😦 What happened to my avatar?
:-(When I hit the return, or some other button, I get a blank page.
It happens when I go to the funnies yesterday. I read one, but when I go to another, a blank page comes up and I have to click it off.
😦 An auto insurance ad is bouncing around at the bottom of my screen. I don’t know who sends it, but if I did, they would be on my list of places not to patronize.
Wow, Chas, I thought the blank page thing was just because I am in PNG. Interesting that it is happening to you too. I have lost several posts this week that way. Very frustrating.
😦 I learned yesterday the Elvera’s bro-in-law (sister’s husband) has carpel tunnel syndrome. His wrists hurt all the time. And I read about some of you having constant pain, reminds me to be thankful that I have reached 83 years without a source of pain. (Sometimes TSWITW can be a pain in the neck, but that doesn’t count. 🙂 ) I do have tinnitus. It’s with me all the time. But just an annoyance, I can usually shut it out. But not always. You can’t turn it off like you can a radio.
🙂 Friend of the Kid’s called this morning. This boy has terrible phone manners. I answer the phone and I hear. “Hey.” I say, “Hey.” Pause. “Is Kid there?” Drives me crazy. Do I have the authority to correct him?
I get into situations like that and become ridiculous:
“Well, hello Walter! How ARE you? We’re doing really well here. We’ve just had pancakes for breakfast and are preparing for a glorious day full of rich conversation.
How nice of you to call. Did you say you’re looking for Kid? I’m sure he would love to hear your voice! May I ask for what you are calling?
🙂 Saturday! 😦 But after three snow days in a row between two days of school, I really don’t need another weekend.
🙂 It’s raining in California.
🙂 It’s actually supposed to be seasonal temperatures next week (mid 30s for highs). Yesterday we broke a 109 year record low. In 1905 it was -8°. Yesterday it was -11°.
😦 Another try at the family Thanksgiving/Christmas gathering cancelled due to illness. Now we are just mailing the presents to each other and waiting until warm Spring weather to make plans.
🙂 Finding an speaking to two “new” cousins this week (we were out of touch completely with Dad’s side of the family, didn’t even know the names of most of my cousins on that side).
😦 Took twelve cousins from three families to track down two. But I finally know the names of all and the contact information for two.
😦 Apparently at least two of my first cousins have died before we could find them–one for sure, but probably at least one more.
🙂 It has been fascinating to pull all the pieces together, even seeing gravestones (all in the same city) for my paternal grandparents, one of their sons and his wife, and their older daughter. (Their son, the second cousin I talked to, lost his dad at 10 and his mom at 12, and his only sibling a few months ago, all by the age of 56, his current age. Yikes!)
🙂 I have some really wonderful old family photos. One sepia one of my mom at about four, her older brother, and her doll, they’re sitting on the front steps of a home, and the photo is just gorgeous.
🙂 Interestingly, all the baby photos of my older brothers are black-and-white (though we have a few older color photos, including my parents’ wedding–her brothers, in the States, married in black-and-white, and my parents got color photos in Nigeria!), but photos of me, the first girl, are in color. But then my little sister got black-and-white baby photos. Only with the birth of my youngest brother in 1970 did we switch to color for good. Well, with some black-and-whtie shots in the late seventies taken by my brother who was studying photography.
😦 Snow and more snow. More is coming down now. We have it deep enough in our backyard that Misten actually walked out over the fence the other day, and then my husband had to wear himself out running the snow-blower all the way across the yard in two feet of crusted-over drifts, and then alongside the fence in drifts as high as four feet. It’s too deep now to thaw any time soon, so we’re resigned to a yard full of snow for the month of February as well. But it’s OK with us if it stops getting deeper!
🙂 I did get some really excellent bird photos this week, though.
🙂 We finally got to church Sunday and the church dinner, after missing the whole month of January (two cancellations plus sickness).
🙂 After being more or less “snowed in” for a month, our daughter suggested yesterday that we get out of the house for a few hours so she could clean her room and feel she had some privacy. So we did. We spent the afternoon out together, had our first meal at Five Guys, got some excellent deals at end-of-season clearance at Kohl’s (70-85% off), and did some window-shopping at the mall topped off by a beverage at the Barnes and Noble coffee shop.
😦 Most of my body was too uncomfortable actually to enjoy the walk through the mall (my boots were hurting my feet, I was dressed too warmly for inside and was hot and sweaty, I was thirsty, my tummy was bothering me a little, etc.). But the rest of the afternoon was good.
My husband is now out re-digging the backyard trenches to make sure the new foot of snow from this week doesn’t pack down and allow Misten to get out again, or even just pack down hard enough to make it hard to dig it out later. It shouldn’t be a two-hour job this time, at least.
The trick is to correct without making the child feel so foolish that it is demoralizing. Believe me, I am in my 60’s and still remember some of those ‘corrections’. 😦
😦 I am with you, kare, on the cold. We had to go out everyday in these nasty temperatures. I would not have, if I could have avoided it. The sunshine helps people to feel better anyway. Someone said the cold will help keep the deer ticks down. I can only hope it has some wonderful purpose. Germs seem to be better kept at bay.
😦 We had to have a new windshield put in. I was not happy that we had a rock hit and then a big crack all the way across the windshield. I was happy that the leak in the windshield was fixed as a result. We did not know about the leak, until we had our slightly used car for awhile. The dealership would do nothing about it, of course. I cannot believe how much we have had to bring this car in with the somewhat low mileage. So far, not impressed with the car or the dealership. We bought from a salesman who is a relative, so I hope after our appointment for next week, that trend will turn around. Strangely, this windshield seems bigger and does not have the rubber gasket that the old one had. I thought there would just be one made for this model car. Not sure what that is all about.
🙂 This week my husband played at a senior apartment building with the group he plays music with. I met a woman there who was 97 years old. She live on her farm until four years ago. Her husband died in 1985 and she couldn’t drive, so she taught herself how. She moved here from another state to be near her daughter. She did it for her daughter’s sake. I was actually very surprised to hear her age. She seemed much younger than that! She certainly had grit or sisu, as the Finns might say.
🙂 Is Cowboy secretly providing “how to escape any yard” consulting services to Misten?
🙂 Kare, so glad your son has found a new girl, I remember how hard he took the breakup with the former one. The human heart is an amazing thing, it does bounce back with time. 🙂
😦 Ok, we had *some* rain in southern California, but only a day of showers, not like the deluge they’re getting to the north of us. We are relying on michelle’s people to the north to share their collected snow pack/rain water with us come summer however. 🙂
🙂 Recalling our discussion earlier this week, a friend posted this today on FB:
We have as much to do with our new birth as we did with our first one — ‘For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.’ – Ephesians 2:8
Ha, Donna! Up here they’re telling us to hoard the run off in trash cans to water our gardens in a few weeks. NorCal doesn’t have any to share . . . though at the moment we seem to have a small swimming pool in our back yard. We’ve never lived in this new house when it rained before! 🙂
I have discovered the underline in blue thing. I don’t know if your comments have certain words underlined in blue. Some of the words in my posts, and yours, they don’t discriminate, are underlined in blue. If you click on those words, you have the privilege of watching an advertisement.
Maybe AJ’s found a way to rake in some ad dollars on this little blog venture. 🙂 Someday he’ll move into a mansion in a sunny part of the country and live in luxury.
Ok, we had *some* rain in southern California, but only a day of showers, not like the deluge they’re getting to the north of us. We are relying on michelle’s people to the north to share their collected snow pack/rain water with us come summer however.
Donna- Doesn’t the snow in the mountains melt and then flow into your reservoirs?
And I thought getting the blank screen was because of our poor internet connections. Now I see some of you are getting them too. Must be a WordPress issue.
In honor of that water war, I started watching the movie Chinatown last night, I ‘d never seen it before–and stayed with it long enough to glimpse Point Fermin! But it was so vulgar, I saw no point in wasting any more time with it and returned, instead, to my light reading: The Great Influenza.
I’ve wondered why they haven’t done the desalinization myself. I know next to nothing about it, however. so perhaps there is a good reason. Or is just the cost?
I think the big thing is the cost. But since Californians think they need to grow wet climate crops like rice in a desert, it just may be time for them to consider desalinization. Speaking as one from Arizona, I remember the Colorado River Project was not going to Tucson originally. In those days, Tucson was the largest city in the world depending totally on groundwater. But the fast growth (over 2000 people per month) and the increasing demands for irrigation on the farms, Tucson needed water. LA, Las Vegas and Phoenix were getting all the Colorado water. (Of course, Arizona has water intensive crops as well, like cotton and pecans.)
🙂 Good sermon today from Luke 7:1-10 on the healing of the centurion’s servant (given by a guest preacher, one of our missionaries in Uganda).
🙂 Teen-tiny bit of rain this morning. It’s all better than nothing, but still won’t make a dent in our drought.
🙂 Some interesting discussions on FB lately centering on whether having working animals is akin to animal abuse. Seems to me it reflects society’s changing views of the uniqueness of human life amid a secular, environmentalist mindset that increasingly views all life forms as equal — as opposed to the biblical view of man having dominion and exercising stewardship over creation.
Yes, donna. I agree. I actually had a whole post written about the change of how we view animals. Then I thought better of it. I don’t think I will change the person’s mind and don’t want to go on and on about it. I find it interesting that if you read about Germany during Hitler’s reign, you find that animals were treated better than many, many people. You might get executed for hurting an animal, but killing certain people was no problem. 😦
Kathaleeena, and I don’t think it’s even a conscious realization that this is the cause — it’s both an elevating (and humanization) of animals and a lack of understanding or knowledge that man is made in the image of God and is the crowning point of His creation. And in the economy of evolution, it also puts animals and humans on the same plane, of course.
So often it sounds to me like environmentalists would be happy if man could simply be whisked away altogether. Then the world would be Perfect!
That’s not to say man has been careless, reckless and even cruel in his role as overseer to God’s creation. But that, also, is a very wrong understanding of what Scripture really teaches.
It’s a big topic but I’d love to pitch a freelance article on the topic to a Christian magazine.
BTW, I appreciated your comments on that one Amish thread. I don’t really know the other woman but apparently we went to high school together. 🙂 I do have some pretty adamant “green” types in my FB circle, so I try to be sensitive somewhat on what I post — but who would have expected that particular topic to break out on an Amish thread?? Go figure …
Donna – Were you around yet on the WMB when a frequent commenter was a young man named DR? In a discussion about Michael Vick & his horrible abuse of his pit bulls, DR said that, as the owner of the dogs, Vick had a right to do what he wanted with them, & that animal suffering was of no moral consequence or had no moral relevance (or some similar phrasing), claiming that God only cares about humans, not animals.
No, I missed that discussion Karen — The Bible says so much about caring for creation that I think gives us a common sense approach. I found this online a few days back which I think is a good summation of what the Bible teaches on the subject:
I do take issue with some of what the above pamphlet link says — I think that animal sacrifice was something instituted by God that foreshadowed Christ.
We seem to be very confused as a culture about many of these issues — and Jon Katz (in my mind) has made a credible case for “working” animals (that are well cared for and not overworked) as being of value to both man and creature.
It says in Proverbs, that a man is known by how he treats his animals.
No one was more sensitive to the needs of his animals than my dad. Yet, after caring for our family dog for a week (doing all the veterinarian had recommended, which was quite a regimen) he realized the dog had to be put out of his suffering. (too long a story to tell here) He shot the dog himself, although it was a very hard thing to do. He was so sad, but that is what people did. You see that in the old movies where the lamed horse was put out of it’s misery. Properly done, the animal does not suffer. This was not a sign of abuse, but of caring.
I did not think that would be understood.
Many foolish people think animals live together in nature in some idyllic way. Hunting etc. is seen as cruel. They do not have any idea of the truly cruel ways of nature. Nor do they understand that animals are not suffering when they are doing what they were made to do. Horses may love to pull a carriage or race. Dogs love to do herding or flushing out game etc.
Those I know who would tease an animal, would do the same to other people. It was a power thing. The proverb was certainly true about them. The treatment of the animal certainly showed what the man was all about.
Good points Kathaleena — I remember one of my older neighbors, now deceased, telling me about how her uncle who lived on a farm when she was a child had to shoot one of their dogs when it became old and ill. But he wouldn’t do it on the Sabbath, he waited until Monday, she told me.
I certainly couldn’t do anything like that myself, though I’ve had animals put down by a vet of course. And hunting is another thing I could never do, but I don’t see it as forbidden (unless it is being done as pure “sport,” then I’d question its rightness and purpose).
As Christians, we understand that nature was also affected by the fall, we all live in disharmony because of man’s sin — and that extends to the animal kingdom as well. When God brings the new heavens and new earth, all of that harmony shall be restored, amen?
But you’re right, none of this would have been understood by the person on that thread.
Wandering Views 
😦 What happened to my avatar?
:-(When I hit the return, or some other button, I get a blank page.
It happens when I go to the funnies yesterday. I read one, but when I go to another, a blank page comes up and I have to click it off.
😦 An auto insurance ad is bouncing around at the bottom of my screen. I don’t know who sends it, but if I did, they would be on my list of places not to patronize.
LikeLike
🙄 Why are certain words underlined in blue?
Every time I click my mouse, I get a blank page, that I have to go up and remove.
LikeLike
Wow, Chas, I thought the blank page thing was just because I am in PNG. Interesting that it is happening to you too. I have lost several posts this week that way. Very frustrating.
LikeLike
wow, I can’t believe that my post is up there. when I clicked to post, I got the blank page again. I am quitting while I am ahead.
LikeLike
😦 I learned yesterday the Elvera’s bro-in-law (sister’s husband) has carpel tunnel syndrome. His wrists hurt all the time. And I read about some of you having constant pain, reminds me to be thankful that I have reached 83 years without a source of pain. (Sometimes TSWITW can be a pain in the neck, but that doesn’t count. 🙂 ) I do have tinnitus. It’s with me all the time. But just an annoyance, I can usually shut it out. But not always. You can’t turn it off like you can a radio.
LikeLike
Happy Birthday Jo.
LikeLike
🙂 Happy Birthday, Jo
🙂 We are supposed to get sunshine today. I sure do need some!
LikeLike
Bouncing around at the bottom of my screen now is a link that says “IMPORTANT”. It doesn’t say important to whom.
LikeLike
🙂 Rain in California
😦 Continuing, unrelenting cold, with no end in sight up here
🙂 Daughter is currently at her rural paramedic practicum
🙂 Son’s girlfriend seems really nice and quite grounded
🙂 Answers to prayer: J’s MRI of her liver showed the spots were hemangiomas (sp?) and she has nothing to worry about.
🙂 And my daughter passed her scenarios so she could continue on to her practicums
😦 Hubby has to go to another park this week for some public consultations – I’m not looking forward to keeping the (literal) home fires burning.
🙂 The sun is shining today
LikeLike
🙂 Friend of the Kid’s called this morning. This boy has terrible phone manners. I answer the phone and I hear. “Hey.” I say, “Hey.” Pause. “Is Kid there?” Drives me crazy. Do I have the authority to correct him?
LikeLike
I get into situations like that and become ridiculous:
“Well, hello Walter! How ARE you? We’re doing really well here. We’ve just had pancakes for breakfast and are preparing for a glorious day full of rich conversation.
How nice of you to call. Did you say you’re looking for Kid? I’m sure he would love to hear your voice! May I ask for what you are calling?
And how is your dear mother?
While my child stands by and glares . . .
Ha!
LikeLike
Michelle and I are alike in some ways.
LikeLike
🙂 Saturday! 😦 But after three snow days in a row between two days of school, I really don’t need another weekend.
🙂 It’s raining in California.
🙂 It’s actually supposed to be seasonal temperatures next week (mid 30s for highs). Yesterday we broke a 109 year record low. In 1905 it was -8°. Yesterday it was -11°.
😦 Another try at the family Thanksgiving/Christmas gathering cancelled due to illness. Now we are just mailing the presents to each other and waiting until warm Spring weather to make plans.
🙂 But it’s good to know all is in Gd’s control.
LikeLike
🙂 Finding an speaking to two “new” cousins this week (we were out of touch completely with Dad’s side of the family, didn’t even know the names of most of my cousins on that side).
😦 Took twelve cousins from three families to track down two. But I finally know the names of all and the contact information for two.
😦 Apparently at least two of my first cousins have died before we could find them–one for sure, but probably at least one more.
🙂 It has been fascinating to pull all the pieces together, even seeing gravestones (all in the same city) for my paternal grandparents, one of their sons and his wife, and their older daughter. (Their son, the second cousin I talked to, lost his dad at 10 and his mom at 12, and his only sibling a few months ago, all by the age of 56, his current age. Yikes!)
🙂 I have some really wonderful old family photos. One sepia one of my mom at about four, her older brother, and her doll, they’re sitting on the front steps of a home, and the photo is just gorgeous.
🙂 Interestingly, all the baby photos of my older brothers are black-and-white (though we have a few older color photos, including my parents’ wedding–her brothers, in the States, married in black-and-white, and my parents got color photos in Nigeria!), but photos of me, the first girl, are in color. But then my little sister got black-and-white baby photos. Only with the birth of my youngest brother in 1970 did we switch to color for good. Well, with some black-and-whtie shots in the late seventies taken by my brother who was studying photography.
😦 Snow and more snow. More is coming down now. We have it deep enough in our backyard that Misten actually walked out over the fence the other day, and then my husband had to wear himself out running the snow-blower all the way across the yard in two feet of crusted-over drifts, and then alongside the fence in drifts as high as four feet. It’s too deep now to thaw any time soon, so we’re resigned to a yard full of snow for the month of February as well. But it’s OK with us if it stops getting deeper!
🙂 I did get some really excellent bird photos this week, though.
🙂 We finally got to church Sunday and the church dinner, after missing the whole month of January (two cancellations plus sickness).
🙂 After being more or less “snowed in” for a month, our daughter suggested yesterday that we get out of the house for a few hours so she could clean her room and feel she had some privacy. So we did. We spent the afternoon out together, had our first meal at Five Guys, got some excellent deals at end-of-season clearance at Kohl’s (70-85% off), and did some window-shopping at the mall topped off by a beverage at the Barnes and Noble coffee shop.
😦 Most of my body was too uncomfortable actually to enjoy the walk through the mall (my boots were hurting my feet, I was dressed too warmly for inside and was hot and sweaty, I was thirsty, my tummy was bothering me a little, etc.). But the rest of the afternoon was good.
LikeLike
😦 Verbose writers on Rants and Raves. 😉
LikeLike
Husband and two daughters ought to be back today! Unless the snow is too much for the car.
LikeLike
The trick is to correct without making the child feel so foolish that it is demoralizing. Believe me, I am in my 60’s and still remember some of those ‘corrections’. 😦
😦 I am with you, kare, on the cold. We had to go out everyday in these nasty temperatures. I would not have, if I could have avoided it. The sunshine helps people to feel better anyway. Someone said the cold will help keep the deer ticks down. I can only hope it has some wonderful purpose. Germs seem to be better kept at bay.
😦 We had to have a new windshield put in. I was not happy that we had a rock hit and then a big crack all the way across the windshield. I was happy that the leak in the windshield was fixed as a result. We did not know about the leak, until we had our slightly used car for awhile. The dealership would do nothing about it, of course. I cannot believe how much we have had to bring this car in with the somewhat low mileage. So far, not impressed with the car or the dealership. We bought from a salesman who is a relative, so I hope after our appointment for next week, that trend will turn around. Strangely, this windshield seems bigger and does not have the rubber gasket that the old one had. I thought there would just be one made for this model car. Not sure what that is all about.
🙂 This week my husband played at a senior apartment building with the group he plays music with. I met a woman there who was 97 years old. She live on her farm until four years ago. Her husband died in 1985 and she couldn’t drive, so she taught herself how. She moved here from another state to be near her daughter. She did it for her daughter’s sake. I was actually very surprised to hear her age. She seemed much younger than that! She certainly had grit or sisu, as the Finns might say.
LikeLike
🙂 Hey.
🙂 Is Cowboy secretly providing “how to escape any yard” consulting services to Misten?
🙂 Kare, so glad your son has found a new girl, I remember how hard he took the breakup with the former one. The human heart is an amazing thing, it does bounce back with time. 🙂
😦 Ok, we had *some* rain in southern California, but only a day of showers, not like the deluge they’re getting to the north of us. We are relying on michelle’s people to the north to share their collected snow pack/rain water with us come summer however. 🙂
LikeLike
🙂 Recalling our discussion earlier this week, a friend posted this today on FB:
We have as much to do with our new birth as we did with our first one — ‘For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.’ – Ephesians 2:8
LikeLike
Ha, Donna! Up here they’re telling us to hoard the run off in trash cans to water our gardens in a few weeks. NorCal doesn’t have any to share . . . though at the moment we seem to have a small swimming pool in our back yard. We’ve never lived in this new house when it rained before! 🙂
LikeLike
I have discovered the underline in blue thing. I don’t know if your comments have certain words underlined in blue. Some of the words in my posts, and yours, they don’t discriminate, are underlined in blue. If you click on those words, you have the privilege of watching an advertisement.
LikeLike
Those are hyperlinks — there may be a way to disable them in your settings. ?
We use them a lot in our online stories, not to send people to ads but to earlier stories or source documents that are being written about.
LikeLike
Maybe AJ’s found a way to rake in some ad dollars on this little blog venture. 🙂 Someday he’ll move into a mansion in a sunny part of the country and live in luxury.
LikeLike
Ok, we had *some* rain in southern California, but only a day of showers, not like the deluge they’re getting to the north of us. We are relying on michelle’s people to the north to share their collected snow pack/rain water with us come summer however.
Donna- Doesn’t the snow in the mountains melt and then flow into your reservoirs?
And I thought getting the blank screen was because of our poor internet connections. Now I see some of you are getting them too. Must be a WordPress issue.
LikeLike
Ah, but there’s a long history of war between the north & south — over water in California.
LikeLike
come on, Donna, you have an ocean right out your front door. Do some desalinization already.
LikeLike
In honor of that water war, I started watching the movie Chinatown last night, I ‘d never seen it before–and stayed with it long enough to glimpse Point Fermin! But it was so vulgar, I saw no point in wasting any more time with it and returned, instead, to my light reading: The Great Influenza.
Research, you know, Spanish flu.
LikeLike
Is it too late to get a flu shot?
LikeLike
Mumsee has a good idea about desalinization. It works.
LikeLike
I’ve wondered why they haven’t done the desalinization myself. I know next to nothing about it, however. so perhaps there is a good reason. Or is just the cost?
LikeLike
I think the big thing is the cost. But since Californians think they need to grow wet climate crops like rice in a desert, it just may be time for them to consider desalinization. Speaking as one from Arizona, I remember the Colorado River Project was not going to Tucson originally. In those days, Tucson was the largest city in the world depending totally on groundwater. But the fast growth (over 2000 people per month) and the increasing demands for irrigation on the farms, Tucson needed water. LA, Las Vegas and Phoenix were getting all the Colorado water. (Of course, Arizona has water intensive crops as well, like cotton and pecans.)
LikeLike
Okinawa does desalinization. I don’t know how helpful it is.
LikeLike
🙂 Good sermon today from Luke 7:1-10 on the healing of the centurion’s servant (given by a guest preacher, one of our missionaries in Uganda).
🙂 Teen-tiny bit of rain this morning. It’s all better than nothing, but still won’t make a dent in our drought.
🙂 Some interesting discussions on FB lately centering on whether having working animals is akin to animal abuse. Seems to me it reflects society’s changing views of the uniqueness of human life amid a secular, environmentalist mindset that increasingly views all life forms as equal — as opposed to the biblical view of man having dominion and exercising stewardship over creation.
LikeLike
😦 Guess it’s time to endure those horrible Vermont Teddy Bear and Pajama-gram Valentine’s Day ads on TV again.
🙂 Love the mute and “last” (station) buttons on the remote.
LikeLike
Yes, donna. I agree. I actually had a whole post written about the change of how we view animals. Then I thought better of it. I don’t think I will change the person’s mind and don’t want to go on and on about it. I find it interesting that if you read about Germany during Hitler’s reign, you find that animals were treated better than many, many people. You might get executed for hurting an animal, but killing certain people was no problem. 😦
LikeLike
Kathaleeena, and I don’t think it’s even a conscious realization that this is the cause — it’s both an elevating (and humanization) of animals and a lack of understanding or knowledge that man is made in the image of God and is the crowning point of His creation. And in the economy of evolution, it also puts animals and humans on the same plane, of course.
So often it sounds to me like environmentalists would be happy if man could simply be whisked away altogether. Then the world would be Perfect!
That’s not to say man has been careless, reckless and even cruel in his role as overseer to God’s creation. But that, also, is a very wrong understanding of what Scripture really teaches.
It’s a big topic but I’d love to pitch a freelance article on the topic to a Christian magazine.
LikeLike
hasn’t been, that should have been in the 3rd graph
LikeLike
BTW, I appreciated your comments on that one Amish thread. I don’t really know the other woman but apparently we went to high school together. 🙂 I do have some pretty adamant “green” types in my FB circle, so I try to be sensitive somewhat on what I post — but who would have expected that particular topic to break out on an Amish thread?? Go figure …
LikeLike
Donna – Were you around yet on the WMB when a frequent commenter was a young man named DR? In a discussion about Michael Vick & his horrible abuse of his pit bulls, DR said that, as the owner of the dogs, Vick had a right to do what he wanted with them, & that animal suffering was of no moral consequence or had no moral relevance (or some similar phrasing), claiming that God only cares about humans, not animals.
Oh my, did that make my blood boil!
LikeLike
No, I missed that discussion Karen — The Bible says so much about caring for creation that I think gives us a common sense approach. I found this online a few days back which I think is a good summation of what the Bible teaches on the subject:
Click to access replenish-booklet-in-color.pdf
LikeLike
I do take issue with some of what the above pamphlet link says — I think that animal sacrifice was something instituted by God that foreshadowed Christ.
We seem to be very confused as a culture about many of these issues — and Jon Katz (in my mind) has made a credible case for “working” animals (that are well cared for and not overworked) as being of value to both man and creature.
LikeLike
It says in Proverbs, that a man is known by how he treats his animals.
No one was more sensitive to the needs of his animals than my dad. Yet, after caring for our family dog for a week (doing all the veterinarian had recommended, which was quite a regimen) he realized the dog had to be put out of his suffering. (too long a story to tell here) He shot the dog himself, although it was a very hard thing to do. He was so sad, but that is what people did. You see that in the old movies where the lamed horse was put out of it’s misery. Properly done, the animal does not suffer. This was not a sign of abuse, but of caring.
I did not think that would be understood.
Many foolish people think animals live together in nature in some idyllic way. Hunting etc. is seen as cruel. They do not have any idea of the truly cruel ways of nature. Nor do they understand that animals are not suffering when they are doing what they were made to do. Horses may love to pull a carriage or race. Dogs love to do herding or flushing out game etc.
Those I know who would tease an animal, would do the same to other people. It was a power thing. The proverb was certainly true about them. The treatment of the animal certainly showed what the man was all about.
LikeLike
Good points Kathaleena — I remember one of my older neighbors, now deceased, telling me about how her uncle who lived on a farm when she was a child had to shoot one of their dogs when it became old and ill. But he wouldn’t do it on the Sabbath, he waited until Monday, she told me.
I certainly couldn’t do anything like that myself, though I’ve had animals put down by a vet of course. And hunting is another thing I could never do, but I don’t see it as forbidden (unless it is being done as pure “sport,” then I’d question its rightness and purpose).
As Christians, we understand that nature was also affected by the fall, we all live in disharmony because of man’s sin — and that extends to the animal kingdom as well. When God brings the new heavens and new earth, all of that harmony shall be restored, amen?
But you’re right, none of this would have been understood by the person on that thread.
LikeLike