This cold week, I feel more like making a cozy beef stew than anything else. Truly, that’s on the menu tonight. So weird. We decorated for summer, despite the snow and nonsense. Summer decorations in the kitchen signal good times ahead.
Summer?
We have another Carpenter
One evening last week, Mark and Richard worked to set up our new entertainment center downstairs. Mark wouldn’t let me come down until it was all complete, wires hidden and pieces all in place.
Mark designed and made this piece in woodshop this year. He enjoys working with wood so much that he deferred Drivers Ed to be in this woods class. (He’s taking Drivers Ed this summer.) He agonized over the details and specifications of his design throughout the year, and now he can enjoy his project every day.
Happy Memorial Day
Quilting in the kitchen
I am doing a little quilt work each day this week. I have set up my sewing station in the kitchen so I can come and go easily, or sew a few seams while I wait for something to cook. This strategy is working, and the blocks are stacking up.
This blog is the tiniest window into what I do and think. You certainly won’t learn about my stance on current events here. I hope that is refreshing.
Ramble
Richard and I spent time in Salt Lake City to celebrate our anniversary. The hills north of downtown were verdant and vibrant. These hills are usually straw yellow, but the grasses were young and bright.
The high school flags line the front of the school, the last concerts are over, and a new class graduates this week. Time is so compressed for me lately, it doesn’t feel like a year since Tim graduated. But then again, our lives are so different now, that time must have carried us to this new place. We certainly haven’t arrived at this end of another school year by any conscious, overriding plan of our own. We just kept working and kept moving, and here we are.
Here is an important quote I keep using as I see complexities in how to balance love of God and love of neighbor (thanks to my mom for this one),
“Ignoring the first commandment, or reversing the order of the first and second commandments, risks a loss of balance in life and destructive deviations from the path of happiness and truth. Love of God and submission to Him provide checks against our tendency to corrupt virtues by pushing them to the extreme. Compassion for our neighbor’s distress, for example, even when the suffering is brought about by his or her own transgression, is noble and good. But an unbridled compassion could lead us, … to question God’s justice and misunderstand His mercy.
“There are those, for example, who believe that loving others means we must twist or ignore God’s laws in a way or ways that advocate or condone sin.” (Christofferson, The First Commandment First, 2022 BYU Devotional)
I work in the yard each day, trying to reclaim sections of neglected areas. It’s so satisfying. Dirt outside and thread and fabric inside are my materials for work lately. In June, I will move to paint as my medium, as we cover more surfaces in my grand plan (many years old) to repaint every inch of the house.
Someone asked me what we are doing this summer. A wedding. Two family reunions. Drivers Ed. A trip to Yellowstone. High Adventure. Pioneer Trek. These are big events, and this is my last morning with Mark at school for a little while. I just keep moving and keep working, and here we are.
16th Birthday
We celebrated Mark’s 16th in every way we thought would make him happy. I hope he went to sleep with a smile. I am having trouble expressing what I want to say about Mark, so this won’t be a tribute post or a narrative about the day, but simply an imprint. He is so dear.
Deuteronomy
I thought of this quote by William Tyndale as I studied Deuteronomy this week.
This is a book worthy to be read in day and night and never to be out of hands. For it is the most excellent of all the books of Moses. It is also easy and light and a very pure gospel that is to wete [know], a preaching of faith and love: deducing the love to God out of faith, and the love of man’s neighbor out of love to God.”
William Tyndale
Some of my favorite words from Deuteronomy:
“Fear not, neither be discouraged.” (Deut. 1:21)
“God so nigh” (Deut. 4:7)
“Take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget.” (Deuteronomy 4:9)
“Out of heaven he made thee to hear his voice.” (Deut. 4:36)
“Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” (Deut. 6:5)
“Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children…talk of them…in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” (Deut. 6:7)
“Love ye therefore the stranger.” (Deut. 10:19)
“Open thine hand wide unto [thy poor brother].” (Deut. 15:7-8)
“Thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the LORD thy God hath given unto thee.” (Deut 26:11)
“Choose life…for he is thy life.” (Deut. 29:19-20)
“But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.” (Deut. 30:14)
“Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.” (Deut. 31:6)
“Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the LORD, the shield of thy help.” (Deut. 33:29)
Do you have a favorite passage from your study? If you like, you can share in the comments or send me a message. I love to swap favorite scriptures.
Great and Small
Since we had four young adults in the house for Sunday dinner, we tuned in to hear President Nelson’s devotional. So inspiring!
I have begun a cross stitch journey. Mini art masterpieces. 😍
herein lies the difference
I don’t believe in astrology, but I have noticed some noise about Mercury in retrograde? and something about a moon phase this week… Wouldn’t it be convenient if I could blame my blunders of the week on the planets and stars instead of my own flaws and mistakes? Richard has found me in a fetal position a few times this week, feeling so vulnerable about my choices and my words, even my opportunities. We face life together, and are dealing with many of the same things. But somehow, while I am still trying to muster energy to go to the grocery store, he has been able to get going and take Mark for a ride in the convertible to buy ice cream…at 9:00 am. I wish I could be more like Richard today.
William Tyndale, Revisited
About 15 years ago, I began reading this book, and I filled its pages with post-it notes because I found it so interesting. My days were focused on homeschool and babies, and I couldn’t finish it before it was due at the library. Defeated, I pulled the post-it notes from the pages so I could return it, and I made a promise that I would pick it up again when I had more time to devote to such a scholarly work. Well, I remembered my promise and finished it.
There are other books that might tell the story of William Tyndale in a simpler way. This was academic, sometimes over-detailed, and occasionally beyond my understanding.
William Tyndale is one of my heroes. He was the first person to translate the Bible into readable, understandable English from the original Greek and Hebrew. He was condemned as a heretic and killed before he could finish his translation of the Old Testament. Thankfully, his New Testament and Pentateuch were used in the King James Version of the Bible after his martyrdom.
I liked the author’s focus on Tyndale’s value as a translator, comparing many more muddled translations to Tyndale’s direct, clear sentences. Tyndale contributed a lot to the English language, its cadence, sentence structure, and vocabulary. Beautifully and heroically, Tyndale made the Bible understandable, and its sentences memorable. He created important words and phrases such as scapegoat, Jehovah, and living water.
Take a look at the Bible, and you will see that most sentences are constructed with monosyllables, with multisyllable words at the end of the sentences for emphasis. This is Tyndale’s voice. His words sing in our minds. These are his words, and the King James Version follows them very closely.
And after the fire, came a small, still voice.
Why halt ye between two opinions?
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
So the last shall be first, and the first shall be last. For many are called, and few be chosen.
And Jacob served seven years for Rahel, and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.
Tush, ye shall not die.
He believed the Bible should be read by anyone, and the gospel defined by the whole book, not isolated phrases, or worse, commentaries. As he worked over many years on the New and Old Testaments, he came to understand the gospel in terms of a covenant relationship with God, requiring faith and action. He learned for himself the value of the word of God, taken in its entirety, to understand what God expects of us.
What he did took great skill. He knew 8 languages. What he did took great courage. He lived in hiding in a foreign land for years. You may have heard his quote to a learned man,
If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost.
Moving beyond the book, I think about Tyndale’s influence on the plowboy, Joseph Smith, who translated the Book of Mormon. Joseph didn’t have an Oxford education like Tyndale. He had no experience in ancient languages, but with the inspiration of God and a mind full of Biblical phrases (influenced by Tyndale), he translated the Book of Mormon in a very short period of time. As for the words from James 1:5-6 that inspired Joseph the plowboy to go the woods to pray, many are Tyndale’s.