Today's Readings and Stuff -- Saturday, 06 January 2018

Good Saturday is wished to all.
Well, we're experience a truly odd manifestation of "global warming" here.  Sub-zero lows, and daily "highs" barely above zero.  Truly cold.  Now, the weather prognosticators have told us that this next week on the calendar will be far better, far warmer (or, at least, less cold) with several highs well above the freezing point.  If and when that happens, it will be most welcome.  55° would be even more welcome, but that is likely to be well in the future.

It's -2° here right now, a potential "high" of +5 or so.  Our incoming natural gas line is freezing up: we have enough flow to keep our gas fireplace going, but barely.  And we have already called the Emergency Services for the gas company.  They've been pretty good, really, and we appreciate them greatly, but one suspects that on a day like today, they may be getting more than a few calls for service.  So no idea how long they'll be.  Temperature inside here is above 60° still, so I have an electric space heater going and it's pointed at Wife in her recliner under several blankets.  We've both been through worse.  MUCH worse.   (Of course, we were both a good bit younger at the times).
But the "day" part of our 24-hour cycle is to be 9 hours 20 minutes, with tomorrow picking up another 64 seconds.  Progress, and gaining speed as well.  LONG way until official Spring, of course, and even longer until decent weather.

We still have no water. Brother-in-law came by last night and is supposed to come back right after lunch today.  He's far more knowledgeable on piping issues than I am.  Lord willing, we will determine what to buy to fix our broken pipe(s) so that we can get flow going again.  This has been going on for most of this week, and it has been no fun whatsoever.  Now, with temperatures hovering around the zero point, we may decide to hold off on the actual work until after the weekend, a point in which the temperatures should be a bit less severe.  I'll know more by this evening.  I hope.
Getting all the necessary items will be an issue, mostly from a money standpoint.  We have floated a "payday loan" for $200 to, we hope, get the needed stuff.  Extended family gave us a nice gift as well, which will certainly help.  And I was able to go next door yesterday afternoon and take a hot shower, the first one I'd had in the better part of a week.  Not only badly needed, but downright therapeutic too: helps the sinus clear, among other things.  I suspect that I smell better now as well.


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Our reading today is chapters 11 and 12 of the Genesis.
No sooner are we past the account of Noah, then we skip forward in time a distance, and are at the account of the tower of Babel.  The attitude that they had didn't die out with them.  Many of us have, at one time or another, sought to build a monument to themselves that will outlast them.  I've been guilty of that, certainly.  Some may recall the poetic work Ozymandias, or be familiar with the statues on Easter Island.  Or perhaps, mansions and palaces.  All tributes to self or to the clan.  At this stage of life, I see the all too evident similarities to a dog "marking" his territory.
But it is here that we first begin to see the account of Abram.  Not the last of that.

Genesis
Chapter 11

11:1		And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
11:2		And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
11:3		And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.
11:4		And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
11:5		And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
11:6		And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
11:7		Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
11:8		So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
11:9		Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
11:10		These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood:
11:11		And Shem lived after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.
11:12		And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years, and begat Salah:
11:13		And Arphaxad lived after he begat Salah four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.
11:14		And Salah lived thirty years, and begat Eber:
11:15		And Salah lived after he begat Eber four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.
11:16		And Eber lived four and thirty years, and begat Peleg:
11:17		And Eber lived after he begat Peleg four hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters.
11:18		And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu:
11:19		And Peleg lived after he begat Reu two hundred and nine years, and begat sons and daughters.
11:20		And Reu lived two and thirty years, and begat Serug:
11:21		And Reu lived after he begat Serug two hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters.
11:22		And Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor:
11:23		And Serug lived after he begat Nahor two hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.
11:24		And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah:
11:25		And Nahor lived after he begat Terah an hundred and nineteen years, and begat sons and daughters.
11:26		And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
11:27		Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.
11:28		And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.
11:29		And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah.
11:30		But Sarai was barren; she had no child.
11:31		And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.
11:32		And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.

Chapter 12

12:1		Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee:
12:2		And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
12:3		And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
12:4		So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.
12:5		And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.
12:6		And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.
12:7		And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.
12:8		And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the LORD, and called upon the name of the LORD.
12:9		And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south.
12:10		And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land.
12:11		And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon:
12:12		Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive.
12:13		Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee.
12:14		And it came to pass, that, when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair.
12:15		The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.
12:16		And he entreated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she asses, and camels.
12:17		And the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife.
12:18		And Pharaoh called Abram, and said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife?
12:19		Why saidst thou, She is my sister? so I might have taken her to me to wife: now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way.
12:20		And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had.