the heat, books, travel .... dreaming .....

its hot here -- like 95+ with just about as much humidity. we're in the middle of a heat wave and i chose (purposely) not to put the A/C in the apartment this year. the housing authority charges an additional $20 a month (per A/C unit) to do this. that was $20 extra a month that i don't have. but that's only part of it -- the other part is that i don't understand the increase -- they say its for the increase in electrical usage. but see, i take issue with this because we have electric (yeah, i know, don't get me started on this either) heat -- which, obviously, is not being used at all during the summer. and our appliances (stove) r electric, and we're running them less in the summer because of the temperatures. at any rate, my feeling is that since we're not using electricity for the heat, we can't possibly be using $20 more a month for electricity for the A/C -- but whatever. so we're running 9 fans -- now u tell me -- what is using more electricity than my nine fans?? certainly NOT my new A/C unit which was rated highly for less consumption of electricity ... but whatever....

at any rate, its not the A/C -- or lack thereof, that i wish to expound on today. when its hot, i tend to not do much moving around. i mean, literally, i could lay in bed the entire day reading. which is sort of what i did this morning. i've been working on this book (eat, pray, love by Elizabeth Gilbert) for a couple of weeks now, and today i finished it. i've read one other book by her and liked it, and then i saw that this one was being made into a movie -- with julia roberts -- so i figured i better read the book before hollyweird (as my father likes to call it) ruins it totally (which, if ur avid reader of books that then get turned into movies u'll understand).

so, this morning i didn't really have anything to do or anywhere to go (like i do this afternoon) and i decided to go back to bed with one of the nine fans blowing over me and finish the book (i was like 2/3 of the way finished already). and finish it, i did. and now i wonder just how badly hollyweird will botch the movie making.

when i read books like this one, i think about how when i was younger i wanted to be a novelist and journalist and travel around the world and write and have all sorts of wonderful experiences that would be fodder for my next novel. obviously, if u look at my life, this is NOT what happened. i never got to travel (truly, the one time my passport got stamped was because i begged some crossing guard in canada to stamp it, even though he insisted that it was not necessary since i was an american -- and that was 20 some years ago before 9/11). i mean i've been across the US (flying or driving it doesn't matter) and i've seen lots of interesting places when moving from PA to NJ back to PA to TX to NH to NY to FL and back to NH -- and i have made a point to try and check out all the local bits of interest when we've lived in all those places. but its not the same as going to italy, india or bali -- at least not in my mind -- which were all the places that Liz went to in this book.

most of her travel was an attempt to "find herself" and to become one with her creator. i know who i am in papa god's eyes. that doesn't always translate well into who i am in my own eyes -- if u understand what i'm saying. and i certainly don't need to travel to far away places to discover who i am -- but it would be nice to travel just the same.

my daughter and i have two piggy banks that we put our change into. one is strictly quarters and the other is dimes. we return all our cans (and those of our friends who know we do this) that we can for 5 cents each and that money usually goes into the piggies -- although lately its gone into the gas tank more than into the piggies. i digress -- we have said that this money is our "go to Ireland" money. meaning that some day when there is enough there, we will travel to Ireland -- the land of my ancestors (well some of them) and visit the O'Dougherty (no, they don't spell it like that over there but who cares) castle in Buncrana, Ireland. somehow, i don't see this ever happening ... i could yet be proved wrong, but it seems like most of the time when it comes to dreams or desires of my heart, they don't materialize in quite the fashion i had imagined. and no, i won't go into all the details of past desires.

so i can live vicariously through the adventures of ppl like Liz in books that have been written and imagine what it would be like to travel there, live there, love there. on a super hot summer day -- its the best way to spend the time!

minute details -- big picture

i admire ppl who know their bible history backwards and forwards -- who understand every aspect of what is written there and the time frame; ppl who can quote u scripture (book and verse) at the drop of a hat. frankly, most of the time i'm just lost and i tend to read the bible as if its a good story (some books better than others, obviously).

yesterday i had lunch with some friends. before we sat down we started talking about the current book of the bible that our church is reading (ezekiel). the woman who had graciously opened her home to us was talking about trying to figure out where this story falls in the grand scope of things (because if ur not aware, the books in the bible are not arranged chronologically). she was showing us all sorts of information and pulled out about 6 bibles. it was really fascinating. but see, she really studies the scripture and gets the whole picture. whereas, i never was very good at history and honestly, does it really matter what came first, the chicken or the egg.

to some ppl (probably this woman and my dad most likely), it really does matter. when i listen to my dad talk about different aspects in the bible, i'm just amazed. not that it really helps me to understand things anymore than i did before -- truly. i am looking at these books and saying, what lesson am i supposed to learn from this? i'm not saying, gee, where does this fall on the time scale and what was going on in the time period.

maybe this is naive of me. maybe i should be taking more of an interest in what was going on. i mean there is scripture to point out the fact that many will hear but some will not understand:
Luke 8:10 NIV
He said, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that, " 'though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand.'

so then it makes me wonder, am i meant to be one of those who doesn't understand. actually, what i really wonder is, does it matter if i don't understand the time frame that something happened or can't remember the sequence of events or all the names and the order of those names in a lineage or what the name of a particular king was at a particular time. will remembering or knowing any of that help me to get the true message behind what is written?? somehow, i doubt it, but maybe that's just my warped mind trying to make me think its ok not to know this stuff backwards and forwards like other ppl do.

here's my thing -- i can take a particular piece of scripture and i can find god's love there -- love for all of us. i can see god's heart in passages like isaiah 58 -- i can understand his sadness when he sees that his ppl will not obey his law and ignore what he has said, seeking only religiosity and nothing else. where does remembering lineage or time scale fit into that - where is the importance? idk

the best thing would be if i could remember everything, understand all the time frames, etc., along with getting the message -- but for some reason, my brain doesn't seem to be able to retain the minute details. i can't quote u scripture by book and verse. most of the time, if i haven't marked it in my bible, i can't tell u where it is, but most likely i'll be able to tell u the meaning. what's more important?? idk

being able to point something out or back something up with the actual place in the bible where that point is being made, is really an asset sometimes because it just solidifies the point ur trying to make. its like the bibliography at the end of an article citing all the places where u can go to check out the facts as they were presented in the article. its back up information. so for me, i can't provide that when i'm speaking to someone about the bible; so i have no way to prove that what i'm saying is true. from that aspect -- its not a good thing.

i can't say that my brain does much better in retaining all things in my own life either. i mean, i have crystal clear memories of certain things growing up -- but they r just snippets in time -- not full movie length versions of each year. some things i remember really well -- other things not at all. what was important to my head at the time seems to stick to me -- what wasn't, falls away. and i feel like that is true for reading the stories in the bible as well. what's important sticks and sticks really well. what doesn't add to the message's importance, seems to fall away.

idk, i'm still feeling my way through the bible. i haven't read every chapter -- but some chapters i've read multiple times (mostly in the new testament). being raised in a conventional church setting, we were never encouraged to read the bible on our own -- only listen to snippets on sundays -- whole stories during special times of the year (christmas, easter, pentecost). i remember my mom sitting and reading her bible every morning. i wish i could say i do the same. sometimes i feel like a bad christian because i don't have a set schedule in that regard -- not even for prayer. i read when i want and pray when the need is there and give thanks for all the blessings that papa god has bestowed upon me. maybe that does make me a bad sort. idk

i only know that papa god loves me and wants to love on all his ppl if they would just let him. that there is such a need in this world for ppl to start caring about one another. and my thoughts on how wondrous papa is rn't going to be amplified by remembering time frames or lineage names.