Remember your geometry!

I remember when my dad sat in on my older sister’s 10^th grade geometry presentation during Parent/Teacher conferences back in the day.  The soon-to-be-retired teacher basically told the attending parents that geometry wasn’t all that important.

You just don’t say that parents, particularly one who is a Professional Engineer…

Dad must have been chewing on his slide rule to prevent himself from saying anything, until he got home that is.  I remember his frustration in that, at the very least, geometry teaches logical thinking and step-by-step problem solving. How is it that a math teacher missed the application of what he was teaching?

Love notes, and other uses for dust.

As a teenager, I learned the basics of cleaning house.  Mom “made” us do our own laundry (thanks, Mom, so very, very much!!), and we were responsible for keeping our own rooms clean(-ish).  Dusting was part of it, and if you ran out of Pledge, then a damp rag would suffice.  

They say “practice makes perfect”, so leave us say I am a less-than-perfect housekeeper, much less. Whoever comes to visit should leave the white gloves at home.  Never quite sure what you’ll find under the bed either, and a flat dusty surface is for writing love notes,…isn’t it?

My not-quite-Heloise skill doesn’t make me less appreciative of God’s perfection, however.  Case in point, I love this description of the Baal vs. Yahweh encounter.  The prophets of Baal do all they can, and more so, to get their god to light the sacrificial fire on their alter, yet have nothing to show for it but raw hamburger.

Buckle in, God’s got a plan

I was always one of the tallest kids in class.  Back in high school I used to joke that the main reason I was on the girls’ basketball team was so that I could get off the traveling bus first just to intimidate the opposition.  Despite what they may have initially seen, in reality they didn’t have much to worry about.  My lack of athletic prowess may have been caused by hidden orthopedic challenges (no longer hidden, I might add!), latent asthma (ibid.), or simply a lack of interest and/or talent.  Like my 6’5” brother once observed, tall people rarely have to jump…for anything.

Nevertheless, what we see with our eyes can be scary, because we have a way of interpreting it through the lens of past experience, which is not necessarily a bad thing.  In fact, it’s a safety mechanism.  If there’s a motorcycle coming down the road, past experience says it behooves me to move.  Unless, of course, I’m an 18-wheeler with the right-of-way, then I expect the burden of wisdom to rest with the motorcycle.

With this in mind, I suppose I can have a little compassion on

Seeing is believing…

…well, not always.  In fact, I don’t even know where that cockamamie concept originated.  Especially now with the various photo-editing applications and other wonders of the virtual world that continue to invade our reality.  So when pictures show up on my email or on other forms of communication, I tend to be a bit more skeptical than I would have in the past.

In fact, right now the whole concept of “Fake News” is making a comeback.  At least, I call it a comeback.  Fake News has been around forever, starting in a Garden a long time ago, and it comes in many forms, being woven quite effectively into our modern living:

Propaganda was an effective tool to discourage the Allies in World War 2. 

Most people my age have probably heard the phrase, “there are lies, there are d**n lies, and there are statistics.”

Of course, then there are the white lies.  Which is like having a white carpet in a house with three children and two dogs…

There’s the infamous statement, “Just kidding”.  Orson Wells tried that back in the 1930’s with a recital of a World of the Worlds enactment on radio, and that went over quite well. 

Like Solomon said, truly there is nothing new under the sun…

But that doesn’t mean I just abandon my five senses as any source of honest interpretation.  It does mean, however, that I need a little discernment.  Or a lot.  Words are cheap, but observable behaviors and definable outcomes have a place in what’s really going on behind the scenes.

Or better yet, what’s going on within the heart.

 “I know all the things you do. I have seen your love, your faith, your service, and your patient endurance. And I can see your constant improvement in all these things.”

It behooves me to be reminded that God Almighty sees it all as it really is, no spiritual photo-editing in Heaven.  The first order question, then, is what does He see in my life?  In His church?  And whatever He sees, and however He sees it, IS worthy to be believed.

Revelation 2:19  Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Migraine morning

I’m writing this with a migraine.  I hate them.   But my mother had them, my brother used to have them, so I’m following in a fine, well-trod family tradition, not one I would recommend.

I first noticed it around 3:30 this morning, but chose to “wait and see” hoping it was only a simple headache that would go away if I fell back to sleep–mild case of denial, that.  People with true migraine syndrome will understand that the medication prescribed by the physician works more efficiently (translation: faster, more complete relief) when taken at the first