Monday, March 30, 2020

What's a Samaritan?

It was winter, many years ago.  It was snowing.  I was driving Cindy and my kids home.  Cindy was maybe 15, old enough to baby sit my kids.  We are in the parking lot behind the supermarket in Melrose.  I see a woman a few parking spots over cannot get her car started.  I think of helping her, then I think of a car full of kids who really need to get home.  I make an idle remark to Cindy that I don't think I will be a good Samaritan this afternoon.  Cindy comes back to me "What's a Samaritan?"  This from a girl whose family made it to First Congregational Church  in Melrose every Sunday.  I know Cindy had done several years of Sunday School at FCC.
   Anyhow, it is perfectly OK to read the Bible to your children now that they are home for Corona virus.  Regardless of your personal religious views, I think every child ought to know the good old bible stories, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah's Ark, a gospel, David and Goliath, Exodus and Moses, Joshua and the battle of Jericho, and more.  The oldest stories from Genesis go back 3500 years or more to Mesopotamia, the beginning of civilization.
   The King James version is the best version in English.  Long time ago I started reading to my children from a bible we had kicking around the house.  I get to the story of Joseph and his brothers.  In this low speed bible version Joseph's coat of many colors has been down graded to a robe with long sleeves.  We can all understand that a fancy coat of many colors might arouse his brother's jealousy.  Who cares about a robe with long sleeves?  I got a closet full of 'em.  Anyhow next evening, I stopped at a bookstore and purchased a King James version.

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