bekahcubed

Categories The Week in Words

WiW: Happy Announcement

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The Week in Words

It’s selfish to use Barbara’s Week in Words as a medium for my own excitement-especially after I haven’t participated for several weeks.

But it must be said that all my favorite quotes, filling up yesterday’s Facebook newsfeed, had to do with one particular Happy Announcement.

Status Updates from my family:

“[Little Miss] Menter born at 4:49pm today! 7 1/2 lbs.”
~Mom

“Just watched Auntie Joanna dance upon finding out that [her niece] has hair.”
~Anna

“…Waiting to meet the new arrival. It was a girl, as I rooted for.”
~Joshua

“How am I going to have a niece/nephew football team when the oldest kid is a girl? AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
~John

“I’m an aunt!!”
~Grace

Also numbering among my favorites were the responses of family and friends.

On my sister-in-law’s wall:

“CONGRATS!! I was at the Menter’s house when Dan called Mary! I’m so happy for you guys!! :D Can’t wait to meet your beautiful daughter!”
~Amber

On my brother’s wall:

“Hooray for you. May the Lord give you many more until your quiver is full.”
~Uncle Jim

“[Miss Menter] is about an hour old according to my calculations – and I’m sure she already has her daddy and mommy wrapped around her teeny, tiny little pinky finger! Congratulations to you both and I pray God’s continued blessing on you all.”
~Aunt Kathy

On my mother’s wall:

“Praise God, from whom all blessings flow!”
~Aunt Janet

On my father’s wall:

“Congrats old man. Now you’re a grossvater.”
~Uncle Jim

Psalm 127

“A Song of Ascents. Of Solomon.
1 Unless the LORD builds the house,
They labor in vain who build it;
Unless the LORD guards the city,
The watchman stays awake in vain.
2 It is vain for you to rise up early,
To sit up late,
To eat the bread of sorrows;
For so He gives His beloved sleep.

3 Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one’s youth.
5 Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them;
They shall not be ashamed,
But shall speak with their enemies in the gate.

Psalm 128

“A Song of Ascents.
1 Blessed is every one who fears the LORD,
Who walks in His ways.

2 When you eat the labor of your hands,
You shall be happy, and it shall be well with you.
3 Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine
In the very heart of your house,
Your children like olive plants
All around your table.
4 Behold, thus shall the man be blessed
Who fears the LORD.

5 The LORD bless you out of Zion,
And may you see the good of Jerusalem
All the days of your life.
6 Yes, may you see your children’s children.

Peace be upon Israel!”

Don’t forget to take a look at Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week.

Categories Thankful Thursday

Thankful Thursday: Almost Complete

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Yes, I realize it’s not Thursday any longer.

Yes, I realize that I ought to be sleeping right now.

But I am thankful, and I did want to share it.

Thankful Thursday banner

This week I’m thankful for…

…a completed survey

State surveyors exited Tuesday afternoon–and didn’t give me any “tags” (i.e. didn’t find me not doing my job properly.) Our kitchen didn’t get a sanitation tag (the most commonly cited tag in the nation.) I didn’t get a weight loss tag (that “unknown unknown” I was so worried about.) Nor did the dietary department end up with any of the odds or ends tags that can trip us up.

But beyond the sigh of relief that says I must be doing an okay job, there’s the normal-old relief of simply being DONE.

…an almost completed computer

It took a week. Just a little longer than survey. But I finally have all my components installed and a (properly licensed) operating system functional.

I’ve probably spent a little over 40 hours this week messing around with one computer trial after another. Which is why I haven’t been writing (or commenting) much.

Now I’m almost done–just have to transfer the last of my files over from my old hard drive and get all my programs installed the way I want them on this computer.

…a coming day of completion

“Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”
~Hebrews 13:20-21

“…being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ…”
~Philippians 1:6

Categories Book Notes, Books

Appointed Times and Places

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*Spoiler alert: If you haven’t read A Horse and His Boy, this post will give away quite a bit.*

While Shasta dreams of Northern lands, a Tarkahn rides up from the South on a Narnian stallion.

While Bree (the horse) talks of being a free horse among his own people, a roar out of the darkness leads him to cross paths with one of his own people–another captive horse dreaming of freedom.

When Shasta’s only wish is to avoid notice, he is taken to be the missing Prince of Archenland–and overhears the Narnian nobles’ plans to sail out of Calormen unnoticed.

When Aravis is only trying to sneak quietly out of a planned marriage to an obsequious toad, she finds herself sandwiched behind a couch, hearing the councils of the Tisroc, the Prince, and said Toad.

Time and time again, the characters of The Horse and His Boy find themselves in just the right place at just the right time.

Not that they always thought the times and places were right.

Shasta didn’t think so when he served practically as a slave in the fisherman’s hut.

Bree didn’t think so when terror of a lion caused Hwin and him to travel the same path.

Aravis didn’t think so when she came within an inch of discovery.

These were frightening experiences, exhausting experiencing–things they wish they’d never have had to go through.

But an unseen breath propelled Shasta’s boat across the sea to Arsheesh’s hut. An unseen hand guided the meetings of Shasta and the Narnian nobles, of Aravis and the Tarkheenah. An unseen hand hid them behind the couch as they overheard the Tisroc’s council.

All throughout their groping journey, it seemed as though Someone had gone on before, marking out their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands.

Someone was giving life to their bodies, purpose to their movements, reason for their being.

“From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.'”
~Acts 17:26-28

Chronicles of Narnia Reading Challenge
This post is yet another collection of notes from my reading of The Horse and His Boy for Carrie’s Chronicles of Narnia Reading Challenge.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: “Redeeming Singleness” by Barry Danylak

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Christian books about singleness are all the same.

I should know.

I think I’ve read every one of them.

They all have a couple of requisite chapters explaining why singleness is good before getting into the meat: a) how to be content and productive as a single and b) how to get un-single as quickly and in as godly a manner as possible.

Barry Danylak’s Redeeming Singleness stands out like an apple tree in a field of blowing grass.

In other words, it’s not a thing like the rest of the Christian treatments of singleness.

Redeeming Singleness seeks to establish a Biblical theology of singleness–starting from the beginning, when God said “It is not good that man should be alone”, and ending with Paul’s startling (within the Jewish culture, at least) statement that he “wish[es] that all men were even as [he himself].”

The epilogue neatly summarizes the main thesis of the book:

Christianity is distinctive from its monotheistic sibling faiths of Judaism, Islam, and Mormonism in its affirmation of singleness…it differs from the others in distinctively affirming both singleness and marriage as something good within the new family of God. The reason for this difference has its roots in what makes Christianity fundamentally different from its sibling faiths, namely, its affirmation that Jesus Christ has come in human history as God’s offspring and that through him come all the blessings of the new covenant.

Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the promised seed of Abraham, and in him are Abraham’s true offspring….Since all the blessings of the new covenant are realized through our reconciliation to God through Christ, marriage is no longer a fundamental marker of covenantal blessing as it was in the covenant of Sinai. Singleness lived to the glory of God and the furtherance of his kingdom testifies to the complete sufficiency of Christ for all things. The Christian is fully blessed in Christ, whether he or she is married or single, rich or poor, in comfort or duress…

Paul distinguishes the spiritual gift or charisma of singleness by three elements. First, it is characterized by one who, by the grace of God, lives a continent life apart from marriage…. Second, it is distinguished as a life free from the distractions of a spouse and children, a life characterized by freedom and simplicity…. Third, it is a life enabled for constant service to the King and the kingdom. It emulates the model of the eunuch who is ready and waiting to serve the king whenever and however he is called.

~Redeeming Singleness by Barry Danylak, page 213

This is a robust, Biblically-sound theology of singleness; and it is presented in an engaging and surprisingly (for theology) readable manner.

After reading Danylak’s closing chapter on “The Charisma of Corinth”, I truly desired (perhaps for the first time in my life) to have the gift of singleness. While I can’t say that I have the “charisma” of singleness, Danylak’s description of Christian singleness (the “charisma” or spiritual gift of singleness) as a powerful testimony to the sufficiency of Christ made me long to live out such a testimony. Where previously I had recognized and spoken of marriage as a testimony (in a cosmic play-act) of God’s relationship with His church, I can now see the equally glorious testimony that the single-in-Christ have–the testimony of being complete IN Christ, without need of any other mediating person, action, or state.

This book is a powerful and much-needed look at singleness as seen through the lens of God’s redemptive work. I recommend this book for the single and the married–and especially for the friends of and ministers to single adults. This perspective, lifted straight from the Bible, can help the church to encourage and bless the single among them while avoiding the twin pitfalls of glorifying marriage to the harm of the single adult or denigrating marriage in order to “encourage” the single adult.

Check out Three Star Night’s review of this book. She comes to the same conclusions as I–but expresses her thoughts (and mine?) much better than I.

Rating: 5 stars
Category: Theology of Singleness
Synopsis:Danylak traces a theology of singleness throughout Scripture, seeing singleness within the redemptive framework of the Old and New Testaments.
Recommendation: A much-needed resource in an age where singleness is becoming a new norm–and where the church is struggling to find a holy way of dealing with the “new norm”.

Categories Book Notes

Groping for another land

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The Horse and His Boy opens innocently enough, with the fisherman’s hut by a little creek on the sea, where a young boy named Shasta lives with an old fisherman he calls father. But our eyes, like Shasta’s, quickly move northward, to the unknown land beyond the hilled horizon.

Our hearts yearn to know this hidden place; and we are heartbroken at Arsheesh’s lack of curiosity and lack of tolerance for Shasta’s curiosity.

We, unlike Arsheesh, can identify with Shasta’s plight. We know the feeling of piddling about here, all the while thinking that something great, something better, something magnificent lies over the next hill. We feel out of place, uncomfortable. We pretend we’re not out of place, but we know deep down inside that this is not our home.

We long for the North.

Then, one day, as Arsheesh sups with an unexpected guest, Shasta overhears the story that would have him hop the nearest horse and take off for the North.

*Spoiler alert*

The man he called his father was not his father. The man he had struggled unsuccessfully to care for was little more than a slaver, and undeserving of Shasta’s affection. The fishing hut was not his home–probably Caloremen was not either. In fact, he might even be a son of the only-longed-for North.

Here, Lewis sets up in story form what he expresses elsewhere in plainer terms:

“f I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

Shasta becomes outwardly what he had been inwardly all along–a wanderer, groping in the dark for something, he knows not what.

When he first discovers the truth that he is not really Arsheesh’s son or a son of Calormen, his mind moves towards fantastic dreams. So he was not the fisherman’s son–then perhaps he was the son of a Tarkaan or of a god! Perhaps the Tarkaan who wished to buy Shasta would later adopt him as a son, making him great.

He wonders aloud what the Tarkaan is like, and a talking horse interrupts his reverie with an answer.

In a series of fortuitous or not so fortuitous events, what had once only been an idle dream of seeing the north became an imperative. Shasta must escape to the north, must make his way out of this place.

And so the blind man’s longings become desperate gropings.

“From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.”
~Acts 17:26-27

Chronicles of Narnia Reading Challenge
This post is notes from my reading of The Horse and His Boy for Carrie’s Chronicles of Narnia Reading Challenge.

Categories Technology

The Saga Continues…

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A little more than a month after ordering the components for my computer, I now have all of the (presumably functional) components together again.

I have the new case, the new CPU, the new fan and CPU fan, the new memory–and another new motherboard.

The replacement motherboard finally arrived this Thursday.

(Tip for NewEgg returns: take a picture of your item before you take everything out of its packaging so that you can remember exactly what needs to be returned should something go wrong. I missed the CPU fan mounting bracket on my first return attempt–and lost myself a couple weeks.)

Since it had been a slightly-less-long day at the office, I decided I would go ahead and get the installation process started.

I installed the motherboard, the CPU and CPU fan, the memory. I connected all the various power cords and the like. Then I pulled my “big” hard drive from my old (current) computer and got it and my (also recycled) DVD drive hooked up too.

Now for the fun part.

Powering up.

Err, maybe I better flip the power switch on the back first.

There we go.

Punch my “del” key and examine my system.

Adjust a couple settings, insert my Windows OS DVD, begin installing my OS.

“Loading files”. A bar slides across the bottom of the screen. All good.

“Starting Windows” the screen tells me–

and then it freezes.

I wait, because sometimes installing an operating system takes forever. I know that.

But this doesn’t seem to be a productive wait.

I turn off the computer, turn it on again. “Del”. Check my system again.

Yes, I have it set to boot from the DVD drive.

Start it up again.

Same thing.

Text my dad.

Repeat. Multiple times.

It’s getting late. Dad wonders if maybe my DVD is broken. He tells me to try the DVD in another computer and see if it gets past the “Starting Windows” screen.

I move my DVD player (and the hard drive) back over to my current computer and try booting using the DVD.

It doesn’t work–my current computer is 32-bit and my new one (and the corresponding Windows 7 OS) is 64-bit.

I try the disc on every computer I can find until I get to one where it works. Okay, it’s not the disc. It’s something else.

An idea grows in my mind. What if it’s my DVD drive?

I remembered reading something when I bought it about it being a great secondary drive–but not so great as a primary. I paid it no attention then, because I already had a CD-Rom drive that I used to install XP on my computer. All I wanted was something so I could watch the documentary DVDs that I get from the library so I wouldn’t have to borrow Anna’s computer.

I hadn’t imagined that I’d buy a new computer and try to save money by using that same DVD drive. I hadn’t imagined that operating systems didn’t come on CD-roms anymore–making my perfectly good CD-Rom drive absolutely worthless as a primary drive.

There was nothing more I could do–except to send out a desperate Facebook plea:

“Anybody have a spare DVD Drive (component) I could borrow to see if that might be why my OS isn’t loading properly? I’d return it promptly :-)”

After work on Friday, I saw that I had a response.

Eric has one, Cathy said. Do I still want it?

Of course I still want it.

She’ll deliver it Saturday morning.

Which means I’ll be offline.

Lord willing, I’ll be getting my new computer set up (and, once the operating system is installed, I’ll be returning Eric’s DVD drive and using my own again).

I apologize to all you faithful readers who have had to sit through my technological tale telling. Really, I’m just bragging here. “See, I can build my own computers too.” (Albeit in a rather muddled manner.) I just don’t understand why men aren’t falling all over themselves to get me. I can cook, I can sew, I can read and semi-intelligently discuss issues–and I build computers! :-) Ha!

Categories Books

Top Ten Classics

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I haven’t yet read.

Carrie recently posted a list of ten classics she’s going to get to eventually (following Bluerose’s example).

I figured I might as well throw my hat into the towel. (Oh my, I’m rather tired. State, you know!)

1. Les Miserables

I’ve seen the recent movie, listen to the musical incessantly, and just can’t get myself to open the book. It’s so enormous and absolutely intimidating.

2. War and Peace

I’ve read all of the “little pieces” my library has by Tolstoy. I’ve enjoyed them all. But I have a mental block when it comes to War and Peace and Anna Karenina. They just have to be difficult to get through, right?

3. Don Quixote

It’s in Susan Wise Bauer’s A Well-Trained Mind as an easy book to get through. Unfortunately, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a long book to get through. I’ve started half a dozen times and never gotten past the first couple of chapters.

There ends my burning list, the list that immediately pops into my head when I think of classics I intend to read but just haven’t.

After those come a slew of slightly less hefty titles:

4. Institutes of the Christian Religion

Okay, maybe less-hefty wasn’t the best way to describe my tier-two classics.

5. 1984

6. Uncle Tom’s Cabin

7. Walden

8. Of Mice and Men

9. Where the Red Fern Grows

10. Harry Potter

Okay, that last one isn’t for real. IMHO, a decade and a half does not a classic make (no matter how bestselling a book was from the get-go).

So, there’s part of my list. What about yours?

Categories Work

Unknown Unknowns

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“…as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
~Donald Rumsfeld

Apparently people deride Donald Rumsfeld for his categorization of the world into known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns.

I don’t know what they’re smoking.

I feel that those classifications are perfectly apt–and they’re precisely the reason why I’m antsy right now.

I have known knowns: I know certain strengths and weaknesses in my education, in my charting or careplanning ability. I know how I’ve assessed and intervened in various situations.

Then I have known unknowns: I know that certain routes of communication are weaker than others, leaving opportunity for small errors. I know that there are people I have had less contact with than others. I know what people haven’t been looked at in depth for greater amounts of time.

But then there are the unknown unknowns. I have no clue about these.

There are things that I could be missing because I just don’t know–and I could not even know that I don’t know them.

Paul says that the one who does good need not fear the authorities (Romans 13:3); but what of the one who is doing the best she can (or thinks she is doing the best she can) but who simply cannot know everything–or even the finite brand of everything state surveyors might look at?

The tension of this week is whether I can trust God with not only the known knowns and the known unknowns but with the unknown unknowns.

Can I trust Him to provide despite my weakness? Can I trust Him to help me provide the best care possible to my residents? Can I trust Him if I should learn something that crushes my pride as a dietitian?

I don’t know. That’s an unknown unknown.

I’m trying to learn to trust.

And I suppose that’s all I can do.

Categories What's on Your Nightstand?

Nightstand (June 2011)

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I raced through the books in the past two weeks–which is probably good since I don’t anticipate getting through many this week.

Hectic doesn’t even begin to describe the life as a dietitian in a nursing home when “state” shows up. (Especially when it’s your first ever survey.)

Something tells me my stack of “in progress” books isn’t getting any smaller this week. (Nor is the baby quilt for my due-any-day nephew or niece going to be finished.)

Oh well, that’s life–and surveyors had to arrive sometime.

June Nightstand-works in progress

This month I read:

1001 Gruesome Facts by Helen Otway
In a fit of what could be called morbid curiosity, I read this book. It’s interesting. Even more interesting is what the author considers gruesome (certain things just sounded like facts of life to me–but, then, I’m a medical person.) As with other books of “facts”, I find myself doubting when I find an error in my area of expertise. This had a couple such errors, which makes me wonder how many of the other gross facts are facts in fact.

Libby’s Story by Judy Baer
Caretaking for parents with Alzheimers. Best childhood friends all grown up. Finding purpose as a single 20 or 30 something. Coming to grips with an accident that changes your life. Great subject matter, not so fantastic execution. This isn’t a light and fluffy book, but it’s too disconnected to be a weighty book. I wish I could recommend it, but instead I have to give it a big “Eh.”

The Mystery of the Mixed Up Zoo created by Gertrude Chandler Warner
Probably the best “created by” so far. At least there was no furtive dishonesty or truly dangerous situations in this one.

Ben and the Sudden Too-Big Family by Colby Rodowsky
When Ben’s dad marries Casey and they decide to adopt a little girl from China, Ben gains a much too-big family. Or so he thinks. Worst of all, instead of going to soccer camp like all the boys at school, Ben has to go to family vacation with Casey’s ginormous family (forty or so). I enjoyed this story, probably because I come from a much larger family than Casey’s and have experienced from the inside what Ben experiences from the outside–the enfolding of a stranger into the “clan”. (Spoiler: Ben discovers that the big family is actually pretty great.)

Reviewed elsewhere on bekahcubed:

Not Reviewed:

  • Bones and the Dinosaur Mystery by David Adler
  • Bones and the Dog Gone Mystery by David Adler
  • Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Dinosaur Bones by David Adler
  • Do the Doors Open by Magic? by Catherine Ripley
  • The Holocaust Overview by Ann Byers
  • I’ll Mature When I’m dead by Dave Barry
  • Love Finds You in Last Chance California by Miralee Ferrel
  • Return to Harmony by Janette Oke and T. Davis Bunn
  • Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman
  • The Secret of the Lost Tunnel by Franklin Dixon
  • A Wodehouse Bestiary by P.G. Wodehouse
  • Yo! I know: Brain Building Quizzes by Times for Kids

Additionally, I read somewhere around 50 children’s picture books–among them at least 2 dozen Berenstain Bears books (My thoughts here)

Survey week should be ending (assuming they finish in four days like they say they will) with a nice long weekend for 4th of July–so maybe I’ll have a chance to get some reading done next week.

Heaven knows I have plenty of books waiting in the wings:

June Nightstand-waiting in the wings

Don’t forget to drop by 5 Minutes 4 Books to see what others are reading this month!

What's on Your Nightstand?

Categories Everyday Life

Snapshot: Kissing Toads

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Something was moving along my peripheral vision as I mowed the stretch beside the garage. Was it a mouse? I wondered.

I stopped mowing (easy to do with an old-fashioned mower where you don’t have to worry about stopping and starting a mower) and investigated further.

Silly me. That was no mouse. That was clearly a toad hopping along.

Toad

Why did I decide to leave my camera inside?

Oh right, because I almost lost my lens cap the last time I tried the “mow with a camera around my neck” routine.

Still, it was clearly a poor decision.

I repented my camera-leaving sin and returned, certain that the toad would be gone.

I was wrong.

I took shot after shot, struggling to focus on the toad amidst the bramble of weeds and hailed-out daffodils.

Toad

Mr. Toad mustn’t have liked my flash, because he hopped right out to where the lighting was more agreeable.

He posed happily against the garage for several shots, before coming out into the center of the patio to sunbathe a bit.

Toad

I was broken from my toad-fancying reverie by the whir of a boat on the lake.

What a sight I must have been to the boaters! Tush in the air, head to the ground, abandoned lawnmower in the yard.

But I got some good pictures of the princely toad.

Unfortunately, he isn’t likely to be in my age range.

Toad

**The life expectancy of the American toad (according to this source) is around 5-10 years. Definitely too young for me. **