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Our Daily Thread 12-14-13

Good Morning!

11 Days Until Christmas!

On this day in 1799 the first president of the United States, George Washington, died at the age 67.

In 1819 Alabama joined the Union as the 22nd state. 

In 1903 Orville Wright made the first attempt at powered flight. The engine stalled during take-off and the plane was damaged in the attempt. Three days later, after repairs were made, the modern aviation age was born when the plane stayed aloft for 12 seconds and flew 102 feet.

In 1945 Josef Kramer, known as “the beast of Belsen,” and 10 others were executed in Hamelin for the crimes they committed at the Belsen and Auschwitz Nazi concentration camps.

And in 1985 Wilma Mankiller became the first woman to lead a major American Indian tribe as she formally took office as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation of OKlahoma.

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Quote of the Day

“Christmas, my child, is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it’s Christmas.”

Dale Evans

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First up today, some Rich Mullins.

Next, Evie.

And some Reliant K too.

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Anyone have a QoD for us?

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And one last thing……..

GO ARMY!

army 2

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71 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 12-14-13”

  2. I doubt that Army has much of a chance, but I hope so.
    I really don’t have a horse in this race.

    George Washington’s doctors killed him while trying to help. In those days, doctors bled patients because they thought they had too much blood. I never understood their logic.

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  5. Once upon a time I attended an Army-Navy Game at Veteran’s Memorial Stadium in Philidelphia. It was cold and not just misplaced Souther Girl cold. It was FREEZING. I was wearing layers upon layers and it was cold.
    College Boyfriend was a Midshipman and he BFF from highschool was a Cadet at Westpoint. We all met up after the game to go out. As I walked out of the stadium with a midshipman on one arm and a cadet on the other the Philidelphia cop looked at me, chuckled, and said “Whazzamatta honey, can’t make up your mind?”
    GO NAVY BEAT army

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  7. Funny, Kim. I mean about the cop’s comment.

    AJ- I remember Evie. I saw her in concert back in ’78. Such a fresh face and voice. She had pipes! If one only heard her, one would not think of a 4’11” girl (she was 16 when she got to the big time). I still have a couple of her albums, but they were played so much they have worn grooves, so they don’t make good mp3 conversions.

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  9. Since it’s the first real snowfall for us, I decided to change my gravatar to one of the Arizona desert after a rare snowfall. I didn’t take the picture, by the way. It’s from the Arizona Highways magazine website.

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  14. Anonymous, you have got some of the geekiest of geeks at the Naval Academy and the Military Academy. They do stuff like that in their spare time. My understanding is it is a spirit contest.

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  15. Nice to know, Kim. It just looked a little too polished for me. My FB page is filled with all the acad grads being true to their school. Fortunately, Navy has the same colors as UCLA . . . 🙂

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  17. I went to an Evie concert once, in Pullman, Washington. We were in the far far far far far far back seats. Way up high. I think it was Evie. I could not actually see her, but I heard her. I could have stayed home and listened to the record.

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  20. Donna, @3:37.
    Me neither, but I didn’t want to say nothing about it.
    Everybody already thinks I’m not with it.
    The world is passing me by.
    The man from yesteryear.

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  26. working on packing my bag, mostly full of mail and gifts. Pickup for the first flight is 6:30am tomorrow morning. Hoping for 3 flights tomorrow and ending up in Sydney. Prayers appreciated.

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  29. The real, thanks so much for posting Evie today. I am playing some of her music that has suddenly become available on the internet. Why was it not there when I looked in the past? Who only knows.

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  30. Mumsee, every time you mention another song, more memories come flooding back. I accompanied my best friend on the piano when she sang one of Evie’s songs in church. I forget which one, but it’s in my Evie songbook. I forgot I even owned that!

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  31. Evie- Clean Before My Lord. If I had an MP3 or some such thing, I would put this on it for my walking on the treadmill time. I suspect husband knows that and it will be made so, soon.

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  34. Don’t ya’ll remember when Evie was on Billy Graham’s Crusade team?! Now you have me listening to her music again and I love it! I always thought she was so cute…with her dimples and all….and she has such a sweet gentle spirit about her…wonder what she is doing now?

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  35. Wow, Aj, you have just given Mumsee a wonderful Christmas present. I promise to go listen to all of these when I get to the land where you don’t pay by the megabyte.

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  37. Wow, has mumsee been busy! I think I may go dig out my Evie albums. When I went to the concert we sat a lot closer then way up high. She was on a revolving stage, so some of the time we saw her from behind. I knew a promoter who had met her and he got us a meet and greet. That girl was the real thing, not just some super star that lost her humanity.

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  38. Good job Mumsee! 🙂

    And no, you didn’t break any laws. We allow that here. You can do that with any Youtube video. Right click, chose the top choice for copy video url, paste in the comment box and bam, there it is. Cool right? 🙂

    My wife just introduced me to Evie yesterday. She has a lovely voice.

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  39. And really, can we pass the ball once in awhile? You know, like real teams do for cryin’ out loud. Running the ball on 3rd and 11 is not an offensive game plan. It’s as predictable as all get up, so much so that even Navy figured it out years ago. 🙂

    This isn’t gonna stop until you learn to throw the ball when you have to.

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  41. Well, I never heard of Evie before today, but ABBA (how do you do a backwards B on here?) — them I know. 😉

    “You are the dancing queen…” 🙂

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  42. “I believe there will be more in Heaven than in hell. If anyone asks me why I think so, I answer, because Christ, in everything, is to “have the preeminence,” and I cannot conceive how He could have the preeminence if there are to be more in the dominions of Satan than in Paradise.” — Spurgeon

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  43. Evie! Evie? Does she sing “Christian Songs”? I have never listened to “Christian Music” (“pop style”) that I enjoyed. I don’t listen to pop music anymore. I quit somewhere in the ’70’s. then my first son listened to Boy George. I tuned out and haven’t turned on the music station since.

    Last week I tried listening to KLUV (I think that’s what it is), a Christian station. I knew nothing and wasn’t interested.

    My wife says that I am a Dud. For various reasons I have missed church the last 2 Sundays. I am afraid to go before Christmas; I am afraid that there will be no Christmas Carols. None. If I don’t go and therefore don’t know I won’t have to pick a fight with the music man.

    “Matt. Can you please explain why there were no Christmas Carols in church?”

    He is wrong about this but either can’t see it or won’t admit it.

    Is it possible that I am wrong and that not having any Christmas Carols is the right thing to do? I am not noticing many Christmas Carols on TV or on the radio since Thanksgiving.

    I am tired of politics being about nationalized health care and little else. I am tired of the lies of Democrats and Republicans are only a little better. My knees hurt and I can see knee operations in my future. I need to build a greenhouse for my wife’s Fuchsias and tomatoes in the summer. (We here in Redwood country really need a green house to grow tomatoes in. It is too cold here for them in the summer.) I also need to build her a solid roofed Lath house with sides that roll down for the rest of the Fuchsias.

    I don’t know what to get my wife for Christmas. I have to clean my office at home to get ready for taxes next year. I HATE income taxes. Not paying them, figuring them out.

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  44. Bob, so sorry for how you are feeling. No, you are not wrong, carols should definitely be sung at this time of year in church. We, too, are always disappointed that we only get to sing a few before Christmas and if we miss the Christmas Eve service, that’s it. So we make sure and sing and listen to them at home.

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  45. Well Bob, I could have almost written your rant.
    I did an open house yesterday for a large nationwide builder from 10-5 I am doing it again today from 1-5. I am not too good to turn my nose up at anything. Wish my well.

    We should close the Brown’s house tomorrow at 2:30. I have a co-listing with my friend Leesee. We gpt am accepted offer on it yesterday. Can’t complain about that.

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  46. Yes, Bob, she does sing Christmas carols, and gospel, and the need for Christ, and hymns. She married a Swedish ? pastor and at some time, moved back to California. Don’t know where they are now.

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  47. We sang Christmas carols in church this morning. The pastor is preaching a series, generally entitled, “It isn’t the presents, it’s the gift”, This morning, “Rethinking Christmas.” Four sermons on John 3:16. This morning’s message was on the word “gave”. We have a musical tonight, Christmas music by “The Singing Saints”. Our old folks choir. I’m not in it; that’s why they are very good.

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  48. Bob, most churches I’ve been part of have sung Christmas carols in December; my current church does not. But the early church would not have sung Christmas carols, so I don’t see how the lack of them is a “gospel issue” or a reason to stay away from church. If they’re perverting the Gospel, then find a new church. But singing / not singing carols is a “preference” issue, and not stronger than your need to be under the preaching of God’s Word and in communion with His saints.

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  49. Bob, in the Anglican tradition we sing O Come O Come Emmanuel every Sunday until Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve through Epiphany we sing Christmas Carols.

    I LOVE Christmas music but haven’t heard much of it this year.

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  50. On another note, just because by now all of you know I have a twisted sense of humor…
    This morning as we were getting ready for church, Mr. P asked me how it was going to work this weekend with Middle Son (J) here and BG here. (The reason for the question is BG has taken to sleeping in the guest room because she can’t get a wi-fi signal in her room–her choice of rooms). My answer was that it would be just fine, “I am looking forward to having TWO children under my roof who can’t stand me!” That is until Christmas Eve when I will have THREE because I have invited Youngest Son to spend the night and celebrate with us.

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  51. I like the vision of a people in waiting for a Savior and THEN the Light of the World appears. What a beautiful if mournful song. Think of weeks of singing this only to burst out in Joy to the World on Christmas Eve

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  53. I miss the traditional service I grew up in during Christmas….singing Christmas carols from the church hymnal…lighted candles, a sense of reverence in the congregation….
    Today we started the service singing Feliz Navidad….arghh!!!! I do not like that song on the radio and especially do not like it sung in church! The next song sung was Silent Night…in the traditional melody, no drums or hip swinging beat! that was a refreshing change….ok…done with my rant of the day….(I do so love our church, but, ever so often I just cannot take some of the music and “noise”….I keep it to myself…well except to rant to you all or my husband…)
    Here is a link to an article which details Evie’s life then and now….
    http://www.homecomingmagazine.com/article/hall-of-honor-evie/

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  54. We lost the leader of our “praise band” the first of October. I feel bad that it made me so happy. I can actually follow along with the music now and it doesn’t take 20 minutes of music for the church service to start.
    Do you think eventually there will be a backlash against all this and people will return to more traditional music?

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  55. We typically include one Christmas carol per service in the month of December leading up to Christmas (we also have a Christmas Eve service where more are sung). Today’s carol, included among our regular singing, was “O Come, All Ye Faithful.”

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  56. Kim, I think the trend back toward more traditional worship in general already is going on — young people prefer it, ironically. It’s us “older” former rock-and-rollers who insist still on making church hip and loud and ‘relevant.’ 🙄

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  57. Kim & Donna seem to think we will go back to “traditional” music.
    You need to understand that what you hear is “traditional” to the generation that plays it.
    We have three services at FBCHNC, two of them are “contemporary”
    Mostly old folks attend the early service. Some young one, but they are few.
    When we die out, so will the music.
    However, Chuck is almost 55, and he likes the “traditional” music. And his family attends theie “traditional” service.

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  58. Not to change the subject, but …last week I linked to the first post in a series at my friend’s blog. The 4-part series, entitled “One Woman’s Story: Addiction, Adultery, Abortion and Atonement is now posted in its entirety. Very powerful testimony of what the Lord did in the life of Megan, one of my friend’s readers, and Megan’s husband, following his addiction to alcohol, his adultery, and Megan’s abortion. Much of the story is heart-wrenching (parts 2 and 3 in particular, describing the day before and the day of her abortion), but part 4 shows forth so clearly God’s grace and mercy in the lives of this couple and their marriage.

    http://www.generationcedar.com

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  59. Chas, once again my twistedness takes over. I pass a church quite often that has it’s comtemporary service at 8am and it’s traditional service at 11am. Quite the switch from how it used to be when I had to drag a toddler out at 8am for the Rite 1 service. 😉

    6Arrows I was wanting to read all of that blog. Thanks

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  61. You all are welcome to attend our December services (or any of them actually). We sing hymns every Sunday, usually acapella, unless we have a visitor with a violin or guitar or who plays keyboard. 🙂 Not only that, we pick our own songs every Sunday. So if you want to sing a Christmas carol in July, you pick it and we’ll sing it! One of our new missionaries is having a great time this year picking Christmas carols because she never felt like they sang them enough in their church in the U.S.

    Now, if you prefer choruses, you need to come to our Wednesday night prayer meeting where we sing only choruses. Acapella. Again, you get to pick them. If you can teach us a new one, we love that. We stay a few years out of date from the latest choruses being used in the U.S. And then we just pray…for about 45 minutes.

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  62. I read the four part series from 6 Arrows, and have a variety of reactions.
    1. as a PCC volunteer, a woman often will go through an abortion when she doesn’t feel any support from the father, even if she doesn’t want to have an abortion. That’s exactly what happened to this woman.

    2. While her story has a happy ending, I would not encourage a woman to go through what she went through without the support of a church body, particularly a pastor or other professional, standing by. God does work miracles, but prayer support is vital.

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  64. Traditional music is probably not a very good term. It doesn’t mean “old.” It means music with some doctrinal and theological substance. There are many new pieces being written that meet that criteria. We sing those. 🙂

    There also are many ‘traditional hymns’ that folks grew up with that don’t meat that criteria. We don’t sing those.

    But when it comes to the order of a worship service, a liturgy if you will, young people (according to polls I’ve read about) are seeking churches with more order, with more history & depth, with more substance.

    Church services that mimic the wider popular culture, complete with their loud bands and techno-screens and ‘hip,’ topical sermonettes, typically with no time set aside for the Lord’s Supper, are falling out of favor (and rightly so, I think).

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  65. Bob- I agree with Cheryl. The early church didn’t celebrate Jesus’ birthday, just the resurrection. It wasn’t until Constantine made Christianity the national religion. Then you had all these pagans celebrating Saturnalia, so the “church” had to have a celebration to keep them away from the pagan version. So, they chose December 25 as the birth of the Son, instead of the birth of the sun. Most likely, Jesus was born in the Fall or late summer, as shepherds did not “watch their flocks by night” in December. Yes, it does get cold in the desert Middle East, as evidenced by the foot of snow in Jerusalem yesterday.

    So go to church, sing as unto the Lord, no matter what the music. After all, the worship service is for honoring God, not for our pleasure.

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  66. Donna is correct @ 5:41. Traditional doens’t mean “Old”. It means that it has a melody and has theological substance. People go around humming traditional music, not the contemporary.

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  67. MIt ichelle. Thank you for your #2 in the above post. Several years ago I did some counceling with abused women. It is amazing and sad how many keep going back until what little bit of support they have give up on THEM! In the middle of the tornado it is hard to discern whether to stay or go. I would err on the side of protecting the children whether that meant staying or going. Most of the time it would mean going unless you had a whole lot of support.
    I had an abused friend whose family spent the night in a hotel waiting for her husband to leave for work. By the time he got home that night she and her children were packed up, moved out, and in a new city.

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  68. Bob, a couple more thoughts: one is that you sound discouraged, and while it can be easy to come up with reasons (excuses) to avoid church when you are discouraged, that is the time you need the body more. Second, you are head of your household, and thus have the greater responsibility to see that the example you set is good.

    You can play Christmas carols at home, even in the car on the way to church; nothing says that church is the only place one can hear them, or that the carols are an important part of the service even if they are used.

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  69. http://www.worldviewchurch.org/wvc-digest/featured-articles/20914-lets-rethink-our-holly-jolly-christmas-songs

    From the Russell Moore blog

    ” … some of the blame is on our sentimentalized Christmas of the American civil religion. Simeon the prophet never wished anyone a “holly-jolly Christmas” or envisioned anything about chestnuts roasting on an open fire. But there’s our songs too, the songs of the church. We ought to make sure that what we sing measures up with the, as this fellow would put it, ‘narrative tension’ of the Christmas story.

    “The first Christmas carol, after all, was a war hymn. Mary of Nazareth sings of God’s defeat of his enemies, about how in Christ he had demonstrated his power and “has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate” (Lk. 1:52). There are some villains in mind there.

    ” … We have a rich and complicated and often appropriately dark Christmas hymnody. We can sing of blessings flowing ‘far as the curse is found,’ of the one who came to ‘free us all from Satan’s power.’

    “Let’s sing that, every now and then, where we can be overheard.”

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  71. Donna, interesting link. Maybe that’s why I like “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” so much. That and all the accidentals in the music. I also learned today that “Do You Hear What I Hear?” was written during/shortly after the Cuban missile crisis and refers to the possibility of nuclear war. It was the author/composers’ daughter speaking about it and how it gave her parents hope.

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