Spent another day at home doing various things I need to get done before school starts again in a few days. Went on a short walk with my family this afternoon, and after returning, was informed by my brother that there was a large numbers of turkeys outside. I switched to a telephoto and went outside.

The turkeys seem like they're used to humans and cars. They freely walk about on the road and show no indication of fear or panic when cars (even large trucks) approach. If it weren't for kind hearts and attentive drivers, there would be a lot of dead turkeys in the street.

When I went out to get a closer look at them, three of the bigger turkeys started walking across the street at me. You wouldn't think it, but big birds are pretty intimidating when they're up close. I fled.

A little while later a neighbor went up to the turkeys and took photographs. The same turkeys started walking towards him, and followed him all the way back to his front door. He had to shoo them away with kicking gestures and by throwing branches at them.

In the evening, my brother tried to make an omelet in preparation for a home-ec class tomorrow. Later on, he melted a few junior mints just for fun, and tried to fashion it into shapes.

Before he went to bed, we came up with a new game involving throwing a football and punishments for dropping the ball or throwing it poorly. The punishments involved eating or drinking something nasty we found in the kitchen. The amounts were quite small (a teaspoon), but some of the things were quite nasty. The worst was probably the "juice" we found in a bottle of shrimp. Oh my...

Our facial expressions were pretty hilarious, but sadly we didn't get any pictures of videos of them.

Bill Clinton came to speak at the Pavillion on UC Davis today. It was free admission, but I couldn't get in touch with Ross to go, and I didn't feel like spending an hour or two by myself just to get pictures of Bill Clinton.

Devotion time notes:

Romans 12

As an act of spiritual worship, we are called to offer our bodies as living sacrifices to God. In doing this, we must be without blemish in order to be holy and pleasing to him, willing to be entirely consumed for his glory and purposes.

As Christians, we must not conform to the patterns of the fallen world and sinful cultures we live in. Instead, we must be transformed, not in a physical sense, but by the renewing of our minds. While we were previously drunk with sin, we must now be sober in our views of God, sin, salvation, and reality.

Here, we are also cautioned against pride, a sin that everyone commits that also blinds us to itself. We must think of ourselves in accordance with the amount of faith God has given to us. If we try and seek after things that exceed our measure of faith, then we are not seeking those things to serve God but rather to serve ourselves, in order that we might gain head knowledge and respect among men, but not a deeper relationship with or understand of God. What we do for God and what we desire to learn must be matched by the level of faith we possess.

We are all different parts of one body, and have obligations to one another. When we do not govern our own lives and bodies well, we do not only affect ourselves but the body of Christ as well. In addition, we must all serve with our gifts in proportion to the amount of faith we have. If we do anything in excess, we possess an outward appearance of godliness, but we are only serving ourselves.

Insincere love is not love. We cannot love one another simply with acts but must involve the heart. We cannot simply love our neighbors by treating them nicely and speaking kindly to them, but despise them in our hearts. Instead, we must love them wholeheartedly. This is the type of love with which we must all be devoted to one another.

If we hate what is evil and cling to what is good, we are being sincere in our love for God, for these are not things that can be done with outward actions and appearances but can only be accomplished with a renewed heart. We cannot love God simply by what we do.

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.
Romans 12:!2

The latter half of this chapter deals with how we can demonstrate genuine love towards one another, and the outward actions that this love must entail. We must honor our Christian brothers and sisters more than ourselves. We must practice hospitality and help one another through difficulties and needs. Even when dealing with non-Christians, we must not retaliate in the face of persecution, but continue to demonstrate the love of Christ.

Pride goes against love, so we must flee from it and take on humility when dealing with others.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Romans 12:21