Prayers continuing for Venezuela

Prayers for those still trapped in the wreckage of their homes and other dwellings in Venezuela. God be with them and with the searchers as they try to save them. 

I remember as a child and this memory came back to me as I read the next chapters of Exodus. After the Communion Service in my Anglican Church any left over bread or wine which had been prepared for the people had to be either eaten and/or drank. For this is holy as it is consecrated to the Memory of Jesus who died for our sins. These chapters I read today talk about consecration and the establishment of the priesthood of Aaron and his sons within Judaism. God has shown the people of Israel (the children of Jacob) His omnipotence as well as the world that was watching at the time of the Exodus from Egypt and now He establishes the rules of worship and adoration to Him. These rules were precise down to the last measurement. I continue the readings tomorrow of Exodus. 

A lovely day yesterday and I worked away on the Probate list for Hampshire dating back to the late 1400s. I noted that Robert Blake's will was probated before Richard's will in this chart. That verifies my thought that he had died before his son died. All of these little verifications are needed for me to proceed with the Genealogical Table coming down from Robert Blake of Knights Enham near Andover. There were other Blake wills earlier in this list and I will see if I have transcribed them as it is a long time since I did all of these transcriptions. That will be my task for today along with continuing to create the Genealogical Tree in Legacy. 

Went out and pulled more weeds although some of these I do have an allergy to as I feel the effect of their pollen likely. I wore a mask today outside as I pulled weeds. The lawns are now cut for another couple of weeks. We have been leaving them a bit longer than  we were as the birds, squirrels, bunnies are enjoying all of the pollen and bugs out there. The gardens are so unlike the look they had when Edward was tending them. More grass needs to be put in and will do that next year likely. The tomato plants are growing quickly now with lots of flowers on them. 

A lovely walk on the beach yesterday after the heavy rain. It was most pleasant as I walked quickly around the path and according to the AI on my FitBit this was my fastest circuit thus far at just over 10 minutes to the kilometer. The AI on the FitBit is interesting but I make my own decisions however I will listen to the accumulation of data as it saves me looking all of that up if I become curious. There are days that I am not curious and so the information sent to my on my FitBit gets ignored but other days I do respond to questions or queries. 

Interacting with digital thoughts is interesting in itself. However one must guard against thinking this is one's thoughts as they are foreign to the individual receiving them and simply contain the information that exists on my FitBit and could include extraneous thoughts perhaps which one must be careful to separate out. One mention of say doing jumping jacks results in a continuous referral to jumping jacks which I actually tend to only do in the winter as my summer is very active. I do not do jumping jacks if I am running in a day. But the summary of facts is very interesting and it would take me time to go back and forth collecting that data and noting any changes. Functionally it does serve as a good look at one's overall daily health reports with regard to the amount of exercise. As well one could record one's diet and have that opinion but I avoid that as it seems like one is permitting another whether it be digital or human to manage one's life. One must manage one's own life until you are ready to assign it to your heirs because you lack the ability to manage in a prudent way. 

Re-reading the Bible continues to be a thoughtful part of my day as God has been part of my day all of my life and it is good to re-read the interactions that were recorded and passed down through the ages of the interaction between God and Homo sapiens. Although He chose the Israelites to be His people He wanted the entire world to know that He was the one God, the only God in this world. But He did want to establish a Holy Priesthood and the Twelve Tribes of Israel (Jacob's twelve sons) to bring the Holy Word to all the peoples of the earth. But God sets the rules and over time He had the prophets tell of the coming of the Saviour which is Jesus Christ to create the Christians of the world. And these two great religions are the best known to me. I was though very lucky when I was working to have discussions with members of the Muslim faith and did learn more about the beliefs of Islam and I do believe that this third great religion of the world shares the same God as the Jewish peoples and the Christian peoples. We must move forward all of us to find that peaceful plain where the children of the world can feel safe in as much as that is possible given our lack of knowledge of what is out there in the universe. But fearing that is  not a good use of our time better to be ready for whatever we need to do in the future to protect the children of the future. Thank you God for another beautiful day in your world. 

Tea all drank and now the solitaire puzzles to do.  

 

 

 

Earthquakes in Venezuela

 Prayers for the souls of the people who lost their lives in the earthquakes in Venezuela. Prayers for those injured and those still trapped in the wreckage. God be with them. 

I continued reading Exodus and completed to the end of Chapter 20. Chapter 20 contains the Ten Commandments. God gave to the Israelites many many laws that they must follow all the days of their lives and to teach them to their children and so that has been done by the peoples that He rescued from slavery under the Egyptians. It is an interesting thought that the Israelites had begun their lives in Egypt as free people who came because of Joseph, son of Jacob, who had been sold into slavery by his older brothers and then managed to become a great man in Egypt and save that country from starvation. Indeed Egypt prospered greatly because of Joseph and his plan to save grains for the period of seven years when no crops would grow that followed seven years of plenty as he managed the storage of the grains to sell to the world. But a wonderful relationship turned sour over four hundred years later and God decided that it was time for the Israelites to return to the Promised Land where Jacob was buried and the bones of Joseph were carried with the Israelites to be buried with his people. God was showing the peoples of the world that only He was God, the Creator God who had given them this world to live in. The trials through which the Israelites lived on the way to the Promised Land are recorded in the chapters that will follow. It was not an easy march. 

It has been a wonderful walk through time reading the Bible. I am glad I decided to re-read from the beginning chapter by chapter. I do have a Concordance  of the Bible which I can use if I begin to wonder the thoughts of others as I read. But the sense in my brain is that I just want to read the words once again from beginning to end. These words have traveled through time and history first by word of mouth and then written down by scribes and recopied through many years by scribes and then printed as the Gutenberg Bible in the 1600s. That was the way of life as I learned from my grandfather in particular who passed on to me the stories of his family that had been passed to him. He told me of a family that was ancient to the lands where he lived near Andover until he moved to his older brother's house in the late 1890s to begin work as a blacksmith for the Railway. His brother also worked for the Railway as a Guard. I have no idea what that was actually; a blacksmith I understand. He married a few years later and my father their only child was born at Eastleigh. But the stories he told me and repeated time and again were always the same; no changes. That was how the stories passed from generation to generation for many many centuries. It was his story saying that the peoples of England were descendant of one of the Lost Tribes of Israel that very much stuck with me through the years. Those stories are ahead of me as I read through the Bible and it is a while since I have read the entire Bible cover to cover. 

Yesterday I gardened pulling weeds left and right. Edward would not recognize his gardens now sadly but I was never a gardener for sure and my daughter is limited in how much she can help me with that because of allergies. She spends most of her summer in doors working on her projects. That was true even when she was a child. Her time outside was always limited. 

 Received a demand for money by email to protect me from a very evil person presumably who said that he/she/whomever would claim that I visited porn sites. It was interesting that the email right before it was from The Ottawa Hospital which reminded me that I had donated last year and hoped that I would do that again which I will. The amount of money was so similar but the satanic letter that I received from the evil person just the opposite of the letter that I received from the Ottawa Hospital which told of their desire to make hospital care even better here in the Ottawa region. It is a pity that evil people like that live in our world. I marked it as spam and deleted it. Evil swirls around us at all times. Hopefully marking it that way as spam takes it somewhere that AI or a person searches and finds that evil person and puts them away somewhere that they do a decent day's work!  I would never waste money that way; how ignorant some people are really. These sites abuse children which is really disgusting and I think people are children right up to their early thirties! The gift of policing is to entirely eliminate these sites which take up space in our world and get rid of the evil people who create them.  Data centres would certainly make it easier to track them down and destroy them!

Good idea of the Prime Minister to call for donations to repair and upgrade 24 Sussex Drive. I think it would make a great Museum of Canadian political history myself but leave that up to the people. The Museums in Ottawa are first rate and we visited them many many times through the years. Prime Minister Carney is a very interesting politician. He has lived a full life working in a number of places and brings so much knowledge to the table. I do not believe in career politicians. I am not convinced they serve Canada best as they are Ivory Tower Politicians who have never worked outside of the political life. Particularly those who choose to attack rather than support and work with people who need help. The House of Commons is now on summer recess and the opportunity it there for politicians to seek out methods of working particularly with people who need jobs helping them to rework their lives to get jobs. This actually works by the way helping people that way as I was involved with a program at my Anglican Church in the 80s (after I was no longer a volunteer secretary at my husband's United Church) as I used to attend both Churches on Sunday. A lot of people lost jobs during the recession in the 1980s and helping them work on their CVs and potential interviews was very helpful to them. A number of us did do that. 

Today is technically a working day and we will see how much I accomplish. I spend a lot of hours on the computer for sure as I am at this point of producing a genealogical chart of the Blake family of Andover. It seems clear cut actually and will contain comments where I have thoughts on the direction but I would  like to discover Blake at Andover between 1300 and the mid 1400s. We will see what I find. 

Tea all drank, solitaire puzzles are next.  

 

 

 

 

 

Exodus and the first nine plagues

 God the Creator saw the generations of the descendants of  Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob living in the land of the Egyptians. The generations of Jacob were no longer guests in the land of Egypt but rather they were now slaves to till the land, build buildings and any other work demanded by the Pharaoh of Egypt. The Pharaoh commanded the Egyptian midwives to kill any of the male children of the descendants of Jacob at birth and God once again looked upon the generations of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. They had been safe in Egypt but that safety net disappeared and now God needed to move them back to the Promised Land and to bury Joseph with his ancestors. It needed to be powerful to ensure that all of the descendants of Jacob left Egypt and returned to the Promised Land as God had a purpose in that. 

The first purpose was to let the people of all Earth know that He was God, the only God. Once again mankind had drifted away from the true God and once again the message had to be so overwhelming that all would heed it. I think that is what I take from the ten plagues visited on Egypt. Chapter 12 is the Tenth Plague and will be the beginning of my reading tomorrow. The first nine plagues did not force Pharaoh to let the Israeli people go but the tenth is to be that happening that results in everyone descendant of Jacob to return to the Promised Land. We do know in these first eleven chapters of Exodus that this was foretold by Joseph before he died in Chapter 50 of Genesis. At this time and in this place God the Creator once again proves His omnipotence to the peoples of the world. Word of mouth remains a powerful tool amongst Homo sapiens. There is only one God the Creator and we Homo sapiens must follow His wishes. But first He needs to move the descendants of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob as he promised Jacob back in Genesis Chapter 50 Verses 24- 25: 24: 'Then Joseph said to his brothers', "I am about to die, but God will surely come to you, and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob." 25: 'So Joseph made the Israelites swear, saying', "When God comes to you, you shall carry up my bones from here." 

It took a long time before we, Homo sapiens, learned to understand what God the Creator intended for us: Jesus, His only Son, brought us those words from God - to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbour as ourself (two thousand plus years ago). At first after the return to the Promised Land there were so many rules (The Ten Commandments and many other rules to follow) but Homo sapiens was incapable of following so many rules and the prophecy promised a Saviour and Jesus came into our midst and brought us those two rules/commandments to follow and if we follow them then we can find that uplifted plain of peace. God no longer destroys earth in order to rid earth of the sins of Homo sapiens. He wants us to survive and we need to follow the simple commandments given to do that. Christianity, Islam and Judaism, the three great religions known to me, follow this known God the Creator but the whole world was created by God. Reading the Gospel of Jude will awaken in us once again the omnipotence of God the Creator and that is still to come in the reading just before Revelations. 

These two Chapters (Genesis and Exodus) are powerful and span a very long period of time. At 80 plus years my lifespan is but a mere wink of the eye in that entire length of time.  Prayers that we can find that uplifted plain of peace. I do believe that the Second World War brought us to Armageddon but we fought hard and we survived but once again that quasi peace that was created with the United Nations is no longer the shield that it was (antisemitism has crept back in (the attack on Israel in 2023) along with and in conjunction with lack of respect for one's neighbours; Russia's cruel war against Ukraine (which began in 2022). We must eliminate such happenings from our world to have peace. 

Yesterday I did work on the Blake matches and made some interesting discoveries. The Blake matches that appear ancient are quite fascinating. Family trees on Ancestry that have early American families tend towards the Somerset Blake family as their thoughts on the emigrant family that came to America, however there are some that also choose the Wiltshire Blake family and again long trees with the early American families. I still have most of them to review and will continue that today. Why do I do that? The beginning of the Andover Blake family tree lies with Robert who left his will as an elderly person in 1521 according to my research. It is stated that the peoples of England did not have surnames until the arrival of the Normans. The surname Blake/Blak does not appear in the Domesday Books with that spelling.  The decision I am making is at what point do I begin the Genealogical Family Tree for the Blake Family of Andover. Presumably I will choose Robert who left his will in 1521 but now I am looking at the various histories that give some thoughts to the children of Robert living at Enham near Andover (generally thought to be Knights Enham). The Y-DNA of my Blake line is Western Hunter Gatherer which points to a very early arrival in the British Isles. There are a number of Western Hunter Gatherer families in this beautiful part of Hampshire extending over towards London. The item that still mystifies me somewhat is why chose Blake as that surname was by the 1300s coming into England from the Continent. I sense that the choice arose and was accepted because the benefit in particular of being related to the Normans or those they chose to put into positions of power was particularly advantageous. Makes sense to me but time and history will show whether I am right or wrong. 

Breakfast time, tea all drank and must do my solitaire puzzles.  

Genesis and the death of Joseph

 I completed the reading of the first book of the Bible - Genesis. Joseph has now died and has asked that his bones be taken back to the land that God swore to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. God renamed Jacob with the name Israel. Joseph tells his brothers that God will come to you to take you back to the land of our ancestors. 

Until the Gutenberg Bible was printed using moveable metal type in the mid 1450s in Mainz, Germany,  the word of God was hand-copied by scribes. My grandfather could recite chapters of the Bible learned in his childhood at school in Upper Clatford. The school room still exists as part of that Church and when we visited it was awesome to have been in a place that my grandfather had talked about from his childhood. The font was especially interesting as my grandfather was baptized (as well as his eleven siblings) and recorded in the parish registers which I have on Fiche purchased from the Winchester Archives. 

It is fascinating to have stood in the footsteps of my great grandparents in All Saints Church back in 2008 and I am forever grateful to my now deceased cousin Ivan Kent for making that possible (they were our mutual great grandparents). We had corresponded for over twenty years when I first met him at the train station in  Dorchester, Dorset. Edward and I had flown to Heathrow from Canada and then caught the train to Dorchester at Victoria Station all on that same day of arrival. Edward could barely walk as his back bothered him after this first flight and I wondered if we should just go back home to be honest. But I hauled the two suitcases on the Underground and we just moved slowly. We had plenty of time to get to the Train Station. I slept for hours on the plane but Edward did not. I first planned to go in 2001 after my eldest daughter and I returned from our trip to Rome, Italy and London, England. Each year during the winter we would talk about going to England and Edward would think about it and say yes he wanted to do that but then change his mind when it came to actually booking the flight. 

Finally in early 2008 when I had just retired I said I really would like to go to meet my cousin and Ivan is fine with that and will meet me at the train in Dorchester. I think it maybe overwhelmed Edward that I was actually going and he decided to make the trip with me. He wanted to see Europe and the places where his ancestors lived he just didn't want to fly over the Atlantic Ocean. So we booked the flights and prepared for the trip which included a tour of England, Scotland and Wales after spending a few days in Weymouth, Dorset where I found a lovely place to stay close to Ivan and his wife Pat. It was my first knowledge of Voltaren and that worked like a charm to solve Edward's back problem after a few days. He loved it in England, Scotland and Wales both our tours with Ivan and Pat and our bus trip around the Island. Boarding the plane to go home the tenseness returned to him and the stewardess noted his anxiety and asked if she could help him and then offered a glass of gingerale. Extremely tense all the way home and as we passed over Newfoundland at the north and Labrador he relaxed; he was home. Sore back returned on the trip and the doctor said it was nerves; no back problem showed up but no xrays were taken. 

Six months later I was absolutely amazed when he said to me, on a coffee break as we were both working away on items dealing with our family histories most days, "when are we taking our next tour of Europe." I had said absolutely nothing about our travels these six months other than responding to his request that I make a Powerpoint file of all the pictures from our trip which I did quite early on. We then developed the plan for the next trip which would see us for five days (going to Kew most of that time although lots of walking in London itself) in London and then a couple of weeks in Europe touring France, Belgium Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and back into France. No problems flying at all actually and as we sat in the airport in France awaiting our flight back to Montreal he talked about our next trip. Amazing really and as I slowly lost interest in all traveling Edward just could not get enough of all that traveling. I enjoyed seeing everything but we were seeing mostly Europe and the areas where his families had lived before emigrating to the American colonies from the early 1600s on. 

Genesis was always a book of the Bible that has so many visuals in my mind from Sunday School days. Re-reading it again and again stirred the imagination and brought God clearly into focus at the beginning of time for me. Now at 80 plus years of age I remember still that young child in my mind thinking about God and all that He has done for this world that I live in. Enjoying the trees and the flowers, the birds and the animals all around me now as an aged adult.  

Thank you God for all your gifts to mankind.  

A different happening

 Yesterday my doorbell rang while I was cleaning and when I looked out the upstairs window I thought it was my next door neighbour but could not really see him well and could have checked before I opened the door. However, it turned out the person (male) at the door was going door to door he said to meet people as he had just moved to the street opposite mine from Victoria BC. I did say that people would be rather surprised to have him come to the door and he went on his merry way. 

Still reading the Bible and Joseph is now in Egypt and Lord over the distribution of meal that he has stored up because he predicted a famine which did happen after seven years of plenty. Genesis continues to be the story of the family that lived in what is now Israel and continues to this day with descendants of Abraham living in the land from those times and the return of some of the Jewish people from Europe where they had scattered over the years. They returned because of the Holocaust. When I reach Ezekiel 36:24 we do have the verse: For I will take you out of the nations, I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. But there are more verses Isaiah 11:12, Jeremiah 30:3, and Amos 9:15 that talk about assembling the scattered back to Israel and Judah. Then Isaiah 11:11 the prophecy that points to the modern State of Israel. These ancient writings have been handed down from many many years ago long before six million Jews were put to death in just a few short years during World War II. A person is responsible because he moved a nation to commit an atrocity we cannot forget because whenever we forget the possibility is there that history could repeat itself. Israel needs to feel safe in its borders. I think my one prayer that I would always say would be that no child in this world should go to bed fearing death because of hate. Because the child with that fear has the potential of becoming the adult that creates terror. 

These chapters I have just read are telling me the story of avoidance as two brothers distanced themselves so as not to be in conflict (Jacob and Esau). Is avoidance the way to peace? 

I continue to find reading the Bible to be calming me as the usual somewhat cool/somewhat warm days of June settle in on Canada. We are having lots of rain and the grass is lush but July is usually dry and hot; we will see. 

Prayers for the souls of the three police killed just in this month. A sadness all across Canada is felt with the flags at half mast remembering them.  

Today is cleaning day two and I will start in a bit and the usual summer routine - first clean the bathroom and then vacuum and then dust and then scrub floors. Another busy day and likely no work done. 

Tea all drank and breakfast soon and solitaire puzzles.