by Roseanna White | Aug 16, 2018 | Thoughtful Thursdays
We’ve been reading through Matthew lately, and really digging deep, as we tend to do in our Bible studies. This weekend, we were in Matthew 14–quite a chapter! We learn about the beheading of John, and how Jesus sought some solitude after getting the news, He tried to go off by Himself…only to be followed by quite a crowd that He ended up feeding. After that miraculous meal, He sends the disciples off on the boat, goes to get that prayer time that was interrupted before, and then catches up with them…in the middle of the storm-tossed lake. On foot.
These familiar stories that we know oh-so-well can sometimes be hard to dig deeper into. We’ve heard them so many times, we just assume we know what they’re saying, and what they mean, and what their import really is.
This time, something new jumped out at me.
As Jesus is walking to the disciples on the water, they see Him and think it’s an apparition. The Greek work used is phantasma, from which we get phantom–used to mean vision more than disembodied spirit, for which they frequently used angelos (angel). Regardless, the disciples are a little freaked out, to say the least.
And Jesus is quick to say, “Hey, chill out! It’s just me!” (Totally his words. Very literally translated. Ahem.)
We all know what Peter said in response. But have you ever really thought about it? Look at this.
“Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.”
Um…what? Who here has ever reacted that way? “Lord, if that’s You nudging me to do something, command me to perform a miracle”… “Lord, if that’s you tugging on my heart, tell me to jump out of the airplane”…”Lord, if that’s You beside me in my troubled times, tell me to do the impossible.”
That isn’t the human response. We never ask for anyone, even God to prove Himself by having us do something risky and awe-inspiring. We ask Him to do it, maybe…but in this passage, He already was. He was walking on the water already. (I mean really, who else could it have been??)
That takes a particular kind of faith, that Peter invokes. And as my husband said, “I wonder if this is the moment where it became so clear that Peter was the Rock on which the church should be built.” Because he’s the only one who greeted terror with, “Lord, let’s do something miraculous together.” Yes, he took his eyes off Jesus, and when he did so, he began to sink. But still–let’s not forget that first he not only asked to join Him, he demanded it as proof.
Do we do that? Do we demand, as proof of our Lord’s identity, that He do something amazing through us?
Should we?
When Peter and Jesus make it back to the boat, the storm ceases, the wind dies down. And the disciples all say–for the FIRST TIME in this Gospel–“Wow. This dude’s the Son of God.”
Why? Why then do they proclaim it? Just a few chapters before, Jesus calmed another storm on a tumultuous sea, and it made them ask. Made them wonder who this guy was. Why, this time, did it become clear?
My first thought was that it was because He did that little walking on water bit.
But many prophets had subdued nature and the laws of physics before. We have Elijah praying for no rain, then for rain. Making an ax-head float. Making oil never run out. We have a dead man springing to life by merely touching his bones.
Miracles, all. So Jesus calming storms made them certain He was, at least, a prophet.
But there’s a big difference between a prophet and the Son of God.
A prophet could have calmed the storm. Maybe a prophet could have even walked on water (after all, if an ax-head can be made to rise to the top of the water, why not a person?).
As I debated this question in our study, there was only one thing I could come up with that really set this incident apart as Son-of-God-unique. And that was Peter. That Jesus could command Peter to come to Him. So far as I can recall, no other prophet could confer the miracle like that. Yes, they had people act in faith–go dip in the Jordan five times; pour out the oil and make a cake. But the miracle wasn’t performed by them.
Peter partook in the miracle, though. Peter was the doer of it. Much like the disciples went out and did the work in Jesus’ name. That means that Jesus had to have the authority, to grant it to them. Only an heir could do that. Only a Son of the Most High.
I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Peter…and in this passage, he really taught me something about what my faith should be. It shouldn’t just ask for God to DO…it should demand He do it through me. It should demand to partake of the miracle. Not just to watch, but to do. To be a co-heir. To have some of that authority.
Whenever I’m in doubt, I shouldn’t just say, “Lord, show me the way I should go.” I should be saying, “Lord, do the impossible through me.”
by Roseanna White | Aug 13, 2018 | Word of the Week
Last Wednesday, I was invited to speak at retailers event near Lancaster, PA. As my husband and I were driving through Pennsylvania, also known in our family as “the land of oh-so-helpful road signs,” we saw first the “Don’t Tailgate” sign. And then one that said “Beware of Aggressive Drivers.”
My husband, who had only caught of glimpse of that one, said, “Did that say ‘beware aggressive drivers’ or ‘beware of aggressive drivers’? Because it would be funnier if there were no of. Then we wouldn’t know if it was warning us to beware of them, or just warning them.”
Naturally, this led to the next question of, “So is beware just be + aware?”
“Probably,” I said. “Or be + wary. In fact, I bet aware and wary are variations of the same word.”
And so, it turns out, they are.
Beware is from around 1200, a contraction of “be wary” or “be on one’s guard.” It’s from the Old English wær, which means “prudent, wary, aware, alert.” Aware is also directly from the Old English, from gawær, which is obviously just a slight variation, meaning “wary, cautious.”
So there we go. Our musings were correct. And Pennsylvania will forever remain the Land of Oh-So-Helpful Road Signs.
by Roseanna White | Aug 8, 2018 | Companion Guides, Remember When Wednesdays, The Great War
War changes things. We all know that, but most of today haven’t lived through a “total war” that really impacts everyone at home, whether we or our family are directly involved in the fighting or not. Most people are very aware of how WWII did this…but most of us don’t realize that the things we’re so familiar with from that war, had their roots in the First World War.
But London, for instance, experienced huge changed when war was declared, and it was interesting to show these through my characters in
An Hour Unspent.
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| London Blackout – Wiki Commons |
One of the first changes to be put into place was a blackout in coastal towns and London. As early as 1913, Churchill, as the First Lord of the Admiralty, drew up a plan for a blackout in the event of war. For the first time in history, people had to fear enemies coming not just from land or sea, but from the air. Many still primarily feared rockets or missiles that could be launched from naval vessels, but there was (rightfully) a growing fear that aircraft could be weaponized. At the start of the war, airplanes weren’t the biggest threat–they had a difficult time crossing the channel and couldn’t carry much by way of bombs or guns. But zeppelins were a different story.
As a result, eight days after England declared war on Germany, blackout restrictions were put in place. In London, this meant no electric lights were permitted outside. Street lamps were painted over to dim them. Most houses at this time still had the old gas lights installed as well as the new electric ones, and they had to use those after dark, or use curtains to keep the light from shining.
The streets became hazardous after dark. Before, when gas street lamps were the norm, there weren’t automobiles zipping around. The combination of faster vehicles and less light was, let’s say, not a good combination.
So in an effort to keep people off the streets after dark, many traditional nighttime events like operas and plays and concerts were moved up to earlier hours or canceled entirely.
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| First Zepplin sighting 1915 – Wiki Commons |
But dimming the lights wasn’t the only step London took to confuse an aerial attack. They knew that a night attack was most likely for zeppelins, and they knew that if they were to come across the Channel, it would have to be on a clear night.
A clear night meant moonlight. And moonlight would reflect most off…water.
Everybody of water in London would become a homing beacon. So they drained the lakes and ponds in the parks, leaving nothing but muddy expanses where once there had been beautiful vistas.
What they couldn’t drain, however, was the Thames. And in the first zeppelin raids, the river was indeed what the airships followed.
By the end of the war, all this was no doubt old hat. But can you imagine seeing one of those drained lakes at the start? How sobering a reminder it would have been that the world had gone mad and that the very skies should be feared? Quite a scary thing. And one my characters had to encounter and combat.
by Roseanna White | Aug 6, 2018 | Word of the Week
I live in a house with both a man and cats. So naturally, the debate about which came first, whisker for a man’s facial hair or whisker for the long, sensitive hairs on a cat’s face, has come up. (Yeah, okay, so my family’s all weird, LOL. Or my word-nerd ways have rubbed off on them. We do seriously have these sorts of conversations on a daily basis.)
First, a bit about where they came from in general. Whisker comes directly from whisk–“to move with a sweeping motion.” Interesting, the noun whisk is from the late 1300s, while the verb is from the late 1400s. It wasn’t until around 1600 that whisker came into being, as a playful form of whisk–a thing that sweeps. And it was attributed first to…
Ready for the answer? 😉
Men’s facial hair! It took another 70 years or so for it to be applied to animals.
Which does make me wonder what it was called on animals before that? Anyone know?
by Roseanna White | Jul 30, 2018 | Word of the Week
Before bed one night, while we were waiting for his sister to finish washing her face and brushing her teeth, my son and I were coming up with silly reasons for each season’s name.
It began with the easy-to-determine
fall. “Hey!” Rowyn said, “I bet it’s because of when the leaves fall.” I assured him that was, indeed, the reason. “Then what about
winter?” he asked.
I thought for a moment, and then said, “Because that’s when all the leaves already wint.”
He laughed at my deliberate mispronunciation of went and said, “So how about spring?”
Another real answer. “It’s when new life springs forth. But for summer…?”
Rowyn thought for a little while then said, “I know! It’s when the school year is all summed up.”
Aren’t we just the cleverest things. ? I’ve already looked into the real etymologies of pretty much all those season words, but it occurs to me that I’ve never looked up season itself! So a quick lesson.
The English word (which has been in use since English itself originated, in the 13th century) comes directly from the French saison, which means exactly what the English does–“a period of the year; the appropriate time.” But if you trace saison back, it comes in fact from the Latin sationem, which literally means, “to sow, to plant.” In the days of Vulgar Latin, the word was used most often to indicate spring, when said sowing and planting was done. It was the French who broadened it to mean any season, and we of course borrowed that from them.
I hope you’re enjoying your summer season!
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. Having successfully launched two homeschool grads, she now spends her time writing fiction, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years, as well as a fantasy series and contemporary mysteries and romances. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.