Saturday, February 13, 2016

Saturday and Breakfast Out

As usual this morning we went to breakfast at Sirloin Stockade. It was good. I ordered an omelet and it was very good.

I came home to try to decide what to do with my morning. I may just read. I have my new Reader's Digest and two books to read.

For lunch, we will have some more of the potato soup. It was pretty good yesterday and should be even better today after I warm it up.

I preside at church tomorrow and I am not wild about the theme. Karan will bring the message. I hope Bobby will be alright sitting with his daughter.  She intends to come tomorrow. I may go out to church this afternoon and run off the bulletins. Then I would have that done early. In care Karan can't get Bobby around tomorrow she may e-mail me her sermon and I would give it. She has had a time getting him to get around in the mornings.  He has become very muddled. That's typical of a brain tumor.

More later...

We had the rest of the potato soup for our late lunch and we had crackers and sharp cheddar cheese with it. That's about all. We both had a large breakfast. Bob read the papers and I took them over to Marilyn's apartment and put them on her mailbox.

I spent the rest of the afternoon reading my new Time magazine.

I ran onto this when we think we have all the answers about the Bible.



Interesting, isn't it?

Bob didn't come over last night. He was just too tired. I took my bath early and sat with Missy until 9:30, when I went to bed.

Friday, February 12, 2016

Friday and A Valentine Dinner

I slept really well last night and got up shortly after 5:00.  I decided to go back to exercise class and see if it's any quieter. I have a hard time hearing the tape with all the talking that goes on while we're trying to exercise. Some of those talkers just stop excising  and talk. Why they don't just go somewhere else to visit is beyond me.

Anyhow, after the class, Bob and I went to Utopia for coffee and a dessert cake which we split. Later I came home and made my potato soup.  It was pretty good. I had some sharp cheddar cheese to go with the crackers. We had fruit and cookies for dessert.

Bob is checking his e-mail now. He couldn't get it up so he just shut the computer down. I would have told him to try right clicking on the letter icon in hopes of getting a menu. But he gave up and shut it down first. Next time he will try a right click if the left click doesn't work.

This afternoon, later, I will change into my better clothes and put my red jacket on for tonight's Lion's Club Valentine dinner at The Tavern on the Plaza.  It starts at 6:00 but we won't order until 6:30.

Meanwhile, I have nothing in particular going this afternoon.

More later...

The meal was o.k. It was nothing  to write home about and very expensive. But Bob wanted to go and he wanted me to go with him too.

When I got home I took my bath and continued my usual evening activity.

Thursday, February 11, 2016

Thursday and A Closet Cleaning

I've decided to do it! I am going to go into my two closets and clean out anything that I am not wearing or even intend to wear.  I am going to bag those things up and take them up to the Presbyterian Church for their used clothing sales. I have too much just taking up space.

I slept very well last night. I didn't wake up at all until 4:20. Then I stayed in bed until 5:00. I have had my breakfast and Missy has had hers too. Maybe I can get this project done before I start lunch/dinner. We are going to have spaghetti and ground meat. We will have green beans and coleslaw with it. I have mixed fruit and cookies for dessert.

If I'm going to get that done, I'd better get to it.
Later...

Well I got one large sack of rummage to take to the Presbyterian Church. I'd better get there before I start lunch.

More even later...

I got a bag full of older clothing dropped off at the church and then got home to fix lunch. We had our spaghetti and green beans and coleslaw. Then I took the other dish of it to Bobby and Karan. Karan is having a time!  Bobby who is suffering from a fatal brain tumor is really no longer there. He sits by the hour reading the paper over and over again. At least he's not in pain...at least not yet. His 90 days is up and he is still with us so far. Before I left over there, I asked him to give me his traditional hug. He came alive then and gave me a nice hug. I feel that Bobby also needs some personalized attention...even in his condition.

I came back home afterward and Bob left. He was here doing his laundry after lunch.

I want to try on some of these other old clothes, primarily slacks, and see if they still fit and look alright. If so, I'll keep them and if not, I'll take them up to the Presbyterian Church too.

More later...

I have another large bag of older clothes I can no longer wear to donate. Someone will get some good out of these clothes.

Bob came over this evening to watch the news  and left before 7:00. I took my bath and sat with Missy in the recliner until 9:15 watching the Democratic debate.  Finally, I had to go to bed.

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Wednesday and Bingo at the Senior Center and a Little Politics

I slept very well last night.  I got up about 5:20, made my bed and made up my face and then I put some biscuits in the oven. I had not eaten anything after lunch yesterday so I was really hungry.

I don't have anything going today except lunch and the Bingo games at the senior center.

We will have tuna cakes with boiled potatoes and a veggie for lunch. Bob will bring a salad. I still have cupcakes for dessert.

I wasn't surprised that Hillary lost the New Hampshire race last night. Iowa was so close it was decided by coin tosses.  I don't think she's finished yet though. A president Donald Trump would be a huge disaster for the country. One movie/TV star as president should be enough for the country. Reagan gave us the largest deficits in our history.

The Republican candidates are all determined to get us injected into another full fledged civil war.  One even suggests bombing the area until the sand glows! Good grief!  Someday someone besides President Obama will realize we cannot fight everyone's wars.  For 40 years we have interfered with one country's business or another and got ourselves involved in those unwinnable wars.  Korea, Vietnam and now Afghanistan and Iraq. Those are guerrilla type wars where our army has no idea who their enemy really is.  When we don't learn anything from past history, we are bound to repeat our mistakes.

Sanders seems a nice man but he would want to take us into socialism. It may work for Europe where the countries are the size of one of our states, but it would wreck our economy to try to implement it in a country this large. Congress would never back such a plan. Besides that, he would be the oldest elected president in our history. He's 74. A huge number of Americans have problems with having a Black president. If people are hesitant about voting for a woman for president, I can just imagine how those same people would feel about electing our first Jewish man for president.  There is so much hidden prejudice in America.

Hillary has the experience of being in congress, has been secretary of state and knows the inside of the political system one must have to work with a hostile congress. There's a lot of nonsense going around about her but between factcheck.com and politifact, most all of the nonsense is discounted.

So much for my opinion.....

We will see....

We had our lunch and I read off and on all afternoon. Later sometime after 5:00, Bob came back over and we watched the news. Then he went home and Missy and I watched Nature on PBS. That's her favorite program. She is always fascinated with the animals.

Then we watched Nova, a program about memories. ...many times false memories.  They demonstrated how easy it is to plant false memories in people and thereby discounted a number of witness testimonies that imprisoned a lot of men falsely.

It was very interesting. Sometime after 9:00, we went to bed.

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Tuesday Cake Day and Hair Day and a Little Theology

I did not sleep all that well last night. It may have been the Chai Latte.  I'm not sure how much caffeine that drink has in it.  I may cut back tonight and experiment.  I may get some Sleepy Time tea while we're in Independence this morning.

We will leave at 8:20 to take the cakes to Independence and then go on to my hair appointment at 9:00. After that, we will go out to their Walmart which is a Superstore. Then we will stop at Goody's again just to look around. Finally, after 11:00 we will go to Great China and eat lunch.

When we get back home, I want to go to Bingo at the senior center at 1:00. I don't think Bob will go. He takes a nap in the afternoon.

On another subject...Here is a concept of God that I can accept....

I think that the questions that are often asked are based on a specific concept of God. It is a concept developed over four thousand years ago among people who if we were transported to their civilization would consider very primitive. Their concepts were come by quite honestly and with the best science of their times so we cannot fault them. However, we live in a very different world with a much different understanding of the universe and to accept and defend their concepts of God is problematic for me.

To summarize with a broad brush, they saw their world as finished and complete. They recognized the patterns of day and night and lived through the seasons. Thus for them God was the creator and the methods he used were beyond their comprehension thus they stated that the world was created by God's word or fiat. With this basic assumption and some 'common sense' observations they developed stories of creation that led to both an explanation of why things were the way they were, and also a description of the nature of the God they understood.

From this background the stories of creation make sense. Human beings are obviously the dominant species and thus they were the primary object of God's creation and the world was provided for their benefit. Obviously all creatures produced their own kind and thus must have been created in their presently observable form. This included human beings and they were created in the very image of God. This was an important concept since the reverse was therefore true. God was envisioned as the ultimate human male with magical powers to control the creation as he willed. Thus as we list all the attributes of God we find each of them the superlative of human attributes.

Early in the Israelite tribes, they developed the concept of a God who had chosen them as his special people and with this selection there came a list of requirements to maintain this favored status. One important one was that God could brook no rivals. This explained many of the worship rituals and social laws and the relationship to other tribes.

One of the easily observed characteristics of humans in general is that they were not perfect. Since one cannot accept an ultimate God who created imperfect humans, then the creation story has a 'fall from perfection' to explain the human condition. The next obvious step is that if there was a fall then there must be some plan for a restoration to perfection. This easily developed into God having a plan and that plan including some method of redemption.

Since it had been observed that blood was the essence of life then it became an object of veneration. Animal sacrifice of perfect animals, to present the life blood to God was honed to an art and even human sacrifice was included in early development of worship among their neighbors. Eventually the concept of the mechanism for redemption of mankind from the 'fall' included the idea of a human sacrifice of a perfect human to atone for mankind's sins. While the original Israelites never got to this stage of their religion, the early Christian followers did. In an attempt to explain the crucifixion of Jesus they developed an elaborate scheme where Jesus was the pre-ordained perfect man who was to be sacrificed to atone for the original sin of Adam and to act as a propitiation for the current sins of present generations.

We sit today, after two thousand years with this chain of Jesus redemptive reasoning has led to the orthodox Christian theology. For me, the mystery is that few Christians look at this historical perspective and pause to consider the possibility that with our current understand of the universe that these ancient concept do not fit our reality.

First, we are aware of the events which led to Jesus being crucified. It was the Roman response to someone who proclaimed an alternate social order from Roman rule. Thus we no longer need to explain it in terms of a blood sacrifice.

Second we are aware that the earth is but a speck of dust when compared to the universe and the billions of galaxies, many far larger than our own. This gives us pause when considering our importance in the scheme of things.

Third, we are aware of the creative process, not only of the earth itself, but even of the element of which it along with we are made.

Fourth , we are aware that humankind was not the first or primary life form and we are the result of many millions of years of evolution which in itself was not necessarily destined to produce us in our present form.

Fifth, there is no heavenly throne just outside of the sky where God resides. With what is known of the universe it is impossible to propose an external location for God. The anthropomorphic model of God is increasingly harder to sustain.

Sixth, it is evident that the whole universe is in a state of creation and evolution. Thus there is no evidence of some one time perfect state. Thus the evidence is that perfection is a goal yet to be realized and not a previously lost state. One basic criterion from observations is that change is the nature of the universe and thus is most likely the nature of God.

Seventh, we have two choices in the way that we look at our human predicament. One is that we live in a Godless universe where chance and chaos rules. The other is that there is indeed a God, but we must search for a definition just as those people who lived four thousand years did.

Eighth, I choose to believe that there is a God and start by suggesting that God exists throughout the universe and thus is not identifiable as a super human. I believe that our evidence for the existence of God is in all life forms. I suggest that God is incarnate in all life and that we as humans best observe this incarnation in human life. It might well be that this incarnation is rather primitive with respect to the nature of God throughout the galaxies. But human incarnation is the only contact that we have with God.

Ninth. There is a connection to the ancient stories of Jesus and his proclamation of the establishment of a 'kingdom of God' or the type of society where the God incarnate on this earth can find the fullest expression in the lives of humankind.

Tenth. This leads to a very different view of Jesus and what he taught. It has nothing whatsoever to do with him being the perfect sacrifice for the sins of the world. It sees him as very human as are we. It even sees that in some things he was very wrong in some of his ideas of how God intervenes in this world.

I know this theology isn't for everyone but it's how I see the subject.

Monday, February 8, 2016

Monday and Laundry and House Cleaning

I have the laundry in the washer and dryer. I stripped my bed this morning too. And, again, I am washing Missy's afghans.  They are full of cat hair.

I will remake the bed as soon as the sheets are dry. In the meanwhile, I will work on this blog and drink my coffee. I had some of the leftover coffeecake for breakfast with orange juice and coffee.  That's not too healthy but it's tasty.

I will set the table and get ready for our lunch. We are having chicken tenders, potatoes,  veggies, and Bob's orange salad.  I have fruit and a few cookies for dessert.

I need to bake my cake for the Tuesday dinner at the First Christian church in Independence tomorrow. I may get that done this afternoon. I can ice it this evening.

I got the laundry finished and also got the bathroom and kitchen floors finished. I am waiting for them to dry now. I have the laundry put away and have the two afghans in the dryer now. And I have remade the bed too. Now I will have to vacuum. But I need to wait awhile to do that. My vacuum is very noisy and Jeannie, my neighbor,  sleeps in.

More later...

I've got everything done except the dusting and I'll do that later. I have fixed lunch and we have eaten it. I have even cleaned up after it. Bob is checking his mail on his computer and I am continuing this blog.  He will leave soon and go home to take a nap. He'll be back this evening to watch the news.

More even later...

Bob came over shortly after 5:00 and stayed until almost 7:00. Then I took my bath and Missy and I stayed up until almost 9:00. I had had a huge day and was exhausted so we went on to bed.

Sunday, February 7, 2016

Sunday and Church and then the Superbowl

I slept pretty well last night. I woke up around midnight with heartburn. I lay there for awhile and then finally took a Tums.  I then went to sleep again and awoke at 5:00..when I got up and dressed and got my face made up.

Missy always lies on the bathmat in the bathroom and watches me do my makeup.  I get a bang out of that.  Then she races to the kitchen and the frig waiting for her treats. After that she works on my to put some fresh food in her dish. Even though there is still some in there, she likes a little fresh food for the smell, I think. She then eats her breakfast while I eat mine.

After that, I made my coffeecake for the church school class and my little great granddaughters. They love that coffeecake and look forward to it each Sunday. I got it iced a little bit ago.

After church we will all eat out somewhere....probably El Pueblo.  Then I will come back home and do my Sunday afternoon newsletters.  Later, closer to 5:30, Bob will come over and we will watch the game. He like my TV because it's larger then his and also I have that great Bose system on it that my son, Scott, gave me with the TV and cabinet it sets on after he retired December before last. My kids are all so generous. The sound is terrific. I am sitting here now listening to the Easy Listening music on it.  Cox offers many music channels. I usually listen to Easy Listening.

Missy is in on the daybed in the den.  She is miffed because I wouldn't stay outside with her. She wanted to go out (as usual) but it was pretty cold out there and a truck came by making a lot of noise  and frightened her and she rushed back into the apartment. She is so skittery even since that cat stray attacked her almost three years ago.

More later...

This a is a photo my son, Scott added to his facebook page.It's an idea for the top of the bar. 





Here's another idea....



Six of us went over to Cherryvale to eat at Just Us after church. It was very good and we enjoyed the fellowship.

Now I need to get busy on those newsletters.

I got the newsletter finished and looked at the Worship Helps from my church for next Sunday. I couldn't see too much I could use. It's awfully "spiritual" for me.  I adapted what I could use and discarded the rest.

About 5:00 Bob came over to read the newspaper before the Superbowl starts.

More later...

We watched the entire Superbowl and surprisingly, the Broncos won.  Every commentator I heard had their money on the Panthers.  Bob and I were really glad the Broncos won.  Manning is so gracious and the other quarterback was acting like a sore loser after the game. He didn't even stay for the press conference.  He has a lot to learn about losing gracefully.

After Bob left I waited to see who won the MVP.  Von Miller got it and I felt he deserved it. Then a little after 10:00 I went to bed.