Papa Pat Tiny Devotionals

 A great good morning, to my friends and neighbors out there in Internet Land! And to any family members who have stumbled upon this post, I had a banana and peanut butter sandwich for breakfast. And, although I have already made at least three mistakes today, none of them have been serious, and the banana and peanut butter sandwich was a good choice. (Ralph made me my first peanut butter and banana sandwich when I was in kindergarten, circa 1958; thus, long before bobble head dolls.) Two things I asked of You, Do not refuse me before I die: 8  Keep deception and lies far from me, Give me neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with the food that is my portion, 9  That I not be full and deny  You  and say, “Who is the  Lord ?” Or that I not be in want and steal, And profane the name of my God. Proverbs 30:7-9, NASB Not going to try to make a comment on the keeping away of deception and lies, because there isn't any insight I have other ...

 A great good morning to all my friends and neighbors out there in Internet Land, and to any family members who have stumbled onto this Tiny Devotional, I hope you had a good breakfast and wonderful coffee. I did! "If a ruler pays attention to falsehood, All his ministers become wicked." Proverbs 29:12, NASB  No doubt some will immediately see references to political systems and processes, and I do NOT doubt that they will find evidence there. However, I am as apolitical as it is possible to be, so I'm NOT going there. I'm speaking of rulers who DIRECTLY impact folks, every single day. I speak of  the rulers of employment; the rulers of educational institutions; the rulers of every kind of organization, from The Little Rascals to labor unions; Non-Governmental Organizations; churches. And to bring it home, that includes rulers of families. For those not familiar, the club failed. They all fell in love with Darla. It all comes down from the top. Sometimes, you can te...

 A great good morning to my friends and neighbors out there in Internet Land! And, to those family members who have stumbled upon this post, my gift-from-God, happily-ever-after trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant, foxy, praying black grandmother of Woodstock, GA, and I have been talking seriously about what form a family reunion would take for us; stay tuned. What IS this? (the introduction and explanation) (ALSO what makes THIS post not tiny!) First, for those ever patient authors who have waited a year or more for me to review, this is NOT, I repeat NOT, a replacement for my book reviews. It is an added-value writing; a feature, and not a Volkswagen. The book reviews will continue, and barring unforeseen circumstances, I will post one today. Second, Vanessa and I have asked for some additional training and discipleship opportunities at church. I could go into pages, attempting to answer the 'why' and 'why now' questions, but consider this: we have a combined 80 (that...

I have reviewed a LOT of books in the Four Horsemen Universe , after starting just two years ago this week.  I didn't start with the FIRST book in the series, which was, I believe, Cartwright's Cavaliers, but that turned out not to make a difference; they are (almost) all self-contained.  Furthermore, since they appear to be churning them out at a rate usually associated with a select-fire switch, I will likely be reviewing more in the near future. I post my reviews, and any related blog posts, in the Facebook group which is a meeting place for fans of the series,  "4HU- The Merc Guild." Today, a sailor of some experience, by the name of Shawn, discussed how you orient yourself on a boat/ship. Then, he opened the discussion to consider how to find your way around & orient yourself, on a vehicle in space. It was really QUITE interesting!  And that got me thinking:  How do you orient yourself spiritually in space? Initially, I just considered: if you are membe...

Greetings, internet friends and neighbors, and a big hidey-ho to all of you! Also, to any family members it amuses to visit here, hope the day finds you still able to touch your toes. I wasn't planning a blog post today, BUT, after I made this long post over on The Old NFO's blog , I figured I'd add a couple of links, and post here. I really need to post more frequently, he said for the grillionth time. Remembering the way it was, and why we did that: If things I have read recently are accurate, the US was doing next-to-nothing with the missile tech and technicians looted from Nazi Germany. It took Wernher von Braun appearing on Walt Disney to get things moving. No, we didn't do it THIS way, but we did it. I was four years old in 1957, when Nikita Khrushchev boasted that America sleeps under a Soviet moon. Four-year-old boys are literal-minded, and I was terrified of the moon for a long time after that. I have dim, dim memories of my mother comforting me by pointing t...

For those WITHOUT ad blocker, a picture link:     Here's the cover image and a LINK , if you DO have an ad blocker: Now, I'm blogging this because it has been a LONG time since my last blog, and because I last reviewed Volume THREE in this series two years ago, and because Dragon Awards are around the corner at Dragon Con, and one of these stories will receive a reader-nom award at that time. Plus, I likely will be reviewing like crazy in August. Whatever. Here's th e review: I'm not sure why this should be the case, but I can't find that I have reviewed the fourth volume in the series. I DID review Volume 3, and posted the review on my blog “Papa Pat Rambles” on July 2, 2017, with the title  “The Year's Best? REALLY?”  My timing is a bit off, here. I actually got an Advanced Reader Copy, but had to set the review aside, since pre-pub review isn't something I'm involved in. I set it aside for a month too long, though, and that's significant, because ...

Greetings, internet friends and neighbors! And thank you to my loyal family members who are striving to help me find fame, fortune, and a meaningful existence by reading this blog. Umm, let's just forget about the fame and fortune part, shall we? I wasn't planning on this being a blog post. But when I got to the bottom of the second page in the book review, I realized NOBODY was going to read that, not even the authors, so in order to preserve what I had taken so long to write, I dumped it here. Now I have to go back and slash what follows to make it fit. Here's the slashed Goodreads review ; I've submitted the Amazon review, but it hasn't posted yet. When it does, I'll post the link in the comments. Warning: the main text (which follows)  is 1247 words. That's only 1/10 of the words in"Nightfall," by Isaac Asimov, though, so I'm certain that a few of you loyalists will find your way clear to read it. Okay: if you are running an ad blocker, yo...