A Rabbi talks about Avatar.
http://rebfred.blogspot.com/2010/01/jewish-reflection-on-spiritual-message.html

Was reading psalms today, & in more than one of the psalms I read through there was a call to "praise the Lord for his works" or to "remember what the Lord has done for us".

So, I thought, I can remember that once upon a time the Lord did things for Israel, & leave it at that, or I could remind myself of all the answers to prayer and God's interventions in our lives.
So I found an empty journal and began thinking about the first entry. So far I've put down my answered childhood prayer to grow an inch or two over 6 foot, so that when I'm old I don't shrink too much below 6' even. I figure we'll write down all the major ones we can remember in rough chronological order up to the present, and record more as they happen. Then we can make a point of reading it on a specific day, like Passover or something.

I think Brandy & I have talked about doing this before, because when I mentioned it she smiled & said we'd talked about doing it before. I'm pretty sure that's true, there's always the hefty pile of forgotten resolutions, but then again, there are some traditions we've kept, like Wednesday's family sabbath/communion.

That Bwessed Awwangement From a letter by Tertullian, an Early Church Father, to his wife, ca. 202 AD (written in Brandy' birthday card) "...How beautiful, then, the marriage of two Christians, two who are one in hope, one in desire, one in the way of life they follow, one in the religion they practice. They are as brother and sister, both servants of the same Master. Nothing divides them, either in flesh or in Spirit. They are in very truth, two in one flesh; and where there is but one flesh there is also but one spirit. They pray together, they worship together, they fast together; instructing one another, encouraging one another, strengthening one another. Side by side they face difficulties and persecution, share their consolations. They have no secrets from one another, they never shun each other's company; they never bring sorrow to each other's hearts… Psalms and hymns they sing to one another. Hearing and seeing this, Christ rejoices. To such as these He gives His peace. Where there are two together, there also He is present, and where He is, there evil is not." And then Bonhoeffer:

http://weewingkuen.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/a-wedding-sermon-from-a-prison-cell/

It's an insult to the Lord Jesus Christ to be afraid of the demonic.

Jesus' foot even now presses down on satan's neck,

however he might twist and squirm,

our deliverance is sure and complete

all that satan had in us was purged on the cross

so we can now say with our Lord

"he has nothing in me".

If we are to believe the report we have received,

the one brought by the magi of the age,

then we must concede that as well as our loss of God

(by which I mean the opening of our eyes to see He was all along

merely a story of our own making) we have suffered the loss of ourselves.

We have awoken to find that we are not-in terms that would have been acceptable

to thinkers of the past-real, but only an accidental eddy of particle physics,

with said physics being merely the flickering of a holograph without a projector.

This vision itself is the projection of the collective minds of the seers

whose guild has risen to prominence in the past few centuries.

Based on the circumcision of all testimony from the past,

allowing only the bare hands of the present to chip away

at the stone of understanding with the chisel of falsification

and the razor of Ockham.

But then, there are the words of Jesus Christ,

before whom the judges of the earth are exposed as chaff,

as the archon beholds the accused, and will not, cannot see the answer

to the question "what is.......truth..."

When He who came fulfills his purpose as he is raised up

as all those on the side of truth gather round in answer

to His call, a call which made of such power

in word and deed

that those who recognize it

crash through the peer-reviewed walls constructed

by the clerics of the present covenant

to respond

and join the Man

on the cross,

and in Him

become real.

String theory.

Is it possible that beautiful creations could be the manifestation of strings?

Yes.

Brandy knits. And in this knitting, following a plan and pattern, a plan that was brought into being from non-being by desire, by a will (which in the language of the bible are the same thing) a string is knotted in on itself, pulled, pushed, wrapped, until a picture that exists only in the mind of the Maker takes shape in the material world.

A long, thin, uniform thing becomes by artistry a three-dimensional object, a curved and purposed thing, a rug for feet, a hat to cover a head, a pair of pants for an infant, or a scarf to shelter a human neck from the elements. And all from a string, the base element which when bent to the will of a thinker, becomes a solid, useful, and beautiful thing, which before the act, did not exist.

String theory - by Brandy.

It's Brandy's Birthday!

The van's broken down, so all I could do was order her something off Amazon, and make her a card.

Then, after the shop tows the car this morning, we'll be off to the Value Village for a thriftshop extravaganza. Nothing says Ivy family birthday like a trip to the thriftstore!

And Brandy doesn't look a day older than 26.