COFFEE RANDOMS

Guest Blogging: Advent Love: Day 5

2011-12-22T09:09:00.005-05:00

Given that this is Love week, let's talk about the love of God for a few minutes. God loves you. I expect that if you're reading this, you know that. And God loved us all Soo--ooo much that he sent Jesus down as a baby to be born . . . upon a midnight clear . . . and laid in the sweet smelling hay . . . with the gentle beasts all around him . . . and we cast the scene in a sentimental soft light glow, and call that the love of God during this season. But you know what? The love of God is bigger and brighter than that. More difficult. More all-consuming. Less a 40 watt light bulb, and more of a nuclear explosion.

There's a great Old Testament word--hesed. (It's one of my pastor-husband's favorite words to preach on.) It gets translated love, loving-kindness, mercy, faithfulness, covenant faithfulness. It's all those things and more. The Jesus Storybook Bible talks of it as God's "Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love." It's God keeping his promises to us, and finding a way to rescue us from our sin because it's who he IS, and he can no more be unfaithful or unloving to us than we can make a square circle or smell blue. It would be a nonsensical impossibility.

And this is the love of God that is being called on and celebrated in the readings this morning. Psalms 146 and 147, two of the great praise psalms, remind us that hope and salvation are in God. That he is our faithful king, that he rescues all who call him . . . and that if we look to people for the sort of salvation and faithfulness that only come from God, we're going to be disappointed every time. But Yahweh lifts up the humble and heals the broken-hearted. It is with the knowledge and assurance of the hesed of God that the psalmist of Psalm 80 calls for rescue. And then we get to Zechariah, and I'm going to steal a little from tomorrow's reading, because the canticle of Zechariah is one of the great songs of the Bible.

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,

for he has visited and redeemed his people

and has raised up a horn of salvation for us

in the house of his servant David,

as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,

that we should be saved from our enemies

and from the hand of all who hate us;

to show the mercy promised to our fathers

and to remember his holy covenant,

(Luke 1:68-72 ESV)

That showing mercy? That's hesed, there. But let's look just a second at just who God redeems and how and why. He redeems his people. He raised up a horn of salvation for us. He calls us and redeems us together. Now of course, there is no group that is not made up of individuals, but God doesn't leave us alone to be individuals. He puts us together with other people to . . . do hesed to each other. To love each other. Be faithful to each other. To help each other along the path of redemption.

Real love is hard. Loving real people with real problems is hard. That's one of the reasons that the soft-glow version of Christmas doesn't really do us much good. If we have a God who nicely loves people who don't actually have much in the way of problems that they need fixed, it doesn't help us in loving each other when we run facelong into the fact that really loving real people, in our church, in our marriages, with our children, in our communities, is rather horribly gritty most days. Loving my kindergartner when she's home sick with stomach flu . . . well, there's just not much you can do to romanticize that, or cast it in a 40 watt glow. But God, in his Never Stopping, Never Giving Up Love, becomes Incarnate. He detonates a bomb of mercy, grace, forgiveness and God-With-Us-ness into our world, because that's what it needs, and so that's what he's going to give.

God loves you. God loves me too. He loves my kids, more than I do. He loves the elderly lady in the pew across the aisle, and the uncooperative kid who just wants to lie on the floor during junior church. He meets us at the point of our brokenness and dwells with us and loves us, and heals us, and saves us. And by loving us this way, God teaches us how to love this way. He shows us that love starts with being present. Which he is. That is reason for praise.

The LORD will reign forever,

your God, O Zion, to all generations.

Praise the LORD!

(Psalm 146:10 ESV)

Cinnamon Rolls to go with our coffee

2011-11-23T11:20:00.002-05:00

What? I hadn't posted this recipe? I've given it out far too many times to not have the link handy. Also, if I have it up online, then I don't need to remember to pack the recipe for myself when I'm supposed to make these somewhere else. Like at my parents' house for Thanksgiving breakfast tomorrow morning . . .

So a little bit of a backstory. My husband has a weakness for baked goods. He has a weakness for cinnamon. Put the two together and you have a man who believes that good cinnamon rolls are basically the perfect food, and that even bad cinnamon rolls are pretty good. To properly take care of my husband, and to save myself from a steady stream of those grocery store cinnamon rolls that never taste nearly so good as they look, I decided I need to learn to make the best cinnamon rolls humanly possible. Fortunately, we were in the right city.

The snack shops at the University of British Columbia make their own cinnamon rolls daily, and have left a city full of alumni addicted to them. The Vancouver Sun kindly prints the recipe on a regular basis.

UBC Cinnamon Rolls, adapted:

Dough
1 cup milk plus 3 TBSP water
2 TBSP butter
1 egg
3/4 tsp salt
3 1/4 cups flour
2 TBSP sugar
2 tsp yeast

Filling
1/4 to 1/3 cup sugar combined with
1 TBSP cinnamon
1/2 cup butter, divided

Mix dough ingredients in bread machine on dough cycle or in a stand mixer. (If you use a stand mixer, let dough rise until doubled after mixing). Take out and knead in barely enough flour to make it possible to handle. This is a very sticky dough. Melt 1/4 cup of the butter and pour it into the bottom of a 9 x 13 glass baking pan. Roll the dough out into a 12 x 12 square. Melt the other 1/4 cup butter and smooth it over dough. Top with cinnamon sugar. Roll up jelly roll style and slice into 12 one inch slices. Arrange in baking pan. Cover and let the cinnamon rolls rise again, either in a warm place until doubled in size (if you want to bake immediately) or in the fridge overnight. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Frost as desired.

Sticky Toffee Pudding

2011-06-29T15:02:00.003-04:00

I can't believe I haven't saved this recipe to my blog. When I was in Scotland in 1996, I absolutely fell in love with STP. I cornered the mother of one of my Scottish acquaintances as someone who had a proper Scottish cookbook, brought the recipe home, and it's been one of my signature desserts ever since. A word to Americans: "pudding" in British parlance is simply "dessert" to Americans, so this cake and sauce combo bears no resemblance to Jell-O anything. This is the only version of the recipe that I've seen that calls for the coffee flavoring in the cake, and I think it really makes it. :)

The Cake (12-16 servings):

6 Tbsp. real butter
2 eggs
5/8 cup of flour

1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. coffee extract and 1/4 cup water or 1/4 cup espresso

1 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 cups flour
optional: add stoned dates, soaking in liquid ahead of time to soften
Bake the cake 350-375 for 25-35 minutes in a 8" round pan

Sauce:
1/2 cup butter
6 Tbsp. heavy cream
3/4 cup brown sugar
Boil butter and brown sugar. Reduce to low. Add cream one tablespoon at a time and stir until smooth.

Serve cake with sauce and whipped cream. Lick plate.

thank goodness it hasn't been like this . . . .

2011-05-07T10:11:00.001-04:00

It's the creamer-sugar-spoon mobile that really makes it for me.

Book Review: In Constant Prayer, by Robert Benson

2011-02-11T09:19:00.004-05:00

"Get this book," my best friend told me. "I've been meaning to buy it for you--I thought of you every chapter when I read it." This is the friend who knows me better than anyone except my husband--there was nothing to do but get the book.

Benson's "In Constant Prayer" is a book about liturgical prayer, specifically about using the daily office for what most evangelicals would call personal quiet time. It's a primer on what the daily office is for people who think that is office is where you keep your desk. It's a challenge and encouragement to the Protestants to take up this ancient practice. It's a poetic meditation on beauty and challenges of choosing this form of structuring your prayer life.

It's been a long time since I read a book that simultaneously challenged, convicted and encouraged me like this one has. Here is a way to practice prayer, he suggests, for those of us who are no good at praying and aren't ever going to be on our own. It's utterly deflating and freeing. So you're not a praying artiste. You don't need to be. You don't need to reinvent "quiet time." The church throughout the ages has an easy step-by-step guide for you.

Most American Christians are not very good people of prayer. If you feel like you ought to pray more, but just can't quite seem to get it to work, try praying by the recipe with Benson and the daily office.

Five stars.

Who does OSHA think they are--

2011-01-24T13:10:00.001-05:00

limiting Science with their small-minded regulations?

Book Review: International Children's Bible, "Big Red"

2011-01-06T10:02:00.004-05:00

As a mother of four with concerns about discipleship, I'm interested in anything that will get my kids interacting with scripture. Touted as "The Translation Children can read and understand" and "now with fresh 3-D art," I was interested to take a look. Sadly, I was diappointed on all counts.

One of the things I've learned as a parent is that any book that I want my children to read must be built to withstand a child's handling, but this Bible wouldn't last a month with my first-grader. It's cheap paperback version with standard Bible-onion-skin pages and standard Bible six point font. It fails on the durability and readability counts. This isn't a Bible that they can grow with.

I'm ambivalent about the "fresh art for a video-game generation." The artwork looks like a set of World of Warcraft screen shots. Lots of ripped biceps and action hero stubble. I also wonder if a generation which has been systematically trained to view this style of artwork as "not real" or "only a game" wouldn't actually lead some children to have a lesser view of the veracity of scripture.

As for the translation itself, the ICB is also known as the New Century Version. It's a dynamic equivalence version--with rather more dynamic than equivalence, it seems. (A good overview of the history of the NCV can be found here.) It's not a translation that I would personally choose for my children, for a couple of reasons. One, simplifying the language down to a third grader's level of understanding is itself a translational choice. There are some passages of scripture that I as an adult do not understand--we do our children a disservice if we teach them that the Bible ought to be able to be squeezed into the box of our own understanding. As the above link points out, there are glosses that drift into full mis-translations here. Two (related by not quite the same), adults often forget that children can smell condescension a mile away, and have nothing but scorn for it. Children don't want something that has been "dumbed down" for them. They want the real thing. It's a balancing act, of course, to present children with "the real thing" in a form and to a degree that will not overwhelm or daunt them, but this isn't a translation that seems to add much to the mix. As regards "extras," the dictionary, concordance and maps are quite decent, but not enough to make up for the other drawbacks.

Two stars out of five.

Hoping for the BEST

2010-10-03T08:40:00.001-04:00

“I am the Almighty God, able to fulfill your highest hopes and accomplish for you the brightest ideal that ever my words set before you. There is no need of paring down the promise until it squares with human probabilities, no need of relinquishing one hope it has begotten, no need of adopting some interpretation of it which may make it seem easier to fulfill, and no need of striving to fulfill it in any second-rate way. All possibility lies in this: I am the Almighty God.”

Marcus Dods, The Book of Genesis (New York, 1902), page 161.

Now this is just cool. I've had it sitting in an open tab on my computer for days, and every time I look at it, it makes me grin.

HT: Ray Ortlund

Reading McKillip

2010-09-17T09:20:00.002-04:00

I think that when I grow up, I want to be Patricia Mckillip. Which could be discouraging, because when she was my age she'd had eight books published and won the Newberry. But I don't think that she'd had four kids. I'll take the trade. (And yes, #4 is still in utero, but I swear that he's taking more time and energy than the other three combined right now, just in the amount of extra sleep that been extracted this summer).

In the last month I've read Od Magic and Alphabet of Thorns, (together with a smattering of her short fiction from Harrowing the Dragon). McKillips prose is some of the best out there and the worlds she creates so rich, so layered, that I can actually get lost in them. Putting the book down can be like exiting the theater. "Oh, it's still light out. I had no idea--"

After spending a large chunk of yesterday reading, I could actually feel the need to transition. My head was swirling and it was a good thing, lost in speculation on the nature of magic and the power of words--but I had a first grader getting off the bus in ten minutes, and I needed to be ready to hear about recess and the bus ride, to provide hugs and snacks and start working on dinner. A completely different good thing.

This, I think is what has been one of the hardest things about trying to write over the years. It's not finding the time to write exactly, but I want to be able to submerge myself in the writing and reading--and that requires an emotional and mental energy that is not natural to parenting small children. It's not easily interruptible. I can't lose myself in ten minute allotments between loads of laundry and while keeping one ear open to negotiate squabbles.

I'm reminded of the Olympic biatholon. I'm told that one of the challenges of this sport is that the cross country skiing drives the athlete's heart rate up, while target shooting is most natural while one is calm, with a low heart rate.

I'm not sure that I have any answers. But maybe being able to articulate the problem a little more clearly will be able to clarify things a little. But I think that the start of an answer may be here: this is essentially the same set of concerns that swim around the issues of spirituality and religion and that so plague the church. We have an innate desire for our spirituality to be transcendent, to be able to lose ourselves in worship, to be able to touch the infinite. And yet the reality of Christian discipleship is mostly carried out in the frustratingly mundane. Christ does not pull us out of this world, but rather comes down into it with us--and sets about showing us how to interact with it. Hmm.

Pray for the church

2010-08-28T11:54:00.002-04:00

This from Jonathan Edwards, via Ray Ortlund . . .

“If we look through the whole Bible and observe all the examples of prayer that we find there recorded, we shall not find so many prayers for any other mercy as for the deliverance, restoration and prosperity of the church and the advancement of God’s glory and kingdom of grace in the world. . . . The Scripture does not only abundantly manifest it to be the duty of God’s people to be much in prayer for this great mercy, but it also abounds with manifold considerations to encourage them in it and animate them with hopes of success. There is perhaps no one thing that the Bible so much promises, in order the encourage the faith, hope and prayers of the saints, as this . . . . For undoubtedly that which God abundantly makes the subject of his promises, God’s people should abundantly make the subject of their prayers. It also affords them the strongest assurances that their prayers shall be successful.”
Jonathan Edwards, Works (Edinburgh, 1979), II:291.

How often do we pray for ourselves, and how our individual wants, and how often do we pray for our communities? I am reminded that Paul's confidence that God, "who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus," (Phil 1:6) is for the whole church in Phillipi . . .

The Christian life and fear

2010-08-14T10:06:00.002-04:00

Take a moment to read this quote from William Gurnall, courtesy of Rev. Ray Ortlund.

Then think about God allowing Satan to bring the subconcious fears in our lives to the surface, not to torment us, but so that Christ can completely disarm Satan. So that there is nothing left for Satan to use against us because God has proved himself trustworthy, yet again.

True, fear is part of the human condition, but isn't it fun to look at it and think about it as a sign that we're winning? :)

Book Review: Wild at Heart by John Eldredge

2010-07-16T10:21:00.011-04:00

It's a bit of a different thing reviewing the 10th anniversary edition of a New York Times bestseller than it is reviewing a new release. The book has obviously already resonated with a great many people and has staying power as well--they don't put out revised and expanded editions of flash-in-the-pan bestsellers. The questions a review should ask, it seems to me, tend more towards the reflective--not, "What will this book do?" but "What has this book done, and why? And is that a good thing? And what does that tell us?"

It's also a bit of different thing reviewing a book for which one is not the intended audience. This is a book for men, about men. It is a book about gender differences, and I am a woman reading and reviewing it. I can choose to believe its assertions or not. I can try to evaluate whether the worldview and system that Eldredge sets forth rings true with my observation and experience--but I cannot interact with the questions from the inside as he intends his audience (of men) to do.

Eldredge says that there are three God-given desires built into every man:

1. A battle to fight

2. An adventure to live

3. A beauty to rescue

Additionally, he says that every man is battling fear, primarily in the form of the question "Do I have what it takes?" That healthy men will operate out of their strength, through Christ to fight the battle, live the adventure and rescue the beauty. But that the wounds to a man's strength (from the world, the flesh and the devil) leave men so afraid that they are not "man enough" to pull it off that they end up either

--desperately over-compensating and trying to prove to themselves and everyone else that they can do it, or else

--abandoning it all as hopeless and left as weak, passive and ineffective.

The way out of this mess is the recognition and healing of the wounds, finding the source of true strength (God), and acceptance of the battles, adventures, and beauty that God has in store for each man.

It's easy to see why this book has been so popular and widely used. Eldredge is a good writer. Alternating anecdotes and explication, he unpacks his ideas thoroughly and carefully, making it virtually impossible to miss or misunderstand his points. Additionally, he invites the reader to go through the material slowly, taking time to process and apply the principles he lays out. This combination makes the book ideal for a church small-group study or class setting. In tone, Eldredge is relentlessly encouraging and positive. And the schema that he sets out is general enough to cover a full half of the human race, but the probing questions he uses to guide his readers through their own self-discovery and healing are the sort that are probably going to spur growth with just about anyone who interacts with them seriously and intentionally.

No single interpretive lens for categorizing and understanding people will give us the whole truth. Individuals are too complex and varied for that. Meyers-Briggs, the Enneagram, and perhaps even cat-people-dog-people can shed some light on who we are and give us tools to interpret and name and understand what we see and feel. By using multiple lenses we can see different truths and gain an ever more accurate and nuanced understanding of who we are as people. Eldredge's work in Wild at Heart (and its companion book for women, Captivating) give a valuable and truth-revealing lens to help us better see ourselves.

If you're inclined to read Eldredge's work, I would particularly recommend you do so together with Tim Keller's short (though challenging) book Counterfeit Gods. Eldredge's weak point is his theology. Wild at Heart is basically a work of Christian pop psychology--and quite a good one. While Eldredge's theology informs and shapes his views of people, I think that his worldview--his first lens, if you will--is a psychological, not a theological one. This isn't surprising, or even necessarily a criticism. The man was trained as a counselor, not as a pastor or theologian. Keller says in his promotional video on Amazon that "Idolatry is anything more fundamental than God to your happiness, meaning in life, or identity." Eldredge describes very clearly some of the ways that we go looking for happiness, meaning and identity apart from God--but he does not name them as idols--and he calls for a return to God to find identity, etc, but he writes as if simply recognizing God as the better source is sufficient. As if it were that easy. Keller recognizes how bent on idolatry the sinful human heart is. As he preached in his sermon at the Gospel Coalition in April 2009, idols must not simply be discerned--they must also be exposed and destroyed. The always excellent Keller gives some superb teaching in rooting out things that we'd rather not look square in the face.

All of us need help to see ourselves and to see God truly. We all need corrective lenses. (Scripture tells us that those who worship idols blind themselves, and though Christ comes to give sight to the blind, through our continuing idolatry we continue to screw ourselves up.) If you're looking for some self-understanding and encouragement, Wild at Heart (and Captivating) are certainly worth trying out.

Four stars out of five.

This review was written as part of Thomas Nelson's Book Sneeze Review program. I received a complimentary copy of the book to read and review. I was under no obligation to provide a positive review.

It's a great big universe . . .

2010-06-14T21:35:00.001-04:00

shown here to scale. Very cool.

And of course, something like this needs Yakko Warner to add the music . . .

Book Review: Jesus Manifesto, by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola

2010-05-31T13:29:00.006-04:00

(Guest post by Rob, filling in for Sara)

The best summary of this book comes from the authors themselves, in the last chapter: Christians don’t follow Christianity; they follow Christ. Christians don’t preach themselves; they preach Christ. Christians don’t preach about Christ: they simply preach Christ. The purpose of the book is to lay out why that’s so and what that looks like, in order to address “the major disease of today’s church . . . JDD: Jesus Deficit Disorder.”

Sweet and Viola do an excellent job of this; they have written a book which is truly centered on—indeed, saturated with—Jesus. Rather than resting on human wisdom, it rests solidly on Scripture, the word that contains the Word, “the cradle that contains the Christ,” in Luther’s phrase; this is not to say that they ignore the wisdom of Christians through the ages, but they only use it to expound and amplify the voice of the Scriptures as they speak of Christ. This book will make anyone who reads it with an open mind and heart aware of their hunger and thirst for Jesus; one hopes it will do the same for the American church.

This book was provided to me free by Thomas Nelson in exchange for a book review as part of their BookSneeze program. I was under no obligation to provide a positive review.

Why liturgy? Some initial thoughts

2010-05-19T16:08:00.002-04:00

My husband pastors a very strange beast in this day and age--a conservative, orthodox, liturgical church. It seems these days that many people assume that liturgical means "liberal." That those who keep the forms of historical Christianity do so to mask the fact that they've lost the heart of it . And it seems that those who pride themselves on being "evangelical" are intent on stripping out anything from theier liturgy that can't be passed off as spontaneous*. There's this idea that because something is rehearsed, it's not as genuine. It's a dominant attitude. So why are we as a church making the deliberate decision to worship in a manner which we can expect people to mis-understand? Why keep all the formal elements of read prayers and a call to worship and reading the creed?

1. It emphasizes that our worship is not about us. It's about God. The very structure of the liturgy reminds us that we do not come to worship on our own--we come because God calls us to him. It is not our initiation, it is his, and that reality shapes our understanding of what we are doing and the logical way to do it.

2. It emphasizes that worship is something we do corporately. I can sing along to a worship CD and listen to a sermon podcast by myself at my computer (and sometimes I do). God calls us as a people, not just as individuals. I cannot pray with my brothers and sisters by myself. It's a logical impossibility, like a square circle. The liturgy forces me to place myself in community in a very particular way.

3. It trains our understanding of ourselves. A worship service is not something in which I am the consumer and the church staff the provider. God is the recipient, the audience, and we all together are the performers.

4. It prevents us from leaving the hard parts out. And we're not very good performers to boot. We would prefer to think that our offerings are acceptable to God on our own, and our own understanding and effort will get us there. They won't. We have the prayer of confession, because we come into God's royal throne room in pretty sorry shape. We have the prayer for illumination, because unless the Spirit opens our blind eyes and softens our stone hearts, we won't be able to understand what God's on about in the Scripture.

5. It keeps us polite. In this hustle and rush culture of ours, we have lost a good understanding of hospitality. We don't have each other into our homes very much. But imagine, for a moment, going to a friend's house, and simply walking through the front door and starting to unload on them without taking the time to knock, say hi, take off your shoes, and let them pour you a cup of coffee before plunging into the conversation. But often, that's what we want to do with God. We call the church "the house of God," and when we gather, we structure things in such a way as to remember that we are guests (even while we are family members) in his house. Call to worship? Open the door and come on in! Been looking forward to seeing you! Prayer of confession? Sorry my shoes are filthy--it's pouring rain and splattering mud out there. You're right, I don't want your muddy shoes all over my house, God answers. But I've taken care of it. I've got all that you need to get clean right here. And before we leave, the thank you and goodbye and let's set out when we're going to see each other again.

6. It cuts through the cult of spontaneity. As I noted above, we live in a culture which likes to equate "genuine" with "off the cuff." They're not the same, but many people like to think they are. At the same time, these same people want excellence and a good show. So what we end up with are churches that try to project authenticity by making it appear unstructured and unplanned. But the truth is that most all worship services are planned. The musicians rehearse (Some of you may have noticed on the Sundays that they didn't get a chance to.) And the preacher? Even if he's not up there reading from a text, or even looking at an outline, he's thought about what he's going to say ahead of time. He planned. He prepared--however conversational his presentation is and how much he makes it sound like he's just telling you these insights as they occur to him. The liturgy, on the other hand, reminds us that excellence is planned and rehearsed (ask any musician). In fact, the liturgy reminds that our worship services are in fact a rehearsal themselves--a practice session for heaven's music.

Yes, it's easy to let doing the same things the same way become a rote exercise in form. But consider a child at the piano flying through the scales as fast as she can rush through them, hurrying to get through her practice time and on with everything else. Now consider the concert pianist, going through the same scales. Taking her time. Fast and slow. Major and minor, varying the dynamics, never bored but aware of just how much time and effort and practice it takes to get even scales up to the musical standard . . .

* Definition of liturgy: a form of public worship. Ritual. A particular arrangement of services. Most every church has a liturgy--even if it's only "we sing for 30 minutes and then the pastor preaches for 30 minutes.

Memory and forgetfulness

2010-05-19T15:15:00.000-04:00

We are finite and lose even ourselves, sometimes in the end (as with Alzheimer's or Huntington's diseases). But God is infinite and holds each of us perfectly.

a good morning for videos

2010-05-19T08:58:00.002-04:00

Love it. :)

This one reminds me of Amy Walker's 21 accents video, which I thought I had posted before and now can't find. Well. Here it is again then.

Book Review: I Am Hutterite, by Mary-Ann Kirkby

2010-05-15T10:37:00.007-04:00

In 1969, Ann-Marie Dornn's parents took eleven year old Ann-Marie and her six brothers and sisters and left their Hutterite Colony to live in the "English" world. The decision had been years in the making. Though this book purports to be the story of Ann-Marie's adjustment to life away from her Hutterite community, it is as much the story of her parents as her. She starts her tale with the family history of each of parents individually and covers their courtship and its controversial place in the community. She writes about the establishment of Fairholme colony and the community dynamics of Hutterite colonies. We're three and a half chapters in (out of eleven) before Ann-Marie is even born, and eight chapters in before her family actually leaves the colony. Only the last third of the book is about their adjustment to the outside world. Mostly, this is a book about what it means to be an integrated part of a Hutterite community.

Or is this in fact Ann-Marie's story? Hutterite faith is definitionally lived out in community. Gemeinshaft ist der einzege Weg, they say. Community life is the only way to heaven. This is a story about belonging and choice. About family and commitment. About the difference between the ideal of community life and what happens ordinary sinful people try to live it out. About keeping individual integrity when there doesn't seem to be a right way forward. Ann-Marie-the-child loved community life, was welcomed and enfolded by it, while her parents struggled with adult conflicts, of which she knew virtually nothing. To understand Ann-Marie's story, it is clear, one must understand the community of which she was a part. The proper Hutterite understands her identity first and foremost not as an individual, but as a member of the group. Ann-Marie was wholly a proper Hutterite child and her beloved family-colony was who she was. No wonder leaving was so wrenching.

This is a well written memoir and I would happily recommend it. The common themes that play out in our human experience of love, pain, family and forgiveness are richly drawn within the very concrete experience of a specific time, place and culture. It's a quick, easy read. Four stars out of five.

This book was provided to me free by Thomas Nelson in exchange for a book review as part of their BookSneeze program. I was under no obligation to provide a positive review.

Two Book Reviews: The Marriage Code and Love & War

2010-05-06T08:49:00.000-04:00

One of my husband's ministry mentors some years back told us that he believed that every married couples--especially pastors--ought to go in for marriage counseling routinely every three years. Rob and I haven't done that. But I have taken it as encouragement that our marriages are something with which we need to actively engage. Two new relationship books bear reading and discussion this spring--Farrels' The Marriage Code and Eldredges' Love & War. I'd strongly recommend both of them for any couple, whether healthy or struggling (though my recommendation for Love & War comes with some caveats).

The Marriage Code examines the dynamic of security and success in a marriage. Both men and women need both security and success the Farrels say, but women tend to primarily need security and use success as a means to that end, while men primarily need success and will sacrifice security to achieve it. Additionally, (as per the Five Love Languages) people tend to give what they themselves want to receive, so women, the Farrels argue, tend to try to make their husbands feel secure when what they need to be doing is helping to be successful, while men tend to try to feed their wives success when what they need to be doing is feeding them security. The Farrels then unpack this idea across a variety of issues, covering work and play, communication, finances

One of the more interesting things to me about this book is the principle that men are supposed to be successful and that one of the keys to a good marriage is for a man to feel that he is a success as a husband and a father. A man will pour his time and energy into the areas in his life where he can accomplish things and being deliberate about setting up those positive feedback loops in areas where God has called him to work is critical. Much of the language of success has been hijacked by the legalists and heretics of the American church. An orthodox, gospel-driven view of righteous success in an accomplishment driven society is sorely needed.

This brings us to Love & War. In this book, John and Stasi Eldredge give us a picture of marriage--all marriage in general and yours in particular--as a battleground of spiritual warfare. Satan wants your marriage to fail and you need to be active in fighting for your spouse, not against them. My main problem with the Eldredge's theology is this: I think they are far too prone to name as the devil that which is simply the world and the flesh. There is a real danger in anthropomorphizing certain kinds of problems and sin. That said, the Bible makes very clear that Satan is very real, that we do have a malignant, intelligent Enemy working against us. And the Eldredges have written a challenging, sympathetic, pragmatic, gritty book on the core how-tos of making marriage work between profoundly sinful and broken (that's all of us, folks!) people. Too many Christian marriage enrichment materials start with the implicit assumption that the couples working through them are Nice Christian People without significant hang-ups or issues. Give 'em a few active listening techniques and understanding and peace (voila!) will blossom. The Eldredges start with the assumption that you don't really have a clue just how screwed up you are and that the best thing that you can do for yourself and your relationship is take a good long look in the mirror. Get some humility. And expect Capital I Issues from yourself and the people around you.

Any good counselor will tell you that any real change starts with the understanding that you can't change other people; you can only change yourself. (And indeed--good theology takes that a step further; you can't change yourself in any meaningful sense. Only the Spirit of God can change you). So in order for our marriages to grow, we need to not focus on our spouse's problems but on letting God point out to us the areas where he wants to grow us and then cooperating with God to become the people he means us to be.

But if the Eldredges make the challenges to our marriages out to be worse than you wanted to admit, they also promise a pay-off better than you could have hoped for. "This is the deepest and most mythic reality in the world. This is the story of God's romance with mankind." Each of our marriages is a microcosm of the love of God, a peephole for us to see the wild, infinite, creative love that we are called to. A crack we allow in our self-protective shell that pry wide open to pour his love through us.

At the end of last year, Elizabeth Weil published an article in the NY Times about the quest she and her husband took to "improve" their marriage. For the most part, the secular experiment turned into an exercise in frustration, simply bringing into focus irritations that they were generally able to ignore. In the end, she comes to the conclusion that happiness cannot be found in ones spouse and a good marriage is one in which the spouses keep growing. This dovetails neatly with the Christian insight that we do not find our fulfillment in other people but in God. And our marriages are the primary place where we help each other along in doing that. If your desire is to grow into the fullness of who God made you to be, and for your spouse to do the same, each of these books is a good resource.

Joshua fit the Battle of Jericho

2010-05-05T19:27:00.001-04:00

Just . . . wow. I've always loved this song. I think love it more now.

P is for Process: preamble

2010-05-05T11:08:00.000-04:00

Now for a little bit of Meyers-Briggs talk. Of the four sets of toggles that combine to make the sixteen personality types in this scheme, the "J-P" split is the most difficult to understand. "Extrovert" and "Introvert" are fairly self-explanatory. So are "Thinking" and "Feeling." "Intuitive" and "Sensing" are even managable. But what are "Perceiving" and "Judging" supposed to mean? I think that they would have had a hard time doing a better job obscuring the issues if they had tried.

I knew it had something to do with being organized--the questions that sort out J's from P's have to do with whether you're neat or messy, and whether or not you're likely to be on time for something. It's something to do with planning. For a long time, I tried to describe it to people in terms of closure--do you prefer things being decided or open-ended? But all of these seemed lacking. Then two things happened this fall that helped me start thinking through the issue a little more.

The first was that I was working through the personality inventory questions with my parents, and I realized that the questions are about emotionally healthy and mature J's, but about unhealthy and immature P's. The readily identifiable lifestyle choices and tendencies that the questions highlight are biased.

The second was that a sociologist (someone who tests strongly P) came to our MOPs group to talk about Meyers-Briggs (and the ways that personality differences between parents and children can be addressed). It was an interesting talk by a man who has been working professionally with these materials for decades. I brought the handouts that he gave us home and my husband looked over them. "Oh," he commented. "Someone else who thinks that J's are morally superior to P's." (My husband tested J for years due simply to the fact that he thought that's what he was supposed to be.)

Our society is strongly biased for J's. It is run by J's, for J's, and indeed, many J's think that they are, in fact, morally superior to P's. (There is no allowance in our culture for many of the flaws that P's are most prone to).

But if we are all of us, J and P, made in the image of God; if in fact, humanity as a whole reflects God's image; if it is the J-P spectrum that reflects God . . . what does that tell us about this character trait? How do we understand the spectrum so that we can see the strengths of an emotionally healthy P and the flaws of an emotionally unhealthy J?

What I have come up with is this: P's are about process and J's about result. Put another way, P's are about the means and J's about the ends.

Book Review: The Egypt Game, by Zilpha Keatly Snyder

2010-04-22T08:40:00.009-04:00

This is a review with spoilers.

My dear MIL, who loves to send books to our daughters, has picked up on the fact that any book with a Newberry medal on the cover is probably a pretty good bet for something that we'll be pleased to have our kids read, so it was no real surprise when a used copy of "The Egypt Game" showed up in the mail. But something from my long gone days as an elementary school library aide (volunteer shelving slave) rose up to the surface with the title and author. Hadn't there been some sort of controversy at my little Christian school over this book? Occult something or another? For a conservative Christian school, ours really had a remarkable selection on the shelves, counting on parents to screen what their own kids checked out rather than heavily censoring what went onto the shelves in the first place. And after all, a Newberry book is usually a pretty good read--I decided that this was one that I wanted to read myself before passing it on to my nine year old daughter.

What I found, to my delight and consternation, was a book that didn't fit in to any of my preconceived slots. The book definitely deserved the Newberry honor that it received; from a literary point of view, everything about this book is excellent. Character development is realistic and subtle, and tied together with a strong plot. The writing is clear and interesting. The story involves April, a sixth grade girl in 1960's California who is dumped on her grandmother by a mother who isn't interested in having a child around. The grandmother and reader know that this is a permanent move for April, but April wants to believe that her mother wants her, waiting anxiously for infrequent postcards and accepting at face value thin excuses. At her grandmother's apartment building, April makes friends with Melanie and they discover a mutual love for "imagining" games. An additional mutual interest in the history of ancient Egypt and the availability of an almost private vacant lot lead naturally into "The Egypt Game," an extended reimagining and role-playing of life as high priestesses in ancient Egypt. They are joined by Melanie's tag-a-long four year old brother Marshall and--eventually--several other friends from the neighborhood.

So what do we have? An excellently written book in which children make diverse friends (good!), have active imaginations (good!), are vibrantly interested in real history (good!), and want to play out their interest (very natural) by recreating altars to Isis and Set and then developing and carrying out pagan rituals, sacrifices and mummification (WHOA!). Historically, the ancient Egyptians really did worship a wide variety of false gods. Pagan rituals really did dominate and heavily influence their lives.

Let's jump ahead a minute. There is no occult in this book. There is no implication that the kids actually awaken Egyptian gods. Late in the book there a couple of sort of creepy occurences when the kids start to wonder if they might have, but then (Scooby-Doo like) it's all revealed to have all been people doing tricksy things all along, and everyone is reassured that none of it was actually real and it was all just a game. The neighborhood bad guy is caught and April develops a better relationship with her grandmother, and it's all a nice almost-coming-of-age story about family and friendship, imagination and learning. At least, I'm sure that's how the author intended it.

Problem is, from a Christian point of view, what was actually real and what wasn't? Some of those kid-constructed pagan rituals looked . . . an awful lot like real worship. God has a lot of very pointed things to say in scripture about worshipping false gods. None of them are good. Additionally, there's a lot of confusion (even among adults! even in the church!) about the nature of worship and how we practice it and what it means.

As a Christian parent, trying to guide my children in holiness, trying to help them sort out what it means to live a life of worship, I can't imagine a situation in which I wouldn't slap my kids down hard if I found them playing "Pagan Rituals." There's just no way that it can be a good idea. I don't buy the line that reading about magic in stories is going to turn kids to witchcraft, or that kids will mindlessly mimic anything they find in a book. But the message of "The Egypt Game" is much more subtle and dangerous--none of it is real, and it's all in good fun. Because make no mistake, the kids have a great time and the game is a great game. The author is sure that most all kids would be better off if they were imaginative like this. Am I going to give this book to my kids to read? Maybe when they're thirty-five and raising my imaginative grandchildren.

Instructions: A poem and children's book, by Neil Gaiman

2010-04-14T13:20:00.001-04:00

Jack Prelutsky on Karla Kuskin

2010-04-12T21:04:00.001-04:00

I hadn't heard of poet Karla Kuskin before, rather to my shame. Her work looks delightful. Jack Prelutsky presents several of his favorites.

Book Review: Hand of Fate by Lis Wiehl and April Henry

2010-04-05T00:01:00.000-04:00

FBI Agent Nicole Hedges, Federal Prosecutor Allison Pierce and TV news reporter Cassidy Shaw form the Triple Threat Club--friends united by their mutual passions for justice and dark chocolate. This second book of the series has them working to solve the murder of radio personality Jim Fate. The problem is not who would want kill him--the problem is, who wouldn't? A bombastic, over-opinated loud-mouth, this is a man who uses even his own hate mail to boost his ratings, handing out "Nut of the Day" awards on the air for the wackiest emails and insults he receives. Former lovers, envious co-workers, corrupt politicians and people he has bullied and mocked on the air provide a daunting list of suspects.

This was a fun read. It's billed as a thriller, but I would describe it more as a crime drama. It reminded me strongly of TV shows like Law & Order, CSI, and Numb3rs. Strong characterization is nicely woven together with almost non-stop action, and well-chosen details about law and media sketch in the professions of the protagonists well. And Portland here is written very much as itself--not just as a generic city. I appreciate the light, realistic touch that the authors give religion here. Each of the three protagonists has a different religious viewpoint (Christian, cynically de-churched and agnostic), and each is written simply and fairly. Our beliefs influence how we interact with the world around us and we don't all believe the same thing. The authors clearly intend to follow these themes out over the course of the series, but I appreciate the fact that they don't seem to be in any hurry to come to quick solutions and canned answers. Real change usually is slow and organic, after all. My one real complaint with the book was towards the end, with a twist that seemed to come out of left field. Would there have been a mystery if they had found that key piece of information on page 50 instead of 250? Maybe not. On the other hand, is it realistic that it would have taken that long for that to turn up? Um, yes. Definitely.

I'd have no hesitation in recommending this book to someone looking for a good piece of beach reading for Spring Break. I'll probably go and get the first of the series now from the library and will definitely look for the third coming out next year.

Three and a half stars out of five.

one element of a good evening

2010-03-31T20:55:00.001-04:00

was finding that Ray Ortlund had posted this video. Love Ashley Cleveland.

This about sums it up at our house

2010-03-29T08:13:00.003-04:00

except that the middle of our three children seems to be a morning person. So while the rest of us are stumbling around making mono-syllabic noises, she is Oh-So-Happy! that the rest of us are finally up . . . there are mornings that doesn't work out so well.

Hymn of St. Patrick

2010-03-17T14:07:00.002-04:00

The worship leader of our chapel program in college wrote this arrangement of St. Patrick's Breastplate. I like it best of any of them I've heard.

link to audio only:

http://www.calvin.edu/worship/pub/ten_plans/stpatricks_prayer.mp3

Seven

2010-03-13T17:11:00.003-05:00

So our four year old has a thing for They Might Be Giants. Best of all, she loves their song "Seven," (I think because she gets to go around shouting "Where's our cake? We want cake!" with impunity for days afterwards.) It was with great delight that she realized that the seven song was originally podcast on . . . March 7th. Her birthday. Apparently that's her birthday cake that all the sevens are devouring.

Colorado Pork Green Chili

2010-02-28T13:43:00.007-05:00

Hey! Our western green chili won the church chili cook-off at our very Midwestern church! That's a fun surprise. As promised, the recipe:

Colorado Pork Green Chili

2 lb pork roast, cooked and diced (about 4 cups cooked meat)
1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 large fresh tomato, diced
2 7 oz. cans green chilies--undrained
1-2 fresh jalapenos, diced (seeded or unseeded, depending on your heat preferences)
1 tsp onion powder (or one medium onion, diced)
1-2 tsp minced garlic
1/4 cup flour
2 Tbsp. oil
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp. sugar
1 chicken boullion cube
2-3 cups of water

Simmer on low until pork is extremely tender and stew is desired thickness. Works great in a crock pot.

Adapted from Colorado Collage cookbook

lots of rules of writing

2010-02-26T09:47:00.002-05:00

The UK's Guardian asked a slew of authors to each give ten rules of writing. Part one is here. Part two is here.

Featured authors include Elmore Leonard, Diana Athill, Margaret Atwood, Roddy Doyle, Helen Dunmore, Geoff Dyer, Anne Enright, Richard Ford, Jonathan Franzen, Esther Freud, Neil Gaiman, David Hare, PD James, A.L. Kennedy, Hillary Mantel, Michael Moorcock, Michael Morpugo, Andrew Motion, Joyce Carol Oates, Annie Proulx, Ian Rankin, Will Self, Helen Simpson, Zadie Smith, Colm Toibin, Rose Tremain, Sarah Waters, and Jeanette Winterson.

Fifteen things you need to know about coffee

2010-02-21T08:35:00.004-05:00

On the website "Oatmeal"

Also from the people who brought you How long could you survive chained to a bunkbed with a velociraptor:

How to tell if your cat is plotting to kill you

Ten words you need to stop misspelling

17 things worth knowing about your cat

How to use an apostrophe

and . . . Dumb jokes that are funny

HT: The Anchoress

Disclaimer: some of the content on this website is in bad taste, even while being pretty funny. Explore at your own discretion.

Book Review: The Voice of Psalms

2010-02-18T14:33:00.006-05:00

The Voice Project is, according to its website, "a retelling of the Scriptures . . . not of words, but of meaning and experience." You might call it a translation project. Its team of contributors is tackling the Bible one book at a time, publishing each book separately. It represents a "collaboration among scholars, writers, musicians, and other artists."

It seemed to me that the book of Psalms might be particularly suited for this kind of project--it is, after all, the hymnal of the Jewish Temple, the lyric book and liner notes for the songs of David (and a few others). Songwriters and poets have been re-translating, re-expoloring, re-singing the Psalms for centuries. "The Voice" has reduced them to prose. Here then, is the first of my complaints on this grievous, ridiculous, self-important re-telling project. (It's too far off to be considered a translation). It doesn't even succeed at what it purports to be trying to do. I presume that the meaning and experience of the original readers (and singers) of the Psalms would have been such that they could recognize what they were reading as song lyrics. But it is nearly impossible to imagine singing what is rendered in "The Voice," sometimes laughably so. Who thought it was a good idea to render Psalm 2:12 ("you will be destroyed" in the NIV and "you will perish" in the ESV) as "you won't stand a chance." ? Just one small example of how the book is riddled with unpoetic modern cliche.

Now, about the italicized material. The introduction says that it is "not directly tied to a dynamic translation of the original language." Put another way--it's interpolation. Or, let's simplify yet again, since "The Voice" seems to be all about simplifying--it's stuff that they just added in because they felt like it. And they don't want anyone to be distracted by footnotes or whatnot--so it's right there in the text. Italics or no, which of us can really read through a passage and keep ourselves from integrating the material? It's very troubling.

There's not much worth saying about the interpretive/devotional essays spattered through the book. They're pretty typical American, legalistic apply-it-to-me-and-how-I-feel and God-wants-you-to-work-at-this type fare. Utterly ignorable.

For more educated critique of the word by word translation and theological agenda of this project, see Chris Rosebrough tackling their rendering of the Gospel of John 1 here and Romans 3 here.

One half star for good paper, font and binding. Otherwise, none. If you want a dynamic translation, try The Message.

Fear and Grace

2010-02-13T10:29:00.002-05:00

From Pursuing Titus 2, via Jennifer F.

When we are simply imagining chilling scenarios, we are facing the horrible emotions without any of God’s sustaining grace. Every time we imagine something, we put ourselves through agony of a kind we will never have to go through in real life. Because when awful things are actually happening, God walks with us through them and gives us His grace and strength. The peace of God’s presence through a trial is something I can never conjure up in my imagination, and something that only comes with real trials, not the pretend ones I make up while driving.

Worry really doesn't serve us well. God calls us to live in each moment--which means to take the time and energy to actually be present in each moment. And each day has enough troubles of its own . . . when we actually go to the trouble enjoying God today, it doesn't leave us with time or energy to be making contingency plans for all sorts of situations which will never actually happen.

Book Review: Five Cities that Ruled the World

2010-02-06T09:10:00.009-05:00

How could a man this smart, how could as good a writer as Douglas Wilson write a book this bad? Five Cities that Ruled the World is a popular history giving an overview of Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, London, and New York. In the introduction Wilson informs the reader that he will be showing how "Jerusalem has bequeathed to us a legacy of spirit; Athens, reason and the mind; Rome, law; London, literature; and New York, industry and commerce." He also intends to explore the Platonic ideal of city with Revelation's Babylon and the heavenly City of God marking opposite ends of the spectrum.

He then takes each of the cities in turn and . . . does what? Okay, so he writes about Jerusalem and spirit--but the concept of "spirit" is vague enough that one could write about just about anything and tie that in. The section on Athens is supposed to be about its legacy of reason and intellectual influence, but he's halfway through the chapter and spent a number of pages retelling the stories of the War with Troy and the Battle of Salamis before he even touches on their intellectual history. The chapters on Rome, London, and New York are even less tied to the "legacies" promised in the introduction. In each chapter Wilson meanders back and forth across history, from pre-history to modern times, cherry-picking battles, quotes, myths and incidents in pursuit of some agenda sensed but never quite articulated. It makes for increasingly bizarre reading because Wilson's prose is actually very good. He's often laugh-out-loud funny and his paragraphs are well constructed. But his paragraph and larger sections seem to have little or no connection to each other--at least in light of the schema he purports to be following. Where are the transitions? Where is the connective material?

Finally, mercifully, the reader gets to the epilogue in which Wilson essentially says, "Aha! See what we've accidentally discovered along the way! Isn't it providential?" Well, no. It's not. We all learned the core of essay-writing in junior high school: 1. Tell me what you're going to tell me. 2. Tell it to me in detail. 3. Tell me what you just told me. Not: 1. Tell me what you're going to tell me. 2. Wander across 5000 years of history telling me things that almost have something to do with what you said you were going to do but not quite, and then 3. Suprise! Tell me you were really on about something else all together. The book is really about . . . Freedom. Freedom is good.

I was still in the first chapter when the similarities with The Mainspring of Human Progress (a screed which constituted a large portion of my "Economics" education at my conservative Christian high school) struck me. The breezy narrative style and casual treatment of history are unmistakeable in their flavor. And I am grieved because I sympathize with the libertarian instincts of both these books. And bad books do not serve to advance the causes of good ideas; rather the reverse. And this poorly structured, agenda-heavy, historically dubious text, I am afraid, will do little but persuade Wilson's choir that their cause has been adequately defended, when it hasn't.

Two stars out of five, because at least his retellings of many historical incidents are very good as scatter shot pieces of world history--whatever purpose they're supposed to be serving.

This is a review through Thomas Nelson's Book Sneeze program.

Seven Quick takes: Volume 100129

2010-01-29T09:29:00.003-05:00

I'm seriously missing my husband while he's gone for a few days at Calvin College's wonderful Worship Symposium. Some quick takes on the stuff of daily life that I forget to mention while on the phone and may not remember to tell him when he gets home.

1. The baking blitz last night with the 9 y.o. went amazingly well. Once again, I find as a parent that my children are capable of far more than I might have thought. When in my desperation and rush I let them try (whatever), I often discover that--yes, they actually can do it! Or at least clean up their own mess afterwards. The eldest sucessfully followed the recipe for bread and put all the ingredients in the bread machine. She sucessfully cleaned up her own flour and dried milk spills. She did most of the mixing for the chocolate chip cookies and learned a few useful techniques on cracking eggs and using the electric mixer. She shaped the bread rolls (though I divided the dough for her because I could do it in about three minutes and it would have taken her twenty). And the reinforcement of 3 tsp = 1 Tbsp, 8 Tbsp = 1/2 cup, 8 oz. = 1 cup fit in beautifully with the fact that they're covering units in math this week. (We went over cups, pints, quarts and gallons a few days ago).

2. I didn't really need Kidnap to inform me that soccer is the most popular sport in Brazil. After four years of working for a Brazilian boss--and living through Brazil's loss to France in the 2000 World Cup, I knew that. (Disclaimer: that France beat Brazil in the 2000 World Cup is about the only I know about professional soccer.)

3. Today's xkcd. I really didn't need any help anthropomorphizing inanimate objects. It comes (distressingly?) naturally to me. Now I'm grieving for the NASA probe and feeling guilty over every childhood toy I ever got rid of.

4. The kids have an issue with the fact that I don't turn on Grant St. like you do when I'm taking them to school, but wait an extra two blocks and go up to Colfax.

5. Suzuki's Allegro has to be one of the more insanely catchy pieces of pseudo-classical music around. Our 3 y.o. is going around singing it. This is only making it more difficult to get it dislodged from my own brain.

6. The Anchoress's litany on the difference between an icon and an idol here is beautiful. It is an effective definition. That is, it differentiates by the effect it is having. (Something which is intended as an icon might function as an idol. Our sinful nature tries to warp all good things to idolatry. )

7. The girls and I watched a very strange effect as the sky was getting dark last night. By some quirk of light and cloud, the sky was very dark very low--we couldn't see the normal tree and house line--it was all absorbed in the dark. Up above was light--and the whole things made it look like we had a mountain range out our dining room window, here in suburban/rural Indiana. I glanced up from my dinner and did a double take--I might have once again been driving I-70 on the north side of Denver, with the Front Range in front of me. Beautiful.

Fun from the Epic Win blog

2010-01-15T21:55:00.002-05:00

I would like each of these in my life.

Check out the Epic Win blog. Fun

Be your own good friend

2010-01-13T21:41:00.001-05:00

Professor John Stackhouse, quoting William Law, on how to be a friend to ourselves. Food for thought that plays into any new year's resolution.

The Periodic Table of Typefaces

2010-01-13T21:40:00.000-05:00

Cool.

Coffee could help keep Type 2 diabetes away

2009-12-18T23:06:00.003-05:00

Good news for the addicted among us. Even better news for those of us coffee junkies (like me) with a history of Type 2 diabetes in our families. From the LA Times:

The study, which appears today in Archives of Internal Medicine, is a meta-analysis of 457,922 people in 18 studies published between 1966 and 2009 that looked at the link between drinking coffee and diabetes risk. After analyzing the research, the study authors concluded that every extra cup of coffee consumed in one day was correlated with a 7% decrease in the excess risk of diabetes. Even better results were found for bigger coffee and tea consumers--drinking three to four cups a day was associated with about a 25% reduced diabetes risk compared with those who drank between none and two cups day.

Researchers also saw positive results with decaf coffee and tea (some tea varieties do have caffeine, but typically far less than the average cup of coffee). People who drank more than three to four cups of decaf a day had about a one-third lower risk than those who didn't drink any. And tea drinkers who consumed more than three to four cups a day had about a one-fifth lower diabetes risk than non-tea drinkers.

HT: The Anchoress

Someone else's poem

2009-12-18T08:56:00.003-05:00

Author Latayne C. Scott shared an old poem of hers on the group writing blog "Novel Matters" today. I've become friends in the last couple of years with some musicians of the sort that it's a privilige just to listen to the practice. I appreciate this poem.

OPUS ENVY
I watch his fingers
Teasing the piano
As he caresses the ivory teeth
It purrrrrrrs
Harder now – he strikes
A glancing blow off the black fang

An answering roar

ah Rachmaninoff
just because my soul is not in
my fingertips does not
mean I do not have one

A recipe that I keep meaning to try

2009-12-18T08:50:00.000-05:00

I had this once at a potluck and promptly begged the chef for the recipe. It has rested since then in my recipes binder . . . I think that what really made this dish the time I had it was that the bread was a most excellent foccacia . . .

Breakfast Casserole:

10 cups bread cubes, 1/4" diced
5 large eggs
8 oz. prosciutto, coarsely chopped
8 oz. shredded mozarella
1/2 cup sour cream
3 cups whole milk
minced garlic (I can't make out how much is called for--1 . . . tsp.? Tbsp? head? . . . to taste)
4 oz. sun dried tomatoes in oil, chopped
fresh parmesan
salt and pepper to taste

Toast bread cubes. Make a mixture of the beaten eggs, milk, sour cream and garlic. Put 1/2 bread cubes in a 9 x 13 greased pan. Layer ham, tomatoes, mozarella. Top with remaining bread. Pour egg mixture over the whole thing. Let sit refrigerated overnight (8+ hours). Bake 20 minutes at 350 degrees. Remove from oven and top with parmesan. Continue baking for another 20 minutes. Serve warm.

Thanksgiving menu maps

2009-12-17T12:33:00.001-05:00

HT: bearing blog

Search results from Allrecipes.com by region. Fun.

The acceptance of "I" comes with the acceptance of "you"

2009-12-16T08:41:00.002-05:00

The root of man’s joy is the harmony he enjoys with himself. He lives in this affirmation. And only one who can accept himself can also accept the you, can accept the world. The reason why an individual cannot accept the you, cannot come to terms with him, is that he does not like his own Iand, for that reason, cannot accept a you. Something strange happens here. We have seen that the inability to accept one’s I leads to the inability to accept a you. But how does one go about affirming, assenting to, one’s I? The answer may perhaps be unexpected: we cannot do so by our own efforts alone. Of ourselves, we cannot come to terms with ourselves. Our I becomes acceptable to us only if it has first become acceptable to another I. We can love ourselves only if we have first been loved by someone else. The life a mother gives to her child is not just physical life; she gives total life when she takes the child’s tears and turns them into smiles. It is only when life has been accepted and is perceived as accepted that it becomes also acceptable. Man is that strange creature that needs not just physical birth but also appreciation if he is to subsist . . . If an individual is to accept himself, someone must say to him: “It is good that you exist” – must say it, not with words, but with that act of the entire being that we call love. For it is the way of love to will the other’s existence and, at the same time, to bring that existence forth again. The key to the I lies with the you; the way to the you leads through the I.

--Benedict XVI

HT: The Anchoress

Ancient Roman Boursin

2009-12-13T17:14:00.003-05:00

Translation courtesy of Klio

Moretum
1 to 5 heads of garlic (whole bulbs, not cloves. We used 1. Susan is brave, but not 5-heads-of-garlic brave.)
8 ounces Pecorino-Romano cheese
2 teaspoons celery leaf
1 teaspoon rosemary (substituted for the original rue)
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 handful coriander leaves
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 Tablespoon white wine vinegar

Chop the garlic and shred the cheese, or chop cheese into small blocks if using a food processor. Combine the herbs and salt and grind together in mortar with garlic, or use food processor to combine. Add the cheese to your bowl or food processor and do same. Add olive oil and vinegar and mix thoroughly into a paste. Form into a ball (you can spoon the mixture into some plastic wrap and use that to shape it).

Ta-da! You are done! Set out with some hearty dark bread that can stand up to its flavour. Serves about a dozen bold-hearted guests.

Leftovers are said to get better as the ingredients combine, but this wouldn't last overnight in my house.

Elizabeth Gilbert and the work of the Spirit

2009-12-08T14:38:00.000-05:00

Nacho Taco Salad

2009-11-17T09:59:00.003-05:00

The perfect potluck dish--one of those guilty pleasures that we all love, but there's no excuse in making a batch for just you or your family . . . thanks for the recipe, Kristin!

Note: Make this in your biggest mixing bowl. My 7-8 quart one was barely large enough. (Maybe that's why the recipe recommends halving it . . . but who wants to use 1/2 lb of hamburger, or worse--1/2 a packet of taco seasoning?)

Nacho Taco Salad

1 lb. hamburger, browned, drained and mixed with

1 packet taco seasoning

salt and pepper to taste

1 bunch green onions, diced

1 green pepper, diced

1 head iceberg lettuce, shredded

8 oz. shredded cheddar cheese

3-4 diced tomatoes

3/4 to one whole bottle of Henri's Tas-Tee dressing

mix all ingredients well. Then mix with

1 12-17 oz. bag smashed Original Doritos

Refrigerate overnight before serving

Japanese history and archaeology

2009-11-12T19:42:00.001-05:00

Interestingfrom a number of angles.

HT: Jennifer

Preschooler declaration of the week

2009-11-12T12:43:00.000-05:00

Bronwyn (age 3 1/2): "I'm going to be a Tooth Fairy when I grow up. And I'm going to live with Tinkerbell!"

turkish coffee

2009-11-12T09:06:00.004-05:00

I'd be having one of these mornings if my wonderful husband hadn't already made the coffee for me when I got up. For someone who never drinks it himself, he's learned to brew a pretty mean pot over the years.

They say that towards the end of his life Voltaire didn't bother to grind or brew his coffee, but just ate coffee beans straight up.

But if you're actually interested: How to make Turkish Coffee

Mother Goose and Grimm goes post-modern

2009-11-09T13:40:00.006-05:00

Sure, in "Pearls Before Swine" the characters are not only aware that they are comic strip characters, they can bully their artist and kidnap characters from other strips. "Mother Goose and Grimm" chooses to take a more Star Trek-y type approach. Now I'm just waiting for Grimm to stumble through a rip in reality caused by a boiler explosion and land in "Blondie." Except, wait--in the Blondie universe, all comic strips exist in one giant shared reality (witness the character party that Blondie and Dagwood had for their 75th).

Except, wait again: There's Grimm, right in the front row of the 75th anniversary party. The two strips already occupy the same reality . . . hmm. Maybe I'm getting a little too hung up on continuity. Maybe.

how apropos

2009-11-06T08:24:00.003-05:00

Our middle daughter lost her first tooth last night. The going rate around here is $1 per tooth. Plus gum, occasionally. Gum especially for those cases when the absent-minded tooth fairy doesn't show up the first night and needs to make sure that Guido doesn't take it out of an elbow.

maybe there's more to all those images of the great tapestry of history . . .

2009-11-05T17:54:00.005-05:00

We glorify God by working out our own salvation. God has twisted together his glory and our good. What an encouragement is this to the service of God, to think, while I am hearing and praying, I am glorifying God; while I am furthering my own glory in heaven, I am increasing God’s glory. --Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philipians 2: 12-13)

One of those theological paradoxes that my mind persists in trying to untangle is that of our free agency and God's sovereignty. God is sovereign, and only he accomplishes our salvation--but somehow what we do and think and say matters in there too. It is not by works that we are saved, but Paul clearly tells us to work out our salvation, and James tells us that our works are the evidence of our faith. One word in that Watson quote this morning gave me what I think may be a useful mental image. "Twisted." As in thread, or rope.

Our actions are not, in and of themselves, enough . . . for much of anything, really. Not to accomplish those things which can only be accomplished by the work of the Spirit. But if the Spirit is the one spinning into being those things which the Father wills, perhaps our actions are one of the strands being spun. Twisted. Even as we work, we are being worked upon, and our works are being included in the work of God . . .

I find myself agreeing with Rat

2009-11-03T22:06:00.001-05:00

American literature would not be a poorer thing for the absence of Walt Whitman . . .

being like Christ

2009-11-03T20:55:00.004-05:00

Theological confession: I'm guilty of the NT's idolatry of self. Of identity. Which is to say, I read all those New Testament passages about being transformed into the likeness of Christ and think, "but I'm not sure that I want to become Jesus. I really like being myself." Yes, I know that a proper theological understanding doesn't mean the abrogation of the self, but its fulfillment--God doesn't strip us of who he made us to be, rather, through Christ, he transforms us into who he intended us to be all along. But still--in the image of the Son. Shouldn't be scary, but it is. I don't want to be turned into something other than what I am . . . but it didn't occur to me until this week to look at it from the flip side.

Christ became sin for us. "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God." Jesus Christ--the second person of the Trinity--let himself be transformed into--not us, just the worst parts of us. Our sin. Holy God inverted himself into that . . . and in so doing, actually exemplified the true character of who he is. By becoming sin, he became saviour. By becoming the sacrifice, by accepting death, he became life and redemption.

And all so that we could become the righteousness of God. Our transformation into the likeness of Christ is nothing less than the perfect inversion of Christ's initial transformation into us. He who was born into the likeness of men. Perhaps it is only through our transformation that we become that which we truly are? Perhaps that is one of the ways that we actually become like Christ?

I want one of these in my life

2009-10-30T13:48:00.001-04:00

Thanks Erin!

Sally Thomas on Hallowmas

2009-10-29T22:18:00.002-04:00

While I am not Catholic and do not revere the saints of past ages or pray for the dead as Roman Catholics do, Sally Thomas's reflections at First Things on the three day pageant of Halloween, All Saint's Day, and All Souls resonate with me very much as a story teller and a story receiver. Donald Miller writes of the stories that we write with our lives, and those are shaped by the stories that we listen to, and read, and tell--and re-enact. N.D. Wilson writes of the necessity of darkness in our stories and artwork, as well as light. And while I don't think that God needed us--or wanted us--to sin in order to tell his story, the fact remains that we DID sin. The world in which we live has darkness and sin and death and shadow. It is what we know and understand and in order to tell ourselves the story of redemption--of rescue from the darkness--one must necessarily start with the darkness. Maybe Halloween, from a Christian point of view, isn't such a bad place to do that.

Tim Keller, again

2009-10-25T19:29:00.001-04:00

“Identity is a complex set of layers, for we are many things. Our occupation, ethnic identity, etc., are part of who we are. But we assign different values to these components and thus Christian maturing is a process in which the most fundamental layer of our identity becomes our self-understanding as a new creature in Christ along with all our privileges in him.

- Timothy Keller “Gospel Christianity” Course 3 (Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2003), 141.

HT: Of First Importance

the logical consequence . . .

2009-10-15T13:58:00.003-04:00

Given that we already nearly have an obesity tax, given the tax-funded universal health care system that the Obama administration wants to saddle us with, is the criminalization of my own failure to take care of my body according to the government's specifications really that far-fetched?

Since it's showing up in my daily comic crawl, I'm saying . . . no.

some useful perspective

2009-10-15T13:51:00.003-04:00

somewhere between "it could always be worse and "why did God give me this job . . ."

I especially like this in the context of this strip's huge arsenal of "bad weather" gags.

Lindsay's Festive Egg Squares

2009-10-13T12:58:00.002-04:00

1 lb. cooked sausage, well drained (chicken or meatless works fine, as well as normal "country" sausage)

2 bunches green onion, chopped

2 medium tomatoes, diced

2 cups (8 oz.) shredded mozarella

1 1/4 cups baking mix

12 eggs

1 tsp. dried oregano

1 cup milk

Spray 9 x 13 pan. Layer tomatoes, onion, sausage and cheese. In a bowl, whisk eggs, milk, oregano and baking mix until no lumps. Pour over the sausage and veggies. Bake at 350 degrees 30-35 minutes until golden brown.

Sara's notes: I've never gotten "to the no lumps" stage. Mine always has small lumps--that's fine. Baking mix is NOT the same as Bisquick--but it should be right next to it in the baking aisle. I learned with this recipe that there is a specific product "baking mix." Lindsay recommends the buttermilk variety, but I use plain and it works out. I've always had to bake mine 40-45 minutes to keep it from being soupy in the middle.

the story is . . .

2009-10-05T13:07:00.003-04:00

Three year old, drawing on her drawing pad, and Uncle Will

UW: What are you drawing?

3YO: a bridge

UW: don't forget the water

3YO: here it is

UW: where are the fishies in the water?

3YO: they're on land and they all died

UW: oh

3YO: actually, they're looking for their mommies. Their mommies all got eaten. By a shark.

it's all in the narrative . . .

What does God require of us?

2009-09-30T21:29:00.004-04:00

well, to walk justly, and love mercy and walk humbly with our God, of course, but sometimes it's nice to have a little more in the way of specifics. :)

The Koala Bear Writer passes on Kathleen Gibson's thoughts on God's requirements and uses of writers. They are:

1. that our words be heard

2. that we become word-wrestlers

3. that we speak and write things we'd often rather not

4. that we do whatever it takes

5. that we be flexible and willing to change

6. that we give feet to our words

7. that we be effective people in our own back yards.

I was particularly struck by the first, second, and fourth of these. I think we are often over-ambitious and prestige hungry about being heard . . . but the error at the opposite end of the spectrum hadn't occurred to me--that it could actually be sin to hide our writing, to keep quiet when God intends us to speak. That wrestling with words means actually pinning concepts down strikes me interestingly too. I know about myself that I do write to pin concepts down, but it's felt like play to me. Or the gravy of life. That God might have intentions for my life and the lives of others through the process of my wrestling . . . hmm. And of course, on the fourth point--doing whatever it takes--the discipline of actually following out and doing the work of living into one's call . . .

Book Review: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

2009-09-29T00:46:00.008-04:00

What makes a good story? What kind of story is God trying to write my life into? Am I cooperating with my life being a story worth reading, or am I fighting to remain in the "senseless, selfish ways of non-story"? Donald Miller wrestles through these questions in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. The process of trying to turn a memoir about his life (Blue Like Jazz) into a movie script leads him to examine what makes stories work as stories. He reflects on what makes stories meaningful and then evaluates how that reflects back on the way that we live our lives. If stories are our lives with all the meaningless bits left out, is there a way to live our lives so that more of the meaningless bits are left out in the first place?

This book was far better than I'd hoped for. I wasn't a huge fan of Blue Like Jazz, but I'm a sucker for pretty much anything that deals with story structure and meta-story and that post-modern sense of the characters and writer interacting. (Think Stranger than Fiction.) Miller has all of that, but ruthlessly brings it down to the level of personal challenge. What am I going to do, what are you going to do, to write a better story with your life? How do we infuse our lives with meaning? Miller has grown up a lot as a writer and--apparently--as a human being in the years since Blue Like Jazz was published. There's less of his ego tangled up with his prose, making both for better prose and for less of an impression of a writer who needs his ego taken down a few notches. The book is somewhat slow for the first forty pages or so--don't judge the entire book by the sample section that's up on the publisher's website. It's the weakest section of the book. After reading a few pages here and a few pages there for a couple of weeks, I read the last two hundred pages more or less in one sitting. I'll also note that reading it side by side with Notes from a Tilt-a-Whirl was a great experience. The two books are dealing with some similar themes from very different angles and inform each other well. Miller's conclusions, like his beginning, is not nearly as strong as his middle . . . but the man's trying to write an ending when he's still stuck living the middle of his own story. He can hardly be blamed for not having lived far enough to see the ending clearly yet. Especially in a book about living the middle more deliberately.

Four stars out of five

Reviewed for Thomas Nelson

Honest faith

2009-09-23T08:55:00.005-04:00

MckMama has a rant up this morning--why is someone criticizing her whatever she chooses to share or not share? Why don't people just believe her? People say they want honesty, but do they really? It made me want to post a comment on her thread with a Mark Driscoll clip I listened to a while back. (But I can't find it). He made the comment in one of his sermons that there are only a select handful of people from whom he will take criticism--his elders, a few mentors, his wife. People who he trusts to have his best interests and God's best interests in mind. All the rest, he can't afford to take the time and energy to chase down all the anklebiters, naysayers and sour grapes and convince them to like him. There's wisdom there.

Say what you will about Driscoll. I certainly have issues with the man. But I give him this--he is who he is and he offers himself to the church and he doesn't take the time of day from critics who say, essentiall, that who and what he is needs to change (let them tell you how!) in order for his life to be something fit to offer to the church.

There's a tension in the church between deep and surface living. How much of ourselves do we expose to each other? And how much is appropriate to tell and under what circumstances? Am I willing to tell you when I'm just having a lousy day? (And when is it honest for me to do that, and when am I just being self-indulgent in my complaining?) How about things like financial problems, or marital problems? Is it honest to talk about those? Dishonest to hide them? Are there times when talking about such things to someone you don't know very well might be a betrayal of intimacy? What about issues of faith and doubt? Worry. Parenting. All mixed up with "I don't feel like doing the laundry," and "What's for dinner?" and "Did you see the new Harry Potter movie?" and "I'm having a great day because my potty-training child did NOT have an accident today." (The thing about "small talk" is that most of most of our lives are honestly made up of wonderful mundanity. We might say we want honesty . . . that we want things to be genuine . . . but what are we after, really?

The thing is, I don't think that most of us understand people in general, or the world, or our own lives, or other people's lives nearly as well as we think we do. We don't understand how the mundane and the profound are woven together as the warp and woof of life. We don't understand the ways that sin breaks us. We don't realize that someone we know has dealt with that--that among my 200 Facebook friends, probably every "that" is covered. We don't understand the reality that "that" is going to take years to heal, and is going to leave scars--and that there will be days that that seems really important, and plenty of days that I'm more concerned with what's for dinner.

We want honesty, but we're not prepared for it when we get it. It's too raw. Too scary. Too boring. Too threatening. We want to think we understand. Honesty shows us we don't. We want to think we have the answers. Honesty shows us we don't. We want the world to be a safe, manageable, controllable place. We know that we ourselves are buffetted and thrown about, but we want to think that someday, somehow, we'll get to a place of answers. But when we really interact with each other, we discover that none of us is one self-help book or one good sermon, or one inspirational song away from having it all together. We discover that giving or receiving a bellyful of honesty requires humility and commitment far beyond what most of us are willing to give most days. It means saying things like "I'd never thought of that before," and "I don't understand, but I'd like to." It means expecting to find that we're all sinful, complex, broken people in a sinful, complex, broken world.

Too often, when we say we want honesty, we just want to be voyeurs. Too often, when we get honesty, we try to trim off the edges so that it will fit back in the box. But we were made by a God bigger than we are, who placed us in a world too complex for us to understand. And he made each of us unique. Different. Should it be any surprise to us when other's individual experiences and stories seem alien to us? When our finite interactions with an infinite God seem too big to handle and comprehend?

further thoughts on "Notes from a Tilt-a-Whirl" : the problem of evil

2009-09-17T09:04:00.004-04:00

So . . . more on N.D. Wilson's "Notes from a Tilt-A-Whirl". Wow. I think I'm going to be re-reading and chewing on and quoting this one for years. I'm still turning over in my mind what I think of how he addressed the problem of evil. Because, for the most part, he doesn't see much of a problem. He presents it in artistic terms--a painting needs light and shadow, a story needs conflict for a plot line. And I certainly take his point that much of what we blithely call "evil" might actually not be so--that it is simply a higher, greater, more dangerous, sharper edged good than we are prepared to handle. Do we want sharp edged mountains in our world? Or would we rather have a world where no foolish grade schooler can ever concuss herself on a steep snowfield? I think it was worth it . . . since I didn't end up dying anyway . . .

But what of the evil we do see? The real, undeniable, pit-of-hell stuff? Is that from God? Does he actually desire it? Is it simply the shading in his pencil sketch? No--God is light, and in him there is no darkness. God is not tempted by evil, nor does he create or encourage evil, nor does he set us up for a fall for his own purposes. The evil in the world, the sin in the world, is our fault. God doesn't need it. God doesn't want it. It is not an addition to God's color pallete.

Would Wilson agree with me? Well, I can't entirely tell from the book. Maybe he just figured that other takes on dealing with the problem of evil had been well addressed in other places and he was doing something different here. He is presenting, if you will, the problem of Good. The problem is that Good is too much for us to handle. And it's certainly true that if we stop trying to reduce Good to fuzzy bunnies and safety scissors, our perspective on evil looks a little different. If we stop trying to equate evil with "anything I don't want," and remember that the plotline of this universe is about more than my comfort--if we attempt, at all, to take it in context--maybe the problem turns out to be a little different than we thought at first.

Cause and effect

2009-09-16T09:11:00.003-04:00

John Cleese is still at the top of his form--skewering virtually all of Western Civilization (with special attention to the Brits, of course) in a compact two minutes.

HT: Barb

post-modernism at its best

2009-09-07T18:06:00.002-04:00

life as a logarithmic scale

2009-09-07T17:43:00.002-04:00

By the time we're 18, we've already lived 5 1/2 of our 8 subjective lifetimes . . . all sorts of interesting grist for the mill here.

HT: bearing blog

Black Russian Cake

2009-08-24T21:45:00.003-04:00

1 Chocolate Cake Mix

1/2 cup sugar (optional)
1 6.5 oz. box Instant Chocolate Pudding Mix
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1/4 cup vodka
1/4 cup kahlua
3/4 cup cold strong coffee
Pam Cooking spray.

Beat ingredients together about 4 minutes. Pour into greased Bundt pan. Bake 350 degrees, 50-60 minutes

Glaze

1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup kahlua
1/4 cup dark chocolate syrup

Cool cake for 10 minutes. Invert onto serving plate. Poke holes in cake and pour on glaze. Sprinkle with extra powdered sugar for decoration if desired.

Book Review: Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl

2009-08-24T09:44:00.005-04:00

It took me all summer to finish N.D. Wilson's Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl. It seemed I could never get through more than a few pages without stopping to reflect on it. Hands down, one of the best books I've read in ages. How to describe a books that's been called stream of conciousness? (It's not). That opens its introduction with "What excuses can I possibly make for this book?" Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl is intentionally written to be as dizzying as its titular ride. It's a book to be felt--not analyzed. Though it would stand up to analysis. Just as distilling and titrating a bottle of Dom Perignon would give you a certain type of information. But it's not the way it's meant to be consumed. Nor, Wilson shows us, leads us, is God a being to be thought about, or proved, or deconstructed. He is one to be lived with, lived into, imbibed.

Two measures of a good book. One--how likely am I to re-read it? Very--I'm quite sure that it's one of those books that will read differently a number of times depending on what experiences I've accumulated and what I bring to my reading. Two--how many people am I thinking of who I've got to get to read this book? Lots. Regretfully, I cannot loan my single copy to my parents, best friend, music minister, cousin, and my entire book club all at the same time. The review in the current Books and Culture says that Wilson's "God is definitely NOT too small." That's a truth that none of us will ever grow out of growing into--the experience shattering gut-knowledge that God is infinite . . . Wilson demands that we experience more than we can handle, and that we stagger away, drunk and reeling from the spoken Word and the spoken World.

Five stars. Easily.

Not me Monday: Vacation retrospective

2009-08-24T00:03:00.001-04:00

It wasn't our family that you saw the other week, taking over the single stall restroom in that diner so we could get the entire family "pottied" before we hit the road again. When our family is road tripping, we always make sure to do our pit stops at places with plenty of stalls. And when my grade school aged daughters need to use a public washroom, I can just lean against the wall and cross my arms while they calmly and quickly take care of their business. It wasn't me you heard threatening, cajoling and bribing my children ("Do you want to have to go on the side of the road?"). It wasn't my kids you heard freaking out over the automatic toilets and begging me to cover the electric eyes. My children are rational and mature for their age and don't get all wrought up over evil toilets that may or may not flush loudly and suddenly under them while I am trying to keep my temper and get them to "just relax and hurry up and pee, okay?"

And my kids most certainly do not still feel the need to strip off everything below the waist in order to use the washroom. They don't take off shoes and socks and shorts and underwear and leave it in a pile on the floor of a public washroom. That would be gross. Those floors aren't sanitary! And if one of my daughters did such a thing, I would never decide that a good solution would be to precariously pile her clothes on the back of the toilet where she could knock her underwear into the water when she was done. I would never take a situation that wasn't going to get any worse on its own and make it potentially disastrous like that. Not me!

It wasn't my daughter that you heard screaming at the top of her lungs from that single washroom in the diner. My children use appropriate, inside voices in public places. Even when their underwear is taking a swim in the toilet bowl, and Mom, for some inexplicable reason, wandered back to the table.

When our family goes on vacation, I plan for contingencies, so my daughter wouldn't find herself without a spare pair of clean underwear in the suitcases in the back of the truck. I wouldn't have to convince my kid to borrow a pair of her older sister's. Nope, not me. And I wouldn't go out of my way to find a different store with an available public washroom in which she could change. Nor would I, a parent who would never bribe her children,* nearly breathe a sigh of relief when my daughter spotted that perfect toy coming out of the washroom in the second hand store. The one she's been wanting and asking for. Nope--not me breathing a prayer of thankfulness that God turned imminent disaster into a perfect coup, and that we could drive away with a happy kindergartner and a steal for a piece of doll furniture. Oh--wait. Maybe that last one was me.

*(no, those are not my children who nearly accost the bakery ladies at the grocery store for free cookies every time we go shopping)

Not Me Monday is a blog carnival created and hosted by MckMama at My Charming Kids.

the winner of the Sunday morning comic crawl

2009-08-23T16:53:00.002-04:00

7 quick takes: volume 090821: coaching string players

2009-08-21T09:49:00.003-04:00

This spring, we started our middle daughter on violin lessons and our eldest on cello. And now 10-12 hours of my week are spent supervising practice and lessons, and driving back and forth. It's worth it.

Seven things I'm learning on how to help your grade schooler have a happy and productive intstrument practice

1. At this stage it's all about posture and muscle memory.
I knew somewhat from potty training how difficult it is to teach body awareness and muscle control to a child. Playing a stringed instrument involves learning to use and coordinate many different muscle groups that most of us never think about. My main job as a parent in helping my girls practice is to be an outside set of eyes and help them be aware of what they need to learn to be aware of. To help them build muscle memory.

2. Be endlessly encouraging.
You're doing a great job. I can see you're really working on that. That sounded a lot better this time. Your teacher's going to be really impressed at your next lesson. You're putting in good practice. I'm glad you let me help you. That's really going to help you.

3. But don't let anything by. At all.
Two or three days of a bad habit can take weeks to fix. Or months. Years? Perhaps--but we haven't gotten that far yet. :) Also, if they learn to take correction and improvement as part and parcel of practice then it's not something unusal or something to get upset at. If I can offer correction in a routine, attentive, even bored manner, then they are much better about taking it as what it is--something to HELP them, a positive thing--rather than taking it as negative criticism.

4. Train the ear.
I was a piano player--hit the right key, and you get the right note. Unless the piano is out of tune, and there's nothing you can do about that. It took me a long, long time to begin to listen critically to my own playing. But string players have to learn to listen critically to themselves from the get-go. They need to hear how the notes relate to each other, not just see it on the page. Am I in tune? How's my tone? They only get 4 notes as gimmes . . . not all 88l.

5. Let them enjoy the music
There's always something to work on. If they want to spend an entire practice playing nothing but "Jesus Loves Me," we can do that. And do it a little straighter, a little more musically each time. In retrospect, one of the things I most regret about my own music lessons was how little I was engaged with so much of the music that I was playing. Why couldn't we have skipped many of those exercises that I didn't find interesting? And those ones that I absolutely loved? What if, instead of being told "Oh, that's too easy for you now, that doesn't count," or "That's not part of your lesson," I'd heard, "Oh, you really love that tune? Let's see what else we can do with that."

6. Keep your temper--and theirs
Getting angry isn't going to fix the problem. Getting frustrated isn't going to help them "get it." Making their practice time a time when they get yelled at isn't going to make them want to practice. In addition, their own frustration and convincing of themselves that they'll "never get this!" doesn't help practice. "Give yourself some grace. Give yourself some time." See #2. Remember . . . if it was easy, we wouldn't have to practice it. Helping my girls learn to work hard at something that isn't easy, that isn't natural, that takes discipline is one of the main reasons that we're doing this. After all, discipline and disciple have the same root. It's about training them in the tools that they will need to tackle all sorts of difficult, frustrating things over the course of their lives. It's about learning to disciple my children.

7. Remember that there's no deadline
We can just keep working at it. There's no getting ahead. There's no falling behind. We're not on a schedule here, and I don't need push my kids or make them push themselves. This is just an introduction and a tool for (hopefully) a lifetime's enjoyment of and participation in music.

quick takes are sponsored by jen@conversion diary

And once more back into the school year

2009-08-20T09:47:00.002-04:00

I'm not quite sure how our summer break evaporated so quickly. It just seemed to . . . disappear. Books were read, games were played. We had company multiple weekends and concerts to go to. A friend's wedding out east and a wedding present to make. Laundry to fold and blueberries to pick and summer reading programs to exploit. A basement to organize and summer blockbusters to go see. But none of it coalesced into blogging. It didn't NEED to . . . Sometimes there are seasons in my life when I really feel the need to make sure I'm paying attention to life, to hang words on it. And sometimes, it's better to not step outside myself, not watch myself doing something as I do it, but to just live life and let it pass. I don't need a record of everything. My kids don't need me to analyze all of it. And where could I find the quiet to think about it all anyway, with all three kids home all the time?

But this week, I'm enjoying the quiet of having the kids be back to school. Our preschooler is going three mornings a week this fall. There's time and quiet and space to think, pray, write, again. I like it.

7 quick takes: volume 090724

2009-07-24T10:08:00.005-04:00

7 books I'm reading this summer when I'm not blogging

1. The Dresden Files (Jim Butcher): okay, a whole series of books. This summer's fluff. Jim Butcher has a deft hand at weaving a lot of stock Fantasy/Sci-Fi elements with snarky humor and likably flawed under-dog characters. Plop the whole thing in a familiar setting--like an alternate-reality Chicago--and it's easy to see why Butcher's managed to land himself on top of the best seller lists.

2. Watership Down (Richard Adams): Book club book for the summer. A pleasant re-read. I must have been about seven or eight when my dad read this to my brother and me for bed-time reading.

3. Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy): The other book club read for the summer. I actually read this when I was fourteen and hated it. Re-reading it at 34 is proving to be a college course's worth of insight into how our life experience informs our reading. I'm not sure if I like it or not this time round. I'm not sure I can even really compare. I feel like I'm reading a completely different book.

4. Story (Robert McKee): A book about writing screenplays that has a lot of material which is directly applicable to novels. My writing classes in college focused on structure at the sentence and paragraph level. They never addressed such things as plot arc and scene selection--those macro-structuring issues with which I've struggled a great deal in my attempts to write. This book is a God-send.

5. Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl (N.D. Wilson): My next book review book for Thomas Nelson. A philosophical, apologetic hymn of awe to a Creator-God who is too great for us to even begin to comprehend. Beautiful.

6. God's Prayer Book (Ben Patterson): A how-to devotional guide for Protestants on the spiritual discipline of praying the book of Psalms. A birthday present from my best friend. A not-so-subtle hint from God.

7. Cicero (Anthony Everitt): A biography of the great Roman orator. An overview of Roman politics that makes our current, corrupt American politics look like a model of integrity.

What are you all reading this summer?

As always, 7 Quick Takes are sponsored by Jen at Conversion Diary

how to get a bird out of the house, (or church, or garage, or . . .)

2009-07-14T08:42:00.001-04:00

Half a dozen of us were polishing off the pre-Fall-kickoff cleaning for our church when a small songbird got into the building. There's the lot of us, playing bird hockey, with brooms, rakes, whatever long-handled whatever we can grab . . . churches have high ceilings. (And did you know that when there's vertical space available, birds don't like to fly down to things like open doors.) My friend Joy discovered the one essential tool in trying to catch a bird: a spray bottle full of water. It's much easier to spritz a bird than it is to herd it. And eventually, the water in the feathers weights the bird down enough that it can't fly. At least until it dries out. And that point, it's a pretty simple thing to pick the bird up and set it out in the sun to recover. I presume that this wouldn't work with birds that God designed to live in the water, like ducks or swans or something. But I haven't yet heard of someone getting those in their house. And it's okay on sparrows.

Happy 4th!

2009-07-04T11:14:00.006-04:00

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

kid play

2009-06-24T11:50:00.003-04:00

I have two little girls galloping around the house on the stick horses (sound effect: "ga-LOP, ga-LOP, ga-LOP) with their baby dolls, deep in a game of pretend. When they apparently arrive at their destination, I hear "How about you park your horsey here?" Park? A horse? I'm quite sure that's not right, but it suddenly occurs to me that I'm not sure what I would do with my horse, once we got where we were going. Other than, you know, tie it up somewhere so it didn't wander off . . .

Book Review: Jack Hanna's Wackiest, Wildest, Weirdest Animals in the World

2009-06-13T10:05:00.004-04:00

Jack Hanna's Wackiest, Wildest, Weirdest Animals is a fun true facts book for mid range elementary schoolers (2nd to 5th grade). It profiles thirty animals--ten of the wackiest, ten of the wildest, and ten of the weirdest animals in the world. It has beautiful glossy photographs of each of the animals profiled, food, habitat and size for each, and two to three paragraphs of exciting and bizarre information.

This is a great book for lovers of the weird and wonderful in creation. Well bound, with thick glossy pages, it will stand up well for reading and re-reading. My third grade daughter sat down and read the whole thing cover to cover the afternoon it showed up at our house. It is also be well suited for a parent to sit down and read aloud with their child. The information is too dense for an early elementary age school child (my kindergartner was bored), but the included blooper DVD will be enjoyed by both younger and older children. There is no overtly spiritual slant to the book, but there didn't need to be. And it was refreshing to find a modern naturalist book entirely free of pseudo-environmental propaganda. The book simply does a fine job broadening the knowledge base for those children who want to know how things are. Highly recommended for the fans of Ranger Rick or National Geographic Kids in your home. Four out of five stars.

dangerous things

2009-05-30T09:19:00.002-04:00

Got to thinking about this video while camping with my brother and his family this past Memorial Day weekend. We were camping in the same spot that we've used for years, where there has been much Playing With Fire and Using of Pocketknives. And Spear Throwing. It was a good weekend.

For the record, the "five" are:

1. Play with fire

2. own a pocketknife

3. throw a spear

4. deconstruct appliances

5. Break the Digital Media Copyright Act

5b. Drive a car

make mine an Irish cream latte with an extra shot of espresso

2009-05-22T10:19:00.003-04:00

I admit to being equal parts horrified and delighted at the idea of there being a Starbucks down the Road-Less-Taken . . . and to not being sure that I like what that says about me . . .

Book Review: The American Patriot's Bible, NKJV Translation

2009-05-20T09:15:00.007-04:00

The American Patriot's Bible (New King James Version) is Thomas Nelson's latest venture into the world of thematic study Bibles. It has a minimal set of maps, a good concordance, a brief introduction for each book of the Bible, and a large number of essays and reflections purportedly connecting the Bible and American history.

From a purely physical book-making standpoint, this is a nice Bible. It has thicker than average paper for a study Bible, a decently large typeface and it looks like a durable book. It's really too bad that such a nicely designed Bible wasn't matched with quality of content: as a Christian study Bible, it fails on both counts.

First off, aside from the "patriot's" material, there are virtually no study elements at all. No biblical cross-references. No footnotes aside from the NKJV's translators' notes. No charts or timelines. A shameful dearth of maps. The introductions to each book give considerably less historical and theological context for the book than the equivalent Wikipedia articles.

Secondly, it fails to be Christian. Michael Horton would call it Christless. You want a Bible for Moralistic Therapeutic Deism? Legalism? This is it. Its essays emphasize such traditional American values as hard work and our accountability to God. There is plenty to encourage the idea that what God wants from us is to work harder. There is nothing here for the broken, repentant sinner, aware of his own inadequacy, whose desperate hope is to fall at the foot of the cross and find grace.

What then of the patriotic elements? The glowing biographies of people honoring God for their American success, the vaguely spiritual, inspirational quotes scattered throughout, the multiple glossy inserts attempting to sketch out all of American history and tie it to the Biblical narrative? All I can say is that I found it all as dubious in its history as its theology. This flag-waving, Chicken-Soup-for-the-Soul-ish pass at a study Bible is best left on the shelf at the Christian bookstore.

Book Reviews

2009-05-20T09:04:00.002-04:00

So I've signed up for Thomas Nelson's Book Review Bloggers program. It's a pretty straight forward they-send-you-free-books-in-exchange-for-publicity type arrangement. My goals for the program are to get some free books (of course!) and also, some practice writing reviews, a form I enjoy both reading and writing. I do my best writing and thinking when I'm interacting with lots of stuff. Their review guidelines are pretty stringent, so I'm envisioning doing a couple of blog posts on each book--one short one according to the guidelines and word count, and one more rambling and free-floating one, if it seems that there's more that needs to be said/considered about a book than can be said in 200-600 words. Here's hoping that this turns out to be an enjoyable adventure for all involved . . . :)

7 quick takes, volume 090515

2009-05-15T09:27:00.003-04:00

. . . because blogging is more fun than housework.

1. In the middle of too many books at once, as usual. Meaty reading is Michael Horton's Christless Christianity. Continuing Roman history survey is Documentary perspectives, alternating with Polybius online. For pure escapism (new) I just polished off the archives of Kevin and Kell (one of these days, I'll have to blog about comics as literature). Pure escapism (re-read) is Anne McCaffrey's Harperhall trilogy (the best work of anything she's done, imho). The summer book club book is Watership Down (a pleasant re-read).

2. Also trying to make a point of reading to my younger two more. Our oldest, before she could read, pestered for books all the time. She would happily listen to stories several hours a day, before the age of two years old. I'm realizing how much I developed the habit from that of putting off reading, and encouraging her to do other things . . . with the result that her two younger, less obsessed sisters get put off more they have coming.

3. Music practice. Ack. Never thought I would be raising strings players. Now I find myself trying to supervise 45 minutes to an hour of practice time every day . . . trying to encourage my daughters to patience . . . to not scream in frustration and hit things when they don't get it right the first time. I was never any good at it myself. I'm still not great. Whole situation: very bemusing.

4. Actually, middle daughter is far more patient that oldest. Temperment, I think. Oldest appears to view music as something to be conquered. Done right. Looking towards the end result--20 years from now. Middle is much more able focus on right now. Middle is also much more able to absorb praise and encouragement . . . if I tell her that she's doing well and making progress, she believes me and is encouraged and keeps working with a good heart. Oldest (like me), is less able to accept outside validation. She needs to be able to tell herself that she's doing a good job. Many lessons from all this, and many more to come, I'm sure.

5. My good coffee pot broke. Again. There seems to be some sort of flaw in this model that makes the electrical system short out at right about a year old. About a year ago, I had to get my machine exchanged for this flaw. Now my replacement has died. Very irritating. Debating whether to spend $20-30 in shipping to get another $100 model that may die in a year, or whether to bite the bullet and just go shopping for something else altogether. Or whether I should just live with a $15 machine that makes substandard coffee and learn to drink less of it. Bah. Bad options, all of them.

6. I bought plants this year. I've never suceeded in keeping anything green alive. I even killed my aloe plant, which is supposed to be next to impossible. I bought two lilac bushes for our yard and a few little tomato plants. We'll see if I can manage to not kill them.

7. I'm ticked off with the IRS. I am not going to write about this in detail in this venue, except to say that in surveying what's going on in my life, this situation has a significant place.

7 quick takes is hosted by Jen at Conversion Diary

Christless Christianity

2009-05-11T09:19:00.005-04:00

One of the (many) books that my husband brought home from the Gospel Coalition conference in April was Michael Horton's "Christless Christianity." It's a blistering critique of the American church, one that I've been interested to read since reading Jared Wilson's praise of it a couple of months ago. And I'm torn.

My biggest complaint of the book is this: I'm not sure you could tell from this text whether the good Michael Horton believes that God is a god of love or not. Dr. Horton's contention is that awareness of God's holiness and majesty are absent in most of the American church. That the knowledge of impossible gap between God's holiness and our sin, and our complete helplessness in the face of our sin is missing. I do not argue any of these points. But salvation in this book seems to be primarily an escape from God's wrath. There is little sense that we are being saved into anything positive. That I should want to avoid having Michael Horton's God angry at me, I am very clear on. But once I'm assured that Christ's atoning sacrifice has taken care of that . . . then what? Has works salvation infiltrated the American church? Undoubtedly. Is the average American church goer able to articulate the fact that our sin is so great and God's wrath with it such that only Christ's death could deal with the problem. Maybe not so much. But my friend Barb wrote this recently about understanding the reality of God's wrath without understanding his love:

I have always viewed sin as something that we do that falls short of a rule that God made. Sometimes this was an intentional act on our part, sometimes it was unintentional. Either way when we did this God was anywhere from mildly frustrated to totally consumed with rage toward us. Sin ultimately gave us the death penalty. Jesus had to die to allow God to even have contact with us. He had to kill his Son for our screw-up-ed-ness. No wonder he was pissed off.

It's an imbalance which doesn't to leave you with a God that you're looking forward to spending eternity with . . .

That said, I presume that Horton probably figures that the American church doesn't need to understand that God is love. That our buddy-buddy, I'm-okay-you're-okay, God understands if you just try your best . . . or even if you just try some type of culture needs to get it pounded through their skulls that our sin is serious business that we're talking about. Horton does a masterful job of tracing out works-righteousness and showing how and why human religion constantly returns to it.

He also does a great favor to the American church by diagnosing the dominant spirituality of our age as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. (This amorphous spirituality is characterized by the beliefs that:

1. God created the world
2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and most world religions
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and feel good about oneself
4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life, except when needed to solve a problem
5. Good people go to heaven when they die )

By naming Moralistic Therapeutic Deism as the Christ-less, feel-good, self-affirming pablum that it is and then uncovering salvation-by-works (Pelagianism) in many and various forms that it hides itself in the landscape of American spirituality, Horton exposes much in the church that needs to be seen for what it really is and reveals a great deal about why so many American churches produce so little in the way of actual disciples.

Antwerp Station

2009-05-02T10:52:00.003-04:00

So you've seen the Antwerp Station Do-Re-Mi stunt (in part notable for taking one of the most definitionally non-techno songs and setting it partly to a techno beat)

Now enjoy the "Making of" sequence

Kevin and Kell on coffee

2009-04-30T09:26:00.004-04:00

Mouseover: "Coffee--bringing the day into focus."

Kipling's "Just So Stories"

2009-04-29T14:48:00.004-04:00

How marvelous! The complete Just So Stories, with original illustrations are up in their entirety on-line.

"But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him"

some saturday silliness

2009-04-25T09:36:00.003-04:00

I was in college when Baz Luhrman's Romeo and Juliet came out in the theater. I asked my Shakespeare prof what he thought of it, his reply was, "When I left the theater, I was surrounded by weeping fourteen year old girls. Really, what more can you ask of a Romeo and Juliet?"

HT: Joyce at TallGrassWorship

seven quick takes, volume 090424

2009-04-24T08:21:00.003-04:00

the trip to Chicago edition

1. I did it! This is an accomplishment for a five (the defining fear of fives is having enough knowledge/skill to be competent to act). In this case, I sucessfully navigated Chicago's public transportation system to get myself and three small children from O'Hare-land downtown to the Shedd aquarium and back. I did so without losing any of the children, and I managed to keep us all fed during the day, and my youngest didn't even decide she had to go potty while we were trapped on the over-crowded El, 45 minutes from getting off.
2. I think my kids even had a good time at the aquarium. I might feel bad about the three hours out of the day that transit took, except that was clearly as much of a treat as the fish. There haven't been questions about when we get to go back to the aquarium. There have been many questions about when we get to ride the train again.
3. I did it! I sucessfully followed the directions my friend gave me to drive the hour trip from our O'Hare hotel to her house in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. I didn't miss any turns, I didn't get ticketed. I didn't even get honked at.
4. We had a great day with friends on Wednesday. It's a wonderful treat when your kids are as good of friends with your friends' kids as you are with the parents. It means the parents are free to completely ignore the children and let them play while we have our own conversation . . .
5. I did it--mostly. I made it back from my friend's house to the hotel in the dark, only muffed two of my turns, managed to work around them anyway without panicking, and didn't actually end up having to run the toll station for incorrect change . . . And anyway, the first muffed turn was really more of an alternate route. Right? (I mean, I was told before we headed home "If you miss the turn onto Lake Cook Rd., just keep going and you can get onto the highway off of 12--it just takes longer.") It was the way that the freeway interchange between 90, 190, and 294 works going south/east that really threw me. I mean, everywhere else in Chicago, signs that say "O'hare" mean towards O'hare . . . not "we're going to route you directly to the arrivals and departures drop-off point."
6. Why were there toll booth attendents available to make change at every booth that we passed for four days except for the one I got to at 9:30 at night with two sleeping children in the back? Why can't they jigger the toll machines to take dollar bills? Why doesn't the U.S. mint simply decide that it's going to sensibly convert our nation to dollar coins and be done with it? And if they throw in some of the pretty two-tone two-dollar coins like Canada has, that'd be a nice bonus.
7. I . . . did . . . it. When 90 turned into a parking lot in front of us and my wonderful husband got us off the freeway, I sucessfully helped navigate us through the side-roads and alternate routes of greater-greater-Chicago.

A good trip. I'm glad to be home, sleeping in my own bed with my own pillow. I'm glad to be back in my own little midwestern town where 15 minutes in any direction gets you to corn fields and I can drive my standard routes without thinking about it. And next time will be a bit easier. :)

7 quick takes is hosted by Jen at Conversion Diary

modern culturally acceptable idolatry

2009-04-20T08:30:00.002-04:00

Flipping through my comics reader this morning, I was averaging one comic out of every four mentioning earth week. Did you know it was earth week? Apparently we're all supposed to help out by turning off the TV to save electricity and using recyclable lunch boxes instead of disposable lunch sacks. (I find this ironic on a morning that we had to make sure to NOT use our daughter's lunch box because her class is going on a field trip and they all have to bring a completely consumable/disposable lunch.) Deny yourselves. Save the earth. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Spend your time, attention and money . . . does this sound like worship to you?

Now, I'm all for stewardship. The first job God gave people was to tend the Garden, and that never changed. But when our focus is on the gift instead of the giver, the created rather than the Creator . . . isn't that nearly the definition of idolatry? Can going green be syncretistic? Alan Jacobs certainly suggests it in his excellent review of the Green Bible in the latest First Things.

Because what are we on about with "saving the earth" anyway? You know and I know (and you know that I know) that whether or not I send my kids to school with their lunches in a lunch box or a paper sack doesn't really make any difference. Or does it? If it makes a difference in the bent of my heart, if it makes a difference in my attitude, is that a net gain--even if no actual conservation is accomplished? We are being called to lay our offerings at Gaia's altar.

And it can be a tricky thing. Many of the actions that the modern druids call us to, are, in fact, appropriate offerings for a Christian seeking to be a faithful steward and caretaker of all the gifts which our Creator has given to us. But it's a question of orientation. Do I take the actions I do for the glory of Christ's name and the furtherance of his kingdom? Or is the highest good I can imagine merely earthly?

Jaded

2009-04-16T08:53:00.002-04:00

Atheism is so easy. It requires nothing more of you than your willingness to cultivate cynicism, which is the laziest thing to grow. --The Anchoress

classic Bucky

2009-04-15T21:36:00.002-04:00

Harvard scientist creates chocolate inhaler

2009-04-15T20:41:00.002-04:00

Somehow, this makes me really uneasy. Can such a thing really be doing anything to give us a healthier relationship with food? This strikes me as one more symptom of our society's disordered take on consumption, in all its forms.

HT: Jennifer's Favorite Links

a couple of videos

2009-04-15T09:08:00.002-04:00

The first are encapsulated redemption stories. And we should never tire of hearing each other's God-stories. The second is a very helpful and entertaining reflection an art, the church, artists and Christianity by the wonderful David Taylor, a seminary classmate of my husband's.

Cardboard Stories from The Austin Stone on Vimeo.

David Taylor-In His Own Words from The Austin Stone on Vimeo.

daily dose of the gospel

2009-04-15T09:03:00.002-04:00

Adding the common book blog Of First Importance to my reader makes for a pretty devotional shot of gospel every morning. From John Piper today:

The Gospel is the news that Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, died for our sins and rose again, eternally triumphant over all his enemies, so that there is now no condemnation for those who believe, but only everlasting joy . . . don’t try to be strong in your own strength; it will not be there when you need it. Only one strength will be there—the strength that God gives according to the gospel. --The Gospel in 6 minutes

Easter Sunday Comic round up

2009-04-12T16:40:00.012-04:00

It's always interesting to see which of the Sunday strips acknowledge the existence of Easter Sunday and which don't. On this, the feast of the Resurrection, the most important day of the Christian year, should we even expect the world to acknowledge it? I was surprised that many of the strips which have previously made a point of establishing their families as church-going--Jump Start, Curtis, Baldo--ran completely generic Sunday strips. There were the spattering of generic "Easter means spring" and Easter egg themed strips . . . mostly from grandparents of the funnies pages. Family Circus, of course. FBoFW, Blondie, and Mutts. Rhymes with Orange wins the kudos for secular acknowledgement. The pastel camo just makes me laugh.

And for a blog in which I have publicly affirmed my love for peeps, this year's Foxtrot deserves special notice.

B.C., of course, has traditionally held the position of being the most outspokenly Christian strip in the funny pages. With Johnny Hart dead and his grandson writing the strip, I was curious to see what Mason Mastroianni would come out with this year. I was pleased to see his honoring his grandfather's spirit by one-upping the delivery.

And Mallard Fillmore wins the prize for succinct theological accuracy. If the glory that God deserves is infinite, the finite amounts of glory we can give him in any setting are vastly inadequate (they taught us in algebra that 1 / infinity and 1000 / infinity are both effectively 0) . . . then it strangely, wonderfully, fitting to honor him in this way.

My favorite strip this morning though goes to the erratic "One Big Happy," which it appears took the occasion of Easter to make some rather different religious commentary. Namely, how completely ridiculous and self-contradictory the various popular beliefs about angels are. Kudos to Mr. Detorie.

A blessed Easter to everyone. Christ is risen--he is risen indeed!

Mmm . . . it's Peep season again.

2009-04-09T13:27:00.002-04:00

I love peeps. And it's always good to be up on the latest research on these things. Thanks, Rob.

Easter Egg Bread

2009-04-09T11:47:00.005-04:00

This recipe is a favorite in my husband's family. My MIL brought the recipe out and is making it for us while visiting this week.

(Pane di Pasqua all' Uovo)

2 pkgs. active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1 cup all purpose flour
2/3 cup water
3/4 cup butter or margerine
1 Tbsp. grated lemon peel
1 1/2 Tbsp. lemon juice
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
2 eggs, well beaten
3 1/4 to 4 1/4 cups flour
6 colored eggs (uncooked)
1/4 to 1/2 cup maraschino cherries (optional)

1. Soften yeast in the warm water in a bowl. Mix in the 1 cup flour, then the 1/3 cup water. Beat until smooth. Cover; let rise in warm place until doubled (about 1 hour).
2. Cream butter with lemon peel and juice (and cherries if desired) . Mix in sugar and salt. Add beaten eggs in halves, beating thoroughly after each addition.
3. Add yeast mixture and beat until blended. Add about half of the remaining flour and beat thoroughly. Beat in enough flour to make a soft dough.
4. Knead on floured surface until smooth. Put into a greased deep bowl; turn dough to bring greased surface to top, Cover; let rise in warm place until doubled.
5. Punch down dough; divide into thirds. Cover; let rest about 10 minutes.
6. With hands, roll and stretch each piece into a roll about 26 inches long and 3/4 inch thick. Loosely braid rolls together. On a lightly greased baking sheet or jelly-roll pan shape into a ring; pressing ends togehter. At even intervals, gently spread dough apart and tuck in a colored egg. Cover; let rise again until doubled.
7. Bake at 375 Farenheit about 30 minutes. During baking check bread for borwing, and when sufficiently browned, cover loosely with foil.
8. Transfer to wire rack. If desired, spread a confectioners' sugar icing over top of warm bread.

Makes one large wreath

From 1001 Great Recipes from Around the World (apparently out of print)