Tams' Tranquil Tales

Which theologian are you? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Karl Barth The daddy of 20th Century theology. You perceive liberal theology to be a disaster and so you insist that the revelation of Christ, not human experience, should be the starting point for all theology. Karl Barth 87% Anselm 87% John Calvin 73% Charles Finney 73% Martin Luther 67% Augustine 67% Jonathan Edwards 60% Friedrich Schleiermacher 53% Jürgen Moltmann 47% Paul Tillich 13%

Junk! Blog Challenge #10

This week Suzanne's blog challenge is junk: "Fun junk! Open a junk drawer...it's probably in your kitchen, your garage or your desk. Post a photo of one item that's been there for a long time and explain why you haven't thrown the item away yet OR post a photo of the whole drawer and talk about how it came to be a junk drawer and what kinds of stuff go in there."

So here's mine!

Originally *I* wasn't going to have a junk drawer. I've cleaned it out at least a dozen times, especially when I've been on-board with The Flylady. But there are always those things that just don't have another "home" right now. They end up here.

Our junk drawer is the smallest drawer in the kitchen, at the end of the row.

Yes, those are paint brushes. I see liquid nails, what used to be sterile tape for bandaging wounds, anti-bacterial hand cleaner, batteries (AAs -- we never have enough of these), Marks-a-lot markers in 4 cheery colors (red, green, blue and black), a wheel off one of my plastic drawer storage containers (the only remaining one, I'm willing to bet), a spool of thread, post-it notes, an emergency candle and a flashlight, a scissor sharpener, the box (just the box) from a pocketknife, crayons, a spool of ribbon, postage stamps from not-one-but-two price increases ago, a couple screw drivers, a pair of vise grips, and a balloon.

I get teased about having OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) tendencies. I'm not, but it's people's way of letting me know I'm stressing over "the small stuff," in their opinion. I've relaxed A LOT since having children. Children teach you to smell the roses, not arrange them; to play with the toys, not collect them. But, "reveals" like these always remind me of Monica from the television show Friends. Remember her?? She was completely obsessive about cleaning and organization. So much so that on one show, when her brother, Ross, stops dating a young woman because of the state of her apartment, Monica asks if she can clean it! Just the mental image of the other woman's clutter was keeping Monica from sleeping. But in another show, we discover that Monica has a secret -- a locked closet full of disorganized JUNK. I'm just reminded that no matter how "together" someone appears, there's probably some area of their life that's disorganized, or about which they are insecure, lack confidence, or experience emotional vertigo.

In fact, I'm convinced that being too organized, too rigid, too uptight is unhealthy. We need to have some chaos in our lives. We need some area where we can let our hair down. We don't always have to be in control, right, and systematized; sometimes we can just BE.

Ya! That's it! My clutter is healthy!!

Goodbye to a Friend

Today our family said 'goodbye' to a friend . . . Homer, our bearded dragon.

Here's a layout from our family scrapbook.
The three pictures on the left are of Homer. In the top one, I was preparing her a salad and she leapt into the bowl. So much for ME eating anymore of it. She middle pic shows her lounging by the pool, and swimming in my tub in the bottom one. On the right are some of her babies.

Andrew was the official owner and caretaker of Homer. He earned the money to adopt her, when she was only a few weeks old, and about 4 inches long.

Her strange, masculine name has an interesting story. Andrew topped off his earnings with money promised by Granddaddy if he could hit a home run in baseball . . . Get it? Homer ---- Home Run. Since determining whether dragons are boys or girls is very difficult, almost impossible when they are young, Homer it was. And Homer she remained, even after we realized she was a she.

We watched her grow to adulthood, about 20 inches in length. Beardies come in a variety of colors, some bred especially for their vibrancy. But Homer was like our family -- just your average dragon. We learned to keep life insects and how to make good salads for her to eat. She enjoyed sitting on our shoulder and hanging out by the pool in the sunshine.

We survived the first winter that she brumated. Brumation is similar to hibernation. Beardies sleep much longer during the cold days of winter. They eat very little, and if you aren't prepared for it, you can think they are dying.

She almost did die last winter when she prolapsed. We rushed her to Birmingham where a great veterinary clinic for exotic animals was able to help her. We hand fed her for weeks, nursing her back to health.

I must confess that I didn't want a lizard . . . a reptile . . . in my house. Andrew really had to convince me, but I got very attached to her. She enjoyed being held, and wanted to be near "the action" in our house. She liked being stroked under her chin, had an affinity for watermelon, turnip greens, and the occasional wax worm. She loved taking a warm bath in my garden tub, and watching her swim was hilarious! I learned that an animal need neither have fur, nor wag or purr, to express their affection. Nor did she need either of those to gain mine.

Seven years ago this spring, this strange, unusual creature joined our family. Along the way, she joined also our hearts. Somewhere in the night, last evening, she left us, peacefully and of natural causes, we believe. Like so many of these precious pets that grace our lives, they teach us about love and loss.

The Power of Prayer

[March 2008 newsletter]

As we continue to talk about the spiritual disciplines, this month we are talking about prayer, with excerpts from Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth by Richard Foster.

"Of all the spiritual disciplines prayer is the most central because it ushers us into perpetual communion with the Father. . . . To pray is to change. Prayer is the central avenue God uses to transform us. If we are unwilling to change, we will abandon prayer as a noticeable characteristic of our lives. The closer we come to the heartbeat of God the more we see our need and the more we desire to be conformed to Christ.”

A few years ago, I attended a seminar on prayer. One of the presenters made the following statement: “At the heart of an absence of Christian victory in living is an inactive or ineffective prayer life. At the heart of churches that don’t grow is the absence of a strong prayer ministry. At the heart of an individual Christian who feels distant or disconnected from God, who cannot see the hand of God moving in their lives and in the world, is the absence of effective prayer. At the same time, the opposite is true. A person who is living a victorious Christian life, even in the midst of trial, will be a person who prayer often. Churches that consistently grow, pray.”

Another church in our conference started a Sunday morning prayer walk many years ago. Each Sunday morning, before Sunday school, the pastor and any who wished to join him would pray in each room of the church. Over the piano, they would pray that the music would be filled with the glory of God, that the words would convey a message of faith, and that the music would usher them into a worshipful atmosphere. Over each pew, they would pray that those who sat there would have their ears open to the Word. In the children’s rooms, they would pray that God would surround those children with His love, and that the Holy Spirit would empower their parents to raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. At the front door, they would pray that all who entered there would feel the presence of the Holy Spirit, and experience God’s amazing grace. The same year the prayer walk began, the church began to grow . . . and has continued to grow EVERY YEAR since then.

You’ve probably heard the little saying “a family that prays together, stays together.” The same is true for a church. A church that prays together, grows together. There are many types of prayer: discursive prayer, mental prayer, centering prayer. The prayer of quiet, the prayer of relinquishment, the prayer of faith, and the prayer of guidance. Though we can learn to pray more effectively, there is no RIGHT way to pray. There’s no magic formula that makes God do what we ask, nor must we get the words just right in order to pry God into action. Rather, we should seek to pour our hearts out to our Father, knowing that He cares for us, wants to hear from us, and longs to speak back to us about our concerns. He loved us before we even loved Him. He sought out relationship with us before we wanted one with Him. He will not refuse to listen to you because you “didn’t do it right.”

All the things that can be said about prayer could fill a library! I want to tell you about “Flash Prayers,” an idea developed by Frank Laubach. He sought to learn to live so that to see someone was to pray for them, to hear someone was to pray for them, to have anyone come to mind was to pray for them. As you pass someone on the street, quickly, silently pray for them. When you hear a child cry, pray for him and his parents. If you hear an ambulance, pray for the situation. Many times the person you pray for will never know and have no response, but every now and then, someone will suddenly turn to look at you, usually smiling, as though you’ve spoken out loud to them. Laubach says “We could change the whole atmosphere of a nation if thousands of us would constantly throw a cloak of prayer around everyone in our circle of nearness.”
“Units of prayer combined, like drops of water, make an ocean which defies resistance.” E.M. Bounds in Power through Prayer. We need an ocean of God’s love to sweep across our world, convicting, cleansing, forgiving, and drawing into holiness and righteousness. See how many drops in the ocean you can contribute!

May you pray without ceasing!

For more information on prayer, I recommend the following books:
Power through Prayer, E.M. Bounds
Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home, Richard Foster
Clinging: The Experience of Prayer, Emilie Griffin
Earth & Altar: The Community of Prayer in a Self-Bound Society, Eugene Peterson
Contemplative Prayer, Thomas Merton
Prayer: The Mightiest Force in the World and Learning the Vocabulary of God, Frank Laubach
Intercessory Prayer (and anything else by), Dutch Sheets