Sufficiency of Scripture for the Church

Here ye, here ye!

I have heard this fine sermon twice today and am prepared to listen again.

Join me?

Using Exekiel 43 as a starting point, my pastor of 32 years preached the Good News by proclaiming the Headship of  Christ for His Church.


The title of *Senior Pastor* or *Bishop* is nothing compared to the Name of Jesus to which every knee shall bow.

The Westminster Divines relied upon Ezekiel 43 to introduce their Book of Church Order in 1643.

And if they be ashamed of all that they have done, shew them the form of the house, and the fashion thereof, and the goings out thereof, and the comings in thereof, and all the forms thereof, - and all the laws thereof: and write it in their sight, that they may keep the whole form thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and do them.

In the same way that Christ died for the invisible church (the repentent, redeemed sinner), God also died the visible church (repentent and redeemed)AND sees her as white as snow: perfect and blameless because of the work and sacrifice of His Son.

This is so comforting.

While it may seem unusual to use Ezekiel 43 as the basis for the sermon, there were a host of additional Scriptural references.  But, do take the time to read Exekiel chapters 40 - 48 in order to understand the context in which the prophet was speaking in order to focus and train the eyes of his charges on future glory.

Restoration!

We sang hymns to reinforce these doctrines.  From the (blue) Trinity Hymnal:

Behold! The Mountain of the Lord (272) - based on Is 2:2 (Scottish paraphrase)
Zion, Founded on the Mountains (369) -  based on Ps 87:1

Approach My Soul (423) - based on Heb $;!4, 16 and written by John Newton (a favorite)

Glorious Things of Thee (269) - again Ps 87 but verse 3, and John Newton

We celebrated communion and submitted our tithes, hoping in the Lord.

Then, never forgetting that a good theology will invariably produce a good meal,

we returned home show enjoy Sunday's menu  ~

Beef Stew
French Bread
Merlot

Begian Chocolate Brownies with Walnuts
Black Coffee



Yes, there was broccoli in the brisker ....only to be overlooked.

I'd had enough vegetables for one day. (ref Dan 1)
Grin



Artwork Credit:
Open Door Chapel
Oil on Canvas
16" x 20"
by Margaret Jordan

A O LINCH MD

In honor of my maternal grandfather, Albert Osborn Linch, who died on this day fifty years ago, at the young age of 58, I'm highlighting one paragraph of his inaugural address to the Fulton County Medical Society.  It speaks directly to today's healthcare fiasco.

America today stands at the cross-roads, and there seems to be a tremendous urge to go down the road of least resistance, which leads to chaos and ruin. If what I say smacks of non-medical politics, let those that are burned make the most of it.

America must have a change in the way of thinking of our men in high political places or our way of living will surely collapse. Justice Brandeis warned, "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning, but without understanding."

We are borrowing from the future and robbing the purses of our children and grandchildren by continuing the deficit operation of our government. It behooves us to fight in every way possible those who would torpedo the medical profession and scuttle American freedom to satisfy the whims and political aspirations of these demagogs.

I plead with you to support your political leaders who are interested in free enterprise and in the economic operation of your government.

January 19, 1950

Let us not grow weary in doing good.



Here's a link to the entire address

Here's a link to another entry about AOL.

Coconut Cake

Detailed instructions involve three separate recipes.

Here's a link to one untouched photo of the finished product.

There were no leftovers.





Links for the three recipes.
1)  Coconut Filling
2)  Yellow Cake
3)  7-minute Icing

Coconut Filling

Buy three fresh coconuts. You're only using two, but you will be glad you have one extra at home, in case there's not enough milk in the first two.  Poke out the *eyes* with a screwdriver and drain the milk into a glass measuring cup.  You'll need 1 1/2 cups.  Set aside.

Then place the coconuts in a warm (250) oven for 30 minutes to help crack them. I go outside for the next step:  place them on level surface and hit with hammer to break shell open.  This is actually great fun.

After the heavy outer shell is gone, use a vegetable peeler to remove the thin brown lining off of the white meat.

Grate finely the meat from two coconuts. I use my cuisinart for this.
















Cook coconut milk and 2 C sugar in a saucepan over medium-high heat until it spins a thread (230degrees). I use a candy thermometer to help me know for sure.
















Add 1 C heavy cream. Boil hard for one minute. Pour over finely grated coconut meat. {12/17/13 My sister Noel asked me to quantify the number of cups of grated coconut that result from two whole coconuts.  I will do that the next time I prepare this recipe.}  Stir to combine.

Reserve (store in refrigerator) until ready for use. You can actually do this in advance.

















Spread between layers of cake and on top layer.


LATER and unrelated to the coconut filling which is recipe #3 for my Coconut Cake.

Use third fresh coconut to fix Ambrosia.....

















Have you ever bought and used a fresh coconut?

Seven Minute Icing
from the Joy of Cooking


2 unbeaten egg whites
1 1/2 C granulated white sugar
5 Tbs cold water
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1 1/2 tsp light corn syrup

Using a double boiler, place these ingredients over rapidly boiling water.

Beat with hand mixer constantly for (approx) seven minutes or until light, fluffy and spreadable.














Remove from heat. Add 1 tsp vanilla.


Makes 2 cups or enough to ice a three-layer cake.

1-2-3-4 Cake
(my grandmother's recipe)

1 C real butter
2 C granulated white sugar
3 C sifted flour (sift all purpose flour then measure out)
4 eggs (5 are better, but then the *title* doesnt match)



3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 C water (or milk)



Sift together dry ingredients and set aside. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs on at the time. Alternately add water and flour mixture. Add vanilla.

Bake in three 9" prepared cake pans at 325 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

Invert pans onto wire racks and remove cakes from pans immediately to prevent overcooking.


I like to cover each layer with damp paper towel, while they cool.

Do you have a favorite yellow cake recipe?

Happy Birthday DD#3

In 1991, we enjoyed this heart-shaped Red Velvet Cake for your birthday.

In 2010, I understand that you made your own birthday cake: German Chocolate.

There are many years in between.  So, I'm on a mission to document your birthday cakes.

Have you ever seen a cuter 3 year old?

















The birthday dress was compliments of Grandma Jago.

Any Birthday Valentines at your house?

Happy Birthday, Dee!

 1974

Here's a link to another photo.

My maternal grandmother was a big part of my childhood, living with us for the last twelve years of her life.

Very precious, full of memories.


Were you blessed with a close relationship with grands?

Robert E Lee - Happy 203rd Birthday!

I love remembering the following passage from the writings of Robert E Lee.

It was first made public by Colonel Charles Marshall in 1887, in Southern Historical Papers published in 1889.

More recently you can find it in Richard Weaver's essay on the Christian warrior, found in The Southern Tradition at Bay, pg 209.




My experience of men has neither disposed me to think worse of them, nor indisposed me to serve them; nor, in spite of failures, which I lament, of errors, which I now see and acknowledge, or, of the present state of affairs, do I despair of the future.

The march of providence is so slow, and our desires so impatient, the work of progress is so immense, and our means of aiding it so feeble, the life of humanity is so long, and that of the individual so brief, that we often see only the ebb of the advancing wave, and are thus discouraged.

It is history that teaches us to hope.



Here's a link to the Marks Collection, which distributes this fine print entitled "The Christian General".

Christmas


The shepherds sing;
and shall I silent be?
My God, no hymn for Thee?

My soul's a shepherd too;
a flock it feeds
Of thoughts, and words, and deeds.

The pasture is Thy word:
the streams, Thy grace,
Enriching all the place.

Shepherd and flock shall sing,
and all my powers
Outsing the daylight hours.





Then will we chide the sun for letting night
Take up his place and right:
We sing one common Lord;
wherefore he should
Himself the candle hold.
I will go searching, till I find a sun
Shall stay, till we have done;
A willing shiner, that shall shine as gladly,
As frost-nipped suns look sadly.
Then will we sing, and shine all our own day,
And one another pay:
His beams shall cheer my breast, and both so twine,
Till ev'n His beams sing, and my music shine.



Poem by George Herbert


Art by W A Bouguereau
oil on canvas 165x88cm
Berkshire Museum



See previous entry for commentary on the painting.

Additional commentary

about the oil painting excerpted from Fronia Wissman's book, Bouguereau.

Here is Jean Francois Millet's Newborn Lamb.....

Comparing Bouguereau's shepherdess with a similar scene by Millet (Newborn Lamb), while in a different medium-pastel-and on a wholly different scale, shows how Bouguereau has citified, or, at the least, taken the country out of his version. Millet's peasant does not pose; she has work to do and walks sturdily along. She does, however, take the time to look back at the ewe, a relatively scrawny creature, who follows her baby. In Millet's pastel the lamb is truly tiny-almost pathetic in its yearning for its mother-not the larger animal, old enough to resemble a big, fuzzy stuffed animal, cradled by Bouguereau's girl. Millet's shepherdess is stocky, rounded, and wears nondescript clothes. A telling difference, apart from the fact that Millet locates his figure in the specific context of the Norman countryside, evinced by the swinging gate in the hedgerow, is the girls' feet. Bouguereau's shepherdesses and mothers are almost always barefoot; Millet's wear sabots, the wooden shoes of the peasants. Bare feet can mean many things-poverty, a carefree life in a warm climate, humility. The bare feet of Bouguereau's figures underscore the fact that they are not real peasants, as Millet's were seen to be, so the urban viewer need in no way feel responsible for the peasants' hard lives. Bouguereau would have denied such an interpretation, insisting that he painted the human figure because it was the most beautiful subject to paint. Painting the figure well, meaning according to classical precepts, was the goal of the academic tradition of which he was a proud part. Thus, well-drawn and well-painted feet, notoriously difficult to render convincingly, can be seen as a mark of a highly skilled academic painter. Not interested in limning contemporary social concerns, Bouguereau focused all his attention on what he was good at-conveying sentiment in perfectly drawn figures.

Holiday Weddings

















Twenty-eight years ago Thanksgiving weekend, we gathered to witness the marriage of one of my sisters.

I had married the Christmas before.

See me there on the left?






In fact, I think most of my siblings married around the holidays. Two of us at Christmastime (five years apart), one at New Years, another at Memorial Day. I guess the convenience of an extra day off helps with scheduling.

So far, one of our daughters has married at Labor Day, another at Christmas (on our anniversary ;-)).

In 2010, I have four nephews getting married.




First comes love,
then comes marriage,
then comes the baby
in the baby carriage!

The First Thanksgiving


When the Pilgrims
first gathered together to share

with their Indian friends
in the mid-autumn air,

they lifted their voices
in jublilant praise

for the bread on the table,
the berries and maize,

for fields and for forests,
for the turkey and the deer,

for bountiful crops
they were blessed with that year.


They were thankful for these
and they feasted away,
and as they were thankful,
we're thankful today.



by Jack Prelutsky



It's quieter than normal here today. We're headed to Grandmother's daughter's house. It is over the river and through the woods.

I'm in charge of two veggies: roasted cauliflower and green beans almondine.

Three of our daughters are gathering in Detroit, the fourth in Elkhart.

Looking forward to a louder Christmas.

Here's a link to this year's thankfulness.

HOW TO RECOGNIZE GRACE

It takes you by surprise
It comes in odd packages
It sometimes looks like loss
Or mistakes
It acts like rain
Or like a seed
It’s both reliable and unpredictable
It’s not what you were aiming at
Or what you thought you deserved
It supplies what you need
Not neccessarily what you want
It grows you up
And lets you be a child
It reminds you you’re not in control
And that not in control is a form of freedom.







by Marilyn Chandler McEntyre


Watercolor Rose
Vera Holcombe
1917

Brown Thrasher
















He's outside. I'm inside.

In fact, I'm about ten feet away peeking around the corner of the oven.

Here's some perspective.
























Can you see him?

Best I can tell, he's just sunning himself and enjoying the view. Not trying to eat from the feeder. He's so large, he'd have to contort himself in order to get his beak into the cylinder.

I'm having fun watching him and learning how to improve my pictures in Photoshop.

Red Chrysanthemum

Fashion on Fridays

Costume parties usually provide more fun than ordinary gatherings and long ago there was one such one for me that did just that and remains very special.

While I'm not fond of the current holiday (or anything scary/horror for that matter), Halloween brings back romantic memories for me. It's the anniversary of our first date.

Flip the calendar back to the Fall of 1976, when I was starting my second year of college. We had a large group of friends that socialized together. (Here's a link to a group photo.) It centered around one of the smaller dorms on campus - Koon Hall - thirty plus fellows with a wide variety of interests (football players to yearbook editors) and activities (keg parties with professors)

On October 30th, they hosted a costume party and I was invited. Earlier in the week (Wednesday breakfast, to be exact) a certain resident of said dorm asked if I would accompany him to the college play at 8p on Saturday followed by the costume party.

It was a magical evening.

I could write lots more about every.single.detail.

But I'm not the Pioneer Woman.

I'll let this photo speak its 1000 words.

Thirty-three years ago today.....





















Costume made by yours truly and fashioned after one of my mother's 1940's party dresses. I needed it for one of my sorority's rush parties.

I was NOT responsible for DH's costume which was a total surprise, by the way.

His sense of humor has been a blessing over all these years.



A few weeks later - more costumes!
















Happy Halloween!!


Dont forget to change your clocks!

Fall Birthday Menu

Pork Roast (crock pot)
with apples, onions, celery & raisins

Fordhook Lima Beans
Steamed Cabbage
Corn Muffins




Cavit Pinot Noir


Pumpkin Cheesecake

(Cheesecake Factory)

Opening presents is fun no matter where you are!

Friday Five

1. How often do you get sick with a cold? The flu?

Rarely do I get sick, although this week I felt crummy on Wednesday and went to bed at 6:30 pm, skipped dinner, and slept straight through 'til morning. I took some Advil for the body aches.

2. Are you the sort of person who goes to work or school no matter how sick you are or are you willing to stay at home when it gets bad?

Yes, I usually carry on with my duties even when I dont feel well. DH noted that in the 35 years he's known me, he's never known me to stay in bed all day. Hope that doesn't jinx my streak :)

3. Will you get a flu shot?

No, not planning to get a seasonal flu shot, nor an H1N1.

4. What do you do to keep from getting sick in the winter?

In addition to making sure that the host (my body) is good at fighting off bad germs and viri by eating healthfully, sleeping adequately, and drinking plenty of water, I will wash my hands more often this winter in order to avoid getting sick.

5. What is your favorite thing to do when you stay home from work or school?

If I'm sick enough to stay home, I will be in bed. That's how I know that I'm really sick: I dont want to read a book, watch TV, or listen to music.

PS: I do like a hot toddy, if I feel something coming on....

My recipe:

In a mug, combine

2 Tbs lemon juice, freshly squeezed
2-3 Tbs local honey

2-3 Tbs whiskey

Pour in 6 oz boiling water and stir until blended.

What's your home remedy?

Twenty-five Years Ago Today


"A daughter brightens up your world and shines forever in your heart."

You're always there
with love to share,
showing kindness everywhere.
You brighten days
with smiles and fun,
giving joy to everyone....


You're always thought
so warmly of...
You're always treasured
and always loved.



















Have a wonderful birthday!!