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Between

             “If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan? (Jeremiah 12:5)

Ready? Set! Um – wait. There’s another idea in the first chapter that you may not need to hear, but I do. One of the temptations of the world is a passion for what Gore Vidal called the immediate and the casual. Nothing but immediate satisfaction (results) and stimulation matter. But that’s not the way to a fulfilling life. That’s product, not process. Process is the “between.”

Between Israel’s slavery in Egypt and the promised land, there was the wilderness, where they were to learn how to be a nation and to trust God. Three times a year, the Israelites were commanded to go up to here the Tabernacle or the Temple, re-enacting the journey from Egypt to Israel. Even those who lived in Jerusalem weren’t exempt. For one of the festivals, everyone was required to build what we’d call little camps and live in them.

What Mr. Peterson points out is that there was home, which for some was far from Jerusalem, and there was Jerusalem, and in between the two, there were the fifteen psalms to be sung and considered. There was a program for “between.”

I have a routine. As an event involving me comes up, I anxiously try to get ready. That’s HU! (Hurry up!) The problem is, there are things that can’t happen until something else happens, or until I’m done with something. We see the same thing in the Exodus and the journey to the promised land. They were told to get ready but to wait. Quite a few didn’t. All of the sudden, “NY” was over and they were rushing to catch up.

Then they got into the wilderness, and through their own bad behavior, got stuck in “NY” for 40 years. Then, in a rush, they were fighting for the promised land. But they weren’t given it immediately because there weren’t enough people to populate it. And three times a year, they were reminded of that.

I’m back in a HU!NY! situation. I’m home. The garden needs to be weeded, topped off, built, filled, planted, and all that, but planting most plants now would be useless. And after planting them, there’s another long wait until they get big enough for me to think of them as a garden (an issue I need to address) and then another long wait until they’re ready to harvest. Then, there’s a big rush to get everything picked, processed, and preserved.

I (we?) need those 15 psalms, that comfortable, familiar, and challenging routine that comes into play when I’m between here and there, or now and then, or this and that (or, this, that, and the other!) Or, as is the case now, in spring. Spring is a big “between” because it’s still too cold, but the winter is over. So much needs to be done, but not yet. And the thing about the between, as the Jews taught us with these psalms, is that between is – or should be – a time of intimacy with God.     

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