“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
- Matthew 6:25-34
How long will you people turn my glory into shame?
How long will you love delusions and seek false gods?
Know that the Lord has set apart his faithful servant for himself;
the Lord hears when I call to him.
- Psalm 4:2-3
This is what the Lord says:
“For three sins of Judah,
even for four, I will not relent.
Because they have rejected the law of the Lord
and have not kept his decrees,
because they have been led astray by false gods,
the gods their ancestors followed,
I will send fire on Judah
that will consume the fortresses of Jerusalem.”
- Amos 2:4-5
Boilerplate
I’m Harold Dykstra. I’m retired, but I go to food bank distributions all over Tracy and talk to people that need someone who will listen to their story. My time is well spent. A police lieutenant suggested that I write down the conversations that I had with an angel. I did not know she was an angel at the time. The angel, for a little over a year, indwelled a life-sized posable action figure my children bought me, so that I would not be perceived as travelling alone. And in a way, she was training me for what I do while talking to the needy. She probed my heart to find out what I believed and how I express love for others. She changed my life. Since she was a doll that had come to life, we came up with the term ‘other living.’ She was not a human, an animal, or even a plant, but she was definitely living, and very vibrant. Oh, excuse me, angels have no gender, but the angel indwelled a doll named Bountiful Babs. After seeing the angel in that form for over a year, I cannot see her in my mind in any other form.
This Week’s Question
In the last episode, Babs had seen a few too many western movies and heard a few too many western songs. She was ready to have a shootout to protect her man when we reached El Paso, Texas. She was still driving since Harold was taking antibiotics for a sinus infection that made him drowsy. She drove from Victoria, Texas to San Antonio and then on to El Paso, Texas. The next day, she drove to Gallup, New Mexico.
After another successful sales call, I insisted on driving to Tucson, Arizona. My last pill was taken the night before and I felt great. If I got tired, we could always swap places.
Babs said, “Great! Now, I can sit in the passenger seat and keep watch. We have to beware about today, you know.”
I asked, “Beware?! Today?! What is so special about today?” I was afraid of her answer. It was probably going to be something off the wall, but I was getting used to it.
Babs sighed, “Harold, you need to keep up with things. There was this woman in the breakfast area this morning. Unfortunately, she was not very pretty, and she spoke with a scratchy voice. She was cross-eyed and she had a wart on her nose.”
I asked, “Was her skin tone kind of greenish?”
Babs huffed, “I am being serious here! This was a real woman and she kept saying, ‘Beware the Ides of March! Beware the Ides of March!’ I asked the breakfast lady what the woman was talking about, and she said on a previous Ides of March… You know, that’s today! March fifteenth! Anyway, Julius Caesar was killed, and the entire course of history changed as a result! I haven’t been around very long, but you should remember when it happened!”
I sighed, “Babs, Julius Caesar died about forty years before Jesus was born. Sure, it was on the Ides of March, but you are talking about over two thousand years ago. And you should not take much stock in an old lady with a wart on her nose warning us about a pagan holiday. We should not have a pagan holiday change our plans.”
Babs gasped, “A pagan holiday?! Which one?”
I shrugged, “I can think of three. The calendar that we now have wasn’t the same as the calendar in the times of Julius Caesar, at least shortly before this point in time. The Ides of March was roughly the first month of the year. The Ides was supposed to be the time of the first full moon. Thus, making an importance about the Ides of March might be interpreted as worshipping the moon.”
Babs sniffled, “Oh, dear, Harold. Did I screw up?”
I laughed, “Babs, you have been in a high protection mode over me lately. I am glad you did not have to use your pretend six-shooter to protect me in El Paso. You heard about a threat, and you jumped into protection mode. That is what a really good travel buddy should do. But I am not finished with the Ides of March. The second pagan worship is when the Roman god, Jupiter, is worshiped by sacrificing a sheep.”
Babs interrupted, “But that sounds like the Mosaic Law, just worshipping a false god with the same practice.”
I nodded, “And since this was the first of the calendar year, they picked up on a different biblical sacrifice. They would take an old man and dress him in animal skins. Then they would beat the man severely and carry him out of the city as a scapegoat. The Israelites used a goat, but this Greek custom was accepted by the Romans. So, you have the full moon worship, a sheep being sacrificed, and an old man being beaten to drive away the old year and bring on a more prosperous new year. All three on the Ides of March, that is until 44BC when Julius Caesar was killed.”
Babs asked, “Who was he?”
I huffed, “Usually when you hear something like you heard this morning, you are doing the research! Okay, you jumped the gun and went into protection mode. I can forgive you. Julius Caesar was the emperor of the Roman Empire. He bridged over the Rhein River. He invaded Britain. He conquered Gaul, which is now France, and he conquered much of Spain. In fact, almost all the countries along the Mediterranean Sea were conquered by Julius Caesar, a few gaps along the African Coast. He is attributed as saying ‘veni, vidi, vici’ which means ‘I came. I saw. I conquered!’ But if you are always out conquering, your alliances back home begin to fall apart, no matter how successful you might be. One of his best friends and closest allies was Brutus and even Brutus joined in the assassination. But before the assassination, according to the historian, Suetonius (Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus), he was warned by a woman, Spurinna, who used haruspex, which is a study of the entrails of sacrificed animals to use divination to warn Julius Caesar to beware the Ides of March. Since William Shakespeare used that in his play about Julius Caesar, people have been saying it for more than four hundred years.”
Babs scrunched her nose, “Oh! I really messed up.”
I laughed, “Babs, do not worry about that. In fact, do not worry about the Ides of March. We might have our own set of troubles today. Just like Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. And as for the assassination that changed the course of history, the assassins turned it into a religious thing. Caesar became the sheep that was sacrificed on the altar where Julius Caesar had been deified. And he became the old man so that the new man, Octavius, could become the next emperor, Caesar Augustus. But before you jump to another conclusion, Caesar Augustus became a kind of honorary title for whoever was the emperor. ‘Augustus’ means ‘revered’ or ‘worshipped one.’ The reference might not be regarding Octavius. And we know that God does not want us following false gods, so we have nothing to worry about the Ides of March more than it is another day with its own challenges.”
Babs smiled, “I am so glad I am your travel buddy. You are so smart!”
I drove the direct route to Tucson so that Babs could see some beautiful countryside.
“Babs,” I asked, “Since my next sales calls in Tucson and in a couple of areas of Phoenix, Arizona, are all early next week, how would you like to test your gunfighting skills in a famous town of the Old West?”
Babs giggled, “Where would that be?”
“Tombstone, Arizona! Where else?”
Babs gasped, “The O K Corral? Doc Holiday! Wyatt Earp! Yes! Yes! Yes!”
I shrugged, “I don’t know about those old lawmen, but the town is pretty much a tourist trap. It will be fun.” Then I added, “And, Babs, remind me when we get to Tucson. There might be nothing to worry about on the Ides of March, but in two days, we need to wear something green. I do not think you want to get pinched.”
Babs asked, “Green? Pinched? Another silly holiday?!”
I cleared my throat, “Never let an Irish person hear you call St. Patrick’s Day silly. Just wear something green to be safe.”
Babs giggled, “I like it when you look out for me, Harold.”
Credits
All these conversations remind me of my conversations with my wife. We would talk about anything and everything. And most of the time, it sounded like a discussion in a Sunday school class.
The Ides of March information came from the internet. Oddly, the Romans did not number the days of the months in those times. The Ides was either what is now the 13th (most months) or the 15th (March, May, July, October only) of the month. The Nones was eight days before the Ides and the first day of the next month was the Kalends.
The Julian calendar, which we use now, was put into effect about a year before the assassination, by the emperor, Julius Caesar.
My wife and I never made it to Tombstone, Arizona, but we went to Dodge City, Kansas a few times. My wife and I have both visited the Alamo in the center of San Antonio, Texas, but she got to visit the Alamo movie set out in the middle of nowhere.
Soli Deo Gloria. Only to God be the Glory.
Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley 
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