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Our Daily Thread 2-28-15

Good Morning!

Welcome to the weekend! 🙂

And not just any weekend, but the one with the last day of Feb. and the first day of March in it!

Spring is 21 days from today!!!! 🙂

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On this day in 1849 regular steamboat service to California via Cape Horn arrived in San Francisco for the first time. The SS California had left New York Harbor on October 6, 1848. The trip took 4 months and 21 days.

In 1854 the Republican Party was organized in Ripon, WI. About 50 slavery opponents began the new political group. 

In 1956 a patent was issued to Forrester for a computer memory core. 

In 1979 Mr. Ed the horse died.

And in 1993 U.S. Federal agents raided the compound of an armed religious cult in Waco, TX. The ATF had planned to arrest the leader of the Branch Davidians, David Koresh, on federal firearms charges. Four agents and six Davidians were killed and a 51-day standoff followed. 

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Quotes of the Day

“Unfortunately, we don’t educate drivers enough to be respectful on the road.”

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“Everything comes to those who wait… except a cat.” 🙂

Mario Andretti

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 Today is John Alden Carpenter’s birthday.

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Anyone have a QoD?

81 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 2-28-15”

  8. Ooh, loved the howling wolf. Sure those aren’t being made by aliens visiting us in their UFOs?

    Patty Duke was excellent as Helen Keller in “Miracle Worker” (the film, although didn’t she also have the original stage part as well?). I remember watching that as a kid with my mom on television. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056241/

    We’re expecting a couple back-to-back (I think) storms out of the Pacific Northwest this weekend — it was cold and windy last night — but this morning, so far is sunny. I don’t think the rain arrives until tonight. But it also will bring some snow to the mountains.

    Let’s hope we get a few more of these storms before winter is over. It can’t be enough to do much about the four-year drought, but anything helps. There’s active talk of water rationing as our next step out here, but it’s not the first time that’s happened, I seem to recall a similar long, dry period that prompted rationing, maybe in the late 1970s?

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  9. Mr. Ed died, but reruns keep him forever young.

    Friends will get the third kitten today, tentatively named Baby Ruth, or Ruthie. Romeo, Rocket, and Ruthie…they are on a RRRRoll!

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  10. Our Golden Retriever–Beauregard the Duke of Marlowe (yes he was that highly bred) was affectionately known as the David Koresh of the neighborhood. We would walk around the neighborhood and everyone would say “Hey Marlowe”. He would wag his tail and go over for the attention due him. The neighbors didn’t know our names but they knew his. BG rocked his world when she showed up. Both of them cried the first night she was home. He paced the floors, walking in circles looking at his humans like “Do SomeTHING with IT”.

    The photo and music remind me of Thomas Kincaid. The Artist of Light. He seems to have fallen off the radar.

    I am holding on to my sanity for 21 more days. It is still cold here but at least the sun is shining. Mr. P pointed out to me that I don’t have any winter clothes to keep me warm. Well, Duh. I don’t have winter clothes because I don’t like them. I don’t like winter. I stand in the closet in the mornings looking longingly at linen.

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  11. Interesting 6-minute video posted on FB today of a police officer arresting a street preacher in our area for disturbing the peace — he was using a bullhorn, but was on public property near a DMV, arguing that he was simply exercising his 1st Amendment rights to free speech.

    No violence, but the arrest, which was being filmed by one of the preacher’s friends, did not go down easily.

    One of our church staffers with a legal background has listed a series of questions about the incident on a FB post of the video which should generate some discussion.

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  14. I’m not a fan of street preaching, and it seemed like the guy was going out of his way to turn this into a “the state is silencing Christians” kind of confrontation. I presume someone called the cops to complain, but street preachers are fairly common in some parts of town and generally are ignored but tolerated without incident. The officer cited him for violating a local ordinance.

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  15. Donna has a good memory. Last night she remembered the time frame for the movie we watched, Must Like Dogs, based on the opening of her dog park. Was it really cold when it opened, Donna, or has it been a gradual Global Freezing thing?

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  16. Sometimes I think we live in two USAs. I hardly ever bring up anything political with my friend but she mentioned beheadings on the news. I said that Obama won’t admit it’s Christians and Jews being killed. At first she disagreed and then I said that he just calls them people. Then she said it is because of separation of church and state, that’s why he can’t say Christians and Jews, that it is in our Constitution. I said I did not think that was the meaning of that. She said it is in there but it wasn’t practiced until 25 years ago. Then the kittens distracted from our discussion which we thankfully dropped.
    How do you get past brainwashing and still remain friends?

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  17. Interesting you should ask. As I recall, it was rather hot when it opened (but it was September, I believe). 🙂

    The movie title rang a bell because the woman who headed up the dog park effort was very excited to see it, I seem to recall hearing about the movie being made long before it hit the screen. They must have had a good publicity department.

    Plus dogs were big at that time, it seemed like our obsession with the fur set was getting ready to peak. Our pets blog launched in ’08, a little behind the advent of the pet popularity curve — but now there are so many pets blogs and online pet sites that it’s hard to keep up.

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  21. I remember two of my children performing in a local community theater performance of The Miracle Worker. It is a good play. We need more plays featuring good and brave people.

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  24. I emptied out my t-shirt drawer which Miss Bosley took as an invitation to jump in and frolic. It just looked like boring empty space to me but she had to roll around and claim it as her new home for the moment. Now that gives me a good idea for when we want to watch tv undisturbed.
    🙂 T-shirts may be finding a new home! I did find 15 to donate. Sad to say I probably have twice that many to keep. Some are souvenirs I don’t want to keep, but I feel I must because…don’t want to hurt feelings.

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  26. I have never seen a street preacher in Hendersonville. We have two Christian TV stations, Every Sunday morning you have religious music and church services on the local radio.
    If you scan the FM dial, you will find at least four radio preachers.
    Everyone in this part of the country has an opportunity to hear the Gospel. ,

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  28. It is very sad to go through the estate sale of someone you know. Friend’s of mine have a neighbor who never had children, she lost her husband a few years ago. She has fast moving ALS and has her home on the market and is liquidating everything she owns.. I walked through but could not stay…. I lifetime of “treasures” marked down to 1/2 price.

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  30. I cleaned up the dog poop in the backyard as usual this morning. I always have to look for dead animals as well, usually the handiwork of Annie. I’ve found mice and rats a small possum & an occasional bird 😦 during my rounds out there.

    Nothing except poop this morning, though.

    After that, I had to haul a big bag of dog food & jumbo packages of paper towels & toilet paper in through the back door from the Jeep in the driveway.

    So we’re all set for whatever befalls, whether earthquake or tsunami or refinery explosion.

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  31. The latest little mystery in our town is that someone is leaving carefully placed high-heeled shoes displayed on one of our main boulevard medians. Some kind of arts statement or something, we think.

    Today’s tableau included a gold lame high-heeled shoe. You don’t see gold lame used much anymore.

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  32. I have been tackling my pile of books for review and doing a bit of Twitter activity. I posted to Twitter about reading The Heavenly Man. I said it got the Two Paws Up Award from Miss Bosley. Really good read about persecution of a house church leader in China. Amazing miracles! Especially good to read now with all that is happening elsewhere. I also saw another Tweet saying the author will be in Austin next month.

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  34. I think street preaching is probably more of a byproduct of ethnically diverse urban areas — most are Latino and Pentecostal, it seems to me, but not all. We have several storefront churches in town, places that minister especially to those on the streets, addicts, gang members, and those loose-knit congregations often are seen on corners in the older sections of the port-downtown streets on Saturday mornings with their signs and sometimes bullhorns.

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  35. So, now I spend my days in a room with three men. Granted one of them is a mere baby at 23. Three of us go to the same church. Weird? Yes, that means that Guy, his wife, son, and mother in law go to church with me.

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  39. It was so cold at the dog park tonight that Ollie, the pit bull, showed up dressed in a faux sheepskin jacket his owner made him wear.

    Yes, we all laughed. Poor Ollie.

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  40. This morning, Forrest wanted Kane’s dog bed brought down for him to lay on for a bit. (Kane, who died almost two years ago, was the sweet 80-lb. American Bulldog we acquired when Emily & Forrest moved in, so his dog bed is pretty big.) Forrest abandoned it pretty quickly in favor of doing other things, & I think Heidi was on it briefly, but mostly it has been Rudy, the tiny (although full-grown) kitty, that has occupied the bed. So cute & funny to see.

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  41. Donna, i got an email from Ligonier about employment opportunities. One is for a Copywriter and I thought of you. You would be great for their need. It would mean a move, but that vould be good if it meant working with your favorite ministry. 🙂

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  43. And the dog owner from Buffalo, NY, reiterated that it is just too cold for him here in L.A.

    He’s busy making plans to retire in Belize where the average temperature year-round is 85. Or something like that.

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  44. It must be colder than I thought in LA if someone from Buffalo, NY, thinks it’s too cold. Must be that dry cold and sea breezes (as opposed to the wet cold and lake-effect).

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  49. Looks like husband won’t be going to church again. He tried to adjust his meds so he could but it does not seem to have worked. He has to take six methatrexate pills on one day a week. He started with Sunday because that was easiest to remember. But he is in such discomfort by Sunday, he can barely move. So he moved it to Saturday but it is not working yet. He has lots of edema in hands and feet so it makes life challenging.

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  50. It is cold in Buffalo and, yes, that is why he fled.

    But now he feels cold here — reinforcing my theory that weather is really quite relative and our bodies adapt quickly.

    I’ve asked California transplants, when they say how cold it is on occasion here, how they can think this is cold when they came from the east coast, for example.

    They’ve told me it doesn’t really matter, once you live somewhere else it becomes the “new cold” for their bodies.

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  52. Thanks, we need it. And it is neat to see the children growing up and setting out. We got a call from our Ethiopian last night. He was able to follow our rules so we lifted the communication restriction. We tell them, when they move out, not to contact us except by letter. Though they are allowed to call dad. This is to help them move forward and not stay living here in their minds while living elsewhere with their bodies. It is tough on all but it helps. He was able to keep the focus and has three jobs. Now that the restrictions are lifted, one of which was to not buy a computer until he was working two full months, he says he does not plan to buy one at this time. He works too hard for his money. Of all of our children, he is most likely to become a millionaire. He goes to the library in his spare time and uses the computer there. Or goes to the gym and works out. Very pleased with how he is doing. He does say that never a day goes by that somebody does not offer him some marijuana.

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  53. Good to hear, mumsee, that must be gratifying.

    Speaking of marijuana (since you brought it up and all), some guy was smoking some in the dog park last night. It didn’t smell anything like what I remembered the smell to be from rock concerts I went to in the ’70s, though — someone said they have better grades nowadays. Who knew?

    I suppose that he had a (cough-cough) medical condition that required him to be smoking the drug.

    They might as well just go ahead and legalize it in California, we have “medical” pot shops popping up everywhere now, most with lines of kids on skateboards outside waiting for them to open. Lots of medical conditions among our young out here, apparently.

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  55. Since two of the three families at our church were out of town, Mrs L and I visited the local SBC today. There were twenty or so there. Some didn’t come because of the 6″ of new snow. The person in charge of the bulletin wasn’t there so the pastor apologized for having to “wing it”. We are not used to a programmed service, so it didn’t bother us. We’re going over to the pastor’s house for supper tonight since they cancelled the evening meeting. We have been wanting to get together with them for some time but it hasn’t worked out.

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  56. We are still having grungy rainy weather, but I am thankful I can go back to sweaters and jackets instead of heavy coats.

    I am opening the church library for the Sunday School time, but there has been little interest. I really enjoyed starting into a new workbook study on the transforming power of the blood of Jesus. The author did a WMU conference I was at, but I am getting so much more from the quiet study in the workbook.

    I think in time, especially when all this yucky weather clears, that there may be more who will use the library for independent study. One woman encouraged me by saying she would love to be in there, but her class is depending on her.

    I am just thankful to have some time away from teaching the children who, at least some, did not seem very attentive or respectful. I may in time be back there, but for now I can feel spiritual growth instead of stagnation on a personal level.

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  57. Mumsee, I believe your Ethiopian is going to become a real estate mogul. Speaking of which…the house we used to live in was purchased for $218K and is back on the market at $299K. ….but I don’t know anything about real estate.

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  58. Quiet afternoon here, I see.

    I had the best 2-hour nap this afternoon. Yawn. Guess it’s back to the dog park for us in a little while, then I’m off to church again for the 6 p.m. Westminster Confession of Faith class (talking about God’s decrees tonight).

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  60. We had a choir from North Greenville University sing for us tonight. They were good, but not my kind of music. They sang the songs I like this morning, substituting for our choir.
    There was applause after each song.
    When I was in high school in the late forties, a choir from Winthrop College came to sing for us at chapel. They sang and there was complete silence between songs. At the end, they presented the choir and they received a standing ovation.
    When we returned to class, Miss White told us how proud she was.
    People were more cultured then than they are now.

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  63. Chas, at my church in Chicago, they went through a stage of wanting to applaud everything. “We” even applauded ourselves (the congregational singing). Some kind of spiritualized it by saying something like “Go, God,” as though we were applauding Him and not ourselves, but to me that really didn’t make it much better. When we see Christ, we won’t be clapping and saying trite sayings like “Go, God.” We’ll be falling on our faces speechless and saying with the angels, “Holy, holy, holy.”

    When I say we applauded everything, I pretty much mean it. Every song, every testimony, every baptism. I joked that we applauded everything but the offering, because people even applauded sermons a few times. Once after they had applauded a guest preacher’s sermon, I thought that to a pastor with a heart for Christ, applause to a sermon had to be shockingly close to the pagans who wanted to worship the apostle Paul. Applause after a sermon is like saying “Good speech!” and it so hugely misses the point as to be appalling.

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  64. I have mixed feelings about the applause. In one sense, it gives the feeling of a performane done for people and not unlike a general secular concert. But on the other hand, it can be a way of giving Christian encouragement to the one who worked hard to do outstanding worship to bless and glorify God. We do applaud in our church at times for the soloists in particular. It is not overboard and no one shouts, “Encore!” 🙂 Thank goodness no one has had reason to shout, “No encore, please!” 🙂

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  67. Hmmm, I was out planting some blackberry starts somebody gave me and I did not see any snow. I did have to take off my jacket as it was too warm.

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  68. Lately, Forrest has been repeating what people to say to the person to whom they said it. For instance, this evening, I went upstairs & told Emily that Lee wants her to stay home rather than coming to work tomorrow, to shovel the snow we’re getting this afternoon & through the night. Then Forrest said to Emily, “Mimi said…” & repeated my words.

    Now, I think of it as being like when a mom says “We’re going out for ice cream!” & one of the kids says to the other one, “Did ya hear that?! We’re going out for ice cream!”

    But Emily is annoyed by it, & says she finds it insulting. Insulting? I think she’s taking it too seriously. I told her I didn’t think he meant to insult her.

    Both my daughters can take things in funny ways. Come to think of it, I think I can, too. :-/

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  69. Mumsee – For some reason, your comment brought these lyrics to mind: “I was out choppin’ cotton, and my brother was balin’ hay…”

    Anyone remember the song I’m referring to? It was a favorite when I was young, & I could sing it all the way through by myself, although I was only six when the song came out.

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  72. No applause at our church, which I like — except for after our occasional baptisms. A Christian mentor used to bow her head and pray when everyone else applauded, so I’ve followed that course for myself.

    I prefer worship that is counter-cultural and not prone to what we experience everywhere else, from theaters to other secular gatherings. All our singing is full congregational, no solos or musical elements that could be perceived as “performance.”

    It was very cold at the dog park. “Buffalo” was bundled up and shivering, telling us about his plans to move to Belize; Ollie the pit bull was still wearing his sheepskin jacket.

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  73. When daughter went out to walk Barney, she put on a scarf, wrapped around her face. But then, she always wears a scarf wrapped around her face, when I let her get away with it. She just had a light sweatshirt, it was not very cold. Probably up in the forties or fifties.

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  75. And there are some surfer guys who still insist on wearing their long shorts — but now combined with knit caps, flannel shirts and hiking boots.

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  76. Awesome, Return of the Mummy is on tonight. His first question: “What year is it?” 🙂

    But I’ll have to mis the rest of it as the finale of Downton Abbey is on tonight. Why are British series so short?? Nine weeks (which seemed like 6). Didn’t they learn anything from us Americans???

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  77. Mumsee, it’s a lot colder here, and apparently we have your snow. It keeps getting deeper, with several new inches today. We had church but “barely.” (The elders were watching the weather for signs that they needed to cancel; had they known the actual conditions of the roads, they probably would have cancelled, but the weather reports didn’t give them a strong enough reason to cancel. We did call the daughter who was going to drive separately and recommended she stay home. She did so.)

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  78. Karen, I don’t know that it would be insulting. But depending on how he says it, it’s possible it’s “bossy.” Or it’s possible it’s playful or enthusiastic. Sometimes a child can have a tone that suggests superiority and bossiness, though, and it can be quite grating when that is present and parents don’t hear it.

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