I had the most boring day at work today. Today I did the exact same thing I do every day. Which isn’t so bad except I’ve got to do it 2.5 days a week for another 3.75 months. Boring.

Now I’m supposed to be working on my dissertation–I promised myself 30 hard working minutes tonight–but I’m blogging instead. Just so I can’t say I’m blogging about nothing, please enjoy the following:

cHesed–(as defined by individuals of HIGHLY limited old testament/hebrew education): (noun) (pronounced “phlegm-heh-sed.” I really don’t know what the phonetic spelling is. But that first phoneme (ch) sounds like you’re coughing a loog, or like you’re really Scottish. Or really Hebrew.)

cHesed is a word used frequently in the “Old Testament” (or Hebrew Bible for you more theologically-PC folks. This is a rare occasion wherein I practice political correctness, mostly because I don’t think Christians should regard this testament as being in anyway old, moldy, boring, irrelevant, etc. and because I have lots of respect for Jews, so lets not call their Bible “old.”). cHesed basically means “loving-kindness,” and describes the two-way, covenantal relationship God keeps with his people. In his love and magnanimity, God makes promises to us and allows us to make promises in return. In his generosity and grace, he keeps his covenants with us despite our fallibility, and yet continues to expect us to demonstrate increasing faithfulness and holiness in our character. cHesed is grace plus expectations. Not exactly “unconditional love,” but this is a phrase that doesn’t actually occur anywhere in the Bible. A special prize to he or she who can tell how many times cHesed occurs in scripture. But cHesed is more than mere “unconditional love.” cHesed is love at its best and most sacrificial, for it holds as its ultimate concern the welfare and good of the other, the beloved. It is God’s prevailing purpose that his children grow to love him and to love one another with cHesed like his own. And so we learn to cHesed as first he cHesed-ed us. Not a bad ‘condition,’ all things considered. Now you find the cHesed:

Good and upright is the LORD;
therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.

He guides the humble in what is right
and teaches them his way.

All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful
for those who keep the demands of his covenant.

–Psalm 25:8-10

This entry was posted on Monday, March 10th, 2008 at 8:06 pm and is filed under From the nation of Indig. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.