QUARANTINE BLOG # 576

October 27, 2021

We featured some collectible sneakers a while ago, but here is the Which Of Which There Is No Whicher.  A pair of Michael Jordan’s shoes from 1984 sold for almost $1.5 million at Sotheby’s on Sunday, setting a record for sneakers at auction.  The 1984 Nike Air Ships are Jordan’s earliest known regular season game-worn Nikes.  The shoes are the first pair of sneakers to ever crack the $1 million mark at an auction, going for $1.472 million.  The signed sneakers are from Jordan’s fifth NBA game in his rookie season.  

👉  Alaska State Senator Lora Reinbold was banned from Alaska Airlines for refusing to wear a mask.  Reinbold was banned from flying from Juneau to cast her vote against a public health emergency bill.  Alaska Airlines brought in a mask mandate before the federal government’s mask mandate.  Reinbold has been a strong opponent of masks since the pandemic began.  She announced since her banning that she has contracted COVID-19.

👉  Jennifer sent me some great images from Instagram.  I don’t think the original presenter meant it this way, but I think it could relate to the piece immediately above  this post.

👉  We haven’t played a tune for a while, so let’s drop a nickle in the jukebox and play the Number One hit from May 9, 1964 – “Hello Dolly!” by Louis Armstrong.  “Hello, Dolly!” is the title song of the popular 1964 musical of the same name.  Louis Armstrong’s version was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001.  His version was used by the song’s publisher to promote the show.  “Hello Dolly!” became the most successful single of Armstrong’s career.

This time Louis is singing with Barbara Streisand in the 1969 movie.

👉  Closed circuit to my supplier – these are my last 3 Blackouts and or other sign amusements:

👉  Always trying to be helpful, QB shares 2 new helpful hints:

How to put shoes in the dryer

How to keep the straw from rising out of your soda can

👉  Here is a Pickles for my family members who say I write this strip:

👉  Today’s close is from New Morning Mercies, Paul David Tripp.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:1-4).

God’s grace will expose what you want to hide, not to shame you, but to forgive and deliver you.

“It’s a sad way to live,” I thought as I listened to him recount the events of the night before. He worked next to me on the long packing table that kept our hands busy eight hours a day. But our mouths were free to talk, and talk we did. He was being unfaithful to his wife. He thought he was in charge, he thought he was free, but he wasn’t. He told of taking his girlfriend to a certain restaurant in the small community where he lived, only to see his wife’s car parked outside. He told of going to another place but having to make sure the coast was clear before they left so they wouldn’t get caught. 

I said to him: “You think you’re free, but you’re not free. You have to hide. You have to worry about being caught. You have to lurk around in the darkness.” I then said: “You think I’m bound, but I’m the one who’s free. When I go out with my wife, I never have to worry about where we’re going. I never have to fear being caught. I can boldly live in the light.”

Sin turns all of us into citizens of the night. Sin causes all of us to be committed to low-light living. We hide, we deny, we cover, we lie, we excuse, we shift the blame, we rationalize, we defend, and we explain away. These are all acts of darkness by people who fear exposure.

What is the movement of grace? It is to shine light on what once lived in darkness. “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed” (John 3:19-20). Grace shatters our darkness. Grace explodes on us with penetrating, heart-exposing light. Grace illumines our dank hallways and our dark corners. 

The Son of grace shines the light of his grace into the darkest recesses of our hearts, not as an act of vengeance or punishment, but as a move of forgiving, transforming, and delivering grace. He dispels our self-inflicted darkness because he knows that we cannot grieve what we do not see, we cannot confess what we have not grieved, and we cannot turn from what we haven’t confessed.

The Light has come. Run to the Light; it is not to be feared. Yes, it is the Light of exposure, but what will be exposed has already been covered by the blood of the One who exposes it.

-30-