{"id":23299,"date":"2015-11-03T00:01:15","date_gmt":"2015-11-03T08:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=23299"},"modified":"2015-11-03T00:01:15","modified_gmt":"2015-11-03T08:01:15","slug":"isaiah-and-the-of-courseness-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/isaiah-and-the-of-courseness-of-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Isaiah and the Of-Courseness of God"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Isaiah.<\/a>
Isaiah: He stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain. (Yet another Lake Michigan) photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

For most of my adult life I haven\u2019t been\u00a0so sure about God. That such a thing could exist seems far-fetched, too good to be true.<\/p>\n

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But now that I\u2019m firmly located in the second half of my life \u2013 okay, okay, the third third of my life (And no, I\u2019m not calling it the last third of my life; I\u2019m not ready to go there \u2013 yet) . . . now that I\u2019ve moved along in my life, past the time when I have to make my mark on the world, produce those babies, get them raised to adulthood, achieve some success and glory as a writer, stash away some money for retirement . . . now that the gotta-do part of my life is behind me \u2013 I seems to me (on a good day) that God\u2019s existence is right there for all to see, plain as day. You can\u2019t miss it.<\/p>\n

Something is going on out there. Of course it is. It\u2019s common sense. How else could things be?<\/p>\n

The eighth-century BCE Hebrew prophet Isaiah appears to share my sense of the of-courseness of God. This exuberant Bible passage is attributed to him:<\/p>\n

Have ye not known? Have ye not heard?<\/h6>\n
Hath it not been told you from the beginning?<\/h6>\n
Have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?<\/h6>\n
It is<\/em>\u00a0he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth,<\/h6>\n
And the inhabitants thereof\u00a0a<\/em>re <\/em>as grasshoppers;<\/h6>\n
That stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain,<\/h6>\n
And spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in . . . .<\/h6>\n

\u2013 Isaiah 40:21-22, King James Version<\/em><\/p>\n

If you enjoyed this post (and even if it was too Bible-y for you) you’ll probably like my book, \u201cWrestling with God: Stories of Doubt and Faith.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Here on this website there’s also \u201cFor Lent, Trying Giving Up That Old, Outworn Story About Yourself.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 And\u00a0\u201cWhat Happens When You Drop Your Cell Phone Into the Sacred Buddhist Sand Painting?\u201d<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"the<\/a><\/p>\n

Something is going on out there. Of course it is. It\u2019s common sense. How else could things be, says Isaiah. \u00a0Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23301,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[103,481,1577,34,21,1578,86,267,82,1579,1580],"class_list":["post-23299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-rocky-spiritual-journey","tag-aging","tag-belief","tag-bible","tag-dont-miss","tag-god","tag-god-as-myth","tag-gods-existence","tag-middle-age","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-the-of-courseness-of-god","tag-wisdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}