Ozark Oddments: September 2018

Monday, September 24, 2018

Lions, tigers, and dragons (?), oh my!

So I got a little carried away teaching Sunday School. We’re doing a good DVD series on prayer, and the “Bible Discovery” part of lesson took us to the end of Job, where Job has been wallowing in self-pity (and rightly so, I think) and demanding that God respond to his theological queries. When God shows up, He does not answer any of Job’s questions, but instead begins asking him questions: “Where were you…"

And I got a off topic a bit. We were supposed to be focusing on Job’s response at the end “I know you can do all things and no thought or purpose of yours can be restrained or thwarted…” . Some in the class may think I got off a little more than that and have well and truly gone off the deep end.

Keep an open mind…

Its snorting throws out flashes of light... flames stream from its mouth; sparks of fire shoot out... smoke pours from its nostrils as from a boiling pot over burning reeds... its breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from its mouth...

What animal comes to mind (the entire passage is Job 41)?

Fire-breathing dragon. Right?

Dragons are part of the folklore and mythology of just about every culture on earth, and I think that is because there were dragons on the earth once upon a time. Men have hunted many animals to extinction, why not dragons?

But then again, perhaps it really is just a crocodile.

Thoughts to ponder

Most of us go through life so absorbed in the cocoon of ourselves that we rarely stop to consider the other. Of course, we think that we do; indeed, we may pride ourselves on our capacity for empathy; we may be considerate and thoughtful in our dealings with others, but how often do we stand before them. so to speak, and experience what it is to be them?--Domenica Macdonald

The Unbearable Lightness of Scones, by Alexander McCall
Smith

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Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering -- because you can't take it in all at once. --Audrey Hepburn

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I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all, I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.--Agatha Christie

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Life can be wildly tragic at times, and I've had my share. But whatever happens to you, you have to keep a slightly comic attitude. In the final analysis, you have got not to forget to laugh.--Katharine Hepburn

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One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship

"Two people... told me that the word "Christian" would turn people off. I wouldn't mind if to be a Christian were accepted as being the dangerous thing which it is. I wouldn't mind if, when a group of Christians meet for bread and wine, we might well be interrupted and jailed for subversive activities. I wouldn't mind if, once again, we were being thrown to the lions. I do mind, desperately, that the word "Christian" means for so many people smugness, and piosity, and holier-than-thoughness. Who, today, can recognize a Christian because of "how those Christians love one another"?--Madeline L'Engle, "A Circle of Quiet"