Each time I read the Gospels I force myself to move slowly through the genealogies. Rolling foreign syllables over my tongue, I try to truly see each name.
It is a ritual of respect I feel I owe these ancient strangers, people whose lives might have been entirely forgotten except for a single word preserved on one page of a sacred book.
The practice often leaves me with a lingering melancholy as I register that this is significantly more than time and history will grant to most of us. Human life truly is, as the psalmist says, a mere breath, a passing shadow.
Read he rest of this article by Meghan Larissa Good, teaching pastor at Trinity Mennonite Church in Glendale, Ariz. at this link.