For some time, I’ve been searching in vain for headlines or articles that actually inform of something new (in kind or scope) in society or government. It’s why I’ve stopped listening to conservative radio (except for Mark Levin, my favorite professor). Comprehension of the detailed causes and effects of the massive pileup we are experiencing is about to cause my head to explode. [What everyone is doing in this effort has been and is essential – I don’t propose that I somehow “know better” how we ought to fight our once in a lifetime national fight. I obviously don’t – which would account for the fact that Sundance has a couple of thousand posts here and I have less than a hundred. But I think my own thoughts as we are in this Refuge together and these were my thoughts yesterday and this morning. And a good friend has challenged me well on them already.] (more…)
Doing what Jesus would do isn’t nearly as super-spiritual, frothy, odd or goofy as it is usually thought to be. It’s pretty practical. The Bible says that the common people heard him gladly — for a very good reason.
Doing what Jesus would do
will have characteristics like – dignified, strong, sensible, magnetic.
Effective. Without mixed motives.
The four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) contain a plethora of information regarding what Jesus actually did do — when someone was rude, when someone interrupted him, or when someone evaded the important issues — so if we are interested in answering the question, “What would Jesus do?” it makes sense to check there.
Here are some examples of what Jesus actually did do in a variety of situations. When someone saw themselves as sinful and broken…He encouraged them and lifted them up.
He saw the possibilities for redemption in their lives and did not have a need for them to feel “no good.” Luke 5:8-10 (more…)
Dad with his horses in the early 1920s
My brother wrote this monograph about the family horses, including some more personal memories. Much of what he describes was well before my time, literally, as he was seventeen years old when I was born.
Dad farmed with horses through 1934 before he bought his first tractor. We had 12-15 head of draft horses when on Grandpa Soren’s place. Pulling a duckfoot or the disc required eight horses; a two bottom plow, seed drill or binder used four and a cultivator or mower required a team of two horses.
Horse teams were replaced with fresh horses at noon. The horses were rubbed down before harnessing and after removing the harness they were again rubbed and curried.
After moving to the Jorgenson place in late 1934 and having sold the heavy horses, Dad bought a team of light weight horses from Bud S who lived down near Lanark. Swindle broke these horses, named Pete and Tony, with a whip. The effect of such treatment would be with us as long as those horses lived. They were skittish, unstable, easily frightened and they did not trust anyone. Mother was afraid to have us kids near them. We were scared of them. (more…)
We are surrounded on all sides today with contentment in the process itself, with no expectation of ends or absolutes. Such contentment inherently saddles us with a serious distortion. Being addicted to process offers us the option (if we want it) to think of life, or dilemmas, or problems, or realities as always consisting only of the journey–but never actually arriving anywhere; as always providing one more negotiating point, butnever being set in cement; as always consisting of a journey that has no terminal destination; nothing ever being settled. Even those whose faith informs them differently find it difficult to stand free of the magnetism that the high priests of process call them to, but it must be resisted if we are to consistently respond to “This is so. That is not so.” We’ve been influenced and made uncertain by a flood of unfaith. It is no wonder that we find it overwhelming to think sound thoughts about God. So, as for me, I’m revisiting old, favorite reading to strengthen my innards. (more…)
These weekly MBOBs are snapshots from the back roads of my memories. Mailboxes along the roads and old barns set back in fields overgrown with weeds often served as landmarks that told us where we were and how far we had to go in the prairie country where I grew up in northeastern Montana. Sometimes they signaled “home” and the end of the road. At other times, barely visible through swirling snow they told us we had miles to go. When I started compiling these word pictures I realized they were like those mailboxes and old barns—still identifying important places along the road, still signaling where I am and how far I have to go.
This particular MBOB is the first of its kind. Last winter, Cyrano left a comment on an MBOB indicating that he was working on plans for an extensive trip that he and his wife hoped to take through The Great West of the United States.
They did it!
He shared his plan in January, “I’m sure my wife will love it! Hee hee. I’ll just tell her ‘I’m taking you to see Mt Rushmore, my Darling.’ Via Oregon, Idaho, and Montana…” Well, they got it done, and are still getting it done as you read here. And yes, they’ve seen Mt. Rushmore, along with a dozen other places, and then pushed on through North Dakota, Montana, and Idaho into Oregon.
A few days ago, my husband and I had the best time time getting acquainted with these friends. We had a long visit over dinner, and a long, long visit over photos we both had at the ready – his treasure trove including the one below which was just taken on July 25. Cyrano’s Photo of Ebenezer Lutheran Church, my childhood church Cyrano had mentioned in the planning stages that “It’s vast out here in the west” and they surely have the proof of that in their photos and in their memories. We had a deep-down good time with them at Shari’s where the loaded potato soup is just fine. The hours flew by as we supervised the shift change and eventually parted as old friends. (more…)
Please scroll down and get the Sousa music going before you begin reading this morning….
At four thirty on a July morning when I was about fifteen years old, I was awake. Unusual. Don’t know why.
The house is quiet. Dad has breakfast and heads down to the barn to milk the two cows before beginning a long day’s work around six o’clock.
My bedroom on the second floor of the big farm house is actually the farthest point in the house from the front door or the back door, so slipping out of the house isn’t a matter of just stepping out of the door. But it’s a quiet, somewhat balmy morning and I suddenly realize that if I wanted to, I could go for a bike ride in my pajamas. I want to, so I do. (more…)
A couple of weeks ago, I realized that I was hearing something being said and asked in different forms, again and again, and it was along the lines of, “Ok. I get it. Now what?”
Our son put it this way, “Mom, I’m overloaded with information. I understand all the stuff that’s wrong. Figuratively speaking, I’ve unholstered my weapon and now I need to know where to aim it.”
Intellectually and philosophically, a whole bunch of patriots are feeling all dressed up and anxious to know, exactly, where they are supposed to go. There’s a time of transition that is uncomfortable. (more…)
Palle Lauring has a two page discussion in A History of Denmark (David Hohnen, Host & Son, Copenhagen, 1960) in which he analyzes the historical reluctance of Danes to spend materiel, men or money in the interest of a constant state of military defense.
This missing piece in the essential business of self-preservation is even more significant in the light of another observation he makes elsewhere in the book:
“Even though the central, basic land of Denmark has been obliged to cede various territories, the nation is nevertheless still there….Denmark has maintained her position throughout her 1,000-year old history. Her inhabitants represent one of the few peoples in Europe that have never suffered from large-scale invasions or population transfers and so today can really claim for the most part to be the descendants of the ‘Danes’ of the Stone Age.” (more…)
The day before yesterday was stressful here in the Treehouse.
The day before the day before was — well, you get the idea.
For many reasons (all of them stressful) at 8:30 last night, I had no MBOB in the pipeline.
That’s not good. But yesterday morning Michellc had posted a family story on the open thread that was a mailbox and an old barn if I’ve ever seen one. I asked her to contact me at the CTH and she has given me permission to share it as today’s MBOB. (more…)
He is doing this, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. And Congress is not stopping him.
Thus Obama eschews enforcement of the immigration laws not because they are comparatively trivial or adequately covered by state police — indeed, his most notable enforcement efforts are directed not at illegal aliens but at states who dare attempt to see to the law’s faithful execution. Obama’s discretionary non-enforcement is not a good-faith husbanding of federal resources but a cynical enterprise in rewarding lawbreakers and cultivating them as a dependable political constituency. His Justice Department practices racial discrimination in the enforcement of the civil-rights laws, a grievous betrayal of the Constitution, in order to appease and empower his political base.
Why do you think Congress does not stop him, since he is violating the law both in his refusal to enforce it and in his objections to the states enforcing it? Why do you think Congress does not stop him, since he is clearly violating the oath of office that he said when he began to rule? (more…)
