Family Loyalty vs. Family Intimacy

I'm currently reading A Different Kind of Teacher by John Talor Gatto. I'm totally engrossed. Especially as he talks about the history of compulsory schooling in America. (Schooling, says Gatto is not necessarily education.) Here's an excerpt which may be hard to understand if you don't have the context, but nevertheless I post (underlining and bold text added by me):

Between 1880 and 1920, strict regulation of American society became a leadership imperative. Explanations for this phenomenon begin once again with the alarming effects of mass immigration on the morale or American leadership. It is not an extreme reading of evidence to say genuine panic existed -- fear that ancient ways of distributing wealth and authority might be in jeopardy.

A striking evidence of this panic is contained in accounts of academic behavior during the period. To cite only one case, President William Walker of MIT declared in speeches and writings that the large, close families of immigrants were provoking intolerable racial competition, leading to something he called "racial suicide" among the so-called Anglo-Saxon races. Between 1900 and 1910 the theme of racial suicide was a common topic in all leading popular magazines.

This fear of racial suicide was provoked by an unusual "closeness" of immigrant families. Puritan leaders had always described family intimacy as sacrilegious, favoring family loyalty in its place (for the prosperity loyalty brought in its train). In the large affectionate broods of Irish and Italians, and in their relative indifference to material rewards when compared to the rewards of family life, a mortal threat was perceived.

August Comte's Positivist lessons dismissing family as an anachronism then mingled with a widespread hatred of the dangerous culture of immigration to produce a national agenda of state imposed conformity. The push to this end was motivated by more than just theoretical considerations; violent strikes against management in coal, steel, and railroads signaled that the danger from these people was more than long-range, it was very close at hand.

School books and other texts to sell myths of conformity followed hard on the heels of compulsory schooling. And toward the end of these second phase of mass immigration, another Communist revolution occurred, this time a successful one. At that exact historical moment, the compulsory education laws were given teeth.* Widely ignored after the initial flush of enthusiasm passed, the laws were now made unavoidable. The power of the state was placed at the disposal of school authorities, and the new mass government schooling institution began with a vengeance to separate children and families, assisted by the creation of many another astonishing new institution to assist in the deconstruction.

* He must be talking about approximately 1918.

Of key interest to me here is the distinction he makes between family intimacy and family loyalty. On the one hand you have families which have adopted the program of conformity imposed on them by the partnership of the secular state and big business (families which are pursuing "personal peace and prosperity" as Francis Schaeffer would say) and on the other hand you have families which are imbued with their own diverse dreams and myths as apart from those of the state (including those families which are faithful to the Triune God).

I can think of some large homeschool families which fit this picture of the intimate family to which Gatto is alluding. Perhaps some small one's too. :) And why homeschool families per say as opposed to Christian school families? Well I'm not sure I can answer that question. However, my understanding of education is progressing right now. I've gone from completely regretting my homeschool education and wishing that I had gone to a school like Logos in Moscow to now wanting to create a high school that would combine the best of homeschooling (family, time for reading, contemplation) and schooling (community, competition, submission to authorities outside the home.)

Consultative Selling

I was recently introduced to Neil Rackham's book, SPIN Selling by a successful sales executive in my company, a man with a very large girth. A man who's belly is so large it proceeds him in his sales calls by at least half and hour and nearly wraps up the business before the rest of him arrives. He is not an ordinary individual by any means, but a person of character, who wears his prominent abdomen with grandeur, not unlike my celebrated pastor Doug Wilson. I'm sure he's proud that it stands out. Why hinder such a successful protuberance?

He began his presentation on SPIN selling by saying that everything we have learned about selling was bunk. Asking "open-ended" questions, using closing tactics, "always be closing," all nonsense, at least when we get to the big opportunities in business, the sales that really matter. It has been demonstrated, he said, by scientific observation of salespeople that when selling small ticket items, like pest control services or cleaning brushes or cell phones, frequent closing does lead to success. It prompts buyers to think of objections, which can be answered. However, when dealing with big ticket items and expensive ongoing services, which occur often in B to B, success decreases with use of these "tactics."

Okay, that might not be too surprising. You wouldn't ask a woman the first day you meet her if she would like to be married at 3 pm, Saturday, and then continue to ask each time you see her. "Oh, by the way, would Tuesday at 5 work for you then? Is there a conflict? Oh, I see. Oh, you want to be married in Death Valley, Nevada, Friday at five? Okay see you then!" But how does one in fact lead another person to a certain decision, to chose something beneficial for them, something that they need, but just don't know yet? Rackham says you just have to ask people a lot of questions. You have to really, honestly care about them enough to take your mind off of your presentation, your features, your benefits and begin to understand their needs so that you can either custom tailor your solutions for them or, in the event that your product is not right for them, find one that is or just not sell it.

The questions may be divided into four groups and this is where the term SPIN comes from. I think the acronym is unfortunate, because I've always thought of that word negatively, but here they are:

S - Situation Questions
P - Problem Questions
I - Implication Questions
N - Need-Payoff Questions

Situation questions are not just small talk, but questions related to something that is common to your and your prospects environment. For example, in the course of my day, I might ask a merchant, "So did you notice your funding being delayed by Columbus Day?" The point is to set the context in which the details of the business you are about to discuss have meaning. That is the first stage of questions. My aforementioned sales manager calls it "the church of what's happening now," borrowing a phrase from Flip Wilson's comedy sketches.

Problem questions are simply those that uncover problems or "pain" that a potential client may be experiencing. For example, a doctor would say, "Does it hurt when I press here?" But a salesperson in my industry could say, "I noticed you're using a Hypercom T7P-Friction. Does the slowness of the printer bother you when you have a line of customers?" But these questions are not enough, because often people are used to the problems they deal with. Implication questions are required to help people see where things could go if they don't make a change. For example, my sales manager told the owner of a fast food restaurant that, while he was watching his drive through line for a few minutes, a couple of potential customers had driven off when they saw the line of cars. The implication question gently asks what the consequences of this could be over time.

Finally, Need-Payoff questions are those that enable a client to see for himself the advantage that you offer and put it in his own words. When you say it yourself, people do not listen, but when THEY say it, it's gospel. In the previous example of the fast food restaurant, my sales manager asked the owner a series of questions: "How much is your average ticket? How much profit do you make on that?" By then putting a dollar value on the customers that were driving away, he showed him that having a credit card terminal near the drive up window would speed the line up enough to more than pay for the device in just a few weeks.

So that is SPIN selling. In order for it to work you much approach each potential client with the knowledge that can help them, but resist telling them. Do not, as my sales manager calls it, "show up and throw up." Graphic, I know. Instead, ask excellent questions. Below is a short video in which Neil Rackam says that the salesmen of the future will all need to understand this. He could be right.

Against Pew-Sitting Christians

Notes on Corporate vs. Individualistic Salvation:

Does God save people as groups or does he hunt them out individually? That is a false dilemma. He does both. Jesus saved John Bunyan, Martin Luther, the Apostle Peter, you, me, etc. But he also saved the Children of Israel from Pharaoh at the Red Sea. And at Calvary he purchased the Church and is sanctifying her and beautifying her to this day.

At my congregation today, Christ Church, which I love very much, we sang this hymn:

The churches one foundation is Jesus Christ, her Lord;
She is His new creation By water and the Word.
From heav'n He came and sought her to be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her and for her life He died.

There it is: "for her life He died." Such a beautiful hymn and one that few would wish to read in the quiet of their homes if they knew the joy of singing it in church. Christ died not just for each of us separately, but for the Church.

Of course, this is also a scriptural truth, as well as one embodied in hymnody. Ephesians 5:25 says, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word." Here we see that Christ not only gave Himself for the Church, but He is engaged in sanctifying the Church. This would seem to suggest that a follower of Christ cannot grow in sanctification unless he is engaged in the life of the church.

Some will object, "I wasn't saved when I was sitting in a pew!" Okay, that may be true, but I would argue that the Bible teaches we were saved to sit in a pew, though that is a dismal way of putting it. We are saved to that, but to so much more. Consider the previous chapter in Ephesians:

"And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:11-13).

According to this verse, Pastors (individual pastors whom we can know personally) are a gift from Jesus, a gift from God. And lest we think that televised sermons are an equal substitute for this gift, Paul says that the pastors are for the purpose of building us up until we have unity, that is, unity with other saints. God wants people to have unity. But what does that mean? It means we are equipped for the "work of service." It means simply that we serve one another. It's not enough to be a hearer of the Word. We must be doers of the Word.

Now there are many ways to serve one another. And there is no reason to believe that Paul is speaking of "religious" ways of serving people, by offering sanctimonious words or belting window-rattling gospel solos. One way that we serve is simply by smiling at people and spending time with them. People need the esteem of others. It's one of the most basic necessities of life, without which we will die. If anyone doubts this, consider an older man whose wife has died. By degrees widowers often spend more and more time alone. They stop keeping up their appearance; they don't clean their surroundings as often or take care of their bodies as they used to. And eventually they stop eating right. Death is hastened. Consider also the homeless. We know that people become homeless and stay that way, because they are alone. Somehow they stopped reaching out to to others and others stopped reaching out to them.

Another way that people serve each other is materially and not just by giving to the deacons fund, but by doing business with one another. Scriptures prohibit Christians from being unequally yoked, which would include going into business with a non-believer. But it is scriptural for believers to go into business with other believers. This is one way that we can provide for one another's material needs, by making deals, by shaking hands. Yet another way we may serve one another is by guiding and leading each other. Businesses need CEOs. Schools need principals and teachers. And folk dances need callers, etc. All of these rolls are ultimately for the purpose of "building up the body of Christ." God made us both kings and priests (Rev. 1:6). The kings are those in business called to support the Church in one way. And the priests are the pastors and teachers, etc., called to serve the Church in another way. Both are needed in the Church. And finally, another way to serve others is through seeking and imparting wisdom. There are those who do not play a direct role in leadership, but who are scholars and so serve others through their research and writing.

Of course, no one will be relegated to just one category of service. All will partake in each category to some degree. But the point is that we all must serve one another and, according to the scriptures, the place that we learn this is in church. Christ died for the Church and, by inclusion, you and I. When we go to church, worshiping in faith, we are not merely sitting in a pew, but a mysterious spiritual reality is unfolding. We are being equipped to serve, equipped for our callings in which we serve both saints and unbelievers. Equipped to serve our families. And Christ is fashioning us again into mature men. Men who "measure up" to even Christ.

Is it possible to be saved outside the church? Sure, the thief was saved on the cross. But why would you want to be? The Church is the whole point. She is the Bride of Christ.

On Cities, Credit Cards and Church Music

I’ve been thinking lately about city versus agrarian culture, credit cards, and church music. What do these three things have to do with one another? I’m glad you asked.

It started with me listening to James B. Jordan speak about the differences between folk and city culture. The city—and all Americans, including those outside official city limits, partake of city culture—is a place where many hands are constantly bringing us all that we need and want for life. Our food is grown and harvested, transported and prepared by many people we have never met. Our homes are built for us, streets paved, newspapers printed, and, not to mention, our sewage is removed, a very essential service without which we could not long live in the city. And all that is asked of us to partake of these amazing benefits is that we ourselves serve in some unique way. So when we think of people cooperating and serving each other, perhaps there is no better example than people living in a city. Yet there is something lost in the transition from agrarian to city culture as well.


Whereas in the city, people are constantly doing things for one another by mutual consent, in agrarian culture they often do things with one another out of necessity. People bake all their bread at one time in the fall in a common oven, or they raise a barn together or share harvesting equipment and the traditions of harvest. In agrarian culture people go to the market and market day and its accompanying traditions become unifying aspects of their lives, creating community. But in the city we don’t have markets. We have supermarkets. And these do indeed have distinct advantages. We save time by not having to negotiate prices for each item that we buy. And this creates more time for cultural activities, dominion activities, such as building great architecture or sending a man to the moon. But something is lost as well. We are not likely to get to know one another by going to the supermarket. Someone might help you bring your groceries to your car, but that’s about it.

And so there has to be a new way of creating community in the city and Jordan says that the solution, believe it or not, is the Church, the body of Christ, and specifically singing in the church. If you’ve ever been to a charismatic church where they sing enthusiastically for prolonged periods, you know that these are often more racially and economically diverse and one reason for that is that singing breaks down barriers. In the Mosaic covenant, worship was silent, but when we get to the point that Israel is no longer a tribe, but a nation with its own capital city, then there is singing in the temple. And Paul says that our worship in the new covenant is to be like that, with “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,” in other words with instrumental music and singing as it was in the temple, only more and more glorious.

So all this is what Jordan says about cities and church music. That is to say, in the city, community has to be at least somewhat deliberate. I can choose whether or not to go to church and whether or not to open my mouth in praise to God when I get there; whereas in agrarian culture for your own survival you really didn’t have a choice weather to live alongside others. In the city we can choose whether to be hermits or to live incredibly rich lives partaking not only of others services but of their fellowship as well. Community dies, but it comes back in more glorious form. Sound familiar? No that doesn't just happen to Gandalf.

As a conservative, I’ve often heard my counterparts decrying the other half as those who live in cities and wouldn’t it be nice if global warming would happen and all of the coastal cities would be drowned by glacial melt; then they really would be the blue voter blocks. But the truth is that the New Covenant really is for cities. The New Covenant was inaugurated in a city, in Jerusalem, and it spread primarily by cities, the great city of Antioch being an early center of Christianity. And eventually the people of the New Covenant overwhelmed and occupied the greatest city of the classical world, all by peaceful means. In fact, the word pagan is derived from the Latin pagus, meaning "country district." Historically, those without faith in God were more likely the villagers, the rustic people, and, if you wanted to find Christians, you went to the city.

The interesting thing about the city though is that it does have potential for greater evil or greater good than an agrarian situation. A dog doesn’t have much capacity for great evil or great good. A child can be much worse and much better, a wayward teenager worse still, but not so capable of both evil and good as a person of great cunning and intelligence, such as Tolkien’s Saruman. Likewise, in the city the avenues of evil are so readily available to us that we are required to possess more heart religion than was necessary back on the farm.

Consider the credit card. Recently I began working, rather by accident, in the payment card industry. People today have the ability to either use a credit card wisely, continuing to budget, and keeping track of transactions while earning "rewards," or, at their whim, they can take home lots of things that they haven’t earned yet. I’m not saying that people should use credit cards. It would probably be better if everyone had enough financial discipline to use only debit cards, but even if you don’t have a credit card in your wallet, you can apply for a one anytime, anywhere, such as at the same counter where you are purchasing your new refrigerator, which costs $75 more than you have on hand. The credit card is both a convenience that about 80 percent of American households have chosen to use and a prison you if you’re not careful. In the same way, thanks to the Internet, we can sit in our home office, working with business people all over the world, providing for our family, or we can use that same home office and computer to gamble all our money away, thanks also to the clever payment card. Great fortune or ruin is a click away, in more ways than one I might add. That is the modern city for good or for ill. So why does God put such dangers in our playpen? Well the answer is that this is no longer the playpen. This is the New Covenant and we are expected to behave like spiritual grownups, having received the Word. “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.”

Some people have argued that paying for consumer items in installments can only lead to irresponsibility, that it is a sin, a violation of the puritan ethic. But others have argued that it has the ability to teach people greater financial responsibility, learning to calculate and to budget in order to meet monthly payments and eventually make them go away. Whatever the case, it is certain that the ever present ability to spend beyond one’s means requires people to be made of a new kind of material. In the city, we simply cannot survive without heart religion or at least the residual benefits of it, which is what we may have today. But this just goes to show what fertile soil for the gospel are these paved streets. Look around. One day by God’s grace, through the Holy Spirit, and the sovereign rule of our Lord and Savior, we will live in a city paved with gold where everyone will worship the Son. And we will sing His praises in huge choirs accompanied by some epic orchestras. That’s the future of the city. As for the future of credit cards, well, they are made of plastic.

(About the photo: The big city that I have lived in the longest is Washington D.C. Actually, I didn't live in the city itself, but in Fairfax, Virginia. Wouldn't it be nice if the city planners had put a church at the center instead of the Washington Monument and made it taller than the capital? Your answer to that question will tell you a lot about yourself. A church instead of the Washington Monument? That would never happen in America!)

We're all in "full time ministry"

"And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men." (Colossians 3:23, KJV)

When I was in Texas last summer I met a man named Jerry Ramos, who leads a men's fellowship and prayer group at his house. He has an amazing testimony about how the Lord miraculously lead him out of Satanism. He also sends out a "Word of the Day" by email almost every day. Here is an example:

The Word !!

1 Corinthians 15:58 So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and steady, always enthusiastic about the Lord's work, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless. (NLT)

The Thought !!

You may feel, "It's not worth it!" today. God knows your efforts and struggles. Don't lose heart! Everything you do for the Lord is worth it. Speak His Holy Word…for It will never return void.

The Question !!

When is the last time you quoted Scripture out loud? How about in response to someone’s question or outburst?

When was the last time you felt like giving up? How did you handle it?

It's so good to be reminded that we are ALL doing the Lord's work. Frequently Jerry's WOTD is just what I needed to hear at that moment from scripture. Thanks Jerry for your ministry and thanks God for using Jerry!

MBTI Prayers

Reportedly, the following prayers have been around for years, but this is the first time I've seen them. They're so dead on!

A word about personality typing: One thing I've realized is that if you want to know and understand your own personality, taking a test may not be the best option. It's better to understand the concepts behind the test by reading a book like Please Understand Me II by John Keirsey and then think about them over time with regard to yourself and people you know. I know this because my own test results have changed over the years. (The latest is that I think I'm either an INFP or an INTP.) Not only does the book help you understand people as individuals, but it explains how the types relate to one another. And without this understanding, knowing your type is not very useful.

Another thing you will discover is that some people are hard to type because they have such full and rich personalities. They are very creative (love to dance, research, make music, etc.), a perceiver (P) strength, and yet they are well scheduled and discriminating and are excellent teachers, judger strengths (J). Introverts can learn how to fill out their latent capacity for extroversion and extroverts can learn how to hold back when necessary. Some NFs can also be thoroughly guided by logic (I think of my pastor, Doug Wilson) and perhaps some NTs can also be intuitive sorts of people as well.

And another interesting thing is that people can compliment one another over time. All of the types are relative. For example, when I am at home, I am definitely the extrovert of the family and also seem to have my mind made up about everything (J), but among my friends and acquaintances, I am definitely more of an I and a P. Well, here are the prayers. Enjoy!

ISTJ - God, help me to begin relaxing about little details tomorrow at 11:41:32 am.

ISFJ - Lord, help me to be more laid back, and help me to do it exactly right.

INFJ - Lord, help me not be a perfectionist (Did I spell that right?)

INTJ - Lord, keep me open to others’ ideas, wrong though they may be.

ISTP - God, help me to consider people’s feelings, even if most of them are hypersensitive.

ISFP - Lord, help me to stand up for my rights (if You don’t mind my asking).

INFP - Lord, help me to finish everything I sta

INTP - Lord, help me be less independent, but let me do it my way.

ESTP - God, help me to take responsibility for my own actions, even though they’re usually not my fault.

ESFP - God, help me to take things more seriously especially parties and dancing.

ENFP - God, help me keep my mind on one thing - Look, a bird - at a time.

ENTP - God, help me follow established procedures today. On second thought, I’ll settle for a few minutes.

ESTJ - God, help me to try not to run everything, but if You need some help, just ask.

ESFJ - Lord, give me patience and I mean right now.

ENFJ - God, help me to do only what I can and trust You for the rest. Do You mind putting that in writing?

ENTJ - God, help me to slow downandnotrushthroughwhatIdoAmen.

Who's really doing science Mr. Robinson?

The following C.S. Lewis quote reminds me of Frank Bruce Robinson, leader of the "new religion" which he called Psychiana, headquartered right here in Moscow Idaho. He didn't believe that people needed to go to church. But here Lewis compares the local church to a scientific instrument for learning about God:

God can show Himself as He really is only to real men. And that means not simply to men who are individually good, but to men who are united together in a body, loving one another, helping one another, showing Him to one another. For that is what God meant humanity to be like; like players in one band, or organs in one body.

Consequently, the one really adequate instrument for learning about God is the whole Christian community, waiting for Him together. Christian brotherhood is, so to speak, the technical equipment for this science--the laboratory outfit. That is why all these people who turn up every few years with some patent simplified religion of their own as a substitute for the Christian tradition are really wasting time. Like a man who has no instrument but an old pair of field glasses setting out to put all the real astronomers right. He may be a clever chap--he may be cleverer than some of the real astronomers, but he is not giving himself a chance. And two years later everyone has forgotten all about him, but the real science is still going on (Mere Christianity, 165).

Not too many people remember that Frank Bruce Robinson was once the largest employer in Moscow and had quite a following around the country of people who had heard him speak or purchased his 20 lessons, but the local churches live on.

So Glen Beck, what exactly is “common sense”?

Why American conservatives don't know what they stand for and always lose.

I had the pleasure of visiting my parents recently, being fed really well and enjoying some Glen Beck on Fox News, which I normally never watch because I don’t have a TV. And I have to admit I love the way Beck harps on Obama’s Czars and liberal bloggers whose heads explode when they have to deal with facts. I’m glad he’s fighting against the abuses of government and recognizing that both political parties helped get us into this mess. But—and you knew that was coming!—I can’t help but ask this question, What’s the solution, Mr. Beck? Okay, you’ve told us what we’re against, but what are we for? What unites us, Mr. Beck? Hopefully it’s more than your entertaining antics?

This is something that American conservatives have a really hard time understanding. “We’re united by conservatism!” Okay, and what are you conserving?

The back cover of Glenn Beck’s book, Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine, says the following:

“In any era, great Americans inspire us to reach our full potential. They know with conviction what they believe within themselves.”

Huh? One might as well say that people who inspire us to reach our full potential, inspire us to reach our full potential. What is a great American, Mr. Beck? Someone who knows what they believe? Jedi Knights know what they believe. Muslim extremists know what they believe. So did Stalin. But what is a great American? What is our “common sense” based on? Conservatives don’t really have an answer to this, except to sputter things about traditional values. They might dare to mention God, but they will say nothing of Jesus Christ or the Church, because they don’t want to lose their coalition.

Beck also writes, “Don’t remain neutral. Do not sit idly by. Do not let others speak for you. Silence has gotten us nowhere so it’s once again time for our collective voice to make a simple yet powerful demand… Don’t Tread on Me.”

Mr. Beck, if one is lying on the ground in a footrace, one risks being trod on and no amount of protest will remove this occurrence, especially if those coming from behind have been licking our heels and hoping for this moment for a long time. We live in a society built by those who trusted God, not politics and not conservative cable media. But now that Christians are looking to politics for their salvation, they have lost the ability to lead and will be trampled: “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men” (Mt. 5:13). To quote Doug Wilson: “And here we are, the trampled Church.” Granted, Mr. Beck, you are trying to get people to quit looking to the government, but looking to ourselves is no better. No amount of “You’re a great American!” high-fiving is going to help us.

The most interesting (and exasperating) part of Beck’s book to me is the introduction where he defines his audience or, in reality, the constituency that he is trying to motivate:

“I think I know who you are. After September 11, 2001, you thought our country had changed for the better. But the months that followed proved otherwise. We began to divide ourselves and the partisan bickering that had been absent from blood donor lines and church services started all over again…”

Translation: When the little twerp neighbor kid threw a rock through the window, suddenly we stopped threatening dad with the pizza cutter and decided to clobber the kid instead, but he got away and we went back to our family feud. We don’t know what we’re fighting over, but whatever it is, we’re definitely not thankful for the pizza.

“You may go to church, but most weekends, you don’t really want to—you’d rather sleep in or play with your kids. Besides, it bothers you that people cut each other off in the parking lot right after the service.”

Okay, Mr. Beck. You got me with this one. Are you saying that Evanjellyfish Christians don’t know what the heck church is for and blame other Christians for their apathy? You’re right and their pastors don’t know what church is for either. May be this is why conservatives don’t know what they’re conserving. Just a thought. He continues,

“You have children and, like all families, you also have your share of problems—but you’re making it. You constantly hope that your kids don’t notice you’re bluffing as a parent most of the time.”

Oh, they notice. And that’s why they put their parents in nursing homes. All the physical comforts parents need without the hard work of actually loving them.

How can you write this stuff, Beck? How can you paint such a pathetic picture of the Americans you are trying to lead and then merely talk to them about politics? It’s like meeting a person dying of thirst on the side of the road and giving him a voters guide. “Look! This candidate supports better roads!” Granted, this is a selection from your introduction. You also identify with your readers economically. But how can you identify with Americans in their sources of deepest guilt, their church and family life, and then pretend that the answers all lie in their political life? It’s bait and switch because you don’t have the answers, do you?

Beck's Common Sense reads like most conservative literature. The bulk of the book is devoted to explaining what is wrong with American politics and government. I think he gets it right and there are some great quotes. Consider the following mini narrative:

“America has been slowly pulled off the course charted for us in Philadelphia more than two centuries ago. Through legitimate ‘emergencies’ involving war, terror, and economic crises, politicians on both sides have gathered illegitimate new powers—playing on our fears and desire for security—at the expense of our freedoms. And now, after supposedly massive change, not only are we still on the wrong track, but it feels as though our new conductor has just increased the speed at which our misdirected train is traveling.”

Finally someone in the media is saying that both political parties are driving us toward the cliff! But it’s not until chapter six, the last chapter, that Beck really suggests a solution. He says, “The way you can show everyone that you are serious is to leave whatever political party you currently belong to. Stop donating to the faceless RNC or DNC and start devoting your time, energy, and, if appropriate, your dollars to the people who stand for your values.” Hurray! Now that sounds like a solution, but what are our values? Did Moses descend from the mountain with the Ten Core Values? One final quote from Beck:

“Those in Washington believe that there are many sheep and no shepherds. So we must let them know in the most unequivocal of terms: WE ARE NOT SHEEP.”

Yes we are sheep, Beck. At least we had better start being sheep if we're not. The alternative is frightening. “He is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.” And today, “if we will hear his voice,” we might get out of this mess. But that would take revival and reformation in actual churches, not just "in our hearts and minds," and learning to submit to God’s Word and the government of God, again, in actual and faithful churches. But I forgot, we don’t like government very much do we. We’re conservatives.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, yes, I did learn all of this from my pastor. Thanks for preaching the truth, Doug! "Conservatives" may be losing the battle, but to those who love him and keep His commandments, to those who give unto God what is God's, our God is faithful to a thousand generations. The planet has a glorious future, but it will not come quickly. It will arrive one family, one church, one Christian school at a time.

They toil not, neither do they spin

Why does God try to alleviate fear of destitution with lilies? "Oh, you have no money for clothes? Here are some lilies. They toil not." Of course not, they're lilies. We're men. We must toil. The curse--remember? Perhaps the answer is that lilies are one of those parables in which Jesus speaks, a parable unto themselves. Why this beauty? Why this grace? If you see God when you look at lilies, then you'll be okay. God will provide for your needs.

This makes me remember a Monty Python skit where an effeminate prince begins uncontrollably to break into romantic songs in front of his father--I don't think he was clutching lilies, but he could have been. The father shouts him down and proceeds to arrange the sons marriage in order to gain more land, even though the son doesn't want to get married. Python makes caricatures of them both, probably a contrast between hippies and their parents. And the son is totally ridiculous. Yet hippies did have some legitimate concerns, didn't they? It is essential to maintain a sense of wonder at the world, not just wonder at Heaven to come, but at the world, including flowers.

My own mother is quite a gardener. She loves lilacs best. In fact, tomorrow is her birthday. So, happy birthday, Mom! It would be a better world if their were more people like you, people who gape at scenery and see God in all of it! When we've been on vacations together, Mom will plead to have us stop the car so she can carefully frame a picture. And she frequently has to contort herself or sit in the dirt in order to get in some bit of foreground. She has the sense that God just tossed up the canvas before we rounded the turn and it is contagious.

A movie, a simple story, which has that same quality of God being just behind the set, that numinous quality, is Lilies of the Field, with Sidney Poitier (1963). Poitier plays Homer Smith, a Vietnam veteran, a former sergeant, who's heading to California looking for work. And as he's driving across Arizona, he stops in at a run-down place looking for water for his radiator. He's met by five nuns, one of whom believes Smith has been sent by God to build them and the villagers a chapel. She begins to give him orders and to his own consternation, he begins to follow them. He helps them out and stays a little longer and a little longer until, along with the help of other inspired people, the little chapel is built and then the sergeant goes on his way. And that's it, that's the whole movie. Sorry to spoil it for you. I didn't really though. There are many twists and turns and subtleties. In the book it is said that someone paints a picture of the black sergeant, which hangs in the chapel and a bit of a legend springs up about him in the valley. When people ask what saint he was, the nuns will lower their heads and say that he was not a Catholic, but a good man, a Baptist, who was the contractor of the church. He was just a man who stopped long enough to do something truly wonderful, inspired by the mother superior with her harsh exterior, yet tender faith. You leave the movie with the strong feeling, "If only more things like this would happen. If only more people would just listen to God."

Here also is a story about an ethnically and racially diverse community coming together to build something in the face of economic hardships without the involvement of government. In fact, Obama needs to take some time out to learn from Homer Smith and to learn about this phenomenon of Christian volunteerism. Nothing worthwhile can be built without faith in Christ and His Kingdom. And when that faith is exercised, government does not get bigger. There are truly great needs in America at this time. And most people will look to government to meet them, government being to them the only conceivable center of collective action. But there are still a million ways for those with faith to seize this moment as well. It can be our moment just as easily as theirs to build the Kingdom.

Now, this is a sixties movie. Their are some points where you can see the actors trying to act. It's also paced differently than newer movies, but Poitier's performance makes up for all that. He won an academy award for best actor. And as a whole the movie is just refreshing. I've seen a ton of movies, but few will stick in my mind like this one. It succeeds in being truthful without being preachy, sort of like lilies themselves.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith? And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you (Luke 12:27-31).

God is good and life is good!

I recently read Nobel Savages: Exposing the Worldview of Pornographers and Their War Against Christian Civilization, by R.J. Rushdoony. It was originally published in 1976 under the title The Politics of Pornography. Everything I've read by Rushdoony is so right on. In fact I found his world history lectures a great resource when teaching at Logos. You also see Doug Wilson all over the place. Or rather you realize he was there before you. In fact, if I were to assemble my American, Twentieth Century spiritual pedigree it would probably go, aside from my preacher grandfather of course, Francis Schaefer, R.J. Rushdoony, Doug Wilson. Those are my spiritual fathers.

The basic argument of the book is that looking at porn is an essentially religious activity. That is, people who succumb to it are engaged in a false religion and worshiping a false god. Pretty serious words. Having denied the One God and everything supernatural, modern materialists are left with nothing to provoke or inspire them except the primal drives, what Freud called the id. And so men being what they are, religious beings, who live not by bread alone, they begin to place their faith in those drives as the source of their vitality, when in fact, because the universe is governed by God's immutable law, this leads surely to death. Of course it is not sexual appetite, or any desire for that mater, which is the problem, but serving a particular desire with disregard to God's law.

I was struck by the truth that pornography is essentially a ritual, one among many perverse rituals, of the modernist religion. And that is why, for example, homosexuals are held in such high esteem. They are treated as a priestly caste which to denounce is to be guilty of blasphemy, conveniently called "hate speech."

And the frightening thing is that American Christians sit idly by, consuming much of the same filth as everyone else in our Philistine culture. We don't want to be prudes. But the point is that it's not just "filth," although it is that. It's propaganda. And how can we fight it if we don't speak about it. Men, speak up!

One thing I hope to never forget from this book is Rushdoony's description of two men, one who had not succumbed to this false religion and one that had:

Men in every age are largely shaped by the ideas that govern them and command their imagination. Men judge themselves by the standards of their day, and by its ideas of what constitutes life. Their faith has much to do with making life livable. An elderly immigrant, speaking limited English, was used to the patriarchal power common in the old country to the oldest man in a family. As that oldest man, the authority of the family was in his hands. Although bedridden for several years before his death, he ate with zest, ordered his family about with assurance, and, smacking his lips, raised with pride and pleasure his wine glass together with the assembled family, declaring, "God is good and life is good!" This immigrant's image of life and man was patriarchal and familistic, and he enjoyed it, despite his invalidism. In contrast, when a very much younger man, totally modern in outlook, found himself impotent, although otherwise healthy, he committed suicide (82).

In this example, to make the point most strongly, the one man is old and the other young; however, age doesn't really mater. There are men of all ages who whine and moan about the slightest hardships because they've succumbed to false ideas and inevitably false habits. To those men there is only one thing that can be said, if they can still hear it: repent or perish!

By the way, I'm proud to say that I use Covenant Eyes accountability software on my computer and I would recommend it to anyone. I now know several men I respect who use this service. It costs $8 per month, but it's well worth it to know that porn is not an option when you're online and its a much better service than the free programs.

On Memory

A couple instances recently have caused me to ponder memory and how important it is despite our taking it for granted. Without memory a man or woman doesn’t know where they came from, who they are, or even where they are going, since all decisions about the future are based on the past. In other words, we truly are what we remember.

Firstly, I was watching with a good friend of mine the movie, “Memento,” about a man who has complete short term memory loss. That is, he has a working memory, enough to perform regular tasks, and he has a long term memory for the time before he developed his condition; however, none of his new experiences become encoded into his long term memory. He may meet someone new and the only way for him to remember who they are is to picture their face and repeat their name over and over mechanically in his mind. Aside from this, he can take Polaroid pictures of people and write their names on the images, along with a word about who they are, which he does repeatedly. He even tattoos things on himself that he especially wants to remember, such as the fact that he wants to kill whoever murdered his wife. Yet he still lives in constant anxiety, not knowing who to trust or what rotten thing he may have done that he can’t remember. The worst thing is that he really doesn’t know who he is. His last memory is of his wife dying and so when he thinks of it, he sees himself as righteous, or at least pitiable, the avenger of his dead wife, but by the end of the movie, we learn this isn’t the case at all.

(If you haven’t seen it, you may want to first before you read the rest of my comments, because I’ll probably give the ending away for you. On the other hand you may not want to see it, because it’s one of the darkest, most nihilistic movies I’ve ever seen. I can’t say that I recommend it. Yet it is profound, in so far as the depravity of man can be profound.) At the end of the movie, which is actually the beginning, since some of the scenes are arranged in reverse order chronologically, we learn that the main character, our protagonist no less, has already killed the man who killed his wife, but he can’t stop seeking revenge. He kills again and even writes himself a new clue, a fake clue, knowingly sending himself after an innocent person. He would rather live with his forgetfulness than remember what he’s done.

Secondly, I was wandering through Hastings, looking for a book for my mother for Christmas, and I found a book entitled, The Woman Who Can’t Forget. It’s the autobiography of Jill Price, now in her forties, who remembers every day of her life, since she was eight. Tell her a major public event, such as the Massacre in Tiananmen Square and she will tell you what exact date it occurred, June 4, 1989, and the day of the week, Sunday. Or, vice versa, give her any date and she will tell you what she was doing on that day and any other major or notable events that occurred on that day. Often while she’s blow drying her hair in the morning, she will recall all the other days of that particular date on that day of the week. For example, if it’s the Fourth of July, on a Wednesday, she will remember all the other Fourth of July’s that fell on a Wednesday in her life and what she did on each day. You would think that she would be a great student, but actually her mind has never worked well for memorizing the types of things one learns in school and on top of that she was constantly being distracted by a barrage of autobiographical memories, so that she became quite overwhelmed. She remembered, not only the good memories but the bad ones too, unable to filter out negative memories as normal people do.

So here we have cases in which both too little and too much memory became a scourge. Yet how much better it is to remember more, rather than less! Remembering so much might be traumatic when one is young and forming one’s identity, but the cure for all that might be simply the encouraging voice of a parent or the wisdom that comes from living through those events and thinking about them in a new light. But how awful to not remember!

It occurred to me that the author of Memento, though he exaggerated circumstances of his character, was actually saying something about everyone. In fact his main character was an Everyman. Except this man was no hero. At first you’re on his side. He is a compelling protagonist, trying to find the man who murdered his wife, even when, as others point out to him, he will not be able to remember what he will do to the man when he finds him. Nevertheless, he’s trying to make the best of his horrible condition. But when the movie ends, we realize that we were tricked into sympathizing with this character in order for the author to reveal something about ourselves. That is, we all engage in willful forgetfulness to some degree. In fact, I realized that forgetfulness can be a part of a cycle. Sin, anxiety, and forgetfulness work together in a negative cycle. How do we stop? By remembering: “But you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this thing.” Deuteronomy 24:18

On the other hand, as we learn from Jill Price, too much memory without interpretation can be crippling. She mentions a Garth Brooks song: "It's 4 in the morning. I'm lyin' in bed, A tape of my failures playin' inside my head." God doesn’t want us to remember everything, not other people’s every failure or our own, but there are so many things he wants us to remember, especially him and what he’s done for us. Our story with him is the most important.

Wolf Spider Quandery

Why is it that wolf spiders will scamper across an entire room as if they are trying to avoid you and then stop, just seconds from the safety of a crack or crevice, and wait, and wait, and wait. Are they staring back at you with eight beady eyes? Are they daring you to chase them? But then when you approach them and even stomp the floor next to them they stay right where they are in devilish defiance. Oh well, perhaps we shall never know, but that is why one of them is stuck to the bottom of my sock.

A Remarkably Timely Comic Book From 1985

The following scans are from Biblical Economics in Comics (1985) by Vic Lockman. Click on the image so you can see it full size.

Great Idea for the Next Time I Teach History

From Yahoo.com:

Teacher sorry for binding girls in slavery lesson

By JIM FITZGERALD, Associated Press Writer Jim Fitzgerald, Associated Press Writer

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. – A white social studies teacher attempted to enliven a seventh-grade discussion of slavery by binding the hands and feet of two black girls, prompting outrage from one girl's mother and the local chapter of the NAACP. After the mother complained to Haverstraw Middle School, the superintendent said he was having "conversations with our staff on how to deliver effective lessons."

"If a student was upset, then it was a bad idea," said Superintendent Brian Monahan of the North Rockland School District in New York City's northern suburbs.

The teacher apologized to the mother who complained and her 13-year-old daughter during a meeting Thursday that also included a representative of the local NAACP. But the mother, Christine Shand of Haverstraw, said Friday she thinks the teacher should be removed from the class.

"I think the teacher should have gotten some discipline," Shand said. "I know if that was me, I would be uncomfortable going back to that class. Why should my daughter have to switch?"

Monahan refused to say what, if any, measures were taken against the teacher, Eileen Bernstein, who was still working on Friday. The school district said she was not available for comment.

"We encourage our teachers to deliver the curriculum in a variety of ways, to go beyond just reading the textbook," the superintendent said. "We don't want to discourage creativity. But this obviously went wrong because the student was upset."

On Nov. 18, Bernstein was discussing the conditions under which African captives were taken to America in slave ships. She bound the two students' hands and feet with tape and had them crawl under a desk to simulate the experience, Monahan and Shand said. Monahan said the girls were not the only blacks in the class.

Gabrielle Shand burst into tears at home, her mother said.

"There are other ways to demonstrate slavery," Christine Shand said Friday. "It doesn't matter the color of the kids, it's just not right to tie them up. My daughter is still upset, still embarrassed. She didn't go to school today."

Wilbur Aldridge, director of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said the history demonstration, first reported in The Journal News, "went wrong when she started to do that binding."

"I don't care what color, no one should be put in the position of having their hands and feet bound," he said.

Aldridge said he feared that the teacher still "didn't get it" after their meeting. He said the teacher apologized "because Gabrielle was upset, not because she admitted she did something wrong."

Shand said she had not decided whether to take any further action, including filing a lawsuit.

A Pilgrim Reality Check

Although allready three days after Thanksgiving, Pilgrims are still on the mind. I hope you enjoy the following commentary containing some things I learned while teaching US history at Logos School last year. I must credit Nathaniel Philbrick's "Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War."


A PILGRIM REALITY CHECK:
Lessons From the Pilgrims for our Current Economic and Political Affairs

Forty-five billion here, seven-hundred billion there. There isn’t any business the government won’t bailout if it’s big enough. And with the size of the figures floating around, it’s enough to make everyone dizzy. Compassionate conservatives are gushing with taxpayer money, only to be outdone by the bleeding hearts, who are, well, hemorrhaging cash. What is needed this Thanksgiving is a Pilgrim reality check. When the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth late in the year with winter coming on and no shelter, did they get a special housing bailout? And when the Pilgrims started to run out of food that first winter, was their a food bailout? No. And some of them died you say. True, but their trials certainly put our in perspective.

As my pastor, Doug Wilson, is fond of saying, when the Pilgrims came to New England, there were no jobs, just a lot of work to be done. And today, even if you lose your job or your business or your clients, there’s still a lot of work to be done, but it requires learning, the hardest work of all, learning a new profession or way of doing business or perhaps just learning to work for someone new. Certainly, we all need to learn to live within our means. We rode the bull for a long time. We stayed on, focused, and the crowd went wild, but now that we’re off, we’re going to feel the bruises. And we’re going to have to learn how to walk again. And, despite what the politicians would have us believe, this isn’t the time for wheelchairs. Of course the politicians would also have us believe that our current dilemma is really much too complicated to speak of in these terms. But is that really true? Perhaps all of our contemporary anxieties, the economy, politics and homeland security, could use a dose of Pilgrim reality. After all, they dealt with the same basic human needs that we do.

William Bradford put it elegantly, saying that when the Pilgrims landed for the first time at Provincetown Harbor, “They had now no friends to welcome them nor inns to entertain or refresh their weather-beaten bodies; no houses or much less towns to repair to, to seek for succor.” On the contrary, they had every worldly reason to fear, arriving so far north at the onset of winter, with dwindling supplies and without having even chosen a place for their settlement. Yet, when they beheld the “hideous and desolate wilderness” of the cape, as Bradford described it, they fell on their knees and thanked God. Of course they thanked Him for their survival of the journey that was past. But what better time to thank God than when they now needed Him the most, contemplating the great journey of taming the land that lay before them? Thus the Pilgrims’ economic reality consisted merely of the land, their own hands, the Indians, and the grace of God. Those last two being often one and the same.

And more than the fear of deprivation, the Pilgrims also dealt with political uncertainty. We tend to think that the separatist congregation members (the Pilgrims) were the only passengers on the Mayflower, but in fact they were just 41 of the 102 on board. And when they reached the shores of America, encountering strong winds and shoals, which prevented them from moving south to their intended destination, some among the non-Separatists (the “strangers,” as they were called) realized that their governing charter under the London Company was no longer valid and so they threatened to strike out on their own, to scatter in the time of greatest need for mutual protection and cooperation. Therefore, in the face of this weakening unity, the Pilgrim leaders drafted the Mayflower Compact, reaffirming the colonist’s unity under God and under their king, enlisting the strangers support, and fostering good will not only by their own leadership, but by their mutual submission in accordance with the Compact. For the Pilgrims, as for their nation building descendents 150 years later, it was join or die.

But furthermore there was the fear of not knowing what lay beyond the dark veil of the forest. Having entered Provincetown Harbor on a Saturday, November 11th, 1620, the next day, being Sunday, they did not embark, but held meetings and prayer. Then there was wash to do on Monday and other chores, such as fixing the shallop, the small boat for taking everyone ashore. But by Tuesday, Miles Standish couldn’t wait any longer and lead on an exploration party onto the cape. After only half a day walking down the beach they spied half a dozen Indians walking toward them, who then fled into the woods. They followed them into the forest for several days, discovering an Indian grave, in which they found a bow and arrow, and later they found a great stash of corn. And still later they discovered some sawed planks and a ship’s kettle and the remains of a blonde-haired sailor. What thoughts for their future must these discoveries inevitably brought to mind?

It is commonly thought that the Pilgrims faced no danger from the Indians when landing at Plymouth due to the plague that had recently decimated the great tribes. However the Pilgrims knew better than we of their danger from the Indians that remained, because the history of relations had not been pleasant. In 1611, the Englishman Edward Harlow abducted close to half a dozen Indians and killed at least as many. He abducted one Epenow, who later escaped with the help his tribe. And in 1614 another Englishman, Thomas Hunt took dozens of Indians captive, attempting to sell them in Spain for 20 pounds each. And just that previous summer in 1620, one Thomas Dermer was exploring the New England Coast where almost everywhere he went he was under attack, because that very spring an English ship had arrived at Narraganset Bay, invited a bunch of Indians aboard, and slew them in cold blood.

Arriving amid this regretful situation, anything could happen, and as the Pilgrims numbers dwindled that first winter with the Indians watching all around, they must have wondered what would happen as soon as they reached their weakest point. Though his tribe had but a tiny fraction of its former glory, Massasoit could still gather at least 60 braves. Thus, the Pilgrims’ reality was that they had to make every effort to “live peaceably with all men” if they wanted to survive, not without maintaining the appearance of strength to their best ability; but to maintain peace was life itself and to be sought at the cost of feeding and entertaining their “savage” neighbors on more than one occasion when they would have rather kept to themselves.

Are there not multiple lessons for us today in the Pilgrims’ venture, which was in the end incredibly successful: the establishment of a community in which they and their descendents could serve the Lord in freedom in such a bounteous land? Today, on the coasts of the 21st century, we are witnessing financial storms which prevent many of us from reaching our intended destination. But these are the least of our worries. Within our evangelical ship there are strangers, fellow Christians who do not share a vision for a faithful church in America, who walk without a common purpose, and who need our leadership. Also, there is a new chief in the area with a funny name and many young warriors, whom we have not always treated well. It is not with him that we must fight directly and certainly not on his terms. But we must fight our own errant hearts to maintain gratitude and unity amongst ourselves. And we must likewise fall on our knees and thank God for how far he has taken us and how far we have yet to go. We must ask him to grow the His covenant people in the new wilderness of America.

Conversation with a Buddhist

I went to Dallas for some training for my new job and on the way back I saw this lady walking around in the airport with only a quarter inch of gray hair and what looked like a hospital gown. I immediately thought she was a cancer patient. But then later when I boarded the plane and found myself sitting next to her, I learned that she was a Buddhist monastic, living with about 10 others in a monastery in Newport, Washington, just north of Spokane. It was actually she who struck up the conversation. I was a shy at first, thinking she might possibly have Aids and it would be embarrassing for me to ask her about her haircut and garb, but as soon as she introduced herself we talked for the entire one-and-one-half hour flight.

I asked her how she came to be a Buddhist and she said that she was a history major in college like me. She was drawn to Buddhism because its teaching made sense and helped her. Then, after she was already a Buddhist, she became deeply concerned about her own integrity. For example, she would complain about the lies of government and big business, while thinking her own little white lies wouldn’t hurt anyone. So finally she decided to seek self control through the discipline of the monastery, which in fact helped her, she said. And I could tell that she now had peaceful soul. She had walked and smiled, when I had seen her earlier, like someone at rest, resigned to her condition, not fighting the world. And given her shaved head and simple frock, her lack of care for material things couldn’t be more obvious. Yet, she wasn’t afraid to ask me about my new job and whether I thought it was honest. I liked her immediately.

I told her about the Trinity and how worshiping the Triune God allows people to live in both unity and diversity. We talked about Islam and gender roles and the role of politics in believer’s life and the history of evangelicalism in America. And we talked about Buddhism’s cyclical view of history and I asked her how such a world with no creator had any meaning. In fact it was I that most often set the course of the conversation, while she would question me at times and object gracefully at others. It occurred to me that she was probably doing what Buddhists do, which is to avoid confrontation and rather probe for weakness. She asked me how I could think of men and women in such “stereotypical” roles, but when I didn’t balk at the term, but continued to explain marriage as I had heard Doug Wilson do so many times and also continued to tell her my own experiences (not with marriage of course!), so as to remain vulnerable, we eventually began to get along quite well—me and Thubten Chodron, as she was called. The tension with which we started the conversation vanished. Yet I didn’t ask her any personal questions, because I wanted to respect her age, but toward the end of the conversation she told me that her last name had been Wilson. And she also said something very strange and telling. She said that she used to wonder why she had a body, why she should be white and born in America, why these hands and this color hair, etc. She had wanted rather to identify with the entire human race. I responded by saying that I believed God placed us in families and ethnic groups and nations for a reason and that these were something to glory in, but that our identity has countless levels. One may in one context be proud of his identity as a Wilson or a Becktell and an American and also be proud of his identity as a Westerner or a son of Adam or a creature for that matter. Everyone in fact is much more diverse, biologically speaking than we realize. Each one of us has eight great grandparents and sixteen great, great grandparents and so on.

The plane began to land and so I told her what a pleasure it was to meet her and asked if she had a Facebook. She did not, because she was worried that such means of communication would inhibit true face to face relationships. It occurred to me that living in a monastery, humming in tune with the universe might limit true face to face relationships as well, but I thought better of it. She probably has developed a number of close relationships with her peers and students.

As she left I wondered to myself and to God, whether I had been a good witness. It almost bothered me that we had gotten along so well. We shared so many of the same values, peace, simplicity and taking responsibility, and yet she believed not in God, but in “humankind,” as she would say, and humankind’s own humanity to man, our ability to recognize and alleviate the pain of others. It occurred to me that the only way I might influence her, so far along in her pursuit of “enlightenment,” was for my God to vindicate me. I had told her what I could. It was not for me to press home some uncomfortable point to a kind woman, much older than myself. There are sometimes when a Christian meets his equal in terms of someone who loves peace and wants to do what’s right and who seems self-satisfied. And perhaps only the passage of time and the manifest blessing of God on our lives can influence these.

The Florida Gang

Here we all are at St. Paul's Presbyterian Church in Orlando. This is hands down the strongest team of pest control salesmen from Moscow, Idaho, ever assembled, except perhaps for that yahoo in the middle whose pest control career may have finally met its end (praise be to God) in Florida's sultry suburban sprawl.


And by far the biggest highlight of our trip, besides walking neighborhoods nine hours a day in the sun with a heat index of 180 degrees, was meeting the West family. Mr. Andrew West works with Campus Crusade for Christ, training other staff members to raise support for their ministries. His wife Kelley helps him to raise really energetic and cheerful daughters and one seriously cool son. Thanks again, to Mrs. West especially, for your tremendous hospitality!

Ted Kooser, Career Choices, and Northerness

This is Ted Kooser, the recent Poet Laureate of the United States, serving two terms from 2004-2006. I had heard about him a while back when I was at NSA. In fact, I think that Aaron Wrench told me about him. Aaron is always interviewing some interesting celebrity and I think Aaron even asked Kooser to write him a recommendation to get into the creative writing MFA at U of I. So Ted Kooser stuck in my mind back then and I heard him again recently on NPR. Kooser writes poems that are both understandable, which I like, and poetic at the same time--Imagine that. Here's a quote in which he explains how he wants to be considerate to the "strangers of poetry," which I must admit that I mostly am:

"Every stranger's tolerance for poetry is compromised by much more important demands on his or her time. Therefore, I try to honor my reader's patience and generosity by presenting what I have to say as clearly and succinctly as possible .... Also, I try not to insult the reader's good sense by talking down; I don't see anything to gain by alluding to intellectual experiences that the reader may not have had. I do what I can to avoid being rude or offensive; most strangers, understandably, have a very low tolerance for displays of pique or anger or hysteria. Being harangued by a poet rarely endears a reader. I am also extremely wary of over cleverness; there is a definite limit to how much intellectual showing off a stranger can tolerate." - Midwest Quarterly, 1999

Another thing about Kooser that piqued my interest is that he worked in insurance for many, many years, I think until he retired, first as a salesman and then as the vice president of a company. And he was still able after all of that mind-numbing sales and administrative work to be creative. My passion is studying and interpreting history, but I often feel that my skills as a reader, teacher, writer and public speaker are not such as to earn me much of a living or allow me much time to give to a future family while earning it, therefore I take comfort that history and perhaps even some success in writing or teaching may be waiting for me when I retire from a more regular sort of job.

Here is just one poem of Kooser’s, which I pulled off his website, tedkooser.com, entitled "Flying at Night:"

Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations.
Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies
like a snowflake falling on water. Below us,
some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death,
snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn
back into the little system of his care.
All night, the cities, like shimmering novas,
tug with bright streets at lonely lights like his.

That poem is about what C.S Lewis called "northerness," the consciousness of great spaces or distances, the stars above and the earth beneath, even great caverns in the earth beneath and the molten core of the earth and the space on the other side and the fact that the earth is suspended in space. It's enough to give one vertigo. I wish that I would spend more time thinking about such things than I do. It puts career choices in perspective, a very healthy sort of thought. But of course, unless we are going to be ungrateful existentialists, the thought cannot stop there. The conclusion of such thoughts is that God is great. God can span all of those distances between his thumb and pinky.

The Importance of Chant

I went to disputatio today at NSA to hear Dr. David R. Erb--from Trinity Church in Kirkland Washington, a Reformed evangelical church--who is candidating for being NSA's new music professor and choir director. My first concern was whether there would be enough work at Christ Church for Mark Reagan to stay in town. Fortunately, there will be. If Erb is hired then Mark will focus on training the congregation. And if I know Mark, he will probably use the lighter workload to further pursue his education.

Anyway, this Erb guy seems like a good sport. He even came out to play at NSA basketball game. Erb spoke about chants, something very foreign to the vast majority of contemporary American churches, yet something integral to the Christian tradition. American church music today, stylistically speaking, is a no-man’s-land. It has no distinguishable features to relate it to the great tradition of western sacred music or even the music of the early church. However, one thing that all sacred music has had in common through the centuries, whether that of the early Christian synagogues or that of the medieval churches and monasteries, is chant. Chanting the psalms more directly connects the congregation with scripture than do most “praise choruses” and liturgical chants allow the service to proceed by singing, which is more glorious than just speaking. Erb began his talk by quoting Zephania 3:14-17.

(14)Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. (15)The LORD hath taken away thy judgments, he hath cast out thine enemy: the king of Israel, even the LORD, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more. (16)In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not: and to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack. (17)The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.

God not only commands us to sing, but He himself sings about us. Thus, singing is extremely important for those who would be followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Historically, Christian services were often entirely composed of singing. The creeds were sung. Scripture as well was chanted, not merely read, and even sermons were chanted. Martyn Loyd-Jones was the last of the Scottish sermon chanters.

Erb would like to see a revival of chant, not in the same way it was sung during the Middle Ages, but new renditions of the Psalms, which may be half sung and half chanted. We need to draw on the chants when putting the Psalms to music and knowing them will also make the music of the masters (Bach and Mozart and Durufle, etc.) much more relevant and understandible.

This is certainly not a perfect summary of what Dr. Erb said; nevertheless, I thought he was compelling. My guess is that they'll probably hire him.

First Logos Snow Day in 12 Years!

Hans and Noai Leidenfrost invited everyone to a sledding party on Robbinson Hill, but the ride to the bottom was so bumpy that Jeremiah L. and others began to build this fort. From left to right: Jeff M., Ben N., Noai L.


I have to admit that I felt somewhat guilty working on this fort when everyone else in town was laboring to get their houses and cars free from the mounds of snow! But hey, to everything there is a season.


Here is the fort as far as we were able to complete it on Thursday afternoon. The photo is grainy because I had to increase the contrast. The left wall is taller than I am (6'3"). Hopefully someone will finish the project. Way to go Jeremiah Leidenfrost for starting this fort!