If you have been paying attention, you may have noticed that I’ve been rather scatter-brained lately. Losing CDs twice in one week is just one of the manifestations of my ditzy behavior. We often tease my oldest Muffin Mix about being blonde because she frequently makes silly blunders by mixing metaphors and abusing the English language in a way that would make our current president proud. Well, I must have blonde roots, because some of my cylinders have been misfiring.

All that is to explain the disconnected nature of this post. It reflects the condition of my brain. There’s some good stuff there, but I’m not sure how to fit it all together.

First, let me tell you what music I finally settled on purchasing with my gift certificate. I really appreciate all the ideas; they helped me narrow down what I wanted and I learned about some music that was new to me. I bought: four songs by a folk singer named Dar Williams from a CD called Beauty of the Rain (two songs are accompanied by Bela Fleck and two are with Alison Krauss…one called “The One Who Knows” is about motherhood and it made me cry: “Sometimes I will ask the moon where it shined upon you last…and shake my head and laugh and I can say, it all went by so fast…you’ll fly away, but take my hand until that day…so when they ask how far love goes, when my job’s done, you’ll be the one who knows”); “Fly Me to the Moon” by Frank Sinatra; “When I Fall in Love” by Nat King Cole; “Heart of Gold” and “Harvest Moon” by Neil Young; a Windham Hill rendition of one of my favorite hymns, “Be Still My Soul”; a Chieftains album, Celtic Wedding – Music of Brittany; a Swingle Singers album, Anyone for Mozart, Bach, Handel, Vivaldi? (this group sings classical, instrumental music acappella, thanks, Susan!); Mozart’s symphonies No. 40 and 41, James Levine conducting (only because I was afraid that Josh would think I was a cretin if I didn’t own these); and a couple of sappy tunes, “Up Where We Belong” by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes and “The Wind Beneath My Wings” from Windham Hill. Since I have so many kindred spirits here, many of your suggestions were things I already have. I really appreciated the recommendations of Innocence Mission from Eucharis (there are some free downloads of their music at Amazon; it’s very pretty…I think my oldest son and his wife would like it, too) and Mindy Smith from Cindy (it wasn’t at the Apple Music Store, but I found her CD at Borders on Friday, and it’s really good).

Steve sent me this top ten list of the most dangerous intersections in the country. I won’t be adding it to my top ten lists page, but I noticed that one of the intersections is in Sacramento, our neck of the woods.

This lady has written one of those columns I sprain my neck reading because my head is nodding up and down in agreement so vigorously the whole time. Pete Seeger used to lament, “Where have all the flowers gone?” Now we have pansies in droves, and Kelly McGinley correctly questions, “Where have all the backbones gone?” Here’s a paragraph, to tempt you to click through:

This country was founded and became great because of the patriarchal mentality. Families were balanced with a patriarch and a matriarch. Men protected women and children from the dangers of the world. Families were the way God intended them to be. It has often been said when a country is in judgment, “The women are in control and the children rule”. God established a natural order for men and women and if we want God’s blessings, we must return to that order. Women have taken over many denominations making them pro abortion and pro sodomy. They have infiltrated the military, exploded into the workplace, while their children are either being killed or left to the wolves. The only hope for the children is men turning back to God’s Holy Word and returning this country to a patriarchal society again, but I am not holding my breath.

This weekend my friend told me about something called “the emerging church” movement. From what I’ve read of it, I think it needs to stop emerging and crawl back under the rock from which it escaped…or at least chain itself to the Rock before it drifts too far from orthodox Christianity. I noticed the words “relevant” and “culture” bandied about quite freely. Hmmm. My friend knows of an “emergent” church that gives the congregation (although they probably use a more hip word, like “participants” or “worshippers”) paints, to help them express their feelings during the service. Many churches in England emerged from their shells a long time ago, and I’m afraid they may be headed for the white Cliffs of Dover and a chilly plunge into the English Channel. The new idea for cultural relevance there, in order to “attract more young people,” is to hold a contest to create an “eleventh commandment.”

I’d be interested in Master Matthews’s take on the idea that the non-churched, biblically illiterate younger generation needs such creative innovations to help them be attracted to the gospel. We must resolve to teach our own children to have a mature, uncompromising faith which doesn’t wilt under trials and evil circumstances. This means that we can’t stay on a milk diet ourselves:

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age,that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exerciesed to discern both good and evil. ~Hebrews 5:12-14

There’s lots to chew on. Use those chompers, but be careful what you bite with them!

The Muffin Mixes and I have just returned from a whirlwind visit to the big city, our one-time stomping grounds in the Bay Area. We are avowed country mice, but we had a lovely all-girl time, nevertheless.

Last night we attended a dance put on by our friends’ church. They host dances every couple of months, and the community center where these are held is always packed with families who come to participate, some from quite a distance. Even young children dance the country and folk dances; instructions are given, with a short practice time, before every new dance.

I met a sweet family, the Clingmans. Eugene, the father, works with our friend Jay Grimstead. I spent most of the evening visiting with Mrs. Clingman and several of their children, who were very friendly. My youngest daughter enjoyed holding their baby more than dancing, although all three girls broke in their dancing shoes.

Today my dear friend took us shopping. We spent a couple of hours in the IKEA store, where I bought a white ceramic pie dish, a sheepskin for a little boy’s birthday, an artists’ wooden model on a stand (for sketching the human figure in different poses) and some Swedish chocolate, yum! I also drooled over the pine bookshelves. We are not yet sure how we are going to do the shelves in our new library. Lumber is outrageously expensive, so purchasing ready-made shelves might be more reasonable.

We also visited a yarn store (I bought some linen yarn that was on sale, in several colors, to knit lacy washcloths from a pattern I found in Knitter’s Stash); a real Christian book store, which still has some “Jesus junk” but, due to a subversive reformed employee, carries quite a lot of good books, including many Puritan classics (I found Laura in Lyon’s recommended book by Martin Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression); and a kitchen store where we got some heavy-duty wooden spoons and plastic-coated spatulas, as well as some more measuring cups and measuring spoons.

After a quick pizza dinner, the girls and I loaded up the car, delayed a bit because I had misplaced some CDs (yep, again), but we finally hit the highway and headed for the hills. A diet coke helped me stay alert, along with cranking up the stereo and belting out Keith Green and Rich Mullins numbers. We had a fun trip, especially since we got to spend some quality time with some of our dearest friends, but we breathed a sigh of relief as we rolled down our gravel driveway and back into our country bumpkin life. Despite two days of undiluted testosterone running rampant, the house was still standing and in pretty good shape. There’s no place like home.

My dear one gave me a gift certificate to use at the Apple Music Store. My problem is that I’m overwhelmed, not only with gratitude, but with the amount of music there is to choose from. I can either purchase individual songs or complete albums.

I need some music recommendations. My tastes are very eclectic…I like bluegrass, some country, Celtic, classical and some Christian music. I don’t really like jazz, but I do occasionally enjoy some pop music, too. Would you let me know some of your favorites? If you want to recommend something in a genre I haven’t listed, go right ahead. I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt me to expand my musical horizons a bit…but no rap or hip-hop please!

From Charles Spurgeon’s commentary in The Treasury of David on Psalm 119:1~

The holy life is a walk, a steady progress, a quiet advance, a lasting continuance. Enoch walked with God. Good men always long to be better, and hence they go forward. Good men are never idle, and hence they do not lie down or loiter, but they are still walking onward to their desired end. They are not hurried, and worried, and flurried, and so they keep the even tenor of their way, walking steadily towards heaven; and they are not in perplexity as to how to conduct themselves, for they have a perfect rule, which they are happy to walk by. The law of the Lord is not irksome to them; its commandments are not grievous, and its restrictions are not slavish in their esteem. It does not appear to them to be an impossible law, theoretically admirable but practically absurd, but they walk by it and in it. They do not consult it now and then as a sort of rectifier of their wanderings, but they use it as a chart for their daily sailing, a map of the road for their life-journey. Nor do they ever regret that they have entered upon the path of obedience, else they would leave it, and that without difficulty, for a thousand temptations offer them opportunity to return; their continued walk in the law of the Lord is their best testimony to the blessedness of such a condition of life. Yes, they are blessed even now. The Psalmist himself bore witness to the fact: he had tried and proved it, and wrote it down, as a fact which defied all denial. Here it stands in the forefront of David’s magnum opus, written on the topmost line of his greatest Psalm—”Blessed are they who walk in the law of the Lord.” Rough may be the way, stern the rule, hard the discipline,—all these we know and more,—but a thousand heaped-up blessednesses are still found in godly living, for which we bless the Lord.

Asked today by my 4-year-old:

“Where does the fire go when it disappears?”

“If a boy and a puppy are born on the same day, would they be twins?”

The last question led to an involved discussion about heaven, one of his favorite topics. Don’t ask me how we got from point A to point B. My brain already hurts.