Scientists Behaving Badly

Scientists Behaving Badly  (click for article)

I'd be surprised if this data shows up anytime soon in the national rags that pretend to be 'objective.' Maybe on page 24, bottom fold.

Truth is always the Cornerstone on which mankind is either healed or broken.

GrandBabes

Starving artists

Starving Artists:  That's Elissa's perfect title!  They aren't for sale.  Too priceless.  Although Morgan says the "abstracts are worth more" and should go for about 50 bucks a crack.  I just wait for my birthday to roll around and then I get one.  

Mama Elissa's favorite

Our little leftie?
Robert was, we'll see.

Happy birthday, Morgan

"This will be my 9th year of Service to Him."
Morgan Jo
I love this child

Deadwood bracelet

Dear Owen ~ Thank you for thinking of me during your Deadwood family vacation.  The bracelet is lovely.

I'll miss you next year, that's for darn sure!  

Mrs. M

While in Deadwood, Owen asked his Dad,

"Can I get two gifts, Dad?

One for my teacher?"

"Which teacher?"  inquired the dad.

"Mrs. M, of course." 

Thanx Buddy! 

Oregon Art Beat

Apparently Portland is a veritable art mecca.  I'd be right at home on Northeast Portland's Alberta Street.  That's where you can hear the tight 3-part harmonies of The Stolen Sweets.  Their reworks of 1930's Boswell Sisters jazz is featured in the video below.  Great stuff

http://www.opb.org/programs/artbeat/segments/view/388

Robert's handcrafted oak floor lamp
is now graced atop with Jennifer
Doheny's batik shade.
Fabulous!

Coolest batik lampshade ever!
Found it online from an artist
who hails from Portland.
Although her shop is now in Wisconsin.

Elisabeth Elliot's Idea of the Day

There is an Eternal Word which has been spoken. For thousands of years Christians have taken their stand on that Word, have driven into it all the stakes of their faith and hope, believing it to be a liberating Word, a saving Word. They have arranged their lives within its clear and bounded context.

Nathaniel's birthday sushi

Sorry about the whispered, "It's Nathaniel's birthday."

The waiter heard and sprang into action.

The Dragon Head was PRICELESS!!!

And Yes, that is a pyro in the middle of the dat-gum table.

all Wise Hands on deck

A large cat?  A bird?  A plane?
An owl!  

Wisdom has landed on my deck.
And none too soon!

Parenting in peril

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/enfant_terrible_or_why_are_american_parents_inferior.html
This article features one woman’s observations while visiting - or living - in France.  I know nothing of French child rearing practices.  But the catastrophic effects of horrible parenting in the states is readily observable in the local school, restaurant or Target.  The natives are definitely running the asylum in a lot of homes.  Disastrous for the state of the union, not to mention the classroom and WalMart aisle.

No, this Little Laddie
is not behind the wheel
in his home.

However, it is unfair to ascribe passively permissive parenting primarily to liberals.  (It would have been a nice alliterative touch to end that sentence with ‘progressives’ rather than liberals.  But I just cannot bring myself to call liberal policies progressive.)  Toddlers and teens running the roost happens regardless of political persuasion.  Perhaps more libs bought into Spock’s disastrous nonsense.  Not sure, but there are plenty of  conservative homes railroaded by the under 3-foot curmudgeon.  

such encouraging news

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2012/02/13/exp-burrell-cries-over-houston-death-nr-phillips.cnn

Kim Burrell was a wonderful close friend to Whitney Houston.  Her interview regarding the death of her beloved sister lifted my spirit that perhaps we will hear Ms. Houston singing on the front row of the celestial choir.  Glory be!  I'm glad we can trust the goodness of the LORD.  He makes all things right.  

Tribute to my Children: See you in Eternity

Today my heart is heavy with grief for, of all things, Whitney Houston's Godly mother.  As a young child, Whitney sang hymns in church with her mother, Cissy Houston.  Later photos of both mother and daughter feature Jesus' ubiquitous cross around their necks.   Cissy's love of God must have profoundly influenced her daughter.  Today, however, this Mother is wracked with a wound that will not heal in this life.  Only the One who saves every tear and hears each prayer can tell the intercessions that rose from this Mother's lips.

Family rules to live by

To Gabriel, for being a man after God's very own heart.






To Danielle for seeing and speaking and living in the Righteous Immutable Truth.

To JoyFul,  for splashing the goodness and kindness of her Savior on everyone she meets.

My heart would never heal if my children strayed from their First Love.  Thank you for remembering the rich investment in your lives from the first breath until this day.  There were countless deposits made by your father, mother and saintly grandmothers.  A legacy to cherish and pass along.  Thank you for embracing that gift and never turning from it.  Today, with tears streaming, I thank you for recognizing the Sacred.
Carry on, my children.

May the blessings of the LORD make rich for a thousand generations or until Jesus returns.  

If only she'd known

The Quintessential Tragedy:  The untimely death of Whitney Houston.  The God-breathed gift of Ms. Houston's soaring voice made our hearts skip.  Hers is now finished beating.  

Tragic.  Ms. Houston's fall from rhapsodic purity into the bowels of the devil's hell-high parallels his own plunge.  Lucifer was the Father's angelic worshipper floating his strains in the Home where God dwells.  He led in the adulation of worship to the Creator.  But, alas, tiring of adoring the Giver and wanting to become the receiver of praise himself, Lucifer rebelled against the blessed role appointed him.  Jesus says that he saw Lucifer falling from Heaven to earth.  And in the plunge, he demoted from Lucifer the God Worshipper to Satan the deceived and the deceiver.  

How many moments did the Father woo his daughter home?  Back to a place of worship?  Away from the edge of eternal separation.  How many ways did the Father entreat his baby girl to come home?  To be cleansed?  Healed?  Restored and Redeemed?  A spiritual battle on steroids.  

Rick Moran of American Thinker poignantly describes Ms. Houston’s  “I Will Always Love You” performance: “There is a moment in her song "I Will Always Love You" - the number one selling single of all time - when the music swells to a crescendo and changes key for the finale, that Ms. Houston's voice transcends the earth and is heard among the angels. It is an impossibly beautiful note - a note so profoundly true, a big, bold, brassy, ballsy manifestation of purity and perfection that it brings a reflexive lump to one's throat.”  Or a bend to one’s knee.  In worship.

I wonder if Whitney heard God singing “I Will Always Love You?”  Squarely in the middle of her abysmal flounderings?  Did she hear God's refrain?  I will always love you.

"What did you do with the ten talents, my daughter?"  
"I traded your Gift for the devil's high.  And his fall."  


Tragic beyond words.  

Only those who want God and His Kingdom will have Him.  In the end, we get what we want.  

Just feeds the soul

To fulfill the high calling which God has placed upon us in creating us and redeeming us, we must have the right inner substance or character. We must come to grips with who we really are, inside and out. For we will do what we are. So we will need to become the kind of people who routinely and easily walk in the goodness and power of Jesus our Master.  Dallas Willard

Robert used to love the preacher's wisdom that asks, "Would you rather have a dull tool and a sharp child or a sharp child and a dull tool?"  Apparently Gabriel would rather have the dull tool cuz Little Man MacMurchy is sharpening his skills by helping his Daddy.

February morn

Gorgeous