Lights

LIGHTS

Deena and I are planning a trip to Maine in May.  There are many reasons we enjoy excursions to “The Pine Tree State.”  There is the sheer charm and natural diversity of the state, the seafood cuisine, Maine’s culture and history, the rocky, rugged shores and, of course, the many lighthouses that dot the coast of the state.  The coast of Maine, itself, is barely 230 miles long as the crow flies, but if you include the many navigable channels, bays and inlets...

When God came to Ireland

WHEN GOD CAME TO IRELAND

In this post, I’d like to share when God came to Ireland. In the beginning, in Ériu, in Éire, long before the land was dubbed Ireland and before the birth of Christ, there were the Celts.  This group traces their beginnings to 1,200 B.C. and they were predominantly in four countries of Europe; France, Spain, Britain and Ireland. The influence of the Celts was pervasive, militant, and it took Julius Caesar six years to conquer then (if he ever truly did.) The Celtic...

Second Amendment Blues

SECOND AMENDMENT BLUES

This is a common sense appeal to ban the sale and eventual possession of assault weapons in the U.S. for other than law enforcement and military uses. It also supports a ban on those aftermarket accessories such as bump stocks that enhance the lethality of unmodified weapons. It does not impede or criminalize the possession of other weapons typically used for self-defense, hunting or sport shooting within federal and state laws. Assault weapons that are privately owned can be retrieved...

What I've learned about grieving

WHAT I’VE LEARNED ABOUT GRIEVING

This is a post on grief.  Sooner or later we all encounter grief if we live long enough.  Some people might say that all they know is grief.  But this is the sort of grief that most people are exposed to in our society and culture. Grieving (and healing) very often involves pain.  In fact, it’s the emotional pain that you feel that may indicate that there is a problem in the first place.  Healing is also often best if it progresses from the “inside...

Kepler 131b

KEPLER 131 B

This is the fifth planet I’ve discussed in terms of exobiology and the search for life. Other posts include Kepler 16, Wolf 359, PSR B1257+12 b, and PSO J318.5−22, a Rogue Planet. One of these planets I mentioned circles a dwarf star, another a red giant, another a pulsar and still another no star at all. In the process I’ve added discussions on alien DNA, and alternatives (to carbon) bases for life (e.g. ammonia, silicon, barium and so on), and I’ve...

Lyin' Eyes

LYIN’ EYES

Super Tuesday, the biggest political event in the presidential primary season is upon us. If past is prologue, expect a greater turnout among people who identify as republican than those who identify as democrat.  Expect a large evangelical turnout. Expect that Nikki Haley, for all her grit and gumption will lose every event on Tuesday.  And expect that many self-described but utterly discredited “prophets” will dust off their failed predictions of 2020 to state what is clear to most Americans already:  That Donald...

Unnatural selection

UNNATURAL SELECTION

I received an article in my inbox overnight from Medium, written by Harvard Astrophysicist Avi Loeb called “What Does Extraterrestrial Intelligence Look Like?  Professor Loeb, who sits on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), is perhaps best known for his work on the Galileo Project and the search for extraterrestrial life (specifically, evidence of alien technology on Earth.)  The premise of his work is that the Earth may have been visited in the distant past by extraterrestrials or interdimensional beings, and that...

Ashes to ashes

ASHES TO ASHES

  • February 24, 2024
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  • Faith

This post concerns some fundamental themes in God’s creation of Adam and Eve (including rabbinic traditions of Eden), sin and repentance, and death. I want to focus specifically on the final hours of a person’s life in this existence and what immediately lies beyond the veil as far as we mortals can know. The familiar funeral term “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” does not come from the Bible as such, but from the Anglican Book of Common prayer. However,...

A penny for your thoughts

A PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS

The idiom “a penny for your thoughts” can be traced back to Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) who first mentioned it in “The Four Last Things,” an unfinished work written circa 1535 and published after his death:   Thomas More, a devout Catholic who resisted the Protestant Reformation in England and who was eventually beheaded (and subsequently canonized), intended to imply that when a person seems lost in thought or distracted, it was fitting to offer them a penny if they would explain...

Numbers

NUMBERS

  • February 21, 2024
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  • Faith

The item in the photo should be familiar to many of us, though it is not widely used anymore. It would be familiar to Jesus, and his disciple Matthew who likely owned one of his own, since he was a tax collector. The item is an abacus which predates Christianity by many centuries. There are also various versions of this instrument used in counting. For example, it may have been more convenient in the Old West to use knots in...