it has been another interesting week. i wonder how long i have left here. you ever wonder that? life is so intense, so packed full, so mottled with 'light' and 'dark' and everything between. yet it's just a moment. have been meditating on psalm 90 a bit lately...the part about the tenuousness, the fragility, the scope, the Determiner of our lives. i tend to think i'm so 'big' but in God's sight i am just another of the vast teeming innumerable human host He has created and interacts with. i'm infintesimally 'tiny', He infintesimally 'big'. 'Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God. Thou turnest man to destruction and sayest, "return ye children of men". for a 1000 years in Thy sight are as yesterday when it is passed and as a watch in the night. Thou carriest them away as with a flood. they are as a sleep. in the morning they are like grass which groweth up. in the morning it flourisheth and groweth up. in the evening it is cut down and withereth. for we are consumed by thine anger and by thy wrath are we troubled. thou hast set our iniquities before Thee, our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance for all our days are passed away in Thy wrath. We spend our years as a tale that is told.' what a totally different perspective! it sounds like He is the One really calling all the shots whereas my perspective is that i am. i and the rest of humanity wonder why He allows evil. here He clearly reveals why evil happens. we are all getting just a little bit of what we deserve! we just don't like that answer so we continue to 'wonder' or actively, possibly only on a subconscious level, curse Him when anything we don't like in our lives, the lives of others, the weather (!), etc. 'goes bad'. the real wonder is that we don't really get what we deserve. the worst possible situation we ever experience here is light years better than hell which is the just desert of each one of us...WE JUST DON'T SEE IT! today, more than usual, God blessed me with simple, child-like thankfulness to Him. i experience it so little but when my heart instinctively looks up to Him with gratitude for something i count it a precious gift. oh that that gift would be lodged permanently in my heart about everything! wow...but, yea, i've been thinking i'm just a tiny, little wisp...here today...maybe gone tomorrow. blessed be His Name...God Almighty.
as usual i have so much to tell you and a nano's time to tell. let's see, yesterday i bought a ton of food out in lancaster (buying as much bulk as possible where it doesn't impact freshness) and bought a 16" blue scooter. i was unsettled on the scooter. had intended to buy the parts, prime them and put it together (the last would have taken TIME). prayed. prayed on the way out. walked in the shop and the guy i talked with explained about the metal, how it is prepped etc. and with this new, helpful perspective i decided to just get a finished scooter. no green one around so settled on a blue. i am still a bit conflicted about it all so we'll just take it as it comes bathed hopefully with a lot of prayer. the new neighbor john asked if it was possible to do some work on his car this coming week in the garage. i used that as impetus to clean up the ground level. that felt so good to see it all clean and mostly organized. hope to buy a hand cranking grain mill soon as i just got 50 lbs of wheat! just made a bid (my first) on ebay for a very nice, seemingly sturdy cast iron model called corona for $31. probably won't get it but it is kind of exciting. i pray that God may do what He knows best. possibly it's not the one for me.
this am ran out of choir/church during the closing prayer to picket several abortionists' homes and at einstein hospital. jerry, a man i have met at warminster planned parenthood, invited me to come. he and a man named john, who sends a newsletter to people in prison for pro-life activity contra law, do this several sundays a month. between the two of them they have been prolife activists for almost 80 years. john actually started in 1970 when nyc law brought abortion mills there. he was the second person at the mill when it opened and he has been active since. i went with them to prayer vigils with signs in the front of two abortionist's homes and out in front of einstein hospital in philly which performs abortions. both have been sued, have been in jail so i learned a lot on a variety of different fronts. the 'feds' as john called them are monitoring his 15 time a year newsletter which he sent me but i haven't had time to read yet. so i guess i'm being monitored now too...maybe we all are... john advocates what he calls the use of force but doesn't have the ability to make actions conform to conviction. when i asked what he would do if he did have that ability he said he would probably destroy abortion mills. jerry, on the other hand, advocates being active at the mills. (i met him at warminster planned parenthood) i explained to john that i did not agree with using force (killing abortionists, destroying buildings but did feel that protesting as well as taking action along the lines spelled out in isaiah 1:17 was about where i was in spirit but like him did not have the courage of my conviction. i told them that my time sunday was probably a once-and-done because i do not currently feel that is what i should be spending time doing but all in all it was a very informative time. john also said as far as he knows there are only less than 20 people in prison for pro-life activities (for using some kind of force) in the united states. there is only one woman..a person who shot tiller (the famous abortionist in kansas who performs late term abortions). among the number of very interesting stories this caught my attention. this woman shot tiller purposefully through both wrists (this is the story john tells) so he couldn't perform abortions and he came to the clinic the next day with wrists bandaged up to carry on as usual (i thot of c.s. lewis character in, i believe, perelandra named weston portrayed as a demon-possessed robut who ransom finally killed with his bare hands). she received a 27 year sentence. when bush came on prolife people were hoping to set up an executive pardon... which attempt failed due to her comment when told about the possibility...'don't expect me to say i'm sorry'. so john is sending me names, info of various sorts i requested and will start sending his newsletter. hope i have time to brush my teeth.
most of the last paragraph was written tonight (tues. 12.30). have gotten nothing else done since God surprised me with two paintable days. He has enabled me to come within a day of finishing everything up on the parsonage and barn. i'm hoping tomorrow to get a bit more done before it starts turning colder. we will see what He brings.
exciting...i hope...when i sat down at the library the first thing i checked was the bid on the grain mill. i 'won'. (hope i feel this way after i receive and use it!) am cautiously pleased. it looks real sturdy and just-what-i'd-envisioned in the picture so we'll see. first time bidding on ebay so we'll see if i truly am a 'winner'. i prayed that i might have it if God willed as i bid...but God may have willed nothing but another trial to perfect my heart understanding that no one or nothing can be counted on..only Him. we'll see... He's good either way!
better send this your way. have a good week. love, dad
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