65 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 1-28-16”

  4. Good morning.
    Lindsey has another migraine. She awakened with it at five. She’s taken Imitrex and Ketorolac and is laying in bed. I am hoping it will abate quickly as she has missed a lot of school recently.

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  5. Good morning. I continue to get a lot of phone calls from my brother who is out of work. He keeps very busy looking for employment and doing things around his property. He just spent at least two days digging out around a septic tank line and putting in place on it so he can use chemicals to kill tree roots that interfere. He is a real DIY person. I do not know anyone else who does things like that for themselves. Most people hire out that kind of manual labor.

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  6. Janice, we do that, but it’s out of financial necessity. I would much rather hire it out, but…

    Good morning, all. Our program director resigned yesterday – I knew it was coming, but we’re heading into our busy season with hiring staff for spring and summer and preparing for that season, and now we need to hire a new associate director – anyone need a job with a camp type degree?

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  7. Good Morning….Panera is relatively quiet this AM….you know what that means….the ladies have yet to arrive! 😛
    Kare, what is a camp type degree? Can one major in camp?! 🙂
    Janice, Paul does all of our DYI stuff…he even mitigated our part of the forest by himself…hanging from the tops of the pines….swinging from his climbing ropes…chanin saw in hand! Our neighbor asked her husband why he didn’t get out there and do that…his reply “I want to live”!
    Praying for your baby girl Ann…having to manage migraines while trying to attend class has to be the pits….hoping the meds take ahold quickly……

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  9. Janice, so can’t he hire himself out as a handyman? There’s a lot of demand for good ones. My dad always did everything but electricity (but he didn’t really know what he was doing). My husband does what he can, hires what he can’t.

    Re migraines: Altoids used to make a ginger Altoid; they’ve stopped making it, but my husband liked it and could rarely find a store that carried it. A couple of years ago a friend found some in another state and bought him several packages. When he gave them to my husband, he told him the store clerk said a lot of people buy those for migraines. Since we can’t buy more of them, we are saving what we have left for days one of us has a stomachache or a headache, or (for me) even a bit of a migraine, and it does seem to help. Since then we have found that our local health food store has tinned candies kind of like Altoids. They had two or three brands, so my husband bought a package of each to see if any of them were comparable. He found that Newman’s Own organics (with a dragon on the front) were almost as strong. Ginger overall is good (ginger ale, for example) for tummy aches, but with the testimonial that people buy those for migraines, it’s at least worth a try. I’m not subject to really bad migraines, but I get milder versions of them sometimes, and I do find that lying down and sucking on a ginger candy takes it away or eases it.

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  10. Cheryl, on one of Paul’s 100 miler runs, the director handed out ginger chews….Paul found the supplier and order a carton of them…the company was located in Oregon…I’ll check on it when I get home tonight….
    It’s getting noisy in here………..

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  12. I’ll bet mumsee majored in camp. Or could teach camp.

    I’m not very handy at all and, being single, am stuck hiring out — but I’m not really rich, so …. stuff gets put off. It’s a real downside of owning a house when you’re in that predicament, I’m afraid. 😦 Live and learn.

    My gardeners do other stuff, so that helps as they charge handy-man type fees. And I found a neighbor of a friend down the street who was able to make my back gate for me last year during a period of his being unemployed.

    I was asking a co-worker what they paid to get their house (exterior) painted recently and he said $10,000.

    Yikes. I didn’t ask how big their house was! 🙄

    The gull photo in the header was taken on a rainy Saturday just before Christmas when my friend and I took a tour of our local cliff-top lighthouse built in the 1800s. Photo was taken from the top (lots of winding, narrow, wooden, no-hand-rail stairs to climb on that tour).

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  14. I just read last night’s thread, and see that the discussion continued on several trains of thoughts I’d been on earlier.

    Roscuro, re churches and worship: indeed there is nothing sacred about the building, no reason at all the church cannot gather to worship in houses. Nevertheless, corporate worship on the Lord’s day, with a church that includes elders and the other elements of the church, is a necessary thing for Christians. We can’t just get together to chat. And those who say the church isn’t the building but the people are being pedantic; the word can be used for either.

    Re Mennonites: the book I read wasn’t all that informative on that angle in my opinion. It was more what it felt like to go to public school (where other people weren’t Mennonites), how she resisted being old enough to have to wear a headcovering, her mother’s story along the same line, etc. It was called Blush. But her family wasn’t at all extreme, and she did attend public school, so it was more what it’s like to be a farmer’s daughter and what it’s like to feel like a minority than it was an exploration of what Mennonites believe in detail.

    And yes, even in the book she explores a bit how their beliefs vary from one region to another. But the focus of the separateness seems largely on law, not gospel, and a misunderstanding of the law. The belief that we aren’t to vote or otherwise take part in civil society because we belong to another kingdom (and not to this world’s kingdom at all) is not biblical. We are part of both. We marry (as we will not do in eternity), we pay taxes (as we will not do then), and we vote. David was a man after God’s own heart (God’s words, not David’s), and yet he killed many. When people were asking John the Baptist what it meant to bear fruit in keeping with repentance, when the soldiers asked that, he didn’t say quit being soldiers (Luke 3:14): “Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what shall we do?’ And he said to them, ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.’” And certainly self-defense and defending one’s family are Christian principles; on this they are wrong. That doesn’t mean they aren’t Christians, but that some of their beliefs are more a reaction to culture than they are obedience to Scripture.

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  15. My brother prefers doing the pharmaceutical sales because it uses his brains and his educational background, but he is open to some other types of work. He is probably too old to do manual labor as his main work.

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  16. Donna, that horizon might be crooked because of the angle at which you took the photo or because other things in the photo aren’t aligned with the horizon (e.g., the fence itself isn’t straight). When I import photos onto my computer, if I see that the horizon is crooked, I hit “straighten photo.” But it straightens it according to whatever it sees as the most important straight line in the photo, and so sometimes I have to switch to the field where I move the photo myself. But if you take a photo to the right or the left and not straight ahead, the horizon may have a tendency to dip unless you specifically align the camera to it. I often get crooked horizons (or fencelines, or whatever the straight line is) and have to adjust it afterward . . . and if the creature is all the way to the edge of the photo, that can mean some of it gets cut off as the photo is straightened.

    But the reality is, if you take a photo at an angle (say of a house that is quite far to the right on the horizon from where you are standing), things will be at an angle, with a different perspective from looking straight on.

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  17. Janice, I didn’t know where his education or experience lay.

    One of the nasty unforeseen results of social security’s retirement age of 65 is that it makes it harder for people over 55 to get a job. Companies assume people will retire at 65 (even if the employees themselves don’t plan to).

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  19. Mine is 70.
    Janice, people who can sell and don’t mind being “on the road” and cold calling are rare. Especially those who are self motivated to stick to the plan and not hang out at home calling it work. Perhaps he could look into sales that aren’t pharmaceutical?
    With his handyman abilities he may even look into real estate because he could either find houses that need work or he could work with people who couldn’t afford something in tip top shape and he would have the vision and knowledge to guide them…

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  20. I posted on FB last night that
    Donald Trump is a whiny hiny and is afraid of a GIRL!

    If it becomes a choice between him and Hillary I cannot in good conscious vote for either which is sad because I got mad at people who sat out the last election because Romney was a Mormon.
    I truly feel that women and Republican women especially need to speak about his mysogyny

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  21. My younger daughter’s birthday isn’t till May, but I ordered (and received) an item that I thought would make a fun gag gift for her.

    See, she keeps telling us we need a picture of Misten on our car, since Misten is so special. Well, while placing another order I had a chance to order a large magnet for just $5. So I put a photo of Misten, and underneath it “VOTE FOR MISTEN Because she’s so good (paid for by Citizens to elect Miss Tennessee)” The text is three separate lines. It doesn’t say what Misten is running for, or the year, but it calls her bluff in telling her now she can put Misten on her car! And she’s always telling us “Misten is so good.” (Realistically those magnets don’t stick on cars, and I know she won’t put it on hers. But for $5 it’s worth the laugh. Now, she’ll probably want to put it on the fridge, and her dad will probably say NO. But we should have a good laugh when she sees, “Here’s what you’ve been asking for!”)

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  22. Yeah, Kim, I’ve never sat out an election (or voted third party, for that matter), and I’d gladly vote against Hillary. But I really don’t want Trump.

    Seriously, I just can’t see him keeping his momentum. People may be tired of the politicians, but how is he better?

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  25. Cheryl, I was thinking about the church building, as that seemed to be what Janice was asking about in comparing it to the Temple. It wasn’t being pedantic on my part, just my perception of the focus of the original question.

    Janice, my father dug out both the septic tank and our weeping bed the year I was away, because tree roots and heavy vehicles had damaged and blocked the lines. He also has replaced the windows and roof on the house, and repaired several electrical and plumbing problems. Then again, he built the house, so he should know how to repair it.

    Karen, on your question about Mennonites, one of my siblings-in-law is Mennonite. How much they observe of the traditions varies widely, even in his family circle. He himself now attends a Baptist church. For many of them, Mennonite is more of an ethnic distinction, much the same way someone would identify themselves as Dutch or Scottish descent. It is the old order Mennonites who tend to be much stricter about outward religious observation [also, people tend to mix the Mennonites up with the Amish]. My sibling-in-law said that for a while his father wanted his sisters to dress in the traditional manner, but when they told them how the traditional dress actually made them more vulnerable to the groping hands of male co-workers in their factory jobs (the dress bodices are pinned, not sewn together), the father decided it was better for them to wear modern Western clothing. There is an ugly history of physical and sexual abuse amongst many of the old order, which seems to happen in every isolated religious community; so many of the younger generation, especially those who are truly Christian in conviction, see no reason to continue the masquerade.

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  26. I also know a lot of Brethren, as quite a few Brethren were part of the ATI program. They are quite a mixed bag. For example, I went to a wedding recently, where one member of the bride’s family had become Brethren. It must have been a stricter congregation, as even his little daughter wore a kerchief head covering (most Brethren I know only where the head covering to church). The minister who was officiating was a Mennonite pastor (the bride and groom were both Baptists), and his wife and daughters were less conservatively dressed than the Brethren women.

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  27. We were praying this morning and I suddenly saw the reason God gave his people a temple is because they were constantly looking for a way to actually see him. Think of all the idols they kept making despite his denunciation of idols.

    Most were just idols, of course, but perhaps God recognized people needed a visible sign of him besides the pillar of fire or cloud (which were gone by Judges anyway), so he gave them what they wanted: a temple.

    He then sent Jesus as a physical symbol–person, of course–so they could see and touch what they kept trying to do with an idol. Jesus then died on our behalf, demonstrating we don’t need a physical representation of God. The Holy Spirit now lives in our hearts.

    Amazing thought to me that is only half formed right now, but I’ve been teaching in the OT for more than a year now and our church is going through The Story. Over and over again, the people are looking for a sign.

    Any thoughts on that idea?

    It plays into what someone said yesterday. We don’t need a church building per se, it’s merely a gathering place for people together to worship their God and build one another up.

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  28. In other news, it was a chaotic day at work yesterday. I was constantly on the phone to my colleague as pretty much across the board, none of my passwords worked, the new computers refused my entry, computer programs on the new computers didn’t work the same way, we couldn’t set a default printer so everything took extra steps and hunting.

    I was nervous because I had to download accounting changes and run the 1099s so I finally could print and mail.

    In addition to all that, we got five requests for the Biddy Bio proposal.

    And then then doorbell rang. It was the FBI.

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  31. We were not the suspects they were looking for– for a background check. You should have seen the look on my boss’ face when I told her the FBI was at the door– since we were working on tax information! Nothing to fear for us, of course. 🙂

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  33. Michelle, you are certainly correct that Christ’s death and resurrection was the last sign, as that is what he told the Pharisees when they demanded a(nother) sign to show who he was: “There shall no sign be given but that of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so must the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” (Matthew 12:38-40). However, I wouldn’t agree that is the primary reason he had to come in the flesh. He had to come in the flesh because it was the seed of the woman that would bruise the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15); because only the death of the second Adam could undo the curse of the first Adam (Romans 5:12-19). His physical death was necessary for us to escape our spiritual deaths.

    I too have thought that God gave the Jews something tangible because that is what humans naturally want. So, in substitution for the pagan rites and rituals, he gave them a earthly symbol of the heavenly pattern. Christ was the fulfillment of the law, and everything in it, including the instructions for the Tabernacle, which is what the book of Hebrews is all about. But the visible representation of God on earth didn’t cease when Jesus ascended into Heaven. It is Christians, the Church, who are now the visible representation of God upon earth, not through our own strength, but through the Spirit of God (I Peter 2:9). God must be very patient to use such a bunch of flawed humans to reach the rest of humanity.

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  35. I was having a half formed thought about since we are temples for the indwelling Holy Spirit does it go along with standing on Holy ground? If we are being sanctified and set apart does it stand to reason that wherever we go we touch the earth and bring His presence to light the darkness, etc?

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  36. I know that was not well worded. Perhaps someone can decipher what I meant?

    I am at a doctor’s office with my friend, Karen. The appointment was for 2:00 and she’s still back there and it is 3:30 (eye doctor). I had a nice conversation with an 89 year old lady waiting her time. I’m glad I had some lunch before we came.

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  37. Janice, as far as I can understand your question, you seem to be asking if we carry a special kind of power with us. I suppose the answer would be yes and no. No, because we are simply fleshly human beings. No power resides in our weak physical frames, and that is exactly what God intended: “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and thing which are despised, has God chosen, yes, and things which are not, to bring to nothing things that are: in order that no flesh should glory in his presence.” (I Corinthians 1:27-29) As Paul says later on in II Corinthians 12, Christ’s strength is made perfect in our weakness. The very fact that we can do nothing special is what makes the Gospel so powerful. When we live in Christ, doing His work, it is a powerful testimony to those around us that this is what God can do.

    The yes part of the answer is because, as Paul also says in I Corinthians, both in chapter 3 and 6, is that our bodies are the temple of God. However, in both those instances, that designation is more of a laying on of responsibility than a conferring of power. In chapter 3:10-17, he warns us to be careful how we build on Jesus Christ’s foundation, because if the works we do for Christ are nothing more than wood, hay, and stubble (in other words, nothing more than our own fleshly efforts) they will be burnt up, though we ourselves will be saved. Also, in an even more terrible warning, he says that those who destroy God’s temple will be destroyed by God. The other passage in 6:12-20, speaks about the reason Christians cannot engage in sexual immorality, of any kind, is because we are the temple of the Holy Spirit and we belong to Christ. Once again, this is about our responsibility. We cannot engage in immorality, and when we do, God will have to discipline us, perhaps even by killing our physical body (I Corinthians 11:30). Paul says elsewhere that we have been called to liberty, but then he promptly says, don’t use your liberty as an excuse to live for yourself (Galatians 5:13). Peter says the same thing, “not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness” (I Peter 2:6). As Christ’s representatives on earth, we are called to live like him. He denied himself everything in order to save those who hated him.

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  39. Michelle, I don’t think God gave the temple because people needed a physical representation (remember several of the Ten Commandments specifically forbade physical representations of God), but because people needed a way to be reconciled to God. The temple was a place of worship, of sacrifice, but also a physical reminder that God was hidden. The people didn’t see the ark of the covenant, for example. The veil was a stark reminder that God was not accessible in the way that idols made false gods seem accessible–but God could be accessed through the sacrifices, which were a picture and not the reality.

    Read Hebrews, and see all the mysteries of the temple pointed to Christ. He is not the sign, but the reality. The rest of it is our school master pointing to Christ. Christ became flesh because we needed a Savior, and He needed to be human and He needed to keep the Law perfectly–no man tainted by Adam’s sin could do that. Even today, many Christians do not believe it is proper to have a physical portrayal of God. That is why my family chose not to set out manger scenes this year, for example. Christ came in the flesh, but not to give us tangible imitations that might lead to idolatry (as icons and such can do). We are indeed driven to “see” God–but I think the temple is more inclined to say “No, you cannot see God–no man can see God and live” than “OK, here’s something visible, since all the other nations have something they can see.” True worship was starkly different from false.

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  41. I once read an article written by someone who felt that the second commandment should prevent us from even making a picture of Christ in our minds. I thought that was absolutely ludicrous. One naturally mentally envisions the scenes one reads in books or the stories one hears spoken. To be unable to do so would be to remove all meaning from words. It occurred to me the last time I read through the law that the second commandment forbids making images “of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under earth” for the purpose of worship, not for any purpose whatsoever. Otherwise, the craftsmen who built the Tabernacle and Temple would have been in violation of the second commandment, since they decorated the walls of both with images of cherubim (something from heaven above) and palm trees (something from earth beneath), and cast bronze cherubim and oxen for the temple fittings.

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  42. Roscuro, I understood that some have taken it so far that they wouldn’t make a carving of a duck or a picture of a deer. But you’re right, that isn’t what those verses mean! I do think that paintings of Jesus are dangerous, though–so many turn them into an element for worship, or close to it.

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  44. Strict Muslims hold to the idea that no image can be made of anything, ever. That is why, in classical Islamic architecture, like the Taj Mahal or the Alhambra, there are beautiful patterns, but no pictures. Geometric patterns were about the only thing they could get away with, although some snuck in mythical beasts and fantastic flowers (on the argument that they didn’t actually exist, I suppose). Some Persian illuminators did put pictures in their manuscripts, even some of the life of their prophet, but later artisans removed or blanked out the face of Muhammad.

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  45. Roscuro, illustrating what? If you mean such things as showing us what it would have looked like for Jesus to give the Sermon on the Mount (where He’d be, where the audience would be), I’ve seen illustrations done well and showing Him from the back. Personally, I think that’s a good way to handle it.

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  46. Roscuro, for my part in co-teacher children’s Sunday school, one activity we did was to make the stories into comic strip type drawings. The children could do that without feeling the pressure to do fine art type work, and they could remember the story better if they drew it. So illustration can certainly be a helpful tool for teaching.

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  47. As long as the children showed Jesus to look like a man similar to other men of that time then that was all that would have mattered. The words they would record from the Bible that he spoke (although in English) would be the more important part rather than how he looked. Is that a problem for anyone?

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  49. I meant illustrations as a teaching tool, or perhaps as an expression of what the mind’s eye is seeing when one reads the passage. I’ve read about the idea of not showing Jesus’ face – I wonder if that is what motivated Cecil DeMille to not show Christ’s face in Ben Hur – but as one who has taken drawing lessons and attempted illustration, I know that even presenting the picture of a man’s back does necessitate some decision making of what the person looks like, such as his height, his build, his hair colour, the kind of clothing he wears. That also goes for illustrations which only show his hands or feet. In order to make even a part of a body realistic, it is necessary to make decisions about that body’s appearance. It is interesting to me that early Christians very early on made Bible illustrations, such as this scene of the healing of the paralytic from a church dated to 230 A.D.: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Dura-europos-paralytic.jpg (notice how they make all the characters look Roman rather than Middle Eastern as we would have done) or this illustration of the Good Shepherd from the Catacombs (circa 200-300 A.D.): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Good_Shepherd_04.jpg?uselang=en-ca. I think illustrations are a valuable teaching tool, so I make use of them, but I guess I don’t see why a frontal view of an artist’s concept of Jesus Christ would be any worse than a back view.

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  50. For those who are thinking of sitting out this election if Trump is the Republican nominee:

    Instead of sitting it out, vote for the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson. He probably won’t win, but since you weren’t going to vote anyway, you won’t be “throwing away” your vote. What this will accomplish is that it will send a message to the two dominant parties that people are getting fed up with them, as they see more people voting third party.

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  51. This could wind up a very fractured election, I suspect conservatives also would run a candidate should Trump get the nomination. Most likely a few “3rd party” candidates would pop up, none of whom would win, of course. Might not matter much and it’s still early in the game to make real predictions. I think the primaries and caucuses will be key — If Trump can maintain his current lead in so many of the polls, it will “probably” be Trump … But there also is speculation that many of the Trump “fans” aren’t regular caucus or primary voters.

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  52. Who knows, there could be the beginnings of a new “Conservative” political party that forms out of all this.

    The GOP clearly is in a mess and I’m not entirely sure it would be able to put all the pieces back together again after this.

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  53. Some of Johnson’s positions I like and would overlap with a more conservative platform. Other positions of his (or other Libertarians) I just can’t really go along with.

    But a blend might work to appeal to the widest possible following. ?

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  58. Karen, the libertarian platform is pro-abortion, or was last I checked, and that’s an automatic “no” for me. Being pro-life isn’t an automatic yes, but being pro-abortion is an automatic no.

    Roscuro, I think the difference in drawing from the back is that one isn’t showing a face. Also, you asked about “illustration” and I was thinking a sketch . . . there’s little danger of a quick sketch including someone from the back being an aid to worship (an idol), but read some discussions of modern artists drawing Jesus, and you can see it’s idolatry or its kissing cousin.

    Here’s an example of a girl who draws Jesus, is seen to do so realistically, and thus people use her drawings as an aid to worship. This is spiritually dangerous stuff, and yes, in my opinion, it breaks some of the commandments. http://www.historyvshollywood.com/video/akiane-kramarik-cnn-interview/ Those of us who grew up around some of the famous paintings of Christ are often inclined mentally to picture Him looking that way. Now, I’m not someone who thinks in pictures, and I grew up hearing what those pictures got wrong (they show Jesus with long hair and they show him with blue eyes), but many people identify Salman’s “Head of Christ” with Jesus.

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  59. Cheryl- I don’t think the Libertarian platform is so much “pro-abortion” as it is “make it a state issue”. That is my position too. Let the states decide issues like abortion and marriage. The Founding Fathers let that be the way when they established the 10th Amendment, making anything not specifically mentioned an issue for the states.

    And I agree that the Libertarian candidate would be my choice outside of one of the Conservatives getting the GOP nomination.

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  60. Okay, I was wrong. The Libertarians make all moral issues individual decisions, saying government should not interfere, which I presume means that state governments should not pass laws prohibiting such decisions. So do they believe in allowing pedophiles or polygamists to practice their immoral ways?

    Here is the Libertarian platform if you are interested: http://www.lp.org/platform

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  62. Well, I mentioned the Libertarian candidate because the LP seems to be the most-known third party. I probably should have just suggested voting for a “third party candidate”. My main point was about sending a message to the dominant two parties.

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  65. Yeah, there is that rkessler. 😉 I think fallen man simply needs some restraints.

    Libertarianism seems to view human nature as essentially good (or neutral) — it seems to see a situation in which illegal drug abuse/sales, prostitution and other behaviors should be left entirely up to the individual without an appreciation of how that impacts others and society as a whole.

    And as rkessler points out, today especially — when America has lost its Judeo-Christian moorings — I don’t think that’s the way to go.

    I suspect a more libertarian approach was more workable when we were a bunch of colonies. But the fact is, we’re now a large, complex nation.

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