i have good news and bad news.

Do you want the good news first or the bad news first?

Oh wait, it doesn't really matter what you think for two reasons: 

1. this is my blog, and it happens to be extremely one-directional and also me-centered, which means the bad news will always come first. I like getting it over with.
2. The good news and bad news are one and the same in this case. Guess what I found out can be made in a toaster oven?

Toasted marshmallows! Melted chocolate (and peanut butter) chips! I don't know why I never thought of it! (Yes, I do. It's because I have never owned a toaster oven before, and I am smart enough to realize you can't toast marshmallows in a regular toaster unless it somehow has an open flame.)


I have been cooking up many delicious recipes - mostly from my Almost Meatless cookbook. Barley-stuffed butternut squash. Albondigas (Spanish meatballs). Turkey and pinto bean corn bread pie. Stir fry. Sour cream pancakes. Up next? Eggplant. I love winter vegetables!


I've been listening to Timothy Keller's Ministries of Mercy. It's been really good so far, about how we cannot simply have a church based on verbal interactions and theology. Books are just a bunch of scribbles that we apply meaning to (Richard Foster, A Celebration of Disciplines) and it's actions that truly reveal love. Actions are pretty hard when you're faking love,  however, and that only gets you so far, which is to say, not very far at all, so I'm not suggesting that we only build our actions as a sign of love, which is something I often find myself doing. They should be an outpouring of love: like when something so good happens to you that you know there's not a chance you could keep a secret and you're going to blow like a teapot if it doesn't come out of you. (I think that also could be used to describe a couple flu symptoms. Use whichever metaphor you prefer.)


Timothy Keller says in Ministries of Mercy that alienation occurs when an object is separated from its purpose. Our purpose is to glorify and worship the Creator God. We are forever alienating ourselves by worshiping things other than the Creator God, by being slaves to sin and running away from every intention to glorify Him. We alienate ourselves. "It's like - how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black." (Thank you, This is Spinal Tap).

But we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a redeemable people - but it is only through the will(s) of God.

If Jesus' subsistence, His food, was to do the will of the Father, how much more should we be emulating that? How much more should we realize that we are incapable of doing so ourselves? How much more do we see the necessity of Christ and of God's desire for us to be saved and God's will to have His creation glorify Him?
Much more. How much more glorifying could this be?

The answer is none. None more glorifying.