52 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 12-7-17”

  5. Good morning, Chas and AJ. We have lots going on this week. I think we will take a calf to the sale this afternoon. It is supposed to be 15 degrees tomorrow morning. I think he will do better in the 35 degree weather that is forecast for today.

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  6. Watching the LA fire news, of course, since it’s in my family’s neighborhood.

    Most of you don’t live in a high fire area, but no matter where you live, you should be prepared for a natural disaster. My blog post is still pertinent (even if I forgot a lot of it myself at the time): http://www.michelleule.com/2015/09/21/preparing-your-life-for-a-fire/

    Back up your computers off-site and make sure you have insurance. I’m horrified at how many people out here didn’t have insurance and are now without resources.

    (Honestly, who buys a house with cash and then doesn’t at least insure it for fire?????)

    That includes renters, BTW.

    I’m gone all day today. I just stacked up a whole bunch of errands, events and meetings. This is the fourth day in a row like this. I’m tired and therefore am skipping the gym just to get a little breather.

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  7. There are several versions of this song on Youtube. THIS is Christmas to me. I prefer the more mournful version of the song. A people beg God for their Redeemer, yet we on this end know the fate of that long awaited Emmanuel….

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  10. So true, Kim. For some reason, whoever plans the music for our church service seems to miss this one during Advent the last few years. Yet they started Christmas music before Thanksgiving for the praise band. 😦 Not a big thing, but it did peeve me. I also dislike having them do all Christmas songs, but the congregation getting to do few. A little balance is a good thing. The richness of some of these old hymns in lyrics and melody is something to be treasured, IMO.

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  11. Il neige dans mon ordinateur comme il neige sur la ville. which means “It snows in my computer as it snows on the city“. It is a play on the poetry line my mother often quotes on a rainy day in memory of her high school French classes: “Il pleur dans mon coeur comme il pleur sur la ville” (It rains in my heart as it rains on the city).

    Advent link: https://travellerunknownblog.wordpress.com/2017/12/07/joy-to-the-world-advent-december-7th/

    Kim, we sang ‘O Come, O Come Emmanuel’ with the worship band on Sunday, and they very tastefully scaled back their instruments and allowed the beautiful melody to come forward, so it was lovely to sing and hear. I’m saving the carol until later on in December, since it is based on the seven ‘O’ Antiphons that were sung starting December 17th.

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  12. Kim, I OTOH, don’t like ib because of the mournful tune.
    I know the reason for it. But it isn’t a song of Joy.
    He came to Israel and Israel rejected him.

    I taught last Sunday on Acts 13. It wasn’t in the lesson but I pointed out the world changing statement of Acts 13:46.
    This event caused a conference in Jerusalem in which it was decided that a Gentile didn’t have to become a Jew first. In the past. gentiles were welcomed, but had to become Jews first. Hence the controversy over Cornelius and Paul’s ministry.

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  13. Morning! It is a blustery 7 degrees here in the forest this morning! They are promising some snow flurries this evening but it won’t amount to a hill of beans!
    I have been keeping an eye on the CA fires…horrific. We are ever prepared for another to sweep through our forest but then again, is anyone really prepared for such devastation?
    I didn’t see the bee on the flower…had to scroll back up once RK mentioned him or her 😊

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  14. This may belong on the “Politics” thread, but I believe it’s relevant here.
    Just a simple statement in Acts 13:46 “”we turn to the gentiles”.
    A simple statement.
    The consequences were enormous.

    Yesterday, Trump said, ‘We are moving our embassy to Jerusalem”.
    A simple statement.
    We don’t know what the consequences will be. I am not a prophet. But I can tell you this.
    It won’t pass by without events.

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  16. My friend, Karen, is back in the hospital with too much fluid retention from her heart failure 😣 She has not been right since she did the two hour trip to see her folks at Thanksgiving.

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  17. Low twenties here outside. High forties here inside.

    Daughter is off to Boise and then into the Navy. She is doing well enough, I believe, though her relationship with Christ is confused and I will continue to pray about that.

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  18. Roscuro wrote, “..we sang ‘O Come, O Come Emmanuel’ with the worship band on Sunday, and they very tastefully scaled back their instruments and allowed the beautiful melody to come forward, so it was lovely to sing and hear.” Same at my church. It is beautiful.

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  19. Chas @10:06, how quickly we forget the lessons of history. The King Crane Commission was sent by the U.S. to investigate the opinions of the inhabitants of Syria (then Syria encompassed modern Syrian, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel/Palestine), as per Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, which stated that mandates created from the former territories of Germany and the Ottoman Empire should be based on the will of the inhabitants of those territories. This is what the King Crane Commission reported after consulting the inhabitants of Palestine:

    We recommend, in the fifth place, serious modification of the extreme Zionist program for Palestine of unlimited immigration of Jews, looking finally to making Palestine distinctly a Jewish State.
    (1) The Commissioners began their study of Zionism with minds predisposed in its favor, but the actual facts in Palestine, coupled with the force of the general principles proclaimed by the Allies and accepted by the Syrians have driven them to the recommendation here made…
    (3) The Commission recognized also that definite encouragement had been given to the Zionists by the Allies in Mr. Balfour’s often quoted statement in its approval by other representatives of the Allies. If, however, the strict terms of the Balfour Statement are adhered to -favoring “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,” “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights existing in non-Jewish communities in Palestine”-it can hardly be doubted that the extreme Zionist Program must be greatly modified
    For “a national home for the Jewish people” is not equivalent to making Palestine into a Jewish State; nor can the erection of such a Jewish State be accomplished without the gravest trespass upon the “civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” The fact came out repeatedly in the Commission’s conference with Jewish representatives, that the Zionists looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, by various forms of purchase…

    There is a further consideration that cannot justly be ignored, if the world is to look forward to Palestine becoming a definitely Jewish state, however gradually that may take place. That consideration grows out of the fact that Palestine is “the Holy Land” for Jews, Christians, and Moslems alike. Millions of Christians and Moslems all over the world are quite as much concerned as the Jews with conditions in Palestine especially with those conditions which touch upon religious feeling and rights. The relations in these matters in Palestine are most delicate and difficult. With the best possible intentions, it may be doubted whether the Jews could possibly seem to either Christians or Moslems proper guardians of the holy places, or custodians of the Holy Land as a whole.

    The reason is this: The places which are most sacred to Christians-those having to do with Jesus-and which are also sacred to Moslems, are not only not sacred to Jews, but abhorrent to them. It is simply impossible, under those circumstances, for Moslems and Christians to feel satisfied to have these places in Jewish hands, or under the custody of Jews. There are still other places about which Moslems must have the same feeling. In fact, from this point of view, the Moslems, just because the sacred places of all three religions are sacred to them have made very naturally much more satisfactory custodians of the holy places than the Jews could be. It must be believed that the precise meaning, in this respect, of the complete Jewish occupation of Palestine has not been fully sensed by those who urge the extreme Zionist program. For it would intensify, with a certainty like fate, the anti-Jewish feeling both in Palestine and in all other portions of the world which look to Palestine as “the Holy Land.”

    Thus the views of Americans 100 years ago, when the right of self determination was the primary consideration. I am, as the commissioners were, very concerned that anti-Semitism not rear its ugly head again, but anti-Semitism was only a problem in the West at the time of the Commission’s writing. At that time, large communities of Jews lived in peace throughout the Arab Middle East. It was the massive displacement of Palestinians from their homes, as the wealthy Zionist organizations bought the land the Palestinian peasants had worked for large landowners for centuries and evicted the tenants, which began to foment the current anger against Israel in the Middle East, an eviction which continues as the Jewish settlements in the Palestinian West Bank grow ever larger. I find it ironic that the same administration which fusses about immigrants taking away American opportunities is blind to the frustration of the Palestinians, who have suffered far more under Israeli occupation – that is not a justification of the way Palestinians have retaliated, but an acknowledgment that they have been sinned against in a way that no eschatological beliefs in precipitating the end of the world by bringing the Jews back to Israel can justify.

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  22. Between our Sunday services and mid-week Lenten services, we sing every Advent hymn in the hymnal. We don’t sing Christmas songs until Christmas. Thankfully, we don’t have a praise band.

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  23. The Praise Bank at First Baptist performs during my Sunday School time. The wall shake. It can’t be good for the foundation and mortar of the building much less for the congregation’s ears.
    Argghhhhh

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  24. We sang Emmanuel last week, it’s a standard during the weeks leading up to Christmas for us — and is, I believe, one of our pastor’s favorites. He gave an entire sermon on it one Christmas eve. Beautiful piece.

    Weather and music here today will be … Ring of Fire and smoke. (By the way, I read last night that the Johnny Cash home was one he bought in his pre-famous days, early 1960s; homes up there are very expensive, they must have been cheaper back then!).

    Several stars’ homes now are being threatened in Bel Air.

    I slept in a bit today but need to head off to my friend’s as we’re going to Knott’s Berry Farm today, our escape from the real world for a little while. I still need to feed the animals, though, so better get moving.

    In the culture we’ve lost Advent to Christmas (and so I love that our church, while not formally observing Advent as the Lutherans or Catholics do, still carries that season of anticipation before the outbreak of joy). While some of the joy is appropriately spread out, this also is a time of quiet anticipation, a time to reflect on our personal (and the world’s) need for the coming savior. We live between the first and 2nd advents, and that is kept in mind as well — knowing that he will return and come again.

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  26. I had plum forgotten that this is Pearl Harbor Day.
    I think I told you before that I was at the American Theater, up King St. abut a mile from home.
    I was watching Gene Tierney in “Belle Star”. I think Randolph Scott was in it too. But I didn’t notice him.
    When I got home, dad told me that we were at war. I thought I would be in it. But the Bomb settled that.

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  27. I have worked from home today and have to teach tonight. Mr. P and I went to lunch and then because it is colder than the LA Dog Park here (beats what my dad used to say) I convinced him to take my car when we went to lunch so he could fill it up with gas for me. He told me I could pump my own gas. I told him I would sue him for false advertising if he didn’t fill the tank for me. After all when we were dating he would take my truck every Sunday afternoon and fill it up for me. That stopped after we were married. He is a smart and kind man so he filled my car up today so that my hands wouldn’t get cold and hurt. I was not made for cold weather.

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  30. Had an amazing hour in the Van Howd gallery after getting a new battery at Walmart. What an artist and we were also able to visit with his wife. The pony express rider climbing aboard a galloping horse with all of his weight resting on the saddle horn and each of the tassels on his coat flying in the wind, oh the details and the engineering to balance that sculpture.

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  31. Advent was initially, in the early Church, on preparing for the baptism of new believers on Epiphany (January 6), the day when both the coming of the Magi and the Baptism of Christ was commemorated, and then gradually changed to a focus on the Second Coming and the Incarnation: https://www.christianity.com/christian-life/christmas/what-is-advent.html. Since, as the linked articles says: “Over the course of the four weeks, Scripture readings move from passages about Christ’s return in judgment, to Old Testament passages about the expectation of the coming Messiah, to New Testament passages about the announcements of Christ’s arrival by John the Baptist and the Angels”, there are many ‘Christmas’ songs that could actually be used for Advent, from Isaac Watts paraphrase of Psalm 98 in ‘Joy to the World’ to the relation of the Angel’s announcement to the shepherds in ‘While Shepherds Watched’. So distinguishing between Advent hymns and Christmas carols is often a distinction without a difference.

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  32. Kim, I may have told you before.’
    In Annanale, we had two car (and the van). Elvera’s car was a Ford Mustang. She loved he “little” car”.
    She drove it 90% of the time. I put 90% of the gas into it for some strange reason.
    I never really figured how she arranged that.

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  33. We’ve seen many half mast flags today and Art wondered why. At first I said the wildfires in CA? Then I said it is Dec. 7, Pearl Harbor Day, and also the day my father died in 1988 when I was pregnant.

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  36. It is snowing in this Colorado forest right now…it is cold…23 degrees and they tell us it feels like 14….just enough snow to slicken up the roads. The deer herd was hanging about the property out back…looking for water. I filled the water pan and walked it out a ways…the babies started walking over to me…I sat the pan down and turned around. I looked back and there were 6 or 7 of them all taking a drink… 🦌
    Chas and Kim…I’m the gas filler upper around here…my husband likes to run ‘em on fumes… ⛽️

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  37. It’s 80 and dry and windy here. Went to Knott’s Berry Farm where we hung out in Ghost Town, a re-creation of an old western town, and it felt quite real with the dry desert winds blowing … Crazy holiday weather. And the smoke is in the air, I haven’t caught up much on the fire news yet today, but it was very windy, as predicted, so that wasn’t good.

    Real Estate Guy is coming over to talk about stucco job then I’m off to the dog park. Maybe I can cool off there … (Although it’s cold at night, my house was in the 50s this morning — wide temperature swings)

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  39. Re Immanuel — it is God’s people for whom Jesus came — and they do, indeed, recognize him, in every generation, people of every nation, tribe and tongue.

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  41. My kiddo is graduating next Friday with her English degree. She had an interview with a tech company today (she found in her last year of college that she really like tech writing)…she got the job…she gets to tell Kohl’s that she will be leaving in two weeks….she has worked so very hard…we kinda love that girl… 😊

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  43. Things like Smartphones should only be given as a gift to someone who has expressed an interest in having one. And I don’t think anyone under 18 needs one, period! A flip phone is suitable for young people until they learn to use one responsibly and can pay for it.

    But I am old fashioned.

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  46. My biggest parenting mistake ever: allowing a sixteen year old to buy himself and maintain a smart phone. Should have waited until his brain had matured a bit more.

    I am now officially part of the nineteenth century. My children all texted me a couple of weeks ago in some sort of barrage, knowing I had no clue as to how to read a text on my flip phone. They wanted me to try one for a year so they could text me and send me pics of the grandchildren easier. Apparently, having a single person off the continuum of smartphone use, made it difficult as they had to individually address things to my email. I sighed and said what am I getting for Christmas? And they ran with it. It is fine. They know not to overwhelm me. They are guiding me through it. It will be fun. For a year. If I remember to take it with me. I came in from chores earlier and husband was frantically looking for whatever was beeping. Turned out to be texts on my new phone. Apparently, they assumed I would carry it in my pocket.

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  49. Mumsee, I thought the same thing when Chuck & Linda gave us smart phones a couple of years ago.
    I don’t text on it. I don’t use most of the apps it has. But I have learned to like what I do have.
    I can check the weather instantly.
    It only takes a minute to check the weather anywhere.
    I can locate all my children on the “find friends” app. I usually do it to see if everyone is where they are supposed to be. Or wonder what Mary is doing at Disney World. I think you will like that. If Mike has one, you can locate him instantly.
    The clock is always right. You can tell the time in New Guinea or any other place you choose..
    The phone has all the numbers you might want to call.
    it has a good dictionary.
    It can do lots of other things, but that’s all I use.
    I have some pictures, But I’m not always taking pictures like most of my kin.
    .

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  50. You can post comments here, too, if you wander on over.

    You can keep your books on the phone, notes to yourself, pics of your dogs and cats and pigs and people, music.

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  52. I’m catching up on the last few days.

    Chas, yesterday you said, The man on TV blames the “Santa Anna Winds”. However when the on-site reports is on, his hair isn’t blowing. Neither are the trees in the video.

    Santa Anas can vary a lot over the course of the day. If I remember right they tended to be stronger in the morning and in the evening, maybe because the temperature was changing rapidly. So the man you said might have been recording his report when they were at a low. Even when they are blowing they’re not continuous, they come in big gusts.

    The wind can easily carry burning embers from one house to the next, or from brush on one side of an 8-lane freeway to the other.

    Like DJ and Michelle, I’ve been through that pass on I-405 many many times. What a disaster to the morning commute to have it shut down. Wasn’t it closed briefly for construction a few years ago in an event they predicted to be “Carmageddon”?

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