Last Meals

M likes to watch food videos on YouTube, similar to “Cooking With Lang”. Last night we stumbled across a show called “Last Meals”, where the guest describes what he’d like his last meal to be. Then that meal is prepared for the guest and host to eat.  We watched Tony Hawk describe his last meal: dishes that brought back meaning and memories from various times in his life. Hawk selected rolled tacos and BBQ brisket.

For my last meal I’d like Ceil’s homemade pizza, Dreamland BBQ / Brunswick stew / potato salad / chocolate pudding (since we’ve eaten so much of it at work over the years), a Fuddrucker’s hamburger (the best burger I’ve ever eaten), Ceil’s homemade lasagna, and for dessert Ceil’s apple pie and Baskin Robbins pralines & cream ice cream.

Speaking of meals, on Tuesday M returned from work with a to go container of delicious chicken fingers that had been part of his restaurant’s “family meal” that he and his co-workers share each day before the restaurant opens. Each day a couple of employees take turns preparing a different dish to share.

C cooked BBQ chicken wings, mashed potatoes, and tasteless kale (which I skipped). And since I’m not a fan of chicken with bones, I ate M’s chicken fingers instead.

Recently I may have mentioned the 20 minute wait I endured picking up my Wendys order on June 6. Later I lodged a complaint on the Wendys website. Yesterday I received a $10 voucher. So now I have that to use, plus enough points in the app for another deluxe burger. Also need to cash deals for a free Chickfila milkshake, two $1 deals at Burger King, and a free McDonalds hamburger.

Denison on the LA riots: exercising our First Amendment right to free speech is a basic American value. We value the right to protest peacefully against our leaders and others with whom we disagree. On the other hand, demonstrations that degenerate into violence and break the law obviously have no place in a civil society. LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell drew a distinction between protesters and the masked “anarchists” he said were seeking to exploit the state of unrest to vandalize property and attack police. “When I look at the people who are doing the violence, that’s not the people we see here in the day who are out there legitimately exercising their First Amendment rights,” he said. “These are people who are all hooded up—they’ve got a hoodie on, they’ve got face masks on. They’re people that do this all the time. They get away with whatever they can. Go out there from one civil unrest situation to another, using the same or similar tactics. They are connected.”

Satan is “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). As “the deceiver of the whole world” (Rev 12:9), “Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Cor 11:14) so as to “steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10). Satan is able to convince Hamas that slaughtering Jewish civilians is a defense of Islam required by Allah. Satan deludes lawbreaking protesters into believing that their “cause” is worth what it costs the rest of society. I confess that I struggle with these things. Remember: “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph 6:12),