dw_biz | Member Posts

ODB: Generous Giving

Jun 1, 2026/in Our Daily Bread/by YMI

June 1, 2026

Bring all the tithes . . . so that . . . the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows . . . may come and eat and be satisfied. Deuteronomy 14:28-29

When Oswald and Biddy Chambers ran a Bible college in London from 1911 to 1915, they continued with their life principle of not turning away those in need. Astute Londoners were aghast at this practice, thinking the college would be taken advantage of. In response, Oswald observed, without inviting others to follow in the practice, “My responsibility is to give. God will look after who asks.”

The couple followed the example of our generous Creator. Through His instructions to Moses, God laid out gracious ways for His people to live and serve others, including the giving of their food and possessions. Moses told the Israelites at the end of every three years to “bring all the tithes” so the Levites, “foreigners, the fatherless and the widows,” could come and “eat and be satisfied” (Deuteronomy 14:28-29). Through the generosity of His people, God cares for the vulnerable.

The Chambers’ trust in God was so strong that they gave willingly and without question. They’d learned to “revere . . . God always” (v. 23) and receive His blessing “in all the work of [their] hands” (v. 29).

We may also feel inspired to give freely while we lean on God for wisdom and discernment. We know that God will generously lead and guide as He provides for the foreigners, the fatherless, and the widows.

— Amy Boucher Pye

What’s your view and practice of giving? How has God provided for your physical, emotional, and spiritual needs?

Generous God, I look to You for all I need. I know that You’re the source of all good things. I worship You.

Source: Our Daily Bread

Current Mood: thoughtful

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

Current Mood: flirty

Whoops, forgot this in my earlier post: my library's Summer Reading Program starts tomorrow, and I am a sucker for free stuff, so I am going to take part.

Goal is to read a total of 20 hours or four books during the program. For reaching the halfway point, you get a clothing item. For finishing the full challenge, you get entries into a drawing for cool prize packages.

Last few years, I did the 20 hours instead of four books. I'm thinking of trying four books again this year. I do want to read more, but it will definitely be a challenge to read that many!

One of the books WILL be Murderbot audiobook (audiobooks count), but I'm open to suggestions for other titles!

I mostly read romance these days, or lighter science fiction/fantasy. Favorite authors include Courtney Milan and John Scalzi. I do like manga, but it would feel like cheating to read four manga issues, so... opting out of manga for right now.

Current Mood: curious

Tags:

I'm splitting May in half because it's gone bonkers and I'll never get it posted otherwise.

( 89. Darksight Dare - Lois McMaster Bujold ) This series is very chill and delightful, and I do enjoy it even though it's not going anywhere terribly dramatic.

( 90. Platform Decay - Martha Wells ) A charming installment, and I think a reasonable place to stop if that's what happens.

( 91. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens and 92. Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver ) Ultimately while these are both books about poverty and how easy it is for children to fall through the cracks, they have a very different feel to them. Both good, but in very different ways; I thought the Kingsolver especially was very good.

( 4 more Chalet School books - Elinor M Brent-Dyer ) Chalet School!

( 94. The Faerie Queene vol 2 - Edmund Spenser ) Done! This was more of a slog than I anticipated from the first canto, but I'm glad to have read it.

( 95. Petty Treasons - Victoria Goddard ) Slight but effective and satisfying.

( 97. Inventing the Renaissance - Ada Palmer ) This was great; lots of historiography as well as actual history, but presented accessibly and interestingly. I hated her fiction, but I really enjoyed this.

( 98. Black Leopard Red Wolf - Marlon James ) Miserable, mean-spirited, ugh.

( 99. Wake Up, Nat & Darcy - Kate Cochrane ) I did like this as a romance! But it needed more development for me to believe they could stop the endless cycle of hurt and anger.

( 100. The Stardust Grail - Yume Kitasei ) I can't point to anything wrong, but this just never took off for me, sadly.

( 101. Six of Crows - Leigh Bardugo ) I am slowly learning that I shouldn't buy things just because they're popular and only 99p.

( 103. Radiant Star - Ann Leckie ) Looking forward to re-reading.

Current Music: Harmonium: Wild Nights - John Adams

Tags:

booklog: 2026

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Tags:

The day has been evaporating and I'm very groggy, but hey. I live. (And we made the usual banana bread today, so that's a couple weeks of breakfasts set.) Finished reading a novel last night and have yet to choose the next one. Dentist tomorrow. Life.

Tags:

weekly proof of life

Via

tv_talk, two interesting new Sherlock Holmes-related shows in the making:

Moriarty: "When a rival criminal begins an assault on his underground empire, Moriarty will have only one choice: to join the police as a consultant, using the law as a weapon to dismantle his foe while keeping his true identity hidden from the police." (source)

The Death of Sherlock Holmes: "a six-part series starring Rafe Spall as an amnesiac Holmes forced to deduce his own identity high in the Swiss Alps" (source)

No matter how many there are, I can never get enough of Sherlock Holmes adaptations! I've read and watched a lot of them, and there are so many more I still want to try, but every time I see something new announced I'm still all, YAY! *g*

(No, seriously, I love the sheer variety of different things inspired by ACD's Holmes, no matter how close or how tenuously connected. Inspiration! Fannishness! It's all brilliant. :D)

A Life of Joy and Abundance

Jesus was accused of much, but of being a grump, sourpuss, or self-centered jerk? No. People didn’t groan when he appeared. They didn’t duck for cover when he entered the room. He called them by name. He listened to their stories. He answered their questions. He visited their sick relatives and helped their sick friends. He fished with fishermen and ate lunch with the little guy and spoke words of resounding affirmation. He went to enough parties that he was criticized for hanging out with rowdy people and questionable crowds.

People were drawn to Jesus! Thousands came to hear him. Hundreds chose to follow him. They shut down their businesses and walked away from careers to be with him. His purpose statement read, “I came to give life with joy and abundance” (John 10:10 The Voice). Jesus was happy and wants us to be the same.

Read more Just Like Jesus

Current Mood: thankful

Intermittently I would like to bring forward a single instance of a regular payment.

Normally transfer money from A to B on the 17th, but this month you want to do it 2 days early? Tough, you have to make the early payment, wait for the later payment to go through, and then get it transferred back.

Tags:

micropost

Ah, the wonders of nature.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

Tags:

photos,
pixelfed

Children are having a very loud conversation with each other on the bus about where babies come from.

I'm hiding three rows back.

Tags:

micropost

Fandom 50 #16

For 1992, a song whose music video I wish had gotten more play when I was a kid—because while this isn't officially the t4t song I've fanmixed it as for years, it's really not that far off.

What a Good Boy by Barenaked Ladies

Watch on YouTube

Tags:

To celebrate my retirement (which is a retrofitted justification; I’d have done this anyhow), S. and I woke up at 5 AM Friday, left the house at 5:30, and drove down to Portland for the Criterion Mobile Closet. We didn’t get back home until 10 PM. This… is our story.

Seattle to Portland chews up about 80-90% of our ID.4’s battery, depending on weather. Usually we pause for a 30 minute charge somewhere north of Portland, so we have more flexibility coming home. This time we knew we had to get there early in order to secure a spot in line, so we just pushed through, arriving with around 60 miles of range left. Plenty.

Full post: https://popone.innocence.com/archives/2026/05/30/closeted/

Annoying W is leaving book group!!1! I did of course say the appropriate things, but also: FINALLY.

However, this leaves us with a bit of a dilemma. The group has had only four members for the last several years, and that means we're down to three - and one of the others is in his eighties and has missed the last two months because his wife has been injured and he couldn't leave her for a couple of hours, so who knows how much longer we'll have him.

We could try and recruit new members (and now W is gone, we would have a better chance to retain them).

But in the last decade or so - well, our city council was the hardest hit by the austerity cuts, and has been having financial problems ever since, and the library budgets have been affected by that. A lot of libraries closed; all of them reduced their hours; and it seems like the book-buying budget got cut pretty hard. We used to be able to get eight or ten copies of a book each month without any real problems, but these days we struggle to get four. If we recruit two or three extra people, the range of SFF books available to us is going to get even smaller.

I'll be sad if we do fold - I've been in this group since the late 1990s, and I think it's good for me to be introduced to new books! Most of them aren't things I would have picked up otherwise. Plus I like the other two members a lot. On the other hand, I'd get one night a month back free, and I wouldn't have to read the rubbish books we sometimes get... If it weren't for the book-availability question I think I'd vote for continuing, but it's been an ongoing faff for quite a while, and so I'm unsure.

Tags:

sfrg

This morning, I did some volunteering at parkrun, which ended up being about an hour and half out in the sunshine. It felt nice and I don't think I caught too much sun.

In the afternoon, went to cinema to see Power Ballad, for which I bought a ticket on a whim yesterday when I was checking what's on. It was a bit ridiculous, but also rather sweet, so I'm sure there would have been worse ways to spend a couple of hours. And I had the screen to myself, which was a bit weird.

Tags:

films,
parkrun

ODB: Imitating God’s Forgiveness

May 30, 2026/in Our Daily Bread/by YMI

May 30, 2026

READ: Ephesians 4:25-32

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Ephesians 4:32

I used to work with a woman named Madge, who was an amazing cook. “You should taste my pea and ham soup!” she said one day. After replying that I really didn’t like peas, Madge smiled and said, “You will after you try my soup.” The next day she handed me a container of her soup, made especially for me.

“Did you try my soup?” Madge asked me a couple of days later. “I will—soon!” I said, hoping she wouldn’t ask me again. But she did—the next day, and the next. “Don’t leave it too long or it’ll spoil,” she added on the fourth day.

A week later, Madge’s uneaten soup had spoiled, and I threw it away. I felt dread as she approached me. “You did try my soup, didn’t you?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “It was . . . delicious.”

In Ephesians 4, Paul calls us to deal with speech-related sins like angry words (v. 26), unwholesome talk (v. 29), and slander (v. 31). But before these comes a more basic call to “speak truthfully to your neighbor” (v. 25). I had looked at Madge and told her a lie. I knew what I needed to do.

I walked into Madge’s office, confessed my lie, and sheepishly asked for her forgiveness. Madge walked to me and gave me a hug. “Of course I forgive you,” she said. “How could I not, when I know how much God’s forgiven me?”

— Sheridan Voysey

How many sinful words or actions has God forgiven you for? How can that reminder help you forgive someone today, with the Holy Spirit’s strength?

Forgiving God, please enable me to forgive others.

For further study, read The Risk of Forgiveness.

Source: Our Daily Bread

Current Mood: thoughtful

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

Current Mood: amused

Geoff is the photographer of our trips, because he has an actual camera and also travels with an actual laptop, making it much easier to manage the photos on the road. But I took a few with my phone, which I've now had a chance to go through, and some of them are pretty cool.

Thumbnails are under the cut; you can click through for full-size images.

Here's Geoff on a typical coastal trail; this is from the really hard hike we did along the southern coast of Guernsey, and you can see one of the many many stairways we had to climb. This one isn't even that steep...

This is another Guernsey footpath, this one inland, The high banks on either side are probably old, overgrown stone walls, but it can be really hard to tell!

This is a beach on Jersey, at low tide. The trail we were following snakes through the dune grass above the tide line. If you look closely at the middle distance, you can see one of the many many many German bunkers that were built to defend against an expected Allied invasion. The Channel Islands were incredibly heavily fortified; according to Wikipedia, Guernsey ultimately had one soldier for every two civilians on the island. Some such emplacements have been maintained as historical markers and/or tourist attractions; many more are slowly being reabsorbed into the landscape, like this one.

This is a residential street we walked along in Jersey. I took this photo of a car passing us to show its scale; this is a two-way road.

I was fascinated by limpets. This is a close-up of the causeway to the tidal island of Lihou, at the northwest corner of Guernsey; parts of an old cobblestone road survive, but part of the causeway is just the rocky bottom of the sea channel there. It's only passable at low tide; at all other times it's under water. There were a lot of limpets on the stones!

And this is the boulder I took a photo of in Petit Bôt Bay on our last full day: its seaward side is 75% barnacles, 20% limpets, and 4% snails, with only 1% of actual rock showing. Beyond it you can see Geoff sitting on a rock; he had to move further up the beach every ten minutes because the tide was coming in so fast. This rock, which was chest-high on me, was completely under water before we left the beach.

And finally, here we are having lunch in Gorey on our last real day in Jersey before our final departure:

Geoff posted some other photos in his blog as we went along, so if you like photos and haven't checked it out already, there they are!

Tags:

channel islands

Dreamwidth Business Discussion

YMI -- ODB: 1 June 2026

ODB: Generous Giving

Argh!

HR question: Sochi Olympics

son of update

rec books to me?

may booklog part 1

Six Sentence Sunday

Token weekly proof of life

Sherlockian news

UpWords - Max Lucado: [From] 29 May 2026

A Life of Joy and Abundance

Banking functionality I would like

Photo cross-post

Life with two kids: bus chat

Post and Jam: What a Good Boy [1992]

Closeted

pondering book groups

Standing in the sunshine and sitting in the dark

YMI -- ODB: 30 May 2026

ODB: Imitating God’s Forgiveness

hilarious

some pictures of our trip

Profile

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags