Geeking Out on God.

Have you ever noticed that when God sets his mind to get something done, it gets done? Have you ever seen the guidance of God so clearly that it just takes your breath away?

This evening, just as I was getting ready to cook dinner, I got a phone call. After about fifteen minutes of conversation, I hung up my phone, came out of the kitchen, threw my hands into the air, and (my husband can testify to this) squealed like a twelve-year-old who has just won Justin Bieber tickets. Then I proceeded to giggle and titter all the way through dinner. I was that overcome.

The phone call was from a pastor who is interested in 40 Days for Life. Last week Thursday, while our planning committee was in the midst of our meeting, this man came into the diner to meet with some of his parishioners. He had never been to the diner before. The parishioners had suggested it. He just happened to show up while we were there. None of us knew who he was. He was just a man in a clerical collar. I don’t usually approach strangers, not even strange preachers, but I summoned the courage to interrupt their conversation and offer him one of our posters with a letter of explanation.

Tonight, he called me. He wanted to know what we are all about. He said that as a white pastor in a primarily black denomination, he has been facing an uphill struggle in convincing his congregation to go against the deeply ingrained position of abortion in their culture. He said that he had been receiving 40 Days emails from Shaun Carney for about a year, and he had been feeling God leading him to do something. "I'm definitely pro-life," he said, "and I'm non-violent too. I don't like the shouting that some people get up to. I prefer to tell people about adoption. I was adopted, and I am grateful to be alive."

I was so thrilled to hear from him. We are a great match to his situation, and he is a great match to our cause. It was a completely chance meeting (although, as he said to me, we don't believe in coincidences). I nearly didn't go up to him at all. Think what I would have missed out on.

When we began planning this year’s campaign, we were questioning whether or not we could do another 40 Days for Life. Last year was grueling and really left a mark on our souls. But this year, God seems determined to erase that mark. Our kickoff rally was standing room only. We have more leadership positions filled than any previous campaign. We have new people coming out of the woodwork. And everywhere we go, there is evidence that God is going in front of us. Praise the Lord.

Garbage soup, anyone?

Has anyone else tried Garbage Soup? I was flipping through my More with Less cookbook about a month ago, and I came upon this recipe. Actually, it's more of a concept or activity than a recipe. Garbage soup. We love it. It's a way to save money and improve your improvisational cooking skills all in one.

To make Garbage Soup, set aside one pot as your weekly soup pot. Put about six cups of water in it. Put it in the fridge. When you start making dinner, take the pot out of the fridge, put it on the burner, turn the burner on low, and then start throwing in all the leftovers that aren't worth saving into the pot. That's right, everything. When you're making dinner, throw in the parings, the clippings, the bones, the stems, the flour from the cutting board, everything animal, vegetable, or mineral. Let it simmer during dinner. Then after the meal, throw in all the bones, the leavings from the plates, the tiny bits and juices from the pan that aren't worth refrigerating, and the milk the baby didn't drink. Let it simmer until the dishes are done (simmering kills the germs.). Turn the heat off and let it cool until bedtime. Put it back in the fridge.

Do this every night for about a week. Then strain the solids out of the broth. Throw the solids into your compost pile. The broth should be flavorful and colorful by this point. Put in whatever you like. Tada! Soup.

We started making Garbage Soup because we were trying to save money. Seth says it's like a free meal every week. I say not quite, but I'll concede the point. It's an excellent way to get your money's worth out of your groceries. It also prevents finding scary things in the back of the fridge a month later.

But we've also noticed that it's just good soup. It's a nice, thick soup stock with a lot of flavor. Granted, every week is a little different, and you have to match your soup to your broth. We had chicken soup one week and purple cabbage turkey vegetable the next. Last week was beef vegetable. There are no standard ingredients or spices. You just have to follow your nose and figure out what would go well with the broth in front of you. Add some fresh bread or grilled cheese sandwiches, and you a have a cheap, nourishing tasty meal. You just can't lose.

Snow bound.

Okay, enough of the heavy stuff. I've been inspired by my friend Alicia's blog to post snow pictures, partly because it's been too long since I posted a picture montage of Boogaloo and partly because Boogaloo just enjoys snow so much. :) I have never seen her frown at snow. I have, however, seen her throw a fit about coming inside.

Unlike my snowbound friend, who lives in the "frozen tundra of the north" (her words) and can afford to hate snow with a passion, we live in the Drippy Taiga (that's a real word, it means fir trees) of the West. We get inches of snow, and that's only if we've been promised a particularly cold winter. This year was supposed to be a particularly cold winter, and we've gotten six inches total in three inch increments. Three inches of snow is a piddling amount when you want to play in it.

The west is the only part of the country that is not enjoying a major dump of snow right now. . The rest of the country is buried. We have nothing. When we want snow, and we frequently do, we have to go look for it.

Pretty awesome, isn't it. This is a view from Hurricane Ridge, our yearly snow destination. Last year the we couldn't get there because the road collapsed. This year, the roads were intact, and the mountain had eight feet of snow waiting for us. There were trees buried beneath our feet. Have you ever walked over a tree? It feels like you really are on top of the world, and there's a little less sky above you than there ought to be.

Boogaloo, of course, didn't notice. She also didn't notice the 30 to 45 mph winds that were buffeting us the whole time. She climbed right up onto that snow and got busy. I think she likes the power of having a snowball in her hand. But her favorite thing to do in the snow is make a snowman. She insists on it, emphatically. And Washington snow is ideal snowman snow. It packs like nowhere else. Tada! We tried to sled a little, but it's hard walking back up a slope with eight feet of snow prepared to give way beneath you. I guess that's why ski slopes have chair lifts.

Truth about Abortion

Thursday morning a small representation of the pro-life community in Bremerton got together to begin planning our spring 40 Days for Life campaign. We were a little nervous because, to put it mildly, our last campaign was a little discouraging. In fact, in terms of community participation, it was down right dismal. We saw several lives saved, but we also filled our vigil times only because some volunteers stood by themselves for five or six hours a day. That's discouraging, especially when we read that 71% of the American populace considers itself pro-life. So we pondered, should we try to stage a new campaign, and our answer was, how can we not.

Abortion is one of the greatest evils ever visited on humanity. War, famine, tyranny, dictatorships, torture, religious discrimination, domestic abuse -- they are all awful desecrations of the sacred image of God in both the victim and the perpetrator, but abortion gives the victim no choice and no chance to fight back. Ancient armies, when they conquered a nation, would rip the babies out of mothers' wombs to desecrate their enemies. We do it to ourselves and call it choice.

Abortion is a betrayal of the most simple and one of the most sacred relationships entrusted to us (the other sacred relationship being marriage): the process of giving and nurturing life. There is nothing more precious than the relationship between parent and child and the responsibility of the life-giver to the receiver, but abortion encourages us to actively toss it aside in the name of preserving some small, piddling thing misnamed freedom and more rightly called status quo for ourselves. It's not a new thing; it's been around since before Christ. It's not a progressive development. It's a sign of social decay.

So this year, on March 9, vigils will kick off around the country. People will gather outside abortion clinics and pray for the women going in to the clinics; for the doctors, nurses, and receptionists who work in the clinics; and most of all for the babies who were denied any opportunity at life. They will pray everytime a woman walks into the clinic in her pajamas and weep everytime she limps out. And I'm asking everyone I know to be one of these people. Even if you can't go to a clinic, sign up for the prayer reminders at www.40daysforlife.com and pray for the rapid end of abortion.

The video below illustrates some abortion statistics (and their sources) that you might not have known before. It was made by a woman I know and trust. There are no violent or obscene images in it. It will help you remember what you're praying for.



God bless us all.

This is Awesome.

I got this link in an email this weekend. It debuts an amazing symbolic mural of the resurrection of our Lord. Check it out.

http://downloads.cbn.com/cbnplayer/cbnPlayer.swf?s=/vod/MW131v2_WS