Sue and I were driving from Eugene to Susanville, California today. At one point we stopped at a rest area. When we left, I took the wheel. As I pulled out there was some crazy traffic with vehicles merging from several different directions. I was cautiously merging back into traffic when Sue suddenly screamed: "Oh my God."
My grip on the steering wheel tightened as I prepared to take evasive action. I took my foot off the accellerator and held it up in preparation to either slam on the brakes or accellerate away from trouble. I checked every direction and every mirror looking for the source of the impending collision.
I saw nothing.
Still on hyper-alert, I yelled back at Sue: " What! What is it!"
She excitedly responded: "Two white horses! On my side. That's 200 points!"
I gradually extricated my fingernails from the steering wheel and used one free hand to pound on my chest to get my heart restarted.
After I was able to regain my composure, I was really angry at Sue for the first time since I met her. It was totally unfair of her to wait to start the game until she saw those two horses. Totally.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Jesus H. Christ
Have you ever wondered what the H stands for? Bored minds sometimes dwell on non-issues, but in the age of the Internet the answers to even stupid questions are at our fingertips. It turns out there are several schools of thought on the origin of the H.
My favorite is that it comes from the Lord's Prayer: "Our father, who art in heaven, Harold be thy name." The espousers of this theory obviously were as bored as I am today.
There is also a serious explanation: The Greek monogram for "Jesus, the savior of men" is variously presented as IHS, IHC, HHS, and JHC. The JHC was taken for his initials by some.
Another interesting thought, at least to me. Christ means annointed, so Jesus Christ means: Jesus, the annointed one. That would be like calling someone, Ed the crazy one. But the interesting thing is that Christ was not his last name, but a title put on him. What was his last name then?
In Jesus time they did not use last names like we do today. Our last names developed from descriptions of us, such as where we were from, what our occupation was, or who our parents were. That's why we have a lot of names ending in son: Johnson, Clarkson, Edson, Williamson, Josephson, Stephenson, etc, and in 'ton': Clinton, Ralston, Fenton, beginning with Mc or Mac or O' which all mean "son of" or "grandson of." In Jesus day the used the word bar for son of. So Jesus might have been called Jesus bar Joseph or Jesus of Nazareth. So, as names have evolved, his name today would be Jesus H. Josephson. Or perhaps, Jesus Godson, Jesus McGod, or Jesus O'God.
Food for thought.
My favorite is that it comes from the Lord's Prayer: "Our father, who art in heaven, Harold be thy name." The espousers of this theory obviously were as bored as I am today.
There is also a serious explanation: The Greek monogram for "Jesus, the savior of men" is variously presented as IHS, IHC, HHS, and JHC. The JHC was taken for his initials by some.
Another interesting thought, at least to me. Christ means annointed, so Jesus Christ means: Jesus, the annointed one. That would be like calling someone, Ed the crazy one. But the interesting thing is that Christ was not his last name, but a title put on him. What was his last name then?
In Jesus time they did not use last names like we do today. Our last names developed from descriptions of us, such as where we were from, what our occupation was, or who our parents were. That's why we have a lot of names ending in son: Johnson, Clarkson, Edson, Williamson, Josephson, Stephenson, etc, and in 'ton': Clinton, Ralston, Fenton, beginning with Mc or Mac or O' which all mean "son of" or "grandson of." In Jesus day the used the word bar for son of. So Jesus might have been called Jesus bar Joseph or Jesus of Nazareth. So, as names have evolved, his name today would be Jesus H. Josephson. Or perhaps, Jesus Godson, Jesus McGod, or Jesus O'God.
Food for thought.
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