Money from God

After a conversation last week with a coworker about childhood Bibles, I went in search this morning for my first full Bible and the little New Testaments I had growing up.  Sadly, I was unable to find them.

They may be in the attic.

It's too hot to go up there.

What I did find, however, was the Bible I was gifted by my church when I graduated High School.  It was a nice little King James Version Bible, embossed with my full name.  Ironically, right before I was given that Bible, I'd purchased an expensive annotated Bible.  I carried the gift Bible to Sunday School to show appreciation for it for several years, until I stopped attending that church, but when I studied, I read my nice, annotated Bible. 

I don't believe I've cracked that gift Bible in well over a decade, although it sits, and has been sitting, on my nightstand for as long as I've owned my house... somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 years.  It was never my choice for reading after the first few years. 

As I opened it, this morning, I noticed a few things inside.  There were the usual items: an old church program, a flier for something 20 years ago... but what really caught my attention were the TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY DOLLARS IN $20 BILLS.  I have no idea where it came from, or how long it has been there.  The latest date on the bills is 2013, so it would've been put there since then.

I certainly don't remember doing it.

My fear is that someone put the money there to see if I was reading 'my Bible', not realizing that wasn't even the Bible I read.  As I sit here, in my den, I see two Bibles I've read in the last 24 hours.  Yeah, I admit, with a bit of shame, I haven't exactly been a regular enough Bible reader for a while, but if I were to want to study or look for something in my Bible, it's unlikely that old gift Bible would've been the one.

Guess someone thinks less of me for not reading that Bible, or maybe they think I just assumed it was money from God and spent it.

Independence and Law

Our Founding Fathers had the revolutionary idea that man shouldn't lord over another man.  They based this on a new philosophy put forward by the likes of men like John Locke who said things like, 

"...law teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions"

If only we'd have kept to these principles and not allowed this logic to be slowly eroded by well-meaning, but ignorant, constituencies and greedy politicians...

In spite of them, Americans have innovated and invented to the extent the world has never seen.

Maybe, if we're diligent enough, and willing to be tested by those ignorant and/or greedy stumbling blocks, we can achieve something even greater in the long run.

Not Bored

One would have to be an unrepentant liar to declare that life is boring.  Too much has occurred too recently to even contemplate that not enough is going on to stay entertained.  Even if that begins to grow tiresome, the internet has everything from history.

Maybe that's too harsh.  Perhaps you could just be lazy or self-absorbed.  Maybe that's what it takes to be genuinely bored, anyway.  

Okay, that's a bit rough on bored folks, as well.  It might simply say more about why you're feeling bored than it does about the world around us.  If you're accustomed to a certain type of entertainment, you might have become less capable of seeing the action in something else.

Likely, what you enjoy has become a little too easy to obtain.  Standards for entertainment change.  Some sort of entertainment tolerance has been built up, and more of the same is required to equal the equal level of boredom repellant.

Fighting boredom propagates our species; humans still exist because we're curious.  "I wonder if I can make fire?"  As long as we exist, we can be sure we can find something to protect us from boredom.

In Awe, Still

Just watched another rocket launch... I think I might've averaged a launch every day this week.  Probably been said many times on this blog, but it's still amazing to see a rocket land... especially on a little barge bobbing up and down in the middle of the ocean.  

You can watch it on a hand-held screen, way back in the woods.  I know.  I did it.

There's really no excuse to not have access to information about the world.  You have to either be so disconnected from reality to not care the rest of the world exists, or just care enough to find out about what directly affects your life to not see the amazing things going on in the world.  It's awe-inspiring.

A Whole Lotta Yeah, Uh-huh

And now, these messages...

That meant the show was over.  Each commercial break before began with, "We'll return after these messages..."  When you heard the, "And now" part, you knew it was almost over; nothing left but the credits.

But you stayed for that, too... that and the closing credit theme.  Usually, some sort of remix of the opening credit theme.  Sometimes, like WKPR, it was a completely different song.  Or something.

Friday Resets

Everybody likes a Friday.  Even when you know you have work to do on a Saturday, Friday still feels good.  It's rare to not find yourself in a good mood, at some point, on a Friday.

I worked a job, for a few years, where I worked 7 days a week.  Even then, Friday felt good.  The weekend hours were different, but not so much that you'd look forward to it.  Friday still felt better than the rest of the week.

It just seems like the air is different on Friday.  People are in a better mood.  The old guy who growls at you at the store says, "Thanks" when you hold the door for him on a Friday.

If it weren't for Fridays, we'd probably lose our minds.  Gotta have that regular reset.

A Night Not Spent

Listening to an airplane pass overhead.  It could be a propeller plane.  Doesn't matter, either way, anymore.  A vehicle passing on a nearby street drowns out everything with unintelligible bass-heavy audio.

Whether we want to admit it or not, there's a limited time for everything.  However they pass, or whatever we did with that time, they pass.  Ends come without a start, many times.  Reasons don't matter.  

Except what you've chosen to do, none of the rest will ever be more than a footnote, at best.  All the pages written about whatever else won't chronicle what's never done.  Remember what you didn't do?  Even if you can, it won't be for more than a few seconds.