59 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 6-21-16”

  1. Good morning. Becca-boo and I both just awakened. She has a birthday party to attend today from 1-6–so she’s very excited! We’re heading to Justice around ten for earrings and a gift card for the birthday girl–a good friend from school.

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  2. What a fun day Ann.
    I received a text from BG at 11:30 last night asking me to come to Nana’s at 7:30 so I am up and moving.
    I did talk to her yesterday. When she heard my voice she started sobbing and telling me about seeing the young man and how awful it was. There was a text that the young man sent to BG’s boyfriend before he tried to hang himself. I worry that the Boyfriend will feel guilt he didn’t get there in time. I also worry about my own child and the effect it will have on her. I told her I wasn’t equipped to deal with seeing something like that so there was no way to expect her to and if I needed to find someone for her to talk to I would. She didn’t think she needed it yesterday, but as the days pass things may change.
    I don’t know how the young man is doing.
    Off to finish dressing.

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  3. Good morning! The train is passing behind the houses across the street. It just gave some loud warning whistles while Bosley sat in the open window. Guess that surprised her. Maybe something was on the tracks.

    From behind, Donna, Annie could be Miss Bosley reading about coyotes.

    That is a great turtle picture. I have a friend who collects turtles. She’d love this header photo.

    I just read over yesterday’s prayer requests. Lots going on, major things to pray over. Art’s doc appointment is today, too.

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  4. Kim, I’m behind on this (maybe it was on yesterdays, which I haven’t gone to yet.). But.
    A guy BG knows, but not her boyfriend, hanged himself. Evidently not dead.
    Is that the way it is?

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  6. Part of Kim’s post from yesterday’s prayer thread:
    “This was the boyfriend’s step-brother. He tried to hang himself last night. The boyfriend went into his room and found him. The 15 year old boy is in ICU. BG was at the house when it happened. I have not heard from her today.”

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  7. If you notice about seven rows down on “More Wandering Views”, a picture of “Pet Rock” a Father’s Day card from Cuck, a graduate from atop a cake and a picture of my parents.
    All sitting atop my bookcase.
    The card is all I have found, so far.

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  9. No pets to lose on our move, but last night Mrs L was looking for a Father’s Day card one of the granddaughters made and left for me. We thought it must have accidentally been thrown out, I found it this morning in my Bible.

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  10. A liberal Christian friend posted this article, & I also read the Part 2 that she didn’t post. I don’t agree with everything this man writes, but he makes some good points. But my question is: Are there really Christians who believe it is okay to shoot (& kill) a thief who merely wants to steal some of your stuff? Or is this a straw man argument?

    I’ll post Part 2, which deals with whether or not to protect ones family, in a separate comment.

    BTW, I am posting these to read your opinions about them, not to make any particular point. (Well, maybe except for this first one, that I don’t think we should use lethal force to protect our property. But some of you may disagree, & I’d like to hear why.)

    http://www.patheos.com/blogs/poptheology/2016/06/god-guns-family-pt1/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=FBCP-PRX&utm_content=poptheology

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  12. Karen, to me the whole argument is false. Owning a gun or multiple guns is not a “Christian” thing. There are Christians who don’t own guns just as there are none Christians who own guns. Owning a gun is mostly an American thing. It goes back in our history. The British did not want the colonists to be able to fight them and restricted gun ownership. An unarmed populace is at the will of the government. If you don’t want a gun that is your right. If I do want a gun that is my right. Do you want to live in a country where the only people who can get a gun is the government and criminals?

    As far as not shooting someone for merely stealing your possessions. That is another non argument. If you are in my house, having broken in, and you are taking things from me, my assumption is that you aren’t going to say “thank you” and leave. Right now I am home alone. If someone came in my office right now it would terrify me. I would probably almost be paralyzed with fear. I wouldn’t assume that the person came in to chat and ask me if I had a couple of bucks they could borrow.

    Others may have differing opiinions and they are welcome to have them.

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  14. What a cute turtle sunning his sweet self! 🙂
    And Annie looking at the book….upon seeing the photo, in my best “Sergeant Joe Friday” voice I heard “this is the face of the enemy….remember it well”!!

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  17. I don’t have anything worth stealing. I like what Chas said about criminals should expect lethal force as a possibility any time they break in. In our case, lethal force might be them tripping over clutter and breaking their neck, or being bitten and scratched by Queen B because she thought a new play toy (human) entered her world.

    I just noticed my phone changed the name Chas to Chaos. Living out of boxes is chaos!

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  18. I haven’t read the links and I don’t own a gun. I do have a walking stick by the door and a few skillets in the kitchen, some lamps and a couple of border collies. And a cat. And a whistle to haze coyotes. They’d all have to suffice.

    But my first obvious question would be “how do you know all he’s doing is stealing ‘stuff’?” A criminal has broken into your house, I’d think you might assume potentially more is to come than his just taking some of your things. But that’s me. It would be a spur-of-the-moment decision in what would feel, I would think, like a possibly/likely life-threatening moment.

    Turtle is sunning himself (how cute are those back feet & tail??) at our neighborhood park where the local coyotes have taken out much of he wildlife (geese, ducks, etc.). It’s a regular smorgasbord for them out there. Coyotes gotta eat and they now have puppies to feed.

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  19. Karen,

    After reading both, I’ll say this. There’s a lot wrong with the authors thinking.

    Jesus is clear we are not to go seeking revenge, but defending your family and home in the moment it’s happening isn’t the same as seeking revenge after the fact. Self defense is not seeking revenge.

    And if we were to follow this man’s thinking, Christians could never be police officers or soldiers.

    —————————————–

    He’s misreading what he thinks he sees in some cases. And he leaves much out……

    Exodus 22:2-3 “If a thief is caught in the act of breaking into a house and is struck and killed in the process, the person who killed the thief is not guilty of murder. But if it happens in daylight, the one who killed the thief is guilty of murder. “A thief who is caught must pay in full for everything he stole. If he cannot pay, he must be sold as a slave to pay for his theft.

    Luke 22:35-36 Then Jesus asked them, “When I sent you out to preach the Good News and you did not have money, a traveler’s bag, or an extra pair of sandals, did you need anything?” “No,” they replied. “But now,” he said, “take your money and a traveler’s bag. And if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one!

    Luke 11:21 “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are undisturbed.

    Psalm 82:4 Rescue the weak and needy; Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.

    ————————————–

    Here’s a couple of links that explain it better than I can.

    http://www.biblicalselfdefense.com/

    http://www.biblestudy.org/question/what-does-bible-say-about-self-defense.html

    “Our natural reaction to those who INITIATE violence against us and wish to do us grave bodily harm is to protect ourselves and those we love. Jesus said if a homeowner knew a thief was coming to his house he would not allow his home to be broken into (Matthew 24:42 – 44). This example shows that God gives us the right to protect our possessions and to do what is needed for defend ourselves (even though it says nothing about killing someone). Ecclesiastes 3 says the following.

    1. To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heavens: 2. A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; 3. A time to kill, and a time to heal . . .”

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  20. And even if you accept that you have “no right to self-defense,” as the article’s headline proclaims, how about protecting your family and those you love? Or just, in general, the innocent who could be preyed upon? I remember well having many of these discussions in my Quaker days. As I recall, even the most pacifist among us allowed that protecting one’s family or others more vulnerable allowed for defensive actions, even if regrettably it wound up being lethal.

    It is important to make sure are positions and actions are being informed by scripture and not nationalism or other “isms.”

    But I’d argue that liberal Christians are among the most flagrant when it comes to reading Scripture though the lens of popular political beliefs.

    Another discussion yesterday in the newsroom about sexuality (I was working on a story and just listened in the background). “Love comes first,” one of the younger reporters argued with regard to having sex with whomever (and whatever gender — there now are multiple genders, of course). If you love someone, that dictates the sexual activity, doesn’t matter if they’re male, female, trans, pan, whatever.

    Such a confused generation coming into the world. Many will grow in wisdom and realize the folly of it all someday. But others won’t.

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  23. Haven’t read the articles, but can see from what is pointed out by others that the scripture is taken way out of context. Never a good thing.

    I always want to ask the mothers, who refuse to let their children play with guns, who they think is going to protect them personally or our country when those children grow up. Such thinking is most unbiblical. The bible is very clear about evil. There is a time to take up arms. We are to rescue those being led away to death, for example. That can be read as only spiritual, but there is no reason to assume that. Just treating your neighbor as yourself, would assume rescuing them and that sometimes means whatever force is necessary. Think Orlando. Who in there did not want to be rescued and wouldn’t have welcomed whomever it came from? Some of these things are on a personal level and some given to government from us. We rescue in many ways as we are able.

    An interesting question to ponder might be what Jesus meant when he told his disciples they could now take a sword (among other things) when they went out for the kingdom. We never, ever try to force Christianity on anyone. We need to often turn the other cheek. We need to love our enemies. None of these things say we never use weapons for anything.

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  24. Karen, I haven’t read the links since the second amendment isn’t an issue here; but did want to address the idea of self defense and the Christian. Anonymous quoted the scripture I immediately thought of when I read your question about the thief (Exodus 22:2-3). Now, as Christians, we are no longer bound by the law of Moses, but it is still useful for Godly instruction. Clearly, if someone kills a thief while they are breaking in, they are not guilty of murder; although, notice that revenge upon a thief is clearly forbidden: “But if it happens in daylight, the one who killed the thief is guilty of murder.” That the concept of lawful self defense is carried into the NT can be seen in Christ’s advice to carry a sword, as Anon quoted from Luke. Clearly, as the Apostles went on their missionary journeys, they were not expected to be easy prey to wild animals or wild men – I took a knife with me to West Africa, and it proved useful in dispatching poisonous snakes.

    Now, here is the important point. Christ told the disciples to buy swords at the Last Supper, just before his arrest. However, when Peter, at Christ’s arrest, drew his sword and struck off the ear of the High Priest’s servant, Christ reproved Peter with harsh words that have resonated throughout history: “Put up your sword, for all those who take the sword shall die with the sword.” (Matthew 26:52) The use of arms has no place in the spreading of the Gospel and the establishment of the Church. We do not kill or use the threat of violence to make men either become members of the Church or to make them obey the Church. The times when the Church has used deadly force to gain her point are black stains on the reputation of Christianity. The world’s methods of conquest have no place in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

    Christians can be soldiers of the country of which they are a citizen – John the Baptist did not tell the soldiers who came to him to give up their occupation. He did tell them not to use necessary violence or extortion and to be content with their wages (Luke 3:14). The world could use soldiers who exercise self control when they fight their enemies – there would be less misery from the raping and looting which seem to follow inevitably on the heels of battle. Neither Christ nor Peter suggested to the Centurions who came to them that they shouldn’t be in the Imperial Army (even though Christ and Peter were Jews, whose nation had lost their independence to Rome). However, they can only be soldiers of Christ in the spiritual sense, not a physical, armed standing army of the Church.

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  26. On parents not letting their children play with any toy guns, I grew up in a household that had that rule. It was my father’s instruction. Once we reached a responsible age, according to his judgement, we went out to the range and trained first with a rifle and then a pistol. The logic in this is that guns are not ever a toy, but a dangerous tool, which we must develop skill to be allowed to use.

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  28. Chas, there is some audio, but not a lot (it’s muted, I guess the bear wasn’t making much noise) — happened yesterday in Bradbury, CA (in the San Gabriel Valley northeast of me), posted on Foxnews.

    Here’s the (short) story that went with it:

    http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/06/21/bear-lounges-in-pool-during-california-heat-wave.html?intcmp=hplnws

    Janice, our heat wave is finally starting to break, it’s supposed to be 10 degrees cooler today than it was yesterday — I could feel the difference this morning, a bit of cool air coming in the bedroom window at long last.

    Meanwhile, someone has been blocked from our community coyote watch page for threatening to kill one of the other participants (and then suggesting maybe he could just kill himself). Animal rights people are so intense …

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  29. “Bradbury is a city in the San Gabriel Valley region of Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is located in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains below Angeles National Forest”

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  31. I didn’t grow up with guns about the place….three girls in the family….and Dad had no interest. My boy cousins in Sidney had rifles they used to hunt rabbits out on the farm…and they had bb guns but I never shot one.
    When my son was young, it was the popular thing to keep toy guns away from children…he had a cap shooter and the peer pressure had me take that away from him. One day as we were walking along the beach, he picked up a smooth black rock out of the water and carried all day long. At the end of the day, I asked to see the rock….it was in the perfect shape of a small revolver….I let him keep it….and I still have it almost 40 years later….and I gave him his cap shooter back that day 🙂

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  32. Kim, you said you would be frightened if someone came in your office while you were alone. An interesting thing happen to me along those lines. Although we do most of our business over the phone we do occasionally have people come into the office. One day, while I was alone, a black gentleman came in. I wasn’t expecting anyone to come in the door and was slightly startled. but once I realized it was a customer I thought I acted normally. I couldn’t answers his question but since my brother was on his way, I invited him to wait. That’s when he asked it he had not scared me when he came in. He said it happen to him a lot. I told him I had just not expected to see any at the door and he was far from the creepiest person to come in. I don’t think he believed me and still thought I was afraid of him. If I had been I wouldn’t have invited him to wait. I would have asked him to come back later.

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  35. Yapamom–I understand that thinking. My husband always says a gun should never, ever be pointed at anyone at anytime. I think of play guns, though, as role playing. That is what children do. Hard to play at being a policeman and capturing the bad guys with no weapon and no bad guy. Although, if you are McGyver, it would be expected. 🙂

    I never had to deal with the issue, since my husband never did much with guns by the time we had children. He hunted enough as a young man and did little of it after we were married. Target shooting was never a hobby for him or me. I did some as a young person still living with my folks. I enjoyed it, but not enough to invest time or money in it.

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  37. We played with toy guns. The two cousins we played most frequently with had these realistically coloured and shaped shotguns (they were smaller than a real shotgun) which would make a sound of the a bullet being fired when you pulled the trigger. We loved to play Fort with them, some of us being the defenders and some the invaders. Yes, we pointed them at each other – because we knew that they weren’t real. It would never have occurred to us to play with a real gun and we saw plenty of real guns – the house of my music teachers had guns on racks above the door and others locked up in one of those case with a metal bar running through the triggers. We never so much as tried to touch them. We knew the dangers of guns carelessly handled – we had to stay indoors and away from windows when the drug dealers next door held wild parties which culminated in shooting drunkenly off their back deck. Children generally have a good deal of common sense and instinctive caution. It is the few who do not which cause parents to cocoon the rest.

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  38. TV, Video Games, music, not being around people who hunt, not learning gun safety.

    My father would have blistered my behind if he ever caught me with a gun without him with me. When I was old enough he taught me how to shoot it. He let me kill one squirrel. I had to carry it home. I have never had the desire to shoot anything but a target since.

    If more children were taught gun safety and allowed to shoot at targets under supervision we may have less gun violence.

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  39. I have audio now.
    Since I moved to Greensboro, I have my own computer guru.
    Mary’s husband designs web sites for a living.
    He was over here and I told him that I didn’t have audio on my computer.
    He came in and messed with it a couple of minutes .and it works.
    Seems I had a jack was inserted in to the receptacle for headphones.
    I didn’t know I had a headphone outlet.

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  40. On the bear video, my guess is it was taken through a glass door — so all you really hear are a couple breaths or noises from the person recording it.

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  43. 57?! That reminds me we didn’t do math today. 😉

    Oh, well. Second Arrow was here a good portion of the day before she left to go back to her place again. School will resume for us tomorrow. Nice to be able to visit with her while she’s here and put other things on hold.

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  44. Re: guns. We never had any at home growing up, but my paternal grandfather next door had one.

    For as long as I can remember — or after an older cousin of mine died at the age of 9, anyway — my mom repeatedly spoke of the evils of guns in the home.

    Cousin had been playing cops and robbers with real guns at his friend’s home. Two unsupervised boys, my cousin got a superficial gunshot wound to the arm by his friend.

    Friend saw the blood, freaked out, and stabbed my cousin to death.

    That’s all I ever heard about guns, that that’s how that tragedy began, therefore guns were bad.

    My mom wasn’t any too pleased to learn that we have guns in our home now, since I married a hunter. We assured her that the guns (a rifle and a shotgun, I think) are, without fail, unloaded in the house, and the ammunition is stored on a different floor than the guns.

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  45. On guns, I have shot a pellet gun, a rifle, and a shotgun, all when I was in elementary school under my father’s instruction out on farmland and in an area galley the gravel pits where gravel was dug up and carried away by the truck load. It was a safe place for practice since we shot toward cliffs of dirt and gravel. I also had a gun rack over my door in my bedroom not by my choice, but I guess it was determined to be an out of the way place for anyone who might be looking for something to steal. I never had reason to get it down. I don’t like guns but believe they are necessary for protection in some situations

    Our son earned his Scout badge for such things at the firing range the Scouts visited annually for five years so he had excellent instruction in safety and usage. I was offered the opportunity to shoot with the Scouts at the range but turned it down because I was not that interested in it and did not want to waste their ammo.

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  46. It’s almost 11 p.m., and it is 85° outside and about that inside, too. You sent the heat back here, Donna. We really want to be an Indian giver on that gift. I know, that was totally a political ally incorrect expression to use, but it’s late and my long term memory works better than short term so you get an expression from my childhood which knew not political incorrectness.

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  48. This evening I cut into what I thought was a typical cantaloupe to find inside it looked to be the color of a honeydew melon. It tasted like a cantaloupe, but seemed very odd.

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  53. Well, if mumsee can say “57” when the count is in the 40s, then I’ll claim 75 when it’s in the low 50s. Or I could keep posting a few more times and get the actual 57.

    Nah.

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