Fish tombstone

Too much pictureless text recently.
Not enough randomness.

Did some (very rare) gardening on the holiday Monday. Uncovered my goldfish's tombstone.

Looks like tippex is a pretty long-lasting medium - monumental sculptors take note.

So close :-D

I asked the children: How many years do you think Jeremiah said the people would be in exile for?
Child: 10
Me: More than that...
Child: 20
Me: More than that...
Child: 30...
Me: More than that...
Child: 40 
Me: More than that...
Child: 50 
Me: More than that...
Child: 60 
Me: More than that...
Child: 75

Freewill AND predestination

The Jews were sent back from exile, to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, because this was common Persian political policy - to rebuild temples in conquered lands, in order to curry favour with their many gods.

The Jews were sent back from exile, to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, because the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah.

Both of these statements are equally true.

Pinterest - all is forgiven!

After my moaning yesterday, it turns out there is a new (very un-obvious) feature on Pinterest.

Near the top right of the page is a little icon that looks like two people.

Click that, and you only see pins from people you actually follow.

This seems like the ideal solution - people can pick what they prefer.

(Would be even better if this kind of personalisation was at the permissions level - so you didn't need to give companies the permission to profile you, and then choose to not use it - still, it's much better than most companies, who force you to 'benefit' from their profiling whether you like it or not, in the name of personalisation.)

'Necessary'

One of the criteria under the new Data Protection regulations, for recording someone's data, is that it's 'necessary'.

Here's an excerpt from Pinterest's new privacy policy - it is mandatory to agree to this:

We use the information we collect to provide the Service to you. We commit to showing you content that’s relevant, interesting and personal to you. In order to do that, it’s necessary for us to use your information to: [...]

• Recommend Pins, boards, topics or categories you might like based on your activity on Pinterest. For example, if we see you’re into cooking, we may suggest food-related Pins, boards or people that we think you might like or show you food-related ads.

[...] It is also fundamental to the nature of the Service we provide. In short, it’s necessary for us to do these things in order to make the Service relevant, interesting and personal to you like we promised, and it’s in both of our interests for us to do that.

This is not 'necessary' - if you're trying to make it 'relevant', 'interesting' and 'personal' you should respect the wishes of the many users who can find relevant interesting personal stuff themselves and do not want you to recommend stuff to them (and have told you so, repeatedly).

Grrrrrrrr...

Btw, here's my Privacy Policy. I suspect it doesn't dot all the legal i's, and cross all the lagal t's. What it does do, however, is follow the spirit of the law - that people's info should not be used for things they do not want.

[Edit - Pinterest is not as bad as I thought - here's how.]

Wedding banquet

And yet another old one I've finished off - the parable of the wedding banquet from Matthew.

Pure coincidence that the prince and princess look very like another royal wedding that happened today ;-)

Fairy development

Yes, I know it's not GDPR, but I've finally solved the main problem with these fairy dolls, that I have been puzzling over for ages: how to add features.

This is also a much easier way to do the hair.

I just used old ink pads left over from the church library - when I do it for real I'll need to get new ones and more hair colours.

Proverbs in the internet age

The internet would be a very different place if we paid attention to God's wisdom:

A person who is passing by and meddles in a quarrel that’s not his
is like one who grabs a dog by the ears [...] 
 

Without wood, fire goes out;
without a gossip, conflict dies down. 

As charcoal for embers and wood for fire,
so is a quarrelsome person for kindling strife. 

A gossip’s words are like choice food
that goes down to one’s innermost being.

Proverbs 26 v17, 20-22

And now for something completely different :-)

Fairy dressing doll prototype.

I would much rather be working on this than faffing about with GDPR.

Jesus rules

We learned about Belshazzar's feast on Sunday, and made this:

Click to see big.

The photos are of our own leaders, leaders that are often in the news, and a variety of kings - mostly absolute monarchs - which I found on Wikipedia.

Interestingly, none of the children knew who Nicola Sturgeon was*.
I think they all knew who Donald Trump was :-D

---

*First Minister of Scotland, if there are any international readers.

Rap

Rap is weird. It's poetry. But instead of speaking it with expression, you chant it in a monotone, thus making it hard to understand and obscuring the meaning.

Or am I missing something?

Fruit II

Last week I posted about my problems illustrating the parable of the sower.

We knew we wanted several different scenarios in the picture. But it was so tiny.

It took a looooong time to figure out how to do this - but then it suddenly came to me and was fairly easy to draw.

Here's the result:

Apologies for paranoid watermarking :-)
I like to be very careful when posting artwork I have done for other publishers.

Queen

I was Googling for pictures of the queen (and other country leaders).

This is not what I meant!

Fruit

Doing some illustrations for the parable of the sower. The final application picture is really difficult:

But the one sown on the good ground—this is one who hears and understands the word, who does produce fruit and yields: some a hundred, some sixty, some thirty times what was sown.

Matthew 13v23

And those like seed sown on good ground hear the word, welcome it, and produce fruit thirty, sixty, and a hundred times what was sown.

Matthew 4v20

But the seed in the good ground—these are the ones who, having heard the word with an honest and good heart, hold on to it and by enduring, produce fruit.

Luke8v15

'Produce fruit' is just a tad abstract... So I looked up lots of references:

the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control

Galatians 5v22-23

you’ll recognize them by their fruit [...] the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

Matthew 7v20-31

a tree is known by its fruit [...] by your words you will be acquitted

Matthew 12v33,37

produce fruit consistent with repentance [...]
“What then should we do?” the crowds were asking him.
He replied to them, “The one who has two shirts must share with someone who has none, and the one who has food must do the same.” [...] “Don’t collect any more than what you have been authorized.” [...] “Don’t take money from anyone by force or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”

Luke 3v8-14

the fruit of the light consists of all goodness, righteousness, and truth—testing what is pleasing to the Lord.

Ephesians 5v9-10

the fruit of righteousness

Philippians 1v11

Now if I live on in the flesh, this means fruitful work for me [...] I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith

Phillipians 1v22,25

bearing fruit in every good work

Colossians 1v10

the peaceful fruit of righteousness

Hebrews 12v11

let us continually offer up to God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name

Hebrews 13v15

So now I just need to express all that in a 7.5x9.6cm rectangle, relevant to children, matching the other illustrations, and clear from a distance. Hmmm...

[Edit - here's the result]

Daniel 3

Daniel chapter 3 has so much verbatim repetition it almost reads like a picture book:

Then the herald loudly proclaimed, ‘Nations and peoples of every language, this is what you are commanded to do: as soon as you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music, you must fall down and worship the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace.’

Therefore, as soon as they heard the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp and all kinds of music, all the nations and peoples of every language fell down and worshipped the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

At this time some astrologers came forward and denounced the Jews. They said to King Nebuchadnezzar, ‘May the king live for ever! Your Majesty has issued a decree that everyone who hears the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music must fall down and worship the image of gold, and that whoever does not fall down and worship will be thrown into a blazing furnace.