June 2007

Last week, I learned more about the gall bladder than I knew before, just in time to have it removed.  What I knew before: it holds bile, a wretched tasting (how did I know that?) digestive fluid.  Too much bile is/was thought to make a person especially cranky.  I never understood or thought about the connection to “the wormwood and the gall” in scripture (i.e. Jeremiah 9:15) and hymnody (Go to Dark Gethsemane, st. 2).

Now I understand that your liver produces bile.  Most is sent to your small intestine to aid in digestion, but on the way there, some bile takes a side route and collects in the gall bladder.  After you eat a bunch of fatty food, or milk product with high fat content, your liver will produce extra bile, but your gall bladder also squeezes its reserve bile into the small intestine.  Gallstones form from crystallizations in bile that either has too much cholesterol, or not enough bilic acids.  An estimated 20 million Americans have gallstones.

A gall bladder attack can occur from a few reasons.  In my case, a few hours after eating a scrumptious meal that included fried chicken and corn fritters with a wonderful cream sauce, my gall bladder did what it was supposed to and began squeezing its extra bile into the duct leading to my small intestine.  Unfortunately, one of my gall stones decided to hitch a ride, but was too big for the duct, and lodged there for a while causing quite a bit of constant pain just below my rib cage. Anyway, I joined the 500K annual Americans who have their gall bladders removed.  If ye olde medicine is right, I should be a more chipper person from now on, eh?

So, back to the Biblical wormwood (Hebrew: “la’ah’nah,” a poison made from plants) and the gall (usually Hebrew: “rosh,” another poison from plants, perhaps hemlock or poppy).  Both are used figuratively for other bitter or poisonous things or aspects of life.  But how did these plant poisons get associated and translated into “gall”, or bile?  The connection begins in Job 20:15 & 25 where “gall” is translated and used figuratively from the Hebrew “mer’o'raw“, a snake venom, which was thought to come from their bile. 

Then, starting around 300 BC the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek, a translation called the Septuagint, or the Roman numeral LXX.  In Hebrew and Greek these words for different poisons and venoms may have been understood more generically and were interchangeable.  The Hebrew vegetative ”rosh” was often translated into to the Greek “chole“, even though it was a venomous “bile” or “gall”.  (”Cholesterol” literally means “solid bile”… appetizing, eh?) 

Psalm 69 is associated with Jesus’ trial and crucifixion, especially when Jesus was offered “sour wine mixed with gall” in Matthew 27:34, see Psalm 69:21.  (Note that this was offered just before he was crucified–perhaps as a numbing agent; Jesus was then offered “sour wine” a little later, v. 49, shortly before he died.)

Finally, connected to all this I’ve been reflecting on Proverbs 14:10, “The heart knows its own bitterness [rosh], and no stranger shares its joy.”  This verse is nestled among praises and blessing for wise actions and curses for foolishness.  It may just mean, “You can’t really know or appreciate what others are feeling or going through.”  A wise person avoids saying, “I know just how you feel.”  For one–without meaning to be–it’s selfish.  It takes the focus off the person who is sad or happy and turns it back to you and your experiences.  It’s better to say, “Tell me more: what’s it like, what are you going through?” and then just listen without racing ahead trying to think of how you will respond or personally connect.  Ask them, “How or do you feel God is involved in this?”  You don’t have to agree or disagree right away.  Jesus, the Son and Image of God, felt abandoned by God …at least once.  Would you correct his feelings?

There is another side to this: a wise person realizes that other people can’t fully understand or appreciate what you are feeling or going through.  Sure, we know that other people can’t read our minds, but we often act like they ought to.  How many times have people unintentionally hurt our feelings or over-looked us.  “He/she/they should’ve known,” we say.  Maybe, maybe not.  With all the zillions of interactions, miscommunications, misinterpretations, etc. flying around in our lives, to expect others to always know precisely how their words and actions or lack of word and action will personally impact you and others is unreasonable.  It allows a kind of bile or bitter “gall” to build up in your life.

So why do we hold others (or ourselves) to these kind of standards?  For the drama?  I think some people actually draw a sense of worth or at least pre-occupation from the drama of being hurt or offended, along with the gossip, coldness or retaliation that often results.  By being angry at someone else, it gives you a sense of power over them.  Maybe there’s a bit of “projection.”  Some people may be avoiding–or experiencing–their own sense of guilt or worthlessness by seeing it, pointing it out and/or punishing the flaws of others.

All this leads to many tendrils of thoughts, ideas and connections regarding our connections to others in the midst of institutions, cyberspace, and relationships in these shifting paradigms.  But instead, let me finish by just praying for the patience and forgiveness that it takes to allow people to be as flawed, absent-minded, and unaware as I often am.  I ask for God to perform a cholectystectomy on my bilious expectations and attitudes so that I can be more of a person of peace.