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(KE'RE OS'I TE) N., A LONGING TO LOOK
INTO THE THINGS OF THE LORD [C.1996 < GK.
KYRIOS LORD + -ITY; IMIT. CURIOSITY]


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Wednesday, June 30, 2004 AD
If She Could Bottle That, I'd Buy Some
April talks about overcoming wallflowerness. She's learned that "It's FUN to burst in upon some poor hapless soul (who doesn’t know what’s about to hit her), introduce myself, overwhelm her, and make her feel happy and loved," because "my focus needs to be on other people, specifically, the other person I am talking to, and not on myself." Thanks, April. I needed the reminder that my pathological introversion, as I've termed it, is something that calls for repentance rather than self-pity.
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/30/2004 05:19:00 PM • Permalink
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Stepping Heavenward
This is just a note to myself to remember where to find the entire text of Stepping Heavenward online. I'm listening to it on audio (alas, no longer available!) for the severalth time since purchasing it in April, and I keep coming across things I want to blog about. Unfortunately, I don't have the print edition (hooray, still available!) and it's not very convenient to copy passages from a tape. But it is exceedingly convenient to copy passages from a website, so now I may do so as often as I like. Except that by now I've forgotten anything I wanted to blog about....
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/30/2004 02:33:00 PM • Permalink
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Tuesday, June 29, 2004 AD
Tears-Running-Down-My-Cheeks Beautiful
Ten 3-D ultrasound pictures of babies in utero. (Link from Barb.)
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/29/2004 12:18:00 PM • Permalink
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Tears-Running-Down-My-Cheeks Hilarious
Baby's Named a Bad, Bad Thing: A Primer on Parent Cruelty -- a link (and one that requires a caveat...'tis not squeaky clean) from TulipGirl. (Hey, Jane or Kelly or somebody make sure Jimbo sees this!) At least the folks I know who have the strongest bent toward choosing unspellable, unpronounceable names have the decency to spare their little ones classroom mockings and playground beatings. Yep. That's the real reason they homeschool. All that talk about Deuteronomy 6 and inculcating a Christian worldview and keeping the kiddos out of Caesar's clutches is just a front.
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/29/2004 09:16:00 AM • Permalink
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Monday, June 28, 2004 AD
Discussion Time!
Use the comments on this post to discuss contentment, discontentment, excuses for discontentment (your own or others'), and anything else the previous post makes you want to discuss.
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/28/2004 09:21:00 AM • Permalink
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Survey Time!
Yesterday I read a chapter in an old Puritan book about contentment. In it the author lists what he thinks are the top 12 excuses for not being content. It got me to wondering how things have changed in the last 400+ years. What would the top 12 excuses be today? So, in the comments, please note the thing or things that are most likely to make you discontent. "If only __________, then I could be content" or "My biggest excuse for discontentment is __________." Feel free to keep your response(s) anonymous if you prefer, but please answer only for yourself and not for "those people out there."

Please use the comments here only for brief answers, and use the comments in the next post for any discussion of the matter. That'll help me keep better track of the responses, which will in turn keep me content. ;-)

(1:40 p.m. -- So are y'all thinking, or are y'all just perfectly contented at all times?)
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/28/2004 09:20:00 AM • Permalink
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Photos from New Hampshire
Since Kelly finally posted pictures of her garden, including a new retainer wall, I thought I'd post a photo of one of my mother's flower gardens, with the retainer wall she built with her own two seventy-something-year-old hands:


I took this picture in April. I'm sure the garden looks a mite more interesting now, and is growing something other than stakes!

Also on that trip I took photos of Grammie R's (my mother's grandmother) house, where Grampa was born...:


...and of the house where Nana grew up:


At the end of the driveway, just to the left of the photo of Grammie R's house, is the one-room schoolhouse where my mother attended through fourth grade (that's her in the picture). The school is now a snug little private home:


And a little farther to the left of that (well, left from the picture of the house...right from the picture of the school) is a massive beaver dam:


Click on the image for a larger, clearer version of that photo. It's hard to read because the brush and the dam and the water all pretty much blend into each other, but if you look carefully, you can see the beavers' home just about in the center. I wonder if there's a sewing machine in it?

My cousin Randy, the only son of the only son born to either of my grandfather's sons, and therefore the only one from Grampa's line to carry on the family name, lives in Grammie R's house now. He has been pulling out bits and pieces of the dam, but he can't just tear it all down or there'll be flood. Last I knew he was working on having the beavers trapped and relocated.
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/28/2004 09:08:00 AM • Permalink
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Tuesday, June 22, 2004 AD
Does Theology Really Matter?
The following is an excerpt from a (gently edited) letter from RCJR to HSC supporters:
Her family had had an interesting journey, from bland Evangelicalism to the flamboyant Word of Faith movement to the staid and, praise God, biblical Reformed understanding of the faith. That last switch had been, at the time, only a few months prior. Yet this young lady was everything I hope my daughters will grow to be. She was a godly young lady.

She asked me during this most recent visit, "Does theology really matter in forming character?" Translated, the question means, "How could you and Denise have been impressed with my character when we had learned so little of the theology you deem so important?" I explained, "Not only are character and theology related, but they are one thing. You were Reformed before you knew it, and your life showed it. And your peers who grew up with the Westminster standards, but who are prideful and worldly, are really Arminian. If you want to know what you really believe in your heart, as James tells us, look to your hands."
Reminds me of that Ben Franklin quote I posted a couple weeks ago: "Well done is better than well said."
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/22/2004 10:31:00 PM • Permalink
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Nice Going, Supposedly Christian Baylor U!
"Next month, the Baylor College of Medicine plans to introduce a pilot program with perhaps the largest panel of prenatal tests ever offered. For $2,000, a pregnant woman will be able to have her fetus tested for some 50 conditions that cause mental retardation." That's right! Give 'em all the excuses they need to murder their babies!

I'm only on page 2 of this 5-page article (link from Deborah; use newspaperlogin, password 123456 if you don't want to register) and there's already enough to leave me shaking and crying. Here are some other hideous quotes:

"She and her husband...decided that the quality of the [Down syndrome] child's life, and that of the rest of their family, would be too severely compromised. 'I don't look at it as though I had an abortion, even though that is technically what it is,' she added. 'There's a difference. I wanted this baby.'" No, you obviously didn't want this baby...you wanted a baby, and obviously for the wrong reasons.

"[A] panel that now includes nine tests for diseases common to Ashkenazi Jews has virtually eliminated the birth of children in the United States with Tay-Sachs, a fatal early childhood genetic disorder." No, it hasn't eliminated the birth of children with Tay-Sachs...it has eliminated the children with Tay-Sachs. Nice little final solution there, folks!

"Having watched her husband shrink from scenes of suffering, whether in movies or during his own father's illness, she said she knew her marriage would not survive having a severely ill [CF] child." Well, that's what you get for not marrying a man...or being a woman.

"[A]n obstetrician...described one woman who had been born with an extra finger, which was surgically removed when she was a child. Her children have a 50-50 chance of inheriting the condition, but she is determined not to let that happen. Detecting the extra digit through early ultrasounds, she has terminated two pregnancies so far...." What the *&#$% is she afraid of? Inigo Montoya???

"Dr. ----- -----, an obstetrician/gynecologist on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, said he had performed an abortion for a woman who had three girls and wanted a boy. 'She was much more comfortable with it than I was,' Dr. ----- said. 'I told her if it was a new patient I wouldn't have done it. But my feeling as a physician was that I've accepted the responsibility of being her health care provider. She's not doing anything illegal, and it's not for me to decide.'" Grow a spine...and a conscience.

"'Our son lived for three hours, and I spent almost all that time holding him,' Mr. ----- said. 'I worried that I had decided to rob him of his life simply based on limb deformities. I wondered about the ethical implications of taking a life simply on that basis. What did that say about me?'" It says you're a selfish $#%!@.

"A child psychologist in Atlanta who terminated a Down syndrome fetus earlier this year said she was outraged by people who told her, 'If you have to have a perfect baby, you shouldn't be a parent.'" Awww...did we hurt her widdle feewings? Get the &$@#! over it, sister!

And this gem that about sums it up: "'Every patient has a dilemma that is measured by personal needs.'" That's right, baby, it's all about me, me, me!

And there's all kinds of crap about how complicated and difficult and nuanced all of these decisions are. It's real simple, people: You shall not commit murder. Period. End of friggin' discussion!

#$@^%&!&%*&@#@$!@%#%*&@$#@*&%*&#@$%@$%

God have mercy. How often has my laziness and self-centeredness been as dismissive of the value of life? If everyone who is angry with his brother (as I am often enough) is guilty, what about everyone who puts self first in other ways (as I do far more often than enough)? It's all the same to different degrees -- we don't love God, we don't love our neighbor, we jump at the chance to cater to every whim of the Great Idol Self. There -- on the abortionist's table, or someplace very like -- but for the grace of God go all of us.
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/22/2004 12:50:00 AM • Permalink
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Monday, June 21, 2004 AD
Which Would Be Better...
a) crawling into bed at a decent time, falling immediately to sleep, and waking up eight hours later, refreshed, energetic and cheerful, or

b) crawling into bed at a decent time, tossing and turning for an hour, getting up and doing something to distract yourself for a while, crawling back into bed and finally falling asleep, waking up coughing a couple hours later, falling back asleep for a while, waking up again in a couple hours, tossing and turning for an hour, getting up and doing something else to distract yourself for a while, crawling back into bed and finally falling asleep, waking up a couple hours later bleary, groggy, and not wanting to complain about it to the whole world?
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/21/2004 09:28:00 AM • Permalink
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Sunday, June 20, 2004 AD
I Love the Smell of Grace in the Morning
It smells like...victory.

I commented on Brian's June 15 post that incense is not the only option for olfactory stimulus in worship. I love the smell of real bread and real wine at the Lord's Table. This morning CREC met under a pavilion at Conquest Beach on the Chester River. Since there was a breeze blowing, the scent of the elements was harder to catch, so once they were distributed I held my folded hands to my face in what I hoped looked like a posture of prayer. I was praying, but I was also sniffing.

I almost didn't go to CREC this morning. It's a long enough haul most Sundays to Annapolis -- the Eastern Shore seemed too far to go. But it's a) the third Sunday of the month, and b) Fathers' Day. I couldn't think of anyplace closer where a) I'd get to eat the Lord's Supper, and b) I wouldn't be subjected to a topical sermon in recognition of an imaginary holy day. After last week's struggles I needed to eat and drink grace. I needed to hear and see and touch and smell and taste the victory feast of the "mighty Victim from the sky."

It was good.
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/20/2004 08:45:00 PM • Permalink
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Friday, June 18, 2004 AD
Toe, Not Tow. Got That?
The phrase "toe the line" is equivalent to "toe the mark," both of which mean to conform to a rule or a standard. The Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002; ed. by Glynnis Chantrell) says, "The idiom toe the line from an athletics analogy originated in the early 19th century" (514).

The specific sport referred to is foot-racing, where the competitors must keep their feet behind a "line" or on a "mark" at the start of the race--as in "On your mark, get set, go!"
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/18/2004 08:34:00 PM • Permalink
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Thursday, June 17, 2004 AD
Barb Will Sympathize
I got home tonight to find a spider spinning a web from my porch light to my mailbox. Well, that's a little to close to where I need to be putting my hands, so Ms. Spider was immediately under a death sentence. Did you know if you spray Raid on a spider web it looks just like a pretty picture of a web covered in dew?

A few weeks ago I found a really big, hairy spider drowned in a bowl I'd left to soak in the kitchen sink. And now you know why I never, ever, ever reach my bare hands down a garbage disposer to fish out foreign objects.
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/17/2004 10:49:00 PM • Permalink
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Tuesday, June 15, 2004 AD
Well, I'm Sure Not Thinking Very Corporately Today, Either
The past few days have definitely been an individual warfare time -- to the point where I almost refrained from taking the Lord's Supper on Sunday.

On the first Sunday of this year I got to worship at St. Peter on my way home from Alabama. Laurence was preaching on Nehemiah 8, and when he got to the bit where the Levites had to shush the weeping people, he said, by way of application, that it is imperative that we come to the Lord's Table joyfully, and that it's a sin to come otherwise. I've been conscious of that every time I've come to the Table since then.

Well, joyful wasn't coming easy on Sunday. I was close to tears most of the service -- straining for repentance, my outstretched fingers seeming to brush against but not quite grasp forgiveness -- and when the moment came to receive the bread and wine, I was still wrestling with my attitude, trying to push myself into some semblance of gladness. I'm not sure how successful I was. My silent prayer -- "Feed me, feed me, feed me...I believe You, I believe You, I believe You," was rather forced -- but I ate and drank, hoping that His hold on me was strong though mine on Him was weak, and that my momentarily despairing perception did not measure up to reality.

Monday and this morning were in much the same vein -- a dreary-souled funk -- though without the opportunity for worship. When I wrote yesterday's post I was aware of my hypocrisy -- I couldn't even bring myself to use song as a psychological trick, much less as a spiritual weapon. So I turned elsewhere for help this afternoon and listened to some Psalms while I worked, which I think has been beneficial, and I trust not just as a psychological trick. I listened to about the first third of the book of Psalms, and though I couldn't give them my full attention (happily, I was working with images rather than words most of the day, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to give them any attention), the familiar words wrapped themselves around me like a swaddling blanket, soothing and settling and securing.

I think this was more effective than singing would have been. For one thing, singing was more active a thing than I could muster the will to do. In my brokenness there was no strength for doing; I needed to be done to. And I couldn't lift up my head so high as to sing; I needed to be lifted up. God's Word really is His words. Though someone else was reading, He was speaking -- of Himself and of me, of His people and of His enemies, of wisdom and wrath and fear and holiness and rebuke and mercy and truth and love. Here is a rock to stand on. Here is sanity. Here is shalom.
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/15/2004 07:52:00 PM • Permalink
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Monday, June 14, 2004 AD
Musicological Warfare
"The Lord sings with us, or rather we join Him in the song. It is His voice that has the authority, and He makes sure that it is heard; but as image bearers and priests we join in the song and the fight."

I recently counseled a friend who was struggling with some personal issues to open up her hymnal and sing. This is counsel I need to give myself more often. When I do turn to music in my warfare with sin, I generally do find it effective -- especially with regard to sinful attitudes.

But I've been too small-minded. I've applied the idea of songs-as-weapons individually, but not corporately. I've applied it to my personal struggles, but not to the Great Battle. I have much to learn about thinking outside of the Valerie box.
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/14/2004 09:45:00 AM • Permalink
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Saturday, June 12, 2004 AD
Videos for Sale!
My first foray into eBay sales. Lots of pre-viewed VHS films. Hurry now while supplies last!

(Thanks, Paulo, for the G-Mail account so I can keep my eBaying in a separate place!)
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/12/2004 09:38:00 PM • Permalink
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I Only Mention This Because...
I decided a while back not to post any quiz results on my blog unless they were particularly interesting or accurate, but the What Type of Kitchen Utensil Are You? quiz had one question and possible response that was too funny not to mention. Which one, you ask? Here's a hint.
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/12/2004 11:38:00 AM • Permalink
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Friday, June 11, 2004 AD
Now That's Hospitality
A colleague just told a story of an encounter with baboons in a Tanzanian jungle. She was studying butterflies and was on her usual route collecting data when one thing led to another and she found herself being chased by baboons. She knew three things about baboons: 1) they have the longest canine teeth of any animal in Africa, 2) they can tell the difference between human males and females and aren't afraid of the latter, and 3) they travel in troops of about 70. She didn't stop to count, and was soon running pell-mell down the mountain. At one point she paused to look back and managed to lock eyes for a few seconds with a large male (five feet tall -- about her own height) in a tree just a few yards away. This was the wrong thing to do. It dropped to the ground facing her. She started flying again, by this time in tears and terror. She stopped briefly at a fork in the path -- the noise of the baboons had subsided somewhat -- and attempted to read a sign posted there, but her Swahili wasn't good enough yet. It said something about "pass here", but there was no way of knowing whether it was pointing out danger or safety. That's when she noticed she was standing in a huge anthill and ants were starting to swarm over her (her pant cuffs were stuffed in her socks, at least). She decided to risk whatever the sign might portend, and started running again. Eventually she got out of the jungle and found herself in someone's backyard. The Tanzanian housewife hanging out her laundry who suddenly found herself confronted with a strange young white woman flying out of the jungle, covered head to toe in mud and ants, red-faced and blotchy with exertion and tears, and carrying an incongruously huge butterfly net, said, of course, "Won't you please come in?"

The hospitality skills of most Americans are closer to those of the baboons.
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/11/2004 04:12:00 PM • Permalink
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Thursday, June 10, 2004 AD
Yard Tales
One of the cool things we found while sorting for a recent yard sale was the bulletin from the Sunday I was baptized -- December 11, 1977. Ten years after it ought to have happened, to be sure, but at least it got done. And I'm glad it didn't get done any later. I was in the last group of people baptized before that particular pastor left. I don't remember him much. If I'd waited for the next guy to do the job, it would have been less pleasant to remember the event, considering how I was hurt by his later failures as a pastor.

Another cool thing was my high school yearbook. I didn't order the pictures that were taken for the yearbook, and I really regret it. I'm so glad I didn't have a dated 'do. 1983 was not a good year for coiffure styles. I asked my mom, "Wow! Why didn't you tell me how pretty I was?" She said she figured I could look in a mirror. Margaret B. didn't raise her kids to be vain, that's fer shure. Alas...if only I were still that thin and beautiful!

Then there was the box of notebooks, flash cards, test papers and sketch books from one semester in college: mammology, mineralogy, advanced studio in drawing and structure of the English language -- 300 and 400 level courses in four different departments, two of them lab classes. That was a tough semester! I might post the English exam sometime. I got a B -- probably because I hadn't studied as well as I ought. I'd flunk it if I had to take it today -- I just don't remember the material -- but I kept those notes because, unlike of some of the other subjects, language actually still matters to me. The mammology stuff was kind of embarrassing. I parrotted the evolutionary line just as I was taught it. Mineralogy was an interesting class. The teacher was a friend, so I was more than usually motivated to do well (and did -- got an A). There was one exam for which we had to figure out a crystal angle or something using a method that had been taught on a day I missed class. But I figured out the answer using simple geometry. "Good science," he said, and that was was the first and last time I've ever received that particular compliment from anyone. Drawings, drawings, drawings...what to do with all of them? Or, more particularly, what to do with some of them? The review comment from my instructor said my work was "intelligent." I liked that a lot.

As for the yard sale itself, it was a lot of work for two hundred thirty-five bucks and a bad sunburn, but I don't regret doing it. Mom was the motivating force -- I'm so grateful for all her help in both sorting and saling!

Favorite sale: Brian and Stacey bought my Chronicles of Narnia videos for Harrison the Cicada Muncher (May 28) and Young Theologian (June 10 -- get permalinks, man!).

Sweetest sale: The most adorable little curly headed girl with her grandfather. She was not in the least demanding, but asked for a couple things...and got them -- a stuffed animal and a music box. Gramps joked about her not knowing the word no. I laughed and said he was the one who didn't know it, but that I probably couldn't have refused her, either.

Unpleasantest sale: I really don't like pushy bargainers. Really. And this one lady was so pushy that she confused me and ended up gypping me out of fifty cents. I know...only fifty cents...but it's the principle of the thing.

Chattiest sale: The high school math teacher who bought a couple spiral notebooks with graph paper. I figured him for some kind of science guy as soon as I saw him pick them up. Since my mom was once a math teacher, they chatted a bit; since he teaches at my SIL's alma mater, there was a connection there; since he used to teach where my neighbor's son used to teach we knew some of the same horror stories; and since his kids go to the same school a young friend of mine attends, we had yet another connection.

Guiltiest sale: There are some books I just need to throw out, rather than live with the knowledge that I was responsible for putting them into someone else's hands. I haven't always been Reformed, and had some stuff that was pretty doctrinally flaky -- one guy bought several books of that genre.

Pendingest sale: Friends from church might buy my freezer. It would be so encouraging to get rid of at least one large item!

Hardest sale: Convincing my brother to take my VCR. For free. He is the most exasperating creature on the planet!

Duh-est non-sale: Man holding a copy of Henry V: "This isn't in Shakespearean English is it?"

Hardest non-sale: Hardest on me, that is. Mom convinced the same brother to take the 100-year-old hand-colored photo of Nana. I was hoping no one would notice that I still had it! But it's the one thing he's actually ever said he wanted, so I'm glad he took it.

I have no idea if any of this was really blogworthy, but I wanted to write about it, so there you are.
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/10/2004 08:32:00 PM • Permalink
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Mmmmmmmmm!
I must say that there are few things I've found that I like better than Thai Drunken Noodles (Pad Kee Mao) with Beef. I'd say they're to Thai for, but that would make you all groan. Pad Thai with Chicken rates pretty high, too. I've tried several other things on the menu, but generally come back to these two.

I heard somewhere recently that Baltimore rates third highest in the country for variety and abundance of ethnic restaurants. I think about the only thing I'll miss here besides the people I love is the food -- not just the ethnic food, but crabs, too. Can't get decent crabs anywhere else in the world. But I usually don't have 'em more than once every year or two, so I guess it won't be a loss from which I can't recover.

What are your favorite ethnic foods?

(Yes, I'm resorting to a food post because I need a break from difficult stuff, but I still want comments!)
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/10/2004 05:19:00 PM • Permalink
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Tuesday, June 08, 2004 AD
Note to Self (and Anyone Else Who's Interested)
To get e-mail links and Dreamweaver previews to open in a new window...

Open IE
Click on Tools
Click on Internet Options
Go to the Advanced Tab
Under Browsing; deselect "Reuse windows for launching shortcuts"
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/08/2004 09:11:00 PM • Permalink
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Monday, June 07, 2004 AD
Another Great Parable About Submission
(Excerpted from an ETC article.)

An older man asks his grown son to come for a visit. He explains, “Son, I won’t be around forever. And I want your mother to be comfortable when I’m gone. Would you please help me out? I want you to take those rental properties I’ve accumulated over the years, and I want you to sell them. I’m sure in a year or two they would reach their peak value, but if we sell now we’ll still get a fine return, and there will be no chance your mother will be burdened with them.” The son left the meeting with a greater appreciation for the wisdom of his father. He obviously was a man who thought things through. And so the son did as he was asked.

A few weeks later the father called again. “Son,” he said, “you know how your mother just loves to sit and rock on our front porch in the evenings. The porch has been a blessing to us, but it, as I am, is getting on in years. Would you please, over the holiday weekend, tear it down, but put up a new one for your mother? I just hate the thought of her breaking through a rotten section and breaking an ankle after I’m gone.” The son was again impressed with the wisdom of his father. He was not only financially astute, but practical even in small matters. He got the job done.

A few weeks later the father called a third time. “Son, I have one more job for you. That piece of property we bought on the west edge of town, I’d like you to sell that too. It seems like the town is expanding more eastward, and so I’m guessing the value is at its peak. Please sell it, and put the money in the bank with the other.”

The son went away realizing that his father too had feet of clay. The property was sure to spike up in value with the new Wal-Mart coming in nearby, and because it was just a piece of land, there was no upkeep his mother would have to worry about. And so, worrying that perhaps his father’s mind wasn’t as sharp as it once was, he determined not to sell the property.

Here is the question: how many times did the son obey the father? Count them up now. The correct answer is none. In each instance the son evaluated the options and chose what he thought was best. That his view and his father’s view coincided twice is beside the point.
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/07/2004 02:18:00 PM • Permalink
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Sunday, June 06, 2004 AD
I Know It's a Marketing Gimmick, But...
...it was pretty cool to get a phone message from James Earl Jones telling me my DSL service was ready to install.
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/06/2004 02:23:00 PM • Permalink
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Friday, June 04, 2004 AD
Just Now, in Chat
Kelly: Valerie, dear, what is your only comfort in life and in death?
Valerie: My only comfort in life and in death is that Jesus saved me despite the fact that I haven't memorized the Heidelberg Catechism.
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/04/2004 11:52:00 PM • Permalink
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Thursday, June 03, 2004 AD
Thumbs-Down to Adobe Technical Support
Requiring a credit card number to access technical support for a non-billable installation issue is a bad customer relations move. Getting passed among three people, each of whom must ask for the same information again, does not help, either.

On the flip side, my award for best customer/technical support goes to Wacom. I have consistently over the years gotten intelligent, respectful, easy service and support from Wacom -- never a problem. The highlight was when my stylus died. They overnighted a new one to me with no hassle. Didn't even want the old one back -- I just tossed it. Wacom, may your tribe increase!
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/03/2004 10:05:00 AM • Permalink
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Wednesday, June 02, 2004 AD
Abomination upon Abomination
"Females are often very afraid of war and will do almost anything to get out of it, including getting pregnant on purpose, while not even caring who the father might be. I would witness this happening even to get out of 30-day exercises. I knew one girl who would get pregnant so she wouldn't have to go, then get an abortion while we were gone, only to do it all over again the next exercise."
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/02/2004 04:07:00 PM • Permalink
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Tuesday, June 01, 2004 AD
Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiine!
I was just attacked by a cicada. In my cubicle, fer cryin' out loud! It landed on my hand. I exercised surprising self-control and did not scream, but merely shook it off, walked away and begged my next-cube neighbor to get rid of it. He kindly obliged, but eww! ick! it touched me and I can still feel it there! I'm traumatized! That's what I get for going out to lunch. He probably hitchhiked in on my skirt and waited for a vulnerable moment to pounce. Evil, evil creatures! *shudder*
Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 6/01/2004 01:32:00 PM • Permalink
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