Meditate | Salty Bible, Salty Life

Meditate is a monthly column in which insights gained from meditating on the Word are shared. We welcome your insights, too, in the form of comments or even your own article. —Editor

Swedenborg writes that salt is a symbol for longing (Arcana Coelestia 10300). Salt is all over the place in the Bible. In the Old Testament, priests were ordered to season the offerings with “the salt of the covenant of your God” (Leviticus 2:13). All the offerings were called a “covenant of salt forever” (Numbers 18:19). Associating salt with a covenant points to how salt on a spiritual level of meaning plays a part in the coming together of things or the longing for certain things to come together in covenant. The chemistry of salts suggests this spiritual meaning as well—they are ionic compounds that are always “longing” to be electrically neutral (apologies to any chemists out there who might be cringing at my amateur and anthropomorphized description). Personally, I just have to think of salt and my mouth starts watering. 

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Gender and the Priesthood: An Alternative Perspective

This week Chelsea offers a different angle from which to view gender in relation to the priesthood and marriage. Looking at what is unique about men and women in addition to what they have in common and examining how the marriage of love and wisdom is at work on multiple levels, Chelsea provides a thought-provoking discussion. -Editor

I just have to start by saying that here I am expounding on the doctrines of marriage and I can’t talk about it without acknowledging that it is through my experience of marriage that I am totally humbled in every regard. All of us can write about marriage like we know what we’re talking about. We can read Conjugial Love and put to memory its teachings. But when it comes to the day to day of being married to another human being, I can at least speak for myself and say it confronts me and my fallibility at every turn. I find it especially and acutely true with regard to marriage that what I know is minuscule compared to what I don’t know. Before I push off into the teachings of marriage, I have to acknowledge that the waters are deep and full of creatures of extensive variety; “with marriages…there are infinite variations among partners who are in a state of conjugial love” (Conjugial Love 324). 

As long as the idea of women serving as priests is considered not only to be doctrinally unfounded but even a threat or opposed to the very marriage of good and truth, it is easily dismissed. The teachings on marriage are central to the New Church and so it is understandable that they also come up centrally in the discourse of whether it is orderly for a woman to serve as an ordained minister in the General Church.

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Meditate | Worth the Effort

Meditate is a monthly column in which insights gained from meditating on the Word are shared. This month, Chelsea finds reflection of a core aspect of our minds in a couple seemingly unrelated stories in the Old Testament. As usual, we welcome your insights, too, in the form of comments or even your own article. —Editor

“Then he took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and struck the water, and said, ‘Where is the Lord God of Elijah?’ And when he also had struck the water, it was divided this way and that; and Elisha crossed over” (2 Kings 2:14).

“It happened after this that the king of the people of Ammon died, and Hanun his son reigned in his place. Then David said, ‘I will show kindness to Hanun the son of Nahash, as his father showed kindness to me.’

So David sent by the hand of his servants to comfort him concerning his father. And David’s servants came into the land of the people of Ammon. And the princes of the people of Ammon said to Hanun their lord, ‘Do you think that David really honors your father because he has sent comforters to you? Has David not rather sent his servants to you to search the city, to spy it out, and to overthrow it?’

Therefore Hanun took David’s servants, shaved off half of their beards, cut off their garments in the middle, at their buttocks, and sent them away. When they told David, he sent to meet them, because the men were greatly ashamed. And the king said, ‘Wait at Jericho until your beards have grown, and then return’” (2 Samuel 10:1-5).

“In general [the children of Ammon] are people whose worship is external and to some extent appears holy, but is not internal. They are also people who take up the things which belong to external worship as goods and truths but reject and regard as worthless those that belong to internal worship…People with whom such good exists are interested solely in the external features of worship and doctrine, and despise, reject, indeed are utterly averse to the internal; and as a consequence they have falsities instead of truths” (Arcana Coelestia 2468).

I was particularly struck (oh, what a pun) with how Elisha takes up the mantle of Elijah and strikes the water and it parts. He takes action while simultaneously asking the “affirmatively doubtful” question, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” I like that. How often are we asked to take action while also asking that question, and indeed good things happen—but we are not given total confirmation of God’s presence in our work before we take the action. That’s a first thought. You could stop there. But here’s another on this collection of passages if you want to keep reading.

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Meditate | Behold! The Key to Existence Hidden in Plain Sight

Meditate is a monthly column in which insights gained from meditating on the Word are shared. But why is meditation such a central spiritual practice, anyway? In a word: reflection. This month, Chelsea deviates from the normal structure of this column to share some reflections on the importance of reflection itself. As usual, we welcome your insights, too, in the form of comments or even your own article. —Editor

There are several passages in Swedenborg’s works in which he writes of the importance of reflection: self-reflection, reflection from others, and reflection on our surroundings and our experiences. In fact, he writes that “without reflection, there is no life” (Spiritual Experiences 2228). Without self-reflection we have no way to witness our thoughts, no ability to reflect on what we are sensing in our lives beyond just feeling it. Actually, our spiritual development depends on reflection.

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Meditate | Grumpy God?

Meditate is a monthly column in which insights gained from meditating on the Word are shared. We welcome your insights, too, in the form of comments or even your own article! Contact us if you'd like to write a submission for this column. -Editor

“And I will send My anger against you; I will judge you according to your ways…My eye will not spare you, nor will I have pity…Now upon you I will soon pour out My fury, and spend My anger upon you…My eye will not spare, Nor will I have pity; I will repay you according to your ways…The rod has blossomed, pride has budded. Violence has risen up into a rod of wickedness…They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will be like refuse; their silver and their gold will not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord; they will not satisfy their souls, nor fill their stomachs, because it became their stumbling block of iniquity…For the land is filled with crimes of blood, and the city is full of violence…I will cause the pomp of the strong to cease, and their holy places shall be defiled.

They have filled the land with violence; then they have returned to provoke Me to anger…Therefore I also will act in fury. My eye will not spare nor will I have pity”

Ezekiel 7: 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 19, 23, 24; 8: 17, 18.

I’ve been reading the Prophets while holding the question, “How is this a communication from a loving God?” in my mind. Let me tell you—that loving communication seems very well buried at first read in Ezekiel 7 and 8.

What irks me about these chapters most is how it seems like God has an anger problem. I’m put off by this because I have anger issues myself that I’ve been working on for years. Holding these passages in contemplation I realize I’m bitter because I am getting better at practicing self-control and here God looks like he’s got none whatsoever! What’s going on?

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Meditate | Know By Heart

Meditate is a monthly column in which insights gained from meditating on the Word are shared. We welcome your insights, too, in the form of comments or even your own article! Contact us if you'd like to write a submission for this column. -Editor

“Apply your heart to understanding…When wisdom enters your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion will preserve you; understanding will keep you, to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things” (Proverbs 2:2, 10-12).

“My son, do not forget my law, but let your heart keep my commands…Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and depart from evil” (Proverbs 3: 1, 5-7).

It’s easy to get caught up in the thought that life is about knowing a lot; externally, ideas and knowledge seem really important and sharing ideas and knowledge really can do a lot of good. But at the end of the day, it is not a question of do I know this or that, am I wise, or am I right, but simply am I living in integrity with my understanding of "the law"—am I acknowledging it fully and abiding by it.

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