partsofspeaking

https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-founder-of-panera-bread-explains-the-economic-forces-that-led-to-trump I have been thinking this for years. Back in the '80s smart people were saying it about our struggle with Japan; Japan had a long-term view, while U.S. businesses were looking at the next quarter. Possibly the same mentality affects education: if we don't get a desired outcome next semester, scrap the whole approach. 

I.                         Jacob’s biography A.    Family: Born to Isaac and Rebecca as second of twins, brother Esau. Mother received prophesy. that he would be the heir/receive birthright. They believed the outcome but not the process.   Parents had favorites. Jacob cheated Esau for the birthright; he and Rebecca colluded to deceive Isaac for the blessing ceremony; because of Esau’s fury, his parents secretly sent him away to Syria to work for his uncle Laban, Rebecca’s brother. Jacob never saw deceptive mother again. Father lived over twenty years longer. Esau is married to local pagan women but decides to marry a third wife from Ishmael’s family to try to make his parents happy. B.      Lived with Laban for twenty years. Was deceived in the wedding ceremony, later found a way to get back at Laban for more w...

The day after Thanksgiving my husband was watching sports talking heads in the morning. On two occasions a reference was made to pumpkin pie and the other sportscaster said, "No, we eat sweet potato pie." In both cases the sweet potato defenders were African American and probably had Southern roots. Although I grew up on pumpkin pie (and bread-in-the-bird stuffing), I married in the South and a man who wanted Southern food. So I learned to make sweet potato pie and dressing, and I'm glad I did. In both cases the Southern alternatives are much better, and I'm here to tell you why. (I don't say this about all Southern food, though.) First, sweet potato pie is healthier because one doesn't have to put as much sugar in it--it's naturally sweet, plus you're getting the good dose of vitamin A from the sweet potatoes. Second, it's easier to make (if totally from scratch, since pumpkin is difficult to cook), and third, it doesn't have nutmeg and nu...

There is a great benefit in having studied foreign languages for a good bit of my life. I am fairly proficient in Spanish and studied French and German in my youth. I even took a semester of Greek. I'm a grammar nerd, although there are some fine points I have to look up. From this study I learned that English is wonderful in some ways (breadth of vocabulary) and not in others (grammatical precision). Case in point, you plural vs. you singular, which we have lost. Of course, the joke is that in the South we get it right, "you'll" or "y'all," or the Yankee version I'm more likely to use, "you guys," which is really too informal for professional use. But in most other languages it's very clear when you to a group and you to a single person is being used. I recommend this article for a clear explanation:  https://network.crcna.org/pastors/you-%E2%80%93-and-you-%E2%80%93-and-you I also recommend an online Greek interlinear https://bib...

"I speak of theological rather than spiritual core exercises, it’s because Christian spirituality involves more than the human spirit, mindfulness, religious experience, or sense of a generic sacred. Rather, Christian spirituality refers to the Christian life as caught up in the life of the triune God. Theological core exercises concern what we do to participate in what Father, Son, and Spirit are doing in, with, and through us to make us more like Christ." Kevin J. Vanhoozer, in Christianity Today .

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/so-you-want-be-writer Charles Bukowski starts this wonderful poem:   if it doesn’t come bursting out of you in spite of everything, don’t do it.   He goes on . . . I felt everything was right about his poem.   I spent years of my life feeling guilty about not writing. How foolish!  If it's not eating at you to get out, there's no reason to feel guilty! You're not ready.    Right now I'm in a bit of a rut, blocked, and feeling guilty. No need.

Lately I've noticed a trend in writing where the characters go through horrendous tragic events and death defying adventures and at the end everything is nice and happy again. Case in point:  last season of Stranger Things . I loved the first season. The second was good, but the young people were so normal and happy and untraumatized at the dance in the last episode. Hello! After what they'd been through? (And I just won't forgive them for treating Sean Astin that way! It was as if, "OK, we're going to use him, he's a good actor and people will watch because he's in it but we can't really have him end up with Joyce despite how kind and good and brave he is so we will have the little raptor whatever-they-are creatures eat his intestines."  I'm shuddering now.) They are not the only ones, though. Scarring happenings should leave scars. The characters should be different. There should be something at stake.  This was what I liked about the end...

Fascinating article on virtual reality church. One source in the article says that church cannot be disembodied (yes) and that God chose the message of incarnation. I would take that further: God chose the method and content of incarnation. Because Jesus died bodily on the cross for salvation, He had to have a body for it, so everything for us hinges on embodiment.  Incarnation is not just a subpoint to our faith.

Was everything that came from the pen of C.S. Lewis true? Now, I'm a huge fan of his. But I'm not a worshipper. And I've always been perplexed how evangelicals take his words as unassailable. Case in point, this quote: "Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." How is this true? Doesn't God also whisper to us in our pain? Perhaps I am misreading it: Pain seems to be like God is shouting to us, since pain is so hard to ignore, is perhaps what he is saying, not that God is actually shouting. Does the megaphone work? No, not always. Of course, it's a figurative analogy, so I can't line it up as purely logical. The question is, do we just take this and other quotes for granted because St. Clive said it, or because it's true?

Any reader of this blog, if such people exist, knows that I am not a fan of President Trump. For that reason, I am always, well, surprised and maybe appalled by the depth of support for him. There are true believers out there. I am also appalled by some of the things that come out of his mouth and am not inclined to justify them. That said, I'm glad about the Senate, sanguine about the House, ambivalent about the governor's race in my state, mad about the firing of Jeff Sessions (a person of much integrity working for a person of little), and thinking about some other things. Planned Parenthood did not get defunded. This was a no-brainer, and it didn't happen with the Republicans totally in charge. Conclusion: the party uses abortion to cudgel the pro-lifers into voting for them. Clearly, the Democrats will only fight for more and more abortion; the Republicans can at least say they are against it without doing anything about it. Second, while white people worry abo...

This is a great article:https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/2018/july/josephine-butler-victorian-advocate-for-prostitutes-history.html Incredibly inspiring. This month I am trying to tweet a "pray for the persecuted church" every day. Those are the real heroes, too. 

G.K. Chesterton is quoted as saying, "When people stop believing in God, they start believing in anything."  I provide as evidence this article.

Because there is a close Senate race in Tennessee, our little corner of it (Chattanooga, Southeast Tennessee) is going to be blessed with a visit from not just one but two big wigs--President Trump and VP Mike Pence. (Mike Pence was in Dalton, Georgia, where I work, on Thursday, so he's burning up the roads and airways to tell us how to vote.) I don't believe Trump has been to Chattanooga before. As I stood in line to early vote yesterday in Catoosa County, a suburban area of Chattanooga but in Georgia, I mentioned it to the couple in front of me. "There'll be a bunch of crazies there," was the man's view. He was staying away. I sympathized. I think about it mainly because I have to go to church on Sunday afternoon for my ESL class and the traffic will be blocked and backed up even more than usual. One can see from this that I am quite unimpressed with their visit. I live where we get ads from both states, which makes life interesting. I early voted and ...

My husband watches "futbol" (soccer) quite a bit. He had on an American football game and then changed the channel. I saw a ball soaring through the air and got confused as to what the receiving player was supposed to be doing with it, catching or kicking. So I watched the action of the soccer game for a while (Leicester City playing) and got to thinking about how many times the ball goes up and down the field (which is bigger than a football field) before there is a score. There is an awful lot of activity and energy output before there is a point, is all I'm thinking. Americans expect more bang for their buck. In football, you get six points to take the ball down the field one time; you might have to do it twenty times in soccer to get a point. What a waste!  Americans value efficiency. Soccer is not very efficient. On the other hand, the plays are beautiful and athletic. (Even the head butts, which look painful, too.) Do Americans value efficiency over beauty? ...

 Again, about my following the Life Group literature I am given. Maybe it's what we need rather than what we deserve--or vice versa. I have to teach on the family scam: Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, and Esau. The story matters because of the long-term consequences more than the "dysfunctionality" that was going on at the time. However, last week the co-teacher taught on Abraham sending Eliezer (probably) to find a wife for Isaac. And we all wondered, what is wrong with Isaac? Why can't he go find his own wife at 40 years old? Well, it's a cultural matter to have arranged marriages settled by the parents, which still happens in Africa, Asia, and Middle Eastern cultures. But it's hard to see Isaac as an agent in anything. When he is about to be sacrificed, he seems ok with it. When Eliezer brings Rebecca home to meet him, he's lying in the field meditating. He allows this duplicity to go on in his house. He lies about his wife's being his sister, like dea...