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Our Daily Thread 7-21-14

Good Morning!

On this day in 1733 John Winthrop was granted the first honorary Doctor of Law Degree given by Harvard College in Cambridge, MA. 

In 1861 the first major battle of the U.S. Civil War began. It was the Battle of Bull Run at Manassas Junction, VA. 

In 1925 the “Scopes Monkey Trial” ended in Dayton, TN. John T. Scopes was convicted of violating the state law for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution. The conviction was later overturned. 

In 1930 the Veterans Administration of the United States was established. 

In 1944 American forces landed on Guam during World War II. 

And in 1997 the U.S.S. Constitution, which defended the United States during the War of 1812, set sail under its own power for the first time in 116 years. 

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Quote of the Day

“Never mistake motion for action.”

Ernest Hemingway

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No good birthdays today, so random selections.

And some “Mercy.”

I missed Don Knotts’ birthday, so this is for Peter.

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Anyone have a QoD?

41 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 7-21-14”

  1. Morning y”all.
    I went out to Aviation this afternoon to greet two new teachers and a returning teacher. I had quite the prayer time as it was raining and the pilot was looking for a way through the clouds. I let out a cheer for God when I saw the plane in the distance.
    I spent part of my prayer time just singing praises. ‘Praise the name of Jesus,…..

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  2. Good evening, Jo. Glad the plane was able to land safely.

    I attempted to drive L. to Lake Charles yesterday, but my car broke down in Beaumont. Hubby had to come get me. My car is at a Goodyear (the only mechanic open in Sunday in Beaumont).

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  5. Good Morning Everyone. As I told you before, so much is going on around me that I am escaping into books. My goddaughter’s grandmother (how’s that for convoluted?) is a twin. She and her sister are identical twins and even at 68 years old they are still hard to tell apart. They have written 3 books about growing up in Oxford, MS in the 50’s and 60’s. The first was “Ya’ll Twins”, the second is “Which is Which”, and the third is “Our Josephine”. I have read the first and third.
    “Our Josephine” is about a week they spent with their grandmother in Vicksburg when they were 9. Josephine is the black girl (she is only 16 in the book) who came in every afternoon to help take care of their great-grandmother. So far it has done an excellent job describing the interaction between whites and blacks in those days. Children have to be taught racism.
    I think the best part of the story is that when they decided to write the book they went looking for Josephine. They hadn’t seen her since some time in the late 60’s but with a little digging they found her. She has some input into the book too.

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  6. I like that dog “poster”from Cheryl. I forwarded it to my friend who got a dog this last year to give reinforcement to her wise decision.

    Those books sounds fascinating, Kim. I have read a book by a friend’s mom, Winding Round the Square, I believe is the title. A book about days gone by that we would never know about except these older ladies have spent the time to inform later generations.

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  8. Kim- sounds like an interesting read. Is it like the movie from a few years back about the housekeepers?

    AJ- I noticed when trying to find the name of the movie I mentioned to Kim that it is Don Knott’s birthday. You could have put something of his in your video intro. (My computer is too slow to watch any of them anyway). There is one episode of “The Andy Griffith Show” where he sings about and to his girl Juanita.

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  12. Immersed in books has been my escape, too. The old author Mary Stewart is the source of many comfort novels!

    All weekend in my own book. The end is in sight!

    But I’ve said that before. 🙂

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  16. Fun dog chart cheryl — when I went to share it on FB, it even popped up with a photo of 4 border collies linked to it automatically. 🙂 Bonus points.

    I had a nice dinner out with the cousins last night, the one lives in a wonderful 100-year-old craftsman home (within a quaint historic district). We walked to a pasta place near his neighborhood.

    I used to live in that same city (just across the harbor) for a number of years, and I still miss that part of town. It has become popular among many gays (it was when I lived there, too) who have settled there and spruced up the historic buildings and shopping areas. Lots of fine antique stores. 🙂 And one of the most dog-friendly cities in Southern California.

    Today I’m off for a lunch out with a couple of dog park friends I don’t get to see often anymore. And some long over-due cleaning & picking up around this house.

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  17. Nice slide show that was shown a week ago Sunday at Zamperini’s memorial service. Includes shots of him with Billy Graham & speaking (attn. Chas) at a Lions Club meeting. 🙂

    And it ends very appropriately with this verse: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” 2 Tim. 4:7

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  20. Nice video, Donna. I hadn’t realized Zamperini had died, but then again, I think I was offline at that time.

    Good morning (or afternoon or evening for a few of you). I want to thank you again for the commentary offered on my questions this weekend. Your responses gave me lots to think about, and I enjoy that.

    Also…*my* responses gave me lots to think about 😉 , meaning I woke up in the middle of the night and laid awake for some time thinking I shouldn’t have made one of the comments I did. So I emailed AJ this morning, and he took it down. (Thank you, AJ.)

    Which means I messed up Peter’s 75. 😉 But it was nice that Cheryl was impressed with his 74. 🙂

    I am going to try to stay out of trouble today. You all have a great day!

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  24. Thanks, AJ, for reminding me of my Dad! He fairly resembled Don Knotts: close in age, same size and build, identical hair, and similar facial features. Often Dad would be out somewhere and catch people looking at him and whispering to each other. Now and then they’d be brave enough to ask him if he was Don Knotts. But once Dad spoke you’d know he wasn’t; their voices were nothing alike.

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  26. If we take away Peter’s 75 then it goes to a more deserving party. 🙂

    Ree, I read your links and posted.

    6 Arrows, I lay in bed for a while last night thinking about the topic some more, too. For me the problem comes in when we start calling it sin. If we are speaking in anger, it may be sinful anger. If we are reacting in fear, it might be (but might not be) lack of faith. (I think fear is a natural, God-given response to danger. Worry–dwelling on fear–is a sin, but I don’t think fear itself is.) But the “bad word” itself isn’t necessarily the problem.

    For example, if I drop something heavy on my foot, no one is going to be surprised if I say, “Ow.” If I grab my foot and hop around and say “Oo-ee, that hurts,” I won’t be accused of using “idle” words. In fact, if I say, “Oh, poop,” people might laugh at my choice of words (but not at the possibility I’m hurt).

    I was reared in a home that bent over backward not only avoiding any possible bad words but being offended at times if others used them. My parents were once offended because a pastor said someone had the “guts” to do something. Well, there are other crass ways to say the same thing, in our language and in others, and it may actually be a sign of the emasculation of our culture that it is extremely rare that we point out that someone doesn’t have enough testosterone to do something that he needs to do!

    I just can’t see hearty fishermen and farmers worrying over someone using a word for excrement or other earthy slang. Can you imagine Peter or Paul feeling bad for “accidentally” using such words? I can’t. In fact, they might use a few well-chosen words on purpose to shake this conversation up a little. And then, to show there were no hard feelings, they’d offer you a beer.

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  27. I enjoyed the video Donna. I started not to watch it because of it’s length. But I’m glad I did. It was curious to note that the Lions banner hasn’t changed in all these years.
    And he had lots of pretty girls. Even in his old age.
    But I have noticed that the girls are more likely to say, Dear, sweetie, honey, etc. now that it no longer matters.
    But it also occurs to me that it’s a southern thing. i.e. Since I came south rather than added gray hairs.
    🙂

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  28. I enjoyed the video/slide show, too. And Miss Bosley enjoyed the peaceful classical music playing with it. The other day when I played the video and musical Veggie Tales “hat song,” Miss Bosley disappeared. She definitely has her musical preferences.

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  29. AJ, the stream you photographed reminds me of the stream I fished in where I caught a sun fish. Here is a link to the wonderful campgrounds at the headwaters of the Tallulah River. Scroll down and you will see some photos with one particularly good shot of the stream.
    http://www.fs.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsinternet/!ut/p/c4/04_SB8K8xLLM9MSSzPy8xBz9CP0os3gDfxMDT8MwRydLA1cj72BTQxNjAwjQL8h2VAQA9Dlhuw!!/?ss=110803&navtype=BROWSEBYSUBJECT&navid=110130000000000&pnavid=110000000000000&position=BROWSEBYSUBJECT&recid=10498&groupid=58527&ttype=photogallery&pname=Chattahoochee-Oconee%20National%20Forest-%20Camping%20&%20Cabins

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  30. I am not sure if the link works. I can’t tell from my Smartphone. The two campgrounds we stayed at in the area are Tate Branch and Sandy Bottom. If you ever get a chance to visit the area, I assume it is still beautiful.

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  32. Cheryl, I agree with you that behind some of those “bad words” may be sinful anger, or an example of sinful fear.

    What I’m not clear on is what you believe about “idle” words. Could you give me any examples of what you believe constitute idle words? And do you believe those words are sin?

    Thanks.

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  33. 6 Arrows, I haven’t studied the text about idle words, though I think someone gave a decent speculation on that text yesterday, that everything, even casual words, will be looked at. Basically I was saying is that if a “bad word” counts as an “idle word” because it isn’t moving conversation forward, I don’t really see how “ow-eee” or the like is necessarily edifying, either. They’re simply human expressions, and that doesn’t make them sinful.

    I think American Christians are probably almost unique in the world in (1) thinking that anything that isn’t “useful” is a waste of time. If we just hang out and chat without saying anything important, we feel vaguely guilty as though we “stole” time. We can’t simply be building relationships; we have to be having billable time or something and (2) having lots and lots of discretionary time, including lots of time that gets wasted. But we have a hard time with things like chit-chat. We have a hard time, also, with things being “neutral” and not necessarily “good” or “bad.” So, for example, conversation with our unbelieving neighbor has to be moving toward witnessing to her. We can’t be simply building relationship with her and seeing how God uses that, what opportunities He opens.

    Anyway, I don’t think “idle words” is talking about “bad words lite” nor do I think “coarse jesting” is. Scripture uses far more “earthy” language than American Christians do. Is it good to curse like a sailor, no. But should we feel like we have sinned for even thinking a bad word when someone drops something on our toe and we’re afraid it might be broken? Or when someone acts like a sinful jerk and the word that comes to mind is a little stronger than “bad man”?

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  34. Chas, Louie may have even been a Lions member, who knows. In the 1950s/60s (when it looks like that particular photo was taken), most every businessman belonged to a fraternal club.

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  35. Cheryl, hmmm… it feels like we’re talking past each other; or maybe I’m too tired and am not processing very well what you are saying. There’s a little more that I’d like to say, but I will wait for tomorrow, when I can reread what you’ve said and maybe see it more clearly in the light of day. 😉

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  37. okay, this is getting dangerous, as in too much temptation. I found today that I can read the blog in my classroom using my itouch. Good thing my class leaves at 12:15.

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  38. I can read the blog in my classroom too, Jo. 😉

    Cheryl, regarding your above comment at 2:53 pm, it is this that I just don’t know about: “For me the problem comes in when we start calling it sin.” I’m assuming by “it”, you mean cuss words. Correct me if I’m wrong.

    I’m not so sure those aren’t sin. To me, Matthew 12:36 seems to be identifying *something* as sin. That’s why I believe it’s important to identify what “idle” words are. It also seems to me that the words themselves can be considered sinful, since the passage says we’re going to give an account for those words in the day of judgment. I believe it’s not simply the emotions behind them — sinful anger or fear, for example — which is being referred to in this context.

    The reason I brought all this up in the first place is because, going back to that link I posted over the weekend, that line of Ms. Friedrich’s about using “bad words” seemed to stand in stark contrast to many of the other examples she gave in her account of how she has broken free of legalism. She gave many examples of areas where God makes no commandment about such things as diet, exercise, pierced ears, tastes in music, etc., but then among that list of items she says, “I use bad words sometimes. As in swearing. Lately I have been using them more.”

    As we can see from the discussion here after I posted the link and asked for commentary, it is obvious that good Christian people don’t always see this issue in the same way; some see it as sinful, some not, and people hold a variety of opinions on cultural expression, historical use of language, etc.

    But going back to Ms. Friedrich’s post, a troubling aspect of her inclusion of the “bad words” statement was that, IMO, she seemed to be celebrating that aspect of her change. Breaking free of the chains of legalism is indeed a good thing, but to include something like “using bad words”, “swearing”, and using them more than ever, implies that that is part of her change toward a better life. I disagree, and I think it can give the mistaken impression that we don’t need to be so concerned and uptight about our use of language.

    Words matter.

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  39. 6 Arrows, the problem is that to answer your post, I feel like I have to repeat a lot that I have already said. Here’s a quick summary of my line of thought:

    -I think “cursing” means using God’s name inappropriately, and I think that is sin. There are more ways to “take God’s name in vain” than cursing, but cursing is one of those ways. Me, I grew up not being allowed even to used “minced oaths” (gee= Jesus, gosh = God, heck = hell; according to my mom and also according to the dictionary). My dad said “gee” sometimes (and so does my husband); that usage was not intended as swearing, and even though I will not use these words myself, I also do not hear it as others intending to swear when I hear them used.

    -Scripture uses scatological terms pretty freely (as in multiple times), so it’s a little hard to see that such use is necessarily a sin. It’s more in the category of “bad manners,” in my opinion, to use such terms in the wrong context. But that doesn’t mean that every context is “the wrong context.” Here are a couple examples that I believe are “the right context”: a wife whispering a double entendre in her husband’s ear and then telling him it would be nice if they could go to bed early tonight. A father telling his son, “You really just need to grow a pair of balls and do it, Son.” Two young mothers swapping potty training stories. Or how about a two-year-old telling his mother, “I need to go poop.” We train him to use that word because we need to know how he needs our help. Once he can take himself to the bathroom and wipe by himself, it is enough for him to tell us he needs to “go to the bathroom,” or (depending on the situation) simply excuse himself and go. But there might continue to be times that such functions have to be discussed. (“Mom, I have blood in my urine.” “Mom, I have diarrhea, and it’s probably better if I don’t go to Grandma’s today in case I have something contagious.”)

    -Other uses, such as using the “s” word used when your feet go out from under you and you fall and hit your head, are “morally neutral.” Excrement is physically dirty, and the words for it aren’t words you use at dinner parties. That’s why we use words like “bathroom” or “ladies’ room.” But they are part of our human experience, and the words aren’t morally dirty.

    -I think a bigger problem with sexual terms is that they risk twisting God’s good gift of sex. There are plenty of times and places where it’s appropriate to speak of sex or private parts. Between spouses, with your doctor, with your children, and so forth. There are times when it needs to be discussed, but without detail (in a sermon, for example). Years ago I had a guy friend who was way too casual in mentioning body parts, and I had to speak to him about it more than once. Sex isn’t dirty, but it’s private.

    -As to “idle words,” what is the reason for thinking that means bad words? The term itself just doesn’t suggest bad words, at least not to me. Other passages in Scripture warn us against being busy bodies or gossips, and those seem like more likely uses of “idle words.” Sitting and talking for an hour when your boss is paying you to work could also be using “idle words.” In fact, so could writing a report in gobbledygook so that your boss can’t readily determine that you haven’t done the assigned task completely.

    -There is at least one place in Scripture where “coarse jesting” is forbidden. That seems to be talking about inappropriate lewd jokes. (I include “inappropriate,” because a husband and wife may well use sexual humor in private.) But coarse jesting would seem more likely to be such things as innuendoes told at the expense of the blushing girl at the next table in a school cafeteria than a simple dirty word here and there.

    -I personally was raised with a standard that I think to be a good one, a great deal of discretion in what is said “in mixed company.” I definitely have a sense that some things are proper and some are not. Some things are improper because of the place (the church service, a party, a group of men and women together); some are improper because of the content (joking about leaving your husband for a different man); etc. Some are socially improper (bad manners) and some are morally improper (sin).

    -Overall, I’d say that gossip, cruel joking, carelessly passing on information as truth that hasn’t been verified, and many other sins of the tongue are far graver concerns than “bad words.”

    -I’m not going to start adding bad words to my vocabulary; I’ve made it this far without them and don’t need them now. But I don’t see any biblical warrant for considering all uses of “bad words” to be sin. Nor does it make logical sense, in my mind, that they would be. (Is “poop” a sin? “Crap”? We have a “line” for which words are “stronger” than others, but it’s a little hard to say that use of one is sin but others are not based on which ones have greater shock value if you say them to your teacher. Yes, saying them to your teacher in order to shock her may well be a sin–but the sin is in the reason for saying it, not the word itself.)

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  40. Thanks for taking the time to write that out, Cheryl. That definitely clarifies for me now where you’re coming from.

    I’ve got piano lesson business to tend to now, so I’ll have wrap up this discussion, but I appreciated the opportunity to converse with you on it. 🙂

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