in december last year i started using the 1943 american daily office lectionary because i wanted to go through the book of ezekiel again. these days we're reading the book of numbers each morning.reading numbers these days after easter is a very wise choice. after the miracle of deliverance that is the passover ("the horse and rider he has thrown into the sea!") comes not the promised land but the desert, the wilderness. of course the people of god do our usual bitching and moaning. but as the readings this week remind us, the enemy never doubts the reality of what is happening. although the children of israel then just as we now complain about just about everything, doubting their and our salvation, balak and company never seem to doubt for a moment the necessity of stopping us and them.
i am disappointed that the wiser-than-the-writers-of-genesis editors of the lectionary decided to demythologize the story, leaving out balaam's ass. alas. we forget that the holy one loves not just us folks who smugly call ourselves, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, homo sapiens. we would do well to pay attention to what the rest of creation is revealing to us.
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