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

Short Take: “There Shall Be Showers of Blessing”

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.”

God commanded Ezekiel to “prophesy against the shepherds of Israel.” His people’s leaders were neglecting their duties – and worse. “Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves!” he said. “Should not the shepherds feed the flocks? . . .

The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick . . . bound up that which was broken . . . brought again that which was driven away, [or] sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them.

And they were scattered, because there is no shepherd: and they became meat to all the beasts of the field.

God will hold the shepherds accountable, he says, but then he makes us a happier promise: Even if others fail us, one Shepherd is devoted and tireless. When no mortal notices or cares, he will find us and save us himself.

I will seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered. . . .

I will feed them in good pasture. . . .

I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick. . . .

I will save my flock. . . .

I will make with them a covenant of peace . . . and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness. . . .

There shall be showers of blessing. (Ezekiel 34:1-31)

Faith, Religion & Scripture, Notes & Essays by David Rodeback, Writing, Language & Books

It’s Because She Writes Like This

Posted on by David Rodeback

This site is quite new, and I have a long backlog of things to add, including favorite links on several pages. In case anyone has already paid enough attention to the Faith Habit page to wonder why my first thought for favorite links there was Given Breath, I’ll tell you.

It’s because Kimberly Joy Hall thinks and writes like this.

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

Huntley Fitzpatrick: “I passed on the scotch and the smokes, but kept writing.”

Posted on by David Rodeback

Yesterday, somewhat randomly, I ran into an author’s biography at Amazon.com, to which I point you for its style as much as its insight. Her name is Huntley Fitzpatrick. Apparently, she writes young adult fiction — how well or how prominently, I cannot say. I know of her only what I read there.

Here are some excerpts from her Amazon author page, where you should read the whole brief bio, if her charm speaks to you too.

I was lucky enough to be born to parents who read every kind of written material with interest and enthusiasm, and let me do the same. From the start I searched for books that let me fall in love…with the story and with the boy. For most of my childhood I divided my devotion between Almanzo Wilder from The Little House books, C.S. Lewis’ Prince Caspian and Tom in Louisa May Alcott’s An Old Fashioned Girl.

I figured out early that stories were what made sense of the world when it was confusing and made the best moments permanent. I was shy and nearsighted but good at anything that involved reading and imagining, so quickly decided the only logical career to pursue was writing. To this end my father gave me a typewriter (it was a long time ago), a package of Lucky Strike cigarettes, a bottle of Scotch and a note advising me to “Be Bold, Be Bold, Be Bold.” For my tenth birthday.

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

Most of It Comes Down to This

Posted on by David Rodeback

Of late I’ve been less present here at my new non-political blog than I want to be. This is mostly because I’ve been so busy at my political blog, FreedomHabit.com. You may have noticed that there’s an election coming.

But that is not my point, and I have never wanted to disappear wholly into politics, or thought it would be wise. So here’s a completely apolitical thought I was thinking last night, prompted indirectly by something I happened to read. (It doesn’t matter what.)

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

Building Our Refuge

Posted on by David Rodeback
Author's Note
I was invited to write the front-page feature for my ward (congregation) newsletter for October 2014. This is based on a longer sermon from April 2008. 

We all have things in life which cause us to seek refuge – either refuge from our troubles, or at least a place where we can endure them in relative safety and find some measure of peace, kindness, and understanding.

There is a refuge for us. Its name is Zion. It is our place of safety, our land of peace, our refuge from the storm. (See D&C 45:66-71; 115:5-6.) In the temple we promise the Lord that we will build Zion – not someday in some other place, but here and now. This place where we live must be a refuge for us and for anyone else who may come here.

You might see a problem here: this place is where our troubles are. How can it also be our refuge?

I suggest four important refuges which together constitute our Zion. It’s important that, when any of the four fails to be a proper refuge for any of us, the others are already built and functioning.

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

Short Take: “Fear Not, I Am with Thee”

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 one of my “short takes,” as previously published there.

Much of Isaiah’s writing applies to the modern House of Israel – that is, to us. God knows each of us perfectly. He knows the good and the bad, all our baggage, and all the things we’ve done and will yet do to foul up his work on us and on others. Yet he says:

Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. . . .

. . . I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.

. . . Fear not, . . . I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. (Isaiah 41:10-14)

Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.

When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.

For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour. . . .

. . . I have loved thee. . . .

Fear not: for I am with thee. (Isaiah 43:1-5)

Faith, Religion & Scripture, Notes & Essays by David Rodeback, Writing, Language & Books

Marilynne Robinson: “As if People Were Less than God Made Them”

Posted on by David Rodeback

From Marilynne Robinson, “Freedom of Thought,” in When I Was a Child I Read Books (New York: Picador – Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), pp. 3-18:

At a certain point I decided that everything I took from studying and reading anthropology, psychology, economics, cultural history, and so on did not square at all with my sense of things, and that the tendency of much of it was to posit or assume a human simplicity within a simple reality and to marginalize the sense of the sacred, the beautiful, everything in any way lofty. I do not mean to suggest, and I underline this, that there was any sort of plot against religion, since religion in many instances abetted these tendencies and does still, not least by retreating from the cultivation and celebration of learning and of beauty, by dumbing down, as if people were less than God made them and in need of nothing so much as condescension. Who among us wishes the songs we sing, the sermons we hear, were just a little dumber? People today — television — video games — diminished things. This is always the pretext.

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

Ann Padgett on Writing: Robyn the Critic

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)

(Robyn is a graduate teaching assistant in a college poetry class.)

I admired Robyn and was terrified of her, and soon I had so assimilated her critical voice that I was able to bring the full weight of her intelligence to bear on my work without her actually needing to be in the room. I could hear her explaining how what I was writing would fail, and so I scratched it out and started over. But I knew she wouldn’t deem my second effort to be any better. Before long I was able to think the sentence, anticipate her critique of it, and decide against it, all without ever uncapping my pen. (p. 26)