Old soul forum

[GaryA]

"Why do we need farms anyway? We get all that we need from the supermarket."

This [unfortunately] exhibits the limitation of understanding of reality that exists in the thinking (or not) of way-too-many people.

Facepalm, indeed - and hey - why not - let us roll some eyes as well...

 

[Lanolin]

Oh I was trying to mansplain that (about supermarkets) on the How about this? thread. But I didn't do a very good job.

Fact is, a lot of people cannot afford good, fresh food and it's not always within reach.

 

[seoulsearch]

To be fair, it is useful to warn people about possible allergens. As children have been increasingly isolated from the environment, their immune systems are not well developed. And I read this comment. "Why do we need farms anyway? We get all that we need from the supermarket."

I went to school with two brothers who took over the family farm when their father tragically died at a young age.

Their farm was well-known in the area because they would host a beautiful and very intricate corn maze in the fall, with a fresh pattern/design every year.

The local newspaper interviewed the brothers regarding the business aspect of the farm, and the older brother said they regularly hosted local school field trips so children could see how food was produced.

One boy was amazed to discover that milk actually came from cows.

After he saw the cows being milked, he asked the older brother, "What kind of cow does Pepsi come from?"

The boy was dead serious, as he didn't know any better. This was around 30+ years ago.

I'm guessing the children of today know even less about their food, unfortunately.

 

[Lanolin]

Answer - the Corporate Cow aka the Cash Cow

Seoulsearch are you in anyway bothered that some CCers are trying to get an entire forum named after you? And call you Old? But they typoed it and missed out the 'e'

However I am all for it because then I'd have all your threads in one place even the ones dating back to 2014.

 

[seoulsearch]

Answer - the Corporate Cow aka the Cash Cow

Seoulsearch are you in anyway bothered that some CCers are trying to get an entire forum named after you? And call you Old? But they typoed it and missed out the 'e'

However I am all for it because then I'd have all your threads in one place even the ones dating back to 2014.

Lol!

I have no problems being seen as old (I'm getting there!)

But I'm not sure about an entire section dedicated to my threads... I'm sure there are posters in the Bible Discussion Forum who have probably written even more threads than I have, so they would probably be more deserving.

Plus, I'd be really intimidated because it would be like, if I had a certain place just for my threads, people would really expect me to be funny and/or entertaining, and I don't see myself as either.

I just have a lot of random thoughts, and, being a lifelong letter-writer, I put them into written form -- and hope that it might inspire other people to start conversations.

Thank you for the thought, though!

 

[seoulsearch]

Seoulsearch are you in anyway bothered that some CCers are trying to get an entire forum named after you? And call you Old? But they typoed it and missed out the 'e'
However I am all for it because then I'd have all your threads in one place even the ones dating back to 2014.

I wrote my first thread in 2009, not long after I got here... And just kept on going.

Sometimes I do look back at my past threads and utterly cringe, because I've can see how much my thinking and format change over time (hopefully for the better.) I've thought of closing this account to wipe the slate clean, but that would make it nearly impossible to find my old writings.

Even if I came back under another name, I'd always let everyone know it was me, so if I stay on the site, it's more efficient to just keep this account and be able to access my old posts.

It's definitely a journey in progress, and I plan to keep going for as long as God allows.

 

[Lanolin]

No I think some of your threads are dead serious!

Its Lynxes that are meant to be funny and entertaining, though he doesn't start many. But I don't really get all his jokes, and then he makes fun of ME for not getting them.

 

[seoulsearch]

No I think some of your threads are dead serious!

Yes, I like to alternate between serious and silly, because sometimes, as a friend recently put it, "If you don't laugh at least some of the time, you're going to wind up crying all of the time."

For a long time, I was going through some things, so I wrote about a lot of sad, depressing topics.

I've also always been very concerned about helping singles prepare for marriage, particularly when dealing with trauma and abuse, so I used to write a lot of threads about those subjects as well.

It's funny because at the time (when private messaging was free,) I'd get people writing me and saying they hated my serious threads and wanted to see me only write funny things.

Then there were the people who said they hated my silly threads and only wanted to see serious ones.

In the end, I just have to be me. People's feedback taught me to pray a lot over the threads I start.

Now I am NOT AT ALL trying to say in any way, shape, or form, that my threads are "from" God, but I do know a few were direct ideas from Him (even if no one answered them), because I couldn't calm down until I finally wrote them out.

But I do think I can sense it when He's directing my writing -- sometimes He leads me to do more public posting; sometimes He'll lead me to more individual correspondence rather than public; sometimes He'll tell me to take breaks from writing.

The past few years, I've felt that He has led me to write more light-hearted things, because everyone is going through hard times, and we all need a little fun -- even if it's just in a forum.

Thanks very much for your interest!

 

[Lanolin]

Well, I can say your threads never seem to have any typos in them. Or if they do, they are soon corrected (by you)

I can't say the same for mine!

It's great you have a lot of positive feedback for many of your threads and they are edifying for many people. I try to stay positive too and not be too much of a Debbie Downer. But sometimes you just gotta go through that valley, and keep on going. Perseverance and patience are sign of Christian character.

 

[seoulsearch]

Well, I can say your threads never seem to have any typos in them. Or if they do, they are soon corrected (by you)

I can't say the same for mine!

It's great you have a lot of positive feedback for many of your threads and they are edifying for many people. I try to stay positive too and not be too much of a Debbie Downer. But sometimes you just gotta go through that valley, and keep on going. Perseverance and patience are sign of Christian character.

Thanks very much for the kind words!

Funny thing, I often warn readers that nearly every post I make has some sort of typo -- usually.

When you wrote papers in school, did they make you write outlines? Every class I took that involved writing made us write an outline, which I hated, because I never follow an outline -- just a few basic words or ideas. I have to write everything kind of free-fall -- and then I try to go back and edit. For my papers in school, I would complete the whole thing and THEN go back and make up an outline from everything I'd already written.

These are the kinds of things I mean when I say I zig when I'm told to zag.

9.9 times out of 10, I either make new mistakes when editing (deleting or adding in the wrong places,) or my brain re-reads it the way I have everything in my head, so my eyes don't even "see" the typos. I've often wondered if I have some kind of reading/learning disorder, but I'm not sure. Doctors would just put me on meds, and I've survived this long, so I've never bothered finding out.

I understand that with being on a Christian site, the main purpose is to talk about God and the Bible. But as someone whose life of Christian schools, churches, and events has always seemed like one long, continuous sermon, I'm much more interested in hearing about how people take all those lessons and actually apply them to their real-life.

People who want to preach/teach are a dime a dozen; people who are willing to share their actual walk, and most importantly, when it goes wrong, are one in a million -- and those are the people I'm looking for.

I want to hear how all that Bible study, fasting, and prayer has worked out in their real life dealings with family (in-laws that hate you; step-kids that won't accept you; a difficult marriage, etc.) intolerable work situations, caring for families with special needs, relatives who no longer remember who you are and fight you because of it... and so it goes.

I try to make the purpose of my threads, whether factual or funny, as being a chance for Christian people to talk about their everyday applications of everything they've learned about God in their own lives.

I've mentioned it before, but @Godsgirl1983 is often my muse for many of my threads. She has been kind enough to share some things about what life is like for her everyday, and I'm often thinking, "What kind of topic/thread might be fun for her (and others) to read in the middle of trying to get through a day of pandemonium?!"

And that's something I enjoy about your threads, too @Lanolin -- they're often about everyday life, and how we can live it out as Christians.

I know you've really been through the ringer the past several years and I'm so sorry for that.

I hope that hanging out here is helping, if only in a very small way.

Things haven't been the same without you!

 

[Godsgirl1983]

I've mentioned it before, but @Godsgirl1983 is often my muse for many of my threads. She has been kind enough to share some things about what life is like for her everyday, and I'm often thinking, "What kind of topic/thread might be fun for her (and others) to read in the middle of trying to get through a day of pandemonium?!"

So I ratted you out in other threads as being the trouble maker/instigator ...
so now you rat me out to THE WHOLE WORLD as being the cause of your trouble making???

I think I'm going to find some sort of shield before people start throwing rotten tomatoes my way as a result.

 

[seoulsearch]

So I ratted you out in other threads as being the trouble maker/instigator ...
so now you rat me out to THE WHOLE WORLD as being the cause of your trouble making???

I think I'm going to find some sort of shield before people start throwing rotten tomatoes my way as a result.

If it's any consolation, I have SEVERAL reasons to cause trouble on the forum...

It's just that you happen to be a favorite one of them.

And I always do my best to give credit to my sources!

 

[Lanolin]

Oh Jennymae and I were busy trying to prevent World War Three.

I wasn't really put through the ringer, but sort of cleaned up on the Laundromat thread. It was my salvation.

 

[Mem]

I went to school with two brothers who took over the family farm when their father tragically died at a young age.

Their farm was well-known in the area because they would host a beautiful and very intricate corn maze in the fall, with a fresh pattern/design every year.

The local newspaper interviewed the brothers regarding the business aspect of the farm, and the older brother said they regularly hosted local school field trips so children could see how food was produced.

One boy was amazed to discover that milk actually came from cows.

After he saw the cows being milked, he asked the older brother, "What kind of cow does Pepsi come from?"

The boy was dead serious, as he didn't know any better. This was around 30+ years ago.

I'm guessing the children of today know even less about their food, unfortunately.

Back at the turn of the century, (doesn't that sound old to say?), I had a similar experience even with gifted kids as a lunch lady at a summer camp that hosted little geniuses. These gave me the impression of little old souls. One approached me while I was outside taking a five and asked if I had a computer that he could borrow which made me think, "Should I .... have one handy? Am I... that far behind?!" And then another picked up the shakers at his table to ask me, "What are these?"
But I restrained my strongest wish to sit down with him and pick his little brilliant brain and just answered, "salt and pepper."

 

[GaryA]

Oh I was trying to mansplain that (about supermarkets) on the How about this? thread. But I didn't do a very good job.

Fact is, a lot of people cannot afford good, fresh food and it's not always within reach.

Don't you mean 'womansplain'?

 

[Lanolin]

I am going to make my own supermarket thread in future.
If I feel like a conversation/discussion is going to derail from the OP, I start another thread, so that new people looking don't click on it wondering what on earth are they on about?!

I found the topic of 'food deserts' intriguing and wondering if this really is a thing in the US where the term came from. I can't just take Mrs Obama's word for it. I know the midwest had problems in the past with Dustbowls and near starvation, but now it seems the opposite with too much cheap junk food readily available. And of course there are different states in the US, and a whole dividing line between North and South, plus different climate zones etc.
Logistics are different. But this is a nation that invented the frozen tv dinner, and the SAD diet (plus others) .

I am willing to believe that for some, it is a land of milk and honey, and for others, it's just bare crumbs and dumpster diving. And the people who are the backbone of agriculture, and the cooks in restaurants, are often migrants (legal and illegal) like Ruth was in the barley field, escaping the famine in her homeland.

 

[Lanolin]

Outlines = When I was writing essays at Uni, I recall we had some kind of structure, an intro, paragraphs which had the main point, then explanations, references to back it up then a conclusion.

I sort of edit as I go now, but the more I write the more I sort of stick to that basic structure if I am doing anything formally. This is actually quite hard to do, PLUS you had to stick to the world limit, make sure all your spelling and grammar was correct, didn't use obscure or slang terms, and think about the reader or audience as well. You also had to format it with double spacing and stick to a style like maybe a certain font (times roman, 12pt) and your references had to be a certain way. I think APA format was one of them. Then the endnotes or footnotes etc.

That's for essays. Essay is actually a French term 'essayer' meaning 'to try'. Your were trying or marshalling your thoughts on a premise/topic. It didn't mean you knew everything. It didn't mean you were the absolute authority on it, or trying to make an argument or a point. It just meant you were venturing forth on a particular topic.

I actually have done a paper all on Essays. I remember it was a summer school course and we studied various essays written by famous writers. Some of the most well known were written by Montaigne, (French), George Orwell, and Jonathan Swift.
They could be amusing, fun, personal, satiric, serious or all of the above. The thing was to leave the reader thinking something profound after they had read it.

Jesus spoke in parables, thats another form of story telling to illustrate spiritual truths.

I find it hardest to write to conform to a certain word limit, or when I'm not inspired to write, or when I HAVE to write. My worst times of writing and I could barely function then were when I had to do a eulogy at my mum's funeral, and my sister and brothers had wonderful entertaining speeches/eulogies where they said everything pertinent and I was like I don't want to go up and think about what to say as its just too overwhelming..plus I had to hide the fact that the last few months was terrible and I was an absolute wreck and completely drained. So I ended up saying just a page of my thoughts on how mum looked after everyone including our pets and how much she loved them. I had no structure, no witty one liners, no quotes, not even a proper intro and conclusion.

I imagine sermon writers have this pressure on them too and its expected of them to memorise what they are going to say and not just read it out from their notes. Powerpoints and lectures from me are asking for trouble. I get so stressed by thinking of having to perform and present when I can only ever be myself...someone who's terrified of public speaking and still can't do it very well. Don't ask me to be a bridesmaid at your wedding!

 

[Lanolin]

Of course someone will come along, heckle, or demolish what you are saying in an instant, or dismiss your words etc. That's why it's so terrifying to speak up for a lot of people. It just as bad writing because someone will always not like what your write even when you haven't asked for anyone's opinion on they WAY your write like a grammar nazi or someone who has made themselves an authority on whatever it is and dismisses your personal experience. It's just terribly invalidating. People need to be acknowledged.

But I learned you can't wear your heart on your sleeve all the time. Sometimes you have to, or need to keep it hidden.

 

[Mem]

Don't you mean 'womansplain'?

"womanterpreting"

 

[Mem]

someone who's terrified of public speaking and still can't do it very well.

As @seoulsearch would say, "Le sigh." If it weren't for the requirement of completing a course in public speaking, I'd have graduated summa cum laude.
I aced the term papers though and no longer have to feel so alone in thinking that I was the only one that had to deconstruct the body of my essay in order to come up with an outline.