RAHAB

Rahab ran an unpretentious little establishment in the red-light district of Jericho and was known for, among other things, her warm and generous heart. That is perhaps why, when Joshua was getting ready to attack, the spies he sent in to case the joint made a beeline for her.

When the king of Jericho found out they were there, he rang Rahab up and over the din of the piano player downstairs managed to get it across to her who they were and that she was to turn them in on the double if not quicker. Rahab replied that, though it was true some customers answering his description had been there that evening, she'd thought they were just a couple of butter-and-egg men out for a good time and had kissed them good-bye not more than twenty minutes earlier. If he got a move on, he could probably still catch them.

She then went up to the roof where she had the spies stashed away and told them what had happened. She said that as far as she was concerned, the customer was always right, and she had no intention of squealing on them. She also said she felt it in her bones that with Yahweh on his side, Joshua was going to find Jericho a pushover when the attack began. All she asked in return for her services was that, when the boys came marching in, they'd give her and her family a break.

The spies were only too happy to agree, she let them down with a rope, and they beat it back to headquarters to report to Joshua. A few days later, when Joshua went through Jericho like a dose of salts, he saw to it that Rahab and her family got out before he burned the place down, and they lived happily ever after.

Matthew lists Rahab as one of the ancestresses of the Lord Jesus Christ (Matthew 1:5), and that may be one reason why there was something about free-wheeling ladies with warm and generous hearts that he was never quite able to resist.

Joshua 2; 6

~originally published in Peculiar Treasures and later in Beyond Words

REBEKAH

 Rebekah's marriage to Isaac was a family arrangement rather than a love match, and all the love she had in her to give she seems to have lavished on her son Jacob.When she overheard old Isaac say that he was going to give Jacob's twin brother, Esau, the paternal blessing and make him his heir, she was almost beside herself. She ran and told Jacob what was up and said he'd better get to Isaac before Esau did or Esau would get the blessing and everything that went with it and Jacob wouldn't get a blessed thing. Jacob objected that, blind as Isaac was, he would still be able to tell the brothers apart because Esau was a hairy man whereas he, Jacob, had all he could do just to raise a toothbrush mustache. Just one touch, Jacob said, and the old duffer would know that something fishy was going on.Rebekah thought fast and, after dressing Jacob up in one of Esau's best suits, produced some bearskin gloves for him to put on his hands and an extra pelt to wrap around his neck. The trick worked beautifully. Isaac thought it was Esau kneeling before him, and Jacob carried the day.When the cat was finally out of the bag, Esau first burst into tears and then announced that, by the time he got through with Jacob, not even his mother would recognize him. But again Rebekah thought fast. She told Jacob what his brother had in mind and persuaded him to get out of town while he could still walk. Jacob took the advice, and the bitter irony of it is that if Rebekah ever saw the apple of her eye again, it is at least not so recorded.It is also not recorded when or where or in what state of mind Rebekah finally died, but there is a note to the effect that when the time came, they buried the lonely old woman in a cave at Machpelah. Years later Jacob was buried there too, and if she had any way of knowing about it, one can imagine her happy at last to be lying there side by side with the beloved boy for whose sake she had betrayed not only Isaac, her husband, and Esau, her son, but God himself, in whose name the fateful blessing had been given. Genesis 24-27

~originally published in Peculiar Treasures and later in Beyond Words  

RELIGION

The word religion points to that area of human experience where one way or another we come upon Mystery as a summons to pilgrimage; where we sense beyond and beneath the realities of every day a Reality no less real because it can only be hinted at in myths and rituals; where we glimpse a destination that we can never fully know until we reach it.Since the Reality that religion claims to deal with is beyond space and time, we cannot use normal space-and-time language (i.e. nouns and verbs) to describe it directly. We must fall back on the language of metaphor and resign ourselves to describing it at best indirectly.It is obvious that this is what we are doing when we say Jesus is the "Son of God," or the Lord is our "shepherd," or the Kingdom of God is "within you." It is not so obvious that this is what we are doingbut we are doing it no lesswhen we say, "God exists." This does not mean that God "exists" literally as you and I dothat is, exists now and not then, here and not there, and stands out of (ex + sistere) some prior reality. It is at best a crude metaphor.To say that God "does not exist" may be a better metaphor to suggest the nature of God's reality. But since it also is bound to be taken literally, it is better not to say it.

~originally published in Wishful Thinking and later in Beyond Words  

RETIREMENT

"Somewhere around the age of sixty-five, many people decide it's time to stop working and start just enjoying life. The trouble, of course, is that they're apt to discover that with nothing much to do except play golf, travel, catch up on their reading, watch TV, and so on, life isn't all that enjoyable. They need something to give themselves to the way they once gave themselves to their jobs. The question is, give themselves to what? Maybe they could do worse than give themselves to the world that needs them as much as they need the world.

This may involve things like volunteer work at the hospital or delivering meals on wheels or heading the library-fund drive, but the place where giving yourself to the world starts is simply paying attention to the world—to the people you've been saying hello to for years without really knowing them, to the elementary-school kids hanging upside down on the jungle gym, to the woman taxi driver with the face of a Boston bull and no teeth to speak of who waits for fares at the bus stop, to the old vets marching down Main Street on Memorial Day.

If retirees just learn to keep their eyes open, the chances are they will find themselves more involved, fulfilled, challenged, and nourished than all the years they spent with their noses to the grindstone. And enjoying themselves more too."

~originally published in Beyond Words

REPENTANCE

"To repent is to come to your senses. It is not so much something you do as something that happens. True repentance spends less time looking at the past and saying, "I'm sorry," than to the future and saying, "Wow!""

~originally published in Wishful Thinking and later in Beyond Words