More Moses

I found another article about Moses in the news.  You see, I am kind of a news-junkie so these things just happen upon me.

Here is the link to Moses in USAtoday 

There is even a quiz you can take about Moses.
This article is different from the one I posted about that was in Time Magazine online, but I thought it was worth mentioning.  Moses really is everywhere!  Well, at least he is all over my computer.

Assignment Complete! I had a bad day.

I wasn’t covered in boils or charged with sleeping around with creepy elders…I didn’t have to survive 40 days and nights on a boat, or take my child to a mountain to sacrifice him, but I know a thing or two about having a bad day. Mine went kinda like this…

I woke up Wednesday morning at 6 am after a fitful nights rest with the typical flu-like symptoms…sore throat, headache, funny chest feeling, and all over achiness…oh and did I mention a fever? I did my best to pretend I wasn’t sick, but I couldn’t ignore the gross feeling invading my body. Nasty! So, I emailed my professors and told them I would be absent for the day in order to not infect anyone else, as well as attack the body-invaders with a strong dose or sleep, Sprite, and orange juice. In my delusion I ended up emailing all of my professors and not just the ones that taught me on Wednesdays….nice.

After a half day of fighting the sickness I started to see things in a little brighter light. The sun was shining and not causing my head to throb incessantly and life looked good. So, I dove into some reading and knocked out a few chapters. Awesome! Then I placed a call to Eagle Mount where I volunteer in their therapeutic riding program to see if they needed me that evening…well they did as long as I could walk because everyone else was sick. Yikes! So off I went.

Oh, let's not forget the call I got about my dog hanging out at a construction site in town.  Perfect!  I don't know how he does it, but that dog is just like the magic-man Houdini!

Driving to Bozeman always constitutes a bad situation for me. I live in Three Forks because I don’t want to be around a hoard of people. (I grew up in a Cleveland, OH with about a biz-illion others) So, I finally arrived at EM and got on with the therapy sessions. It was all going well until a frisky horse named Dublin took a chomp out of my leg. He freakin bit me! If you haven’t been bit like a horse it feels something like a bear trap coming down on your flesh. *%@$!!!!!

I finished my volunteer duties and headed home in the dark…feeling not so good, but good enough. Then I got pulled over by a dry-humored police officer. Super! I was going 29 in a 25 in a construction zone (double the fine!). When I explained to the officer that the guy behind me (who conveniently took a quick turn before the cop) was on my butt and I sped up to get into the other lane the office replied something to the extent of “you shoulda let him ride your ass and if he hit you then we would have delt with it then….” What a swell guy! Perhaps I shouldn’t have pointed out to the officer that there wasn’t a visible speed limit sign throughout the entire construction zone besides at the beginning and the end...maybe he didn’t appreciate my observant behavior… So, he tells me he would not give me a speeding ticket (things are looking up), but was going to ticket me for not having a recent insurance card. Yahoo! &%#$!!!!! Okay, so that is totally my fault, but what about the four phone calls I have placed to my insurance company about sending a new card out? Amazing.

I finally make my way out of Bozeman and am headed home, listening to my Bible on CD of course when my phone rings and naturally it could be no one else, but my mother. Yipee! I love my ma, but typically when she is calling late at night it can’t be good. The conversation consisted of her asking questions that she didn’t want the answers to and telling me how the swine flu worries her. “You’re my baby and you are 2.000 miles away!” I assure her I would be fine and she could baby me all that she wants when I head to Ohio in a few months. Sweet.

I’m finally home, my car is stuck in the muddy driveway and I am headed to bed. Finally! I enjoy a night of tossing and turning and awaken to a much higher fever. Great! I also receive a phone call from a Hoover repair company saying that it will be a month before my vacuum is fixed. Fantastic! Do you know how muddy a home can get with a dog and 2 adults stomping in and out all day after walking through mud, a manure filled barn and horse pasture?  I vacuum daily.

I’m going back to bed. Tomorrow will be better.

Susanna and the Creepers

I read Susanna and shortly after I explained to my boyfriend the premise of the story. He sat there looking somewhat apprehensive that the story he just heard could be a part of the Bible as he knew it. I asked him what he thought of the story, or what message he heard and he replied, “If you’re going to be a creeper, then you should creep alone. And, just don’t be a perv.” Note: He is a great engineer, but I never said I liked him for his literary smarts.


Susanna you are righteous.

Peter Quince, what do you have to do with this poem? I know that you are the director from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, but why do you appear to be the speaker in this poem? What does “AMSND” have to do with Susanna and the creeping Elders? As I recall, Peter Quince directed a play about two lovers who are separated by a wall and can only communicate through a small hole. Perhaps this is similar to or symbolic of the walls of Susanna’s garden. How clever. What is it about lust that makes one feel as though they need to break down it’s walls? Lust can often make one feel as though they are so wild with emotion that can climb walls that were before too big to climb.

It is not difficult to see that the story of Susanna and the Elders is reflected in this poem as references are plainly made throughout the text. However, what about the theme of music? I get the idea that the poem is composed similar to a score of music with four parts or stages and a identifiable rhythm. Is Wallace simply being clever with his poetry? My favorite integration of music into the story is,

A breath upon her hand
Muted the night.
She turned --
A cymbal crashed,
Amid roaring horns.

Can you hear the silence that must have come over the garden as the Elders whispered perversities into Susanna’s ear? The same silence of a well planned pause in music before the uproar! The cymbals collide and there is no turning back.

Susanna’s beauty and her righteous belief in God remains just like music. For even after death something always remains. You can’t kill music and you in Susanna’s case you cannot kill her beauty or beliefs.

Susanna's music touched the bawdy strings
Of those white elders; but, escaping,
Left only Death's ironic scraping.
Now, in its immortality, it plays
On the clear viol of her memory,
And makes a constant sacrament of praise.

So, that’s how I feel about the poem. It isn’t a step by step analysis or an explanation of what is literally going on here. I’m not explaining every detail my enginerd boyfriend in this blog. I’ve read in other’s blogs that people didn’t like the poem. I think it takes several readings and a few moments of reflection about Susanna and the Elders before anything really starts to sink in. As I have learned, the stories of the Bible are everywhere! Some are just more beautiful, or more discreet than others.

Job and God...Shutup!

Last night I decided to embark into the Book of Job. Like Plotz, I had somehow lived a fairly normal life without reading Job. And to be completely honest I have never heard anyone make reference to “the patience of Job” in my life until class yesterday. Perhaps I am even further behind than our friend, David Plotz.


So, there I am only a few verses into Job and I have to ask myself if this is just another example of God’s arrogance? Of course it is! Someone (Satan in this case) challenges God and he just can’t back down. However, if God is really the omniscient God the Bible claims him to be then he would know exactly how all of this would turn out. At times I feel that God has the cognitive ability of a sixth-grader and can’t see the full picture.

Satan destroys everything that Job has (as God sits back with a smirk on his face) and “Then Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, and fell on the ground and worshiped. He said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:20-21) How is God not wrenched with sorrow? How does he sit there and still allow Satan to next inflict Job with “loathsome sores” without even considering that this wicked bet has gone too far? Over and over I have read Job 1:20-21 and am filled with the most wretched pain and sorrow for a simple literary character. What beautiful text! These verses are fine examples of why the Bible is excellent literature (in my humble opinion). 

I need to point out something that makes me laugh…that being Job’s wife. Everyone else in Job’s family is killed, but not his wife. It makes me wonder if perhaps she was not as important to him, as say his children and livestock. No wonder women get a bad rap when even in the Bible Job’s wife is telling him to curse God and Job replies with what I imagine to be “You silly woman! God is the coolest and you are just my baby-maker. I’m not going to listen to your bs when God is the one who gives me everything I need.” Then, as Plotz also points out, Eliphaz says that after God tests Job he will heal him and give him wealth, health, and the ability to “never fail” when Job visits his wife. I read and relate that as again Job just using his wife and punishing her stupidness with getting her pregnant every time he “visits her.” I suppose Job isn’t that bad of a guy…perhaps this is just another example of how woman play a role in the Bible.

So now Job and his buddies are starting to annoy me. Round and round they go about Job’s suffering. I have to admit that I too would be cranky and dramatic if I were Job. I must ask though, why did Job’s friends stay silent for 7 days because they saw how great Job’s suffering was and then all of a sudden they start speaking about how Job is out of line? Lame. After what seems to be a million chapters of back and forth bickering God finally steps in and boy is he angry! And arrogant! We get another few chapters of God patting himself on his back for be the Almighty and awesome and then FINALLY he sees poor whimpering Job and comes to the rescue. Huh, what lesson did we learn here?

I'll be the first to admit that I am not that impressed with Job or God.  In fact, about half way through Job's suffering and God's arrogance I wanted to say "Both of you, Shut the hell up!"  On and on and on they go...  Nevertheless it was probably long over due for me to read about our new friend Job and his horrible suffering.  Honestly, I'd take King Leer any day.

How Moses Shaped America

How Moses Shaped America

Did anyone else see this in TIME magazine online?

I originally saw it over a week ago on my igoogle page...and it has been stalking me ever since. I'm not joking friends...it keeps popping up all over my computer screen... Perhaps as a "sign" that I need to get moving on my blog...or the class in general?

So, after speeding through the review today in class I once again open my igoogle page and lo and behold..."How Moses Shaped America"...I finally read the article...how could I not? You can be the judge, but I'll admit that I actually enjoyed it...most of it...some of it.

In the beginning...

This blog has been haunting me for almost two weeks. Like Adam hiding from God in the Garden of Eden I have hid from my blog. Like God to many of the characters in Genesis the blog has called out to me, "Amanda, where are your thoughts? Come, write them down on me now"...finally I reply, "Behold, here I am blog"...

I'm uncertain as to why it has been difficult to allow my thoughts to flow from my mind. Perhaps, it was equally as hard for God to gather himself enough to finally create the heavens and the earth. Nevertheless, here I am.


I feel as though I have made a solid attempt to read every word of Genesis thus far. I'll admit, I also listened to Genesis while driving to MSU from Three Forks everyday...I'm not sure if it helped, but it did help with the pronunciation of each characters name.  I can see how biblical historians keep their jobs.  There are far too many people and places to keep track of.  And, is it absolutely imperative to the literature that the reader understand how many children so-and-so had or didn't have?  I'm up for the challange, but I feel as though there are too many characters in this book...which brings me to ask what I have been thinking about since beginning Genesis; what do I make of this character called "God"?

Let me give you a little background noise on myself...I have my own personal understanding of who "God" is, but I'm asking in relation to the text and not any type of faith-like talk.  I grew up being sent to a Lutheran church, twice a week by my parents who I believe just wanted me out of their hair for a few extra hours on Wednesdays and Sundays.  I listened to the "word of the gospel according to so-and-so" and I became an active member in the church; lighting candles, reading verses, and passing out the tiny glasses that resemble miniature shot glasses to anyone that so dare to  publicaly confirm their views.  The church took me everywhere...movies, bowling, soup kitchens, and even to New Orleans and St. Louis where I met up with only 25,000 other youth who were suppose to have the same foundations that I did...or was suppose to have learned.  Don't get me wrong, I have many fond memories of Trinity Lutheran and the places it took me and the lessons I learned.  But, even then I always wondered who this character, "God" was...So, speaking only from a literary perspective, who is He?

David Plotz seems to have an idea, but like we have discussed in class, is it too sophomoric?  Upon attempting to read every word in Genesis I have learned about as much of God as Plotz has.  Perhaps I am grasping for knowledge that is not particularly important to what I am to be studying...However, I enjoy getting to know my characters and doing a little investigating to do so.  But this characted who calls himself God has done a little more than befuddle me.  Hmmm...I'll keep reading and see what I can drum up.


On another note...


I can't stop listening to "Miserere" and all of it's astounding beauty. If reading the bible sounded like this in my head I wouldn't be able to put it down. After Tuesday's class I happily anticipated my boyfriend's daily question of, "what did you learn at school today?" Instead of answering him I popped open my laptop and quickly searched youtube for a copy of the glorious "Miserere" in hopes that he too could hear the spectacular sound and feel the breathtaking emotion of the vocals. I do believe that when I have reached the peak of a mountain and look around this is the music that plays through my mind and into my heart.  Perhaps, Psalm 51 has done the same for the creator of this music masterpeice and for all of those who sing it.