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No politics?
But dee, all of life is politics.

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“Rumor has it that Robert Morris may soon appear at a different church.”

Driscoll?

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The best cookie I have ever had was a chocolate chip cookie with lavendar in it from a lavendar farm on Whidbey Island in Washington. Oh my goodness!!

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I don’t have a cookie recipe, but perhaps “world’s best 3-ingredient pasta sauce” will be of interest: https://www.31daily.com/worlds-best-pasta-sauce/

I prefer to cut up the onion and leave it in the sauce, but this adds additional water. I make it in a pressure cooker rather than an uncovered saucepan, which makes it even more watery, but a second short-cut is, after the sauce is prepared, to cook the dry pasta in the sauce with a 2nd pressurize/depressurize cycle (very short or no cook time at pressure), which absorbs the excess water and leads to a pleasingly “toothy” pasta texture and fewer cooking vessels to wash.

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Here’s some “news you can use” that may be of interest to gardeners

I have multiple reports and self-observation that “Mint Leaf” Bee Balm (Monarda fistulosa, aka Wild Bergamot) makes an effective balm for mosquito and other bug bites. Crush the leaf and rub it on the bite, or make a pellet of crushed leaf and hold it on the bite with surgical tape. (A caution is that, as in all folk medicine, adverse reactions or side effects are possible).

While on the subject of mosquitos and “growable at home” herbal teas, Cymbopogon citratus aka West Indian Lemongrass, can be made into an herbal tea that makes one less appealing to mosquitos. It’s not difficult to grow; I sourced seeds this year from True Leaf Market. The plant does not survive cold winters, however; in cold climates it can be grown in containers and overwintered indoors, or simply grown as an annual.

Afterburne,

Lavender is relatively easy to grow, though germination can be a challenge depending on the species. Fresh Lavender has a wonderful scent. I’ve had good results germinating Munstead Lavender seed without special treatment. Hidcote Lavender required a couple months of cold treatment to germinate well; I set up a starter tray in December and left it outside over the Winter.

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Homemade English chocolate digestives or Scottish shortbread and a proper cup of tea.!
Not very sweet but nothing like it! ( Says a Brit).

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I am going to put in a prayer request: some seasons of the year I do need a bit of allergy meds to keep from getting ear infections. Not as bad here as out in the desert and wind, but still. And I am actually either allergic to or have bad reactions to most allergy meds. I am using otc, switching them around, etc for a few weeks hoping to make it to get the next covid shot, then two weeks for full effectiveness and try to see the doc if covid numbers are not too nuts. Hoping something else will help me out.

In the grand scheme of today’s world it is a piddly prayer request, and in the light of eternity just not matter at all. In fact, my docs usually laugh their heads off when they realize I get allergic reactions to allergy meds.

My plugged up ear is not laughing with them today even if I am. So prayers appreciated!

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linda: I am going to put in a prayer request: some seasons of the year I do need a bit of allergy meds to keep from getting ear infections. Not as bad here as out in the desert and wind, but still. And I am actually either allergic to or have bad reactions to most allergy meds. I am using otc, switching them around, etc for a few weeks hoping to make it to get the next covid shot, then two weeks for full effectiveness and try to see the doc if covid numbers are not too nuts. Hoping something else will help me out.

In the grand scheme of today’s world it is a piddly prayer request, and in the light of eternity just not matter at all. In fact, my docs usually laugh their heads off when they realize I get allergic reactions to allergy meds.

My plugged up ear is not laughing with them today even if I am. So prayers appreciated!

NOT a piddly prayer request, Linda. 🙂 And I’m praying for you…. 🙂

As for those expletive-deleted “doctors” who laugh at you….well, there’s a reason I use the words “expletive-deleted”.

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Researcher–thank you and thanks for the prayers! But it is actually funny to be allergic to of all things allergy meds. And it could be so very much worse an issue.

As to wonderful smells, one thing I miss about the southern Rockies is the smell of pinon. I am just nuts enough to keep some in my freezer for Christmas. Bring it back on trips and get a little smell of “home” or “childhood” come Christmas Eve.

And as to recipes: are we the only ones that like to substitute milk chocolate chips in our cookies?

Max, Mrs. Max, still have the prayer team here holding you both up in prayer. Being sick is no fun, covid is hard and scary, but you do have an excuse to binge watch a favorite show! As to soup, I firmly believe it has curative properties. And as a special treat, have you ever doctored up a canned soup with croutons on it instead of crackers with it?

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Just plain old Christmas cookies baked with cutter shapes of reindeer, Santa, stars,
Christmas trees,…. you get the picture.

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Fergus McLane,

I had to Google what open theism is. I have never heard of that, but I guess that is sort of where I have landed. I am sure my take on it is not very well thought out on my part at all though.

I define omniscience not as knowing everything that will happen, but knowing all things that could possibly happen including all possible paths.

Human nature and choice in situations being those things that may not be entirely predictable with 100 percent precision.

When He was forming me in my mother’s womb did He know precisely what I would do on a certain date 21 years later? I don’t believe so.

On the other hand, from His vast knowledge of my genetics and proclivities, I believe that He is able to know with some level of precision when I will eventually die – barring some “random”, but not unforseen, possibility leading to a premature end.

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Muff Potter: Just plain old Christmas cookies baked with cutter shapes of reindeer, Santa, stars,
Christmas trees,…. you get the picture.

As you know, I’m not a fan of SBC’s New Calvinist church planting program. At the beginning of the NeoCal movement, Driscoll was the young reformers’ main idol (to some, he still is) – the dudebros all had spiky hairdos like his. During those early days of the NeoCal rebellion, while at Walmart, a new church plant pastor (with a spiky hairdo) approached me in one of the aisles; he asked me if I knew where the Christmas-shaped pretzels were. My response “You mean the ones that look like Mark Driscoll?!” He moved on.

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Ginger snaps or any kind of ginger cookie, especially with a bowl of vanilla ice cream!

Dee, when I settled out my mom’s estate my feelings were everywhere. But, knowing my mom’s no-nonsense approach to life and getting things done, I kept at it. One of my mom’s goofy sayings
“We will all die and we will all be on time” kept ringing in my head. We made the deadlines, and Mon would have been happy.

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Afterburne,

I think that for Reformed, a crucial question is where does God’s knowledge of the world come from?. Does He derive His knowledge through observation, so that His knowledge of the world is rooted in the world itself, or is His knowledge intrinsic to Himself? As I understand it, Reformed answer that God’s knowledge of the world is rooted in His knowledge of His own will for what the world shall be (in their thinking, this includes counterfactuals about His will for the future of the world). This view allows them to affirm that God is both omniscient (including knowledge of the future free choices of moral agents) about the world but is in no way dependent on the world for His knowledge of it.

I don’t see how Open Theism avoids the interpretation that God derives at least some of His knowledge of the world from observation of the world itself, so that God is to some extent dependent on the world for His knowledge of it. He is the Creator of the world but the world’s future is larger than His understanding of it at any point in time. I think this is a “deal-breaker” for many Reformed.

I don’t know which position is a more accurate representation of what the Creator is actually like. Reformed theological system is, IMO, an admirably tight system, though I think that it is in tension with the Scriptures at some places [that, of course, is a function of what one thinks the texts mean; from inside the system it may appear that all is perfect harmony]. It seems to me that Open Theism sits a bit more comfortably with anthropopathic texts (such as Genesis 6, in which God is reported to regret that He had made humanity), but I can’t escape the sense that the Deity of Open Theism is “smaller” than the Deity of Reformed theological system. And perhaps the reality is something other than either of these, that is beyond my ability to imagine. Perhaps important things are inevitably lost when representing Deity in concepts that are comprehensible to human minds.

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Muff–thank you and yes it works quite well on an exterior ear infection. This is the other side of the ear drum, so nothing you put in the ear itself will help. At this point I am not sure if it is an infection, or fluid retention, or even reflux (I battle lpr) induced swelling inside the ear. Hopefully we get jabbed again soon, give it a couple of weeks to take effect, then off to see the doc.

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Samuel Conner,

It’s less that I’m looking to be persuaded and more that I’d like to be able to say “I’ve seen the best arguments put forth by the proponents of this position so I’m fully aware of what I’m rejecting.”

From what I’ve seen, a lot of the arguments for Open Theism seem to start from a place of the proponent thinking “I don’t think God could/would work in a certain way and still be loving, so He must work this other way instead.” Provisionism seems to do the same thing. They both seem like positions people take out of a desire to “protect” God’s character (love in the case of Open Theism, justice in the case of Provisionism), and then they interpret or reinterpret things to make their case. I’m sure they’d say the same thing about Calvinists and God’s sovereignty, but it is what it is. Regardless, I feel more comfortable rejecting things if I’m rejecting the best possible case of that thing.

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Perhaps theologians, pastors, and Christians should take a page from physics in their debate on the paradox between God’s Sovereignty and Free Will. For many years there was a debate on whether light was a wave or a particle. Turns the answer is light is BOTH. Same goes with electrons, neutrons, molecules, etc.

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Grumpy,

If, what you mean as “right”, the specific “doctrine” of the GARBC, and then evangelical free church, my answer to your question is yes….
As a young, budding scientist, my questions quite often did not go over well.. many examples come to mind

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Jeffrey, yes, that is what I was getting at. And yes to HUG’s observation as well.

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Afterburne,

Fair enough; “the incomprehensibility of God” is a topic in theology classes (well, to the limited degree I have been exposed to them, anyway) on the creature/Creator relationship.

Personally, I don’t like the term as an adjective because in conversational use, I think it is typically understood to imply “no comprehension” on the creature’s part when I think the more accurate meaning (and the meaning I have encountered in theology lectures) is “limited comprehension”. That’s the sense intended in that sentence; because our ability to comprehend is limited, “important things are lost” in our attempts to describe Deity in terms we can understand.

Ras al Ghul’s analogy to “wave/particle duality” in physics is a useful one, though I think the “answer” is (once again) not so much “both/and” as “something else that we don’t yet understand.”

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Muff Potter,

I saw the latest Alien movie with some friends. Meh.

Really hard to beat seeing the original on the biggest screen in Denver, with an incredible sound system, in a packed full theatre when it first came out.

Of course, bragging like that only shows my age. Oh well.

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Samuel Conner,

There are a number of examples, both in “physics” and other areas of intellectual pursuit that lead to “limited comprehension”…. And that does not bother me…. I recognize my limits and actually appreciate them..
That is another thing that really annoys me… “preachers that think they have all the answers, and having all the “answers” with no doubt is a “higher” piousness…. Such arrogance..

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Jeffrey Chalmers,

Agreed. I think that part of the problem of the typical stance of “more certain than the data warrants” within Evangelicalism is that people aspire to imitate Jesus, who “spoke with authority, not as the teachers of the law”, and they look up to people who seem to do this. There is also Peter’s admonition to “speak as if speaking the very words of God.”

Finally, I think that there is a “selection” effect, in that people desire certainty; humility about the limits of one’s understanding is probably, in the sight of pastoral search committees, a mark against pastoral candidates. Not a great posture for one’s career.

—

I would like to think that it is possible for divergent viewpoints (within limits, of course; one can argue about where the dogmatic boundaries ought to be) to co-exist peacefully within The Church. Paul seems to envision as much in Romans 14 (an entire chapter on this one thing! I think Scot McKnight is right that Romans is about “peace between Jewish and Gentile Jesus-followers having difficulty getting along in fellowship one with another”; a very different “take” on Romans than the one Protestants have for centuries been nurtured on. I highly recommend McKnight’s “Reading Romans Backwards”.).

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That is such an extreme level of arrogance indeed. Wow

His quote “There just are not options out there.”

Oh? How about almost any option that doesn’t lead one to the ultimate end of that doctrine – that God, since we really have no choice and He controls everything, must ultimately be the author of sin?

No thank you Al. I think I will pass.

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Samuel Conner: I highly recommend McKnight’s “Reading Romans Backwards”.).

I highly recommend listening to Pastor Steven Reid’s series on Romans on the Columbus Bible Church You Tube page. Pastor Justin Johnson also has a good series on Romans on the Grace Ambassadors You Tube page.

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Muff Potter: Whether they are ‘reformed’ or not, some churches are obsessed with Paul.

… more than being obsessed with Jesus!