Weekend ramblings

Just a few random thoughts:

Speaking of "always revising," how about gasoline prices? Not a day goes by that I don't take careful note of the changes at stations I pass en route to work and back. And I've become a regular visitor to our local gas-price Web site, www.atlantagasprices.com.

I just hope the "lifestyle revisions" we all made when prices were so high won't be abandoned now that things are moderating a little. Let's keep reducing our usage and driving those prices down.

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As advertised, my gingko tree dropped almost all of its leaves over a couple of days at the end of this week. Of course, most of the trees around here did the same, as the winds kicked up and took away a lot of our fall color. Still, I'm pretty happy with the little gingko, it was fun to watch its growth this year.

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An interesting thing happened this week as I was working on an editing job. My client is writing about California history in the mid-nineteenth century, and he rightly uses the occasional Spanish term for authenticity. I usually like everything nice and clear, but if the context helps me get at the meaning of a foreign term, I'm OK with it. Well, the client used the term zanja, noting that a dust storm had filled all the zanjas in the streets of Los Angeles. I couldn't imagine what these zanjas were, so I pointed it out to the client. He rightfully noted that I had not complained about the use of the term earlier. Indeed, he had mentioned a zanja in the central courtyard area of a large adobe home. I realized that I had used my stereotypical image of a Spanish-style courtyard, complete with fountains and pools, to guess at the meaning of the word. Actually, my image was way off target. A zanja is a water-filled ditch, which would explain the presence of one in the Los Angeles streets. The incident was a good reminder for me not to assume anything.

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On Monday, my sons will play in the first basketball game in the new gym at their school, Covenant Christian Academy in Cumming, Ga. Construction of this gym has been a real saga, so this will be quite the milestone. It's a wonderful facility that will benefit the school tremendously. I'll post a photo early next week.

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Finally, here's a great quote from Charles Spurgeon from a sermon on providence:

“I believe that every particle of dust that dances in the sunbeam does not move an atom more or less than God wishes; that every particle of spray that dashes against the steamboat has its orbit as well as the sun in the heavens; that the chaff from the hand of the winnower is steered as the stars in their courses. The creeping of an aphid over the rosebud is as much fixed as the march of the devastating pestilence. The fall of leaves from a poplar is as fully ordained as the tumbling of an avalanche. He that believes in a God must believe this truth. There is no standing-point between this and atheism. There is no halfway between a mighty God that worketh all things by the sovereign counsel of his will and no God at all. A God that cannot do as he pleases—a God whose will is frustrated—is not a God, and cannot be a God. I could not believe in such a God as that.”

What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Comments are welcome.

Have a great Lord's Day.

GtG