Simplify?

Simplify. It's a common refrain among people these days. It makes sense.

Today I was shopping at our neighborhood craft store for school supplies with our son. I came across a wooden sign, about 20 inches across, made up of the letters: S I M P L I F Y.

If you're trying to pare down, why would you want to buy a sign to clutter your house that reminds you to simplify?

Simplify.

And So Can You!

Early this evening, I attended a candidates' forum for our town. Audience members submitted questions which were then answered by the mayoral and city council candidates.

After returning home, I joined my family in watching the Colorado Rockies baseball team play their wild card tie-breaker game on TV. The game was forced into extra innings, and things looked pretty grim when the Padres scored two runs in the top of the thirteenth. To make matters worse, the Padres' 'closer' is very good and I must admit I thought it was all over. But in the bottom of the thirteenth, we scored one run. Two runs to tie it. And then the runner on third slid into home plate on a pop fly to score the winning run. The Rockies won the game!

These two events reminded me of a children's book, In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson, by Bette Bao Lord. In the book is a wonderful speech given by a school teacher to her class.

"In our national pastime, each player is a member of a team, but when he comes to bat, he stands alone. One man. Many opportunities. For no matter how far behind, how late in the game, he, by himself, can make a difference. He can change what has been. He can make it a new ball game.

"In the life of our nation, each man is a citizen of the United States, but he has the right to pursue his own happiness. For no matter what his race, religion or creed, be he pauper or president, he has the right to speak his mind, to live as he wishes within the law, to elect our officials and stand for office, to excel. To make a difference. To change what has been. To make a better America.

"And so can you! And so must you!"

Thank you, Lord, for the many ways in which we can make a difference. Thank you for Your Son, who made the ultimate difference. And, dare I say it in the same breath.....GO ROCKIES!!!!

Ruby Red Glass

At the risk of sounding like I'm promoting the famous expensive coffee shop you find all over America...

I hadn't been in one for about a year, but I found myself there on Sunday afternoon while waiting for my son to finish a Scout activity. I perchanced to read this very interesting quote on my tea cup:

"I don't know if something can be too colorful. Color is one of the great properties of glass and is more intense in glass than any other material. Imagine entering Chartres Cathedral and looking up at the rose window: you can see a one-inch square of ruby red glass from 300 feet away."

Dale Chihuly
Artist and glassblower

When you are inside a church, the intensity of the sun illumines those small pieces of colored glass in the windows, just as the Son illumines the Father for us.

Conversely, when it is dark outside and you are looking INTO a church that is lit up, you can see the colorful stained glass windows from your vantage point. We need to be like that beautiful window. Lit from within by our Lord, and laying open the truth to those in darkness.

(photo of the rose window at Chartres Cathedral, France)

Of Wasps and Wimps

This afternoon, while cleaning some things from outside, I inadvertently awakened a hibernating wasp from his slumber. So upset and startled was he, that he promptly stung me on the middle finger of my right hand. I immediately put my finger on an ice regime, and read our First Aid book, which said to do the same thing. It didn't help one bit. Then I tried soaking my hand in warm water. Perhaps that would help. Nope.

After (not too graciously) enduring pain for several hours, I felt no better, and considered my self quite the wimp. After taking Tylenol, to no avail, I did a computer search for some alternative pain relievers. I tried an antihistamine. No good. I tried white vinegar. Didn't work. Several websites suggested chewing up some Plantain (a common weed) and applying the substance to the site. Not sure we have any Plantain growing yet.

Then, FINALLY, I found something that worked.

Mix together:

1 tsp chopped onion
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp apple cider vinegar

Apply the paste to the sting site with a clean cotton cloth. Hold the cloth tightly for 15 minutes.

The recipe did the trick, and I can finally type with relative ease. This whole episode got me to thinking...

How many times do we apply the world's remedies to a situation in our lives? Aren't the results usually ineffective? But then, what happens when we try a simple and more natural remedy, that was given to us by God? Works every time, doesn't it?

A New Blog to Try

It was with sadness that I recently deleted the link to the very informative and thoughtful blog, Spunky Homeschool, because its author decided to quit writing.

I have just discovered a brand new blog, quite different from Spunky's, but written by another Christian woman whom I greatly admire. Ann Voskamp of Holy Experience has teamed up with writing buddy, Tonia, to create a new blog, The Sacred Everyday. I have added it to my list at right, precisely where Spunky's blog used to sit.

I urge you to check it out!

Just for fun...States I've Visited

I saw this on another blog and thought I'd see if it worked on mine.


create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

The Fragrance of the Son

For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.
2 Corinthians 2:15 (NKJV)

Living in Colorado, we use flannel sheets on our beds for about half of the year. Just this week, I was able to put away the flannel sheets until fall, and make our bed with "regular" sheets. When I lay my head down on the newly made bed of regular sheets that first night, I smelled the unmistakable fragrance of the sun. It's precisely this wonderful smell that makes it worthwhile for me to hang our clothes outside during the warmer months, but these sheets hadn't seen the sun in six months! Perhaps it was the lavender sachet in the linen closet that helped, but I marveled at how the sheets I had hung on the line last October still reminded me of that wonderful essence of Colorado sunshine.

When you think about it, the Bible mentions fragrance quite often. "An aroma pleasing to the Lord" in Old Testament sacrifices, the gifts of the Magi to the young Jesus, Mary (sister of Lazarus and Martha) anointing Jesus' feet (John 12) shortly before the triumphal entry, and the women coming to the tomb to anoint Jesus' body (Mark 16), just to name a few. The verse above was not one I had remembered in my Bible study, but it's certainly one to take to heart.

Thank you, Lord, for miraculously retaining that sunshine smell, and for reminding me of the fragrance of our Lord, which lasts so very much longer. Help me to be a fragrance of Christ for those who are perishing.

(Thanks to this web page for the picture above. It's got an interesting article about hand washing clothes in the past, too. And then for a bit of humor and a touch of sadness, go to this site to read all about the clothes drying covenants in Montgomery Village, Maryland, "One of the First Beautifully Planned Communities in the United States.")

Carnival of Beauty--Flowers

This week's carnival is up and running. Go here to see the list of women participating.

Late Night Musings

I played the Faure Requiem at a concert this evening. Such a beautiful piece.

While waiting to go onstage, there was quite a bit of activity in the "green room." The principal cellist was translating Greek, the solo violinist was practicing her part and debating the finer points of her practice mute, the trumpet players joked about how little they had to play, a violist and cellist were discussing Judge Judy, the bassoonists were discussing reeds, and I tried, not very successfully, to read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Solzhenitsyn writes about some of the prisoners, "[Alyoshka] and the other Baptists spent their Sundays whispering to each other...They'd been lumbered with twenty-five years a piece just for being Baptists. Fancy thinking that would cure them!"

Can you imagine. Twenty-five years for being a Baptist. Whew! Wonder what they whispered to each other on Sundays. We have so much to be thankful for here in America. We take it too much for granted.

I have a friend who lives in Minsk, Belarus. I hope some of this protesting by the opposition has a positive result. Pray for the people of Belarus. (Photo above is from Minsk.)

Today my son's favorite Cory catfish died. The other Cory stood guard over his little body in the tank so the other fish wouldn't mess with it. My son went out back and dug a hole in the backyard by the Blue Spruce tree. In the snow. Bless his heart. He liked this fish too much to flush it down the toilet. I went outside with him to give it a proper burial before I left for my rehearsal.

Mom said the kids were great. Always makes you feel good to hear that.

Cain and Abel Revisited

Ever since Cain slew Abel, men have been at war with each other. Cain, whose name means something akin to "Here he is," was brought forth with such promise. Adam and Eve looked upon him as the much hoped for deliverer, promised by God. The first baby born on earth grew up to be, not the deliverer, but a destroyer. Humankind didn't get past the first born of Adam and Eve before angry thoughts were translated into deadly action.

Support for the war in Iraq seems to wane, mainstream media and the entertainment industry swirl around in a constant Bush/war bashing mode, President Bush's approval ratings drop, and the Bush haters circle like sharks smelling blood in the water. Despite what you think of the president's handling of the war, the fact is the people who wanted us dead on September 11, 2001, haven't called a truce. They are still at war with us. And many of "us" don't seem to think our future hangs in the balance.

My husband and I have family members who want the U.S. out of Iraq yesterday. They think wars are awful and should not be fought for any reason. Oh, that it were that simple. Of course wars are awful! But the absence of war isn't always peace. It's often tyranny or oppression.

Clifford D. May, president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, recently wrote a good article comparing the worldview of many Americans with the Muslims who wish us dead. In part, he stated, "Postmodern Americans and Europeans may believe wars of conquest are obsolete, a discarded relic of the distant past. They may even see war itself as an aberration, an unnatural disruption of what they have convinced themselves is the “normal” state of peaceful coexistence. But our enemies view the world differently. Their perspective is of an older vintage.

"'The ordinary theme and argument of all history is war,' observed Sir Walter Raleigh in the early 17th century. Wishing that were no longer true does not make it so. We infidels pretend otherwise at our peril."

To read the entire article, go here. Then pray. Pray for our country. Our leaders. Our soldiers. Our children.

It's Deja Vu All Over Again

Here are excerpts from a great article by Mark Steyn, from Sunday's Chicago Sun-Times. For the complete article go to www.SteynOnline. It's worth reading.

Wake Up, Europe, You've a War on Your Hands
November 6, 2005
BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

As Thursday's edition of the Guardian reported in London: ''French youths fired at police and burned over 300 cars last night as towns around Paris experienced their worst night of violence in a week of urban unrest.''

''French youths,'' huh? Granted that most of the "youths" are technically citizens of the French Republic, it doesn't take much time in les banlieus of Paris to discover that the rioters do not think of their primary identity as ''French'': They're young men from North Africa growing ever more estranged from the broader community with each passing year and wedded ever more intensely to an assertive Muslim identity more implacable than anything you're likely to find in the Middle East.

For half a decade, French Arabs have been carrying on a low-level intifada against synagogues, kosher butchers, Jewish schools, etc. The concern of the political class has been to prevent the spread of these attacks to targets of more, ah, general interest. They seem to have lost that battle. Unlike America's Europhiles, France's Arab street correctly identified Chirac's opposition to the Iraq war for what it was: a sign of weakness.

The French have been here before, of course. Seven-thirty-two. Not 7:32 Paris time, which is when the nightly Citroen-torching begins, but 732 A.D. -- as in one and a third millennia ago. By then, the Muslims had advanced a thousand miles north of Gibraltar to control Spain and southern France up to the banks of the Loire. In October 732, the Moorish general Abd al-Rahman and his Muslim army were not exactly at the gates of Paris, but they were within 200 miles, just south of the great Frankish shrine of St. Martin of Tours. Somewhere on the road between Poitiers and Tours, they met a Frankish force and, unlike other Christian armies in Europe, this one held its ground ''like a wall . . . a firm glacial mass,'' as the Chronicle of Isidore puts it. A week later, Abd al-Rahman was dead, the Muslims were heading south, and the French general, Charles, had earned himself the surname ''Martel'' -- or ''the Hammer.''

If Chirac isn't exactly Charles Martel, the rioters aren't doing a bad impression of the Muslim armies of 13 centuries ago: They're seizing their opportunities, testing their foe, probing his weak spots. If burning the 'burbs gets you more ''respect'' from Chirac, they'll burn 'em again, and again.

What History Teaches Us

Monday, November 7, 2005

"What experience and history teach is this -- that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it."

G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) German philosopher

(I am not the student of history that I wish to be, so forgive forthcoming inaccuracies...)

In light of the terrible unrest and rioting in France of late, I sought to learn something from history. It was on this date (by the modern calendar), November 7, 1917, that the Bolshevik Revolution officially began in Russia. What might it have to do with France today? Consider this.

Fourteen years prior to 1917, Lenin's arm of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party were clearly in the minority. But at a party meeting in London, they were able to gain a majority vote when some other delegates left the meeting in anger over an issue of party membership. Because of their majority, they were able to win control of the party newspaper and the Central Committee. Lenin's belief was that his branch of the party could then seize power in Russia with the help of the workers and peasants. And, of course, they were successful shortly thereafter. Now, doesn't this sound familiar? A minority gains control gradually because the people who can control what happens are quibbling about lesser problems, or simply walking away. Then, the masterminds of revolution are aided by "workers and peasants." (My Denver newspaper describes the current French rioters as "youths," "unemployed residents of working-class neighborhoods," or "immigrants.")

Please don't misunderstand me, I am not against all immigrants, youths, or working-class people. But, in our current excess of political correctness and putting our heads in the sand, we (and to a greater degree, France) don't recognize what is happening here in the West.