Technology Quote

Quote from book: The Tech-Wise Family

"As technology has filled our lives with more and more easy everywhere, we do less and less of the two things human beings were made to do.  We are supposed to work and we are supposed to rest."

The term easy everywhere is the descriptive phrase for modern technology.

Connected with Joni

Joni has a daily blog and comments are welcomed.  Below is a comment I wrote a few days ago regarding encouraging our husband's "God honoring" passions.  Here it is:

May 18, 2018

Hi Joni, Just finished your book A Place of Healing and saw in the epilogue how to follow you on this update site. SO GLAD! I will be 73 in August and my husband Charlie will turn 73 in June. We celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary last September. Charlie retired a little over 20 years ago but never really retired. He has passions which fill his days. One of those is being a handyman. So about 6 months ago, he started a little "business" called IamSOhandy. He does little fix it jobs, primarily for widows. As word about Charlie has spread, he has become busier and busier. My "honey do list" has taken a backseat to this. I am learning to be joyful in this as I hear his stories. What he does and how he does it and why he does it is bringing honor to our LORD Jesus. I am full of gratitude to be a part of his life and watch his "God honoring" IamSOHandy bring joy to others.

Joni's "broken instrument" story

Perlman makes his music the hard way
On November 18, 1995 , Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City.
If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and so he has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully and slowly, is an awesome sight. He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair. Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play.
By now, the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly while he makes his way across the stage to his chair. They remain reverently silent while he undoes the clasps on his legs. They wait until he is ready to play.
But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap -- it went off like gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what that sound meant. There was no mistaking what he had to do.
People who were there that night thought to themselves: "We figured that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp his way off stage -- to either find another violin or else find another string for this one."
But he didn't. Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled the conductor to begin again. The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such purity as they had never heard before.
Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night, Itzhak Perlman refused to know that. You could see him modulating, changing, recomposing the piece in his head . At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never made before.
When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium. We were all on our feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything we could to show how much we appreciated what he had done.
He smiled, wiped the sweat from his brow, raised his bow to quiet us, and then he said -- not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone -- "You know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left."
What a powerful line that is. It has stayed in my mind ever since I heard it.
And who knows? Perhaps that is the definition of life -- not just for artists but for all of us. Here is a man who has prepared all his life to make music on a violin of four strings, who, all of a sudden, in the middle of a concert, finds himself with only three strings; so he makes music with three strings, and the music he made that night with just three strings was more beautiful, more sacred, more memorable, than any that he had ever made before, when he had four strings.
So, perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in which we live is to make music, at first with all that we have, and then, when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we have left.

Joni's Pain

...Pain is a bruising of a blessing; but it is a blessing nevertheless.  It's a strange, dark companion, but a companion---if only because it has passed through God's inspecting hand.  It's an unwelcome guest, but still a guest.  I know that it drives me to a nearer, more intimate place of fellowship with Jesus, and so I take pain as though I were taking the left hand of God.

Chapter 1 - Report From The Front Lines  Book: A Place of Healing Joni E. Tada 

"...yes, I pray that my pain might be removed, that it might cease; but more so, I pray for the strength to bear it, the grace to benefit from it, and the devotion of offer it up to God as a sacrifice of praise..."  Chapter 1 - Report from the Front Lines  Book: A Place of Healing Joni E. Tada 

The REAL question about God and healing: "It is whether or not God wills to heal all those who truly come to Him in faith."  AND her answer: "God reserves the right to heal or not...as He sees fit."   Romans 11:33 "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God?  How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!"  Chapter 2 . God and Healing: What's the Real question?

Liturgy Concepts

BED COVERS - a cocoon to emerge from to face a new day - begin with the sign of the cross and dedication of day to God

MAKING THE BED - awareness of habits and rituals

These come from book: "Liturgy of the Ordinary"  chapters 1 and 2

A Funny Easter Story

On Easter Sundays I make an effort to "dress up".  So, this Sunday I went to my closet and chose a colorful favorite skirt to wear.  The colors were "Easter-ish".  I hadn't worn this skirt in years and the elastic waist band lost its holding power. (no doubt you know where this story is going - yet I want to give you a verbal picture)  At the conclusion of the service after our pastor gave the blessing I sat down to retrieve my Bible and purse from the pew rack in front of me.  When I stood, my skirt fell down around my ankles!  I sat down FAST and saw our pastor's wife a couple of rows in front of me.  I called her name and motioned for her to come back.  She helped me check the skirt and slip to make sure I was getting it back up in place.  Fortunately I wore a shawl so I wrapped it around my waist to help hold the skirt in place.  During worship a couple of close friends were sitting next to us and earlier on the husband said, "Gini, I think your skirt is falling down"...I told him it was the design of the skirt and I thought all was well.  They had exited the pew when the skirt fell so when I saw him later and told him what happened, I thought he would NEVER stop laughing!  The folks behind us were first time visitors, and I am HOPING they had left before my skirt did its thing.  This is an Easter I won't soon forget!

Communion on the Moon

The  Moon (& God) - VERY INTERESTING - July 20, 1969

What  was the first liquid and food consumed on the moon? I ' m betting that most are  unaware of this story.

Forty-five  years ago, two human beings changed history by walking on the surface of the  moon.

But,  what happened before Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong exited the Lunar Module is  perhaps even more amazing, if only  because so few people know about it.  I ' m talking about the fact that  Buzz Aldrin took communion on the surface of the moon.

Some months after  his return, he wrote about it in Guideposts magazine.

The  background to the story is that Aldrin was an elder at his Presbyterian Church  in Texas during this period in his life; and,  knowing that he would soon be doing something unprecedented in human history,  he felt that he should mark the occasion somehow.  He asked his minister  to help him and so the minister consecrated a communion wafer and a small vial  of communion wine.  Buzz Aldrin took them with him out of the Earth ' s  orbit and onto the surface of the moon.  He and Armstrong had only been  on the lunar surface for a few minutes when Aldrin made the following public  statement:

This  is the LM (Lunar Module) pilot. I ' d like to take this opportunity to ask every  person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment  and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or  her own way.  He then ended radio communication, and there, on the silent  surface of the moon, 250,000 miles from home, he read a verse from the Gospel  of John, and he took communion.

Here  is his own account of what happened:

"In the  radio blackout, I opened the little plastic packages which contained the bread  and the wine.  I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given  me.  In the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine slowly curled and  gracefully came up the side of the cup.  Then I read the  scripture:  ' I am  the vine, you are the branches. Whosoever abides in me will bring forth much  fruit ... Apart from me you can do nothing. '

"I  had intended to read my communion passage back to Earth, but at the last  minute they had requested that I not do this. NASA was already embroiled in  a legal battle with Madelyn Murray O ' Hare, the celebrated opponent of  religion, over the Apollo 8 crew ' s reading from Genesis while orbiting the  moon at Christmas. I agreed reluctantly."

"I  ate the tiny toast and swallowed the wine. I gave thanks for the intelligence  and spirit that had brought two young pilots to the Sea of Tranquility .  It was interesting for me to think that the very first liquid ever poured on  the moon and the very first food eaten there were the communion  elements."

"And,  of course, it ' s interesting to think that some of the first words spoken on  the moon were the words of Jesus Christ, who made the Earth and the moon - and  who, in the immortal words of Dante, is Himself the "Love that moves the Sun  and other stars."

How  many of you knew this? Too bad this type of news doesn ' t travel as fast as the  bad does.

Share  with others you know . . . . . .

The  nicest place to be is in someone ' s thoughts, the safest place to be is in  someone ' s prayers, and the very best place to be is in the hands of God.  Amen.