Gustave Dore
August 4, 2010 Leave a comment
The Destruction of Sodom by Gustave Dore
Down Home Salivation
August 4, 2010 Leave a comment
I am not from the south. I may have lived there, though, during a past incarnation (perhaps as Laurel Hand, Eudora Welty’s The Optimist’s Daughter). This may explain why I thoroughly enjoy southern cooking. I can’t get enough of southern fried chicken, corn bread, collard greens, smoked ham, hoppin’ John, hush puppies, Frogmore stew, Louisiana shrimp and grits, North Carolina Barbeque, Mississippi mud pies, sweet corn, sweet potato pone and sweet tea. Sweet Home Alabama! Sweet Jesus, have mercy! Sweet Bye and Bye! Sweet potato pie in the sky!
Now that I am reincarnated as a Midwestern girl I regularly dine on pot roast, mashed potatoes and gravy and sweet corn on the cob. But, more than ever, I find that I have a mighty hankering for southern comfort food. Sadly, though, I live in a suburban area surrounded with fast food and fashion food restaurants. None of the good ‘stuff’ can be found out here (when I do find it, it doesn’t taste the same to me). Can someone wrestle me up some Southern cooking, some Low Country food, some Creole food, some sausage and biscuits? Help! I’m dying here. I am going crazy for trying… Lord, have mercy!
A. W. TOZER
August 4, 2010 Leave a comment
A.W. Tozer, quotes:
“To be right with God has often meant to be in trouble with men.”
“In almost everything that touches our everyday life on earth, God is pleased when we’re pleased. He wills that we be as free as birds to soar and sing our maker’s praise without anxiety.”
“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”
“It will be a new day for us when we put away false notions and foolish fears and allow the Holy Spirit to fellowship with us as intimately as He wants to do, to talk to us as Christ talked to His disciples by the sea of Galilee. After that there can be no more loneliness, only the glory of the never-failing Presence.”
A Clean Home Is A Happy Home!
July 30, 2010 Leave a comment
I can’t wait to get home from work. I want to start cleaning and drinking my V8! I feel pretty, already!
(I love it when roles are so…Spic and Span!)
Faith Is A Time Machine
July 25, 2010 Leave a comment
By faith:
-Abel offered God a better sacrifice
Abel was commended as a righteous man;
Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.
-Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death.
-Noah built an ark to save his family; Noah condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
-Abraham obeyed and went; he made his home in the promised land. Abraham, even though he was past age—and Sarah herself was barren—was enabled to become a father.
(Now all these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised)
Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice.
-Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.
-Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons.
-Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt.
-Moses’ parents …were not afraid of the king’s edict. Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. Moses chose to be mistreated. Moses regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt. Moses left Egypt; he persevered because he saw Him who is invisible. Moses kept the Passover.
-The people passed through the Red Sea.
-The walls of Jericho fell.
-The prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.
-Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised;
-There are those who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; Their weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies.
-Women received back their dead, raised to life again.
-Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection.
-Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison.
-They were stoned;
-They were sawed in two;
-They were put to death by the sword.
-They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— the world was not worthy of them.
-They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.
These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.
God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.
Faith is a time machine…I am a time traveler. There is a great cloud of witnesses to these facts.
Your Parallel Thoughts?
July 23, 2010 Leave a comment
Last night there happened to be an interesting show on TV: The History Channel’s The Universe. I learned that parallel universes were categorized as Level 1, 2, 3 or 4. I am now beginning to see why I tend to multi-task while I overbook and then appear cross-eyed.
On the show, a physicist from nearby Fermi-Lab explained that since we live in parallel universes, things may be happening around us that we are unaware of, like dinosaurs walking through our living room while we watch the History Channel (If I were married, I could use that line somehow!). Or, in another parallel universe, the Cubs would win a World Series (That must be a level five universe!). These things would be perfectly para-normal! I suppose that in another universe I could be from Mars and not from Venus. That’s a significant para-digm shift!!
During the show it was proposed that the basic composition of things was not tiny points or dots of matter but more in the nature of strings and membranes, much like the human brain.
This got me thinking: what if I exist only in God’s mind, only in God’s imagination?
Tender is the Night, These Days
July 22, 2010 Leave a comment
“One of the tendencies of this age is to use the suffering of children to discredit the goodness of God, and once you have discredited his goodness, you are done with him. The *Alymers whom (Nathaniel) Hawthorne saw as a menace have multiplied. Busy cutting down human imperfection, they are making headway also on the raw material of good. Ivan Karamazov cannot believe, as long as one child is in torment; Camus’ hero cannot accept the divinity of Christ, because of the massacre of innocents. In this popular pity, we mark our gain with sensibility and our loss in vision. If other ages felt less, they saw more, even though they saw with the blind, prophetical, unsentimental eye of acceptance, which is to say, of faith. In the absence of this faith now, we govern by tenderness. It is a tenderness which, long since cut off from the person of Christ, is wrapped in theory. When tenderness is detached from the source of tenderness, its logical outcome is terror. It ends in forced labor camps and in the fumes of the gas chamber.” Flannery O’Connor, Introduction to A Memoir of Mary Ann, 1961
*The Alymers is a generic reference to the husband/scientist in a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Birthmark.
‘Tis A Gift To Be Simple
July 21, 2010 Leave a comment
In recent years I reduced the clutter of my life. Some of this reduction is due to moving from a four bedroom home to a two bedroom apartment five years ago. All lot of things went in the garbage when that happened. Since then I have continued to simplify my life even more and I am finding that I am gaining more peace in return.
I have a land phone line but I don’t use it. I only use the DSL for my laptop. I have a pay-per-go phone. This is much cheaper and simpler for me. I don’t text or tweet. I don’t own a Blackberry or an Ipod. I am tech savvy but I don’t need the bells and whistles. If I have something to say you’ll be the first to know. (Should a Christian spend his money on phone bills and downloads?)
I have an old boxy analog TV. I don’t watch much TV anyway. There’s isn’t much to watch. (I can’t believe what is shown on TV during the early evening hours when children are watching.) I have a DVD player in case a good movie is found to exist somewhere in the biosphere. (OK, I do like Princess Bride, Gladiator, Gran Torino, The Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof…)
Financially: I have a debit card and a very small limit credit card. And cash. I pay my regular bills through an automated bill paying system and use cash for my weekly budget items.
Emotionally: I have thrown away sentimentality with most of its baggage. The past holds nothing for me. Nothing. I am presently a composite of everything good and bad that has happened in my life. I don’t need to carry any baggage. This is absolutely freeing for me (I stay away from people who want to throw me under their bus of anger. I avoid those routes.).
Spiritually: as I have posted a while back, I remind myself of these three simple action items from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: When you fast…; when you pray…; when you give… These three activities combined in my daily life bring me closer to God, closer to my neighbor and closer to my true self in a very simple, uncomplicated way.
One of the characteristics of God is Simplicity. HE IS.
Sticks and Stones
July 20, 2010 Leave a comment
Here is a short list of terms that describe me. Opposite the list is what someone like me has been called by liberals, progressives and intellectual elitists:
Tea Party member—————-“Racist”
Entrepreneur———————-“Capitalist pig”
Christian—————————“Hypocrite”
Conservative———————-“Radical Right Wingnut”
Fiscally responsible————–“Uncaring”
Traditional————————-“Homophobe”
Grass root ideologue————-“Astroturf”
A white woman——————-“Cracker”
A staunch Constitutionalist——“Old school”
As always in these matters, one must consider the source: Think Progress, NAACP, the snobbish Salon and many more. Thankfully, I don’t base my self-image on what other people say about me.
Cindy Wity 
