What I Found In the Sinai Wilderness

Plus Yahweh's voice, huckleberries, and my family's fave new show

Hello! Hope you’re well. Here’s the latest:

The Exodus, part 2: INDUCTION

The second episode of Holy Ghost Stories Season 4 is live! We catch up with Moses just after he’s murdered the Egyptian slave master, follow his escape to Midian, and walk with him toward an otherworldly bush in the wilderness.

The burning bush is an epic self-introduction by Yahweh that serves as a fantastic meeting place—not just for Moses then, but for you and me today.

Here’s a bit about what you’ll encounter in this episode:

BITS AND BOBS

• Title Role - If you’ve been following HGS for long at all, you’ve likely noticed I’m always looking to work layered meaning into an episode title. For this episode about Moses’ commission at the burning bush, I hit the jackpot with the word induction. Check out this list of entries from the dictionary—it’s like turning a prism over in your hands, every facet shining light in a different way:
  

  In•duc•tion

  1. the action or process of inducting someone to a position or organization

  2. the process or action of bringing about or giving rise to something

  3. the process of bringing on childbirth by intentional means

  4. the inference of a general law from particular instances

  5. the production of an electric state by the proximity (without contact) of an electrified body

• “This is not right” - As we get to know Moses, this phrase will appear more than once as an expression of what’s clearly an essential piece of Moses’ personality: A deep internal sense of Right and Wrong. If I had to guess his Enneagram, I’d say he’s a 1 with a strong 9 wing. (Maybe the reverse?) I’d love to know your thoughts, based on your reading of Exodus—how would you type him?

• Echoes of the Original Storytelling - Much like other narrative portions of Scripture, a great deal of craft is present in the text’s telling of this story, including allusions to other significant moments described in the Torah. In light of this, I’ve looked for opportunities to echo some of the original devices in my own telling. For example, you’ll hear references to the Garden of Eden and the Fall throughout this episode as a response to the inclusion of such references in the Exodus text itself. (If you want to know how Yahweh sees the Story of Humanity’s Creation and Redemption, it’s all Gardens and Presence and the crushing of Snakes.)

• East of Eden - You’ll hear an explicit allusion in this episode to the “eastward into exile” pattern found repeatedly in the Old Testament. For a comprehensive, accessible treatment of this theme, check out this series in the Bible Project podcast.

• Quite a Contrast - It’s hard to overstate the contrast between the verdant Nile delta Moses called home for 40 years and the barren Midianite landscape to which he fled (adjacent to—and likely including—the present-day Sinai peninsula). Here’s a picture of the latter, taken during my trip to Egypt several months ago. It goes on like this for miles and miles and miles and miles:

  

• Reuel or Jethro? You may be listening to this episode and think, “Reuel? I thought Moses’ father-in-law was named Jethro.” Though there is some discussion about this, it’s likely both names refer to the same person.

• Interesting Word Stuff…

  • Horeb or Sinai? - The two terms seem to be used synonymously in Scripture. “Horeb” means “desert” or “desolate,” while “Sinai” means thorn.

  • The Burning (Thorn)Bush - The word translated “bush” is the Hebrew seneh, which more precisely indicates a thorn bush (you can see the relation between seneh and Sinai). I traveled last year to the St Catherine monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai and was shocked to find that they have protected what they claim is the original burning bush. I was (and remain) a bit skeptical, but also—consider this:

    1. The bush (pictured below) fits the “thorn bush” bill nicely.

    2. If you’re thinking, “Come on, Justin—that would be one old bush,” you’re right. But there’s a bush living in the Mojave Desert at this very moment that’s estimated to be 11,700 years old. So…

    3. Whether or not it’s the actual bush, it’s the right kind of plant and it’s likely in just the spot Moses encountered the flaming presence of Yahweh. For those reasons, it was a holy experience for me and an extraordinary place to pray with my family.

       

  • Not Consumed - The Hebrew word rendered “consumed” in Ex. 3:2 (“…he saw that the bush was on fire but was not consumed”) literally means “chewed.” You’ll hear me tip my hat to this as I describe Moses’ approach to the bush.

• The Impossible Task of Portraying Yahweh - I love this story because of how much time we get to spend with Yahweh. (He says so much!) This led to a couple of interesting storytelling challenges:

  1. Yahweh’s Voice - If possible, I wanted to punctuate the moments where He’s speaking, so my team and I had multiple conversations about perhaps applying some sort of sound effect to those sections of dialogue. I knew something like this could easily slide into the realm of cheesyness, and of course we didn’t want that. But was there a way to at least nod to that “voice like the sound of many waters” language from Ezekiel and Revelation? Cue a days-long back and forth as we struggled to find a combination of sound engineering techniques that did the job without ruining everything. (I think I’ll share some of the details of this journey over on Patreon this week because it ended up being more theologically complex than I would have guessed.) In the end, we settled on a very subtle suite of effects that I really like. Of course, it’s quite possible most people won’t even notice. …But I will. :)

  2. Yahweh’s Leitmotif - As I’ve mentioned before, my amazingly talented composer, Kendall Ramseur, is creating multiple leitmotifs—musical themes associated with different individuals or concepts in the story. But what do you do when it’s time to give the Almighty God of the universe a leitmotif? This is the episode where you get to find out what Kendall settled on, and I love it. To me, it’s more of an energy pattern than a musical theme—a pulsing, rhythmic, compression-and-release sort of thing that seems perfectly suited to (and will carry forward) this God-from-the-fire moment.

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO

Okay—here it is. I hope this episode blesses you richly as you encounter Yahweh in the heat of the sineh. Share it with your folks, won’t you?

If You’d Like to Go Deeper

If you’re starting to get into all this Exodus story stuff, here are a few resources I’d recommend:

• Robert Alter’s translation of the Torah with commentary - Alter’s translation is fresh, and the in-line commentary is brief and helpful.

• Bible Project podcast series on Exodus - Great stuff in this, as usually with Tim & John.

• BEMA podcast episodes on Exodus - Marty Solomon comes to the text from a more Jewish perspective—definitely a fruitful POV.

Creativity and Fear

I had the chance to share the origin story of Holy Ghost Stories and do a bit of storytelling from Joshua with a group of creatives last night. One of the other artists who shared her work was Suzanne Rhodes, the Poet Laureate of Arkansas. In addition to reading some of her excellent work, she spoke a bit about the deep animosity between fear and creativity. So true—fear is so often the thing that keeps us from birthing new things. Made me think of Irish poet philosopher John O’Donahue’s “A Morning Offering”:

All that is eternal in me
Welcomes the wonder of this day,
The field of brightness it creates
Offering time for each thing
To arise and illuminate...
May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers, 
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.
May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer, 
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more. 

Huckleberries Everywhere

This message from Tim Mackie at 24-7 Prayer’s The Gathering is just wonderful.

Speaking

The Storied Marriage - [Jan 27-29, Pigeon Forge, TN | PRIVATE]
At Antioch Church’s Winterflame marriage retreat, my wife and I will be presenting some new material on how to leverage the power of Kingdom story in a marriage. We’ve never talked about this, so pray for us (and them!) if you would.

Women of Hope - [Feb 3-4, Murfreesboro, TN | TICKETED] - My wife is keynoting at this conference and I get to man her book table. If you’re going, come say hi and I’ll give you a Holy Ghost Stories sticker if you ask nicely.

Fellowship Fayetteville - [Feb 19, Fayetteville, AR | PUBLIC] - At both of Fellowship’s Sunday services I’ll be telling the story of Nebuchadnezzar (and Shadrach and the boys), accompanied by the über-talented Ryan Burton and Joanna Stafford. If you’re in or around northwest Arkansas, you’re very welcome to come out.

The Storied Family - [Feb 25-26, Birmingham, AL | TICKETED] - A few times a year, my wife and I do a parenting workshop centered on why and how to root your family in the story God’s writing. We’re not hosting this one, but we’re keynoting on this topic at Riverchase Church of Christ’s Christian Parenting Conference.

Holy Ghost Stories Live - [Mar 13, York, NE | TICKETED; info soon] - If you’d like the full Holy Ghost Stories experience live and in person, join me at York University. This will be a magical night—stay tuned for more info.

4 Cool Things

Zoom + Small Groups - Got the chance this past week to Zoom into a small group that’s been using Holy Ghost Stories and the patron discussion guides as their conversation material. They asked great questions about HGS, about meditation, and about encountering God in Scripture. If your small group is making use of HGS, I’d love to drop in for a quick Q&A if we can make the timing work.

Extraordinary Attorney Woo - Okay—here’s my thing with so much well-made TV these days: it’s just so dark. The cynicism drips from the screen. I can handle a bit of that, but man—it feels soul-sucking after a while. So here’s a show that’s just earnest. Yet another quality storytelling export from South Korea—our family is loving it.

The Lectio Course - I really appreciate Pete Greig’s heart for connecting people with Yahweh, and this video series is a solid primer on hearing God by praying the Bible. Whole thing’s on Right Now Media if you’ve got an account—24/7 also has it on their website, but I couldn’t get the videos to work there.

Jude Kofie - What a wonder this kid is. Get ready to smile.

Cussing Parrots - Apparently, a British wildlife sanctuary has been forced to separate five parrots who wouldn't stop swearing at visitors. Keepers say the birds encouraged each other to keep cursing and “quickly overwhelmed the staff with their naughty language.” I’ve lived in the UK—to overwhelm Brits with naughty language? That would take a lot.

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That’s the latest! Hope you’re blessed by “Induction.” Let me know what you think about this encounter at the bush—I truly love hearing from you.

Gratefully,
Justin

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