Care to Audition?

I love several cable TV challenges, like Food Network Star, which I’ve followed for three years – and tonight’s finale culminated not only with  the contestant winning who Doug wanted but with the challenge to sign up for next year’s challenge. 

Wow . . . me on the Food Network Challenge . . . I don’t think so.

I have plenty of experience; fifty-five years give or take a few, but no training. I started cooking when I was in the fourth grade, and my mom had taken a part-time job. I thought I’d surprise her with what I imagined would be spaghetti. It wasn’t. Later I learned Italian tomato sauce doesn’t have eggs and carrots.

Undaunted I knew I needed a recipe so I opened my mother’s dog-eared cookbook and found a good one. At least I could read what all the ingredients were. However, I later found out even experienced bakers shy away from hot-milk sponge cakes -- the one I had chosen.  Mine never materialized because I remembered I wasn’t allowed to light the pilot light in our gas oven.

Within months my mom quit that job.

After my initial foray into cooking, I was invited to watch the cooking instead of do the cooking. I started cooking for real when I was in college – and I rarely referred to a recipe book. Usually I just followed the directions on the back of Chef Boyardee pizza box, and improvised.  Improvisation well describes my culinary technique for the next several years, as does imitation.  I cooked by trying to remember what I'd seen others do. That technique made for some interesting meals. 

When I got married, though, I was given cookbooks. My mom gave me The Maryland Way cookbook and Southern Living’s Entertaining (1972), which offered lots of practical tips and pictures.  Then I started buying cookbooks – enough to fill several bookshelves. Most are still in storage in Maryland. Now I read Cooks Illustrated and Real Simple recipes. And Recipe.com is a godsend!

I like following a recipe, something somebody else has tested, to get me started, or my resourceful impulses might sway me to add carrots and milk again. The ones I like best have lots of pictures of meals with a minimal number of  ingredients.  I developed favorites that I almost can make blindfolded. (Every once in a while, alas, they’ve tasted that way, too.) When I have a success, however, it’s sometimes hard to remember what I did put in.  

None of this would make compelling, instructive or entertaining TV. 

Some of my disasters might be funny. At least now  I can laugh about them.  Like the first evening we entertained Doug’s dad. I decided we would have leg of lamb. The recipe included adding a few cloves of garlic stuffed under the skin before roasting.  If three or four cloves were good, why not put the whole flower in, I reasoned? It smelled divine while cooking; the response was remarkably similar to the one I got when I proudly served my first spaghetti dinner.  My father –in-law insisted for months after that we always go out to dinner until I redeemed myself and offered a decent meal.

My husband and kids were always good sports if I branched out. Even when I offered my son a slice of chocolate cake from the I Hate to Cook cookbook, he didn’t make a big deal when he took a bite. It was an easy recipe made with fun ingredients like cocoa, soda, vinegar flour and sugar.  I forgot the sugar.  Not a good thing. (Peg Bracken) However, neither of the kids ever pressured me to make Christmas cookies after that

When we arrived in Dallas several years ago, I cooked routinely for Doug’s mom, since the ladies who were looking after her did not cook.  My mother-in-law was used to eating her meals at tables set properly.  No condiment bottles ever strayed on to her table!  It was more of a challenge to remember what I had learned in 7^th grade Home-Ec about linens and liners than any of my go-to recipes!  

One thing about remembering all my cooking “experience” I know I couldn’t hack what these kids pulled off, even the ones who were the first off the show!  The Food Network is doing a great job inspiring all these cooks to be professionals – especially in a town like Dallas where there are nifty restaurants – with carryout’s on just about every corner.  I am inspired to eat their food.  

Praying for a Break in the Weather

We got a scare this morning. The house went dark  -- maybe a strain on the power grid, as we head into over forty days of 100 + temperatures. Headlines flashed in my mind: [Cute] Elderly Couple Prostrated by Heat.

Not since 1980 have we had so many consecutive hot days. What’s more, the evidence of the drought that is gripping the Southwest is growing is apparent on my walks. (TX drought) And it is tormenting our humble yard now.

Although the wonder of our automated sprinkling system mitigates some damage from the relentless heat and aridity, the leaves on the crepe myrtles we  planted this spring are curling up and slightly brown – not a good sign.  The Japanese maple, planted a few months ago, is in rough shape – having endured first a windy start of summer and now.  Small patches of brown are popping up.

The backyard also testifies to the heat and drought’s power.  I went a little nuts this spring with pots – none of which wholly match each other.  When they contained gaily-colored flowers it  -- their diversity was tolerable. Now, not so much.  Only two geraniums remain – barely; the black-eyed Susan’s are almost skeletons of the former glory – the stems and leaves are drained of color.  My once cheerful little square flower garden of perennials is oh so melancholic. All but the lavender, curry, potato vine and portcullis are dead. And it is too hot to do much else.  The plethora of pots whose dead plants overhang the rims suggest it is Morticia Adams who is the gardener in residence and not moi!    

However, I can’t imagine how it would be if the heavens over Texas were shut up as tightly as the heavens over the Horn of Africa.  Or how we would fare if our leaders did to us what has been done to so many Africans.

Hoping, gentle reader, you will join me in prayer and giving, if the Lord enables to rescue those who have no water or food, or shelter.

God’s promise to Solomon is one we should seek:

God appeared to Solomon that very night and said, "I accept your prayer; yes, I have chosen this place as a temple for sacrifice, a house of worship.   If I ever shut off the supply of rain from the skies or order the locusts to eat the crops or send a plague on my people, and my people, my God-defined people, respond by humbling themselves, praying, seeking my presence, and turning their backs on their wicked lives, I'll be there ready for you: I'll listen from heaven, forgive their sins, and restore their land to health.   From now on I'm alert day and night to the prayers offered at this place. ( 2 Chron 7:12-16 from THE MESSAGE )

The “Whether” Report

The short-term forecast is dismal – many more days of 105+ heat. Yet, I have lived long enough to know, the weather will moderate, delight, and then bring blustery gusts of freezing temperatures.  Reports of riots in London, financial downturns, upheavals in the Middle East, and our own decade-long war against terrorism coupled with all the news I get of my friends’ problems and trials are as potent arrows that worry and wound me.  I feel as powerless as one impaled by a volley of them.  I am as powerless!   

The only power I have is deciding what I will do with what is my portion of life.  And then, doing it.  I can’t change the weather, quell rioters, or save the world from its folly and cruelty; I can’t protect any one from life’s “reproofs” – whether they are broken transmissions and water pumps, illnesses, old age, or Christians’ failures to act like Christians  -- probably the most painful of all.  

So, why can’t I remember that? Why do I spend [so much] time critiquing, kibitzing and worrying?  (Matt 6:25-34)

Probably because it is still easier to cluck like some mad hen over other stuff than settle down and tend my own nest.

You and I live in times that are important as those proceeding the Great Depression, World War I and II.  Our rulers and leaders are much as those were who lead people into and through those dreadful times.  What’s somewhat different is the 24/7 news reporting. We also live in times when many of us don’t have family, farms, or faith to sustain us when we lose our jobs or health.  And the 24/7 news reporting can underscore our helplessness.  Are we really only expendable [nameless] cogs in a mighty machine of worldwide destruction? 

 God, I hope not!

Is that hope in a meaning, purpose and power that is greater than myself, and those around me, just wishful thinking?  Is faith in God nothing but an evolutionary adaptation that keeps men from giving up?

Does the squirrel that wrecks my flower garden imagine a creator who hides acorns just for it? 

I wasn’t created to be a commentator on God’s ways – or yours. But, I can communicate His grace. (Isaiah 55)  I can tell you – and me -- cooler days are coming to Dallas, for they always have; at the same time I must tell you and myself, today is all we have.   And too many are dying without knowing the Creator God who gives them a hope and a future: Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey.  The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice.  He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene . . . (Isaiah 59:15-16)

Living in air-conditioned comfort today, knowing where I have a bit of food and a change of clothes, and having time to reflect on the Scriptures is an mind-blowing blessing, then, isn’t it? How will I spend it?

Today I got an e-mail devotional from Joni Eareckson Tada who described people she met who do not know there is reason for their afflictions – and reminder that even a quadriplegic has work to do:

I was at a loss for words when a young disabled girl in Bangalore, India told me, "My aunt said I would have to go through eight reincarnations before I could become a whole person."  A doctor from New Delhi said, "Most people do not consider autistic children to be human."  On that same trip while I was in Africa, I met mothers who were beaten because they gave birth to a child who was blind or disabled.  A man told me his cerebral-palsied sister was left out in the jungle for the animals to take; "My parents thought it would appease the animist spirits," he said.   In Southeast Asia I met people who thought disabilities were "curses from the shamans in the village."  My heart broke when several disabled women told me they were "easy targets for abuse."

Isaiah lamented, "Truth is nowhere to be found... Is there no one to intervene?"  This is the commission God has given us.  Jesus is "the way, the truth and the life" (John 14:6).  When we follow his way and carry the truth into the dark corners of the world, we bring light, hope and deliverance.  Jesus tells the truth about everything; from the atonement to autism, from the resurrection to rickets, from sanctification to spina bifida. 

"So my counsel is: Don't worry about things-food, drink, and clothes . . . [Your] heavenly Father already knows perfectly well that you need them, and he will give them to you if you give him first place in your life and live as he wants you to.

 "So don't be anxious about tomorrow. God will take care of your tomorrow too. Live one day at a time. (Matt 6:25-34TLB)

Whether you and I put this hope -- that God will care for us -- to good use is wholly our choice.  

Lord, I believe – help Thou my unbelief – and please send me. (Mark 9:24; Isaiah 6)

Back in Texas . . . through the Cherokee Nation

We arrived home this afternoon to join with others who are enduring the triple digit dry heat. Who knew Maryland in July would be so cool compared to Texas?

We drove down through Oklahoma, having traveled  through Virginia and  Tennessee and crossed  the state of Arkansas.  The parts of Oklahoma we saw were lovely – I have never been to this great state. 

Now, when we packed up and left in the morning, we skipped the free-breakfast in hopes of something a little more special on this the last day of our vacation.  Assuming we’d also find a gas station we decided to keep driving – quickly covering a hundred miles in the wide-open spaces that I am coming to love. 

Unlike Ritchie Highway, (in Maryland) gas stations in Oklahoma are few and far between. This dawned on us when we were enjoying the panoramic views that reminded us of all those Westerns we used to watch, and our cell phones were on “extended network.”  Checking the dashboard, we noted our cruising range was but fifty-eight miles, and in all that beautiful hilly country, we saw no billboards, for miles! 

Checking my handy-dandy new GPS gadget, I located the next gas station – only it isn’t where the technological wonder says it is, as we find ourselves on some desolate back roads. That rabbit trail cost us ten miles.  Oh great! I worried: We are on the home-stretch of a 2500+-mile car trip and we run out of gas on the last leg. 

But we find a station,  fill up, and spot where we will eat; we have that special breakfast in the local Denny’s. It’s as slow as the one in Maryland, and the waitresses are as nice. 

Driving through the Cherokee nation, we listen to The Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick. We have learned many “facts” that none of our respective American history classes imparted.   

I know less and less about more and more. 

It has been, however, time well spent, especially in light of discussions on the place of faith in the public discourse.  In many ways the Pilgrims seemed wiser than we do in adjusting to the challenges of living amongst others who do not share the same convictions. In other ways, what were they thinking?   And the author has presented the Indians as evenhandedly; they were as wise and foolish – brave and manipulative as the Englishmen. 

Given all the squabbles, fights, and disappointments I’ve seen in the church and the country these past thirty or so years our problems are not so different; nor are our needs. We need leaders who have courage, integrity, common sense and imagination – people who will not start off on a car trip assuming there is always a gas station around the bend!

Promising to Take Care of Folks . . .

 It’s been a proud tradition of our national heritage that we care for folks who come upon hard times. It’s part of an American’s DNA.   It seems “charity,” is no longer a human virtue, it is a governmental obligation.   Somewhere along the line, though, common decency became a political weapon – one which rival politicians could use to attack one another – and while the wrangling goes on, the every-day problems that caused by men and women who have used the promise of  [unlimited] government money to secure their power bases have ballooned right along with the money we’ve borrowed to finance our promises.

My financial acumen is sophomoric to those better trained in all matters of money, granted.  And the experts may know how we are going to bail ourselves out of the sinking boat also known as the US economy.  But I do know that it seems we have come to end of trying to solve the real problems that overtake people with government money.

I have been guilty of thinking that if we just gave folks money to get on their feet, to get started, to keep going, for a spell, they would be able to manage. For all the successes of such plan, too many failures have weakened it – and the people we wanted to help are being crushed, especially the men.   Dr. Tony Evans, (The Urban Alternative) wrote:

Men, when we look at the state of our culture and our country today, we find that we are in a crisis situation. How can we not be when 40 percent of our children go to sleep at night with no dad at home? Among the minority populations, that statistic goes up to 63 percent, and in the innermost inner cities, it rises to 83 percent. There is no respect or dignity among men anymore. They are fathering children but not taking the responsibility to help rear them. Men have become like the fabled abominable snowman, whose footprints are everywhere, but he cannot be found.

And what will happen to the children and their moms when the reality of our profligate financial policies dawns on them? 

 I know Americans will do the right and good thing – as we have done -- continuing to give. But I hope we will also each consider how much we have given over to the politicians, whose first thoughts maybe colored by different agendas.

Is it too late?  George Orwell and Aldous Huxley saw this day, and despaired. 

In contrast, a politician called for a prayer meeting in Houston and that ‘s driving folks nuts. (Rick Perry)

What will the church do?  These are [still] the times that try all our souls – what difference would a few people make, who repented and prayed – like Daniel did in Daniel 9:1-20? What if I just shut the computer and poured out my heart, baring my soul to God, my God believing  . . .

A Bully

 

He came into the framing shop fifteen minutes after I did; perhaps 15 years my junior, he was well dressed in crisp chinos, and an oxford cloth shirt. He was joking about getting a free fame. He wanted a poster framed as cheaply as possible, he informed the proprietor of the custom framing and gallery shop.  I was looking for a bargain, too.

I listened to his friendly banter – banter that quickly became an angry diatribe about the debt ceiling problems embroiling Washington.  He went on a great length how everything would collapse – everything, including this shop, would go belly-up immediately because of the bull-headed congressmen who would not just raise the debt ceiling and put off their agenda until later.  He kept it up – talking at the proprietor who remained unflustered but quiet, as she continued estimating the cost of his framing.

When he got the estimate, he became discourteous – exclaiming how could such a little job cost so much.  She offered an option that would have saved him thirty dollars – but he curtly dismissed it. He then asked that the print be wrapped up in brown paper and said he’d think about if the framing of such a print would be worth the money and left.

Very little oxygen remained in the shop. I wonder if this man even wondered how he sounded?

The incivility that passes for political dialogue is depressing on the airwaves, and discouraging on a person-to-person level. It reminds me of the tone emanating from the late ‘60’’s.

I wish I had had answers to each of this man’s accusations and assumptions. But, frankly, I am on information overload.  Some of what he said made sense – but much of it didn’t. However his railing to strangers, and then demeaning the cost of the product for which he asked made it seem like Potomac fever had infected Severna Park.

I don’t have the answer to the current financial crises – it boggles my mind how what seems so simple is so complex. Doug and I are frequently tightening our belts when we catch ourselves overspending.  It is not fun – but when the money is gone what are the other choices?

I want the leaders  -- from the feds to the locals - to stop borrowing and spending – making us think we are entitled to benefits we truly have not earned.  Now if the leaders have been poor stewards – own up to it; if you are trying to clean up a mess someone else, quit whining; you asked for the job! Get working on the solution, or get out of the way so others can. But don’t bully bystanders.

Another Walk Worth Taking

Doug and I had dinner with our grandchildren as their folks went out to celebrate their eighth anniversary.  Before dinner they took a dip in the pool, and then we settled down to enjoy Maryland barbecued chicken from a local restaurant. (Hey, I am still on vacation even when I am on duty!)

How to fill the time before bedtime with fun, considering the huge dissimilarity in our years and abilities?    

A walk!

Off we went, the youngest, content in a stroller, the other happily skipping ahead, eager to show us where they took swimming lessons.  My hips tried complaining about moving after too many days off – but they finally quieted down, and worked! Ten years ago, it rarely crossed my mind to be grateful for just being able to walk.  This year has been quite a tutor in gratitude.

Anyway, I took this neighborhood circuit for ten years before we left for Texas.  I know the houses and their streets. But walking with a five year old and a three year old, I saw many things I hadn’t noticed  -- like which house had a pretty lamp in the window; which house had funny stripes (siding); which house had small red roses and Black-eyed Susans. 

The walk took longer than it ever has – and doubtless doesn’t count as a cardio-vascular workout. But the treasures gleaned – on an early evening in a late July are inestimable.

• You don't choose your family.  They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.  ~Desmond Tutu 

• Grandchildren are God's way of compensating us for growing old.  ~Mary H. Waldrip

A Vacation from What?

Vacation means a period of suspension of work, study, or other activity, usually used for rest, recreation, or travel; recess or holiday.  Yet I am connected with much that is familiar.  Right now I am describing the wonder of nothing on the agenda with familiar tools – my computer.   The grandkids bustle about in one game after another  – that is a suspension of the quiet activity is our usual routine. What’s more unusual is the view: a long slopping lawn to a dock upon a lovely lake.

Doug is across the table, also connected to news and mail. We are both connected to the world via the technology we brought with us. The TV, our little laptops have forged connections for us that were unbelievable even a decade ago.  Our son-in-law has remarked on our reluctance to disengage from cyberspace. Only the cell-phones testify to the distance we’ve come, for we are on an extended network.  Extended network means we are out range of our network and it will cost extra to chat or text.  So, in that sense I have suspended myself from my other world.

One chance encounter the other night led to a wonderful adventure day, after we unplugged ourselves.

We ate dinner at a restaurant recommended by a friend. Our waitress   mentioned Black Water Falls in West Virginia as a possible adventure. We decided to explore it and saw some great country. We took yet another hike, this one climbing down 214 steps, and back up those same 214 steps. (http://www.blackwaterfalls.com/) And yes, Doug and I did it – a bit more slowly, but successfully. Kudos to the engineers who designed and built those steps.

We stopped for a late lunch in Thomas, W VA. In some ways parts of the town seem to be reviving – people are opening shops and restaurants along the river.  A few of the shops were depressing – projecting a kind of hip hopelessness.  One gallery ‘s eclectic displays included paintings of rotting fruit and portraits of men whose age and bearing belied any dignity in humanity. Yet, alongside these displays were whimsical stick-figure prints, pottery and jewelry.  

Perhaps this experience, so soon after seeing the splendid sights of forests and falls, God’s creation, was the reality check that even the best of vacations, which this one is, can be windows into hurting hearts.                 

J.K. Rowling and Harriet Beecher Stowe

 

The final movie, drawn from the last in the Harry Potter series opened to startling numbers; it generated cash and crowds, and commentary that psychologists might need to help “muggles” (Non-wizards) come to terms with the ending of their childhood, which some have expressed over this last movie.  One fan said: "I love Harry Potter," she said. "It's been such a big part of my life. I don't know what I'll do without it." (source) Indeed on a recent Charlie Rose Show (PBS) a critic said the Harry Potter series “ . . . have become part of the canon of English literature – comparable to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. “

 

Really? 

I can spot some similarities – but which ones make Ms. Rowling’s series comparable to Mrs. Stowe’s serials?

Disclaimer: I haven’t read J.K. Rowling’s books; I have seen a few of the movies and enjoyed them thoroughly. I can’t say if or how Ms Rowling portrayed the hot topics convulsing our times, as Mrs. Stowe depicted slavery.  So, it’s my sense that the battles her heroes fight are against mythological evil  -- and are not an allegory of contemporary problems, even as the times in which Ms. Rowling wrote the series became dark. 

J.K. Rowling said her series, Harry Potter, is about death:

According to Rowling, a major theme in the series is death: "My books are largely about death. They open with the death of Harry's parents. There is Voldemort's obsession with conquering death and his quest for immortality at any price, the goal of anyone with magic. I so understand why Voldemort wants to conquer death. We're all frightened of it." (Wikipedia)

And she is reported to have said that she struggles with her Christian faith.

Mrs. Stowe wrote, wrestling with such topics as slavery and Calvinism, (The Minister’s Wooing).   And Mrs. Stowe struggled with her faith, especially when she lost two of her sons to premature deaths.  Mrs. Stowe created authentic characters who were men and women crippled by real-life horrors.  Mrs. Stowe showed a way through the horror that [any] death is. (“A Little Bit of a Woman”)  

Ms. Rowling’s books are extolled because not only are they great tales, they have generated movie jobs and wealth for many; Mrs. Stowe’s one book is said to have sparked the Civil War – a war that freed millions of African slaves.  But it made an unfortunate motion picture!

Writing about death and evil in such a way that makes readers reflect without recoiling and rejecting such a simple truth is tough.   Both Mrs. Stowe and Ms Rowling have set a high bar for aspiring writers who wish to engage readers and make them think about forces and powers that are personal, powerful and yet unseen. Whether Ms. Rowling has helped us look at the evil that afflicts us today, making us weep for the lives that are crushed – and then be willing to fight for them – as the North did, remains to be seen. 

Who today could create an engrossing series exposing the human cost of abortion,  illegal immigration  and the moral failure of our governmental, judicial, and financial institutions, the several generations of Americans we have permitted to become enslaved to handouts from a government that is spending itself onto bankruptcy? 

And what would the movie version look like?

Those Walks Paid Off!

 We had a great adventure at Swallow Falls Maryland this morning trekking down and up the trails on a cool, sunny Maryland summer’s day – reminding me that sometimes there is more to the summers here than humidity.  (http://www.mgs.md.gov/esic/features/swallow.html)   The park was the handiwork of the Civilian Conservation Corps. Men who needed work in desperate times were given an opportunity to use or learn engineering skills as well as craftsmanship.  What could we accomplish with such a commitment to renovation, discipline and creativity?  But I digress.

We had the endurance to keep up with our kids!

Woo-hoo! 

All the weeks of early morning or late evening walking around our neighborhood prepared me to keep moving. Still,  walking on level sidewalks didn’t prepare my hips and knees for scrambling up and down rocky paths.  But it was glorious – walking in an ancient forest of white pines and white rhododendrons, gazing up at massive sedimentary rocks from which smaller trees sprouted, listening to sounds of an unseen waterfall – catching glimpses of our grandkids scampering ahead with their dad – and reaching out to grab hold our daughter’s hand to steady ourselves – it was a jewel of a day! 

Oscar Wilde wrote that, “Memory... is the diary that we all carry about with us.”

(The Importance of Being Earnest)

 

Everybody needs his memories.  They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door.  ~Saul Bellow

Summer Vacation: Part I

I had forgotten about rain. It has been hot and dry for so many weeks in Dallas that, although I thought about it, when we set off I forgot to take rain gear.  (I was too impressed with our relatively on-time and calm departure!) The first day’s journey was sunny and hot with building humidity; the next day equally bright, hot and damp. Two hundred miles later, in Kentucky I was startled to see towering black clouds when we got back on the highway after lunch.

Now had we been listening to the radio news, I might have been prepared – but we were alternating between listening to our favorite satellite stations and the audio books I borrowed from the library  -- and my texting friends – when I was not driving. Moreover, we were following  two GPS devices. The one built into Doug’s car, though recently updated, had us in Oklahoma initially. So, we booted up the new portable device we use in my car.  Two different voices, female, computer generated giving us directions slightly different from each other, preceded by distinct bells. Who could think about one more thing, like weather forecasts?

Sixty years ago car trips were somewhat different. Our trips were only to South Carolina.  I carried no books of any kind because I was prone to motion sickness; I sat in the back seat and heard no radio unless we were approaching a large city – between Baltimore in the 1950’s and Jonesville, SC – there weren’t many.  The first audio book to which we listened reminded me of many impressions I have of the early trips south: John Grisham’s collection of short stories,  Ford County. 

We took 29 South for most of the way – a two-lane highway. for most of the 535 miles.  My father drove; my mother rarely took the wheel.  Nobody talked about weather – it was hot and rarely rained. The best part was stopping for gas – and it was also the grimmest part. Washrooms were rudimentary and untended. But the large outdoor enameled ice chests filled with ice and sodas were wonderful.  Coca-Cola’s, Nehi’s, and Dr. Peppers have never tasted better. 

Our recent road trip is three times the distance of those early journeys – all four-lane highways, with average speeds of 70 mph. We do in one day what took my parents two or three days.  The rest rooms are way better – but not the sodas.  

The second book is one recommended heartily by a friend before we left Texas, What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell.   Listening to several of  this collection’s  essays  I can understand his enthusiasm. Mr. Gladwell  writes well and whimsically describing  puzzles and mysteries ranging from why Heinz ketchup is such a favorite to WWII espionage; from WMD’s to the dog whisperer. 

 Points worth Pondering:

Laughter is an instant vacation.  ~Milton Berle

God gave us memories that we might have roses in December.  ~J.M. Barrie, Courage, 1922

The View from My Window, Part 2 – A Well-Watered Garden

 

A few weeks ago  I described the lawns across the street – one well watered, one not.  Since that time, the lawn that was languishing in the relentlessly dry Texas heat is showing a creeping greenness. Why? Our neighbor turned on the sprinkling system that now irrigates the lawn in the wee early hours of the day. The brown patches are receding, even as the temperatures climb. The blessing of water – consistently and gently available – is having an obvious effect before my eyes. 

However the same water that waters this lawn is creating problems elsewhere in the neighborhood. I described my encounter with the torrents of dirty water a broken water main released yesterday. Today on our early morning walk, we encountered the results of the city opening up a fire hydrant. At one point a city worker hopped from his truck and dropped what we think were large chlorine tablets into the rushing water.  Some curbs were so inundated with muddy water, crossing them was a challenge – taking wide strides across water and mud is tricky with balance issues and bifocals. 

Looking up one alley, we saw a large excavation – something was wrong. We don’t know whether this is scheduled repair work on an old system, or an unexpected problem. But the same water that is refreshing a dying lawn is creating obstacles for our walks.

Water is a hot topic of conversation any day. Whether we talk about its power revealed in tsunamis, floods and storms; lament its excess or absence, or, lament its pollution praise its life-giving properties we can’t live long without it, and we can’t live with too much of it! In my little world I see what too little and too much can do – and I can see how wise watering can revitalize a barren lawn.  

In Scripture water also is a powerful image of God’s Holy Spirit and His righteous wrath. 

(See Isa 12:3; 35:6-7; 55:1; John 7:37-38; Hos. 5:10.)  In my little world, I have seen how thirsty I become when I will not come and drink. And I see too many thirsty folks decline God’s offer of free refreshment. (Isaiah 55; 65:2-5)

But I have sadly seen myself spout out too many words – like that opened water hydrant. Thinking I was offering help I may only have created unnecessary puddles for others to ford.  However, I know the blessed refreshment of words used wisely.  “ . . . Reliable friends who do what they say are like cool drinks in sweltering heat — refreshing!”  (Prov. 25:11-13 from THE MESSAGE)

Thank you all!

Hoping that you dear reader, and I will be refreshed in the word, by God’s Holy Spirit to refresh a thirsty world:  . . . Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice. You won't lose out on a thing." (Matt 10:41-42 from THE MESSAGE)

P.S. Yesterday we hit 105 degrees, but low humidity  . . . It did not feel cooler for all the dryness. 

Getting Sloppy Wet

I have maintained the walking regime.  Why I couldn’t rustle my stumps in cooler weather, I can’t say – but walking now is a priority.

This morning as I began, I met Doug, who had gotten out earlier. He reported a water main break in an alley close by that impeded his constitutional. I would not be so deterred, I believed, unable to imagine how much water flows from such a rupture – I would simply by pass it, and get in my thirty minutes. 

Then I caught sight of it. The force of the flow affected at least five streets, and water burbled along their curbs and corners. I successfully navigated the first challenges – but on the home stretch, I misjudged the depth. Cool water mixed with grit and mud inundated my shoes, soaking even the bottom of my pants. 

And I was three blocks from home.

Walking in wet shoes with wet hems slapping at my ankles, feeling the fine grit grind about my feet slowed me down – I seriously considered calling Doug and asking him to come fetch me. (I never claimed to be a pioneering woman!) But did not relish the prospect of explaining why I wound up where he’d warned me not to go.

Hmmmmm.  Could this have been an apt metaphor for how I got to be me?

Being warned of watery impediments, I strode on, convinced one little break would not inhibit me.  Or, maybe I thought the break would be repaired by the time I made it past the alley? 

This made me think of other times when I chose to disregard friendly warnings – the sum of which might be the back story of the great America novel I’m hatching. A working title might be Ah, But, You Were Warned, _______________.    

Too often I read Aesop and others’ fables approving the wisdom for other folks but not applying it to me. And too often, I saw how Solomon’s wisdom could teach others, and did not learn for myself.  Taking long walks gives me time to think about how often I ignored wise counsel – and the merciful interventions God enabled. I wonder if the determination that gets me up, out of the house and walking means I am a little more teachable this season.  Mr. Thoreau, once said, “An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.”  

Those who teach by their doctrine must teach by their life, or else they pull down with one hand what they build up with the other.  (Matthew Henry)

The Cost of Our Conduct

My generation – the Boomers – made “Free Love” a more widely acceptable decision in times convulsed by war and racial strife.  It seemed to many an antidote that would give peace a chance.  Without the constraints of marriage and commitment, we could fulfill ourselves and become better people.

But we did not understand the cost – to our economy. Leaving aside for the moment the emotional and physical cost of “free love” Americans have paid since the mid sixties, consider, please, statistical evidence that   sex outside the bounds of marriage has become a threatening part of our debt crises.

Mona Chareon ‘s recent column reported the following familiar statistics:

 In 1970, 85.2 percent of children under 18 lived in a two-parent family. In 2005, it was 68.3 percent and dropping. Forty percent of births in America are to unwed parents. Broken down by ethnic group, the figures are 30 percent among whites, 50 percent for Hispanics and 70 percent for blacks.

Single mothers (and occasionally fathers) find it much more difficult to be the kind of autonomous, self-supporting individuals that our system of government was designed for. Single parents turn to the government for assistance in dozens of ways. Pearlstein cites economist Benjamin Scafidi, who has offered a rough calculation of how much family breakdown costs American taxpayers annually. Scafidi considered TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families), Food Stamps, housing assistance, Medicaid, S-Chip, child welfare services, justice system costs, WIC, LIHEAP (Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program), Head Start, school breakfast and lunch programs, and foregone tax receipts. The annual bill to taxpayers: $112 billion.

Imagine if even one-twentieth of the attention we devote to gay marriage were turned to the state of heterosexual marriage -- we might begin to see the true emergency.  (Mona Chareon's Column)

And this information does not include the economic and human cost of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Nor, does it address the bloody cost of abortion: almost fifty million unborn children a year since 1972.  

“If it feels good do it” wasn’t so inconsequential a choice.  Our personal choices have racked up quite a debt – threatening to crash the US economy – and far more.  From what did we free ourselves? And to what have we enslaved ourselves? 

God warned about the cost of the freedom His people would demand, and this ancient warning sounds contemporary:

 But if you refuse to obey me and won't observe my commandments, despising my decrees and holding my laws in contempt by your disobedience, making a shambles of my covenant, I’ll step in and pour on the trouble: debilitating disease, high fevers, blindness, your life leaking out bit by bit. You'll plant seed but your enemies will eat the crops.   I'll turn my back on you and stand by while your enemies defeat you. People who hate you will govern you. You'll run scared even when there's no one chasing you . . .  (Lev 26:14-39 from THE MESSAGE.)

 His offer of deliverance is as timely:

 If I ever shut off the supply of rain from the skies or order the locusts to eat the crops or send a plague on my people, and my people, my God-defined people, respond by humbling themselves, praying, seeking my presence, and turning their backs on their wicked lives, I'll be there ready for you: I'll listen from heaven, forgive their sins, and restore their land to health.

(2 Chronicles 7:14 from THE MESSAGE;  also see Isaiah 1:18-19; Lev 26:40-46)    

Now,  a humble word to the wise: Take all the time you need-- but hurry up:

Defer not till tomorrow to be wise,
Tomorrow's sun to thee may never rise.
William Congreve. 1670-1729. Letter to Cobham.(From Christians Quoting)