bekahcubed Amidst the busyness of my Seder preparations and work life, I managed to miss my best opportunities to use my Easter Flashback prompt. But who says you have to write about Easter only one Easter? Not me!
When you were a child, who dyed the Easter eggs in your household? Who hid the eggs? Did you get a new Easter outfit every year?
All through college, I cringed at the inevitable Monday question “What did you do this weekend?” While my peers were road-tripping to a baseball game or a football game or to ski in Colorado, I was being boring. Inevitably, my answer was “I worked. I read. I went to church. I hung out with my family.” That’s what I did over the weekends when I was a student.
This last weekend, though, I enjoyed one of those crazy college-like road trips, traveling to the West Slope of the Rockies in Colorado for a friend’s wedding.
This week I’m thankful…
…for wise advice
Anna encouraged me to work in the afternoon and let the girls pick me up from Grand Island, saving me 1 1/2 of travel time. It was wonderful.
…for the W’s van
The W’s “borrowed” us their van for our weekend trip–and it was lovely to stretch our legs out.
…for Holiday Inn Hilarity
We had plenty of fun that first night–and not a little embarrassment. Men around a non-existent bar, a workout room that looked bigger than it was, a swimming pool but no bathing suit, spilled Fruit Loops and military men. We had fun.
…for beautiful views
The drive from Denver to Montrose on Highway 50 was awe-inspiring. “How can anyone say there is no God?” became our oft-repeated refrain.
…for the Flamenco room
Our bed and breakfast was, um, interesting. But we had fun with it–and it was wonderful to have a place near the action. We met Grandpa (a Husker fan from Wyoming who gave us a little advice for Coach Pelini) and Step-Grandma while still at the B&B–and ended up spending not a little time with them over the weekend.
…an unexpectedly gorgeous gorge
See pictures and description here
…for something to do
When we set out, Ruth was the only one with an official job at the wedding (photographer). By the time the rehearsal dinner was done though, we’d all picked up jobs to do: Bout/corsage pinning, cake cutting, and on-the-spot orchestration. I’m not sure about the others, but I felt right at home once I had a job to do.
…for the gas station guy
For the record, we didn’t go to Colorado to pick up men (or even to watch for them). And we didn’t pick up any men–but we did see some. We had some rather shocking encounters. For instance, there was the rather good looking guy at the gas station who walked right up to our window to ask us if we could back up–or, maybe we didn’t need to back up–oh wait–well, thanks anyway. And then there was the teenager in a truck with a fully loaded gun rack who gave us that “head tip” thing as we were driving along (Um, honey? Don’t go after older women like that.) We had plenty of laughs over the various male sightings we had (Like that? I speak of them as though they’re wild animals seen unexpectedly. But sometimes that’s how they seem.)
…for safety through the snow
It started snowing Saturday night and we chose to start our drive back that evening lest we be snowed in. It was pretty clear until Rifle, but then the weather got bad quickly. I’m thankful Anna had the wisdom to know when to call it quits–and the level head and sharp reflexes to get us through the slick mountain passes on Sunday morning.
…for talking things out
I think you might call what we had on our drive an argument, maybe even a fight. It was definitely disagreement. But it was an opportunity for all of us to speak from the heart, to listen to one another, to seek to come to a compromise. It wasn’t fun, but it was good.
All in all, it was a wonderful getaway. I’m so thankful that God brought me into community with the ladies I traveled with, that He brought Laurie into our lives and enabled us to go to her wedding. God has been good to us, very good.
Remember when I optimistically stated that I would do 2012 things in 2012?
Remember how I posted weekly updates for a grand total of five weeks before life got in the way?
Maybe you’ve forgotten my 2012 project.
Just for the record, I haven’t.
I’m still working on it–I just haven’t had a lot of time to record it or log it.
A weekly update is a bit beyond me at this point–but I still want to record my progress somehow.
Which is why I have created my 2012 Running List to help me get caught up.
As of right now, the list is woefully incomplete, with dozens of tasks already completed but not yet on the list.
But…it’s a step in the right direction, right?
I can hope so :-)
“She’s crazy!” my friend proclaimed from the front of the vehicle when I mentioned that I had just finished listening to Ann Coulter’s Demonic: How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America via the text-to-speech feature on my Kindle.
I’ll admit that this is a common reaction to Coulter–and one that I’m inclined to agree with.
I’m disappointed that this is the case, though, because her “crazy” often ends up masking that she’s also brilliant.
Coulter’s Demonic is typical of her books in that it is brash, liberal-bashing, and stuffed with well-researched connections between historical and modern events.
Coulter’s thesis is that “the Democratic Party is the party of the mob, irrespective of what the mob represents.” She argues that the Democrats gain power by encouraging mob behavior and then by manipulating said mob to their own means.
In the first part of Demonic, Coulter compares the behavior of modern day liberals to that of Gustave Le Bon’s description of a mob in The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (published in 1896).
“All the characteristics of mob behavior set forth by Le Bon in 1895 are evident in modern liberalism–simplistic, extreme black-and-white thinking, fear of novelty, inability to follow logical arguments, acceptance of contradictory ideas, being transfixed by images, a religious worship of their leaders, and a blind hatred of their opponents.”
Coulter unpacks each of these characteristics, citing dozens of prominent examples for each accusation. To the accusation that all American politics is simply mob behavior, she offers conservative counterexamples (For example, the criticism that Ronald Reagan experienced from conservatives during his eight year presidency as a counterexample to political “idol” worship.)
In the second part of Demonic, Coulter argues that Liberal mob behavior has its roots in the lawless French Revolution–a revolution about as foreign to the American Revolution as you can get (despite modern attempts to compare them). In this second section, Coulter devotes less time to insulting modern liberals and focuses on the history of the respective revolutions–leaving the reader to draw parallels with modern times as she contrasts the French Revolution’s godless mobs and the American Revolutionaries’ objections which, only as a last resort (and with careful advance planning by a thoughtful assembly), resulted in violent war. Interestingly, Coulter describes how the Founding Fathers were of a split opinion regarding the original Boston Tea Party–with some arguing that it was too close to mob behavior while others argued that it was not mob-like because it had been carefully planned only after lawful attempts at protest had been exhausted. Apparent in all the Founding Fathers’ discussion of the Tea Party was their inherent distaste for mob behavior.
Which leads to the third part of Demonic, in which Coulter describes the tendency of liberals to instigate, abet, and defend violent mobs. Coulter gives the college campus protests of the sixties, civil rights mobs (both on the pro- and anti- civil rights sides), and the Central Park rape case as examples of the above. She also works through a number of media accusations of violent behavior from conservatives, finding that in most cases the accusations were overblown (or the violent individuals and groups were not conservatives after all.)
Finally, Coulter attempts a psychoanalysis of liberal mobs, asking “Why would anyone be a liberal?” She answers her own question by saying that liberals 1) have a thirst for popularity, 2) ignore the history of the French Revolution and therefore commit its same mistakes, and 3) hate traditional morality and are willing to do anything to overthrow it. Coulter ends by trying (not entirely successfully) to explain her cryptic title, explaining that Satan is the father of the mob.
Can you see the “crazy” even in just my description of Demonic? Coulter has a determined animosity towards liberals and makes no attempt to hide it. She isn’t going to “play nice” or “soften the blow” with meaningless affirmations. She says it exactly as she sees it.
Unfortunately (I think), this animus is likely to make most people dismiss the connections Coulter has made between historical and current events. I think her readers are likely to either agree with her animosity and be confirmed in their biases against liberals and liberalism or they are going to disagree with her animosity and take offense–most on either side missing the historical warning against mob-like behavior.
For my part, I like to think that I’m a more discriminating reader–able to glean valuable insight that will help me to combat mob behavior wherever it is found (on the left or the right or anywhere else) without adopting Coulter’s abrasive attitude towards the Left.
And I pray, that by God’s grace, I would recognize that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph 6:12).
While I fully support strong action against unlawful mob behavior, my war is not against the mob. While I am a committed conservative, my war is not against liberals. My war is spiritual, not physical.
I have a different strategy than political machinations, than legal cases, than military action. My strategy is to fasten truth as a belt around my waist, to let righteousness guard my chest, to prepare my feet to share the gospel of peace, to trust God to deflect the devil’s arrows, to let salvation be a crown on my head, and to fight with God’s word to advance the gospel of Christ (Eph 6:13-20).
I will love my enemies–not in the sense that I will capitulate to a mob’s demands–but in the sense that I will sacrifice in order that they can know salvation in Christ. How can I do any less when my Savior responded to the truly evil mob (including myself) who demanded His death by offering His life to the Father as a ransom for the mob’s sin?
“Beauty was created by God for a purpose: to give us the experience of wonder. And wonder, in turn, is intended to lead us to the ultimate human expression and privilege: worship. Beauty is both a gift and a map. It is a gift to be enjoyed and a map to be followed back to the source of the beauty with praise and thanksgiving.”
~Steve DeWitt from Eyes Wide Open, quoted by Tim Challies
The wedding wasn’t until three–and Laurie didn’t expect any of us to be there until one, which left us with a free morning in Colorado.
“Do you have any suggestions for what we should see tomorrow morning?” we asked at the rehearsal dinner.
Laurie suggested the Black Canyon and gave us basic directions.
Okay, we thought. We’ll check it out. See the little local wonders in our free time.
As we drove along the designated road, we wondered if we’d missed it. “Was that it?” we wondered.
And then there it was. We stopped, aghast at how we’d underestimated the place.
We moved eagerly from look-out point to look-out point, running as quickly as we safely could to see as much of the canyon as possible in our limited time.
“How can anyone see this and say there is no God?” we wondered aloud.
And then we turned our attentions upward to praise the God who made this beauty. We lifted our voices, singing what was becoming our trip’s theme song:
“Bless the Lord, O my soul
O-o-o my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before, O my soul
Worship His holy nameThe sun comes up, it’s a new day dawning
It’s time to sing Your song again
Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me
Let me be singing when the evening comes”~From “10,000 Reasons” by Matt Redman
On the drive through the Rockies, I’d asked how the mountain chain was formed–and had looked up the answer on my Kindle (I <3 Free 3G!) Per current geological understanding, the Rockies were formed via plate tectonics in the Laramide orogeny. The Black Canyon of the Gunnison was the result of swiftly moving water gradually cutting down rock to create the beauty we see now.
Stephen Altrogge’s comment strikes me:
“Spiritual coldness isn’t the result of a single life-changing event. It’s the cumulative result of a thousand small, seemingly insignificant choices, like neglecting prayer, shunning fellowship, and ignoring the word of God. True spiritual fire isn’t the result of one, over the top, mountaintop, spiritual high experience. It’s the beautiful accumulation of consistent time invested in the spiritual disciplines. Our spiritual lives are the result of many small actions piled on top of each other.”
~Stephen Altrogge, via Vitamin Z
The raw material from which God would form the mountain was made in a single creative act at the beginning of creation–but the beautiful mountain and canyon were not built in a day, or in a single experience. They are the result of years and years of steady influence, shaping them into what I wondered at this weekend.
In the same way, God created spiritual life in me in a single act when He saved me. But a beautiful spiritual life is not formed in a day or in a single experience. It is the result of years and years of continued submission to the hand of God, allowing Him to shape me.
The little choices of submission are hard, but the end result is worth it. For I trust that someday someone will look at this little canyon and wonder. And I trust that someday, when someone looks at this little canyon in wonder, they will turn their eyes to Christ and worship.
It is for that reason I invest in spiritual disciplines, like a mountain submitting to the relentless flow of water. Because a beautiful life brings Him glory.
May I ever see beauty and wonder at it, worshiping the One who made it.
And may my life become beautiful, that I might incite those who see me to wonder at and worship the One who made me.
Don’t forget to take a look at Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week.
I meant it when I said that the only lamb we’d be feasting on at my Seder would be Christ.
I really intended to serve beef (and beef only).
But lamb was the only meat (apart from ham) that I could find with a bone in it.
I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to lie.
We’ll be enjoying lamb (and beef) tomorrow night.
Usually, I have a super-abundance of ideas to blog about and not anywhere near enough days in which to put the blogging. That’s still probably true, but for the past several weeks I’ve had no time to organize my thoughts into blog format.
I’ve been saved by the never-ending Haggadah series (which was written as one long post about a month ago and then split into what you’ve gotten over the past several weeks)-but my pre-prepared posts have run out.
I’m officially on empty.
Enter the Simple Woman’s Daybook, a lovely look at what’s going on today.
Outside my window…
Darkness. Darkness when I left for work and darkness when I arrived back home.
I am thinking…
That self-pity is not an attractive look on me.
I am thankful…
That God loves me enough to bring me into difficult seasons.
In the kitchen…
Leftover dishes from the weekend.
I am wearing…
This evening’s dinner on my shirt. One of the (many) down-sides to eating on the run.
I am creating…
My Haggadah for the Seder I’ll be celebrating this weekend.
I am going…
Crazy.
I am wondering…
Whether I will be able to get enough done tomorrow to allow me to actually take off the day I allotted as vacation (to prepare for my Seder) this week.
I am reading…
Without a Doubt by Kenneth Richard Samples
I am hoping…
That I can wake up at a decent hour tomorrow morning.
I am looking forward to…
Going to a friend’s wedding in Colorado in a few weeks.
I am learning…
About Prader-Willi, the Trinity, and woodworking
Around the house…
Clothes that haven’t been laundered, sawdust and splinters from making some leaves for my dining room table, and a yard that’s begging for a cutting
I am pondering…
The number of hours in the day
A favorite quote for today…
“Your circumstances are not your life. Christ Jesus is your life.” ~Cindy
One of my favorite things…
A warm bath on a chilly night.
A few plans for the rest of the week:
Taking Friday off (maybe?), having 20+ over for a Seder, decorating some blown eggs (maybe?), and seeing my brother (but not his new wife, sad face) before he leaves for Okinawa
A peek into my day life…
You don’t want to see my day, unless you’re really keen on calculations of weight loss and tube feeding formulations or completing reports or auditing supplement use…
But I’m sure no one would ever NOT want to look when I’ve got a picture of the Little Miss to share.
She came up for my 27 Dresses birthday party a couple weeks back and I had fun taking pictures of her after the party was over.
Don’t forget to check out more daybooks here.
I recently purchased a Kindle (rather a shock to everyone, myself included) and have been doing a bit of browsing of the free books available in Kindle format.
Many of my favorite classics are available for free, for which I am immensely grateful–but I’ve also enjoyed looking at some books that I otherwise might never have picked up. Books like Mrs. Isabella Beeton’s The Book of Household Management.
I’m not sure exactly when The Book of Household Management was written, but it was sometime between 1836 and 1865, since that is the dates of Mrs. Beeton’s life. (Crazy that she only lived to age 29!)
Some of the advice gets somewhat strange, intended as it was for a totally different age. But some of it rings out with ageless truth.
“To live well in abundance is the praise of the estate, not of the person.”
~Bishop Hall, quoted by Mrs. Isabella Mary Beeton in The Book of Household Management
It is when my resources seem insufficient that I can test and prove good management. It is no credit to me when I can live well with plenty.
“No man is rich whose expenditure exceeds his means, and no one is poor whose incomings exceed his outgoings.”
~Judge Halliburton, quoted by Mrs. Isabella Mary Beeton in The Book of Household Management
In a culture that forever cries out “more, more” and dreams of getting rich, when those around me have nicer clothing and cars and houses, this is a good reminder. Oftentimes, even in material things, I am richer than they. They are enslaved, in debt, in order to obtain their belongings. I have sufficiency and am not indebted.
“Recreation is intended to the mind as whetting is to the scythe, to sharpen the edge of it, which would otherwise grow dull and blunt. He, therefore, that spends his whole time in recreation is ever whetting, never mowing; his grass may grow and his steed starve; as, contrarily, he that always toils and never recreates, is ever mowing, never whetting, labouring much to little purpose.”
~Bishop Hall, quoted by Mrs. Isabella Mary Beeton in The Book of Household Management
I love this illustration and how it warns against the two extremes that we all are prone to fall into. May I be a sharp blade, put diligently to the task.
Don’t forget to take a look at Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week.
Prompt #13: “Do you remember having the chicken pox, mumps, or any other childhood diseases? Were you ever seriously ill as a child? How did your mother take care of you?”
We were vaccinated and managed to avoid measles, mumps, rubella. We also managed to escape chronic ear infections, that scourge of infancy.
What we were unable to avoid was chicken pox.
We got the pox.
And then we got it again.
And then again a third time.
I only vaguely remember Pox #1 and Pox #2. They were brief incidents with a few spots sprinkled about.
But Pox #3–oh that Pox #3.
It was eighteen years ago. I was eight and we were experiencing an unseasonably warm March (perhaps a little like this March?) We kids wanted nothing more than to be outside after a winter of being cooped up, all six of us and Mom, in the house doing schoolwork.
But we weren’t allowed to go outside.
Sunlight was bad for kids who had chicken pox.
We couldn’t spend too much time in the sunlight.
We were, however, allowed to ride our bikes to our friends’ houses to explain to them why we wouldn’t be able to play. Then we had to go right back home.
Mom was busy nesting, finishing up Easter dresses for Anna and I (Easter came early that year) and making outfits to bring the new baby home from the hospital in. It had been ten years since she’d brought a baby home from the hospital–it definitely called for a new outfit.
We kids were a bit concerned when we learned that our having the chickenpox might mean bad news for the new baby. The new baby might not be able to fight off the chickenpox–and it could make her very ill.
We kids kept busy preparing a birthday party for me. My birthday was on the fourteenth of March, and our friends were going to be on Spring Break that week. We desperately wanted to have a party–and hoped that we would be scabbed over in time for our child-directed party to commence according to schedule.
Monday the fourteenth, we discovered (to our great joy) that the last of our spots had scabbed over. We were good to go. The party was good to go. The baby need only wait one week before she was good to come.
So we gathered our friends and had our party, playing games in our large backyard before enjoying some cake served from the back porch.
A week and a day later, our baby sister was born, safe from the chicken pox that had earlier ravaged our household.
None of us would get the chicken pox again. Not the ones of us who’d had it all three times. Not the ones who’d had it only twice or one time. Not the one of us who’d escaped it altogether.
That’s right.
Grace never developed the chicken pox.
After being exposed approximately every year after age four, Grace finally was vaccinated before starting high school at the public school.
Our best guess was that she somehow managed to develop immunity pre-birth or shortly thereafter, what with seven cases of chicken pox in the house a couple of weeks before her birth.
I briefly mentioned chicken pox a couple weeks ago when I was talking about my little sister being born–and now I’ve decided to flesh out that topic. Today’s prompt:
Do you remember having the chicken pox, mumps, or any other childhood diseases? Were you ever seriously ill as a child? How did your mother take care of you?
I’ll be posting later this evening since I’m (big surprise) rather busy these days.