What's Scary?

On this Halloween day, in a world that can seem pretty scary, I want to share something I heard on the radio several months ago. Nancy Leigh DeMoss was talking about the circumstances of life that cause us to fear, those things we are facing and those we are worrying might come our way. She said, "Do you know what's scary? What's scary is if God falls off His throne, and that's not going to happen!"

I trust that will bring you as much courage as it did me. There are many things in this world that I'm not sure about, but this I know -- God is not about to fall off His throne. And as long as He's in charge, we can walk in safety and peace. When our hope is in Him, we need not fear.

Check out these verses from the Psalms for further study: Psalm 11:4; 33:20-22; 45:6; 46:1-3; 48:14; 62:5-8; 93:2; 94:19; 103:19; 147:10-11.

Baby and Her Buddies

You should meet Baby, a Muloccan Cockatoo who belongs to my friends Steve and Janice. Baby's a character. She's mischievous, she's noisy, and she's a hoot!

In her screechy voice Baby announces, "I be good! I be good!" This, however, is not always accurate. Sometimes Baby be bad! On a number of occasions she has walked into the bathroom and, with her beak, turned off the valve on the toilet, making it impossible to flush! Baby spends a lot of time out of her cage. They returned one day to discover her beak all shiny from a stick of butter she'd eaten from the butter dish, after she had destroyed the silver salt and pepper shakers. She's also destroyed the phone, the mail and a pressed back oak chair. Poor Baby. Since ruining the chair she gets put back in the cage before the last guy leaves the house.

Baby loves to be the center of attention. When Janice sits on the couch, Baby sits next to her or on her shoulder, and chatters. Even patient Janice wearies of this from time to time. When Baby is especially unruly she will put her in "time out" -- on the front room floor with a cardboard box over her for five minutes. Not to be outsmarted, Baby starts to peck, making little holes in the box. One day Jan got busy and forgot that Baby was under the box. When she remembered Baby she went to check on her. Baby had pecked herself a hole big enough for her head to pop up out of the box. And sitting around the box looking quite interested were three curious cats!

Baby shares the house with five other birds, including Pierre, an African Gray. Pierre had belonged to a man from the French Congo who, during the fight for independence, had given him to a CIA agent who was leaving on the last flight out. Janice says they are always trying to get secrets out of Pierre, but he won't share them! Another African Gray, Georgie, doesn't say much. She just sits on a plastic lady bug that she thinks is her egg.

The best talker among Janice's birds is Cicero. When Jan gets up in the morning Cicero asks, "Whatcha doin'?" And when the lights get turned off at night Cicero says, "OK, time for bed." Cicero not only speaks well, he also says appropriate things, and uses phrases she's never heard him say before. He'll say to Baby, "Baby, you be quiet!" "You're a bad bird!" "Stop that!" When one of the family is scolding Baby, Cicero will say, "I didn't do it!"

And Baby answers, "I be bad!"

Upon Janice's recommendation, I recently read a book by Irene M. Pepperberg called Alex & Me {How a Scientist and a Parrot Uncovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence -- and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process}. It chronicles Pepperberg's 31 years of work with Alex, an African Gray -- an amazing bird who not only repeated what he heard but also learned complex tasks and displayed complex reasoning abilities.

In my favorite Alex story Pepperberg tells of a demonstration she was doing for a group of sponsors of her research program, highlighting Alex's ability to recognize the individual sounds that make up complete words. Grouping plastic refrigerator letters by sound, each group in a different color, Alex would answer her questions: "What color is 'ch'?" "What sound is purple?" and so on. Each time Alex would answer correctly. After each correct response Alex would ask for a nut. "Want a nut," he would say. But they were pressed for time so she ignored his request, planning to reward him when the demonstration was complete. This went on for a while, Alex responding correctly even if he didn't get a nut. Here's how she describes what happened next:

"What color is 'or'?"

"Orange."

"Good bird!"

"Want a nut." Alex was obviously getting more than a little frustrated. He finally got very slitty-eyed, always a sign he was up to something. He looked at me and said slowly, "Want a nut. Nnn...uh...tuh." (pages 178-179).

Clearly, animals know more than we think, and think a great deal more than we know, as Pepperberg states (page 219).

If you doubt that, just spend some time at Steve and Janice's.

Our Extended Family

"We just bought a house!" It was a Saturday in June of 2007 and we called my parents with the news. They were taken aback. "We didn't know you were looking," they said.

We really hadn't meant to buy a house that day. Indeed, we hadn't been looking, and we didn't even plan to move. But we had just made one of the best decisions of our lives. We'd bought a house for a widow in Africa.

That morning we had heard a presentation by Denise Patch, co-director of a program called Sister Connection. She talked about the thousands of women of Burundi who had been widowed through the civil war that raged in that country for over a decade. She explained that these women, who were raising their own children and often other orphans, were considered the outcasts of society. To support a widow through Sister Connection would give her a means to care for herself and her children and would give her dignity in the eyes of her community.

We headed over to the sponsorship table, looking for a widow with two boys, maybe about the ages of our own boys. That's where we learned about Esperance. On her information card we saw that she had two boys who looked to be similar in age to our sons, and that she needed a house. Like I said, we hadn't planned to buy a house that day, but when we learned how easy it was to enrich someone else's life we were grateful for the opportunity. Esperance's metal roofed brick house cost us just $500 (houses now cost $600) and was one of the best gifts we've been privileged to give.

We received a gift from Esperance recently. Abby and Thad Nelson went to Burundi recently as a part of a team providing a camp experience for Sister Connection kids. They returned with gifts for sponsors in our church. Our gift was a trivet made of a long, tightly woven cord wrapped around and around, with "AFRICA" stitched into it. It is quite intricate and would have required great patience to make it.

When we began to sponsor Esperance and her sons they joined the children we sponsor through International Child Care Ministries. Rachel is ten and is one of several children in her family in Malawi. Eight-year-old Jean Philippe is from Haiti and has seven siblings. Our small contribution to these families make it possible for the kids to go to school and maintain basic nutrition, things we take for granted in the U.S.

If you'd like to learn more about either of these programs, check them out at Sister Connection or International Child Care Ministries. Extend your family and provide support to people who could really use it. According to Matthew 25:40, you'll be doing it for Jesus.

Useless Trivia

"Why is gibberish called gobbledygook?" That's one of the questions in a book that Samuel got for his birthday which explores the illogical English language. It's called Who Put the Butter in Butterfly?

Here's the answer: How appropriate that gobbledygook was coined by a politician! During World War II, Congressman Maury Maverick of Texas, made up the word spontaneously during a speech. He compared the verbiage of a colleague to the turkeys back home in Texas. Not only did both the gobbler and his political enemy spout uninterrupted verbiage, but both strutted with undeserved pretension. As Maverick himself said, "At the end of the gobble there was a sort of gook."

Yes, Maury was related to the Maverick immortalized by James Garner in the television series Maverick. The reason that the name of Maury's grandfather, Samuel Johnson Maverick (1803-70), has long stood for "independent freewheeler" is that old Sam refused to brand his own cattle but claimed any unbranded range stock he came upon as his own.

Okay, so maybe you prefer cereal to gobbledygook. Here's another of Feldman's questions and answers. "Why is the cereal called Grape-Nuts when it contains neither grapes nor nuts?"

C.W. Post introduced this cereal in 1898 and dubbed it Grape-Nuts because of the natural sweetness of wheat and malted barley ("Sweet as grapes," he said) and because it was as crunchy as nuts.

Crunchy as nuts? The cereal is much crunchier than nuts unless you soak it in milk for a few months. Wouldn't Grape-Rocks have been more appropriate?

Hiding God's Word in our Hearts

In my first quarter of college, my professor for Introduction to the English Bible told us we'd be going through the Bible three times during the ten week course. The prospect seemed formidable, and I told my granddad about my concern. "Oh, that's easy enough," he said. "Just read through it and say each word three times. Like this: In, in, in, the, the, the, beginning, beginning, beginning..." It turned out to be one of my favorite classes during my college days, as the Bible came alive for me through our study.

Each day as Dr Wilson entered the classroom he would quote a few verses of the book of James. We'd repeat it several times until we had memorized it. The next day we would review what we'd learned the day before and he'd add a few more verses. By the end of the quarter we could quote most of the book of James.

Something happens to you when you memorize scripture. When you thoughtfully take God's Word into your life and mind, it begins to transform you. The Holy Spirit applies the truth of the Word to your life, showing you God's greatness, giving your understanding, pointing out areas of need in your own life. We are told in Psalm 119:11 that hiding God's Word in our hearts helps us not to give in to sin.

When we memorize the Bible we are filling up a well from which the Spirit of God can draw when we find ourselves in need. But He can only draw from our well what we have put into it.

Memorize God's Word. Meditate on it -- that is, think about it, ponder it, explore how it applies to your own life. Because the Word of God is living and active (Hebrews 4:12) it has the power to impact your life like no other book.

Are you facing overwhelming circumstances? 2 Chronicles 20:12 shows us how to respond. "For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you."

Needing direction? "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you" (Psalm 32:8).

Anxious? "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you" (1 Peter 5:7).

Discouraged because of life's difficulties? Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 4:17 and 18, "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

If God's Word is living in you, He can remind you of it just when you need it.

Enjoying Some of Fall's Benefits

We're soaking in the colors and flavors of fall while we still have the chance. Last week's wind storm knocked many of the leaves off the trees, but still we catch the most glorious displays of vibrant color in the late afternoons as the sun filters through the maple trees in the neighborhood. They seem especially breathtaking after a rain. Driving north along Pioneer Highway and I-5 one recent late afternoon I could hardly keep my eyes on the road for taking in the foothills and snow covered Mt Baker, and whisps of fog hanging over harvested fields. It may not be the best time of day to travel if you are planning to feed your family in a timely fashion, but, oh, is it nice if inspiration is what you're after!

Our taste buds have been active these days too as we have enjoyed our small but delicious harvest. Our clay soil grudgingly gave us beans, peas, cucumbers, butternut squash, a bushel basket's worth of tomatoes and even a dozen or so strawberries! We were tricked into thinking we had a great corn harvest because of the amazingly tall stalks, but they only produced a few full-sized ears. We are about out of everything except swiss chard, which is just now at its peak. How nice to eat fresh produce from our own garden!

We enjoyed a pot of soup made with our own butternut squash the other night. You might like to try it. Here's the recipe:

Curried Butternut Squash Soup

2 T butter

1-1/2 c chopped onions

1 t minced garlic

1-1/2 T curry powder

1 T brown sugar

1 butternut squash (about 2-1/2 pounds), peeled and cut into 2-inch chunks (6 cups)

1 Golden Delicious apple, peeled and cut into eights

3 c chicken broth

3/4 to 1 c half and half

salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Melt butter in stockpot over medium heat; add onions and garlic, and cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in curry powder and brown sugar.

Add squash, apples and chicken broth to the onions. Bring to a simmer, then reduce heat to low, cover, and cook until squash is tender, about 30 minutes.

Working in batches in a food processor fitted with a steel blade, puree squash mixture until smooth. Transfer back to stockpot, stir in half and half to desired creaminess, and return to a simmer. Season soup to taste with salt and pepper.

All Aboard!

I've never lived in a town without a train. When I was a child in Everett I could hear the distant whistle of the Burlington Northern as I was falling asleep on a still night. Seattle's King Street Station was my point of departure and return when I traveled with others from my high school to Cheyenne, WY for a week. I remember the fun in the lounge car and trying to walk smoothly down the aisle as we hurtled along. But mostly I remember the spectacular sunrise in the Rockies. It mesmerized me.

Years later, during Samuel's train phase, we took a family trip to Portland to see my sister Peach. Not only did we make the most of all that Amtrak had to offer -- including a magic show -- but we took a train ride through Portland's Washington Park on our zoo visit, and we went to a pumpkin patch with a train that ran around a lake on the property. It was perhaps the most exciting train ride of all that weekend, as pirates attacked a raft in the middle of the lake and an animatronic Jaws surfaced long enough to be menacing, then re-submerged.

Of course the train had stopped running through our neighborhood in Western New York a century before we moved there, but the old railroad grade was still evident, even on the family property. As the story goes, the tracks were taken up and shipped off to Europe to be used during World War I but the ship sank and the rails are now somewhere in the Atlantic! The random fruit trees along the grade were seeded by apple cores that passengers threw from the windows of their lumbering trains.

I spent much of my three years in Japan on the train, but that's another story.

Soon we will have our own train station, right here in Stanwood. I'm imaging Peter, Susan, Lucy and Edmund sitting on the bench, heading off to Narnia. More likely it will be commuters, grateful to catch a few extra ZZZZs on their way to work, and folks off to Seattle to shop or see a Seahawks game. The late night train whistles that put me to sleep these days will take on new meaning for me as I realize that the station, just down the hill from us, is making life more accessible for us and our neighbors.