Gentlemen, start your engines
Looks like I just missed the line of heavy thunderstorms, and that the rest of the day, which includes a haircut this afternoon, will be rainy. At least, judging by the green (rain) blob that stretches to Pensacola.
Ah, Pensacola, the mind wanders to my teenage years there with my Gentry grandparents and first cousins, especially Bill and me waiting until the old folks had departed for their evening of cards with friends, leaving the other car for us to speed around the streets of East Hill. Bill was the passenger, I was always the driver, and this morning, heading down the brick street of a residential neighborhood, myself behind the wheel of the 1952 Imperial hemi-V8 with the Fluid Drive tip-toe shift,
passing 50 mph before lifting my foot to let the transmission shift into high gear, my wild stupidity scares the living hell out of me this morning.
which was sluggish leaving the grid, but good by the Time I passed 60 mph before shifting into high gear ...
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My son Joe: I think he had a good Time with the black Chevy Camaro Berlinetta I brought home to keep in 1978 or 79. There was damage from a pothole he hit one night. I don't know if I succeeded as a father, but remembering how I felt about my father's anger when I dented a car as a teenager, I was never angry when my teenagers damaged a car, but relieved that they weren't hurt.
SomeTimes it was funny: one snowy day in Virginia, Malinda arrived in my green Oldsmobile Cutlass, home from her shift at work, with the right side crumpled in. The car had skidded on the slick Route 50 and slammed into a traffic sign. I asked, "How fast were you going?" She said, "35." I said, "Why were you going that fast on a slick, snowy road?" She said, "The sign said 35." I took the car to the local Earl Sheib shop (paint any car for $29.95, who remembers the Earl Sheib paint shops?) to be straightened out and repainted yellow instead of green.
There was a while, at our next Navy duty station, in Pennsylvania, when I had all the cars I wanted. I've told this here before: one day USAA phoned me and asked, "Commander Weller, why do you have seven cars?" I remember saying, "I don't have seven cars." The caller said, "There are seven cars on your policy." I said, "Wait a minute and let me look out front." I opened the front door and counted two cars in the garage and five parked at the curb. Returning to the phone, I said, "You're right, seven cars, I drive them all. I'll get rid of some of them."
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Anyway, here's our OT reading for this coming Sunday, Lent 4A:
1 Samuel 16:1-13
The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.” Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me.” And the Lord said, “Take a heifer with you, and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’ Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; and you shall anoint for me the one whom I name to you.” Samuel did what the Lord commanded, and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said, “Do you come peaceably?” He said, “Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord; sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.” And he sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.
When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed is now before the Lord.” But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. He said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen any of these.” Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.” He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.” Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. Samuel then set out and went to Ramah.
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My problem with this passage of scripture when God chooses David, and the earlier one when God chooses Samuel, is the writer having God say that God does not look on the outside, at how handsome is the young man whom God is choosing to be king - - when with both Samuel the first king, and David the second king - - there's a description of the boy's striking good looks, and, as I recall with Samuel, about how tall he is.
In the end, Samuel was a failure as God's anointed one, for several reasons in the, actually, two different stories about Samuel and David. But king David was God's favorite, and that notwithstanding David's evil sin involving Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite, a loyal officer under David, whose life David sacrificed in order to cover up David's affair with Uriah's wife, getting her pregnant, and Uriah a man of integrity too high-principled for his own good. David was brought down to earth by his chaplain Nathan, though, and David repented and was forgiven, though Bathsheba's son by David died shortly after birth. The classic theological cycle, creation as it is, sin, judgment & punishment, repentance, redemption and restoration.
In the Old Testament, God has two all-Time favorites: his old drinking buddy Abraham, and David. I guess maybe they're my two favorites also, both sinners, both dearly loved all the same.
Same with us, eh?
RSF&PTL
T90