TheEvan

I've lost track of Ellen (6) and I don't remember her maiden name. Anybody? Ellen, dear, are you out there? My daughter is applying to Brown for grad school and I've got general questions. You did go to Brown, nay? Evan

Heh! Nice to see yyou. If you peek in here again, exound a bit on your experience "unschooling". We've finished our homeschooling and we networked with many doing the same. I read about unschooling and found the concept interesting and a bit troubling.

Total shock! Oh Rum, my old friend! I am so sorry for your loss.

Lombardi-Gras begins!

I think VP would have felt intimidated by Koestler's intellect and academic achievements Apparently Koestler was a highly intelligent monster. I don't think "highly intelligent" fits the old cornfield preacher. I enjoyed the article. Strange person, that.

Rum, Didn't we take Christmas (or Thanksgiving) meal together in Keene that year? Would have been '75. It was at the home of a fine New England lady. I remember the Yorkshire pudding, which I viewed with a mixture of interest & horror. We had, among other things, BBQ turkey yesterday. Here's my recipe: This is a nice alternative to traditional roast turkey, which I associate with dry, bland and stringy breast meat. It has the added bonus of freeing oven space for those other dishes you need to prepare for a holiday feast. 1 turkey 1 pint of fresh Creole seasoning vegetables (such as Guidry’s Fresh Cuts, found in the produce section). 1 lb andouille sausage, diced. 1 bottle of Jack Miller’s or similar BBQ sauce. Stubb’s original is acceptable, but do not use a dark caramel sauce like KC Masterpiece. The flavor definitely clashes with turkey. 1 small can of frozen limeade concentrate. Prepare by cutting the turkey in half bilaterally. This will require a heavy sharp knife, strength and patience. Poultry shears will help in some places. Sauté seasoning vegetables and sausage until the onions are clarified. Make deep cuts in the thighs and breast meats and stuff with sauté mix. Also stuff the mix under the skin wherever possible. Reserve the remaining sauté mix. Wrap each half with 4 layers of wide heavy-duty Reynolds foil (other brands won’t hold up to the fire). Place on grill, bone side down, for about 2 hours on a medium fire. Be careful when placing them on the grill that you don’t tear the foil. Combine the reserved sauté mix with BBQ sauce and limeade concentrate. After two hours of cooking, turn each half (now meat side down), make a small opening on the sides now facing up, and pour in BBQ sauce-limeade-sauté mix. Reserve the remainder to serve tableside. Close up the slits. Cook for about one hour. The turkey will not need much carving as it will have fallen to bits by now. Place the undignified mess on a platter as is, or if you’d like to get fancy you can separate the meats from the bone and arrange nicely on a serving piece. Either way, enjoy. In retrospect, test with a thermometer. Those times could have been reduced about 25%

WG: I'll do my best with it. Again bear in mind I don't speak for Calvinism, though I do believe in their doctrine of election as I understand it. I find their approach to articulating their beliefs pedantic at times, sometimes very much so. I hope you find my less precise language will contain something useful to you. The elect do not go to heaven "no matter how bad they are". Nor do they go to heaven "no matter what". They must hear the gospel, be enlightened to their wretched state and need for a Savior, repent and believe. They are then heaven-bound, not on the merit of their election, but on the merit of Christ's sacrifice alone. That said, election says that a response of faith to the gospel is a work of the Holy Spirit, not because some enlightened soul woke up one day and thought it grand idea to repent and be saved. There are some erroneous responses or beliefs about predestination/election. Some take it as "whatever will be will be". For them, "faith" is an impersonal, stoic thing. They adopt a sort of religious fatalism. Why try? Why witness? After all, whatever will, will be, right? This wrong. Though man is not the master of his own destiny, the scripture still makes each person responsible for their own soul. Furthermore, God is not arbitrary, as many have depicted him. That is another wrong take on election & predestination. Nothing about God is arbitrary. Everything is according to a specific plan, for his purposes and glory. That we fail to understand his ways doesn't make him arbitrary. In summary, salvation is shown as being God's work in Christ Damnation is shown as being man's own work and responsibility. But then again I'm not really a calvinist. (My good calvinist friend calls me a 3.75 point calvinist, but I wouldn't know :) )

I can understand your sentiment...but it isn't, really. Now I don't say this from a Calvinist perspective, not being one myself. But it really does matter if God meant predestination or if he meant simply foreknowledge that seems like predestination. If we (our 'free will') are the hinge upon which salvation rests, if God has made his move and now is waiting for us to make ours and has placed his workings in a subordinate role to our action or faith, then our walk is fraught with uncertainty, as it well should. I have good reason to be uncertain about myself! But if God's plan is entirely in his hands and he will call you, save you and guide you until Christ be perfected in you then you can rest easy knowing he is in charge. He will be faithful to complete what he has begun. This is where the peace that so many are missing rests.

This performance is, if anything, more amazing. Here, Goran is doing a fabulous job of what must be the most difficult of all on guitar: bringing out the different lines of fugue with clarity and separation. Follow Bach's ingeneous chromatic inner lines as they move from the low to middle voices and finally the top voice. Oops, can't figrue out how to embed a YouTube clip. The link works anyway.

Charlie Musselwhite? Sure enough! He's something of a blues legend. Here's my contribution from a stone cold virtuoso: Goran Krivokapic - Bach Violin Sonata III Allegro Assai (arranged for guitar)

Marvelous! I found it at cyber hymnal

I'll look forward to it. It's a lovely text but unfamiliar.

I know it not...

Nor I, though I recognize only a smattering of Gaither songs & hymns. I just found this. You folks have been having fun and I didn't know! A bit more contemporary than most submissions here, but this is a fave. Fourth stanza. O Cross that liftest up my head, I dare not ask to fly from thee; I lay in dust life’s glory dead, And from the ground there blossoms red Life that shall endless be.

Body or Bride? Yes.