How NOT to Visit the Family of a Newborn

~Drop in unannounced the first week or so after the birth.
~Stay at least an hour or two to show you really care.
~Ignore the fact that the kids of the house seem to be getting restless for dinner or for some down time, even bedtime, or for some of their parents’ attention and care. Clearly your visit is more important.
~Make it clear that you came to see the baby and the baby you must see, even if the weary parent has just spent thirty minutes or more getting the little one off to sleep in the crib.
~Of course you’ll want to hold the baby too.
~Bring your kids along on the visit. Maybe one of them wants to hold the baby?
~Maybe a friend of yours would like to come. It doesn’t matter if that friend knows the family or not.
~Come thirsty or hungry.
~Come empty handed. Or bring something for a baby gift that you enjoy buying because it’s cute, or something you already have on hand. Don’t bother to ask what would actually be helpful.
~It’s cool to show the new parents they are needed by asking for some favor from one of them, maybe your laptop looked at or a phone number looked up or some other favor or business taken care of.
~Be sure to point out to the parents anything they are doing with the baby that you think could be improved on.

How TO Visit the Family of a Newborn

Don’t.

Well, ok, I’m sorry. You are actually most welcome to visit if you are good friends, stay only 15 minutes, do not have expectations of seeing the baby (or the mom, for that matter), and are dropping off some healthy, yummy food or a new crib sheet.

Revelation

Revelation, not as in "Wow! I had one!" but as in the last book of the Bible. Actually, after avoiding and dreading this book all of my life, I am now fascinated learning about it in the Vineyard Bible Institute. Perhaps more to come on this, but I've gotta get my VBI Revelation homework done first. :-]

New Testament Finish Line

Unless I've overlooked something, this wraps it up for mentions of food and eating in the New Testament. My original intent was to jump from Revelation back into Genesis and start through the OT, but now I think not. For one thing, I've signed up as a Vineyard Bible Institute student, so I will be doing more specific studies with that which require their own focus. For another, figuring out what to eat doesn't seem as important now as when I started, especially given some of the scriptures I've pondered here about priorities. See entries for March 13, June 27, and maybe some other days I can't find now.

Actually, what to eat has recently been well stated, in my opinion, by Michael Pollen's three bottom-line Food Rules which in no way conflict with the Bible.

Eat real food. (You know what that means.)
Mostly plants. (Which is not to say all plants.)
Less of it.

Now I have to decide what to do next, if anything, with this blog spot.

The Wine of God's Wrath

~Revelation 14:10

Then a third angel followed them, shouting, “Anyone who worships the beast and his statue or who accepts his mark on the forehead or on the hand must drink the wine of God’s anger. It has been poured full strength into God’s cup of wrath.

~Revelation 14:19

So the angel swung his sickle over the earth and loaded the grapes into the great winepress of God’s wrath.

~Revelation 16:19

So God remembered all of Babylon’s sins, and he made her drink the cup that was filled with the wine of his fierce wrath.

~Revelation 19:15

He will release the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty, like juice flowing from a winepress

Wine is a powerful image. The Bible uses it to give us a picture of the love of Christ in communion, a symbol of the blood he shed for our salvation. The Bible also uses it, as seen here, as a symbol of the wrath of God against evil and injustice.

~Revelation 18.3

For all the nations have fallen because of the wine of [Babylon's] passionate immorality. The kings of the world have committed adultery with her.

~Revelation 18.13

[Babylon, the great city] also bought cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, olive oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle, sheep, horses, chariots, and bodies—that is, human slaves.

In Revelation, Babylon represents world systems which are against God. I think wine is used here to symbolize how intoxicating those systems can be.

Cinnamon, spice, wine, olive oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle and sheep are listed among the luxuries enjoyed by Babylon.

Nourished by God

~Revelation 12.6

and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which to be nourished for 1260 days.

~Revelation 12.14

But the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, so that she could fly into the wilderness to her place, where she was nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent.

Of course God's taking care of someone includes nourishment.

Sweet to sour

~Revelation 10.8-10

Then the voice from heaven spoke to me again: “Go and take the open scroll from the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.”
So I went to the angel and told him to give me the small scroll. “Yes, take it and eat it,” he said. “It will be sweet as honey in your mouth, but it will turn sour in your stomach!” So I took the small scroll from the hand of the angel, and I ate it! It was sweet in my mouth, but when I swallowed it, it turned sour in my stomach.

Revelation: what an amazing book. In with all these mysterious images is the common act of eating and the experience we've all had of eating something sweet or desirable and then having a bad reaction in the gut. Ugg.