tower, 718 heavy for takeoff
Tuesday begins with hot & black modified with two of those little peel-off cups of half&half and a teaspoon of honey with cinnamon, an Xmas gift (keep the Xpistos in Xmas), for a change and maybe a little spurt of wakeup energy.
Weather is high 40s, Wind NW 12mph, "feels like" 45° and humidity 73%.
Back to TAFB this morning to get the prescription reading glasses repaired, as last week we didn't realize the main gate is closed (the USAF goes crazy building and tearing down and rebuilding and tearing down and rebuilding and tearing down gates), and the traffic was too heavy to keep fooling with, so we gave it up and made a morning of shopping at Bill's Grocery Outlet stores in Calloway and St Andrews. This morning we'll know to enter the base at the gate just the other side of the bridge.
Yesterday I had a lesson in human nature: taking my first pair of prescription reading glasses back to the Eye Center where I bought them, to ask what might be done about their crazed lenses (it's not part of this story that I have three pairs because I've been in situations where eyeglasses were broken or lost, and so I always try to have extras). In asking about the crazed glasses I was treated dismissively by the staff, polite but different to how people usually treat me. Thinking about it later I realized that it was because I was dressed extra casual, downright sloppy. So I got treated as poor people are often treated, not necessarily disrespectfully, but too unimpressive to be taken seriously (including being told "we don't even carry this frame any more"). It's not at all a complaint, simply an experience and observation about human nature. If I had been dressed neatly as usual when I go out, I'd have been taken as a serious client including I would have been asked if I'd like to order a new pair (which as a slob I obviously could not afford, so don't even bother to ask). Bought at the eye center I paid about $300 for these eyeglasses, but with my insurance I'll get them for $10 at the Tyndall eye center anyway, so that's a no brainer. And IDK, I may try more experiments to test human nature.
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Linda has just come out with her coffee and suggested that, seeing that we intend to go to Ash Wednesday service at 7:30 tomorrow morning, go to TAFB tomorrow instead. Which is a good idea and decision, and enables me to (a) have a nice breakfast and not worry if it makes me drowsy for a nap, and (b) make this a Furo-60 morning because, with my left leg ankle foot being size L while my right leg ankle foot is size is XL or even XXL and needs to be drained off. Wishing you long years.
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The situation in the Israel Gaza War worsens daily, the family loss stories coming out of Gaza are gut-wrenching. Remembering the horrors of Hamburg and Dresden, the object of war is to destroy your enemy, and pausing so the enemy can regroup, or armistice so the enemy can return to how they were before they attacked, makes no sense and is not a fair and reasonable option unless you are losing; or unless you do not understand war. If you read the book of Joshua you will see that God understands war whether you like it or not!
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Second Reading for the upcoming First Sunday in Lent, Year B:
1 Peter 3:18-22
Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you-- not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.
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This passage is the basis of several theological elements of the Apostles' Creed, which we no longer say as our ordinary Sunday creed (we say the Nicene Creed as part of our eucharistic liturgy), but only as a baptismal creed (or, optionally at funerals). However, I grew up with us saying the Apostles' Creed every Sunday except the one Sunday a month when we had Holy Communion.
Here's that version of the Apostles' Creed, from Morning Prayer Rite One:
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth;
And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord;
who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried.
He descended into hell.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven,
and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From thence he shall come to judge the quick
and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
The early Latin original said "descendit ad inferos" but during the mid-20th century liturgical reform the line was changed from "He descended into hell" to "He descended to the dead" along with other clarifications.
The Apostles' Creed does not say, from the above 1 Peter passage, that He was crucified for the forgiveness of our sins (a Pauline theology that Matthew adds to Mark's account of Jesus' words of institution at the Last Supper); but 1 Peter does say Jesus ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God. Affirming trinitarian theology, the Apostles' Creed makes it "God the Father Almighty". The Nicene Creed has it that "He is seated at the right had of the Father."
I enjoy comparing our two main creeds, which differ significantly in the Nicene Creed's emphasis on settling early theological issues about Christ as the Second Person of the Trinity.
An enjoyable Sunday school class discussion could focus on the 1 Peter passage saying that Jesus was made alive in the spirit (which ties in to Paul's assertion that there is a physical body and there is a spiritual body) over against the creed's assertion, "I believe in the resurrection of the body," which is to take place at the End of Days when Christ returns.
Look, I'm wandering, so I'll quit, but not before I recall that a member of my class at seminary refused to sign the Pennsylvania thing about organ donor on his driver's license because he wanted his body to be whole and complete at the Resurrection - - another great discussion topic for Sunday school class.
RSF&PTL
T88&C