Tuesday from 7H

 

Bringing to mind a childhood of joy in Summer vacation, the muggy and warm that hits me in the face upon sliding open the door onto 7H porch is welcome, less so the bitter cold of Winter mornings except that Life is Short and we haven't much Time, and Life is Good, and Every Day Is A Beautiful Day. So those mornings as well.

Reading, I read and appreciated a short essay, "Why You Do Your Best Thinking In The Shower: Creativity & the 'Incubation Period'” because I find it so, shower Time a period when the mind freely roams happy memories. 

Reading, I'm currently reading Tabor's "The Book of Genesis" slowly. To read slowly I have to be mindful about it because of the speed-reading practice that formed when I was at the Naval War College 1968-69. Because of the voluminous reading required of officer students, the college offered at night, and "recommended as optional" but you knew you damn well better take it, Evelyn Wood's speed-reading course. I can get the message speed-reading, but for relaxation, enjoyment, appreciation, and observation I have to go slow. 

Slowly.

Currently I've been slowly reading and enjoying the story of Noah and the Flood, which Bible students know as a quaintly if awkwardly stitched together blending of two stories from different tribes of ancient Hebrew culture, one story involving ELOHIM and Noah, the other involving YHVH and Noah. In one story ELOHIM tells Noah to take into the vessel two of every flyer and every animal, a male and a female. In the other, YHVH tells him to take seven of every clean and two of every unclean animal and seven of every flyer, male and female. 

After the flood subsides, Tabor's charmingly literal translation of Noah's sacrifice and YHVH's response at 8:20 "And Noah built a slaughter-place to YHVH, and he took from every clean animal and from every clean flyer; and he made go up going up-things on the slaughter-place. 21 And YHVH smelled the soothing smell, and YHVH said toward his heart, 'I will not add to treat lightly still the soil on account of the soil-creature, for the shaping of the heart of the soil-creature is bad from his youth; and I will not add still to strike every living thing as I have done.'" So, there's the promise that God makes to himself and a bit later tells as his pact with Noah. 

A feature of the flood story is that now Noah is authorized to eat meat as well as fruit and vegetable. When Noah comes out, ELOHIM says 9:3 "Every moving thing that is living, to you will be for an eatable thing; as the green plant that I gave you - - now all" and it's an enlargement of 1:29f "And ELOHIM said, 'Look! - - I have given to you every plant seeding seed that is upon the face of all the land, and every tree, in which there is fruit of a tree, seeding seed; to you it will be for an eatable thing.'"

For myself, oysters, mullet, the delicious pork tenderloin we had for Monday dinner, the lamb rogan josh Kashmiri style lamb curry, heat level 2 or 3 never 5, that I hope to enjoy if we get to go to Holi for Linda's birthday dinner. We love Indian food, and we have always found Holi to be excellent. Each Time we go, I try to get a different lamb dish, thanks to Genesis 9:3.

RSF&PTL

T88&C

Tabor renders adam-the-earthling as the soil-creature. He said it could've been dirt-creature, but said that dirt had a negative connotation that the text did not intend, so he used soil instead of dirt.

pic: Vessel is Jinling Confidence, due to arrive Port of Panama City next week to load wood pellets. Where is she now?