Friday, June 27, 2008

From the lowcarb front:

Here are my stats for this morning:

Time: 31 minutes
Average heart rate: 114
Maximum heat rate: 134
Calories burned: 202
I am down 2.4 pounds from last Friday

I got lots done yesterday, not the stuff I had planned to do, but still a lot. I had planned to make candles. I ended up making grungy tags. I had planned to work in my zone (master bedroom) but ended up doing 15 minutes stints in several rooms. The bedroom looks pretty good, but the drawers, closets, and nightstand need a good weeding. I can better concentrate on that if the surfaces are clean so I don't feel like I am drowning in chaos.

Today I will be working on my daughter's house. She just moved into it and everything is just kind of there and in boxes. It looks very overwhelming. She is going on a trip for a week so my other daughter and I are going to tackle some of the boxes. Then I need to come home and get a batch of soap made before the two cuties come over to spend the night.

Word of the day:
Matthew 8:1-4
When Jesus had come down from the mountain, great crowds followed him; and there was a leper who came to him and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean." He stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, "I do choose. Be made clean!" Immediately his leprosy was cleansed. Then Jesus said to him, "See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them."

Reflections from the cornfield:
Okay, this leper would be one of those people who make us cringe. I would reckon that the great crowds that followed Jesus after he came down from the mountain probably dispersed pretty quickly when this leper showed up. Jesus tended to hang out with lots of people who would make us cringe - tax collectors, demon possessed women, Samaritans, and the like. And he worked miracles - but those miracles always involved faith on someone's part - either the recipient or someone acting on the recipient's behalf. This is how closely faith and works are intertwined.

When the movie "The Passion of the Christ" came out, I fully expected much criticism from the non-Catholic Christians due to it's fairly obvious Catholic perspective. Surprisingly enough, the only criticism I heard was from Catholic priests. One said, "I didn't like the movie because the resurrection scene was too short." Since the movie was called "The Passion of the Christ," I really wanted to ask him how long the resurrection scene is in the Passion readings for Holy Week. This same pastor never spoke out on "The DaVinci Code." That one had no resurrection scene at all, but I digress.

Another criticism from a different priest was, "no one could carry that cross after being beaten so badly." Ummm, okay. I can't help but think about what Jesus said about faith the size of mustard seed and what we could move if we possessed it. And that makes everything so much more remarkable because if Jesus was able to carry that cross in his condition, how much more acute was his suffering? The average person would have passed out from the pain. And not only that, it was suffering he could have chosen to avoid.

In today's passage, Jesus could have healed the leper without ever laying a hand on him - but he didn't, he touched him - he got his hands dirty, so to speak. One can only wonder how long it had been since anyone had touched that man. This is a perfect example of how when we ask Jesus to help us, he gives us so much more than we are asking for.


God bless the troops!