1823- BUDDY

Last night I had my wife search for some old friends on Facebook [she’s better than me] and I had one old firefighter buddy that kept coming to mind- Buddy Renninger.

I met Buddy about 10 years ago- he attended one of the fire/ems schools that my Dept. was putting on.

Every so often when a neighboring city puts on a class- the other depts. might attend.

Buddy was a ‘rookie’ from the city of Alice- about 20 minutes from Kingsville- where I retired from.

Buddy was my age- though I had already put in about 20 years- he was a new comer to the job.

We got along good- went out for a few drinks a couple of times- shot some pool.

And yes- Buddy ‘picked my brain’ on Christianity- he was eager to learn.

I lost touch with Buddy after I retired- actually before that.

So when my wife looked up the name- to my surprise she told me ‘John- Buddy died’.

I was shocked- I mean he was 48 years old.

The on line article just said he died at home- no other info.

They actually have a little tribute to him on line- look it up if you want- just Google his name and the city of Alice- he was a Lieutenant.

He died a couple of year’s back- sad to see him go.

By the way- for those of you who just got ‘friended’ by me this week- as I was searching for some old friends- I found the search where it says ‘you might know this person’ and I went down the list and sent out about 50 requests.

Some names I thought sounded familiar- others I knew- others just had that good old Italian last name- so if you’re a new friend- that’s the story.

Alright- I still need to do one last post on this never ending Philosophy study I have been on.

But in the last post when I mentioned the book of Ephesians- I came across a verse in chapter 6- it says for workers to ‘obey’ their employers in all things- with FEAR AND TREMBLING.

That short phrase reminded me of something that I did not cover in the philosophy posts.

In a few posts we covered 19^th century thinking- and we hit on Soren Kierkegaard- the 19^th century father of Existentialism [will not repeat it all- you can find it somewhere on the blog].

Soren wrote a few books- one was called FEAR AND TREMBLING- he looked at the story of Abraham in Genesis chapter 22- where he takes Isaac to be offered as a sacrifice to God.

Soren [it’s easier then repeatedly spelling the last name!] examined the process of God telling Abraham to do something that by all accounts seemed contrary to God- and to what Abraham believed to be right.

Yet- at that point of the journey- faith became more than just an intellectual exercise- it became a man [or woman] who passionately embraced God- even beyond the point of his own understanding.

Yes- Abraham did this with much Fear and Trembling- and he never had to sacrifice Isaac- it was a test- a test that the patriarch passed with flying colors.

Next week I will try and finish that last post on philosophy- and try and review the short letter of James [in the New Testament].

This letter is the only ‘wisdom’ literature we find in the New Testament [wisdom literature refers to a specific genre of writing- in the Old Testament we have about 5 books in this category- Proverbs, Psalms, Job- etc.]

So if you get a chance- try and read the letter- it’s a short read.

Okay- that’s it for now- to all my new Facebook friends- glad to see you.

And to Buddy- sad to see you go my friend- may God bless your soul.

www.corpuschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com

Note- Do me a favor, those who read/like the posts- re-post them on other sites as well as the site you read them on. Thanks- John