There is something seriously wrong with Spring this year.
Installation Failure from Doug Bittinger on Vimeo.
WALKING WITH GOD
Walking with God is a beautiful way of describing our Christian pilgrimage. “A Closer Walk With God” is the essence of our daily journey with Him. Even though we struggle to make this a goal of our lives, we often fail to be where God desires. We find ourselves in the awkward position of walking more by ourselves than walking with God. There are times in walking with the Lord that we tend to walk ahead of Him. We become impatient with His slower pace and move on with what we assume is a better gait toward our goal. It is more like a race with God than a walk. We rush to conclusions. We hurry up our prayers. Rather than wait for clearer signals we compose our own agenda for the living of our days. In our haste to get where we are going we want God to quickly bless our plans. Walking ahead of God we tend to get exhausted. Because we do not wait upon the Lord we do not “mount up on wings as eagles.” We do not run without getting weary and we grow faint in our walk. Like children who refuse to hold their parent’s hand at a busy intersection we expose ourselves to much danger when we get ahead of God. Continue reading “WALKING WITH GOD”
Movie Review: The Day the Earth Stood Still
The Day the Earth Stood Still is one of those movies that leaps immediately to mind when one thinks of great classic sci-fi. Naturally, modern movie makers must try to better it with a remake. Here I will compare the original and the remake of this particular sci-fi standard.
The Original
The original, made in 1951 starring Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe, Lock Martin, and Frances Bavier, has become more than a classic: it has become an icon of classic Sci-fi. This is a bit odd because the movie does not contain any of the usual hallmarks of early Sci-Fi: no massive explosions, no creepy monsters, no flying saucers whizzing around destroying things. This film made its mark because of superior writing and some truly memorable performances by the cast.
To be clear, there is a flying saucer; but it lands on a park in Washington DC and stays there (in a very non-threatening manner) throughout the movie until its departure at the end. There is a fairly fearsome robot that could be considered the “monster” of the film except it does not go on a rampage; its role is purely defensive. And there is an alien, but he’s not some tentacled monster with eight eyes. In fact, once he gets out of his space suit he is able to walk around the city unnoticed because he looks so human. Continue reading “Movie Review: The Day the Earth Stood Still”
MARTHA AND MARY
The dishes were rattling noisily in the kitchen. Martha was getting frustrated. At first she only talked to herself. It was a joy to cook for Jesus. He was complimentary of her meals. Although He did not say much His frequent visits indicated something was to His liking. Maybe she was a little too sensitive in thinking Mary was not doing her part of the work. “She will surely come to the kitchen shortly to do her usual chores,” Martha thought. But she did not come. More mealtime preparation noise did not seem to produce the desired effects. Finally, Martha blurted out, “Lord do you not care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Please tell her to help me.”
The Lord fixed His eyes on Martha. He studied her mood to determine the depth of her anger. He looked at Mary, who seemed a bit embarrassed by Martha’s outburst. He did not want to sound unappreciative, but the situation was obviously a teaching opportunity. He wanted to calm her frustration by giving her a lesson on priorities.
There must have been a bit of pain in His voice as He said, “Martha, Martha, you are worried about many things. Your kitchen duties have possessed you. Your meal is more important to you than my fellowship. You have chosen to feed me. Mary has chosen to let me feed her. She has made the better choice because physical food is for the moment while spiritual food is forever.”
Like Martha, we sometimes get preoccupied with important things, but in the process neglect the most important thing. There is nothing more essential to our earthly existence than a healthy hunger for God. To crave conversation with the Master is the key to unlock our spiritual personality. Unless we have fellowship with Him we may never survive the busyness of life. The Christian life is a matter of priorities. The “less than best” is always sacrificed for the best. Somewhere along life’s journey we want to hear Him say that we have chosen the good thing that cannot be taken away from us. It is a matter of living close enough to Him to say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”
Alien Trespass
As part of our Simple Life formula, Marie and I have a few standing traditions that help us appreciate one another and enjoy life. One such is Schlocky Sci-Fi Friday.
Every Friday evening Marie fixes Chinese food and we curl up together on the sofa with our tray tables to eat the Chinese food and watch an old B grade (we prefer the term ‘Classic” ) science fiction movie. Movies from the 1950’s and 1960’s and in black and white are preferred. Among our all-time favorites are such classics as The Day the Earth Stood Still, Destination Moon and Rocketship XM but we have a large collection of movies on DVD and VHS, the majority of them Sci-Fi. Another “classic” joined the file last night. (No spoilers here)
Winding Down Winter
Over the weekend I harvested more of our winter turnips and some green onions. These bunching onions don’t produce bulbs, just the greens which I snip off for use in cooking as we need them. They survived the winter well. My turnips and spinach did well also. Most everything else did not survive the bitter cold snap (temps down to minus 1°).
Marie used the turnips and some of the onions this evening in a stir-fry dish that used cubed ham, diced turnips (pre boiled), some coleslaw mix (shredded cabbage, and carrots) and sliced apple all cooked together. Then the chopped green onion was sprinkled over the top at serving time. She served that with cheddar cheese biscuits. It was quite delicious!
We’ve enjoyed warm days (high 60s) for the past several days so I’ve gotten out into the yard and garden to get started preparing for planting the summer garden.
I use raised bed garden boxes because of the steep slope of our yard. Crop rotation requires some reconfiguring these boxes as I move crops around. Potatoes need deep soil, so I add a riser for added depth. Planting potatoes in a different box each year means removing a lot of the soil from last year’s box and moving the riser to the potato box for this year. I can’t use the soil I removed (that would defeat rotation) so I must move the soil from a non-nightshade box last year to the potato box and put the excess potato soil from last year into the now empty non-nightshade box. It’s sort of like a big slider puzzle. Fortunately I’ve always been really good at slider puzzles!
MUMBLINGS OF A CHRISTIAN JEW
“Go ye therefore into all the world,” He said. “Does He really mean that”? Is this a command or a request? There is a difference, you know. It is a big, cruel world out there. Rome does not deal kindly with new movements. Surely Judaism will not tolerate competition for her converts. Our half-pagan world does not understand a religion of love, grace, and purity. Is it possible for this good news to be absorbed by crude and cruel minds? “All the world” would mean telling Gentile folk about Jesus. I think we should keep His gospel for our Jewish people. After all, we are the chosen ones. He was birthed and nurtured by our kind. It was our scriptures that predicted His coming. It was our prophets who anticipated a Messiah. Why should we share this good news with anyone but our own? There are a lot of Gentile pigs out there who would trample the pearls of His marvelous story. Did not our fathers teach us that such people were unclean?
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
This American pulp adventure, dieselpunk film starring Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, and Givanni Ribisi, written and directed by Kerry Conran is his directorial debut. The action is fast, the dialogue terse and witty, and the characters are larger than life. The script is very well written and of course, with this cast, the acting is excellent.
Jude Law is the almost superhero, millionaire, mercenary aviator Joseph “Sky Captain” Sullivan who is called upon to save New York City when it comes under attack by giant robots. Giovanni Ribishi is his brainy scientist/inventor side-kick, Dex. Gwyneth Paltrow is the old-flame and spunky newspaper reporter, Polly Perkins, who gets pulled back into Joe’s life when she is contacted by a German scientist who is fleeing a mad genius named Totenkoph (Lawrence Olivier) who is bent on destroying the world. He gives her information vital to Joe and Dex’s quest to find out where the robots came from and what they are after.
A little humor: God Sends the Best
She hurried to the pharmacy to get medication, got back to her car and found that in her haste she had locked her keys inside. The woman found a coat hanger left on the ground. She looked at it and said, “I don’t know how to use this.” She bowed her head and asked God to send her some help.
Within 5 minutes a noisy motorcycle pulled up, driven by a bearded man who was wearing leathers and a biker skull rag. He got off of his cycle and asked if she needed help.
She said: “Yes, my daughter is sick. I’ve locked my keys in my car. I must get home. Please, can you use this hanger to unlock my car?”
He said, “Sure.”
He walked over to the car, and in less than a minute the car was open.
She hugged the man and through tears said, “Thank You SO Much! You are a very nice man.”
The man replied, “Lady, I am NOT a nice man. I just got out of PRISON yesterday; I was in prison for car theft.”
The woman hugged the man again sobbing, “Oh, thank you, God! You even sent me a Professional!”
(Note: the above story was sent to me via e-mail. I edited it but cannot claim it as my own. Original source is unknown.)
Humor in the Newspaper
Long ago I worked for two publishing companies that printed, among other things, newspapers. This was before the age of desktop publishing. A reporter would write an article, and proof read it. An editor would proof it again and edit it if needed, a typist would type it into a Trendsetter machine which turned the article into columnar print – she also proof read and corrected punctuation and grammar if needed. By the time print went to the paste-up department to be put into pages, the text had been proof read at least three times. Errors were rare.
Today: well, today is very entertaining at least. These days you have to appreciate humor anywhere you can find it.
While looking over the weekend edition of the local newspaper, Marie burst out laughing. She brought page 13A over to show me. There, all on one page, were the following headlines and display ads: