Reading the Bible 5:  Gen 10 and 11

Today my reading is centred on the Tower of Babel story with lots of descendants before (Noah’s) and after Babel (Shem’s and Terah’s). 

I have never been all that interested in my family history.  Perhaps this is because my parents spoke very little about their family when I was growing up.  We had some contact with grandparents but it was limited as we lived in Western Canada and they were in Ontario.  However, Lorna has an abiding interest in her heritage and is currently immersed in Ancestory.ca.  She is revelling is finding connections and filling in blanks.  More power to her but it still isn’t something which resonates with me.  It was apparently important to the recorders/writers of the bible and of course we are just coming to the end of season of the church year in which we have been reminded of Jesus’ important connection with David.  I guess I am missing something significant but that is true of other parts of my life as well. 

The message from the Babel story seems to be that unity is not a good thing according to God.  So much for, ‘We are one in the Spirit’.  But I think a message here is that we should be cautious about hubris.  The ego does believe that it is the centre of things and can control everything if it just does it right and works really hard – build that tower to the heavens.  I am currently reading The Three Colors of Your Spirituality by Christian Schwarz.  The author proposes a typology that identifies nine different types of Spirituality – I am apparently Sacramental.  To have a mature spirituality you have to embrace your shadow side – the opposite of you Spiritual type – mine is Dogmatic.  The opposite reveals the weakness of your natural Spirituality and can enhance you appreciation of the other types and enable you to be more balanced in your Spirituality.  For me that is a message in Babel.  Our spirituality and approach to God is not one size fits all.  If we try to use only one approach we are going to miss out on a lot of who and what God encompasses.’