Major Storm System Sweeps into North Florida Tomorrow

In advance of the cold front that will usher in relatively cold conditions this Friday, a large, intense storm system is sweeping eastward along the Gulf Coast...and northern Florida, including my hometown of Gainesville, is in its sights.  The storm, which contains a high probability of tornadoes and hail along with generally high winds and some much-needed rainfall, will pass through the Florida panhandle tonight and directly hit us sometime tomorrow morning.  As with other systems of this type, it will be very rough in some places and light in others...I'm hoping that Gainesville misses out on the tornadoes, hail, and strong wind gusts, but not the rain.  Although Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina have lately been devastated by runaway forest fires caused by chronic draught, we here in northern Florida have been suffering lately from a scarcity of rainfall, too. If we don't start to get more precipitation, we'll also eventually be in the news with our own wildfires...

About the Four Professional Soccer Leagues I Follow

I don't know whether you are interested in watching soccer...most likely you associate it with national teams and the World Cup.  I, on the other hand, prefer to follow the various professional leagues, of which just about every country on the planet has one...usually more, arranged in hierarchies from the premier league at the top on downward to the lower leagues.  England has some 24 levels in their entrenched professional soccer system, and teams are annually moving up (promotion) to the next higher league while others are moving down (relegation) to the next lower one.  I follow England's Premier League, as well as the top-tier leagues in Germany (Bundesliga) and Mexico (Liga MX).  All practice promotion and relegation, which to me prevents the last-place clubs from giving up on the season the way we here in America see teams doing, especially in the National Basketball Association (especially the Philadelphia 76ers) and Major League Baseball (lower teams trading off their star players for future prospects midway through the season).  Unfortunately, our Major League Soccer premier league here in the United States and Canada does not practice relegation, even though there already exists two lower-level leagues that could unite with them to form a viable promotion/relegation system...

In MLS this year, the season has finally wound down to the final championship playoff match, to take place next Saturday between Toronto and Seattle. I'll be pulling for Seattle in this one, although I was disappointed that neither of my favorites...Orlando City and Portland (last year's champion)...made the playoffs.  Mexico's Liga MX is also holding its playoffs, and the last of the two-match semifinal series between Club America (based in Mexico City) and upstart Necaxa takes place tonight...you can watch it on Univision (Gainesville's Cox Cable channel 40). Whoever wins tonight will play against "my" UANL Tigres in the finale. Necaxa, by the way, is in its very first year back in the top league after winning promotion from the second-tier Ascenso league last year, performing way beyond expectations by making the playoffs and then advancing this far in them.  In England, Chelsea has returned to lead the league...it won the title two years ago.  Last year's champion, Leicester City, has so far fallen on hard times and is only two points away from being one of the relegation teams...they'd better get their act together, and soon!  And in the Bundesliga, another team just promoted this year, Leipzig, is stunning everyone by sitting at the top of the standings, still undefeated, while perennial champ Bayern Munich is right behind them in second place.  In England and Germany...as well as most of the pro leagues, the regular season is the entire season...no playoffs...and the regular season leader is automatically the champion.  I like it that way, but try telling that to anyone on this side of the Atlantic who can't imagine going through any sports season without playoffs to get excited about...

In case you're wondering why I follow MLS, Liga MX, the English Premier League, and Bundesliga while not following other soccer leagues, the answer is simple: these are the leagues whose matches I can pick up on TV.  And I'm not about to shell out a lot of extra dough just to see the leagues from Spain, France, Italy, Brazil, or any other country.  Besides, four leagues are quite enough for me...

Just Finished Reading Drood by Dan Simmons

The 2009 book Drood, by Dan Simmons, is a historical fiction novel focusing on the last years in the life of mid-nineteenth century English writer Charles Dickens, who authored classics like Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield...and of course A Christmas Carol...as told by narrator Wilkie Collins, a collaborator and friend of the literary giant .  His best writing now behind him, it is 1865 and Dickens is riding a train with his mistress and her mother when it goes off a damaged bridge at Staplehurst, killing many but miraculously sparing his own car alone.  The incident traumatizes Dickens and he never completely gets over it.  According to what he relates to Wilkie, Dickens walks around the horrible scene after the wreck, administering help and comfort to the injured...and comes across an utterly sinister man who calls himself Drood and who is also walking among the casualites, many of whom suddenly die after encountering him.  It is the mystery-veiled relationship that ensues between Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and this Drood character that drives the plot through to the end of the book...

Sometimes when I review a book I've read, I can tell some of what happens in it, careful to leave out spoilers that reveal its conclusion.  But Drood is narrated by Collins, an opium addict who tends to perceive things differently when he is under that drug's spell...and the potential for mesmerism (hypnosis), something for which Dickens has much enthusiasm, is another factor that makes the developing story seem at times unreal.  It reminded me of the times I saw the movies The Matrix and A Beautiful Mind.  In each of these, the audience is eventually confronted with the task of determining what is real and what is...well, something entirely different...

Historical fiction comes in different forms.  In alternative histories, the setting is a world that has diverged in some significant way from how history had actually played itself out...e.g. Hitler won World War II or John F. Kennedy's assassination was prevented.  In other historical fiction, like Ernest Hemingway's Spanish Civil War novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, the setting is a real event but the characters are all fictional...even though famous real names may indirectly impact the plot.  But Drood is different from both of these types, and here is where I really appreciated Simmons' deft writing: from what we know about those years in the lives of  Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, nothing in this tale contradicts anything...yet it creates this incredible imaginary universe full of mysteries and horrors.  Amazing...

There were a few interesting items I picked up reading Drood.  One was that Charles Dickens wasn't just a prolific writer: he was also a prolific walker, often covering 20 miles on a single walk, going at a near-impossible-to-sustain pace of 4 mph...even at times when his health was reportedly suffering.  And keep in mind that he was in his late fifties at the time.  Also, 'The Inimitable", as the narrator often refers to him according to his popular designation in that time, would go on extensive book reading tours, drawing packed houses as he would read whole sections of his earlier works...which he had completely committed to memory.  And finally, you could not have read Drood without noticing the extreme degree of professional jealousy that Collins, himself an established and popular writer, feels about his much more recognized and honored friend.  Throughout the book, in their countless conversations with each other, he tries over and over again to get Dickens to acknowledge their equality in their writing abilities...but to no avail, with one humiliating outcome after another...

Drood is a fantastic book on many levels, and I highly recommend it.  Dan Simmons has also written Hyperion, the first in a science fiction series...I'm in the process of reading that one, too.  I've also become interesting in reading more from Charles Dickens...as well as from his frustrated rival/friend Wilkie Collins...

Quote of the Week...from Juan Ramón Jiménez

I do not cut my life up into days but my days into lives, each day, each hour, an entire life.
                                                                                            ---Juan Ramón Jiménez

Juan Ramón Jiménez was a Nobel Prize-winning Spanish poet who lived from 1881 to 1958, moving to the United States when his native country began its civil war in 1936.  I have read nothing of his works...like last week's Epictetus, my exposure to his output so far has been limited to one provocative quote...

When I was a young child, each day did seem to be an entire life.  Yes, I would think about the future and remember the past...especially with regard to my favorite TV shows...but my reality was firmly rooted in the "here and now".  I think that, as I grew older...like many of you, most likely...my thoughts and focus became trained on the past...with accompanying regrets and resentments...and on the future, with its accompanying worries.  Of course, as mature adults we should all take care of our own lives and of those in our charge, and that involves reflection about the lessons from our past experiences as well as planning and preparation for the future...but that does not mean having a mindset devoid of appreciating and esteeming the present moment.  We're not talking of descending into hedonistic, selfish squalor, but rather the opposite: fighting the impulse to sink into an inertia of automatic routine and the avoidance of discomfort and instead taking risks, putting oneself "on the spot", and allowing more of the world, even with its sometimes unpredictable, ugly, and even dangerous aspects, into our lives.  Yes, let's be responsible but also realize that our entire life does take place in a day...and that day is called "today"...

11/27 Sermon on James, Part 10

Last Sunday was the tenth and final installment in the sermon series on the Bible's New Testament book of James, delivered at The Family Church here in Gainesville by Pastor Philip Griffin.  The focus was James 5:7-20, reproduced here in the New International Version by means of the Bible Gateway website:

⁷ Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. ⁸ You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. ⁹ Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door!
¹⁰ Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. ¹¹ As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.
¹² Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. All you need to say is a simple “Yes” or “No.” Otherwise you will be condemned. ¹³ Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. ¹⁴ Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. ¹⁵ And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. ¹⁶ Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
¹⁷ Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. ¹⁸ Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.
¹⁹ My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, ²⁰ remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

Pastor Philip divided the sermon into four parts: practice patience, guard your heart, rely on prayer, and don't give up on each other.  He painted a word picture he credits to a Pakistani who compared hard times to being in boiling water: do you respond in such circumstances like an egg with a hardened shell...or like a potato, softening and more easily molded?  Don't be an egg, be a potato!  The pastor also pointed out that the passage gives three examples about how the wisdom of patience is demonstrated by the farmer, the prophets, and Job.  As for guarding one's heart, Verse 12 is about saying yes or no without having the need to buttress one's own statements with oaths...I personally felt that this was a bit confusing: the text seems to condemn taking oaths, notwithstanding what the pastor said...maybe I'd understand this section better were I to know the cultural background through which the author wrote it.  Regarding the importance of relying on prayer, our church, at the end of the service, followed James' advice and had the elders anoint with oil those with needs and pray for them.  And the last couple of verses remind me of that great old Hollies hit He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother...we don't give up on our brothers and sisters...and hopefully they don't give up on us...

So there you have it: the book of James covered in ten sermons...with my own layman's reactions.  Should you want to hear Pastor Philip Griffin's sermons for yourself, click on this YouTube link for the series: [link].  Also, I have placed links below for each of the articles that I've written about the sermons (click on the number of each sermon):

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

My Running Report for November 2016

In November I ran for a total of 102 miles, down from previous months, while running on 28 of the 30 days.  I was traveling in the early part of the month and had a couple of periods of sickness, contributing to the reduced mileage.  But I consider November to have been a success because I pulled off a 10-mile run (on the 16th) and entered and finished the 10K Turkey Trot race held annually on Thanksgiving morning here in Gainesville...

I'm still gearing up to run one or more half-marathon races in the not-to-distant future.  I might be able to squeeze one in before the end of 2016, but that would entail me traveling a bit outside the Gainesville area.  In early 2017, on the other hand, Ocala will be staging its race in January and the Five Points of Life event will take place in Gainesville in February.  I should at least be able to run in these two races, both of which I am very familiar with from the past...

Bright Stars Abound in the Midnight Sky

When I learned about the stars and constellations as a kid, all of the books would employ star charts based on what the sky looked like at 9 pm Standard Time.  So I grew to associate certain constellations with certain months...e.g, Orion, the most prominent constellation of all, was a"January" constellation because, during that month at 9 pm it would cross the imaginary meridian line that divides the eastern from the western celestial hemispheres.  But there's no need for me to wait for January to witness the exact same phenomenon. This is because, every two hours or so, the so-called "months" in the night sky advance by approximately one month.  So it being late November at this writing, were I to step out and look up at 1 am, then the sky would appear the same as if it were late in January at 9 pm.  And since the period from midnight to one is when I usually do my star-gazing nowadays, I find myself skipping ahead one or two months, so to speak.  So instead of looking at the relatively barren "November" sky, I am instead treated to by far the most spectacular, brilliant section of the heavens...

The stars are not distributed across the sky in a homogeneous manner...no, there are vast areas of dim stars and open gaps between them, while in others the bright stars all seem clumped together.  This is especially true with the "winter" sky as a relatively small section of the sky is loaded with very bright first and second magnitude stars.  I'm speaking of the constellations Orion, Taurus, Auriga, Gemini, Canis Major, and Canis Minor.  If you draw connecting lines between the stars Rigel (in Orion), Aldeberan (in Taurus), Capella (in Auriga), Castor and Pollux (in Gemini), Procyon (in Canis Minor), Sirius (in Canis Major), and back to Rigel, you would come away with a rough approximation of a vertical ellipse.  Everything on the ellipse and inside is a star-gazer's paradise...outside the stars thin out and grow dimmer...

This past weekend the nights were crisp and cold, and the stars stood out more brightly than normal.  Now, though, we're in a heat wave for this time of the year...but things should get better after the approaching cold front passes through.  Once the night skies are clear again, try stepping out around midnight...and watch the spectacle above you...

And in case you need a guide to the constellations and stars I've mentioned, here is a link to a great interactive star map: [link]. You can adjust the location on it to more closely correspond to where you are.  Since I live in Gainesville, Florida, I just clicked on Jacksonville.  As for the time, it shows by default the sky at the current time...if you want to see what it will look like, say, at 1 am, then you can adjust the settings for that time...

Follow-Up on Yesterday's Article about Recounts

I won't rehash all of my article yesterday about the push for manual recounts of presidential balloting in three key states...you can easily access it if you want.  But since then there have been some developments...

First of all, I don't know why it took folks this long after the election to get a recount campaign going...there are deadlines within those states after which the election results are certified.  It isn't as if the suspicion of Russian interference in the election was something new.  Jill Stein of the Green Party, who started the recount ball rolling with her initiative in Wisconsin, is now threatening to sue that state after officials there authorized the recount...but with manual recounts only optional.  Which of course naturally misses the point entirely.  If they're going to tabulate the results again using the same machines, how will that address any questions about the hacking of voting software?  Also, Wisconsin is stating that it will be hard-pressed for time with this recount, only having 12 days starting on December 1.  I don't get this, either...especially if they're not going to do a manual recount.  After all, it only took a few hours on election night to supposedly get 100% of the total counted the first time around...

And now our thin-skinned, blustering president-elect has jumped into the fray, claiming on his Twitter account that "millions" voted illegally, especially in New Hampshire, Virginia, and California...and that he actually did win the popular vote.  Not a shred of evidence has yet been provided to back up his claims.  Are we going to have to put up with this method of expression from our president for the next four to eight years?  Groan...

It should have been the Clinton campaign's role to promote and raise the money for these recounts, but they are finally coming on board...although it may be a case of too little too late.  Kudos to Jill Stein for standing up for our electoral system and the right for our votes to be accurately counted...shame on Wisconsin for not making a manual recount mandatory.  And I have long run out of words to describe what I feel about our incoming president... 

Recounts Pushed in Three Key Swing States

Although it seemed pretty clear a little past midnight following the November 8th presidential election that Donald Trump had pulled off an improbable win over Hillary Clinton by upsetting her in the hitherto "blue" states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, it is now approaching three weeks later and a movement is steamrolling, begun by Green Party candidate Jill Stein and now being picked up by the Clinton campaign, to have manual recounts in those three states.  The margins for Trump in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are razor-thin while he still leads Clinton by some 70,000 votes in Pennsylvania. Stein's stated purpose in going for the recounts is to restore public confidence in the voting system: there had been allegations of possible Russian hacking of voting machines to tip the tabulating in favor of Trump following the revelation that Vladimir Putin may have been behind the WikiLeaks releases of emails designed to damage Clinton's campaign in the days just preceding the election.  A computer scientist at the University of Michigan, J. Alex Halderman, although skeptical about any hacking, did say that that the software put into the machines could have been compromised beforehand and suggested that the only effective way to ascertain the integrity of the vote would be to have a manual recount...

I did not support Donald Trump, but I believe he was elected fair and square.  The responsibility for the outcome of this presidential election, should this incoming president prove to have been a poor choice for the job as I suspect he will be, is on the American people who voted for him with the full knowledge of what he is all about, as well as on those citizens who decided to sit out this election.  I agree with Professor Alderman and Jill Stein, who stated that she would have demanded a recount regardless who had won: there is a need to dispel suspicions that this election was tampered with by a foreign country.  And if these recounts do go through, the best outcome from them that I see will be to have Trump's victory confirmed and the process vindicated...in spite of my opinion that Hillary Clinton would have been a much better president.  Should the unlikely happen and the recounts throw those states...and the electoral college majority...to Clinton, I fear a very scary period of turmoil and division for the future, as well as a breakdown in faith in our electoral process.  But let's go ahead and do the recounts before we jump prematurely to conclusions.  As far as I am concerned, Trump is the president-elect until definitively proven otherwise...

My Three Favorite Music Albums of 2016

When the year 2016 began, I wasn't thinking all that much about the current scene in recorded music...my tastes put me more in the alternative/indie rock zone and not in the more publicized hip-hop/diva type of music that seems to enjoy such mainstream popularity.  I also like the great old bands and solo artists...although in their old age they have tended to severely decline in the quality of their music.  I was sadly jolted to reconsider this conclusion, though, after hearing in mid-January of the death of British icon David Bowie, two days after his 69th birthday and the release of his final album Blackstar.  A few weeks later I saw the video to the title track on TV and immediately began to wonder just what this guy had been up to for the three decades following his mass popularity in the mid-1980s.  So I listened to all of David Bowie's albums and discovered that, unlike the case with many of his contemporaries in the business, he continued to grow and innovate with his advancing years.  I consider Blackstar, along with 1997's Earthling and 1971's Hunky Dory, to be his top three albums with some pretty awesome tracks.  The song Blackstar, lasting a full ten minutes, is currently my favorite song of 2016 and will likely stay in that position when I make my "list" at year's end.  It's sad that David passed on, but had he not I wonder whether I wouldn't still be unaware of his great musical output over the years.  The Blackstar album contains only seven tracks, but they are all pretty lengthy.  The opening track, Blackstar, is a hauntlingly beautfiful piece that presents a mystery as to its intended meaning.  There are also two songs, 'Tis a Pity... and I Can't Give Everything Away, that have a spirited jazzy interplay between Bowie's singing and the saxophone...and the other diverse-sounding tracks stand up to scrutiny as well.  But the song Blackstar overwhelmingly dominates the album...

In mid-2016 Radiohead, one of my favorite current bands, came out with another great album, A Moon Shaped Pool.  I had been a bit disappointed in their previous one, The King of Limbs, from 2011.  But this new release, with its eleven tracks, contains some music that is destined to stand right up there on my personal list of favorites from this group...specifically the songs Burn the Witch,  Daydreaming, Decks Dark, Identikit, and (get ready) Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor Rich Man Poor Man Beggar Man Thief.  This are just my favorites...I actually like all of the songs on this album, which is a worthy successor to some of Radiohead's best...

And then there is Regina Spektor, who up to now is probably my favorite recording artist of this century.  I have already written on this blog that my favorite songs of 2010 and 2012 were songs of hers (Us and Firewood, respectively).  Regina, as is the case with both David Bowie and Radiohead, is an artist who had been around a while before I discovered her...I think it was that great song Us that I first heard while listening to an Internet indie music station back in 2010. I consequently collected all of her albums and listen to them often.  I'd been waiting since 2013 for her next album, and finally, at the end of September, it was released: Remember Us to Life.  Her first singles release Bleeding Heart is also the album's opening track and one of my favorites.  Among the other ten tracks, I also like Small Bill$, The Light, The Trapper and the Furrier, Tornadoland, Obsolete, and The Visit a lot...

The year 2016 has been marked by me focusing my attention on certain musical acts and their bodies of work, in particular that of the great David Bowie.  As a result I haven't been listening very much to the radio and what's been coming out from other artists, many of whom I'm sure are worthy of mention...if I had only heard them.  Instead, it's looking as if my top list of favorite songs of 2016 will be heavily dominated by Bowie, Radiohead, and Regina Spektor...

Quote of the Week...from Epictetus

We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how to respond to them.
                                                                                                                  ---Epictetus

I found on the Web an alternative quote, also by Epictetus : It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.  The message is similar in both cases: each of us has been placed in this world under our own unique and often very inequitable circumstances.  We can change some of those circumstances, but that comes under how we choose to respond to them, doesn't it?  And then again, there are things we have little or no power over in our lives, and it does us and no one else any good to focus our energies and attention on them.  So yes, reacting or responding to whatever happens with our circumstances requires a sense of discernment that weighs the relative importance of things along with the degree of control we might have to change things should we decide to go down that path...

Epictetus was a Greek Stoic philosopher living in the late first century and early second century AD, a contemporary of the writers of the Greek New Testament in the Bible.  Born a slave in Asia Minor and later in his life banished from Rome back to Greece, he certainly had his own personal circumstances to contend with.  Although his philosophy emphasized the supremacy of human reasoning over the salvation through faith expressed by early Christians, some of the wisdom he imparted seems to overlap that found in writings from James and Paul...

Whether or not I can change my circumstances, my own focus should not be those circumstances, but rather my own behavior in regard to them.  Sometimes my circumstances are the consequences of things that I just did.  For example, this morning I was foolishly walking around in the pitch blackness of the front of my house around six when I walked, full-force, into a wall, my forehead split open in a couple of places.  I didn't just stand there angry at myself for colliding with the wall.  No, I logically screamed out in pain, bringing out Melissa to help me get through my crisis.  The bleeding was squelched, ice was applied, and now I have a couple of cuts above my eye that will be healing for awhile.  As for looking back on my circumstance, I learned to be more careful in the dark...better yet, keep on a little light.  But I'm not sitting around bemoaning what happened: I'm moving on, chastened but wiser...

Ran Gainesville's Turkey Trot 10K Race This Morning

In the grand scheme of things, I have to admit to not being a morning person.  Part of this has to do with my work schedule, which sees me finishing my shift at midnight, with one or two more hours before I succumb to sleep.  So getting up around six or seven to run a race (and they're almost always held early in the morning) by itself puts me square into the discomfort zone.  Add to that the fact that the humidity outside during this time of the day is usually very high,  and so I already had a couple of strikes against me when I set out on the 2016 Turkey Trot 10K (6.2 miles) race, held annually in Gainesville at the Tacachale center off Waldo Road and 16th Avenue.  Oh, I forgot to mention that I turned 60 last month and could stand to lose about 20 pounds...

This Turkey Trot was my third in Gainesville...back in 1974 and 75 I ran a couple of shorter races with the same title (naturally centered around Thanksgiving, too) in Davie, Florida.  I am very familiar with the course, which is a mixture of dirt trails, pine needle paths, and asphalt roads that wind through and around the center, which provides residency and care for the disadvantaged.  I felt pretty good physically this time around, in spite of the previously expressed reservations, as I drove into the place...the folks running this event were fantastic directing the parking, which went flawlessly.  I paid the entry fee, got my tee-shirt (see picture), and pinned on my number...3443.  I could tell that there seemed to be a high number of participants...later I found out that 430 finished the 10K race.  I maneuvered myself before the start of the race into the midst of the throng, and when it began a little past 8:30, it still took me 15 seconds to even reach the starting line.  And as expected, for the first two miles or so, I focused my efforts on trying to avoid being trampled or trampling others.  Eventually, though, the crowd thinned and I was able to enjoy the experience more.  Still, I had to go it slowly at first, and this was reflected in my final time...

My official time given on the race results website [link] was 1:01:13, more than four minutes slower than my 2014 time.  In my gender/age group (m/60-64) I finished in fifth place out of nine...smack dab in the middle.  For the entire finishing field, I was in 227th place out of the 430.  I'm not disappointed with running the race slower than in years past...I approached it after all as a training run, rebuilding confidence about running longer distances.  In that I was very successful.  And since I am getting along in the years, I checked out where I was "age-wise" against the field: I was tied with two others for 28th oldest finisher out of 430...now that sounds a lot better than 227th...

Although it did dip into the 30s a few nights ago here in Gainesville, this November has been warmer than usual, and this was true today.  During race time, the average temperature was around 65 degrees and the humidity a very uncomfortable 85%...I'm used to running outside when the temperature is a bit higher and the humidity a lot lower...

11/20 Sermon on James, Part 9

Last Sunday's sermon on the Bible's New Testament book of James covered a lot of material, but The Family Church's pastor Philip Griffin was able to place everything under a conceptual umbrella, talking about foolishness toward our possessions instead of putting God first, ahead of them.  The passage of interest, as we approached the end of this epistle, was James 4:13-5:6, reproduced below in the New International Version via the Bible Gateway website:

^{4 13} Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” ¹⁴ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. ¹⁵ Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶ As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. ¹⁷ If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.

5 Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. ² Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. ³ Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. ⁴ Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. ⁵ You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. ⁶ You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.

Pastor Philip's sermon focused on five foolish choices he sees people make regarding their money and possessions, as delineated by the passage from James: leaving God out of one's plans, hoarding instead of sharing, reneging on debts, no generosity amid prosperity, and forgetting Jesus is the goal, not material gain.  By not recognizing God's preeminent role in one's life, there is a tendency to become consumed with worry and control.  By making the accumulation of possessions the top priority, greed fueled by continuous discontent (the "myth of more") and fear of the future due to lack of trust in God's provision both poison one's daily life.  Also, refusing to honor debts owed others demonstrates that money is considered more important than people...and of course God.  Following Jesus commands generosity, sharing, and responsibility...and consequently placing money and "stuff" in their proper, limited roles in one's life...

There is one section to this passage that wasn't emphasized in the sermon, and that was the part exhorting us not to boast about the future.   Let's make our plans...yes, that is part of responsible, mature living...but make them with the acknowledgment that God is supreme and has the authority and power to change them according to his design for our lives...

Usually I post these sermon articles on Thursday, but I made an exception this week.  Happy Thanksgiving!

List of Some National Leaders

During this past presidential campaign, just as Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson was trying to ratchet up his momentum, he was interviewed by MSNBC's Chris Matthews.  Matthews, in all likelihood suspecting that Johnson was ignorant in a lot of things outside his ideology, threw out what on the surface seemed to be a "softball" question: who is your favorite world leader?  You can take any country outside the United States...just tell me one of their leaders that you like.  Anyone. Anywhere.  Gary Johnson couldn't answer the question.  When I saw that, I thought, yeah, the dude's a real ignoramus, all right...and then I realized that I wasn't too knowledgeable about the heads of the various national governments, either...

Most countries have an official head of "state"...a more or less ceremonial role...and the effective head of the government...the real power.  In the British Commonwealth nations like the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, Queen Elizabeth is the head of state.  In the United States, however, the two roles both are taken by the president.  Russia's head of state, President Putin, actually exerts the real power while the Prime Minister functions as Putin's surrogate.  But you're waiting for a list of the effective government leaders, right? Well, here is a short one...sorry if I left out your favorite country...

United States: Barack Obama---President
Canada: Justin Trudeau---Prime Minister
Mexico: Enrique Nieto---President
Brazil: Michel Temer---President
United Kingdom: Theresa May---Prime Minister
France: François Hollande---President
Germany: Angela Merkel---Chancellor
Spain: Mariano Rajoy---President
Russia: Vladimir Putin---President
South Africa: Jacob Zuma---President
Egypt: Abdel Fattah el-Sisi...President
Israel: Benjamin Netanyahu---Prime Minister
India: Narendra Modi---Prime Minister
China: Xi Jinping---Gen. Secr. of the Communist Party
Japan: Shinzoo Abe--Prime Minister
Australia: Malcolm Turnbull---Prime Minister

There, that's a starter list for you in case you're thinking anytime of running for president.  But be warned, reader: by 2020 this list is certain to drastically change...

Plan to Run in Gainesville's 10K Turkey Trot Race on Thanksgiving

As of this writing, I have every intention of running the 10K (6.2 miles) Turkey Trot race here in Gainesville, held each Thanksgiving morning at the Tacachale center off Waldo Road.  I've run it a couple of times before and consider it to be a good warm-up race to longer events coming up in the next few months.  The last time I ran it, the ground was thoroughly soaked from extensive rain in the previous days, forcing the runners at times to hop around the course...composed mainly of pine trails...and try to avoid slipping or stepping into mud.  This time around, though, we've had very little rain, so the course should be easy to tread.  I'll be working the night before, getting off at midnight...I prefer participating in races when I've been off the previous day.  But still, I shouldn't have any problem: I can nap some later, after the race...

Some Thoughts on Football and Soccer This Year

The end of the college football regular season is approaching and my University of Florida team has played above and beyond most sports analysts' preseason expectations.  Yesterday they won the Southeastern Conference's East Division for the second consecutive year after pulling off a heroic last-second goal-line stand on the road against heavily-favored LSU.  Now the Gators are 8-2 and will face Florida State next week in Tallahassee before heading off to Atlanta to once again play against Nick Saban's Alabama Crimson Tide for the conference championship.  Let's see if they can't pull off a couple more miracles...

After finally starting to follow the already-enfolding National Football League season last week, I was pleasantly surprised to see the Miami Dolphins, the team I traditionally support the most after having grown up in the area, sporting a winning record of 5-4 with four straight victories.  Now make that 6-4 and five straight after they made an improbable comeback on the road today against the Los Angeles Rams, scoring two late-game touchdowns after being shut out for most of it.  I heard, though, that their offensive line is decimated with injuries...hope they can get it together for the stretch run to the playoffs, in which the Dolphins are now only one game behind for a wild card spot...

And I can't finish this article without referring to what almost the entire rest of the world calls "football" but which we here call "soccer".  In Mexico, their premier professional league is finishing up their fall "Apertura" split season and will soon be starting their Liguilla championship playoffs.  A few of the teams that made the field of eight for the playoffs were those consistently good each year, like "my" UANL Tigres, Club America, and Pachuca. Tijuana, usually in the middle or bottom of the standings but vastly improved now, finished at the top this season.  And then there is Necaxa, which just this year was promoted from the next lower league (called Ascenso): in their first season back in the top league, they made the playoffs, quite an impressive feat...I wonder how far they'll go...

Just Finished Reading Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, is one of those books that was renown and celebrated (and criticized) years before I ever got around to reading it.  But now the deed is done and I'm ready to give my reaction...

In The Kite Runner, the country of interest is Afganistan, the narrative tracing back to 1971 while it was still a kingdom and "progressing" along to a coup d'etat establishing a republic in 1973, the Soviet Union's invasion and occupation through the 1980s, the civil war in the nineties following their withdrawal, and then the takeover by the brutal Taliban in the late 1990s.  Yet although I learned quite a lot about this land and its people, beliefs, and culture through this book, it is more a story about betrayal, redemption, and forgiveness than history or geography...

Amir, the protagonist and narrator, is a member of Afghanistan's dominant ethnic group, the Pashtuns...who as Sunni Muslims tend to look down upon others, especially the Shia Muslim Hazari people. Amir's father is a prosperous businessman who has taken under his wings as servants a Hazari man and his son, who is Amir's age and named Hassan.  As Amir points out repeatedly with copious examples, Hassan is loyal, humble, and courageous...all qualities that Amir admits to be sorely lacking in.  After Hassan has repeatedly and faithfully defended Amir from others over the course of their almost brotherly friendship, Hassan one day finds himself in desperate straits...and Amir cowardly abandons him to his fate.  This betrayal, along with the guilty fear that others will learn of it, haunts Amir for years on end...how can he ever redeem himself or be forgiven?  And it is this that is truly the core theme of The Kite Runner...

Speaking of the book's title, kite flying in Afghanistan is quite a competitive interactive sport, much different from what we in the United States are accustomed to.  Whereas kite flyers here vie to see how novel or fancy of a kite they can make and keep airborne, Afghan kite flyers engage in combat between their kites, using sharp-edged string to sever their opponents' kites from their strings.  And when you've cut off a kite, then the race is on for the first "kite runner" to reach it as it falls to the ground...it's a "finders keepers" kind of competition.  And who is the best kite runner in Hosseini's tale?  None other than Hassan...

It's obvious that The Kite Runner owes a great deal of its popularity to it being published in the years soon after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  Both President Bush and his wife Laura read and praised it, and the book won numerous awards and was adapted to film.  Yet in Afghanistan itself there was a great deal of criticism, the bulk of it aimed at what some of their people regard as unfavorable depiction of the Pashtuns.  Needless to say, the Taliban weren't too happy with how it portrayed them, either.  I myself read it as a human drama and as a confirmation of what I had long known: no matter how exotic the culture may seem on the surface, folks are motivated by pretty much the same things, for better or for worse.  It's a good book, and I highly recommend it...

Quote of the Week...from Mohandas Gandhi

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
                                                                                                  ---Mohandas Gandhi

My most immediate reaction from this quote, which I picked up watching my Cox Cable TV's ambient music channel (943), has nothing to do with its content: the attribution is "Mohandas" Gandhi, the celebrated hero of India's independence movement and a pioneer in peaceful resistance.  I'd always used the name "Mahatma"...another of his quotes shown on the very same channel uses it as well...so which one is it?  After further investigation, it turns out that Mohandas was his original first name and that Mahatma, meaning "great soul", was later given him by a famous Indian poet.  Either usage is fine, but now I kind of like Mohandas more...

The second most immediate reaction I got is that Gandhi's words are about happiness and how to attain it...a very common theme in many famous quotes, especially among those that pop up on my television screen.  And they all seem to have one thing in common: seeking happiness in itself simply doesn't work...it always seems to be the result of focusing on something else.  And that "something else", in Gandhi's opinion, is to coordinate your thoughts, words, and actions to make them congruent and your life consequently one of integrity.  I can't say I disagree with this, and it is a pretty simple formula to reach that blissful state we all want to experience...but I also have to admit to having a long way to go before I reach that "harmony".  I try to think of fictional characters that embody Gandhi's quote and I immediately came up with two: Hassan, of Khaled Hosseini's book The Kite Runner (which I just finished reading), and Forrest Gump.  But I don't necessarily have to delve into fiction in order to find role models...there are a few folks I know who appear to be more or less in tune with their thoughts, words, and deeds...and yes, they seem to be happy as well...

11/13 Sermon on James, Part 8

Last Sunday The Family Church, which I attend here in Gainesville, continued its series on the book of James, a short piece loaded with exhortations and wisdom found toward the back of the New Testament between the books Hebrews and 1 Peter.  Our pastor, Philip Griffin, once again gave the sermon, this time on Chapter 4, Verses 1-12...which we have here in the NIV, thanks to the Bible Gateway website:

 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? ² You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. ³ When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
⁴ You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. ⁵ Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? ⁶ But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:

“God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”  ⁷ Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸ Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹ Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

¹¹ Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. ¹² There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?

What is going on within our own hearts, and how does it affect our relationships and our calling in life? This passage addresses that: if we harbor wrong motives and desires which the world system places before us instead of that coming from God...especially if we exalt our own pleasures over everything else...we will be misled and fall into disunity and conflict with others.  But friendship with God brings grace and solace if we approach him in prayer with humility as empty vessels, possessing nothing on our own but needing everything instead...i.e., embracing spiritual poverty, as the pastor noted.  With this fundamentally changed outlook and its fruits of new behaviors marked by grace, compassion, and forgiveness, relationships can be developed with God's unifying love strengthening them...

In presenting this talk, Pastor Philip employed an allusion to the game of baseball: imagine a baseball diamond, with home plate, first base, second base, and third.  Then project on these bases the stages of Christian development...home base represents Christ himself and the acceptance of him as savior.  First base is character, which is expressed by the transformation through time of one's own heart as a believer.  Second base is community, which are the relationships the believer forms and fosters, be they marriage, family, work, church, friends, neighbors, etc.  And third base represents competence...finding and implementing God's calling for one in his or her life.  The pastor pointed out that the bases have to be run in order...you can't skip home (salvation) to get to first (character), and you can't skip first and successfully form and maintain relationships (second base).  Good word picture, but I have one question: "Who's on first?"  Abbott and Costello aside, this is still a pertinent question.  For it seems to me that all four bases are simultaneously in play, and we all have to deal with that.  After all, the work within our hearts to improve our character is a lifelong task: one never leaves first base, in a manner of speaking. But perhaps a better way to look at it...and here the baseball analogy loses some of its force...is that as we mature and grow in our character, the next area, community, will then grow.  So while we're engaged in all areas, it's the growth and effectiveness within each area that is ordered, from home to first to second to third...

Finally Ran Ten Miles

Back on October 31, I tried running for 10 miles but had to settle for only 3.5 after my then-sore throat gave me continuous coughing fits.  This morning I set out once again to run around my neighborhood, but this time just to see how I felt as I "ran" up the miles.  In the end, I ran those 10 miles, with a final time of 1:39:57.  The temperature was in the low 70s and the humidity hovered around 40%: really nice running conditions.  It was very sunny, though...no problem: I just wore my sunglasses.  I ran while listening to my mp3 player.  The music? A shuffled mix of the collected works of Radiohead, Regina Spektor, Kasabian, Beck, David Bowie, Arcade Fire, R.E.M., Sufjan Stevens, and Gorillaz...

Having finally gotten back over this milestone of running 10 miles, I feel encouraged to continue training for upcoming half-marathon (13.1 miles) races in the north Florida area.  It's been a long time for me: my last half-marathon race was in February 2015, although I have run a 15K (9.3 miles) and three 5Ks (6.2 miles) since then...

I feel none the worse for wear after my run today, and my throat gave me no trouble.  Of course, sometimes I do get leg or foot cramps a little later on as I go through my recovery period.  One thing for sure: I'm going to take things easier tomorrow...