12x12x12

It's a once-in-a lifetime kind of day: 12/12/12.

If you'd like to do something both meaningful and uplifting on this special day, get out your Bible and read Revelation 21. Yes, the whole chapter. It's a description of the eternal dwelling place of God - in the midst of His people, the stunning Bride of Christ. The Bride is described as a beautifully adorned city. And you've just gotta check out all the twelves incorporated into the design: 12 gates, 12 angels at the gates, names of 12 tribes of Israel inscribed on the gates, 12 foundations made of precious stones with the names of the 12 apostles on them. Then the angel whips out a gold measuring stick and notes that these are human measurement increments, not angelic (interesting), then measures the cubic city. And guess what? It measures 12,000 x 12,000 x 12,000 stadia, which amounts to almost 1400 cu. mi. Even the measurement of the city wall is a multiple of 12. Chapter 22 goes on to describe the tree of life that stands in the middle of the city. It bears 12 crops of fruit, one for each month of the year.

What do all these 12's mean?

The number 12 is the symbolic number of God's perfection. The Bride of Christ is the collective group of believers who have been made perfect through Christ's perfect sacrifice. He has cleansed her sins and made her fit to be presented to God and to live in His presence. Notice that the twelves tribes of Israel as well as the twelve apostles are represented, meaning that the Bride will be made up of both Old Testament and New Testament believers.

All measurements and symbolisms aside, it's the description of life inside those walls that's the real kicker: perfectly sinless and peaceful, no night, no death or mourning, no crying or pain. There's no need for a place of worship, because the very focus of worship is there. He provides the comfort, the peace, and the light. From within those walls, He rules justly and reigns over an eternal kingdom.

A perfect vision.

Blessings! Enjoy this day!

What I'm Reading

Author Tim Egan is a Seattle-based nonfiction writer. I discovered his book, The Big Burn, as a featured community pick at my local library a couple of months ago. When I read the blurb on the back cover, I found that it was about Teddy Roosevelt - always one of my favorites to read about - and a guy named Gifford Pinchot. When we first moved to Washington State, I had noticed signs for a Gifford Pinchot National Forest near Mount Saint Helens and wondered who in the world Gifford Pinchot was.  Turns out he was our nation's first Forest Ranger and he led a very interesting life. He came from a very wealthy east coast family, but fell in love with the great outdoor spaces of the west and wanted to work to manage and preserve them for future generations. That brought him into contact with Teddy Roosevelt. Together, they forged the first national parks and forests. The Big Burn tells the story of what happened to the prosperous western frontier town of Wallace, Idaho, when the surrounding alpine forests went up in flames.

Once I finished that book, I looked for more titles by Egan in the library's online catalogue. That's when I found Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher. It was just published in October and I had found it in the catalogue before the library had processed it into their collection. I loved this book. It's my new favorite biography. Shadow Catcher was the nickname the American Indians gave to photographer Edward S. Curtis, a Seattle portrait photographer back in the 1890's. Curtis photographed an Indian "princess," who was the last of her tribe, living in poverty along the waterfront in Seattle. He became obsessed with photographing Indians in their natural habitats and in their traditional dress. These cultures were disappearing as the Indians died off or were being forced to assimilate into white culture. Curtis was way ahead of his time in his relationships with the Indians. He would go to tribal lands and camp near the Indians for months at a time, until they trusted him enough to photograph their ceremonies, their livelihood, and their domestic lives. He used new recording technology to capture their spoken language, which he then painstakingly transliterated, and their music. His photographs are the iconic images of North American Indians we all recognize. (The image at the top of this post is one that's reproduced in Egan's book. It's called "Oasis in the Bad Lands.") They beautifully capture cultures and ways of life that are now all but extinct. I was fascinated by this man and by his extraordinary life. A film adaptation would be amazing!

After Shadow Catcher, I was on to my third Egan title, The Worst Hard Time. After having read the Curtis biography, I found it harder to connect with the stories of so many different Dust Bowl families. I can't really say I enjoyed this story. It's very well-researched and written, like Egan's other titles and I found it very interesting. Egan makes a pointed cause-and-effect connection between the greed for large-scale commercial farming on the Great Plains and the ecological disaster it caused. The impact on the land and on the families that attempted to remain on their homesteads was enormous. This is a very informative, but grim read.

That's all for now. Enjoy!

The Wisdom Dilemma

There's a big difference between the wisdom that comes from God and the "wisdom" that comes from the world. You probably knew that, right? But how is it possible to tell when your beliefs and thoughts are fueled by Godly wisdom and when they're fueled by earthly wisdom? In the book of James, chapter 3, there are some verses that provide a way to test yourself to see what kind of wisdom you're following.

The Wisdom Dilemma is the second Scripturegram. It's a quick lesson to use for a personal devotion, with a study buddy, or for a Sunday School lesson.

Check out Scripturegrams here.

Finding Favor

I'm in the midst of studying Esther: It's Tough Being a Woman by Beth Moore. I noticed a theme that kept popping up in the story - Esther's "finding favor" with the eunuchs, the king, and everyone else she met, apparently. There was something compelling about this girl beyond her obvious beauty.

When I sat down to pray and study the other day, I found myself doing a little scripture search on "finding favor." There's actually a lot said about it in the Bible. I made some notes, prayed, then put it aside.

The next night, I talked to my eldest daughter and asked about her day. She proceeded to tell me about the awful time she had had with the teaching assistant for her lab. For some reason, the TA targeted her for verbal abuse in front of everyone in the class. While my daughter vented, all I could think was, "you didn't find favor with her."

That interesting little foray into scripture the previous day was not just intended for me, but for my daughter, too. I sent her this Scripturegram this morning and asked her to forgive me for not listening to God's voice and sharing it sooner. I'm praying that she'll be able to find favor with this TA and with her professors and classmates.

Maybe it's something that'll help you, too. I don't want to be guilty of not sharing insights from God's Word.

Blessings!

Inspiration for Music Teachers

"I can't carry a tune in a bucket!"

"I'm not at all musically talented."

"I'm too old to learn to play music."

I've heard these laments from people, young and old, for as long as I can remember. I'm so lucky my Mom took me seriously when I said I wanted to learn to play the piano. I was trained to read music. It's like learning a foreign language, but one that is more universally spoken than any other in the world. The ability to perform music in any form is a true gift. And it's just that - a gift. That means both that it can be received and that it can be passed on. People who think they can't be musical simply haven't learned yet.

It's so rewarding to take someone who thinks they can't, and show them that they can. It's why so many musicians and singers love to pass along the gift of music. But don't just take my word for it. You have to hear it from Albert Einstein. Yes, truly. This story has been around for years, but I just read it in Reader's Digest. My new favorite story:
The Night I Met Einstein

Living Out Loud

Hanford workers lined up to get their paychecks.
Image N1D0028477 at Hanford Declassified Document Retrial System

Is there a significant event that happened in your town? Was your community impacted by some historical event?

Maybe when you did the Vulture Tour lesson, you identified something interesting you'd like to investigate further. Now you need to identify a person who either lived there then or knows a lot about that particular moment in history. The most immediate way to learn about a significant event is to talk to someone who lived through it. You can get facts from reading a history book, but you can get impressions, feelings, and real impact from someone who was there.

Interviewing someone about something that happened in the past is oral history.

During the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration sought many creative ways to put Americans back to work. During this time, thousands of young men worked on construction projects that, to this day, benefit our state and national parks. Artists were employed to create murals for public buildings. Musicians sought out folk singers and recorded their traditional tunes. And writers were called to record histories with ex-slaves and pioneers. This marked one of the largest efforts to record oral history in our nation's history.

Today, the emphasis is on recording histories of World War II veterans and civilians who worked in the war effort. That generation is disappearing quickly, so their stories need to be preserved.

In studying the history of our town, we found that the most significant thing it's known for is its role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II. Men and women moved here from all over the country to work at the Hanford site - it was good, steady work, with a good paycheck; but very few of them knew what it was they were working on. Only the senior army officers and researchers knew that the giant construction projects in the middle of the desert were nuclear reactors, built to separate plutonium to be used in atomic weapons. The mission was top-secret, a matter of our national security; and these men and women wanted to perform their patriotic duty to their country's war effort.

In the years since, many of those workers have stayed in Richland. Some of them serve as docents at the Hanford B Reactor, on the occasions it can be opened up for tours. Some serve at the Columbia River Exhibition of History, Science, and Technology (The CREHST Museum) where there are excellent exhibits about life here in the 1940's. CREHST is one of the local organizations that's trying to preserve the oral histories of the Hanford "old-timers."

That brings me, finally, to our third Investigative History lesson plan, Living Out Loud. I hope it will inspire you to make a new friend that you can talk to about the past.

Billboards cautioned Hanford workers to keep their work secret during the Cold War era
Image N1D0028477 at Hanford Declassified Document Retrial System

My Sweet-Toothed Sis-In-Law

Yes, it's all her fault. My sweet, sweet-toothed southern sister-in-law innocently (or not?) posted her facebook status a couple of weeks ago: "Eating a pink lemonade cake square from Dewey's. I really think there should be as much icing on the top as there is cake on the bottom! :)"

Had I ever in my life heard of pink lemonade cake before? No, I had not. Maybe it was raging hormones, maybe it was homesickness for some decadent southern treat, maybe it was the fact that I had been fasting from desserts for about 40 days . . .

At any rate, I became obsessed with finding out how to recreate that cake. Now, I'm a long way from Dewey's, which is in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, so I started combing the 'net for a receipt. I found this one by Paula Deen, which just had to be on the right track, right, y'all? And I decided it would be the perfect thing for our Easter Dinner with friends. I watched the video of Paula and her son making the cake, I dreamed about it, I made my grocery list and checked it twice.

Then I decided that I just wouldn't be satisfied if I wasn't making the same cake my sister-in-law enjoyed in North Carolina. I had my husband quiz her about it when they were talking on the phone. Here's what he found out: the cake is pink with yellow icing (perfect for Easter, I thought); EVERYbody has one of these cakes for every baby shower, wedding shower, birthday, you name it  - definitely a local favorite.

Ok, just one more week. I could make it that long.

Since I'm pretty messy at baking and frosting cakes, I decided I'd better spend Saturday afternoon concentrating on getting the cake ready for Sunday. I did decide to do it just like Paula's so I wouldn't mess it up too badly. It was very, very easy. My cake was light pink and the frosting, a shade darker pink.

I really wish I had taken a picture. It was lovely to behold. Probably should have put some marshmallow chicks or bunnies on it or something, but I just served it naked (the cake, not me). Geez!

There were fourteen of us there for dinner. And that cake was pretty much wiped out! So good with a cup of coffee or tea. And such a refreshing lemony flavor - sorta tart, sorta sweet.

This will definitely go down as a family favorite.

And next time we're all home, Tina, dear, I'd appreciate a taste of the Dewey's version!

Photo Credit: www.deweys.com/info/about-us/