"In order to know virtue, we must first acquaint ourselves with vice."

I must give a special thank you to Alison, she gave us encouragement and a tip that made things click. Thank you so much! ! ! Alison is a newer blogger than I am and managed to figure it out all by herself.

Thank you to our sweet boy! I am SO tickled to finally be closer to being able to do the widget (?) thingy myself.....and I have our son home for the summer just in case I might need assistance ;)

“For all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself.” ~Francis Bacon

Heath Ledger -- Late Austrailian Actor

Heath Ledger -- Late Austrailian Actor-- A.K.A The Joker

Eleanor Roosevelt

Pengertian yang dipaksakan tidak akan pernah membawa kebahagiaan. Sebab akan selalu ada nurani yang berusaha mengemukakan kebenaran. Kebenaran yang terus menelusup melalui setiap celah yang ada.

Another spread for my Garden/Nature book. I inked the pages and added a neat piece of open woven 'paper' using star brads to secure it to the right hand page at the top. I Love the little bird punch that my sweet friend, Trish, gave to me.

I have had the image of the sunflowers for some time now. I keep a bin by theme for my ongoing altered book projects. Gosh, that sounds almost organized....heehee, actually I have what I like to call organized chaos. As items pop up that fit a theme, it's nice to have them pretty much all in one place.

This special sunflower in the left hand spread is our middle son, Alex. I used his face on a Paper Whimsy body giving him a watering can to hold.

I have plans to add some ribbons to the bottom of the pages, but will do that later on. That is one of the fun things about altered books, just when you think you're finished, you find that certain something for a page.

"The lofty follower of the sun,
Sad when he sets, shuts up her yellow leaves,
Drooping all night; and when he warm returns,
Points her enamor'd bosom to his ray." ~James Thomson

Mad Men

I literally spent a whole week watching the first season and can proudly say that I will be glued to my television once July 28th hits because that is when season two starts. Affairs, striking men, bored housewives, New York City, and the "golden" age of advertising?! How could that not be amazing?! Not to mention, the set design and costumes will make you swoon. I think of Greta Garbo and Grace Kelly when I see these women flit across the screen. 

Watson Twins

Distracting music at work just doesn't work for me. If it's too loud or too rhythmic, I won't focus on the floods of email I am trying to respond too. Lately, I've taken to listening to the folk-like sounds of the Watson Twin. I loved their project with Jenny Lewis and their new album, Fire Songs, doesn't let me down. Plus, they do a cover of The Cure's "Just Like Heaven" that they totally own.

Chinese proverbs

I saw this quote on one of the many blogs I subscribe too, and fell in love with it. It encompasses everything that I've been struggling with the past couple of months. I think I read this on Oh Joy! or Happy Day but let me know if you had this one your site so I can give you proper credit :)

Zooey Deschanel

Zooey's hair and makeup in this video on Style.com is simple yet classic. How I long to have perfect bangs like her :( I never wanted to wear blue before, but now I think I might head off to the shops to find one. Zooey is one of those fashionistas that never lets me down. Did you see that Julien MacDonald yellow dress featured in that video? Man, can I get that donated please?!

A diminished view of any of these truths, along with a diminished effect of them upon our souls, will leave us satisified to approach God on other terms than those of his gospel of free grace in Christ alone.

How we actually answer the following questions reveals a lot about our grasp of the gospel. What do I believe is necessary for God to receive me? For God to hear me? For God to accept me?

Stated positively, only the obedience and blood of Christ, the perfect sacrifice of himself in our place, can satisfy the demands of divine justice and reconcile us to God. Because of his perfect and sufficient sacrifice for sin (which we benefit from by resting and relying on Christ alone), we are assured that all our sins and lawless deeds God will remember no more. Through Christ we have continual access to God, and may approach him with boldness and confidence, with full assurance of faith.

Stated negatively:

1. Moralism of any kind can never be the right way for sinners like us to approach a holy God. No acts of atonement that we make, no prayers or offerings, no repentance, can remove the guilt of our sin and reconcile us to God. It is Christ's sacrifice alone that brings us continually to God. In the words of the hymn "my guilty conscience seeks no sacrifice beside/his powerful blood did once atone and now it pleads before the throne"

2. Heightened emotional states are no safe basis for access to God. Music can have a powerful effect on our emotions, but it cannot form any part of our understanding of how we may draw near to God. Loose language about entering God's presence at this point is deadly. It makes us look to the acts of sinners in conveying the divine presence. If churches only understood the book of Hebrews and how it teaches us to draw near to God I'm sure that these errors would be swept away.

3. Mysticism is also a rival to the high priestly finished work of Christ for us. Mystical experiences are not to form the basis of our approach to God. In this way as techniques are offered for how to pray, the focus falls upon us and our actions and not upon Christ and his work.

The dangers of moralism, emotionalism, and mysticism, vie for our allegiance as the means by which we will approach God. They will always be more attractive and plausible to us in proportion to our own experiential grasp of Christ's person and work. To the extent that God has exposed to us our true moral guilt before him, and our utter inability to deal with our own sin, we will turn away from all human acts of morality, religion, techniques, feelings, music and mystical experiences as in anyway able to help us. Our only hope will be in Christ our great high priest, and in him we will find a refuge to make our hearts truly rejoice.
-Martin Downes

... a 73 old artist took me aside and said, "The worlds always been falling apart. So relax."

The Judaizers in Galatia did not see their distinctive – the rite of circumcision – as problematic. They could claim biblical authority for it in Genesis 17 and the Abrahamic covenant. But their distinctive functioned as an addition to the all-sufficiency of Jesus himself. Today the flash point is not circumcision. It can be Reformed theology. But no matter how well argued our position is biblically, if it functions in our hearts as an addition to Jesus, it ends up as a form of legalistic divisiveness.

Paul answered the theological aspects of the Galatian error with solid theology. But the “whiff test” that something was wrong in those Galatian churches was more subtle than theology alone. The problem was also sociological. “They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them” (Galatians 4:17). In other words, “The legalists want to ‘disciple’ you. But really, they’re manipulating you. By emphasizing their distinctive, they want you to feel excluded so that you will conform to them.” It’s like chapter two of Tom Sawyer. Remember how Tom got the other boys to whitewash the fence for him? Mark Twain explained: “In order to make a man or boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.” Paul saw it happening in Galatia. But the gospel makes full inclusion in the church easy to attain. It re-sets everyone’s status in terms of God’s grace alone. God’s grace in Christ crucified, and nothing more. He alone makes us kosher. He himself.

The Judaizers would probably have answered at this point, “We love Jesus too. But how can you be a first-rate believer, really set apart to God, without circumcision, so plainly commanded right here in the Bible? This isn’t an add-on. It’s the full-meal deal. God says so.”

Their misuse of the Bible showed up in social dysfunction. “It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised. . . . They desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh” (Galatians 6:12-13). In other words, “When Christians, whatever the label or badge or shibboleth, start pressuring you to come into line with their distinctive, you know something’s wrong. They want to enhance their own significance by your conformity to them: ‘See? We’re better. We’re superior. People are moving our way. They are becoming like us. We’re the buzz.’” What is this, but deep emotional emptiness medicating itself by relational manipulation? This is not about Christ. This is about Self. Even Peter fell into this hypocrisy (Galatians 2:11-14). But no matter who is involved, this is not the ministry of the gospel. Even if a biblical argument can be made for a certain position, and we all want to be biblical, the proof of what’s really happening is not in the theological argumentation but in the sociological integration.

Paul had thought it through. He made a decision that the bedrock of his emotional okayness would forever lie here: “Far be it from me to boast [establish my personal significance] except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. . . . For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation” (Galatians 6:14-15). In other words, “Here is all I need for my deepest sense of myself: Jesus Christ crucified. His cross has deconstructed me and remade me, and I am happy. Everything else is at best secondary, possibly irrelevant, even counterproductive. Let Jesus alone stand forth in my theology, in my emotional well-being and in my relationships with other Christians!” This settledness in Paul’s heart made him a life-giving man for other people. He was a free man, setting others free (Galatians 5:1). This is the acid test of a truly Reformed ministry – that other believers need not be Reformed in order to be respected and included in our hearts.

Whatever divides us emotionally from other Bible-believing, Christ-honoring Christians is a “plus” we’re adding to the gospel. It is the Galatian impulse of self-exaltation. It can even become a club with which we bash other Christians, at least in our thoughts, to punish, to exclude and to force into line with us.

What unifies the church is the gospel. What defines the gospel is the Bible. What interprets the Bible correctly is a hermeneutic centered on Jesus Christ crucified, the all-sufficient Savior of sinners, who gives himself away on terms of radical grace to all alike. What proves that that gospel hermeneutic has captured our hearts is that we are not looking down on other believers but lifting them up, not seeing ourselves as better but grateful for their contribution to the cause, not standing aloof but embracing them freely, not wishing they would become like us but serving them in love (Galatians 5:13).

My Reformed friend, can you move among other Christian groups and really enjoy them? Do you admire them? Even if you disagree with them in some ways, do you learn from them? What is the emotional tilt of your heart – toward them or away from them? If your Reformed theology has morphed functionally into Galatian sociology, the remedy is not to abandon your Reformed theology. The remedy is to take your Reformed theology to a deeper level. Let it reduce you to Jesus only. Let it humble you. Let this gracious doctrine make you a fun person to be around. The proof that we are Reformed will be all the wonderful Christians we discover around us who are not Reformed. Amazing people. Heroic people. Blood-bought people. People with whom we are eternally one – in Christ alone.
-Ray Ortlund

If you're a YouTube surfing bum like me, then you've probably seen this short movie.

I know it's just a short silly movie. But there's a great quote that comes from it.

"It only makes me stronger. And giving up is not an option. I have to move on. Move on to something bigger. Something better. We're starting from scratch, but that's life. You know, you don't give up. What if Michael Jordan gave up when he didn't make his high school sophomore team. What if Abraham Lincoln gave up when he lost his first election. Actually, if Abe Lincoln gave up, then Michael Jordan would never have had the chance to give up anything.

So no, I won't give up. Not ever. Not ever."

Way to go..!!

"Political language - and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists - is designed to make lies sound truthful, murder respectable and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind" - George Orwell

Oh that last part cracks me up - appearance of solidity to pure wind... What a fitting description for Colm Imbert when he speaks.

My good manners escaped me a bit here... Happy 90th birthday to Nelson Mandela!

What should not have happened, did happen with a quote from Kungfu Panda - "Nothing is an accident" - Thanks.

Just an indicator of how I could have possibly defied one law against the another, possibly that is and it was not practically possible as one was designed to over ride another and to get over ridden.

Now, im awaiting to experience the rest that is going to happen, whether I would want it to happen or not.

[ german | deutsch ] 

Die Majorität der Dummen ist unüberwindbar 
und für alle Zeiten gesichert.
 
Der Schrecken ihrer Tyrannei ist indessen gemildert 
durch Mangel an Konsequenz.
 
( Albert Einstein, Mein Weltbild  )

Stau...privesc, admir, ma gandesc, interpretez...apoi alerg, alerg, nu ma opresc...si CAD....rasete, plansete, tipete....ploua, tresar, ma bucur, imi zambesc si le zambesc si celorlalti...vad leagane, copii, vad batrani, tineri si flori...miros un gand...si simt culoarea....iubesc, traiesc...iubesc sa traiesc

Edward:"You're awfully small to be so hugely irritating."

Guess we know who Edward is talking to? :)