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| Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 |
pecunium
|
8:20p |
An observation, which leads to questions which have no answer
I was reading a book last week (Skinwalkers, Tony Hillerman) and something in it gave me a strange epiphany.
There is a piece of the God of Job in the words of Jesus.
The God of Job, for those who aren't versed in Christian/Jewish theology is a difficult aspect of the divine. It's a God who, on a bet, destroys a man. Kills his cattle, destroys his home, slaughters his children; and their families just to test him.
Job wasn't some foul sinner.
Job 1:5
And it was so, when the days of feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.
An upright man, who worries that his sons might be committing sins inadvertently, and makes amends on their behalf.
Job 1:9/1:11-12
Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?
But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath [is] in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.
And Satan (who is a loyal servant of God's, not his dire opponent: that interpretation of him comes later) goes out and kills the children, and the animals (well, to be fair, some were stolen away).
Job's response... he worships God. From this book we get that most difficult of fatalistic comforts, "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh, Blessed be the Name of the Lord."
And it goes on, with Satan upping the ante, and God calling the bet, until Job is siting in the ashes of him home, afflicted with boils and flies, mourning in sackcloth.
His friends come, and they argue. Job knows God is answerable to none. He rails against the injustice of it: He doesn't blame God, per se, he merely wishes he had never been born.
When one of his friends tells him to plead his case (if he is blameless) Job (rightly) says there is no way, for the awe, and dread of God will overwhelm him. Despite this, Job does appeal to the Almighty for explanation.
And God does appear, and Job is overwhelmed. No answer does God make to the question of, "Why, what did I do" but to say,
Job 38:1-7
Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,
Who [is] this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?
Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.
Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?
Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;
When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
And He goes on, at length of the wonder and power and majesty and ineffable nature of Himself.
Which is the only answer Job gets. A more poetic form of, "I am that I am."
We are taught the God of the New Testament, of the Covenant of the Cross is better than this, that he is all loving, and forgiving.
Which brings me to my epiphany... the one which set me, as I ate my breakfast repeating a passage of the Lord's Prayer to myself; said to be the very words of Jesus, and wondering at "and lead us not into temptation."
Think on that sentence for a moment. Just by itself, forget the rest of the prayer which surrounds it. Ponder what it says about God.
Because it's not, "Keep us from", nor is it, "Strengthen us against." No it asks God to refrain from actively leading us into it.
Lead us not into temptation.
So many questions arise from that phrase.
Lead us not into temptation. |
marydell
|
9:44p |
Home Again, Jiggity Jig
At last, got cleared to leave Indiana and came home to the Chicago 'burbs. Charlie's pretty good in the car but Mike and I are COOKED. Bedtime.
Current Mood: barely awake
Current Music: "Man in a Suitcase," The Police |
elisem
|
8:32p |
ArtLog: current shinies, and new stuff, a day early yet. Woo! ( Ooh, SHINY!! ) |
elisem
|
6:35p |
Friday shinies will be posted a little early this week
... because I'm working on them now. |
fledgist
|
6:52p |
|
mjlayman
|
5:30p |
Juggernaut
This is a thriller from 1974 and someone must have recommended it to me. I wish I knew who and why, because although there were some very tense moments, the rest was not so much.
The British cruise ship Brittanic is between the UK and the US when the office receives notice of bombs aboard. The bomber, who calls himself Juggernaut, asks for 500,000 pounds in exchange for how to disarm the bombs. The police insist that the money not be paid, they'll send a batch of bomb experts instead. As the experts work their way through the traps in the bombs, some of them are killed, and there's a lot of damage to the ship. Personally, I think they should have just paid the money. Stars Richard Harris, Anthony Hopkins, and Omar Sharif, but that wouldn't be enough for me to watch it again. |
mjlayman
|
5:24p |
NAAAAAAP
It turned out that the Code Orange was only further in and we were clear, and I passed the neuro tests online, so I took my BFAC and another package to the Post Office. The other package wouldn't have fit into the APC bin tomorrow so I wouldn't have gotten it out until Monday and now that I'd packed it, I wanted it to go.
But now I'm sleepy and I'm going to take a nap. Delayed sleepiness. |
fledgist
|
5:03p |
|
serge_lj
|
1:35p |
Dee ayed Gree Susan de Guardiola has posted her Balticon report, in which she finds that De ayed Gree, whatever that means, and where we learn that some Tor editors apparently are insufficiently remunerated. Oh, and there are some really neat masquerade photos. |
serge_lj
|
12:35p |
a bus, a bunny, and a spiderhorse
My favorite stories Realms of Fantasy's August 2008 issue...
In James van Pelt's Light of a Thousand Suns, Trellis is having very bad dreams, which is why he doesn't mind the long shifts as a mall's security guard. One day he notices a trailer parked at one end of the lot. There is something not quite right about that trailer: not only does Trellis find himself forgetting about it unless he focuses really hard, but, when he finally gets inside the trailer, he finds stairs that lead deep into the earth.
Eugie Foster's Daughter of Bótù is about An-ying, a rabbit who follows the teachings of Buddha, one of which is that it's desire that causes suffering. Of course, when she and her mother and grandmother are turned into humans, she falls in love with a nobleman who was wounded during a hunt in the forest. He takes An-ying to his home, and they would be happy together if not for her husband's stepmother, who dislikes her intensely. An-ying can't understand why until she sees the woman's true self in a magical mirror.
Liz Williams' narrator in Spiderhorse was born dead on a midwinter night, so her father takes her to the crossroads of Heimfell, hoping that the Wild Hunt will find her before the sun has fully risen. They do find her, and take her with them. She grows up to become Wotan's lover, and everything goes well about her life until she decides that she must ride Wotan's horse Sleipnir. |
serge_lj
|
9:15a |
the mighty Hercules
My wife and I have been watching the Hercules Poirot movies thru the wonders of NetFlix, and I have a question for those who are familiar with the First Lady of Crime.
I've noticed that Suchet's Poirot is a big romantic(1), . Also in 1992's One, Two, Buckle My Shoe(2), he outright says that the fate of nations concerns him far less than that of the individual. How close is his Poirot to Agatha Christie's?
----------
(1) In a small package.
(2) Hey, that is Christopher Eccleston! |
elisem
|
12:54a |
ArtLog: Beads of the Month preview pictures! I am about to post some in the BotMo LJ: ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) botmo |
elisem
|
12:43a |
personal to the whole world, apparently
Just because somebody's a public figure does not mean they stop being a person. Especially if they're an author.
Yeah, I'm a little touchy about this topic. I get forcibly reminded sometimes that apparently some people think there's this huge uncrossable gulf between "real people" and "famous people," and that the two have no relation to each other, no connection, and that the latter are clad in permanent Kevlar hide, and therefore one can say anything one wants to about them because they are Not Real and also Only Here For Our Enjoyment.
Yeah, OK, I should go mellow out or something. But dammit, I miss people I love that have died, and it does not help to hear people casually dissing them.
It's stuff like this that makes me understand why people get the rep of being stuck-up and snooty -- I imagine that wariness looks a lot like that, to those that don't know what's behind it. But it's between wariness and wanting to smack somebody, at the moment, and smacking is only a momentary pleasure.
*sigh* |
| Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 |
julia_here
|
5:42p |
|
elisem
|
5:50p |
incipient BotMo coolness
Remember when I said I was up to something involving BotMo?
If all goes well this evening, I will have some photos to show you soon. Tempty, tempty photos.... |
mjlayman
|
6:39p |
Dig Bonus Disk
I considered whether I was going to watch this, after the less-than-pleasing original documentary, but I only had about an hour left on my BFAC project and this was an hour long, so I put it in. I thought finding out that most of the people have matured was very nice. Many of the folks are back in new bands. It was interesting that it won the documentary award at Sundance, but I wouldn't have agreed. And the filmmaker nursed her baby through the interview with her, and it's nice to see women who are comfortable with that in public. |
mjlayman
|
6:34p |
Erranding and BFAC Project I was very tempted by the bananas on the counter after I got up, so I put them in the cupboard where I wouldn't eat them. I took the recycling to our bins, dropped Humans off at the library, put the giant birdseed box, collapsed, in the cardboard recycling dumpster at Public Works, and dropped a DVD in the drive-by box at the post office. Then I went on to Kaiser to get stuck for the lipid panel. As I left, one of my neighbors drove by and waved, so when she came home after I did, I went out and asked. She's been with Kaiser for one year now and likes it so far; I've been with them and the HMO they bought when they came here for 31 years. I had planned on eating at Olive Garden because they have that lovely sorbet and fruit dessert, but something distracted me to Red Lobster, next door. I had the lobster pizza, which wasn't bad, but didn't taste much of lobster, and a mediocre key lime pie. Next time I go that way, I'll keep going to Olive Garden. I finished my BFAC project last night and put the pictures up today. I don't hurt as much today, a lot of the muscles have loosened, but I'll still take narcotics tonight. I have to stay home tomorrow anyway, it's Code Orange. I'll mail this to my friend AJ, who is the board member who's photographing them for the auction next year, on Friday. |
fledgist
|
5:44p |
|
pecunium
|
12:13p |
I'm it
I've been tagged to the recurrent "Page 123 game."
It's pretty simple really:
1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences here.
5. Put this list, and the answer, in your journal, tag five people and the madness continues.
I don't tag people, so if you feel like playing along, power to you; answer here, or in your journal (I'm more likely to see it here, the world in your journal).
Nearest book:
Food The History of Taste. University of Calif. Press 2007 Ed. Paul Freedman.
Page 123: Illus.
Page 124.
"The emperor's devotion to Buddhism evidently did not prevent his enjoyment of animal food, but on religious festival days and some other special occaisions he ate only vegetarian dishes. Buddhist influence, in combination with the exigencies of of sheer poverty had created a very strong vegetarian tradition in Chinese cuisine. At the imperial level, it is very likely that many of the dishes served to the emperor were vegetarian imitations of meat, and other non-vegetarian fare." |
marydell
|
1:36p |
Oh, the pain, the pain of it all
I've never been crushed by the pain of being infertile...it's been more of an ache. I have a lot of nieces and nephews, so my genetic gifts are sufficiently represented in the next generation without my own contribution. And my relationship with my body is one of mutual disdain, most of the time, so I'm mostly ok with missing out on the pregnancy/childbirth thing, although I'm a little sad about it.
Being childless has been painful, but that, too, is something that hits some people harder than it hit me. I have so many happy childfree friends that I've been able to consciously move past the default raised-catholic idea of "life without children is meainingless." For myself, I had to do some serious thinking about what would give my life meaning if I never had kids. And I've spent the past couple of years seriously focusing on those ambitions, and I plan to go on that way now that I'm a mom, time allowing. He's going to grow up and move away eventually, after all, and people who live vicariously through their kids are a real pain to have as parents.
Which isn't to say I haven't yearned to be a mom. I have and have and have, and the journey to get here has sucked a lot. But all of the pain of that journey is melting away now; I really don't care about the pieces I've missed out on, because everything that matters to me is here with me now. [I almost said "in my arms," good lord, mommy hormones or something are inspiring me to write sweet, cloying prose! Thank god my brain said "no he's not, you can't type with a baby in your arms, you moron, and who do you think you are, anyway, L.M. Montgomery?"]
The pain of endometriosis, on the other hand, does NOT melt away. Normally I take flexiril for my godawful, debilitating cramps, but it makes me too sleepy to care for a baby, so today I'm just taking huge amounts of advil and thanking the gods that my new baby is snoozy and that his daddy has mostly figured out how to keep him dry during diaper changes so I don't have to do them all. Ohhh I miss my couch. With luck we can go home tomorrow.
Current Mood: raggedy
Current Music: A place called home, Kim Ritchie |
fledgist
|
12:27p |
|
fledgist
|
11:33a |
|
serge_lj
|
5:59a |
"All shall love me and despair!"  "In the place of a Dark Lord you would have a Queen! Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the Morn! Treacherous as the Seas! Stronger than the foundations of the Earth! All shall love me and despair!"  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SAJIA!!! |
| Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 |
pecunium
|
8:36p |
2nd Court of Appeals snarks Bush Administration. From a ruling on detainees at Guantanamo: "The government suggests that several of the assertions in the intelligence documents are reliable because they are made in at least three different documents," wrote Judge Merrick Garland. "We are not persuaded. Lewis Carroll notwithstanding, the fact the government has 'said it thrice' does not make the allegation true. In fact we have no basis for concluding that there are independent sources for the documents' thrice-made assertions."Link to CNN storyFurther in the ruling they hit more of the crux of the matter: The three-member court, made up of two Republican judges and one Democrat, was particularly pointed in its criticism of the argument that evidence is reliable because it appears on multiple documents.
"The government insists that the statements made in the documents are reliable because the State and Defense Departments would not have put them in intelligence documents were that not the case," the court wrote. "This comes perilously close to suggesting that whatever the government says must be treated as true." Chicago TribuneWe can only hope this sort of policy ends as the poem does: In the midst of the word he was trying to say,
In the midst of his laughter and glee,
He had softly and suddenly vanished away---
For the Snark *was* a Boojum, you see. |
elisem
|
6:40p |
ArtLog: work in progress, some unexpected gorgeousness for July BotMo, and Secret Project update
There's a new necklace done, in silver and whispery blues and greys. I have to think about it a bit more before I show it to you. Plus, I found a coil of wire today.
"Hey!" I said.
"Hmm?" said Daniel the Intrepid Assistant.
"Look," I said, waving the coil of wire. "Yep," I said, to his raised eyebrow. "That's not silver."
So now there's a pendant of amber on gold-filled wire which is pretty awesome, and some earrings of glass and gold-filled wire. (One pair of those has some astonishing lampwork from Victoria Gail, who did some of the lampwork in a recent Beads of the Month package.)
Speaking of Beads of the Month, I just got kind of wild and put something very special into the Mother Of All Magpies packages for July. Remember those shield-shaped pieces of the stuff I call "dragonscale carnelian"? Turns out I had enough of them to put one in each MOAM package. "O for a Muse of Fire" seems like the perfect theme for such a thing.
And we shipped many shinies out today, and the Secret Project is done, and as soon as it gets to its recipient, there will be a place I can send you to look at photographs and everything. But right now I must go eat something before I fall over. |
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