Semper Reformanda

Jesus before Pilate | Gary Alley

2023-02-26T05:17:00.001-08:00

2023-01-19T14:16:00.003-08:00

"If you want to know what a man is like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals" ~Sirius Black to Harry

J.K. Rowling, .

2020-12-25T08:26:00.001-08:00

Seasons Greetings! Merry Christmas! Hi and Shalom!

We miss you and are thinking of you. Not unlike so many others, we feel a bit beat up by the year and how we have been forced to adapt to various situations and bide externalities that we never would have imagined a year ago in China. Though we may feel a touch weary from it all, we trust that “Nothing is impossible with the LORD” and that “He will make all things new”. We are grateful for the messages of hope born out of that first Christmas - the Good News. May you find grace and peace this Christmas.

Love and blessings,

The Hagues

2020-07-11T00:26:00.002-07:00

"Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power not one is missing." ~Isaiah 40:26

In our busy, busy world, it's easy to get caught up in the noise, get swept from one cloud to the next, and miss the beauty of being... and other figures and phenomena all about and around us. Their being there begs us to pay attention to the lessons they might teach us. Our visual orientation, their proximity to us, their size, and their grandeur compared to our most glorious achievements... They speak; if only we have the courage to listen.

My very brief thoughts on these things stem from a lovely lecture from Joanna Woo. She led a magnificent tour of the night sky, took time to explain massively challenging and complex phenomena, and she made them soooo accessible! SFU will host more of these in the future and are worth your time.

https://www.sfu.ca/science/alumni-community/trottierobservatory/observatory/images-and-observing-reports-from-the-trottier-observatory/bubble-nebula-ngc7635.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl3nycmyc9M (From a previous week... this week's vid isn't out yet).

Homeland

2020-07-09T19:36:00.000-07:00

"How can I love my home without coming to realize that other men, no less rightly, love theirs? Once you have realized that the Frenchman like cafe complet just as we like bacon and eggs- why, good luck to them and let them have it. The last thing we want is to make everywhere just like our own home. It would not be home unless it were different." ~Lewis, Four Loves, p. 27

Quick Quarantine Catch-up

2020-07-09T00:29:00.002-07:00

China, Thailand, Vietnam, Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota, and back to Indiana. We are displaced and out of our routine, but well... because I know you were dying to know:) We were in China when COVID-19 had an earlier name, and when Wuhan had quarantined off its 11 million people. We remember our school under lockdown in China and what that meant for our life-situation, there. On-campus, people who had traveled, some through Wuhan, were returning to campus and were told to quarantine and wear masks. The most impressive of reasons for our leaving Sias on Feb 10 - well into our third week of lockdowns - stemmed from our western colleagues' absolute contempt for these new regulations... and how that unnecessarily jeopardized the well-being of our friends and loved ones, there. So we booked tickets to Thailand, because they were cheap and because we thought this was the best situation for our family, given this context.

Then things went from bad to worse. Squabbles over what to name the virus became a thing. Italy, Iran, and Korea were early to have significant outbreaks and then the US, too, experienced a major uptick in coronavirus cases. Our Sias admin assured us, even still, that the whole thing was blown out of proportion, China had safeguarded the spread, and we were going to need to return to campus late Feb, then early March, then late March, and then... we ran out of time on our visas. So we purchased $20 tickets for Vietnam, still being assured that returning to China was going to be required. The coronavirus moved in status from epidemic to pandemic while we were in Vietnam and her infections quadrupled. This caused a relative panic that translated into lockdowns, there. Pompeo issued a level four emergency and we got tickets back to the States, finally calling off returning as an option for the semester. We quarantined in Indiana and a month later made our way to Minnesota, we are now back in Indy trying to keep up with it all.

Amazingly, we are back in the house Holly and I moved to after we got married:) and have memories here that are both precious and painful, much like those important to this journey... out of one fire and into another, as it were. Indiana's numbers are increasing daily and the trend looks all too familiar. With all this political noise about our government making us all do something, they don't have the right to make us do, and the attempt to make this, too, about State's rights... the hubris, in these arguments, is overwhelming. We've chosen to wear our masks on the regular since January. It's tiring and I don't like it all the time, but "for the least of these", right? I'm grateful, I guess, that the choice is one I have the right to make... Perhaps if we were ordered not to, that might change things... In my view, whatever your trial or joy, we ought to act in a way that celebrates the good - for those around us... and for ourselves.

In any case, currently, we are fixing-up my parent's place, reno-ing our RV:), finishing up an engine swap, finding supplemental-income-buy-and-sell projects, finishing my Sias responsibilities for the semester, and trying to make the most of what we have... God be praised! I don't mean to blame him for our acquisitions... just to celebrate the life that is ours to live and thank him for the courage to live it. Love to all yours!

China: A Few Thoughts for Starters

2019-01-15T09:06:00.000-08:00

I like China, but... spitting inside classrooms, kids coughing on kids, forced photos, gawking, line-cutting, people oblivious to people, and the constant melodrama of expectations stated and with disappointed returns. These are things I do not like. I like my students and my friends, here. They see us, at least many of them do. I like our apartment and our campus. I like certain types of food, here, and their vast array of different types of mixes, sauces, which span the spectrum of bland to very spicy, from acquired tastes to simple and delicate. I like riding our scooter in every season and type of weather without all the paperwork and permissions required in the West, even in small towns. I like learning different conceptions of how to navigate life, different cultural norms that beget constancy expressed in ideas that contravene accepted western disciplines. Granted, I am very grateful for those, too. In short, China has a different palette, with a spread of colors all their own, and insistence on representations that at first glance seems hokey and half-assed, looking altogether different from our constructs. Were we, my family and I, not insistent on grounding our experience in certain familial and religious valuations, we might have a different take away, but we are here... and different because we are here... and different because of the grounding we have as westerners who are experiencing this contrast through that lens. I like this journey and trust we are better for trusting God, here and there.

Love Unbounded...

2014-04-27T00:56:00.000-07:00

Better than Wine

2014-04-25T23:14:00.000-07:00

When I look into your eyes I see sunbeams   
 (alt. Brilliance burns in light blue sunbeams)
A million dancing in the light                         
 (alt. a million dancing in your eyes)
Blonde drapes drawn around your windows
Drowning everything in sky
  
Blur the best of deeper movement 
Inside every touch and kiss
These lines wind there way around us
And pull better into it
 
Your love is better than wine
Your love is better than mine
Your love is better than wine
Your love is better than mine

Cast the lots and pick perfection
Woo the tempest back to peace 
Home finds itself inside you
A woman better than my dreams
 
Your love is better than wine
Your love is better than mine
Your love is better than wine
Your love is better than mine

Virtue's book a room in your name
And its better than it was
She prefers you stay in her place
I understand this because 

Your love is better than wine
Your love is better than wine...

Cast the lots and pick perfection
Woo the tempest back to peace  
Home finds itself inside you
A woman better than my dreams

Endings. Beginnings. Transition.

2013-08-14T15:09:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it feels like its going to be easier to write an update if I just wait out the plan or until it or something else materializes. I have waited too long and now I am two months and some behind. The thing is, each month bursts with activity and commotion; trips, tours, atypical meetings, and random encounters; that was until I came back to the States where different activity and commotion swallows up my time - work, applications and reconnecting. Probably not so different from too many others. So here goes another attempt at trying to frame my present quandaries and the last two months’ highlights...

I’d like to think that significant change follows a significant experience... like journeying in Israel and Palestine - the encounter with people, engaging presence of place, and explicit contextualization of a document that I have grown to love. Affect is inevitable. The questions that are now a part of my every day experience surround how this affect affects re-entry. For example, does Wal-Mart feel more abnormal? Do everyday conversations annoy me now that I can understand every loose cannon and every slight?

Truth is, my transition back into these American things is less obtuse than I would have imagined, though I am sure I still think about these things more than most. For instance, I almost think I wish I had been more annoyed with big-market-mentality and more empathetic to the little guy buried in the bureaucracy of having to maintain in the face of inexplicable bills and regulatory taxes. The sad reality is that even with invested experience, I don’t empathize too well or not well enough. Maybe this is the more bothersome reality. It seems like our situation is something dealt to us and if we are a part the majority, no matter how small, our language is full-up with compromise and syncretism is the new normal. We only celebrate separatism when things or people infringe on that systemic norm. I’d like to think that acknowledging these things is the first step to change.

About finding a place back in American Christian circles, I have thought about how scary certain heritages are because of their propensity to carry gossip and superiority complexes like handbags... security blankets that dispel internal jealousy and anxiety. For instance, it wasn’t last week and I’m hearing a missionary with plans to land in South East Asia detail “news” about a brothers “sin” with that casual judgmental superiority so comfortably in place in our circles. This makes me sad and mad, especially because this is a pledged and funded emissary of the “good news”. What’s good? His obsession with fall-outs and commitment to make sure people get theirs? Its my belief that “Jesus became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him”... that “While we were yet sinners Christ died for us”... and that “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins”. These are only a few texts that situate things for me. If God poured out his Wrath on his Son so we wouldn’t have to endure it, what is this new obsession in Evangelical circles with making sure people get theirs? I guess its not a new thing, just a bad ol’ thing. I feel like we are back with the Pharisees, stone in hand, asking for judgment. Its high time that we love grace and forgiveness as if it were something that we have been given...

June carried a number of tours and the frantic feeling that I would be moving state-side in July. The work was timely and needed. Then I transitioned into travel mode and attempted to say goodbye well; this, at the end of the month. Saying goodbye is especially difficult when you know you may never see people again. It solicited tears and reflection because I wanted to verbalize what I thought of their contribution to my life... it wasn't easy, because so many gave so much. This was a very meaningful time for me!

Presently, I have been home a little over a month and I am feeling strangely normal. I have been working in Grand Rapids since the beginning of August. Water activities and church occupy my weekends: work and applications, my week. I am looking for a teaching placement or a research assistantship for next fall and I would appreciate your prayers in that. Once again I am in transition mode... searching for a proper job and trusting that God will provide for our needs in His way and in His time.

May the Lord bless you and keep you!

Seth

May Memories

2013-06-07T14:47:00.002-07:00

   While initially I had plans to leave Israel in June, I have been gifted with a bit more time. My visa finishes in July and so I will stay until then. When it came time for my monthly, I found myself caught in a kind of desperate wave of feelings, from constant goodbyes that wore on during the first third of the month to the arrival of short-term groups to the natural hustle and bustle of Jerusalem life, not least the celebrations of Shavuot and Pentecost. Shavuot is one of three pilgrimage feasts in Leviticus - Feast of Weeks. It memorializes the giving of the Law to Moses on Sinai. For what its worth, its connected with Pentecost and the giving of the Holy Spirit, in the least, by sequence.
   In Exodus, blood was shed and applied to various things so that judgement might passover. This results in escape and a mysterious kind of deliverance. 7 weeks (49 days + 1 day leaving = 50) later God reveals himself in a kind of outpouring that culminates in the giving of the Law (An event later memorialized in Shavuot, something celebrated on May 15). Immediately after (this giving of the Law), Moses finds Israel steeped in sexual immorality. Then he and the Levites execute 3000 of Israel.
   In Acts 2, a narrative ensues following important happenings. Remember, after Jesus died to save a people from their sins, rose to conquer death, a duration of time passes and culminates in an event called Pentecost... from 50. No doubt connected to the intermediate time between Pesach or Passover and Shavuot. Again, Pentecost remembers the outpouring of the Spirit, after which 3000 are saved or converted. So the sequence looks a bit like this: blood - passover - 50 days - revelation from God - 3000 affected in both situations. It seems obvious enough that this link between Law and Spirit are contrasted by one thing - the juxtaposition of life and death. In all, the literary connections emphasize God's gifts affect change.
   This months happenings include thinking through these kinds of things. However before, Shevuot and Pentecost, the JUC long-term students left for their respective homes. Goodbyes are, in short, another group of friends gone. Naturally, these goodbyes engender reflection and affection - hugs and affirming toasts. The investment in people pulls on internal strings and the sadness tastes bigger the better the friend. Saying goodbye has two faces - the leave-er and the left - and in the end I will wear them both. My own time here is rapidly coming to a close and, in the confluence of my own drama and the desire to say goodbye well, I feel added pressure weighing heavier and heavier as my last day approaches.
   I have been thinking a lot about this lately. The last day... or chapter endings before the next picks-up. What does my next chapter look like? Reflection draws together what is a conglomeration of influences mixed-up in different experiences related in tenuous and inexplicable extensions. It's like this: memories of random radio broadcasts, unexpectant inconviences, and dinner conversations joined together in a present momentary reflection. Inevitably, we make decisions informed by a line of strange experiences, memories, and examples like these. The decisions are weighty and lead us, "onward and upward", I'd like to think. This is why it's important to think holistically about our past even as we engage present opportunities.
   Our past shapes our present. Ol' baggage sticks to our bodies like barnacles building an interlocking scenery of past images and memories. Set it in juxtaposition to present goals and future hopes and the mix-up carries a consciousness. The point is that we are constantly becoming, ever affected and affecting. Arriving, as we are, in whatever place we are, we are here different than we were a moment before. This is the affect of aging, forgetfulness, new books, old stories - there is no way to stay the same. No way back to innocence; no way back to childhood.
    For what its worth, I have found Mirsolav Volf helpful in this case:
We must name the troubling past truthfully - we must come to clarity about what happened, how we reacted, and how we are reacting to it now- to be freed from its destructive hold on our lives. Granted, truthful naming will not by itself heal memories or wrongs suffered; but without truthful naming, all measures we might undertake to heal such memories will remain incomplete.

   The past has a bearing on history, doesn't it? Isn't this how we avoid spectacular errors, by observing how things ought not to have been done, accessing the consequences of bad decisions and rethinking a better course? While we wrestle with the slew of residual drama that is a part of each of our narratives, there are ways of getting up, shaking off the dust, as it were, and moving on, no matter how spectacular the error.
  This, for me, is the mystery of mercy. Where confession and mercy kiss. This exercise in "naming" connects us to past offense and offenses... or recalls, "Confess your sins and He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). However hard it gets, the cycle subtly undermines power-plays and pretense. The more attuned I am to my past problems and present frequent failures, the more thankful I am for Jesus. It induces authenticity, humility and fidelity. This narritive from Passion to Pentecost changes us and bids us to live earnestly and free.

April

2013-05-08T07:33:00.001-07:00

    Drawn in by the lure of the unexpected, time moves at a more mysterious pace and the future seems more unpredictable. Each sigh blurs a mass of irredeemable minutes gone by and we stand on the cusp of anxiety, success or failure.
    April reflections again remind me that life runs-on irrespective of its occupants; it wisps away its journeymen without pause or permission. The thing is, too many cliches fit this kind of entry. "I can't believe how fast time how gone", as if time had a mind of its own and because the feeling is so accessible.
    This month ran-on full with normal activities: work, school, volunteering and recreation. Our garden bursts with blossoms, school awaits a final two chapters, my students continue to put up with my scheming and I still find Thursday night soccer one of the most helpful outlets to this Jerusalem life. Yesterday, I ran yet another small tour hoping that this kind of work looks good on my CV or that the connections made here will procure a job there, wherever there is (and because its so fun:)).
    I suppose there were a few exceptions. The month started off ending Pesach, then a week in we remembered Holocaust Memorial Day; two weeks in, I.D.F. Memorial Day and Independence Day. The twenty first I started digging at Tel Burna with a mix of Israeli's, students and tourists. The dig lasted a week and uncovered new features and material belonging to the Iron Age and Late Bronze Age. Last week, Lag BaOmer marked the thirty-third day of the omer, a celebration venerating the memory of Shimon bar Yochai. This is done with camp fires and so fires and smoke dominated the city from Saturday night to Monday morning this year. These were the more significant happenings in April.
    This month I have wrestled with what it looks like to embody injunctions to not worry about tomorrow, to rejoice always, and to love. Maybe it's all too cheeky to spell out three rather general trials, but they have been particularly challenging in light of old fires and new flames, tired chores and tricky applications, saying goodbye and awaiting opportunities. These personal challenges are not in any way unique to me. Though my experience of them perhaps provides a personalized set of variables, many have traveled through similar and more difficult roads, humbled by God's kindness and faithful in his service. And so it is, failing or falling doesn't determine the man, that we can get up each morning is itself a grace...

March Madness

2013-04-02T19:07:00.002-07:00

The thrill of the center burns with the same pace and friction as the beginning and end, though it lacks motivation of entry and pressure. The semester here has crested into a middle ground between entry and exit and somehow I am hoping coffee might miracle my manic, fear and frustration that accompany too much to do and too little time.

This year March hosted the passion and resurrection of Jesus, at least its memory and celebration, and for a moment offered a massive kind of reprieve from the daily grind. The whole month in a small sense was directed at this event with Lent an important part of things in Christian circles here, so I felt the force of the holiday with a bit more awareness than I have in previous years.

While the progress of the month drew on other time-line worthy elements, I found myself wandering with pilgrims of all sorts from Bethphage to Lions gate on Palm Sunday. I walked from the Western Hill to Gethsemane, and then to the Herodian quarter on Maundy Thursday. A group from school made sure to visit the Holy Sepulchre on Good Friday, watch a Holy-fire Catholic procession in the Christian quarter on Holy Saturday, and then wake up for a sunrise service on the Mount of Olives Resurrection Sunday, which were followed by visits to the Garden Tomb and the Holy Sep, once again.

This Maundy Thursday, I was struck by the ominous night lit bright with a full moon and so littered with shadows. Remember Passover follows a lunar calendar and is therefore set on a full moon in Nisan. Jesus would have made his way from an upper room dinner somewhere on the Western Hill in Jerusalem to a garden space somewhere east of the Kidron Valley. And so we followed a similar itinerary and read Luke's account in its corresponding setting having chosen to walk about at a corresponding hour. The four cups of wine, thanksgiving-type dinner, and usual nature of feast time leisure would have been reason enough for the disciples to have struggled with understanding why staying awake at midnight would have been helpful and appropriate.

Along with these physical setting and contextual factors or maybe because of them, I found myself identifying with Peter's character. Peter's unwitting humanity full of relentless presence was emblazoned onto my psyche as I heard countless cock crows. Think of it, the last time that you see your most trusted mentor, he is carried away as a shameful castaway, seemingly discredited publicly by nature of an horrific execution. This, after you look heavy into his eyes after having denied any sort of meaningful connection with one who solicited your loyalties and then you hear it. Would you not also find yourself conflicted? Remember, it’s not as if the disciples were seated together on Saturday waiting on Sunday to come 'round and it’s not as if cocks only crow on time, if you will. Failure would have been the mark of the whole rigmarole. That of dating a giant only to find out he comes down with a stone or investing in promising stocks only to watch the whole enterprise crumble with your contribution among the whole.

Also, thanks to Danny Kopp's reflections on Saturday morning, I found myself deeply moved by Jesus' interactions with the thieves and how the whole narrative follows. Three apparent failures expelling last breaths close enough to be heard one by the other: one mutilated ex-Messiah figure and two thieves. The one mocks and the other asks to be remembered. Jesus follows with promise that must have sounded just as foolish to onlookers as to the mocking miscreant, "Today, you will be with me in paradise". This is truly compatible with his message, after all, he had said to Pilate he was born to die and earlier he had said this was to save sinners from their sins. However, it looks so confounding and pathetic that you can empathize with the disciples despair and the thief's mockery. Instead, I found myself identifying with this deserving reject who has come to terms with the reality of his situation. He has come to his end without anything and finds a figure that warrants his trust. The thief understands Jesus doesn't deserve the death he is dying and he sees reason to believe that this "King of the Jews" indeed has a kingdom.

It's here that these gospel stories take on real character and substance for me. Where I can identify with figures of the past and their estrange sentiments, thoughts and emotions. They are, after all, clothed in more flesh and blood than I had realized... more than cantata drama all told in graphic detail in their respective accounts. They all tell of a God-man that figures into a heritage and tradition selected to be a light among the nations only to live a life that men should have lived, pay a debt for failing, as we do, and procure a promise for those who believed, believe and will believe.

This, of course, is dependent upon the resurrection. Without it, the whole exercise in sacrifice stands for very little. God raised him from the dead. For those who believe, this is the greatest news in the world, for those who don't its either a stumbling block or a bit of rubbish, that's all… perhaps, a good story with a crazy revolutionary, but hardly a Gospel that warrants any kind of attachment. Can you now understand the panic and haste embodied by Peter and co. as they run to the tomb? Can you begin to appreciate why their hearts would have burned within them as they make sense of the peculiarity and necessity of his death? It made all the difference in the world for them... and for me.

I thought it worthwhile to share a few reflections from the month seeing as it was full on all kinds of activities and celebrations; however sensational or boring. My March started off with a half-marathon, entertained six tours and pressed on with the normal: volunteering, work and school. This, as I continue to look for a teaching placement or other work for this up and coming summer and fall. Your encouragement along the way has been extraordinarily meaningful to me. Know that I am deeply thankful for the generosity that has been extended. As always, I am grateful for your prayers and support!

Love,

Seth

February.

2013-03-05T03:18:00.001-08:00

Two of my siblings share February as their birthday month, Lent commenced with Ash Wednesday, and Valentines Day fell serendipitously after this. Add on my favorite Great-Aunts Birthday and a friends fatal car accident, introspection and reflection help to frame questions about life and love, among other things.
I remember exactly where I was standing that Wednesday in 2004 when my father called to tell me that Phil had died. I remember telling him that this was impossible and that, "I am sure he will get better - right?" It wasn't until I called my boss to ask for the evening off that the gravity of the event had buried its way into me. I could feel the finality - unalterable, fixed forever without an undo button. My poor sister's birthday came a day later suspending celebrations and trading them for tears. We have not forgotten.
Aunt Erma's birthday was on the 10th. Phil died the 18th. Grace's birthday was on the 19th and Sam's on the 22nd. These, surrounding other events, more catholic in nature - Lent and Valentines Day. This year, I celebrated Lent with our Anglican community in the Old City and found the phrase, "Repent and believe the Gospel" as it was juxtaposed to, "From dust you came into the world, to dust you shall return" resonating in my ears for some time. This, due to sobering realization that life is terribly transient - pent up in a symbol, ash - set in contrast to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
These heavy thoughts were not alleviated the next day. Valentines Day followed in sequence bringing a number of images to mind, good and bad. It reminds me of Dad and Mom sharing little gifts. I remember that my sister and I set up a little candle light dinner. We set up a little card table and dressed up in our finest, just a simple and probably silly-looking thing.
Truth is, holidays and memorials are powerful. Perhaps its their ability to bring pause to life or the way they pressure you into a relative kind of introspection. In the end we evaluate our current relationships or connectedness to God and people. As for me, Psalm 73 has been on my mind a lot recently:

Whom have I in heaven but you?

And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;

you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.

But for me it is good to be near God;

I have made the Lord GOD my refuge,

that I may tell of all your works.

(Psalm 73:25-28 ESV)

As for the everyday life, February was full up with new visitors and new opportunities alongside of responsibilities that I have already taken on. New students arrived at JUC a bit before the month started and programs and classes have been a part of their first month. For me, it has been incredibly meaningful to be a part of the cycles here. The availability of thesis materials, church, campus work, the Olive Branch Institute (OBI), etc. are themselves the reasons why I came back to Israel.
That said, my schedule has a pretty constant run with a mix of different kinds of interruptions. My mornings are devoted to my thesis and my afternoons to work on campus. After work, depending on the day, I have church, teaching responsibilities for the OBI, soccer and more time for my paper; this, between tours, private and for the OBI.
Trips 'round with groups remind me that this small stretch of real estate is extraordinarily diverse from the Negev to the Galilee; from mountains to desert plains; from Hermon's heights to Dead Sea lows. Its striking how life runs along a similar tenor. Fully engaged we encounter joy and heartache; whether as a result of love and betrayal or community and disenfranchisement. Life contains the ups and downs of journey... a journey that, once started, "will be carried on to completion".

“The Lord bless you and keep you;

The Lord make His face shine upon you,

And be gracious to you;

The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,

And give you peace.”

Know that I am ever grateful for your prayers and support.
Love,
Seth

January...

2013-01-26T15:18:00.000-08:00

January emerged in spite of media-driven eschatological misrepresentations of Mayan culture. "End of the world" prophecies and media marketed a notion that resonates internally with so many people - a strange expectancy that this whole cycle could mysteriously and imminently end. Sure, different variations spell a different end-date or end-drama, regardless, endings have a curious way of reminding us all that we are human - transient and short-lived.

This, I don't think, is such a terrible thing. And, its seems to me, this is what makes January so meaningful for people. A stretch of so many failures and inconsistencies meets a pause in apathy or downward spiral. It follows that new resolutions fit the occasion for people counting time together from beginning to end. Out with the old, in with new sentimentality runs the holiday and gives people a opportunity to try again. I am not arguing that this is a helpful cycle... more just suggesting this is why people have grand celebrations 'round New Years Eve.

My new year started in a rather anti-climatic way because on Jaffa Street in Jerusalem there wasn't a massive kind of celebration on; big enough to hear a small crowd count off 2012's last seconds, but that's about all. It's not that folks there are acquainted with the Gregorian calender, for all practical purposes most folks use it concurrently with two other civil calenders, one Jewish, one Muslim, respectively. Maybe it's just that the Western impression hasn't holey swallowed up Middle Eastern schematics and all that includes or overlooks.

Students arrived on campus for their short-term program on December 31, so I had a few chores before I could leave campus that evening. Immediately into the swing of short-term, our small JUC staff manned different responsibilities to make sure things went off according to plan. My twenty hours I owe the school were used up in these ways, so I now have a lot of catch up work to do in the garden, but so it goes.

Inside the reigns of JUC responsibilities, I had to manage and care for two private tours: one set up through the school, the other through the Olive Branch Institute (OBI). This occupied a good portion of two separate weeks. You can imagine the rush, given the need to keep up with my commitment to the school and then to tailor two tours: a three-day and a four-day.

All said and done, I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to teach and guide. Israel is an incomparable classroom dynamic and one I will miss when I leave. While both groups were full up with a wide age-gap, 50 years or something, it was helpful to see how different folks processed similar information. It was also helpful to test the depth of my knowledge, here. Even more, tours take folks from wildly different backgrounds and enable them to engage a setting that they typically know about, but one they have never seen before. To see lights come on and connections made as my students interface a familiar text with an unfamiliar context, this is what makes teaching fun. Its as if their entire frame of reference resurrects into something more realistic - a move from flannel-graph to a real physical setting... fun to watch, meaningful to be apart of.

The month, as it was, ran-on according to schedule with a lovely interruption in the sequence. January 9th, it began to snow. It continued into the tenth and by the time morning came around the whole city was covered in white. They say, it snows here once every three years. It snowed a little last year so I didn't think that it would happen again, but it did! And it came down heavy. Everything closed and people found ways to enjoy the snow. Random snowball fights and snowmen littered Jerusalem. I built my own snowman to stand a bit taller than myself. It was amazing. Its one thing to see snow in the states, but its quiet another thing when you can stand in approximately the same location as biblical writers and think about impact of the use of snow in metaphor and simile - the way its referenced to describe leprosy or a clean heart.

Short-term students left campus January 19th, give or take, and then we began immediate preparations for the long-term semester. Only a few days in, the campus is a bit quieter than normal having only thirty JUCers on campus; but its a lovely mix of folks intentional in trying to make sense of modern and ancient histories. This, to better appreciate God's word.

I have found myself caught between activities with a need to focus more intentionally on my paper. Work requires quite a lot of attention, but I am thankful that this is how God has chosen to provide for me while I am here. Your prayers are warmly appreciated as I engage the semester looking to finish work I have started and to find a path after I am done. The month has had its mysterious successes and foibles, all which have helped me trust that everyday God fashions new mercies and new opportunities to discover what is the impact of Christ's work. May you be encouraged to live more earnestly and resolutely until He comes again. Thank you for your prayers and support.

Love,

Seth

December and Christmas

2012-12-25T15:53:00.000-08:00

December began with endings. JUC finished its term in early December this year. Students and friends trickled away for home and country. Two fellow grads and I were given the task to care for campus while the rest of the staff went on holiday leave; so by the middle of Hanukkah the campus was empty and quiet, save three.

Plenty of chores and holiday activities kept us all quite busy as we continued with our own respective communities off campus. I have been doing a bit of preparation for the Olive Branch Institute's Israel tours that I have scheduled for January while trying to gain momentum on my school work.

It shouldn't be too surprising that the holiday allows for more opportunities to get away from the routine. The city, after all, has been full-up with celebrations. Hanukkah celebrates the miracle of the long-lasting oil; this, a provisional symbol of God's approval with the Maccabees' revolt. During this Festival of Lights, each new day is begun by lighting another candle. This year Hanukkah started December 8th and lasted until the night of the 16th.

Christmas has a similar intrigue; secular and religious folks celebrate, albeit in their own way. The overlap, Christian and Jewish, secular and religious, spills into the streets and lights flicker all over the city express with connections to one of two holidays.

For us also, this time of year ushers in the best of spirits. It’s familial and meaningful, colorful and bright. The holiday has all but usurped the month, too. We wish our days faster, prepare with ornaments and symbols, buy and write in preparation for a brilliant celebration.

And celebration ought to be thick with luster because celebration is a really good thing; a day or season to venerate important sacrifices and memories. However, isn't it our tendency to embellish and recreate? Andrew Peterson’ song “Labor of Love” starts out, “It was not a silent night, there was blood on the ground.” This is a stark kind of realism that routes-off fantasy away from incessant recreations. Our tendency, I think, is to mythologize and embellish until all that are left are the narrative’s names and places - to celebrate silly things and trivialize the more important bits.

A lot could be said to help Westerners filter out images of Motel 6-no vacancy and wooden stables and mangers because the stories greatness, after all, is not in what is made up about it (I never did like flannel-graph), but it is in what is so mysteriously real. Here, the raw moments that accompany the human experience are shrouded in God.

God humbles Himself by restraint and imposed limitation – placing His heir in a woman’s womb. She has to travel an awfully uncomfortable journey in and out of rain all for government dues; and this only to find their family's accommodations a bit less kind, you might say.

This birth and His life will be terribly normal. Of course, this is what is so exceptional. He suffers the silliness of learning; learning to eat, speak, and walk with all the imposed ignorance of an infant. A story of common cycles envelopes His life. And then, after having succumbed to something so far below Him, He establishes his ministry restraining so much in his own attempt to help the world see that He is Emmanuel. This harsh reality takes on greater terrors when He is met with rejection and curse. That it, though. He offers Himself up… according to plan... at the right time.

This, after all, was what Jesus said to Pilate, essentially, “I was born for this!” We celebrate, now, the undoing of every dark thing, venerated in the connection this celebration has with His life lived on our behalf and His death died in our place, vindicated by an approving Father who raised Him from the dead. Everything sad is going to come untrue. Is not this what Christmas is all about, anyway?

Hope yours is lovely and meaningful - Merry Christmas!

Seth Hague

November Reflections...

2012-12-08T16:13:00.002-08:00

November marries autumn and Thanksgiving; football and turkeys; pumpkin pie and people. The Hague and Augsburger clan stitch birthdays, Thanksgiving, black-Friday shopping and Christmas all into one. It’s the season of giving and going, rest and reprieve. And somehow we manage to craz-ify it, filling the holiday with acrobatics, baseball injuries and music, not to mention our staple hand-and-foot tournaments.

Last year these things changed. It’s the inevitable journeys end that comes to us whether we like it or not. The end always comes - hopefully birthing something that remembers and cherishes the past just as it embarks on its own new voyage. Last year, Aunt Erma and Jean left this life for another. My brother Samuel married two weeks later. These events were the get-togethers that marked our holiday, so it was, therefore, more tight-knit and sober filled with tears and laughter surrounding different memories: one final and one beginning.

I have been in Jerusalem two months this time around. School has just finished its term and students are trickling out catching their respective flights home. I have been leading tours for the OBI and am tending the JUC garden, this all falling under the priority to get my thesis done. Though my responsibilities keep me rather busy, I have taken time to arrest some of my holiday reflections and interface them with this estranged and lovely Jerusalem context; this to offer a few update-anecdotes and wish you a Merry Christmas.

As you know, Jerusalem has never been free of drama. November’s included Gazian rockets and return fire, people coming and going, and now a mishap-pole incident. I am sure in a donkey-driven world more than one Jerusalemite has fallen off or, in my case, ran right into something hard and stable. I will be well, soon enough. Thanksgiving football has provided an extra measure of continued entertainment for those who have seen the video of my little accident.

Even more, conflict and sojourning seem to characterize Jerusalem from the time of Abraham and Melchizedek, Joshua and Adonizedek to the lives of Zerubbabel and the returnees during the Persian period through to Jesus and the Romans, and so on and so forth. Remember, history highlights happenings and conflict sells; so it may take a bit of added effort to gain a better sense of what is really going on. In any case, every age knew folks who journeyed ‘round like strangers in a foreign land and I feel as if I can identify.

The long drives and short stays have become a normal part of my narrative. Though I have found a temporary home here, soon enough it will be time to move on. So it’s actually quite a marvel that I have now spent over three years in Israel. Though I have moved from place to place, Israel has taken on a sense of familiarity - the people and places. For this I am becoming more and more thankful.

Just last week, as I toured in the north I found that every site offered more perspective than my previous visits. Even walking ‘round Jerusalem, trekking with a colleague I found things I had not seen before and appreciated things that I had before resented whether it be Egyptian building features at the Garden tomb or the Jerusalem rain. Amazing what you see when your eyes are open or receptive.

This is summarized well in a parable told by David Foster Wallace. He tells a story about three fish. An older fish said in passing to two younger fish “How’s the water?” The younger fish were perplexed by the question because they had no ideal what water was. Wallace’s point is so obvious and perceptive. Their whole lives were inundated with a reality that they had never taken time to appreciate.

It is high time that we begin paying better attention to the life-situation in which we have been called to live. While I find it particularly remarkable that God has chosen to work with a bunch of boneheads i.e. Isaac, Samson and Peter, it seems to me that he energizes us to engage our generation - living in this world as bright lights thoroughly equipped for every good work. We must have answers that are Gospel-informed. Answers for how to engage with situations that are right in front of us, whether it be couple-drama or country-drama. Forgiveness is a power won by the Christ's cross. This after all is why Jesus came.

I do hope that your Christmas Holiday is filled with wonder and blessing. I hope, too, that this Advent season would awaken your numbness and quicken your spirit.

Blessings from Jerusalem,

Seth

Update; A Month in Review

2012-11-08T13:47:00.000-08:00

Jerusalem, Jerusalem! A month in and I am finally feeling a bit more settled; though life's pace seems to cycle faster than I have been used to for a while. Church, school, work and volunteering have each demanded a sure amount of commitment and I thank God for graces in these things... both for them and the strength to do them.

Again, the primary reason I have returned is to finish my thesis. I have thus far determined a topic and methodology and have just to research and execute it... My thesis title is: "Direction Indicators in the Hebrew Bible, A Catalog and Analysis". Things have progressed, albeit slower than I would like. As it is, I am Grateful to have come when I have come. This semester's JUC students are again extraordinarily lovely. I have had a very wonderful time learning about and from them. Their encouragement has been much appreciated!

Work continues to demand a good portion of my week, though it provides a nice outlet from other pressures and I have a bit of control in terms of how I spend my time... all within this Zion garden, of course. After all, I have the privilege of tending a garden in Jerusalem on Modern Mt. Zion - Edenic work, I like to think :)

Lastly, Volunteering has been a beautiful addition to my time in Israel. I volunteer for the Olive Branch Institute. This month, I have had two responsibilities and both were very enjoyable chores. The first was an airport run, which included a ride to Arad, and then a drive north to Jeru, then out to Tel Aviv, then south to Arad again. It worked out that a JUC group was in Arad at the time so I stuck around for the day while they toured the Negev. There I enjoyed an Eyal Golan concert that evening and then caught a ride with them up the next day as they visited Masada, Ein Gedi and Qumran en route fro Jerusalem.

The second responsibility was to lead a group of volunteers 'round Israel. If I do say so myself Kay, Kit Karen, and Nancy were a very lovely bunch; and I had a very good time. We toured Jerusalem, Thursday. Friday, we drove out to the Dead Sea and did the typical sites listed above, save Masada. We instead went out to the Makeshim and read from Psalm 90. Then Saturday, we drove up to the Galilee and spent our time journeying the Elijah to Jesus narrative or from Carmel to Capernaum, if you like. Then from a beautiful home visit to some ol' Scandinavian friends of mine (Lily and co.), we did a Coastal Plain/ Shephelah day ending with David and Goliath as we overlooked the Valley of Elah.

Time like water scurries in its intended direction without asking for approval or permission. Appropriate that Moses likens life's span to a watch in the night or something a flood disposes of. Just before I journeyed back to Jerusalem, my family mourned the loss of a friend and father figure. Its been a month. Today, I woke up and thought it a very special grace. My days are numbered and I suppose I best ask God for grace to help me redeem the time that I have been given. When I think of Tom, I think of the many stories he had to tell having lived earnestly and well. It still a marvel to me that God's mercies are not only new every morning - they are forevermore!

Psalm 90:13-17

¹³Return, O Lord! How long?
    Have pity on your servants!
¹⁴Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
    that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
¹⁵Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
    and for as many years as we have seen evil.
¹⁶Let your work be shown to your servants,
    and your glorious power to their children.
¹⁷Let the favor^[a] of the Lord our God be upon us,
    and establish the work of our hands upon us;
    yes, establish the work of our hands!

English Standard Version (ESV)

Lovely that He promises to continue what He has started in us... til He comes or we go.

Below, I have included a number of pictures from this month... Feel free to ask about anything I am up to!

My email is sethhague@gmail.com. I love letters and am indebted to so many of you for your prayers and support.
Blessings and Love!

There and Back Again...

2012-10-03T15:12:00.000-07:00

Smells and sights trigger recall and memories. Bits of data buried under the chapters written over the past few years uncovered instantly in the waft and view. Who knew it would be this potent; this overwhelming?

Why are you late to campus? What have you been doing over the past year? What are you doing now? These questions are the ones that I have been answering over the last week. Naturally, a new setting with new people invokes the exhausting but good work of getting to know the neighbors... Truth is, I have found that these questions expose the more important bits my narrative has to tell - this last years bloopers and blessings (perhaps the bloopers are themselves blessings, too)

Almost a year ago, I ventured off to the States leaving behind a place that had become my home with its various connections and loves. The following months proved to be hard and good ones. Death visited my Aunt Jean and then Aunt Erma. Then in late November the Hague family went about celebrating my brothers marriage. So miles put between Israel and myself drove me up to Grand Rapids, Michigan then out to Des Moines, Iowa. A little after thanksgiving I circled out even further to see what kind of jobs were available in my field. I flew out to North Carolina drove to South Carolina then to Georgia visiting friends, colleagues, churches and schools. Flying from Atlanta to Seattle, I did more of the same in Washington and BC, Canada.

I found graces upon graces, mercies upon mercies. I found that even the shortest previous interactions could lead to deep-rooted and meaningful relationships. Finally, I found work. I took up wings and flew out to Australia. I didn't expect a Jerusalem University College experience would land me a construction job but it did. One that then provided an opportunity to teach. A provision I also did not expect. With these very lovely folks, I began to find my voice. I began to see how much I loved to teach and what the teachings could mean to people. A three month period may only allow you to scratch the surface with folks but God can use the smallest of seeds to topple the largest of mountains.

From Australia to New Zealand for holiday and reprieve, I went. A while before I had decided to come home, I had begun looking for what might be next. Coming home, it became more obvious that I should return to Israel and take up the task of finishing a thesis that I had seriously thought about letting go. Its not a document that I need for the degree though it is a document that would put me in better stead for more serious work in the discipline.

So April, I returned home and began searching again for work and the ability to finance a return to Israel. I again landed in Grand Rapids, not least after having visited a number of lovely friends in Chicago, Upland, Greenville, Lowell, Nashville, Little Rock, Buies Creek, Scioto Hills, Akron, Oberlin and Tank Lake. After one last trip from Grand Rapids to West Virginia and I began taking on as many hours as I could manage to fit the flight bill. God be praised. He provides and I have made it back. The journey has so many meaningful happenings and Providences. I have found that, God as my witness, the most devastating of losses can lead to the most life-giving gains. "The greater the struggle, the more glorious the triumph."

Paradox...

2012-05-11T11:17:00.001-07:00

I'll fly by the wrung of the spinning recoil

and taste the temper of time

when bull-backed relapses invoke a response

a turned table that's taken and mine

so hold back your passions and beat back your tears

and stand tall to face what you've done

Too bad ours is over with out hearing cause

too bad I'll be standing alone

Hear Hear the Red Dragon

Hear Hear she's inside

Hear Hear the slayer will come

Hear Hear the White Stallion

Hear Hear the last dance

Hear Hear when judgment is done

Some terrors bought back by a teller of chance

a love-song two-faced into black

Cause its never as easy as its may to appear

and their judgments are quick to attack

I should have stopped dancing when the music turned off

and I should have turned off the noise

Cold-cocked with surprise now the secrets awake

undone by your right to be poised

Hear Hear the Red Dragon

Hear Hear she's inside

Hear Hear the slayer will come

Hear Hear the White Stallion

Hear Hear the last dance

Hear Hear when judgment is done

Guns loaded and lonely she might pull you in

and pull you down on her chest

Right to wrong fancy the bottles is full

and I'll raise it

here's to wishing you, Best!

Forgiveness and jealousy are signature friends

Pent up in license and loss

The row that you traveled has seeds left to grow
and the better for having a cost

Hear Hear the Red Dragon

Hear Hear she's inside

Hear Hear the slayer will come

Hear Hear the White Stallion

Hear Hear the last dance

Hear Hear when judgment is done

Meant to...

2012-04-22T01:04:00.001-07:00

A block from home

And far from here

The linger burns my throat.

A fit of fear

And wrung out tears

That sting of shadowed smoke.

The pangs and fillings

...cloud nine fall

A ring wrung round your neck.

Icarus

In replayed paid

And broken promises. (this is your heart break)

Cause I never meant the things I said and you think that you would know it

And you never meant the things you did and you think that I should know it

The crux and candor

Bridge and break

The wash of better dreams.

A mix of force

Your loss of voice

Will build a better thing.

But the long lost fight (is bitter biting and fits of lightening)

Blind-eyed might

Is a fixture on your wall.

You’ll tell yourself

And tell yourself

The Devils got a fall.

Cause you never meant the things you said and you think that I should know it

And I never meant the things I did and you think that you would know it

But these

Terrors are forever

Invested in your head.

They are figments

Of a past appeal

Robbing your investments

Ending starts

Refining charms

From death in absolutes.

But standing taller

Filled with power

Are bits of what you'll lose.

Cause I never meant the things I said and you think that you would know it

And you never meant the things you did and you think that I should know it

Mine is smaller

Pose or falter

Or buy myself a drink.

And hope the bruises

Light their fuses

In final. release.

Cause you never meant the things you said and I think that I should know it

And I never meant the things I did and you think that you would know it

Bridge:

Maybe it’s a chapter where the best is yet to come

Or maybe its an ending that has. just. begun.

Update and Blessings

2012-02-11T00:05:00.000-08:00

Hope this functions as an encouragement!

Heart-break and wonder, respite and diagnosis; who knows how to settle on what decisions solve signature interruptions in the “plan”? As I see it, the particulars are the confusing bits, the pieces that have splintered corners and puzzled edges – not answers to materialism but what exactly to do with our change, not puzzlers on who sustains the universe but whether or not he wants you to go to Korea, not what is love but why did she give and then give it up? Suppress the particulars all you want, but in the end all of us are in a real world accompanied by a number of affixed universals, if only death and taxes. Truth is, I don’t think we will pride ourselves in dichotomies; we will act according to what we know or what we perceive. I know that God is good and that His mercies are not only new every morning - they are forever! This is a sustaining truth for me.

I count the last few months as some of the most confusing and rewarding moments I have ever had. God knows that had I followed on the same trajectory with the same cycles, I would have found myself more dejected and subsumed in a powerless vacuum sucked dry of strength all because I had stubbed my senses on an idol.

It is better to have loved and lost, than to never to have loved at all, they say. I am not so convinced! There is no greater disturbance to the psyche than to have felt the terrors of abandonment; to know that someone is committed to you in spite of your issues and then to feel the poison of rejection seep into your soul. She bites you everywhere you can cover only to invite you to respond ostensibly. In the end the cycle forces you to watch the living-thing you had worked so hard to create bleed out – the relationship. Its more complicated with confessing evangelicals, I think. We have been informed that commitments are binding and that forgiveness is accessible on any level - because of the work of Christ. Truth is, human commitments and forgiveness involve two people and you only need one to inhibit the process.

This is precisely where the tensions have brought me; spring loaded with doubt and posturing - hoping that I can find a way out of the senseless debilitating nightmares. Problem is that they are not only nightmares - the triggers are in the food, family outings, movies, etc. In my mind I can see her, chat with her, chat with others. We are confessing and crying, arguing and loving but it is all a dream upon a dream and the more I give in to the hope for Christian resolution the more I am told its forbidden fruit just as poisonous as the love delusion that tripped the trigger.

Even more, its paradoxical because my sentiments are estranged. I have had a more productive move forward on the heels of this senseless release than I had while blistering my back and starving my appetites... buried in the desire to revive a connection that was being cut without explanation. Its as if the either or is forgiveness or justice. Like I wish that there would be a hearing and judgment would be made so that I could know what to repent of and or to see her pay for these offences in an objective way. Its muddy and I want closure.

Once more (And most paradoxical of all), I find it particularly amazing that God can so wield events and happenings together that good emerges, exuding from soars. I don’t pretend to understand it but I can say that my tolerance for pain and heartache have been tested and found wanting. I want to say that God is my portion! He is my strength! His kindness endures forever and He will finish what He started. Its that I want to want to... some days its a grace that I have made it through at all.

In recent months I have been trying to ween myself off... trying to forget and forgive, etc... I have needed to move past the relationship, as it were, in order to keep my head above water – some days I am more of a swimmer than a plank. This is the marvel - the evidence that God has gone before me and met me with His kindness.

My story at this juncture is to tell of Gods kindness! After leaving Israel, the plague on both our houses slept while I felt the tender familial connections at the funeral of my Aunt Erma. Drama did not piece meal my time with friends in Michigan before my brothers wedding in Iowa, nor did it damn my attempts to get up and find work in NC, SC, GA, WA, and BC. He met me with his kindness! Long hours with friends over tears and tea, I have reflected on the goodness of God extended to me in my darkest of days. I am sure that there will be more heart break and trials, but His mercy endures forever!

Currently, I am in the process of making a decision as to whether or not to finish my thesis. This of course is not a decision I can make in isolation. My loans have gone into repayment and so I have been working to get ahead on my loans. I have applied to Frontiers – an agency chiefly interested in ministering to Muslims. I have also applied to teach English with an agency with a broad placement range including UAE, Saudi and Korea, to name a few. The first is a vocational vision into which I could place my affection! The second is a means to get out from under these silly financial pressures. The first few stages of both my applications have been accepted. At the moment I am in Australia working with a building firm with a load of different kinds of construction operations. The pay is better than I could do in the States and it’s a nice transition piece for me. A friend invited me out and I have been working for him.

Grace, Grace,

Gods grace,

Grace that is greater than all our sin!

Greetings and Update

2011-12-25T23:55:00.000-08:00

Advent Blessings! I have been state-side for a few weeks now looking after a few family and personal matters. Having finished all the requirements for my Masters of Arts in Biblical History and Geography, I am now looking to lead trips to Israel and to get more involved with the Olive Branch Institute. The Olive Branch Institute is an Israel based ministry providing a network of support services for Sudanese refugees, Bedouin, single-parents and orphans, which includes: providing food coupons; counseling services; skills training; support groups; children’s camps, and much more.

My family has been going through all kinds of transformation - two funerals, a wedding, and a new born. All of my brothers are hitched and the kid-count is up to 5 with 2 on the way – niece and nephew fun!

I am experiencing my own kind of transition coming back to America. I am not convinced there is a suitable way to prep for re-entry, as it were. Often the challenge is trusting that God will provide in his time and in His way; this, in the face of all kinds of questions.

Here as a representative of the Olive Branch Institute, I have been traveling around meeting with Pastors, teachers, colleagues and friends. After being home for a time, I have taken to the road again. My latest adventures have taken me through North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Washington and British Columbia, Canada intentionally seeking counsel and support of friends and ministries along the way.

While I don’t have this next chapter figured out, I am learning day by day to trust that God will finish what he started. The exciting bits about this advent season are the barrage of reminders that God condescended in His Son, a redeemer providing real means of real escape from the consequences of real sin. The affects establish grounds of faith we can live in… even when so much is unknown and hard!

Thanks so much for your support and prayers.

It is all very meaningful,

Blessings and Love,

Grace and Peace,

Seth Hague

December 25, 2011

(Psalm 139 ESV)

2011-12-16T09:30:00.001-08:00

O LORD, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.
Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
O men of blood, depart from me!
They speak against you with malicious intent;
your enemies take your name in vain.
Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies.
Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!

(Psalm 139 ESV)

Something I found somewhere...

2011-12-12T01:37:00.000-08:00

Its over... situates endings in an uncomfortably personal sense... its terse and final... gone. The concession commits itself to the irredeemable, its drama and death. The last goes finally... griping the jugular in order to feel the pulse break.

Tell me what to make of the silence... save the whispers... or when you hear her voice as if she were near you only to realize she pushed you away... off the ledge to watch you fall...

your journey down wouldn't have been so long had you stop the cycle before it swallowed you up... tally the investments only to find that at one point everything you had was signed over... makes the fire hotter... the fire she started just to watch you burn...

thing is you still love her... why? just as much rational as she gave you when she told you she didn't want to see you anymore... the day after she told you she wanted life with you... complexities will themselves to irreconcilable endings... nothing good... nothing good...

Only sense... primitive and surviving looks for breath above the buried... scratches the surface and builds on these last strings... sad for the cut-off... more difficult to pray that mercy is granted to those who purposely handed you the hell you have had to live in... Its the catch that you either get or you don't... Getting it keeps you alive... at least for now.