Category Archives: Bible study

Bible study, book reviews, Christianity

Book Review: Astronomy and the Bible

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A good, short read, I highly recommend it.

Lynda and I are in the process of selling books. Not books I’ve written, but books in our personal inventory: books we inherited from parents or bought though the years. One man who bought one book from me wanted to browse what we had. In a box tucked away in our basement storeroom was a book Astronomy and the Bible. It was published in the 1980s, but I don’t remember seeing it before.

The author, Donald B. DeYoung, is a scientist and university professor of physics and astronomy. In his years of teaching and speaking at many events, both academic and Christian, he’s had to answer many questions. How are star distances measured?  Has the earth’s tilt changed? What is a quasar? What is the Anthropic Principal? The book consists of these questions and DeYoung’s answers.

I found the book fascinating, and easy reading. The format of questions and answers facilitated quick reading, DeYoung’s answer style also made for easy reading. I was able to finish the book before the buyer came to pick it up.

Since the book was published in 1989, the two deep-space telescopes have been implemented by NASA. We know a lot more about the universe than we did at the time of publication. A few of his answers would be somewhat different in 2024 than they were in 1989. But except for that, the book seems accurate even today.

DeYoung is a professing Christian, and a believer in a young earth. He says there is some evidence in the cosmos for creation about 10,000 years ago. But he does a good job of presenting both old earth and young earth evidence. The reader can decide, taking DeYoung’s answers with other works, both scholarly and popular, and come to their own conclusions.

I give this book 5-stars. It’s a short read, and a good read. But it is sold, so I will likely never read it again. If you’re interested in the subject, and happen to find a used copy of this 35-year-old work, go ahead and read it. I recommend it.

Bible study, Health, letters

Where Do I Go From Here?

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Our son snapped this picture just as they called me to begin prep for surgery.

As the title of this post says, I’m somewhat uncertain about what my life if going to be like in the future.

As to the heart surgery, I’m healing well. I’m being careful to follow the discharge instructions the hospital gave me. I’ve been seen three times by home health, once in clinic for blood draw, and once in clinic for the post-op appointment. Almost every day I sense healing happening in my body. Yesterday, after working with our daughter putting one bedroom back together following down-sizing activities, I had my first real time of pain at the incision point. A Tylenol was sufficient to help control it.

As to my stroke of 3 Sept, progress on the lingering impairments is slow. Typing has started to improve, but remains both slow and painful. Handwriting is also slow to return to normal. It takes me a long time just to sign my name to anything, and the result is barely legible. Writing anything takes much more time it ought to.

But, I’ve been able to do some light writing tasks. I began work on the next volume of my Bible study series. Not actual writing yet, but creating the book files, loading the scripture in and dividing it by chapter, and planning the subsections. I think I’m perhaps a day away from completing the preliminaries and beginning the writing.

The other writing project is the book of family letters from our years in Saudia Arabia. All that’s left is adding photographs. That involves scanning to digital, resizing, loadings into the books, then formatting the pages. As I’ve said before, the words are written. I scanned some photos previously. But the scanner is in the basement and I’m still not allowed to do stairs. Our daughter did a lot of scanning. I have at least 40 scanned photos to go through and load into the book. I will work on that some this week. About the time I finish that, I’ll be at the point using stairs again, and can complete the scanning.

So healing is happening, and writing tasks are getting done. Hopefully on Friday, I’ll be able to report increasing progress.

Bible study, self-publishing, Short Stories, Writing

Working Two Projects

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While I’m laid up with accidents, I’m doing my best to get some writing work done. But when I say, “laid up,” I don’t mean lying flat on a bed doing nothing. I’m able to get around with a walker, to drive, attend church, pick up meds at the pharmacy. A couple of weeks ago I did a little yard work, and learned I wasn’t really ready for that. It probably set back my healing for a week.

But there are two things I enjoy doing that are easily done without putting weight on my feet: reading and writing.

I’ve done a fair amount of reading. For my morning devotional time, I read two prayers in Prayer That Avail Much. I’m a third of the way through this book, and mostly enjoying it. For enjoyment, I’m reading two books that are writing related. One is The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals by Dorothy Wordsworth, sister of the famous British poet. I’m not sure I’m really enjoying this one. I’ll write more about this in a future book review. The third book I’m reading is Vol. 3 of The Letters of Virginia Woolf.  I’m enjoying this one a little more, and will surely write a review of it.

As to writing, I’m working on two projects. One is A Walk Through Holy Week, Vol. 2. I finished this one about two weeks ago. I let it sit a while, then came back and did one editorial review of it. My plans are to let it sit for a week, then do one more editorial pass. I’m hoping at that time to call it “Done” and start publishing tasks. However, it’s possible I’ll still have areas in the book that will need more attention.

The other writing project is the book of letters from our years in Saudi Arabia. This book consists of handwritten letters transcribed into print. To those I added an Introduction and a little commentary along the way. That makes the words part of the book done and ready for proofreading. On Saturday and Sunday just passed, I proofread 57 of the book’s 186 pages. I’ll finish it this week. Then I have to find photos to illustrate it. After that will come publishing tasks and having a few copies made for family members. I hope to have that done when the family gathers for Thanksgiving.

So this is keeping me busy. I have other books lined up when these are done. And I have other writing projects waiting when these two are finished.

I might learn to like this life as a semi-invalid.

Bible study, book reviews, Christianity

Book Review: Two Books About The Apostles

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Two books covering the same subject in different ways.

Among the books we have in our house are those that belonged to my late mother-in-law, Esther Cheney Barnes. She didn’t have a huge library, maybe 150 books or so. They have been in boxes the last ten years, I looked at them a couple of times, but didn’t want to mess with them.

Over the last six months, Lynda has been going through her mom’s books, sorting into keepers, reads and discards, duplicates of ones we might already have, and get rid ofs without reading. Two small books among those covered the same subject: the lives of the apostles. One was The Master’s Men: Character Sketches of the Disciples, by William Barclay. The other is Thirteen Men Who Changed the World, by H.S. Vigeveno. Both books are short, under 160 paperback pages. That was perfect, I thought, for taking on our last trip.

The two books, while covering the same subject, handle the source material very different. Barclay’s book is essentially a topical Bible study. He looks at what we know about each apostle from the gospels and Acts. Besides the Twelve, he includes a write up about Nathaniel and James son of Alpheus. But he does not include Paul the apostle. After giving the Biblical record, Barclay give information contained in early church records. When he does this, Barclay is careful to separate legend from info biblical accounts.

Vigeveno’s book reads more like creative non-fiction than a Bible study. He takes the same tact as Barclay, first presenting what we know from the Bible than adding what we know from legend. But Vigeveno tends to accept the legends as truth and incudes legendary information in the character sketches. He writes well, and the book is engaging, but Vigeveno’s book is a little less reliable than Barclay’s is.

1959 and 1958 were the dates of publication of the two books. The paperback books I read were from 1973 and 1980. So I think it’s fair to say those of you reading this review are unlikely to run across either of them. If you do, should you read them? I say yes. They are both entertaining short reads about a biblical topic.

But are they keepers? In my mind no. I don’t ever see myself reading them again. So off to the sale/donation pile they go.

Bible study, Danny Tompkins Short Stories, expatriate life, Short Stories

July Progress, August Goals

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This was a strange month. I expected to undergo open-heart surgery on July 22, but it was postponed when I injured my leg. Still waiting on that to heal so the surgery can be rescheduled. But the leg injury has hurt my movements and kept me from working at my writing as much as I’d hoped. Nevertheless, I did have accomplishments.

  • Blog twice a week on Mondays and Fridays. Got this done, with the help of scheduled posts.
  • Make as much progress as possible on Volume 2 of A Walk Through Holy Week. It would be nice to have the first draft done before July 22. Completed the first draft on July 27!
  • Attend one writing group meeting. The two other meetings are cancelled due to venue problems during the summer. Did this. The other two meetings stayed cancelled
  • Complete the Introduction and occasional commentary of the Saudi letters book. I got the Introduction done in the last few days. The commentary is started but not yet done.
  • Possibly complete and publish a short story I’ve been working on, the next in the Danny Tompkins series. I worked on this some more, so that it’s more or less done. Some comments from my critique group are not yet fully addressed.

Setting goals going forward is difficult, because I don’t know how my healing will go—not only with my leg but with a new shoulder/arm injury. I might have heart surgery late in the month, or, more likely, it will slip into September. So how do I plan for writing tasks with such uncertainty?

  • Blog twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. I may use scheduled posts again.
  • I’m not making a goal of attending any writers meetings, partly from not knowing how my surgery and illnesses will lay me up, and partly because one meeting may be cancelled due to lack of a venue.
  • Complete two editorial passes through A Walk Through Holy Week, Vol 2. I should be able to get this done even with uncertainty of schedule.
  • Figure out any final changes to the latest Danny Tompkins story, then finish and publish it.
  • Complete the commentary between letters. If I can get that done, begin selection of photos and insert them in the book.
  • And, one more for good measure: Make a start at outlining Vol 3 of A Walk Through Holy Week.

That’s enough. I’ll be lucky to get this much done.

Bible study, letters, reading, stock market, Writing

On Again, Off Again Journal

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For several years I’ve been keeping a journal. I’m not very regular with it. My typical time to write is in the evenings, after everything else is done and we are watching TV.

  • Up at 5:50 a.m. Weight 202.0; blood sugar 117.
  • Walked 2 miles, my fourth straight day to walk that distance, and my tenth day of morning walking in an effort to improve strength and stamina ahead of my surgery.
  • To The Dungeon, without coffee. Devotional reading (currently in a book on prayer) and prayer.
  • Begin work on the Bible study I’m writing. My goal was to write one section, about 600 words. I was able to do that. Had time left, so began work on the next section. It was a good time of writing.
  • No book sales when I checked early.
  • Reviewed the stock market and made one trade.
  • Upstairs for breakfast of sausage-onions-peppers-eggs-cheese on pita bread, then outside to do some light yardwork.
  • Checked on two home improvement items. Our propane company did change out the hardware on the propane takes as I asked. Someone called me about it a couple of weeks ago but the reception was so bad that I couldn’t understand him. And, I called the plumbing supply store about the replacement toilet seats I wanted to buy. They had never called me. I learned they couldn’t find one of the right size, material, and color that I need. So I researched and found one on Amazon and ordered it. Let’s hope the color matches.
  • Worked on scanning documents to save electronically and then discard the papers. I got rid of three stray genealogy papers and a number of writing site papers. I only need two more days at that pace to get rid of one more notebook.
  • Read in the sunroom. Cloud cover made it easy to do today. May have napped a little out there.
  • Lunch of leftover pizza, crackers, and blackberries.
  • Made a blackberry cobbler to give away.
  • Back to The Dungeon for a few more computer tasks, including managing correspondence.
  • Looked through some books to choose a couple to take to the hospital with me.
  • Rested upstairs in my reading/TV watching chair. Worked on crossword puzzles but fell asleep.
  • Read three letters in the Carlyle Letters Online.
  • Had supper of leftover taco salad, still quite good on the fourth day. Dessert for me was, you guessed it, blackberries with a little sugar sprinkled on them.
  • Wrote a letter to my second grandson, which I’ll mail tomorrow.
  • Remembered I needed to write a blog post for tomorrow, and so started writing this.

Well, that seems to describe a full day. Maybe I’ll actually find time to write this in my journal.

Bible study, Documenting America, goals

June Progress, July Goals

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The changing of the month, once again. Time to see how I did on last months goals and to set some new goals for July, First, the progress.

  • Blog twice a week on Mondays and Fridays. That’s starting to sound monotonous. Done, with a little help of scheduling posts ahead of time.
  • Make good progress on A Walk Through Holy Weeks, Vol 2: Temple Teaching. I’ll have to see if time will materialize for writing. If I had to set a goal, I’d like to be at least 70 percent done. No, did not make this goal. I was unable to write much on our trip to Texas—too much turmoil and too many responsibilities. I did get some done, and the books stands at around 60 percent complete. I had a problem with the structure of the book and took a couple of days working through the outline and changing the order of the chapters.
  • Continue with my scanning/formatting/e-filing of old poetry critiques project. This task is bigger than I thought, and will take a lot of perseverance to get it done. I think it will take three more months to finish. I got some of this done before we left for Texas, but none after we got back, so I would have to say I didn’t meet this goal. Not sure I’m even at the point where I can say I’m X% done with it
  • Begin to put together my book of our letters from Saudi Arabia.  The letters are transcribed and saved, the travel diary is only a day or two away from full transcription. I’d like to have the book mostly done by mid-July (for reasons that will be revealed in a future post). That means I need to be 2/3 done by the end of June. All transcribing is done, including a little proofreading. The letters and travel diary is assembled in a book file. I’m ready to write the introduction and commentary. I would have to say I slightly ahead of where I’d hoped to be at month’s end.
  • As with last month, I want to spend some time reading for the next Documenting America book, but it will have to be different material than I read in May. I have a book picked out to take with me and read on our next trip. May also get some in before that. No, I didn’t do any of this. My reading took me in different directions. Plus, I don’t really know which volume I’m going to do next.

So as you can see, it was not a great month for making progress.

Now, some July goals.

  • Blog twice a week on Mondays and Fridays. That may not be possible due to some surgery scheduled in July, but I’ll make it a goal and hope to write and schedule some posts ahead of time.
  • Make as much progress as possible on Volume 2 of A Walk Through Holy Week. It would be nice to have the first draft done before July 22.
  • Attend one writing group meeting. The two other meetings are cancelled due to venue problems during the summer.
  • Complete the Introduction and occasional commentary of the Saudi letters book.
  • Possibly complete and publish a short story I’ve been working on, the next in the Danny Tompkins series.

That’s all. Maybe this is achievable, maybe not. I’ll see if circumstances allow me to post progress and goals when July rolls into August.

 

Bible study, family

Trip 2 Is In The Bag

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A tender moment, as Elijah cuddled with one of the cats, I think in his sleep.

Saturday evening, we arrived at home around 9:00 p.m., ending our second trip for the summer. This one was to Lake Jackson, Texas, about an hour south of Houston. Our daughter and her family live there. She and her husband and their two middle children went on a ten-day mission trip to Belize. Staying behind were their oldest son, Ephraim, and youngest son Elijah.

Well, also the four cats (not so affectionately nicknamed Useless, Nitwit, Diva, and Blimpie), the 70 pound lab (nicknamed Nuisance), and the bearded dragon. Useless has an infection of some kind and needed watching and medicating. The two kids staying behind were mostly up on the care of the pets. Little Elijah did very well scooping three of the five litter boxes. The twice-a-week sifting was a little beyond his abilities but he tried hard.

One morning, I heard a ruckus, and found the gate that keeps the dog out of the upstairs down. It was almost a two-person job to get it back in place again.,

I got to read a lot with Elijah. He can read okay, but he wanted me to read to him. We didn’t quite finish the second book he asked me to read. He’s a good kid, though, just like his older siblings, he spends a lot of time on screens. Some of that time is actually educational. In between the silliness of certain things, he hears educational videos. And he seems to understand and retain much of the good information they try to convey.

On the other hand, Ephraim is…a teenager. What is that old saw? “When I was sixteen I was amazed at my father’s ignorance.” I have to hope that the second part of that is also true for him: “When I was twenty-one I was amazed at how much he had learned in five years.” I’ll just leave it at that. On Wednesday June 19, I drove him to Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, and saw him off on his big adventure, a European trip, courtesy of his uncle Charles.

I had been hoping to get some writing done, what with fewer kids around than normal, but, alas, that wasn’t to be. I think I was able to writing only on three days, and not a normal daily output on those days. Maybe I’ll get some done this week with Ezra here. If not, I’ll hope for a good output in the several weeks ahead.

We stayed two nights after the family returned. Took the two middles to the planetarium, our third time to go there. It’s a nice educational facility about three miles from their house. I bought a season pass for them, and hope they go a few more times to justify the expense.

Saturday, we drove back with thirteen-year-old grandson Ezra. He’ll spend a week with us. I have a number of projects lined out for him to help me with. I hope to work him about four hours a day, then he’ll have free time. We are also hoping to read in the Bible every night, and, we shall play games. He’s looking forward to not having his younger sister around, whose antics liven up the game but also makes normal play difficult.

Next Saturday, we’ll drive half-way to Lake Jackson, meeting one of his parents—or possibly both plus two other grandkids—halfway. That will end the summer trips. That is, unless we go to Branson for a week during my convalescence after surgery. But more on that later. For now, we are looking forward to a few weeks of normalcy.

Bible study, Documenting America, goals

May Progress, June Goals

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  • Blog twice a week on Mondays and Fridays. Some of those I may have to write early due to schedule conflicts. Did this, including writing a few pieces ahead of time and scheduling them to post on day we were traveling.
  • Start writing Volume 2 of A Walk Through Holy Week. I don’t have a specific goal as to word count. Just making a start will be sufficient. I began this! And it’s good to be writing again. As of this morning, I’m approximately 30 percent done with it. I had hoped for a little more progress, but am pleased with what I got done.
  • Continue to scan, format, and file old documents, specifically poem critique I did from 2001 to approximately 2012. I have done well so far, but have another ±400 pages to go. I have no specific page goal—just getting some done will be sufficient. I thought I finished this, but found another two notebooks, with maybe another 300 pages that need to be scanned. I’ll write a post about it later in the month—or possibly next month.
  • Do a little reading for the next Documenting America book. The problem is, as reported in a previous post, I don’t know if the subject will be the Articles of Confederation or Abolition. I hope by the end of this month to be far down the road in deciding between the two. I did a fair amount of research reading for this project in May. That’s the good news. The bad news is I found it very laborious, and am not sure I’ll be able to use it. I’ll have to think about this going forward.
  • One other major thing accomplished, thought not an official goal for the month, was transcribe the writing diary for our trips in 1983. Most of it had to do with the big Asian trip, but I also documented some other snippets. That’s now done. Will next have to format it and work it in to the book of letters for the Saudi years.

I still have one more day in this month, so perhaps I’ll get a little more done on the book and scanning.

As far as June goes, it’s difficult to set goals since we have a trip in the works and then a grandchild with us for a week. But I’ll take a stab at it. I can always edit the goals at some point in the month.

  • Blog twice a week on Mondays and Fridays. That’s starting to sound monotonous.
  • Make good progress on A Walk Through Holy Weeks, Vol 2: Temple Teaching. I’ll have to see if time will materialize for writing. If I had to set a goal, I’d like to be at least 70 percent done.
  • Continue with my scanning/formatting/e-filing of old poetry critiques project. This task is bigger than I thought, and will take a lot of perseverance to get it done. I think it will take three more months to finish.
  • Begin to put together my book of our letters from Saudi Arabia.  The letters are transcribed and saved, the travel diary is only a day or two away from full transcription. I’d like to have the book mostly done by mid-July (for reasons that will be revealed in a future post). That means I need to be 2/3 done by the end of June.
  • As with last month, I want to spend some time reading for the next Documenting America book, but it will have to be different material than I read in May. I have a book picked out to take with me and read on our next trip. May also get some in before that.

That’s it for goals, subject, as always, to amendment.

Bible study, critique group, Health, home improvements, letters

Busy, Busy, Busy

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I’m late with my Friday morning post. Chalk it up to busyness.

I won’t say all that’s going on that made the days busy, but here’s a little of it.

  • Monday I went to the hospital for a test, only to find out the test was no longer needed because a test they did back on April 15 covered the same area. $20 miles of expense just getting there, and about two hours I would never get back.
  • Wednesday I went back to the same hospital for a different test, an MRI to take a closer look at a small mass of “neoplasm” found in the April 15 test. While the final report isn’t complete, it appears to be just a cyst on my kidney. Nothing to worry about.
  • We had painters at the house Monday-Wednesday, finishing the work needed after repairs from water damage to the house. I think I’ve blogged about that before.
  • Yardwork continues, though I’m pretty much on top of it and need to do only a little every day. I hope to get in an hour today.
  • We are slowly putting everything back in place from the house repairs. Got some done last night.
  • We continue to sell a few things in our dis-accumulation efforts. Sold two items this week, and brought a bookshelf to the garage for work to strengthen and repurpose it.
  • I’ve been writing this week. Today I wrote the last two sections of Chapter 2 of Volume 2 of A Walk Through Holy Week. I feel good about the progress.
  • I’ve had several items of correspondence this week with other writers—some for our critique group and some just for pleasure.
  • Yesterday I finished transcribing letters from or years in Saudi Arabia. I still have a travel journal to transcribe, then I’ll start putting them in a book for family. No hurry on this project.
  • I have made great progress with scanning/formatting/e-filing the poetry critiques I did from 2001-2010, which I had printed and saved. I’m down to less than thirty still to do. No hurry on this project either.
  • I’m working on plans for three special events over the next two weeks. Not going to say much about them now, but will likely blog about it later.

So with all this to do, I sort of forgot about my regular Friday post. Still, I’m not terribly late with it. And I won’t be late with my Monday post, for it’s already written and scheduled.