Sunday Wrapup--July 12, 2015If
I'm afraid the little snippets you'll encounter here won't sear themselves into your psyche as the outdoor atmosphere is searing itself into the physique of our state's residents today. We're under a heat advisory, and at 7:00 PM the heat index still stands at 103 degrees. By contrast, we'll all be fortunate if the snippets reach a comfortable 70-degree mark.
******************
Mrs. I has a new camera, and she's bumbling through figuring out how to use it. Nature photography is one of the main goals for this camera, but it's certain that many birds and insects will come and go while she's still working on deciphering the instruction manual.
It's not a DSLR, so all the photography snobs will know right off that this camera does not hold a candle to the really good ones. It is, however, far more sophisticated than anything Mrs. I encountered in the book on photography she bought and mostly understood some decades ago.
OK. Back to first person.
The zoom mostly didn't after I finally got that adorable little fledgling located inside the viewfinder yesterday. I located the zoom button after I returned to the house. The little lever by the shutter button had produced only minor results.
In aiming the camera, I reminded myself of Tristan learning to use the binoculars I keep by the patio doors. Up and down and from side to side. For way too long, this sweeping action produced only views of leaves. I kept thinking I should put the camera up to my face to get the view focused, but rational thought prevailed and I went back to the tilting action. I wasn't quite ready to do what Tristan eventually does. He looks through the binoculars backwards, delighting himself with the novel perspective.
I reviewed the shots I had captured, even before I left the little bush which was the site of the filming, thanks to a quick little check in the manual before I ventured out.
Early on, I decided that my modus operandi with this camera would be to "just do it." With that surge of confidence, I first attached the neck strap to the camera body and attached the lens cap "string" to both the lens cap and the neck strap. That lens string is very clever, and appropriate for the likes of absent-minded me. Hiromi helped me find the battery compartment on the bottom of the camera, after I had first misread the manual and activated the pop-up flash on top instead.
No memory card came with the camera, so I didn't snap any photos at first. What I did next was set the date and time on the camera. By following the directions carefully I got everything perfect in that department, except for one small problem: The PM should have been an AM. Try as I might, I could not highlight that notation in order to change it. Silly me. All it took was advancing through the "hour" settings till I passed 12, at which time "AM" popped up. I kept going till the hour was right, and it was all set.
I still have no clue what many of the markings on the screen and on the "settings" dial indicate, but now I can make that lens zoom in and out like pro. I regularly give thanks that I live in the post-film-camera era, and I don't have to pay for developing each terrible picture I take.
I look at it this way: Everything I try will help me understand whatever help I'm offered as time goes by. Four miles south of here and four miles north of here reside three teenage nephews who are experts at this nature photography business. Check out this link for evidence. Farther north and a few miles east are more nieces and nephews who are expert photographers. At this point, I really don't know what to ask them. I haven't even tried uploading the picture to the computer (more manual time needed) or I'd send them a copy of the bird pictures I have--on the chance that they could help identify it. None of the panicked adults fluttering around looked like what I thought the fledgling looked like--a Western Kingbird.
*****************
I am embarking on regular expotitions. If you don't know what expotitions are, your Winnie-the-Pooh repertoire must have gaps in it. He went on an expotition to the North Pole.
My expotitions take me on a route around the perimeter of our three-acre property, with many forays into the interior. I carry a little pad of sticky notes and a pen. On it appear many notes and drawings. As each paper is filled, it gets stuck on the back of the notepad. On the first expotition I also had a pair of binoculars. I'll be taking the camera on future expotitions. The focus is on life in the outdoors. When I get back inside, I record it all in a Word document.
I have some trepidation about the next expotition because of Hiromi's diligent weed-whacking activities over the past week. His purposes and mine are at odds in this matter. The untidy edges of the property are the most interesting and diverse parts of the landscape, and I'd like them left alone--out back, in the fence row especially. Where he sees weeds, I see diversity and abundant life. I know fall grasses, but what are these in bloom now? I suspect the clumps I saw last week fell to the string trimmer.
The expotitions are a help in meeting many of the goals I have for this sabbatical year. All of them fall under the general goal of being restored in every part of my being--equipped and empowered again to serve.
Physically, I feel "better than ever." Dr. Morgan, the surgeon-oncologist who worked me over on May 13, has now released me to the care of my family practice physician, whom I will need to see for routine exams every three months for now. I have no restrictions on my activity. Right after Dr. Morgan told me that, in a flash of good humor, she said that if there is anything I really don't want to do though, she'll be happy to proscribe it for six months or so. I couldn't think of such a thing, and we laughed together at the joke. I'll be happy to recommend Dr. Morgan to anyone who needs the services she offers.
Being in nature restores my soul. It's where I feel most alive and worshipful. By way of the expotitions, I'm grateful for being able to piggyback on this love of nature several other goals I've had for a long time.
I want to establish some regular exercise habits. I want to develop something other than a "grind-my-teeth-in-frustration" relationship with Microsoft Word. So far, WordPerfect has my heart, and I can hardly tolerate Word, but Hiromi says I have to learn to use Word, and so I'm trying to do that. Doing it by way of a nature journal is helping to make it tolerable. Ditto on camera use. Using it for a nature journal is helping provide motivation to get this under my belt. Buying a camera now was Hiromi's idea, so this opportunity feels like a gift.
Since I don't have to leave home on most days, my early-morning quiet times are leisurely and spirit-strengthening. I don't set an alarm, but I still usually wake before 5:30, eager to get up and get to my devotions chair.
As part of the work on the curriculum review committee, my brain is getting a workout. I've been re-reading Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv. This seminal book on children and nature is absolutely convincing. I purchased the book soon after it was published in 2005 and have read it several times since then. Most recently, I read it right through exactly one week ago, and took notes well into the morning hours. Reading it again reminded me why I risked being on the "wrong" side of earlier community decisions regarding education--because of Louv's ideas that had become instinctive with me by then.
For the Children's Sake is another book that has heavily influenced my thinking on education. Susan Schaeffer Macaulay's ideas in that book (based on Charlotte Mason's ideas) are compatible with Louv's and form another part of my instinctive ideas by now.
Interacting with other educators outside of a small school staff also helps keep my brain occupied. Email is a convenient way to do this.
****************
As preparation for studying the final chapter of Daniel today in Sunday School, Rose asked us to come back this Sunday with an idea on who the character in Daniel 11 refers to. I'm not sure if she said it or if the question morphed into something different in my mind because of a heading in my Bible that referred to this person as the Antichrist. So I set out to learn about the identity of the Antichrist--because I thought that was what I was supposed to do. I learned today that Rose's source suggested that the Daniel 11 character was a prophecy concerning Herod--of birth-of-Christ fame. That actually seems to me to make some sense.
I don't gladly delve into prophecy controversies, and I quickly became disenchanted with what seemed like a very strong bias in the two study Bibles I use regularly. So I switched tactics and looked at the verses in the Bible that actually use the Antichrist term. Jesus used it in Matthew 24, Paul used it in writing the second letter to the Thessalonians (or terms very similar), and John used it in his epistles--especially in I John 2. To my knowledge it does not appear in the book of Revelation or in any Old Testament prophetic writings.
The name Antichrist is often thought to apply to the Beast of Revelation 13. I need more evidence before this identity "leap" seems right to me. I feel the same about the prophecy in Daniel 11.
Antichrist is clearly sometimes used as an adjective in scripture. It's used as a proper noun far less frequently, and I'm wary of professed knowledge about this character's identity beyond what is revealed in scripture.
In the meantime, we do well to be informed about what Jesus, Paul, and John tell us about those who are antichrist. They lie, in an effort to deceive. Some will show great signs and wonders in a further effort to deceive. They don't believe that Jesus came in the flesh. The Father and Son are denied as well, as stated in I John 2: 22--“Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.” They may claim to be the Messiah and desire to be worshiped.
In contrast to the speculative and disturbing interpretations of both Daniel and Revelation, what I learned from reading other NT scriptures about the antichrist gives clarity and hope. Here are some objective measures by which we can learn whether a person is antichrist. I also really enjoyed what surfaced in our Sunday School class as people shared about what they understood from the study of Daniel. None of what they said sounded anything like the strident "lid down over everything" treatment of Daniel I found in my study Bible. I like our Sunday School class treatment of the study best.
**************
We're studying Romans next in Sunday School. I hoped for studying Nehemiah. I read it earlier this year and, surprisingly, lessons of leadership leaped from its pages. I was expecting to find something else.
Some people can't wait to get out of the Old Testament back into the New. I am not like that.
I don't have the best memories of the last time that I taught Romans in Sunday School. It had a lot more to do with my state of health and mind at the time than of the content of the book, I'm sure. I did not know yet that I was suffering from low thyroid function, and I remember really struggling to get beyond a surface understanding of the book, and then struggling to remember it long enough to pass it on.
**************
Today in church Floyd and Dorcas were present with their beautiful infant daughter, Kyra Jubilee. She joined the family by adoption as a newborn, seven years after her parents' marriage.
**************
Can anyone tell me something about how to use cedar wood in outdoor structures, or do I have to bother Jay Yoder to tell me? I'm talking about nearly-30-year-old dead trees that are still standing. These windbreak trees died in the drought of 2012 and following. I'm eyeing those straight trunks and limbs as potential gateway arches or arbors or trellises (Help me out here. None of these terms seems quite right).
I've learned that the sap wood decays quickly--which explains why Jay always peels this off. Compared to Osage Orange, it seems light-weight, and it's hard for me to imagine it being as durable outdoors as some say it is. Does it need a finish? If so, what? What we have available is Eastern Red Cedar. It's a lot easier to work with than Osage Orange, so that's a benefit of cedar wood.
****************
This past week was the funeral of Dan Schrag, who was 93. If you have a chance, read the poetic thoughts written by Dan's daughter Ann. They were read at the funeral. It consisted of a series of "You see . . . I see . . ." comparisons between what others saw of Dan in his last years after dementia had set in, and what Ann knew of her father's earlier life and capabilities. The thoughts were beautifully crafted and very poignant.
Dan and Betty first came to our church when their family was young. They lived in the Hesston area at the time. Dan was a welder at what was then Hesston Corporation. AGCO is the current name. It's a big farm equipment manufacturer.
For a time, they had attended a Holdeman church in the Hesston area, but they eventually found their way to our church, which they preferred--I'm told--because they sensed less exclusivity with us.
When their children were old enough to help on a farm, Dan and Betty moved, first to Wisconsin, and then to New York, where they bought a dairy farm. After about ten years, in 1993, when the children had left home, they moved back to Kansas and built a retirement home in the Pleasantview area. They've been part of Center ever since.
Dan and Betty made a wonderful contribution to our church. They attended church activities faithfully and seized many opportunities to pray with others, to attend special meetings, and to learn by attending seminars, etc. They studied scripture and shared it in letters to members on the mission field. Dan was on the committee that selected Labette County, KS as the location for a church outreach.
Betty was one week younger than my mother, and she and I share a June 9 birthday. In the earlier years of my teaching at Pilgrim, Betty and I walked together most afternoons. She was 75, and a wonderful walking companion. One of Betty's specialties was making cards. They were real works of art.
A week ago today, Dan and Betty were sitting side by side and holding hands while Betty read aloud from Psalm 34. Betty felt Dan's hand relax and she thought he had gone to sleep. Waking up in heaven must have happened right then. I can't think of a more peaceful way to die.
******************
Mrs. I has a new camera, and she's bumbling through figuring out how to use it. Nature photography is one of the main goals for this camera, but it's certain that many birds and insects will come and go while she's still working on deciphering the instruction manual.
It's not a DSLR, so all the photography snobs will know right off that this camera does not hold a candle to the really good ones. It is, however, far more sophisticated than anything Mrs. I encountered in the book on photography she bought and mostly understood some decades ago.
OK. Back to first person.
The zoom mostly didn't after I finally got that adorable little fledgling located inside the viewfinder yesterday. I located the zoom button after I returned to the house. The little lever by the shutter button had produced only minor results.
In aiming the camera, I reminded myself of Tristan learning to use the binoculars I keep by the patio doors. Up and down and from side to side. For way too long, this sweeping action produced only views of leaves. I kept thinking I should put the camera up to my face to get the view focused, but rational thought prevailed and I went back to the tilting action. I wasn't quite ready to do what Tristan eventually does. He looks through the binoculars backwards, delighting himself with the novel perspective.
I reviewed the shots I had captured, even before I left the little bush which was the site of the filming, thanks to a quick little check in the manual before I ventured out.
Early on, I decided that my modus operandi with this camera would be to "just do it." With that surge of confidence, I first attached the neck strap to the camera body and attached the lens cap "string" to both the lens cap and the neck strap. That lens string is very clever, and appropriate for the likes of absent-minded me. Hiromi helped me find the battery compartment on the bottom of the camera, after I had first misread the manual and activated the pop-up flash on top instead.
No memory card came with the camera, so I didn't snap any photos at first. What I did next was set the date and time on the camera. By following the directions carefully I got everything perfect in that department, except for one small problem: The PM should have been an AM. Try as I might, I could not highlight that notation in order to change it. Silly me. All it took was advancing through the "hour" settings till I passed 12, at which time "AM" popped up. I kept going till the hour was right, and it was all set.
I still have no clue what many of the markings on the screen and on the "settings" dial indicate, but now I can make that lens zoom in and out like pro. I regularly give thanks that I live in the post-film-camera era, and I don't have to pay for developing each terrible picture I take.
I look at it this way: Everything I try will help me understand whatever help I'm offered as time goes by. Four miles south of here and four miles north of here reside three teenage nephews who are experts at this nature photography business. Check out this link for evidence. Farther north and a few miles east are more nieces and nephews who are expert photographers. At this point, I really don't know what to ask them. I haven't even tried uploading the picture to the computer (more manual time needed) or I'd send them a copy of the bird pictures I have--on the chance that they could help identify it. None of the panicked adults fluttering around looked like what I thought the fledgling looked like--a Western Kingbird.
*****************
I am embarking on regular expotitions. If you don't know what expotitions are, your Winnie-the-Pooh repertoire must have gaps in it. He went on an expotition to the North Pole.
My expotitions take me on a route around the perimeter of our three-acre property, with many forays into the interior. I carry a little pad of sticky notes and a pen. On it appear many notes and drawings. As each paper is filled, it gets stuck on the back of the notepad. On the first expotition I also had a pair of binoculars. I'll be taking the camera on future expotitions. The focus is on life in the outdoors. When I get back inside, I record it all in a Word document.
I have some trepidation about the next expotition because of Hiromi's diligent weed-whacking activities over the past week. His purposes and mine are at odds in this matter. The untidy edges of the property are the most interesting and diverse parts of the landscape, and I'd like them left alone--out back, in the fence row especially. Where he sees weeds, I see diversity and abundant life. I know fall grasses, but what are these in bloom now? I suspect the clumps I saw last week fell to the string trimmer.
The expotitions are a help in meeting many of the goals I have for this sabbatical year. All of them fall under the general goal of being restored in every part of my being--equipped and empowered again to serve.
Physically, I feel "better than ever." Dr. Morgan, the surgeon-oncologist who worked me over on May 13, has now released me to the care of my family practice physician, whom I will need to see for routine exams every three months for now. I have no restrictions on my activity. Right after Dr. Morgan told me that, in a flash of good humor, she said that if there is anything I really don't want to do though, she'll be happy to proscribe it for six months or so. I couldn't think of such a thing, and we laughed together at the joke. I'll be happy to recommend Dr. Morgan to anyone who needs the services she offers.
Being in nature restores my soul. It's where I feel most alive and worshipful. By way of the expotitions, I'm grateful for being able to piggyback on this love of nature several other goals I've had for a long time.
I want to establish some regular exercise habits. I want to develop something other than a "grind-my-teeth-in-frustration" relationship with Microsoft Word. So far, WordPerfect has my heart, and I can hardly tolerate Word, but Hiromi says I have to learn to use Word, and so I'm trying to do that. Doing it by way of a nature journal is helping to make it tolerable. Ditto on camera use. Using it for a nature journal is helping provide motivation to get this under my belt. Buying a camera now was Hiromi's idea, so this opportunity feels like a gift.
Since I don't have to leave home on most days, my early-morning quiet times are leisurely and spirit-strengthening. I don't set an alarm, but I still usually wake before 5:30, eager to get up and get to my devotions chair.
As part of the work on the curriculum review committee, my brain is getting a workout. I've been re-reading Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv. This seminal book on children and nature is absolutely convincing. I purchased the book soon after it was published in 2005 and have read it several times since then. Most recently, I read it right through exactly one week ago, and took notes well into the morning hours. Reading it again reminded me why I risked being on the "wrong" side of earlier community decisions regarding education--because of Louv's ideas that had become instinctive with me by then.
For the Children's Sake is another book that has heavily influenced my thinking on education. Susan Schaeffer Macaulay's ideas in that book (based on Charlotte Mason's ideas) are compatible with Louv's and form another part of my instinctive ideas by now.
Interacting with other educators outside of a small school staff also helps keep my brain occupied. Email is a convenient way to do this.
****************
As preparation for studying the final chapter of Daniel today in Sunday School, Rose asked us to come back this Sunday with an idea on who the character in Daniel 11 refers to. I'm not sure if she said it or if the question morphed into something different in my mind because of a heading in my Bible that referred to this person as the Antichrist. So I set out to learn about the identity of the Antichrist--because I thought that was what I was supposed to do. I learned today that Rose's source suggested that the Daniel 11 character was a prophecy concerning Herod--of birth-of-Christ fame. That actually seems to me to make some sense.
I don't gladly delve into prophecy controversies, and I quickly became disenchanted with what seemed like a very strong bias in the two study Bibles I use regularly. So I switched tactics and looked at the verses in the Bible that actually use the Antichrist term. Jesus used it in Matthew 24, Paul used it in writing the second letter to the Thessalonians (or terms very similar), and John used it in his epistles--especially in I John 2. To my knowledge it does not appear in the book of Revelation or in any Old Testament prophetic writings.
The name Antichrist is often thought to apply to the Beast of Revelation 13. I need more evidence before this identity "leap" seems right to me. I feel the same about the prophecy in Daniel 11.
Antichrist is clearly sometimes used as an adjective in scripture. It's used as a proper noun far less frequently, and I'm wary of professed knowledge about this character's identity beyond what is revealed in scripture.
In the meantime, we do well to be informed about what Jesus, Paul, and John tell us about those who are antichrist. They lie, in an effort to deceive. Some will show great signs and wonders in a further effort to deceive. They don't believe that Jesus came in the flesh. The Father and Son are denied as well, as stated in I John 2: 22--“Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.” They may claim to be the Messiah and desire to be worshiped.
In contrast to the speculative and disturbing interpretations of both Daniel and Revelation, what I learned from reading other NT scriptures about the antichrist gives clarity and hope. Here are some objective measures by which we can learn whether a person is antichrist. I also really enjoyed what surfaced in our Sunday School class as people shared about what they understood from the study of Daniel. None of what they said sounded anything like the strident "lid down over everything" treatment of Daniel I found in my study Bible. I like our Sunday School class treatment of the study best.
**************
We're studying Romans next in Sunday School. I hoped for studying Nehemiah. I read it earlier this year and, surprisingly, lessons of leadership leaped from its pages. I was expecting to find something else.
Some people can't wait to get out of the Old Testament back into the New. I am not like that.
I don't have the best memories of the last time that I taught Romans in Sunday School. It had a lot more to do with my state of health and mind at the time than of the content of the book, I'm sure. I did not know yet that I was suffering from low thyroid function, and I remember really struggling to get beyond a surface understanding of the book, and then struggling to remember it long enough to pass it on.
**************
Today in church Floyd and Dorcas were present with their beautiful infant daughter, Kyra Jubilee. She joined the family by adoption as a newborn, seven years after her parents' marriage.
**************
Can anyone tell me something about how to use cedar wood in outdoor structures, or do I have to bother Jay Yoder to tell me? I'm talking about nearly-30-year-old dead trees that are still standing. These windbreak trees died in the drought of 2012 and following. I'm eyeing those straight trunks and limbs as potential gateway arches or arbors or trellises (Help me out here. None of these terms seems quite right).
I've learned that the sap wood decays quickly--which explains why Jay always peels this off. Compared to Osage Orange, it seems light-weight, and it's hard for me to imagine it being as durable outdoors as some say it is. Does it need a finish? If so, what? What we have available is Eastern Red Cedar. It's a lot easier to work with than Osage Orange, so that's a benefit of cedar wood.
****************
This past week was the funeral of Dan Schrag, who was 93. If you have a chance, read the poetic thoughts written by Dan's daughter Ann. They were read at the funeral. It consisted of a series of "You see . . . I see . . ." comparisons between what others saw of Dan in his last years after dementia had set in, and what Ann knew of her father's earlier life and capabilities. The thoughts were beautifully crafted and very poignant.
Dan and Betty first came to our church when their family was young. They lived in the Hesston area at the time. Dan was a welder at what was then Hesston Corporation. AGCO is the current name. It's a big farm equipment manufacturer.
For a time, they had attended a Holdeman church in the Hesston area, but they eventually found their way to our church, which they preferred--I'm told--because they sensed less exclusivity with us.
When their children were old enough to help on a farm, Dan and Betty moved, first to Wisconsin, and then to New York, where they bought a dairy farm. After about ten years, in 1993, when the children had left home, they moved back to Kansas and built a retirement home in the Pleasantview area. They've been part of Center ever since.
Dan and Betty made a wonderful contribution to our church. They attended church activities faithfully and seized many opportunities to pray with others, to attend special meetings, and to learn by attending seminars, etc. They studied scripture and shared it in letters to members on the mission field. Dan was on the committee that selected Labette County, KS as the location for a church outreach.
Betty was one week younger than my mother, and she and I share a June 9 birthday. In the earlier years of my teaching at Pilgrim, Betty and I walked together most afternoons. She was 75, and a wonderful walking companion. One of Betty's specialties was making cards. They were real works of art.
A week ago today, Dan and Betty were sitting side by side and holding hands while Betty read aloud from Psalm 34. Betty felt Dan's hand relax and she thought he had gone to sleep. Waking up in heaven must have happened right then. I can't think of a more peaceful way to die.
posted by Mrs. I (Miriam Iwashige) at
10:55 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home