Gift of Colds

Grandpa Tom and Danny came last Thursday and left yesterday. It was wet the entire time. But they and Amy spent quite a bit of time wandering about outdoors, getting wet and muddy (and cold...)

While here, Grandpa Tom developed a cold. (I think it came from the Lower 48... Someone forgot to quarantine it...) Anyway, Amy is down and out with it today; and Shelley is also starting to feel it.

Since I know I've been exposed to this bug, the question now is a matter of if I come down with symptoms, and if I do, how long and severe it will be. I've been using Zicam Oral Spray in hopes that it will reduce both the length and severity.

Bible Reading 2007, Week 44

This week we are reading through Romans and Psalms 96-101.

Sermon: Righteousness and Mercy

(Click HERE for MP3 sermon audio.)

Today's sermon comes from Daniel 4. This is the story of (actually a proclamation by) Nebuchadnezzar about his dream of a great tree and his humbling experience.

The scripture reading was Matthew 5:7, and the key text within the sermon was Daniel 4:27.

In this sermon I explore a possible response to the question, "What kind of worship does God want from us?"

In attempting to find a response, I explore several related areas:

• What does it mean to "not sin" or "stop sinning?"
• What is righteousness?
• What is true conversion?

Responses to these questions help provide a response to the main question. (Hint: I end the sermon with Micah 6:8 which I find to be an apt summary of Daniel 4.)

Morning Snow Pics

As dawn breaks across the landscape, here's what I saw. (Our front windows face the northwest.)

"No Accumulation?"

Here's the current short-term forecast (emphasis mine):

Nowcast as of 9:00 PM ADT on October 23, 2007 Now Rain mixed with snow tonight. No accumulation expected. Patchy fog forming by midnight. Visibility decreasing to less than 2 miles at time. Wind variable with gusts to 20 mph becoming northwest 10 to 20 mph around midnight.

 

The forecast gets it wrong again! I don't know what you see, but I see accumulation... Maybe it won't stay long, but it's there.

I had been reading and had just turned out all the lights. The thought crossed my mind: I wonder what happened to the snowfall? Even though the blinds are all down, there is some light (from the streetlight) that comes through around the edges. And they sure seemed brighter than usual. I peeked around the blind at the head of the bed (to the backyard -- no lights) and I could see the lawn... or what used to be lawn (okay, there's a lot of moss, too). It was of a much lighter color.

I got up to take a look at the front of the house... Yup, snow. I walked into Amy's bedroom (has the best view out) and could definitely see snow blanketing the landscape. And of course I couldn't just let it go and try to go to sleep without first recording it. So here you have it.

Checking my blog records, the first snow like this in 2006 was November 5. If the city was hoping for a less severe winter, tonight is not a good omen of the winter to come...

Winter approaches Is Here

Just now, while driving about I noticed that some of the raindrops falling onto the windshield wasn't quite smooth. They looked downright slushy... Not very many, but a few. Autumn is quickly making way for winter. Everyone here is hoping that this winter won't be nearly as snowy as last.

Well, the occasional slush has turned into actual snow tonight. It's very wet and mixed with rain so it isn't sticking. (Except for a bit of slush coating the roof surface.) But we are seeing the first snowfall of the season in October. I just checked my blogs from last year and this year the first snow is a week earlier. Last year, I noted that the first snowflakes were seen on October 30.

Stormy Day (video)

The wind has picked up even more. I don't know if there's been a more windy day than today since we've been here.

Click HERE to download a 26 sec. Windows Media video clip of the trees violently swaying in our backyard.

Stormy day

Yesterday was dry, very clear and cold. It all changed by this morning. Today it is still chilly (thought not quite as cold), but very windy and quite wet. There is a wind advisory posted for the remainder of the day, and for good reason. The Narrows are very choppy with whitecaps where it joins the Sound.

Yesterday, when we were out walking, Shelley decided it was warm enough to be out in a sleeveless shirt. The thermometer read 40F. And then later, back inside, she is wearing a jacket. She says it's all about expectations -- since she expects it to be cold outside, it doesn't actually feel that cold. It's supposed to be warm inside, but it isn't, so it feels cold. I'm not quite sure what to make of this...

Elise is on her way to Anchorage today to attend an Alaska nurses' convention. I'm sure the weather will make the flight quite interesting (and not in a good way).

A doe and her fawn (no spots anymore) have been lazily strolling and resting in our yard, feeding on various plant bits. The salmonberry canes are dying off for the winter. The skunk cabbage leaves have all died off and are quickly rotting away. The huge fern leaves are also dead and brown, though being of harder material, they don't decompose quite so quickly. Nearly all the deciduous trees have shed all their leaves.

Bible Reading 2007, Week 43

This week's readings are in the book of Acts. (Chapter 7 was read during week 10.)

Sermon: Truth Is Life

(Click HERE for MP3 sermon audio.)

Today's sermon concludes John 8 by going through verses 31-59. This is the section where Jesus and some of the Jewish people argue about what it means to be Abraham's son, and at the end they try to stone Jesus.

Elise told me afterwards that she couldn't quite figure out the point I was trying to get at; that the sermon was a bit too technical. I was afraid that might be the case. I thought I emphasized the key points I was trying to communicate, but apparently it did not come through as well as I had hoped.

The key points of the four sections that I broke up today's passage is as follows:

1. Abiding (verses 31-37)
2. Imitating (verses 38-41a)
3. Belonging and Identity (verses 41b-47)
4. The previous three illustrated (verses 48-59)

And the primary point of the whole sermon was to emphasize that #1, abiding, is the key to everything else that follows.

Children's Story: Zacchaeus

This week, I told the story of Zacchaeus as found in Luke 19:1-10 with a few embellishments. Click HERE to hear it as I told it.

First Frost

Last night we saw the moon clearly in the sky, so I had a feeling it would get cold overnight. I was not mistaken because when I awoke this morning, the ground was frosty and the official temperature at the airport was 32F. My outside thermometer didn't quite hit that low.

The morning was quite foggy. But by afternoon all the fog had burned off and blown away and today turned out to be a very clear day.

Here are two photos from today before the camera battery died.

 

Amy bicycled to the hospital this morning to do her coffee run. Shelley returned this evening, on the bike, in short sleeves, with an outside temperature of 35F or so.

I'm discovering which parts of the house remain a bit colder than the rest. The living and dining rooms, which are far away from the heater and don't get the benefit of being upstairs (warm air rises...) are colder. I bought a couple of electric space heaters to help keep these two rooms closer to the rest of the house (about 62-63F). I haven't actually calculated the actual costs, but what I hear is that with the oil prices where they are now, electrical heating is on par with oil. If oil prices keeps rising any more, it might make sense to go all electrical.

I think we are all getting acclimated to the cooler temps because when we go somewhere where the temp is 70F (like during our church service), it feels hot after a while.

Dry and windy

After quite a few days of rain, the last couple have been relatively dry. Today, in particular, began partly sunny and has remained that way so far, into the afternoon. It's been windy though, blowing off most of the remaining leaves from the deciduous trees that are in our yard. With the branches vigorously shaking about and the leaves swirling into the air, it looks very much the fall that it is.

I still have some reading to catch up on today, but if I have time later this afternoon, and it is still partly sunny, I'm thinking of heading out for a little bit to take in some of the scenic sights that only appear during weather transitions like we are having today.

Yesterday, I mailed off my malfunctioning camera body to the repair shop. I'll find out what the actual repair estimate is going to be once they look at it. Until that's repaired or I get a replacement, I'm down to my point-and-shoot or the much older Canon D30.

I'm reading several books right now:

• Parenting: From Surviving to Thriving, by Charles R. Swindoll
• Poet & Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes, by Kanneth E. Bailey
• The God Who Hears, by W. Bingham Hunger

Bible Reading 2007, Week 42

This week we are reading the book of Luke and Psalms 90-93.

Sermon: Light of Life

(Click HERE to listen to MP3 sermon audio.)

Looking through the past few weeks, one might conclude that I had planned these series of sermons from John on the theme of "Life." But I assure you, that is not the case. Each week as I pondered the key message that I wanted to bring out, it seems that these past few weeks, that has been "Life." It shouldn't be too surprising though, because I get the idea that getting the message that leads to "Life" was one of John's goals in writing his gospel account.

Today, I forgot to bring along my voice recorder. Fortunately, I realized that my laptop has a built-in microphone above the LCD screen (something I didn't realize until just recently -- my laptop is about 8 years old). So just before Sabbath School I tested my recording software to make sure that everything worked and used the laptop as the recording device.

Today's sermon is based on John 8:12-30. It is where Jesus declares himself as the "Light of the world" and then the argument between the Pharisees and Jesus regarding Jesus' right to make such a statement. This passage shows how Jesus tried to bring light to the Pharisees, but they would have none of it: They chose to remain in darkness. This incident is an illustration of John 3:19-21 (the scripture reading today).

Children's Story: Light Box

Props: Several cameras of different shapes, sizes, vintage, technologies, etc. (I used a digital SLR, digital point-and-shoot, and a film rangefinder.)

Outline

• Pull out the cameras and show each one in turn. Briefly describe each one. Emphasize that although they may look different and may operate differently, they are all cameras.
• Ask, "What is the name used for the process of creating images with a camera?" (Answer: Photography)
• Ask, "What is the definition of photography? What are the meanings of the roots that make up photograph?" (Answer: photo from the Greek phos, meaning "light," and graphis or graphe, meaning "paintbrush" or "drawing." Photography is "painting with light" or "drawing with light.")
• Ask, "What is the critical thing needed to make a photograph?" (Answer: Light.)
• Emphasize the necessity of having light in order to expose the film or collecting light on a digital sensor's photocells.
• Point to the cameras and note that even though they are all different, the one thing common across all of them are that they are light boxes -- boxes to collect and focus the light and create a image that represents something in the real world.
• Now note that even in abundant light, a camera just sitting there won't make an image by itself. Ask what needs to be done. (Answer: The shutter must be released.)
• Describe how the shutter opens to let light shine on the film or on a digital SLR, the digital sensor. (On digital point and shoots, tripping the shutter engages the electronics and software that reads the information off the sensor and records it on the memory card.) In either case, the act of releasing the shutter causes the camera to make a record of the light.
• "Jesus said that he is the light of the world. The Bible tells us that God wants us to reflect Jesus' image. The Holy Spirit gives us the power to do that. But there is one thing that we must do. What is it?" (Answer: Open the eyes, or shutter, or our hearts to let the light in.)
• "When we let Jesus shine in our hearts, our hearts begin to record Jesus' image."
• Describe how the very first cameras had to use very long exposures because the film wasn't very sensitive. Make connection to how our hearts are more like that, where they need to be exposed to Jesus for a lifetime -- a one-time sermon or reading a few minutes from the Bible isn't enough to create much of an image.
• Also note what happens if the camera moves during a long exposure. (The image blurs.) Make connection to how we might get distracted and impatient while we wait for Jesus' image to form in our hearts. When we do, the image gets fuzzy. But we can correct that by refocusing our hearts back to Jesus.
• Once again, point to the cameras and note the different sizes, shapes, features, technologies, age, etc. Connect this to how we are all different (ages, shapes, sizes, families, backgrounds, talents, abilities, interests, etc.)
• Despite our differences, our purpose is the same -- to form an image of Jesus inside our hearts.
• "If I took a picture of a flower with each of these cameras, each one will probably look a little different. But you should be able to clearly see that they are pictures of the same flower. Likewise, the way the image of Jesus that is forming in each of our hearts will probably look different from one another. But people who see us should be able to tell that is it still the image of Jesus, God's love, that is forming in our hearts."
• "If we want to reproduce God's love, Jesus' image, in our hearts, there is just one way: Keep the eyes of our hearts open, let Jesus' light shine in, keep our eyes focused and pointed on Jesus, the light of the world."
• Open the Eyes of My Heart would be an appropriate song to sing at the close.

Post #400

This post is #400 on this blog. That means that I've been averaging somewhere close to one post per day.

Anyway, I have a headache today and I feel like I might have a cold...

Some months ago I noted that our vacuum cleaner fill hose had a hole in it. At the time I wrapped some duct tape around it to see if it would hold...

It didn't.

Thought it appeared to help some, because most of the dirt and dust was in the disposable bag instead of outside it. But duct tape isn't going to work as a good long-term solution. I ordered a few parts and when it arrives I hope that I can figure out how to get it apart and then back together.

It's been quite wet this week. Everything is pretty soggy. It was dry this morning. The grass started looking a bit long, so I took the opportunity to run over the lawn/moss/swamp combination that our backyard is, with the lawnmower and even things out a bit.

I got a repair guesstimate quote on my camera -- in the neighborhood of $300. That's around what a used, identical model is going for, so I won't be spending more to fix it than it's worth. So I think I'll go that route and then in another six to twelve months acquire the 40D.

For the last few weeks I've been wondering why we still try to have a children's choir. Last night, two of the kids that have been coming weren't present. There are another two that regularly come, but their attention spans can be measured in seconds, they don't seem to have that much interest in what is going on, and they are distracing to everyone present. So why do we bother? Should we continue, or is it time to throw in the towel? I'm finding my motivation and desire continue to ebb away each week. Any thoughts or suggestions?

Spyware, solos, and such

Yesterday, someone clicked on something "not good" and infected one of our PCs (the one everyone but me uses) with spyware and trojans. Even though the clean-up still took a long time, most of it was just the system scanning that could be done without me having to be there in person, watching it. I was fortunate that the problem was caught quickly, the PC had a fairly recent version of an anti-virus/malware program already installed, and it had the beta version of Microsoft's web filtering software running on it. So although infected, the infection had a difficult time multiplying too much.

I updated the Antivirus (this particular PC was using the free version of AntiVir) to the latest release and definitions, performed several rounds of scans until it came up clean. I manually checked a few areas in the Registry and such that are usually messed with by spyware and didn't find anything there. I updated Windows Defender to the latest version and performed a scan, which also came up clean. So I'm hopeful and fairly confident that this little problem is now cleared up.

The homeschool district (IDEA) sends down a couple of their educators each year for a few days to Petersburg. Last night we had a group potluck. It's a time to match names with faces and get reacquainted with many of the homeschooling families. We had a wonderful dinner. It was at the Holy Cross hall at the Lutheran church.

Immediately afterwards, I went down to the next building to audition a solo for the upcoming Messiah performance. So that went well and I will be singing Recitital #2 (Comfort Ye) and Aria #3 (Every Valley) on the 24th and 25th of November. The grapevine is on broadband in this town, because Elise already knew that I'd be singing the solos just minutes afterwards.

Alaska Air annual airfare sale

If you have any plans to travel to Petersburg by air over the next 12 months, now through November 20 is the time to purchase tickets. This is the Alaska Air's annual PFD (Permanent Fund Dividend) sale. Travel from Portland to Petersburg (one-way) is about $175 (all most fees) compared to the normal fare of around $260.

Added 9-Oct: After pricing and purchasing some tickets for next spring, I discovered that the fuel surcharges, security fees, etc. add another $30 or so each way to Portland.

First Snow on Petersburg Mountain

I awoke this morning, looking out across the Narrows to Petersburg Mountain and thought it looked different than what I saw yesterday. Since it was still dark, I wasn't sure if it was just the darkness or if there was actually a dusting of snow.

Another hour or so later, it became quite clear that it did look different and that it was almost certainly snow up on the tip of the mountain. I took my little point-and-shoot (because my other camera is now dead...) and took a photo of the mountain at first light. A couple hours later I took another photo with a bit more light.