I read the other readings and was moved by them but the Proverb hit me over the head like a ton of bricks.
Drink your water from your own well.
Last week in Sunday School when we were talking about Joseph, I asked the class if there was anything they couldn't forgive. Being older and wiser than me, they gently reminded me that holding grudges only hurts the holder. But then I asked them if they were either divorced themselves (no, being from the Greatest Generation and for the most part, that just wasn't done) but if they had children who were divorced, were they able to forgive the 'ex-law'. This was so much harder for them, particularly when there were children involved.
And I see that all the time with my friends.
What wise counsel for a man to give his sons. Keep your pants zipped. It is tempting. But the consequences are unbelievably harsh.
Tonight, at the Saint Francis talent show, one of the students sang Garth Brooks' Thunder Rolls. Every time I hear that song, I just want to cry for the people who chose badly and ruined others lives, especially the children.
Jesus spoke to that as well in our NT scripture. he thinks you ought to drown yourself before you go doing things that rip up little kids faith. And for a dad to leave a child's mother, what worse thing could there be in a kid's world.
I have 2 boys. I think I need to put "Drink from your own well" on their bathroom mirrors. Or maybe play a whole lot more country/western songs.
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This from Friday's reading disturbs me
ReplyDelete24 At a lodging place on the way, the LORD met Moses[b] and was about to kill him. 25 But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it.
Why does God want to kill Moses?
Moses is on his way to do what
God commanded.
Sure he argued in the face of his fears and perceived shortcomings, but why does God want to kill him?
And drink from your own well
Yes, wise counsel indeed
Lisa,
ReplyDeleteI too was disturbed by that. The commentators and the Midrash are deeply divided by what that means.
The one that I found most puzzling was the one that had God killing Moses because he was bringing back an uncircumcised boy to Egypt. But that is contradicted by further readings in Exodus when most of the men and boys are circumcised. (part of why they don't think Moses himself was circumcised and hence the Princess knowing he was Hebrew by some other means other than circumcision.
Another explanation is that there is possibly a 'blood' ransom to be paid for having married a foreigner and sired boys by her.
Neither makes me happy.
As a mom- oh my gosh - could I do that to my probably half-grown sons??
Another puzzling moment to add to our list of unknowns in the BIY land.