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Iowa religion running travel

Aerostar

[Today’s run: 3.8 miles in Starkville]

I am back to my old pursuits, which include bidding for things in online auctions if they seem interesting and cheap.

This week I won a mid-1990’s Ford Aerostar mini-van sold here in Columbus by the Mississippi University for Women (aka The W).

We had an Aerostar in the 1990s and early 2000s. We bought it while we lived in Iowa. I believe it was a ’93 model but we bought it in ’94.

That particular vehicle, like the Chevy Astro, is rear wheel drive and it has a useful towing capacity. Also the one we had could fold the seats down to make a very comfortable bed. We used it a lot as our main family vehicle. They have a sliding door on the passenger side and a big rear hatch.

In the early 2000’s, while we were in Colorado, it got wrecked and hauled off.

This one at The W looks pretty sad inside according to the pictures. The fold down seats are missing. The headliner is all shredded. The carpet looked very dirty. Without the seats it has a flat floor.

I talked to the person we need to meet to pick it up. It will be Tuesday before we can get together with her. My plan is to go and see if we can jump start it. If we can I will just drive it home. If not I will need to get it towed. I’m trying to avoid the towing charge if I am able. But I’m not so desperate as to rope-tow it. The road between us and town is divided 4-lane. I’ve seen people do some crazy things, but I think I would just spend the fifty bucks to have it towed.

I paid just under $150 for it. If it turns out to be a dud, I can have it hauled to the scrap yard and really not be sad about it.

If it does run and seems to be usable, it would be good to have a 2nd vehicle that my wife is able to drive. If the heat and AC work… if it is reasonably low miles, it may replace my full sized Ford pickup. We will just see how it works out.


I’m making plans to travel to Iowa in March. I have a 5k race in late January, then the hamfest in Jackson, MS in early February. I have another race March 1. After that, if everything comes together, I would like to drive up to Iowa and check in for maybe a week. I might work from there some of those days. We had discussed bringing the old Minnesota fishing boat down to Mississippi. If that is still a possibility, and even better if the Aerostar is road worthy, I may bring the boat and boat accessories down at that time. (Frankly, I have more boats than I need. But no one else seems to be jumping at the chance, and I feel like maybe that would accomplish some of the clear-out they are wanting to address.)

When I was up there in the fall I put all of the old computers, monitors, printers, keyboards etc in the blue pickup and took them to the landfill. None of it had been used in years. I did set one of the flat panel monitors to the side in case someone else dumping might want it. I chastised myself, mildly, for not taking the old CRT television along on the trip. I saw it later, sitting in it’s place in the basement.

(This is all assuming no emergency prompts me to dump the normal activities and go there sooner.)


I was thinking today, early this morning while driving to my run in Starkville.

One of the pivotal points in the story of Abraham is Genesis 15:6 (BibleGateway New International Version)

Alright. So how did verse 6 get in there? If you believe in inspiration then the author of these words, assumed to be Moses, wrote down what he received as a prophet. That’s not the interesting part. To me the interesting part is the self-referential nature of this transaction. Abram (and Moses for that matter) have no “proof” as such that righteousness has been credited except this say-so which of course is taken or not taken on faith. Paul hits this stuff in Romans chapter 4. He points out that this happened before the Abrahamic covenant, and long before the ten commandments. And he applies faith becoming righteousness to everyone as a principle.

I had always heard the phrase “the just shall live by faith” as meaning that the way The Just should live is “by faith”. But I think maybe I’ve been reading it wrong. The circumstances with Abram show that a person becomes just and lives because of (by) faith.

Honestly, I have no idea how faith is appropriately rewarded with credit for righteousness. I guess that’s why it requires faith.

The Good News is frequently not good news. People take it as Big Rules Part 2 and that’s that. But the real Good News is believe and the rest is done. There is some expansion on that in the New Testament. Faith should become evident in action or it isn’t faith, with one of those actions being as simple as saying, “I believe it.”

I believe it.