The gospel reading for today has a rather odd phrase: Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, I said, ‘You are gods’”? I think there is a tendency to be mystified and at the same simply think, “OK, Jesus said it…. That’s enough for me.” And then move on. But there is a lot going on in John 10, of which this gospel selection is just a portion.
The context for this chapter of the fourth gospel is the feast of Hanukkah (sometimes known as the feast of Dedication), a commemoration of the recovery of Jerusalem and subsequent rededication of the Second Temple at the beginning of the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd century BCE. This feast celebrated the reconsecration of the temple by Judas the Maccabean (164 B.C.) after its profanation three years earlier by the Syrian Antiochus IV Epiphanes (1 Macc 4:36–59; 2 Macc 10:1–8; who had sacrificed a sow to Jupiter on the altar of the Temple). This yearly celebration lasted nine days, was a “lights” ceremony like the feast of Tabernacles (John 7:2), and was celebrated in mid-December Continue reading
Everyone has their own habits as regards the consumption of news. I often scour CNN, the NY Times, CBS and Fox News – a way of seeing what is being said about the topic of the day – or even one network is even covering something. It is all revealing.
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Today I celebrated the Rite of Committal for a US Marine Corp veteran. Given our proximity to the Quantico National Cemetery, we are called upon several times a week to assist families with the committal of their loved ones – most often retired service members or their spouses. Sadly, we also serve when an active duty member is interned. They are mostly connected to the Marine Corp, but the hallowed grounds honor members from all branches of the military. 
Chaos Theory is often misunderstood, misrepresented, and spoken of by lots of folks who toss around a term to convey the idea of complete randomness of this or that. The study of chaos is branch of mathematics that looks at apparently random states of disorder and irregularities that are actually governed by underlying patterns and deterministic laws. Those patterns and law might not be readily apparent, they are just highly sensitive to initial conditions.
friarmusings 