32 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 11-18-22”

  5. Writing day–finally!

    Talking to Hill in Sicily day–finally!

    And whatever else crops up as Stargazer returns–or does he come here? Mysteries abound.

    And all the relatives over the next four days.

    And the daughter’s house to finish in the next two days.

    and . . . well, you get my drift. I have to finish the Christmas boxes, and probably shop some more. Ugh.

    Liked by 2 people

  7. and I go back to my house to wait for the flooring delivery, even though I was there last night until almost 8. First I have to get food ready for the day since I don’t know how long I will be there

    Liked by 1 person

  8. I went to bed very early last night, wasn’t feeling great, my right eye had been watering and bothered me all day long — bloodshot, too — probably some little irritant had gotten in there, it so far seems OK this morning.

    Three cousins, a planned Thanksgiving dinner out — we keep it simple.

    Unless you have a very, very large family that can (and want to) still actually multi-generationally gather, “traditions” are pretty mobile throughout life, I’ve discovered.

    And right on schedule, our Covid/Omicron cases are shooting up in LA County, back to masking indoors being “strongly recommended” again. It’s now the newest Omicron variants hitting. Sigh. Hoping this is the last winter and holiday season we’ll be bedeviled with this. But God is, of course, “doing something.”

    My good friend K and her entire household is down with Covid right now, not too pleasant.

    I’m hoping not to have to cover yet another “we bought a new zero-emissions truck!” news conference in the port today, but I may get stuck with that if nothing else surfaces.

    Thankfully, it appears the election is finally over? Let the mutual bomb-throwing begin, that’ll work! (not).

    Oh and wait. It never really stopped …

    😦

    But God …

    (have mercy on us poor sinners)

    Liked by 3 people

  9. Good snowy icy morning all! It is 6 degrees here and they are saying we might reach a high of 19…I’m staying indoors today.

    I do “dressing” because I prepare it outside of the turkey not inside. My MIL always stuffed the bird. 🦃

    It’s those “little” things that pop up that are irritating isn’t it Dj? Hoping your eye heals quickly of whatever is going on in there.
    This sinus thing is hanging on and today is my last day of antibiotics. The doc said it can last a long time as in months but I’m not liking that at all! The pressure at times causes me to think “off with her head”!!!

    Jo I hope they finally get there with your flooring. Oh to be done with it all..or is it every really “done”? 😊

    Liked by 1 person

  10. Our Thanksgiving guest list includes the potty seat in the living room😳😀 Maybe we need one for each person for those who over indulge.😀 We are trying to decide on Cracker Barrel or homemade by Bro.

    Liked by 1 person

  11. If one needs it, a potty seat in the living room is a welcome addition to a split level house. Thanking God for this one my mother used when she was in a wheelchair. It was used over the toilet in the bathroom though back then. I guess I am sharing TMI. Just a Wandering View from the far side of happiness. I have Joy of the Lord still and Amazing Grace! It transcends all the fallen earth things.

    Liked by 3 people

  12. Nancyjill, I can not remember if we have discussed the Neti Pot here. Could you use that? I use to use that and thought it was helpful but it tended to get a little fluid in my ears, too. It all depends on each person’s specially designed body if it will back flow into the ears.

    Liked by 1 person

  13. Janice @12:04. lol. That’s a special touch for thanksgiving!

    Well, I’m stuck going to the news conference (not a new truck this time, a charging station for the new trucks). They are throwing in a free taco lunch as media enticement as these things are getting redundant.

    Biggest challenge will be finding this place in the bowels (sorry, potty seat reference just made that term pop out) of the industrialized port where giant cranes and trucks and unmarked roadways dominate. Honk.

    Liked by 2 people

  14. Portable potty can be a welcome necessity when one has to go! When a dear elderly neighbor was sent to assisted living I would go over to help her out. She could never make it the few steps to the bathroom. So we set up a portable next to her bed and taadaa problem solved. I just needed to ensure a CNA was available to clean her up when I wasn’t there. Putting vinegar in the receptacle is advisable.

    Since my ears were red doc wants me to just use saline spray and the antibiotics. I saw on Nextdoor neighbor that there are many in our area suffering with sinus infections which surprised me. I will wait a couple more weeks and if it doesn’t subside I will try to see an ENT. There is no fever or body aches but the pressure travels around in my right jaw. This stuff just didn’t happen to me when I was young!! 😂

    Liked by 1 person

  16. Janice I read that article with my chest tightened! That dog! So thankful for the kind hearted Vets caring for him and hopefully he will be going home soon. I don’t think I would ever let him out of my sight again. Maybe get a llama to watch over the sheep..

    Babe was attacked by coyotes and received punctures to her leg and side. Paul helped fight them off
    Lu was attacked by a couple coyotes and received wounds to her mouth and a tuft of hair right on top of her head. She looked like the Rascal’s “Alfalfa” for a while. After the wound healed the hair fell off and now she has white hair on top of her head.

    And yay for Kootenay sleeping through the night!! Good boy!!! (And mama gets uninterrupted sleep!!)

    Liked by 3 people

  17. I was very disappointed to read about what Eric Metaxas wrote in his new book.

    “Metaxas’s understandable admiration for Bonhoeffer is palpable, but there’s a fine line between biography and hagiography. We measure pastoral ministry by the standards of the Chief Shepherd and the apostles, not an evangelical version of a dead Lutheran pastor. Metaxas doesn’t hesitate to call out pastors he judges to be weak, timid, cowardly, or so “theologically fussy” (44) that they don’t join his movement. Men like Tim Keller, Alistair Begg, John Piper, and John MacArthur are not Bonhoeffer-ish enough for Metaxas (11, 44).

    Though Tim Keller wrote a generous introduction for Bonhoeffer in 2011, things changed by 2022. In a recent tweet, Metaxas expressed approval for this rhetorical question: “What if Rick Warren, Andy Stanley, and Tim Keller are Hitler’s favorite kinds of pastors?” This is exactly the kind of slander and careless speech that fuels the fracturing of American evangelicalism.

    Historically, we evangelicals were known for our theological agreement on the authority of the Bible, the centrality of the cross, the necessity of conversion, and the priority of working together for the global advance of a culture-shaping gospel. When we disagreed, we were to follow biblical protocol to resolve our conflicts and to maintain our witness before an unbelieving world. Now we’re widely known as a powerful voting bloc to be courted, often imitating our political heroes and attacking one another on Twitter.

    Of all the logical fallacies in Letter, the reductio ad Hitlerum fallacy is most prominent and is always in the background. By comparing American pastors who didn’t sign the Manhattan Declaration to German pastors who didn’t sign the Barmen Declaration (40), Metaxas has played the Nazi card. Those German pastors enabled Hitler; therefore, these American pastors would have enabled Hitler.

    The insinuation is clear. If, as a matter of conscience, pastors choose doctrinal integrity over political solidarity? Well, you know, Hitler. If pastors don’t publicly endorse candidates on the right? Well, Hitler. If pastors acknowledge nuance in political arguments? Hitler. This kind of lazy thinking and careless accusation (which may typify some conservative talk-show hosts) falls far short of the biblical standard for godly speech.”

    https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/reviews/letter-american-church-eric-metaxas/

    Liked by 1 person

  19. I saw that dustup about Hebrews, interesting — someone pointed out that the old KJV designates it as being authored by Paul (“The epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews”) but current scholarship has shown it to be much more complicated and has pretty much determined, for now, that the author is unknown.

    Liked by 3 people

  20. I read that article yesterday Kizzie and found it troubling. Paul and I were discussing it over our morning coffee. Our daughter’s pastor is marching down that road and has had Metaxas speak on a Sunday morning to their congregation. 😞

    We once enjoyed Jeopardy but no longer watch the show. It “ain’t” what it used to be sadly.

    Liked by 2 people

  21. Interesting theory about Priscilla, though that remains a minority view as the article Kizzie posted points out.

    From another site: (she remains an “obvious candidate” but … ?)

    ~ Priscilla: Christian, wife of a Jewish freedman, fellow worker with Paul, teacher of teachers, church planter — and author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, (a letter whose writer’s name is mysteriously absent)? Was Priscilla one of the most successful teachers, evangelists, and writers in the early church? A survey of Priscilla’s ministry in Rome, Corinth, and Ephesus reveals a woman whose abilities and life’s circumstances beg the question: Was it Priscilla who wrote Hebrews? ~

    https://www.cbeinternational.org/resource/priscilla-author-epistle-hebrews/

    Liked by 1 person

  24. Good point, Peter!

    Although I know that it is called stuffing when it stuffs a turkey, and dressing when it does not, we have always called it stuffing.

    Liked by 2 people

  25. From the morning news discussion I think I finally undrrstood that it could reasonably be called stuffing it could potentially be used to stuff a turkey even if it is baked in a pan like what we call dressing down here.

    Liked by 2 people

  26. It was sort of strange to me to see all those pastors listed in that piece which was quoted above. I have such different feelings about each of those pastors and their teachings and never would have expected them together on the same list or in the same article. Just struck me as odd.

    Liked by 2 people

  27. Janice – That just kind of underscores to me where Metaxas has kind of gone off the rails or something. He denigrates any pastor who does not line up with his thinking on how pastors should speak about particular subjects, or who does not support what he supports.

    I was surprised to see John MacArthur’s name on that list. Although I don’t follow much of him, I know enough about him to think that he is pretty tough/blunt on current social issues, isn’t he?

    Liked by 1 person

  28. I believe RC Sproul declined to sign the Manhattan Declaration but more on theological/doctrinal grounds (it included Protestant, Roman Catholic & Orthodox co-signing at the time).

    It’s concerning how our current cultural issues have become so overly (I think) important in our time. It’s important to speak out and work on behalf of issues that will impact our neighbors — so doing so shows a love for our neighbor — but when it starts to divide the body (as it melds into “political” turf wars) it’s gone too far.

    Liked by 1 person

  29. I also have a concern about Christians falling into the “grievance” group mentality pit.

    Believers have pretty much always been on the “out” list where cultures and societies are concerned; the one notable exception in recent times has been in modern-day America. But that was an aberration, really, when it comes to the history of the church. Not the norm.

    Feeling aggrieved and voicing that in a complaining manner isn’t particularly attractive to “the world.”

    Liked by 1 person

  31. interesting day. my prayer was that the flooring would come before it got dark and it did. He was there a little before 4. But it was only one guy and he really did not have a way to get it up my steep driveway. Finally I suggested that I would bring my car down. So we put ten at a time in my car and then he carried them into the house. I ordered 88 boxes and I could see them in his truck, the last things in there. He delivered 28, so 60 left to go and then he told me that he gets off work at 5 so would have to deliver the rest tomorrow. That means I have been waiting at my house for four days for deliveries.
    But the guy looked so tired that I could not say anything but okay.

    Liked by 2 people

  32. Had an interesting discussion with one of the aides this morning. She was telling me how horrible Trump was and how he lead the Jan 6 uprising. I begged to differ, about Trump and it being an uprising. Then I asked her view on the BLM violence. She had never heard of it but she thinks Christ’s Church (Doug Wilson) must be part of it. She is sixty two and that says something about our nation. She also has a strong dislike of Christians though she suspects I may be one. I have told her repeatedly that I am.

    Interestingly, my brother seems to have fallen into the current heading toward Christ. Praying for his awakening into new life.

    Like

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