The Oddest Thing 11/11-11/14/21

Indian Mountain State Park, Jellico, Tennessee

They (Jacob’s sons) said to them (Hamor and Shechem), “We can’t do such a thing; we can’t give our sister to a man who is not circumcised.  That would be a disgrace to us.  We will give our consent to you on one condition only:  that you become like us by circumcising all your males.  Then we will give you our daughters and take your daughters for ourselves.  We’ll settle among you and become one people with you.  But if you will not agree to be circumcised, we’ll take our sister and go.” ~ Genesis 34:14-17        Doesn’t sound so bad on the surface, does it?  Where is the deceit?  What’s wrong with their proposition?  First, and foremost, is the horrific misuse of the act of circumcision.  Circumcision was enacted by God as a covenant between Himself and Abraham, and later with the entire Hebrew nation – a sign that God would be their God and they would be His people.  It was never meant to be used flippantly.  These people have no interest in following the One True God, and Jacob and his sons know this.  And as we’ll see very soon, Jacob’s sons have no intention of honoring their agreement.  It’s simply a ruse.  How often do we misuse the things of God to try to achieve an outcome we’re looking for?  How often do we pretend to be kind and nice, only to go off and laugh at people and gossip about them?

The only thing we did that’s even remotely noteworthy on Thursday, was taking a walk on the 1-mile trail here in the campground.  Many of the geese were congregating in the same area, so we took a picture.  Woo-hoo.

Ooops!  I forgot!  Blaine took the Jeep for a much-needed bath.  A lot of soap was involved . . . .

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But on Friday, we decided to walk the roads around the campground – back into the neighborhoods – where we saw some pretty interesting things, and caused a lot of dogs to bark – a lot of dogs.  There were several really junky yards, one of which I would’ve taken a picture of, but the homeowner was in his yard – or at least the small space he could stand on.

It was another pretty day, and there were quite a good bit of hills, so we got a workout.  And we had company!  A mother dog and one of her young pups followed us up the road and back.  😊  We were afraid they’d follow us onto the busier road, but once we got to their house, they stopped.  Whew!

Back home, we cleaned up a bit then headed out for pizza in town at the Pizza Spot.  Good, but not great.  We walked around town to help digest our dinner and make room for the piece of Death By Chocolate Cake Blaine got to-go.  Oh, my was it rich!  But scrumptious! I insisted Blaine eat two-thirds of it.  Sorry, no picture of the cake.

I have to back up a few hours and tell you about a phone call I made as we were driving from dinner to town.

We’ve driven past Crouch’s Creek Baptist Church several times during our stay in Jellico.  Looked nice, and their Facebook page looked okay as far as we could tell, but there were no Sunday service times on it and we couldn’t remember what their sign said.

So I called, expecting a recording.  What I got was the pastor.  We chatted a few minutes, and during the course of the unexpectedly long conversation, he asked our names.  “Blaine and Terri Peck”  “No kidding?!  Well, you won’t believe this, but my name is Terry Blain Brock III!  I go by Trey.”  Now how crazy is that?!?!?  I’ll bet none of us will ever have trouble remembering names!  LOL!  I looked him up on-line and thought I’d found him.

Turned out, that was his attorney dad back in Lima, Ohio.  Yes.  He’s even a former Buckeye!  We’ll see him on Sunday.

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Saturday was another slow day at the office.  There’s not a single picture to share.  I stayed home all day, resting up for my big meeting with Pastor Trey aka Terry Blaine Brock the Third.  😊  Actually, I was blogging and replenishing our chocolate chip cookie supply.  And it was cold today!  Only a high of 42⁰! But Blaine got out and worked off some pancake calories walking around the area again.  Different area than the other day.

I did some Christmas shopping today, too, sending things to my brother David’s place in Alabama, so I can get a look at them before Christmas.

Later in the afternoon, a Park Ranger came a-knocking on our door to tell us they were shutting off the water because of freeze warnings.  No worries, we have our own tanks that are good overnight.  But since Blaine had him, he asked about recent flooding.  When we first got here and Blaine went to hook up our electric, he said the box was full of dried up dirt.  There were a couple of other indications around the Park as well.  Turns out, in March of this year, they had such severe flooding, the entire campground was under water!  Glad we weren’t here then!

Sunday morning was spent under the leadership of Pastor Trey.  Let me just say (and not in a bad way), it was a very, very different service than any we’ve previously participated in.  He presented a very emotional message, and he preached in a cadence the entire time.  There were other things too, like the fact that the music was all hymns sung by the choir and no one else, which may explain why the choir made up at least ¾ of the congregation.  😊  Their church has some spectacular singers!  Oh.  And he announced us from the pulpit and joked about our names.  I suspect he nor us will ever forget each others names. 

We were lazy the rest of the day.  We’ve been lazy a lot lately – especially me.  We’ll have to rectify that some at our next stop.  We move tomorrow.