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I continue on Day 24 of the Billy Graham Words of Wisdom Psalms and Proverbs Bible Reading Plan. 24 is my lucky number by the way as well as 12 and 144.

24 was my jersey number as a kid when I played sports. 24 is a number of family, companionship, harmony, and idealism. 24 is, according to http://www.affinitynumerology.com, the number for the diplomat rather than the leader, the one that works behind the scenes to keep everything together and bring hurt members back into the fold of the family.

That’s interesting. It has a bit of a motherly quality to it. Someone who goes out to find the lost sheep and bring them back.

So the readings today are Psalms 108 through 111 and the Proverbs is 24. I just listen to the readings on YouTube. I jot down some phrases that stand out and then just write about them sorta intuitively.

This is what I got for today:

Psalm 108 “I myself will awake early.”

Often in Christianity, you hear this wording about a Proverbs 31 woman. What is that? It’s a certain woman who has certain characteristics that make her successful as a family provider. One of the traits of the Proverbs 31 woman is to rise early in the morning before the rest of the family.

“Early to bed, early to rise, makes a person happy, healthy, and wise.” (Ben Franklin)

When you get into the routine and habit of rising before the rest of the family, you can set about to get a lot done in the peace and stillness of the morning. Make coffee and spend a few moments to watch the sunrise, read your early morning devotions or do some writing, tidy up and organize the house, perhaps prepare a nice breakfast casserole for the family and place it in the oven for an hour to bake. The aroma of the coffee brewing and the breakfast will wake your family and make them happy plus as they go out their bedroom door, it will make them happy to see a tidy house. Nothing affects mood more than the orderliness of our own habitation.

Cleaning the house early on a Saturday or Sunday morning will really please your husband and as he smells the freshness of the Pine sol on the floors or the bleach in the bathrooms and sees the sparkliness of the sink and showers. It really does make a difference in your relationship to do these little things for him.

“You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”

I don’t know about the flies part of this quote but it is true that when you make a concerted effort to be like honey or sweetness to your partner, your partner will pay you back more with love and devotion.

Years ago, I read this article written by a woman in the 1950s about the 25 things you should do for your man prior to his arrival home from work. It said stuff like clean yourself and the children up, put on a nice dress and makeup, fix your hair, tidy up the house, fetch and fold his newspaper, have a nice dinner going for him in the kitchen cooking, fetch him a cold can of beer, and stand at the door ready to greet him when he gets home with a hug and a kiss and the beer and the newspaper.

It seemed a bit much.

But…..I did an experiment.

I did this for 2 weeks. It took a bit of effort and I kept forgetting to get the beer cold enough sometimes. I’d stand at the door and hug him and ask how he was and do all the other stuff. And…….the reaction?

He was amazing.

He was so much happier and so much more affectionate to me and the kids and the nights together were harmonious and peaceful. We didn’t fight. We just loved each other.

I don’t know. It was quite a lot of work but it worked. It really worked.

I’m all for women’s rights and feminism but recently, I don’t know….I feel like we are losing our identity as women. We are being taught to be men, that that is where our power is. No, our power is in bringing life to the world and being a softer counterpart. We’re supposed to blend with our partner not constantly be in contention with him for who is stronger. It shouldn’t be a competition.

Some of the most powerful women are the ones that have super embraced the feminine qualities like say, Martha Stewart.

Psalm 108 “I will divide Shechem, and mete out the valley of Succoth.”

Mete? What the heck is mete?

It means to give measure to or to give retribution of justice to.

According to http://www.wikipedia.com:

“Shechem lay north of Bethel and Shiloh, on the high road going from Jerusalem to the northern districts.”

and Succoth is:

“A place in the valley of Jordan in the tribe district of Gad.”

Ok….what the heck is Gad?

Ok, so I read up a bit on this on http://www.chabad.org and Gad was the name of one of the 12 sons of Jacob. His name means “Mazal Tav” or good luck. Gad’s descendants became the one of the 12 tribes of Israel or the tribe of Gad. They were considered to be fierce warriors and are associated with the lion symbol.

Ok, so another question……where is this valley of Jordan? Is that like the Bethlehem area or the Dead Sea area? Ah, ok, so this valley is the course of the north to south river of Jordan from Sea of Galilee to Dead Sea so I’m thinking alot of it is in the West Bank currently. Jericho is considered to be in the Jordan valley.

The river Jordan was pretty tiny when I went there back in 2000. It wasn’t like I imagined it to be at all. It was like a little creek you could hop, skip, and jump over. I thought it’d be like the Mississippi River. No, not at all though it gets bigger the further north you go into the Golan Heights near Syria.

The Sea of Galilee….it’s more like the size of a Missouri lake too. The Dead Sea seemed to be pretty good size from what I recall. I just remember bouncing around on the top of the water like I was swimming in liquid soap. Some of the salt water got in my eyes and it was kinda icky to swim in, not gonna lie. You couldn’t swim vertical due to the high density of the water, you just float horizontal on the top. Dead Sea mud is supposed to be very good for the body and folks were smearing it all over themselves walking around looking like cave men and women. It was overall, a cool experience, but I kinda prefer regular freshwater lake swimming. Much more refreshing.

Psalm 108 “Who will lead me into Edom?”

Oh, ok, so Edom was an ancient kingdom that was the descendants of Esau from the Bible, the Edomites. If I’m not mistaken, maybe they were the ancient kingdom that created Petra in Jordan……I don’t know for sure. Petra is really cool by the way. It’s this ancient city carved out of the rock in the desert and you can take a camel caravan or horses to go see it.

“Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated.” (Romans 9:13)

Why did God hate Esau according to this passage? This phrasing has long perplexed me. Esau had the birthright but it was taken away. Maybe he cared little for it but sometimes when I read this story about Esau…..I feel really bad for him. His mother treated him badly. That would have been Esau’s core wound if you wrote him in a screenplay or something, his mother Rebecca.

He lost his birthright and then relocated somewhere around Jordan and from there, they say his empire grew and grew and grew and supposedly he is the ancestor to the ancient Greeks and Romans……so I suppose in the end, Esau did win a little.

I don’t know…I feel for Esau for some reason….maybe cause he was a redhead like me. It seemed that one of the primary problems that folks had with him was his appearance and that’s kinda shameful nowadays to treat someone that way due to things they can’t help like their skin tone or their personal characteristics rather than their merit.

I guess that’s why the story of Esau bothers me so much and then its just this phrasing of “Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated.” So harsh of an “all-loving, all-powerful” God to be so disdainful and venomous even towards one of his own creation.

I wonder really what was God’s real problem with Esau? That he was a hunter, maybe? Or was it something even deeper that is not explained in the Bible?

And why is red hair associated with bad things in ancient times? Cain’s mark was said to be red hair. Esau, whom God hated, was a red head. Then you got all your association between red hair and witchcraft all throughout Medieval times. Nowadays, they say redheads have no souls and there’s “Kick a Ginger Day.” Even Disney, is turning all its redhead characters into other appearances. It’s weird, as a kid, my relatives would say stuff like, “beaten like a redheaded stepchild.”

What’s the deal with red and why red-haired people get treated like crap? It’s like the only racially identifiable group that is a non-group and non-protected.

Makes you wanna dye your hair blonde. Redheaded women in movies are always sex-crazed sex-pots (Jessica Rabbit) or nerds (the flute girl in American Pie) and redheaded men are basically non-existent in movies.

I’ve been listening to Ice Spice lately and it’s weird to read the comments on her YouTube videos cause there’s a lot of shade and calling her basic and it all seems to be about the hair rather than her talent which is weird.

Psalm 109 “Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg.”

I don’t know about you but one of my deepest fears is getting stuck in a homeless shelter overnight or out on the streets homeless like a bag lady. It scares me. It really does….that loss of security and complete dependency on other human beings. I don’t trust homeless shelters. I wonder if bad stuff happens in them. That’s crazy to think that, right? Right? Maybe?

I don’t know. Do you feel the same way?

Psalm 110 “Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.”

Ok, the imagery I associate with this one is the Queen in the Alice in Wonderland series that screams, “Bring me another pig!” She’s got pigs as her footrests and when one gets too cold, she orders for another pig. I don’t know why I think of that.

Did people back in the day, actually make footstools of their enemies? Like, if you defeated someone, did you order them in your throne room to kneel down and you put your feet on them while you threw some festivities of wine and feasting in the dining hall? Awkward.

“Bring me another pig!”

People are strange.

Psalm 110 “Thou are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”

Huh.

So I was starting down the path of thinking like Assassin’s Creed or something with ancient secret societies or secret orders like the Knights Templar or whatever.

No.

This just means, “the sequential order of the priestly leadership over God’s people.” Ok, so it’s like bishops and cardinals and popes and stuff like that.

Boring.

I really thought it was something cooler like some monastic ninjas. Bummer.

Proverbs 24 “Do not be envious of evil men nor desire to be with them for their hearts devise violence and their lips talk of troublemaking.”

Stay out of gangs…..especially in prison. Better to walk the prison yard alone than be a minion in the gang.

I don’t think I could handle jail or prison. Maybe I could. I wouldn’t want to be fresh meat. I suppose if I was, I’ve thought this through for a while now, I would tell everyone that I have a wildly contagious nasty skin rash and maybe they should not touch me and leave me alone for my duration of the stay.

“I have leprosy, guys. I’m a leper. Stay away or you’ll catch it too. By the way, I need my own cell cause I don’t want to infect everyone and I need a nice comfy pillow and blanket you know, for the leper sores. I also would prefer to have my meals brought to me so I don’t infect anyone else and maybe could you drop off some books for me too and I’ll just hang out here in my cell over here, ok?”

At first, I thought well I could tell them I have some really gnarly STD so they leave me alone but then I thought well they might shiv me for that. So, I think the leprosy thing is the way to go cause I have a better chance of not getting shivved with that one I think.

Proverbs 24 “Through wisdom a house is built….by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant rubies.”

A cluttered house – the clutter represents money. The money represents time spent at work. Which would you rather have? The clutter, the money, or the time?

Proverbs 24 “If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.”

Today is a big day for me. I start a new job. I’m scared. Literally. I’m worried I won’t fit in and I will do something stupid and wrong. I’m worried I will be late to work and get a point or screw something up with the technology. I have a myriad of fears.

But I’m going to show up anyway. Cause that’s courage. Just showing up is half the battle. We never grow if we don’t show up.

Pray for me. I’m nervous. I’m an old woman who has worked for over 2 decades and I am still nervous.

Proverbs 24 “A righteous man may fall 7 times and rise again.”

Hope. Hope is what keeps a righteous man going through adversity. Hope can get you through anything.

Proverbs 24 “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls.”

Oh this is a hard one.

I don’t really rejoice when someone falls or has bad stuff happen to them. But I am very guilty of getting very quiet about the subject, looking the other way if I don’t like the person, and pretending to feign I don’t care. I should offer them a word of encouragement or offer a helping hand but sometimes, I just flat out ignore.

The opposite of love is not hate but to ignore another person.

Hatred requires emotion and passion. To ignore someone is to withdraw all emotions and detach from the situation in all entirety. I would argue, in some circumstances that ignoring someone is far worse than outright hate because it takes the wind out of their sails and it does not give them the ability to argue back with you.

Say for example, a person creates a widget and expects some minimal support from friends and family to sell the widget but is met with silence and non-support and they fail at selling the widget.

What happened here?

In example 2, a person creates a widget and expects some minimal support from friends and family to sell the widget but is met with open hostility from someone which leads to a passionate argument and they fail at selling the widget.

In both scenarios, they lose but in the 2nd one, at least they get some understanding and clarity on the subject of why they lost whereas in scenario 1 there is just this vague undercurrent of non-understanding and uncomfortable awkwardness at the next family reunion.

This is why I don’t do pyramid schemes, Amway, Mary Kay, Pampered Chef or any of those things. I just don’t do that. And I don’t host the parties either. I won’t do that anymore. It’s forced awkwardness and begging your friends and family members which can lead to even more uncomfortable awkwardness when you send out Facebook posts and hear nothing back. That stuff in general is just plain awkward.

One time I threw a Mary Kay party. It cost me 300 dollars for the setup. I even carved a watermelon into a basket and made all sorts of creative snack creations hors d’oevres and such. I invited 20 friends and decorated in pale pink. 5 friends showed up that day and the Mary Kay consultant did not…….for 4 hours. It was humiliating. By the time she got there, my friends had left….I was drinking wine by myself at the table. We talked and I kinda let things go. She said she’d do my makeup. She did my makeup a bit brighter than I usually am used to so I went to the bathroom to check myself in the mirror and when I came back, I caught her riffling through my stuff in the kitchen like she was gonna take something.

Worst Mary Kay party ever.

I haven’t hosted one of these parties since. I refuse.

That’s it. That’s all I got for today. Thanks for reading and have a good day.

This will be a short article today, thank goodness.

I just have 1 Psalm to read and I went through it earlier and there wasn’t much that really stood out for me. The Proverb 23, however, I did find about 5 small items in that passage.

This is all part of a continuing series on reading Billy Graham’s Words of Wisdom Bible Reading Plan. Each day for 31 days, I read a few Psalms and 1 Proverb and then set about to write my stream of consciousness thoughts on them. Reading Psalms will improve your relationship with God while reading Proverbs will improve your understanding of other humans.

Proverbs 23 “Do not overwork to be rich.”

I had to learn this one the hard way. It took me 29 years of working to learn this.

Here in America, we do overwork. We believe in “pulling yourself up by your boot straps” (whatever the heck that means). We believe the phrase, “don’t half-ass it.” (ok, that’s kinda a gross statement when you think about it literally) We are fully committed to the idea of hard work and education will make you achieve and fulfill the American Dream, as if it is this one-time attainable goal.

First off, it is not a one-time goal.

It is a goal that lasts over….usually about 40 to 50 years. So if you are planning to grind hard and hard and harder and hardest, over and over, and over and over again……you are going to ruin your health, your hair, your family, or your hopes and ability to cope with anxiety well.

Adulthood is a marathon. You must have endurance and you must pace yourself well while trying to maintain good work-life balance.

The reason we strive for money is usually to possess goods, to improve our appearance and health, and to have that posh family vacation.

Grinding super hard for almost 365 days a year only to have 2 weeks off……that will literally eat you from the inside out. The anxiety, the stress, the worry, the life in the fast lane……this will wear out your body too or wreck your physical appearance and health which Steve Jobs ultimately said is the real wealth in society.

Good health is the real wealth. Not gold.

Grinding hard increases cortisol levels in the body which causes us to gain weight around our bellies. As the weight increases overtime, we develop complete metabolic syndrome. Once our metabolism is wrecked, we begin to develop chronic diseases such as diabetes. Once you have diabetes, you lose a lotta gold trying to pay for the super expensive diabetic medications plus you must change your eating habits and exercise more and you must monitor your blood sugar constantly for spikes or lows. If you get a low, you could go into a coma or have a stroke. If you get a too high spike, you could have something like a heart attack. Plus you could lose your feet. If you get a sore or a cut as a diabetic, it becomes extremely hard to heal. A simple cut on your diabetic foot could cause you to lose the whole foot, to have bone infections or blood problems. If the infection gets into the blood or bone….you could become septic and die. Sometimes for diabetes, a simple cut can be life-threatening and take years to finally heal.

There are nurses that get paid very well just to be wound care specialists for the elderly and they literally spend their whole day going around treating and disinfecting and cleaning and bandaging up life-threatening wounds on older people that never really close back up or heal. I had a friend that her mother had a wound in her thigh that had to to be cleaned and disinfected and packed every day for 3 years.

Health is the real wealth.

I no longer do overwork. I do work hard but I understand that I have a limit, a boundary of how much I can take of overwork before I spazz out or break down my health.

There’s a reason the night shift is called the graveyard shift. People need sleep. Sleep deprivation causes all sorts of health issues. If you go on night shift, make sure you are getting adequate sleep during the day as well or you will begin to have chronic health conditions.

I learned all this from working with healthcare folks and watching and observing.

I do not do overwork.

Work smarter, not harder.

Proverbs 23 “Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words.”

In ancient Greek mythology, there was a woman named Cassandra. She was cursed. She had the ability to foresee like a psychic the future but her curse was that no one would believe her.

Sometimes I feel like Cassandra.

And other times, I feel like the fool.

In 1996, folks were talking about this internet thing as the next big thing. We literally were accessing email via a Dos Prompt on a terminal rather than a PC and definitely not a laptop. Some people rode the wave of the future and became hugely successful in the IT industry and capitalized on the new e-commerce stocks and such.

But others, like me, just got the usual 9 to 5 job. I was a fool at that point.

But there are other times in my life that I felt like Cassandra.

I am big into alternative medicine and vitamins. When Covid broke out, I spent a lot of time advocating online for folks to take vitamins, especially vitamin D3 as it had cured me of a chronic cough condition I had for 3 years. I learned about this from going to an alternative medicine doctor after years of nowhere treatments and x-rays and all sorts of trial and error attempts to cure the chronic cough. It was an awful cough that I had while working in a cube farm 8 hours a day. I annoyed the heck outta my coworkers to say the least and was extremely frustrated and embarrassed by the constant uncontrollable coughing and gagging noises.

The alternative medicine doc took my blood sample. She said I was extremely low in Vitamin D. She said I had Vitamin D levels of a long-term nursing home resident. Immediately, she put me on one Vitamin D3 a day gummy and told me to spend 15 minutes a day out in the sun, perhaps walking or sunbathing to absorb the sun into my body.

Apparently, humans are really just like plants. We don’t do photosynthesis but we do get Vitamin D from sun exposure as well as things like milk and such. I had been a redhead with freckles and had avoided the sun for years and that was exactly my problem.

I began taking Vitamin D3 daily and after 3 months, the cough went away never to return. In fact, my immune system must have gotten boosted too. It improved my gut health as 90 percent of the immune system is in the intestines and most health concerns begin in the intestines. For years after that, I watched coworkers struggle with colds and flues whereas I never hardly got sick again and even during Covid, I got sick once or twice but it was very, very minimal effect on me.

Anyway, at the outbreak of Covid, I was posting everywhere on the internet especially in comment sections of YouTube telling people to go out and buy vitamin D3 gummies and take them to help protect themselves and their families against the respiratory illness and I shared my backstory ALOT. I was really advocating hard for Vitamin D3 because I didn’t want to see people die.

Folks were super skeptical of me. Alot told me to be quiet and I wasn’t an expert. Was I a doctor? How did I know this, I wasn’t educated? What did I do for a living? I wasn’t a doctor or nurse! What research did I have to prove this?

I got that constantly. Then, I began to tell people about skin absorption of vitamin D from the sun in the northern hemisphere and how people with more melanin pigmentation needed more time out in the sun to get Vitamin D and how racial differences were really just natural adaptation of the skin to certain climates and to sun exposure as if the human body’s skin was like a chameleon that adapted to the sun wavelengths.

People did not want to hear this at all.

They did not want to hear that our races are simply Darwinian evolutionary adaptations to our natural environment and our sun exposure in those environments. The skin becomes lighter the farther north you go so that the body can absorb better the sun’s rays. The skin becomes darker near the tropics so that the body is protected from too much of the sun’s rays. Therefore, what we know to be race isn’t a difference at all. It is just variations in the skin like a, say for example, a tinted window verses a window that is made to absorb more light. And that human skin can adapt in a person over time, altering the person’s level of “tint” or melanin to fit its environment to a certain extent. The human body self-regulates and adapts.

(For example, I used to live in Kansas. After 2 years of living in northern Vermont, my skin is lighter now.)

This information I shared was controversial and in many folks’ minds, just wrong. They just did not want to believe it or even consider it and many asked me…..who are you? Are you an expert???

It was this super white Caucasian girl from Kansas telling people with darker pigmentation that they really needed to be in the sun more to protect themselves from Covid or to take Vitamin D3 gummies and make sure their families took them too.

That did not go over well AT ALL. AT ALL. It went over about as well as a fart in an elevator. Seriously.

Despite the backlash and skeptics and online trolling and people telling me to sit down and shut up, I kept trying to tell people online about the importance of Vitamin D and my own backstory. I just really didn’t want to see them or their family members get really sick from Covid or die. If I had an opportunity to help them, I needed to try. So I kept commenting and posting.

And I guess to this day….I’m glad I did. Since then, there have been lots of experiments and research developed and doctors coming out advocating D3. I’m glad to see that. It made a huge impact in my health and I hope it will make a huge impact for others as well. In fact, I really believe taking a multi-vitamin daily helps people to slow down the aging process in the body. But you have to be careful what vitamin brands you buy as some are better than others.

Proverbs 23 “Do not withhold correction from a child, for if you beat him with a rod, he will not die. You shall beat him with a rod, and deliver his soul from hell.”

What?!

Ok, admittedly some of the Bible is a bit dated in its philosophy and a bit cray-cray.

I’ve never beaten a kid with a rod. I don’t think I would ever want to.

Sometimes I question the Bible.

The whole Sodom and Gomorrah topic and sexual orientation…..in my eyes, the problem with those 2 cities is that when you read the scripture about the visiting angels, they were mobbed and threatened with violent non-consensual conduct from the mob.

The issue was not sexual orientation. The issue with Sodom and Gomorrah was rape and violence and bullying. The key is that it was more about ganging up with violence and bullying than it was about sexual orientation in my view. It was about coercion which I think is definitely wrong.

I do feel that love is love and who am I to be a hypocrite and tell someone how to live their life as a consenting adult? Or to tell them they can’t marry someone they love or to tell them they can’t get health insurance for their partner or to tell them they can’t raise babies together? It’s stupid.

The Bible is complex.

But back to the original statement, at one point the Bible says bullying is wrong and then at another point it says parents should beat their kids with a stick.

What?!

Proverbs 23 “The drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty.”

Alcohol is expensive. Buying meats at the grocery store is expensive too. I can’t afford to do BBQ parties every weekend. I would be broke. Every time my husband does a BBQ party it costs a minimum of about 100 bucks and sometimes up to 300 depending on the type of meat like brisket or steaks.

Crazy.

Benjamin Franklin said one of the best qualities a human can have is temperance, not doing too much and not doing too little, being balanced.

“Temperance in all things, including temperance itself.”

I like Ben Franklin. He had some awesome phrases like “A bird in the hand is worth more than 2 in the bush.”

I remind myself of this phrase every time about my marriage. Don’t give up the bird in your hand to chase the two in the bush cause you’ll end up empty-handed with none of the 3 birds.

Sometimes, admittedly though, that bird in the bush is super beautiful like a peacock or something and the bird in your hand, you kinda take it for granted sometimes or get bored with it for a bit. You’re looking at that peacock in the bush and you’re holding a little sparrow.

But sparrows are super cute and they can chirp really well and maybe even sing. Sparrows need love too.

The key to a long-lasting marriage seems to me to be dates. Plan fun activities with your partner. Go to a new restaurant, take a drive together in the country, visit an animal farm, go on a mini-vacation. You gotta really work at it and make time for them and plan fun things for them. Study them. Study what they like and do little things every day to make them feel special…. a little note on their napkin in their work lunch box, maybe bring them their favorite drink from Dunkin Donuts.

One thing cool my husband used to do for me was put together scavenger hunts for me to find a gift item he bought. One time he took me on a trip through Oklahoma to visit waterfalls all over the state. That was great fun. He took my kids to Ruby Falls and Rock Mountain and we had fun as a family together there. He took me to Destin to sit on the white sandy beaches together and play in the surf. We went whitewater rafting in Colorado.

Don’t get complacent and lazy at it. Plan stuff for them. It makes the marriage better.

Proverbs 23 “When shall I awake, that I may seek another drink?”

This part of Proverbs 23 talks about the attitude of an alcoholic. It is hard to be an alcoholic and even harder too to be a family member of an alcoholic watching them.

I’ve witnessed this. Addictions are hard. They need unconditional love and acceptance and support and someone willing to call a person out when they falter and try to get them back on track.

I used to smoke. I smoked for 5 years cause I worked at a factory and that was what we did to socialize on our breaks. You start with one and pretty soon you are smoking a pack or two a day. It’s awful. I tried to quit soooooo many times.

I haven’t smoked for a while but I know it’s a very real and raw addiction for me. I finally learned the hard way, that I can’t be near them. I can’t even have one for one leads quickly to two, then to three, then to four, and so on and so on.

The only way I can stop is to stop all together. A lot of people stop the slow way but it takes a very long time. The best way to stop is cold turkey. Take the pack and throw it in the trash. Break the cigarettes up into pieces so a day later you won’t get desperate and start digging through the trash looking for just one.

You will dig through the trash. Trust me. You will. You might even try to roll those broken cigarettes back up again or run down to the local convenient store for just one pack, just one. Or knock on your friend’s door or try chew or cigars just to curb the need for it. You’ll try to rationalize every action of course.

Spend a week in serious withdrawal and suffering. Those first 3 days are gonna be hell….not gonna lie. After a week, you’ll feel better and get on with your life. 2 or 3 months down the road…..you’ll be glad you stuck it out. 6 months down the road….your lungs will feel better and you will wonder how the hell your family could tolerate the smell of your cigarettes. (That’s love there.) 2 years down the road……you won’t even want to be around cigarette smoke cause the smell is bad to you.

And then you’ll know you’re better…..but the temptation still lingers and lurks in the background………and it probably always will and that’s something you have to face as an adult, the consequences of your younger decisions and that’s completely okay and normal and many, many, many people deal with it. I am one of them.

At least you are trying to be a better version of yourself. Proud of you. Many of us are facing battles no one even knows about. Be kind.

That’s it. That’s all I got for today. Have a good day and thanks for reading!

Today is Day 22 in reading and writing about the Psalms and Proverbs through the Billy Graham Words of Wisdom Reading Plan. Today I only need to read 3 Psalms and 1 Proverb. I listened to them on YouTube and they were full of lotsa of great insight. This post will probably talk about some controversial topics in particular, in regards to Psalm 106 which discusses the Israelites in the wilderness.

Each time I jot down the interesting bits and then I set out immediately to write on them. I don’t really give much time for reflection but use my intuition and stream of consciousness ideas. Sometimes I think intuition is better anyways. Intuition seems to come from a place in the brain like the amygdala which is primitive and has wisdom and knowledge beyond our present lives as if it is the seat of the soul from many reincarnations.

Sometimes education seems to fuddle up our intuitive mind and we literally spend decades unlearning what we had learned in our 20s.

So I write this right away after listening to the readings and I also stop to pray 2 prayers. First I pray the Our Father.

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory.

And then I do a short personal prayer to the Holy Spirit. I just speak plainly to the Holy Spirit and invite the Holy Spirit in to write the words through me and breathe life into them, to make them interesting and entertaining and informative and bring people to a better understanding of God and of other human beings. I ask the Holy Spirit to bring stories and ideas from the Bible to my mind so I can share them to help others.

I reread some of the old posts and I think maybe this is working because some of the insights are pretty decent and helpful. So that’s good.

Psalm 104 “Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment.”

The author in Psalms is describing the appearance of God, the Father. I started reading a book recently called The Energy Codes by a woman who’s father was into healing energy work and medicine and quantum physics stuff. She carried on her father’s work and writes in the book that all beings of creation are energy. Energy is essentially light or light wavelengths and so God, the Father, the source of all creation, technically, would be this great light source of energy and so the author’s description is accurate of garments radiating light.

This is a pretty good book. I like it so far. She talks about understanding energy and how it works and she explains that the purpose of human life is to return to this energetic soul source and let go of the mindset of the protective personality or the ego. Understanding that we are operating in continuous energy is to understand that everything around you is an energy source from the computer I type at to the candle I light beside it to the dog curled up beside me napping on the floor. We are one energy and yet the ego perceives all our differences and limits the soul expression.

Christianity parallels this philosophy. From the time I was a little child as a Catholic, I understood myself as soul first and then body second.

The writer explained that when she was 6 years old, she could see energy fields around things. She was playing at a brook in the water and lifted her hands up in the sunshine with the water and saw a golden aura glowing around the hands and sparkling. She could see colors around people and this eventually went away as she realized she was different and other people didn’t have this ability and her ego attempted to squelch it.

I had experiences as a child too. When I was a little girl playing in my room with my toys, maybe around the age of 3 or so, I would sometimes hear a ringing in my right ear. I would stop playing. I listened intently to the sound, it would magnify and the ringing would increase and my body would warm up and I would feel bliss. It would usually last for 5 minutes at a time. The experience felt like a vibration or something and any time I had it, I felt like I was home. Not home in my room, but really home. I felt happy and whole.

I kept it to myself mostly. It happened quite frequently to me as a little kid and then, I don’t know, around the age of 4 or 5 it stopped. I always kinda thought maybe I had a Buddhist monk that lived nearby and was meditating and somehow it affected me. I couldn’t really figure it out. But it went away and never came back. Sometimes, as an adult, I hear the ringing faintly in my right ear again. I try to hold it but I can’t do what I did as a kid.

I wrote a short piece of fiction about it recently and called it The Golden Child. It’s a story about a dystopian future in which there are no plants or trees and the whole world is grey but a Buddhist monk discovers the ancient texts and works with kids in his neighborhood. He discovers a kid that can change the world with his aura or light and then the world becomes green again. It’s kinda a cute story.

I read online that the ringing in the right ear, some spiritual folks say that it is the sound of source energy or creation.

I feel kinda weird sharing this story like I’m freakish or something. I told a friend and she said, I might have some kinda psychic clairaudience ability just vaguely and faintly. I do have a very strong intuition and I can feel when a situation is dangerous or a vibe is off sometimes.

Psalm 104 “Who laid the foundations of the Earth that it should not be removed forever.”

Imagine the Earth in the solar system for a second. Think of all the dead planets. I mean they are there, but there is no life. Mars, the red planet, is desolate. Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn, covered with uninhabitable atmospheres. Uranus, Neptune, and poor ole Pluto that got kicked out for a bit – they are so freezing that you can’t even put your hand in the atmosphere as an astronaut….it would simply freeze and break off you.

Ok, that would be a bit terrifying.

Then Mercury is just hot as hell.

But Earth..

Earth is lush and green and full of valleys and mountains and vast fields. It is teeming with life of all kinds.

That can’t be just coincidence.

That’s a miracle right there.

And how we manage to stay on this planet as it revolves around the sun, and how we avoid meteroid showers and giant astroids and vacuous black holes….that can’t be an accident either.

Psalm 104 “He sendeth the springs into the valley.”

Once, I camped on the Continental Divide north of Denver. It was a crazy experience. It took us a while to get up the mountain. There was absolutely no human around for miles and miles and miles. We pitched a tent right before dark and went to bed. That morning, I woke up to my friend standing in the tent with the window slightly pulled down observing something in the woods. I stood up quietly and peered out.

We had pitched the tent in the green grass and forest next to a little Colorado spring. There was a herd of giant elk that was surrounded the area. There must have been at least 10 there. They were silent in the woods near the stream they had come to to drink. They were big and majestic, that’s how I would describe them. We watched them silently for 10 minutes and then slowly one by one they quietly faded into the forest and were gone. Just like that.

Psalm 104 “the high hills are a refuge for the wild goats, and the rocks for the conies.”

Ok, I got no idea what a coney is? It sounds like Coney Island or there was a book once I read by a beat poet named Lawrence Ferlinghetti called A Coney Island of the Mind and that was a real good poetry book. So, what is a coney? One moment….

Ok, in Old English, a coney is a wild rabbit but in biblical times, it says it was a Syrian rock hyrax?

What?

What the heck is that?

“The rock hyrax has a pointed head, short neck, and rounded ears. It has long, black whiskers on its muzzle.^[11] The rock hyrax has a prominent pair of long, pointed tusk-like upper incisors, which are reminiscent of the elephant, to which the hyrax is distantly related. The fore feet are plantigrade, and the hind feet are semi-digitigrade. The soles of the feet have large, soft pads that are kept moist with sweat-like secretions. In males, the testes are permanently abdominal, another anatomical feature that hyraxes share with elephants and sirenians.^[10]“

What?

What the heck is THAT?!

Ok, there’s a picture. It looks like a cross between a rabbit and a meerkat or a squirrel. Kinda a cute little fella. I would take one home as a pet. He looks cuddly and playful, a little head and a big rotund body. Cute. I like him.

Psalm 105 “He hath, remembered his covenant forever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations.”

The covenants have lasted a very long time. I am a daughter of God but I am one of many, many, many daughters through the ages of time. Makes you feel small and a bit insignificant and yet, the promise endures.

Psalm 106 “the earth opened and swallowed up Dathan, and covered the company of Abiram.”

Ok, I don’t know this part of the Bible at all. I have to look this up. So I went to http://www.gotquestions.com and typed in “what is Dathan in the Bible?” This is what I got:

“Dathan was one of four ringleaders who incited a rebellion against the leadership of Moses and Aaron while the Israelites journeyed in the wilderness (Numbers 16). Dathan was the son of Eliab, from the tribe of Reuben. He, his brother Abiram, a fellow Reubenite named On, and a Levite named Korah brought 250 Israelite leaders to challenge Moses’ right to lead them. They said, “The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the Lord’s assembly” (verse 3)?

Moses was distraught at this challenge and the rebelliousness behind it, and he ordered Dathan and the other men to appear before him the next morning with censers full of incense and hot coals to offer to the Lord. Offering incense was to be performed only by God’s priests, but these men claimed that they should have the same right as Moses and Aaron to be leaders. Moses’ plan would let the Lord show them the foolishness of their demand. Dathan and the other malcontents, along with the high priest, Aaron, would offer their incense, and the Lord would publicly choose His priest.

Moses tried to reason separately with Korah, reminding him that as a Levite he was already chosen by the Lord for special service (Numbers 16:8–11). But Korah would not listen. When Moses summoned Dathan and Abiram, they defied his command and issued a surly response: “We will not come! Isn’t it enough that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness? And now you also want to lord it over us! Moreover, you haven’t brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey or given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. Do you want to treat these men like slaves? No, we will not come!” (Numbers 16:12–14).

None of the rebels were willing to listen to Moses’ appeals. The next morning, Dathan and the others came to the tabernacle with censers in hand. The Lord was so angry at their insolence that He wanted to destroy all of the Israelites, and He told Moses and Aaron to step aside so He could. Moses pleaded with the Lord for mercy, so the Lord brought judgment only on the ones who had incited the rebellion. Dathan, Abiram, and Korah stood with their families and possessions at the entry to their tents, and the Lord caused the ground to open and swallow them (Numbers 16:31–33).”

A sinkhole….in the desert…..they were swallowed up by a sinkhole or maybe quicksand……..gah, that’s terrifying.

Psalm 106 “they made a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the molten image.”

Ok, so Horeb I guess is Mt. Sinai or the mountain of God. This is where Moses saw the burning bush and also received the 10 commandments and later on, the prophet Elijah hid there in a cave from Jezebel’s wraith.

In Deuteronomy 9, the Israelites made an image of a molten calf and worshipped it at the base of Mt. Horeb, invoking the wraith of God for violating the commandments.

So this molten calf…I can’t find alot about it. Some scholars think it was a deity itself. Some think it was an intermediary like Moses to God. And others, think the Golden Calf representation was like a throne that they had built for God to sit on the calf and be in camp with them.

Psalm 106 “Therefore he said he would destroy them, had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach.”

To stand in the breach, to act as an intercessor to protect others. I have heard this reference before. It’s a courageous thing to stand in the breach.

Where have I heard this before? One moment… Ezekiel 22:30:

“The Lord said, “I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one.”

A breach in the wall. What movie had I seen that showed someone standing in the breach during a siege of a castle or a wall or something? It kinda reminds me of the movie Glory with Denzel Washington when the soldiers go off to battle know that it will be a bad battle and many will die. There’s this part, where the Denzel Washington character sees the flagbearer fall and he takes up the flag and stands in the breach and keeps them moving forward.

I guess that’s the closest I can think of someone standing in the breach. That’s a good movie, by the way.

Psalm 106 “They joined themselves also unto Baalpeor and ate the sacrifices of the dead…. yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils.”

I hate this part.

I don’t want to know what sacrifices they ate or why. Were they animals or humans? I don’t want to know.

I didn’t know what Baal Peor meant so I looked it up on http://www.gotquestions.com:

“Baal Peor, or the Baal of Peor, was a local deity worshiped by the Moabites. When the Israelites, following Moses to the Promised Land, were in the vicinity of Peor, some of them fell into idolatry and worshiped Baal Peor. As a result of their sin, the men of Israel were judged by God.

The story of Baal Peor starts when Balaak, the king of the Moabites, hired Balaam, a prophet-for-hire, to curse Israel. Balaak had seen the progress and might of Israel and was trying to do something that would stop them. Balaam took the money but was unable to curse Israel because the Lord would not allow him to do so. Balaam then met with the king of Moab and went through the motions of receiving a word from God; each time (seven times total) he ended up blessing Israel instead of cursing them (Numbers 23–24). At the time of the third oracle, Balaam and Balaak were observing the Israelite camp from a place called Peor (Numbers 23:28). By the end of the seventh try, Balaak finally got the message that Balaam would not curse Israel for him.

In Numbers 25, we find that the women of Midian began to seduce the men of Israel to sexual sin and to sacrifice to their gods. Since the gods of the pagans were often fertility gods, the “worship” often involved sexual acts. The incident is recorded in Numbers 25:1–3: “While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Midianite women, who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate the sacrificial meal and bowed down before these gods. So Israel yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor. And the Lord’s anger burned against them.” As a judgment against the Israelites’ sin, God sent a plague among the people (verse 9).

According to Numbers 31:16, the women did this on the advice of Balaam. It appears that, since he could not curse Israel, he found another way to fulfill the wishes of Balaak, who was paying him. Balaam knew that, if the Israelite men could be seduced into idol worship, that God Himself would curse them.

The word peor simply means “opening” and is the name of the place (a mountain or a spot on a mountain) from which Balaak and Balaam observed the camp of Israel. The meaning of the word may or may not be significant to the naming of the place. (Perhaps there was a cave opening there or some kind of mountain pass, or perhaps the place was called Peor for some other reason.)

The word baal is simply the word for “lord,” “master,” or “ruler.” Baal became a technical or semi-technical name for the gods of the Canaanites. There was not just one god named Baal, but there were many Baals (many Canaanite “lords”). That is why Numbers 25:3 in the NIV does not use “Baal Peor” as if it were a proper name for a god but uses the term more as a description: “the Baal of Peor,” which could also be translated “the Lord of Peor” or “Lord of the Opening.” Peor might refer to the mountain top from which Balaam and Balaak observed Israel, or it could have something to do with the literal meaning of the word peor (opening), which, in the context of Canaanite worship (and the context of Numbers 25), could have a sexual or scatological connotation. Perhaps the top of the mountain was called Peor because that is where the sexual rites took place.”

So Baal, in general, signifies the large group of Canaanite deities that the Israelites encountered. The second part of this phrase…”they sacrificed their sons and daughters”….this could be the Caananite God, Molech.

He was a particularly nefarious God. In ancient times, people would sacrifice their own kid to Molech by “passing the child through fire” or burning them up. In exchange for offering the God a living sacrifice of your most priced possession, your own child, you could receive abundant wealth and prosperity in life.

Evil.

Pure evil.

Greed.

Psalm 106 “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting.”

Elijah defeated the false prophets of Baal. Jezebel was after him. The false prophets erected all sorts of altars to Baal and did sacrifices. There were many false prophets. I don’t remember the number, maybe a 100 or a 1,000. Anyway, Elijah was taunted and told the God of Israel was worthless. As God’s prophet, Elijah stood up and summoned the wraith of God upon the false prophets. He brought fire down upon the altar and the false prophets were all defeated and killed. This incurred the huge wraith of Jezebel and Elijah fled in fear.

Elijah is said to be one of the two witnesses that will return in the Book of Revelation. He will prophesy again and work again against the false prophets of Baal that still thrive in the world today. This is a contentious issue, but some believe that our modern day practice of abortion is Baal or Molech sacrifice today.

There have been 50 to 60 million abortions in America lately. That’s a lot. That’s a lot.

It’s hard to be a child these days. Most don’t even make it out of the womb.

You can be mad at me for talking about this contentious topic and for being a woman and saying that. I don’t care. You obviously don’t care about them either. Sometimes this modern day life reminds me of the two women standing before Solomon arguing about the baby.

“Cut him in half,” he orders and one woman just shrugs. The other starts to cry and begs to keep him alive. And then, King Solomon knows. You will know their hearts by their deeds.

Harsh to say that.

You may be mad at me for saying it.

But it is true that you choose to value women’s rights over the other.

I understand your reasoning. I understand you may have a past too. I understand all the complexities….I just wonder if there is more to this than semantics. It seems whenever someone wants to diminish or detach feeling from a particular thing or behavior, they call it something vague rather than what it really is.

Fetus

Trafficking

etc.

All these vague terms. Not plain man’s speak. Just a lot of detached vocabulary to take away the violent nature of it. Modern day slavery isn’t slavery for example….its human trafficking.

Whatever. It’s slavery and you know it. Quit beatin’ around the bush. A spade is a spade.

I’ll take the plain speak of a working person over all of the hullabaloo contrived speak of an ivy-league educated person any day. I don’t want to spend time trying to decipher what is really being said behind the big words. I prefer an Honest Abe who says what he means and means what he says. Hanging out with an over-educated person is like being handed a 22 page legal document in small print that you can barely understand and fear to sign, for fear you might sign your life away unwittingly. The devil’s in the details.

Proverbs 22 “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches.”

Better to be a chosen and protected one of God than to have all the rubies and sapphires in the world. When you go to the treasure room, Aladdin, don’t touch the gold. Go for the genie’s lamp.

Proverbs 22 “A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself but the simple pass on and are punished.”

Chamberlain conceded to Hitler with diplomatic talks several times prior to the outbreak of WWII. To this end, Winston Churchill is quoted as saying vividly, “an appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”

Sometimes, although we are reluctant to stand up, force must be met with force as the ants stand up to the grasshoppers in A Bug’s Life. It’s not something we want to do but sometimes it’s something we have to do.

Years ago, I had to tell someone to stay off my property or I would get a restraining order. I did not want to say that but they were very aggressive. The next day, they went down to the police station and tried to say some stuff on me but I had a clean record whereas, they had spent time in jail for beating someone up. The police told them to go away, they had more important things to do.

Sometimes you gotta stand up for yourself no matter the consequences or gossip. They left me alone finally. It’s like that Amber Heard Johnny Depp trial. I don’t know who was right or wrong or who was innocent or guilty but sometimes, you gotta stand up for yourself cause the other person just ain’t gonna stop.

Proverbs 22 “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

This is true. When times get tough, when my chips are down, I always return to my faith that I learned as a child.

Samson was down and out. He was chained in the temple. This was a man blessed and chosen by God. His youth was promising and amazing. He had every blessing, every gift, every talent he could ever want.

Samson fell in love.

What Delilah did to Samson was truly awful. She lured him in, made him fall in love with her, deceived him, and then cut off his blessings. She destroyed Samson…….almost. She must have wanted him to suffer cruel brutality of public humiliation first. She truly was an evil, evil woman.

She made him a laughing stock to all the people. Everyone joked about Samson. He was in great ruin and despair. He prayed to God to no avail.

What Delilah did to him was atrocious betrayal.

At the temple, he was chained between the two pillars. They continued to laugh and mock him and drink wine and have festivities without him. They laughed. They laughed. They laughed. Oh it was great fun to laugh at poor Samson, a great mighty man brought low by love of a deceitful woman. All Samson did was love her and in return he received her treachery and manipulations and the mockery of all the community and his enemies.

They laughed and they laughed and they laughed. Oh it was great fun laughing at Samson. They laughed for a very long time. Oh what fun to treat another human being so horribly bad. What pleasure in seeing his pain! He deserves it, they probably said out of past envy. Their hearts were truly wicked.

But as they drew it out, continuing to mock and laugh and tell great jokes, Samson continued to bow his head and pray. And Samson felt then the pringley feeling of the regrowth of his hair on his scalp. They continued to laugh. Oh what fun.

And the hair slowly grew and grew ever so slightly.

And they laughed and laughed and laughed.

He was healing and growing strength and returning to his former glory, even if just for a little bit.

And Samson, with a mighty push, toppled two pillars and crushed them all to death. All the mockers, all the scorners, all the laughers……..dead.

Dead as a doornail. Their heads busted and necks broken from the weight of the temple stones falling about on them crushing them to death.

Be careful when you make a long mockery of others. Cruelty is never okay.

Samson returned to the faith of his youth and was finally redeemed.

That’s it. That’s all I got. I feel like I wrote a heckuva alot this time. Sorry about that. Good material though. Interesting topics. Thanks and have a good day.

Oh thank goodness!

So I am getting towards the tail end of the readings and in the Billy Graham Words of Wisdom Bible Reading Plan. For 31 days I read Psalms and Proverbs. Reading Psalms will help you to understand God. Reading Proverbs will help you to understand other human beings. Today is Day 21 and I am almost to the end so I only had to read 3 Psalms today and then Proverbs 21. Phew.

I listen to the Psalms and Proverbs on YouTube. For the Proverbs, I listen to this really great rendition with a purple screen and it says something like NKJV on it. The words are typed on the screen so I can pause and jot them down if I find something interesting….plus the voice-over is this really great, dramatic Shakespearean-like guy with a super fancy British accent which makes it all the more profound. Something about the British, man. They could be selling you bologna in a commercial and you’d say, “Wow, that’s super sophisticated. Just listen to his fabulous accent! I’ll buy it!”

Important mental note, if I ever go into marketing and sales, hire a British guy to do my advertising.

But it’s true. Take for example a show like um, River Monsters with Jeremy Wade. It is sooooooo much better with his great voice. It sounds exciting and mysterious. You get a hillbilly from backwoods Oklahoma to replace him that’s got great skills at noodling and tubbing (that’s turning over an old metal tub in muddy water until a catfish inhabits it and then going noodin’ sticking your hand under the tub to let the catfish bite your forearm and haul it out), just not the same.

By the way, spoon-billing is great fun too. Those fish can get huge down there. I like to go trout or bass fishing. I would really like to go walleye fishin’. I haven’t done that yet but it’s on my bucket list. I don’t like catching Pike. They are fast and furious and when they come up they got razor sharp teeth. Heck, one time, I had a Pike on my line and he bit off my whole lure and line! I pulled it up and was just like, “Dang! There’s a monster down there.”

The key to good fishing is to really get good lures or bait. You can fish all day with a lousy lure and get nothing. But you put a little pink minnow on there and cast it out in the same spot, and bam, up comes a big ole bass! I had to learn that the hard way. My husband kept taking all the good lures and I’d fish all day with the crappy ones and want to about throw my fishing pole or bust it in half. Then one day, I started watching him. Watching how he fished and what lures he used. See, a good fisherman won’t tell you his secrets. You gotta watch him to find out. So I did and figured out he was giving me all the crappy lures and a cruddy fishing pole at that!! So I went to Walmart and picked out a good pole and some good lures and now, I’m set.

My personal word of wisdom life lesson: Sometimes folks won’t tell you the right way to do something cause they don’t want you learning the secrets. You gotta watch and learn. Study what they do. Not what they say. Big life lesson there.

But, anyway, I digress.

So here are some highlighted phrases from Psalms 101-103 and Proverbs 21 and my stream of consciousness thoughts on them.

Psalm 101 “Whoso privily slandereth his neighbor, will I cut off. Him that hath an high look and a proud heart will not I suffer.”

Ok, you ever watch Pretty Woman? You know the part in Pretty Woman where Julia Roberts is dressed sorta for the streets and she goes into a boutique to buy some fine clothes and she gets these withering stares and poor treatment from the staff.

Well that happened to me, once.

I was working at the factory. The factory in the summer gets blazing hot sometimes so we wear short shorts and tank tops with running shoes that get pretty tore up from being on your feet all day long. You get dusty and dirty too. You put your hair in a ponytail or bun. Nothing fancy.

So I was on my lunch break and I needed some new lotions and stuff. So I wander down to the mall with my big sling backpack not even considering that I might be red flagged as looking kinda dingy like a homeless person.

I had plenty of money from working all the time but man, I got followed around by the staff all over the place while looking at merchandise and they were eyeing me all suspicious and disapproving. Then I ended up picking up about 6 or 7 lotions cause it was the annual sale and my hands would get real dry at the factory.

I go to the checkout and they seemed surprised that I would drop that much cash.

Anyways, moral of the story, don’t judge a book by its cover.

Psalm 102 “My heart is smitten and withered like grass; so that i forget to eat my bread.”

Oh, this happens to a lot of people after a severe relationship breakup with a friend or lover or family member. Divorce is the best diet there is out there cause you just stop eating cause your heart is broken.

Psalm 102 “Thou hast lifted me up and cast me down.”

God lifted up King Solomon because he was wise and gifted and loved the Lord. But King Solomon had many wives and they began bringing their own religions and deities and such to Israel. Good King Solomon was eventually cast down due to the influence of his wives. Be careful who you marry. Some folks are as Pink would say, “just like a pill, instead of making me better, you keep making me ill.” Love can be an addiction and sometimes we get addicted to the wrong one. I think in astrology, they call folks like that, a karmic meant to teach us a lesson.

I had a boyfriend like that once. I had to literally pay him 500 dollars to go away. And then, he moved to my hometown and started working in the local Home Depot. Man, I couldn’t shop at Home Depot for like 3 years waiting for him to go away.

Psalm 102 “They shalt perish, but thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment, as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shalt be changed.”

Getting older is hard. I am starting to get gray hair. It is so light that it practically looks like I got a bald spot where it started. I don’t know how it started. The streak of gray just showed up and got bigger and bigger. When guys get old, they are called things like the Silver Fox. When women get old, we are the Old Maid. Remember that game? You’d get stuck with the Old Maid and your buddy had to draw cards from your hand so you would cleverly position the cards so that he might pick her….maybe put her card a little towards the front or pull it high upwards. Then your buddy would go to pick another card and you’d say, “Nope.” and kinda move the cards around or jerk them back from your friend makin’ em redraw again and just hoping you could get rid of the Old Maid.

Sometimes I wonder if my husband is doing that with me. I am 10 years younger than him but he refers to me as “the ole lady.” I love him though.

Psalm 103 “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy….he hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.”

I’m in my 40s. I’ve done a few things here and there I’m not so proud of. My life could be way worse. I count myself fortunate that life has worked out well and I do believe it is due to God’s mercy and the mercy of others, especially kind police officers that gave me the benefit of the doubt.

Psalm 103 “he remembereth that we are dust.”

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Proverbs 21 “The plans of the diligent lead surely to plenty, but those of everyone who is hasty, surely to poverty.”

This reminds me of putting together IKEA furniture. It comes with directions and like 45 different pieces you gotta assemble. Well, I put a cabinet together with a friend one time, and she was like, “Don’t bother with the directions, we got this.”

Well the cabinet now wobbles a little and is off-balance and we put the door on the wrong way so now there’s a gap.

Proverbs 22 “Better to dwell in a corner of a housetop than in a house shared with a contentious woman….better to live in the wilderness, than in a house shared with a contentious woman.

This one made me chuckle. Proverbs was obviously written by a guy that didn’t like “strange women” or “contentious women.”

I saw Taming of the Shrew once as a kid. I think it had Elizabeth Taylor in it maybe. I don’t remember. Shrewish people are kinda awful to hang out with.

As a kid, my mom and dad would sometimes argue from time to time, nothing too serious. But my mom was very clever. She put a framed picture in the kitchen above the door. It read, “Don’t question your wife’s judgment, look who she married.” Anytime, my dad would get angry about something, she’d point to it and it worked, he would just kinda look down and laugh and say, “okay.”

Proverbs 21 “Whoever shuts his ear to the cry of the poor, will also cry himself and not be heard.”

I try every now and then, to drop money in the bowl for someone on the streets. One time, I see this lady sitting with her dog and there was a bowl in front of her. They were sitting on the sidewalk. So I reach in my purse and grab my spare coins. I walk over and drop the coins into the bowl and water splashes everywhere and the woman gets all indignant, “Hey, that’s my dog’s water bowl!”

I said, “Oh, sorry, I was just leaving you some coins.”

She said, “Why?”

“Well, I saw you sitting there and ….”

“You thought I was homeless?! I’m just walking my dog! We stopped to take a break! You splashed his water everywhere!”

“Oops, sorry.”

Proverbs 21 “He who loves pleasure will be a poor man.”

Going to the bar is expensive. You go with 100 dollars and the next morning, you wake up, can’t recall half the night, and you got $2.15 left in your pocket. How the heck did that happen?

Ok, that’s all I got for today. Thanks for reading and I look forward to any comments. Have a good day!

Woohoo! I am so happy today. Today I hit the 100 mark for the Psalms readings with the Billy Graham Words of Wisdom Bible Reading Plan. Each day I read 5 Psalms and 1 Proverb and write my stream of consciousness, random thoughts on the phrases. Some phrases are inspirational and some thoughts I write are truly cringey or corny but hey, it’s fun.

Speaking of fun, today is Mother’s Day! Happy Mother’s Day to all the great moms and grandmoms and aunties and grand aunties and just anyone in general that has the gracious and good, generous heart to step in and support youth. Bravo! This is your special day.

My son took me to Dog Mountain today. This was my Mother’s Day gift from him and my furbaby, Sushi, my brown border collie. We wanted to take Gizmo but he’s part Chihuahua or something and woulda totally spazzed out with the big dogs.

I think he’s actually Jack Russell mixed with Italian Greyhound according to my vet. All I know is I got him at the animal shelter 7 or so years ago. He was in a little cage facing the wall, not even looking at me. He looked kinda despondent. I was playing around with all the happy, yippy, bouncy dogs. They lifted him outta the cage to change his food and water. That’s when I noticed he walked on 3 legs. The animal shelter worker said he’d been there a while. No one wanted a dog that walked on 3 legs. But my ACL ligament was tore in my knee too and I couldn’t walk well either. We were perfect for each other. We took him home.

He had surgery for 170 dollars. Mine was like 10 grand. We would hobble around together rehabbing our knees going around the neighborhood block. One day, he stopped and put his leg down to the ground gingerly. He suddenly realized in that moment it was fixed and he could run! Now he bounces all over the place. Must be the Jack Russell in him. Dog’s crazy. He loves to run everywhere.

One time I saw him running down the highway from the porch. I hollered, “Gizmo! Get back here now! You’ll get hurt!” He disappeared down the highway. I thought he was a goner. Pretty soon, I hear a semi truck honk and hear it coming and I see my dog running fast as his little legs could go hauling his butt in front of a giant semi truck honking at him. He come down the driveway with eyes as big as saucers. That was the last time he ever ventured out onto that road again. Wanderlust cured.

Anyway, Dog Mountain, it is a fantastic place and one of my favorite in Vermont! It is a mountain where dogs of all shapes and sizes and breeds and creeds (but no dogmas allowed according to the sign) can roam free all over the green fields. There also is a little dog chapel which is a real gem. Step inside with your dog if you want to and read all the little post it notes stuck on the walls for the dogs that have passed and went to heaven (all dogs go to heaven don’t you know). Here’s some special notes I found on the walls today:

“Miss you Zach! You were such a good boy! Love you! Till we meet again!”

“Inky was a black lab. She was playful and nice and a loving dog but now she’s in a better place.”

“Love you forever and ever my sweet Ginger!”

Like I said, the walls are completely full up with notes everywhere, owners leaving special notes to their dogs. Great place! I highly recommend it if you visit Vermont. They do concerts there too at Dog Mountain. I told em they need to invite Snoop Dogg to do a concert at Dog Mountain. That would be awesome!

“Snoop Doggy dawwwwwwww-u-og, Snoop Dogg!”

I would so take my dog to that concert. Ok, maybe not Gizmo. Spazzy. But Sushi for sure cause he’s pretty chill.

Ok, so today is also my birthday, another reason to be joyful. I was born on Mother’s Day.

So here are the readings for today:

Psalm 96 “Let the field be joyful and all that is therein. Then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord.”

This is dandelion week in northern Vermont. It’s gorgeous. The green fields get covered for a few weeks in bursts of yellow dandelions everywhere. If you like motorcycling, this is a good time of year to make a trip up here through the winding roads and mountains and hills. Route 5A to Lake Willoughby….I recommend that one.

I saw a black mama bear this week in my field. She was with her 2 cubs. They were there last year. I got worried for them cause after hunting season they disappeared but no, they are back and beautiful. They roll around in the field sometimes. Mama bear actually stays hidden in the woods though watching them intently. She is big and ominous looking. I love to watch them with the binoculars but she and the cubs are welcome to stay my neighbors on that side of the field though. I call her Dolly. I haven’t named the cubs yet.

Hmmm….. how about Forrest and Bubba Gump? Bubba Gump and Lt. Dan?

Wolfgang and Beethoven?

Hmmm…….how about Frank and Jesse James?

My husband likes Alabama football. I could call them Saban and Bear?

I like that. Ok, Saban and Bear it is.

Psalm 97 “A fire goeth before him and burneth up his enemies round about.”

Ok, true story I gotta tell you about a house fire. My friend lost her home. Her husband was awake at 3 am when they heard a loud pop noise in the house. Something made him get up that night, normally he would just go back to sleep. The house caught fire from some electrical damage and such and poof! It went up in flames real fast. Somehow they managed to get all their kids and themselves and a few pets out within 3 minutes. Within 5 minutes the whole thing was torched and blazing high and the fire trucks were coming.

So, they come to live with us for a bit. The next day, they go back to the house to salvage what they can. Everything was blackened and burnt except one portion of the living room wall and on that portion was a cross. Not kidding. True story.

Anyways, they took pictures of the cross and the blackened ruins and stuff. Word got around and folks at the church started a donation fund for their family and they got a brand new house due to charity and generosity of the congregation.

Cool story.

Psalm 100 “Serve the Lord with gladness…..for the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.”

I like that one. I’m not gonna add to it. That’s a good statement there. Enough said.

Proverbs 20 “Strong drink is a brawler.”

Everyone is different when they drink. I had a friend, that would throw punches when he drank. He just wanted to punch everybody and their grandma too.

Me, I’m a hugger. I hug a lot of people when I get tipsy. I won’t even know you and I’ll hug you. I’ve done a lot of crazy stuff drinking. Once I climbed outta a stuck elevator, drunk as a skunk, that was stopped between 2 floors. Maybe not the brightest idea.

There I go, by the grace of God.

Proverbs 20 “Any fool can start a quarrel.”

One of my favorite movies is Grumpy Old Men. It reminds me of where I live….all the ice fishing and snowmobiling. I love to watch the two actors interact constantly trying to one up each other and quarrel and quibble and then there’s the dad that makes all the jokes. That’s a good show there.

We took the ice shack out on the lake one weekend this year. It was a hot winter. We had to pull it off the next weekend. Bummer. My son caught a couple of Pike though and some Perch.

That ice fishin’ ain’t for the faint of heart. I was out there 2 hours on the ice and that was enough for me. I was looking at the ice hole and my little pole and looking at the water melted by the buddy heater inside the tent. I kept looking back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.

I said, “Honey, could you turn off the heater for a bit?”

My husband said, “What’s the problem? You scared?”

“Nope. I’m not scared.”

“Yeah, you are.”

“Nope.”

So I kept fishin’ but I was looking at that buddy heater the whole dang time.

Just the same, I lasted 2 hours and that was it. We even drove the Ford F150 out to the fishing spot and it dipped for a second on the ice and I threw everything off me, opened the door and got ready to jump……but it was ok. I’m certain my eyes were as big as saucers in that moment, just like Gizmo running from the Semi truck.

Phew. That was enough for me.

My husband was like, “What? You scared again?”

“Nope.”

“Nope.”

Proverbs 20 “He who goes about as a talebearer reveals secrets.”

Ok, ok, this is true.

In West Africa, they used to keep storytellers on the outskirts of town and call them griots. The griots were powerful and people loved to hear their stories told in town. But never cross a griot, for if you do, she or he might make you the buffoon in the next community gathering story.

Remember, nothing is worse to humans than shame and public embarrassment. It ranks higher on their fears list than death.

Ok, that’s all I got for today. Thanks for listening and have a good day!

Ok, I ‘m still going. I’m starting to slow down at this, kinda like running a race and needing a breather midway….but I’ll get there. Hang on, just let me catch my breath.

Ok, so this is Day 19 of reading the Billy Graham Words of Wisdom Bible Reading Plan. Basically, every day for 31 days, I read about 5 Psalms and 1 Proverbs. Today I read Psalms 91-95 and Proverbs 19. Supposedly reading Psalms will improve your understanding of God while reading Proverbs will improve your relationships with other human beings.

So here goes. I’m just reading these, jotting down some notes and things that stood out. These are just my reflections and ideas on these readings.

Psalm 91 “His truth shall be thy shield and buckler.”

Ok, ok, is this not the best Psalm in the whole dang group?

Because of Covid, I frankly almost got this one dang near memorized. Do you remember when Covid first started a few years back and everyone was so worried? We got called off work for a bit and I did not know whether to lounge happily around in the hammock all day like I was on a well-deserved vacation or to stay locked inside with my mask on at all times, spraying Lysol everywhere.

Gosh, those masks were the worst weren’t they? Remember when it first started and people were scrambling to get masks. People made makeshift masks and sometimes the fabric didn’t tie right and folks had their noses sticking out of them half the time. Then there was the toilet paper scare of 2020 or 2021 or whenever that happened. Can’t wait to tell that one to the grand-kids down the road….

Back in my day, we ran outta toilet paper and had to use leaves and people were fighting over the last roll of John Wayne (rough, and tough, and takes no crap from nobody toilet paper) on the Dollar General shelf. Times were hard back then, kids, real hard.

So the baby boomers, they had the whole peace, love, and hippies vibe. The greatest generation, they fought bravely the Nazis. And us, well we survived the great toilet paper shortage………….crap, literally crap.

I’m so embarrassed.

But anyway, back to Psalm 91, I wonder what this “buckler” thing is? Ok, let’s check this out…..so a buckler is “a small round shield held on the left arm that has handles you put your forearm through.”

Ah, ok, I know what that is. I’ve seen those at the Renaissance Festival and such. Kansas City has the best Renaissance Festival too with giant turkey legs for feasting and so forth. They have a medieval torture museum, gypsy fortune tellers, great games like log throwing and jousting and archery and such, and you can dress in leather corsets and peasant shirts. Huzzah!

Psalm 91 “Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night.”

Now I lay me down to sleep…….I used to pray this. I would leave my closet door open as a kid and I never, ever, ever slept with a limb sticking out over my bed for fear of the boogie man under the bed gnawing on it over night.

A few years ago, my husband and I were remodeling an old stone house in the country in Kansas that was built in the 1850s. We slept in the house while tuck-pointing mortar and we would sleep in little cots in the dark. I usually slept with the sleeping bag over my head. Not gonna lie. It’s true.

Some folks told us the place was haunted and honestly, some weird stuff did happen there. My husband would sleep walk there and also sleep talk which we’ve been married for 10 years and he’s never ever done that anywhere else. One night I found him standing in a corner facing the corner. One night I found him standing in the bathroom. And the creepiest of all, one night, I found him outside the house standing in the yard in the dark in his pajamas under the one yard light. Creeped me out. For real.

Psalm 91 “A thousand shall fall at thy side and 10 thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.”

This is a powerful statement. Plagues and pestilence are horrible. I’m not sure which is worse, war or plague.

The night my husband got sick with Covid, he had gone to a friend’s funeral. The next day, we were supposed to pass out candy to little kids for Halloween. He didn’t feel well though and so we poured all the candy into a bowl and set it out at the end of of the walkway for the trick-or-treaters to find.

2 days later he collapsed in the urgent care and was taken by ambulance to the hospital ER. I left the factory to go stand at the hospital ER entrance and just stood there and couldn’t get in. I just remember tears streaming down my face and thinking, well, that’s it. I’ll never see him again. My Dad drove up to the parking lot and couldn’t get near me cause of the Covid but he stayed there in the parking lot waiting with me for a few hours till it got too dark. Then he said, I had to go home to take care of my kids. That really sucked, choosing between your spouse and your kids.

I went home and slept in bed by myself that night wondering about him. 2 days later, the hospital called and said he could go home cause there were not enough beds there and he didn’t need a ventilator. He came home, on the 4th night, his fever ran up to 104 degrees for about 4 hours straight. One more degree and I woulda rushed him back to the hospital. He was hot and cold, hot and cold, hot and cold. His blood sugar was up and down, up and down, up and down. I sat beside him checking his temp about every 15 minutes and then finally it broke, the fever, and he was okay.

He was supposed to self-quarantine but due to the fevers he couldn’t so, him and I, we stayed on one side of the house together and the kids stayed on the other side. Shortly after that, I had Covid too, but had no symptoms really. I pretty much spent 2 weeks watching Schitt’s Creek. The kids never did get Covid.

Psalm 92 “It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto thy Name.”

I think my favorite gospel song is just The Old Rugged Cross. That’s a good one. The Alan Jackson version is very nice. I also like that Vince Gill song, Go Rest High on That Mountain. Amazing Grace is always a good one and growing up Catholic, I liked On Eagle’s Wings or One Bread, One Body or Be Not Afraid.

Psalm 93 “Thy throne is established of old.”

The Earth is supposedly around 4.6 billion years old. America has been around for around 250 some years. The oldest current country, I guess, would be China at around 4,000 of history.

4,000 compared to 4.6 billion……..wow.

Psalm 94 “They break in pieces thy people, O Lord, and afflict thine heritage.”

According to Vatican News, 13 Christians a day in the world are murdered for their beliefs. Every 2 hours, a Christian in the world loses their life due to their faith.

13 x 365 = 4,745 Christians are martyred every year.

13 x 365 x 45 = 213,525 Christians have died for their faith in my lifetime. This is equivalent to the figures of how many people died in the Iraq War from 2003 to 2018.

Psalm 95 “Harden not your heart.”

I had heard this phrase before. I did not know it came from this Psalm.

Proverbs 19 “Luxury is not fitting for a fool.

I watched the movie Babylon. I seriously was depressed for a day afterwards. The main female character sorta plays the fool that attains great success and then through vice and folly, ends up in ruins. The ending where she walks off into the dark alleys was ugh, no good for me. Put me in the dumps.

One of my favorite movies as a kid was The Jerk. It had Steve Martin in it. It’s this guy that achieves great wealth and squanders all of it in a series of bad decisions and over spending.

Proverbs 19 “Houses and riches are an inheritance from fathers.”

How true is that? If our father did well saving, we have a better start in life or inheritance of good things. If our father did not save, we struggle with our own debt burdens such as college student loans and paying for weddings and such.

Proverbs 19 “Laziness casts one into a deep sleep.”

Old Chinese Proverb says that if you want something done, you should give it to the busy man. This seems counterintuitive but is true, as the lazy man only becomes more and more lazy while the busy, productive man doesn’t wrestle with inertia and can move faster and quicker like a ball rolling down hill. It’s all about Laws of Physics.

Proverbs 19 “A man of great wrath will suffer punishment.”

Ok, I just finished John Wick 2. We are watching the whole series together for family movie night. So as the series goes along and John Wick becomes more and more deadly and destructive, he goes deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of trouble.

Likewise, in the Bible, you have a story of Saul and David. Saul hated David as the next chosen one and he chased David everywhere. In the end, Saul was the one that died.

Once you get past a point of no return, there’s no going back.

Ok, that’s all I got on the readings for today. Tomorrow I read Day 20: Psalms 96-100 and Proverbs 17 and you are welcome to join me. Thanks!

Today is Day 18 in the journey to better understand Psalms and Proverbs in the Bible. I started this by receiving a brief email from the Billy Graham Foundation about a 31 day challenge to read 4 or 5 Psalms a day and 1 Proverbs. According to the email, reading Psalms will help you to better understand God. Reading Proverbs will help you to better understand your fellow human beings.

These are a few passages from Psalms 86-90 and Proverbs 18. I just add my stream of consciousness thoughts on them as I go along.

Psalm 86 “In the day of my trouble, I will call upon thee: for thou will answer me.”

Some folks compare God to a lighthouse. Seafarers are out in the dark and in the storms of life. The lighthouse, ever faithful, shines a light in the distance to warn the seafarers of dangers such as rocks ahead or to give them hope of reaching their destination of land soon. The steadfast lighthouse lights up every night, no matter what, and those that seek the lighthouse will be comforted in the darkness.

Psalm 86 “Neither are there any works like unto thy works.”

The works of God in our environment are pretty spectacular if you stop to look. Take a moment tonight to consider the sky full of stars. During the day, look to the blue sky and clouds. Watch the sunrise or the sunset. Consider the little brook or the flowing waters of Niagara. Travel to the Grand Canyon and see the great cavernous of space and distance. Climb the mountains, journey across the seas, take in all the amazing cities all over the world. Think for a moment tonight while you look at the stars of all the people on this planet that are looking up at that same moment from places all over the world from Mongolia to the Congo to Switzerland, to the Arctic.

This place is pretty awe-inspiring.

Psalm 86 “For great is thy mercy towards me; and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.”

Life is not all rainbows and sunshine. Sometimes it literally is the lowest hell. We need the dips and valleys to appreciate the summits. To understand gratitude better, one must experience pain and suffering. This is life. It is still good, despite its drudgeries.

Psalm 86 “Save the son of thy handmaid.”

Hagar and her son, Ishmael, were wandering the desert alone. They had run out of food and water and were rejected and scorned by lover and friends. Imagine a child, left to despair in the desert to wander in the heat and suffering. The angel came and saved Ishmael at his lowest point and a fountain of water sprung up in an unlikely place. Ishmael went on to be the father of a great religion. Sometimes our destinies are far stronger than our current struggles. We got to go through it to get to it. A hero’s journey always contains a dark night of the soul and tests and tribulations along the way will challenge him internally. The wise man knows this and endures. The fool caves to broken spirit and despairs or dies.

Psalm 88 “I am counted with them that go down into the pit.”

You may be counted down and out but get up and keep going. True strength of character is revealed in adversity. Success is not about how easy the journey was. Success is about how many challenges you faced and kept going.

Psalm 88 “Shall the dead arise and praise thee?”

Ezekiel prophesied to the bones in the desert. He spoke word into their dryness and the bones joined together, stood up, and sinew and muscle and skin joined to the bones. The breath of God blew into the former dry bones and before Ezekiel stood a vast army.

Prophets do this. They speak life through the Holy Spirit into the deadened spirits of their listeners.

Psalm 88 “Lover and friend hast thou put far from me.”

One of the hardest ordeals to face is losing a loved one. This can be for many reasons in life. When we operate in a spirit of openness to the plan of God and to acceptance of an abundance mindset, we are open to the possibility of more entering our life.

Abraham wanted Isaac to marry a woman from his own country, so he sent a servant to his homeland. The servant traveled at quite a length of time. He came across a woman named Rebekah at the well and her kindness to the servant won him over when she fed and watered his camels.

Blessings are everywhere around us. We just need to be open to receiving them.

Psalm 89 “I have made a covenant with mine chosen.”

To be a chosen one, is to have an unspoken covenant from birth with God. It is the promise of his protection, love, and guidance through our lives.

Psalm 89 “I have exalted one chosen out of the people.”

David was working in the field when they came to find a good and faithful, loyal servant to fight Goliath and lead the people. He was slight of frame compared to others but he had a strong faithful heart. He was busy tending to the sheep like a good shepherd or leader would do when they found him.

There are many Goliaths in our current lives. They could be the Goliaths of fear or addiction or illness or cruelty and abuse. For a slingshot to work, it must be drawn back a far distance or swung about at a fast and hard speed to endure. This drawing back or drawing down or swinging fast in disorientation is what is needed for someone or something to go a very far distance to conquer a Goliath. The stronger the mess you endured, the stronger your message to help others. Do we follow the thoughts and ideas of the pompous man that endured no hardship in life? Or do we follow the actions and deeds of someone that endured much and learned to carry on bravely and with confidence?

Psalm 90 “They are like grass.”

Walt Whitman published his work, Leaves of Grass, a long time ago comparing the lives of men to blades of grass that grow perenially but are eventually cut down. Life is short. Love hard. Play hard. Enjoy what time you have while you can.

Psalm 90 “We fly away.”

Come fly away, come float, let’s fly away” (Frank Sinatra)

Everyone eventually flies away, young and old. Wendy asks Peter on the eve of her flight to Neverland, “But what if I fall?” To which Peter replies, “But, oh my darling, what if you fly?”

A bird flies out of the nest not by looking downward but forward and above to the new destination.

Psalm 90 “Teach us to number our days.”

Take a moment each morning after you wake up to appreciate that you did wake up from the night. Many passed through that same night. Have gratitude for your day. Seize the day. Carpe Diem.

Proverbs 18 “A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire.”

I met a relative at my house. We had dinner and talked about things regarding spirituality and such. He asked if I was a good Christian. I thought that I was, having read scripture on my own and watched religious stuff on TV And online. He said, “Do you participate in fellowship?”

I said no. I said I preferred to keep my own company as I did not enjoy church sometimes for the company kept at the church could be comparable in my view sometimes to the Pharisees of Jesus’ time that preferred the appearance of religious superiority to the actual practice of kindness.

My relative said then that I needed to be in fellowship with others and join a Church. He said it was not about my past experiences but my willingness to serve others and help others and that is what defines a good Christian by their works and deeds.

I’ve thought about that conversation many times since then. He’s right.

A cup of murky water only becomes clean water when more water is added into it. That’s how you fix it. Not by throwing it out and starting all over but by being willing to add more to it.

Proverbs 18 “The words of a talebearer are like tasty trifles, and they go down into the inmost body.”

As a writer, your gift is to feed the reader with good tidbits of information and carefully crafted words are a source of entertainment and intrigue to the receiver. I was watching an old video of Charles Bukowski where he elaborated on this point. He said many writers are lazy and non-expressive. He said writing must pack a punch. Every word must be full of emotion and emphasis to really engage the reader into your story experience and immerse them into a world of imagination.

Charles Baudelaire was a really gifted writer. Every story was a fascinating expression of words. A great writer is gifted like this. Rudyard Kipling lived in my home state of Vermont when he wrote The Jungle Book. His words of Mowgli and Baloo and Shere Khan are some of the best. One of my favorite poems is by Rudyard Kipling:

“If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!”

Proverbs 18 “A man’s gifts make room for him and bring him before great men.”

Aesop was a slave but he was a marvelous storyteller full of wisdom. His gifts and natural abilities brought him much recognition and prestige among leaders and, in the end, he was granted his freedom.

Use your gifts, no matter your lot in life, and you will be heavily rewarded in time.

Vincent Van Gogh could have been counted out based on his mental challenges and struggles. So could have Edgar Allen Poe. But their abilities to rises above and create are what ultimately defined their legendary destinies.

Proverbs 18 “A brother offended is harder to win than a strong city.”

To lay siege to a castle takes a lot of commitment and effort. Likewise, to prove our worth with those that find past fault with us, is a long and arduous climb. A great man is never recognized in their hometown.

Proverbs 18 “A man who has friends must himself be friendly.”

To make friends, one must first be a friend.

Proverbs 18 “There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.”

Sometimes our closest supporters are not blood. Our band of brothers and sisters can come from our surroundings in enduring great hardships like battles.

“This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile.”

(King Henry V, Act IV, Scene III, Shakespearean play on the Battle of Agincourt between France and England)

That’s what I got for today. Thanks for reading and have a good night!

Oh, I’m not a very good Christian.

I keep trying but I get caught up in life and stuff and looking at memes or TikTok videos and before you know it, it’s like 12:30 am and I have written absolutely nothing on those Psalms and Proverbs I read earlier.

But fortunately, I found my husband’s stash of chocolate-covered espresso beans and so I am good to go! I feel like I musta downed 3 five hour energies. Good Lord!

Ok, so let’s try this again….I am on Day 17 of the Billy Graham Words of Wisdom Bible Reading Plan. I really honestly thought I would have run out of interesting material by now and given up and thrown in the towel on this. However, these psalms and proverbs are actually chock full of interesting stuff to ponder surprisingly. They say reading Psalms will help your relationship with God, or the Creator source or whatever you want to call it. Meanwhile, reading Proverbs will help you to understand these crazy humans around you.

These are interesting passages I found today reading Psalms 80-85 and Proverbs 17. I also add my reflections, thoughts, ideas, and hare-brained notions to the mix.

Psalm 80 “Thou that dwellest between the cherubim.”

Ok, so as I understand it, there are the cherubim and the seraphim. The cherubim are quite an odd mysterious sort. I looked them up to understand them better and it really is as if the author of the Bible in this part might have taken a slight break to smoke a joint and came back to write about these guys.

So apparently there are 4 cherubim and they have faces of different animals like an Ox and stuff. They represent love and purity and spend all their time in the throne room of God and praising him. I wouldn’t describe them like the court jesters….more like the court flatterers.

“God, you look awfully charming in that new sweatshirt. Love the color on you, big guy!”

So, I guess there are angels that do the angel work with humans like Michael slaying bad guys and Raphael being a doctor or Gabriel spreading all sorta of messages but then these cherubim strictly stay in the throne room.

At first, I thought they were like those super cute pudgy Valentine’s Day baby angels but those are cherubs like Cupid flying around all cute with the little wings and bow and arrow.

Side note, I saw a meme recently that showed Cupid shooting a bow and arrow of love straight through his target’s head and I think that is a pretty accurate assessment cause when I fall in love with someone I become completely brain-dead.

Falling in love or lust is such an awkward, awkward feeling. I don’t know about you but when I really fall for a guy, I clam up like a clam. I just stare at him like a deer in headlights if he talks to me. I literally get all sweaty and nervous. Gah, so embarrassing. It’s like a switch gets flipped in my brain when he comes around where I can only communicate in Neanderthal grunts and Neanderthal vocabulary and grammar. If I really, really, really like someone……I stutter.

“Are you there, God? It’s me, Janea. Put me outta my misery, please.”

Falling in love is the absolute worst and yet oddly also the absolute best….if he’s actually nice enough to pay attention to you through the stuttering until you finally calm your butt down and stop panicking and start using full, coherent sentences like a normal, cooler human being.

I saw a video where Matthew McConaughey tells folks to be “less impressed and more involved” when dealing with others. I try to remind myself of this and go with the flow. It helps a bit when you get all tongue twisted from bumping into Mr. Beautiful on the subway or wherever you meet him or her.

“You’re beautiful it’s true. I saw your face, in a crowded place….” (cue the James Blunt song)

Psalm 81 “Make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob.”

I recently learned the difference between joy and happiness. I thought these were synonymous but no, they are different. Happiness is fleeting. You are happy when you pass an exam. You are happy when you take a trip. You are happy for a myriad of different short reasons throughout the day. Happy is short-lived emotion.

Joy, though, is like contentment. Joy is mindfulness in the present moment I guess and joy comes from being grateful for the things around you. Joy happens when you don’t take things for granted, when you stop for a minute and look at that husband you’ve been married to for 10 years now and realize, man, I am lucky to have him around. He’s amazing.

I felt that way when I first met him. We were laughing in the truck. I was sitting beside him on the bench seat. He was telling jokes and driving all fun and wild and I thought he was a real exciting trip. All I wanted to do was spend every minute with him.

And now, ten years later, I spend a lot of minutes in the other room sorting laundry or working on hobbies or hanging out with the kids. But sometimes….sometimes I get joy in my heart for him and I stop what I’m doing. He’s usually playing on his cell phone watching TV and I’ll give him a hug and kiss and tell him, “I love you.”

I need to do that more often.

When I worked at the nursing home, I used to occasionally take some of the residents out for smoke breaks. One older woman, I was sitting at the picnic table outside with her while she lit up and told me about her husband. She said he was the love of her life.

The day he died, he had a heart attack. They were on the highway. He was driving. The heart attack was sudden and intense. Somehow he managed to get the car pulled to the side of the road and put the car in park and then he was gone. Just like that. He loved her enough, even when he was dying, to make sure she was safe in that final moment.

She said she had several boyfriends over the years after that but she never remarried again.

I need to do better at not taking my husband for granted.

Anyway, joy is an overall vibe of living. It’s choosing to be content and balanced.

Keep calm and carry on. Stiff upper lip. Soldier on. Look on the bright side. Things could be worse. They could always be worse.

Like they say in Monty Python’s Life of Brian,

“Better just to laugh and dance and sing.”

Life isn’t about fixing the storms. It’s about learning to dance in the rains like a kid again with little galoshes on and yellow raincoat splashing through lovely mud puddles.

Psalm 81 “I proved thee at the waters of Meribah.”

Meribah?

I got no clue. One moment.

Oh. Oh. This is cool. Ok, so Meribah is in the Torah. It’s the “waters of strife.” Ok, so Meribah is the place in the desert, remember, in I think Exodus or one of those books about the Israelites in the desert after fleeing Egypt.

Ok, so they are thirsty and at Meribah, Moses strikes a rock with his staff and these waters flow out of the rock as a miracle to preserve the Israelites.

Huh.

I did not know that. Learn something new everyday.

Psalm 82 “All of you are children of the most High.”

That’s a comforting statement and a universal, uniting statement. I like that one.

Did you know that according to the Human Genome Project, it is only a very, very small, miniscule portion of the human DNA sequence that actually houses our distinctive features of appearance? It is literally like 0.005% or something like that. That means you and me, we are over 99% percent alike or almost exactly the same.

Psalm 83 “They have holpen the children of Lot.”

I don’t know this word. What the heck is “holpen?”

Holpen is Middle English phrasing for “past tense of helping others.” So the sentence is basically, “They have helped the children of Lot.”

Ok, time out. Why do they throw in these old ancient words in the Bible every now and then?

Thee and thou and all that.

Dost thou understandeth my questioneth?

So bizarreth.

No one talks like this anymore. It’s like going to a Latin mass and having no clue what the heck is going on. The music is pretty like going to an Italian opera but you got no clue what the storyline is.

Figaro, Pirates of Penzance….

Phantom of the Opera though….that one’s pretty decent. I like that one. Les Mis was a little bit too depressing for me. Oh, and the one where the clown is crying and sings that super sad but really pretty song.

“Reginald, sempre pravo…”

I think that’s what he’s saying. I don’t know really for sure. Seems to be really upset with this Reginald guy. I don’t understand this stuff. Could someone translate this for me?

Psalm 84 “I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.”

Being a butler….I wonder what that’s like?

“Very good, sir.”

“Would you like your brandy in the drawing room, sir?”

Proverbs 17 “Children’s children are the crown of old men.”

Ah this is like that saying,

“Grandpas are really just awesome Dads that got promoted.”

Grandkids are the best.

Proverbs 17 “The glory of children is their father.”

This is true. Children love their Dad for the most part,if he’s a good Dad that is. When my son and daughter were born and babies, “Dad” was one of their first words. That and “fry”. My daughter liked french fries.

But you can spend all day with the kid, rocking them, nursing them, feeding them, changing poopy diapers, etc. etc. and when Dad gets home from work…..they light up like a light bulb. Babies love their Dads.

“Dadda Dadda!” Reaching for him. Smiling at him.

The bond between children and their Dad, that is something so very special that Moms just don’t have. And that’s ok. It’s a good thing. Dads teach their kids very important things.

My son went to live with his Dad in Guam for a year. It was only a year but when he came back, he looked transformed to me. He was thin and fit and in great shape and had great grades. This is what Dad’s instill in kids that Moms have a hard time doing. Me, for my part, I am always focused on their safety and whether they’ve been fed or not and always offering them snacks and such. But, under their Dad, they are much more disciplined.

Tough love.

It’s what they really need.

Sounds callous.

But to survive in this world, you need discipline. The more disciplined you are, the better your chances of success.

I’m not the only one who thinks this. I was reading an article about Arnold Schwarzenegger and how he grew up. He grew up with his Dad and that’s how he built his strong discipline for weight-lifting and body building.

Recently, I started a LiveStrong 30 day walking challenge. I was watching some videos on YouTube about working out motivation. One thing a guy said, I started implementing it and it really does work. He said, so many people, as soon as they wake up nowadays, they reach for their cell phone and check messages. He said don’t do this.

Get up. Get dressed. Go workout. Only check the phone after the workout and the shower. Otherwise, you spend a good hour or half-hour wasting time going through your phone at the very start of your day.

I like this advice. It does work. Just thought I’d share that. I tried it a bit and I felt a lot better when I did that. I don’t know. Something about the cell phone, it just sucks you in. It’s a huge time waster and produces nothing for you really.

I’ve been around a few decades now. Maybe it’s just me, but I really think folks seemed happier and healthier back in the 80s before cell phones. And marriages seemed to last longer too without all this easy access to private texting and direct messaging and stuff. Maybe I’m old school. Maybe I’m getting to be an old timer that says, “Back in my day…”

Maybe so.

That’s it for now. That’s Psalms 80-85 and Proverbs 17. Thanks for reading and I look forward to any comments. Thanks!

Ah man, I’ve been slacking again.

Every time my husband has a break from work for a few days, I stop reading for a bit and focus on family. I guess that’s a good thing but I gotta get back to it. So, now I’m playing catch up on this Billy Graham Words of Wisdom Bible Reading Plan. I am officially on Day 16 and reading Psalms 76-79 and Proverbs 16. According to this Bible reading plan, reading Psalms will strengthen your ties to God while reading Proverbs will help you to understand other human beings better.

Ok, so here goes. These are just my impromptu, sorta stream of consciousness thoughts on some key parts of the readings today.

Psalm 77 “Will the Lord cast me off forever? And will he be favorable no more?”

Ok, so this passage makes me think of the words “long-suffering.” There’s a whole lot of great stories about long suffering in the Bible. So many folks out there in the biblical times and also in the world today deal with chronic illnesses and diseases and different challenges on a day to day basis. Listening to these stories from the Bible can fill you with hope and empathy, compassion, and just a general feeling that hey, you are not alone out there.

So, obviously, the first story from the Bible that comes to mind about long-suffering is the entire Book of Job practically. Job is being challenged by the devil himself with all sorts of horrible tests. He loses his family. He loses his home. He loses his business. He loses his dang mind. He loses his health.

Poor man, can’t get a break no how.

And worse than that, he’s got all these supposed friends that come along and tempt him to turn from God and condemn God and say all kinds of awful stuff about how he hates God for this bad thing or that bad thing that happened in his life. But Job, for his noble part, doesn’t partake in that kinda bitterness and stays above it and stays in faith. This is a testimony of how to act when we suffer trial after trial after trial after trial over and over and over again. Stay above it. Stay in faith. Eventually, you will see the light at the end of the tunnel and good will eventually prevail.

Ok, so there’s lotsa great stories of folks suffering a long time that run into Jesus in his journeys too.

One great one, is the story of the woman that bled for 12 years. So Jesus is near the Sea of Galilee on the western shore and she comes up and believes him. She reaches for him and just touches the hem of his garment but her faith in him and what he preaches is so strong that Jesus immediately senses the power of healing going out from him towards her in the crowd although he cannot identify at first who touched his garments. When he does find her, she is cured after 12 long years of bleeding (good lord, I thought once a month was bad) and he simply says to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”

Then, there’s the story of the man at the well in Bethesda. He’s been sick for some 38 years according to John 5. He can’t get to the water at the well either. He just sits on a mat all day long in misery and long-suffering for 38 years. I can’t even sit at the bus stop for 30 minutes without growing impatient. I can’t imagine sitting on a mat on the ground for 38 years. Forget that.

The elders and some of the other folks probably bully him a bit and they don’t take him to the waters. Jesus comes up and simply says to the man, “Do you want to be healed?” And the man says, “Heck yeah, you’re darn tooting…” (ok, he didn’t say it like that maybe but anyways, you get my point) and anyway, Jesus just tells him to get up and take his mat and walk away and he gets up finally and does……after 38 years.

I bet he had to stretch a bit. I’d be a bit sore after that. Maybe do some calf stretches and move those quads a bit.

Then we got the story of the adulterous woman who no doubt, probably endured some long-suffering too from being in a community where she was ostracized and everybody and their grandma thought they were better than her.

That would suck.

So this big crowd is gathered and they are about ready to stone this lady to death which would be a real bummer. Jesus walks up, draws some symbols in the dirt, and just says, “Ye without sin cast the first stone.” And then everybody looks around all guilty. They drop their stones and wander off.

Ok, if I was that lady I’d hug Jesus and probably pack my bags for a destination elsewhere. Get the heck outta dodge or Haifa or Golan Heights or wherever the heck she was living. Rough crowd. Really rough crowd. Move to Fiji. Tibet. Timbuktu. Anywhere. Just anywhere other than there.

Another person who also endures long-suffering in the Bible is St. Stephen. In Acts 7:60, we see this guy has been preaching for a while and helping out everywhere but folks just don’t seem to care for him much and then they stone the guy to death.

Ok, so most long-suffering stories have happy endings in the Bible. This one….not so much. But I guess, he went to heaven as the first martyr so ok.

So we have several passages in the Bible too from Paul about long-suffering and how to endure it. Paul had a “thorn in his side.” Though no one really knows what the thorn was……a goiter, a bad kidney, a bum knee, a skin rash, a hemmorhoid….who knows but it musta hurt. Poor guy.

Romans 5:3-5

“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴ perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵ And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

1 Thessalonians 3:2-4

“We sent Timothy, who is our brother and co-worker in God’s service in spreading the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith, ³ so that no one would be unsettled by these trials. For you know quite well that we are destined for them. ⁴ In fact, when we were with you, we kept telling you that we would be persecuted. And it turned out that way, as you well know.”

Galatians 5:22-23

“²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

Psalm 78 “I will open my mouth in parable.”

Ok, so if I had to choose my favorite parable that Jesus taught, it would be this one in Luke 15: 11-32. It’s my favorite.

The Parable of the Prodigal Son

“¹¹ Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. ¹² The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.

¹³ “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. ¹⁴ After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. ¹⁵ So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. ¹⁶ He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

¹⁷ “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! ¹⁸ I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. ¹⁹ I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ ²⁰ So he got up and went to his father.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

²¹ “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

²² “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. ²³ Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. ²⁴ For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

²⁵ “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. ²⁶ So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ²⁷ ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’

²⁸ “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. ²⁹ But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. ³⁰ But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

³¹ “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. ³² But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’

Psalm 78 “Keep his commandments.”

Ok, here’s the 10 commandments from the Book of Exodus. Man, I don’t know about you but the ones I really struggle with are 3, 4, and 10.

1. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.

2. Thou shalt not make gods or worship them (Idolatry).

3. Thou shalt not use the Lord’s name in vain.

4. Thou shalt keep the Sabbath Day holy.

5. Thou shalt honor thy father and mother.

6. Thou shalt not murder.

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

8. Thou shalt not steal.

9. Thou shalt not give false witness against thy neighbor.

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors property.

Psalm 78 “the field of Zoan.”

Ok, what is Zoan? It sounds like that old PC game called Zork. Beware the Grue. Ok, one moment gotta look this up…..

So http://www.britannica.com online says this:

“Where is Zoan located today?

Tanis, biblical Zoan, modern Ṣān al-Ḥajar al-Qibliyyah, ancient city in the Nile River delta, capital of the 14th nome (province) of Lower Egypt and, at one time, of the whole country.”

So, I guess it is lower Egypt and supposedly the place where Moses told the Pharaoh to “let his people go” and worked all the miracles. It’s also mentioned in the Book of Isaiah and the Book of Ezekiel.

I was off on my geography again. I thought it was like the Sinai or something.

Hey, according to recent geography tests, a large percentage of Americans can’t even pick out Brazil on a world map so I’m doing above par, ok.

Psalm 78 “Anger also came up against Israel; because they believed not in God and trusted not in his salvation.”

This reminds me of a billboard sign I would always see driving towards the Joplin mall in Missouri. It read in big bold letters,

“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

I think it’s a Romans passage maybe.

Psalm 78 “He gives their lives over to pestilence.”

This is a line shortly after the line about not trusting in God’s salvation. It implies that pestilence is a scourge of God brought on for not believing and trusting. In the story of the deaths of the firstborn in Egypt too and the Passover, we see the Angel of Death descend on Egypt overnight as a punishment from God. I presume this is an angel from heaven and not a fallen angel.

There are many different names for this avenging angel of death. Some say it is Samael and some say it is Thanatos and other such old names like perhaps the Grim Reaper or Charron, the ferryman.

When Covid hit, people were encouraging each other to pray Psalm 91 which prays for protection from the “pestilence that stalks at night.”

“Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday.“

During the Spanish Flu Epidemic of the 1910s, people seriously believed that the pestilence could fly in through the window at night and the kids sang a nursery rhyme about it. They would keep their windows shut at night.

“I had a little bird, it’s name was Enza
I opened up the window and in flew Enza.”

Sorta in an eerie way, draws parallels to the plagues of Egypt where this angel of pestilence flew in to the homes. Creepy.

Other things that can help your family and home protection are to pray for Job’s hedge of protection around your home or to, as they did in olden times, plead the blood of Jesus.

Proverbs 16 “All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes.”

Oh, this one is true. Perception seems like reality but my perception is different from your perception and we all are operating on different wavelengths from each other. You may perceive me to be a certain way and I may perceive you to be a certain way. Throw in our physical appearance in the mix or our way of speaking and what a mess.

I guess the point of this statement is that even the villain of the story perceives him or herself as the hero. And perhaps, from the villain’s standpoint and perspective the “hero” is really just a dastardly control freak that won’t leave him or her alone and always has to be the winner in every situation. What a jerk.

There’s also a statement in the Bible that I think Jesus says at some point about not judging others and that we should try to focus on the plank in our own eye before we criticize others for the sliver in their eyes.

A neighbor used to criticize another neighbor all the time for her housecleaning abilities and house management and care. She would look out the window at the neighbor’s house and complain about her inability to clean well until one day her husband explained to the woman that she wasn’t seeing the neighbor’s house well cause she hadn’t cleaned her own windows with Windex properly in a while.

Proverbs 16 “Better is a little with righteousness than vast revenues without justice.”

I’d rather make an honest day’s pay for honest work than be selling gimmicky stuff that just suckers people in and make a larger profit off their foolishness.

Proverbs 16 “Pride goes before destruction.”

I wonder if this is where that phrase, “Pride goeth before the fall” comes from?

Lot’s wife was told not to look back. She had left Sodom and Gomorrah and they had fled to the hills but something compelled her to look back. Maybe it was a prideful move or maybe it was just curiosity or concern for her former neighbors, but she turned into a pillar of salt for looking back.

Sometimes, we should not look back. It just doesn’t do us any good. Let pride go. Keep moving forward. Just keep livin’. Looking back sets us up for failure and doubt and hesitation and loss. Look ahead and focus on the path ahead.

So there’s this other story in the Bible about this guy named Nabal that was married to Abigail. He was a churlish and prideful guy that refused to help David’s soldiers even after David and his men had protected his wealth and lands and livestock. David decided to destroy all Nabal had and confiscate it but Nabal had a good wife, Abigail that stopped David and convinced David to not hurt her husband.

Pride can really mess things up.

In the Parable of the 10 Virgins getting ready for the wedding feast, some are not ready for the wedding either because they are lazy or maybe too prideful and not humble enough to trim their lamps and prepare for the moment of the bridegroom party’s arrival.

This is another lesson about pride in the Bible.

Proverbs 16 “A whisperer separates the best of friends.”

The snake whispered into the ear of Eve about the secret the snake said God was keeping from Eve and Adam.

Judas separated Peter and Jesus by whispering with others plans for traitorous actions to turn him over to the judges.

Thomas must have whispered quite a bit in the upper room where the disciples were staying right before the Pentecost. He probably spoke quite a bit about doubting their future and doubting the words of Jesus.

Pontius Pilate probably wanted to let Jesus go but probably some of his advisors whispered in his ear to do what the crowds recommended that day. Years later, they said that Pontius Pilate traveled to the land of modern day Switzerland. He climbed to the top of a mountain and upset about his past decision about Jesus, he was said to have thrown himself off the mountain to his death. That mountain is now known as Mt. Pilatus.

Gossip and whispering can wreck a lot of havoc both in the present moment and in the future.

Ok, that’s all I got for today for Psalms 76-79 and Proverbs 16. Tomorrow I read 80-85 and Proverbs 17 and you are welcome to join in and add any comments. Thanks and have a good night!