Hot Pink

The month of July is the fireweed period of the Yukon wildflower season. In many places throughout the northern hemisphere, fireweed is seen as more nuisance than asset, and there is good reason for that. There is nothing that can compete with fireweed when it comes to taking over things when other plant species have been wiped out, like when there’s a forest fire, for instance. Its common name, then, is a well-earned one, since fireweed spreads after a fire exactly like the chickweed spreads in my garden.

But its mauve beauty makes it too lovely for the weed label, don’t you think? Here in the Yukon, we treasure our fireweed, giving it honor as our official territorial flower. If you were to drive up the Alaska Highway during July—and you are invited—you’d be welcomed by roadsides pink with masses of these tall flowers.

In both the photo above, taken in Kluane National Park, and the woodland one on the left, only the blossoms along the bottom of the fireweed’s stalk are blooming. That’s because the blooms on this flower start at the bottom and move upward toward the top as summer progresses. Yukoners say that when the blossoms reach the top of the fireweed, summer is over, and that’s about right.

I’ve been told that honey made mostly from the nectar of fireweed is especially delicious, but I’ve never tried it, so I can’t vouch for it. Some people pick the very young shoots and leaves of the fireweed to use as salad greens or a cooked vegetable. I haven’t tried that, either. I have tried fireweed tea, which is made from the dried leaves, and found it much too bitter for me. So I’ll skip the harvesting altogether and continue to enjoy this year’s fireweed for  it’s delicate pink beauty.

Previous wildflower posts: 

• Lavender Charm
• Into the Wild Blue
• The Blue Belles
• Stopping on Yellow
• Waving the White Flag

Photos by Andrew Stark. Click for larger views.

Sunday's Hymn

Here’s one of the hymns we sang in church this morning.

Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessèd Trinity!

Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore Thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee,
Who was, and is, and evermore shall be.

Holy, holy, holy! though the darkness hide Thee,
Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see;
Only Thou art holy; there is none beside Thee,
Perfect in power, in love, and purity.

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All Thy works shall praise Thy Name, in earth, and sky, and sea;
Holy, holy, holy; merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessèd Trinity!

—Re­gi­nald He­ber

A video for organ lovers:

Other hymns, worship songs, etc. posted today:

• The Seventh Sunday after Trinity at Magic Statistics
  
• The Lord Has Heard and Answered Prayer at Hiraeth
  
• Lead On, O King Eternal at Seasoning of the Heart
• Revive Thy Work, O Lord at Field Stone Cottage
• Lord’s Day 27, 2008 at The Thirsty Theologian
• Jesus, Lord, We Look to Thee at joythruChrist
• On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand at Tulipgirl
• And Can It Be? at Practicing Theology
• O Source of Life Divine at Conjubilant with Song
• O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing at Whatever Things…
• Buried with Christ at The Happy Wonderer
• Update: Hiding Place, a hymn Lisa wrote at Deo Volente
  

Have you posted a hymn today and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by emailing me at the address in the sidebar and I’ll add your post to the list.

Theological Term of the Week

 

anthropomorphism
Narrowly, the attribution of human form to God. More broadly, a description of God using human categories; language that speaks of God in human terms, ascribing human features and qualities to him. 

• An example of anthropomorphism in the narrower sense from Exodus 7:5:

  The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them. (ESV)

• An example of anthropomorphism in the broader sense from Genesis 9:

  And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.  When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds,  I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”

• From A. B. Caneday in Veiled Glory: God’s Self-Revelation in Human Likeness—A Biblical Theology of God’s Anthropomorphic Self-Disclosure, an essay included in Beyond the Bounds: Open Theism and the Undermining of Biblical Christianity:

  …God’s Word does not simply contain anthropomorphism as one figure of speech alongside metaphor, simile, synecdoche, and others. Rather, God’s word is intrinsically anthropomorphic, for the Bible is God’s speech to humans in human language. God’s speaking to humans is anthropomorphism. Anthropomorphism is a description of God’s revelation; anthropomorphism is not a description of our interpretation of Scripture. The fact that God revealed himself anthropomorphically does not warrant us to subscribe to “anthropomorphic interpretation.” We are not to read the Bible anthropomorphically. Rather, we are to recognize that the Bible is anthropomorphic in character. Therefore, I propose the following definition of anthropomorphism, a definition that emerges from the soil of Scripture: Because God formed Adam from the “dust of the earth” and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, making him in his own image and likeness, God makes himself known to his creatures in their likeness, as if he wears both their form and qualities, when in fact they wear his likeness. (pages 160-161)
  

• From D. A. Carson, in a lecture on Openness of God Theology:
  

  It turns out that almost everything we say about God…is in terms of categories that we’re familiar with. …We don’t have access to “infinite talk”; we have access to human talk. And through human talk we are talking about the infinite, the holy. So much of what scripture says in that regard, about God’s knowing, seeing, acting—whether it’s riding upon the wings of the dawn, or the winds of the storm, or putting a muzzle on the leviathan …—or speaking and the world was formed, is, in some sense, metaphorical language. That is to say, it’s a figure of speech whereby we speak of one thing in terms which are seen to be suggestive of another. And “the other,” here, is us. It’s human speaking….
  
  …We know that the language has to be metaphorical because the Bible keeps stressing that God is other. He is not a human being; he is not a man. He is not created; he is not dependent. He is the God of aseity. He is transcendent. He was there before we were. He speaks and brings all things into existence. He is Spirit. He doesn’t have a body. We are forced to recognize that this is the way we must think about God.
  
  So to come at this question, then, of anthropomorphism….and uphold the view that by refusing to see them as anthropomorphisms we are interpreting Scripture more simply and directly is, I would want to argue, not an appeal to a simpler biblicism, but to a massive and even grotesque reductionism.
  

Learn more:

1. CARM: Anthropomorphism: God Relates to Us in Human Terms
   
2. Theopedia: Anthropomorphism
3. Steve Hays: Neotheism and anthropomorphism (Added June, 2010)

Related term (Added June, 2010):

• anthropopathism

This week’s theological term was suggested by David Kjos of The Thirsty Theologian.

 

Have you come across a theological term that you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.

 

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.