Fan Art - funny stuff!
Romans 7
21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
....the moment when you encounter a painting that grips you. For some reason it stands out from the crowd of images you’ve already seen and makes a powerful connection. You like it. It moves you. You’ve seen something new and interesting here. But after about 90 seconds, you have to admit that you don’t really know what to do next.Yup, that's usually me! Here is the list of things to do -
Acts 19:11-12
And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them.
This painting, of the Comtesse d'Haussonville, is just....breathtaking. The artist is Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and I had never heard of him before I saw this painting at the Frick Collection. I just stood there for a while, captivated.
Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet.
Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon's Portico. None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem. And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women, so that they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, that as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them. The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed.
| You Are 59% Feminist |
 You aren't a total traditionalist when it comes to gender roles. But you're no feminist either. You generally think that women should be treated as equals, but you're not convinced the world should be gender neutral. |
So - do missionaries preach first and help second, or is it the other way around?
And - what did Jesus do?
And Can it Be - Charles Wesley/Thomas Campbell. You can hear the tune here -
And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Savior’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain—
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?He left His Father’s throne above
So free, so infinite His grace—
Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam’s helpless race:
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in Him, is mine;
Alive in Him, my living Head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach th’eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.
Bold I approach th’eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.The Chorus-
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
This has been my favorite hymn since - forever, I guess! I learned it and sang it in a choir when I was 11 or so and it has stayed at the top ever since. I love how it tells the Gospel so clearly and now, as an adult, It tickles me that Wesley, an Arminian, could write such a "Calvinistic" hymn (wink!).
...my impression of what is “out there” is pretty much the same as hers. To my pre-existing impression that a great many of the most prestigious prizes in this field have for years been awarded only to books that pass ideological tests which practically no classical work could survive except on mere sufferance was added the finding that standard reading lists are heavily larded with them, and are missing many of the best, given that they cannot pass these tests (Hugh Lofting, anyone? Kipling? Frederick Douglass?) Or perhaps, given the current rabies of the library world--a world monumental conceit and stupidity--to discard old books, especially if nobody around here reads them any more, perhaps a number have simply been euthanized.
Here it is, and I am highlighting the ones that I (and usually some or all of the children) have read - not as many as I would have thought! But my oldest and I have read other books by some of the authors (Sayers, Forster, Hemingway) - just not the ones listed.
Aesop. Fables.
Atwater, Richard and Florence. Mr. Popper’s Penguins.
Bemelmans, Ludwig. Madeline.
Benchley, Nathaniel. Sam the Minuteman.
Blume, Judy. Freckle Juice.
Brown, Marcia. Stone Soup.
Brown, Margaret Wise. Goodnight Moon.
Brunhoff, Jean de. The Story of Babar.
Burton, Virginia Lee. Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.
Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Cleary, Beverly. The Mouse and the Motorcycle.
Collodi, Carlo. Adventures of Pinocchio.
Crews, Donald. Freight Train.
Daugherty, James. Andy and the Lion.
dePaola, Tomie. Strega Nona.
Flack, Marjorie. The Angus series.
Freeman, Don. Corduroy.
Fritz, Jean. The Cabin Faced West.
Gag, Wanda. Millions of Cats.
Galdone, Paul. The Three Little Pigs.
Goble, Paul. The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses.
Grahame, Kenneth. The Reluctant Dragon.
Gramatky, Hardie. Little Toot.
Hoban, Russell. Bedtime for Frances.
Johnson, Crockett. Harold and the Purple Crayon.
Keats, Ezra Jack. The Snowy Day
Kraus, Robert. Leo the Late Bloomer.
Krauss, Ruth. The Carrot Seed.
Leaf, Munro. The Story of Ferdinand.
Lear, Edward. A Book of Nonsense.
Levinson, Riki. Watch the Stars Come Out.
Lionni, Leo. Frederick.
Lobel, Arnold. Frog and Toad Are Friends.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. Paul Revere's Ride.
Lopshire, Robert. Put Me in the Zoo.
Marshall, James. George and Martha.
McCloskey, Robert. Make Way for Ducklings.
McDermott, Gerald. Anansi the Spider.
Milne, A.A. Winnie-the-Pooh.
Parish, Peggy. Amelia Bedelia.
Piper, Watty. The Little Engine That Could.
Potter, Beatrix. The Tale of Peter Rabbit.
Rey, H.A. Curious George.
Selden, George. The Cricket in Times Square.
Sendak, Maurice. Where the Wild Things Are.
Seuss, Dr. The Cat in the Hat.
Slobodkina, Esphyr. Caps for Sale.
Steig, William. Sylvester and the Magic Pebble.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. A Child’s Garden of Verses
Taylor, Sydney. All-of-a-Kind Family.
Thurber, James. Many Moons.
Udry, Janice May. A Tree is Nice.
Van Allsburg, Chris. The Garden of Abdul Gasazi.
Viorst, Judith. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.
Ward, Lynd. The Biggest Bear.
White, E.B. Charlotte’s Web.
Yashima, Taro. Crow Boy.
Zion, Gene. Harry the Dirty Dog.
Zolotow, Charlotte. William’s Doll.
Alexander, Lloyd. Chronicles of Prydain.
Andersen, Hans Christian. Fairy Tales.
Babbitt, Natalie. Tuck Everlasting.
Baum, L. Frank. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Boston, L.M. The Children of Green Knowe.
Brink, Carol Ryrie. Caddie Woodlawn.
Brooks, Gwendolyn. Bronzeville Boys and Girls.
Burnett, Frances Hodgson. The Secret Garden.
Byars, Betsy. The Summer of the Swans.
Cooper, Susan. The Dark is Rising Sequence.
Dodge, Mary Mapes. Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates.
Eager, Edward. Half Magic.
Edmonds, Walter D. The Matchlock Gun.
Enright, Elizabeth. Thimble Summer.
Estes, Eleanor. The Moffats.
Farley, Walter. The Black Stallion.
Field, Rachel. Hitty: Her First Hundred Years.
Fitzhugh, Louise. Harriet the Spy.
George, Jean Craighead. My Side of the Mountain.
Grahame, Kenneth. The Wind in the Willows.
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales (Hänsel and Gretel, Rapunzel, etc.).
Hamilton, Virginia. The House of Dies Drear.
Henry, Marguerite. Misty of Chincoteague.
Howe, Deborah. Bunnicula.
Hughes, Langston. The Dream Keeper and Other Poems.
Irving, Washington. Rip Van Winkle.
Juster, Norton. The Phantom Tollbooth.
Kipling, Rudyard. The Jungle Book.
Knight, Eric. Lassie Come Home.
Konigsburg, E.L. From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.
Lamb, Charles and Mary. Tales from Shakespeare.
Lawson, Robert. Ben and Me.
Lenski, Lois. Strawberry Girl.
Lester, Julius. To Be a Slave.
Lewis, C.S. The Complete Chronicles of Narnia.
Lindgren, Astrid. Pippi Longstocking.
Lofting, Hugh. Doctor Dolittle.
Lovelace, Maud Hart. Betsy-Tacy.
Macaulay, David. Castle.
MacLachlan, Patricia. Sarah Plain and Tall.
McCloskey, Robert. Homer Price.
Merrill, Jean. The Pushcart War.
Montgomery, L.M. Anne of Green Gables.
Nesbit, E. The Railway Children.
North, Sterling. Rascal.
Norton, Mary. The Borrowers.
O’Brien, Robert C. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh.
Paterson, Katherine. Bridge to Terabithia.
Pearce, Philippa. Tom’s Midnight Garden.
Perrault, Charles. The Complete Fairy Tales (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, etc.).
Sawyer, Ruth. Roller Skates.
Sewell, Anna. Black Beauty.
Sharp, Margery. The Rescuers.
Spyri, Johanna. Heidi.
Travers, P. L. Mary Poppins.
Wilder, Laura Ingalls. Little House on the Prairie.
Wyss, Johann David. Swiss Family Robinson.
Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women.
Bagnold, Enid. National Velvet.
Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451.
Bunyan, John. The Pilgrim’s Progress.
Christopher, John. The White Mountains.
Cooper, James Fenimore. The Last of the Mohicans.
Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe.
Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol.
Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
Dumas, Alexandre. The Count of Monte Cristo.
Eckert, Allan W. Incident At Hawk’s Hill.
Engdahl, Sylvia Louise. Enchantress From the Stars.
Forbes, Esther. Johnny Tremain.
Forester, C.S. The Horatio Hornblower Series.
Frank, Anne. Diary of a Young Girl.
Frost, Robert. Poems.
George, Jean Craighead. Julie of the Wolves.
Hautzig, Esther. The Endless Steppe.
Hilton, James. Goodbye, Mr. Chips.
Hinton, S.E. The Outsiders.
Hugo, Victor. The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Hunt, Irene. Across Five Aprils.
Hunter, Mollie. A Stranger Came Ashore.
Irving, Washington. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
Keith, Harold. Rifles for Watie.
Keller, Helen. Story of My Life.
Kipling, Rudyard. Kim.
LeGuin, Ursula K. A Wizard of Earthsea.
L’Engle, Madeleine. A Wrinkle in Time.
London, Jack. Call of the Wild.
Malory, Sir Thomas. Le Morte d’Arthur.
Mazer, Harry. The Last Mission.
McCaffrey, Anne. Dragonsong.
O’Dell, Scott. Island of the Blue Dolphins.
O’Hara, Mary. My Friend Flicka.
Paterson, Katherine. Jacob Have I Loved.
Peck, Richard. The Ghost Belonged To Me.
Peck, Robert Newton. A Day No Pigs Would Die.
Pyle, Howard. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood.
Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan. The Yearling.
Rawls, Wilson. Where the Red Fern Grows.
Reiss, Johanna. The Upstairs Room.
Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de. The Little Prince.
Schaefer, Jack. Shane.
Scott, Sir Walter. Ivanhoe.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein.
Smith, Betty. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
Speare, Elizabeth George. The Witch of Blackbird Pond.
Sperry, Armstrong. Call It Courage.
Steinbeck, John. The Red Pony.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Treasure Island.
Taylor, Mildred D. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit.
Twain, Mark. Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
Uchida, Yoshiko. Journey to Topaz.
Verne, Jules. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Webster, Jean. Daddy-Long-Legs.
Wells, H.G. War of the Worlds.
Wilder, Thornton. The Bridge of San Luis Rey.
Yep, Laurence. Dragonwings.
Zindel, Paul. The Pigman.
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart.
Agee, James. A Death in the Family.
Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Anonymous. Beowulf.
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice.
Baldwin, James. Go Tell It on the Mountain.
The Bible.
Bolt, Robert. A Man for All Seasons.
Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre.
Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights.
Buck, Pearl. The Good Earth.
Camus, Albert. The Stranger.
Cather, Willa. My Ántonia.
Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quixote.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales.
Chekhov, Anton. The Cherry Orchard.
Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone.
Conrad, Joseph. Lord Jim.
Cormier, Robert. The Chocolate War.
Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage.
Dante. The Divine Comedy.
Defoe, Daniel. Moll Flanders.
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations.
Dickinson, Emily. Poems.
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment.
Dreiser, Theodore. An American Tragedy.
Eliot, George. Silas Marner.
Eliot, T.S. Murder in the Cathedral.
Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Essays.
Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury.
Fielding, Henry. Tom Jones.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby.
Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary.
Forster, E.M. A Passage to India.
Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.
Galsworthy, John. The Forsyte Saga.
Golding, William. Lord of the Flies.
Graves, Robert. I, Claudius.
Greene, Graham. The Power and the Glory.
Hardy, Thomas. Tess of the D'Urbervilles.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter.
Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Henry, O. Stories ("The Gift of the Magi," "The Ransom of Red Chief," etc.).
Hesse, Hermann. Steppenwolf.
Homer. The Iliad.
---. The Odyssey.
Hughes, Langston. Poems.
Hugo, Victor. Les Misérables.
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World.
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll's House.
James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw.
Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Kafka, Franz. The Trial.
Keats, John. Poems.
Kennedy, John F. Profiles in Courage.
Koestler, Arthur. Darkness at Noon.
Lawrence, D.H. Sons and Lovers.
Lawrence, Jerome and Robert E. Lee. Inherit the Wind.
Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird.
Lewis, Sinclair. Babbitt.
Llewellyn, Richard. How Green Was My Valley.
Mann, Thomas. The Magic Mountain.
Marlowe, Christopher. Dr. Faustus.
Maugham, W. Somerset. Of Human Bondage.
McCullers, Carson. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick.
Miller, Arthur. The Crucible.
Monsarrat, Nicholas. The Cruel Sea.
O’Connor, Flannery. Wise Blood.
O'Neill, Eugene. Long Day's Journey into Night.
Orwell, George. 1984.
---. Animal Farm.
Pasternak, Boris. Doctor Zhivago.
Poe, Edgar Allan. Short stories.
Potok, Chaim. The Chosen.
Rand, Ayn. The Fountainhead.
Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front.
Rostand, Edmond. Cyrano de Bergerac.
Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye.
Sandburg, Carl. Abraham Lincoln.
Sayers, Dorothy L. The Nine Tailors.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet.
---. King Lear.
---. Much Ado About Nothing.
---. Sonnets.
Shaw, George Bernard. Pygmalion.
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley. The School for Scandal.
Shute, Nevil. A Town Like Alice.
Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle.
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.
Sophocles. Oedipus Rex.
Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels.
Thackeray, William Makepeace. Vanity Fair.
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden.
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings.
Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina.
Trollope, Anthony. Barchester Towers.
Turgenev, Ivan. Fathers and Sons.
Twain, Mark. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Updike, John. Rabbit, Run.
Valladares, Armando. Against All Hope.
Virgil. The Aeneid.
Voltaire. Candide.
Warren, Robert Penn. All the King's Men.
Waugh, Evelyn. A Handful of Dust.
Welty, Eudora. Collected Short Stories.
Wharton, Edith. The Age of Innocence.
White, T.H. The Once and Future King.
Wiesel, Elie. Night.
Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Wilder, Thornton. Our Town.
Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire.
Wolfe, Thomas. Look Homeward, Angel.
Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse.
Wouk, Herman. The Caine Mutiny.
Wright, Richard. Native Son.
Today I am starting another *game* with my friends on my favorite message board. I had lost 58 pounds but I put 13 back on in the past few weeks - bummer. Anyway, I am really hoping to lose those 13 pounds over the next 2 months!
My plan involves eating well (South Beach diet, phase 2, with an occasional special meal to keep me from feeling totally deprived AND to keep my body from getting too complacent), drinking lots of water (100-128 oz. per day) and regular exercise (a combination of strength training and cardio, 30-40m. per day, 5-6 days per week). It worked well till about 2 months ago when I started feeling sorry for myself over several things and I started to let myself go. So I am praying for self-control and focus - I am tired of being *FAT* and I want to get to at least just *fat*, if not *regular*.
Today's weigh-in - 210. UGGGHHH - I was down to 197 6 weeks ago!
Our work takes us throughout the world to extend the love of Jesus Christ to hurting people. For over 35 years, Samaritan's Purse has done our utmost to follow Christ's command by going to the aid of the world's poor, sick, and suffering. We are an effective means of reaching hurting people in countries around the world with food, medicine, and other assistance in the Name of Jesus Christ. This, in turn, earns us a hearing for the Gospel, the Good News of eternal life through Jesus Christ.
Covenant Mercies is eager to harness the abundant resources that God has provided to serve our brothers and sisters abroad, and to come alongside churches in areas plagued by famine, natural disasters, and various “third world conditions” as they seek to embody the love and mercy of Christ in their communities.
Africa Inland Mission (AIM) is an evangelical Christian mission agency dedicated to the establishment of maturing churches among the peoples of Africa....We are engaged in a wide range of ministries including evangelism and church planting among Africa's unreached and least reached peoples, leadership development, youth ministry, medical ministry, community development and community health, aviation, and support service ministries.
Matthew 28:18-20
And Jesus came and said to them,"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
We can fight malaria by distributing free mosquito nets, which may cost $10-$60 each by the time you get them down often impassable dirt roads. Or, as Shikwati suggests, we can train locals how to operate a business spraying homes with an insecticide that will keep them mosquito-free for six months at about $2 a family.
We can spend billions importing medication, or you can invest in local farms that grow the Artemisinin, a Chinese herb with potent anti-malarial properties, and the factories that process it.
We can continue the endless cycle of need and dependency, or you can create jobs, develop indigenous capacity, and build a sustainable future.
Aid not only crowds out local entrepreneurship, it makes governments lazy and deprives countries of the incentive to build effective institutions. Public revenue derived from taxes makes governments directly responsible to their citizens. Free money builds white elephants and bloated bureaucracies, it being far easier to create new government jobs than implement policies to fight unemployment, especially when someone else is footing the bill.
The perverse result is that many of Africa's best and brightest become bureaucrats or NGO workers when they should be scientists or entrepreneurs. Which is why some are wondering: why not just take the aid money and invest in local business?
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Matthew 6:24
You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. Matthew 7:5
ACCORDING TO YOUR ANSWERS,
You fall exactly on the border
of two political philosophies...
CONSERVATIVE LIBERTARIAN
“So much attention is paid to the aggressive sins, such as violence and cruelty and greed with all their tragic effects, that too little attention is paid to the passive sins, such as apathy and laziness, which in the long run can have a more devastating effect.”
