Stuffed Brain

Writing helps me think.  Writing helps me solve problems.  Writing helps me wind down. Writing helps keep me sane.  (Or at least helps me fake sanity.)

My blogging recently has been shallow.  There are all sorts of topics I want to write about, but they would take time.  It doesn't take long to write, but it does take time to think things through before writing them.  And I don't have time to think these days.  (No time to think?  Gasp!)  And then ideas sit in my mind, piling up, befuddling me, being jumbled with other piles-of-ideas.  And it all leaves my blog in a boring state, t'boot.

Y'know how you feel so much better after you've cleared the kitchen counters, or cleaned the bedroom, or organized that closet?  Getting rid of clutter feels great!  Well, I could use a week with no responsibilities except for straightening out my brain. After all, clutter there needs to be thinned and put in order too.

Sheer Hosiery

Remember "tights"?  Winter tights were like thick socks that little girls wore, but they went all the way up to your tummy instead of just up to your knees.  Summer tights were much thinner than winter tights, but still much thicker than the nylons that Grown-Ups (tm) wore. 

In recent years I've been noticing "sheer" on the labels of panty hose.  Sheer, huh?  Aren't they ALL sheer?  Apparently not.  I finally figured out one of the reasons for the opaque hose: they hide tattoos.  (Boy, the things I've learned in the last year.) 

How to Keep the Law

So there's the active obedience of Christ.  He followed rules.  He did what He was supposed to do.  And there's the passive obedience of Christ.  He took the punishment that the law demanded. 

You want to make God happy with how you obey the law?  You can try and try and try.  You can do your darnedest to follow the rules.  You might even do a bang-up job of it!  But you're not going to do it absolutely totally perfectly, every single day of your life.  After all, there was that naughtiness one day when you were learning to crawl, which you might not remember, but your mom will.  And what does the law demand for that?  Yup, "the wages of sin is death." 

So the only way to keep the law would be to spend eternity in hell, if only in payment for those occasional slip-ups.  If you don't suffer eternally, then you didn't do what the law demanded, did you?  But if you have to spend eternity in hell to fulfill the law's demands, then you can't enjoy God's company in heaven, because you're in hell, and .... oh ... phooey, ... there's just no way to do it!

Exactly.

That's just how STUCK we are when we want to earn heaven.  It's an impossibility, an inescapable conundrum.   

But with God, all things are possible.   Who will set me free from this body of death?  Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory in our Lord Jesus Christ! 



Keeping the law. 
It's not just about doing everything right. 
It's mainly about living through the punishment.

A Quick Run-down of Recent Events

My sister's baby was born.  He was a few weeks early and spent time in NICU because he just can't seem to stay warm.

Gary's mom was hospitalized the same week Matthew was born.

I'm subbing at work again this week, third week out of four.  Next week I think I'm back to a more manageable number of hours.

Lots of rain.  Garden is still on hold for the sake of mud.

Katie and Nathan and girls are moving to a new apartment later this month.

Maggie has testing next week at the public school.  We have an IEP meeting planned for the end of the month.  Then we have to decide what to do with their recommendations.

Andrew finishes his spring semester at the end of next week.  Then he and Olivia are going to prom that weekend.

I'm finishing up two different editing projects. 

Gary had some interviews regarding a different position with the company he works for.

And a lot of other stuff that is important, but not so succinct ....

"But I Heard What You Said"

I'm trying not to be paranoid.

There are people who are nice to me.  At least, they're nice to my face.  But I hear them talk behind other people's backs ... and be nice to their face.

So why should I think they're not talking about me behind my back?

It makes me want to clam up and hide in self-defense, so as not to give them any more ammunition.

Strawberries

I guess we'll be buying them this year instead of eating delectable homegrown ones.  

After that warm spell in early March, the weather seemed to go into refrigeration mode.  My strawberry plants didn't know what to make of it.  After lots of pruning away last year, they needed to replenish themselves, but haven't been able to.  When I checked the patch today, I saw that the plants were already blooming and quite a few of the strawberry flowers had black middles, which I suspect means they were killed by one of the recent frosts.

The small cherry tree suffered the same fate.  It looks pitiful.  The larger, older cherry tree blooms later and will probably bear a little.  Luckily, the apples haven't bloomed yet.

Y'know, this isn't the solution I was wanting for carpal-tunnel problems that result from hulling strawberries and pitting cherries.

Since Jesus Crossed What River?

Death's flood has lost its chill
since Jesus crossed the river.
Lover of souls, from ill
my passing soul deliver.  (LSB 482)

A choir director or a pastor or somebody told me once that this was an allusion to the river Styx.  Greek mythology.  The place of the dead.  Charon ferrying the dead person across.

Really?

But this year it crossed my mind that many aspects of mythology have roots in the truth.  Sure, the truth was twisted, sometimes almost beyond recognition.  In this case, the truth is that Canaan was the Promised Land to which God was leading the children of Israel.  And Canaan is a type of the promised land.   As the Israelites were baptized in the crossing of the Red Sea and then spent decades on their pilgrimage, so we are baptized into Christ and then spend our lives on a pilgrimage.  They crossed the Jordan River into the promised land.  We cross from our earthly pilgrim life into the promised land of heaven.  Maybe the Jordan is where the myth of the Styx came from.

So maybe the hymn isn't alluding to the Styx, but maybe the story of the Styx found its beginning in God's story.

Hoarding

Warm days.  Need shorts.

Rather than doing the usual quickie clothes-switch, I did it right this time.  No grabbing a couple of things out of the boxes here and there.  I pulled everything out of the drawers and closets, sorted through everything in storage, and pulled out only enough clothes to be reasonable: several outfits for work, a couple that can be worn to church but wouldn't be allowed at work, and play clothes for only three days per week.

Thrown away:

~ A sweatshirt that was so stained that even *I* was ashamed to be seen it.  Even in the garden.  Same for a pair of shorts that were too small, too-often mended, and horribly stained.

~ My favorite pair of shorts!!  (Eventually cotton simply disintegrates.)

~ Pantyhose full of snags but not actual holes yet.

~ Socks that have two quarter-sized holes (per sock, not per pair) in the soles.



Put away:

~ Wool socks that weren't worn during winter because I wore my flipflops that make my feet feel wonderful in spite of the cold.

 ~ Jeans that are too tight -- because I intend to fit into them again.

~ Sweatshirts and other warm sweaters that were necessary before middle-aged hormones warmed me up. 

~ Same for the CuddleDuds.

~ Lovely dresses that crowd the closet, but are otherwise fine and will be hauled out another year.

~ Same for the T-shirts that bring back memories, but there are too many.

~ Same for the excess jammies.

~ A couple of beautiful skirts for which I have not yet found matching tops.


Brought out:

~ A couple of sundresses.

~ Shorts.



What was removed greatly outnumbered what was added.  I can [gasp!] open & close my dresser drawers without cramming clothes down into the drawers.  I can find what's in the drawers.  And I can look through the closet. 

"They" say I should get rid of the stuff I put away.  "They" say I won't lose weight and be able to wear it again.  "They" say that you should get rid of something that you haven't worn in a year. 

I say I'm not ready.  Who knows when I'll get the perfect hand-me-down top to go with that skirt I love so much?  If I had enough money to buy an all-new wardrobe every season, it would be different.  If I had enough fashion sense to want to wear up-to-date clothing, it would also be different.  But I know what I like, no matter how frumpy I look.  And I really like "shopping" in my basement instead of heading out to the mall and forking over cash. 

So there. 

(When I'm ready to move into a one-bedroom condo, maybe I'll have the sense to change my hoarding ways.)

Jelly Legs

It's been about three and a half years since I stopped jogging every day.  Gaining weight and changing shape is one result.  But what's far more important is that I've become weaker in every way.  I keep determining that I will get back in shape.  But between time constraints and physical pain, I don't.

So with good intentions I set off today on a mini bike ride.  Baby steps, y'know.  I planned for a whoppin' mile-and-a-half.  Today I almost had to get off the bike to walk it up the hill in front of Luecks' house.  Good grief.  Came home to a heart thump-thumpin' away and legs that felt like jelly.

And it crossed my mind that I really have empathy for Maggie now.  Not sympathy.  Not instructions.  Not cheerleading.  But empathy. 

And I'm wondering if the cysts and the misshapen foot bones and the leg pain, all of which combined to end my jogging regimen, were gifts from God.  Maybe these things put Maggie and me at the same point.  Maybe if we are equally out-of-shape, equally inept, equally weak, we can make our feeble attempts together. 

Or maybe I'll continue in my discouragement and physical weakness. 

I hope not.  I gotta try again tomorrow.  We gotta.

Penance and Prayer

 "So why would a priest give out the Lord's Prayer for punishment?"


-- Asked by Maggie today as we were reading chapter 37 in Ivanhoe, where the head of all the Templar knights was assigning penance to the guy in charge of the local group of Templars.  The penance was 13 Our Fathers at Matins and 9 at Vespers, plus six weeks fasting from meat.


Assigning prayer as punishment.  Excellent point.
Is praying really that distasteful, that you only do it when you're trying to ingratiate yourself with God?

Gath

In one of our Bible stories this week (1 Samuel 5) the ark of the covenant was captured by the Philistines.  All sorts of bad stuff happened in Ashdod, where the Lord's ark was.  Then the ark was taken from Ashdod to Gath.  The same bad stuff happened in Gath – plague and tumors.  The Philistine people concluded that Yahwah was zotting them.

Goliath was from Gath.  He would have known this.  This plague would’ve been during his lifetime or maybe shortly before (during his parents’ lifetime).  But still, he shows up on the battlefields a few chapters later, sassing God.  Amazing.

Not Seeing

In Luke 24, we hear about the Emmaus disciples whose eyes were restrained, and they didn't recognize Him.

In John 20, we hear about Mary, weeping in the garden.  When she saw Jesus, she didn't know at first who He was.

I never put those two stories together before.  Huh.
The blind shall see ....  (Isaiah 29)

Gathered to His People

In the Old Testament, when people die, it often says, "He was gathered to his people."  I always thought that meant his soul went to be with the departed saints who had gone before.  But we heard last week in Bible class that it's more likely a reference to burial.  The believers were often buried in the same tomb as the rest of the family, so that their bones were together.  What's more convincing is the stories of those who weren't "gathered to their people" -- like Sarah (who was the first in Abraham's family to die and for whom the family's burial plot was purchased) and Joseph (who was mummified).

The Boss's View of My Kid

It makes me so gosh-darn proud when my kid's recommendation gets somebody a job!

Katie got her job at Burger King because the manager figured hiring any of Philip's siblings would be a good move.

Philip got his job at Borders because Rachel worked there.  But more than that, Rachel's reputation carried enough weight through the whole region that Anthea, Coral, and Maria were hired at other Borders stores.

Tony asked Andrew the other day if he should hire James (one of the guys at church).  Andrew said yes.  Because Andrew had recommended Matthew, and that turned out so well for the boss, the owner decided to take another recommendation from Andrew.

Heeding my kid's recommendation on who-to-hire says a lot about what the boss thinks of the kid's work ethic, reliability, and intelligence!

Looking Professional

There's some standard of what it is to "look professional."  Although I am aware of it, I don't value it.  There is a dress code at work, and I haven't gotten in trouble for looking unprofessional.  I don't have the manicure.  I don't have the spiffy suitcoats.  I don't have the right shoes.  I don't have the make-up.  I don't have the right haircut with the blond highlights.  But I am clean and I abide by the dress code.  And so far that's fine.

I am disgusted by the articles in the "Home" section of the newspaper about staging a house that's for sale.  I realize that the sellers may have to do it.  But I'm disgusted with a society when our decision-making is so heavily influenced by such things.

So when I hear about staging for job interviews, I am likewise disgusted.  I realize that the person applying for the job has to play the game.  But c'mon, really, do we think that having the Right Kind of folder or Right Kind of briefcase or Right Kind of car should give one person an edge in being hired?

Cookie cutters.

We say we value creativity and individuality and open-mindedness and problem-solving.

We lie.

We value rubber stamps and cookie cutters.

Signed,
The square peg who doesn't want
sandpaper to fix me so that I'll fit
the round hole

Hosiery for Tall Girls

"One size fits all."  HA.  Big fat lie.  HA.

I have discovered two possibilities for those of the lanky-leg problem.

First, there's a problem with "knee-highs" that come up to mid-calf, nowhere close to your knees.  I tried the smallest size of "thigh-highs."  I don't know what's wrong with my legs; thigh-highs in my size simply do not work.  My thighs may be too fat; they may be too thin; the band at the top always ends up scootched down by my knees.  So, if I buy the size intended for a scrawny girl of 5'0", the thigh-highs will fit me as just-above-the-knee socks.  And that works fine for skirts that hit well below the knee.

One problem solved.

Second, there's a problem with panty-hose that you take out of the package, and you could swear that this pair of stockings was manufactured for a 6-yr-old.  C'mon, they're stretchy.  But not that stretchy.  I recently bought a package of Leggs Queen-Plus hose.  According to the package I'm too skinny to wear these.  But my rule-of-thumb is to buy a pair of hose for somebody who weighs 50% more than I do, and then the stockings might actually fit.  When I pulled this pair of Leggs Queen-Plus out of the package, they were the most freakin'-long hose I'd ever seen in my life.  It was awesome!  It gave me hope!  I have no idea how a 5'2" and 240# woman would ever ever ever get into these hose, regardless of the claims on the package's sizing chart.  I think the Queen Plus was made for someone 110-160# who's got a 32-36" inseam. 

Second problem solved ... assuming the hose I bought were actually what they were supposed to be, and not some lucky fluke of a mistake that made its way past quality control into my home. 

Easter Hymns

Easter hymns are full of phrases about how we want to sing for joy; or that Jesus rose from the dead so we sing alleluia.  Lots of the lines in Easter hymns are about our response to the resurrection.

Some Easter hymns have a different kind of line, a more objective statement.  For example, "Let us feast this Easter day on Christ, the bread of heaven.  The word of grace has purged away the old and evil leaven."   Or "For the sheep the Lamb has bled, sinless in the sinners' stead."  Or "My Savior there was laid where our bed must be made when to the realms of light our spirit wings its flight."  Or "Love's redeeming work is done, fought the fight, the battle won.  Lo, our Sun's eclipse is o'er; lo, He sets in blood no more."   Or "Thou, of life the author, death didst undergo."

But it seems like the wonderfully rich lines that so often show up in Lenten hymns and communion hymns (and other sections of the hymnal) are not as abundant in Easter hymns.  I don't understand that.  Look at what Easter is.  Look at all the references to it in the Old Testament and in the epistles.  There's plenty of fodder there for allusions and imagery and depth of theology.  It is there, mixed in with the alleluias. 

I guess that's why those few that are particularly meaty and beautiful and eloquent are so special. 

Doctor Visit

Maggie's been coughing for nearly four weeks.  A small cough took a turn for the worse when she picked up more germies from somebody at church.  She couldn't sing at Easter.  She began to improve, but then worsened.  Over the last few days, she began to be unable to talk after coughing, felt like there was something stuck in her throat, and finally complained that it was like she wasn't able to breathe when she was done coughing. 

At that, they squeezed us in right away.  X-rays showed no pneumonia, but there is an unevenness in her lungs, with the right one better than the left.  (The left was the one that collapsed after her last open-heart.)  So now it's a round of non-cillin antibiotics, oral steroids, and an inhaler.  I intend to make my first batch of homemade yogurt to help her get through the antibiotics. 

Husbands, Be Considerate

Our catechism portion for the week includes:
"Husbands, be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner ..."

There's something about those two words set next to each other -- "be considerate" -- that makes us think about manners and politeness and opening the car door for your lady, and picking up your dirty socks, and making sure you call when you're going to be late for supper.

But that's not what it means.  It means "take into consideration."  When you look at some non-NIV translations, that becomes clear.  "Think about the fact that she has been called to submit to you, even when you're selfish and boorish and lazy.  Take into consideration that she is supposed to respect you when you prove yourself quite worthy of disrespect."

Men should still pick up their dirty socks and call when they're going to be getting home late.  But there's so much more to husbands' being "considerate as you live with your wives."

Ghosts.

What's up with the ghost stories?  Several of my co-workers are interested in ghosts.  One went haunted-house hunting.  They read books about ghosts.  They watch tv shows about ghost-hunting.  The other day they were talking about the shows, explaining to me what happens on the shows, and how some really freaky things are found now and then.  One of the gals asked, "Wait.  Does this talking about ghosts scare you?  Should we change the subject?" 

No.  Ghosts don't scare me.  I am a baptized child of God.  Death and Satan no longer have dominion over me.  Besides, dead people are dead, in heaven or in hell; they aren't hanging around here. 

What scares me is the fascination that this society has with demons. 

Young people today seem to have a sense of "spirituality," knowing that there's more to life than skeptics and materialists can see.  But their curiosity is leading them to demons-pretending-to-be-ghosts.  The "normalness" of this curiosity is way scarier than ghosts.