The Argument Clinic

Now that I am back at work and have my lunch hour to myself again its easier to get back on track with my reading.  Today’s reading is Exodus 1-5.  Here goes… 

Exodus 1

“They made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly.”  Hmmm…some poor management decisions here if you ask me.  This type of treatment of the Israelites seems that it would make them more likely rather than less likely to rise up against them (because if the Egyptians had treated them well/fairly then the Israelites wouldn’t have the same cause for complaint.).

“The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.” So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.”  Its always interesting to me that we are taught not to lie to others, but, in the OT, if people had a good reason to lie (like the midwives in this example) it seems as though they aren’t punished for it (and are, in this case at least, rewarded).  This comes up several others times as well.  Hmmm…

Exodus 2

I wonder what it was like for Moses’ mother to help to raise her own son for someone else.  In one sense I’m sure that was difficult for her, but, on the other hand, she got to see that her son lived so I would think she would be thankful for that.

“Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.”" Uhh…yeah, well what are the chances that the Hebrew who survived the beating wouldn’t have mentioned what Moses did to the Egyptian to anyone else after the attack?

“Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage.”  Ok, seriously, all a guy had to do back then was help water flocks or scare off shepherds and they were giving daughters away to them.  Sure, we have problems in the 21st century and all, but I am still relieved that I wasn’t around back then.

Exodus 3

For those of you who may think that the service I help out with (no shoes required) has a “weird name” (as my dad put it the other day) it comes from verse 5 of this chapter (”"Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”")

Is it bad that the parts of this chapter where God is telling Moses to go to all the different people and say that He sent them reminds me of the Princess Bride “My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.”?  That probably seems random…its just the seemingly repetitive nature of this chapter that made me think of it.  But then the Israelites weren’t always too quick to pick up on things (anymore than I am sometimes) so they probably needed that.

Exodus 4

“So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand.”  Yeah…if I were Moses I would be less than thrilled about the whole touching the snake thing.

“But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.”  I know I really won’t figure this verse out today because I never have been able to.  I just struggle with this one for (what I see as) pretty obvious reasons.

“And when they heard that the LORD was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped.”  Hmmm…bowing down and worshipping seems like a good thing to do a lot of the time, not just when you think you are going to get your way. 

Exodus 5

“”O Lord, why have you brought trouble upon this people? Is this why you sent me?  Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble upon this people, and you have not rescued your people at all.”"  This is an issue I often struggle with in my own life and am not that great at dealing with sometimes.  I trust God to do something for me and when it takes more time than I think it should, I assume that He isn’t going to deliver on what I trusted Him to do.  Only I feel like it should be different for Moses when God actually appeared to him in person…rather than the promptings I tend to feel in my life (which I feel like could be easier to question…even if that’s wrong too)…but I guess that isn’t the case really.  Seems like Moses struggles with it anyway.

That’s it for today’s reading.

So I am sitting in the philadelphia train station waiting for my train (figured that was a reasonable thing to do in a train station ). Had an interesting taxi ride over here. Was one of the talkative drivers, she was nice but, as an introvert, I kind of like traveling quietly but oh well. Not too long into the trip she took a left onto a one way street. That wouldn’t seem blog-worthy at all until I mention that it was going the wrong direction… Luckily it was at a stop light and people were going pretty slowly. God must have been watching out for me again cause we didn’t hit anything (it was a pretty busy street) and she was able to back up and turn around so we could drive legally for a while. See why uninteresting can be a little better than exciting trips sometimes? Even if less interesting trips are also less blog-worthy?

She proceeded to tell me all the places I could visit when I come back, which was nice…they usually do that to get better tips I think and after the one way street incident she probably felt the need to work on that a little .

She also said that she has a nice, new house in the area and that if hotels were too expensive I could stay with her (I nicely avoided that invite. How weird was that though?).

Anyways now I am just waiting around, was able to get an earlier train at least. Will probably change my next leg of the trip as well but am waiting til I get to ny to do that.

I thought this article was pretty silly:

Alleged crack dealers uses business cards

I know I haven’t been too great at remembering to post since the conference started this week.  Have been going to presentations all day and been either out to dinner or completely exhausted in the evening (or both ) since then.

Conference has been going pretty well, I tend to go to so many soil vapor intrusion meetings though that at this point I have heard a lot of the presentations already.  But there have been a few that I haven’t seen (and a couple that I have seen that were more interesting this time around for some reason). 

Have realized this week that there are a few more business trips that I will need to add to my schedule in May…one of which (in monterey, ca) overlaps with a Sunday morning…hmm….really not too thrilled about that prospect so I haven’t decided about that one.   The other one is a meeting I go to every year, just not sure where it is yet.  At least April is travel-free so far (fingers crossed) so I will have to appreciate that when it gets here

Am heading home on the train later today, am going to see if I can get an earlier one because I don’t think I am going to stick around for the full 3-4 hours of the panel discussion today.

That’s it for now.  Looking forward to getting home so I can get back on track with posting here more frequently and being on weight watchers (cause it is really difficult to keep that up when you are traveling, unfortunately…).  And my cats are never thrilled with me when I leave so I will see how they are when I get home, I’m sure they will tell me off for a little while like usual

Anyone know how next week is February already?

I apologize to all of you pepsi fans out there, but I am a coca cola girl all the way…but when I travel to hotels the vending machines (and room service) only seem to sell pepsi products.  Now I really don’t care much about sierra mist vs. sprite, but I just can’t seem to get used to pepsi.  I long for the simpler days of my childhood when I naively believed that they tasted the same but, alas, through years of soda-drinking experience I have learned the error of my ways.  Pepsi just isn’t as good and now I just can’t convince my taste buds otherwise.  I am getting homesick for my fridge at home that is constantly stocked with diet coke of some kind (I really like the diet coke + lime…I know, some people hate diet sodas but I am on weight watchers, ok?  And while I like regular coca cola, I just can’t justify taking those points away from my regular meals ).  Sigh…