Someone warned me that when spring comes here, it comes fast, and they were right. Two weeks ago we were in the middle of the nastiest snow of the winter. This time last week the daffodils were barely showing green. Three days ago they were in full bloom.

I didn't even notice the magnolia budding, but today you can see it in all its glory:

On Wednesday it was so warm that I sat outside to eat my lunch and got sunburnt on my nose!

A number of bloggers have posted recently about speed reading and various techniques which may help those of us who still have 60-something books on the list we're trying to read by May.

But it was refreshing to come across this by Ellen Davis, on the merits of slow reading:

In addition to imaginations fit for the reading of Scripture, students also need literary skills, and these are often of a different kind than their earlier studies have required of them. Most new seminarians are schooled in textbooks, operators' manuals, and plot-driven novels. They know how to skim for content, yet relatively few of them are experienced with literary complexity. Moreover, the Bible is the last place they expect their reading skills to prove inadequate, since most entering students think they know what is there, even if they have never actually read it. So the first task that confronts them - or should confront them - is to learn to read in a radically different way. One of my students in the introductory Old Testament course put the problem succinctly about eight weeks into the first semester: "When we started, I thought the problem was that I read too slowly. Now I see that the problem is, I read too fast." Making mileage through the text invariably impedes movement into what Barth rightly calls "the strange new world within the Bible." Slowing down, we can begin to see how the (sometimes frustratingly) complex literary artistry of the Bible conveys theological meaning.

Different texts, different speeds.

To skim or to savour? For content or for transformation?

Lets learn to read our bibles more slowly.

By way of a vague answer to Justin's question about my last post (though please do leave comments with more specific answers/other thoughts too), I was just reading this from Meredith Kline in 'Images of the Spirit'.

In the broad parallelism that we have traced between the Genesis and Exodus creation episodes, Aaron's priestly investiture corresponds to the original creation of man in the image of God's Glory. The priestly vestments had the Glory-cloud for a pattern. This becomes readily apparent once we have recognized that the tabernacles too was a replica of the Glory-cloud, for there are striking similarities between the tabernacle and the priestly-vestments.

...

The tabernacle... serves as an intermediate link in a remarkable symbolic series: the tabernacle is a replica of the Glory-Spirit and Aaron's vestments are a replica of the tabernacle - and thus also of the Glory-Spirit.

That Aaron's garments were designed to be a likeness of the earthly tabernacle and of the heavenly Glory-tabernacle is evidenced by their materials, form, function, general purpose, and the ritual connected with them.

From James Jordan's commentary on Judges, 'God's War Against Humanism'.

An investigation of the Biblical material reveals that there are judgesses and queens in the Bible, and though there are not many, nobody seems to be surprised about it. There are also prophetesses, and again though they are few, nobody seems to be surprised about it. But there are no priestesses. The reason for this is found (as usual) in Genesis 2 and 3.

The woman was made to be a helper to the man in his work. That work was the work of dressing the garden, understanding it, ruling over it, seen first of all in the naming of the animals (Gen. 2:15-20). Man's second work was to guard (in English Bibles, "keep") the garden (Gen. 2:15). The woman at his side was part of what he was supposed to guard; indeed, the woman is a kind of symbol for the garden as a whole, as the analogies in Canticles make clear [I like this bit!!]. When Satan attacked, however, the man failed to guard his wife (though he was standing next to her during the whole conversation - Gen. 3:6, "with her"), and thus failed to guard the garden (Gen. 3:1-6). As a result, man was cast out as guardian, and angels took his place (Gen. 3:24).

Guarding is man's priestly task, as shepherding is his kingly task. It is precisely because it is the bride who must be guarded, that the woman cannot be a priest. She is not the priest; rather she is what the priest (imagine the Divine Bridegroom) guards and protects. Thus, the woman may not take up a leading liturgical role in worship, for she cannot represent the Groom to the Bride (1 Cor. 14:34).

In the Bible, sexuality goes all the way down. The woman is made distinct from the man, altogether. Thus, there are not female prophets in the Bible, but rather there are prophetesses; there are not female deacons, but there are deaconesses (a separate group); there are not female judges, but there are judgesses. The male prophet and the male king both stand as representatives of the Groom to the Bride. The female prophetess and queen cannot take that position, but stand within the Bride as counsellors. Since all humanity are feminine before God, as the Bride, there is nothing wrong with a queen or prophetess giving direction to men. The one thing that is excluded is the central liturgical function of imaging the Groom.

Thus, there is nothing wrong with women as rulers in any area of life except the Church. And there is nothing wrong with women as teachers in any area of life, including informal teaching in the Church. Women may teach men in Sunday School, but they may not assume the liturgical/symbolic role of leader in formal worship, in the presence of the sacrament, before the throne of God.

Amen to that.