[Vision2020] Being Geraldine

[Mike Lawyer]

At the risk of running a thread into the ground I thought I might give
another little snippet on this topic.

The way Geraldine writes makes me think that what she has to say is
rhetorical. The assumption is she is right and I am wrong and there isn't
any answer for what she has to say. So I join in again...

Geraldine's letter makes me think of another passage in the Bible that seems
apropos at a time like this. It is a rather lengthy passage so I won't print
the whole thing here. But I will tell you that if you have a Bible you might
turn to the book of Judges and read it through.

The book contains a series of seven cycles which contain the same theme over
and over. God puts the people in the land and blesses them. They live in his
presence in joy and happiness for a period of time until they forget the
wonderful things he's done for them. Slowly, over a number of years they
begin to think they can do things better on their own than they can by
serving God, so they do what the text says, "everyone did what was right in
his own eyes." The result was that they became individuals and went every
which way, "doing their own thing."

But invariably doing your own thing means leaving the things that were
wholesome and beautiful and wonderful and trading them in on something false
and selfish. And so the Israelites became decedent and evil. They said right
was wrong and good was bad. They said and did whatever they thought they
ought to do with no thought about what God had in mind.

After a few years of this, God gave them over to the lusts of their hearts
and minds and they sinned until it stunk up the place. Finally, God grew
tired of this outright rebellion and turned the nation over to their
enemies. In each case foreign nations came in and destroyed the nation of
Israel, carting off their women, destroying their cities, enslaving their
people.

Then, when the oppression got unbearable, the people remembered the God who
loved them and had blessed them in the years past. They turned to him in
repentance and asked him to forgive them.

Because God is a God of mercy and forgiveness, and because he loved his
people, he repeatedly sent them a leader (called judges) to set them free
from their oppression. And the cycle started all over again.

My point in this is that Geraldine wants to do what is right in her own
eyes. She and others on this list don’t want God to tell them what to do or
how to live their lives. But God is God and we are not. The same cycle that
took place over and over again in the book of Judges is happening to our
nation and it is because we want to do what is right in our own eyes.

I pray that God will grant our nation repentance before he has to teach us a
lesson by overrunning us by means of another people (Muslims, Mormons,
Chinese, or whatever).

Reading the text isn't all that difficult, you just open it and read.

Mike Lawyer

 

-----Original Message-----
From: vision2020-admin@moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-admin@moscow.com] On
Behalf Of Joan Opyr
Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2003 12:58 PM
To: vision2020@moscow.com
Subject: [Vision2020] Being Geraldine

Mike says:

>The Bible is either God's word to men or it isn't.

Why?  Why is this an either/or?  What if some parts of the Bible are 
divinely inspired and others aren't?  How did the Bible in its current 
incarnation come to be?  (Let's ignore, for the sake of convenience, the 
differences not only between the Catholic and Protestant versions but also 
among the various translations.)  What texts were included?  What texts were

left out?  And always why, why, why?

I spent the better part of my graduate school career translating a single 
poem, Beowulf.  Three thousand and some odd lines, written in Old English, 
only one extant copy.  Compared to assembling, translating, and interpreting

the Bible, working with Beowulf is a piece of cake.  And yet there are words

in Beowulf that translators can only guess at; there are other words that 
have multiple meanings.  The manuscript was at one time used as a chopping 
block, and, later, it was burned in a fire.  The edges have deteriorated, so

we rely on something called the Thorkelin transcripts, but Thorkelin, though

painstaking, did make the occasional transcription error.

An Anglo-Saxonist might build her career arguing over a passage or a verse, 
laboriously explaining why her interpretation of "Modthryth was a good folk 
queen" is better than your interpretation.  Or, she might look at the bigger

picture and ask why the story of the Old Testament Judith was bound in a 
single manuscript with a long paean to a pagan hero.

Philology.  Textual analysis.  Analogs.  History.  Literary theory.  We have

all sorts of tools at our disposal for understanding Beowulf, and those of 
us who love the poem and believe it has meaning today in a world far removed

from the world it describes can find some common ground in our understanding

of the basics of the story.  Ultimately, however, what we get out of it is 
at least in part dependent on what we bring to it.

Whether or not Doug, or Jim Jones, or the Bible, or you, or that voice I 
keep hearing through the dryer vent -- whether or not any of these are 
speaking for God is a matter of faith.  We're all free to believe, free to 
disbelieve, and free to doubt.  That's why I reject your either/or 
assertion.  It might be all or nothing for you, but it's not all or nothing 
for me.

"By what standard" is a con.  It's a trick question, a bulleted talking 
point, an empty shell.  You know where the marble is hidden.  If I pick the 
cup on the left or the right, you'll pick them up to show me that they're 
empty.  That's because the marble is always in the third cup, the cup not 
chosen.  And so, the crowd will clap, you'll take my money, and you'll move 
on to the next mark.  Unless, of course, I refuse to play.  I prefer instead

to stand at the back and warn the mugs.

So . . . if Doug is Flip Wilson, I want to be Geraldine.  "What you see is 
what you get, and what you don't see has already been got."

Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment

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