Glorious mysteries

We attended a funeral for J., Karin’s kindly old colleague.

“J. and I used to talk hockey,” said the priest. “Sometimes joyfully, sometimes with a little griping.”

That was about it for reminiscing about J. (Reminiscing is done at the wake, apparently.) The priest and mourners then prayed the Glorious Mysteries, in which are included:

• one Apostle’s Creed
• six Our Fathers
• six Glory Bes
• five Oh My Jesuses
• fifty-three Hail Marys
• other formulae

My heart sank around the thirtieth Hail Mary. Was the priest shooting for one hundred? Mercifully, no.

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I finished reading the Adrian Mole series. It gave me much pleasure.

I’ve begun reading The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side. It features Miss Jane Marple and is set in the classic murder-village of St. Mary Mead. When I finish, I’ll’ve read all sixty-six of Dame Agatha’s crime novels.

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Daniel, somehow, is learning to speak in French.

Bonjour, Daddy, he grins. Ça va.

Not bad for not having been taught. And his accent is spot-on.

Peril on the basement stairs!

Daniel, when hungry, points at food jars and rubs his belly. Or else he brings magazines to Karin and shows her pictures of food.

Samuel still fears our living room. But not as much as he used to.

He prefers the basement, though.

We three males nearly died on the stairs today. Both boys have learned to climb up and down, but slowly and with frequent changes of direction. They get into traffic jams and fights. I worry, especially, that Daniel will crash down the stairs, so I pick him up and carry him. He resists. He squirms. It takes all of my effort to keep from dropping him. Today, when he was squirming, I stepped on Samuel; Samuel howled; I tripped; I dropped Daniel; he landed gently on the top stair; he howled. Neither child recovered emotionally for the next hour or so. Eventually, they both went to sleep.

It could have been a scene out of The Pink Panther Strikes Again or The Three Stooges.

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I often sing them this:

Poor Jonah

Long-term readers of this blog (are there any short-term readers?) will recall that Jonah is my favorite book of the Bible.

They won’t be surprised, then, to hear that I was excited about the new sermon series at my church: “Jonah: Not the Story You Remember.”

(I’d helped to put up the letters of the church sign that announced this series’s title. On its reverse side, the sign admonished: “Tweet Others as You Would Have Them Tweet You.”)

And yet, I doubted: Would I really hear anything new (or unremembered) about Jonah?

It transpired that I would. Our new young pastor began yesterday’s sermon by having us recall Jonah’s brief appearance in 2 Kings 14:25:

Jeroboam II recovered the territories of Israel between Lebo-hamath and the Dead Sea, just as the LORD, the God of Israel, had promised through Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath-hepher.
[New Living Translation]

Equipped with this verse, our pastor eagerly described the historical context of the book of Jonah. He was guilty of three inaccuracies:

(1) He said that during Jonah’s prophesying, Israel’s king was Jehoash II. (It was Jeroboam II.)

(2) He said that Assyria and Israel were archenemies. (Not quite: Assyria and Israel were less like cat and dog and more like lion and mouse.)

And (3) he said that the book of Jonah could be dated to approximately 750–800 years before Christ’s birth. (Again, no; it was written during the post-exilic period.)

Then he performed an exegesis of Jonah 1, highlighting three costs of Jonah’s disobedience: the financial cost (Jonah had to buy a ticket for his voyage), the physical cost (Jonah was so tired, he slept through the storm), and the social cost (Jonah retired to the hold of the ship, away from his shipmates).

Despairing, Karin & I turned to the commentary in Karin’s Jesus-Centered Bible (NLT). This was much better:

There’s humor in how Jonah is a successful “evangelist” in spite of himself, in the same way Inspector Clouseau is a successful detective in the Pink Panther comedies. He does everything wrong, but it always turns out right.

There’s an unmistakable element of Jewish comedy in the story of Jonah, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a very serious message – a theology of mercy – buried in the humor. In the story of Jonah, the Jewish people learned to regard their election as God’s chosen people with humility and even self-deprecating humor. God would prop up the nation of Israel as a light to the Gentiles, not because they were better than other nations, but simply because God had called them just as he’d called the irascible Jonah. And Jonah is a good prophet not because he is a good man, but because God is a merciful God.

Later, this theology of mercy will find full expression in the life and teaching of Jesus.

Cheered by this commentary, I’ve decided to pray: Lord, exercise Your mercy: Let our new pastor be successful in the manner of the prophet Jonah.

The World Cup groups

[Dreaming]

Put me in, Coach.

[Telephone rings]

What’s the score? !!!

[Answers telephone]

How many?

Twenty-six, Mr. President.

Holy cow. No wonder Dreyfus wants that Clouseau killed. He’s a one-man army. Who’s left?

Just the Russian … and the Egyptian.

Life won’t mirror art. Either the Russian team or the Egyptian team will survive Group A, but they won’t both survive it.

Nor will the Saudis survive Group A.

The Uruguayans will survive it easily enough – and with one eye upon the first game of Round 2, in which they’ll face either the Portuguese or the Spanish. Those teams will have dispatched the Iranians and Moroccans in Group B.

The other groups are less predictable.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Group C: Australia, Denmark, France, and Peru. Any of them could advance. This, more than any other, is the group of chokers.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Group D: Croatia and Iceland … and, for the fifth time in the latest seven World Cups, Argentina together with Nigeria. The Argentinians have always won that fixture. The Croatians and Icelanders also are familiar foes, having played each other in recent qualifiers. A very interesting group.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Group E: The Brazilians definitely will advance. The Costa Ricans are about as good as they were in the previous World Cup, though less surprisingly so. Serbia and Switzerland have enough talent to get to Round 2. Another interesting group.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Group F: The Germans are as predictable as their trains. They’ll advance.

The South Koreans also have predictable trains. Their record in World Cups, while less successful than that of the Germans, is just as steady:

In 2002, they advanced out of the group stage.

In 2006, they were eliminated.

In 2010, they advanced.

In 2014, they were eliminated.

This time, they’re due to advance.

Will this World Cup be the Mexicans’ group-stage undoing? They always seem likely to crash out early, and yet they always scrape through to the first knockout round.

Sweden … who knows.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Group G: This is one wimpy group. The Belgians and English are talented chokers. Still, they should advance past Panama and Tunisia.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Group H: Japan has extremely reliable trains. Its recent World Cup pattern is the same as South Korea’s. Senegal is one of the most talented teams in Africa. Even so, I’ll lay money on Colombia and Poland not only to advance, but to defeat their Group G opponents in the first knockout round.

And so I conclude my expert analysis.

Snowed in

Still coughing …

and last night we had a blizzard; and at this moment, outside, it’s supposed to feel like −26°F.

Currently reading:

• Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries

• Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber

• Frank & Marie Drown, Mission to the Headhunters

• Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies (while I was getting sick, I was finishing bird by bird; due to AL’s grudges and death scenes and neuroses, the book was actually making me feel worse)

• I Am Zlatan Ibrahimović (this is fantastic)

• … and articles for W130

Currently viewing:

• Misery

• The Shining

• WSBT StormTracker

• Downton Abbey

• The Pink Panther Strikes Again