partsofspeaking

Writers Group: My take on how to run one

2012-01-28T19:24:00.000-05:00

In September I began a writers' group. Well, I can't take total credit for it. I belong to the writers guild of a local semi-large Southern City. I attended one of their established writers groups and found it too large for my taste. Because there was not one in my "neck of the woods" (whatever that means; for me it means my county which is a suburb of that semi-large Southern City), I decided to say we would have one. I arranged for it to meet in a library and away we went. The first meeting had six people; we are up to maybe ten now. It has gone through some evolution and probably still will.

To let you know what I've learned, here goes.

Our group is multi-genre. That will not work for everyone; it works for us right now. I think if everyone is writing the same genre there may be a tendency toward turfism and jealousy, as in "that's not the way I would do that." If the group were full of professional, multi-published writers, maybe not.

Our group has a lot of talent. I enjoy reading what we share. We are also nice people.

People should have the freedom to read aloud if they like or pass around manuscripts if they like. Because I write to be read (not heard), I want it to be seen on paper. But some forms of poetry and some writing needs to be heard.

Food always helps. It gets people in a better mood.

People should not be allowed to critique if they are not consistently writing and submitting.

Each member should get an equal amount of time, so use a stopwatch for the ten or however many minutes each person gets.

Someone has to be skillful in watching that someone doesn't get overly criticized or overly critical.

Every group needs a leader. That may mean taking some criticism for how one leads.

I have told my members to indicate on their emails (when they send around manuscripts) what they want help with. Otherwise you get a lot of people obsessed with spelling. I don't care about my spelling. My main concern is character, clarity, and diction. I am an academic and we write a certain way that is antithetical to good fiction writing. I want to know if I am getting obscure in that way.

Finally, flexibility as the group grows and progresses is needed. We have had to revisit ground rules at least three times, for various reasons.

Everyone needs someone else reading their writing. The market, especially e-book market, is being absolutely glutted with crap that is not being edited or vetted. Potential writers aren't submitting their work to the stresses of critique out of pride and laziness. To Kill a Mockingbird was in editorial processes for two years. It shows.

Child Rearing

2012-01-28T11:03:00.000-05:00

My son is an adult now. I have to remind myself of that everyday.

I still like to read about child rearing, though. Yet one thing that puzzles me is what I hear all the time, "This is so hard."

Why is it so hard? OK, I only had one, go ahead, tell me that I wasn't really a parent because I only had one. Whatever.

Every minute was awesome. He was so much fun. He was funny. He was learning. He said such interesting things. Even when he had a seizure disorder, threw up all the time, had to take meds for seven years.

He was never hard to raise. Others were always saying, "wait til he is two." "Wait til he is a teenager."

Parents just have the wrong perspective. First, they are too worried that their children should experience every sport, event, instrument. Second, they are worried about what other people will say about them. The competitiveness among parents amazes me. "I am a better parent because I cosleep." (Stupidest practice ever). "I am a better parent because I am still breast feeding after a year." "I am a better parent because ......" I think this is mostly mothers. Third, they are too worried about balancing their own needs and wants with their children's. They want to have a full-time job, go to school, and raise children.

Get over it--you're a parent. You don't get to have it all. You are responsible for a child now. Enjoy the child. Quit pushing him to be the number one kid in the school. Let him be who he is; let her enjoy being herself. Good grief.

A former AWANA director said the wisest thing I ever heard. "The greatest privilege is to teach children about God." That's what we get to do. WOW.

Circumcision: The Elephant in the Room

2012-01-28T10:53:00.001-05:00

That's a really silly title but I have been thinking about this subject for a long time, which is also a silly thing to admit to.

I have taught a women's Bible class for many years, and although I have taken a break, I'll be teaching tomorrow. This subject isn't technically in the passage but sort of. Anyway, it comes up quite often in both the Hebrew Bible (I am trying to be politically correct here and not call it the Old Testament, which is incorrect from the Jewish point of view) and the New Testament (which from the Christian point of view might be called the Applicable Testament? The Gentile Testament?)

How often has the word circumcision come up in my teaching? I am committed to dealing with the text and not skipping over matters that are clearly there despite their causing discomfort. So this post is about the subject and how it fits into our understanding of the Bible today, and what to do about it if you are teaching such a passage.

As a side note, I realize that the whole subject is even humorous to some, although I have no idea why. Of course, I am not a male, and males tend to cringe when they think about it (let them get a mammogram every year!). The debate over whether it is healthier for men to be circumcised (or healthier for their wives) is over; of course it is. Calling it genital mutilation is offensive, even though they did so in San Francisco. All the males in my family are circumcised, and I'm glad of it.

Circumcision and covenant are two related terms in the Old Testament. Covenant has to do with a word related to "cut." When the LORD (I don't use the transliterated version of that name from the Hebrew letters, because Jews and Catholics don't) made His covenant with Abraham, He cut the animals and walked between them while Abraham was asleep (Genesis 15). As a sign that the Jewish males were in the covenant, their foreskin was to be cut. This made them personally aware, in the most intimate physical sign, that they were in the covenant.

Now the questions that arise are, what about the women? and was this something they ever showed? On the first question, I don't know. On the second, since the HB had very specific rules about nakedness, I would guess not. But the man knew, his family knew, his community would know because he would have gone through the ceremony as an infant, and his wife would know. That's all that mattered, really.

But prophets and others emphasized that the covenant sign was not only physical but should have a spiritual component. One's body could be circumcised but it did no good if one's heart (in HB thinking, the inner person of will, mind, emotions, and affections) were not also cut, open as it were, to the law, to God's direction, and to obedience. If your foreskin was cut but you disobeyed the moral law of God--through idolatry, greed and indifference toward neighbors or the poor, etc.--you were not living up to the covenant and therefore not really circumcised.

This is especially clear in Paul's New Testament writings, such as Col 2:11. In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ. Here Paul is writing to Gentiles, who probably thought the whole act of circumcision so important to the Jews was kind of barbaric. He also wrote to the Romans in 2:2, A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical.

The circumcision of the HB that pictured the cutting of the covenant is spiritual in the New Testament. Christ's flesh was cut for us; he is the mediator of a new covenant. Our hearts are circumcised and our outward life should flow from this open heart, which is no longer stony and hard to God in faithlessness and disobedience but open and pliant to the things of God. We live under a covenant as well. We can choose to live under the covenant (which is totally up to God and not to us; we were "asleep" in a sense just like Abraham was) and enjoy the blessings of it, or we can choose to live like the covenant isn't in force, and suffer as did the Jews in the HB. I am of the opinion that a person who continually chooses to live as if the covenant is not under force isn't under the covenant in the first place.

When I was in the Presbyterian church, when the babies were sprinkled they said that was the sign of the new covenant as circumcision was of the HB period. I have a lot of respect for Presbyterians and prefer their way of doing things, but there are a few disagreements I have that are just too hard to get past. This idea that baptism is like circumcision is one of them, and that the Jews are no longer under a covenant is another. When did God start breaking covenants? However, I could accept that the new covenant has supplanted the former, since this one is better: it is spiritual (inward), it is everlasting, it is apolitical, it is for everyone. (see Hebrews).

This is one of the oddest blog posts I have done, and in some ways far more esoteric than I usually get into.

White Privilege

2012-01-25T21:35:00.000-05:00

In my first iteration as a doctoral student in 2006 at Georgia State, in a discussion in a communication education class, I was told I was oppressed.

"No, I'm not." To me, that was as absurd as telling me I had green hair or a million dollars in the bank. My interlocutor was an African American gentleman whose face and conviction I remember well but whose name I have forgotten. He was a fellow doctoral student, further along in the program, and even older than I was (in his mid-fifties). He had been in social services work, confessed to be a Christian. I believe he was a sincere, fine man.

But today that conversation is as vivid as if it happens last week, as is my perplexity as to why I--American, middle-class, healthy, white, educated, professional, homeowner, voter--is considered oppressed. It's because I'm female.

I let him know that I rejected that self-identification. "Tehre are millions of women on the planet who are oppressed," I said, "but I am not one of them." However, his world view dictated that I was oppressed and just didn't understand or recognize it.

Not long after that, I was seated next to a young woman at a dinner held after a professional conference. She and I approached the same subject. I had heard her say that day in a presentation, "Women cooperate in their own oppression." In other situations, I have read Pablo Freire and bell hooks and about critical pedagogy. If education can empower others to change their circumstances, that is one thing. Whether that is the whole purpose of education, that is another.

What is oppression? If I am oppressed, what does non-oppression look like? Are men naturally non-oppressed, simple because they are male (if I am oppressed because I am female?)

All of this backgroud brings me to the theme, white privilege. Am I a beneficiary of white privilege? Of coure. I don't deny it. And I refuse to feel guilty about it. I had no control over my parentage, my race, my acculturation, my parents' choices, my early education, the region of the country I was born in. It does no good to feel bad about such things; to do so would only be a waste of time and energy.

At the same time, it would be foolish to ignore my white privilege. I have no patience for white people who deny their white privilege and even have the nerve to assert that African Americans (especially) are getting some privileges or breaks. This is not a comment on affirmative action (that is a whole different subject), but a comment on the reality of our culture and world system.

We whites cannot deny that there is an advantage to being white. All we can do is decide how we will respond to it. What might those choices be?

We cannot stop being white, nor can we change the past and how we have benefited from being white.

We can try to give up some of the accoutrements of our privilege. For example, wealth; less hassle from authority figures who have bad attitudes. If one follows Christ absolutely, to give all to the poor. But that won't change the fact you are white or that you have been privileged. But it will mean you are obeying Christ, who is not interested in your white privilege but in your obedience.

We can work to change the "system"--the cultural system, the political system, or the church system. I say start with the last; it should be most susceptible to change because it is full of people who know they should be counter-cultural, whose very job is to be counter-cultural. We can start by courage, speaking up whe someone denigrates those who are not recipients of white privilege.

How have I benefited from being white? Simply by not being other.

The Power of Touch

2012-01-19T19:32:00.000-05:00

Recently I have seen a number of video "clips" of service personnel returning from Afghanistan and especially Iraq. God bless them, and their families.

What I notice is that the first reaction is not to talk, not to get a good hard look, but to embrace, touch, caress.

Skype is wonderful; we can see who we are talking to on the other side of the planet. I know it has been an encouragement to millions, especially those who have been and are fighting in the Middle East. I attended a Skype baby shower this summer. The couple was in San Diego, where they live. The husband, a chaplain, will soon be deployed for ten months. He will be able to see his baby girl frequently.

But Skype is not presence. Presence is validated by touch; touch is only possible in one's presence. Touch is the realest of the senses, followed by taste. You can smell without physical contact, you can also see and hear, but only within inches of each other can you feel and touch and know the reality. No wonder the first reaction after long separation is to touch, to hold. It doesn't matter if the person has gained or lost weight or grown gray--they are physically real. We have all read about the babies in the orphanage who died due to lack of touch, and how that is still going on in the developing world. Touch is life, more than we recognize. I often tell my communication students that touch separates the cultures more than anything, and to be prepared in another culture and wary about touching or not touching based on Western standards, or even southern standards (we are a tad touchier than Yankees, but not much--it's mostly the grandmas).

Unfortunately, we associate physical contact too much with sexuality, and that ruins it too often. Yet, with some validity, touch is controversial; we are touchy about touch. Where, when, who, how. Don't go below the shoulder blades; don't hold the handshake too long.

There is one reason I respected Princess Diana. She had no fear of touching those HIV babies in Africa. No wonder people loved her. It is the one way she was like Jesus, who in an age of taboos and rituals, especially about Gentiles and lepers and other "uncleans," he touched freely. I often touch a person on the shoulder; I might be risking something, but it's worth it. They may just think I am a little more human.

Email etiquette

2012-01-19T19:18:00.000-05:00

Someone just wrote me an insulting email. The person probably thought they were making a point and it would hurt my feelings. Joke's on them. I have been accused of so much evil in my life, it's amusing. I am the most innocuous person in the world, yet people (usually men) find ways to try to bring me down.

Remember, persons who insult you, especially in an email, is only revealing their own true colors. If they truly care and have something worth saying, they will come along side in the spirit of Christ and take the time to admonish, not just use invective.

Whither Republican politics?

2012-01-19T19:13:00.000-05:00

Hunstman and Perry out this week. Big surprise.

Newt Gingrich? Really? Seriously?

And we're upset Romney has money? Do they think a poor person can run for president? If he was a failed businessman and didn't have money, would it make him more qualified to run for president?
Why do these same people think Trump would be all right? (both, by the way, come from moneyed families; at least Romney doesn't act like he was raised poor.)

Romney didn't break any laws to make or live off his money. I'm not crazy about him, but in the absence of some others coming forward, he's the best the Republicans have.

I like Santorum, but he's unexperienced. But he's a good man.

Why is there a double standard in the media for Democrats and Republicans? It's so obvious, it's frighteningly amusing.

And then there is Ron Paul. OH MY GOODNESS. Who is actually voting for this guy? (Actually, I know of several who are or would.)

Church Relationships with Pastors

2012-01-19T19:07:00.000-05:00

These seem to fall into six categories:

Adulation: the congregants are far too in awe of the pastor's persona and/or gifts
Subjective: the congregants are subjects of the king
Combative (Adversarial): Us-them/We-him(her)--never good
Collaborative: shared leadership/nonadversarial/mutual respect
Cooperative: pastor leads, congregation agrees to follow and cooperate
Tentative: not just time-sensitive; uncertainty

However, this is in no way a criticism of a pastor or pastors, just a conclusion from many years of observing. I could put names behind each of these categories, but I'll refrain. The pastorate has to be one of the hardest jobs in the world; any kind of leadership is. Sometimes a leader has to just do what his/her lights tell him; sometimes he/she can collaborate with those being led.

Serena, by Ron Rash

2012-01-17T21:16:00.000-05:00

My son bought me a Kindle for Christmas. I love it! I didn't think I would, but I do. Unfortunately, I am really swamped with reading for work right now. I am reading Little Dorrit. It was free!

But the first book I downloaded (and it wasn't free) was Serena, by Ron Rash. I had not read any of his work before but had read reviews of this book.

If we have to talk about books or movies in reference to other works, I would call this "the story of Sarah and Abraham and Hagar meets MacBeth meets Cormac McCarthy meets ....well, something Appalachian and environmentalist. I like that he puts the story against the backdrop of the establishment of the Smoky Mountain Park, and his writing is impeccable. Beautiful. But as a friend said, it's rough.

A Bostonian, Pemberton, owns a lumber operation in the North Carolina mountains. He brings home his new bride, Serena. She is beautiful but mannish; a horsewoman; the daughter of a lumberman from Colorado; ruthless and cruel. She rapes the land and rapes the lives of everyone around her who gets in the way. She saves the life of one of the workmen who becomes her henchman; her henchman's mother has mysterious powers of second sight. Her goal is to cut every tree in western North Carolina, make as much money as she can, and then move herself and her husband to Brazil to destroy those forests, too.

She becomes pregnant but loses the baby, almost losing her life in the miscarriage. She will not have another child. But there is another strain to this story of ambition. Before their marriage, Pemberton impregnated a poor mountain girl who manages to survive the killing of her father (by Pemberton) and great privation to raise the baby, a boy who looks just like Pemberton.

I thought the story would go that Serena would try to get the baby from the young girl. Was I wrong. So I won't go any further. I would recommend the book for its gripping story and beautiful invoking of character themes from earlier literature, and because of the historical accuracy (I recently read a well-documented book on the opening of the park). But it is rough. Serena's cruelty and impunity stretches believability at time, but we are not in Serena's mind--we are in her husband's mind, whose ambition does not match hers and who finds himself being swept away, and in that of her "rival," the young mountain girl.

It's a wild ride, and justice, in a sense, prevails.

Jesus, Religion, and the Facts

2012-01-16T11:18:00.000-05:00

This is a fine response to the common "Jesus hates religion" truism.

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2012/01/13/does-jesus-hate-religion-kinda-sorta-not-really/

It's a short trip from Jesus hates religion to Jesus hates religious people.

I especially like Kevin DeYoung's comments that we Christians need to stop blaming ourselves and buying into the lie that we have somehow caused all the problems in the world. Yes, we could do more, lots more. But we are not causing the problems.

Dr. King was a Republican? Who'd have thought it?

2012-01-16T11:14:00.000-05:00

This seems to be well documented.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=16500

However, I am not sure Dr. King would be happy with some aspects of the Republican party today.

Traveling Through: Video

2012-01-16T11:10:00.000-05:00

Dr. King's Day

2012-01-16T10:31:00.000-05:00

I was glad to see on Facebook that a number of my "friends" had posted quotes from Dr. King. Quotes are nice, but I prefer big pictures. The best is A Letter from a Birmingham Jail, which I teach in a rhetoric class. http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html To me no one should graduate from college without having read it and internalized it.

I am off today, as most government employees are, and feeling a bit guilty/cynical/uncertain about why we get this day off and ignore it or give lipservice to it. Most white people, and I am afraid some African Americans, just use it as an excuse to sleep late on a Monday. I do know that some colleges, for example, Bryan College in Dayton, TN,use it for service learning. I hope that is more true than I realize. Of course, we get Labor Day and Memorial Day off too and pretty much ignore their meaning, so I suppose it is a reflection of the self-centered times we live in.

To me, Dr. King was a prophet in the Old Testament sense of calling a people to a higher ideal. He was a flawed man but his assassination makes him a martyr in most of our eyes. His words are more important than his life, in a sense, because he reminds us of what we should be if we call ourselves Christians and if we call our country just. That is not to say his actions were unimportant--absolutely not, because he lived his words for the most part, especially when it came to a willingness to be an example of civil disobedience or nonviolent protest/action.

He is a blank slate to some people--they can paint on him what they want, and make him greater or lesser than he was. That's why I think it is critical to read his longer, more philosophical works, like Letter (above) to truly understand his philosophy and appreciate his gifts, rather than just taking quotes out of context, no matter how inspiring they are. I don't think he wanted to make white people feel self-satisfied because they could quote him on Facebook. I think he wanted to see a color-blind justice and civil liberties system in our nation, unlike Malcolm X (whom he criticizes in the Letter) who wanted separatism, and I believe he wanted us to live up to our billing as a Christian culture. Remember, this was 50 years ago, when it was ok to say we are a Christian nature, or at least Judeo-Christian.

Dr. King did not want to raise more differences between the racial groups, but more awareness.

Tim Tebow, Sanctity of Life Sunday, and the Value of Human Life

2012-01-15T16:27:00.001-05:00

I rarely sit down and watch football with my husband, who watches it constantly. But last week I did sit down at the end of the Broncos/Steelers game for a few minutes. I saw the Steelers not get a score at the end of regular time and the game go into overtime; I saw the world’s shortest overtime period. The play was so amazing that it seemed staged. But it was beautiful and a lot of fun to see Tim Tebow throw a pass when all I’ve heard about him is that he can’t throw the ball (which means of course, not that he can’t literally throw the ball but that he doesn’t get touchdowns that way.)

I have been home a lot for the last four weeks and have had to listen to Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith scream at each other because of Tebow. Of course, the Broncos lost decisively last night to the Patriots, as was expected, so maybe some of those tirades will calm down.

Also of course, Tebow is not just controversial because he may or may not be one of football’s greatest players. He probably isn’t, although it is clear few have his drive or determination or physical strength (he’s a monster, a beast, a machine). Tebow is controversial because he uses football to honor Christ, or believes he does, and because his parents are outspoken about their decision not to abort Tim after his mother became sick during pregnancy.

It’s a wonderful story, and I am thankful that they have the hutzpah and boldness to tell it when whiny pro-choice advocates want to silence them. If there are over 3,000 abortions a day, over 1.3 million a year, are these people afraid there aren’t enough abortions? Geesh! What’s enough for them? And I am thankful Tebow bows and thanks God from his heart for his ability to play football.

Media have called him one of the most divisive players in the game. Oh, please. These writers/talkers obviously just need something to say and keep the controversy brewing. The Christian community is not without its debate over Tebow, either, but we all get to have our opinions. I just fear that we let our concern that a potentially wrong message could be sent (or simply perceived) that we don’t enjoy what is.

Sure, I have some concerns about Tebow’s exuberance. For one, I don’t think God cares who wins a football game. i don't know why believers who are supposed to be followers of Christ are more concerned about a football game than the needy world. But I believe Tebow, as Fran Tarkenton said on NPR the other day, is simply thanking God for the opportunity to play what he loves. Why can’t we just take pleasure in something beautiful instead of finding pragmatism in it? He plays well, leave it at that. It’s just a game, for goodness sake. (Tarkenton said he was raised by a Pentecostal preacher dad and was charismatic back before it was cool. I like that.) Tebow is young, he’s energetic, he’s in love with Jesus and life and his family. Would that we all bowed and thanked God for what he allows us to do well and to enjoy in the doing of it. I should bow to God after every class period that I was allowed to teach.

Second, I have a concern about the message of Tim Tebow’s not being aborted. Being about as pro-life as anyone on the planet, I see this as such a vindication that this huge physical specimen came from parents who were told he wouldn’t make it or would be disabled. HA! But you know, not every non-aborted child is going to be Tim Tebow. He or she may just be average Joe or Joann; he or she may actually be disabled. The average Joe or Joann or the disabled child who didn’t get aborted because of the parents’ decision to value the image of God in every human being—those humans beings are as valuable as Tim Tebow. Praise God Bob and Pam Tebow chose life; praise God for all parents who do. Praise God for every baby, because every baby is a promise, whether he or she is an athlete, a scholar, a musician, or just himself or herself.

Finally, I have concern that this is just one more example of our celebrity cult culture. There is so much of it in the church I despair. In another post I am going to write about what makes us a servant leader for God, and it isn’t fame or celebrity or talent or a blog or a radio program or a megachurch, and we are too given to such farces.

I am hoping that the Tebow mania dies down a little, for his own sake. I hope he gets married soon. He will have too much temptation otherwise (and I don’t think it will be Katy Perry!)

But this is sanctity of human life week, and any message that promotes the dignity of being human is needed.

Update on my 2011, two weeks late

2012-01-15T16:00:00.002-05:00

My son has been saying that he’s had a bad year, although he is not seeing the forest for the trees. He graduated from college, got to go to Florida for a very enjoyable spring break, has no debt, is healthy, and has a place to live. He just can’t find the kind of job he wants (I have to avoid comments such as “Join the club”).

But since I went on blogging hiatus for three weeks after Christmas, and have returned, I wanted to update on my 2011.

We experienced tornadoes in our town of Ringgold, Georgia. While the damage was nothing like that of Tuscaloosa, AL, and Joplin, MO, last spring, tragedy is not relative. If you lose your home, or a loved one, from a swirling wind coming down from nowhere; if you see clouds moving faster across the sky than you ever thought possible, and then an explosion on the horizon where you know the town is; if your son calls you four hours later frantic because the news has shown what the town looks like and he hasn’t been able to get through to you because the power is out and the cell towers down; if you drive past the places that have become a part of your life and existence, where your child went to school, where you have voted and played tennis, and they are no longer there, or twisted, or flattened; if you look up at the ridge behind the town and see where the tight funnel of wind skipped over a ridge leaving the woods looking like a razor mowed them down; then you know what a tornado is like.
My brother died. I watched him. I held my mother as she watched him. After that and the tornado, nothing else seems very hard.
A family member was diagnosed with aggressive cancer and then went, quite unexpectedly, except to God, into remission.
My son graduated from college, in four years, debt-free.
Two family members divorced.
We met a large branch of my husband family we didn’t even know about, his great-grandfather’s other descendants.
We goy two dogs, at different times. I took one to two obedience courses. It is amazing how quickly all that training can disappear if you don’t stay on top of it. Both are rescue dogs and they totally run our lives.
A dear friend, John Economidis, passed away. It seems like so many people I respect and love are going, and I am only 56. I am thankful for friends.
I learned that I need to use H.R.Block for my tax preparation. The processor found me over $10,000.
I was nominated for two awards at the college and lost both competitions, but I appreciated that my colleagues would be kind enough to nominate me.
My novel was republished as the first of a trilogy, but I am iffy on the status of the other two parts of the trilogy.
I wrote two other novels; one I am shopping around, the other I am revising because it was done in one month and the hastiness shows.
I came out of the “closet” (hating that expression) about my Kallman’s Syndrome. People do not understand when I talk about it, but I connected with other people on Facebook who had it.
Places I went: Orlando for the SACS annual meeting; Baxley, Georgia, for the Campbell Family Reunion; Gainesville, GA, for a conference; Atlanta several times; Nashville to visit the Cheekwood Museum; Jefferson City, TN, to see my son graduate; Upstate South Carolina to visit my husband’s family. I guess I need to get out of the region.
I heard Garrison Keillor in concert, one of his last, I think.
I taught two new classes at the college; gave up my Sunday School class for a while; gave up nursery work for a while.
I applied for doctoral work at the University of Georgia.
I participated in a course redesign effort, led the QEP efforts, took on more of a role in the Baptist Collegiate Ministries at the college, and presented at two conferences.
I joined the Chattanooga Writers Guild and started my own group in Catoosa County (fourth Thursday of month, 3:30, Colonnade Library).
I stopped getting perms and decided to keep a short hairstyle for the rest of my life (which means more frequent haircuts).
I attended Confluence, a BCM conference.
We proposed a communication major, which meant I wrote five or more syllabi.
My husband and I bought a Volvo and gave away a truck.
I blogged almost five times a week but gave it up for a while.
I read some phenomenal books, especially spiritual classics. These helped me spiritually with peace, acceptance, stress, forgiveness.
I gardened.
I found a doctor for my husband.
I saw two cousins whom I haven’t seen in years.
And I don’t think I accomplish much!

Hymns and Hers

2012-01-14T19:38:00.000-05:00

I listen to two radio stations: the local NPR one (even though I had vowed to give up NPR for their hypocrisy, I fell away from my vow) and the local Moody station. On one I get news, on the other music. Today I heard Fernando Ortega sing one of the most common hymns of American experience, "Come Thou Fount."

I know all the words by heart, (well, the first, second, and last stanzas--Baptists are notorious for not singing the third stanzas). However, I only remember them to music, so I had to look at another website.

Come Thou Fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
Mount of God's unchanging love.

2. Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Hither by Thy help I'm come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.

3. O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let that grace now like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

The words have been changed from the original text to be more singable and modern; some hymnals don't use Ebenezer anymore (what does the song have to do with Scrooge?). But the verse that stings me, bothers me, and which I won't sing, is "Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love." Otherwise, I like the song, but I don't think some of the words of the last stanza are Biblical.

I do not believe in steps of sanctification. Yes, we grow, but there is no second blessing, etc. We are sealed at conversion, not later, unto the day of redemption. So to sing these words as a Christian makes no sense to me.

You might say I am nitpicking, and you would be right, because quite a few of our songs are not really doctrinal. We sing some really off the wall things in church because we are caught up in the moment and the tunes are nice and everyone else is singing. We ask God to save us again when he already has; we focus too much on the experience and not the author of the experience; we talk too much about ourselves. Even worse, we promise God actions we will never keep and we know we won't. This is true of older songs as much as newer ones.

But now I am just complaining and sound curmudgeonly. The gift of music is joyous, although we let it distort our thinking sometimes.

Human Creativity

2012-01-13T19:56:00.000-05:00

I am fascinated by the subject of creativity. What I must remember is that creativity is

not bound to the arts
not necessarily lucrative
won't necessarily get you noticed
a gift from God because of his nature within us
to be enjoyed

I find creative in many places; I liked to be surprised by it. Today I heard of an album title: "The stars are indifferent to astronomy." That is so apt, and reminded me of the Walt Whitman poem, "When I heard the learned astronomer." (below) A poet in my writers' group has a line "I looked for the ocean where it should have been." So much there. Creativity makes something that hits us immediately and yet stays with us and that we stay with, trying to plumb its depths.

I don't consider myself creative, even though I write fiction. I consider myself more of an observer and recorder; it just that I record human experience in a different order than where it might have happened.

WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;	5
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

As can be seen, I have returned to blogging after three weeks off. I come back hoping I will get more attention to this blog than spammers from Russia.

Sabbath

2011-12-26T08:21:00.000-05:00

This is my 762nd post on this blog over about five years. I have decided to take a hiatus, a sabbath rest, from this blog, for a number of reasons. Number 1 is to devote time to my other writing; number 2 is that I'm not getting the attention from it that I would like, and feel that I am screaming into the void of cyberspace; number 3 is that I may just be posting without really thinking through and really editing my work. So I will from time to time post but not on a daily, or even weekly, basis. I still hope people leave comments, which come to my email box at work.

Happy New Year.

Advent Reflection #30: He is coming, he came, he is here.

2011-12-23T10:23:00.002-05:00

He is coming, he came, he is here. Emmanuel: God with us.

Advent Reflection #29: Big picture thinking

2011-12-23T10:22:00.000-05:00

Before I start, rum really adds something to fruitcake.

I have become aware in this last year that the living of Christ's life is more than an inward, self-focused spiritual experience. Without it becoming political, because politics is about government power, living the Christ life is about community and a larger impact in the world; and yet God is big enough to let those who are introverts, and more gifted at the small, serve that way. Anna and Simeon were serving in quiet ways but not for their own sakes, and they saw the Jesus the Messiah was for everyone, not for themselves or their group alone. The two intersect.

I was just reading about the waste of money we spend in mission trips for kids and adults to do work that locals could be hired to do for much less and that would provide dignity and income. There are the helpless, and then there are the poor who are not helpless and should not be so encouraged. It makes the middle class feel good, that's all. Another example is toy give aways for the poor. How shaming that must be for parents that they can't provide toys for their children. There are other answers, other ways, and it seems to me that toy giveaways for Christmas are more about those of us with money having a warm feeling about doing something and about assuaging their own guilt for spending so much on Christmas.

So, it might seem that I am contradicting myself and telling those of us with money to hold onto it. No, I am saying that there are other ways to serve the poor than throwing money at them. Stewardship is not about guilt or a short-term fix to rid ourselves of guilt.

Humanity

2011-12-22T15:52:00.001-05:00

God made us to be human beings, not human doers.

Advent Reflection #28

2011-12-22T11:03:00.000-05:00

I seem to be ahead of myself on these!

One of the most neglected parts of the Christmas story is the visit to the temple forty days after the birth. There are two very old people, the woman at least 84, who served in the temple as good Jews but who recognized the Messiah when he came. Why? Perhaps becasue their hearts and minds were ready to receive what is to be revealed. I thik we do not recieve a word from the Lord, or gifts of his grace, because we are not ready, and these two were ready.

Simeon prophesies. He approaches Mary and Joseph by the Holy Spirit; they do not appraoch him. He makes it clear Jesus is for everybody, but that he will be divisive. Joseph and Mary marvel. I can see Luke interviewing Mary about this episode. She might have thought it was as amazing as the three wise me (who, incidentally, came later than this scene).

Simeon says that his coming is so that "the thoughts of many will be revealed." The word of God is sharper and than a two-edged swords, dividing the soul and spirit, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (Hebrews 4:14). We hide; God reveals, not just his truth but our internal truths and untruths. He makes them real to us; he puts up a mirror that shows much deeper than skin.

To Mary Simeon says, "Your own soul will be cut through with a sword," because she will see him die a cruel death in the end and she will see him rejected often before that.

Then Luke tells us of Anna. Luke likes women. He gives them plenty of space and credibility in his gospel, especially compared to the writers of his time. Of her Luke says, "She spoke to all those who looked for the redemption in Jerusalem." Anna spread the word, whether she is listened to or not.

Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry, Book review

2011-12-21T11:35:00.000-05:00

I just finished Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry. It is a book I would recommend, with caveats. The caveats have more to do with the potential readers than the book itself, which I found lovely.

My past experience with Berry is reading What are People For? , hearing him speak at the Southern writer's conference that is held every two years in Chattanooga (it has a more proper name, which I am ignoring), and being aware of his viewpoints. My take on his viewpoints is irrelevant. He is anti-war, anti-big farm, anti-nuclear power, anti- a lot of things, which sort of makes him on the verge of being a curmudgeon. He is also anti-computer, and raised a lot of ire a few years back by saying he refuses to use a computer to write and that he uses an old typewriter (that's a technology). Knowing these things about Berry makes me a little too aware in the novel of when he is "preaching," letting his main character Hannah be a mouthpiece for his views. That is my first issue with the novel, but unlike Berry, I don't want to be anti-.

I prefer to be pro, and I am pro-this novel, because the writing is beautiful and the plot is very believable and human and real. There is nothing in this novel where I said, "That couldn't happen" or where doubt would enter in. It is very like the history of my own family, on both sides, in the loss or at least demise of the family homestead despite the decades of work that the ancestors have put into it. But farming is a tough life, and I don't believe people should be criticized for leaving it when larger forces make it extremely difficult. Not all of us are gifted to be farmers; not all of us are intended to be farmers. The economy then and now could not sustain all farmers.

Do I think Berry is criticizing those who leave farming? Maybe I am reading something into it. But Hannah definitely mourns that all her children leave the farm and have no commitment to it, and that the return of her prodigal grandson to the farm is seen as a kind of redemption. I know from other research that one hundred years ago over half the population in the U.S. farmed for a living; now less than 2% does. Is that a bad thing, or just a thing? Berry has an ideal in mind, and to the extent that the novel occasionally becomes polemical, I have to warn a potential reader. You can come into the novel totally ignorant of Berry's activism, and read it as a work of fiction as memoir, or you can read it as part of his whole corpus.

Aside from that, it is lovely, as I said before. Even if the voice of Hannah is far too educated and correct for what a woman of her time and standing would be, I settled into it. "She" "speaks" lucidly of love with a man, of place, of dying, of loss. I don't know who would be willing to read it, other than those in academic settings, which is unfortunate. It is a literary novel, and that usually means "boring" for general readers, which is sad. I hope that those reading this review will ignore that label, and relax themselves into a chair to hear the story of a woman who lived through the American century and has much wisdom to relate.

Advent Reflection #27

2011-12-21T11:11:00.000-05:00

If you are wondering what happened to #26, I realized that I have two number 13s, so this straightens out my list. I have no idea if anyone is reading these posts, but they serve as drafts for me for future writing, if nothing else. I am shouting into cyberspace.

This morning I finished Wendell Berry's Hannah Coulter, a elegiac memoir, and will quote one of its sweet passages. This is from a chapter in which the voice of the main character, Hannah Coulter, is speaking about her husband's experience in Okinawa in World War II, something he never spoke to her about and which she had to research in books after he died.

"To read of that battle when you love a man who was in it, that is hard going. I read in wonder, believing and sickened. I read weeping. Because I didn't know exactly what had happened to Nathan, it all seemed to have happened to him.

You can't give yourself over to love for somebody without giving yourself over to suffering. You can't give yourself to love for a soldier without giving yourself to his suffering in war. It is this body of our suffering that Christ was born into, to suffer it Himself and to fill it with light, so that beyond the suffering we can imagine Easter morning and the peace of God on little earthly homelands such as Port William and farming villages of Okinawa."

Berry is not writing about Christmas or advent here, but I found this an appropriate passage for today. It is a cliche of evangelicals to say we should see the cross in the manger; I would say we need to see Christ's full humanity, conception to resurrection, in the manger. He was born in blood, like us all, and he died a bloody death. I don't like to get caught up in the word "blood" like some evangelicals do as much as the truth of his suffering and death, which identifies him with us so that we can identify with him in his death.

Advent Reflection #25: Word Become Flesh

2011-12-20T17:01:00.000-05:00

Here is a set of three essays by contributors to Christianity Today about social media. I found them interesting.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/december/social-network-churches.html

I post this as my advent reflection because they emphasize the bodily presence that is a necessary part of Christmas, the Christian world view, and Christian practice. We cannot celebrate Christmas apart from one another. "I'll be home for Christmas" is not just a song we hear on the radio; it is the longing of our hearts. We know we cannot really celebrate Christmas via skype or Facebook, any more than a baby can be born that way.

However, my husband and I were laughing about the title of a movie on TV: Escape from Christmas. How bad must we have made Christmas if we have to escape from it!

Advent Reflection #24: Peace on earth?

2011-12-20T10:34:00.000-05:00

What am I learning this advent season? To slow down, to listen. And to reflect on peace on earth.

The song "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" was played twice at church yesterday; it was written in a time of despair for Longfellow, and during the Civil War. "There is no peace on earth, I said. For hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth good will to men."

Yes, hate is strong, and hate is the enemy of peace. Hate is the core of what destroys shalom, wholeness, which is the biblical idea of peace. But just saying to replace hate with love is kind of shallow. Hate is a disease, a symptom of sin, and sin is rebellion against God. Jesus didn't just bring peace in the form of a verbal message, but by bringing a way to be forgiven and to submit ourselves to his authority. If we submit ourselves to his authority, we are no longer hating and rebelling. Peace comes from law and order, not the other way around. Authority and power and justice lead to peace.

Peace on earth is a wonderful sentiment, but Longfellow as it right when he says, "God is not dead nor doth he sleep. The wrong shall fail, the right prevail. .. . " He looks forward to a time when Christ returns, but to the hope that even now people can submit to God's sovereign authority and find internal peace that would lead to external peace.

I have been praying for the demise--politically or physically, I would take what I can get--of Kim Jong Il. He is dead now, and in hell, and I can't think of anyone who deserves it more because of what he did to his own people, especially the Christians. He thought himself a god, and now he knows better. All that said, I deserve hell, too, because I know I could make myself into a little god.

I believe it is time to pray in all fervency the Lord's Prayer, "Deliver us from evil." Not just to pray the narcissistic request, "Deliver me from the things I don't like" but truly "Deliver us, the church, from what Satan would do to destroy it and the work of God."

Advent Reflection #23: The Elephant in the Room (or Sanctuary)

2011-12-19T09:20:00.000-05:00

The elephant in the room in regard to Christmas is the virgin birth.

No one has to have a hart time believing in refugees, a birth in a cave, and visiting shepherds. Of course, angels stretch the imagination, but if you can accept a virgin birth, you can accept angels and an unnatural star. The virgin birth is necessary as a sign and fulfillment of prophecy, mainly. But there is some theological necessity, at least I have been taught, about the virgin birth. It is, in this teaching (which I am not disputing, only repeating) that because there was no earthly father involved in Christ's birth, that he had no sin nature, that the sin nature comes through the father. I don't know about that. The question of how Jesus was sinless has plagued the faith for centuries. Was he sinless because he had no sin nature (obviously if divine he could not have had one) and/or because he did not sin by choice? Well, both.

It all comes back to the nature of the trinity. Jesus was not half man and half God, some kind of mythical beast. He was/is totally both. A person couldn't be half God anyway, when you think about it.

These are eternal questions the church has struggled with for a long time, and I'm not going to figure them out here. As I read recently, every analogy about the Trinity breaks down into heresy even if it serves as a good starting point. Suffice it to say that you can't have a Christmas birth without a virgin birth, and for that reason maybe we shouldn't be so upset with secularists who want to take the Christian out of Christmas. Maybe they are just being honest and forcing us Christians to see the real difference, to acknowledge it. Don't put up a creche as a political statement; put it up because the virgin did conceive miraculously and delivered the unique deliverer of the world, not just a good teacher who told us to serve the poor and downtrodden (although that he did.

We need imagination for faith. But faith is not imagination.

Advent Reflection #22: I heard the bells . . .

2011-12-18T17:08:00.000-05:00

This morning our church choir sang a beautiful arrangement, accompanied by the bell choir and other orchestra, of the old hymn, I heard the bells on Christmas Day. They sang it to a different tune, the name of which escapes me right this minute, but that added to the beauty. Reflect on these words. They are as true today as 160 or so years ago when Longfellow wrote them.

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

I thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head:
"There is no peace on earth," I said,
"For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men."

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men."

Till, ringing singing, on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime,
Of peace on earth, good will to men!

Today

2011-12-17T11:33:00.000-05:00

Today is my birthday, but I am not revealing the year for security purposes. Thoughts:

It is so easy to say "I'm old" and give up on what God could do with you and through you. That is just plain laziness and self-centeredness, not realism. However, I don't have the energy or agility I had ten years ago, and I am not going to keep a garden this year because it's not enough bang for the buck, not enough produce for the process.

Why do all the commercials for chocolate show women, by themselves, eating the chocolate in some sort of ecstasy that is almost sensual (sexual) in nature? Check it out--Dove Bars, Giradelli, Godiva, etc. Is chocolate that much of a temptation that it is raised to the level of sex? And all these women are thin!

If I see one more perfect, middle class family of a boy and girl (that look the same age) and two gorgeous parents wearing clothes that look like a Dillard's ad, standing in the snow or watching TV while it snows or trimming the tree while it snows or drinking cocoa while it snows outside, I might puke. In most of the country it doesn't snow on Christmas. Talk about an ideal we have been sold!

Jimmy Kimmel is a creep. The people who film their kids to get on his show are even bigger creeps.

Advent REflection #21: Matthew 2, The Rest of the Story

2011-12-17T11:25:00.000-05:00

The nativity story usually stops with "the night that Christ was born ....." The wise men show up, supposedly, and it's one big happy worship party. This is not what Matthew records, but Matthew's narrative does not make for a good tableau, so we pretty much ignore it. However, it's an important and interest read.

My first thought is that the heart of the king is in the hand of the LORD, as Proverbs states, but that doesn't justify the great evil political leaders can do. I have written about this elsewhere, but Christianity was apolitical for the first 300 years, and we should maintain a healthy skepticism of all things political. Herod is not the first or the last to use sincere religious seekers and finders for his own evil purposes. Individuals may pursue politics, as did Daniel and some New Testament characters who apparently worked for Rome, but not the body of Christ as a whole. The last forty years of American history has been a chronicle of that deviation.

My second thought is that in v. 3 it says, "When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him." Now, why were they troubled? Because Herod the tyrant was troubled, and that meant everyone got to share in his disturbance (or be victims of it) or because they had heard all about the star, the shepherds, the angels, the birth, the prophecies and were sitting and waiting to see what happened next? If the first, they had reason to be, as the rest of the narrative of his genocide shows. If the second, that means they were somewhat complicit. Sometimes the subjects of a king (or presidents) get what they deserve, or at least their leadership reflects them.

Need I say that the Magi showed up quite a while after the birth, since it says in verse 11 that they came into a house and saw the young Child (not Babe, as previously called). I think Rembrandt painted this. (Rembrandt was known to paint Bible stories as they really were, not as tradition said.) But how strong tradition is! Most people have nativities or creches that totally ignore the truth. I do myself.

Fourth, dreams and angels figure here as well; Joseph clearly does not know what to do without constant divine help, but who would? I have to wonder how many times our sleep dreams could mean something. Old people talk often of having dreams of loved ones before they die. My dreams are wild and bizarre, mostly because I have a mind that runs superfast all over the past.. If I could learn to reflect and stay on task better, I might know that my dreams are telling me something. Not, of course spiritual direction, but spiritual need.

We probably ignore this story because it's about the genocide of inconvenient children. HUMMMMM. Where do we see that nowadays?

But Herod dies and the family is able to return to Israel, but not as they had planned. I am so reminded of how I want to have my life my way, on my terms, and how I don't. So little has turned out as I would have planned; even as I think back over the last year so much happened and was asked of me that I would not have expected. Yet I hold on to my comfort, my stuff, my furniture, my house, my job. MY, MY, MY. And I miss many blessings.

Advent Reflection #20

2011-12-16T23:03:00.000-05:00

A little off the topic of observing the "coming," I want to reflect on Christmas movies. 95% or more of them are dreck, but some of the older ones are charming enough. Some of them are not really Christmas movies; they just take place against the backdrop of Christmas, like "The Little Shop Around the Corner," which is adorable.

Everyone lists "It's a Wonderful Life" as a favorite Christmas movie, and it is durable, but I always found it slow, and a little tedious. I like "The Bishop's Wife" quite a bit; I would have to put it at the top of the list, mainly because although it is hardly biblical in its depiction of angels, it does have a good message about simplicity and calling. Not that we can expect much of spiritual depth from Hollywood, but at least in the old movies we hear real Christmas songs, carols, about the nativity. Not much of that on the Hallmark Channel.

Of course, any version of "A Christmas Carol" is a must. Even the Muppets.

On a side note, an ex-student wrote on Facebook that he was getting ready to go to his son's school's Winter Solstice program. It was all I could do not to post a comment asking if they were all going to howl at the moon in their all-together and do so against a backdrop of Stonehenge. Winter Solstice! My soul.

Which brings me around to the point. It is possible to go through the entire Christmas season now without one thought to the reason for the holy day.

Traveling Through

2011-12-16T14:29:00.002-05:00

Is available for the gift-giving season! Be sure to put Barbara G. Tucker in the search engine.

Advent Reflection #19

2011-12-16T14:28:00.000-05:00

In churches that celebrate advent (why many evangelicals don't, I don't understand), there is a tradition of candle-lighting. The candles stand for hope, peace, joy, love. These are the most beautiful words in the English languages, and they are among the most misused. Advent is a touchstone for understanding what these words should mean, spiritually speaking.

Hope - expectation

Peace - wholeness, harmony, not just absence of conflict. Absence of conflict can also mean death!

Joy - unquenchable lightness of spirit; unstoppable happiness

Love - following what is best for others in the long and short run.

Advent Reflection #18

2011-12-15T22:46:00.000-05:00

The rest of the New Testament doesn't make many references to the birth of Jesus in the manger, the magi, the shepherds, or even to Mary. Where does it? Galatians 4:4-5. "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." Law is either the law of sin in Paul's writings or the law of Moses.

The authors of Scriptures do not want us to get so caught up in the story that we miss the consequences. In Acts, Peter's first sermon, he says, "Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles,wonders, and signs, which God did through Him in your midst as you yourselves also know--" and his birth is one of them.

Advent Reflection #17

2011-12-15T12:48:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I made a big dent in my Christmas preparation. The tree is up and lighted; almost all the gifts are bought and wrapped (some need to be mailed), and some Christmas cards are ready. My preparations will ot be full-blooded this year, but they are coming.

Christmas is a gentile holiday, but it is rooted in Jewishness. We cannot understand the birth of Jesus without understanding Jewish customs culture. Everything is about Israel, but for the world. Jesus' parents are not revolutionaries; they do everything according to custom. Custom and culture are not bad things, despite what some Christians think. They are created indirectly by God, who set the boundaries of mankind's existence. We only need to change custom when it directly violates Scripture, which I think is usually rare. Some Christians look for every opportunity to buck culture, spending a lot of energy on activities that don't matter. Fussing about Christmas is one of them. Most Christmas customs are just plain fun, but a slavish obedience to them is foolish and tiring.

Advent Reflection #16

2011-12-14T10:22:00.000-05:00

We think of God as the Great Giver, but He is also the Great Receiver. He receives us, our praise, our worship, our needs, our feeble faith and feeble works done in feeble faith, and our selves. There is an art to receiving as well as to giving, and it is common and easy for us to miss them both.

I am reading John's birth account (there isn't one, really). It's the prebirth, and the meaing, and it is beautiful, especially in the old KJV. You can't accept the narratives of Luke without accepting the analysis of John. "He was in the world, and world did knot know Him." As the old spiritual puts it, "We didn't know who you was." "Forgive them, for they know not what they do."

The "light" of John's gospel is prefigured by a star, a natural generator of light, so it is interesting that God included the star in the narrative in Luke. In verse 11, John says "he came into his own, the Jews, and his own received him not" (some did, a remnant, but not all as they should have), "but to as many as received him, to them (Gentiles and Jews) he gave the authority to become the children of God, even to those who believe in His name."

Advent Reflection #15

2011-12-13T08:50:00.000-05:00

I am almost caught up with my numbers on these advent reflections (I think I'm one behind) and can start to enjoy Christmas myself.

According to Luke, the only witnesses at the birth of Jesus (other than a midwife, which I am convinced was there, of course--these silly ideas that Joseph delivered the baby or that he was born without a need for assistance are crazy) were the shepherds and the angels, and the shepherds were really only there to visit, not see the birth. The shepherds are the first ones to hear the news, and their response was downright Pentecostal: they praise and they tell everyone.

The shepherds remind me of those beggars in the Old Testament story of the famine in Jerusalem during a siege. "We might as well go." They were terrified at first, which means the heavenly display must have been a lot more overwhelming than we assume. The aurorea borealis times one hundred. They leave their flocks--not something they would do unless the phenomenon was far greater than usual, because they could have lost their jobs, as menial and lowly as they were.

mary, on the other hand, ponders all these things in her heart. As a person who has lived through the evangelical experience, I have always judged my spiritual life by my lack of evangelism. But neither Mary nor the shepherds are condemned or praised for their reaction--both are acceptable.

Advent Reflection #14

2011-12-12T21:23:00.000-05:00

I read the Luke narrative 1:5-45. Four angel appearances: To Zacharias, who doubts; to Mary, who asks for an explanation; to Joseph, who obeys; at the birth, when all praise. By then the humans involved get it, that humble as they, the least important people of all, are at the center of history. We are all trying to be important; we all want security and significance, and they are surprised by it in their humble walk of life. Totally surprised. Of course, this will not happen again in history, but the the world is much bigger than we are, and God is much bigger than the world, and both are ready to surprise us.

Advent Reflection #14

2011-12-12T21:18:00.000-05:00

In Matthew's gospel, the genealogy is not specific in terms of the actual numbers of levels or generations, but it is a rhetorical and memory device, marking the Jewish history into three periods. Abraham to David, David to exile, exile to Christ. Luke even more want us in real time, not Jewish time alone. it seems to me that anyone who denies the existence of Jesus Christ on the earth in history really would have to deny anyone's existence prior to modern times. Faith is not a blind leap. It is a step forward.

Advent Reflection #13

2011-12-12T21:13:00.000-05:00

Matthew's gospel, as we have seen, begins with a genealogy, which includes 5 women: "he begot X by woman." is said four times. All were shamed. Tamar, who pretends to be a prostitute and goes a god job of it, getting pregnant by her father-in-law in one of the most sordid "I'll make him pay" stories imaginable. Rahab the independent businesswoman of Jericho, a woman who definitely took things into her own hands. She also appears in the hall of faith, so sticking "the harlot" on her name seems unnecessarily. Interestingly, she is that in Joshua but not called that in the New Testament. Ruth the Moabite, Bathsheba the adulterer. And Mary the virgin. The first four were hardly virgins. Matthew does not have to include these wmen, so we can speculate that it is to prove that while God worked through the Jews, He was by no means only the God of the Jews, or of men. God is for everybody; He is inclusive in that way.

Advent Reflection #12

2011-12-09T12:08:00.000-05:00

The beginnings of the gospels are crucial. Matthew begins with the genealogy of Joseph. Matthew wants to root this gospel in historical reality a la Jews, and this is the way Jews did history. It may not be the way modern historians do it, but that is not the problem. the main thing is to provie Jesus is a legal descendant of Abraham and David on his "father's" side, and this is code, meaningful to Jews of the time, if not so much to us. Then he goes on to proive the circumstances of Jesus' birth are in line with Isaiah and other Old Testament prophecies.

We cannot take the story of Jesus on our own terms, but on the terms of the historical reality in which is is set and in which it happened. No pandering, and no whitewashing. Joseph's response to Mary's pregnancy is natural, but we don't read every word spoken. Yes, it's a supernatural event, but the existence of the supernatural in this world does not negate the existence of the real, the natural. They exist side by side. This what moderns do not understand. As C.S. Lewis wrote, we moderns insist our world view is the only one, the only valid way to think. Now, I'm as modern as the next person, but it's illogical to think modernism is the only way to think. The Word (supernatural) became flesh (natural) and dwelt among us (experience), and we (natural) beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (supernatural). The two intersect, constantly.

Advent Reflection #11

2011-12-08T21:18:00.000-05:00

While we wait for the coming of Christ at Christmas, symbolically, we also must occupy, just as we occupy until he comes the second time. Not like the occupy movement--occupy means to be in an occupation, occupy yourself with productive work, not disrupt traffic and those with real occupations. so I have a hard time treating December as one long Christmas holiday. I don't think it honors the Lord much to do so. I could have attended four or five parties so far--but only two did I really go to, because I'm being occupied with life. As it is, I have at least four ahead of me! I am not sure why everyone has to have a party for Christmas.

It would make more sense to have that many worship services.

For example, my dog earned her second certificate of completion for obedience class--a diploma. I just got back from a five-day business trip. I have lots of grading to do. My house is a mess. Etc. Etc.

That is why advent must be the focus, not food and shopping and materialism. Because these tasks are meaningless without advent, the coming, and because the food and shopping and materialism take our focus off the advent.

Advent Reflection #10

2011-12-07T20:52:00.000-05:00

Why do Matthew and Luke say so much about the birth of Jesus (although not as much as we would like!) and Mark and John say nothing? Would the Romans, to whom Mark allegedly writes, be impressed with a miraculous birth or care about Jewish genealogy? And John, the mystircal theologian writing to the Greeks, doesn't want to focus on the birth but where Jesus was before he came. It is interesting to me that Plato said we were all in heaven before birth, so Jesus emphasizes that Jesus really was in heaven before his natural birth--the only one of us humans who was! But Matthew has to validate Jesus' lineage, and Luke the scientist has to put it in historical context. I may be reading something into them, but reading the first three to five verses of each gospel.

Mark begins with John because John's baptism of Jesus started the public ministry and proclamation of the gospel by Jesus. Luke stalks about his research method--eyewitness accounts. And he isn't humble about it; "I had perfect understanding," he says. John begins with the character of the trinity, and Matthew like a Jewish chronicler--the genealogy is all.

What amazing documents!

Advent Reflection #9

2011-12-06T19:21:00.002-05:00

I have a hard time getting into the “Christmas spirit.” Music helps, but part of the problem is that women are expected to do so much for at Christmas, and maybe I’m just lazy. How much more wonderful it would be if we could celebrate the coming without running around?

I just got home from Orlando, Florida, where I attended a conference. I'm tired and see so much to do before Christmas! And that's the problem.

Advent Reflection #8

2011-12-05T17:04:00.000-05:00

The shepherds are waiting, too, but not for the same thing as Simeon and Anna. They are waiting for the seasons to change, for the ewes to deliver new lambs, for payday. Sometimes when we are waiting for the usual we don’t know we are waiting for the miraculous.

Advent Reflection #7

2011-12-05T17:03:00.001-05:00

All this time, Simeon and Anna are waiting. Waiting is as much a part of advent as coming. “They also serve who only stand and wait,” Milton wrote. We Americans do not see much virtue in waiting, but God does.

Advent Reflection #6

2011-12-03T19:26:00.002-05:00

Joseph is fearful; by the end Joseph is courageous. He is fearful of derision of his community. He is fearful of Roman oppression (who wouldn’t be.) He is probably fearful of what it will be like to raise the Messiah. He does not take them to Egypt from fear, however; he does it from obedience. Everyday after the angel’s announcement and his dream he must grow in courage, more and more everyday. He cannot abandon his mission.

Advent Reflection #5

2011-12-02T18:51:00.001-05:00

Mary is, above all, an obedient vessel. She is open to what God brings into her life. Bible characters, as someone recently said to me, are mirrors for identity not models for morality. Mary in this case would be an exception. Mary does not understand, but she is open.

Advent Reflection #4

2011-12-01T20:38:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I wrote about Advent calendars. When my son was little, we did it differently. I had a flannelgraph picture of the Judean hillside and figures of Mary and Joseph walking the road to Bethlehem; on December 25 it becomes a nativity tableau. I still have it, somewhere. It emphasized the coming part of advent.

Remember that he bids us come, also. Come and drink, come and dine, come and follow.

Advent Reflection #3

2011-11-30T17:42:00.001-05:00

Advent calendars are blocks of wood or cardboard with December 1-25 marked. Little doors in the wood or paper can be opened. For some reason, you can buy them with chocolate behind the doors (nothing against chocolate, but why does everything at Christmas have to revolve around food? Well, we are feasting in celebration of a birth, but ……)

Advent Reflection #2

2011-11-29T21:37:00.000-05:00

Advent means, “He comes.” Where does He come? Into the world. Into our homes. Into our brains and hearts and beings. Into our wills, or He should. Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Advent Reflection #1

2011-11-28T19:08:00.001-05:00

The message of the Old Testament is “He is coming.” The message of the Gospels is “He is here.” The message of the Epistles is “He has come and done the work of God ordained for this age.” The message of Revelation is “He is coming again.” As C.S.Lewis has his characters say of Aslan, He will make all things right.

Even the first time, Jesus made things right. We just didn’t always see it.

Weather in North Georgia

2011-11-28T11:15:00.002-05:00

The weather today is deluge-ional.

Republican Politics This Weekend

2011-11-27T16:08:00.000-05:00

So now Newt Gingrich is at the head of the Republican pack. Newt, who is from this part of Georgia, is a smart guy, an interesting speaker, an experienced politician. And I agree totally with him about the immigration matter he is supposedly in trouble about now; some conservatives just don’t get it. Latinos should be on our side; Republicans are running them off and slitting their own political throats.

However, Newt cannot bring in the votes against Obama, if that is the issue. I am not sure Romney can either, but Newt can’t. And I don’t trust him to make good decisions. But that’s just me. I just think it’s funny the media are bearing down on him right now. He would be a dream candidate for the Dems.

Let it be said I do not consider myself a Republican, but a conservative. I like most traditional, truly Republican Republican principles; it's the Republican politicans I have trouble with.

Have a Happy Hallmark Holiday: Just Don’t Bring Jesus Into It

2011-11-27T16:06:00.003-05:00

The alternate title to this post would be: The Hallmark Channel Christmas programming: Jesus Need Not Apply.

Hallmark has created some beautiful programming over the years. Sarah Plain and Tall is one example I could give. But they have also created some incredibly vapid stuff, programs that make the Lifetime network look Shakespearean. I watched one last night while I was trying to make progress on my NaNoWriMo novel, which I still haven’t named. Ten minutes in I was pretty sure where the made-for-TV-“movie” was going and how it would end; I was 90% correct. I kept it on anyway, and the program was sweet and entertaining, if predictable.

However, it was supposedly a Christmas-themed program, like what they have already been running for three weeks (don’t get me started! I won’t be putting up a tree for two more weeks. I don’t like it being up for more than two or three weeks, really, but I know I am in the minority.)

Apparently, in Hallmark world, Christmas consists of

Trees

Decorations

Gingerbread houses and hot chocolate

“It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Miracle on 34^th Street”

Santa Claus

Shopping, but nothing ugly such as pepper spraying on Black Friday

Nostalgia

Presents

Snow (if it’s a real Christmas)

Finding true love (again or for the first time)

Having wishes come true

Family reconciliation

Warm pajamas

Puppies or other fuzzy animals

What it doesn’t include is

Miraculous birth

True angelic messengers

Displaced persons and refugees

Anything Jewish

Roman oppression

Salvation

Dirty shepherds

The temple and two old people who have waited decades to see the Messiah

A confused young couple

I think Hallmark movies exist to encourage shopping, especially at Hallmark stores.

In Barbara Tucker’s world, Christmas consists of

Beautiful music

Dickens’ A Christmas Carol

Not really getting into it until the second week of December

Trying not to get sick

Being off

Baking cookies

Visiting friends and family

Remembering when our son was born and little

Trying not to overspend

Reflecting on how hopeful the holiday is, but not in a secular way.

In another post I wrote about the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. It has much good writing, but there is one line that sticks with me. “We trusted in the future too much.” Such trust in the future brought the characters in the novel great disappointment. Hope is not trusting in the future. The future is a blank slate, amoral in a sense, an enigma at best, a possible tragedy at worst. Hope is trusting the Person behind the future. Hope is moral in nature. This link will take you to another observation on hope by Vaclav Havel that I like. http://partsofspeaking.blogspot.com/2011/02/hope-vs-optimism.html

Charity Time

2011-11-27T16:05:00.000-05:00

I get lots and lots of solicitations from nonprofits for donations. Sometimes they send me gifts; I got a tote bag yesterday that is really cute. But if a charity can send out that kind of thing, that means to me they aren’t using the money correctly. In the case of the charity that sent me the bag, they spend over 50% of their income on “fundraising,” not the mission of the agency. Another group calls me up every year and I’m just hang up nowadays, because they spent 85% on fundraising and don’t even do what their name implies.

There are several websites a consumer can visit to check out these agencies and nonprofits; recently I have used Charity Navigator, but there are others. I am very concerned about stewardship of my resources because of reading a recent review of the book Toxic Charity. Too much of our “charity” does the same thing we conservatives accuse the federal government of doing—causing dependence, not instilling work ethic, and excusing laziness. This goes for faith-based nonprofits as well. As Dennis Miller says, “I don’t mind helping the helpless, but I do mind helping the clueless.”

I am a firm believer in personal mission statements, and I have one, although I must confess I have strayed from it a bit and now it is a good time to return. I think we should have a mission statement for our giving, too. Choose what you firmly believe in, what you know does truly important and needed work, and focus on that. It might be just two or three above tithing, and that’s ok. Everybody wants my money, and I don’t make that much. I am getting older and don’t want to have to work overtime the rest of my life; at some point I will have to retire, although that’s far out. I see the wisdom of saving my money and using less of it on what really matters to me than giving out random checks to every agency that claims a need.

That sounds ungenerous, but it is actually more generous in the long run. My point is, be wise as serpents and harmless as doves; know what is done with your money and don’t trust someone who makes a claim on your finances for the unfortunate or “deserving.”

It's Christmas time and nonprofits love to invoke middle-class guilt to get people to give. But middle-class guilt ain't what it used to be.

Nell Mohney on Gratitude

2011-11-27T16:03:00.000-05:00

Folks in Chattanooga are blessed in many ways, and one of them is the weekly column that Mrs. Nell Mohney writes. Every Saturday, this precious lady (and I don’t use that term much) writes a reflection on spirituality for the local paper (we only have one now, which in itself is a long story, involving a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court). She was a pastor’s wife for many years and from what I understand, taught (and perhaps still teaches) a Sunday School class at First Centenary Methodist.

Yesterday she wrote on gratitude, and this is an excerpt.

“’Gratitude is literally one of the few things that can change people’s lives,’ writes Robert Emmons in his book Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier. Emmons, a psychology professor at University of California-Dais, and Michael McCullough, a psychology professor at the University of Miami, have gathered a large body of scientific evidence on the nature of gratitude and its potential consequences for human health and well-being.

Among other things, they give characteristics of grateful people. Among those are: Grateful people have a wide circle of friends in different age and socioeconomic groups; they are optimistic; they look for the god even in bad situations; they don’t whine and complain; they keep a gratitude journal (I call mine a joy box . . .); they laugh easily; they relight the flame of others who are discouraged; and they learn to reframe a situation so that it’s see from a different perspective.”

In a previous post I wrote about courage being necessary to practice all virtue. However, I would even put gratitude higher on the scale of fundamental character properties.

Pisa, Italy

2011-11-27T16:01:00.000-05:00

One of the standout places I have visited in Europe is Pisa. The Leaning Tower is amazing, but the Romanesque cathedral on the grounds is astoundingly beautiful and doesn't get the press. These are some pictures I took while there in 2001 (pre 9/11).

Courage Revisited and Random Thoughts

2011-11-27T15:59:00.001-05:00

1. In an earlier blog post I wrote about hearing Maya Angelou speak at a conference and what she said about courage. I have since found out that her statement was not, ahummmm, original.

C.S. Lewis wrote: Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.

I like how he said it better.

2. I signed up to do NaNoWriMo. Because I have had a long weekend, I have been able to write 14,000 words in the last two days; I still have 11,000 more to go to hit the required 50,000 by Wednesday. It has been frustrating because I have other things to do, and because I really do not have a plot worthy of 50,000 words, as is the case with most Christmas stories; they are by nature short. But it has at least forced me to get a certain idea on paper that I have been thinking about for years. I don’t know what I will do with it otherwise, though. It will need massive editing and revision when I’m done, and the original idea was that it would be a play or a screen play.

3. I taught a Bible class this morning as a substitute. I am out of the habit now and forgot how draining it is, at least for me. I have a headache and don’t know why.

4. I live in one of the wettest places in the U.S. and today is symptomatic of that—pouring rain. Consequently my dogs are crazy.

5. This morning my pastor said that we probably should feel awkward and uncomfortable around unbelievers. I disagree. Jesus didn’t. He was around unreligious people (granted, not the same thing) without compromise or awkwardness. However, there are unbelievers and then there are unbelievers. I don’t like being around unbelievers who wear it on their sleeves.

Wall-E

2011-11-25T11:24:00.000-05:00

I do not watch television much. I have gotten interested in Person of Interest, but all the episodes I have watched are on the Internet because I refuse to work my schedule around television. But last night, since it was Thanksgiving and I was utterly exhausted from two days of cooking and cleaning (my house looks great, thanks mostly to husband and son, and the food was excellent, if I do say so myself), I sat in the recliner and watched, patiently, Wall-E on ABC Family.

Comments: There were probably 2/3 as much time for commercial as there was for the movie. For every ten minutes of movie, there was probably six minutes of commercials. And of course they were largely for Black Friday, a holiday I do not celebrate. I did find the Patrick Warburton Honda commercials funny, but he's just funny period. I found it extremely ironic that Walmart was sponsoring the showing of a movie that is basically a send-up of Walmart!

Comment 2: What is up with ABC Family? I saw a lot on there that was not family-oriented. And then at the end there is a program for CBN or Pat Robertson which is prefaced with "ABC Family does not approve of this show." Well, duh.

Finally, thoughts about Wall-E. Charming for the most part, although I don't know why they had to get their dig in about Bush, "Stay the course." It got way too hyper at the end, too, and my middle-aged brain couldn't follow all of it. Otherwise, delightful, and extremely convicting. I am spending today sitting at a laptop grading and writing and researching--sedentary as the "humans" in the movie, and the rest of America is apparently shopping--the whole reason the earth becomes uninhabitable in the movie. My house is filled with items that we use occasionally but are choking us; we are the fledgling plants choked by riches in the parable of the good soil; our spiritual growth is choked by all this stuff. We have one room that is devoted to STUFF, dog crates, and legal papers. No one can sleep in there but we have STUFF.

I did not participate in Samaritan's Purse this year because I didn't want to send a bunch of stuff made in China overseas. I support their humanitarian efforts otherwise, but I don't think the poor in the developing world needs our stuff. Ooh, that is low, isn't it?

Then, of course, the movie lampoons our obesity and lack of personal relationships; no one in the movie actually talks to any one directly except through a machine.

As usual, Lasseter and Pixar hit a homerun. I am not crazy about all their movies personally (rats in a kitchen!), but all of them are imaginative. The end credits of Wall-E alone are wonderful for a humanities prof.

Deuteronomy 32 Exegesis

2011-11-25T10:56:00.001-05:00

This lesson is the fourth in a study on Moses' life in Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Moses is an incredibly interesting character in the Bible. Moses often gives speeches to the congregation of Israel. We are looking at his last speech, and particularly a prophetic song that he gives at the end of the speech. These are some of his last words. I have often thought that Moses was kind of negative to the children of Israel. Right before this song he says to them,

Deu 31:29 For I know that after my death you will surely act corruptly and turn aside from the way that I have commanded you. And in the days to come evil will befall you, because you will do what is evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger through the work of your hands."

But on the other hand Moses had no reason to think the people of Israel would continue obedience. If he had said, like we would today, "Hey, I know you are going to continue to love and obey the LORD God and he will bless you continually," he would't have been realistic, and two things would have happened: They would have assumed God's blessings was all their doing, and it would have taken the focus off of God's goodness and put it on their own obedience.

In other words, this psalm is about God's goodness and hesed and grace, not about their great virtue.

Verse 31:30 says Then Moses spoke the words of this song until they were finished, in the ears of all the assembly of Israel:

Verses 1-3: This song is about God and praising him.. You know, in Heaven this is one of the main things we will do, and that means God is going to be praised for eternity, and there is plenty to praise him for. We will praise him for a long time for his character, and then his works, and then his blessings, and then more.

We've been through thanksgiving and we are, ideally, supposed to spend it thanking God and being mindful of thankfulness, which is really I think the foundational principle of the Christian life, but how long can we focus our minds on thankfulness? What would happen to our thinking if everything that comes in our path we are thankful for, including every interruption? I always think that interruptions might be a way of keeping us safe, missing an accident up the road, even.

Practicing thankfulness rather than overlooking goodness and rather than seeing negatives. There is plenty to feel negative about but that is an excuse for not being thankful, grateful, appreciative. My husband is mentally ill with depression and stays home most of the time and it's been hard. I am not thankful for the mental illness because it's a sign of the fall and some of the bad things he went through as a child and younger man. However, one of the most wonderful acts of God is how he bring great blessing out of bad. Over and over in my life I have seen that, and I sit in amazement. I am not thankful for my husband's depression but I am thankful for the good it has brought. But I have learned a lot about life, and myself, and in some ways it is less stressful on me because he takes care of the house and he is very tolerant of my life and pursuits.

I recently was at a conference and heard a man speak who has terminal brain cancer. Medical science can do nothing about it. He is a Baptist pastor in Alabama. He said he wouldn’t go back and change what would happen. I believe him, but that is not something I can say yet. That man is thankful even for his cancer because of what he has seen God do through his suffering. As I said, I am not thankful for bad things, but I am thankful that God brings blessings out of bad things. Maybe some day I will grow enough to be thankful for the bad as well.

In verses 1-3 Moses prays that his words, his teaching, be like rain, one of the most precious things in their arid landscape. In Chattanooga we complain a lot about the rain until there is a drought! We have one of the dampest climates around; I looked it up on the Internet!

verse 4: The Rock. There is a great Bible study in here about God as the Rock. When I think about this I don't think about a big rock in my yard, I think about the outcroppings of Rock on Lookout Mountain. Seven times in this song Moses makes reference to the rock or a rock.

Let's look at Rock in Old Testament:

The first reference is to the fact that Moses was commanded to get water out of the rock One time he struck it twice (Ex), another time he was supposed to speak to it (Numbers) but struck it out of anger. But rock was the source of sustenance and water in these stories. Psl. 61:2 from the end of the earth I call to you when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I,

1Sa 2:2 "There is none holy like the LORD; there is none besides you; there is no rock like our God.

Psa 78:16 He made streams come out of the rock and caused waters to flow down like rivers.

Rocks are often referenced as hiding places; Moses hid in the cleft of the rock, David hid from Saul in the rock.

In II Sam 22, David sings a song whose theme is that the LORD is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer. Repeated in Psalm 18:2. Therefore rocks are places of protection and refuge. Psa 27:5 For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will lift me high upon a rock.

Rocks are places of foundation for faith. Psa 62:2 He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken.

Psa 62:6 He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken.

Psa 62:7 On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God.

Isa 26:4 Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.

From a physical sense, the only person who can control rocks is God. We can move them only by destroying them with bombs, or chipping away at them. And when we do, we usually hurt the environment some way and cause other problems. But we don't create them..

What about the New Testament? Mat 7:24 "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

In the New Testament, Rock emphasizes the foundation, the cornerstone, what Christ did and who he is and the beginning, the initiator of what is to come in the church age.

Mat 16:18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Rom 9:33 as it is written, "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame."

1Co 10:4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.

In Deut. 32:4, the meaning that Moses wants to communicate is one more meaning to Rock. "His work is perfect, ....just and upright is he." A rock is firm, it's not going to change, it is faithful in that sense, and as for God he is going to be as just and upright today and tomorrow as he ever was.

Now, this is probably the sense of Rock that Moses is going to use the most, although the others as sustenance, protection, and foundation for faith are also there in the text. His emphasis is that God is faithful, and will be, despite what the Jews are going to do after Moses dies--they will be as corrupt and unsteady as God is perfect and steady, but thankfully the universe depends on God's perfection, firmness, steadiness, love, and grace, not them.

Another thing we must remember with this text is that Moses is not speaking to the people who came out of Egypt, but their children and grandchildren. This is the situation Moses addresses in vs. 5-7.

The Jews have to be reminded that they are God's special people. God sovereignly created people groups who live in certain parts of the world. I have always wondered why people live in certain areas that do not seem desirable. Why do the Eskimos live near the Arctic? Why do some people live in remote jungles? Why do some people live in areas with little water, and yet all these people love where they live and are willing to protect it? And they find ways to live and flourish there! Part of it is human ingenuity, which the Bible attests to, but here we see that it's not just up to humankind.

All people are under God's providential care, but the Jews are special because of their ancestors and because they will bring the Messiah, and because God made a covenant with them.

I read an interesting story this week about Thanksgiving. Squanto is a name I heard all my life as the name of the Indian who helped the Pilgrims to have the first Thanksgiving. But that is only part of the story. What really happened was that Squanto was kidnapped by slavers and taken to Spain. He was bought by Catholic monks who taught him about Christianity and he eventually learned English. He was freed and came back to New England and was able to speak English and teach the Pilgrims how to grow food in that climate. Now, how did it happen that an English speaking Indian just happened to be in the same place that the Pilgrims were?

We think "wow, what a coincidence," but there are none.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Walmart and got in line behind a woman I know. She is a Christian social worker who has affiliations with this church. She was having trouble with her bank card. I paid her bill for her groceries and she sent me the money the next day. But she would have been up a creek if the Lord hadn't put me there, and I don't think it was an accident.

My point is we want to think we have everything to do with where we are but God has other plans!

In the next twenty verses or so, Moses talks about the possible future for Israel--except it's not just a possibility, but a certainty, so this is a kind of prophecy. He basically tells them that despite all God has done for them and will continue to do, they will turn away, and God will have to use foreign enemies who do not worship Him to punish the Israelites. This is a common theme in the Old Testament. Then the foreign enemies will think that the victories over Israel are their own doing, and they will have to be set right.

So that brings up to v. 36: Deu 32:36 For the LORD will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their power is gone and there is none remaining, bond or free.

Deu 32:37 Then he will say, 'Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge,

Deu 32:38 who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offering? Let them rise up and help you; let them be your protection!

Deu 32:39 "'See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.

God's punishment of Israel is always remedial, to heal and bring them back, not to utterly destroy them. But he has a bigger plan than Israel alone.

Deu 32:43 "Rejoice with him, O heavens; bow down to him, all gods, for he avenges the blood of his children and takes vengeance on his adversaries. He repays those who hate him and cleanses his people's land."

The next verse says that this is the end of Moses song, and after that God takes Moses up to mountain Nebo so he can see the land that he won't be able to enter. Of course, Moses is very old at this time anyway, but the reason is that Moses fell short of the perfect way God wanted him to walk as the leader.

However, Moses did see the land. In Matthew 17 we read of the transfiguration and Moses is there, he is in the land. I think that is significant. Jesus was there in the land then, and the perfect had come. Jesus Christ makes what is impossible under the law possible under grace. As you remember, Peter's response was "let's make three booths in honor of the figures Moses, the lawgiver, Elijah, the great prophet, and Jesus,” putting them all on the same level, and therefore missing the point. A voice from Heaven told them to heed and worship Jesus, not the two figures, who then disappeared. Jesus said, "Do not speak of this until after the resurrection," and Peter does in his epistles. Interestingly, it is not until the Holy Spirit comes to indwell at Pentecost that Peter, who is privy to so many miraculous happenings, is able to stand and deliver, as much as he wants to!

Moses had something reserved for him that was better than walking around in Israel at the age of 120. As much as I would like to travel to Israel, we will get to see it without terrorists and fear.

We are not Israel, and I resist making direct parallels about Old Testament narratives to our lives today as 21st century Christians. But this is what I take away from this text for my life:

1. God uses everything and everyone to achieve his purposes.

2. He is our Rock, which means sustenance, protection, foundation, and standard of perfect judgment. He does no wrong, despite what we see on a temporal basis. Not letting Moses see Israel seems harsh, but there was something better.

3. Jesus is above all and makes what seems harsh under the law make sense because he heals, he redeems, he perfects, he makes right. Jesus brings so much that is far better, as Hebrews teaches.

George Washington Thanksgiving Proclamation

2011-11-22T11:35:00.000-05:00

The following was sent to me as an email by a friend. It reminds me how far we have come in our understanding of the role of government.

By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to "recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d day of October, A.D. 1789.

Khan Academy

2011-11-19T23:25:00.000-05:00

I am singing the praises of Khan Academy. I watched several of these deceptively simple, nonprofessional videos tonight to help me start preparing for the Graduate Record Exam.

They are wonderful! So many of my students struggle with developmental math, even the easiest of concepts. I really believe these would help. Go for it!

Please purchase my novel #2

2011-11-16T09:33:00.000-05:00

KINDLEs are almost being given away--$79.00. Buy one and download my novel!