Who Do You Want To Be

The story of Samson stands out from the others in Judges as a unique tale about a man chosen by God to do great things and lead the people. The man instead does as he pleases and doesn’t often call out to God for more than getting what he wants. Exploring where Samson fits into the stories of Judges before him, I find that he doesn’t fit into them. Before Samson there was a reoccurring pattern. The people fell short as faithful worshipers of God and found themselves oppressed and suffering. When it got bad enough they finally turned to God, who gave them a champion to lead them. That person leads the people, conquered enemies, and brought them back to God. Once the leader passed away or faded into the background, things went back to the way there were before and that’s where the pattern developed. So again the people stop acting faithfully. Again God lets them be controlled by another nation. They call out to God, and God saves them. Now comes in Samson, a man blessed by God who is never spoken to by God.

Samson’s story starts not with a man, but a woman. His mother is the first to learn of Samson’s coming as an angel of the Lord tells her of his coming birth and what he will mean. The angel tells her of all the rules to follow and the details, but he never mentions something about getting her husband so he may also tell him. Only after Samson’s father, Manoah, prays for the angel’s return does the angel speak to him. Even then he gives him the barest details and in such a manner that it would seem he stops short of saying, “I already told her. Just ask her!”

“The angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “The woman must abstain from all the things against which I warned her.” (Judges 13:13)

“She must observe all that I commanded her.” (Judges 13:14b)

Samson’s father is named, but not his mother and yet she serves such an essential role in his life as the base for all his future involvement with women. Though we see the exploits of Samson in detail, what motivates him most is women. The voice of God does not speak to him. No angel directs his paths. Samson is a “loose cannon” who does as he pleases. He is far from the noble hero or great military leader and most, if not all, of his actions are done by his desire. Yet, from the moment where his mother reprimands his father for being afraid of the angel of the lord to the moment where his hair is cut we see that the real power comes from the women in Samson’s life. In manhood his first action is not to rally the people, but rather to request a girl he found attractive. First his mother shows strength before his birth then, he shows weakness in manhood. Called to a greater purpose his first act is a selfish one that becomes a dangerous game and ends in death. It sounds grim, but here Samson is doing what God had blessed him to do. He attacks the enemies of the Israelites and strikes fear into them. Samson has to be tricked into doing the work he was made for, but there’s something else to note here. His wife, nameless like his mother, has to harass him for an answer to his elusive riddle:

“Out of the eater came something to eat,

Out of the strong came something sweet.” (Judges 14:14)

Samson and the lion.

(http://www.biblebios.com/judges/samson/samson.htm)

This would seem to be the first showing of Samson’s downfall through women if it were not for an often overlooked detail, his wife and her family were threatened with death. The Philistines have no issues with killing even their own countrymen for trivial matters, and Samson’s wife did the only thing she could do to save her family; she got the answer they sought and “betrayed” Samson. Except that Samson’s reaction to the betrayal led to a series of events that became exactly what he needed to be doing. In truth, his wife roused the strength that it took a lion attacking to coax out previously. In his frustration Samson deals a heavy blow to the Philistines in burning their crops and then slaughtering a thousand of them. It is at this point that Samson talks to God for the first time in his story.

God has been missing from the story of Samson, save the times where Samson’s incredible strength is brought out. The two do not talk and God does not command Samson. For some reason, in this story God is content to let Samson do as he sees fit with his blessings. When Samson finally calls out to God, all God does is give him what he asks for. Why didn’t God talk to him or intervene more directly like it has been done before? It would seem to me that the plan was not to directly push Samson, but, again, to have the women in his life lead Samson where he must go. It seems like a bit of trickery on the part of God. In order to get this chosen man to be a man, a woman must be involved. Enter in Delilah, the woman with a bad reputation for doing God’s work. Her character is often portrayed as the harlot betrayer who badgers Samson until he caves into giving up his weakness. No remorse occurs on her part and she shows her true Philistine colors. The only issue here is that at no point is she said to be a Philistine. It’s quite possible that Delilah is an Israelite herself, though we already know that race does not matter to Samson. All that matters to him at this point is that he is in love with her and, who is to say she did not love him back. It would seem like a betrayal of Samson and lacking love that she so easily accepted the offer of the Philistines, but it was Samson who chose to give his secret to the one he chose to love. He submits to a woman, loses his strength, is blinded and left to toil like woman would be left to do. This leads to one last act with the strength of God and Samson brings down the temple of dagon and all those within it.

Samson destroys the temple (http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/maerten-van-heemskerck/samson-destroying-the-temple-of-the-philistines)

So ends the story of Samson, if we wanted to stop there. What if all of Samson’s actions were a means to avoid what he was made for? What if he didn’t want to be a leader of men but just a man able to pursue life’s pleasures? What if he got to do all that and to experience the love of Delilah? The song “Samson” by Regina Spektor hints at this as well as the video interview with David Grossman.

In her song, Regina takes on the voice of Delilah, in love with Samson and singing to him as if his story had an uneventful ending.

If she had cut his hair and they lived their lives together instead of her giving him up. Samson could be a normal man and would no longer have to think of the burden of his blessing from God. It would not be an abnormal thing for Samson to do, considering his selfish nature. The song is lovely and paints a lovely image of a different story. What would the story of Samson be if it were just a love story? Perhaps it would not be deemed worth passing on through the generations. Or, we could find more value in a story that shows the strength of women  and how a man needed that strength to find his own.

Works Cited

Grossman, David. Interview by Bill Moyers. Personal interview. http://www.pbs.org/moyers/faithandreason/portraits_grossman.html, July 14, 2006.

Berlin, Adele, Marc Zvi Brettler, and Michael A. Fishbane. "Judges." In The Jewish study Bible: Jewish Publication Society Tanakh translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. 508-557.

Branson, Robert. "Samson." In Judges: a commentary in the Wesleyan tradition. Kansas City, Mo.: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 2009. 126-147.

Camp, Claudia V. "Riddlers, Tricksters and Strange Women in The Samson Story." In Wise, strange, and holy the strange woman and the making of the Bible. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000. 94-143.

Chisholm, Robert B, Jr. 2009. "Identity crisis: assessing Samson's birth and career." Bibliotheca

Sacra 166, no. 662: 147-162. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost (accessed December 16, 2013).

Meeks, Wayne A. and Jouette M. Bassler. "Judges 13-16." In The HarperCollins study Bible: New Revised Standard Version, with the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1993. 368-373.

Reinhartz, A. "Samson's Mother: An Unnamed Protagonist." Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 17, no. 55 (1992): 25-37.

Schipper, Jeremy. 2011. "What was Samson thinking in Judges 16,17 and 16,20?"

Biblica 92, no. 1: 60-69. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost (accessed December 16, 2013).

Smith, C. "Samson And Delilah: A Parable Of Power?" Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 22, no. 76 (1997): 45-57.

Yee, Gale A. "Feminist Criticism, Samsons Women." In Judges and method: new approaches in biblical studies. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995. 77-82.

Lazily Saying What I Want

For the last few days I've been struggling with what to post. I wanted to get back into blogging so I can share thoughts an ideas as I see fit. That really is the true nature of a blog isn't it? The blogger has the freedom to say what they want when they want with little to no fear of repercussion. The Internet provides a level of anonymity that is not always entirely healthy, but does have its perks. Unfortunately I don't care enough to keep talking about this any further.

Writing remains something of a passion of mine. Something I desire to do more often than I allow. I have no idea why I restrain it or deny it. All I know is that just as the urge or desire grows in me to put pen to paper, so does a resistance to that. Perhaps there are greater forces at work and one yearns for me to be true to me while the other works hard to block me from that.

Maybe I'm just lazy. I'm probably just lazy. Hopefully doing this once again will cure that. to some extent.

ACTION

If you don't know this about me, I'm quite the big fan of rants. I do a lot of ranting myself and can go on quite passionately about certain topics. Right now I feel pretty riled up so hang on tight.

How hard is it to commit to a course of action? So often I find myself in conflict with what I call "planners" or people who like to plan out and know every step of every action they are going to take. Now, I don't consider myself to be an entirely spontaneous person, but for the love of God people. Get off your ass and do something. It's pathetic to see people sit and wait for time to plan out each move instead of living their lives. Especially amongst men and women of God, I cannot stand this idiocy.

This post was started a long time ago and never published. Seems like a good time to do so as I too have become guilty of such a thing. It also seems appropriate to post it as I am now rectifying that. I'll trust in God to sort it out as I've no need to worry when in his hands.

Coming to life

I love spring. It's my favorite season. After a hard cold winter, where it would seem the cold outside penetrates our very hearts, spring comes. The warmth of the sun thaws the world and life slowly returns. To me there is nothing quite as exciting as feeling spring sunshine and gentle breezes on my face; it is a call to come back to life and I must answer it.

Too often do we all receive a call to live and deny it. God made us all to live and yet we so boldly deny that. We claim to understand what it means to live, but our actions speak so differently. Men and women working at jobs and on projects that seem to suck life from them rather then bring them to life. How can that be? Why would we choose that? And yet, I see my peers march off to pursue such a life. Fellow young adults (20 somethings) go to college and focus on nothing more than the moment and building this "life" concerning making money, finding a spouse, and acquiring. Simply acquiring. Objects, wealth, fame, or ever so vain value. Value as defined by those around us and not by ourselves or God. And for what? to live the life the world tells us is good? Live that life... it would seem more appropriate to say die that death.

Let's stop choosing death. Persue passions, dreams, and come to life! That's what this world needs, people who have come to life. I hear the call to come to life and I'm going to answer it. I hope I'm not alone in this journey.

Fufilling the spoons potential

I've been doing some serious thinking, serious serious thinking. I should say I had been doing some serious thinking; actually I should say I had a casual thought float through my head if I'm going to be accurate. At any rate, the thinking concerns the spoon when being used to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

First thing is that everyone needs to know that a spoon is the most effective way to scoop and spread jelly. You need a spoon for jelly and then a knife for peanut butter. God help you if you use one utensil for both. Jar mixing is forbidden and (should be) punishable by death. Though, what if we could use the spoon more effectively? What if one untensil is really all you needed? Notice how the scooper can effectively scoop jelly and spread it. Half the sandwich is done now, now turn that bad boy upside down. BAM, now you have a flat surface for spreading peanut butter. Incredibly efficient and minimalizes dishes to be washed. Truly a stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. Yes indeed and not just because I have far too many spoons and far too few knives.

Carry on all and spread the word.

Inspiration?

It has been quite some time since I've posted something to this blog I said I would revive. I shamefully admit to being lazy, but must also say that I've lacked the inspiration to write. Spending time on a college campus, goofy hijinx galore occurs. Now at a peaceful camp, well there is a sever lack of hijinx unless I cause it and you need not be concerned with my goings on.

What then does a writer do when they are uninspired to write? What do you write about? I suppose I could get away with asking a whole lot of questions, but that doesn't seem quite enough. Well consider this a less than gallant return to the blog world. Perhaps I shall be struck with some inspiration with the momentum of this post.

I awoke several hours later in a daze

I find more and more that I don't simply choose to go to sleep often. I often just pass out and awake several hours later in a daze and stumble out of bed or off the couch or out of a chair. It leaves me very disoriented, but I imagine it must be amusing for those who get to see it.

Snow and rain fall at the plateau again and this new year is much like the old one in that it is still frozen. Literally frozen, not some deep metaphorical frozen. We'll get around to that soon enough, but for now we keep moving forward.