Wednesday without words

Happy birthday, Emma Joy!

Happy third birthday, EmmaBug!  You are such a joy and blessing to us!

Wednesday without words-- or almost

Here is Emma, singing her current favorite song (complete with correcting her parents in the lyrics, and making some amazing discoveries about her eyebrows).

Thursday thought: Barbarism

The sunflower (pictured at left) is in my back yard. It sprouted underneath my apple tree, probably planted by a bird that took refuge in the branches.  Because of its stubborn insistence to grow where it could not thrive, it spends much of the day shut tight to the daylight, thinking it is night. What a perfect picture of our culture.

Years ago, when my eldest was in college, an English professor of his pointed out to the class that the rise in tatoos and strange-colored hair was just a small sign of our culture's return to barbarism.  The class, to prove that they were victims of their culture, arrived at class en masse the next day with blue hair and henna tatoos. While I now laugh at this rather ingenious prank, I think the professor was prescient in his assessment. Barbarians are all around us, and sometimes we are them. We rush through our lives consuming, following the latest trend or tweet, and often never stopping to ask why.  We just follow the herd. We ignore that many around us have no notion of beauty or goodness or truth, justice, liberty, or equality.  And as old Socrates said long ago, the unexamined life is not worth living. 

Western civilization chooses to live in the slums of ignorance while the great mansion of our cultural heritage crumbles into dust.  We keep adding new subjects in our schools, but never understand that without a moral foundation, whatever we build cannot stand for long. We prize animals over babies, noise over music, static over content. I wonder what kind of culture our grandchildren will live in, Gentle Reader.  And I pray our heavenly Father will show mercy and bring revival.

Wednesday without words

 

Five for Friday

 Today's Five for Friday gets filed under the recently-completed-projects category.  My grand daughter, Ada, is an expressive, adorable 18-month old, whose Mom has her in cloth diapers with cute little solid-colored covers.  Many of the store-bought skirts with sewn-in panties are tight fits over that equipment, so I really enjoyed making these little elastic-waisted skirts.  Check out my Grand Kids board on Pinterest to see several tutorials.  I looked at those, used them, combined them, and invented some of my own way.  It was really easy, really fun, and, I think, successful!  My favorite is the pink and brown below, but Ada likes the kitties, and Elsa likes the black-and-white market skirt.

Thursday Thoughts: God's will, callings, and mercy

It seems we always have something to learn.  One of the first chapters of the Bible that I fell in love with as a teen was 1 Corinthians 13.  I've sung it, memorized it in multiple versions, heard sermons on it.  Recently, I have been slowly reading Phil Ryken's book, Loving the Way Jesus Loves, and I am discovering new and nuanced meaning in the familiar words. 

From where I sit each afternoon in my comfy chair, trying to relax into God's calling for me to rest, I found the following perspective challenging:

This is what love does: it lets the needs of others set our agenda, rather than letting our agenda limit how much we are willing to serve--especially when our service may give people the opportunity to hear the word of God.  Whatever limits we decide to place on our service should not be determined by our selfish desires but by the will of God, by our other legitimate callings, and by what is truly merciful for the people who are asking for help.
~p.55

Ah. Now to discern God's will, and my legitimate callings. May God make us both, Gentle Reader, more cognizant of what is truly merciful to those around us.