Friday, April 10, 2015

Malibu morning picture of the day - Friday, April 10, 2015

Dear Family, Friends, and Gentle Readers,

Another Friday is here and so is the picture of the day.



















As of posting it's 57F in Malibu, going up about another 10 degrees today, but warming and sunny through the weekend and into next week into the 70s.

And here's the second look.

Earlier this week I made a post about the names of god as related in a 19th century hymn.

This reminded me of a Sunday School teacher I had, many decades ago as a child. She had, as many American Christians do, an interesting mash-up of orthodox evangelical theology and magical thinking. She taught that when you prayed, study of the Old Testament knowledge was really important because you had to invoke the appropriate name of God for your prayers to be effective.

Mars
For instance, if you were asking for comfort or assurance or to get a nice pat on the back (not her words), you would pray to Adonai. If you need help from the biggest bad-ass/destroyer of enemies version of God, you would pray to El Shaddai.

I was too stupid a kid to ask, but you wonder what would happen if you enlisted the wrong God to help you with your particular issue. Her conception of God almost seemed polytheistic to me in retrospect.

Vulcan
Like, what would happen if you asked Mars to help you with your love life? I'm suspecting that you'd wind up either a) going to jail for sexual assault, b) starting having to add a stop at the BDSM store in addition to the trip to the pharmacy for protective devices, or c) both.

I guess I should NOT discount Mars' ability to help you with love though. According to painters, he had no problem getting the attention of Venus.

She only "cheated" with Mars though. She always went back to and stayed married to her reliable, boring, nice-guy husband Vulcan--you know him, the guy skillful at making beautiful and useful things. I feel sorry for him, but I like him because I'm a Vulcan, not a Mars.

 "He looks taller in his armor, but I guess he does look pretty good with his shirt off," says Venus.

















But as always, I digress.

God bless that teacher of mine. I doubt that she ever ran her lessons on invoking the proper names of God by the Sunday School superintendent at that conservative Presbyterian church I went to, but she was one of the kindest people in my unhappy childhood of that time. It was enough that I learned to pray once a day (sometimes more) let alone learn all of the right names.

Have a great weekend people. What's that? You gotta work on your taxes? Take my advice, hire it out. Enrolled Agents' and tax CPAs' kids gotta eat too.

Love,
Pops


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