Drinking coffee in space

No matter where you go...

Rules for Lecture Attendance

Alan Jacobs, after enduring several uncalled-for behaviors from students coming to listen to a lecture by a visiting speaker (described here) posted the following "Rules for Lecture Attendance".  I thought these rules, and my inner-post-modern knee-jerk disapproval of the autocratic tone were interesting.  I have grown so used to doing things any old way that happens to feel right at the time (a modus operandi that I am trying hard to ween myself from because I think that it is based on sandy foundations), that any firm rule "feels" wrong.  Not that it is wrong.  In fact, I dare say it is very much right!

What do you think?

"I am aware that some situations call for different rules. There are lectures during which it would be appropriate to talk, eat, tweet, and/or fart. Or so I have been told. However, this is rarely the case when lectures are given in academic settings, which are the ones I have chiefly in mind here. One general rule governs everything that follows: Do not make it harder for speakers or listeners to concentrate on the lecture.

---

1) Go to great lengths to be sure you know precisely when and where the lecture will be given. Do not make assumptions.
2) Arrive at the right place on time, or even early.
3) It is especially important to arrive early if you think you will have to leave early. In such a situation, you will want to situate yourself as close to an exit as possible, so that you may depart quietly and unobtrusively. You might also ask yourself whether you need to leave early or would just prefer to leave early. If you would justprefer to leave early, maybe you shouldn't be there at all.
4) You shouldn't be late, but if you must be late, come in as quietly as possible and sit near the door. Sit on the floor if you have to. In no circumstances should you stroll in, scan the venue in a leisurely fashion, and amble towards the center of the room.
5) Turn your stupid, stupid, stupid cell phone off, and never look at it during the lecture.
6) If you plan to take notes, do so on paper. Do not haul out your laptop and make your neighbors try to listen to the speaker over the constant rattling of your keyboard.
7) Shut up. Listen to the speaker. Don't say anything to anyone at any time — unless, during Q&A time, you actually have question you'd like to know the answer to.(Note that almost none of the people who ask questions of public speakers are interested in getting real answers.)
8) Do not eat anything. What are you, some kind of barbarian? Wait until the lecture is over and then eat in a place appropriate for eating. No one listening to a lecture wants to smell your food or hear you chew, swallow, and suck your drink. No one.Thank you for your cooperation."

Citation:
These rules were posted here:
Jacobs, Alan. <https://ayjay.jottit.com/rules_for_lecture_attendance>, accessed 24 March 2011.

10,000 Hours

(I have heard that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill.)

Gracie and I recently watched "The Kid", starring Bruce Willis.  In the movie, the main character ("Russ") who is about to turn 40,  meets himself as a grade-school boy.  The boy version of Russ hangs out with him and finally realizes that he grew up to be a "dogless, chickless guy with a twitch" and is irate with his older self for becoming such a loser.

Then the two of them meet a 70-year-old version of Russ, who has a "chick", an airplane and a dog!  They are ecstatic!  The realize that they are not losers after all.  The boy finally returns to "his own time" and the 40-year-old Russ is left to start working on becoming a dog-owning, married airplane pilot.

After watching that movie, I pondered what I would like to see myself as in 30 years, and what it would take to get there.

Another way of posing a similar question is "What am I willing to dedicate 10,000 hours to in order to master it?" 

How would you answer that question?

Book Review of A Wrinkle in Time

A Wrinkle in Time

by Madeleine L'Engle

I have seen this book for decades, and it always seemed just weird...I guess a combination of the title and the different cover arts that I have seen accompanying it.  But some time back, I read someone commenting on it.  I don't remember who, or what the comments were, but it made me want to read the book. So I did.

My Review: Pretty easy to read.  The plot was interesting enough to keep me going.

This is a science fiction, or fantasy, or religious-alternative-universe type of book. It bears some resemblance to C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy:  A brother and sister looking for their lost father, end up being carried by demoted stars (or something) to other planets, and given the task of rescuing their father from "The Darkness".  They learn some stuff on the quest about truth, and themselves and the nature of "reality".  

Final Analysis: I came away with a few metaphors to add to my thinking, and I'm glad to have read it, if only so that I no longer have to wonder what it is about.  There are sequels, which I probably won't read, unless I happen to hear that they are just too good to miss.

A Cautionary Thought

Peter Kreeft, paraphrasing J.R.R. Tolkien says this in one of his talks:

We have, as a culture, become very efficient at getting to a place very quickly that is not worth getting to. (Emphasis added)

Citation:
From a Peter Kreeft audio found at <http://www.peterkreeft.com/>

Turbotax

It's probably time to get started on your taxes...here is some motivation for you from Rhett and Link

3 potential problems with an argument

Peter Kreeft suggests these 3 possibilities to watch out for in an argument

1. The terms may be ambiguous: their meaning may not be clear.
2. The premises may be false: you can prove anything from false premises.
3. The logic may not be tight enough: you may not really prove your conclusions.

Citation: I'm not sure where exactly I heard this, but in my journal I simply note that it was Peter Kreeft that I got it from...so go and listen to all of his great talks that are available here.

Water in Excelsis

Water above the firmament:
    winter rain descending; the roots of vitis vivifera clutching earth.
Spring warmth:
     water drawn through vinestock, stem, and leaf; tendril, flower, fruit.
Summer heat:
     sun fierce upon the hills; in the grape now, water, glucose, fructose, tannin, acid; all beneath the thin
     firmament on which the Spirit's brooding leaves behind a bloom of yeast; Saccharomyces ellipsoideus:
     the thumbprint of the Lord and Giver of life.
Then autumn:
     basket, press, vat; sugar and yeast wantoning; earth's old September love revived:2C6H5OH+2CO2;
     fermentation; the warm must, its jaunty cap set drunkenly, rejoices in the pleasure of good company.
Here sing and brawl now
     alcohol, carbonic acid gas, acetic acid, higher alcohols, succinic acid, glycerol, and, chief among them,
Water come of age
     in the vast pots of this old Cana, where the Word, in silence, orders up new wine.
Finally:
     racking off, barreling, clearing, bottling; the long wait - for esters: alcohol and acid reconciled, wine bodied
     forth to roundness and a nose; for oxidation: tannin and alcohol softened, corners smoothed by the Spirit's
     thumb, purple shaded brown
Until
     (in Heaven it is alwaies Autumne) earth's last best gift is brought to sere and velvet elegance,
To Wine Indeed
To Water in excelsis.

...

Let us pause and drink to that.

Capon, Robert Farrar. The Supper of the Lamb. Smithmark, New York, NY, 1996. Pages 83-85

The pleasure of making a latte

My (partial) review of "Pagan Christianity"

Pagan Christianity 

Authors: Frank Viola and George Barna

I read this book because a couple of my friends had read it and I wanted to know what it was that they were discussing.

My review: Eye-opening, frustrating and influential. 

Okay, so I am a critical reader.  If someone has the audacity to put their thoughts down in print, then they are opening their thoughts to my prying mind, and I don't read books quietly.  And I hope for nothing less when I write something...the thing I dread is the silent nod of disinterest, which happens all too often.

• There are two primary things that are going on in this book, from my perspective.  Viola and Barna are #1: diagnosing, and they are also #2: prescribing a solution.
• First, to the diagnosis: The historicity of the derivation of church practices is verifiable.  If something happened in a particular way, then, well...that is how it happened.  Can't get away from the facts, once they are established.  So there is an assessing of the facts in this books: Things like 
• Where did the "Church" building come from?
• Where did the order of worship come from?
• Why is there a sermon every Sunday?
• Why do we have professional clergy leading the church?
• Why do we dress a certain way when we "go to church" and why do the clergy dress as they do?
• Why do we tithe, and why do the clergy have salaries?
• Why do we view baptism and the Lord's Supper like we do?
• Where did the idea of Christian Education come from?
• The question that the authors are asking is: Are these practices derived from an understanding of the bible, or do they come from outside influences?  That is a question of diagnosing.  Their assessment from looking at the history of these practices are that they primarily derive from Constantine's imperial and pagan/cultural influence on the church, the influence of the reformers and the influence of the revivalists.  
• So, essentially it appears that their assessment is that each of the practices listed above derive from sources outside of the New Testament, and they do make a fairly strong case for that view.
• An additional, and very important thought, is that they are also proposing that if any practices do come from outside the New Testament it is therefore not appropriate.  So I would take issue here on their uniformity of thought: their book was mass printed in codex form using means and practices that were unavailable to the early church, and was distributed using (for me) amazon.com's hyper-advanced distribution system.  Well, you might reply...that has nothing to do with "church practices".  Okay, I'll grant that point provisionally. At the end of the book, they offer resources to those interested in pursuing their prescribed solution...a way to get involved in the "organic church", and that solution is to get on one or more of a few offered websites in order to get connected and engage in conversation...well, okay.  So that is how the church is supposed to form? By website marketing?  I do not find that in the NT.  You might still say...well: that is still not talking about church life.  I might like to argue over that point some more, but I will grant that as well, for now, and move on to another concern: On one of the websites, they offer a link to connect with itinerant church planters and encouragers...press this link, and Ta-da, by the magic of modern high-speed communication, you can hook up with a church planter.  I would propose that you don't find that mode of communication with the apostles of other church minister in the NT, and here we come to my point.  I grant that using e-mail, or online database messaging is fine, because I think God can work through that just fine, though I think we also need to be cognizant of the inherant alterations that this means of communication make to our interactions.  And Viola and Barna also think it is just fine.  And that begins to pick at the end of the thread, which, once pulled, starts the unraveling of their argument, which is: any mode of fulfilling the life of the church that is not found in the New Testament is at least suspect if not downright disqualified.  So I would propose, from that perspective, that our means of communicating with each other would also have to be held to the same standard, and I say this because the authors don't only lean on the weight of direct commands about church life from Christ and the Apostles, they also lean on the narrative about the church as normative to all subsequent church life...so therefore that would cut out any forms that are extra-biblical.  And no apostle was ever summoned to meet with a church using internet database messaging...we would have to limit ourselves to: verbal messages, hand-written, hand-delivered letters or direct visions from God.  But we don't have to do that, I don't believe, and obviously the authors don't believe that either.
• If that is true, then some of the reasoning behind dismissing sermons, a man leading a meeting within the church, or even a having a certain way of dressing, or a Sunday School, or some liturgical forms suddenly become permissible again.
• Okay, so I have plenty of other "issues" with the book, for example: some of their conclusions don't necessarily follow their premises, and that is very frustrating to me.  Gracie would laugh when she would hear me reading in my office, and I would exclaim in disgust over some faulty reasoning from my perspective...and this happened pretty often.
• That being said, I think that the information in the book is something that I am going to have to wrestle over.  Knowing where some of the customs in the church derive from is sobering, and demands much thought.  I don't start my thinking by saying, "If there is any other source for a custom than that it actually happened in the NT, then I am going to reject it."  I don't think like that.  I start more from the perspective of freedom in Christ tempered by love of others and love of God.  All things are permissible, but not all things are productive...so there is plenty of room for all kinds of customs in order to actualize the commands and narratives found in the NT.  
• Okay, so I did have some problems with diagnosis, but the big problem came in their prescription for a solution to the problem that they perceive.  I will say first that I think a lot of what is written in the book ought to be thought deeply about, and discussed at length in the Body of Christ.  But I have one pretty big caution that I carried all through the book with me.  The authors rejected the influences of the Constantinian culture, the culture of the reformation era, and the culture of the revivalists...but they do not reject strongly enough what appears to me to be a strong Enlightenment and Romantic influence in their thinking.  What they suggest as an alternative to "the institutional church" with all its poorly informed structures and forms strikes me as a 1960's marajuana smoking session, where everyone is sitting around with a guitar or a poem or some free verse, but instead of the marajuana being the influential component, the Holy Spirit is leading.  I was first a little alarmed by their use of Enlightenment thinkers as footnote sources for their thinking on some issues.  In fact, I stopped reading the book for quite a while because I was so put out by this.  Now, the whole marajuana imagery is inflamatory, and I know that, so let me back down from that a little bit...but not much.  I have never been to one of these "organic church" meetings, so I am only going on their own description of the events.  I am not saying they are bad or un-useable by the Spirit.  I think they sound pretty good, actually, and certainly are an attempt at making the Body more biblically-based, which is pretty wonderful, but I believe that their  over-the-top anti-institututionalism is being back-read into the New Testament, and the conclusions are not always accurate, from my perspective. I, of course, have lots and LOTS of other thoughts, but I will cut this post short here.

Final analysis: I wish everyone would read this book, and then get into a hearty, long-term conversation about it.  I told my wife that this book is probably going to be pretty influential on my thinking....but I am not yet sure exactly how.

NOTE: If you Google "Review Pagan Christianity" you can step into a larger discussion about the topics than my narrow view.

Now I get to pick another book to read...always an exciting time...

joke police

Let this be a warning to those of you who make bad jokes...especially puns (Patrick!) I'm thinking of joining the Joke Police - Pun Suppression Division!

Third Blog Offering

You know that feeling:  "there's a word for that"..."its on the tip of my tongue".  You have some thought, and you know that there is a word that more-or-less perfectly expresses that thought, and when you finally "find" the word, or someone else guesses what word you are looking for...satisfaction!  At least, that is how it is for me.  It is like being smallishly lost for a little while, and then finding the path again.  I love that feeling.

Is there a word for that feeling?  I don't know.

So, I have a third blog offering:

If you think you have a good word for that definition...the word for "the experience of finding the right word that you have been searching for", then post it as a comment.  I will then select what I think are the best few potential words, and then post it as a Poll on the sidebar.

You can post your potential word to the comments section until midnight, Friday, 25 March.  I will then select the best 3 or 4, and post the poll.  The poll will close midnight, Sunday, 27 March, and the person who gets the most votes will receive 1/2 pound of freshly roasted coffee from the Cafe655 blog staff (me).

Speaking of blog offerings, congratulations to Scott R...the winner of the first blog offering.  He should be sipping his coffee by now.

The second blog offering (see the Blog Offering tab at the top) is still open.  Head over to the Forum and chime in on the conversations or start your own.

A good word is 'pregnant with meaning'. -R.C. Sproul

Immortals among us

 Taken seriously, this kinda changes things.

"It is a serious thing," says C.S. Lewis, "to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no 'ordinary' people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whome we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner -- no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment."

Citation:

C. S. Lewis. "The Weight of Glory"

I want that!

One of my problems (there are more than one) is that I have trouble leaving home without a book.  Or really, without more than one book. I am (embarrassingly) the kind of guy that always has multiple books going...which could mean I am a man with a wide variety of interests, or (surely not!) I am someone who has trouble sticking to one thing at a time.

Hmmm....

But anyway, 

In an effort to provide myself with a selection of books to choose from, even if I know darn well that I won't have time to read during the day, I usually have at least 

• a Touchstone or First Things magazine in my briefcase, and/or 
• a book tucked under my arm on my way out the door. 
• This, in addition to multiple articles I have printed and inserted into my Circa Notebook I always carry with me.  Not to mention practically 
• infinite access to reading material on my internet-enabled "smart" phone.  And, I confess that I stop by 
• the library several times a week.  Sometimes just to visit the Oxford English Dictionary in the Reference Section, and sometimes to scan for new titles in 
• the Friends of the Library Bookstore.

But I guess I want more options, so I am looking at some possibilities:

I guess the hard part is having to choose just one option...they all look good to me.

Citation: Images found by Google Image Searching "Portable Bookshelf"

Eric Metaxas

How have I missed this guy?  Eric Metaxas recently published a biography on Bonhoeffer.  I have only read one chapter (my friend Mike told me to read a few paragraphs, and I got sucked into the story, thought about "borrowing" the book "accidentally" but thought better of it...)

I came home and Googled "Eric Metaxas", and then wondered to myself, "How can anyone actually do everything that he has done in one lifetime?" I would think that it was impossible, except I am friends with Austin Boyd, who is startling productive himself: husband, father, author, CEO of a company, teacher, ...so I assume that Mr. Metaxas has a similar personality or capacity to focus.

This video is long...but at least listen to the first part...probably the cleverest introduction of a speaker that I have ever heard:

Eric Metaxas on "Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy" from Socrates in the City on Vimeo.

Death of the husbands

Jean F. Larroux III, Senior Pastor at Southwood Pres made the following comment about Ephesians 5 admonition to husbands and wives

I paraphrase here

When the Bible says 'husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church, and wives submit' - the culture hears 'the death of the wife', but what Christ intended was the 'death of the husband'

Hmmm...sobering, and true, because Christ loved the church, and sacrificed for her even to the point of death.

Where do we go from here?

I guess I have to admit that this is kind of cool.  But I also think that walking is pretty cool, more healthy and...kind of a natural alternative to this.

I don't have this kind of coffee brewer

Yet...

Technology and Homeschooling

Alan Jacobs comments on Kevin Kelly's comments about technology

I tend to get frustrated by Kevin Kelly’s technophilia, but this account of his experiences teaching his son at home (a) resonates with my own homeschooling adventures and (b) makes a ton of sense. I especially like this set of principles about technology that he and his wife tried to impart to their eighth-grader: 

• Every new technology will bite back. The more powerful its gifts, the more powerfully it can be abused. Look for its costs.
• Technologies improve so fast you should postpone getting anything you need until the last second. Get comfortable with the fact that anything you buy is already obsolete.
• Before you can master a device, program or invention, it will be superseded; you will always be a beginner. Get good at it.
• Be suspicious of any technology that requires walls. If you can fix it, modify it or hack it yourself, that is a good sign.
• The proper response to a stupid technology is to make a better one, just as the proper response to a stupid idea is not to outlaw it but to replace it with a better idea.
• Every technology is biased by its embedded defaults: what does it assume?
• Nobody has any idea of what a new invention will really be good for. The crucial question is, what happens when everyone has one?
• The older the technology, the more likely it will continue to be useful.
• Find the minimum amount of technology that will maximize your options.

The last two are particularly noteworthy, and wise also. And this is best of all: “Technology helped us learn, but it was not the medium of learning. It was summoned when needed. Technology is strange that way. Education, at least in the K-12 range, is more about child rearing than knowledge acquisition. And since child rearing is primarily about forming character, instilling values and cultivating habits, it may be the last area to be directly augmented by technology.”

Citation: Jacobs, Alan.  From his Text Patterns blog on thenewatlantis.com. <http://text-patterns.thenewatlantis.com/2010/09/technology-and-homeschooling.html>. Accessed 12 March 2011

This makes me feel like crying

This from The Telegraph online newspaper:

Another Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary unlikely to be printed

"Sales of the third edition of the vast tome have fallen due to the increasing popularity of online alternatives, according to its publisher.

A team of 80 lexicographers has been working on the third edition of the OED – known as OED3 – for the past 21 years.

The dictionary’s owner, Oxford University Press (OUP), said the impact of the internet means OED3 will probably appear only in electronic form.

The most recent OED has existed online for more than a decade, where it receives two million hits a month from subscribers who pay an annual fee of £240.

“The print dictionary market is just disappearing, it is falling away by tens of per cent a year,” Nigel Portwood, the chief executive of OUP, told the Sunday Times. Asked if he thought the third edition would be printed, he said: “I don’t think so.”

Almost one third of a million entries were contained in the second version of the OED, published in 1989 across 20 volumes.

The next full edition is still estimated to be more than a decade away from completion; only 28 per cent has been finished to date.

OUP said it would continue to print the more familiar Oxford Dictionary of English, the single-volume version sold in bookshops and which contains more contemporary entries such as vuvuzela, the plastic trumpet encountered in the 2010 football World Cup.

Mr Portwood said printed dictionaries had a shelf life of about another 30 years, with the pace of change increased by the popularity of e-books and devices such as the Apple iPad and Amazon’s Kindle.

Simon Winchester, author of ‘The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary’, said the switch towards online formats was “prescient”.

He said: “Until six months ago I was clinging to the idea that printed books would likely last for ever. Since the arrival of the iPad I am now wholly convinced otherwise.

“The printed book is about to vanish at extraordinary speed. I have two complete OEDs, but never consult them – I use the online OED five or six times daily. The same with many of my reference books – and soon with most.

“Books are about to vanish; reading is about to expand as a pastime; these are inescapable realities.”

The first dictionary in recognisable format was Samuel Johnson’s, which was published in 1755. It remained the standard text for 150 years until the OUP embarked on its project in 1879.

The first OED came out in sections from 1884, completed in 1928.

Despite its worldwide reputation, the OED has never made a profit. The continuing research costs several million pounds a year. “These are the sort of long-term research projects which will never cover their costs, but are something that we choose to do,” Mr Portwood said.

A spokesman for the OUP said a print version of OED3 could not be ruled out “if there is sufficient demand at the time” but that its completion was “likely to be more than a decade” away."

Citation: Jamieson, Alistair. The Telegraph. "Oxford English Dictionary 'Will Not Be Printed Again'. 16 March, 2011. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/7970391/Oxford-English-Dictionary-will-not-be-printed-again.html> Accessed 16 March 2011.

My dictionary problems

So, I'm thinking of a word.  But I don't if it exists.  And I'm not sure how to look for it in the dictionary.  Since I don't know if it exists, neither do I know how it is spelled.  Since I don't know how it is spelled, I wouldn't know if I was on the right page of the dictionary to look for the word.

So I will try and explain the meaning of the potential word:

When I run across a new and interesting word in conversation or reading, I have this internal compulsion to look the word up in a dictionary. (I don't know exactly why this is.  My dad telling me, "Look it up yourself" so many times, rather than telling me what a word meant or how to spell it, perhaps.?)

My wife recently gave me as a gift the two-volume Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, in a (possibly futile) effort to keep me from buying the complete Oxford English Dictionary which is a 20-volume set, and costs around $850, and for which I have taken out a $1000 life insurance policy on Gracie, so that, in case she dies, I can immediately purchase this wonderful reference.  (I'm not making that up.)  I know that taking out a life insurance policy on my wife in order to buy a dictionary might label me as...eccentric.  And I'm okay with that.  But who else has a wife who puts her foot down and says that she will not co-habitate with a 20-volume dictionary?  What was I supposed to do?

Anyway, I guess you might be getting a clue by now that I really, really like words.

Which brings me back to my quandary about this word that I don't know how to find.

So there I was, reading to Gracie this morning from Bread and Wine and William Willemon makes the following statement, "Jesus seeks even more radical metanoia."

[...Metanoia?..] I think to myself.  [Metanoia?  Meta...maybe 'over'? maybe...Noia...hmmm...para-noia...what could ...'-noia' mean?]  I am staring at the word, trying to break it down in my head, incapable of continuing to read with this nagging ignorance eating away at me.

I jump up, and stride toward my desk...

Gracie laughs.  "I knew you were going to do that...I should have been counting the seconds to see how long it took you to get up."

So there I am flipping through Volume 1 of the Shorter OED.  J....K...L...M...Ma...Me...Met...Metan...

I am looking at the top of the page at the "bracketing words".  The words at the top of the page that tell what the first and last word on each page is until...at last, and deeply satisfying it is..."metamer/metaphysis". I've found it!  The right page in the dictionary. The page with the definition that I need to ease my ignorance.

So I found the meaning of the word "metanoia" (go look it up for yourself), but I also found a definition that I don't know a word for...what is the word for the satisfying realization that you have finally found your "place" that you are searching for in a book.  For realizing that, while your eyes have not yet found the word you are looking for, you know that word is on the page your fingers have flipped to?

I don't know?  Dictopagination?  Logobracketing?

I guess the OED staff needs to come up with a 400-volume set, which, instead of starting with the word and then giving you the definition, starts with all of the possible definitions and then gives you the word.  Kind of an Oxford English Dictionary - Jeopardy Edition.

If they do that, then I'll need to take out another life insurance policy on Gracie, but this time I will need to include enough to put a Dictionary Addition onto our house. Sweet.

A look at baptism

"The church of today lives in an ethically debilitating climate.  Where did we go wrong? Was it the urbane self-centeredness of Peale's Power of Positive Thinking and its therapeutic successors? Was it the liberal, civic-club mentality of the heirs to the Social Gospel? Now we waver between TV triumphalism with its Madison Avenue values or live-and-let-live pluralism which urges open-mindedness as the supreme virtue.  And so a recent series of radio sermons on "the Protestant Hour" urged us to "Be Good to Yourself." This was followed by an even more innocuous series on 'Christianity as Conflict Management." Whatever the gospel means, we tell ourselves, it could not mean death.  Love, divine or human, could never exact something so costly.  After all, our culture is at least vestigially Christian and isn't that enough?

"(Christ's) message is not the simple one of (John) the Baptist, 'Be clean.'  Jesus' word is more painful - 'Be killed.'

"...We may come singing "Just as I Am," but we will not stay by being our same old selves.  The needs of the world are too great, the suffering and pain too extensive, the lures of the world too seductive for us to begin to change the world unless we are changed, unless conversion of life and morals becomes our pattern.  The status quo is too alluring.  It is the air we breathe, the food we eat, the six-thirty news, our institutions, theologies, and politics.  The only way we shall break its hold on us is to be transferred to another dominion, to be cut loose from our old certainties, to be thrust under the flood and then pulled forth fresh and new-born.  Baptism takes us there."

Christ, by His birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension has made a way for us to enter into the Kingdom of His Father.  Do we joyfully and gratefully, but from a distance, so to speak, accept His wonderful gift.

Paul seems to think we have joined Him there on the cross, and now are seated with Him in heavenly places.

Do we allow the truth of that to influence our thoughts about everything from our bank account to how we participate with and in all of the platforms for living that this world system has to offer?

I propose that because of the Good News that we have died, we must live as citizens of the Kingdom, and that means that in many ways we are "displaced persons."  In but not of the same nature.

How?  Not by simply being "good".  We can't be good enough to qualify for that recommendation.  But because we identify with Him who died and rose again.

Have you (if you are a Christian) ever thought about the oddity that what we have in common (communion) with other believers is the fact that our reliance is on the broken body and shed blood of the God/Man Jesus the Christ?

I don't know about you, but every once in a while, that strikes me as something quite amazing.

Citation:
Willimon, William. "Repent" in Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter. Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York. 2011. Pages 6-7.

Kayak Memories...

I'm looking forward to my sons getting old enough to take out on the river. In the mean time, my boats collect dust.

Dropping into Hell Hole

Holding my breath

Just hanging out.

Double Trouble on the Ocoee River

"The waterfall was about 40' tall, I guess."

Been eaten by the hole.  I'm in there someplace.

About to be eaten again.

From back in my hands model days

My hand with my son, Andrew's, preemie hand

Citation:
<http://www.garybclark.com>. Accessed 9 March 2011.

This is beautiful

You know you want one!

You, too, can have your own portable trash bin...just in case you have disposable minutia.



Citation
<http://www.vizeer.com/stylish-portable-mini-trash-bin-garbage-pin/>. Accessed 12 March 2011

Beware of "Presentism"

Timothy George, in "First Things" magazine, March 2011 makes some interesting comments on our tendency toward "presentism".

C.S. Lewis noted: 'We need intimate knowledge of the past.  Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present.' For the present can become imperial, seducing us into imagining that the assumptions that rein today have always defined what it means to be reasonable, sensible, and mainstream.  Against the tendency toward presentism, Lewis observed that 'a man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; The scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.'

Citation:
George, Timothy. "Reading the Bible with the Reformers" in First Things Magazine: March 2011. Page 28.

Nice latte pour

Blog offering awarded

Scott R.

You have 1/2 pound of freshly roasted coffee coming your way.  Let me know your full name and address.

You can e-mail me at baristabuildingcompany@gmail.com.

David

200 Year Plan for Ministry

Rob Rienow and his wife Amy are the founders of a ministry that has been helpful to me in as I have been thinking through husbanding and parenting.

This video is...eye-opening to say the least...a little math lesson applied to offspring potential:

Check out Rob's new ministry website. The first thing I heard from Rob was the introductory session for his seminar on Visionary Parenting.  Great stuff.

Citation:

<http://visionaryfam.com>. Accessed 9 March 2011.

Men!

Elisabeth Elliot, author of many books, and especially (from my perspective) the book about her deceased husband, Jim Elliot: Shadow of the Almighty, writes here in Keep a Quiet Heart,

"Where are the holy men of God willing to shoulder the full responsibility of manhood, to take the risks and make the sacrifices of courting and winning a wife, marrying her and fathering children in obedience to the command to be fruitful? While the Church has been blessed by men willing to remain single for the sake of the Kingdom (and I do not regard lightly such men who are seriously called), isn't it obvious that God calls most men to marriage?  By not marrying, those whom He calls are disobeying Him, and thus are denying the women He meant for them to marry the privileges of being wife and mother."

So, what about it?  Are we willing to accept our mandates from Christ , abide in Him, and play the man?


Citation:
Elliot, Elisabeth. Keep a Quiet Heart. Revell, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 1995.  Page 166.

Remember

Wednesday night is the conclusion of the first Blog Offering (see Blog Offering button above).

Pancakes all around!!!

Pop quiz.  What familiar foreign phrase in our vocabulary is, when translated, "Fat Tuesday"?

The observance of the Lenten season, in many Christian traditions,  is a time of preparing the heart for the yearly focus on remembering the Passion of Christ.

What does that mean for my family?  This is a period of time that we do a Lenten version of the Jesse Tree.  Each night we read an age-appropriate reading with the children, read some scripture and hang a little picture on the tree, as we recall again why Christ had to come and die.  It is an opportunity (and I try and build as many opportunities into our day, week and year as I can) to teach my family the truths of the faith.  We choose to fast from some particular things in order to spur us to recall regularly our need for His Wonderful Grace.  My wife and I read a different book each year of thoughts on Lent by different authors.  This year, we are reading Bread and Wine-Readings for Lent and Easter, which is a compilation of the writings of several authors, including C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, Madeleine L'Engle and many others.  And we will participate with a local Anglican congregation in some of their Liturgical services, which are, for us, wonderful celebrations of the awe-inspiring Gospel of Jesus that we thoroughly look forward to.

Do we "have" to do these things?
No.

Do they make us a little better in God's sight? Far from it.  Kind of the reverse.  They clear our vision a little bit, and help us to see Him in His majesty and mercy.  And we are grateful.

Fat Tuesday is the English translation for "Mardi Gras".  Today is "Fat Tuesday", "Shrove Tuesday", or, as we prefer, "Pancake Day"

Pancake Day?  Yep.  That's how it is referred to in many countries.  The idea behind the tradition is that in many Christian traditions, Lent was a time of fasting.  Depending on time in history and location, the fast was more, or less rigid, and so, because people knew they weren't going to be eating eggs, fat, milk, etc. for 40 days, and since those items would go bad, they would use them up.  And what better way to use up those particular ingredients than whipping up a big batch of pancakes?

How wonderful is that?

So, if you really want to be justified before God, then you had better eat pancakes today. ***

***Sorry, that was a little justification humor.  No man was ever justified by eating pancakes.  I promise.  Even if the pancakes were super-yummy filled ebelskivers!  And even if the Ebelskivers were eaten as dessert after homemade pizza!  Hmmm...I'm looking forward to supper tonight!

Have a Happy Pancake Day!

Blueberry Ebelskivers!

How to read a book...

Alan Jacobs made this interesting comment about how to read a book.  And since he has recently completed a book about reading, and is Clyde S. Kilby Chair Professor of English at Wheaton, he might actually have something worth listening to here:

"The other day a homeschooling parent, whose child is in the ninth grade, wrote to me to ask what books I thought are essential for a young person to have read before coming to college. My reply:

"For what it's worth, I don't think what a young person reads is nearly as important as how he or she reads. Young people who learn to read with patience and care and long-term concentration, with pencil in hand to make notes (including questions and disagreements), will be better prepared for college than students who read all the "right" books but read them carelessly or passively."

Citation:
Jacobs, Alan.  "Answers to Important Questions". Text Patterns Blog on "The New Atlantis" website. <http://text-patterns.thenewatlantis.com/2011/03/answers-to-important-questions.html>. Accessed 4 March 2011.