From the sermon on Romans 14:1-4, on May 30.
The weaker brother is tempted to judge the stronger brother, and the stronger brother is tempted to despise the weaker brother. Paul says the weaker brother only eats veggies, so he is tempted to judge and shake his head at his meat-eating brother. And the brother who is grilling steaks on the grill and drinking beer is tempted to despise and look down on the brother who sticks with his veggie burger and lemonade. Both men are breaking the law of love. Love trumps everything. So the judgmental brother gets cranky, but he is called to receive his brother. The one who is despising the weaker brother wants to set him straight, but Paul wants him to receive his weaker brother.
There is always a deeper right than being right. God may not care about whether we eat alfalfa sprouts or not, but He does care about the judging and the despising we do. The more I have thought about this, the more I see how often we can fall into one ditch or the other: either looking down on the weak or passing judgment on the strong. Love trumps everything.
We are headed south to Boise in a couple of days to be with the folks at the CREC church down there for a conference, and then when we get back home on Sunday, I will just have time to throw in some laundry before we leave again on Tuesday to head for Raleigh and the ACCS conference. What is ACCS? It’s the Association of Classical and Christian Schools. I have only missed a handful of the ACCS conferences, and this year is the 18th annual conference! (This makes me feel old.)
When it first began, we had the conferences here in Moscow. But Moscow is not such an easy place to get to, so now the conferences are in more, shall we say, central locations. ACCS actually began on our kitchen table back in the stone ages. Doug had helped start Logos School in 1980, and then he wrote a book about classical education (Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning), not knowing what would Continue reading ‘The ACCS National Conference’
So, I’m sorry about that last post. The picture seemed perfectly clear to me! I knew that it was taken right in front of my kitchen sink and that the fabric bit was my new cheerful tea towel – how could I realize what a strange mystery tour I would lead you on? My Mom knew I had knit a rug, and even she could not figure out what it was in the picture. Bekah thought perhaps a foot would have clued people in. Ah, but the chances of me fixing up my toenails for a blog photo shoot were far out. I’d rather you all spend some time thinking that I make weird counter-top half doilies out of shredded sheets and pose them next to a piece of curtain. Yes, that would be much better!
This time I knit a baby hat. Plain and simple – but I cannot say enough happy things about this yarn. I love it entirely. It is Cascade Ultra Pima – comes in a ton of wonderful colors, and tops off the happiness by being shiny. I got this yarn (and a bunch of other colors of it) right before I had Blaire. I was three or four days overdue at the time. Saturday morning my husband woke me up to tell me he was going to run grab some milk and stuff for breakfast before the kids got up (this is code for donuts). Then, he brought me his laptop and asked me to order some yarn while he was gone! Better than breakfast in bed! So I filled up my theoretical shopping cart with the cotton I had been eyeing all the way until he came back with tulips for me. It just doesn’t get any sweeter than that – and now I have some wonderful materials for some summer knitting. Seriously – yarn: the gift that just keeps on giving!
I was flipping through a home and garden magazine and glanced at an article about organizing the garage. It had some helpful ideas about establishing zones for the boat stuff, the tools, and the hobby stuff. But the striking thing was a very insightful worldview comment about our culture.
Here’s the interesting quote I found amongst the tips about how to store the camping gear:
“The American home is changing dramatically. Houses are growing larger, as families grow smaller. Storage space has kept pace with the growing size of the American home, so extra room isn’t the problem, nor is it the solution. In other words, today’s homeowners are replacing people with stuff.”
Now that’s an insightful comment about America. We are having smaller families, buying bigger homes, and filling them with more and Continue reading ‘Stuff for Stuff’
Now doesn’t that just cheer you up? I know! Me too! This used to be a fitted queen sheet which I shredded and wound into a ball a long time ago. Then, I happened across this pattern and thought red would be nice. And it was! This is a super quick project – knit on enormous needles, and very satisfying! Considering that I ought to be in a screaming panic trying to get us ready to head off to Seattle super early Thursday morning (which I was somehow thinking was a long way off…), and that I am way behind on the laundry ( a baby accident took out all of our bedding this morning), taking some pictures of last weekend’s project was just what I needed…. very therapeutic!
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