3:94, #588: Rhymers vs. Knucklers

Here we are at the end of November and I'm listening to "Road Kill Christmas" as I write...just to keep me in the right frame of mind, I guess....hmmm, if you frame your mind, is that how you picture things in your head? Anyway...

When you are trying to figure how many days are in a particular month, are you a Rhymer or a Knuckler? I'm betting most of you are Rhymers who say:

Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November,
All the rest have thirty-one, excepting February,
Which has 28...when Leap Year gives it 29.

Now, you few and far between Knucklers will simply put up your hand as in the illustration above, start counting at the index finger knuckle, and note that the months falling in the 'web' between the knuckle have 30 or 28 days (excepting Leap Year, of course) while those on top of the knuckles have 31. Note, too, how it works out that July hits at the little finger knuckle and August hits back at the index finger since they're the only months consecutively 31-counters!

My point? Hey, it's that 30th day of November!!
Got brain storm of your own?!!

3:93, #587: Captain Bob and Jonah

This morning I read the book of Jonah with my beige flaky cereal while at the same time in my life I'm reading Moby Dick...howzzat for providential coincidence?!! Anyway, didja ever wonder what happened to the guys in the boat after they chucked Jonah into Davey Jones' locker? The Bible says in Jonah 1:15-16, "So they picked up Jonah, threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped its raging. Then the men feared the LORD greatly, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows."

This 'feared the LORD greatly'...was it only 'scared witless' or 'scared witless and reverently in awe of' the Lord? In their Old Testament way, it looks to me that they may very well have had a viable 'conversion experience' which resulted in the sacrifice and vows. Granted, they may simply have just been doing obeisance to placate and show a tip of the hat to one more god in the panoply of their polytheistic world, but what, exactly did they 'vow?' It just could be that they vowed to follow only the Living and True God of Jonah who had made the earth and the seas.

Think of it, that could possibly mean they sailed on to Tarshish and did some personal evangelism akin to what the woman at the well did when she went back to her town in John 4 of the New Testament; which, of course would have the twin results of converting some and hardening the rest, based on God's election of the Tarshishians!! After all, the original reason Jonah was ship-bound for Tarshish was that he didn't want to evangelize the pagans in Nineveh; which he knew would work to their repenting and becoming true believers even though they were UNCIRCUMCISED GENTILES... what's the original Hebrew for 'yick?!!' ;p

Well, this is another one of those Bob Wonders deals that will have to be answered on the 'other side of the river as we sit under the shade of the trees'...like, was the Captain's name 'Bob?'
I wonder...

3:92, #586: Thankful Thoughts

I earlier posted on Facebook that I'm thankful for flush toilets, space heaters, and the fact that God created the guys who invented all the stuff we take for granted. Since today is Thanksgiving, I thought I'd express a few more Thankful Thoughts:

I'm glad our nostrils don't point up...think of the trouble we'd have during heavy rains with water getting up our noses! :P

I'm glad humans can flatulate, unlike rodents which will internally explode if they drink carbonated beverages...think of the impact this would have on the soda and beer, not to mention Alka Seltzer, industries!! Think of all the fun that would not have occurred down through millenia as guys burned off their self-produced methane gas in twisted male sports contests!! ;P

Music and all its permutations is another big item on my Thanks List. Even though I appreciate silence every once in a while, cranking good tunes is part of why we were made in the image of God...to 'make a joyful NOISE unto the Lord!!'

I'm also thankful for the creative way the Lord used a rib back in Eden, with all its subsequent varieties down through the years...'Nuff Said!

To counter balance the above...I'm also glad guys are like we are, prototyped from the Original Dirtball, with all those permutations available to us!!

Well, this could go on, but brevity is the soul of wit, so I guess that makes long winded writers and talkers witless?
Got Thank Thoughts of your own??

3:91, #585: Books I'd Recommend

I've just looked over the list of the BBC Top 100 books list again from a friend's Facebook account and am convinced whoever compiled the list was one of the 'effete intellectual snobs' now-dead V.P. Spiro T. Agnew might have accosted with that phrase during Nixon's Administration. I tallied 28 books & another 10 from movies watched. Well, here are some books/short stories/poems I have read (pronounced 'red' not 'reed' for you American-Is-My-Second-Language Folks) which I would actually suggest you read ...no particular order after #1:

1. The Bible (22 times through it so far), One Author, several writers
2. Lord of the Rings (7 reads on this one), J.R.R.Tolkien (28 times on the movie!)
3. Shakespeare: Hamlet, MacBeth, Othello, Henry V, Midsummer's Night Dream, Much Ado About Nothing...all the rest as you feel up to it! ;) (Ken Branaugh does excellent versions)
4. Sherlock Holmes: All of them, Arthur Conan Doyle (Robert Downey's the man!)
5. Poe's 'Raven,' 'Tell Tale Heart,' 'Pit and the Pendulum,' "Masque of the Red Death,' & 'A Cask of Amontillado.'
6. Journey to the Center of the Earth, Jules Verne (James Mason beats Brendan Frazier)
7. Moby Dick, Herman Melville (Greg Peck/Richard Baseheart version)
8. Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William Shirer
9. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon
10. Quo Vadis, Henryk Sienkiewicz
11. Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ, Union General Lew Wallace (You go, Chuck Heston!!)
12. Robinson Crusoe (unabridged with a gospel presentation), Daniel Defoe
13. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
14. Horatio Hornblower series, C.S. Forester
15. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
16. 'Gunga Din,' Rudyard Kipling (1939 RKO flick with Cary Grant/Victor McGlaughlin/Sam Jaffee)
17. Treasure Island, Robert Lewis Stevenson (1950 version)
18. Battle Cry of Freedom, James M. McPherson
19. Band of Brothers, Stephen E. Ambrose (see the HBO series, too!!)
20. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo (Les Mis 10th anniversary concert's a gas!!)
21. Lord of the Flies, William Golding
22. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig
23. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
24. The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas (Charley Sheen et al on dvd)
25. Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain
26. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
27. Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan
28. Watership Down, Richard Adams
29. Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift
30. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
31. The Crucible, Henry Miller
32. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll (Supplement with Depp movie)
33. Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Robert Lewis Stevenson (see 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen')
34. Wise Blood, Flannery O'Conner
35. To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee (Greg Peck movie with Robert Duvall as Boo Radley!)
36. All Quiet On the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
37. Best Short Stories, O. Henry
38. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
39. Dead Souls, Nikolai Gogol
40. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne
41. God Caused the Civil War, Bob Sexton (Westminster ILL or get your own copy via email)

Got easy chair and coffee?

3:90, #584: Dirt Doodles

This week I've been reading part of John 8 in John MacArthur's Daily Readings from the Life of Christ, volume 2 (good devotional, by the way, for those of you looking for one) where Jesus stooped down and wrote something in the dirt while being confronted by Pharisees with an adulteress. Did you ever wonder what He wrote? One Christian comedian posited that it was the name of their buddy who was not dragged before Jesus, considering that 'she was caught in the act.' In any event, it got me thinking on how dirt is important to God.

Way back in Genesis 1 He took some dirt of the ground and made Adam; hence, my Bobism that my gender was prototyped by the Original Dirtball; explaining our behavior on more than one occasion. And, since we came from dirt we end up 'dust to dust' as Genesis 3:19 indicates, quoted in funerals down through the ages.

Then I recalled that in Exodus 8:16ff (OK, so I looked up the verses...so sue me!) Moses is to strike the dust of the earth so it becomes gnats as a plague on all of Egypt. Guess you could say that was some dirty business?! ;p

There's also the time In John 9:6 that Jesus healed the blind guy by taking dirt, spitting on it, smearing the mud on the guy's eyes, and then commanding him to wash it off for his blindness to be healed. Voila! He once was blind, but now he sees! (Tip of the hat to John Newton for 'Amazing Grace,' my favorite hymn.)

Then there's the home-schooling Mom's nightmare verse: Mark 7:1-2, "And the Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered together around Him when they had come from Jerusalem, and had seen that some of His disciples were eating their bread with impure hands, that is, unwashed." Jesus basically said washing the outside really didn't matter, but cleansing the inside of the human spirit was essential, since that's where evil originated to defile someone. Sooo... we probably won't be seeing this particular verse on the 'Memory Verse of the Week' Calendar very soon! ;p

Well, before this goes too far, this dirt person's going to sign off...but not go play with my toy cars in the dirt like I used to as a kid!! Now I use a John Deere instead!!
Got 'good dirt?'

3:89, #583: Fifty-nine Bob

Well, here it is 3:19pm, and I'm 13,426 days and 4 minutes old!! Yessirree, Bob...according to Mom years ago, it was one great pain, pushed out while yelling on the way, and the world's been dealing with me ever since...at least in my immediate vicinity. This calls for a celebration, if you're into that sort of thing; which I am in somewhat of an understated way.

Food, of course, always plays a role in the process as an already/not yet reflection of the Marriage Feast of the Lamb, so tonight is steak, baked yams, some veggie no doubt, and Dos Equis from the fridge!! AND...cherry pie/chocolate cake/caramel-drizzled apple crumb pie as the dessert offerings to top off the aforesaid blessings...with some good Boca Java coffee to wash it down.

So, what have I learned in 59 years? Let's see...

1) Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life; nobody gets to Heaven without Him...it's that simple!
2) To quote a country/western song, "God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy."
3) Things that really matter are not really things...they're people who you can usually trust, knowing full well that occasionally they'll let you down.
4) Rule #1 for the use of a sharp knife is 'Don't cut toward yourself.' Rule #2 for most carpenters is 'Ignore Rule #1!"
5) As a result of 4), always know someone who is good at stitching you up! ;p
6) When in doubt...DON'T!!!
7) I could go on and on, but that's already been done in the Bob-isms of my Self Indulgent B.S., now, hasn't it?!!
So, without further ado...just exactly what IS an 'ado?'
Got aging milestones?

3:88, #582: PUN-ishments

For some people, it makes perfect linguistic sense that 'pun' is the beginning of 'punishment.' :p I, on the other hand, relish them as condiments to the language buffet. Without further Ado About Nothing...
Do the French have Gaul bladders?
Are German livers wurst?
Do the English ale?
Does a Swiss Miss serve Danish at breakfast with hot chocolate?
Do communists only drink Red wine?
Did the Bolsheviks' enemies only drink White Russians?
In the War of the Roses, did Lancastrians only drink red wine and Yorkies white?
Is there a difference between California and European whines?

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
If skunks had a college,
They'd call it P.U.!!

Got Pepto Abysmal?

3:87, #581: Sermon Nuggets I've Not Heard

Today I was reading Daniel 2-3 (note the public domain pic of Old Nebuchadnezzar) with my Quaker Instant Oatmeal and thought about some nuggets I'd like to see mentioned in sermons....that was at 7:30am E.S.T....known as "God's Time" to members of my family's earlier generations! ;) Anyhow...

One missionary family I know in Haiti asks that we pray for patience for folks rebuilding their lives. Well, for Christians, patience is part of the fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22-23, so we don't really need to ask for it; we've already got it. What folks who 'pray for patience' are REALLY requesting are the trials James 1:2-5 talks about as being something to be received joyfully. SO... when you 'pray for patience' you might ask something like, "Hit me with a hammer, Lord!" ;p

Also, getting back to Daniel. Have you ever noticed that three Jewish guys (that would be Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah of Fiery Furnace fame) end up running Babylon Province as a result of their stand for their faith AND Old Danny Boy gets to be third ruler of the Babylonian Kingdom after he tells Belshazzar his number's up...that very night!! Since Babylon is talked about so negatively throughout the Bible, just what exact influence on the place did those four guys have in God's Providence?!!

That got me thinking about Joseph of Genesis fame (the Bible book, not the singing group). He, as a Jewish guy, after he interpreted Pharaoh's Seven Fat/Seven Lean Years dream, was elevated to run the Egyptian empire and actually set up the political machinery that enslaved his own people for the next 400+ years! What an ironic twist of God's Providence...HA! you thought I'd write 'Fate'...that turned out so that God could be glorified down the road by trashing Egypt and engineering The Exodus!

My last thought for this post has to do with The Word in Hebrews 4:12-13, "For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." Didja notice that 'the word of God' is NOT referring to the written word in the Bible, but to the Lord Jesus, based on the follow up sentence in vs. 13?!! I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard teachers/preachers use 4:12 to illustrate the efficacy of Scripture in breaking hearts! Would all 3 of you reading this please start getting it right?!! But I rant...

Speaking of breaking hearts...I get a little weary of hearing Christians ask that I pray for 'God to soften hearts' of non-Christians to get them converted. He's in the stone heart SMASHING business, not the softening line of work! Check out Ezekiel 36:26, 27 or Jeremiah 23:29 as examples of this rant of mine...

Well, thus endeth the lesson for the day.
Got Amazing Grace as the next hymn?

3:86, #580: Wonder Filled Friday

My brain's REALLY on overdrive this morning and I feel like a vacation day coming on; which is better than feeling like a cold coming on. But then, that makes me wonder if any of us have ever felt a cold going off...the linguistically logical opposite of the usual saying? And would that 'going off' be a gradual fading into the sunset or a mighty Big Bang Explosion? Well, Nevermind...a place I visit like Never Land...here goes with "Don't Stop" cranking down here in Stonewalled Charismatic Presbyterian Church!!

I WONDER:

1.) Have any of you ever actually READ the lyrics to "Don't Stop," that great, upbeat music by Fleetwood Mac?!! IT'S A STINKING DEAR-JOHN-CAN'T-WE-JUST-BE-FRIENDS letter written by Christine McVie!!!!!! Go ahead, check it out at [http://www.lyricsfreak.com/f/fleetwood+mac/dont+stop_20054276.html]...My favorite lines are, "If your life was bad to you, just think what tomorrow will do." Well, OK...it sucked then, it'll probably suck tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow as it creeps in its petty pace...a tale told by an idiot to rock and roll music!! (Tip of the hat and semi-apologies to Willy Shakespeare) The only people who can take these lyrics joyfully are them thar Born Agains who KNOW for absolute certain that 'tomorrow will take care of itself' because 'God CAUSES ALL things to work together for [their] good' and HEAVEN is on the other side of these years' vale of tears!!! "Dontcha Look Back" IS, however, good advice to you BACs, based on the fact that you're now perfect in Christ and the indwelling Spirit can clean up the crap that's STILL part of your personality!! OOORAH!!!

2.) Since there's a Ma-gog and a Gog mentioned in Ezekiel (yesterday's read whilst awaiting my buddy's surgery outcome), was there a Pa-gog to help Ma-gog create Gog? Were they drinking grog? Or was Grog from the 'B.C.' comic strip a distant cousin? Was Hamon-gog the previous incarnation to Hamon-rye? With Swiss? Before or after invading Israel for some Kosher dills to go with that deli delight?!!

3.) If any of you Old Testament scholars...WITHOUT TURNING TO DANIEL CHAPTER 1... can tell me the Jewish names of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego? OR...what was Old Danny Boy's pagan nom de plume? And does 'nom de plume' only count as true if you write with a quill pen?

4.) Why BACs who get told 'not to judge others'...i.e., don't hold anyone accountable for their sin... based on Matthew 7:1 by either fellow BACs or non-BACs ever point out, winsomely of course, that we are COMMANDED to 'judge righteously' in John 7:21-24 AND Matthew 7:15-16 tells us to 'beware of false prophets' and 'you will know them by their fruit;' which means you have to have a standard, measure them against it, and then JUDGE how they measure up WITHOUT being judgmental...check out Galatians 6:1-2 for the logical followup?!!

5.) If all those slices of Wonder Bread I ate as a kid are the reason I wonder so much? Oh, and in answer to "I wonder, wonder who ba-doo-oouu, who wrote the Book of Love?"...God, did, of course...not that stupid one the Monotones sang about back in 1958 (the year I started collecting baseball cards)...but the REAL one known as the Bible!!

6.) Speaking of bread...I REALLY wonder how 'Bimbo'...pronounced 'Beembo'...Bread can have the chutzpah to prostitute the word like that...pun obviously intended? Of course, maybe Hamon-rye with Swiss on Bimbo (pronounce it properly!!) with a Kosher dill would make a delightful lunch...washed down with that delicious beer made by those 'Chinese brothers' Mr. Yueng and Mr. Ling?
Got table for two?

3:85, #579: John Bell Hood Apology

Well, as a distant relative of the noted Confederate General told me by email back on September 23... didn't get to respond to him until today because I completely FORGOT I had a gmail account...it was not KNOWN that John Bell Hood used laudanum, as I mistakenly stated in my post 3:74, #568: Chickamauga. In fact, based on the Blue & Gray Magazine article of 1998 by Steve Davis that I've now seen, the statements of many historians and 'sources' regarding Hood's laudanum use are merely conjectures. Apparently nobody every actually saw General Hood dosing with the opiate.
SO...I APOLIGIZE for being the unwary repeater of just one more unsubstantiated Civil War rumor. I would also like to say that General Hood, like many other Civil War participants North and South, showed great fortitude in dealing with extremely difficult circumstances, both during the conflict and for the rest of his life as a result of being in the War. Given the fact that he was an Evangelical Christian..."During the War Generals Ewell, Pender, Hood...professed faith in Christ"(1)... somehow all the circumstances he encountered "worked together for his good" as Romans 8:28 declares.
And now, I can declare to anyone reading this article that General John Bell Hood is rejoicing in the presence of the Lord as are all the saints of all the ages who have professed faith in Jesus!! I'm actually looking forward to 'crossing the river to rest under the shade of the trees' so I can, hopefully, talk with guys like General Hood in between courses of the Marriage Feast of the Lamb!!
Got an 'amen'?!!

Source: J. William Jones, Christ In the Camp, Sprinkle Publications, Harrisonburg, Va., 1986, pg. 42.