A fellow dog lover sent me this. I’ve now watched it numerous times. I laugh every time. At first I just enjoyed it for the “acting.” Now I enjoy it because it’s fun to watch the dogs being dogs, while the people try to keep them in “character.” I’m also trying to teach Quigley to eat off a fork. So far, he’s not caught on. [If for some reason the video is not appearing below, click on the title of this post to go to the post itself and hopefully you’ll find it.]
Recently my pastor’s daughter sang this song at the end of service. I loved it, but missed some of the words so I looked up the lyrics and came across the music video below. I’ve since learned that this song, Blessings, written and performed by Laura Story, received the GMA Dove Award for Song of the Year in 2012. The video, uploaded by LoveOneAnother March 4, 2011, has been viewed by 5 million people.
Here are the lyrics. The video follows. ENJOY.
Blessings
We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things
‘Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise
We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we have faith to believe
‘Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise
When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know that pain reminds this heart
That this is not, this is not our home
It’s not our home
‘Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy?
And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise?
In honor of the election tomorrow I’m interrupting my little series on finding a place for my mind. I found this on Power Line Blog this morning, and it is compelling. Power Line blogger John Hinderaker got the link from his daughter, who got it from her college roommate. It made me cry at the end, seeing and listening to Ronald Reagan. Some really cool stuff here.
I came across the following video on Power Line, as part of a poll asking whether it or footage of the explosion of the Hindenburg Blimp best capture the sense of the Obama administration’s coming apart. I vote for this one. If it does, indeed, come apart.
But that’s another matter. I have to say I found this video, which I’d never seen before, fascinating. My husband, as an engineer, had seen it before, early on in his engineering studies. It’s used now as a study case for what happens when you fail to take into account resonance.
I think it’s a study case for what happens when you think you know everything and are trying to save money.
According the Wikipedia, the 1940 Tacoma Narrows Bridge was the third longest suspension bridge in the US, following number two, the George Washington Bridge in New York City and number one, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, which had the longest suspension bridge main span in the world at the time of its completion. Tacoma Narrows was designed by a man, Leon Moisseiff, who had worked on the other two bridges, but in this case had an eye to cutting costs. The original design projected costs at $11 million whereas Moisseiff’s was projected to cost $8 million. It would be “slimmer and more elegant” as well.
It was completed and opened to traffic in July of 1940 and collapsed 4 months later on November 7. There was no loss of life in the collapse save that of a three-legged cocker spaniel named Tubby, who was so terrified he refused to leave the car he was in, which the driver had abandoned.
I could try to describe the undulations, but since I have the video, I’ll just let you watch it. It’s only about 3 minutes long. I especially like this version with the eerie music of Christopher Payne. They say you could walk along the center line and not be moved up or down, even as the sides were roiling about you.
What this says to me, though is that Man is fallible and always will be, but never more than when he thinks he is not.
Perhaps you’ve seen this already, but if not… A seagull snatched the camera from a tourist in San Francisco and filmed the sunset over the Golden Gate Bridge. The tourist ran along the shore following the gull as best she could and found the camera on the sidewalk where the bird left it, then uploaded the footage to You Tube.
Pretty funny, I think. It’s clear it was taken by the bird, as well.
Recently I came across this Monty Python clip called The Argument clinic with John Cleese. I had never seen it before and laughed so hard I nearly fell out of my chair. In fact, my husband came by to ask me something and I had to stop it and catch my breath just to answer him.
So, if you haven’t seen this (or even if you have) and would like a laugh…
I was hoping to say a bit about the conference, some of the things that were taught, some of the things that we did, but I have been an zombie all day, some of the things I thought. I did get some housecleaning done and figured out how to use the new dishwasher my hubby put in while I was gone… but writing much of anything was pretty much futile.
I didn’t even remember to vote until hubby got home and reminded me.
Voting put me in mind of politics and so, in honor of the Republican Convention, which, much to the dismay of Samuel L. Jackson and Ellen Barkin, was not washed away/shut down/destroyed and pillaged by Hurricane Isaac, but is proceeding more or less as planned, I decided now might be the time to share this video by Stoplight called “A Walk for the President: A Christian Nation?”
Here’s a jaw-dropping video about elk in the city… My hubby has hunted elk, even been charged by them. We used to go to the White Mountains on camping trips to listen to them bugle and confront each other. They’re huge, powerful animals you don’t mess with.
Well, apparently some of the folks in Estes Park, Colorado didn’t get the memo. Take a look:
Pastor Farley has been using the metaphor of an acorn becoming an oak as an illustration of our spiritual growth in many of our recent lessons… particularly to show that it’s painful and confusing. The acorn has to be buried in the ground, and then it swells until its hard shell cracks and splits, and pretty soon roots are coming out. And the acorn’s going, “Roots? What are these? I’ve never done roots before.”
And after a while maybe it says “Okay, I get it, I’m gonna be here underground with my roots and this dirt and I’m okay with that, I’m getting the hang of it, here.” And then suddenly there’s a stalk and its pushing upward and there’s pressure and leaves flying about and just one thing after another, and pressure here, and no pressure there and wind and light and rain… If all you are is a little acorn, it’s pretty dramatic. All of it is something it never had or was before.
And so it is with us as we grow into the new life Christ has given us. It’s really not at all like the old life and the old ways of thinking… particularly this Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil thing — The more I think about it, the more profound this teaching seems to be become. The Tree of Life, which is the thinking that goes with New Life in Christ is really absolutely foreign to anything we ever thought before, anything the world thinks, and even to the parts that feel so good and right… but aren’t.
Anyway, I love the acorn metaphor , so when Pastor Farley mentioned that CBS has a photographer that did a video of time-lapse photographs showing this very process I had to go and find it.
I am LOVING this show! It is so fun, and it’s been very useful as well.
But this last episode with the young bloodhounds, Duke and Daisy, was such a kick. Watching them act like Quigley used to was hilarious (okay, sometimes he still does act like that!). The clip below shows them running across the sofa, which Quigley did once long ago when he was so excited about my hubby coming home. In fact, that’s when they did it, too.
Duke’s snatching the pillow was typical as well: The dog guy, Justin, arrives and is talking to the owner and suddenly here comes Duke with the sofa pillow, which means the woman has to break off talking to deal with him. And then he runs under the table with it… ! ROTFL!!!
Yeah. Quigley does that with a sock. Or shoe, or anything he thinks we might value (a paper towel recently used! Hey, his discriminatory powers aren’t all that great). He trots in while we’re in the middle of watching TV and makes sure we notice, then when we tell him to bring it to us, the game is on.
Just like Duke.
And they are SO gorgeous and cute. The hound pleading look… yeah, we get that one too, the way they kind of wrinkle up their eyebrows while they beg. Quigley, however, does NOT drink from the sink faucet, because I would never turn it on for him. He will drink from the dog water fountain on the walking path — the only one of our dogs to do that.
Anyway, Justin had some suggestions for dealing with various behaviors that I think I’m going to use. The sit/stay for when my guests arrive is the first that I’m going to work on.
Here’s the clip of just the Duke and Daisy part from last night’s episode: “Duke and Daisy”
