I work at estate sales for Becky and Lisa.  And now Becky's son David and Lisa's daughter Lindsey have caught the bug.  They are doing one this week that has a Chevy Caprice, 65K miles. One owner.  It still has the plastic over the seats and has been kept in a garage since the day they bought it.  I've never seen a car so pristine.

I don't work at the sales all day.  I can't last that long usually.  But my wage demands are competitive:  I'm free.  I just like to help, and meet people.  It's a lot of fun.  I had never gone to estate sales until I came to Edmond.  They are very different from garage sales.

I love garage sales.  I think it is fascinating to see what people have bought, never used and put in a sale for pennies on the dollar.  And in Edmond, there is so much money floating around, that clothes go to the garage sale with the original tags on them.  Someone purchases something, hangs it in the closet and never wears it.

Impulse spending is rampant in this town.  Women redecorate constantly.  I read somewhere that the per-capita income in Edmond is the highest in the state.  I am sure that is true.  Million dollar houses are common.  (Not mine.  I help keep the house price average down just by living here.)

But it is a great town.  Everything I could want--every outlet, or franchise store--is within three miles of my house.  I used to have to drive 50 miles to Tulsa for almost everything.  Three miles is better.  A tank of gas lasts me a month.  Medical specialists by the dozens are within 15 minutes.  And the roads, streetlights, sidewalks, etc., etc. are really well done and maintained.  But there is a price.  Taxes are higher.

I wish I could say I have completely adjusted.  But to be honest, that will never happen.  Nothing can take the place of your old friends and the familiarity of your home town.  When Ken was struggling near the end of his life, he would say, "Let's drag main."  I'd get him in the car and drive him up and down all five blocks of main street Pryor.  And he would always say, "I love this town."  And he did.  So did I.  Life is short.  Enjoy the days God has given you.

Once I get off on Evolution Theory versus Natural Selection within a kind of animal, it's hard to stop.  Different kinds of animals have different traits--which, since 1998, we now know for sure are passed through DNA. I could go on all day about this.

But I won't.  Suffice to say, God is unbelievable--beyond my ability to comprehend.  He is so smart.

Mankind is so utterly pompous to think that something so incredibly complex could have happened on its own.  Cells dividing, creating new DNA (which doesn't happen) and aways getting better and better.  When all around us everything gets worse and worse, or vanishes.  Enough!!!

New subject.  My Koi pond broke again.  The pump froze over the winter.  After I had paid  someone to winterize it.  I am down to one Koi and two pitiful goldfish.  They survived.  They are the most expensively decked out fish in Edmond by now.  A Koi pond is a money pit.  If you don't have one, count yourself lucky.  I would remove this one but it has something to do with drainage in the back yard.  What?  I don't know.  If the itch to get a Koi pond hits you, take a trip to the Zoo.

Dogs are so much more entertaining.  Squig is perfect.  No flaws at all.  I'm not biased.  The only thing a fish does is come to the edge of the pond when you start scattering food.

One thing I've learned about since I write every day.  People want to hear stories.  Stories hold our attention.  Especially the ones that turn out happy, triumphant, or the good guy wins.  Every time I write stories about Ken, I get notes telling me how much you enjoy them.

I wish I had paid more attention when Ken told a story.  But you know how things go, you always think that there will be another day to write that down.  I wish I had written down all the stories my mom, and especially my dad, told.

Men like to tell the stupid stuff they did.  Women try to make the story more presentable.  Maybe that's why Dad's stories and Ken's stories are more interesting.  They didn't clean their stories up.

I went to a seminar Tuesday on Genesis.  I felt like I was back in college.  The discussion was on DNA and replication.  Transcription to RNA.  And the impossible chance of adding traits to the genome.  Fascinating.  The general conclusion was that traits are lost (extinction) but not added.  And mutations are always digressive, never progressive.

I find that so interesting.  But of course, that's why I took all that junk in college and got a Zoology/PreMed degree.  People think I'm interested in animals.  No, just Squig.  I'm interested in biological processes.   I was looking for the truth.

My conclusion.  No way we could have evolved from mutation.  And science has come around to that way of thinking.  Things don't get more complex, they digress.  Natural Selection is the key to change, but within kind.  Kinds don't change.  That's where evolution theorists hit the wall.

The difference between the two ways of thinking, is that evolutionists start with one cell, (from some magical process) that divides into two cells (this takes DNA and a sophisticated replication process).  And the thing just gets better and better, growing new DNA chain arrangements until you have a human.  That just doesn't happen within DNA replication.

Microbiologists know this doesn't happen.

Nobody in one field cares much about what has been learned in other fields.  They are too busy expounding their own theories.

I haven't had to change anything I believe in the 60 years I have been studying this.  Not because I'm stupid, but because I started with the right theory.  And year after year, science has validated that theory.  There is an intelligent designer somewhere.

The only thing we disagree on is where that somewhere is, and Who or What that someone is.

In the sixties, the fad chant was, "God is dead."  Obviously, they were wrong.  And He didn't mutate.

People don't go to church to be religious.  They go because you ask them.  They want to make a Christian connection.  They don't call them Sunday School classes anymore.  They're called Connection Groups.  You learn more about God because you find a group you like.  That may sound harsh, but if you don't find a group you connect with, you will most probably move somewhere else, or quit.  And if you are a Christian, you will experience a loss and so will we----because we are one body.  It's kinda like losing a finger or knee or ear.  You can do with out those parts, but not as well.

If you have quit, we hope you will come back again.   We want you.  We need you.  All your expertise and knowledge need to be shared with us.  So the class that I teach on Sunday morning has decided that this year, we are going to "Each One, Reach One."  And it will take an effort.  Because we are in a nice little rut.  We are all content.

People do that.  They find a group, get satisfied with the friends they have made and don't think to include anyone else.  It's not mean hearted.  It's inertia.  You already have someone you know that you can call at the last minute and say, "You wanna go to lunch?"  It takes an effort to call someone new.  They might say "No," and then you don't know if you are being rejected, or they just can't go.  You have to put yourself out there.  So here is what I am suggesting to my group.  Doing these things must be real.  You have to sincerely care about someone.  You don't reach people you don't know.  Preachers can do that, but you and I don't.  Getting to know new people is difficult.

1.  Join something.  Meet some new people.  Make a new friend.
2.  Reconnect with someone who has dropped beside the way.  Make the effort to reengage.
3.  Go to lunch, a movie, event, craft group....something.  Sincerely care about someone.
4.  God is going to give you the opportunity to ask them about church.   Plan on what you'll say.
5. Tell them about your connection group and how you support each other.  Ask if they would go with you sometime.  Offer to pick them up.  Nobody likes to walk into a strange place by themselves.

It may sound contrived, but it's not.  It is a change in your life style that leads to new friends.  It helps others over the hump of rejoining the people of God.  People can miss that connection.  Reaching others is the job Christ gave us to do.  "As you are going, tell others..."

Everyone in my family has thick, gorgeous, beautiful hair.  Becky, Pat, Lisa and Ann.  Even my in-laws have beautiful hair, as well as my granddaughters, and my grandson's wives.  Luscious hair.

But me.  No.  All my life I bemoaned my hair.  It was thin, baby fine, no body, and grew so slow that a bad haircut lasted me a year.  I wish I had that hair back.  I would never be unhappy with it again.

Chemotherapy took care of it.  It kills some cells in your body permanently.  Fast growing cells such as hair follicles, nerves, fingernails and cancer.  Which sometimes cures you of the cancer, but you'll never get your hair back like it used to be.  But, given a choice, I'll take life over hair.

After I started Chemo, when my hair began to fall out, rather than face the inevitable, I went to the beauty shop and told them, "Shave my head.  I can't stand this slow patchy, pitiful loss.  Just shave it."  So they did.  Come to find out, I have a pretty head!  Who knew.  I kinda liked the bald look. And for the first time ever, I learned where the crown of my head is.  I could never find it before.  It is not on top of my head.  It is up on the back, on the right side.  Weird.

It's been ten years since I had breast cancer, I have been declared as well as any one can be.   My chances for it returning are no worse now than the general population.  I am eternally grateful for my life.  And I am grateful for the hair that grew back.  It much thinner.  It is even stringier and limper than it was before.  But the oddest thing, it never turned gray.  Before, or after.  It's still brown.  Go figure.

Pat gave me a permanent.  I hadn't had one in years.  It is a miracle.  The thin stringy hair looks fluffy.  Not very curly, just thicker.  It looks great.  I will never complain about my hair again.

I feel like God has given me a second "hair chance."  "In everything give thanks.  For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."   1 Thessalonians 5:18

I'm thankful I lived.  Praise God.  Many women didn't--and don't.  I love my fluffy hair.

Even though the Jews were on the wrong side of history as far as Jesus and Paul, and the beginning of the Gospel, the Jews are the people of God.  Ken's father, who was a preacher, used to say the Jews were God's time clock.  We can measure the future by the Jewish nation.

Over two thousand years ago it was predicted in the Bible that they would get their country back.  In the 40's, after the Holocaust, they were given back their homeland, Israel, and have been besieged by the countries that surround them ever since.  The Bible says that ultimately, all countries will be against them.  Seems like it could happen any day.  I hate to think that the USA will turn against Israel.

I will never understand war.  I will never understand Russia, Syria, North Korea, etc.  I will never understand the need for power that causes despots and countries to destroy another nation.  Money.  I guess if you have money, you have power?  There is evil in the world.

Sometimes it feels like evil will prevail.  America seems to be slip-sliding down the tubes of addiction, sexual depravity, pleasure seeking and Godlessness.  I'm homesick for the good old days when families went to church and ate chicken dinner on Sunday.  The good old days when people didn't use filthy language with every other word.

I am an idealist.  I want people to be good.  I want them to be kind to each other.  I want them to help each other.  I want them to think of ways they can lift people up.

I guess I am dreaming?  I want a better world.

I am afraid that it might be heaven.  It doesn't look like it is going to be heaven on earth.

I miss Ken.  Somedays, I long for goodness.  And peace.  And tranquility.  Sorry, I sound like I'm down.  I'm not.  There is hope.  Christ is going to come get us.  I've read the end of the book.

I loved teaching the book of Acts.  I learned so much.  When you look at all the territory that Paul covered 2000 years ago, it's amazing.  When you discover how many times he was ridiculed, beaten, jailed, and run out of town you can't help but realize that we own him a debt of gratitude that is immense.  And those that traveled with him as well.  They wrote.  They recorded.  And we have their words to read.

Paul took the facts of Jesus' life and spread the good news as far away as Rome.  Although he was a Jew, although he was a theological genius, although he was a Pharisee, he humbled himself to the will of God and took the message to everyone.  Not just the Jews.  Most of the Jews hated Jesus.  And they detested Paul.  The message of Christ was a threat to their power.

Rome had granted the Jews the power to run their country for the purpose of keeping the peace.  But they had to have permission from Rome to have someone put to death.  That's why Paul appealed to Caesar.  There were no grounds for the Jews accusations.  But that didn't keep them from continuing to try.  Much like what happened to Jesus.

Peter and James had a hard time accepting the truth that the Christ came for everyone.  They finally came around, as did the others.  However, there were those who received the message but wouldn't give up the law.  They wanted converts to become Jews before they became Christians.  Thanks to Paul, this didn't happen. But there are still Christian people and denominations today that want to impose rules and laws on their members.  It's all about power.

Some churches want to add something to belief in the death and resurrection and sacrifice Jesus made.  But Jesus paid it all.  There is nothing more for us to do.  He is our gift from God.

Luke wrote the book of Acts.  He wasn't an apostle, but he was a disciple and companion of Paul.  Luke wrote one of the gospels as well.  His two books make up over one fourth of the New Testament.  Both are historical.  The history of Jesus' time on earth, and the history of what happened next.  Read them.  I suggest using the Living Bible.  It isn't a translation, it is a transliteration--that is, it is in current English phrases.  But whatever, read it.  God touches you through His Word.