choosing the the gift wisely…..

“A wise lover values not so much the gift of the lover
as the love of the giver.”
Thomas à Kempis

(the tiniest treasure found amongst the debris / Julie Cook / 2017)

Then Daniel answered and said before the king, “Keep your gifts for yourself or give your rewards to someone else.” Daniel 5:17
Daniels friends let it be known that the God of heaven was their King.
Daniel himself kept his windows open and prayed in defiance of a king’s decree.
Later in his life, Daniel refused the king’s gifts because his faithfulness
to God didn’t have a price.
He refused to be bought.
By gifts we mean the goodies of the world that stand in the way of the
greatness of God’s kingdom.
They come in any form of fame, fortune,
or promotion promised by getting along with the world.
Daniels life didn’t have a price tag.
His services weren’t for sale.
No amount of worldly gifts for kingly accolades could deter him from his mission.
He was a man of deep conviction, dedicated commitment, and undeniable courage;
the grace of heaven was far more important to him than gifts of men.”
Living Among Lions; How To Thrive Like Daniel In Today’s Babylon.
David and Jason Benham

I really do have a great deal of disdain for this time of year.
I’ve written about it before.
Not because it is Christmas mind you, but rather because it is Christmas.

Huh??

Yes, I know, you probably don’t understand that last bit of redundancy.
Yet I would lay money that many of you actually do.

Yesterday a title to a post from a wonderful blog I follow,
jumped out at me from within a computer screen

“Keep your gifts”

Keep Your Gifts

There was a sense of defiance in the title that I found to be almost
exhilarating….
“Exactly!!” I practically shouted as I recalled just how much
I’ve been fretting the ticking of the impending season’s gift giving time clock.

I’m having a really hard time getting “into the spirit of the season….”

Be it this balmy weather, the heaviness of loss, the overwhelming worrisomeness
over this world of ours or the madness that is currently besetting our nation…

Ho hum is apparently beating out Ho, Ho, Ho….

Our family has drastically declined this past year,
leaving more names than I care to actually acknowledge as MIA from our
Christmas list.
Yet there are those who remain who do deserve a little something
under the tree…this as we look forward to a family addition come February.

But within all of that…those who are missing, the list of names, the cards,
the baking, the cleaning, the shopping, the wrapping, the working, the tree….
which by the way I have no idea when it’ll go up as it seems like it was just
June when my husband and son finally manhandled the thing
down to the basement.
And whereas it takes two to haul the blasted heavy thing
anywhere it must go, I in turn must wait upon strong abled bodies to
happen by my door in order to assist….yet I digress….

So in a nutshell this is a season of tremendous expectation.

And not in the notion of expectant as in the anticipation of waiting but rather
in a societal demand of what is expected.

There are those who fret how they will afford a gift for those they love.
There are those unable to physically seek out a gift for those they love.
There are those who will be away from those they love.
There are those who are simply alone with no one to love,
as they find this time of year so very difficult.
And there are those who go overboard while there are those who take
the path of Scrooge.

It’s just really gotten to be so much more than it was ever meant to be.
And I wonder when it will all finally explode, taking most of society with it.

So it is good, perhaps even life saving, to be reminded that Christmas
is not what the world keeps telling us it is…

As this world and her culture gods and the gods of commercialism and materialism
call out to us like a haunting and enticing siren…
singing a luring and hypnotic call coming from within a television,
or from the myriad of computer popups, from the endless shiny billboards
bedecking the roadways, to the festive sounds from the radio or the
the endless sea of periodicals and catalogs…
all singing the song of falsehood, greed and emptiness.

The quote from the book Living Among Lions, which I must confess I did just order,
sums all of this up so wonderfully—-Daniel offered us the best example—
“keep your gifts or give them to someone else….”
because Daniel neither needed nor wanted these earthly gifts offered by man.

Simply put, Daniel’s gift was God and God alone.

So as you peruse those catalogs and fight the endless throngs at the mall,
or sit glassy eyed and glazed over while staring at the computer as you endlessly
surf and search for that which is to be deemed special and perfect….
all the while as those credit card totals rise and those debit card totals shrink….
be mindful that nothing bought will ever fill the need of both the heart and soul.

For all things bought will eventually break, be outgrown, fade, get lost, or become
quickly outdated.

For the only true “gift” that really matters to any of us is the priceless
gift of Salvation…
Found in a lonely little corner of the world in a forgotten time and place…

In all of my years of service to my Lord,
I have discovered a truth that has never failed and has never been compromised.
That truth is that it is beyond the realm of possibilities that one has the ability
to out give God.
Even if I give the whole of my worth to Him,
He will find a way to give back to me much more than I gave.
Charles H. Spurgeon

The elusive quest for beauty and eyebrows

Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time.
Albert Camus

Beauty.
Yes well, what is there to say? Our society is obsessed with it….or rather with the pursuit of such. So much so that we are vainly attempting our hand at brainwashing an impressionable young generation…the mantra that all should be of an everlasting plastic youth. I have written about this sort of thing before. The unhealthy addiction so many seem to have to the scalpel or the needle of the plastic surgeon—augmentation, botox, lipo, all in the name of youth and beauty. Have you seen those faces and bodies of the oh so stretched too tight or blown up like an over inflated balloon—so unnatural.

And then there is the Cosmetic industry with their potions and lotions promised to diminish or eliminate wrinkles. The “magic” formulas peddled to eradicate age spots, skin irregularities, uneven skin tones. The amazing liquids, that once smeared on, transform winter white to summer bronze. That can’t be good.

All of this however is not exactly my focus today.

Whereas I do think this world of ours, or at least the marketing world, has gone over board, nuts and mad quite frankly with this whole quest for eternal youth and beauty….I simply wish we’d all just take a healthy look in the mirror of reality and be happy with what looks back.

I taught teenagers for over 30 years—the teen years are some tough years if you may recall. Self esteem and self image being everything. And may we remember that I was also an art teacher….where much conversation centered on what is art, what is beauty—or rather what is aesthetically pleasing.

And who has been the subject for much of what man, and to a lesser degree woman, has always deemed as the benchmark for the idea of beauty in the female form?—None other than Miss Venus herself as per the Romans and Aphrodite for the Greeks. Not to worry ladies, we have always had Adonis to look to as our “perfect” male….digress, digress

For years artists looked to this idealized concept of Venus as a measuring stick for feminine beauty. Why would we think that Roman and Greek society created and cultivated a blonde haired blue eyed image as the set standard for beauty when most likely the original concept of our miss Venus was more likely to have had olive toned skin with raven colored wavy hair?

I think the blonde hair blue eyed business being the poster child for beauty has out played itself—not that blonde hair with blue eyes is not a striking match—but let us be mindful that other combinations are equalling as striking and beautiful—be it brown eyes with curly black hair, green eyes with red wavy hair, hazel eyes with short silver hair… ivory skin, ebony skin, fair or dark, the list goes on.

Beauty is truly so much more than skin deep and shallow surface image. I know that, you know that, but try telling the younger generations anything differently. They might as well be wearing blinders as they are forced to focus constantly and confront a mind altering bombardment from the Fashion Industry, the Healthcare / Cosmetic industry and let’s not forget Tinsel Town–of which none will ever let up hammering home the need for the relentless quest to be beautiful at all costs.

So here I was on a short out of town trip with a life long friend who, after a long travel day looked at me, as I had showered and was getting ready to go to bed, and flatly stated “you don’t need to pluck you eyebrows anymore.” Oh dear Lord, if she’s noticed, then countless others have noticed! My eyebrows…or rather my lack of eyebrows—is a true concern. “I don’t pluck them, they’ve simply disappeared.” I reply dejectedly.

Now you must know that women of a certain age tend to lose things….hair being one them–hair, as well as its once luscious rich color. Also, anyone who lives with a bum thyroid can understand my plight as a bum thyroid is most certainly the culprit to the lack of eyebrows—as it is in my case. I have Hashimoto’s disease—best put it is the plight of a thyroid that can’t make up its mind…life on a roller coaster of thyroid hormone production—too much / too little. It sends ones’ weight on a wild ride, ones energy on a manic track of excess and lack and it sends ones hair literally down the drain.

I do take a prescription to help regulate my levels but I don’t think that does anything for my hair. My hair is now rather thin and my poor eyebrows are almost non existent.

There are eyebrow pencils—but my grandmother used those things and looked like a living cartoon. There are tattooed eyebrows but those are a little too permanent for the control freak druthers of mine. My hair usually is long enough to cover at least one eyebrow and I usually hope my glasses hide the other one.

“Ohhhh” my friend responds with almost giddy glee. “Get your computer, we’ve got some ordering to do”….. It seems she found a company that has a line of natural looking pigment powders used to “fill in the gaps” as it were for woman who are in need of such.

My friend recently lived through a battle with breast cancer, of which she has emerged on the other side victorious. She suffered through rounds of chemotherapy that robbed her of precious hair. In order to manage appearing as “normal as possible” while she fought and battled, she found this eyebrow powder. I tried a little…hummmm…”See,” as she hands me a mirror, “you look 10 years younger…” “maybe so” I begrudgingly admit.

My powder arrived yesterday. It has a set of little stencil templates of various sizes with mine obviously being on the fine end of the bushy brow spectrum. Three powders to match my existing hair color tone and the cutest little brush applicator.

If you happen to see me out and about in the near future and find yourself wondering what it is that is now “different” about my appearance….just know that it may be the fact that I now have two wooly bear caterpillars living above my eyes….

There is beauty and then there is necessity…..