Daley Ponderings

"The church exists by mission as a fire exists by burning." -- Emil Brunner Mission very easily becomes one activity among others in church life.  It sits on the agenda alongside a list of other items bying for attention.  Or it is left to the enthusiasts to get on... (More)

Partly due to doing things with my family and partly due to catching up at work after last week of very little work, I haven't read much lately, and then when I did read, it was late at night, and figured I'd wait until I was in front of a computer to blog about it, rather than using the phone... (More)

Jonathan has been wanting our family to put on a Star Wars play ever since he started reading his Syar Wars book.  I keep telling him, "You write the script first, and then we can figure out more details."  So he finally decided to write the script, based on the movie Star... (More)

"Francis of Assisi is alleged to have said, 'Preach the gospel always; if necessary use words.'  That may be a great medieval sound bite, but it falls short of what the Bible teaches about evangelism." I used to like that quote, and the evangelism models it leads... (More)

It's definitely a telling commentary on my life that the first chapter of Total Church , "Why Gospel?" was less exciting to me than the following chapter, "Why Community?".  I think the former is in my head only, where the latter is in my head and heart.... (More)

I've just started reading a book I ordered from the library. I don't remember who recommended it - probably either someone at Jubilee, or else a blog I read. Based on the number of things I've liked so far, and I'm only through the introduction, I suspect I'm going to really like this... (More)

It got up to 67 F outside this afternoon.  We had a picnic lunch and then spent a long time outside enjoying the sunshine (kids absorbing lots of vitamin D) and playing with rocks.  Jonathan cleaned and filled the hummingbird feeder.  I filled the regular bird feeder.  I... (More)

At least, it might be.  A bill recently passed the house that very specifically makes non-CNM midwifery illegal .  In 1972, (three years after they started licensing CNMs) a bill was passed declaring Mississippi to be a legal state for direct entry midwives.  I only heard... (More)

Taxes weren't too bad to calculate this year, though last year we paid TaxAct, so apparently, they decided we aren't ever allowed to go back to the free version again, unless I sign up with a new username.  So, we ended up just doing them on paper, and discovered that in some ways, TaxAct... (More)

There is a bizarre issue with AT&T and their latest phone - the tech support folks (even the second level) haven't ever seen one, and the scripts they have are made for the original Tilt, and AT&T somehow hasn't realized that while it probably is possible to do it the "old"... (More)

In continuing my tv watching and catching up on the news from the last year, I see that Verizon has been doing lots of ads about network speeds and comparing them to AT&T.  And I found out that AT&T rates lowest on consumer satisfaction surveys, etc.  My brother said he has... (More)

Note: most links in the article are links to our pictures of the wood As I've mentioned previously , we really like our woodstove, and since we've used the gas less than I thought, I decided to get some more wood , and so I found a guy on Craigslist, who had a decent price for... (More)

I mentioned our new wood stove previously, and asked some of you for recommendations, but never got around to writing about it here.  We've had it for a couple months, and it has been great!  We ended up buying an Englander 13-NCI . I don't remember what the 13 stands for, but 12 is... (More)

We have had the joy of testing out various mouse trap products over the last year with varying degrees of success. Our goals are, in priority order: Get rid of the mice from inside our house, or at least from inside our silverware drawers Protect the kids' fingers from... (More)

We began the day learning about Guy Fawkes Day (Jonathan says now if we ever visit England he wants to visit at the beginning of November so he can participate in the festivities.)  We ended the day by taking Daddy to the ER.  Jon's notes in italics . It was quarter of five... (More)