Romans 1:20b poster: God's revelation through nature

This is an attempt to illustrate Romans 1:20b (ESV), wherein God indicates that He reveals Himself to us through nature.

That's not the only way God is revealed. I would say that Christ, Himself, is the most important way, and that the Holy Spirit, the Bible, our conscience, and the church, are other ways that God is revealed.

The original photo is on our Flickr photostream. ESV copyright information is here.

I have previously blogged about this verse. One such attempt is here. In that post, I argue that, if God reveals Himself through nature, it is important that we keep nature as beautiful and diverse as possible, because, if we don't, we are making it more difficult for God to reveal Himself to us.

Thanks for reading, and looking.

Emergent processes

Jeremiah 1:4 Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

and before you were born I consecrated you;

I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” (ESV. For information on copyright and usage policies of the ESV, see here.)

This passage is often taken as support for opposition to abortion, and that may be a legitimate use. I quote it here because it may be supporting another idea, that of emergent processes.

Young-earth creationists believe that the earth, and the universe, are no more than a few thousand years old. They believe that, although there may have been some changes in the appearance of living things, and even in humans, these are minor, because there hasn't been time for major changes. As a consequence, they believe that the creative processes described in Genesis 1 were instantaneous, or nearly so. I believe that those who believe in Young-earth creationism would say (if they thought about this specific example) that the lichens were created by the command, or commands (possibly one for each type of lichen) of God, on the third day, and that they would have been much like the lichens of today. This view may be correct.

But young-earth creationists, though they don't often say this, seem to go further in their thinking. They assume that only an instantaneous creative act shows the power of God.

Other Christians, believing that a proper interpretation of Genesis 1 does not demand that the earth is only a few thousand years old, probably haven't thought about this specific example very much either, but would suppose that the algae and the fungi found in lichens both evolved, over long periods of time, and that, also during long periods of time, the mutualistic association of fungi and algae that makes lichens also developed. Not only that, but not all the lichens necessarily originated at the same time. Some kinds of them are probably older than others. These other Christians would also say that God's preparation, His planning, and the various processes, including natural selection, that He put into play also show the power of God, just as much, if not more, than an instantaneous creative act would show it.

Jeremiah 1:4-5 refers to the process of formation in the womb, an emergent process. Newborn Jeremiah was not created instantly at the instant of his birth. He had gone through nine months of development. The fertilized egg that he came from contained complete instructions for, say, producing a circulatory system, over the course of these nine month. Jeremiah, and you and I, came about through emergent processes. These emergent processes, although unfortunately taken too much for granted, show the power of God as much, if not more so, than as if Jeremiah had been created instantly, from nothing, as a baby.

God's use of emergent processes doesn't seem to be limited to embryonic development. It seems that God's work, through Noah, Abraham, Moses, the prophets, and finally through Christ, was also an emergent process. Couldn't God also have used emergent processes to bring about the universe, the earth, and living things?

Every view of origins has problems. There is no argument for any of them so convincing as to demolish all opposing views.

See here and here for previous posts on the idea of emergent processes, or emergent creation.

Thanks for reading.

Mistborn: The Final Empire, by Brandon Sanderson

I was looking for a new fantasy author to read, and decided to try a book by Brandon Sanderson. His official website is here, and the Wikipedia article on him is here. I read his Mistborn: The Final Empire (Tor, 2008), and I'm glad that I did. The link in the previous sentence is to the Wikipedia article on the book. This is the book's web page on the author's web site. Clearly, I'm not the only fan of this book, or the series of three books that it is part of. There is a Mistborn Wiki, with a number of articles on various aspects of the book(s).

I generally try to avoid giving away the plots of books that I read, and I will try to give away as little as possible in this post. I have three points to make.

First, there are interesting characters in the book. These characters have feelings, and flaws, and most of them are trying to do good. The good that they are trying to do is to overthrow the Lord Ruler, and the nobility, who hold most of the population, the skaa, of the unnamed planet (continent?) that is the setting in slavery. The leading character is a teenage girl, Vin. Most of the story is told from her standpoint. She has magical ability, and her mother was skaa. She decides to join Kelsier, an inspiring, if unpredictable leader, who also has magical ability, in his plot to overthrow the Lord Ruler.

Second, the nature of the magic in the book is intriguing, and, as far as I'm aware, unlike the magical powers of any other sub-creation. There are actually three kinds of magic in the book. The main kind is Allomancy, a hereditary gift that must be awakened, usually by a traumatic event. Most people aren't Allomancers at all. Some are Mistings -- they are able to somehow internally consume a particular metal or alloy, and, when they do, have temporary powers of one sort or another. There are several types of Mistings. There are also Mistborn, people like Vin and Kelsier, who can use several kinds of metals or alloys, and have all the powers. Such powers include heightened senses, increased strength, the ability to influence the emotions of others, or to hide from enemies using Allomancy, and the ability to move things rapidly against gravity, including the Allomancer herself. In other words, Mistborn are able to move rapidly like the characters in some recent Chinese Martial Arts movies, such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. There is another kind of magic, Ferruchemy, which a particular race, small in number, the Terris, can practice. There is a third kind of magic, practiced by a few powerful servants of the Lord Ruler. All three of these forms of magic utilize metals, by ingestion and burning (Oxidation?), or by physical contact.

The third aspect of the book that I wish to muse on is going to give away major portions of the plot.

Religion is mentioned several times. One of the characters, Sazed, is a Terris. He is able to access and retain information on many kinds of religions, using special memory storage provided through Ferruchemy. Occasionally, Sazed mentions some obscure, or at least extinct religion. He doesn't give much detail, but none of the religions he mentions seem to be closely related to any religion currently practiced in real life.

I was not clear on whether or not the skaa, or the other inhabitants of the land that the book is set in, have a religion. If they do, it seems to be worship of the Lord Ruler, who, himself, has powerful magical abilities, as he uses both Allomancy and Ferruchemy, and is, apparently, immortal. He says that he is, and even those who want to overthrow him believe that he is immortal.

Whether anyone else pays attention or not, one of the things I have tried to do, at least for my own satisfaction, in this blog is to consider questions of religion in fantastic literature. If you wish to know more about this, I recommend my "What Must Be Christian About a Christian Novel?" and "Paganism and Christianity in Juliet Marillier's Fiction." Both of these have links to related posts.

I was a little surprised to find, near the end of Mistborn, that there is a Christ-figure in the book. By this, I mean that there is a character who has some of the attributes of Jesus Christ, who suffered for the sins of others, died as a sacrifice for those sins, and rose again to prove His power. The character is Kelsier. Kelsier decides, when the rebellion looks like it won't actually succeed, to sabotage the only mine where the rarest of the metals used by Mistborn is found. The Lord Ruler, and the nobles, as well as other mistborn, like Kelsier and Vin, depend on this metal. His sabotage is successful. In retaliation, the Lord Ruler orders the execution of hundreds of skaa, who, of course, had nothing to do with the sabotage. Kelsier decides that he cannot allow this to happen. He begins freeing the prisoners, knowing that this will make the Lord Ruler, himself, act to try to stop Kelsier. The Lord Ruler does this. He kills Kelsier, in a public place, where many skaa, and many of the Lord Ruler's servants, as well as Vin, are witnesses. Kelsier's close associates, including Vin, discover that Kelsier planned to give himself up -- he knew that he would be killed.

A non-human creature, who has been successfully masquerading as a nobleman, apparently known to be an non-human only by himself and Kelsier, assumes Kelsier's bodily form, and appears, in this way, to some skaa, and this, as well as the revulsion caused by the death of Kelsier on their behalf, leads the skaa to overthrow the nobility. Eventually, they begin a religion, with Kelsier as its deity.

Thus, Kelsier sacrifices himself for others, and, in a sense, rises from the dead, which, as I see it, makes him a Christ-figure.

May I be clear -- this is not exactly a Christian book. It does reflect Christ, although fictionally and not completely.

Vin and Sazed are able to kill the Lord Ruler at the end. I expect to read the remaining books in this series, and will be interested to see where Sanderson takes Vin and the other characters. I'd also like to know why there are mists, why ash is continually falling from the sky, why Vin has difficulty imagining green-colored vegetation, and, as a biologist, how the people (and animals) get food, if there aren't any green-colored plants.

Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 234

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science:
In case you didn't know it, many human DNA sequences are patented, in spite of the fact that we've all got them, or have something much like the patented sequence. Wired says that a federal judge has allowed a lawsuit that would undo such patents to proceed.

Olivia Judson doesn't think that science is, or should be taught as, facts, facts, facts. There's a lot we don't know, and we know less all the time.

The BBC has posted a video of the courtship dance of the weedy sea dragon, a type of seahorse.

(more or less) Wired has posted some fantastic photos of islands, taken from satellites.


Image source (public domain)

Heartbeat at 18 days?

While on a recent trip to Florida, I saw a number of billboards, saying that an embryo had a heart at 18 days of age.

I could not find this ad campaign on the Internet, but I found this web page, which makes this claim, among others: "18 days after conception the baby's heart is beating." The organization's web site indicates that this is an Irish pro-life organization.
Both the web site and the billboard campaign show a picture of a fetus, not an embryo. (The human becomes a fetus at eight weeks of pregnancy.)So does the heart really beat at 18 days?

The Wikipedia article on prenatal development is a good source for answering this question. It's a little confusing, because it gives both the age of the embryo/fetus and the gestational age, which is the time since the last menstruation.


According to that source, "Primitive heart tube is forming. Vasculature begins to develop in embryonic disc." at 20 days after fertilization, not 18 days. (Vasculature means the blood vessels needed for circulation.) The heart begins to beat between 22 and 28 days after fertilization. However, the first sign of a working circulatory system is later than that, at between days 29 and 35.

The billboard campaign, and the web page, seem to be wrong. The heart doesn't begin to beat until later than 18 days after fertilization, and it doesn't really start to function until even later than that. Besides, the graphic in both the web page and the billboard show a fetus, probably at least 12 weeks old, not an embryo at all.

There are reasons for arguing that unborn human entities should be protected, and I won't consider the validity of those reasons here. But, even if those reasons were completely uncontroversial arguments, that would not excuse the use of distortion in support of protecting embryos or fetuses, and that, unfortunately, is what the pro-life community has done, in the two instances described, and, I'm afraid, in other cases.

Thanks for reading.

Did it rain before the Flood?

These passages are the first mention of rain in the Bible:
Genesis 2:5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. (All Bible quotation from the ESV, unless otherwise noted. ESV copyright and usage information, see here.)

Genesis 7:4 For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.”

11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights.

Is, then, Genesis 7:12 the first rainfall in the history of the earth? The passage doesn't say that. However, it may imply that. And, of course, Genesis 2:5 says that it hadn't rained yet, at the time Genesis 2 is describing. But I don't think that the rain that fell in Noah's time was the first rain ever, and, as you'll see if you read on, I'm in good company.

First, a little bit on the words used. The word for rain, in Hebrew, in Genesis 2:5 (see here) is a verb. It is used at least as often when God sends something besides water from the sky, as it is for what we commonly think of as rain. The same word is used in Genesis 7:4. Genesis 7:12 uses a different word, a noun. (See here.)

Now, to public domain commentaries, written by renowned Bible scholars. John Calvin does not consider the question of whether the rain that fell in Genesis 7 was the first rain that ever fell. Neither does John Wesley, not Matthew Henry, nor the commentary of Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown.

Matthew Henry does not consider the question of whether there had been a rainbow before the flood. (Genesis 9) Wesley believes that there had been: "The rainbow, 'tis likely was seen in the clouds before, but was never a seal of the covenant 'till now." The Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown commentary seems to agree with Wesley: "This common and familiar phenomenon being made the pledge of peace, its appearance when showers began to fall would be welcomed with the liveliest feelings of joy." Calvin not only agrees, but ridicules those who have claimed that there were no rainbows before the Flood: "From these words certain eminent theologians have been induced to deny, that there was any rainbow before the deluge: which is frivolous. For the words of Moses do not signify, that a bow was then formed which did not previously exist; but that a mark was engraven upon it, which should give a sign of the divine favor towards men."

Thus, even though these four commentaries are silent on the direct question of whether the rain that came in the time of Noah was the first rain, three of them answer it indirectly -- the rainbow mentioned as the pledge of God's promise not to destroy the earth by a flood was not the first rainbow, in their opinion. And, since a rainbow requires rain, a belief that it had rained before the time of Noah is at least respectable.

See here for a previous post on the title question, dealing with different evidence. See here for consideration of other questions related to the flood.

Thanks for reading!

Jesus Lives, and So Shall I

Jesus lives, and so shall I

Jesus lives, and so shall I.
Death! thy sting is gone forever:
He, who deigned for me to die,
Lives, the bands of death to sever.
He shall raise me with the just;
Jesus is my Hope and Trust.

Jesus lives and reigns supreme;
And, his kingdom still remaining
I shall also be with Him,
Ever living, ever reigning.
God has promised; be it must:
Jesus is my Hope and Trust.

Jesus lives, and God extends
Grace to each returning sinner;
Rebels He receives as friends,
And exalts to highest honor.
God is True as He is Just;
Jesus is my Hope and Trust.

Jesus lives, and by His grace,
Victory o'er my passions giving,
I will cleanse my heart and ways,
Ever to His glory living.
The weak He raises from the dust;
Jesus is my Hope and Trust.

Jesus lives, and I am sure
Naught shall e'er from Jesus sever,
Satan's wiles, and Satan's power,
Pain or pleasure-- ye shall never!
Christian armor cannot rust;
Jesus is my Hope and Trust.

Jesus lives, and death is now
But my entrance into glory
Courage! then, my soul, for thou
Hast a crown of life before thee;
Thou shalt find thy hopes were just--
Jesus is the Christian's Trust.

Christian F. Gellert, 1715-1769, translated by Philip Schaff, 1819-1893, public domain.

God does not like human death

The Bible makes it pretty clear that God is not pleased by death.

As Ezekiel 18:23 puts it: Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? (All scripture quotations from the ESV. See here for copyright policy.) See also Ezekiel 18:32 and 33:11. God is not pleased even at the death of wicked, sinful people, even though He ordered the death of such people over and over again in the Old Testament.

The shortest verse in the Bible has a point. Jesus was grieved at the death of his friend, Lazarus, even though He knew that He was about to raise him back from the dead.

Death is described as the last enemy, in 1 Corinthians 15:26.

Revelation 21:4 tells us that death will be gone from the final home of the redeemed.

So God does not like human death, and does not merely say this, but sent Himself to experience it and defeat it.

What about animal death?

Humans and animals are not the same, although humans may be said to be a kind of animal. Genesis 1, especially verse 26-28, describes our creation in more detail than for the animals, and it is possible that it is also describing a different kind of creation. The passage indicates that God treats us differently than He does the animals -- we are in God's image, and we have dominion over the rest of creation. Not in Genesis, but most important, God came to earth in human form. So we aren't the same as animals.

I'm not sure that God is so grieved about the death of animals. (Or plants, although I won't say more about that.) Besides the different status of humans, in relation to animals, why do I say this? For several reasons:
1) God prepared garments made from animal skins for Adam and Eve when they realized that they were naked. Presumably, God Himself killed some animals in the process of preparing the skins.
2) God was pleased by the animal sacrifice made by Abel, and throughout the Old Testament, accepted, and required, animal sacrifice.
3) The Flood apparently destroyed all but a few of the animals. It was not the animals that were being punished for sin, it was the wicked people of Noah's day. They had done something to deserve their punishment, but the animals hadn't. But almost all of the animals are said to have perished. God's concern seemed to be for the preservation of types of animals, not for their individual lives. (See here for some of my questions about the flood.)
4) God has allowed, or ordered, predation, which means that many kinds of animals are going to die, to feed others.
5) Jesus tells us that God knows about each sparrow that falls (Luke 12:6-7). It doesn't say that He does anything to prevent them from falling.
6) The chosen people ate meat. This practice was apparently continued through the time of Christ, and, according to Luke 22:7-13, Jesus, Himself, ate part of the Passover Lamb.
7) The disciples fished, and Jesus helped them do it. In one case, He ordered that Peter catch a fish, and may have even fished, Himself, after He was resurrected. (See John 21:6, John 21:9, Matthew 17:27, Luke 5:4 and Luke 24:36-43)
8) God has created, or allowed, the process of natural selection, whereby, say, an oyster may lay millions of eggs, but, on the average, only one of these will reach maturity. The others die, because they are not as fit, or because of various chance processes that eliminate them.

It seems difficult to argue that God is greatly grieved, or grieved at all, by the death of non-human creatures.

Natural selection is a process associated not only with the survival of the fittest, but with the non-survival of those who are not fit. Although much of this non-survival is simply a failure to produce offspring, some of it is individual non-survival -- death. At least after the Fall, natural selection has undoubtedly operated. It is possible to doubt that it operated before the Fall -- there are many who do doubt this, but it is also possible that natural selection, a messy process, resulting in vast amounts of non-survival, is a process that God has used, even before the Fall, to shape and develop non-human life. After all, He used a messy process, resulting, or at least allowing, vast amounts of human death, to bring mankind along until the covenant with Abraham, the Mosaic Law, and then more mess, up until the establishment of Himself as savior, redeemer, and Lord, by Christ.

I have previously posted about the question of death before the Fall of humans, here, here and here.

Thanks for reading.

Connie Willis on how we feel about death

“Death is a subject Americans don’t like to talk about. I guess nobody does, but our American culture is especially in denial about death. If they do want to think about it, it’s in non-threatening Hallmark terms. Polls show these people don’t go to church, they don’t have any organized religion, but they all somehow think they’re going to heaven. They are in love with happy thoughts about death and at the same time they’re very frightened about death. You can see it in the culture everywhere - the way people jog frenetically, not to feel better or to be healthy but to be immortal. I’ve been on some convention panels where the overriding topic has been immortality: ‘The last person to die has already been born and the next generation will live forever.’ This is actually religion masquerading as science, and it speaks to how terrified people are about death.”

Connie Willis, interviewed by Locus, January, 2003. Willis is an award-winning author of fantastic literature.

Sunspots 233

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science:
Wired reports on some of the best photomicrography, including images. They are fabulous!

Slate on whether we can predict criminal behavior from what a face looks like .

Sports:
(or Science) Wired reports that the way people attempting to kick field goals perceive the size and position of the goalposts is actually changed if they don't succeed.

Computing:
ZDNet has an article on how to take photos of fall foliage.

Christianity:
A recent survey indicates that perhaps as many as "46% of evangelical theologians . . . accept that God created through the process of evolution."

He Lives on why apologetics is important. He's right.


Image source (public domain)

Life is short

James 4:14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. (ESV. See here for ESV copyright information.)

My mother lived over 99 years. But that was a short time, measured against eternity.

I have mused a lot on many things in the past couple of weeks. One of those things is the passing of time. One of our nephews, and his wife, put together a slide show, which was available to visitors at the funeral home. It's a good job, and I'm glad they put it together. But it shows that time passes, and we can't bring it back. There were photos of ancestors of mine that died before I was born. I never knew them.

One photo that particularly interested me was one of the brother next in age to me, with me, messing around on the rocks in a stream near where we once lived. I don't remember the occasion, and I doubt if my brother does, either. But it looks like we were having fun, and I'm sure that we were, some six plus decades ago. I can't go back there. I'm not sure I can find the place, I can't play on rocks quite as well as I used to, and if I do find it and go back, most likely my brother won't be there with me. That experience is gone.

There was a lot of stuff in the old house. We took some of it, and others did, too. That's fine. Some of these things are nice to have, some may be valuable, some bring back memories. But none of that really matters. Sooner or later it will all be forgotten and worthless, or just lost. Things don't last, any more than experiences do. A lot of that stuff is gone, and the rest will be, eventually.

I was happy that a friend of ours came to the funeral. I hadn't seen her for fifteen years, since my Dad's funeral. Being able to talk with her reminded me that relationships are very important, more important than experiences. I should have gone to the funerals of her parents. My relationships with my extended family, with friends, and, above all, with Christ, are the only things that really matter.

Thanks for reading.

Is Christ in bodily form now?

Many people think that, once he was incarnated as a human, Christ has remained in a human body, even after His resurrection. I didn't realize, until recently, that there was scripture to back that up. Here it is:

Colossians 2:9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, (ESV).

I checked several other translations, and they agree. This verse, of course, was written by Paul, quite a few years after Christ's death and resurrection. It's always dangerous to base a doctrine on a single verse, but this one is at least evidence for the belief that Christ continues to have a physical body.

Thanks for reading.

Fantasy and reality: George MacDonald's views

Some thinkers would feel sorely hampered if at liberty to use no forms but such as existed in nature, or to invent nothing save in accordance with the laws of the world of the senses; but it must not therefore be imagined that they desire escape from the region of law. Nothing lawless can show the least reason why it should exist, or could at best have more than an appearance of life.

The natural world has its laws, and no man must interfere with them in the way of presentment any more than in the way of use; but they themselves may suggest laws of other kinds, and man may, if he pleases, invent a little world of his own, with its own laws; for there is that in him which delights in calling up new forms--which is the nearest, perhaps, he can come to creation. When such forms are new embodiments of old truths, we call them products of the Imagination; when they are mere inventions, however lovely, I should call them the work of the Fancy: in either case, Law has been diligently at work.

In the moral world it is different: there a man may clothe in new forms, and for this employ his imagination freely, but he must invent nothing. He may not, for any purpose, turn its laws upside down. He must not meddle with the relations of live souls. The laws of the spirit of man must hold, alike in this world and in any world he may invent. It were no offence to suppose a world in which everything repelled instead of attracted the things around it; it would be wicked to write a tale representing a man it called good as always doing bad things, or a man it called bad as always doing good things: the notion itself is absolutely lawless. In physical things a man may invent; in moral things he must obey--and take their laws with him into his invented world as well.

- excerpted from George MacDonald, "The Fantastic Imagination," in A Dish of Orts, 1893, Public Domain.

Helen Mathews LaBar, 1910-2009

Helen LaBar was born in Fulton County, Indiana, May 4, 1910, to the late Arthur and Minnie Mathews, and passed away on October 26, 2009. The family moved to near Union City, Michigan, in 1914. She graduated from high school in Union City, and went to Albion and Ypsilanti Colleges, obtaining a teaching certificate in mathematics. She taught briefly in the Thumb area of Michigan, and also at Lincoln and Fox schools, one-room schools outside Union City, for five years. She returned to college, and graduated from Anderson University in Anderson, Indiana, in 1931. While there, she met William LaBar, from Huntington, Indiana. They were married June 10, 1937, and immediately moved to Sawyer County, Wisconsin. They soon occupied a log cabin, built by her husband, near the Yarnell community, and began to raise their family. They moved to a 200-acre farm, which they purchased, near Edgewater, in 1945.
In 1952, Mrs. LaBar started teaching high school English and Math at Birchwood, Wisconsin. She also served as interim principal. After her retirement in 1970, she became a volunteer in nursing homes, which she continued to do into her 90s, leading Bible studies and hymn-singing, first in Wisconsin, and, later, in Michigan. In 1984, she and her husband moved to Union City. Her husband preceded her in death on June 26, 1991.
The LaBars were active in the founding of Wayside Chapel church, near Edgewater, Wisconsin, which was on land they donated, and they continued to be active in that congregation until they moved to Michigan. She was active in the Union City United Methodist Church, and was also involved in home Bible studies in the area, most of them in her home. She also attended Union City Wesleyan church, and Coldwater Nazarene church. She was known as loving the Bible, reading it daily, and memorizing much of it, including the entire book of Mark.
Mrs. LaBar became known as the creator of rugs, woven from used woolen fabric, using an interweaved braiding technique that she originated. She made several hundred such rugs, gave demonstrations, and taught many others this skill.
She loved music, and was pianist for Wayside Chapel church for many years, and also occasionally played for the Methodist Church in Union City, in addition to playing in nursing homes. She also loved making and connecting with friends, her family, reading, crossword puzzles, Scrabble*, and flower gardening.
Survivors include four sons, Martin and Faye of Liberty, South Carolina, Michigan, Montana, and Tennessee. There are ten grandchildren, who live in Alaska, California, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania, and nine great-grandchildren, who range in age from five years old to two weeks old today.

*She beat me more than I beat her, when I last played her a few months ago.

Photo courtesy of Pauline LaBar-Shelton