The Manslator

For those husbands who need just a little help fulfilling the 1 Peter 3.7 mandate.  

Or...you could ask for help from God and others in the church, search the scriptures, and work on communicating with your wife...

One or the other.

the Cosmati pavement at Westminster Abbey

Stratford Caldecott, on his blog, posted the following picture and commentary about the Cosmati Pavement in Westminster Abbey:





"The pavement was laid down in 1268 by order of King Henry III who had started re-building St Edward the Confessor’s Abbey in the new Gothic style in 1245. The workmen came from Rome, with a man called Odoricus at their head. It is 24 feet 10 inches (7 metres 58 centimetres) square, with dimensions calculated in Roman feet, and consists of geometrical patterns built up from pieces of stone of different colours and sizes cut into a variety of shapes: triangles, squares, circles, rectangles and many others. The basic layout is a four-fold symmetry, but in detail the variations are endless. No two roundels are the same. Of the four "orbiting" roundels one is circular, one hexagonal, one heptagonal and one octagonal. The infill patterns are all different.

The inscriptions that accompanied the design, now damaged, read in part: "If the reader wisely considers all that is laid down, he will find here the end of the primum mobile" and "The spherical globe here shows the archetypal macrocosm."

The round stone at the centre contains colours representing the four elements. It is on this stone that every king or queen of England was crowned."


He also had this link to a BBC documentary that goes into much more detail about the pavement and its interesting history.


Citation:
<http://beauty-in-education.blogspot.com/2010/10/pope-and-pavement.html>. Accessed 23 February 2011

May "the Force" be also with you...

I know EXACTLY how this kid feels.  When I was young, I used to (really) try and shoot spider webs out of my wrists.  A lot.  Never worked.

Just remember

Citation:
<http://www.despair.com>

Are you idle?

My friend Adam once told me a quote he had heard, that profoundly influenced my thinking about what I am about in life: 

"Failure is succeeding at something that is not important."  

Samuel Johnson, (my bathroom reading...I know: TMI) wrote an essay on the topic of "idleness" which rang some of the same bells.  Those of you who know me to be always planning and preparing will know which paragraph made me wince a little.

"There are some that profess idleness in its full dignity who call themselves the 'idle', as Busiris in the play 'calls himself the Proud'; who boast that they do nothing, and thank their stars that they have nothing to do; who sleep every night till they can sleep no longer, and rise only that exercise may enable them to sleep again; who prolong the reign of darkness by double curtains, and never see the sun but to 'tell him how they hate his beams' , whose whole labour is to vary the postures of indulgence, and whose day differs from their night but as a couch or chair differs from a bed. 

"But idleness predominates in many lives where it is not suspected, for being a vice which terminates in itself, it may be enjoyed without injury to others, and is therefore not watched like fraud, which endangers  property, or like pride which naturally seeks it gratification in another's inferiority. Idleness is a silent and peaceful quality, that neither raises envy by ostentation, nor hatred by opposition; and therefore nobody is busy to censure or detect it. 

"As pride sometimes is hid under humility, idleness is often covered by turbulence and hurry.  He that neglects his known duty and real employment, naturally endeavours to crowd his mind with something that may bar out the remembrance of his own folly, and does anything but what he ought to do with eager diligence, that he may keep himself in his own favour. 

"Some are always in a state of preparation, occupied in previous measures, forming plans, accumulating materials, and providing for the main affair.  These are certainly under the secret power of idleness.  Nothing is to be expected from the workman whose tools are for ever to be sought.  I was once told by a great master, that no man ever excelled in painting, who was eminently curious about pencils and colours. 

"There are others to whom idleness dictates another expedient, by which life may be passed unprofitably away without the tediousness of many vacant hours.  The art is, to fill the day with petty business, to have always something in hand which may raise curiosity, but not solicitude, and keep the mind in a state of action, but not of labour."

Citation,
Johnson, Samuel. Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings. "The Idler, No. 31, Saturday 18 November 1758." Penguin Books, England. 1968. Pages 215-216.

My Childhood Dreams - The Reality

Look at that picture.  A little delightful family of mer-people.  I vibrated with excitement as I dropped the envelope in the mailbox with the requisite $1.25 check made out to that questionable "Transcience Corporation Dept."  One check made out by one boy who agreed that "IT SOUNDS GREAT".

Poor miserable sap.

I mean, look at the inset picture of the 1950s era family all gathered around watching these agreeable, anxious-to-please, trainable, happy, attention-loving pack of friendly command-obeying underwater fantasy elves!  I could NOT WAIT for my family to watch in awe as my new troupe of mini-people obeyed my every command happily:

"Swim figure-eights"

"Play dead"

"Roll over" 

"Dance the cha-cha"

My family would be so amazed, they might even make my big brother do all of the kitchen cleaning for a month!  I might get some kind of award for having the most amazing pets OF ALL TIMEl!

Ohboyohboyohboy...

Instead:



!!!

Were they trainable?  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

No.

They were not trainable.  Did they follow lights around their aquarium?  No.  They did not follow lights around their bowl.  Were they anxious to please me, their Lord and Master?  They did not even know I existed!

LIES!  ALL LIES!

But still, they were kind of neat, and they had a...unique smell.

Even now, even now that the price has jumped from under $2 to over $20.00, I am still tempted to believe the advertisements.  Maybe I just didn't try hard enough back then as a puny little kid.  Maybe now my wonderful little colony would acknowledge my existence.  Wouldn't that be amazing?  My wife and children could all stand and watch as I commanded them to my hearts content:

"Build a small house with 3 rooms out of the tiny pebbles I am going to put in your bowl"

"Teach me your language.  I come in peace" 

"Salute me when I talk to you, mer-person!"

Hmmm...just maybe...

Citation:
<http://www.sea-monkey.com/>. Accessed 21 February 2011.

Cook's Illustrated

Few and far between are the cooking magazines that make you more thoughtful because of the well-crafted and point-well-taken editorials of the manager of the magazine.


But such are the thoughts of Christopher Kimball, the editor of "Cook's Illustrated" magazine.  Within the first page or two of each cooking magazine, Mr. Kimball writes out his thoughts on cooking, agriculture, thinking, community.  It is like reading Wendell Berry, if he had become a cook instead of a farmer.


Here is a taste (sorry) of Christopher Kimball's writing from the Editorial on page 1 of the Sept/Oct 1998 edition of Cook's Illustrated.

"Two years ago, my wife Adrienne bought me an unusual birthday present: a beehive filled with 30,000 bees plus a subscription to Bee Culture magazine.  Since then, I hav eadded six additional hives, harvested two crops of honey, endured a few minor stings, and become an avid reader of this odd low-budget publication.  Of most interest to me was a recent article containing a survey of American eating habits.  It contained the following facts:

• The ideal food preparation time is 15 minutes.  It is estimated that it will be five minutes by 2030.

• Only one-third of women over the age of 20 bake for fun, even once per year.

• Seventy-five percent of American do not know at 4 p.m. what they'll eat for dinner.

• Three-quarters of American children do not know how to cook.

• In 1995, restaurant sales were greater than supermarket sales.

• The sources of meals consumed t home are: fast food 41 percent; restaurant takeout 21 percent; and supermarket takeout 22 percent.  This means that only 16 percent of the meals we consume at home are (presumably) home-cooked.

"Another survey, this one reported by the New York Times, found that 75 percent of those polled did not know how to cook broccoli, 50 percent couldn't prepare gravy, and 45 percent didn't know the number of teaspoons in a tablespoon.  The article went on to say that "in the last decade (the '80s), cooking has evolved into an optional activity, like skiing or playing chess." But this trend is not just a recent phenomenon.  Back at the turn of the century, convenience foods were already being cleverly inserted into published recipes, often by magazine food writers who were heavily subsidized by the food industry, a practice that continues to this day.   

"The influence of advertising on food consumption became so enormous that that one Iowa novelist quipped almost 100 years ago that "people in the United States do not eat for pleasure...eating is something done just in response to advertising." Another indication of things to come was that in the 1930s the average distance between growing fields and markets was already 1,500 miles. 

"Given were we find ourselves today (with fewer than 20 percent of the meals we eat at home being home-cooked) and despite relatively minor indications to the contrary (such as this magazine), we might begin to wonder at the meaning of the term "inconvenient." the dictionary states that it is the opposite of convenient, which itself is defined as "suited or favorable to a person's needs, comfort, or proposes." One then might reasonably ask, what is our purpose?  I suspect that recent trends would indicate that our aim is to be comfortable, to have our physical needs fulfilled as easily and quickly as possible.  Yet human history has always been driven by greater purposes than mere comfort, among them religion, spiritual awakening, freedom, and a lust for adventure.  If convenience were truly the measure of life's activities, then Lewis and Clark would never have found a route to the West Coast, Jamestown would never have been settled, men would never have landed on the moon, and Martin Luther King would never have left his congregation.  We would also be at great pains to explain the annual pilgrimage to mecca and why anyone has ever voluntarily joined the armed forces.  Boot camp is the epitome of inconvenience. 

"So why are Americans so lacking in spunk when it comes to the kitchen? After all, the rest of our life is consumed with "inconveniences" - like raising children and commuting to work.  Perhaps we are lazy about our food because, for the first time in history, we don't have to cook to eat.  Or perhaps we no longer find anything enlightening about the process of preparing food.  Going to the moon is worth the effort; making chicken Parmesan is less noble. 

"Recently, as I was checking the hives, I took a moment to watch the bees building the honeycomb, the workers swarming over the beeswax foundation, engaged in an endless series of repetitive tasks.  I began to wonder hoe bees see their short, hard lives.  Maybe they dream about flying through a warm summer evening, laden with nectar, floating weightlessly down to the hive entrance, or perhaps they fall asleep thinking of fields of bright purple clover, orange and yellow Indian paintbrushes, and apple trees bursting with fragile white blossoms.  The buzz and rich moist air of the hive must act as a thick blanket, enveloping them as they sleep.  And at the end of their life cycle, a mere six weeks at the height of the season, they must dream of the work itself, of building a honeycomb and filling it with thick goldenrod honey. 

"These are good thoughts - of hard work, of building a home, of working side by side with others.  these are also the dreams of cooks, of those of us who have traded comfort of hard work and instant gratification for knowledge.  In the kitchen, much like bees, we build foundations an fill them with sweet dreams that will be remembered by the next generation of cooks who will stand in our kitchens, preparing our recipes, long after our work is done." (1)

Citation:
(1) Kimball, Christopher. "Busy Bees". Cook's Illustrated #34. Sept/Oct 1998. Pg. 1.

Cancer is limited

When we were at the UNC NICU, another preemie parent said, "Everything is going to be okay."  I'm not sure what he meant by that, but I thought about it a lot afterward, and decided that he was right, regardless of what the hospital moniters were saying about our son.


On the halls of the Mayo Clinic, someone else agrees with me:

"Cancer is so limited. . .It cannot cripple love,It cannot shatter hope,It cannot corrode faith,It cannot eat away peace,It cannot kill friendship,It cannot silence courage,It cannot invade the soul,It cannot reduce eternal life,It cannot destroy confidence,It cannot shut out memories,It cannot quench the spirit,It cannot lessen the power of the resurrection. 

Though the physical body may be destroyed by disease, the spirit can remain triumphant. If disease has invaded your body, refuse to let it touch your spirit. Your body can be severely afflicted, and you may have a struggle, But if you keep trusting God's love, your spirit will remain strong. 

Why must I bear this pain? I cannot tell;I only know my Lord does all things well.And so I trust in God, my all in all.For He will bring me through, whatever befall. 

Our greatest enemy is not disease, but despair."

Loneliness in the chatroom

"The cheeriness of the great big chat room that we are all in at the moment isn't really working.  It is all a battle against loneliness."


Is there another, perhaps better way out of loneliness besides constantly being logged on?  And how can we get [back] there?


Citation:
Thomas, David. Mars Hill Audio Journal 103. "Psycho and American Culture". 2010.

Hmmm...(2)

Yeah - hmmm....life is changing all around us.




Vitamins used to be horrible to take, but good for you. (Think "cod liver oil" here.)

Now vitamins are delicious and like candy.  This is not inherently bad, but we ought to be aware that taken to the extreme in all areas of life it can be construed by our children (and us) that what is good for me is what I enjoy.

Learning used to be an obligation and a privilege, whether you enjoyed the experience or not.

Now Sesame Street, "Learning at the Speed of Thought", et cetera are going on the presupposition that kids ought to be catered to in their learning.

When that thought ("it is only useful if I like it") gets imported into the church, and we expect church, and it's teachings to cater to us; to our likes and dislikes; to our need to be entertained...and we find that it does no such thing, because it is a Proclamation from the King...we get disenchanted because the lies that the culture around us has fed us undermine the possibility of listening to, let alone understanding and believing, the truth claims of the Word

We teach our children to find the rhythm within (in music as well as school and morality, etc.) as opposed to discovering the inherent rhythm in the order of things that corresponds to what is as created by God.

And this is no good thing.

Citation:

Cartoon found at <http://naglly.com/Generations.png>, accessed 9 February 2011.
Other thoughts accessed from my brain.

Alinea Restaurant

William A. Foster says

"Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives" (1)

Robert Farrar Capon (an Anglican) says

"For all its greatness, the created order cries out for further greatness still.  The most splendid dinner, the most exquisite food, the most gratifying company, arouse more appetites than they satisfy.  They do not slake man's thirst for being; they whet it beyond all bounds." (2)

Denise Frame Harlan says, in response to that paragraph from Capon's truly marvelous book, "The Supper of the Lamb"

"I'd never known what to do with all the love in my heart for this beautiful, mess of a world.  All this time, I'd been trying to temper and tame my passion for mountains and tea and road trips and cheesecake and people. I'd known God my whole life, had known Christ for a decade, and had focused on Jesus's suffering and sacrifice.  I'd been afraid to love anything too much for fear that I'd disappoint God and prove myself too worldly, too attached to the everyday stuff of creation that would hinder my race toward heaven and the life hereafter.  I'd been afraid, and I'd held my heart back.  Suddenly it occured to me that this fear, this withholding, might be sin.  Maybe I'd had everything all wrong." (3)

Maybe she had.  


I believe that the very good creation of God, when taken in its proper light, can be fingers pointing us, His incarnate creatures, back to the creator, who made us creative in His image.


Alinea is a restaurant that sets the bar high, when it comes to looking intensely at the creation and then continuing the creative act.


I want to go there one (1) time in my life, with my wife.  (A dream my pocket book and consciousness of the needs of the poor forced me to give up as soon as it formed.)


Does anyone want to donate $400? :)


Though the pictures you are about to look at are an exaggerated expression of what I am talking about (with corresponding price tag), I think that God, who gave us all things richly to enjoy wants us to join Him in creation, and enjoy Him in creativity.  

Caramel Popcorn

Apple

Blackberry

Peanut

Bean

PB&J

Chestnut

Tomato

Strawberry

Venison

Hot Potato-Cold Potato

Sweet Potato

Tomato

Note that price at the bottom 

(4)

Citation:
(1) Foster, William A. 
<http://thinkexist.com/quotation/quality_is_never_an_accident-it_is_always_the/226780.html>. Accessed 16 February 2011.
(2) Capon, Robert Farrar. The Supper of the Lamb. Smithmark, New York, NY. 1969.  
(3) Harlan, Denise Frame. "And She Took Flour".  From The Spirit of Food by Leslie Leyland Fields. Cascade Books, Eugene, Oregon. 
(4) <http://www.alinearestaurant.com/>. Accessed 11 February 2011

More thoughts on Sabbath

Gracie and I have been becoming more thoughtful about the time that God has given us, and more attentive to opportunities for delight, rest, sharing, teaching, celebrating. (This is greatly a ramification of a lot of reflection on the liturgical year.)


For everything under the sun there is a season, and we are enriched as we reflect on God's gifts of times and seasons.  (Is this [taking a day of rest, or reflecting on Christ through the liturgical year] a "must-do"? Certainly not.  St. Paul is specific about that...we are in no way justified by reflecting in a certain way on days or a seasons, we are justified by the righteousness of Christ.  Just wanted to note that for posterity's sake, and because a friend asked me my thoughts on why we are taking a day of rest.)


Here is a thought about the nature of time that is quite beautiful, and I believe: true.  Remember the first and second commandments as you read this short passage.

Entering into Relational Rather Than Chronological Time 

We are all too familiar with chronology (chronos), the time we can measure and monitor. We note the passing of time in moments and events, hastening or lamenting time's movement. 

There is another kind of time talked about in the Bible, however: kairos. This is time experienced relationally, rather than sequentially. Kairos is time as an eternal moment, a divine appointment, a dynamic encounter. 

It recognizes that the fruitfulness of our life is more appropriately measured by the quality of our relationships than by the amount of activities we can cram into our moments. 

For six days we are often seduced into defining our worth by our works. The Sabbath reminds us that our worth is given to us by God. We belong to God, and by the Spirit of Christ we belong to one another. For Jewish families, the Sabbath is a day of feasting on good food and delighting in good relationships. Even the poorest family will scrimp and save so that the Sabbath meal will be the best of the week. Seated as guests at every Sabbath table will be strangers, aliens and those with no place to go. 

Therefore, the Sabbath is a day to enjoy intimate relationships.

Citation:
 Dearborn, Tim and Kerry (I think), "Recovering an Ancient Approach to Time Management in Our High-Tech Era". Copyright © 2001 University Communications, Seattle Pacific University. 
<http://www.spu.edu/depts/uc/response/winter2k1/sabbath.html> Accessed 11 February 2011.

In my dreams...

I read this to my dad a long time ago, and recently re-found it in his "Miscellaneous File".   We got a kick out of it, both being carpenters.

Handyman Heaven

Missing socks go to Sock Heaven.  All good dogs go to Dog Heaven. Good handymen go, of course, to Handyman Heaven In Handyman Heaven, everybody has their own shop.  It's a perfectly lit 50-car space, and there is no need for heat or cooling, because every day is perfect for fixing things.

There are no extension cords, because 110 amp 220-volt outlets are no more than two feet away, even on the job site.  The 1,000 amp breaker box, shower, sink toilet, design console, desk, computer, and a phone were all built and installed by the handyman himself.

The shop also houses antique cars, boats and airplanes, all finished to perfection.  The handyman also poured the foundation and floor, which is feather soft and doesn't hurt his feet because it is the latest concrete/goose down composite.  The walls are made from windows and skylights to let in the heavenly light and gentle breezes.

In Handyman Heaven, all the state-of-the-art tools are on the right, and the materials, delivered yesterday for free, are on the left. Of course, the shop layout changes effortlessly and at a whim.  If he wants to build a wall - the construction necessities are right by the door.  If he wants to make a jewelry box, exotic hardwoods and precision woodworking tools are right there.  Nothing is more than an arm's length away.  there is always one clamp more than needed.  Everything always has a place and is in its place.

The handyman, of course, built those places himself.  No more junk stashed in empty paint buckets, although there are plenty to sit on.

In the house that the handyman designed and built, drywall dust evaporates.  It never falls on the impregnable finish he applied minutes ago to his flawlessly inlaid rosewood and ivory floor.

Materials estimates are absolutely precise, so there are no scraps to haul.  Stray hammer and saw marks just don't happen, and finish flows perfectly.  Grass grows only because you want to smell it as you cut it, and flowers are beautiful and part of the 50-acre garden's tasteful design.  Weeds are only for the earthly folks.

Handyman Heaven's best feature is actually need.  Everything needs fixing, but that's OK, because the handyman can use his incredible knowledge to fix it.  Or he can look it up when he wants to in his 10-room mahogany paneled library, at his leisure, with freshly brewed coffee just waiting to be poured.

His wife always adores his work and generously reward him with his favorite pies from the self-cleaning kitchen that he built for her.

Others appreciate him, too.  Even though he has his own, the neighbor handy man angel always comes by to borrow the 400-foot ladder or the 400 amp table saw.  The visit always evolves into a bull session. They share plenty of great power tips for the hot rods they designed, and the best new jokes which they made up, too.

And that's OK too.  Even though the work isn't getting done, in Handyman Heaven, there is always plenty of time for everything.

Citation:

From March 1997 issue of Popular Woodworking, p. 72, "Out of the Woodwork" by Chuck Kubin. Accessed via Dad's Miscellaneous File.

Good for a laugh

A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says: "That's the ugliest baby that I've ever seen. Ugh!" The woman goes to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her: "The driver just insulted me!" The man says: "You go right up there and tell him off – go ahead, I'll hold your monkey for you."


Citation:
<en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%252527s_funniest_joke>. Accessed 28 January 2011.

Argue vs. Debate

In the course of discussion with a friend, we stumbled on an argument  debate argument about the words "argue" and "debate".  Which word more appropiately expresses the hearty and healthy discussion that ought (I believe rather strongly) to take place amongst Christian men?  Here is an excerpt from an e-mail I wrote arguing for my word of choice.

"Perhaps I might propose, just for fun, revisiting our discussion of word choice.  I believe, after a little more pondering that I have come to rest on the word "argue" rather than "debate".  As I have stated, ad nauseam perhaps, I more and more am choosing to rest the weight of my beliefs and opinions on those things that have stood the test of time and the test of Scriptural inspection, and thus, when it comes to word-choice, I look often to the etymology and carefully crafted definitions of words composed by the word-smiths that create reputable dictionaries...and particularly the Oxford English Dictionary editors, rather then the current popular definitions.

So the etymology of the words "debate" and "argue" follow:

debate late 14c., "to quarrel, dispute," from O.Fr. debatre (13c., Mod.Fr. débattre), originally "to fight," from de- "down, completely" (see de-) + batre "to beat" (seebattery). As a noun, from early 14c. Related: Debated; debating.

argue c.1300, from O.Fr. arguer (12c.), from L. argutare "to prattle" freq. of arguere "to make clear, demonstrate," from PIE *argu-yo-, from base *arg- "to shine, be white, bright, clear" (see argent). Related: Arguable; arguably; argued; arguing. Colloquial argufy is first attested 1751.

From those I find that "debate" seems to indicate "to beat down" and "argue" indicates "to shed light on like argent, or silver"  

Then I pull out my handy OED, and find the following definitions:

DEBATE: 1. Strife, dissension, quarrelling, (formerly) fighting; a quarrel

ARGUE: 1. Discuss, reason, debate; contend, dispute. 2. Discuss the pros and cons of; bring forward reasons for or against (a proposition).

So, I propose that "debate", from both the etymological and definitive point of view has a much more bellicose attitude than the word "argue", which seems to point toward a reasoned discussion on a topic.  I cede the point that the OED definition for argue actually has the word debate in it, but I still make the proposal that all things considered, "arguing" is possible a Christian virtue which ought to be a part of our life together.

A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver (argent?). Pr. 25:11

Slightly eccentrically, Dave"

Citation:

Clark, David. E-mail to a friend. David's Gmail account. 18 September 2010. 

Low-Brow Beverage Selecting

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Alduous vs. Huxley

I recently have been looking at the parable of the seed in Luke 8, and this illustrates the seed sown among the thorns...

































Citation:
www.egodialogues.com/words-language/huxley-orwell.php, accessed 1/31/2011.

She said yes...

My Valentine (!!!!)

People can do some pretty crazy things

This is a pretty incredible compilation.  I don't know if everything in it is real, but some obviously is

The Beauty of Repetitive Change

C.S. Lewis (Anglican) and G.K. Chesterton (Catholic) are two authors that have often and powerfully influenced my thinking.  Maybe because they both use their initials in their pen name.  Maybe I will start going by D.S. Clark, and see where it takes me.


Here, Lewis, in The Screwtape Letters, writes about God's gift of repetitive change, and the dark substitution and perversion of that gift into the need for continuous novelty.

(This is written as if by a demon to his "student" demon nephew) "The horror of the Same Old Thing is one of the most valuable passions we have produced in the human heart-an endless source of heresies in religion, folly in counsel, infidelity in marriage, and inconstancy in friendship.  The humans live in time, and experience reality successively.  To experience much of it, therefore, they must experience many different things; in other words, they must experience change.  And since they need change, the Enemy (being a hedonist at heart) has made change pleasurable to them, just as He has made eating pleasurable.  But since He does not wish them to make change, any more than eating, an end in itself, He has balance the love of change in them by a love of permanence.  He has contrived to gratify both tastes together in the very world He has made, by that union of change and permanence which we call Rhythm.  He gives them the seasons, each season different yet every year the same, so that spring is always felt as a novelty yet always as the recurrence of an immemorial theme.  He gives them in His Church a spiritual year; they change from a fast to a feast, but it is the same feast as before.

Now just as we pick out and exaggerate the pleasure of eating to produce gluttony, so we pick out this natural pleasantness of change and twist it into a demand for absolute novelty.  This demand is entirely our workmanship.  If we neglect our duty, men will be not only contented but transported by the mixed novelty and familiarity of snowdrops this January, sunrise this morning, plum pudding this Christmas.  Children, until we have taught them better, will be perfectly happy with a seasonal round of games in which conkers succeed hopscotch as regularly as autumn follows summer.  Only by our incessant efforts is the demand for infinite, or unrhythmical, change kept up." ¹

When I read that, I recognized in myself that incessant need for the novel, and I decided to begin to find, rather, delight in God's rhythms that he has gifted us with. 


Later, I was reading Orthodoxy, by Chesterton, and ran across this passage,.

"A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life.  Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged.  They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead.  For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.  It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon.  It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God make daisies separately, but has never got tired of making them.  It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we." ²

These are some of the reasons that I have begun to return to a more agrarian lifestyle, planting gardens, and trying (rather unsuccessfully, to date) to keep bees and chickens.  Beginning to look for the enchantment inherent in the world God has created.  They are also contributing factors in my family beginning to enjoy the rhythms of the liturgical year.

Citations:

¹ Lewis, C.S. The Screwtape Letters. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1961.

Pages 126-129.

² Chesterton, G.K. Orthodoxy. Wheaton, Illinois: Harold Shaw Publishers. 1994. Page 61.

My childhood dreams

When I was a boy, my dad had a black paste board box filled with his old comic books.  When my brother or I were sick, the box would come out, and we would mitigate our misery by reading about The Flash, Sgt. Rock, The Submariner and all their friends (and enemies).

Interspersed amongst the comic panels were (not exactly surprisingly) advertisements for all sorts of products that would allure a young boy, and part him from his allowance.  Here is one thing that I actually paid for and recieved.  I was once the proud owner of:

While I never bought a real working submarine like the one pictured at left, I did dream long hours about buying it (for under $7.00!!).  In fact, in later years, my brother and I developed a jointly written story based on our fantasies about this wonderful sub.

Here is what we would have gotten if we had broken down (or broken our dad down) and ordered it:











SWEET!!


ttp://partoftheprecipitate.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/sea-monkey.jpg accessed 2 February, 2011.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjo01yg-stU accessed 2 February, 2011.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1385/544994244_9734939163.jpg accessed 4 February, 2011.

Training Children to Listen

"You can train your child to hear you the first time you say something. Or, you can train them to ignore you. Raising a child who listens to adults is a source of joy. Raising one who doesn't is a constant source of frustration and torment.

Our actions either train kids to listen or not to listen. Consider this situation I witnessed in an airport recently. Joshua, a five-year-old, was running out into the concourse

"Joshua. You stop that running!" called his mother. She did not follow through, so Joshua continued dashing in and out of a crowed of irritated travelers.

"Joshua. You get over here!" Once more, she barked an order, but did nothing to enforce it.

"Joshua! Get off of that!" Another order was shouted by mom and ignored by Joshua.

Suddenly, Joshua was right at my feet staring up at me.

Mother ordered again, "Joshua. You get away from that man. You come over here. Quit bothering people."

I looked down at Joshua and asked, "Joshua, what's your mom going to do if you don't do what she says?"

He knew the answer immediately, "Nothing."

Of course he was right. His mother had trained him to know that she would bark orders, but never enforce them. Why should he listen if he could do as he pleased - without adult interference - by not listening?

In fact, Joshua never had to walk back to his mother in the airport. She came over to him, held his hand, and apologized to me with, "I'm so sorry. You know how five-year-olds are. They won't listen to a thing you say."

It took a lot to keep me from saying, "I've known a lot of five-year-olds who listen to their parents. But their parents mean what they say."

Training kids to listen is not brain surgery. It's not complicated. Joshua's mom could retrain him to listen by first retraining herself to do the following:

1. Make a commitment she will never repeat herself.
   Kids unconsciously learn how many times each parent will repeat a request before taking action. She can give Joshua the gift of knowing she will only say something once.
2. Be prepared to act.
   She needs to be dedicated to making her child's life somewhat uncomfortable each time he fails to listen the first time she says something. This means as soon as he disobeys she goes to him, takes him back to his seat, and makes him stay with her saying, "How sad not to listen. Now you can stay with me."
3. She should never accept, "But I didn't hear you," as an excuse.
   When confronted with this excuse, she should respond with, "How sad not to be listening. Maybe your ears will get better." It is important she says this without sarcasm and follows through with the consequences of not listening.
4. Be prepared for Joshua to have a fit about not getting his way.
   Even though this will be uncomfortable, other adults around her will secretly applaud her courage and willingness to put forth the efforts to raise a well-behaved child.
5. Get ready to enjoy a more responsible and happier child.

I have worked with kids and families for 47 years. During that time I have never met a child who failed to hear a parent's promise. They always hear promises the first time. I've also learned their ears work the same way for requests when parents learn and follow the four steps I've outlined.

Training and expecting kids to listen is one of a parent's greatest gifts. It's the Love and Logic way."

Citation:

Fay, Jim. "If Kids Can Hear Promises, They Can Hear Requests: Getting your child to listen to you is easier than it sounds". Online Posting. www.loveandlogic.com. 2001. <www.loveandlogic.com/pages/promises_and_requests.html>. Accessed 30 January 2011.