Running (like a) log

While my last running log was rather optimistic, the above graph hints at the difficult I've faced in running over the past four weeks. The blue line shows what I should have run each week, and the red line how much I actually logged. Inclement weather, unscheduled events, and a familial medical crisis have made getting out to run very difficult.

Yesterday however I did get 5 miles in, which was what was scheduled for Saturday, so I could modify the graph to look like this:

On Fröhlich-inspired Nazarene separatism

The library where I work recently discarded some 800+ old books (mostly in English and German, some dating before 1900). I only snagged one, a book published in 1931 by E. H. Broadbent, and published by Pickering & Inglis (London) titled The pilgrim church: being some account of the continuance through succeeding centuries of churches practising the principles taught and exemplifed in the New Testament. I was leafing through it yesterday and found that it contains some material on the Nazarenes, or the Apostolic Christian Chruch as it's known in the United States. This is from page 345:

Owing to his own experiences, Fröhlich wrote with unmeasured condemnation of the formal religion prevailing in the great Churches, Catholic and Protestant, and the Nazarenes generally are unsparing in their denunciation of what they believe to be contrary to the teaching of the New Testament. Among them a Lutheran church may be described as a "den of thieves", while many of them seem hardly to believe in the possibility of salvation outside their own circles. This exaggeration shows itself in Fröhlich's teaching.

The entirety of the text is available at Project Gutenburg Australia. The part on the Nazarenes is on pages 342-346 (in the chapter titled Russia). Fröhlich is also mentioned on page 373.

A chill morning

Today's a day off, and with the arrival of minor storm, the temperature dropped 20 degrees yesterday afternoon to a chilly 65°F this morning. So I was chilling out in the front room this morning, doing some reading and drinking mate, and this came crawling across the floor:

This is only the third or fourth scorpion I've seen in Paraguay, and the first I've seen at this house. She was probably brought out by the flooded state of her normal hiding places. Still, it's a little unnerving to see this little monster crawling across the floor where your baby romps all day, with her tail curled and ready to strike. A quick Google search reveals little helpful information about scorpions in Paraguay, mostly articles about the rock band's cancelled concert last year.

One 2002 newspaper article says only one person has died from a scorpion bite in 1980, but warns that some bites could be fatal for children under 9 and the elderly. Apparently the only poisonous species of scorpion in Paraguay is the Tityus trivittatus (which interestingly doesn't have a Wikipedia page in English; it's not that often that I find a page on the Spanish Wikipedia that doesn't have a corresponding (and usually more informative) page in English). From the pictures, it seems that the one I killed could be this species.

I was finishing up reading 1 Corinthians as she appeared, right in the part of chapter 15 where it talks about different kinds of bodies and death being swallowed up. Her appearance definitely brought a different vibe to the text.

After that, I had a great breakfast: homemade chipa, and a chai latte (which only tastes better in the beautiful work of art from J. Fetzer Pottery).

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