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Our Daily Thread 9-11-15

Good Morning!

It’s Friday!!!

And the 14th anniversary of the attacks in N.Y. and D.C.

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Today’s pictures are from Cheryl. 

She assures me that the butterfly in the header survived it’s encounter with the mantis. The bee below?….

Not so lucky. 😯

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IMG_9056--cropped

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Anyone have a QoD?

28 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 9-11-15”

  3. God morning. And not for the better kim.
    I see where Obama wants us to take in 10,000 more Syrian refugees. They likely will be ISIS infiltrators. If we could rescue some of the persecuted Christians, it would be good. But it will not be that way.

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  4. Yes, our lives have changed in 14 years. Though for those of us in the rural, fly-over country, not much has changed. We still go to work every morning. We still go to church on Sunday. We still fly our flags outside our houses, some of us every day.

    And we still enjoy the political cartoons which poke fun at the Washington elite who just don’t get it.

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  5. For the record, the bee in the middle isn’t the same bee as the mantis on the bottom caught. The one she caught is not a honeybee, I’m pretty sure, since it’s a bit smaller than a honeybee. We have multiple species of bee here.

    Re the butterfly: the mantis saw it and turned her body several times until she was all but touching the butterfly. I turned the camera to fast action mode (up to ten photos in a second or two), thinking she would catch it; I saw the butterfly fly off, but didn’t catch the flying off on film. (With that mode, you have to guess when the action will happen.) Since the mantis’s front feet were where the butterfly had been, I can only assume she sprang but the butterfly was faster.

    Notice it is two different mantises. Both are female, both have been hanging out in what used to be a flowerbed behind our house (this year the gardener daughter is distracted by the man in her life), but one was all brown until she got her wings (which have some green on them) and the other is all green. The one at the bottom didn’t have her wings yet, but she was nearly fully grown, and within a few days she had molted one final time and gotten her wings. But neither one flew away when she got her wings–the smaller males came to them.

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  6. I live in urban fly over country since we are under a regular flight pattern of the busiest airport in the world.

    Last night’s dinner turned out very nicely. Christian Library Internarional announced that Atlanta will be the first hub site for their expansion into each of the fifty states. It is exciting to be in on something that is growing. Husband and I hosted a table with ten guests. His pastor was at our table. She is so nice and her husband is a pastor, too. She is pregnant with their second child. Can you imagine being the children of two pastors? I hope it doesn’t mean double trouble!

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  7. For your amusement. It wasn’t funny to me. But this is Tony’s assessment of the curmudgeon meeting I attended. As I said, it ended badly. I told Tony to forget about it and move on. But he can’t. Following is his assessment.

    After considering Phil’s objections and rereading the stated purpose of the “Roots” presentation, an improved wording would have been as follows:

    Presentation Purpose – To question the proposition that Islamism is divorced from Islam’s scripture and therefore that Islamism causes are due exclusively to colonialism, poverty, the evil west, Iraq invasion, Israel, spontaneous generation etc
    As to solutions, after listening to Chris I thought of flooding the world with Quaker missionaries guarded by special forces.

    😆

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  8. AJ here,

    Roscuro/Phos posted this World article on Facebook. Something to consider as the president talks of helping refugees. He only wants to help certain non-christian refugees….

    http://www.worldmag.com/2015/09/the_sound_of_silence

    “For Christians and Muslims alike in Syria, these are days of desperation. The difference for the Christians is that whenever it is over, they will have no homes and no place to return to. Across Syria and Iraq, the ancient civilization set down in the Bible and throughout church history is being wiped out. Even church leaders there no longer counsel Christians to stay, realizing they have no hope to survive.

    The United States is the largest home to Assyrians, many of them driven out starting a century ago during the Armenian genocide. Yet the Obama administration has made clear it won’t shelter the Assyrian refugees forced from Syria or Iraq by ISIS.

    “This administration will not issue visas for Syrians based on Christian faith.”

    That was the word given to Anglican bishop Julian Dobbs by the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. As a board member of Barnabas Fund, one of the largest relief organizations working in Syria and Iraq, Bishop Dobbs appealed to the State Department earlier this summer on behalf of the Assyrian Christians. The State Department said no.

    Officials told Dobbs the Assyrians should use “people traffickers” to get across their borders to Turkey then appeal to the UN for refugee status. When Dobbs pressed his case, reminding officials of the large Assyrian diaspora in the United States and the U.S. obligation (at least historically) to reunite families and people groups, the State Department response was emphatic: “We better hope the Brazilians can take them.””

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  9. I would actually like to see us take in more of the refugees, although security should always be a concern if that’s done.

    Ah, it’s Friday and it’s supposed to be a little bit cooler (88).

    I have a couple stories to do today, plus my editor wants to talk about Trump coverage next Tuesday. There’s a political reporter at our sister paper who wants to cover the speech itself (fine with me!) and then I and maybe another reporter could wind up covering other aspects (protests, etc.).

    As it’s on the eve of the GOP debate (at the Reagan Library just north of us), I suspect there also will be a lot of national media that could converge on the Trump event. I need to connect with the sponsoring group today to see about press clearances and what we need to do.

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  10. Chas, by not taking in any refugees, none of the Christians will be helped: http://www.worldmag.com/2015/09/the_sound_of_silence
    ISIS infiltrators are already here. In fact, many of them came from North America and Europe in the first place. The two ISIS supporters who committed attacks last year in Canada were from Canada, and were trying to go to Syria. The executioner ‘Jihadi John’ was from England. There were also people from the U.S who went to join ISIS. The horse has left that barn. Besides, these people are fleeing ISIS, i.e. they are not extreme enough for ISIS. But let them stew for years in refugee camps, and then, as the Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan bred the Taliban; and the Somali refugee camps in Kenya bred Al Shabaab; and the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon bred the PLO, they will become extreme. Prolonged despair leads to desperate acts. In Proverbs 10:11-12, a disturbing question is asked:

    Rescue those who are being taken away to death;
    hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.
    If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,”
    does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
    Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it,
    and will he not repay man according to his work?

    Showing mercy to those in desperate need may be the best thing the West could do in its present state. Much has been said about how Western civilization resembles Sodom. However, Sodom’s sin was not limited to homosexual acts. In Ezekiel 16:49-50, God states exactly why He destroyed Sodom: “Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it.” (Emphasis mine). God told the Israelites in Deuteronomy 10:17-19, that He, God himself, “executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing” and therefore, Israel should “love the stranger, because you also were strangers in the land of Egypt.” As Christians, who are also called strangers and pilgrims (I Peter 2:11), we should be encouraging our governments to give refuge to as many as possible, regardless of religion. The excuse that they could endanger our safety as Christians is not good. In the words of Christ, “he that saves his life shall lose it.”

    There are reports that some refugees in Europe are actually converting to Christianity – perhaps ISIS has disenchanted them of Islam: http://www.christiantoday.com/article/hundreds.of.muslim.refugees.convert.to.christianity.in.german.church/64114.htm. Some time ago, on World, Cheryl commented that a friend of hers, in speaking of the unreached millions in Islamic countries, said that if we do not go to them, then God will bring them out to us. Hundreds of thousands of people who have had little to no contact with the Gospel are now fleeing to areas which have been dominated by Christianity. Will the Church use this opportunity to reach others for Christ, or will they continue in the pride, excess of food. and prosperous ease that the West affords and fail to aid the poor and needy?

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  11. Kind of sad that the leader of the free world, the most open to diversity, the home of religious freedom, would turn away a whole people group who are fleeing persecution and genocide. It was sad when we did it seventy years ago and it is even more so now.

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  12. In reply to a comment about how good the ’50s were, a friend wrote this…

    ” If America in the ’50s was so great, how and why did it give birth to the ’60s?

    “I do not buy that the ’50s were the ACME, the ideal, given that they gave birth to the ’60s.

    “There had to have been a great deal of serious rot at the core of the ’50s, in fact, that it had to have been almost as bad, or even worse than, the ’60s in order to have given birth to them, even if the rot was secret, invisible, subterranean.

    “I think a large part of the problem was that the marriage of the Church to the State had reached its apotheosis, and was almost complete and perfected. What appeared as the maximum of Christian culture and influence was actually a corpse, a simulacrum of the Church.

    “Civic Religion and Christianity had melded into one. People thought they were Christians because they were Americans, because they pledged allegiance to the State, under God, because the troops were their saints, because the money said “In God We Trust”, because the teachers prayed a non-sectarian prayer at school.”

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  14. Prayer and thinking about it are not enough. I want to DO something, but what? Maybe we could get some of those evil Visas for Christians from Iraq to come over as farm workers. We always need more of them.
    My Los Angeles gardener can no longer get other Mexicans to work for him; they are now (the younger ones) too used to doing nothing. Their fathers sent money home and the young men never had to learn to work. He pays them $80 a day, takes them to a market once a day and buys them lunch. He has dropped enough lawns so he can do all his work without help.

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  15. The “Sixties” problem first:
    A book could be written. Likely has been; about the sixties.
    Basically, they were a spoiled generation. I realize that I’m talking mostly to a sixties generation. But this generally applies.
    The Fifties generation was a recovery from WWII. and the Korean conflict. America was #1. No doubt about it.
    Everything that was good was made in the USA. We had a “do nothing” president in Dwight Eisenhower and “nothing” is what needed to be done. The perfect president for the times.
    We all started families and we spoiled the kids. They started maturing in the sixties and they had TV, cars, phones and money.
    What else do they need?
    A purpose in life. We couldn’t provide that.
    I voted against Kennedy, but in retrospect, most of the problems we have now are attributed to his death. He would have handled the racial strife better and we never would have been as deep in Viet Nam as we were.

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  16. A serious problem occurred in the fifties. I went along with it, but it was the wrong thing.
    NATO
    We stationed American troops in Europe to counter the Russians. The Europeans relied on us and demilitarized. Some thought that was good.
    Now Europe is no more. They talk like they’re important, but they aren’t.
    And Russia is getting serious again.
    Why is it America that needs to help Ukraine?

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  17. Bob, here in Canada, individuals or organizations can sponsor immigrant families to come to Canada. The Catholic church in Ontario has just announced that they are sponsoring over a hundred families from the refugees. Other churches could probably do the same. Sponsors are expected not only to provide material support, but also moral support to the immigrants. Does the U.S. have any such sponsorship program?

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  18. I have not yet read other posts.
    My husband is waiting for a hospital room. He has irregular heartbeat and low oxygen that needs treatment. He has not felt well for a few weeks. The other doc we saw could not treat these symptoms so we saw another doc today. So now we know what is the matter and it should be treatable.

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  23. Weird, one of our reporters’ work phones had an unusually large bill this last month, alarming the company (which has to pay the bill). After investigating, it turns out she was hacked by “Russians.”

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  24. We are supposed to get into our children’s progress at school through power school. I cannot make it work. I would get a child to help me but then he would have the password and that rather defeats the system right there. I asked for help from the school after husband said he did not have a clue. Our agreement was that certain children had to maintain certain grades to play sports. Hard to follow up when we don’t know what grades they are getting.

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  26. Years ago we attended a church which sponsored a Hmong family. Many of us donated items for them to set up a household. Some people were upset that they were living in a low income housing unit close by the church. They only stayed long enough to get settled in and then moved to California where they had other family or friends. I suppose the climate was preferable, too.

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  27. Hey, I know not everyone likes bugs, but honeybees, praying mantises, and butterflies? The top photo is not totally in focus, but those other two are about the best photos I’ve taken all summer, and I have taken hundreds of insect photos this summer. Doesn’t anybody else think they’re cool? 🙂

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