Go Transfigure.

Ten years ago ...


James 3:13-18                                                                              February 8
Martha ready to give birth; youth                                                10602.08


But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying [is] and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. 14-16


Genesis 39
Become Important by Thinking Your Work Is Important
Mine is important! Whether it's playing the dad, finishing my book, loaning money to people who do (and don't) need it, loving my wife, it's important to be bearing fruit that will last. Amen.


[Yahoo's Crossword for the day, "On the Edge" by Paula Gamache, that I finished is included here.]


I'm not out to confuse anybody. I just want to be ready where the baby's born. At least Martha approves of my reading to him or her -- I pray that's still true when the choice comes between me and the aura of negativity from her family.


THAT was ten years ago. This is now -- at least, it's this past weekend.


Although I don't care about football, I've always liked the Denver Broncos. So the news that they won yesterday's Super Bowl (and it's even on the calendar I have at work as though it's a holiday, "Super Bowl 50, Santa Clara, CA") I was really ok with. Sarah [the baby born twenty days after the above journal entry] and Jeffrey even got invited to a Super Bowl party with their cousin Josceline, their aunt Mary, and their friend Donovan at his place. We got told about that at church yesterday; Martha and I were all for a few hours where you can hear real pauses in the conversation! Got grocery shopping done for the week, got to hang out with each other as husband and wife, even got some guidelines that Martha wants to use to get trimmer before her next birthday.


Not that I don't want to stay trim myself, but the cucumber water I can't see myself drinking. I mean, what good IS a diet (or the more PC "lifestyle change") if you can't stand what you have to do or eat to get it? So there's planning involved, way more than just her doing Daily Burn -- which she is doing great at so far! Sunday morning at church I got to read the lessons and I did, way less angrily than I have been doing lately, not accenting the last words in a semi-shout. And yesterday having been "Super Bowl Sunday", members of our church's youth group stood at either exit with soup tureens to collect money to help the Food Pantry for "Souper Bowl Sunday". Then came Sunday school,


which I will be starting to teach again next Sunday when our lesson will be out of the book of Ruth. Since the eighth book of the Old Testament is pretty much one story, that means our lesson will be the Book of Ruth. I can type this out in the next few days, I know it. (A play for Parable Playhouse based on the story, I mean, not the book itself!) And Saturday we -- Sarah, Jeffrey, and I -- were at church for Breakfast with the Boys and while they were playing in our activity room after we ate I was at our Bible study on the transfiguration of Jesus.


For those in my reading audience who don't know what I refer to, this is when Jesus takes His disciples Peter, James, and John up to the original "mountaintop experience", where He appears in His glory as the Son of God and Moses and Elijah appear to the right and left of Him. Shortly before this, James and John were wanting to sit on Jesus' right and left hands when His future kingdom came, but they wouldn't come out and ask Him themselves, they had Mommy do it.


The leader in our study could see why Peter was there (Peter was the one who affirmed Jesus as the Christ, the son of the Living God, and Jesus in turn called out that he would be the rock upon which His church would be built) but why James and John? I opined those two were there to drive home Jesus' point. Imagine Jesus saying, "Do you REALLY know what you're asking for?"


For further elucidation on the transfiguration, see Luke 9:28-36 in the New Testament. I could go on with the notes, but we're nearing the end of the weekend. Or the beginning, in Aughra's words. We got our federal refund this past Friday and we're starting our kids on allowance again


provided they earn it, and while Martha was at Burger King that Saturday we took in an area flea market held on the State Fairgrounds, where vendors from four states convene one weekend a month,


eight months out of the year. You can find some amazing stuff [stuffs?] there.


Go transfigure, David