birthday amble

First thing Wednesday morning was my six-monthly dermatology visit and coming home with a little round hole cut above my forehead, and two chunks cut out of my right ear. The skull cut I rubbed too hard after shampoo this morning, and last night I slept on my right side such that the discomfort (which I will not call Pain) woke me up in the middle of the night, this morning noticing red spots on my pillowcase. The ear also dripped on the shirt I wore for lunch out with friends yesterday, es tut mir leid, I mean it, I had no idea it was still that raw or I'd have worn a bandaid.

Deluxe dining this week, leg of lamb, fried green tomatoes, &c and feud cake Thursday evening. Birthday Eve lunch at a new to me cafe Friday, fried mullet &c, the mullet done superior to my usual local place for fried mullet, and I'll go back for sure even though, my host was right, afterward my clothes, hair and face revealed where I'd been for lunch. Haven't had that experience since when I worked for Food Service Division flipping burgers at the grill, UnivFlorida mid 1950s.  

Supper last night, fried green tomato sandwich and birthday gin on the rocks. The weather collapsed on us Friday afternoon just as we were readying to drive out to Pruitt to see Malinda, and as a safety precaution we postponed, but it's on today's POD for after I go to the church office to print handouts for tomorrow's closing session (3 of 3) of Revelation with Dr Dan's adult Sunday school class. 

Revelation is an interesting book that I take as a product OF its Time and place, FOR its Time and place, and not the scary vision of Earth's future that some like to make of it.

Although, the SOME approach is a lot more interesting. My POV reduces it to what it actually was when Revelation John wrote it.

And the Church uses only the nice parts, a smidgen of it, when Revelation comes up for Sunday reading from the Lectionary, which will be next spring, 2025 Easter Season Year C.

++++++++=

Birthday Person is wearing shorts and it's cool in here, my legs are cold and I'm sneezing.

On the calendar this week, a battery of shots, flu, covid, rsv, haircut Friday, sermon prep for next Sunday at HNEC while the congregation is eating fried chicken on Shell Island. Wishing them a beautiful day.

++++++++

Reading: Simone Weil's "Gravity and Grace" compiled by her friend Gustav Thibon, to whom she entrusted her notes. Weil is a character in a high intelligence borderline insanity mold reminiscent of but not really similar to Franz Kafka, who was also a nut case. French, during WW2, Weil worked in London for the French government in exile. One of her proposals was a "nurse plan" that would be a volunteer company of single women with basic training in first aid but not qualified as nurses or other medics, who would be dressed in white as their parachutes opened and they floated to earth, "grace surrendering to gravity," behind enemy lines to administer first aid, unarmed except for their courage. When de Gaulle got word of her plan his response was "She's crazy," which substantially demoralized Weil.

Though I did appreciate, "Love needs reality. What is more terrible than the discovery that through a bodily appearance we have been loving an imaginary being? It is much more terrible than death, for death does not prevent the beloved from having lived. That is the punishment for having fed love on imagination."

Another one, discussing "A purely imaginary award (a smile from Louis XIV)," Simone goes on to say, "It is the same with religion at a certain level. Instead of receiving the smile of Louis XiV, we invent a God who smiles on us."

Which brings me round again to a repeated refrain about creeds, doctrine and dogma, and that theological question, "Who or What is God?"

Evidently, we can't help it - - Friedrich Schleiermacher said that there is planted in each of us, a sense of the infinite; so apparently our nature compels us to go there, for a God who smiles when pleased and punishes when we're bad, such that God is whoever or whatever we describe as God, enshrining in doctrines and encoding in creeds that construct God as we imagine, need, and/or wish God to be. But as God is incomprehensible beyond human knowing, all human constructs of God are off the mark.

God is whoever or whatever God is. God may reveal, and we may or may not understand. Just so, God in the Burning Bush to Moses,

I AM. I will BE that I will BE. Tell them HE IS sent you - - the ONE WHO Is - - tell them HE sent you.

It is not completely clear that Moses fully understood, but Moses came closer than most. As, Moses on the mountain while God gives Moses the Ten Commandments, meanwhile Aaron collects the gold that the Egyptians gave the Israelites to get them to leave, and fashions a golden calf for them to worship. Knowing what's going on below in Moses' absence, God is enraged, infuriated, tells Moses to get out of the way while God incinerates the Israelites. Now Moses "gets it." Moses says, "Shame on you! You'll be a laughingstock. Won't you make a fool of yourself before the Egyptians, when they see that you led the Israelites out of Egypt only to kill them all. You should be ashamed of yourself." 

And the Bible says, "God repented of the evil that he thought to do to his people."

Moses could be a PITA, and God never really liked him, not as God liked his old drinking buddy Abraham, eh? Even Abraham eventually shamed God into going ahead and keeping His half of the Covenant - - (been here before on this +Time blog) - - the three strangers who visited Abram and Sarai under the Oaks of Mamre: what my seminary NT professor characterized as Abraham's sexy ninety-year-old wife Sarah, hiding inside the tent giggling about the good looking, virile, young stranger was the same Holy Spirit who later visited the BVM.

At least, that's my take on the Trinity, if you don't like mine, imagine your own. Sometimes the Holy Spirit is breath, wind, breeze; sometimes other, whatever God, who styles Himself I AM that I AM, I WILL BE what I WILL BE, needs. 

+++++++

As I begin my 90th trip around the Sun, I'm still pondering God, seeking, exploring, discovering, encountering, realizing, being challenged by. If your theology is settled and you are okay with the dogma that is the result of other people's thinking, maybe your God is too small. 

++++++++

This afternoon, Linda, Kris and I had a nice birthday party visit with oldest daughter, Kristen's mom, Malinda at Pruitt Health. Cake and ice cream. A happy Time.

Wishing you long years, and hoping all your Times are as happy!

RSF&PTL

T89&c