Ain't Complicated

Hanging Low

A few minutes ago.

As I saw in my peripheral vision.

Out the window.

(A south window.)

Evidence of the sun hanging low in the sky.

(The western sky.)

I wondered.

“On which liberty does the sun set today?”

Never to see daylight.

Again.

And I thanked God for freedoms.

Yet had.

Eritrea: 30 Christian Women

Arrested in Eritrea

A religious rights advocate in Washington, DC is condemning the arrest of more Christians in Eritrea. According to International Christian Concern, 30 Christian women were arrested in Asmara, the country’s capital city.

International Christians Concern’s Regional Manager for Africa and South Asia Jonathan Racho says, “The Christians were praying at a house at the time Eritrean officials raided the prayer meeting, arrested all of the people, and took them to the police station.”

Their children and grandchildren told ICC sources that they are concerned about the safety of their loved one. Racho is concerned, too, “because we know that Christians who are imprisoned in Eritrea are mistreated, they face torture, and there are cases where Christians were tortured to death.”

Racho is baffled by their arrests. “They don’t pose any security risk to the country. These are just old married people. They have just come together to pray. It doesn’t make any sense to arrest moms and grand-moms for praying together.”

Most of the detainees are members of Faith Mission Church, an evangelical body. The church has been carrying out evangelistic and development activities in Eritrea for over five decades. It was forced to go underground in 2002 after Eritrean officials required all religious groups to register. The officials then allowed only three Christian denominations to register. They include: the Eritrean Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Lutheran denominations.

Attention, eBay Sellers!

I saw this at Clark Howard’s site yesterday:

New e-commerce site Glyde promises eBay for dummies

Get ready for eBay for dummies, courtesy of a new e-commerce site called Glyde.

Launched by a former eBay insider, Glyde promises to take all the hassle out of buying and selling online. Sellers can list an item — a CD, DVD or video game, for example — by typing in its title and making a notation about the condition. Glyde then suggests a market value, which can be changed anyway you see fit.

If there’s an interested buyer, Glyde will mail you a pre-addressed, pre-stamped bubble-wrapped mailer and you simply drop your item in the mail within 24 hours. You can then receive a check in the mail from Glyde once the buyer is happy.

The service takes 10 percent for facilitating a transaction. The seller is also responsible for an additional $1.25 for the price of the mailer.

Think of Glyde as NetFlix meets eBay. It takes the complexity out of the whole process. “We want the middle-aged Midwestern soccer mom to easily be able to buy and sell her stuff,” Glyde creator Simon Rothman tells The New York Times. “It’s a pretty straightforward ambition.”

Glyde sounds slow and cumbersome to me.

The comments at Clark’s site are sure brimming with negativity about eBay. 😯

Year-Old Food

It’s been almost a year ago since I reported about the Stowers family in Ohio. Back then I wondered, “What’s the rest of the story, I wonder.” I still do.

Anyway, yesterday I came across this two-month-old update:A Family Finally Gets Their Food Back.

A family in northeast Ohio is rejoicing today after a judge has ordered the government to return their food to their home. It was almost a year ago, in December of 2008, that the Ohio Department of Agriculture and the Lorain County General Health District raided the Stowers home in Lagrange, Ohio. Officers, dressed in S.W.A.T gear, swarmed their small family farm searching for food they believed was being sold unlawfully.

I have been reporting and following this story since April of this year. Today is a small victory for the Stowers family and for Ohioans individual rights to eat food they feel is healthy and all-natural. The Stowers family operates a private food co-op supplying food to their neighbors that is near impossible to find at local grocers.

Did you now about the Food Modernization Act?

Mr. Lonelyhearts Answers

So this morning I got my daily Google Alert for Mennonite. And amid all the less-than-interesting-to-me stuff, this:

Celebrate with Mennonite family, then have a real party at girlfriend’s 😯

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I’m single, aged 26. Christmas is coming and I hate being with my Mennonite family because they won’t let me drink or smoke or have any fun. I have never broken tradition by not going before, but I want to go to my girlfriend’s place in Regina this year where they party and celebrate the way Christmas should be. How do I get out of the home thing? — Desperate Mennonite Grinch, Winnipeg

Wait a minute. He’s 26 and still whining about “they won’t let me…have any fun”?!

At 26, what’s he doing at home yet if he hates it there?

Bah hum bug.

Note to all (Mennonite and other) twenty-six-year-old guys still living at home: This is your opportunity to bless your parents as well as your siblings. Try that instead of focusing on yourself and on having fun. Don’t make your family miserable with your bad attitudes and hateful spirit. Don’t be such a grinch. You’ll likely be much happier for it.

Oh, and as far as I know, a guy at the ripe old age of 26 should be able to fend for himself.

For that kindly advice, just call me Uncle Mark. 😉

And, please, don’t call me Mr. Lonelyhearts. I have only one. And it’s not particularly lonely.

I’m Splittin’

I caught the swing plunging to its end.

Maybe eight inches to go.

Swing frozen by the camera

I pressed the shutter release; I swung the axe/maul/whateveritis.

(Photo shot at 12:50 pm Pacific on Friday, December 4, 2009.)

I’m thankful again for all the work and thoughtfulness our children (all seven of them) put into getting us cords and cords of firewood last year!

Christmas Gifts

The Birth and Reception of Jesus

Have we become misdirected in our gift giving?

God freely and generously gave His best to those who had never given Him anything of significant value. God even gave His best knowing that most would give nothing in return. We have become conformed to the world in our Christmas-time gift giving. Has the time arrived when we should come to an agreement in our churches and in our families that we will give their gift and their card to the needy instead? “And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same” (Luke 6:33; see also 14:12-14).

(Written way back in 1992 sometime.)