I pretty much loathe the Gators, but...

As my title states, I'm not a Gator fan. I'm not a Tim Tebow-ite either. He's not the first, nor will he be the last, successful Christian in a public spotlight. Admiring someone because they're famous! and a Christian! Is still just admiring someone because they're famous. (I know I am opening myself up for criticism here. I am prepared to deal with it.)
BUT! If anything was going to make me a Gator fan, and has made me gain more respect for Tim Tebow as a person, it is the vitriolic, hate-filled attacks he has been the victim of because of his upcoming Super Bowl ad. If you haven't heard of this, you probably don't have electricity in your house and can't read my blog anyway, but the ad is going to recount his mother's tale of being pregnant with him and falling ill, and the doctors recommending that she abort her baby, and she didn't, and she had Tim Tebow. So-called "women's groups" are up in arms about how this ad is dangerous and will set women's rights back to the stone age and whathaveyou. I say, if they're that ticked, hurray for Tebow! I never thought I'd say this about a Gator, but God bless you, and I will be watching for your commercial.

sleeper sofa for sale

We are selling our green queen-sized sleeper sofa. We're also putting it on Craigslist but wanted to offer to people we know first. If you are interested or know someone who might be go ahead and email me or William. Asking $200/obo.

Poetry

I had my students working on sonnets the past few weeks, which they presented on the last day of school. Most were delightful. I figured I had better write one if I was making them do it, so here it is.

ODE TO A SONNET
Behold the beauty of a line that breaks
Across a poem spreading waves of words
That tell the thoughts of authors and which makes
Moments or a lifetime pierce like sharp swords
Of experience told. Just a few lines
Which are more lovely and more temperate
Leave an impression in one’s life which pines,
More! Shakespeare, Shelley, Browning aggregate;
To appellate a few poetic minds
Who shaped genre and imagination.
Read, think, love, weep, imbibe, digest those lines.
Sounds, letters, words, and space take shape, move in
And out of lives, marks left indelible
Crafted by authors incomparable.

X-mas

This is the time of year when people get up in arms about the removal of Christ from Christmas, suggest boycotts, get angry when employees of stores say "Happy Holidays!" (Most of them are just doing what their boss told them to do, they don't have a hidden agenda.) I have mixed feelings about the issue. Yes, it bothers me that in the name of inclusion, everything but a specifically Christian celebration is venerated in public. But then again, why are we surprised when, as the Scripture promises, the world hates us? America is not a Christian nation. The world is not a Christian world. Anything that is not Christian, that does not belong to Christ, belongs to Satan. I think that should inform our response. The AFA recently called for a boycott of GAP because of their commercial that has people chanting "Go Christmas, Go Hannukah, Go Kwanzaa..." and ends with something like "Merry dowhateveryouwannakah". They are a retailer. Their goal is to make money, and to be honest, I prefer mentioning everybody to the stupid "Happy Holidays!" or "Season's Greetings!" I don't plan on boycotting GAP for recognizing that not everybody is a Christian or celebrates Christmas. A better response, and one that would make more of a difference, would be to make sure, that wherever we shop this year, and all throughout the year, that we are kind and patient with the sales clerks. Don't huff about long lines or slow service. Smile big and wish them a Merry Christmas, after thanking them. The employees aren't going to notice/care/be affected by the absence of one more faceless consumer. What they will notice is someone treating them with respect and kindness. Self-righteous retreating from the world because not everything is to our liking is about the worst response. I bet Satan loves it when the AFA or groups like that succeed in getting Christians to run and hide instead of engaging in the world, like we are commanded to.

Books: free to a good home

If you would like any of these books, please let us know by this Friday. Otherwise they are going to a garage sale.

Words of Wisdom: A Journey Through Psalms and Proverbs (Tyndale Press)

Man of Destiny (A retelling of the Gospels) No author

Moses and Monotheism by Sigmund Freud

The Dead Sea Scriptures: An English Translation by Theodore Gasner

From Paradise to the Promised Land by T.D. Alexander

An Introduction to the Parables of Jesus by Robert Stein

Interpreting the Parables by Craig Blomberg

Poet and Peasant/Through Peasant Eyes by Kenneth Bailey

Teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews by Geerhardus Vos

Encountering the Old Testament by Bill Arnold and Bryan Beyer

Westminster Confession of Faith, commentary by GI Williamson

An Introduction the New Testament (2 copies available)by Carson, Moo and Morris

A Biblical History of Israel by Provan, Long, and Longman

Ten Secrets for the Man in the Mirror by Patrick Morley

Scripture Twisting by James Sire

Caring Enough to Confront by David Augsburger

Debating Calvinism by Hunt and White

What Love is This? by David Hunt

The Soul of Science by Pearcey and Thaxton

When Science Meets Religion by Ian Barbour

The Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard

The Soul of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by Gene Veith.

fashion-able?

I just got done flipping through the one fashion magazine I subscribe to. Every so often I have a crisis about my clothes, perpetuated by continuing to do things like flipping through fashion magazines. My personal style is a little younger than I actually am, and I prefer the "casual" end of the business casual dress code at work. But then I think I should be dressing more my age, whatever that means, and of course I want to look cute. But some things have changed. I feel entitled to keep my flabby post baby tummy as long as I want, skinny jeans be darned. There will never be a pair of pointy toe boots that don't make me look like a circus clown and/or cut off the circulation to my toes because my ginormous feet grew even bigger during pregnancy. One trend I will shun for sure: wearing 2 cardigans at once. Besides the fact that I live in Florida, where one is enough, it just looks like the sweater equivalent of putting on one of each of two different pairs of shoes to decide which to wear but forgetting to put the match on of whichever you ended up with.

Out of the mouths of babes...

This week (and last week, too) I've been overwhelmed, as does happen... with balancing work and motherhood, with concern for the trials of friends and loved ones, with lack of sleep, the ever-growing pile of "to be graded"... This morning I arrived at my tutoring job and before we got started, one of the girls told me she had finished her Bible memory work. I asked her to recite it for me, and this was the passage:

Isaiah 40:28-31
28 "Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.

29 He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.

30 Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;

31 but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint."

Amen and amen.