partsofspeaking

  This is my life group lesson for tomorrow, the first Sunday of Advent, I believe. (I checked, it is, according to all-knowing Google.) That's a good reason to decorate on this weekend, so I suppose I'll be getting them out today. This lesson is on the meaning of the Image of God in humankind. It is Scripture heavy.  “Man is the measure of all things.”   Sophocles, ancient Greek playwright “The unexamined life is not worth living. The unlived life is not worth examining.” (Socrates, some modern wise guy named Adam Philips, a British psychoanalyst) “What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving, how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a god!”   (Shakespeare, Hamlet).   Along with having a correct view of God, we have to have a correct view of humankind. We have to see the balance between our absolute need of Christ because of sin and our basic existence as the image of God.

    II Chronicles 36:11-21 tells this story in condensed form. Keep in mind this is the fall of the southern kingdom and the northern kingdom had been conquered and dispersed in 712 BC, 126 years before. Details are provided in II Kings 23-24.             Zedekiah (unfaithful) was the third son of Josiah (faithful king) after Jehoahaz (unfaithful) and Jehoiakim(unfaithful).   Zedekiah was the last king of Judah (until   Christ) as descendant of David. He was blinded and taken away to captivity in the last group to go. Some people, mostly poor, remained.             What were the consequences/contemporary events/after effects? o    Daniel, tells the story of four young men in the first cohort. o    Ezekiel, a prophet in Babylon to the other captives. Interestingly,he refers to Daniel (but not Daniel to Ezekiel). 14:14, 14:20, 28:3. He refers to Daniel as wise and righteousness, which leads me to believe that Daniel was well known and looked up to as a f

I have two novels I am shopping out to publishers. Two publishers have had them for an extended time with no word on yea or nay. I assume nay on both counts, but publishers are never in a hurry.  My first three were published by a publisher, and my next four were self-published.  I study this subject a  good deal, at least more than most.  Bottom line: most self-published books do not do very well, fewer than 100 on average (probably fewer). It all depends on the platform the author already has, his/her ability and willingness to publicize and market, and oh, yes, the quality of the book, or the appeal--does it gain traction.  Famous example: The Pecan Man.   Also famous example, Sean of the South (Sean Dietrich), whom I just learned about this week through THE HABIT podcast by Jonathan Rogers (Nashville-based). (Excellent podcast, by the way.)  He got contracts with Zondervan, etc. after several self-published books, but he had other platforms (newspapers, magazines, and musical perfo

 Sometimes I post, well, snark. Or snarky lite. It may shock or offend.  But it's all couched in balance (no extreme positions are totally, absolutely correct, in my view), and empathy for those who struggle with certain temptations or past experiences.  But my mouth does get me in trouble.  It did yesterday. Sometimes others just need to be called out, set straight. And it's sometimes not taken well.  I promise to try to focus on the gospel more herein. By that I don't mean the four spiritual laws, but the grace and majesty of Christ. If you want to read more about that, check out my three small studies, The Gospel According to Lazarus, T he Gospel According to the Samaritan Woman, and The Gospel According to Philemon.   I don't have a favorite here. They are six-week studies for groups, or individuals. Sometimes, though, snark is fun and even needed. 

 We college teachers keep being told, "your students brains aren't fully developed until they are 25." Specifically, their frontal lobe and therefore executive function.  I guess that's why all those young men died at Normandy. Purely because their brains weren't developed enough to keep from getting on the boats and storming the shore.  OKAY, I get it, neuroplasticity and brain development and all that. But lots of people have made smart decisions before 25, and lots of people after 25 make dumb decisions. It's more a matter of "cultural capital," as it's called now, or traditionally, "home training." I just don't see a switch turning on at the 25th birthday that says, "Now your executive function functions executively." I think the right language is that it can take until 25 for it to be developed. I think it gives another reason for an excuse for immaturity, like COVID. Anyway, I have an idea for a Hallmark card:  "

2022 will be a year of fun and failure for me. My son married a lovely young woman in a stupendous wedding, I got a dog, went to Netherlands, finished the QEP work with a great video, started a podcast, wrote a novel and short stories and started a book, have plenty of money, reconciled an important relationship, made and sustained friends, got and survived COVID, got my old dog back (so I have two), and learned and learned and learned.   I have been rejected a lot: novels, Fulbright, job, to review grants, some of the QEP, and from teaching part-time for another institution (my responsibility). I have had reason to question, at 66, my competence, and fear that others do.   Yet I am learning to focus and produce quality. I can lead and write better, and teach much better.   We must never stop learning, growing, and stretching.  Our brains do not stop making the synaptical connections that mean learning just because we are older.  Learning is not a zero sum game; ac

There go my people; I must follow them, because I am their leader.

 What is up with these states where the votes aren't counting? We have more technology than ever and the votes can't be counted within 24 hours? No wonder people question the process.This is not to play into conspiracies, but come on! And I don't see why we need four weeks or more of early voting. Why not put an implant in everyone's forehead where they call roll over in bed and push the implant to vote?  Apparently it's not convenient enough now! Rant over.

Ian Bogost notes in The Atlantic . “Social media was never a natural way to work, play, and socialize, though it did become second nature. The practice evolved via a weird mutation, one so subtle that it was difficult to spot happening in the moment,” he writes. “Instead of facilitating the modest use of existing connections—largely for offline life (to organize a birthday party, say)—social software turned those connections into a latent broadcast channel. All at once, billions of people saw themselves as celebrities, pundits, and tastemakers. A global broadcast network where anyone can say anything to anyone else as often as possible, and where such people have come to think they deserve such a capacity, or even that withholding it amounts to censorship or suppression—that’s just a terrible idea from the outset. And it’s a terrible idea that is entirely and completely bound up with the concept of social media itself: systems erected and used exclusively to deliver an endless stream o

No, this is not a prize fight. But it is something I have been ruminating on for quite a while because I am reading the psalms. And because we hear so many sermons from the Old Testament, and because some evangelicals just dismiss the Old Testament and others seem to revel in it.  Paul tells the Corinthians (in I Cor. 10)  that those things were written for our examples, and we are the ones upon whom the end of the ages has come. The writer of Hebrews seems to agree, that   3 9  These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, 40  since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. So we cannot dismiss it, but I would argue we live under a different world view now, that the Old Testament and dare I say Hebraic view of reality, history, and purpose informs ours but stands in stark contrast. We especially see this in the psalms, which are full of rich poetry, poignant and relatable human emoti

One can consider these two psalms in the English Bible as one in the original, and that makes sense because of the repetition.     43:  As the deer [ b ] pants for the water brooks, So pants my soul for You, O God. 2  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and [ c ] appear before God? 3  My tears have been my food day and night, While they continually say to me, “Where is your God?” 4  When I remember these things, I pour out my soul within me. For I used to go with the multitude; I went with them to the house of God, With the voice of joy and praise, With a multitude that kept a pilgrim feast. (Could some of our mental health issues be found in this verse, post-COVID? Why have former church-goers not returned?  "I used to go .... to the house of God....Why are you cast down, O my soul?" 5  Why are you [ d ] cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him [ e ] For the help of His countenance.

 What is this fear-mongering about the death of democracy? Do they not realize that if everyone votes Democratic, that threatens democracy also because only Democrats have a voice? As bad as January 6 was, and it was horrific to watch such lunacy and violence, it was a miniscule fraction of the population. How many were in the capitol? 800 (https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-classified-documents-reveal-number-january-6-protestors-1661296).  That is .00025% of the population. That hardly seems like democracy will die from that fraction.  And more people are voting than ever, voting laws are more lenient than ever....and the rest of us are scratching our heads while James Clyburn says we will be worse off than Nazi Germany after this election.  All that said, I am not crazy with the candidates. Why does it seem like the choices for elected officials are getting worse and worse? I am going to get in trouble one of these days.....

  https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pompeo-runs-desantis-defense-trump-lands-first-blow-new-nickname Answer: probably, and he will.