Praise God

Job said,

"O that my words were written down!

O that they were inscribed in a book! 

O that with an iron pen and with lead

they were engraved on a rock forever! 

For I know that my Redeemer lives,

and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; 

and after my skin has been thus destroyed,

then in my flesh I shall see God, 

whom I shall see on my side,

and my eyes shall behold, and not another." 

Job 19:23-27a

Job Mocked by his Wife

LA TOUR, Geores du Mesnil de

1630s

Musee Departemental des Vosges

Epinal

(This painting actually refers to Job 2:7-13.)

There was a change in La Tour's style from the morbidity and mystery of such pictures as the penitent Magdalen contemplating a skull and a monk watching over his dead or dying companion, to works of a much calmer and more distilled air. The transitional pictures, also datable to the 1630s, are Job Mocked by his Wife at Épinal and the so-called 'Woman with the Flea' at Nancy.

The composition of the Job is immediately striking. There is the same flickering movement that is found in the Payment of Dues, even though there are only two figures. It is derived from Bellange's etching of The Annunciation. an unexpected source, especially when it is considered that The Annunciation by Caravaggio was already in the ducal collection at Nancy by 1616 (this much-damaged picture is now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts at Nancy where it is accepted by most authorities as authentic). No influence on La Tour is discernible in the Caravaggio, although it is virtually certain that he knew it.

The subject is a rare one, and La Tour has introduced a special pathos into Job's sufferings.

Although its composition is a complex amalgam of the Bellange Annunciation, the mood of the Job is entirely original. La Tour has concentrated on a dialogue between the unfortunate Job and his ill-tempered wife, and has allowed us a glimpse of a rarely painted subject, a husband tormented by his wife. Her cruel mockery of him comes over with great force as Job sits helplessly contemplating his sores (the potsherd he uses to scrape them is on the ground). The spectator is forced to realize that this painter's genius lies chiefly in his ability to observe the human condition; his skill in painting candlelight is only part of the brilliance. Such a depiction of the complex relationship between two people is rare indeed in French art of the period, and in his maturity La Tour was to develop the concept of dialogue between people to ever-increasing heights of subtlety.France

http://www.wga.hu/html_m/l/la_tour/georges/2/01jobwif.html

Job Mocked by his Wife (detail)

http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/diglib-fulldisplay.pl?SID=2016110558502197&code=ACT&RC=46621&Row=12

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world at once, 

but of stretching out to mend the part of the world 

that is within our reach.

~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

The important question to ask is not, “What do you believe?"

but "What difference does it make that you believe?”

Does the world come nearer to the dream of God because of what you believe?

~ Verna J. Dozier

Dr. Dan Hock at church on Reformation Sunday.

Dan is my eye doctor.

Rowdy Rotarians

El Rancho

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Jim Kreider, Rita Carver, Chris Molter

Jeanne Gibbard and I enjoyed the play “Tartuffe" at the Arvada Center on Wednesday, Nov. 2.

Kimra Perkins was our speaker at Rotary on Friday morning.

She gave us a preview of the 2-day workshop she will be offering in January:

7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_7_Habits_of_Highly_Effective_People

Cindy Sahli became a Paul Harris Fellow!

Gail Sharp and Dori Painter celebrated their birthdays.

The elk are hanging out in our neighborhood during hunting season.

This fellow with his harem was on Hiwan Drive.

Right around the corner was another big fellow right in front

of the condos where I live.

God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today.

Have you used one to say, “Thank you?”

~ William A. Ward

November 6, 2016 Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time/Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost - Proper 27

Previous OPQs may be found at:

http://www.dotjack.com/opq.htm

Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus and asked him a question, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her."

Jesus said to them, "Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive."

Luke 20:27-38

Agnus Day, by James Wetzstein

Agnus Day appears with the permission of www.agnusday.org

[Haggai 1:15b-2:9 with Psalm 145:1-5, 17-21 or Psalm 98] or
Job 19:23-27a 

Psalm 17:1-9
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17
Luke 20:27-38