Peaceful, Stark Winter Afternoon

CLASSIC TRUMPISM: UN JUST A 'CLUB' FOR PEOPLE TO HAVE A GOOD TIME
HAD ENOUGH THERAPY:  SHOULD WE WITHDRAW FROM THE UN? 

IT WAS ONE OF THE BEST CHRISTMAS DAYS EVER mainly because it was low-keyed. Everyone seemed to bring a good attitude and a gracious, giving spirit to every get-together.  Christ our savior is/was central to the reason for the season. A jolly-good time was had by all.

Today it's been warm and windy outside after freezing cold temps last week. It's a nice break from winter.  I couldn't do much more than clean, sweep up and go for a good afternoon hike.  Tonight, an early bedtime with prayers of thanksgiving for so many blessings.  Simply wonderful as quiet comes to the country outside Nashville.  Believe me,  it won't be quiet for long, so I'm going to enjoy the down time as much as I can over the next few days.

My Favorite Neighborhood Christmas Lights

JUST DOWN THE STREET IS SUCH A LOVELY REMINDER OF THE CENTRALITY OF THE HUMBLE BIRTH OF CHRIST IN A MANAGER.

Merry Christmas and God bless.


Take it away Martina.....

 

No Matter What Your Age, Race, Profession, Your Political or Sexual Orientation--- A Creep Is Still a Creep and A Monumental, Immature Bore

WALSH: THIS IS WHY WE HAVE THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE

THAT IVANKA TRUMP IS A CLASS ACT WILL BECOME MORE APPARENT AS TIME GOES BY.  But the unhinged harassment episode of her by a couple of crazed political lefty cry babies and narcissists early this morning on a JetBlue flight from Kennedy to San Francisco was beyond the pale.

Evidently shouting, 'Your father is ruining the country....!' this man and his partner were kindly and quickly escorted off the plane, as they should have been, by JetBlue.

Ruining the country already?  Really?

The wretched bitterness and immaturity of these hateful people says a lot more about them than it does anything else.   Trump needs to provide increased protection immediately to his daughter and her family in light of this. Because many of these unhinged people are probably too immature to get a grip anytime soon. Maybe they should consider moving to another country.

Today, the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere---Most Intense Time of the Year

IN THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE, IT'S THE MOST INTENSE TIME OF THE YEAR, when emotions are exaggerated: sex and sexual attraction the most intense,  marriage issues the most stressed,  job dissatisfaction at yearly highs, yearnings for things and finances to be more, better and different are all at their peak.

Today, the lady from my Shell gas station where I sometimes buy gas and a good cup of coffee with a chat about the state of the world looked at me forlornly when I asked how she was doing and if she'd gotten her 9 grandchildren handled for Christmas----we'd run into each other in  Dollar General a few weeks ago shopping for kids stuff:

My nephew killed himself last week, and I can hardly do anything but cry, I'm so depressed..... 

I was utterly dumbfounded and speechless. I, I am so, so sorry to hear this.

She went on,  He has a wife and two little kids.  They were having some marriage problems and had separated....he was on something for depression.....We were all waiting for him to come to our family dinner last week and started calling and calling...there was no answer, so my brother went to his house and found him.  He hung himself....

A terribly sad story any time of the year, but especially now. He was known and loved in his community...some said he didn't have an enemy in the world.....except, of course, himself.  If only we could hang on to the reality that no matter how dark, how bleak things seem in the  moment, when the chips are down and the days are short,  the light will  eventually come back and shine to heal and encourage us, if only we let it.  Far too many people, especially young people, give up to the despair and darkness far too easily these days when better days are just around the corner.

Tomorrow, December 22, the day will be just a minute or two longer than today, the shortest, most intense day of the year.  We can thank God for small blessings.  And hang on each and every day.

Trains In Winter

GOOD GRIEF IT'S COLD!  But starting to warm up a tad.  Be back later.

It's official...Donald Trump is the 45th POTUS.

700 Years Before Birth of Christ, Micah Prophesies This Supernatural Event Would Happen in Bethlehem

 

PROMISED RULER FROM BETHLEHEM---ONE OF MANY SINCE GENESIS

5 ^[a]Marshal your troops now, city of troops,
    for a siege is laid against us.
They will strike Israel’s ruler
    on the cheek with a rod.

² “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
    though you are small among the clans^[b] of Judah,
out of you will come for me
    one who will be ruler over Israel,
whose origins are from of old,
    from ancient times.”

³ Therefore Israel will be abandoned
    until the time when she who is in labor bears a son,
and the rest of his brothers return
    to join the Israelites.

⁴ He will stand and shepherd his flock
    in the strength of the Lord,
    in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
And they will live securely, for then his greatness
    will reach to the ends of the earth.

---Micah 5:2-5

*******

THIS BELOW FROM TIM KELLER'S NEW BOOK, HIDDEN CHRISTMAS:

BUT IT TOOK CENTURIES, MILLENNIA before the angel came to Mary and told her about the child she was to bear, and she sung, 'He has...remembered to be merciful to Abraham...just as he promised our ancestors.' (Luke 1:54-55)  The promise was a long time in coming!  In fact, in the four hundred years before Christ was born no prophets were sent to the people, let along a messiah.  It looked like God had forgotten them.  No one was coming, it seemed.  But then he came.

You cannot judge God by your calendar.  God may appear to be slow, but he never forgets his promises.  He may seem to be working very slowly or even to be forgetting his promises,  but when his promises come true (and they all will come true), they always burst the banks of what you imagined.

This is one of the main themes of the nativity story, and indeed the Bible.  Look at the story of Joseph in the Old Testament (the brother with the coat of many colors who got  sold by his other brothers into slavery and taken to Egypt).  For years it seemed like God was ignoring Joseph's prayers, letting him experience one disaster after another.   But in the end it became clear that every one of those things had to happen in order for all to be saved.  Joseph was even able to say to his brothers, who had sold him into slavery, 'You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.' (Genesis 50:20) Look at Jesus, being called to heal a fatally ill girl but stopping to deal with someone else instead and allowing Jairus's daughter to die.  His timing seemed completely wrong----until it became clear that it wasn't (and Jesus raised the young girl from the dead!) (Mark 5:21-43).

God's grace virtually never operates on our time frame, on a schedule we consider reasonable.  He does not follow our agendas or schedules......


----Keller, Hidden Christmas,  excerpts pages 34-36

Christmas Kitty At Dawn

WE'RE BOTH EARLY RISERS.....

View From My Stove

IT'S FROM MY PHONE AGAIN....ONLY THIS TIME because of down internet for my computer.

One of my most cherished things to do at this time of year is to cook for the homeless in a Nashville program called Room At the Inn.  A number of churches in the area commit to housing and feeding  homeless men and women who need shelter in the winter months.  Tonight my church provides shelter and some of the womenfolk  donate a nourishing hot meal.

I did pork tenderloin with cooked apples last year and the guys loved it, so I did it again this afternoon.  There will also be a green vegetable and salad.

After dinner, there are warm beds and plenty of blankets...and boy do they need that this week cause it's damp and getting colder by the minute.

Hopefully we can lift their spirits.  This is what Christmas is really about for me and many of us.

Third Sunday Advent

GALATIANS 3:28 (NIV) 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
 

IT IS NOT, THEN, THE GOOD PEOPLE WHO ARE IN AND THE BAD PEOPLE WHO ARE OUT. Everyone is in only by the grace of Jesus Christ.  It is only what Jesus has done for you that can give you standing before God.

There is no one, not even the greatest human being, who does not need the grace of Jesus Christ.  And there is no one, not even the worst human being, who can fail to receive the grace of Jesus Christ if there is repentance and faith.

In Jesus Christ, prostitute and king, male and female,  Jew and Gentile, one race and another race, moral and immoral---all sit down at the table as equals.  Equally sinful and lost, equally accepted and loved....

God is not ashamed of us.  We are all in his family.

There is another side to this.  All cultures encourage their members to look down on some people in order to congratulate themselves for their own superiority.  It may be people from another race or class.  Maybe you look down on those snobs with so much education, or maybe it's the ignorant ones with no education.  Maybe you despise the people whose political views you think are ruining the country.  In all of these examples, you have been taught to see some people as unclean, beyond the pale, unholy----while you are okay.  Jesus Christ's values are radically different.  The world values pedigree, money, race and class.  He turns that all upside down  These things that matter so much outside Jesus' church must not be brought inside.  He says, in a sense, 'In my family, those things that are so important out there in the world must not be so important.'

Hidden Christmas, pages 33, 34,   Timothy Keller

Finally Back Online With A Working Computer Thanks to Remote Support from Jujai In Jackson Hole, WY

LEARNING TO CELEBRATE FAILURE WHEN YOU'RE YOUNG OFTEN LEADS TO SUCCESS LATER.....

FLORIDA ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER FROM LAKE OKEECHOBEE......WE NEED TO TURN THIS LONG-TERM CRISIS AROUND......

FASCINATING LAWSUIT UPDATE:  NICK LOEB AND EMBRYOS ARE SUING FORMER GIRLFRIEND SOPHIA VERGARA  TO LIVE AND BE BORN....(UNFERILIZED EGGS ARE ONE THING, FERTILIZED EGGS ARE QUITE ANOTHER)
 ________________________________________

WHY I HADN'T THOUGHT OF THIS BEFORE IS BEYOND ME.  I picked up my new computer several days ago from a big office retail store in Nashville where I'd instructed tech support everrything I wanted done.  What a complete mess I found when I finally got my laptop home and tried  to work on it.   It was unusable. The thought of taking the computer back to that  store (which is required to use limited options) for more 'help' was totally unacceptable to me.  I did manage to get some of my money back from them however.  I was still facing a dysfunctional working system and  had tons of work and printing  to do.

Then I had a bright idea:  Why not call my brilliant computer tech guy---Jujai, pronounced 'your eye'---in Jackson, Wyoming? He'd already worked with me there in person on several occasions.

As soon as I reached him and explained the problems,  he suggested he could fix everything by remote support, rather than just tell me how to do it.  I gave him my info and he got on his team viewer.  Within an hour, every single issue was resolved (installed and uninstalled) with free programs and only the cost of his time--- reasonable and worth every penny.  I am deeply grateful and will think of remote tech support with Jujai first and foremost for software issues in the future.

If you need help, updates or advice and are willing to get it from afar, then call Jujai or Robert at Computer Clinic----307-734-9415----and see if you're not glad you did.  I certainly am.

And tell 'em Webutante from Tennessee sent you!

Today, A New Computer!

BEEN IN A COMPUTER DROUGHT FOR THE PAST WEEK. As you likely know typing on a cell phone is less than ideal and frought with mistakes. So I'll be glad to pick it up this morning, though I've learned some things by having to work entirely off my phone.

Second Sunday Advent, Season We Celebrate Christ's Light Dawning On the World

FROM HIDDEN CHRISTMAS ( The Surprising Truth Behind the Birth of Christ), By Timothy Keller:

CHRISTMAS, THEREFORE, IS THE MOST UNSENTIMENTAL, REALISTIC WAY AT LOOKING AT LIFE.  It does not say, 'Cheer up! If we all pull together, we can make the world a better place.' The Bible never counsels indifference to the forces of darkness, only resistance, but it supports no illusions that we can defeat these forces ourselves. Christianity does not agree with the optimistic thinkers who say, 'We can fix things if we try hard enough.'  Nor does it agree with the pessimists who see only a dystopian future. The message of Christianity is, instead, 'Things really are this bad, and we can't heal or save ourselves.  Things really are this dark---nevertheless, there is hope.'

The Christmas message is that  'on those living in the land of deepest darkness a light has dawned.'....upon the world a light has dawned.  It has come from outside.  There is light from outside of this world, and Jesus has brought that light to save us,  indeed, he is the Light (John 8:12)

---Page 12

First Ever Post From My New Samsung

COMPUTER IS IN THE SHOP IN SARASOTA and may not get repaired or replaced before I leave for home soon.  So posting may be light for a while.

Want to say the terrible conflagration in and around the Great Smokies is in large measure due to the feds prohibiting selective cutting of the aging forests there, thereby allowing a huge buildup of dead and dying fuel over the decades. Radical environmentalists have encouraged this insanity also.  It's happened in Yellowstone and will continue to happen there and now in the East during periods of drought.

One way or another, Mother Nature will rebalance the environment whatever government policies are. Perhaps a wiser model of stewardship should be adopted by the new Trump administration.