Marsha's Blog

 Conversation opened. 1 read message. I had an interesting experience this week, as are true of most of my weeks. In Bible study last night, we were shown a video about the insidious influence of Artificial intelligence.  (Or “AI” if you’re cluey). It was both interesting and frightening to learn how computers might just be taking over our thinking. Based on that, I decided to read my Bible from the actual BIBLE this morning instead of my phone……….I occasionally checked my phone as I read, and it seemed to be hanging in there with the Word correctly, so maybe my Bible program hasn’t been taken over…..yet. But something unexpected happened.  Reading my physical Bible gave me access to years and years of ‘notes’ I’d written in the margins.   And what should I happen across this morning was a little note, with a name, and the verse, 2 Corinthians 5:7.  Most of you will know it without even looking it up.  It says,  “We walk by faith, not by sight”. I...

 This morning I’d like to think with you about the story of the Samaritan woman who meets Jesus at the well.  It’s in John, chapter 4:4-42.   We all know the story; Jesus is at the well resting while His disciples go into town to find food. It’s high noon and hot. When the woman approaches the well to draw water, He speaks to her and asks for a drink. Obviously, she’s avoiding others by coming at such an inconvenient time. She’s surprised that he’d even speak to her since she’s a Samaritan, but nevertheless they talk back and forth and he tells her about the 5 husbands she’s had and then goes on to mention that the one she has now that she’s not even married to.   Obviously, after all that, she pegs him as a prophet, and they continue talking……..  until she says in verse 25, “I know that Messiah, the Christ, is coming.  And when He comes, He will explain everything to us”.   And then Jesus says, (I like to think it was in a quiet convers...

 So some people collect stamps; I like to collect words. No one’s ever accused me of being ‘smart’ but sometimes I like to be a “smart aleck” and throw out a word in casual conversation that not many of my cohorts will immediately understand. It’s fun to watch their reactions, like, “Oh! You mean THAT fogdog!” or else, “I think I knew that …” Today’s word is “Chimera”. If you already know what that means, there went my fun for today. You can skip ahead to the application. “Chimera” is a noun that describes something wished for but is either illusory or impossible to achieve. Lately I’ve been painfully aware of two chimeras in my life. One comes to mind when I’m looking back; the other when I’m looking ahead.   Not that I’m counting, but I believe I’ve spent about 80% of my adult life on a diet, on that never-ending search for the perfect body. Now time is teaming up with my best intentions, bringing me one more step toward accepting this as the chimera it is. I’m bracing ...

 It was the early days of our time in Japan … those days when my emotions ran from mountaintops of wonder to those low places when, if I could have FOUND the airport, I would have been on a plane headed for what I still considered “Home”. Most of my frustrations circled around the Japanese language, and my lack of it. Why, WHY wouldn’t these people just stop blabbering gibberish and start speaking English?!? And then, when I began to dare that I was indeed starting to pick up what a 17th century Franciscan monk called “The Devil’s Language”, reality would blindside me like it did on that Sunday morning. The ladies were talking at great length about … well about SOMETHING. There was a lot of smiling and pointing to the Bible, so I surmised we were giving our testimonies. “Got it!” I thought to myself. I had prepared one in language school and it was in my purse, just waiting for this moment. Sure enough, one of the ladies turned to me and asked sweetly, “Ikaga desu ka?” “What do you...

 G’day Fellow Travellers, I think many of you might be on Facebook and so noticed the picture I took out the back of our house the other day… seven of the most majestic English-originated Red Deer you ever saw.   It’s a bit of a mystery how they got there, since they are not native to Australia and DEFINITELY not welcome among the country’s flora and fauna. It’s believed they were introduced some time back by a wealthy entrepreneur with plans to start up a new industry. Nobody is saying for sure, but the only thing that can be said is that the deer love it here! I know that the many of you living in Texas and those parts look at deer and think either “menace” or “venison” and perhaps both in the same sentence.  Fortunately for these folks here, although they’re listed as ‘feral’, as they are, everyone treats them like family pets.  Yes, they eat our flowers, but according to the layout of the floodplain we live on, they really can’t get into the traffic, so we a...

 Hello Friends, This week we were in a relatively unknown grocery store just to pick up some last-minute something. It wasn’t one of the “chain” supermarkets we usually go to, so we were interested to see all the different products they had for sale.  Coming around a corner, I came face-to-face with a box of Twinkies! Are they still around in your neck of the woods? For myself, I don’t think I’ve seen one outside of America … ever. Unfortunately, as an imported specialty, they were about $1.50 a twink, so it wasn’t hard to pass them up. But it made me remember a story from long ago. Tony was sitting in a Japanese pastor’s meeting. On either side of him were seated the much “halo"-ed older missionary who’d been in Japan more than 30 years. When I think about it, I believe he was probably more “Japanese” than some of the actual Japanese there. Sitting next to him was a fairly new missionary, just learning the ropes and trying to keep his head above water. As the snacks were pass...