebrew and decided to record them as a way to remember where I am right now. Over the next year I hope to learn more things and improve my pronunciation. This is a video snapshot of where I am right now.

(I noticed I mixed up some of my ה‘s with my ח‘s, but we were going for where things are and, apparently, I mix those things up.)

Phase 4 I am calling the Deliberate Phase, which I am beginning as I enter my third year of serious study. If the first year of study was to find out what I had to learn and last year was learning how to learn, my hope for this next phase is simply to learn. I am committed to learning Hebrew. There are other things I could pay attention to, but I am liking the challenge of seeing how far I can get with this. Now that I have a system for learning it, I am merely tweaking that system rather than obsessing over what it should be.

For this new phase, my main focus is my lessons with Noya. My goal is to have all the vocabulary memorized and to become more verbal using that vocabulary. Practice means going through the Anki cards and using the vocabulary I’ve learned. I’ve done pretty well with the inputs to language study (reading and listening), and now I need to turn more to the outputs, speaking and writing.

I will continue to listen to the Pimsleur Hebrew course when I am driving or on a walk as well as a podcast or two. I don’t think they take away from my lessons.

When I have time, I will continue to work through my Biblical Hebrew textbook from Northeastern Seminary. It’s:

Ethelyn Simon, Irene Resnikoff, and Linda Motzkin. The First Hebrew Primer: The Adult Beginner’s Path to Biblical Hebrew, Third Edition, Revised with New Explanatory Notes. Berkely, California: EKS Publishing Co., 2005.

I am revisiting the lessons from last semester and then will see what forward progress I can make.

This past Wednesday night we read John 9 in our Bible study. There are a number of remarkable things about this passage. I’m still thinking about it (John 9) and them (the remarkable things), so I thought I would write about them this morning.

First, Jesus addresses a major theological issue found in the first two verses: “As [Jesus] went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’” (9:1–2)

Inside this question is an assumption about those who suffer, in this case a person who had been born blind. The question the disciples ask amounts to “Who can we blame for this? What is the source of this man’s suffering? Is it something he did and is responsible for or something his parents did for which this person is now paying a price?”

And so the theological issue is the source of human suffering. All of us walk around with assumptions about why people suffer. What are our assumptions about our suffering or the sufferings of others?

Later in the passage, a group of religious leaders will admit their own belief that it was the fault of the guy born blind. They will say to him, “You were steeped in sin at birth.” (9:34)

We spent quite a while wrestling with this issue on Wednesday night. All of us suffer in some ways and what are we to conclude about that suffering? Is it someone’s fault? Can I blame someone? Am I to blame? Or we see someone suffering and wonder “Who did what so that this person deserves this?”

There is something else in that question—“Who sinned?”—that I’ve been thinking about. It’s that tendency to hold ourselves superior to others whenever possible. We think “There are good people and sinners. Those who are suffering are clearly among the sinners.” It’s as though the disciples are above this man born blind, looking down on him.

How does Jesus answer the question? He doesn’t. It’s in verse 3 where Jesus replies, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned.” In other words, “There is a problem with your question.” Jesus is telling his disciples their assumptions are all wrong. But Jesus doesn’t leave the answer there. He announces, “But this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Spoiler alert: Jesus will heal the man.

A second thing I love about this passage is something I’m not sure I’ve ever noticed before. It’s something about how the story is written that speaks to me. Almost everyone in the passage is a flat character. What I mean by that is everyone in the story basically is who they are all along. Jesus is Jesus. The disciples are the disciples. The Pharisees are the Pharisees. And when we meet the parents of the man born blind, they are who they are. None of them really change.

Only one person really changes in this story. It’s the man born blind. The way this story is told we can’t miss it. And what a transformation. Look at the evolution of his thinking about Jesus:
—The first time he speaks of Jesus he describes him as “the man they call Jesus.” (9:11)

—The second time he speaks of Jesus it follows an argument among the Pharisees. They accuse Jesus of being a sinner but they wonder “How can a sinner perform such signs?” (9:16) And so they ask the man born blind about Jesus and he replies, “He is a prophet.” (9:17)

—The third time he speaks of Jesus is after he has been brought back to the Pharisees. There is a fairly intense argument at the end of which the man concludes, “If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” (9:33)

—The last time we hear from the man born blind is after Jesus has circled around and met up with him. Now at the end of the story Jesus asks the man, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” (9:35) The man born blind had never seen Jesus. Jesus put mud on the man’s eyes and told him to wash in a certain pool. This act of trust and obedience resulted in his healing. And now that he sees Jesus, he declares, “Lord, I believe” and the text says “he worshiped him.” (9:38)

What an evolution. From Jesus is a man to Jesus is a prophet to Jesus is from God to I believe in and worship Jesus.

The purpose of the gospel of John is so that we may believe Jesus is who he says he is. Whatever else is going on, this is the heart of it all.

It’s amazing to me how this story shifts. We begin with a physical healing. A man born blind receives physical sight. But there is also this question of who has and does not have spiritual sight. Jesus came to bring sight to the blind. The key to receiving spiritual sight is admitting our blindness.

Those who admit their need receive from God.

Back to that issue of suffering and the response of Jesus. One commentator made this connection. Genesis 1:1, of course, says God created the heavens and the earth. Then Genesis 1:2 says, “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep . . .” There was darkness in creation and that is the moment God said, “Let there be light.”

In other words, it is the nature of God to enter darkness and chaos and bring light.

There are new headlines these days beyond COVID and the normal and abnormal political machinations going on. There are “rumors of war” in Eastern Europe. My prayer this morning is that God would enter the darkness and chaos of our world and bring light.

Chapter 2 “The Vanishing Glass” in which we learn a now 10-year-old Harry has special powers. Things happen that are hard to explain, like his hair always being a mess, even after someone tries to cut it or Harry having special abilities to escape trouble. At a zoo, Harry (we assume though it isn’t stated explicitly—but assumed implicitly by Harry’s uncle) causes a protective glass to disappear in front of a snake cage. 

*   *   *

It’s ten years later. Privet Drive hasn’t changed. But based on the photos on the mantelpiece, we know time has passed. Dudley has grown into a big boy. There is this telling line: “The [living] room held no sign at all that another boy lived in the house, too.” [18]

The scene opens with Aunt Petunia yelling at Harry to get up. Harry sleeps in a cupboard under the stairs. There are spiders, but Harry is used to them. Harry is trying to remember a dream of a flying motorcycle, connecting this chapter with the last (and first). It’s Dudley’s birthday and Harry is supposed to help with the cooking to make it “perfect.” [19]

Harry is a counterpoint to Dudley. Where Dudley is fat and hated exercise, Harry is skinny, small, and very fast. In fact, he needs to be fast to escape from Dudley.

Harry also has a scar on his forehead. The first question Harry can remember asking his Aunt Petunia is how he had gotten the scar. Aunt Petunia said it was in a car crash, where Harry’s parents died. We don’t know the full truth at this point about what happened to Harry’s parents, but we know there is a contradiction between how things are and how they are spoken of.

Like in the first chapter, there is a friendly and funny comment from our narrator: “Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel—Harry often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig.” [21]

Dudley is totally spoiled. He’s being given 36 presents for his birthday, but that is a problem because this is two less than he was given the previous year. But there is a present from Aunt Marge unaccounted for and Aunt Petunia explains she will buy two more presents. He’ll have one more than he did last year. It feels like the Dursleys are living with a bit of a terrorist.

Aside: The mention of Aunt Marge is great. We won’t (if I recall correctly) meet her until the next book, but it’s clear that J.K. Rowling has thought through this world.

A tradition in the Dursley household is that on Dudley’s birthday, the family goes out for the day. In the past, they left Harry with a neighbor, Mrs. Figg, but Mrs. Figg called to say she had a broken leg and couldn’t take care of Harry, which was good news for Harry who didn’t like being at her house. (A bit of a cat lady.) Harry thought this might mean a day in control of the television remote but Mr. Dursley doesn’t trust Harry at home by himself.

The Dursley home is a sad one for Harry who often spoke of him “as though he wasn’t there or rather, as though he was something very nasty that couldn’t understand them, like a slug.” [22] It turned out to be Harry’s lucky day. He got to go to the zoo with the Dursleys and Dudley’s friend Piers Polkiss. The Dursley’s didn’t know what else to do with Harry.

Uncle Vernon pulled Harry aside to warn him about “any funny business,” with the threat of having to stay “in that cupboard from now until Christmas.” [24] Harry insisted that he wouldn’t do anything “But Uncle Vernon didn’t believe him. No one ever did.” [24] Why not? The narrator explains, “The problem was, strange things often happened around Harry and it was just no good telling the Dursleys he didn’t make them happen.” [24]

Unexplained things do happen around Harry. And they would again at the zoo.

On the way to the zoo, Harry brings up this dream he had had the previous night about a flying motorcycle and which earned him an angry rebuke from his uncle who yelled, “MOTORCYCLES DON’T FLY!” [25]

Things go well at first. It’s a great day for Harry. But then they all went to the reptile house. Dudley asks his father to try to make a python move. Dudley pounds on the glass. Then he gets bored and moves away. Harry goes up to the glass and the snake winks at Harry. Then Harry has a conversation with the snake. Dudley sees this, comes over, pushes Harry to the floor. Suddenly the glass disappears and the snake slithered away, thanking Harry. Note: this scene is handled really well in the film, perhaps the one scene that is actually better on screen than the page.

There’s a key and beautifully done paragraph beginning on page 29:

“[Harry]’d lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as he could remember, ever since he’d been a baby and his parents had died in that car crash. [This is a great bit of narrating because we get Harry’s understanding even though we as the reader know there’s more than this going on. We know Harry has been told and believes a lie.] He couldn’t remember being in the car when his parents had died. [Harry is questioning the truth of what he has been told.] Sometimes, when he strained his memory during long hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on his forehead. This, he supposed, was the crash, though he couldn’t imagine where all the green light came from. [And then just to establish how difficult all of this is for Harry . . .] He / couldn’t remember his parents at all. His aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course he was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house.” [29–30]

The chapter finishes with some other thoughts Harry has. He has a dream of being taken away by an unknown relation. Foreshadowing, although it won’t be a relation. It will be by someone who loves him dearly. Harry also has this idea “that strangers in the street seemed to know him.” [30] The strangers either disappear or his Aunt Petunia hustles him away before he can ask questions. Things are pretty bleak.

This is not a political rant. I’m not trying to take a side, here, but this is what’s going on. This is what we’re up against.

By “we” I mean people who want to think independently and thoughtfully and are interested in the truth of things. This is a hard time to be one of those sorts of people.

This past Sunday, a United States Senator named Mike Rounds (SD) went on ABC News’ This Week. The host, George Stephanopulos, asked him about his thoughts about January 6, 2021. Here is the answer Senator Rounds gave:

“As a part of our due diligence, we looked at over 60 different accusations made in multiple states. While there were some irregularities, there were none of the irregularities which would have risen to the point where they would have changed the vote outcome in a single state.

“The election was fair, as fair as we have seen. We simply did not win the election, as Republicans, for the presidency. And moving forward — and that’s the way we want to look at this — moving forward, we have to refocus once again on what it’s going to take to win the presidency.

“And if we simply look back and tell our people don’t vote because there’s cheating going on, then we’re going to put ourselves in a huge disadvantage. So, moving forward, let’s focus on what it takes to win those elections. We can do that. But we have to let people know that they can — they can believe and they can have confidence that those elections are fair. And that is in every single state that we looked at.”

Senator Rounds appears to have some political independence as a Republican, but was largely  supportive of the President. According to one news source [1] Rounds “is neither a Never Trumper not a MAGA devotee. He broke with the former president on policy grounds a handful of times—on a bipartisan immigration deal in 2018, on Trump’s trade war with China in 2019—but voted in line with Trump’s position 90 percent of the time, generally did his best to avoid weighing in on the various scandals of the past five years, voted against conviction in both impeachment trials, and said on January 5, 2021 that he was going into the next day’s proceedings with an open mind. (He ultimately decided against objecting to the Electoral College vote counts.)”

Here is how former President Donald Trump responded:

“‘Senator’ Mike Rounds of the Great State of South Dakota just went woke on the Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020. He made a statement this weekend on ABC Fake News, that despite massive evidence to the contrary, including much of it pouring in from Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and other states, he found the election to be ok—just fine. Is he crazy or just stupid? The numbers are conclusive, and the fraudulent and irregular votes are massive. The only reason he did this is because he got my endorsement and easily won his state in 2020, so now he thinks he has time, and those are the only ones, the weak, who will break away. Even though his election will not be coming up for 5 years, I will never endorse this jerk again.

“It’s RINOs like this that are allowing the Democrats to destroy our Nation! Our Borders, our Military, our Economy, Inflation, the horrible handling of the China Virus and Afghanistan, and rampant crime throughout our Democrat-run cities are ripping our Country apart. We are a laughingstock throughout the world when we were respected and even feared just 1 year ago. There were no thoughts of Russia with Ukraine, China with Taiwan, Iran with nuclear weapons, or North Korea with nasty statements.

“The Radical Left Democrats and RINOS, like ‘Senator’ Mike Rounds, do not make it easy for our Country to succeed. He is a weak and ineffective leader, and I hereby firmly pledge that he will never receive my Endorsement again!”

Not sure what the scare quotes are about. Senator Rounds is a senator and not a “senator.” But leaving that aside, here is the problem: Two prominent politicians give two completely different accounts of the 2020 election.

Again, not taking a side at this point. Just pointing out there is a major discrepancy in views.

I am going to say that a thing cannot both be and not be. If there is such a thing as a principle of non-contradiction and assuming I understand that principle and that it should be in operation in the world, then what are we to do? How do we make sense of all of this?

It could be that one party is misinformed. Both parties are telling the truth as they understand it, but one party is not in complete possession of the facts.

It could be that one of the parties is lying. (This goes along a spectrum from, say, a spin on the one end to something darker on the other—delusion or worse.)

I suppose there is a third alternative—they are both misinformed or both lying.

Is there another possibility?

It’s clear both parties understand the truth of the situation very differently. For Senator Rounds there were “some irregularities,” but none which would have changed any outcomes. For Mr. Trump, the election was not only fraudulent but it was “the Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020” (like the chapter of a book) and there is “massive” contradictory evidence.

What is remarkable to me is the way the two parties respond to each other. Let’s assume that Senator Rounds is not in command of the truth of the situation. But let’s call it ignorance and not a lie. Senator Rounds is not in command of the facts. That can happen. What should be the response of the other side?

I guess I would want the other side to explain what was wrong and to give correct facts. Here there is no correction. Instead it’s ridicule.

The tone of the two statements is so different. Mr. Trump has insults:
“ABC Fake News”
He says what Senator Rounds has done makes him “crazy or just stupid.” Are those the only two choices?
Senator rounds is a “jerk.”
“He is a weak and ineffective leader.”

Senator Rounds issued a response to the President’s response. He said,

“I’m disappointed but not surprised by the former president’s reaction. However, the facts remain the same. I stand by my statement. The former president lost the 2020 election.”

Can we believe either of these men? Is one of them correct and the other not?

Beyond this dispute, there is the efficacy of masks and masking requirements, there are vaccines—recommendations and mandates. There is so much that is contradictory.

How do we know what is true? How do we live in the truth?

This is what we’re up against.

_________________________

[1] The Dispatch: January 11, 2022.

I love it when people come up with words that make sense of my experience of the world. This is a real gift, I think. It’s a delight when you read or listen to someone and find yourself saying, “I had never thought about it like that before” or “I never had the words to explain myself” or “That’s exactly right.”

I had that experience last week. I listened to a favorite podcast—Econtalk. On a recent episode the Jewish-American moderator Russ Roberts and his Irish-American guest, the journalist Megan McArdle, sat down for a conversation. Which sounds like a joke. But it wasn’t.

The subject was “the idea of home and the role of national identity.” It was a discussion of a book, Where We Are, written by the late British conservative, Roger Scruton, who explored the meaning of the Brexit vote for the British people. Not sure I will read the book, but this conversation around the book was rich.

Early in the discussion the guest, Megan McArdle, said a couple of things that were really interesting. First, she believes that “we are always in the end kind of bound by extremely particular attachments to a particular place, a particular home, a particular people, and a particular kind of way of life.”

Second, she mentioned that there are two kinds of people—the “Somewheres” and the “Anywheres.” These are “the people who live in one place and stay there versus the people who are constantly mobile and can go anywhere.” She suggested the Anywhere sort of people had the hardest time with the Coronavirus because they had to become Someplace sort of people.

I resonated with these two terms because it describes my experience here in Aims. I don’t ever remember living around so many Someplace sort of people.

And we definitely live someplace. It’s a place where many drive around with a chainsaw in the back of their vehicle—“rig” or “truck” I imagine is what they would call it—because you never know when you’ll need it to clear the way home.

It’s a place where, when it’s windy, it’s not just possible but quite likely that the power is going off. (It was windy last Friday when I was going to send this. The power came on and off three times before it finally died. The nice thing about the power finally going off is that you’re no longer worried about the power going off.)

It’s a place in the forest, among the trees. It’s quiet. And peaceful. Particularly in these dark, winter months. The loudest sound outside this morning is the creek behind the church building, which is so full that it sounds a bit like the wind today.

And it’s a place where many have lived all their lives with no interest in living anywhere else.

And yet our identity is not simply this place we live. As we’re beginning to learn in our series on the Seven Churches of Revelation, every congregation lives someplace—there are real circumstances that come with living in a particular place—but ultimately, the identity of every congregation is not found exclusively in a place but in Jesus, who is among the churches and holds the churches in his hand.

There was a second part of the podcast that I resonated with. The host, Russ Roberts, spoke of national identity. He mentioned how the United States has a problem right now related to how we think of ourselves as a nation. Here’s how he framed the issue: “our conception of who we are as a nation is a half-full and half-empty–or at best half-full, half-empty–that there’s this proud part of us. And, then there’s this ashamed part. And, many people have decided to only choose one.”

I loved this part of the podcast because it put into words feelings I’ve had for the last eighteen months or so. How am I to think about this country in which we live? I’ve noticed there are people who want to tell a grand story about who we are as a country and leave out uncomfortable things like slavery and its effects. And then there are people who want to tell a story about how bad this country is.

These stories feel exclusive. And to add nuance or a corrective to either narrative is to invite trouble.

The guest, McArdle believes both tendencies are wrong. She says that “it is unhealthy if a nation is unwilling to admit the bad things that it has done . . . But, is there something really disturbing about the sight of a nation that has decided to only focus on the bad things it did?”

This rang true for me as I think about our country. I believe it is true of us as people as well.

As believers we can’t be solely proud of who we are because God isn’t finished with us, yet. Humility recognizes that we are works in progress and there are areas to grow. We are not all that we can be in Jesus. “Look how far we’ve come” is always balanced by “Look how far we have to go.”

On the other hand, we can’t simply live in shame. Among the sad things in life is watching someone whose only idea of themself is shame. This denies the very thing Jesus came to do—“he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21)

This morning we find ourselves someplace. May we experience joy in that place.

And we are in the process of becoming. May we forget “what is behind” and strain “for what is ahead,” pressing on “toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called [us] heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13–14)

There’s something about the passing of Norm Macdonald at the age of 61 from a ten-year battle with cancer that has me thinking about a number of things.

First, there’s the way he lived with the cancer. To my knowledge, he never disclosed his illness in public. He did a bit in a stand-up act that took on the idea of “battling” cancer. He said, “I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty sure if you die, the cancer dies at the same time. That’s not a loss. That’s a draw.” Somewhere else—Is it in his memoir?—he mentioned severe abdominal pain as part of a bit, but he never let on that he knew anything about that personally. It was with a remarkable dignity that he lived life with this awful disease of cancer.

I suspect the way Macdonald lived with cancer had something to do with his Christian faith. You don’t normally hear about the Christian faith of a comedian, but he was one who had one. It doesn’t mean I can listen to every joke he told. He often said things I wouldn’t say. But he seemed to have his identity settled in Christ.

In an interview he once said this:
“Some people believe that man is divine, like kind of a hippie idea. I can’t believe that because I know my own heart, and I know that’s not true. Other people believe that we’re wretched like the cynics or the atheists would believe we’re all just wretched nothingness, just animals, just creatures. I can’t believe that. It doesn’t make any sense, that we’re just beasts. I will say that Christianity has this interesting compromise where we’re both divine and wretched, and there’s this Middle Man that’s the Savior, that through Him we can become divine, but we’re born wretched. I kind of like that one, because it sort of makes sense.”

In an interview with Larry King, Macdonald declared, “I’m a Christian. It’s not stylish to say that now.”

King replied, “Are you devout? … You believe in the Lord?”

“Yes, I do,” Macdonald said.

I don’t think King was aware that Macdonald was dying from cancer at the time of the interview. He asked, “You think that you’re going somewhere when (life) ends?”

“Well, I don’t believe it. What people don’t understand about faith is that you have to choose. You know what I mean? They think that you believe it – but you have to choose.”

On Reformation Day (November 1) years ago he sent out this message on Twitter: “Scripture. Faith. Grace. Christ, Glory of God. Smart men say nothing is a miracle. I say everything is.”

Macdonald was listing the “Five Sola’s.” Sola is Latin for “alone,” so it’s “Scripture Alone. Faith Alone. Grace Alone. Christ Alone. And To God Alone Be The Glory.” That’s a pretty good foundation to build your life.

In 2018 he told his Twitter audience this: “At times, the joy that life attacks me with is unbearable and leads to gasping hysterical laughter. How could a man be a cynic? It is a sin.”

There’s a rather famous (infamous?) interchange Macdonald had with a comedian when he was a judge on Last Comic Standing, where he makes a defense of Christianity. It’s worth watching. One of the other judges said they thought a joke was brave. Here you can hear the joke and Macdonald’s reaction to both it and the reaction of the other judge:

You can hear the audience (and a fellow judge) not know quite how to respond. On a show about laughter, Macdonald is deadly serious about things that mattered to him.

This week, I’ve gotten a lot of joy of out Macdonald’s moth joke. It’s probably the reason that he is in my thoughts today.

I just heard the backstory to this joke. Macdonald did a segment on Conan’s show. Just before the commercial break Conan said, “We’ll be right back with Norm Macdonald.” The problem was that He didn’t have any material for a second segment. He was totally unprepared. So what we hear is Macdonald just making up things as he goes. He takes a 20″ joke and stretches it out for several minutes.

A writer, Jon Gabriel, said this: “The smartest comedians portray themselves as the dumbest; Norm Macdonald was the best at this sleight of hand. He graduated high school at 14, read Russian literature in his downtime and had long philosophical discussions with clergy. … Macdonald was a student of human nature first, comedy second.”

Norm Macdonald was a disarming comic. He kept his intelligence and his reading a secret. And he offers a challenge to me.

Eric Sorensen reflected on a interview he had heard Macdonald give. In the interview, Macdonald says, “I have a Rabbi who I talk to a lot… he’s a real scholar. My pastor doesn’t know anything-I mean anything…. he’s just a pleasant guy. If you ask him a direct question, he’ll go: ‘What? Didn’t you hear my sermon?’ But his sermon’s always like ‘How to be a nice fella’ or some nonsense.”

And there’s the challenge: How do you be more than pleasant? How can you be a scholar that knows something? But, then, how do you own that knowledge in a way that isn’t off-putting. How can you relate Christianity to others the way Macdonald tells a joke?

I had three touches with history over the Memorial Day weekend. I wasn’t looking for them, but there they were anyway.

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The first was a book I read over the weekend called The Bomber Mafia, by Malcolm Gladwell (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2021).