Of Fish and Phones
Dear Eugene,
I think I am too angry to write. Or is it sadness? No matter what I will need to pray before going further.
I will need to pray through this piece.
Last night as I was out getting medication refill for Sumi, our dog, I received a cascade of text message, coming through like the rapping beats of telegraph machine, digital sound inorganic, distress just as genuine. Someone is choking up, I though. Going at this machine-gun rate.
My son informed me he broke his phone. His first phone. A bit more than a week since having it. He said he was sorry. Felt stupid. More stupid than sorry. His jeans pocket shallow. Like lady's pants. Who'd have expected that. And he ran cos someone called him over. Phone fell out. Gravity.
He related the shallow reality to me, all the while very aware of the deeper reality: that he refused to put on the case cover I gave him, despite my repeated pleads, even swore on oath to agree if he is to break it a replacement will not come his way for a minimum of one year's time.
But the truth, which he missed and I reminded him of, gets even deeper: Every line of the broken spider-web of a crack on his phone screen was written with ink that is his arrogance, his refusal to reconcile, his insistence to mock prophesy. Here I shall not speak of the details; suffice it to say he flaunted his phone like a sweet revenge on someone whom he thought had derided him. When I asked him to forgive he not only refused but repeated his mockery. I said You will lose your phone because of this, and he mocked once more.
Now the prophetic words came back to haunt him.
The Jonah story can't be real, a man staying in a fish's belly for three days, not too long ago my son told me. Not scientifically possible. The suggestion was obvious: Then how can I trust the Bible is true?
Deep Reality, I answered. The writer of Jonah was never interested in giving us a fly-on-the-wall account of what happened (if at all), even less a "scientific" report to substantiate the truth the story tries to convey. Here I quote from a study Bible:
...in the ancient world people did not circumscribe reality within the category of historical events. Today it is not uncommon for us to think that reality is defined by events: we ask ourselves, “Did it really happen?” In the ancient world people considered events as a small slice of a reality that transcended events of history. What we call their mythology was more real to them than their history. When ancient people talked about events, they often found the most significant reality in what God/the gods had done, not in what people had done. We misunderstand when we think of mythology as made-up stories about gods that did not exist and therefore treat them as fairy tales. Ancient Israel’s thinking was very similar to the ancient world in this regard.
Of course people would say, then Where do we stop? Was Jesus dying on the cross a "mythology"? And don't we need to worry about people (mis)attributing "deep reality" to events, such as calling a hurricane God's punishment?
I opened a can of worms for my son and asked him to count them all, follow their wriggly paths all the way. This is a big part of reading the Bible, "having faith" in God and submitting to His authority exercised through the scripture. We must seek to ask genuine questions and give genuine answers.
You know why your phone broke, right? I asked him again late last night when I finally picked him up from church and held the sorry thing on my hand. He knew it was not really because of his shallow pocket, not really because of him running, even less about gravity or other scientifically accountable phenomenon.
I applied a layer of protective tape over the shattered screen. The biggest cluster of cracks is right over the selfie camera lens, and he didn't miss the dry humor of a wry prophesy fulfilled. Pretty shattered. Pretty no more on Snapchat.
He stayed up until midnight to refine my repair work. It looks so...he sighed in desperation...unsatisfying... He was rather upset about his leafy bush dying, losing his shade from the scorching sun.
And like the story of Jonah the night ended with a rebuke, the last chapter open-ended.
Today is the next page.
Yours, Alex
I think I am too angry to write. Or is it sadness? No matter what I will need to pray before going further.
I will need to pray through this piece.
Last night as I was out getting medication refill for Sumi, our dog, I received a cascade of text message, coming through like the rapping beats of telegraph machine, digital sound inorganic, distress just as genuine. Someone is choking up, I though. Going at this machine-gun rate.
My son informed me he broke his phone. His first phone. A bit more than a week since having it. He said he was sorry. Felt stupid. More stupid than sorry. His jeans pocket shallow. Like lady's pants. Who'd have expected that. And he ran cos someone called him over. Phone fell out. Gravity.
He related the shallow reality to me, all the while very aware of the deeper reality: that he refused to put on the case cover I gave him, despite my repeated pleads, even swore on oath to agree if he is to break it a replacement will not come his way for a minimum of one year's time.
But the truth, which he missed and I reminded him of, gets even deeper: Every line of the broken spider-web of a crack on his phone screen was written with ink that is his arrogance, his refusal to reconcile, his insistence to mock prophesy. Here I shall not speak of the details; suffice it to say he flaunted his phone like a sweet revenge on someone whom he thought had derided him. When I asked him to forgive he not only refused but repeated his mockery. I said You will lose your phone because of this, and he mocked once more.
Now the prophetic words came back to haunt him.
The Jonah story can't be real, a man staying in a fish's belly for three days, not too long ago my son told me. Not scientifically possible. The suggestion was obvious: Then how can I trust the Bible is true?
Deep Reality, I answered. The writer of Jonah was never interested in giving us a fly-on-the-wall account of what happened (if at all), even less a "scientific" report to substantiate the truth the story tries to convey. Here I quote from a study Bible:
...in the ancient world people did not circumscribe reality within the category of historical events. Today it is not uncommon for us to think that reality is defined by events: we ask ourselves, “Did it really happen?” In the ancient world people considered events as a small slice of a reality that transcended events of history. What we call their mythology was more real to them than their history. When ancient people talked about events, they often found the most significant reality in what God/the gods had done, not in what people had done. We misunderstand when we think of mythology as made-up stories about gods that did not exist and therefore treat them as fairy tales. Ancient Israel’s thinking was very similar to the ancient world in this regard.
Of course people would say, then Where do we stop? Was Jesus dying on the cross a "mythology"? And don't we need to worry about people (mis)attributing "deep reality" to events, such as calling a hurricane God's punishment?
I opened a can of worms for my son and asked him to count them all, follow their wriggly paths all the way. This is a big part of reading the Bible, "having faith" in God and submitting to His authority exercised through the scripture. We must seek to ask genuine questions and give genuine answers.
You know why your phone broke, right? I asked him again late last night when I finally picked him up from church and held the sorry thing on my hand. He knew it was not really because of his shallow pocket, not really because of him running, even less about gravity or other scientifically accountable phenomenon.
I applied a layer of protective tape over the shattered screen. The biggest cluster of cracks is right over the selfie camera lens, and he didn't miss the dry humor of a wry prophesy fulfilled. Pretty shattered. Pretty no more on Snapchat.
He stayed up until midnight to refine my repair work. It looks so...he sighed in desperation...unsatisfying... He was rather upset about his leafy bush dying, losing his shade from the scorching sun.
And like the story of Jonah the night ended with a rebuke, the last chapter open-ended.
Today is the next page.
Yours, Alex
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