mini-reflection

Psalm 105

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“The promise God gave for a thousand generations.” (105:8)

A thousand generations is approximately 20,000 years, four times longer than recorded human history. In essence, then, God’s promise is eternal. In contrast, our word is often easily broken. Sometimes we go back on promises because of circumstances outside of our control, sometimes they become too inconvenient or expensive, and sometimes we simply forget. The Psalmist is giving us a high bar to live up to — the idea that we can be better at only making promises when we can deliver, that we should consider our words, once uttered, to have the longevity of all human history.

Psalm 104

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“Wrapped in a robe of light…” (104:2)

Light represents purity. Light contains the complete range of colors in the spectrum; therefore, purity also embraces a diversity of colors. To extend the metaphor, it also embraces a diversity of genders, orientations, religions, political positions, and all of the other differences in humanity that contribute light. From this I exclude acts of hatred, aggressive violence, and any other evil which takes light away from the world. The entire world will be enrobed with light if and only if we achieve the messianic vision of destroying implements of war, sitting down with our historic enemies, and building a Temple of peace at which all people can gather and be thankful to the Source of their wisdom.

Psalm 103

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“A wind passes by and it is no more.” (103:16)

Matter cannot be destroyed, let the mightiest features of the earth will eventually be worn away by the action of the wind, water, and the movement of the tectonic plates. I remember flying in and out of New York City back in the 80’s and 90’s and taking in the stunning view of the skyscrapers of Manhattan. I used to fantasize about New York being allowed to go back to its natural state of forest and meadow, and wonder how many years it would take before the twin towers of the World Trade Center would be overtaken by vines and slowly collapse in decay, never dreaming that one day soon the evil of human beings would taken them down in a matter of hours.

Psalm 102

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“May this be recorded for a later generation.” (102:19)

I do most of my writing on a laptop and the content of my thoughts is saved as a series of electric impulses, magnetic bits of data, on a Solid State Drive. Those bits are backed up to an external spinning hard drive and also to several data centers located at various points around the United States. Your ability to read my reflections depends on the ability of my website to translate those bits into text or speech. In contrast, one hundred years ago, the scribe who wrote the Torah from which we read used a feather and some ink on animal skin. Sometimes I wonder … whose technology is more likely to be read by a later generation?

Psalm 101

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“May a crooked heart be far from me.” (101:4)

A well known company which purports to make business decisions based on its Christian values was caught illegally buying antiquities on the black market and importing them into the United States using questionable shipping labels. Most famously, this company successfully sued the United States government to avoid including birth control coverage in their employees’ health insurance. Schadenfreude aside (for those who think they should have obeyed the Affordable Care Act mandate), this demonstrates how easy it is to compartmentalize and behave one way on the outside and entirely differently on the inside. The gold standard is tokho k’boro, one’s inside and outside should perfectly match.