This weather is a mystery

[bojojoti]

It was 76° and sunny Saturday.  Snow was on the ground Sunday.  Tonight the low is supposed to get down to 15°.  The wheat crop is in danger.  The word is that it may be as poor a crop as 2007.  Thank God, I'm not a farmer.  Especially in Kansas, where, if the floods don't drown it, the droughts will shrivel it up, the hail will beat it to death,

Comments

[juliet_winters]

Trust. As in the trust of a child.
I believe we were directed to have faith as children do. (Check 18th chapter of Matthew)

As children trust their fathers, so do Christians trust their heavenly Father.

[uktena]

But if faith equals trust, why have two words for it? ;)

[juliet_winters]

You realize the vagaries of language, I trust?

Which is a point. To really dig into it, check out the meanings in the earliest versions/languages of the Bible.

[curiouswombat]

How sad that line must be for all those children who do not, cannot, trust in their fathers.

[krikketgirl]

To me, faith is doing what your head knows to be right, even when you're terrified and can't see any way it will work out. It's also confidence that God will keep His promises to us. In my life, I think my hardest test of faith is simply one of believing that God would care enough about me to want to help me, instead of simply seeing me as a colossal mess!

[bojojoti]

I hadn't thought about confidence. That, and assurance. Thanks.

[curly_purls]

Faith is free-falling and knowing that God's gotcha. I think that I could write that paper for you...such a topic is inspiring to me.

Yay for the workshop with a known writer. I think I've heard of her?

Farmers are never happy, but now that I've lived with one for so many years, I understand. To spring, my friend. I hope that the KS winter wheat crop pulls through.

[bojojoti]

Okay, write the paper and send to... :D

I looked the author up on Wiki, and she is the only mystery writer to have received the four major mystery writers' awards.

Each year, farmers fight the elements and are never assured of a good outcome for all their hard work. Now, that's faith.

[curly_purls]

I would write it if I could turn in a condensed, informal version. ;-) You will do a fabulous job!

I shall have your package in the mail to go out on Wednesday. We will hope that the bunny service is speedy!

[bojojoti]

I'm really not asking to have my work done for me! I just need to get inspired.

Thank you!

[curiouswombat]

We think we have changeable weather, but yours...!

I am a Brother Cadfael fangirl - when I was on a course in Cheshire a few years ago I took an extra day to go to Shrewsbury to look around.

[bojojoti]

It actually got down to 17°--a very hard freeze--but they say it should get up to 65° later today and 70° tomorrow. This is what makes gardening and farming so perilous. There are plants that thrive in hot weather and plants that survive in the cold, but very few plants enjoy doing both in a matter of a few weeks' time. Or in the same day.

It would be lovely to visit the areas described in the Brother Cadfael novels.

[curiouswombat]

Faith - faith is hard work, it is not something that comes naturally or easily - like friendship it has to be worked at.

Faith is not 'A Christian Thing' - unless the paper is to be written from that angle - an atheist has a great a faith in his own beliefs - even though he might deny that it is faith!

Faith is accepting without proof positive - and an atheist accepts their own belief that the world was somehow made from nothing by nothing or no-one, with no proof that this is the case - so exhibiting faith.

I think having faith in something is almost what defines humanity - as far as we know dolphins, gorillas etc. do not have faith as we know it.

Faith was a very interesting character in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but this could well not be relevant....

Hmm - any of that of interest?

[juliet_winters]

As you define it, many dogs do have faith. If I were to forget to bring the dog in from the back yard he would sit on the stoop, waiting for me to return. He has complete faith I will return. For the record, this breed sometimes has the nickname of the Pastor Dog.

Faith in Buffy was desperately looking to have faith in something, interestingly she latched on to a father figure. She's one of the most tragic figures in that series.

[curiouswombat]

If I were to forget to bring the dog in from the back yard he would sit on the stoop, waiting for me to return.

Ah - but that is learned behaviour - each time he waits on the stoop you return, so he has learnt that sitting there means that you will come back - it has been proved to him.

If you just told the dog that you would not come back today, but in a week's time, and so he did not go bother to sit on the stoop again until that day, he would have shown faith in what you told him... (totally off-topic, but what is a stoop?)

As for Faith, you are so right - I have always thought she was the most tragic figure, and I totally agree about the father-figure (or, if my memory serves me right, a parent-figure; she wanted Buffy's Mom too) She was still looking for one in 'Angel' as well.

[juliet_winters]

A stoop is something like an undersized porch. Very undersized. Think larger than average step.

About the dog, not my current dog, but a stray of similar breed whom I had barely patted on the head.
I had to go out of town immediately and assumed he would find his way home, but he sat out in the rain FOR HOURS until we got back. He didn't even abandon the stoop and go around to the proper coverd porch.

He didn't know me from anyone. I'd never let him in the house. The sensible thing to have done would have been to run off and find another person to look after him.
As it was, I was touched by his faithfulness and placed ads in the newspaper, never found the owner, screened for a new one, and was very happy to see him trot off contentedly with a loving family. Faith can be rewarded, even by humans.