That Good Part

I don't know about you, but I hate throwing food away. Not scrapping the plate into the trash when I can't possibly take another bite, I mean taking out a bottle of salad dressing, or leftovers, or box of baking soda and not having any idea if it's still good.  More often than not I throw it away, because here's a fun fact about me-I have essentially no sense of smell.  While you may simply sniff the dressing, I just stare at it.  Here is a new question I've been pondering lately-if tomatoes are in an unrefrigerated bin at the store, why do I put them in the fridge when I get home? My mom puts every vegetable but potatoes in the fridge, as well as the peanut butter, but that's a different blog post.  As the fourth child, my mom didn't explain a lot of kitchen mysteries to me, when I was underfoot in the kitchen she just told me to go read a book instead. That explains a lot of things. So here I am, a late blooming kitchenista, wanting to unlock the hidde...

I'm reading a lot of material these days.  New product for our church book kiosk, studying for our Journey With Jesus through the gospel of Mark, three books on the history of the middle east (how did that happen?) and then the usual time in the Word.  Today I was looking at the various stacks of books I'm plowing through and I thought to myself, "You know, one would think that you'd have a profound thought or great quote in your head from all that stuff!"  So I waited a while to see if one floated to the surface. Waited some more. Flipped through a book. Two books. Four books. Sigh. A thought did float into my head and it had nothing to do with the stack. It was something Pastor Rob said at the beginning of our Sunday morning study in the book of Acts.  He said we have the tendency to read Acts and think every day was action packed when in reality, the book covers a thirty year span. THIRTY YEARS.  Well now, that certainly puts a different spin on things....

Today I helped someone set up their first blog.  We went through every field, looked at all the gadgets, and along the way, I gave her the basic instructions for each function. When I could remember, that is.  On the gadget for links, and she asked me to make a link to this blog. When I did, the link has shows not only the title of the blog but the title of the last post, and the date of that post. No wonder I couldn't remember how to use anything! Six months has gone by since I last visited my own blog.  I didn't want anyone visiting her blog to see how inactive my blog was, so I decided I better write something.  Not that I care what anyone thinks. Well, maybe a little. ;) The morning sort of refreshed my creative juices for the whole blogging thing. If I was to come up with some spiritual application for this post, it would be this: it's a good thing to go back to the basics, look at the framework of what you know and believe, evaluate...

I picked up what I thought was a new journal the other day, but it was actually a journal I finished a little over a year ago. I love to journal, ever since I read "Harriet the Spy" when I was little. I've gone through several journal options over the years-everything goes into one journal-sermon notes, study research, personal devotions, recounting of my days so I know where I was three days ago. Every now and then I try something new-one journal for church stuff, one for my devotions, one sort of a diary so I know where I was three days ago. I kind of like each option for different reasons, and it makes me wonder what fellow journalers do. One for everything? One per subject? Stay in a calender year or just write until it fills up? Re-reading that journal from the last two years was not my favorite perusal of the past. In fact, it bummed me out quite a bit, and has caused me to be spending a lot of time in prayer. I always encourage people to journal, among other reason...

I have a new laptop. Well, new to me, as it once belonged to my daughter before the hard drive blew up, causing the loss of a multitude of pictures, information and subsequently, dollars when she replaced it with a Mac. Wanting one computer for work and one for the rest of everything in my life, I decided rescue it from the trash, and replace the drive so here I sit, with the technological equivalent of a clean slate. It's odd to have a computer that looks almost exactly like your old one, only to find it empty of everything familiar. Click the favorites-empty. Click My pictures-empty. Click Documents-empty. It is as if all the points of reference in my life have been removed, the landmarks gone, like when someone cuts down the tree on the corner that you always included in your directions so people could find your house. The first thing I did on this computer was get some Internet going, because I was afraid something would happen in the universe and I wouldn't know it. It...

Every now and then I'll be reading a blog and suddenly the thought occurs to me "Hey! I have a blog!" Unfortunately, a pithy quote or cohesive thought doesn't follow, so I don't post anything. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty good at talking myself out of doing things. Things like sending a card (I don't really have a cute one and I certainly do not possess card making abilities) or I should call (but I don't have a lot of time, they're probably in bed already, blah blah blah). Oh, this is good one- I should offer to pray for them (but they'll think I'm nuts or reject the offer, blah, blah, blah). Or, post on my blog. But what if, maybe, just maybe, that thought was actually a prompting of the Holy Spirit? You know, the One who teaches us, empowers us and oh, yeah, prompts us? I've been thinking about two things lately. Well, more than two, but I just read how multi-tasking is actually counter productive and slows your br...

I read a sad article in the news today. It seems that instead of enjoying a few hours of entertainment by going to see the movie "Avatar", some people are coming away from the film with depression and suicidal thoughts. They are flocking to online forums and chat rooms to lament the fact that life isn't worth living after being exposed to the land of Pandora that is represented in the film. I haven't seen the film. From the reports I've read about it, it seems that Pandora is a type of Eden, and after seeing it, comparing it to the stark reality outside the movie theater leaves some people with a growing sense of hopelessness about their own lives and the world in general. This morning I read this in the book "Jesus, Our Man in Glory" by A.W. Tozer: " It has been my feeling that the whole [human] race has harbored a yearning to go back to God's presence, to return to Eden. I do not mean that everyone in the race wants to be a Christian. Too...