Disturb Disturbed Disturbing July 9, 2008

Does anyone else find it disturbing that Celine Dion intends to cover “Shook Me All Night Long?”  I would find it in far better taste for AC/DC to cover her.  What’s next?  Sandy Patty covers Metallica?  Bette Midler covers GunsNRoses?

Also disturbing…pet insurance.  Aren’t we in a health care crisis?  Isn’t the insurance industry supposed to be struggling and striving just to stay in the black?  Is this new product supposed to shore up falling profit margins?  What in the world?  All I know is we are probably only three good months away from Dateline running a story on some blockhead who insured their dog ahead of their kid.

Deep breaths.

Potentially disturbing…Google Maps Street View…Now, if you know me, you know I am slightly freak about maps.  Google Earth pretty much rocked my 2005.  I am crazy about the bird’s eye view.  However, Google Maps has added a feature known as “street view.”  They have not covered Springfield yet (guess they aren’t as prolific in their coverage as Celine).  Go look at a bigger city…say, St. Louis.   Zoom in to where you can see side streets, then click “street view.”  It will CREEP you out!  It’s like you are driving down the street!  How do they DO that?  What would George Orwell think of that?  Google…it’s like they’e taking over the world.

Sadly disturbing…Kansas City’s Royals.  I am truly getting soft in my old age.  I carried a bitter grudge against that town for 21 years…couldn’t even truly enjoy The Plaza until my Redbirds finally won a series.  But, let’s face it.  You can’t really hate a rival that is so pathetic their franchise is in jeopardy.  I find myself secretly pulling for them!  I ACTUALLY pay attention to their highlights on KY3 because I just want them to be respectable enough again to at least DISLIKE them.  *Sigh*  It disrupts my mellow to feel pity for an enemy that I would prefer to despise.

Disturbing only to me…I did not…NO…COULD NOT post the entire month of June!  I have started a post about Yancey’s Soul Survivor at least 1,000 times in my head and half a dozen times in print.  I just can’t get it out…I’m blocked…and I’m bugged…because it’s only the most thought provoking, convicting, informative thing I’ve ever read outside of Scripture!  Maybe SOMEDAY I’ll find words to express it.  The older I get, the more I find that words fail.  Too often, they fail.  Nonetheless, they are what we have.

In other not so disturbing news, I won a gift card to Marias!  Did I hear date night?

FEVER May 22, 2008

So, the four-year-old sits down beside his daddy at our end-of-school picnic today, begins eating his PBJ, and says “Hey Lukey, are you so excited about David Cook?”….to which, I’m told, all the moms at said table erupted in laughter and replied, “Yes, Nolan, we are!”

Do you think we might have had a SHADE TOO MUCH IDOL FEVER at our house?  It’s possible.

Overheard May 19, 2008

“If you could get them all doing the same thing, it’d be fine.  But they are all running around in three different directions.  It’s like herding cats!!!”  –my husband when trying to manage our daily After School Mobocracy by himself

 

“MOM!  We learned the Dewey ‘Dessymo’ System today in ‘liberry’…Do you know what that is?”  Loren, 7

 

“Mom, what were those porky-pine books called?” (me, quizical look) “You know, the porky-pine books.  YOU recommended them to me!”  Loren, 7 at the ’li-berry’ (still don’t know what she’s talking about) 

 

“Online is my favorite place to be.”–a radio DJ.  Hmmm?  Is a virtual place really a place?  Are you somewhere when you are online?

 

“But it’s NOT morning yet!”–Nolan, 4, two mornings after the time change

 

“Are you tired today?” (to one of my students, age 3) response, “Yes, and I’m ear-tated!”

 

“Whoa!  I wish YOU had long hair like that.” — Nolan, 4, to me, while watching Barbie as Rapunzel with his sisters…good grief!…no pressure!

 

“No mere disaster…it was the Hindenburg crashing on top of the Titanic inside Eliot Sptizer’s bedroom.”—Charlie Toft, USA Today–O.K.  it was really more ‘read’ than ‘overheard,’ and it was a mean-spirited dig at an AI performance…but really…one of the funniest descriptions I have EVER read!

 

“But it’s NOT nightime!”–Nolan, 4, looking at the sun outside his bedroom window at 7:45 p.m.

 

“Daddy, I know the difference between a puppet and a mascot.  A puppet is a hand.  A mascot is…a whole guy.”  Nolan, 4

Quoteworthy May 15, 2008

“Woman,” Jesus said to her, “why are you crying?  Who is it you are looking for?”  Supposing He was the gardener, she replied, “Sir if you’ve removed Him, tell me where you’ve put Him, and I will take Him away.”  Jesus said, “Mary.”  Turning around, she said to Him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!”–which means “Teacher.”  John 20:15-16

“Jesus came to Mary when she cried; He’ll come to us when we weep.  Our tears may blur His face, but He has come….Could we take a moment to do the same for someone else?”

“You will never lock eyes with anyone God does not care for, the Son did not die for, the Spirit did not come for.  Every time you walk into a room, it is a Trinity event.”

Pastor John Marshall

5-11-2008

Eileen Slightly May 3, 2008

When my husband said I could use some of our tax rebate for shoes…I don’t think the “Ortho-wedge” was what either one of us had in mind…fashion-forward as it may be.

 

There is some good news.  They did not find appearance of bone infection… apparently bone infection is a very bad thing.  Somehow I just managed to crunch off some bone fragments into my joint fluid capsule.

Tim says I walk like a pirate.

There is Strong Evidence to Suggest I Am ‘Old School’ April 15, 2008

Today, I was driving down Battlefield and nearly took out the median full of Bradford Pear trees when I heard the DJ announce, “You are listening to Old Skool Lunch Hour…up next Ace of Bass.” …Um…people…I was a senior in high school when “The Sign” was big.  This was followed up by a little Living Colour…yep, you guessed it…more high school tunes…at least early high school.

Later in the afternoon, I picked up two sweet girls from school who were both bubbling with excitement about the performance by our local university’s dance/drama team which featured a number of selections from SchoolHouse Rock!

Let me suggest the following as a litmus test.  If any animated feature from your childhood becomes culturally elevated enough to be considered part of ”the arts,” you might be ‘old school.’

*sigh*…I may not be taking Geritol, but I am no longer a spring chicken.  What’s a girl to do but fire up the “YouTube” (incidentally, when I graduated, Al Gore hadn’t given us the gift of widespread internet access yet—I digress)…fire up the YouTube and kick it old skool with my girls and some SchoolHouse Rock!?

This is their favorite…

It’s so hard to choose just one…but today this is mine…

…oh…and…uh…if you were taught Pluto was a planet, you might be ‘old school.’

Do you have any faves?

Hysterical April 14, 2008

…ah…the results of having two older sisters who want to dress you up…

…at least it’s not the Cinderella gown and matching lace gloves…

Historical April 14, 2008

Our lake crested at 933.24 on Saturday, breaking the previous flood record of 931.  This was the first time all the floodgates had been opened since 1961 (before my time-I’m always happy to report that-it’s becoming more rare).

This was pure, raw power.  Swirling, churning, roaring…I’m in awe at the forces of nature juxtaposed against a backdrop of delicacy…budding trees and redbud blossoms.

 

 

Walk Across the Room April 3, 2008

On Easter Sunday our Pastor began a sermon series entitled “Walk Across the Room.”  He is challenging the body to daily consider the question “Who am I going to walk across the room for today?”  He furthered challenged us to pray for God to open doors and opportunities for us to “walk across the room.”  Sounds simple enough, right?  But the practical applications have been huge in my life.

 I began praying that day, and by evening, Tim and I both looked at each other and said, “We missed that opportunity.  Why didn’t we ‘walk across the room’ there?”  I was humbled and broken.

Throughout the week, as I prayed, I would be strongly aware of a still small voice saying, “That was it…you missed it.” …or…”Yeah…you pretty much blew that.” …or…”That was IT!  That is exactly why I put you right here, right now, today…that hug, that word, that look.”  Please don’t misunderstand.  I have no self-aggrandizing view of my own importance.  I have been utterly overwhelmed at the constant ways I have heard answers to this prayer…that I failed…that I obeyed…astounded at the simplicity in the profound idea that God can and does use my life to shine even a small ray of truth, love, or hope into the life of another of His beloved creations.

But perhaps the most daunting impression of the last two weeks has been that God would not only choose to use me in spite of (and sometimes through) my own frailty, weakness, and fear,…but that He would use me despite my fathomless ignorance.  I am terrified at the potential for destruction that exists within even my words, when I use them without regard for what I just don’t know.  In two successive days of last week, I learned of two utterly tragic situations.  Both of them existed for years.  Both touch people that I regularly interact with.  Both were completely unknown to me until last week.  Both left me knowing they had been revealed to me by a divine design.  Both left me hearing a still small voice say, “I’m glad you are asking where you can be My hands and feet.  Just know that if we are going to do this ‘walk across the room’ thing, you are ill-equipped, prone to clumsiness, and very likely to say something stupid.  I just want you to see how imperative it is that you only walk across the room…with Me.”

The opportunities aren’t new occurrences.  It’s just my awareness that’s shifted.  The lesson isn’t even new.  I’m just more poignantly and personally aware of the consequences.

So the issue isn’t so much taking Jesus to people who don’t have him, but going to a place and pointing out to the people there the creative, life-giving God who is already present in their midst. … Ultimately our gift to the world around us is hope.  Not blind hope that pretends everything is fine and refuses to acknowledge how things are.  But the kind of hope that comes from staring pain and suffering right in the eyes and refusing to believe that this is all there is.  R. Bell

I know that there are better, safer, more reliable, more honorable and trustworthy ways for God to communicate hope.  There are certainly better, safer, more reliable, more honorable and trustworthy people than I to use as a vessel.  I don’t comprehend it.  I only know …seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not;…we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.  2 Corinthians 4:1,7

Official Day of Mourning March 24, 2008

David Eckstein is a Toronto Blue Jay.

First the tornadoes of January.  Then the ice storms and “thundersleet.”  Followed up by floods of Biblical proportion.  Now this…