Lee > Recent Status Updates

“ the calorie approach is the work of the devil”

“Baptism is not magic, a conjuring trick with water. But neither is it simply a visual aid. It is one of the points, established by Jesus himself, where heaven and earth interlock, where new creation, resurrection life, appears, within the midst of the old….. the foundational event for all serious Christian living, all dying to sin and coming alive with Christ.”

food, these days is often identified as the enemy. Butter, salt, eggs are all out to get you. Yet at our best, we know better. Butter is butter: it glorifies everything it touches. Salt is the sovereign perfector of all flavors. Eggs are one of the wonders of the world. put them together, you get not sudden death, but hollandaise. In its own way, not a bit less a marvel than the Gothic arch, or a Bach fugue.

“…the thing about Easter is that it is neither ethereal nor esoteric. It’s about the real Jesus coming out of the real tomb and getting God’s real new creation underway.”

“… a glittering new supermarket – anathema to the elderly ladies of St Mary Mead. ‘Packets of things one’s never even heard of’ exclaimed Miss Hartnell. ‘all these great packets of breakfast cereal instead of cooking a child, a proper breakfast of bacon and eggs.’ “

Captivating!

The chapter on prayer is itself alone a reason to read this book.

Already too much in this that is artificially promoting ideologies - when the main character is well known because the best article she’s written is all about the joys of assisted suicide, and the swearing and cursing happen every other sentence - it’s time to flip ahead in the story and see what else is coming and if it’s worth reading.

“He had always been a scornful of root-doctors and all their kind, but now she saw a faker from over around Altamonte Springs, hanging around the place almost daily.”

Probably not the best transition to go from a newly published Baldacci thriller to this slow narrative with phonetically spelled out thick southern accents.

On his genetic predisposition to play baseball as the son of a pro ball player …”Most infants are given milk and Cheerios. I was given Gatorade and sunflower seeds.”

Recently have read about the evils of Private Equity companies and now here is a book where the bad guys are PE firms

Illusory truth effect: the way to get someone to believe a lie is to simply repeat the lie.
Apparently they did a study in 2017 about this. Two years later there sure were a lot of repeated lies weren’t there?

“We are moving away from the old split in which it was expected that good Christians couldn’t be artists and good artists couldn’t be Christians. We now have, thank God, some wonderful Christian painters, composers, sculptors, and even poets who are showing the way forward.”

Scathing comments against American Christian nationalism

“…genuinely anticipating in the present what is to come in the future.”

The theme of this book is a lot like the Dispenza book I didn’t finish in January, but this book is also very different because it uses science AND scripture.

Eye roll so hard I sprained something…..
“The air outside was hot and humid, nearly 80° with a moisture content to match.”

“ Precisely because the resurrection has happened as an event *within our own world*, it’s implications and effects are to be felt within our own world, here, and now.”

Did you know you can make chia pudding and fruit sorbet with kombucha?

🤣“the problem is that much theology, having lived for so long on the convenience food of an easy-going tolerance of everything, an ‘inclusivit’y with as few boundaries as McWorld, has become depressingly flabby, unable to climb even the lower slopes of social and cultural judgment let alone the steep upper reaches of that judgment of which the early Christians spoke and wrote”

This author’s previous books, which I have thoroughly enjoyed, have been about British women of all ages and how they struggled and carried on leading up to ans throughout WWII. This book is now taking a look at what happened to women once the men all came back from the war and took their jobs back through the lens of a strong young woman becoming queen.

Fascinating discussion on paradise, purgatory and hell. ..” once we rule out purgatory, I see no reason why we should not pray for and with the dead and every reason why we should – not that they will get out of purgatory but that they will be refreshed and filled with God’s joy and peace. Love passes into prayer; we still love them; why not hold them, in that love, before God?”

This book was just published a week ago.

Neurologists have discovered that the serotonin receptors in the brain cannot work when cholesterol levels are too low. 🤯
When we are under stress, cholesterol levels rise. This is a natural and protective reaction because hormones the body uses to deal with stress are made from cholesterol.

Re: Matthew 6:20-21
“ if I say to a friend, ‘I’ve kept some beer in the fridge for you.’ that doesn’t mean that he has to climb into the fridge in order to drink the beer.”

“People who believe that Jesus is already Lord and that he will appear again as judge of the world are called and equipped to think and act quite differently in the world from those who don’t”

And now for something completely different

Another great significance to theology of resurrection, ascension, 2nd coming & hope: it was born from confrontation w/political authorities & conviction Jesus is already Lord of all. Rapture theology avoids the confrontation saying Christians get removed from the wicked world making it lean gnostic and politically laissez-faire dreaming of Armageddon in ways Paul didn’t intend. (Out of room condensed a lot here)

I think Mrs. Tartt is my favorite character. Kathryn Stockett does such a great job of fleshing out all the characters, not just the main ones.