Thursday February 17, 2022

The “Golden Guys” meet on Mondays. Mostly, we talk about what it feels like to grow older. 

            On a recent Zoom call, we talked about how our lives have changed. 

            There were six of us:

·      One university professor, no longer teaching any students.

·      One high-school principal, no longer administering anything.

·      One orchardist, no longer tending trees.

·      One business executive, no longer running any business.

·      One minister, no longer offering leadership in any kind of pastorate.

·      And me, the only one of us still doing what I had done most of my life – writing – although at a significantly reduced level.

            We all wondered who we were, now that age and circumstance decreed that we could no longer be what we used to be. We tended to still define ourselves in terms of our former lives. We found it hard to think about ourselves strictly in the present tense. 

            I recall saying, with a trace of frustration, “I am not who I used to be. I am not what I may become, yet. I am what I am—that’s all.”

            I meant it as a statement of fact. What counts is who I am at this moment.

Familiar words

            The conversation moved on, as it always does. But my words felt strangely familiar. Then I remembered where I had heard them before. 

            In the desert, some 3500 years ago, a voice attributed to God spoke those words out of a burning bush, to a fugitive shepherd named Moses, telling him to go back to Egypt to “set my people free.”

            Naturally, Moses wanted to know who was giving him his marching orders. “Who are you?” he demanded. 

            “I am what I am,” God said. 

            In the ancient texts, those words appear as "YHWH.” Because biblical Hebrew didn’t write their vowels, we have to guess how those four consonants would have been linked together in speech. Usually,  as “Yahweh” -- which sounds a bit like a sneeze. 

            And we have taken that as being God’s name. 

Missing the point

            But maybe God didn’t intend it as a name at all. Maybe God was saying – I extrapolate – “My name doesn’t matter. Don’t try to paste labels onto me. I am whatever I am – that’s all you need to know.”

            By treating God’s simple statement – “I am what I am” – as a name, it seems to me, we have broken the second commandment: “Do not make graven images of me.”

            “Graven,” meaning engraved. Or carved. Or even written. To this day, devout Jews will not write the word “God” but instead use “G*d”. And instead of YHWH, many Bibles substitute a neutral title, “the Lord.”

            Maybe by treating God’s words as a name, rather than a statement of reality, we subverted God’s intentions. 

            Maybe God didn’t want to be filed under a name. Maybe we were supposed to leave God’s identity open. To accept that God is whatever God is. 

            Having a name presupposes an individual personality. A body. A shape or form.

            I prefer to think that God exists in everything. God is in a forest. In a herd of cows. In a pod of whales. In humans – wherever two or three gather together, to promote peace and goodwill. 

            God is what God is. 

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Copyright © 2022 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.

                  To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca

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YOUR TURN

Last week’s column about robocalls, claiming to be from Amazon Prime, was of course a spoof. A few of you took it literally, though, and assured me that 

a)     the calls didn’t actually come from Amazon

b)    they’re not about me at all

c)     they’re recordings, not real people, and

d)    there’s a difference between “spam” and “scam.”

Sheila Carey got the point: “I realize that your message to ‘Amazon Prime’ was sarcasm, but it’s hard to tell if you thought it was actually Amazon Prime calling.

            “Your granddaughter has probably already told you -- the spam calls don’t actually come from Amazon Prime, but from somebody pretending to be them -- like your bank and the CRA. I doubt that Amazon Prime calls its customers -- especially about their credit card.  Unfortunately, by answering the phone you let the caller know they’ve reached a real number and they will keep calling back.

            “I suggest that you never answer a number you don’t recognize.  Real friends/businesses will leave a message.  And you will eventually get way fewer spam calls.”

Janet Cawley has a vivid imagination: “I, too, had four calls from Amazon yesterday! Same nice lady every time. I am beginning to feel concerned for her. I picture her held hostage in a call centre somewhere, desperately trying to get someone's attention, calling the same numbers over and over…”

Ruth Buzzard also wondered about the callers: “I don’t know who these spam entrepreneurs hire to do their persuasive dirty work.  Are they people so down on their luck that they will do any work?  Are they as crooked and unfeeling as their employers?  Or are they so naïve that they don’t understand that they are cheating older people out of their money? It is a sad world, but I suspect that the old and the disabled have always been targets for the cruelty of a few.

Vic Sedo sent me a collection of photos of displays of Spam – the canned meat – in Hawaiian supermarkets. Spam is apparently a favourite food there. 

Tom Watson: “If I get a robocall, I reply, ‘I don't think it was me you were supposed to call. Try Jim Taylor’.”

Ray Shaver: “I receive lots of phone calls like you described.  The safest thing one can do is hang up immediately.”

Dave Edwards felt hurt: “Amazon is giving you far more attention than I get.”

James West had a warning: “If your card was [actually] charged then your personal information has been stolen and it is a matter for law enforcement.”

Bob Rollwagen liked the humour: “Mr. Prime is not reading or listening. Rumour has it that most of this stuff comes out of Russia, India and China -- but all of that may be Mr. Fake News.”

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Psalm paraphrase

The lectionary calls for the whole of Psalm 27; I don’t have a paraphrase of the whole thing. But n the context of Lent, I thought of this paraphrase of the second hand of Psalm 27.

            The impetus for this paraphrase came from seeing a little dog lying under a hedge at the corner of our block. I saw it as I drove by; I was in a rush; I didn’t have time to check if it was alive or dead. But my heart ached for that little dog, and for the family that had lost it.

7          I raise my head and howl at the sky. 
Hear my cry, and come to me!

8          "Where is your home?" my heart pounds;
"You are lost, you are lost, you are lost!"
I need to find my human. 
Find me, my friend! Do not forget me!

9          Do not be angry with me for wandering away;
do not punish me for straying from your side. 
You have taught me, you have trained me; 
Now show me that you can save me, too.

10        When I was small, you took me into your home; 
You took me for your very own. 

11        Do not desert me now, 
when I have wandered into unfamiliar territory,
by paths you did not teach me. 

12        Do not abandon me to an alien world, 
where I can trust no one. 
I fear for my life. 

13        I will lie down here and wait. 
Soon I will hear my human’s voice calling me; 
I will see familiar feet coming towards me. 

14        I can be brave, if I know she is coming for me. 
I shall lie down here, and wait.

You can find paraphrases of most of the psalms in the Revised Common Lectionary in my book Everyday Psalmsavailable from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.

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TECHNICAL STUFF

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ALVA WOOD’S ARCHIVE

                  I have acquired (don’t ask how) the complete archive of the late Alva Wood’s collection of satiric and sometimes wildly funny columns about a mythical village’s misadventures. I’ve put them on my website: http://quixotic.ca/Alva-Wood-Archive. You’re welcome to browse. No charge. (Although maybe if I charged a fee, more people would find the archive worth visiting.)