rambling rosemarie

When I worked in public safety I never understood why women would dial 9-1-1 and ask for help because their husband, boyfriend, and/or baby daddy was beating them and then beat the officers to the jail to post bail for their man. Often they were there before the booking process had begun. And then I became an instant single parent and I got it. "He may beat me on Friday night but Monday there will be food on the table to feed my kids." Choices of desperation. When I worked at a Christian university I never understood why parents would pay outrageous sums of money in tuition to send their adult children to a Christian school that they wanted no part of attending. They had no intention of taking their education seriously, especially their spiritual education. Then my kids became young adults and made choices not to follow or believe in God and I got it. Mom and Dad are willing to pay big bucks to expose their beloved offspring to a little bit of Jesus...hoping that faith w...

I don't quite know what to make of today. It's had a few unusual events already. I was sitting, sipping coffee and watching the news this morning when I noticed the neighbor's outrageously cute basset hound puppy playing in their yard. For those of you unfamiliar with Kentucky, we don't have fences as a general rule, not unless you have livestock. Our subdivision yards are a bit bigger than most of my California friends can relate to. I have a small lawn and it's half an acre. There is a home being built in the lot next to me and so our quiet cul-de-sac has lots of heavy equipment and delivery trucks going up and down most the day. We don't often get a lot of travelers and as I am the last house I seldom see this much traffic. Just yesterday I was talking to the basset's young owner. I said to him that I wanted to meet his pup because I like animals but I told him not to bring the dog to me, I didn't want the pup to get hit being on the road. Ke...

Each summer I search for the elusive watermelon. You know the one I am talking about, the one that has perfectly firm flesh but melts in your mouth like sugar. It is the one watermelon that you judge all others by. The flavor is intense, the seeds are few and all other watermelons before and after are measured by that one. What do you do when your first watermelon is absolutely amazing? Hope for more of the same or better? Or give stop and be satisfied that you didn't have to go through any disappointments? I am so conflicted! I have never found my elusive watermelon on the first try and so much of the season is still before me! Is it a trick? What would Tom Clancy do? " Y'know, I seen me a mermaid once. I even seen me a shark eat an octopus. But I ain't never seen no phantom perfect watermelon." Ping me, Vasili! One ping only.

I have posted twice on the Liberty University / Ergun Caner controversy. If you are interested enough to be here now and are unfamiliar with my previous posts, you can find them here and here . Yesterday, Liberty University released a statement regarding the investigation into the veracity of some of Dr. Caner's claims regarding his testimony and accomplishments. You can read that here and here . There are several places you can read about this. If you are ignorant of the whole thing, consider it a blessing and decide if you really want to know. First of all, for all the Christians who have insisted that Dr. James White had speculated about or that this scandal was in any way about whether or not Dr. Caner was ever really a Muslim, I am at a loss for words. Actually that is a fib. I am at a loss for kind words. I cannot conceive that you can be intelligent enough to have blogs but not intelligent enough to read clearly. Not just that but the man (Dr. White) has gone o...

I have been thinking about why women have difficulty with theology and do not seem to be great apologists. I do know several women who are excellent theologians but I cannot think of a single female who is a formal Christian apologist- an orthodox Christian woman apologist. Well, there is Summer. She masquerades as a barista but she has a first class apologetic mind just like her dad. And, like her dad, she's an intellectual anomaly. She also had the benefit of growing up and knowing an apologist as Daddy and not just a lean, mean debating machine.... but I digress. Yesterday I read an exchange that occurred on a young woman's blog and I began to understand why women and apologetics don't seem to mix well. It's the male apologists they encounter who unwittingly scare them away. Before I explore this further and before I am accused of being a man-hating, male bashing feminist who blames men for every sort of evil under the sun.... I want to go on record as saying th...

Last night I had the honor and privilege to present some information to the women of my church. I cannot begin to tell you how much I love and appreciate them. The seminar I did was on fear. God is clever and He had me present the information to them because I needed it. It's not that I don't want to study things for my own benefit and growth, but whenever I do a topical study to teach it, I see how badly I needed it and how much more I have to repent of than I realized. Sometimes you don't know what you don't know. That's a topic I want to return to in another post. I want to talk about the ladies for a moment. They are an incredibly loving group of women. Women who seek God and are teachable. They have gone out of their way to include me and love on me, which speaks volumes of their characters because I am not all that lovable. I am not being self-deprecating here. I am a mix of endearing and maddening qualities like anyone else. What I am telling you is ...

Occasionally I stumble across a blog written by someone I don't know but wish I could sit down with them over a cup of coffee and just chat. There's a certain honesty to what they write and it comes through in a way that it highlights what I imagine are the best things about them. Things I wish were part of my character. That happened for me today when I came across portrait of a magnificent obsession . After working at a Christian university for several years, I have to admit that I am tenderhearted for college students. They rock my world. This young woman has reminded me why I like them so much. They have reached adulthood but haven't yet lost their wonder. They have passionate opinions and haven't yet learned the social constraints that make everything happen with restraint and decorum. They are still willing to learn. They are, for the most part, still teachable. Reading this young woman's blog was encouraging to me. It has reminded me of the wonder I ...

I collect glass. Depression glass, milk glass, carnival glass, china- anything old. Old glass is like catnip to me. I love that it is such a fragile thing and yet it survives so beautifully. One careless move and it's gone. I use most of my things. Why have it if you don't use it? I have some Pyrex storage containers that I have had for at least 20 years. I have always preferred using glass to using plastic. I used to like Tupperware but so many of my pieces have been lost to pot lucks, dishwashers and stains that glass seemed to be the best storage solution. At one time I had a 50s kitchen and I thought it was the most chic and marvelous place in my home. It was full my grandmother's hand me downs. Refrigerator Glass. Corningware. The old stuff. Because of my neck and back injury, I have been having a difficult time with hanging on to my Pyrex things. My hands don't work very well. I am likely to drop things as I attempt to pull them from the shelf. I h...