“We are gathered here tonight in the sight of the moon and the trees to join together Nob and Hob in trolly matrimony. Have you both come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage?”
“Yes, your stoniness!” “Where else would I be but with my Nobikins?” “I told you, don’t call me that in public!” “Oh, but it’s our wedding, Nobikins!”
“Harumph! Back to the matter at hand… Love is patient, love is kind. It stores up wrongs done to the other to wait for an opportune time for revenge. It reserves the best haunch at the cookfire for the other. It boasts of its deeds of maraudery to prove its constant provision for the other. It never trusts, and never leaves a window open to the dawn.”
“My little Hobby, oh the raids I’ve made to make our conjugal…” “NOB! Not in front of the family! What about the trollikins?!” “They know we’re getting married, for stone’s sake!”
“If we could… Nob, do you take this troll to be your wife? Do you promise to steal for her, tell her she’s ugly, and shelter her from the light all the nights of your life?” “Oh, your stoniness, my word on it!”
“Hob, do you take this troll to be your husband? Do you promise to never season his cookpot, to always muddy his loincloth, and to keep the cave dark for him all the nights of your life?” “Of course I do, my Nobikins! Oh, this is so romantic! Oh dear, I’m going to spoil my mudbath now!”
“If you’ll excuse me, your mudbath will last a moment longer. Trolls and trollikins, I now present to you husband and wife! Nob, you may kiss the bride.” “Now, my Nobikins, don’t tear the veil!”
In the law given at Mt. Sinai, God set economic rules for physical Israel to follow. These rules included a form of servitude designed to pay off a debt. This servitude was completely voluntary, and when the time allotted for the debt had expired, the individual returned to full freedom. On occasion, however, the servant would build a life in servitude based on love and respect for his employer, a life that being released would destroy. In that case the employer would take the servant before all the people and stamp a hole through the servant’s ear against the employer’s doorframe, symbolically binding the servant with the employer’s household forever. Some would say that this binding was a sacrifice of freedom, a sacrifice of choice, but in reality it was the ultimate choice.
On a warm starry night many hundreds of years later, the God of Heaven arrived on Earth as a baby, completely dependent. He would live thirty-three years within restrictions vastly smaller than His own nature, serving His creation, paying a debt to them that they owed to Him. When the time of His earthly servitude expired, he allowed His creation to pierce Him, much as the servant’s ear was pierced, symbolically binding Him to His creation as He was bound to a wooden cross. Some would say that this binding was a sacrifice of freedom, a sacrifice of divine choice, but in reality it was the ultimate choice.
My ear has not been bored with an awl, my body has not been nailed to a cross. These are pictures, symbols, provided to help us understand our purpose and our relationship with God. Our service to Him is not forced; we have always been and always will be given a choice. Choosing to serve Him is choosing to know Him, to become a part of His life as He becomes a part of mine. Unlike human employers, who may not inspire pleasant feelings in their employees, God calls His servants loved children. Once experienced, that love cannot be easily relinquished, and our souls are pierced, joined forever with His. Our wills bend to please Him because we return that incomprehensible, unshakable love to Him. Some would say that this bond is a sacrifice of freedom, a sacrifice of choice. In reality it is the ultimate choice, a choice that is never changing, never ending. It is the choice of a servant.
The Everlasting. The Omnipotent. The I AM. The One without physical form, without physical space, without limits of any kind. This God, the Alpha and Omega, Creator of all things, took on the form of His creation. We repeat this often, and quote scriptures about it, but I wonder if we truly grasp the enormity of it.
Many religions have stories of deities who took on human form. These deities were either already limited in power and as flawed as humans, or they merely appeared human temporarily to deliver messages or enjoy themselves while retaining all of their power. Only this one is different.
He didn’t appear as an emperor or great warrior. He didn’t appear surrounded by prestige and wealth. He came as a baby. An actual baby, not the perverted vision of one. He arrived squalling and cold, blinded by even the dim light of a candle-lit clay-walled barn, flailing limbs not answering any but reflexive signals from the still-developing brain of a human infant. He could have exerted power to change that, but He didn’t.
He lived as a child, experiencing the bumps and bruises and frustrations of learning to accomplish tasks using human hands and feet. He submitted with respect and honor to the training given Him by human parents whose own understanding of His law was flawed and stumbling. He endured the privation that was part of the life of a poor working family, and faced the inevitable injuries and humiliations of apprenticeship in a manual trade. He could have exerted power to change all that, but He didn’t.
He became a nomad without home or income, endured starvation, thirst, exposure, and fatigue. He wept and raged, prayed and laughed. He expended all of the energy His human body could contain on others, teaching and comforting. What power He chose to access as a grown man was also directed solely into others, even when hardship brought him to the brink of His human mortality. He became the subject of taunts, the target of prideful rage, and the focus of selfish demands. He could have exerted power to change all that, but He didn’t.
He was dragged to trial for crimes He didn’t commit, beaten and humiliated and tortured as nothing more than a pawn in a political game. Railroad spikes were pounded through the nerve bundles in His wrists and ankles before He was left to hang from a beam for hours, every breath an agony, His life slowly dripping away in the blood that oozed from wounds not allowed to close. He could have exerted power to change all that, but He didn’t.
Can you imagine what it must have been like? Can you imagine being limitless and yet trapped inside human limitations? Can you imagine being in that situation by your own choice alone? Can you imagine choosing such humiliation to rescue your creation that had rejected you, that would despise you for the poverty-stricken and unimpressive position you had chosen, that would still somehow be unable to ignore your truth and would hate you so much for it they would destroy your human life?
His body was wrapped in linen and hastily placed in a donated tomb. Because the Passover Sabbath had begun, the usual burial rites involving fragrant oils to preserve the body were delayed until Sunday. On Sunday morning, after having been released from His self-imposed limitations, as His human body showed signs of decomposition and decay, He once again stepped into it and changed it irrevocably. By that unfathomable action, He freed all of humanity as well. What a wondrous, unimaginable, selfless, self-limiting, unfathomable God.
They rang out across the water, a symphony of sound in chiming echoes down the brick-lined canal. The bells of Bruges, incongruously peeling out disco music to peal against medieval facades, held me captive. Even the cafe goers across the canal left their sedate mugs and tables to dance with abandon.
Invisible behind those ancient brick buildings, the great Bruges Market bustled with life. I closed my eyes, memories of its timeless sights and aromas flooding my mind in rhythm with the bells. I could almost see colorfully robed guildmembers shouting over the chimes, haggling with the shoppers of yesteryear over the price of bread or the value of a bolt of fine fabric.
For a moment, in Isolda’s shop, I had entered that world. She had looked over her flowers, braids peeking from beneath a knit cap and voluminous dirt-streaked apron swallowing her slender frame, bells chiming a muted soundtrack through medieval walls. She had smiled when I introduced myself as Tristan.
When Lale walked beneath the lie that dressed the gates of Auschwitz-Birkenau, he intended to keep his head down and do whatever he was told, whatever he had to do to avoid being killed. He hadn’t counted on two impossible events: being chosen as the tattooist’s assistant, and falling in love in the death camps.
The day he was forced to tattoo Gita’s arm as she entered the camp is the day everything changed. Lale would do anything to keep her alive, even if it meant risking everything. In the shadow of smoke from the furnaces of Hell, Lale and Gita run an unofficial black market of food and medicine, paid for with the spoils of war stolen from beneath the noses of their captors, and bought from secret sympathizers hired by the enemy to build the tools of destruction. All they had to do was protect each other long enough to survive the nightmare, however long it lasted.
I usually review books that make great family read alouds, but this is an exception. It does have some language, and due to the setting there are very adult themes that run through the book. Because it is the true story of a survivor, an unlikely hero in the midst of a darkness the world would love to forget, I feel this book deserves a place here. Lyle and Gita’s ability to produce joy in the deepest darkness and willingness to risk everything to save each other as well as their fellow prisoners will inspire any reader.
A baby is born. Immediately he is whisked away to be poked, prodded, chilled, blinded, and confused by strangers. He is wrapped in a thin blanket and placed alone in a plastic bed. When he squalls he has a strange plastic thing shoved into his mouth out of which comes far too much food for his tiny stomach in hopes that he will remain contentedly alone for longer. He is strapped into a hard, fabric covered device for transport to a new location, where his parents, exhausted and confused, continue administering far too much food at a time, placing him alone in a large empty space for long periods of time, strapping him into various moving and noisy devices, and isolating him from all outside contact. On occasions when his parents find it necessary to take him in public, he is strapped and covered so that no one can possibly engage. He cries with confusion. The parents weep for lack of sleep, struggle to maintain the normalcy even of cooking and cleaning, plan daycare arrangements, and spend their workdays pumping coffee and feeling only overwhelmed loneliness.
A baby is born. He is immediately placed on his mother’s chest where her arms encircle him and her lips touch his forehead. Grandmothers and aunts wrap both in warm blankets and create a cozy nest for snuggling. A tantalizing smell draws him to suckle the first taste of his mother’s warm milk, just enough to soothe his newly hungry body and send him to sleep in his mother’s arms. They rest together while sisters and friends cook nourishing meals and put the house in order. When he wakes he suckles again, then is carried in the arms of a grandmother to be cleaned up, rocked, and sung too while his mother rests. When not suckling or sleeping by his mother’s side, his heart rate and temperature regulated by her warm, steady beat, he is held and kissed by aunts and friends who take turns ensuring his mother rests, eats, and heals. His father hovers nearby whenever possible, taking frequent turns at tending his newborn child and imparting whispered promises of the future. When the time of healing and bonding is complete, he is carried in soft folds of fabric against his mother’s chest as she goes about her daily tasks, rested and strong. Her voice sings softly to him and her lips continually find his cheeks. When she is tired a sister takes her turn at carrying, cooing, singing, and kissing. He rarely cries.
A woman is dying. She long since ceased to be able care for herself. Her children, caught up in the business of their own lives, found themselves unable to fill the gap. They lived too far away and lacked the time and resources to provide for her increasing needs. Her house with all its memories had been sold, and she lies in a colorless room beneath the handful of treasures the nurses half-heartedly leaned on the lip of her plastic headboard. Electronic beeping is the only sound in the room. A nurse just checked her vitals and won’t be back for an hour; she has too many others lying in similar rooms to spend much time here. Her children have trickled in and out all week, having driven hours to pay their last respects. Their visits were brief and devoid of contact because policy cannot allow any possible contamination. A long ragged breath leaves her and the beeping lengthens into one endless note.
A woman is dying. The quilt she made for her granddaughter is tucked under her wasted arms although she no longer feels its warmth. Her son’s hand strokes hers and he sings softly, the lullaby with which she so often sang him to sleep so many years ago. Great-grandchildren play in the next room, unsure why the adults wipe quiet tears but happy to see cousins. A neighbor drops in with a pot of soup and prays with the family before slipping away next door. Friends come with hugs and memories to share that trigger tearfilled laughter. Her daughter gently slides a faded gray wedding photograph under a limp hand as a long ragged breath stills every other sound.
Very often in the circles labeling themselves as Christian we find evidence of the idea that emotions have nothing to do our walk with God. It may be expressed as the noble sentiment that our actions should be ruled by reason, which is true but only to a point. The human brain is an incredibly complex organ, created with the capacity for both reason and emotion, so what is the godly view of emotion?
Think of a newborn infant. No longer automatically receiving sustenance through the bloodstream, it’s body experiences need for the first time. Physical discomfort awakens fear and sadness expressed by crying. When the baby is fed the need is filled, awakening happiness and contentment. No longer surrounded by warm, quiet darkness, the baby experiences cold and light for the first time, those discomforts awakening loneliness and anger. When the baby is snuggled in its mother’s arms it is warmed and sheltered, awakening love. As the child grows, those emotions will become tools for teaching reason and relationship. When the early needs of a child are not properly met, only certain emotions are awakened, and the child’s reasoning will be lacking some of the tools needed to form a complete picture of the world.
God created the human mind to develop in this way, to exhibit both emotion and reason, to require both. So what role does emotion play in the life of a person who bears God’s name? What do the scriptures have to offer about feelings?
Deuteronomy 16:15 (CSB): You are to hold a seven-day festival for the Lord your God in the place he chooses, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, and you will have abundantjoy.
Galatians 5:22 (CSB): 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
Nehemiah 2:3 (CSB): and replied to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should I not be sad when the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins and its gates have been destroyed by fire?”
Ezra 10:1 (CSB): While Ezra prayed and confessed, weeping and falling facedown before the house of God, an extremely large assembly of Israelite men, women, and children gathered around him. The people also weptbitterly.
Ecclesiastes 3:3–4, 8 (CSB): 4 a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance; a time to love and a time to hate;
John 11:33–35 (CSB): When Jesus saw her crying, and the Jews who had come with her crying, he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you put him?” he asked. “Lord,” they told him, “come and see.” 35 Jesus wept.
Numbers 12:9 (CSB): The Lord’s anger burned against them, and he left.
Ephesians 4:26 (CSB): Be angry and do not sin., Don’t let the sun go down on your anger,
1 Kings 3:25–26 (CSB): 26 The woman whose son was alive spoke to the king because she felt great compassion, for her son. “My lord, give her the living baby,” she said, “but please don’t have him killed!”
Colossians 3:12, 14-16 (CSB): Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,… Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. And let the peace of Christ, to which you were also called in one body, rule your hearts. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.
The above scriptures hold just a handful of examples of emotion playing a central role both for God and for His people. One could even say that emotion is the driving force behind God’s interaction with, even His creation of, His children. His love for us, the deepest emotion we recognize as humans, is the source of our being and our salvation. What emotion do we offer in return?
It was an odd place, cobblestone streets and medieval plaster houses confusingly paired with modern storefronts and colorful canvas awnings. Agatha loved it. Every birthday and anniversary, she insisted we have lunch at the little bistro on the tiny mishmash of a square.
The city had long since turned the houses into a retirement village, which meant that the crowds tended decidedly toward the downward side of the hill, if you know what I mean. I asked Agatha on one birthday somewhere in her early thirties why she preferred the square to any of the popular and romantic downtown spots. She said she couldn’t think of anything more romantic than the square.
Agatha loved watching people, and I loved watching her, so I rarely saw what she saw. But that day she made me pull my chair next to hers and look out over the square. She showed me the couple at the next table whose wrinkled fingers entwined as they sipped black coffee from plain mugs. She showed me the elderly man pushing his wife around in her chair while she chattered excitedly about the window displays in the little shops. She showed me the three sisters with bobbed hair and oversized handbags who made the same round of the square every day, just for the chance to be together.
For thirty years she made me promise we would retire to the square. She never saw her wish come true. Today would have been her 65th birthday, and for thirteen years I have ridden the elevator from my fourth floor plaster-walled apartment to sit under the green umbrella in front of the bistro. Now I watch the young people who occasionally visit, wondering what they are thinking, what Agatha would have made of them. They are different these days, yet the same. I wonder if one day that boy with eyes for only one person will sit here fifty years from now, and hope that bright-eyed girl he adores will be holding his hand over a mug of coffee.
She closed the door slowly, keys slipping from her fingers to the entryway table with an absurdly loud clatter in the silent house. A light showed dimly under the kitchen door and her feet moved automatically in that direction.
Her hand slid across the door as she pushed it open and a broad swath of light broke the endless night of the hallway. The overhead lamp blazed above the breakfast table, showing off the place settings for two ready for the next morning’s date. She touched the edge of one plate, fiddling with the paper napkin hanging slightly over.
She squeezed her eyes shut and sighed heavily before looking to the center of the table. Pink roses lay in no particular arrangement around a tiny cardboard box tied with brown cord. Her hand shook as she reached for the box, and nerveless fingers bent the edge of the note stuck beneath the knot.
He should have been the one to open it. He should have been waiting for her as they had planned. It should have been the beginning of the rest of their lives. It wasn’t fair. A panicked urge to flee backed her into the door that had swung shut behind her, and she slid to the floor with the box crushed against face, dissolving slowly in unheeded tears.
“Boris, dorogoy, please come away from the window! The hall will not come to you, no matter how hard you stare. We must go to it, and soon or we will be late and the Chinovnik will mark against us.”
Boris sighed and twisted his cap in gnarled fingers, his eyes not leaving the hall. “Remember the day we wed there, Anushka? It was still the village chapel then, and as lovely as any cathedral that morning!”
She leaned her wrinkled cheek against his arm and smiled at the memory. “I can still smell the flowers the children picked to cover the floor. The chapel was full; no one in the village would miss a wedding!”
“Nor a christening,” he chuckled. “Who would turn down a half day’s holiday from the fields, especially when feast was involved? I remember on Sergei’s day all the women baked for a full day before, and we still ran out of food!”
“Ah, the greedy boys!” Anushka exclaimed with a laugh. “They would have eaten themselves sick if there had been any more syrniki! Ah well.” Her smile faded. “To speak of such memories in the village now is dangerous. We will earn a mark from the Chinovnik if overheard, or worse.”
“Let him mark,” Boris sniffed. “Love may be out of fashion with these oh-so-serious youngsters, but we will walk to the chapel like newlyweds.” He gently took her arm in his and they left the house, shuffling feet leaving two flattened paths side by side through the grassy commons.
The Word Worker 
