I visited one of my sisters in Oregon last week.  She has always had different values.

When she saw my camera, her comment was "My camera does not do that."

When she got into the rental car, the comment was "This is a really nice car."

While we were at dinner with family, she said "Look at the size of that rock on her finger!'

When she spoke of her son, "He's doing really well in his business."

There's more, but that's enough for examples.

She is miserable, close to a nervous breakdown.  We talked, she cried; life is not fair, she did not expect to spend her dotage with an old man for a husband or raising her two of her grandchildren.

There is more, but that's enough.  I pity my sister.

Last Friday there were several tornados that marched across parts of TX, OK, MO, TN, and almost all of AR.

The biggest one touched down in a town named Earle, AR.  Most of the town was destroyed, and there were several injuries.  There are various reports of either seven or eight people dying because of the tornados.  Property damage was extensive, but loss of life was minimal. 

Now there are bits of metal roofing, insulation, baskets (from a warehouse in Earle), and the occasional telephone pole, strewn across the fields near our home.  In one field lays a refrigerator, and some of the locals saw a spare tire fall into the parking lot of their business as the storm passed over head.

We are fine, our property was not hurt, our people are fine.  For this we praise God, and ask for His mercy and grace upon those who suffered loss.

So, I go into the House Under the Hill and put down arm loads of my stuff from the car, and begin making a pot of coffee.  Only, when I pour the water into the coffee maker I see gleaming bubbles floating on top; bubbles with a sheen to them.

Sure enough, when the coffee comes into the carafe there are bubbles over flowing the top of the carafe and over onto the mat under the coffee maker.  Coffee with soap bubbles!

I had forgotten that I had set the carafe in the sink to soak with dish soap in it when I left the house the last time.  I had poured the soapy water into the coffee maker and the only thing to do now is to make pot after pot of hot water and pour them down the drain.  Well at least the pipes under the house should be well cleaned out from the soapy water and pot after pot of steaming hot water, one pot of soapy coffee and at least ten pots of hot water!

So I finally got my cup of joe in my favorite cup, the one Pendragon and SonnetJoy got for me at Monticello on their honeymoon.

Ahh, coffee! The nectar of sanity!

So, the weather man has been predicting snow for several days the last two weeks; and now it's here big time!  I am putting up a picture and a video of it.  The sound is the wind in the trees and the wind chimes on the porch of the parsonage.

Okay, Xanga is not going to let me post it tonight in the midst of the storm, so I'll try it again later, like tomorrow or maybe Sunday.

You will notice that I have put two videos from Jupiter.com on my Xanga.  I hope that these are a blessing to you.  Some of my Xanga friends seem to be having hard times just now, and I want you to know that I really do pray for you every time I think of you (Phil 1:3-4).

New subjects:

Pray for me too, as I prepare a paper to present to the Evangelical Theological Society in March.  My Topic is The Smallness of Christ's Gospel.  It is a response to an article in Christianity Today that criticized Christianity, and preaching specifically, for being too restrictive in scope, saying that Christians should not have given gifts at Christmas, but instead should have given all the Christmas gift money (Billions, the author said) to the poor.

Then, I went to the dentist today to have a crown on a molar replaced.  After insurance, my part is only (!) $421.  Ouch, both for the price and my sore jaw.

Gordon MacDonald has a posted article on the Christianity Today web page where he wrote:

Since all Bibles in the possession of travelers entering China at that time had to be registered at the border, and since we did not sense a calling to be Bible smugglers, my traveling companion and I could not pass on the Bibles that each of us had with us. But, on the other hand, it occurred to us that we could tear out certain pages from our Bibles and offer them to her. At least we were brave enough to feel certain that Chinese officials would not check our Bibles closely enough to see if every page was there. (By the way, if you could only give someone 15 pages of your Bible, what sections would you choose? You have minutes to decide.)

Let's quickly deal with a couple of perception problems I have with the way he said this; well, three things really: looking at a "hard copy" and not an electronic version of the Bible, each "page" has two sides and actually constitutes two "pages."  Second, since chapters fall on different pages in various editions of our English Bibles, let's deal with this in terms of chapters instead of pages.  Third, "You have minutes to decide," let's make the time more definate; say, a concrete five minutes.

So, Okay, you have a chance to give 15 chapters out of your personal Bible to someone who reads English, but you must decide which ones in five minutes!!  What criteria would you use?  Would you go for a whole book of the Bible, say James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2, and 3 John, or Jude?  What about the Old Testament?  Psalm 23? What about Psalm 22?  What about Isaiah 6 or 7 or 53?  You would give more in sheer volume if you gave Psalm 119, but is that too much repetition?  What about Psalm 100?  In order to do this you must know the content of the carious chapters in your Bibles, and you must be able to prioritize the doctrines contained in those pages/chapters!

I think I would start with John 1, John 19-21, Psalm 22 & 23, Isaiah 53, Romans 1-8.

That, however, leaves out some of my favorite passages: John 3, John 14, Genesis 1-3, Esther, Ruth, and all of Revelation; nothing from Matthew, Mark, or Luke!

OOPS, my five minutes are up, and here come the Police; and I must give the torn-out pages of my Bible to their new owner (under the table, that is)!!