As the World Turns

Stop the world; I want to get off. Actually, I feel like I did and I’m trying to get back on. After being sick for over a week, going on vacation for a long weekend (while sick), and then having a two-day business trip packed with fun-filled meetings (yup, that’s the closest I’ll come to blogging about work; see Dooce for the reasons), I have no idea what’s going on in the “real world.” I don’t care.

Reading progress. I planned to finish Hugh Hewitt‘s book In, But Not Of while on vacation, but didn’t even pick it up. So much for giving it to my brother while on the business trip. That’s okay; he’s still reading Hewitt’s Blog.

After getting The Message for Christmas, I resolved (yeah, I lied, so sue me) to read it straight through. I’ve slogged through Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy and am now making quicker progress: I zipped through Joshua and am in Judges.

I’m convinced Moses was trained as a middle manager or accountant in Egypt. He tells you everything three times. “God told me to tell the Israelites X. I told the Israelites to do X. The Israelites did X.” Or worse, he gives painstakingly, redundant detail. (See Numbers 7.) I got it the first time. Is it cheating to skim?

Reading Joshua was a breath of fresh air. For example, there’s detail for day one marching around Jericho, and then: “On the second day they again circled the city once and returned to camp. They did this six days.” (Joshua 6:14, The Message.) Wow!