Why I Started With A Spicy One

The Season 6 premiere and two animals I found in my meadow

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

Season 6 Begins With Gomer

It’s one of the strangest stories in a book full of strange stories.

Yahweh tells one of His prophets to marry a promiscuous woman and effectively sentences this man to a life of heartache brought about by the on-again-off-again unfaithfulness of his wife. When they have children together (another aspect of Yahweh’s commission), divine fiat assigns some alarming names to the kids: Jezereel (after the site of a brutal massacre), Lo-Ruhamah (“Not Loved”), and Lo-Ammi (“Not My People”). Eventually, this wife/mother (Gomer is her name) finally goes all-in on her adulterous ways and leaves her husband and children behind, piling up debts and prostituting herself to pay her creditors. It’s at this point that Yahweh commands her husband (Hosea is his name) to find her, pay her debts, and take her back home to love her.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: being an Old Testament prophet was a tough gig.

When I asked the patrons which stories they were excited to hear in this season of Holy Ghost Stories, Gomer & Hosea ranked in the top handful of selections. Thanks to this and the fact that it’s a story that’s always intrigued me, I chose to begin Season 6 with this tale of heartache and (almost naive) hope.

BITS AND BOBS

Telling this story wasn’t easy, for multiple reasons. And you may disagree with some of my decisions. Here’s a bit of context for various choices I made:

What Is Time? - It quickly becomes apparent as you read the Book of Hosea: figuring out a cohesive timeline is tricky. Chapter 1 offers a brief summary of several years’ worth of events. Chapter 2 consists entirely of a poem/song that seems to have been composed over an extended period of time (or at least looks back at one). Chapter 3 picks back up with the plot from chapter two but then ends abruptly before giving way to Chapter 4 which presents another bleak poem/song. The lyrical approach continues through Chapter 14, with no clear time stamps offered.

Most scholars agree that the writings collected in Book of Hosea span about 25 years just before Assyria’s conquest of Israel (maybe 750BC-725BC?), but the exact timing and chronological order of these pronouncements is elusive. Clearly, a precise timeline isn’t foremost in this book’s list of priorities. And to me, the outside-of-time-ness we get when reading it speaks to Yahweh’s own outside-of-time-ness.

In the words of J. Andrew Dearman in the New International Commentary on the Old Testament, “Hosea's overlapping metaphors, the circularity of the book's presentation of his thought, and the typological manner in which he applies inherited traditions to define Israel past and present all complicate any simple historical periodization.”

In short, the “timeline” feels more like a spiral than a line.

Given all of this (along with the fact that the narrative sections in Chapters 1 and 3 are quite brief), creating the story arc in this episode was a challenge. I ended up intentionally leaning into Hosea’s loose approach to chronology in three ways:

1. Braiding together threads from various parts of the book, inserting pieces of Chapters 2 and 4 within the narrative content of Chapters 1 and 3

2. Using multiple flashbacks

3. Making explicit reference to the weaknesses (or unnecessariness) of strict time constructs

I think it’s good to be yanked every once in a while from our obsession with chronology—it wasn’t hardly as much of a priority in the ancient Near East. (And I don’t think it’s as much of a priority to Yahweh either.)

A Pile of Severed Heads - The first scene is a flashback to the carnage inflicted by the ascendant King Jehu. Jehu (as some astute patrons have pointed out) deserves his own episode of HGS—what a story. Some readers of the account of those events in 1 Kings find Yahweh’s apparent endorsement of Jehu’s actions difficult to reconcile with His indictment in Hosea. I’ve offered a possible understanding in this episode—you can let me know if you think it’s reasonable. Apologies, too, if you’re squeamish.

By the way, Jehu features in an incredible artifact on display at the British Museum—an obelisk from the reign of Assyrian king Shalmaneser III. On it, Jehu’s shown bowing before Shalmaneser. One of his less macho moments. (Thanks, Debbie!)

Jehu’s hat, though

Due Recompense - “I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel,” says Yahweh in Hosea 1:4. And He does—When the current king (Jeroboam II, Jehu’s grandson) dies, his son Zechariah will be assassinated after just 6 months and will be the last descendant of Jehu to rule Israel.

Balaam Curses Israel - You may remember “The Wordsmith and the Sorcerer,” which tells the wild tale of a shaman named Balaam and his pro-Hebrew blessings. Though I don’t mention him by name in this week’s episode, Numbers 31 ties Balaam to the horrible events at Baal-Peor, assigning culpability of some kind. I hate that his run-in with Yahweh didn’t result in an enduring loyalty to the Israelite God.

What Is He Talking About? - In 1:7 Yahweh says, “I will save Judah—not by bow, sord, or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but I, Yahweh their God, will save them.” Some posit that He’s referring to the coming moment in which Hezekiah awakens to find that overnight Yahweh slayed the 185,000 Assyrians beseiging Jerusalem. Maybe. But to me, 1:7 feels like a Christ reference. What do you think? Could it be both?

Did He Say It To Her? - After telling Hosea the assigned names of the first two children, I have Yahweh giving the name of the third to Gomer herself. It works as a nice plot development, sure, but I think it’s justified by the text. Read Hosea 1:4-9 and let me know if you’d make the same call.

Don’t Go - There are times, as I’m scoring an episode, that not only does a piece of music feel perfect for a particular scene, its title couldn’t be more apropos. This was the case with the piece I used for Scene 5 of this episode—the music that plays as Gomer browses for lovers at the market Hosea weeps as his wife tells him she won’t be confined to his bed or his body. It’s a song by Cody Martin called “Don’t Go.”

Why Silver and Barley? - In the final scene of the episode, Hosea confronts Gomer’s paramour and pays him “fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley” (3:2). As I reflected on this, I wondered why the price wasn’t just paid in silver. You can let me know if you approve of the explanation I offer in that scene.

They Saw The Whole Thing - The unexpected story of Hosea has affected generations of readers with its unforgettable depcitions of Yahweh’s love. But as I created this episode, I found myself thinking a lot about the first audience of this story—Hosea’s (and Gomer’s) family, friends, and neighbors. What a thing it must have been to watch all of this play out in real time with real people, Hosea making clear again and again that it’s all a picture of their unfaithfulness and Yahweh’s indefatigable love for them.

The Confines of the Covenant - There’s a line in the last scene that follows Hosea’s stipulations for Gomer upon her return. Given that his rules are shockingly reasonable and entirely reciprocal, I reflect with these words: “This is not prison, this is marriage.” I suspect, though, that (at least at first) it doesn’t feel this way to Gomer. Hasn’t this always been the enemy’s tactic? Make the confines of the covenant feel less safe and more itchy. Temptation is always some version of the serpent whispering, “You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” In other words, “His laws are hemming you in and holding you back. You’re in a prison.” And in those same moments, the voice of Yahweh is always speaking truth: “No. This is not prison, this is marriage.”

GIVE IT A LISTEN

I’ll leave it at that and encourage you to listen for yourself. This one’s called “The Husband and the Adulteress,” and I pray it blesses you. I hope we never lose sight of the wondrous, scandalous miracle of Yahweh’s love for us—and I hope this telling of Gomer’s story serves as a lens through which to see that love more clearly.

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Meadow Update

The rewilding project I shared in my last email really struck a chord with you guys, so I thought I’d throw in a quick update. The white clover is slowly giving way to an epic amount of daisy fleabane, and we’ve rounded out the fauna spottings by adding a big 10” eastern river cooter and a white tail fawn to the list.

Too, I’ve gone ahead and created a path through the largest section of meadow. The magnetic appeal of all of this continues to amaze me. This new path hadn’t existed for 24 hours before my daughters were out there laying in it and making clover crowns. We had friends over for dinner and, having heard about the meadow project, they’d come hoping we’d all take a walk to enjoy it. Wild. Wonderful.

My version of a prayer labyrinth

Reviews Matter

I’m so grateful for every one of you who’ve taken the time to review (or even just leave a star rating for) Holy Ghost Stories on your platform of choice. It’s powerful social proof that helps new people decide to give it a listen, so every review/rating matters. Plus, it’s a huge encouragement to hear how the show is blessing folks.

Here’s a review I discovered recently on Audible. So generous, so encouraging. Thank you guys for words like these.

Here’s a link to the show page on Apple Podcasts if you want to add your voice to the mix!

Live Show For High Schoolers

In a week or so, I’m headed with a team of musicians to Ozark Christian College in Joplin to do a Holy Ghost Stories show during their Creative Arts Academy—a summer camp for high schoolers looking to up their creative game. We’re putting together a Crossing-of-the-Sea themed show with music that’s a good deal more up-tempo than our go-to HGS Live vibe (one of the songs is downright raucous), and I’m really excited to see how it goes. Prayers are much appreciated!

Remixed Scenes

As a prelude to Season 6, we raided the patrons-only vault and dropped several remixed scenes in the main Holy Ghost Stories feed. These are super fun for me, and I hope you enjoyed them. If you haven’t caught them yet, here are the links:

• Nebuchadnezzar

• Eve

• Samson

• Jonathan

• Daniel

• Barak

• Jael

4 Cool Things

Unsung Hero - Christian movies are often horrible (though to be fair, no genre of movies is void of dross), and I’m always rooting for them to be not horrible. Great, even—is that too much to ask? Anyway, I saw this one with my daughter and we loved it.

Lord of Plants - Visual Lookup on my iPhone is blowing my mind lately. Learning and knowing the names of the created things around me changes my relationship with them and drastically increases my noticing. As Robert MacFarlane observes in his fantastic book Landmarks, “Without a name made in our mouths, an animal or a place struggles to find purchase in our minds or our hearts.” I also love this and believe it to be true: “Words act as compass; place-speech serves literally to en-chant the land – to sing it back into being, and to sing one’s being back into it.”

Your Brain on Art - Digging this book from Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross. Basic premise? “We now have scientific proof that the arts are essential to our very survival.”

We know how art, in its countless forms, heals our bodies and minds. We’ve got the evidence for how the arts enhance our lives and build community. We know, too, how the aesthetic experiences that make up every moment alter our basic biology.

Still reading, but there’s some fascinating stuff in here.

My New Notebook - Sometimes you’re so excited about a new notebook, you have trouble pulling the trigger on that pesky first page. This is one of those times for me.

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That’s the latest. If “The Husband and the Adulteress” blesses you, throw a review into the world. And if you listened to the remixed scenes, let me know which was your favorite.

Gratefully,
Justin