Saturday morning in January 2026

Saturday breakfast: from yesterday's visit to TAFB Commissary, Schaller & Weber's liver pate with goose on rye bread with a slice of cheese and a smear of mustard and mayonnaise, second mug of hot & black, and the daily handful of prescription meds for the nonagenarian. 

An internationalist I have long been because interdependence forces peoples of Earth closer together whether we like it or not, and sets the stage for peaceful coexistence as in each nation's self-interest. As between us and Europe, us and Asia, us and South America, the case is clear, except (and I'm not positive) I don't see how Russia has ever contributed anything our way, what do they have, what could Russia have offered that anyone else wants or needs? Well, natural gas for heating Europe? IDK other than creating my taste for caviar; the Pennsylvania restaurant where we used to have Sunday brunch buffet after church because of the enormous bowls, one of red caviar, one of black caviar, serve yourself, and Mister Bubba enjoys eating a lot of caviar.

Linda going through the freezers this morning, found Greek spanakopita, and baked several to add to my breakfast menu.

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The duck hunter is back this morning, must be having some success, at least we hear the gunshots from here in 7H, I'm not outside on the porch. The duck blind is here just off our condo. What they're doing is legal if potentially risky because of shooting out toward where boats are passing. The last Time that hunter was here he was severely damned by some here in HV because observers here wrote that when he departed, he left one injured duck struggling in the Bay. He's local, during the week the duck blind boat is moored in the Bay just offshore a mile or so east of here down West Beach Drive.

Our father was not, one grandfather was a bird hunter, my brother has been, but I'm not a hunter - - as a boy long decades ago, I shot a bird once with my BB gun, picked it up where it fell from the tree in our backyard, and held it as it died in my hands, a baby bluejay. My shame and sadness is still there to be stirred. But not to be overly hypocritical, I do enjoy eating game that others have shot, as well as all other regular meats from processing plants. Duck is regularly available in Publix, so is goose. 

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This is a rambling Saturday morning. I'm trying to get to my topic before all the carbs I've eaten put me down for a long winter's nap.

Night before last I watched a three hour plus French film, "Anna Karenina" with English subtitles. Many films and other media have told the story. Over the decades, centuries, there have been dozens of different English translations of Tolstoy's novel, just as we have dozens of different English translations of the Hebrew and Greek Bible, Old Testament and New. After the film ended, long after my bedtime, and as I tried to go to sleep, I found myself contemplating Anna herself, trying to figure out various aspects and sides to her Being, her personality - - before the Count met her at the ball and started his pursuit of her, she was a compliant and submissive mother and wife of her Time and culture. With the Count's attention, the imagination, lust, passion, possessiveness and jealousy that she understood as love changed her completely, maybe even brought out what, unrealized, she was all along. What was Anna, and what was she like? What was her older husband like, he whose basic kindness and forbearance may have actually masked his ambitiousness and worry about scandal in that Time and place so different from what we know? 

Then it occurred to me that I was viewing the story's characters and other features as if they were real instead of novel fiction from Tolstoy's mind; and l don't do that at all when I'm reading, studying, contemplating, discussing the Bible and Jesus, rather I look at what the author intended, how Mark wrote, why Matthew and Luke wrote, what was going on in that place at that Time in Gospel John's history. With the Bible, I get outside the story and look at what has been termed the "sitz im leben", the situation in life; with "Anna" I was inside the story instead of contemplating what Tolstoy intended, when and what he wrote, why, and what he intended me to read between the lines. 

I'm not qualified to analyze Tolstoy vis a vis his writings, as I am somewhat qualified to analyze Bible characters and stories. For example, there is only one Anna Karenina, but there are at least three "Jesuses" - - maybe five - - Mark's Jesus, Matthew's Jesus, Luke's Jesus, Gospel John's Jesus, and Patmos John's Jesus of Revelation - - but three for sure, the Synoptic Jesus of lovingkindness; the mystical, self-proclaiming Jesus of Gospel John; and Revelation John's angry, fiery, frighteningly vengeful Jesus. There's adequate basis, in the novel and in Tolstoy's personal history, for deciding what Anna was like, and who she is and for seeing who Kostya is. But there is too much of a variety of Jesus in the New Testament for determining exactly what the historical Jesus was really like - - so we decide by Tradition, personal prejudice, Creed and Doctrine - - and different popular views. For example, the Jesus we preach in Anglicanism and proclaim in our Baptismal Covenant is by no means, not by any stretch of imagination, the same Jesus as the Jesus believed, proclaimed, and exemplified by the hate-filled Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas. And by others as well. Jesus may be different depending on who believes and is therefore Saved.

Who, What is/was the historical Jesus and what was he like? We don't know. "Truth" is what we seek, mindful that we are "blinded" by our traditions, faith, certainties, places in civilization and cultural points of view. We can seek with open minds, we can seek with the idea of proving our faith certainties. We cannot know. Quicunque Vult, the Athanasian Creed, has it right: the Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible (and yet they are not three incomprehensibles, but one incomprehensible). In Africa, some Christians, even Anglicans and their bishops, favor the death penalty for homosexuals is that the same Jesus we Western Christians believe in? Maybe some, absolutely not us. Some American Christians believe their faith certainties should be laid on everyone as law, the Episcopalians I know do not worship that Jesus - - what is Jesus really like? We all have our faith convictions, each and every different one of which can be "proof-texted" by cherry-picked passages of Scripture. 

So, I'm seeking, still seeking, my lifetime quest, expecting never to reach an unchallengeable finality, but always expanding and becoming more and more uncertain. 

RSF&PTL

T90