50 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 3-16-18”

  1. Good morning and evening. I have missed y”all and have a lot to catch up on here and elsewhere. Things got better at the office after I requested prayer yesterday. This morning Art and I will go for a followup doctor visit to check on his knee. Maybe he can stop using the brace.

    Have a good day, all!

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  2. It’s FRIDAY!
    You know what that means?
    It means that you need to get to it if you have it done by St. Patties’ Day.
    My mother’s maiden name was Steadman. I think that was Irish, but I’m not sure.

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  4. I am reading a book called “Slouching Toward Gomorrah” By Robert H Bork

    It says the evolution of the sixties (though it started before that) has created a situation that hs led to the inevitable downfall of America. He considers such as:

    Abortion, homosexuality, pornography, drugs, high illegitimate births with welfare and high crime rate, most unpunished, euthanasia, unholy attitudes, etc. Summed up by Partick Monyhan: “Defining deviency down”.

    He considers the Supreme Court to be part of the problem.

    I may add another that no one has thought of. But history may write about:

    Amazon

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  6. Last name: Steadman. This interesting surname is a variant of Stead, which is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and has two possible sources, the first being a locational name from Stead in the West Riding of Yorkshire, or from some other place taking its name from the Old English pre 7th Century “stede”, farm, estate, place.

    The Stedman family has origins in England that pre-date the Norman Conquest in 1066.

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  8. Chas, as for major upheaval-turning points in contemporary culture, I think we’ve lived through (or still are living through) a major transition with the advent of the Internet and all it has spawned, good bad and indifferent.

    It has radically changed so many sectors, including commerce, media, education. Only 20 years ago one would be hard-pressed to imagine the day-to-day changes in how most of us live, buy things communicate with others (email is now old-school, but remember the thrill of being able to immediately send personal written communications back and forth at your leisure? And then there are smart phones) and get our information. It really has been a revolution that continues to unfold.

    Amazon, quite frankly, is an amazing business model. It’s hard not to admire what it’s achieved although it has been the death of many a brick-and-mortar store brands, including most all of our beloved book stores.

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  10. You can probably buy them now on Amazon, of course. 🙂

    Janice, glad you’re feeling better. I think I finally, almost have all the “stuff” I need for my tax guy. This was a challenging year because of all the house upheavals — everything, including paperwork, became misplaced and moved so many times that I didn’t have the mental “fix” on where all those papers were like I usually do. I have a mental picture of last year’s taxes sitting in a box in the garage.

    I’m up early for some reason. I think I’m finally adjusting to the new time change.

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  11. Did you see my post last night?????? All together I owe about $100 in taxes!!!!! You cannot imagine what a relief that was to get that call.
    Last year brought a lot of changes and I was not prepared for a 3 or 4 thousand dollar tax bill.

    The nerve oblation test did not work. As a matter of fact it caused more pain. It also made one of us grumpy and snappy, but I “ain’t sayin” which one. 😉
    Time to get to work. I need to be at the Art Center early afternoon.

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  12. I watched “Where the Wild Things Are” last night (movie not as good as the book seems to be the general consensus). I’ve heard it mentioned in a couple sermons through the years.

    https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/where-the-wild-things-arent/

    _______________________________

    … Children, it turns out, aren’t as naive about evil as we assume they are. Children of every culture, and in every place, seem to have a built-in craving for monsters and dragons and “wild things.” The Maurice Sendak book appeals to kids because it tells them something about what they intuitively know is true. The world around them is scary. There’s a wildness out there.

    … I’m amazed though by the way some Christians react to things like this. They furrow their brow because the Max character screams at this mother, and bites her, even though this is hardly glorified in the movie. They wag their heads at how “dark” the idea of this wild world is. Of course it is “dark.” The universe is dark; that’s why we need the Light of Galilee.

    Where the Wild Things Are isn’t going to be a classic movie the way it is a classic book. But the Christian discomfort with wildness will be with us for a while. And it’s the reason too many of our children find Maurice Sendak more realistic than Sunday school.

    Too many of our Bible study curricula for children declaw the Bible, excising all the snakes and dragons and wildness. We reduce the Bible to a set of ethical guidelines and a text on how gentle and kind Jesus is. The problem is, our kids know there are monsters out there. God put that awareness in them. They’re looking for a sheep-herding dragon-slayer, the One who can put all the wild things under His feet.

    Your kids might be bored by the Wild Things movie. They won’t be bored by the Wild Things book. It’s their story, and mine. But read them the story of Max and his monsters, and then show them the Story they were knit together to love.

    And let the wild rumpus start.
    ____________________________

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  13. Kim, I’m so sorry the medical procedure seems not to have been successful.

    I’m hoping my taxes go OK, I also had some financial changes last year, including starting to collect SS on top of still working full time. I’ve tried to off-set any impacts by having more taxes taken out of my paycheck all year & increasing the 401K contributions. There’s also the HSA (health savings account) glitch, I wasn’t supposed to be contributing to that but I was all year. So we’ll see.

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  14. DJ,

    No. The Crayola experience is the tourist destination in the City of Easton.

    This building is part of the factory/warehouse out in an Easton suburb, Forks Twsp. where the crayons are made. This building is their office building. 🙂

    It’s near one of the spots I take pics at, the Bushkill Creek.

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  15. it looked like it could have been a diner, maybe one of those old train cars that had been re-purposed. We have a couple of those around here (though not Crayola colored!).

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  16. Donna @ 8:56: Thanx that is more than I ever knew about Steadman.
    And concerning kids and inborn traits, Mary once said about her two. “The only toy in the house is the one the other has.” It turns out, the adopted girl has a trait that she wants what someone else has. Just because they have it. She is not two yet.
    An uncontrolled trait like that can ruin a life. l

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  17. I was listening to Glenn Beck while taking Elvera to the Adult Center. He told about a teacher in California.
    Seems she asked a question: Is it ok for me to walk out of school to protest abortion?
    She was put on administrative leave.

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  18. We all have ‘traits,’ good and, yes, bad. It’s a reminder of our fallenness as a race, seen even from our earliest days. Lord have mercy.

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  20. Maybe I’m obsessive-compulsive, but does anyone else find the paint scheme on that building a little frustrating? From left to right, it seems to be establishing the colors of the rainbow in order, then inserts an intermediate color, then randomly throws in pink, but nothing that looks like indigo, before the violet. Like a missed opportunity for order.

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  24. Morning….we have snow!!!! I am downright giddy!! Drawing the curtains open this morning and seeing a white blanket of snow over the land brought a smile and a “thank you”!! It will be gone by this afternoon but there is a forecast of 5-8 inches on Sunday…oh bring it on!! ❄️
    Dj now I must go into the office and open the grandkids box of crayons to see if there are indeed rules for crayolas….I believe there is a grid of colors in the box but now I must assess the situation!! 🌈

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  27. Kizzie, on you link about the Christmas shoeboxes yesterday, yes, I had mentioned that the shoeboxes had their drawbacks (and received some pushback for saying it). The reason I knew that is because of what the field veterans on the team I worked with in West Africa had talked to me about shoeboxes and other such ventures. There is a real concern among experienced missionaries that the churches they plant not be filled by what has been termed ‘cargo cult’ converts.

    I remember going to a hotel in the tourist section of the country with a veteran missionary just for a drink and access to a clean washroom while we were running errands. The waiter who served us showed us the tip that another customer had given him – it was a couple of cheap pens and a booklet of lined note paper, yet the waiter handled it as if it was gold. Such things cost very little to us, but to them they were luxuries. Very often, the children who knew the team would come and ask for a ‘book’ (meaning a notebook) and/or a pen, which they needed for school – the veterans on the team knew just how long a notebook would last in the school year, and doled them out accordingly. A little cheap trinket, such as a decorated change purse, would be exhibited by its owner as if it was a designer handbag.

    So, imagine the impact of a shoebox with a whole box of colouring pencils, notepaper, erasers, pencils, pens, and other items – you have just handed an enormous amount of wealth to one child, wealth that can be coveted and even stolen by others. If the child has older siblings, they will probably take everything or perhaps the local bullies will beat the child up for it; if the child’s family is poor or the parents are intent on making money, it may all be sold. Since there cannot be possibly enough shoeboxes distributed, some communities will be awash with these valued items, while others will not. If the shoeboxes are associated with a church, imagine the incentive to become a part of that church. Even without things like Christmas shoeboxes, missionaries who come from or are supported by wealthy Western countries struggle with those who convert for gain. I know of examples of people who appeared to be dedicated to their new faith, even being baptized (which is a risky act in certain places), only to become persecutors and enemies of the missionaries when they realized that there was no more gain to be had for being a Christian. Even within established churches with sincere Christians, an excess of Western donations can cause internal conflict or envy between the churches with Western backers and those without.

    Westerners have no idea just how wealthy we are in comparison to other countries, and we do not realize that the smallest items which we consider throwaway here are like gold and silver to others. I saw women use plastic shopping bags as purses in West Africa, while the bread that was baked there came wrapped in paper scraps scrounged from any source, including old school notebooks with sums written on them. Everything there is used and reused, long after we would have tossed it in the scrapheap. By giving away our excess, we can actually warp the economy of a poor country – the used clothing shipped from Western countries and hawked in the market place by peddlers was beginning to threaten the local tailors, whose fortunes are in their treadle sewing machines and the cotton fabric manufacturers of West Africa (who were also threatened by cheap polyester prints – a terrible fabric to wear in a hot climate since it does not breathe – from China). There is a strong possibility that the socks, underwear, and t shirts packed in the Christmas shoeboxes are sold in the market places of the countries to which those boxes are sent.

    That does not mean that we should not give to people’s needs – the team did give to people’s needs. When 400 houses were destroyed by the rains, the team worked with the village elders to distribute building supplies, bought in country, to those who needed them. When there was famine, the team helped pay for bags of rice for those compounds the village elders identified as being most in need. In other words, the team worked with the community to determine what was needed and how much. They didn’t just sail in and distribute largesse randomly to those about whom they knew nothing. They also did not use the distribution as a photo op to raise funds back home – no president of the organization flew in to take part and be photographed handing out the goods. It was the village elders who did the distribution anyway, so the team was only in the background. “When you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you as the heathen do; but when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand does.”

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  29. Roscuro,

    Kind of like here, when people want to give sixteen year old son a cell phone or a smart phone or a computer or a car and we would prefer they go through us and he would not get a cell phone or smart phone or computer or car. We know more of his issues than the passer by who sees he does not have what “every child should have”.

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  34. Nightingale had the day off, and so did her boyfriend, so they hung out together this afternoon. As she was on her way home, she texted (but not while driving) that she was hungry. I texted back, “Pizza?” She responded with “Lol”.

    But she is now out getting pizza for us. 🙂

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  37. Went to bed before 9. I was so tired and got up late. Decided to begin my day by doing a load of wash, only to discover the power was out. Back on now. Made it through week 3 of the running challenge. Proud of myself for clearing out a section of the classroom. Boxes of materials I have not even looked at in ten years. They used to make all of their own curriculum, now we don’t so this was all left over.

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  40. Almost time for me to leave work, last of 3 stories turned in. Tomorrow it’s income tax day. And more work around the house, naturally.

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  50. When Peter didn’t show up to post the funnies I figured he was gone for a Jeopardy! audition.

    I wish. No, I’ve been extra busy instilling knowledge in young minds. I took on an extra class this year, so besides the high school and two nights a week at a community college, I now teach one night a week at a Baptist university here.

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