Wise Decisions …

A few days ago, Sophie, a medical missionary in Ethiopia, wrote these words in her blog:

The particularly heart-breaking part of the day came when a mom with twin 4-month olds came.   But you need to hear the beginning of the story first.  2 weeks ago, a mom brought twin babies and asked if we would take the smaller of the 2.  She said that she doesn’t have enough milk for both of them.  We weighed them, and at 4 months, they were 6 and 12 pounds.  Instead of taking the little one, Mary gave the mom a bunch of our feeding program granola.  The mom would eat it and her milk supply would increase—we’ve seen it happen many, many times.  The mom didn’t seem terribly thrilled with the idea, but took it anyway.  Fast forward to yesterday.  The mom came back for more food.  We weighed the babies, and both of them had lost weight—about 3 ounces each.  Mary told her that she’s done.  She apparently didn’t eat the food (they can sell it for a premium price), and she wasn’t allowed to come back.  The little one is going to die, and that stinks.  I asked if we could just take him for a couple weeks….please?  Mary was choked up, but said that we cannot encourage irresponsibility.  It’s better for one kiddo to die now, than for many parents to figure out that we’ll take their babies after irresponsible choices—resulting in potentially more deaths later.  In my head it makes sense, but this is a baby!  I wish we would have taken him before.  I would have had him all chunked up in a couple weeks.   I’ve felt like I have a rock in my heart ever since yesterday.  And I’ve been praying a lot.  Reminding God that He loves this little one more than anyone, and begging Him to wrap the baby up in His arms.  Because I can’t fix him.  And that stinks.

I hate reading this kind of stuff.  I cry for Sophie.  I cry for Mary  (bosses have  to make tough decisions sometimes.)

And I wonder about parents.

A mom in Ethiopia who would sell food rather than eat it, all the while knowing that her choice will result in her child’s death.

I wonder.

Here, in the “you couldn’t find our ribs if you tried” USA, parents ask for money to put coats and shoes on their kids while refusing to give up their cable TV, wireless devices, etc.

I wonder.

We (our church body) has a plan to give 50% of our income to Missions or the needy by 2015. This is a huge undertaking.   We’re nowhere near that now, but we’ve budgeted to more than double last year’s giving in 2010.

We are learning to wean ourselves now, doing without “luxuries” so others might have necessities.  As we give more in the future, I hope we can make wise decisions about the object of the giving.

I hope we don’t give to the mom who’ll let the kids starve anyway.   I hope and pray that if I have to make decisions in this effort that the Holy Spirit guides my every action.

Father, please don’t allow me to harden my heart.

The decision to give is easy.  Who to give to, and from whom to withhold, well — wow….

…. until next time ….

Discipline

discipline (dis´Ə plin) n., v., -plined, -plining. –n.

1. training to act in accordance with rules; drill: military discipline. 2. activity, exercise, or a regimen that develops or improves a skill;  training: A daily stint at the typewriter is excellent discipline for a writer. 3. punishment inflicted by way of correction and training.   4. the rigor or training effect of experience, adversity, etc.: the harsh discipline of poverty. 5. behavior in accord with rules of conduct; behavior and order maintained by training and control: good discipline in an army. 6. a set or system of rules and regulations.   7. Eccles. the system of government regulating the practice of a church as distinguished from its doctrine.   8. an instrument of punishment, esp. a whip or scourge, used in the practice of self-mortification or as an instrument of chastisement in certain religious communities.   9. a branch of instruction or learning: the disciplines of history and economics. —v.t. 10. to train by instruction and exercise; drill   11. to bring to a state of order and obedience by training and control.   12. to punish or penalize in order to train and control; correct; chastise.  [1175 - 1225; ME < AF < L disciplina instruction, tuition, equiv. to discipul(us) DISCIPLE + ina -INE]

The above complements of The Random House Dictionary of The English Language, Second Edition, Unabridged, Copyright © 1987 (yeah, it’s an old dictionary — I like my big old red dictionary.)

Why define discipline? Well, here’s why.

Consider the following:

We were designed by our Creator to see Him revealed in this world and enjoy a relationship with Him. But through our own choices we fell and we broke. Now we exist to mend the Broken so they can reach the Broken. And we can only do this with God and together.

• Our Mission is to Mend The Broken to Reach The Broken
• Our Vision is to give 50% of our income to missions and the needy.
• Our Values spring from our highest value…Loving Relationships
• Our Foundation is Home Churches, (Fueled) Empowered by those Churches Gathered
• Our Balance is between Mission to the World and Ministry to the Body
• Our Strategy is Spiritual Formation, through each persons commitment to the Spiritual Disciplines

Spiritual Disciplines.

One source defines a spiritual discipline as a habit or regular pattern in your life that repeatedly brings you back to God and opens you up to what God is saying to you.

John Wesley believed that Jesus is God’s means of grace. For him, the “means of grace” were also “works of piety” (spiritual disciplines) and “works of mercy” (doing good to others) ….

Wesley talked about a variety of works of piety:

The chief of these means are prayer, whether in secret or with the great congregation; searching the scriptures; (which implies reading, hearing, and meditating thereon;) and receiving the Lord’s Supper, eating bread and drinking wine in remembrance of Him: And these we believe to be ordained of God, as the ordinary channels of conveying his grace to the souls of men.

BuildingChurch.net tells us that personal spiritual disciplines are broken into the internal: meditation, prayer, fasting, and study; and external: simplicity, stewardship, solitude, submission, service, and evangelism.

OK, then.   A discipline, for my purpose here, is an activity, exercise, or regimen (habit) that improves a skill.  The activities are prayer, searching the scriptures, meditation, receiving the Lord’s Supper, and fasting.  The skill is to hear God.

So.  Put it together, and it says, Habitually praying, studying and meditating on the Scriptures, eating and drinking in remembrance of the Lord’s sacrifice, and fasting will help to open me up to God and allow me to hear what He’s saying to me.

Habitually pray.

Habitually study.

Habitually remember the Lord.

Habitually meditate.

And so on.

I’m pretty good a bad habits.

I wonder how I’ll do if I try establishing one or more good ones?

Try some intentionality, maybe??

Mirror

There once was a big ole mirror on the wall behind the vanity in the hall bathroom.  Under orders At my wife’s suggestion, I pulled the old mirror down in order to hang a smaller one.

Well, the small mirror is hung, but now we’ve got this big honkin’ mirror and no place to put it.

It is “temproarily” leaning up against the little desk in our spare bedroom office.

It is leaning so that every time I sit at the computer and look to the left, I see my profile.

It ain’t pretty (though I finally like the way my face looks in this pic.)

White socks, maroon  “Downhill Racer” lounge pants, and olive tee-shirt over a fabulously toned physique.

I don’t often get this view of myself, and I’m glad I don’t.

Maybe I should get a little more exercise ….

Maybe I should think a little more about portion size at the table ….

 

Maybe …

 

Just maybe …

 

Maybe i should revisit the “mirdle” (remember that?) …

Fetching in White

 

 

Maybe I’ll just move the mirror….

Facebook Friend Request

A few of my FaceBook friends:

I haven’t ‘penned’ anything for months, it seems.

No one’s anxiously awaiting my next missive.  95% of my hits are the results of  searches for “newcastle brown ale” or “froot loops.”  The other five are my regular readers.

Hey, newcastle and froot loops people…. how’re you doin’?

I forget, sometimes, that this blog thing is for me (It’s OK if you read it, and its more than OK if you like it — don’t get me wrong — you’re welcome here) and me alone.

I use it when playing online poker for pretend chips doesn’t do it for me any more.

I use it when there’re no football games worth watching on the mesmeric screen in the other room.

I use it when something itches and I can’t seem to effectively scratch it.

I use it when I can’t concentrate (writing stream of conscience jabberwocky can sometimes be fruitful — more fruitful than the storied room full of monkeys with typewriters, I guess.)

I’m using it now.

People around me are getting more and more into story-telling — I do this.

I have a long, involved story that’s rather hard to tell.  There was a lot going on.

I’ve written little bits and pieces of it. Tiny chunks of my life laid artificially (minimally) bare.

I’m not sure I like where this little bit’o'fluff is going.

OK.  Here’s a little story.

I was reading someone else’s wall on FaceBook a few weeks ago, and came across a comment by this guy I’d gone to high school with.  I fired off a ‘friend request’  (I don’t usually do that.  I keep a low profile and let the ‘friends’ come to me – thus proving their worthiness) right then.  The next day, I got a message from him:

“Hi Bob.I don’t seem to remember you from high school.Do you remember me?If so let me know.”

You don’t remember me?

How, when I spent my whole being keeping a low profile, sitting away from the center, speaking quietly if I ever spoke at all, rarely reaching out to anyone, can you say that you don’t remember me??

I’m shocked!

… and i was … until I remembered who I was, and who I had been in school.

Why should anyone remember me?

I looked at my senior yearbook and read my “accomplishments.”  Not much there.

You can read “throwing People away” to see how I treated people back then.

Why would anyone remember me?  I’m just lucky that the people who did, did. (— it’s awkward, but I like it —)

So, I wrote back, and told him who I was, and who my best friend back then (see that blog post again) was, and some other stuff.

He accepted my ‘friend request.’

Vindicated.

End of story?

(man, I knew I didn’t like where this was goin’)

Chili Powder Day

I need to make chili powder for the pie/casserole/whatever Saturday.  I’m down to just one tablespoon of my last batch. The following recipe is based on Alton Brown’s 2004 chili powder recipe.  I’ve changed the varieties of chilies to what I can get here in lil’ ole Cartersville, substituted regular paprika for the virtually unavailable smoked variety, and added onion powder.

I make chili powder the same way I make everything — a little differently each time.

A friend asked me about the recipe for a spaghetti pie I made for home group a few months back, and I was stymied as to my reply.  First, I don’t remember making the thing, and, second, I didn’t use a recipe.

I probably made a sauce from (shh!) canned concentrated crushed tomatoes, some herbs (italian parsley,rosemary, and marjoram) from the little raised bed out front, herbs/spices from the cupboard (oregano, thyme, sage), fresh chopped garlic, a touch of something chile hot (pepper sauce or the like), and something sweet (molasses, honey, sugar, brown sugar — just whatever strikes my fancy while I’m there.)  The protein was whatever we had — usually chicken breast or ground turkey, unless we were being evil that week with beef.

Anyway, that’s the process.  check the cupbord, and make something with that stuff.

Except for bread — any bread.  For bread, I follow the recipe.  My biscuits are getting better, but I wouldn’t put them up against anyone else’s in a competition.

Anyway.  Chili Powder We have in the cupboard today:

Dried Ancho chiles, New Mexico chiles, and chiles Japones.

The Anchos have very little heat, but are packed with flavor.  The taste of dried Ancho is reminiscent of prune, raisin, and red wine (to me, anyway.)

There’s a touch more heat in the New Mexico’s, but not much.  They add a lighter fruit / sweet flavor to the mix.

The Japones put the heat into this powder.  They are not as hot as the De Arbol — the recommended chile for this powder — but they’re what I got, eh?

OK, now.  I take six each of the above named chiles, and remove the stems and (most of) the seeds.  Then with a pair of kitchen shears, I slice the chiles into manageable sized pieces.

There.  The prep work’s done.  Time to get cookin’.  I take half the chopped chiles and cook them in a large skillet at medium-high (7 on my electric stove) with two tablespoons whole cumin.

This cumin happens to be Indian cumin.  I’m not sure where the cumin I usually use comes from.

— NOTE: A quick side trip through google-land tells me that there’s really no difference between my ‘Indian’ cumin and any other cumin. —

Cook this stuff until you can really smell the cumin releasing its essential oils.

Caution!  If you cook this mixture too long, the wonderful essential oils from the chiles will release in force and you will feel a catch in the back of your throat.  If you have a stove-top vent that vents to the outside, go ahead and turn it on.  If you have one of those so-called vents that vents into your kitchen, DO NOT – Repeat – DO NOT turn on that fan.  It will blow that pepper gas right into your face, and your next hour or so will not be happy.

OK. Once the first batch is done, remove it to a bowl to cool and cook the rest of the peppers with another couple of tablespoon of the cumin.

Now, take a short break.  The next step is to grind all the cumin, peppers, and and two tablespoons of oregano in a blender, coffee grinder, or whatever pulverizer you’re happiest with.  But don’t do that until the peppers are cooled to room temperature.

Repeat.  don’t grind the peppers until they have cooled off.  Think pepper spray.  Mace. Tear gas.  Be patient.

When everything’s cool, pour the mix into your grinding apparatus.

It’s up to you, but I chose to pour a glass of Cabernet for the next part of the process.

Then, SEAL the grinder.  You don’t want this explosive dust flying around your house.

Then, grind it until you like the consistency:

Once you like the size of the granules, sit down and wait again.  Wait until the dust inside that appliance settles (again, think mace.)  Enjoy that glass of wine.  Then, when you’ve given the chiles time to settle down, mix in 4 tablespoons of garlic powder, two tablespoons of onion powder, and 2 teaspoons of paprika.

Pour the mix into your favorite storage container,

Cover, and remove to the fridge.

You now have a great starter ingredient for your next chili.

Pour another glass of wine and think about how you’re gonna use your new, home-made chili powder.  And don’t answer the phone from downstairs.

Stupid Men

Johan C. Karremans, Thijs Verwijmeren, Tila M. Pronk, and Meyke Reitsma, after grueling study, say,

“Interacting with women can impair men’s cognitive functioning”

From thelondonpaper.com, “Researchers: Talking to women makes men thick”

Or as The Telegraph says. “Men lose their minds speaking to pretty women.”

We needed this study.

A group of heterosexual men (others were excluded from the test) were given a memory test.  Each of them then was put in a situation where he talked exclusively with a man or a woman for a period of time.  After the talk, each man took the test again.

After talking to a man, each man scored essentially the same as before the talk.

After talking to women, the men all scored lower.

After talking to what the study called attractive women, the men scored even LOWER in the after-test.

Women subjected to a similar experiment scored essentially the same before and after, no matter who they talked to.

The researchers think that we men expend our brain power preening and generally showing off ( the instinctive mating dance, they say) for the women-folk.  Then, brain-spent, we take the test again and score lower.

I don’t wait until after the talk to get stupid.  I immediately turn into a dumb-ass around women.  I always have.  No preening period for me.  I’m a quick stupid.  I think that’s what they may find so endearing about me.

I do, however, pretend to be not-me.    I don’t waste brain-power on showing off, I spend everything I have just trying hide who I really am, and not to trip over my tongue, my feet, or some other obstacle.  Maybe hiding is my mating ritual….

---- hiding ----

I don’t know how I’d score on the test though….

What do you think? Are these researchers right?  I’d like to see the experiment extended to see the result with those of other sexual persuasions….

Smiling…

A younger blogger from the east said this earlier today:

“Now that things have changed, I have started to feel, “is that all to life?” I have new desires, new wishes and new dreams. I have evolved. I can almost feel my wings now. I want to fly . . . There will always be more to life than what we are conditioned to think. There will always be more beauty in the world than what we have seen or believe.”

Another (from just down the road this time) recently posted:

Similar attitudes from such divers folk.

Young people make me smile.

Do What You Say You Will Do

My very first blog entry (a whole 18 months ago) was a little blurb about how we don’t.

Do what we say we will do.

Back in CorporateLand when I had the window office and thought people actually listened to what I said and wrote, there was a placard on the wall just above my head and behind me.  It was positioned so that anyone who sat in one of the chairs facing my desk could not help but to see it.

It read, “DO WHAT YOU SAY YOU WILL DO.”

I used to think it strange how many people wouldn’t.  Do what they said they’d do.

I used to think I did.  Do what I said I’d do.

Now I know I can’t.  And I shouldn’t expect you to, either.

But I do wish we’d both try harder.

I’m still disappointed when either of us don’t.  I just don’t throw things across the office anymore.  They’re my things, and I’d just have to fix’em.

Something to make us all happy?

“Cause I just don’t have the words right now….

Dear Mister Fantasy play us a tune
Something to make us all happy
Do anything take us out of this gloom
Sing a song, play guitar
Make it snappy
You are the one who can make us all laugh
But doing that you break out in tears
Please don’t be sad if it was a straight mind you had
We wouldn’t have known you all these years

Bee(r) Stingers

My sister-in-law was stung by a wasp yesterday.

She was outside, enjoying her above-ground pool at the time.  She reached for her can of beer, put it to her mouth, and turned it up.

With the onrush of cool, refreshing Milwaukee’s Best (ugh!) came a wasp who had innocently been enjoying the brew in the shade inside the can.

She (I read somewhere that male wasps don’t have the capability to sting) was washed out of the can, and ended up in Carol’s mouth.  Her natural instinct (as it is with many females in an awkward situation) was to defend attack.

She stung Carol on her tongue.

That’s gotta hurt.

According to brother-in-law’s report, her tongue began to swell, and she soon was unable to swallow.

Uh Oh.

No swallow, no more beer!

He took her to the local emergency room, where she was put on a benedryl drip IV and forced to undergo “quiet time.”

Brother-in-law went home and got some quiet time himself.

After three hours of IV and rest, Carol was allowed to leave the medical palace and return home.

I think her episode is one of the most compelling reasons to only drink beer in the bottle or on tap, don’t you?

My advice — buy a six-pack of Milwaukee’s Best,

and buy enough Newcastle Ale (or similar middle of the road amber ale) in the bottle or mini-keg to last through the day.

Open all six of the Milwaukee’s Bests and place them strategically around your group, at least fifteen feet away from anyone.  Let these cans draw and drown all wasps, flies, etc.

Chill and drink the Newcastle Ale.

When your idiot neighbor comes over to complain about the noise/music/acrid smell/etc., offer him a Milwaukee’s Best.