Taking advantage of the hodgepodge...

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Just for grins...because I feel like using a writing prompt today, lol.  You can click the picture to see other folks' answers...

 1. What are your current priorities in this season of life? Elaborate as much or as little as you like. 

Wow, that can have a LOT of applications.  And I've always had problems establishing priorities.  Some don't change...commitment to faith, to family, to work...but I have had a challenge this last weekend to be more intentional, more disciplined about writing.  And that is going to carry over into the rest of my life.

2. What's one thing you wish you had more of? 

T.I.M.E.

3. Do you celebrate Halloween? If so, what are your Halloween traditions? Any special plans for Halloween this year? 

Halloween has never been a high priority holiday, really.  We did the Halloween Party at Magic Kingdom back in September, because we were there, and we watched Great Pumpkin last week after my hubby's birthday dinner, which is rather a tradition now.  We'll probably hang out with our local kids and roast some hot dogs...assuming the rain holds off.  For many years we did a fall festival type thing at the small church we were in at the time; I ran a candy walk game in my Sunday School classroom...someone gets a piece of candy when the music stops.  I listened to the cast recording of Godspell on repeat every year for that, and now that is a necessity on Oct. 31st.  I will probably play it on repeat on Spotify at work tomorrow, lol.  Not typical Halloween music, but it tells my brain where we are on the calendar.

4. Last thing you ate that contained chocolate? Last thing you made that called for chocolate? 

Just ate a couple of fun-sized chocolate bars from the above mentioned Magic Kingdom party, lol.  I still have a wee bit left.  I made a chocolate milkshake last week, does that count? LOL

5. Do you prefer laid back weekends or do you like to have a lot of plans? Thinking back to this past weekend... which was it? 

I really like an unstructured weekend; it feels like a break.  A busy weekend doesn't give me breathing time before diving back into the workweek.  But I drove close to 1,000 round trip last weekend to attend a writer's retreat in the mountains of North Carolina (had to go around the 'Essential Travel Only' zones...)  That was definitely planned out!  I took a day off of work when I got back to catch that breath.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

How 'bout a picture from the afternoon walk I took up the hill where we were meeting for the writer's retreat?  Isn't that a view???

Weekend ...questing....

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

In the fall of 2020, we braved the pandemic to attend the 25th Anniversary Heart of David conference.  It was a real blessing in the midst of the crazy, but I really connected with the talk from one of the speakers, Stephen Roach, who had begun an arts collective called The Breath and the Clay.  who spoke of creativity and faith.  I participated in an online writer's conference sponsored by them later that fall; ultimately, I joined the collective myself, just for the prod to continue creating faith-based work.

This past weekend, The Breath and the Clay sponsored another writer's conference; the first in-person writer's conference since the pandemic.  My Sweet Babboo gave me his blessing, and, since there was still space available after we got back from our Florida trip, I signed up.  It was a small conference, with about 30 folks attending, including the presenters.  It was in a lodge up in the mountains of North Carolina...Moravian Falls, actually, if any of you are familiar with the history of that area.

The conference venue

I drove myself, so you know I REALLY wanted to go, but it was totally worth the trip.  I left with a question I wanted to get answered...am I really a writer, or am I just someone who noodles around with writing?

I printed out a good bit of my writing...a lot of which I have published either on Beer Lahai Roi or my sewing blog, Sew Random, over the years.  Two things struck me as I was pulling the lot together...1) Most of my writing is derivative; it starts with something else, like a Bible story or a fairy tale or some other well-known (or not so well-known) source; and, 2) Most of it was really old.  Like, 10 - 20 years old.  Now, I have been blogging away and writing here and there...like getting the curriculum for my beginning Bible study class recorded...but the actual fever to sit down and write a piece hasn't hit me in a while.  I had attributed it to the fact that pretty much none of my writing has found an audience (not that I don't love you, my few and faithful readers, but there really aren't' very many of you, lol).  I kinda thought that, if I was a Real Writer (TM), I would have some...outlet...for it by now, other than the seeds sown at random on the blogs.  I had a long talk with myself over the whole thing and resolved that, if it did indeed prove out that I had the chops to write...maybe not spectacularly, but solidly, I would put more effort into doing it.

The whole weekend was amazingly affirming.  I left feeling like, yes, I AM a Real Writer...even if I don't have a lot of Real Readers.  And I realized my number one weakness is a lack of discipline.  Not just in writing...in life in general.  

It's hard for a Tigger to thrive in discipline; Tiggers don't do structure well. And I have gotten very...self indulgent...over the years since I HAD to have discipline going to keep four kids fed and in clean clothes and where they needed to be.  It was something of a come-to-Jesus moment.  I'm going to have to relearn the skills again.

Because that's the only way I can get the discipline to work on the writing again.  It may take a bit for that to trickle down to something that's visible to folks watching from the outside, but as long as I keep trying...it will get there.

The first step is...going to bed on time.  I'm something of a night owl, so that's going to take some work.  

And discipline. 

Here we go.

Blogging Bible Study: The Heart of the Matter - Psalms part 2, Ps. 11 - 20

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

As I mentioned on my Facebook page, when I linked last week's post, I am way out of whack on my blogging schedule...well, actually, everything is way off schedule...and I'm not sure how long it's going to take to get it reined back in.  It may be January, for all I can tell from here.  But I'll sit down and have a dive into the list of verses with 'Heart/ hearts' in them as much as I can...

Our journey though the Bible looking at the NIV 84 renderings of 'heart/hearts' has brought us to the Psalms, and I'm just kinda arbitrarily looking at ten-psalm chunks.  More or less.  Ps. 119 will likely be a post of its own, lol...

But this is week two in the Psalms and we are looking at the 11th through the 20th Psalms.  Taking a deep breath, 'cause there are a lot of references here....

And we don't get far before we hit a verse w/ 'Heart' in it:

For look, the wicked bend their bows, they set their arrows against the strings to shoot from the shadows at the upright in heart.  - Ps 11:2; 'heart' is once more Strong's H3820, Leb - 'the heart, also used (figuratively) for the feelings, the will and even the intellect, likewise for the centre of anything'.  Just for grins, I also looked up 'upright' and found that it is Strong's H3477 - yasar - 'just, meet(-est), pleased well right(-eous), straight, (most) upright(-ly, -ness).

David is the psalmist here, and this verse is actually the middle of a quote.  He opens the psalm by stating that he takes refuge in God, and asks how anyone can then instruct him to  (paraphrased) 'run away and hide because the wicked are laying traps for the righteous and the foundations are crumbled, so what can a righteous person do anyway? '   He then uses the rest of the psalm to affirm that God is on the throne, he sees everything,  and the wicked will get their due from him.

This seems especially pertinent to me, right now, because there's a lot of hand-wringing about the foundations being destroyed and what can the righteous do and, oh woe is...all of us.  I'm sure you've heard it.  Yes, it's bad.  Not gonna lie.  But read the rest of the psalm.  God is on his throne.  He's still ultimately calling the shots.  Don't pull the quote out of the context of David basically chastising the person who's so worried.  His refuge is in God, and he's looking to the final outcome that God is going to bring.

The next two verses, in Ps. 13, which is another one of David's, kind of summarize the whole psalm:

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?  How long will my enemy triumph over me? ...  But I trust in your unfailing love, my heart rejoices in your salvation.  -  Ps. 13: 2, 5;  in verse 2, 'Heart' is Strong's 3824, lebab, which we have also frequently seen:  the Heart (as the most interior organ) - bethink themselves, breast, comfortably, courage (faint) (tender-) heart(-ed), mind ; while verse 5 is 3820 again.  A repeated pattern in Psalms is that David (or another psalmist) will ask a question, and then answer it with a declaration of faith. I think this is an interesting couplet; on the one hand, his heart is sorrowing; on the other, his heart is rejoicing. This appears to be happening at the same time.  Despite the sorrow in his heart, David rejoices in God's salvation.  They are not mutually exclusive things.

As probably anyone who is grieving with hope can attest.

Ooo, 14:1 is a verse I have talked about before.  Also a psalm of David.

The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."  They are corrupt, their deeds are vile, there is no one who does good. "Heart" is Strong's 3820 again.  

I have a footnote from the NIV translators that clarifies that the words rendered 'fool' in the Psalms denote someone who is morally deficient, not someone lacking intelligence.

I have always thought it interesting that this verse (and we will encounter it again; it's repeated verbatim later in Psalms) specifies that the phrase is spoken in the heart, not out loud.  This is not someone who proclaims an atheistic viewpoint.  This is someone who, to all outward appearances, seems to believe.  S/he is going through the motions of  proper Christian (or, at the time, Hebrew) ritual.  Yet, when it comes down to it, the individual does not believe that God matters, and follows his/her own agendas,  keeping up the religious activities for the sake of appearances.  It is what one does, after all.  This is the person who  divides life between 'religious activity' and...everything else, and who will be most surprised at the end of all things to see the results of that, because 1) it will be real after all and 2) none of their religious activity will help them at all.

Psalm 15, another one from David, begins with a question...who can live on God's holy hill?

The answer is two sentences, the first of which begins in verse 2 and goes on for two and a half more verses:

He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart and has no slander on his tongue, who does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on his fellowman, who despises a vile man but honors those who fear the LORD, who keeps his oath even whin it hurts, who lends money without usury and does not accept a bribe against the innocent.  Ps. 15:2-5a; 'Heart' is Strong's 3824 again.

You know, that's a rougher list than I was expecting, really.  A lot more to it than just 'clean hands and a pure heart',  which we'll encounter next post.  'Keeps his oath even when it hurts'....wow...that's worth a selah right there...but I gotta keep going.

Two verses in Psalm 16, another psalm of David:

I will praise the LORD , who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me.  I have set the LORD always before me, Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.  Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay.  -- Ps. 16:7-10

We've hit one of the outlying words that the NIV translates as 'heart' again...'heart' in verse 7 is translated from Strong's H3629 - Kilya, which we have encountered once before back in Job 19, and means 'kidneys' or 'reins' but is apparently translated 'heart' because...why, NIV translators?   It's an essential organ?  Strong's definition includes 'figuratively, the mind (as the interior self)', so I suppose that could be clearer represented to modern audiences as 'heart'...but maybe it would be just as clear as 'gut feeling'?  But...looking beyond the semantics, maybe it's a reference to learning from dreams?  Or to the all-too-common-to-the-human-experience of laying awake a night ruminating over things there wasn't time to think about in the daylight?  When we finally slow down and are quiet?  The very first verse we looked at in Psalms hit on that theme...'When you are on your beds, search your hearts...'  I don't think it's a great stretch to apply that here.  'Heart' in verse 9 is H 3820 again; gladness in the seat of emotions reflects deep security.

Ps. 17 verse 3 also applies to the night....

Though you probe my heart and examine me at night, though you test me, you will find nothing; I have resolved that my mouth will not sin. 'Heart' is H3820 again.  This is a psalm of David, and he is DETERMINED to live right.  He seems to be confident that, at the moment, anyway, he is sticking to that resolve and has no conviction of wrongdoing,

In verse 10 of the same psalm, David is in the middle of a description of his enemies:

They close up their callous hearts, and their mouths speak with arrogance.

Ok, wow, another interesting translation.  KJV translates that verse 'They are enclosed in their own fat, with their mouth they speak proudly.'...and the word that's translated 'heart' in the NIV and 'fat' in the KJV is H2459 - heleb, but the definition from the Lexicon cited is  'the best/most excellent'  ...not body fat.  The cream of the crop, the best of the best, the prime part.  Given that this IS poetry, that phrasing fits with speaking arrogantly/proudly....his enemies are bound up in pride.  Which isn't too far from a callous heart, really.  

Pressing on, four more verses to look at.

Psalm 18 is a song of praise David wrote 'when the LORD delivered him  from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul"

In verse 18, David is referring to the enemies he has defeated

They all lose heart; they come trembling from their strongholds.

King James translates this, 'These strangers shall fade away and be afraid out of their close places'.

So 'lose heart' is 'fade away'.  The  Hebrew word is, surprisingly, H5034, Nabal - yup, the very same as Abigail's first husband (1 Samuel 25), and it does, indeed, mean 'foolish' in some of the forms.  But it also can mean to wilt, fall away, fail, faint, come to naught, wither. However you phrase it...God has given him a clear victory.

Psalm 19 is a psalm of David extolling God's work and God's word.

The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart.   The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes.  -- Ps. 19:8; 'Heart' is H 3820.  This is in a litany of similar poetic statements, using different words/ phrases for the word of God and the effects it has.  It's nice poetry, and it definitely should encourage anyone to make a study of the Word.

Verse 14 is VERY familiar:

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.  'Heart' is, again, H3820.  I just want to point out that it's not just what we SAY, it's what we THINK. What is in the heart matters, as we have seen before.

Psalm 20 is another psalm of David, and the first 4 verses list blessings prayed over another, concluding with 

May he give you the desires of your heart and make all your plans succeed. -- Ps. 20:4; 'Heart' is H3824 again.  But, putting this with the previous verse ...if the meditations of one's heart please God, then the desires of one's heart will be aligned with God's heart, and the plans will be his plans.  

That's a lot today; I kinda think that's  how its's going to be.  But there's a lot of ...ponderable...points to consider.  I'll probably read back through this a few times before the next post just to get them absorbed.

Blogging Bible Study: Heart of the Matter - Psalms, part 1 Ps. 1-10

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

It is time to dive into the deep waters.  I have pondered and pondered what the best approach to looking at all the instances of heart/hearts in the book of Psalms  might be...should I lump all the instances of  a particular Hebrew word together?  Should I try to categorize the verses some other way?

I finally decided just plowing through it might be the best approach; I'm going to try to take it 10 chapters at a time, although I may tweak that, depending.  There's going to be a lot of repetition, I'm sure, but maybe the repetition is important.  And it ain't gonna go fast....but I really don't have a deadline so we'll just take it as it comes.  So, here we go...

The first three Psalms don't mention Heart/Hearts at all...at least, not in the NIV.  So we begin in the 4th Psalm, one of David's:

In your anger do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent.  SELAH. - Ps. 4:4 ; 'Hearts' is H2834 - Lebab, one of the two most-frequently seen Hebrew words in this study....the inner man, mind, will, heart, soul, understanding.

Speaking to the reader/ listener,    Not really any indication of what to search FOR...but maybe we aren't to look FOR anything in particular, so much as to check one's heart over good and know what's there.  Be honest and self-aware.  Not a bad nightly discipline.

You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound.  -- Ps. 4:7; 'Heart' is H3820 - Leb, the other one of the two most-frequently used Hebrew words for 'heart', which is actually derived from H2834.  

Speaking to God, David acknowledges that the joy brought by fellowshipping with the Lord is better than an unbeliever's abundance... 'grain' and 'new wine' are wealth-related words.

From the 5th Psalm, a Psalm of David, who is speaking of his enemies:

Not a word from their mouth can be trusted; their heart is filled with destruction, their throat is an open grave; with their tongue they speak deceit.  - Ps. 5:9.    King James and the NASB translate 'heart' as 'inward part';  the Amplified uses 'Heart'; it is Strong's H7130, Qereb:  "properly, the nearest part, i.e., the center, whether literal, figurative, or adverbial (especially with preposition)."  

Rotten to the core.

Psalm 7 is listed as 'a shiggion of David'...probably referring to the musical style.

We have a prayer and a declaration:

O righteous God, who searches minds and hearts, bring to an end the violence of the wicked and make the righteous secure.  My shield is God Most High, who saves the upright in heart."  Ps. 7:9-10. '  'Hearts' in verse 9 is H3826 - Libbah, which is 'feminine of H3820; the Heart'.  There are no other listed options for that translation, and it's used 7 times in the OT; once in Ezekiel and the others are all in Psalms and Proverbs.  "Heart" in verse 10 is H3820., the first repeated Hebrew word today! 

But, wow, what a timeless prayer...bring to an end the violence of the wicked and make the righteous secure. Amen.

David starts the 9th Psalm

I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonders. -- Ps. 9:1; 'Heart' is H3820 again. 

'With all my heart'...David is thoroughly committed.

In the Tenth Psalm, the Psalmist (who isn't specifically named) is in the midst of a description of a wicked man:

He boasts of the cravings of his heart; he blesses the greedy and reviles the LORD. --Ps. 10:3; 'Heart' translated from a word we have seen before, but not often...H5314, Nephesh  - "Soul, living being, life, self, person, desire, appetite, emotion, passion"; I get the feeling 'heart' is used more as an adjective here...describing the cravings that are deep-seated; passions, even.  The word translated as 'cravings', H8378, can imply lust, appetite, covetousness.

The wicked one boasts of lusts and appetites and heaps approval on folks who acquire a bunch of stuff...and snubs God.

Um...wow.

Some things don't change.