Random juxtapositions

I have or have not refined my list of blogs I read. Sometimes I wonder if I am just wasting my time. Not with respect to writing because I am learning as I write - and so it should be. There's just the odd chance that I might even make a booklet out of some things - like the Sunday School sequence of elementary Hebrew lessons. Books are a lot of work, however, and they are always error-prone, like software.

As I think on these things, I wonder at why some people write - maybe for fame, or for shock value, or whatever. Many whom I read write out of the search for learning and the struggle against abuse of power. At least that is how it appears to me and I learn from them too. I cannot always know why - but I can still wonder at some of the things I read - and then I think - I can do without this interruption.

One verse I came across recently tells me what interruptions God does without. Curious - you can consider this meandering as a comment on that verse from Exodus 20:25-26.

וְאִם-מִזְבַּח אֲבָנִים תַּעֲשֶׂה-לִּי, לֹא-תִבְנֶה אֶתְהֶן גָּזִית: כִּי חַרְבְּךָ הֵנַפְתָּ עָלֶיהָ, וַתְּחַלְלֶהָ.	And if an altar of stones you make for me, you will not construct them as cut; for as you swing your sword on it you pollute it.
וְלֹא-תַעֲלֶה בְמַעֲלֹת, עַל-מִזְבְּחִי: אֲשֶׁר לֹא-תִגָּלֶה עֶרְוָתְךָ, עָלָיו.	and you will not go up by steps to my altar, so as not to expose your nakedness on it.

It reminds me that I am open and naked before the one with whom I have to do - so to take some care as to what I write and how I write it. But I think that one reads me to learn about me and occasionally I get a reminder not to waste his time. This is the one who was naked on the altar of sacrifice for me so that I might find myself clothed before him by his covenant gifts. There is nothing I hide from him - how could I without lying even to myself? But, Beloved, I hide these things in parables and stories so that for you, there might be no offense. Some things are meant to be burned outside the camp.