“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert.” –J. Robert Oppenheimer
We have confirmation from BBC in Iran, WaPost in Beirut, and even Brookings. Two SUVs were on the way to the Airport in Baghdad, and four rockets were fired killing as many as 8 people in the two cars. We’re still sorting out who was in the cars. Many Iranian/Iraqi sources confirming the death of both the Quds Force chief Qassem Soleimani and the #PMU Deputy Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes by the attacks on the convoy near #Baghdad airport.
It is now confirmed: the US has killed Qassem Soleimani.
What it means is a month of ass-wipe “journalists” mourning over the loss of another “austere religious scholar”. To the parents of thousands of dead Americans and every soldier who was deployed to Iraq, it’s long overdue!
We will update as info flows. Please add to the post at will. Thank you for your help.
Update #1: Looks like we got all three of them, traveling together.
We start, once again with Orion…but we move east (left) and south (down) a bit…at least as seen from the Northern Hemisphere, around midnight. Shortly after sunset, just look straight down. Follow the line of the belt stars towards the eastern horizon.
See that very bright star there? That’s Sirius. It’s the brightest star in the night sky, and I mentioned it in passing last time.
It’s almost on the Milky Way (you can see a faint suggestion of it in the picture). In the picture, up and to the left, is Procyon, and moving right from Procyon there’s a yellowish star, and that’s Betelgeuse. Those three stars form a nice equilateral triangle, and it’s known as the Winter Triangle. (I personally find Rigel to be bright enough to ruin the pattern, so it only works for me after Rigel has set, or if it’s covered by a cloud.)
Our OTHER star? It’s also right there.
Binary Stars
Most stars are actually parts of a star system, a group of stars that orbit each other. It could be two, three…even up to six stars. In fact, a triple-star system is the most common. From Earth, with its oddball one-star system, we cannot tell any star is a multiple star, without the aid of a telescope, but once we had telescopes (thank you Galileo), the truth became apparent, quickly.
Shades of Tattoine! That was a double star, and as you’ll remember, in Star Wars, they looked very similar; they basically just took a double image of our Sun.
In the real universe the stars rarely match that well.
The nearest star to us (other than the sun, of course) is Alpha Centauri; it is a triple. It has one star a bit more massive than the Sun, another one a bit less massive, orbiting their common center of gravity in very elliptical orbits (the closest distance is 11 AUs–about the distance between Saturn and the Sun, and the furthest is 36 AUs, more distant than Neptune is from the sun) every eighty years. There is a third star, very small and faint–too dim to be seen by the unaided or “naked” eye. It’s called Proxima Centauri. It’s estimated to be 12% of the mass of the Sun, and 1/20,000th as bright. (Remember, a more massive star is disproportionately bright, so a less massive star will be disproportionately dim.)
It’s about an eighth of a light year from the two big stars in the Alpha Centauri system. And right now it’s closer to us, in fact it is the closest star to the Sun. (And yet, we can’t see it.) If we could see it it would appear about four moon diameters away from Alpha Centauri.
(Digression. Step outside some clear night, and look up. Red dwarfs are the most common stars there are, roughly three quarters of all stars are red dwarfs. But not a single star that you can see is a red dwarf. They’re just too dim to be seen from far away without a telescope, or at the very least, binoculars. OK, end digression.)
That’s a not atypical situation for a multiple star system. Very different stars, elliptical orbits, and really not much chance that a planet could have a stable orbit in that mess (sorry, Star Wars fans). In fact the only known planet orbits Proxima Centauri–the other two stars are far enough away not to mess up that planet’s orbit.
So what does this have to do with Sirius?
Sirius, it turns out, is a binary star. The two stars in this tale are Sirius A and Sirius B. If you look towards one, you look towards both.
Sirius And History
Sirius, being the brightest star in the night sky, has been important to many ancient cultures, particularly the Egyptians. They would align their calendar to start on the day that Sirius becomes visible in the eastern sky just before sunrise (then, of course, gets blotted out again by the daytime). This is called the heliacal rising of Sirius. This was about July 19th on our current calendar. They’d then count off a year of 365 days, precisely. Never a leap day, never a leap year. So in a few years, the heliacal rising of Sirius would happen a day late. A few more years, another day. After 1,461 of these no-leap Egyptian years, they’d be lined up again, and the heliacal rising of Sirius would fall at the beginning of the year once again. This was the sothic cycle. And yes, Ancient Egypt was around long enough to experience at least two of these cycles, the first starting in 2781 BC. (There’s a tiny possibility that in fact the prior cycle was the first one, but that would push things back to 4241 BC, and most Egyptologists think that was 1100 years before the First Dynasty.) Now that is a long-lived country!
Sirius is the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major (the larger of Orion’s two hunting dogs–no word on whether they were Labs), so it’s sometimes called the “Dog Star.” And the “Dog Days Of Summer” get that name because…Sirius and the Sun are up at the same time during the summer, and some people actually thought Sirius contributed to the summer heat. Many simply associated Sirius with heat and drought.
The Polynesians, in the Southern Hemisphere, associated Sirius with winter and used it as a reference for navigating (and they were, and are, incredibly good navigators).
Sirius A
Sirius A is by far the brighter of the two stars.
In fact the first telescopes couldn’t see Sirius B at all; we thought it was a single-star system.
Sirius A is twice as massive as the Sun. Which, if you’ve been following along, means it is going to be more than twice as bright as the Sun. In fact, it’s twenty five times as bright. And its temperature is 9,940 degrees Kelvin, compared to our sun’s 5,572 K So basically, it ought to have 1/12th the lifetime of our sun since it’s burning a stock of fuel two times as big, but doing it 25 times faster.
Sirius’ age appears to be between 237-247 million years. That’s young for a star, by comparison our Sun comes in at about 4,600 million years.
Sirius is only 8.6 light years away, by contrast with Betelgeuse and Rigel from last time. This close distance and being the brightest star in the immediate neighborhood combine to make it the brightest star in the night sky, bar none.
Sirius is, in fact close enough that we can measure its distance directly. We do that by noting its position against the more distant stars at one end of our orbit, then doing the same six months later. Since Earth has moved about 300 million kilometers in that time, a nearer star should have shifted position against the background of more distant stars.
At a distance of 3.26 light years, that shift is two arc seconds, which is to say 2/60ths of 1/60th of a degree. The moon is 1800 times wider than this in the sky. That distance, where the earth’s orbit’s radius gives one arc second of parallax, is called a parsec, and it’s what astronomers use (they use light years when talking to non-astronomers; parsecs amongst themselves).
Sirius appeared to be a pretty typical large star, not hugely large, but any star larger than the sun is notable; small stars are much more common than large ones.
Sirius B
But one other thing they noticed as they studied Sirius–it wobbles. Over the span of about 50 years, it traces a small ellipse in the sky, one about the size of Uranus’ orbit. This was first noticed in 1844.
OK, so Sirius has some tiny little red dwarf companion, right? That would make sense, it’s so bright it would probably drown out a red dwarf.
Well, no.
One can tell how massive an object is, by watching things orbit it. And it became clear that whatever Sirius (A) was orbiting, was something the mass of the sun. And that’s too big to be a red dwarf. In fact, if there’s a star there, the mass of the sun, it should be as bright as the sun, and visible in a telescope. But there could be no doubt; Sirius and something half as heavy that should be visible, but wasn’t were orbiting each other around their common center of gravity.
This was a bit of a mystery.
But in 1862, Alvan Graham Clark had just made a telescope, an 18.5 inch refractor. It was the largest in the US, and one of the largest in the world. He had taken exacting care in grinding the lenses, and now he needed to test it. He’d do so by looking at stars, to see how sharp they were as points of light. Any flaw in his work would be apparent.
He pointed it at Sirius, and noticed a tiny fleck of light very close to Sirius. One can imagine the litany of four letter words that ran through his mind, but then he pointed it at other stars (plenty of other bright stars nearby…you can name just two of them, if you’ve read my prior post.) And there was no flaw visible with those stars.
It dawned on him that his optics weren’t bad. No. They were fantastic. He was been the first person to lay eyes on Sirius B!
Sirius A, and B to its lower left. The rings around, and spikes coming out of, Sirius A are artifacts of diffraction in the optics.
It turned out that now people knew what to look for, smaller telescopes could see it, and less than two months later, his discovery was confirmed by other instruments.
Sirius B, it turned out, is very, very tiny. It got nicknamed “The Pup” to go with the “Dog Star.” And it is very, very hot! 25,000 Kelvins, hotter than Rigel. Something that hot glows with X rays, and you can see in the picture above that Sirius B is much more conspicuous in X rays.
If you know the temperature (from looking at the spectrum, which someone managed to do in 1915 after blotting out Sirius A) and the brightness, you can figure out the size.
Sirius B is the size of the Earth. In fact it’s actually a tiny bit smaller than Earth.
Say what!?
OK, so far, when talking about stars, I’ve compared their mass to the Sun’s mass. So it might not be apparent how ridiculous this seemed.
How about we compare it to the Earth? Sirius B and the Sun are roughly the same mass, and the Sun is…330,000 times as massive as the Earth.
So Sirius B packs 330,000 times the Earth’s mass…in a sphere the size of the Earth.
Think about that. On average, a cubic centimeter of the earth weighs about 5.5 grams. (Your typical surface rock is about 3 grams per cubic centimeter; the iron core raises the average to 5.5 grams.)
A cubic centimeter of Sirius B would have to average about 1.8 million grams. Or about two tons.
Set that cubic centimeter on dirt, and it’d probably just sink into the ground.
Okay, this is one weird star. It is a “white dwarf,” a small star (one solar mass) with the surface temperature you’d expect from a much bigger star, and very, very dense. As it turns out it’s one of the most massive white dwarfs…there’s a strict upper limit on their size.
It breaks the rules for “Main Sequence” stars, like the Sun, and Sirius A, and Rigel (and all three stars of the Alpha Centaur system). Betelgeuse is not on the “Main Sequence,” but it seems to be different in opposite ways, bloated instead of compact, cool instead of very, very hot.
But the thing about the Main Sequence is, it’s where the stars that are “burning” hydrogen for fuel are.
A star that is not on the Main Sequence is not burning hydrogen, and Sirius B isn’t on the main sequence. No white dwarf is.
So what’s the story?
Sirius B is a dead star.
It’s not fusing hydrogen. It ran out. It didn’t go supernova either–it wasn’t massive enough.
It started out about 5 times the mass of the sun. It and Sirius A were “born” at the same time about 240 million years ago, but, being more massive than Sirius A, Sirius B ran out of hydrogen about 120 million years ago, and became a red giant, burning helium.
It produced plenty of carbon, and some oxygen, and most of the outer layers of the star basically boiled off, too hot to be retained. (Some of that matter probably ended up becoming part of Sirius A.) This sort of thing happens a lot to these sort of mid-size stars, and results in something called a planetary nebula. They have nothing to do with planets, but in early telescopes they often looked round, a bit like a planet. Here’s a well known example (in the constellation of Vega). I’ve seen it through a six inch telescope (that’s the diameter, not the length).
Once all that outer stuff blew off, the bare core of a star was now less massive and under less pressure, and could not go on fusing heavier and heavier elements. So it began to contract, and the temperature climbed as it did so, but no internal source of energy would come along to stave off the final collapse. So the star kept shrinking, and shrinking.
That much matter is heavy, and, when it’s packed into such a small volume, the force of gravity becomes gigantic. That simply compresses it further.
Eventually the only thing holding the star “up” is something called electron degeneracy pressure; basically, it’s an upper limit on how much you can squash the electrons in an atom. The atoms are still distinct…just very, very crowded.
With all that gravity, any hydrogen that happens to be left over ends up on the surface; the heavier carbon and oxygen go to the center. When astronomers examine the spectrum of a white dwarf, therefore, they see pure hydrogen.
The star is hot due to the heat generated by compression, and it radiates all that heat off–it cools. But there is so much matter here, compelled to radiate through such a small surface area, that it will take billions of years for the star to cool down enough that it isn’t glowing any more. In fact, it takes longer than the universe has been around, so no such star has cooled that much…yet. The oldest known white dwarfs are still at a few thousand Kelvins.
Another Kind of Supernova
But, as I mentioned, there is an upper limit to a white dwarf.
When they reach about 1.44 solar masses, the white dwarf is now too heavy for the electron degeneracy pressure to hold it up. This number is so critical that it has been named after the astronomer who first figured out its value, it is Chandrasekhar’s Limit.
Suddenly the carbon is forced together, all at once (not gradually like in a regular red giant that is burning it for fuel), and there is a titanic KABOOM…and we have a supernova, of a different type from the core collapse supernova expected for Betelgeuse. These are called type 1a supernovas.
You might think that this can never happen. After all, it’s a white dwarf sitting out there. How is it going to gain mass?
White dwarfs that orbit close to other stars often slowly pick up mass from their companions, it looks something like this:
That poached matter will accumulate until Chandrasekhar’s limit has been exceeded, and, like I said…KABOOM!
Type 1a supernovas are very useful to astronomers. Since they all result from basically the exact same kind of explosion on stars of the exact same mass, they are all of the same brightness. And like core collapse supernovas, they often outshine the entire rest of the galaxy they are in. Even if not, if we can see the galaxy…we can see the supernova.
And they have a distinctive signature, so you can tell a Type 1a from other types of supernovas.
So astronomers look, over and over again, at thousands of galaxies, hoping to spot a Type 1a supernova when it happens. They spot a few every year. They can measure how bright it looks. And since they know exactly how bright it actually is, because all Type Ias are identical, they now know how far away that supernova, and the galaxy it is in, actually is.
There are other, older methods of measuring the distance to galaxies; they all involve measuring how fast it’s moving away from us, and that was, until recently, assumed to be a simple function of how far away it was; the speed was a constant times the distance. But now, by knowing the actual distance, and (from the galaxy’s spectrum) knowing how fast it’s moving, we know that’s not really true (it was close, but not quite), and we were able to make the determination that the universe is expanding faster and faster, NOT slower and slower as one would expect.
So white dwarfs, and Type Ia supernovas, have helped us learn some really surprising things about the universe, as if white dwarfs themselves aren’t bizarre enough on their own!
Meanwhile, we’re in no danger of having Sirius B go supernova on us. It’s far too light to be a hazard today, and it’s certainly not gaining much mass from Sirius A, because it’s 20 AUs from that star. (That’s about the distance from the Sun to Uranus.) I haven’t been able to locate a professional’s estimate for how long Sirius A will last before it uses up its hydrogen, but it’s certainly hundreds of millions of years away. If it ends up lasting 12 times as long as Sirius B did, it’s good for a bit over a billion years. But when that time comes, it will become a red giant, and maybe, despite the huge distance, almost two billion miles, between the two stars, that will push enough matter out there for Sirius B to pick up some of it. And maybe…maybe…there will be a supernova.
We’re unlikely to be anywhere near it at the time. Sirius is moving closer and closer to us now, as both stars orbit the center of the Milky Way at different speeds, but in well under a million years it will be pulling away from us and should be nowhere nearby a billion years, or four orbits, from now.
We’re all still reeling from the machete Hanukkah attack in Monsey, NY, and the shooting attack at White Settlement, TX. Fortunately, most of us will never understand why it’s a problem for Americans to worship as they choose. Politicians will argue about who is to blame and “hate groups” for at least one slow news cycle in a selfish attempt to grab press or fundraise. Yet once again, the family reports the perp in New York had a long history of mental illness, was not raised to hate particular groups/skin colors/religions nor was he a member of any hate group……. he was just mentally ill and had been hospitalized before for such cause on several occasions.
The idea of mental illness as drawn by one who was criminally insane.
Most of us can think of a particular person in our lives for whom we have disdain, but we don’t attack them with machetes or shoot them. We are mentally sound and can reason that violence is not the answer. It’s the mental illness which pushes people over the edge. If we want to solve a problem like the criminally insane, we need to properly identify the problem, the cause of the problem, and possible solutions for safety of the population writ large, but that’s not what is happening today.
Recognizing the problem and associated costs of unchecked mental illness would make sense, be cost effective, safer for society. Why would our elected leaders ever do something so easy and fiscally prudent?
Deflection of the problem of mental illness for personal or political gain only helps politicians. It’s truly detestable to use the death of constituents to further political power. When you watch the news today, see it for what it is, avoiding one problem while furthering the narrative of another “alleged problem”.
The media is worse and far more corrosive to regular Americans. Mental illness is not what the pundits want to talk about, right? It’s not the preferred public pitch. The narrative is a “rise in hate groups”, which justifies paranoia of one color/religion/sexual persuasion of America to fear other groups….. as in…. “those white people should fear machete-wielding black men”, and/or all guns, and whatever happens, it’s the fault of the white person. Funny, I recall Mr. Larry (who happens to be black) and I (the white female) both wielding machetes, cutting down a privet hedge, when we took a break for a cold beer. Would the media prefer Mr. Larry and I not work together, not know each other, not worship together, eat at the same table together, listen to the same music, laugh/dance/sing together…….. or vote similarly? Seems like it……
The media push for a “rise in anti-Semitism” is an easy narrative given what has happened in New York over the last few weeks, but are we leaping to a convenient conclusion about disparate incidents? Punctuated by the drama and severity of the attack in Monsey? Is it possible the media doesn’t care about the real cause of Monsey, other than for how the attack helps the media’s narrative? After all, a rise in white nationalism (even though the perp is black) is a great way to blame President Trump and all those uneducated white Americans who voted for him. Could it be the media jumped on the story in Monsey, as opposed to the story in White Settlement, as a golden opportunity in a further attempt to divide Americans…… because it is good for business?
Late night comedy and Hollywood feeds off of hatred and division of America.
And then, something strange happened. From out of left field, I saw a kernel of hope in the midst of the melee of media distraction…….
In the never ending quest to find common ground with the left, we might have a sign from above. Follow me for a second, it might work…… maybe….. It’s a stretch, I concede, but it might be an opening.
Last summer, Pete Buteigeg pitched the idea that the Chinese prison camps are horrible, and “the Trump Admin stays silent”. Back in July of 2019, Pete called for sanctions against China. No kidding. What kind of sanctions, Pete? Given the entangled economies of the USA and China, what kind of fallout could we expect for immediate sanctions if we follow your idea, Pete? Gee whiz, we remember the NY and DC press with dire warnings of economic collapse when President Trump announced a few tariffs on China. Outright sanctions would cause a meltdown on Wall Street, but it might be okay……. cuz Pete is a Dem, right? BUT Pete said this in July of 2019…… watch what happened.
China is oppressing millions of Muslim Uighurs and eroding freedoms in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, this White House is reportedly willing to stay silent and withhold sanctions in exchange for trade concessions. America's commitment to dignity and religious freedom must not be for sale.
So, we have a prominent Jewish guy, in Hollywood, calling for us to pay attention, shun China, for their treatment of the Uighurs…… and why aren’t we talking about it more?
Apatow is right! This is good. Remember, we all said, “Never Again” after the Holocaust. Why does China get a pass? As long as the media is deflecting from mental illness, why not USE THE DEFLECTION of the media? In this way, ALL Americans have a common enemy in China’s CCP……. instead of fighting with each other. China’s problems with fentanyl, IP theft, truly horrific environmental policy, currency manipulation, military buildup, treatment of Hong Kongers, and double dealing in the third world only adds further fuel to the fire.
When the media deflects from the real cause of mental illness for homegrown attacks, the discussion is dead for the moment, saved for another day. Yet, we need to be able to leapfrog the media, and use their momentum to accomplish another goal. Is it possible the left is coming around to be AGAINST China? We all know how strongly Hollywood is influenced by China….. interesting to speculate where the ramifications of such an action could lead.
Let’s keep in mind, Judd Apatow is a Hollywood type (he did The Hangover movies) with millions of followers on his Twit feed. He’s a hard leftist who can be offensive and irrational at times. Okay fine, we can all be irrational at times. Let’s not pick that fight right now. For instance, Apatow thinks that because Mick Mulvaney stepped out of the Oval Office when Giuliani was there, to preserve President’s confidence with personal lawyer, that means the President and Giuliani were conducting illegal Ukraine policy. SMH. Can we presume the left thinks the President is not allowed to defend himself in a public forum, not allowed to appeal an illegitimate subpoena for clearly granted Exec Privilege, and NOW not allowed to have an attorney either? Anyway….
Nonetheless, Apatow’s salvo against the CCP is a glimpse, a crack in the wall so to speak. If Apatow is an average Hollywood leftist, and he cares about this issue, then others may as well. It’s a chance for some modicum of unity.
This MIGHT be a place where we can all agree, on the Uighurs, to unite against China and further erode the CCP public image. Good heavens, the NYTimes claims the CCP has “separated over a half million children from their parents”. It might be a chance to use the press to accomplish a worthwhile goal, to OUT the Chinese Communist Party policy. It might work.
The goal of those who seek to harm America is to control the greater levers of power in the USA. They use division of Americans by class/color/sex/politics, which makes it easier. Well, if that’s their goal, can we use this issue to bring us together and turn this missive back toward our collective enemy?
After all…….. When we said, “Never Again”, did we mean it? Or, is it okay for China to keep a million people in prison camps merely because we like cheap Nike t-shirts? Or, is it okay to imprison a million people for their faith just because they are Muslims? As opposed to Jews and Christians?
No, it’s never okay to keep a million people in prison just because of their faith. What does “Freedom of Religion” really mean to us in 2019?
Our forefathers risked their lives for the idea.
How strange…….. and natural…… would it be for Jews and Christians, left and right, to unite as Americans in defense of Muslims against an oppressive Communist regime?
Imagine the irony, and the shocked faces, when we turned the table on our common enemy.
This Superlative Sanctuary Count Your Blessings Sunday Open Thread, with full respect to those who worship God on the Sabbath, is a place to reaffirm our worship of our Creator, our Father, our King Eternal.
It is also a place to read, post and discuss news that is worth knowing and sharing. Please post links to any news stories that you use as sources or quote from.
In the QTree, we’re a friendly and civil lot. We encourage free speech and the open exchange and civil discussion of different ideas. Topics aren’t constrained, and sound logic is highly encouraged, all built on a solid foundation of truth and established facts.
We have a policy of mutual respect, shown by civility. Civility encourages discussions, promotes objectivity and rational thought in discourse, and camaraderie in the participants – characteristics we strive toward in our Q Tree community.
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But NOT HERE in The Q Tree. Personal attacks, name calling, ridicule, insults, baiting and other conduct for which a penalty flag would be thrown are VERBOTEN.
In The Q Tree, we’re compatriots, sitting around the campfire, roasting hot dogs, making s’mores and discussing, agreeing, and disagreeing about whatever interests us. This board will remain a home for those who seek respectful conversations.
Please also consider the Important Guidelines, outlined here. Let’s not give the Internet Censors a reason to shut down this precious haven that Wolf has created for us.
The Storm is upon us. Please remember to Pray for our President.
AND WHAT TIME IS IT? TIME TO DRAIN THE SWAMP!!!
Our movement is about replacing a failed and CORRUPT political establishment with a new government controlled by you, the American People. ~ Candidate Donald J. Trump
Also remember Wheatie’s Rules:
No food fights.
No running with scissors.
If you bring snacks, bring enough for everyone.
On this day and every day –
God is in Control . . . and His Grace is Sufficient, so . . . Keep Looking Up
Hopefully, every Sunday, you can find something here that will build you up a little . . . give you a smile . . . and add some joy or peace, very much needed in all our lives.
“This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn nor weep.” . . . “Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Count Your Blessings Sunday
Well, it’s just a few days before New Years Day and I suppose many people are occupied with making their New Year’s resolution lists, figuring out which of the New Year’s festivities they’ll attend or planning their own celebration, big or small.
It’s the end of a year, just after the joyous Christmas season. I think it’s a really good time to settle back, review the past year and take a good count of the many blessings we have as believers in Christ and in His finished work at Calvary.
Count Your Blessings
When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed, When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost, Count your many blessings, name them one by one, And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.
Are you ever burdened with a load of care? Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear? Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly, And you will keep singing as the days go by.
When you look at others with their lands and gold, Think that Christ has promised you His wealth untold; Count your many blessings—money cannot buy Your reward in heaven, nor your home on high.
So, amid the conflict whether great or small, Do not be discouraged, God is over all; Count your many blessings, angels will attend, Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.
Count your blessings, name them one by one, Count your blessings, see what God has done! Count your blessings, name them one by one, Count your many blessings, see what God has done.
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.
~ Johnson Oatman, Jr., pub.1897
Believe and be blessed –
But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” (1 Corinthians 2.9)
God gives many blessings to “whosoever believeth” in Jesus because he loves us.
For those who put their trust in Christ, God has provided many remarkable (perfect, actually) blessings. We are rich beyond our wildest dreams. Some of these blessings are:
When we believe, God counts our faith in Christ as righteousness.
“For our sake He [God] made Him [Christ] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him [Christ]we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5:21) “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.” (Rom 3:22)
“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”. (Rom 5:1)
When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. (Colossians 2.13-14)
When we believe, the penalty for our sins is paid by Christ’s death on the cross.
. . . who gave Himself for us, that He might purchase our freedom from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works. (Titus 2:14)
For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:13-14)
. . . knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. (1 Peter 1:18-19)
When we believe, Christ’s sacrifice makes believers spiritually alive.
And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, (Ephesians 2:1)
But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved) (Ephesians 2:4-5).
When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, (Colossians 2.13).
When we believe, we are adopted as God’s children.
But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, to redeem those under the Law, that we might receive our adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, you are also an heir through God.” (Galatians 4:4-7)
He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, (John 1:11-12).
For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. Fo;26r all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. (Galations 3:26)
When we believe, as a child of God, we are His heirs.
And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, you are also an heir through God.” (Galatians 4:6-7)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled, and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:3-5)
When we believe, our sin nature is reconciled with God’s holiness.
Now all this is from God, who has restored our relationship to Himself through Jesus Christ . . (2 Corinthians 5:18)
For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him [Christ], and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say,whether things on earth or things in heaven (Colossians 1:19-20)
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:17-19)
When we believe, God forgives our sins.
All the prophets testify about Him that everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name.” (Acts 10:43)
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, (Ephesians 1:7)
For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:13-14)
When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross (Colossians 2:13-14).
When we believe, we have eternal life with God and Jesus forever . . . unending.
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:14-16)
And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. (1 John 5:11-13)
When we believe, God’s Holy Spirit comes to live within us.
Having believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of His glory. (Ephesians 1:13-14)
And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’ (Galatians 4:6)
As the Holy Spirit lives in the believer, He brings about some life-changing results:
The Holy Spirit acts on a soul dead in sin and creates new life (Titus 3:5). This is the new birth Jesus spoke of. (John 3:1-8)
The Holy Spirit confirms to the believer that he belongs to the Lord and is an heir of God and fellow-heir with Christ (Romans 8:15-17).
The Holy Spirit makes the new believer a member of Christ’s universal church. This is the baptism of the Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:13)
The Holy Spirit gives spiritual gifts to the believer to strengthen the church and serve the Lord for His glory (1 Corinthians 12:11).
The Holy Spirit helps the believer understand and apply the Scripture to his daily life (1 Corinthians 2:12).
The Holy Spirit enriches the believer’s prayer life and intercedes for him in prayer (Romans 8:26-27).
The Holy Spirit enables the believer to live for Christ and to do His will (Galatians 5:16). The Spirit leads the believer in paths of righteousness (Romans 8:14).
The Holy Spirit gives evidence of new life by producing the fruit of the Spirit in the believer’s life (Galatians 5:22-23).
The Holy Spirit is grieved when the believer sins (Ephesians 4:30), and He convicts the believer to confess his sin to the Lord so that fellowship is restored (1 John 1:9).
The Holy Spirit seals the believer unto the day of redemption so that the believer’s arrival in the Lord’s presence is guaranteed after this life (Ephesians 1:13-14).
When we believe, after we die, we will be resurrected in incorruptible, immortal spiritual bodies.
And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power. (1 Corinthians 6:14) So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15:42-44)
Truly, God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. All that we have needed and will need, from birth to eternity, has been provided for by God through the work of the Son. Thanks be to God!
Thank God for Blessings
We look at our country these days and see All the bad things that happen to be: Lies, corruption, thievery and fraud, But we’ve seen the Light and so we thank God.
Thank God that we have enough to eat, That we don’t have to live on the street, That we have water, are secure and warm, In wind and rain, we’re safe from the storm.
Thank God we choose work, there’s no slavery, And for all of our friends and family That after work we can rest and play, And feel some contentment after our day.
We tend to lose sight that we’re truly blessed, Living in comfort, not poor and oppressed, While life’s twists happen and we feel deprived, Others on earth fight daily to survive.
No food, dirty water, oppressive heat, Sickness, disease, and filthy, dusty streets, Babies and kids, bloated stomachs and flies, Grotesque skeletons, no hope in their eyes.
Living inside wearing old gloves and coats, Bone-chilling cold, all alone and remote. Old and sickly, no medicine anywhere, Dying alone with nobody to care.
There are ways to help the poor, to be sure, Though it’s unlikely that there’ll be a cure. We should all help in many different ways, ‘Cause the poor will be with us all our days.
From these situations, we all can learn To look at our problems with less concern, And truly thank God for all our wealth, Our work, our families, and our good health.
For God’s our Provider, blessings from Him. He’s met all our needs and freed us from sin. He’s given us all, including His Son. Praise God forever! May His will be done!
Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:20,21)
Note: I posted a shorter version of this as a comment over at Marica’s. Their topic for today is “When You Wish Upon A Star” and I thought I’d say something about Betelgeuse. Then I found myself wanting to talk about Rigel, too…so it just growed and growed.
There’s nothing political here. If you want a break from politics, read on. If you don’t, by all means save yourself the time.
Many stars have names. Here are a couple, both in Orion. Orion rises in the east shortly after sunset this time of year.
Betelgeuse is the bright orange star at the upper left of the big quadrilateral of Orion; it’s considered Orion’s shoulder. Rigel is the bright one at the lower right, generally considered to be Orion’s “foot.”
Orion. The seven major stars (the three in the belt, and the four in the quadrilateral) are all big, bright stars and with one exception they’re all a similar distance away from Earth. The upper right is Bellatrix, the lower left is Saiph, the belt stars are Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka. Bellatrix is considerably closer to us than the others, “only” 250 light years away, the others are 650 to 2000 light years away.
Rigel.
That’s the bright star at the lower right in Orion (if you’re in Australia, the upper left). That is one very, very bright star!! It doesn’t LOOK as bright as Sirius (the very bright star to the east and a bit south of Orion), but Sirius is about 8 light years away, and Rigel is 860 light years away…a hundred times as far. Yet it isn’t that much dimmer than Sirius. Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky, and Rigel is #7.
Rigel is 120,000 times as bright as the sun, intrinsically. If the earth were orbiting Rigel…well, it wouldn’t be. It would be getting 120,000 times as much energy and would be melted, then boiled away. (Imagine if the sun in our sky gave off over 100,000 times as much heat as it does!) The earth would have to be 364 times further away, which is to say 364 Astronomical Units (AUs), to get down to the same amount of EM radiation.
That’s ten times the distance to Pluto, to get the SAME amount of energy the Earth does.
Rigel is bluish in color, like most of the visible stars in the sky. That is because its surface temperature is some 12,100 degrees Kelvin, which is over 21,000 F.
(Have you ever seen anything that hot here on Earth? No. So you might be surprised to find that when things get that hot, they glow bluish. As things get hotter, they go from invisible (but you can feel the heat), to dull red, to orange (embers), to yellow (a tungsten bulb), to white (the sun)…to blue. Each with more and more heat, and towards the end, with more and more ultraviolet) In fact the only place to see things that are blue hot is in the night sky. (No the flames on your gas stove aren’t that hot–they are blue for a very different reason.)
Something that is blue hot is giving off more ultraviolet than visible light. So that 120,000 times brighter than the sun light from Rigel, is mostly ultraviolet. Our hypothetical planet at 364 AUs distance is getting most of its sunlight as UV. Proportionately less of it is coming as visible light. If you were outside on a clear day there, there’d be the feel of an overcast day, but you’d be getting sunburned in a hurry. And the “sun” would be this tiny point of painfully bright blue light.
A couple more things to say about Rigel: It is 21 times as massive as the sun, and maybe 80 times as wide.
Betelgeuse
Our other star is Betelgeuse. (“Beetle Juice,” if you must.)
Orion’s upper left shoulder should look a bit redder than the other stars (which will look bluish white). That is Betelgeuse.
Betelgeuse is a “red giant.” It is about 700 light years away (not quite as far as Rigel), and is anywhere between 90,000 and 150,000 times as bright as the Sun, intrinsically (it actually varies in brightness).
It’s redder because the surface is a lot cooler than our Sun, 3590K, not that far off from an incandescent light bulb. Yes, it’s at a different part of the red/orange/white/blue-hot continuum.
It’s 11 times as massive as the sun, but it is anywhere between 700 and 1000 times as wide as the sun! If the earth were orbiting Betelgeuse it would be INSIDE the star. A bit toasty!
Betelgeuse is so big that, as far away as it is, we were actually able to measure its diameter from here on earth in 1920! Most stars look like points in even a powerful telescope, but not Betelgeuse.
Earth would be comfortable at a similar distance from Betelgeuse, about 350 AUs, but because the star drastically varies in brightness, much more so than our sun, climate change would be far, far worse.
They’re Not Much Alike
Now, it turns out a star is actually a very simple thing. It’s a lot of gas, trying to contract under its own gravity. The main difference between stars should be in how massive they are.
Rigel and Betelgeuse are of similar masses (closer to each other, proportionately, than either is to the sun), yet Rigel, the bigger of the two, seems more like the sun than Betelgeuse. Hotter and bigger, but not swollen to a ridiculous size. In fact, astronomers place stars like Rigel and the Sun in a category called the “Main Sequence,” a progression from small, red stars up to giant blue ones. Some Main Sequence stars are the exact mass of Betelgeuse, and they’re not red and swollen.
Betelgeuse is not on the Main Sequence. It’s a different sort of animal.
What gives? Why are they so different?
To start finding out the answer, let’s look at their masses once again.
Did you notice how these stars are thousands of times brighter…but only ten or twenty times as massive?
Doesn’t that mean the star will burn itself out that much sooner? If Rigel has got twenty times the gas, but it’s 120,000 times as bright as the Sun, that means it’s burning through its fuel supply 120,000 times as fast, and it should last only 1/6,000th the time. (To be sure a star only burns what’s at its center, not the surface layers, so that’s not quite the right comparison to make.)
The sun is expected to last 10,000 million years (and we’re 4500 million years into that). Rigel’s lifespan, total, can’t be much more than 10 million years; it’s estimated to already be 8 million years old.
Rigel lives boldly, but very, very briefly, a cosmic butterfly.
Betelgeuse is of comparable brightness to Rigel, but half the mass. It’s ripping through its available fuel even faster, proportionately speaking. And yet its big and cool on its surface. It makes sense to be big, if it’s cool, or cool, if it’s big. It has a MUCH higher surface area than Rigel, so each square meter of it has to radiate a lot less, for the total output to be the same. And the way to do that is to be cooler.
But that doesn’t explain why it’s so different from Rigel, and our Sun, as to not be on the Main Sequence.
There’s more to the story. Lots more.
The Life Of A Star–Youth
As I said earlier, a star is a simple thing, really. It’s a big ball of gas that wants to contract under its own gravity. As it does so, it heats up, just like compressing the gas in a bicycle pump makes it get hotter. Heating it up increases the pressure, the pressure resists the tendency to contract. Eventually a balance is reached.
But that heat eventually radiates off, the pressure drops, and the star contracts. What one would see is stars glowing as they contract, shrinking as fast as the bleed-off of heat (and pressure) lets it.
Unless the star can find another source of energy, something that it can internally generate, to stave off the collapse.
And it does.
Any ball of gas sufficiently large (considerably larger than Jupiter) will eventually reach a point where the core is at a temperature of millions of degrees, and then the hydrogen starts fusing into helium. Four hydrogen atoms go through a series of reactions (exactly which series of reactions depends on the temperature, which depends on the mass of the star), to ultimately make one atom of helium. In the process, 0.7 percent of the mass of the hydrogen disappears–it becomes energy. It works out to 26.73 million electron volts of energy. (An MeV is a tiny amount of energy to us, but this is from four atoms of hydrogen, and there are about 600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms of hydrogen in one gram of the stuff…so, really, it’s quite a bit of energy!)
In fact, I’m going to point out that twelve atoms of hydrogen, fusing to three atoms of helium, works out to almost exactly 80 MeVs of energy. That will be important, later on.
So nuclear fusion gives off energy, lots of it. That energy heats the star up, and the contraction stops. The star finds a balance, and the star will stay pretty much the same size as long as it has hydrogen in its core to fuse to helium. (It actually gets a bit hotter as time goes on, but this is a very slow process.) Once it runs out of hydrogen, well, life will get interesting again.
The sun is at just the right temperature and pressure, inside, that it’s going to take ten billion years to burn all of its fuel (even though it’s burning 650 million tons of it a second), but that’s the right rate to keep it from either expanding too much and cooling off (which would allow it to contract again, heating it up), or contracting too much and heating up, which would cause it to expand again and cool off. It’s in balance, and it will stay in balance for another 5.5 billion years, when it runs out of hydrogen.
Back to Rigel.
Rigel, like the sun, is burning hydrogen, to make helium. It’s doing so at a rate far faster than our sun; it has to to maintain the very high temperature to keep twenty times the mass of the sun from continuing to collapse. You see, the bigger the star, the hotter it has to get to keep from collapsing, but the hotter it gets, the faster the heat radiates away, and that means, the faster it burns through its fuel. And the shorter it will live.
So a star like Rigel is heavy, very hot, and blowing through its fuel FAST.
So now we understand why big stars are so much hotter and brighter.
But that just makes Betelgeuse more puzzling. It’s half as massive as Rigel, but it’s about as bright (it shouldn’t be), and it’s much cooler than our sun (again, it shouldn’t be). The fact that it is so swollen, comparatively, means it should be much, much hotter at the very center, but wouldn’t that just make it even brighter?
What makes it so large, yet cooler than the sun at the surface?
The Life of A Star–Middle and Old Age
Well, it turns out, Betelgeuse is a star that has already run out of hydrogen!
As I said, when a star runs out of hydrogen, life gets interesting. A very small star, lighter and smaller than our sun, basically is done at this point. It will just contract until the atoms are touching each other, cooling off over billions of years. But this doesn’t happen until it’s tens of billions of years old. In fact, it would have to be older than the universe for this to have happened to it before now, so there shouldn’t be any of these out there.
A star our sun’s size, or larger, will shrink too, when it runs out of hydrogen, but the core will get hotter and hotter. Again, this will only be temporary heat up, unless another source of energy is found.
That source does exist. If the star is massive enough (and the sun is, therefore so are Rigel and Betelgeuse), eventually the core gets much hotter than it was before, with higher pressure, and helium fuses to become carbon. It takes three helium nuclei to make a carbon nucleus, which means it took twelve of the original hydrogen atoms to make the one carbon nucleus.
But this is actually desperation.
Turning three helium nuclei into one carbon nucleus only releases 7.25 MeVs of energy. In other words, less than a tenth that the star got making the helium in the first place (80 MeV). Reburning the ash, releases less energy. So to put out the same energy every second as it did before, it has to go through its fuel over ten times faster, by weight.
Yet the star must sustain a HIGHER core temperature than it was doing before. So going through the helium ash ten times faster than it went through the hydrogen…isn’t enough!!
So the star gets hotter, and hotter. The good news is all this heat will cause hydrogen *outside* the core to fuse too, which means the star gets a bit of a “boost.”
But that higher core temperature causes the star’s upper layers to expand more–that’s what makes it big–and the much larger sphere has to radiate less energy per given area–which is what makes it cool.
Because the helium-to-carbon fusion is so much less productive, and the star needs more energy, it can only stay in the helium burning phase for a very short time.
Our sun will have a helium burning phase. It will turn into a red giant, like Betelgeuse, but much smaller. We’re not sure whether it will swallow the earth, but even if not, life will be toast here. But that’s five billion years from now, so you still have to do your taxes next year.
Once the helium starts to run low…the star, if it’s massive enough, moves on. (The sun is not massive enough. Helium-to-carbon will be the end of the road for it.)
The star contracts, heats up, and starts fusing helium + carbon to make oxygen, helium plus oxygen to make neon, neon plus helium to make magnesium, or maybe even go directly: carbon plus carbon to make silicon. Each of these reactions requires more heat, and produces less energy per unit mass than the one before it.
So these phases are each shorter than the one before it. But the core being hot enough to (say) make oxygen makes the layer right outside the core hot enough to make carbon, and the layer outside of that is making helium. The star starts to resemble an onion with all these layers, with the one in the center going at a furious rate, desperately trying to get more and more energy out of a less and less energetic reaction, since it is ultimately holding the star up from collapse.
A red supergiant, burning heavier and heavier ash, trying to stave off collapse.
The Death of a Massive Star.
Eventually the star has a core of iron. This core–much, much bigger than the earth and made entirely iron–probably is built in one day; that’s how fast the star must rip through its fuel to produce the iron, and not collapse.
We’re well into the region of diminishing returns. But now we move into the realm of negative returns. Moving beyond iron actually consumes energy.
The star is done. It collapses. The heat of collapse actually does cause further reactions, but they just suck more energy out of the system, making the collapse even faster. But make no mistake–the star’s core is getting hotter and hotter, and more and more reactions are happening in it. Elements much heavier than iron are made, instantly. Huge amounts of neutrinos are generated–in fact they carry off most of the energy.
But what’s left over is still titanic. The star explodes. The mass of the outer layers is consumed instantly, and now, for just a few weeks or so, the star outshines a billion or more normal stars. It can be brighter than everything else in its galaxy.
This is a supernova.
And what it leaves behind is a neutron star, or maybe even a black hole. Not ordinary matter at all. It’s done generating energy, it’s done being a star as we know it.
This is the Crab Nebula, also known as M-1. It’s a supernova remnant; the supernova blew up in 1054 and was seen by Chinese astronomers. It is 6500 light years away, much further away than Betelgeuse is. The star that blew up probably was not visible to the naked eye, yet people on earth could see the supernova without difficulty. In the center of this, is a rapidly rotating neutron star, known as a pulsar.
Death Watch for Betelgeuse
Remember when I said Betelgeuse was out of hydrogen in its core?
We know it’s done with hydrogen in its core, but don’t know exactly what it’s doing right now, for certain. Many of those higher reactions could be taking place simultaneously in different layers deep inside the star, but we have no real way of knowing. How many layers of different fusion are inside Betelgeuse?
If, today, it is working on making iron–tomorrow, it goes KABOOM. You will be able to see it in the day time, from eight hundred light years away. At night time, well, many nocturnal creatures will have their routines disrupted–it will probably be brighter than the Moon. Perhaps for their sake, we should hope it goes kablooey! during northern hemisphere summer time when Betelgeuse is not in the night sky.
It will happen. We don’t know when, but sometime in the next hundred thousand years or so, Betelgeuse will light its own funeral pyre. It could be tonight. It could be ten thousand years from now. And once the supernova cools off–which will take a few years–Orion will lose his shoulder.
And Rigel isn’t all that far behind, in cosmic terms. Give it a few million years; it will run out of hydrogen, swell into a red giant bigger than Betelgeuse, and begin to die.
Whoever is watching at that time, will hopefully be consoled by the thought that all that stuff flung out into space is what will eventually make new stars, new planets, and, maybe, life.
For after all, that’s how we came to be. Everything in your body, except the hydrogen, was brewed in a star that blew itself to bits, billions of years ago. So too with every rock on earth, and all the oxygen in the air, and the oxygen in the water. All from stars that died, billions of years ago.
Welcome to the Open Thread! Wow, December is almost gone. We’ve decorated our homes, wrapped gifts for friends and family, partied with our buddies, and lent our hand to charitable efforts. We spent Christmas with loved ones and now, we’re headed for the “down week”, the week where nothing gets done. It’s a great time to make phone calls to those who were important to you in the past year, clean out a closet, plan a garden for spring, or get a headstart on taxes…. but it’s still too early to take down the tree.
Get the menial chores out of the way and clear the deck for 2020, because we will be busy in an ELECTION YEAR!
Don’t you wish the election was tomorrow? We know we’re voting for President Trump. We could save the USA economy BILLIONS! Just schedule the election, RIGHT NOW!
Please feel free to comment. We have a new policy, starting 20191110. Keep it SOMEWHAT civil. Our rules began with the civility of the Old Treehouse, later to become the Wolverinian Empire, except of course that Q discussion is not only allowed but encouraged, and speech is considerably freer in other ways. Please feel free to argue and disagree with the board owner, as nicely as possible.
Please also consider the Important Guidelines, outlined here in the January 1st open thread. Let’s not give the odious Internet Censors a reason to shut down this precious haven. We have a new board – actually a new SITE – called The U Tree – where people can take each other to the woodshed without fear of censorship or moderation. NOT HERE. This board will remain a REFUGE for those who need civility, either some or all of the time.
Also remember Wheatie’s Rules:
No food fights.
No running with scissors.
If you bring snacks, bring enough for everyone.
Don’t forget, it’s our job to DRAIN THE SWAMP, and that means LOCALLY, too. Make a commitment THIS YEAR to attend a local council or school board meeting. At least let them know we are watching!
Our movement is about replacing a failed and CORRUPT political establishment with a new government controlled by you, the American People. Candidate Donald J. Trump
Time to shop for the Baked Ham and Black-Eyed Peas for New Year’s, it’s supposed to be good luck for the new year.
If you live in a red state, we’re all headed to the Fireworks store this week.
Cuz, ya’ can’t do New Year’s without a few fireworks, right? And we have so much to celebrate this year. Might have to buy a few extra…..
For those of you dealing with snow and miserable weather, we empathize. Take a look at the snowstorms which hit Iceland recently, and dumped 30 FEET of snow.
But that’s okay, hang on, because SPRING isaround the corner!
Our daffodils have already broken ground.
Let’s not forget to be thankful for an incredible 2019. The USA is doing well.
The Nativity of the Lord December 25, 2019 “The Way Through Hardship and Struggle”
Is 9:1-6 Tit 2:11-14 Lk 2:1-14
My Brothers and Sisters in the Lord –
No matter what we do or how we plan, life always seems to be a struggle. Even if things seem easy for the moment – often, that moment is very short-lived.
There are many different areas in which we can struggle. We can have difficulty physically, emotionally, interpersonally, financially, and spiritually – because human beings are complex creatures. And because life, itself, is also complex, what others do around us or in the world always has an impact upon us! Consequently, it is easy to get angry, discouraged, and depressed – because the struggle is on-going.
Unfortunately, it is a very human tendency to make our problem someone else’s problem or responsibility. Hence, we often try to blame others for our difficulty. Moreover, it’s all too easy to resort to selfish measures to make things better for ourselves!
However, God did not make us this way. God created us for joy, bliss, and love. The world and human life become such a struggle because, originally, we wanted to be supreme ourselves. We wanted things our own selfish way and the result was a broken world!
No one escapes the hardships and the struggles of life. But the solution is not violence toward others or nihilism in ourselves. The solution is always to look to God – and to the one God sent.
Jesus came to teach us how we must live amid all that life throws at us. Moreover, those close to Jesus, or to God Himself, witness for us how we must become in our own soul and spirit.
Mary and Joseph certainly had it rough – a grueling journey of 90 miles on foot, from Nazareth to Bethlehem – no available accommodations – or even a suitable place to give birth. Temporarily homeless, they found a stable for the night, and Mary had to use a feeding trough with straw as a crib for her newborn son. Nevertheless, they made the best of things and rejoiced in the birth of their son and in each other’s mutual love.
The shepherds were, basically, homeless people who had a worse than minimum wage kind of job. Dirty, unkempt, unwashed, bedraggled, ostracized, and unwanted everywhere – they were the ones to whom the angel came and who heard the heavenly choir. Having nothing, they were given the priceless gift of meeting the Savior who would prepare a place for them beyond the hardships and struggles of this world.
In all likelihood, life did not change for the shepherds after their divine encounter. But they were changed. They were empowered to survive their hard life with a new grace, a new purpose, and a new hope!
Brothers and Sisters, God did not send His Son into the world to change the status quo of its brokenness or to eliminate our struggle for existence. God sent His Son to show us how to bear with the hardships of life. Jesus came to enable us to change the kind of person we are. The peace of which Isaiah speaks and the elimination of violence will be in the world to come. Yet it can exist in our hearts and spirits, even now – today and every day – Because Jesus truly is the Wonder-Counselor, the God-Hero, the Father-Forever, and the Prince of Peace!
However, as St. Paul urges, we must reject all that is godless in our lives and hearts – all that is worldly and unworthy of us. We must try to live as true disciples of Jesus – Jesus who is everything and who gives us more than we can ever imagine! Since, as someone once said: “Life is a struggle toward greater being”, we must truly become people who are eager to do all that is good for others and for the world. This is incumbent upon us, even though so many others and the world are resistant and even hostile to God and to the gift that God sent in Jesus.
So, let us pray on this wonderful day that we can allow the grace and the mystery of Christmas to touch us and change us – May we see and hear and understand what we did not before – May we have a newfound hope – And may we face the hardships and struggles of life as did Jesus and countless others who have gone before us!
Along with the preparation of Thanksgiving nibbles, last minute business, unexpected visitors, I read today where Dep had major power outage. In the background, we see “bomb cyclones”, two of them, working their way across the states. Hope you guys are okay, safe and sound, with family.
But it reminded me of all the travel escapades around the holidays. Years later, we look back and laugh, although at the time, we were in what seemed like dire circumstances. Eventually, we muddled through, and arrived at our destinations…. with a great story to share.
The very first travel nightmare I recall was picking up Dad at O’Hare Airport. Mom was “world’s worst driver”. O’Hare was under construction, as it always is. The snow was stacked and brown-gray making everything monotone, except Mom’s turquoise blue Comet.
I remember counting, waving to my Dad 8 times, as we rounded the circle again, and again, because Mom was too skittish to change lanes in the snow. It was my first hint of problems traveling in winter weather.
The long car rides and airport delays were another issue entirely, as we became adults. Rushing to visit with extended family, presents and/or food in the car, adds tension. These are the best stories. Please feel free to add stories of YOUR family adventures.
The best story I have about holiday travel was over Christmas, and thus I will schedule this story to publish on Christmas Eve. We were leaving Logan Airport in Boston, returning to Memphis Airport on Christmas Eve. Gunner was 7yrs old.
Here we go, and a Very Merry Christmas to you all:
Big T and I were dating, still in the midst of prolonged divorces, fighting with our exes, but we were happy. Gunner and I were in Boston from Dec 17th -24th. We had Christmas with the girls, hosted and attended several parties, night at Boston Ballet, everything was terrific. I was mandated to return Gunner to his Dad, late on Christmas Eve, as all the out of town cousins n Dad’s side were in Mississippi and waiting on him for their festivities. Sounded like a good plan. We had it worked out well in advance.
We booked the 2:30pm flight out of Boston, a flight we had taken dozens of times before, direct, no problem with chance of delay on a layover. Our plan was to drop off Gunner when we returned and attend a Christmas Eve HUGE gourmet dinner at a girlfriend’s house. Big T bought a 6lb live lobster, and pounds of white asparagus for the occasion. We were bringing the “surf” for the “surf and turf dinner”. I had a clothing bag with Big T’s tuxedo and my gown. We were perfectly organized…. when everything went downhill.
To close up the little house in Boston was a bit of a process. We cleaned out the fridge, washed all linen, moved some furniture, as we would not be back for months. Goodbyes to all the neighbors and we left for the airport.
Along the way, we realized Gunner would come home on Christmas Day and we had no “Santa” presents for him at the Mississippi house, only presents wrapped from family. We made a last minute stop at Toys R Us, and somehow distracted Gunner to buy a few items, and munchies for his stocking.
At the airport, we breezed through checkin and settled into the boarding area. There was a 30 minute delay, but we boarded the small plane, ready to taxi out. We were sitting in our seats when the announcement came.
The problems started. Our flight crew came in from Indianapolis and exceeded legally allotted flying hours, so they could not take us to Memphis without permission from corporate. We had to disembark the plane, with no luggage. Northwest assured us another flight crew was coming, small delay, same plane. An hour passed, no flight crew. Gate agent was frustrated and claimed “no one is answering at ‘home office’ because it is Christmas”. Well, about 40 people whipped out their cell phones at the same time. We would be happy to call the President of NW Airlines on Christmas Eve.
Eventually the flight was cancelled, but there was ONE MORE flight out. We all raced back to the main gate agents to scrounge for seats.
…..Which meant I had to call my ex-husband and explain why Gunner would not be there at the appointed time, for Christmas Eve dinner. I dreaded the phone call. He was a jerk, of course, and blamed me, taking the opportunity to be truly despicable. I listened to him drone for a while, then snapped, and reminded him that if he had not come home with a sexually transmitted disease, I “probably wouldn’t be in effing Boston this Christmas“…. furthering challenging him to explain THAT ONE to his cousins. Dead silence.
Girlfriend who was hosting the elaborate dinner was gracious and understood completely.
With Big T still back at the plane trying to retrieve our luggage and Gunner the 7yr old running through the concourse like a wild kid, I approached the ticket counter to try to book seats on the remaining flight. It was bedlam at the counter.
The ticket agent was at her wits end, but I was ready to shoot the messenger. Tension at an all time high, and I did not handle it well. She shot her mouth off and me and my eyes narrowed. I was so close….. A manager finally stepped in. All he could offer me was a flight the next day…… and an overnight room at the Airport Hilton…….. on Christmas Eve……… with a 7yr old…… waking up to Santa Claus on Christmas morning……. at an Airport Hilton.
I damn near fainted….. and started to cry…. and I hardly ever cry, but I was overwhelmed with the sheer volume, the confab of events, beyond my control.
Through my teeth, sneering at the manager, “Santa Claus doesn’t come to an Airport Hilton!”
About that time, Big T rounded the corner with a cart piled high with 7 suitcases. He needed 12 arms to keep it all together as he was moving fast and swinging wide. Be damned if that perishable box wasn’t perched on top for the Lobster. It was funny. He looked funny….., and changed my mood entirely. Big T does that for me, centers me, one of the reasons I love him so much.
The emotions of my fellow travelers in line were swinging like a wrecking ball on a crane. Compared to those around me, I was the calm one. In a flash, I accepted the situation and was already thinking about what to do next. How were we going to salvage Christmas? We needed a miracle.
Gunner joined Big T and helped with suitcases. Big T was concerned because he thought I was crying…. He was still breathless and stressed, but I had already moved on to the next step. I leaned in and whispered, “I’m working it. I want more credit.” He took a few steps back and looked at me, perplexed. I think he was almost scared of “manipulative” me at that point. But I had the manager, dead to rights, and I wanted blood…. in the form of free tickets.
An overnight airport hotel would never work for my 7yr old expecting Santa. “Over my dead body!”, I said at one point. We agreed to go back to the Boston house. Northwest called us a cab, paid for, but the luggage would not fit. We waited for a BUS to take us home…… to our closed up house.
Driving through the empty streets of Boston that Christmas Eve was surreal. By 8:30-9:00pm, everything was closed. We rode in silence for a long time, Christmas lights blinking in the windows and the occasional “whoosh” of tires hitting melted snow. It was cold and the windows were fogged up.
Finally, Gunner chimed in and said, “Hey mom, how will Santa know where I am? Won’t he expect me to be in Mississippi tomorrow morning?” Sheer terror went through me, from zero to 120mph. I only had 3-4 presents for him from Toys R Us, and chances were, he saw them. I couldn’t kill Santa Claus! Plus, we had no food in the fridge, I even gave away the eggs, the opened wine, liquor, everything.
Big T had a moment of divine inspiration. He turned to me and said, “You’ll have to call 1-800-Santa and reroute your presents.” I nodded, catching the drift of what he said. I pretended to call Santa’s workshop, “pressing “1” for English”. Gunner was fascinated but satisfied. He settled back into his bus bench, drifting off to sleep for the remainder of the ride. The back and forth of the windshield wipers were like a lullaby.
I called a girlfriend, to borrow liquor, and whine to her about my troubles. We stopped at an all-night doughnut shop so at least we had doughnuts for Christmas morning…. with our 6lb lobster. What the heck were we going to do with a 6lb lobster?
We arrived home, to our cold house, and Big T gingerly put Gunner to bed. The babe was exhausted. For some unknown reason, the Christmas tree was still up, and fully decorated. Good thing…. I plugged in the lights, praying for inspiration from Mrs. Claus.
And then, something magical happened.
We were standing at the kitchen peninsula, looking at each other, trying to figure out how badly we were screwed. Two girlfriends from down the street arrived in full Santa costume, with a LOT of liquor. They had been partying and wanted to share. Word of our troubles, a la George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, had spread through the neighborhood.
And they started coming, and they kept coming. By midnight, there were at least 30 people in the house. We cooked and ate the lobster, others brought extra food. Some, brought presents from under their kids trees, so Gunner would have presents from Santa……..
Wow. I’ve never been more grateful and humbled.
Best Christmas Eve, ever…….
The party didn’t break up until almost 3:00am. The guys took over a portion of the enclosed porch and assembled cart tracks, electric scooters, a grill, etc., smoked cigars and drank odd brandy until late into the night.
Christmas morning, Gunner beat me downstairs by two steps. He ripped into his packages, and Big T and I were just as surprised at what he received. Gunner loudly proclaimed, “It’s everything I ever wanted.” … like we planned it that way.
Neighbors dropped in with more food and gifts. It was a perfect clear blue sky morning in Boston. The kind of day which makes you squint your eyes but also makes your nose run. Another friend invited us to their Christmas luncheon as our flight would not leave until 2:30pm. After luncheon, we closed up the house again.
Big T and I were standing in the kitchen, Gunner in the bus with suitcases all ready to go. We were surveying the house to make sure everything was good, one last check. And as if God was watching and needed an exclamation point….. the Christmas tree fell over. It was eerie and it fell in slow motion. We looked at each other but didn’t speak. No time to clean it up. We closed the door and headed to the airport.
Flight went without incident until we got to Memphis.
There was an ice storm in Memphis and that airport is a huge hub. Suitcases were stacked all over the airport, and we could barely get out of the boarding area. To this day, I’ve never seen anything like the towers of suitcases which were everywhere. Temps had not risen and the ice was still on the ground. We had a heck of a time getting home, skidding on bridges. I later learned my in-laws totaled their car the night before, on the same bridge.
That was the year of endless Christmas for Gunner. He had Christmas with the girls, Christmas morning in Boston, Christmas with Dad’s side, and Christmas at our house.
I have no idea what I received that year, and Big T wouldn’t remember either, ……… but I’ll never forget my neighbors who were so kind when we were in need. They really came through when it mattered. I’ll carry that memory to my grave.
So, if you find yourself in a strange travel situation this year, take a breath, be kind. We barely remember the presents we receive, yet we do remember the actions of others.
Our well laid plans may go awry. When faced with no alternative, embrace the bedlam. Sometimes, not being in control allows better things to happen.
