Another forwarded email furor

This morning, I got yet another email from a Christian warning about the upcoming holiday movie, "The Golden Compass," starring Nicole Kidman. While the plot of the books upon which the film is based does indeed appear to have an anti-Christian theme, all of the email flurry leaves me wondering: where are the Christians the rest of the time?

Every day, Hollywood - or the media in general - promote loads of material that counters a biblical Christian lifestyle. Where's the effort to do something about the everyday garbage on TV, on the radio, or in the movies?

Christians love to boycott one good (or bad) thing a year, because we get to make a loud vocal circus about something and then do nothing for another 12 months, which we tend to be very good at. Maybe it's time we started acting on our beliefs.

For starters, why aren't we praying for Brittany Spears? Anyone with half a brain can see that she's got some serious problems, and Christians especially should know that the only way out of her downward spiral is to grab the hand that holds the world (thanks to Starfield for that line). I've never gotten a forwarded prayer email about that.

Instead of hitting forward on your boycott-The-Golden-Compass emails, why not spend that time praying for Nicole Kidman, who while not as sensational as Brittany has had her own share of problems? While you're standing in line at the grocery store staring at Angelina or Lindsey or Brad or Jennifer on the covers of every magazine in sight, remember that these celebritites are real people with real lives and a real need for a Saviour, just like me and you.

You want to change the world? Stop shouting at each other (even if it is via the internet) and start praying to the only One who can do anything about it.

This Life: Deep Dog Breaths

I'm lying on my living room floor, cursing my aging body and following along with a Pilates DVD - "Feel the breath coming into the body, feel the breath exiting the body" - when all of the sudden I feel warm dog breath on my face and open my eyes to find Scout standing over me, his nose just inches from mine.

We make eye contact, and before I can react he's slobbering all over my face, sticking his tongue in my eyes, my nose, my mouth.

Read the entire dogvotional here: http://joannebrokaw.com/ThisLife.php

Bibles are big business

Thomas Nelson, Inc., a leading publisher and seller of Bibles, released the first Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified Bible in October. The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Daily Bible's production flowed through the FSC chain-of-custody from the FSC-certified forest, to a paper manufacturer, merchant, and finally printer who have FSC chain-of-custody certification. The Bible also contains 10% post-consumer recycled fiber, due to the lightweight paper needs of the Bible.

Thomas Nelson also announced in October that the quarter ending September 30, 2007 was the largest in its 209-year history.

At the risk of sounding snarky, can I admit that I'm not the least bit impressed by that?

According to a conservative estimate in The New Yorker, "in 2005 Americans purchased some twenty-five million Bibles—twice as many as the most recent Harry Potter book. The amount spent annually on Bibles has been put at more than half a billion dollars."

Ninety-one percent of American households own one Bible; the average household has four.

On the other side of the coin, there are 190 million people in the world without a single verse of Scripture in their own language. According to Wycliffe Bible Translators, there are 6912 languages spoken in the world; 2286 of them have no Bible, and are in need of a translation project to begin, and 1941 have translation project in process but don't have adequate Scripture.

When you consider that some of those groups have no written language at all, you can imagine the enormity of the project. Translators first need to spend years (or decades) with the tribes or people to learn their verbal language and find a way to translate that to a written language. Then they have to teach the people to read that written language (what good is a Bible if you can't read your own language?). Then they can begin to translate the Bible into not only their language, but with idioms and anecdotes that make sense to the people. (An island people who have never seen a grape, for example, don't understand what it would mean to put wine into old wineskins - but they know what it means to put coconut milk into old palm baskets.)

The Seed Company, an affiliate of Wycliffe, recently introduced the One Verse project. For $24 you can sponsor the translation of one verse of the Bible, thereby accelerating the translation process, verse by verse.

What if, instead of stocking our Christian bookstores with yet more options for Bibles - do we really need the same Scripture in teen fashion magazine format, with a camoflague cover, or with devotions for coaches? - we put that money into helping translate the Bible for people who have never read a single verse of the Scriptures?

If you think back to Jesus' day, every household didn't have its own Bible - let alone four. The people didn't have 20 different translations in their own language, or covers that matched their hobbies or interests. They gathered together and read the Scriptures aloud. Because we have them in such abundance, we've forgotten how valuable they are. While the Bible still outsells Harry Potter, I wonder which gets read from cover to cover more often?

To learn more about Bible translation, visit http://www.wycliffe.org/. or http://www.theseedcompany.org/.

The family looking glass

My Uncle John sent me this picture back in 2003, with a note saying this was some of my relatives on my mom's side of the family. He said one of them is my great-grandmother, and two are "Anne and Essie", whoever they are. My uncle died a few months later without identifying who was who, and who the extra woman was.

My sister said the woman on the left in the front row must be our great-grandmother, because she said I resemble her.

Weird, isn't it, to look at a photo and see a piece of yourself?

Postscript: My mother's cousin Susie identified these women. The women in the back L to R are my great-grandmother's sister Essie Maloney and my great-grandfather's sister Margaret Sheerin. In the front, L to R, are my great-grandfather's other sister Elizabeth Sheerin, and my great-grandmother, Mary Ellen Maloney Sheerin. What's so interesting is the family resemblence my sister and I see from both sides of the family.

Learn something new ...

In the "Learn Something New Every Day" category, here are a few things I learned this week:

- A cafe au lait is brewed coffee and steamed milk and a latte is espresso and steamed milk. (Thank you, Julie, as the Penfield Starbucks, for my coffee lesson)

- Starbucks calls a cafe au lait a "misto".

- Some varieties of the apples at the grocery store have been stored for up to a year in a temperature-controlled environment where the oxygen has been replaced with nitrogen. (Thanks to the Wegman's produce manager and staff for taking time to educate me about apples, onions and importing fruits and vegetables - and coffee bean roasting ...)

- A Vidalia onion can't be called a Vidalia onion unless it's been grown in Vidalia, Georgia.

- The more you roast a coffee bean, the less caffeine it has. (As opposed to a tea leaf, which is opposite; green tea has less caffeine than black tea. Tea still has less caffeine than coffee. This I know from my days owning a tea shop, and that comes right from some Indian tea growers.)

- It's important to care about your family tree and save letters, journals, photos and family memorabilia - even when you don't really care about your family tree, because someday you're going to care and you'll want stuff and kick yourself for not saving things than can help you trace your heritage.

- Cats are very strange animals.