Essays & Miscellany
A sentence you'll read when you Google "figs and wasps" is in a caption to a photo of a wasp and a fig: "A female fig wasp descends through the ostiole into the center of the fig plant's syconium." This is all clearly a private matter and none of our business but it is my responsibility to tell you that when you eat a fig, you're also eating a wasp. Or at least wasp eggs. Maybe it's wasp larva. The point is, I didn't read much of the article; I'm a headlines kinda guy.
In many ways, The Book of Ruth is a gentle echo of The Book of Job. In Job, we witness a righteous man destroyed for a wager who remains unwavering in his faith right up until he asks, "But why?" The Book of Ruth is also about a life interrupted by Divine Intervention. It's Job with a happier ending, but the same unsettling questions about how we interact with God, and how God can interact with us.
Imagine. You are fleeing your home. You are fleeing your life. Something extraordinarily violent and horrible and utterly destructive is happening to your city where maybe you had friends. Maybe you had a favorite place to watch the sunset while eating figs. Maybe one of your daughters, or cats, or whoever, is left behind.
One of my favorite passages in the entire Bible is Job 42:3: "Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know."
I'm writing in the margin of a book--I'm a scribbler of notes and check marks--and notice that my eyes can't see what I'm writing as clearly as they used to. And I am so grateful for all the years I've had good vision; all the books I've read and thoughts I've pushed into paper.
Mike Bevel 