The Corresponding Word for Makarios (1)

Sociologists suggest that people have a difficult time describing or even identifying something that they don’t have the vocabulary for. Some even suggest that one can have a hard time experiencing something for which one has no corresponding word.
 
The Greeks had a word for the feeling one has when one is happy: makarios. It is a feeling of contentment, when one knows one’s place in the world and is satisfied with that place. If your life has been fortunate, you should feel makarios. We use idioms in English to try to approximate this experience. We’ll say, “My life has really come together,” or “I’m in a happy place,” or “Life has been good to me.” We are not really discussing the details of our life; we are trying to describe a feeling we have. Happy sounds trite, so we avoid it. Actually, we are makarios.
 
In Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that if you are a peacemaker, then you are makarios. Since English doesn’t have a word for this feeling, translators have struggled to find one. What do you call it when you feel happy, content, balanced, harmonious and fortunate? Well, translators have concluded, you are blessed. Thus our English translations say, “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Mt 5:9). Unfortunately, this introduces another problem. The English language prefers clear subjects for its verbs. So the missing puzzle piece in the Beatitudes is, How is one blessed? What goes without saying in our culture is that God blesses people. Consequently, we often interpret this verse to mean, “If you are a peacemaker, then God will bless you.” But this isn’t what Jesus meant. Jesus meant, “If you are a peacemaker, then you are in your happy place.” It just doesn’t work well in English. Alas, here is the bigger problem: maybe the reason we North Americans struggle to find makarios in our personal lives is because we don’t have a word in our native language to denote it.
 
But English cries out for a subject. Because English “needs” a subject, we tend to provide one. This is why, as we pointed out above, “Blessed are the peacemakers” turns in our minds to “God blesses the peacemakers.” We don’t make this adjustment on purpose. But it goes to show how thoroughly our English language (even grammar, which we might not be able to explain) affects the way we think.
 

- E. Richards & Brandon J O'Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: 

Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible, 2012.

 
 

Flower

Pluck this little flower and take it, delay not! I fear lest it 
droop and drop into the dust. 

I may not find a place in thy garland, but honour it with a touch of 
pain from thy hand and pluck it. I fear lest the day end before I am 
aware, and the time of offering go by. 

Though its colour be not deep and its smell be faint, use this flower 
in thy service and pluck it while there is time. 

- by Rabindranath Tagore

Endless Time

Time is endless in thy hands, my lord. 
There is none to count thy minutes. 

Days and nights pass and ages bloom and fade like flowers. 
Thou knowest how to wait. 

Thy centuries follow each other perfecting a small wild flower. 

We have no time to lose, 
and having no time we must scramble for a chance. 
We are too poor to be late. 

And thus it is that time goes by 
while I give it to every querulous man who claims it, 
and thine altar is empty of all offerings to the last. 

At the end of the day I hasten in fear lest thy gate be shut; 
but I find that yet there is time. 

- by Rabindranath Tagore

Money Madness is About Emotion

After all, money is nothing more nor less than a medium of exchange—without any intrinsic value itself. Or so the economists tell us. We carry money in our pockets and transact with it passively, automatically: Buy the muffin, pay the toll, slide the debit or credit card across the counter.

Money is neutral—a facilitator. So why is there an epidemic of money madness—and how does the contagion work?

The simple answer is that money madness isn't really about money at all. It's about emotion. It's about intensely subjective feelings that come out of a place very deep within us and go right past the conscious mind as they drive us to act in certain ways. As I learned through years of analyzing and working through my own and my clients’ money madness, it starts in childhood, yet it has the power to affect us all our adult lives.

- Spencer Sherman, The Cure for Money Madness

Darkness v.s. Glory

Psalm 33:12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!

Exodus 15:11“Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?

Your Word says that before the Lord Jesus comes, the world will become darker and darker—as it is now. Father, help me to be perfect before You. Keep me away from the entanglements of sins and ignite Your light within me. Remove the darkness inside me as I open my heart to You.   Shine Your truth upon me so I can confess my sins and repent wholeheartedly. Lord, cleanse me of all unrighteousness so that my prayers are counted before You.

Lord, thank You for paying the price for my Sin on the cross. Thank You that I could approach Your throne full of confidence, to receive mercy and grace. I praise You, lifting up Your Holy Name full of joy!  All glory be unto You!  In Jesus’ Name, Amen!

Trials, Tests, Temptations

In order to obtain the fruit of patience we must go through periods of testing and trials. They are what make us strong and help us to learn patience. The trials are like a training ground. You don’t just get patience. You must earn it through experience and endurance. Not only do we have to go through the trials, but we must be calm and have a cheerful enduring attitude--as if the trial itself wasn’t enough. I

In this world we will have trials. There is no way out of it. It is part of life. However, even though we must go through these trials, our Wonderful and Mighty God threw in a benefit. The benefit is that when we go through these trials calmly, with a good attitude, and stand strong in our faith, we will become fully developed and lack nothing.

The only way to really overcome temptation is to renew your mind. The only way you can renew your mind is to study the Word. Every sin that we commit started in our mind. When we allow our minds to go astray we are opening the door to sin and death. This does not have to happen. God has given us power over sin. God has shown us through His Word how to overcome sin and death. 

However, it is our choice. We can choose to be overcome by temptations or we can choose to overcome temptation. Remember, we must submit our thought life to Him and stop the thought before it ever becomes a manifestation. 

- Lara Velez. Proverbs of the New Testament.

The Victim Becomes the Victor

    The cross is the seal on a particular kind of life: a life which has turned away from violence, manipulation, domination; a life in which the Son of Man is there not to be served but to serve; a life in which the very act of God is made flesh and blood in a vulnerable human being. Already in the life of Jesus we see that the quality and character of this life and this love are such that death is too small for it. 

    That is why, when we turn to the last book of the Bible, to the Revelation of John, we find there many songs of victory, which are addressed to or which name God and ‘the Lamb’ together. God and the sacrificial victim, they are the ones to whom praise and worship is due because they, together, have won the victory. The Lamb who was slaughtered is worthy to receive praise. The Lamb has conquered. 

    And in a set of very paradoxical and challenging images, the writer of Revelation underlines the oddity of what he’s talking about. The Lamb, the helpless, woolly creature trussed and slaughtered on the butcher’s slab, the Lamb becomes the triumphant conqueror. It is the Lamb who releases the enemy’s prisoners, the Lamb who has led the ultimate successful raid into enemy territory and brought back the prisoners of death and evil. 

    In Revelation 5:9, for example, the Lamb has won, has earned a cosmic triumph. Again in 5:13, the Lamb has conquered and has set us free. The victim has become the victor.

- Rowan Williams, God with Us.