We Should Fall Flat on Our Face

The news of the roller coaster ride on Wall Street is everywhere. Since I'm not in the market I won't begin to suggest I have advice for those who have money invested in stocks and bonds.
However, in terms of how we should live, I would suggest a return to the old-fashioned word "frugality".

We live in a time of consumption. (A century ago 'consumption' was a deadly illness...today, over-consumption is still deadly in terms of your wallet.) Sadly, we have taught our children well the illusion that their little special "Self" deserves "More". We have not given them the picture of "spend less than you earn" nor how to serve others. Instead, we've catered to their every whim and have done so at a high cost in terms of dollars. We want them to have "what we didn't have" as if somehow we deserved more and so do they. What a false idea of how to provide for family.

I'm going to step on some toes here, but if I do, it's not personal. If there were one thing that I could change in my family it would be how we celebrate Christmas. Perhaps I'm an old woman who has lost the "fun" of Christmas and who has become an old fuddy-duddy, wanting to take away the "spirit" of Christmas by eliminating the excess. (Notice I did not spell "spirit" with a capital "S").

Let's get real here. Let's stop playing the game. How many paper-wrapped packages does a little kid need under the tree? Does every aunt, uncle, cousin, grandparent have to provide the obligatory gift...a gift that the kid grabs, rips, discards in less time than I can say "Merry Christmas"? Aren't we a bit foolish to spend countless hours (not to mention the dollars) getting "just the right gift" for each one...gifts that moments later are tossed aside or broken.

If one has cash to buy the above, okay, go for it if that is your wish. But, oh, how foolish, in terms of your family's economic well-being, if you are using your credit cards or the last dime you have in savings! How Foolish!

I prefer to celebrate the Christmas that is about the Christ, the Messiah, who came to rescue us from our sinful condition (Colossians 1:13). Christians too often limply state that "God is Love", leaving that to be the extent of their understanding of the Bible, making God this little wimpy god spelled with a small "g" who just loves us as we are and who somehow quite fruitlessly hopes that we will try to be good at least once in awhile. What a wimpy idea of the theology of the Bible. It may be a Santa Claus idea, but it is not a God idea.

The real message of the Bible is much, much deeper. Our condition of sin much deeper. And our rescue from a much deeper pit than some might suppose. Romans 8:28-39 is one of my favorite passages. The words therein are grand. Follow that with Romans 11:33 "Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!"

The message of the Bible is deep. But we Americans love living on the surface of everything, never going deep, even in our faith, and seldom deep into our relationship with the Creator. If we did (go deep, that is) we might each have to face the depth of our sinful heart and have to fall flat on our face as Isaiah (Isaiah 6) did before a holy and just God.

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Update on Shooting in Chico

It's amazing what you don't know. Like yesterday. We're enjoying a sunny afternoon at the Chico Mall. We hear the sirens and watch three law enforcement cars fly by on the nearby street. Yesterday I mentioned this. Here's an updated news article (with photos)and you will read that bullets were flying within a very short distance of where we stood. Unless we had seen the police cars (and later the police helicopter) we would have been completely unaware of a drug deal gone bad in broad daylight. We knew something had gone down for we had seen the cars and helicopter. I forgot to mention yesterday that as we stood there in the parking lot a vehicle pulled up beside us and a fellow with a very expensive camera pulled up and jumped out of his car. One of our friends is a camera buff and seeing the camera commented on it. When we saw him head down the street in the direction of the police cars we knew he was looking to photograph the action. I'm betting the two photos that accompany the news article were taken with his camera.

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Gunshots in Chico

We were in Chico, California this afternoon ( October 8, 2008 ) and on our way back to our car when we heard sirens. Three law enforcement vehicles headed down the street. Soon traffic stopped and backed up and we knew we needed to take an alternate route back to Highway 99. Evidently five young men were involved in shootings earlier in the day and four were apprehended within a block of where we stood. A police helicopter circled the scene as we left the area. The fifth gunman was apprehended nearby. Here's the news about what was going down; you can read it for yourself.

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The Shoe Tree in Nevada

While driving on Highway 50 across Nevada we came upon a small roadside rest area, a place just large enough to pull off the road, park the car, and eat a picnic lunch. This photo is not very good (I have to admit I purloined it off the web) but it shows the huge number of shoes that travelers have tossed into the branches of the tree. (The tree is approx 100 miles east of Reno on Hwy 50.)

We Americans are a weird bunch of people.

Highway 50 is the shortest and best road to travel from Ely to Reno on the other side of the state. I noticed in our atlas that the road is known as "The Loneliest Road in America" and it surely deserves this name. This little-traveled two-lane highway is in excellent condition and provides for a quiet and speedy trip. I think in the first fifty miles we encountered less than ten vehicles. Later, as we neared Reno, the traffic built up a bit, but still it was not nearly as hectic as using the Interstate.

Besides...if you follow the Interstate, you'll miss the Shoe Tree!

She said with a smile.
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I'm Backkkkkk! Aren't you Glad?

Heh-heh! I have been traveling with my hubby westward and we are moving closer in terms of miles and time to his high school class reunion to be held this weekend in Oroville, California. Oroville used to be a small little town and still holds its population at approx 14,400. That's a good deal larger than our current hometown which is under 3000. Oroville has grown considerably since my hubby attended school there and it is a slight bit amusing to me that his "downtown" is now the touristy "oldtown". The house he lived in is still standing on Bird Street although the church where his father was pastor has long since been replaced with a newer building.

Right now...it's laundry time. We've been on the road and its amazing how dirty one can get riding 8 hours in the car. Picture chocolate stains, nacho crumbs, coffee spills. The motel has a coin-laundry. Yayy!!!

Bunbury Red is the Name

It's about time to post a quilty post.

In 2006 an online quilting buddy and I entered a quilt challenge from a quilt guild in Australia. We each purchased a small packet of challenge fabrics and went to work on our original designs. It was great fun, partly because I had just the right fabrics on hand to add to the challenge fabrics and did not have to make a trip to the local quilt shop. The size is approx 24 x 24 inches and it hangs as a wall quilt in my sewing room. You can see entries from several years here.

I didn't expect to win any prizes (and I didn't!! LOL) but it was great fun to put this little quilt in the mail, ship it off to Australia, knowing it would be hanging with entries from all over the world.

Don't you agree that red, black and white are great quilt colors? I named my entry Bunbury Red.

Movie Recommend - The Gospel of John

We're using The Gospel of John DVD in our Bible class at jail. The 2003 video is a word for word of John's gospel based on the Good News Bible translation. The class members, most of whom are young and therefore visually oriented, love seeing it over and over. You can see clips of it here.

The ministry set has two DVDs, one is a word-for-word. The other is a shorter highlight version. We use the complete and since it is three hours long we have to break it down to segments.

Some class members are with us only a couple sessions. Others are with us for months. In other words, this is a rotating class with new faces every week. So we've shown this DVD more than once and each time the women in my class are attentive. (The men's class love it as well.)

Last night we finished up the last chapter of John with the women following along in their Bibles as the movie played out. After the movie ended, we immediately turned to Acts chapter 1 to read about the ascension and then to I Corinthians 15 to read about the resurrection of believers. I'm certain this was the first time for most of them to cover these Scriptures or to even hear about the resurrection. I'm certain when they went back to their rooms there was discussion of what they had just seen and heard.

All of this to say that this movie is an excellent opportunity to present Jesus to any group. I believe it is one of the best of any of the Jesus films. Leading out with actor Henry Ian Cusick as Jesus, and narrated by Christopher Plummer, the movie takes you into the heart of the Gospel. It is fascinating to watch the faces of the disciples as they experience wonder, fear, frustration, faith. John and Peter in particular are portrayed in all the intensity one would expect of those who walked and talked with the Savior. Peter's failure as he denies Christ is painful to observe and it is with much relief that we see Jesus' calling him in the last chapter to "feed my sheep".

There are only a couple minor flaws in this film...one is that Mary Magdalene is visually presented in a couple scenes where the Gospel of John does not place her. It is possible, of course, that she was present in those instances, but the Gospel does not speak to that and if I were the director (obviously I'm not) I would have left her out of those scenes. Still...an excellent film, and a classic.