柔和

So, I've been thinking about how Jesus was meek, and I've come a few linguistic conclusions. One is that there is no current English equivalent to the Greek work πραεῖα praus. However, when I asked my Japanese husband about the work, "meek," he seemed to have a deep, immediate understanding. So his language hasn't ellipted the word. In Japanese meek is 柔和 nyuuwa. The second kanji is the character for peace. The first I had to look up. It means soft, tender, plastic, gentle. Peace, or wa, also comes up as harmony, reconciliation, respond, soften, calm, moderate, alleviate, relax, comfort, quiet. I've been thinking lately about how Jesus was prophesied in Isaiah (and repeated again in Mosiah) to have no beauty that we would desire him. There's a new painting in the Provo temple chapel--more of a folksy sort of style, with Jesus and the people of his day, and he's painted kind of mousy, very unlike the overly airbrushed painting of Christ before Pilate by Simon Dewey. I don't like the Dewey paining, because it's too cinematic, but at first I didn't like the one in the temple either, because I don't care much for folk art, but then the scripture in Isaiah came back to me. Christ was so different from King David (who was probably part of the reason the Jews expected a military Messiah). King David was showy, charismatic, handsome, strong, accomplished in poetry and the harp, a military hero. Christ was meek. But Christ is our exemplar, not David. So I wanted to know more about the quiet mystery of meekness. I'm still turning it over, thus the fragment blog... If you look up 柔和 images on google, you get some idea of what the Japanese think of meekness. https://www.google.com/search?q=%E6%9F%94%E5%92%8C&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=Se5YVcTICsG0UPLHgfgL&ved=0CB4QsAQ&biw=1366&bih=610

Dreaming in Korean

So I dreamed a Korean person asked me to show what I could say in Korean. Since I've only studied by myself for entertainment purposes, it's not like I have a set stock of phrases to draw from, but I came up with 이르미타니구치바비です。And then I laughed and said, "No です！ What I should have said in the dream was "이예요.

Can we get past Bieber hair, Hallyu?

Paradox to Save the Day

Sometimes you come head-0n collision into someone who is able to, despite your best defense, to doubt your own self worth. In "Disordered loves : healing the seven deadly sins" by William S. Stafford, sloth is given (translated) as Accidie and Pride. Accide being a spiritual depression: a hopelessness, a failure of belief in self and God. Nice timing. I am doubting daily, then realizing that doubt is sin, and as W. Stafford said, sin is a (futile) refusal to let God be God. Still becoming. Salty desert days.

Easter Morning

Easter Morning

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation!
O my soul, praise Him, for He is thy health and salvation!
All ye who hear, now to His temple draw near;
Praise Him in glad adoration.
Praise to the Lord, who o’er all things so wondrously reigneth,
Shelters thee under His wings, yea, so gently sustaineth!
Hast thou not seen how thy desires e’er have been
Granted in what He ordaineth?
Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper thy work and defend thee;
Surely His goodness and mercy here daily attend thee;
Ponder anew what the Almighty can do,
If with His love He befriend thee.
Praise to the Lord, O let all that is in me adore Him!
All that hath life and breath, come now with praises before Him;
Let the Amen sound from His people again,
Gladly for aye we adore Him.