The Serpentine Sandwich

The Terrible Lie.  That is the title of the chapter about the Fall in The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones.  I like that she changed the name from the fall to the terrible lie, not because the fall is a bad name, but because it makes us think of the story anew, maybe it could become a story not just a long time ago in a land that is now lost - but it may be our story.
So I decided to offer another name - The Serpentine Sandwich.
The Serpentine Sandwich describes the serpent's art of deception.  The Serpentine Sandwich has three main layers.  First, the top piece of bread - this is the truth (twisted).  Genesis 3:1  "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?"  God said something about not eating from a tree, so the serpent takes this truth and twists it into all the trees.   The next layer is the meat (serpent meat) - the lie.  Genesis 3:4  "You will not surely die."  Adam and Eve died in many ways, maybe one of the most was when their son killed their other son, let along being expelled from the presence of God, let alone their hearts eventually stopping.  Bold-faced lie.  The next layer is the bottom piece of bread - the truth, spoken in a lying tone of voice.   Genesis 3:5   For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."  Their eyes were opened, but to what?  They knew good.  Genesis 1 was filled with "good."  They knew the extreme goodness of God's creation.  What they did not know was evil.  Having one's eyes opened to evil is spoken of by the serpent as something to be coveted.
There are not only too many examples of Serpentine Sandwiches to add another, but it is a very dangerous thing to spend too much time on the lies of the enemy - they get enough time as it is.
It is better to spend time in what the lies of the enemy are the horrid counterfiet of - the truth of God in the word of God.
God is our DAD.  If you balk at this, ask if it because you are yourself believing a lie of the enemy that there cannot be a good dad.  D.A.D. is our acronym for our battle against the Serpentine Sandwich.
D.  Defense against the Serpentine Sandwich.  This fights the first layer of bread, the truth, twisted.  When the Serpent come to Eve with the truth twisted, she does something most of us wish we did - she quotes the word of God.  But she adds a little part "neither shall you touch it," which is like adding mayo to the serpentine sandwich.  The Serpentine Sandwich cannot stand up against the word of God, but your words it can slither all over.  Eve could also call out, "Dad!"
A.  Antidote for the Serpentine Sandwich.  This exposes the inner layer, the meat, the lie.  Once someone has swallowed the Serpentine Sandwich the antidote is the Word of God coming as questions.  "Where are you?"  "What have you done?"  Adam and Eve are much more heroic than I am - they answer his questions.  Often we just keep hiding or keep running away.  May we also, once we swallow the lie, but quick to answer God's questions.  We could also call out, "Dad!"
D. Destruction of the Serpentine Sandwich.  This deals with the sandwich as a whole - all the layers, including our mayo.  The offspring of the woman will bruise the serpent's head, and the serpent with bruise his heel.  The serpent bruised Jesus Christ's heel by striking him with death and sin.  Christ was wounded by sin and took on the sin of humanity.  How is the serpent's head bruised?  The head is where the serpent speaks.  Christ on the cross is the ultimate display of the love of God - it is impossible for the darkness of the lie that God does not love us to stand up to the light of the love of God on the cross.  Does God love us?  For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. . . Picture Christ calling out to his Father, "Dad!" and let the lie that he does not love you finally die.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.


Watch this video in the light of who our true Dad is - God Almighty.

cherry trees and a lilac hedge

This is my idea of late.  We recently tore down our garage in hopes of creating a backyard, and our backyard still has its challenges, between our dogs keeping the mud muddy and the various empty beer cans, cigarette packs and God only know what else scattered as litter as the wind blows it to and fro.  Our backyard would possibly be a challenge to a green thumb, and our thumbs are not green.
At first I thought I would grow blueberry bushes as a hedge, and I was uber excited about having enough blueberries to supply our family and the apartments behind our house.  But there was this thing that I learned about growing blueberry bushes:  the soil needed to be quite acidic, with a PH around 4 or 5.  So I did a PH test of our soil that I learned over the internet which was, 1.  collect a sample of said soil in two cups.  2.  pour vinegar in one cup and baking soda mixed with water in another cup.  3.  If the vinegar cup bubbles you have alkeline soil, and if the baking soda cup bubbles you have acidic soil.  Eventually, the vinegar cup bubbled.  So scrap the blueberry hedge.
When I went to college, there was a lilac bush outside of the library and smelling that bush was one of the best smells ever for me, and the more I read about lilacs, the more I wanted a hedge.  So now my idea is to plant two cherry trees as "fenceposts" on the ends and then along the fence to plant four or five lilac bushes.
Will this idea work?  I do not know, especially because in our house we love love love BING cherries, although I am not a fan of the bing web browser.  So will our bing cherries and our tartanian mix well and grow well and get enough water and not get to cold?  Maybe you can tell me.

Popcorn

One thing that has been great about being married to my wife is eating popcorn.  I ate popcorn growing up, but now popcorn is a big staple in our house.  We do not buy microwave popcorn, but bags of popcorn kernels.  She has a sufuria she got while we were in Kenya and she puts a little oil in it, and once it is hot pours the popcorn in - maybe a cup (I am not good at cooking but very good at eating)?  Then keep your ears tuned to when the popcorn starts to slow down, and take it off the heat, add some salt, and pop - popcorn.  She also has started taking the kernels, putting them in a bag, and putting it in the microwave.  For you health nuts out there, this is a way to get popcorn without the oil, but the oil makes it taste much better.
One thing I have perfected about popcorn is how to eat it fast.  I take a huge handful and shove it into my mouth and then once it is in my mouth take another huge handful and, after the other is halfway down my throat, shove that handful into my mouth.  Mmmmmmm.

Fun Dip

Have you ever tried fun dip?  Here are ten reasons to try it:
10.  "Fun" - such a great first name.  Hi, my name is Fun.  Isn't that great?
9.  "Dip" - amazing last name.  We are the Dips.  Wonderful!
8.  It is all sugar.  You may think this is funny, but you better stock up on sugar stuff with all the talk of banning sugar and no carb diets.  If you want sugar, fun dip is for you.
7.  The powdery sugar is often good to pour into your mouth.  Mmmmm.
6.  Easy to open - just rip it.
5.  The powdery sugar mixed with the hard stick sugar is a perfect combination, especially when mixed with your saliva.
4.  Lick-A-Stick.  You thought the good names were over.  Amazing name.
3.  The Lick a stick is your spoon - how cool.
2.  The Lick a stick you sometimes bite off chunks of with the powder - amazing.
1.  Eating the Lick-A-Stick after licking it - one of the best food sensations there is.

Eating your Garden

This is not my idea.  We do not have green thumbs in our family, nor do we have much space, at all, for a garden.  On the other hand some of our neighbors who we are in community with have been going gung-ho on making gardens.  We do not live in the country, but in an urban area with little yard space.  Instead of a small lawn, our friends are opting for small gardens.  This is by no means a new idea, but as old as the good earth itself.  It seems the first family in the Bible had a garden.  Whether you grow tomatoes, garlic, onions, mint, sweet corn, pumpkins, strawberries, or coffee, maybe you should think about growing a garden.  I remember visiting a family in Nairobi who had extremely little space, little more than the space of a child's sandbox, but the still grew sukuma wiki.

Black Hole Coffee

I like coffee.  I drink it black.  I have heard that if you had a spoonful of a black hole, it would be so dense that it would contain the same matter as a large amount of the earth.  I use spoons to spoon my coffee into the coffeemaker.  I wonder what it would be like if there was a coffee galaxy where millions of planets produced naturally growing wild coffee, more coffee than anyone could imagine.  Then what if all of that coffee got sucked into a black hole that was itself only a black hole of coffee - one of those gifts of God.


Maybe someone should just market Kenya AA coffee from the highest parts of Kirinyaga possible for coffee growing, or at least near Nyeri, and market it as Black Hole Coffee.


Black Hole Coffee, in a way, represents what we want from everything.  When I bite into a cheeseburger, I want a fiesta in my mouth.  When I go on a 5 mile run, I want an orchestral dance party.  When I take the first sip of my morning coffee, I don't just want the day to start, I want it to sing.


What I am really looking for is ideas for the main marketing slogan for black hole coffee.  Got any ideas?


Wow.  I am not the first to think of Black Hole Coffee.  I just googled it and there is a Black Hole Coffee House in Houston Texas on 4504 Graustark Street.


Maybe I should just go to Java House in Nairobi instead.


What is your favorite coffee?

Pouring "hoochi-fa" style

I pour milk very rarely for my kids.  When I do I like to give them options of how I will pour it.  Oh, you think that there is only one way to pour something - no, there are many ways.  If you go to the Moroccan restaurant in Denver like we did you will realize that pouring a drink can be like going to a circus, as the lady pouring our drinks set the glass on her horizontal forearm while pouring with the other hand and then grabbing the glass with  the hand whose arm was holding the cup.  I may never pour it that way but I pour it the "hoochi-fa" way sometimes.  The kids like the name as much as the style.  I pour the milk and then lower the glass so that the milk creates a long stream from jug to glass.  It makes eating and drinking milk fun.

Ice Cream

First of all, in the words of Don Kardong, without ice cream there would be darkness and chaos.  I will take it as a disclaimer that I assume your passionate love for ice cream and that I do not have to here convince you of its inherent goodness.  So I will list in my own mind some of my favorite ice cream experiences of my life, because ice cream is not just a food, but an experience.
10.  Snow-cream.  No this is not the real thing, but it is quite the experience and can be quite fun.
9.  Eating homemade ice cream, very makeshift, in a rural village in Kenya.  No, it was not that good at all, but it was better than nothing.  Some entrepreneur is missing out on the rural Africa ice cream truck market.
8.  Eating ice cream at the dining commons of the college I went to.  The best thing was I could eat ice cream every lunch and every dinner (soft serve).  Why did they not have it on for breakfast?  Good question, that's why I skipped breakfast.
7.  My second date with my now-wife was to an ice cream place, Ivanhoes.  It is probably the best ice cream place in the world.  I don't remember the ice cream much though because I was enamored with the woman across the table.  I am so glad she shares my love for ice cream.
6.  Any Cold Stone Creamery experience, and I confess that there have been too many to count on my phalanges.  I love Cold Stone Creamery.  My favorite there was Giardhellis Chocolate.
5.  Eating a Snicker's Ice Cream bar on the way to Nairobi.  There is nothing like going without ice cream that makes you appreciate it so much.
4.  Coffee ice cream in Florida when I was young.  Wow.  Two good things wrapped up into one.
3.  Dairy Queen Ice Cream Cakes - mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
2.  "I'll buy if you'll fly."  That is what my dad has said to me numerous times throughout my life, because he too loves ice cream (maybe even more than me if that is possible).  Free ice cream is hard to beat - all you gotta do is go get it. (If you are easily grossed out do not read #1).
1.  The TRAY.  This truly deserves its own post and I will try to remember to re-post this as its own Christian family idea because every Christian family should do a TRAY together.  Here is what a TRAY is:  Take a large tray and place it under a soft serve three way dispenser (you know, choc, vanilla, and in the middle a swirl).  Pull all three levers down for a very long time.  Load up every topping you can find - chocolate chips, crushed oreos, even sugar cones - on top of the ice cream so that the tray is one huge ice cream feast.  By the way I learned this in college.  Then gather the whole family around and everybody eat, but you cannot use your hands and no spoons either - just stick your face in it.

Pizza Cutter

Did you know that a pizza cutter has many uses?  If you have a pizza cutter you may not be using it in all the ways you can.  Let me share with you my top ten list of the best uses for a pizza cutter.

10.  Point A to Point B – it is a wheel if you are desperate.  If you have two pizza cutters that is even better.

9.  Cutting a sandwich.

8.  Cutting French Toast for breakfast.

7.  Edge mowing.

6.  Cutting drywall.

5.  Implementing a new form of massage, called Cutco Massage.

4.  Cutting your kids prime rib (then you realize it is a dream), and wake up.

3.  Cutting pancakes for breakfast.

2. Re-cutting the pizza place’s pizza because they did not cut it all the way through, because they were trying to remember if they washed their hands or not.

1.  Cutting a lot of Tostino’s Pizzas for family movie and pizza night.

So what are your ideas for a pizza cutter?  Share your ideas with all of us.

Singing Prayers

I was first introduced to singing prayers when I went to a summer camp called Summer’s Best Two Weeks.  We sang a breakfast prayer:  “Father we thank Thee for the-e night, and for the blesse-ed mor-orning light, for rest and food and lo-oving care, and all that makes the day so fair.”  We also sang a prayer at dinner:  “God bless America.”  I used to go to restaurants in the area and sing God Bless America loudly.  Then I was introduced by my in-laws to singing the doxology for a prayer:  “Praise God from whom all blessings flow, praise him all ye creatures here below, praise him above ye heavenly host, praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.  Amen.”   Then in Kenya I was introduced to a singing prayer based off of 2 Corinthians 13:14:  “May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God our Father, and the fellowship, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us forevermore and evermore and evermore Amen.”  We usually sing this prayer before meals.  There is also a prayer the kids have learned to sing:  “Lord we thank you, Lord we thank you,  for this food, for this food, and our many blessings, and our many blessings.  Amen, Amen.”  What are the advantages of singing prayers before meals?  Often meal prayers can be hurried:  “Good bread, good meat, good Lord, let’s eat.”  Not that that is always bad, but to add a singing prayer in a sense is to add some liturgy to our life.  Rote memory prayers are not the only ones we pray, but they can be good, especially if they root us in Christ.  That is why I like “May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. . . “  better than “God bless America. . . “  Jesus is my home, not America.  So what singing prayers do you know?  List them here for others to re-use and adapt for Christian families throughout the world. 

Fasting

About 20 years ago I was on the bus coming home from a track meet in high school.  Our coach gave us a lecture about something (I forget what), and it made me think about the suffering of Jesus Christ.  It was the Thursday before Easter and I decided that I would fast until Easter.  I am not sure if I had heard about fasting besides what I read in the Bible, but that’s what I decided to do.  That was the first time I remember fasting.  I also remember going to a Good Friday service with a few other high school students, and somehow we were able to get off of school since we were going to a Good Friday service.  I am not sure if kids can still do that today.  Today is a really good day to contemplate what Jesus Christ did for us, how he paid the price for us.  One thing I have learned about fasting is that it shows how weak I am, that I am constantly thinking about food.  Some people say that is why they do not fast, because all they think about is food and not prayer.  Kind of like the reason someone doesn’t play basketball is because they can’t make it in the hoop.  I wonder though if fasting is portrayed in Scripture so much because it constantly points out our weakness, showing us that we cannot do it.  It also shows us that this is how half of the world lives – hungry, and helps us to be thankful of the food we can eat.  Some people fast because they do not have any food to eat, and their prayer is constantly – “help me Jesus, help us Jesus.”  I know that some of you may get vehemently angry about stating that one fasts, and that I should not say that I have ever fasted so that people cannot find out, since our fasting must be done in secret (Matthew 5:18).  Maybe you are right.  But if fasting is a legitimate option for spiritual growth, how are our children to learn it if they are not taught it?  I live in a country (USA) that is overflowing with an abundance of food.  The poor in the USA rarely starve.  Maybe it is time that we talk to our kids about fasting, about saying “No!” to ourselves.  It could be that this discipline prepares the way for our kids to say no to other things like crack cocaine, bath salts, hydrocodone, and old fashioned pre-marital sex.  Maybe it will help them stop to think about the blood that was pouring down our Savior’s body as he died for us.  How can we teach our children to stop and think about what Jesus did this day of all days?   Maybe fasting can help us to remember that there is a more real food, the body of our Lord, and a more real drink, the blood of our Lord.

Passover Meal

Our family has a Passover meal every Thursday before Good Friday, in celebration of the Passover.  Even though Passover does not always line up with this date, we celebrate it because of the significance of not just the original Passover in Egypt, but also the Passover in light of what Jesus Christ did on the cross, and also the Passover in light of Jesus Christ coming back soon.  This meal is special, and we usually invite members from our extended family.  We have some of the traditional foods associated with Passover, or Seder meals:  unleavened bread, bitter herbs, haroseth (although my wife makes this with snicker’s bars), grape juice, and leg of Lamb.  We read specific Scriptures through the service, and we also celebrate it in light of 1.  The original Passover in Egypt.  2.  The Passover Lamb who died (Jesus Christ).  3.  That we may eat this Passover with Christ soon when he returns.  There are lots of suggestions for a Seder or Passover meal online, but I encourage you to make this tradition your own to add your own elements to it.  This can be a meaningful tradition that imprints deep truths of the Faith into your children.  It incorporates all senses:  sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste.

Sweets Fast

I did not grow up knowing what fasting really was, even though I grew up in church.  Throughout my life, though, fasting has been something that continues to show me 1.  how weak I am.  2. how much I need Jesus.  So how do you pass on fasting to your children, especially young children who are growing?  I personally do not think it is a good idea for children to fast from all food since their bodies are still developing.  One thing we eat a lot in our house, and maybe in your house too, is sweets.  What kind of sweets do we eat?
Top ten sweets eaten in our house.
10. ice cream (samples)
9. pop
8. pudding
7.  ice cream (sandwiches)
6.  candy bars
5. ice cream toppings
4. ice cream (in a cup)
3. chocolate mocha cheesecake (my wife's secret recipe)
2. chocolate chips in the fridge door
1. ice cream (in a bowl)
So every once in a while we have a sweets fast where we do not eat sweets, sugary cereals, pop, etc, etc.  The kids pass the chocolate milk at school and get plain milk, and we deny ourselves ice cream and chocolate chips for a week.  What are the benefits?  We realize how weak we are, and how much we are driven by food and sweets.  We also appreciate the sweets when we break the fast Friday night.  Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Marry someone who is a good cook

This is especially true if you are not one, which I am not.  Some people get excited to go to gourmet restaurants, and I have had good food in good restaurants.  But I have also had okay food in good restaurants.  My wife loved to cook, and she does it well.  If you don't think cooking is a spiritual gift, tell me what else the priests did in the Old Testament besides cook.  Even Jesus cooked fish, right?!  My wife makes a good almond crusted tilapia, and also a heavenly chocolate mocha cheesecake.  When we lived in Kenya and everyone around us was eating ugali, I was eating Tex-Mex Chicken.  Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.  She knows how to cook.  I did not really know this before I got married, but now that I do know it I want to share something with you.  If you are not yet married and you cannot cook, pray for a spouse who can cook.  If you are not married and you can cook, pray for a spouse who likes to eat.