Faith, Religion & Scripture, Notes & Essays by David Rodeback

Short Take: “Our Daily Bread” – The Source of All Life

Posted on by David Rodeback
Author's Note
My neighbor and I are writing short columns for our monthly ward (congregation) newsletter, focusing on the New Testament in 2015. Here’s my “short take” for the month.

In the scriptures Jesus both prays and teaches prayer. His best-known instruction is what we Christians call the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13; Luke 11:2-4; 3 Nephi 13:9-13).

In this model prayer Jesus praises his Father and acknowledges his own subordinate place – as we might well do from our lowlier position. He asks for big things: “Thy kingdom come,” and so forth, showing that he knows and is committed to the big picture. Then he turns to daily needs: forgiveness, protection from evil, and food.

“Give us this day our daily bread,” he says. But why should I ask for it? Don’t I buy it – and the minivan and fuel I use to haul it home – with money I earn by working?

I might feel independent, but in truth our dependence on God is total.

Paul said, “He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things. . . . In him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:25, 28).

King Benjamin said, “[He] is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another” (Mosiah 2:21).

Much later, the Lord himself explained that the power of God “is in all things [and] giveth life to all things” (D&C 88:13) and “enlighteneth your eyes” and “quickeneth your understandings” (D&C 88:11).

By asking – or thanking – God for my daily bread, I acknowledge him as the ultimate source of all life, including mine.

History and Biography, Notes & Essays by David Rodeback, Writing, Language & Books

Nathaniel Philbrick’s Mayflower

Posted on by David Rodeback

A few years ago, not more than four, I decided it was time to enlarge my understanding of period of American history I had studied very little: the 17th century, give or take, from the arrival of the Pilgrims on the Mayflower in 1620 through the aftermath of King Philip’s War (1675-76).

I bought three recent books and began reading the first, Nathaniel Philbrick’s Mayflower, a New York Times bestseller and winner of the National Book Award a few years ago. It’s a very readable book, and I immediately began to enjoy it. That it took me until I was on a recent flight to Seattle to finish it is no reflection on the book itself. It is simply a consequence of the fact that, though I read quite a bit, my reading time — with mental energy for history and in a situation where I can sit and mark up a book — is quite limited. So I read dozens of other books — mostly fiction — while I was reading this one off and on.

Nathaniel Philbrick's Mayflower

Some of the roots of our national founding are in that period, I knew — including some of our early challenges with respect to religious freedom. I also expected the ambivalence of Pilgrims, and later Puritans, toward the indigenous peoples. I expected fear, heroism, bloodshed, confusion, brutality.

I suppose I expected insights into the challenges of diverse peoples attempting to coexist. But as I began to read, there were some interesting surprises on that theme. And there were sad accounts of what I had mostly forgotten, the beginning of the slave trade in New England, involving native slaves.

Christmas, Faith, Religion & Scripture, Notes & Essays by David Rodeback

Short Take: Shepherds and Lambs

Posted on by David Rodeback
Author's Note
My neighbor and I are writing short columns for our monthly ward (congregation) newsletter, focusing on the New Testament in 2015. Here’s my “short take” for the month.

God invited shepherds to visit the manger that night, then bear witness – not religious, civic, or business leaders (Luke 2:8-18). The God and Friend of ancient shepherds – Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Abel, Moses – was not just being social. He was continuing a frequent and powerful symbol, declaring both who Jesus is to us – Shepherd and Lamb – and who we are to him. (See Isaiah 53:6-7; 1 Peter 2:25; 1 Nephi 13:41; Helaman 15:13.)

Observers of shepherds’ ancient ways report details which help us understand the symbolism.

Shepherds lead from the front, instead of driving from behind. (“Follow me” – see Matthew 9:9; John 1:43.)

A shepherd knows the face, personality, and name of each sheep.

Each shepherd has a unique call, which his sheep recognize. (“My sheep hear my voice . . . and follow me” – John 10:27.)

Sheep generally follow their shepherd, but sometimes bolt. The shepherd knows which sheep is missing and goes to find it. Bringing a sheep back on one’s shoulders is heavy, smelly work.

A proper shepherd doesn’t recoil from an ailing sheep. He ministers.

A shepherd is compassionate. Jewish tradition tells of Moses tending a flock before his prophetic call. One sheep bolts. He pursues it all the way to a familiar watering hole. He is kind and understanding, not angry, and says, “It was because of thirst that you strayed.” He lets it drink, then carries it back to the flock.

Finally – as a prelude to our year’s study of the New Testament – when sheep hear their shepherd’s voice, they raise their heads, turn to him, listen, and gather to him.

Christmas, Faith, Religion & Scripture, Notes & Essays by David Rodeback

Is It Too Late to Think (or Read) About Christmas?

Posted on by David Rodeback

It’s December 27. Some people would call this the Third Day of Christmas. Some people think December 25 is the Twelfth Day of Christmas. For my Russian Orthodox friends, Christmas hasn’t even arrived yet. December 25 for them (in the Julian calendar) is January 7 by our modern (Gregorian) calendar . . . which is the day many Christians celebrate Epiphany, which isn’t altogether unrelated.

Are you confused yet? If so, welcome!

Welcome anyway, of course.

I asked my boss if we’d be getting Orthodox Christmas off work, as we did unorthodox Christmas. He thought I was kidding. It was one of those times when you wish people didn’t know you’re a Mormon. ‘Cuz I can still do a Russian accent.

Faith, Religion & Scripture, Notes & Essays by David Rodeback

Short Take: Huldah the Prophetess

Posted on by David Rodeback
Author's Note
My neighbor and I are writing short columns for our monthly ward (congregation) newsletter, focusing on the Old Testament and related scripture in 2014. Here’s this month’s “short take.”

King Josiah ruled Judah in Jeremiah’s and Zephaniah’s time. Tradition has Jeremiah teaching in the streets, Zephaniah teaching in the synagogues, and Huldah the prophetess preaching to women gathered to hear her outside the temple wall.

Josiah’s father and grandfather had led the people into idolatry, but Josiah’s desires were righteous. He began to turn his people away from idols and to repair and restore the temple.

During the temple renovation, Hilkiah, the high priest, found a scroll that had been hidden for safekeeping and long since forgotten. It contained the Law, the Torah (Genesis through Deuteronomy). Tradition dates it to Moses’ time and says it was open to a passage in Deuteronomy which prophesied destruction if the people disobeyed the Law. (See Deuteronomy 28:15-68.)

Knowing his people’s idolatry and shaken by the prophecy, Josiah sent Hilkiah and others to Huldah for her counsel.

She responded, “Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil on this place, and upon the inhabitants thereof, even all the curses that are written in the book . . . because they have forsaken me” (2 Chronicles 34:24-25; 2 Kings 22:16-17).

However, she had happier words for Josiah himself: because of his righteousness and humility, this destruction would not be in his lifetime.

Jewish history says Josiah summoned his people to the temple, stood on a platform, and read to them from the Law, and the people renewed their covenant to serve the Lord.

There is no further Old Testament reference to Huldah the prophetess. Josiah reigned righteously for 13 more years, until 609 BC. The prophesied destruction came 22 years later, after new wickedness — without repentance.

Faith, Religion & Scripture, Notes & Essays by David Rodeback, Thanksgiving

Thankful Reflections on an Interesting Year

Posted on by David Rodeback

Today is Thanksgiving, one of my favorite holidays – and perhaps you’ll forgive me if I parse that word as holy day. If we raise our aim above the purely horizontal, thanksgiving – or gratitude, if you please – is one of the highest acts of worship.

Usually on this holy day, I think of the big stuff, from infinite grace born of God to the spilled blood of patriots and the wrenching sacrifices of their loved ones. All of that is still there, still here, still the object of daily gratitude. But as this holy day has approached, I have reflected on smaller, more personal things. I hope this doesn’t sound too self-serving. In any case it has been an interesting year – and I know it’s not quite over yet.

Notes & Essays by David Rodeback, Writing, Language & Books

Ann Padgett on Writing: “I Learned How to Forgive Myself”

Posted on by David Rodeback

From Ann Padgett’s “The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir about Writing and Life” (This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. New York: Harper, 2013, pp. 19-60)

Why is it that we understand playing the cello will require work, but we attribute writing to the magic of inspiration? . . .

Art stands on the shoulders of craft. If you want to write, practice writing. Practice it for hours a day, not to come up with a story you can publish, but because you long to learn how to write well, because there is something that you alone can say. Write the story, learn from it, put it away, write another story. Think of a a sink pipe filled with sticky sediment. The only way to get clean water is to force a small ocean through the tap. Most of us are full up with bad stories, boring stories, self-indulgent stories, searing works of unendurable melodrama. We must get all of them out of our system in order to find the good stories that may or may not exist in the freshwater underneath.

. . . I got better at closing the gap between my hand and my head by clocking in the hours, stacking up the pages. Somewhere in all my years of practice, I don’t know where exactly, I arrived at the art. I never learned how to take the beautiful thing in my imagination and put it on paper without feeling I killed it along the way. I did, however, learn how to weather the death, and I learned how to forgive myself for it.

. . . I believe, more than anything, that this grief of constantly having to face down our inadequacies is what keeps people from being writers. Forgiveness, therefore, is the key. I can’t write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing. Again and again throughout the course of my life I will forgive myself. (pp. 28-30)

High School Bands and Marching Bands, Notes & Essays by David Rodeback

Music Is the Heart

Posted on by David Rodeback

I know the educational reasons for having music programs — and drama and sports and other such programs in schools. At least I know most of them. I know that these efforts, seriously engaged in, develop the mind, the heart, the body, the character — the person. I know they are a laboratory, in which youth can explore excellence in a relatively safe, supervised environment. I wrote about that once, in a season when the human cost of such efforts had become heroically, tragically high, and it was natural to wonder if it was worth it.

It is worth it. The reasons make sense to me, and I see them in action in my children, just as I see them retrospectively in myself, playing in the high school band from eighth grade, playing on the basketball team, and singing for two years in a fine ensemble we called the Snake River High School Chamber Singers.

SRHS Chamber Singers, Disneyland, June 1982
Snake River High School Chamber Singers, Disneyland, June 1982. At the mics are David Rodeback (holding the trumpet) and Paul Williams (with the tenor sax).

All of this justifies the cost of instruments, private lessons, and band fees — even all the oh-dark-thirty driving between home and school.

All of this makes me willing to bear the cost.

Why I am glad to bear the cost is easy to remember and easy to see. I saw and remembered it tonight. It is more difficult to describe, but that is my object here.