Today's Laugh

Dragon #1 - Am I late for dinner?

Dragon #2 - Yes, everyone's eaten.



Thanks, Ruth, for letting me steal a joke!

Saying Goodbye

When people move away, they often take leave of friends with promises to keep in touch. They plan to get together at times and to remain friends. That usually doesn't happen. Distance interferes with relationships. Of course, some long-distance relationships can be maintained with much effort (phone calls, letters, pictures) and sometimes an old friendship can pick up right where you left off when there is that rare chance to visit and revel temporarily in the closeness you once shared. Nevertheless, at the time of separation, those intentions to Keep In Touch provide comfort during the transition.

I'm wondering if the same thing happens when a person begins a new life. How long do young married couples remain in close contact with their single buddies, especially after babies arrive? Do widows continue to hang out with the couple-friends they once enjoyed being with? When a person leaves one lifestyle and begins something very different, it may be wishful thinking to plan to hang onto certain aspects of the former lifestyle. But is that wishful thinking part of how we cope with change? If I begin to work outside the home and have to admit to myself right now that I will have to give up writing and bread-baking and daily chapel and online friendships, will that make the prospect too overwhelming to contemplate? Or do I need to be honest with myself about those things so that I don't beat myself to a pulp trying to do it all?

Teaching Yourself

Some people think that high-schoolers should be able to teach themselves. They say that homeschooled kids should be trained to read and study and digest information so that, by the time they are 12-16, they will have become quite adept at doing their schoolwork without involvement from Mom.

That happens for some kids. Especially when they are highly motivated to absorb that particular type of information. But what happens when they want to do their schoolwork and do it well, but aren't particularly interested in the topic for its own sake?

What's so bad about needing a teacher? Is a kid a failure because he can't set up an educational program for himself and figure out the material from a book or video? Don't a lot of homeschooled kids take college classes in their teen years? Why? Because sometimes it's just plain easier to learn to use lab equipment or to understand the causes of the Spanish-American War or to repair a lawnmower engine when you've got somebody to teach you. Isn't that why we have colleges? It's easier to master the material when a master is helping to explain it and make it clear.

I don't think it's bad (or selfish or untrusting) of a teacher to think that her students would be better off if they were taught instead of trying to figure things out on their own.

John 19:7

When Pilate told the Jews that he found no fault in Jesus, they responded,

We have a law,
and according to our law He ought to die,
because He made Himself the Son of God.

They believed in a law of works. They believed that the Torah taught them to follow the rules. One of the rules was that blasphemers must be put to death. They believed that Jesus was not the Son of God, and thus, according to their law, He ought to die.

Twisted as this is, though, there is truth in their statement. In the story of Jesus' suffering and death, it seems that unbelievers said an awful lot of true things. Problem was, they invested those true statements with screwball errant meanings.

The truth of the matter is that the Torah and the whole Old Testament did indeed require the Son of God to die. The Law could not be fulfilled by sinful man. But the Lord took on flesh so that He might die the sinners death. And all the Law (that is, the Old Testament) pointed to that death that would come in the fullness of time. As Jesus taught the Emmaus disciples, the entire Old Testament was about Him and the redemption He wrought.

Though He had done nothing deserving of death,
according to our law, He ought to die.
And He did.
Willingly.

Today's Laugh

Bryce pointed out this t-shirt to us:

May the
F=ma
be with you.

(The arrangement of the words on the t-shirt
is funnier than the way I can put it here.)

Interview

Today I was invited in for a job interview at the bank. It's not our local branch (close enough to walk or bike) but it's not too far away. Twenty hours a week -- two days 10-6:00 and Saturday mornings. The appointment is Thursday afternoon.

His Blood Be Upon Us

Pilate was trying to let Jesus go. But the people kept insisting. Finally Pilate washes his hands of it: "This ain't my fault! YOU asked for this." And the people were fine with that: "His blood be on us and on our children" (Matthew 27:25).

As Pastor says, it must be so. Salvation is found nowhere else but when His blood is upon us.

In Acts, the same Sanhedrin that murdered Jesus was facing another crew of trouble-makers. These dudes who'd been with Jesus were preaching in the temple. The Council nabbed the apostles, put 'em on trial, and then scolded them and told them to shut up and leave (Acts 4). And the Church grew.

A little time passes, and the apostles are caught preaching in the temple again (Acts 5). That same Sanhedrin rounded up the apostles again and threw them in jail to hush them. God did not approve. He let his preachers out of the jail. The next day, when it was time for the trial, the apostles weren't in their jail cell; they were preaching in the temple again. Can't you just hear the chief priests and Pharisees asking, "How many times do we have to drag those guys out of the temple anyhow?"

So they're finally questioning the men. That's when we get to the funny part. The high priest says, Didn't we tell you to shut up? And here you are filling the whole city with your teaching, and you "intend to bring this Man's blood on us."

Hello??? Annas and Caiaphas were ring-leaders early on that Friday morning when the crowds insisted to Pilate that His blood should be on them. And yet, they didn't really want His blood.

Jesus' disciples, however, did want exactly that. They intended to bring Jesus' blood on the high priest and all the Sanhedrin. NOT to make them bear the guilt and pay the price. Not to get them in trouble with the crowds or with the government. But to bring the blood of forgiveness. To wash them in the blood that bore their guilt so that they would not have to pay the price themselves.

Waxing the Floor

Sundown comes early these days. While cleaning this weekend, I ended up vacuuming the hall under lightbulbs instead of during the sunshiny hours. The direction of the light showed me something I haven't noticed before. The hall carpet really needs a good shampooing. (Okay, everybody say "Booooo! Hissssss!" with me.) What's interesting is noticing the pattern of dirt and clean along the hall floor.

Don Aslett says you only put one thin coat of wax around the edges of the floor. Put the multi-layers in the middle of the room, where you're walking all the time, spilling, smudging, dropping things, and generally wearing out the floor. You should almost never put wax near the baseboards or in the corners.

Interestingly, there has been no traffic on the 8" next to the walls on either side of the hallway. The path into the rooms shows a 6" edge of clean carpet near the door hinges, but only a 3" edge of clean carpet on the side where the doorknob is. That should give me a good guideline for other floors in the house.

Hidden in My Heart

I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart;
I have declared Your faithfulness and Your salvation;
I have not concealed Your lovingkindness and Your truth
From the great assembly. (Psalm 40:10)

Your word I have hidden in my heart,
That I might not sin against You!
Blessed are You, O Lord!
Teach me Your statutes!
With my lips I have declared
All the judgments of Your mouth. (Psalm 119:11-13)

But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. (Luke 2:19)



Not hidden?
Hidden?

Interesting to ponder that distinction...
and how the Word hidden in our hearts will result in speaking His righteous judgments, declared of us in Baptism and preached in mercy to sinners. When the Word is hidden in our hearts, we cannot help but reveal that same Word.

Math for Medical Professionals

It looks to me as though Andrew has been doing well at math. His test grades are great. But he doesn't feel as though he has an adequate grasp of it. We talked to the director of the nursing program at the local college about math. She confirmed what I suspected: it's far more important that he be very comfortable with the arithmetic and pre-algebra that is used extensively in nursing than it is that he graph functions, manipulate matrices, and compute with imaginary numbers.

So it's time to put away the College Algebra book and come up with a math program that better suits his goals.

I began to research what kinds of math we needed to focus on. Graphs. Statistics. Conversions. Metric. Ratios -- lots of ratios and percents. And so much more. As I began to cobble together resources from the library with the books sitting on our basement shelves, it finally crossed my mind that maybe I should sell this program after I put the work into developing it.

And then [light-bulb moment] I wondered if anyone had already created this math course. Some online sleuthing confirmed that someone had! Woo hoo!!!! The book arrived in only six days, and it looks perfect. There is only one thing on my list (understanding a 3-D reality from a series of 2-D pictures, such as in an MRI) that isn't covered in this book.

Flipping through the textbook I see a few topics that aren't explained clearly enough, or where a key point was left out. But if it's something that Andrew hasn't been exposed to elsewhere, I should be able to fill in the gap. The answer key is online, not in the back of the book. That's a little inconvenient; I had to fork over my name and address and all that jazz to create an account where I could access the answer key. I suppose I could have just graded the homework assignments myself. But I didn't want to. :-)

So anyway, I am hyped to have discovered this book that will save me many hours. It will allow Andrew to plug away at teaching himself instead of having to wait on me while I'm making supper instead of developing new lessons. Hooray!

Today's Laugh

A cartoon for middle-aged women who are thinking ahead to Thanksgiving dinner.

Growing in Faith

Listening to Pastor Petersen on Issues Etc (July 15, 2010) as I cleaned today --

As you grow in faith, experientially, the way we feel it, it feels like we're getting worse, because the stronger your faith is, the weaker it feels. Strong faith never says, "I'm strong." St Paul writes, "When I am weak, then I am strong." Faith is at its strongest when it is at its weakest because that is when it is most dependent upon grace, upon Jesus Christ.

Then he goes on to describe how we might feel on Christmas Eve when we're sentimental and surrounded by family and singing about Jesus being born. When we have a spiritual mountaintop experience and are happy, then we feel that our faith is strong. Contrast that to when we're in the emergency room with a loved one who may die, when we are heartbroken, when we are terrified and cannot pray anything but "Lord, have mercy."

Quoting again:

Sanctification, a process of growing in faith, growing in good works, is a strange process in that there is a growth. But we don't feel it like a growth. We become more aware of our sins the holier we become.

Today's Laugh

A Non Sequitur cartoon about the Wilderness Wanderings.

Luke's "Immanuel"

In Matthew's gospel (and only Matthew's gospel) the angel tells Joseph that Mary's Son shall be named Jesus, for He is the one prophesied in Isaiah: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son and shall call His name Immanuel which is translated, "God with us."

But look at Luke. Gabriel comes to Mary. He comes to the virgin to announce the birth of the Messiah. Mary checks on his story: how she could bear a Son when she has not known a man? Sure enough, the angel's answer meshes with the prophecy of Isaiah 7. But not only that, the angel greets her with "The Lord is with you." That too rings true with the same portion of Isaiah's prophecy which names Him Immanuel.

The Most Expensive Hamburger Ever

Yesterday started with difficulty. But we did some schoolwork, and that was good.

We went to a public health immunization clinic to begin catching up Andrew on his shots before he starts nurses' training. Happily we discovered that the rules changed and that they now allow 18-yr-olds to get shots at public health. Not only that, he pays at the kids' rate for 10 more months. We should be able to get him caught up by then if we're diligent about being there nearly every time.

Then we hit the library and bumped into one of Andrew's bosses. Andrew introduced me, and Ken had so many good things to say about Andrew and his intelligence and his work ethic. He said they'd love to have all their employees be just like Andrew. Yeah! So that was happy.

Then I had to make a trip over to Watertown to pick up our quarter of a beef. A suicidal deer crossed the highway. I saw her and slowed down a lot before we collided. (Shoot, I wonder now, if I had gunned it, maybe she would have just clipped the back of the car instead?) I am fine; the van was drivable; the airbag did not deploy. I came home, put the beef in the freezer, and noticed the engine steaming. This morning we discover that we need to fix
-- the headlights
-- the left blinker
-- the grill
-- the radiator
-- the condenser for the AC (optional)
-- the hood (optional).
There's no insurance; this is the van that was totaled when a guy blew off a stop sign directly in front of me three years ago. So we get to pay for this out of pocket or start hunting for a new vehicle or start walking/biking.

After I pay the farmer who raised the cow, the butcher, and the car repairs, this is going to be $10/pound hamburger. Do you ever wonder why you even try?

He Has Visited His People

In recent years I have been pondering Jesus' words to the Emmaus disciples when He "expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself" (Luke 24). I've been watching for little bits of Jesus hidden in the Old Testament, things that those saints would have seen as God's working on their behalf, but may not have recognized to be specifically about the Messiah. With hindsight we can see some of those references to Jesus. In the same way, you know there are things in the Bible that we scratch our heads over now, things which will be obvious at the Last Day. Anyway, it's fun to be able to look at those stories with Jesus in view. Not long ago we had the story of Ruth.

Naomi and her family left Bethlehem during a famine. They went to Moab. About ten years later, when the three men had died, Naomi heard that "Yahweh had visited His people by giving them bread" (Ruth 1:6).

Now, I am totally clear on the fact that there had been a famine and it had ended. God was giving them food for their bellies. This is straight-up history.

But this is also a theological truth about Jesus. The story of Ruth does not inform us that God gave them food; it says He gave them bread. When the Bread of Life (still in His momma's womb) had been staying with Zachariah and Elizabeth, Zachariah sang, "The Lord God of Israel has visited and redeemed His people" (Luke 1:68).

Next Sunday, when we see the Bread of Life on the altar and taste Him on our tongues, we will know that Yahweh has visited us, His people.

Honor Your Father and Your Mother

A loving dad or mom will teach the children to honor the parents. It better not be an ego-trip for the parents. Honoring the authorities has the benefit of maintaining order in the family or in society. But another very important reason to teach children to honor parents (and teach Christians to honor their pastors) is so that the children will not become self-centered. Honoring parents forces the children to focus outside themselves instead of indulging their own desires and own plans. And that is a good thing for the children, their family, their neighbors, and their own souls.

Suppose There Were 50 Righteous

Our Bible story today was Abraham's prayer the day before Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. You know the story. The Lord comes to Abraham and tells him what He's going to do. Abraham intercedes. If there are fifty righteous, would You spare the city? 45? 40? 30? 20? 10? And the Lord promised to spare the city if He could find ten Christians there. This story is often told to encourage us in prayer: be bold, be persistent, ask according to the promise!

We know the end of the story. That day, as he was praying, Abraham didn't know the end of the story. That night he didn't know the end of the story. The next morning, Abraham woke up early and went out to the place he had begged the Lord to spare the cities (Genesis 19:27). And what did he find when he looked toward Sodom? The city had been zotted big-time!

Does it look to Abraham as if the Lord cared about his prayer?

The Bible doesn't even tell us how long it was before Abraham got word that Lot and his daughters were still alive. Next thing we know, Abraham is down south, passing off Sarah as his sister again. And God blesses him with more wealth, gives him his wife back, and then gives them a son -- keeping His promise even when Abraham faltered.

You know what? I think this story isn't so much for "prayer warriors" as it is for those of us who pray and don't see "results."

Job Satisfaction

Sometimes it comes up in conversation that Andrew is looking at colleges. A few months ago he was considering what he might want to study, what career he might like. Acquaintances would inquire. And that's when I got the shocker.

Nobody seems to like what they do.

When we said that he was considering law enforcement or security, we were told by cops or ex-cops that that would be a terrible profession to enter. Too dangerous. Too political.

When we said that he was considering computer work or engineering, people told us what was wrong with that.

When we said he thought he might be a nurse, he was told how horrible that was, especially with all the record-keeping that can seem like it takes priority over patient-care.

Teachers and day-care workers have told me how terrible their jobs are. Children are undisciplined and mean; parents are blindly protective of Little Junior who would never do anything wrong.

Small-business owners know the troubles of taxes and regulations and finding good employees. Factory workers are tired of the mundane work and the health repercussions. Pastors are frustrated with the low pay and never-ending needs. Clerical workers develop carpel tunnel syndrome and must tolerate business/marketing lingo. Chefs and cooks put in many years at poverty-level salaries and work late hours and long weekends. Maids clean up after piggy slobs who 'get back at the man' by leaving a bigger mess than would be normal.



I've been trying to figure out why so many people discourage kids from going into their line of work. Is this a societal problem, and nurses and teachers and policemen and maids really are serving a nasty populace? Is this a change in employers, and how they see employees as just another [replaceable] cog in the machinery of creating a product? Or do we all desire vacation and retirement, resenting our work because jobs thwart our fun-time?

Trying Another Resume

Upon watching election returns, I came to agree with Gary that the opening at the bank might be more attractive than the opening at the library. At this point, the private sector seems a little more secure than jobs for a government entity. I prepared a resumé for the bank, filled out the application, and dropped it off today. The assistant manager was smiling from ear to ear when she saw me walk in with the application.

It is quite intimidating to sketch out your life in minimalistic words, drop it off for a stranger to evaluate, and wonder if they will recognize any value in your life & work & intelligence & worth.