| | I'd like to think others see me as a fungi... get it?
Leviticus 13 [link]
The pun "could not be avoided." My apologies up front. 
I suppose before starting, really... I think this one's my "favorite:"
"if the itch has not spread, there is no yellow hair in it, and it looks
as if the itch is only skin deep, the person must shave, except for the
itch"
Anyway, there seems to be a common theme popping up with almost every one of these (un)clean procedures. Double check it. Rarely does it say, "Check it once, and if it looks bad then send them out!" Only in very specific, rare cases does it say that. Generally those are the easy ones to call, though (open sores all over the place, pussy wounds leaking everywhere... gee, tough call there if they're contagious...). We know this today, though I'd assume common sense would say those are the ones who are probably to be tread carefully around.
There's a ton of different ways I could take this chapter, but I only have time for 1. For the sake of maybe not getting to talk of the others tomorrow or the day after (since I don't know Leviticus by heart and haven't looked ahead -- go figure) I'll list some of my "honorable mention" ideas/topics here, now though for those of you who may be just raring to think about some sweet Levitical action on your own  :
- Jesus came to seek and save the lost. He came to heal (for) the sick. How do we reconcile God then telling people to go off and be alone while they're sick, then?
- I wonder if yelling "Unclean!" would make them think about their sickness. Now metaphorically translate sickness into sin. Now think of how we treat our own sin today in the church (shhh! Don't say anything which might lead others to think you're not perfect!)
- I wonder if the unclean ever "banded together" and bonded together outside the city. What rammifications might that have later / lead to?
Sorry guys -- keep trying and maybe next year you'll get another shot at the "Leviticus 13 Emmy."
This year's winner is, as listed above, double-checking. Generally, this falls under the category of:
- Priest checks, quarantines the person, checks again a week later
- Priest checks, pronounces clean, person finds they must go back again soon thereafter due to spreading
Now let's do something weird and replace "boil/sore/mold" with sin, and priest with "God." This would leave us with [and realize there needs to be a bit of liberty here -- the point is just trying to form right now]...
- God checks, quarantines the person, and checks again a week later. If the sin's still there, we have an issue. If it's not there, then you're clean.
- God checks, pronounces us clean, but soon we see sin spreading and we need to go back and get checked again.
So clearly any sin is sin. This does not imply, to me, that if we sin once and never again that we're okay. I think we need to shift our perception a bit to get the truth out of this. Say you like video games (hey, I do!). Say you spend a LOT of time on a new video game (hey.... I do...). Someone says you're spending too much time on it. So, you go to God and check it out. You say, "God. Hey. Umm... am I spending too much time on this game?"
So what happens? God puts you into a holding cell. lol, j/k. You allow God to check you out for the next week. If you find you don't have to spend every hour on it in your day, then I'd say God finds you checked as clean. Nope -- no sin on turning the video game into an idol. Now if you come back and find all you did was play the game... well, then God says, "We do have an issue, here."
I think we can draw that kind of truth out of this -- that when someone says, "I think there's an issue with you doing ______" we can take it to God and learn about it by examining ourself for a week (or some set time period -- a week seems good).
This still only scratches the topic, though. Here we learn the art of double-checking. We don't take what may look like sin and claim it's sin right off the bat. We wait and let sin expose itself, proving itself there. We don't jump to conclusions. Here we also see we get the opinion of someone trusted -- the priest in this case, but it probably doesn't necessarily always have to be your pastor (though I'd guess he's probably a good choice). If you look closely, you can't hide sin. There's residue all over it, and a 24/7 watcher can easily catch most of the ones which have any sort of external clue (which is a vast majority of them).
We also learn, by the second example, that just because our trusted person says we're fine doesn't mean we're fine for life. It doesn't mean we're fine even now. It may just be that it hasn't quite reared it's head yet. It's our job to make sure that we watch for breakouts afterwards. We must be willing to watch ourselves and go back if the problem does persist, even despite external clues that it would not have.
Moral of the chapter? Double check. Look closely, and realize the external is a good indicator, but it doesn't always tell the whole truth. There's no shame in being unclean, as long as you're willing to be cleaned again. The wonderful news is that Christ will clean us once, for always... if we'll but let Him, and even after that He will continue to wash our feet to keep our whole bodies clean until the day we see His Glory in full.
Father, thank You for Who You are. You are absolutely fantastic, Daddy. Help us to go in for examinations when there appears to be something wrong, Lord. You are the Wonderful Counselor, so help us remember that Your advice is perfect for all situations, and in all things! You are the King of Kings, and we praise You for the grace and peace You show us, as ones who come to You so dirty, so often. Not that we are dirty once we have been washed clean, but so often I've got some pretty dirty feet which need washed still because I choose to allow things to happen that I should not have. Lord, help us to look beyond the surface, beyond what everyone else says, and ask You about what we need to cleanse. Sometimes we have white hairs with black bases, or yellow hairs on white skin and we have no idea how to clean it or what to do. The good news is, though, that You do. Let us allow You to treat and heal us. Let us make sure we are diagnosed correctly, and not just based on limited, in-the-moment, first time knowledge. Thank You, Lord. You are so amazing. We love You. Let us glorify You in all we do, and may we share our love with others, too.
Amen.
Bad hops...
State: A Bit Tired
Horseshoes... bah, lol.
So at the cookout they had a game of horseshoes going. it wasn't the ideal spot for the game, and "the pits" were kind of non-existent... but c'est la vie. I don't play often, but one of my dad's bosses wanted ot play and needed a partner. Thus, I decided to go ahead and play.
The first game we did was against my dad and the other boss. They'd won the previous game. Basically, we won that one 11-4. I usually was about 1 inch off the mark, or it took some kind of crazy wild bounce. One round though I got a ringer and another which was < 1 length from the post, for a total of 4 points. It was my team contribution.
Then we switched sides and played the other team, two of the other employees. Let me say this now... I totally agree with dad about them, pretty much. I was on the side of Schout (pronounced "scout"), who was teased mercilessly for being an overweight Mexican (who didn't really look very "Mexican" to me at all...). Racist remarks were flying left and right, which always makes things fun, no? At least they were open about it? To be honest, the closest thing to racism I'm used to experiencing is people who'll say something behind their backs, which even then would only be "suggestive racism." I hear a lot of "joking racism" as well... but never before have I really seen people who seemed to almost mean it when they flung slurs back and forth at each other. I'm stupid... I always just assumed it was a problem elsewhere, because I've never really seen much of it here... but of course I do live down the street basically from where the ex-Grand Dragon of the KKK once lived... so there's also not a whole lot of diversity I've grown up with until what my mom's been seeing happening only recently in the elementary schools.
Anyway, Mr. Schout was... well... he cheated. He gave his team two points by not checking the length from the base accurately (as in they were literally 1/8 of an inch out, and he came over and wildly flailed his horseshoe to get it to touch. I didn't mind too much, until he insulted me for being a "college/computer boy" and treated me like an inferior for "not measuring it right." I stayed quiet and let him measure everything from that point on and never challenged him. He messed up and hit one of my partner's when measuring and I used that to my advantage to get the point (we had it anyways, but he was trying to measure it from the back of the post  ...). We ended up losing because I was consistently hitting the post or dropping near the post, but never within the needed distance. I just got no favorable bounces, and scored 0 points for our team with a loss of 8-11.
My partner, dad's boss, came over and apologized for his performance. He seemed to be the only one there who WASN'T loopy after one can of alcohol. That or he's a nice drunk. He wasn't wasted, but I think it only takes one for it to start doing something. They said the amount they had didn't affect them... but I don't know... I just know my tolerance isn't high, in what little "waters testing" I've done.
It just wasn't fun playing against Mr. Schout. He's quite possibly one of the most aggravating people I've ever met. I'm not saying I'm unhappy to have met him... I just wish it were under different circumstances. He seems to have had a hard life.
We went back home soon afterwards. I played 9 Dragons for a good while. Bleach came on at 12:30, and then after that... I went to bed. Well, I grabbed some food first, but I was in bed by around 1:30. Crazy!
This morning I got up at 7:45... NUTS. Well, it was this early because I had doctor's appointments all day. Hoo-rah. The first one was with Dr. Al for my diabetes. It was a pretty decent visit. Nothing too big... except for the part where the scale says I've gained 20 pounds! Holy cow! I'm not over 200 yet, but I'm getting closer... Where'd all this extra weight come from? Better yet -- where'd it get packed on?! I'm still fitting decently into all the pairs of pants I could when I came back from Japan (they're a "little" tighter)... but those pants we went and altered -- with 20 extra pounds I should fit right well into those! Yet... I don't. So I don't know what's up. I did have my shoes on (and generally take them off), and I left my keys in my pocket. I have some slightly heavier pants on as well (cargo)... but even that should only account for maybe 5 pounds. Jimminy... what's up? I haven't exactly been exercising to the point where it would have been additional muscle mass... so that also leaves me slightly wondering. My new diet of food (it's not really a "diet", though) hasn't really been in effect long enough to merit any kind of reason for this to be untrue, though. Anyway... ponderances... The doctor was as surprised as I was, lol.
Afterwards was the dentist's visit. The earlier visit this summer was for the filling that kinda fell out. This was just my normal cleaning. It's the first time in... maybe ever... where I've felt pretty good going. Sure enough, everything checked out well. I do have this theory about dentists right now, though...
See, I think they hire attractive women as their helpers and sign-out ladies so when they're taking your money, scheduling your appointment, or scraping the yowzers out of your teeth that there's no way you can get angry without feeling bad, lol. I mean... most of you know how I act around women. There is NO way I'm getting angry at one, lol (unless she REALLY deserved it). She's just doing her job. Ergo, I can't get angry, which means the stay is "more pleasant," I keep coming back, etc, etc. How crafty... A fie on you, dentists, for your foul play in not allowing me to be upset at the severe mouth pain that is generally had in those chairs... or the application of that disgusting polish or whatever... which no matter how hard I try, I always end up swallowing just a little of it... gehhh!
I also learned my dentist has a brother who works in New Guinea as a... monk/friar (he apparently does the whole "brown robe" thing). I learned he'll never go visit because he'd have to work to not be eaten by bugs. That concerned him more than the robbings and killings between the sea people in the mountain people... right... Sometimes I have issues figuring out what is and isn't a joke with him... lol.
After that we picked up Deb, ate from chicken wings, and then I came back and napped for about 1.5 hours.
God bless, all.
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