Sunday Wrapup--10/5/14
We had a one-of-a-kind church service this morning, and I'm sorry that all our young people missed it because of being at retreat. Arthur N. preached and shared from his heart about times when God is silent. He also talked about the need to be open with others in our church family when we are struggling. All of it was shared in the spirit of offering hope to those who are, as Job was, in a long painful interval, between times of feeling the nearness and goodness of God. Those three sentences don't convey much about what made the service special, but trust me, it was.
This is the last day of the Nislys' furlough in Kansas.
*******************
Dr. Jana is quite ill right now, and unable to care for her patients as usual. She is going to San Salvador to be closer to medical help. If there is a diagnosis, I don't know what it is. She has determined that her liver function is compromised somehow.
Several of her coworkers are leaving on Tuesday to travel to China. This makes Jana's absence at the clinic harder to compensate for.
*******************
In thinking about the variety of ways in which good Christian people see "things," I wondered if most of us can't be categorized in one of three camps: the minimalist, the extravagant, and the "good steward." A category for the sentimental probably ought to be there somewhere also.
Furthermore, I think it's possible that, depending on the specific item or matter under consideration, we move quite freely between categories. Extravagance in the landscape, for example, may be paired with simplicity in clothing, or having a well-stocked condiments cupboard might be paired with driving a clunker of a car.
*******************
The past week has seen lots of periods when rain was in the forecast. Unfortunately for some of us, the rain consistently skipped right over us. Our property is very dry, as has been the case for a number of weeks.
********************
We're having the singing at our house next Sunday. I hope people come with a lot of willingness to be flexible. It might be more literally necessary than one would wish if we end up all having to crowd indoors to sing. We're thinking of making it a stand-up event--or a sit-on-the-floor event. A lot will depend on the weather, and it's too early to tell how it will be.
*******************
Two events that both fit under a Listing to the Left title involve bread and shoes.
I tried a new bread recipe yesterday and looked on in astonishment after my two very large and brown loaves sitting beside each other on the cooling rack slowly sank to one side. I studied my lesson a little more after that and realized that I should probably have added more salt to control the yeast growth, and I should have used larger bread pans.
On the shoes, let's just say I should have looked more closely at what I was sticking my foot into on that morning I hurried so fast to get to school for staff meeting. My car was in the shop, so Hiromi had to drop me off. I attended the staff meeting and later walked over to check something on the church bulletin board. On my way through the church foyer, I was aware that I was walking "straighter" than usual, or something. Then I realized that only one of my shoes was clopping while the other was stepping silently. I had done it again--worn one shoe from each of two different pairs. This time, not only did the color and style not match, but one was soft-soled and flat, and the other hard-soled with a low heel.
I tried to think how I could get through the day without showing anyone my feet. Or should I just make it a point to show everyone, and laugh with them at my own expense? Then I had a happy thought. Hiromi had gone home to get ready to leave again for a doctor's appointment. Maybe he could drop off the right shoe. I called him, and, after he chuckled at my problem, he followed my careful instructions, right down to making the delivery in a grocery bag at the kitchen door. I did a quick shoe swap outside on the sidewalk, and Hiromi went on his merry way with a different shoe inside the bag in his car.
What I'm really wondering is if I could have avoided that trip to the chiropractor if I had just worn that uneven-heeled pair of shoes a little longer. You know how you often hear that you have a short leg? Well, I really did feel like I was walking straighter on that mismatched-shoe day, and I'm wondering if the shoes compensated for my left-tilting skeleton.
Silly me.
******************
The boys in our typing class won the last Scrabble game between them, the girls, and me, on three different teams. We play just one round usually at our break times, so the game takes a while to finish. This time the game seemed to move very slowly, probably since we were playing with seven tiles rather than nine.
Twice, the boys played words that I challenged and won (can you tell this is not a risk-averse group?)! So it's especially notable that they ended up winning the game. I went the last number of rounds with only vowels, which puts a real damper on the scoring potential.
The game is a good vocabulary-building activity. I played "id" and "fiat," with some disbelieving looks and comments from students. "That's a car," someone said of "fiat."
"It was a word before it was a car," I informed him.
I pulled out more of my memories of studying Freud in college psych classes than anyone was really interested in probably--in explaining "id."
******************
Jordan has harvested the peanuts that he planted in his "food production" garden. They did quite well.
Kristi's tomatoes got an all-around pruning during the hail storm near the end of June, but now they're churning out lots of tomatoes, and mine have slowed way down.
******************
Several people have left comments on some of my recent posts, which I have not taken the time to respond to. Perhaps I can do so later when I don't have poems and written reports to grade, and don't have a singing to prepare for--all of which take thinking and focus that doesn't quite reach around as far as I would like. (BTW, I hate to put grades on poems. It seems a little obscene.)
I did read Hiebert's writing and found it very interesting. If I'm not mistaken, I've read some of his work before on charismatic expressions.
*****************
Today in church when I went to escort Mom to our Sunday School class--
Me: Let's go to Sunday School class.
Mom: I was told to wait here for Miriam to come get me.
Me: That would be me. Are you ready to go?
Dear Mother. It must not have been a good day for her. She did call me by name, unprompted, one day recently.
****************
During the past year, our song leaders have featured a song-of-the-month from the Hymns of the Church, and we have typically sung it every Sunday and Wed. eve. service during the month. This year, we are embarking on a slightly more ambitious project. A group of singers have learned and recorded a number of new songs, and CDs are being made for us to keep in our homes. We'll be able to listen at home and then be prepared to sing at least two new songs in church every month.
Repetition really does make a difference. This morning, I really enjoyed the lovely harmony on the most recent song-of-the-month, even though our group was uncharacteristically small because of no young people being present.
******************
A cat has taken up residence here recently. Hiromi is doting on her (we think we've identified the gender correctly) and even trundled over to Custom Mills yesterday to buy a bag of cat food. Mind you, this is quite a step up from the dog food our cats usually have gotten--or kitchen scraps. We're hoping that she doesn't get too lazy to hunt for mice. That's one of the major reasons to welcome a cat to share our space, in my opinion.
Right now I'm hearing coyotes yapping, and I'm hoping the cat is safer here than she might be in hunting the fields around our place.
*******************
Hiromi informed me the other day that we have a loner chicken. When they're free-ranging, he often sees five together in a group and one chicken elsewhere. We're not sure whose preference this is. I saw the loner join the rest under the bird feeders today, and she was apparently welcome when she joined the others She may have an independent spirit rather than suffering from being hen-pecked and ostracized.
*******************
The digging animal is back at work at the west end of the garden. We have never once sighted an armadillo here, but we can't think of anything else that might be digging such holes. A football could be stuffed in most of the holes, and would completely be underground in some of them.
This is the last day of the Nislys' furlough in Kansas.
*******************
Dr. Jana is quite ill right now, and unable to care for her patients as usual. She is going to San Salvador to be closer to medical help. If there is a diagnosis, I don't know what it is. She has determined that her liver function is compromised somehow.
Several of her coworkers are leaving on Tuesday to travel to China. This makes Jana's absence at the clinic harder to compensate for.
*******************
In thinking about the variety of ways in which good Christian people see "things," I wondered if most of us can't be categorized in one of three camps: the minimalist, the extravagant, and the "good steward." A category for the sentimental probably ought to be there somewhere also.
Furthermore, I think it's possible that, depending on the specific item or matter under consideration, we move quite freely between categories. Extravagance in the landscape, for example, may be paired with simplicity in clothing, or having a well-stocked condiments cupboard might be paired with driving a clunker of a car.
*******************
The past week has seen lots of periods when rain was in the forecast. Unfortunately for some of us, the rain consistently skipped right over us. Our property is very dry, as has been the case for a number of weeks.
********************
We're having the singing at our house next Sunday. I hope people come with a lot of willingness to be flexible. It might be more literally necessary than one would wish if we end up all having to crowd indoors to sing. We're thinking of making it a stand-up event--or a sit-on-the-floor event. A lot will depend on the weather, and it's too early to tell how it will be.
*******************
Two events that both fit under a Listing to the Left title involve bread and shoes.
I tried a new bread recipe yesterday and looked on in astonishment after my two very large and brown loaves sitting beside each other on the cooling rack slowly sank to one side. I studied my lesson a little more after that and realized that I should probably have added more salt to control the yeast growth, and I should have used larger bread pans.
On the shoes, let's just say I should have looked more closely at what I was sticking my foot into on that morning I hurried so fast to get to school for staff meeting. My car was in the shop, so Hiromi had to drop me off. I attended the staff meeting and later walked over to check something on the church bulletin board. On my way through the church foyer, I was aware that I was walking "straighter" than usual, or something. Then I realized that only one of my shoes was clopping while the other was stepping silently. I had done it again--worn one shoe from each of two different pairs. This time, not only did the color and style not match, but one was soft-soled and flat, and the other hard-soled with a low heel.
I tried to think how I could get through the day without showing anyone my feet. Or should I just make it a point to show everyone, and laugh with them at my own expense? Then I had a happy thought. Hiromi had gone home to get ready to leave again for a doctor's appointment. Maybe he could drop off the right shoe. I called him, and, after he chuckled at my problem, he followed my careful instructions, right down to making the delivery in a grocery bag at the kitchen door. I did a quick shoe swap outside on the sidewalk, and Hiromi went on his merry way with a different shoe inside the bag in his car.
What I'm really wondering is if I could have avoided that trip to the chiropractor if I had just worn that uneven-heeled pair of shoes a little longer. You know how you often hear that you have a short leg? Well, I really did feel like I was walking straighter on that mismatched-shoe day, and I'm wondering if the shoes compensated for my left-tilting skeleton.
Silly me.
******************
The boys in our typing class won the last Scrabble game between them, the girls, and me, on three different teams. We play just one round usually at our break times, so the game takes a while to finish. This time the game seemed to move very slowly, probably since we were playing with seven tiles rather than nine.
Twice, the boys played words that I challenged and won (can you tell this is not a risk-averse group?)! So it's especially notable that they ended up winning the game. I went the last number of rounds with only vowels, which puts a real damper on the scoring potential.
The game is a good vocabulary-building activity. I played "id" and "fiat," with some disbelieving looks and comments from students. "That's a car," someone said of "fiat."
"It was a word before it was a car," I informed him.
I pulled out more of my memories of studying Freud in college psych classes than anyone was really interested in probably--in explaining "id."
******************
Jordan has harvested the peanuts that he planted in his "food production" garden. They did quite well.
Kristi's tomatoes got an all-around pruning during the hail storm near the end of June, but now they're churning out lots of tomatoes, and mine have slowed way down.
******************
Several people have left comments on some of my recent posts, which I have not taken the time to respond to. Perhaps I can do so later when I don't have poems and written reports to grade, and don't have a singing to prepare for--all of which take thinking and focus that doesn't quite reach around as far as I would like. (BTW, I hate to put grades on poems. It seems a little obscene.)
I did read Hiebert's writing and found it very interesting. If I'm not mistaken, I've read some of his work before on charismatic expressions.
*****************
Today in church when I went to escort Mom to our Sunday School class--
Me: Let's go to Sunday School class.
Mom: I was told to wait here for Miriam to come get me.
Me: That would be me. Are you ready to go?
Dear Mother. It must not have been a good day for her. She did call me by name, unprompted, one day recently.
****************
During the past year, our song leaders have featured a song-of-the-month from the Hymns of the Church, and we have typically sung it every Sunday and Wed. eve. service during the month. This year, we are embarking on a slightly more ambitious project. A group of singers have learned and recorded a number of new songs, and CDs are being made for us to keep in our homes. We'll be able to listen at home and then be prepared to sing at least two new songs in church every month.
Repetition really does make a difference. This morning, I really enjoyed the lovely harmony on the most recent song-of-the-month, even though our group was uncharacteristically small because of no young people being present.
******************
A cat has taken up residence here recently. Hiromi is doting on her (we think we've identified the gender correctly) and even trundled over to Custom Mills yesterday to buy a bag of cat food. Mind you, this is quite a step up from the dog food our cats usually have gotten--or kitchen scraps. We're hoping that she doesn't get too lazy to hunt for mice. That's one of the major reasons to welcome a cat to share our space, in my opinion.
Right now I'm hearing coyotes yapping, and I'm hoping the cat is safer here than she might be in hunting the fields around our place.
*******************
Hiromi informed me the other day that we have a loner chicken. When they're free-ranging, he often sees five together in a group and one chicken elsewhere. We're not sure whose preference this is. I saw the loner join the rest under the bird feeders today, and she was apparently welcome when she joined the others She may have an independent spirit rather than suffering from being hen-pecked and ostracized.
*******************
The digging animal is back at work at the west end of the garden. We have never once sighted an armadillo here, but we can't think of anything else that might be digging such holes. A football could be stuffed in most of the holes, and would completely be underground in some of them.
posted by Mrs. I (Miriam Iwashige) at
8:12 PM
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