53 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 2-29-16”

  3. And a happy anniversary to you two! 🙂

    My friend leaves this morning after a long fat weekend of conversation, walks, great food, laughter, a beta read and some pointed remarks. Exactly the type of visit I love.

    Stargazer leaves this morning on a three week road trip with his uncle to the northwest. They’ll ski in Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, Idaho and Colorado, as well as take in a Montreal soccer game in Vancouver (where, alas, our favorite soccer player probably will be on the bench).

    My husband leaves soon for a business trip and I’ll have three days by myself to write. I can hardly wait.

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  7. Ah, lovely photo! What species?

    Sawing the photo brought to mind one of my dreams. I dreamed I saw a female hummingbird settle down on a branch in a way that made me think she was trying to see if it was a good nesting site. Then, to my dismay, I saw two snakes slither toward the branch from two different sides.

    Political dream?

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  8. Good Morning. This year Leap Year stands out a little extra. I don’t know why. Perhaps because it is on a Monday and we always think of Mondays as the start of something new. I don’t know.
    I had a good weekend. Yesterday the sun was shining, I was able to slather on the sunscreen and sit outside for several hours reading a book. I am doing this 40 day thing where it asks some questions and I journal my answers. I have trust issues in putting my thoughts on paper–I know that comes as a shock to some of you who know what I have spilled on this blog. Anyway, I wrote in the journal some yesterday. Mr. P asked me what I was doing. The temptation to downplay it was tremendous, but I told him anyway.
    BG and I went shopping late Saturday afternoon we are both proud (broke) owners of Chakos. We were able to buy them out of the children’s department so instead of them being $105 a pair they were $55. There is nothing remotely cute about them, but there were the suggested sandal for our trip to JH Ranch. We are working down our list. I will have the week at the ranch paid for this month, I have most of the money set aside for the plane tickets (hoping the Da-dee offers to pay for BG’s).
    The house concerts both Friday and Saturday night for Angie were quite successful.
    Now it is Monday and I must search through emails of Guy and piece together the information I need to get a piece of property listed. I know the street name, and a general location, but I don’t know the entity that owns it or any other identifying information.

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  9. Janice, your post from late yesterday . . . I’m not sure it is inappropriately PC to get rid of a term like “house master.” England has a longer history of universities, and not the same legacy of slavery that we do. I’d guess that term is uniquely difficult for black students–even if they understand (and accept) the history behind it, they’d have to use another term at home, or have to explain to outraged family and friends each time they slip and use it.

    I don’t like PC speech. I do like being aware of our language and being aware not to offend needlessly.

    For example, when I lived and worshiped among black people in Chicago (neighborhood 100% black except for my household, church 60% black), I became aware of how casually while people use a joke that someone is our slave. The worst one I saw–mercifully redeemed, sort of, by a quick-thinking young man–was when a black teenager or pre-teen was helping our white children’s pastor. Someone said, “I see you have a slave for the day.” The children’s pastor said, “I have volunteer help! James has offered to help me clean the classrooms.” I know the person saying it didn’t mean it in racial terms–but it was brutally careless wording.

    I think it’s silly when someone gets fired for using the word “niggardly” (which is not a racial term), when we insist that American “Indians” must be called “native Americans” in spite of their own stated preference for being called Indians,and so forth. But the history of America does include brutal connotations for the use “master” when used of a white man, and I think it’s probably a good idea to drop it.

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  10. Hello, all y’all! Make sure you draw out the y’all to get the full effect. Brother told me that once when he was speaking that someone told him to speed up and drop the South Mouth. I told him when I spoke with someone from New York on the phone they told me to stop speaking in 33 RPM. Actually, having grown up in Atlanta, we do not have a real country drawl. When I went to school at Georgia Southern and met people who were native to small Georgia towns, it felt like being dropped into another dimension, totally alien to my urban speak world.

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  12. Good points, Cheryl. I never heard anyone use the word slave as you mentioned. Maybe because of this being the south part of the nation, it probably was a word that would not be taken lightly.

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  13. Janice I think you may be more sensitive to the word master and slave because of growing up in the Atlanta area.

    I am about to address an envelope to Master S H and Miss E H to send a cute stuffed Peep and some baby girl clip on bunny ears.

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  15. Kim, I think “master” instead of “mister” for a little boy, and someone who is a “master” of something like golf are a bit different than calling someone “master” because he is in charge of you. That last usage seems to have been tainted in this nation by the legacy of slavery. I wouldn’t use it, much as I wouldn’t use “crusade” for an evangelistic meeting. Some words really do have too much “baggage.”

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  16. I told you above that I am working on a 40 Journey. This came from the CEO of my company over the weekend. How would our lives be changed if we adopted this attitude?

    Thank You, Now I.O.U.
    Written by Dr. Kevin Elko

    Immediately after The University of Alabama football team won the 2015 National Championship, down on the field, Nick Saban said about his team, “We have had a saying for some time: Thank You – I.O.U.” This two-part message influenced the season, first, by always reminding us to be thankful. We acknowledged being thankful from the beginning of our meetings in the spring in Tuscaloosa.

    Most people have the awful practice of comparison as a starting point of their attitude. Most look until they find someone who has some thing, some quality, some situation that they don’t, and that lack leads people to a low place. Comparison makes people believe they are disadvantaged, that they do not have the opportunity, and therefore, cannot have victory in their life.

    But a victory run starts with a good look around ourselves: to find the advantages we have, the opportunity we were afforded and to start to be thankful. Also, being thankful is the start of a great relationship. We emphasize in our CD series “Connection” to take time each day to write a thank you note to someone and then to read or send that note. A thank you note is a powerful action, an amazing exercise, not only for the receiver but even more so for the writer. Simply, the writer is now looking for and finding what is good in others—providing motivation, an appreciation–as opposed to looking for what is wrong with others, killing motivation.

    When immigrants come to America and become US citizens, research indicates that they are more likely to become affluent than those born here. How can this statistic be? The immigrants are thankful, and when they are doing comparisons, they are not looking at what they don’t have; instead, they are noticing and being thankful for all they do have, and thinking, with all of these resources that I never had before, I can win.

    I start every day with a ritual. I say to myself, “If I lost everything I have today, and all I achieved tomorrow is what I have today, tomorrow would be the best day of my life.” It all starts with saying “thank you.” But there is a next step.

    Most people see the world as a big Santa Claus. Yes, some people do have a thankful attitude, but entitlement usually follows. “Here is a thank you, but you still owe me.” I’m not sure why, but the government, employer, community, spouse – they all owe everyone—in most everyone’s mind. Simply because you were given a “title” does not entitle you to something, does not mean you are owed. It does not mean the moment the government, employer, community or spouse does not “give” to you in the way you feel entitled to, that you stop having energy.

    It is amazing how many ball players are excited, thankful, even overjoyed when they receive their offer to join the team of The University of Alabama. Then, it is amazing to watch their happiness when they finally start. It is even more amazing to watch them near the end of their college career, when their interests switch to professional teams and they quit giving their all to the University—and do not finish their college educations!

    Before we judge these young men, we need to know that this behavior is the rule, not the exception. How often do people yearn for a job with a company and land it, only later to become bitter because they think, “Thank you, but you still owe me, and you stopped recognizing that I am from The Burger King Generation; I demand that everything is done my way.” How many begged someone to date them, married, and then pouted because everything wasn’t the way they wanted and the marriage crumbled?

    When speaking to the University of Alabama football team this year, I asked, “How many of you were told you couldn’t do something, were not going to amount to much?” Every hand came up. Then, I asked, “How many of you were told by somebody—a parent, a teacher, a coach—that you could do something even more than you ever thought you could?” All the hands came up again. Then, I asked, “Don’t you owe that person effort, kindness a finish? With the ‘thank you,’ isn’t there some obligation? Or does the world continue to owe you ‘just because’?”

    “Thank you – I.O.U.” is something different and extraordinary. This year, Alabama’s football team was very different because of “Thank You – I.O.U.,” a phrase which means “thank you but I.O.U. a finish because you gave me a gift.” That idea is different than just “thank you”; with “I.O.U.” comes an action, an obligation or a commitment.

    Was there a teacher, coach, friend or parent who believed in you? Was there somebody who helped pay your way, who gave you a chance or who told someone else how special you are, and thus, opened a door? Is there someone who gave you a nudge to become more? Do you feel that you owe them anything?

    There were those who said I wasn’t headed anywhere and to aim low. But, more importantly, my mother would often say I was headed somewhere, that I had something, that God gave me gifts.

    I have a card by my computer that says “I.O.U.” to remind myself that I need to encourage someone today; that a great day isn’t when good comes to me, but when good comes through me.

    Write a thank you note to someone, maybe someone you can’t even tell “thank you” to, because they are no longer here. Then, write how you will serve in an attempt to pay back this I.O.U.

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  17. Cheryl,

    I think it’s a broad-winged hawk. I think I may also have gotten a few shots of a red-shouldered hawk this weekend as well.

    Or, I’m wrong on both counts. 🙂

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  18. Great photos!

    We are *supposed* to get some rain next week. But we’ll see. We’re skeptics after all the El Nino buildup we had going into this winter. Bah, humbug!

    I may have to go to City Hall in downtown LA for an interview today or tomorrow (probably tomorrow since I haven’t heard from the guy setting it up). Busy first part of the week with a night meeting Wednesday. And I couldn’t get to sleep last night, wound up getting up at 1 a.m. and reading for almost an hour before I finally dropped off.

    Coffee.

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  19. Ah. AJ, if you got a red-shouldered hawk, I’d love to see it. A couple of years ago I got two quick photos of a hawk before it flew off, and my probable identity is red-shouldered, but the photos are horrid. Raptors should be easy to photograph–they’re so big–but I’m much happier so far with my photos of songbirds!

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  21. Cheryl,

    I changed the header pic to the other. That’s about the best one. ‘Liz and I looked in my “Birds of the Northeast” book and it looks just like the pic of the red-shouldered in the book. What do you think? If not, what do you suppose it is? It’s clearly different than most I see around here.

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  22. AJ, I am nothing close to a raptor expert. I looked it up in my raptors book, and at first I thought the breast marking were wrong, but then I saw different photos showed markedly different markings. So the best I can say is that it looks like it could be, but I’m the wrong one to say. It’s a better photo than my red-shouldered hawk, if that’s what it is. (Mine pretty much has to be that species, but it was taken from the car–a stopped car, but still a car–across my husband’s shoulder, and just wasn’t a good shot.)

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  23. Kim, one of the lighter “comfort foods” that we make (but you may or may not like) is canned chicken chow mein over rice. Fried chicken also counts as comfort food, but that’s likely not what you want, either. Depends on what qualifies for you! For me (but not for my husband) a tuna sandwich would work.

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  24. Oh . . . if you want an ID, one excellent site is the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, allaboutbirds.org or birds.cornell.edu I’ve gone to it repeatedly, though I have multiple bird books. But raptors are hard, even for experts, and I’m not an expert. I have several species that I know fairly well, but outside of those I can only guess.

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  25. Karen, on your question yesterday about the difference between the KJV and AKJV. The AKJV is the official KJV published by Cambridge University Press, who are the authorized Queen’s printers. The KJV is the unofficial version which is typically published outside the UK and is famously ‘copyright free’. There are a few spelling differences, and maybe a couple of different words, but they are pretty much the same. I have the Cambridge edition, with the original introduction From the Translators to the Reader and their footnotes. They were just as much into textual criticism as any modern translators. The reasons that certain people are KJV-only are legion, but here are a few [I speak from firsthand experience, as growing up Independent Baptist brought us into contact with many stripes of KJV-only, and there is someone in our church who is a full-blown KJV-only, though, thankfully, our pastor won’t go that far.]:

    1) They blame newer translations (ASV, NIV, ESV, etc.) for the creeping liberal influences in churches. This reason usually entails some slander against Westcott and Hort, who produced a Victorian-era critical text (a compilation of the various Greek manuscripts of the New Testament) and the accusations range from ‘they were atheists’ (they weren’t) to ‘they were homosexuals and Satanists’ (even more ridiculous). I have actually seen those arguments, I’m not making this up. The hilarious thing is that Westcott and Hort’s critical text isn’t even used as the basis of modern translations, which use the Novum Testamentum Graece by Nestle and Aland as their critical text. Incidentally, the KJV’s founding critical text is the Textus Receptus, which was compiled by Renaissance humanist Desiderius Erasmus. He had access to fewer Greek manuscripts than modern scholars do, but he certainly practiced the same textual criticism that they do. Textual criticism is a method of looking at variants between manuscripts and determining the most accurate reading.

    2) They argue that the translators of the King James were better scholars, better Christians, and, the strangest of all, better inspired than modern translators. Yes, that is right, some go so far as to say that the translators under King James I of England were inspired by the Holy Spirit in their work. Apart from the massive theological error of such a claim, they ignore the history of why that translation was made. While the earliest translation into English was made by John Wycliffe in the 1300s, he translated from the Latin Vulgate, not having access to any Greek. When Erasmus compiled his Textus Receptus during the Renaissance, not only the English reformer, William Tyndale, but reformers in every other country in Europe, including Martin Luther, began to translate from it. Tyndale’s work was the basis of the Bible versions (Coverdale’s and the Bishop’s Bible) which were later authorized by Henry VIII and then his daughter, Elizabeth I; but the Puritans, who thought the Anglican church was still too Catholic, were discontented with those versions. A group of English reformers who had fled to Geneva produced what is called the Geneva Bible. It was a clearly a revolutionary translation, substituting ‘congregation’ for ‘church’ (which they associated with the Catholic church) and other tweaks to make the Scriptures support their radical political positions.

    When King James I came to the English throne (he was already James V of Scotland), he had had enough with such overzealous reformers, having spent his childhood being bullied by the Presbyters in Scotland, after the flight and subsequent execution in England of his mother, Mary Queen of Scots (more than once, he saw his guardians murdered by rival factions). The Anglican church was still bitterly divided between the High churchmen and the Puritans. They both presented a list of grievances to him, and the only thing which they agreed on was the need for a new translation. So, he gathered a team of the best scholars of the day from both camps and made them work together on a translation, a translation which replaced the word ‘church’ but also corrected other errors of prior versions. It was a savvy political move, but the translation did not really become popular until the next century. It was the Geneva Bible that the Puritans who came to the New World carried and the soldiers of Oliver Cromwell’s army quoted from as they rebelled against Charles I, who was James I’s son. The KJV was actually revised in 1769, and that is the version which is so popular today. It is hardly a holy history. Moreover, in the introduction to the KJV, the translators make it quite clear that they do not consider their work to be the final nor the definitive version. They were at least better scholars and theologians than their modern fans who claim inspiration for them.

    3) As I mentioned in point one, conspiracy theories abound amongst the KJV-only crowd concerning the newer versions. They claim that the symbol on the front of the NIV is Masonic and thus Satanic origin. Because the ESV uses the pronoun ‘He’ instead of God in one passage in Ephesians, they argue that it is impossible for the reader to tell that Christ is being called God in the passage, that the translators deliberately made the language ambiguous. There are single verses which are missing from most modern versions, because the majority of Greek manuscripts do not have them there. In most cases, those verses are found in another book containing the same account (i.e. the Gospels) and so nothing is really changed, but KJV-only people point to that to say it shows how Scripture is being intentionally eroded away. They point to the presence of copyright claims on the new version to show how the translators only care about money – I burst the bubble of one such claimant by opening my Cambridge KJV and reading the copyright notice. The slightest change is to them a sign for panic. They remind me of the Catholic church’s attitude towards translation at the end of the Middle Ages; or of the Pharisees, whom Christ excoriated for “teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” (Matthew 15:9)

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  26. The King James Version was written in the language of the day. I am not for substituting the Bible with The Living Bible or The Message, but I do think sometimes for clarity (as long as they go back to the original Greek, then translate, it is better to read one of the newer versions. In another life when I taught Disciple Bible Study they encouraged you to have several translations of the Bible to that you could read the same verse several ways and see what remained the same–the meaning and message. I have the KJV, the New Oxford Annotated and the Notetaker’s Bible which I cannot find right now….may be in my truck.

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  27. Dinner is solved. We will be having Greek Chicken with potatoes and then green beans. I think it is this weather that makes me want to cook something with lots of flavor but light.

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  31. Chas, I have an affection for the KJV. It is certainly a beautiful translation and has since its revision in 1769, influenced spoken and written English even more than Shakespeare has. I think it was C. S. Lewis who said that the KJV was almost too pretty, that we were in danger of missing the deep meaning of passages because we were distracted by their beauty. However, the ESV preserves the use of ‘Behold’, in fact, its phraseology and wording are very much like KJV, only more modern and thus more understandable.

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  32. Chas, it would be clearer as look or “look.”

    Thing is, we don’t use “behold” any more. I don’t like it that some versions have changed “tabernacle” to “tent of meeting” or other uses . . . but that’s only because I’m familiar with the word “tabernacle.” Does it mean anything more than the substitutes, probably not.

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  33. Kim, some in the KJV-only camp would go so far as to say any modern translation into other languages should be made from the KJV, not the original Greek. Some even claim that the Greek was abolished after the KJV was translated. It is a terrible idea that the languages which have yet to have a translation or are currently being translated could be denied the dignity to be translated from the Greek manuscripts, but I know of a fringe Bible society which actually splintered off from an established Bible society for that very reason. The head of the society once preached in our church (the sermon was a train wreck, the first full fledged railing-Fundamentalist-Baptist sermon I’ve had to endure, since our tiny church had the blessing of escaping that style hitherto). I have the urge to inquire of those of that position if that means the Coptic, the Assyrian, the Ethiopian, and the Russian Orthodox Churches should now translate from the KJV, since their oldest translations predate the KJV by a thousand years and more. Also, the German and Spanish classic versions, which were done (the German by Martin Luther), some years before the KJV was authorized. A French phrase comes to mind when I think of their anti-Greek position, “Ca c’est ridicule! [That, it is ridiculous!]

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  38. Jo, that is another issue the KJV-only camp brings up. The funny thing is, the KJV doesn’t capitalize the ‘he’ or ‘him’ referring to God either. The first time someone pointed that out, I had to go and check, but it is true. As I read somewhere recently about the original languages of the Bible, Hebrew is written entirely in capitals, and Greek is written entirely in lowercase.

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  39. My preference is to capitalize pronouns when referring to God or Jesus. It really bothers me when others don’t. Now that I have said that I will post something and not capitalize the pronoun 🙂

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  46. 1-2 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs, chopped into 1/2-inch pieces — cook in a dutch oven until brown.

    Then add:

    3 cups of low-sodium chicken broth
    1 can of diced tomatoes (no salt added)
    1 can of navy beans, drained and rinsed
    1-1/4 oz packet of taco seasoning mix
    1-1/2 tsp of sugar

    Simmer for 15-20 minutes and — poof! — it’s done!

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  47. Whew. Nine year old and fourteen year old boys are off to hunter’s safety class. Nine year old came out dressed to go. Wearing: yellow and blue plaid shorts, green, gray, and white plaid dress shirt, diagonally striped turquoise and jade striped tie, navy blue suit coat, gray wool hunting socks, and black dress shoes. He proudly announced that he had remembered his white undershirt. I tried to gently tell him that generally you don’t wear plaid shorts and plaid shirt and diagonal tie. He was trying to understand when Dad said, “Go change”. I said that was why. He went in the shorts but a matching sort of plain teal dress shirt, the jacket, no tie, and the dress shoes. He looked like a British boy heading off to school.

    You don’t suppose it is because we just finished watching the Chronicles of Narnia after finishing reading the books for the eighth time in four years?

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  49. Roscuro – Thanks for all that info on the KJV-only people. I have a KJV-only Facebook friend who once shared something that mentioned some of that.

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  50. Over the weekend, it was mentioned that Reba McEntire’s husband was divorcing her, supposedly because she is showing her age.

    I do feel sorry for her, but it is also sad that she had divorced her first husband to focus on her career.

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