Reading Numbers

 It is old age that opens my eyes to some items in life I must admit. I never thought about why a Chapter might be labelled as it was but in Numbers the number of males were counted in each descendant of Jacob's sons. They were assigned a particular place to put up their tents around the Tabernacle. The Levites were assigned to Aaron the brother of Moses and their positions around the Tabernacle as the protectors of the Tabernacle were also explained. This chapter is about numbers, the numbers of Israeli males to be placed into the army in particular and to be the protectors of the Tabernacle. The order in which the Israelis would now move following the Tabernacle to the Promised Land was also discussed. What the Levites would carry to bring the Tabernacle to the Promised Land also described in very fine detail. Again the Lord demanded absolute obedience at all times or punishment would follow generally death to the person who did the wrong thing. The desire to keep reading is very strong but I must just read so much a day so as not to move too quickly as I might miss something. I continue to watch for peace in our time being expressed as I still wonder is that something from my childhood or was it in the Bible? 

Good news on the pipeline to tidewater and the current Trans Mountain Pipeline will be the blueprint for a second pipeline following the same course. That still remains in my mind the best way forward. Upgrading the Port of Vancouver is a better move than starting from scratch in the north. Protection of the North Coast is very important to our First Nations and it hosts a 2 billion dollar industry making it most practical to simply clone the current pipeline setup to tidewater. With proven oil reserves in Alberta oilsands worth 7 trillion on the open market at this time, we have plenty to sell for sure. No shortage at all but the XL pipeline which we built to the American border has not yet been linked as the American part of the pipeline is not yet built but I think it is in process. We have a lot of oil reserves in Canada. 

Good news for British Columbia moving forward with this National energy grid expansion. It is interesting that from Confederation onward we managed our immigration and although we grew much slower that way I think we are happy with the results of that careful management which was unfortunately ignored from 2015 on until the present government headed up by Prime Minister Carney. We are back to careful immigration management under the present government. It is important to accept people for whom there are jobs available. 

No work the last few days as it was all about cleaning as I was running one day behind and I can hardly believe it is just two more days after today and I am back to cleaning again. I do like to maintain my cleaning schedule as even being off one day tends to throw confusion into the mix for me. Perhaps it is my age of 80 plus years. 

I do need to get back to my genealogical descent charting and perhaps today I will find time to do that for a while. It is busy though the summer with the yardwork. I do love winter for that reason along with all that quiet time to work in. 

Solitaire puzzles to do.  

 

Fireworks in the sky

 I guess someone up the block decided to have fireworks last night; the fireworks for the National Display here in Ottawa were cancelled due to the heavy thunder and lightning storms that we had yesterday. The rain came down in sheets it was so heavy. 

I completed Leviticus today and I perhaps read it this time with more understanding than the last. These were the rules given to the peoples of Israel through Moses. The Israelites whom God brought out of Egypt from their bondage there. To be the people of God, close to Him and His most trusted people the rules that are followed in the 27 Chapters of Leviticus are many and the punishments for not doing so extremely severe. 

Discipline was a very important part of every day when I was a child at school. The rules were kept without deviation and one simply followed them exactly and precisely. You just knew which line was yours and where you were in that line. The world had just been through a terrible World War; the second in the 1900s. Both terrible wars of loss; loss of life, loss of property; loss of health so many losses and even when I worked at the Post Office one could still see those losses in the 1970s with the Stenographic group in the middle of the large working room who did the tasks required by the other workers in the offices around them. Many of them were maimed by that war but each day they came. Some still shell-shocked and feeble but they too came day after day. Computers were coming though and the members of the Stenographic Pool were reaching retirement age and rest and I moved on to raise our eldest daughter born during this time period. 

That is what I understand reading Leviticus. It was discipline on how to live within the close shadow of God. History records the life of the people of Israel and these Old Testament books have been handed down from a long time ago  and then recorded by scribes and then rewritten many times by scribes as the centuries passed. This history of Homo sapiens as known to mankind was written down and carefully preserved by the Israeli people. Archaeology verifies these stories many times over but the experience of my childhood with my grandfather (and grandmother to a certain extent) telling me the stories of their time and the stories told to them by their ancestors tells me that real stories can be passed down through the centuries virtually intact. 

When I first started thinking about all of these stories and decided to google them I was amazed to see in print exactly what I remembered being said to me and for me that was over sixty years ago and for my grandfather who was seventy eight when he died his discussions included great grandparents born over two hundred years ago. The one I am thinking of was Charles Butt baptized 25 Dec 1801 at Winterborne Stickland, Dorset, England. My grandfather went to his 80th birthday party in Dorset as a young child and remembered seeing all of his many cousins, aunts and uncles. Charles was a Wesleyan Preacher although he lived and died as an Anglican in the Church of England. Always fascinated me that information about Charles. But Grandpa said he loved to talk and he talked about so many things but especially the Church and how one lives ones life within the Church of England. So did Grandpa!

Main floor all cleaned yesterday and today is the basement and I shall soon begin. 

Solitaire puzzles first.  

The strictness of God's laws in Leviticus

 Perhaps the one verse that really stood out in my mind was in Chapter 20 where God is speaking to the people of Israel through Moses and he says in verse 26: "You shall be holy to me; for I the Lord am holy, and I have separated you from the other peoples to be mine." Earlier in Chapter 19, verse 18, the Lord says to Moses to tell His people: "..... you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the Lord." The path that the Israeli people had to follow as they made their way with the Lord in front of them as a cloud by day and a fire by night was very strict and the laws of God and they were many had to be obeyed at all times. 

Tomorrow I will complete the reading of Leviticus moving on to the chapter Numbers. As I look back over a lifetime it is a long time since I have read all the books of the Bible one after the other. I have been reading the daily Bible verses for a long time now but actually reading the Bible page by page is a better way I think. 

Today is Cleaning day two and it is the main floor. We have now completed the changes upstairs so that each of us has a room for our desks and materials to do our work but away from our own sleeping areas. I think that works very well and just happens to also be practical in this house as it has four bedrooms. Although quite small in actual square footage the division into rooms lends itself to taking advantage of the ability to separate one's work from one's sleeping. 

When we move I shall probably work in the kitchen or part of the living room as we intend to buy a smaller house. That will not be for a few years though so will take this opportunity to begin the downsizing which I need to do to move. 

Probably not much work done today as I am doing a slightly more thorough cleaning which takes up more of the day. Worthwhile for sure in the long run. We are having a warm spell for this week and then perhaps cooling again although it is July now and Canada Day and generally July is hot and dry. 

Solitaire puzzles next and then the cleaning.  

 

The rules of God in Leviticus

  In order to live and work with God, the Israelites had to follow all the rules precisely and exactly. But most importantly they must never forget that it was God that brought them out of  bondage in Egypt to the Promised Land. Every day every hour their obedience to God was under constant scrutiny and it must be perfect or they would be punished. Leviticus is a very difficult book of the Bible. Jude, the brother of Jesus Christ, although he called himself a bond slave of his brother, said that Jesus came to earth to be the Saviour of all mankind. We just had to follow the two commandments always - love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and love our neighbour as ourself. Then the world would find peace; but is that my interpretation that the world would find peace. I am searching for that as I re-read the Bible. 

Usually Monday is a cleaning day but we were off to deliver late birthday presents and go swimming. It was a lovely gentle day for me. Being 80 plus has given me a different perspective on life. I am gentler as a person although my hermit tendencies are even stronger. It is rare for me to ever answer the door unless I am expecting someone. I discovered it had become rare when I did actually answer it the other day rather than never. But I suspect it will go back to never again. 

We also did something we do not generally do as we picked up our dinner at the grocery store. A lovely dinner of roast chicken, potatoes and salads was enjoyed by us a bit late but enjoyable none the less.  Usually we prepare everything pretty much from scratch but yesterday was an exception. 

Today I clean and it is the top floor and I have done a little of the preparation to get that done. I will clean the bathroom first and that is very soon after I finish my blog likely although I may play a couple of solitaire games first. There are always five of them and I do the hardest one first of all and then I have a fixed order that I follow always ending with Spider unless it is the hardest one. I love doing Spider solitaire game the best of all. 

I went out first thing and watered the tomato plants and it is to be another very hot day and the flowers are now on all of the plants. We will see if they produce fruit as the land is not strong after 50 years of growing. Vegetable crops are especially hard on the land leaching out all the vitamins and minerals in the land. But this land has been allowed to be fallow for two years and perhaps it will have regained some of its strength plus we do fertilize the plants twice after planting and at planting so we will see how well the plants do. 

I wrote my sister a letter and will send that off later today. I think she is quite attentive still and my father lived to be 94 years and perhaps she will also live a very long life although being bedridden was undesirable to both my father and I am sure my sister. She will try likely to walk again after two surgeries on broken hip joints (both joints). It is eight years now since we were face to face but I do not see myself traveling so far away in my 80s unless I am with my children. 

The time moves onward and I must make accomplishments as the day will move on quickly and be much hotter.  

Leviticus- Worship, atonement and consecration

 Reading the first six chapters of Leviticus and it brings back memories of what is allowed and what is not allowed except I was raised Christian so only heard that expressed as what the people of Israel had to do to be able to be close to God and to live in His presence. For God was with the people of Israel as a cloud by day and fire by night. Always with them; God wanted the world to know that He was the only God.  God brought the Israeli people out of slavery and bondage in Egypt and back to the Promised Land where the bones of their forefather Jacob had been taken four hundred years or more earlier after he died in Egypt. This total surrender by the people of Israel to God's commands was their way forward into time so long ago now but they did it and brought to us now in the present the Old Testament so that we too can learn the history of Homo sapiens with respect to our God. 

Perhaps it is being Christian that I interpret all of this in the fashion that I do. Still in the back of my brain are my grandfather's stories about the early peoples in England being one of the Lost Tribes of Israel. The Western Hunter Gatherer DNA that my brothers carry is ancient to the British Isles and indeed other old family names in the Andover to Basingstoke area of Hampshire also carry Western Hunter Gatherer DNA which is fascinating and one can think that the depth of their habitation in this area is known by family lore as being ancient to this land. What is ancient to the British Isles. The British Isles was covered by ice likely to a depth of 1 kilometer during the Last Ice Age so nothing likely lived on the British Isles prior to that date but one is left to wonder did those Hunter Gatherers retreat to the south during the Ice Age and then return home as it receded thousands of years later. There is much to learn in the archaeological digs of the British Isles. Why do we carry (my siblings and I) both Neanderthal (2%) and Denisovan (3%)  DNA material from these two earlier groups of Homo? What is it telling us? Many carry these two in varying amounts. But primarily all of my autosomal lines are ancient to the British Isles - one line back in the late 1400s came to Dunster, Somerset from France (Huguenot). 

Tomorrow I continue reading Leviticus which I always consider to be one of the most difficult chapters in the Bible perhaps because we are learning about communion with God and how it is achieved. No ideas on that really as it belongs to the past; a very long time ago and Jesus came to bring an easier shorter list of commandments - love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and love our neighbour as ourself. That way wars can end and the world can find that peaceful plain where all prosper and evil is gone. He is the God of the Jews, of the Christians and of the Muslims and they are the only religions that I know and primarily I am familiar with the Christian religion principally. 

Yesterday was a moving day as we shifted work desks about to make our task of working much easier and even streamlined. I need to downsize and it has taken me five years to accept that I need to downsize and this summer will see me send material that belongs to the Kipp family and it will be in the Archives where anyone can look at it or use it. I also sent links to Edward's work online and anyone can download that. It is his gift to the Kipp family of which he was a member. I suppose in my mind I kept thinking maybe one of his own would contact me and say we want all that material. But no one did and so I must make the move forward to place it where it can be seen. I am also thinking of now getting rid of my Fiche Reader back to the OGS where it belongs and the fiche will go to the Anglican Church Archives which I set up a number of years ago as at the time of purchase from various repositories in England I agreed to place the material in an appropriate place which the Anglican Church Archives at my church is certainly appropriate. They already have a number of holdings. I will check to make sure they still want them. Each move forward brings me closer to my one room theory of how I eventually need to live. 

My grandfather would have loved all this knowledge. He loved to read and the same for my grandmother. Both encouraged me to read and to write and to learn as much as I could. 

Solitaire puzzles next.