The Genesis of Psalms

“All that is within me”. I have had the thought before that where we like to count fractions (as in fractially fractious fractals, properly denominated and dominating denominators – I mean denominations – not to mention properly nominated and numerous numerators – whoops, I mean the One And Only Body, of course!) He can only count one. As in “One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all”, and because we still haven’t learned to count one, but are stuck in fractured fractions of one, we are stuck in spiritual kindergarten, and bodily on this dark and dangerous earth too, because we still haven’t figured out how to count even our own nephesh selves, much less our families and communities, the way He counts us. One whole. Paul blesses his community with the blessing of the whole nephesh, which, apparently in his day, with the Greek influence, had to be fleshed back out from these fractions thereof in 1 Thess. 5:23, where he says “And the very God of peace sanctify you WHOLLY; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Sanctify means to make holy wholly, in every aspect of us, and not just one fraction thereof. Holy in my mind as well as in my spirit. My flesh becomes holy when it is ‘set aside’ (made holy) by me in voluntary submission of the will of the yetzer ha-ra to His will, and so is thus transformed into the yetzer tov. Who hands my will over to His? Who hands over my straw and my dross to be consumed? Me. He doesn’t come steal it away while I sleep. Who actually spins my straw into gold, and transports my refined gold in His armored van? He does. I give Him the keys, and He does the driving. I set my flesh to die, and He does the dying. I choose to obey and He supplies the striving. Where do I end and He begins in this dance? NO ONE CAN TELL! I think we should seriously quit trying to try! The whole point is to return to being one Body in Him!

Yesterday, I took the front end of a job with two of my sons, for my ex husband, who runs a small taxi service, to help him out, and to keep my power on. We arrived and I drove the party to their destination, intending to drive back to my home town before sunset, when my younger son ends up with a bit of an unnerving incident while driving his party. Because of that he decided to not attempt to drive the return trip last night, which reniged on his end of the deal, leaving it hanging. I asked him what he is going to do with that, and reminded him that family sticks together, and that, even though it is going to be Sabbath for me, I exist to pull things out of ditches, so he asked me to cover for him. I told him I would, and would just not charge for it, and that way it wouldn’t be work, but charity. Actually, family solidarity. His father then had him take responsibility for himself, and we both told him he handled things properly, and then we have a general conversation about this and that, and, as we always did handle things together well, we fell back into that pattern. Later, my son told me that, watching us do that together, he was reminded that he was glad we were his parents. He reset his identity back within the family unit. Because of that, we had a good talk on the long trip back home late last night. He remembered who he was. I told him I had been praying for him for part of that job, and then, relaxed part way through. I included him in my relationship with YHVH, too. All’s well that ends well.

Skip has written about the fact that the smallest unit recognized as singular in the Hebrew economy, was the family, and someone else pointed out to me recently that a marriage without children (making the family at least 3 people) was considered cursed; so much so that the woman was given multiple chances to have children, even if her husband died (witness the story of Tamar). When God looks at us, He sees us as a collective unit, and all our interests as being included together, and as a collective of choices, too. Now, that can sound really scary and bad, but where my family and community can certainly get me in cursed situations, tied together, I can, conversely, reset the whole dynamic, too. I can take responsibility for the collective, and reverse the damage, if I so act accordingly. It really is not just about us, whether it is in our nephesh, which, it turns out, was designed to be some sort of loosely held real estate-in-common with the Holy Spirit, not to mention the “one flesh” phenomenon of marriage, not to mention the expectation that I am considered only part of the Body of Christ, and, and…In fact, when I go looking more closely, all of a sudden, none of those seemingly sharp and clear lines of demarcation seem to be able to be found, if I am looking at it from His perspective…. Wait! maybe I am learning to count to one, too!