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Our Daily Thread 7-25-15

Good Morning!

Welcome to the weekend!

Here’s another of it screeching loudly at a smaller bird who was trying to chase it away. 

7-22-15 001

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On this day in 1759 British forces defeated a French army at Fort Niagara in Canada.

In 1850 gold was discovered in the Rogue River in OR.

In 1941 the U.S. government froze all Japanese and Chinese assets.

In 1946 the U.S. detonated an atomic bomb at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. It was the first underwater test of the device.

And in 1952 Puerto Rico became a self-governing commonwealth of the U.S.

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Quote of the Day

“The hard part is how to plan a picture so as to give to others what has happened to you. To render in paint an experience, to suggest the sense of light and color, of air and space.”

Maxfield Parrish

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Let’s have reader’s choice for the music selections this weekend. 

So what’ll it be?

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Anyone have a QoD?

42 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 7-25-15”

  2. “Evening Jo. Saturday won’t be a relaxing day. I need to prepare a SS lesson on Revelation 2&3.
    If I figure correctly, it’s about your bedtime on Saturday evening.

    Good morning everyone else!

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  3. JANICE!!!!!! It’s all YOUR fault! Last week you mentioned sudoku so I have found an app for my phone and have been playing. There have been 2 that I have had to give up on and will come back and try.
    Hopefully today will be relaxing. I took off Thursday for BG’s test so Guy thinks he has been cheated out of work he is paying me to do. He has one little thing stuck in his craw and told me yesterday since it didn’t get done on his time I could do it on mine!

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  4. Good morning, all, and FIRST! With the music, that is. 🙂

    I love Baroque music in the morning — gets my blood pumping — especially if the music contains brass instruments. So how about Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2? No brass in the middle movement, but there’s a nice contrast, then, proceeding through the three movements, and the re-entrance of the brass section at the beginning of the third movement is just glorious!

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  6. The music of the Keith & Kristyn Getty is becoming my favorite hymn music. Yesterday we had a Baptist youth choir visit the cave, so I asked them to sing something in an area called “the cathedral”. They chose this one, which is one of my all time favorites: “In Christ Alone”. The cave acoustics were perfect, and the group was great, albeit I only had half the group, and there weren’t but two or three boys among 20 some girls.

    http://gettymusic.com/hymns-inchristalone.aspx

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  7. Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Arrows and I had a nice day together yesterday. We did lots of reading, and the youngest two finished up their summer library program. We all went to the library yesterday afternoon, taking back 40 of the 46 books we’d had checked out. We love the library. 😉

    I found (and checked out) two interesting books on the adult new non-fiction shelf. Keep It Shut: What to Say, How to Say It, and When to Say Nothing At All, by Karen Ehman; and The Village Effect: How Face-to-Face Contact Can Make Us Healthier, Happier, and Smarter, by Susan Pinker.

    In addition, a book I’d requested on interlibrary loan was there for me, entitled What Every Pianist Needs to Know About the Body, by Thomas Mark. Lots of information and diagrams on the mechanics of motion at keyboard instruments, how to prevent injury, etc. A much-needed resource for me at this time. 🙂

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  9. Wonderful hawk shots, AJ. Redtail?

    Last night I went out into the backyard since there was a family of some animal, and from the house I couldn’t tell if it was groundhogs, raccoons, or something else. (From photos taken from the very back of our yard, I could barely tell they were coons, a mother and two babies.) When I came back inside, my husband said, “So was it a buck?” I told him I hadn’t seen a deer, and I showed him a couple dragonfly photos I’d taken. He said oh, he thought I went out after the deer, since there was a big one out there.

    Well, I looked out the window and the deer I initially saw was a doe. But a couple minutes later I saw there was another deer too, some distance away from the first, and that would mean the second was almost certainly a buck. (If there were two does out in the same field, they’d be grazing pretty close to each other, in my experience. But bucks and does seem to have a mutual agreement to feed separately.) So I went back out, and went almost to the back of the yard (just keeping the last couple of trees between me and the buck). Misten even ran around barking a few times. He had to have known we were there, and he was wary but didn’t flee, and I got several decent shots. He wasn’t one of the bigger ones of the group of four that have been hanging around, but I’ve had very limited luck seeing bucks and especially limited luck at getting their photos, so I was pleased to get them.

    And who knows, maybe he was calm enough not to leave when I came out because he watched me the first time I went out, and I obviously wasn’t interested in him, so therefore I wasn’t a threat?

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  13. Off to visit my parents today, and share a meal with them. Then to visit my father-in-law in the nursing home. Blessings on your day, all!

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  14. Well, my husband has said he’s really glad he bought me the camera. And some of my photographing is seeing something I know he’ll appreciate (like dragonflies . . . and I really wanted an indigo bunting photograph since he loves them so much, so I was extra pleased when I finally got some this year). In Chattanooga I got photos of bridges and boats that I wouldn’t have photographed as a single woman, but I know what he likes and I get some of those photos too.

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  15. It’s back to Hollywood for me today, have to pick up Carol so we can exchange a lamp shade at the Walmart — but first I had to clear out the messenger bag I’ve been using for a couple months now … so I could find the receipt (which I finally did).

    Just got off the phone from an hourlong (almost) conversation with my former pastor’s wife (who’s a talker 🙂 ) — I’m planning to visit their OPC church next week (he’s retired but is going to be preaching) and we’re trying to organize a picnic afterward.

    Meanwhile, it’s clear that this house just won’t get worked on before I have to go back to work on Monday. Oh well. It’s been a very busy stay-cation, but a good one. I did manage to get all the recycles bagged last night and ready to put in the outdoor bin.

    Bridges and boats and ships are attractive in their own way. 🙂 I’m surrounded …

    I also love “In Christ Alone,” it’s one we sing in church quite often.

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  16. In the words of Albert Hitchcock, a drawn out, “Good evening.” All the birds must have brought that on.

    I went to the writer’s critique group this morning. I am really enjoying this group, even starting to appreciate the sci-fi story. it is an active group with a lot of meetings and things like a family picnic and in Dec. a cookie bake, a day long writing retreat, etc. Still wishing it could be closer to home. It’s about a 45 minute drive.

    Donna, it just seems funny to hear the words Walmart and Hollywood in the same paragraph. I was thinking of you this week when I carried an older lady from church to a fabric store.

    6 Arrows, we loved the library when son was homeschooling. That is where he got at least half his education. I can consider that our school tax dollars were diverted there for son’s benefit. I also used the library a lot when reaching preschool. I would design a craft to go with the story of the day, and I tried to have a selection of books on the table for the early arrivers to engage with.

    I took a long nap this afternoon. I have not been feeling as well as I would like to. I woke up early this morning so I needed the extra rest.

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  18. Well, the Walmart we had to go to was in the Crenshaw South Central LA shopping district, so only Carol was picked up and dropped off in Hollywood 🙂

    So much traffic out today, bumper to bumper everywhere, it seemed. And Walmart was packed, of course. And it’s a hot day.

    Have I complained enough? 🙂

    I have all the fans going in my house to try to cool things off from the mid 80s inside. It’s slow going …

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  19. The driving did include a stretch on an old Hollwood residential street where there were the most beautiful old (early 1900s?) mansions (including some stately old apartment buildings from probably the 1920s) and giant trees everywhere. Beautiful neighborhood, it must have been especially grand in its day — and it’s still stunning.

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  26. Youngest two and I stayed home. We have had a long run of health but she picked up the usual swim lesson cold and shared it with me. Nine year old is too much of a handful in public lately.

    Meanwhile, seventeen leaves directly from church to start out on his trip to China. He is as prepared as folk can make him, the rest is up to him and God.

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  27. I slept in a bit today, I think I needed that.

    I still struggle with church at 3. 😦 I don’t think I’ll “get used” to it, this will just feel odd for as long as it lasts.

    I’m hoping the remodel is on schedule so we’ll be able to return in September (or at least sometime during that month) as initially planned.

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  28. Good afternoon! Church was great today. The church plant minister from India led our service. He spoke about rejoicing in the Lord. We got to hear about some true miracles in his life. He is so inspiring, and their solo singer did a great job on a song entitled Majesty which was one I was unfamiliar with.

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  29. Excellent World column:

    ” … I want to ask the prelates: Why did it take so long? If the decision was so proudly overwhelming, why didn’t it happen five years ago? Or three? Or one? In other words, if something is right, why isn’t it right before it’s au courant and de rigueur? …. Politicians and church denominations are trying to ‘save their life’ by agreeing with the new zeitgeist, but Jesus says that is the way to “lose it” (Luke 9:24). … ”

    Why is it that the liberal churches are the very last to get on board with these cultural trends? Do they ever ask themselves that? Does it cause them to wonder how much of this “change of heart” really is simply following (last but not least) the popular winds of change in our times? If it was the morally right thing to do or believe, why in the world did it take them so long? Why were they last to be “right” rather than first — why weren’t they the trailblazers?

    http://www.worldmag.com/2015/07/warp_speed

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  31. Donna, I used the trend taken by many liberal churches today to illustrate three of the seven churches. Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, allowed heresy to enter the church.
    Like Sardis, they had a big church, TV program and supported charities, like Planned Parenthood.
    Yeah, I said that about Sardis.

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  35. I forgot I was asked if that comment could be printed. I will have to look in my print magazines. I am waaaaayyyyy behind on my reading.

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  36. I tried to post this earlier, but apparently WordPress decided I was an imposter, and I don’t think it went through . . .

    Donna, did Misten call or text Tess earlier today, by chance? Her self-esteem suffered a serious blow this morning, and I thought she might have felt the need to communicate with someone who would understand.

    See, this morning we had two does and three fawns in the back field, and Misten went out and told them off, told them to move along. The fawns weren’t sure whether to take her seriously, but their mothers just ignored her and they soon followed that example.

    Misten felt completely marginalized, disrespected, and overall ill-used. If she contacts Tess, try to encourage Tess to be a good listener.

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  37. Heidi can empathize with Misten. There are a couple cats who walk though our back yard occasionally. Despite Heidi’s best ferocious barking, from on the gated porch or her tether, they sometimes stop in the back of the yard, & settle down to stare at her. The nerve of them cats!

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  38. This morning, walking out the door to go to church, I noticed that my husband wore a shirt that has sleeves with hunter’s camo on them. I was wearing an animal print top. I pointed that out to him.

    “Don’t worry. I won’t shoot you,” he says.

    “Thank you. I appreciate that,” I reply. 🙂

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  39. We just watched the movie, Three Days of the Condor. I have seen it before years ago but did not remember most of it. I have rarely seen movies more than once, and now I see them from the Christian viewpoint that I did not have earlier in my life.

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  40. Oh, no phone calls for the dogs that I know of today, although I’ve kept the cell pretty close to me all day.

    Tess has her own problems with Annie Oakley, although Annie does cower and run on cue when I’m getting ready to the feed the dogs in the kitchen. I suspect, however, that it’s become a fun game to Annie.

    It goes like this:

    Annie will pad across the kitchen threshold — just barely — then sits down.

    Tess turns and gives her the “herding” stare … then. … slowly Tess creeps before she springs at the cat.

    Annie takes off like a bullet and scampers through the living room.

    Then, a few minutes later, Annie reappears. She pads across the kitchen threshold — just barely — and sits down.

    Tess turns ….

    Well, it goes on like that.

    Good day at church, during the Q&A time there was talk of the spiraling U.S. culture. The elder who preached (and who was presiding over the SS) said God can (and has in the past) turned cultures around in a single pivot.

    But …

    Until the church becomes the church that won’t happen. I asked his assessment of today’s church and he suggested that many simply don’t even preach the gospel anymore. Until the church begins to act like the church, political solutions will, ultimately, just fail.

    We’ve had it easy here, no persecution, a generally accepting (even approving) social environment. There’ve been no downsides to being at least a nominal Christian.

    We need to pray for the church first — and for the kind of revival, including conviction of sin and a calling on the name of the Lord — before we’ll see the kind of change we yearn for, in his view.

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