Thoughts

I'm dwelling on a couple passages tonight.

Ezra 9:

9:1 After these things had been done, the officials approached me and said, “The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands with their abominations, from the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. 2 For they have taken some of their daughters to be wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race [1] has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands. And in this faithlessness the hand of the officials and chief men has been foremost.” 3 As soon as I heard this, I tore my garment and my cloak and pulled hair from my head and beard and sat appalled. 4 Then all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the faithlessness of the returned exiles, gathered around me while I sat appalled until the evening sacrifice. 5 And at the evening sacrifice I rose from my fasting, with my garment and my cloak torn, and fell upon my knees and spread out my hands to the Lord my God, 6 saying:

“O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens. 7 From the days of our fathers to this day we have been in great guilt. And for our iniquities we, our kings, and our priests have been given into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plundering, and to utter shame, as it is today. 8 But now for a brief moment favor has been shown by the Lord our God, to leave us a remnant and to give us a secure hold [2] within his holy place, that our God may brighten our eyes and grant us a little reviving in our slavery. 9 For we are slaves. Yet our God has not forsaken us in our slavery, but has extended to us his steadfast love before the kings of Persia, to grant us some reviving to set up the house of our God, to repair its ruins, and to give us protection [3] in Judea and Jerusalem.

10 “And now, O our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken your commandments, 11 which you commanded by your servants the prophets, saying, ‘The land that you are entering, to take possession of it, is a land impure with the impurity of the peoples of the lands, with their abominations that have filled it from end to end with their uncleanness. 12 Therefore do not give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters for your sons, and never seek their peace or prosperity, that you may be strong and eat the good of the land and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever.’ 13 And after all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great guilt, seeing that you, our God, have punished us less than our iniquities deserved and have given us such a remnant as this, 14 shall we break your commandments again and intermarry with the peoples who practice these abominations? Would you not be angry with us until you consumed us, so that there should be no remnant, nor any to escape? 15 O Lord, the God of Israel, you are just, for we are left a remnant that has escaped, as it is today. Behold, we are before you in our guilt, for none can stand before you because of this.”

Psalm 32:

32:1 Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
2 Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

3 For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up [2] as by the heat of summer. Selah

5 I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah

6 Therefore let everyone who is godly
offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found;
surely in the rush of great waters,
they shall not reach him.
7 You are a hiding place for me;
you preserve me from trouble;
you surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah

8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
9 Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding,
which must be curbed with bit and bridle,
or it will not stay near you.

10 Many are the sorrows of the wicked,
but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.
11 Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous,
and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!

Man, I really don't want to be a mule...

My handiness

Are you a handywoman or handyman? Describe the most impressive thing you've built/repaired/duct-taped - this question answered via Plinky.com. Check out this post about what Plinky does...it might help folks like me that never post anything.


The quickest thing that comes to mind would be the thermostat I "MacGyvered" at work a couple years ago. My coworker and I were sitting right beneath the air conditioning vent, the thermostat was getting direct sunlight, and the boss was gone for the day (along with the key to the thermostat). So, I decided to affix plastic bags full of ice to the box around the thermostat. Sure enough, after a few minutes the a/c kicked off and stayed off.


Of course, an hour or so later it started to get somewhat stuffy, and I didn't have a hairdryer to rectify the situation in the same fashion...

106 Books

Chelsea tagged me on this thing, then encouraged me to post it as well.

These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread." As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded, but not to be read. A $ for the ones you own, * for the ones you've read, ** for the ones you read for a class, *** the ones you started but did not finish.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina $
Crime and Punishment $
Catch-22 $
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights $ **
The Silmarillion $ *
Life of Pi
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick **
Ulysses
Madame Bovary **
The Odyssey **
Pride and Prejudice $
Jane Eyre ***
A Tale of Two Cities $
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel
War and Peace $
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Iliad **
Emma $ **
The Blind Assassin
Zatoichi
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Quicksilver Exposition
Wicked $ *
The Canterbury Tales **
The Historian
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault's Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein $
The Count of Monte Cristo $
Dracula $*
A Clockwork Orange *
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno **
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility $
The Picture of Dorian Gray $ ***
Mansfield Park $
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's Travels *
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune $ *
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela's Ashes
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Scarlet Letter $ **
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion $
Northanger Abbey $
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame *
Freakonomics
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid **
Watership Down
Gravity's Rainbow
The Hobbit $ *
In Cold Blood
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers $ *

So, that's it. I guess there are many books out there that I haven't read. I hesitate to tag anyone to follow suit, because I'm pretty sure no one will read this. Clearly, you are reading this however, so feel free.

Election Day

Finally...I'm just ready for this thing to end.


You can track live results here.


Seasons

Baseball season is pretty much over.  The NLCS and ALCS are getting ready to start, but my Cardinals aren't involved (and neither is anyone else in the NL Central...).  On the other side of the spectrum, the Miners have been done for almost a month now.  I'm usually somewhat saddened by the transition from summer to fall, and baseball season to football season.  I love baseball.  This year, however, I find myself wholeheartedly welcoming the change.  This summer was a bit draining, moreso than last summer even.  I'm not sorry to see it go.  I'm enjoying spending more time with Chelsea, though she is busier now with school, work, and myriad activities.


My distaste for politics has ascended to another level, however.  I'm ready for winter already, if only for the end of Election Season.  Can I write in my vote for Dwight Schrute, the no-nonsense candidate America needs?

I love Macs, but...


...I'm still forced to live as a closet PC-user.  Quite literally.




About

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Saint Louis, Missouri
"I quite agree with you," said the Duchess; "and the moral of that is -- 'Be what you would seem to be' -- or, if you'd like it put more simply -- 'Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.'"