Who turned off the light?

Bob keeps turning the lights off.  I can always tell if he’s been through a room after me when I walk back in and the room is now dark.  He’s even turned off the light with me still in the room, (conditioned response—“oops, sorry, honey!”)

Ostensibly, this is to save power, which means to save money, and my husband definitely loves to save money.  Not that he’s not generous, some might say to a fault, but when it comes to getting the monthly bills, yeah, our house is pretty dark.  One of our girls bought him this gift one year:

Or you could just peddle faster…(ha!)

I really like dogs, man’s best friend and all.  But there are a few I could do without, admittedly.  Just a few.  I’m not even talking about the yappy fur balls that are a perverse progeny of wolverine descent; they have a purpose in that they make some people happy.  No, I’m simply referring to the dangerous ones out on the country roads that don’t like cyclists.

Granted, most big back-road hounds will just bark and run, and when I stop and give them treats (which I carry), we make friends with each other.  I actually used to go out to see a Great Dane—fell in LOVE with her, and she tried to get in my lap, hilarious!

However…

One winter day, as I was riding without Bob, I was accosted by a particular nasty that decided his property included the road.  So I did what my husband had taught me, getting off my bike to put it between me and my enemy. As I began to back up, the dog followed, snarling and barking, indicating he had one thing on his mind—a piece of me.  (Unfortunately, another big one had joined him on the other side of the street, so now I had tandem trouble.)

It’s the brain chemistry

I am awed by some of the newer brain research that has been coming out in recent years, particularly as regards the developing child/adolescent brain.  Here are a few factoids of interest:

• The brain develops from back to front; that is, from critical life-sustaining functions in the brain stem (like breathing) to the more complex, problem-solving matters in the frontal lobe (perhaps calculus…personally, I never got there, but you get the point.)
• The limbic area (further back in the brain) is the home for our fight/flight/freeze response when we are afraid or angry—again, part of the life-protecting response to some perceived danger, I suppose.
• The frontal lobe (housed right behind the forehead) is also for decisions involving the word should, (as in, “no, I definitely should NOT take calculus”), and involves moral and ethical capabilities.
• And here’s the kicker—the frontal lobe does not fully develop in the human brain until the early to mid-twenties.

 Explains a lot, don’t it?

So when I read this from

In other words…

“…For you created all things, and they exist because you created what you pleased.”

Revelation 4:11  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.

 

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.