. . . And then there was light
There are times – not too often, but it happens – when I want to have a whole crowd of people in, and I regret not having a larger place. Every morning when I get up, the view takes my breath away. You would think it is the same old/same old, but every day is different. One day, the sea may be like glass, another day with white caps. One day the sky is crystal clear, the next, there may be a sandstorm, and I am surrounded by orange light. One day, we even saw dolphins lazily swimming by.
Our window on the world is a never ending thrill.
99.9% of the time, I am content – even more than content. This morning, circumstances once again conspired to have me up before sunrise. Wooo Hooooo! I can always take a nap later.
You might get tired of my sunrise photos, but I never get tired of taking them!
The still, quiet world just before dawn – wouldn’t you like to be out in these boats while the fish are biting?
And then . . . a miracle happens!
I think that band that gives the photo the darkness is actually a low lying cloud of pollution, but it makes for more dramatic photos. This is the actual photo. There is no retouching, resizing . . . It is the photo just as it appeared.
WeatherUnderground for Kuwait tells me the temperatures are dropping! Only 113° F. /45°C today! And dropping down to 82°F/28°C tonight! Feel the frost in the air! 😉
The Wrong Kind of Attention
Yep. If I wanted people to notice me, I would buy a yellow – orange car. Statistically, they are the easiest to see, and the color people most notice. Think fire trucks (in many countries, not here) and taxis – yellow grabs the eye.
Maybe that’s not enough. Maybe we want to be really really really sure people see us. Aha! Let’s put “Terrorist” on the spare cover, in big letters!
It got my attention.
I am guessing it is some band or something.
I am also guessing that it could get a lot of the wrong kind of attention. Yeh, some people just don’t have any sense of humor. Go figure.
Against the Law?
From today’s Arab Times of course, because the Kuwait Times can’t find a way to get themselves back on line (!)
Woman in fireman’s outfit: Police are looking for an unidentified young woman who was reportedly seen dressed in a fireman’s outfit and driving a vehicle similar to the one used by firemen, reports Al-Watan daily. An unidentified person informed the police when he saw the woman parking her vehicle outside the Al-Sabah Maternity Hospital and walking inside the hospital. Police waited for the woman to return to the car but she did not show up. It has been reported this is not the first time the woman was seen riding the vehicle and wearing a fireman’s uniform.
I suppose it might be suspicious to be wearing fireman clothes and driving a vehicle that might appear to be an official fire vehicle . . . but a crime? I’m sorry, I can’t help it, I love stories like this and wish I knew the rest of the story!
“Alien Babies!”
“Whaja think of the storm?” the young man asked me, as he dusted the magazines with a feather duster.
“Oh, wow!” I said. “I thought it would go on forever! How long did it last?”
“I don’t know,” he responded, “but it WAS a long time, and it was right overhead! Hey, this can’t be right. . . it says George Bush is involved in some kind of divorce!” He was dusting one of the tabloids.
“Naaahhh.” I said, waiting for my turn in line. “Sometimes they even write about alien babies being born. You know that can’t be right.”
He stood, transfixed.
“Alien babies?” he half whispered in astonishment. “No! Not really!”
“Yes! really!” I said, “and you know that can’t be true.”
“No!” he said. “No alien babies!” and then under his breath “alien babies!” half in wonder. He followed me around the store, from time to time saying in wonder “alien babies!”
Albertson’s supermarket hires mildly retarded adults to work as baggers and cleaners. These young people are trained to greet the customers, to accompany them to the cars if they have a basket, to unload groceries and generally to make the customer feel welcome.
I always feel welcome. These young people love their jobs, love being a part of the community, and they take great pride in doing their jobs well. God bless Albertsons for this enlightened hiring and training policy.
What’s in Your Toolbox?
What do you give a young adult, graduating high school, who has just about everything he wants? What do you give him that he doesn’t even know he wants?
It was Christmas, and we were trying to figure out what to give our son. We eventually decided on a tool box, and we had a lot of fun filling it – hammers, fasteners, screw drivers and Phillips screw drivers in various sizes, nails, putty, screws, a level, a measuring tape . . . he like it, but he was a little underwhelmed.
Until he got to college. At the end of the first week, when he called us, we could hear the joyful confidence in his voice.
“Guess what!” he said. It wasn’t really a question, he was going to tell us.
“No-one else has a tool-box here! All the other kids need help putting their bunks together (there was some smart entrepreneur who was marketing loft-like bunk beds and room-customizing kits to all the incoming students, making, I am willing to bet, a fortune) and I’m the one with the tool box!”
We could hear the smile on his face.
And isn’t that life? The more tools you have in your toolbox, the better equipped you are to handle what life throws at you? Even the unexpected – if you have the right tools.
For me, those tools have been varied.
• Reading books has introduced me to new ways of thinking.
• Learning foreign languages gives me different perspectives.
• Living in foreign countries helps conquer ignorant ideas about people of other cultures.
• I can eat a wide variety of cuisines without fear
• I can swim, use a rifle, cook, and speak in public without my voice quavering
• I can laugh. Thanks be to God.
All these tools have been acquired, some, like patience and kindness, at great price.
So what are your tools? What has helped you deal with what life throws your way? What tools have you grown to deal with life’s challenges?
A Day at Home Depot
Those of you who read this blog regularly know I have a thing about hardware stores . . . Lowe’s, Home Depot, Ace . . .I can spend hours.
Right now, however, we are doing some renovations on a Florida house, and oh! I am learning so much. I am learning that the very best contractor can’t guarantee that a project will be brought in during the time he promised, that supply lines get kinked, that when you think you have made a very complicated decision (like what kind of counter top you want) it branches into a whole lot more decisions (electrical outlets, wall treatment, edge treatment, sink choice, faucet choices, hauling away and tearing out of original fixtures, plumbing fixtures. . . ) and oh, my head was swimming. It took two hours just to arrange something I smugly thought I had thought through.
Thank God there are people who know a lot more than I do, and who can make me face the tough questions.
As I was leaving the Home Depot, the skies broke loose and water poured down. I waited at the entrance about half an hour, thinking it would lighten up. When it lightened – a little – I ran to the car, but was totally soaked, shoes, clothing, hair – there wasn’t a try spot on me. And the rain continued to pour down. I thought of how badly Pensacola needs this rain, and how welcome rain is in Kuwait, and Doha, when it comes. I sat in the car another half hour, as the rain was flooding through the parking lot, and you couldn’t see very far.
As I was working with the counter-guy, he asked me how I liked living in Kuwait.
I told him I liked it.
“What are the people like?” he asked.
They are good neighbors,” I replied, “A lot like the people in Pensacola. They are believers. They are kind, and generous in spirit. And Kuwait has it’s own beauty, you just have to open your eyes to seeing things in a different way.”
I didn’t tell him about you, my blogging friends, because I’m not sure he is familiar with blogging. And because even here, I treasure my privacy.
Finally, the rain lightened enough for me to drive, very slowly, home, trying to avoid places in the roads where the drains were stopped up or clogged, and water was a foot deep or so. Made it home safely, al hamdallah!
News from Florida
In Kuwait, the free press is still very cautious. They might hint at a story, they might give a few details, but they are still cautious about crimes which in other countries would be a matter of public record.
Here is a very sad story from the Florida news scene today:
State Representative Arrested for Prostitution Charge
State Representative Bob Allen was arrested Wednesday after offering to perform oral sex for $20 on an undercover male police officer, authorities said.
Veteran’s Memorial Park was under surveillance when Allen, Republican – Merritt Island, was seen coming in and out of a restroom three times. . . Allen, 48, then approached an undercover officer and was arrested.
He has been charged with solicition for prostitution, which has a maximum penalty of one year in jail. Brevard County officials said Allen posted a $500 bond.
For my Kuwait readers, a state representative is an elected official who helps make the laws. The Republican party is considers itself the guardian of public morals. So there is some irony in this story, as well as infinite sadness.
Burner Phone
As soon as I arrived, I turned on my “burner” phone, which I bought the last time I travelled in the US. This phone is also called a “throw-down” phone; people in illegal trades use them all the time. They cost like $14.95 and you buy minutes for them.
Unlike the expensive phone I have been buying a new chip for almost every time I come to the US, this phone powers right up after almost three months of never being used, has full power, still has the same number, which I discover is good until NOVEMBER, and even though I dropped it into the cat’s fresh water the first day I bought it, it works. It works.
How can something so cheap be so sturdy and so functional? It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of my more expensive phones, but it does everything I need it to do – I can make and receive calls, I can make my own phone book, I can speed dial . . .
and it makes me laugh to think I have a drug dealer phone. Hee heee heee, too funny.
Saturday Off Again
I thought it was a done deal. I am still learning how things are done in Kuwait! this is a tiny article in today’s Kuwait Times:
Saturday off decision deferred
KUWAIT: Official sources disclosed that the Cabinet decided to postpone implementing a decision officiating Saturday as the day off instead of Thursday because the final decision needed further studies, reported Al-Qabas.
They said that the previous decision which stipulated Saturday being a day off starting from the beginning of September was postponed due to parliamentary pressure on the Cabinet in dropping the decision.
Several organizations have reorganized their schedules to accomodate the “new” workweek and will be re-scheduling. I bet the schools are going wild. This postponement sounds indefinite – meaning like it’s off again permanently.
The Nativity of John the Baptist
This will be a long, technical post that you can skip if religious matters don’t interest you. It is aimed at my colleagues who enjoy comparing points of religion.
This week, we celebrated the feast of the birth of St. John, known as The Baptist. There were several scriptural readings (see below which is from the online Lectionary on my blogroll)
We had a reading I hadn’t heard before:
An account of the mercy of thy Lord bestowed upon his servant Zachariah, when he called upon his lord in low tones, praying: My Lord, my very bones have become feeble and my head has turned hoary with age, but never have my supplications to Thee, Oh Lord, remained unfruitful. I am apprehensive of the behavior of my relations after my death, and my wife is barren. I beg Thee, therefore, do Thou bestow upon me from Thyself a successor to be my heir and to be the heir of the blessings of the House of Jacob; and to make him one who should be pleasing in Thy sight, O Lord . . . .
(it tells of Johns conception and birth)
We commanded Yahya (John): Hold fast the Book; and we bestowed upon him wisdom while he was still young, as a token of tenderness from Ourself and to purify him. He grew up righteous, and was dutiful towards his parents and was not haughty or rebellious. Peace was on him on the day of his birth, and on the day of his death, and peace will be on him on the day he will be raised up to life again.
As I am hearing this reading, I am thinking “I am pretty familiar with our scriptures, and while it sounds familiar, I don’t think I have ever heard this reading before,” and I thought maybe it was from one of the less often read books that not all churches agree is part of the scripture.
And then – the reader said “This reading on John is from the Qu’ran.”
I was amazed. First – I had no idea John was mentioned in the Qu’ran. I know Jesus is in the Qu’ran, and my Saudi women friends told me Jesus’ name is in there more than the name of the Prophet Mohammed. (Peace be upon all the prophets!) But I had no idea John was in the Qu’ran, Chapter 19, which is called the book of Maryam, and also tells of the life and ministry of Jesus.
Second – I’ve never heard the Qu’ran read in a Christian church service before, but why not? It added, not subtracted, from our understanding of John. I thought it was pretty cool.
Here is what our Lectionary has to say about John the Baptist:
THE BIRTH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST
(24 JUNE NT)
Our principal sources of information about John the Baptist are
(1) references to his birth in the first chapter of Luke,
(2) references to his preaching and his martyrdom in the Gospels, with a few references in Acts, and
(3) references in Josephus to his preaching and martyrdom, references which are consistent with the New Testament ones, but sufficiently different in the details to make direct borrowing unlikely.
According to the Jewish historian Josephus (who wrote after 70 AD), John the Baptist was a Jewish preacher in the time of Pontius Pilate (AD 26-36). He called the people to repentance and to a renewal of their covenant relation with God. He was imprisoned and eventually put to death by Herod Antipas (son of Herod the Great, who was king when Jesus was born) for denouncing Herod’s marriage to Herodias, the wife of his still-living brother Philip. In order to marry Herodias, Herod divorced his first wife, the daughter of King Aretas of Damascus, who subsequently made war on Herod, a war which, Josephus tells us, was regarded by devout Jews as a punishment for Herod’s murder of the prophet John.
In the Book of Acts, we find sermons about Jesus which mention His Baptism by John as the beginning of His public ministry (see Acts 10:37; 11:16; 13:24). We also find accounts (see Acts 18:24; 19:3) of devout men in Greece who had received the baptism of John, and who gladly received the full message of the Gospel of Christ when it was told them.
Luke begins his Gospel by describing an aged, devout, childless couple, the priest Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth. As Zechariah is serving in the Temple, he sees the angel Gabriel, who tells him that he and his wife will have a son who will be a great prophet, and will go before the Lord “like Elijah.” (The Jewish tradition had been that Elijah would herald the coming of the Messiah = Christ = Annointed = Chosen of God.) Zechariah went home, and his wife conceived. About six months later, Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary, a kinswoman of Elizabeth, and told her that she was about to bear a son who would be called Son of the Most High, a king whose kingdom would never end. Thus Elizabeth gave birth to John, and Mary gave birth six months later to Jesus.
After describing the birth of John, Luke says that he grew, and “was in the wilderness until the day of his showing to Israel.” The people of the Qumran settlement, which produced the Dead Sea Scrolls, sometime use the term “living in the wilderness” to refer to residing in their community at Qumran near the Dead Sea. Accordingly, it has been suggested that John spent some of his early years being educated at Qumran.
All of the gospels tell us that John preached and baptized beside the Jordan river, in the wilderness of Judea. He called on his hearers to repent of their sins, be baptized, amend their lives, and prepare for the coming of the Kingship of God. He spoke of one greater than himself who was to come after. Jesus came to be baptized, and John told some of his disciples, “This is the man I spoke of.” After His baptism by John, Jesus began to preach, and attracted many followers. In fact, many who had been followers of John left him to follow Jesus. Some of John’s followers resented this, but he told them: “This is as it should be. My mission is to proclaim the Christ. The groomsman, the bridegroom’s friend, who makes the wedding arrangements for the bridegroom, is not jealous of the bridegroom. No more am I of Jesus. He must increase, and I must decrease.” (John 3:22-30)
John continued to preach, reproving sin and calling on everyone to repent. King Herod Antipas had divorced his wife and taken Herodias, the wife of his (still living) brother Philip. John rebuked him for this, and Herod, under pressure from Herodias, had John arrested, and eventually beheaded. He is remembered on some calendars on the supposed anniversary of his beheading, 29 August.
When John had been in prison for a while, he sent some of his followers to Jesus to ask, “Are you he that is to come, or is there another?” (Matthew 11:2-14) One way of understanding the question is as follows: “It was revealed to me that you are Israel’s promised deliverer, and when I heard this, I rejoiced. I expected you to drive out Herod and the Romans, and rebuild the kindom of David. But here I sit in prison, and there is no deliverance in sight? Perhaps I am ahead of schedule, and you are going to throw out the Romans next year. Perhaps I have misunderstood, and you have a different mission, and the Romans bit will be done by someone else. Please let me know what is happening.”
Jesus replied by telling the messengers, “Go back to John, and tell him what you have seen, the miracles of healing and other miracles, and say, ‘Blessed is he who does not lose faith in me.'” He then told the crowds: “John is a prophet and more than a prophet. He is the one spoken of in Malachi 3:1, the messenger who comes to prepare the way of the LORD. No man born of woman is greater than John, but the least in the Kingdom of God is greater than John.”
This has commonly been understood to mean that John represents the climax of the long tradition of Jewish prophets looking forward to the promised deliverance, but that the deliverance itself is a greater thing. John is the climax of the Law. He lives in the wilderness, a life with no frills where food and clothing are concerned. He has renounced the joys of family life, and dedicated himself completely to him mission of preaching, of calling people to an observance of the law, to ordinary standards of virtue. In terms of natural goodness, no one is better than John. But he represents Law, not Grace. Among men born of woman, among the once-born, he has no superior. But anyone who has been born anew in the kingdom of God has something better than what John symbolizes. (Note that to say that John symbolizes something short of the Kingdom is not to say that John is himself excluded from the Kingdom.)
Traditionally, the Birth of Jesus is celebrated on 25 December. That means that the Birth of John is celebrated six months earlier on 24 June. The appearance of Gabriel to Mary, being assumed to be nine months before the birth of Jesus, is celebrated on 25 March and called the Annunciation, and the appearance of Gabriel to Zechariah in the Temple is celebrated by the East Orthodox on 23 September. At least for Christians in the Northern Hamisphere, these dates embody a rich symbolism. (NOTE: Listmembers living in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, southern South America, or elsewhere in the Southern Hemisphere, press your delete keys NOW!) John is the last voice of the Old Covenant, the close of the Age of Law. Jesus is the first voice of the New Covenant, the beginning of the Age of Grace. Accordingly, John is born to an elderly, barren woman, born when it is really too late for her to be having a child, while Jesus is born to a young virgin, born when it is really too early for her to be having a child. John is announced (and conceived) at the autumnal equinox, when the leaves are dying and falling from the trees. Jesus is announced (and conceived) at the vernal equinox, when the green buds are bursting forth on the trees and there are signs of new life everywhere. John is born when the days are longest, and from his birth on they grow steadily shorter. Jesus is born when the days are shortest, and from his birth on they grow steadily longer. John speaks truly when he says of Jesus, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
(Of course, it is to be noted that none of this symbolism proves anything, since the Scriptures do not tell us that Jesus was born on 25 December. The symbolism of the dates is used by Christians, not as evidence, but as material for the devout imagination.)
FIRST LESSON: Isaiah 40:1-11
(Isaiah speaks of someone who will cry out, “Prepare the way of the LORD.”)
PSALM 85
(The long exile is over, God has retored his people, mercy and truth are reconciled.)
SECOND LESSON: Acts 13:14b-26
(Paul preaches about Christ, and how the prophets, including John the Baptist, all pointed forward to him.)
THE HOLY GOSPEL: Luke 1:57-80
(The birth of John the Baptist; his father Zechariah’s song of praise.)
by James Kiefer
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