Skip to main content

The Platypus Expectant

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up;
do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert, and streams
of water in the wasteland.

Isaiah 43

God moves with the inexorability of a flood; a flash flood in the desert that cuts channels through plains, shatters hills and breaks mountains. Aeschylus knew this. He saw the power of God roaring like a lion, and gathering like distant thunder. He understood that He was the wild one: the one who is truly free from all restraint because he is Law Himself. Awesome, inexorable, his thunder-strokes beat against desert of the human condition and in their violence transform a wasteland into a fertile plain. If only Aeschylus had know that it was so much more than pain. If God is awesome in His judgment, how much more so in His grace! He makes things flourish where once there was nothing; and who shall stop Him? He pardons the sinner whose sins are unpardonable; and who shall gainsay Him? Look there and you'll see it! Oh be attuned to Him by His grace or you shall miss it! Was there sorrow yesterday? Did all your hopes seem thwarted? Turn away from the past, for He makes all things new. Something exciting is afoot... Pass on the secret. Cry it out from the hilltops. Look where it comes! Have you ever seen anything like it? That is the work of the Wild One! His laughter is the deepest bliss of His children and the terror of hell for His enemies. Look there while you can, for the day is coming when no one will be able to miss it!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Platypus Reads Part XXVII

Thoughts after reading the "Iliad" to prepare a Greece unit for my students: -Hector is a jerk until he's dead. He even advocates the exposure of Achaean corpses and then has the cheek to turn around and ask Achilles to spare his. He rudely ignores Polydamas' prophecies and fights outside the gate to save his pride knowing full well what it will cost his family and city. After he's dead, he becomes a martyr for the cause. -Agamemnon has several moments of true leadership to balance out his pettiness. In this way, he's a haunting foil to Achilles: the two men are more alike than they want to acknowledge. -We see that Achilles is the better man at the funeral games of Patroclos. His lordliness, tact, and generosity there give us a window into Achilles before his fight with Agamemnon and the death of Patroclos consumed him. -Nestor is a boring, rambling, old man who's better days are far behind him, and yet every Achaean treats him with the upmo...

SNES as Money Well Spent: Platypus Nostalgia

I got my Super Nintendo Entertainment System when I was eleven years old.  That's a couple years after it first came out.  The occasion was a little dramatic: to celebrate the end of a two-and-a-half year course of treatment for cancer.  I had no idea that it would be waiting for me at home after the final doctors visit.  It was a nice spring day, the trees were waving gently in the breeze outside the bay windows.  With a cup of tea resting on the coffee table, I set down to play.  What was that first game?  It was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past .  Around twenty years later, my SNES still works as does that Zelda cartridge.  It's been a long way from boyhood in Southern Connecticut to manhood in North Houston, but I'm still playing. Why am I still playing?  There were stretches when I didn't.  Many times, I've just been too busy.  There were also seasons when it felt embarrassing to still be playing video games....

Under the Moon: The Platypus Reads Part LXVI

My wife and I were discussing our favorite books from the Chronicles of Narnia on our way back from lunch.  My wife, true to her sunny personality, is a staunch fan of "The Voyage of the Dawntreader."  I can't argue with that choice but, when push comes to shove, "The Silver Chair" has always been my favorite. I have a bit of a theory.  I think "The Voyage of the Dawntreader" is Lewis' grail legend.  If that's so, then I'd hazard a guess and say that "The Silver Chair" is his "Pilgrim's Progress." -just think about the shape of Puddleglum's hat and the fact that he lives in the Fen Country and you'll see what got me thinking down this line. That brings me to why I like "The Silver Chair" so much.  When I was little, we had a children's version of "Pilgrim's Progress" that my mom used to read to me.  I lived in New England and the Christianity I was raised with had a heavy tin...