Sick and Samson

Have a slight cold, been fighting it all week. I thought it was just my allergies; but, turned out to be a little more. Got me thinking about allergies. I am allergic to perfumes, not all but many. When I am around some my eyes get gooey and swell and I have a hard time breathing. Sometimes it kicks off my bronchitis.

Anyways, staying home was tough too. It was 105 degrees, just hot and miserable. LOL, just got an e-mail. It turns out that they sprayed my office building for bugs, I guess it was an allergy. I am allergic to certain chemicals, it also affected my stomach and made it queasy.

My stomach is my weak part, I lived with cluster headaches, I live with arthritis. I didn't take anything for the headaches. Mostly because back then they didn't have anything that worked. I don't take anything for the arthritis because it was too hard on my stomach. Everybody has a weakness.

For some reason it made me think of Samson of the bible. It is another one of those stories that leaves out something. Samson meets Delilah and falls in love with her after having his intended bride married off to his best man by her father. Delilah is paid silver in order to get her to discover the secret of his great strength. She asks him and he says he will be weak is tied up with fresh bow strings. He wakes up to discover that she has done so and he snaps them off. She asks again and he says he will be weak if tied with new ropes. He wakes up to discover that she has done so and snaps them off. She asks him again and he says he will be weak if his hair is woven, he wakes up to discover she has done so and he unweaves his hair. She asks again and he says the secret to his strength is his hair. While he sleeps she cuts it off and he is captured by the bad guys who poke his eyes out and make him a slave.

Now, here is my question. Why did he tell her? He could not have been so dumb that he didn't understand what she was trying to do. Did he like being tied up and think it was a game? I should point out something, Samson's strength was not because of his hair. That is a myth. Samson had taken a Nazerite oath to God. No alcohol and to not cut his hair. He would have lost his strength if he had wine, his strength was taken for breaking his oath.

The Greek tragedies were all morality tales. In general they would use the stories of people to explain a moral and to explain a flaw, the stories were meant to show the benefits and consequences of being one way or another. I believe God uses people and nations in the same way. Samson's strength was in his keeping his word to God. His weakness was what?

At the end of the story, Samson is tied up and on display in a Philistine temple. His hair had grown back; but, his strength had not returned. He prays to God for the strength to avenge the loss of his eyes. God gave him the strength, he pulls down the pillars and kills all inside and dies with them.

Now I shall give the key to most characters in the bible. They often are real world representations of the times they live in. Consider the prophets. One was made to marry a whore to show what God thought of Israel at the time. In the time of Samson, God was delivering Israel from the Philistines.

Israel was supposed to separate itself from those around them. Instead they took up trading with them and some even married them. Samson's intended wife was a Philistine. The parents married her off to his best man. Delilah is a Hebrew name and therefore we can assume she was Jewish and not Philistine.

His story begins to take on meaning. He (representing Israel) fell in love with other cultures and left the way of God. The family of the others rejected him and killed his family. He returned to his own culture (Delilah) and she sold him out for money. He was then captured by the enemy and enslaved and blinded. In the end he returned to God and killed his enemy. His story was meant to tell the Jews of those days to beware of taking on foreign ways and what?

Delilah means "One who uprooted or weakened or impoverished". Interesting. Samson was the last of the Judges. He was the leader of Israel. Delilah basically sold out her own people, she sold out her own countryman and lover for money. One may ask why she was with him in the first place. He was in charge, she didn't love him, she wanted what he had to offer. Power is an aphrodisiac to many.

Did Samson know that she didn't love him, probably. He didn't trust her and did not tell her the truth about his strength the first three times. It is possible that she asked him before or just after having sex. It does not say that Samson married Delilah, she was a booty call.

"Things fall apart, the center will not hold". Nations are destroyed from within. When your own people start selling out your country for personal gain, everybody loses. One must expect to have others attempt to take over your country, to destroy your self will and determination. They can rarely do that without help from within.

The United States is not being destroyed by illegal aliens, Iraq, Russia or China. We sold ourselves out. We indebted ourselves to China, they did not force us to buy from them. Our politicians sold us out to international banking and globalization. We turned on each other and took loans with no intention of paying them back, we have become a nation of corruption. We no longer keep our promises, we attempt to have others meet them for us.

If you live in a nation where everyone is out for themselves, it is simply a matter of time before you are destroyed. Strength is in sharing, in our relationship with one another as brethren, as being Americans. Our identification with each other as being in the same boat.

I might be a little under the weather; but, I hope some of my readers found this interesting. I did not know what I was going to write, I had asked a couple of people for some ideas. Then, I just started writing. After all the research and writing about the pension stuff I did not want to write anything really heavy, my research side needed a break.

It used to be that everyone who was a scholar knew the bible. It was a common language because of it's stories. They were so well known that they could be used to illustrate a point. One does not have to be Christian or Jewish to enjoy reading the bible. It is still a book and one that has been fairly popular over the years. It is very readable. I highly recommend to everyone to read it at least once all the way through.

When we read any book we should read it with an attempt to understand more than just the story. Every writer has a purpose beyond reciting what occurred. My youngest daughter writes very well, she is very good at saying something in such a way that other people can relate to the emotion she is attempting to bring out in the writer. That is not my strength, I believe I am good at making things accessible, taking terms of art and intricate thoughts and explaining them to non-experts.

This blog is clearly not for everyone. Most people could care less about the things I discuss. Quantum physics, public pensions, the bible and relationships. Having said that, I do try and make these subjects as amusing as I can. I thank my readers for being there. It gives me a reason to keep writing and I like writing. Thank you.