Saturday, December 19, 2009

Marva Dawn

If you have not read Marva Dawn, then you ought to. I am sad to say my list of books I am currently reading has had to undergo a reality check, so I must put this one down to read later.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Advanced Driving Skills School



Yup - it's back to school and fun it was. This is a rather tame picture, but one of the few I have. At the beginning of the day, we were learning how to change direction quickly without loosing control of the car. Switching over 1 lane, then 2 without braking, sliding or taking out instructors and photographers who were standing right in front of us signaling us when to change lanes.
We began the day with a chalk talk to learn the basics of vehicle dynamics, but spent most of the day on the skid pad. I know all about understeer, oversteer, steering with the throttle, secondary weight transfer and power-slides and put them to good use on the figure 8 and auto cross courses. Check it out I just may go on to the High Performance school in the fall and put in some track time!

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Spiritual Discernment


Rarely have I found so many people I respect recommend a book as highly as this one. I am in the middle of reading it and find it quite good. More later. In the meantime check out the author Tim Challies' web site. Check it out.

Monday, October 05, 2009

"Nowhere did I find the quality of that preacher"

I've had this book set aside for a long time hoping to get to read it one day. A couple of weekends ago, I finally got to read it when a friend offered us a weekend getaway at their parents summer home near the Botanical Gardens near Boothbar Harbor. Here is one of the delightful and surpizing passages from the book. Written in 1962, Steinbeck observers something still needed to be seen by evangelicals today. A reminder also I think of the knowledge of God in everyone (Romans Chapter 1)



"Sunday morning, in a Vermont town, my last day in New England, I shaved, dressed in a suit, polished my shoes, whited my sepulcher, and looked for a church to attend. Several I eliminated for reasons I do not now remember, but on seeing a John Knox church I drove into a side street and parked Rocinante out of sight, gave Charley his instructions about watching the truck, and took my way with dignity to a church of blindingly white ship lap. I took my seat in the rear of. the spotless, polished place of worship. The prayers were to the point, directing the attention of the Almighty to certain weaknesses and undivine tendencies I know to be mine and could only suppose were shared by others gathered there.

The service did my heart and I hope my soul some good. It had been long since I had heard such an approach. It is our practice now, at least in the large cities, to find from our psychiatric priesthood that our sins aren't really sins at all but accidents that are set in motion by forces beyond our control. There was no such nonsense in this church. The minister, a man of iron with tool-steel eyes and a delivery like a pneumatic drill, opened up with prayer and reassured us that we were a pretty sorry lot. And he was right. We didn't amount to much to start with, and due to our own tawdry efforts we had been slipping ever since. Then, having softened us up, he went into a glorious sermon, a fire-and-brimstone sermon. Having proved that we, or perhaps only I, were no damn good, he painted with cool certainty what was likely to happen to us if we didn't make some basic reorganizations for which he didn't hold out much hope. He spoke of hell as an expert, not the mush-mush hell of these soft days, but a well-stoked, white-hot hell served by technicians of the first order. This reverend brought it to a point where we could understand it, a good hard coal fire, plenty of draft, and a squad of open-hearth devils who put their hearts into their work, and their work was me. I began to feel good all over. For some years now God has been a pal to us, practicing togetherness, and that causes the same emptiness a father does playing softball with his son. But this Vermont God cared enough about me to go to a lot of trouble kicking the hell out of me. He put my sins in a new perspective. Whereas they had been small and mean and nasty and best forgotten, this minister gave them some size and bloom and dignity. I hadn't been thinking very well of myself for some years, but if my sins had this dimen sion there was some pride left. I wasn't a naughty child but a first rate sinner, and I was going to catch it.

I felt so revived in spirit that I put five dollars in the plate, and afterward, in front of the church, shook hands warmly with the minister and as many of the congregation as I could. It gave me a lovely sense of evil-doing that lasted clear through till Tuesday. "
-- John Steinbeck in Travels With Charlie -- page 79

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Engaging Your Emotions Against Evil

I don't like the title for this book, but the contents really captivated me. The subtitle much more accurately describes what the book is about.


Prayer requests often seem so weak, because we are not really sure what God's will is. Not wanting to be presumtuous, I often think as I pray, "if it is your will, Lord". But then this puts me in the frame of mind where I don't really expect God to answer my prayer. He is going to go ahead and do what He wants to do whatever I ask. So my prayer is emptied of emotion.

This book was helpful in my seeing that "Jesus didn't ask his disciples to pray according to his will and then neglect to let them know what it was."(page 51) We know what God's character is and the intentions he has for us. There is not as much need to put a reign on my prayers as I have been doing. I am not sure how God will work out the circumstances and I am glad I can leave that to Him, but there is plenty I do know and plenty he has asked me to pray about, and with no caveats. So my prayers are now more decisive and persistent.

This would make a good book to use for our Family Reunion this summer. If anyone is interested in it -- let me know and I'll order you a copy - shipped direct to your home in time to at least look through it.

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Compost

I had real good luck with the compost this year. It is nice and light and black with little junk in it. I use grass clippings, kitchen wastes, leaves and stuff from the garden. I usually put it at the far side in the picture and turn it to the left -- then reverse and turn it to the right and then back again where it ends up in the bin on the end.

This year's garden


We managed to get a yard of nice clean wood chips when the delivery next door would not fit in the space available. The carpet is wearing out - so the wood chips arrived just in time to spread them out in the paths. I thined the forsythia out and gave away a bunch of them to neighbors and friends. I've also torn out a lot of the dogwood at the edge of the garden. My brush pile is now 6 feet high and about 10 foot wide and 10 fit high - after jumping on it several times! Got to take it all to the dump soon.
Broccli and lettuce has been planted.

Monday, March 09, 2009

Perkins Poetry

The following two poems were found in a undated (about 20 years ago) special edition of a Second Parish OPC Newsletter called All Creatures Great & Small.


Deep in the forest of the Amazon jungle
is this place I know.
In this place where the cheetah has no spots,

the zebra has not a single stripe,
the banana is always ripe,
the giraffe has no neck,
and the woodpecker does not peck,
is a rare and most unusual treasure.
This treasure fulfills every worldly pleasure,

but to obtain it an exchange must be made:
The human soul for this unusual treasure.

Woe to the man who makes this trade
and follows his greedy desire,
for he shall burn in the eternal fire

when he dies and leaves his treasure.
Ha! He will pay to the fullest measure
for his foolish action.
Now we must leave this place

and leave not a trace
of our being here.
My friends, let us leave this treasure

to the animals who have no souls to give.
Let us not follow our fantasies and wildest dreams

or we may not fulfill our purpose in life.
This purpose is to love God
and feed our cats and dogs.
--Andrew Perkins

Have a good day in Zion,
Said the lion to the sheep;
For if you venture from its gates,
It surely will be for keeps.
--Dana Perkins