Category: Narcissism

Your children will be like olive shoots

Your children will be like olive shoots

“Blessed are all who fear Yahweh, who walk in his ways”

The Old Testament has a pretty long list of instructions on how to live well. While many are about relating well to God, most are about how to care for each other, and how to create a society where people thrive. It includes many instructions about caring for the poor and vulnerable, preventing homelessness, looking after refugees and immigrants, food security, respect for property, and making restitution.

When people lived by those rules, it meant they treated each other with dignity and respect.  A broad commitment to ethical behaviour meant things went well in their society, and in Psalm 128 that’s particularly reflected in the family.

Children are a heritage from Yahweh

Children are a heritage from Yahweh

“Children are a heritage from Yahweh”

In the middle verse of the middle psalm of the Songs of Ascents, the focus is on children.

Solomon, who likely wrote this psalm, did not appear to have a wonderful father. Few positive or healthy interactions between David and his children are recorded.

Those who go out weeping

Those who go out weeping

Special days of the year are complicated for many people, and Easter Sunday is no different. It might be worth noting that on the first Easter Sunday, God had always known how things would turn out, but Jesus’ friends and followers didn’t. Even that morning, once Jesus had risen, there was a delay between the fact of hope and his disciples’ experience of it.

It’s not that they weren’t interested in hope. Mary Magdalene went down to the tomb while it was still dark that morning, and even when Jesus stood right in front of her it took her time to recognise him. For poor Thomas, who, (we see in the Lazarus story), had been willing to die with him, it was a week before he shifted from despair to reality.

Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us

Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us

We are looking at Psalm 123 as part of our series on the Songs of Ascents.

Abuse is torture. It’s difficult to go into that without raising triggers for people. But in the many different forms of abuse: all are dehumanising. Among the dozens of abusive behaviours a perpetrator is likely to be practised at are many that seek to disrupt a victim’s capacity to know and see clearly.

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