Papa Pat Tiny Devotionals

Teresa K Anthony, and her publisher Decadent, were kind enough to provide me a copy of her book to review. Let's get this point out of the way: I'd give this a 5 star rating on Amazon. Her work earned it. A very brief synopsis: The civilization is composed of three different intelligent races, living together in mixed communities. Advanced technology is available, but the price is high enough that muscle power is a significant contributor, and so in certain areas, slavery is economically viable. A small number of individuals also possess the ability to sense and manipulate matter and energy beyond the five senses; these people are accorded higher prestige, based on their abilities. In the past, the three races have actively cooperated with each other, but for unknown reasons, hostility has emerged, and characters of influence try to determine the reason for the change. Eventually, a fourth race is discovered, which is intent on dividing and conquering. The beauty of this work ...

It's been over a year since I posted anything on my blog. Y'all have missed a lot. For the past couple of weeks, I've been reading and reviewing books by the authors at the Mad Genius Club (www.madgeniusclub.com) on Amazon. It's about the only discipline I've been able to maintain. Then, I read a very nice book by one of the MGC authors, and I couldn't review it on Amazon, because the book isn't offered on Amazon. So I', gonna review it here. Before I do that, though, I'm gonna post some of my other reviews here. No particular reason not to. First one: Plant Life Price:  $1.99   Sex is like oxygen... ,  July 6, 2014 ...It's only important when you aren't getting any. There is a lot more to this story other than the PG-13 (or milder) sex, just as there is more to air than oxygen. This story COULD be re-written as a 1950s John Campbell prudish story, and it would still be a good one; BUT Cedar Sanderson treats us with respect, and involves Eros...

"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains, And go to your God like a soldier." My Wounded Warrior, Jordan, just left with his vehicle full of tools, some of which came to him from me, others through me, but were delayed gifts from his Grandfather Ralph. He has a new house, and he's going to be doing some fixing up, got an entire unfinished basement to play with. We were a curious pair. Jordan was wearing his fatigues, and walking with the aid of a crutch. I was limping along without one. We managed to load a table saw in the back of his vehicle. And then we dragged Mickey along. So there were the three Patterson Boys, hanging out and talking. And I can't talk about this any more right now.

Seems like when you are young, you have plenty of advice on how to live your life. So much advice, that you spend most of your time trying not to follow it. And the advice, most of it, comes from people who know what they are talking about. They have already lived through being young. I was young, but now I am old. And I think I find myself in unexplored country. I think I find myself with rare circumstances, which no one else has experienced. So I have no one to turn to and say "Am I doing this the right way?" I live in an unexplored country, bordered by pain, sleep, and drugs. How do I find my way here?

Kenneth has been doing so well in school. His last report card was straight A. His behavior has been exemplary as well. When I found out about the website sumdog, I thought I had found an end to the homework hassle. All I would have to do is turn the kids loose on an educational learning site, and my work was done. That's pretty attractive to an old guy with not a lot of energy. And there were other educational sites besides sumdog, like coolmath. Actually, coolmath bothered me a little, because it appeared to be more game than learning. So, when Alicia continued to struggle, I told her she must not go anywhere but sumdog; I let Kenneth run free. And on weekend, the laptops were just another entertainment tool. They could go to the Disney site, or pretty much wherever they found joy. No downloads, no for-pay, but still they were able to navigate and have fun. And it gave me a couple of teachable moments. TANSTAAFL. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Kenneth wanted this ...

Today is October 24, 2013. My last blog post was on June 17, 2013. I entitled this blog entry, what have THEY missed, because I haven't missed a thing. I've been through every single moment of these past nearly five months, and endured it. Might have forgotten some of it, though.  But this blog isn't really for me. It's for my grandson Heath. It's for Kenneth and Alicia. And perhaps it will also be valuable to my adult contemporaries as well. But I didn't write it down; and, if you don't write it down, it didn't happen. So, I can say: since my last post, I thought we had found the perfect pain med, a patch that managed my pain very well, and didn't goof my head. And then in September I developed an allergy to it, and had to stop it, and got to experience withdrawal again. But what I missed, by not making a daily record of my experiences. And I can also say that I was asked, once again, to serve on a Tres Dias weekend, made the last team meeting, pack...

I was listening to a teaching on Joshua this morning, called 'Rotate Your Gifting.' And I was thinking, groan. I already KNOW all this stuff. Why do I have to listen through this? Why not just skip this one, and go on to the next teaching? And I found reasons. Of course, I first had to find a reason before I even began to listen to the teaching, even before I realized I already knew what the teaching was about. That's a pretty simple reason. It's so simple, it's an embarrassment to say. I did it for the same reason I breathe: because that's what you do to keep alive. Not a whole lot of need to explain that one, is there? Except to say this: if I were to choose to hold my breath, at some point I'd either give up, or pass out, and if I passed out, my body would start breathing again whether I wanted to or not. Can't really say the same thing for my spiritual life; I suppose that if I refused to do the things I need to do to stay alive spiritually, I would ...