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Archive for June, 2010

Animals Are Often More Reliable Than People – and Are One Way that God Shows His Hand

My Father's God

This is a letter my father wrote to my mother on 2-6-67. He was in his early 40's and knew that he would not live much longer. The essay is address “To Mommie” and signed “John Winston Simpson Love Daddy”. I have read
 the letter often and feel that it is worth sharing.

To Mommie,

God, to me, is a feeling that always has and always will exist. I see absolutely no way of eliminating the existence of such a feeling, sensation, being or whatever word can be contrived for the idea of this “infinitesimal”. Because of my extreme ignorance, I call this existor “He”.

During the early part of my life I followed the prayer pattern as I had been taught. I'd start a prayer with flowery dears and thees and thous – Then I'd get around to the real business at hand – the gift or gift happening that I wanted. Of course I started, “If this be thy will, dear Lord”. I didn't dare leave that out. I then followed with my part of the deal – in effect, what would I do in return to pay for his product. Then I'd finish with a very humble AMEN – what-ever that means.

I soon found that he wasn't much of a businessman. I gave him so many deals and side deals that he just couldn't afford not to negotiate. The goodness I was to be was absolutely unbelievable! I even proved my great faith by crawling through a thick wooded area infested with poisonous snakes. I swore not even to defend myself – and I didn't. I saw a Copperhead Snake and crawled right by him. He just looked at me and crawled away.

Since God spoke to Moses and the other guys, I naturally thought I'd get some sort of message too.

Finally, completely tired, I rested on a rock. You know, I did get a message. A little squirrel came over and sat with me. Since God lost his tongue, I talked to the little squirrel. This gentle little animal did not leave me then – nor has he ever since.

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Easy Mexican lasagne is a Mexican-inspired dish that contains strips of tortilla, chicken, black beans, enchilada sauce and cream of mushroom, as well as cream of chicken soup. It is a recipe that was featured in the
 Summer 2007 Southern Living magasine from Wal-Mart. The dish contains many flavour combinations that help to provide a spicy taste.

My husband made the Easy Mexican lasagne for dinner this evening using 3 chicken breasts that he had barbecued last night in preparation for today's meal. The recipe calls for three cups of chicken, but you can adjust this according to the size you need. If you use 3 cups of chicken, then this will make 8 servings. Pre-cooking the chicken in advance can really speed up the cooking process, so I would recommend doing this if you do not have much time on your hands. The recipe said that it would take 20 minutes to prepare the Easy Mexican lasagne, but it took longer.

He started off by stirring together the chopped up chicken, can of black beans, can of tomatoes, garlic powder, cumin and black pepper in a large bowl. He then added a can of reduced-fat cream of mushroom and reduced-fat cream of chicken soup to the mixture, followed by the enchilada sauce. This makes the basis for the lasagne.

After the ingredients had been mixed together, 1/3 of the mixture was transferred into a 13-x 9-inch baking dish that had been coated with non-stick cooking spray. This was topped with 1/3 of the tortilla strips and then more of the mixture was added. The tortilla strips that were used were a spicy red chilli and a black bean kind of tortilla, rather than the plain flour tortillas. This procedure was repeated until the mixture had been used up. The tortilla strips were placed on top of the dish. Mexican 4 cheese blend was used in each layer as a substitute for the Monterey cheese that was called for.