On Saturday our family ventured to the rodeo, which has been held at our local fairgrounds for a few years. My parents went last year, but this year I decided to go. It had been incredibly cool for August around here, so we ended up taking our wrist warmers, scarves, and a blanket. The slight drizzle of rain made us feel like die hard football fans out in the cold rainy bleachers. The entertainment was fair, with the exception that Mom said it was better last year. It seemed as if no one was cooperating- the animals or wranglers, ropers, riders, etc.

Most of the pictures ended up looking like this.

But Mom and I did end up taking pictures of us and the family.

A few weeks ago, we got a small pile of National Geographic magazines for Geography and modern archaeology. Archaeology is in my heart’s deepest interests and being a Christian, makes the digs that are being excavated even more exciting. Christian archaeologists have more reason to be joyous over remains of the past, for we know the maker of these people and artifacts, and many of the more ancient specimens found confirm even more the Bible’s claims on history. The facts are too overwhelming to not see that the word of God can apply to ever area of our lives.

Well, one month’s article of National Geographic ( April 2009) had the face of a Egyptian queen on the front. The title spoke of a queen ruling Egypt and her name was Hatshepsut. Ruling her country for a peaceful 22 years, she was a builder and trader of sorts, determined to make her mark on the world being the only great female ruler of Egyptian history. She had a great expedition to the land of Punt where she brought back myrrh trees and many other things. No one is sure of where Punt may have actually been located, although Egyptian inscriptions indicated Punt being in Palestine rather than in the much thought Africa. Also in Hatshepsut’s reliefs, some of the wonderful things she returned with from Punt are gold, incense, ebony, myrrh, and monkeys.

After our trip to the Creation Museum on Monday, I found a book that I took home with me - Unwrapping the Pharaohs by Dr. Ashton and David Down. I had heard a friend mention it, but I had never seen it other than a few magazines. In this intriguing book is a chapter on Hatshepsut being the most likely candidate for the Biblical Queen of Sheba found in 1 Kings 10.

(picture from National Geographic)

The queen is known as the “queen of Sheba“. An excerpt from Unwrapping the Pharaohs is the best explanation of the identification of Sheba, so I will place it here. This is found on page 121:

“Sheba is usually identified with Marib in Yemen, but for this there is only very flimsy circumstantial evidence. Two thousand years ago the Jewish historian Josephus wrote, “There was then a woman, queen of Egypt and Ethiopia…When this queen heard of the virtue and prudence of Solomon, she had a great mind to see him….Accordingly she came to Jerusalem with great splendor and rich furniture.”

Jesus Christ also identified her as coming from Egypt. He said in Matthew 12: 42, “The queen of the South will rise up in judgment with this generation and condemn if, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon.” Daniel 11:5 and 8 refer to the king of the south as the king of Egypt, so it would be logical to identify the queen of the south as the queen of Egypt.”

There is much more evidence due to the inscriptions of Hatshepsut’s walls and character of Solomon to come to the conclusion that she was indeed the Queen of Sheba who visited Solomon in Jerusalem.

I had first read of Lorna Doone on a blog, and how often it was paired with movies like Pride and Prejudice on the “Favourite Movie” list. I had never heard of it, and after a few months of pondering I finally inter library loaned the movie which was made by BBC and A&E. Yet I was so anxious to watch the movie that I ended up watching it on Youtube in Spanish. I was even more anxious to know what they were saying for my Spanish isn’t too good. So I rented the book from the library to ease my anxiety.

I would say that I love Lorna Doone. The music is my style and the costumes are interesting and elegant at the same time. The acting is a little corny at times, but the story line is sweet, intriguing, and clean. Love is throughout the movie, in different forms, but it is there. Violence is present but only in the form of quick, red Kool Aid squirted over the “wounded” men. The characters, especially the antagonist (Carver Doone) is really an interesting character. He is not simply the bad guy that you love to hate, for through the movie, you start to wonder the depth of his sincerity.

The movie also includes: James McAvoy from Narnia and Becoming Jane, Joanne Froggat from Robin Hood BBC Season 3. Along with Mrs. Jamieson from Cranford, and Mr. Boffin from Our Mutual Friend.

Since our school year started this past Monday, we thought the best thing would be to jump right back into literature, one of my favourite subjects. We started with Hemingway, whose “plainspoken, no frills writing style became so famous that is is was (and still is) frequently parodied“.

My first thoughts after reading his biography, were “I hope I can read through one of his books” due to the reviews I read. I read the two, of the two books we had gotten from the library, and I ended up reading The Old Man and The Sea-the safer choice. Apparently his books are manly and have questionable content including sensuality and language.

It is true…Hemingway wrote in a plainspoken, no frills style. Sentences are simple and straight to the point. You read the lines and that is it, with an occasional pondering or two. To me, he didn’t seem like the great writer people spoke of for it was just too plain for me, which is probably why people like him. He is a simple writer for easy, relaxing reading. The Old Man And The Sea won a Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.

I also want to say that the title says it all…The Old Man And The Sea was indeed about an old man and the sea. If you love to hear about fishing techniques, survival tips, and rough adventures, this book will entertain you.

This is probably my first and last Hemingway book. Sorry.

Does Being Loved Mean Being Made Much Of?

“For many people, this is not obviously an act of love. They do not feel loved when they are told that God created them for his glory. They feel used. This is understandable given the way love has been almost completely distorted in our world. For most people, to be loved is to be made much of. Almost everything in our Western culture serves this distortion of love. We are taught in a thousand ways that love means increasing someone’s self-esteem. Love is helping someone feel good about themselves. Love is giving someone a mirror and helping him like what he sees.

This is not what the Bible means by the love of God. Love is doing what is best for someone. But making self the object of our highest affections is not best for us. It is, in fact, a lethal distraction. We were made to see and savor God-and savoring him, to be supremely satisfied, and thus spread in all the world the worth of his presence. Not to show people the all-satisfying God is not to love them. To make them feel good about themselves when they were made to feel good about seeing God is like taking someone to the Alps and locking them in a room full of mirrors. “

John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life

Breakthrough-the Beauty of Christ, My Joy