51 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 3-15-19”

  2. BEWARE!
    It’s the ides of March.

    I’m supposed to brief the people at the Adult Center that Elvera attends today.
    I promised a half-hour talk about Lunar mapping. I have some stuff I will show them.

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  4. It is getting late here. I had dinner with some folks and then they shared about their trip to New Zealand. I saw some of the North island and am planning to visit the South island in two years. Before I leave this side of the world.

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  5. Good morning!

    I saw the news this a.m. out of New Zealand. It’s horrible when anyone is gunned down during prayer even if they are praying to the wrong god. If they die then they never get the opportunity to pray to the One True God.

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  9. Funny to see that photo. I fly to San Diego this afternoon.

    Poor Christchurch has been through such hard times. The earthquake was devastating and now violence has touched a country that has been relatively tame for many years. Their percentage of casualties during WWI, btw, was the highest in the world: 57% of the million men they sent were either wounded or killed.

    The South Island is very different from the north–beautiful both, however. I’d love to visit again.

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  10. Morning! Sun is shining and it is beautiful!! The plow came through last night and the milk man didn’t make it in this morning..I didn’t think he would but I took the milk box down to the road just in case.
    Jo we have friends who live in Invercargill at the tip of the South Island of NZ. We have thought we might visit them one day. We have seen photos and it is amazingly beautiful!

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  13. The pastor at the church I attended with my family as a child (Presbyterian USA) did a year long pulpit swap with a pastor from New Zealand so I always felt a fondness for the country based on that. I do not remember anything about that NZ pastor’s sermons though. I do remember that the regular pastor had a loving and kind tone so I did not mind attending church, but I did not receive words from the sermons that gave me the personal knowledge of Jesus that I needed for salvation.

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  14. It is raining here again. Wesley has gone to see friends so he missed the rain here. He should be back for a short time after the rain clears before he goes back to the university. It’s like he brings the sunshine home with him.

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  15. Prayers, Kizzie, from many of us (I am sure) during this difficult anniversary. 😦

    My only tie to NZ is the cultured pearl necklace my SIL made for me. One of his fellow fishermen in Alaska lives in NK and grows the pearls. It is special to me. He made his wife one with a heart base and then one for me and one for his mom–all different. Simple, but beautiful.

    So sad to see these horrible events.

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  17. From Kizzie’s link:

    8. CBS Cancels the “Ed Sullivan Show,” 1971

    Word leaks that CBS-TV is canceling “The Ed Sullivan Show” after 23 years on the network, which also dumped Red Skelton and Jackie Gleason in the preceding month. A generation mourns.

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  18. Work-from-home day, with an assignment at 11 a.m. that I think I’ll go out to (wasn’t planning to, it’s marginal and could be covered with photog being there only, but …. figure I’ll show up anyway, it’s the dedication of a new teachers’ prep high school on the campus of the local community college. I have that and another port labor story to work on today.

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  21. Janice’s comment about attending church when she was younger, but that she ” did not receive words from the sermons that gave me the personal knowledge of Jesus that I needed for salvation” is a perfect preface to this article I was about to share with you.

    The “Bible Belt” is considered to be a heavily Christian area, but this pastor says it is actually tough, because most of the people are “cultural Christians”.

    “The Bible Belt is the most difficult place in America to pastor a local church.”. . .

    “In California,” Matt said, “there is rarely confusion. Either you’re a Christian or you’re not. In the Bible Belt, many people think they’re Christians but have no concept of the severity of sin, necessity of repentance, message of grace, or the overall message of the gospel. They think they’re just fine with God and God is fine with them because they aren’t atheists and have been to church before as a kid. It’s almost like you have to help them get lost so they can actually be saved. They believe in God but do not believe their sin has done anything to separate them from him or to need the Jesus they claim to believe in.”

    That goes along with what my former pastor from Texas once said. He had been warned that New England was a terrible place for a pastor, but he did not see it that way. He said that New Englanders were like coconuts – hard on the outside, but soft on the inside – and that southerners were like peaches – soft on the outside but hard on the inside. (Of course, those descriptions don’t describe all New Englanders or all southerners.)

    https://www.christianitytoday.com/pastors/2019/february-web-exclusives/to-reach-unsaved-christians-first-help-them-get-lost.html?utm_source=ctdirect-html&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_term=9474712&utm_content=638679509&utm_campaign=email

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  22. My parents had lived in places such as New York City (my mom, not my dad, though), Connecticut, Tennessee, Ohio, and Wisconsin. When they talked about the Christians who had turned them off from the gospel, it was the ones in Tennessee, who were probably of the “cultural Christian” variety. 😦

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  23. Six Muslims were killed and another made a paraplegic by a gunman in a mosque in Quebec City two years ago. Forty-nine Muslims killed by a gunman in two different mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand today. The man who killed the six in Quebec has just been tried and sentenced for his crime, which was motivated by hatred towards those of a different race and religion: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/alexandre-bissonnette-sentence-quebec-city-mosque-shooting-1.4973655
    The suspected shooter in Christchurch has the same motivations: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/15/rightwing-extremist-wrote-manifesto-before-livestreaming-christchurch-shooting

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  25. Kizzie, similarly, many Americans in the 1950s (even in California) were affiliated with a particular denomination and at least went to church on Christmas and Easter.

    Perhaps our own “post-Christian” era creates a better opportunity for the true gospel — including the understanding of sin and our lost condition — to truly flourish.

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  26. That article describes my friend who grew up in a Methodist home (her brother became a minister) — but she left the church when she decided the youth group was filled with hypocrites and has never been back. I’ve invited her often to my church but she ignores the invites.

    And yet …

    She believes in God and seemingly thinks all is well on that front. She is quick to criticize her neighbors (she doesn’t speak to at least two of them, going so far as to avoid going outdoors when they’re outside — their shortcomings make them intolerable, or “toxic” to her peace of mind in her words). Interestingly, I’ve never heard her mention a word about her own perceived shortcomings that she is struggling with. She’s not very familiar with the Bible for having grown up in church; her favorite go-to phrase is “let go and let God.”

    Anyway, I’d agree that these people are the hardest to reach because they feel they’re just fine with a God they don’t even really know. It’s all those “other” people who are messed up.

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  27. DJ’s comment reminded me that an “outlaw” (relative of DIL) who is actually a lovely friend, told me that she stopped going to church because there were too many hypocrites there. I told her that I was pretty sure there was room for one more. I knew she was a good enough friend to laugh and not be offended, which was the case.

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  29. That photo is from San Diego? I wonder which direction it’s looking. I didn’t remember there being such big mountains so close by. (For having grown up in LA I haven’t been to San Diego very many times!)

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  31. I had a semi rollover last week, in which the driver was stuck. All I could access of him was his right arm and one side of his face. He was fairly dark complected. He would not answer me unless I spoke Spanish, and then he would answer in accented English. Turns out he was Indian. We don’t know what sort of discrimination others face and the fears it creates in their hearts. It took us 3 hours to extricate him. I got the impression after it was over that he had a fear we might not help if we knew he might be from that region of the world.

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  32. Mumsee, I said the killers had a hatred of those of both different race* and religion. I am well aware Muslim is not a race, as I have personally met Muslims who are Wolof, Fula, Serer, Mandinka, Mauritanian, Somalian, Afghan, Persian, Arab, and Pakistani. But, many of those who despise Muslims, such as these killers, do not distinguish between religion or ‘race’. I remember last year, when a follower of the Incel movement ran down pedestrians in Toronto, all the anti-immigrant movement immediately claimed it was a Muslim terrorist because the driver arrested looked ‘Middle Eastern’. It turned out the driver was of Armenian descent (his family had probably been in Canada for many years, since many Armenians came to Canada after the Armenian genocide in WWI), and Armenians are nominal Christians, having their own national church denomination. As God observed to the prophet Samuel, “Man looks on the outward appearance” and as a result, few take the trouble to understand that someone such the Indian man whom RKessler rescued could be Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Jain, Sikh, or Zoroastrian, as all those religions exist in significant numbers in India.

    *I would not have used the term race had it not been used by the judge in the first link I shared, as the concept of different races was created by Europeans who decided to arbitrarily classify people according to their physical appearance, rather than actual geographic or ethnic origins, language, culture or, religion. There is no such thing as different human races.

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  33. Rk you have such a difficult job and how blessed are they who come in contact with you in such perilous situations. A heart filled with compassion and expertise….how I pray the Lord will continue to use you in the mission of intervention, rescue, healing and compassion. Bless you ❤️

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  34. Roscuro, I knew you knew that. It has been a subject of discussion in this household as often when there is “an event” the perpetrator is described as white supremacist or muslim fanatic. White is “race”, while Muslim is religion. I am aware there are no races and try to teach my children accordingly, which has been difficult as racism is indoctrinated very early. With these children, I have learned that Hispanics hate Blacks, Blacks hate Hispanics, and both hate Whites. I try to teach them that the only real difference between them is melanin content and culture. Just like the Okinawans hating the Japanese. Only the culture took a rather aggressive turn a while back. And the Japanese despising the darker and shorter Okinawans.

    But, I was referring to the articles themselves and their reasoning, which I had read but you had quoted. Should have clarified. Sorry.

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  35. Jesus demonstrated, in his parable of the Good Samaritan, that those who despised other human beings were indiscriminate in their discrimination. The injured man in that parable was Jewish, but because his physical state rendered him unclean, the priest and Levite did nothing to help him, leaving him to die. It took a Samaritan, who were ethnic and religious half-breeds who had syncretized Judaism with paganism (II Kings 17:24-41) and thus despised by the Jews (John 4:9), to act with compassion and render life saving treatment and care to the injured man. The Nazis did not limit their hatred to Jews, Gypsies and Slavs also were targets of their murderous intent and they would have eventually gone on to target every other ethnic group who was not of Germanic descent. The Norwegian terrorist Anders Brevik hated immigrants, but he actually killed ethnically Scandinavian young people whose parents he perceived were of a liberal political leaning in his rampage. Hatred is a fire that consumes everything in its path. As John wrote in his epistle, he that hates his brother is a murderer, and James said that one could not bless God and cursed humans, who are made in the image of God. I have a relative on my father’s side who lives in the province of Alberta, who considers herself a Christian because she was baptized into the United Church, and who shares posts indiscriminately against Muslims, immigration, foreign aid, and French Canadians. There are a good many English-speaking Canadians who have no use for French-speaking Canadians. One of my French teachers, who was clearly of European descent, told a story about sitting having a conversation with a friend in French in a park in the province of New Brunswick, and having a bypasser tell them in English to, and I quote, “Speak white!” Since those determined to despise those who are different from them make racial distinctions based on language, so it is hardly surprising that religion and race are also indistinguishable in their minds.

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  36. Mumsee, the judge was citing the actual opinions of the Quebec killer during his sentencing, and the second article is reporting on the manifesto, which rails against a supposed genocide of white people, published by the accused New Zealand killer. It is the killers who view race and religion as being indistinguishable and who described themselves as white supremacists and ethnonationalists.

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  38. Two comments:

    1 – Since both Arabs and Israelis are descended Shem, they are all Semites. So how can that Arab/Muslim Congresswoman from Michigan who made negative comments about Israel be considered Anti-Semite? Does that mean she hates herself?

    2 – The conversation above about cultural Christians reminds me of when my sister was speaking to a co-worker about Jesus. My sister asked the woman, “Are you a Christian?”. She replied, “No, I’m Methodist.” She was thinking of the denomination, which is rather strong in this area.

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  39. Peter, I have seen stories about the congresswoman in World, so I know who you are talking about. I wouldn’t have said she was Arab, as she looked of East African descent (although East Africans have had long contact with Arabs), but I have seen Arabs protest that they cannot be antisemitic when they are Semite.

    I do not consider criticism of the modern nation of Israel to be inherently antisemitic. I understand why Jews are so concerned about manifestations of antisemitism, given the terrible history of how European countries treated them for millennia and I also realize that the extremist groups Hezbollah and Hamas have co-opted old European anti-Semitic propaganda (one can find the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in bookstores in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, according to my Middle Eastern history professor, who went there during his studies). But there are legitimate criticisms to be made of Israel. Having read firsthand accounts of how the Arabs of Palestine and Syria were persuaded to the Allied side by promises made by the British, the ongoing issue of Palestine cannot simply be dismissed by calling all criticism of the state of Israel the result of antisemitism.

    Indeed, it was Western antisemitism which created the perception of a need for renewing the state of Israel and known Western antisemites supported Israel’s creation on the grounds that it would rid the West of its ‘Jewish problem’. I can see how Arabs perceive Israel as Europe’s last colony. But the resentment was not initially against Jews in general. When the Syrian congress of 1921 asked that the Jewish migration from Europe into Palestine stop, they made certain to state that the Jews already living in Palestine were fellow citizens and would be treated as such. The Jews of Baghdad continued to live there until after the Six Day war in 1967. It was not until the 1980s, during the horrible civil in Lebanon that Israel interfered with so disastrously that old Nazi imagery began to be used as a tool to recruit young Arabs to the extremist groups of Hezbollah and Hamas. When it comes to antisemitism, Europeans in the West have nearly two millennia of discrimination and atrocities against Jews more than the Arabs. When the European Crusaders conquered and sacked Jerusalem, the Jews living in Jerusalem at the time fled into their synagogue for protection. The Crusaders burned the synagogue to the ground.

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  40. All of the kids have arrived. Mumsee’s 11 year old is a better midwife though. We lost 1 nanny (the that prolapsed) and 2 (underdeveloped) kids. We still have 2 nannys and 6 new kids. Maybe we can get a complete night’s sleep again.

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  42. They often have two or three.

    rkessler, but you beat me out as goatherd. Two of our does had twins and did not care for them and we were not there to intervene. By the time we noticed, they were done. They were not well cleaned so I think the does just did not know what to do. One is particularly stupid and did the same last year so we were trying to watch her closely. Got too complacent with the lambs . The ewes are excellent mothers and require no help at all. We do baby them a bit after by giving them breakfast in bed for a couple of feedings, but within twenty four hours the lambs have joined the flock.

    Anyway, we lost five kids: four to negligent moms and inept goatherds, one I don’t actually know but it did not make it. No kids died. So we have nine young uns.

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  44. I tried to fix a torn up dog bed with duct tape. Only partially successful.

    Long day at work (physically at home). Two stories, editors to deal with, photos to transfer & put captions on (which now is a reporter’s responsibility).

    We’re losing more people from our sister paper in OC, including the Rams reporter and a political reporter (they’re leaving voluntarily). Feels like everything is disintegrating.

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  45. Mumsee, yes, those are the same numbers I read. I just didn’t realize that triplets was common among goats. My parents raised them, but I never have. Your last paragraph at 9:19 is puzzling, though. You say you lost five kids but no kids died. They escaped from the pens and were never found? That doesn’t sound likely, so I suspect something is worded wrong or I read something wrong.

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  48. I definitely prefer working at home, yes. Especially considering the cubby-hole spaces we’re about to move to starting on Monday. I’ll see what I can do to avoid going there. I honestly can’t imagine working in a closed-in space like that for a day or even half a day.

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  49. It will depend on how hard-nosed our newish editor will be on having us “report for duty.” I have a packed week next week and think I can at least come up with good reasons to work from home through most of it.

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  50. First goat had one huge baby and prolapsed while I was in Las Cruces. We doctored her, but she died. Goat two had 4 babies. 3 were healthy with one other super tiny baby that was dead. Goat three had 3 babies, but must have had them so fast that she did not get the to the third, as it was still in the bag. We tried to revive without success. Each nanny has 2 babies to care for and Trey is momma to the other 2. As they get stronger, we will get the goats to take them.

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