I caught this moment waiting for my flight home from Dallas last Sunday night. I’ve never seen anything like this. It looks like the sun is burning a hold through the clouds. It’s intense heat melts the edges of the overcast sky.
It looks like someone holding a piece of paper over the flame of a candle. The fire singes the paper, and the hole grows bigger and bigger.
We know what’s on this side. Runways. Airplanes. Hangers. Terminals. Travelers. Baggage.
What’s on the other side? Stars, sky, birds. Constellations, galaxies, drones, and satellites. Life that has not yet arrived at our planet?
In just a few moments, I will be looking down from the other side.
It’s still dark as the big dog and I round the corner. Something on this sign catches my attention, so we double back to grab a photo. (I’ve learned to take a photo of anything that grabs my attention.)
I wondered about the dark black time at the bottom. Re-used an old sign? Changed their mind about the start time? Whatever.
But what about that little sticker up top?
A California warning about “cancer and reproductive harm.”
That sounds serious. Was I taking a chance by getting close enough to take a photo or read the warning sticker? Did the people who wrote the address and time touch a dangerous substance? Would your air be contaminated if you had this sign in your house? Was this warning sticker only for someone who might take a bite of this sign?
It’s California proposition 65. Harmful chemicals may have been used in the production and printing of this sign. The list is 900 chemicals long. And one must be exposed to them daily over a span of seventy years.
Whew. I’m safe for the moment. Only one minute for one day for me so far. Come on, big girl, just keep walking.
Just when you thought the saga of my neighbor was over, I’ve got news from my daily morning walk with the big dog. For previous episodes, click here, here, here, here, and here.
He painted his driveway white.
About eight months ago, this very quiet, seclusive neighbor painted his gray house white. It took a few weeks, but he covered every inch of it in white paint. Doors, shutters, trim, everything.
Suddenly, as we walked by today, I noticed the driveway was all white. Perfectly painted white. The house paint was starting to fade, but the driveway looked like it had experienced the perfect Florida snowstorm.
It looks nice. It matches the house. And I’m not saying white is a bad color for a driveway. But it is the only white driveway I’ve ever seen. I doubt he used driveway paint.
So most of the lawn has grown back in. Well, it’s all weeds. All the landscape lighting is gone. Most of the barriers at the door have been removed.
But now, everything is white.
White feels clean, wintery, and neutral. White is non-committal, bright, a blank canvas.
That would be awesome. A blank canvas just waiting for paint, a picture, or some art.
When King David handed the throne over to his son, Solomon, he organized all the Levites around future temple duties (1 Chronicles 23). Previously, the Levites had been busy transporting the tabernacle and furnishings from place to place in the wilderness.
David had thirty-eight thousand ready for temple duty. Eight thousand would serve as officials and judges. Four thousand would be gate keepers, and another four thousand would play instruments for worship.
Other duties included taking care of courtyards and rooms, purification of everything used only for worship in and around the temple, and mixing and baking the bread.
As worshipers, we don’t always think about all that has to be done in preparation for worship. Besides the musicians and pastor, lots of people work behind the scenes to make a Sunday morning happen:
Cleaning the sanctuary/bathrooms/front walk
Cutting the lawn, trimming shrubs and trees
Preparing worship folders, newsletters, and projections
Working the audio/visual for the service
Unlocking/locking the doors
Purchasing wine and bread for communion
Setting up/cleaning up communion
Setting up for baptisms
Assisting with distribution of communion
Setting up the altar with color for the season, linens, and candles
Setting out the flowers
Ushers
Greeters
At some churches, parking lot attendants and traffic direction
Counting and depositing offerings
Watching children in the nursery
Someone to turn on/off the lights
Someone to light/put out the candles
There are no doubt more jobs not mentioned here. I haven’t actually done the math, but I’ll bet it takes twenty people to make worship happen for every 100 in attendance. And every job is important.
My eleven-year-old grandson saw this and laughed before I did. The sign prohibited diving at a six-inch deep splash pad! Yeah, we both laughed out loud.
We’ve brought young grandchildren to this splash ground area many times. In the heat of the summer, it’s a great place to let the kids run through spouts of water and stand under buckets about to dump water all over them.
Babies crawl through the spray, toddlers toddle through the water spouts, and pre-K kids run chase each other around sea creatures. But I never saw anyone attempting a dive, much less a jump into a few inches of water.
However, the zoo would not invest in such a sign had not some young person attempted to dive into the water. Had some parent absorbed in their phone let their one-year-old attempt a swan dive off the sea turtle? Were two-year-olds lining up to do flips off the octopus?
Having read the whole sign, I can’t help but wonder what is worse: diving, diarrhea, or animals in the splash grounds.
On Saturday we and the whole Texas family headed out to the Huddin Homestead Fun Farm in Rockwall, TX, about half-an-hour east of Dallas. So many of the pumpkin patches had closed, so we were happy to find this farm.
I was skeptical. Sometimes we find little more than a bunch of overpriced pumpkins and gourds, some goats to pet, and a bounce house. I was pleasantly surprised. We saw everything from barnyard to exotic animals. We saw and fed goats, cows, camels, alpaca, sloths (they were sleeping), donkeys, coatimundi, capybara, chickens, quail, rabbits, Galapagos tortoises, parakeets, cockatiels, and lovebirds. The property was dotted with playgrounds and bouncehouses, food trucks and lemonade stands, gifts shops and a corn pit to play in.
The farm gave out free food pellets for the most of the animals. For a few bucks, you could buy a cup of lettuce leaves, cucumbers, and carrots for the camels, bunnies, tortoises, and coatimundis.
A train took the kids for a ride around a small circle of track. Not much, but they loved it.
And there were pumpkins and gourds if every shape, size, and color scattered around everywhere. Piles and piles over acres of land.
Here and there food trucks offered tacos, shaved ice, ice cream, coffee, and gourmet lemonades.
A steady stream of people came to spend part of a day. At $15 a head, the take should have been pretty good over the last month or so.
I can’t imagine the work involved in caring for all those animals. And I don’t even know how one purchases a sloth, capybara, or coatimundi. Hopefully they were rescues.
The variety of animals made this attraction a lot of fun!
Zipline drone delivery for food, groceries, and medicine is alive and well in Rowlett, Texas.
We wanted to experience it live, so we had some pizza delivered from Blaze and watched the drone drop it down in my son’s backyard.
Walmart, Chipotle, Crumbl Cookies, Popeyes, Village Coffee, are Torta Shell Tanqueria are just a few of the many establishments who use this delivery method. Depending on the time of day you can get free delivery!
I didn’t realize how popular it was until I saw the green lights from drones lighting up the night sky. They were everywhere. It was pretty to watch at least a dozen in sight at any one moment.
I couldn’t help but wonder if there are ever collisions. But I know they’ve done extensive testing to get the airspace to do that.
Do they ever mess up and leave the food on a roof? Or in someone else’s backyard by mistake? I hope so. That sounds fun.
And what if you don’t get what you ordered? Will they come and take it back? I doubt it.
It’s only going to get more common. Amazon and Walmart are already doing it in many larger cities. That means it’s going to be everywhere.
Pretty soon, we’ll hardly notice it, we’ll expect it, and we’ll complain if we can’t get it!
In the opening chapter of Job, a good, God-fearing, blameless, upright man suffers the unthinkable loss of his camels, oxen, donkeys, sheep, servants all his children, and his health.
Satan, who has caused this devastation, is certain Job will curse God. Job’s wife thinks he should curse God and die.
However, twice we read that Job did not sin in what he said. He doesn’t charge God with any wrong doing (Job 1:22: 2:10). Instead he praises God.
So what do you think it means to curse God? Blame him? Question him? Complain about him? Say bad things about him? Call him names? Accuse him of wrongdoing? Challenge his sovereignty?
Do we think of any of those things as sin? The commandments are clear. The bad stuff includes idolatry, murder, adultery, theft, and lying. Upset with God’s performance? Seems minor in comparison.
Except that evaluating Gods performance is putting oneself above God. And that flies in the face of commandment #1: no other gods.
What if the only appropriate response to God is praise? Praise for who he is, who he has revealed himself to be, and his undisputed place as God.
Doesn’t sound complicated. Yet it’s the hardest thing for us to do. On a good day. Never mind a day like Job had.
Start early. Don’t wait to see how the day unfolds. Just praise the one who gave you the day. Morning glory.
She started out as such a cute little girl, just a few pounds of puppy we brought home from Ocala. Now she is a 110 pounds of affection, watchdog, couch napper, and early morning walker.
She is eye-to-eye with me at the dinner table, unwilling to let any morsel go unlicked.
She sees the bunnies by the roadside in the dim morning light long before I do.
She hears low-flying airplanes and looks up to see what kind of bird it is.
She is not a water dog. Three drops of rain and she’s ready to come back into the house.
She lost a fight to a little black dog at the dog park. Stitches, cone, and a drain. And no more dog parks.
She answers to Scooby Doo, Marmaduke, and on occasion, Astro.
She sings for her supper. A very pleasant Great Dane song.
She can jump twenty-four inches straight up into the air.
When she’s happy, her wagging tail is a deadly weapon.
She is super-affectionate, with a kiss for everyone.
