Friday me & Moses

 

Shabby. I like things threadbare and worn, old things, especially things from my past that are part of my memories. Our main living room sofa, we bought autumn 1969 in an elegant furniture store in La Jolla just north of San Diego, before my ship deployed to WestPac. It's Henredon, in an oriental-like style that we like. We paid $500 for it on sale because the pillows were missing. The platform rocker's turquoise pattern upholstery: my mother upholstered that chair many decades ago, and we rocked all of our grandchildren in it. Mama gave it to me in 1985 when Nicholas was a baby. 

The faded wingback chair I'm sitting in was in the living room of Linda's home when we started dating as teenagers. The wrought-iron teacart was in their family room: Pete, her father, used to sit by it evenings as he controlled the clicker for the black & white TV, his bourbon highball resting on the teacart until he took another sip.

Our black dining room table with Chinese red chairs, Linda's mother bought in New York City about 1955. The glass breakfront china cabinet behind me was a wedding gift to Linda's parents from family in 1934, as was the ancient Victorian bentwood sofa against the east wall, under an oil painting of a scene in Bayou La Batre, of a fishing boat towing four skiffs along behind. 

There's a small, round, oak table in the far corner, that my mother had made for me that autumn 1993 right after my father died, using a wrought iron base that Linda bought at Penny's Worth, our church thrift shop in Apalachicola. Everything in here is worn and loved because it's part of our history, holds memories. 

The only new thing in the living room is the gray cloth sofa bed we bought for Joe to sleep on when he comes to visit; but it was replaced by our queen sized bed when our new adjustable beds arrived in December, and the sofa bed is now in the living room just in case. It has three enormous red pillows on it because Bubba likes red.

In our bedroom is furniture from our early days, including a blue velvet armchair my mother had upholstered by a woman in St Andrews maybe sixty-five years ago. Her husband was Asa McNeil, who drove a truck for my father's seafood business for a while in the late 1940s, early 1950s, before he became a policeman on PCPD. Asa always liked us, and used to come by the fish house in uniform, driving his huge motorcycle. Walt will remember Asa, whose wife had an upholstery business, from their home. 

In my office study den is an oak chest of drawers that my parents bought from a ship salvage store that sold furniture torn out of the old Liberty ships like Wainwright Shipyard built during World War Two. We used to go out and our father would park the car so we had a view of ships being launched. This oak chest was built into the bulkhead of an officer's cabin, obviously in the corner of the stateroom, because the left side is unfinished, so I also have it against the corner wall! One of my top treasures, it was in the Old Place kitchen all the years my parents lived there, from 1962 or 1963. Maybe twenty years ago I bought, at Antique Cottage, an antique glass front cabinet exactly the same oak finish, that exactly fits sitting on top of it. 

The chest, our father had painted white because mama did not like oak furniture; but years ago I stripped off the paint and varnished it back original. Right now, it's full of my socks and stuff, and the glass breakfront on top of it is filled with my old model cars. But I'd like to give it to a family member who would treasure it as I do, and who remembers it from the Old Place, IDK, maybe Andrea or Mike?

Old stuff. We're not into the IKEA generation, or remodeling with all new things from Time to Time. Everything here is part of our lives and made 7H home the day we moved in over nine years ago!

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Wandered, you wandered again, Bubba. My intention was to mention our First Reading for Sunday: 

Exodus 20:1-17

God spoke all these words:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. For six days you shall labour and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.

Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

You shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.  

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But there's more, a lot more, and I'd thought to copy and paste from the next chapter, which is a continuation of the same story of God giving Israel the Ten Commandments - - so, from Exodus 21:

The Law concerning Slaves

1 “These are the ordinances that you shall set before them:

2 “When you buy a male Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, but in the seventh he shall go out a free person, without debt. 3 If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out alone. 5 But if the slave declares, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out a free person,’ 6 then his master shall bring him before God. He shall be brought to the door or the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl, and he shall serve him for life.

7 “When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. 8 If she does not please her master, who designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed; he shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt unfairly with her. 9 If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. 10 If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish the food, clothing, or marital rights of the first wife. 11 And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out without debt, without payment of money.

The Law concerning Violence

12 “Whoever strikes a person mortally shall be put to death. 13 If it was not premeditated but came about by an act of God, then I will appoint for you a place to which the killer may flee. 14 But if someone willfully attacks and kills another by treachery, you shall take the killer from my altar for execution.

15 “Whoever strikes father or mother shall be put to death.

16 “Whoever kidnaps a person, whether that person has been sold or is still held in possession, shall be put to death.

17 “Whoever curses father or mother shall be put to death.

18 “When individuals quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or fist so that the injured party, though not dead, is confined to bed 19 but recovers and walks around outside with the help of a staff, then the assailant shall be free of liability, except to pay for the loss of time and to arrange for full recovery.

20 “When a slaveowner strikes a male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies immediately, the owner shall be punished. 21 But if the slave survives a day or two, there is no punishment, for the slave is the owner’s property.

22 “When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined what the woman’s husband demands, paying as much as the judges determine. 23 If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

26 “When a slaveowner strikes the eye of a male or female slave, destroying it, the owner shall let the slave go, a free person, to compensate for the eye. 27 If the owner knocks out a tooth of a male or female slave, the slave shall be let go, a free person, to compensate for the tooth.

Laws concerning Property

28 “When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox shall not be liable. 29 If the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past and its owner has been warned but did not restrain it, and it kills a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death. 30 If a ransom is imposed on the owner, then the owner shall pay whatever is imposed for the redemption of the victim’s life. 31 If it gores a boy or a girl, the owner shall be dealt with according to this same rule. 32 If the ox gores a male or female slave, the owner shall pay to the slaveowner thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned.

33 “If someone leaves a pit open or digs a pit and does not cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it, 34 the owner of the pit shall make restitution, giving money to its owner but keeping the dead animal.

35 “If someone’s ox hurts the ox of another, so that it dies, then they shall sell the live ox and divide the price of it, and the dead animal they shall also divide. 36 But if it was known that the ox was accustomed to gore in the past and its owner did not restrain it, the owner shall restore ox for ox but keep the dead animal.

Couple of laws from Deuteronomy:

Dt 21:18 “If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father and mother, who does not heed them when they discipline him, 19 then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the gate of that place. 20 They shall say to the elders of his town, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.’ 21 Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear and be afraid.

Dt 22:22 “If a man is discovered lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman as well as the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.

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Quite sure nobody but me has read down this far, but these laws along with the Ten Commandments ought to but do not especially interest homophobes of limited intellect who pour through God's rant to Moses at Leviticus 18 to cherrypick out 18:22 as prooftext that "the Bible says a man shall not lie with another man as with a woman." The Bible says a lot of things, but we just like to pick through and hold our neighbors to those Bible verses that prooftext to substantiate our own certainties, prejudices, and hatreds. Bonhoeffer is quoted, We have far more to fear from stupid people than from evil people.

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Need a picture to go with this, don't I. Ah, a great one of Moses, fierce and angry, pinched without permission.

T