Too many thoughts . . .

. . .means no posts.  I have been stuck in posting gridlock.  I have started posts and then changed my mind and had too many things going through my head at once to get a coherent post put together.  It is Feast of Tabernacles time.  May you who pay attention to such things have a blessed Succot.  I was going to put a shelter together in my backyard this year, but the cold snap made that somewhat unworkable.  I found myself quite unprepared and being very new to this I am still learning.  This year has been an unusual one for me to say the least.  I am looking forward to the beginning of the Torah readings as I have decided to try and keep up with those this year for the first time in my life.  If you don’t know what I am talking about, you can check out a couple of different sites.  El Shaddai Ministries has audio torah studies that you can listen to for an example.

I have been reading a bunch of stuff at an old site that I used to enjoy.  There is an entire section of the site that deals with the Hebraic concepts of time and eternity.  It may seem out of place to some people, but there are some interesting concepts that I have thought about before.  There are also some neat things there that apply to this festive season.

Well, what do we know? First, says Paul, we know that we now live in an earthly tent. Twice he calls the present body a tent. Tents are usually temporary dwellings. Once I visited a family who lived in a tent in their yard while waiting for their new house to be finished. It wasn’t very comfortable, but they were willing to put up with it until they could move into their real house. This is the case, Paul says, with Christians. They are living temporarily in tents.

Further, he says that in this tent we both groan and sigh. Do you ever listen to yourself when you get up in the morning? Do you ever groan? It is quite evident that the apostle is right, isn’t it? There is the groan of daily experience. Perhaps the tent is beginning to sag. The cords are loosening and the pegs are growing wobbly. There may also be the sigh of expectancy. “We sigh with anxiety,” says the apostle, “not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed.” No one wishes to be disembodied (unclothed), but nevertheless, we do long sometimes for something more than this body offers. We feel its limitations. Have you ever said when invited to do something, “I wish I could; the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”? That is the sigh of anxiety, longing to be further clothed.

The Feast of Tabernacles is a reminder of the temporary nature of our lives.  We aren’t living in a house.  Our body is a tent, a temporary dwelling.  Tabernacles is a reminder that God wants to live with us.  Jesus came and tabernacled among us (John 1).  Someday, we will live in a permanent house, whose builder is God (2 Corinthians 5:14).  I will try and make a more complete posting of these thoughts in the next day or two.

Catching Up

I could say that I have just been very busy, which is true. But I have really meant to update the blog here for some time and just haven’t done it. I will post some pictures from our Arkansas trip at the end of this post. Just a quick couple of notes for those who don’t know. I did finally get a diagnosis for my mystery illness. The specialist that I saw in Grand Forks said that it was probably caused by a Parvovirus B19 infection. If you want to know what that is or more about it, you can follow the link or look it up on your own. Suffice it to say that it is no fun for an adult to have this at all. I had a blood test done in early September as a follow up that basically confirmed that diagnosis, so we are confident that I am basically done with that whole mess. According to what I have read, there are a few of the symptoms that can recur for months(particularly the joint pain is what I have noticed), but I am grateful to put it all behind me. The doctor still wants to run some blood tests to check my liver numbers again, but I don’t know when they will do that. I have to see the doctor at some point this month because my Singulair prescription will run out, but we shall see.
We had a great trip to Arkansas to see family and friends and unfortunately couldn’t see everyone that we wanted to see. Even two weeks just isn’t enough time to do everything you want to do. It was a little warm for my taste though. We went through and entire summer here without ever seeing 90 degrees and it was already into the 60s most days by the time we left, so it was like hitting summer all over again with the weather there(except it was far more muggy than most of our summer).

Here is a shot of Amelia’s family with the kids and me in the middle of it all.

Here are the kids with my parents.

This is me on the tee at Stonebridge Meadows in Fayetteville. I had a fun time playing a round with Doug that morning and he was kind enough to take this picture for me.

Thanks to the fact that my birthday follows the annual National Talk Like a Pirate Day; I was able to also participate in my sister’s annual crazy piratey party. It was a lot of fun.

I was also able to see the Hogs play on my birthday this year. It had been five years since Gina and I had gone to see a game together. This game was not very memorable, but I had a good time and the Marching Razorback band rocked the house by doing the Thriller dance during their show. Man, I miss playing in the band sometimes.