Counting the Cost

"But the king replied to Araunah, 'No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.' So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen and paid fifty shekels of silver for them." (2 Samuel 24.24 NIV, emphasis added)

If it costs me nothing, is it a sacrifice?
The difference between an offering and a sacrifice: cost.
-mo
Moville

Swing with me

Today (actually, yesterday, according to the clock), I played. I visited the playground on which I spent countless recesses sitting on my "thinking rock" watching my classmates play. The rock is long gone, but the same wooden structure, as we called it, is there, the same swings, slide, tunnel, monkey bars, metal climby things, and wooden balance beam. I walked across the swinging bridge and slid down the fireman's pole. The trip down the pole was shorter than I remembered it. I walked across the balance beam, which was closer to the ground than I remembered it. I climbed to the top of the round, green, metal climby thing. We used to get in trouble for climbing to the top. A classmate of mine fell and broke his arm when he broke that rule. Today, I was safe. The climb was not as high as I remembered it. I walked under the monkey bars and grabbed them without having to jump. They were not as tall as I remembered them. I visited the cluster of trees that was so obviously a house to us, a fort to the boys. I was disappointed that it looked so much like trees today - not at all like I remembered it. The one redeeming factor of my trip to my childhood playground: whoever came along and changed all the rest of that stuff did not oil the swings. Those old, screechy swings were exactly as I remembered them. To the familiar tune of their screechy lullaby, I drifted into a nostalgic dreamland. Would that I could swing forever...
-mo
Moville

June 23, 1926

Eighty years ago today, Roy Everett Trussell breathed his first breath, nine months or so after his life began.

Many of my earliest memories are of being with him. He taught me that the best way to make a kid stop crying is to pretend to cry more loudly than the kid. (The kid - one of my sisters or I - is so confused that she just stops and stares.) On one of our many three-wheeler rides to feed the cows, he taught me to spit. (I am not sure he meant to teach that lesson, but I learned by modeling his tobacco-spitting.) He taught me to call the cows for feeding time: "Hey, cows, c'mon." (You can't really spell it like we said it... For a demo, call me or ask me to do it in person sometime.) He let me experience the tugging of a calf on the other end of a bottle I held. (He had to hold onto my hands to keep the calf from stealing the bottle.) He taught me that a ride in a pickup truck is not complete without some good, toe-tappin' southern gospel, and the rides were always better with a little dog named Tina. (After I demonstrate calling the cows, I can teach you how we asked Tina if she wanted to ride.) By his quiet example, he taught me that worship is appreciating the small stuff.

Thank You, God, for the life and legacy of Granddaddy.
-mo
Moville

Truthophobia --> name-calling

from www.webster.com:

Main Entry: -phobe
Function: noun combining formEtymology: Greek -phobos fearing: one fearing or averse to (something specified)

I am 100% tired of being called a homophobe because I believe what the Bible says about sin. I am neither afraid of nor averse to homosexual individuals, including my homosexual friends. On the contrary, I enjoy their company, and I am almost certain they would say the same about me.

So, don't call me a phobe simply because you do not agree with me or because you do not understand me. I am not afraid of name-callers, either.
-mo
Moville

???

Am I your best friend?
-mo
Moville

Citizens Betrayed

Once again, the US Senate has denied children the right to grow up in healthy homes. Thanks, though, to Johnny and Saxby for voting for the children.

See what Tony has to say about it (good stuff):
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=PR06F03&f=WA06F14
-mo
Moville