Hodgepodge About A Stellar Weekend

“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters…”

The words of that Psalm have been wonderful to live over the past weekend — but they provide little material for blogging.

So minor odds and ends comprise today’s post:

After a day of heavy shopping Saturday, at 8:47 p.m., Ginny and I dashed out into the backyard in our robes to shiver on the pool deck and watch the red fiery launch of Space Shuttle Columbia into the heavens.

Sunday’s dawn found me outside in the front yard to see the rare conjunction of three major planets. Astronomers promised that Curley, Moe & Larry would line up close enough to look like a single bright body in the heavens.

Some folks think such a conjunction of planets account for the original Star of Bethlehem observed by the wise men.

I think astronomers like to pull our chain.

I think what happens is: the astronomers rotate the giant Hubble Telescope so it points toward my backyard whenever they announce some comet or eclipse or meteor shower or other spectacular Star Of Bethlehem sort of phenomena.

Then the rascals chuckle to see me standing in the yard freezing in a flimsy bathrobe while they sit inside their observatory warm and dry, drinking chocolate and eating donuts and laughing their heads off at that dumb guy in Florida craning his neck to see thin air without realizing — That there are really no planets in the sky.

Yes, it’s all a hoax!

If there really were planets up there in the air, then why would our astronauts have to build an artificial space platform to stand on?

Answer me that, can you?

Speaking of space exploration, Ginny and I drove out searching for the place the doctor told me to go for my biopsy next week. Turns out that there NINE buildings with the exact same street address!

Thinking that Sunday morning traffic would be light, we wove through a maze searching for this place. We drove amid a frenzy of mall shoppers all searching for a parking space anywhere on this planet.

Took us almost two hours to locate the medical center clinic building!

Good thing we found it before the day we’re supposed to actually be there; we’d have never found it in time for my appointment if we’d waited till the same day to go there for the first time.

Speaking of this biopsy thing, we have a lot of preparations to make beforehand, and I’m not sure what shape I’ll be in to blog during the week afterward. Doc says there’s nothing to it. Of course there’s nothing to it from his end of the chainsaw, but from my end… We’ll see.

Anyhow, I’ll post whenever I know anything for good or ill.

It’s all a pain in the ass.

And I’m not speaking figuratively there.

In happier news, my e-friend, Pete (who is studying to be a preacher in the United Kingdom) delivered his first assessed sermon yesterday. In it he points out that when you become a Christian you do not have to go to where God is — you are becoming where God is!

Of course, he forgot his sermon notes in the car and had to wing it, but he did a great job. It is well worthwhile to read his brief (only nine minutes) sermon text at http://www.3cephas.blogspot.com/ via his links.

Please drop by his site and leave a comment about this, his first assessed sermon.

Ginny & I decided to forgo putting up outside Christmas decorations this year; we feel weary and we’re keeping things to a minimum till we see how this biopsy thing goes.

I’m nervous — not about the biopsy per se — but about being touched.

I’m so skittish about being touched that for years I have cut my own hair rather than let a barber touch me and I cringe and have to steel myself when a nurse takes my blood pressure. So this is a big deal to me.

However, I realize that I am in God’s hands and He’ll make sure I get through this minor non-ordeal. People survive being touched all the time.

At least many of them do.

Humm… Maybe I could just go to the airport and stand in front of one of those see-through-your-underwear machines…. Suppose that would work?

Anyhow, when I opened this posting, I left off the next line of the Psalm, the line I count on to get me through whatever lies ahead, even being touched:

“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters — He restoreth my soul”!