Ramblings

March went by in a daze. It was election month. And for a while, everything else took a backseat whilst conversations went on furiously in coffee shops, kopitiams, mamaks, boardrooms, bedrooms... you name it. Who wagered which party was going to win, stories of corruption (old tales... yawn), cronyism and all the rest of it. Election fever was on!

Even the bible studies took similar slant. It was by no accident either that we were going through chapters 19 and 20 of Exodus, which spoke about the preamble and the formalization of the constitution for Israel.

Many parallels were drawn, allusions alluded, mental gymnastics exercised finally dare I say, tho we were not altogether wiser about the state of politics in Malaysia, we at least learnt that God's covenant with Israel all those centuries ago has ramifications for us today.

I love history for the way it progressively unfolds human nature. I just hate the idea of it being a subject for examinations. Love the relational factor, hate the rigidity of the structure that attempts to contain it.

Just as well, because beneath the rules and regulations and laws - meant to govern behaviour - isn't the ideal to live a life so exemplary that laws are no longer needed? But...ah, I am in fantasyland.

I digress.

Tomorrow we wrap up our 3-week analysis on the 4th Commandment, The Sabbath. After tracing its origin in Genesis, we looked at its institution in Exodus as a commandment, its part in the moral and ceremonial practices in the Old Testament, the controversy it sparked when Jesus interpreted it for the pharisees... and finally, its significance for New Testament christians. Phew!

And like those coming-of-age movies, the class discovered that the quest for one thing can open up doors of understanding to a bigger picture, beyond what was initially expected. What the students expected was a neatly-packaged doctrine, nicely presented in a "do this but don't do that" label (a product); but what they got instead was a process of thinking, re-thinking, interpreting and re-interpreting (an education, hopefully).

I must admit that I have learnt much too, thanks to these students, without whom I would not force myself to think a few steps ahead. The preparation for the studies have benefited me greatly. Tiring, but worth it.