[Today’s run: 3.2 miles Watson Road]
Our dryer heater element kit from Amazon.com showed up today. I’ve installed the kit and I’ve gotten almost caught up with the laundry.
The order history says that I last ordered this kit in September 5, 2022. It lasted almost a year. And I seem to remember I had done it earlier in 2022.
This is the Samsung dryer we bought when we moved into the house in 2009. At that time we also bought a stove, a refrigerator, a laundry washer and a dishwasher. The laundry washer has been replaced twice since then. We just replaced the dishwasher a few weeks ago. The dryer, stove, and fridge are the same ones.
From that sampling it seems that the units that deal with wash water have the hardest life.
For now things are working. I’m getting pretty good at replacing that heater element.
Today we worked on making a gate to the duck fence. I built the gate and got it installed. But I haven’t figured out the latching yet. So I propped something against it. The Duck Barn also is secure, so if some critter gets in the gate the ducks should still be safe.
The ducks got more adventurous today and came out of the Duck Barn and enjoyed the grass. They spent most of the day in the shade under the Duck Barn. We got up over 97F today and the ducks survived it ok. Friday they stayed all day in the Barn, but it was much cooler and a bit stormy.
They don’t yet know how to use the ramp to get back in, so we chased them down and lifted them in by hand.
We have a cleaning crew come every other week to help clean the house. That has really been helpful. For one thing it ensures that it gets done. And it helps motivate us to do a better job because we don’t want to be so completely disgusting when they arrive.
So we got the ducks transported out of the jacuzi bathtub on Thursday evening and I cleaned up most of the wood chips and splatter before they arrived on Friday. I told them they didn’t have to mess with the tub… but after they left I saw that they had finished it up and it looks pretty good.
I had picked up a book at the estate sale a week or so ago, The God Who Is There by Francis Schaeffer (1968). I had not read it before. I found it very interesting. It moves along quickly and has some difficult terminology, but not a terrible amount. The book talks about some of the philosophical movements of the 20th century and how these things contradict reality, that the people who espouse them don’t actually live out the logical consequences of their statements, or see those consequences as desirable.
Which in some ways I can see applying to everyone with a stated belief.
I think Schaeffer would say that a Christian worldview at least pushes people toward a life considered virtuous even if it is not completely embraced whereas other philosophies lead toward people taking on virtue in contradiction to their beliefs, the more they embrace their philosophy the less virtue is a priority.
I’m not smart enough to critique his work, but it seems to me it requires a very smart person to live a minutely examined life in any kind of semi-consistent way. Most people can’t do it and probably don’t want to do it. One of the comforts of Christianity is that, though it stands up to examination and questioning, it doesn’t require passing some kind of hurdle either mental or physical. Everything is literally already done and a person’s task is to believe it. If you want to walk on broken glass or go get theology degrees, that is maybe a calling or a penance or something but it doesn’t accomplish anything toward salvation and possibly could lead to or grow out of the wrong assumption that some great work is necessary to achieve salvation on one’s own.
In the book of Romans it says that, once a person has salvation, which includes being adopted as a child of God, that new station should have effect on they way they live. The works part is supposed to grow out of the faith part. James says faith without works is dead… which means if you don’t start living it in some visible way, then you don’t believe it.
Personally, when I read stuff like this I frequently feel that tension between what I say and what I do. The output indicates the input, to some degree. So there is a mental discomfort because I’m not always producing what I should be producing, going by the things which I say I believe. I can get that same sensation in church on Sundays.
Over time it has kind of morphed into a surprise and comfort that the important parts are not my responsibility, kind of like when you are used to walking on terra firma and then go on a roller coaster or in a small plane and realize that the really important things (like gravity and mechanical systems and aeronautics) aren’t your responsibility. There’s a lot going on and if you need to do something you’ll be prompted, but most of the time you should keep your hands clear of the moving parts and enjoy the ride.
That last paragraph may be mostly self justification. It’s hard to tell.