I have been trying for weeks to figure out what to take and what not to take with me to Uganda, and as a friend of mine said yesterday, less is more. It seems no matter how little I take I’m still doing what I perceive a typical American would do, take too much stuff. So books are my big question mark left. I have several (actually more than several) books that I have been trying to read over the last several years and I would love to take them all with me and finish them on the first plane flight but can’t decide if I will actually read them. Three of these books at top on my list, God’s Passion for His Glory: Living the Vision of Jonathan Edwards with the Complete Text of The End for Which God Created the World (yes I know, the title is very long) by John Piper and Jonathan Edwards, The Life and Diary of David Brainerd by David Brainerd and Jonathan Edwards, and The Life of God in the Soul of Man by Henry Scougal. I have picked up and read all three, then put down, then picked up again, and so on… for years now.
I know these aren’t your traditional quick reads, and one is quite a bit beyond my comprehension. I have all of them in Kindle eBook for my iPad, paperback, and audiobook but keep going back to the paper bound books because of the depth of their words. This morning I was going through each of these three books thinking about my time in Uganda, our sponsor child, Joanita, who I hope to meet while I’m there, I came across this chapter in The Life of God in the Soul of Man, titled “Religion Better Understood by Actions than Words”. After re-reading that chapter I wanted to share Scougal’s words here today that help remind me why we go. The text is also available in Google Books here.
Religion Better Understood by Actions than by Words
When we have said all that we can, the secret mysteries of a new nature and divine life can never be sufficiently expressed; language and words cannot reach them: nor can they be truly understood but by those that are enkindled within, and awakened unto the sense and relish of spiritual things. There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding.
The power and life of religion may be better expressed in actions than in words’ because actions are more lively things, and do better represent the inward principle whence they proceed; and therefore we may take the best measure of those gracious endowments from the deportment of those in whom they reside; especially as they are perfectly exemplified in the holy life of our blessed Savior; a main part of whose business in this world, was, to teach by his practice what he did require of others, and to make his own conversation an exact resemblance of those unparalleled rules which he prescribed: so that if ever true goodness was visible to mortal eyes, it was then when his presence did beautify and illustrate this lower world.
I know that is kind of a mouth full for only two sentences, and not in the most current English, but Scougal’s words here are pretty incredible. That’s why this book has taken me so long to read. The words are incredible but I have to read each page several times. Once you do, the value is deep and lasting. Why do we go according to Scougal? Because this is what Jesus did and He is our ultimate example to follow. As Scougal says, our actions are better represented by the inward principle they represent. This is to say our actions proceed from where our heart resides, and to me, that’s very telling, and a little scary.
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Today is the start of another new semester. I love the start of the fall semester when it rolls back around. Everyone getting back into the groove of a busy fall schedule (down here that means football and basketball are not far away). Hard to believe how full my schedule already is at this point but along with my second Systematic Theology class, today I start Hebrew. There were many times over the last year or so that I had completely given up on ever being able to complete a cognitive language set, but some how it worked out this time, and today is day one. Since I can barely claim to be proficient in my own native English, Hebrew is somewhat intimidating to me right now, but I hope to look back in a year and know it was worth the work, and I managed to learn something along the way.
Step one was to learn the twenty three Hebrew consonants, which gave me a perfect opportunity to practice writing an acrostic poem, Of Hebrew from Alef to Taw. Trying to memorize totally unfamiliar information has never been easy for me, but working the information into a form of study works much better at solidifying the unfamiliar. This was my first attempt at learning the Hebrew letters and my first attempt at writing an acrostic poem. Makes me look forward to a coming semester full of firsts.
Of Hebrew from Alef to Taw
א Alef is first and foremost to complete and appeals to thus
ב Bet is on deck but gives no solace
ג Gimel sounds familiar with no pivot or axis
ד Dalet as in “day”, said slow, not of quickness
ה He corresponds to the grass that cows eat
ו Waw is the way to follow that drumbeat
ז Zayin reminds of that great city on the hill
ח Het seems like some mathematical problem to distil
ט Tet has power and might to be used many ways
י Yod is the smallest among those twenty-three displays
כ Kaf comes back around again to explain that of Josiah
ל Lamed roars across the kingdom much like Hezekiah
מ Mem says be quiet now, the little one needs some rest
נ Nun is more than halfway, now don’t be depressed
ם Samek brings a circle of life that sounds like the fall
ע Ayin proceeds with silence, just like a cat’s crawl
פ Pe will furnish a prayer that might demand our response
צ Tsade looks just like another minus the tail of nuance
ק Qof incurs the wrath of a king going into combat
ך Resh provides hope this exercise ends with proper format
ש Sin runs through our blood and must come to repentance
ש’ Shin appears to be identical just one spot out of vengeance
ת Taw is first and foremost to complete and appeals to thus; a text as old as He, but a genesis for us
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This is quite possibly the longest book title ever.
“The book, An Humble Attempt to Promote an Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of God’s People thro’s the World, in Extraordinary Prayer, for the Revival of Religion, and the Advancement of Christ’s Kingdom on Earth, Pursuant to Scripture Promise and Prophecies Concerning the Last Time, [was] completed by September 1747” by Jonathan Edwards.
Edwards was such a prolific writer and he often had very long titles. So what’s in a title? Is it important? The 21st century title has to be short, packed full of keywords able to be searched by Google and Amazon, which can be easily found in the digital world of media overload. What is your favorite long title?
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I thought I would start off with something light hearted for the week here on The Damascus Blog, and then I came across wordle again. If you haven’t seen or used a Wordle yet, it can be very interesting and a little eye opening. I have looked at these now and then but I always try to guess what my most used word will be, and I never seem to be able to get it right, and I wrote every word. [As created on Wordle]
The Wordle Tag Cloud
The word cloud below is a comprehensive look at this blog in total by the words I use (click on the image to see it full size on Wordle). I only wish it was clickable to each word, but perhaps next time. So what stands out in my cloud?
For my faith blog, is it the word Jesus, or faith, or Christ, no, this go around, it is the word time. Also appropriate to me since I think time is so important, but I did not know it was my most used word on this blog. Others of note wedding, think, life, Christian, read, and can.
What Does Wordle Say About our Words
What wordle does that I find very interesting, is that it doesn’t lie (it a computer how can it). The randomness of my words, put in the format I chose, and I find that the small words little and God are in order right on top of each other (lower right), and the word Jesus?
Our church did a series a while back on how we use our words. I love the Wordle, it reminds me once again how our words are used, how important they are, and also what is small or absent in our vocabulary. Does this translate into our heart, or into our lives. Well I am not going to make the leap from Wordle to life just yet but it does point out to me what may or may not have importance.
The word Jesus shows up on this wordle, in the very lower left hand corner in tiny little text. Should be front and center on this tag cloud, bigger than everything else? I have actually used the name Jesus less, and He, or Him, or Creator more in total, and some times by design for specific reasons, so I don’t think Wordle quite tells the whole story.
What does your wordle say about your blog?
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Here we are another 24 hours has gone by and the 24 Hours of Wise Words, Rusty’s Challenge from Rusty is over for the sake of this blog post. As far as the meaning in our lives and how we treat others, this should continue and be a part of our persona as we grow in our Christian walk.
A Reflection on How I (We) Did
I will have to say if you didn’t participate or haven’t tried doing this yet (using wise and kind words all day), it is far harder than you might think. I can’t say that I went the entire 24 hours without an unkind or unwise word, but, I can say it made me much more cognizant of what words I do use.
Doing this little exercise did make me examine the words I use, or was going to use, and how they might effect those I was speaking to or about. It showed me where I was building others up, and in the process of tearing them down. There were several others (@hspur, @mandycon, and @bslash) who followed Rusty’s suggestion and if you followed us on Twitter you could see the progress we made and didn’t make in real time. If you didn’t, I think the others would tell you it was a good 24 hours of self examination of words and heart.
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We just started a new series at our church called Speak, and I am really looking forward to the upcoming weeks as this series is going to deal with ways to communicate, how we speak to one another, how we pray and so forth.
Being a blogger of sorts, how we use our words is something that is always on my mind. We may or may not choose our words carefully, but our choice of words, speech, and overall communication we choose reflects our values, principles, and basically who we are as a person. Since communication in 2008 has a lot to do with the Internet, how we talk to each other and treat each other online can be of great importance as well, especially when we don’t have the ability to see body language, mannerisms, and many times speak in a more harsh texted tone.
The scripture chosen to be the backbone of this series is Psalms 19:14 “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.” In keeping with this, I thought about the different ways we communicate. Face to face, phone, text, email, blogging, and many others. One I have picked up recently is called Twitter is quite interesting since it is an ongoing record of what you have said to someone.
Something that was mentioned at the service is if you could listen to all your words in the day, what would it sound like. Well, Twitter is not a total of words spoken, but it is a snap shot of what you said to others in a day, so I am posting a digest of tweets (as they are called) on my personal journal blog each day so I can look back at the day in words. My first post is up and will be shown under the same heading each day, called Daily Twitter Updates for 2008-05-10, but the date will change of course. One thing that jumped right out at me after looking at the first post is how much I use a smile face. My son hates this, but I guess it is in my nature. Oh well, guess that is old school in me.
Hopefully I will be able to look back at the category for the twitter digests and see that I have learned something over the next series. What are your favorite ways to communicate? Have we lost the interest to communicate face to face because of the electronic communications?
