tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64222992024-03-19T04:46:04.908-04:00The Stokes Kith and Kin Community Blog"Eclectic" hardly describes it.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3905125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6422299.post-88628108228651261362023-05-06T16:33:00.005-04:002023-05-12T09:36:16.205-04:002 Kings 2: 19-25<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br />I am in a Bible Study group that meets on-line each week. Every now and then, I write a follow-up to our discussion. This is one of those follow-ups. We studied <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Kings+2%3A+19-25&version=KJV" target="_blank">2 Kings 2: 19-25</a>.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">This section of scripture describes Elisha’s involvement with two
cities, the first Jericho (verses 19-22) and the second Bethel (verses 23-25).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is Elisha’s involvement with Bethel that
usually holds the attention of most readers of this section.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here are the Bethel verses in the King James
Version:</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjNNjin0NFVlH2ZhwCYTuCA-SvinzvpS4_9WrdxpVxnJ8CEft0rvywyA9N3QTG7wI0DLBEPmRYfQ9n-5BV_XQs7kNSFC0SXuC2uhiVSN3GPqrZ9J4HcdvZF12KkbZbPHzcExZuEtr93cKB77NDg6B6vOiQN4ReL97-zzWutb4bGICZ2F8o" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="282" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjNNjin0NFVlH2ZhwCYTuCA-SvinzvpS4_9WrdxpVxnJ8CEft0rvywyA9N3QTG7wI0DLBEPmRYfQ9n-5BV_XQs7kNSFC0SXuC2uhiVSN3GPqrZ9J4HcdvZF12KkbZbPHzcExZuEtr93cKB77NDg6B6vOiQN4ReL97-zzWutb4bGICZ2F8o" width="169" /></a></span></span></div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: 0.2in;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><sup><span style="line-height: 107%;">24</span></sup><span style="line-height: 107%;">And
he [Elisha] went up from thence [Jericho] unto Bethel: and as he was going up
the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and
said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: 0.2in;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><sup><span style="line-height: 107%;">25</span></sup><span style="line-height: 107%;">And
he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and
two children of them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: 0.2in;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><sup><span style="line-height: 107%;">26</span></sup><span style="line-height: 107%;">And
he went from thence to mount Carmel, and from thence he returned to Samaria.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As a child, I remember hearing this
scripture read in church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seemed
pretty severe then, children cursed by God’s prophet for mocking him and then getting
eaten by she-bears.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems pretty
severe now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over the years, I have heard
people cite this section of scripture as evidence that the God of the OT is not
the God whom we meet in the NT or that this is scripture that can be
disregarded as some sort of fable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
other night, however, we took a closer look at the Bethel verses and the
earlier Jericho verses.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">OT scripture is important to Christians. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3: 14-17
on the subject:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">14</span><span style="font-size: medium;">But as for you [Timothy], continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">15</span><span style="font-size: medium;">how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">16</span><span style="font-size: medium;">All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (NIV)</span></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">The scriptures to which Paul immediately refers are
those in the OT.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Looking at our
scripture in 2 Kings, one might well ask how the account of Elisha’s cursing of
little children with such terrible consequences is particularly useful. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consider first, however, the translation of
the Bethel verses in the KJV.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">It turns out that the Hebrew word that the KJV translates
“children” (<i>na’ar</i>) can also be translated “boy, lad, youth, servant,
attendant”, according to the <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Theological-Wordbook-Testament-Laird-Harris/dp/0802486495/ref=sr_1_1?crid=18M6FSQIQXBAO&keywords=theological+workbook+of+the+old+testament&qid=1683469072&s=books&sprefix=Theological+workboo%2Cstripbooks%2C111&sr=1-1">Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament</a></i>
(“the <i>Wordbook</i>”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, the
<i>New American Standard Version</i> translates verse 23 of 2 Kings 2 in part:
“[A]s he was going up by the way, young lads came out from the city . . . “ <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe the KJV’s reference to those who go
after Elisha as “little children” is not accurate.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Consider further: The two she-bears mauled (NIV) or
tore up (NASB) “forty-two of the boys” (ESV).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If the two she-bears could get to 42 of the gang, how much larger must
the entire group have been?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">But what about the KJV describing the gang as “little”
children or the NASB referring to “<u>young</u> lads”?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although the Hebrew word for little (<i>qatan</i>
or <i>qaton</i>) can mean “little in years”, it can also refer to “insignificant”
or “small” in the small-minded sense or “low in rank.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">The <i>Wordbook</i>, in its citation to <i>qatan</i>,
includes this comment:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Elisha [is] being taunted . . . by young lads (perhaps teenage ruffians) (II Kings 2:23) who as members of covenant families ought to have been taught God’s law whereby cursing his servant was tantamount to cursing him and rightly punishable by death.</span></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Instead of thinking “little children”, think of a mob
of teenagers in excess of 42 who might well have been threatening the life of
the Lord’s prophet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It puts a little
different slant on the matter.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">We also need to examine the historical context of the
Bethel verses as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What was happening
in that city during Elisha’s time?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You
may recall that “Bethel” is translated “House of the Lord”, as Jacob named that
place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, by Elisha’s time it was
part of the apostate Northern Kingdom, and the worship of the Lord there may
have been profoundly compromised by a syncretic worship of the golden calf,
despite the presence of the “sons of prophets” to whom vs. 15 of 2 King 2 refers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">The Bethel verses refer to God’s judgment, obviously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I mentioned, this is the God that many
picture when they consider the OT.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
we need to view the matter of divine judgment in the Bethel verses in light of
the verses about Elisha in Jericho (vss. 10-22) that immediately precede the
Bethel verses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the Jericho verses, we
find not the ruined city that God through Joshua and the children of Israel
destroyed several hundred years earlier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Instead, we find a new city, recently rebuilt by King Ahab’s architect
and developer, Heil the Bethelite (1 Kings 16:34). <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">As you may recall, old Jericho – or its ruins – had
been under the Lord’s special curse since the walls came tumbling down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Joshua delivered that curse as described in
Joshua 6:26.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Lord said that the city
was not to be rebuilt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Heil, as the
builder of the new city, suffered the particular consequences of his dismissal
of that curse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But now there now was a
new city, a city that was “well situated” (NIV), according to what the men of
that city said to Elisha.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even so, the
curse remained because, as those men also said, “the water is bad.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It made the land “unfruitful”, that is, the
water carried “death and miscarriage”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">This sounds like more judgment from the OT God.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Except the Jericho verses are not about judgment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are about restoration and redemption.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We read that Elisha, while in Jericho, went
to the spring from which the bad water flowed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Through him, the Lord “healed” the water and “healed it to this day,
according to the word that Elisha spoke.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We have not dead water but living water newly here in the OT, showing a God
who will bless and forgive and heal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Furthermore, his blessing will not be on the basis of any merit on the
part of the land or the people, but because of God’s mercy and grace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If one wishes to speak about God and his
judgment, one must also speak about his redeeming love for us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Thus, Jesus said to the woman at Jacob’s well in
Samaria:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Everyone who drinks of this [well]
water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give
him will never be thirsty again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to
eternal life. [John 4: 13 – 14]<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: 8.0pt; mso-margin-top-alt: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">The Lord of the OT is the same as the Lord of the NT: the
same Lord yesterday, today, and forever, “slow to anger and abounding in mercy”
(Psalm 103:8).</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6422299.post-18034442002629969732022-11-20T09:20:00.003-05:002022-11-20T09:26:19.373-05:00Frustrating Amazon and Buying Books<p>Years ago, I discovered Abebooks.com, a site that aggregates the inventories of used book sellers (hereinafter "Abe"). When I would discover an interesting book title, I would first go to Amazon and read the reviews. If that step further interested me, then I would go to Abe and compare the title's availability and price. Often I would buy the book on Abe, if a used one would suit. I got a better deal in terms of price, of course. But, in the process, I nicked the monolithic surface of Amazon, a tiny nick, of course, but a nick.</p><p>Several years ago, however, someone told me that Amazon acquired Amazon in 2008. (So much for our antitrust laws.) My nick, then, was reduced to whatever profit Amazon made on Abe's aggregation service because I settled for a used edition and not a new one. (Of course, Amazon now prominently offers used prices on its website.)</p><p>When Abe lists a used book for sale, however, it shows not only the availability and price of the title, but also the vendor among the used book sellers whom Abe aggregates. One may, then, go directly to the source and nick the Goliath with respect to the tiny price-profit that I would otherwise deliver by using Abe.</p><p>Yet the problem with Amazon is not only its price power over the book market, new and used, but also its exercise of that power in an attempt to "cancel" a title. That is, if the title is "controversial" in a way that Amazon dislikes, then it will not carry the title. Amazon will censor the book.</p><p>An example of that practice is the title <i>When Harry Became Sally, Responding to the Transgender Movement </i>(Ryan T. Anderson, 2018). Recently, I have become particularly interested in the Transgender movement, and decided to read that book. </p><p>I first looked on Amazon, and was not surprised that it still does not carry the title, new or used..</p><p>Then, I looked at Abe. It did not appear there either. The cancellation of the title appears to have extended to Amazon's control over Abe's aggregation part of the used book world.</p><p>However, by the time I started looking for a used copy of the forbidden title, thanks to Abe I had a list of favorite used book vendors who have an independent on-line presence. I went to one of them. <i>Voila! </i>There was the book, and I ordered it. </p><p><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Nick!!</span> </p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6422299.post-14186827271942312442022-11-16T18:55:00.008-05:002022-11-16T19:09:02.425-05:00The Briefcase<p> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">When I was a young associate at S&T in the 1970s, the
firm had a single office location, like most other law offices in Miami at the
time. We were in the Dupont Building on the corner of Flagler Street and NE 2d
Avenue.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">We then numbered about 22
lawyers.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The firm had several briefcases
that the lawyers could use, first come, first served, for us to carry lawbooks,
exhibits, notes and other papers west down Flagler Street to the Dade County
Courthouse for a hearing or a trial.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">This was well before the days of things on wheels with pull-up/put-down
handles.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">These were manly, black, box-like
cases, made of tough thick leather, sewn together with thick thread.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> They</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> had a thick, comfortable, leather handle
on the top side and gold fasteners that snapped open and shut with authority. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">On top of each case, the vendor had stamped in
gold leaf </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">“Smathers & Thompson” (on
the first line) and “Miami, Florida” (on the second).</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The cases were very expensive to buy.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> But t</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">hey were generous in size and very useful.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD8Ylk9sQhjZF_DvXwRnZbc5Aiub0r5gCv5i1TWMW2NFwi5JzQdJhjFm3DnhHu_L-Hnx-apVHu1HgYRF8W70oZwKYTyUFbfSgbtkZpmUlCQOvqPnb7BzKQ1VFT4v5031cqXFoC4rLMoEUi2TApDUAWVzjgxkHBFLiFuwiN8WR4xwqTuOA/s400/Korchmar-Black-LEATHER-VINTAGE-19-Attache-Briefcase-Lawyer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="356" data-original-width="400" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD8Ylk9sQhjZF_DvXwRnZbc5Aiub0r5gCv5i1TWMW2NFwi5JzQdJhjFm3DnhHu_L-Hnx-apVHu1HgYRF8W70oZwKYTyUFbfSgbtkZpmUlCQOvqPnb7BzKQ1VFT4v5031cqXFoC4rLMoEUi2TApDUAWVzjgxkHBFLiFuwiN8WR4xwqTuOA/w334-h285/Korchmar-Black-LEATHER-VINTAGE-19-Attache-Briefcase-Lawyer.jpg" width="334" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;"><span>The lawyer carried such a brief case, maybe two of them,
one in each hand, like a knight with his shield and spear, through crowds of
civilians on the sidewalk, as he walked the quarter mile west to the courthouse.
The suit and tie indicated to all of Miami that you were a lawyer. But those brief cases shouted, "Litigator on
the way to court!” - a well-prepared trial lawyer. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;"><span>The firm had a closet where those cases were
supposed to live. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was too expensive
to buy one for each lawyer, I was instructed, and the firm certainly would not for a green associate. But the
closet was always empty when I was getting ready to go to court. The fact was, there were never enough of those brief cases to
meet the demand. Lawyers who managed to locate a firm brief case and went to
court would walk back down to the Dupont Building after the event, making it
safely back to friendly territory, totally fixed on sharing the court’s ruling with
the people in the firm who wanted to know, and calling the client with the
result. As to the brief case or cases those lawyers would usually throw them into a corner of their
office and often did not unpack them until days later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meanwhile, I am looking for one of those
cases, anxious about my upcoming event, trying to keep my presentation in my
head, seeking a case for the pile on my desk of materials, specially selected materials,
that I intended to take to court,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there would be no brief case in the closet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;"><span>So, I would start down the hallway, looking for one,
keeping an eye on the clock and beginning to seethe and often to sweat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would stick my head in an office and ask
the lawyer if he had a brief case, if the lawyer was at his post.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If not, I would make a quick search of that
office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I found a case, I would
unload it and take the thing back to my office, letting that lawyer’s
secretary know what I had taken and telling her I would bring it
back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That was the routine for all the lawyers there, and the secretary would
not bat an eyelash.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 107%;"><span>I finally got tired of all that. I also got tired of asking the officer manager to buy
more of the cases. I found out where she bought them, and bought one for myself, as expensive as
those things were and as frugal as we were at home. It got around the
office that I had my own briefcase – it was news, really. And I was hardly going to keep it in the
empty closet no one used. So, other lawyers
would come in and borrow mine. Fair
enough. No problem. (Unless I had a hearing scheduled that day.) One afternoon the officer
manager came into my office to borrow my new case.
She started to pick it up, but stopped in mid-motion. “This has your name on it! Not the firm’s!” You better believe it, I said. And I let her take it, of course.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6422299.post-89424143997049361282022-08-08T12:33:00.007-04:002022-08-08T14:05:18.890-04:00Becoming an Anglican in Austin<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 19.9733px;"><br />A few months after we moved permanently to Austin, we joined an Anglican church in the south part of the city. Both of our sons and their respective families were already part of the congregation there </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">(including among those families five of our seven grandchildren)</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">, and of course this made the church very attractive to us.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 19.9733px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What do “Anglicans” believe? Are they "reformed" in their theology? A clue to the answer to that question is the liturgy in which our South Austin congregation participates. As I listened to the liturgy each Sunday, taken from the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England, itself based on Scripture, I found it sufficiently consistent with what I understand to be true Christianity to be willing on a faith level to join that church.</span></span></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 19.9733px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It certainly helped that, in the adult Sunday School Class at FPC Miami Springs, we had read works by John Stott and N.T. Wright, both priests in the Church of England, as we explored the Scriptures. Furthermore, at FPCMS we had participated in several “Alpha” programs, an evangelistic program founded in London during the 1970s by a priest of the Church of England.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 19.9733px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Since joining our Anglican church, I have been exploring the history of what is known as “The English Reformation.” Among the books about that subject is a classic entitled <i>The English Reformation</i> by A. G. Dickens. It is not a religious book; it is a history by an acclaimed British historian.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 19.9733px;">I participate in an on-line Sunday School Class. For the last several weeks, we have been discussing the doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone in our study of Galatians. Getting the matter of works vs. faith straight has been challenging. Dickens writes about that doctrine, a doctrine that he asserts came to the Church of England in the early 16th Century from Martin Luther via Thomas Cranmer. Dickens writes that </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">the doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">is “the keystone” of what Luther believed. I find helpful Dickens's description of it, and I hope you will too:</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 19.9733px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">“The antithesis between God and man presented by Luther, and indeed by the Apostle [Paul] himself, is stark in the extreme. On the one hand stands the Deity in his unutterable majesty and justice; on the other languishes man in his corrupt self-centredness; his wretched nature being curved inward upon itself; he remains unable even to approach the divine standards by his own pitiful observances and good works. But if God’s righteousness is terrifying, his loving purpose toward man is boundless. In the Son he has furnished man with the sole means of transcending this awful inadequacy. God will justify men – put them in a right relationship with himself – only if they abandon all reliance upon personal merit and place their whole trust in the merits of Christ. Truly, good works are an inevitable outcome of this faith, yet in themselves they contribute nothing to justification and salvation; they can form a dangerous stumbling-block to misguided men, who take pride in them as a title to redemption. To this sequence of thought St. Paul repeatedly returns, and Luther took it as the very heart of early Christian theology.”</span></span></p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 19.9733px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I would quibble with Dickens, however, about the idea that the doctrine is “the very heart of <i>early</i> Christian theology.” It has been the true heart of Christian theology continuously from the beginning, remains so at this moment, and will continue to be so in the future.</span></span><div class="yj6qo"></div><div class="adL"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /></div><p> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6422299.post-13223662642119503672022-07-21T18:42:00.006-04:002022-08-09T08:25:18.600-04:00Micael Punke's "Ridgeline" and Greenberry Jefferson Stokes<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 107%;">For Father's Day last month, Mary gave me </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; line-height: 107%;">a bag of coffee beans and </span>a couple of books. One of the
books is an historical novel by Michael Punke entitled <i>Ridgeline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>The book tells the story of “the Fetterman
Massacre,”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a massacre of 60 or so Federal troops and a couple of civilians that took place during 1866 in a Wyoming valley.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The event took place a few miles from a newly built fort.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wittingly or unwittingly, the US Army built
the fort on some traditional hunting grounds of the Sioux, pursuant to a treaty into
which certain Sioux entered, Sioux who lived nowhere near there and who had no authority whatever over the tribes who did.</span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwXrluwsEp7WUV09FME1Fif9ncO-OA44h_7_91p87h41sAPW2Nyuv3FEatkBMLiZ07rynF_n1trdQItuM85pcrGb28T-ScwS41G0jGciv8iqinLk2Vn2fp3d6oSy7swmpGRgve6lkdcgpbI0UiAkij-1oayyfHXmzLf7Loa_wpMxfEmJ4/s500/51ibXQx2T5S.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwXrluwsEp7WUV09FME1Fif9ncO-OA44h_7_91p87h41sAPW2Nyuv3FEatkBMLiZ07rynF_n1trdQItuM85pcrGb28T-ScwS41G0jGciv8iqinLk2Vn2fp3d6oSy7swmpGRgve6lkdcgpbI0UiAkij-1oayyfHXmzLf7Loa_wpMxfEmJ4/w200-h200/51ibXQx2T5S.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 107%;">The fort is known as Ft. Phil Kearny.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were about 400 officers and men stationed there, as well as a number of civilians, including wives and
children of some of the men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of the senior
officers and many of the other troops stationed at the fort were holdovers from the
Civil War. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of those holdovers
included individuals who had fought for the Confederacy. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the
following passage from the book, the author introduces the Confederates while describing a
conversation about food around a campfire among some of the enlisted men:</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.5in 8pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 107%;">A new speaker joined the conversation, and his accent .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>. told
a story – <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a Georgia drawl as thick as
tar. .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Barely two years earlier, the Georgian had stood on the opposite side of
the battle lines from some of the men at this very campfire. There were plenty
of former rebels in the Second Battalion – “galvanized Yankees,” they called
them, Confederate prisoners of war given early release if they agreed to
renounce the rebellion and enlist in the frontier army.</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 107%;">In the early 1950’s, my father visited his widowed
mother (Hettie Louise Johnson Stokes) in Atlanta to help her "break up housekeeping" as people called it and move to Miami Springs. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(In Miami
Springs she would live with my dad's sister, Frances Stokes Harris, her husband, Harold, and their two children, Ken and Tim. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Harris family had earlier moved from Greensboro,
North Carolina, to a house not far from ours.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 107%;">My father told me that, as he was going through some
old paperwork in my grandmother's home, he came across a pension certificate issued to his grandfather
by the US Army, a grandfather that, at least as he understood it, had fought honorably for the South. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He asked my grandmother about that
matter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> A little embarrassed, </span>she said the grandfather had, indeed, fought
on the Confederate side, but in one battle he had been captured.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His captors offered him a proposition: he
could spend the rest of the war in a military prison or he could join the Union
Army and go out west to “guard the Indians.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He would not be required to fight against the Confederacy, they told him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> He accepted that proposition, served out West, and again conducted himself honorably. U</span>pon his discharge, the federal government awarded him a pension.</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 107%;">Of course, when I read the above passage from <i>Ridgeline</i>, I thought about the matter of my father’s grandfather
fighting for both the Yankees and the Rebs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But I could not recall which grandfather that would be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On my Grandmother Stokes’ side, there were
the Johnsons:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All I recall about my dad's maternal
grandfather was that my dad referred to him as “Pappy” and that he was from Dade County, Georgia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But on the other side, on my father’s
paternal side, there was Greenberry Jefferson Stokes.</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 107%;">My family knows a little about
this ancestor with the unusual name. Mainly we know that as a
soldier, he was part of Confederate General John B. Gordan’s “Raccoon Roughs,” a
volunteer company raised in Alabama.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
not only have a photo of him but also a photo taken at an1889 reunion of his
Rebel Company.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 107%;">I am not at all proficient with genealogies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> But via the internet, </span>I found my way to a
National Park Service website that has, among other things, a directory of
soldiers who fought in the Civil War for whom records are preserved in one of
the national archives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One enters a name
and the website will give a limited amount of information.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, if there are records for the
“Union” army it will show you the number of those records in the archive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If there are army records for the
“Confederacy,” it will show the number of those records. </span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-soldiers.htm#sort=score+desc&q=Stokes,+Greenberry" target="_blank">For Greenberry Jefferson Stokes</a>, there are 1,196
Confederacy records.</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 107%;">For Greenberry Jefferson Stokes, there are 925 Union records.</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 107%;">My son, Walter, who has done some genealogical work, confirms that it was Greenberry's pension certificate that my father discussed with my grandmother. (Or maybe Walter remembers this story from my father better than I do.)<br /></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 107%;">But I would like to know at which Yankee fort in the
West he was stationed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is possible it
was at Ft. Phil Kearny.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if he had been stationed there, then at the time of the massacre of a number of the forts troops, he must have been back at the fort.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 107%;">He was back at the fort:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where any self-respecting Stokes would be, if he could be there honorably,
when the environs are full of unhappy Sioux and their allies, the Cheyenne.</span></p>
<p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6422299.post-84359480989218509272021-11-23T14:30:00.009-05:002021-11-23T16:09:47.749-05:00Eggnog, Mark Twain, and Southern Baptist Women<p> I'm looking at eggnog recipes in a cookbook that was a wedding present to Carol and me 51-plus years ago, <i>Joy of Cooking </i>by Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker There is first a recipe for a punch-glass full of the stuff on page 48 of our 1964 edition (the first edition was in 1931), and then for "Eggnog in Quantity" on page 50.</p><p>There are two versions of the "Eggnog in Quantity" recipe, the first, a "rich and extravagant version that is correspondingly good," and the second, "less powerful, less fluffy than the preceding nog, and a boon to a creamless householder." (It seems odd to think of a "creamless householder." In the case of the second version, condensed milk is substituted. But the first seven editions of this book covered the Depression and WW II years.)</p><p>The first version of "Eggnog in Quantity," among other ingredients, calls for "2 cups of dark rum, brandy, bourbon or rye." But the writer says this:</p><p><i>Some people like to add a little more spirit to the . . . recipes, remembering Mark Twain's observation that "too much of anything is bad, but too much whiskey is just enough."</i></p><p>Which reminds me of my grandmother, Hettie Louise Johnson Stokes. She loved my mother's eggnog and each Christmas remarked on how good it was. A Southern Baptist born in Dade County, GA, in 1884, Grandmother Stokes never realized that Mom's secret ingredient was dark rum. (Mom was also a Southern Baptist but from Fulton County, GA. Nita never told Hettie about the rum. Nor did anyone else.) </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6422299.post-35095517843796464822021-09-23T09:30:00.004-04:002021-09-23T09:57:21.404-04:00Hands On, Even Slightly<p> During 2019, we were able to buy our Austin home at a good price, in part because it was not in tip-top shape. So, along with the house, we acquired a list of things that we needed to do to restore it, among them was to fix the sprinkler system. We moved in at the end of March 2020 just before the pandemic closed in . </p><p>By about 15 months after our move, we had checked off enough items on the renovation list to reach the broken sprinkler system. We located a local expert in residential sprinkler systems, and they did a good job in getting the system going again. </p><p>Unlike the situation in Miami Springs, where the water table is high enough for a lawn sprinkler system to easily reach the water table, here in Austin the water table is very deep in the ground, No home in our development, as far as I know, has its own well. So, we must use, as other people do hereabouts for their lawn sprinklers and swimming pools (we don't have a swimming pool), "city water," as folks from Miami Springs call it.</p><p>Our sprinkler-system contractor tested the water pressure from the city water utility in the course of his work. He found the pressure was low, and well below what it should have been, sprinkler system or no sprinkler system. We contacted a plumber, as suggested by our contractor, to address the pressure matter. (That's the way it is with an older home, right? One repair leads to another. But we knew that.)</p><p>The plumber came and examined the arrangement of pipes and gauges that connect our house to the water utility. That arrangement is mostly accessible via a small man-hole in our side yard, but not completely and required some excavation. After several hours of hard work, our plumber replaced the entire pipe and pressure regulation system, from the point where the city's pipe ends to the point where our pipe begins., I found the plumber's renovation work to be a thing of beauty, before he covered it all up.</p><p>Having the water pressure restored to normal limits had several consequences beyond a now robust sprinkler system. In one of our bath rooms, the one nearest the water pipe that comes into the house, a noisy problem arose. We found that after we push down the handle to flush the toilet and after its apparatus inside the tank completes the water-refilling cycle, an enormous sound filled that part of the house. It was a huge groaning sound and it seemed to be coming from the wall behind the tank. I concluded that the increased water pressure had something to do with this. Google told us we needed to call the plumber again. And we finally did. They came this week.</p><p>I had visions of our having to tear out the wall to get to the offending pipes, pipes now breaking down from the increased water pressure. They seemed to groan, "What have you done to us?!!"</p><p>The plumber came again, this time with a helper, to look at our situation. The plumber lifts the porcelain lid from the top of the tank, just after I push down the handle to flush, and then he waits till the tank fills up. There is no groaning until the very, very end of the filling process, and the groaning, the awful groaning, begins. </p><p>The plumber takes his index finger and gives the slightest push to the metal rod that connects the ball to the valve, he pushes it up right at the end of the rod where it connects to the valve apparatus. The sound disappears. </p><p>What?! That's it?!</p><p>I'm pretty embarrassed. I've fixed toilet apparatus for years, only now and then having to call the plumber for help. </p><p>So, we discuss the question of replacing the apparatus or getting a new, more water efficient toilet. (We'll probably buy a new toilet.) And I know what the plumber and his helper are thinking as they walk back to their trust: What an idiot. The guy must be a retired lawyer or something.</p><p>No, guys, I'm really hands-on. I just got it in my mind that there was something wrong with the pipes. Else I would have fooled with the tank apparatus. </p><p>After they leave, I fool with the tank apparatus. I adjust a few screws; I spray the valve hinge with some silicon lubricant. I bend the metal rod so that the ball, as it floats up on the filling tank, will give that valve just a little more pressure: Slight pressure is all. Like from a plumber's index finger.</p><p>No more groaning. Except my own.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6422299.post-71870492665112157732021-05-06T10:48:00.008-04:002021-05-06T11:09:48.494-04:00Feeding the Five Thousand, Walking on Water<p> My Sunday School Class (now on-line) last Sunday morning considered verses 1 through 21 of chapter 6 of the Gospel of John. We covered the Feeding of the Five Thousand (verses 1 through 15) and then, in verses 16 through 21, where Jesus Walks on Water. (The ESV editors provided those headings.) How do these two events, one after another, relate to each another? Was it simply a matter of temporal history? Or is it God trying to tell us something more, and, if so, what? </p><p>The commentators have been asking these sorts of questions for 2000 years and writing down their answers. Here is my go at them in a few words. I'm sure I have nothing new to say.</p><p>People have tried to explain away the Feeding of the Five Thousand in naturalistic terms. For example, when the disciples poll the crowd about the matter of food, only the little boy, in his innocence, discloses what he has - and then offers it. Other people had brought lunch as well, maybe in abundance, and the child's example led them to disclose and share. Still others had the resources beforehand to canvass the nearby towns for provisions, anticipating the problem that Jesus described. No miracle here. Move along. </p><p>Or maybe there was not such a crowd. Maybe it was much smaller. Whatever.</p><p>Then there is "Jesus Walks on Water." I think that's there because of God's grace for those readers who still didn't get it, after reading about the Feeding. In the Walk, we have Jesus' control over the elements, over physics, if you will, and over time itself. Is the Feeding not miracle enough for you? Then the God incarnate, the God of infinite mercy, offers this.</p><p>As to meaning, there are layers and layers more to do with both the Feeding (the first "Lord's Supper" or Eucharist for example), and the Walk. One sees more just in the balance of the chapter and elsewhere in Scripture. More of that later.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6422299.post-77796664579854310682020-09-28T19:28:00.008-04:002020-09-29T10:46:38.917-04:00Heart for Lebanon<p>In September, Mindy Belz wrote in World Magazine, under the title <a href="https://world.wng.org/2020/08/an_explosive_reckoning_for_beirut" target="_blank"><i>An explosive reckoning for Beirut: A record blast leaves opportunities and new fears for a devastated Christian community</i></a>, of the disaster in Beirut that occurred in early August. At the end of the on-line version of her excellent article, Ms. Belz identifies several charities as "Groups that are Helping." Among those named is Heart for Lebanon. Its US headquarters are in Black Mountain, NC, a familiar place for the Stokes kith and kin. </p><p>Carol and I were moved by what Ms. Belz wrote, and we arranged for a small monthly gift to be sent to Heart for Lebanon. Today, we received an acknowledgement from HFL and a six-page brochure about its ministry. Based on that brochure and what Ms. Belz writes about the charity's work in Beirut, I think we made a good choice. </p><p>The brochure, entitled <i>Leading People from Despair to Hope</i>, describes HFL's "targeted ministries," ministries meant to lead people along that path. The ministries are not only for the people immediately affected by the Beirut blast but also for the upwards of 2 million Syrians now living in Lebanon as war refugees. (Our gift seems little more than a drop in the bucket of the great financial need, but we know better than to dismiss small gifts in God's plan.) </p><p>The brochure describes six stops along the way from Despair to the Hope for which HFL has fashioned its ministries. The initial stop is "the going," that is, a team of Christians showing up in the midst of such Despair, then (2) Access Ministries, then (3) Relational Engagement, then (4) Spiritual Formation, then (5) Community Leadership, and, finally, to (6) Hope. </p><p>I thought the following statement in the brochure's section discussing the Access Ministries (where the team distributes material assistance) to be particularly interesting: </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: courier;">In the Muslim culture, it is unheard of to help someone unconditionally. If a favor was received, then another favor was expected to be given in return. This leads people to ask the Heart for Lebanon Team, 'Why are you helping us? You know I have nothing to give you in return.' It's at this pivotal moment in all of our Family Care visits where we have the great honor of introducing Jesus Christ into the conversation. During these visits Heart for Lebanon Team members begin to share about the person of Jesus Christ. What starts out as simple conversation often turns into a life transformed by hope.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;">Our country's government has spent blood and treasure massively to bring peace and stability to the Middle East. But a culture that looks upon any "gift" as the opening for a political or economic transaction may regard the provider as merely another powerful invader looking for dominance and opportunities for exploitation. Perhaps communicating to that culture at a micro-level the reality of grace, of unconditional love, will lead to a greater understanding and acceptance of the unique Hope of the Gospel and the peace that it promises.<br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6422299.post-45090196329027990682018-12-01T12:24:00.002-05:002018-12-01T12:36:15.897-05:00Investing Rationally<div style="font-family: serif; left: 512.232px; top: 822.324px; transform: scaleX(1.00361);">
<span style="font-size: small;">"All the money we have—the money in our wallets and purses, in our checking accounts, the
money that fuels the stock market—all money—is like Confederate money in 1863; it is still<span style="font-family: inherit;"> negotiable, but it is the currency of a doomed sovereignty. If we continue to invest in the doomed sovereignty, woe are we. But money still has a little shelf life, still has a little time left; so invest it, but this time invest it in God’s future, the world that, even now, is emerging by the grace and power of God."
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<span style="font-size: small;">Our pastor, Sam Miranda, in his own sermon last Sunday, quoted this statement by Thomas G. Long of the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta. The quote appears in several other places, according to a Google Search, but may have first appeared in a sermon Long delivered in 2006 entitled <a href="http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~tim/study/MakingFriends">"Making Friends."</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">The quote brought several things to mind when I heard it last Sunday. The reference to Confederate money made me think of a story that came down from my father's family. He was born and raised near Atlanta. Generations before his included those who lived during the Civil War. Among those generations, the story goes, was a grandmother who owned a lot of farmland, most of which she sold to reinvest in Confederate War bonds. The result of that mistake was, if not to impoverish the generations that followed, to make things much more difficult. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The other thing it brought to mind was the principle to which that Long refers. To put one's wealth into God's Kingdom is a far better place than an investment that carries a high risk of declining in value. I am on the board of a private foundation where we are charged not only with keeping the principal of the enormous fund reasonably intact, but also of making annual contributions to charities actively involved in God's work. One of the other two board members holds that we should make relatively conservative annual distributions and preserve the funds for distribution when the person who established the foundation passes away, as that person directs. To my mind, there are needs right now to be addressed, needs that if not addressed now will be much more costly to remedy when the time for ultimate distribution occurs, assuming that there will still be an opportunity. So, there is quite a bit of tension on our board about this matter, tension that I believe is a positive and appropriate one for a board like ours.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6422299.post-36664017780284262642018-10-15T08:10:00.000-04:002018-10-22T08:21:53.307-04:00Raquel Roque Comes to Miami SpringsSaturday, I attended a talk by <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/international/trade-shows/article/69579-a-miami-bookseller-reconnects-with-her-cuban-roots.html">Raquel Roque</a> at the Miami Springs branch of the Miami Public Library. <br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sKtVGR73ACs/W8R_V3GPcvI/AAAAAAAACjw/WJml39rWm-4pL_yjC0cCMe8zM0vVtWFfwCLcBGAs/s1600/Nitza.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1312" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sKtVGR73ACs/W8R_V3GPcvI/AAAAAAAACjw/WJml39rWm-4pL_yjC0cCMe8zM0vVtWFfwCLcBGAs/s320/Nitza.jpg" width="249" /></a>Raquel's "Downtown Book Center" was a favorite place of mine during the decades that I officed in Downtown Miami. What a sad day it was for me (and no doubt many others) when she closed the retail part of that business, mortally wounded as retail bookselling was by Amazon and a fickle public. (The main part of her business was international wholesale book distribution, which apparently thrives to this day.). The link says that she closed the store in 2011. So, I was five more years in Downtown after it closed, bereft of that place of escape from the stress of the practice. (There was also a "Downtown Camera," another place for my therapeutic afternoon walks, and La Epoca, a department store that, like Raquel's business, had phoenix-like arisen in Miami from Havana, brought over by the generation ahead of us in the 60's and continued by the children. (Now all of those places are gone.)<br />
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The talk Raquel shared (and the food that she brought) was about Cuban cuisine, and its debt to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitza_Villapol">Nitza Villapol</a>. It proved to be a controversial subject with some of the 15 or so people in attendance. (All but two of whom appeared to be Cuban-exile children, now in their middle age, and a couple of grown-up grandchildren of those who came here in the 1960s.) Nitza had a TV show in Havana, and she hung in there through the revolution, teaching viewers how to modify traditional dishes to take into account the food shortages and rationing. I learned, among other things, that a canned meat similar to Spam became a staple, and may have achieved a sort of comfort food position among the people who stayed behind. (There was no canned meat in the delicacies Raquel brought with her. They were delicious.)<br />
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There was a sort of triumphalist tone among those in the audience who were 60's exiles, something like "Our families escaped the Revolution, made it here to Miami, we succeeded to the extent that we now run Miami-Dade [a point that even Raquel made in an inoffensive way]; those left behind, well, are suspect at best, including but not limited to Nitza." (The Atlantic magazine surely didn't help this view of the lady, when it published in article in 2016 entitled <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/08/cuba-castro-villapol-julia-child/494342/">"The Revolutionary Chef of Havana."</a>) <br />
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So, the matter of the Revolution remains a very sore point, and it didn't take Raquel's visit to Miami Springs to make me aware of it. The Revolution is a deep, deep injury, without doubt, a healing one in some respects, but an ongoing one. Of course, I have seen that injury up close for the decades since then, and I understand it. I just didn't expect to see it going to a talk about recipes. In one respect, it was an encouraging thing to see, because people are remembering tyranny, remembering it at a time when our culture appears in some ways and as a matter of policy intent on forgetting what happened in the past. For all is new, we are being taught, the past is not relevant, and history is over. The exile community, at least those attending Raquel's event, don't buy that. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6422299.post-34117322335756287732018-10-01T09:29:00.000-04:002018-10-01T09:29:25.067-04:00Why I'm Not Slimming Down<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In order to get to the coffee in our office, which is in our kitchen, one must walk through the lunch room. The lunch room has a table and chairs where people who are lunching-in are supposed to sit.<br />
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But the real function of that table is for employees to dump edible things from their home kitchens and other places, mainly sweets that they want to get out of their reach and into our reach. Once we had a rule that one had to put that kind of stuff in the fridge and then send an email, giving us all a warning. But that rule lasted about 25 minutes.<br />
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Mondays are a particularly heavy day for depositing irresistible things on the lunch room table. Today is no exception.<br />
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One of our folks attended <a href="https://www.dessertwarsmiami.com/">"Dessert Festival Miami,"</a> which occurred in Wynwood over the weekend. That event featured something called "Dessert Wars." At this nasty confrontation, Miami's best dessert chefs battle it out with show-off pastries. The collateral damage must be immense, because, with a ticket, you may help yourself. So, one of us went. And this morning we were blessed with two boxes of little sample desserts, offered right there on the lunch-room table, by which every caffeine-addicted person who works here walks on the way to their fix.<br />
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We need to fire someone. But how do you do that when your mouth is full, crumbs dropping down your chin, and one of your feet is just barely in heaven for a very brief moment?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6422299.post-84832490119836055002018-09-30T09:15:00.005-04:002018-10-01T07:31:56.482-04:00Lawn Mowers as Girl-BaitEight days ago, a Saturday, I took my Honda walk-behind but self-propelled lawnmower to <a href="https://www.acelawnmowerservice.com/">Ace Lawnmower Service for maintenance</a>. I needed the blade sharpened, the oil changed, and whatever needs to be done with it every year. The people at Ace were so backed-up with work, however, that they told me it would be over two weeks before the machine would be ready. I left the mower with them anyway<br />
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Ace was very busy that Saturday morning, as it is every Saturday morning. It is open upon just until noon on Saturdays. A lot of people think as well of them as I do, and it seemed like all of those people were there that morning, waiting in line with me. As I waited, I reflected on an important truth: the grass was probably going to continue to grow while they had my mower, and we are still in the once-a-week mowing season, even though the days are growing shorter and the rains have just begun to back off. What was I to do.<br />
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Before I left Ace, after having given them a deposit, I walked around their small showroom and looked at the tools, including new lawnmowers and other equipage of a well prepared gardener. They have really good stuff, because, clearly, a very large portion of their revenues must be from professionals. Those professionals would range from the mow, blow, and go guys so beloved in Miami Springs to the people who are hired to care for gardens as I would want mine cared for. As I was looking at the tools and equipment, I was wondering what I was going to do about cutting my lawn while my mower got its makeover.<br />
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Then I fell in love. I saw one of these on the cramped showroom floor:<br />
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This is an <a href="https://www.exmark.com/products/mowers/walk-behind/commercial-21/commercial21-x-series?m=ECX160CHN21000">Exmark, commercial walk behind</a>. What particularly fascinated me was that while Exmark is a US manufacturer, the engine is a Honda GXV 150. Although the photo shows a red-body, the one I saw had a black body, which is cool, don't you think? It also has a huge grass-catching bag: 2.5 bushels. And the gas tank will take a full gallon of gas.<br />
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As I went through the process of rationalizing a possible purchase of this wonder, my mind went to the big pick-up truck commercials that support the TV network broadcasts of fall football. A lot of guys must buy those things, as I mentioned to my friends at our weekly, all-male Starbucks session yesterday morning. I observed that if guys were buying those big new trucks in what must be incredible volume, then why would I not get the Exmark?<br />
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One of my brothers at Starbucks observed that those big trucks are "girl magnets" that men purchase to lure young women into situations that would deny these men forever the opportunity to serve on the Supreme Court. I had never thought about those trucks being girl magnets, but suddenly a picture popped into my mind. It showed me cutting my grass with a brand-new Exmark, pursued by a throng of Miami Springs housewives. That picture was more disturbing than pleasant, which is I guess is what happens when one reaches age 72 and is not Senator Biden.<br />
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In any event, I left Ace that prior Saturday morning without buying the Exmark. My plan was to ask my buddies from Starbucks if I could borrow one of their mowers to get me through. I brought it up yesterday during the discussion of pick-up trucks as girl-bait. One of the guys said his mower was a "piece of junk," that I wouldn't like it, and he was reluctant to offer it. One of the others offered his mower, but as he described it to me, it sounded very much like a piece of junk too. But he offered to bring the mower over, help me to get it started (because it was not easy to start), and maybe stick around, since it probably would not cut the whole yard without quitting at least once. He even offered to cut the grass for me with that mower himself, which I thought was very nice, but not satisfactory.<br />
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So I went on line to see who rents lawn-mowers. I found, of course, that Home Depot rents all sorts of equipment, including lawn mowers. They had both a push-type power mower and a self-propelled, walk behind mower, similar in design to my Honda, but not a Honda, a Toro. I could rent the latter for $24 for four hours. Solution! Over I went to the HD in East Hialeah, near Okeechobee Road and the railroad track (the same railroad track by which once lived <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FktfF0olFm4">Johnnie-and-Mack</a>, but that's another story.) An HD employee in the rental-equipment section and I lifted one of the self-propelled Toros down from a shelf. He pulled the starter rope, it cranked right up, and we had a deal.<br />
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When I brought the mower home in our vintage 4Runner, Carol helped me lift it out and put it down on the driveway. (Thank you, Crossfit.) She took a close look at it. One of the most immediately disturbing things she noted was the grass-catcher. It was liberally sprinkled with what my mom used to call "stick-tights," those things that are actually weed pods (the kind of round ones) and spikey seeds (the thin pointed ones), representing the evolutionary struggle of the plant kingdom as it seeks to take over the surface of the earth in such an unruly way that the Lord was forced to create Man to help him deal with it in what one of the the Lord's friends described as a "garden" in the Book of Genesis.<br />
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So, it took us about 10 minutes to pick these things off the grass-catcher, short-circuiting a clever plan to transform my yard into a weed-patch. <br />
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Then it took about 20 pulls of the starter to get the thing started.<br />
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Then, ominously and seriously disappointing, the self-propelled feature simply would not work. This was something I did not test at the HD.<br />
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But rather than return it and start all over again, I decided to push it around the lawn. It cut pretty well - the blades were still sharp enough to cut the grass cleanly. There was at least that. But what an effort it took! I took several times-out in the process, but I got it done. During the mowing process, I usually let my mind range over a number of different topics. But this time, I focused on the letter I was going to write to Home Depot. I went through several articulate and hard-hitting drafts in my head about how Home Depot had rented me a piece of junk.<br />
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When I took it back, I brought the problem to the attention of the HD equipment rental person who had helped me in the first place. He went to his manager about it. The manager came over, cranked up the machine, and then pulled the lever that was to propel it. It did not work, of course. I kept my cool. I told them calmly that I was disappointed. I perversely hoped that they would tell me that I could have brought it right back in, but since I didn't, well, tough luck. They would do nothing. What a great way to close my letter to the president of HD, with that sort of "customer service."<br />
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Instead, the manager refunded me $20.75 of the $25 I had obligated myself to pay. He did so in a clever way. He went back and redid the deal, so that he showed that I obligated myself to pay him not just the $25 but also a $2.50 "Damage Protection" fee. Then he deducted $20.75 from the charge, and so my out of pocket was about $9.00. True, I didn't "damage" the unit, but it was so clever, that I cooled off and let it go.<br />
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Back at the house, I sat and watched some football. When I got up, I felt what I usually feel after a good Crossfit session. Pushing around that mower as the bag filled up with cut grass, I had received quite a work-out. I notice that my heart-rate elevated during the mow appropriately. I got a $9 dollar training session - and a grass cut. It was all really very good.<br />
<br />
But the lawnmower was still a piece of junk. I saw no girls, except for Carol, and she was already hooked and well in the boat.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6422299.post-78226874958034421242018-08-27T08:25:00.000-04:002018-10-01T07:32:10.613-04:00So, How Does that Garden Grow?It is summer, and the garden grows, everything in it, higher, faster, each element with its own imperative, seeking to be unruled and unmanaged. Because it's summer we get "faster," but because it's life, I'm reminded, everything else.<br />
<br />
Just cutting the grass burns about two hours a week, at least the way I do it. That time would include not just the mowing, but the edging along the sidewalks, driveway and streets, and sweeping. There are set-up and take-down tasks as well. It takes time, and it is very hot and humid.<br />
<br />
I will use a grass catcher and will not skin the grass to the earth's scalp. The grass catcher is to catch not just the grass clippings, but the weed tops. By not dropping the blade closer to the ground (dropping and skinning would add several days to the interval between cutting, which is tempting but to be resisted), I encourage the St. Augustine to grow thick and healthy, thus crowding out the weeds. So that's the "how" of how that element grows, the turf. I attempt to grow my garden in a managed way, with lots of close observation, time, and sweat.<br />
<br />
As far as I can tell, none of my neighbors takes personal care of the family yard. Businesses known as "lawn services" take care of their landscapes. These services consist of two men, usually, but sometimes three. They come in a pick-up truck towing a trailer, usually an enclosed trailer. The trailer holds their equipment, the major piece being a riding mower. Each side of the trailer is a sort of billboard, announcing the name the business, often the owner's name with "landscaping" following the name, and a telephone number. These services appear to be single owner enterprises, the owner driving the riding mower. His associate or associates tend to the edging, usually with a weed-eater and not with a blade-edger. There are no grass catchers and there are no rakes or brooms much in evidence. The services deal with the debris that falls on the sidewalks and drive-ways with blowers, blowing the debris out to the street, where the wind will, in a day or two, blow it all back, some back into the family's yard and the rest on everyone else's.<br />
<br />
(The lawn services have an interesting ecological impact that the owner of a top-notch lawnmower shop told me about years ago. The lawn services spread seeds from yard to yard, because they don't "catch" the clippings nor wash their equipment as they go. Your weeds, then, become your neighbor's weeds and the weeds of your neighbor's neighbors, and so on. Several years ago, a new homeowner to the west of us re-sodded and landscaped his yard. He is a young man and vigorous. Going against the tide, he mowed the lawn himself, and I recall he caught the clippings. But then he gave it up to the lawn services (he bought a big boat), and now, as I walk by his yard, it is full of crabgrass and other weeds in great variety. The lawn is kept very closely and regularly cut by his lawn service and, from a certain distance away, it looks neatly maintained. But I know. I know.)<br />
<br />
As I drive to work each business day, early in the morning on the Palmetto expressway, I see dozens of lawn service rigs moving with me southbound: towing vehicle, sometimes a van, usually a pick-up truck, but sometimes an impressive small dump truck, which would allow that service to haul away its lawn debris, and the trailer. These businesses are predominantly Latin. In Miami Springs, the going rate seems to be around $55 right now. They seem to be able to do the basic job in about 40 minutes or less, given the size of the yards in our neighborhood. It is a cash business.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-U5ZQ68SA894/W4Pv6-r8NhI/AAAAAAAACi0/GDWSHMFLsEEbopbfIThKZydbfnzGR77fgCLcBGAs/s1600/lawn%2Bservice.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-U5ZQ68SA894/W4Pv6-r8NhI/AAAAAAAACi0/GDWSHMFLsEEbopbfIThKZydbfnzGR77fgCLcBGAs/s1600/lawn%2Bservice.jpeg" /></a>We use a professional service to help us to manage our trees (a very large oak tree in the back, a black olive tree near our driveway at the front, a gorgeous sea grape tree on the west side of our house, and some smaller palms). They also spray our lawn with herbicide and insecticide on a monthly basis. These people have given up lawn maintenance, because of the cheap competition from the lawn services I describe. But their managers have deep knowledge of Florida landscaping, and I have gotten to know one of these men over the years. Each year (before hurricane season, preferably) we will walk the yard together as he assesses the tree-pruning needs, and the gentleman will talk to me about lawn-care science. He calls the lawn services that work on the neighbors' lawns, "mow, blow, and go" services. In other words, you get what you pay for. Surprise.<br />
<br />
Once upon a time, the families in Miami Springs did the yard work. Dad, mom, and the kids. Especially the sons. Often a neighbor, being an eyewitness to the competence of one of the boys, would ask the boy to mow the neighbor's yard. It would provide the boy-becoming-a-young-man with a little income. Now and then, the young man would turn that work into an after-school business. By the time of his graduation from high school, he would have accumulated a significant amount of money, not to mention significant business expertise of all sorts. But whatever the eventual outcome of the boy, the families handled the yard work.<br />
<br />
Now they don't. Across the street is a very attractive family with three boys, all now teenagers. They use a lawn service. Once when I was working in the yard in the summer's heat, the mother came over and expressed concern over the effort I seemed to be putting out, and gave me the number of her lawn service. I confused her. I could read her mind: Wasn't I a lawyer with better things to do? <br />
<br />
Here toward the end of the summer I find myself having worked my way almost completely around the house, edging, pulling weeds and grass, and mulching, But as I complete that first circuit, I see that the St. Augustine has shot its forces into and among the mulch that I first laid down weeks ago. There is plenty of metaphor fodder here. Stay tuned.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6422299.post-64101911268032859102018-06-16T21:18:00.003-04:002018-06-17T07:37:04.731-04:00Hello to the Springs GardenerTwo years ago at our house, we had a professional landscaper renovate the lawn and shrubbery. For maybe eleven years or so before then, our lawn, especially the turf (St. Augustine grass) gave a sorry look. This mainly resulted from a renovation of our house at the start of that eleven year stretch. We made the kitchen larger, more pleasant and functional - including the installation of a new window over the sink that offers a view of South Florida's gorgeous sunsets. Off that new kitchen, we built a fourth bedroom with its own bathroom, and we put a roof over the back porch that had simply been "screened-in," as we say in Miami-Dade. That little bathroom for the fourth bedroom, on the west side of our house, a bit toward the SW corner, required a trench for a service pipe, a trench that went north along the west side of the house, around its NW corner, and headed east until it met the main sewer line that came from Dove Avenue, the east-west street that our house faces. What a mess all that digging made, not only digging for the trench but also for a foundation that needed to be laid for the new bedroom and the back porch that adjoined it. (Don't ask why that porch didn't have a foundation, but, as we discovered, was just a slab spread on the ground.) After the trench was filled in on the west and front sides of the house and the foundation dug and constructed on the south side, we completed the rest of the upgrade. All that trench and foundation work tore up the lawn, and I did nothing much after we finished the project to make the rough places plain. I even gave the yard up to a crew of grass cutters of the mow-blow-and-go variety. I didn't realize how bad the outside looked until, two years ago, the professional landscaper, to whom I gave more or less <i>carte blanche</i>, did his good work, and I saw what a world of difference it made.<br />
<br />
But all that good work created a much higher maintenance demand. Either I had to improve my relationship with the lawn and shrubs (hereinafter referred to as "the garden") or I would see the look slide into mediocrity or worse. And I was a Springs boy, having lived in this town from a tiny baby, taking absences only for college and law school, a year in New York City, and a year in a duplex east of the Gables, until we bought our first house back in the Springs. A Springs boy takes care of his own lawn, and makes it at least better than average. Furthermore, we had invested hard-earned cash with the landscaper, who pulled up all the grass and weeds, covered the ground with rich dirt, and then laid on top big squares of new St. Augustine, adding all sort of plants around the base of the house and along the back border of the lawn, lovingly surrounding those plants with a flatbed worth of 2 cubic feet bags of brown mulch he had trucked in. This would take a lot of work to keep up, and what was I going to do?<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PzIn39nQhaw/WyZACL72VeI/AAAAAAAACh8/GYd6vPyqVOYTGWoyNUtVXkoSBiVsdgGCwCLcBGAs/s1600/One%2BBiscayne.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="111" data-original-width="74" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PzIn39nQhaw/WyZACL72VeI/AAAAAAAACh8/GYd6vPyqVOYTGWoyNUtVXkoSBiVsdgGCwCLcBGAs/s320/One%2BBiscayne.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One Biscayne Tower - Thanks a Lot, Joe!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I had learned, however, the secret of good landscaping maintenance from a friend, Joe. Joe is a building engineer for a tall office building downtown, known as One Biscayne Tower. It had great landscaping around its base, and I asked Joe if he would give me an insight into how he had arranged to keep it so beautiful. He drew closer to me, and lowered his voice. "Paul," he said, "the secret is a crew that shows up at 5AM several mornings a week to pull weeds, trim, transplant and replace the shrubs, cut the grass, water, fertilize, mulch, and pick up the trash. That's the secret."<br />
<br />
Thanks a lot, Joe.<br />
<br />
So, this blog post is an introduction to my story of trans-planting Joe's secret to my new garden. Personally. <br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6422299.post-1281412832453100692018-01-30T08:10:00.000-05:002018-01-30T08:32:03.702-05:00The Reading Knack Slipping Away. How to stop it.I feel the reading knack slipping away. I want to reclaim it. What is the problem? What is the solution?<br />
<br />
My favorite spot at home is on the sofa in the den, stage-left. It is very comfortable. A lamp on the end table provides good light. I can see directly into the kitchen, where very often Carol is working, and she is an attention-drawing presence (and always has been), easy to look at. Her mere presence draws my attention away from my book. Divorce is probably not the answer. In fact, every man should have my problem, whether he is a reader or not.<br />
<br />
To my right, as I sit on the sofa, the TV is almost immediately adjacent. Although it looks across my point of view, its screen is very easy to see. And there are a set of controllers within my reach, giving access to a cornucopia of fast-food for the brain, largely junk. Either throw a brick through the screen or find another comfortable place to read. Maybe in the kitchen.<br />
<br />
A very large number of books waits for me. They are in several places in our house, where they wait, but especially on the shelves of a sort of home office. When I am in that room with the bookshelves, I find myself, like the jackass who died of hunger, as he stood between two stacks of hay, not being able to make up my mind about what to read. What we need here is a list.<br />
<br />
There must be a reading muscle. Like any muscle. My endurance flags when I pick up a book.
I'm not a tough enough reader. I see a new idea or a new word as I read. My mind slips away from the book as I think about that idea or go look up the word in the dictionary. Within limits, that's probably a good thing. But most of the time, for crying out loud, make a note on a note pad and keep reading. And then go back to those notes.<br />
<br />
Read no more than, say, three books at a time. Not ten.<br />
<br />
Always have a book that you are reading that is very challenging. Commit X number of minutes to it each day.
For that matter, when you sit down with any book, easy or hard, decide how long you are going to read, and then hang in there.<br />
<br />
Ride MetroRail to work, not the car. Yes, it takes longer, but you can spend the time reading, unless some idiot sits next to you and starts jabbering on his cell phone. (Do not take weapons on MetroRail if you are a reader.)<br />
<br />
Start a blog, so you can tell people what you are reading and what you think of it. Or maybe you don't suffer from "show and tell" disease. That showed up in me in first grade. Never left.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6422299.post-11289575493026448402018-01-25T07:10:00.002-05:002018-01-25T07:14:50.309-05:00Long-Term Care InsuranceMy partner, Juan, gave me a heads-up <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/01/24/580432527/a-long-term-bet-gone-bust">on this from NPR's "Planet Money."</a><br />
<br />
The link gives a pod-cast button that is worth a listen. The related text includes the following;<br />
<br />
<i>Last week, General Electric said it was taking a massive loss — $6.2
billion — related to an obscure corner of the company: long-term-care
insurance.</i><br />
<i> </i><br />
<i>Long-term-care insurance is this kind of insurance
that anyone can buy. It covers things like nursing home care, or a home
health aide.</i><br />
<i> </i><br />
<i>But recently, GE came out and said it was having
an "adverse claims experience" with these policies. </i><br />
<i>Basically, the
company got the math wrong, and lost billions as a result.</i><br />
<i> </i><br />
<i>This
isn't just about GE. MetLife got out of this business and so has just
about everybody else. They all said the same thing: we underestimated
how much this was going to cost.</i><br />
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</xml><![endif]--></i>Carol and I have a policy on myself, and two policies on Carol.
The premiums have gone up in the last few years. When I bought one of the policies years ago
from Northwestern Life, the agent warned me that the insurance company was only
guessing at what the premium needed to be, and that I should expect that the
premium would go up at some point as the company began to figure it all
out. The NPR podcast to which I refer above states
that they haven’t figured it out yet. <br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One thing that I have noticed in my law-practice experience is
this: The better care one receives as an elderly person, the longer one lives,
generally speaking. So, perhaps the long-term care insurance model works against
itself. What the model seems to require, at least in part, is some certainty about when the
customers will die. If the insurance company looks at the mortality
tables, however, it is looking at a universe of people for whom the level of
care varies substantially. But their customers, who will receive better
long-term care than most, will not die on time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The question Carol and I have is whether the companies will figure it
out before they go under. In the meanwhile, we pay the higher
premiums. I’m not sure that’s the right choice.</div>
<i>
</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6422299.post-88315384616099387462018-01-22T19:06:00.000-05:002018-01-23T09:00:48.254-05:00Potiphar's Wife and Joseph's Alleged "Laughter"<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Our pastor, Sam Miranda, preached this past Sunday morning on
the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. As is customary at our worship service, the bulletin
provided the scripture, Genesis 39:1-23, using the English Standard Version (“ESV”). As is also customary, Sam read the scripture,
in its entirety, as we followed along, before he began preaching. Here is that reading, as the <u>E</u>SV gives
it. I have added italics in places pertinent to what I would like to
discuss:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<div class="chapter-2">
39<span class="chapternum"> </span><span class="text">Now
Joseph had been brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the
captain of the guard, an Egyptian, had bought him from the Ishmaelites who had
brought him down there.</span> <span id="en-ESV-1152"><span class="text"><sup>2 </sup>The
</span><span class="small-caps"><span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span></span><span class="text"> was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, and he was in the
house of his Egyptian master.</span></span> <span id="en-ESV-1153"><span class="text"><sup>3 </sup>His master saw that the </span><span class="small-caps"><span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span></span><span class="text"> was with him and that the </span><span class="small-caps"><span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span></span><span class="text"> caused all
that he did to succeed in his hands.</span></span> <span id="en-ESV-1154"><span class="text"><sup>4 </sup>So Joseph found favor in his sight and attended
him, and he made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he
had.</span></span> <span id="en-ESV-1155"><span class="text"><sup>5 </sup>From
the time that he made him overseer in his house and over all that he had, the </span><span class="small-caps"><span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span></span><span class="text"> blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake; the blessing of the
</span><span class="small-caps"><span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span></span><span class="text"> was on all that he had, in house and field.</span></span> <span id="en-ESV-1156"><span class="text"><sup>6 </sup>So he left all that he had in
Joseph's charge, and because of him he had no concern about anything but the
food he ate.</span></span></div>
<div class="chapter-2">
<br /></div>
<span class="text">Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance.</span> <span id="en-ESV-1157"><span class="text"><sup>7 </sup>And after a time his master's
wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, “Lie with me.”</span></span> <span id="en-ESV-1158"><span class="text"><sup>8 </sup>But he refused and said to
his master's wife, “Behold, because of me my master has no concern about
anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge.</span></span>
<span id="en-ESV-1159"><span class="text"><sup>9 </sup>He is not greater in
this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because
you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?”</span></span>
<span id="en-ESV-1160"><span class="text"><sup>10 </sup>And as she spoke to
Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or to be
with her.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span id="en-ESV-1161"><span class="text"><sup>11 </sup>But one day, when
he went into the house to do his work and none of the men of the house was
there in the house,</span></span> <span id="en-ESV-1162"><span class="text"><sup>12 </sup>she
caught him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me.” But he left his garment in
her hand and fled and got out of the house.</span></span> <span id="en-ESV-1163"><span class="text"><sup>13 </sup>And as soon as she saw that he had left his
garment in her hand and had fled out of the house,</span></span> <span id="en-ESV-1164"><span class="text"><i><sup>14 </sup>she called to the men of her
household and said to them,</i> <i>“See, he has brought among us a Hebrew to laugh at
us. He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice.</i></span></span><i>
</i><span id="en-ESV-1165"><span class="text"><sup>15 </sup>And as soon as he
heard that I lifted up my voice and cried out, he left his garment beside me
and fled and got out of the house.”</span></span> <span id="en-ESV-1166"><span class="text"><sup>16 </sup>Then she laid up his garment by her until his
master came home,</span></span> <span id="en-ESV-1167"><span class="text"><sup>17 </sup>and
<i>she told him the same story, saying, “The Hebrew servant, whom you have brought
among us, came in to me to laugh at me.</i></span></span><i> <span id="en-ESV-1168"><span class="text"><sup>18 </sup>But as soon as I lifted up my voice and cried, he
left his garment beside me and fled out of the house.”</span></span></i><br />
<br />
<span id="en-ESV-1169"><span class="text"><sup>19 </sup>As soon as his
master heard the words that his wife spoke to him, “This is the way your
servant treated me,” his anger was kindled.</span></span> <span id="en-ESV-1170"><span class="text"><sup>20 </sup>And Joseph's master took him and put him into the
prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined, and he was there in
prison.</span></span> <span id="en-ESV-1171"><span class="text"><sup>21 </sup>But
the </span><span class="small-caps"><span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span></span><span class="text"> was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in
the sight of the keeper of the prison.</span></span> <span id="en-ESV-1172"><span class="text"><sup>22 </sup>And the keeper of the prison put Joseph in charge
of all the prisoners who were in the prison. Whatever was done there, he was
the one who did it.</span></span> <span id="en-ESV-1173"><span class="text"><sup>23 </sup>The
keeper of the prison paid no attention to anything that was in Joseph's charge,
because the </span><span class="small-caps"><span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span></span><span class="text"> was with him. And whatever he did, the </span><span class="small-caps"><span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span></span><span class="text"> made it succeed.</span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> What
caught my attention was the apparent difference between what Potiphar’s wife told
the men of her household about Joseph’s purpose “in coming in to her” and what
she told her husband about Joseph’s purpose. As the scripture reads in the ESV, she told the
household men that Joseph came in to “lie with me,” but to Potiphar that Joseph
came in to “laugh at her.” This account confuses me further because the passage
states that Potiphar’s wife told Potiphar “the same story” about the incident. I will concede that in speaking to the
household men, Potiphar’s wife said that her husband brought among them a
Hebrew “to laugh us,” but as far as Joseph’s alleged particular purpose as to her, she
told them that Joseph’s intention was “to lie with me.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> Here
is how the NIV renders verses 14 – 18.
It translates “laugh” as “to make sport of,” but is otherwise about the
same:</span></div>
<div style="margin: 5pt 0.5in;">
<span class="m_2252413511099228024gmail-text">she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to
them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us <i>to
make sport of us</i>! <i>He came in here to
sleep with me,</i> but I screamed.</span> <span class="m_2252413511099228024gmail-text"><sup><span id="m_2252413511099228024en-NIV-1165">15 </span></sup>When he heard me scream for help, he left his
cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”</span></div>
<div style="margin: 5pt 0.5in;">
<span id="m_2252413511099228024en-NIV-1166"><span class="m_2252413511099228024gmail-text"><sup>16 </sup>She kept his
cloak beside her until his master came home.</span></span> <span id="m_2252413511099228024en-NIV-1167"><span class="m_2252413511099228024gmail-text"><sup>17 </sup>Then she told him this story:
“That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me <i>to make sport of me.</i></span></span> <span id="m_2252413511099228024en-NIV-1168"><span class="m_2252413511099228024gmail-text"><sup>18 </sup>But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his
cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”</span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span class="m_2252413511099228024gmail-text">I have <a href="https://www.amazon.com/ESV-Study-Bible-Bibles-Crossway/dp/1433502410/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1516715995&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=esv+study+bibles&psc=1">the ESV <i>Study Bible</i></a>, and it
has a note on Genesis 39:13-15 that includes the following statement:</span></div>
<div style="margin: 5pt 0.5in;">
<span class="m_2252413511099228024gmail-text">“Laugh” recalls 21:9 and 26:8, where it has the
connotations of “making fun of someone” and “caressing,” respectively.</span></div>
The reference to Gen. 21:9 is
to the son of Hagar, Ishmael, whose “laughter” so offended Sarah that she
demanded of Abraham that he cast out both Hagar and her son. The reference to 26:8 is to the Philistine
King Abimelech who, seeing Abraham and Rebekah “laughing” together, infers that
there is something more intimate in their relationship than the
brother-and-sister lie that Abraham had told him.<br />
<br />
In verse 14, the New
English Translation translates the word for “laugh” (ESV) or “sport” (NIV) as “humiliate,”
and has the following translation footnote (footnote 35) for that translation:<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 8pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Heb.</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> “to
make fun of us.” The verb translated “to humiliate us” here means to hold
something up for ridicule, or to toy with something harmfully. Attempted rape would be such an activity, for it
would hold the victim in contempt.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> My surmise
is that the use of the word translated “to make fun of us” had a breadth of
meaning that did not <i>necessarily</i> refer
to “rape” or “having sex,” but, given the context, could be understood as meaning
the lie that Potiphar’s wife wants her husband to believe. But by using a sort of euphemism and not
something explicit, it gives Potiphar himself a way out: He would throw Joseph
in prison and not seek what was probably the ultimate penalty for attempted rape. If word had gotten around that Potiphar had imprudently
allowed a Hebrew slave sufficient access to make such an attempt, it would </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">have
damaged Potiphar’s reputation. The lie
of Potiphar’s wife maintains appearances for both of them, and Potiphar will
not push the details.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> But my main point concerns the different translations of a given Hebrew word that we see from Bible version to Bible version. I think the ESV choice is the least appropriate among all of the alternate translations. In the Preface to the ESV, a body described as "The Translation Oversight Committee" states that the ESV is an "essentially literal translation. If it is that approach that gets us "to laugh at," rather than "to humiliate," then I think they fall short here.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"> Let me also observe that in each case where Potiphar's wife mentions Joseph, she never gives his name. Instead her is "the Hebrew slave." One commentary notes that Potiphar's wife is not merely descriptive, she evidences her racial bigotry. If that is the case, then it would have been all the more "humiliating" to Potiphar that his wife would "lie with" such a creature, and it would have been a public disgrace. </span><br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6422299.post-60427626275200288902017-08-22T08:11:00.000-04:002017-08-22T08:11:13.882-04:00Football Season? Really?Dealing with my annual pre-football season crisis. To watch or not to
watch. Lots of good reasons not to do so. The time, my gosh, the time!
The saturation of the market place. The exploitation of college
players against highly paid coaches and administrators, and the
corruption. The concussion issue. The proliferation of above average
entertainment on the tube. The outdoors during a wonderful season of
the year. All kinds of books to read. Ham radio. And friends! The dear
friends! These are just a few. People not standing up for the national
anthem is a turn-off, but who can really blame these young men, given
the sorry education they received, the opportunists they attract and the
clap-trap they are fed. So that's not really important in the scheme
of things. The other things certainly are.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6422299.post-65871168582210367932017-07-30T08:27:00.001-04:002018-10-02T07:29:15.567-04:00Dunkirk the Movie and Dunkirk the Event<span style="font-size: small;">Finally saw <a href="http://www.dunkirkmovie.com/"><i>Dunkirk</i></a> last night with Carol. As we drove to the movie
theater, she read to me from "Their Finest Hours," volume 2 of
Churchill's <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Second-World-War-Winston-Churchill/dp/039541685X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1501417352&sr=1-1&keywords=Churchill+the+second+world+war&selectObb=rent">The Second World War</a></i> epic, specifically from Chapter 5, "The
Deliverance of Dunkirk." In a short space of time, that reading gave
us some very necessary context. The movie should be an invitation to go
much deeper into that event. Its telling on the screen was bereft of
any meaning other than the poignant survival situations of t<span class="text_exposed_show">he
characters and the immediate objective of getting the troops back to
England to fight another day. There was no reference to the
transcendent at any point. Contrast this with the first paragraph of
Churchill's chapter on the event: </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="text_exposed_show">"There was a short service of
intercession and prayer in Westminster Abbey [prior to the Dunkirk event]. The English are loath to
expose their feelings, but in my stall in the choir I could feel the
pent-up, passionate emotion, and also the fear of the congregation, not
of death or wounds of material loss, but of defeat and the final ruin of
Britain." </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span class="text_exposed_show">I concede that the movie ended with one of the protagonists,
at last in England and on the train home, reading a newspaper account
of Churchill's speech to Parliament on June 4, in particular that part
of the speech where "we shall fight on the beaches" appears. I didn't
think it was quite enough.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"><span style="font-size: small;"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody">Here
is what B.H. Liddell Hart writes of Dunkirk in his <a href="https://www.amazon.com/History-Second-World-B-H-Liddell/dp/156852627X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1501417506&sr=1-1"><i>History of the Second World War</i></a>, at page 74:</span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"><span style="font-size: small;"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody">"The escape of the British Expeditionary Force in 1940
was largely due to Hitler's personal intervention. After his tanks had
overrun the north of France and cut off the British army from its base,
Hitler held them up just as they were about to sweep into Dunkirk -
which was the last remaining port of escape left open to the British.
At that moment the bulk of the B.E.F. was still many miles distant from
the port. </span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"><span style="font-size: small;"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody">"But Hitler kept his tanks halted for three days. His action
preserved the British forces when nothing else could have saved them.
By making it possible for them to escape he enabled them to rally in
England, continue the war, and man the coasts to defy the threat of
invasion. Thereby he produced his own ultimate downfall, and Germany's
five years later. Acutely aware of the narrowness of the escape, but
ignorant of its cause, the British people spoke of 'the miracle of
Dunkirk'." </span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"><span style="font-size: small;"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody">I would say that the "intervention" was the Lord's, through
the malignant mind of Hitler, and that the British public had it right.
It was a "miracle." Perhaps those prayers at Westminster.</span></span></span> </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6422299.post-86983276962622504162017-07-22T16:23:00.000-04:002017-07-23T07:50:29.476-04:00Lord's Day 13: How are we "God's Children" and What Follows from the Answer to that Question?<div>
Here is the text from Lord's Day 13, which is our Sunday School lesson for tomorrow. As you can see, it is made up
of <a href="https://www.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/confessions/heidelberg-catechism">Question 33 and Question 34 of the Heidelberg Catechism</a>. As you may recall, we are in the part
of the HC that addresses the matter of "God the Son."<br />
</div>
(Be
sure to read the scripture references, if you have a chance. I also
have some questions further below, after Questions 33 and 34.)<br />
<div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Lord’s Day 13 </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">Q & A 33 </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Q. Why is he
called God’s “only begotten Son”<br />
when we also are God’s children? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">A. Because
Christ alone is the eternal, natural Son of God.<sup>1</sup><br />
We, however, are adopted children of God— </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">adopted by
grace through Christ.<sup>2</sup> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<sup><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">1</span></sup><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://bible.oremus.org/?passage%3DJohn%25201:1-3,%252014,%252018%26version%3Dnrsv&source=gmail&ust=1500841225207000&usg=AFQjCNHUMvL6MmlrIOhoC2t0BcpfxvuLbg" href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=John%201:1-3,%2014,%2018&version=nrsv" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">John 1:1-3, 14, 18</span></a>; <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://bible.oremus.org/?passage%3DHeb.%25201%26version%3Dnrsv&source=gmail&ust=1500841225207000&usg=AFQjCNH2LJ8bgDV76k51ViMKDzEkbIqt3Q" href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Heb.%201&version=nrsv" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Heb. 1</span></a><br />
<sup>2</sup> <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://bible.oremus.org/?passage%3DJohn%25201:12%26version%3Dnrsv&source=gmail&ust=1500841225207000&usg=AFQjCNHIIG5_wf4OczxMQxthbSMjtRHwHw" href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=John%201:12&version=nrsv" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">John 1:12</span></a>; <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://bible.oremus.org/?passage%3DRom.%25208:14-17%26version%3Dnrsv&source=gmail&ust=1500841225207000&usg=AFQjCNHsz4ndgjMQ8YAYCSaJXn0JdjP-5Q" href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Rom.%208:14-17&version=nrsv" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Rom. 8:14-17</span></a>; <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://bible.oremus.org/?passage%3DEph.%25201:5-6%26version%3Dnrsv&source=gmail&ust=1500841225207000&usg=AFQjCNEVk3aomrEFrFq_uLSm2kPeKnmVFw" href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Eph.%201:5-6&version=nrsv" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Eph. 1:5-6</span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://bible.oremus.org/?passage%3DEph.%25201:5-6%26version%3Dnrsv&source=gmail&ust=1500841225207000&usg=AFQjCNEVk3aomrEFrFq_uLSm2kPeKnmVFw" href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Eph.%201:5-6&version=nrsv" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;"><br /></span></a> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">Q & A 34 </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Q. Why do you
call him “our Lord”? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">A. Because— </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">not with gold
or silver,<br />
but with his precious blood—<sup>1</sup> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">he has set us
free </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">from sin and
from the tyranny of the devil,<sup>2</sup> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">and has bought
us, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">body and soul, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">to be his very
own.<sup>3</sup> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<sup><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">1</span></sup><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://bible.oremus.org/?passage%3D1%2520Pet.%25201:18-19%26version%3Dnrsv&source=gmail&ust=1500841225207000&usg=AFQjCNHyL6CnzgzWVq8nN9LGOmyY7YJIew" href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=1%20Pet.%201:18-19&version=nrsv" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">1 Pet. 1:18-19</span></a><br />
<sup>2</sup> <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://bible.oremus.org/?passage%3DCol.%25201:13-14%26version%3Dnrsv&source=gmail&ust=1500841225207000&usg=AFQjCNGlv0uKcfb4e2gKyK-oNZ6yzi9fgA" href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Col.%201:13-14&version=nrsv" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Col. 1:13-14</span></a>; <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://bible.oremus.org/?passage%3DHeb.%25202:14-15%26version%3Dnrsv&source=gmail&ust=1500841225207000&usg=AFQjCNHepAxGGoFQU564Q0WzIvHlZ9X8Bg" href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Heb.%202:14-15&version=nrsv" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Heb. 2:14-15</span></a><br />
<sup>3</sup> <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://bible.oremus.org/?passage%3D1%2520Cor.%25206:20%26version%3Dnrsv&source=gmail&ust=1500841225207000&usg=AFQjCNHUusotES3mlm3rgpQME4YVidPc9g" href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=1%20Cor.%206:20&version=nrsv" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">1 Cor. 6:20</span></a>; <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://bible.oremus.org/?passage%3D1%2520Tim.%25202:5-6%26version%3Dnrsv&source=gmail&ust=1500841225207000&usg=AFQjCNHYPkm075h7wA1RbwN5LJNO71Y2Xg" href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=1%20Tim.%202:5-6&version=nrsv" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">1 Tim. 2:5-6</span></a> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1. In what way are we, as children of God, not like Jesus as God's child, <i>in terms of our nature</i>?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2. How are we like Jesus <i>in terms of our relationship to God</i>. And not like him?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
3.
Is everyone a "child of God," as people are often fond of
saying? What do people mean when they say, "We are all children of
God?" (How do
we deal with Hitler and Stalin? Do we simply say that they were "inhuman" and go on?)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
4. What use is it to be a child of God? Why should anyone care?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
5.
Does it seem odd that in QA34, "gold or silver" is contrasted "with his
precious blood," in terms of what liberates us from "sin and from the
tyranny of the devil?" Isn't gold and silver a path to liberation?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
6. Why
should we want to be the Son's "very own" or, the "very own" of sin and
the devil, which seems to be the default status? Are those really the
only choices? (And, besides, many of us seriously doubt that there is
even a devil, even those of us willing to concede at least an "historical"
Jesus of some sort.)<br />
<br />
7. In fact, why can't I be <i>my very own</i>? Why can't I belong to myself alone? Isn't that really the current project, to be one's own?</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6422299.post-8596629630927490412017-06-11T10:55:00.001-04:002018-01-23T08:43:51.954-05:00"As Long as They're Nice About It."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qahbOesbiy8/WT1aeoghzzI/AAAAAAAACfQ/EuGy_vp4QOktQ_owo6PBD6IQrzuMxZtMgCLcB/s1600/George_Smathers_1963.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="416" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qahbOesbiy8/WT1aeoghzzI/AAAAAAAACfQ/EuGy_vp4QOktQ_owo6PBD6IQrzuMxZtMgCLcB/s320/George_Smathers_1963.jpg" width="253" /></a></div>
I had the very good fortune of knowing former Senator <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Smathers">George A. Smathers</a>, now deceased, and even of eventually becoming one of his law partners in the firm of Smathers and Thompson. I became an associate of that firm in 1972 and a partner five years later. By the time I went to work full-time for Smathers and Thompson in 1972 (I was a law clerk during the summer between my second and third years of law school), Senator Smathers had retired from the Senate. By then he was active in two firms that he had founded. One of them was in Washington D.C., which was mainly a base for his lobbying, and the other his Miami-based firm.<br />
<br />
(To call the Miami-based firm "his" is a bit of a stretch. The Miami firm had (1) the Senator, (2) the Miami senior partners, and (3) the rest of us. The question of his ultimate control and authority was one that no one really wanted to test - although a crisis did arise during the 1980s. But this post is not about that.)<br />
<br />
The Senator and I often had lunch together, usually on Fridays and usually at a place called "the Miami Club." Often those lunches had one or two others with us, but many times it was just the two of us. He was very open about many, many things, and I learned a great deal about, well, just how to behave.<br />
<br />
One of the things he said to me that I will never forget and that I often recall, is this: "Paul, it doesn't matter what people do to you, as long as they're nice about it." One of the applications of that proposition, he pointed out, is that when dealing with others, especially those with whom you are in very serious contention, one needed to be polite, civil, a gentleman or a lady, "nice," if you will. The Senator was that way.<br />
<br />
Now of course the Senator's proposition is hyperbolic, but there is so much truth to it. Having spent most of his adult life in the club called "the Senate," he knew how to deal with people on the other side of an important issue. By the same token, if you were going to cross him, and people often did, then you needed to be "nice" to him. He knew (and his colleagues in that chamber knew) that at some time in the future, a colleague who was presently an adversary would need his help on something some unrelated matter, something that would then mean much less to the Senator than it would to the present adversary. So people in the Senate - at least at that time - knew to be nice.<br />
<br />
He said that an important part of that approach is that one does not flee the field after a set-back. The Senator would remain very much a presence where ever he appeared, cordially welcoming an approach anyone, whether a former adversary or not, and especially an adversary who himself (or herself) had always been "nice." The Senator remained "nice" to others, even when others gave offense. He was a master at dealing with angry, self-centered people. That was simply one of his several his over-arching gifts: he was a master at dealing with people of all sorts.<br />
<br />
(How sad it is that President Trump has no idea of the power of the idea that "It doesn't matter what people do to you, as long as they are nice about it." In one sense, I think that President Trump is the exception that proves the rule. His being "not nice" reaches the angry center of many people so unhappy now with the American Situation. But ultimately, I think, this will make the President less successful than he would otherwise want to be.) <br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6422299.post-56446498944055640362017-05-31T09:02:00.001-04:002017-07-24T07:44:17.515-04:00It's All About Displacement<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OHtPeN_35pg/WSbHMn5DcSI/AAAAAAAACeQ/_ribKt2_NHgNSVdnn8KQFx4WDZm_qekeACLcB/s1600/threesome-parents-01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="441" data-original-width="664" height="212" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OHtPeN_35pg/WSbHMn5DcSI/AAAAAAAACeQ/_ribKt2_NHgNSVdnn8KQFx4WDZm_qekeACLcB/s320/threesome-parents-01.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The headline of a recent article in the New York Post beckons as follows: <a href="http://nyp.st/2qVDWwo">"Two Bisexual Women and Their Husband as Threesome."</a> The article features a photo of the apparently happy, young people, which I've posted. The photo appeals to one's prurient interest, especially, a male's. The three people are sitting on a king-size bed, and daddy (these are parents, we learn in the article) is sitting in the middle. The hands of each person are not simply posed, they are poised. In another era, this would be scandalous. But now it is simply interesting.<br />
<br />
What could we say that is wrong with this relationship and be able to say it without moralizing. A question comes to my mind immediately, and it is, "How does this work?" I think an accurate response to that question must be that most modern of all non-answers, "It's complicated." Another non-answer, but probably as truthful as the prior non-answer is, "It probably doesn't."<br />
<br />
But what puzzles me is the extra time this must take for all concerned and how they will deal with that problem. We have it in our cultural memory: "Three's a crowd." Assuming that gender matters (as I do), these three people are not the same. We have two females and one male. In the group, the male is special in a technical and, finally, practical sense. But one could persuasively say that each is special, unique, one of a kind. How does the male parcel, how does he measure, himself out to the other two? How does each woman (the women are described as "bi-sexual") parcel herself out to the other two. How does one of these people not displace one of the others in all sort of essential ways at any given point. The most essential way is simply time, it seems to me.<br />
<br />
And if a relationship is displaced by someone else, then it is less nurtured. I don't think this arrangement can work, simply speaking. It won't work. This is a snap shot, but I can imagine the movie and how it ends. In fact, I don't have to wait for the movie, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/No-Exit-Paul-Bowles/dp/0573613052/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496236566&sr=1-2&keywords=no+exit">I already saw the play</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6422299.post-37073259318998071902017-05-30T20:51:00.001-04:002017-05-31T09:05:50.665-04:00Keep On"The problem is that a normal reading of the English suggests Jesus is
talking about a single ask, a single attempt at seeking, a single knock
on the door. Of the three, the meaning of “seek” is most likely to be
heard as continuous . . . , but “ask”
and “knock” sound punctilear." Thus, Bill Mounce writes in a blog-post entitled<i> <span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"> <a href="https://billmounce.com/monday-with-mounce/aktionsart-and-ask-seek-knock-matt-7-7-8">Aktionsart and Ask, Seek, Knock (Matt 7:7-8)</a>.</span></span></span></i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">("Punctilear" sent me to my <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webster%27s_Dictionary#Webster.E2.80.99s_New_International_Dictionary_.28second_edition.2C_1934.29">Webster's Second</a></span></span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">. </span></span></span></i><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">It is the the adjective form of "punctilious," which means "scrupulously exact in detail or form.")</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">So this is a one-off event: we ask, we knock, Kirk out. Bill says, no, and explains why in his post. I would like to think Bill is right. Jesus has other places where he says, "Keep on asking." My mind jumps to the widow and the judge, sometimes called <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2018:1-8">"The Parable of the Persistent Widow," Luke 18:1-8.</a> </span></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">We are never to give up asking of God, seeking of him, knocking, knocking.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But isn't it a characteristic of friendship that our friend need not even be asked? He sees our wants our needs, approximately simultaneously if he really loves me, or at least he certainly should. I have a law partner whose way of dealing with people who are important to her in this respect is to tell them, "Tell me what you want!" She doesn't want to make a mistake; she understands the limits of her "sensitivity," that is, her ability to read minds; she is more than busy. "Tell me what you want." And if you know what you want (that itself is often a question), she'll give it to you. But God has no excuse. He is all knowing, etc. Why should I even have to ask. Or keep asking and asking, as Bill Mounce suggests is the more accurate translation of Matthew 7:7 - 8.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">If we keep on having to ask and if God is our friend, then maybe the asking is good for us. "How do I love thee. Let me count the ways." Seems to belong here. Ways he loves us is getting us to rephrase the question again and again. We grow with each effort. We begin to see ourselves as God or the other person may see us and we begin to examine our felt-need.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">So we engage, we wrestle, we don't turn away, we keep asking and knocking, with everyone, our friends, our enemies, and with God most of all. See also <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+32%3A+22-29&version=NIV">Gen. 32:22 - 29</a>. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Thank you, Bill Mounce.</span></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6422299.post-60001775496428284942017-04-09T19:18:00.000-04:002017-04-09T19:37:44.143-04:00Heidelberg Catechism - Lord's Day 3<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Today in the class we
discussed the questions and answers of <a href="https://www.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/confessions/heidelberg-catechism">the Heidelberg Catechism</a> that pertain to
“Lord’s Day 3.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(The Heidelberg’s 129
sets of questions and answers are divided into 52 sets, one for each Sunday of
the year. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Today<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> </span>is not really Lord's Day 3 on the Reformed calendar. <span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">But it is for our <span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Sunday School class.</span></span></span>)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today’s sets of questions and
answers were numbers 6 through 8 (“Q&A6 through Q&A8”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These sets pertain to the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">miserable</i> situation in which people find
themselves without Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(The
Heidelberg’s 52 sets are themselves divided into an “introduction” followed by
three “parts.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are now in “Part I:
Misery.”)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We learned last week that
people are in a state of misery because they cannot live up to the requirement
of God’s law perfectly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a result, the
answer to last week’s Q&A5 includes this statement: “I have a natural tendency
to hate God and my neighbor.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Note the
use of the first person format here, an approach that makes the Heidelberg
uniquely personal among confessions.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Lord's Da<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">y 3<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> of the Heide<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">lberg</span></span></span></span></span> addresses the matter of God’s
accountability (or lack of it) for our situation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Q&A6 asks whether God created people “so wicked and perverse,”
giving the answer “No,” but then going on to describe how God did create
people:</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God created them good and in his own image,</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>that
is, in true righteousness and holiness,</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">so
that they might</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>truly know God their creator,</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>love him with all their heart,</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>and live with God in eternal happiness,</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And live with God in internal happiness,</span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">to
praise and glorify him.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It is important to note that the Heidelberg adopts the
view that, when our first parents were created, they were created with what some theologians describe as “original
righteousness.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were not, then,
created “morally neutral.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words,
they were not put on earth with simply “free will,” that is, the ability to
make a choice between the right thing and the wrong thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like God, they had “choice” or “free will,” but
they also had <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a righteous moral nature</i>
that would inform that choice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s
what makes the sin of Adam so very significant, much more significant that
simply being given “free will” alone, and then making the wrong choice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the first parents made the wrong choice,
they went against the very righteous nature with which God endowed them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a result, they lost that aspect of being
made in God’s “own image,” but not necessarily all aspects (a discussion for
another time).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Q&A7 asks whether we are so corrupt that we are totally
unable to do any good and totally incline toward all evil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The answer is “Yes,” but with this
stipulation: “unless we are born again by the Spirit of God.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That answer this morning took us to the
question of whether a person without Christ, having lost original righteousness,
has the free-will to choose to follow him or whether a person is so helpless and
miserable that God must act affirmatively.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Reformed faith holds that God must act affirmatively first.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This distinguishes Protestant faiths that hold to that view (Presbyterians
among them) from other Protestant faiths, such as Methodists and certain Baptists, once
known as “Free-Will Baptists.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We will
discuss these distinctions further, but the idea of “original righteousness”
and its loss will inform our discussion of later Heidelberg questions and
answers.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0