Why I have not written -

I spent a wonderful weekend with my daughter at the Father/Child Retreat at Camp Yamhill.

Then on Monday or Tuesday - my computer crashed - still not working. But I am trying to fix it.

The public library is a wonderful place!

Over 100 degrees in Portland today - I can't wait for the winter so I can complain about the cold too!

Daughter's love for Daddy makes hope spring eternal

By Garrison Keillor:

My sandy-haired, gap-toothed daughter has written "I love Daddy" in green chalk on the driveway, and of course it's gratifying to get this endorsement, but a father is never sure if he's doing the right thing or not. I am an indulgent parent who wants to make her happy, but instead of taking her to swim class, I wonder if I shouldn't send her to hoeing school. I learned to hoe when I was her age and soon thereafter to pick potatoes. How will she find happiness if she doesn't learn about work?

There is a photograph of my grandpa Keillor standing in his farmyard in Ramsey township, cap pulled down over his ears, denim jacket buttoned, coveralls, barn boots, pitchfork, on a bitterly cold day, chores to do, and he looks truly happy. Work is a blessing. There is enough passivity and mediocrity in the world without us adding to it. Work for the night is coming, pull your weight, do your job.

The good people I come from were graduates of the College of the Crash, class of 1929. They valued hard work and persistence. They enjoyed their coffee breaks, not the $3.50 kind with froth and a shot of caramel, which would be sort of spendy for them, but the kind where the waitress brings around the glass carafe and says, "Let me warm that up for you." It was the work around the break that gave the break its sweetness, not the coffee.

Of course, one rebelled against this. You saw your dad collapse in his chair after supper and fall asleep reading the paper, and be awakened by your mother to go to bed, and you said to yourself, "My life will be different. I will think, I will read books."

We rebelled on the basis of poor information. We considered our people to be "vanilla," as we used to say, meaning bland, but we were ignorant of vanilla. The vanilla bean itself is not bland or simple, nor is vanilla extract; it's as rich and complicated as chocolate. If the only vanilla you know is what McDonald's sells, then, yes, vanilla means emptiness. But the emptiness is in you, my dear, not in your people.

So you read books and thought big thoughts and sought a different life, and you achieved it, if you did, by virtue of the very qualities you rebelled against that your dad instilled in you. He may not have hugged you or encouraged your fantasy life, but he taught you to buckle down and attend to business and to thrive on it. It was this persistence that enabled you to become the self-absorbed romantic you are today. And now here you are in your pre-geriatric years, drinking $3.50 coffee and worrying about how to bring up your children.

Solomon said, "The thing that has been is the thing that shall be; and the thing that is done is that which shall be done: there is nothing new under the sun." But he never went to Wal-Mart. I miss the old times when there was a downtown, a center, a cluster of tall buildings seen from afar as you rode the bus or streetcar to a Xanadu of a department store redolent of perfume and fabric, and later to Woolworth's lunch counter for the grilled cheese and chicken soup, and everybody seemed to be in the same boat.

We all went to public schools and we knew certain songs by heart, the one about the E-ri-e is a-rising and the gin is getting low and Dinah in the kitchen and the spacious skies, of course, and praise God from whom all blessings flow. But then the schools started encouraging creativity and kids wrote their own songs, which were crappy, but teachers pretended they were wonderful so as not to stunt the child's imagination, and the old songs, which truly were wonderful, got lost, which was symptomatic of a general loss of standards carried out by romantic narcissists my age, some of them friends of mine.

Nonetheless, I am loved in green capital letters by a girl who yells "Daddy! Daddy!" and comes running from a long way off and puts her arms around my neck and kisses me, the Prodigal Father, and this gives me some hope, though I understand that this level of affection may change when the daughter gets to be 13 or so, but I am trying not to think about that.

Live like a King, die like a man

Jesus had it all.

Money -

Matthew 17:27 "Then the sons are exempt," Jesus said to him. 27"But so that we may not offend them, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours."

Health -

Matthew 9:22 Jesus turned and saw her. "Take heart, daughter," he said, "your faith has healed you." And the woman was healed from that moment.

Matthew 14:14 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

Matthew 17:18 Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed from that moment.

Luke 4:40 When the sun was setting, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of
sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them.

Luke 9:42 Even while the boy was coming, the demon threw him to the ground in a convulsion. But Jesus rebuked the evil spirit, healed the boy and gave him back to his father.

Food

John 6:5-13 When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?" He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. Philip answered him, "Eight months' wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!" Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up, "Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?" Jesus said, "Have the people sit down." There was plenty of grass in that place, and the men sat down, about five thousand of them. Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish. When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, "Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted." So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.


But he gave it all up.

Philippians 2:8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!

Galatians 3:13Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree."

Matthew 27:42"He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! He's the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.

Matthew 27:41-43 the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself!

Mark 15:30-32 people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, "He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One."


Hebrews 10:1-10
The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, 'Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll— I have come to do your will, O God.' "First he said, "Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them" (although the law required them to be made). Then he said, "Here I am, I have come to do your will." He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Hebrews 10:15-25
The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says: "This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds."Then he adds: "Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more."And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin.

"Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching."

Jesus had everything: money, health and food. And he gave it all up so that we might live a full life. Praise God for Jesus' sacrifice. Let someone know what Jesus has done!