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Thanks. Sorry for the wordiness and rambling.

Posted by: mindful webworker at March 05, 2016 10:12 AM (j+h+K)
that was a beautiful request....i'm tearing up....

AOSHQ Prayer site, FS says? Hm.

Lemme see if I can get this in before the next thread.

I've read that prayer is best when it's a pattern of request, followed by thanksgiving, leading to worship.

Honestly, despite a slew of troubles, I'm good with the thanksgiving part - even in pain and turmoil, so much of life is beautiful and been ver' ver' good to me.

I'm not real clear on what worship even is, to be honest. Sort-of personal and beyond defining for me. Like love itself. But leave worship aside...

Prayer's my subject here. I'm not good at it, faith so meager that it makes a mustard seed seem mountainous, but every time someone asks for prayer here, I answer, if not overtly, at least in mind and heart. Whether it's for successful surgery or just a job interview. FWIW.

But for me, prayer is more simply "just" a way to ask to know God's will and adjust to it, than anything to genuinely, "magically," alter circumstances. Prayer is kinda like homeopathy for me in that regard - if things do get better, you can't tell if it was the prayer working, or if things would've got better anyway. But, still thankful, whatever the outcome, because we're still living in the Lord.

So, see, even though I'll help pray for good things, on the "just in case" principle, nevertheless, I rarely ask, because I just am not entirely sold on what good prayer-by-others and at-a distance really does. There's several severe situations I'd ask for prayer, if I did ask. Circumstantial, familial, and health, generally.

So, crawling out on a limb, here's something of a "test." (Not that I think one should test the Almighty!) A prayer request test.

♥

Milady, my wonderful wife, has been afflicted for over two decades - a health problem that is disfiguring, disabling, and dangerous. Sometimes we think, oh, it's getting better, then it's the same again.

Doctors' prognoses have been like the old saying about asking three Jews and getting at least four opinions. They don't know what the cause is, but suggested solutions amount to cosmetic surgery which would leave her hardly any better, trading one set of problems for another, and cure nothing.

At least, amen! she's not been getting worse. Just staying messed up. For years and years.

I love to hear her singing in the kitchen as she cooks. She smiles and carries on happily, as a rule, despite her trouble, and all our troubles. Sometimes I almost get mad at the Lord, like, why can't you love her as much as I do and heal her? Which is silly, yet it is kind-of baffling. If faith can heal, how can she still be afflicted? Keeps me praying regularly, but I'd rather be thankful for a positive answer!

I don't want to say more, or go into more detail. She'd probably be embarrassed that I talked about it. But now that I have, please spare a prayer for her full health, physical, mental, and spiritual, as it's all one.

Thanks. Sorry for the wordiness and rambling.

the guy that moves pianos for a living: Heh, if you want a constitutional restoration then Trump is your man. I guarantee you if he is elected congress will rediscover article 1 and the courts will realize there are all kinds of limits to executive authority.

Funny.

Just as the devil can quote scripture for his own nefarious ends, the RINOs, like the Democrats, will turn to the Constitution when it suits them, but otherwise ignore it.

There's only one actual candidate who knows and works from the Constitution, as far as I can tell.

It's terribly unfortunate - disastrous - that, apparently, the majority of the electorate doesn't care a bit about that and would rather vote for Bernie Clinton than for America.

Me: The leading Republican candidate does not attend the leading allegedly-conservative conclave, where he would likely have had a hostile reception anyway. Doesn't this speak poorly of that candidate and the nominal Republicans that support him?

BurtTC: I'm not seeing the logical connection between these two statements. They hate him, but he has to go anyway? ... I will agree all day long that Trump is not conservative...

That's the logical connection I meant. Not saying at all that he should've gone to CPAC or that CPAC is all that great - don't really know that much about it, really, 'cept what I read on here. Just saying, as you do, he's not a conservative candidate, and his supporters mostly aren't either, yet somehow he keeps getting lauded as a better choice for conservatives. Better than alleged base-betraying so-called conservative RINOs, sure, no argument - but that's just definitional distortion.

FenelonSpoke: We used to have a very nice conservative woman on here who posted from Australia, but she hasn't been here for a while.

Aussie? Said she was going to quit lurking and start posting daily again. Did for a week or two. Then she was posting repeatedly one night, up 'til about 3am her time, complaining about a party at her house that wouldn't end. Never saw her after that.

votermom: ...If you are interested in understanding where the Trump supporters are coming from...
http://preview.tinyurl.com/jkex6xz

From that link, John Kluge: [Conservative:] The word seems to have become a brand that some people attach to a set of partisan policy preferences, rather than the set of underlying principles...

This is about what I expected.

Reminds me of what I always say about atheists. When they describe the God they don't believe in, I say, sure, I wouldn't believe in that kind of God, either. That "conservative" has been misappropriated hasn't changed what conservative really means. But, because of that, I usually use "Constitutionalist" now, just to be clear.

There were some other broad generalizations I couldn't agree with. "What everybody knows" usually isn't.

Back from reading the whole morning thread. Not too bad, less than 150 comments before enstompening. Now I have to get caught up here. It never ends!

me: Doesn't this speak poorly of that candidate and the nominal Republicans that support him?

eman: No. CPAC is riddled with gope agents. It is useless.

So I've heard, which is why I said "allegedly conservative." However, Constitutional conservatives seem to be well-received, yet der Darnold probably would not have been, so I ask, nonetheless, if it speaks poorly of him and his supporters?

BIRM.

(peeks at morning thread)

Oh, hey! Vic News! Be back in a while...

votermom: Willpower = willowed, sorry

Thought so, but I kinda liked "willpower post".

Vic: ...it appears the master plan of the RNCe is to keep enough in to water down the votes...

Weirdly, the main effect of this has been to boost the guy who doesn't represent either Establishmentarians or Constitutionalists.

The leading Republican candidate does not attend the leading allegedly-conservative conclave, where he would likely have had a hostile reception anyway. Doesn't this speak poorly of that candidate and the nominal Republicans that support him?

Mawnin, glouries!

We got a morning thread but I got up just too late it, eh? I need an open thread to stretch the mental muscles before running the political races. But, no, punished for being on Central Time again.

Well, here goes, even though I haven't finished my first cup of coffee...

J.J. Sefton: So, Ben Carson seems to endorse Ted Cruz?

While reading his statement, I kept thinking about the snits Ben threw over Cruz "lies" and other problems, and I couldn't figure out anyone he was talking about, except possibly Drumpf with that "significant accomplishments" bit.

Ben, be clear, wouldja, please? What? Speak up!

Tammy al-Thor: ...anything at all is pretty much gilding lilies....

I can relate to that, except... if the lady doesn't wear something, then you don't get the pleasure of watching the undressing!

Home, where I discover that what looks like Enough in the Bottle actually isn't once poured in the glass. And no backup. So, giving up on the day and heading to bed.

Long day. Not bad. But, glad to be done with it.

Stay frisky, y'all.

Tremendous crash from the kitchen. Look around, cat and dog are both sitting here in the office. Dish drainer tumped over, several dishes smashed, shards everywhere in a huge radius, silverware mostly just tilted into the sink.

Glad we found it tonight instead of in the morning, when we would certainly have blamed the cat. Swept it up, but could still use a mopping. Tomorrow.

Lesson learned: don't load the silverware on the front.

Heading home now. That's enough office catastrophe for one day.

And about the generations thing. I don't really get it.

I see some slumping doofus walking down the street, long hair, scruffy beard, slack stoner smile, knit cap, I swear I saw that guy in 1967, 1974, 1986... in Tulsa, in Santa Fe, in Little Rock, in Chicago... What gen is he? Yes.

My native family spanned the baby boomers from pre-boomer to tail-end, with my oldest sibling born before the war's end, my youngest sib born in 1958. But the boomers were a genuine thing, a big statistical bulge in post-war births, with a seriously monolithic culture, mostly. And that wasn't even all that solid, with the rockers not comprehending the boppers & vicy versy.

After that, there were just births every year, no bulge, and increasingly fracturing cultures. As far as I can tell. So the attempt to impose definitions seems like media marketing. Not that folks don't self-identify as this or that generation, but people self-ID as third-gender extraterrestrial furries, too - doesn't make it real.

Or am I just a grumpy old tail-end boomer tonight?

Posted by: mindful webworker - armchair referee at March 05, 2016 12:27 AM (5a8XA)

You are a delight, always.

Sounds like some people take the commentin' community much too seriously.

Small doses, frequent breaks, just duck out of flame threads, and learn to skim past the heavy-handedness. Remember the good folks and fun jokes are still here, same as always. Mostly. Also, stand up and stretch, pet the dog or cat, and pour another one.

My 2¢ worth, in real copper pennies.

Trump! Palin! Civil War! Gummy Bears!

Milady says she just saw an ad for a wifi enabled water filter.

What?

You get a text at work that your home water filter needs its filter changed?

Margarita DeVille: ...Firing squad for anyone who uses the word "differential" when what they mean is "difference."

"What differential, at this point, does it make?"
-Hilarity Clintoon

❢

Howdy, nightstompers.

What happened to the dump?

What? (reloads dump page, sees it's really gone) Hope it comes back. I h/t linked to it from my blog o'links.

Guess that's one way to get the corgi mass to move along...?

jewells45, so excited about being first, had to say it twice.

This art is... different.

Impressive use of color.

Ace debate analysis and snark instead of a morning thread? Where am I?

I blame Twitter, or lack thereof.

And Zack got a comment in at 05:24 AM on a post timestamped 7:15? Now I know this is all alien intervention. (Pulls Mylar-wrapped Stetson down hard on head.)

[Cruz] Continues making the strategic mistake of telling people what he actually believes and what he'd actually do, which our current culture reads as "insincerity" and "sanctimony."

This is why we are doomed.

Howdy, morningstars.