Coram Deo!
Archive for September, 2009
Green and Orange
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009Shifting Sand
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
My faith by itself is like shifting sand that will wash out from under me with the first rolling tide. It shakes and shivers and shudders like branches that wave in the wind. I must stand firm on concrete, anchored grace, for it is not the daily amount of faith I conjure up that secures my way to Heaven. Instead, it is a grace that depends not on my own will and moods, but a grace that bought me without my consent, and a grace from the author and finisher of my faith that saves me. Faith (a gift itself) accepts as an empty vessel God’s gifts of grace, and an everlasting covenant that doesn’t change as men change; faith apprehends the grace of God in Christ, whereby I am justified.
Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. — Hebrews 12:1-2
Coram Deo!
Touchdown
Friday, September 25th, 2009Ladies and gentlemen, we are officially 300 feet from the runway with our wheels down, and the flaps up — the stewardesses are making a double check through the cabin to ensure that all items are stowed away; we ask that all passengers remain seated with their seat belts fastened. Please hold tight as the wheels touch down, and the pilot reduces power. Thank you for choosing to fly with Layered Logic.
Coram Deo!
Huswifery
Thursday, September 24th, 2009Huswifery
Make me, O Lord, Thy spinning wheel complete.
Thy Holy Word my distaff make for me.
Make mine affections Thy swift flyers neat
And make my soul Thy holy spool to be.
My conversation make to be Thy reel
And reel the yarn thereon spun of Thy wheel.Make me Thy loom then, knit therein this twine:
And make Thy Holy Spirit, Lord, wind quills:
Then weave the web Thyself. The yarn is fine.
Thine ordinances make my fulling mills.
Then dye the same in heavenly colors choice,
All pinked with varnished flowers of paradise.Then clothe therewith mine understanding, will,
Affections, judgement, conscience, memory,
My words, and actions, that their shine may fill
My ways with glory and Thee glorify.
Then mine apparel shall display before Ye
That I am clothed in holy robes for glory.
– Edward Taylor
Must-Reads For Today
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009Before I toddle off to work for the next 8 hours, I leave you with a few must-read articles to be slowly savored and mused over today.
- Iron Ink — Four Views on the Role & Methodology of the Press
We live in a time where official news organizations are becoming less and less relevant. With the decentralization of information sourcing, monolithic news organizations no longer have the ability to be significantly instrumental in uniquely forming the public mind. This is a vast change from a short 35 years ago when three major networks and a handful of large public newspapers dictated the public mind. The public mind is so splintered that building an American consensus on just about any issue is next to impossible.
- Gary North — R. J. Rushdoony: A Working Model of Productivity
We all need role models. Role models serve as guidelines to what is possible. We need different role models for different areas of our lives. In the division of labor, there are specialists who have done better than everyone else we know in various areas. When it comes to output per unit of time, R. J. Rushdoony has been my model since 1965.
Beginning in 1966, the second year of his newly created Chalcedon ministry, which was not yet approved as tax-exempt by the government, Rushdoony published a note at the end of his January newsletter on what he had done the previous year. This was so that donors would know their money had not been wasted. He listed the number of times he had spoken, the things he had written, and the books he had read. By “read,” he meant: underlined, with a personal index of key ideas and page numbers at the back of each book.
- Blog and Mablog — A Thousand Amens
Here is the agreement. Our first order of business is to worship the Lord in joyful assembly, and to bring our children up in the covenant of grace. A thousand amens. We are to worship Him in reverent awe, as we preach and teach, celebrate the Eucharist, as we pray and live out lives of koinonia fellowship. Another thousand amens.
But good luck doing this without having a cultural impact. If the anchorites of olden times couldn’t even go out to the desert to meditate without having a cultural impact, what makes us think that we could worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness in the midst of our culture without shaking things up a bit? This is especially true in these disintegrating times. The more the kingdom is the kingdom, the more a longing world will ask questions about it.
- BaylyBlog — In the Godly, Fear and Love Embrace
But what about us good Reformed folks; are we any different?
In my book, not much. We teach folks that being “Reformed” means not having to fear God. Not having to face the Judgment Seat of God. After all, what’s the point of believing in salvation by grace through faith alone if it leaves us fearing God’s judgment?
Didn’t Jesus do it all? What’s left for us to do?
Coram Deo~
Wilderness Trail
Monday, September 21st, 2009Six of us drove on Sunday afternoon to a little past Strawberry and tackled climbing to a waterfall in a granite canyon there. The trail we took ran adjacent to the Pyramid Creek trail and was close to a popular rock climbing destination called Lover’s Leap. Our hike led us into part of Desolation Wilderness, and if we had had more sunlight and time, we would have climbed all the way to the top of the waterfall to take in the view of South Lake Tahoe and an unbroken panorama of miles of Desolation Wilderness.
Standing still for a few minutes to listen to the wind whistling through the granite canyon.
This was taken two thirds of the way into the hike — We were still scrambling further up and further in towards the elusive top of the waterfall and the perfect ledge to eat dinner on.
Sarah at our stopping point, where we devoured our sandwiches and put up our feet for the next 45 minutes while contemplating the view, listening to music, and dropping rocks off the edge into the crashing waterfall below. We vetoed the idea of attaching a life jacket to Sam and dropping him off the edge, but that’s only because he was good about not complaining.
You can see the rest of the photos at my Flickr here.
*Photo credit goes to Sarah who took all the pictures on this hike — except for the ones she’s in, of course. 
.*
Coram Deo!
Balancing Act and Lies
Saturday, September 19th, 2009“It’s an argument that’s gone on for the history of this republic, and that is, What’s the right role of government? How do we balance freedom with our need to look out for one another? … This is not a new argument, and it always evokes passions.” ~ President B. Hussein Obama
Note what Obama sets off as the opposite of freedom the need to look out for one another. The assumption in Obama’s thinking is that if the government gives too much freedom the result will be that we won’t look out for one another. So, clearly what is implied here is that we must be forced by the government to look after one another. The government must take away our freedom in order to force us to look after one another. Of course all of this presumes that only the Federal government can be the agency through which people look after one another.
The veneer on the lies being offered is wearing thin. Read the rest of Bret’s article here.
Coram Deo~
Sweetest Things in Life
Saturday, September 19th, 2009Quote of the day:
“The best things in life are nearest: breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life’s plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.” ~ Robert Louis Stevenson
Coram Deo!
Local Menagerie
Thursday, September 17th, 2009Some of the sights around here lately:
Urchins.
Mournful puppies.
Sneaky cats.
Beautiful Belles.
Curiously Intelligent Praying Mantises.
Coram Deo!
Paradoxical Pumpkins
Thursday, September 17th, 2009I can hold on for two more weeks. And two more weeks after that. Then…. I turn into a pumpkin. Oh wait, that happens at midnight. I… transform into a duck, er, goose, er, swan! I… fall into a deep, deep sleep for one hundred years and wake up only after the lucky prince (who happened to be there are the right time for the briar hedge to disappear) kisses me smack dab on my lips. I like that last option the best. I’d even settle for just the hundred years of sleep, after my company and I make it through our ship-date, and first update for our software.
Sit me at a table with newly sharpened pencils and sheets and sheets of blank paper. Set me down a path with short stories by Wendell Berry in one hand and The Oxford Book of English Verse in the other. Show me a free day, a kitchen full of a pots, pans, knives, cutting boards, wooden spoons and a stack of recipes. Slip me a cold beer and a shady evening tinged red, orange, and violet. All in four weeks’ time, that is. Fall’s trove of treasures would be mundane and colorless if we did not endure the hard work of summer. Quiet is never so sweet as when it has been preceded by the humming and rumbling of the hectic engines of activity. These juxtapositions teach us to value not only our pleasures but our pains; for what is a pleasure without a pain? This is the riddle…
Soon, I will sit and watch as the oak shrives its dead leaves to the wind — Fall will not pass me by as she dances up and over the hills with the clouds, for I will grab and hold fast to her splendorous autumn train. And in the shadowy evening, I will leave her knocking at the door as I exchange my wild roving for the repose of a feast, family, and fire in the wood stove. Soon… after my work is done.
Coram Deo!