joyful-reality

Monadnock - see next post

2011-08-29T15:06:00.000-07:00

So, I'm trying to figure why I get SOOO much advice about having too much stuff from people with WAAY more stuff than I have. But that's a minor mystery. All I need to know is: I don't want to solve my problems with materialism by taking up OTHER people's problems with materialism! (Which, sadly, is one likely result of taking their advice.) Instead, I want to treasure my heavenly possessions so much that my worldly ones become not fewer, not less significant, but simply not significant at all! I count them as refuse, that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes through the law (better management of my possessions) but that which is through faith in Christ!!! The righteousness that comes from law and is by faith. . .

Let me think about that on tomorrow's hike.

HOW TO CLIMB MOUNT MONADNOCK WHEN YOU'RE OVER 50

2011-08-17T14:10:00.000-07:00

HOW TO CLIMB MOUNT MONADNOCK WHEN YOU'RE 50-Plus

Suggestions:

1. ALWAYS TAKE THE OLD TOLL ROAD DOWN!

2. Any combination of trails that includes the Old Toll Rd. is likely to spare your knees. The trail up is not as important. I like the Spellman Trail. It fits all the hard climbing into half a mile.

3. NEVER, EVER TAKE THE SPELLMAN TRAIL Descending. You will complete your trip in an ambulance, and hobble around or crutches for weeks, if you ever recover from your head injury, that is. (I don't know this from experience, thankfully, and I never intend to find out.) This warning applies to any age, especially if you are in a hurry.

4. Cascade Link to the Red Spot Trail is slightly shorter, and almost as pretty for ascent. Cascade Link all the way to Pumpelly is worth the distance.

5. The best views descending, far and away, are from the Smith Summit Trail. You will have daylight even if you get a late start, since it descends the west side. And, since most times I meet NO ONE on this trail, you'll have all the blueberries to yourself. The views are spectacular, and it passes close to Monte Rosa, which is great for solitude. Has a photogenic weathervane, too.

6. Smith Summit, like most other trails, is not difficult to follow IF you always look for round white paint blazes and/or cairns. Expect to walk toward the edges of a lot of cliffs, and not see the way down until you peer carefully over!

Rules, no particular order:

1. Wear boots with ankle support, and synthetic, wicking fabrics, at least for your t-shirt. Wear long pants, to save the skin on your knees. Bring 4 or more pints of water.

2. Use one or two hiking sticks, or a CC ski pole. Even a tree branch is better than nothing. There are plenty of fallen trees along the Cascade Link, but, get this, none above the tree line;-)

3. Avoid any trail that begins with “White,” especially when descending. These are the trails that were rebuilt with tons of rocks, many many tons, to combat erosion. They are death to knees, and dangerous if you fall. Leave these trails to 20 somethings in sneakers. They are in a hurry. You are not.

4. STAY ON THE TRAIL. ALWAYS. There are dozens of trails. Do not make your own. You do NOT want to be rescued, you don't even want to hobble home in the dark. STAY ON THE TRAIL.

5. Never hop. Hopping is for frogs, and 20 year olds. You are neither, and want to be inches from any hard surface before you shift your weight towards it. Hard landings, and imbalance resulting from a hard landing, leads to the breaking of your bones.

6. Bring bug spray. Unless it has been very dry, you will need it. I was even attacked, once, on the Pumpelly Trail by one of the new Asian, day-biting mosquitoes. Yes, these pests with a striped abdomen have even found the paradise that is Monadnock Mountain.

Misc. comments on trails:

Sidefoot: a great alternative to White Arrow. Hard to find the beginning, then it's easy. It's a trail on earth, with grass and plants! Hardly any rocks! I've descended it once; never gone up because: a. it is not the Spellman Trail, and b. if I'm on that side of the mountain I go to Bald Rock, which it bypasses. Unless you want to take a crazy, up and down, zigzag sort of hike, which is fine.

The Spellman Trail is beautiful. My blog background is a view of North and South Pack Monadnock from about halfway up, looking toward Boston. Bring binoculars and you may see The John Hancock, Prudential, New England Life and perhaps downtown, on a clear day. These can also be seen from the summit, and the Pumpelly Trail. You do NOT need to brave the rigors of the Spellman Trail to enjoy a good view!

MY PERFECT HIKE:

Cascade Link/Spellman up

Smith Summit&Old Toll Road down.

The best views, and the best sunlight, and lots of time above the tree line.

No crowds except at the Summit.

3 miles each way, or about 6 hours on the trails, if you take long breaks and lots of pictures.

Details:

White Dot Trail to Falcon Spring (refill one water bottle here; I keep this for emergencies since AMC says don't drink any of the water. Falcon Spring comes from a pipe installed in 1995 and is far less likely to be contaminated than a stream. According to the park rangers(8/30/11), they drink from Falcon Spring all the time, but from NO OTHER source out on the trails.)

Cascade Link to Spellman Trail

Turn left at Pumpelly Trail, and walk for what seems like forever in Heaven (actually 0.7mi) surrounded by SPECTACULAR above the tree line views. Sneak up on the vultures at the pool halfway between the Sarcophagus and the Summit(I've never managed to do this)

At the cross marking the entry of the Red Spot from the left, just keep on hiking. You will see the cross on the horizon, and you will pass it on the left, after skirting the left side of a pool rimmed by cotton sedge.

(Use a map to navigate, not my rambling thoughts, of course)

The trail zigzags, and markers are fewer, near the top. Look carefully for cairns.

Bathroom breaks: use the woods. When above the tree line, on Pumpelly, there is a small valley with trees just before the final ascent. It is easy to get a hundred feet from the trail here and still find your way back.

From the Summit, turn right, looking carefully for cairns and signs for Smith Summit or "SS." You will be on the D/M trail for only a few yards. Keep looking for the SS white circles to the left or you'll end up hiking towards Mt. Washington in the far north. Take the Smith Summit, past many blueberry bushes (ripe from mid July and peaking in mid-August) toward Mt. Rosa. Climb it, or take a left at "The Tooth" for a shortcut to the Fairy Spring Trail. The Tooth is a VERY large glacial erratic, perhaps 15 ft. high, with a weird overhang. Another place where I flushed a large bird. Next time, I had my camera ready, but no bird:-(

The Smith Bypass is a shortcut to the Fairy Spring Trail; it goes left, under the overhang. Monte Rosa is straight ahead, to the right of The Tooth. Where the trails rejoin is easy to miss (no wooden sign; you may notice paint on a rock). The Fairy Spring Trail passes, get this, The Fairy Spring! And the walls of an early house by Fassett Brook. This trail, or the parallel Monte Rosa trail, which are the same length, brings you to a short, level stretch of the White Arrow Trail (an exception to my rule against Whites;-), and the site of the 1860-1952 Halfway House. This spot is peaceful, and also the next-to-the-last scenic place. If the sun is setting when you get here, you will not have time to reach the parking lot before dark; bring at least 2 flashlights just in case. A lightweight headlamp is an even better idea; it's also good for camping and cabin use. I follow the Old Toll Rd. down; I'm able to move rather quickly here; so quickly that I fear missing the well marked Parker Trail intersection to the left. The Parker Trail is slightly downhill or level, and leads to another beautiful view, both of a waterfall over the dam impounding the Poole Reservoir (aka Jaffrey Reservoir), and your last view of the mountain, perhaps with a reflection on the water. But if you are with someone, they may be in a hurry, so don't count on too many more pictures.

Speaking of hiking companions--know them well! Know their endurance especially. If there is any chance they will want or need to turn back, plan for this. (There is no good place to turn back on the Spellman Trail!) I suggest starting along the Parker Trail, then take either the Old Farm Trail or the Cliff Walk to Bald Rock. There is a spectacular view at the Old Farm/Cliff Walk intersection, and from Bald Rock itself. By this time you will know if a first timer is ready to go to the top. Don't force them, or yourself, for that matter. On Fathers Day, with my adorable daughters (both soccer players, one in average shape, one in "I jog 3 times a week" shape), we did the following from Bald Rock: Smith Connecting to Amphitheater (which has BLUEBERRIES in July/Aug.), a quick trip up Monte Rosa, then Fairy Spring to the Old Halfway House site, Old Toll Rd and Parker back to the parking lot. A slightly shorter trip would be to start 200 feet higher, from the western parking lot (no bathrooms) and take the Old Toll Road or the Halfway House Trail to the Halfway House Site. Then, you could either take Sidefoot/Amphitheater/Smith Summit or Fairy Spring to Smith Summit. This has the drawback of taking Smith Summit both up and down, which I've never done in 30plus hikes! The White Arrow is very difficult at the top. I wouldn't necessarily rule it out for "up" but as I said before, it is uncomfortable and slightly dangerous to take it down.

Once again, THE SPELLMAN TRAIL IS UNCOMFORTABLE AND DANGEROUS DESCENDING, and you lose the advantage of the views because you spend all your time dragging your chin over rock. It cannot be descended facing away from the mountain (unlike the Smith Summit).

. Follow a few simple rules, plan ahead, and you'll spend your time glorifying the God of all creation instead of worrying about your aching, painful knees. The saddest thing I ever heard while hiking (White Dot Trail), was one woman saying to another "I'll never ask you to do this again." It brings tears to my eyes even now. The one for her willingness to please her friend& go way beyond her comfort zone, the other for her guilt and disappointment. Monadnock Mountain is a beautiful, emotional place.

To end on a happier note, listen for kids at the summit announcing "I made it to the TOP"

May all your mountaintop experiences be so joyful.

Marriage: Tearing down a false definition

2011-08-17T06:09:00.001-07:00

A sojourners discussion, after one poster belittled marriage as depending on the good intentions of the nearest male:

http://blog.sojo.net/2011/08/11/im-not-that-kind-of-feminist/

The definition of marriage that has been attacked by self-styled “feminists” for decades, and which is still under attack, is not marriage as established by God. Marriage, like all of God's Law, is not designed to promote one sex over the other, or even one human religion as “the best.” It is part of God's loving design to bless all of His good creation. Abraham was promised that His seed would bless all the earth. This promise has come true exactly to the extent the blessing has been accepted. But our society has substituted a secular religion (or religion-equivalent, if you insist). The practice of this dominant religion obviously isn't working, yet the blame falls on Christianity, unjustly, and Christians, occasionally with good cause. All of the world's major religions have surprisingly similar definitions of what marriage is and isn't. Those who believe in common grace aren't surprised, but they are saddened that our culture, almost alone across the globe, has such open scorn for what a loving God created and pronounced "very good"

Wisdom from Bonhoeffer on the unsolved questions of life

2011-08-12T06:43:00.000-07:00

"It is simply not true to say that only Christianity has the answers to them" . . . "He [Jesus]is the centre of life, and he certainly didn’t ‘come’ to answer our unsolved problems. From the centre of life certain questions, and their answers, are seen to be wholly irrelevant (I’m thinking of the judgment pronounced on Job’s friends). In Christ there are not ‘Christian problems’. – Enough of this; I’ve just been disturbed again.”

I ask:

Are these quotes (see context below) a condemnation of evangelical theology? Of course not. They are a condemnation of our oh-so-human-human rationalism: wanting to win arguments, and needing to have it all figured out so we look good(like Job's comforters). In fact, if we are following Jesus, our desire to look good will diminish. We will think of, and point to, Jesus. That doesn't mean we will never engage in debate, or be careless of our image before the world. But the concerns of self will surely fade into the background of a life centered on Jesus. Raised in a rational, self-justifying background, it took me a long time to figure out Job, even a little bit. I think I'm getting there. But there I go again, thinkin' about myself;-)

“It has again brought home to me quite clearly how wrong it is to use God as a stop-gap for the incompleteness of our knowledge. If in fact the frontiers of knowledge are being pushed further and further back (and that is bound to be the case), then God is being pushed back with them, and is therefore continually in retreat. We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don’t know; God wants us to realize his presence, not in unsolved problems but in those that are solved. That is true of the relationship between God and scientific knowledge, but it is also true of the wider human problems of death, suffering, and guilt. It is now possible to find, even for these questions, human answers that take no account whatever of God. In point of fact, people deal with these questions without God (it has always been so), and it is simply not true to say that only Christianity has the answers to them. As to the idea of ‘solving’ problems, it may be that the Christian answers are just as unconvincing – or convincing – as any others. Here again, God is no stop-gap; he must be recognized as the centre of life, not when we are at the end of our resources; it is his will to be recognized in life, and not only when death comes; in health and vigour, and not only in suffering; in our activities, and not only in sin. The ground for this lies in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. He is the centre of life, and he certainly didn’t ‘come’ to answer our unsolved problems. From the centre of life certain questions, and their answers, are seen to be wholly irrelevant (I’m thinking of the judgment pronounced on Job’s friends). In Christ there are not ‘Christian problems’. – Enough of this; I’ve just been disturbed again.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer – Letters and Papers from Prison

Lost and Found Dept.

2011-08-08T05:31:00.000-07:00

Rated R

I was on a walk this morning, in between summer storms, and found something white on the sidewalk(the R part begins here). Without investigating, even with the toe of my sneaker, I assumed from its size, shape, color&location that it was girls underwear tossed out the window of a car the night before. (Yes, this could be a puerile male fantasy, but read on as I think my reflections are worthwhile beyond any relation to the actual physical evidence.)

SOMEBODY LOST SOMETHING last night. Perhaps her virginity (if the first time) or her self respect (if the 5^th or 50^th). It matters a lot less than you think whether or not she “asked for it,” as that only determines whether it is rape or not. Maybe this guy was her dream date, maybe not. In any such transaction, the girl loses something important, and the boy gets something for nothing. Maybe he paid for dinner, maybe he just paid. That hardly matters either; it only determines if it is prostitution or not.

While I have no desire to trivialize the ugly violence of rape, the importance of sex goes far beyond its current legal or political status, and far, far, far beyond what two 15 year olds, or 50 year olds, give it on a certain night in a certain place. (At least that was the conclusion back when people actually studied these things.) Occasionally, as in Mary Pipher's frequently excellent “Reviving Ophelia” people still “get it” and actually write about how demeaning sex is for teen girls. The religion taught in public middle schools says that sex is OK if you've thought about it enough. I disagree, unless by "thought about it" your thinking leads you to realize that sex belongs exclusively within marriage, as previously taught by all cultures, even those that wink or even celebrate violations of this heretofore obvious fact.

In the 19^th century, Leo Tolstoy found meaning in the simple faith of the peasants. Today, Dallas Willard tells us, “there are no more peasants.” We convince ourselves that even the most obvious truths are just “lifestyle choices” and think we are sophisticated. Instead of just stupid.

A friend told me a story; hopefully it's not true. Year after year, a certain parent would tell their young child, as they went outside to play: “Have fun, and if things get too hot, put your panties back on and come home!” They thought they were being supremely clever, especially when, as a teen, the child finally got the “joke.” It's not a joke; it's immature parenting at best. And, yes, it would be of some comfort to learn that the parent made up this sick story to demonstrate their “cleverness” to an adult, and never actually spoke to a child this way. But in the end, perhaps it doesn't matter:

We trivialize sex, and then wonder why it doesn't satisfy us. The same lawgiver that governed the rising of the sun this beautiful summer day also said “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” The celestial bodies have no choice in their obedience; human bodies do have choice, we abuse it sorely, and feign surprise when teen girls and many others suffer consequences. . .

Christ and Culture, or "To Go or not To Go"

2011-08-08T03:41:00.000-07:00

How the Christian engages culture and particularly pop culture are interesting questions. There are two bad answers: “We can avoid sinful influences by simply avoiding it or condemning it” and “I can do anything I please”

The former thinks of sin as contamination (usually); but sin starts in our hearts before it exists in something discrete and external that can be “consumed”

The latter is willful and ignorant, and not freedom at all: it is bondage to self will and to what others may think of us for consuming, or not consuming, a particular aspect of culture. We DO have the power to choose, but the people that talk about choice all the time are nearly always those that are bound by sin. There really is NO freedom except in Christ. Non-believers have widely varying degrees of overt sinfulness, obviously, but none of them, not even one, is free at all.

(Pop culture is merely a large, and obvious, part of the overall culture: business, ideas, politics. When one shops, one is either cheap, or indulgent, or occasionally thoughtful and purposeful, but you are always engaging the culture.)

While the “don't go to movies” crowd is right that much of what depicted is sinful, it can't be avoided simply by staying home. The other extreme is right in the sense that it may be OK to attend, but is often naïve about how much they are influenced by something simply because it is well done, or because it contains one good idea. Avatar, for example, contained the idea that systemic evil should be resisted, but it also promoted pantheism in a big way that was doubtless overlooked by a lot of admirers.

Our pastor had a whole series on engaging pop culture a few years ago: sports one week; I should look up the other topics. He and his wife are huge movie fans, but they are conscious about their Christian worldview.

Freedom of Religion

2011-07-21T01:15:00.000-07:00

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Note that the phrase "wall of separation" and even the word separation, appears NOWHERE in the First Amendment!

Why theology matters

2011-04-11T04:58:00.000-07:00

OK, I can't really prove that theology matters, but I can share how meditating on infinity helped me. Remember those old time preachers who would intone “God loves you so much that he would've died for you even if you were the only one? I think when I first heard this I accepted it with youthful credulity, but later when depressed I made the obvious inference: “Yeah, well, I'm NOT the only one—so what? I 'm still depressed.” Gradually, I thought of the math, and it not only helped, but led me to the theology: if you split 10 million dollars ten ways, you've made ten millionaires! If you split one thousand trillions among a million people, each is a billionaire! But infinity is so large that no piece into which it can be split is even slightly smaller than infinity. So, the assertion by the preacher that I thought was sentimental, even treacly, turns out to be mathematically precise: God already DID die just for me! The infinity of his grace, split among all humans that have ever lived, and ever will, is STILL infinity: all of God, just for me. (Not because there are an infinite number of infinitely insignificant gods, but because the one true God is infinite.) That's why God really is waiting to hear us pray, and is incapable of distraction. It is WE who are distracted, while his eye is upon us, waiting for us to look back at him. A child understands this merely as “God is really big” and if that still works as an adult, fine! But this is for the skeptic or the doubter. This leads to the openness of God. I've read next to nothing about it, but still have my doubts. Everything in Scripture, and even the Greek philosophers speculating about God (see Hermann Bavinck on this), agree that he is infinite. That must mean infinite in wisdom and power and all dimensions of space, including time. “Now his Glory has filled all the Earth. Holy is God the LORD” (Infinity of space followed by infinity of power) And if that's just poetry, it's not very glorious. A self styled “progressive” might admit: “We proud humans just say that to the little god we have invented so he feels good” which is nonsensical and almost blasphemous! And idolatry is blasphemous, although it would be better to think of it as petty and ridiculous, as when Isaiah said: Cut down a tree. Burn half of it for fuel, and worship the rest. I suppose the good motivation behind openness is to make our prayers and actions matter. God has already revealed to us that they do! I supposed if meditating on HOW, and why, they matter in a world with a Sovereign God helps your faith, do it. But there is a lot of vain speculating that doesn't help at all. Yes, most early Pentecostals threw out the wisdom of theology along with the futility, but you and I needn't go in the other direction and forget that every theologian that ever lived once wore diapers, and probably will wear them again if he or she lives long enough! More to the point, we are sinful, and so are our speculations if we think they are even half as important as God's self-revelation through Scripture. Even Karl Barth summed up hundreds of thousands of his own words with a Sunday School song: Jesus Loves Me This is know, for the BIBLE tells me so! Naturally, we need to understand how to interpret and apply Scripture, but with humility, not arrogance and self will. Or a “Progressive” agenda. What is progress if there isn't a timeless standard to measure against? What's next, removing the age limit on elders? You've probably read Webb's “Slaves Women and Homosexuals” in seminary. I haven't finished it, but the first half makes his point pretty well, and it's nothing new, really, just using contemporary hot button examples. End of sermon;-) P.S. You can't talk theology w/o footnotes, right?! Here they are: FOOTNOTE: Think of the universe: if you could split it in half, you could still go on infinitely in that direction. No matter how many 'Halves” you split it into, it still is infinite if you go away from the split. Split again, and it's still infinitely large. There is no measurement you can take where length times width times height would be any smaller than infinity. And, of course, if you travel back towards the imaginary “split” you can go infinitely far into that “half” too. Each half is exactly as large as the whole! Your “Division” of space is imaginary, as is any conception of God that is finite. But our God is real!

Weak-kneed liberals who CAN'T teach with authority

2011-03-06T16:28:00.000-08:00

It's often said that Jesus didn't come to found a church. If understood as a dismissal of Christianity, as is often said by theological liberals like Rudolph Bultmann, it's annoying but true in a way. But not in the way the "Christian" liberals mean it:
Because Jesus DIDN'T come to start just another religion.

HE CAME TO RULE THE WORLD!

He is the King!

Already!
The only place he doesn't reign completely is the social and political realm, and in rebellious human hearts. He rules the stars and the planets. (Why do you think they stay in their orbits?) He rules you and me if we let him

(I think that's what the book's about but I'm about 320 pages short of finishing)
Dallas Willard, "The Divine Conspiracy" pp.20ff.

Legalism v. Antinomianism

2011-02-21T07:31:00.000-08:00

"The measure of righteousness, but not the means of righteousness"

.

Legalism is the default of all religions. Even mine. I've been there. Following Jesus is different. The Law is still the MEASURE of righteousness, since Jesus (the MEANS) is the only human who ever followed it perfectly, and completely, as a human. Sinful humans (me, for example) cannot follow God's moral law. Our frustration at our obvious failure is what must drive us to Jesus and his complete, sinless perfection before the Law.
Misuse of the Law comes in several forms:
1. If I compare my own transgressions with other humans, it leads either to pride or despair, but never to Jesus.
2. If I ignore God's Law, I thereby create my own law, which I still disobey.
3. If I view the Law as a path to God, I fail. I fail in an especially miserable way if I THINK I followed it, for then I deceive myself much like #2. The legalists and the antinomians make EXACTLY the same mistake. They just look different while they stumble.
Only by turning to Jesus am I freed from the sin which makes Law-following impossible. But the moral law is still holy, righteous, and good, as Paul wrote, and "perfect" as David declared. It's using it as a means to Jesus that is wrong.
Finally, even our reason is fallen and we have a tough time teasing out the moral law from the Old Testament law. It takes work, but it's not really that hard. Anything repeated in the New Testament, like the Ten Commandments, is binding, morally, on Christians today. That includes rules about sex, which go back to Genesis 2--many centuries before the Law was given at Sinai!

David, prompted and fully inspired by the Holy Spirit, said
"The Law of the LORD is perfect."
What part of "perfect" don't some of us get?
Have you never read "..as we gaze intently into the PERFECT LAW THAT GIVES FREEDOM"
Disobedience is the sign of bondage. Obeying God's Law is the sign of our freedom. By grace, we are freed from sin, and THEN we can freely obey.

I especially recommend "The Prodigal God" by Tim Keller. It is one of the best books I've ever read.

2011-02-14T08:00:00.000-08:00

Saying "God is Love"
is very different from saying that "Love is God" (Love being subject to subjective definition.)
It's also very different from "God is indulgent" which, as an overarching attitude, is anything but loving. (Especially if it means unhealthy and indiscriminate giving.) Instead, truly knowing that God loves us, in spite of our very real sin, and at the unimaginable cost of his very own Son . . . THAT is a love worth celebrating.

Anticipating a defense of Modernism. . .

2011-01-10T08:51:00.000-08:00

You can live the rest of your days in denial, if you can get away with it. But remember Niemoller: At first they came for the Jews&I didn't speak up, then for the Communists...Catholics...and when they finally came for me, there was no one left to speak up.
We are still on that continuum. Nothing, philosophically, has improved. Modernism [and the equally pernicious post-modernism] rules here as much, if not more, as it ever did. Into this vacuum of truth, power always intrudes: Germany, Russia, global corporations, China, whomever. The “salting” which held back the tide of wickedness is losing its savor. And all this was predicted by a certain outcast in the Gospels. Our so-called “progressive values” are nearly irreversibly moving us towards perdition and the final, richly deserved judgment. We can pray like Hezekiah for a break “in our time” but he was no more perfect than I am.
You, by God's grace&the color of your skin, may have received a temporary burst of freedom, but it's an illusion. Try speaking up about abortion and homosexuality, and see where it gets you. No where—all you can manage is a futuile attempt to blame everything on the Religious Right. (which does share plenty of blame, but in a way that lessens your own responsibility ont a whit.)

Is the media anti-Christian

2011-01-10T03:36:00.000-08:00

[An online friend insists the media is trying to reach out to Christians, esp. the "Emergent Church" and is even a sincere believer himself]http://disq.us/xgpho

No doubt that's how it looks from your perspective. “Common grace” extends in all directions, and I'm sure you and even some who aren't believers are sincere in at least trying to be open minded. But I'm referring to a number of specific affronts, which we've discussed here (the persecution of the California gynecologists, for example), and more broadly to worldview. Modernism is our state religion. (Read Machen's “Christianity and Liberalism” for a classic statement of the specifics, long before the Religious Right “got a-holt” of the idea.) This religion is taught in our schools quite specifically. Since it is a way of thinking, it is more pervasive than what is thought of as religious rituals, which can be superficial. The MSM media never questions whether modernism is true, or whether it ought to be taught to our students and the basis of all political deliberations.
So it's much worse than "sentiment"--it is a pervasive, unquestioned falsehood that is incompatible with Christianity and freedom itself.

A New Right Entirely

2010-12-11T08:21:00.000-08:00

To the Editor, Boston Globe:
Adrian Walker is entitled to his opinion about Senator Brown, but, in fact, Massachusetts voters didn't “give gay marriage” to anyone. Gay people are free to marry in all 50 states, consistent with their various rules concerning degree of consanguinity, and the number, age & sex of partners. Massachusetts voters were denied a chance to be heard on this issue in 2008. The only votes that mattered were those of four unelected, unaccountable justices who imposed their personal views on us in the name of progress. This includes the Chief Justice, who, according to Mass Lawyers Weekly, neglected oversight of the corrupt probation department—a duty actually within the purview of our judiciary.

"...Chief Justice for Administration and Management Robert A. Mulligan and Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall, have neglected their duties by allowing the corruption to continue."

http://masslawyersweekly.com/2010/11/26/corrupt-probation-system-stain-on-judiciary/

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/12/11/how_now_brown/

Jim Wallis v. Religious Right, cont.

2010-10-07T01:06:00.000-07:00

I've been asked 3 questions:
Q1. "In what manner were these people [Calif. fertility clinic, whose persecution only Pastor Jeff seems willing to defend]
following the direct commands/example of Christ" (Pastor Jeff asked this one 3 times):
A1.When Jesus was asked "What must I do to inherit eternal life" the first part of his answer was the straightforward part that many of the posters here seem to be ignoring:
JESUS TOLD THE MAN TO OBEY THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.
That is so basic that it's embarrassing to have to repeat it here. Then, in the more memorable part of the answer, Jesus cut to the heart of the matter: the man's possessions were standing between him and Jesus. (A common problem for Americans of any political stripe.)
"Go, sell your possessions” was NOT a command to supererogation, or a statement that helping the poor, or forcing others to do so via taxation, releases you from the basic obligations of the Ten Commandments.
Q2. “What party believes in forcing people to do things against their consciences?”
A2. The party that supports suing Christians who won't fertilize a gay couple. There are many perfectly good citizens who identify as GLBTG. But I say the clinic made the right call in not fertilizing a couple so filled with hate that they took the clinic to court for following Jesus. (Note that the Republicans, most of whom support Obama's war in Afghanistan, still allow for conscientious objection to military service.)
Q3., this one from BlueDeacon “What difference will just one more voice make?”
A3., Again, Jim should be that “just one more voice” speaking out clearly against abortion—not to make a difference, but because it's the right thing to do. He does seem rather too concerned about his public image; I'm afraid I can't help with that. But supporting the Stupak Amendment was his big chance to stand against the tide of partisan divisiveness. Last March he left Stupak hanging, and joined with Nancy Pelosi, who might not even know who Jim Wallis is.

Jim Wallis v. Glenn Beck and the Ghost of Jim Dobson

2010-10-06T05:34:00.000-07:00

from this sojourners link:
http://blog.sojo.net/2010/09/30/beck-nazis-and-civil-dialogue/#comment-84428643

Glenn Beck accuses Jim Wallis of standing in the tradition of 1930's German liberals.
Jim fights back
I join the fray and say that Jim proudly stands with “Progressives” today, (as if society is getting, or even could, get better without repentance and a return to God). But the Progressives in the 30's were the “Mankind is evolving upward” folks who eventually were sequestered as "Social Darwinists" and "Nazis"
I'm putting other posters' handles in ALL CAPS

WAVETOSSED said: "I also read about this incident. The [Philadelphia Gay Pride] rally's organizers had a permit for a private rally. Fundamentalists were invading this peaceful private rally, ... they were trespassing. " In other words, a technicality in the permit was used to suppress the free speech rights of those who disagreed with the views of the rally organizers.
LIBERALINLOVE said:
"I do believe some of these issues need to be addressed. Free speech and faith based practices in private enterprises need to be protected. " I actually thought WaveTossed would agree with you and me on this. I'm disappointed that she defended the Philadelphia arrests.
PASTOR JEFF said: "Could you please provide an example of someone following Jesus' example being persecuted in the US ? " I'll turn that question around; Jesus PROMISED that we would be persecuted. I wasn't at the Philly event, so perhaps the arrested Christians could have made a better presentation of their views. But they had a right to be there and speak out. The persecution of the California fertility clinic is inexcusable. There are cases where one's fidelity to the biblical witness prohibits certain actions. That is a witness to God's call to follow him regardless of consequences. The suit didn't allege that the clinic wasn't nice about it; it alleged that they HAD to treat the same sex couple.
Getting back to Jim: if he could find a way to call a truce in the fight over redefining marriage, and call Christians from the Left and Right to mount a serious challenge to abortion on demand, that would be an accomplishment. But his backing of Nancy Pelosi over Bart Stupak shows he's willing to be just another voice from the Left as long as it puts him on the winning side. [temporarily!] There is still time for him to repent for this failure, if he wishes he'd acted differently. (Now that the health insurance bill is in serious trouble it's a less courageous stand than it would've been back in March.) Better still, he could call on Democrats in this year's lame duck session to reintroduce the Human Life Amendment. THAT would be a courageous and prophetic act!

Thus endeth the posting war for the time being;-)
I'll continue here, by admitting that....
I actually stole that idea (to shift from marriage to abortion) from WaveTossed. I didn't credit her since her suggestions weren't as specific as mine, above
Anticipating a question about why Jim's column was about Glenn Beck but I'm talking about marriage:
Another fair question: I brought up the redefinition of marriage because of my concern for religious and political freedoms. Sexual sins are not necessarily the worst sins, and among sexual sins, the worst are adultery and divorce. (Not to leave out rape and child abuse, but those are more about violence than sex. And divorce is often about money...but we weren't discussing the definition of “sexual sin” anyway...)

As I see Jim's column, it's about his denial of any link between liberalism and social decline, falsely called progress. No matter how poorly Beck makes the point, based on what Jim says in his column, it's a fair question.
And if I seem to be hard on Jim, read this from James. 3: 1Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, and sisters, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. 2We all stumble in many ways...
Jesus said that not even the smallest stroke of the Law would pass away. If the California fertility clinic was humbly following God's law, they were following Jesus. (...which consists in FAR more than legalism. “The Law of the LORD is perfect” because the Lord who gave the Law is perfect. We can only fulfill it by admitting we can't; it is beyond human effort. Much harm's been done, and is being done, by those on the Left and the Right who strain mightily to be seen as Law-followers. There are as many, if not more, strict legalists on the Left as anywhere else. If there is no sin—and humanists and liberal Protestants don't believe in sin as defined by anyone other than themselves—then there is no divine grace. Without grace, you're left with legalism. Not all Unitarians are like Neville Chamberlain. They can be wonderful people in their legalism, from abolitionists like Rev. Theodore Parker, to the friend of a friend who's leading me on a nature walk in a couple of weeks. It's not that I dislike Unitarians, and their co-religionists, liberal Protestants, it's just that their theology is false. Plenty of conservative Christians act as if they don't believe the Bible; that is a huge problem, and arguably more serious than one who rebels against something they don't even believe in!)

Don't make the same mistake I made

2010-09-06T01:37:00.000-07:00

I'm what's commonly called a packrat. So if you don't hoard yourself, you can't make my mistake, right? Wrong wrong wrong. Hoarding wasn't my mistake. Complacency was. (If you think the most important thing in life is “Don't be a packrat” or “Don't be weird” you are rather sadly mistaken.) Guard your heart! Don't think that there is only one wrong attitude towards possessions. I thought that since I had guarded against the “acquisition” problem by spending money carefully and, I thought, wisely, I wouldn't end up with a “stuff” problems. Wrong. I avoided the acquisition problem and ended up with a volume problem. How do you measure “stuff” anyway? Volume? Weight? Value at time of purchase? Resale value? What “most people” do?
So, I filled one side of a 2 car garage with my stuff. It may not sound so bad to some, but at 3:30 in the morning it looked, and felt, awful. What else could I have put there? Crates of antiques? Hmm, could've sold those and done a lot of good with the auction proceeds. But what if I HADN'T sold them? What if I'd bought a 16 room mansion to hold them and made my stuff problem worse? What about a Porsche? Tony Campolo asserted that a Christian can't own a status symbol like a BMW. I shudder to think how he'd condemn a Porsche. But wait, what if I do fill that side of the garage with a Porsche, while giving away 90% of my income for deeds of charity and truth? That doesn't sound like a problem at all. What if that half of the garage is simply filled with a 2nd auto that I don't need? What if I can, and desperately need to, walk or bike to work? Should I sell the car and compel myself to exercise?
There are a LOT of stuff problems. I was going to say “only you can judge your stuff problem” but even that is misleading, since it's easy for anyone to assert “I have a good attitude towards my stuff.” I hope you do, really, but as I know, there is a lot of room for self-justification and self-delusion. Better to leave the judging to “the One who judges justly”, the One who both knows our greatest need, our greatest sin, and yet loves us unconditionally.
[Perhaps I should say “mass” instead of weight, since launching it into space makes my stuff weightless but doesn't affect its mass. And it would cost a LOT of $$$]

Looney Ideas for a "top kill"

2010-08-06T08:32:00.000-07:00

Please take this as tongue-in-cheek commentary. Don't expect to hear much about this now that the bottom kill as stopped the leak.
I recently heard a blogger denounce BP for purposely prolonging the leak by avoiding these two "obvious" ways to stop it:
1. a huge pile of debris and rubber over the leak, or
2. a very large explosion
I'll track down the link if you are interested, but this loony didn't consider that BP had rejected the first since the high pressure of the crude oil would seep through the debris at almost exactly the same rate once it saturated the debris, and the second since it would likely make the leak permanent, and a lot larger.
So, what don't left-wing loonies get more air time?
Three theories, in order of increasing likelihood:
1. There are fewer of them; it's only conservatives that are crazy. (Hmmmmm)
2. The press is biased and wants to hush up embarrassing things said by their favorites, like notorious anti-Semite Oliver Stone. Getting close:

http://www.jeffjacoby.com/7781/anti-semites-and-double-standards

3. The lunatics are in charge of the asylum. Once-marginal ideas of folks like Bill Ayers, Saul Alinsky and Jesse Jackson are now mainstream!
What do you think?

The ordinary life of a matchbook

2010-07-30T15:53:00.000-07:00

This is about freewill, resting on this analogy:
Man is to matchbook as
God is to His Creation.

Imperfect, to be sure, but helpful I hope for a Facebook discussion of free will.

There is a matchbook on my stove. It’s there because the electronic igniter has malfunctioned. It’s a bit less than one quarter used. I know that the matches have been used to light burners (THE PAST.) I know, with a pretty high degree of certainty, that most of the rest of the matches will also be used for lighting burners (THE FUTURE). Suppose I’m standing with a recently extinguished match smoking in my fingers—that’s THE PRESENT. Even allowing for my finitude, I know a lot about the matchbook.
God, infinitely greater than his creation, knows everything that has ever happened (“Nothing is hidden from his sight"), all that is now happening (“I know your rising up and your sitting down”) and all that will (“Where can I go from your presence? If I go to the highest Heaven, You are there. If I hide myself in the depths of the sea, You are there.”) The psalmist is speaking of spatial infinity, but an infinite God also extends unbroken into the Past and the Future. Nothing changes with him. The future is now. A long time ago someone told me about the eternal present, which doubtless got me thinking on this. It certainly wasn’t a Philosophy Professor—I’m not sure I’ve even met one, much less studied with one.

Now, I haven’t touched on free will, but it doesn’t limit God’s infinity. He knows all that has ever happened and ever will. Yet there is clear language describing our choices and our responsibilities. I’d much rather live with that paradox than to impinge in any way on God’s infinity or sovereignty.

A Fathers Day Poem

2010-06-18T03:09:00.000-07:00

“Always Looking Back”

by Kirsten, 9th Grade (see note)

“Can we go to the park” the little girl asked.
Not today, today daddy has to work.

Daddy, tomorrow can we go to the park?”
Maybe tomorrow, but today daddy has to work.

So the little girl grew up and parks were the thing of the past.
She no longer went to the movies with her kin,
and holding hands was practically a sin.
Spending time with her parents was now put last.

As she grew, she always wondered whether she would
ever have just one more day in that park.
Just one more chance to share an ice cream in a dish
or be carried because she was just too tired.
To look up at a shooting star and make just one more innocent wish.
Just one more chance to say “I'm It!”
or dance and sing as if no one was watching.
She just wanted one more chance to go back to that time
when the most important thing
was the newest crayons and dimes.
And now she knows she has to let go of the past
because she knows it will never last.

I just re-discovered this while cleaning out a closet! I'm so blessed: I worked from home for all but two years when this adorable little girl wanted to go to the park. We did so, many times, but never enough...

So today,

if your son or daughter wants to go to the park

GO! You'll look back,

and never regret it!

Since I didn't throw away the fundraising letter...

2010-06-14T07:11:00.000-07:00

...I thought I would read it. It was interesting, and I think it was from a good group (a member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.) The premise was that God did NOT promise prosperity to believers in the New Testament, and it used wars and persecution throughout history as detailed examples

Your latest fund-raising letter seems to assume that the majority of Christians in Hitler's Germany were evangelicals. While hard to measure, this is very unlikely, given the weak response of most of the church to Hitler's takeover of the state church as part of the Nazi movement. A vigorous, but unsuccessful, response was the Theological Declaration of Barmen and the Confessing Church movement. Even among those who did align themselves with the Confessing Church, some were theological liberals like Rudolf Bultmann. He was a legitimate scholar, to be sure, and some of his articles still appear in reference works used by evangelicals and others. But he had no belief in the divine inspiration of Scripture, and treated the New Testament as a human document that he could reshape according to his highly dubious theories of “authenticity.”
.
Perhaps your letter should've clearly stated that the persecution of Christians in WWII was at the hand of the German government, not allied bombers. I am concerned that some might read it and confuse those persecuted for their faith and those who died indiscriminately in wars. The WWII bombing raids, tragic as they were, constituted just punishment for a nation, including relatives of my mother, that started a war of conquest, enslavement, and outright murder. Hitler's party never won a majority in a free election, and yet the majority didn't do enough to stop him.
May God bless you in your efforts to spread the Gospel

In response to the Presbytery of Boston's trivializing of the words to "The Church's One Foundation"

2010-06-07T12:47:00.000-07:00

1.
This church's new foundation:
the Spirit of Today
A newer "New Creation"
the old one's tired and gray.
Of Heav'n we now are thought-less
the world is our concern
Good deeds and nice behavior
are all we need to learn.
2.
Elect from every nation,
yet of the Truth bereft
The symbols of religion
are all that we've got left.
One rule is all important
the other nine are wrong:
The worship of good feelings
this "freedom" is our song!
3.
We're "free" from that old Bible
we're "free" from all the Law
We're "free" in sexual matters
we're "free" from "Ma and Pa"
Free from our basest passions
our errors and our sin?
We'll hide our disappointment
we've just been "taken in."

You will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free.
I am the Way the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
...but if we gaze intently into the PERFECT LAW that gives FREEDOM...

Jim Wallis of Sojourners and G.K.Chesterton

2010-06-05T07:46:00.000-07:00

Jim Wallis quoted G.K.Chesterton in his thought-provoking column on the BP oil spill.
http://blog.sojo.net/2010/06/03/a-time-for-moral-reckoning/#disqus_thread
When asked by a newspaper to describe “what's wrong with the world” Chesterton simply replied: “I am”
We have all fallen short. Have any of us voluntarily minimized our oil consumption and carbon footprint? For the few that may have, you've not done it in a way that significant numbers have emulated. This reminds me of another Chesterton quote:

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried”

“Modern” Christians are not re-examining the Ten Commandments to understand them more deeply. Instead, they know exactly what they say about idolatry and sexuality, and are trying to change them in the name of “Progress.” From the “German Christian” movement during the 1930's, to the ecumenical movement, to “Open and Affirming” churches, we are trying to alter our allegiances to fit in with the spirit of the age. This is wrong, and far from bringing in the Kingdom of God by our own (idolatrous) efforts, we are actually working for the Enemy of Our Souls.

What's wrong? I am. I need to repent, and in such a way that others will follow Jesus, not the Spirit of the Age.

Rand Paul

2010-05-29T08:34:00.000-07:00

No, he's not named after Ayn Rand, but I wondered myself. What about his comments on the Federal Government intervening in the matter of service at lunch counters?

The Boston Globe gets it right, almost

2010-04-29T02:20:00.000-07:00

Thank you for your comments, AtheistHindu, explaining your faith regarding what must be "EARNED!"
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/04/25/separate_truths/?comments=all&plckCurrentPage=3
One thing most, if not all, religions share is good works: earning something (by your own efforts, as you clearly explained in your post.) Indeed, the definition of religion I use most often is “a human effort to find god, as you define god”
(Granted, Christianity is often practiced as such, especially as perceived by non-Christians and sometimes even in the minds of Christian believers.) But Christianity is NOT a religion; it's not what humans do, it's what God has already done, in Christ. It makes no sense to beg for a gift (salvation) that has already been earned by Jesus, and only has to be accepted, humbly. It is perhaps this humility, and sorrow for sins committed, that seems like begging to you. I certainly don't know your experience of Christianity and have no desire to judge those experiences, or you. But I wanted to correct this common misconception.
Other readers have mentioned Harvey Cox; what he's describing is not Christianity, and it's nothing new, it's merely syncretistic religion: offering sacrifices to all the gods in the hope of offending none of them.
Thank you, Professor Prothero, for an excellent and thought provoking column. I do hope none of your readers came to the conclusion that the Holocaust had anything to do with orthodox Christian practice: Jesus' last words were “Father, forgive them...” not “Followers of mine, avenge me.” The Holocaust was a hideously unchristian act, and it is no coincidence that it occurred in a country (and a continent) that had largely abandoned the historic Christian faith in favor of an intellectual, modernistic distortion. For the self-styled “German Christians” human reason had supplanted God's revelation through the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, and through Christ himself, a Jewish man who spoke words of forgiveness from the Cross. I deeply regret that these words were not followed by too many that used, and dishonored, the name of Christ.

Quote suggested by my 11yo daughter

2010-01-31T14:03:00.000-08:00

"God doesn't choose the equipped- - - -
- - - -God equips the chosen."

"Having Nothing yet Posessing Everything"

2010-01-25T03:17:00.000-08:00

Who says theology has no devotional value? You don't have to know German, or German theology, to understand this:

This passage is about [true] faith as opposed to unbelief or erroneous faith. I've substituted "faith" for "it" in a couple places.
True faith does NOT arbitrarily choose objects to set up signs, in that way inventing knowledge of God at its own good pleasure. Faith knows God by means of the objects chosen by God Himself. It recognizes and acknowledges God's choice..and uses these special works of God as they ought to be used.

This is by the author of the work that "fell like a bombshell on the playground of the theologians." A scholar steeped in 19th century German liberalism who STILL believed in the simple things of faith. "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so!" Karl Barth really summarized his life's work with a child's song, in answer to a perhaps impertinent question from an American audience. Coincidentally, Carl Barth was my great grandfather! Barththe American farmer, not the Swiss/German theologian ;-)
Barth also has some great thoughts about how Jesus placed Himself and His coming above marriage and possessions. Without condemning either, Jesus shattered our faith in even the most godly of institutions, either of which can easily become an idol. And Barth wasted little time in speculating about the "authenticity" of particular sayings of Jesus. How Rudolf Bultmann wasted his genius on such foolishness will be, perhaps, forever beyond my comprehension. If I, like Bultmann, had stood by in relative safety during the Holocaust, I might have spent the rest of my life atoning for my inaction, instead of undermining the very foundation of Christian theology, the inspired, Holy Scriptures. Oddly, there is still some devotional value in Bultmann, if you skip over the speculative parts of his writings

An overlooked Anniversary

2009-12-21T12:15:00.000-08:00

Dec. 16th is Beethoven's birthday, and this year, the 65th Anniversary of the barrage that opened the Battle of the Bulge, "Hitler's Last Gamble"
Today, when you feel cold, remember the summer uniforms many of our soldiers still wore while defeating four SS Panzer Divisions, and all the Wehrmacht reserves that the Nazis could hide west of the front line in the Ardennes.
Dec. 21st saw the supposedly weak, undisciplined children of democracy (U.S.Army V Corps) holding the Elsenborn Ridge against fierce and determined assault by Hitler's 12th SS Panzer Division. While the SS is often remembered for their consummate ability to kill unarmed prisoners, this was the Waffen (armed) SS, still composed mostly of volunteers, armed with automatic weapons and backed by dozens of the dreaded Tiger tanks, probably the best heavy tank of the war. Their 55 ton weight limited their range and mobility, and the German factories, though highly productive, couldn't build them fast enough to make a difference. I suspect this was of no comfort to your average 19-year-old draftee, shivering in a foxhole.

potpourri

2009-12-21T08:14:00.000-08:00

Fragments for today: Manna? A hearty meal? Just what God knows I need!

"Clouds & thick darkness surround Him
Righteousness & justice are the foundation of his throne."
Though we can't see God DIRECTLY
we know that TRUTH is underneath.

God's character:

essential righteousness, holiness, perfection
and justice: its outworking in the visible world. (God, and God alone, defines justice; all else is a lot like a child whining "That's not FAIR")

Also of comfort today:
"...these have come so that your faith, which is of greater worth than gold, may be proved genuine and result in Praise Glory&Honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. "

There is a PURPOSE here; God's glory.

Finally, from the Westminster Chatechism:

What is our purpose on Earth & in Heaven?
Glorify God & enjoy him forever: Praise, Glory and Rejoicing

To the praise of his glorious Grace

God, who created every people, and nation, and language

2009-12-14T09:04:00.000-08:00

Perhaps I should entitle this
"My Italian Grandparents"

I tried out a couple of different churches while in college, and one of my pastors said something insightful that is relevant to how we pray. After the sermon, I told him something I'd heard once about shameful divisions within Christendom, and too many denominations and so forth. While he didn't have a lot of time at the end of the service to discuss this with me, he did take the time to point out that many of the denominations actually enrich our understanding of God's truth, in that they illuminate our understanding of what Scripture teaches. He had attended a well-known a conservative seminary in the South, so of course he wasn't referring to anything that was clearly against the teaching of Scripture. But his wisdom has helped a lot when thinking of what divides us, or seems to, when we pray.

. In my tradition, group prayer was a “Prayer Meeting” and prayers were simultaneous, and usually out loud, so while we may have heard one another's voices, we weren't really listening to one another. This is fine, if each person was seeking God in an expectant atmosphere, as in Acts 2. But it inadvertently led to carelessness in one's choice of words; it was easiest just to repeat what others were saying, especially if they themselves were being repetitive. Furthermore, we were in reaction to liturgical worship, so anything that sounded like a crafted prayer was quietly frowned upon—even if it was just a quotation of the church's prayer book, the Psalms!

. Thus, even a public prayer during Sunday worship, usually by an elder or a deacon, was unlikely to be memorable—except for a pious old saint who prayed in Italian, his one recognizable word sounding like “City JAIL-uhh.” Perhaps he was always interjecting two words in English (on behalf of his friend who had to sober up every Saturday night in a cell, sort of like Otis in the Andy Griffeth Show?) More likely, this was a four syllable Italian word that he found quite useful as he poured out his heart to the God who created every people, and nation, and language.

He and his wonderful wife (who gently chided me as “my little bambino” whenever I would sneak up on the platform to play after the service) are looking down on us from Heaven as we pray. As much as I'm looking forward to hugging them again, and finishing my Italian lessons, it will be nothing compared to the unity and awe we will share as we cast our crowns before Him in eternal praise, with all the saints from every age.

Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, 1824-1863

2009-12-14T04:01:00.000-08:00

He was a mediocre student and

a terrible teacher.

But each time he married, it was to the

daughter of a college president.

On August 4, 1853, Jackson married Elinor Junkin (1825-1854), daughter of Dr. George Junkin (President of Washington College) and Julia Miller Junkin.

On July 16, 1857, Jackson married for the second time. His wife was Mary Anna Morrison (1831-1915), daughter of Robert Hall Morrison, the retired President of Davidson College.

http://americancivilwar.com/south/stonewall_jackson.html

On the Brink of Apostasy?

2009-11-18T15:42:00.000-08:00

Presbytery of Boston v. Jean Southard

POB Report, 16 NOV 2009
South Boston

I'd like to thank Pastor Rob for his pastoral prayer Sunday, and the other Rob for his extension of Calvin's definition of a true church:
1.Scripture is preached faithfully
2.the Sacraments are administered

3.discipline is lovingly maintained, and

4.mission is a priority.

What stands out from this meeting is the lack of #3. Is appears to many that effective discipline in the Presbytery of Boston, at least among the “progressive” elements, has ceased to exist. Various machinations were successfully employed to make discipline the province of a small, appointed group, rather than a faithful, life-restoring part of our path of following Jesus—the Jesus revealed by God through Scripture, not the vague, malleable figure of “progressive” culture.
Even worse, perhaps, was the fate of #4. A prominent “progressive” member repeatedly attacked Garrett for his work for Jews for Jesus. This wasn't an angry, personal assault, but a cold, calm, apparently calculated denial of the importance of “preaching the Good News to every creature.” All this flows from the denial of #1, a God who has revealed himself in a way accessible to every creature, through Scriptures that can be read and understood by everyone, particularly when read in their own language: English, Korean, Spanish, Red Karen, or Kagayanen. I'm grateful that NPC has remained faithful to the Gospel that gives forgiveness from sin—that is, true freedom, which is not captive to the idolatry of “progress.”

Presbytery of Boston v. Jean Southard

William Billings

2009-11-17T09:27:00.000-08:00

Who says Aaron Copland (a huge fav of mine) was the first great American composer? Listen to this from William Billings:
Seek not in court or palace
Nor royal curtains draw;
Search the stable, see your God
Extended on the straw

“Sow the wind, Reap the Whirlwind”

2009-10-17T07:40:00.000-07:00

Having undermined truth, beginning in the realm of religion and philosophy, Obama's climate experts are surprised and hurt that no one believes them. On a more practical level, liberals haven't convinced their own followers to get out of their SUV's and walk, so why should anyone else be convinced of a crisis in how we use the resources of God's earth?

The experts have undermined their own credibility

2009-10-16T16:08:00.000-07:00

...from this thread:
http://blog.sojo.net/2009/10/15/must-the-poor-pay-for-our-environmental-sins/?dsq=20238356#comment-20238356

Thanks for bringing up science and communication. There is indeed a problem: in spite of the obvious health impacts of a lousy diet—and I'm not just talking about the obesity epidemic—people continue to believe food ads: “eat what we tell you to”. There is a widespread cynicism, and it is not wholly the public's fault. The public is lied to all the time: Reagan lied about invading Central America in the 80's, Clinton lied about his affair in the 90's, and so on. The whole notion of truth has broken down, and scientists and other academicians have actually led the way. People have noticed that supposedly intelligent people lie all the time, and aren't trustworthy. The lie that science disproves the Bible, for example, or the embarrassing anti-Christian diatribes by Sam Harris, et al, show an utter lack of accountability. The distinction between Hollywood make believe and newscasters has become pretty slim. bbuudd said:“Simply ignoring the plight of the powerless, the poor, and the weak (ignored by the powerful, strong, and wealthy) because it costs too much is not an acceptable argument."
I couldn't agree more. Al Gore ought not to be bashed, indeed, but he needs to be held accountable for his lavish lifestyle by the media, and by Jim Wallis and company. Jim never talks about personal self indulgence; it's as if he's given up on sexual discipline and the discipline of searching for the truth. If we, as a society have stopped believing in the truth, why should anyone search for it? Why should anyone listen to a self proclaimed expert? When there was truth, there were experts. Now, as a logical consequence of the tenets of our state religion of secularism, neither exist.

Neo-pelagianism, our State Religion

2009-10-16T08:38:00.000-07:00

A young relative of mine joined the “Youth Climate Action Network” with the best of intentions. The meetings are held in places with excellent access via public transportation. And she wants a ride in an automobile all the time, at a pound of CO2 emitted per mile! What are they teaching her?? She's a good kid; the fault is with a system of adults who say “Let someone else do it, at the government's bidding.” While technological solutions have relevance, allow me to paraphrase Jacques Ellul and point out that it's idolatrous to believe in a merely political or technological solution to a spiritual problem. Yet our state religion teaches faith in human perfectibility, and that those who believe in human sin and a loving, omnipotent and just LORD of Creation are old fashioned, or fundamentalists, or even worse.

An honest question

2009-10-10T05:45:00.000-07:00

We hear a lot these days about laws designed to change OTHER people's behavior. Didn't being a liberal and an environmentalist used to mean "Small is Beautiful" "Living More with Less" and "Tread lightly on the Earth"???
Now Al Gore gets a Nobel for living in a uselessly large and extravagant mansion, and Obama gets a Nobel just for being alive. Am I missing something, or are most of the liberals I know, and know of, hypocrites? Is anyone celebrated for simple living anymore? Naturally, the spoiled rich folks who are TV's talking heads can hardly celebrate folks whose lifestyles put them to shame.
Anyway, enlighten me, correct me, talk to me....

More than you asked for, sir.

2009-10-07T06:01:00.000-07:00

Qui Verbo Dei contempserunt, eis auferetur etiam verbum hominis.
They that have despised the Word of God, from them shall the word of man also be taken away.

Progress: the more things change the more they stay the same

2009-10-04T07:25:00.000-07:00

“Progress” in 1914 meant we had learned how to kill millions, and could call it “warfare.”
“Progress” in 1939 meant we could kill millions of undesirables and call it “evolution of the race.”
Progress in 1974 meant we learned we could kill unwanted millions and call it “medicine”

Sojourners brought up God's Law again

2009-10-01T10:09:00.000-07:00

...so here I go:
I'd like to comment on a Christian and his/her relation to the Law. They are indeed the “Terms” of another covenant, which does not bind us. We are bound under the Covenant of Grace. But the Ten Commandments are still a perfect statement of God's views. God hasn't, won't, and doesn't need to change his mind. A God any less perfect would be unworthy of our worship. Jesus not only reaffirmed God's commands, but made a few of them much more difficult to follow (adultery and murder). Interestingly, it seems Sabbath keeping was made a tad easier by “it was made for humans, you know” which says to me that it's perfectly OK to think about what they mean—not as critics, but as those who seek to understand. Another important thing to think about: does this particular law make any sense as public policy in a secular society? For many of the Ten, the answer is, obviously, "No." But that doesn't mean Christians should be shy about "this is what I believe." In Psalm 19, David said “the law of the LORD is perfect”
I am heartened to see that “LetJusticeRollDown” [another poster at
http://blog.sojo.net/2009/09/29/thou-shalt-not-abuse-the-ten-commandments/] longs to follow in the footsteps of David, the one “after God's own heart.”
Blessings, for Shalom, the loving reign of God's good laws,

Success and failure

2009-09-21T04:34:00.000-07:00

It's often been said that baseball is one of the few professions where you can fail two times out of three and be considered a great success. But an abortionist has an even lower standard(morally if not numerically): it's a successful procedure if only one of his patients leaves the clinic in a medical waste container.
(I am of course aware that this is a complex issue. Many factors go into the decision, and people of good will have differing opinions. But it helps to state mine honestly, and to think carefully about yours! Blessings, Witness4peace)

Goverment jobs

2009-09-16T10:11:00.000-07:00

Who will work for the “government option” insurance company? Let's see, insurance companies will suffer from the competition, jobs will be at risk, so, if I were an employee at Private Insurance company X, I'd apply for a government job with lifetime tenure! Obama would hire the very people he now chooses to demonize!

From a thread about nationalization of health care

2009-09-14T04:44:00.000-07:00

http://blog.sojo.net/2009/09/10/obamas-health-care-speech-hope-over-fear/#comment-16559995

http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6202/what-right-to-health-care
Check out this column from the Boston Globe about what a “right” is, and isn't. The Bill of Rights is about freedom; liberal elitists and their fellow travelers like Jim Wallis have turned it into an entitlement, an obligation that impinges on the freedoms of others. Instead of deeds of mercy, which the Bible commands in no uncertain terms, Rev. Jim is substituting the secular notion of entitlement: something someone else is forced to do for me, for free, regardless of my behavior. There's a world of difference.

True, the Canadian system is technically independent of the US but their people, as patients, aren't. That should be obvious [from their travel to the US for urgent treatment, and their use of our medical schools and privately manufactured medical products]. I know little about European systems; there may be something or a lot to learn from them. But not if we don't get the fundamentals of what is a right and what is personal responsibility straight from the beginning. And not if we don't tell the truth: that Obama and Jim are steering us in the disastrous direction of nationalization regardless of the satisfaction of the majority with many essential aspects of the current private system.
There also was an earlier ref on this site to this column:
http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/24/news/economy/health_care_reform_obama.fortune/
It's well known (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090913/ap_on_re_us/us_health_care_primary_care;_ylt=Akup8mKE8f.5OwsjV4kAZCT34494;_ylu=X3oDMTJ1aWU0OWJvBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkwOTEzL3VzX2hlYWx0aF9jYXJlX3ByaW1hcnlfY2FyZQRjcG9zAzUEcG9zAzUEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yaWVzBHNsawM1MG1pbGxpb25uZXc-), that there aren't enough primary care physicians to handle a sudden influx of people with free or subsidized government insurance. True, primary care CAN save costs later on, but will all these new patients pay any better attention than you and I? Ten or 20 million more people being told to quit smoking, lose weight, and exercise? The emergency is not about health care delivery or insurance, but public health—people are failing to take elementary steps to better health. It appears that Obama has no plan to deal with this other than to insist that his plan will solve everything. Yeah, right. That is so wildly optimistic as to border on outright falsehood.
While I am indeed impressed with our new Surgeon General's dedication to the health of the poor, I still feel her weight sends the wrong message: look how far I got by ignoring medical advice. So she is a good, very good, person, but a rotten example of the preventive care that is our only hope for real savings in a plan that refuses to limit malpractice abuse. Please don't dismiss this as criticizing someone with a problem I don't have--in fact, bad food is too readily available and inexpensive to the poor in America. If this is addressed, as a priority far higher than the socialization of medicine, Obama will have done some good.

Continuing the discussion

2009-09-12T14:13:00.000-07:00

An exchange on the Sojourners site has been moved here due to technical concerns. Topics: Obama's health plan, sexual mores, Muslims, idolatry, yeah it's kinda wide ranging. Talk to me, please ;-)

http://blog.sojo.net/2009/09/10/obamas-health-care-speech-hope-over-fear/#comment-16507986

Better than God. Really?

2009-09-03T15:19:00.000-07:00

God created both women and men in his image. The fact that God is relational, encompassing both the masculine and the feminine, is an unchanging fact that the Church keeps needing to rediscover. When a patriarchal culture reads Genesis 1:27, it notices the “male” and ignores “and female” or somehow discounts it. Every culture, even one as “advanced” and especially one as sophisticated as ours, has this tendency. Our worship of Progress is our projection of human qualities onto God. How could God, already perfect and eternally outside human history and time, get better?

Indulgences and church government.
The “reformation” to which the church is committed is literally that: re-forming, i.e. rediscovering the intent of the structures at the time the Church adopted them. A church hierarchy, developed to serve those inside and outside of the church, instead became a much coveted source of power and prestige, purchasable by the Borgias and their sort, and highly dependent on revenue from the marketplace of guilty souls. While there are doubtless church structures more suited to the Information Age than house churches and itinerant apostles, they are not in any way “better” or an “improvement” over Acts. “Change” is a fact, but Progress is often an illusion.

Science and astronomy.
Some Christians still persist in a belief in a Creation week comprising a sequence of 7 days of 24 hours duration—forgetting that there was no sun until the fourth day, and thus no way that a “24 hour day” had any meaning on days one, two and three. But this error, as obvious as it is trivial, shouldn’t obscure the grander fact the God is the Creator, whatever exact means he chose to use. I just read that Stephen Hawking is still refining the “Big Bang” theory, so who knows when we will find out exactly how God did it? (I can wait ‘til Heaven, but that’s just me.)

Women in the church and elsewhere.
I will grant that, in many obvious ways, the status of women has improved, particularly in cultures influenced by Judaism and Christianity. But this is not a continuous line: even many conservative scholars believe the early church had women leaders. During the era of persecution, the bishop was often the first to be martyred, so moving away from women as bishops saved women’s lives—until the exclusion became dogma, and the many women leaders in the Bible (Deborah, Miriam, Phoebe) and the early church were forgotten. It was NOT the selfstyled “liberal” and “progressive” mainline Protestants who first re-discovered this—it was the lower class, much despised Pentecostals and Salvationists. For example, the Church of the Foursquare Gospel was founded by a woman, and led by her for many years. But in the larger culture, are women really that safe? A female living inside another female has no protection at all. Sexual assault is widespread and devastating. There are few places where you can leave your doors
unlocked any more. Is that progress for women? Some of what we name “progress” has been based on devaluing the precious task of childrearing, and both men and women suffer for our arrogance in valuing tasks based on the market value of the service when performed outside the home. And we still haven’t figured out a way to allow fathers to breastfeed!!

Part of this thread:
http://blog.sojo.net/2009/09/02/science-salvation-slavery-and-equality-the-bible-and-historic-reforms/

Jim Wallis circa 1980 where have you gone?

2009-08-24T11:36:00.000-07:00

I just read Rev. Wallis again,
http://blog.sojo.net/2009/08/20/the-moral-core-of-the-health-care-debate/?dsq=15318107#
and found no hint that he is open to anything but THIS plan, RIGHT NOW. He provides no religious or theological justification for the government doing this, aside from anecdotes that the faith community, as he defines it, is attending lots of meetings and "doing things"--except I heard nothing about prayer meetings, fasting and praying, confession for our personal part in this, just damning of unnamed, sinister special interests. But how is "reform" supporter Planned Parenthood not a special interest? For that matter, the liberal wing of the Democratic Party might just be a special interest:
one that is deeply distrustful of people of faith like Joe Lieberman, and one that is in deep denial about the meaning of the shift in power of 2006-when LIBERAL Republicans lost election after election to CONSERVATIVE Democrats. For all the hope people, including myself, used to place in him as a "third way" it must be blisteringly obvious by now that Jim has moved to uncritical support of liberal Democrats. Why is the “government option” more important than Darfur?
I believe Jim and many of his supporters are pacifists--why are they quietly allowing the President to greatly expand a war in Afghanistan? Afghanistan?? The country that hasn't been conquered by an outside power since Genghis Khan in 1219??? Jim is falling in step with the President's priorities on these things, and it's a sad spectacle.

You heard it first here

2009-08-22T10:53:00.000-07:00

Massachusetts--the state where people want to make lots of laws but no one wants to obey them.
Well, my daughter says she's never heard that from anyone but me. I have a feeling it's a rather common and obvious observation. Defiance of traffic laws is only the tip of the iceberg: I suspect--just a guess here--that Governor Patrick's driving skills are average or even worse than average. Let's hope his chauffeur is better.

Bad news from the moderates

2009-08-22T07:15:00.000-07:00

If you think the only critics of the president's plan are die hard Republicans and extremist talk show hosts, read this from what sure sounds like aneutral source to me:
http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/24/news/economy/health_care_reform_obama.fortune/

Am I a right winger?

2009-06-11T16:58:00.000-07:00

Skimming the articles, you might think I am. Please, friends, read more thoroughly, or at least leave questions, comments and criticisms. (Anything up to and perhaps including ”Go back to Nazi Germany” is welcome, really!) I believe in progressive taxation, not the flat tax. And, in spite of his scr*wing around, I think Bill Clinton was a pretty good President. I oppose overseas wars. I was a vehement critic of the Contra War in the 1980's, and still see that as the biggest blot on the Reagan Era. Wait, you say, wasn't the Reagan Era a huge, undifferentiated blot of right wing-ism, thus PROVING that joyfulreality should be RightWingTotality instead?! Gotcha, you say. I ask: have you noticed that Reagan has been kindly or at least respectfully spoken of by every Democratic Presidential candidate for decades? Are they sincere? If not, then you think Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Barack Obama are liars.*(see note) That hardly makes you a loyal Democrat. If you are an extreme left winger, of course, you will have no problem criticizing any of these as “not liberal enough” But if you think 49 states were wrong in re-electing Reagan in 1984, then might I suggest that you think Americans are fools? Or perhaps you think as this Mondale voter thought way back then, that America was just fooled. Either way, it is dangerous ground on which you stand.
I agree with Susan B. Anthony that abortion is merely another tool by which men abuse women! Check it out—she was an abortion opponent. Does my agreement with her make me a right winger? Think about it! That's what this blog is about, I think ;-)
Blessings,
Witness For Peace (another blogging name of mine)
PS I didn't follow Obama closely enough to recall what he said about Reagan. But he clearly stated that he thinks marriage is between a man and a woman. He was just more tentative and apologetic about it. So, you think he was lying and is in fact is in favor of creating an entirely new, inalienable right to CHOOSE THE SEX of your marriage partners? You're calling a popular President a liar? You gotta choose, which is he? I believe in gay rights, very strongly. They should have, and already have, the same rights as everyone else. I think they, and polygamists, and all of us, should recognize the right of LEGISLATURES to determine the number of spouses we can have, their minimum age, degree of consanguinity, and yes, their sex. Which one of these limitations violates an inalienable right to marriage? They ALL do; it is not inalienable; it is regulated. Regulated not by unaccountable “justices” (many of whom are merely robed activists) but by elected officials in a democracy. Those who are accountable to voters are the ones who should decide.
When GLBT lobbyists (also unelected and unaccountable) chose to make the redefinition of marriage a “rights” issue, the ground for compromise was fatally undermined. I either agree with you completely, or I'm a despicable bigot. Go ahead, post my name on the Internet so people can spit on me!

Beware of what you wish for

2009-06-07T04:06:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm back from Digestive Disease Week, and rather than transgastric drainage of pancreatic cysts, which I know nothing about, I'm thinking about the wisdom embedded in certain cliches and sayings, like: "What's the worst that could happen?"
Well, I missed my stop, so this train could drop me off in a bad neighborhood where I'll be robbed, mugged and murdered. My flesh will be devoured by rats and my bones gnawed by stray dogs. There will be nothing left except this name badge that says I was at http://www.ddw.org/ and took a wrong turn somewhere! I'll be digested!
And the best? Well, instead of simply riding the train to Indiana and then back to my stop, maybe someone will rescue me! I could beg a ride from my uncle, and both of us will spend all evening going nowhere, instead of just me. In other words, my rescue plan wasn't much better than just staying on the train, and I didn't trouble my uncle.
So, what happens when we get what we want? She falls in love with me, we carry on a long distance romance, and I have less time for my calling and my two adorable kids. "Uhh, that's your GOOD scenario?" Maybe what I already have is really good! This train is safe, God is taking me to just the right place, so don't whine about the detours! Hallelujah anyone?

Abortion and Genocide

2009-05-26T00:18:00.000-07:00

from a thread comparing abortion today with the violence in the Old Testament:
http://blog.sojo.net/2009/05/21/discovering-common-ground/?dsq=9946314#comment-9946314
I don't think Hammerud or I are anywhere close to saying slaughter is something to be emulated today "in some circumstances". While Old Testament faith, like Gideon's, is clearly to be desired, the Holy Spirit empowers us to use Gideon-like faith in OUR situation, on this side of the Cross, in the third millennium, not to see how many soldiers we can cause to be slaughtered in one day. As for justifying it, I'm saying it's a mystery to me, while Hammerud seems to be throwing out one or the other of the various less than satisfactory explanations of “Why in the world did God command that?!” But command it He did! Am I to judge God? It is certainly OK for you and me to scratch our heads and say “I don't get it” and to ask God why He did so, either now or in Heaven!

Suffering and Education

2009-05-25T05:09:00.000-07:00

I'm a wimp when it comes to pain—physical and mental. I won't bore you with examples. How can we avoid pain? Education, perhaps: Which sports are the most likely to cause painful injuries? Should I look both ways before crossing the street? [umm, where I live, that's a lifestyle choice, by the way—last week, while driving slowly and quietly through a residential area, a man stepped out between parked cars in front of me on a diagonal path, such that even his peripheral vision had no chance of including me. He finally noticed my car after I slammed on the brakes, and cast me an annoyed (or was it bored) look, as if I had no business driving on the street he intended to wander across. Perhaps I should commend his chivalry, as he took this risk rather than his wife/partner/girlfriend/sister/business associate/?, who was following him at a safe distance. I guess she's the smart one!] Should I smoke to look cool, taking on the distant risk of spending the last years of my life struggling desperately to breathe against my emphysema? Education is great, and answers all of the above questions rather definitively. I've been to grade school, middle school [ugh], high school, college, and even what some folks call a rather distinguished graduate school [see above comment about middle school.] More questions: what do my chromosomes say about the kind of children I might have? Amniocentesis anyone? Fetoscopy? Wow, I can avoid the pain of spending my life tending a dying child; just educate me! Now, I do not have a special needs child, and it is a dreadful prospect, this pain-avoider admits it. Check out www.pwsausa.org for some difficult yet hopeful details on the child two of my friends are raising. So, education will make sure Dean will never be taunted in school, right? Well, maybe—I'm an optimist. But kids also know that kids who are different can be aborted before they ever take up space in a classroom. For every adult who genuinely tries to appreciate human differences, there are a score who are “glad it's not me” or, worse still, wonder why the stupid parents didn't use amniocentesis to, well, nip this problem in the bud! Kids aren't stupid—they pick up these cues from adults. And the do-gooders that inevitably populate groups like my school's “Respect for Human Differences” committee may be sincere, but can they be effective? How many Prader-Willi babies and children are featured in Gap commercials? Abercrombie? American Eagle? Let's see, clothing stores and movie studios spend billions every year to promote “cool.” The Respect for Human Differences committee has a budget of, oh, a few hundred dollars—is that going to outweigh Hollywood and Madison Ave.? Now, there is common grace for every human of every religion. Some things are just wrong, and people know it. So there is a chance that the well-meaning RfHD folks will strike that cord of of grace and do some good. But they are fighting against original sin. Sadly, most RfHD committees are dominated by folks who deny sin, and have a totally unrealistic view of the power of education. In fact, they may be engaging in mis-education in that they promote lifestyle choices as genetic conditions. Or they may promote innate conditions as neutral or positive that are, in their own way, as damaging and destructive as Prader-Willi Syndrome. So, what makes my friend's child valuable? What makes those with poor lifestyle choices valuable? All are made in the image of God. Yes, that comes under “education”—sort of—but it's not a tenet of the ruling elites, so it won't be featured in any educational presentation by the “Respect for Human Differences” committee. And in the background is the not-so-subtle roar of “beautiful is better” “cool is cool” and “life begins when the baby is wanted.” Unwanted babies don't leave the hospital in car carriers festooned with balloons; they leave in medical waste containers.

More or less Priceless

2009-05-20T06:14:00.000-07:00

In an online forum, I was taken to task vigorously for my initial posting, pointing to Planned Parenthood's origin in the eugenics movement. Finally, neuro_nurse asked what Planned Parenthood does that I oppose [not that whether or not I personally oppose something is particularly important]
Let me tell you a story first, from one of the many missionaries to Haiti supported by our church over the years. Her biggest challenge in preventing “risk taking” behavior among young women in Haiti is convincing them their life is worth preserving from the danger of AIDS! If your life is of little value, why not have fun while you can? How profoundly different from my friend's attitude is the raison d'etre of Planned Parenthood—their consistent purpose year in and year out is to measure the value of individual lives, created in the image of God, and to prolong or terminate that life based on a scale of worth that is inimical to my values and I suspect to yours as well. Nothing has changed except the increasing sophistication of their slogans. The main value that is placed on an unborn life is simply “is this baby wanted” and that, of course, correlates with everything BUT that child's value in the eyes of God. I'm glad rich parents decorate nurseries for their wanted babies, and pass around “baby's first picture” even if it's just an ultrasound. But the unplanned pregnancy looks the same to the baby whether it's wanted or not. We're told there will be less suffering if these lower class babies are “terminated”—that is, there is no intrinsic worth in the baby or ultimately in anyone. So the link to decades past is clear, with no repentance. “Every child a wanted child” “Family Planning” are just better slogans. So that's what I don't like about them—they seem to have fooled many well meaning folks, including you.
Blessings for peace, SHALOM—God's wholeness for all of his creation,
Witness_for_Peace
http://blog.sojo.net/2009/05/18/thoughts-on-obamas-notre-dame-address/#comment-9578078

Chubby cheeks or the horrible alternative

2009-01-25T18:59:00.000-08:00

Suppose I am a female living inside another female's uterus in January 2009. Whether I end this year wearing a diaper and having my chubby cheeks kissed and nuzzled, or in a landfill having been incinerated as medical waste depends largely on how much money my mother and her family have. This seems a horrible case of injustice, yet most of the Robed Emperors don't allow themselves to look at it that way. It's not a matter of law or courts or legislatures even, it's whether I am “wanted.” If today I am unwanted, I can still end up the year being nuzzled by a family unrelated to my birth mom, bless her heart, through the gift of adoption.

The Radical Middle

2009-01-22T05:49:00.000-08:00

Isn't there a Beatles song about dreaming about....please enlighten me with a comment, anonymous or otherwise. Anyway, my dream is buried in this exchange from sojourners
http://www.sojo.net/blog/godspolitics/2009/01/16/look-whos-praying-at-the-inauguration/?disqus_reply=5378002

A frequent problem is the oppressed becoming the oppressor. By framing gay issues as civil rights issues rather than religious disagreements, the trends you mention could well end up with me being despised as a bigot, much as many people now look down on a good 'ole boy with a Confederate flag on his pickup(i.e. assuming he's a racist). Legally, a sermon on the Ten Commandments could be viewed by a court sympathetic to GLBT issues as an incitement for a drunk to beat up a gay person in a bar nearby that evening. If such a crime actually occurred, the victim could sue and compel the pastor/church to spend a fortune on a legal defense. In California a fertility clinic was successfully sued for referring a lesbian couple to a different clinic for religious reasons. Also in California, people are being denied their right to vote in citizen petitions. So as fervently as I want you to be physically safe, I don't support much of what is now occurring. Your psychological well-being is important, but freedom and the democratic process are important to the nation as a whole.
A plea for Christians to work for the physical safety of GLBT folk overseas even as we oppose gay marriage here in the US for religious reasons. This is the sort of radical middle thing that should appeal to Sojourners Magazine; unfortunately they are more just the Christian left these days. Which is their right, of course, but a disappointment to folks like me who were big fans of Jim Wallis back in the 1980's

I would also like to affirm JamesM: "So many people dehumanize others and think that that is what they are called to do. Maybe if they had a real heart-to-heart with people who have experienced what you have, they would change their tune."///More on hate crimes:Perhaps you[a person I'm debating on sojo.net] support hate crimes legislation for honorable reasons. I oppose it from the reasons given by this Jewish letter writer, published in response to Cornel West: September 29, 2007
CORNEL WEST and Sylvia Rhue's arguments about hate crimes legislation border on hatred itself, such as when they accuse people who oppose this legislation as being guilty of "falsehoods and bigotry" ("Fabricated fears about hate crimes legislation," Op-ed, Sept. 25).
Hate crimes legislation is unnecessary. A crime is a crime. Hate is a motive. Making a motive a crime is legislating thought. Matthew Shepard was murdered. That was the crime. Perhaps hatred of homosexuals was the motive. Every crime has a motive. Greed can cause theft. Jealousy can cause people to kill the lovers of their mates. Anger can lead to assault and battery. Anger, jealousy, and greed are not crimes. Assault and battery, murder, and theft are crimes. Hate also should not be a crime. We need to keep our senses, even if we don't like the reason that someone commits a crime.
B. M. C.

Six Billion Monotheists?

2008-12-18T09:54:00.000-08:00

The Unitarians tell us:

“One God, Many Names.”
Really?
The power to name is the power to control. If I call my god “Ned” after my favorite rich uncle, who gave me a Porsche when I was 16, my deity is very very different from the God of the Jews and Christians. That God is a Holy God, and loves me too much to indulge my every whim, then or now. If I'm really a monotheist, I have to decide which God is “The One.” Perhaps the Jewish/Christian deity is a figment of our collective imagination, and the one true deity really is rightly called Ned. Or perhaps s/he has so many faces that we have no idea which if any is the real one. But that starts to look like polytheism. H_LL, it IS Polytheism! The Unitarians and their liberal Protestant fellow travelers are NOT monotheists! They think the world contains a different god for each human!
Now, each of us looks at God in a slightly different way.
Of course: each individual is unique, and uniquely loved by the Jewish/Christian God. [We'll call him YHWH since he revealed himself with those four Hebrew letters in the Jewish Scriptures. It's unpronounceable without adding some vowels, I'm told by those who know, or ought to.] This God's self revelation has brought meaning to a large proportion of those 6 billion, and to billions before them across many different cultures. But those who believe look at ONE God from many viewpoints, not an infinite number of gods from infinite viewpoints. Some see more clearly than others, just as individuals differ in other ways. We can know which viewpoints are helpful, and true, by comparing each vision to God's self revelation, and thus learn a lot about ourselves, and about the God who LOVES US ENOUGH TO REVEAL HIMSELF! Finite humans could never handle a complete self revelation, but we have a remarkably coherent library of 66 books about Him, AND we can see what He was like when He walked this earth. (Hint: think of a Palestinian Jew named Jesus. John 14:6)

So, Unitarians and theological liberals can't believe in grace, because they don't believe in sin [see post below] and they are not monotheists because that would require a specific, self-revealed God—their worst nightmare! An outta control god! Ten Commandments—soon they'll be thousands, they cry—misunderstanding the Commandments, which are actually part of God's self revelation. (Which ones are binding today requires some study of the NEW Covenant. Most Christians and Jews say “all Ten” although Jesus himself relaxed the 4th Commandment a wee bit, while tightening up the rest a lot [Lust=Adultery, Anger=Murder from Matthew 5-7].) Thank God, I believe in grace. I confess my total inability to obey any of them—I cast myself upon his mercy and—here's the good part—not only do I know this one God in a personal way, but sometimes I actually want to obey His commands! I'm still tempted, but God empowers me to resist—I'm not alone with Uncle Ned. In case you're wondering: Ned—the god, the uncle—neither exists. I didn't get a Porsche, I got a Schwinn 10-speed, for which I am very grateful. Thanks Mom, thanks Dad! And thank God.
More on self revelation: I use “He” for God because that's the pronoun exclusively used in both Jewish and Christians Scriptures. From the very beginning, God has declared that BOTH male and female reflect his image, which (I think) is why there are two genders, and why marriage is a picture of the persons in the Godhead. And I sometimes capitalize the pronouns because it's a bad habit I picked up from the King James Bible. It also helps me sort out my antecedents, but of course the Greek and Hebrew texts don't use capitals in that way—they aren't even punctuated!

IS THERE GRACE WITHOUT SIN? Thoughts on Modernism and Sojourners Magazine

2008-12-16T05:30:00.000-08:00

Kudos to Brian McLaren for his prediction of an Obama win and difficulties among his friends in holding the new President accountable. Here's one reason why this will be nearly impossible: it actually goes back to the Modernist controversy of the 1920's in American Protestantism (rather than the more recent Postmodernist debate). Let me define modernists as Secularists, plus their counterparts within the Catholic and Protestant traditions. But it's the same conflict as Martin Luther faced in the Middle Ages: Grace v. Works. The works of the priest, the transubstantiation of the Mass were religious works, at least as the Reformers understood them, and probably as many if not most practitioners did. Today's liberals, whether secular or “Christian” are also legalists! What? They are anti-Ten Commandments, so they are anti-legalism, right? NO! There is NO GRACE without sin. Modernists do not believe in sin, so they CANNOT believe in grace. Grace , though entirely opposed to legalism, is not its mirrored opposite. Grace is not “no laws” as opposed to “lots of laws.” Grace is God's gift to those who heed His call to repentance from SIN. Through the Law we become conscious of sin. But if we deny the law, that is, IGNORE it, there is no consciousness of sin. Modernists fervently believe, like good legalists, that sin is “what those bad, bad guys do.” George Bush, Jim Dobson and the waterboarding crowd are BAD because of what they do. They are judged by modernists, both secular and religious, using a different, "up-to-date" law. This “New Law” is nothing like grace. Its function is identical to Old Testament law even if most or every law is radically different. It differentiates the good guys from the bad guys, us versus them. The Modernists are the new Pharisees. Now, I am painfully aware that a conservative Protestant such as myself is sorely temped by legalism and Phariseeism. I acknowledge this temptation and my frequent failures. But that doesn't mean that my theological opposites have an opposite temptation—you have the SAME temptation, and your failure is to judge by your new, more “Reason”able standard. Many times, the Wallis/MacLaren crowd is simply judging by a new law. They cannot be recipients or advocates of grace because they do not acknowledge sin as an offense against a Holy God. In liberalism's eye, God's standards are outmoded, and God has been reduced to their favorite uncle in a tweed jacket. (Or some feminist hero for the more radical crowd). This judging is ANYTHING but Grace. “God is dead” proclaimed the most honest liberals of the 1960's. The sentiment was never contradicted by the mainline liberals; only the words were changed. IF this is indeed what you have done, you have created a god in your own image, violating the first and second commandments. While a kinder word would be to describe some of this would be “modernist/Christian syncretists,” it would also be accurate to describe those who believe this way as idolaters. Now, there are many good people posting at SojoNet; I only offer these thoughts as a warning, and as a “If the shoe fits” challenge. Some of these thoughts are from J. Gresham Machen's Christianity and Liberalism” He acknowledged that Christianity and Modernism would've also been an accurate title, and today it would be much more accurate since this is only vaguely related to politics. It's
Grace v. works. Some of the Confessions have embarrassing condemnations of Catholicism, necessitating explanations and qualifications in the Introductions that the PC(USA) uses to annotate their consititution. http://www.pcusa.org/oga/constitution.htm This sort of updating is good, because practicing Catholics (as opposed to “We Are the Church” de-facto protestants) have more in common with biblical religion than do modernists. Modernists include Secularists, and their counterparts within the Catholic and Protestant traditions. But it's the same conflict: Grace v. Works. The works of the priest, the transubstantiation of the Mass were religious works, at least as the Reformers understood them, and probably as many if not most practitioners

If only real elections were this good

2008-09-14T16:27:00.000-07:00

Here's a feel good book just in time for the election season. But it's more than just that. Perkins weaves together an exquisite cultural sensitivity into her Presidential election drama, drawing on personal experience and what I can only describe as a really big heart. The characters: An adopted South Asian teen. A flower child mom who is a church-going political liberal! Her husband: the kindest, most tolerant Republican Presidential candidate (since Abe Lincoln), but not a church goer. The opponent: Hill sans Bill, with a handsome son to boot. But the best character of all is Uncle Mohamed. I can't wait for him to reappear in the sequel.
And yes, there are "bad guys"--an over-the-hill (at 30!) media know-it-all, and the usual paparazzi.
While marketed as a teen novel, ADULTS WILL REALLY WANT TO READ THIS as an antidote to the evening news. Perkins is clearly anchored in reality, even as she tries to bring out the best in (nearly all) of her characters.
First Daughter, Extreme American Makeover, by Mitali Perkins
http://www.amazon.com/review/product/014241154X/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?%5Fencoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

Sweet sixteen, an American folktale

2008-05-03T06:25:00.000-07:00

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall SEE GOD"
This is a fairy tale about Kirsten. Not the doll, but a real, live girl, now grown into a young woman.
When she was little, all sorts of things were said about how cute and special she was. "Could she be any cuter…" was a typical comment. When she was a little older, people started saying:
"Oh, you have your mommy’s BIG Beautiful eyes." Older still: "Oh, you’re going to be skinny like your daddy." But there was one really strange thing about this otherwise perfectly normal girl. She had never seen a mirror! All she knew about her appearance was what people said about her. Her mommy and daddy told everyone: "Keep Kirsten away from mirrors, and shiny things where she might see herself." So, everyone did.
One day Kirsten was taking a walk in the woods, all by herself. The trees formed a great, dark canopy overhead, but she felt perfectly safe, as if in the most beautiful cathedral in the world. She came to a small pool, mysteriously still. There was a large flat rock along one edge. Kirsten thought. "Oh, if I stood on the rock and looked straight down, I could see myself! My beautiful, blonde hair. My big eyes. And how trim and healthy I look. Dare I? DARE I DO IT? I shall!"
So, looking all around her to make sure no one would see what she was doing, she stepped onto the rock, curled her toes carefully over its edge, and looked down. She saw something in the pool. "It must be my reflection, from head to toe!" But…..
There was no blonde hair, but a billowing cloud of very dark hair. Eyes, but not at all like her mother’s. A large, boldly shaped nose. The figure was very broad, and very very tall. "Is that what I look like???" She asked aloud in surprise. To her utter amazement, a deep, soft, kind voice answered. "Yes, it is, because YOU look like ME!"
"And WHO are you??" she shot back.
"I’m the One who made you, and I made you in My Image"
"But you’re a man! And I’m not! ‘Cause, well, I just had my period, you know …."
"I know everything about you"
"You do?? Well, you’re a man and I’m not. Tell me about THAT"
"Thank you for asking. I’ll try to tell you as much as you can understand in this life. First, I’m NOT a male of the human species. No testosterone, and, trust me, none of the relevant anatomy."
"I trust you, I trust you! But go on…"
"Well, I’m not the ‘way up there, won’t touch the earth’ kind of God that other religions talk about. So I had to allow you to imagine me in human form. Androgynous would NEVER do; too different, too impersonal."
"So, why aren’t you a woman! What’s wrong with us!"
"I thought about that for a long, long time. But if I was a big, powerful woman, people just wouldn’t get it. Especially the guys. Trust me, please. But you do resemble me, really, in all the ways that are important…."
"Oh." (Pauses) "But….there’s still one thing…""Yes, my child?""Wait, I figured it out"
"You were going to say that I’m holding a shining sword in my left hand, and you’re not left handed?""Yep…..until I remembered—you’re a reflection."
"Actually, you are reflecting ME, but that’s a story for another time…."
…..suddenly there was a brief, intense flash of light. Kirsten blinked, looked down into the pool, and straight into the big, dark eyes of the most beautiful, blonde 16 year old in all the world. A pure, white rose rested gently in her hand.

RELIGION ISN'T ONLY FOR REPUBLICANS

2008-02-26T12:07:00.000-08:00

The above appeared the Boston Metro Tue., Feb. 26, 2008 with title and emphasis added by the paper:
Thanks for Thomas Keown's column on Christians who care deeply about poverty. Our faith is not the property of the Republicans or the Democrats. As Jim Wallis puts it, in his usual thought-provoking style,"the religious right is being replaced by Jesus." What is sometimes forgotten, though, is that left wing Christians need Jesus, too. Many liberal clergy have turned words about Jesus into a code, so that right and wrong become malleable, and where Jesus' resurrection and even his existence become secondary. Instead of remembering that Jesus said "not the smallest letter, or even a dot" will pass away from God's good laws, they substitute the relaxed morality of the secular world for the timeless safety of the Ten Commandments. If caring for the poor ever becomes as unfashionable as sexual morality already is, the religious left will have no more use for Jesus.

Damn the Presbyterians!

2008-02-18T08:14:00.000-08:00

or, what if C.S.Lewis had been Presbyterian instead of Anglican?

Location: A dungeon somewhere in Eastern Massachusetts
Time: November 19, 2007

First Voice: Damn those Presbyterians!
Second Voice: Will you stop saying that!
First Voice: What, now you're a prude.
Second Voice: No, it's just that...well...we are!
First Voice: Prudes?
Second Voice: No, damned. For all eternity.
First Voice: Eternity's a long way off, mate.
Second Voice: In The Enemy's time, it's already here.
First Voice: Gee, thanks, "Mr. KNOW IT ALL, the Pit's most theologically correct demon," come all the way from Pennsylvania to lecture me.
Second Voice: Don't say that name!
First Voice: Huh? "Gee?" C'mon, it's not his name, it's a misspelling of the first initial.
Second Voice: Whatever, I've still got the creeps from his last visit.
First Voice(embarrassed): Don't remind me. I was taking a Pit Stop myself. Rehab assignment, you know.
Second Voice: How could I forget? Demoted because for three successive Sabbaths you failed to get a Pharisee to count his cumin.
First Voice: I was trying to get him to peek down Martha's veil.
Second Voice: Did it work?
First Voice: No, she would always pray when she walked past him, and he knew it.
Second Voice: Great, you ended up making him pious.
First Voice: I figured he would be proud of his piety.
Second Voice: So that's why they assigned you to the skinny guy in Newton?
First Voice(grunts agreement): He has a great pedigree.
Second Voice: What? His dad???? Sure, he's a Republican, but real Pharisees don't pray like he does. They just can't.
First Voice: What makes you an expert?
Second Voice: I have a choice assignment myself.
First Voice: (sarcastically) Seine Namen?
Second Voice: The skinny guy's big brother!
First Voice: (snorts) Like how hard is it to keep him down?
Second Voice: Harder than it looks. The guy lives at the poverty level so he can be around books. Books about the Enemy. There's even a shrine to Machen, eight feet below his desk at the library!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Gresham_Machen
First Voice: That makes it even easier
Second Voice: Like Hell it does
First Voice: Now who's swearing?
Second Voice: Shut up. Machen stayed with the Presbyterians til they kicked him out. Even mixed with pride and human weakness, the truth in all those Reformed theological tomes is straight from the Enemy. Years ago, the big brother even turned the little skinny one on to social justice!
First Voice(with a derisive laugh): You mean Sojourners? I love it! Too timid to stand up to the liberals, they spend their time smugly pretending conservatives are all materialistic despoilers of the Enemy's creation… But who am I kidding? Yesterday those Presbyterians at Fern Street had a sermon preached by a Jew about the Trinity in Isaiah 11. He went on to say the Enemy’s minions can work for social justice WITHOUT being motivated by guilt. That evening the girl that got away from Cluny's host told her story. We had to put out an emergency call for all the demons in town. Caused a traffic jam on The Pike.
Second Voice: Jews? Preaching at Fern Street? The pretty Unitarian Church? I love the Unitarians--great place to catch a nap.
First Voice: Hello, it was sold to the Presbyterians in 1946.
Second Voice: Unitarian, Presbyterian, most of our guys don't exactly bother to memorize either of their addresses. So, what happened?
First Voice: Well, the skinny guy is easy to distract--any pretty girl will do-- but another militant was hiding in the corner. She saw us swooping down, tapped the skinny guy's shoulder and BOOM! Next thing I knew, I was writhing in pain on that stupid linoleum, listening to a sermon.
Second Voice: Sermon? I thought it was, like, a community event
First Voice: Hah! They’ve been reading the Enemy's instruction booklet. And we lost 'cause of a couple of skinny elders, plus that lady whose teeth we knocked out last year.
Second Voice: Don't you dare mention the lady with the teeth again. How were we to know the Enemy had agents at a Dental School? It’s well known that we own every high school and University on the East Coast... But back to last night: it must've taken more than three of them to hold up Moses’ arms.
First Voice: For once, you're right: We forgot to sweep the basement. Turns out a militant named John was down there, on his knees, all evening. Like I said,
Damn those Presbyterians!

Even better than Dilbert's amazing mission statement generator

2008-02-11T06:41:00.000-08:00

Mission Statement:
Our company seeks to glorify God by providing surgeons and endoscopists with innovative tools for the human side of healing

CORE VALUES:

Diversity: We will employ a diverse and talented group of people and ideas to a common purpose.
We will encourage "thinking outside the box" Yes, it’s a cliché, yet it manages to capture much of our approach. Our products will be orthogonal when that is efficient, and also spiral, random or anything else that works!
Integrity: We will not lie, cheat, or steal.
We are whole individuals, with lives outside of work.
Trust: We will be open and honest with one another, allowing differences to contribute to our creativity.
We will hold the above in creative tension with valuing each individual’s privacy
Results: We will deliver value to our shareholders
We will deliver useful tools to the medical community

What’s YOUR favorite body part?

2008-01-23T04:57:00.001-08:00

(No, I didn’t say "favorite part of your body")
We just had TWO sermons on Unity and Community. Last week, a new staff member preached from the Psalms, and I loved her description of the shining beauty of the oil that covered the high priest from HEAD TO TOE[note double foreshadowing, you literary types]
This week was the familiar Pauline passage on the unity and necessity of the diverse body: No part is less important than any other.
So, what about the Head? Seems everyone wants to be the Head, but that job is taken by the One Slain from the Foundation of the World. So even though I must take up my own cross, that doesn’t make me "The Brain"
How about Heart—warm, vital, life giving? A nice thought, but no, not really.
Eye? A little closer—I see things many don’t see, and I often see things differently.
How about………….
A Toenail! I’m a little rough around the edges, and sadly, I accumulate a lot of odd-looking stuff that others think is junk. (In fact, some of it is)
WHERE IS THIS GUY’S SELF IMAGE? Please, don’t give up on me yet; I didn’t say I was a hangnail. That doesn’t count as a body part since, technically, I think only a tiny part of a hangnail is even alive. They are mostly dead tissue attached to living tissue with VERY functional nerve endings. And, yes, as necessary as toenails are, I don’t think most of the nail is "alive," either. The best part of me is what’s beneath the surface, and behind the visible part! All you see of me is what’s been pushed out from under the skin! And, far from having a low self image, consider this about me: when The Body is walking at a normal pace, not leaning or swinging the arms, what part crosses the finish line first??
You might even, gasp, call me a Leader! But please don’t.

From the Bottom of the Pit

2007-12-22T07:47:00.000-08:00

>>>Remember, my "Darwinist hat" statements are NOT what I myself believe, but an application of my friend's reasoning!<<<

Continuing the discussion with my sincere, polite, online friend--

poster "Ashpenaz" offered a contorted argument, relying on alleged scientific discoveries to redefine the word "eunuch." I replied:

In spite of our mutual concern for the poor, I really doubt whether you believe in [the judgment of individuals and their sins], Ashpenaz. You said:
'Everything is permissible" and "Love is the fulfillment of the law." We each have to work out our own salvation by determining what our conscience tells us is the loving thing to do.'
.
.
Meaning everything, or practically everything, is permissible if you can rationalize it as "love." This tosses out everything Jesus and the Old Testament say about sexuality and poverty if you are creative enough, I mean "sincere enough" before your own unique conscience. Let me put my Darwinist hat back on and posit: I help the poor by advocating natural selection. Since many people "make it" in spite of poverty, those are the ones with good genes. They'll live, the rest will starve, and in the future all poor people will make it and be tough. So my neglect actually helps the poor. If I am sincere enough about this, will God let me into Heaven?They didn't understand Darwinism back then, either, so just like "eunuch" means what your argument from ignorance might suggest (an interesting argument, really, though I disagree) so the means of helping the poor in the 21st century must take on a global, evolutionary perspective. In the end we all win: My Darwinist alter ego needn't feel guilty, and the poor get better as quickly as Darwinism will make them tough and resilient. Builds character along the way, really!
Posted by: Witness for Peace December 21, 2007 3:06 PM

Saved by Strong's Concordance

2007-12-20T05:52:00.000-08:00

In response to:

P.S. My definition of a eunuchcomes straight from Strong's concordance and Vine's dictionary--look it up.
Posted by: Ashpenaz December 20, 2007 1:33 AM

That settles it:
"A castrated person (such being employed in Oriental bed-chambers)
by extension an impotent or unmarried man;
by implication a chamberlain (state-officer); eunuch.
Thanks for clarifying this. Strong’s says nothing whatsoever about homosexuals. God loves homosexuals so much that they are protected by the same good laws from God as everyone else, including Jesus’ ringing affirmation of Old Testament law (not even the smallest stroke will pass away), and his definition of marriage as a man leaving his father and mother and being joined to his wife. (Note that there is nothing generic anywhere in Matt. 19:5; the husband doesn’t leave his "parents" or just his father, but his father and mother.)
The relevance to poverty is this: those seeking to neglect almsgiving quote "The poor you will always have with you" as if that is anything other than the CONSEQUENCE of our sinful neglect.
Those seeking to accommodate the Bible to modern lifestyle choices apply their imagination to selected OT and NT passages.
Our choice is clear, but extremely difficult. Poverty is a huge, seemingly intractable problem, and chastity is not a simple matter for anyone, whatever their circumstances. But God’s grace is abundantly available to all. In it, I bless you and pray God’s best for all who read this.
(And see my comment above about "warm fuzzies")

Wait, wait it gets even better

2007-12-19T17:39:00.000-08:00

Ashpenaz came up with some more creative twists of his gay theology[see post about King David below], including the unwarranted substitution of "homosexual" for "eunuch" in one of Jesus' sayings. My considered reply:
Ashpenaz, my friend: This is a discussion of helping the poor not about gay theology. But if the Bible isn’t true, if the Ten Commandments aren’t for today, why should we help the poor? If our science teachers get it right, the only logical conclusion is that the unfit and the poor are a drag on our evolutionary progress. Only if the Bible is true does each individual have value. If with perfectly pure scientific motives, I do triage on a global scale, who are you to judge me and my pals the Darwinists? On what basis? You can only judge if you believe in the one Jesus of Scripture, not the 6 billion personal Jesus’s that liberal Episcopalians such as yourself offer us. "I’m right, you’re right, we’re all right" and the poor die. But no, Mother Theresa and the Bible are right. That godly lady continued to obey the Bible even though she didn’t get the warm fuzzies we expect when we invite a lonely neighbor over for Christmas. I am humbled by the thought of my sister in Christ, now at the feet of the historical, biblical, flesh and blood Jesus she served so well.
And I admit it: I still want a few of the warm fuzzies. I’m weak, really weak…………
I posted the above, and then prepared this comeback:
You’ve garbled something Jesus said about eunuchs into a loophole that fits your purposes. Why can’t I garble "The poor you always have with you" into an excuse for inaction? The same Jesus that said plainly that marriage is between a man and a woman tells me to serve the poor. He calls me to obey him, even when I don’t feel like it. I’m sorry and without a good explanation as to why some people have a harder time with these two teachings of Jesus than others do. Why are there poor people in the first place? Why not manna every morning? Why can’t every boy grow up with a loving affirming father, committed for life to a godly woman? I don’t know. There is pain, sorrow and sin. But I will not twist Jesus’ words to make it easier on me, or you, or the rich people in that huge air conditioned house across the street with one SUV, one sports car, and who never seem to walk to any of the little shops around here. Jesus calls each of us to follow him. I don’t know their story, and I don’t really know yours. But I know that Jesus said about the law, and I lovingly invite you to follow that Jesus. To the cross, and to wholeness.

"The fellowship of the Beatitudes is the fellowship of the crucified" Dietrich Bonhoeffer, martyr and signer of the Theological Declaration of Barmen.

Was King David a homosexual?

2007-12-19T13:56:00.000-08:00

http://blog.beliefnet.com/godspolitics/2007/12/being-poor-is-a-lot-of-work-by.html
An online friend made the assertion in the title, and then said this as further justification
"Everything is permissible" and "Love is the fulfillment of the law." We each have to work out our own salvation by determining what our conscience tells us is the loving thing to do. If you still believe in law, then you are among the foolish Galatians.
Lack of compassion for the poor, the sick, the homeless, the undocumented, and the gay is all the same lack of compassion--trying to impose a dead legalism where the law of love should be the foundation for our actions.
I wrote:
The law is not the means of righteousness, but it is still the measure, for it is not subjective and arbitrary like your utterly sentimental appeal to what you call "love." Love is the FULFILLMENT of the law. If you love someone, you WILL see their need and meet it. Whatever you feel like, whatever your motivation or lack thereof.
If my motives are good, and I still ignore the poor, does that get me off the hook? Of course not. If I have withheld wages, I am stealing. Even if I really, truly think ten cents an hour is all I can afford. Who says I’m not sincere? You can’t know my motives, nor I yours. But you can see my actions and judge rightly. Jesus said we are to judge all people the same, i.e. according to revelation, not our personal, internal, inaccessible whims.
Your appeal to Galatians ? 14When I [Paul] saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?
Peter was accommodating the Judiazers, who compelled circumcision and ritual observance of the law. These are the parts of the law which have been fulfilled. As for the rest—the shameless adultery and other breaking of the Ten Commandments you falsely accuse David, Jonathan, and Ruth and Naomi of—not one jot or tittle will pass away. You quote King Saul as your authority: here is exactly the one who does as he pleases, offering sacrifices from a sincere, well-intentioned impatience. Later he claims to "love" David, then tries to murder him. The Law judges King Saul, the Law judges me, the Law judges us all. Without throwing ourselves on Christ’s mercy we all are lost. The standard has ever, only been this: are we as perfect as Jesus? Are you? I know I’m not. I rely on his perfect fulfillment of every part of the law as my only salvation. My motives are nothing. My sentimental appeals to "love" and pity are nothing. Jesus, as revealed in the Scriptures, is everything, my righteousness, my holiness, my redemption.

From a thread discussing Philip Pullman

2007-12-08T09:42:00.000-08:00

Since no one reads my blog, I've become addicted to beliefnet.
http://blog.beliefnet.com/godspolitics/2007/12/where-does-the-golden-compass.html
But I really like this response to a defense of Philip Pullman and the Anglican Bishop Spong, spiced with the bald assertion that Aquinas recanted on his deathbed by referring to "Summa Theologica" as "works of straw"

None of us here at Beliefnet can predict one another's fate before the Throne of God. I, for one, have no wish to be such a judge.
. On the other hand, we can and must judge statements of humans against what God has said. When one says vaguer and vaguer things about God, and vehemently(though eloquently and politely, as Ashpenaz and perhaps even Spong have done), it seems to me and many others that they have moved beyond the God of the Bible, revealed uniquely and definitively in Jesus, and are creating one of their own devising. As Pullman clearly has done in his book-promoting deception["The Golden Compass" movie.] Enjoy it if you wish, but beware! Violence exerted on behalf of individualism is indeed the only response available in the world he has created, devoid of God and good.
"Christian" can mean "one who self-identifies with the mass of Christians as a whole" or one who, forsaking all others, is following the Jesus depicted in the Scriptures the Church has recognized through the ages. From postings here, it seems to this weak and fallible soul that Spong and the poster screenamed Ashpenaz are the former but not the latter. If Ashpenaz is the equally polite poster who is defending the Mormon golden tablets under the "Mitt Romney speech" thread,
http://blog.beliefnet.com/godspolitics/2007/12/mitt-romneys-defining-moment-b.html
add that to my dossier of evidence. Which I submit with my own nod to humility, much as Aquinas did in dismissing--but not really--his Summa as "straw."

CRY JUSTICE

2007-11-18T10:17:00.000-08:00

He has showed you what is good, and what does YHWH require of you?
To DO JUSTICE
LOVE MERCY
WALK HUMBLY WITH YOUR God.
So, what does justice look like? It's NOT asleep, unaware or detached; it's NOT guilt ridden.
It IS pulsating with the compassion (and sometimes the anger) of God's loving heart
It IS aware of human capabilities and limitations, and
It IS full of faith and the belief that GOD is capable of doing all this. Sorry, Rabbi Kushner, but God is not weak! Even while using His weak and imperfect servants,
He is able to deliver the poor, lift them up, and establish justice.
AND HE WILL!
Thanks to Garret Smith, whose thoughts I am summarizing here!

2007-11-18T02:02:00.000-08:00

"...To depict man in all his misery is to
Unmask the abyss opened, in the modern world, by God's absence....."
Francois Mauriac 1885-1970
And, sad to say, things haven't gotten better in the last 37 years. So why is this blog entitled joyful REALity? Because God is REAL and is still here! The abyss of which Mauriac speaks is what one sees upon turning away from God.
Still in denial of reality? OK, he's speaking of the abyss you enter with your eyes shut. Is that better?
Still wondering where the joy is? How about this from Desmond Tutu:
"Thinking of God makes me happy" Now you know where that HUGE smile comes from. Or Mother Theresa. OK, according to her recently published diaries nothing made her happy--but she still did the right thing 'til the day she died. And oh, the joy in Heaven!

Oh no, not another letter to the Globe

2007-09-26T15:27:00.001-07:00

Yup, here it is. I'm also working on a column on something I know very little about, humble astrophysicists. Stay tuned!
Here's the link. Don't blame me for anyone who decides Cornel West should be read outside of the hip-hop media! http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/09/25/fabricated_fears_about_hate_crime_legislation/

To all but the most credulous reader, Cornel West's column defending "thought crime" legislation ought to be anything but comforting. Intentionally, or by inexcusable neglect, West and Sylvia Rhue have dismissed a wide body of literature on gay politics and theology that is anything but hateful. This literature, full of thoughtful criticism, and not shying away from difficult question such as "Well,what if people really are born gay?" comes from a wide variety of traditions, including Judaism, Catholicism,conservative Protestantism (Walter A. Elwell:Evangelical Dictionary of Theology), mainstream Protestantism, (Robert A. J. Gagnon of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary http://www.amazon.com/Bible-Homosexual-Practice-Texts-Hermeneutics/dp/0687022797/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-1496179-4277215?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190846077&sr=8-1 ), and psychotherapists working in secular settings.By baldly and indiscriminately labeling opinions he personally hates as "condemning and dehumanizing"Prof. West signals to lovers of liberty his intent to eventually allow their prosecution as "hate crimes." If not West and his sort, leave it to those the mere thickness of a condom farther left to fabricate a connection between a sermon one day and a fight in a nearby bar the next. For all his faults, Larry Summers' wisdom in allowing Harvard to "lose" CornelWest and his shoddy lack of scholarly inquiry to Princeton has been vindicated.

Can't let go of it

2007-08-14T07:35:00.000-07:00

Well, one of my favorite "freebie" papers still keeps publishing articles and letters on the torpedoed Marriage Amendment, so I keep writing letters in reply!

Citizen petitions are not mob rule. The Constitutional Convention wasted valuable legislative time because the Governor and legislative leaders refused to allow the Marriage Amendment to come to a vote. They only acted when forced to by the Supreme Judicial Court, and even then they kept delaying the vote until enough arms were twisted to achieve the Governor's favored outcome. Consequently, they allowed public swimming pools to remain unrepaired and unopened during the hottest days of summer, consistent with their general neglect of thornier problems like our bridges. As Wendell Woodman pointed out yesterday, these same legislators are trying to blame their egregious mismanagement of the Big Dig on a glue manufacturer for not demanding to know exactly how a customer was using a small order for a general purpose adhesive. So while I understand how it seems odd to today's letter writer that the legislature is being asked to cut itself out of the amendment process, that may be the only way they can discipline themselves to focus on their real job: serving the voters in practical ways instead of rewarding the Governor's campaign donors.

Things I love

2007-08-08T08:42:00.000-07:00

Summer!

Music (See post entitled "Kairos v. Chronos)

http://www.ebtrr.com/ A living museum. Yes, you've heard this phrase before, but this is a WWI era shortline preserved in situ for decades.

Which of these posts do you love? Hate? Comments pleezzzzzz!

Sad but true

2007-07-19T06:49:00.000-07:00

This week the Boston Globe smugly called for defunding of "abstinence only" sex ed. Maybe they have a tiny point, but here's my response:

Teaching a 14 year old girl how to become "My First Sexual Conquest" for an immature football player is hardly conducive to anyone’s health, mental or otherwise. Yet this is the flagship accomplishment of "scientific" sex education. I’m sure proponents of abstinence are more genuinely disappointed in "abstinence only" programs than activists like Julie F. Kay. But what is $200 million compared to the budget of even one teen movie that teaches boys that to "become a man" is to ask a girl for sex without promising anything—much less lifelong commitment—in return? A few micrometers of latex fail to turn this utterly selfish male act into anything remotely approaching responsible human sexuality. As a wide variety of authors have noted, from Mary Pipher to Wendy Shalit, the real beneficiaries of sexual "freedom" are not girls who give in to pressure, but rather boys who can’t handle the obligation of controlling their sexuality (except with the occasional condom). In fact they, and their enablers such as Ms. Kay, have become slaves to our basest instincts: conquest and domination. And Ms. Kay calls her resignation in the face of this horror "science"?

Refs: for Pipher: http://www.committment.com/ophelia.html
for Wendy Shalit, my hero: http://blogs.modestlyyours.net/modestly_yours/wendy_shalit/index.html

D's Dictionary

2007-07-08T18:10:00.000-07:00

....to be continued

Precisely the opposite is true

2007-05-11T07:04:00.000-07:00

To the editor, Boston Metro:
It couldn’t be more obvious that your editorial bias is shared with your owner, the New York Times. First there was the one sided article about lobbying via ice cream socials. Following yesterday’s less biased article, you published an interesting but very one sided letter, caricaturing the arguments for restoring marriage to its constitutional, pre-Goodridge state. Choosing the sex of one’s marriage partners is a new right, period. One voted into existence in 2003 by only four Massachusetts citizens— all of them unelected, unaccountable judges. This action is intolerable in a democracy. Your letter writer claims some sort of religious problem, perhaps insinuating that those who disagree with her think that God hates gays. Precisely the opposite is true (try John 3:16 and hundreds of other verses of universal love and acceptance). Sadly, macho types have done shameful and cruel things, in particular to gay men. That is utterly inexcusable, as are the cruel things that gays sometimes do to one another. But what does that have to do with the Constitution of a democracy? All citizens, not just four, are empowered to determine which values society will honor. The exclusion of values that are linked to morality from Sinai, and God’s universal love, is the worst sort of religious discrimination, aided and abetted in the pages of Metro this week.

Kairos or Chronos

2007-04-30T05:41:00.000-07:00

I just heard another excellent sermon--this one about the gift of the Sabbath rest. Among other points, our pastor captured the distinction between "passing time" chronos and "the right time" kairos.
Do you LOVE music? Are there pieces you find painfully beautiful? I once heard a woman preach a sermon where Bach’s Air on the G String was used as an [excellent] illustration preceding her insights on beauty. The week before, she asked a conductor who attended church for help in arranging the music. Later, he and I shared other pieces that rose to the heights of searing, heart rending beauty. He suggested some of the Shostakovich quartets; my choice was the slow moment of Faure’s last piano trio. But today, in snowy Boston, is a "Sibelius Day. " Even the few short minutes of "Andante Festivo" moved me to tears. Does that happen to you? Maybe when the trumpets enter in the last movement of his Symphony No. 2? What about the English horn at the beginning of the 6th Symphony? Can you listen to "Mache dich, mein Herze, rein" (Make, O Lord, my heart pure and clean) from Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" without weeping? Has the first note of "Aus Liebe" --- For Love [My Savior Died]--- ever made your eyes moist? That even surprised me, but I knew the soloist, and I knew she was singing of love that had transformed her. Do you have a favorite piece you can only hear in Heaven? The last duet from Turandot? I remember a dream about Heaven, where giant angels, looking like tall gray statues, were singing Bruckner’s "Te Deum. " That’s sometimes used as the finale to his 9th Symphony, once thought incomplete. I want to hear him conduct it, complete and perfect, in Heaven! Anton Bruckner will be there, he who dedicated his symphonies "To God, should He choose to accept them. " So, I was thinking that maybe I’d missed the heavenly premiere–but I don’t think I missed it at all. How’s that? Time only exists on earth. I think every moment in Heaven will be the first moment, when we see God face to face, and know as we are known. "You can’t subdivide infinity. " How can there be time without the sun? Heaven has no need of it, for the Lord Himself is the light, eternal and beyond time.

What’s not worth preserving, and what must be preserved

2007-04-16T08:39:00.000-07:00

See this link about Boston's City Hall, praised at its unveiling in the 1960's by the American Institue of Architects (AIA) and hardly anyone else:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.waltlockley.com/boston%2520city%2520hall/01.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.waltlockley.com/boston%2520city%2520hall/bostoncityhall.htm&h=617&w=890&sz=67&hl=en&sig2=t1wIvCejx5qE74ALbecjPQ&start=10&tbnid=pdZf2iwxFxDCLM:&tbnh=101&tbnw=146&ei=GoIjRsOzD4OshQSz8vGRBQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%2522Boston%2Bcity%2Bhall%2522%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG
I understand that some may want City Hall to stand as a tribute to the 1960’s. I beg to differ. Yale might be prudent in keeping a visually similar building on a university campus, but City Hall simply fails to serve the governed. As a compromise, perhaps the building can be preserved—if the AIA will purchase it—while we fill the lonely, impersonal expanse of City Hall Plaza with a functional and beautiful structure.
But a few blocks away, on Beacon Hill, is much that is far more worthy of preservation. Not just Chas. Bullfinch’s magnificent gold domed edifice, but the constitution enshrined therein, which each member of our government is sworn to uphold. Each is a servant of the same reluctant taxpayers that bought Scollay Square and built a concrete monstrosity in 1962. Forty-two years later, without the consent of the citizens, four members of the Supreme Judicial Court amended our constitution by fiat in the Goodridge decision. It is now up to the Legislature to permit the citizens to vote to undo that change via the Marriage Protection Amendment. I join the Legislature in wishing the best to my homosexual neighbors. My gay and straight friends would agree that I’m a quiet and gentle person myself. But marriage as an enduring union between one man and one women has been explicitly embraced by democratic societies for centuries. The thousands of citizens who have remained committed to their wives and husbands are an imperfect yet compelling reminder of the laws which unite us—and of the consent of the GOVERNed, not the GOVERNors, that protects us.

Gender autarky

2007-04-14T15:14:00.000-07:00

or "Post a comment, save a life"
or "You heard it first here"
PARENTAL ADVISORY:
This is about as angry as I get, at least in print. Put the wee ones to bed--with lots of kisses--and read on:

"Hey, who you callin' nappy headed?" or
This emperor doesn't have any clothes, either:

To the Editor: Good riddance to Mr. Imus. I never knew who he was until "The Incident" and I'll bet I'm not the only one. His humorless slur has been repeated more times than it ought to have been.
But will Imus' firing help young, black women? Rap "artists"chant worse lyrics every day. And unlike Mr. Imus' "comedy" show, young black women actually LISTEN to these viler than vile lyrics. And some even date the men who threaten them with violence via the airwaves.
So why don't we take them off the air, too? If msnbc can afford to lose the $15 million that Imus brings in, what's a few hundred million more, right? Or could it be that Imus is being thrown to the wolves so the rap-rapists can continue to jump for their greedy radio station masters and do as they please with their prey?
D_______ H_________
Newton
__________
So what's with all the titles? And what the heck is "gender autarky" (generates no hits on Google if you use quotes). Is there any connection to the letter? Well, it seems that rappist, as a synonym for rapper, is occasionally being spelled "rapist." Is there irony here, or just a sad accuracy?
Rape is such a hideous crime that I hesitate to write about it. (Only 1% of the victims are men, but I'll bet being less numerous doesn't make them feel any better.) Nonetheless, I can see that, for a female rape survivor, perhaps cutting herself off from men might be some sort of survival skill. But beyond this tragic case, I find the idea that women can live without men illogical and deeply sad. Women are supposed to be nurturing; liberals are supposed to be into multiculturalism(with only half of the world?). So autarky (not to be confused with autarchy) means cutting women off from the evil corrupting world of men, at least at the emotional and intellectual level. Doing so at the practical level would mean allowing men to exist only to provide sperm and tax dollars so liberal feminists can make the world a better place for themselves. Perhaps Nancy Pelosi can rewrite Huxley so that all the alphas and betas are women, and the men are just artisans and slaves.
And, getting back to the rappers, yeah, I know all their tough talk is just a "cry for help." Marching in the streets and voting is SOOOO 1960's, and doesn't pay very well, either. But "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" will still be read by my grandchildren, while no one will know who shot Tupac.

So, to my faithful readers, (if I have any) my "cry for help" is: Should I send this letter off today while the Imus story is hot? Or should I hunker down in my apartment and shut up, lest someone find my address and burn down my house if this is published? (3 of my last 4 or five have been, so....) Vote now; "Yes" voters: be sure to use the anonymous option or my landlady might sue you if this computer survives the fire. OK, that's not very funny, but...........

Quiz time

2007-04-13T09:06:00.000-07:00

If you've been directed here from a dating site, Google on "Marry not an Engineer" and read the poem. Of course, just reading this quiz might give you the same info, though in much less eloquent form....
What sound is a measure of a material's stiffness (or rigidity, ore even "Modulus" for you techies out there)?
Post your one word answers under "Comments" please

Happy 15th Birthday

2007-04-04T07:53:00.000-07:00

Dear K_____
. Inspired by Jeff Jacoby, http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/03/28/messages_to_my_son/I’m going to try and write a yearly birthday letter. Something smaller but more lasting than the presents you’ve already gotten.
. As fondly as I remember holding you and cuddling you, I don’t want those times to last!! Even if I recreate them briefly with a noisy kiss on your cheek, that’s all it is—a moment in the life of a wonderful young woman who is growing fast, just as her Loving Father intended. In this case, that’s God, who programmed your brain to be always changing—hopefully for the better!
Part of this change is the painful but necessary questioning of everything. You won’t really know what you believe until you’ve imagined what it would like not to have the Ten Commandments, for example. Many around you have decided they are old fashioned. You should think about this, too, really. Maybe they ARE out of date…
. What if people thought we were the only beings in the universe (No. 1)? I’d go crazy; what do you think?
. What if we never rested (#4)?
. What if we didn’t respect our parents (#5)? I know you and I disagree about chores and a few other things, but at night when we’re reading books we both adore, I know that I have your respect and that you are trying really, really hard to obey God in this and everywhere else.
. What if people had sex whenever and with whomever they pleased (#7)?
. What if people didn’t keep their promises(#9)?
. What if our lives were ruled by Lord Stuff(#10 and #1)?
. A while back, someone was feeding you the idea that Christianity is sexist. I think you should consider this seriously! [see Boring Footnote #1] I don’t have an answer as to why there aren’t more women in the Bible, or more of those "A hen shielding her chicks under-wing" images that help us understand God as both male and female. But imagine a world without Christians. No Ruth, no Joan of Arc, no Susan B. Anthony, no Condoleeza Rice[see B. F. #2]. Think of Pakistan—true, the daughter of a former Prime Minister ruled there for a while. But do any women want to live there just for that reason? No! Thousands of Muslims come here for our freedoms, based in large part on the dignity of each human, created male AND FEMALE "in God’s image" according to the Hebrew Bible. So there is enough of the female in God for all women everywhere. Don’t believe this ‘cause I said it, but think about it. Don’t just accept the images from TV & movies, and perhaps even from some of your teachers. Yep, Christians, or those calling themselves such, have done most of the horrible things done by Western nations. But Western nations have never had Muslim or Hindu leaders. So how could it have been otherwise??? Hitler is one exception, because he was not a Christian, but forcibly took over the State Church in Germany. After that, "Christians" were bad, and only "German Christians"—his code name for pagans—were free to practice their religion.[B.F. #3]
Well, I’m playing catch up here, almost 15 years’ worth—sorry my letter’s so long. But remember, I’m totally pleased that you’re smart enough to read and understand what I’m saying.
I want you to grow up to be a good person. Not a person like your Mommy or Daddy, whatever our strengths and faults, but a person like Jesus, who loves you an awful lot.
And I love you too,

Signed, Daddy

Really, really boring footnotes:
#1 I suspect the person who said that practices another religion, either "Secularism" or perhaps "Feminism without God."
#2 Technically speaking, Ruth was a Moabite and not Jewish or Christian! And I don’t know the others well enough to know how faithfully they practice(d) Christianity. But I know that their lives arose out of a Judeo-Christian culture, which is why they are good examples of feminists who DON’T hate Christianity in general or men in particular.
#3 As you may have noticed ;-) your daddy reads WAY too much about Hitler. Most of the above is from a book about Martin Niemoeller, a hero from the FIRST World War who dared to oppose Hitler. However, unlike Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he didn’t become a martyr.
OK, now go back and read the "I love you" part!

STEAL THIS BOOK

2007-04-01T19:29:00.000-07:00

Well, actually I mean "Buy Rickshaw Girl at Amazon or that cute little bookstore around the corner"
Here's my review:

This is a fun and engaging story. Your kids will love it.
You might love it, too. It's a subtle and heart warming story of women’s empowerment. Without an angry word, or a whiff of ideology, this story tells what poor families can do by enlisting the gifts of all their members. These women don’t wait for someone to act for them, but take risks. And everyone wins—there is no zero sum game here.
But my imagination is soaring—this is a kid’s story, and you’ll just have to enjoy it on that level!

The book can be found at http://www.amazon.com/Rickshaw-Girl-Mitali-Perkins/dp/1580893082/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-3583902-2518431?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175480576&sr=1-1

"Es ist Vollbracht!"

2007-03-28T07:34:00.000-07:00

For those of you who like to memorize things, or just reflect on the Passion during Lent,here's a thought about the 7 words from the cross:
Three sayings were for his friends and enemies,
Two were to His Father,
One was for himself, but
"It is finished"
...............is for everyone

Oh no, a MISSION STATEMENT

2007-03-13T19:57:00.000-07:00

I used to think that mission statements were best done via the Dilbert "Mission Statement Generator" (C'mon, you know the website...)
But today I was at an introductory meeting for Christian small business owners/entrepreneurs, and they asked for one as part of the meeting feedback and contact info. Since my PDA isn't currently able to connect to the Internet (long story), I had to write my own, and I think it came out well. What do you think?
"To glorify God by providing innovative tools to doctors for the human side of healing"

How to leave comments, criticisms, rave reviews, maps to buried treasure

2007-03-13T07:36:00.000-07:00

I am trying to be profoundly SIMPLE here. To leave a comment. Click on "Comments(0)" at the end of each post. I think it's that simple. Nothing is THAT simple. To my longsuffering friends--I have changed settings to allow ANYONE--even my friends(!)--to post without registering.

Do music and dating mix? You decide

2007-03-12T17:41:00.000-07:00

Here's a list of the worst pieces to take a classical music novice to see:
Benjamin Britten: War Requiem [death and destruction set to really loud, really LONG music, with words by a poet killed during World War One]
Igor Stravinsky: Oedipus Rex [eyes gouged out--you wish it was your ears instead]
Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 8 [the slow movement can be compared to prayer or even sex--but not for those who fall asleep halfway through an uninterrupted 27 minute crescendo of astonishing intensity]
This is more or less a listing of pieces to which I took my wife before and during our now-terminated marriage. She actually enjoyed Prokofiev Pf. Concerto No. 3, but I can't claim credit--Dave's parent's couldn't use their tickets. My ex-wife had other issues, but perhaps you sympathize with her, and even admire her patience.....
More recent mistakes:
Wagner: Mild und Leise (Mild and Soft)Simple title, intense piece...where have I heard thatbefore.... So, I listen to it with a woman I just met,and later, in my casual ignorance, call it "Our Song." Are you laughing yet? This is more commonly known as"Liebestod" or "Death by Love" where Isolde pours out her soul before dying from the intensity of her love for Tristan. Not recommended as first date listening.
Yes, a human being (that would be me) has actually made all these mistakes. Never a dull moment, eh? Oh, the list should also include a piece neither my ex nor I ever heard in concert:
Bela Bartok "Bluebeard's Castle"
Why is this a masterpiece? And why do I have TWO recordings of it? Please leave your comments below. It's getting lonely around here... even though I really like the Bruckner 8th on iTunes

Buried in Controversy

2007-03-12T04:03:00.000-07:00

Being too cheap to subscribe to the Boston Glob, and being nearly buried in paper anyway, I read the freebie "METRO" that I pick up at the Newton Corner bus stop. Having heard that a certain prof. Tabor [sic] thought Christians shouldn't worry if the "husk" of Jesus' body was left behind while his spirit soared to the skies, I was inspired as follows[emphasis as published in METRO the next day]:
NEWTON . Regarding“Buried in controversy”(Feb. 27): Thanks for news about the ossuaries, but I must differ with prof. Tabor: If Jesus’ bones were in that box until a few months ago, Christianity is toast, washed up, nonsense. But what are the chances those bones lay for years a few meters from the people who had the most to gain, and lose,from their discovery? The Romans had shovels,and could’ve found the bones if they were there. Ditto for the local religious leaders whose status was threatened by Jesus and his followers. As for those with a lot to lose: Do you really believe articulate, sensible first century people such as Peter and Paul let themselves be executed for something they knew to be a lie? Crazy, right?No, warts and all, Christianity was founded by people with more sense and integrity than that. Their early enemies would’ve never allowed such a deadly secret to lie under a few inches of earth.Thanks, but it’s all too incredible, coming on the heels of those nifty Dan Brown novels. But I’ll expect Metro to keep me posted, since my TV’s broken!
Think I'm kidding about this being published? Check this out; if it's on the Web it's got to be real, right? http://metropoint.metro.lu/20070228_Boston.pdf

2007-03-12T03:19:00.000-07:00

"Sibelius in the Snow" or "You can't subdivide Infinity"
I would like to share with you some thoughts about music, written during a snowstorm last year.Do you LOVE music? Are there pieces you find painfully beautiful? I once heard a woman preach a sermon where Bach’s Air on the G String was used as an [excellent] illustration preceding her insights on beauty. The week before, she asked a conductor who attended church for help in arranging the music. Later, he and I shared other pieces that rose to the heights of searing, heart rending beauty. He suggested some of the Shostakovich quartets; my choice was the slow moment of Faure’s last piano trio. But today, in snowy Boston, is a "Sibelius Day. " Even the few short minutes of "Andante Festivo" moved me to tears. Does that happen to you? Maybe when the trumpets enter in the last movement of his Symphony No. 2? What about the English horn at the beginning of the 6th Symphony? Can you listen to "Mache dich, mein Herze, rein" (Make, O Lord, my heart pure and clean) from Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" without weeping? Has the first note of "Aus Liebe" --- For Love [My Savior Died]--- ever made your eyes moist? That even surprised me, but I knew the soloist, and I knew she was singing of love that had transformed her. Do you have a favorite piece you can only hear in Heaven? The last duet from Turandot? I remember a dream about Heaven, where giant angels, looking like tall gray statues, were singing Bruckner’s "Te Deum. " That’s sometimes used as the finale to his 9th Symphony, once thought incomplete. I want to hear him conduct it, complete and perfect, in Heaven! Anton Bruckner will be there, he who dedicated his symphonies "To God, should He choose to accept them. " So, I was thinking that maybe I’d missed the heavenly premiere–but I don’t think I missed it at all. How’s that? Time only exists on earth. I think every moment in Heaven will be the first moment, when we see God face to face, and know as we are known. "You can’t subdivide infinity. " How can there be time without the sun? Heaven has no need of it, for the Lord Himself is the light, eternal and beyond time. Well, that’s an engineer-who-loves-music’s view of Heaven. And now, back to earth!