Careful Thought

Gas pumps in Colorado Springs won’t sell more than $100 at a time.  I needed more.  Ouch.

Tags gas prices

… is that they can make even John McCain look good by comparison.  (HT: DPGI )

Tags mccain, politics

Fox News has this tidbit:

OMAHA, Neb. —  An Omaha man struggling to breathe used a steak knife to perform an at-home tracheotomy.

Steve Wilder says he thought he was going to die when he awoke one night last week and couldn’t breathe.

Wilder says he didn’t call 911 because he didn’t think help would arrive in time. So, the 55-year-old says, he got a steak knife from the kitchen and made a small hole in his throat, allowing air to gush in.

Wilder suffered from throat cancer and related breathing problems several years ago. About that time, he had an episode where he couldn’t breathe because his air passages swelled shut. He says that’s what happened this time around.

Doctors don’t expect Wilder to suffer any adverse effects from the tracheotomy once it’s healed.

Wow.  I’ve done my share of DIY doctoring — I once took out a really nasty splinter from my own thumb — but I’m not sure if I could pull this one off…

Tags DIY, miscellaneous, tracheotomy

My niece is a nun.  She entered St Meinrad Abbey in Indiana and took orders as a Benedictine nun in 2006.  She’s also an incredible artist, and has turned her hand to producing icons, which have been made into greeting cards and note cards.  This is from The Dome : 

[Sister Jeana] is one of four artists whose icons will be on display at the Saint Meinrad Archabbey Library Gallery, St. Meinrad, Indiana, May 2 through June 3.  Icons in the exhibit represent a diversity of styles, ranging from traditional egg tempera and gold leaf on wood panel to the contemporary medium of acrylic on canvas. Sister Jeana works in acrylic and gold leaf on canvas. Her icons in the exhibit include images of Jesus Christ Savior, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Vladimir Mother of God, and the Holy Family.

Icons were originally painted by artists in monasteries in the Eastern Church, where they are an integral part of church architecture and worship. Appropriate subjects for representation in icons include saints, the Virgin Mary, and depictions of narratives from the Bible. Icons are considered to be windows into the realm of the spirit, inviting the viewer to contemplation and prayer.

A northern Illinois native, Sister Jeana says that she “grew up loving art” and was particularly drawn to portraiture. She attended Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, with a major in religious studies and a minor in art history, and spent a junior semester researching pilgrimage and studying art history in Rome. She entered Monastery Immaculate Conception in 2003 and made her first profession in 2006. She currently teaches theology at Providence Junior–Senior High School in Clarksville, Indiana.

When Sister Jeana began painting icons several years ago, she discovered that iconography built on her love of portraiture. Since then, she has been studying the history, technique, and spirituality of creating and praying with icons. She believes that painting icons is part of a lifelong calling.

I think it’s very cool when faith, art, and God-given talent intersect.

Tags faith, faith in art, family, icons, St Meinrad Abbey

Things are heating up in southern Chile as the Chaiten volcano continues to erupt.  More than 1500 have been evacuated from at-risk areas and ash was blasted 12 miles into the sky.  UK Telegraph has some amazing pics and Watt’s Up has video.  Here are a few pics:

(Photos: AFP/Getty )

Tags Chaiten, Chile, volcanoes

“Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure (and) which insures to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.”

( Charles Carroll , signer of the Declaration and member of Continental Congress)

Tags Charles Carroll, faith, founders, qotd, separation of church and state

Bloodthirsty Liberal channels a Michelle Malkin piece on Starbucks’ ongoing issues with minor concepts like capitalism, border security and the like.

Over the past weeks, however, Starbucks has left an increasingly bad taste.

David Boaz wrote of the company’s ridiculous policy barring gift card purchasers from customizing personalized cards with the phrase “Laissez Faire.”

Then there’s the price. A grande caramel macchiato puts you out $5. Two or three of those a week adds up. And in these times, every penny counts.

Lots of other consumers are coming to the same conclusion. Starbucks’ profits are down 28 percent.

…

I’ve always liked Dunkin’ Donuts coffee better, anyway. And as unapologetic supporters of immigration enforcement, they deserve your business and mine so much more.

Dunkin’: Tastes good, cheaper, and good for national security. Drink up!

Unfortunately the nearest DnD is halfway across town, while Starbots are metastasizing on every corner.

Tags border security, capitalism, Dunkin Donuts, laissez faire, Starbucks

We’re working through Focus on the Family’s Truth Project in our home groups.  It’s a great curriculum for small groups and focuses on the differences between biblical and non-biblical worldviews.  Last week we looked at our unity with God, and what that means in terms of relationships with each other.  I think there’s a common theme in these passages.  Can you figure it out?

• Love one another (1 Peter 1:22)
• Bear one another’s burdens (Gal 6:2)
• Pray for one another (James 5:16)
• Forebear one another (Eph 4:2)
• Be kind to one another (Eph 4:32)
• Admonish one another (Col 3:16)
• Build one another up (Rom 14:19)
• Give preference to one another (Rom 12:10)
• Live in harmony with one another (Rom 12:16)
• Encourage one another (1 Thes 5:11)
• Submit to one another (Eph 5:21)
• Serve one another (Gal 5:13)
• Accept one another (Rom 15:7)
• Be devoted to one another (Rom 12:10)
• Teach one another (Col 3:16)
• Comfort one another (1 Thes 4:18)
• Forgive one another (Eph 4:32)
• Be of the same mind with one another (Rom 15:5)
• Regard one another as more important (Phil 2:3)

If I didn’t know better, I’d almost think that we were supposed to look out for each other’s interests and take care of each other.

Tags faith, truth project, unity of the body

Looks like things haven’t changed since I was in school, except that back then the rumor was that you could die if you ate five packs of PopRocks and drank a Coke.  (HT: WootBlog )

1. If you hiccup and fart at the same time, your stomach will turn inside out.
2. If you combine turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and one green vegetable, you get the chemicals which make LSD, which is why Thanksgiving always gets so freaky and everyone gets into fights.
3. AIDS came from people French-kissing their dogs.
4. The secret ingredient in Taco Bell 7-Layer Burritos is horse blood.
5. Simon Cowell is actually from Oklahoma, and just talks that way on TV.
6. If you fold a dollar bill a certain way, you can see Betsy Ross naked.
7. Daddy Longlegs’ legs taste like spearmint.
8. The inventor of Elmer’s Glue was born with horns, and that’s his picture on the bottle.
9. Everyone who has ever beat Ninja Gaiden Black has died the next day.
10. ABBA stands for “All-father Baal Beats Angels”.  [Hah! I knew it!]
11. Yu-Gi-Oh! was supposed to have a new season but the FBI stepped in and shut it down under the Patriot Act, and no one knows why.
12. The phrase “Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge” is propaganda created and promoted by the American Fudge Council.
13. Girls don’t wear underwear in Canada.
14. The film rating XXX is pronounced “kccchhggh”.
15. If you have ever touched a baked potato without gloves, the government has your fingerprints on file.
16. There is cocaine at the center of Polly-O String Cheese.
17. If you play Paper Mario for exactly fifty-five hours, fifty-five minutes, and fifty-five seconds, you’ll get a cheat code that lets you play as Lara Croft… naked .

Tags miscellaneous

I’ve been wrestling with the propriety of confronting unbelievers with their sin in an effort to evangelize them.  On the one hand, it smacks of self-righteous religious hypocrisy.  On the other hand are fingers.  Here’s what Charles Spurgeon had to say on the matter:

“Men are perishing, and if it be unpolite to tell them so, it can only be so where the devil is the master of the ceremonies.

Out upon your soul-destroying politeness; the Lord give us a little honest love to souls, and this superficial gentility will soon vanish. I could with considerable refreshment to myself pour sarcasm after sarcasm upon religious cowardice. I would cheerfully sharpen my knife and dash it into the heart of this mean vice. There is nothing to be said in its favor.

It is not even humble; it is only pride of too beggarly a sort to own itself.”

(HT: Pyromaniacs )

Tags faith, sin, spurgeon