tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2286321024842109960.post6548531160364421018..comments2024-03-27T15:41:01.956-04:00Comments on rhymeswithplague<br>rhymeswithplague<br>rhymeswithplague<br>rhymeswithplague<br>rhymeswithplague: A Good Friday meditationrhymeswithplaguehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10870439618129001633noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2286321024842109960.post-87322768753515629602013-03-30T14:27:07.492-04:002013-03-30T14:27:07.492-04:00Maybe it was because my little town in Mississippi...Maybe it was because my little town in Mississippi--Brookhaven--had a Jewish mayor when I was a boy, but I grew up unaware that racists hated Jews. I still don't know how to explain the presence of a Jewish mayor in south Mississippi. The town did have a synagogue, but I never was aware of any services there, although I suppose there must have been.Snowbrushhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00436087215476479042noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2286321024842109960.post-55648481603462066762013-03-30T13:58:22.800-04:002013-03-30T13:58:22.800-04:00Snowbrush, my "Jewish half" is just sort...<b>Snowbrush,</b> my "Jewish half" is just sort of <i>there</i> as a fact in the background. I have never been a practicing Jew and began attending Christian churches at the age of four or five. As far as I have been able to tell, I have always been accepted by genuine Christians, by which I mean those people who are attempting to follow Christ by loving God with all their heart and soul and mind and strength, and their neighbors as themselves. It is difficult for me to include hatemongers of the Westboro Baptist Church variety under this definition because of their actions; I am probably not accepted by people like that, with whom I have very little contact. The southern racists in my childhood town hated everybody not like them: blacks, Jews, Catholic, you name it, and still probably considered themselves "in the fold." I never felt that their opinion mattered. I do not consider Adolf Hitler and his Nazi henchmen as Christians. To my way of thinking, only God can judge, and if they are, they certainly have a lot to answer for. <br /><br />No one can really be "half-Jewish" or "half-Christian" though -- you are either one or the other. My heritage and bloodlines are Jewish, but my culture and religion have always been Christian. In this regard I consider myself somewhat like our President Barack Obama, who is half-black and half-white. Even though he was raised by a white mother and white grandparents, he has chosen to identify primarily with and work among the black portion of the population. Yet he is still half-black and half-white. I don't think of myself as half-Jewish and half-Christian. It's probably more accurate to say I had a Jewish mother and a Gentile father and let it go at that. I know the rabbis in Israel would consider me Jewish because I am the child of a Jewish mother. But I would be an apostate Jew, in their opinion. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> rhymeswithplaguehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10870439618129001633noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2286321024842109960.post-21780619745280540852013-03-30T13:25:53.053-04:002013-03-30T13:25:53.053-04:00"How does your Jewish half feel about your al..."How does your Jewish half feel about your allegiance to the false messiah?"<br /><br />I've wondered if you feel as accepted by other Christians as you would if you were a gentile, or if run into prejudice even at church. I'm 3/16 Native American, and one of the things I think of when I think of Christianity is the way Christian America treated the Native Americans, yet Christians have a much longer history of oppressing Jews, and even with your acceptance of Christ, the harm that has been done to your forebears in his name must have surely represented a challenge for you.<br /><br />Snowbrushhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00436087215476479042noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2286321024842109960.post-74101219765560202642013-03-30T10:19:52.585-04:002013-03-30T10:19:52.585-04:00All, I wanted to share something with you. I rece...<b>All,</b> I wanted to share something with you. I received an e-mail from a childhood friend regarding this post. He wrote (among other things): If I was really tacky, which I'm not, I would write on your blog, "How does your Jewish half feel about your allegiance to the false messiah?"<br /><br />I replied: I'm glad you're not really tacky....If you had put that on my blog I probably would have said something to the effect that I do appreciate my Jewish heritage immensely, even though it was kept hidden from the community when I was young, and even though we now worship in a Methodist church I suppose that I am <br />technically what some people call a Messianic Jew, someone who is Jewish who accepts Jesus as the Messiah. The Jews of His time were expecting a different kind of Messiah, one who would deliver them from Roman occupation. God had a different idea.rhymeswithplaguehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10870439618129001633noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2286321024842109960.post-19823531530077222972013-03-30T10:11:58.985-04:002013-03-30T10:11:58.985-04:00Katherine, thank you for your kind thoughts. I do...<b>Katherine,</b> thank you for your kind thoughts. I do have painkillers but I am trying very hard not to abuse them. <br /><br />Watching Bishop Kelvin Wright's Easter sermon was a very worthwhile 9 minutes and 35 seconds. I recommend it to others. rhymeswithplaguehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10870439618129001633noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2286321024842109960.post-42397319636736713132013-03-30T10:08:53.700-04:002013-03-30T10:08:53.700-04:00Correction for Snowbrush and others: I was wrong a...Correction for <b>Snowbrush</b> and others: I was wrong about Flannery O'Connor. She referred to her "true country" (not the undiscovered country) and after her death a man named Carter Martin wrote a book entitled <i>The True Country: Themes in the Fiction of Flannery O'Connor</i> that was published by Vanderbilt Press in 1994. "The Undiscovered Country" is the subtitle of the motion picture <i> Star Trek VI</i> and I believe Hamlet also mentioned it <a href="http://www.monologuearchive.com/s/shakespeare_001.html" rel="nofollow">in his soliloquy</a>. <br /><br />Bottom line: I remain supremely confident even when I am completely confused.rhymeswithplaguehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10870439618129001633noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2286321024842109960.post-87724075841036712282013-03-29T17:34:56.223-04:002013-03-29T17:34:56.223-04:00May God give you comfort Bob. It's very hard ...May God give you comfort Bob. It's very hard to put up with bad pain, and I hope you have painkillers...<br /><br />You might enjoy our Dunedin Bishop Kelvin Wright's sermon: http://calledsouth.org.nz/sermons/Katehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12453125929159161583noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2286321024842109960.post-37434351541767048302013-03-29T14:45:31.784-04:002013-03-29T14:45:31.784-04:00Ruth, thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment...<b>Ruth,</b> thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment, and also for your expressed hope concerning me and my shingles.<br /><br /><b>Snowbrush,</b> well, there is you and that other fellow who shall remain nameless, but there are others also who don't comment all that often whose blogs have revealed them to be atheist or agnostic. I've even had a few commenters from among your collection of commenters, who woulda thunk?<br /><br />I do like your idea of expanded awareness of each other's position and being an ambassador of another country, which is right out of scripture (2 Corinthians chapter 5). Also, my favorite author Flannery O'Connor referred to "the undiscovered country" in some of her writings. rhymeswithplaguehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10870439618129001633noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2286321024842109960.post-33044578306917227472013-03-29T13:14:53.337-04:002013-03-29T13:14:53.337-04:00"My atheist readers may want to skip this pos..."My atheist readers may want to skip this post"<br /><br />That would be two, I think.<br /><br />"I ain’t gonna change your minds and you ain’t gonna change mine."<br /><br />I don't see it as being an all or nothing situation in which one of the two must either reverse course or stay on the same course--but rather as an occasion for expand awareness of the other person's position, somewhat as if the other person represented a foreign country in which one might not choose to live, yet might choose to learn about.<br /><br />"My dad died of pancreatic cancer. My mother-in-law died of bone cancer. My mother died after an eight-year battle with cancer."<br /><br />Yet, you oppose euthanasia and physician assisted suicide.<br /><br />"a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin."<br /><br />Out of all the billions of people who have lived, only one was sinless, and that one was God. Does this not imply that he had an advantage over us, and was not, therefore, tempted as we are tempted?<br /><br />Anyway, happy Easter. I know that this is a very special time for you--and for the church--and I wish there was some way in which we could share that.Snowbrushhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00436087215476479042noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2286321024842109960.post-75651002234885586152013-03-29T11:12:34.809-04:002013-03-29T11:12:34.809-04:00Hi Bob. Thanks for inviting me to read this. I hop...Hi Bob. Thanks for inviting me to read this. I hope the Lord eases your physical pain soon as He has healed our spiritual pain.Ruth Hull Chatlienhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08797146501548509911noreply@blogger.com