Another part of the same garden spot. Please ignore the orange hammock, still hanging. It was a souvenir my daughter Sarah brought back from Cambodia a few years ago. It lost its place when our tree was taken out by the storms awhile back. It still hangs from its other anchor, with nothing to hook up to. I've been meaning to cut it down - it would take all of five minutes. Honestly, I pay no attention to it, and only notice it now, "screaming" at me in this picture.
Kitchen Riches From My Gardens
Another part of the same garden spot. Please ignore the orange hammock, still hanging. It was a souvenir my daughter Sarah brought back from Cambodia a few years ago. It lost its place when our tree was taken out by the storms awhile back. It still hangs from its other anchor, with nothing to hook up to. I've been meaning to cut it down - it would take all of five minutes. Honestly, I pay no attention to it, and only notice it now, "screaming" at me in this picture.
An Idea for Your Spent Sunflowers
So I tied some twine around them, and hung them on a tree in our back garden...
Weak Is The New Strong
ingredients for bruschetta - one of summer's gifts of wealth...each ingredient, simple but powerfully healthy for you. I include it because anyone can grow the ingredients for little-t0-no cost, and yet the health benefits are pure riches...and I love it so much, I am making it fit in with the idea of this post...and because it is my blog. And because I am quite proud of my photography, here.
Oh yeah...and "Let the poor say, 'I am rich.' "
How boring is it, when the rich say, "I am rich"? So passe. So unoriginal. So unsurprising. So obnoxious, even, when the rich find ways to let you know it. All the rich are supposed to do - Biblically speaking - is to share their riches. And maintain a humble heart.
But when the poor declare "I AM RICH".....well "wooo-weee, shut my mouth and slap your grandmaw"...because the whole, wide, watching world gets to decide whether the poor man does indeed enjoy riches money can't buy, or whether he is crazy. (Sorry, lines from country music songs, completely unrelated to what I'm talking about, keep popping up in my head. Have compassion on me...after all, YOU could be in my head, instead of me.)
We underestimate ourselves and others when we base that estimate on unbiblical notions of what is weak and what is strong. Some of you have lost dear friends because of an inaccurate assessment regarding what God sees as weak and what He sees as strong. He will surprise you, if you ask His opinion on strength and weakness, and if you ask Him with a tender heart.
(More) Ordinary, Yet Extraordinary Time
My liturgical friends are now observing a season they call "Ordinary Time". It is a sort of "time between times". In the liturgical year (the Protestant-version observance of which I do see some merit, if you insist on the Gifts of the Spirit to also be in full operation) there are two seasons called "Ordinary Time". The first is the short season, loosely speaking, between Christmas and Easter.
The second span of Ordinary Time lies in the months between Pentecost and Advent. That is the time we are now in, this first week of August.
There couldn't be a more fitting name for the weeks between June and November. August is so ordinary and so "middle" - hot and humid here in the south, and there is no football yet. (Football is my liturgy. Proud Southern Protestant am I. Every big game, a feast.) The days can seem to melt one into the other, in an endless molten mush of 90+ degree days.
But tucked into August is fresh corn on the cob, Kentucky Wonder pole beans, lots of tomatoes, sunflowers, sunsets, cicadas, country music, flip flops, and cut-off blue jeans. August does have its own liturgy (liturgy simply means "the work, or response, of the people") it has its own continuity, and we do well when we respond with appreciation and enthusiasm, specific to August's finery.
I have a very special reason to respond in praise and thanksgiving - an anniversary of the spirit. It deserves to be canonized in the Atchley annals of history, and given its own feast.
Two years ago, this first week in August, my Preacher and I were dealing with some stuff. Nasty stuff. So, two years ago, because of this nasty stuff, I began to experience the then all too familiar symptoms of a migraine. I would get them almost every month or so. I mentioned this to The Preacher, without even expecting a response. By then, these headaches were like a storm brewing...it was obvious to me what was coming. I would sort of see the clouds gathering and make the observation.
He laid his hand on the back of my head, while I was standing in our bathroom, and prayed a simple prayer. I cannot begin to tell you how ordinary this prayer was, in that season of "ordinary time", two years ago. I can tell you that I expected nothing. Whatever conclusion that might make you draw about me, it is no-nevermind to me. But you need to know that I didn't expect a thing to happen. I sure didn't expect what happened next.
A definite warmth came upon the back of my head. I even thought it might be the "leftover warmth" of his hand - I was that hell-bent on expecting nothing. But I did make a note that it was a curious thing. Curious-er and curious-er, because that warmth lingered...and lingered a few minutes more.
That migraine never came. And it has never materialized in all these two years since. Not even once.
What does God want to do for you, in this "time between times", this season of Ordinary Time? You serve an extraordinary God.
New Discovery - Evernote
(Hmmm...that, in fact, is exactly what my husband is doing, even as I type. He's sitting at Applebee's with a buncha boys from California, Florida, and Tennessee...but he's not staying too-too long. We have to be right back at a conference we're all attending at 8 in the morning...)
But, I have something really cool to show you. So I whip out my smart phone and show you Evernote.
This is a place where you can store anything and everything you want to remember. You can create notebooks under various headings, and you can save images from the internet, you can save links, text, files, voice recordings, and you can even snap a picture of, say, a receipt, and store it in your Evernote account.
You "tag" everything you save, so you can find it fast, later on.
I'm so geek-fierce, I wish I could stare at my geek self.
Oh, oh, and you can save anything on any platform (smart phone, desktop, laptop) and it automatically syncs, so that you can retrieve your information from any other platform, at anytime, anywhere.
This kind of stuff, and tequila makes me crazy. I love it. (Just kidding about the tequila. I have never had a drop of it in my life, I don't believe. I do enjoy the occasional glass of wine, just for full disclosure purposes. I hear tequila makes your clothes fall off, and that is a deterrent for me.)
Last, but not least, I want to pitch something about "good works" at you. I am in a mentoring/discipling relationship with a couple of younger women (and have been, for going on a year now). My daughters are my "natural" disciples, and a couple others have sought me out, following up, acting on what I tell them, not wasting my time, and not asking that I chase them down. I'll be adding, over time, women of various ages, and I want you to know this: I don't believe in meetin' for "sin management." Nor do I believe in meeting for emotionally therapeutic purposes. I don't do emotional drama. But I do believe that the gospel itself is therapeutic, and will, over time, address every emotional issue we have...and we all have them.
I believe in calling forth your destiny as one of the great host of daughters who will proclaim the gospel. See, my theology affects not just my destiny, but it also affects my day, and thus it affects how I feel about you.
The Word became flesh (John 1) because the Word has always, from Genesis up to this very moment, become flesh. It's sorta what the Word does. It can't NOT become flesh. The law was given, but grace came....clothed in flesh. When the gospel is sown into a young woman's heart, it will take on the mantle of good works, done in context with others in a local church.
This has nothing to do with "accountability" sin management groups. That stuff is Chucky Cheese middle school kids-play, compared to the sort of relationships that encourage each other's destiny. How? Not by doing something novel to relieve boredom, but by sticking and staying with people God has placed on your left and right in the local church - inspiring the girl beside you to cease identifying with her sin,stop comparing and competing (women are worse than men for that...) and start identifying with the Finished Work of Christ, and live lives that adorn the Gospel.
Just that. Those two things. True Discipleship...and Evernote. Believe me, one can assist the other, and back again. Evernote could be a potentially wonderful tool for my efforts. I just need the time to surf the learning curve.
Okay, see ya! The Brunette Preacher's wife is blowing this joint...going home (figuratively speaking - remember, in my imagination, we are at Applebee's) and going to bed. Kisses and hugs all around - I love getting to spend time with my home-girls, both IRL (in real life) and via blogs.
Don't forget to check out Evernote, and don't forget that a negative doesn't suddenly become a positive. Sin consciousness and sin management might be temporary tools to help someone struggling to form a new identity - but it is the new identity that will set them free.
The Gospel that radically declares you righteous, grows the good works that adorn the gospel that radically declares you righteous . Synergism, holistic living, abundant living, and easy yokes were God's idea first.
If you have a complaint about what Imasayin' to ya, take it up with Management.
Preach the good news of God's grace first. Use words, if necessary. Use Evernote to keep track of cool things.
What Is It, Really, To Be Redeemed?
What part of you is redeemed by the blood of Jesus? Only the parts you are able to polish up?
When you mix legalism with Gospel, you end up preserving the Gospel as a priceless artifact, instead of living it as the scandalous reality Christ meant it to be. You relegate it to a supernatural idea, or a stern standard. The law cannot vivify anything, and make it leap to loving life.
But grace! Ah, grace is alive with earthy life. We encounter grace in exactly the way we body-bound mortals encounter all of life, that is, by "doing the dishes." We encounter grace in our flesh, through our work and through our relationships.
Ordinary living, when you finally "get" grace, becomes the powerful vehicle that drives the message of the Gospel deep into your consciousness - and not because there is some transcendent secret to be found in cooking, cleaning, crying, forgiving, friending, laughing, shopping, drinking coffee, doing dishes or making love. Rather (in light of the fact that you are the very righteousness of God, in Christ) all those activities simply serve to mediate the mystery to you - namely, the mystery of "Christ in you, the hope of glory".
Christ in you, Christ "as" you, Christ as your wisdom, sanctification, and redemption. Your choices become the fruit of the Holy Spirit, as your mind renews itself to the exact proportion you apply the Gospel to your day, not just your destiny.
No easy road, this. Those who talk of "cheap grace" have never understood grace at all.
Why I Say "Amen"
"The grace of the Lord JESUS Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen."
"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen."
"Grace be with all those who love our Jesus in sincerity. Amen."
"I am the First and the Last. I am He that lives, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen. And I have the keys of hell and of death."