Flotsam and Jetsam

Huge crack develops in Wyoming visible in earth in week(s) due to water saturation (CBS Denver)

Death of Ken Taylor, brave Canadian diplomat who rescued American's during Iranian hostage crisis (LA Times) (Trust Hollywood to never tamper with a good story -- ahem)

One useful perspective on packing Samaritan's Purse Christmas shoeboxes for kids in other cultures -- from missionary who is there when they are received. (blog)

Two liberal writers every conservative should read (Washington Examiner).
And Galston's article on poverty. The Poverty Cure (WSJ)

Paper airplanes

Paper airplanes: warm, sweet ad about a military childhood, and about fathers, sons, and good neighbors.

Paper airplanes

"I Met Messiah"

I don't know much about this organization (One for Israel), but I'm enjoying this series of short videos called "I Met Messiah." In the series, Jewish people describe their conversion to Christianity.

Here a Jewish man named Mottel Baleston discusses briefly his personal journey to faith in Jesus as Messiah.   

Here is the passage in Scripture Baleston refers to, courtesy of Bible Gateway, in NIV:

Isaiah 53 New International Version

53 Who has believed our message
    and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
    and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

4 Surely he took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
    stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.

7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
    yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
    and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression[a] and judgment he was taken away.
    Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
    for the transgression of my people he was punished.[b]
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
    and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
    nor was any deceit in his mouth.

10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
    and though the Lord makes[c] his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
    and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered,
    he will see the light of life[d] and be satisfied;[e]
by his knowledge[f] my righteous servant will justify many,
    and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,[g]
    and he will divide the spoils with the strong,[h]
because he poured out his life unto death,
    and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
    and made intercession for the transgressors.

Footnotes:

1. Isaiah 53:8 Or From arrest
2. Isaiah 53:8 Or generation considered / that he was cut off from the land of the living, / that he was punished for the transgression of my people?
3. Isaiah 53:10 Hebrew though you make
4. Isaiah 53:11 Dead Sea Scrolls (see also Septuagint); Masoretic Text does not have the light of life.
5. Isaiah 53:11 Or (with Masoretic Text) 11 He will see the fruit of his suffering / and will be satisfied
6. Isaiah 53:11 Or by knowledge of him
7. Isaiah 53:12 Or many
8. Isaiah 53:12 Or numerous

Fine China, Fat Televisions, and Ordinary Coffee

My sister-in-law sent me this poem, and I love it.

My Grandparents’ Generation

by Faith Shearin

They are taking so many things with them:
their sewing machines and fine china,

their ability to fold a newspaper
with one hand and swat a fly.

They are taking their rotary telephones,
and fat televisions, and knitting needles,

their cast iron frying pans, and Tupperware.
They are packing away the picnics

and perambulators, the wagons
and church socials. They are wrapped in

lipstick and big band music, dressed
in recipes. Buried with them: bathtubs

with feet, front porches, dogs without leashes.
These are the people who raised me

and now I am left behind in
a world without paper letters,

a place where the phone
has grown as eager as a weed.

I am going to miss their attics,
their ordinary coffee, their chicken

fried in lard. I would give anything
to be ten again, up late with them

in that cottage by the river, buying
Marvin Gardens and passing go,

collecting two hundred dollars.

“My Grandparents’ Generation” by Faith Shearin from Telling the Bees. © Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2015. Reprinted with permission.  (buy now)

Tweets and Satire Don't Go Together

and other morals-of-the-story.

Interesting NYT article on ill-advised tweets and modern and historical public shaming.

Old Quotes for a New Year

Stumbled across a few good quotes, the kind that help bring perspective in a sentence or two.

"In my walks, every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from him." Ralph Waldo Emerson

This pre-dates a piece of advice I've heard that Newt Gingrich gives about his approach to cocktail party conversation, and captures a notion that has gotten my introvert-ish self through 10 schools growing up, through 24 moves, and through numerous parties and meet-and-greets.

In social situations, you can retire from people and shrink away, you can buck up and suffer through, or you can enter conversation with a goal of figuring out what a person has to teach or share with you. People are brilliant--even (especially?) the boring- or different-seeming ones. Everyone has a speciality or experience to tell. Trying to figure it out acknowledges the image-bearer in each one of us and has a side benefit of making things more interesting for everyone. You can view casual conversation as a treasure hunt or a torture chamber. Humility helps you do the former.

"You want to know the difference between a master and a beginner? The master has failed more times that the beginner has even tried." Unknown [anyone?]

Echoes of T. Roosevelt's "person in the arena" quote. In our hyper-critical, hypocritical, knee jerk, tabloidesque, lack-of-context culture, you can plunge in a do-fail-learn-succeed approach -- and a try-sin-repent-grow spirituality -- or you can shrink back. Courage helps you do the former.

"What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and work flow." Martin Luther 

Good news for everyday people who are busy doing regular work for God and other people.

The guy administering vaccinations in Appalachia and the guy manufacturing the plastic for the syringes are both doing God's work, if they do it for him. Faithfulness in small, everyday things.

"In raising children, I have lost my mind but found my soul." Lisa Shepherd

The secular, and humorous, version of "Yet she will be saved through childbearing--if they continue in faith and love and holiness." (1 Timothy 2:15) Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

The Case for the Mundane

(Re-posting)

A letter to a gifted prep school friend

Dear Friend,

You are caught up in a hundred little deaths of your soul these days. You are forced to sit through classes which are beneath you.

You know more about these books, these histories; you understand them better than your peers. You are better read, even, than some of your teachers, at least in a certain academic sense.

In other classes you are made to study material you know you will never use as an adult. Odds are good you won't need that quadratic formula in graduate school or in catching the bus or in cooking your dinner.

And this is an indignity. You, O Suburban Minion, must abide the endless chores of polite conversation, lunchroom shufflings, leading questions, obvious observations, endless chores, polite conversation....

You have better taste.

Every day you are forced to eat food lacking in subtlety, speak to people lacking in insight and nuance, and grind through homework assignments lacking in imagination and spark, taught by adults who punch the card when you include "setting," "characters," and an ample amount of ham-handed adverbial verbiage.

Similes that sit like a knuckle sandwich in your mouth.

What's the use? Where are Sartre and Camus and Kerouc and Woolf in all of this mundane flotsam and jetsam? Where is the Green Knight?

Where is Keats in this tedious homework assignment to analyze Fanny Brawne -- 'til the Bright Star herself becomes thick-limbed, ugly, and graceless with dead eyes? Nothing like the sun.

Oh to be one of those noted intellectuals! Those brilliant sparks, caught up in thought and conversation, and not hampered by The Daily Bourgeois of suburban high school and carpool line and vacuuming the stairs.

Oh to feed that bright fire of the mind, all day, with people who understand and appreciate the heat!

Yet, you are well-read. What about those characters you know so well?

What about Saruman in his tall tower hanging in the thin air far above the plains and the little men and the beasts.

What about Uncle Andrew and Queen Jadis, and their "high and lonely destiny"?

What about Wells' Invisible Man, and his lone scientific pursuit of autonomy, fed by a withered heart lacking in human connection?

What if Dr. Frankenstein was a monster and the Monster had a soul?

What about Virginia's Lighthouse? Did it help her see the rocks?

And you have read the intellectual greats. What if:

What if many of those ivory tower intellectuals were tiresome bores in the pub or the parlor?

What if it would be insufferable to share just one drink with them? What if they were the ones everyone avoided at the cocktail party or on the street?

What if they were people that made other people look at the clock to mutter about appointments and traffic and "needing to go, so nice to touch base with you...."

What if -- in their rejection of humility, humanity, and the simplicity of duty -- they lost touch with glory, divinity, and the deeply complex?

What if, in their single-minded pursuit of truth and beauty in isolation -- in the rarefied company of themselves and their toadying salons -- they lost both. (Truth and beauty, that is.)

What if we all felt sorry for their wives and children and dogs and next door neighbors?

And more.

What if Mother Teresa was a genius and Sartre was a fool (himself telling tales full of sound and fury, signifying nothing)?

What if Einstein practiced piano scales daily as a kid?

What if the capitalist down the street is a philanthropist, the humanist down the street is a misanthropist, the scholar is a bigot, and the small town sheriff is a sage?

What if theology is the queen of the sciences?

It's complicated, isn't it?

Think:

What if we maintain our connection to the divine, in part, by maintaining our relationship with the human?

What if we love God in part by loving others and performing daily duties?

What if even the Word Himself became flesh. And dwelt among us.

And what if to love and know and learn, we have to go where the unwashed they are, and live where the un-nuanced they live, and eat their casseroles, vegetables, and drink their iced tea, and do their homework assignments?

And in meeting with daily life and daily people, what if we find not just truth and beauty, but also ourselves right there?

What if we find that we, in fact, are just another one of them: merely a co-regent of all creation. (Nothing big.)

My friend, what if we find our best selves in the mundane performance of daily duties that bring order and abundance, done with love, joy, and humility?

Here is your next homework assignment for "Life 101"

* Read the Gospel of John to yourself aloud and slowly
* Read "The Practice of the Presence of God" by Brother Andrew
* Read "Intellectuals" by Paul Johnson
* Discuss with your fellow co-regents. (Ie, your middle class parents, teachers, and friends. You might be surprised at how much they know.)

Sincerely,
An old friend, who once hated homework, wore black turtlenecks, and choked on both gnats and Camels

An Organic Family Farm Near You, North Texans

A family at Will's school, Coram Deo Academy in Collin County, recently opened an organic farm. They supply locals with organic produce and honey -- including the "Harvest" farm-to-table restaurant in McKinney. This is truly a sweet family who has found a way to work hard doing what they love together.

Check out the link and have a visit some time! It's right in Celina -- so not far away from north Dallas towns. You can also see their facebook page -- with some really gorgeous photos.

Cartermere Farms

HGTVs Elbow Room, Tuesday 11:30 EST,10:30 Central

...features my sister-in-law and brother's house -- Adam and Leigh Anne Redd's in Atlanta. Host Chip Wade and his team did an innovative renovation.

http://www.hgtv.com/elbow-room/show/index.html

One Critique of "Courtship:" Or, Why DO We Have to Go Steady?

Mid-century (as in non-"courtship") American dating practices can remove heavy pressure and unwholesome emotional intensity in dating, and promote young people gaining wisdom and knowledge about the kind of person they should marry. This guys asks -- what about the good, old-fashioned casual date of a movie and ice cream? (Remember Elisabeth and Jim Elliot and their "coke dates"?)

How "Courtship" Is Flawed

Something Good Happened in Russia

A report from the Russian Orthodox Church on an international gathering of government officials, clergy, and others: "International Forum on the Large Family and the Future of Humanity" 

'Addressing the forum, Patriarch Kirill said in particular, “The large family is a phenomenon that influences very many because the large family is an example of how people build a very solid community by dedicating their life to others. The large and healthy family is a factor defining the moral health of the whole society. That is my profound conviction and for this reason I support all the events and the program which you have carried out in cooperation with like-minded people from many countries of the world”.

In his speech, Metropolitan Hilarion stated a demographic crisis in Russia and Europe caused among other things by the crisis of the family, “especially the crisis of the large family. The life of a large family in today’s Russia is an everyday hard work and feat; it is a life against all the patterns of a society of comfort”. Among the acute problems impeding the preservation of moral family climate in Russia is an enormous number of abortions. Metropolitan Hilarion called for solidarity of all religious confessions and all people of good will in the efforts “to safeguard the family against challenges of the secular world thus protecting our future."'

Family Worship Part II: The Time and Manner of Family Worship

To follow up from the first article, The Heart of Family Worship, here is the second and last installment on the topic of family worship by Scott Redd.

The Time and Manner of Family Worship

How High Is the Divorce Rate among Practicing Religious People?

Bears repeating, in case you missed it -- a correction to a common misconception.

Gospel Coalition fact checker on Divorce

Divorce stat article by same author at "Church Leaders" site

Cycling and the Brain

David pointed out to me this interesting article on the intersection of cycling, behavior, and brain function

Brain Function and Cycling

Little birthday poem

for Sarah

She of the soft brown hair
Bright brown eyes
Math problem sighs
Puppy dog highs
Pink lip gloss

She of the cartwheels,
Handsprings
Trampoline tumbling
Shy-brave smiling
Flip-flop flipping
Flowered shorts

She of the tie-dye
Shirts,
Daddy flirts
Besties texting
Cookie baking
"Iced-chai-latte" thirst
Queen of Latin First
(and Second) Declensions
Our third
Is 12 today

North Pond Hermit

Interesting story, link below, about a man who lived a quarter of a century alone in the woods in Maine.

While socially a hermit, it's interesting to consider that he hovered so close to civilization always and was completely dependent on the takings and leavings of the civilization he rejected -- food, books, clothes, radios.  An isolated consumer who even, finally, seemed to have lost a realistic sense of self or personhood. It's as if, in total isolation from intimacy he lost perspective about his own personhood and community, both.

When we lack intimacy and community with others, do we lose intimacy even with our own person?

Discussing the article, my mom and I chuckled at He-of-the-Propane-Tanks-and-Cheetos calling Thoreau a "dilettante."

Aside from all of this, it's interesting to think about re-entering the modern world after so long from it. His comments on the blaring lack of "nuance" as he re-entered our culture are interesting. Can you imagine the starkness of a lack of nuance and subtlety faced by this guy as he was driven down any town street or, for goodness sakes, when he turned on the tv?

And I am also fascinated that every winter he woke himself every morning at 2 am to be sure to stay warm

What a strange 25 years for the people in that community!

The Strange Tale of the North Pond Hermit

Family Worship

First part in a two-part series by Scott Redd, at Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals site, "The Christward Collective."

The Heart of Family Worship

"Baby, tell me what you think about this..."

Some modern country for your listening pleasure

Love the way these two harmonize together, gorgeous harmony. Beautiful song and video.

Back at Mama's

And another good song by Miranda Lambert.

Automatic

Old stuff:
Nickel Creek 
The Hand Song

Out of the Woods

And of course some Alison Krauss. You didn't think I do even a wee post like this without her?

The Lucky One

Ghost in This House

Stay

From Sunergoi: A Simple Love

For those in search of a simple life, here is a post by my brother about a simple love:

http://thegospelcoalition.org/article/simplicity-is-about-god

And on creation ordinances:

http://sunergoi.blogspot.com/2014/07/during-conversation-today-seminary.html

God. With. Us

God Is Not Fate
http://sunergoi.blogspot.com/2014/03/god-is-not-fate.html#more