Genesis 20 (NIV 2011)

1 Now Abraham moved on from there into the region of the Negev and lived between Kadesh and Shur. For a while he stayed in Gerar, 2 and there Abraham said of his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” Then Abimelek king of Gerar sent for Sarah and took her.
3 But God came to Abimelek in a dream one night and said to him, “You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married woman.”
4 Now Abimelek had not gone near her, so he said, “Lord, will you destroy an innocent nation? 5 Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister,’ and didn’t she also say, ‘He is my brother’? I have done this with a clear conscience and clean hands.”
6 Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know you did this with a clear conscience, and so I have kept you from sinning against me. That is why I did not let you touch her. 7 Now return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return her, you may be sure that you and all who belong to you will die.”
8 Early the next morning Abimelek summoned all his officials, and when he told them all that had happened, they were very much afraid. 9 Then Abimelek called Abraham in and said, “What have you done to us? How have I wronged you that you have brought such great guilt upon me and my kingdom? You have done things to me that should never be done.” 10 And Abimelek asked Abraham, “What was your reason for doing this?”
11 Abraham replied, “I said to myself, ‘There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’ 12 Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not of my mother; and she became my wife. 13 And when God had me wander from my father’s household, I said to her, ‘This is how you can show your love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me, “He is my brother.”’”
14 Then Abimelek brought sheep and cattle and male and female slaves and gave them to Abraham, and he returned Sarah his wife to him. 15 And Abimelek said, “My land is before you; live wherever you like.”
16 To Sarah he said, “I am giving your brother a thousand shekels of silver. This is to cover the offense against you before all who are with you; you are completely vindicated.”
17 Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelek, his wife and his female slaves so they could have children again, 18 for the LORD had kept all the women in Abimelek’s household from conceiving because of Abraham’s wife Sarah.

Genesis 21
1 Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what he had promised. 2 Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. 3 Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him. 4 When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him. 5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
6 Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” 7 And she added, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

Reflection:
As Abraham gives Sarah over for his benefit again, it is shown that this is not who he is called to be. Abraham was to love, bless, and give himself for Sarah and other people instead of using them for his own preservation.  We also see God’s fulfillment of His promise of an heir to Abraham and to Sarah. The child, Isaac, represents living in the calling, the promise, and the blessing to others, which God had spoken of over and over to Abraham when He called him. God brought them “laughter” and all who hear will join Sarah and share in the joy of what God can and does for His people.  We see a glimpse of the blessing to others already being fulfilled.

Response:
How many times in our experiences of living the called life can we recall when after much waiting and persistence that we are able to reap and receive the fruit born to us? Each of us has a testimony of getting to that point where the moments of doubt, insecurity and hopelessness have been redeemed and blown away by what God has done for us through Jesus Christ our Savior. How wonderful that by the power of our God through Christ that it IS true – we are blessed to be a blessing. In prayer, let’s come to the Lord again and rejoice, proclaiming our love for Him, and asking Him that we would live more and more as who we are – blessed to be a blessing!

Thanks to myessentia.com and darwinstable.com

Arthritis. Inflammation. Pain. Fun topics of discussion…

Are you young and think this doesn’t apply too you?.

Reality check. Gout is on the rise. Here’s a little history of the disease.

It’s commonly associated with the heavy and wealthy who ate (red meat), drank (alcohol), and were merry to their hearts content.

Why the sudden comeback? Does obesity and lack of exercise ring a bell? Growing in the U.S., this trend is being seen across the globe.

Animal products, sugars, and a lack of complex carbohydrates appear to be the problem. Obesity not only harms one’s waistline, but usually comes with the price tag of diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, high blood pressure or endocrine issues.

Who would have thought of gout?!

So how are youth going to attempt to remedy this, on top of all the other tensions that have us worried about our futures? Here are some tips. We also recommend eating cherries.

Cherries appear to lower levels of uric acid, which build up to cause the painful inflammation around joints that is gout (mostly around the big toe/foot area). Here’s what some doctors are saying about cherries.

For those of you avid runners who are on your way to longevity, maybe you ought to consider the natural remedy for muscle aches.

Photo courtesy of the LA Times

Arab Spring Update: Temperatures are rising.

This week a fresh bout of violent riots broke out in Egypt, spurred by the trial of the former Egyptian leader, Hosni Mubarak.

The once strong and vibrant leader was shown on TV in a hospital bed behind bars. The charged footage has spurred strong emotions on both sides.

Tahami Luteifi, a Mubarak supporter, said,

“He’s going to be found innocent.  There’s no option but that! He is the father of this country.”

Nabil Hassan had a more optimistic take on the proceedings, explaining,

“When (Mubarak) is in the cage, and we know he’s there, then we know we have started to put our feet on the path to justice. If he and his accomplices are in court, he becomes one of the people – no different from anyone else facing justice.”

Others citizens are disturbed by the ongoing violence. Those already struggling to make ends meet are finding that the ongoing unrest has economic consequences.

“I’ve got five kids to feed but work is down 30%… nobody has any money left. The revolution’s gone on too long.”

Below is a short excerpt of an interview with Oberlin College's David Orr, who braved a tornado warning in Ohio this spring to talk with AASHE about the innovative Oberlin Project. Read the whole interview in AASHE's newest publication: "2010 Campus Sustainability Review."

In the late 1990s, David Orr organized the design of the Adam J. Lewis Center at Oberlin College in northeastern Ohio, the first entirely solar-powered building on a U.S. college campus. Today, the author, speaker and Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics and Special Assistant to the President at Oberlin College is pioneering the next frontier of campus sustainability with The Oberlin Project. This ambitious green development effort aims to revitalize a 13-acre city block in downtown Oberlin. By combining urban revitalization, green development, sustainable agriculture, sustainable energy, education and arts into a single project, the collaborative effort is at the forefront of a national trend to broaden the scope of the campus sustainability movement. AASHE’s Tim Gibbins caught up with David this spring in the midst of a tornado warning in Ohio to learn more about this innovative new project.

Q: Can you give us the background on The Oberlin Project?

A: The Oberlin Project has five goals. One is to transform the local economy in central downtown doing the entire block at USGBC [U.S. Green Building Council] Platinum levels for neighborhood development and use that as a driver for the local economy. This means building the block in a way that ties into local providers for wood materials, energy, food and so forth. The second goal is to move the city and the college to carbon neutrality and reinvent the local energy system in the city. That includes regulation, pricing, incentives for efficiency and deploying different kinds of technology. The third goal is to develop a 20,000-acre greenbelt around the city, primarily for agriculture but also for forestry. The fourth goal is to use the entire project as an educational venture including students from not just the college, but the public schools and vo-tech [vocational technical] schools and a two-year college as well. So we’ve put together a consortium of different kinds of educational institutions. The fifth goal is to devise ways to replicate this across the country in a variety of different ways.

Q: What are some of those ways?

A: For one, we are part of the Clinton Climate Initiative as one of 19 projects worldwide. Second is the development of an ecological design center that is a bridge between the Oberlin Project and other redevelopment efforts around the upper Midwest. Third, we are developing a national network that propagates the idea of “full-spectrum sustainability,” which means a lot of conversations that cross the boundaries of organizations, bureaucracies and disciplines by which we organized the industrial world.

We have created 10 teams throughout the city and five throughout the northeast Ohio region made up of public citizens, foundations, faculty members and government officials working on community organization, energy issues, economic development, development of green buildings, ecological design and so forth. Full-spectrum sustainability means that any particular issue that comes up is going to involve three or four of the different teams. Citizen engagement in the early stages has been pretty good. We are a very typical upper Midwest city with similar rates of ethnic makeup, income distribution and poverty that characterize this region. We have not had much difficulty in getting people to respond, which reflects the vitality of volunteerism and civic spirit that is often underestimated. One of the objectives of the plan is to develop a civic commons that develops participation and leadership throughout the whole community.

Q: What do you think is one of the major drivers of all the volunteers wanting to get involved?

A: I think there is more activism in the public than we have often assumed. People want to get involved, the problem, typically, is that there is just no good way to do it. In our project we began with five, six, seven different things happening, providing multiple opportunities for engagement. The educational teams, for example, are going to be working on curriculum asking what kids need to know at the onset of a climate-destabilized world. There are plans for a new green school built much like the Adam J. Lewis center. Other people are working on the local food system and how the cafeteria is provisioned throughout the school year. The point, however, is that there is a lot more desire to get engaged than has often been assumed.

Q: Part of The Oberlin Project that seems atypical to what we normally think of as a part of the sustainability movement is the inclusion of the arts, and this Green Arts District. What do you see as the primary role that the arts will play in the sustainability movement in the future?

A: The conversation about sustainability has mostly focused on sustainable agriculture or renewable energy or green building, and the list goes on. We’ve brought all of these together into a single pattern where the parts are designed to reinforce the prosperity and resilience of the whole thing. It’s just one big conversation but so far it’s been pretty wonky—full of technical and scientific jargon, a lot of curves going up or down. But such things only appeal to one side of the mind. What it misses is the part of the mind that is creative and artistic. The union between the performing arts, plastic arts, music, drama, literary arts and the sciences may be one of the most vital and powerful things that will come out of The Oberlin Project...

The "2010 Campus Sustainability Review" is the first of AASHE's e-book offerings. Download the publication here.

Below is a short excerpt of an interview with Oberlin College's David Orr, who braved a tornado warning in Ohio this spring to talk with AASHE about the innovative Oberlin Project. Read the whole interview in AASHE's newest publication: "2010 Campus Sustainability Review."

In the late 1990s, David Orr organized the design of the Adam J. Lewis Center at Oberlin College in northeastern Ohio, the first entirely solar-powered building on a U.S. college campus. Today, the author, speaker and Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics and Special Assistant to the President at Oberlin College is pioneering the next frontier of campus sustainability with The Oberlin Project. This ambitious green development effort aims to revitalize a 13-acre city block in downtown Oberlin. By combining urban revitalization, green development, sustainable agriculture, sustainable energy, education and arts into a single project, the collaborative effort is at the forefront of a national trend to broaden the scope of the campus sustainability movement. AASHE’s Tim Gibbins caught up with David this spring in the midst of a tornado warning in Ohio to learn more about this innovative new project.

Q: Can you give us the background on The Oberlin Project?

A: The Oberlin Project has five goals. One is to transform the local economy in central downtown doing the entire block at USGBC [U.S. Green Building Council] Platinum levels for neighborhood development and use that as a driver for the local economy. This means building the block in a way that ties into local providers for wood materials, energy, food and so forth. The second goal is to move the city and the college to carbon neutrality and reinvent the local energy system in the city. That includes regulation, pricing, incentives for efficiency and deploying different kinds of technology. The third goal is to develop a 20,000-acre greenbelt around the city, primarily for agriculture but also for forestry. The fourth goal is to use the entire project as an educational venture including students from not just the college, but the public schools and vo-tech [vocational technical] schools and a two-year college as well. So we’ve put together a consortium of different kinds of educational institutions. The fifth goal is to devise ways to replicate this across the country in a variety of different ways.

Q: What are some of those ways?

A: For one, we are part of the Clinton Climate Initiative as one of 19 projects worldwide. Second is the development of an ecological design center that is a bridge between the Oberlin Project and other redevelopment efforts around the upper Midwest. Third, we are developing a national network that propagates the idea of “full-spectrum sustainability,” which means a lot of conversations that cross the boundaries of organizations, bureaucracies and disciplines by which we organized the industrial world.

We have created 10 teams throughout the city and five throughout the northeast Ohio region made up of public citizens, foundations, faculty members and government officials working on community organization, energy issues, economic development, development of green buildings, ecological design and so forth. Full-spectrum sustainability means that any particular issue that comes up is going to involve three or four of the different teams. Citizen engagement in the early stages has been pretty good. We are a very typical upper Midwest city with similar rates of ethnic makeup, income distribution and poverty that characterize this region. We have not had much difficulty in getting people to respond, which reflects the vitality of volunteerism and civic spirit that is often underestimated. One of the objectives of the plan is to develop a civic commons that develops participation and leadership throughout the whole community.

Q: What do you think is one of the major drivers of all the volunteers wanting to get involved?

A: I think there is more activism in the public than we have often assumed. People want to get involved, the problem, typically, is that there is just no good way to do it. In our project we began with five, six, seven different things happening, providing multiple opportunities for engagement. The educational teams, for example, are going to be working on curriculum asking what kids need to know at the onset of a climate-destabilized world. There are plans for a new green school built much like the Adam J. Lewis center. Other people are working on the local food system and how the cafeteria is provisioned throughout the school year. The point, however, is that there is a lot more desire to get engaged than has often been assumed.

Q: Part of The Oberlin Project that seems atypical to what we normally think of as a part of the sustainability movement is the inclusion of the arts, and this Green Arts District. What do you see as the primary role that the arts will play in the sustainability movement in the future?

A: The conversation about sustainability has mostly focused on sustainable agriculture or renewable energy or green building, and the list goes on. We’ve brought all of these together into a single pattern where the parts are designed to reinforce the prosperity and resilience of the whole thing. It’s just one big conversation but so far it’s been pretty wonky—full of technical and scientific jargon, a lot of curves going up or down. But such things only appeal to one side of the mind. What it misses is the part of the mind that is creative and artistic. The union between the performing arts, plastic arts, music, drama, literary arts and the sciences may be one of the most vital and powerful things that will come out of The Oberlin Project...

The "2010 Campus Sustainability Review" is the first of AASHE's e-book offerings. Download the publication here.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President!

A-Rod may not have the best poker face.

Moons? That’s some crash.

Forget the Lorax. The Baltimore Grand Prix speaks for these trees.

If you want to have legal trouble, just be the head of the International Monetary Fund. It’s jinxed.

No Dogs Allowed!

Rumor has it Skyjack: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper by Geoffrey Gray is a great read.

It has a good reviews, a good plot with a twist … that keeps on twisting..

The story: a renegade hijacks a plane in 1971. Demands $200,000. Then parachutes away… never to be caught. Book ends.

According to the New York  Times, it’s the “only unsolved hijacking in American history”

Until now.

Marla Cooper has turned her deceased uncle’s identity over to authorities, claiming that he was responsible for the hijacking.

She asserts that her father told her in 1995 that he was the hijacker confirming her earlier suspicions.

Lynn Doyle Cooper and his niece’s story will be investigated thoroughly, but it could mean the end of the 40 year mystery.

And the spoiling of the end of a book. Rats.

Genesis 18 (NIV 2011)

1 The LORD appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. 2 Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.
3 He said, “If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by. 4 Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree. 5 Let me get you something to eat, so you can be refreshed and then go on your way—now that you have come to your servant.”
“Very well,” they answered, “do as you say.”
6 So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah. “Quick,” he said, “get three seahs of the finest flour and knead it and bake some bread.”
7 Then he ran to the herd and selected a choice, tender calf and gave it to a servant, who hurried to prepare it. 8 He then brought some curds and milk and the calf that had been prepared, and set these before them. While they ate, he stood near them under a tree.
9 “Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him.
“There, in the tent,” he said.
10 Then one of them said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.”
Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. 11 Abraham and Sarah were already very old, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. 12 So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?”
13 Then the LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ 14 Is anything too hard for the LORD? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”
15 Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.”
But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.”
16 When the men got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way. 17 Then the LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? 18 Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. 19 For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.”
20 Then the LORD said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous 21 that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”
22 The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the LORD. 23 Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? 25 Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”
26 The LORD said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”
27 Then Abraham spoke up again: “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, 28 what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five people?”
“If I find forty-five there,” he said, “I will not destroy it.”
29 Once again he spoke to him, “What if only forty are found there?”
He said, “For the sake of forty, I will not do it.”
30 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?”
He answered, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”
31 Abraham said, “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?”
He said, “For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it.”
32 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?”
He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.”
33 When the LORD had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home.

Genesis 19
1 The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. 2 “My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.”
“No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.”
3 But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. 4 Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. 5 They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”
6 Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him 7 and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. 8 Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”
9 “Get out of our way,” they replied. “This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.” They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door.
10 But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door. 11 Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door.
12 The two men said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here—sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, 13 because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the LORD against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.”
14 So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters. He said, “Hurry and get out of this place, because the LORD is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.
15 With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.”
16 When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the LORD was merciful to them. 17 As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!”
18 But Lot said to them, “No, my lords, please! 19 Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die. 20 Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it—it is very small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared.”
21 He said to him, “Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of. 22 But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it.” (That is why the town was called Zoar.)
23 By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. 24 Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens. 25 Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. 26 But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
27 Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the LORD. 28 He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.
29 So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.
30 Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. 31 One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man around here to give us children—as is the custom all over the earth. 32 Let’s get our father to drink wine and then sleep with him and preserve our family line through our father.”
33 That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and slept with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.
34 The next day the older daughter said to the younger, “Last night I slept with my father. Let’s get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and sleep with him so we can preserve our family line through our father.” 35 So they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went in and slept with him. Again he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.
36 So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. 37 The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab; he is the father of the Moabites of today. 38 The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi; he is the father of the Ammonites of today.

Reflection:
In today’s passage, we see God orchestrating his promise in Abraham’s life as he encounters the three men and receives the word of Sarah’s imminent pregnancy. With Abraham’s pleading, God’s heart was revealed to him, showing Abraham his grief over sin and saving those who look to Him. God delivered on his promise in not letting the righteous perish with those who are doomed by saving Lot and his family. But this account tells of the not-so-good result of the path in which Lot chose – his wife and future sons-in-law perishing and his daughter’s actions. With all that is happening, Abraham needed to continue to live out his calling before God, trusting God for Lot while Abraham walked before the Lord in the way he was called.

Response:
Trusting in the way that we are called requires a focus that is only possible by remaining in the Lord. There will always be distractions pulling us in various directions but it is possible to stay on track through the Spirit. Our calling is wrapped in worship to the Lord, who is more than able to do great things. Let’s pray and ask God to continue to empower us to live out our calling before Him, walking in and trusting in His ways even through times of difficulty that require us to wait upon Him.