February 5, 2010

Ezekiel's vision of the Temple begins with chapter 40. It is quite an experience to read 40 and following. Why this obsession with architecture, layout, and specific details? It creates a confusing picture in my mind...gates here, chambers there, posts of a certain height, doors, courts, etc. What's going on?

Minimally, and perhaps most significantly, it is an ordering of sacred space, not unlike the discoveries of late 19th and 20th century cultural anthropologists who studied 'primitive' cultures. One of my favorites, the recently deceased Claude Levi-Strauss, studied the layout of a village and related it to the structure of the language spoken. He asserted that language and the ordering of space shared a common structure.

My interest is in finding the center...the center of the village, the center of the temple, the center of language. My hypothesis is that the center is the place of the most sacred. This is part of my preparation for the next 'lecture' I am working on. I am exploring the phrase: The fear of the Lord. My thoughts and reflections are beginning to organize themselves but it still feels like Ezekiel 40.

What I'm going to do today is find the center of the property I steward and drive a steak...raise and Ebenezer!! I wonder if I will learn anything from that experience?

I think I will....