with their waves so blue

Basket!!!

At a request, I'm recalling and writing down personal memories of my eight years as a student at Cove Elementary School, Panama City, Fall 1941 through Spring 1949, first grade through eighth grade, teachers Violet Heyward through our beloved Virginia Parker. Writing it started off with a bang, and I've roughed it out through fifth grade, then let it slide several days, with sixth, seventh, and eighth grades yet to be stirred and written.

Encouraging the memories to surface is fun and good, and I'll get back to it in due course. Needless to say, that I'm soon coming up on my ninety-first birthday tends to give the little project a certain urgency!

For a title, it's "Golden groves and crystal waters," which was the opening line of our Alma Mater song at Cove School, but memory slips and I'm missing a line of the song I thought would stick with me lifelong. I remember all the words of "On our city's northern border, reared against the sky, ..." from Bay High, fall 1949 through spring 1953. And I remember and can still hear the band playing "Florida, our Alma Mater, thy glorious name we praise, ... " - -

- - but our Cove School song is slipping away from me! Any better memories out there? I could always rely on Robert as my memory bank about our schooldays, and I'd have run my memories of Cove school by Robert before pressing "publish," but Robert died earlier this month.

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Moving on, here's our OT Bible story for the upcoming Sunday, day after tomorrow. Here, the King James Version because the syntax, the English presentation, of verse 8 is singularly profound, "God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering."

Further, the discussion of this story attributed to rabbinical chat over the ages:

God: Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac - -

Abraham: I have TWO sons.

God: Isaac, whom thou livest

Abraham: I love them both.

And the rabbinical observation that when Abraham returned home and Sarah found out what had happened, she never spoke to Abraham again.

Among civilized people of common human decency, that God told Abraham to kill his son, and that Abraham was prepared to do kill Isaac, and almost did so, is beyond the pale, beyond forgiveness. Of all the Bible stories, it is the most shameful. It is perhaps only just and barely redeemed for posterity and as prophecy, by Abraham's words, God will PROVIDE HIMSELF a lamb for sacrifice.

Unfortunately, other English translations do not have this syntax, order of words.

At any event, here's the story.

Genesis 22:1-14

22:1 And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. 2 And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

3 And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. 4 Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. 5 And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you. 6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together.

7 And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? 8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.

9 And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. 10 And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.

11 And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. 12 And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. 13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

14 And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.

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For life and love and friendship,

RSF&PTL

T90