if I should stay

Life goes on with or without us, and as people die it occurs to me again this morning that some of us make life better in some way or other for the rest of us. Some measure and mix of their integrity or intelligence, honor, trustworthiness, generosity, kindness, brightness, the very value of their existence among us in our lifeTime. 

None of us really know anyone else, and there are things about everyone that we don't know or might not admire, but thinking beyond family, loved ones and friends, for me it's been people I've named here before and others - - in my Time, Franklin D Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Gandhi, Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter, scholars of The Jesus Seminar, Ike Eisenhower, maybe Bart Ehrman and Sean Dietrich; some in the entertainment industry including Dolly Parton this morning, whose brightness illuminated a Time in my own life. 

Even today some of her songs run through my mind and get stuck there, repeating for maybe days on end. As with anyone, IDK, maybe there were dark sides to Dolly, but what I knew was, as I say, her brightness, her voice, her singing, her humble style always honoring her life's history, and her generosity and kindness, her voice, her laughter and smile. That was my experience, the way I saw her. She was extraordinary. "If I should stay" - - I had wanted and expected her to stay and outlive me. The sudden news of her health issues was startling, and her death is a loss in our world. I am sad.

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Wednesday: already had my eye-opening magic mug of hot & black club coffee, already did my exercise of an hour on the walking machine, already thought about what I want for breakfast: leftover rice and the rest of those speckled beans that we bought at Tanya's Garden the last Time we were there. In a bowl, hot, and maybe a thick square of butter on top, eh? Or maybe a couple of eggs over-medium. Breakfast, heart pills and FuroForty, a morning nap later, something tasty for dinner, a light supper; overall, a happy day with nothing on the calendar. Life is Good and Time is short, enjoy!

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Maybe I'll have a look at our Lectionary for this coming Sunday and pick something to muse over - - 

https://www.lectionarypage.net/CalndrsIndexes/Calendar2026.html

Yep, I already commented on the story of Moses and the Burning Bush, so here's the gospel reading for Sunday:

Matthew 16:21-28

Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?

“For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

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Again, and I'm looking at the last paragraph above, what Matthew does with Mark's gospel. Here's how Mark puts it:

Mark 9:1 And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.”

I like understanding Mark's Jesus in the sense of "seeing" - - realize, comprehend, understand, see with a spiritual mind's eye - - that the kingdom of God is present for us to live into - - per Jesus' words in the Gospel of Thomas, GThos114, "the kingdom of the father is spread upon the earth, and people do not see it."

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Also, Matthew writing in retrospect, looking back to 30 AD from about 85 AD, Matthew, or conceivably the Early Church working Matthew's gospel, retrospectively understanding Jesus as knowing his destiny, casting Jesus' death as divinely foreordained to explain theologically to Matthew's audience how/why it could be that the Messiah should come to such a fate instead of living into Jewish expectations of a warrior Messiah who would overthrow foreign domination of the Holy Land and reestablish the Temple for Shekinah, the return of God's glory - - to, instead, a new messianic concept in which Jesus will return as the Daniel 7 Son of Man to establish the Kingdom of God on Earth.

Matthew does pick up Mark's promise of the imminent coming of the kingdom of God, so imminent that some of those standing there hearing Jesus' words would be there to live into it.

It's all good, I love it - - reading it, contemplating it, discussing it in a bible study group, in my former Time preaching it. 

It's the gospel truth!

RSF&PTL

T90