partsofspeaking

 Why can't educated people get their objective pronouns right? "The news reporter spoke to Quinton and I."  NO NO NO NO NO. Come on, people. Quit trying to sound proper and get it right. 

 Mike Tyson (of boxing, not chicken) fame: Everybody has a plan until you get punched in the face. I like that. The punch doesn't make the plan go away. If you don't have a plan, you have no backup after the punch. The plan is true north to orient you, even if you have to adjust. Because you will get punched in the face (metaphorically).  The plan is one I heard from podcast of nuns recently. "My goal in life is to live with God eternally."   To expound. I have learned the power of visual symbols that explain abstractions. For example, I think x-y axes diagrams and Venn Diagrams explain life.  My favorite Venn Diagram is three circles to explain choosing a career: What you are good at, what you love and are passionate about, and what you can get paid for.  The overlap is the sweet spot, where to focus your career. Or Fredrick Beuchner's: Your calling is where your passion meets the world's great need.  X-y axis:  Urgent v. important. Urgent on the...

I am sitting and meditating on Psalm 71.  There are two repeated phrases: "Those who seek my hurt" and "from my youth." Commitments to "Praise" are used four times. "Your righteousness" as a subject of proclamation three times, with "yours only" to emphasize that.  Counting word use is only somewhat useful in Bible study, and this is poetry based on repetition rather than rhyme, as ours is. But it matters what is repeated, in this case, Proclaiming His righteousness. I, and many people, work in a field where we constantly have to convince others of our worthiness. CVs, annual reports, post tenure review. "Look at all the great stuff I did! Let me keep working here! Please, please, please, I'm good enough." (I've gone through post-tenure review training the last two days so I'm kind of jaded here.)  We have to, in a sense, proclaim our own righteousness. I also attended a faculty learning group on a MOOC about DEI (...

 In my first year seminar course, I am focusing more on time management, because that was the barrier last semester. The students I have now who are repeating commonly confess that they had no time management skills.  I bring up Covey's proactivity emphasis, the urgent v. important paradigm, gave them a calendar to use, and preach against TikTok.  But the mantra is "You can't control time. You can only control your choices in the moment." Many of us have issues with control. Not only can we not control time, we cannot control others, which frustrates us no end, and we cannot control circumstances. We can only control our thoughts, our choices, our intentionality, our planning.  Two examples. As I get older (because I cannot control time, otherwise I would slow it down!) my hands don't work. I drop everything. I broke a teapot lid yesterday. I waste eggs. Knives slip out of my hands. If it can be dropped, it's likely I will. (the reason? possibly from breaking ...

Psalm 71:17-18 O God, You have taught me from my youth; And to this day I declare Your wondrous works. 18  Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, do not forsake me, Until I declare Your strength to this generation, Your power to everyone who is to come. We are assured that God will not forsake us in Hebrews 13:5. I have been reading Psalms with a lot of concern and anxiety of forsaking and shame. The Psalms pose questions and express emotions that are true and unabashed (and unjudged), and in the gospels and epistles we find the answers in Christ. It is not that we are forbidden to have these questions and emotions; we only need to consider the answers as revealed in the New Testament. And even then, they won't magically disappear, but we will have counsel and fuel for the journey.

 

  (The text of my Life Group lesson for Jan. 22)   This is going to be a difficult and abstract lesson. It is not based on a narrative like we’ve been reading and it’s topical, meaning from different passages. But it gave me a lot of food for thought and worship and led me again to the core of what we should study.   And what is that? Christ. Last weeks’ sermon by Jim Shaddix was a masterwork in that. He brought us to Christ and the gospel at the end, as all preaching and teaching should. Another incident these last two weeks bears upon this lesson. I listen to a lot of podcasts, and one of them is Viral Jesus. It’s about social media and the people—mostly women—who have a large social media presence. Although I am not a fan of social media and told my students this week I wished it would go away I have to be aware of it in my job. The guest on Viral Jesus this week was a woman named Beth Allson Barr, who has become the next big thing because she is a Baptist but al...

I confess to following this horrific crime pretty closely. These are very young people, they were college students, and the suspect is a Ph.D. student. All in my area of life.  As inappropriate as this may be, I wonder if Kohberger is not a modern-day, real-life Raskolnikov.  This story on Fox News (and elsewhere, of course) would seem to support it:  https://www.foxnews.com/media/idaho-murder-suspect-bryan-kohbergers-sick-social-experiment-examined-experts-mind-blowing I am not the only person who has posted about this, but it came to me independently. I don't think anyone who has read Crime and Punishment would miss the connection, however tenuous. It hit me early because there seems to be no prior relationship between the suspect and victims, and Kohberger studies "crime." 

 I hate Twitter. But for some reason, I get notifications for it regularly (they just pop up!) and I succumb to the temptation. Many of them are from a woman named Lauren and another Ph.D., Beth Allison Barr.  They post interesting and provocative questions, assertions, and arguments about abuse, women's roles in the church, how I and II Timothy etc. should be interpreted. They want to bring attention to abuses in the church. I applaud that.  Maybe they want to "save" some of us women from patriarchal systems in the church we don't know about, or that we are okay with, or that we don't feel affect us. But I know there are a significant minority of women who aren't okay with them, do feel affected by them (somewhat), and do recognize them.  Some of their posts are out of line (accusing other Twitterites of criminality because of a reformed theology), but they are interesting  I do not write about this subject but do have somewhat more progressive views about it...

  They are calling it deconstruction. Apparently that means different things to different former or current “evangelicals.” First, why can’t we just be Christians or Christ followers? Why that “brand”? (or franchise as Garrison Keilor called it.)   Second, if we all have a different meaning for it, how can we discuss it? I do recommend questioning. Recently I read of someone who wanted to teach a “Sunday School class for Doubters.” I wish Christians would be honest about their doubts. We aren’t because we are too lazy to study and read and dig into the reasons behind our doubts—which are often ignorance (but not always, of course). I do recommend dealing with the deep emotional pain that can happen in churches, even abuse. It’s real. Even if I don’t know it (or don’t recognize it), it is real and horrible and lifelong.   It also is, sometimes, exaggerated. Kids can be little snots to each other, it can hurt, but it doesn’t mean God has abandoned you in your da...

 I am hiring a young man to do an audio book of one of my novels. This is an investment. We'll see what happens with that enterprise!

 

This is post 2,778.  No one can say I don't put out content.  My brother took a flight from Baltimore to Albuquerque via Chicago this morning at 5:45. My sweet and tolerant sister-in-law had to get him to the airport at 3:30. Yeah. That's commitment.  I am appalled by the way Republican Congressional reps are acting. Good grief. If they can't agree on a speaker, what else can they not do?  The longer this goes on, the more time it wastes and the stupider Republicans look. Actually, about ten of them look. Third: Why do customer service people say "No problem" when you say thank you or ask for something? We weren't trying to cause trouble, and it's their job! I may add to this.  

Episode 4 was brilliant, not because it showed any miracle or actual event from the gospels, but because it set us up for several major events, getting us from A to B.  That is harder to do than show the cinematic biggies. Some would say there is a lot of talking, but it's vital talking. Some would say it is slow, but that's because they should be sent to the Scriptures after watching it (I was, Mark 4 and 5). It starts with a black and white depiction of the 12 going out to preach and heal (neat choice), and then their coming back and adjusting, processing, doubting, misunderstanding, debating.  Then there is a backstory about a water problem due to the people coming to Capernaum to see Jesus. And Jairus, a ruler of the synaogogue, and how his daughter is affected by the tainted water, and Gaius, the centurion, and most of all, the women with a hemorrage for 12 years. She is a laundress supporting herself, unclean, despised, befriended by Peter's wife, and there is no pull...

 After three go throughs, I have submitted my revisions of Sudden Future to the publisher. I believe it is a story that will attract readers. I confess to having some vulgarities in it, but not hard core profanity (never the f-word, never swearing with God's name). Enough for the dialogue to sound realistic.  Next, revise Lying In (my magnum opus to this point), and then finish Long Lost Justice, which I think will shock people.  2023 will be a year of continued creativity and content creation. Please check out my podcast: https://rss.com/podcasts/dialogues-with-creators/

Make a joyful shout to God, all the earth! 2  Sing out the honor of His name; Make His praise glorious. 3  Say to God, “How awesome are Your works! ....... 6. Come and see the works of God; He is awesome in His doing toward the sons of men.......   8. Oh, bless our God, you peoples! And make the voice of His praise to be heard, 9  Who keeps our soul among the living, And does not allow our feet to [ a ] be moved. . . .  Come and hear, all you who fear God, And I will declare what He has done for my soul. 17  I cried to Him with my mouth, And He was [ d ] extolled with my tongue. 18  If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear. 19  But certainly God has heard me; He has attended to the voice of my prayer. 20  Blessed be God, Who has not turned away my prayer, Nor His mercy from me! Two thoughts: Our God says "Come and see,"  "Taste and see," He provides experiential proof. Even more, HE INVITES. He invites all, He inv...