10/9 Sermon on James, Part 3

This past Sunday we at The Family Church here in Gainesville continued to examine the New Testament book of James.  Focusing on Chapter 1, Verses 19-27, Pastor Philip Griffin talked about how to grow beyond a shallow faith...here is the scripture in NIV translation, courtesy of Bible Gateway:

¹⁹ My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, ²⁰ because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. ²¹ Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
²² Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. ²³ Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror ²⁴ and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. ²⁵ But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.
²⁶ Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. ²⁷ Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

I have to admit that after simply reading the above passage...although I'm sure it's all interrelated...I didn't exactly come away with the notion that it was explicitly about deepening one's faith...although this can clearly be a wonderful by-product of the exhortations contained in the words, if followed...

I've tried in the past two articles about James to more or less summarize what my pastor was saying...I'm not sure that it wouldn't be a better idea for you to listen to him for yourself on YouTube: The Family Church shows each week's sermon, which you can access through its website (here is a link to it [link])...Pastor Philip's hilarious illustration in reference to the "mirror" mentioned in Verse 23 is something you won't want to miss.  Instead, I'd like to bring up three of the biggest reactions I got out of the sermon and the scripture...

Verse 19 was full of wise advice: be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.  Wow.  Not only does this produce the righteousness of God, as the following verse reveals, but it is extremely important practical advice when dealing with others.  I think that if I just took this one verse and focused on it for a month, then my life might be transformed for the better.  Hey, I think I'll just take myself up on that...

In Verse 22, the author exhorts the reader to view his or her newly-found knowledge not as an ends in itself, but also to act upon it. Learning should thus lead to application, something that I haven't exactly been on board with in the past...

The other section of the passage I got a lot out of was Verse 27, defining pure religion not in terms of what we normally refer to as "organized religion", but rather as one's personal expression of their faith that is reflected in benevolent deeds to the needy and forgotten, while maintaining high standards of behavior in the face of constant temptations from the world.  A very interesting definition indeed...

Yes, the book of James is loaded with some pretty cool stuff...

Binoculars a Great Aid to Star Gazing

As you may have discerned from reading some of my blog articles, I enjoy going out after sunset and looking at the night sky.  I learned the constellations and brightest stars by name and location back in the spring of 1964, when I was only seven...and I've enjoyed this hobby ever since. I suppose the comforting familiarity I get when I look up and see the same old star patterns is similar to someone who is knowledgeable about plants and who recognizes different species and varieties at different times and places.  There has always been one problem I've had with sky-gazing, though: except for a period of about three years when we had a privacy fence around our backyard, I have been very hesitant about using binoculars or telescopes to explore the sky in greater detail.  I did, back in late 1985 when I was still single and living in Sundowne Apartments off Windmeadows Boulevard, go out into the wide open field across the street (filled-in less than two years later for a Wal-Mart, Lowes, and movie theater) and train my binoculars on the skies, with a specific goal in mind: observing and tracking the path of Halley's Comet, which I recorded in a star chart in a pocket handbook that I still have to this day.  But subsequently living in a suburban neighborhood, surrounded by houses that naturally have windows and potentially suspicious neighbors, keeps me from using binoculars for fear that someone might accuse me of invading their privacy with them.  We'd like to get another privacy fence put up...and that would naturally solve the problem.  In the meantime, I'm brainstorming how to create a little makeshift "observatory" around me when in the backyard that shields me from being seen by my neighbors while enabling me to enjoy the sky in greater detail...

Although the fall evening sky isn't exactly known to be spectacular in any sense, there is always the Andromeda Galaxy to see...and in 2016 the planets Uranus and Neptune are in the constellations Pisces and Aquarius, respectively.  But in order to see any of these...especially under city light conditions where I live...I'm gonna need those binoculars...

Just Finished Reading James Patterson's 7th Heaven

James Patterson is a writer whose works, like those of Ruth Rendell, I have belatedly begun to read.  Besides his Alex Cross crime series, he has another called The Women's Murder Club...with each successive book featuring the next number in the series.  Seeing how Sue Grafton's "Alphabet Mystery" series uses letters in its titles (like A is for Alibi and B is for Burglar), there is a definite ending to it...at "Z is for Zebra" or whatever.  But with this "numerical" series of Patterson, he could potentially go on forever.  Especially when he isn't devoting all of his time writing the books, but rather "co-writing" them with another writer, in the case of 7th Heaven...which I just finished reading...being Maxine Paetro...

The Women's Murder Club is settling down into a formula series.  Lead protagonist Lindsay Boxer, a San Francisco homicide investigator, has at least two different murder/disappearance cases per book, and there is usually a demented serial killer involved. Her three friends in the informal "club" are an assistant prosecutor, an investigative newspaper reporter, and the city chief medical examiner, each being provided subplots concerning their lives and work.  And Lindsay's personal and often frustrated romantic life fills in the narrative.  As I've mentioned before while writing about this series, the police here tend to be overly judgmental against their suspects, something I have found to be borderline disgusting.  Still, as a reader, I play the game and pull for the "good guys" to win...

7th Heaven is one of the better of the seven in this series, with one major reason being its completely unexpected ending.  Then again, I remember a Sue Grafton book ending similarly...I'll have to find out which book came out first so I can ascertain which author ripped off the other.  Lindsay is confronted with two mysteries: a string of arson murders at wealthy homes and a lead into the disappearance of a young man who had a potentially fatal heart defect.  The story went more smoothly than with the previous books in the series, and I'm looking forward to reading #8, albeit with the recognition that this is pretty escapist literature...  

Some Presidential Campaign/Election Thoughts

Let's see, come tomorrow it will be only four weeks until our country collectively chooses its next president.  It's either going to be Republican nominee Donald Trump or Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton who walks away with the victory...you're welcome to vote instead for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein, but by doing so you are by default voting for the main candidate you'd least like to see in there.  It's the same if you decide to sit out the election because you dislike them both.  So let's just consider Trump and Clinton...and my attitude about this election and the next president, whoever that might be...

I have been assiduously avoiding the presidential debates, the second of which took place last night.  Fortunately, I had an exciting baseball playoff game to watch, not to mention a great jigsaw puzzle to put together.  But today I slipped into my old channel-surfing habits, inevitably ending up on the cable news & opinion channels.  And, of course they were all abuzz about the debate, the new polls, and what it all meant...complete with the usual tedious gang of spin artists from each party.  I had little or no use for what was said other than a couple of items, both relating to Donald Trump.  The first concerned his base of support: many of those supporting Trump say that they don't always agree with him, but they like him because he says what he means.  And yet when the Donald goes over the line in his tweets and interviews, the same people turn around and make excuses for him, holding that he didn't really mean what he said.  So let me see if I understand: Trump says what he means, and he doesn't mean what he says.  Sure.

The other item of interest I derived from watching TV this morning is how much Trump and his vice-presidential running mate Mike Pence differ on foreign policy.  It was noted that Pence, who is very conservative in both domestic and foreign policy, was much closer to Hillary Clinton with his concern about the aggressive behavior of Russia in the Middle East and East Europe, as dictated by its autocratic ruler Vladimir Putin.  But Trump's all chummy about Putin and wants to let Russia and its Syrian client regime of Assad do as they want in that country...not to mention threatening to refuse to defend fellow NATO countries against attack by Putin's Russia.  That, to me, is a dangerous path to go down, but Trump just came out and openly acknowledged his complete disagreement with his own running mate's more cautionary view.  As for Hillary Clinton, I'm not...as I have repeatedly said...a big fan of hers, but I do think she will do a better job as president.  But you may think otherwise and that's all right, too.  Let's all make our own decisions about the vote and see how it turns out.   Now regarding whoever ends up winning the election on November 8, when he or she is inaugurated next January that person will be MY president, and consequently I will find myself torn between standing in opposition to poor decisions they make and standing behind them in the greater interests of my country and its people.  I'll feel that way whether Trump or Clinton gets in, but I suspect I'll be more torn if the former wins...

A Tale of Two Postponed Football Games

This past Friday Hurricane Matthew blew past the east coast of Florida, in the process inflicting some tropical storm weather over the Gainesville area.  Because there was a mass evacuation of the population living in the coastal areas, hotels in more inland counties like my Alachua were used by those under evacuation to have a place to lodge while riding out the storm...which was well out of the area by Saturday morning and on its way to South and North Carolina.  Because of the uncertainties surrounding the effects of Matthew on the local area as well as those hotel considerations, the Southeastern Conference decided to indefinitely postpone the scheduled Saturday afternoon home football game between the University of Florida and Louisiana State.  The make-up game between the two schools will presumably be held at a later date toward the end of the season.  That was all fine with me...that is, until I turned on the TV this Sunday afternoon and beheld the game between Georgia and South Carolina...at the latter's stadium in Columbia...going on live!  So, let me try to understand...the UF-LSU game was postponed indefinitely, even though they could have rescheduled it for Sunday.  Yet for some reason, the very same football conference, while putting that game in indefinite limbo and rejecting the next-day Sunday option, turned around and staged the Georgia-Carolina contest on Sunday...even though Matthew had affected that area more recently...

There had occured some kind of controversy when an ESPN talking head accused the University of Florida of trying to get their game with LSU postponed...he seemed to think that meant cancelling the game outright...and Gator quarterback Luke Del Rio tweeted a stinging rebuke to him.  But then why was it that one game was postponed indefinitely because of Hurricane Matthew and the other just put off until the very next day?  This makes little sense to me...maybe someone can explain the Southeastern Conference's rationale for rendering these two vastly different decisions under such similar circumstances so that I can see the logic here, which is right now evading me...

Just Finished Reading Ruth Rendell's Sins of the Fathers

In recent weeks I have become a fan of the late English novelist Ruth Rendell, having now read five of her books.  The latest one is the second book in her Inspector Wexford mystery series, published in 1967 and titled Sins of the Fathers (formerly A New Lease of Death).  The setting is once again the English town of Kingsmarkham where Reginald Wexford is the Chief Inspector for the local police.  He works with Inspector Mike Burden...the two teamed up in the first book, too...to tackle a nagging murder case from sixteen years back.  A brutish, violent man named Herbert Painter had been convicted of killing his 87-year old employer in her house and was hanged for the crime.  Although Wexford, who investigated the case back then, is utterly convinced of Painter's guilt, the verdict is now questioned by Reverend Henry Archery, whose son is engaged to marry Painter's daughter...at the time of the murder just a little girl.  The story involves the murdered woman's housekeeper, neighbors, and children as Archery surprisingly assumes the role of lead protagonist in what appears on the surface to be a "whodunit" tale but evolves into a different sort of mystery involving why the characters turned out the way they did.  Archery comes across as very sympathetic while Wexford continues to be somewhat cantankerous and blunt.  Okay, I didn't like him in the first book either, but now I'm seeing that Rendell was creating this persona of a police detective with a deceptively callous-appearing personality, but who is, underneath it all, wily and perceptive.  Yeah, I think this dude might even be likeable, a few more books down the line...

Ruth Rendell is probably best known for this Inspector Wexford series...which I plan to continue reading in its chronological order of publication...but I have so far gotten the most from her "single" novels that are complete in themselves.  Stories like Portobello, The Crocodile Bird, and Gallowglass (written under the pen name Barbara Vine) go deep into their characters' psyches and histories as well as providing a detailed look at life in England.  I don't see why I can't eventually read all of her books...I'm just a little sad I didn't know about her until just recently, a little more than a year after she died...

Spending Today With a Tropical Storm

At this writing it's currently around 2:30 pm here in Gainesville.  I am sitting on the south end of town in a McDonald's near my workplace, having driven eight miles through a tropical storm more commonly known as Hurricane Matthew as it is now battering the northeastern Florida coast from the Daytona Beach area to Jacksonville.  Matthew is currently about as close as it will get to Gainesville, but other than schools and local government offices being closed today, business seems to be going on exactly as before...and the streets are full of traffic.  Looking out the window here, I see the rain falling at a 45 degree angle in waves, while the branches of all the trees are shaking violently.  Yet as far as many of  the people around here are concerned, it's another ho-hum "day in the life".  Well, that's not completely true: there are some people in my locality who have lost their power, and the folks sitting in the next booth over appear to be temporary refugees from the east coast area (this McDonald's is on an I-75 exit).  But at least at this time, we're not in the "everybody clear the streets and hunker down" mode of existence that characterized my home town back in 2004 when Frances and Jeanne were the hurricanes of interest.  Still, if you can stay indoors at home you're probably better off, not to mention that conditions may worsen some later on.  But I'm glad that the ornery ol' hurricane decided to veer off a tad to the east, where its effects here are lessened as well as keeping the wind and storm surge damage down more on the coast.

Yesterday while at work, I was listening to my local talk station 97.3/WSKY "The Sky".  After 6 pm they switched from their usual programming to a continual audio broadcast of The Weather Channel as various meteorologists were spread along the coast, giving live reports as Matthew approached.  I appreciated that about WSKY...much of its normal talk show programming is heavily biased toward one political party, but they do have a sense of community when it comes to something like a threatening tropical storm.  As for me today, I am glad to be going to work on my normal schedule...I don't care for the weather dictating the course of my day and I am relieved that my office is open and running.  By the time I get off from my shift at midnight, the storm should have passed to the north and things should be improving here in Gainesville...

10/2 Sermon on James, Part 2

The sermon I heard at church this past Sunday continued the theme of the New Testament book (or letter or epistle) of James, found near the back of the Bible between Hebrews and 1 Peter.  The focus remains on the first chapter, now verses 13-18, and the topic is temptation: its nature, identifying it, succumbing to it, and resisting it.  Quite a lot in only six verses...hey, I know...I'll "expand" it into five languages!   (Courtesy of Bible Gateway)

James 1 New International Version (NIV)
¹³ When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; ¹⁴ but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. ¹⁵ Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.¹⁶ Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters.¹⁷ Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. ¹⁸ He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.

Santiago 1 Nueva Versión Internacional (NVI)
¹³ Que nadie, al ser tentado, diga: «Es Dios quien me tienta.» Porque Dios no puede ser tentado por el mal, ni tampoco tienta él a nadie. ¹⁴ Todo lo contrario, cada uno es tentado cuando sus propios malos deseos lo arrastran y seducen. ¹⁵ Luego, cuando el deseo ha concebido, engendra el pecado; y el pecado, una vez que ha sido consumado, da a luz la muerte.
¹⁶ Mis queridos hermanos, no se engañen. ¹⁷ Toda buena dádiva y todo don perfecto descienden de lo alto, donde está el Padre que creó las lumbreras celestes, y que no cambia como los astros ni se mueve como las sombras. ¹⁸ Por su propia voluntad nos hizo nacer mediante la palabra de verdad, para que fuéramos como los primeros y mejores frutos de su creación.

Jakobus 1 Schlachter 2000 (SCH2000)

¹³ Niemand sage, wenn er versucht wird: Ich werde von Gott versucht. Denn Gott kann nicht versucht werden zum Bösen, und er selbst versucht auch niemand;

¹⁴ sondern jeder Einzelne wird versucht, wenn er von seiner eigenen Begierde gereizt und gelockt wird.
¹⁵ Danach, wenn die Begierde empfangen hat, gebiert sie die Sünde; die Sünde aber, wenn sie vollendet ist, gebiert den Tod.
¹⁶ Irrt euch nicht, meine geliebten Brüder:
¹⁷ Jede gute Gabe und jedes vollkommene Geschenk kommt von oben herab, von dem Vater der Lichter, bei dem keine Veränderung ist, noch ein Schatten infolge von Wechsel.
¹⁸ Nach seinem Willen hat er uns gezeugt durch das Wort der Wahrheit, damit wir gleichsam Erstlinge seiner Geschöpfe seien.

Иакова 1 Russian New Testament: Easy-to-Read Version (ERV-RU)

¹³ Никто из подвергаемых искушению не должен говорить: «Это искушение послано Богом», потому что Бог не имеет ничего общего со злом и никого не искушает. ¹⁴ Но каждого искушают его же собственные желания, которые завлекают его и держат в плену. ¹⁵ Желание — первоисточник греха; грех же, в свою очередь, когда утвердится, порождает смерть.¹⁶ Так не позволяйте же себе обманываться, любимые мои братья и сёстры. ¹⁷ Всякий добрый и совершенный дар приходит свыше, от Отца, Создавшего свет Небесный. Бог постоянен и неизменен. ¹⁸ Он решил сделать нас Своими детьми через истинное Послание, чтобы мы стали самыми важными среди всех Его созданий.

雅 各 書 1 Chinese New Testament: Easy-to-Read Version (ERV-ZH)

¹³ 受到诱惑的人不该说∶“上帝在试探我。”因为上帝与邪恶无关，他也不试探任何人。 ¹⁴ 受到诱惑，是受到自己的邪恶欲望牵制和怂恿。 ¹⁵ 欲望受到孕育，便会生成罪恶，罪恶一旦成熟，便会生出死亡。¹⁶ 我亲爱的兄弟们，不要上当受骗。 ¹⁷ 一切美好和各种完美的恩赐都来自天上。这些美好的恩赐来自一切光明（日、月、星）之父。上帝永不改变，始终如一。 ¹⁸ 他决定通过真理之言赐予我们生命，要我们在他所创造的万物中，居最重要的位置。

Getting back to the sermon, Pastor Philip referred to a recent survey of about two thousand people asking about their particular temptations and how they handled them.  As for the type of temptation, responses were varied: worry, procrastination, overspending, pornography, drugs/alcohol, angry outbursts, etc.  What did they say led to these temptations?  Boredom, loneliness, feeling hurt.  And what were they doing to curtail giving in to their temptations? Over half said, "Nothing"!

Later on in his sermon, our pastor listed five fallacies that people trapped in temptations use to justify their behavior: I can control this, no one will know, everybody's doing it, it fulfills me, and how can it be wrong if it feels so good.  The problem with temptations is that they are deceptive, poor substitutes for our already-existing, healthy desires. Our own bodies are chemical factories producing natural drugs that regulate our feelings...taking drugs disrupts the process and partially shuts it down.  Normal sexual desire is perverted by objectifying people through  pornography.  It is all right to feel some anger if the situation dictates...but not as a regular response to everything negative...or even to positive things that have been interpreted in the context of chronic discontent.  The same is true with other temptations and the corresponding legitimate desires and impulses they distort and undermine.  Having to deal with temptations is normal, giving in to them is sinful, and being able to handle them requires trusting in God's goodness and taking delight in him, walking by his Holy Spirit...

This was one of those sermons that have a very practical value for those hearing it.  Many of the ideas expressed could have presented in a completely secular setting.  But we're a Christian church and we're studying the Bible, which is essentially all about God and how He sees things.  And effectively dealing with temptations clearly involves drawing from outside our own capabilities...

Just Finished Reading Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray

Yesterday I referred to English writer Oscar Wilde's 1890 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray when I compared the worsening appearance of the title character in his portrait to the weather maps progressively showing the projected path of very dangerous Hurricane Matthew edging more and more into my state of Florida.  But Wilde was writing about something quite different from the weather: what is a good life well spent? Virtuous living while caring for others or pursuing one's own hedonistic inclinations to their fullest without regard to the harm it can do?  Along with that is another question: does one's beauty in itself denote goodness...and if not, why are the beautiful and handsome exalted in our world while the ugly vilified?

There are three central characters in The Picture of Dorian Gray: the painter Basil Hallward, Lord Henry Wotton, and Gray himself.  The beginning sets the stage for the rest of the book as Basil shows Lord Henry the portraits he has painted of Dorian Gray, a very handsome young man whose appearance captivates the artist.  Basil introduces the two to each other, and Lord Henry almost immediately sets out to indoctrinate the relatively innocent, young Dorian with his own worldview of hedonism, his equation of beauty with goodness, and that experiences are justified in themselves regardless of their effects.  Dorian is taken up with both "Harry's" message and his friendship and they end up shutting out the increasingly concerned Basil from their company.  But before that happens, Dorian makes a wish: may he always stay young and beautiful and that any changes to himself instead appear on the final portrait that Basil has made for him...

No, I am not going to lay down the plot of this book...you just might want to look into it to see what happens.  But it's pretty common knowledge...so I don't think I'm giving anything away... that whenever Dorian Gray does something evil, it is reflected in a change in his picture, which he owns and eventually (and understandably) decides to hide away from others.  Yet Dorian remains through the years as youthful and unblemished as when Basil painted his picture for him.  This does not mean that the lifestyle he lives at the expense of others doesn't carry its own negative consequences.  The general society around him begins to shun him for his profligate behavior and the harm he has done through it to many.  And there is one individual dedicated to killing Dorian in revenge...although he knows him neither by name nor appearance...

The ending to The Picture of Dorian Gray was right on target and would have been perfect as the conclusion to a Night Gallery or Twilight Zone episode.  But of course, it was stories like this one written by Oscar Wilde that inspired the genre that these two great television series presented, as well as renown writers like H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King.  And Wilde himself may have derived this kind of "gothic horror"/psychological fiction from Edgar Allen Poe...but I'm just speculating.  I recommend this novel, but be forewarned that it can delve into some seriously abstract philosophical ramblings...

Hurricane Matthew Beginning to Threaten Florida

I just finished reading Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, where a young man's portrait keeps changing and getting uglier each succeeding time he looks at it.  In like manner, during the last 24 hours, it seems that each time I see the projected path of monster Hurricane Matthew on the map provided by The Weather Channel, it seems to shift a bit westward...toward my Florida.  Although the predicted trajectory of Matthew's center eye is still off-shore,  the red-colored "cone of probability" now includes most of northern peninsular Florida...including my hometown of Gainesville.  And these westward shifts of the forecasts...like Dorian Gray's portrait...keep looking worse...

Ironically, it was a shift eastward of Matthew that has resulted in it pummeling the already-reeling, poverty and disaster-stricken nation of Haiti, with large low-lying areas full of tent cities in the direct path of its 145 mph winds and massive storm surge and rainfall.  So far they've reported three fatalities there from this Category Four storm...that figure is certain to drastically rise.  Now, instead of traveling through the mountainous region of eastern Cuba, which would have substantially weakened it for at least a while, Matthew will mostly pass between Cuba and Haiti, keeping it more intact...and dangerous...as it plows through the Bahamas toward our fair state.  At this time it is expected to pose its greatest threat to northern Florida on Friday...but the timetable we've been given for this hurricane has been off more than its predicted path.  Also, it looks at this point as if Matthew will continue to hug the eastern United States coast all the way to New England...but don't expect that forecast to remain stable, either.  Now excuse me while I go get some flashlights and water...

2016 Major League Baseball Playoffs Set

The 2016 regular season for Major League Baseball just ended late this afternoon, and the remaining wild-card races have likewise ended...they were close in both leagues.  For the American League wild-card spots Toronto and Baltimore got in with identical win-loss records...the Blue Jays won the tie-breaker and will be hosting the Orioles in the one-game playoff this Tuesday.  The next day will see the New York Mets at home against the San Francisco Giants...both also finished with the same regular season records, N.Y. winning this tie-breaker.  The two teams just missing the playoffs were Detroit and St. Louis in the AL and NL, respectively.  On Thursday the League Division Series will start and go on for a few days.  Texas will face the American League wild-card playoff winner and the Chicago Cubs will go against that of the National League.  Other series will see Cleveland against Boston and Washington against the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Indians and Nationals enjoying home-field advantage.  I've already indicated a few days ago that I'm going to support Boston and San Francisco for these playoffs...but I feel that the World Series most likely will eventually pit the Rangers against the Cubs.  On the other hand, any one of the ten teams that made the playoffs can get hot and surge through to the World Series title...the last few seasons have clearly shown that to be true...

As for me following the baseball playoffs, most of the games will take place while I am at work...meaning that I will miss out on watching the action.  I'll just have to wait until the weekends and watch what's available then...

Just Finished Reading Ruth Rendell's Gallowglass

Gallowglass is a 1990 novel credited to the name Barbara Vine, which was a pseudonym for renown mystery writer Ruth Rendell.  Since I've been focusing lately on her works, I thought I'd try out one by Vine.  As it turned out, Gallowglass in many ways reminds me of the other two Rendell standalone novels I've read: Portobello and The Crocodile Bird.  It goes deeply into the personalities, histories, and relationships of its characters, a Rendell trademark.  And while mysteries abound here, the story isn't a "mystery" per se...rather a suspenseful drama...

Much of Gallowglass is told in the first person by an uneducated young Englishman named Joe, who has suffered through much depression in his short life and was on the verge of jumping in front of a speeding train when another young man, Sandor, pulls him out of danger.  Sandor demands unquestioning loyalty from Joe because he saved his life, and the latter is not only compliant in this but develops a deep, nonsexual love for him.  Sandor, who unlike Joe had gone to college and is well-versed in the arts and literature, dubs his new obedient friend as his "gallowglass", referring to a class of Scottish Celtic warriors of the distant past who fought for their chief.  But Sandor is not wholly benevolent in his leadership role and often shows sadistic streaks as well as continually belittling Joe, who is only too willing to quickly forgive him his faults.  And Sandor has a big secret he gradually reveals through a story he tells in snippets to Joe: he had been involved, with some young Italians, in the kidnapping of a wealthy Englishman's wife while they were in Italy a few years back in order to obtain a large ransom.  It starts to become apparent that he now wants to repeat the feat here in England, kidnapping the same woman, Nina...but with Joe as his new accomplice.  So they begin to survey the heavily secured estate where she lives with her paranoid third husband, and the story then departs from Joe's account to a third-person narrative...

One of the main characters in Gallowglass is the bodyguard that Nina's husband hired to look after her.  Paul Garnet is a sympathetic and strong individual who devotes himself to taking care of his young daughter Jessica after her mother had essentially abandoned the two of them a few years earlier.  He plays an important role in the story's outcome, as do a few other characters whom I have omitted from this short review.  Suffice to say that I don't want to reveal anything that would keep you from wanting to read this engrossing story...

I thought it was interesting how Rendell would alternate between writing in the first person from Joe's perspective and in the third person whenever the narrative was about Paul Garnet.  I also picked up how Joe would abandon his own conscience and conform himself to whatever Sandor said or did...that, to me, is reminiscent of the numerous "toadies" of the bullies I had the disgust and displeasure of growing up with, most notably at my own school bus stop.  I also see the same unquestioning, nearly idolatrous attitude being taken by many supporters of a certain presidential candidate who displays every aspect of being a bully.  No, neither Joe nor Sandor are very compelling people for their often revolting personalities...but that by no means detracts from them being very interesting.  Gallowglass is a pretty dark tale that might require someone of a tougher constitution to get through.  Well, I got through it, anyway...and thought it was a very worthwhile read...

In 1993 BBC made an on-screen adaptation of Gallowglass, which I naturally haven't had time to watch.  Maybe it's available on Netflix or another resource...if you don't feel like reading the book, you might want to check it out...

My September 2016 Running Report

In September I continued to step up my level of running, covering 130 miles for the entire month with the longest run being for 5.4 miles.  I also ran on every day, although in the grand scheme of things taking a day off every now and then might have been more advisable.  I have also been running outside in the heat of the early afternoon a lot, and I believe this has helped toughen me up for the upcoming long distance racing season that's set to unofficially begin here in Florida next month.  There were some opportunities for me to enter local 5K (3.1-mile) races, but I passed them all up, seeing how I get off from work at midnight on Fridays and the races were all scheduled early Saturday morning.  As a matter of fact, it seems to be the pattern for 5K races to hold them at that time.  Fortunately, when it comes to half-marathons, quite a few of them occur on Sunday mornings...which gives me the advantage of having more rest beforehand.  The most likely prospects for half-marathons in the near future are on October 30th in Port Orange and on November 13th in St. Augustine.  Let's see if I'm in good enough shape to enter and finish one, or maybe even both...

One thing that's impeded my running progress is my difficulty losing weight, in spite of all the training I do...while also expending a lot of energy at my physically-demanding job.  I haven't always been careful with my food choices, but still I don't think I'm overeating, either...my metabolism must be slowing down.  Well, maybe if I start running for longer distances...as I plan to do from time to time during the next few weeks....some of the pounds may start to come off.  I'm also enthusiastically looking forward to the seasonal change to cooler autumn days...somebody let me know when that's gonna happen!

9/25 Sermon on James, Part 1

I regularly attend The Family Church,  which is a non-denominational Christian church situated off Parker Road west of Gainesville.  The pastors here have always given pretty incisive and interesting Sunday morning sermons, based on the Bible.  They emphasize the importance of Jesus Christ as Savior and the need to accept him as such and depend upon him in our daily walk through life.  Our current head pastor, Philip Griffin, has just finished a series on the Seven Churches of the book of Revelation and last Sunday began a new one on the book of James...found toward the back of the New Testament.  I have to admit that getting wisdom out of the previous reading was akin to squeezing water from a rock, but James, although a short book, is loaded with sagacious exhortations...I myself refer to it as the "Proverbs" of the New Testament...

Sunday's sermon appropriately focused on the very beginning of James, covering the first chapter, verses 1-12.  In it the author, who naturally calls himself James, greets the twelve tribes scattered abroad and calls on them to persevere with joy through the trials they are experiencing.  For in those trials they will be made stronger and provided the wisdom God intends for them.  Comfort, while pleasant, is much less important than maturity...and that can only come about by going through, and learning from, difficult times.   And, as the pastor pointed out, while those difficult times may be unavoidable, they can also be useful in shaping character and faith.  He also stressed that "life isn't fair, but God is".  And regarding the attainment of material wealth, it is considered, from the perspective of James, to be more an impediment to becoming wise and mature than by experiencing a life marked with hardship and poverty. 

From my own perspective, I feel that the times in my life when I had to undergo difficult circumstances and then came out of them stronger and more understanding in retrospect were often the most meaningful and memorable. However, I have known of people...and you most likely do as well...who have taken their perceived negative life experiences and constructed a cynical narrative for themselves, along with a overly critical view of humanity in general and loads of specific examples to support that outlook.  Hey, y'know, I've fallen into this trap a number of times! So with that innate tendency to be reactive to bad times and hardships comes the need to seek divine guidance and empowerment in order to instead put things in their proper perspective and cultivate wisdom and maturity...and that, I believe, was the intention of James with the opening passages of this book...

By the way, you can watch any of The Family Church (of Gainesville, Florida) sermons on its YouTube site...

And here are those first twelve verses of James, in the NIV courtesy of Bible Gateway:

1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,

To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations:

Greetings. ² Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,^[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. ⁴ Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. ⁵ If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. ⁶ But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. ⁷ That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. ⁸ Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.

⁹ Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. ¹⁰ But the rich should take pride in their humiliation—since they will pass away like a wild flower. ¹¹ For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business.
¹² Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.

Tropical Storm Matthew Entering the Caribbean

Newly-named Tropical Storm Matthew, formerly Invest 97-L, is speeding westward at a 21 mph pace as it approaches the West Indies, focusing on the Martinique vicinity.  According to the Weather Channel report I just saw, its maximum sustained winds are at 60 mph and it is expected to continue strengthening as it enters the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea.  Matthew should continue its westward course through the central/southern Caribbean, largely missing Puerto Rico and Hispaniola, until the steering currents that determine its path force it abruptly into a northward direction.  The sooner this "turn" happens, the better for us in Florida, since this dangerous storm would then more likely pass through eastern Cuba and then the Bahamas, avoiding our state.  But should Matthew tarry along its westward course and make its northward shift later, we could be threatened.  The predicted timetable for Matthew, at least for now, is for it to strengthen into a minimal hurricane by Friday morning, start making its shift in direction on Saturday morning...and by Monday morning be a much more dangerous hurricane with 105 mph maximum sustained winds and located in the Jamaica/eastern Cuba area.  But as we all know, these forecasts are liable to change, and possibly drastically.  Still, the various computer models currently seem to be in unusual agreement that Matthew will veer off to the east of Florida and eventually merge with a front sweeping down from the northwest.  I don't know about you, but I'm quite content with missing out on this storm...assuming it follows the "prescribed" trajectory.  I'm certainly going to keep an eye on the weather reports for the next few days...

Soccer: English Premier League in 2016-17 Season So Far

I am following English Premier League soccer now for the third year, having witnessed Chelsea, managed by Jose Mourinho, run away with the championship two years ago and upstart Leicester City, on the brink of relegation (demotion to the next lower league) the year before, surprising everyone last year by coming away with the title.  As the different teams retooled themselves for the new 2016-17 season, there was a lot of speculation as to which one would be favored to win it this year, which has now played through six of the scheduled thirty-eight matches for each of the league's twenty teams.  Could Chelsea recover their old greatness or Leicester City repeat their miracle season?  Or would one of the more traditional powers like Manchester City, Manchester United, or Arsenal take their place on the top of the standings?  Well, so far it's been the latter as Manchester City is solidly in first place, having won all six of their games.  Tottenham, which challenged Leicester City during the second half of last season before slumping at the end, is also undefeated but with two draws, giving them second place.  Then it's Arsenal, Liverpool, Everton, and Manchester United in that order.  United, by the way, hired Mourinho and has spent a lot of money in the off-season to sign top European players, making them a team with high expectations.  As for Chelsea and Leicester City, the former is doing moderately well, at number eight in the standings (or "table" as they call it across the ocean), but the latter is mired with a losing record in the twelve-spot, a shadow of last year's glory.  Stuck in the three-team relegation zone at the bottom of the standings are West Ham, Stoke City, and Sunderland: I get Sunderland being there, but the other two...especially West Ham, which was strong last year...just don't seem to belong there...

I guess the surprises for me, besides Leicester City and West Ham being so disappointing at this stage of the 2016-17 season, is how well both Liverpool and Everton...also based in the city of Liverpool...are doing.  Everton had a reputation for fielding a quality team that has been absent for the last couple of years and Liverpool, while almost winning the championship three years ago, has also been a disappointment to its demanding fans.  I think it would be great to see these two teams continue to excel this year...

By the way, if you're interesting in watching English Premier League soccer action on TV, NBCSports broadcasts live matches on Saturday and Sunday mornings.  In Gainesville this is on Cox Cable channel 33...

Just Finished Reading Ursula K. Le Guin's The Farthest Shore

Actually, I "just finished" reading The Farthest Shore, the third novel in Ursula K. Le Guin's young readers' fantasy series Earthsea, a few days ago but chose to first write about the other two books I had just read (Ruth Rendell's From Doon with Death and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre).  With the first Earthsea book, titled A Wizard of Earthsea, the author had initially intended it to be a singular work, but later decided to expand it into a trilogy.  Now, with the addition of other books as well, I suppose the final book in the series will be the last one written before her death...hopefully not to come anytime soon.  The Farthest Shore jumps years ahead in time and focuses on the series' unifying protagonist, the wizard Ged, as he tries to discover the source of the ongoing drain of magic in the world.  To this end, Arren, a young prince in a northern island kingdom, arrives on Archmage Ged's island of Roke to give more disturbing news and offer his services in the quest to save the world.  The two set out in Ged's boat and travel the seas, going first south and then to the "farthest shore" in the west on the island of Selidor.  Along the way they encounter numerous adventures, strange cultures, dragons, and news, both derived from others' accounts and via their own dreams, of a sinister wizard in the west who has conquered death and offers immortality to those who join him...

The Farthest Shore reminded me a bit of C.S. Lewis in his Chronicles of Narnia book Voyage of the Dawn Treader...albeit with an more Eastern philosophical flavor instead of the overtly Christian allegories of Lewis.  The idea that death is necessary for life and that there needs to be a balance and separation between the two sounds Taoist or Zen to me, given my admittedly relative ignorance of these belief systems.  So yes, it is natural for one to want to avoid dying and to stay alive...but it is unnatural not to see death as inevitable.  The contrast between the idea of thriving in the present and pursuing a life of meaning and virtue while looking and acting outwardly from oneself, and that of striving to ensure one's own perpetual existence only for the sake of that existence, is rigorously examined, skillfully interwoven throughout this interesting story's narrative.  Ged has matured and understands things on a deep level, to the point where he can be a mentor to the young prince Arren.  This book was my favorite of the series so far, but I recommend you first read books one and two (A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan, respectively) before tackling it...

Sampan Off the Port Bow

If you've been anywhere near a TV set during the last few days and happened to hit upon one of those cable news channels, you've no doubt encountered the extensive coverage of the prolonged protests in Charlotte, North Carolina against the fatal police shooting of a young black man there.  At the same time, there is a parallel story going on in Oklahoma where a young white female cop is being charged with manslaughter after shooting to death a black man on a highway there.  As a matter of fact, these types of fatal encounters have been accumulating and have gotten quite beyond old...they are reprehensible.  Not just because some people got shot, or necessarily because the most highly publicized incidents involved black victims...I wonder if those in other demographic groups who have been killed in this fashion by law enforcement are being filtered out of media coverage because they don't fit the protesters' narrative.  No, the truly reprehensible...and frightening...aspect to all of this is the attitude that the police take to citizens under their jurisdiction when they decide that they are suspects: suddenly the lives of the very people they were supposed to be protecting...but whom they're now suspecting...no longer seem to matter very much...

Off and on for the last 52 years, the United States military, while avoiding officially declared wars, has instead been engaged in what our government has termed "police action", especially regarding the adventures in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.  The missions in these places have been to protect their populations against the "bad guys" (like communists and terrorists) and give the people there the chance to enjoy freedom and prosperity.  The problem with all this is that, once the troops were there occupying the land that others called their own, the soldiers often could not distinguish among those who were friends and who were foes.  So in a sense the locals collectively became the "suspects", and that tended to cheapen their lives.  You may have heard of the terrible My Lai Massacre in South Vietnam, which is an illustration of this point, as well as seeing on the evening news back then the burning down of villages in order to "save" them.  The movie Apocalypse Now, which depicted the overwhelming suspicion that a sizable segment of the American troops had of the native population, has a scene in which the Navy boat transporting upriver the movie's protagonist, played by Martin Sheen, encounters a Vietnamese junk boat, also referred to as a "sampan".  Someone yells out "Sampan off the port bow!" and, despite Sheen's protestations, the Navy boat's chief insists on stopping it and investigating.  The Vietnamese on it dutifully provide the necessary papers, but no, they are now "suspects" and so the boat has to be searched for contraband.  While this is going on, a woman in the boat suddenly lurches toward the back and the entire Navy boat goes berserk with gunfire, killing all of the Vietnamese on the sampan.  These were supposed to be the people that were being protected in this "police action" most of the world called the Vietnam War, but instead they were always going to be suspects from the soldiers' viewpoint and suffer the resulting peril...

I brought up the above illustration, admittedly in itself a work of fiction, to point out what I believe to be the main problem. Whether one is a policeman on patrol duty in this country or a soldier on "police action" duty in an occupied country, they should be respected and applauded for their brave service and sacrifices.  But the behavior of some of these courageous public servants seems to "go south" toward any individual once he or she gets put into the "suspect" category...and the value of that suspect's life becomes diminished as a result.  It is not for the police to administer justice or decide who is guilty.  I cannot understand how the only available option for subduing uncooperative suspects is to shoot them with deadly force.  As far as the racism angle being charged by protesters and movements like Black Lives Matter is concerned, I feel that there may be a tendency for some of those within the police forces to discriminately, even if done unconsciously, move African-Americans they encounter in the line of duty out of the category of the "protected" and into that of the "suspected".  And once you're a suspect, life can get very, very scary: make the wrong move and you're history, whether you are a Vietnamese running in a sampan or an American reaching into your pocket or your car...

Just Finished Reading Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre

Charlotte Brontë is one of three English sisters...the others are Emily and Anne...who wrote fiction in the early-to-mid 1800s.  I already read Emily's Wuthering Heights...here is a link to my 2014 article about it [link].  Jane Eyre was written in the first person from the vantage point of the title protagonist, an orphaned girl, growing up and encountering romance and moral/ethical quandaries in the setting of rural England around the beginning of the nineteenth century, complete with a rigid, entrenched class-based society.  A very sympathetic character, Jane has to endure unfair treatment in childhood at the home of her aunt, who heaps abuse on her while spoiling her own three children.  Eventually, Jane is sent to Lowood, a charity school primarily for poor orphaned girls.  There she grows into a young woman and then sets out to earn her own independent living.  She is hired as a little girl's governess and encounters the estate's enigmatic owner Mr. Rochester, along with an ongoing dark secret hidden in the third story of the mansion.  Will Jane find romance, and what or who is that mystery that from time to time manifests itself in violence?  And at this point, as is usually the case when I'm discussing what I just read, here is where I tell you, the reader, to just go find out the rest for yourself...I'm not gonna spoil the book!

I have a special affinity for stories written in the first person, and Jane Eyre is a very good story.  It may be hard to find a more likable character than the persevering, sensitive, generous, compassionate, intelligent...and above all, assertive Jane.  The irony of this tale, which for its time was very pro-women, is that the author felt the need to publish it under a man's pseudonym, Currer Bell, instead of her own name, due to the perceived prejudicial attitudes then about women writers.  Of course, Charlotte Brontë is now a great name in English literature, and Jane Eyre is the primary reason.  I felt, as I was reading it, that Brontë was making a comparison study in religion and ethics, and how structured, organized religion often failed to live up to the compassion and morality that it sought to impose on the general population, while "true religion", as Jane Eyre herself practiced it, was very personal and beautiful.  I liked that about this book, which I strongly encourage you to read...

2016 Baseball Wild Card Races

With only nine or ten games remaining in the 2016 Major League Baseball season, the teams are scrambling for the wild card positions in the playoffs.  Each league offers two slots, but the competition is close for them.  In the American League, while Boston, Cleveland, and Texas appear headed to become their respective divisions' champions, the wild card race is wide open (teams are followed by their win-loss records):

Toronto      83-69
Detroit        82-70
Baltimore   81-70
Houston     81-72
Seattle        80-72

With only three games separating these five teams, who knows how it will end up.  The National League likewise has solid division leaders in Washington, Chicago (Cubs), and Los Angeles...either already champions or close to clinching the division.  The wild card race here is also very tight, although more restricted:

New York Mets  81-72
San Francisco     81-72
St. Louis             80-72

There's no telling which one of these will end up the odd team out...I'm hoping the Cardinals finally miss the playoffs for a change.  I tend to root for San Francisco, but I'd be content to see the Mets get back to the World Series.  As for the American League, I'd like to see Houston or Seattle get in as wild cards...but I like Boston in the playoffs.  Now who do I think will actually make it to this year's World Series?  The Chicago Cubs and Texas Rangers...