Pearl

What to say?

2011-04-07T09:58:00.008-05:00

When you have a discussion with someone that falls on a different place on the political spectrum, it can be hard to find commonality. (I believe that most people value the same things, but we choose to find different solutions to the problems we face, or different means to the same or similar end).

How do you go about having a thoughtful discussion with your "polar opposite" and reaching that common ground? I don't have any guaranteed solutions. But someone's comments on an NPR article articulated exactly what I feel when I talk with certain people about any give hot button issue. Thanks "Twyla".

A: I was driving my car when it started accelerating out of control. I couldn't stop it, even though I was braking and did not have my foot on the gas.

B: Cars are very important! We need them for transportation! If we didn't drive, just think how many people couldn't get anywhere on time!

A: Well yes, I know, but a lot of other people have reported this problem, and I think it needs to be investigated.

B: Why are you so anti-car?!? You have an anti-car agenda!

A: My friend is recovering from complications from surgery.

B: Surgery is important! Surgery saves lives! Without surgery many people would die!

A: Yes, but I still think it's important to understand what went wrong with this surgery, why the complication occurred, how to treat my friend's resulting health problems, how to prevent this kind of complication in the future and who is susceptible to it, and how the risks of this surgery compare with the potential benefits.

B: You're scaring people away from surgery, you irresponsible fear mongerer!

A: I ate some spinach and got really bad diarrhea and vomiting.

B: It's just a coincidence! Correlation is not causation!

A: The FDA is investigating this because a lot of other people reported the same symptoms after eating spinach. Unlike with reports of vaccine injuries, the FDA is on the job and found the source of the contamination, which matched the bacteria found in stool samples.

B: The plural of anecdotes is not data! Witnesses are notoriously fallible! You can't cite a single peer reviewed study proving that you got sick from that spinach! You don't understand science!

Whine List

2011-02-01T18:59:00.000-06:00

For posterity's sake (well, actually my own) I want to list all the events that have happened to us in the last few months. Maybe it's just therapeutic, maybe it will be reminder to me of what we struggled through. Call it my Whine List.

Sept 2010

Logan was born!
Jake started 3rd grade.
My work laptop died and was reimaged.
Scott got accepted into the Nursing program.
Scott left his retail job of 2 years to begin a CNA position at a nursing home.

Oct 2010

Scott's laptop, which he used for school, died, and we had to buy a new one.
Our desktop computer had begun bluescreening more often. I reformatted and reconfigured it over several days.

November 2010

Celebrated Jake's 9th birthday at Mall of America, sans Logan, who stayed with Grandma and Grandpa.
Toilet flooded the upstairs bathroom. Replaced toilet.

Dec 2010

Scott caught a cold that had him couch-ridden for 2 days and sick for 5.
I caught the cold two days before the end of my maternity leave.
I returned to work, working the first day at home because of my cold.
Scott had a gallbladder attack in the middle of the night, later that morning his first final.
Scott decided to have gallbladder surgery and had to quit his job. Having worked at the nursing home less than 3 months, he had no sick time accrued and did not qualify for FMLA.
Scott had his gallbladder removed, 2 days before Christmas.
Christmas.
The day after Christmas Scott had a pancreatic attack and a 2-day hospital stay.

Jan 2011

Scott got a ticket for not completely stopping at a stop sign.
Scott had another pancreatic attack and a 2-day hospital stay. I rolled into another car on the way to the hospital, causing pricey damage to the other vehicle and to ours.
My work laptop died again and was replaced.
Logan started daycare and promptly caught a cold.
Scott had a procedure done ("scope") to look for issues. (None were found.)
Logan got pink eye.
Water heater went kaput, purchased a new one.

Netflix

2009-04-10T11:20:00.002-05:00

I see that Netflix now has ratings from Common Sense Media.

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/

I like this. Plain and simple, I can see what kind of messages are in a movie, black and white. I can choose not to have my child watch a particular movie. Or maybe watch it and use a "bad" message as an opportunity to convey the "right" message.

As a parent, I want to want to straddle the line between restricting and allowing. I want my child to avoid certain things, but don't want to ignore the fact that everyday he lives in a world that sends mixed messages and messages that contradict what he's taught at home. Culture is not optional.

HollywoodJesus.com does a nice job of rating movies, too. It tickles me that they have reviewers that are horror movie fans. DH is a horror movie junkie. Me? No thanks.

Employee Free Choice Act

2009-03-27T20:37:00.000-05:00

Fifty-eight percent of non-managerial working Americans surveyed indicated that they would join a union if they could. However, one worker is disciplined or fired every 18 minutes for their efforts to organize unions. (1)

Among the myths about the Employee Free Choice Act are (2):

The Employee Free Choice Act Takes Away the Secret Ballot
FACT: No it doesn't. The EFCA allows for majority sign-up. The majority can still hold an election if they choose.
Union Elections Are Just Like Elections for Public Office
FACT: Nope. Supervisors can force employees to attend anti-union meetings, companies have no limits on what they spend on anti-union lawyers and consultants. (And there's more differences.)
Passing the Employee Free Choice Act Will Hurt Economic Recovery
FACT: The National Labor Relations Act was first passed during dire economic times to encourage unionization so workers would have more buying power to fuel economic recovery.
The inequality of bargaining power between employees who do not possess full freedom of association or actual liberty of contract, and employers who are organized in the corporate or other forms of ownership association substantially burdens and affects the flow of commerce, and tends to aggravate recurrent business depressions, by depressing wage rates and the purchasing power of wage earners. (3)

Read the myths:

Sources:
1 The Electrical Worker, ibew.org
2 Economic Policy Institute
3 National Labor Relations Act of 1935

The elephant upstairs

2009-03-13T20:41:00.000-05:00

When I was growing up, my step-dad commented that he thought an elephant lived in our house. He could hear it stomping around when he was downstairs.

That elephant now lives in our house. It not only stomps around, it also bangs cupboard doors and falls down a lot.

Where have I been?

2009-03-13T20:38:00.000-05:00

Apparently it was time to update my Bloglines blogs. I had "God's Politics" and "cino" in my Shopping category.

JKhooler had 29 new posts. I thought it was a Bloglines mistake at first.

I haven't uploaded any pictures to Flickr in a year. A year!! I thought I'd put it off for a couple months, but a whole year? Then there is JKhooler posting all these adorable pictures of her two cuties. I haven't taken pictures since Christmas. I've forgotten that some of the best pictures are just the everyday ones. (For instance, I really should have a picture of Jake playing scrabble with Daddy at the coffee shop.)

I did try to video Jake singing the Doctor Who theme, but wouldn't you know, the camera battery was dead. I'd actually like to capture many of the things he says and sings when he's in his room or playing around in the bathroom. But just his voice, just like it is for us where we hear him but can't see him. His impression of the Daleks is probably my favorite--Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate! Provided he doesn't say it in class, of course.

Scrabble and rocks

2009-01-22T08:30:00.001-06:00

I don't want ice cream, I just want to play Scrabble with you.

Jacob explained this to Daddy when they stopped at the cafe after piano lessons.

My dad and I like to climb on rocks that aren't the same size.

Yes, Jacob really talks like this. This is at times amazing and at times frustrating for me. Amazing, because I can really enjoy the extra details he adds when he is describing something. Other times it's just...Huh?...I have to just stop and interpret what exactly he is trying to say. In this case, he was talking about climbing on the rocks in Duluth. And that's what I find so funny. "we like to climb on rocks" isn't good enough. It's rocks that aren't the same size.

I heard him say this during his first real phone call a couple weeks ago. Not the, "can you come over to play?" phone call. But the genuine, I-just-want-to-call-you-on-the-phone kinda call. It was pretty adorable. It was a friend of his from class, S. And she has at a few siblings, so much of the phone call consisted of, "hello?" "are you still there?" "what's that noise?" "well just tell her to get off the phone". At one point Jacob carefully explained how S should find somewhere quiet in her house where she wouldn't be bothered. Of course, he has no siblings of his own to contend with.

not quite right but cute

2008-12-09T21:35:00.000-06:00

Did you know...

- God gave His only forgotten son so that whoever believes in Him will live forever?
- That two of the books in the Bible are named First and Second Tiffany?

Jacob and Mommy began attending a new church in the last, oh what has it been, 2 months? One of the new activities for Jacob is to (if he wants to) memorize the books of the Bible. This all started when he said after church one Sunday, "I need to learn the Bible by December." That seemed a not small task, so I probed for more. He insisted it was the whole Bible, and gave examples...John, and Ezra, and First and Second Tiffany. It was then I knew he didn't have to memorize everything, just the books of the Bible.

Jake's all about incentives. Optional tasks become necessary when there is a reward involved. Last year he came home one day to tell me he HAD to get a yearbook. I thought it was ridiculous for a Kindergartner to have a yearbook, but how could I refuse when everyone else was getting one? (And the school knows that, darnnit, don't they?) He doesn't like it if I put off his homework for a night, even if it isn't due the next day. Too bad the allowance money doesn't always work...I couldn't get him to vacuum last Saturday even when I told him he would miss the $2.

Anyhow.

We are only about 3/4 the way through the Old Testament and I'm pooping out. We've tried setting it all to a tune, for example, Ten Little Indians, but that almost makes it harder.

Incidentally, Daddy is not attending church because he always works on Sundays, usually the 10:30 to whatever shift. He may ask for Sundays off, but I doubt he'll have a leg to stand on. After 14 years in the corporate office environment, I really don't miss retail.

Vote for Jacob

2008-11-02T15:03:00.003-06:00

Talking points:

I rock
rock ar role (rock n' roll)
I rule

Strengths:

avid climber of all vertical surfaces
quick to smile
can supply an endless amount of "how" and "why" questions

Qualifications:

Kindergarten graduation
Almost 100% participation in recreational soccer, when not looking the other way
Understanding of negative numbers and thinks they are fun

About my opponents' claims:

Yeah, I spilt orange juice all over my shirt before school pictures, but it was an accident.

Building an army

2008-07-15T21:52:00.003-05:00

Rashid recounts his experience among the wahhabi madrassas of Peshawar in his bestselling book Taliban. The students spent their days studying "the Koran, the sayings of the Prophet Mohammed and the basics of Islamic law as interpreted by their barely literate teachers," he writes. Neither teachers nor students had any formal grounding in maths, science, history or geography."

These madrassa students were "the rootless and the restless, the jobless and the economically deprived with little self knowledge," Rashid concludes. "They admired war because it was the only occupation they could possibly adapt to..."

...

"Thinking about the Wahhabi strategy made my head spin," Mortenson says. "This wasn't just a few Arab sheikhs getting off Gulf Air flights with bags of cash. They were bringing the brightest madrassa students back to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait for a decade of indoctrination, then encouraging them to take four wives when they came home and breed like rabbits.

"Apo calling Wahhabi madrassas beehives is exactly right. They're churning out generation after generation of brainwashed students and thinking twenty, forty, even sixty years ahead to a time when their armies of extremism will have the numbers to swarm over Pakistan and the rest of the Islamic world."

- From Three Cups of Tea

Ignoring the victims of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars

2008-07-15T21:39:00.003-05:00

"I supported the war in Afghanistan," Mortenson said after he introduced himself. I believed in it because I believed we were serious when we said we planned to rebuild Afghanistan. I'm here because I know that military victory is only the first phase of winning the war on terror and I'm afraid we're not willing to take the next steps."

Then Mortenson talked of the tribal traditions that attended conflict in the region—the way warring parties held a jirga before doing battle, to discuss how many losses they were willing to accept, since victors were expected to care for the widows and orphans of the rivals they have vanquished.

"People in that part of the world are used to death and violence," Mortenson said. "And if you tell them, 'We're sorry your father died, but he died a martyr so Afghanistan could be free," and if you offer them compensation and honor their sacrifice, I think people will support us, even now. But the worst thing you can do is what we're doing—ignoring the victims. To call them 'collateral damage' and not even try to count the numbers of the dead. Because to ignore them is to deny they ever existed, and there is no greater insult in the Islamic world. For that we will never be forgiven."

- From Three Cups of Tea

Green Thoughts

2008-07-01T08:49:00.001-05:00

NRDC issue reports in its May/June 2008 issue of Nature's Voice, "the New York City Council has passed groundbreaking legislation that would institute a citywide recycling program for some 25,000 tons of used electronics that New Yorkers accumulate annually. Under the measure...manufacturers would be responsible for collecting and recycling their own used and obsolete TVs, computers, iPods and other electronics -- creating a big incentive to design less toxic and easier-to-recycle products." What a darn smart piece of legislation.

Huh, I didn't know Honda had the 70 mpg Insight? It's mentioned on Minnesota Pollution Control Agency's reduce.org site, oddly enough, considering it's no longer produced.

Menard's is collecting CFLs for free! (But only through August 31?)

I want a rain barrel. But how the heck am I going to get it home without a truck?

You can lease the 2009 Honda FCX Clarity beginning this summer, if you are near existing hydrogen fuel-pump facilities in Irvine, Torrance and Santa Monica. Bummer for me. Wait, $600 a month? I can wait.

Hybrid cars are great, but what are we going to do with all the old cars, big or small? Is anyone talking seriously about retrofitting older cars? (And I don't mean the do-it-yourselfers.)

Though we have a small family, we know plenty of families with four or more kids. Even three kids can be a challenge to fit into a sedan. Don't we need environmentally-friendly cards for big families?

If I were to buy one of those nifty electric cars that blazes at speeds of 20-25 mph, could I actually drive it in my neighborhood? Then again, ZENN may have the cityZENN, which can drive on the highway, in the fall of 2009.

Shouldn't we continue to provide tax incentives for buyers of alternative vehicles, instead of phasing them out ?

Never tell a woman

2008-06-17T21:16:00.003-05:00

The story went like this. Big, fat tears rolled down his face. He cringed like he expected us to yell at him. "I was scared to tell, 'cause I thought you'd be mad. And I'm gonna haf to tell Ms. T and I'm afraid she'll be mad." (Ms. T was his Kindergarten teacher.)

We finally calmed him down, assuring him it was okay and that he could tell us. And here was the story.

"Well I was playing with Leah and Paige. And Leah told Paige that she had a big butt. And then Paige told Leah that, no, Leah had a big butt.

Jacob didn't understand the meaning of his next words, as he explained to us, "And I told them that they both had big butts. And Mrs. A heard me and got mad and I got in trouble."

He went on to tell us that he had to sit in timeout. And somehow (never did understand this part of the story) he knocked something over during timeout and further infuriated Mrs. A.

Poor Jacob. A brutal sentence for a kid who was just trying to treat his friends equally.

Daddy offered this advice, "It is best, Jacob, that you never tell a woman, of any age, that she has a big butt."

Some names in this story have been changed to protect the innocent.

J's prayer for peace

2008-06-14T21:27:00.002-05:00

Jacob is pretty fascinated with the whole election process. He's even rooting for Hilary (though I think only because she is a girl). I had to tell him that Hilary is out of the race and try to explain why. Which brought the discussion to "good" and "bad" traits in a candidate and then to the war in Iraq. Of course, Jacob thinks it's all black and white. The war in Iraq is "bad." But then I described, in a version for a six-year-old, that war sometimes seems like the only way and can be good in some ways. Like with World War II. I told Jacob about Hitler (again, edited for a six-year-old) and how nothing could stop him but war. How he didn't want to work things out by talking. But even though our country and other countries just wanted to stop a bad man, anyone, even kids, can get hurt or killed during war. Jacob deemed World War II "medium" bad.

"Can we pray about the war in Iraq, Mom?"

"Sure, we can pray about it," thinking to myself, later we can pray.

"Now?"

"Uh, okay, now."

"Dear God, we pray that they can stop the war and love achother and...just a minute God..."

(To Mom) "What was that guy's name again?"

"Adolf Hitler? He was in World War II."

"Oh."

Then Jake continued, "Sorry God. And we pray that they could stop fighting perma-nan-nently or forever and even if an asteriod hit the earth and it started all over, it would never happen again. Amen."

More from The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf

2008-02-10T12:08:00.000-06:00

Where was the soul at peace? Somalis were in the grip of a terrible famine. There was fighting in Western Sahara. Afghans filled refugee camps in Iran and Pakistan. Patani Muslims were being persecuted in their Buddhist-dominated country. Life in Lebanon was a hell of shelling and death. None of this was an important part of the news in America. Whereas the minute details of the lives of the American men held hostage, and the tears and hopes of their mothers, fathers, grandparents, and second cousins in Kissamee made news every day. Only they were human, had faces, had mothers. People wore yellow ribbons for these fifty-two privileged white men who now were, if the American news was to be believed, the most wretchedly oppressed of the earth. Anchorman Walter Cronkite counted out the days of their captivity at the end of each news broadcast.

-From The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf

Americans

2008-02-10T11:55:00.000-06:00

In The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf, Mohja Kahf writes of a Muslim family living in America and their perceptions of Americans:

"Generally speaking, Americans cussed, smoke, and drank, and the Shamys had it on good authority that a fair number of them used drugs. Americans dated and fornicated and committed adultery. They had broken families and lots of divorces. Americans were not generous or hospitable like Uncle Abdulla and Aunt Fatma; they invited people to their houses only a few at a times, and didn't even let them bring their children, and only fed them little tiny portions of food they called courses on big empty plates they called good china. Plus, Americans ate out wastefully often...

Americans believed the individual was more important than the family, and money was more important than anything. Khadra's dad said Americans threw out their sons and daughters when they turned eighteen unless they could pay rent--to their own parents! And, at the other end, they threw their parents into nursing homes when they got old. This, although they took slavish care of mere dogs. All in all, Americans led shallow, wasteful, materialistic lives."

U.S. trade deficit

2008-02-10T11:32:00.000-06:00

From January 29, 2008 All Things Considered:

"By this time tomorrow, the U.S. trade deficit with China will increase by a billion dollars. We'll buy stuff from them, they'll mostly park our dollars in state-controlled institutions, and they'll use those dollars to buy U.S. Treasury notes.

That way we can both buy more than we sell, and have our government spend more than it brings in in taxes. The Chinese can buy a lot less than they could and save like mega-Scrooge instead."

Jacob quotes

2008-02-10T11:31:00.000-06:00

"Yeah, I'm a good forgetter sometimes."

When we were talking about the stuff he needs to remember to bring to school.

"Mom! Did you know I had a dream that my brain fell out?"

Snowplowin' by Jake

2007-12-29T23:35:00.001-06:00

How do the cookies crumble?

2007-12-29T22:50:00.000-06:00

Factcheck.org reports that Ben & Jerry's "American Pie" chart is misleading. According to B&J, almost 50% of the budget is for defense spending. But actually their chart only represents the discretionary budget and not to the whole budget.

That's frustrating. I was really excited a couple of years ago when I discovered the stuff they had put together regarding the U.S. Nuclear Stockpile and the Federal Budget. Someone using their creativity and basic explanations to throw light on some complex issues.

But now I wonder if some of their other clever examples are misleading, too...

What is a story

2007-10-10T06:19:00.000-05:00

From a daily asterisk the other week...

When you can state the theme of a story, when you can separate it from the story itself, then you can be sure the story is not a very good one. The meaning of a story has to be embodied in it, has to be made concrete in it. A story is a way to say something that can’t be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is. You tell a story because a statement would be inadequate. When anybody asks what a story is about, the only proper thing is to tell him to read the story. The meaning of fiction is not abstract meaning but experienced meaning, and the purpose of making statements about the meaning of a story is only to help you to experience that meaning more fully.

- Flannery O’Connor
"Writing Short Stories" in Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

Considering all the "stories" that make the email circuit, I love this definition. This is why so many of the stories bug me...the lesson in the story could have stood on its own, without the flowery, tear-jerking, not-quite-believable story.

The Petraeus ad

2007-10-10T06:17:00.000-05:00

So MoveOn.org puts an ad slamming Petraeus in the New York Times.

A bunch of Senators get their underwear all in a bunch about it and vote to formally dis Moveon.org. Sadly my my senators included, even the Democratic one.

What place does this kind of "legislation" have in the United States, where there is freedom of speech?

Where does it say that I have to dumbly agree with everything a General has to say, stellar record or not, without question?

(My hubby couldn't believe it actually was a real amendment. He kept asking me, but what does it do? What law does it change? I told him that it doesn't do anything. They just want to whine.)

Thanks, Bill. You're totally right. MoveOn.org's ad is no different than recent Republican smear campaigns, well, except that there is much TRUTH in MoveOn's ad.

Torchwood

2007-10-04T13:34:00.000-05:00

"Hey, there's a new Buffy you should see."

That's my husband's coin phrase for, "There's a new sci-fi show you might like as much as Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

And that show would be TorchWood.

Image © someone other than me, probably BBC

Rainbow x 2

2007-10-04T13:32:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday's drive home...

Hands

2007-08-16T19:50:00.000-05:00

The other night at dinner, Jacob grabbed a hamburger off a plate...

Daddy: Jacob, don't just take that with your bare hands!!

Jacob: Daaaad, my hands aren't bear hands, they're human hands!!

Cheney says, stay out of Iraq

2007-08-16T19:49:00.000-05:00

...once you...took down Sadam's government, what are going to put in it's place?

Where things stand in Iraq

2007-08-16T19:48:00.000-05:00

Get rid of demonstrators

2007-07-22T20:08:00.000-05:00

Just follow the handy Presidential Advance Manual.

"This manual is the Bush administration’s guide for planning presidential events around the country, and it repeatedly instructs organizers about “the best method for preventing demonstrators,” “deterring potential protestors from attending events,” “designat[ing] a protest area . . . preferably not in view of the event site or motorcade route,” and the like."

Freedom of speech at its best.

Thanks to Vox Verax.

Innovations in energy

2007-07-22T20:07:00.004-05:00

Thanks to the Sierra Club Compass...

Image © San Francisco Chronicle

The Simple Truths of Service

2007-07-15T22:34:00.000-05:00

"Think about what you can do for your customer to make them feel special–a memory that will make the come back..."

See how Johnny the bagger did that. It's worth watching!!

Laugh at or laugh with?

2007-06-30T08:21:00.000-05:00

Jacob hasn't quite caught on to the public modesty thing. At swimming lessons this past week, he didn't quite get his pants up before reaching the doorway of the locker room. And everyone in the lobby got a shot of his behind.

I told Daddy (er...it's "Dad" now) about this on the ride home and we laughed.

Jacob was instantly mad. "Stop laughing! It's not funny!"

Scott tried to explain, as he has many times, "Jacob, it's not..."

But Jacob broke in, "You better not say you're laughing with me!!!"

Gone are the days when Jacob was happy to make us laugh, no matter the cause. Now it's only funny if he thinks it's funny.

Objectivity

2007-06-30T08:14:00.000-05:00

From a recent daily asterisk:

Our confidence rests not on objectivity but rather on the convictional power of the Holy Spirit (which isn't exactly objective); the loss of objectivity, then, does not entail a loss of kerygmatic boldness about the truth of the gospel.

James K.A. Smith
Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?

At first this just made my head hurt. I don't think I was created to think on things at this kind of level. But the word objectivity kept nagging at me. After reading the quote a few more times, I realized...something happened to me last week that spoke to this quote perfectly. I was presented with a opportunity to help someone. When I looked at the situation objectively, I had reason to be careful, cautious. I could have been putting my own safety at risk. I could hear any number of people in my life–like my husband–telling me, based on the visible facts, that I should not help beyond a certain point.

But there was another voice. Another voice that got my attention. Just a soft, "Hey. Look at that. Will you help?" No assurance. No guarantees. Just, will you go?

What is church?

2007-06-11T21:23:00.000-05:00

Thanks, to Tonya for pointing out this article.

These last months I've been going in circles and I keep stopping at the same point...what is church? what is the point of the church? where and who is church?

Everyone wants something different. Everyone has a different definition. I think God has yet another thing in mind. Something that can't quite be defined. (Because if we could perfectly define it, we'd sell it, start courses on it, write books about it, and create a legalistic way to DO it.)

I love Williams' take on this. It's all good, but particularly for me:

...it looks good on the scorecard but then again, we keep score completely wrong. we measure the number of fans in the stands but completely ignore the number of saved marriages. we count the members and have absolutely no idea how many of our church people are making a difference in their community. we are internally focused. we teach people that the ultimate service to god is servicing the church...that full time ministry is better than real life ministry.

Questions

2007-06-11T21:19:00.000-05:00

to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, some day far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, via Krista Tippett's Remembering Forward

Another's person's trash is your wife's treasure!

2007-06-07T21:50:00.000-05:00

For the man who can afford it, you can purchase a beautiful card for less than five dollars. For the man who cannot, you can make one for free. Get the paper out of the trash can where you work, fold it in the middle, take scissors and cut out a heart, write "I love you," and sign your name. Gifts need not be expensive.

- The Five Love Languages, by Gary Chapman

My thoughts: I don't know what's worse, suggesting the guy take the paper out of the trash can or telling a guy how to make that kind of card.

Wilderness

2007-05-20T19:56:00.000-05:00

God meets us in our wilderness to teach us, to get our attention, and to tell us to stop exaggerating. God meets us to tell us that we must stop making our expectations His agenda. [full article]

Why?

2007-04-27T22:02:00.001-05:00

Why does everything stand up when the world is a round world?

- Jacob, at 5 years old

Truth and love

2007-04-27T21:59:00.000-05:00

Truth without love is nothing...maybe people are living the way they're living because they don't know what love looks like...They went to the church looking for the love and they got a kick in the butt instead of love from on High.

And love your neighbor. Did it say, your righteous neighbor? Did it say, your neighbor without sin? your perfected neighbor? your spirit-filled, tongue-speaking neighbor? your neighbor that's the worship leader? your neighbor that's memorized scripture from cover to cover? your ordained, licensed neighbor?

Or did it just say your neighbor?

And your neighbor is on Lowry. Your neighbor is on Penn. Your neighbor's in the penitentiary. Your neighbor is in the suburbs. Your neighbor is a farmer that is losing crops. Your neighbor is gay. And lesbian...Your neighbor has AIDs...HIV. Your neighbor is living holy but cheating people financially...Your neighbor knows how to stand on 5 or 6 issues in the Bible but forgets about the other 12...Love 'em. We need to love across denomination...race...gender...across generations. We need to love across urban and suburban.

If the church was a house of supernatural, radical, revolutionary love that poured out of people's hearts from the Kingdom realm unto lost people and hurting people, what would the church be?

...Preach the Truth of the Bible. Lay out every sin as it's laid out in the Bible. But love. Love ought to be an overflowing fountain.

4/1/07 Efrem Smith, Sanctuary Covenant Church

Content edited a smidgen for readability. Sermons available from their website and from iTunes.

In Congress and MN State Congress this week

2007-04-27T21:51:00.000-05:00

H.R. 1921, which would establish a Peace Tax Fund.

In Minnesota, bills to support the Arts -- Senate File 6 and House File 2285. You can take action at the Minnesota Citizens for the Arts site.

Senator Dodd of Connecticut introduced the Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007 to restore the right of habeas corpus, and give prisoners access to a fair hearing in a court of law. Take action at the Working for Change site.

Lunch at the cemetery

2007-04-13T18:50:00.000-05:00

In the spring or summer make a luncheon appointment with your spouse. Meet him and drive to the local cemetery. Spread your tablecloth and eat your sandwiches and thank God that you are still alive. Share with each other one thing you wold like to do before you die.

- from The Five Love Languages, by Gary Chapman

My thoughts: What the heck are you smokin' Gary?

Thank Heaven for Little Girls

2007-03-18T16:35:00.000-05:00

from Richard Stearns, president of World Vision, Spring 2007 edition of World Vision News

Compared to her male counterpart, a girl growing up in the developing world is more likely to die before her fifth birthday and less likely to go to school. She is less likely to receive adequate food or health care, less likely to receive economic opportunities, more likely to be forced to marry before the age of 16, and more likely to be the victim of sexual and domestic abuse.

Girls are forced to stay home from school to work. In fact, two-thirds of ... illiterate people in the world are women... Five hundred thousand women die every day from childbirth complications—that’s one woman every minute. Girl babies are even killed in countries where males are considered more valuable.

Women are denied property rights and inheritance in many countries. Worldwide, women own only 1 percent of the world’s property. They work two-thirds of all the world’s labor hours but earn just 10 percent of the world’s wages.

...

There is a saying in Ghana: “If you educate a man, you simply educate an individual, but if you educate a woman, you educate a nation.” When a girl is educated, her income potential increases, maternal and infant mortality is reduced, her children are more likely to be immunized, the birth rate decreases, and HIV infection rates (especially in Africa) are lowered. She is more likely to acquire skills to improve her family’s economic stability, and she is more likely to ensure that her daughters also receive an education...

Statistics

2007-03-18T13:25:00.000-05:00

...suppose that you calculate the average height of people in the room where you now sit and find that it is 5 ft., 6 in. Now suppose a 2-year-old child enters the room. The average height of people in that room suddenly falls. Few of us would make the mistake of concluding that those people were shrinking in size. Some of them might even have grown taller. Yet how often do we hear politicians use statistics in just this specious manner.

read full article

How I wish more people had a better grasp on statistics. Or even just a willingness to doubt. Too often we let ourselves be convinced by limited information or a limited picture of things. And how many people can recognize causation versus correlation?

OpenCongress

2007-03-18T13:21:00.000-05:00

OpenCongress. Cool. I've found Thomas hard to use a lot of the time.

Reading with Daddy

2007-02-10T01:39:00.000-06:00

One of Jacob's favorite activities is "reading" with Daddy after we complete the whole bedtime routine (brushing teeth, stories, prayers, etc.). Of course, this is a way for Jacob to get out of having to go to [his own] bed. But how can we resist?

Jacob loves this ritual so much, he gets quite disappointed if Daddy doesn't want to read that night. After several nights of not getting to read with Daddy, Jacob told him, very solemnly:

Daddy, I'm so sad. Those times we had together, reading in the bed, are over.

Make believe

2007-01-20T23:27:00.000-06:00

This past weekend we went to visit one of Jacob's great grandmas in northern Minnesota. This time, his need to use the bathroom nicely coincided with lunchtime, so we just stopped at a restaurant. We used the bathroom, had a nice lunch (although Jacob felt it necessary to wait 10 or 20 minutes before eating because his lunch was too hot).

We weren't five minutes on the road again when Jacob announced he now had to go poopy. "Hold on, hold on," Daddy insisted, "we're almost to the rest stop."

As we pulled into the parking lot, Jacob said, "I wish going potty was only make-believe."

Yeah, so do we sometimes, Jacob, so do we.

Estate taxes and state economies

2007-01-20T23:18:00.001-06:00

At most, recent studies find that estate taxes have a small effect on the residence decisions of the very wealthy elderly — few people are likely to be affected and the size of the effect is small...the impact, if any, on a state’s economy and revenue collections is also likely to be small. The loss of revenue from the estate tax, on the other hand, is likely to harm state budgets and state economies by endangering funds for public services important to the state’s economy, including health care, education and infrastructure.

- From Research Findings Cast Doubt on Argument That Estate Taxes Harm State Economies

Repealing the Alternative Minimum Tax

2007-01-20T23:17:00.002-06:00

Repealing the AMT without making up the revenue from other sources, however, would carry a staggering cost.

According to estimates by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, AMT repeal would cost about $750 billion in lost revenues over the next decade (2007-2016), if the income-tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 are allowed to expire as scheduled at the end of 2010.

Moreover, if these tax cuts are extended, the cost of AMT repeal would equal more than $1.3 trillion over the next ten years.

- from Revenue Losses from Repeal of the Alternative Minimum Tax Are Staggering

SwapaCD

2007-01-06T17:13:00.000-06:00

As much fun as I've had with PaperBackSwap (thank you, timbu), I think I'm having even more fun with SwapACD. I was skeptical at first, that anyone would have anything I'd be interested in. Or that anyone would want anything from my dismal willing-to-trade collection (which actually turned out to be true, for the most part).

But I've now received 11 CDs. Some to replace our old, scratched CDs or our cassette tapes. But most of it is music I did not have before.

Will Ackerman - Hearing Voices
Queen - A Kind Of Magic
Marvin Gaye - 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection Vol. 2 The 70's
Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble - Greatest Hits
Sheryl Crow - Wildflower
Lenny Kravitz - Greatest Hits
ZZ Top - Best Of ZZ Top (The best of their bluesy stuff, that is...)
U2 - The Joshua Tree
John Mayer - Heavier Things
John Mayer Trio - John Mayer Trio Live
Susan Ashton - So Far: The Best Of Susan Ashton Vol. 1

Merle Haggard, His Epic Hits: The First 11, is on its way...

Descent

2007-01-05T22:59:00.000-06:00

It's funny. I met a man once who did a lot of mountain climbing. I asked him which was harder, ascending or descending? He said without a doubt descending, because ascending you were so focused on reaching the top, you avoided mistakes.

"The backside of a mountain is a fight against human nature," he said. "You have to care as much about yourself on the way down as you did on the way up."

- For One More Day, by Mitch Albom

Dance

2007-01-05T22:56:00.000-06:00

...Doesn’t God, instead of suggesting I crawl into a hole and decompose, soul and all, because I’m such an arrogant, ignorant human being, suggest that I fall into his arms like the prodigal son being welcomed home? Doesn’t God want me to empty myself of my need for control to be filled with freeing grace? Doesn’t God want me to dance?

- Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma, from the 12/27/06 daily asterisk

The Arts

2007-01-03T20:55:00.000-06:00

The arts are much more than just fun, "extra" activities for kids. An arts education has been proven to help students increase cognitive development, develop confidence and inventiveness, and hone communication and problem-solving skills. Students with an education rich in the arts have better grade point averages, score better on standardized tests, and have lower dropout rates. Arts education gives our children the tools to succeed in school, work, and life.

- December 2006 letter from Americans for the Arts Action Fund

Christmas Meme

2006-12-28T20:22:00.000-06:00

whoops, responding late to Gloria's tag

1. Egg nog or Hot Chocolate?
Apple cider!

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
All presents, under the tree and in the stockings, are wrapped. Stocking presents are sometimes wrapped haphazardly, using scraps.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
White lights on the tree.

No lights on the house. We don't want to be the house that people drive by and say, "wow, their Christmas lights look really stupid."

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
No.

5. When do you put your decorations up?
The weekend after Thanksgiving.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish?
One of three: Grandma's "corn stuff," a casserole with corn and bread and something that makes it rich and creamy. Grandma's sweet potato casserole with pecan topping (squash works just as well). MIL's mashed potatoes (with butter, sour cream & chives, cream cheese).

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child.
Christmas at my Dad's parents. It's a small family, so it was very cozy. Everyone sat at the same table.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
Don't know.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas eve?
Yes, my Dad's family gets together on Christmas Eve. We also have Christmas with DH's dad two weekends before Christmas.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree?
It's just a hodgepodge now. One of these years we'll buy some themed ornaments...

11. Snow! Love it or dread it?
I like having it for Christmas. Don't like driving in it.

12. Can you ice skate?
What exactly does this mean? I can wear skates and move across the ice. I cannot go backwards or in circles. I cannot jump and land successfully. I can stop if there is a proper snow bank.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
Lots of nice gifts over the years, but no real favorite.

14. What is the most important thing about the Holidays for you?
Being with family.

15. What is your favorite Holiday dessert?
Cookies!! Probably Spritz.

16. What is your favorite Holiday tradition?
Opening gifts in our Christmas stockings on Christmas morning. Putting up decorations together. Advent readings with Advent wreath for kids (Jacob really loved those this year).

17. What tops your tree?
A yellow wooden star.

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving?
Neither...I just like getting together. I find the mass giving and receiving during Christmas exhausting. I prefer birthdays and gifts for no reason.

19. What is your favorite Christmas song?
Little Drummer Boy

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum?
Yuck, yuck, yuck.

Maps of war

2006-12-28T20:18:00.000-06:00

I'm a history idiot, to my husband's shame. If instead of presenting dull fact upon dull fact, all chronologically, my teachers had discussed what this flash presentation shows of the rise and fall of Middle Eastern empires, I may have found history a bit more interesting.

Thanks to Dove's Eye View.

short-term memory

2006-12-28T20:17:00.000-06:00

I have short-term memory loss, though I like to think of it as...presidential eligibility.

- Paula Poundstone

10 Ways to Celebrate Christ's Birthday

2006-11-22T14:34:00.000-06:00

10 Ways to Celebrate Christ's Birthday

Dear Children,

It has come to My attention that many of you are upset that folks are taking My name out of the season. Maybe you've forgotten that I wasn't actually born during this time of the year and that it was some of you're predecessors who decided to celebrate My birthday on what was actually a time of pagan festival. Although I do appreciate being remembered anytime.

How I personally feel about this celebration can probably be most easily understood by those of you who have been blessed with children of your own. I don't care what you call the day. If you want to celebrate My birth just, get along and love one another. Now, having said that let Me go on.

If it bothers you that the town in which you live doesn't allow a scene depicting My birth, then just get rid of a couple of Santas and snowmen and put in a small Nativity scene on your own front lawn. If all My followers did that there wouldn't be any need for such a scene on the town square because there would be many of them all around town.

Stop worrying about the fact that people are calling the tree a holiday tree, instead of a Christmas tree. It was I who made all trees. You can and may remember Me anytime you see any tree. Decorate a grape vine if you wish: I actually spoke of that one in a teaching explaining who I am in relation to you and what each of our tasks are. If you have forgot that one, look up John 15: 1 - 8.

If you want to give Me a present in remembrance of My birth here is My wish list. Choose something from it.

1. Instead of writing protest letters objecting to the way My birthday is being celebrated, write letters of love and hope to soldiers away from home. They are terribly afraid and lonely this time of year. I know, they tell Me all the time.

2. Visit someone in a nursing home. You don't have to know them personally. They just need to know that someone cares about them.

3. Instead of writing George complaining about the wording on the cards his staff sent out this year, why don't you write and tell him that you'll be praying for him and his family this year. Then follow up. It will be nice hearing from you again.

4. Instead of giving your children a lot of gifts you can't afford and they don't need, spend time with them. Tell them the story of My birth, and why I came to live with you down here. Hold them in your arms and remind them that I love them.

5. Pick someone that has hurt you in the past and forgive him or her.

6. Did you know that someone in your town will attempt to take their own life this season because they feel so alone and hopeless? Since you don't know who that person is, try giving everyone you meet a warm smile it could make the difference. Also, you might consider supporting the local Hot-Line: they talk with people like that every day.

7. Instead of nit-picking about what the retailer in your town calls the holiday, be patient with the people who work there. Give them a warm smile and a kind word. Even if they aren't allowed to wish you a "Merry Christmas" that doesn't keep you from wishing them one. Then stop shopping there on Sunday. If the store didn't make so much money on that day they'd close and let their employees spend the day at home with their families.

8. If you really want to make a difference, support a missionary, especially one who takes My love and Good News to those who have never heard My name. You may already know someone like that.

9. Here's a good one. There are individuals & whole families in your town who not only will have no "Christmas" tree, but neither will they have any presents to give or receive. If you don't know them (and I suspect you don't) buy some food and a few gifts and give them to the Marines, the Salvation Army or some other charity that believes in Me and they will make the delivery for you.

10. Finally if you want to make a statement about your belief in and loyalty to Me, then behave like a Christian. Don't do things in secret that you wouldn't do in My presence. Let people know by your actions that you are one of Mine.

P.S. Don't forget; I am God and can take care of Myself. Just love Me and do what I have told you to do. I'll take care of all the rest. Check out the list above & get to work; time is short. I'll help you, but the ball is now in your court. And do have a most blessed Christmas with all those whom you love; and remember, I love you.

How can we save marriage?

2006-11-11T21:59:00.000-06:00

In her NYT Opt-Ed Too Close for Comfort, Stephanie Coontz's take on how we can save marriage:

It has only been in the last century that Americans have put all their emotional eggs in the basket of coupled love. Because of this change, many of us have found joys in marriage our great-great-grandparents never did. But we have also neglected our other relationships, placing too many burdens on a fragile institution and making social life poorer in the process.

The dark sight

2006-11-11T21:54:00.000-06:00

One evening after dinner last week, Jacob helped dry the dishes. His attention span for this task is only about 2.1 minutes. So then he dropped the navy blue dishtowel over his head and informed us, "Luke, you don't know the power of the dark sight."

How to talk to a climate skeptic

2006-11-07T22:43:00.000-06:00

Coby Beck addresses the most common skeptical arguments on global warming.

pictures © NSIDC

What my nieces won't be getting for Christmas

2006-11-07T22:39:00.000-06:00

Barbie, it's bad enough you are anatomically incorrect. But hot tub parties?

(I insisted hubby was pulling my leg when he said there was a Barbie Hot Tub Party Bus Vehicle. He had to rewind and show me the commercial.)

Joyce Meyer vs. John the Baptist

2006-10-30T08:39:00.000-06:00

Last year I heard Joyce Meyer say in one of her sermons that Christians should dress well...if Christians dressed in a dowdy matter, who would ever listen to them?

I'll contrast this with Max Lucado's The Winsome of Holiness:

John wore clothing made of camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey (Mark 1:6). John the Baptist would never get hired today. No church would touch him. He was a PR disaster.

Free HBO

2006-10-30T08:38:00.000-06:00

It's fun having free HBO (albeit, temporarily) when you get to catch Bill Maher. One of his guest's last week, David Kuo, talked about his book, Tempting Faith, and how Christians are easily seduced by power:

And he [Chuck Colson] said exactly what you’re talking about. There was no group that was easier to control than Christians. And he said – he reached the frightful conclusion that it’s because Christians are terribly seduced by power. And that’s one of the things I try and talk about in my book, is I have this radical suggestion that for the next two years, Christians take a fast from politics; just stop, right? Keep voting, but stop giving all of the money that you’re giving to the huge Christian advocacy groups. You know, instead, give them to the poor...Stop giving all of the money to fund all of those horrible ads on television, you know, and give it to maybe saving genocide in Darfur.

This would be great, especially if I stopped receiving all the Patty-Wetterling-is-awful-because... ads in the mail. Some of the ads I understand...you're either on one side of the issue or not. But the whole tax cuts thing? There's no way you can get the complete picture of the Bush tax cuts in a 5x8 political mailing.

Morality and Global Warming

2006-10-28T19:04:00.000-05:00

From Don Shelby's "In the Know":

The people I hear from who think global warming is a pinko, green, liberal, anti-business hoax dreamed up by Greenpeace or the communists, are often the same people who claim to be the moral standard bearers of the body politic.

Either believing that the planet is warming and we are the cause, and the results could bring catastrophe and we ought to act now, is a moral position, or calling it a hoax is a moral position. But, both cannot be moral at the same time.

[See entire transcript and video]

Camouflage

2006-10-28T19:02:00.000-05:00

How's this for camouflage. From Nova's Origins series.

Forgiveness

2006-10-28T10:39:00.000-05:00

The Amish aren't the only ones doin' it, so are some Ugandans:

...here in Uganda, there's serious talk of reconciling even with Kony if peace talks succeed. Such an impulse echoes Nelson Mandela's famous forgiveness of his South African captors. It emerges from a unique continental ethos of communalism, in which the desire to punish individuals for their crimes is balanced against the need to restore wholeness to the community - to unite victims, perpetrators, and their families. Indeed, it's often a practical response enshrined in tribal jurisprudence: Villages in small, poor communities need every last person to survive. These days, the tendency is often magnified by the spread of Christianity - with its focus on forgiveness - across the continent. [more]

Bush partly to blame for N Korea, Carter says

2006-10-20T19:55:00.001-05:00

Carter, president from 1977 to 1981, negotiated a deal during a visit to North Korea in 1994 over the reclusive communist state's nuclear program when fellow Democrat Bill Clinton was president.

"The Bush administration changed that policy," he continued. "They put in the trash can the agreement with North Korea, and as a result of that -- and threatened North Korea with military attack -- and as a result of those threats and the discarding of the previous agreement, North Korea announced that they were withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty."

"It's like night and day. It was daytime when Clinton was in office that totally prohibited and prevented any sort of plutonium enrichment," he said. "All that was dramatically changed under

Carter said he favored resuming talks with North Korea.

"Unfortunately, the U.S. government has established an unprecedented international policy of not talking to anyone who disagrees with us," he said.

Full article

2nd Annual Scan (Trading My Sorrows, Part 12)

2006-10-20T19:47:00.000-05:00

(Previous Parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11)

November 2005

[No evidence
for thyroid
cancer --

thyroglobulin blood
test is negative
and body scan is
negative.]

Be wary (Trading My Sorrows, Part 11)

2006-10-20T19:45:00.000-05:00

(Previous Parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10)

August 29, 2004

So the previous week I was flying high. Then our pastor popped a hole in my happy balloon when he preached on David's fall with Bathsheba. What a downer. After nearly a year of waiting I was prepared for a period of joy, peace, harmony...no problems allowed!!

But the message was that we have to stay guarded, stay in the game. That even the best of us, and, truly, all of us, can fall. Or, for my family, fall on hard times.

God knew what was four and half months out. He knew I couldn't live in a space where I thought I deserved a reprieve of some kind.

So I came down a bit from my high of finding I was cancer-free. And in January 2005 my husband got laid off. For 8 months. I won't be writing about that experience, but I will say that God prepped me for that 8 months in limbo with our experience of the thyroid cancer. I needed to learn something about trusting that God would take care of me. Then about trusting He would take care of our family. Even now I'm wondering, with my Big church situation, if He's teaching me some other aspect of trust. Problem is, His ways are not my ways and I can be a complete blockhead at times...

2006 Candidate Survey on the Arts in Minnesota

2006-10-20T19:42:00.000-05:00

See how your candidates voted. Well, if they voted, that is.

The History of Halloween

2006-10-14T00:19:00.000-05:00

The research that Pastor Rupert has done about the history of Halloween is great. But I like best what he says here:

Christians are guilty of spreading falsehood (perhaps out of ignorance, but falsehood none the less). Believers do no service to God or to other Christians by creating very frightening fantasies masquerading as historical facts. Sloppy and improper scholarship makes Christians look deceitful. It also makes God appear deceptive to unbelievers.

Makes me think of what Mother Antonia said:

Jesus Christ did not defend himself. My work does not defend me. I have no defense...by the fruits you know the tree.

Jesus tells us not to be fearful. Not just with regard to ourselves, but even for Him. We don't need to create lies about others in order to defend Jesus. He needs no defense. (Nor do we need to fabricate miracles. Ugh, how many stories like this--some very sweet, but untrue--do I get each week?)

Modern society

2006-10-14T00:01:00.000-05:00

From the daily asterisk this week:

Our affluent society, our modern science and security and health, our gadgets and luxuries that were beyond even the great, wealthy kings of the past, all these things, none of them evil in themselves, have made man, not human and free, but manipulated, plastic; for the spirit of the age is in it all. What could have been blessings have so often become a curse. Instead of making man free they enslave him. Instead of bringing life they bring death.

- Hans Rookmaaker
Modern Art and the Death of a Culture (1970)

It's not so much what he is saying, as the fact that he said it over 30 years ago. My gosh, what would he think about all the more gadgets we have today?

On an afternoon two summers ago I took Jake to the park. As he was climbing around I observed three tween girls talking to each other. One pulled out her cell phone and suggested excitedly, "Okay you go over there and you over there and then we'll call each other!!"

Modern society.

What has really added to our deficit

2006-10-13T23:59:00.000-05:00

Quote

2006-10-13T23:57:00.000-05:00

The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the
servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It
must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its
tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it
will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual
authority.

-Martin Luther King Jr.

Anybody feel like dancing? (Trading My Sorrows, Part 10)

2006-09-24T21:38:00.000-05:00

(Previous Parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9)

August 22, 2004

Our pastor was preaching on David's heart, specifically about his dancing, or joyful, heart. We were asked, what would make us dance for joy, in the manner that David danced before the Lord when the Ark of the Covenant was returned?

I knew exactly what he was talking about. For us, the waiting was over. That very week, we had received the results of the scan. No traces of cancer.

I was high. I couldn't get the smile off my face. I excitedly made phone calls to family and sent out an email to friends. I sent an email to co-workers and shared a box of donuts to celebrate.

Nothing was going to rain on my parade. I felt like dancing.

Big church

2006-09-24T21:37:00.000-05:00

afternoon in an empty church
Originally uploaded by youpidou.net.

I'm thinking, maybe my big church just isn't for me anymore.

Many Sundays I feel like I am doing little more than going to a building and sitting in a chair. The message is great. The worship is great. But I can hear the sermons online. I can listen to the radio or buy worship music. Why drive 30 minutes to go to a building and sit in a chair?

I think it hit me before the July 4 holiday. Hubby and I were to serve as communion stewards that weekend. Then the church announced it was cancelling children's programming. The staff felt anyone who had children would have someone who could sit with their child during communion. But we didn't. Hubby knows people. I know people. But no one knows us. And no one knows Jake. We decided to have Jake stay at Grandma and Grandpa's, who live 45-minutes away. I wasn't mad. But the whole experience left me feeling detached from the church somehow.

I've been at this church forever. My grandparents would bring me there when I stayed with them as a young girl. Back when the church was a small church. When I was home from college, I went to this church. And we continued going there after getting married, and when moving out to the north 'burbs.

I want to stay where I...know. But what do you do when church is just a building and a chair?

The idea of dating other churches doesn't have much appeal. (I suppose they don't have something like match.com for churches? some little checklist I could have a church fill out before I try it out?) We tried some churches near our home a couple of years ago, before the 2004 elections. At one church, I noticed a lot of people didn't sing during worship. And the pastor nearly told us who to vote for. Those are the easy things to spot. Other things you can't discover so readily.

I don't want to invest my heart in a church, only to find out they think there are exceptions to "blessed are the peacemaker," that mothers shouldn't work outside the home, or that women shouldn't be pastors.

So...here I am wondering if my big church is still for me.

Belief

2006-09-24T21:26:00.000-05:00

what puts a hundred thousand children in the sand?
belief can, belief can
what puts a folded flag inside his mother's hand?
belief can, belief can

- Belief, John Mayer

From Verse and Voice 09.21.2006:

The only thing that counts is faith working through love.

- Galatians 5:6b

I got one!!

2006-09-14T22:04:00.000-05:00

The last flowers of summer

2006-09-14T21:55:00.000-05:00

Usually my flower pots have had it by now. But mild weather and some rain has kept them lovely.

And the only things flowering in my garden right now are some of my hosta and my "Hot Lips" Turtlehead (what a name!).

The Good (Trading My Sorrows, Part 9)

2006-09-14T21:45:00.000-05:00

(Previous Parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8)

During the waiting period, Summer 2003-Summer 2004...

I cannot describe this journey without mentioning those that gave me encouragement and prayed for me. There were family and close friends, of course. But those I remember most are those who didn't really have to do or say anything, but did:

A former co-worker in California who started praying for me when he found out the news. I hadn't known he was a Christian before that. It just hadn't come up.
Co-workers in my department who left me little notes and such. JKhooler, I still have your cards on my desk.
My manager at the time, who didn't care how much time I had to take off. He wanted me to do what I had to do.
(Okay, so she kinda had too) A lady in the prayer ministry who called many times that year. When she prayed with me, it felt like she was right there in the room. Her compassion, insight, and sincerity left me feeling so cherished and loved. Amazingly, or not so much so, she usually managed to call when I was home.
Friends-of-friends that answered my many questions about their experiences.
Co-workers that prayed for me with their church groups.
A friend who I haven't seen much of since we started our families. She actually thanked me for asking her to pray. This has made me think differently about how I approach prayer...sometimes you can't wait for people to ask you what you need. And sometimes you can't wait for people to tell you what they need.

The Bad (Trading My Sorrows, Part 8)

2006-09-14T21:37:00.000-05:00

(Previous Parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7)

During the waiting period, Summer 2003-Summer 2004...

The worst of it--having thyroid cancer--wasn't really that bad. My endocronoligist said thyroid cancer is the best cancer to get, next to skin cancer. Easily curable. Very high survival rate. No chemotherapy.

The surgery wasn't exactly fun. I didn't sleep very well the first few nights because of the pain, but it wasn't excrutiating. I was able to return to work a week later and could have returned sooner if I felt the need. The scar was red and puffy for awhile, as was normal. (A friend of mind didn't fair so well. She developed a keloid scar. So I now consider myself fortunate that my scar healed well.)

The worst of it, apart from waiting for the test results for nearly a year, was being severely hypothyroid for a couple of weeks (cold and tired) and having to avoid certain contact with others for a few days, especially my son.

In order to prepare for the thyroid scan, which would locate any thyroid cells in my body, I had to go six weeks without any long-acting thyroid medication, such as Synthroid. With no Synthroid in my system, any cancer cells would readily "take up" the radioactive iodine I would ingest before the scan. I did take Cytomel for four weeks. Because it is short-acting, Cytomel does not affect the results of a thyroid scan as long as it is not taken within two weeks of the scan.

I felt the effects of the Cytomel first. Turns out the dosage was too high and I felt as a hyperthroid patient might feel. I had nagging headaches and had a hard time falling asleep and staying asleep. I remember coming home and laying on my back with a heating pad under my head, waiting for the pain to subside. Later, when we went to bed, I'd lie there desperately wanting to go to sleep, but unable to. After a few days of these symptoms I called the doctor and he had me take only a half dose. Thankfully, the headaches and sleep problems went away.

About 7-10 days before the scan I began feeling the effects of being totally thyroidless. I was constantly cold, though the fall weather was mild. I wore my wool coat not only outside, but inside the office as well. One night I took a hot bath that did little to take the chill from my bones, though it left my skin bright red. Another night I dressed in sweats and wool socks for bed and slept under a blanket and a comforter. When morning came, I discovered I was...comfortably warm.

And then there was the tiredness. After work each day I looked forward to nothing more than climbing into bed and sleeping. The more sleep, the better. Though no amount of sleep left me feeling rested. I had a hard time concentrating at work. And had little interest in doing anything once I got home. I lost much of appetite as well.

The week of the thyroid scan, I had to have blood drawn to make sure my thyroid levels were at the appropriate level. I think my doctor was shooting for a level of 30. I was around 70. Normal levels are .1-3.0. No wonder I was so miserable!

Multiple appointments had to be set up. I had to take a small dose of radioactive iodine. Then return the next day for two scans, scheduled several hours apart. Finally, I would take a high dose radioactive iodine to get rid of all remaining thyroid cells.

The small dose of the radioactive iodine and the scans were painless. I was, happily, able to doze through most of the scans. The larger dose of radioactive iodine did carry some potential risks, however. For 2-3 days, I had to avoid close physical proximity with others for extended periods of time. I also had to use a separate bathroom and shower. I worked from home for a day or two; though the risk was low because I work in my own office, I didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable.

Since my son, 1.5 years old at the time, was most at risk from the radiation, we had him stay at his aunt and uncles the first night. The second night he came home, but I didn't get to see him. I remember hearing his little voice outside the bedroom door, asking for me. When my husband told him I wasn't home yet, I wanted nothing more than to run out there and hug him and hold him!

I began taking Synthroid soon after the scan. Six to eight weeks after the scan I began to feel somewhat normal. After that, it was smooth sailing, until I had to go off my thyroid meds again for the first follow-up scan the next year.

Seeing friends and family suffer with various illnesses and diseases--colon cancer, multiple myeloma, MS, chronique fatique syndrome--thyroid cancer is small potatoes. If this is one disease I'm dealt in my life, I'll take it.

Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics

2006-09-14T21:31:00.000-05:00

Select one of the 20 finalists as your choice for the Top Politics & Internet World Changer of 2006.

I'm only familiar with FactCheck.org, and will be casting a vote for them. (Seeing their reviews of political ads, I wish we could ban the ads altogether. What can someone possibly learn in 30-90 seconds that actually represents a complete picture?)

Dr. Who artwork

2006-09-07T19:19:00.000-05:00

Jacob's rendition of the Dr. Who "tunnel" with TARDIS in the middle.

Yummy mess

2006-09-07T18:40:00.000-05:00

Jacob dug into this piece of watermelon and sent it flying in all directions. And all over his face.

Jakey Quotes

2006-08-26T19:44:00.000-05:00

(After reading Hey Diddle Diddle) "How can a cow jump over the moon if people can't jump over the moon?"

And

"If I was a horse, would you still name me Jacob?"

Can you name two Supreme Court Justices?

2006-08-16T22:09:00.000-05:00

Three times as many people can name two of the seven dwarfs than can name two of the U.S. Supreme Court Justices.

(I promptly named four while listening in the car...)

Quotes

2006-08-16T21:51:00.000-05:00

From this week's SojoMail:

"The Israelis told us it would be a cheap war with many benefits. ... Why oppose it? We'll be able to hunt down and bomb missiles, tunnels, and bunkers from the air. It would be a demo for Iran."

- a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel, quoted by Seymour Hersh in his New Yorker article, "Watching Lebanon: Washington's interests in Israel's war."

True, nuclear reactors do not emit carbon dioxide. Neither do double-paned windows, solar cells, wind turbines, and insulated ceilings. Sure, we could build hundreds of nuclear plants, and global warming would be reduced. But we could get the same results, faster and more safely, by developing hybrid trucks, more-efficient gas turbines, and biofuels. For half the money we are likely to spend in Iraq, we could retrofit the entire U.S. auto industry for high-efficiency vehicles. Just think what we could do with the money we'd spend on a similar confrontation with Iran--a confrontation that may come thanks to the deadly contradictions of the actual nuclear world. [more] from

The extended heat wave in July aggravated drought conditions across much of Europe, lowering water levels in the lakes and rivers that many nuclear plants depend on to cool their reactors. [more] from Nuclear power's green promise dulled by rising temps

Good books

2006-08-16T20:54:00.000-05:00

The Time Traveler's Wife

Myth of You and Me

Good music

2006-08-16T20:19:00.000-05:00

Lifesong, Casting Crowns	Will Jesus come again And leave us slumbering where we lay America will we go down in history As a nation with no room for its King - While You Were Sleeping


Many People, Bauchklang Listen to the album	got to know the freak who guides me got to know the freak who stares got to know the freak beside me got to know the freak who takes control the barking news - the liars portraying human lives - what a riot! the bias media - ignore it question everything - explore it - Barking News (I also like Rhythm of Time)

That Would Be A Bad Thing? (Trading My Sorrows, Part 7)

2006-08-16T20:09:00.000-05:00

(Previous Parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6)

During the waiting period, Summer 2003-Summer 2004...

Thyroid cancer is something people rarely die of. Despite this, I still imagined the worst. Based on the size of the nodules, that follicular (as well as papillary) cancer was found, that the cancer had possibly spread to one of my lymph nodes, it wasn't a completely rosy prognosis.

So I'm pondering this less-than-rosy possibility one day, somewhere in the 10 months of waiting until we could do the tests and scans that would tell us if the surgery and treatment were effective. Pondering that the cancer could spread, that it could get worse, that, according to my husband's worried face, there was that remote possibility I could die...God asks,

So you could die.

Yes, your husband and son would miss you, and there would be grief, but you'd be home with Me.

That's a bad thing?

So why be fearful?

This wasn't my assurance that I'd be healed. This wasn't a dose of joyfulness that He was giving me. Just...

I'm here, through whatever. I'm here.

Jakey quotes

2006-08-07T08:57:00.000-05:00

We purchased the game Mouse Trap the other week. While Daddy and Jacob put it together, I read the instructions. I quickly figured out you aren't supposed to put the mouse trap together beforehand...that's part of the game. As I read through the all the rules and exceptions and special circumstances I started grumbling aloud.

Jacob piped up, "It's okay, Momma. Let's not just fight about it. You're a good woman."

Trading My Sorrows (Trading My Sorrows, Part 6)

2006-07-18T20:32:00.000-05:00

(Previous Parts: 1 2 3 4 5)

During the waiting period, Summer 2003-Summer 2004...

I've always enjoyed the song Trading My Sorrows (audio). A former worship leader at our church always started the song with a heartfelt, "Ahh...yeah..." and a huge smile. I'd instantly feel like clapping and moving.

But I never really listened to the words in the song. In fact, part of the chorus actually irritated me.

Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, yes, Lord.
And then again.
And then again.

Enough already!! (I didn't think as to why "Yes, Lord," was being sung over and over.)

But one Sunday I did listen to the words. We slowly worked through the verses...I'm trading my sorrows...I'm trading my shame...then...I'm trading my sickness.

Hey, wait a minute, that's me! I have a sickness!

I realized in a flash of insight that the word trading was very significant. God wanted to make a trade with me. My sickness, for His joy. So would my answer be no...or yes?

Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, yes, Lord.

Excluding blogs from searches?

2006-07-18T20:28:00.000-05:00

I'd like the option--at times--of excluding blogs from the results of a web search. Sometimes I just want some background, some facts, and maybe a rational, fairly objective evaluation of a situation or topic.

I don't want to read some person's blog--who lacks experience and authority or even the ability to form a decent argument--where they do nothing about complain and moan about whatever it is I was searching for.

Can I Panic Now? (Trading My Sorrows, Part 5)

2006-07-11T21:10:00.001-05:00

(Previous Parts: 1 2 3 4)

Summer 2003, Day of the Surgery

Any confidence I had nearly flew out the window once arriving at the hospital for the surgery. I don't like being in hospitals. They make me anxious. And they smell funny.

I've had my adenoids removed. And jaw surgery. And now thyroid surgery. I had the irrational urge to yell, "Don't touch my face!"

I don't like getting an IV put in. I don't like going under. I don't like waking up, after being under anesthesia, with that groggy feeling and not know what is going on. What would they find? Would they take half the thyroid, or all of it? I wanted to be part of that decision, but had to trust the surgeon to make the proper judgement. What if nothing was there and I had to get cut open for nothing? Would I have a lot of pains afterwards?

I chanted, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philipians 4:6-8)

The nervousness and fear didn't completely go away. It continued to hover near me. As the surgery drew nearer, I abbreviated the prayer. The peace of God will guard your hearts and minds, the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds, the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds.

I said it so many times it was really the only thing in my head as they wheeled me into surgery. It wasn't what some would call being at peace. I guess if someone would have asked me, "do you trust God will take care of you?" I would have said, "Yes, now let me say my verse again!"

A Card (Trading My Sorrows, Part 4)

2006-07-11T21:03:00.000-05:00

(Previous Parts: 1 2 3)

Summer 2003

A card sent to me by the church, not long after I was annointed. You can see it on my desk at work as you enter my office.

[Fear not for I
have redeemed you
I have called you
by name; you are
mine.]

Isaiah 43:1

Annointing (Trading My Sorrows, Part 3)

2006-07-04T11:02:00.000-05:00

(Previous Parts: 1 2)

Summer 2003

The day after getting the phone call, my husband, shook-up and scared out of his wits, left work early and stopped by our church to talk with someone. They prayed with him, and encouraged him to talk to a trusted friend within the church. We contacted a couple, T&M, who we have known for years. We agreed to meet between services the next Sunday.

Come Sunday, after the first service, we had to wait a bit before meeting T&M. My grandparents were there, chatting with us. My grandmother really felt I should be prayed over--and annointed. I was reluctant. My husband and I were, after all, meeting T&M in a few minutes. And I'm not much for what feels, to me, like pomp and circumstance and ritual. That is, I didn't care if I got annointed.

Grandma had taken charge and was looking for elders among the altar team standing at the front of the sanctuary. I didn't care if the person who prayed for me was an elder. I was eyeing the women's ministry pastor, whom I had spoken with on a couple of occasions. But when the senior pastor was free, it was him my grandma steered me towards.

I don't remember a thing that the pastor said (I'm sure he'd appreciate that!). But I do remember being annointed. I remember walking away afterwards and wanting to scrub the oil off my forehead. I remember thinking in an absurd way, can anyone see this? Then God's gentle voice.

Can anyone see it?

Can anyone see it?

Can they see the mark?

Can they see that you are Mine?

I have marked you. You are My child.

He has entered the gates

2006-06-30T20:17:00.000-05:00

Surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart feel
Will I dance for You Jesus or in awe of You be still
Will I stand in Your presence or to my knees will I fall
Will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all
I can only imagine [1]

Last night a friend of ours--a good friend of my husband's--passed away.

Imagine no longer, friend.

On my husband's behalf, thank you for being a "brother." For sharing your heart. For listening. For speaking speaking the truth. For your phone calls out of the blue. And for giving a swift kick in the pants when it was needed.

We will miss your warm smiles, the twinkle in your eye--whether because of the joy of Jesus or of mischief. That long mane of white hair--Jacob had to know one day, "why do you have a pony?" And Jacob will miss the leisurely rides on you motorized chair, through the sanctuary and out to the Gathering Place, one Sunday even around the parking lot!

Teaching to love

2006-06-30T18:58:00.000-05:00

It's a sad sad story
That a mother will teach her daughter
that she ought to hate a perfect stranger.

Thanks to Joel for pointing out this song. I hadn't heard it.

As Jacob gets older, I am certainly thinking more and more about what the world teaches, versus what Jesus teaches. Heck, what some of our "Christian" leaders in this country are teaching, versus what Jesus teaches.

On Memorial Day, my husband decided to show Jacob his great-grandfather's WWII medals. Daddy quickly got himself into hot water, when he explained that Grandpa got his medals because he got hurt. Jacob then wanted to know if Grandpa got shot. And then if Grandpa shot somebody.

Daddy was regretting having brought up the medals at all.

Now, I have to say, I wonder if Jacob hears half of what we tell him. We read a Bible Story each night and a devotional designed for kids. We try to demonstrate love and patience and kindness. (Some days it's more challenging than others!) But often when we ask him questions about a story or situation, we get a blank look and a "I don't know."

But after the whole medal fiasco, Jacob and Daddy went upstairs to have dinner. While eating his peanut butter and jelly sandwich, Jacob explained, "But we are supposed to be nice. Because Jesus loves everybody."

The Phone Call (Trading My Sorrows, Part 2)

2006-06-26T21:17:00.000-05:00

(Previous Parts: 1)

Summer 2003

The night following the last session of the women's Bible study, I received a follow-up call from my endocronologist. I had had a biopsy done on a thyroid nodule. The results were inconclusive. In this situation, further biopsies usually give the same results, so the plan was for surgery.

I remember watching my husband's face as the phone call got longer and longer. Already on alert because the doctor was calling during the evening, my husband gradually grew more and more agitated as the doctor continued talking, explaining the whole process. Likelihoods, expectations, treatments, tests.

I wanted to get off the phone and reassure him, yet I had lots of questions.

When I finally hung up, hubby had tears in his eyes and blurted out, "I knew something would happen. I knew something would happen to you."

I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. Or maybe I did laugh just a bit. Not because I'm particularly mean, but because I was astonished at the force of his reaction and how worried he truly was. No amount of explanation or statistics would comfort him.

I felt rational. And numb. I didn't have to ask for God's presence. How do I describe it? Normally I struggle a bit (if not a lot!!) with fear and frustration before begging for God to help me. I didn't have even a second to begin spinning myself into a tizzy. God just stepped right in. I felt His hand on my shoulder.

The doctor was okay--but not nuts--about me waiting to have the surgery and instead try for our second child. Hubby, with support from my grandmother, nixed that idea. Honestly, I was quite angry about it. When did my opinion cease to matter? So I followed the endo's request that I schedule the surgery within 3 weeks.

There was nothing I could do to change things. I just wanted to get the process started.

The Wheelbarrow (Trading My Sorrows, Part 1)

2006-06-20T21:00:00.000-05:00

Image © janerc

Summer 2003

At the end of the Summer of 2003, I was finishing up a Women's study of Vision of His Glory, held at my church. I loved the study, the material, the way it was structured. Yet I didn't feel connected to the material. I didn't have any of those personal moments where I felt God really revealing something to *me*.

I loved the illustration Anne Graham Lotz shared near the end of the study, about a man who walked a tightrope across Niagara Falls. There's a lot of different versions, I'll cite this one:

A man was walking a tightrope across Niagara Falls. A crowd gathered and cheered the man on. The man faced the crowd and said, "How many of you think that I can push this empty wheelbarrow across Niagara Falls on the tightrope?" The crowd cheered wildly in support. The man successfully pushed the wheelbarrow across the falls and back. Then, the man said, "How many of you think I can push a wheelbarrow full of bricks across Niagara Falls?" The crowd went crazy, encouraging the man to try. As expected, the man successfully pushed the wheelbarrow full of bricks across Niagara Falls and back. Finally, the man turned to the crowd and said, "How many of you think that I can push another person in this wheelbarrow across Niagara Falls?" The people cheered, jumping up and down and screaming to see this feat. The man then said, "Who would like to volunteer?"

The crowd fell deathly silent. Not one person who claimed to believe in the tightrope walker was willing to trust him with his/her own life.

So Anne's question to the audience was, are you willing to get into the wheelbarrow?

Little did I know that God would soon direct that question to me.

How To Love People You Don't Like

2006-06-20T20:53:00.000-05:00

You don't have to like someone to love them. Webster defines like as to "feel an attraction, tenderness or affection for" someone...

But agape love says, "I love you in spite of...", in spite of the things about you that I may not like. We don't have to feel guilty about not liking everyone. It's okay! But we are commanded to love others.

Write it on a piece of paper and tape it to your mirror, your desk, over your sink, on your screen saver–wherever you will see it often: "LOVE IS NOT A FEELING, LOVE IS AN ACTION!"

- Mary Whelchel, How To Love People You Don't Like

2006-05-25T06:06:00.000-05:00

Anyone from COD happen to have the sermons "Dancing Heart of David" (8/22/04) and "Wandering Heart of David" (8/29/04)??