Pic of the Day

Moment of Zen: Watermelon

Pic of the Day

Pic of the Day

Got Home Late

Got home too late and had to stay at my coworker’s house because I was too tired to drive home. I also couldn’t post a pic from my phone for some reason. More later.

Update 10:42 I’m back at my apartment, but not for long. I’ve got to go into the office this afternoon.

Update 3:50 I ended up not going in the office because I’ve had my hours for the week. So, I slept.

Pic of the Day

Pic of the Day

14th Street Gym

14th STREET GYM

Beauty that does not disguise the wound, 
but reads through the lack of it, 
the one-armed man lifts himself again

on the assisted pull-up machine—
sleeve of sparrows and morning glories
swelling with each upward pull.

In the locker room, I praise his ink
and he turns to thank me, and so I notice 
(what you can't restore, inscribe)

the blue wing needled on the socket. 

                   ~ Mark Doty

Pic of the Day

A Couple of Things...

First off, I added a new feature to my blog. Each evening, I will be posting a “Pic of the Day.” I have lots of pictures saved and many of them will never match up in any way to a post I’m writing, but I still want to share them. So, there will be a new pic each day.

Second, tomorrow morning, I will be traveling to Washington, D.C. I have to go there on business. We are flying down, but because we are picking up some artifacts for the museum, we are driving them back up here to Vermont. It’s about a nine hour drive so we are going to start our trip back late tomorrow and get about two hours of driving in before stopping for the night. Then we will make the rest do the trip the next day. It’s going to be a whirlwind trip.

Pic of the Day

Satisfy

A man's belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth; and with the increase of his lips shall he be filled. (KJV) ( Proverbs 18:20 ) 

Usually, after dinner time, everyone leaves to clean up or return to their previous activities.  Although, there's nothing quite like sitting around the table and talking, enjoying one another's company.  Maybe it's remembering the same old stories or laughing about the day's events.  After lingering around the table, there's nothing more satisfying than being with those you love.  Try sticking around the table this evening and taking part in the satisfaction of table talk. 

Moment of Zen: Summertime

Hmmm...

I really don’t know what to write about. Nothing much is happening at work. There are no new job prospects. I am going to Washington, D.C. next week, but only for a very short business trip. I’ll write more about that next week. It’s just kind of boring around here. It’s summer, and it’s not even that hot. I’m sure it will get hot, but the humidity has been fairly low, making it fairly pleasant. I have my annual evaluation at work today. It’s not going to mean anything because my job is coming to an end. So it’s pretty much just a procedure and that’s it. So, really there is not much to talk about. It’s just a lot of boring shit.

Summer Is Here!

Do you want to spend the first day of summer at the lake, beach, or the pool? I’ll be at work, but personally, I’d love to be at the beach.

Beards

One of my pet peeves about Vermont is the beards. Nine out of ten men here have beards. I don’t mind a little scruff or a neatly trimmed short beard, but what I can’t stand is a shaggy unkept beard. My grandmama (God rest her soul) hated beards even more than I do. I can at least take a neatly trimmed beard; she couldn’t. She even said there was no way Jesus had a beard, because she just didn’t like beards. She was funny like that. While nine out of ten men in Vermont have beards, the majority of them have bushy unkept beards. Some even rivaling Duck Dynasty beards. To me, it’s just disgusting. I like a man that is clean cut. A little scruff is okay on occasion, but I’d prefer a man to be clean cut. I may have a little stubble if I’m not going anywhere and don’t shave for a few days, but mostly, I shave everyday. Bushy unkept beards are a sign of laziness when it comes to personal hygiene, and I like a clean man. So, there you have it. My rant of the day.

Now the guy in this picture, I could definitely take. He may not have the slim cut body that I normally feature on this blog, but he's still cute. I love the nipple piercing, and he obviously likes cats. I even like his moderate hairiness. Yes, I could definitely go for him.

Amid the Roses

Amid the Roses

 by Alice Dunbar-Nelson

There is tropical warmth and languorous life

    Where the roses lie

    In a tempting drift

Of pink and red and golden light

Untouched as yet by the pruning knife.

And the still, warm life of the roses fair

    That whisper "Come,"

    With promises

Of sweet caresses, close and pure

Has a thorny whiff in the perfumed air.

There are thorns and love in the roses’ bed,

    And Satan too

    Must linger there;

So Satan’s wiles and the conscience stings,

Must now abide—the roses are dead.

Ugh!

I had the worst fucking Sunday. I had a migraine all day long. At times it would get better, but not completely go away. At other times it was just excruciating. I stayed nauseated almost all day long. In other words, I was miserable. I didn’t want to watch TV, and I couldn’t read. My eyes have a hard time focusing when I have a headache like this. Now it’s Monday, and I have to go to work. Where did my weekend go? Sorry for the complaining, but sometimes you just have to let it all out.

What does the Bible verse Jeff Sessions quoted really mean?

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed. - Romans 13:1-7

(CNN) — It's been called one of the most important and most misunderstood passages in the Bible: Romans 13:1-7. 

"The most historically influential paragraph Paul ever wrote," in the words of one scholar. 

Likely written by the Apostle Paul around 57 AD, Romans 13, including the snippet cited by Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Thursday, instructs Christians to submit to "God's servants." That is, the government. 

"Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established," the passage says. "The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves."

Romans 13 has been cited by Nazi sympathizers and apartheid-enforcers, slave owners and loyalists opposed to the American Revolution. Modern Christians have wrestled with how to apply the passage to issues like abortion, same-sex marriage and taxes.

Thursday, Sessions cited Romans 13 to defend the Trump administration's "zero-tolerance" prosecution policy on illegal immigration. In a speech addressed to his "church friends," Sessions said: 

"I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order."

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended Sessions, saying, "It is very biblical to enforce the law." 

In some ways, Sessions' citation of Romans 13 makes sense. Many of the "church friends" to whom the attorney general addressed his speech had quoted scripture to criticize current immigration policies, particularly the separation of children from their parents. 

The Southern Baptist Convention, for example, passed a resolution Tuesday that cited Scripture six times to make the case for immigration reform. (Some Southern Baptists also cited Romans 13 in the controversial decision to allow Vice President Mike Pence to address their annual meeting.) 

But what did Paul really mean when he wrote his letter to the Romans? Should Christians be expected to obey all human laws and cooperate with all regimes? And why would Paul counsel submission to a state power that had executed his savior? 

Here are five ways Christians have tried to answer those questions:

1. The Bible is full of civil disobedience. 

In citing Romans, Sessions made a small but telling slip. He said Paul commanded Christians to "obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them." 

But Romans doesn't quite say that. It says obey the "governing authorities" -- that is, the government, not the laws. You could argue that one implies the other, but the Bible teems with examples of heroes who disobey the law.

Take Daniel, for example, who was thrown to the lions because he wouldn't obey an edict requiring all subjects of King Darius to pray only to him. Daniel went home, threw open the windows for all to see and got on his knees, defying the edict. It was a blatant act of civil disobedience. 

"Whenever laws are enacted which contradict God's law, civil disobedience becomes a Christian duty," the late evangelical eminence John Stott wrote in a Bible study on Romans 13. 

2. Paul thought Roman spies were reading his letters. 

Big Brother wasn't around in the first century, but life as a Christian, especially a Jewish Christian, wasn't free from state surveillance. 

Just a few years before Paul wrote his letter to the Romans, the empire had expelled Jews from Rome for "rioting at the instigation of Chrestus," according to the Roman historian Suetonius. Some scholars believe Chrestus is a misspelling of Christ. 

It's not too big a stretch to imagine that Paul, writing to a small band of religious subversives in the capital of the empire, would suspect that his letters could fall into imperial hands.

"Paul is probably writing to be read by government officials as well as by the church in Rome," John Piper, an influential evangelical pastor, said in a sermon series on Romans 13. 

"He knows that this letter will find its way into Caesar's household and into the hands of the civil authorities. He wants them to understand two truths. One is that Christians are not out to overthrow the empire politically by claiming Jesus, and not Caesar, is Lord."

The other thing Paul wants the Romans to know, Piper says, is that their authority is based on God's.

3. Paul was talking about angels, not attorneys general. 

Who, exactly, are the "authorities" that Paul is urging Christians to submit to? 

Oscar Cullman, a New Testament scholar who died in 1999, posed an interesting theory: Paul was talking about cosmic authorities, not civil ones. Or rather, he was talking about both.

As Cullman noted, some early Christians, like some first-century Jews, believed that guardian angels -- "the angels of the nations" -- sat above the earthly rulers, somewhere between God and man. 

In other parts of the New Testament, Paul sometimes using the same Greek word to describe earthly and angelic authorities. 

On a practical level, you could understand why Cullman, a Lutheran who lived in Europe during the rise of Hitler, would be attracted to this idea. It's easier to counsel submission to angels than to Nazis. 

But many scholars have dismissed Cullman's theory, saying the "authorities" in Romans 13 refer to the earthly government. Later in Romans 13, Paul notes that Christians pay taxes to "God's servants" -- and, as we all know, the taxman is no angel. 

4. Paul was worried about a Jewish uprising. 

Much of Paul's letter to the Romans is about Jewish/Gentile relationships. This was a time when Christians were divided about whether "true" Christians had to be one or the other. 

Some Bible scholars theorize that Paul feared Jewish Christians would rebel against the Roman authorities. He had good reason to be worried. Jewish Christians had just been allowed back into Rome after being expelled. A governmental crackdown could have crushed the small and fractious Christian community. 

"Paul was not attempting in Romans 13:1-7 to write out a manifesto for Church-State relations for the next two or three millennia," writes Matthew Neufeld, a Mennonite scholar. 

"His concern was pastoral and local. ... Paul was advising against anti-Roman and Palestinian nationalist sentiments among the Jewish Christians in Rome."

5. Paul was being ironic. 

At first glance, writes British scholar T.L. Carter, Romans 13 may look like "an embarrassingly unqualified endorsement of the political status quo." 

But Paul was likely aware of the Jewish expulsion from Rome, as well as other persecutions, Carter argues. So it's hard to fathom why he would portray the government as divinely sanctioned.

Paul's praise for government authority so over the top, it's possible that he meant to be ironic, Carter says. In other words, Romans 13 is not praise, it's a cleverly disguised critique. 

"By using the technique of irony, Paul was able to express his criticism without fear of repercussions from the authorities, who may have been oblivious to the disparity between the ideal he portrays and the reality of their government." 

Carter acknowledges that his interpretation is somewhat idiosyncratic. Many Christians take a more straightforward reading of Romans 13, even as they struggle to apply to modern life. 

"It is only a slight exaggeration to say that the history of the interpretation of Romans 13:1-7," says New Testament scholar Douglas Moo, "is the history of attempts to avoid what seems to be its plain meaning."

Moment of Zen: Pride

From BosGuy:

Pride is much more than parties and parades. What I think some people fail to recognize is in the face of hostility, legislated discrimination and violence, focusing on love and celebrating that love can be a far more effective tonic than channeling negative emotions. That is why Pride is and always will be at its core a political message: We’re here and we’re not going anywhere. #KillTheCloset

The Search

Another exhausting week has gone by. It’s finally Friday. I’ve been job searching since around the end of October last year. I think that’s the most exhausting thing. It seems like a never ending search. I find plenty of jobs that I’m qualified for, but they just don’t pan out. Then there are jobs that I’m perfect for, but they don’t pan out. Right now it seems like there is no end in sight, and I’m exhausted. I want a good job I’ll enjoy. I don’t want to have to settle for something. I know I may have to. Ideally, I’d love a job in the South, preferably in a progressive city (yes, they do exist), and a job I’d enjoy. I pray that it will happen but so far nothing has come along. I will just keep searching and keep hoping. It’s all I can do at this point. The only other option is for there to be some rich man out there who’d love to take care of a 40 year old, sweet and kind, intellectual.

Interview

The interview seemed to go really well yesterday. Although, I thought the same thing about the New Mexico job, but I haven’t heard back from them. The job interview yesterday went pretty smoothly though. I totally blanked on the name of some software I use, but I don’t think that’s a big problem. They said that they genuinely enjoyed talking to me, that it was a joy to talk to someone else in the trenches of the oral history world. So now I wait and see.

I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing

I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing
by Walt Whitman

I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches,
Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous leaves of dark
green,
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself,
But I wonder’d how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there
without its friend near, for I knew I could not,
And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and
twined around it a little moss,
And brought it away, and I have placed it in sight in my room,
It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,
(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them,)
Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes me think of manly love;
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana solitary
in a wide flat space,
Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near,
I know very well I could not.

Charity

And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. (KJV) ( 1 Corinthians 13:2 ) 

We often think if only I were more witty, if I had more intelligence, if I were more attractive, my life would be much different.  If we actually matched our ideal qualities but failed to grow a love for others, it would all be pointless.  Paul even says if he had all the faith in the world, he would be nothing if he didn't love others.  Do you spend more time thinking about self-improvement or on growing your love for others more?  

Moment of Zen: Pooltime

TGIF

It’s been quite a week. I have a new boss. I’ve finally finished my two online classes, at least I hope I’ve finished with them both. The museum studies class was fun and interesting. The adjunct instructor class was a pain in the butt. After all that I have gone through to teach adjunct at this college, I’d better be hired. I’ve done well on all the other assignments, so I hope I did well on the last one. I know I did well in my museums studies class. I have a 100 average in that class. I’ve already signed up for class two in my museum studies class.

Pride Month Cuteness

Experience

Experience
Carl Sandburg, 1878 - 1967

This morning I looked at the map of the day
And said to myself, “This is the way! This is the way I will go;
Thus shall I range on the roads of achievement,
The way is so clear—it shall all be a joy on the lines marked out.”
And then as I went came a place that was strange,—
’Twas a place not down on the map!
And I stumbled and fell and lay in the weeds,
And looked on the day with rue.

I am learning a little—never to be sure—
To be positive only with what is past,
And to peer sometimes at the things to come
As a wanderer treading the night
When the mazy stars neither point nor beckon,
And of all the roads, no road is sure.

I see those men with maps and talk
Who tell how to go and where and why;
I hear with my ears the words of their mouths,
As they finger with ease the marks on the maps;
And only as one looks robust, lonely, and querulous,
As if he had gone to a country far
And made for himself a map,
Do I cry to him, “I would see your map!
I would heed that map you have!”

Sick

I was sick yesterday and forgot to write a post for today.

Spirit Renew

And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; (KJV) ( Ephesians 4:23 ) 

Do you ever feel like you are stuck in your thoughts, they seem to be cyclical returning to the same point?  Perhaps you are battling anxiety that chokes, or building an argument in your head to justify your anger, or you are stuck in the rut of self-victimization.  Each of these are attitudes do not reflect our identity as a cherished child of God.  He has the power, through the Spirit, to change the way you think and feel.  Call on Him in prayer to renew your mind. 

Moment of Zen: Horses

Quote of the Day

“And then, one fairy night, May became June.”

—The Beautiful and the Damned, F. Scott Fitzgerald