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Thursday Thoughts
My friend Terry sometimes writes Monday Musings, but it's not Monday, so I thought I'd write a "Thursday Thoughts" and fill you in on some of the things I've recently saved to my Delicious folder to read again soon.

1. Do you all need some encouragement today? Then pull up a coffee and read these posts--some funny, some poignant, but all will make you feel better about life:

You are more than your bathing suit.

2. The Future of Education: I don't know what education will look like in twenty years, but I know it won't look like it does now. It's too expensive, and it's not working. Kids aren't learning enough in school, and university, at least liberal arts programs, doesn't provide enough bang for its buck. My daughter takes online high school courses and earns credits for them, and I can just imagine how much money the school board is saving by not having a physical classroom. I'm sure we're moving in that direction.

But in the meantime, here are two articles that I found interesting together: First, Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds asks if higher education's bubble is about to burst. I say yes. And second, here's a guy who has millions of YouTube hits for his 10 minute educational videos on just about every subject. He really teaches. And it's not through a college. I love education, but the thought that it has to be delivered today exactly the way it was 200 years ago is crazy. And too expensive. This guy proves it.

3. A liberal writes about how peace activists may have blood on their hands. Interesting historical perspective. Some stuff there I didn't know about the 1930s. And it's interesting given that the author of this article isn't a "right winger".

I tend to agree with this. I find it amazing how many Christians, for instance, wear Che Guevera T-shirts, seemingly not caring that the guy murdered Christians. Just because he did it for communism, it somehow makes it okay. But do Christians realize that all communist regimes have targeted Christians? Do Christians realize that right now China does just that? Why is it that we don't hold people to account for making excuses for foreign governments who do horrible things?

I'm all for helping the poor and for social justice, but I think God calls us to do that on an individual basis. He doesn't ask government to enforce it, because then government becomes tyrranical. We should all be giving to others. We should all be helping those in need. Perhaps if we were busy do that, we'd stop silly political squabbling and actually fix the world.

smoke detector (05-04-08)Image by sun dazed via Flickr

4. Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder. My husband was away last week for work, and it reminded me why I so appreciate him. The fire alarm started to beep with a low battery warning, and do you think the girls and I could figure out where the battery went? After researching it on the web, I found where the battery case was supposed to be--and then couldn't open it. After much prying we finally got it open (with three of us balancing on a chair, not smart), and removed that horrid battery.

And the thing kept beeping. It's wired in electrically, so it beeps if there's no battery, too. I don't get that. If it's wired in electrically, why does it need a battery? So I had to go out and buy another nine volt, and then we tried to put it back in. And we did. And it kept beeping. We were doing it wrong. So Katie tried it. And I tried it. And Becca tried it again. Still beeping.

Then Becca figured out a miraculous way to disconnect the whole thing from the electrical system, and so the fire alarm now sits on my husband's bedside table, waiting for him to come home.

That same day I had a phone call from my bank telling me my credit card had been hijacked. And we can't get the window in our laundry room closed because the little mechanism for holding it shut is broken. And it was freezing and raining that day.

So I want my husband home! At least he can close a window and fix a battery.

5. Abigail Adams. We visited the homes of John and Abigail Adams when we visited Massachusetts a year ago, and I just finished reading a biography on Abigail Adams last week. It was really interesting. Not riveting, but interesting to see how tough her life was. They were separated so much, she and John, while he was a politician and she was caring for their farm.

This whole idea that we are to spend our lives under the same roof as our husbands at all times is really quite a luxury. When travel was so difficult in earlier times, men often spent weeks and months away from home. In other parts of the world, people travel for work. Last week, two of my friends left for tours of duty in Afghanistan. Again, it made me grateful for my husband and for the blessing of living with him, under the same ceiling. Even if said ceiling is temporarily missing a smoke detector.

She also reminded me how productive women had to be in other eras. You worked or things just didn't get done--and there was so much to get done. She spent so much time in correspondence, and planning parties (which she detested), and caring for her family, even once her children were grown. She made the most of her time on earth.

And even though I'm Canadian, I still get goosebumps when I read about John Adams' and Thomas Jefferson's death. To think they both died on the same day, 50 years to the day of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. God smiled on America; there can be no other explanation.

6. I've been writing a lot about wedding nights and honeymoons lately, and it's taken me back to my own. And to tell you the truth, they weren't that great. Life is wonderful with my husband now; it wasn't then.

And I've been thinking about how sometimes we have to get over these romantic fantasies that we have, that we build up in our minds. I think I'll write a longer post about this later, but too often we women build things up in our heads so much that we're inevitably disappointed. I'm not saying that we should never want something so that we'll never be disappointed; only that too often what we want isn't realistic, or has a great chance of not actually occurring. And then how will we react? We need to learn to be grateful for what we have, and not always try to get the romantic fairytale. Ironically, that makes the fairytale more likely!

That's about all I'm thinking right now, as I desperately spend the last day I have to edit my three chapters before sending them in. Pray that I make good decisions today so that my arguments and thoughts flow clearly on the page!

What about you? What's been up with you this week?
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5 Comments:

At 9:13 AM , Blogger Katy-Anne Binstead said…

Wonder if the guy who wrote the peace article is bitter much? His rant is full of bitterness, and since it's full of bitterness, it's probably full of lies too, but I'm not sure since I don't have the knowledge I need to call that one.

However, I'll come right out and say it. I'm pacifist. I don't believe that war is the answer for anything. The guy that wrote this article left out a major thing. He left out what the BIBLE says about the subjects of war and peace. If you look at the New Testament teachings of Jesus, there is no justification whatsoever for war. We aren't supposed to kill others so that they won't kill us.

If all the Christians lived right for the Lord and obeyed the Bible, and believed and followed the teachings of Jesus on war, there would never be any "need" for war. War is a result of sin. So if we were living righteously, there would be no wars.

So this guy can rant all he wants, without the Bible it's just vain babblings.

 

At 9:18 AM , Anonymous Kim said…

Hi, I agree that everything that wants to go wrong in life waits until my husband is out of town to do it. It must be a new version of Murphy's Law. But it's good to know that I'm not the only one.


PS - I gave you an award today on my Living in Love with Jesus blog :).

 

At 9:59 AM , Blogger Renee said…

It's true that war is a result of sin. But we live in a sinful world. We are told to protect the helpless - you can't do that by standing by when they are being killed.

 

At 10:26 AM , Blogger Katy-Anne Binstead said…

Renee, so you believe it is ok for us to murder others because those people are murdering others? All it does is make us murderers too. And what about all the "innocent" lives that get killed? They are NOT collateral damage, they are people that were murdered for no good reason.

 

At 6:37 PM , Blogger Sheila said…

Mrs. W: Yes, I think it is okay to kill others who are killing innocents, in the same way that if someone broke into your home and attacked your kids, you'd protect your kids. That's what a mom does.

I don't think war is murder. Deep in the heart of Christian tradition has been the Just War theory, and I believe that many modern wars--and certainly World War II--was a Just War. Being a pacifist during World War II just would have resulted in Hitler taking over more of Europe, including England, and killing even more.

Let's remember that David was a warrior. Many Old Testament heroes were, and they went to war because Israel was being attacked.

But I understand the pacifist tradition, and I do have respect for it. I just think that we are to protect innocents, and sometimes that means confronting evil and fighting against it. If we don't fight, evil wins, as it did in China, and 100,000,000 were murdered.

Nevertheless, I don't think pacifists should ever be forced to fight, and I think the voice should still be loud, because even though war may be necessary, it is never good. This is a terrible world indeed.

 
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About Me

Name: Sheila

Home: Belleville, Ontario, Canada

About Me: I'm a Christian author of a bunch of books, and a frequent speaker to women's groups and marriage conferences. Best of all, I love homeschooling my daughters, Rebecca and Katie. And I love to knit. Preferably simultaneously.

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