The Hole in the World

There’s a hole in the world tonight.
There’s a cloud of fear and sorrow.

It’s this Eagles’ song that played in my mind the night my husband died. There was a deep hole where he had been, and that hole will be forever unfilled, at least in this life.

He left a young son to grow through his teen years without a father, and, believe me, every boy needs a dad. My youngest son has an empty spot, a hole, where a dad should be, and he will always feel it. I know this because my husband had a hole, too, left by his own father, who died when he was a child. He always longed for something he could not have.

But the hole in the world is bigger than the empty spot left when a son loses his dad, although there’s nothing quite like the death of someone you need and love to reveal the all-encompassing hole—the big hole made up of all the smaller holes and more. Everything is quite wrong and nothing is quite right.

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Thankful Thursday

Busy day with little granddaughter, busy evening at choir practice. Tonight the choir was preparing for an evening gospel music service at end of May. (We are, by the way, singing this arrangement of these songs again.) Nothing uses more concentration and energy than learning and singing gospel music, so I’m beat—but thankful, too. Thankful that I have energy for full days and that I can finish them singing.

The granddaughter I spent the day with is turning two in a few days. When her auntie asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she said, “Money!” I’m thankful for the laughs the grandchildren bring. Currently, there are a few frustrating circumstances and people in my life, and I need the joy of grandchildren.

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Three Features of Typology

I’m posting this, first, because it’s good, and second, because I want to link to it from the theological term page for typology. It’s taken from Stephen J. Wellum’s chapter on The New Covenant Work of Christ in From Heaven He Came and Sought Her: Definite Atonement in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspective. This was originally one longish paragraph which I’ve reformatted as an ordered list.

1. [T]ypology is symbolism rooted in historical-textual realities. As such, it involves an organic relation between “persons, events, and institutions” (i.e., the type) in one epoch of redemptive history and their counterparts in later epochs (i.e., the antitype).

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