In Sunday school, we were given a rewritten Bible for children to help us understand all the stories. It left out some of the juicier aspects of the Bible.I had plenty of questions that the teacher patiently tried to answer. I always missed the point of the lessons. I thought the serpent made a good argument to Eve about obtaining knowledge versus blind obedience. Obviously blind obedience was preferred to constant questioning. I looked for stories that had female heroines. Well there was Esther...
I wondered aloud why the Biblical patriarchs seemed only to father sons? Well they probably had daughters too but rarely were they of interest.
The story that raised the most questions for me was that of Job. Job had been blessed with many children, wives, servants(slaves?) and livestock and he was suitably grateful to God. But then Satan somehow talked God into a bet to show that when the chips were down, Job would not be all that grateful anymore. Why did God get into a bet with the Devil? Shouldn't He be above that?
Disasters began to befall Job. All the livestock died; all the servants perished; then the wives and then the children. And then Job himself was covered with painful sores. But what upset me the most was the death of the children, what a weak reason for them to die.
The point as I was told was that Job never lost his faith. All that he lost was then replaced with newer and better. Better children? More numerous children? I felt bad for the first children.
My friend has a daughter-in-law with an unusual name. I was told that it is the name of one of Job's daughters. First set or second set?
I looked this up. The names of the second set of daughters were given. In a unusual move, Job decided to give these three daughters an inheritance. This was not discussed in my Sunday school class Some groups use that to show that God meant for the sexes to be equal. There are organizations called Job's Daughters.
We were spared the tornadoes that swept the Midwest but strong winds battered our house all night. I am glad that today is a day off of running.
About a year ago, when we bought Naomi's wedding dress, we were told that it would include a free sale rack dress. I had forgotten about that until recently. Will they still honor that? We went there yesterday to claim this dress from a bunch of samples. Samples are generally size ten, big for Naomi but she was able to find a slinky black number that will need only very minor adjustments. What struck me though was the bizarre gyrations she went through to make sure I didn't see her body. Junior high aged kids guard their bodies carefully..no one is going to see what they have. I assumed after childbirth and being close to 21, Naomi's guard would be let down. She must be hiding something. Yep I guessed it, a silly tattoo. As she pointed out, it is her body. At least it isn't usually visible. Sigh....
They had a few fancy dresses for children that we could have gotten instead. In particular, there was a beautiful peach taffeta number that had sold for $250. It was in a weird size, Size 5. This was too far in the future to for Naomi to imagine Maya wearing it. Well when Ms. Maya is ten or so, I have a beautiful never been worn dress for her that I had spent more for than my own wedding dress. We still have the $5 back-up flower girl dress, size 24 months (she wore the 18 months version) for Maya or her cousin, Ms. Baby Girl to wear.
This was Ms. Maya's first trip out in a while as she recovers from her virus. Still raspy and crabby. She is making more of an attempt to copy our spoken words.
Shortly after Naomi left, a Mom called for an impromptu Happy Hour. I just had been there the night before..the staff must think I am quite the barfly. We ended up back at my house drinking shots of the elephant fruit liquor. Fun.
I wondered aloud why the Biblical patriarchs seemed only to father sons? Well they probably had daughters too but rarely were they of interest.
The story that raised the most questions for me was that of Job. Job had been blessed with many children, wives, servants(slaves?) and livestock and he was suitably grateful to God. But then Satan somehow talked God into a bet to show that when the chips were down, Job would not be all that grateful anymore. Why did God get into a bet with the Devil? Shouldn't He be above that?
Disasters began to befall Job. All the livestock died; all the servants perished; then the wives and then the children. And then Job himself was covered with painful sores. But what upset me the most was the death of the children, what a weak reason for them to die.
The point as I was told was that Job never lost his faith. All that he lost was then replaced with newer and better. Better children? More numerous children? I felt bad for the first children.
My friend has a daughter-in-law with an unusual name. I was told that it is the name of one of Job's daughters. First set or second set?
I looked this up. The names of the second set of daughters were given. In a unusual move, Job decided to give these three daughters an inheritance. This was not discussed in my Sunday school class Some groups use that to show that God meant for the sexes to be equal. There are organizations called Job's Daughters.
We were spared the tornadoes that swept the Midwest but strong winds battered our house all night. I am glad that today is a day off of running.
About a year ago, when we bought Naomi's wedding dress, we were told that it would include a free sale rack dress. I had forgotten about that until recently. Will they still honor that? We went there yesterday to claim this dress from a bunch of samples. Samples are generally size ten, big for Naomi but she was able to find a slinky black number that will need only very minor adjustments. What struck me though was the bizarre gyrations she went through to make sure I didn't see her body. Junior high aged kids guard their bodies carefully..no one is going to see what they have. I assumed after childbirth and being close to 21, Naomi's guard would be let down. She must be hiding something. Yep I guessed it, a silly tattoo. As she pointed out, it is her body. At least it isn't usually visible. Sigh....
They had a few fancy dresses for children that we could have gotten instead. In particular, there was a beautiful peach taffeta number that had sold for $250. It was in a weird size, Size 5. This was too far in the future to for Naomi to imagine Maya wearing it. Well when Ms. Maya is ten or so, I have a beautiful never been worn dress for her that I had spent more for than my own wedding dress. We still have the $5 back-up flower girl dress, size 24 months (she wore the 18 months version) for Maya or her cousin, Ms. Baby Girl to wear.
This was Ms. Maya's first trip out in a while as she recovers from her virus. Still raspy and crabby. She is making more of an attempt to copy our spoken words.
Shortly after Naomi left, a Mom called for an impromptu Happy Hour. I just had been there the night before..the staff must think I am quite the barfly. We ended up back at my house drinking shots of the elephant fruit liquor. Fun.
3 comments:
okay - I 'give"...what the heck is elephant fruit liquor??
I have the same question...
The liquor from South Africa is called Amarula using the marula fruit which tastes nutty. Elephants travel long distances just to eat these fruit so that is why it is called Elephant fruit as there are some hungry elephants under the trees.
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