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I’m reading through the New Testament this year. I’ve done the Bible in a year plans and tend to read quickly just to get finished and don’t focus on the text. So I thought I would try a plan on my iPad for just a chapter a day and try to soak it in. Yes, I’ve gone digital. Sometimes I miss the onion skin and writing in the margins. But I like to take notes and be able to find them again. I can categorize and sort on the iPad. I also enjoy shuffling translations on the fly.

Sometimes, digital bites you in the behind, though.

Take this morning. My text was Matthew 23. Almost completely in red. Jesus said it, I’d better pay attention:

They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbiby others. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. (Matthew 23:5-9 ESV)

After finding a suitable definition for phylacteries, I moved on to define rabbiby. Stumped. Nothing on the web but alternate suggested spellings. Why is it in the Bible if I can’t get a definition? Get behind me Satan, I’m going to figure this out. I plugged away at the word and searched. Twenty minutes of painstaking research has brought me to the following conclusion that I would like to share with you:

1. Rabbiby could be the plural of Rabbi.

2. Rabbiby might be a term of derision used by average citizens.

3. Rabbiby possibly is a greeting given between brothers who are both scholars of the law. “Hey Rabbiby, you gonna finish that?”

My research is incomplete on this matter, and I welcome any insight. I have but one other theory – that print editors are slightly better than the digital ones. Butthatisonlyatheory.

Spring seems to have found us here in Georgia this weekend. While it is a simple fact that God smiles on The South sooner than the northern regions, I hold no illusions that spring is here for good. But yesterday found me in shorts cleaning up the yard. We live on a couple of wooded acres and green is beginning to peek through the gloomy brown – in my neighbor’s yard. I however was cursed with a dreaded black thumb. I follow some photography blogs displaying the most beautiful flowers from tropical locations, so I thought I would give you my best effort.

These are my gardenias. Are implies a current state of being, so I suppose I should say these were my gardenias. I don’t know what happened to them, they just shriveled up and turned brown like everything else I put in the ground. Our once vibrant hydrangeas look more like flaking twigs than actual plants. My grass – brown in every season unless you include moss and weeds. Every time I go to the orange store, I tell my friend Lou the dilemma and he recommends a plant that can’t be killed. I used to take them back with their return policy, but I’ve become embarrassed to do so anymore.

You know how God builds a perfect union from two dissimilar parts? One member of the marriage might be outgoing and the other shy, or one might be cognitive while the other is emotional. Then they join together like pieces of a puzzle and complete each other perfectly (sorry for the cheesy Jerry Maguire reference, but while I’m at it, enjoy…)

In a cruel twist of fate for botanists everywhere, my lovely bride has a matching black thumb. Potted plants seem to be a popular thank you gift here and she’s received a number of them over the years. All we have left is a bunch of pots filled with what I call soil of death. She kills indoor plants while I slay the jungle outside. Nothing is safe in our homestead. Thank you, God that we have a supermarket and don’t rely on subsistence farming. We’d all starve for sure.

So while my friends up north are mired in snow, we are seeing the sun in our little slice of heaven. Maybe it likes us because we don’t need it for photosynthesis. I don’t know, I just like wearing shorts again.

Although outwardly it may appear that I am in full possession of my life’s reigns, I’ve come to realize that I control very few things besides my attitude. Most events occur around me while I jab at the air to try to influence their outcome. Like a giant game of cornhole, I throw the bean bag in the air, lean left, hold my tongue just right, and hope it goes in the hole. To give my analogy an Olympic flair, I’m swishing a broom violently in the hopes of pushing the stone to the left. I think we are all very reactionary in how we approach life because the demands of family, creditors, employers, government (and the list goes on) dictate most of our schedule.

I enjoyed my college philosophy classes, but remember nothing except my professor who had spindly legs supporting a massive belly. His poor knees creaked and cracked as he paced around the room. I’m sure he would say my theory is some type of classic Plato “–ism” where we are sitting back watching our lives on screens, only able to choose between limited outcomes.

Don’t overestimate my depth. I’m not philosophical at all. I only know that I have no choice in many things – even in my house. But at home, at least I am the Sadistic Overlord of Technology! Don’t you love the title? I gave it to myself. I should probably put it in bold. The Sadistic Overlord of Technology. If anything remotely technological doesn’t work the way one of my family hoped it would, I am to blame. I get blame, ergo, I get the title.

Take, for instance, our printer. It was one of the first wireless printers and worked perfectly for a long time. It still works fine…for some of us. Three of us have Windows 8 and it seems to like that OS. But it gave up trying for Windows 7. My wife and oldest daughter have Windows 7. I have updated the drivers and tried everything I know to do. But when they push print, it will print no more than one page before it dies. Usually it prints about half a page, violently spits the paper onto the floor, and goes into some form of cleaning mode that makes them scream in frustration. Since both are night owls, this nearly always occurs after the Overlord has gone to bed.

My attitude when awoken to fix the printer is where the word Sadistic got added to my title. I’m not much help after I’ve gone to sleep – part by mental capacity and part by groggy choice, I admit. The help desk is closed! I come out of the bedroom like Jack Nicholson poking his head through the door in The Shining – “Here’s Johnny!”

We’ve been dealing with this for a while and I’ve been dragging my heels on getting a new printer. I guess in some way, my sub-conscious sees this as one thing I can control. As you can imagine, there are ripple effects – mainly in attitude towards the overlord.

Come to think of it, control can be a dangerous thing…

Anyone have a recommendation for a wireless printer?

Photo credit: Jack & some cool app on my iPad

Have you ever seen someone completely out of context, recognized their face, but it took some time to come up with the venue where you typically interact with them?

Maybe you know a policeman who you typically see in uniform. Then you run into him at your son’s baseball game. The face looks so familiar. “How do I know this person?” you ask yourself until it finally clicks.

Or possibly you are at your favorite Portuguese restaurant and a familiar-looking woman you positively should know is seated three tables away, only you can’t recall her name. Maybe she is an old girlfriend (you’ve had so many), maybe you worked together, or went to the same high school. Also escaping you is whether you knew her well enough that you are compelled to say hello. Through the appetizer, salad, and main course you glance so many times she is wondering if she should call the police or if you are going to buy her dinner. Finally during desert, it comes to you that she’s the teller at the bank, leaving you nothing to worry about except her surly husband whose eyes are riveted on you.

All of that leads me to something that happened recently. For many years, I was an early morning gymrat.  I love going to the gym, but hate much of the meat-market style interaction that goes on there. I hate waiting for the lat press while Joey finishes texting. I loathe the flirting, that guy doing curls in the mirror hoping someone is watching, the girl who is wearing less fabric than my sock, and the people who sweat like they are being interrogated but don’t feel the need to wipe down a seat. So I started going to the gym at 5 am. At 5 am, the gym is full of people who are serious about working out. I made many friends over the years and joined a group of people who ran a few days a week as well.

One evening while at the store with my lovely wife, I saw a lady I knew I should know. While her husband didn’t look the least bit familiar, her face did. Across several aisles, I stared her down. I wracked my brain to come up with my association with this woman, but could not. Finally our paths met, she smiled when and said, “Hello Mark.” Upon hearing her voice, I knew immediately she was part of the running group from the gym.

I replied just like anyone would in the situation, “Hello Patty, I was having trouble placing you for a minute. I didn’t recognize you with clothes on.”

Those words hung there for a second while everyone besides me tried to make sense of them. Me? Oh, I didn’t really know what I’d said, I was just relieved to have the mystery solved. I stood there with a contented smile on my face until I noticed the shock on their faces. I did a mental recount of my statement and went directly to panic mode.

I’ll have that back, please!

Nope, no taking it back. I could only explain that I meant I was used to seeing her in very appropriate work-out clothes.

Yes, I’m still married and no, her husband and I did not tussle! (I could have taken him, though – with all of my bicep curls into the mirror.)

Have you ever seen someone completely out of context, recognized their face, but it took some time to come up with the venue where you typically interact with them?

Maybe you know a policeman who you typically see in uniform. Then you run into him at your son’s baseball game. The face looks so familiar. “How do I know this person?” you ask yourself until it finally clicks.

Or possibly you are at your favorite Portuguese restaurant and a familiar-looking woman you positively should know is seated three tables away, only you can’t recall her name. Maybe she is an old girlfriend (you’ve had so many), maybe you worked together, or went to the same high school. Also escaping you is whether you knew her well enough that you are compelled to say hello. Through the appetizer, salad, and main course you glance so many times she is wondering if she should call the police or if you are going to buy her dinner. Finally during desert, it comes to you that she’s the teller at the bank, leaving you nothing to worry about except her surly husband whose eyes are riveted on you.

All of that leads me to something that happened recently. For many years, I was an early morning gymrat.  I love going to the gym, but hate much of the meat-market style interaction that goes on there. I hate waiting for the lat press while Joey finishes texting. I loathe the flirting, that guy doing curls in the mirror hoping someone is watching, the girl who is wearing less fabric than my sock, and the people who sweat like they are being interrogated but don’t feel the need to wipe down a seat. So I started going to the gym at 5 am. At 5 am, the gym is full of people who are serious about working out. I made many friends over the years and joined a group of people who ran a few days a week as well.

One evening while at the store with my lovely wife, I saw a lady I knew I should know. While her husband didn’t look the least bit familiar, her face did. Across several aisles, I stared her down. I wracked my brain to come up with my association with this woman, but could not. Finally our paths met, she smiled and said, “Hello Mark.” Upon hearing her voice, I knew immediately she was part of the running group from the gym.

I replied just like anyone would in the situation, “Hello Patty, I was having trouble placing you for a minute. I didn’t recognize you with clothes on.”

Those words hung there for a second while everyone besides me tried to make sense of them. Me? Oh, I didn’t really know what I’d said, I was just relieved to have the mystery solved. I stood there with a contented smile on my face until I noticed the shock on their faces. I did a mental recount of my statement and went directly to panic mode.

I’ll have that back, please!

Nope, no taking it back. I could only explain that I meant I was used to seeing her in very appropriate work-out clothes.

Yes, I’m still married and no, her husband and I did not tussle! (I could have taken him, though – with all of my bicep curls into the mirror.)