Stitchy Day

Well, my husband got the call this afternoon that he starts work tomorrow morning.  But then, our car wouldn't start. Means I can't get the kids to school.  Grrr.  Probably needs a new starter.  Grrr.

I mostly finished this little gem.  It just needs a bit of edge fraying and then glue.

B is for Balaam

For those joining me for A to Z, please read the Introductory Post

Balaam is a rather interesting character.  But before we get to him, I'll give you a little background.

Israel has just escaped from Egypt and the whole slavery thing.  In the events leading up to Balaam, Israel is in the middle of wandering in the wilderness for 40 years.  When you read Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, you will notice that there is a bit of a cycle going on.  First, God does something great and wonderful and powerful and awesome and then a few verses later, Israel whines about how they would have been better off in Egypt.  Keep in mind, that this whole time, God has a constant presence in the Israel camp with a giant pillar of cloud (by day) or a pillar of fire (by night) so it's not like they don't have a visual reminder that he's there.  Sad really.

Case in point is Numbers 21.  It begins with Israel totally destroying Arad.  Then, they whine so God sends poisonous snakes and to be saved, they have to look at the bronze snake.  Finally, the chapter ends with Israel taking out the Amorites.

Which brings us to Numbers 22.  Balak, king of Moab, is freaking out because of what Israel does to the Amorites, so he decides to hire Balaam to curse them.  The Bible isn't clear on which gods Balaam worships but it's evident that he's some kind of medium and practices spells and divination.

Numbers 22: 4-13: So Balak son of Zippor, who was king of Moab at that time, sent messengers to summon Balaam son of Beor, who was at Pethor, near the River, in his native land. Balak said:

“A people has come out of Egypt; they cover the face of the land and have settled next to me.  Now come and put a curse on these people, because they are too powerful for me. Perhaps then I will be able to defeat them and drive them out of the country. For I know that those you bless are blessed, and those you curse are cursed.”

The elders of Moab and Midian left, taking with them the fee for divination. When they came to Balaam, they told him what Balak had said.

“Spend the night here,” Balaam said to them, “and I will bring you back the answer the Lord gives me.” So the Moabite princes stayed with him.

God came to Balaam and asked, “Who are these men with you?”

Balaam said to God, “Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab, sent me this message: ‘A people that has come out of Egypt covers the face of the land. Now come and put a curse on them for me. Perhaps then I will be able to fight them and drive them away.’”

But God said to Balaam, “Do not go with them. You must not put a curse on those people, because they are blessed.”

The next morning Balaam got up and said to Balak’s princes, “Go back to your own country, for the Lord has refused to let me go with you.”

 

I would like to point out that Balaam doesn't seem at all surprised that God is talking directly to him.  He also seems to know that God carries a lot of authority because he refuses to take the job, even when Balak tries to bribe him with more money.

 

Numbers 22: 16-20: They came to Balaam and said:

“This is what Balak son of Zippor says: Do not let anything keep you from coming to me, because I will reward you handsomely and do whatever you say. Come and put a curse on these people for me.”

But Balaam answered them, “Even if Balak gave me his palace filled with silver and gold, I could not do anything great or small to go beyond the command of the Lord my God. Now stay here tonight as the others did, and I will find out what else the Lord will tell me.”

That night God came to Balaam and said, “Since these men have come to summon you, go with them, but do only what I tell you.”

 

Then comes the part of the account that most people think of when they hear about Balaam:  the donkey.

Numbers 22: 21-30: Balaam got up in the morning, saddled his donkey and went with the princes of Moab.But God was very angry when he went, and the angel of the Lord stood in the road to oppose him. Balaam was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand, she turned off the road into a field. Balaam beat her to get her back on the road.

Then the angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path between two vineyards, with walls on both sides. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she pressed close to the wall, crushing Balaam’s foot against it. So he beat her again.

Then the angel of the Lord moved on ahead and stood in a narrow place where there was no room to turn, either to the right or to the left. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she lay down under Balaam, and he was angry and beat her with his staff. Then the Lord opened the donkey’s mouth, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?”

Balaam answered the donkey, “You have made a fool of me! If I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now.”

The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your own donkey, which you have always ridden, to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?”

“No,” he said.

Why God was angry with Balaam, we're not told.  My guess is that Balaam was thinking about rebelling against God.  Notice again that Balaam doesn't seem surprised that the donkey is talking to him.  Makes you wonder what other kinds of things he'd seen over his career.  

Numbers 22: 31-38: Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with his sword drawn. So he bowed low and fell facedown.

The angel of the Lord asked him, “Why have you beaten your donkey these three times? I have come here to oppose you because your path is a reckless one before me.  The donkey saw me and turned away from me these three times. If she had not turned away, I would certainly have killed you by now, but I would have spared her.”

Balaam said to the angel of the Lord, “I have sinned. I did not realize you were standing in the road to oppose me. Now if you are displeased, I will go back.”

The angel of the Lord said to Balaam, “Go with the men, but speak only what I tell you.” So Balaam went with the princes of Balak.

When Balak heard that Balaam was coming, he went out to meet him at the Moabite town on the Arnon border, at the edge of his territory. Balak said to Balaam, “Did I not send you an urgent summons? Why didn’t you come to me? Am I really not able to reward you?”

 “Well, I have come to you now,” Balaam replied. “But can I say just anything? I must speak only what God puts in my mouth.”

 

After this, if you read Numbers 23-24, Balaam proceeds to utter 5 oracles which bless the Israelites and mention the destruction of Moab.  Balak isn't happy and sends Balaam away without pay.

This isn't actually the end of Balaam.

In Numbers 25, Moab decides to sexually seduce Israel.  It works and Israel is struck with a plague which is stopped by one of the priests.  We find out in Numbers 31:16 that this was Balaam's idea.  Balaam meets his end in Numbers 31:8 when Israel routs Midian.

The Itch to Stitch

I've been busy the last few days.  My stepson finally moved out so I've been rearranging the house now that we're not in a crunch to fit both our stuff and his into a small three bedroom house.  I've been boxing up random stuff I never use in our bedroom which can now go out in the garage now that there's room in the garage. 

Through all of that, I now feel the stitching itch.  I want to do something small and finishable.  I think I will start the kit on the right in the picture below tomorrow.

 

A is for Adam

For those joining me for A to Z, please read the Introductory Post

It seems fitting to start off this year's A to Z with the first man ever, Adam.

The first interesting thing to note about Adam, is that God actually took the time and care to make Adam out of dirt.  The whole first chapter of Genesis shows how God created the entire universe with just his word and he could have easily created Adam that way as well, but he doesn't.

Genesis 2:7: The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Shortly after this, Adam gets the monumental task of naming all the animals.  But then, he realizes that they all have mates, but he doesn't.  So, God takes care of that.  Again, God could have just said the word and created a woman, but he takes time to craft Eve.

Genesis 2:21-22: So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

Then, we have trouble in paradise.  

Genesis 3:1-7: Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

“You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Anyone trying to solely blame Eve for the fall needs to look at the bolded and underlined text that indicates that Adam was standing RIGHT NEXT TO HER!  So, they can both equally share the blame for the fall.  God even gives them a few chances to come clean after they sinned.  

Genesis 3:8-12: Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

Notice how Adam is not blaming Eve for messing up, but God.  God should have just killed them on the spot, but he also is a God of love and mercy so he punishes them but gives them the promise of a Savior to give them hope. Adam is condemned to have to work the ground for the rest of his life but still has a relatively long life of 930 years.

A to Z 2013! (Introductory Post)

First of all, Happy Easter everyone!

 

For the second year in a row, I am participating in the A to Z blogging challenge.  Last year, I decided to blog on random topics.  This year, I decided to be more specific.  And this year's topic is:

People of the Bible from A to Z

Last year, I did a 90 day Bible challenge.  It wasn't the first time I'd read the Bible cover to cover but I think it was the quickest that I'd ever read it.  I rediscovered a lot of things that I'd forgotten over the years and had a lot of fun with it.  So, I thought I'd share people from A to Z that I find interesting.

So without further ado, here come my disclaimers:

Disclaimer 1: I'm not looking for a theological debate. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

Disclaimer 2: That being said, if you would like to add an additional observation about the person of the day that you have noticed or learned in Bible class, etc, please, comment.

Disclaimer 3: For my regular followers who aren't interested in this topic, please check back later in the day (the A to Z will generally be scheduled for 6 am central) for cross stitch and other stuff.  I know it's not for everyone.

For those of you joining me for A to Z, welcome, welcome and have fun!

I started using scripture from the NIV84 edition because that's what I normally use, but all the online sources have taken it down so we'll try the newest NIV.  I think that's what my church synod is going too..  I have some reservations about the new edition (they may have broke more than they fixed) but copy and paste is so much easier than typing everything in.

How to teach multiple books in reading class

I had a very interesting comment on my Girl vs. Boy books post (you can find it if you scroll down a bit) and I though the response warranted a whole post.

I had stated that giving students a choice in what literature they read would be a good solution to getting stuck reading only "girl" or "boy" books.  The comment basically said that that sounded really complicated for the teacher.

In reality it sounds really complicated but it's not as bad as you think.

First of all, I give the disclaimer that this will not work in all situations.  Some classes just will not cooperate with you and force you to become the dictator.  Also, it really only works in grades 3 and above and if you have really weak readers you may not be able to do it until later in the year.

Second, what I am about to describe will probably need to be modeled.  Therefore, the first book read in the year may be teacher choice but using the principles you want the students to do when you "let them loose."  If the first book fails to work properly, you may have to try a second teacher choice book and if that fails, well, you'll probably have to go into dictator mode.

This whole process is often called "literature circles."

First, you will want to give the class a survey.  The survey will have a list of books and the students need to rank which books they want to read from highest to lowest.  The number of books on the list will vary by how many students in the class and also how many copies of each book you have.  It will probably be 5-7 books or so.  After you get the survey back, you will need to sort out which students want to read which books.  This will be the complicated part as you will have to keep in mind that you may not want certain students to be in the same group and you may have one student who was the only one who wants to read a certain book.

After you have all that sorted out and the groups divided up, the work beings.  And by work, I mean the work for the students.  If you google "literature circles," you will find a million templates.  You basically print these out as worksheets and the groups work through their individual books.  At first, the teacher will probably have to set up a schedule for each book (because some books have longer chapters than others).  There are generally different "jobs" in the literature circle and the group members will rotate through the jobs as they go.  At the end of the book, there will be a "culminating project" which you can assign as a group activity or individual activities.  These activities can range from writing a paper to creating a board game. 

During reading time at school, all you as the teacher have to do is walk around and monitor the groups.  Keep order.  Make sure the groups stay on task.  Spot check the literature circle journals to make sure that they are filled in.  Check benchmarks on the projects.  If it all falls apart, you just declare reading time over and start the next subject.  If it continually falls apart, then you may have to go back to traditional reading class.

For grading, you can grade several things.  First, participation grades for your "spot checks."  A grade for the completed literature circle journals.  And also a grade for the final project. 

And yes, I have seen this actually work in an actual classroom that I was observing in.

PIcking up my Needle

Things seem to be looking up around here.  My husband is in the process of getting a job.  He's been running around the last couple of days interviewing and taking drug tests and getting fingerprinted (he would be installing alarms so you have to go through extra hoops) so I'm getting a taste of what stay at home motherhood is like.  So far it's been nice but today I have to try to get Zoé to preschool with Adèle in tow which should be interesting.  I'm hoping everything gets completed successfully.  It couldn't come at a better time because with the sequester, it sounded like my amount of unemployment was about to get cut.

With that being said, I've picked up the needle a couple of times in the last few days to work on my large epic projects.  I'll probably start something smaller sometime soon but I haven't decided which yet.

The HAED has still not covered a square inch...

Snow White Discovers the Cottage.  Hey, I see a tree root