Lessons for Living

Eeeny, Meeny, Miney, Mo

How do you spell all those words?! 😯

Whatever. This story is more important:

Children: I’ll Take That One

There is a horrifying slippery slope here. Where do we draw the line? Again, these babies did not have a debilitating lifelong malady. All they had was a chance of developing an illness. What’s next? Poor eyesight or hearing? How about food allergies?

Better yet, why stop at abnormalities? How about insisting they be taller than average, or have superior abilities? While you’re at it, why not also select the eye color and hair color? Don’t just fertilize eleven eggs. Fertilize a hundred, choose the single best one, and destroy the rest.

[…]

We are in an era where science enables us to do wonderful things, but also terrible things. Our public policy must protect life, especially the lives of innocent, unborn children.

And we must never deceive ourselves that we do children a favor by ending their lives as they begin.

PS: If you like to read bumper stickers, check out this one. 🙂

Charm Her xx Off

Does that title shock you for this blog?

That’s the subject of an email in one of my spam boxes.

So’s this: xx xx reveals xx in xx.

(Look, I’m no “prude” but I’m using xx to keep from being flagged by various filters out there.)

I deleted the emails unread. As I have thousands of their ilk over the years.

But I call attention to them because of what I wrote earlier this morning: He Needed Wisdom and Understanding.

What Strangers Think

Andrée Seu has another thought-provoker over at WorldMagBlog:

“Lazarus, listen, we have things to tell you. We killed the sheep you meant to take to market. We couldn’t keep the old dog either. He minded you; the rest of us he barked at. Rebecca, who cried two days, has given her hand to the sandalmaker’s son. Please understand — we didn’t know that Jesus could do this.

“We’re glad you’re back. But give us time to think. Imagine our surprise….We want to say we’re sorry for all of that. And one thing more. We threw away the lyre. But listen, we’ll pay whatever the sheep was worth. The dog, too. And put your room the way it was before.” (”Adjusting to the Light,” by Miller Williams)

I have been praying (almost mechanically after a while): “Teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12). And God has been answering: a perfect new dog-walking track that thrusts in my my face rows of granite headstones on which beginning and end dates compress full lifetimes to, well, a “mist,” a “vapor” (James 4:14). All these people I jog past are forgotten, every one. If they were anything like me, they wasted entirely too much time worrying about what total strangers thought of them.

On the other hand, let’s not forget that the impressions we create in strangers do matter. We are God’s epistle, known and read of all. We are light in the world.

Above all, of course, the child of God strives to show himself approved before God.

Fuel Prices: Alternate Perspective

Mission Network News reports:

We begin a five-part series on the high cost of fuel and its impact on outreach. This week we’ll talk about how the high costs are affecting evangelism, relief work, missionaries, mission aviation and short-term work. Today we’ll take a look at how rising costs are affecting evangelism, both at home and abroad.

Please read the article.

It won’t make the price of fuel in the States any cheaper. But it may help alter your perspecitve.

It has mine.

(For a bit.)

Unclaimed Entitlements Gifts

What’s this post doing under Christianity 101?!

Unclaimed Entitlements

Uncashed checks and money orders, non-refunded deposits, bank accounts and safety deposit boxes you forgot you had, insurance and retirement benefits, abandoned stocks, matured and unredeemed savings bonds, undelivered tax refunds, unclaimed trust fund payments, unpaid retirement benefits, unpaid distributions to creditors, lost securities accounts, unpaid Social Security, of VA benefits. A conservative estimate puts it at $30 billion owed to 80 million owners, held in the “protective custody” of the government.

Read the whole article and you’ll see.

(Really — click the link and read the article. It’s short.)

No Yore Grammer

I wonder how often as a high school teacher I heard, “Why do I need to know this stuff?”

Invariably, the subject was English (ie grammar, mechanics, etc).

I know at least four of my former students stop by here once in a while.

So read this:

Court of Appeals: Definition of “nudity” excludes children

Armstrong wrote that the language of the statute was sufficiently unclear and ungrammatical that it could be read to cover children or exclude them.

Now if only the law truly would cover the naked ones.

Hint: There’s a play on words there. Get it, huh?

Above all, love God!
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