F3 Knoxville

Egypt Coming and Going

The Project

THE SCENE: Wet and still a bit windy, perfect 60s gloom.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

  • Running warm-up – lap around the lot
    • High knees, butt kicks
    • Shuffle
    • Karaoke
  • Tempo squats
  • Moroccan night club
  • Tempo squats, I mean merkins
  • Right arm up/ left arm up

THA-THANG:

I suppose you could think of this as a string of pearls.

  • Mosey to pool wall, 5 wall-pees
  • Mosey to playground, 5-7 pull-ups
  • Mosey to amphitheater, 10 box jumps
  • Up past the police station to badger, sprint up 12-day hill
  • At the top, 30 merkins
  • Mosey to the bottom, 30 merkins
  • Mosey to ORAU loop
    • Quick DORA – 150 squats, 100 heels to heaven, partner runs the loop
  • Mosey to the old peace bell, 30 merkins
  • Mosey to the new peace bell, 35 merkins, 10 box jumps
  • Mosey to the parallel bars
    • 20 inverse rows
    • 20 2-ct flutter kicks
    • Repeat
  • Dash to the pool wall, 5 wall-ups
  • Mosey to playground, 5-7 pull ups
  • Mosey to amphitheater, 2:10 plank
  • Quick back to the flag

MARY:
No time
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

Genesis 47:5-6

Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Your father and your brothers have come to you. The land of Egypt is before you. Settle your father and your brothers in the best of the land. Let them settle in the land of Goshen, and if you know any able men among them, put them in charge of my livestock.”

Genesis 47:27 – Thus Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen. And they gained possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied greatly.

Exodus 1:7-12

But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.

Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel.

When we have a good experience, it’s easy to associate that with a place or person or activity, etc. Then I have a tendency to expect that good experience to be a fixed reality, and I keep coming back to recreate the magic. But this is a trick. This is shown in the early narratives of the Torah. When Joseph finds himself in Egypt, God turns that place into a refuge from death and famine. Through Joseph’s obedience, God leads his chosen family out of the land where they will die, down into a land of blessing, where they can be fruitful and multiply, just as he promised Abraham they would. But time goes on and things change. Under Joseph’s guidance, the famine works to concentrate all the wealth of Egypt with the Pharaoh until all the people of Egypt sell themselves into servitude (see Genesis 47:13-25). It shouldn’t come as a surprise that this concentration of power eventually produces in Egypt rulers who are fearful and jealous. Soon the environment in Egypt is distinctly oppressive for the Israelites, and God, hearing them cry out, leads them out.

But for the remainder of the Torah, there is this recurring theme of the Israelites looking back at how good things used to be in Egypt. We’re thirsty, we always had water to drink in Egypt. We’re hungry, we always had meat in our pots in Egypt. The worst form of nostalgia.

Things change. The place/practice/work/whatever that worked last year or last week might not be what works today. We have to resist the desire to constantly seek novelty, but we must also avoid clinging to the past, dreaming of how things “used to be”. This has been beaten into my awareness by raising kids. No year is ever the same. This three-year-old is not the same as the last three-year-old and the fourth three-year-old is still, somehow, different from all three of her predecessors. The best I can do is to keep my eyes open, pay attention to the real situation, and use my past experiences as a source of ideas, not solutions.

What are you holding on to that you need to let go? What is the Egypt that you need to Exodus?

MOLESKIN:
I thought since Booster gave us a legit heavy beatdown Tuesday, I would circle back and do a proper boot camp. Plus, you should have checked all three boxes of the Kickflip challenge.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Camping tomorrow, hiking Saturday, Rampart next Saturday, Family Q the next Saturday, CSAUP coming up May 6. Also, Equalizer on April 15th.