why? – Aspirational Adventures

So maybe this happened Easter Sunday but there’s enough going on I thought I’d share this to. Found in Luke 24:12-35

Scholars like NT Wright and Wayne Grudem have argued that maybe Cleopas was walking home with his wife Mary The artists are Sr Marie-Paul Farrar OSB and Maximo Cerezo Barredo who painted several versions of the meal. Thank you to David Pott for bringing this to my attention.

How often does someone take something, decide they are seeing it as it should, gone on to tell others and that has become fact? It isn’t just in preaching from the pulpit but in many areas of life.

In this story it mentions “that same day two of Jesus’ disciples were going to the village of Emmaus”. It then goes on to mention Cleopas by name. Cleopas has never had a mention in any Jesus stories up to now but he is named by Luke the historian as a disciple. The other disciple never gets a name. It also never says if they were traveling just the two of them. They may have been with a crowd of friends who were not classed as disciples by Luke. So to just says “two of Jesus’ disciples” is accurate but not necessarily the whole story. It could have been just Cleopas and a friend; just Cleopas and his wife, who was also a disciple; Cleopas, his wife and a friend, two of whom were disciples; Cleopas with a small group of people heading home dejected after what had gone on, where Cleopas and someone else were disciples.

It amazes me how we are so quick to make assumptions, which with many of the Bible stories then get “set in stone” by years of preaching. And even with this new thought with these paintings and two amazing scholars making us look at it differently. We do still have to be very careful we don’t take this as the true and accurate picture.

The other day a friend of mine was talking about someone who was self-harming. God led me to pray for this person and I was able to suggest an idea to help my friend help her friend. My friend said this was very helpful because this friend of hers was very intelligent and was a retired professional. Well because I’d been told this person was self-harming I had a picture of her in her 20-30s, brassy blond hair with money problems. My friend hadn’t said that. There was nothing in her narrative that told me that but that was my stereotype from the information I have bubbling around in my brain.

So this is why I think we have to be really careful about how we stereotype and pigeon-hole things. Just because the person in authority in church has been telling us this for many years does not make it true.

But as I was reading this story and writing this blog it suddenly struck me – why did Jesus go and meet up with these people; be they 2 or many? What was it about them that was special?

In Luke’s account we have the women going to the tomb with spices and being told by the angel that Jesus was risen. They then go back to tell the “eleven apostles” [Luke 24:12] who think it is nonsense. Though Peter does go to have a look for himself. So why is Luke’s next scene of the risen Jesus with these two disciples on the road to Emmaus – a place that is not named previously and a disciple who is not named previously?

I think this is why we need to really get lost in the scripture. Most of the Bible is not a great way to learn about storytelling because it comes with many plot-holes. But it is an amazing place to not take things as given, to spend time listening to many different opinions but also spend time exploring it for yourself.

And the exciting thing, because the Bible is called the LIVING WORD of God then it will keep changing depending on how you read it and what God needs to highlight for you. Now that is exciting.

What Do You Keep?

Back in December 2021 my dad died. I didn’t know about this because we hadn’t really spoken for a while and his late wife’s daughter had chosen to nurse him herself without letting me know. Sometime in January she sent me somethings of my dad’s. I was going to take a photo of them but for now I am not ready to show them to the world so you’ve got a photo of what the tide going out on my weekend dog walk.

But it is what my dad held on to for so many years that has amazed me when I look through the parcel or when I think about it. There was a photo album, an address book and a diary all from not just before my parent’s married but from before they got together. From what I know they were dating from about 1957 and then married in 1959. So these things predate that.

The diary talks about my dad’s time in New Zealand, of things like worming and vaccinating sheep and the odd trip to the cinema or being invited to someone’s house for a good cooked family meal. The address book is great in that women’s names are written as “Miss First-name Second-name” not just first name and a number. It is all very formal. I didn’t see my mum’s name so it must have been before they met. And it is great to see those photos of him in his early twenties or maybe even younger. He was very good looking and seemed to have a love of cars. It is that love of cars which is probably the only thing I remember of him.

One of the poignant things is that even when we were on speaking terms he never showed these things to me and now I cannot ask those questions of “who’s that?” and “where’s that?” and all those other things I might like to know.

But my biggest question is “why did you hold on to these things for so long?” and “why is there nothing else?” These is this huge gap of over 65 years that he’s held on to these things through three house moves with us, divorce of my mum, divorce of his second wife, downsizing with this last wife and all the things that must have been thrown away. What made him keep these things?

At the moment we live in a big house, just me and hubby as kids have left home, so we have lots room and lots of stuff. I have my own study which is crammed with stuff – diaries, notebooks, journals, books, photos, etc. If I had to downsize what would I keep? How many years would it go back?

I’m making yet another start on writing my memoirs which I suppose is why this is wandering in my mind – what do I put in my story and what do I leave out? But also because of moving, of being homeless for a time, of putting the need to keep my children’s things as a priority over my own, I don’t have stuff that goes back that far. Yes my mum has put together a photo album for me but the choices for that were hers not mine. Apart from those things she’s put together I’m not sure I have much, apart from a very small photo album, of a time before I had my children.

Though I do also know I threw a lot of stuff away because at the time the memories associated with it were too painful. Perhaps the reason that there is only one photo album, one address book and one diary all pre-1957 is because the memories of somethings were just too painful to keep?

All in all those it has got me thinking, what do we keep, what do we throw away, and that age old question – Why?