Good Morning!
The other morning at the pond I saw a white blob in the tree across the other side. I knew it was a bird, but it didn’t look right. When I zoomed in, I realized it was a couple of birds grooming each other.
They were pretty high up for such big birds. Same for this other guy too. I’ve seen them in trees, just not that high up.
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Wandering Views 
Good morning everyone!
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Interesting event yesterday.
I went in to clean out my spam filter.
I always read the titles before I delete because on rare occasions, it isn’t spam.
So? There was in my spam, a msg from Kim.
I marked it “not spam” and cleaned out the rest.
I went back and opened Kim’s msg.
It was an advertisement about losing weight.
They had an interesting morph, where a woman, about 200#, using their system went to a pretty young thing the size of Megyn Kelly. She got a hair-do and makeover also.
I replied to Kim, using the “reply” button, not her address.
It bounced.
Kim said she didn’t send it. And I believe that.
I ran an ADT scan. They saw “no threats”.
Evidently someone got an e-mail address and used it on someone familiar with that address.
No harm done, but you folks need to be aware of these happenings.
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Good morning Chas! Hope you have a great day. Off to work again today.
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Another interesting thing about that.
The spam filter put something from Kim, with no other indication of what it is, into the spam.
How did they know what that was about?
The spam filter knew from the beginning that it wasn’t a legitimate message.
I didn’t know until I opened it.
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Kim,
A thought that may or may not be useful to you. Even though no one asked for it and no one else ever does it, I send my boss a status report every week. I list each project with a bulleted list of what I did on it that week. I also include issues, roadblocks, and concerns, where applicable. I can’t tell you how many times it’s come in handy to support the progress or lack of progress on a project and the hours I charged for it that week (we have to record hours separated by each client we work for). Every day I make notes of what I did that day so it’s easy to pull it together into the status report on Monday morning and the whole thing only takes minutes once I got used to it. Seems like if you were to do something like this, it would avoid the kinds of conversations you’ve had with GYWW this week. Just a thought.
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I got the email from Kim too. Since it had no message and I wasn’t about to open a link, I deleted it.
Kim is sending us mysterious messages!!
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Morning all. Had a nice meal and fellowship/prayer time with a group I have joined here tonight.
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those bird pictures are amazing, Aj. Well done
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I apologize to all of you. I do not forward chain email or advertisements. If I do for any reason in the subject line I will say something along the lines of this really is me and there is an attachment or forwarded message. The email address I use for this blog and for most of you is one I have had for a very long time. I only use it for here, to receive messages from the school, and probably what caused the problem yesterday, whenever I am asked by a store for my email address or have them email a receipt to me. If it looks suspicious delete it, send me a message and if it is something important I will resend it to you. Better safe than infect your computer.
Linda, I try to do something like what you are talking about using Google Sheets because he could add tasks and I could mark them off as completed or I could give him updates etc. He uses Outlook as his email. I don’t want a dozen different versions of Excel clogging my computer. I also tried using a system called Wunderlist, but he wasn’t interested in that. Part of the problem could be solved if we have a CRM and we could all interact with clients there. He has notes in an Excel spreadsheets in some sort of shorthand and wants me to go in decipher it and clean it up into a workable document. This causes me to spend hours in his email account digging back through clients, contracts, and everything else. When I find an easier, more efficient way of doing something it isn’t satisfactory to him and he would rather use and unstable 10 year old computer and have me pull all the information out of an old ACT account. He would like me to scan business cards into another old card scanner and computer than he would have me use my cell phone to take photos of the business cards and put them into a app. Would have also been easier to do it on his phone than on mine since they are HIS contacts. Most recently he has wanted me to change the colors in a Power Point Presentation because the colors looked lighter on one and darker on another. When I pulled them up side by side on the same monitor they were EXACTLY the same. In addition they are the company approved marketing colors. A marketing presentation he approved last week wasn’t good enough this week and he wanted the whole thing changed. It is enough that the two guys in the office with me have mentioned it to me and one who is closer to my age actually has spoken up twice and said something directly to Guy. The office admins want nothing to do with him and the COO has told them they don’t have to, to let me be the buffer. Why does everyone put up with this? Because he has already pulled in over 20 million dollars worth of business and has that amount in the pipeline. He does this garbage because he can and then laughs that I have lasted longer working with him than anyone else.
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Re reading yesterday’s thread it seems to me that I owe everyone involved in the alcohol consumption discussion an apology. I do not like to be “out of control”. I do not enjoy that feeling one gets when one has that last glass of wine and feels “giddy” or whatever you want to call that feeling. I enjoy a glass or two of wine over the course of an evening with good appetizers or a really good meal. I have been known to be the only one at a table to order a glass of wine. There is something within me that can’t eat a perfect steak with just a glass of water. I want the pairing of the meat with a hearty red wine. I also do the mental math that A glass of good wine can cost about 7-9 dollars in a good restaurant and for about double that I can buy a decent bottle of wine. That one glass lasts through the whole meal.
Now what is my addictive sin you may be asking yourself? Gluttony. There have been times in my life where I have been full but kept on eating because I WANTED that feeling of being over stuffed. I CAN polish off a medium rare rib eye steak, a baked potato with butter and sour cream and a salad with bleu cheese dressing. Instead I have learned to cut my ribeye in half, eat half and have the other half for lunch the next day, eat half the baked potato and have a vinagrette dressing on my salad.
My current joke is that I drink coffee, water, and wine. I drink too much coffee, not enough water (although I drink it all day long) and Mr. P has us on alcohol restriction for diet reasons. A calorie is a calorie and you can eat it or dink it. 200 calories to fill your belly and give you nutrition or 200 calories on a glass of wine. Which should I choose? It takes about 30 almonds to equal 200 calories and that is better energy than the sugar in the wine.
Now, I have added up what I usually order at the Sugar Kettle–I get the veggie plate because I feel like I don’t cook enough veggies at home. That is about a 500 calorie meal, See? If you know you have a problem with something you have to learn to manage it. I and anyone else could decide never to touch another drop of alcohol, but we have have to have fuel for our bodies. And before you worry too much about my focus on calories I am in no danger of becoming bulimic ( can’t trow up when I am dying of nausea) and I get sick if I don’t eat. My blood sugar drops out. I just make better choices like fish instead of steak.
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Good morning. I didn’t get the email from Kim you’re talking about, but I got a different strange one yesterday. From a place I’ve never heard of, inviting me to join a local online homeschool private social network of some sort. There was someone’s name and address on it whom I’ve never heard of. She lives in the city we go to church, and I looked in the phone book and saw her name and address as it was listed in the email.
The email said something like “Join this group with people such as…” and it gave the first and last names of several people, none of whom I’d ever heard of. There was a link to click on to join (which I didn’t click) and a listing of how much it would cost to be part of the group, but not to worry, no payment will be due until September 2015, at which time more information would be following.
I deleted the email. It seemed suspicious to me. (There was also a “do not reply” address somewhere in the email, which made it seem even more suspicious.) Maybe it’s legitimate, but I’m sorry, I’m not sending money to a person or organization I’ve never heard of.
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No harm done Kim.
I didn’t join the alcohol discussion yesterday because I don’t drink and have no desire for it.
I used to drink been occasionally when I was with my buddies in the AF. But I didn’t really care for it and could nurse a single beer for an hour.
Elvera has never had a drink of alcohol and I wouldn’t have her if I drank.
But I don’t care if others do.
Drugs is another issue. Our drug culture is causing the lawless gangs in Mexico and central America. A druggies is personally responsible for those deaths.
One of the best ways to learn is from other people’s mistakes. I smoked occasionally when I was in the AF. But I noticed so many guys trying to quit that I avoided the habit. I haven’t smoked anything since 1952.
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Another advantage to raising kids in a small town.
Today’s Times-News has a twelve page insert about the high school football teams in the county. It gives the kids a lot of publicity and supports local sports.
This couldn’t have happened in Fairfax County, Va.. Too much to report.
I didn’t read it, but I’m certain lots of kids and parents did.
If I owned a business, I would put an ad on those pages.
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Good morning. I am doing some volunteer work this a.m. and waiting for coworker to arrive.
I got to thinking about the alcohol and sin issue. I don’t think I have ever seen anyone drinking and thought the word “sin” about it. Early on with tv programs we were taught that people did funny and goofey things when drunk. So drunks were laughable rather than sinful. Con anyone else relate? It made me realize that would be one of those carry over ways of thinking from before I was a Christian. Now I should pray for anyone I see who appears drunk. Holy Spirit conviction time!
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Janice, they were funny and goofy . . . but they also weren’t anyone that people wanted to emulate or honor. They probably didn’t take the danger of drunkenness seriously enough, but they definitely didn’t glamorize it, either.
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From my own research of alcoholism the guy or girl at the office Christmas party dancing on the table with a lampshade on their head isn’t an alcoholic. They are someone who didn’t realize how much they were drinking, mortified themselves, will feel like dying the next day, and will have to face walking back into the office the next day.
The person sitting at a table by themselves on their 4th or 5th drink is the alcoholic. They will get up tomorrow morning, take a shot of whiskey or the hair of the dog that bit them and show up at work as if nothing out of the ordinary happened. They will be a functional alcoholic for a long time and one day it will get away from them and the next drink will be the most important thing in their lives.
My dad was a funny, goofy too much to drink guy. He made promises he would have never otherwise made, but the next day he remembered them and he kept them. I remember him once upon a time having too much to drink at a dinner dance he and mother attended. They picked me up from my Grandmother’s house. She was going on and on about all the women there who had mink coats. He pulled the car over, opened the door, leaned out, threw up, sat up straight, and said, “Woman, if you will shut up I will buy you a mink coat tomorrow”. The next day she was the proud owner of an Autumn something or other Mink coat. I, on the other hand have managed to marry two men who are animal lovers and have informed me that it is not cold enough in South Alabama to justify having a mink coat and besides that it is just cruel to the animals. 😉
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Kim,
My mother got a mink stole. When she died, none of her daughters or daughters-in-law wanted it.
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Lovely photos, AJ. Great egrets and a great blue heron?
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I have a Blue Fox Wrap. Not much I can do with it. My shoulders are broader than when it was bought when I was a teen. I have thought of having it made into a decorative pillow for a sofa or bed. It stays packed in a RubberMaid container with moth balls along with a Scottish Kilt brought back from Scotland of the Black Plaid. I am a Scotch/Irish Mutt whose family helped settle the Appalachians and Southeast. BG has no connection to either of these items and will probably throw them in the trash at the first opportunity.
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Nice photos — I overslept, pretty intense week with more stories on the homeless. Meanwhile, editor last night was grousing as my story was longish … Our mobility training this week suggested that most folks read our stories on their phones and take 15 minutes on each story; in other words, concentrate on good headlines and maybe a list of things rather than writing a traditional story.
Sigh.
I get it, I also tend to spend less time reading news articles especially on the phone … But some stories have to still be written in full to do them justice, the subject matter is simply too complex.
Anyway, back to it, gotta rush to get out of here now …
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One of my sources told me a hilarious story a while back — she had been invited to a star-studded dinner in Hollywood to promote various environmental causes so she dressed up and threw on a cute rabbit fur jacket.
As they pulled up in front of the venue, she spotted folks from PETA and, thinking about the crowd she’d also be mingling with inside, realized OOPS, rabbit fur jacket not a good idea. She spent the entire night telling people the jacket was “fake” or faux fur.
I was laughing because in the *old* days one would wear a fake fur jacket and try to pass it off as real; nowadays we wear the real deal and tell everyone it’s only a cheap knockoff.
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Chas’s email from “Kim” is called hacking. Anyone with the knowledge to do so can make it look like an email is from any address they choose. How do they get the addresses? From the To: or Cc: lines in an email. That is why if I am sending out an email to a lot of people, I use the Bcc: line. No can see those addresses and the recipients only see their address when they get it. So when you forward an email, delete the original header so others cannot see the addresses in the original email.
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I decided the volunteer work will be good for l9sing weight. It was mostly inside a
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Oh No! Janice? Are you okay????
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Chas sent me an email like that a long time ago. Who would not open an email from Chas? Well, I learned my lesson. Everybody on my email list got the same sort of emails from me, sending them to some shopping website I had never heard of. And then I started getting them back from my email listees. So, never open an email with a website on it unless you have confirmed with your real person friend.
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I got my posting interupted by a phone call. I did not think I hit post but it posted in the middle of my statement. I was working in a warehouse without a/c so I lost water weight.
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Kim – I mostly agree with your characterization of an alcoholic vs. someone who had too much to drink. But I think that we can also find alcoholics who are the life of the party (or at least, they think they are), as well as those who are sitting in a corner downing one after another, & then there is the belligerent drunk.
Lee was a secret drinker (buying alcohol & drinking when he was out of the house) , & it caused him to be somewhat belligerent with us, although we didn’t know why he was that way. (Yes, I felt like an idiot for not knowing he was drinking.) His dad had been a loud, belligerent drunk (also an alcoholic).
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Yes, some people would be astounded to find out that someone they know is an alcoholic. People can be amazingly resourceful and productive, in spite of being an alcoholic.
Fascinating pictures of the grooming birds.
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I really like those great photos of the birds, too. Good job, AJ, with your photography.
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I remember clearly one day while folding laundry, thinking how grateful I was that Lee hadn’t turned out to be an alcoholic like his dad. The Holy Spirit immediately dropped into my mind that just because he hadn’t yet didn’t mean it couldn’t still happen. That brought me up short, but also helped prepare my heart for the revelation, just two or three weeks later, that Lee had been secretly drinking, & was indeed an alcoholic.
Knowing that something was wrong with my husband, but not knowing what it was (thinking it was “only” an attitude problem), I prayed two prayers from Stormie Omartian’s Power of a Praying Wife, one for “His Repentance” & the other for “His Deliverance”.
The next day (or possibly the day after that), Lee was arrested for a DUI. He was only pulled over because he forgot to wear his seatbelt, & the police were doing seatbelt checks. Since I had to be home with his mom, & although I was still driving during the day, I had given up driving at night, he needed to have my parents pick him up when he would be released, around 10pm (spending about three hours in the cell). We were both humiliated by having to do that, worrying this would ruin any Christian witness we’d been to them. (But the way Lee took responsibility for what he’d done, & stopped drinking, earned him even greater respect than they’d had for him before.)
I knew enough about my husband to know he would be repentant, so when he came in the door later that night, I met him with a hug & some dinner. He told me he had spent those three hours crying out to God for forgiveness & deliverance. That night, before going to sleep, we each (unbeknownst to the other) prayed for God’s mercy – he prayed God’s mercy for his family (if he were to lose his job over this & what that would entail for all of us), & I prayed for God’s mercy for him. (He did not lose his job.)
He felt a bit shaky the next day, but God delivered him from alcoholism. He didn’t go to AA or any other program (except for the class he had to take for the DUI), but was freed from the addiction to alcohol. Praise God!
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Three months later, Lee had an “episode” that led to him being in the hospital for a few days. Although the problem turned out not to be his heart (which it had felt like), the tests on his heart revealed something: He has a condition in which alcohol directly poisons his heart (more so than the usual alcoholic or heavy drinker). The squeeze of his heart was only 30-something% of what it should have been. The doctor said that if he hadn’t stopped drinking when he did, he would have been dead in six months.
We firmly believe that that DUI arrest, as humiliating as it was for him, was definitely God’s mercy at work, for all of us.
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I have not been around anyone that I knew was an alcoholic. I have been around people who seemed like they could be headed toward that. Those people and I went separate ways so I do not know what happened with them.
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Janice, you & I posted comments at the same time. 🙂
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Alcoholism must be extremely common with so many on the blog knowing people with that problem. I have a friend whose husband has that problem, but I am not around them much and have never seen him drinking. Also, my brother talks about a cousin who may have a problem, but I have never seen him drinking.
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Yes, alcoholism is quite prevalent in our society.
BTW, the events I wrote about above happened back in 2002.
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When I was a teenager, we had a couple in our church who were, um, interesting. He was an alcoholic, and often appeared scruffy and smelling of alcohol, and she was what was then called manic-depressive (now bi-polar). Now, I’ve known other bi-polar people since then, but one who is married to a drunk can be particularly noteworthy in how her emotions are manifested.
Growing up, we had a rule never to let anyone in the house if our parents weren’t home, with the exception of our older brothers or our pastor. (Our pastor never stopped by unannounced, and we went to so many different churches we didn’t necessarily know the pastor well enough to make him the sole non-family exception, but that was the rule.)
Well, one day when I was 15 or 16 (probably 16), this couple stopped by unannounced. If it was when Dad was in the hospital in another town (as seems most likely), then I would have been nearly 17, but at the youngest I was 15 going on 16. At any rate, they stopped by unannounced, obviously expecting to come in, and I figured that surely I was old enough that the rule would no longer be considered in effect for people from church, so I welcomed them in. Mom was not happy, and she reiterated the rule. It frustrated me that they of all people were the ones who “tested” the rule, because if it had been anyone else from church when we were that age and living in that small town, I imagine it would have been OK with Mom for us to have let them in.
A couple months later an elderly friend from church stopped by. (Dad was definitely in the hospital on that visit.) It was nearly 90 in the shade and she was clearly hot, wiping sweat from her forehead repeatedly, and she griped a bit about us not being allowed to go inside. But the rule had been restated recently and it didn’t seem right to break it, so we sat out on the porch and I brought her plenty of ice water.
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I remember you telling that story before Karen and am always amazed at how things worked out.
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Oh, and I went to Sugar Kettle today. I splurged. 4 Vegetable plate instead of 3.
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I knew several alcoholics. They were in our church in Virginia. Two were married to each other. They were sober for years and regularly attended AA meetings. These meetings were important to them.
I have heard that if an alcoholic takes a singe drink, it puts them back to the condition they were in before.
I don’t know how true that is, but I’ve heard it from several sources.
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Oh, that reminds me that a newer member is an alcoholic who no longer drinks and gives full credit to God. Every day he has to rely on God to see him through. He mentioned that during our discussion last Sunday evening of hymns when he was saying why Amazing Grace had personal significance.
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“There hath no temptation taken you but such is common to man but with the temptation there will be a way of escape that you might be able to bear it.”
The only thing I memorized from Navigators. It is probably wrong somewhere but the thought is right.
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Chas,
While that may be true for some, more than likely it’s just the excuse they use to justify how easy it is for them to fall back on it.
My experience with a close family member, and my own, show otherwise. I was a serious drinker for years, over a decade. A nearly daily occurrence. I didn’t drink for years when I quit. When I did after that, it was only a glass with dinner out, or maybe a beer with a steak. Now it’s been many years again since even that. I could, but I chose not to.
The family member quit years ago too. He sometimes has one or two now and then. But like me, makes a conscious decision to not drink more. That’s how you beat it.
Every drunk has a choice every day, and every drink. The very definition of a drunk to me is a person who repeatedly makes bad decisions faster than their body can process alcohol. One won’t do it, neither will two for most, but keep making the wrong choice, and it will always end the same. It’s kinda like the definition of insanity.
In most cases, I’d say that was an excuse. The old “I can’t help it, one drink and I’m hooked again” defense. They’re just lookin’ to justify their behavior. Drunks can quit, but a drunk will never quit until they want to. No amount of pressure, rehab, or loved ones imploring them is enough until they’re ready to.
And of course, a personal relationship with Christ helps too. 🙂
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Chas, I’ve heard that too (about an alcoholic taking a single drink). I can’t help but wonder, though, how much of that is “I took a drink; therefore, I am defeated and might as well admit it.”
This is only speculation, and worth the cost of the ink to write it. What if a person was enslaved to alcohol, and confessed it to God and repented and gave it up. A few years later he is reading in Scripture and sees some things it says about wine or beer, and he’s interested enough to do a study. He sees that wine is a good gift from God to be used within proper limits. And he decides that he can have one drink with dinner with his family, and that will be all.
Wouldn’t that be similar to the fornicator who comes to understand he has been misusing a good gift from God and brings his sexuality under God’s authority? We are told that sin should not have dominion over us. The drunkard and the fornicator are both responsible for their sin. It isn’t the fault of the bottle that the man (or woman) drinks too much.
If I were talking to someone who had struggled with alcohol in the past, I wouldn’t suggest he try that. But if he were to ask me what I thought about it, I wouldn’t say, “No way; that’s too risky.” I’d ask if he’d talked to his pastor and his spouse, and what they thought about it.
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AJ and I cross-posted. I can’t help but think of a conversation several of us were in last summer at my family reunion. In the discussion were two or three siblings who believe it is OK to drink and at least two who believe it is not.
One of my brothers (in the “it is sin” and “you never know whether you’ll end up as an alcoholic if you take that first sip” camp) told of someone he knew who was an alcoholic, and then sober for years, and then one day he took “just one drink” and that was the end of it; he was back drinking again.
My sister suggested an intriguing alternative explanation to “the alcohol was so powerful that he couldn’t possibly stop with just one drink.” She said it sounded like he believed himself powerless to drink just one, and he also believed it was a sin to drink. So, rather than taking a drink to the glory of God, he was choosing against God by taking that drink. He was choosing sin. He wasn’t defeated by the alcohol, he was defeated by choosing it even though he believed it to be sin. She probably put it better than that, but it made sense. The Bible does indeed say that if we do something that we believe to be sin, we are sinning. (Now, I do think that a person can be persuaded by Scripture that something is not sin but it still “feels” like it is, and in those cases it is not sin to act on the knowledge instead of the conscience. I have in my life, for example, heard of several people–usually women–who believe that it is sin to have sex except for conceiving a child. In those cases, I would freely counsel, “Scripture says otherwise, and your ‘feeling’ about having sex with your husband is wrong. It may continue to feel ‘wrong’ for a while, but look at what Scripture says and obey it and not your feelings.” But the person who believes it is wrong to drink should not drink until persuaded otherwise by Scripture.)
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Maybe it depends on the individual. It probably depends on how much of a stronghold/addiction it was to the person.
While I’ve heard the idea of a single drink sinking a person back into their alcoholism, I’ve never heard it used as an excuse to jump off the wagon, but rather as a reason to make sure one never touches another drink. Staying away from alcohol could be compared to “fleeing temptation” for that person.
There are some who manage to stop the heavy drinking & only drink a little bit at times, but others can’t do that. My uncle, also an alcoholic, joined some kind of group with that idea that alcoholics can learn to drink moderately, but it didn’t work for him – he ended up going deeper into alcoholism than he had before. (He did eventually stop drinking with help from AA.)
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Cheryl – Your sister had a great point.
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Regarding the philosophy that it is sin for a married couple to have sex for purposes other than to conceive a child, I don’t know anyone personally who believes that, but I did read several years ago that there are people who believe that (the Amish, for one example, though I can’t verify the accuracy of that claim). They were said, then, to no longer have sex once the woman was through menopause.
Seems like a sad thing (not to mention unbiblical) for a married couple to have to give up when there may be many years, decades even, left in their marriage.
Also, under that philosophy, then are unmarried, post-menopausal women not allowed to marry, or to consummate their marriage if they do?
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In other news…
Today’s piano teacher workshop was wonderful again. Third Arrow and I went and found some nice music for ourselves and for my students.
Also, my duet partner from the piano show we played in last April was there, and we found a neat duet we both bought and will play together sometime, either informally, or as part of a performance. (The organizer of the previous recital we were in together was thinking about having her next show be all duets, so my partner and I will probably perform the music we bought today if there is an opportunity.)
The duet is entitled Songs of the Armed Forces: A Medley for Piano Duet, arranged by Robert D. Vandall. The work contains five sections, one for each branch of the United States Armed Forces: “The Caissons Go Rolling Along (The Army Goes Rolling Along)”; “The Marines’ Hymn (From the Halls of Montezuma)”; “Anchors Aweigh”; “The U.S. Air Force (The Wild Blue Yonder)”; and “Semper Paratus (Always Ready).”
Third Arrow just finished playing through the music that’s at her level, so now it’s my turn at the piano, playing my new stuff… 🙂
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Thank you, Canada and Alaska, for sending fire crews!
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I had an aunt that believed sex was for procreation only. Luckily she was a widow for half her life 😉 I can remember hearing aunts and uncles speculate that maybe the accident that killed her husband wasn’t an accident—poor guy. ba dump ba bum.
Funny story about alcohol and alcoholics. Father Pat was a retired Episcopal Priest that supplied to parishes when a priest would retire or go on sabbatical. He was notorious for over filling the chalice with port wine of a Sunday morning. It is important to note that he was diabetic and wasn’t supposed to have alcohol. One morning I was the chalice bearer and as such was supposed to finish off the wine after everyone else had taken communion. ( Port is supposed to have a higher alcohol content thus killing any germs). He hand the chalice back to me and I shook my head. He whispered, “Ah, are you an alcoholic?” I whispered back, “No, but I would like to be sober for breakfast!”
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Good discussions today — Our pastor (who enjoys wine with meals and couldn’t get into a seminary or two because of that) frequently points out that wine is both a blessing from God but also holds a danger and a temptation. It’s a substance to be enjoyed (but handled carefully). True in biblical times, true now.
A lot of this came up during our discussions several years ago when we went to a wine-only tray for communion.
Meanwhile, Duggar family’s in a mess 😦
http://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/tv/josh-duggar-admits-being-unfaithful-hypocrite-after-ashley-madison-reports-n413276
I also feel bad for the family of the Subway sandwich guy, how awful for all of them.
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wine is both a blessing from God but also holds a danger and a temptation.
That is true for several things: sex, food, music and other entertainment come to mind offhand. There is a saying that could be biblical, though not actually in the Bible, that says “all things in moderation”. It is a good idea not to get too much of some things, even the necessities.
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And now that I can see the pictures (the new filter at school blocks them), my first thought on the banner was the head of a cow.
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I guess I am surprised that no one has brought up the chemical makeup of people that would make them prone to have more need of alcohol than others. I have forever thought that was why alcoholism happened and why just one drink could be a major setback for some. I suppose my thinking along those lines has made me not think of drinking as a sin but more as a true illness that needs to be addressed. I know people build up a tolerance to alcohol and need more and more to get the effect they want. I do not know if that is a permanent change to their chemical makeup so that could be a reason that taking one drink is such a set back for true alcoholics. I could ask my friend whose husband treats people with substance abuse. I will take her to some doctor offices tomorrow.
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In the previous post I was speaking of heavier drinking rather than a glass of wine now and then with meals when I used the word “drinking.”
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There may be genetic aspects to addictions, making it harder for some (sound familiar? There may also be genetic aspects to homosexuality, we’re told, but what should be our response? … Embrace? Or resist? The answer is different from a biblical vs. a secular culture standpoint).
As for the “illness” model, not so sure that’s helpful from a biblical vantage point. At heart, I believe these things are all spiritual issues (even if genetics make some people pre-disposed to some behaviors — and remember, addictions can be a lot of things that wind up being a curse in people’s lives, even things — as Peter points out — that were given by God as blessings to mankind; think sex vs. porn).
So the genetics argument is interesting but not, for the Christian, ultimately all that helpful. The answer is the same — obey God, resist and flee sin.
This is one Christian author’s take on addictions (from Amazon): “A worship disorder: this is how Edward T. Welch views addictions. ‘Will we worship our own desires or will we worship the true God?’ With this lens the author discovers far more in Scripture on addictions than passages on drunkenness. There we learn the addict’s true condition: like guests at a banquet thrown by ‘the woman Folly,’ he is already in the grave (Proverbs 9:13-18). … “
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Oh, and speaking of dead animal carcasses……
Upstairs in a cedar chest my wife has minks and foxes, with the heads and legs still on ’em. 😯
Never to be worn again, they hide there, like a deep, dark family secret from the prying eyes of the PETA types. Whether seen or not, they’re still quite dead. 🙂
Seems a shame to waste their little skinned carcasses, they’re really soft, but things being what they are nowadays and all……..
This is why we can’t have nice things…. 😆
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And I do think the “alcoholic” diagnosis has been applied with maybe an overly broad brush in recent decades. I suspect many of those are or likely are ‘heavy’ drinkers without being (clinically speaking) alcoholic.
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AJ, 🙂 I think the friend I mentioned earlier frantically put her jacket on inside-out just so she could safely walk the gauntlet through the PETA folks who were gathered outside the enviro meeting. Then she quickly “checked” it, explaining to the staffer that it was, for sure, just FAKE rabbit …
She was pretty mortified.
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My mom called animal control when she spotted a dead animal under our big spruce tree when I was growing up.
It was a discarded fox stole — head still attached. Irked animal control guy rings the door bell, my mom opens it as he holds up the sorry-looking dead fox. “Here’s your dead animal, lady.”
My grandmother later made it into a “Davy Crockett” hat for me when I was probably around 7 or 8 years old.
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I do think it is in people’s genetic make up. I have a very close friend who admitted to me that he smoked crystal meth for 16 years. I was stunned. I asked him if he went through a treatment center? Did he attend NarcAnon? How did he get off of it?
He said he simply woke up one day and decided he didn’t want to do it anymore. I asked if he attended any meetings. Nope. He said he went to a couple of meetings but everyone sat around talking about how much they wanted their drug of choice and he left wanting to smoke it. If he didn’t attend the meetings he didn’t think about it. It wasn’t my experience with my mother but it was his experience and I have no reason to doubt him.
Me? I know it is in my background and I am very aware of it.
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I have a beautiful fox skin that I use as a dust cover for my piano keyboard 🙂 Hind legs and head with empty eye holes attached. It is a beautiful skin that friends wanted to throw out. I don’t have a problem using it in my decor.
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57!
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Oh. I’m late. But while I was typing and logging back in, kare took 62 from the female who likes that number. So I guess she won’t be mad at me.
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65! Why, I’m just getting younger all the time! 🙂
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I was telling Lee about our discussion here. He reminded me that his desire to drink was so strong that, the day he ended up with the DUI, he hadn’t eaten all day so he could drink his calories after work, before dinner.
Speaking of driving under the influence (also known as driving while intoxicated), we are so very grateful he never injured anyone in an accident.
There was one time, a few years into his sobriety, when he came under a strong temptation. He was under stress at work, & it was a very hot, humid day, the kind of day when he would have enjoyed a cold beer. As he felt the temptation growing in him, he called out to God for deliverance, & God answered, taking away the temptation. He’s not been tempted to drink since that day.
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Kare, that’s funny. I think. My first reaction was AAACKKKK. Then I calmed myself down. 🙂
While I do think there may be genetic components in a lot of our problem behaviors, it isn’t 100% and it doesn’t explain every case, for sure.
We’re complicated beings, with all kinds of physical and emotional and psychological influences, internal and external, that all could play a role — or not — in what we do or don’t do. We’ll never know for sure what has been a factor in our behavior, though it always is rooted (if we’re talking about destructive habits) in sin, either way, and we need to personally own that.
Ultimately God is sovereign and our good and bad tendencies in this life are all used by him as a way to sanctify us and to bring glory to him — and also to drive home the truth that we are so, so dependent on Christ alone, not our own strength, amen?
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Amen, Donna.
I tend to see and label my own sins more than I do others.
This discussion made me think back to another reason I disliked drinking. That guy I dated for about ten years had a sister with a boyfriend she evenutually married. He was a race car driver and liquor store owner and maybe a male model if I remember correctly. When we had dinner with them I was always expected to have something to drink, and of course I could have had anything. But I saw what was happening to my long time boyfriend and I was giving up drinking to help encourage him to not drink as much. Then I was the only one not drinking and I felt like an unwanted outsider.It was just a time of loss and sadness for me.
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The only way you can become an alcoholic is through practice.
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Probably true, rkessler
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I enjoy using wine in cooking, but we don’t even do that here.
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