Making Each Day a Success

Once again, there's lots more to enjoy by clicking on the link below, but here's an appetizer:

Beware of undertaking too much at the start.  Be content with quite a little. Allow for accidents.  Allow for human nature, especially your own.
A failure or so, in itself, would not matter, if it did not incur a loss of self-esteem and of self-confidence.  But just as nothing succeeds like success, so nothing fails like failure.  Most people who are ruined are ruined by attempting too much.  Therefore, in setting out on the immense enterprise of living fully and comfortably within the narrow limits of twenty-four hours a day, let us avoid at any cost the risk of an early failure.  I will not agree that, in this business at any rate, a glorious failure is better than a petty success.  I am all for the petty success.

How to Live on 24 Hours a Day 
Arnold Bennett as quoted by the Deputy Headmistress at the Common Room

Hit List for the Female Heart

Bekah at Femina had lots of good tips oriented toward our particular emotional tendencies as women.  Her intended audience is unmarried women, but there are several that apply no matter the age or marital status:


1. Don’t allow yourself the luxury of thinking of your heart as an innocent and beautiful treasure which you will tenderly bestow on some worthy knight in shining armor. That’s just a cop out.

2. Just because you “feel” something doesn’t make it ok. We too often think that when we “feel” a certain way, that somehow validates it. If it’s something you shouldn’t be feeling, make yourself stop. Pray for grace. If your “feeling” is a sin, confess it.

3. Don’t be an idiot about stories. Letting yourself swoon and obsess about fictional characters (or actors) may seem innocent – it’s not. If you have problems with infatuations, take an honest look at what you let your mind and emotions do in books and movies. Your imagination is the training ground for real life. If you have swoony pictures of Johnny Depp up on your wall, go take them down. (Go on – do it now. I’ll wait til you get back. And as a spiritual exercise, once you’ve un-taped it from the wall, try taping it back up again and see how well it sticks.)

4. Don’t focus all your efforts and energies on impressing the guys, or getting admiration from them. As you are getting dressed and doing your hair in the morning, if  all your mental energy is expended on imagining what the guys will think when they see you . . . well I guarantee that you will be unable to guard your heart if and when any of your efforts prove successful. If all your conversations in real life and on facebook are conducted for the benefit of any guys who possibly be listening, you have officially given away the store as far as guarding your heart goes. If you’re constantly casting about in the hopes of male attention, well then I think we’ve pinpointed your problem.

5. If the guy is a wimp, a skeeze, a non-Christian, already married, or otherwise unsuitable . . . then no matter how handsome he is, or how complimentary he is about your eyes, don’t let your emotions go there.

See the full post here: Heart Guarding (and other ways to whitewash a tomb)

Heart Sense

A recent article by Dr Lundell may sound shocking to many, especially coming from a respected heart surgeon of over 25 years’ experience.  “Inflammation in the artery wall is the real cause of heart disease,” he declares. “Without inflammation being present in the body, there is no way that cholesterol would accumulate in the wall of the blood vessel and cause heart disease and strokes...if we chronically expose the body to injury by toxins or foods the human body was never designed to process, a condition occurs called chronic inflammation.”

And what does Dr Lundell consider the biggest culprits of chronic inflammation? “The injury and inflammation in our blood vessels is caused by the low fat diet recommended for years by mainstream medicine...the overload of simple, highly processed carbohydrates (sugar, flour and all the products made from them) and the excess consumption of omega-6 vegetable oils like soybean, corn and sunflower that are found in many processed foods.”

When She Grows Up

Nancy Wilson has a post on young adult women in our culture that is well worth checking out.  Here's a tantalizing tidbit or two:

God does everything the opposite way of what we think. At the end of the day, it’s not prestige and a paycheck that rise up to call you blessed. Those things burn up. The things that last, the eternal things, have fat faces and messy hands.

Christian women must be counter-cultural and think like women of faith who take the Bible seriously and don’t mind who knows it. The flesh is weak, but God gives more faith.  Cultural cliches come and go, but God’s Word remains our standard and authority for life.

This means that Christian women must accept the fact that God has designed them for a set purpose. Eve was created because Adam needed a helper. He was no good without her. A man needs a woman to accomplish all God is calling him to do. She is his glory. She is his crown. There’s no need to feel apologetic about being a crown and a glory. What an absurd idea!

So, young women, get yourself an education. Learn all you can because you’re going to need it. You want to be one efficient, brilliant helper so this guy you married can get it done. He needs a home and he needs a family and you are the means God has appointed to bring this amazing thing about. What a delight and privilege our calling is.

Are there exceptions? Always. But there is also a norm. Don’t be afraid of embracing the norm of God’s design. It is good.

There's some edifying interaction in the comments, too, so the entire post deserves attention.

Eternal Perspective

Steve Gershom has an excellent blog post up today dealing with how we live life to the fullest:

Death is the mother of beauty: this was my mantra for years. I had to live, Live!, because one day I would be dead and what did I want it to say on my gravestone?

So I constantly questioned myself: was I living life to the fullest? Was I wringing the maximum enjoyment out of every moment? Did I embrace every experience with open arms, or did I hide from life? Was I fully awake, or did I ever let myself coast along on autopilot? Was I joyful, was I alive, was I having EXPERIENCES??

Try living that way and see if it doesn’t make you a nervous wreck. The irony is that I was doing my best to celebrate life, but there was no atmosphere of celebration about my desperate grasping after experience. That wasn’t joy, it was fear. Fear of not meeting the deadline, fear of flunking at life — in short, fear of death.

If you want proof, think back to the last time you were really happy — not just content, but happy, awed, sublimely assured of the goodness of things. Were you thinking about death? Were you glad, because the world was perishing and you were surrounded by dying flesh, which made everything more precious?

Probably not. It was eternity you were tasting. Children know that the last two weeks of summer vacation are impossible to enjoy, because you can’t forget that death/school is just around the corner.2

Live every day as if it were your last, goes the saying. That might be good advice if you’re the kind of person who pays no attention to life, who feels no stirring of guilt after days of nothing but sleep, pot, and video games. But if your natural tendency is introspection, I think a better motto is this: Live every day as if you were going to live forever.

Which is, by the way, true. But the afterlife isn’t an extended epilogue, where all the adventure is over and we get to sit on comfy sofas, reminiscing. Heaven isn’t Stevens’ stagnant paradise, where “the boughs / Hang always heavy in that perfect sky, / Unchanging.” Heaven is where the story begins.

There are too many loose ends in this life, too many unanswered questions, for it to be anything but a prologue.

There's more good stuff in the full article linked above.  I love Steve's ending for the same reason I love Lewis's Great Divorce.  Both remind us that "eyes have not seen, nor ears heard . . . all that God has prepared for those who love Him."  For my own conclusion, I'll quote Lewis again: "Further up, and further in!"

Parental Temptations

If I had to name a besetting sin right now it would be impatience, especially with my kids. I don’t think this is a constant problem, but it is recurring. I love my kids dearly and play with them and do special things with them and try to teach them the Bible and discipline them when they disobey. But I can also be impatient. And that’s a sin. I needlessly exasperate them at times. And that’s a sin too . . . .

It only gets better from here, so click on over and enjoy the rest of Kevin DeYoung's post on stressed parents

The Power of Read-Alouds

The kids and I have started a little church history jaunt with Heroes of God by Dan and Katie Montgomery.  It's a compilation of fifteen short biographies profiling various prominent Christians from 451 A.D. to the nineteenth century.  We've really enjoyed the storytelling and illustrations so far despite not always completely agreeing with certain aspects of the authors' perspective.


However, I think the most valuable part of the book is the forward presented by Lutheran pastor, professor, and writer, Walter Wangerin, Jr., entitled "Worlds to Share."

How often I wished I could companioning my children through their most difficult experiences--or through their every joy.  Too often I learned of the twists of their personal journeys after the fact.  I hadn't been there.  Moreover, if I had been, I may have been denied full access to--a full understanding of--their hearts and minds in the event.

But there is a way, a blessed way, into the hearts and minds of our children as they journey through life.  When the parent reads out loud to the child, the older one becomes the younger one's most intimate companion.  They travel together through dangers and delights, through adventures and mysteries, through stories, through genuine experiences--through life itself.

The power of a story well told is to create whole experiences for the child, but controlled experiences with beginnings and middles, and with good endings.

The reward for parents who read such stories to their children is an intimacy that is emotional, spiritual, and real.  The walls come down; nothing is hidden between them.

And the benefits to children are legion:

*They are assured that, whatever the experience, they are not alone.

*They are fearless before the circumstances of the story, however frightening or thrilling.  And, in consequence, they are prepared to meet similar circumstances in their real life with the boldness and trust that come of experience.

*They, when they laugh heartily, are empowered!  For the laughter of children in the face of giants or troubles or evils is their sense of superiority.  Their ability to see silliness in danger is their freedom to take spiritual steps above the danger.

*And they are granted a genuine independence, a freedom of choice.  For children can choose to hear a fantasy tale as fantasy only, something fun and funny, but not anything you would meet in the real world.  And they can listen to stories of distant heroes and heroic deeds as ancient history and nothing to do with their life.  Or else they can choose to identify completely with the main character--in which case this fantasy or this ancient story stands for things absolutely real in their own world.  Children don't make such choices consciously; they make them in the deep parts of their souls, when they are ready to take the real ride of the story.  And the fact that they can and do choose grants them true personhood.

And you, their parent, are there, companioning your child through wonders and terrors, through friendships and wisdom, through experience into experience.

******************************************************

When my father bought a thick book containing all the tales of Hans Christian Andersen and read them to us, he did me a kindness more profound than mere entertainment.  He began to weave a world that genuinely acknowledged all the monsters in mine, as well as all the ridiculous situations and silly asides that I as a child found significant.  Dad/Andersen was my whispering, laughing, wise companion when I most needed companionship.

Night after night my dad would read a story in his articulate, baritone voice.  Gently the voice invited me.  Slowly I accepted the invitation and delivered myself to a wonderful world.  And as I looked around, I discovered that this world was confident with solutions, and I was a citizen of some authority and reputation.  I was no longer alone, no longer helpless.

Dad would sit in a chair beside my bed, one lamp low at his shoulder, his pipe clamped between his teeth and sending the smell of his presence and his affections to me where I lay.  Mostly the room, an attic with slanted ceilings, was in darkness.  The wind whistled in the eaves.

"Ready?" Dad would say.

We would nod.  We would curl tight beneath the covers.

"Once upon a time," Dad would read, sending me straight through the attic walls into the night, onto the wind, for gorgeous breathtaking flights.

What  of my being could not find affirmation in such an event?  My body was present, delighting in its vicarious adventures.  All my senses were alert and active, sight and sound and smell and touch.  My emotions were given every opportunity--highs so tremendously high, and lows acceptable because Dad was the leader.  My mind, my intellect, labored at solutions before the story itself declared them.

And all my affections were granted lovely objects.  I could love in that event when my father read to us: I could love characters in the tale; I could love their qualities, their deeds, their struggles; I could love the tale itself--but mostly, I could love my father, whose very voice was his offering of love to me.  We were one in this event, one in the reading and in the listening and in the experiencing.

Night after night my father read to us from that thick book.  Night after night I lived the adventures that gave order to my turbulent child's experience.  The tales gave shape to my waking self, to my instincts, to my faith in God, and to my adulthood yet to come.  For I am what I am now, in part, because once I experienced important events within the protected sphere of my father's dear influence.

These events were deep and primal.

But on the page they were merely stories--until my father opened his mouth and read them to me.

In researching Mr. Wangerin, I came across this inspiring Cancer Letter on his website.  His excellent insights on glorifying God in death are most encouraging and definitely worth a couple extra clicks.  I would reprint it entirely here, but I'm not sure it would be good manners to do so.

Being is Doing: Real Things at First Things

This insightful article sheds light on the reason why acting properly, even when we don't feel like it, often leads to feeling properly.  I like how the same principle also provides help understanding the role of the sacraments.

It is distinctively personal acts, like having an evening glass of bourbon, that construct a life. It is this aesthetic, this incarnation, simply this way to be, which gives a glass of bourbon its real value. But this incarnation of being extends beyond evening drinks, and informs every action we make in our lives. Take affection, for instance. Husbands and wives do not merely sit across the room maintaining a cerebral love for each other. Affection is made concrete with actions. Handshakes between colleagues, hugs and kisses between friends not only display, but actually create or make real the respect and affection between people. The true value of a family dinner lies at this level: we are a family because we eat together; we eat together because we are a family. It is in this act that our being as a family is made real, not fantasy. To take what may be the most powerful example, marital love is incarnated in the marital act. The coy euphemism “making love” has more truth to it than we may realize.

Looking to the concrete helps us discover the Christian notion of sacramentality. It is in water that we are born again; it is with bread and wine that we encounter Christ in the flesh in today’s world. It is these things that make our Christianity more than an academic exercise. So Percy would answer Barrett’s question by saying: just do it. It is Wednesday afternoon and you are a Christian: sing a song of praise, or go to Mass and eat God’s flesh. You are a loving husband, so kiss your wife. You are a father: play catch with your son or help him with his homework. You are a man at the end of a day of work: make a cocktail. If you want to be these things—a husband, a father, a son of God—there are things to do to make it real.

 I highly recommend the full article by Michael Baruzzini over at First Things

And here's a great follow-up tidbit from Steve Gershom 's pastor:

 “Human beings are made in such a way that we can’t think ourselves into acting a certain way. We have to act ourselves into thinking a certain way.”

Modern Wheat , a Questionable Character

The gliadin protein of wheat is degraded to a class of polypeptides called exorphins that bind to morphine receptors in the brain. Wheat exorphins are responsible for appetite stimulation, as well as the behavioral outbursts in children with ADHD and autism, the paranoid delusions and auditory hallucinations in people with schizophrenia, and even trigger the manic phase of bipolar illness. Exorphins are also responsible for the withdrawal phenomenon that 30% of people experience when they stop consuming wheat, the mental “fog,” fatigue, physical exhaustion, and even depression that usually lasts several days. You have, in effect, an addictive relationship due to the appetite stimulation effect and the awful withdrawal that results with cessation.

--William Davis, MD, author of Wheat Belly


Here's the link to the entire Q & A  where Dr. Davis elaborates on the changes wheat has undergone since biblical times and lots of other interesting stuff.  Our family can attest to the value of working through the withdrawal described above to realize an improved quality of life in so many ways.

Trying to Be God: Nancy Wilson Quotes Spurgeon on Anxiety

The precept to avoid anxious care is earnestly inculcated by our Saviour, again and again; it is reiterated by the apostles; and it is one which cannot be neglected without involving transgression: for the very essence of anxious care is the imagining that we are wiser than God, and the thrusting ourselves into His place to do for Him that which He has undertaken to do for us. We attempt to think of that which we fancy He will forget; we labour to take upon ourselves our weary burden, as if He were unable or unwilling to take it for us.

Now this is disobedience to His plain precept, this unbelief in His Word, this presumption in intruding upon His province, is all sinful…Anxiety makes us doubt God’s lovingkindess, and thus our love to Him grows cold; we feel mistrust, and thus grieve the Spirit of God, so that our prayers become hindered, our consistent example marred, and our life one of selfseeking.

Thus want of confidence in God leads us to wander far from Him; but if through simple faith in His promise, we cast each burden as it comes upon Him, and are “careful for nothing” because He undertakes to care for us, it will keep us close to Him, and strengthen us against much temptation. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee.”

 Femina

Low Carbs and Low Blood Sugar

This response from Bee to a question posted on her yahoo chat group clarifies our experience upon transitioning to a high fat / low carbohydrate diet  eight months ago.  (The first few months were a bit of a bumpy ride to say the least.)  It also provides insight into weight loss issues:

There is a period of time you will experience more hunger when your body is still "trying to" switch over from running on carbs/sugars to running on good fats. Once the switch is made, you won't have such hunger pangs, nor the extra weight.
 
Both the anticipation of carbohydrates and the actual eating of them cause our bodies to secrete the hormone insulin which deposits both fatty acids and glucose in fat tissue and it keeps those calories trapped in fat tissue once they get there.
 
As long as we respond to carbohydrates by secreting more insulin, we continue to move nutrients from our bloodstream in expectation of the arrival of more, so we remain hungry or at least not fulfilled.
 
During this transition the body is expecting to deal with glucose but there is none coming in the diet, and so there is still too much insulin in the circulation. The liver will not give up its glycogen (storage form of glucose) due to high insulin in circulation, which would help to stabilize blood sugar if it were released, and our blood sugar drops. Even if we eat fat and protein, the insulin will serve to store those nutrients rather than allow them to be used for fuel.
 
In other words insulin induces hunger and prevents satiety, even though fats easily satiate the appetite once your body switches over, but that takes time.
 
Once your body changes over, and doesn't secrete insulin as an automatic response so you won't feel so hungry, and your weight will decrease.
 

--Bee Wilder www.healingnaturallybybee.com

Diapers and Autonomy

Today's brief post on Conversion Diary is worth clicking on to read in its entirety; the quote below sums it up pretty well:

But to buy into that mentality, the idea that I would be happier and my life would be better if I could just do whatever I want all the time, would be to fall back into the spiritual morass I found myself in before my conversion to Christianity.  As I’ve said many times before, one of the most shocking truths I discovered when I converted to Christianity was that autonomy is not the path to happiness. The golden calf that I spent most of my life worshiping turned out to be a dead idol. I always thought that the secret to a fantastic life was to optimize on getting as much autonomy as possible so that I could do whatever pleased me, whenever I felt like doing it. Boy was I surprised when I found out that that kind of life left me amused but not deeply happy, and that the only source of real happiness — of joy — is God. And you only need to glance at a crucifix to be reminded that God is the God of self-sacrifice.

My Life Changing Diapers

Leave out the atheist phase while substituting "pride" for "laziness" and changing the numbers to reflect our ten years of parenting six sanctifying blessings, and this post could be mine.  However, Jen has once again said it better than I could.

Facing the Last Enemy

To Accept What Cannot Be Helped

This was a very well written article about courage and love at the end of life.  Of course, it was very sad, but I also think it was beautiful on many levels.  The details of each person's story will certainly differ, but I can't help but think that if an agnostic and her family can display such strength of character, how much more should we?

HT:  Rick at Dry Creek Chronicles

A Little Extra Real Food Motivation

Krispy Kreme Deconstructed

Isn't it amazing how photography can make the mouth water?  Scrolling down, however, makes me more motivated to make our own--once we're finished with this candidas diet, that is.

Wilson on B.C.

Here is another gem from Pastor Wilson over at Blog and Mablog, this one on the hot topic of birth control .

His stance is very balanced and biblical in my opinion.  I, for one, am glad that this is at least now a topic of discussion within the evangelical church.  I think only about thirty years ago few evangelicals even thought to question the secularist view of children.  There are eleven points in the complete post, but here are a few of my favorites:

1. The rise of our birth control-friendly culture and our abortion-friendly culture happened as twin parts of the same zeitgeist. This was all part of our cultural apostasy, and our rejection of the Christian view of marriage and family.

2. Notwithstanding, the Scriptures say nothing definitively about birth control considered as such. Despite the anti-family bias that created the default assumptions of the world around us, we still have to be careful not to go beyond what is written. We especially have to take care not to go beyond what is written. Slavish following of the world is bad, but so is knee-jerk reaction to it.

7. While the Scriptures don't say anything definitively about birth control as such, they do teach an enormous amount about the blessing of faithful covenant seed. This is one of the three main reasons for covenant marriage -- the begetting of a godly seed (Mal. 2:15). This should be taught and emphasized in the church, and is the only really effective way to counter the world's anti-child bigotry. If this is effectively done, visitors to your church will think you must teach against birth control, and they will think this because of the large teeming population at the three foot level that they can see during fellowship hour.

8. More is involved in raising up a godly seed than to have a man with dogmatic convictions about birth control, matched only by his unwillingness to feed, read to, educate, pay tuition for, bestow upon, and love the results of his dogmatism. There are no promised covenantal blessings for the self-absorbed proprietors of stud farms.

9. Children are a blessing from the Lord, but not an automatic blessing from the Lord. They are a covenant blessing, which means the terms of the covenant must always be believed and remembered. A man with a lazy son is ashamed (Prov. 10:5), and it should be obvious that he would not be more greatly blessed if he had five sons sleeping through the harvest.

11. As each married couple make their decisions about this, and as pastors help them, they should take care to make careful distinctions with regard to motive, as well as a sharp distinction between principles and methods. We must learn to distinguish between a couple postponing fruitfulness for no reason other than that the worldlings told them they should spend some time surfing together in Argentina first, and a seasoned married couple with six kids who stop having them because their covenantal hands are quite full. It appears that the former do not understand the creation order at all, and that the latter don't have any problem at all understanding it. To focus on birth control in isolation interferes with such essential distinctions from being made.

Things God Teaches Us Through These Little People We Are Teaching

My friend Lauren drew my attention to this excellent article on why parenthood is a wonderful thing:

Why We Have Children by Timothy Dalrymple

Here's a snippet from the conclusion:

We have no choice but to give ourselves for our children, but we learn that in giving ourselves we receive our selves. In the frailty of this little form that called such an immense love out of me, this bundle of winsome life and running legs and embracing arms, I share in the quintessentially human condition of loving recklessly what is fragile, fleeting, and at risk. There is nothing for it; I cannot help myself. Even at thirteen months, my daughter was sweet and vulnerable and of immeasurable sacred worth. She was not perfect, but she was everything that was good in me, and yet so much better, the highest art I had created, my only true thing in a counterfeit world. She was my little girl. She still is, and always will be. And the joy of loving and being loved by her—well, it was worth any sacrifice and any risk.

A Chef's Perspective on Dining Out

Below I've quoted the intro and conclusion of a guest post on Healthy Home Economist. What this chef says here is exactly why eating out is an extremely rare event in our household.  For more of Emily Duff's story, go to the HHE blog here . 

Joke: What does a chef make for dinner when she has the night off?

Answer: Reservations!
It’s true. Most working chefs rarely cook at home. Perhaps that is because we have been told that it is not healthy to take our work home with us at the end of the day.
I am an exception. I am a retired NYC restaurant chef, cooking instructor, wife and mother and I prepare all of my family’s meals at home. That’s right, breakfast, lunch and dinner, seven days a week, at home. I prefer it that way. I know what we are eating and we always feel good after a meal.

The Real Truth About Eating Out

After all these years, I know the bitter truth about what you are getting when you dine out.
Let me enlighten you.
Most cooking oil in professional kitchens is a mix (25/75) olive oil to cheap canola oil. Most frying oil is made from GM soy and practically all corn products: tortilla chips, soft tacos, polenta, grits, etc. are GM as well.
Seafood is mostly farm raised. Eggs and poultry are rarely pastured unless noted on the menu and then the entree is at least $30. All bacon has nitrites/nitrates and dairy is unfortunately pasteurized (the occasional raw milk artisinal cheese will find its way onto the better menus). Pork is seeing a change since you can’t throw a ham hock these days without hitting a menu that features a pork belly dish on it (thank you Momofuku).
Most produce is conventional which means that 85% of the mashed potatoes in restaurants today are toxic from pesticides living in the mineral depleted soil.
Grass fed beef, thank goodness, has become the new darling of the restaurant world and is finding it’s way onto many café menus, NYC lunch trucks and even in new fast food burger joints (elevation burger).
When they bring tallow back to fry the chips, that’s when I’ll think about giving them my business. On a recent trip to The Strip House (I was taken by a friend for my birthday who knows I love steak), I ordered the special grass-fed Delmonico rib eye, crisp goose fat potatoes and black truffle creamed spinach. Sometimes you can hit it bang on the head. The steak alone was $42 but boy oh boy was it GOOD!
When you dine out, Real Food costs big money.

Is It Possible to Eat Out Safely?

My simple advice is to stick to the more expensive restaurants and the ones that offer better, Real Food choices on their menus.
If you can’t afford them, stay home and cook!
Once upon a time restaurants were only for the rich and famous. I assure you that you are not missing much. I send my family off each day with food that I lovingly prepare. I do not believe in letting anyone else feed and nourish my family. That is my sacred right as a wife and mother, which is hilarious considering that I fed people for a living for many years, and I thank you all for trusting me. Someday, I sincerely hope to have the privilege to do it again. But not in NYC. My restaurant space that was once renting for $3,000 a month is now going for $14,000 and those numbers just don’t add up.

Born and raised in NY, Emily Duff has been cooking professionally in NYC since 1988. Emily worked for farmers Wilklow, Bradley and Dent from 1989 – 1991 at the Tribeca Washington Farmers Market and Brooklyn, Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket. Her café Henrietta’s Feed & Grain (1993) was one of the first eateries to employ a completely seasonal menu based on the bounty of local growers from NY and NJ. The Feed & Grain earned her a reputation of being a chef true to flavor and respectful of ingredients while creating and serving honest, delicious, healing food. Emily enjoyed cooking in restaurant kitchens all over NYC until she retired in 2002 to continue her work in private catering and plan a family. In 2005, after giving birth to her daughter, Emily set forth on a dedicated path of learning in the field of Traditional Nutrition and Natural healing.  The birth of her son solidified her dedication and saw a marriage of her passions: Health & Wellness, Food & Family. Family2Table is her vehicle for sharing all that she has learned in her 20 plus years of work. You can read her blog at family2table

Public Service Announcement:


The Canvas People are running their $55 off special again--at least for first-timers like me.  That makes an 8x10 free and an 11x14 only $10.  Shipping runs $15-$20, but it still seems like a great deal for having one of my favorite photographs turned into wall art.  I hope it's a great deal, because I just did it!  Here's hoping this gem of Ruthanne's looks as good on canvas as it does with conventional developing.

www.canvaspeople.com

Community vs. Isolation

Betty Duffy has an excellent post about the importance of community to the health of the family.  Of course, it presumes a healthy community.  Retreating to "do your own thing" might be the best option under certain circumstances, but thankfully I don't think that needs to be the case for most Christians in our country.

Fidelity in Small Things with Great Love

Sara shares some wonderful thoughts today over at This Scrapbook, and I needed to post a copy of them here for my own continued edification:

A quiet peace of mind

From the book, Where There is Love, There is God

"Silence is at the root of our union with God and with one another."-Mother Teresa

Silence and recollection are the indispensable conditions for prayer. An atmosphere of exterior silence is certainly very helpful, but Mother Teresa, who spent most of her life in large, overcrowded cities, learned to be interiorly silent and recollected in the midst of much noise and activity. She shows us that to practice silence one need not flee from the world and live as a hermit. What is necessary is to learn to quiet the mind and heart to dispose ourselves for prayer.

In the silence of the heart God speaks and this is the time He will speak to you. To be able to listen you have to be like a little child. Read Mother Teresa's life--you will find nothing special or extraordinary, but what is striking is that fidelity in small things with great love; that fidelity to silence.