The Good Book

'Tis the good reader that makes the good book;

in every book he finds passages

which seem confidences

or asides

hidden from all else

and unmistakably meant for his ear;

the profit of books

is according to the sensibility of the reader;

the profoundest thought or passion

sleeps as in a mine,

until it is discovered by an equal mind and heart.

...ralph waldo emerson

Natural Frequency

Fascinating. Did you know that if you hold down the sustain pedal on a piano and sing a note, the piano string of that note will "play" off the vibrations of your voice?

If you can sing very loudly at the natural frequency of a glass (the sound it makes when it is tapped or caused to vibrate) you can cause the glass to shatter, we have seen this alluded to, but did you know, that in 1940 the Tacoma Bridge in the USA collapsed because the wind made it vibrate at its natural tendency? Soldiers do not march in step across bridges, in case their footsteps make the bridge vibrate at it's natural frequency.

This immediately brought Jericho to mind!!! Wild stuff.

Psalm 65

People everywhere on the earth and beyond the sea trust in You

You made the mountains by Your strength, You are dressed in power.

You stopped the roaring seas, the roaring waves, and the uproar of the nations,

Even those people at the ends of the earth fear your miracles,

You are praised from where the sun rises to where it sets.

You take care of the land and water it;

You make it very fertile.

The rivers of God are full of water.

 

Grain grows because You make it grow.

 

You send rain to the plowed fields; you fill the rows with water

You soften the ground with rain, and then You bless it with crops.

You give the year a good harvest

and you load the wagons with many crops

The desert is covered with grass and the hills with happiness.

The pastures are full of flocks

and the valleys are covered with grain.

Everything shouts and sings for joy.

all photos in the public domain

Sweet Adversity

Wealth is certainly a most desirable thing,

but poverty has its sunny side,

and one of the sweet uses of adversity

is the genuine satisfaction which comes

from hearty work of head or hand,  

and to the inspiration of necessity,

we owe half the wise,

beautiful,

and useful blessings of the world.

 

Louisa May Alcott.

Hungry?

The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality we drink in every night. For all the ill that Satan can do, when God describes what keeps us from the banquet table of his love, it is a piece of land, a yoke of oxen, and a wife (Luke 14:18-20). ….the most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth.”

John Piper

It bears repeating.  I am too easily fattened and dulled by  the perpetual parade of apple pie this world has to offer.  No wonder I have little hunger for my daily bread.  Maybe if I weaned myself of the sweet and oh so smooth confections that tickle my taste buds and pad my hips without fortifying my soul… maybe if I stopped drinking so deeply from the fountain of frivolity… maybe then the hunger would grow.  The kind of hunger that settles for nothing less than my Daily Bread (Mat 6:11), the Pure Milk (1 Pet 2:2), the Heartiest Meat (1 Cor 3:2), and springs of Living Water (John 4:14). 

From Leftovers to Crumbs

I have been listening and re-listening to Bebo Norman’s “My Only Hope” paired with thoughts of this poem by Wilbur Rees. 

“I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.
Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep,
but just enough to equal a warm cup of milk
or a snooze in the sunshine.
I don't want enough of God to make me love a homeless man
or pick beets with a migrant.
I want ecstasy, not transformation.
I want the warmth of the womb not a new birth.
I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack
I would like to buy $3 worth of God please”

Wilbur Rees

Bebo sings;

“I want a crumb, but you are a feast
I want a song, but you are a symphony
I want a star, but you are a galaxy
And I have resolved that I'm much better off
In what you have for me.”

If I don’t want to offer leftovers to God, how much less do I want to be blessed with only $3.00 worth of His grace and blessing and goodness (and I’m not talking just in pleasant circumstances, here).  No.  No leftovers on my part.  No satisfaction in crumbs.  I will feast on Him today.

I want to run, it's my nature to run
And I want to fight, it's my nature to fight
And I want to live, but you tell me to die
I have resolved that I'm much better off
In your hands than mine

I'm begging you to hold on tight
Begging you to hold on tight
Begging you to hold on tight
Begging you to take my life from me

I want a crumb, but you are a feast
I want a song, but you are a symphony
I want a star, but you are a galaxy
And I have resolved that I'm much better off
In what you have for me

I'm begging you to hold on tight
Begging you to hold on tight 
Begging you to take my life from me

So tell me you won't let go
Tell me you won't let go
Cause you are the only hope for me

Take my life from me, It's the only hope for me
Take my life from me, It's the only hope for me

And I'll never want for more
I'll never want for more

Pumpkin Torte

CRUST:
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup (5 tablespoons) butter - melted

CREAM CHEESE FILLING:
12 ounces cream cheese - softened
1 cup sugar
3 eggs

PUMPKIN FILLING:
15 ounces pumpkin puree
3 eggs - separated
3/4 cup sugar - divided
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 envelope of unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup cold water

whipped topping

CRUST:
In a medium bowl, mix the crumbs, sugar and cinnamon together. Stir in melted butter until all is moistened. Press into an ungreased 13x9 baking dish.

CREAM CHEESE FILLING:
In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Beat in 1 cup of sugar and eggs until fluffy. Pour over the crust and bake at 350° for 20 minutes or until set. Cool.

PUMPKIN PIE FILLING:
In a large saucepan, combine the pumpkin, egg yolks, 1/2 cup of sugar, milk, cinnamon and salt. Cook and stir over low heat 10-12 minutes or until mixture thickens. Remove from heat. In a small saucepan, sprinkle gelatin over cold water, let stand for 1 minute. Over low heat, stir the gelatin until it is dissolved completely. Stir in the pumpkin mixture, allow to cool.

Beat the egg whites, with the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar until it gets thick and glossy. Fold into pumpkin mixture. Pour pumpkin mixture over the cream cheese layer. Chill for at least 4 hours or until completely set. (Can be frozen, allow to sit at room temperature for 1 hour before serving).

Garnish with whipped cream topping, sprinkle with nutmeg if desired.

Remembrance

Conveniently just wrapping up World War II studies today, on this day of Remembrance. My heart was just wrung reading about the horrors of post world war demographics. One thing that hit me especially hard was this;

"The most immediate problem was what to do with the millions of people the war had uprooted. In Germany, there were five and a half million Soviet citizens who needed to be sent home. Among them were soldiers who had fought for the Nazis and faced certain execution at home. But, with a cruel logic, the Soviet authorities decided that many of the others, who had survived captivity as prisoners of war and slave workers, were traitors too. So they returned home to long prison sentences."

So sad. So sobering. So heart rending.

In closing, a trivia question. During World War II Russia suffered 25 million military and civilian deaths. What percentage of Soviet men, aged 19-23 survived the war? 3%. 6%. 9% or 12%?

Firstfruits

 

I am reminded once again, “Be faithful, believing that this moment, this task of being the keeper of this home and tender of these hearts is my calling and is my  form (a form, not solely) of temporary worship.”  Am I choosing to magnify Him in the moment?  Am I choosing to center myself on this task/ministry/calling and see it as opportunity for me to display  my faithful heart or am I treating this task as a distraction? Am I giving Him and my charges the “firstfruits” or are they getting the stale, dry, sparse, bruised and battered leftovers of my devotion?

“We don’t like thoughtless love, food, passion or friendship…we like true love, wholesome food, pure passion and friendship that puts the other first…

What does our Lord and Master want from us…nothing less….”

Wow. I love (hate!) the visual image of “leftovers”. I do NOT want to offer leftovers to God. Despite my not wanting to, I wonder how often I do and am shamed and sorrowed to say that it is often. The wording in Sarah’s “Leftovers” post just made me feel like scales dropped from my eyes. I will be thinking and evaluating the plate of praise that I serve Him today, in my relationship with Him, and with those He has placed in my path to love and serve… that it won’t be cluttered by take out and leftovers, but that it will be a double portion, hand mixed and served up with the firstfruits of all my devotion.

And So I Write...

“Writing can be a true spiritual discipline.

Writing can help us to concentrate,

to get in touch with the deeper stirrings of our hearts,

to clarify our minds,

to process confusing emotions,

to reflect on our experiences,

to give artistic expression to what we are living,

and to store significant events in our memories.

Writing can also be good for others

who might read what we write.

Quite often a difficult,

painful,

or frustrating day

can be redeemed by writing about it.

By writing we can claim what we have lived

and thus integrate it more fully into our journeys.

Then writing can become lifesaving for us

and sometimes for others too.”

I love writing for the reasons mentioned so eloquently by Nouwen above.

"Writing is not just jotting down ideas.

Often we say: "I don't know what to write.

I have no thoughts worth writing down."

But much good writing emerges from the process of writing itself.

As we simply sit down in front of a sheet of paper

and start to express in words what is on our minds

or in our hearts,

new ideas emerge,

ideas that can surprise us and lead us to inner places we hardly knew were there.

One of the most satisfying aspects of writing

is that it can open in us deep wells of hidden treasures

that are beautiful for us as well as for others to see.”

Some time ago, Sarah dropped by and left me a treasure of a gift in the comment box. It was a quote of something I had written in response to a post of hers back in 2008. The beauty of the gift was that as I read the words, they spoke to me. I had penned them, but they were offered back to me and not recognizing them as my own, they moved me deeply. This is one of the things that I most love about writing, that as I sit and sort through my thoughts and seek to connect things and express them, something beautiful emerges that is not so much the production of a girl with a knack for words as it is the product of a work being written in my life by the Master Scribe. It never ceases to stir me. And so I write, and am continually enriched in the process.