Today's Contemplation (it's kind of sad)

I'm not sure what to make of spring so far this year. The temps have remained cool enough that we've still had to run our furnace on and off through April. This final week of the month and the beginning of May still has daytime highs in the mid 60s (17-18c) and nighttime temps down around 40 (5c).
I think we are past a freeze point and hope to get some more flowers planted this coming week. I also hope that some of the ones that I've already planted will start to grow.

I think I'm only doing a few vegetables this year and will have to rely on the grocery stores and farmers markets (like most of the US) for my fresh produce. While I enjoy the homegrown stuff, I'm really not very good at tending to it as it grows. We finally got a little bit of rain yesterday. We seem to miss a lot of the area rainfall. Even while neighboring communities are getting rain, we seem to just miss it. Keeping seeds and seedlings damp can be quite a chore with several spread out flower beds. I suppose I should be thankful for the daily activity.

I know there are those that really love the cooler days and are fine with wearing sweatshirts and long pants. I'm more of a t-shirt, shorts, and barefoot kind of person and will happily sweat my ass off during the mid 90s (35c) of summer. I know that I'm not going to be running or working too hard in the hot part of the day, so that doesn't really come into play for me. Sitting in the shade of the deck with a ceiling fan on and a cold drink is not a bad way to spend an afternoon, even if it is 95 degrees (35c) outside.
I still think I need to get a pool. I really don't think I want to spend the money for an in-ground pool, but  I'd be okay with an above ground pool to lounge in on warm sunny days. I'm sure that I can contemplate life while soaking in a pool as easily as from on the deck. Smoking a cigar might be a little trickier, but I'm sure I'd find a way.
Hmmm...

Speaking of contemplating life...
I'm halfway through the 10 week Reading the Bible as a Storybook group and I am enjoying it more than I expected. I am pleased with the group's perspective and questions as we look through different stories. We started in Genesis and have barely made it into The Promised Land. I hadn't planned on going through in a chronological order, nor on covering the Bible in a survey kind of undertaking. I think this week I'll just tell a story and let them tell me what they think it means -- both for the people of ancient Israel and for us.

It's an interesting exercise, even for me. My own perspective of God has changed greatly over the past decade or more. As my understanding of God grows, my perspective of those old bible stories changes. In many cases, they hold less meaning or importance as lessons in living, but give me a much greater understanding of how ancient humans perceived God and the things they couldn't understand. That also helps me to understand people today as they react to things that are new and that they don't understand. It is a sad situation that humanity has developed so little in several millennia that our initial reaction is still fear rather than curiosity.

Why haven't we learned that our survival no longer depends on our eliminating those which are different or weak?
Why haven't we recognized that we can care for each other and still thrive?
Or leave each other alone and we will be okay?
Very few of us (humans) are in situations where we have to compete for food or resources to survive. Why are we still acting like that is the case? Why do we still feel it is necessary to hoard resources and deny others what they need to live well?
Has our intellect and instinct developed so little that we are still thinking and acting like ancient tribal peoples of the past?

Damn
That's pretty sad.

I should probably stop this line on contemplation this morning. It's too depressing. I think I'll go dig in the dirt and absorb some of that good earth energy into my being. You should do that too. You'll feel better for it.

John

Simple life, simple reminders

It is difficult to say I live a truly simple life when I am sitting here clicking away on my Chromebook keyboard and paying too much for a rural internet service. I am sipping an organic Ethiopian coffee and looking out over our acreage from the comfort of a screened in deck. My field is unmowed and I'm trying to figure out why my riding mower isn't working properly. The yard part of the property has been (mostly) mowed with a push mower over the past couple of days.
We have two older cars, a motorcycle, and a pop-up camper that we need to use or get rid of.

Perhaps simple still works because my life is uncomplicated. 
There is little drama in my life - mostly because I have little enough interaction with people. For better or for worse, I don't have a lot of regular contact with people. Most of my people interaction these days comes through the wonder of technology and social media platforms. Actual encounters with people are pretty rare, mostly selective, and generally pleasant. Even my social media contacts are mostly pleasant as those unpleasant contacts and I have drifted apart.

Yesterday, an old friend reached out and sent a nice message. That was pretty cool and definitely uplifting. It was certainly unexpected - both from the standpoint of not expecting it as well as being surprised at the person who reached out. 
As I have matured (code for gotten old), I have started to recognize that there are people that I seem to connect with on a different level. I don't know if it's an energy thing, a kindred spirit kind of thing, or something else, but you just know that you like that person. And I don't always know if the other person feels the same connection. Sometimes I think it's just an acceptance thing, a shared experience, or an understanding of their circumstance or situation.
Oftentimes (as in the case of this particular person), actual times of interaction might be few and far between. In any case, it was a pretty cool way to start the day.

And it reminded me that there are people that I know that could probably use the same kind of uplifting contact. I think I'll start dropping a few notes of encouragement to people that I haven't seen in a while. Maybe it will be good for both of us. Maybe those simple, encouraging contacts are what living a simple life is all about.

John

A Perfect Date!

It's going to be a perfect day in the Ozarks!
(..and a perfect date!)
Looks like a yardwork kind of day.

John
 

I've been peopling

Tuesday night - small group class/meeting.
Wednesday - day baseball with many bus loads of school kids present.
Friday night - out with friends to hear our friends play music at a large, crowded brewery.
Sunday - morning church, afternoon ballgame, evening appreciation dinner for the volunteers at the overnight shelter. 
Holy smokes! 
That's a lot of people contact for this grumpy old introvert.

(Speaking of grumpy old introverts -- Chris and I finally got around to watching A Man Called Otto last night. Good movie.)

I still have my Tuesday night class this week and our friends are playing at another local brewery on Friday, but I should have plenty of isolation time to build the necessary energy for these people encounters. 
The pandemic and our rural home with its comfortable deck has probably contributed greatly to my enjoyment of staying away from large gatherings of people these past few years.
Getting back to going out in more public gatherings is a little challenging. Even for the two ballgames that I went to this past week -- I went alone. I did have conversations with people around me. The days were pleasant outings and I'll be attending quite a few more games (mostly alone) throughout the season. It's about a 30-40 minute ride on the motorcycle (depending on the traffic) and I generally park far enough away from the stadium (maybe a half mile) so that parking is free. The ride and the walk are both good for me.

Today I will be staying at home and trying to figure out what to do with my current mowing situation. The used mower I bought over the winter isn't performing up to necessary standards (not making it up the steep hills) so I'm going to have to find out why. In the meantime I'm going to need to keep the yard part of the property mowed with the push mower. Since the yard is relatively flat, I may try the rider, but then again, the walking exercise is good for this fat old guy.

It's time for a people free day!

John

Aging and injuries

One of the weird things about aging is the discovery of aches, pains, and injuries that you have no idea how they happened or where they came from. My current mystery injury is to my Achilles tendon. I know when it happened, but I really don't know how or why. The inflamed area is right where the top of my tennis shoes meets the tendon and makes wearing shoes and walking very painful. Walking without shoes is painful enough and staying off of my feet until it heals isn't very practical. I probably need one of those walking boots to restrict the movement and protect the tendon.
I guess I'll limp along with the injured old man shuffle until it gets better.

I had been hoping to break out the inflatable kayak soon. This past week's temps were pretty nice. 
Unfortunately, it looks like we're in for some cool days (and nights) in the coming week so I think I'll be postponing the kayaking for at least another week. After a couple of nights that were warm enough to sleep outside, we now have overnight frost warnings.
Sacrebleu!

I guess it's just spring in the Ozarks. Summer will be here soon enough.

John
 

Tell me something good -- please!

How about some good news for this Friday?

I've been scrolling through news feeds this morning and it is pretty depressing and frustrating. I could use something good to read about.

I did kind of a big deal for me this week -- I bought a Red Access membership for the Springfield Cardinals baseball team. That gets me ten ticketed seats plus general admission (GA) access to every home game this season. I went to the game this past Wednesday when Waino had a rehab start. I do enjoy going to day games in Springfield. They have back-to-back day games scheduled for the first week in May and I'll probably go to both of them.

Although I am not a big fan of crowds and there are always people that are jerks, the stadium isn't a bad way to spend an afternoon or evening, and I really don't mind going to the game by myself. I may need to scout around to find the ideal GA place for game viewing. Typically I use the benches that line the wall behind the home plate seats. In any case, I am looking forward to watching some baseball this summer.

What's your good news for this Friday?

John

Well rested

I spent the past two nights sleeping on the deck.
Wow!
I haven't slept so well in a long time.

My watch says I had 7.5 hrs of sleep last night with 4:45 being deep sleep, and the remainder light sleep. The biggest part of the past two nights is that I slept the whole night. Typically, I wake up several times (usually between sleep cycles) a night. I am less likely to wake up when I use my Cpap machine, but I often fall asleep without it and then will wake up at the end of every cycle and spend less time in deep sleep while actually sleeping.
A little bit of daytime yardwork and walking probably helped with the restful nights, as well.

It's weird that I'm not much of an outdoors person as far as doing outdoor activities like camping, hiking, kayaking, etc. I like being outdoors, but mostly it's just to be outdoors versus being indoors. I think there is a different energy, maybe a bigger or more present kind of energy to being out instead of being confined to being in. It's difficult to explain, but if you know - you know.

Today is overcast and it was supposed to be raining, but it looks like most of the rain will miss us - at least until tonight. I wasn't planning on working in the yard, but I probably should. It might be my only exercise for the day - that and the quartermile walk to get the mail.

I hope you are well rested. Sleep is an often overlooked element of good health.

John

Tax Day*

*...Except it's a Saturday and that makes this year's tax day the following Monday which is the 17th.
...Except the 16th is a local holiday in DC and since the 16th falls on Sunday, the holiday moves to Monday the 17th, which moves taxes due day to the 18th!

Next year taxes will actually be due on the 15th again.  

What if ... ?

I've been thinking...

Easter for 2023 is over and the full season of Passover comes to an end tomorrow. I've been wrestling with the whole idea of substitutionary atonement/penal substitution/propitation/whatever you want to call it.
Because the crucifixion of Jesus took place at Passover, the picture is often drawn of Jesus taking the role of the sacrificial lamb and his death being the atonement for the sins of humanity. But I'm seeing a problem with that.
The Passover lamb wasn't a sacrifice. It was a meal.
And the blood of the lamb wasn't to atone for sin; it was to identify the people of God (the Jews) from the Egyptians in whose land they lived.
The Jews have a different festival for atonement - Yom Kippur.

So what was the purpose of Passover if it wasn't for saving the Jews from their sin?
Was it just to rescue them from Egypt?
To what end?
And is there a correlation between the blood of the lamb and the blood of Jesus?

I think the most difficult part of trying to figure this stuff out is in setting aside the contemporary Western interpretation of an ancient Eastern culture. I'm afraid that much of what I've been taught doesn't make much sense when I change my perspective to try to understand the Bible and its message to the people that it was written for. And are there lessons for us these centuries and millennia later?

From a purely nationalistic standpoint the ancient nation of Israel offers the real lesson for modern day America that we'd better get our shit together. The struggle between the sons of Israel and later the tribes of Israel ended up dividing the nation and then separate kingdoms were each captured, conquered, and eventually destroyed. The reinstated nation of Israel hardly resembles the Chosen People of God and is a damn poor substitute for the ancient nation.
Sorry for the political insertion, but it is one of the things I see when trying to figure out how this ancient story impacts us today.

Getting back to the crucifixion...
I understand that sacrificial offerings to appease gods and make atonement were a thing in the ancient world, even for the Hebrews. Face it - much of the Hebrew culture relating to God is taken from the way other cultures related to their gods. The ancient Hebrews wanted to be like other nations, even to the point of having an earthly king to rule over them. They gave to their king and to God in much the same way their neighboring pagan nations paid tribute to their kings and gods.

What if the Hebrew perspective of a wrathful, judgmental god is also taken from the cultures of the nations that surrounded them?
What if God made us his imagebearers so that we might have a loving relationship with him and other imagebearers?
What if it was never about condemnation and always about finding a way to re-establish a loving relationship with his creation?
What if God became man (Jesus) not to judge us, die for us, save us, or pay for our sin, but simply to connect with us and teach us how to connect with the God image/Christ image/spirit that lives within each and every one of us?
What if the great sacrifice of God wasn't in dying as a human, but rather in living as a human?

Paul writes that Jesus set aside all of the glory, all of the power, all of the being of God to become - not just a human, but an outcast among his people - and he did it to demonstrate that God loves all of us. 

What if Jesus didn't die so that we could go to a better place when we die?
What if he lived so that we could learn to recognize the presence of God now - in the world around us and in the people around us?
What if it was never about judgment and condemnation and it has always been about love?

John

Storytime

It is weird having to get prepared for a weekly class/small group, but here I am again. 
This is week 3 of Reading the Bible as a Storybook. 
I'm honestly not sure how it's going. Week 1 was well attended. Week 2 was about half that (I understand this isn't unusual). I guess we'll see how tonight goes.

Week 1 was just a basic introduction to the class to lay out what to expect. I did have a little time at the end and gave a short story summary of the short story of Ruth from the Old Testament.

Week 2 was some non-Bible sourced information on Abraham and the story of the blood covenant found in Genesis 15.

Tonight we will stay in Genesis and look at Abraham's grandson, Jacob (Israel) and his dysfunctional family that becomes the nation of Israel. It will be interesting to see if we can name all 12 sons of Jacob. I think everyone can get Judah and Joseph, but wonder about Naphtali, Gad, Issacar, and Zebulun.
What about the daughter's name?
And why does the coveted birthright fall from the oldest son down to the fourth born son? 
The Bible has some crazy stories. Maybe this one is here to give hope to anyone with a truly messed up family.

There really is some messed up stuff in this book. You should read it sometime.

John

Breaking the Streak and Reading a Book

I stopped two ongoing streaks this past weekend -- I didn't play Wordle on Saturday or Sunday, and I didn't read on my Kindle app yesterday (Sunday). My consecutive days reading (on the app) ended at 593.
Now we'll see if I go back to playing and reading (on the app) every day or a little less frequently.

Currently, I am reading an actual paper and ink book. I am usually reading more than one book at a time - generally a fiction and a non-fiction. This is a non-fiction religious study book that I bought several months ago but just haven't read yet. I'm now about 1/4 of the way into it and I am enjoying the history and foundation that is being laid for what is to come.
It's N. T. Wright's The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus's Crucifixion.

The book fits well into the way my own re-reading of the bible has been shaping my evolving view of heaven and hell and the way I see my relationship with God, Jesus, and the spiritual world. Wright gives the reasons why my thoughts make sense to me. 
If you are a follower of Jesus but have always (or often) struggled with the loving God that punishes by eternal damnation, you would benefit from this book.
Or maybe you see yourself as a spiritual person that loves the teachings of Jesus but can't see following a religion that uses the threat of hell as a motivation for drawing (or trapping) people into it. I think that perhaps you might learn there is more to God than what religion has created. 

* * * * *

The sun is shining and my yard is calling for attention. I'm going to water the 67 bulbs that I planted in my compassrose/sundial flower garden and mow the yard portion of our property (about an acre, with a push mower). No problem getting my steps in today!
Then I'll be back here sitting on the deck this afternoon with a cigar and something other than coffee to drink.
Retirement does not suck.
I am loving spring!

John
I'm loving spring. 
 

Oops!

 Look who I ran into!

Still makes me laugh.

Good Friday -- Tell me something good!

It's Good Friday
...and while I appreciate the cross and its many meanings for the day, truly what good is it if we live in misery and negativity in our everyday lives.

So...
in a more humanist/secular approach -- Tell me something good! 

I'll go first.
I got to see my mom and older sister this week.
I picked up my mom from Central Illinois and brought her to SWMO where my sister came to get her to spend Easter in OKC. We'll reverse the trip next week.
I always enjoy time with my family.

It's your turn.
What's good?

John

Still not writing, but...

 A worthwhile lesson...

Not Writing

Over the course of the past month or so there have been numerous times that I've opened blogger -- even started a new post only to end up deleting it and moving on with my day. The political landscape in the US and in Missouri has me retreating to the comfort of my little corner of the hell hole that the gun-loving, gay-hating, anti-diversity, racist, conservative "so called Christians" are creating where I live. 

I even wrote a post to the point of proof reading it and then deleted the entire thing rather than add one more rant into the maelstrom of negativity on the interwebs. 

It's even difficult to write about something positive (like the bible story class that started last week) because I find that I am so damned mad and frustrated with people that are blinded by politics, a false religion, and are unaware of their own personal privilege and bias.
They are so happy in their ignorance that they are afraid of people waking up (becoming "woke") and pointing out the truth of what is happening in the world around them.

The expletive "fuck" is on my mind and out of my mouth far too frequently these days. 

I have friends that are extremely active in battling many of the injustices that face marginalized communities. I don't know how they maintain any level of sanity or personal peacefulness while doing it. I can't even bring myself to write about it without diving into the dark depths of my own psyche. Perhaps the real secret to their superhero power is in the ability to persevere without being overwhelmed by the hate and ignorance that abounds around them.

Me?
I'll be on my deck (alone) enjoying a cigar and some classic rock.
Or maybe in my garden trying to coax some vegetables and flowers out of the Southwest Missouri soil.
But I won't be here at Out of My Hat until I can manage to produce something positive. I'll be taking a break for a while.

John