Reading the One Year Bible has left me with some unanswered (unanswerable?) (hypothetical) questions.  I read it late at night, so my thought process is not often in the middle of the road, rather it has gone off road completely and is tooling happily down the ditch.  Please don’t take this as blasphemy, it isn’t meant as such.  I am a questioner; it is a hobby that gets me into trouble.  My last minister said to me during a Bible Study, “That is a good question.  When I was a teacher that is what I would tell a student when I didn’t have the answer.” And then she looked at me waiting for me to figure out I wasn’t getting an answer to my question.  (I didn’t ask her any of these though)

I have a student Bible, it has all kinds of interesting asides.  I think it must have been written for Lutheran students (I have my reasons for this), but I am not embarassed to run around with a "student" Bible.  I figure most of us are indeed students of the Bible, as none of us have written any of it.  I have a good start on memorizing the books of the Bible, OT through Kings II and NT through…Acts.  That may go down when I hit the shorter books.

I was a little alarmed to see that I will be reading Psalms again.  It has been the most difficult for me to really concentrate on.  I find myself singing in my head, the lines used by Christian artists in pop songs (his love endures forever).  I can’t wait for Isaiah so I can hum the Messiah.  Leviticus was exceptionally tough.  I hear Chronicles is another charmer. I may need some support getting through that.  I have developed a bad habit, just reading every two or four or five days.  I need to re-affirm my intentions to read daily.  That has to help.

My thoughts

• Do you suppose “to this day” those dead kings are still in the cave with the rocks piled in front of it? Joshua 10:27  Every time I see one of those “to this days” I wonder if it really is…

• I didn't know Barak was a Biblical name.  Why do we have to be reminded that Abner is the son of Ner 15 times?  It is a lot easier to keep track of Abner than those names like Jehoahaz and Jehoash and Jeroboam or Athaliah and Ahaziah and Amaziah.  I could go on with the R ones too.

• Jesus performed more bread and fish miracles than he did bread and wine ones. Wouldn’t it be interesting to take wine and fish at communion?  (yes, I know why, I am in left field here, come join me) Would the wine communers be taking smoked salmon while the grape juice communers take fish sticks?  What would that leave for the water communers?  Baked fish?  I wonder about these things late at night.

• I never imagined there would be so many potty stories! Well, two so far, but still…

• That Annanias and Sapphira thing makes me wonder exactly what the early Christians would think about the economics of Communism.

• I am very curious to read these annals of the kings of Judah and Israel.  I was excited to learn more about Solomon’s great wisdom, but there was no new information in Kings I.  I felt cheated.  Do you suppose they still exist?

• The Old Testament makes a pretty strong case for polygamy.

Favorite verses:

Psalm 141

Psalm 73 vvs. 23-26

Psalm 65 vvs. 9-13 the agriculture thing gets me every time

Psalm 66 vvs. 13-14 made me laugh out loud

I notice they are all from Psalms.  (to start with, they were the easiest to find)  Maybe it is a good thing to read Psalms again.

A friend of mine invited me to join her in a garage sale this weekend.  I had plenty of stuff to get rid of, so I agreed.  Madeleine is from Peru.  Her husband is a businessman, and they moved here in 2000.  She speaks excellent English, she even enjoys reading in English, but she says she doesn’t get the humor in books.  At home they speak both Spanish and English.  Her husband was a good sport, he watched seven kids, serenading them with his guitar as they played in the backyard swimming pool.  We had the only garage sale in town with live music.

She told me that many of the customers would be Hispanic, and they were.  She was a huge asset to our enterprise because she could communicate well with them.  At one point, she turned to me and rattled off some Spanish.  In English it would have been, “Dowehaveenoughmoneytomakechangeforaonehundred dollarbill?”  I just stood there…trying to pick out a word or two so I could guess what she had said.  She stood there looking at me act stupid, then she laughed as she realized what she had done.  I do know the word cambio for change and cien for one hundred, but darned if I could pick them out.  I may have been distracted by wondering where the keys to the money box were.  We spent most of the day searching for those keys, because I kept leaving them random places.  Once I even lost the money box (when we were setting up).  Next time I do this, I am getting one of those key chains that motorcycle guys have with the big chain attached to my belt loop.  I have never lost my pants, in public.

The real culture shock was when she asked what Paul would like to eat.  Trying to make things easy, I said he would be delighted with a peanut butter sandwich, the national meal of our family.  She told me I would have to make it, because she had never made a peanut butter sandwich.  The rest of us had an excellent chicken stew with mashed potatoes, (Yukon Gold, I asked) and rice.  They are big on potatoes, since the potato came from Peru (or there abouts) originally.  I don’t believe I have ever eaten a meal with both potatoes and rice.

Unfortunately we didn’t have much traffic at our sale.  A shopper even commented that not many people were out garage sale shopping today.  We did have a lot of fun and I made about 100 bucks.  Another friend had asked me if I wanted to do a garage sale with her next month, so I can haul the rest of my stuff over to her house and do it again, but this time without an interpreter.

GD just came in with the mail.  Some crazy person who reads this blog apparently has mailed… Mailed me a plant in an envelope, not just any plant but a scarlet globemallow.  The dirt was pretty flat, but I think it protected the plant itself.  I stuck it in a rustic bucket that was home to an expired barrel cactus, so the dirt is more sandy than what we have here, hopefully closer to what it is used to.  I will keep you updated.

My husband just lit the grill with his hot shot.  This would be a cattle prod with a little electricity in it.  I have been shocked by one; it is not pleasant, but not really bad.  They work pretty well to get a 1200 pound critter moving.  Now a multi-purpose tool!

Ten things that made the last ten days great.

1. I got my planner back
2. I caught my first fish ever
3. I got a flat tire on the day I forgot my cell phone (It was the only day of the week it didn’t rain, I was 50 yards from a house and the lady was actually home!  I had to call my babysitter to bring me the gentlemen so she could go to a softball game.) 
4. Had a plant mailed to me
5. I got to scrapbook twice
6. My very first college friend found me on facebook
7. I finally caught up on the One Year Bible (I had been slacking off a little)
8. A young friend came to help out around the house
9. I got to hold a new baby for as long as I wanted
10. I haven’t had to water the flowers or garden in weeks