All posts by James Pyles

James Pyles is a published Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror author as well as the Technical Writer for a large, diversified business in the Northwest. He currently has over 30 short stories published in various anthologies and periodicals and has just sold his first novella. He won the 2021 Helicon Short Story Award for his science fiction tale "The Three Billion Year Love" which appears in the Tuscany Bay Press Planetary Anthology "Mars."
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57 Days: The Lord has Promised Good to Me

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Peace of mind is essential for obtaining many virtues. Its absence leads to all types of shortcomings. When you have peace of mind, you can use your mind constructively. Lack of peace of mind breeds anger and resentment.

The quality of one’s prayers and blessings is dependent on the mastery of one’s thoughts. Above all else, one’s ability to study Torah properly is based on having peace of mind.

-Rabbi Zelig Pliskin
“Daily Lift #628, Peace of Mind is Essential for Growth”
Aish.com

Every Sunday, my daughter has to be at work at 5 a.m. That means I need to wake up at four and get ready to drive her so she can be at work on time. After that, when I get back home, I can get in bed again if I want to.

And that’s just what I did. But church services start at 9:30, so I set the alarm for 6:30. Makes sense to me. Gives me time to wake up leisurely, read, study, check my blog, have breakfast, and figure out if I have any semi-dress clothes that will fit. Haven’t had to “dress up” in quite a while, but fortunately I know how to use an iron and I don’t clean up half bad.

Both my wife and daughter were already at work when I was ready to leave for church, so there was no one around to wish me luck.

Made it there about ten to fifteen minutes early, which is early enough (I figured) to find a parking spot, but not too early that I’d have to conspicuously hang around a bunch of people I don’t know. Found the men’s bathroom, which is an important task in attending any public social event. About four people greeted me and shook my hand before I even got to the entrance of the sanctuary. Saw Pastor Randy who also cleans up pretty good. He was encouraging as was everyone else I met. He sent around the teacher for the class my son and daughter-in-law attends at the church. B.J. just wanted to say “hi” because he knew I was David’s Dad.

Because I told Pastor Randy that my wife is Jewish, other people seemed to know. One woman introduced herself (I didn’t hear her name because of all the background noise hundreds of people make when they’re talking all at once) and told me she was a Jewish believer. More than a few people, including the Jewish woman, said they hoped my wife would come to church with me soon.

Which is kind of what I was dreading, and that will sound odd to most Christians, but let me explain.

My wife wouldn’t receive the kindness of Christian contact and an invitation to come to church as a particularly positive thing. While she’s been to church in the past, her Jewish identity as it currently exists, does not accommodate going to church or attending Christian functions, even though she also doesn’t attend many Jewish functions. I just hope no one tries to contact her independently (I haven’t written my address and phone number down on anything at church, but I’m not that hard to find, either). I tried to explain this to Pastor Randy yesterday, but I’m not sure how he received it.

OK, one issue to be concerned about, but hopefully I’m making it a bigger deal than it really is.

Everyone was very friendly. Lot’s of handshakes and “glad your here.” I know that the “corporate greet your neighbors” handshaking is a normal thing in churches, but I’m still shy enough for it to make me a tad nervous.

The order of service and music was about what I expected. In fact, I was surprised that I remembered the tunes so readily. Nothing mysterious or too difficult. Words were on the screen at the front of the sanctuary.

One Pastor read the text from Acts 7 and then Pastor Randy gave the lesson from that chapter (they’re going through the book of Acts right now, pretty much dissecting it, but the series is slightly ahead of where I am in my Torah Club study on Acts, so I couldn’t leverage Lancaster while listening to the sermon). The bulletin contained a sheet for taking notes about Stephen’s defense to the Sanhedrin, which I used. I was interested in how Pastor Randy would frame Stephen relative not just to the Sanhedrin, but to the rest of the Jewish people, and the nation of Israel as a whole.

He very much acknowledged that Stephen was a Jew, just as his “fathers and brothers” were (Acts 7:2). I won’t go through my notes on what Pastor preached about, but it didn’t reflect the traditional Christian view of Stephen rejecting the Temple, Law, or the customs of the Jewish people in favor of the grace of Jesus Christ. Stephen was portrayed as “convicting” the Sanhedrin of going against the Torah of Moses and being faithless to God, which is more consistent with how I’d read these verses. The sermon was worded to be more accessible to a Christian audience and there were a few times that I thought the message might have been “toned down” a bit for the sake of the people listening (but I can’t be really sure, of course).

The Pastor made good use of his knowledge of Biblical Hebrew and Greek, gently suggesting that the NIV translation may not be entirely accurate. He spent a lot of time on the Abrahamic covenant, a favorite topic of mine lately. He also backtracked into Acts 6 and illuminated “trust and obey” to all of us. How do we know we trust God? How do we know our faith is genuine? Because if it is, we obey God. But what do we obey?

This is the $64,000 question from my point of view, since traditional Christianity usually says that works is dead and all we have to do is believe, while in Judaism, performing the mitzvot has center stage in a Jew’s life. The answer from the Pastor was, “good works.” Our faith is genuine if it produces “good fruit” (he didn’t actually say “good fruit,” but I thought I’d insert it here).

Pastor leveraged the Akediah (he didn’t say “Akediah,” but with his knowledge of Hebrew and having lived fifteen years in Israel, he must have been thinking it) to show us how faith, trust, and obedience are married concepts for someone who is truly righteous (he might have said, “for a tzaddik”). In going back to the original command God gave Abraham to leave Haran (Genesis 12:1), Pastor took the principle of obedience a step further in telling a story about some early Christian missionaries in India.

These missionaries were continually debating how they were to start out on their task, anticipating what might happen if they took this step or that. Finally, one of the missionaries said something like the following:

A Christian doesn’t have the right to demand to know where he is going. He must walk by faith.

Given everything I’ve been going through in anticipating “church,” he might as well have been talking to me.

Even as I wrote down the quote, I couldn’t help but marvel at how much of last week’s Torah portion had been inserted into Pastor’s message on Acts 7. He also included portions of Genesis 45 and Genesis 50, as he followed Stephen’s defense, which included references to the Patriarchs and the people of Israel.

Overall, the message was not only one of hope for Christians, that God is faithful and gracious even while we may have troubles in our lives, but that God has always been faithful and gracious to Israel and the Jewish people, even in the midst of their trials and suffering. God remains the constant for both Christians and Jews, and Abraham is the father for both the Christians and the Jews (and Pastor was careful to say that the Abrahamic covenant does not make the Christian “Jewish”).

After the sermon and closing song and prayers ended, it was time for Sunday school. I had chosen a particular class to attend, and Pastor Randy let Charlie, the teacher, know I was coming. Several handshakes later (I don’t mean to belittle this and actually, everyone was very friendly, but it will take me awhile to get used to so much human attention compressed into such a small space and time), I found where I could get a cup of coffee before class. The coffee ran out just as I was about to get a cup, so I didn’t have that delay before finding my classroom.

Consequently, I was the first to arrive. People trickled in and introduced themselves. The teacher and class members were mostly my age or older (I think one couple was a bit younger).  The first person to come in after me was an older gentleman named Dick. We got to talking and at one point he said something like, “It can be hard to find a church that gives you what you need,” and went on to say how fortunate they were to have a Pastor who preached the whole Word, including the Old Testament. He pretty much summed things up for me.

Class wasn’t as organized as I would have expected. I was glad it wasn’t heavily scripted, because that tends to stifle individual or creative response, but I saw that people struggled to respond when Charlie threw a question out among us.

I really, really had intended to be quiet, and just to listen and observe. That didn’t last very long and all of my old “reflexes” in addressing classroom questions and answers, built up over the years in my previous congregational experience, immediately took over.

In fact, I realized at one point, that instead of answering a question, I expanded on it and turned the question back to the rest of the class.

Oops.

I tried to tone it down after that, but I may have come close to crossing the line when I suggested that no matter how much God has chastised Israel, He has always brought them back, and will continue to fulfill His promises to them by bringing them back (not by restoring only a tiny remnant, but by redeeming Israel) to Him.

After class was over, I apologized to the everyone and particularly to Charlie for my being such a chatterbox. Not many of the other class members talked much, although during one of my monologues, I entered a dialog with one of the other fellows. Everyone was gracious about it and I hope I didn’t offend anyone. I didn’t think I’d get this “interactive” for weeks, but the wheels kept spinning in my head and once I opened my mouth, words started zipping out.

I was kind of interesting that all of the other students there were married couples except for one woman whose husband was on some sort of business trip in Turkey. I can see it’s going to be awkward to be going “stag” to church every Sunday.

Oh, both in the service and during Sunday school, I liked how the Jews weren’t blamed for rejecting Jesus or being bad examples, and in fact, the teachings emphasized how we Christians were expected to live up to the teachings of our Master.

At one point, Charlie, in discussing how Jesus dealt with faith or its lack as recorded in Mark 9 and 10, said, “If Jesus attended this church, what issues would he have to address here?” A little later he asked, “What would Jesus have to say to me” (about my failings)?

The experience wasn’t perfect, but then I expected that I’d feel out of place in an unfamiliar social environment. It was very “Christian” in all the ways I thought it would be, except that Judaism was treated much better relative to the Jewish Messiah and the Gentile disciples than I had imagined. The music lacked a certain punch, but that’s not really an issue for me compared to the other matters I’ve discussed, although they did introduce a bit of an “experiment” by having band sing “Amazing Grace” to the tune of The House of the Rising Sun (originally recorded by the Animals in 1964). It totally rocked.

Yes, I’ll go back next week for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that I’m curious as to how far I can enter Christian fellowship and how much I will be able to integrate and still keep the core of who I am as one of the world’s most unusual Christians. At this point, my only real reservation, as I said before, is how far some of the folks in the church will try to press me to bring my wife to services. I don’t think that part would go over well at all.

Guess I’ll see how it all works out week by week, day by day, by God’s grace.

The Lord has promised good to me…
His word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be…
as long as life endures.

-John Newton (1725-1807)
Amazing Grace

 

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57 Days: Life is Burning with God’s Desire

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Woman in fireFirst contact is a term describing the first meeting of two cultures previously unaware of one another. One notable example of first contact is that between the Spanish and the Arawak (and ultimately all of the Americas) in 1492.

Such contact is sometimes described later by one or both groups as a “discovery”, particularly by the more technologically developed society. In addition it is generally the more technologically complex society that is able to travel to a new geographic region to discover and make contact with the generally more isolated, less technologically developed society, leading to this frame of reference. However, some object to the application of such a word to human beings, which is why “first contact” is generally preferred. The use of the term “discovery” tends to occur more in reference to geography than cultures…

-quoted from “First contact (anthropology)”
Wikipedia.org

It’s both unfair and inaccurate to say that my meeting Saturday morning with Pastor Randy was a “first contact” situation, both because I have previous history in the Christian church and because having lived for fifteen years in Israel, Pastor Randy was more than familiar with anything I had to say about Jews and Judaism. That’s a severe abbreviation of why my nearly two-hour conversation with him wasn’t a “first contact,” and there are a great many reasons why our talk was both informative and illuminating, at least on my side of the equation.

I’m glad I went.

I had a feeling I would be. Not knowing what to expect as I walked into the church’s front door, I am comforted by what actually happened, though it wasn’t quite what I thought it would be.

If I had to sum up my response to my conversation with the Pastor, I’d have to say that I feel “understood” in terms of my concerns regarding my “cultural” re-entry into the church, as well as my personal and family issues associated with being intermarried.

But Pastor Randy also put on the spot a few times, although very gently, and I actually appreciate that he did, since who doesn’t want to be challenged in their (my?) faith community? For instance, something I think I’ve been missing in terms of “hearing” God is that I study the Bible a lot but don’t just read it enough. Does that sound confusing? It did to me, but then I thought about it for awhile and it started to make sense. I tend to read the Bible for the purpose of either studying something or doing research for a blog post, but I never really just immerse myself in scripture for its own sake, and to hear what God is trying to say to me. Maybe I can’t do that anymore without writing about it, but it certainly seems like it could be true. I used to do that; I used to just read the Bible, but somewhere along the way, I set that particular behavior aside, replacing it with studying to achieve some pre-set goal or lesson plan. I suppose it’s the difference between riding a bicycle to commute to and from work, or to lose an extra ten (or twenty, or more) pounds, as opposed to riding a bike along the greenbelt for the pure pleasure of taking in the glory of God’s autumn “artwork.”

I also realized, although Pastor Randy may not have intended to communicate this, that my talking to God “Tevye-like” in a continuing dialog, may have put my relationship with God in an unbalanced state, so to speak. I gave up more formal prayer when I gave up other traditionally “Jewish” religious practices, and I think now that I may have put my siddur away needlessly. No, a Baptist Pastor didn’t actually suggest that I pray from a siddur, but he did say that formal prayer is something that Christians could take as a benefit from Judaism. We don’t get a lot of practice appreciating the immense and august majesty and awe associated with anticipating our twice daily approach to the throne of the King.

I can’t recall everything that was said during our conversation, nor would it be beneficial to try to recount every detail here. I did come away with some realizations, information, and decisions. Here are a few of them.

I volunteered to do something for the church. I won’t say what it is right now, but the church’s need came up in conversation and it seemed to “fit” my interests and skill sets.

I seriously renewed my desire to visit Israel, not in just some dim “someday” future, but in less than a year as a potential goal.

I will be going to church and Sunday school tomorrow (this morning, as you read my “meditation”). No one was more surprised by this revelation than I.

I specifically asked about the level of supersessionism at this church, and according to the Pastor, on a scale of zero to one-hundred, it is set at a firm zero.

Given everything that I’ve just written and all that I recall about my conversation with Pastor Randy and its results, how much of all this did can I reasonably believe God arranged to happen?

Not only the pirouettes of a leaf as it falls off a tree, the quivering of a blade of grass in the wind, each and every detail of existence brought into being, given life and directed every moment from Above

—but beyond that:

Every nuance is an essential component of a grand and G-dly scheme, the gestalt of all those vital minutiae.

Every moment burns with the pulse of G-d’s desire.

Meditate on this. And then think:
How much more so the details of my daily life.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Every Detail”
Based on the teachings of the Rebbe, Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
on the central teaching of the Baal Shem Tov
Chabad.org

Will You cause a driven leaf to tremble?

–Job 13:25 (NASB)

While I sometimes feel as if I am a “driven leaf” trembling before the awesome winds of God’s will, in fact, I also believe that the nuance of “every moment burns with the pulse of G-d’s desire.” I suppose that’s a lot of meaning and expectation to pack into a meeting with one Pastor that lasted just under two hours, but that’s how I’m choosing to interpret it. This “morning meditation” is being written on Saturday and published early Sunday morning so further revelations are unrealized but soon to be experienced.

When my wife came home later in the day, she asked about how my meeting went, which in and of itself, surprised me. I wasn’t sure how “covert” she wanted me to keep this side of my life. I told her some of the things I’ve written above and others that I haven’t. She was a little surprised that there were a couple of people tangentially involved in the church that she knows. I think she’s more comfortable about me attending a church than any sort of “quasi-Jewish worship venue” as I had in the past. I definitely think she’s more comfortable in my attending a church than either of the local synagogues.

At this point, it’s like a new (or renewed) swimmer looking at a swimming pool and considering a return to swimming after an absence of many years. The first question is, where should I dive in; the deep end, the shallow end, or somewhere in the middle? Should I just jump off the side, use the high dive, or slowly walk down the stairs? Who knows? Not being sure of the best course, I’ve selected a likely point of entry and will “get my feet wet” tomorrow (today, as you read this). I’ll make adjustments as I experience the water. I think there’s a wise, though forgetful “sage” who has a relevant piece of advice for this occasion.

Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we do? We swim, swim.

-Dory (Ellen DeGeneres)
Finding Nemo (2003)

Torah Portion

Vayera: Miraculous

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abrahams visitorsThe Lord appeared to him by the terebinths of Mamre; he was sitting at the entrance of the tent as the day grew hot.

–Genesis 18:1 (JPS Tanakh)

When Rabbi Sholom DovBer of Lubavitch was a child of four or five, he entered into the room of his grandfather, Rabbi Menachem Mendel, and burst into tears. His teacher in cheder had taught the verse “And G-d revealed himself to Abraham…” “Why,” wept the child, “doesn’t G-d reveal Himself to me?!”

Rabbi Menachem Mendel replied: “When a Jew, a tzaddik, realizes at the age of 99 that he must circumcise himself, that he must continue to perfect himself, he is worthy that G-d should reveal Himself to him.”

-Rabbi Yanki Tauber
“The Tears of a Child”
Chabad.org

This is a well-known commentary on this week’s Torah Portion, Vayera and I’m hardly in a position to add to what a great many sages and spiritual luminaries have already stated regarding this portion of the Torah. But in studying the Torah Club commentary (volume 6) for this week on Acts 4:32-5:42, I discovered what could be a tangentially related issue.

Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon’s Portico. None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem. And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women, so that they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, that as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them. The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed.

–Acts 5:12-16 (ESV)

D. Thomas Lancaster’s lesson on these verses, both in the written text of his commentary and in the Torah Club audio teaching, speaks about “the age of miracles” and whether or not we have miracles today. As we read passages such as the one I quoted above, we Christians may be hard pressed to explain why 2,000 years ago, severely ill and disabled people could be cured simply by having Peter’s shadow fall across them, while today our most fervent prayers and petitions to God fail to prevent a loved one from dying of cancer. Why don’t we see miraculous signs, wonders, and healings in today’s church?

Some say that we do, but because we live in the 21st century, many events that a person 2,000 years ago would have called a miracle, today might be explained as some other phenomena. Even in the church, we are sometimes hesitant to say something is a miracle for fear of appearing foolish. On other occasions, the claims of miraculous events from some seem to be so common that the credibility of witnesses is brought into question.

While I do believe that sometimes miracles do happen today, they don’t seem to be “predictable,” which I guess stands to reason, but they also don’t seem to be predictably produced by an identifiable individual or group of individuals, such as the apostles. When we read about Peter, John, and the other apostles in the early chapters of Acts, it’s as if they’re doing miracles all the time.

One explanation, as Lancaster points out, is that the book of Acts compresses 35 years of history into about two hours worth of reading. It’s easy to get the impression that Peter was healing the sick through miracles every day and several times a day. This is probably untrue and only the “highlights” of the “Acts of the Apostles” were recorded by Luke. All of the other more mundane occurrences in their lives over three and a half decades went unchronicled and passed away into the shadows of history.

But there’s another reason we may not see miracles today the way we see them in Acts.

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

–Acts 2:1-4 (ESV)

This is the day when the apostles of Christ (and only the apostles of Christ) received the Holy Spirit. Most Christians think this event is identical to what happens to all people everywhere when they receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord (although I’ve yet to hear a modern Christian tell me that they received the Spirit on tongues of fire). But what if this isn’t exactly true?

We know that in Acts 10:44-45 the Roman Centurion Cornelius and his entire household also received the Holy Spirit, but to the best of our knowledge, none of them went on, after the initial event, to perform miraculous healings, signs, and wonders. What’s the difference between Cornelius and Peter? Were the Jews the only ones with the Spirit able to perform miracles, or was something else going on?

It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

–Hebrews 2:3-4 (ESV)

Take a closer look at this verse. According to Lancaster, “those who heard”, that is, those who were direct witnesses of the Messiah, were the apostles. Only the apostles were able to be witnesses of the validity of Jesus “by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his (God’s) will.”

The idea, in this particular explanation, is that during the so-called “age of miracles,” God did not use everyone to perform miracles, and miracles did not occur for just any old reason at all. The miracles were a witness that occurred through those who actually walked and talked with the Master, that he is the Messiah, the Son of God.

The apostles could be compared to Abraham as we re-examine the brief Chasidic tale recorded by Rabbi Tauber above. They were “tzaddikim” (Righteous Ones) who were assigned by God to fulfill a specific mission and purpose; to witness to the Messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth. Their tools for doing so, in addition to what they taught, were signs and wonders.

I know this viewpoint could be questioned and disbelieved, but I think we should at least consider the possibility. It doesn’t mean that God doesn’t do miracles today, and it doesn’t mean that God doesn’t use “ordinary Christians” to perform said-miracles today. It does mean however, that God does miracles “according to His will” and not our will. It also may mean, as we see in Rabbi Tauber’s tale, that when someone, a tzaddik, realizes he must perform the equivalent of “circumcising himself at the age of 99 years, he is worthy that G-d should reveal Himself to him.”

It’s an imperfect theory and it certainly could be wrong, but we’re an imperfect people and God, and His reasons for doing anything, are perfect. Whether we understand the nature of miracles happening in the past as opposed to happening the present or not, we can certainly acknowledge that miracles seem to occur in the world from time to time, at the will of God and for His own purposes, but we must not depend on them. Should God choose to intervene in our lives with a miracle, it is good, but if He chooses not to, it is good as well.

We depend, not on miracles to sustain us or to be a witness to the Messiah, but on our faith and trust in God. These are the stones with which God builds the path we walk upon as we journey each day, as we follow Him, reaching out to touch the hem of his garment, flourishing in the glow of His holiness, and then reflecting that light into the world. Perhaps that is miracle enough, for the light of God is His healing of the world.

It is a Divine kindness that His mercies are endless.

–Lamentations 3:22

Another way to translate this verse is, “It is a Divine kindness that we are never finished.”

The Maggid of Koznitz was extremely frail and sickly as a child. It was not thought that he would survive to adulthood. Much of his life was spent sick in bed, and he was so weak that he was often unable to sit up to meet visitors. Still, he lived to an advanced age.

The Maggid once revealed the secret of his longevity. “I never allowed myself to be without an assignment or a task to perform,” he said. “People are taken from this world only when their missions here are completed. Whenever I was just about to finish one task, I would start another; hence, I could not be removed from this world if my assignment was not completed.”

Even from a purely physiological aspect, the Maggid’s concept is valid. Some think that the healthiest thing for us is rest and relaxation. Not so. In reality, unused muscles tend to atrophy, while muscles that are exercised and stimulated are strengthened.

The same principle applies to the entire person. If we constantly stimulate ourselves to achieve new goals, we avoid the apathy that leads to atrophy.

Today I shall…

try to take on a new spiritual goal, and stimulate myself to greater achievement in serving God and being of help to other people.

-Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski
“Growing Each Day, Cheshvan 16”
Aish.com

I’ll be away from the computer for the day and won’t be available to respond to or approve comments. If I am unable to attend to them before Shabbat begins, then I will do so on Saturday after sundown.

Good Shabbos.

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60 Days: There is Still a Light that Shines

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Inner lightWhen you come to a place that seems outside of G‑d’s realm, too coarse for light to enter, and you want to run away—

Know that there is no place outside of G‑d, and rejoice in your task of uncovering Him there.

-Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Stay Put”
Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe
Rabbi M. M. Schneerson
Chabad.org

The soul above awaits the time it will be privileged to descend into a body. For the soul senses how much it can accomplish here below; it can attain the level of “delighting with G-d.” So what is everyone waiting for?

“Today’s Day”
Shabbat, Cheshvan 15, 5704
Compiled by the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Translated by Yitschak Meir Kagan
Chabad.org

Given what I’ve been writing about in these past few days, the quotes above seem rather fitting. There is no place we can go that God cannot enter with us, ironically including into the church.

I’ve been experiencing a little “push back” (no, not at home) about my decision to re-enter Christian fellowship, as if Christianity was a step backward and that some other philosophy or theology were more evolved for the non-Jewish believer. I can’t say that the path I’ve selected is for everyone, I can only say that it is right for me, at least the “me” who exists today and needs to face a certain set of challenges.

Jewish mysticism sees the soul in Heaven awaiting “assignment” to a physical body so it can enact the will of God in the world of human beings. In a sense, that’s sort of how I feel right now, waiting to enter into the world of the church to see if I have anything to contribute to the body of Christ. I also (and I’ve said this before) must be careful to communicate that I’m not entering the church with “ulterior motives” but rather, to add whatever uniqueness of expression and perspective God has gifted me with to the ekklesia of the Messiah as it exists in my own little corner of the planet.

One of the reasons some people choose to attend a particular church is that they are “fed” there. I’ve never been really sure of what that meant (I’m not very good at “Christianese”) but I suppose it has something to do with the teaching or the level of emotional or spiritual support provided by the Pastoral and teaching staff. I don’t think I’m going to church to be “fed” as such, but I do believe that Christian fellowship will give me something that I’ve been sorely lacking.

O, God, who will dwell in Your tabernacle, who will rest on Your holy mountain? … One who speaks the truth in his heart … who swears to his own hurt but will not retract.

–Psalms 15:1-4

In their mind’s eye, people believe that they are acting as truthfully as possible. We all know, however, how easily we can deceive ourselves. Since truth may be elusive, how then can we know that we have the truth?

There is a useful litmus test. We can know that we have the truth when we have the courage to feel the pain of accepting the truth. People lie because they think the lie will be less painful or costly for them than the truth.

People often fail to grow because they are reluctant to face the painful truth that they have done wrong. We have an innate tendency to avoid pain, and therefore we are apt to conjure up rationalizations that justify our behavior. These rationalizations are nothing but lies ― sometimes clever and convincing, but lies nonetheless. Facing the truth and accepting the pain that comes with it requires courage.

People who “speak the truth in their heart,” says the Psalmist, do not retract their word even if it is to their own hurt. On the other hand, those who constantly seek to change everything to conform to their maximum comfort are only lying to themselves.

Today I shall…

try to be courageous and not automatically withdraw from everything that is painful. I shall try to examine my actions to make sure I am not sacrificing truth for comfort.

-Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski
“Growing Each Day, Cheshvan 13”
Aish.com

While I don’t experience the church or Christians as a “painful truth,” in fact, I most likely have been denying myself an experience that I need in order to grow spiritually. It’s easy to say that the church is “such-and-thus” in some negative sense, and to let that be the excuse to keep me away. It’s also easy (but not as easy) to visit a church, and to say to yourself (and others) that “these people aren’t me,” or “I can visit them, but I’m not one of them.” Playing the “superiority card” at the church is no way to contribute to the body of believers, even if you (or I) think that they are less than what they can be and should be.

In the “Today’s Day” lesson for Friday, Cheshvan 14, 5704, we find:

“From G-d are man’s steps established.” (Psalm 37:23) Every one of Israel has a spiritual mission in life – which is to occupy himself with the work of construction, to make a “dwelling-place” for G-d.

That statement doesn’t actually apply to the church or any body of worship so much as it does to the individual and how we establish a “dwelling place” for God within us and within the world, but it still fits. If the Messiah dwells among us when two or three are gathered in his name, (Matthew 18:20) then it behooves us…it behooves me to gather with others so that he may be with us…and with me. Serving God isn’t particularly being served by God, but serving others and summoning the Spirit so that it may dwell within those who need it. There are so many who would hoard the gifts of the Spirit for themselves, but that’s not what we were taught. We can only be who God made us to be by being together and by joining others.

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

–Matthew 5:14-16 (ESV)

This teaching of the master is not unlike what we see presented from a more contemporary Jewish Rabbi.

G‑d did not give you light that you may hold it up in the middle of the day.

When you are given light it is in order to accomplish something, to do something difficult and novel.

Go take your light and transform the darkness that it may also shine!

It feels a little egotistical to say that I’m going to take my light and let it shine among my fellow Christians, but I feel as if the Master is commanding us to do just that; to share and to love and to be with each other. More than that, we are to place that light on a hill and let the rest of the world experience it as well. That’s pretty hard to do in isolation and I don’t think just “blogging light” cuts it. We have to uncover the light, we have to shine the light.

We have to be the light.

Let it be, let it be
Ah let it be, yeah let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be
And when the night is cloudy
There is still a light that shines on me
Shine on until tomorrow, let it be…

-Paul McCartney
Let It Be (1970)

Let it be.

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61 Days: Stars

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I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.

What is crooked cannot be made straight,and what is lacking cannot be counted.

I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.

For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

–Ecclesiastes 1:12-18 (ESV)

The Voyager 1 spacecraft’s 35th anniversary is proving to be unexpectedly exciting, as scientists gathered this week to examine new hints that the spacecraft is on the verge of leaving our solar system.

Voyager 1 is now more than 11 billion miles away from Earth. It blasted off in September 1977, on a mission to Jupiter and Saturn. But it also carried a Golden Record filled with music and the sounds of our planet, in case it encountered intelligent life as it moved out toward the stars.

Scientists have been eagerly waiting for Voyager 1 to become the first human-made object to leave the solar system. And in recent weeks, the spacecraft has sent back intriguing signs that it might be getting close, to the delight of researchers who have been working on it for decades.

-Nell Greenfieldboyce
“After 35 Years, Voyager Nears Edge of Solar System” (Sept. 5, 2012)
NPR.org

Most weekday mornings, I get up early enough to leave home by five, pick up my son who lives nearby, and then go to the gym to workout together. This time of year especially, it’s still dark when I open the garage door. Usually, I step outside for a minute and look up at the sky. The front of my house faces south, so if the sky is clear, I can see a fair number of stars, including the constellation Orion.

I don’t know why I look for it, except I can remember different times in my life, different “eras” in decades gone by, when I would look up at the night sky and recognize that constellation. I suppose it gives me some sense of continuity across my personal history.

It also reminds me of how incredibly small I am.

I intellectually understand how far away the planets and stars are, (I once, very briefly, considered a career in Astronomy) from millions of miles to untold light years, but to actually, experientially grasp the distances, even for a moment, is a staggering feat. I know we have robots on the surface of Mars, and Mars is relatively close to Earth, but if I had to walk such a distance; if I have to travel across the emptiness of interplanetary space, how lonely and isolated I would feel. Imagine yourself somehow traveling with Voyager 1 as it prepares to exit the official confines of our solar system and, setting aside the fiction of Star Trek or Star Wars for a moment, try to comprehend just how far away you would be from everything you know and love…

…except God.

I was thinking all these thoughts this morning as I lay awake in bed around 3 o’clock. I don’t know what brought it to mind. I had a bit of a headache, which is unusual for me, particularly in the morning. Perhaps it was something I had dreamed that disturbed me in some way.

My blog and blog comments periodically come to the attention of a few Internet trolls and, in their self-importance, they find it necessary to be disagreeable (only excusing their rudeness and hostility by calling it “debating” or even some form of “loving”). It’s certainly unsettling to be treated badly by those who also claim the cause of Christ (such as being openly maligned by name on their blogs without so much as a “by your leave”) and I won’t pretend it doesn’t bother me, but then, I stop and realize that it doesn’t really matter.

Oh, of course people matter. I don’t want to suggest that I don’t care about others and their well-being, but what I realize is that there are a few unhappy, or grumpy, or insecure people out there who have to try to suck joy out of the lives of others in a quixotic quest for significance in the blogosphere. It’s their behavior that inspired my Days series where I have been examining the idea of abandoning this blog and perhaps all Internet social media by the end of the calendar year.

So far (and I haven’t made a final decision yet), I’m deciding against giving up. First of all, my trollish critics are few in number, even though they can occasionally make a loud “noise” (like a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal). Secondly, far more people have been encouraging of me, both publicly and “backchannel,” than these two or three “curmudgeons” have been discouraging of me (though they aren’t curmudgeons in terms of years, merely in attitude).

I had thought about making this particular “meditation” today’s morning meditation, but passed it off as random thoughts of the night, deciding that Re-entry was a more worthy topic. But since the trolls have been active today, I decided I’d write this to clear my head of them and to realize that, in our human smallness, what happens from day-to-day in a small collection of blogs among a minority expression of Christianity doesn’t really matter. It’s certainly not worth my peace of mind.

As I said, I’m currently leaning toward continuing this “morning meditation” blog past January 1st, but I also think I’ll institute a tighter set of controls for comments. There haven’t been any really rude comments here for a while, but I anticipate they may return. In the past, in the interests of being fair, I’ve allowed a significant amount of abuse (in the guise of “debate” or being “loving”) in the comments people have posted on my blog, but that is likely to change. Free speech doesn’t mean “free to abuse” and a blog owner is more of a “benign dictator” than a moderator of democratic speech.

No, I won’t immediately flip over into draconian mode and if I think someone has crossed the line, I’ll serve fair warning first, but beyond that, I feel perfectly content to remove specific comments if they cross the line I set for proper decorum. And on occasion, I will close comments on a specific blog post if things get too heated (I’ve done both in the past). Repeat offenders who are not willing to “take a hint,” or those to engage in severe personal attacks or who use obscenities will be immediately banned.

Consider this my version of putting a wall around the roof of my home so that the safety of my “guests,” (and my own safety) who I consider anyone visiting my blog, (and most visitors don’t post comments) can be ensured.

But as I also said, I haven’t made up my mind yet. I can still pull the plug on life support and consign “morning meditations” to a peaceful, dignified demise. Better that than allowing the trolls to abuse what started out as such a peaceful and uplifting vision to begin each day.

When you awake in the morning, learn something to inspire you and meditate upon it, then plunge forward full of light with which to illuminate the darkness.

There are those who insist in living in darkness and they are not satisfied unless they pull others down into their realm with them. I prefer to soar and glide in the heights, letting the light illuminate my mind, my emotions, and my spirit, like the light of the sun gracefully reflects off of the wings of a dove.

The best response to harsh people is how Buddha responded; with a smile, accepting what was good and uplifting around him and not accepting anything else. I can’t even aspire to be Buddha, let alone Jesus, but I am supposed to emulate my Master so far as it depends on me by “living peaceably with all men.” (Romans 12:18)

Infinite darknessAngry and dissatisfied people are not helpful and are not healthy, for themselves or anyone exposed to them, even over the Internet. To repeat a lesson I continually need to learn…

Today I shall…

…try to improve my response to other people so that I only accept and give gifts of kindness, and not of anger.

Everything that we fuss and feud and argue about won’t really matter in the end. Jesus isn’t going to judge us on who won this blogosphere argument or that, no matter how important we may think they are at the time. They don’t really matter. They aren’t significant. Most of what we do isn’t significant. Staring up at the stars at five o’ clock on a clear autumn morning in Idaho, I realize that against all that vastness, against the stars, the space between me and them, and whatever is beyond, I’m not significant at all…

…except to God.

O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
to still the enemy and the avenger.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet,
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

–Psalm 8 (ESV)

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61 Days: Preparing for Re-entry

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I see church as a less than ideal environment for anyone who wishes to follow Torah…I see the need for rescue missions but for everyone in churches…I think they all need to be rescued — rescued from anti-Judaic doctrines…I see those anti-Judaic Christian doctrines as negatively affecting both Jews and gentiles. There is only one faith and it’s a Jewish faith — it’s the Judaism proposed by Yeshua and the authors of the New Testament.

-a comment from Peter
on Gene Shlomovich’s blog post
One Law Gentile Has a Change of Heart

I’m probably going to regret this, but I really can’t avoid writing this “meditation,” especially given the angst-filled missive I posted yesterday. But in having my conversation over at Gene’s blog, I realized that I’ve been just as guilty of misjudging Christians and been treating the church just as unfairly as I think Peter is. However, he’s right in that he can at least go to a church without writing a month’s worth of daily blogs exposing his every doubt and misgiving, as opposed to me dragging my heels every inch of the way between here and the nearest chapel.

Peter suggests that Christians need to be rescued out of the church and returned to…what?

Well, let’s go back a step. Rescued from what?

rescued from anti-Judaic doctrines…

So you get a small army together, raid a local church during Sunday services, scoop everyone up in a big net, and fly them via helicopter to…where? A late Second Temple era “ekklesia?”

But they don’t exist and frankly, we don’t know how to replicate one. Even if we did, is that our goal? To transport all 21st century Christians back in time twenty centuries to the first “churches” established by Paul in the diaspora? To what end?

OK, I get it. If the Gentiles never stopped worshiping the Jewish Messiah with the Jewish disciples, chances are supersessionism would never have developed and we’d all be hunky-dory together, Jews and Gentiles all praying to Jesus, right?

Well, maybe not.

So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!

Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.

But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.

–Romans 11:11-24 (ESV)

What picture is Paul painting here? This letter was addressed to a congregation of disciples in Rome that included both Jews and Gentiles. He’s “toggling” back and forth between each population in this letter, trying to keep each group from playing the “superiority card” against the other. He’s telling both the Jewish group of disciples and the Gentile group of disciples not to get too cocky, because God is the final judge of who will be on the root and who will knocked off, and for that matter, who will be put back on again. The “glue” was (and is) faith, not simply being Jewish or being non-Jewish.

But even this early in the history of “the church,” the friction between Jewish and non-Jewish disciples was evident…and this was a combined congregation, with Jews and Gentiles worshiping together, breaking bread, fellowshiping, davening together.

On the one hand, both the Jews and Gentiles in Rome would have been part of the Roman culture, but on a deeper level, Jews, no matter where they live, have their own culture, apart from the surrounding goyim. Chances are, the “Messianic” Jews lived in a Jewish section of Rome, apart from the Gentile disciples. Chances are, there were a thousand other cultural, ethnic, lifestyle and halalaic differences between the Jews and Gentiles that, while they were held together in their faith in the Messiah, they were also separated in these many other ways. Why do you think Paul had to write “neither Jew nor Greek” to other churches as we see in Galatians 3:28?

Often, we miss these matters when reading the New Testament, but the struggle to integrate the non-Jewish nations and the various cultures they represented into the worship of the God of Israel must have been an enormous task for the Jewish disciples who were, at that time, the leaders and mentors of the ekklesia of Christ. Friction between the Jews and the various people groups from the nations was inevitable from the beginning. Maybe that’s part of the reason Paul wrote to the Roman Gentiles, ” a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.”

The partial hardening upon Israel has to come! If the Messianic (Christian) faith had remained exclusively or primarily Jewish at that point in history (and especially if the Gentile disciples were expected to take on the full yoke of the Law as a minority of Hebrew Roots practitioners believe today), then either the Gentiles would not have accepted Jesus in such great numbers or, they would have “reinvented” the faith anyway, alienating the Jews and recreating the Jewish Messiah as the Goyishe Jesus.

Does that mean that part of God’s plan for integrating the nations into faith and trust in God through the Jewish Messiah was a separation between Jews and Gentiles? It certainly could be seen that way. Does that mean we must always be totally separate and even hostile toward one another? Absolutely not. The budding Messianic Jewish movement of the past few decades, which is now gaining increasing traction, is evidence that we can interface and fellowship while retaining our national and cultural distinctions.

I’m quite familiar with the history of supersessionism in the church and the long centuries of enmity between Jew and Christian and thankfully, that is slowly ending. But is the “cure” for this supersessionism to remove the Christians from the church and to include them in a Jewish synagogue setting, attempting to integrate them into modern Jewish cultural and religious practices?

Or is there another way?

What about Christians who are not supersessionist staying in the church or returning to church? What about being members of a church so that the church can become more aware of its heritage and its connections to ancient Judaism; so it can begin to recognize the face of the Jewish Messiah King as the actual face of Jesus Christ?

I launched Going Back to Ekklesia a day early because I needed to write this “sequel.” I needed to firm up my commitment to return to fellowship with other Christians and not treat them as an “alien other” that I’m just “visiting” but not actually a part of. If I am to champion the cause of Christianity to those “Christians” I encounter who disdain the name, then I must belong to the group of people, the church, who have faithfully followed the cause of Christ.

I apologize to anyone who I’ve offended by my previous comments, particularly in my hesitation at joining fellowship. I realize now, by seeing the church through another’s eyes, that I was being woefully unfair and unkind. I ask that you accept me as a fellow brother in the faith, though I probably won’t always talk as you’d expect a Christian to express himself (just read my blog posts to see what I mean). If my personal “wall of separation” is to come down, then I’m the one who has to remove it.

I have no illusions that I’m so powerful or smart or cool that my single contribution will be some sort of “big deal,” but if nothing else, I’ll remove any sort of dissonance from my statements and I’ll have something “real” to talk about.

Whatever comes your way today, whatever situation you walk through, you are safe in God’s hands. Any storm that swirls around you swirls around Him. He is your Shield, your Strength, your Rock, your Fortress. Nothing is getting through without His permission. We may not always understand why He allows what He allows, but we can cling to the blessed fact of His everlasting love.

–Marie