Parts of Speaking Publishing

 Vision Driving on a busy highway designed to relieve traffic on a busier one, My glimpse lands on a mound of color in the turning lane ahead. I see a human body. That is not what it is, but what my mind perceives. The envisioned body is wearing a bathing suit, and it is female. It is deceased of course; half of it is legs with pale skin, half is a mix of red and blue and yellow. My heart tightens; my eyes, which need to look elsewhere, are captured. I go under a traffic light and the pile transforms into a towel twisted into some elongated shape, either thrown and dropped from a vehicle. Why did I see a corpse in the way of oncoming cars? Are my eyes failing me? My corrective lenses? My imagination? My expectations? Is it too much true crime television? Who knows? And what if I had seen a human form that metamorphosed into a towel? --- This is more about a concern of aging, not to show my poetic skill. I write one or two (or fewer) poems a year. ...

 As time moves on, people whom we admired, followed, or struggled with pass away. Recently John McArthur died; this week Dr. James Dobson did.  The only way to really eulogize Dr. Dobson, I think, is to see him in context and to be graciously understanding of his support of Donald Trump. It is easy to criticize James Dobson for some of his positions and decisions. Sometimes fame is a burden and influence can be something of a curse.  My Christian experience has heard the music of James Dobson in the background. I listened to his radio program almost daily in the '80s and '90s. We were all taught that Dare to Discipline was a seminal text. Keep in mind that this was the age of Dr. Spock, who supposedly denied discipline of children was needed, and the hippies of the '60s were blamed on him and his progressive views. Today, I don't know how truthful a depiction that is. Dr. Dobson did not advocate spanking so much as discuss its efficacy in some cases. The idea that he w...

 This MAGA-inspired explosion of hatred toward Crack Bar, as a friend calls it (the food can be as addictive for carb lovers) is boggling what is left of my mind.  I started going to Cracker Barrels in the 1970s. I was on a competing speech team that traveled to colleges in Tennessee and Kentucky, and we celebrated by stopping at Cracker Barrel on the way back. Our coaches loved it. We loved it. Since them, living in the mid-South (i.e., Chattanooga area) meant regular visits. It is part of life.  Does anyone remember that the logo used to NOT have the old man on it? Does anyone remember the hillbilly-font-and-spelling style menus?  Does anyone remember when they got in trouble for not seating African Americans "in a timely manner?" or from not hiring gays? (probably using AIDS as excuse? Both of these were back in the early 1990s.  I personally cut back on my Cracker Barrel visits when they started to sell alcohol. It just didn't set right with me--did they rea...

Our pastor asked me to be in a small study group that he runs to help him prepare for his weekly sermon. We met last week. I loved it. We returned the second night ready for more. The passages are in Genesis 37 and following, abou t Joseph. We skipped 38 for now, and covered 37 and 39. Most of us know the outlines of Joseph’s narrative: brothers hate him, father’s darling, sold into slavery by his jealous siblings, dreams, blamed for a seducing wife, becoming a leader in Egypt, saving the country from famine, finally reunited with his family. But there is more. There is a story of humanity. The brothers’ hatred is not just a plot device. Joseph is not just a little tattle tale 17-year-old with a regal tunic. We had one discussion so far, and I know there are so many details here. For example, his brothers had gone to Dothan. It was 50 miles from where they were supposed to be, in S h echem. Good grief. They probably were hiding something from their father. Jacob is deceiv...

 Although he occasionally disappoints me, Russell Moore is still the man.  His latest column on what he has learned in 30 years of ministry.  https://www.christianitytoday.com/2025/08/30-things-learned-30-years-ministry-russell-moore/ I like #26:   Pay attention to what’s not talked about. The rest I agree with.  I am attending a study with the pastor on Joseph as he prepares for his sermon. He is open and asks good questions, and I believe we are free to speak our thoughts about the chapter. Last night's was about Joseph's time in Potiphar's domain and his personal #metoo moment, perhaps in reverse. I may do a longer study on seeing the gospel in Joseph. Joseph seems like a paragon of virtue, but he is a trophy of grace. There is no real reason he should have so much integrity except he had a personal encounter with God that we don't have a record of, although Genesis 35 may be the answer. 

  Just so we know how sincere Putin is about ending the war with Ukraine-- (from the Dispatch ) Hours before the White House meeting, Russia  launched ballistic  missiles and military drones into Ukraine in an overnight aerial attack that  killed 14  civilians, including at least three children, and injured more than a dozen others. “Russians are deliberately killing people, particularly children,” Zelensky  wrote on X , noting that  Russia targets  residential buildings and other civilian sites. The attacks killed seven people in the northeast Ukrainian city of Kharkiv,  including an  entire family with two children. From the Atlantic , a brilliant essay on AI's delusional promise Lately, I’ve been preoccupied with a different question: What if generative AI isn’t God in the machine  or  vaporware? What if it’s just good enough, useful to many without being revolutionary? Right now, the models don’t think—they predict and arra...

It's time to just say no to the digital world (she says on her blog) https://thedispatch.com/article/social-media-children-dating-neurotic/   Maybe not no, but definitely think before you click. Think a lot. 

 I have been amused, like millions of others, by Melani Saunders and her "We Do Not Care Club." If you don't know what that is, you obviously do not follow social media.  To raise awareness about menopause and women's health issues, Melani developed a series of short videos for TikTok, etc. where she talks to the camera and announces that this is a meeting of the We Do Not Care Club for women going through menopause and perimenopause . She looks, usually, as if she just rolled out of bed or got out of the shower (she is a put-together woman, just not for these videos). "These are today's announcements," she states, and she goes through a list in her spiral notebook and marks them off  with a highlighter. They are quite funny.  We do not care if our clothes do not match.  We do not care if we wore the same thing last week.  We do not care if there is no milk in the frig. You went by the same grocery store we did.  These are directed at coworkers and fam...

 Lesson August 11, 2025, I Kings 5 through 8: Solomon builds and dedicates temple The literature called this lesson, “Work with Wisdom” as a follow-up to Solomon’s request for wisdom. Despite Solomon’s failures we discussed last week, this passage and the ones in II Chronicles 2-7 (same information but some additions) tell of his highest achievement, the building of the temple that came to be known as Solomon’s temple, which was destroy in 586 B.C. Since it was completed in 957 (or so) BC, it stood for almost 400 years. It is distinguished from what were called: Zerubabel’s temple, finished in 516 B.C. after the exile (70 years after destruction of Solomon’s temple). From Got Questions.org “As the second temple was being built, there was a group of Jews in Jerusalem who were rather disappointed. Older Jews who recalled the size and grandeur of the first temple regarded Zerubbabel’s temple as a poor substitute for the original. To their minds, it did not even begin to compare w...

 Retirement means more time to read.  One Blood , by Denene Millner. This book and author won the Townsend Prize for Fiction 2025 and therefore beat me as one of the other nine finalists. She deserved it for her dramatic and exotic style; mine feels pale in comparison. I have to admit, I have timed out on it when I got to the third main character's story. It starts with a Black midwife in 1950s/1960s Virginia, who is imprisoned for not lying on a birth certificate about a "white" baby's racial identity. The baby is clearly part Black, meaning either the family had Black ancestors or the mother had a lover (I'm not entirely sure about that). The midwife's daughter is brutally murdered by her lover and in this chaos, the granddaughter is spirited away to New York in a wooden box. (Why I am not sure--New York makes sense, because a relation lives there, but why she couldn't just be put on a train, I'm not sure. I imagine Black people could ride trains in ...

I am supposed to teach this passage, and the next chapter, in my Life Group class tomorrow. I have had the flu or COVID, so my typical preparation pattern of doing most of the work on Monday and Tuesday has been set aside and I'm contemplating the passages more now.  I will preface the lesson tomorrow, and this post, with the observation that there isn't much doctrine here and nothing all that prescriptive and really relevant to the lives of middle-aged women (or older) in the year 2025. Historical background, some influence on New Testament texts, and some food for thought is the best I can do. I will pose questions about what went wrong in Solomon's life, but that was so excessive and grotesque--a thousand animals sacrificed, a thousand wives (perhaps round numbers for emphasis?) all those horses and wealth--that it beggars disbelief or at least dismissal as having any relevance. He was a Middle-Eastern potentate, not unlike something from the Ottoman Empire, in many ways...

 As I mentioned earlier, I have been going through either the flu or COVID. I did not take a COVID test; the ones I had are out of date anyway. I had most of the symptoms except the loss of taste and smell (I have no sense of smell due to Kallman's Syndrome, and I had little appetite but there was taste). But most of the other symptoms are the same as cold or flu anyway. The worst headache of my life, still lingering; cough and nasal blah, chills and heat, and the inability to move without a strong force of will (my description of utter fatigue). Today, Friday, I am a little better, and went out to check my garden for some green beans. The majority of it has shriveled from the heat.  When I am sick like this I don't feel sorry for myself as much as frustrated by the inability to move, and I often say I am not a good sick person. By that I mean I don't pray my way through it and praise God. I just exist until it passes. When I was working I pushed myself to get back to work ...

 Lesson for August 3; I Kings 2-3. There are two separate sections to this lesson: David’s last words to Solomon, and Solomon’s heart’s desire for wisdom. What happened previously? I Kings 1. David is on his death bed, so his aides get him a young woman to take care of him and lie in bed with him to keep him warm. He did not have sex with her. It was a custom of the time. She was his concubine, which is a low-level wife for sexual and reproductive purposes. Adonijah, as the oldest living son (but fourth in birth order) believed he should be king, and some agreed and supported him, Joab and Abiathar, David’s general and the high priest. This group followed him and declared him king, despite what David had told Solomon in I Chronicles 22:5-9. Nathan the prophet and Bathsheba approach David on his deathbed and put this before him, with Bathsheba pleading that her and Solomon’s life were in danger if Adonijah was allowed to be king. David declared Solomon king that day publicly, and...