When Israel came out of Egypt,
the house of Jacob from a people of foreign tongue,
Judah became God’s sanctuary,
Israel his dominion.
The sea looked and fled,
the Jordan turned back;
the mountains skipped like rams,
the hills like lambs.
Why was it, O sea, that you fled,
O Jordan, that you turned back,
you mountains, that you skipped like rams,
you hills, like lambs?
Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord,
at the presence of the God of Jacob,
who turned the rock into a pool,
the hard rock into springs of water.
This Psalm is the second "of the ‘Hallel’ psalms (Ps. 113-118) which were sung regularly at all the great Israelite festivals. By the first century A.D. they were chanted around the table at the family celebration of the Passover, the first two psalms at the beginning and 115-118 at the end. Thus they were a feature of the Last Supper in the upper room."
– From Zondervan’s New International Bible Commentary
How does the Psalmist talk about God’s presence?
How do the people of God becomes his sanctuary (dwelling place)?
Why should the earth tremble at the presence of the Lord?
How can this Psalm help us understand who we are?
How do you tell the story of God?
Sunday, February 08, 2009
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Ah, the great thaw
is just about complete.
'Bout ready for the show
of another good snow!
[Don't throw things at me.]
I must admit that I am enjoying this warm weather.
Today is Lester's 21st birthday, so we are going up to Indy this afternoon to see him and Maddie. I think he wants to go to Famous Dave's (or Popular David's as he likes to call it) BBQ to eat/celebrate. Sounds good to me.
We'll see Lester this weekend, and then next weekend we're headed down to Nashville to see Luke for a little while. Earl L. and I are going to run a half marathon on Saturday in the Cedars of Lebanon State Park. We hope to spend a little time with Luke Friday night and then Saturday afternoon before coming home.
We had a great time with Lester and Maddie. Before seeing them Kedra and I stop by the VA hospital to see Larry S. It was a good visit. His niece, who was also visiting, works in the same hospital as Maddie and knows her well.
We took Lester a load of wood in my Dad's truck. He and Maddie have a fireplace in their apartment, which is neat. Lester's already burnt more than a rick of wood.
Unloading the wood was a bit of a challenge. The ground was too wet to drive around to the spot where we needed to unload, so I took my wheelbarrow up also, strapping it to the top of the wood. [Can you say, "The Hicks have come to the Big City"?]
Anyway, Lester had a Butler Football awards banquet to attend and conveniently got home just as I finished my last trip with the wheelbarrow. At least it was a beautiful day.
After he got home we had to go back over to Butler for something and then headed to Famous Dave's. We had a blast. Our waiter was the most unusual and entertaining waiter I have ever had anywhere at anytime.
He was from Vietnam and named Hung. He was very antimated and called himself "Famous Hung." He found out that it was Lester's birthday, so he really put on a show for us, including singing happy birthday solo.
I called Todd to tell him we were at Famous Dave's. I always do this for some reason. I think it's because Todd is the one who took us there the first time. Anyway, I put Famous Hung on to talk to Todd. FH called Todd "Famous Todd" and had quite an entertaining conversation with him.
I hope Lester will blog about Famous Hung, and if he does I'll link you to it.
The heroic pilot didn't pray while saving lives
Hey, I just wanted to say how much I liked Sunday service. It was beautiful and really made us think about our responsibility as parents and grandparents.
Have a great week Allen!
Sorry, That was me, Diane Slone, on the last blog.........I have officially lost my mind! :o)
I have an unusual day today. I guess the schools are having a really hard time finding bus drivers to do field trips, especially if the trip extends past normal school hours. So today I am driving some 3rd graders to the Children's Museum in Indy. We won't be back until 5 or so.
I plan to make the most of this opportunity. I'll pack some books for study, and I plan to run some too. I've been wanting to run on Indy's "rails to trails" paths for quite a while. Today is the day. It has been several years since I ran them. I hope to run about 10 miles. The weather is going to be warm (and a little windy). Should be nice.
Lester is going to come and pick me up for lunch. It will be good to see him again.
My running is really starting to come together, I think. I fought through a sore knee; it seems fine now. I managed to run through the snow, ice, and cold, which I think made me a lot stronger. I've lost about 12 pounds; 10 more to go (over the next 3 months).
I had a pretty decent 5K last Saturday and then ran another 7 miles after it was over.
I have a half marathon Saturday, which I will treat as a long training run, then a 10K in about 2.5 weeks, followed by a 15K a month later. All this is in prep for the Indy Mini-Marathon.
My real goal after the Mini is to run a marathon in the fall which will enable me to qualify to run the Boston Marathon in the spring of 2010. We'll see. It's a high and hard goal, and I have lots and lots of work/improvement to do.
Our Men's Bible study went well last night. Right now I think it is probably the best thing I have going from a teaching standpoint. It's because of the group dynamic. These guys really "click" together. It's a nice picture of unity out of diversity.
I was thinking yesterday about how much I teach. I have a Sun. a.m. class, a sermon, a Life Group, a Monday night study, and a Wednesday night study. Lots of opportunities to make mistakes! ha ha I enjoy it all.
Thanks, Diane, for your very encouraging words!
Well, today pretty much went as planned. We left the school a little later than I thought we were supposed to, so I had to cut a couple miles off my run. The run did not go as well as I had hoped, but some days are better than others. I ended up on a rail-trail that put me in a less than best part of town. I abandoned it and headed back to more familiar territory with more traffic.
On the way up to the Museum, one of the highlights was when we drove past Lucus Oil Stadium. You should have seen the faces of the kids, especially the little boys! It was worth the trip to see them so excited.
After my run Lester came by and picked me. We went down to the Old Spaghetti Factory. I love eating there. It's very reasonable and the atmosphere is really neat. We had a great meal and a nice visit. I love my kids so much; it's hard to express.
Lester dropped me back at the bus where I took a nap. [If you get lined up just right across the seat, you can get pretty comfortable.] After a short series of snores and snorts (I wake myself up, so I know I am doing it.), I did some reading/studying.
On the way home the teachers wanted to go around Monument Circle, so we did. I also took them by the State Capitol and the remains of the RCA Dome. We then went past Lucas Oil again.
It was a good day, but I am so tired!
On my run today I came across a run-down church building. On its faded sign were these words:
We don't count numbers; we make numbers count!
Hmmm.
The preaching cohort that I am leading really put out some good information regarding our text today. I haven't read it all yet, but from what I saw briefly, they have really provided some wonderful insight.
Some texts excite me more than others, and, believe it or not, this little Psalm has me pretty pumped at this point. Part of my excitement comes as I am reading a wonderful little book, Prophetic Imagination. It's got me all stirred up - in a good way.
We're watching Emma and Anna this evening. Wow! I wish I had some of their energy.
They were telling me that they were going to have a Christmas party. With Rebecca's help, they prepared a little place in the basement for the party. During supper I said that I would come to the party, and then I started singing Christmas songs. Emma, with a pained expression on her face, interrupted me and said, "It's not a singing party! No singing."
A stroll down memory lane...
A year ago I was finishing up my short visit to Russia.
On the Way (and There)!
From Russia with Love
Around Moscow
Reading through the Bible this year...
Read this verse (Number 12:3), presumably written by Moses, this morning and chuckled:
Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.
Kinda reminds me of the guy trying out for a preaching job. He was asked to describe himself. He said, "Well, I am multi-talented and gifted; good at most things. I succeed with about everything I try. But probably my strongest trait is my humility."
Alrighty then.
In defense of Moses, a lot of scholars believe this verse is an insertion by a later redactor. Works for me.
AND if you read the context, God defends Moses and tells his critics to be careful and quiet. He certainly gets their attention.
My class really struggled last night, or at least that was my perception. I take the blame, if any needs to be assigned.
It took a long time for our discussion to get started and moving, and even then it did not flow very well.
We finally concluded that we don't tremble much. Why is that? Because we just don't feel the presence and power of God in a way that makes us tremble. I think that's what I heard.
How do we experience the presence and the power of God in such a way to tremble? Most of us admitted that our moments of awe and trembling do not happen on Sunday mornings at 10.30 but are more likely to happen in nature, e.g., a stunning sunset or a powerful waterfall.
What do you think of all this?
What's the difference between knowing and feeling? Do we have trembling moments because of what we know and what we learn by worshiping God week after week, year after year?
Well now I would like to add a thought here about 10:30 Sunday mornings. I have experienced, more than once, a "Wow" moment when the Word is laid "bare" before my eyes and ears. It would seem that modern technology has blinded our eyes to "tremble" moments and that is sad.
Could it be that we have actually "seen" miracles and credited them to modern technology (especially in the medical arena).
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