Gallimaufries
My Mother, Marjorie, passed away at the age of 94, on April 27, 2009. She died in her bed at home with all of us there. The last week was a fun week of sharing, eating, enjoying and loving. How can you mourn for a life lived long well and full? Recently my brother asked me if I remembered what ‘Mommy asked for 2 days before she died? I told him, no, what? He said, that she asked for a dictionary, she had to look up 2 words! Someone, asked me what those word were, and regretfully I don’t know.
Think about it though, even though we don’t know our last day and date to chisel on a tombstone, imagine being 94 years old and still having a hunger and thirst to learn! I say all that to say this, the title of this month’s article is in Marjorie’s honor. You see, usually I have a topic or theme to write about, but not a title. Just a year ago I wrote an article called ‘Rick’s A Roux’. The title came from a Louisiana word called Roux whereby it’s a little of this and a little of that to make a sauce for gumbo. When I sat down to do this month’s article I had the same unction to do another ‘Roux’ type article, yet I wanted to call it a ‘Hodge Podge’ and thus birthed this month’s article.
Hurt so Good?
Many times in life I’ve found myself asking the question of why? Here lately watching the happenings all around us, I think many people are asking that same question more and more on a daily basis now. I would like for you to consider something. Instead of asking why, should we be asking what can we learn from this? If we are at the end of days and in my opinion there are many signs that point to that then should not we be looking at Eze 20:33-38? I hear folk’s stories of tough times almost on a daily basis and I understand there are struggles out there but there is no reason that we should lose hope and faith. I see it the other way around. The first three plagues had to fall on all of those who were in Egypt in order to get everyone’s attention, including the children of Israel as well. Let’s face it the Israelites seemed to have mixed with the culture and pagan ways of the Egyptians until they had to be shaken again to remember the one true God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What was that shaking? The shaking that the Creator sent to them threw them out of sync in their normal everyday way of doing things.
Dealing with the Pagan Umentionable
Many people — perhaps even most, including those who call themselves “Christian” — are often surprised by what the Bible actually says. There is, for example, no mention of celebrating the most important single event in human history – the death and subsequent resurrection of our Messiah – via pagan fertility symbols like eggs and bunnies, although the practice is repeatedly and unquestionably prohibited. Likewise, many of us who are beginning to “come out of” such pagan traditions have come to understand that He was not born in late December (when there would not have been “shepherds watching over the flocks by night” anyway) but instead during the time of Sukkot, or “Mangers”, as those temporary structures have been called in Olde English!
But one of the most repeated metaphors in Scripture is even more commonly ignored by the mainstream ‘church’, perhaps because it is even more “politically incorrect” than some of the other pagan-inspired traditions associated with the “religions of man”, but includes some of the same hubris of ancient goddess worship: “I sit as queen, and am no widow, and will see no sorrow.” (Rev. 18:7)
