Homelessness

Woe, who add house to house, who put field together with field till there is no space left and you alone are settled, in the heart of the land.  Isaiah 5:8  Robert Alter You alone – Private property and boundaries are at the heart of Israel’s social system.  Since the day the tribes settled in…

All by Myself

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.”   Genesis 2:18  NASB Alone – Since the publication of Guardian Angel, my work on this chapter in Genesis has been either jubilantly welcomed or vehemently rejected.  Those who welcome the exegesis are typically people…

The Kitchen Window

I lie awake, I have become like a solitary bird on a housetop.  Psalm 102:7  NASB Solitary – From the kitchen window of our home in Parma, we look out on the roof of the condominium next door.  Nearly every day a pigeon flies to the corner of that roof and sits.  I assume it is…

The Badad Boys

I did not sit in the gathering of revelers to make merry.  Because of Your hand, alone I sat, for with wrath You filled me.Jeremiah 15:17  Robert Alter Alone – Brené Brown convincingly argues that being human means being connected.  The greatest punishment a man can feel is isolation: “ . . . the most terrifying…

Necessary Trauma

Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. Genesis 32:24 NASB Left alone – “When you know the story to which you belong, and when you know your role in that story, you have a profound sense of purpose. That is what we are invited into: God’s ongoing work in…

H.A.L.T. (3)

How lonely sits the city that was full of people! She has become like a widow who was once great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a forced laborer! Lamentations 1:1 NASB Lonely – This is the really big one, isn’t it? Lonely. Badad. To be alone, by…