Interesting Thought

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."-- President John Adams, Oct. 11, 1798

Stuff

Its funny how attached to stuff you are. Stuff makes memories, and stuff keeps them. Stuff brings flashbacks of good old times, and stuff makes them seem farther away. Stuff is dear, and stuff is hateful.....I can't imagine parting with it, yet I've lived for so long wothout it!

Today.....actually tonight we got all our stuff completely released from the hassle of customs and regulations.

These are interesting photos from tonight's unpacking-

I got my little Sparky Puppy from when I was 6. It used to cry when you patted it's head, but the batteries messed up, and the connection is all broken.















I also got all my seminar and Bible Study papers, and all the books I borrowed from Daddy's office. This one I kept, and read over and over again. This is also one of the verses that haunts me when I find myself getting happy being stagnant.




Then there are the silly stuff like an ornamental plate from India, and















curtains from my older sister's room-


And this is what happens when you run down the steps, and fall against a shoe-rack!

We also have guests.....

Existentialism 2

One result I noted in my last article mentioned "Neo-Marxism", or "the new gospel".

I recently found a good example. I was reading a children's story book to my little sister called "Jesus is born" by my Bible stories. It gives a rather comprehensive, 3rd grade explanation of the birth of our savior, and of the events during and following (Herod's decree, the wise men, the flight to Egypt).

It also includes other segments of Jesus' life such as the trip to Jerusalem when He was 12, His baptism by John, the calling of the disciples, the wedding at Cana, and the "Sermon on the Mount". At the Cana wedding there is no mention of Jesus' rebuke to Mary for "ordering Him around" In the picture she stands in the background looking on proudly as the servant pours water into a jug with surprise.

In the "sermon on the Mount" portion, Jesus is told to have been "heal(ing) the sick and look(ing) after people who were poor and needy". For the actual sermon part the book tells children "(Jesus) wanted to tell (the people) about God's kingdom. 'The sick, the poor and the hungry will be happy in heaven,' He told them. 'But those who only care about getting rich on earth will never go to heaven.'
Jesus told the people not to be selfish and to care for eachother. To look after the sick and the poor. To share what they had with others. The people listened to Jesus. They went away nd tole even more people about the things that Jesus taught them."

I think this is a prime example of how deception sneaks into one's home. I have seen that book around, and maybe I even heard my little sister read it to herself without conciously seeing how it twisted the salvation gospel into a condemnation of "the rich" or prosperous.

It is sad...

Missed stanza

At the topmost branch
Sit the best apple stock
The brilliance of A. A. Milne
A blood encrusted sock

MK Get-together

*Yawn* Oh my goodness-
Is it 4:00 already?
Everything is fuzzy,
My head just feels so heavy…

Laughing till you drop
Oh! Will the jokes never stop!
Blondes, men and mermaids…
How do you kill a mop?

Popcorn-in-the-cup duels
Ice down your back-
Deep turqoise seas-
What more do we lack?

Getting lost in the city
Singing your heart out
Dancing to numa in the backseat
The spare and the stout.

A foot laceration
Pictured Daza or Housa?
A moment of silence
An ode for dear Anna

A wallet a charger,
What have I lost now?
Pictures galore-
Phil Keggy takes a bow.

Adorable little admirers
Brownies, motors, and more!
Splitting wood, raking leaves-
Ah, what fun galore!!!

Do you like my music?
Can you play hearts?
Requirements for marriage?
Can you sing in parts?

Shall we pray for meals?
A ferocious pillow fight-
Firstborn or later kid?
Talking, debating away the night

The Westminster Confession-
Christmas or no?
Skipping away to see The Wizard-
Is it cold enough to snow?

Pitpit or amaccan?
Pronunciation is the key!!
Peanut butter specials
Are great, if you ask me.

Mucking out horse stalls
Opening doors for girls-
Casting Crowns, or Jars of Clay?
Liquid ‘brown’ eyes and smooth curls.

Walking, walking around the block
Seeing Christmas lights and more-
Falling, tripping, pinchy skates,
Ice skating has made me so sore!!!!

Seeing people for the first time
Me didn’t play Mafia, but even so
I loved my MK gathering-
I just wanted you to know.

Notes:
(a)I tried to get all my favorite mamories in, and get everyone laughing and have a special line or two for each person. If you have something else I forgot comment and I'll work in more stanzas.
(b) I finally got in Penut Butter...I was having such trouble, until I fell asleep. I woke up at 7 AM and a vwhole verse came to me. I memorised it, and fell back to sleep.
(c) this is not entirely my own poem....my *ehem* older sister had very much to do with the current layout, at least 4 extra stanzas, and some revision of words.
(d) anything else I forgot to mention----
(e) comment, comment, comment!! (I want to know what you guys think!)

Goodbye

I’ve been dreaming dreams of a heavenly place
‘Cause this world is not my home.
So I’m travlin’ light on my journey here
Makin’ plans for the day I go.

So if this is the last time,
We have down here together
I promise you,
I’ll see you in forever!!


Chorus:
Godspeed, bon voiyage,
Until we meet again.
Farewell, go with God,
I’ll see you soon, my friend
If I go before you do, or
You’re the first to fly…
Farewell, adios, for now-
Goodbye!


There may be some tears when we’ve said "so long"
But our parting will be sweet!
‘Cause my heart is sure that the time will come
I will meet you on Golden Street.

So let’s make some memories
To tresure for a lifetime
And love eachother like
It’s the last time!

The words of this song came to me last night. I think it is really a good song because it captures so well the MK thing with saying goodbye. It is also really sad, and in the end they add more languages.

A night with EMTs

My eldest sister is studying to be an EMT, and she took me with her tonight to be the practice patient, and to show me off to her classmates.(I am entirely kidding about that last point)

We came in and sat down, and everyone made jokes, cursed, and talked about a hundred different things.

When class officially started, I was taken into the testing room, and brifed about what I would endure, and what I would be/say.

Every person did things differently, and every person forgot different things. Some grabbed your hand, some sqeezed your pulse, a couple failed and they almost all caught the oxygen mask on my glasses.. >(
I saw everyone else doing 'EMT stuff' and have now become a qualified EMT examiner (not). I was everywhere from 37 to 20 with names like Melissa and Jane (which I often forgot). I had a bee-sting, and they were sopposed to ask me about what was my problem, if I hurt, where, what I last ate (anything from ice cream & soda to roast beef), if the oxygen helped, what meds I was taking, past med. history, and etc.

Being shot with an epi-pen hurts, and so does double blood-pressure taking when it is to low on your arm. Multiple surveys of my chracter were undertaken.(I 'clam up' when other people come around....I'm more talkative that my sis....I'm a good actress, and a very novice (read: unhelpful) emergency patient) And some other things like taking blurry group shots, and making everyone sit as far away from me as possible...(was that really me, or was it my Guinea Pig status?).

In all...it was interesting....and tireing.....and memorable.....and I think I'd be interesting to be an EMT.......

Homeless Outreach:

Saturday, December 2, 2006 I went along with a friend, her brother, and a handful of others from her church to distribute donated food, clothes, and blankets and compaasion to the homeless of inner Philly. My dad took me to the church around 2:40 P.M. and he then talked with the leader until 3:10….making us late.

We piled into two cars and got to our destination around 6:30 in time for some rush-hour jams. We ate at the New Delhi restaurant which is an Indian Buffet. I found that I don’t like buttered rice at all, though I suffered through it for some deliciously spicy, watery red stuff that REALLY needed some rice.(the only food I forgot the name of) I liked the Lamb and spinach that they had, and the lentils. I avoided the American’s defaults of a salad bar, small battered & fried chicken legs, and round, flat bread. Dessert was encluded in the meal, so I tried Indian Rice Pudding instead of trying cheesecake, vanilla ice cream, or coffe. (yuck!)

Joetta (the lady we were going to work with who had run a shelter for some years) shared her testimony, and talked about the people we were going to see/minister to. We walked out into the 40 degree city, and had a time of group prayer before getting into the vans and splitting into teams. I was on the socialization/prayer team. We wandered around looking for someone Joetta knew, and saw people making a movie under one of Philly’s neumerous bridges. We finally found the people against the back of a huge building behind a ‘park’ of sorts that bordered a street with four rows of flags.(from all nations...I blew kisses to the RP) We gave out blankets and coats to people who were huddled under layers and layers of comforters shivering. It was a hard contrast. One man was amazed as we gave him a coat with a silk lining, and a ‘brand new’ bright blue parka. He was so shocked, that he kept on saying "Oh, that’s-that’s so nice…that is just beautiful."

He had dislocated his shoulder recently, and couldn’t do as much as he used to do. It was also very painful since this was the third time he had hurt it. It never really healed because he took of the sling sooner than should be because he needed his other hand. We also gave him water, socks, jeans, some warm gloves, and hats. He reminiced growing up in TX with Mr. James.

We moved on, after searching for another aquaintence of Ms. Joetta’s and came to a lovely, pillared stone building with scrolls, and porches, and big columns. In the park across the street, the benches were filled with shivering people. Mr. James (my group leader), his wife, son, and I got to know Jerry who didn’t want to come out of her pile of blankets because of the cold. She was a ‘mother-hen’ type of person who introduced us to all the others around (her adopted family). We gave her a bright pair of red gloves (her favorite color), and she popped out from her blankets, and put them on just to feel them. They had Black stripes, and she exclaimed over & over about how well they would match her black parka. She showed me how she arranged her blankets to get warm on the bench, and where the toe-warmers went. We gave her two other pairs of knit gloves, a black hat, and two things of lotion.(one for them, one for them to give away and bless someone else) Mr. James and his wife had been talking to her adopted brother in the meantime, who knew a lot about things. He talked about a volcano in Yellowstone Park called Caldera that would soon errupt due to global warming, and the pollution of car-emmisions. "Then," he said, "we are going to have a new world order" b/c this one volcano would wipe out all of America, most of Canada, Mexico and Central America with pyroclastic flow and ash fallout.(I studied volcanos in a unit study with my two older siblings, and mom when I was younger. The conclusion of our learning was a vacation and climb of the volcano Hibok-hibok which had errupted earlier in the 1930’s.) He said that it was the world’s largest volcano. I said it was interesting that I had NEVER heard about it…even with my unit study experience.

Mr. James’ daughter wanted a picture, so Jerry and her gang primped, and styled (seriously!! It was funny to see them arranging their hats and smoothing their coats) and smiled pretty. It was them around 9:30, and getting even colder. I had on a turtleneck sweater, and a jacket (I’ve lost two pairs of gloves so far this winter, so I didn’t have any), and I was COLD. Our team leader had to drag us away (really, he told us 3 times, and we dwadled until he made us go), and we were back on the good old turn-pike by 10.


My friend rode in the other car, so her brother and I talked half-way back.(Or rather, I thought of things to ask him, and he murmered two-sentence answers. *sigh*-melencholies) We stopped for gas and coffe at Starbucks half-way there, and I stayed in the warm car. The rest of the way, the teens in the back seat calmed down, and a general sleepiness fell on everyone. We got to ‘Micsbug’ around midnight, and got out of the car only to rush back in. The car had to go home, so we got out and within a minute we were physically shivering, and our teeth were chattering so badly that we couldn’t hardly talk. I don’t know how cold it was but it was aweful!! We took refuge in my friend’s car until my dad came to pick me up. I sat by the wood-stove until I had thawed out only to return to my 45 degree bedroom to huddle under blankets with a thankful prayer the the wind coming under my closed and locked window was NOT as cold as outside and a gratefulness that I wasn’t outside exposed to it.

I liked my time out, and the gratefulness that lined Jerry’s face as she hugged ‘everyone’ goodbye was bright. As our team leader put it….we groups of people are known ‘the ones who come to listen’ to them. It was understandable, since I as an MK understand no one caring enough to listen. How much more so when you are veiwed as less than human because you don’t have a roof and four walls with a door to call your own…..

All the labors of my hands

All the labors of my hands
Could not meet thy laws demands!
Could my tears forever flow,
Could my zeal my respite know...

All for sin could not atone.
Thou must save, and thou alone.

While I draw this fleeting breath
When my eyes shall close in death,
When I soar to worlds unkown
See thee on thy judgement throne-

Rock of ages cleft for me-
Let me hide myself,
Let me hide myself-
Let me hide myself in thee.

(as sung by GLAD)

So Send I You

So send I you to labor unrewarded,
To serve unpaid, unloved, unsought, unknown,
To bear rebuke, to suffer scorn and scoffing,
So send I you to toil for me alone.

So send I you - to loneliness and longing,
With heart a-hungering for the loved and known;
Forsaking home and kindred, friend and dear one,
So send I you - to know my love alone.

So send I you - to leave your life’s ambitions,
To die to dear desire, self-will resign,
To labor long and love where men revile you,
So send I you - to lose your life in mine.

And in a revision later on in her life:

So send I you-by grace made strong to triumph
O'er hosts of hell, o'er darkness, death, and sin,
My name to bear, and in that name to conquer-
So send I you, my victory to win.

So send I you-to take to souls in bondage
The word or truth that sets the captive free,
To break the bonds of sin, to lost death's fetters-
So send I you, to bring the lost to me.

So send I you-my strength to know in weakness,
My joy in grief, my perfect peace in pain,
To prove My power, My grace, My promised presence-
So send I you, eternal fruit to gain.

So send I you-to bear My cross with patience,
And then one day with joy to lay it down,
To hear My voice, "well done, My faithful servant-
Come, share My throne, My kingdom, and My crown!"
"As the Father hath sent Me, so send I you."

So Send I You(Ye)- Margaret Clarkson

There are some other verses that I am memorizing as well, but I don't have time. >(

My dog

Or..shall we say what I want for a future dog. It is a Spitz breed animal that the Japanese have cultivated, and expanded. My puppy.... the Akita-Inu

"Apres nous...."

We had un deluge the 16th. It was raining rather hard all morning, and despite being on the highest point in all this precinct (across from us is the water tower), we got a good-sized wet.

We elder ones were recruited to soak towels, wring them out in the sink, bathtub, and soak them again. The hallway to our room reeks of mold. I left a candle on in my room all night, and the hallway still makes it stink (the girls room escaped the water). I was on a stool almost the whole morning yesterday with a wet-vac sucking water from the carpet, and the living room. I also tiptoe and hop in the hallway holding my breath, trying to get out quickly and do it dry.

All things considered...it has been a great week. (changed quotation from Roughing It)

Nov. 14-Old song on the radio

"We have our hopes, and we have our dreams,
But we cannot go where you will not lead. "

Don Moen- May Your Precense Go With Us, from the CD Let Your Glory Fall

November 10 & 11- Ladies Conference

Or, Deep thoughts during the expensive sleepover

That is about all it was. An expensive sleepover with 2,500 giddy, shallow, peer-defined girls.

I actually learned a couple things!! :0

Femmininity-
Having seen mostly 'ladys' for most of my sojourn here (well, the people my family is friends with, socialises with) (in quotation depending on how one defines the word) I was rather surprised by what I discovered was mainstream, and suddenly I realised that all these modesty/femmininity books were not "all these". In 2,500 people I counted about two score that wore skirts (though there were more on the second day), and about 30 who had hair even longer than shoulder length. I many times (in the building less that outside of it) had to look more than twice to determine the exact gender (there were a passel of guys doing the techi stuff and in the group singing).
I realised how MUCH I stuck out, and how little they probbably had of femminine influence growing up, and what 'normal' women's presuppasitions were.
It was saddening, and it made me feel better the responsibility of women to act like women and get the message out that femmininity is not next to becoming a third-world country again.

On a radio program the other day, I heard a guy say about feminists-" To try to be something, to hold something above another thing is to say that one is better than the other. For women to try to be like man, get treated like men, get the jobs of men...they are saying that being a man is better." It was just too true....to them there is no glory in long hair. No pride in being what God created them to be- Women.

Also, since they had no pride in being what they were, they had no pride in what men were. A pair of ladies who do shows, acting, and think up 'creative' ideas were talking about the types of women. The first type left casseroles with dates of when to eat them, and what temp. to heat the oven. The second type left the pizza cupons out. The third said 'They can fend for themselves!!' Then, they talked about packages to leave for thier husbands and my stomach curdled....I whispered to my mom "Did they put a bottle in too?" Listening to them one would believe that men were spinless little imps that crawled on the floor wimpering praying that their wonderful marvelous angelic wives would come home and take care of them.

Strangely, I believe thier husbands just might be. Though, except for the groveling on the floor part...they would sit in front of the latest football game. Thier children are probbably already fending for themselves in the eat-or-everyone-else-will-eat-you school/world/peer scene.

Pity and frustration welled up in me....along with a good bit of disgust. I felt like taking the whole kit and caboodle of them to a REAL ghetto in India where people are refused education, food, and water merely for thier social class, merely because they were living. They sit on the streets and pick trash for pennies (literally) (see late GFA updates). Let these women off to face REAL life, bring thier children to gang-infested cities where it is not merely the way one looks or dresses, but how one handles one's gun, and future survival is not in jepordy of one's parents taking away $10 from thier $100 allowance, but weather the opposite gang should catch you off guard and......and make your tomorrow the paralitic ward.

I guess this is a campain against selfishness.....pure selfishness about how one looks, weather one's tan is expensively done or cheap, weather one's kitchen counter is granite and weather one's children have ipods.

*sigh*....come quickly, Lord Jesus, come quickly!!

November 4- Book Review

This could also be called a book rave, because that is what I'm doing. C.S. Lewis was an amazing person. Today, at the craft fair that I was a vendor at I found a book of his short stories and fragments of stories he never finished.
The book was a posthumous compilation on convicting, scary, and deep ideas. It is called The Dark Tower & Other Stories.

The Dark Tower- a ghastly story!! (my word was 'freaky' but dearest older sister said I needed a new adjective) The idea of time travel and "other worlds" continued from the Space series, with Ransome as one of the 5 main characters. The idea of other life and "seeing" the future, or past makes it intriguing.
What struck me was how he was able to incorporate humor with horror and break into mental prejudices. One line went somewhat like this: "No matter what you say man is rushing into the future at the rate of 60 minutes an hour", and Macphee's sarcasm with "I shall drop by ----(some college) and tell them that Cambridge has made the amazing discovery that a man in 1938 cannot get to 1939 in less that a year..." Then, of course, there was the dry comment about the particles in Lewis' nose that made me giggle

The Man Born Blind-this one is sad. It has a confusing ending, and describing it doesn't work. It is about a search for light, a hunger for one's eyes to behold what no one can explain. A man born blind who regains his sight....and how he thinks.

The Shoddy Lands- Grabe!! This one is an enquirey into the mind, and how one thinks, (or how a girl thinks), about the world, and oneself. How perception, and one's imagination look to another.

"....or if I were the one investigated!!"

The other stories were confusing, and (should I warn tender readers) rather not what is pure, lovely and of good repute- not to say that the above were very much that.

C. S. Lewis was an amazing person...I whish I had had the honor of knowing him.

November 3- The TCK film that wasn't

Tonight we watched a TCK film that wasn't. It was called Mighty Joe Young. It was about how a 15ft. gorilla is misunderstood, and provoked into seeming like a second Godzilla. His only friend was the girl he grew up with in the jungles. Poachers killed both their mothers when they were young.
I watched the last 30 min. in tears. The sweet African song that Jill's mother sang to her surfaced haunting memories.

The movie wasn't about her being a TCK. It was a documentary about a TCK, but it wasn't.

October 29- Nicole Isabelle?

Tonight I found out that our family was once again in the 'irresponsible' stage of family life.

I am proud to say that the third ninth-Patterson-to-be is growing well. I don't really wanted another sib....I really would like to be out and about and changing the world like some other people I know. I know very well that this little growing one is a blessing from God....but sometimes it fells so much like drudgery.

I have spent 6 years watching 5 children, (two especially, I haven't been apart from for more than about a week, or one for about a month) and frankly I'm not very exited about what first appears to be another hampering to "my priorities".

What are my priorities? What is GOD'S plan for my life, on the other hand!

Nicole Isabelle might be my third blessing in total disguise!!!

Then again.... I want a Walter!! ;)

(after my mom's uncle....he is my favorite of all my mom's....colorful....extended family. We do not know the gender of the baby, and have always waited until thier birth to be surprised.)

October 17- A Day with Descartes

A day with Descartes:
A day well spent.

I am sure that all of you have heard of the famous words of his. But do you know how they were meant? I have heard his ‘catchphrase’ many a time used in defense of some humanist raving or another, but I never checked their source.

“I think, therefore I am”

Do you know how he went on from there? He began to wonder

‘about the many other things outside of him’, and came to the conclusion that “To derive (perfection) from nothingness was manifestly impossible, and it is no less repugnant to good sense to assume that what is more perfect comes from and depends upon the less perfect than it is to assume that something comes from nothing.”

He continues,

“…it followed of necessity that there was someone else more perfect upon whom I depended and from whom I had acquired all that I possessed. For had I been all alone and independent of anything else, so that I had bestowed upon myself all that limited quantity of value which I shared with the perfect Being, I would have been able to get from myself, in the same way all the surplus which I recognizes lacking in me, and so would have been myself infinite, eternal, immutable, omniscient, omnipotent, and, in sum I would possess all the perfections that I could discover in God.” He also notes “…I saw that doubt, inconsistency, sorrow and similar things could not be part of God’s nature since I was happy to be without them myself.” “….I considered that composition is an evidence of dependency and that dependency is manifestly a defect. From this I judged that it could not be a perfection in God to be composed of these two natures, and that consequently He was not so composed. But if there were in the world bodies, or even intelligences or other natures that were not wholly perfect, their being must depend on God’s power in such a way that they could not subsist without Him for a single moment.”

He decided to consider mathematics through his new method of thinking and decided

“…there was nothing in that to assure me that there was a single triangle in the world. But when I turned back to my idea of a perfect Being, on the other hand, I discovered that existence was included in the idea in the same way that the idea of a triangle contains the equality of it’s angles to two right angles, or that the idea of a sphere includes the equidistance of all it’s parts from it’s center. Perhaps, in fact, the idea of a perfect Being is even more evident. Consequently, it is at least certain that God, who is this perfect Being, exists, as any theorem of geometry could possibly be.”

He then turns to those who rely only on the material things, and dis-soppose anything spiritual, and asks them about dreams.
In dreams you can hear, see, feel, and even smell, yet they aren’t real. He concludes saying

“…I do not believe they can find any reason good enough to remove this doubt (of weather real life is just a dream too) unless they presuppose the existence of God. The very principle I took as a rule to start with….is know to be true only because God exists and because He is a perfect Being, and because everything in us comes from Him.”

I was rather surprised by this ‘progenitor of humanism’ with his philosophy “I think, therefore I am” proclaiming man as the supreme over everything because he has reason.
Or was he saying that?

No...he wasn't.
He was saying that it was not enough to reason. He was trying to tell us of the One who gave us reason. Of a Creator....of a God...in fact.....of THE God.

I spent a day with him, and I consider it a day well spent.

Why I have not been posting-

Seriously!! (inside joke...but I have to keep repeating it)

Work 2

Well, it took about 3 hours and 4 people....and I'll get y'all some pictures...

This is beginning....Kalipay decided the most efficient, and clean way was for her to get IN and scrub from there.

This is her gingerly wiping off a place to stand. That thing was SO gross...seriously!!

This is how we began draining all the water & gunk out. It didn't work......seriously!!

SO...we resorted to this!! (A wet-vac to suck all the stuff out) I had the lovely jobs of photographer, water girl, dirty junk-water disposer, and annoying sister.

This is almost done.... *whew*

This is DONE!!!

And with gratitude, this is our miracle worker....

Sincerely,

The overworked,

And tired,

And well bleached

Girls.