I am the Prophet: Introduction

This is a look at the prophets of Ancient Israel, as discovered through the Hebrew Old Testament, in six parts…

Part One Introduction:

How do you see an invisible God? How do you interact with a spirit you cannot touch? God has emotions, and a voice, but how can you experience that emotion, and how do you hear the voice of God?

This question plagued the children of Israel. As a fledgling nation, no bigger than a large family, the patriarchs directly interacted with God. After four generations, they found themselves enslaved in Egypt without a God. The deliverer Moses then stepped into the role of proxy to God through the wilderness wanderings on the way back to the promised homeland. After the reconquest of Canaan, the Hebrew people again lost sight of God through a series of semi-king judges and into the establishment of the Israelite Kingdom. To answer this loss of vision, God ordained the prophets, after the tradition of Moses, to be His physical presence, to show His emotion, and to speak His words. The prophets became the being and essence of God in the nation of Israel.

There is an ancient Asian proverb which states: “You cannot love without knowing pleasure; you cannot be happy without knowing sorrow; you need to know all of them to know one”(1) and I think this truth is evident in the great love story told through the ages by the prophets of God. The prophets exhibited the emotions of an intensely personal God to a wayward nation.

Michael Card in his song entitled “The Prophet” references many of the ancient prophets, and portrays their deep emotional frustration, “I am the prophet, and I smolder and burn…won’t you listen to me? I sorrow in His anger; my eyes weep His tears” (2) These man of ancient faith struggled mightily to bear the emotions of an awesome God.

In portraying the interactions of the primary emotions of life (love pleasure sorrow and happiness) I will personify them through the lives of seven prophets, six of whom were contemporaries, and across the backdrop of the fall of Jerusalem and the exile to Babylon, and demonstrate them to be the multi-faceted emotions of God displayed in humanity.

Notes

(1) As referenced by director Jieho Lee according to his film The Air I Breathe

(2) Michael Card Lyrics

A Meaning in Life

The pond ripples and the marsh reeds drift in the breeze. This from the same wind that pushes the clouds far above. To the west, the sun sinks dying, burning, igniting the sky with orange and tinting the heavens with deep purple.

Unconcerned with it all, the swans wander the surface of the pond aimlessly, white, and stark against the gathering shadow of night.

Monstrous supercells lurk across the expanse above, waiting for a time for unleashing and storm. Gales whip between the buildings, rushing across the grass, bending green to their will, catching an end of scarf or tail of coat, and tossing them high.

Unconcerned with it all, the swans wander the surface of the pond aimlessly, white, and stark against the gathering shadow of night.

A dog barks dangerously into the encroaching dark, and cars, as armored ants scurry the neglected streets, in fain straining sickly yellow light into the night. From shrouded lounges, students stare into the ending day, searching for a meaning in life.

Unconcerned with it all, the swans wander the surface of the pond aimlessly, white, and stark against the gathering shadow of night.

The buildings across the pond are peeling, and worn. They are tired and weary of the world, and yet they stand. Fading graffiti decorates their walls, painting sad faces beneath broken panes. A bit of dust wails, whipped into zephyr-hood, and scatters into the prevailing winds to settle back to the beaten path.

Unconcerned with it all, the swans wander the surface of the pond aimlessly, white, and stark against the gathering shadow of night.

Land of My Exile

I hear Russian through my window, rising from the street below. Students are walking by, to and from class. Lithuanian, Ukrainian, and Albanian I hear in my room on a regular basis, and I encounter several other languages if I stroll through my dorm…or through the Klaipeda city streets. When I go to the Orthodox church, beneath the tall spires and domes, looking up at the priests I could hear Polish, depending on which church I am in.

I go to the store, called IKI meaning “see you later”, and the packages are in Lithuanian, or Russian, or sometimes something else…rarely in English. I select what I want by looking at the picture. The cashier greets me, and I do not know what she says. After I pay, and receive my change, I usually respond “Achu” meaning “Thank you” and go my way, arms full.

I feel alone, separated here. I am learning the language, becoming familiar with the customs, but I am a man apart: I am in exile here. It is an exile because I am completely removed from the environment that is comfortable to me, that I grew up in, that I know best. Exile because I am living so far from home, from family, from where I usually see God.

I find it interesting that the root idea of the word, which we get from the Latin by way of Old French, is the idea of a “wanderer.” Certainly I feel like a wanderer here…having recently visited Latvia and Estonia and soon will be visiting a small corner of Russia. I am moving, seeing, experiencing, living.

The Old Testament of the Bible tells how the entire nation of Israel was forced into exile for their generations of disobedience of God. They were deported to Babylon for over 70 years, and most of the nation never returned. Here in the Baltics I have learned that the Soviet Russians exiled Lithuanians by the thousands to Siberia, and few ever came home.

What is the purpose of my exile? I have not disobeyed God, at least not as Israel did. I am not being oppressed by a Communist regime. Mine is an exile of being; to learn: about other countries, ways of life…and myself; to grow, for that is the direct result of learning. One cannot truly learn without growing. To mature, for I am still a boy, awkwardly being a man. In seeing who I am from different perspectives, like viewing my reflection in foreign shop windows, layers of vision are added to my sight. In experiencing God in totally different contexts, like standing in churches I would never have entered before, dimension is added to my faith. In being transplanted into Lithuanian soil, like living in a foreign city, I branch out in ways I never thought possible. In losing comfort, familiarity, friends, and family, like in being exiled, I mature in the wake of those losses.

Sometimes it takes exile, a crucible of life, to grow a man.

Killing Time

It’s the waiting that kills.

It seems like I have spent a good part of my life waiting: for Christmas, birthdays, visits from relatives, to grow up, to finish schoolwork, for my life to change around me. I somehow thought that if I just waited long enough that everything I hoped for, dreamed for, and wanted would come to me.

Like magic.

Funny thing: the magic never came.

Even now, I catch myself holding my breath, waiting for something. Some days, I don’t even know what that something is. Abstract, I know, but here is the ironic twist: I think I am supposed to be waiting. Take a read through the mid-Bible book of Psalms some time, and not just 5 or 10, but 30-40 of them, and I think you will notice a pattern emerging: waiting. David, Asaph, or whoever wrote many of the Psalms seemed to understand waiting, because the writer often urges the reader to “wait on the Lord.”

What does that mean? It is quite simple, actually: to wait on God is to believe that He is able to act and that He will act, and then to live each moment in that certainty just as much as you believe in gravity and live depending on that data. It is active trust in a future occurrence based upon the knowledge of who God is (see: the Bible for more information). But, its not like you must believe every second…this isn’t a magic formula for a genii…it is a lifestyle that allows for doubt, despair, disbelief, and struggle with the rationality of such a lifestyle. God is big enough to allow for you to wait on Him even when you yourself may not be totally convinced that He even exists. I knew growing up that my parents loved me, but when I got caught with my hand in the cookie jar, I despaired of all such knowledge. Eventually, though, I learned again that they did love me, and wanted me to be more than a sugar junkie. It was a cycle of constant rediscovery.

Maybe I am reading too much into an English translation of a Hebrew concept, but I think the principle applies: hurry up, and wait (as the cliche goes). God is good, He is sovereign, and He is at work…taken together with everything else the Bible reveals about God and you have a Person that you can wait on. Unlike your mother at the department store, your sister in the bathroom, your brother with the car, or the professor with the endless lecture, God is worth waiting on. Why? Will He give you everything you are waiting for if you hang around long enough? Not likely; but He will act, usually in exactly the way you needed but not the way you thought.

Consider: David, author of psalms, was a battle-hardened warrior ordained king as a youth, but he had to wait on the Lord for the throne, and he didn’t win it through a military coup, or even when his predecessor met his doom at the foot of a mountain, but several years later through a complicated set of circumstances (like that really long sentence). Point being, waiting always yields results.

However, waiting should not be understood as inaction. Back to David, he fought in countless engagements, took down belligerent giants, learned leadership by making mistakes, and forged relationships with men who would support him his entire life while hiding in caves and honoring God’s choice of a corrupt king even when it wasn’t convenient. In short, he was busy learning to be king while he was waiting to be king…and proved it by being the greatest king the nation of Israel ever had.

But why God? Couldn’t one wait on their own…and have all good things come to them? I suppose so, but to pile on the triteness…that might be a long wait for a train don’t come. You see, it really is God that causes “all things to work together” because mankind is utterly impotent to bring about meaningful change: we still fight wars, world hunger, and see families fall apart around us after having observed millennia of heartache without solution. Honestly, how much progress has unaided man made?

So wait on God for whatever it is you think you need, would like to see, or want to survive: a difficult class, an ungrateful child, world peace, or marriage to the woman of your dreams, and while you wait, go ahead and be busy learning to be king. Some day coming the waiting will end, and the solution you sought will have been formed in a way that could only have been arranged through divine intervention.

You may even be surprised.

Uniquely Lithuanian

When one first encounters Lithuania, the most striking feature for many is the language. It has its own melody, a cadence that is mesmerizing. Life here is the same way: melodic and rapturous; but this isn’t something that you can see, that is obvious, it is an undercurrent, that comes at you from behind and sweeps you along. Suddenly, you realize that you are in Lithuania, and it is amazing. But this culture did not appear, or gradually evolve: it was fought for, and forcibly built over one thousand years of history, occupation, oppression, revolution, and finally freedom.

When the Roman Empire spanned the breadth of the Mediterranean and further, Lithuania was there, though not in a strictly national form. The loose Baltic tribes that would become this amazing nation mined a rare golden substance, and traded it with other “barbarian” tribes, who in turn, carried this strange jewel to the centers of Rome along what was know as the “Amber Road.”

At the turn of the first millennium these amber traders were immortalized forever, this time as a nation called Lithuania, for in 1009 a brief entry in a German manuscript notes that the first person who tried to bring the growing religion of Christianity to the pagans of Lithuania was killed in the attempt. Lithuania would be the last European nation to adopt Christianity, desiring to remain free, even from the religion of their neighbors. Russian manuscripts from the next 100 years make mention of Lithuania, usually to note battles fought with the Lithuanians. Ironically, the Russians should have listened to what was already evident: Lithuanians do not take to being ruled by foreign powers.

By 1253 a man by the name of Mindaugus unified the loose Baltic peoples into the State of Lithuania and he was crowned king of the Lithuanians. Lithuania grew until Vytautas the Great came to power and instituted a rule that encompassed Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia, but the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was not to last. By the 1400’s Lithuania as a nation was starting to break apart, and under threat of a growing Russia, they formed a union with Poland in 1569. This lasted for almost 200 years until 1795 when Russia grew to enormous size and swallowed Poland and 90% of the land that was Lithuania. They would not be free again until 1918 when Lithuania would declare its independence from the Russian Empire.

Even though the political nation was under much duress and change during the latter half of the first millennium, the culture was stronger than before. In 1547 the first book, a catechism, was published in Lithuania. Books would become a unique feature of the culture, and a sign of rebellion, once Lithuania fell under the control of Russia. By 1865 there was an underground publishing movement that printed books by the thousands and smuggled them throughout Lithuania. The Russians had forced the populace to learn Russian, and only allowed Russian to be printed, but these illegal book makers preserved the language, and through it, the culture of Lithuania in a time of oppression. Fascinatingly enough, the majority of those involved in this process were ordinary peasants, and not intellectuals. The common people of Lithuania fought a revolution, not with swords and bullets, but with culture and literature.

For forty years Lithuania struggled to maintain itself, and in 1940 a new Russia, the Soviet Union, occupied Lithuania. Utilizing their self-reliance and deep commitment already learned under hardship, the Lithuanians maintained their culture and endured. From the 1970s and beyond, a small cultural revolution was being fought, again, mostly through culture: music, films, and literature. The Soviets were cruel, and ruthless, but they could not conquerer, only occupy, and when, in 1991, the Iron Curtain shattered, Lithuanians were there to sweep away the pieces and found a new Lithuania for the second millennium.

Since March 11, 1991 Lithuania has been free, joining the European Union and NATO of a free will, and in 2009, on the 1000 year anniversary of their first mention, they will become the cultural centre of a unified Europe. Surely this is a moving tribute to the long standing Lithuania that refused to die.

Throughout their history, Lithuanians have been set apart by fierce independence as a nation, and unyielding devotion to language and literature as a people, building from that a culture truly unique.

Am I Ugly?

I have something to confess: I traffic in cultural stereotypes. The French are pansies and hate America; Canadians are bumblers; Mexicans just want to cross the border illegally; Americans are the best. I tell jokes about them, I laugh, I amuse with my stereotypical ideas. I tend to think that American has it going on, America is right, and the rest of the world is trying to be America, and they just aren’t right until they have Wal-Mart and Wendy’s.

That is, I used to stereotype. I don’t so much anymore. What caused this change? I left America. I saw a few small corners of the world. First: Papua New Guinea for a year. Second: Japan, for twelve hours. Third: Quebec, for three weeks. Fourth: the Netherlands, for four days. Now: Lithuania, for 19 days and counting. Even my short times in Japan, the Netherlands, and Quebec were enough to give me glimpses and snapshots into the lives and cultures of the people who live there.

Papua New Guinea for a year was certainly a time of personal revolution. For the first time, I was a white minority in a black majority. For a white southern American, the reversal was startling. Other things changed my thinking as well: for instance, we shopped for our vegetables at an outdoor market. We didn’t buy the imported American brands at the local store because they were at three times more expensive. We walked. How much we walked…something a bit odd for an American to do.

In Japan, everything seemed small, conservative. The cars were half the size of American cars. Space was a premium commodity in Tokyo. My mother, surfing channels in our hotel room was perturbed that there wasn’t a channel in English. And then it struck me: why should there be? We don’t have Japanese channels back home.

Quebec showed me French people that weren’t anything like I imagined them. Despite cynicism that says French Canada is different that France itself, I found many Quebecers who had only recently moved from France. Most everyone I met was kind, gracious, and very friendly.

Holland, the Netherlands, was peace itself. Quiet, homely, and tranquil. I marveled at the slowness. Bicycles outnumbered cars, and pedestrians had the right of way at any roadway. People were friendly, others-centered, and hospitable.

And in Lithuania, I have found a new home. For me, it is a culmination of the past four years of experience. I am once again living in a country that is not my own. I am not passing through in hours, days, or even weeks: I am here for a third of a year. I buy, work, walk, and breathe the air day after day. I wake and sleep under the same sun at a new angle. I insinuate myself into a culture, into the lives of people who are not like me. We speak differing languages, and have different ideas, but I feel at home. I feel settled.

For me, the breaking of stereotypes comes in the infusion of experience. Moving beyond borders, boundaries, and barriers. Shopping for food by picture and deciphering strange alphabets; riding buses and walking rather than jumping in a car; counting hours to 24 instead of 12 twice. All of this is the experience that breaks down stereotypes, for me. I look around and realize that here is a culture, similar and contrary to mine in many ways, and it works every single day for thousands of people. They find joy, happiness, and contentment just as I would back home in America, and suddenly I can find no criticism, no joke, no feeling of superiority: only a feeling of community, of oneness with the family of humanity.

I am so glad that God moved my family to become missionaries, and moved us far beyond the borders of the “Land of the Free” so that I might encounter the free souls of a hundred cultures and lands in places I could never have imagined. I pray that through my own change, I may enact change in others. I would like that the image of ugly America the world tends to see is not reflected in me, and that I can play some small part in changing the ideas of those that would see me as I once saw them, as facades of what they are not, instead of seeing them as the people they are.

Miraculous Conception

I have a new niece with me in the world: Katherine “Katya” Elizabeth Martin. My sister-in-law Christine gave birth yesterday, and my brother’s family just got a little bit bigger.

Ever since I was old enough to understand, I have thought it strange that people tend to refer to children only as separate entities once they have been born. You don’t “become” a father, or mother, or uncle, or grandmother, or whatever until the baby is born. As I understand human biology, the unborn baby is completely dependent upon its mother, but is also a completely separate individual, according to one example, it is even possible for a baby and a mother to have different blood types. The baby is certainly by all accounts alive, and although the debate rages about when actual life begins in the womb, it is common thought that the baby will be its own person after birth.

But why? if they are separate biological entities, if they will be individuals, why can they not be understood to be alive and among us while remaining unborn? The question of dependence does not, to me, make much sense, as a newborn is hardly any less dependent upon its mother than a few weeks prior. Indeed, most new people are completely helpless until 3 to 4 years of age, perhaps at the very earliest. So why do we not speak of them as people until they are born? I have yet to figure that out.

I, for one, refer to unborn babies as the people they are, and continue to be after birth, from the moment I know the mother is pregnant. I “became” an uncle the moment my brother and his wife conceived their new daughter. Katya was as much a niece to me then as she now, all wrinkly and beautiful as a newborn.

If I can get my wife to agree, my children will always have two “birthdays” a year: the date we can most accurately identify as conception date, and their birthday, to impress upon them the personhood of the unborn baby.

Why should someone be less than a person merely due to their physical constraints and situation and for no other reason?

Tears of the World Shakers

They walked the world. Most times, as you passed them on those long, hot dusty roads, you wouldn’t think anything of them. Another old man, leaning on a staff, clothed a bit shabbily, but then, what do you expect? Israel is in another recession. Judah is having financial troubles. And sure…the barbaric Assyrians are breathing down from the north…the Babylonians from the east…the Egyptians from the south. They can smell it…the stink of corruption in the monarchy, and the scent of weakness. But then, that’s the way it has been most of your life…and really, things aren’t that bad. Your dad’s flocks and herds are a bit lean, but you still have enough cow to go around. The crops haven’t done as well the past couple seasons, but it’s just one of those times. All these thoughts bounce around your brain, and by the time the dust has settled behind you…you have mostly forgotten the bearded man who walked by with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

But then, the next day, your friends are talking…the town is a buzz. Did you hear what happened yesterday?? Did you catch what went down in the palace court? A friend’s friend’s father is a guard and he overheard…the prophet, ish ha-elohim: the man of God. Apparently he stalked into the court in the middle of some meeting and berated the king. After that, the crazy guy started yelling into the streets, tears streaming down his face. Something about a prostitute and the wrath of God. It doesn’t make much sense…the story, coming as it does in bits and pieces, but it burns in your mind…”Elohim has spoken!” It damages your calm…your casual nonchalance has fled and suddenly the world shrinks in around you. The twisted branches of the fig trees you pass seem menacing. The bull behind the fence glares with fiendish gleam. The crow caws ominously. The sky seems to grow dark…even at midday.

The prophets…the seers: they spoke for God, they saw crazy visions and dreamed impossible dreams. They cried in the towns, they wailed in the desolate regions; they shouted, they cursed, they called down doom from heaven.

Daily routine was interrupted…the ordinary became disjointed…comfort was annihilated.

They were mocked, beaten (finally the authorities stepped in to do something), imprisoned, or simply run off. But still, cousins talked and wanderers told tales. Their messages became splinters in the mind, itches beneath the skin, burnings in the ears.

Messages heralded the signs of the times: the oracles of God shattered the status quo; the tears of the world shakers shredded the peace…

Lately, that is to say, the last week and today, I have begun a study of Hebrew prophetic literature. It is something that has long fascinated me, and my recent learning of the ancient Hebrew language has rekindled a desire to delve into the Bible once more to unearth these strange treasures: the oracles of the prophets. It certainly isn’t easy reading, but then, it was never meant to be. The prophet’s soul task was to create chaos in the current world system, so that God could reintroduce His order and display His sovereignty.

In my life, just over two weeks into my time in Lithuania, through the teachings of professors and simply life experience, I am becoming uncomfortable. I am not at ease with how little I know about the world, about the Bible, and how small my faith is. Some things the profs teach enrage me, and I don’t quite know why…but I am becoming compelled to find out…to learn for myself. In their own way, they have become prophets to me, to shake me from my lethargy into active pursuit of knowledge, of faith, and of God.

I am become unsettled…by the tears of the world shakers.

It Was Horrible!! (Updated)

Hello friends

I blogged awhile ago about the online video sensation Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog. Well, the geniuses behind that sensational web-epic have released the soundtrack on iTunes, so now you can enjoy all the original and catchy tunes for only $9.99 and can support the revolutionary artisans that created Dr. Horrible.

Check it out: Dr. Horrible

Phil

UPDATE:
To my great chagrin, having reviewed my posts, I didn’t actually post here about Dr. Horrible! I will amend: Dr. Horrible is an aspiring super-villain who blogs about his infamous exploits. His alter-ego is shy Billy who has a crush on his laundry buddy, Penny. His nemesis is the smarmy Captain Hammer. And, they all SING! It is hilarious, poignant, and rollicking good fun! Written, directed, and totally done by Joss Whedon and his brothers…this revolutionary web mini-series was the brainchild of the writer’s strike and is completely independent of any major film studio…and was the number one downloaded TV show from iTunes for 5 weeks running, and the soundtrack is on its way to #1 downloaded album! (The TV show is $4 download from iTunes).

It really is worth watching.
Check it out.

the Klaipeda Kid

Hello there…

it has been awhile since I have posted, and I will try to update ya’ll on since then the happenings to me…but first, something that didn’t happen to me: my brother (Nate) got engaged! Congrats to the happy couple and many happy days ahead to them both!

Now, we (me and 34 others…1 leader, 1 co-leader, 5 interns, 27 American students) have toured Vilnius (the capitol of Lithuania), Trakai, Nida, Kretinga, and finally Klaipeda where I will be living for the next four months attending the Lithuania Christian College International University.

While in Vilnius we saw the presidential palace (where you can walk right up to the front…not something you can do to the White House), a KGB prison which was in operation right up until 1991, much of the old town and amazing architecture and many many cathedrals.

In Trakai we were able to tour a castle that had been operating the late 1500’s. Hannah and I took a walk around the outside, and just inside the courtyard, but declined to pay to see the rest of the castle, though we may try to get back when we have more time available.

Nida is on the Baltic coast, and is host to the massive Great and Parnidis sand dunes, and between them the valleys of Death and Silence. Essentially a tourist/resort town, the panorama of the Baltic Sea is stunning and the huge dunes and wide valleys were amazing. The only thing close to the dunes I have seen is near Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina. Simply amazing. We hiked to the top and looked around…breathtaking. Also of note, I took an unplanned dip in the Baltic Sea, upping my total of large bodies of water swum in to 3 (Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and Baltic Sea). I tried to see how cold the water was, but the concrete pier was slicker than it looked and as I leaned down, I slipped in. I soaked my shoes and my jeans, so I spent the next 45 mins looking for a shop to buy shoes and pants, which I did, and was able to spend the remainder of my time there dry. Also humorous, when Hannah and I sat down on the beach to eat lunch, several pigeons who were just hanging around became curious in our meal, and started to walk in circles around us…it was hilarious. I felt like a pioneer headed west being circled about by Indians.

Kretinga is a small town near Klaipeda. We visited there a Catholic mass, and afterward received a tour of the church including a tall tower overlooking the town. After that we were taken to lunch at this massive restaurant that had a great many tables, and was so big that there was a basketball court and playground in the courtyard so that you could play while waiting for your food. Very cool. This was today, and we were officially taken off of our leashes, and told that our hands would be held no more, though the study abroad staff were still available to us, and we have other trips to take together. We were challenged to write letters to ourselves that will be mailed to us at the end of the school year including our first impressions and hopes for the semester. At the end of the four months, we will write another letter looking back. A very cool idea and it will be interesting to see what we wrote and how we thought nine months from now.

I am very ready to start classes and get into the routine of the semester. My schedule is as follows: I have History of Western Civilizations from 0830-0930 MWF, Introductory Lithuanian 0945-1045 MWF, Introduction to Theology 1330-1430 MWF, Hebrew Prophets 1445-1545 MWF, Lithuanian Culture 1200-1300 F, and Linguistics which will be online. I have Tuesday and Thursday completely free of class! I can’t wait…this will be an awesome semester. I will try to keep up to date on this blog, and am working on an independent web site for pictures to accommodate those without access to Facebook.

Thanks for reading,

Phil in Klaipeda, Lithuania