I haven’t been posting as much, now that I am back at work.  Turns out being busy all day also cuts into my reading.  Here’s a short update:

Reading:

• Find your Strongest Life.  For a blogger book review, as I don’t normally read self-help.  It’s a startling contrast to
• A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, by Don Miller.  Also about living a full life, ironically, but about a hundred times deeper.
• Your Jesus is Too Safe, by Jared Wilson.  Put it down to read the other two, but should return to it soon.

I have a friend whose toddler daughter is seriously ill with blastoma.  They just decided to do radical surgery, hoping extending her life will not be counteracted by the significant pain during recovery.  Painful, painful decision.  Please pray for the family and their surgery on Friday.

Off now to meet with a live friend over tea.

I made pesto for the first time tonight.  Let me just outline for you how clueless this made me feel. 

Can I use a blender? 

There’s no way I’m pulling out that food processor I’ve used three times since we got it as a wedding present.  I’m using YouTube to see if others do it with a blender.  Seems okay.  Even kids manage.

What goes into pesto besides basil?

Head to allrecipes.com.  Wow.  Who knew there were different ways to mix oil and basil?  Pick the one that has a hundred comments and 4.5 out of five stars.  Wait.  Pine nuts AND brazil nuts?  Really?  Go to the grocery store.  Pine nuts are four bucks for a little bag?  So much for those tiny things?  No… I don’t want to pick them out of pine cones myself.  Sigh.  Skipping brazil nuts though.

Three cups of basil

Is that three cups of fluffy leaves?  Three cups of chopped up leaves?  Three cups if I push down?  Why don’t recipes have the information I need?

One cup of oil

Really???  I don’t think I’ve ever poured a cup of oil into anything.  Okay, here I go.  Basil leaves in blender (that’s how they did it on YouTube).  Then SOME oil.  Let’s not get carried away.  Push “blend.”  Aaaaaand nothing happens.  The leaves mock me.  I add more oil.  I shove with spatula.  Ah.  It does take 1/2 cup of oil to make stuff work.  I figure out how to work the blender so it pulses.  Very cool.

Add pine nuts, parmesan, bit of chili powder.  Hey – it was rated 4.5 stars.  Blend some more.  Peeking inside – wow!  It looks like pesto.  Adding some more oil so I can get it out.

Add to hot pasta

Do I add it to the whole pound of rotelli?  What if there isn’t enough pesto?  Better keep some pasta out.  Then if the pesto is awful the kid can add red sauce to that and not starve to death.  Because, of course, that’s likely.

  Spoon into bowls.  Take picture for proof.  Kid finds it… okay.  I don’t think she likes pesto as much as she thought she did.  I also think the last kind of pesto she had was creamy pesto… which of course everyone likes.  Husband says thumbs up.

So if I can do it, you can do it.  Lesson learned?  A little angst (and YouTube) never hurt anyone. 

And you don’t really need a whole cup of oil. 

Abraham Piper’s post is titled:  “22 things God did not create.”   The list includes

• Love
• Beauty
• Truth
• Strength

Do you get it?

I didn’t. 

Luckily, I didn’t read the post until after Abraham clarified in a comment.  God didn’t create these things, because he IS these things, and he has always existed.  The commenters go on to list more.

Sin.  I buy it.  Sin is not a thing, it’s the absence of a right, obedient relationship with God.  I guess we humans can take credit for that creation.

Mystery. Power. Holiness.  Although perhaps, as was pointed out, holiness is only defined as a comparative characteristic.  So maybe it wasn’t created.  But it didn’t exist until after the Fall.

Awesome that so much of what we value in creation is present as an overflow of God’s basic nature.  Not because God thought “beauty” would be cool.

Reading blog posts can be painful, because so many people seem to have opposing viewpoints and there is no listening, no encouraging, no building each other up.  Even reading Facebook gives me blunt bursts of what people believe to be true, but doesn’t show me any honoring of the opposing view.  “If you believe X post this status.” “5 ways the President is ruining the world.” “Why Sarah Palin is a horrible person.” “Health care obviously requires Y.” “No, health care will be destroyed by Y.”

I want my public words to articulate my love for God and my love for others.  Then my words can articulate how I believe that works itself out in a particular situation.  But I also want my words to help others feel that, even if we don’t agree on whether the President should give a speech to schoolchildren, that God loves them and I love them.

A word of gratitude for my husband. He has encouraged me back into a more focused daily reading of Scripture.  And today’s reading (Proverbs 1 and 2, 1 Cor 16)  includes words that are particularly fitting given the climate of fear and defensiveness that seems so pervasive this week.

“but whoever listens to me will live in safety
       and be at ease, without fear of harm."  Prov. 1:33”

I listened to an interesting little essay on NPR yesterday called “Economists don’t believe in Soulmates” by Dr. Betsey Stevenson.  Her philosophy is that people don’t marry because of romance, they marry because they have found someone that is worth investing in:

Searching for a spouse is very similar to searching for a job. There is not one perfect job for each of us, but there are clearly better and worse jobs. So we hunt, for a spouse and a job. When do we stop? When the offer in the hand is better than the likely offer in the bush.

I found this interesting – not because I think picking a husband is like picking a job.  But because I do think marriage is a decision based on commitments and investment, not romance and my foot popping up into the air when we kiss. 

I am lucky enough to have a husband whom I love and who is good looking.  But I picked him because of his commitment to Christ and his determination to work on our marriage, not because I think he is my soulmate.

I’m apparently much more aligned with the economists than Hollywood. 

National Geographic GeoBee Challenge

A daily geography quiz.

Wow.  I am officially an idiot.  Where’s the level lower than "Apprentice?"

HT: Ann Voskamp

As 18-year-0lds pack their mini-fridges and extra-long twin sheets in preparation for their first year at college, older America sighs and shakes their collective head at how young they are.  Born in 1991, they know a different world than we do.  The “mindset” list is published every year by Beloit College.  I’ve kept the best of this year’s list below, plus added a few of my own. 

For today’s college freshmen:

• Mike Tyson has always been a felon.
• Magic Johnson has always been HIV-positive.
• Christopher Columbus has always been getting a bad rap.
• Salsa has always outsold ketchup.
• Tattoos have always been chic.
• Rap has always been mainstream.
• Someone has always been asking: “Was Iraq worth a war?”
• State abbreviations in addresses have never had periods.
• Women have always outnumbered men in college.
• The European Union has always existed.
• The American health care system has always been in critical condition.
• There has always been a Cartoon Network.
• They have always been able to read books on an electronic screen.
• They have always watched wars unfold on television in real time.
• They have never used a card catalog to find a book.

And my additions:

• Nelson Mandela has always been free
• There was always only one Germany
• Michael Jackson was always pale
• David Archuleta was always alive
• The Exxon Valdez has always been empty
• The Tonight Show was always hosted by Jay Leno
• They have never seen anything below Windows 3.0

HT to Scot McKnight

Here is a recent post by Tim Challies.  In it, he quotes an email he received from a woman who was struggling with the question whether her babies, which had died before birth, might not be in heaven because of the doctrine of original sin.  His short essay that follows is not his response to the woman, but is instead a discussion about salvation for infants, and what the Bible does and does not say.

The resulting comments on Challies’ blog (and Abraham Piper’s blog, where I first saw the article) bounce between people who are horrified at Challies’ theology and those who support it but not as a proper response to the woman who originally wrote.  To her, Challies says he wrote a more “pastoral” response.

What I find interesting is not so much the theology of infants and original sin, but the idea that we, as Christians, can develop a theology that is a mis-match from what our pastoral advice would be. Apparently, it is possible for someone to carefully explore the Bible and determine that the way God has set up the world is too painful to actually explain to someone who is directly affected by that setup. 

To me, that indicates that either our theology is off or our pastoral advice is off. 

Have you seen these videos for Post Shredded Wheat?  This one is the most entertaining:

I think Post is right more than we might think – progress is overrated.

In honor of Father’s Day:

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”

Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

“God forgives us. Who am I not to forgive?”

Rev. Stephen Kumalo, Cry, The Beloved Country – Alan Paton

Calvin: Why does the sky turn red as the sun sets?
Calvin’s dad: That’s all the oxygen in the atmosphere catching fire.
Calvin: Where does the sun go when it sets?
Calvin’s dad: The sun sets in the west. In Arizona actually, near Flagstaff. That’s why the rocks there are so red.
Calvin: Don’t the people get burned up?
Calvin’s dad: No, the sun goes out as it sets. That’s why it’s dark at night.
Calvin: Doesn’t the sun crush the whole state as it lands?
Calvin’s dad: Ha ha, of course not. Hold a quarter up. See, the sun’s just about the same size.
Calvin: I thought I read that the sun was really big.
Calvin’s dad: You can’t believe everything you read, I’m afraid.

Calvin and Hobbes – Bill Watterson

“Ginny!” said Mr. Weasley, flabbergasted. “Haven’t I taught you anything? What have I always told you? Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps it’s brain?”

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – J.K. Rowling

“If we knew each morning that there was going to be another morning, and on and on and on, we’d tend not to notice the sunrise, or hear the birds, or the waves rolling into shore.  We’d tend not to treasure our time with the people we love.  Simply the awareness that our mortal lives have a beginning and will have an end enhances the quality of our living.  Perhaps it’s even more intense when we know that the termination of the body is near, but it shouldn’t be.”

Grandfather Eaton, A Ring of Endless Light – Madeleine L’Engle.