Musings From A Rolling Eyed Turtle

Some years ago, when we were looking at the possibility of buying our first house, we toured a house in a community near ours.   It was one of the oldest houses in the community and the price was in our price range.   But it had a big draw back; some particularly difficult and expensive repairs would need to be done by the buyer. The house had been built on some land that had been cleared of some big trees.   Instead of building a foundation of rock, brick or cement, the builders chose to use the stumps of the cleared trees as the foundation.     You might already suspect what happened over the years!   As the stumps began to decay and crumble, parts of the house began to sink.   Floors slanted.   Walls went out of plumb.   Ceilings cracked.     The difficult and expensive repairs would include raising the house in order to put a new foundation under it.   Once that was done, then the house would go through a process of leveling.   Once leveled, then all the cracks and ga

It was supposed to be a vacation.   It was, sort of, until toward the end when I got the news that I would need to self quarantine once I got home! It turned out that my trip fell under the recommended CDC guidelines for a 14 day self quarantine.   So, here I am, self quarantined and, to be honest, feeling quite stuck at home.   But as the virus has continued to spread, I have come to accept the need for an abundance of caution and my quarantine is certainly a necessary part of social distancing. While I was on my trip, I read about a different kind of quarantine:   “And you shall not go outside the entrance of the tent of meeting for seven days, until the days of your ordination are completed, for it will take seven days to ordain you.”   (Lev 8:33) In Biblical times, those who had leprosy had to practice social distancing, including quarantines, due to the disease and how it spread.   But a type of quarantine for an ordination?   I had never really noticed that before.

As I was listening to the radio one day, a person called in and was describing a new opportunity that had come up that would significantly change the course of their life.   The on air announcer then told the caller that it sounded like they were getting a new lease on life.   While I’ve heard the expression many times before, this time, for some reason, it really stirred my attention. In researching the expression further, I found some more details on the web regarding “a new lease on life”.   The expression, with its allusion to a rental agreement, dates from the early 1800s and originally referred only to recovery from illness. By the mid-1800s it was applied to any kind of fresh beginning.   So now, it represents a fresh start; renewed vigor and good health.   Fresh beginnings are great!   In fact, one of the greatest of all new beginnings is when we first put our faith in Christ:   “ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; beho

“The power of limits” - the words were painted on a piece of modern art.   I’m not really sure what the phrase was supposed to mean but the words really did stir my curiosity. We don’t often think of limits as having power.   In fact, it seems the opposite is usually true.   Limits, well to put it simply, limit.   How can there be power in that?   Even more so, power and limits seem to be mutually exclusive. And in trying to decipher it further, if the opposite of power is powerless, then limits and powerless seem to be mutually inclusive. Mutually exclusive or inclusive?   I’m not really sure but let’s explore power and powerless and limits to see if some light can be shed on these things… In the fifth chapter of Romans, we find that we are limited in our ability to deal with our sins:   “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless , Christ died for the ungodly.”   (Rom 5:6)   While the assessment of our own lack of power is quite blunt, the solutio