The Good Portion

Casa Mathers has been a busy place lately! On top of our usual commitments (not to mention our unusual ones) we have been left with a few more. Well, two actually. First,  there's Lil' Compy,  my daughter's chihuahua. Ever wonder what happens when pit bull meets chihuahua? Well, wonder no further.  Welcome to bedtime with Ginger and Chompy....* And next, meet Desi... a whole other species of amazing. There's no one else quite like him... a cat who purrs like a pigeon, speaks when spoken to... and expects to be spoken to.  Suddenly our other cats seem positively void of personality! Now, for the rest of the story. As many of you know, Paul and I were already living at critical pet mass. We were each sworn, individually and as a marital unit, not to allow another critter, no matter how pitiful or cute, into our crowded abode. But then my daughter, who just graduated from college, Summa Cum Laude, with degrees in Liberal Studies and Linguisti...

Who would think that with my "reformed" background I would be so blessed and challenged by the simple writings of an unassuming Quaker? While my last post, the one about reviling, was still echoing in the ears of my heart I continued my reading in The Journal of John Woolman . (By the way, Woolman was an approximate contemporary of Jonathan Edwards, who was 17 years older. Both lived in Colonial America. Both died in their fifties, of smallpox, before the Revolutionary War.)  I found myself with Woolman at the 1760 Newport, Rhode Island Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends (Quakers), feeling his desire to glorify Christ, along with his deep trepidation, as he contemplated how to broach the subject of the slavery in their midst. He agonized over the great evil of the African slave trade, and also over his love for these brothers and sisters in Christ, his fellow Quakers. It was in his heart to suggest, if he could find his way clear, that the assembly present a petition ag...