Today's Reading and Stuff --- Sunday, 11 February 2018

ICE on the roads.  A good bit of it.  Church services iffy, Bible study cancelled.  As of this moment, no sign of road trucks on our street, a hill.  I may be staying home today.

This week will have a weird juxtaposition of two events.  This coming Wednesday, February 14th, will be Ash Wednesday AND it will also be St. Valentine's Day.
 
I grew up in a VERY conservative Christian denomination.  We recognized and celebrated Christmas and Easter.  A small commemoration of Palm Sunday.  Period.  Not Lent.  Not Pentecost.  Not the big calendar of "saint's days" that the Catholics, both Roman and Orthodox, celebrate.  But, living as we do in an area with a great many of the Roman Catholic, Orthodox Catholics of many stripes, (even a Polish National Catholic church) as well as the Byzantine Rite groups, we are at least somewhat aware of the biggies on the calendar.  So, we are aware that this coming Wednesday will be marked as Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, the countdown to Easter.  There are and will be those around us who do mark this period, which is not a bad thing, even if I don't share in it.  For the unaware, Easter (in the western tradition) is marked on the first of April.   It is not a bad thing to meditate prayerfully during this time on the meaning of Easter and the Cross.  And the Resurrection.  Hint:  it's not about colored eggs and cute bunnies.  I note that more than a few churches will be having "events" in the run-up to Easter that are little more than the eggs and bunnies and candy.  Bunnies are cute and I like chocolate too, but that is not what this is all about.

Valentine's Day, whatever it might once have signified, has become a day in which guys are expected to send cards, flowers, and fancy chocolates to the woman (hopefully, singular) that is important in their (our) lives.  And, yes, we've all known some abuses of that practice.  When I was a kid in grade school, we were "expected" to get some of those cheap valentine cards and provide one to EVERY member of the class.  And a nicer one for the teacher.  Just the way it was.  I somehow suspect that the practice is now deemed to be dreadfully improper, using whatever terms of outrage are popular this week.  But remnants of the practice remain.  The mass media is full of ads for various Valentine's Day products that one is expected to purchase.

I do find the contrast between the two events in a single day to be interesting.  Valentine's Day has degenerated into a tribute paid to ensure "warm feelings" on the part of the person getting the gift, even if that person is your One True Love.  Ash Wednesday, in contrast, is the beginning of the process that commemorates Christ's love for us, the Crucifixion that is payment for our sin.  He got NOTHING out of the deal.
Yet both are, in a rare event, on the same day.


Yesterday got weird.  As most know, we have some cats.  I'm not a pet lover and could have gotten along just fine without them.  But Wife, and the girls too, during their years with us, wanted cats.  So, we got cat.  First one, then another, etc.  Back before my retirement and our long relocation, when Wife's health began to take a serious and scary downturn, I was working in an awful situation.  As in, 60--70 hours a week, with as much as an hour's commute each way, and for about half my "normal" salary.  During her sometimes frightening days and nights, I simply could not be there for her as I would have "normally" been.  She had taken a "rescue" kitten,  one that wasn't expected to live, and had nursed him through.  As a result, he was and to this day remains, totally devoted to her.  He somehow senses when she is in misery and pain, and will not leave her.  I'll find her on the recliner, feet up, blanket on her, and the cat on her lap gazing at her face.  She derives a good bit of comfort from this, and that is a good thing.
But he has been sick for the last week  or more.  She thinks that he caught our colds (or crud, or whatever it was) that we've only slowly left behind.  He disappeared before noon.  As cat owners can testify, cats seem to have a key to an alternate universe, so such is not totally unexpected.  But we found ourselves suspecting that he'd crawled off into some weird place to die.  I was crawling under beds, tables, inside closets, under dressers and chests and even went outside just in case he'd slipped past me.  Nothing.  And Wife's face fell, and kept falling.  I really began to think we'd have to wait until the remains began to smell, not really what you want.
And then.....
I found him about 7 p.m., finally.  He'd somehow managed to wedge himself into a linen closet that had the doors closed.  And then couldn't get out, and wasn't responding when we called his name.  So Wife is happier now.  And the sheets and pillowcases that he was lying on are a bit worse for the experience, so I'll be spending Monday doing laundry  to get the urine smell out, etc.
I think hugging cats (or dogs or hamsters or whatever) is downright weird.  But most people think I'm weird for that, and perhaps they're right.


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Today, chapters 33 and 34 of the Exodus.
I like the image of Moses and his shining face after having spent time with the Lord.  Why not?  If we have been spending time with the Lord, shouldn't it show?

Exodus 33

1  And the Lord said unto Moses, Depart, and go up hence, thou and the people which thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt, unto the land which I sware unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, Unto thy seed will I give it:

2  And I will send an angel before thee; and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite:

3  Unto a land flowing with milk and honey: for I will not go up in the midst of thee; for thou art a stiffnecked people: lest I consume thee in the way.

4  And when the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned: and no man did put on him his ornaments.

5  For the Lord had said unto Moses, Say unto the children of Israel, Ye are a stiffnecked people: I will come up into the midst of thee in a moment, and consume thee: therefore now put off thy ornaments from thee, that I may know what to do unto thee.

6  And the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments by the mount Horeb.

7  And Moses took the tabernacle, and pitched it without the camp, afar off from the camp, and called it the Tabernacle of the congregation. And it came to pass, that every one which sought the Lord went out unto the tabernacle of the congregation, which was without the camp.

8  And it came to pass, when Moses went out unto the tabernacle, that all the people rose up, and stood every man at his tent door, and looked after Moses, until he was gone into the tabernacle.

9  And it came to pass, as Moses entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended, and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses.

10  And all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the tabernacle door: and all the people rose up and worshipped, every man in his tent door.

11  And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.

12  And Moses said unto the Lord, See, thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people: and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight.

13  Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is thy people.

14  And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.

15  And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.

16  For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? is it not in that thou goest with us? so shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.

17  And the Lord said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken: for thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name.

18  And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory.

19  And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy.

20  And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.

21  And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock:

22  And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by:

23  And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.

 Exodus 34

1  And the Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest.

2  And be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me in the top of the mount.

3  And no man shall come up with thee, neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount; neither let the flocks nor herds feed before that mount.

4  And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone.

5  And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord.

6  And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,

7  Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

8  And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped.

9  And he said, If now I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us; for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance.

10  And he said, Behold, I make a covenant: before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation: and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of the Lord: for it is a terrible thing that I will do with thee.

11  Observe thou that which I command thee this day: behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

12  Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee:

13  But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:images: Heb. statues

14  For thou shalt worship no other god: for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:

15  Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice;

16  And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods.

17  Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.

18  The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time of the month Abib: for in the month Abib thou camest out from Egypt.

19  All that openeth the matrix is mine; and every firstling among thy cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male.sheep: or, kid

20  But the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou redeem him not, then shalt thou break his neck. All the firstborn of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before me empty.lamb: or, kid

21  Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.

22  And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.year's end: Heb. revolution of the year

23  Thrice in the year shall all your men children appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel.

24  For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the Lord thy God thrice in the year.

25  Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning.

26  The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.

27  And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.

28  And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.

 29  And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him.

30  And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him.

31  And Moses called unto them; and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned unto him: and Moses talked with them.

32  And afterward all the children of Israel came nigh: and he gave them in commandment all that the Lord had spoken with him in mount Sinai.

33  And till Moses had done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face.

34  But when Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he took the veil off, until he came out. And he came out, and spake unto the children of Israel that which he was commanded.

35  And the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone: and Moses put the veil upon his face again, until he went in to speak with him.