Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Computer Issues
My computer is very sick, and I am only able to be online for a few minutes at a time before it crashes. I'm looking forward to catching up with my blogging friends in bits and pieces, between cyber-hiccups. Thanks for stopping by!
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Summer Reading Review: Prince of Pleasure
Book: Prince of Pleasure: The Prince of Wales and the Making of the Regency
Author: Saul David
Pub: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1998
Ever since I learned more about the American Revolution and found out just how little "taxation without representation" was actually going on under our colonialism (hint: a lot less than the "taxation with representation" to which we are currently subjected), I have wondered how a people so secure could ever have been goaded into rebellion, putting their lives, property and sacred honor on the line for an abstract ideal of liberty. Not to say I'm not grateful that they did, nor am I less in awe of the incredible men who founded this nation. It's just difficult to imagine a people rising up, with everything to lose, when they were not under anything truly like oppression. Then, I read Prince of Pleasure, and I am starting to understand.
Is there anything in the world more useless than a figurehead monarch? A parasite on the body politic, leeching off the people of his land, begging the Parliament constantly for more money? King George III, the monarch from whom the 13 colonies declared independence in 1776, was, probably, one of the less disgusting depictions of this particular beast. Had the colonies waited 35 more years to rebel, which would have been during the Regency, they would have probably wanted to sail across the Atlantic and bring back the Prince Regent to tar and feather. He was that much of a schmuck.
My first and lasting impression from this book was a complete agreement with the always perceptive Jane Austen - "I hate him." This guy was, from his earliest pretensions of "independence" (or whatever you call it when you live by sponging off of others), such a prodigal that his debts equalled over £150,000 by the age of twenty-two! Consider that Miss Austen herself earned barely more than £700 for a lifetime of work (keyword: earned), and this amount of debt (paid off by periodic parliamentary increases to his income) verges on obscene. I have no problem with wealth that has been earned, or even inherited fair and square, but the Prince seems to have had no income stream other than imposing constantly upon the English Parliament. I think that, nowadays, the royal family in Great Britain has their own streams of revenue, and I'm not sure why the Prince Regent did not.
Then, there was his womanizing. He was a big hypochondriac, at least when it came to arousing the sympathies of reluctant ladies by stressing his imminent demise if they did not succumb to his advances. That seems to have been his wooing pattern: when initial rejection was met with, he went into decline until the maternal nature of most women would be activated. Add to this the fact that he constantly chose as mistresses women of a certain age, and the maternal connection becomes even clearer. The woman who suffered the most from his attachment was a Catholic widow, known (and this is delightful, really) as Mrs, Fitzherbert. I just love that! This woman was married to the Prince of Wales in an illegal ceremony, and was his longest lasting love. Yet, history knows her primarily as Mrs. Fitzherbert. I don't know why that tickles me so. It just seems so quirkily formal and British to hold to "Mrs. Fitzherbert," and not "Maria" - her Christian name. Poor woman! She comes off the best out of all the people associated with the Prince in this long biography.
There is a lot in this biography of political maneuverings before and during the Regency. There was the constant debate of "Catholic emancipation," of which I knew nothing before reading this book, and, though it was a pressing issue of the time and one that the Prince went back and forth on repeatedly, it seems so elementally decent to allow Catholics to vote and be full citizens of England, that it's hard to get too involved with the arguments back and forth into which the author delves. Then, of course, there is the whole issue of the French Revolution. The Prince should really have been happy that he was not in power during this tumultuous time across the Channel, since his excesses might have inspired a similar outcome in England. Instead, his father's more balanced lifestyle repressed any similar tendency in the hearts of English commoners and deflected the heat of indignation at that crucial juncture. There was also, in France, the Napoleonic era and that mighty little fellow's determined march through the continent and grandiose designs on Russia and England. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the real issues of import in a study of the Prince are not the political. Politically, he was an opportunist - tending Whig when it irked his father to do so, then bending Tory when he needed that majority alliance. His main points of interest to the casual modern reader were personal (i.e. his marriages, legal and illegal, and affairs) and the mark he made on defining the culture of the time.
His marriage to his legitimate (according to the Church of England and the 1772 Royal Marriages Act) wife, Caroline of Brunswick was a disastrous union. He was repulsed by her person (apparently she had cleanliness issues), and a child (Princess Charlotte) was conceived after only three acts of consummation - the only three in the entire twenty-six years of their marriage. Although she disgusted him beyond further physical contact, he really cannot be forgiven for the base way that he treated her, both as a husband, as her Prince, and as the father of their child. She was gauche and debauched and vulgar, but he was simply an insufferable jerk. Miss Austen can be counted on, as usual, to provide a succinct and pithy view of the entire royal marriage mess:
Jane Austen voiced the disgust which most people now felt towards the Regent for his unpardonable treatment of his wife in a letter to an acquaintance on the 16th [of February, 1813]. "Poor woman," she wrote of Caroline, "I shall support her as long as I can because she is a Woman, and because I hate her Husband . . . [If] I must give up the Princess, I am resolved at least always to think that she would have been respectable, if the Prince would have behaved tolerably by her at first." (p. 341)
So, Princess Caroline took lovers. The Prince of Wales took lovers. Pretty much everyone in the uppercrust of society took lovers. (For an excellent book and a fun read on the utter immorality and impropriety of Regency aristocracy, you may wish to peruse An Elegant Madness: High Society in Regency England by Venetia Murray (1999).) The reason that the Prince fell under so much censure is that, as the figurehead of England if not the primary power, his behavior set the tone for England's presentation to the world. Plus, and this is probably the greater reason, he lacked panache. He lacked that sort of exuberance of spirit, that "devil-may-care" insolence, that allowed so many other colorful figures of the era to escape public condemnation. He seemed to have had some charm and erudition - an especial appreciation for the arts was one of his defining and greatest triumphs - but those personal qualitites did not translate over into his public persona. While he made a miserable Prince of Wales and, later, Prince Regent and, even later, King, it is difficult to say whether he had sufficient bravura to have been one of the great aristocratic bounders of an age that overflowed with such rakes and cads. He seems to have stumbled at every try for a distinct personality. Sometimes, with people like that, you just need to shove them away into a little corner of a government job wherein they can exercise little havoc and pain. Could he have been anything more useful to England than the King? Probably not.
Maybe it is because I am a twenty-first century American who has never lived in a country ruled by such a creature as a monarch that I find it difficult to see the point of the Prince Regent, later George IV. He didn't lead any battles to victory (although, to be fair, he was always trying to get a higher military appointment than the ceremonious one he possessed). He didn't inspire his people toward any higher goal or ideal. He, the nominal head of the English church, did not bring to his country one iota of Christ's love or magnamity. He was not a great thinker, an accomplished anything. He had a certain amount of education and tendency toward self-betterment, but he did not sufficiently exercise his privileged background to improve his court or his country. In the midst of some of the great debates of human dignity and liberty (e.g. slavery, Catholic and Jewish emancipation within the kingdom, even - before his reign - the American revolution) he wavered back and forth, never taking a position that stood up for righteousness against the tide of oppression. Probably, the best thing I could say about him was that his favorite novelist was Jane Austen. So, I commend him for his literary taste.
Was he, as his educator, the Bishop of Coventry, declared of his then fifteen-year-old charge, an "admixture" of "the most polished gentleman" and "the most accomplished blackguard in Europe" (p. 429)? Well, his biographer declares that the answer to that question is: Yes. I say: No. He did not have nearly enough of the "gentleman" about him to make up for his gross lack of character and feeling - his general want of propriety in matters personal and public. The British people deserved better for their monarch dollar, ahem, pound than this creep.
This biography was well-written, with one exception: The author quotes as authority twice George MacDonald Fraser's book, Black Ajax. This is an historical novel by the author of the Flashman series, this one featuring Flashy's father, Captain Buckley Flashman. Nowhere in these quotes does Mr. David indicate that they are from a fictional source. He treats a dialogue between Capt. Flashman and Lady Jersey as an historical event. I'm not certain if this is sloppy research, or if the author is intending in some dry, British way to be funny. What tends me toward the latter is the way in which he frames the quotes. He uses the phrases "according to" and "is said to have" in both instances of quotes, which is rarely used in the rest of the book. I did find one or two other examples of his framing cited quotes as such, though, and those are not from fictional works, but from memoirs. So, it's hard to say for certain.
Overall Grade: B
Readability: B
Subject Interest: B-
Illustrations: B- (could have used more political cartoons from the era, a lá The Unruly Queen)
Recommended? Yes, with reservations. This book will not change your life or make you a better person. It probably will make you appreciate not living under a monarchy (if Charles, Diana, Camilla, et al, have not already done that). It wasn't a particularly fun read, but it was informative. I came away feeling that I knew everything I needed to know about the Prince Regent. If you are interested in some of the history that was taking place at the time Jane Austen was writing (my main reason for reading this book), it's probably a fair read. This world of the Prince was a far cry from the decent country gentry that JA liked to write about (although you really begin to see the dichotomy of country values and city values portrayed in Mansfield Park as being a relevant issue).
Next Up: The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey
Author: Saul David
Pub: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1998
Ever since I learned more about the American Revolution and found out just how little "taxation without representation" was actually going on under our colonialism (hint: a lot less than the "taxation with representation" to which we are currently subjected), I have wondered how a people so secure could ever have been goaded into rebellion, putting their lives, property and sacred honor on the line for an abstract ideal of liberty. Not to say I'm not grateful that they did, nor am I less in awe of the incredible men who founded this nation. It's just difficult to imagine a people rising up, with everything to lose, when they were not under anything truly like oppression. Then, I read Prince of Pleasure, and I am starting to understand.
Is there anything in the world more useless than a figurehead monarch? A parasite on the body politic, leeching off the people of his land, begging the Parliament constantly for more money? King George III, the monarch from whom the 13 colonies declared independence in 1776, was, probably, one of the less disgusting depictions of this particular beast. Had the colonies waited 35 more years to rebel, which would have been during the Regency, they would have probably wanted to sail across the Atlantic and bring back the Prince Regent to tar and feather. He was that much of a schmuck.
My first and lasting impression from this book was a complete agreement with the always perceptive Jane Austen - "I hate him." This guy was, from his earliest pretensions of "independence" (or whatever you call it when you live by sponging off of others), such a prodigal that his debts equalled over £150,000 by the age of twenty-two! Consider that Miss Austen herself earned barely more than £700 for a lifetime of work (keyword: earned), and this amount of debt (paid off by periodic parliamentary increases to his income) verges on obscene. I have no problem with wealth that has been earned, or even inherited fair and square, but the Prince seems to have had no income stream other than imposing constantly upon the English Parliament. I think that, nowadays, the royal family in Great Britain has their own streams of revenue, and I'm not sure why the Prince Regent did not.
Then, there was his womanizing. He was a big hypochondriac, at least when it came to arousing the sympathies of reluctant ladies by stressing his imminent demise if they did not succumb to his advances. That seems to have been his wooing pattern: when initial rejection was met with, he went into decline until the maternal nature of most women would be activated. Add to this the fact that he constantly chose as mistresses women of a certain age, and the maternal connection becomes even clearer. The woman who suffered the most from his attachment was a Catholic widow, known (and this is delightful, really) as Mrs, Fitzherbert. I just love that! This woman was married to the Prince of Wales in an illegal ceremony, and was his longest lasting love. Yet, history knows her primarily as Mrs. Fitzherbert. I don't know why that tickles me so. It just seems so quirkily formal and British to hold to "Mrs. Fitzherbert," and not "Maria" - her Christian name. Poor woman! She comes off the best out of all the people associated with the Prince in this long biography.
There is a lot in this biography of political maneuverings before and during the Regency. There was the constant debate of "Catholic emancipation," of which I knew nothing before reading this book, and, though it was a pressing issue of the time and one that the Prince went back and forth on repeatedly, it seems so elementally decent to allow Catholics to vote and be full citizens of England, that it's hard to get too involved with the arguments back and forth into which the author delves. Then, of course, there is the whole issue of the French Revolution. The Prince should really have been happy that he was not in power during this tumultuous time across the Channel, since his excesses might have inspired a similar outcome in England. Instead, his father's more balanced lifestyle repressed any similar tendency in the hearts of English commoners and deflected the heat of indignation at that crucial juncture. There was also, in France, the Napoleonic era and that mighty little fellow's determined march through the continent and grandiose designs on Russia and England. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the real issues of import in a study of the Prince are not the political. Politically, he was an opportunist - tending Whig when it irked his father to do so, then bending Tory when he needed that majority alliance. His main points of interest to the casual modern reader were personal (i.e. his marriages, legal and illegal, and affairs) and the mark he made on defining the culture of the time.
His marriage to his legitimate (according to the Church of England and the 1772 Royal Marriages Act) wife, Caroline of Brunswick was a disastrous union. He was repulsed by her person (apparently she had cleanliness issues), and a child (Princess Charlotte) was conceived after only three acts of consummation - the only three in the entire twenty-six years of their marriage. Although she disgusted him beyond further physical contact, he really cannot be forgiven for the base way that he treated her, both as a husband, as her Prince, and as the father of their child. She was gauche and debauched and vulgar, but he was simply an insufferable jerk. Miss Austen can be counted on, as usual, to provide a succinct and pithy view of the entire royal marriage mess:
Jane Austen voiced the disgust which most people now felt towards the Regent for his unpardonable treatment of his wife in a letter to an acquaintance on the 16th [of February, 1813]. "Poor woman," she wrote of Caroline, "I shall support her as long as I can because she is a Woman, and because I hate her Husband . . . [If] I must give up the Princess, I am resolved at least always to think that she would have been respectable, if the Prince would have behaved tolerably by her at first." (p. 341)
So, Princess Caroline took lovers. The Prince of Wales took lovers. Pretty much everyone in the uppercrust of society took lovers. (For an excellent book and a fun read on the utter immorality and impropriety of Regency aristocracy, you may wish to peruse An Elegant Madness: High Society in Regency England by Venetia Murray (1999).) The reason that the Prince fell under so much censure is that, as the figurehead of England if not the primary power, his behavior set the tone for England's presentation to the world. Plus, and this is probably the greater reason, he lacked panache. He lacked that sort of exuberance of spirit, that "devil-may-care" insolence, that allowed so many other colorful figures of the era to escape public condemnation. He seemed to have had some charm and erudition - an especial appreciation for the arts was one of his defining and greatest triumphs - but those personal qualitites did not translate over into his public persona. While he made a miserable Prince of Wales and, later, Prince Regent and, even later, King, it is difficult to say whether he had sufficient bravura to have been one of the great aristocratic bounders of an age that overflowed with such rakes and cads. He seems to have stumbled at every try for a distinct personality. Sometimes, with people like that, you just need to shove them away into a little corner of a government job wherein they can exercise little havoc and pain. Could he have been anything more useful to England than the King? Probably not.
Maybe it is because I am a twenty-first century American who has never lived in a country ruled by such a creature as a monarch that I find it difficult to see the point of the Prince Regent, later George IV. He didn't lead any battles to victory (although, to be fair, he was always trying to get a higher military appointment than the ceremonious one he possessed). He didn't inspire his people toward any higher goal or ideal. He, the nominal head of the English church, did not bring to his country one iota of Christ's love or magnamity. He was not a great thinker, an accomplished anything. He had a certain amount of education and tendency toward self-betterment, but he did not sufficiently exercise his privileged background to improve his court or his country. In the midst of some of the great debates of human dignity and liberty (e.g. slavery, Catholic and Jewish emancipation within the kingdom, even - before his reign - the American revolution) he wavered back and forth, never taking a position that stood up for righteousness against the tide of oppression. Probably, the best thing I could say about him was that his favorite novelist was Jane Austen. So, I commend him for his literary taste.
Was he, as his educator, the Bishop of Coventry, declared of his then fifteen-year-old charge, an "admixture" of "the most polished gentleman" and "the most accomplished blackguard in Europe" (p. 429)? Well, his biographer declares that the answer to that question is: Yes. I say: No. He did not have nearly enough of the "gentleman" about him to make up for his gross lack of character and feeling - his general want of propriety in matters personal and public. The British people deserved better for their monarch dollar, ahem, pound than this creep.
This biography was well-written, with one exception: The author quotes as authority twice George MacDonald Fraser's book, Black Ajax. This is an historical novel by the author of the Flashman series, this one featuring Flashy's father, Captain Buckley Flashman. Nowhere in these quotes does Mr. David indicate that they are from a fictional source. He treats a dialogue between Capt. Flashman and Lady Jersey as an historical event. I'm not certain if this is sloppy research, or if the author is intending in some dry, British way to be funny. What tends me toward the latter is the way in which he frames the quotes. He uses the phrases "according to" and "is said to have" in both instances of quotes, which is rarely used in the rest of the book. I did find one or two other examples of his framing cited quotes as such, though, and those are not from fictional works, but from memoirs. So, it's hard to say for certain.
Overall Grade: B
Readability: B
Subject Interest: B-
Illustrations: B- (could have used more political cartoons from the era, a lá The Unruly Queen)
Recommended? Yes, with reservations. This book will not change your life or make you a better person. It probably will make you appreciate not living under a monarchy (if Charles, Diana, Camilla, et al, have not already done that). It wasn't a particularly fun read, but it was informative. I came away feeling that I knew everything I needed to know about the Prince Regent. If you are interested in some of the history that was taking place at the time Jane Austen was writing (my main reason for reading this book), it's probably a fair read. This world of the Prince was a far cry from the decent country gentry that JA liked to write about (although you really begin to see the dichotomy of country values and city values portrayed in Mansfield Park as being a relevant issue).
Next Up: The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey
Sunday, July 31, 2005
They Paved Paradise and Put Up a Parking Lot
The Seattle Mariners are dead to me.
Randy Winn, the best player we had, was traded off yesterday to the National League (for crying out loud!) for two SF Giants players, whom I will now always detest. What kind of name is "Yorvit" anyway?
So, I've taken my disgust and worked it into an adaptation of Joni Mitchell's classic, Big Yellow Taxi:
Late last night, I heard the local news show
Stupid sportscaster said that it was Randy Winn's time to go - Oh -
Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.
Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.
Oh sure, they've got $100 million to waste on Sexson and Bletre
But now that Randy Winn's gone there's going to be hell to pay - hey -
Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.
Shoo-bop-bop-bop.
Mid-season trades are just a terrible thing to do to fans. You've put all this emotional investment in your favorite player, and then they trade him right out from under you without a blink. The SF Giants. Sheesh!
At least I got to see Randy Winn's last game as a Mariner on Friday night. He went 4/5. I can't believe we traded him. I would have rather they traded Jamie Moyer (an excellent pitcher and a Mariners icon, but one whose getting old) or Eddie Guardado (a great closer, but, again, tradeable) or either of those two shmoes they spent, collectively, $100 million on: Richie "The Drunk" Sexson or Adrian "Can't Get Used to the American League" Beltre.
I'm going to miss you, Randy Winn. Thank you for four great years of play. You're too good for this loser team, anyway. May your fingers be filled with World Series rings. May the Mariners rot in the pit of crappiness in which they have buried themselves.
Maybe when I calm down a little, I can focus on my second and third favorite players: Raul Ibañez and Willie Bloomquist. Holy cow, this is a staggering loss.
Randy Winn, the best player we had, was traded off yesterday to the National League (for crying out loud!) for two SF Giants players, whom I will now always detest. What kind of name is "Yorvit" anyway?
So, I've taken my disgust and worked it into an adaptation of Joni Mitchell's classic, Big Yellow Taxi:
Late last night, I heard the local news show
Stupid sportscaster said that it was Randy Winn's time to go - Oh -
Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.
Hey, Bill Bavasi, put away your mid-season trade, now!
Ya give me lots of lousy pitching but leave me my boy, Randy Winn, now!
Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.
Oh sure, they've got $100 million to waste on Sexson and Bletre
But now that Randy Winn's gone there's going to be hell to pay - hey -
Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.
Shoo-bop-bop-bop.
Mid-season trades are just a terrible thing to do to fans. You've put all this emotional investment in your favorite player, and then they trade him right out from under you without a blink. The SF Giants. Sheesh!
At least I got to see Randy Winn's last game as a Mariner on Friday night. He went 4/5. I can't believe we traded him. I would have rather they traded Jamie Moyer (an excellent pitcher and a Mariners icon, but one whose getting old) or Eddie Guardado (a great closer, but, again, tradeable) or either of those two shmoes they spent, collectively, $100 million on: Richie "The Drunk" Sexson or Adrian "Can't Get Used to the American League" Beltre.
I'm going to miss you, Randy Winn. Thank you for four great years of play. You're too good for this loser team, anyway. May your fingers be filled with World Series rings. May the Mariners rot in the pit of crappiness in which they have buried themselves.
Maybe when I calm down a little, I can focus on my second and third favorite players: Raul Ibañez and Willie Bloomquist. Holy cow, this is a staggering loss.
Friday, July 29, 2005
If You Are Pro-Life . . .
If you are pro-life, and do not yet subscribe to the free daily e-mail newsletter from the NRLC (National Right to Life Committee), "Today's News and Views" by Dave Andrusko, I would like strongly to encourage you to sign up to receive it.
It is an extremely valuable cross between news brief, philosophical reflection, spiritual refreshment and encouragement, and, occasionally, political action alert.
It's a great daily read.
Blessings to you!
It is an extremely valuable cross between news brief, philosophical reflection, spiritual refreshment and encouragement, and, occasionally, political action alert.
It's a great daily read.
Blessings to you!
Thursday, July 28, 2005
POP-UPS!! &*&$^*%&%#$#*&&(*&(!!!!!!!
Why?! Why in the world have all these lame-o pop-ups infiltrated my cyber-space? I have a pop-up blocker that used to work very well. Now, though it's turned on, it's letting about 98% of all pop-ups through. At first, they were sly. They were "pop-behinds;" They would pop into the background of whatever legitimate page I was viewing, and only reared their ugly heads when I closed out the other page. Now, they have gotten bold and shoot right past my blocker (useless piece o' blankity blank!) and get right in my face while I'm viewing or typing. This is the pits.
Two of the most annoying are "Aqua" and "Venus123." These two come up with myriad attachments that continually download with an irritating "clickety-click-click" constantly. Also, there is this absolutely infuriating "Search Result" thing that comes up and tries to give me links based upon the websites I was viewing. What sickens me about this un-asked for intrusion into my Internet viewing habits is that I spend a lot of time looking up pro-life sites on the 'net, and this "Search Results" thing picks up that I'm "interested" in abortion, so it brings up all these abortion clinics, especially this one in New York with a woman doctor who will perform abortions in her office so you don't have to go to a clinic (how lovely). I feel nauseated whenever this comes up. If you are going to put software out there that noses into people's private website preferences, you should at least have the sensitivity to figure that people who like unborn babies enough to go to pro-life sites are not going to want you to throw it back in their faces that these little babies are right now being murdered in these clinics (or comfortable office settings) you advertise. Yuck!!
How can I get rid of these pop-ups? I guess we'll have to get a new program to download that does a better job than the one that came with MS Internet Explorer. Any suggestions?
Peace to all (except those pop-up companies - Pooh to them!)!
Justine
P.S. Who in the world thinks that throwing a bunch of pop-ups in unsuspecting peoples' faces is an effective advertising campaign? I mean, c'mon!
Two of the most annoying are "Aqua" and "Venus123." These two come up with myriad attachments that continually download with an irritating "clickety-click-click" constantly. Also, there is this absolutely infuriating "Search Result" thing that comes up and tries to give me links based upon the websites I was viewing. What sickens me about this un-asked for intrusion into my Internet viewing habits is that I spend a lot of time looking up pro-life sites on the 'net, and this "Search Results" thing picks up that I'm "interested" in abortion, so it brings up all these abortion clinics, especially this one in New York with a woman doctor who will perform abortions in her office so you don't have to go to a clinic (how lovely). I feel nauseated whenever this comes up. If you are going to put software out there that noses into people's private website preferences, you should at least have the sensitivity to figure that people who like unborn babies enough to go to pro-life sites are not going to want you to throw it back in their faces that these little babies are right now being murdered in these clinics (or comfortable office settings) you advertise. Yuck!!
How can I get rid of these pop-ups? I guess we'll have to get a new program to download that does a better job than the one that came with MS Internet Explorer. Any suggestions?
Peace to all (except those pop-up companies - Pooh to them!)!
Justine
P.S. Who in the world thinks that throwing a bunch of pop-ups in unsuspecting peoples' faces is an effective advertising campaign? I mean, c'mon!
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
And the Prize for the Most Obvious "News" Story of the Day . . .
. . . goes to The Seattle Times, and their enlightening exposé that - wait for it - divorce is bad!
I will pause a moment to let the collective gasp from everyone who has been living under a rock for the past forty years to reverberate around the room and die out. PAUSE. Okay.
Yes, folks, people like the staff at The Seattle Times are waking up to a fact that every child whose parents divorced for little or no good reason has known for years: Divorce sucks. It's bad for kids. It's bad for society. And - and this is the part that may make the demi-children called modern adults sit up and take notice - it's bad for those who are divorcing.
Oh sure, Seattle Times staff reporter, Kyung M. Song, starts with a disclaimer that what follows in the article will sound like a "conservative (boo! hiss!) marriage manifesto." I'm sure that he wants the readership of greater Seattle to know that he is just as aghast at these statistics as any good liberal should be. But wait (he implies)! Don't discount them just because you've heard "conservatives" touting them for years! This advice will benefit your health too! Tellingly, the article starts out by stressing all of the emotional and physical health risks to divorcing couples. Secondly (always, always secondly nowadays), he looks at the health risks to children of divorce.
Then, the article delves into risk factors for divorce. The predominant ones follow:
I will pause a moment to let the collective gasp from everyone who has been living under a rock for the past forty years to reverberate around the room and die out. PAUSE. Okay.
Yes, folks, people like the staff at The Seattle Times are waking up to a fact that every child whose parents divorced for little or no good reason has known for years: Divorce sucks. It's bad for kids. It's bad for society. And - and this is the part that may make the demi-children called modern adults sit up and take notice - it's bad for those who are divorcing.
Oh sure, Seattle Times staff reporter, Kyung M. Song, starts with a disclaimer that what follows in the article will sound like a "conservative (boo! hiss!) marriage manifesto." I'm sure that he wants the readership of greater Seattle to know that he is just as aghast at these statistics as any good liberal should be. But wait (he implies)! Don't discount them just because you've heard "conservatives" touting them for years! This advice will benefit your health too! Tellingly, the article starts out by stressing all of the emotional and physical health risks to divorcing couples. Secondly (always, always secondly nowadays), he looks at the health risks to children of divorce.
Then, the article delves into risk factors for divorce. The predominant ones follow:
- Having divorced parents
- Marrying young (the article doesn't specify what "young" is, but seems to imply that it is under 20 years of age)
- Living together before engagement
- Being previously divorced or marrying a previously divorced partner
- Having a child before marriage (and to a lesser extent getting pregnant before the wedding)
- Being much older or younger than your spouse
- Marrying someone of a different race
- Following different religions or no religion
- Having low educational levels
Hmmm . . . My parents did not fall into any of those categories, except the religion one, and that didn't stop them from giving up after 18 years. Oh well.
My mom was married three times. According to the statistics of the article I read, this gives my marriage only a one in three chance of lasting. Baloney! I say. Seeing my mom and her failed marriages and all the emotional distress that she lived with day-to-day has only strengthened my resolve never, ever to divorce. Knowing what it was like to grow up as a child of divorce, knowing the heartache of living between two different houses, choosing constantly between my parents, having every cause for celebration (i.e. birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, graduations) become a cause for peeling off once again the scab over my wounded spirit, I will never, ever do that to Sadie. No! No! One thousand times, NO! To this end, I carefully chose a wonderful man as committed to marriage as I.
The opposite view from that in this article, one that may not be borne out in statistics, but one much more closely aligned with my own philosophy, is found in this wonderful closing paragraph from Emily Post's Etiquette: The Blue Book of Social Usage (1965):
"At present, the breaking up of homes is so widespread it may be that those who grow up never having known the completeness of home will find it unessential. Or will it be the other way around? Perhaps the children of today's divided houses will be twice as earnest in their efforts to provide their own children with the priceless security of a father and mother together in one place called HOME!"
(I love that book! I have spent many a delightful afternoon pouring over it in a reverie of nostalgia. It totally rocks - especially compared to modern day Emily Post - which is a little too modern; proper manners and etiquette are timeless and should not be subject to the whims of vulgarity that infiltrate society for time to time. I'll stick with 1965 and earlier versions, thank you very much!)
Of course, the Seattle Times article loves to point out that really abusive or "toxic" marriages should come to an end, for the betterment of all. Duh! The problem is that, with no-fault divorce, any little reason has become de rigueur for unraveling the marital knot. Who hasn't seen their parents divorce for the nebulous reason of "irreconcilable differences" and wondered if it was simply because of boredom or something different, something darker? This vagueness in dissolution leads to children who do not know the line between emotional abuse and the normal back and forth, anger and reconciliation, of two people learning to live under the same roof. They end up thinking that anything other than constant bliss is a terminally troubled relationship. They see the wedding as an act of "perfection" and finality in the relationship between man and wife, and not the commencement of life-long refining and, well, tweaking that is really is. This lie of instant gratification is what is most "toxic" in marriage today.
The one divorce statistic that I have always found most troubling, that is not addressed in the article because it is not part of its scope, is the equal or higher rate of divorce between "born-again Christians" as compared to the rest of society. This is so distressing, because 1) Christians should be "set apart" from the world (John 17:14), 2) our lives should be reflections of Christ's infinite forgiveness and mercy ("Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." Matthew 5:16), 3) we should place others' (read concerning marriage: our children's and our spouse's) needs above our own selfish inclinations, 4) we should obey Christ's admonitions regarding divorce - His narrow standards for allowable divorce - one of the few social issues He commented upon directly (Matthew 19:1-9, Matthew 5:31-32), and 5) we should remember that the "Lord God of Israel says that He hates divorce" (Malachi 2:16), which, really, should be enough to keep Christians from divorcing for any but the most dire reasons. Once again, just as in the human life issue, Catholics put all of us Protestants to shame.
Anyway, congratulations to The Seattle Times, for this revolutionary piece of reporting. Who knew that disregarding the sacred bond of marriage, which was ordained by the Creator for humans as being the best foundation for society since the dawn of time, would actually be a bad idea? Stay tuned for more cutting-edge investigative journalism that reports:
- The sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s was devastating for society, especially for women.
- Abortion kills actual human children.
- Abortion is bad for women and humankind in general.
- Jesus Christ is the Son of God, Savior of the World.
- Breastfeeding is the best way to feed babies.
- The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
- You should never wear white after Labor Day.
- Smoking is a primary cause of lung cancer.
- Chocolate tastes good.
These and other exciting reports coming your way from the daring reporters of The Seattle Times.
Friday, July 22, 2005
The Trouble with Forgiveness
I was in Canada on July 7, 2005, on an island retreat, without television, radio, Internet, or newspapers, so all we heard was that there had been simultaneous terroist bombings in London. Not knowing the extent, my mind immediately went to that terrible day, September 11, 2001, and I dissolved into tears. Thankfully, we found out the next day, the terror attacks in London were not of the same magnitude as 9-11, but any time innocent life is destroyed it is a cause for mourning.
Then, yesterday, there was another set of "copycat" attacks in London - I praise God for His mercy that no lives were lost in those attacks.
I have a lot of issues with Islam. My heart wants to find its Christ-center and pray sincerely for these humans who must, as Carolyn Arends so eloquently put it, "live in such a hell that perpetuating these acts seems rational and justifiable." But, I just cannot yet. The first international incident that I have a clear memory of was the hostage crisis in Iran in 1980. Throughout my life, almost every act of terrorism against civilians has been done by people who call themselves Muslims. And then, that dark day, September 11, 2001, came, and my soul revulsed, and the rage poured in. I cannot yet separate these actions from the religion of Islam. I cannot yet forgive them.
But I know that as we have been forgiven by God, so must we forgive others. There is no way around it. Jesus says over and over, throughout the Gospels, that continued forgiveness from God is directly related to our forgiveness of others (Mark 11:26, Matthew 6:14, 15 and 18:21-35). The original forgiveness, the saving grace of God, never washes away, but, as regenerate sinners, we must acknowledge our continual need for forgiveness by expressing true forgiveness. So, I struggle every day with this hatred that I feel.
I think that I could forgive these monsters were it not for their choice of victims. In other words, if they carried out attacks merely against military targets, I would not have this rage against them. I hate for anyone to die, but at least military or political centers have a symbolism that is understandable. It is the fact that this scum targets people just going about the business of living that makes me ill and hardens my heart. Knowing that they hate my daughter Sadie, who is a delight and a joy and a person so free in her love of others and open and trusting - knowing that had she and I been on any of the hijacked flights on 9-11, that had they seen her sweet face, it would not have stopped them from killing her cold-heartedly by ramming that airplane into the side of a building - knowing that they would slit her throat at any given opportunity and record that heinous act on video tape while shouting that "Allah [not God - never my God!] is great!" - knowing all these things - I just cannot "turn the other cheek." Sweet Jesus, forgive me!
One other thing I hate is that so many secularists associate their satanic god, Allah, with the one, true God of Israel. Then, all religious people get lumped together in the secular mind - Christians, Jews, Muslims, oh, they're all the same, dontcha know? Lord God, please keep Your people from ever falling out of Your arms and into the arms of the Evil One - keep us from ever doing the will of darkness under the name of the Lord of light. Help us to be the peacemakers, whom You call blessed.
I am really, really trying to shed this hatred for Islam, especially for Arab Muslims. It is a constant work for God, since my rebellious nature is always getting in the way of His refinement. I want to pray Jesus' last prayer - "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." - and mean it.
I do not want to be bound to this earth - I want my spirit to commune with the Most High. I know that everything suffered through in this fallen world will fade away in light of eternity - yet, I have so much trouble letting go. I know that the evil terrorists will pay forever for their vile deeds, yet that strangely doesn't bring me much comfort. I don't want to think of people being forever separated from the Holy One - I want people to get it right, right now, here on earth and stop causing so much pain. And, maybe that is the key to open the door to forgiveness. When I think of human souls, led so far away from the light, being kept forever away from the Father, having thought all their time on earth that they had been serving God, I pity them.
Oh, but then I think of Sadie's precious face, her love of life, her exuberance, and I think of the person who wouldn't mind blowing her to bits. I think of the killers in Israel who ran up to a car with a pregnant woman and her four daughters inside and didn't stop shooting until they were all dead. I think of those vile Islamic Chechens in Beslan, Russia last year that took an entire school hostage and killed over two hundred children. I think of every bus blown up in Israel. I think of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. I think of the eleven Israeli Olympic athletes murdered in Munich, Germany in 1972. I think of the Pan-Am plane that exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing 270. I think of TWA Flight 800. I think of American troops being attacked in Iraq by suicide bombers while they were handing out candy to children. I think of the USS Cole in 2000. I think of the nightclub bombings in Bali, Indonesia in 2002. This list could go on and on.
Yet, God has forgiven me, I know He has. I know that He has separated me from my transgressions as far as east is from west. Why cannot I let go of these events? Am I a hypocrite? No, I do not believe that I am, because a hypocrite tries to hide his failings behind a mask of righteousness. My righteousness lies only in Christ's sacrifice. I have no problem laying out all of my failures to meet His standards for the world to see. I think a lot of us are struggling with this, especially since September 11, 2001. I am so interested, dear blog reader: how do you deal with forgiveness? Does forgiveness mean inaction against evil? If you take proactive measures to prevent further terrorist attacks, using retaliative force, is this wrong from a Christian perspective?
I've asked seminary students, Christian friends, and myself these questions over and over. I hate war. I think it is so awful to put people in a situation wherein they must become killers. I do not know how our amazing troops handle it without becoming monsters.
Is there ever a reason to use the ultimate force of taking life? Jesus said to "turn the other cheek." Would that have worked against Hitler and Hirohito in World War II? I think even most Christians would say, "No." I cannot believe that Jesus would have thought it better to allow the Nazis to continue incinerating Jewish people, than for the Allies to advance through Germany and Poland, liberating many while killing many too. Can you express forgiveness while, at the same time, fighting an enemy to the death? Can you love your enemy and kill him too? I think that fighting Islamic terror is even more difficult, because it is more insidious, more scattered, more decentralized. How much more easy to bomb a hostile country like Germany which is spreading itself across Europe like a festering boil without falling under the censure of the world, than to detain suspects or detect sleeper cells without violating international laws and civil liberties!
These are the tough questions. One thing that Jesus makes clear is that one of the signs of His Coming will be "wars and rumors of wars." He goes on to advise: See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. - Matthew 24:6-8. In light of this, what can we do but get along as best we can - watching, hoping, praying, loving, forgiving? If I cannot be filled with a forgiving spirit now, through the grace of God I can throw myself upon His mercy and pray, similar to the prayer for belief of the troubled father in Mark 9:14-29, "Lord, I will forgive; help my unforgiving!"
And, above all things, despite my many shortcomings of faith and obedience, I am confident of this very thing: That He who began a good work in me will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ - Philippians 1:6. Amen.
Your comments and suggestions would be appreciated. This is a long and continuing struggle.
Then, yesterday, there was another set of "copycat" attacks in London - I praise God for His mercy that no lives were lost in those attacks.
I have a lot of issues with Islam. My heart wants to find its Christ-center and pray sincerely for these humans who must, as Carolyn Arends so eloquently put it, "live in such a hell that perpetuating these acts seems rational and justifiable." But, I just cannot yet. The first international incident that I have a clear memory of was the hostage crisis in Iran in 1980. Throughout my life, almost every act of terrorism against civilians has been done by people who call themselves Muslims. And then, that dark day, September 11, 2001, came, and my soul revulsed, and the rage poured in. I cannot yet separate these actions from the religion of Islam. I cannot yet forgive them.
But I know that as we have been forgiven by God, so must we forgive others. There is no way around it. Jesus says over and over, throughout the Gospels, that continued forgiveness from God is directly related to our forgiveness of others (Mark 11:26, Matthew 6:14, 15 and 18:21-35). The original forgiveness, the saving grace of God, never washes away, but, as regenerate sinners, we must acknowledge our continual need for forgiveness by expressing true forgiveness. So, I struggle every day with this hatred that I feel.
I think that I could forgive these monsters were it not for their choice of victims. In other words, if they carried out attacks merely against military targets, I would not have this rage against them. I hate for anyone to die, but at least military or political centers have a symbolism that is understandable. It is the fact that this scum targets people just going about the business of living that makes me ill and hardens my heart. Knowing that they hate my daughter Sadie, who is a delight and a joy and a person so free in her love of others and open and trusting - knowing that had she and I been on any of the hijacked flights on 9-11, that had they seen her sweet face, it would not have stopped them from killing her cold-heartedly by ramming that airplane into the side of a building - knowing that they would slit her throat at any given opportunity and record that heinous act on video tape while shouting that "Allah [not God - never my God!] is great!" - knowing all these things - I just cannot "turn the other cheek." Sweet Jesus, forgive me!
One other thing I hate is that so many secularists associate their satanic god, Allah, with the one, true God of Israel. Then, all religious people get lumped together in the secular mind - Christians, Jews, Muslims, oh, they're all the same, dontcha know? Lord God, please keep Your people from ever falling out of Your arms and into the arms of the Evil One - keep us from ever doing the will of darkness under the name of the Lord of light. Help us to be the peacemakers, whom You call blessed.
I am really, really trying to shed this hatred for Islam, especially for Arab Muslims. It is a constant work for God, since my rebellious nature is always getting in the way of His refinement. I want to pray Jesus' last prayer - "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." - and mean it.
I do not want to be bound to this earth - I want my spirit to commune with the Most High. I know that everything suffered through in this fallen world will fade away in light of eternity - yet, I have so much trouble letting go. I know that the evil terrorists will pay forever for their vile deeds, yet that strangely doesn't bring me much comfort. I don't want to think of people being forever separated from the Holy One - I want people to get it right, right now, here on earth and stop causing so much pain. And, maybe that is the key to open the door to forgiveness. When I think of human souls, led so far away from the light, being kept forever away from the Father, having thought all their time on earth that they had been serving God, I pity them.
Oh, but then I think of Sadie's precious face, her love of life, her exuberance, and I think of the person who wouldn't mind blowing her to bits. I think of the killers in Israel who ran up to a car with a pregnant woman and her four daughters inside and didn't stop shooting until they were all dead. I think of those vile Islamic Chechens in Beslan, Russia last year that took an entire school hostage and killed over two hundred children. I think of every bus blown up in Israel. I think of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. I think of the eleven Israeli Olympic athletes murdered in Munich, Germany in 1972. I think of the Pan-Am plane that exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing 270. I think of TWA Flight 800. I think of American troops being attacked in Iraq by suicide bombers while they were handing out candy to children. I think of the USS Cole in 2000. I think of the nightclub bombings in Bali, Indonesia in 2002. This list could go on and on.
Yet, God has forgiven me, I know He has. I know that He has separated me from my transgressions as far as east is from west. Why cannot I let go of these events? Am I a hypocrite? No, I do not believe that I am, because a hypocrite tries to hide his failings behind a mask of righteousness. My righteousness lies only in Christ's sacrifice. I have no problem laying out all of my failures to meet His standards for the world to see. I think a lot of us are struggling with this, especially since September 11, 2001. I am so interested, dear blog reader: how do you deal with forgiveness? Does forgiveness mean inaction against evil? If you take proactive measures to prevent further terrorist attacks, using retaliative force, is this wrong from a Christian perspective?
I've asked seminary students, Christian friends, and myself these questions over and over. I hate war. I think it is so awful to put people in a situation wherein they must become killers. I do not know how our amazing troops handle it without becoming monsters.
Is there ever a reason to use the ultimate force of taking life? Jesus said to "turn the other cheek." Would that have worked against Hitler and Hirohito in World War II? I think even most Christians would say, "No." I cannot believe that Jesus would have thought it better to allow the Nazis to continue incinerating Jewish people, than for the Allies to advance through Germany and Poland, liberating many while killing many too. Can you express forgiveness while, at the same time, fighting an enemy to the death? Can you love your enemy and kill him too? I think that fighting Islamic terror is even more difficult, because it is more insidious, more scattered, more decentralized. How much more easy to bomb a hostile country like Germany which is spreading itself across Europe like a festering boil without falling under the censure of the world, than to detain suspects or detect sleeper cells without violating international laws and civil liberties!
These are the tough questions. One thing that Jesus makes clear is that one of the signs of His Coming will be "wars and rumors of wars." He goes on to advise: See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. - Matthew 24:6-8. In light of this, what can we do but get along as best we can - watching, hoping, praying, loving, forgiving? If I cannot be filled with a forgiving spirit now, through the grace of God I can throw myself upon His mercy and pray, similar to the prayer for belief of the troubled father in Mark 9:14-29, "Lord, I will forgive; help my unforgiving!"
And, above all things, despite my many shortcomings of faith and obedience, I am confident of this very thing: That He who began a good work in me will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ - Philippians 1:6. Amen.
Your comments and suggestions would be appreciated. This is a long and continuing struggle.
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Summer Reading
My reading tastes encompass high-brow, low-brow, and every-brow in-between. Here's my list for the summer:
Well, there's my list so far. Feel free to add your own lists/recommendations in the comments section. (I'm sure they'll be much more erudite than mine - I'm honored to have a lot of smart people visit my humble blog.) I'm always on the lookout for great reads!
A blessed and literary summer to all!
Justine
Well, there's my list so far. Feel free to add your own lists/recommendations in the comments section. (I'm sure they'll be much more erudite than mine - I'm honored to have a lot of smart people visit my humble blog.) I'm always on the lookout for great reads!
A blessed and literary summer to all!
Justine
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
It Is Well With My Soul
I love this hymn:
It Is Well With My Soul
Text: Horatio G. Spafford
Music: Philip P. Bliss
When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot Thou hast taught me to say:
"It is well, it is well with my soul."
It is well with my soul;
It is well, it is well with my soul.
Though Satan should buffet, tho' trials should come,
Let this blessed assurance control -
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
It is well with my soul;
It is well, it is well with my soul.
My sin - O, the bliss of this glorious thought,
My sin - not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more -
Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, O my soul!
It is well with my soul;
It is well, it is well with my soul.
And, Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll -
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
"Even so" - it is well with my soul.
It is well with my soul;
It is well, it is well with my soul.
The above hymn calls to mind this beautiful psalm:
Psalm 103
Bless the Lord, O my soul;
And all that is holy within me, bless His holy name!
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget not all His benefits:
Who forgives all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases,
Who redeems your life from destruction,
Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies,
Who satisfies your mouth with good things,
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.
The Lord executes righteousness
And justice for all who are oppressed.
He made known His ways to Moses,
His acts to the children of Israel.
The Lord is merciful and gracious,
Slow to anger, and abounding in mercy.
He will not always strive with us,
Nor will He keep His anger forever.
He has not dealt with us according to our sins,
Not punished us according to our iniquities.
For as the heavens are high above the earth,
So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him;
As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
As a father who pities his children,
So the Lord pities those who fear Him.
For He knows our frame;
He remembers that we are dust.
As for man, his days are like grass;
As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
For the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
And its place remembers it no more.
But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
On those who fear Him,
And His righteousness to children's children,
To such as keep His covenant,
And to those who remember His commandments to do them.
The Lord has established His throne in heaven,
And His kingdom rules over all.
Bless the Lord, you His angels,
Who excel in strength, who do His word,
Heeding the voice of His word.
Bless the Lord, all you His hosts,
You ministers of His, who do His pleasure.
Bless the Lord, all His works,
In all places of His dominion.
Bless the Lord, O my soul!
It Is Well With My Soul
Text: Horatio G. Spafford
Music: Philip P. Bliss
When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot Thou hast taught me to say:
"It is well, it is well with my soul."
It is well with my soul;
It is well, it is well with my soul.
Though Satan should buffet, tho' trials should come,
Let this blessed assurance control -
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
It is well with my soul;
It is well, it is well with my soul.
My sin - O, the bliss of this glorious thought,
My sin - not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more -
Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, O my soul!
It is well with my soul;
It is well, it is well with my soul.
And, Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll -
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
"Even so" - it is well with my soul.
It is well with my soul;
It is well, it is well with my soul.
The above hymn calls to mind this beautiful psalm:
Psalm 103
Bless the Lord, O my soul;
And all that is holy within me, bless His holy name!
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget not all His benefits:
Who forgives all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases,
Who redeems your life from destruction,
Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies,
Who satisfies your mouth with good things,
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.
The Lord executes righteousness
And justice for all who are oppressed.
He made known His ways to Moses,
His acts to the children of Israel.
The Lord is merciful and gracious,
Slow to anger, and abounding in mercy.
He will not always strive with us,
Nor will He keep His anger forever.
He has not dealt with us according to our sins,
Not punished us according to our iniquities.
For as the heavens are high above the earth,
So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him;
As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
As a father who pities his children,
So the Lord pities those who fear Him.
For He knows our frame;
He remembers that we are dust.
As for man, his days are like grass;
As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
For the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
And its place remembers it no more.
But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
On those who fear Him,
And His righteousness to children's children,
To such as keep His covenant,
And to those who remember His commandments to do them.
The Lord has established His throne in heaven,
And His kingdom rules over all.
Bless the Lord, you His angels,
Who excel in strength, who do His word,
Heeding the voice of His word.
Bless the Lord, all you His hosts,
You ministers of His, who do His pleasure.
Bless the Lord, all His works,
In all places of His dominion.
Bless the Lord, O my soul!
Monday, July 11, 2005
You Can Always Count on the Methodists . . .
. . . to be weenies!
I was baptized in the United Methodist Church, so I have a little bit of a right to chastise this so-called Christian church. Thankfully, soon after joining the UMC, I found the Calvary Chapel churches, to which I have gone ever since. Talk about going from a dead faith to an alive one . . .
Okay, so I'm reading the awesome compendium of libertarian history, The Triumph of Liberty by Jim Powell, from which I got the incredibly stirring quote by William Lloyd Garrison that I am using this week, and I read this:
"In 1836, the General Conference of the Methodist Church ordered its members not to participate in anti-slavery agitation."
Now, too many Christian churches had ministers that personally refused to bring the travesty of slavery into the pulpit. It is a shame that Christians too often stand for the status quo and against the human liberty that should result from "faith in God and His works" (Bastiat, The Law). The message of Jesus can be distilled into this statement: "In the light of God's overwhelming love, you are free indeed." Slavery never, ever should have been in those places that are, through God's grace, Christendom. As a believer, I cannot fathom how this institution survived so long in societies that dared to speak aloud the name of Jesus.
But, it was the Methodists who took this de facto pro-slavery stance to the next reprehensible level in actually building it into church doctrine that members could not agitate to end this evil, vile practice. Oy! Why did I ever join this church?
Now, the UMC is one of those squishy, yicky churches that likes to straddle the fence on the issue of abortion. Ooh, we don't like abortion but ooh it's so tough to say when life really begins and ooh women's health and ooh much prayer and meditation and ooh it's up to the woman and ooh please don't think that we are saying abortion is a good thing but ooh don't think we are saying that abortion is wrong either and ooh it's up to a woman's personal conscience ooh ooh ooh. . . I could just barf! I hold to this statement: You cannot be a Christian and believe that the decision to end a baby's life should simply be left to a woman's conscience. If you believe in God, and you believe that He is the Creator, then you cannot say that matters of life and death should be in the hands of humans - imperfect, sinful creations without eternal perspective. God never says: Go forth and multiply and be fruitful, but, hey, it is okay to destroy your fruit if you please, so long as you've prayed (to Molech) and meditated upon it. I mean, can you imagine Jesus ever counseling a woman to have an abortion? Can you? Jesus asks us for a bit more faith in Him than that.
I hate the moral relativism that can be found in so-called churches like the UMC. God's not a moral relativist, but Satan wants us to be. God calls us out from darkness, into light and out from sinfulness, into holiness. I'm not even talking here about the UMC's attitudes toward homosexuals and women in the clergy. Those two items can be debated within that church at their leisure. What I am talking about are those issues that have no grey area.
Should people be kidnapped from their native land, bound hand and foot, placed on boats like inantimate cargo, shipped hundreds and hundreds of miles, then (if they survive that) placed on an auction block like cows, separated from their families, sold as chattel, held in bondage for the rest of their lives, kept from the sweet gift of liberty that is mankind's birthright from the days of Eden? No! Not those precious souls for whom my Lord shed His sinless blood!
Should a tiny little human person, complete with his own DNA blueprint, handcrafted in his Creator's love and image, the most innocent being imaginable, be ripped by a scalpel from his womb home, or have his wee heart stopped by a poisonous injection of saline, his only crime being that he was inconvenient to another person and unseen by an apathetic world? No! Not that precious soul for whom my Lord suffered on the cross at Calvary!
The very fact that these churches dare to act in the Name of the Most High is the reason that they fall so heavily under my censure. How dare they sanction abortion in their wishy-washy, namby-pamby way, as if it were something that God would ever condone? God is the Creator, and Satan the Great Destroyer. You tell me in whose name abortion should be done.
And then there are those churches, I don't want to call them liberal - the church should be liberal in love and acceptance, considering we're all (at best) a group of regenerate sinners, completely dependent upon His grace - so I'll call them materialistic or faithless, that take some sort of self-righteous stance concerning abortion (especially abortion services in the Third World - too many little, brown children being born nowadays, and, since we can't capture them as slaves anymore, we might as well destroy them in the womb), because of the fear of over-population. Why are these churches so earth-bound? Why do they not have faith that all children are precious to Him who created them - to Him who knew them before He knit them together in their mothers' wombs and counted all of their days when, as yet, there were not any? I love that quote from Mother Teresa of Calcutta: How can you say there are too many children? That is like saying that there are too many flowers. Do these churches really believe that the God who created the heavens and the earth, who vanquished Satan's plan by His sacrifice, who daily rescues sinners in the flash of His grace, would not provide for a world that at least tries to be in His will? Stop putting God into a box - He will not be contained or defined by your human perceptions!
It is fascinating to me that the very groups that were so against the abolition of slavery are today the ones most hysterical (I like that word, and all the feminine irrationality it encapsulates) about ensuring that every path to murdering her unborn baby be left open to a woman. Once your mindset is willing to put human people into groups of personhood versus non-personhood, it becomes very easy to justify things like slavery and infanticide. I grieve for you, UMC, that your hearts have remained as hard as they were in the bad, old days of American slavery. Please, please return to the loving heart and boundless faith of Jesus Christ, who wants us to pray much and meditate often, but never to ask for or presume we've received His validation when we want to destroy life or liberty.
I was baptized in the United Methodist Church, so I have a little bit of a right to chastise this so-called Christian church. Thankfully, soon after joining the UMC, I found the Calvary Chapel churches, to which I have gone ever since. Talk about going from a dead faith to an alive one . . .
Okay, so I'm reading the awesome compendium of libertarian history, The Triumph of Liberty by Jim Powell, from which I got the incredibly stirring quote by William Lloyd Garrison that I am using this week, and I read this:
"In 1836, the General Conference of the Methodist Church ordered its members not to participate in anti-slavery agitation."
Now, too many Christian churches had ministers that personally refused to bring the travesty of slavery into the pulpit. It is a shame that Christians too often stand for the status quo and against the human liberty that should result from "faith in God and His works" (Bastiat, The Law). The message of Jesus can be distilled into this statement: "In the light of God's overwhelming love, you are free indeed." Slavery never, ever should have been in those places that are, through God's grace, Christendom. As a believer, I cannot fathom how this institution survived so long in societies that dared to speak aloud the name of Jesus.
But, it was the Methodists who took this de facto pro-slavery stance to the next reprehensible level in actually building it into church doctrine that members could not agitate to end this evil, vile practice. Oy! Why did I ever join this church?
Now, the UMC is one of those squishy, yicky churches that likes to straddle the fence on the issue of abortion. Ooh, we don't like abortion but ooh it's so tough to say when life really begins and ooh women's health and ooh much prayer and meditation and ooh it's up to the woman and ooh please don't think that we are saying abortion is a good thing but ooh don't think we are saying that abortion is wrong either and ooh it's up to a woman's personal conscience ooh ooh ooh. . . I could just barf! I hold to this statement: You cannot be a Christian and believe that the decision to end a baby's life should simply be left to a woman's conscience. If you believe in God, and you believe that He is the Creator, then you cannot say that matters of life and death should be in the hands of humans - imperfect, sinful creations without eternal perspective. God never says: Go forth and multiply and be fruitful, but, hey, it is okay to destroy your fruit if you please, so long as you've prayed (to Molech) and meditated upon it. I mean, can you imagine Jesus ever counseling a woman to have an abortion? Can you? Jesus asks us for a bit more faith in Him than that.
I hate the moral relativism that can be found in so-called churches like the UMC. God's not a moral relativist, but Satan wants us to be. God calls us out from darkness, into light and out from sinfulness, into holiness. I'm not even talking here about the UMC's attitudes toward homosexuals and women in the clergy. Those two items can be debated within that church at their leisure. What I am talking about are those issues that have no grey area.
Should people be kidnapped from their native land, bound hand and foot, placed on boats like inantimate cargo, shipped hundreds and hundreds of miles, then (if they survive that) placed on an auction block like cows, separated from their families, sold as chattel, held in bondage for the rest of their lives, kept from the sweet gift of liberty that is mankind's birthright from the days of Eden? No! Not those precious souls for whom my Lord shed His sinless blood!
Should a tiny little human person, complete with his own DNA blueprint, handcrafted in his Creator's love and image, the most innocent being imaginable, be ripped by a scalpel from his womb home, or have his wee heart stopped by a poisonous injection of saline, his only crime being that he was inconvenient to another person and unseen by an apathetic world? No! Not that precious soul for whom my Lord suffered on the cross at Calvary!
The very fact that these churches dare to act in the Name of the Most High is the reason that they fall so heavily under my censure. How dare they sanction abortion in their wishy-washy, namby-pamby way, as if it were something that God would ever condone? God is the Creator, and Satan the Great Destroyer. You tell me in whose name abortion should be done.
And then there are those churches, I don't want to call them liberal - the church should be liberal in love and acceptance, considering we're all (at best) a group of regenerate sinners, completely dependent upon His grace - so I'll call them materialistic or faithless, that take some sort of self-righteous stance concerning abortion (especially abortion services in the Third World - too many little, brown children being born nowadays, and, since we can't capture them as slaves anymore, we might as well destroy them in the womb), because of the fear of over-population. Why are these churches so earth-bound? Why do they not have faith that all children are precious to Him who created them - to Him who knew them before He knit them together in their mothers' wombs and counted all of their days when, as yet, there were not any? I love that quote from Mother Teresa of Calcutta: How can you say there are too many children? That is like saying that there are too many flowers. Do these churches really believe that the God who created the heavens and the earth, who vanquished Satan's plan by His sacrifice, who daily rescues sinners in the flash of His grace, would not provide for a world that at least tries to be in His will? Stop putting God into a box - He will not be contained or defined by your human perceptions!
It is fascinating to me that the very groups that were so against the abolition of slavery are today the ones most hysterical (I like that word, and all the feminine irrationality it encapsulates) about ensuring that every path to murdering her unborn baby be left open to a woman. Once your mindset is willing to put human people into groups of personhood versus non-personhood, it becomes very easy to justify things like slavery and infanticide. I grieve for you, UMC, that your hearts have remained as hard as they were in the bad, old days of American slavery. Please, please return to the loving heart and boundless faith of Jesus Christ, who wants us to pray much and meditate often, but never to ask for or presume we've received His validation when we want to destroy life or liberty.
Monday, July 04, 2005
Ten Things I Love About America
Happy Birthday, U.S.A!
I love, love, love my country for myriad reasons. The top ten of which I'd like to share today:
10) Baseball - I'm glad they're taking baseball out of the Olympics. This sport belongs to Americans, and I never liked the idea of countries like, oh say France, putting together teams wherein it's called something like le bôl de basé. Central and South Americans (and, maybe, further north North Americans) can get in on this too - just so long as the U.S.A. remains the heart of the great game of baseball.
9) Laura Ingalls Wilder - And all that she and Almanzo represent! I think that, better than any other works - historical or literary - LIW (and her collaborator and daughter, Rose Wilder Lane) captured the essence of America on paper. Consider this: "Americans are free. This means they have to obey their own consciences. No king bosses Pa; he has to boss himself. Why (she thought), when I am a little older, Pa and Ma will stop telling me what to do, and there isn't anyone else who has a right to give me orders. I will have to make myself be good." (Little Town on the Prairie).
8) Patriotic Songs - From "God Bless America" to "America the Beautiful" to "My Country 'Tis of Thee" to "God Bless the U.S.A." America has a wonderful treasury of patriotic songs that can be pulled out of our hearts' memories at a moment's notice and bring instant tears to the eyes of those who love liberty.
7) Las Vegas, New York, Los Angeles, The South, The East Coast, Seattle, The Heartland (aka Jesusland), Hawaii, and Everything in Between - Nothing on earth is more amazing than the variety of cultures, lifestyles, philosophies and terrain that makes up this great nation. No wonder so few Americans have passports - it takes a lifetime of travel simply to explore the U.S.A.! Natural wonders, man-made wonders, the religiously profound, the hedonistically vulgar, near-flat expanses of prairie grasses, snow-topped peaks of mountainous glory - if it exists, you can find a fine example of it in the States (we even have an Eiffel Tower replica - 50% scale - in Las Vegas!).
6) American Farmhouses - Probably my favorite architectural/interior style. I think that deep in the soul of every American is a desire for farmhouse living on a few acres - near enough to neighbors for a barn-raising or a hoedown, far enough away for privacy and independence.
5) George W. Bush - Okay, this is a dicey subject, considering how about half of America despises him and half just loves him. I voted for him (as a pro-lifer, I hadn't much choice - irony? yes!), and I agree with about half of what he says (bringing me into line with about a quarter of America?). BUT, I just love that the rest of the world hates him with purple passion. I love that his very visage throws most of Europe into a frenzy of limp-wristed, pansy pouting. I think that's GREAT! I even get a kick out of the fact that so many Americans detest him - it's good for people in a free country to be riled up and not complacent. Plus, all the right people (left people?) dislike him - Hollywood, university professors, mainstream media journalists, my chic-lefty friends, Holly and John - making the fact that I voted for him (despite some serious reservations) even more delicious.
4) Liberty-Oriented Educational and Promotional Organizations - Every country has some sort of free-market think-tank or even libertarian think-tank, but no country has more of these worthy groups than the U.S.A. We have an entire alphabet of organizations dedicated to promoting and preserving liberty: FEE (Foundation for Economic Education), FFF (Future of Freedom Foundation), AEI (American Enterprise Institute), IJ (Institute for Justice), CATO, L4L (Libertarians for Life), etc.
3) Homeschooling - No country in the world has more parents dedicated to homeschooling their children than the U.S.A. This is nothing but good for the future of our country and, therefore, the world. "As American as baseball, Mom, apple pie, and homeschooling." A great organization that promotes educational freedom is The Alliance for the Separation of School and State. Another important resource is HSLDA (HomeSchool Legal Defense Association). As goeth educational freedom, so goeth all of our other liberties in this great nation - protect homeschooling!
2) Our System of Weights and Measurement - Once called the "English System," until the Brits wimped out and went Frenchy, our system of weights and measures defiantly holds to ancient arbitrary standards, much to the consternation of the rest of the industrialized world. Tee-hee! The metric system is actually just as arbitrary as our own, since it was founded upon a calculation error, with the added burden of having constantly to convert from metric (which no one thinks in) to English (which everyone thinks in). Imagine a kilogram of cherries - now imagine a pint. See?! I also simply love our stubborn sticking with Fahrenheit when it comes to temperatures - especially when I go to Canada and see the citizens there alternating between Celsius and Fahrenheit to their confusion and my merriment. One guy we heard, on a recent trip up north, spoke of having a fever of 104 when the weather was over 30 outside - either he was having a bad fever in very chilly weather, or he was on fire (literally) in very warm weather. I once read that when the U.S. gov'ment decided to go metric sometime in the 1960's or 1970's, KMPH signs were shot down all over the country. An apocryphal story? Yes. Entirely consistent with ornery American contrariness? Absolutely!
10) Baseball - I'm glad they're taking baseball out of the Olympics. This sport belongs to Americans, and I never liked the idea of countries like, oh say France, putting together teams wherein it's called something like le bôl de basé. Central and South Americans (and, maybe, further north North Americans) can get in on this too - just so long as the U.S.A. remains the heart of the great game of baseball.
9) Laura Ingalls Wilder - And all that she and Almanzo represent! I think that, better than any other works - historical or literary - LIW (and her collaborator and daughter, Rose Wilder Lane) captured the essence of America on paper. Consider this: "Americans are free. This means they have to obey their own consciences. No king bosses Pa; he has to boss himself. Why (she thought), when I am a little older, Pa and Ma will stop telling me what to do, and there isn't anyone else who has a right to give me orders. I will have to make myself be good." (Little Town on the Prairie).
8) Patriotic Songs - From "God Bless America" to "America the Beautiful" to "My Country 'Tis of Thee" to "God Bless the U.S.A." America has a wonderful treasury of patriotic songs that can be pulled out of our hearts' memories at a moment's notice and bring instant tears to the eyes of those who love liberty.
7) Las Vegas, New York, Los Angeles, The South, The East Coast, Seattle, The Heartland (aka Jesusland), Hawaii, and Everything in Between - Nothing on earth is more amazing than the variety of cultures, lifestyles, philosophies and terrain that makes up this great nation. No wonder so few Americans have passports - it takes a lifetime of travel simply to explore the U.S.A.! Natural wonders, man-made wonders, the religiously profound, the hedonistically vulgar, near-flat expanses of prairie grasses, snow-topped peaks of mountainous glory - if it exists, you can find a fine example of it in the States (we even have an Eiffel Tower replica - 50% scale - in Las Vegas!).
6) American Farmhouses - Probably my favorite architectural/interior style. I think that deep in the soul of every American is a desire for farmhouse living on a few acres - near enough to neighbors for a barn-raising or a hoedown, far enough away for privacy and independence.
5) George W. Bush - Okay, this is a dicey subject, considering how about half of America despises him and half just loves him. I voted for him (as a pro-lifer, I hadn't much choice - irony? yes!), and I agree with about half of what he says (bringing me into line with about a quarter of America?). BUT, I just love that the rest of the world hates him with purple passion. I love that his very visage throws most of Europe into a frenzy of limp-wristed, pansy pouting. I think that's GREAT! I even get a kick out of the fact that so many Americans detest him - it's good for people in a free country to be riled up and not complacent. Plus, all the right people (left people?) dislike him - Hollywood, university professors, mainstream media journalists, my chic-lefty friends, Holly and John - making the fact that I voted for him (despite some serious reservations) even more delicious.
4) Liberty-Oriented Educational and Promotional Organizations - Every country has some sort of free-market think-tank or even libertarian think-tank, but no country has more of these worthy groups than the U.S.A. We have an entire alphabet of organizations dedicated to promoting and preserving liberty: FEE (Foundation for Economic Education), FFF (Future of Freedom Foundation), AEI (American Enterprise Institute), IJ (Institute for Justice), CATO, L4L (Libertarians for Life), etc.
3) Homeschooling - No country in the world has more parents dedicated to homeschooling their children than the U.S.A. This is nothing but good for the future of our country and, therefore, the world. "As American as baseball, Mom, apple pie, and homeschooling." A great organization that promotes educational freedom is The Alliance for the Separation of School and State. Another important resource is HSLDA (HomeSchool Legal Defense Association). As goeth educational freedom, so goeth all of our other liberties in this great nation - protect homeschooling!
2) Our System of Weights and Measurement - Once called the "English System," until the Brits wimped out and went Frenchy, our system of weights and measures defiantly holds to ancient arbitrary standards, much to the consternation of the rest of the industrialized world. Tee-hee! The metric system is actually just as arbitrary as our own, since it was founded upon a calculation error, with the added burden of having constantly to convert from metric (which no one thinks in) to English (which everyone thinks in). Imagine a kilogram of cherries - now imagine a pint. See?! I also simply love our stubborn sticking with Fahrenheit when it comes to temperatures - especially when I go to Canada and see the citizens there alternating between Celsius and Fahrenheit to their confusion and my merriment. One guy we heard, on a recent trip up north, spoke of having a fever of 104 when the weather was over 30 outside - either he was having a bad fever in very chilly weather, or he was on fire (literally) in very warm weather. I once read that when the U.S. gov'ment decided to go metric sometime in the 1960's or 1970's, KMPH signs were shot down all over the country. An apocryphal story? Yes. Entirely consistent with ornery American contrariness? Absolutely!
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
More Sadie Pics!
Who's cuter than Sadie (other parents: don't answer that!)? Here are some Bug Moments captured on digital film and posted for the enjoyment of all who stop by (especially friends and family who will be sent an e-mail alert):
As always, click on a picture to see it larger, brighter and more in-your-face.
Notes and Clarifications on the Above Pics:
Yes, we are big Mariners fans in this household, but Sadie went to a Twins game in May, and we got her a souvenir shirt. The MN Twins are probably our second favorite MLB team - at least in the American League.
Sadie and Mom are making Rumpledoodles in the second set of pics.
Sadie is going to be a ring bearer/flower girl at my friend Kadie's September wedding. This is the dress she is to wear in the ceremony - destined to become ever afterward her Angelina Ballerina dress.
This little dance move is Sadie's version of Balla Bambina, a Wiggles dance.
Sadie and her new Sandboat sandbox (before we put play-sand in it).
Sadie eats Pasta and Meatballs ("Possum and Lightbulbs") in a manner that evokes her mother about 29 years ago.
Sadie wears the turban-towel hat that her Grandma Sheri sent her, and she looks smashing as always.
Peace to All!
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
My First Meme Tag!
I'm still not too sure what exactly a "meme" is (it's not in my Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary - 1993 pre-Internet edition - and I'm too lazy to go downstairs and check my more-recent OED), but it seems to be a little chain-letter-survey do-hickey passed from one blogger to another. Rebecca from doxology tagged me, and I'm so excited. Here goes. . .
Time Passages
What was going on in your life ten years ago - 1995?
I was really hoping to be tagged for this, just because ten years ago I became a Christian. Jason and I had been dating for one and a half years, and we had just moved out to California together. I had been studying the Bible for the previous few years, and I committed myself to Christ on my twenty-first birthday. This was also the year that a young Canadian singer/songwriter released her first album, I Can Hear You. Happy tenth anniversary in the recording industry, Carolyn Arends!
What was going on in your life five years ago - 2000?
Five years ago, Jason and I moved up here to the Seattle area. He began working at the local airline up in these parts, and I was transferred to Barnes & Noble in Issaquah. Later in 2000, I was promoted to being the Community Relations Manager at B&N, which was my dream job (until I became a mama).
What was going on in your life one year ago - 2004?
Last year at this time, Jason and I were planning a vacation to Las Vegas with his sister and her husband. We were enjoying our little one-year-old, Sadie, who was toddling about on uncertain little, chubby feet. I had just finished my first college class in almost six years at Bellevue Community College (Macroeconomics - absolutely fascinating!).
What did you do yesterday - June 27, 2005?
Yesterday, I started a new blog to record in detail my excessive admiration for Jane Austen's works - Austensorium. I also baked a new kind of bread - Victorian Milk Bread - which came out surprisingly well in a beautiful S-shaped loaf. Sadie and I danced to the Wiggles in the kitchen. I made steak and green beans and mashed potatoes for dinner, and we watched a re-broadcast of the Seattle Mariners' division-winning game against the NY Yankees in 1995 (ah - the glory days!). Later in the evening, Sadie practiced her alphabet letters. Oh, I also cleaned the bathrooms - pbbbbbblt!
What are you doing today - June 28, 2005?
Well, other than tackling this meme, I want to post some more Sadie pics to my blog for the enjoyment of distant grandparents. I also want to write out a detailed packing list for our planned journey up north next week for a week-long retreat on a British Columbia island - Keats Island - with Carolyn Arends. I guess I'll also plan dinner and dust and vacuum. And, of course, play, dance and sing with Sadie. A fairly typical day for this suburban homemaker and mom.
What will you do tomorrow - June 29, 2005?
Everything I didn't get to today! Plus, more singing, dancing, playing, reading and learning with Sadie.
Five snacks you enjoy:
- Anything salty - especially pretzels and potato chips
- Homemade bread and butter
- Anna's Ginger Cookies
- Carrot Sticks
- Apples
Five songs you know all the words to:
- Oh goodness - anything by Carolyn Arends - natch!
- "Oh How the Years Go By" as sung by Amy Grant
- "Hold Me Jesus" by Rich Mullins
- "Still the One" by Shania Twain
- "All That Jazz" from the musical Chicago
(**One song I am trying to memorize the lyrics to is the hymn "It is Well with My Soul.")
Five things you would do with $100,000,000:
- I would tithe 10% to my church right off the top.
- I would give about 90% of the remainder to crisis pregnancy centers and free-market economic scholarships.
- I would pay taxes after the charitable giving had been deducted.
- I would pay off all our debts - that wouldn't amount to much, but it needs to be done.
- I would buy about 25 acres and build a nice-sized custom house with a huge kitchen, at least five bedrooms to fill up with kids, a garage full of cars for my automobile-deprived husband, a ten-stall horse stable with an indoor riding arena and a good-sized separate house for my dad and Nancy.
Five locations you would love to run away to:
- England - especially Jane Austen haunts
- Italy - everywhere!
- Greece
- Australia
- The Holy Lands, especially Jerusalem - first in my heart, last on my travel list because of security
Five things you like doing:
- Being a mom - scratch that - I love it!!
- Reading
- Writing
- Playing on the Internet
- Baking
Five things you would never wear:
- Those yucky low-rise pants that show off your "plumber's corner"
- Midriff-baring tops
- A bikini
- Bellbottom pants
- Cowboy boots
Five recently seen movies that you like:
- Topper with Cary Grant and Constance Bennett
- The Awful Truth with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne
- The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland
- The Lady Eve with Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda
- Madagascar (actually seen in a movie theater - a novel idea for the parents of a toddler!)
Five famous people I'd like to meet:
(**Okay, I'm going to assume that this means famous people who are alive and whom I have never met before and who are not Jesus - without these assumptions, this list would look very different and be comprised mostly of dead people (e.g. Jane Austen, Isabel Paterson, Carole Lombard), cool people I've been privileged to meet already (e.g. Carolyn Arends), and my Savior.)
- Thomas Sowell
- Walter Williams
- The Wiggles - assuming Sadie were with me - yes, this is cheating
- Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki, the creators of VeggieTales - yes, this is still cheating
- Randy Winn
Five biggest joys of the moment:
- Jesus - my savior, my hope, my joy always
- Sadie - my sweet little bug
- Jason - my wonderful husband
- The blogging community and all the wonderful pro-life people I've met therein - a great joy and comfort in this modern "culture of death"
- Books - "I cannot live without books." --Thomas Jefferson
Five favorite toys:
- My KitchenAid hand mixer - cobalt blue, very powerful - my kitchen gadget of choice
- Our portable DVD player - don't leave home with a toddler and get on an airplane without one!
- My computer - my portal to the outside world and my virtual community that helps me keep my sanity here in commie-land
- Chrissy Dog - technically Sadie's favorite toy - literally - but mine too because he brings her so much joy
- Our digital camera - capturing all those priceless moments of childhood, bread-baking, and garden growing (plus, Camp Carolyn!)
Five people to tag:
(**This will be the most difficult, since I know so few bloggers. Here goes. . .)
- Carolyn Arends (oh, she'll probably never see this, but I'll give it a go anyway!)
(**If you've been tagged with this before, I apologize. I know most bloggers from others' blogs, so it is rather clumped, and we all seem to know the same people.)
(Do you like my patriotic homage to my country's upcoming birthday in the color scheme of this post?)
Peace to All!
Thursday, June 23, 2005
The Obligatory Krishna "The Fetus Eater" Rajanna Post
Like any community, virtual or otherwise, certain news stories sweep through like proverbial wildfires, singeing all discourse with their influence until they die out and normal discussion can resume. The pro-life community is not immune to this sort of media overload and perverse attraction to the exaggerated and peculiar. Because our passion centers around righting the most horrific of modern travesties - the wanton slaying of pre-born human babies - we never seem to lack for a macabre story-of-the-moment on which to focus our indignation. The story of this moment is the now-infamous (to pro-lifers, at least) abortion butcher, Krishna Rajanna from beautiful downtown Kansas City, Kansas. I'm not above the fray, so here's my offering:
This fearless provider of essential women's health services came under persecution in August 2003 because evil anti-choicers "blew the whistle" on his caring and courageous facility, Affordable Medical and Surgical Services, that helped women take full responsibility for their bodies by mercilessly slaughtering the innocent babies who happened to have temporary residence inside them. This poor, beleaguered defender of a woman's right to take a contract out on the life of the most defenseless of human souls was simply too busy ensuring that nothing stood in the way of a woman murdering her child to keep his death chambers sanitary or his person clean. Oh yeah, he also supposedly liked to mix a little bit of aborted human beings in with his curry for a tasty luncheon (and so nutritious too - what a way to get those yummy, all-healing embryonic stem cells while by-passing completely those rabid religious freaks who think somehow that the only persons entitled to embryonic stem cells are the babies to whom they belong - but I digress).
Jill Stanek, a writer of exceptional power who brims with righteous anger, has picked up this story and has written an opinion piece on it for World Net Daily (complete with picture links - not to be missed!). Here are some choice quotes on the lengths to which Butcher Rajanna was willing to go to ensure that a woman's experience in his mill was one that she fully deserved:
These are quotes and summations from the testimony of William Howard, the Kansas City Police Department (KCPD) detective who was the first on the scene to respond to an employee theft incident reported by that gem of a human person, Krishna Rajanna.
"The clinic was dark, dingy, had poor lighting and smelled musty. There were dirty dishes in the break-room sink and on the table, trash everywhere, and roaches crawling on the countertops."
"Rajanna lacked personal hygiene. His hair was messy, hands dirty, and his clothing was sprinkled and stained. He put on old, used foot booties while we were there."
Howard's partner spotted dried blood on the floor of the procedure room [read: killing floor] and said that the room looked nasty.
Of course, add to this one employee's account to Howard that she and others witnessed Rajanna "microwave one of the aborted fetuses and stir it into his lunch." [Not that there should be anything wrong with this - it's not like they were human or anything.]
Rajanna dropped the theft charge after he had difficulty recalling when the alleged thefts occurred and was not organized enough to locate any documents to support his allegations. Now, the Kansas City Police Department had a very different type of case on its hands.
Kansans for Life (KFL) had been trying to call to the attention of the Kansas Board for the Healing Arts Krishna Rajanna's "medical practices" for years. The Kansas Board of Healing Arts rightly replied that since abortion has nothing whatsoever to do with healing, and less still to do with art, this case was out of their jurisdiction. Okay, that's not what happened, but it should have. No, the BOHA (as in evil laughter: bo-ha-ha-ha-ha) lackadaisically disciplined him in 2000 and 2001 ("Oh you naughty, little baby butcher, shame, shame, shame!") and finally revoked his license a few weeks ago. Who would like to figure the odds of that having happened had the grisly testimony of the KCPD and the relentless pursuit by KFL not been given prominence by the alternative media?
This whole controversy sparked in Kansas a legislative bill requiring abortion clinics to obtain an annual license from the Department of Health and Environment, hire surgeons as their medical directors and report patient deaths to the state within a day. The measure also mandated that the department set standards for equipment, medical screenings, ventilation and lighting. This bill passed the state legislature and was vetoed by Governor Kathleen "Abortion is All About Women's Health - No Really, It Is" Sebelius. You can read the follow-up to the June 14 World Net Daily article here.
Okay, so there's the bare-bones of the situation. Why does this admittedly-disgusting case have pro-lifers all up-in-arms? I mean, really, it's gross and ghastly, but is it all that controversial?
Why should we be surprised to find that the earthly outposts where Satan does some of his finest work would resemble scenes from Hieronymus Bosch's Hell? Why would we think that one of his prime demons of destruction would not be abhorrent in appearance, filthy in practices, absolutely degenerate in all aspects of his life and his work? Isn't it stranger and more unthinkable (and hence truly more horrifying) that babies be torn from the womb, either ripped into pieces or burned through with saline, in a clean, cheerful environment by a smiling, wholesome-looking butcher and disposed of sanitarily, like so much garbage? When we reflect on the place where innocent children are consigned to death by their mothers - by the ones who should most be interested in their protection and welfare - why would we ever imagine that it would be a wonderful world of happiness and light?
All right. Probably a lot of pro-lifers will take me to task for these sentiments which I am about to express, but I think that more abortion mills should be like Old Rajanna's. Going in to kill your child should not be pleasant, should not be reassuring, should not, in any way, give you comfort or solace. I know, I know . . . sympathy for aborting women is all the rage right now in the pro-life movement. It is quite en vogue right now to see them as victims, as dupes in the game of death that the pro-aborts hold so dear. I say: tough pucky of the bull kind. Inside a woman - deep in her core, in the very essence of her soul - she knows that murdering her child - no matter how small that child is - is wrong, wrong, wrong. She needs to be held accountable for this - if women are truly responsible, rational, intelligent beings, then there is no excuse for killing an inconvenient child. Period.
Have you ever seen a movie or read a book about evil? So often, that evil is not explicitly shown as such from the onset of the story. In order to show the most horrifying evil, the storyteller will introduce you to an attractive character - a disarmingly nice guy or a sexy, charismatic woman. You are drawn to them, like them, sympathize with them. Then - BOOM! A crack appears and the full tide of evil spills out - their faces become as ugly as their souls, their actions turn from understandable to reprehensible - they turn heart-stoppingly, gut-wrenchingly scary. This is the kind of terror that grips us most - the incomprehensibly evil and demonic cloaked unassumingly in everyday ordinariness or even in exceeding beauty.
Compare this exemplification with the "obviously evil" portrayals in some storytelling. Whether the villain skulks about with a cape up to his face, or the monster has bolts protruding from his neck, or the raging man-beast shows off his wildly tufted facial hair and canine teeth, you know in a moment that this guy means trouble. Most often, these portraits verge on cartoonish and provoke laughter and revulsion rather than stone-cold terror.
Rajanna fits much more readily into this latter group. He is an overtly evil man in an evil profession - appearances match actions. Nobody meeting him for the first time would be drawn to him as a person - no one would expect better from him than they would get. His business is stopping and destroying life, and he brings to this vicious and violent line a certain panache for depravity that embodies the way that any sane person should view the institutionalized mass-killings of children for profit. So, Old Baby-Eater doesn't startle me - he's what I expect from an industry of death.
Now, what follows is what I find truly chilling and haunting and soul-churning (and almost more evil than KR):
The man who kisses his wife and children good-bye in the morning and then goes off to his "office," puts on his white coat, chats amiably with his "patients," and smilingly rips children from their home and chops them into disposable pieces and labels these remains "toxic waste." He calls himself a doctor. Maybe on weekends he goes to his United Methodist church and sings in the choir about the Holy One.
The husband and wife who have two beautiful, well-cared-for children on whom they lavish all that money can buy. They live in a nice suburban home, with two cars in the garage and a well-manicured lawn tended to by professional gardeners. Then, they find out that they are pregnant with a third child - a unique but oh-so-inconvenient human soul that is the product of their (presumably) intimate love. A quick swing by the local abortionist, and it's off to Bloomingdale's for a new tennis outfit.
The abortion advocate who is being interviewed on television - averring in a reasonable, well-modulated voice that of course a woman has an unmitigated right to murder her child in the womb - a "right to choose" - all the while resting her lovely hands so gently on her own swollen, pregnant belly.
The strict vegetarian whose undefiled lips have never touched steak and who rescues unwanted pet rabbits in her spare time and finds good homes for them to be adopted into, yet aborts her child that was conceived inconveniently through a not-so-fastidious, casual sexual encounter.
The "pro-choice" woman who excitedly buys gifts for the baby that her pregnant friend is carrying - acknowledging by her actions that, yes, there is definitely a little human in there - and yet would think nothing of it if that friend had instead changed her mind and aborted that child's young life.
A country, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights - among these life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - that apathetically sits back and allows its littlest, most vulnerable citizens to be systematically eliminated under a morally bankrupt assertion that one person has a legitimate "choice" to end another's life.
Yep, these are the things that drive my complete abhorrence of this despicable practice of abortion. Krishna Rajanna is a gross, disgusting, but completely understandable reflection of this vile infanticide. Why would you expect a person whose living is earned through murder to be any different? It's the normalcy of the others described that torments my soul - the monsters hidden among us.
Why should we keep whitewashing the tombs or scrubbing the outside of filthy cups and platters? Why not let the outside match the inside - as Rajanna has clearly decided to do? Why not embrace this honesty instead of shrinking from it? The depravity of sanctioning abortion through legalization is starting to peep out through cracks in the seemingly-benign rhetoric of the pro-abortion establishment that has too long been strangling this country. Rajanna is merely one of those cracks through which you can observe the abyss of Hell.
This fearless provider of essential women's health services came under persecution in August 2003 because evil anti-choicers "blew the whistle" on his caring and courageous facility, Affordable Medical and Surgical Services, that helped women take full responsibility for their bodies by mercilessly slaughtering the innocent babies who happened to have temporary residence inside them. This poor, beleaguered defender of a woman's right to take a contract out on the life of the most defenseless of human souls was simply too busy ensuring that nothing stood in the way of a woman murdering her child to keep his death chambers sanitary or his person clean. Oh yeah, he also supposedly liked to mix a little bit of aborted human beings in with his curry for a tasty luncheon (and so nutritious too - what a way to get those yummy, all-healing embryonic stem cells while by-passing completely those rabid religious freaks who think somehow that the only persons entitled to embryonic stem cells are the babies to whom they belong - but I digress).
Jill Stanek, a writer of exceptional power who brims with righteous anger, has picked up this story and has written an opinion piece on it for World Net Daily (complete with picture links - not to be missed!). Here are some choice quotes on the lengths to which Butcher Rajanna was willing to go to ensure that a woman's experience in his mill was one that she fully deserved:
These are quotes and summations from the testimony of William Howard, the Kansas City Police Department (KCPD) detective who was the first on the scene to respond to an employee theft incident reported by that gem of a human person, Krishna Rajanna.
"The clinic was dark, dingy, had poor lighting and smelled musty. There were dirty dishes in the break-room sink and on the table, trash everywhere, and roaches crawling on the countertops."
"Rajanna lacked personal hygiene. His hair was messy, hands dirty, and his clothing was sprinkled and stained. He put on old, used foot booties while we were there."
Howard's partner spotted dried blood on the floor of the procedure room [read: killing floor] and said that the room looked nasty.
Of course, add to this one employee's account to Howard that she and others witnessed Rajanna "microwave one of the aborted fetuses and stir it into his lunch." [Not that there should be anything wrong with this - it's not like they were human or anything.]
Rajanna dropped the theft charge after he had difficulty recalling when the alleged thefts occurred and was not organized enough to locate any documents to support his allegations. Now, the Kansas City Police Department had a very different type of case on its hands.
Kansans for Life (KFL) had been trying to call to the attention of the Kansas Board for the Healing Arts Krishna Rajanna's "medical practices" for years. The Kansas Board of Healing Arts rightly replied that since abortion has nothing whatsoever to do with healing, and less still to do with art, this case was out of their jurisdiction. Okay, that's not what happened, but it should have. No, the BOHA (as in evil laughter: bo-ha-ha-ha-ha) lackadaisically disciplined him in 2000 and 2001 ("Oh you naughty, little baby butcher, shame, shame, shame!") and finally revoked his license a few weeks ago. Who would like to figure the odds of that having happened had the grisly testimony of the KCPD and the relentless pursuit by KFL not been given prominence by the alternative media?
This whole controversy sparked in Kansas a legislative bill requiring abortion clinics to obtain an annual license from the Department of Health and Environment, hire surgeons as their medical directors and report patient deaths to the state within a day. The measure also mandated that the department set standards for equipment, medical screenings, ventilation and lighting. This bill passed the state legislature and was vetoed by Governor Kathleen "Abortion is All About Women's Health - No Really, It Is" Sebelius. You can read the follow-up to the June 14 World Net Daily article here.
Okay, so there's the bare-bones of the situation. Why does this admittedly-disgusting case have pro-lifers all up-in-arms? I mean, really, it's gross and ghastly, but is it all that controversial?
Why should we be surprised to find that the earthly outposts where Satan does some of his finest work would resemble scenes from Hieronymus Bosch's Hell? Why would we think that one of his prime demons of destruction would not be abhorrent in appearance, filthy in practices, absolutely degenerate in all aspects of his life and his work? Isn't it stranger and more unthinkable (and hence truly more horrifying) that babies be torn from the womb, either ripped into pieces or burned through with saline, in a clean, cheerful environment by a smiling, wholesome-looking butcher and disposed of sanitarily, like so much garbage? When we reflect on the place where innocent children are consigned to death by their mothers - by the ones who should most be interested in their protection and welfare - why would we ever imagine that it would be a wonderful world of happiness and light?
All right. Probably a lot of pro-lifers will take me to task for these sentiments which I am about to express, but I think that more abortion mills should be like Old Rajanna's. Going in to kill your child should not be pleasant, should not be reassuring, should not, in any way, give you comfort or solace. I know, I know . . . sympathy for aborting women is all the rage right now in the pro-life movement. It is quite en vogue right now to see them as victims, as dupes in the game of death that the pro-aborts hold so dear. I say: tough pucky of the bull kind. Inside a woman - deep in her core, in the very essence of her soul - she knows that murdering her child - no matter how small that child is - is wrong, wrong, wrong. She needs to be held accountable for this - if women are truly responsible, rational, intelligent beings, then there is no excuse for killing an inconvenient child. Period.
Have you ever seen a movie or read a book about evil? So often, that evil is not explicitly shown as such from the onset of the story. In order to show the most horrifying evil, the storyteller will introduce you to an attractive character - a disarmingly nice guy or a sexy, charismatic woman. You are drawn to them, like them, sympathize with them. Then - BOOM! A crack appears and the full tide of evil spills out - their faces become as ugly as their souls, their actions turn from understandable to reprehensible - they turn heart-stoppingly, gut-wrenchingly scary. This is the kind of terror that grips us most - the incomprehensibly evil and demonic cloaked unassumingly in everyday ordinariness or even in exceeding beauty.
Compare this exemplification with the "obviously evil" portrayals in some storytelling. Whether the villain skulks about with a cape up to his face, or the monster has bolts protruding from his neck, or the raging man-beast shows off his wildly tufted facial hair and canine teeth, you know in a moment that this guy means trouble. Most often, these portraits verge on cartoonish and provoke laughter and revulsion rather than stone-cold terror.
Rajanna fits much more readily into this latter group. He is an overtly evil man in an evil profession - appearances match actions. Nobody meeting him for the first time would be drawn to him as a person - no one would expect better from him than they would get. His business is stopping and destroying life, and he brings to this vicious and violent line a certain panache for depravity that embodies the way that any sane person should view the institutionalized mass-killings of children for profit. So, Old Baby-Eater doesn't startle me - he's what I expect from an industry of death.
Now, what follows is what I find truly chilling and haunting and soul-churning (and almost more evil than KR):
The man who kisses his wife and children good-bye in the morning and then goes off to his "office," puts on his white coat, chats amiably with his "patients," and smilingly rips children from their home and chops them into disposable pieces and labels these remains "toxic waste." He calls himself a doctor. Maybe on weekends he goes to his United Methodist church and sings in the choir about the Holy One.
The husband and wife who have two beautiful, well-cared-for children on whom they lavish all that money can buy. They live in a nice suburban home, with two cars in the garage and a well-manicured lawn tended to by professional gardeners. Then, they find out that they are pregnant with a third child - a unique but oh-so-inconvenient human soul that is the product of their (presumably) intimate love. A quick swing by the local abortionist, and it's off to Bloomingdale's for a new tennis outfit.
The abortion advocate who is being interviewed on television - averring in a reasonable, well-modulated voice that of course a woman has an unmitigated right to murder her child in the womb - a "right to choose" - all the while resting her lovely hands so gently on her own swollen, pregnant belly.
The strict vegetarian whose undefiled lips have never touched steak and who rescues unwanted pet rabbits in her spare time and finds good homes for them to be adopted into, yet aborts her child that was conceived inconveniently through a not-so-fastidious, casual sexual encounter.
The "pro-choice" woman who excitedly buys gifts for the baby that her pregnant friend is carrying - acknowledging by her actions that, yes, there is definitely a little human in there - and yet would think nothing of it if that friend had instead changed her mind and aborted that child's young life.
A country, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights - among these life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - that apathetically sits back and allows its littlest, most vulnerable citizens to be systematically eliminated under a morally bankrupt assertion that one person has a legitimate "choice" to end another's life.
Yep, these are the things that drive my complete abhorrence of this despicable practice of abortion. Krishna Rajanna is a gross, disgusting, but completely understandable reflection of this vile infanticide. Why would you expect a person whose living is earned through murder to be any different? It's the normalcy of the others described that torments my soul - the monsters hidden among us.
Why should we keep whitewashing the tombs or scrubbing the outside of filthy cups and platters? Why not let the outside match the inside - as Rajanna has clearly decided to do? Why not embrace this honesty instead of shrinking from it? The depravity of sanctioning abortion through legalization is starting to peep out through cracks in the seemingly-benign rhetoric of the pro-abortion establishment that has too long been strangling this country. Rajanna is merely one of those cracks through which you can observe the abyss of Hell.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
The Sailor's Hornpipe
Sadie Says . . .
"Jenny Linsky dances the Sailor's Hornpipe the best,
but
I dance it a lot better than you guys!"
(Thus spoke Sadiethustra to hapless Mom and Dad after observing our sad renditions of said dance - which were, by the way, only undertaken after her strong and repeated exhortations to cut a rug in the mariner way.) (From the mouth of babes, eh?)
Jenny Linsky dances the Sailor's Hornpipe
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Sadie and Jesus Again: Prayer and Dental Hygiene
Two things that Sadie loves to do are pray and brush her teeth.
When Jason was putting a decorative fence around our tomato plants two weeks ago, Sadie clasped her hands and bowed her head and said, "Let's pray." She proceeded to lead us in a prayer of thanksgiving for our home and our family and our tomato plants.
Last night, in the middle of dancing around the living room with Mom and Dad, Sadie stopped and said, "I want to pray." Clasped hands and bowed head and a prayer of thanksgiving for "Mama and Daddy and me" followed.
So many times, before doing anything, from reading a book to eating a piece of candy, Sadie wants to "pray first."
Sadie is also constantly stealing into the bathroom and grabbing her toothbrush or my toothbrush and brushing her teeth. She's very proud of her small, white "chompers," and loves to show them off at every opportunity.
The cool thing about her two latest obsessions is that they are both very, very good for her and are hardly ever inappropriate. Can a child brush her teeth too often? Oh, probably . . . but I do not think Sadie goes overboard by brushing 3-4 times a day. Can a person pray too often? I do not think so. About five years ago, I awoke in the morning with the imperative "Pray without ceasing" placed upon my heart. This command was seared into my being, and, while I have certainly fallen short of pure obedience, it serves as a constant tether from God's heart to mine. If I stray too far from His purpose, it gives me a little pull and draws me back onto my knees.
I think that I tend to mix both schools, both setting aside formal times for communion with the Most High, but also, through the boldness granted by trust in my Savior, calling on God at a moment's notice. I find that a quick prayer for strength or guidance, particularly in the midst of a stressful family situation, helps me to focus on Him instead of myself, and this "stepping back" grants immeasurable peace. I know that this privilege of prayer has helped to keep me from saying or doing things to the people I love that I would later regret. The adage holds true: We don't pray to change God, but to let God change us.
More and more, as I grow in this blessed faith given to me ten years ago, I want only to live these words penned by Keith Green:
When Jason was putting a decorative fence around our tomato plants two weeks ago, Sadie clasped her hands and bowed her head and said, "Let's pray." She proceeded to lead us in a prayer of thanksgiving for our home and our family and our tomato plants.
Last night, in the middle of dancing around the living room with Mom and Dad, Sadie stopped and said, "I want to pray." Clasped hands and bowed head and a prayer of thanksgiving for "Mama and Daddy and me" followed.
So many times, before doing anything, from reading a book to eating a piece of candy, Sadie wants to "pray first."
Sadie is also constantly stealing into the bathroom and grabbing her toothbrush or my toothbrush and brushing her teeth. She's very proud of her small, white "chompers," and loves to show them off at every opportunity.
The cool thing about her two latest obsessions is that they are both very, very good for her and are hardly ever inappropriate. Can a child brush her teeth too often? Oh, probably . . . but I do not think Sadie goes overboard by brushing 3-4 times a day. Can a person pray too often? I do not think so. About five years ago, I awoke in the morning with the imperative "Pray without ceasing" placed upon my heart. This command was seared into my being, and, while I have certainly fallen short of pure obedience, it serves as a constant tether from God's heart to mine. If I stray too far from His purpose, it gives me a little pull and draws me back onto my knees.
I think that I tend to mix both schools, both setting aside formal times for communion with the Most High, but also, through the boldness granted by trust in my Savior, calling on God at a moment's notice. I find that a quick prayer for strength or guidance, particularly in the midst of a stressful family situation, helps me to focus on Him instead of myself, and this "stepping back" grants immeasurable peace. I know that this privilege of prayer has helped to keep me from saying or doing things to the people I love that I would later regret. The adage holds true: We don't pray to change God, but to let God change us.
More and more, as I grow in this blessed faith given to me ten years ago, I want only to live these words penned by Keith Green:
Make my life a prayer to You
I wanna do what You want me to
No empty words and no white lies
No token prayers, no compromise
Keith Green, circa 1982 (from Make My Life a Prayer by Keith Green, Harvest House Publishers, 2001)
To my Sadie-Bug: Keep on Little Prayer Warrior. I love watching you grow and learn about the Lord. He Who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it . . .I hope you are always 100% cavity-free - in your teeth and in your soul.
Peace to all!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)