somewhere Thursday

 

Bilbo Baggins, and Frodo with Gandalf, among my heroes those years teaching at HNES, Hobbiton, "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings" trilogy one year; Lucy, Susan, Ed and High King Peter in Narnia the first year, later Eustace and Jill, including going to the movie "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" as our final exam just before Christmas that schoolyear; Harry Potter the third year, all in a series of modern fantasy fiction books and films where we'd halt the book or film at the most exasperating places and reflect on where we'd observed agape at work. All years a highlight of my life.

Still, um, so good, with my mid-to-late morning second mug of hot & black, a Hobbit second breakfast of Victoria's Last Bite pimiento cheese with a slice of Cracker Barrel extra sharp cheddar on two 40 calorie slices of Pepperidge Farm extra thin whole wheat bread, no mayo. 

Most mornings not, but second breakfast maybe a couple or three Times a year. Just so today after early breakfast of crab dip appetizer sandwich on the same extra thin whole wheat bread, with Coffee Club hot & black in my magic mug.

+++++++

What am I reading now that Hurricane Ernesto has swerved up and north and no threat. The excitement picks up in September and October, and we need to shed some of our outside porch furniture so as to be more quickly able to prep instantly for hurricane evac. Our water supply is already in Linda's car, and we have our canned goods &c in a grocery cart, ready to head for the escape route.

That settled, I keep up with events in Israel Gaza, trying to understand both sides. A major difference all these years after 1948 is that Israel always seemed ready to talk and compromise for peaceful coexistence on their ancient heritage; while the Palestinian leaders have been of one mind, to eliminate Israel and claim the land regardless of interim measures that might seem the Palestinians are inclined toward permanent peace but in truth have never been so.

And the ospreys flying by 7H, sometimes clutching a mullet, bring to mind species, Darwin, C. & Kebler, L. (1859) "On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or, The preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life." A clipping of a photo from a wonderful series by a neighbor here in Harbour Village 

reminded me that Charles Darwin, once headed for ordination as a CofE clergyman, was tripped up in his Christian faith by an insurmountable obstacle: that a kind, loving, good and gracious merciful God would never have "created" - - in what many or most people seem to believe is the sense of Genesis One and Two - - a world in which one animal was to be torn apart, sometimes screaming in agony, as it was eaten alive by another animal. My recall, Darwin was dealing with tiny creatures, maybe wasps and worms; but it comes home for me every Time I watch, from here in 7H, and on the Boulder County Fairgrounds Osprey Cam as an osprey arrives at the nest with a live, flapping fish and tears into it, always starting with ripping off the fish's lips and mouth and on into it as the fish jumps and flaps while being eaten alive, clutched tightly by the osprey's claw. 

An online video of a golden eagle lifting a lamb from its pasture to the eagle's nest. 

Do animals have eternal souls? Do humans, or is it human imagining, a product of our being terrified of death into eternal oblivion?

If, Matthew 6, He cares for the sparrow, does He care for the mullet? 

Not light nonsense, it's a legitimate faith question. How about the mouse experimented on in the laboratory? Or the lamb at the slaughterhouse, or at Pesach? Does God who cares for the sparrow care for the lamb and the mouse? Who or What is God? It has been said that pigs in the slaughterhouse, with higher intelligence than many other animals, may sense what is about to happen and can be terrified. Life (and dying and death) is not just about us humans. 

Jews in boxcars enroute to the German death camps: who will offer a rationalization for creation in which "Everything that happens is the will of their God," as someone once told me after I had officiated the funeral of a young man who had committed suicide? Theodicy includes rationalizing away the question and its problem, to save God. God needs saving? I don't think so.

Sean of the South visiting a trusting little child in the pediatric oncology ward, "If God is all powerful and all loving, why is there suffering?" is the standard theodicy question. Why did an Israeli attack kill four-day-old twins at the very moment their young father was registering their birth? 

A response to the question of theodicy is that, when all is said and done, God is not, after all, as we have imagined and imaged and constructed as the God we want as God of our faith. 

We do not understand. Perhaps understanding passeth human knowing even as, Schleiermacher wrote, in each of us there is a sense of the infinite. It may be that our sense is not yet fully developed? 

"Seek the Truth, ... " we need to keep on seeking; which is in fact a purpose of this late, later, latter, latest stage of my own life, where again and always mindful of Giordano Bruno, I do not accept dogma that is the result of other people's thinking.

A rebel? No indeed. I love the stories, the songs, and the music. And I will do my own seeking, perceiving, and believing.

Tomorrow's Friday: maybe a look at our Bible readings for the upcoming Sunday.

RSF&PTL

T88&c

osprey and mullet photo clipped and changed by me to center on the mullet instead of on the osprey, from a magnificent collection posted on a Harbour Village website by professional photographer resident here.