You may have noticed that nothing has been posted for a couple of weeks. Sometimes, life just gets in the way. While I work on catching up, please consider reviewing some of my previous posts. There are nine years’ worth to choose from!
To help you along, I’ve added a new widget showing which posts have been the most popular, as well as a link to my other blog, Mountain Plover.
Thank you for your patience. I’ll be back soon!
I think we’d all agree—the world is not doing so well. Read the headlines, listen to the news, and we aren’t surprised to find that people lie and cheat and murder, innocent people suffer, and loving kindness is in very short supply. How did we get into this mess?
If you’re a Christian, you probably blame it all on Satan, who enticed Eve into eating that forbidden fruit. The story in Genesis 3 is very familiar; we’ve read it many times. And whether you take it literally or symbolically, the end result is the same. Mankind fell for the lie and the results are all around us.
I’m feeling rather random today. Usually I save my “random” posts for the fifth Friday of a month, if there is one. However, I was fairly serious on August 31, exhorting you to do your backups, so I have a random day coming to me. Besides, I don’t want to wait until November. So here you go—three little notes that don’t belong anywhere else. Enjoy. Continue reading
It was Sunday morning, and we were at church listening to a guest speaker. I appreciate that our pastor brings in speakers from other churches; one person can’t possibly cover every topic with excellence. However, in this case, the speaker was preaching popular psychology rather than Biblical truth. And I was getting agitated.
I tried to pinpoint exactly what the speaker was saying that was bothering me. I finally realized—instead of being centered on loving Jesus, the sermon was all about loving ourselves. And while I’m sure some people put themselves down, the solution isn’t to focus more on ourselves, but rather to get our eyes off ourselves and onto the God who loves us unconditionally.
What do you have on your computer? Finances? Emails, addresses, and other contact information? Precious photos? I’d include recipes, articles I’ve written, all the records from my small photography business, and the books I’m editing for my paying job.
Can you afford to lose any or all of those file? I didn’t think so. I know I’d be in big trouble if I lost all our financial records, and I’d be heartbroken to lose all the photos I’ve taken, especially of our granddaughters.
There’s a simple solution, but for some reason, it’s one that’s often ignored, or put off until later.
Do your backups!
As I may have mentioned once or twice, part of my job includes editing books and articles. As a result, I edit everything. Even when I don’t want to be editing, I find it very difficult to turn off my editing brain. I’ve learned not to correct my friends, and usually I can manage to seal my lips even for Pete, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking, “No, that’s wrong. Why can’t people (spell correctly / use correct grammar / use the right words)!?!?!?! Unfortunately, that tendency even carries over into church. Yeah, I know.
There are a number of worship songs I struggle through merely because of the wording. The music is lovely. The meaning is Biblical. The song expresses my heart. But I get hung up on the grammar or the word choices.
Sometimes I astonish myself. You wouldn’t believe how neat and orderly my pantry is. How clean and well-stocked. All the canned fruit is on one end of a shelf, all the canned beans and olives on the other. Cereal boxes are lined up with spares behind. The canisters holding flour and sugar are full, and free of dust and fingerprints. The floor gleams, with nary a crumb or broken chip in sight.
It’s all the more impressive because 1) I have a lot of editing to do today, and 2) we have around 30 people coming for a BBQ tomorrow night. The sensible, responsible thing to do would have been either 1) to sit down at my computer and start rearranging words and rewording sentences, or 2) to clean the bathroom, then run the vacuum around the living room.
On December 5, 2012, American medical doctor Dilip Joseph and two colleagues are driving back to Kabul, Afghanistan, after serving villagers that morning at a rural clinic. Suddenly a man waving an AK-47 blocks their path. More armed men jump out of hiding. For Dilip, it is the beginning of a nightmare—he’s being kidnapped by the Taliban.
So begins the description on the back of a very exciting book—a true story describing the events that forever changed the lives of Dr. Joseph and his companions.
Recently, a friend of mine expressed his frustration about all the problems in the world, and his inability to really solve any of them. I felt his pain. We live in the “outrage” decade. Just read the comments after pretty much any news story, and you’ll see what I mean. Everyone is offended about everything. In many instances, that outrage is warranted; the world is full of injustice. This is nothing new.
Perhaps we’re more aware of it all in an age of instant communication, but people have always been mean and selfish, violent and greedy. Thankfully, most of us manage to live as civilized adults—but there are plenty of exceptions. Nature tosses in her share as well, with hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters. And then there’s politics. Right.
I’ve been highly distracted for the past two weeks. Our daughters and granddaughters have been visiting, and I’ve been playing games, taking photos, cooking meals, and hugging—lots of hugging. What I haven’t been doing is writing blog posts. In fact, I totally missed last Friday, in spite of my best intentions. Instead of writing, taking time away from family that we don’t get to see nearly as often as we’d like, I thought I would cheat a bit.
The following is one of the very first posts I ever wrote for this blog. Yes, it’s listed in the archives, but if you’re like me, you rarely—if ever—hunt back through the old posts for something to read. I think my point is just as important today as it was when I wrote it almost ten years ago. I hope you agree.
Compost 