Intro: 00:00

Welcome to the Infinitely Precious podcast produced by Infinitely Precious LLC. Your host is James Henry. Remember, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are.

James: 00:12

Hello, beloved. It's me, James, and I have some thoughts to share this week. Again, didn't receive any particular requests or any questions that anyone might have. Always welcome those at infinitelypreciousllc@gmail.com. So to move ahead and to share some thoughts, many of you know I've been doing some, study, about the revelations of the Aramaic Jesus.

James: 00:44

Since Jesus primarily, probably exclusively spoke in Aramaic, the common tongue of his homeland in the first century. Getting back to the roots of what some of those words might mean, through a number of tools, I'm learning some basic Aramaic for fun and reading some writings by, a variety of authors, one of which, the primary author is Neil Douglas Klotz, The Revelations of the Aramaic Jesus, as well as The Hidden Gospel. Both of those are really good books about the language and what some of those words might have meant in a larger context. We often think of words as being one thing, but they can mean a number of things. Having said all of that, I've been spending some time with the Lord's Prayer.

James: 01:48

And I wanted to invite you today to think about bread. There's that wonderful phrase, give us today our daily bread, or give us this day our daily bread, depending upon which translation you use. And when we think about bread, I have to be honest with you. The very first thing I think about is physical bread. I think about, making a sandwich or, various kinds of bread I might have with a meal, like a dinner roll.

James: 02:23

Those kinds of things come to my mind. And I do think there is in this prayer a sense of the physical needs of our bodies. What we need today, what do we need to consume today to keep our bodies in shape, what, what foods, and can I have access to those foods? Because I need access to those foods if I'm going to survive. We see, right now in the news around the world what it happens when people are living in famine or conditions of famine that are artificially created by war, etcetera, when people are hungry.

James: 03:05

So in the first sense, there is the physical need to be sustained for this day. And so that's one of the reasons we ask, give us this day our daily bread. But I think if we look at the deepest meaning, that, you know, the other possible meanings, the richer meanings of, of bread, we might be thinking about other things as well. After all, in the gospel of John, Jesus said, I am the bread of life. Some people think that that just means, that whole little section means that he is, communion, real presence in communion.

James: 03:44

If that's what you believe, that's a good thing. But I'm not, making any denigrations of that. But I think that, in a way, what does spiritual bread look like for us? How are we being sustained spiritually? And in a world that's filled with all this chaos, and there's a lot of chaos right now, And I think part of, part of it's very much intentional, creating lots and lots of chaos so it might overwhelm you.

James: 04:17

If, we're surrounded by chaos all the time, how can we spiritually sustain ourselves in such a way that we have, we have the strength to persevere, to not give up, to not become overwhelmed and shut down? How do we, spiritually sustain ourselves? Jesus suggested some practices, at least by example. One is that he made time at the beginning of every one of his days that he set aside. We're told in the gospel stories to go off by himself, to to make a space in his life.

James: 04:56

Intriguingly enough, the word holy in Aramaic is really, Kadash. Kadash really means to create a space. It's not about set apart or something as an unusual unusable except as a holy space, but it's about creating a a sort of sacred space. Are you creating sacred spaces in your life? I'm doing my best to create sacred spaces in my life.

James: 05:27

I have a specific place I come and sit every morning when I'm here. I create a space somewhere else if I'm somewhere else, but I have a space that I go to. I do reading. I I listen to meditative music. I do morning chant the beatitudes, you know, to myself and listen to the words as they vibrate in my body, and and I overhear them.

James: 06:04

I regularly do sacred reading. We do that. I do that, and broadcast it on on Thursdays at noon. But, sacred reading, the opportunity to listen for spirit in our lives that we might feed on what we need to hear, sometimes get called out, sometimes, get encouraged, reminded of who we are, of what our life mission is about. Those kinds of things can happen.

James: 06:36

So I encourage you to also see the spiritual component of what it is to ask for daily bread. Now I also see mental or intellectual bread that I need every day. Each day, I read. Now it used to be I tried to consume as much reading as possible in the morning. Would read whole sections, wide swaths of books.

James: 07:07

Sometimes I've been in a class with some friends who would say to me, James, wow, you, I always come to you because you were the one who has done the reading. And that's great. These days, I'm trying to consume more deeply and not as broadly. So I'm looking for quality, not quantity. So for instance, as I mentioned, I'm working my way very slowly through Neil Douglas Klot's book, The Revelation of the Aramaic Jesus.

James: 07:39

I am only on the line in I'm I'm only, like, 39, 40 pages into the book because I'm working line by line, word by word, paragraph by paragraph through what, you know, each of the lines of the lord's prayer means. This, the last ten days, more or less, has been listening to, forgive us our sins, our debts, as we, also do that. So that has been something I've been working through, all the layers of what the words in Aramaic might have meant, and I sit with that for a long time. I also pull out and read, a short section of the hidden gospel, also by Neil Douglas Watts, that talks about the words. I'm on light.

James: 08:31

I'm in a section about light now and images of light and what a first century person, from the Semitic cultures of the what we would call the Middle East would have thought about light. So I do that kind of deep reading. I journal. But all of those things, as I drink deeply from I've I've learned the Aramaic alphabet and the vowels and then growing my vocabulary, that's another intellectual challenge. So there are pieces we can do to challenge ourselves intellectually, to keep ourselves engaged engaged.

James: 09:12

And we look for the food that's gonna really feed the intellect, not that's just gonna spin us in circles. I'm very careful. I try to be very careful. I lost control last week, but, I try to be very careful about how much news I consume, in what quantities, and from what places. Because some news outlets think their job is to stir people up.

James: 09:37

Now they're more entertainment than news, but, I don't find it very entertaining. So I look for news places that I can consume in small snippets what's happening in the world, what what's going on, and can reflect on it because engaging intellectually, I think, is important and, thinking through what's going on around us. Last but not least, and it's not really last, is, you know, bread for the heart. Bread for and it's not really the heart, but for the emotions. How are you taking care of emotions?

James: 10:15

Because part of being overwhelmed by the chaos of this world is to become emotionally exhausted. Add to that the stresses of everyday life, concerns about people you're caring for, who are struggling, and other kinds of pieces of life, and it can be emotionally exhausting. What are you doing to address your emotional needs? You know, are you withdrawing some so that you're not around people all the time? But are you also making time for companionship?

James: 10:50

People who will just be present with you wherever you are, whenever you are, and be okay with you in the midst of your struggle, in the midst of your happiness, in the midst of whatever you've got going through. Have you found a place of companionship? Loneliness is one of the biggest epidemics, at least according to some reports, in our country today. In our world today, people feeling isolated. What are you doing to find companionship, to give you emotional support, to stand with you?

James: 11:24

Do you have friends, family, folks you can rely on, who can be there for you? Jesus was, very much interested in people's emotional well-being and, was concerned, spent time listening to people's struggles. So I think it's worth being mindful of those things. And I I I think that another and a final word I would say about this, beyond the bread is the sense that it's a daily need. All of those areas of our lives, you might not be able to address them all with equal, you know, effort, but you are invited we are invited to address those areas of our lives on a daily basis.

James: 12:15

Attend to your emotional, mental, spiritual, physical needs, regularly, daily, and and look to what you really, really need. One last thought. You can be the daily bread for someone else. You can be the daily bread for someone else, someone who needs emotional support. If you've got the strength and if you're emotionally there, if you've attended to yourself, you can be present for someone else who's in an emotional struggle, spiritual struggle, needs mental, support, intellectual support.

James: 12:58

You can have challenging intellectual conversations with people. Preferably not on social media. Preferably in person or on the phone. Or Zoom or some other way that you're seeing each other and engaging with one another, where you can hear tones and the like. But you can be the daily bread for, someone.

James: 13:22

So ponder today and every day, what are the breads that I need today? Can I turn to and trust spirit to provide those in my life? I'm going to engage, obviously, physically. I'm gonna get out there and do what I need to do. But can Spirit help me find what it is I need today?

James: 13:46

Not what I need for the rest of the year, but what do I need now, today, the immediacy of it? And how can I be that for other people that I know? Those are my thoughts this week about, my Tuesday thoughts this week about bread and about maybe seeing through the words, look for the deepest, meaning in some of the words as we listen to them, in our daily lives. Hope that was helpful for you. Maybe you find some things that you can apply in your everyday life.

James: 14:19

But whether you do or you don't, please always remember you're infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are. Till the next time, I wish you all the very best.