fundamentalism by blunt instrument
I’ll have to take that by faith over the next few days.
Yesterday morning I put my lads on a plane at SeaTac.
Last night we came home to a house that has had at least one boy in it for the last 24 years.
Today my boys are busy getting ready for their year at BJU, classes commencing next Wednesday. This is the will of God, and I accept it. (I didn’t say I liked it.)
I just discovered RefTagger, a plugin for WordPress available free from Logos. You can find it here. The plugin recognizes Bible references in your posts and creates a little popup that shows the verse you referenced and a link to the reference at biblegateway.com. Here are a few samples:
Jn 3.16
John 3.16
Jer 33.3
Amos 1:1f
Isa 6:1ff
Rom 3.21-26
Maybe you knew about this already, but having just found it, I had to play with it a little and see how it works.
Right now, it only links to NLT, ESV, and KJV, although many other versions are planned (and are listed on the options page for setting the plugin up).
UPDATE: It appears that the ‘ff’ tag isn’t working, even though the Logos site says it does. Still, a nice little addition.
A busy week – our summer has been full of events, work, blessings, and challenges.
Some of the challenges came in the last two weeks.
But blessings too!
And something I found a little funny today, in the politics way:
I am thinking next month will slow down, but that might be wishful thinking. I still have a lawn to put in (and a window sitting in my basement to install) and the ongoing work of the ministry. There’s never a dull moment around here.
My wife is in Alberta visiting my parents while two of our kids are at camp.
The other day, my wife shared with my parents the video of our oldest son’s wedding (just over a year ago). My parents didn’t feel up to travelling all the way to Greenville, so this was their first look at the DVD.
My mom’s comment after the video (I conducted the ceremony, so catch this admiring mom comment!):
“He could have told them a lot of that in private counselling and made it shorter.”
Moi? Long? Perish the thought!
Thanks, mom!
Five years ago, my wife was diagnosed with Chronic Mylogenous Leukemia. As we began to understand what was happening, we had many tears, but put our trust in the Lord. This summer marks a milestone. Left untreated, CML life expectancy is about five years. But we thank God for the work of many scientists (surely some of them – most? – unregenerated). Two years prior to our diagnosis, they had successfully brought to approval the new wonder drug, Gleevec.
Gleevec turned a death sentence into a chronic condition, with next to no side effects for my dear wife. (Except she complains about gaining back the weight she lost with active leukemia!)
Newsweek has an article called “A Step Past Chemotherapy” that describes some of the new approaches being taken in treating cancers of all kinds, following the path blazed largely by Gleevec.
In the article, these are the lines that got me thinking about our milestone:
Such glitches take place within a complex network of genes and proteins, all of them performing specific duties to keep cancer alive. Targeted drugs interrupt various pathways in this network. One significant advance in this new approach is Gleevec, approved in 2001 to treat chronic myeloid leukemia. Gleevec clamps down on the cell’s accelerator, a protein called tyrosine kinase, which drives cancer to reproduce.
Essentially, Gleevec zeros in on the mutated white blood cells that show up in my wife’s blood stream and kills them, allowing the normal cells to function properly and proliferate. Which apparently makes her life expectancy about the same as anyone else. I have given her these comforting words: “You’ll live long enough to die of something else.”
We don’t dwell on it. Our tears and fears are long past. My wife takes a couple of pills every morning and life goes on. We are very thankful to be able to serve the Lord together still. But as I realized this summer is a milestone of sorts, I am full of thankfulness to our Lord who does all things well.
One of my Canadian news aggregator sites led me to this story:
“European Court agrees to hear chimp’s plea for human rights“
I am not sure what is more bizarre… the fact that someone is actually attempting to make a case like this or the fact that the European Court of Human Rights has agreed to take the case.
The case involves a chimp in an animal sanctuary facing bankruptcy. A young woman wants to become his legal guardian to care for him if the sanctuary is forced to shut down. In order to be a ‘guardian’, the chimp has to be a person, hence this case.
Some of this young woman’s rationale:
A couple of fellows from our local area found this monster from the deep blue sea washing itself up on the beach.
It’s a Pacific longnose lancetfish, usually inhabiting a depth of 1.8 km, one of God’s wonderful creations.
Read the whole story here.
Just thought that was kind of cool…
A parable for my American friends…
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
The End
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. So far, so good, eh?
Any day with FREE books is an even better day!
Our local newspaper holds an annual book sale with books donated by the citizens of our fair city. They do it for some charity or other. The day after the sale, they have local non-profit organizations in to pick through the leftovers for free!
This was the first year I have had the time to go by and check the leftovers. I found myself standing in a line of 100 or so others at 9am. I saw one fellow with one of those rolling trash bins, apparently to take his haul home with him. Others arrived with many boxes. A whole team of scavengers was just ahead of me with five people and boxes.
Inside, there were literally thousands of books left. I can’t imagine what they will do with all of them, I am sure the non-profits couldn’t carry them all away. I ended up with 13 books – I am picky, and our city doesn’t tend to give away books that are of real interest to someone as conservative as me.
Nevertheless, here is my list of treasures…
A science script consultant tells all in “My life as an advisor to TV and film“…
In general, I’ve found that producers of comedy have less interest in adhering to the facts than those involved in dramas.
but…
Even on the dramas, however, a cherished scientific truth will sometimes have to be discarded in order to enable an essential story development, such as a normally three-week-long forensic DNA analysis that’s fictionally done in one hour for the sake of plot pacing. In truth, few will ever notice these gaffs. As one TV producer told me, the number of Ph.D. scientists watching his show accounts for no more than 0.00001% of the Nielsen rating audience.
The latest audio from the GBCvic
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