Daily Old Testament: Micah 6-7and My Own Article on "Continuing Revelation" (Part 5)

Micah 6 – The mountains and hills will be witness to Yahweh’s accusations against his people – the very foundations of the earth. God has given us so many blessings – how shall we return thanks? Sacrifices? Libations? First-born children? NO!! “What is good has been explained to you, man; this is what Yahweh asks of you: only this, to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with your God” (6:8).

But what we do instead is keep the standard of the world – we gain wealth by cheating and violence (6:11-12). Omri and Ahab set the bad example then, but there are similar models in our day.  Because they [and we] follow these bad examples the Lord says, “I will make an example of you, bringing you to complete ruin. You will be treated with contempt, mocked by all who see you” (6:16).

Micah 7 – The prophet is miserable. “The godly people have all disappeared; not one honest person is left on the earth” (7:2). Corruption is everywhere – “the man in power pronounces as he pleases” (7:3). But punishment will come from the North (the traditional invasion route). Micah says, “for my part, I look to Yahweh, my hope is in the God who will save me” (7:7).

“Do not gloat over me, my enemy: though I have fallen, I shall rise; though I live in darkness, Yahweh is my light" (7:8). This does not happen just once in history and it does not apply to only one people. We today also yearn for God’s care and his word to be felt palpably in our lives, both personal and corporate. “As in the days when you came out of Egypt grant us to see wonders” (7:13).

“What god can compare with you: taking fault away, pardoning crime, not cherishing anger for ever but delighting in showing mercy?” (7:18). Have pity on us. The great faithfulness of God is celebrated by Micah.  God, who gave promises to Abraham and Jacob, whose people so often fail him and run off after other gods; this God of ours will never fail to deal with the guilt and sin of those who seek Him out.  The promise always remains though only a small remnant of those under the promise respond.

From Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through Quakerism -

“Continuing Revelation”

Part 5

The idea of checking one’s own sense of who Christ was with the Christ of Scripture was an important one to me. I remember wondering how modern Friends could be so cavalier about not feeling they needed to be familiar with the Scriptures, when really the only way we could be introduced to Christ was through these early writings. That he was more than the writings, I could accept; but that he could be known without first being revealed to us through the men who had known him or known others who had known him—this I had trouble seeing. The Scriptures were not dispensable even if they were not completely exhaustive.

The other part of the Friends’ discernment approach that I found meaningful was the way they used the idea of the cross—that the life Christ offered us was on the other side of the cross. The way this worked was simple—you could test a leading by asking yourself if the leading would bring you satisfaction and a sense of fulfilled desire or restraint and self-denial. If the leading served your “worldly desires” or gratified you in some immediate way, it was probably not from God. I know this sounds crazy to modern ears, perhaps a little masochistic too. But it was not. Maybe it was oversimplified, but the idea of it was that if something you felt called to do simply served you, your wishes, or your will, it probably was something rooted in your own will. And what you strove to come into as a Friend was to stand in God’s will and come into a life that stood in his will. The testimony of Friends was that this life would ultimately be much richer and much better than any life you could conceive of in your own power.

Another important principle of discernment among Friends was the principle of testing individual leadings against the corporate judgment of the gathered Meeting. This was the whole purpose of what later came to be called the Meeting for Business. Here “clearness” could be sought by individuals who felt burdened with some “leading” or “call” they needed support for—like traveling in the ministry or undertaking some project requiring resources beyond those personally available. The Meeting could also step in if it was united in believing that a Friend had overstepped his or her guide or brought disrepute on the Society.

The principles outlined here created among Friends a conservative way of containing the dangers inherent in their new covenant approach to Christ’s gospel. And when they were combined with making changes in the established decisions and conducting the practical affairs of the Society, they were very stable indeed. Indeed, it was difficult to make any changes to established ways of conducting community business or articulating the principles of the Society. Any policy or practice formally instituted by a Meeting or Yearly Meeting for its constitutive Meetings was impossible to change without there being “unity” to change it—and unity meant fundamental accord among everyone involved in the business session called to consider the policy. There were a few ways around this demand, but very few. It would be too complicated to describe in detail the business procedures Friends instituted in the early days of the Society, but they have kept the Society’s formal documents (the minutes and disciplines published by Meetings and Yearly Meetings) very “traditional”, very consistent with early documents and statements.

Daily Old Testament: Micah 5 and My Own Article on "Continuing Revelation" (Part 4)

Micah 5 – The terrible weakness and frailty of Israel’s earthly kings is compared to the coming strength of the messianic ruler “[Y]ou, (Bethlehem) Ephrathah, the least of the clans . . .out of you will be born for me the one who is to rule over Israel. . .” (5:2). “The people of Israel will be abandoned to their enemies until the woman in labor gives birth” (5:3). Then the time will come when a new ruler of Israel will come and lead his fellow countrymen “with the Lord’s strength, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God” (5:4). He will lead his flock from exile back to the own land.

The remnant “left in Israel will take their place among the nations. They will be like a lion among the animals of the forest, . . . [and] the people of Israel will stand up to their foes, and all their enemies will be wiped out” (5:9). The Lord says He will tear down their walls, put an end to witchcraft, destroy idols and sacred pillars, “so you will never again worship the world of your own hands” (5:13). The Lord will pour out his vengeance on “all the nations that refuse to obey me” (5:15).

From Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through Quakerism -

“Continuing Revelation”

Part 4

Still, there were some outward guideposts or principles you could employ in discernment. These were never written in the form of rules (heaven forbid!); they simply developed over time. One was insisting on the unchanging nature of God’s truth. Just as the promises of Christ are utterly constant, so the “spirit of Christ, by which we are guided, is not changeable, so as once to command us from a thing as evil and again to move unto it” (Fox, Journal, 399).  This principle was associated with Friends’ articulation of their peace testimony, but it was equally applicable to all the truths they saw as flowing from God.

The Spirit of Christ they had “come into” was the same Spirit that had “given forth” the Scriptures, so it stood to reason that Scripture could be used to test the consistency of one’s personal leading to the witness of Christ contained there. The fruits of your profession should be fruits of the Spirit—“love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal. 5:22)—not the fruits of the “fleshly”, unredeemed nature—“fornication, impurity . . .idolatry   strife, jealousy, anger . . . and things like these” (Gal. 5:19-21). If there was a clear statement of principle set forth there, you could not easily set yourself in opposition to it. Friends denied that this amounted to “setting up” Scripture as an outward authority, but the effect was much the same. If Scripture clearly testified to something and you felt led to a path that was inconsistent with it, or if the fruits of what you believed promised to be bad or destructive, you were likely to be judged out of unity with the Truth.

Yet there are difficulties in this way of looking at things. The Scriptures, if viewed as a matter of words only, contain inconsistent admonitions. On the question of slavery, for example, there are words that seem to sanction or accept slavery as a part of civilized life, which believers may participate in—such as Paul’s advice to slaves to “obey [their] early masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ . . .” (Eph. 6:5). Yet Friends challenged the definitiveness of Paul’s words in several ways—by examining closely the “fruits” of slavery in both slave-owner and slave and finding them universally corrupting and destructive, and second, by arguing that the whole tenor and development of the biblical “story” that God’s Spirit had given forth helped us to see that man was not to be viewed or used as chattel.

Christ was the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow as far as Friends were concerned. Another way of applying the test of consistency was to ask if the Christ you were listening to and obeying inwardly was the same Christ that the Scriptures had revealed, or if he had changed to suit the times you lived in. This standard was beautifully articulated by James Nayler:

“Now seeing he has appeared who is from everlasting and changes not, here is an everlasting trial for you all . . . whether you profess him from the letter or the light; come try [test] whether Christ is in you. Measure your life and weigh your profession with that which cannot deceive you, which has stood and will stand forever, for he is sealed of the father.

First, see if your Christ be the same that was from everlasting to everlasting, or is he changed according to the times: . . . Does he whom you obey as your leader lead you out to war against this world and all the pride and glory, fashions and customs, love and pleasures and whatever else is not of God therein? Does he justify any life now but what he justified in the prophets and apostles and saints of old?” (Nayler, Early Quaker Writings, 109-110).

There is an irony here however, which should not go unmentioned. Nayler was one of the most promising of Fox’s early followers. But only three years after writing these words, he himself faced severe censure (virtual rejection) by Fox and other Quaker leaders when he brought their movement into disrepute by engaging in a stupid display of “street theater”—permitting himself to be greeted entering a town in the manner in which Christ had been greeted on entering Jerusalem with palms and praises of a bevy of female followers. The municipal authorities responded by charging him with blasphemy, a charge that resulted in his being pilloried, whipped, his tongue bored through with a hot iron, a “B” for blasphemer being branded on his forehead, and three years imprisonment. He was eventually accepted back into the Society and his writing continued to be held in esteem. Nayler’s actions demonstrated the very difficulty we are exploring her.

Were you led into the same kind of lowliness Christ exemplified, or were you led into self-aggrandizement and pride, thinking you knew more than you really did? Did you seek to justify a way of life that was fundamentally different from the way of life the saints had always been called to live or to seek some liberty no follower of Christ would have sought? The standard was not changed—only the means by which we came into a knowledge of that standard.

Were you eager to serve others and to shed the love of God abroad, or were you led into actions that served your own interests?

“. . . be servants to the Truth and do not strive for mastery, but serve one another in Love, “Wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14). Take Christ for your example that I may hear of no strife among you” (Fox, Letters, 55).

Were you enamored of worldly fashions and honors, or did you turn your back on these things as Christ had? Infatuation with the world’s delights had to be put aside if one was to come into the life Christ offered, for that life lay on the other side of his cross.

Daily Old Testament: Micah 4 and My Own Article on "Continuing Revelation" (Part 3)

Micah 4 – “In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s house will be the highest of all—the most important place on earth. It will be raised above the other hills, and people from all over the world will stream there to worship. People from many nations will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of Jacob’s God. There he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths.’” (4:1-2).

God will “wield authority over many peoples . . .they will hammer their swords into ploughshares, their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer fight against nation, nor train for war anymore. Everyone will live in peace and prosperity, enjoying their own grapevines and fig trees, for there will be nothing to fear” (4:3-4). This is the promise of the Lord.

The chapter ends with a promise that the Lord will gather the lame and the exiles together, “those whom I have filled with grief” (4:6), and they will become a strong nation. “The kingship will be restored to my precious Jerusalem” (4:8). The exile has actually not yet begun. But this promise is one they will take with them. But the Babylonians do not know that the Lord will make them strong in the end.

From Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through Quakerism -

“Continuing Revelation”

Part 3

The idea of “continuing revelation” was a very important concept for early Friends, but it didn’t stand alone. It stood in tension with another important idea—the idea that the Spirit of God that brought forth all truth was not a God of disorder. The best articulation of this in the early years was in Robert Barclay’s Apology, published first in 1673 to defend Friends’ interpretation of the gospel against charges of heresy. Barclay defends the idea that the Spirit of God continues to lead and influence the faithful, but he is careful to assure his readers that such continuing revelation will never lead to utterly new and contradictory “truths”.

“We firmly believe that there is no other doctrine or gospel to be preached other than that which was delivered by the apostles. And we freely subscribe to the saying in Gal. 1:8: ‘If we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed.’

In other words, we distinguish between a revelation of a new gospel and new doctrines, and new insight into the established gospel and doctrines. We plead for the latter, but we utterly deny the former. We firmly believe that there are no new foundations to be laid other than those which have already been laid. But added insight is needed on matters for which the foundations have already been laid” Dean Freiday, ed., Barclay’s Apology in Modern English - published through a grant from the Rebecca White Trust of the Monthly Meeting of Friends of Philadelphia, 1967, 63).

Early Friends knew that there were competing voices within people, and they knew and spoke eloquently about the fact that hearing and obeying God required a personal experience of Christ’s cross in relation to their own wills and selves. Fox himself had struggled against the competing voices that called to him, the “two thirsts” that clamored within him for attention during Christ’s ministration to him in the “spiritual wilderness” (The “ministration of Moses” in his own journey).

When certain early recruits to the Quaker vision of the gospel went off on escapades Fox thought were not authentic or that brought the movement into disrepute, he set up a structure of Monthly Meetings that he hoped would oversee individuals and test their leadings. But I don’t think Fox every fully appreciated the potential for confusion that lay in his rejection of outward standards. He simply believed that the gospel he had recovered had a power and an order in it that reached to the heart and transformed it. Christ’s sheep “know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because the do not know the voice of stranger” (John 10:4-5). If there were disorderly people in a Monthly Meeting, he encouraged the “more seasoned” to go to them and labor with them as Jesus recommends in Matthew’s gospel (18: 15-17).

Daily Old Testament: Micah 2-3 and My Own Article on "Continuing Revelation" (Part 2)

Micah 2 –People lie awake at night thinking of evil things to do. “When you want a piece of land, you find a way to seize it. When you want someone’s house, you take it by fraud and violence” (2:2). The Lord will repay these evils with dire punishments. “You will no longer walk around proudly, for it will be a terrible time” (2:3).  Others will be placed in charge of them.

The people have no ears to hear any of this. They would prefer the words of false (optimistic) prophecy. But Micah does not leave the people without hope. He does predict that there will be a restoration someday. “Someday, O Israel, I will gather you; I will gather the remnant who are left. I will bring you together again like sheep in a pen, like a flock in its pasture” (2:12). The land will someday be restored and a leader will lead them out of exile. “Your king will lead you; the Lord himself will guide you” (2:13).

For the Old Testament prophets, the idea that the Lord was ultimately their one and only true leader was deep. The idea that an entity called a “state” with a “King” or “Absolute Ruler” was troublesome from the start. They finally got a good balance between the need for a centralized state and a king, but the king was never a god. God was god. His rule was what we were to look to.

Micah 3 – The leaders of Israel “are supposed to know right from wrong, but [they] are the very ones who hate good and love evil” (3:1-2). Then when these same leaders cry out to the Lord for help, they are foolish to expect that He will answer them.

The prophets who fill the ears of the people with false prophecies in hopes that they will be rewarded with food and other rewards, but they will be put to shame. Micah, though, says, “I am filled with power—with the Spirit of the Lord. I am filled with justice and strength to boldly declare Israel’s sin and rebellion” (3:8). Jerusalem is being set on a foundation of murder and corruption. Because of them “Mount Zion will be plowed like an open field; Jerusalem will be reduced to ruins!” (3:12).

From Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through Quakerism -

“Continuing Revelation”

Part 2

One of the best vehicles modern Friends used to get across the Quaker idea of continuing revelation was a story George Fox’s wife told in her introduction to the 1694 edition of Fox’s journal. Margaret Fell Fox and her first husband, a prominent judge, lived on a large estate in northwest England, Swarthmore Hall. The Fells were known for the hospitality they typically extended to traveling preachers of all kinds, so Fox and a friend of his stopped by and met the lady of the house. Judge Fell was away. Margaret Fell went to hear Fox preach at her local church and was moved by his plea that people needed to experience Christ in their own lives and not rely so exclusively on the Scriptures or others’ interpretation of Scripture to define the truth about Christ. She recorded the words Fox addressed to the congregation:

“You will say, Christ saith this, and the apostles say this; but what canst thou say? Art thou a child of Light and hast walked in the Light, and what thou speakest is it inwardly from God?” This opened me so that it cut me to the heart; and then I saw clearly we were all wrong. So I sat me down in my pew again, and cried bitterly. And I cried in my spirit to the Lord, “We are all thieves, we are all thieves, we have taken the Scripture in words and know nothing of them in ourselves” (Quoted in Faith and Practice, sec. 19:07).

The truths contained in the Scriptures were truths that we could know in immediate and personal terms. They were truths we could embody in words of our own. God was alive and guiding men and women today just as he had guided them in Moses’ time, in the prophets’ time and in Jesus’ time. It was one thing to recognize the Scriptures as authentically recording the words and truths opened to godly men and women in former times, but it was quite another to deny that God could speak in and through people in other times and places.

God’s revelation cannot be limited to a prescribed form of words, whether scriptural or creedal; it continues and sometimes even changes as our understanding of God’s will evolves. The example most often given of this is the change that occurred when Friends in the eighteenth century decided that slave-holding was inconsistent with Christian profession and would henceforth be prohibited for members of the Society of Friends. God did do new things in history—not contradictory things, but things that revealed the underlying order and coherence of his will. It is clear from reading the Scriptures that there was a time in history when the holding of slaves or participation in slavery systems was not understood by even holy men and women as being fundamentally inconsistent with God’s redemptive plan. But such an understanding did come to pass, and Friends were among the first to grasp it.

Daily Old Testament: Micah 1 and My Own Article on "Continuing Revelation" (Part 1)

Micah

Introduction - This prophetic book was written sometime in the 8^th c. BC before the fall of Samaria in 722 BC. Micah is one of the twelve “minor prophets”; he was a contemporary of Isaiah, Amos and Hosea and the kings who reigned during his prophetic life were Jotham (742-735), Ahaz (735-715) and Hezekiah (715-696). His message is addressed to both Samaria and Jerusalem; he was the first prophet to predict the downfall of Jerusalem. But he also prophesied Jerusalem’s restoration and an “era of universal peace.”  There are parts of his prophetic message that later became central to Christianity, especially his prophesy that Bethlehem would be the birthplace of the Messiah.

Micah 1 – “Look! The Lord is coming! He leaves his throne in heaven and tramples the heights of the earth. The mountains melt beneath his feet and flow into the valleys like wax in a fire, like water pouring down a hill” (1:3-4).

Why is the Lord coming? Because of Israel’s “rebellion” (1:5), and especially the sins of Samaria, its capital. The city has turned to idolatry, and in Judah too its major city, Jerusalem has turned to idols as well.

The prophet declares that the Lord will “make the city of Samaria a heap of ruins” (1:6). All the idols will be destroyed. “These thing were bought with the money earned by her prostitution” (1:7). It is his called to “mourn and lament.” (1:8). He will “walk around barefoot and naked . . . howl like a jackal and moan like an owl” (1:8).

There are notes indicating that the writer is using a lot of assonance and playing on the words used to emphasize that the twelve cities are all guilty of different crimes. He begs the people of Judah to repent “for the children you love will be snatched away. Make yourselves as bald as a vulture, for your little ones will be exiled to distant lands” (1:16)

“Continuing Revelation”

Now I come to what many who admire Friends’ spirituality see as the “fly in the ointment”. How can you be sure that the voice you are hearing and obeying is God’s voice?

It was no trouble in the 1970s and ‘80s to find support for the idea—revolutionary in the seventeenth century—that the individual might come into a personal sense of what truth is. Everyone I knew in the 1970s and ‘80s believed that he or she could arrive at truth through his or her own efforts—trial, error, reflection, consultation with others. The really tough question was how could you know if your view of the truth was true. Was anything really true in an absolute sense?

Fox’s conviction that the inward Teacher would direct all people without the need for others to instruct them, the sense he had of Scripture being secondary to the Spirit in terms of authority, his call for people to come away from the dry husks of outward forms and legalism in religion all seemed consistent with the notion that individuals could find their way on their own.

Contemporaries of Fox often mocked the Friends’ assertion that they could know God’s will experientially without the aid of church authority of Scripture. Fox tells of one incident he faced:

“ . . . one [man] burst out into a passion and said he could speak his experiences as well as I; but I told him experience was one thing but to go with a message and a word from the Lord as the prophets and the apostles had and did, and as I had done to them, this was another thing” (Quoted in Faith and Practice, sec. 19:07).

Fox did not think he was promoting religious subjectivism. He really thought it was Christ—the Christ of the Scriptures and the Christ of history—who dwelled in us and taught us the way to go. But this Spirit of Christ and the truths he embodied were not reducible to church formulas or dead and encased in Scripture texts. This Christ lived. He was resurrected and with us always. Fox and early Friends very much believed in the reality of God’s continuing revelation in history.

Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: Judges 18 and Augustine's Confessions 6

Judges 18 – There is no king, and the Danites need a territory to live in. This migration apparently took place before the time of the judges—the closeness to the generation of Moses is apparent from the identity of the Levite, the grandson of Moses.

They send out five men to scout for land.  They too arrive in Micah’s house.  They recognize the young Levite and ask him if the mission they are on is one with God’s favor.  He tells them it is, so they go on to a place called Laish.  It is a prosperous land, far away from the Sidonians and the Aramaens.  They report back to their people and arrange a raiding party of 600 men. On the way back to take the land, they too stop by Micah’s house but this time to bring the priest and the whole shrine Micah had set up to be theirs.  They say to the priest, “Is it better for you to be priest to the house of one person, or to be priest to a tribe and clan in Israel?” (18:19)

The priest accepts this reasoning and goes with them. When Micah realizes what is happening, he pursues them and challenges them, but they are too many for him. So the Danites arrive at Laish, “to a people quiet and unsuspecting, put them to the sword, and burned down the city.  There was no deliverer, because it was far from Sidon and they had no dealings with Aram” (18:27-28).

They set up their own town, install the priest and his cultic shrine.  We are told at the end that he is Jonathan, son of Gershom, son of Moses and that the shrine he establishes for the Danites will be maintained “as long as the house of God was at Shiloh” (18:31).

Augustine (354-430 AD)

Confessions

6 - Cramped is the dwelling of my soul; expand it, that you may enter in. It is in ruins, restore it. There is that about it which must offend your eyes; I confess and know it, but who will cleanse it? Or to whom shall I cry but to you? Cleanse me from my secret sins, O Lord, and keep your servant from those of other men. I believe, and therefore do I speak; Lord, you know. Have I not confessed my transgressions unto you, O my God; and you have put away the iniquity of my heart? I do not contend in judgment with you [Job 9:3] who art the Truth; and I would not deceive myself, lest my iniquity lie against itself. I do not, therefore, contend in judgment with you, for "if you, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?"

Cramped IS the dwelling of my soul right now – there are times when it – the tent - is large, and I see blessings even in my pain. But that is not now. How did knowledge of this suffering escape me when I was young? Seemed there was nothing but energy and direction planted in me – nothing felt cramped. I ask you God, as Augustine asked you then and billions have asked over the great bridge of time that spans the presence of human beings on this earth, for just the tiniest speck of you to come into me and revive my soul.

 

Daily Old Testament and Early Christian Writings: Judges 17 and Augustine's Confessions 5

Judges 17 – A man in the hill country of Ephraim, who has taken 1100 pieces of silver from his own mother, returns it to her; and in gratitude (?) she gives him 200 to make an “idol” for him.  His name is Micah.  He sets up a shrine, makes an ephod and teraphim and installs one of his sons as a priest.  It’s as if he is starting his own cult from his own house.  The writer simply says “In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes” (17:6).

Now, I cannot be sure I am reading this right, but it seems to me that we are getting pretty low here.  The law and cultic observances the people were given in the Torah are nowhere in evidence here.  The “good” people have taken up stealing from their mothers and setting up idols and private shrines in their own houses. Doing what is right in one’s own eyes is bringing the people farther and farther away from the standards established by Moses and the first leaders.  And the trend is blamed on the lack of a king.  This is certainly a different tradition from the one that steadfastly sees in the idea of kingship a failure of obedience to the Lord, such as we see reflected in Gideon’s speech (Judges 8:23) and later in Samuel’s response to the request for a king.

A Levite from Bethlehem, searching for a place to settle, happens upon Micah and is invited by him to “be to [him] a father and a priest” (17:10).  He will pay him an annual salary and living expenses.  Micah is pleased because he knows “that the Lord will prosper him” because he has made the Levite his priest.

Again, this little story is so interesting.  Micah seems to know nothing about what he supposed to do to live according to the law as it was given by Moses.  But he knows a few things: he knows his faith is supposed to be central to his life.  He sets up his worship at the center of his home.  He knows that the Levitical priests are blessed by God and that to have one attached to one’s worship as father and priest is something pleasing to God.  He does what he knows; he can do no more.  There is a failure though in the larger community to nurture the people in the Law, to teach them what they should do and be.  That is why the writer says, everyone did what was right in their own eyes.  Whether the institution of monarchy will make things better still remains to be determined.  But this writer thinks having a king will help.

Augustine (354-430 AD)

Confessions

5 - Oh! How shall I find rest in you? Who will send you into my heart to inebriate it, so that I may forget my woes, and embrace you my only good? What are you to me? Have compassion on me that I may speak. What am I to you that you demand my love, and unless I give it you art angry, and threatenest me with great sorrows? Is it, then, a light sorrow not to love you? Alas! Alas! Tell me of your compassion, O Lord my God, what you are to me. "Say unto my soul, I am your salvation." So speak that I may hear. Behold, Lord, the ears of my heart are before you; open them, and "say unto my soul, I am your salvation." When I hear, may I run and lay hold on you. Hide not your face from me. Let me die, lest I die, if only I may see your face.

Forget my woes? Here seems to be the first mention of these great burdens, which we carry in this life. It is not all seeing the beauty and presence of God in nature and in our ability to SEE and meditate on the order of the cosmos. These are great things, but then there are the sorrows and miseries of life too – everyone goes through them. How do they fit into the order? Augustine seems to see them rooted in God’s anger for our not giving Him the love and obedience He demands. But I don’t think that is where our sorrows come from. And for me it is the hardest thing to contend with because there is so much Scripture that points to God’s wrath as the origin of our woes. A testing of our faith – that I am willing to accept – but not wrath, especially not when the woes we suffer are related to the suffering of those we love, not ourselves.