Weather. Dallas is hot this summer. Okay, especially hot. I call July/August in Texas the Armpit of the Year. Summer 2006 has now made the list of top ten hottest summers here (since weather people have kept records, at least) for the number of days hitting 100 degrees. I saw a local newscast last week that showed a woman placing on her car dashboard a metal sheet with dollops of cookie dough on it. Three hours later she returned to find her cookies completely baked. She took a spatula and turned them to show they were crusty like bakery treats should be. It was 117 degrees in her car oven.

Identity. I spent yesterday near Tyler on retreat with the Dallas Seminary faculty. As usual, I sat with theology prof, Bob Pyne. He just returned from Rwanda, and he showed me a photo of a banner over a church door. When I asked what it said, he translated: If you knew who I am and who you are, you would not have done what you did. Interesting. That is sort of Paul’s argument in Romans 6–8.

Biography. My friend Carol loaned me her CDs of Laura Bush’s biography. I have now listened to three of the five CDs. I never knew Laura Bush accidentally killed a good friend and fellow classmate in a car accident when she was 17. Or that she waited to marry until after she was thirty. Or that the twins were Clomid babies. (Been there!) Or that she taught Sunday school at Highland Park United Methodist Church, where I’ve attended funerals and a Christmas Eve service. And she taught inner-city kids as an elementary school teacher for much longer than she was a librarian. Her biographer is a bit too over-the-top enamored for my taste, but it’s still an interesting work about a solid woman I respect.

Dante. I started class at UTD today. This time around I’m taking Dante. As an assignment for next week’s class, I had to take Dante’s Inferno Test online to see if I made it as high as purgatory or, if not, what level of hell I’d been relegated to. You can take it, too. Jesus has been left out of the equation of whether one goes to eternal damnation or eternal bliss. Yet the questions are still good for self-examination.

I hear the wonderful sound of rain outside. A thunderstorm is giving the grass a much-needed drink. How exciting. That means we will probably have a cool spell tomorrow. They are predicting a high of only 97.