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mixed motives: Esther 4

August 19, 2016 by David Baer

It may be that Esther’s mental state at a crucial moment in her mediated dialogue with her Uncle Mordecai is signaled by one small Hebrew word.

And they told Mordecai what Esther had said. Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, ‘Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?’ (Esther 4:12–14 ESV)

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no easy consolation: Esther 4

August 19, 2016 by David Baer

Sometimes the tears must flow. To stop them would be to tell the lie that things are not so bad.

The Bible’s masterfully told story of Esther has the unlikely queen’s uncle leading the mournful charge as the Jewish community in exile faces extermination. In that way of cloistered royalty, Queen Esther seems the last to know, the last to come to terms with the imminent extinction of her people. Palaces can be oblivious places. Continue Reading »

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we’ll leave the light on: Gardirect Natural Insect Hotel, Bee and Butterfly House

August 18, 2016 by David Baer

After a positive experience and subsequent review of a different Gardirect insect hotel, the good folks at Gardirect contacted me and asked if I’d be willing to review a second product. With this full disclosure, I launch upon this review of the most recently arrived product.

I’m impressed. Continue Reading »

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riding up north: Bayfield (Wisconsin) County Fair and the Great Frontier Bull Riding Company

August 18, 2016 by David Baer

Truth be told, Lake Superior and the Wisconsin Northwoods have their hooks in us. Every so often, we pack up the dawg, oil up the F-150, and head the eleven to thirteen hours north to a HomeAway cabin on some bedazzling little lake that looks on a map as though it might have fish in it. Our homing instinct and, sadly, our IQ approximate to those of a trout: strong and mindlessly determined, respectively. Continue Reading »

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the un-diner: Delta Diner,County Road H south of Iron River, Wisconsin

August 14, 2016 by David Baer

When I called my Long-Lost Cousin Maggie to tell her we had made another surprise landing in our beloved Northwoods and were renting a cabin south of Iron River (population 1,123 when everybody answers the door), she asked ‘Are you eating at the Delta Diner?’ Long-Lost doesn’t count for much in these northern climes when good eating is the topic.

Though we’d never heard of the establishment in question, the Good Wife and I had within the hour traveled the seven miles down County Road H, duly registered our names, and were outside chatting with the other Northwoodsmen waiting their turn. Good thing. There’s no place like it. Continue Reading »

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honor to whom honor is due: Zondervan 2016 Minister’s Tax and Financial Guide (For 2015 Tax Returns)

August 8, 2016 by David Baer

When an accountant can write easy-to-understand prose about tax issues for non-accountants, you’ve stumbled upon a phenomenon. Maybe even a miracle. Continue Reading »

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prodigy: 2 Chronicles 34

August 3, 2016 by David Baer

The Chronicler of Israel/Judah is often faulted for a tendentious and rigid view of his nation’s history. To be fair, one resorts to brief summaries of any complex reality when a word count is in the mix. And an ancient manuscript imposes hard-wired volume limits on any writer.

Read sympathetically, neither of the two great biblical histories of Israel requires the conclusion that their authors were beady-eyed ideologues. Continue Reading »

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precious wildness: Parker J. Palmer, LET YOUR LIFE SPEAK. LISTENING FOR THE VOICE OF VOCATION

July 27, 2016 by David Baer

Parker Palmer’s graceful little book Let Your Life Speak is the best work I’ve ever read on discernment and vocation.

In six chapters and just under 120 elegantly written pages, Palmer presses home the point that vocation emerges from within us and that we must listen carefully to our own lives if we are to discover it. Taking on someone else’s concept of calling or subjecting ourselves to an external and alien set of values and objectives will do violence to ourselves and to our usefulness—Palmer would probably avoid the word—to our community and our world. Throughout, the author’s rooting in Quaker patterns and rhythms is evident, but this book is anything but sectarian and will be welcomed—indeed, has been welcomed, for it was published in the year 2000—by readers of many faiths and perhaps of none. Continue Reading »

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worth the wait: Febreze Car Vent-Clip Air Fresheners – 4 Pack (Linen & Sky)

July 27, 2016 by David Baer

I got my driver’s license 41 years ago and have been waiting for this product ever since.

No more cutting a hole in cellophane to hang a little tree from a knob and hoping you cut the hole to just the right size. You snap the little clamp of these gizmos into position to break the seal and allow the aroma to flow, then you clamp it onto your car’s heat/ac vent. You adjust the amount of aroma you want and the air flow circulates the secret through your car.

91HlIorCzzL._SL1500_Really, you wonder why one of us didn’t invent this twenty years ago. It requires no rocket science, just somebody who was able to ‘see beyond the little tree’.

I’ve used two available scents. Linen ‘n Sky is right down by aisle, bright and fresh but not froo-froo or flowery. My wife finds it strong unless set on the ‘low flow’ setting.

Another review commented that s/he smiles every time she sits down in her car and sees this product doing the good thing that it does. Me too, different car, same smile.

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accountable power: 2 Chronicles 19

July 27, 2016 by David Baer

Power turns the heart of those we would never expect capable of using it wrongly. Power moves hands that had previously been clean in darting, surreptitious ways. Power corrupts good men and good women.

When Jehoshaphat was reforming the kingdom of Judah, he set the bar high for those who would wield power in the context of local disputes. He seemed to anticipate both the blessing and the bane that come with distributing power among men who are but flesh and therefore susceptible to its distorting force. Continue Reading »

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