From The Editor
Welcome to the July Edition of the Peasant Times-Dispatch. There are a lot of exciting things happening around here, for paid and free subscribers alike. I kicked off the ol’ Podcast, did you know? By the time this issue publishes there will be two episodes available for you. I have big plans for the Podcast, and I can’t wait to bring them to life for you!
I’ve got not one but two books in progress now for paid subscribers: The Adventures of Tylus Worran, a parable of my peasantly thought, in a science fiction setting. the 5th Installment was just published, please check it out! I also have published the first installment of The Peasant Life Dialogues which will be a casual but edifying walk through the philosophy of the Peasant Life. I am really excited about these projects and my paid subscribers have been enjoying them—join us and get in on the conversation!
Finally, in the last Open Thread we talked about our Wins and things that are going well, and Hambone shared a reflection upon watching the Lion King. And as always, I write a little more casually over at my Wordpress, if you just can’t get enough!
The Peasant Times-Dispatch is a happening place, now that I sit down to take stock of things—and I am very glad to be able to bring it to you. If you are new here, please subscribe for free! Join the growing crowd of the curious, seeking, and spiritually hungry. If you can, consider a paid subscription to directly support my writing and participate in bringing the Peasant Life into a tangible, physical form!
Thank you, as always, for reading, and God Bless you!
What Did You Say?
I am prone to periods of doubt and despair. Years ago, in one such period, I wondered if I had missed the boat—if God’s plan for me had passed me by, if He was trying to say to me “Go to this place at this time!” and I didn’t understand him, so I wasn’t there and I missed an opportunity to be happy, or to realize some dream, or to do something God wanted me to do.
Hambone offered me some advice, at this time: “If God wants you to be Moses, He won’t be misheard.” In other words—when God communicates, He won’t leave anything to chance. He will slap us in the face with it, if necessary. Even Moses had to double check that he was hearing properly:
Moses answered and said: They will not believe me, nor hear my voice, but they will say: The Lord hath not appeared to thee.
Then he said to him: What is that thou holdest in thy hand? He answered: A rod.
And the Lord said: Cast it down upon the ground. He cast it down, and it was turned into a serpent: so that Moses fled from it. And the Lord said: Put out thy hand and take it by the tail. He put forth his hand, and took hold of it, and it was turned into a rod. That they may believe, saith he, that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared to thee.
And the Lord said again: Put thy hand into thy bosom. And when he had put it into his bosom, he brought it forth leprous as snow. And he said: Put back thy hand into thy bosom. He put it back, and brought it out again, and it was like the other flesh. If they will not believe thee, saith he, nor hear the voice of the former sign, they will believe the word of the latter sign. But if they will not even believe these two signs, nor hear thy voice: take of the river water, and pour it out upon the dry land, and whatsoever thou drawest out of the river shall be turned into blood.
Moses said: I beseech thee, Lord. I am not eloquent from yesterday and the day before: and since thou hast spoken to thy servant, I have more impediment and slowness of tongue.
The Lord said to him: Who made man's mouth? or who made the dumb and the deaf, the seeing and the blind? did not I? Go therefore and I will be in thy mouth: and I will teach thee what thou shalt speak.
But he said: I beseech thee, Lord send whom thou wilt send.
The Lord being angry at Moses, said Aaron the Levite is thy brother, I know that he is eloquent: behold he cometh forth to meet thee, and seeing thee shall be glad at heart. Speak to him, and put my words in his mouth: and I will be in thy mouth, and in his mouth, and will shew you what you must do. He shall speak in thy stead to the people, and shall be thy mouth: but thou shalt be to him in those things that pertain to God. And take this rod in thy hand, wherewith thou shalt do the signs.
Let’s take a moment to think about this scripture. In Exodus 3, God calls Moses to lead his people out of Egypt. Now, in Chapter 4, Moses says “But God, no one will listen to me!” and God gives him miracles to perform. Then Moses says “But God, I have a stutter!” and God gives him Aaron—almost reluctantly. The bottom line is that God chose Moses for this task, and nothing Moses could think of would get him out of it. God gave Moses an answer to every objection, and an answer to every question. In Chapter 3 Moses says “Who should I say gave me this message?” and God says “I AM WHO AM!”
We have here the model for communication in many forms.
Communion-Community-Common
Communication has at it’s bottom-most root the word Common, which comes via Greek from the Indo-European roots ko (together) + mei (to move), in other words, to move between us, together, or “shared by all”. To “communicate” then means “to make common” or “to share or transmit with everyone,” and this is where we get the verbal sense of “to impart or transmit information to another”. It’s cousin words are “Community” and “Communion,” which you can see share that same root.
In Exodus, God is communicating with Moses. He is doing this in a very literal sense by speaking to him—but you see in Exodus 4, that He is communicating Himself to Moses by saying “I will be in thy mouth” and “I will be in Aaron’s mouth” and that God would teach them what to speak. In other words, God is saying “Go, and I will be with you.”
By communicating himself to Moses, God is creating a community—making common His presence, sharing it by all. We see this idea made explicit in the Gospel:
Again I say to you, that if two of you shall consent upon earth, concerning any thing whatsoever they shall ask, it shall be done to them by my Father who is in heaven. For where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
Wherever two or three gather in Jesus’ name, he will be in the midst of them—he will be common, shared by all, among them—a community. On Pentecost we get the Holy Spirit communicated to us, who even now is among us and with us, a sign of the ubiquitous presence of God, and the Community we have as Catholics and Christians.
Communicate Like A Peasant
God gives us all the things we need, the way God gave Moses everything he needed to accomplish his mission. Our mission may not be as dramatic as leading the Hebrews out of Egypt, but even so we lack nothing thanks to the grace of God. My mission today might be to go to the grocery store—if I trust that God will provide all that I need to accomplish this mission (things like good sense, safety, good and healthy foods to buy) then I just need to offer myself as the means to accomplishing it.
When we go to communicate to others, we can bring this community we have with God out with us. God will be in our mouths just as He was in Moses’ mouth. We may not be called to anything more than saying a kind word or having a pleasant conversation, but those things come from God through us.
The most important part of communication though is not in the speaking, but in the listening. Moses listened to God—the only reason we know his name is because he obeyed God. We need to listen to God too—in the myriad of ways He is trying to speak to us. Only after we have listened can we go out and complete the mission God has called us to. That mission may be no more glamorous than tending the farm like a good peasant, but even that small mission depends on God in exactly the same way that the grand mission of Moses to deliver the Hebrews depended on God.
What Next?
How does God speak to you? What mission has God called you to? We may not know the full purpose of God’s will for us, but we can trust that if God is calling us, it is good to listen.
Thank you again for reading, I look forward to sharing more with you next month!
Ad Jesum Per Mariam