Online Bible

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Dr. Spock

Just a quick post - another thing for this calendar day that Keillor (from the last post) mentioned - Dr Benjamin Spock was born on this day in 1903.

When I got pregnant with my firstborn, his book was about the only book out there. The massive bookshelf of parenting books we have today did not exist. I've read many of those books as they came out, back then - no more!.

I have to say, "I liked Dr Spock's book"!

Annie Dillard's Birthday

I just read that yesterday was Annie Dillard's birthday. I've read most of her books, my favorite being Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. She won a Pulitzer's prize for it - and only 29!

I just ordered from the library her most recent book - The Maytrees.

I quoted her while back.

William Paul Young: A Look Inside 'The Shack'

The author of The Shack on The 700 Club tells some of his story.

But there's even better footage at his website "You are Welcome Here". He didn't intend to write a book, he told his six children stories about the Trinity, trying to help them understand a very approachable God.

Videos 1, 2, and 3 are the better of William P (Paul) Young telling his story.

I have to say, I was very curious about his story. I've wanted to depict the Trinity in my art ... but HOW can you? And he does it wonderfully. I've decided he KNOWS the Trinity!

Pied Piper

I finished reading Pied Piper by Nevil Shute (or Nevil Norway). As I've often said, I always have to read 'story' amongst my other readings. I usually read them at night so my mind can switch from the day's activity and thoughts into another gear and can more easily go to sleep. (Monte always teases me about my talk of my mind, as if it's separate from my body, but it is - it rules. I can be physically bone-tired and my mind will still be quite active, not shutting off letting me go to sleep!)

I so enjoyed the the 70-year-old Englishman in this story, trying to get over his son's death, Howard takes a fishing holiday to Switzerland. It's the summer of 1940 and he finds himself the leader of a band of children trying to escape the German invasion of France.

Howard agrees to take two children with him home to England. But war closes in. Trains fail, roads clog with refugees, and other children join in Howard's little band. As he walks you through war-torn Europe you get caught up in his wonderful storytelling and love of humanity and acceptance of children as they came.

Apparently the book was made into a movie in 1942 but not on DVD. And it sounds like he's written lots of other similar style books - stories of regular people thrown into extraordinary circumstances. So I'm going to my library website and see what other books of his I can find!

Jewish Children's Story

Since today is officially Passover I didn't share this story before Easter. I did share it with the MOPS gals to whom I'm a Mentor Mom. I periodically check out children's stories even though I no longer have little kids. I've often seen how much we can learn from children and children's stories.

Too many children's stories are written with agendas, so are sermonettes and 'twaddle'. In collecting old books, we have some that are Children's Sermons. Some people might like them, but I hate them. Most talk AT and DOWN TO kids and don't really engage them and invite them in. Most REAL stories carry truth whether the author strove for that or not. They are actually better when the author just lets the story create itself (as an artist I understand this).

I often tell the story I found of Leah and Harry. They lived in an apartment building and were lucky to have their own bathroom and a bathtub. Most people had to share the bathroom down the hall.

Their mama was known to be a great cook. Twice a year she made gefilte fish - in the fall for Rosh Hoshana, the Jewish New Year, and in the Spring for Passover. Right before the Festival, carp fish were hard to find in the stores. So mama liked to buy her carp almost a week before Passover to make sure she got the nicest, fattest, shiniest one. Mama bought her fish live and carried it home in a pail of water.

At home Leah ran the water in the bathtub and Mama would dump the carp into the tub. Leah and Harry had fun going to the bathroom because they'd bring pieces of bread or rusty lettuce for the fish to eat.

One year, the carp seemed much livelier and friendlier with brighter eyes. They even gave this one a name. This was not just any old carp, they just had to save "Joe".

"Mrs Ginzburg has a bathtub," Leah said.

So in a bucket between the two of them, Leah and Harry carried Joe downstairs. Mrs Ginzburg said she couldn't keep the fish from her friend, their mother, but that he better go in the tub, for now, because he didn't look too good, "And you better go tell your Papa."

Papa, coming home from work, was glad to see them, but not glad to hear about the fish. "But we love him and want to keep him for a pet!" Papa took the fish from Mrs Ginzburg's tub and returned it to their tub and they never told Mama. And the kids never again could eat gefilte fish.

A few days later, Papa came home with a beautiful tri-colored cat. They named it Joe.

"Then the Lord said to Moses 'On the 10th day of this month each man is to get a lamb for his family, one lamb to a house ... And you shall keep it until the evening of the 14th day of this month and then slaughter it, and their blood shall be smeared on the two doorposts of every home..."

After living in the kids' shoes (maybe bear feet or sandals) and feeling their emotions the reality of Exodus 12 really hits me. Could the kids in the Hebrew families have become attached to, even giving it a name, the lamb to be killed? And then I think of the Lamb of God - the disciples having lived with Jesus for three years before he was killed.

Books

Author Anatole France, born today in 1844, said,

"Never lend books, for no one ever returns them;
the only books I have in my library
are those which people have lent me."

We definitely have the books in our house - probably over 1000!?! I should count, I think Monte has and I should ask him how many he thinks we have. (OK, I asked Monte ... he says we have at least 7000! Boy was I off.)

We hate to lend books, but we do. It seems the moment we lend a book, we want it for something. So there's some kinds of books we never lend anymore. And I've borrowed books too and I really try and remember to return them!

So I don't think there's many books in our library that were lent to us ...

Spring Signs

I saw my first flowers yesterday. It's on-and-off sunny and yet snow sprinkles - it really doesn't know whether to rain or snow. Remember ... I live at 8000 feet! But I took some pictures.

I take pictures every year but I'm going to try and date them and keep a scrapbook this year. I did buy a really fun book from an Amazon seller that's given me ideas for carrying on a scrapbook in a fun way. I do have pages of garden diagrams and notes and dreams from years back all on one clipboard. I change ink color for differing years notes on the same pages. I have notes of what's dead - via underground voles or gophers, elk or dear, or digging dog! - or too, just needing some winter mulching or watering.


With an electric fence, we're excavating more (once it's done snowing and dries out more - it is mostly melted now) and eliminating most of the grass area. We're dreaming of a pond too. We do have an old pond my oldest son made years ago of concrete. We did the sump-pump thing and a series of small ponds cascading into the larger. First off, unless sealed properly, concrete absorbs the water. Secondly, elk like stepping in and messing up things let alone wrecking all the surrounding plantings. And then ... one year, Travis brought home trout he'd caught in a pond down the road. That was nice, until in one night raccoon had eaten them!

This week begins my beginning of starting seeds in my greenhouse. I posted earlier pictures about heat coils and grow lights set up and ready to go. For now I've got a few warm weather herbs I bought there and four flats of stages of wheatgrass - which we've been juicing now. Can't tell you if we feel any miracle change yet! But it's fun.

Redeeming Oppression?

Today is the birth date of Booker T Washington in 1856. Yesterday was remembrance of Martin Luther King Jr's assassination 40 years ago.

I've read Booker's autobiography Up From Slavery. It was a good read. He was so much a part of reconstruction of the rubble of the South and the repercussion of slavery. His legacy is not just what he accomplished himself, but what he helped thousands of others accomplish--both black and white.

I'm old enough to have vivid memories of the day John F Kennedy was assassinated. School was a very quiet place other than all the teachers crying. And I remember all Saturday morning cartoons and regular programming on the few networks were dominated by his funeral and the constant replay of the open convertible car scene.

Kennedy and King were both at the beginnings of every home having a TV. Though slavery was abolished in the 1860s, blacks were not free. We saw that on TV. Though Martin Luther King Jr learned from Gandhi, OT Daniel and his three friends, and early Christians, that nonviolent resistance is the way to bring change, we did see violence. I hold these images still in my memory too. 

King clung to nonviolence because he profoundly believed that only a movement based on love could keep the oppressed from becoming a mirror image of their oppressors ... Nonviolence, he believed, "will save the Negro from seeking to substitute one tyranny for another." 

King accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Philip Yancey in his Soul Survivor has a chapter on Martin Luther King Jr and says, "Because he stayed faithful, in the short view by offering his body as a target but never as a weapon, and in the long view by holding before us his dream of a new kingdom of peace and justice and love, he became a prophet for me, the unlikeliest of followers."

Above Picture by Jacob Lawrence

Beauty

Is beauty in the eye of the beholder? Or might I ask, is it merely in the eye of the beholder? Or is it something 'out there'?

"You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity."

- Richard Feynman, Nobel laureate in physics

Science and Theology Meet in The Evidential Power of Beauty

"Beauty is the battlefield where God and Satan contend with each other for the hearts of men."

- Fyodor Dostoyevski in The Brothers Karamazov

Buechner and Dillard "Remember" Quotes

Instead of adding these to the last post, I thought I'd post them separate. Of the variety of books I read, these are two more of my favorite 'very interesting' authors.

I like the word "remember" and it's in Scripture more than 300 times. The thief on the cross asked, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And Jesus at the table said, "Do this to remember me."

"When you remember me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me." - Frederick Buechner

OH, does that tug at my heart reminding me just now as I typed that above of this quote in the book Deep Unto Deep by Dana Candler: "When I stand before Him face to face one day soon, when I meet His eyes for the first time, will I experience a memory in that gaze? Will there be familiarity?"

"I have no problem with miracles ... that isn't the question I struggle with. To me, the real question is, 'How in the world can we remember God?' I like that part of the Bible that lists kings as good and bad. Suddenly there comes this one, King Josiah, who orders the temple to be cleaned up and inadvertently discovers the Law. This happens after generations of rulers and after the Israelites followed God through the Exodus. Somehow they had forgotten the whole thing, every piece of it. A whole nation simply forgot God." - Annie Dillard

This quote tugs at my heart as well. It reminds me of Nehemiah 8 when Ezra does read the Scripture they found. The people STOOD for the entire reading of the Torah, hearing it for the first time, and they wept. Then they partied!

Calendar

So, what day is today? Everyone knows it's St Patrick's Day. What do we wake up thinking? or maybe even plan ahead for? Wearing something green ("so I won't be pinched!"). Oh, that's really important! I'll say something about him later.

The 15th of March is The Feast of Saint Longinus. Do you know him? I wonder who even remembered his name, or did they just give him a name. I took a picture of a picture from one of my Saint books - and who do you see? John Wayne! not his typical western look. What movie is this?

Tradition merges the soldier whose spear pierced the side of the crucified Jesus with the centurion who later acknowledged him to be the Son of God. According to legend, Longinus was baptized by the Apostles and eventually died, a martyred bishop, in Cappadocia.

Why not take a day each year to think about the crucifixion scene and all those witnesses. How might it have touched so many people's lives. We don't know all the stories ... but just imagine!

Another person remembered from that whole story is the man who offered his tomb for Jesus to be buried. March 17 is the Feast of Saint Joseph of Arimathea. According to a legend, Joseph was Jesus' wealthy uncle, and after his nephew's (did you ever think of Jesus as a nephew?) Resurrection and Ascension, Joseph accompanied Mary Magdalene to France. Then, alone, he made his way to Britain, bringing with him the chalice drunk from at the Last Supper, which became an ornament of the church he established at Glastonbury, Somerset. And that is how the Holy Grail ended up in England and why King Arthur was so concerned with it!

So from this legend we have so much literature - from the tales of King Arthur (and "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" movie - I'm grinning) and on to the more current The Da Vinci Code (I read that Novel and the book that followed. Good writer of a good story, but remind yourself - it's a novel). I think Dan Brown knew of this legend and extrapolated! All I'll say is, "He's an angry-at-the-church man, and doesn't know his history."

Everyone knows bits of the St Patrick story so I don't want to say much. Of all that's written, my favorites are How the Irish Saved Civilization and The Celtic Way of Evangelism. I came away from having read those books realizing my faith is more Celtic than Roman based. Celtic writings are much like the Hebrew Psalms and very inclusive of the Trinity. (My favorite book for exposure to this is The Celtic Way of Prayer.) What must have overflowed from Patrick (born Succat) was the Celtic based monasteries that were very inclusive of the surrounding community, focusing on relationship and embracing the common people. They loved people into The Kingdom. The Europe they evangelized to life, kinda died again, returning to the Roman cold, exclusive (exclusion) monasteries and nitty-gritty detail focus and rules.

A Palladius or Pallagious was actually the first missionary to Ireland. His name was mentioned in the newest King Arthur movie, and because I know something of him, I made the connection in the movie. He preached that people can take the 1st step to salvation without the grace of God. Augustine took steps against his followers.

St Patrick, with a satchel full of books, including Augustine's writings, like City of God and his Confessions, returned to Ireland with its un-invaded tranquility by the barbarians who were ransacking Rome and all of Europe. Thus literature was preserved until Europe was ready to take them back.

Hasn't Patrick's Breastplate prayer been put to music?
Make Irish Soda Bread!

Hyperbole

Sometimes I think Jesus a bit harsh. I've just accepted some of these as his need for hyperbole - extreme exaggeration for a point. Like telling us to hate our mother and brother.

Like the man telling Jesus he wants to follow him, but "first let me go and bury my father". And Jesus said, "Let the dead bury their own dead".

I learned about the Jewish burial customs in Jesus' day. It took place in two stages. Immediately after death the body is placed in a casket in a tomb to decompose. The family sat shiva (mourned) for seven days (you can read about this mourning 'celebration' in Lauren Winner's book Mudhouse Sabbath). After about a year the bones are taken from the tomb and put in an ossuary (box for bones), and then reburied for good.

It's probably between these two burials that the man approached Jesus and maybe it couldn't be for a year before he could finally follow Jesus. So he's caught - should he follow Jesus or follow how he understands the Torah - which is the commandment to honor one's parents in respecting the burial customs.

These are the exaggerated extremes: Do we love God by following Jesus more than we love the Torah and our family?!

The Shack

I'm reading a great book. I originally tried getting it from the library but there's lots of holds on it. A friend who KNOWS me said, "Karey, you are going to want to own this book!" Many people I know are reading it more than once. It's The Shack.

Here are just a few of the many comments on the book:
"This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress did for his. It's that good!" - Eugene Peterson

The Shack is the most absorbing work of fiction I've read in many years. My wife and I laughed, cried and repented of our own lack of faith along the way. The Shack will leave you craving for the presence of God." - Michael W Smith

"Reading The Shack during a very difficult transition in my life, this story has blown the door wide open to my soul." - Wynonna Judd

Work Quote

"Work is much more fun than fun."
- Noel Coward (1890-1973)

Work might be a four-letter-word to some people, but not to Monte and me. We agree with this quote, but I guess it's because our life is not compartmentalized.

There's a book called The Three Boxes of Life with the boxes being Play, Education, and Work. The idea is to keep all the boxes open and a continuum.

My thought is that when one follows the boxes as sequential seasons or compartments of focus in life, at some point they will stop working and expect to enter their final box, only to discover that they have forgotten how to play.

It's important that we not forget to play!

Dancing Trio

We were just up at Travis and Sarah's. Travis brined three chickens then put beer cans, about 1/2 full, in each cavity and stood them on one side of the grill, with the burner off. He tried this with cans of coke but prefers this, saying it tastes better. The other side of the grill was kept on high and had soaked wood chips for smoking the birds. With three of them, it took a little over 2 hours till done. They were DELISH!!

So, on the calendar we've passed President's Day, in between Lincoln's and Washington's Birthdays. When the kids were young I used to take some Lincoln Logs and make a little log cabin to sit on a red, white, and blue woven cloth in the center of the table during this time.

The 18th is set aside in remembrance of Martin Luther. If you've not seen the movie "Luther", you should. It's a good representation of his life and home life and his wonderful wife Katherine. I read a biography of her and really enjoyed it. From her you get more of the perspective of the largeness of their home, and family, and the many guests they had. She really "looked well to the ways of her household", very much as Proverbs 31 depicts. Even to buying apple orchards to be able the keep the family in their 'home brew' which they drank at every meal, and finding sources for good food, and how she created her much needed well-stocked large kitchen. They were good parents too, enjoying life. We don't often know much about the "helpmates" of well known influential people. "The hand that rocks the cradle ..." is so powerful!

From family and food, to presidents, and then to the Luther family and food ... Hmmmmm, seeing the three together in a sentence my thoughts have run to where the power is and influence ... but no more. I leave it to you to run with the rest of the story.

Spielberg and the Olympics

It's been reported that Steven Spielberg has decided not to participate in the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing as an artistic adviser, citing the lack of progress in ending the genocide in Darfur.

How is it China is related to Darfur? I read about it in the book What is the What, a story of some of the Lost Boys of the Sudan. It told of the northern part of the country as being politically driven by China's huge need for oil, which the southern part of the country has - thus the warring atrocities.

Felted Booties

I finished knitting a pair of baby booties and at the same time finished an audio book.

As a MOPS Mentor Mom, I've tried several booty patterns. This one is a knit and felt, but the original pattern is just the felted foot part. I think it would easily fall off the baby's foot, so I added a ribbed cuff.

Tomorrow at MOPS (Mothers Of Preschoolers) I'll try both styles on a baby's foot. First I have to see if it's the right size! Do I need to felt it more or less? And then see if the cuff makes it better.

The audio book is a James Patterson book - Suzanne's Diary For Nicholas. It is so different from his popular books, some made into TV and movies. This one was still emotional and full of suspense, not a murder mystery, but a beautiful love story of a new family.

Aborigine

I just saw this painting by a Barbara Stuart, inspired by one of the massacre sites in Australia, depicting the spirits of Aboriginals. It intrigues me. I was just reading about Aborigines in the book In Defense of food - An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan, who wrote The Omnivore's Dilemma, which I highly recommend as a good read.

A study was done in 1982, following a group of ten middle-aged, overweight, and diabetic Aborigines, as they were asked to return to the bush and it's lifestyle of food gathering. It was an experiment to see if the process of westernization they had adopted when they moved near towns, could be reversed. After seven weeks their blood was drawn, showing striking improvements in virtually every measure of their health, and the type II diabetes was either greatly improved or completely normalized.

Then another weird connection just showed up too. Today (or the 13th in Australia) is 'Sorry Day'. They are saying sorry to the descendants of the "Stolen Generation" for decades of horrors. I watched a video clip of this current event. I read and watched about this because of having read the book and watched the movie "The Rabbit Proof Fence".

I recommend the movie over the book since it tells more 'why' these aborigine children were stolen from their families in Australia. It's a true story, and maybe today's "Sorry" can be a beginning of healing for these families and a positive turning point against prejudice.

Mantra - Shema

I have a new mantra I'm saying daily.

I like sitting and imagining, often putting myself in other's shoes. Well in Jesus' sandals I've already posted during Advent about Jesus growing up knowing his genealogy. Jesus heard, probably asking Mary to tell him the stories over and over, of Tamrah or Rahab or Ruth or Bathsheba ... And women weren't usually listed in genealogies, but throughout the Gospels you see Jesus living out the results of those stories.

And I visualize Jesus growing up watching his mother every Friday evening lighting the Sabbath candles just before sundown, saying a blessing, as did every woman of every Jewish household every Friday evening. And too, like every other good Jew, Jesus said the Shema two times a day.

When asked by an expert in the law the most important commandment Jesus shaped his own version of the Shema. Typically Jews quoted Deuteronomy 6:4-9 two times a day. Jesus summarized it and added a verse from Leviticus 19:18. So instead of a Love-God Shema, Jesus made it a Love-God-and-Others Shema. Making loving others a part of his own version of the Jewish creed shows that he sees loving others as central to our spiritual formation.

So my new daily mantra or Shema is the Jesus Creed:
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself.

So as I sit, walk by the way, lie down, and especially when I rise, I will say to myself Jesus' Shema. As Jesus said, "There is no commandment greater than this".

Fat Tuesday-Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras

Lent begins tomorrow with Ash Wednesday. I didn't grow up with Lent, but I like these 40 day periods, like Advent too, to have a spiritual focus that can bring more meaning with anticipation to ordinary days. The word Lent comes from 'Lenten' meaning a 'lengthen'ing of days into Spring (yeah!).

Baptisms used to be done on Resurrection day in the early church and they'd have a 40 hour fast in readiness for the event. In 330 AD it was stretched from new converts to all Christians and for 40 days - believing it commemorated Jesus' 40 day desert fast. So the Tuesday before became a time for confession and repentance, and called Shrove Tuesday ('shiriving' means confession).

Prohibitions seem a thing for Lent, with giving up rich foods as the focus, which has turned Shrove Tuesday into Fat Tuesday. Since people were wanting to rid their homes of some ingredients, they started having meals of pancakes, becoming tradition. Meat is sometimes given up too. Mardi Gras has become a revelry, a 'carnival', which means 'farewell to meat (flesh)'. It seems the given up items are being worshiped, and the time of self-reflection has turned into a self-indulgence!

In the movie "Chocolate" we see what some people do in giving up things for Lent. In the book Girl Meets God by Lauren Winner (a good book), she gives up reading for Lent. Ugh, that would be a hard one. A couple years ago friends of mine wanted to wear a tasseled bracelet (Numbers 15)(which I made for everyone) for a reminder of something - for me it was to exercise everyday, Sunday's excluded (which I think I'll do again this year - without the bracelet).

Some people will use tonight as a carnival celebration of looking inside ones self. People need to haul up aspects of personality they choose to bury and tend to remask a persona. I have friends who one year came to such a party with masks representing their hidden self, and maybe ridiculing egos. When Adam and Eve lost innocence what did they do? they sought to cover themselves. Paul asked us to "put on the new self" to "put on Christ".

Because meat, cheese, cream, butter, milk and eggs were typically avoided, small breads began to be made. Germans named theirs "pretzels" - "little arms". They were visual reminders for the heart, since formed in the shape of arms crossed over the chest - like praying.

God looks at the intentions of the heart, the spirit in which we do things. It's not just a matter of ritual but a matter of the heart!

The Larger Story

I just read this - "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." - Isaac Newton

Boy, do I resonate with this quote! When I think of all the many shoulders I have stood on, and will stand on, since I read a lot of books ... I really think I do see further than I ever could have just living my own little story.

I think I have a good grasp of the flow of history. From my wide range of reading I've learned a good part of the larger story of life. I don't know if I would score high if I took a test on all the 'facts' of history, but I've lived in enough shoes (and bare feet) through story, that from their shoulders I have an understanding of the cultures that drove people to do whatever it was we know them for in history - why discoveries, why advances in science, why progress and why lack of progress, why wars ...

Now, to move this into more of a spiritual perspective ... I have had a very real experience of God. I know Him and have felt Him, and from that experience I started questioning 'formation versus information' - what if one came to God through formation, through experience - is information important? Over my many years I've done lots of theological study and reading too - I have lots of information.

As a Mentor Mom at a MOPS sleep-over, I was up early and looking for something to read, and there weren't many books in this home, but I found CS Lewis' writings bound all together in one large book. I don't know why but I started reading at the beginning of Part IV in his Mere Christianity. And it was what I needed for that moment and it applies to this subject.

A man told CS Lewis he had "no use for all that stuff (theology) ... I know there's a God. I've felt Him: out alone in the desert one night ... To anyone who's met the real thing they (dogmas and formulas about Him) seem so petty, pedantic and unreal!"

CS Lewis said he agreed with the man, thinking he probably did have a real experience of God. And in turning to Bible study type things and "Christian creeds, I think he really was turning from something real to something less real. In the same way, if a man has once looked at the Atlantic from the beach, and then goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, he also will be turning from something real to something less real.

"But here comes the point. The map is admittedly only coloured paper, but there are two things you have to remember about it. In the first place, it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic. In that way it has behind it masses of experience just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only, while yours would be a single isolated glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together. In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary. As long as you are content with walks on the beach, your own glimpses are far more fun than looking at a map. But the map is going to be more use than walks on the beach if you want to get to America."

Will I get anywhere by simply feeling the presence of God, by only having a formational experience? Will others?

My belief is that that formational experience, if that's the starting place for some people, will bring people to curiosity about wanting to know more about God, so the information we Christians feel so strongly about will come. My hope is that in our new era, call it "post-modern", for no other term is given yet, that the possibility of us loving on people, and God Himself loving people into the Kingdom, will bring about a new way of gaining information.

I feel I've stood on the shoulders of hundreds of people who really were/are in touch with God - experienced God. Standing on the shoulders of many real Christians helps us see even further - helps us see and hopefully want to enter into the even larger story. HIStory is God's entering the world's story, but the Trinitarian God is outside of our measurable chronos time. God's out-of-earthly kairos time penetrates, breaking through chronos: in a child's play, an artist at work, a person in the desert ... usually a un-selfconscious place.

Oh, I do want to see further than my own story. I want to be a part of the eternal large drama.

Reading

I need to start laundry and getting ready for my felting class tonight. But been reading varied things on the internet. My last bunny trail was reading about Karl Barth. I've always been fascinated with him, so have ordered up some things from the library that he wrote. I'll probably skim them and not be able to understand them. Like this -

It has been said that "a 'Barthian theology' is just as impossible as an 'Eisteinian science', but just as there is a pre-Einsteinian science and a post-Einsteinian science, so there is a pre-Barthian and post-Barthian theology, for the contribution of Karl Barth to theology is, like that of Albert Einstein to nature science, so deep-going and fundamental that it marks one of the great eras of advance in the whole history of the subject". - TF Torrance

- so I'll see ...

Bloodless Martyrs

Yesterday's calendar date was the Feast of St Ant(h)ony: Anthony the Great, Anthony of Egypt, Hermit, Abbot, and the "father of monks". He died in 356 on January 17th, at the age of 105.

I'm reading Water from a Deep Well: Christian Spirituality from Early Martyrs to Modern Missionaries. I love using the calendar day stories to bring greater depth of living to my days, making ordinary days into the extra-ordinary. It was interesting that I was reading about the desert fathers around the days associated with some of the calendar's Desert Fathers.

Anthony is one of the earlier Desert Fathers and we know his story because his friend Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria (the one instrumental in Augustine's conversion) wrote his biography. It became popular and influential well into the Middle Ages and is still in print today.

Anthony heard the Gospel words, "Go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor ... and then follow me" and felt they were meant for him. Much of his story is like Jesus' temptation in the desert, because Athanasius wrote, the devil "who despises and envies good, could not bear seeing such purpose in a youth," and thus set to work to destroy him.

The Desert Saints were called "bloodless martyrs". Christianity was born in the hostile world of the Roman Empire, and for 300 years Christians periodically suffered persecution and deaths. Constantine in 313 granted Christianity legal status in the empire and it became popular and fashionable. So now, rather than an evil empire, those wanting to seek serious Christian discipleship were facing a worldly church.

Solitude did not remain solitude, when thousands of other Desert Saints followed. People became fascinated by stories about Anthony and admirers found him. Though begging them to leave him alone, he became an adviser to hundreds, exhorting them to die daily and take up the cross. (Years ago I read the desert disciple sayings in The Wisdom of the Desert. I also read From the Holy Mountain: A Journey Among the Christians in the Middle East, where the author took earlier writings and journeyed, visiting many old sites. And then in the news, maybe last year, was the fear of the Muslims destroying some of these sites, including the monastery built around Anthony's place in the Egyptian desert.)

Anthony longed for martyrdom, hoping to identify with Christ, by exposing himself to danger, like ministering to those in prison and sometimes leaving the desert to combat Arianism. But he realized a person can die daily by serving Christ in ordinary ways with great love. Because he had given away all he had (and taken care of his sister), he wove mats to support his needs.

These Desert Saints call us to seek some solitude, which might separate us just enough from modern culture to allow us to recognize, expose and combat our vulnerability to seductive powers; to ruling appetites that seem to dominate our life.

"All good athletes train hard; they do it to attain a perishable award, but we're after an imperishable one. So I do not run aimlessly. I'm giving it everything I've got. I'm staying alert and in top condition, so that after telling others about it I don't miss out on it myself" I COR 9:25-27.

Anthony once said, "The man who abides in solitude and is quiet, is delivered from fighting three battles - to those of hearing, speech and sight. Then he will have but one battle to fight - the battle of the heart."

Next to the Bible

On this day in 1673 John Bunyan was sentenced to prison. He was imprisoned for the offense of preaching without the permission of the state.

Today, in the center of Bedford England, stands a statue of Bunyan carrying a tinker's burden on his back and a Bible in his hand. Near the foot of the statue is a little bronze plaque with the engraved words of the prosecutor -

"At last we are done with this tinker and his cause. Never more will he plague us: for his name, locked away as surely as he, shall be forgotten, as surely as he. Done we are, and all eternity with him."

While imprisoned, John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim's Progress. it is translated into more languages than any other book save the Bible. CS Lewis, who wrote Pilgrim's Regress (a great book), said of Pilgrim's Progress, it is "a literary and spiritual masterpiece". We have Pilgrim's Progress in cartoon form and audio as well.

The Lady of Shalott

Monte wants me to say something about the poem "The Lady of Shalott" by Alfred Tennyson. It speaks of her weaving, though she's tapestry weaving which has it's own style of loom. I could do it on my rigid heddle loom, I think. It is a style of weaving I want to move into. I did a similar style of tapestry weaving years ago, but on old rusty barrel rings.

The weaving picture is by William Maw Egley. The Lady in the boat is by John William Waterhouse.

There's a site that has the poem and beautiful art work. The Lady in the boat reminds me of the scene in the book and movie Anne of Green Gables, when Anne is dramatizing the poem and her boat slowly sinks.

http://www.pathguy.com/shalott.htm

Loreena McKennitt has put this poem to beautiful music (like I posted earlier of her putting "Dark Night of the Soul" to music).

Yogurt

I'm making yogurt today and currently waiting for the milk to cool down. I've been making yogurt for years. I bought my yogurt maker at a second-hand store and it makes a 1/2 gallon milk quantity of yogurt.

Here is the recipe that consistently works for me. Heat the milk to about 180 degrees. I do this in the microwave in a Pyrex glass bowl. Then let it cool down to 100-112 degrees. Mix in the starter and pour into jars in yogurt maker.

Hmmmm ... starter .... It used to be you could buy almost any plain yogurt in the store to use as a starter. But today, most yogurts have additives which seem to inhibit it's thickening. Some additives, like gelatin, will work, but it seems to take longer for the milk to firm. Your best bet is is yogurt in health food stores, but still read the labels. You can also find powdered starters, usually in a refrigerated section. If you use the powdered starter just follow the directions.

For a quart of milk I use a few tablespoons of yogurt stirred into the cooled down milk. Once you make yogurt, you can use your own homemade yogurt for starter. I always plug in my yogurt maker, with the empty jars in it, when I begin the yogurt making process for it to start heating. I'll put my yogurt starter in it at this time too, in one of the jars, to take off its chill.

When the starter is mixed into the cooled-down milk, pour the mixture into the jars in the yogurt maker, place the cover on the yogurt maker. Start checking after a few hours. Mine usually sets in 3-4 hours. When I start a fresh batch with the powdered starter it takes longer. Look for a slight firmness of the milk. It will firm up a bit more in the refrigerator. The shorter the time, the sweeter it is. If you forget and let it incubate longer, it gets tart, but still tastes