a book
I just started The Sparrow, a 1996 sci-fi novel by Mary Doria Russell about a Jesuit priest who barely returns from a space mission meant to make contact with extraterrestrial life. I can’t put it down. Smoller nephew gets it.
a plant
One of my most prized possessions is my Fiddle Leaf Fig. It always gets a spot in the moving truck.
It is majestic. But it was surviving, not thriving. I admitted this to myself when its leaves, though still lush and large, begun drooping permanently last year. So I did it. The same day I ruthlessly hacked the ficus elastica, I chopped a third of the ficus lyrata.
Fiddles are notorious for being finicky. They are more likely to slip into a perpetual coma-like dormancy than grow. Or just die. But! Jesus truly loves me! Only two weeks later and nubbins abound!
I don't know what these four sticks-in-dirt will eventually look like, but one can dream. Or at least doodle.
a podcast
Two mic drop moments in this interview with Priscilla Shirer. One on parenting:
What I got in trouble for [as a kid] was talking too much. I was disciplined for talking. But my dad would always say, after being disciplined, you know what, I think maybe you have the gift of communication. And if you would mature in this area and surrender it to the Lord, it could be exactly what he’s called you to do. I remember this when parenting my boys: that the thing that is getting them in trouble, could very well be the thing that is divine wiring for their future. So if there is no discipline and no discernment in the parent to see where it’s possible to also affirm them in that same thing, then you could be suffocating the very thing that they just need to surrender to the Lord, not get rid of.
One on waiting:
My biggest burden I think is summed up in John 18. Pilate looks at Jesus and says what is truth? The next verse says: and then he turned away and looked back at the people. Pilate stood Truth in the face, asked him the definition of truth, and then did not give him a chance to answer before he turned and looked at people for a response. That is my burden for this generation. There is a deconstruction of faith that is leaving people with no faith at all. They have steered away from the truth of Scripture. Yes, ask your questions. Wrestle. But do not steer away from the face of Jesus. He is the essence of the Creator of truth. Anything that is being redefined away from what the Creator has defined it to be already is false and is a lie. So you got to come back here to find out about your sexuality, your gender, about marriage, about all the things that are being redefined and legislated. We are in a state of chaos and confusion because everyone got their own standard of truth. There has to be a solid basis for it. I think the younger generation has steered away from looking Jesus in the face and saying what is truth?, and then tarrying there long enough until He answers.
tarry well, friends! best done with fresh yogurt and even fresher air!
love,
reb