Sometimes I like it and sometimes I don't...

Sometimes I like what I write here and... sometimes I don't.  Sometimes I process things here in a way that helps me see what is going on inside and... sometimes I write bullshit.  Not too much, I hope but I know it happens.  And when I can discern the bullshit... well, I sometimes revise my words - or just delete the whole thing.  I did that earlier this evening with something I wrote and it kept nagging away at me that - in its essence - it was bullshit.  So... now it is gone!  (I'll explore the heart of it another time when the pieces come together.)

For now let me just share an extended quote that I've been thinking a lot about this Advent. It comes from one of Peterson's reflections on Psalm 40:6. I first read it about 25 years ago and I think it is worth reading and re-reading throughout this season:

A brilliantly conceived metaphor in Psalm 40:6 provides a pivot on which to turn the corner: "ears thou has dug for me" ('azenayim karîtha lî). It is puzzling that no translator renders the sentence into English just that way. They all prefer to paraphrase at this point, presenting the meaning adequately but losing the metaphor: "thou hast given me an open ear" (RSV). But to lose the metaphor in this instance is not to be countenanced; the Hebrew verb is "dug."

Imagine a human head with no ears. A blockhead. Eyes, nose, and mouth, but no ears. Where ears are usually found there is only a smooth, impenetrable surface, granitic bone. God speaks. No response. The metaphor occurs in the context of a bustling religious activity deaf to the voice of God: "sacrifice and offering thou dost not desire…burnt offering and sin offering" (40:6). How did these people know about these offerings and how to make them? They had read the prescriptions in Exodus and Leviticus and followed instructions. They had become religious. Their eyes read the words on the Torah page and rituals were formed. They had read the Scripture words accurately and gotten the ritual right. How did it happen that they had missed the message "not required"? There must be something more involved than following directions for unblemished animals, a stone altar, and a sacrificial fire. There is: God is speaking and must be listened to. But what good is a speaking God without listening human ears? So God gets a pick and shovel and digs through the cranial granite, opening a passage that will give access to the interior depths, into the mind and heart. Or—maybe we are not to imagine a smooth expanse of skull but something like wells that have been stopped up with refuse: culture noise, throw-away gossip, garbage chatter. Our ears are so clogged that we cannot hear God speak. God, like Isaac who dug again the wells that the Philistines had filled, redigs the ears trashed with audio junk.

The result is a restoration of Scripture: eyes turn into ears. The Hebrew sacrificial ritual included reading from a book, but the reading had degenerated into something done and watched. The business with the scroll was just part of the show, a verbal ingredient thrown into the ritual pot because the recipe called for it. Now with ears newly dug in the head of this person, a voice is heard calling, inviting. The hearer responds: "Lo, I come; in the roll of the book it is written of me; I delight to do thy will, O my God; thy law is within my heart" (40:7-8). The act of reading has become an act of listening. The book is discovered to have a voice in it directed to the reader-become-listener: "it is written of me." The words on the paper that were read with the eye are now heard with the ear and invade the heart: "I delight to do thy will…thy law is within my heart." God's word (thy will), which had been objectified in a written word (thy law), now is personalized in an answering and worshiping word (my heart). The act of reading becomes an act of listening. What was written down is revoiced: "I have told the glad news…. I have not restrained my lips" (40:9). No longer is God's word merely written, it is voiced. The ear takes over from the eye and involves the heart

Listening is back. The dynamic sequence has been restored. The psalm began with God listening: "I waited patiently for the Lord, he inclined to me and heard my cry" (40:1). Now the psalmist listens. God has dug through his thick skull and opened a passage for hearing. The living voice of God is attended by the human ear. The consequence, as always when God's word works, is gospel ("glad news of deliverance," "thy saving help"; 40:9, 10). It was a medieval commonplace that the organ of conception in the Virgin Mary was the ear.

As I get ready this week to consider how the Virgin Mary is to Christians what Abraham is to Jews... this makes a great deal of sense to me. It is a good reminder, too, when there's too much bullshit.