lesson from a pig

So today my team was hanging out at the slums when I heard a heartbreaking, gut wrenching squeal from a pig. That kind of desperate squeal only means one thing - the pig is about to become dinner. I looked over to the neighbor's place to see 4 or 5 men wrestling a very uncooperative pig. It was hard to watch. It was hard to listen to, but covering my ears frantic to avoid being witness to this was no match for the cry of the one whose life was flashing before his eyes. I didn't want to watch, but you know how sometimes something is so terrible that you can't not stare?  This was like that. I watched in horror as the men wrestled the pig down and tied it up. Then I noticed one of the men holding a huge knife and I looked away to safe myself from further trauma





As I've been trying to get the squeal and image of a pig in bondage out of my mind I've b. een asking the Lord what I can learn from this.

And the story of the prodigal son came to mind. I thought of the part where the son returns home and the father decides to kill the fatted calf (i figure the slaughter process is somewhat the same). And it hit me how much effort it would've taken to kill it - after all, it took 4-5 guys to wrestle down a small pig today. Now I am being blown by how much the father must have loved his son - that he would send at least 5 servants to wrestle down a calf. And my mind is reeling on how much the Father loves us. I have no more words, because in truth I am still trying to wrap my mind around all of this.

God definitely has a sense of humor - who knew a pig could bring revelation on the Word?

Thinking of my Dill today - can't believe you're learning to walk already! You should pause learning to walk, so I can be there when it happens.

There is, in a word, nothing comfortable about the Bible - until we manage to get so used to it that we make it comfortable for ourselves...have we ceased to question the book and be questioned by it? Have we ceased to fight it? Then perhaps our reading is no longer serious. For most people, the understanding of the Bible is, and should be, a struggle: not merely to find meaning that can be looked up in books of reference, but to come to terms personally with the stark scandal and contradiction in the Bible itself...Let us not be too sure we know the Bible just because we have learned not to be astonished at it, just because we have learned not to have problems with it. -Thomas Merton, Opening the Bible