76 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 2-27-17”

  1. If there were a house where that tree is, that’s how far Elvera’s father’s house was from the RR. That is the house in Corinaca, SC where he retired. He worked on the RR.

    Good morning everyone but Jo
    Sweet dreams Jo.

    Liked by 4 people

  3. Roscuro,
    Just FYI, “liturgy” is the order of worship in a church service (Invocation, Confession and Absolution, Kyrie, Hymn of Praise, Word of God and Sermon, Creed, Offertory, Sanctus, Words of Our Lord, Agnus Dei, Distribution, Nunc Dimittis, and Benediction).
    I think you meant “I didn’t grow up observing any part of the church calendar but Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter, and Christmas.”

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  6. I said last night I wasn’t going to argue for or against Lent, but I do think we can go to far on either side. We toss away a couple of thousand years of church history and tradition and it makes us feel superior? What does that accomplish?
    Which has made me rethink sharing what I am doing for Lent because I don’t want to be one of those praying, gnashing my teeth, covered in ashes in the public square being oh so pious. You can argue amongst yourselves.

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  7. Now my QOD. Have any of you done the Whole30?

    http://whole30.com/new/

    I know several here fight inflammatory or auto immune conditions. I have know several people who have done this. I am considering doing it, although I can’t talk Mr. P into doing it with me. Thoughts? Comments? Critiques?

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  8. Kim! @ 8:19
    Whadda wanna do? Kill me?
    I don’t want to change my life.
    I have developed a philosophy, generally, but not always, true.
    After you reach 75, all change is bad.
    Some exceptions:
    Great grandkids being born.
    Same trusting Jesus and being saved.
    Annuities you bought years ago maturing.

    Can’t think of anything else.
    At this age, losing weight is not a good thing, generally.

    Liked by 4 people

  9. I looked at the photo and thought, that type of scenery and tree are familiar. It must be a Donna photo.

    Score!

    It’s always good to begin the morning on the right foot. 🙂

    Ribs still sore, I think I’m out of Zumba at least another week, though everyday they feel better. It’s the twisting and reaching that would kill my ribs and . . . I’ve got a vacation coming up. I’d like to be able to enjoy it.

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  10. It has been very busy in the tax office lately. I am sitting at the bank trying to make a deposit. Their computers are down. I had a chance to visit here and say hello. We don’t usually schedule for Sunday appointments but had two yesterday.

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  11. Sorry if my posts don’t make sense. I am brain fogged lately.
    Nice header, and I was thinking that railroad tracks look the same here in GA as they do in CA.

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  13. That must be very noisy when the trains go by. We are not far from tracks, but have a few acres in between. That is close enough. I know we usually get used to such noise. We have friends whose almost 19 year old daughter was killed at a crossing. They did not want to live close enough to hear trains anymore. They heard the whistles that day.

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  14. Interesting essay, Cheryl. Jesus did say his followers would fast when the bridegroom was gone. I have noticed a tendency to bring back many practices that were not followed. The Seder Meal being one. We are so susceptible to being self-righteous. We certainly can rationalize everything under the sun and often err on our true motives. All the more reason for prayer, fellowship and reading the bible. So many good things can be used wrongly by us. Even those. It never hurts to think through why we are doing what we are doing.

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  16. Snook?

    Ha, I only have 1 out of the 2 things Chas lists we can “look forward to” after 75. It’ll have to be enough. That and my cute bathroom if I’m still alive and in this house. 🙂

    The photo is of the horrendous (tongue-in-cheek) storm damage that left the dog park strewn with broken limbs (the smaller of which which the dogs now drag around and play tug-of-war with).

    The train track isn’t used often — we’re across the street from the Port of LA so it’s port-related trains that run — so mostly it’s homeless folk on foot or on bike going by. Bikes get the dogs going and they’ll run along the inside of the fence barking. There were problems with homeless encampments on the other side of the tracks but the authorities seem to be keeping a close watch on that. On the front side of the dog park is the LAPD’s K-9 training facility so there are always black-and-whites coming and going from the immediate area.

    I lazed around yesterday after church, read and took a nap and went to the dog park. I got nothing done in the house. But it felt good for a change, I needed just a “down” day for me.

    Carol didn’t get her church visitors this weekend, unfortunately, but she sounded OK when we talked last night, she was watching the Oscars (which are held just a few blocks from where she lives and is staying now in the convalescent place — all in the same neighborhood). She said there weren’t a lot of political comments, though I read that there were. Even just a few would have been too many for me. So I skipped watching it this year (though I usually don’t watch it anymore, but I will check in on it some years, to see at least a little of it — sounds like a big mix-up in the mis-announcement of best picture).

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  17. There were train tracks that ran right behind and alongside my grandmother’s house in Iowa, the house shook when one went by (which was quite often). I remember when I was little how my mom taught me to go out and wave at the guy on the caboose. Great fun for me. They’d always wave back. 🙂

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  18. Brian Lee & I follow each other on Twitter, he grew up in our area as it turns out (he messaged me a few years ago I guess when I signed up to follow him, saying hey, you’re in my home town).

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  19. He grew up reading our newspaper.

    Good column. Our pastor also is not a fan of the spiritual disciplines movement, although I still think it has a place, individually, in our sanctification process. But he makes a good point on how it can feed into our spiritual pride.

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  20. I am generally trying to eat more “real” and whole foods. I don’t usually do well on the programs, though. But staying away from processed foods is generally a good way to go, I think. I picked up some fresh veggies last night for lunches this week and I’m trying to do more steamed vegetables & fish for dinners.

    Of course, now I have some extra, overflow casserole from the weekend so I’ll have to finish that off first. It’s not that healthy.

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  21. Wow! That pic likes a horrendously cold and desolate place. Did they send a drone in to take the picture? I imagine it fell to the ground worthless right after. Looks like it was probably taken in the deepest Arctic regions.

    Liked by 1 person

  22. Kim – Please do share with us what you are thinking of doing for Lent. We won’t think you are bragging about it, & it may inspire someone to do something similar, whether for Lent or some other time.

    Btw, by sharing that link, I didn’t mean to judge anyone who does, for their own reasons, like to observe Lent, but merely to offer another perspective on it.

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  23. I think those programs are for people who are convinced that the American diet is somehow healthy. It is to show a different perspective and give the person a chance to taste real food and see how it affects them. The downfall is people do it and then go back to the old way of eating. It can be an encouragement to see food differently and it can be yet another “failure” in the mind of the participant. We are not to be gluttons (I fight with that) and we have been given ample food to maintain good health. However, I am not certain all of the improvements have been improvements. Like shipping food to the local grocer from all over the planet all year. Are we designed to work better from the local food? Maybe, I don’t know. I suspect we are designed for real food rather than the processed things.

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  25. Kim, the whole30 looks alot like a Daniel fast I did about 20 years ago. You will lose weight. You will be starving all the time. And, you will gain it back when you begin to eat like a real person again. But, if you use it as a time of fasting and prayer, you will gain so much spiritually, that it will all be worth it. You will also be thanking God that potatoes fall under the vegetable category.

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  30. Linda, I meant the liturgical calendar.

    Cheryl, I like the way he put it in that essay, that we are called to suffer as Christ suffered, for others, not ourselves. I can relate to that since when I was in West Africa, I perforce gave up some of the things I love, including not being able to visit with my family for over a year; I didn’t give up seeing them as a spiritual discipline of fasting from seeing my family, but in order to follow God’s direction to serve others.

    Kim, I’m not sure that in not using the liturgical calendar, we are throwing out quite that much tradition. Irenaeus, in the quote I posted on Saturday/yesterday’s thread, makes it clear that there wasn’t an established liturgy surrounding Easter in the 2nd century, although some churches did practice their own unique traditions. The practice of Lent isn’t mentioned definitely until after the Council of Nicaea, which occurred in 325 A.D, and even then, as the scholarly paper I linked related, it was practiced differently throughout different churches. The liturgical calendar has been a source of disagreement in the church a long time – the Venerable Bede, writing in the 700s, relates the bitter dispute between the churchmen following the Roman tradition of Easter, and those following the Celtic church’s tradition of Easter and the accusations used to discredit the Celtic tradition were pretty virulent, accusing them of deadly heresy for using a different date. One of the points of separation between the Roman and the Orthodox church was their disagreement over dates. Paul would have scolded them for their disunity over trivial matters, in the manner of Colossians 2:16-23:

    Therefore, don’t let anyone judge you in regard to food and drink or in the matter of a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of what was to come; the substance is the Messiah. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on ascetic practices and the worship of angels, claiming access to a visionary realm and inflated without cause by his unspiritual mind. He doesn’t hold on to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons, develops with growth from God.
    If you died with the Messiah to the elemental forces of this world, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations: “Don’t handle, don’t taste, don’t touch”? All these regulations refer to what is destroyed by being used up; they are commands and doctrines of men. Although these have a reputation of wisdom by promoting ascetic practices, humility, and severe treatment of the body, they are not of any value in curbing self-indulgence.{HCSB}

    Irenaeus’ quote shows that even bishop Polycarp, who as a pupil of the apostle John could have thrown that status at the head of anyone who disagreed with how he observed the Resurrection of Christ, was not willing to break fellowship with bishop Anicetus over their disagreement on the matter:

    For neither could Anicetus persuade Polycarp to forego the observance [in his own way], inasmuch as these things had been always [so] observed by John the disciple of our Lord, and by other apostles with whom he had been conversant; nor, on the other hand, could Polycarp succeed in persuading Anicetus to keep [the observance in his way], for he maintained that he was bound to adhere to the usage of the presbyters who preceded him. And in this state of affairs they held fellowship with each other; and Anicetus conceded to Polycarp in the Church the celebration of the Eucharist, by way of showing him respect; so that they parted in peace one from the other, maintaining peace with the whole Church, both those who did observe [this custom] and those who did not.

    In saying why I personally did not think Lent would be beneficial for me, I wasn’t trying to criticize others. I have no problem with my city church doing what they feel is right in the matter, so long as they do not pressure me to conform to their idea. They haven’t, and I’m satisfied. I discussed it on here, because it is good for Christians to talk to one another about these things, as Anicetus and Polycarp did.

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  35. On the diet plan, my second sibling-in-law was joking last week that I could offer to infect people with the virus I had as a guaranteed weight loss plan (his sense of humour is a bit macabre), since I’ve lost about three inches off my waistline since I’ve been sick. I tried to see what kind of diet this new plan was without committing to or paying for anything and I saw the word ‘paleo’. That was enough for me. Anytime a diet is based on a theoretical pre-historic state of man, it is going to be unbalanced. The primary source of energy for people must be complex carbohydrates – your brain only subsists on glucose, and complex carbohydrates are the safest source. Lipids and proteins can be broken down to create glucose, but the by-products of the processes are ketones and ammonia, which are toxic to the body. The best source of complex carbohydrates are grains and grains are eliminated in the paleo diet, due to the theoretic postulation that man in the Paleolithic age was a hunter-gatherer and thus did not access grains. I am unaware of any archeological evidence that Paleolithic man was any healthier or lived longer than modern man – it seems to me that those who develop such diets are engaging in extreme nostalgia for the good old days.

    Pardon my sarcastic tone. I’m afraid seeing the constant malnutrition in West Africa has made me permanently derisive of those in the rarified West who want to return to an era where people had less to eat.

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  36. Roscuro I tend to agree with you about diets…Everyone has a diet, it is what you eat every day. I asked for comments about it and appreciate your thoughts. I am just looking for a reset button. I drink way too much coffee and I don’t always eat in the healthiest manner. I considered doing this for 30 (or 40 😉 ) days to see how it worked.

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  37. We have the problems that come with abundance in the west.

    There’s a photo of a wolf (full face, head shot) that hangs in my veterinarian’s waiting room. One day a little girl kept staring at it, then she’d look over at Cowboy.

    “Is that your dog?” she asked. 🙂

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  38. Blue skies, snow on the forest floor and gentle breezes a blowin’! And the sun surely warms the bones!
    Cowboy! He looks so soft and cuddly 🙂 He has lots of fur to keep him warm at the dog park….
    We try to eat healthy but then there are such downfalls like…cookies! Why do I like cookies so much??!!!

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  40. Yeah, he has “that” look. The first photo I saw of him, sent to me by the rescuer, he was super underweight and his head hung low. Saddest looking dog I’d ever seen.

    In general, he just has a worried, anxious look, something about the eye colors I think.

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  42. The dog is guilty. You can tell by looking. He caused all that commotion and caused the limbs to come down.
    Leastwise, he knows he’s going to be blamed.
    He has that guilty look.

    I don’t know much about diets. I’ve been on two diets in my life. Both were to gain weight.
    Everyone, mostly women, hate me when I say that.
    It’s true.

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  43. Cowboy has the most exotic eyes I’ve ever seen on a dog. Mesmerizing.

    A pileated woodpecker just landed in our feeder tree, and we have no suet out and so it left. 😦 That’s only the second time it has come to that tree that I know of. But my husband has been sick and I don’t know where he stores the suet now, so once it got used up it was gone.

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  44. The main issue I see for the diet is that all sources of protein are eliminated. I think that is what causes Beri-Beri.

    I have been thinking about doing a hormone reset. It eliminates certain foods for 3 days at a time.

    I told my husband that I think I could lose weight if I wasn’t such a good cook. He says he wold rather have a chunky wife that cooks like I do, than a skinny one who doesnt. 🙂

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  46. It is interesting that some of those diets get rid of all protein and some have you eat only protein. I suspect, in the short term, it won’t hurt either way. The thing for Kim is to find something to encourage her to make healthier choices. But then again, coffee is currently healthy, just not the additives.

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  50. Eliminating protein is not a good idea either. I’ve treated children who developed kwashiorkor, which is protein starvation. It causes the skeletal limbs and swollen bellies that you see in those pictures of starving children. It was very difficult to bring them back from the brink and took months. There must be all three kinds of nutrients – carbohydrates, protein, and lipids (fats) – in a person’s diet. Carbohydrates are needed in higher quantities than the other two, but they must all be present, in addition to the vitamins and minerals. Lack of the latter two causes a whole host of diseases, such as beri-beri which is a deficiency of vitamin B1, also called thiamine. The nurse practitioner I worked with in my last two months in WA told me about an outbreak that happened in a cluster of villages. Something must have happened to the harvest that year, and people were developing strange but ill-defined symptoms, to the point where several people developed enlarged heart. Several died before beri-beri was identified as the cause. With treatment of thiamine supplements, the symptoms were reversed, and those at the point of death survived (it was meeting one of the survivors which triggered the story being told).

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  51. Merely eliminating food from one’s diet is actually a very ineffective way of losing weight. Your body has gotten used to metabolizing that much food. So, when it doesn’t get that much food, it will simply slow down its metabolism to conserve energy. Any really effective weight loss program must deal with two other areas in addition to food, physical activity and stress. It isn’t so much that people these days eat too much (in order to not feel guilty about the amount one eats, I suggest reading Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder), but rather they do too little. Physical activity helps to increase the body’s metabolism. Stress really messes up your body’s metabolism, and will also encourage ineffective coping behaviours such as eating for comfort, or, ahem, drinking certain caffeinated liquids in order to give one more energy. Caffeine is a stimulant drug, like cocaine, meaning that it increases the fight-or-flight stress response, which raises blood pressure, increases heart rate, and increases energy metabolism. Being a drug, it creates not only dependency, but also tolerance, so that higher levels of caffeine are required for the same response.
    I probably lost weight due to the increased metabolism that happens when one’s immune system is fighting an infection.

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  52. And yet recent tests show that:

    The potential health benefits associated with drinking coffee include: protecting against type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, liver disease, liver cancer, and promoting a healthy heart.

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  53. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/270202.php
    _____________________________

    A cup of coffee in the morning may pack more than just an energy boost.

    More and more research is emerging to suggest that there may be several health benefits associated with drinking this dark black beverage, from helping prevent diabetes to lowering the risk of liver disease.

    The consumption of coffee goes back centuries.

    In 17th century England the popularity of the drink gave rise to a number of coffee houses which were dubbed ‘penny universities’, because with one penny a person could buy a cup of coffee and have intellectually stimulating conversations with other people….
    _______________________________________

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  54. DJ, the natives of Bolivia and other South American, where the coca plant from which cocaine is derived grows naturally, drink coca tea. It also has health benefits. Coffee is native to East Africa. The West Africans get their caffeine from the kola nut (in addition to imported green tea). It also has great health benefits, but when we had someone with hypertension, we told them to neither drink the tea nor chew the nut. Those who didn’t listen – most patients – had to be placed on anti-hypertensive drugs and we waited for the stroke, which not infrequently occurred.

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  55. When I was working, I drank coffee instead of water.
    I would often get up and get a cup of coffee just to move out and do something.
    To get ahead of traffic, I usually got to work about 6:30. (I had already had a cup at breakfast.) and brewed the coffee before anyone else arrived.
    It didn’t seem to hurt.

    My favorite nutritionist in the world (We attended the 50th anniversary of Janice and Dave in December.) once said, “Everyone needs a piece of meat the size of a deck of cards every day.”

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  56. I’m trying to drink a cup of coffee every morning — I never developed it as a “habit” but think the health benefits make it worthwhile to include 1-2 cups a day (I barely finish 1 cup and often times skip or forget it altogether, however).

    Cowboy has the most worried look when there are fireworks or workers banging around the house. Poor guy, he gets very stressed and just stares at me with “those” eyes. 😦

    I’m trying to wind up on the house stuff again, the ceiling guy says he’s still interested and will drop off a bid soon to take down the old plaster ceiling and replace it with drywall. Demo zone ahead again for us, I’m afraid.

    Real estate pal says he’ll get in touch with roofer this week to see what his schedule looks like for doing my foundation work. And I’m going to call a garage door company, replacing my old door (which is literally deteriorating) should be a fairly quick and easy job to do in the meantime.

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  60. From FB:

    The Coyote Principle

    CALIFORNIA
    • The Governor of California is jogging with his dog along a nature trail. A coyote jumps out and attacks the Governor’s dog, then bites the Governor.
    • The Governor starts to intervene, but reflects upon the movie “Bambi” and then realizes he should stop because the coyote is only doing what is natural.
    • He calls animal control. Animal Control captures the coyote and bills the state $200 testing it for diseases and $500 for relocating it.
    • He calls a veterinarian. The vet collects the dead dog and bills the State $200 testing it for diseases.
    • The Governor goes to hospital and spends $3,500 getting checked for diseases from the coyote and on getting his bite wound bandaged.
    • The running trail gets shut down for 6 months while Fish & Game conducts a $100,000 survey to make sure the area is now free of dangerous animals.
    • The Governor spends $50,000 in state funds implementing a “coyote awareness program” for residents of the area.
    • The State Legislature spends $2 million to study how to better treat rabies and how to permanently eradicate the disease throughout the world.
    • The Governor’s security agent is fired for not stopping the attack. The state spends $150,000 to hire and train a new agent with additional special training for the nature of coyotes.
    • PETA protests the coyote’s relocation and files a $5 million suit against the state.

    TEXAS
    • The Governor of Texas is jogging with his dog along a nature trail. A coyote jumps out and attacks his dog.
    • The Governor shoots the coyote with his state-issued pistol and keeps jogging. The Governor has spent $.50 on a .45 ACP hollow point cartridge.
    • The buzzards eat the dead coyote.

    And that, my friends, is why California is broke and Texas is not.

    Liked by 6 people

  61. Thanks Donna. 😦

    But despite the temptation, I’m still not breaking my Oreo boycott.

    And silver hair looks good on an older gentleman like Cowboy. 🙂
    ——————–

    Coffee.

    I’m a firm believer that the Keurig is man’s greatest invention. 2 cups of high-test and 2 cups of decaf, every day. That and water are pretty much all I drink, unless I’m out to eat somewhere.

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  62. I’m pretty sure I walked past a dead coyote on the road today, but it was so busy, narrow and windy, I didn’t want to step into it for a closer view.

    Though, perhaps it was something else . . .

    No charge.

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  65. Another piece on Lent (including some history of the controversy): https://heidelblog.net/2014/03/lent-of-good-intentions-spiritual-disciplines-and-christian-freedom/#comments

    BTW, I meant to post earlier that I wasn’t posting these to argue with anyone, but because the subject has been brought up and seemed worthy of discussion. For me personally I couldn’t participate because my husband would be appalled; it would be unsubmissive for me to do so. I’ve always thought of it as Roman Catholic and had no interest, anyway, but he has read more than I have about the history of Reformed belief, and it wouldn’t be proper for me as his wife, even if I were so inclined. But after the reading I’ve done this week, I am (personally) more set against it than when I never really even thought about it.

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  66. Taste for coffee is something that I did not inherit from my father. My mother and grandparents all drank a bit of coffee, but Dad drank it all day long, always black. He also didn’t eat breakfast or lunch, just dinner and after-dinner snacks.

    In 1992 I was introduced to an older lady who recognized my unusual last name. She wondered if I was related to an Andrew of the same last name who had worked at a certain company in the early 60s. I told her he was my father. She shared several 30-year-old office memories of Dad, and then said, “But the thing I remember most about your father was what a prodigious amount of coffee he drank.” Dad thought that was pretty funny when I told him about it.

    Me? I’ve never been able to stand the stuff. I tried it a few times in college when I wanted to stay awake to study, but ended up depending on Mountain Dew instead.

    Liked by 1 person

  68. My parents both drank coffee–Maxwell House, I think. We kids thought it a treat to get cold coffee (with plenty of milk). But last I heard, not one of the seven of us is a coffee drinker. Some can’t stand the stuff, some drink it only occasionally; none drinks it even semi-regularly (as far as I know). I drink it occasionally, especially if hazelnut flavoring is available or if I come in from the outside and I’m especially cold. But I’ve probably never had as many as ten cups in a single year, so I mean very occasionally. If mocha is available, it needs to be peppermint or caramel flavored or I’d rather have regular hot cocoa. I don’t even like the smell of coffee (I sometimes dislike it, and am sometimes neutral, it depends. I only remember once thinking “that smells good,” and that was a coffee aisle at Publix.)

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  69. Cheryl’s comment reminds me, I should have said I can’t stand the taste of the stuff. I actually do love the smell of coffee. But the bitter taste overpowers whatever makes is smell so good.

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  70. I didn’t develope the coffee habit until I was 30. Now I can’t do without it. Two cups black per day. Occasionally I put a little raw washed sugar it it if it’s too bitter.

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  71. My cousin loved the smell of coffee (but not the taste) — when she and a roommate first moved out they bought a coffee pot just for the smell every morning. 🙂

    I guess I’m a “semi-regular” coffee drinker. I actually like it — with a little bit of milk, nothing else. But I often just forget to even make it in the morning and I never want it during the day (we have free coffee available in the newsroom kitchen).

    The latest pic shows poor Tess in dog park time-out. She doesn’t play well with others so when we go to the dog park she has to stay confined in the fenced-off dog run alongside the park. She seems OK with that, less stressed than she does when she comes inside and dogs are jumping all around. And we usually don’t stay all that long, an hour at the longest — but I’ve had several people run up to me and ask if I’d forgotten her and left her out there by mistake. Poor Tess.

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  72. Kevin I believe the boycott has to do with Oreo/Nabisco closing their factories in the US and moving them to Mexico….I do not purchase Nabisco any longer…my own personal choice…plus I am trying to stay away from processed food items….when I get the cookie urge…I make them by scratch! 🙂 And I eat them while drinking coffee…black coffee….Peet’s coffee is our favorite….followed by Daz Bog…..Colorado Coffee Roasters is our all time favorite smooth not bitter bean….but too expensive for a two pots of coffee kind of day around here…

    Liked by 2 people

  73. AJ, I agree with the Keurig, great little machine for limited cups of coffee, perfect for small households.

    But I really don’t “get” decaf — I mean, why bother? 🙂

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