New year's resolutions

<idle musing>
Well, it is New Year's Eve, the day when everyone makes all kinds of resolutions, knowing full well that they will all be broken before the end of January—at best.

Like Ted, I have never considered resolutions to be terribly Christian. In fact, they are inimical to grace-based Christianity. Think about it for a second. Christians claim that it is only by the power of God (grace) that any good can happen in anyone's life with any consistency, so where does that leave resolutions? Exactly! On the scrap heap of "good" behavior.

If you insist on making resolutions, then at least have the good sense to follow the advice of Jonathan Edwards:

"Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God's help, I do humbly entreat him, by his grace, to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ's sake."

Quote HT: Matt Harmon

So, how about these for resolutions that I can keep without God's help:
1. I resolve to fail repeatedly as long as I depend on my own strength
2. I resolve to be a royal jerk and pain in the behind, unless I live dead to self and alive in Christ
3. I resolve to acknowledge my total inability to do anything good apart from the abiding presence of God in my life

There. I can keep those easily—as can anyone else!
</idle musing>

Mere mortals?

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours."—C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, page 14-15 in my edition (1975), but now available online here

Inspiration?

The inerrancy wars rage on, and on, and on, and…

This month has seen a spate of inerrancy posts, no doubt inspired, at least partially, by Jim West’s provocative post on his definition of fundamentalism. Much heat, some light :) Good summary here.

One thing that bothers me about the debate is that infallibility is linked to inerrancy in most all posts. I would disagree. Someone (I lost the reference, sorry) on one of the blogs pointed out that inerrancy is a subset of infallibility. Correct! But, let’s take it a bit further: infallibility is a subset of inspiration.

OK, what’s the point? Well, this whole debate got me thinking, and then I received an e-mail the other day that pulled me in a different direction. Now we’re talking exclusivity and the kingdom of God.

I think I can safely say that all Christians believe in the inspiration of scripture, after all 2 Timothy 3:16 (vulgate) uses the very word inspiro based on the Greek QEOPNEUSTOS. From there we have the subset of infallible, with a further subset of inerrant. Well, now apparently there is a further subset: 6 day literal creation. No adhere, no bother applying. No grandfather clause either, out the door. . .this e-mail told of the non-renewal of some contracts because of that, or at least implied that was the reason. Who knows, really. It might just have been posturing, or not.

But, it made me wonder what Jesus would have thought about our little word battles. He seemed more interested in love: “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13.35) Not a word about doctrine—silly Messiah! Everyone knows you have to have a doctrinal statement! How else will we know who is in and who is out?

I think we missed it! We build our walls, God tears them down. We draw our lines in the sand, God crosses them. We build our institutions; God has the nerve to start a new work outside of them!

All I can say is, “Praise God!” I am glad he is bigger than our labels. Me, I don’t know what I should be labeled; all I want is to hear God say, “Well done, good and faithful servant” at the end of it all. So, I guess that makes me a servant. What about you?

Back to the future?

Seems that divination isn't dead yet. Apparently there is a gentleman who reads pig's spleens to forecast the weather. Just like the ancient world, only they read livers and didn't just look for weather forecasts.

It was in this world that the law and the prophets spoke against divination. Maybe we really are post-christian...

Effective Prayer

“If we really want to pray with power, we need to break through into greater holiness. We don’t need a formula or a method for praying. But we do need to live with purity and simplicity rather than with carnality, hype, and hardness as so many in our churches do today.

“When Samuel said, ‘Speak, for your servant is listening,’ he revealed the secret of what God is after. An attentive, willing heart is the great need of the hour. Programs, talent, and human energy will never accomplish what one man or woman in close fellowship with the living God can do. A young boy in Shiloh led an entire people back from ruin because he was willing to be a humble servant of the great and awesome God.

“Today too much of the church suffers from dull, mechanical Bible exposition that lacks the touch of the Holy Spirit. No matter how skilled the preacher, only the Spirit can direct us to the truths that most need to be proclaimed and enable us to apply them in a convicting manner. God is not searching for talent or intelligence on earth, because he is the Almighty One! He already has everything he needs—except our hearts. He wants us to be like Samuel, with a heart that waits to hear and swiftly obey his word. Our present lack of spiritual fruit and power doesn’t bring much glory to God.”—Jim Cymbala in Breakthrough Prayer, pp. 173-174.

Idle musings on a Friday morning

I wrote this earlier today...

<idle musing>
I am sitting in the waiting room of a car repair place, waiting for an oil change to get done. In the background is the obnoxious babble of a television. It is impossible to sit anywhere without its loud invasion of my senses. At least I can sit where it isn’t smack in my face.

Have you noticed how it is virtually impossible anymore to enter a place of business without being confronted with the television’s in-your-face babble? And the few places that don’t have the tube blasting at you instead have a music track blasting&mdashyes, blasting, not just as background music anymore, but blasting. Am I getting old, and so these things are starting to bother me? Or are they really getting more in-your-face? Interesting question; I haven’t seen any data, but I suspect the volume level has increased.

I am somewhat of a fitness/health nut. I want whatever I eat to be beneficial to my health. I don’t always follow that rule; I eat my share of junk food—especially this time of year : ) But, as a general rule of thumb I eat well—lots of fruits and vegetables, very little grease and oil, practically no corn syrup, etc.

I also like to control what I feed my mind. Whatever I consume mentally has an affect on how I act and think. In our culture, that can be/is a losing battle; the latest figures say that the average American is bombarded with over 15,000 advertising images per day. That’s a lot of subliminal (and not so subliminal) inducement to consumption! Have you noticed that we aren’t customers anymore? We are now consumers.

We can still control what we voluntarily feed our mind, but do we?
</idle musing>

Children must play

Our son, Ryan, stopped through again on his way back and forth. He spent the last two nights with us and we had a wonderful time. But, last night he and I decided it was time to do some building, so we proceeded to build a few buildings while we waited for dinner to cook. Enjoy!

Is reading dying?

I got an e-mail today mentioning an interesting article in the New Yorker Magazine titled Twilight of the Books: What will life be like if people stop reading? Here's a short quote from the article:

A reader learns about the world and imagines it differently from the way a viewer does; according to some experimental psychologists, a reader and a viewer even think differently. If the eclipse of reading continues, the alteration is likely to matter in ways that aren’t foreseeable.

You definitely should read the whole thing. There are some interesting data about the different ways the brain reacts to reading. Hey! That reminds me of a webpage I just ran across dating from April discussing television/video's "merits."

For your edification(?), here's an excerpt:

The commercial starts off by showing school kids, hopped up after a full day's learning and lunchtime Twinkies, bouncing off the walls of a school bus. A rather distressed looking adult enters the bus, assesses the situation and reacts by pulling down a tiny television monitor, at which point the kids fall into a zombie-like stupor.

A voiceover intones "When the kids get what they want, you'll get what you want." Great lesson, Dodge – and one that's repeated a few seconds later in the interior of a Caravan. In this vehicle, two children smile emptily in the back seat while mommy and daddy (or perhaps a pair of Yuppie kidnappers – the ad doesn't elaborate one way or another) exchange we-put-one-over-on-the-seven-year-olds-again grins...

In a moment of serendipitous timing, a commercial from Adbusters Media Foundation is touting April 23-29 – the last week of the Dodge Caravan DVD promotion – as "TV Turn Off Week." The Adbusters spot shows a series of heavy-lidded cherubic young 'uns, who are assumedly watching a television screen right in front of them, staring glassily and open mouthed at the viewer.

They look strikingly similar to the kids in the Caravan commercial.

What more can I say?

Quote

“Sound doctrine that yields faithless living and no prayer is no doctrine at all.”—Jim Cymbala in Breakthrough Prayer, page 97

Snow!

We got 15 inches of snow on Saturday and Sunday; it was beautiful. Debbie and I spent a couple of hours snowshoeing along the creek that runs past our house. We saw two deer beds, but we must have scared the deer before we saw them. Later, when we were coming back, we could see that the deer had already started to use our snowshoe tracks as their trail; there were deer tracks in our footprints.

The birds were thick around our birdfeeders all day. The wind was quite strong, about 30 MPH, so the birds would cling to the feeder and swing as the wind would make it sway. Once the feeder settled down again, they would resume eating.

I hope the snow stays, but today was 36 F, and they are predicting the same for the rest of the week. But, it is and was beautiful while it lasts :)

Prayer

"Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance. It is laying hold of God's willingness."—George Mueller

Jerusalem

I read a good description of Jerusalem this morning in Harpers: “Jerusalem is as condensed, as self-referential, as a Rubik’s Cube.”

Prayer

“David was a man who prayed much and received much. In contrast, those who seldom ask receive in proportion to their little faith. Yet David’s faith was not in the power of prayer itself but in the God who answers prayer. That is the secret of every man and woman throughout history who has learned firsthand about God’s faithfulness—they knew to whom they were praying.

“Many Christians have so little faith that they soon buckle under the pressures of life, while others find the grace to live joyfully above battle even though they face far more daunting circumstances. As I counsel people, I have noticed that the same challenges that bring weariness and bitterness to some seem hardly noticeable to others who simply pray their way through them. Such are people are not operating out of a simplistic theology but a revelation of the character of God, who delights to display his faithfulness in answer to prayer.”—Jim Cymbala in Breakthrough Prayer, pages 50-51

Clever little ad

OK, this is my first attempt at embedding a video, and probably my last...But it is a clever little ad by a bookstore that is closing soon. Save their books!



HT: Andy Le Peau

Musings for a Friday afternoon

<idle musing>
A couple of things have run across my desk today that are worth musing on...

1. I was delighted to finally see someone publish the forgotten verses of "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" on the web. Christianity Today's web only section gave a brief overview of the hymn: who did what, when, and why to its lyrics and tune. I knew that Charles Wesley had written it, but didn't realize that George Whitfield was the guilty party who took the knife to the last verses. Shame on him! Anyway, here are the missing verses, which are extremely rich theologically:

Come, desire of nations, come,
Fix in us thy humble home;
Rise, the woman's conquering seed,
Bruise in us the serpent's head.

Now display thy saving power,
Ruin'd nature now restore;
Now in mystic union join
Thine to ours, and ours to thine.

Adam's likeness, Lord, efface,
Stamp thy image in its place.
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in thy love.

Let us thee, though lost, regain,
Thee, the life, the inner man:
O, to all thyself impart,
Form'd in each believing heart.

Too bad more people don't sing them. We made up a Christmas songbook (all public domain stuff) a few years ago for caroling, and I included these verses, but I have never seen them in a published hymnal.

2. Jim Martin has a post discussing the recent MLB steroids report. It doesn't matter if you follow professional sports or not (I don't), his observations are spot-on, in my opinion:

All I am suggesting is that we have a way of rationalizing and justifying our behavior if in some way it enhances our performance. We are tempted to do whatever it takes to give us the advantage.

Meanwhile, we are invited to do what may seem irrational at times. We are invited to trust God with our lives. We are urged to turn the management of our lives and our future over to him. So often, we just don’t trust God. We do not trust that he will take care of us if we do the right thing. We do not trust him with our future. So, we take over and "do what it takes" in our attempt to manage our own lives, regardless of the dishonesty that may be involved.

Very good observation; God calls us to a higher life in him. Operative words here are "in Him." Aside from him, death and destruction; in him, life and peace.

3. I was setting up a new book from Mohr Siebeck in our system. The title had me laughing...

Einleitung in das Neue Testament
Seine Literatur und Theologie im Überblick
by Petr Pokorny and Ulrich Heckel
Mohr Siebeck, 2007
xxix + 795 pages, German
Paper
ISBN: 9783825227982
Your Price: $65.00
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~POKEINLEI

So, what's the joke? Only a German publisher would have the nerve to subtitle an 800 page book "At a Glance" (im Überblick).

4. This is a bit old, but I'm about that far behind in blog reading... The Heresy has a post on Brian McLaren's latest book, CD, and tour...

In Brian McLaren’s Christmas message he starts out by telling people to buy the CD he produced, then he tells everyone to buy his book and give it away. Later on he points out that "Consumerism is the notion that the more we consume the better off we will be. As I explain in the book, it’s the supreme idolatry of our times."

You can also spend $100 to register for "everything must change tour". This tour is part of "this emerging movement of transformation and this growing revolution of hope."

I don’t get it. How can anyone say buy my stuff and give it to your friends and then say consumerism is the supreme idolatry of our times?...

The deception of consumerism runs deep. I see it all over the place as the church drifts towards fee-for-service ministry. Increasingly we have adopted the marketplace as tool to further our objectives somewhat blind to the reality that the marketplace changes us. In this era of ecclesial relativism people buy in to whatever works to bring people in to the building or provide anecdotal success stories.

Scary stuff! Read the whole thing, and don't be too hard on McLaren until after you've examined your own heart and motives; total depravity is quite all-encompassing—I guess that is why it is called total depravity and not partial depravity, eh?
</idle musing>

OK, that was four, not just a couple. But, you could think of it as a Christmas gift, 4 for the price of 2 :)

Mysticism...

Kevin Edgecomb has a nice quote from The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato to Denys over on Biblicalia. Here is an excerpt:

...what we find in the Fathers undermines any tendency toward seeing mysticism as an elite, individualist quest for ‘peak’ experiences; rather for them the ‘mystical life’ is the ‘life with Christ hid in God’ of Colossians 3:3, a life which is ecclesial, that is lived in the Body of Christ, which is nourished liturgically, and which is certainly a matter of experience, though not of extraordinary ‘experiences’.

<idle musing>
I like that. It speaks of God's abundant grace, poured out on all who want it. The only qualification is faith, which God gives, if we allow him to. And it is lived out in community, not in the individualistic—I would even say narcissistic—way that so much of evangelical christianity seems to prefer.
</idle musing>

Music

We finally got to unpacking our music. The box of CDs was in the room with my boxes of books, and finally got moved to the living room this weekend and unpacked Sunday night. At the same time, I found my headphones. I had missed being able to workout with music going in the background. Since I workout in the early hours of the morning before coming in to work and I don't want to wake up Debbie, I use headphones. Well, no headphones—and no CDs—equals no music.

<rabbit trail alert>
I am a fan of many different kinds of music, from Classical to contemporary stuff. About the only things I don't enjoy are opera and gangsta rap—the latter more because of the content than anything else. Opera just has never grabbed me, which is strange since my favorite piece of music of all time is Handel's Messiah which is oratorio, a close cousin of opera.

Anyway, I have always enjoyed what is now called "Jesus Music," the music of the early 1970's Jesus Movement, and one of my favorite groups was the Messianic group Lamb. The group was just 2 people, Rick "Levi" Coghill and Joel Chernoff. They put out several records and then kind of disappeared in the late 1980's. Last year I was looking for a CD of the early Lamb stuff and ran across a CD that was done by Joel Chernoff in the late 90's entitled The Restoration of Israel and purchased it. It has become one of my favorite CDs.
<end rabbit trail>

So, Monday morning I grabbed the Chernoff CD and put it in the CD player and the second song grabbed my heart: Lay your hands on me. The song is a cry from Joel's heart for a closer walk with Jesus. I wish I could find the words on the Internet, so I wouldn't have to excerpt it...

Abba, Father, lay your hands on me.
Holy Spirit, set this captive free
From the chains that are holding me.
Lay your hands on me.
Precious Father, how my spirit prays,
More to yield to your love and grace
More to bow down before your face
Lay your hands on me

All that I need is to touch
The hem of your garment, I pray.
All that I need is your touch
To raise up my life from the dead.
Lay your hands on me...

It goes on for another 3 minutes, but I don't have the patience to transcribe it all.

I wish I could give you an idea of how this song ministered to me Monday morning. Of late I have been so concentrated on getting stuff done on the house and at work that the intimacy of God has been slipping away. It's not like I have lost touch with God, but it is more that I needed a fresh touch, a fresh awareness of how near he is. This song distilled the essence of what I was feeling and became my prayer.

Hopefully it was answered in a way that is evident to others...

Plumbing again

OK. This will be the last plumbing post, I hope! I don't want this blog to become another installment of This Old House :)

So, this weekend I redid the drain from the kitchen sink. If you remember, it was serving as a vent for the sump pump, resulting in sewer gas smell in the kitchen. My project was to cut the kitchen drain off at the base of the basement ceiling and run it over to the main drain about 8 feet away.

No problem, you just cut the PVC drain pipe off and cement a new piece on. Wham, bang, a few elbows and done, right? Almost. I had to cut into the main 3 inch drain from the upstairs bathroom, cutting a big chunk of it out so the reducing "T" could fit in. In order to make the "T" fit, I had to push the whole drain pipe over about 3 inches while slipping the "T" in. It actually wasn't so bad, but I forgot that when you cut into a drain pipe two things happen...1. all the water that didn't go all the way down will leak all over you and the floor! and 2. Sewer gas will start invading the house. Can you tell I'm not a plumber?

At least I remembered to have a rag with me and I was able to stop the flow of water long enough to grab a bucket and put it under the pipe while it drained. Once the bucket was catching the water, I used the rag to plug up the septic tank end of the pipe. In the end, the whole project took about an hour and a quarter. Of course, while this was going on, you couldn't use the water, since I didn't want water all over the floor :)

I have to say, the plumbing does look very good now. Here are two pictures of the new piping. I didn't get pictures of the drain. Now, on to the electrical mess...wires hanging, electrical boxes dangling, taped wires feeding the water pump...Isn't owning a house fun?


This is the spot that used to have about 5 different pipes sticking willy-nilly all over. The holes in the wall are where the washing machine feeds went through the walls.

This is the feed for the hot water heat boiler. It used to be a piece of copper piping that sort of arched above the door, waiting to booby-trap you as you walked through

Kitten

OK, for all you adoring fans of kittens out there. I got Debbie to corral the kitten, alias Fuzzy Motor, FM for short, so that I could get some pictures. It was dark outside, and there is no power in the barn, so we took the pictures in the garage. It has almost doubled in size since we found it.


The kitten climbed on my shoulder for this picture.


Playing in the wagon

"Q"

I periodically get a shipment of new Paternoster titles from England. Some of them contain some real jewels. This one is from The Three Gospels, page 91:

I think it may be stated without exaggeration that Q is the most successful fallacy in the history of scholarship. It owes its success to the fact that it has acquired a name – the letter, ‘Q’ – which can be, and has been, reinterpreted every time the current theory encounters a problem. So ‘Q’ has a wide variety of meanings, any one of which can be called upon when required. It has thus the nature of a hydra, each of whose heads has to be cut off before it will die.

This same shipment contained a book titled Eschatology and Pain in St. Gregory the Great. Isn't that an intriguing title?

Much Grace

I was reading in the TNIV this morning in Acts 4. The TNIV uses a different punctuation in verses 33-34 than most translations. Here is how it reads:

And God's grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

I like that; it speaks to the social and community nature of the church as God intended it to be. We've lost a good deal of that in the U.S. with our over-emphasis on personal salvation—but how can one be saved personally and not allow it to impact their social and relational life?

More plumbing...

I forgot that today was Thursday. On Thursdays I come in before the sun comes up to read either Greek or Hebrew, consequently it was still dark and no photos. But, the snow is still beautiful and everything is white—at least for a while.

Well, over the last few days I took care of the laundry drain problem. It has been draining into the floor drain, and then running into the sump which empties into the septic (I know, but that isn't going to change!), but the lint from the washer was clogging up the drain and causing it to back up onto the floor. Result: wet basement floor :( So, I took it upon myself to run the line directly to the sump. The only problem was the cement dividing wall between the washer and the sump. My tools were a small masonry bit, chisel, and hammer.

Three hours later, I was about 1/3 done. Time for a bigger bit, but the stores were closed. So, the next day, I bought a 5/8 inch masonry bit. Armed with the bigger bit, I managed to get through the wall and expand the hole to 1.5 inches in about an hour. Of course, I burned out both batteries in the process—no problem, that's why I have a fast charger.

The next day, I put in the pipes and hooked everything up. Voila! No more drainage problems. But, last night a new problem reared its head; whoever did the plumbing had hooked the kitchen sink into the same pipe going to the septic as the sump. Result: the kitchen drain became the vent for the sump. Translation for those of you who don't know about venting: Sewer gas in the kitchen. Not acceptable!

So I now have a new plumbing project for this weekend...stay tuned :(

I now know more about plumbing than I ever wanted to and I have now run more drainlines and hot and cold water feeds than I ever dreamed possible. But, you know what? I no longer hate plumbing! I find that I actually am looking forward to this weekend's project. Now that is the grace of God!



Tools of the trade. The small bit is what I started with, but the big one is what did the real work.


Ready for the pipe!

Snow!

Yes! It finally snowed. OK, it is only December 5, so I guess that isn't so late :)

It started snowing last night around 7:30 with a few flakes, but by 9:00 it was really snowing. We went out for a walk around 11:00—how can you stay in when it is so beautiful? We walked for about an hour and didn't see a single car. It was beautiful with the snow falling in big crystals. Debbie's hair looked like she was wearing a crown with all the snow on it. There must have been a good 4 inches on the ground by the time we got back.

We saw deer tracks across the road in several places. Because it had rained recently, the creek was making all kinds of noise. The pine trees were dipping their branches from the weight of the snow on the boughs. In the distance, you could hear the train as it blew its horn at the crossings; otherwise it was silent.

This morning, all our tracks were covered and it was still flurrying a bit. It was hard to come in to work—not because of the roads, which were just slippery, but because I would rather be out snowshoeing or skiing in it :)

When I got to work, there was significantly less snow, probably only about 3 inches. I would say we had about 6 inches at home. Strange how 5 miles can make that big a difference.

I need to remember to take the camera home tonight and get some pictures of the creek and the yard. With all the snow, it looks like a winter wonderland. I hope it doesn't melt anytime soon!

Koine Greek Reader

At AAR/SBL this year, Bobby from Hendrickson gave me two books:
A Patristic Greek Reader and Philippians. Nice looking books (thanks, Bobby), but I didn't even get a chance to look through them before Matt (Grace Seminary Greek prof) borrowed them to look over. He promised to return them this week, but he left me with Koine Greek Reader from Kregel—which I have to return to him this week. Anyway, I spent a bit of time over the weekend looking through it, in between house projects. Here are some thoughts...

I like the general layout, nice font size, good organization. His recommendations for reading the Greek through just to hear it, then a second time using the vocabulary notes, then a third time with BDAG are good. Finally, go through it a fourth time for grammatical stuff. Now, if he can get students to do that... His notes and questions are good, too.

The book is separated into two sections, Part 1 is NT, Part 2 is Septuagint and Church Fathers, with extensive lexical notes and parsing of verbs in part 2. The choice of readings in both sections is a good cross section of Greek, some more difficult than others, which is what you want in a reader.

What did strike me was that he says this textbook is adequate for an entire year. Now, I haven't taught second year Greek for quite a while, but there is no way that it should take that long to get through this book. I would have pegged it as a semester long course. Am I that out of touch with the real world?

Also, is a reader for the NT necessary? Wouldn't it be better just to take the NA 27 or UBS text and run with it and supplement it with grammatical and lexical notes? I liked part 2, and his notes on using BDAG, but I really wonder about the necessity of putting all those NT passages in a reader. Once I get A Patristic Greek Reader back from Matt, I'll look through it. Perhaps that is closer to what I am talking about.

Christmas quiz

Rick over at This Lamp has his Christmas quiz up again this year. But, be careful, the program is sneakily changing your answers! Rick promises to get it fixed, but meanwhile caveat emptor.

Eisenbrauns December sale

For the month of December, take 20% off the already-low prices on Eisenbrauns wide selection of used books. The sale price will not appear when you check out, but the amount will be adjusted before your credit card is billed.

Since there are well over 2000 used titles in stock, there isn't a good way to represent all of them. Eisenbrauns offers several methods to find the books you're looking for:

* The Used Books feature page
* Search for "USED" under Item ID (without the quotes)
* Search for titles and topics you are interested in; used books will appear in your searches along with new titles.
* Download a complete listing in either text (.txt) or spreadsheet (.xls) format from out home page (updated hourly).

Have fun!

Idle Musings on moving

<idle musing>
We moved three weeks ago on Saturday. Here are some idle musings on what has been happening since. . .

• Moving on a Saturday and Sunday and then leaving for a week the following Thursday is not the wisest thing in the world! But, AAR/SBL didn’t think my moving was important enough to cause a rescheduling—imagine that, the world doesn’t revolve around me.

• Plumbing is a pain. Enough said.

• Cats don’t like people who make loud noises. I have been trying to get a picture of the kitten, but it is afraid of me and hides. I suppose it doesn’t help that I am the one who always makes the loud noises by moving stuff around.

• Dial-up can be excruciatingly slow. Dial-up was slow at the other place, but at least it was in the 48000 range. Here the fastest I have ever gotten in 26,400. Ouch!

• Friends are wonderful, especially when they have lots of tools you can borrow : )

• Plumbing is a real pain, or did I say that already?

• Always make extra keys and make sure that you don’t give the extra to someone who is 300 miles away when you need it!

• Moving causes major schedule interruptions. I haven’t been able to read, except at lunch, for about 3 weeks now. I am feeling withdrawal pains. And my blog reading is hopelessly behind—between 300-400 posts. Maybe over Christmas...

• God is abundantly faithful—even in plumbing problems.

• I need to remember/learn how long it takes to get to places from here. I was late to a breakfast meeting with Jim on Friday because I forgot about the extra time—made worse by a 3 mile detour between here and there.

• Maybe this week the kitten will let me take its picture
</idle musing>