Perfection Disorders

I grew up trying to be perfect & do things perfectly.  I wonder how many other people  did. Eventually I gave up. It’s like getting into a spaceship and starting out for a planet located an infinite distance away. No matter how far you travel, you never get any closer. It’s not about becoming perfect. It’s about the journey.
2 original words / Ancient Hebrew pictographs for you:

Break or Keep:
Trample or Guard

1. Break– “to open the head” (as in a head of grain). It’s the picture of throwing the Teaching and Instruction down on the threshing floor and trampling it.
2. Keep– “to guard and protect” It’s the picture of the shepherd building a corral out in the wilderness where there aren’t any 2×4’s. He makes a short wall of rocks and then surrounds the top with thorn bushes, and then stays there, protecting his sheep from the wild animals.

The word “Break”  (in red) is taken from Psalm 119:126, as an example. It corresponds to Strong’s # 6565, and to the Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the Bible’s # 1388-B. There it is translated, “To open the head” and “To throw something on the ground and break by trampling”. You can see the open mouth (the letter Peh) with the two guys’ heads (the letter Resh).
The word “Keep” (in blue) is taken from a few verses later as an opposite: verses 134 and 136. They correspond to Strong’s # 8104, and to the AHLB’s # 2853 (V). The AHLB translates it, “To guard” and “To watch over or guard in the sense of preserving or protecting.” You can see the two front teeth (symbolizing protection, biting, or tearing) protecting the water (sustenance for life) and the head.  Another meaning for the Mem (water symbol) is blood (life source), so it could be “the teeth protecting the blood and the head.” This picture used in correlation with “keeping the Teaching and Instruction” or mistranslated, “keeping the law” is a vivid one, demonstrating the life-guarding properties of Scripture.
“Keeping or Breaking the Law” isn’t the terror we were taught. It’s a real, do-able, rich lifestyle. Rather than “Obey perfectly”, we “walk in it”, so as not to “trample it.”
There’s space for things not being perfect. YHWH isn’t that naive 🙂 The Creator just wants us to love living, and gave us Instructions on how to make that happen.  “Peace be the journey.”

As always, I’m not the expert: for more info, see the American Center for Ancient Hebrew Research:

http://ancient-hebrew.org/

or their youtube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/ancienthebreworg

Who Owns The House?

Hmmm… now this makes some sense. In an Ancient Hebrew wedding ceremony, the prospective groom is required to delineate what he is willing to give for and to his prospective bride in a Ketubah  (written marriage agreement). Four things were required: Food, Clothing, Shelter, and Marital Rights, plus it might include other, optional things, along with a bride price, paid to her father, all of which she had to approve before agreeing to marry him. Makes sense. He works for her (someone he values enough to work for), she owns his house. Security, in exchange for working for him and bearing his children. In that culture, at that time, a woman had more security than many women do now, in some ways. At least then, in that culture, he had to be willing to acknowledge that she was worth something, and give her a place to live, sustenance, and pleasure. Too many women don’t even get a ring now-a-days …and call it “liberated.”

Can you picture a girl now-a-days saying, “Um, yeah, I like you and all, but I need a house, and if you don’t feed me, clothe me, and offer yourself to me on a regular basis, I’ll have grounds for divorce, and I want it all in writing, and witnessed by my father before I’ll marry you.” Somewhere along the line, women got gypped! …oh, wait a minute… that would be in reference to gypsies, wouldn’t it… which might be closer to the ancient culture than to the modern (dunno– haven’t studied gypsy culture intensively). ‘Gotta watch my language LOL!

The Almighty Breast

“The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” — William Ross Wallace

As a young woman, reared in modern Christendom, I was encouraged to pursue college and a career… in fact, that was the name of the 18-30 yr olds’ Sunday School class in the church where I grew up. Nothing wrong with college or a career… but I was definitely discouraged from thinking about marriage or children… and yet, that’s where the majority of my spiritual growth has been– in the experience of parenting alongside my husband.  Neither of us is perfect, but we each have a unique capacity to represent masculine and feminine attributes of the One, Indescribable, Incomprehensible, Almighty. Neither of us can represent that Power fully, and yet, even the shadow of it  that we are is incomplete without the “other half.”

I remember nursing my first baby, and listening to the screaming as I desperately tried to get the nipple into the open mouth… a nightmare that lasted for months… but one of the best lessons in how much El Shaddai (“Powerful Breast”, usually mistranslated “God Almighty”) loves us, and wants to give us the best and most perfect food… while we, at times, scream for it, and refuse to “latch on.”

We’ve found healing for the decline in happy marriages and parenting in these beautiful pictures in the Original Language. From Ancient Intimacy, through the words for Mother and Father and on to Wrapping our children securely…there are extraordinary societal healing implications…

To begin, the picture of Ancient Intimacy:

Remember that word ‘know’ where the Bible’s euphemism talks about sex? It’s more than a euphemism. It’s an ancient picture of what intimacy is, whether between a husband and wife, or between friends & family, or between humanity and the Designer.
Yep– There’s an Ancient Hebrew pictograph for that!

Yud-Dalet-Ayin
Yud: The Hand / Arm (Work, Make, Throw)
Dalet: Tent Door (Movement Back & Forth, Dangle)
Ayin: The Eye (Sensitivity, Sight, Insight, Vision)
To “Know” is to Work toward Movement Back & Forth with Sensitivity, Insight, and Vision.
There’s a ‘sweet spot’… a ‘knowing’ that only comes with an extraordinarily intimate relationship. Casual sex made ‘safe’ by modern interruptions cannot replace the intense depth of intimacy in a love where both parties play by Natural Laws that keep themselves and their offspring safe and healthy.
In the same way, a cursory study of the Scriptures can never replace the intimacy of ‘knowing’ the Original Gift of Teaching and Instruction.
This is real intimacy,  in intercourse, friendships, and in our relationship with the Designer: both parties working toward that “sweet spot” where the door opens and there is Sensitivity, Vision and Insight.

When we go back to these original pictures, we find foundations for building healing…

“If the foundations are destroyed,
         What can the righteous do?” –Psalm 11:3

BTW– I’m not the expert on the pictographs. For more information, see
ancient-hebrew.org/
or
www.youtube.com/user/ancienthebreworg
Comments/Ratings Always Welcome 🙂