Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on November 19, 2010 by Barbara Harper

Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share our favorite things from the last week. This has been a wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.

Here are five of my favorites from the past week:

1. Finally visiting our library. I pass by the building often and thought it looked so warm and inviting. I’ll gladly take a warm and cozy library over a sleek, modern one most any day. We finally stopped in last weekend.

The front wall of the inside is made of the same brick.

This intriguing little sculpture was out front:

2. A shiny new library card! I didn’t check out anything for me on mine yet — I let Jesse check out a couple of things on mine for a research paper. When you get a new card you can only check our four things at first, so we put a few books on my card so he could save his for a field trip with his class to a different library. I have too many books stacked up to read to be checking out any more right now, anyway, but I enjoyed perusing the shelves.

3. A favorite leftover lunch is a grilled cheese sandwich with leftover meat loaf or stuffing burgers. Kind of like what a restaurant calls a Patty Melt except without the limp, droopy onions (bleah!).

4. A little color still left on the trees. The great majority of leaves are gone, blown off with rain and wind over the past couple of weeks. But there are still bits of color to enjoy here and there, like this tree in the neighborhood:

5. Sweet messages…in more ways than one. 🙂 When Jason heats up a couple of Toaster Strudels for himself and Mittu, he usually writes little messages with the icing. I’m doing good to just get the icing on there when I make them.

Have a great Friday!

Flashback Friday: Thanksgiving

Posted on November 19, 2010 by Barbara Harper

Mocha With Linda hosts a weekly meme called Flashback Friday. She’ll post a question every Thursday, and then Friday we can link our answers up on her site. You can visit her site for more Flashbacks.

The prompt for this week is:

What was Thanksgiving like when you were growing up? What days did you usually have off from school? Do you remember any Thanksgiving activities at school, such as a play or a meal? During the Thanksgiving weekend, did you travel to spend it with relatives or did you stay home? Or did relatives travel to you? What was your family’s day typically like? Did you watch the Macy’s Parade or something else on TV? Have you ever attended a Thanksgiving parade? Was football a big part of the day? And of course, we have to hear what your family ate! Were there any traditional foods that were part of your family’s meal? Which of your growing-up traditions do you do with your family today? And if you are married, how did it go merging your two traditions/expectations?

I think we usually had just Thursday and Friday off from school for the Thanksgiving holidays. I’m glad my kids have gotten out at noon on the Wednesday before for the last several years. I don’t remember having Thanksgiving meals at schools where parents or grandparents were invited. Not to be a killjoy, bit I really don’t like that — it seems to me to take away from the family Thanksgiving. I liked what one of my son’s teachers did one year with just a few snacks, then things like pemmican that the original pilgrims and Indians might have had.

We might have done plays or activities at school, but the only one I remember is tracing around our hands and then coloring and adding features to make it look like a turkey (thumb was the head, the other fingers were feathers.)

I don’t remember traveling or having other relatives travel in for Thanksgiving as a child. That kind of thing took place at Christmas but mostly during the summers when weather was better and people had more time off.

I think we watched parades if they happened to be on when we turned the TV on, but it wasn’t a tradition or a “must-see.” My dad was a football fan, so we probably watched whatever game was on — or maybe only if the Dallas Cowboys were playing, I don’t remember.

We ate the usual Thanksgiving fare: turkey, cornbread dressing (we used the terms “dressing” and “stuffing” interchangeably), mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, some other vegetable side dish, pumpkin and apple pies. I don’t think we ever had cranberry sauce.

When my husband and I first got married and lived near our alma mater, we often had college friends over, and that was fun, especially since they couldn’t get home.It was nice to provide a little slice of homeyness for them. Some years Jim’s former pastor’s family came to town when he had married kids in college, and they often invited us over for Thanksgiving — that provided us with a bit of homeyness!

My family’s Thanksgiving now is much the same. The meal is pretty much the same: we often have a green bean casserole or Vegetable Medley as an additional side. No one likes sweet potatoes except Mittu and me. We might turn on the parades, we might not. We usually eat around 12 or 1, have pies later in the afternoon, then heat up leftovers or make turkey sandwiches in the evening. For years my dear husband has taken care of getting all the meat off the turkey after dinner and then cleaning the roasting pan for me — that helps a lot because I am starting to get wear by that point. I usually get a nap some time in the afternoon. None of us is into football, but we might watch a video that night (planning on Toy Story 3 this year! We’ve all seen it except Jeremy. None of us minds seeing it again, and he wants to see it with us). Sometimes we might play a game.

Sometimes we go around the table saying what we’re thankful for, sometimes not.

This year we will be especially thankful to be all together again after being separated since this summer.

I like that it is a fairly laid-back day except for the big meal. Even though we don’t have a lot of unique traditions, I love the day as a time to think intentionally about thankfulness and a time to relax with family.

In addition, one of the highlights for me of the holiday and the year is that in every church we’ve been in, there has been some kind of praise service at some point during the week. In that particular service often it takes on a retrospective look back at the year, and it a blessed time of rejoicing with those who have had special blessings or or empathizing with those who have experienced answers to prayer and God’s grace in trials. An evening of laughter and tears and reflecting on God’s blessings!

Giving Thanks Challenge, Day 19

Posted on November 19, 2010 by Barbara Harper

It’s Day 19 of the Giving Thanks Challenge hosted by Leah at South Breeze Farm.

I am thankful for humor!

“Mirth is God’s medicine. Everybody ought to bathe in it. Grim care, moroseness, anxiety — all this rust of life ought to be scoured off by the oil of mirth. It is better than emery. Every man ought to rub himself with it. A man without mirth is like a wagon without springs, in which everyone is caused disagreeably to jolt by every pebble over which is runs.” ~ Henry Ward Beecher

We have to keep it in balance, of course — I’ve known a few who take it too far, who exhibit little reverence or respect because everything is a joke. But I do think God has a sense of humor. I can’t imagine creating one of these without one:

A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.
Proverbs 17:22a

Giving Thanks Challenge, Day 18

Posted on November 18, 2010 by Barbara Harper

It’s Day 18 of the Giving Thanks Challenge hosted by Leah at South Breeze Farm.

I am thankful for food! And for the availability and wide variety that we have in this country.

Giving Thanks Challenge, Day 17

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Barbara Harper

It’s Day 17 of the Giving Thanks Challenge hosted by Leah at South Breeze Farm.

I am thankful for shelter, and particularly for the wonderful home the Lord has provided.

Giving Thanks Challenge, Day 16

Posted on November 16, 2010 by Barbara Harper

It’s Day 16 of the Giving Thanks Challenge hosted by Leah at South Breeze Farm.

I am thankful for friends, old and new, near and far.

Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart: so doth the sweetness of a man’s friend by hearty counsel. Proverbs 27:9

Book Review: Here Burns My Candle

Posted on November 16, 2010 by Barbara Harper

Here Burns My Candle by Liz Curtis Higgs is set in Scotland in 1745 and drawn somewhat from the Biblical book of Ruth. What does Ruth have to do with 18th century Scotland, you ask? I’ll get to that in a moment.

Lady Marjory Kerr lives very happily with her two Lowland sons and Highland daughters-in-law in fine style, her only sorrow buried in Greyfriars Churchyard. But life is just on the verge of major changes. Bonnie Prince Charlie is heading their way, seeking to build up his army and coffers to take the city and eventually the crown. She would never dream that her loyal sons might some day follow the Prince, that the sordid rumors swirling about son Donald are true, or that daughter-in-law Elisabeth has secrets of her own. As one by one everything she trusts in is taken away, and her own faults and failures become all too clear, she senses a call from a voice she had long ago stopped listening to.

Elisabeth, meanwhile, keeps the auld ways of worship of the moon that her mother taught her, yet her soul is not satisfied and her prayers are not answered. Grieved and disillusioned in her faith, the words of the Buik begin to open her eyes and her heart to the unseen Holy One.

Marjory and Elisabeth, you may recognize, are based on Naomi, the mother in a pagan land who loses her husband and sons, and Ruth, the daughter-in-law who loses her husband and leaves her home and her god for her mother-in-law’s. I’ve mentioned before in other reviews that I am a bit wary of Biblical fiction because so often it takes the story too far afield from the Biblical narrative. I don’t think this story is meant to be an exact retelling or parallel, but rather, the characters and basic plot arc are just drawn from the Biblical story. If this kind of a parallel bothers you, you could probably enjoy the book on its own. I can see the value, though, in exercising the imagination this way to explore a little more what the characters were going through (sort of like if a pastor or Sunday School teacher were telling a Biblical story and then, trying to make it more understandable to hearers, said, “Now that would be like…” and relating it to something the readers might more readily identify with). Knowing that the story was based on Ruth helped to hold my interest in some points, anticipating what was to come and feeling with them what they might have felt in the face of their losses, wondering how Ruth came to be dissatisfied with her own rites and what brought her to faith even when she did not have the best of examples before her, experiencing and understanding Naomi’s bitterness and wondering how and when the Lord first began to call her not only back home to her country, but to Himself.

It took me a good third of the book to really get into it, however. I am not sure why: I enjoy historical fiction, and the details were pertinent to the plot. Liz Curtis Higgs’ actually having been in Scotland was evidenced in the rich details, and I found myself inclined to speak with a wee bit of brogue myself. But, as I said, knowing what was going to happen and wanting to see how it played out kept me reading, and after a while I was riveted and sorrowing along with Marjory and Elisabeth in their losses.

Some readers may be especially miffed at Donald’s character, especially as there is no hint of his particular besetting sin in his Biblical parallel, but Higgs explains in her notes at the end that both his and his brother’s characters were drawn from the meaning of their Biblical names.

Here Burns My Candle is drawn from Ruth 1:1-18. The rest of the story will be told in Mine Is the Night, due out next spring.

Here is a trailer for Here Burns My Candle:

(This review will be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday review of books and the next 5 Minutes For Books I Read It column.)

The Week In Words

Posted on November 15, 2010 by Barbara Harper

Welcome to The Week In Words, where we share quotes from the last week’s reading. If something you read this past week inspired you, caused you to laugh, cry, think, dream, or just resonated with you in some way, please share it with us, attributing it to its source, which can be a book, newspaper, blog, Facebook — anything that you read. More information is here.

Here are a few that made me stop and think this week:

I have not read anything by John Piper except the occasional quote, but I agree with this, found on a friend’s Facebook:

We have thankful days and unthankful days. And even our thankful days are not as thankful as they should be. Just think of how joyful and thankful you would be if your heart responded to God himself and his ten thousand gifts with admiration and gratitude of which He is worthy. – John Piper

This was from another friend’s Facebook:

Fight for us, O God, that we not drift numb and blind and foolish into vain and empty excitements. Life is too short, too precious, too painful to waste on worldly bubbles that burst. Heaven is too great, hell is too horrible, eternity is too long that we should putter around on the porch of eternity. — John Piper

I have to admit I am struggling a bit with this one. I’d be interested to know the context from which it came. I don’t think he is calling for a life of asceticism: I don’t think there is anything wrong with playing word games on Facebook for relaxation and brain exercise or watching a video with the family. I think the latter, in fact, can enhance the spiritual — if everything we ever say to others is serious and spiritual, I think they’d turn us off after a while, but just relaxing and having some fun and fellowship can open the gateways for relationships and for other serious conversations. But, yes, by and large we do need to be careful to maintain focus and balance and not let “good” pursuits crowd out the “best.”

And from yet another friend’s Facebook:

In fear-based repentance, we don’t hate sin for itself, and it doesn’t lose its attractive power. We learn only to refrain from it for our own sake. Fear-based repentance makes us hate ourselves, but joy-based repentance makes us hate sin as we rejoice over God’s sacrificial love …& see what it cost him to save us. What most assures of God’s unconditional love is what most convicts us of the evil of sin. — Tim Keller

I am struggling a bit with this one, too. I think fear has its place and I’d like to understand more what he means by “joy-based repentance.” The Bible does talk about godly sorrow leading to repentance. But to me the value in the quote is the focus that our repentance shouldn’t be just about getting ourselves out of trouble or fearing consequences, but rather it is based on the offense of a holy God and yet His mercy and grace in making a way for us to be forgiven.

Finally, this from F. B. Meyer’s Our Daily Walk for November 10 on gentleness as a fruit of the Holy Spirit struck a chord with me:

It is not easy to cultivate this fruit of the Spirit because it has many counterfeits. Some people are naturally easy-going, devoid of energy and ambition, at heart cowardly, or in spirit mean. Many of us are characterized by a moral weakness and decrepitude that make it easy for us to yield rather than contest in the physical or intellectual arena.

But in gentleness there must be the consciousness of a considerable reserve of force. The gentleness of God is combined with omnipotence…It is the prerogative of great strength to be gentle.

The thought of gentleness as being strength under control rather than just being easy-going and yielding gave me much food for thought.

In that same devotional Meyer quotes Thomas a Kempis:

“If thou wilt be borne with, bear also with another. Endeavour to be patient in bearing with the defects and infirmities of others, what sort soever they be: for that thyself also hast many failings which must be borne by others.”

Amen.

If you’ve read anything that particularly spoke to you that you’d like to share, please either list it in the comments below or write a post on your blog and then put the link to that post ~~(not your general blog link) in Mr. Linky below~~ in the comments. I do ask that only family-friendly quotes be included. I hope you’ll visit some of the other participants as well and glean some great thoughts to ponder.

Note: The Mr. Linky site says: “System is currently down for emergency maintenance.” If it comes back up during the day, I’ll add your links: meanwhile, just leave them in the comments. Sorry about that!