Category Archives: Stuff I Actually Think

You Can Thank me Later

2 Mi Familia, 3 Celebrations & Festive Events, 9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Think

This was supposed to have been Thursday’s post.  Technical problems.  :(

A misc. gathering of tips and truth-nuggets that will bless your life.  ;)

Oh goodness…it happened again, didn’t it?  I went so long between blogs I am chattering away!

Plus, I have been experiencing technical difficulties.  Where is the blog-fairy when you flipping need her, I want to know???  Anyway – here goes…

avocado to guacamole

{source}

TIP:  Holy-guacamole! My best Kitchen-Tip-of-the-Week (or maybe the year…since I don’t actually ever share kitchen tips)

Because I may or may not actually be in the kitchen very much these days.

pastries

If you happen upon a 4/$1.00 avocado sale, you must take advantage, you just must!  Even though avocados don’t “last,” they can be mashed and frozen for Guacamole at a later date.  And you should be eating regular and copious amounts of guac.  Really.  You should.

And – when it is time to cut them in half all at once during that 3-minute window of perfection and you have a mountain of avocado halves in your biggest bowl to smash – attack with your handy-dandy pastry blender.  In just a few seconds, no kidding – seconds, you’ll have perfectly prepared avocado.  You can leave it chunky or blend until it’s creamy smooth, but the pastry cutter works so fast you’ll wonder what happened!

And speaking of avocados, I saw this hilarious thing on Pinterest last week and I actually for real LOLed!

not yet avocado print

TIP:  Hanging up now.

I always {at least try to} turn my phone notifications completely off when I am in a meeting or with anyone who means anything at all to me.  At least I believe in that.

But lately, I’ve been getting really sloppy at this, because – well, isn’t everyone else checking their phone round-the-clock these days?

The truth is, I have found I can actually turn it off or put it away for 90-minutes and it’s a proven fact I am not really that important anyway.  The universe goes right on spinning and the world doesn’t fall apart and the few texts and calls I may miss without my eyes on my phone haven’t been life or death.

I don’t mind turning my phone off and just leaving it off for people who warrant my time to begin with.  And I really feel warmly towards people who do the same for me ~ a surprising sweetness to my heart.

telephone rotary

TIP:  My Favorite TED Talks

First of all, I super-duper love TED Talks.  I have been exposed to some really fascinating ideas and seen things in the world I didn’t even know were happening, buildings I thought were only fantasies, possible solutions to world problems that have awed me – what a time to be alive!

TED “is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, under the slogan ‘ideas worth spreading’.”  – Wikipedia

The talks were meant to bring together people from the three worlds of Technology, Entertainment and Design, thus TED.

The problem with TED Talks, according to Professor Benjamin Bratton, who actually used the TED Talk platform to slam the TED Talks, said TED more likely stands for “middlebrow, megachurch infotainment,” and he believes that the 18-minute or less talks are way over-simplified and are “making our best and brightest waste their time—and the audience’s time—dancing like infomercial hosts.”  Yes.  maybe.

To me, though, they are like magazine articles or short papers.  I learn maybe a little something, get my mind expanded, discover valuable information I can use.

I watched the whole Chew on This Ted Talks series twice on Netflix and found it fascinating, as the various speakers sometimes even contradicted each other on the topic of food, supply, world hunger, the moral issues for carnivores and vegans.  I liked that it made me think about what they were saying and helped me form opinions about food issues in the world in these disconcerting times.

I admire intelligence and thoughtful propositions.  And even though I totally believe and see life much differently than many of the speakers do, most of them manage to enlarge my awe of God and confirm my delight in His Word and all He is and will ever be.  Because ideas come from the Father of Lights!

ted talks

So here is a list of 7 TED Talks I like in no particular order.

You should check them out!

1//

Derek Sivers: How to Start a Movement {CLICK HERE TO WATCH}

This one is seriously one of my favorites! It’s barely over 3 minutes long, but has been viewed by almost 3.5 million people.  I got such great understanding about the strength of what I bring to organizations I work with by watching this.  I love innovative, courageous, visionary people, I’m drawn to them.  And when I spot them, I want to be on their train, breathe the air they breathe and bleed the blood they bleed!  :)  And I bring courage for others to hop aboard, too.  I am a Deborah to a Barak, I’m Barney Rubble to Fred Flintstone, I’m the Lone Ranger’s Tonto.  This video actually helped me see that my leadership role in being a first-follower  is vital, not secondary.  I love cause and vision and being in the middle of creative chaos.  Visionaries are the most exciting people on earth and getting to be a propeller as a first follower, I am finally understanding, is my life’s work.

2//

Shawn Achor: The Happy Secret to Better Work 12:20 {CLICK HERE}

This guy can tell a story and this talk just makes me laugh, a really fun watch!  He is a psychologist exploring the idea that instead of working get happy, happiness will actually increase our productivity.  The idea of  “Escaping the Cult of Average” that we’ve been creating through science is awesome!

3//

Simon Sinek: How Great Leaders Inspire Action  18:04 {CLICK HERE}

This is one I just watched recently.  I knew it!  We do things, we believe things, we buy things, we give our lives to things from the inside out.  This is about the heart and soul of WHY.  I don’t live by reason alone (though I use my brain fully), I follow my guarded heart…

Above all else, guard your heart,  for everything you do flows from it. Proverbs 4.23

4//

Amy Cuddy: Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are  21:02 {CLICK HERE}

We know body language is “readable” and you can tell so  much about a person’s frame of mind from it, but I love that the research shows it isn’t just about reading what is, we can actually power-pose to create a completely different reality, encouraging ourselves through our own body language.  And it is very simple!

5//

Jane McGonigal: The Game that Can Give You 10 Extra Years of Life 19:30 {CLICK HERE}

She is a gamer.  I didn’t think I’d get much from this one, but she makes a great case for the good in games and relational connectedness through them.  It gave me great hope for my grandchildren’s futures, as we watch interaction becoming more and more digital, or cyber or whatever it is?  :)  This talk comes with a bonus – potential to find healing through a game AND you get 7 1/2 minutes added to your life just by watching her talk!  No kidding!

6//

Jill Bolte Taylor: My Stroke of Insight  18:44 {CLICK HERE}

Mama mia!!!  This one is fascinating!   This is a woman who is actually a real-life brain scientist and who got to experience and study her own massive stroke as it happened.

7//

Brene Brown: The Power of Vulnerability  20:19 {CLICK HERE}

More than 10 years ago God began to reveal to me how wholeheartedness, a characteristic I loved reading about in the life of Hezekiah, was not another word for workaholism, but actually the antidote to working oneself to death.  I bet God wishes I had wholeheartedly pursued more understanding about it.  I do.  But I never forgot and wondered…I use the word “wholehearted” a lot (as a user name on many websites, and it’s even my personal email name), but it still seemed mysterious to me.  In the middle of the night earlier this year, I felt compelled to discover something new about wholeheartedness, just sensing it was time to flesh out the next thing about it, and ran across this woman {what a delightful surprise}, this TED Talk and wow – LOVE!  Brene Brown says all the things I am still trying to find the courage to say.  Shame sucks.  Being wholehearted is being courageous and having the courage “To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.”  This TED Talk, well, it has helped my daily existence on the earth.  I’m even in a book-club reading Brene right now.  :)  WATCH!

That’s enough TED Talks for today.  But there are more.  Oh yes, there are!  :)

The Gifts of Imperfection - Let go of who you think you're supposed to be and embrace who you are (your guide to a wholehearted life)

Brene Brown on being a wholehearted person of “ordinary courage” from her book, The Gifts of Imperfection

TIP:  How to get dancer’s legs

Amelie spent the night here last weekend with her big sister, Averi, and her cousins, Gemma and Guini.  And the girl can plie like there is no tomorrow.  So can Gemma.  Where the rest of “us girls” dance and giggle and maybe are a bit silly, Gemma and Amelie are serious dancers and have the muscular control and beautifully proportioned legs to show it!  We danced last weekend!  Gemma said, “Oh Nonna, I’m so tired, but this music just keeps me dancing!”

Last night Amelie Belle stayed here all by herself for the first time ever, because, as she told me, “I’m a big kid, now.”  Soon to be four and fiercely independent, yes – she is a big kid now.

For over an hour, all the way until she said, “I’m sleepy, Nonna,” she danced and twirled and plied and swooned and swished.  She loves getting to go to the record player, which happened to have a Perry Como album in place, to lift the arm and set it carefully down.  She finds having control over the volume of the surround-sound quite intoxicating, too.

And so she dances.  And dances.  And dances some more.  And in between dancing, she walks about on her tip-toes and maintains her dancer’s form, a ballotté here, a cabriole there and those little, tiny 3-year old legs are stronger than strong.

granddaughters twirling feb 2014

Blurry, because that is how dancing is.  :)

First thing this morning, after a pancake breakfast with Poppa my Tiny Dancer asked, “Can I put the music on?”  And Perry crooned to his band while she, up on her twinkle-toes, stretched and swirled and penchéted about the room and her strong, little muscle-y legs lifted her in a fancy-flight of joy.

Do you want to know, now, how to have dancer’s legs?  Dance, my sweets.  Dance and dance.  Dance before bed and the first thing upon rising.  Walk on your tip-toes and pretend you are the best that ever was, because soon you will be.  And with strong, beautiful dancer’s legs, too.

amelie's book

The Tiny Dancer, pre-school with Nonna

 

 

The Plan

1 Christ is All, Stuff I Actually Think, ,

I told Dave this yesterday, but in case he forgets and because a written contract is always better, I have made my decision.

I do not want to (ultimately) die with anything that requires me being unable to breathe for months or days, or for even a few seconds, really.

The following is a list of ways I don’t want to die and includes, but is not limited to:

  • I don’t want to have bronchitis or pneumonia or any combination thereof.
  • I don’t want fluid in my lungs.
  • No lung disease.
  • No lung cancer, please.
  • I don’t want the air permanently knocked from me while sky-diving, mountain climbing, repelling or falling down the stairs.
  • No shortness of breath due to some unknown disease or deadly allergy, please.
  • No killer sneaking up from behind and covering my mouth and nose with his hand, nor a pillow smothering me.
  • I don’t wish to choke alone, unable to manage the Heimlich on myself.  Worse – in a room full of people who cannot remember how to do the Heimlich Manuever.
  • I don’t want a rib (or any other sharp instrument, knife or bone) puncturing a lung.
  • I don’t want my alveoli poisoned by emphysema.
  • I refuse COPD.
  • I don’t want pulmonary hypertension, and no advance in the asthma they try to pin on me now.
  • I do not want blood clots in my lung arteries.  Not. even. one.
  • No epiglottitus or blockage of my air passages in any way, shape or form, please.
  • Keep the croup away from me, too.

I have a pretty high pain tolerance.  And I realize we cannot always just die peacefully in our sleep (or soaking up the sun on a beach in Maui) without experiencing some discomfort on our way out.  But if I can put in an order and have it come true, well – this is mine.  I want to be able to breathe until I can breathe my last.  I need air.

O2 oxygen

Disclaimer & prayer: I am being a little silly.  But sometimes, I don’t think we realize how important good oxygen is {in the form of a good, deep breath} to everything about our health and how being able to breathe, really breathe,  is such a gift. It’s a GIFT!   It seems like too many people we know face breathing problems and lung sicknesses when they are already otherwise sick or suffering, maybe even battling cancer and it makes it all the worse.  Let’s not take even one breath for granted.

{breathe deeply here…thank God you can}

Today, I am praying for everyone I know who is experiencing breathing problems.  May the Breath of Life {Himself} bring you deep oxygenation today – an intense concentration of O2 be released in you throughout your bloodstream.  I pray respiratory relief as you breathe in and out, and may you experience peace as your pulmonary function finds its rhythm. I pray the *ruach-life-giving-breath of the Creator into your body, in Jesus’ Name.

The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life. – Job 33.4

*Ruach: the active power of the Spirit of God in the life-giving breath imparted to us.

The Lost & Found

1 Christ is All, 9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Think, , , ,

I once was lost, but now I’m found

feeling lost

In her book, Becoming Myself ~ Embracing God’s Dream of You*, Staci Eldredge says that on our journey to becoming who we were really created to be, we get lost now and then.  I know that is true, because I have been lost several times.  Each time I gather my bearings and get set back on track,  I think it will never happen again – I’ll never be that far away from where I should be again.

“The road of life is filled with many tempting parking places.” – seen on my high school music room chalkboard…I may have been the person who wrote it there

I thought that was a hilarious quote when I was a teen-ager.  But it hasn’t been the parking places that have gotten me off-course so much as my need for speed and the desire to get a move on – even before I know where I am really supposed to be going.

I got lost in the late 80s, then again in the early 90s (really lost).  I got slightly off course in my late 30s and ended up in outer Siberia in 2006!  And {true confession} I have been trying to find my way back to civilization in this most recent year or so.  I got lost.  Again.

And so – I LOVE this, yes, I do.

“For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.”   Luke 19.10 NLT

And I think of those paintings of Jesus with that one lost lamb in His arms and I realize I have always thought that meant He’d come for you before you were one of His actual followers, but then – you better stay in the flock.  I thought each sheep got one pass for being found.  Now I know – He comes and finds us every. single. time.

jesus and the lambclick image for source

His eye is on the sparrow – and I know He watches me

Not too long ago, in a time of deep soul-searching, pain and regret, I was questioning the love of God at all for me.  Why would He, how could He (?) when I can make such a terrible mess of things, hurt people I love the most and somehow manage to ruin His entire plan of salvation for the whole earth by my ineptitude?  (ego, anyone?)…I was having one of those snot-filled, Bible-clutching, for-such-a-worm-as-I moments declaring my utter worthlessness to God.  My thought was – well, He is surely finished with me now.  I won’t have more chances, He’ll discover what I always knew – I wasn’t worth saving to begin with.  I have let Him down, for good.

Oh, it was ugly.

Suddenly, a very clear picture was in my mind.  I won’t say it was a vision, except that I can still see it vividly and  I do feel the God of the Universe imprinted something into my heart for good.  I like to share it so my friends can remind me when I start feeling melancholy and sorry for myself –  when I go off-track again.

Here is what I saw, in full-color:

A mom with a toddler entering a Target store.  She puts the toddler on the floor for just a second with the instruction to stand right there while she gets the seat ready and cleaned and hoists her bag into the back of the cart.  The toddler looks at her and down the aisle.  And of course – that baby girl takes off down the main aisle between Health and Beauty and the grocery side.  The mom calls out, the little girl looks back,  but keeps going, passing aisle 6.  I see the mom disentangling her hand from the straps she had been preparing in the seat for the little girl’s safety.  I see customers strolling nonchalantly in front of her as she tries to break free and go.  The little girl looks back, passes aisle 7, then aisle 8, then darts to the left.  But the mommy knows exactly where she is, for in spite of all going on in that store, even though people were in her way – her gaze never lifted from her tiny treasure who was running madly down that store  aisle.  That was her girl, her baby and she pursued with gusto.

And I saw that scene in my mind’s eye and with it came the understanding.  She had told that baby girl to stay right near her.  But when the little one took off, she did not say, “Well – that’s fine.  If she is not going to obey she can just go then.  I am going home.  I don’t need this.”  No – the mom watched, and stayed focused, never losing sight and went to get her daughter.  I think of the old hymn,

“O Love that will not let me go…”

Sometimes we do run out ahead.  Sometimes we take off like a bat out of hell to go do good things, things we think will please God and we have darted to the right and then to the left and then when we crash we think we’re alone, but the loving gaze of the Father has been on us all along.

He imparted to my heart that day – where are you going?  I’ll go there.  If you turn right, I’ll turn right.  If you go left, then I’ll follow you left – I am not going to lose sight of you.  I have got you in my sights regardless of which way you go.  Where do you want to go, Jeanie?

Scandulous, I thought!

Even if I make my bed in hell

My heart was pounding with this image of a small girl and her mommy in Target – wondering if I had concocted some imaginary view of Almighty God to make myself feel better, but His word confirms this for us:

Where could I go from Your Spirit? Or where could I flee from Your presence? If I ascend up into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol (the place of the dead), behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning or dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there shall Your hand lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me.  Psalm 139.7-10 AMP

I love how the NKJV translates verse 8, “If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.”  Talk about a love that does not let go!

So, be encouraged…

Feeling lost?  Did you get a great idea and take off down the aisle trying to move mountains for the Kingdom and finally end up in a place you can tell you don’t belong?  Are you through trying to justify how you got here and willing to admit that your personal GPS failed you and you need directions?   Can you admit you are desperately, wholly lost and need rescuing?

I have so been there.  So just stop for a minute, and listen.  He has not wiped His hands of you.  The scar remains – the signifying mark of His dying and undying love for you.  He has not cast you into utter darkness for disobedience and He totally, completely knows how to get you back to the narrow road.  You are just lost.  Listen:

“Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’” Isaiah 30.21 NIV

And just like that! *snap of the fingers   You are found.  And that is some pretty amazing grace.

{{Learning to trust Jesus, learning to love Him because He first loved me, Jeanie}}

becoming myself staci eldredge

*CLICK HERE: Becoming Myself ~ Embracing God’s Dream of You, is available for Kindle for only 99-cents through February 19, 2014.  Get it! 

The countdown

1 Christ is All, Stuff I Actually Think

We have already used up the first  41 days of this “new” year.  We have 324 left.  I have 8360 goals on my to do list and haven’t even written down my resolutions yet…

sandy

When I think of time in chronos-mode, I freak out a little.   *!*!*!*

“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Ps. 90:12

I don’t want to just live in some crazy pre-occupation with my own goals and dreams or New Year’s Resolutions and self-imposed disciplines to the point that I miss something simple and sweet, or that I end up just zooming past the things of real importance.  I am a crazy list-maker and I hate the thought that I could make thousands of lists of admirable things to do and to be and totally miss the sweetness of the life God actually planned for me before I was even one day old (see Psalm 139).

“For David, after he had served God’s will and purpose and counsel in his own generation, fell asleep [in death] and was buried…” Acts 13.36

Obviously, I am past the halfway mark in the days I have left in life.  How far past that mark, we don’t really know.  I’m not being morbid-just realistic.  But what I do know is that I wish to possess, before I am gone forever, a heart of wisdom, some lasting treasure I can leave behind that will bless the people I love who remain.  And geez-Louise, I HOPE part of my eternal epitaph will be that I served God’s will and purpose for my generation while I lived – not my own or anyone else’s!

“One generation shall praise Your works to another,  And shall declare Your mighty acts.”  Psalm 145.4 NKJV

Coca Cola made this commercial.

Wow.  They did a good job.  You have to read the subtitles, but do.  Watch.  Listen to an old man with fresh wisdom.  I’ll add the script below again.

This is a true story.  In these hard times we bring together the oldest man with the youngest baby.

Hello Aitena.  My name is Joseph Mascaro.  I am 102 years old.  I am a lucky guy.  Lucky…for having been born.  Like you.  For being able to embrace my wife.  For having known my friends and for having been able to say good-bye to them.  For still being here.

You will ask yourself what is the reason I have come to visit you today.  It’s because most people will say to you what a bad moment you’ve chosen to come in to the world.  We’re in crisis, that’s not a good thing…Well, it’ll make you stronger.  I’ve lived worse moments than this one.  But in the end, you’ll remember only good things.

Don’t waste time with nonsense.  There’s plenty of it.  And go and find what makes you happy while you can since time slips away very quickly.

I’ve lived 102 years and I’ll happily live a few more.  Because I promise you that the only thing you won’t like about life, is that life will seem too short.  You’re here to be happy.

And while, yes, we live for much more than the fleeting happiness an ice-cold Coke can buy us (does my churchy-upbringing roar as loudly in your ears as it does in mine?), I think the observations of a man who has lived all the years  he was promised and then some ring pretty similarly to the writer of Ecclesiastes.  The “teacher” in the Bible concludes that life isn’t about the pursuit of contentment through what we accomplish career-wise or through the accoutrements of wealth and fame.  It doesn’t come through pleasure-seeking, and there is even futility in seeking knowledge.  We just try so many things and in the end, there is so much of all we have toiled and strived over that just doesn’t matter.

He seems to suggest we should go, before we’re too old. to enjoy life (the word “joy” is in there).  And eat, because bread was made for laughter, one translation expresses it (and feast for strength not for drunkenness, btw).  Drink, enjoy, do, work hard (whatever work you do – do it with all your might) and give generously, open-handedly.  Ecclesiastes says to always be clothed in white and always have your head anointed with oil (the anointing of the Holy Spirit) which is a reminder to strip off the black clothes and ashes of mourning and sorrow.  And to wear the clothing of celebration and new life  – that is how to live!

cutting the olaf cake

Good things I want to do everyday

I really want my everyday list to be so lofty that it is actually, physically impossible.  Yes.  I admit it.  If I told you what I really always try to put on the list (and fail so  miserably at), you’d see, like I am finally seeing, it is too much.  I am only human, with limited hours in a day.  You, too. But maybe I could manage a list like this, every day:

  1. Be kind.
  2. Sing my head off.
  3. Love deeply – because why else?
  4. Worship God with all I’ve got.
  5. Dream big.
  6. Smile like crazy.
  7. Laugh ’til I cry.
  8. Encourage a friend.
  9. Give grace.
  10. Share joy.
  11. Create beauty.
  12. Pray without ceasing.
  13. Cultivate courage.
  14. Work hard.
  15. Rest easy.
  16. Enjoy life.

But ~ the conclusion when all has been said and done – is to love God and keep His commandments.  {Ecclesiastes 12.13}

It is really the final word on the matter of this little thing called {abundant} life.  The BEST question I ever ask myself, the one that keeps me on track is not, “What time is it???” but rather: “What is this time for?”  Try that on for size.

Go. Read Ecclesiastes.  In one sitting.  Because it will only take about 35-40 minutes at pulpit-reading pace.  And there is wisdom there.

 

 

 

Colorado on Ice

1 Christ is All, 9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Think

out the winter window

I am freezing here in Colorado!

ice crystals on branches ice crystals one morning

Ice crystals on all the trees.  Pretty.

It is like we are living in the Disney Frozen movie!  Perhaps partially because today I’ll be fashioning a 3-foot “Olaf” combination cake/Rice-Krispie-Treat for Averi’s 6th birthday celebration and there just happens to be a 4′ backdrop painting of Olaf here, too, courtesy of Grand-poppa!  So besides actually being beyond-believable COLD, Olaf is hanging around my house.

015 olaf

{Big Frozen party Saturday!  Because Averi is 6!}

038 olaf backdrop

Um, The Broncos lost.

Gavin and his bronco chalkboard

But didn’t Gavin do a nice chalkboard, anyway?

And I don’t like football anyway – how did I get sucked in to that horrible game?  But Payton Manning seems like an honorable athlete.  Here is a win, though – my friend Pearl carved a snow sculpture in her front yard before the game.  Cool, huh?

pearl younger's bronco snow sculpture 2

flourishname

So Donald Miller opened {this} can of worms the other day

“I Don’t Worship God by Singing.  I Connect with Him Elsewhere.

“It’s just that I don’t experience that intimacy in a traditional worship service. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of sermons I actually remember. So to be brutally honest, I don’t learn much about God hearing a sermon and I don’t connect with him by singing songs to him. So, like most men, a traditional church service can be somewhat long and difficult to get through.

“So, do I attend church? Not often, to be honest.”

And when I read it, I thought, “You crazy guy – do you know what you’ve done???”  Because it doesn’t matter how many years of perfect gold star attendance pins you’ve earned, if you’re not showing up regularly now,  there will be trouble!

perfect sunday school attendance pin

His post got more than 400 comments , a follow-up post from Mr. Miller, himself and several other bloggers chiming in on the topic.  These two are thought-provoking responses I read (but oh my goodness – there are many more out there):

Mike Cosper wrote about “Donald Miller and the Culture of Contemporary Worship” and this is a true saying, I know it.

“…Miller, like so many others, has said, “No thanks. Doesn’t work for me.” And in this sense, I don’t blame him. But his solution is no less tragic. His new liturgy will orient his life around himself or around his work, and these masters will be as cruel and disappointing as any mega-church or celebrity pastor has ever been.”

Jonathan Leeman (The Gospel Coalition) wrote an open letter, “Dear Donald Miller” and made some strong points without just launching an attack, thank-you!

“And here’s where the rubber meets the road: I don’t know how we can say we love and belong to the church without loving and belonging to a church.”

Finally, here is Donald Miller’s follow-up: Why I Don’t Go to Church Very Often, a Follow Up Blog where he answers some of the more critical comments with thoughtful explanation.

I will tell you I have stood firmly on both sides of the topic, depending on whether I was full-time church staff, honestly.  Yes, honestly.  I can make a great case for the importance of the Body of Christ not neglecting the regular gathering and meeting together for the purpose of encouraging each other (Hebrews 10.25-26).  But I have also been a part of local churches that could have been summarized, when I finally got honest with myself, with Paul’s cutting words to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 11.17)

“Your meetings do more harm than good.”

Now you know I was born a church girl.  You know my very first sentence, spoken freely and repeated with glee hundreds of times was, “I’m gonna go to church!”  And I think we (me, too) especially, us Western-Church types have botched it so badly.  We have made a law of church attendance, idols of pulpit-people and rock stars of worship bands, practically enacting a shunning if some one doesn’t thrive on a steady diet of programs and personalities.   We’ve beat people with the church-attendance-is-the-test-of-righteousness bat or we’ve produced slick services meant to entice and lure them in with our “cool.”  And maybe we have missed the point completely of the gathering – meaning we may actually be doing things wrong to begin with?

“His intention was the perfecting and the full equipping of the saints (His consecrated people), [that they should do] the work of ministering toward building up Christ’s body (the church…

From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” Ephesians 4.16

Nonetheless, while I find myself in a church-search currently, these words by Anne Ortlund in her book, Love Me with Tough Love, compose a life-guiding question (one I have asked myself many times over many years) in light of the way the New Testament describes what the Church was, and how it worked at its’ inception.   And the answer to it is important – way more important than just where you are on Sunday mornings at 9 o’clock!

“Have I placed myself so deeply within a living, functioning local body that I myself am functioning in all these ways, and so living as a well-rounded, healthy, contributing member of the Body of Christ?”

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Something to think about, yes?

Retweeted by Jeanie Rhoades  02.03.14

T. S. Harris?@T_S_Harris· Feb 3  “The animated Church inhales God’s power and presence and is then able to exhale the embodiment of the risen Christ.”  @lensweet #mrinow

flourishname

A deal you should not miss out on!

becoming myself staci eldredge

Hurry-just 99-cents for Staci Eldredge’s Becoming Myself: Embracing God’s Dream of You {click here}.  SUCH a deal!  Get it.  Read it.  Them come to  my house and watch the video series she put together because Ransomed Heart sent it to me!  Yayyyyy!  Who is in?

Amelie Belle’s Progress Report

She knows how to pack her own lunch box.  A+

amelie's lunchbox

She works hard.  A+

amelie hard at work

She makes her Nonna happy.  A+

amelie school days

In super “cool,” but slightly warmer news

We have been able to use our fireplace much more often this year.  Usually we just don’t because it’s too hot.  But this year?  Very nice.  Toasty.

See?  THIS is what happens when I don’t blog for over a week.  It all comes crashing out in a tumble of odds and ends.  Whew. 

The End.

 

Cake Decorating Made Easy AND Personal!

4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Stuff I Actually Think,

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You don’t need a cake-decorating degree…

Tara asked me to make Kai’s 1st birthday cake.  She had no real cake design in mind (how unusual!), she just mentioned that there would be lots of colors and balloons and that it should be “fun.”

There was to be a “small” cake just for Kai, his first indulgence in sweet cake, and a bigger one for the guests (most of whom were doing Paleo, anyway, so not much cake going on). Kai, it turned out, was NOT a fan, which I reported previously {here}.

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I decided to do rainbow-colored cakes using a basic vanilla recipe, with a cream cheese icing.  Very simple, stacked and pretty plain.  The beauty, of course, would be when we cut inside the layers: voila – an explosion of color!  But on the outside, very plain indeed.

Kai’s cake baked in 6″ pans, 6 layers (purple-blue-green-yellow-orange-red, bottom up) and was about 6″ tall.  The guest cake, also 6 layers, was baked in 10″ pans and was about 8″ tall.

Since the inside was going to be such a color explosion, I decided the outside, with that delicious cream cheese icing, did not need a bunch of embellishments or fancy-tip and bag decorating.  But it needed something….what was it?

I shopped for toys and looked in cake decorating sections at all the stores.  Couldn’t find anything exciting or cute.  Boo.  I came home with a very small blue-sparkly #1 candle and that was about it.  Except…

I had just purchased a multi-pack of craft foam at Michael’s for the grands, very fortuitously…

So, I cut 2″ x 2″ squares of various colors and textures of craft foam, which is a DREAM to cut, btw!  Then I just cut rough letters out of them, basic shapes.  If you wanted a certain style, I am sure you could draw it on first, but I just did very basic cuts  in all caps and didn’t cut out centers.  Then I cut some balloons (I did draw a circle using a lid for these and then left a little “triangle” attached) and fashioned a 8″ tall #1 with contrasting colors of the foam.

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With the hot glue gun, I attached each letter to a white stir-stick (the ones you use for stirring coffee).  I did the same with the balloons and the #1.

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After simply spreading the icing on the cake,  I was able to just stick the letters and other shapes right into the cake.  SIMPLE!

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The cakes turned out cute and adorned until they could be cut into to reveal the real wow factor.  And I was thinking I just enjoyed the change from dragging out the all the usual cake decorating equipment.  Also a great alternative if you don’t have that stuff – you can still produce a great looking cake in whatever theme and colors you’d like and even personalize with a name or message very  easily!

Since I didn’t capture the actual process that day, I thought I’d replicate it yesterday to show more of the actual steps and seriously – I produced this little “hello” in five minutes flat!005

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I bet you could even cut scalloped edging to wrap the whole bottom of the cake.  This craft foam is so versatile!

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  1. Select your foam colors and patterns
  2. Cut some letters and shapes
  3. Hot glue or tape to a stir stick (cocktail pics, skewers or disposable chopsticks would work, too)
  4. Arrange on iced cake
  5. Impress everybody with your mad skills!

And that is it.  Easy!

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And good-bye.  :)

The American Dream

4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, 9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Think, ,

Mr Blandings Builds his Dream House

Muriel Blandings: I want it to be a soft green, not as blue-green as a robin’s egg, but not as yellow-green as daffodil buds. Now, the only sample I could get is a little too yellow, but don’t let whoever does it go to the other extreme and get it too blue. It should just be a sort of grayish-yellow-green. Now, the dining room. I’d like yellow. Not just yellow; a very gay yellow. Something bright and sunshine-y. I tell you, Mr. PeDelford, if you’ll send one of your men to the grocer for a pound of their best butter, and match that exactly, you can’t go wrong! Now, this is the paper we’re going to use in the hall. It’s flowered, but I don’t want the ceiling to match any of the colors of the flowers. There’s some little dots in the background, and it’s these dots I want you to match. Not the little greenish dot near the hollyhock leaf, but the little bluish dot between the rosebud and the Delphinium blossom. Is that clear? Now the kitchen is to be white. Not a cold, antiseptic hospital white. A little warmer, but still, not to suggest any other color but white. Now for the powder room – in here – I want you to match this thread, and don’t lose it. It’s the only spool I have and I had an awful time finding it! As you can see, it’s practically an apple red. Somewhere between a healthy winesap and an unripened Jonathan. Oh, excuse me…

Mr. PeDelford: You got that Charlie?

Charlie, Painter: Red, green, blue, yellow, white.

Mr. PeDelford: Check.

I thoroughly enjoyed it again.  It isn’t the greatest of all Carey Grant movies, but it has some of the greatest moments.  :)  Borrow from your local library!

mr blandings

Wanted:  Anyone who owns at least 40 acres, a house with good bones, a barn or two plus an assortment of interesting out-buildings, a couple of horses and some farming equipment (a great big tractor is a must) want to trade me for a suburban house in a small city just 20 minutes from the heart of Denver?  Comes with a few garden squares, a pool pad, 3-car garage, and really {extraordinarily} nice neighbors.

Thought I’d ask just in case I am living in your dream – because YOU are living in mine!

Let’s trade!   :)

Get on the LOVE Train!

2 Mi Familia, Stuff I Actually Think

all about love dave and tara powers

The beautiful firstborn, Tara, and her handsome husband, Dave, will be doing a concert for lovers far and wide on February 12, 2014 at The Madcap Theater in Westminster (near The Promenade).

Skip the crazy crowds on the 14th and get your love fix on the 12th.  TICKETS HERE

They’re good.  They’re really good (and fun and cute) and I am not just saying that because they are, you know, my loveable kiddos.  I have requested my fav love songs…let’s see if I wield any true power, haha.

Here is a late night vid they recorded in their music room a few years back {at the momma’s request}.

You should plan to come to the show.  Click here NOW!  :)

Good-bye, Mr. Kincaid

5 Songs I am Singing, 9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Think, , , , ,

Dave Madden played Reuben Kincaid on the Partridge Family 1970s TV Show

dave madden

If you have been around this blog much, you know I loved my Partridge Family when I was a pre-teen/barely-teen.

So my sister actually texted me words of comfort about the passing of Dave Madden yesterday, the actor who played the Partridge family’s longsuffering manager on the TV sitcom from 1970-1974.  He died the same day as the Professor from the 1960s show I loved to hate,  Gilligan’s Island (Russell Johnson-he was a gorgeous man).

Reuben

Oh my goodness.  Reuben Kincaid up against the impish, red-headed 10-year-old Danny Partridge just made the show so funny.  I was hoping to find a short clip of one of their conversations and this was the shortest I could find.  And yes, it still does actually make me smile, probably even laugh.

I really think this musical-family show was his best-known role, but for many years following the end of The Partridge Family I recall hearing Dave Madden’s distinctive voice in commercials and voice-overs.   Here is a Partridge Family song featuring Mr. Kincaid.  I really want to own that orange, floral-print dress.  I do!

Farewell, Reuben Kincaid.  Thank-you for all the laughter.  Rest in Peace, Dave Madden.  Rest in peace.

Make Some Noise

1 Christ is All, 5 Songs I am Singing, Stuff I Actually Think, , , , ,

Make a joyful noise, all ye people

You know how certain people in churches (preachers) complain that other people in churches (slackers) will go to football games and scream and yell and cheer when their team (the Broncos) are playing for 3 or 4 straight hours?  Then they’ll tell you (with grave disappointment) that you need to be cheering for Jesus because He made the ultimate touchdown when He came to earth to die for our sins.

No? You’ve never heard that?  Oh, must just be my tribe (aka my own particular people-group/slice of ecclesia-pie), I guess.

Anyway, especially back in the days when a true test of righteousness (or “churchianity” perhaps) was going to be about whether you attended the Sunday night service on Super-Bowl Sunday, the topic would come up.

{I may have even used this particular brand of “worship-motivating” my-pious-self in times past, *gulp} Shhhh….don’t tell.

If the speaker was really fired up, he might add, with a slight hint of disdain, “There aren’t three people here who would stay for a three-hour sermon, let alone get on their feet and shout,” hoping, I am sure, that the whole crowd would suddenly erupt in cheers and actually start acting like they were at a football game, doing some sort of spiritual wave.

A few vigorous “amens” would shoot back to get points with the pastor, those Sunday-night-faithful-head-bobbers letting their fellow-pew-dwellers know, Well, I’ll never stay home to cheer sports teams on a Super Bowl Sunday night when I can be here cheering for the Son of God!.  Uh-huh!

Since Sunday night services have gone the way of sawdust floors and dinners on the ground, we have all been set free from that particular law of sin and death associated with cheering on our football teams so zealously and then failing to do the same for the pastor, er,  for Jesus on Sundays.  Whew, thank-goodness!

broncos chargers 38

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The Broncos won Sunday!

Just in case you missed it, the Denver Broncos had a good Sunday.  They won a play-off game which means they’ll face their arch nemesis this week to see who goes to the super bowl.  The devil is coming to town in the form of a man named Tom Brady and his merry band of Patriots, and all true Coloradoans loathe him with a passion.

Home runs

I don’t really even like football and I don’t understand a lot of the details (I DO know getting home runs is important….JUST KIDDING, simmer down.  I know they’re touchdowns).  Please don’t bother trying to explain it to me, I’m fine with the little I know.  I know enough to cheer for the guys wearing the right colored uniforms…usually.  Sometimes I do have to ask Dave which uniforms we are cheering for that day.  But I digress.

Sunday’s game was right here in the Mile-High City.  That works in the home team’s favor, generally, I think.  One thing the fans did really well was make a lot of noise.  And when our team was doing great, it was “joyful noise” and happy cheering, for sure!  But they also made some strategic noise and LOTS of it when the other team had possession of the ball.  From what I could tell, it made it very difficult for the opposing QB to execute a good play against {my} team, (go, Broncos!).  And so, in the case of this particular game, a certain quarterback actually threw a bit of a fit and his team got a penalty for holding up the game.

Now, I know this is a little simplistic because I don’t totally understand the game, so I am going by what the talking heads were saying, but, think of it – the Denver Broncos, the team – they are on the field doing everything they know to do in the face of their opponents  who have come to crush them.  And maybe that would be enough.  But then these crazy fans in the seats become so loud, so uproariously vocal and physical, clapping their hands, stomping their feet – they actually send  the opposition into a state of extreme confusion.  The thunderous roar of the crowd threw the “enemy” off his game.  The fans in the stands were so loud – they confused and confounded the plan of the opposing team!  How cool is that?

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The Bible is actually full of incredible stories of sound and noise being part of winning battles.  The sound of Judah  sending up praises at the front of a battle meant a victory at the end.  And who can forget the Walls of Jericho, a city God promised to His people? They marched around that city once a day for 6 days, then on the 7th day, they marched,  but the priests started blowing those ram’s horns and the people were told to SHOUT.  They did and those walls came down, God’s promise was theirs!

“So the people shouted when the priests blew the trumpets. And it happened when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat. Then the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.” Joshua 6.20

There are other examples in the Bible where just a thundering sound or some major noise caused enemies to flee.  Like the story in 2 Kings 7 of the lepers who were starving to death and decided to just go to the enemy’s camp and ask for food, figuring they were going to die one way or the other.  But God caused such loud noise to surround their entrance, the sounds of many horses and chariots reverberating throughout the valley, that the Syrian army just took off as fast as they could, leaving their camp and supplies and food intact.  That is crazy!  That is a win!

And I was just thinking, maybe, as the Body of Christ, we should be watching out for each other, for those times the opposing team, aka “the enemy of our souls,” comes marching in to our home field.  And maybe when we see the thief coming to steal, kill and destroy, when we see a strategic offense being mounted against  “our team,” aka our brothers and  sisters in the Lord, our family from the Household of Faith, well, maybe we should just start yelling and screaming and stomping and shouting the house down.  Maybe we could be making some holy battle-noise to drive the devil back, confuse and confound his plan against one of our people!

I was thinking I’d like to be a person like that, a person who will stand up for others facing huge obstacles by making such a fuss, resisting so decidedly that the devil runs the other way, flees like a frightened chicken.

Well, don’t be surprised if I start screaming like a banshee the next time I see the enemy picking on you.  I am, after all, a Pentecostal preacher’s daughter.  I should try to put that to good use, shouldn’t I?  I’d even show up on a Sunday night to be a part of something like that!

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Little bonus: Yes, I seriously raised my kids on this – listen to the whole thing, no kidding!  Just came to my mind as I was about to publish!  :)

Jericho: The Shout of Victory, by Carmen

Oh, and GO, BRONCOS!