O Lord,
We pray to thee that thou may help us this day
To empty ourselves completely
So as to leave room for your heart and your soul,
Your presence and your grace.
And we give thanks for this existence we have been granted
And this life we live.
Though we suffer,
We know your love is here.
Amen.
I can also adduce in this place but a single, and that
an inconspicuous, illustration of the far-reaching influence
which the cuneiform investigations have exercised on our understanding ofthe text of the Old Testament—a result
due to the remarkably close affinity between the Baby-
lonian and Hebrew languages and to the enormous com-
pass of the Babylonian literature. We read in Numbers
vi. 24-27:
"The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: The Lord
make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto
thee: The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and
give thee peace."
Countless times has this blessing been given and
received! But it was never understood in its full depth
and import until Babylonian usage informed us that
“To lift up one's countenance or eyes upon or to another,"
was a form of speech for "bestowing one's love upon an-
other, for gazing lovingly and feelingly upon another, as
a bridegroom upon a bride, or a father upon a son." This
ancient and glorious benediction, therefore, invokes on
manwith increasing emphasis God's blessing and protec-
tion, God's benignant and gracious consideration, and
lastly God's own love,—finally to break forth into that
truly beautiful greeting of the Orient, "Peace be with
thee!"
P. 29, Babel and Bible, Friedrich Delitschz 1903
I spent three hours this morning before sunrise listening to BLKSHP Scott about the Bible. Must say I love What he says, but I’m not quite trusting yet. Could be his cold eys and stiff posture. Help me to discern, Lord. Nephilim details! Scary! But Interesting information about Abraham‘s THREE wives and eight, count ‘em, eight children, the founding of nations, and the family intersections. Plus Gods reasons for this portioning, beginning with the Tower of Babel. Add in Rabbi Gordon’s Torah portion on Sarai, Hagar, and motherhood. More later.
“Six feet of earth makes us all of one size.”
Lord people scream, beg, and blame you. And each other. Cruelty is sin in the extreme. We invent and watch justice or vengeance stories. Help us, help me, to seek. Solace in you.
RIP Brad S. You didn’t improve with age, but your mother loved you and did not have to see you pass before she did, which she feared. Blessings on your remaining family, bro, his wife and half sister. I should include your life long partner, though I’m biased against her for no good reasons, God forgive me; and bless her most.
Lee van Laer, Inner Christianity substack, prayer 9-5-25
…Help me to find the right path, the straight path.
Help me to see the right within life and to cleave to justice and kindness
rather than the inclinations of my own will,
which cares only for itself.
For this I need your help.
There is no other.
May I remember thee with each breath that I take
With each step.
With each word.
Help me to see the clear sky within myself
and the light of the stars as they shine down upon me.
Help me to remember that thou only art the Lord,
and to offer this life that has been given
back to you in praise and thanksgiving,
Lee van Laer, Daily Five Substack today, Resurrection
“There is a stillness at the heart of being.
And whenever I enter that stillness,
I understand that I begin here,
and belong here first,
and that I belong to the stillness,
for it is not in my own nature to be still.
Yet the stillness has more authority than I do.
I always seem to be drawn away from it towards my outer life.
The things that bother me.
As though I had a right to be comfortable,
and uncaring towards the world.
From within this stillness, o
I see that there is not enough kindness in me.
I will need to seek it elsewhere.
I see that there is not enough love in me,
for indeed I have none.
I must seek that also elsewhere.
And so I come to this stillness,
searching for a greater good.”
…..:.
Really it’s just never enough, is it? so that I don’t trust love and kindness if I do think I see them in myself. Is that what Jesus intends for his own? I’m not so sure about that. But then, Lee says
“ A force that loves in ways I cannot love,
and speaks in words I cannot say. It enters to care for me by reminding me of my nothingness. And unlike the moments where my ego resists everything it is told in favor of its own self, here, in this place, through grace, in this stillness, I see a way in which I am grateful for my own nothingness. It helps me to see that I could become open to the possibility of becoming something more real; but only if I am willing to abandon everything I know and enter the unknown.”
And that sounds like Jesus telling the rich young man to abandon all that h has and follow Him. We know that, like almost all of us, me included, he declines sorrowfully.
Mark 10: 17-22,— And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’”And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
Matthew 19:16-22. And behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The young man said to him, “All these I have kept. What do I still lack?”Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
Lee encourages:
“ And the sensation of being begins to spread
from the throat through the whole body, as though it were the voice that speaks and the word that is uttered at the beginning of all things which makes no sound and has no name but nonetheless brings grace with it. A force that loves in ways I cannot love, and speaks in words I cannot say. It enters to care for me by reminding me of my nothingness. And unlike the moments where my ego resists everything it is told in favor of its own self, here, in this place, through grace, in this stillness, I see a way in which I am grateful for my own nothingness. It helps me to see that I could become open to the possibility of becoming something more real; but only if I am willing to abandon everything I know and enter the unknown. From here I see the way in which the silent word is related to the whole body of life. Penetrating every crevice within me. Opening me in such a way that it is possible to breathe in a tiny amount of the goodness. Helping it to penetrate more deeply into the being body. Reminding me that although I have done wrong many times, it is always possible to begin again, to care for life and being, and to embody the forgiveness that grace can bring into being. And so I say, Lord, I call to Thee from the depths of my iniquity. I have not delivered myself sufficiently unto thee. I know not how. And this place of stillness becomes the place where sorrow can enter and life can begin again. Here in this moment is not just the moment of creation, the moment of eternity. Through grace, it also becomes the moment of resurrection. Lord, have mercy. ”
… (I) knew all along that my heart only and ever belonged to Jesus. The fact that is that even after I quit God, if Jesus had come along and told me to go back I would do it in an instant. For once I admitted Him to my heart, He never left it again; and I have Him in me everywhere I go, in every lifetime I am born into, despite my iniquities and all the sins that I must bear.
I will note that I am a very little dog and my sins are commensurately small, mind you; sins this small are barely mentionable compared, for example, to your own. For being larger than me, humans such as yourself soak sin up like sponges and the only way to get rid of it is by squeezing you very hard, like an orange, after each lifetime so that at least you start out fresh in the next round.
Don’t ask what they do they do with the juice….
I always felt those writers-of-words around Jesus and His teachings were more like accountants, trying to count up who he was and what he said as though it were the numbers that mattered. I never saw a single one of them capture what was real about Jesus and His teaching, although the more eloquent ones occasionally came close.
The thing is, there were scribes present at every gathering; but the things they wrote down were never written on paper, but in the hearts of those who listened.
You had to be there.
…Jesus emanated an energy that somehow penetrated the body like a fluid, coursing through one’s veins—like the warmth of wine, but different. It relaxed a person; and in that relationship, and the quiet collected vibration of those in the circle, a new sense of being always emerge…; they knew something different was taking place here, something of the deepest importance.
It had nothing to do with the events of the world, the trouble that was sweeping it; and much trouble there was, as anyone knows. Politics, murder, warfare; oppression all around, with trust spread far too thin on the ground to pick up anywhere one went.
Yet here, there was trust.
And the trust was in Jesus.
He was a mere boy; but at the same time He was a King. One needed merely be in His presence to feel that.
Let me make that clear. You didn’t think “Oh, wow, this kid is the Son of God.”
You felt it.
In your very bones you felt it.
And if you felt it even once, that was it.
No convincing was necessary.
You knew.
