it's a blog.

New Blog!

2010-02-20T15:18:00.003-05:00

I'm now blogging over at A Wilderness Life!

Come find me there, and please update your links. The posts here at MEtP will eventually be moved to A Wilderness Life... and when I say "eventually" I mean "possibly some time within the next few months, maybe, if I get around to it."

:)

Laura

Theology

2009-08-28T19:01:00.002-04:00

I overheard some ladies at the Chinese restaurant where I picked up lunch yesterday, grumbling about how the men in their Bible study were just so obsessed with the little details of the Bible that they missed the big picture. "It's just all that... theology. Ugh."

I felt very pleased with my self-control that I managed to keep my wails of dismay to myself, and very pleased indeed that I also held back the lecture on the fact that everyone has a theology, it's just either a good one or a bad one, that theology just means "the study or knowledge of GOD," for crying out loud, and everyone on the PLANET possesses beliefs about God (even atheists!) and if you think theology is about arguing over whether Martha and Lazarus were half-siblings or if the punctiliar emphatic aorist in the Greek indicates a completed action, YOU NEED HELP! AUGH!!! But I didn't say it. Nope! Self control, right there.

So I'm just saving THAT rant for my students. HA.

In the words of a wise friend: "You [ought to] study theology the right way, where truth moves your heart to joy and praise. If more of us would do it this way, maybe it wouldn't have such a bad rap in some circles. Theology should not intimidate the uninitiated, but cause them to want more of it, like a thirsty man who finds water in the desert. "

Ch-ch-check it out...

2009-08-17T13:43:00.002-04:00

My buddy Paul is an awesome writer and wicked smaht. So do yourself a favor and head over to his blog, where he's doing a series on whose job it is to train pastors. Get movin' and join the conversation!

Evangelism and the Single Girl

2009-08-12T18:15:00.003-04:00

I stink at evangelism. Really. I can't remember the last time I shared the Gospel, or even had a spiritual conversation, with an unbeliever who wasn't a) related to me and under age ten or b) my student. No, I can, it was probably with one of my neighbors in the apartment complex I lived in two and a half years ago. The only reason I knew my downstairs neighbor, Jasmine, is because she liked to listen to hip-hop while studying at 1 a.m., and the only reason I knew my across-the-hall neighbor is because he was completely insane, not unlike several of the other people who lived there. I don't think I ever told you about the time that one of the downstairs residents kidnapped (catnapped?) my next-door neighbor's cat and refused to return it.

Anyway, I digress.

I live by myself in my condo, which I totally love about 75% of the time, particularly when I don't feel like cleaning. The other 25% of the time, I feel either like a cloistered nun (who, uh, is on Facebook) or a weird recluse. Good thing I don't have any cats. I've met a few of my neighbors, and they're nice people, but I haven't felt comfortable going door-to-door and introducing myself or trying to form relationships with them. And herein lies my problem.

I totally believe that God has put me in this place for this time. It's not an accident that I live here, or that I have the neighbors I have. But what's a single girl to do? This is a pretty good-size metropolitan area I live in, and while it's quite a safe neighborhood, you just never know. I honestly don't feel right about going out by myself to knock on doors -- apart from the safety issues, what do you do with the propriety issues that arise, like finding yourself on the front steps of a house full of college-age boys? But how else besides meeting my neighbors am I supposed to even be in contact with adult non-Christians?

It's a very angsty issue for me, really. I want to be wise and safe, but I must be obedient.

I don't have any concluding thoughts, because I haven't concluded my thinking on this subject. If anyone has any suggestions, insights, or practical considerations, I'm all ears. Or whatever the online equivalent of ears is.

...and this is why I love classical education.

2009-08-08T20:40:00.003-04:00

"True virtue, my dear Mrs. Graham, consists in a conscious resistance to temptation, not ignorance of it."

-- from The Tenant of Wildford Hall, BBC adaptation

A Mixed Bag of Randomness

2009-08-02T20:09:00.005-04:00

Bit of randomness #1: I rarely watch The Simpsons, but I happened to be home when this week's episode ran. It was my favorite kind of Simpsons' episode, made up of a handful of mini stories that the characters tell each other. While The Simpsons' sharp political critique has been blunted of late, this episode leveled some mid-range missiles at public education, showing the brilliant Maggie's efforts at daycare creativity being thwarted and suppressed by a mediocrity-obsessed headmaster who knocks over her block sculptures and ruthlessly enforces conformity. Good stuff.

Bit of randomness #2: Chowhound, a foodie-type message board that is priceless for seeking out info and advice about everything food-related -- grilling burgers, sourcing uni, pairing wine, finding a great Lebanese restaurant in Sydney, using an immersion blender -- you name it, you can find it on Chowhound. One of the recent topics asked what typically "foodie" foods we just will not eat. Here's what I came up with (partially):

Pate and/or liver mousses and/or meat-based terrines
Sea urchin
Raw bivalves in general
Offal (except maybe sweetbreads. MAYBE)
Raw seafood in general
Pork belly (except in bacony form)
Caviar
Blue cheese
Washed-rind cheese
Mushrooms, unless chopped so finely that I can't detect them

Now, dear friends and sharp-eyed readers will recognize a common theme here: texture! 95% of the time, if I dislike a food, it's not the flavor that puts me off, but the texture! Anybody else have texture "issues"?

Bit of randomness #3: In the last few months, I've watched a half-dozen French movies (yay, Netflix!). I couldn't tell you what any one of them was about, but I can tell you that I liked them all. What is it that is just so satisfying about French cinema? Languid, unhurried pace? A decided lack of the overwrought melodrama that pervades even the best American movies? The deliberate avoidance of the obvious? Yeah, it's probably all that, but the verdict is that French movies are teh awesome.

Bit of randomness #4: I am at last getting around to that blasted no-knead bread everyone was going on about all over the interwebz last year. I'm not what you'd call a "joiner" with the latest fads, and besides, I was pretty sure you needed a big covered enamel cast-iron pot with a lid that doesn't have a plastic handle on it, in which to bake the bread, and I was just not willing to go out and buy one. I'd love one. I'll probably get one eventually. But just so I can bake one kind of bread? Probably not.

Bit of randomness #5: Yay! School! As much as I am enjoying my summer (and I am!), I'm really feeling ready to get back in the groove of teaching. I function much better with a schedule, and I struggle to finish tasks when I have days and weeks of unscheduled time to kick around in -- I can always excuse my laziness with, "Oh, I can just do it tomorrow, right?" Strangely, when I have more to do, I can get more done at home. Hm, maybe I should get started with lesson plans? That's an idea.

Does God Change His Mind?

2009-07-31T12:57:00.004-04:00

An email from my favorite theologically minded friend started this post. Recently, Craig Blomberg, a well-known New Testament scholar whose work on the historical accuracy and reliability of the Gospels has been of great help to many a student, pastor, and layman, wrote an article explaining why he is a "Calminian" -- a jokey riff on the "Why I Am/ Am Not a Calvinist" books of recent years. Blomberg is basically trying to put himself clearly outside the Reformed mindset once and for all. I've read a few expressions of disappointment, and an article agreeing with his position, which is basically what I'm going to attempt to respond to today.

First of all, let me point out that Craig Blomberg is way smarter than I am. I don't pretend that I can tangle with him intellectually. But despite that, I still think he's wrong. Second, let me point out that Craig Blomber is also a brother in Christ, despite what I think are his mistakes on this front. I'm not denigrating his faith or his commitment to the body of Christ, nor am I trying to write off his contribution to the Christian community. One of his books sits on my shelf, and it's staying there! But anyway, here goes.

At one point in his article, Blomberg refers to the story of Joseph's brothers coming to him in Egypt for help during the great famine. Joseph's famous line, "You intended it for evil, but God intended it for good," Blomberg insists, is not a declaration of God's sovereignty, but a mere statement of fact. He says: "Two separate agents, two separate wills, at cross purposes with each other, neither described as logically or chronologically prior to the other. Neither is said to cause the other; they occur simultaneously." What's really happening, he says, is that both wills operate at the same time, without one being over the other.

Well, hold up. I get what he's saying. Joseph says to his brothers, "You sold me into slavery out of a wicked intention, but God's power trumped your evil desires." In fact, God's purposes to preserve his people included the brothers' evil plans and actions. God is so powerful that he can even use human evil -- the condition of our fallen nature! -- to accomplish his purposes. That's comprehensive sovereignty. This is a copout. Blomberg's a great guy, and his work on the historical reliability of the Gospels is priceless, but he just does NOT want to be in the "God is totally sovereign" camp AT ALL. (Plus, calling himself a "Calminian" is cute, but the fact is that there isn't a responsible Arminian on the planet who wouldn't totally acknowledge God's sovereignty in human history. So he's really a Cal-Open Theist-ian. Which isn't quite as cute.)

Moving on to broader arguments about God's sovereignty, I often encounter people who point to the word "relent" in the Scriptures and say, "See? That means that God goes back on his word! If he really is completely sovereign over everything, how can he appear to be influenced by the prayers of his people?" I used to use this argument myself! Well, yes, "relent" means that he will not do what he said he would do, out of a gracious desire to preserve and defend his people. But a couple things:

1) This DOES NOT MEAN that God changes his mind or that he's fickle or doesn't know what he's ultimately going to do. The problem with the argument here is that, while they're trying to just draw a line around the Reformed understanding of God's sovereignty, they END UP basing their whole view on the idea that God actually changes his mind. Listen up: this is where guys like Greg Boyd and Clark Pinnock got started, and where they end up is saying that God takes risks, that he doesn't even KNOW the outcome of certain events, and that in some cases WE have more sovereignty over circumstances than the creator of the universe. That's a pretty stupid place to end up and still call yourself a Christian. It's just like how the Mormons use the methods of 19th century German liberal philosophers to convince people that the Book of Mormon is ok -- the argument might convince people, but you're cutting off the branch you're sitting on!

2) Check out this article. There's some uncool argumentation happening here, and this isn't the only place I've heard this line of reasoning, not by a long shot. You ever hear of "weasel words"? They're little words or phrases that a speaker or writer slips in, sometimes without even knowing it himself, that unfairly denigrate the other position -- it's like straw man + ad hominem all at once. The one that popped out to me was "real relationship." Yates and others imply that, unless God limits his own foreknowledge or sovereignty in some way, it's impossible for him to enter into "real relationship" with his creation. This is nonsense. We don't get to make up the rules for how God interacts with us based on our experiences with each other. The scriptures are full of the truths of God bringing the dead back to life both literally and figuratively. But does that one-sided interaction, that ultimate demonstration of total sovereignty, mean that God has some kind of counterfeit relationship with those he raises to life? Did Jesus have a more or less "real relationship" with Lazarus when he raised him, single-handed, from death?

3) There's also some plain old ridiculousness that gets shoveled around. To quote Yates, who is taking up a common anti-sovereignty argument: "The statements that Yahweh will harden the Pharaoh’s heart at the beginning of this process (cf. Exod 4:21; 7:3) are an expression that Yahweh’s purposes will ultimately prevail in this struggle but not that he dictates or determines the Pharaoh’s responses." Uh... what? What part of "I will harden his heart" is the tough part to interpret? "I will" meaning it's gonna happen, "harden his heart" meaning that's what he's gonna do. Yup. You have to do some pretty sexy contortionism to get around the plain meaning of that sucker.

4) The kicker is the "only a really sovereign God could accomplish his purposes in a universe where he has limited his sovereignty," also known as the "it's true because it ain't" argument. A God who can accomplish his purposes in such a give-and-take, unresolved universe that anti-sovereignty folks try to set up, is truly sovereign? Huh? So only a God who is truly sovereign and omniscient could operate in a universe where somethings are outside his sovereignty and beyond his omniscience? Yeah, that makes sense. What's the purpose of prayer if the God we're praying to has chosen this event to be one of the hands-off parts of world history? How are we to know the difference? Or does he wait until we pray and then decide to re-institute the sovereignty he's chosen to put on hold?

Unlike Blomberg and lots of other people who use these kinds of arguments, I'm happy to live knowing that my choices are BOTH really choices that I really make with my time-bound will and mind AND are mysteriously part of God's plan. It's called paradox, and we have to embrace it, largely because our finite brains can't fathom the depths of God's will. Let's not try to eliminate paradox by making God more like us. That's a pretty dumb Bible study method. Dig?

Sigh

2009-07-27T20:12:00.003-04:00

Have you ever done this? Taken an accidental two-month sabbatical from your blog and then just wracked your brain fruitlessly for days, trying to come up with something really, really profound with which to break the silence?

It's just me, then?

I have had six thousand or so ideas sliding around half-formed in my summer-gelatinized brain. (Here's a sampling: The reason many pols and bureaucrats support abortion is that they're unwilling to tackle the more difficult task of dealing with pregnant women and the emotional complexities behind unwanted pregnancies. Modern American labor and delivery practices are sickeningly barbaric, and we've got the stats to prove it. Barbara Mouser's The Five Aspects of Woman is great, and I learned a bunch of stuff about womanhood listening to it. Why is U2 SO INCREDIBLY POPULAR?) But none of them, shockingly, have made the cut so far -- I just can't get stuff to congeal into anything coherent.

Once my schedule and my brain are working a little less... uh... Summer-time-ish-ly... I'm sure I'll develop one of the above topics (or, I mean, you know me, something completely different) into an actual post.

Tune in next time to see if I go for the controversial, the political, the theological, or the utterly vapid and meaningless! WOO!!!

What's Up With Those Old Guys?

2009-05-18T19:41:00.000-04:00

The brilliant Mikey Lynch posted (AGES ago now) a couple musings on a post at The Sola Panel (har har) about the younger generation's responsibility in engaging the older generation. As I pondered his ponderings, I was reminded of what has been happening in the SBC over the last few years.

For those of you who don't know, the SBC went through a pretty dramatic and trying time in the 1990s. The denomination as a whole had really slipped doctrinally -- the seminaries were getting increasingly liberal (and not in a good way but in a "the Bible? Meh." kinda way), the missionary zeal that had characterized the SBC for generations was getting lost, and the whole thing was generally not going in a good direction. So a group of bold, courageous men decided that they were going to do whatever they could to put conservative leaders in positions of influence in order to steer the ship around, so to speak. Did they do everything with perfectly pure motives and methods? No. But the upshot of the whole "conservative resurgence" as it came to be known was a recapturing of the centrality of the Gospel and of the historical foundations of the SBC.

But that was almost two decades ago. So what's a veteran of the conservative resurgence to do? In too many cases, it seems, the answer to that is sitting around nursing war wounds, talking about "kids these days" and generally being grumpy. Which wouldn't be worth wasting bandwidth on, except that many of them are still in those positions of leadership they worked so hard to get in pre-resurgence days! Their grumpiness can't just be laughed off -- it's grumpiness with the power and influence to, for example, de-fund church plants that don't have such a hard line about alcohol as many SBC churches do. Or to carpet-bomb an entire state with anti-Calvinist propaganda dvds. Or to fire a trustee of the International Mission Board for not toeing the party line.

What's up with that?

Anyhoodles, the SP article and following discussion, as well as the discussion on Mikey's blog, are enlightening and interesting. Check 'em out.

Books, Thunderstorms, End of the School Year, and Other Miscellaneous Musings

2009-05-16T11:16:00.002-04:00

Last night I went browsing at a couple of bookstores to try to find the Anne of Green Gables series in box set. The school has a few of them, and I've been reading (or, devouring) them this last week. Have you ever thought of books as friends? The Anne books are that for me -- dear old well-beloved friends. Monday night, when I was finishing up Anne of Green Gables, I sobbed -- sobbed! -- through the last four chapters, and laughed at myself for crying so hard, and then cried some more. If you've read it, you probably understand. It's been wonderfully restful to come home from school and sit in my comfy chair and just read for hours. I haven't done that in far too long.

On my way home from the bookstore, I got caught out in the worst thunderstorm of the year so far. Rain was coming down, hammer and tongs, with lightning streaking across the sky and downbursts of wind from the edge of the storm. When it started hailing, I pulled over in front of the Lyndon fire station, got in the rain shadow of the building, and prayed that the doors wouldn't suddenly open and a fire engine come roaring out! I listened in dismay as the hail pelted the back end of my car, and when it subsided, I pulled around to the side of the building just in case and waited for the rain to let up. It was wild! The hail turned out to be in the half-inch to two-inch range -- definitely the largest hail I've seen since I've been here.

I have two more academic days left at school, and then three fun days which will involve a baseball game, a field day, a talent show, an awards ceremony, and a picnic! And then three glorious months of Summer stretching out in front of me, waiting to be filled with cook-outs and visits from family and afternoons when it's too hot to leave the house and days by the pool and sunburns and hot, muggy air, and melty ice cream and all manner of other delights.

Do all teachers get a panicky feeling about how much hard-fought learning their students will inevitably forget between now and next year? Ooh. That reminds me. I need to get my hands on a couple copies of the books I'm assigning my 8th graders (almost 9th graders! Imagine!) over the Summer... Mwahahaha...

Ummmm...

2009-05-11T22:09:00.003-04:00

*tap, tap*

Ahem.

This thing on?

Uh, sorry. I'm probably the worst blogger who ever blogged. It has been approximately seven million years since I blogged. My excuse is pretty decent: long school days followed by mental exhaustion compounded by zero inspiration to write. But.

I just couldn't resist blogging about the most boring subject in history, something so boring it's actually code for boring -- the weather.

Last "spring" (ha) we didn't really have much of a spring. We had a soggy winter, followed by a few half-heartedly springlike days, followed immediately by 24-hour-a-day air conditioning weather. It was hideous. But apparently God has been smiling on Kentucky these last couple of months and, boy howdy, have we had some unbelievable weather. Cool, breezy nights, and warm, sunny days, punctuated by big beautiful thunderstorms and enough days of soaking rain to keep us all from taking those sunshiny mornings and long languid evenings for granted.

Because the nights have been staying so cool, the flowers have hung on the trees much longer than in years past, and for one glorious week we had gorgeous, lacy dogwoods AND daffodils AND irises AND tulips AND the first azaleas. Cheeky azaleas -- I just can't get enough of them. They're like the girl at your first school dance who wears a sparkly, low-cut dress and makes all the boys stare. Brazen, those hot-pink azaleas, I tell you!

Hooray! It's supposed to get down to 49 tonight! It's a marvel, this weather. I wish it'd go on forever.

What's On Laura's Mind Today?

2009-04-14T18:14:00.003-04:00

Hooray, I am done with my bloody taxes finally. Yuck. I HATE doing taxes. Luckily I've found an inexpensive (and relatively idiot-proof) online way to do everything, and e-filed both my state and federal returns. No trip to the post office! Woot! Also, refund! WOOT!

Top Gear. Seriously. I would love to watch this show every week, but the only way to get it in the U.S. is to pay major ducats for turbo-cable with seven billion other channels. Which, I mean, I'm not gonna lie, I would totally love, but it's bordering on a hundred bucks a month. And I love Top Gear, but really.

My students are the BESTEST. I wish I had the time to go into detail about why each one of them is so precious to me, but I don't want to try your patience with that many words. As crazy-making as kids can sometimes be, not a day goes by when I don't laugh with total delight at something one of them does. I mean really. My eighth graders especially are just the joy of my life.

Passover! My community group had a great time doing a little Passover seder this past week. It was a blast -- everybody came over to my house and we rigged up as many spots as we could and did an extremely abbreviated version of a typical Messianic seder, since a normal one can last 3 or 4 hours! Good food, good company, and a cool insight into the last meal Jesus ate with his disciples.

Did you know that Deadliest Catch is Discovery's most popular show? If you've watched it, you probably understand WHY it is, and if you haven't, you're seriously missing out. It's got the perfect reality-show alchemy: honest-to-goodness peril + salty, interesting characters + million-dollar rewards. Crab fishing in the Bering Sea is truly one of the world's most dangerous jobs, and not a season goes by without the captains hearing the crushing news that one of their sister ships has gone down in a storm. The captains themselves are hilarious -- tough, smart, foul-mouthed, third and fourth generation fishermen. And the million-dollar payout isn't a prize sponsored by advertisers, but the actual earnings of the captains and crew. Watch it! It's seriously addictive.

Spring in Louisville is gorgeous when it actually shows up. Last year, we had the shortest spring EVER -- freezing cold followed by two weeks of nice weather followed by blazing hot summer. But this year... it's been rainy and fickle and crazy, with thunderstorms and cool weather. Great stuff! The dogwoods are starting to bloom right now too. Ahhh...

An Open Letter To My Aussie Friends

2009-04-08T16:21:00.002-04:00

There are a few things you should know before Em and Gwyd get back to 'Straya in a few weeks' time. I thought it would be best if you had a bit of preparation for the stories, rumors, and inside jokes they'll be armed with upon their return.

Here's what you need to know:

1. Em and Gwyd are both pregnant with babies made (Mighty-Boosh-like) from barbecued ribs, Indian food, and Dr. Pepper. The appropriate response to this: jealousy.

2. They will definitely try to explain something called an "orc Elvis" or "orc Elvis impersonator." The explanation will probably involve snippets of Elvis tunes, snarling, and discussions of bouffant hairdos. The correct response to this is mildly-amused puzzlement.

3. They have perfected their imitations of American homeschool kids. The correct response to this is to ask them whether or not the Balrog has wings, if Hobbits can be found in Mammoth Cave, or if the economy can survive without the contribution of Wood Nymphs.

4. Speaking of Mammoth Cave, Gwyd has developed a theory about how Mammoth Cave was built. If you ask him about this, be sure he replies in his American homeschool kid voice.

5. The next time you are around them while they're eating, their "Mmm" noises in response to the tastiness of the food will likely turn into an "mmm"-punctuated laugh fest. They might wipe tears. The appropriate reaction to this is awkward silence. I'm sure you can manage it.

Also be sure to ask them about Andrew's reaction to seeing Androdgo, and who carried the food down to the tuberculosis patients in Mammoth Cave. You have a few weeks to prepare yourselves.

Kentucky Mountain Boys

2009-04-04T23:50:00.004-04:00

Mammoth Boy

So we went to Mammoth Cave today. Em and I were there, despite photographic evidence to the contrary. Who do you think was taking all these great shots of the boys? In the grand Tassie tradition (ahem. Or something) of Mountain Boys photo shoots, and because of the amazing natural beauty of Mammoth Cave National Park... I give you, Kentucky Mountain Boys.

Waterfall Boy

Naughty Stars and Stripes Forever!

Jesse James

Rugged Pioneer Explorers!

Yeah! It was a very good day. Coming up: more food pics, Sojourn, and evidence of Em's presence in America.

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!

2009-04-04T00:39:00.004-04:00

They're both doing quite well in America and enjoying themselves. But Gwyd's... found a few American foods he really likes. Yeah, let's go with that:

Yeah...

I am in possession of ...

2009-04-01T21:36:00.000-04:00

... two Aussies.

Why Em and Gwyd Will Love the American South

2009-03-30T22:18:00.003-04:00

So, I've come up with a little theory about why I think my Aussie friends Em and Gwyd are going to love the American South. Incidentally, this theory also helps explain why I loved Tasmania so much.

Both Tassie and Kentucky:

have profound, and often unappreciated, natural beauty
are looked down upon by the "cooler" parts of the country
have a whole set of jokes directed toward them -- jokes relating to inbreeding, ignorance, etc. (Seriously, name one thing you know about Kentucky that's not a) the movie Elizabethtown or b) about hillbillies marrying their cousins)
have a sort of homey, mellow coolness all their own
have a legit, growing indie music/art scene

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it. We'll see if my theory is correct.

Grrrrrrr...

2009-03-29T20:48:00.003-04:00

The story of my life involves one rather irritating theme, and it goes a little something like this:

1. I like something that might seem a bit odd.
2. I am too timid to like it openly, and nobody understands when I DO confess that I like it.
3. EVERY SINGLE FREAKING PERSON IN THE UNIVERSE starts liking that same thing, and then I look like a joiner, a poser, a groupie.
4. That thing I liked loses its charm because it a) gets copied, b) gets dumbed-down because of its popularity, or c) becomes so ubiquitous that starts to be sickening, like eating too much sugar.

GEEKS. Three or four years ago, there weren't t-shirts in every teenybopper store that said "I Heart Geeks." There wasn't sitcom about socially awkward nerds befriending their hotcha neighbor. There wasn't a reality show pairing geeks and models. That skinny intellectual hipster look was only to be found in Williamsburg, NYC.

WHATEVER, PEOPLE. I LOVED NERDS BEFORE THEY WERE COOL. ARGH!

From "The Knowledge of the Holy"

2009-03-26T14:27:00.000-04:00

"The mind looks backward in time till the dim past vanishes, then turns and looks into the future till thought and imagination collapses from exhaustion: and God is at both points, unaffected by either."

-- A.W. Tozer

Random, and Taking Bets

2009-03-24T10:37:00.003-04:00

OK, so I'm currently taking bets on how soon some trendy seeker-sensitive church will tweak the Pussycat Dolls' new single "Jai Ho! (You Are My Destiny)" and turn it into "Oh Lord! (You Are My Destiny)" It has SO much of that cheesy-romantic language common to CCM "Jesus is my boyfriend" pop worship music.

Over/under on two months?

I'm on Spring Break this week. It's awesome. I'm catching up on my sleep, getting some projects finished, tidying my house for my guests who will be here on April 1, working on grades (a little), hanging out with friends... pretty good week so far.

I've also updated my other blog, the foodie/frugality one with a post about homemade cleaners, a links roundup for some great thrifty recipes, and a step-by-step guide to making your own yogurt!

Sorry the posting here has been so scarce. I just haven't had the time to post on a lot of theology stuff, and I'm mostly theologied out because of a series of great conversations I've been having with a friend (you know who you are...). I hope to get some more consistency here -- or at least to write a bunch of stuff this week and schedule some future posts!

Thoughts on Congregational Church Music

2009-03-04T09:14:00.004-05:00

If you haven't visited Sojourn's music blog, you need to do a couple things. First, repent. Second, get over there. And third, as penance, post a link on Facebook, email links to everyone you know who is even vaguely connected to music ministry in churches, and go back to the site every Wednesday for the next ten weeks.

Bobby Gilles, one of Sojourn's lyricists and the blog's moderator, is going to be posting a series of short videos every Wednesday -- videos of a round-table discussion with Mike Cosper, Sojourn's worship/arts pastor, Chip Stam, founder of the SBTS school of church music and worship, and Harold Best, a well-known author and the former dean of Wheaton college, best known for his books Unceasing Worship and Music Through the Eyes of Faith.

This week's video clip is all about congregational music -- ranging from style questions to thoughts on tradition. Check it out!

Single Women in the Church

2009-02-22T10:48:00.002-05:00

Craig wrote a little paragraph a few days ago asking how the church can do a better job ministering to "older" (meaning 30+) single women. 71 comments later (as of this posting), there have been some dynamite suggestions and some brutally honest critiques as well. I would highly recommend reading the entire thread -- especially if you're in church ministry of any kind. It's very revealing of the pain and struggles unmarried women go through, and amazingly gracious and balanced despite its length. This one has so far defied Godwin's Law.

Abstinence or Chastity?

2009-02-21T09:37:00.001-05:00

Ever since the oh-so-wise and ultra-experienced new mom Bristol Palin expressed her opinion about "abstinence" being "unrealistic," the Christian blog world has been abuzz, with bloggers tsk-tsking, scolding, pontificating, and hand-wringing by turns.

I'll be the first to admit that the abstinence movement (the stalwart True Love Waits and various smaller efforts) has been a joke and a general failure. A Slate.com article from a while back (one of many on the subject) called such programs a success on a sociological level, in that they motivated participants to delay sexual intercourse by around eighteen months, on average. Wow! Eighteen whole months! What a triumph...

"Joke" might sound like a bit of a strong word. It is. But in the words of Inigo Montoya, "Lemme splain. No, there is too much. Lemme sum up."

Abstinence is a stupid term. Abstaining is something teetotalers do, something Sylvester Graham touted. However fancy the packaging, the word "abstinence" still feels punitive. It's the absence of something. And as any dieter will tell you, when you feel deprived, you're that much more likely to splash out by having an appetizer AND a rich dessert AND a glass of wine.

But a proper view of human sexuality is not supposed to feel like eating celery sticks at the Food and Wine Classic. Sexuality is woven into the created order. It's got a whole book of the Bible dedicated to it. It's supposed to be honored and protected. It's meant to be celebrated by the community of faith. It's part of our identity as image-bearers of God.

Do you see why it's completely insufficient to say merely that true love (whatever that means) "waits"?

Waits for what? Waits how? Waits why?

I think we need to completely remove the idea of "abstinence" from our discourse -- particularly the discourse we aim at young people -- and put in its place the idea of chastity. Chastity is both broader and narrower in its focus than "abstinence." To abstain is to do without something -- in this case, sexual intimacy. To be chaste is to view sexuality and sexual intimacy as something godly, valuable, and noble, to be experienced freely and joyfully in the right context, and to be directed toward that context. It's not a "don't." While abstinence is necessarily temporary, chastity is to be practiced throughout the Christian life.

(As a side note, I can't tell you how many times I've heard Christians say, "I was sexually pure until I got married." Hold up! If you've only ever been intimate with your spouse, you are STILL sexually pure. I believe this rather amusing and revealing malapropism stems from the idea that sexual purity is for the virgin but not the wife -- still perpetuating the old stereotype that sexual intimacy is a malum in se rather than an evil only when misused.)

I signed a True Love Waits pledge as a young teen, and I even wore a promise ring for a while until I misplaced the darn thing (sorry, Dad!). But I did so alongside dozens of friends who went on to forget those foundationless and hastily-written promises, which sounded so meaningful at age fourteen but somehow wore thin over time.

The truth is, we have failed to give young people a compelling reason to direct their sexuality toward marriage. At the same time, we've encouraged them to put off marriage, making even compelling reasons ring hollow! We've hinted that sex is dirty and sinful. We've told them No, No, No, No, and that's the end of it. We've told them they have to conquer the beast of temptation alone. We've spoken in hushed and shocked tones of fallen women and p orn addicts and all manner of other sexual sinners, driving the struggling and fainting heart into isolation.

Worst of all, we've failed to put before them the blinding glory of Christ and the plan of the Almighty God of the universe for human relationships. We've failed to tell them of the provision of Christ for our every need, and for the precious gift of the Holy Spirit who comforts us in our distress and guides us into all truth.

Given all these failures, is abstinence unrealistic for most young people? Of course.

But chastity, grace, and the glory of God? That's a message well worth our time to tell.

There is A Fountain

2009-02-20T13:00:00.003-05:00

There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuel's veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief rejoiced to see
That fountain in his day;
And there may I, though vile as he,
Wash all my sins away.

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood
Shall never lose its power
Till all the ransomed church of God
Be saved, to sin no more.

E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream
Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die.

One of my favorite hymns -- this one almost always makes me cry. Little known fact: girls will undoubtedly remember in the movie version of Sense and Sensibility the scene where Marianne is brutally critiquing poor Edward Ferrars's reading of a poem. We catch the lines: "No voice divine the storm allayed/ no light propitious shone..." The author of that poem, William Cowper, is also the author of "There is a Fountain."

Cowper battled depression his whole life. I love the fact that, in the midst of his struggles, he wrote such a beautiful hymn that expresses not just his personal hope but the hope of "all the ransomed church of God."

The Funniest Video I Have EVER Seen

2009-02-16T16:03:00.003-05:00

Praying and Waiting!

2009-02-15T10:50:00.005-05:00

UPDATE! She's here! Olivia Kious Jolly, born today (Eastern Standard Time), but 7:20 a.m. February 16th in Hobart, Tasmania! Congratulations!

Just a quick update to ask you to pray for my dear friends Mike and Christine in Tasmania, who just headed to the hospital where they are hoping to meet their baby girl, Olivia! Pray that it's not a false alarm, that the labor and delivery go smoothly, and that Olivia enters the world in perfect health!

Introducing MadEnough Tips!

2009-02-10T09:57:00.004-05:00

Hey all! I've been working on a new blog for all the Kitchen Keeping tips I've posted on here, as well as lots of other fun stuff on frugal living, gardening, preserving, and much more! Add it to your blogroll if you like, bookmark it, follow it, or just stop by occasionally.

All the frugal and KK tips will be moved over to MadEnoughTips next week, and It's a Blog will go back to its regularly scheduled programming.

Kitchen Keeping Tips #5 -- Waste Not, Want Not

2009-02-08T10:26:00.003-05:00

I just finished reading a long thread on the Chowhound boards about culinary gems that usually get thrown away. It was a great reminder to me to return to my blog and continue the Kitchen Keeping series with a post about using everything in your kitchen.

To me, frugality is, in large part, about stewardship. My desire is to make the best possible use of the things I buy, so when I shop, I think in terms of how I can use up every item, true -- but throwing food away is not the only issue! Anyone on a budget hates throwing away food. My previous posts on planning and shopping can help you cut down on (or even eliminate) food waste.

But what if you were discarding stuff that you thought of as trash, but that wound up actually being a highly valuable asset to your cooking? Here is a list of things I never throw away:

1. Stale or old bread. Dried out bread (or heels or crusts) should be ground and stored in a bag or canister in the freezer. You can dry it out in a low oven for easier grinding. Dozens of uses: as filler/binder in meatballs, as a crispy coating for any meat, as a thickening agent in soups, etc.

2. Vegetable scraps. Carrot ends, celery leaves, parsley stems, and onion and garlic skins go into my stock bag to be either made into a delicious veggie stock or added to chicken scraps to make a rich chicken stock. If you're just making a veggie stock, you can add any other kind of veggie scraps you have on hand. I wouldn't add potato peels, but other than that, the sky's the limit. Also, re-think what "scraps" are. Don't toss radish tops, use them like you would any other green. Don't throw away broccoli stems, peel them and thinly slice or shred to add to stir fries or salads.

3. Bones. Seriously, if you roast a chicken or use bone-in chicken parts or have a ham with a bone or beef or pork ribs or anything else with a bone in it, for the love of flavorful cooking, do NOT throw those things away!! Even if you don't have the time to use it right away, at least put it in the freezer and mark your calendar. If you have beef or pork bones, toss them in a vegetable soup to add richness (not to mention nutrition!). If you have chicken bones or a whole carcass, throw that in a pot with your veggie scraps (along with skin and, if you're lucky and you have a good chicken, the neck and innards), cover with water and simmer for a few hours, and you'll have the most delicious stock you ever tasted! If you have a ham bone, put it into a pot with any kind of beans, some carrot and onion, and let it simmer all day. You'll be amazed at how much flavor you can get from something most of us would just throw out.

4. Cereal. Almost any kind of cereal can be used to make muffins, and there are dozens of good recipes online. Yesterday I made honey-walnut-banana muffins because I had a couple cups of Kashi cereal sitting around, four black bananas in my freezer, and a few tablespoons of walnuts languishing in a bowl on my counter. Something I would have otherwise pitched out became my breakfasts for this week AND next week!

5. Milk. People: ignore, forget about, and reject the date on your milk carton, ok? The milk I put in my tea on Friday was three and a half weeks past the date, and it was just as sweet and fresh as the day I bought it. Here is the trick: every time you get milk out of the fridge, give it a quick shake before you put it back. It will last a good month past the date on the carton, easily. And if you forget to shake it for a few days and the last of the jug goes sour, bake something. Sour milk is perfect for biscuits, scones, cakes, pancakes, even homemade bread.

Next up: a fun new project...

Kitchen Keeping Tips #4 -- Making the Most of Your Pantry (Pantry Philosophy Edition!)

2009-01-31T16:43:00.004-05:00

What is a pantry, and what goes in it? Why should you have a well-stocked pantry?

Your pantry is any storage area in or adjacent to your kitchen where you keep dry goods (like rice, pasta, beans, grains, flour, etc.), canned goods, and other nonperishables. For the purposes of this post, your freezer counts as part of your food storage. If you have a deep freeze, that counts, too.

In the past, I've given a pantry list, along with ten pantry-only recipes and a 30-day menu plan, as shower gifts for brides-to-be. I figure it's incredibly practical. How many times have you come home, hungry and exhausted, from your family vacation, only to be greeted by an empty fridge? And if your schedule looks anything like mine, there are times when you literally have no time to grocery shop. A well-stocked pantry will get you through those moments with minimal stress.

Think about a steaming bowl of spicy, savory pasta puttanesca. Or a rich, comforting risotto. Or Cuban red beans and rice. Or a quick vegetarian black bean chili, served over creamy polenta. You can make all of these things in thirty minutes or less, with only ingredients you have in your pantry, if you stock it according to the list in the previous post.

But just how do you do that without breaking the bank?

It's simple. Make a list like the pantry list below of all the items you do not have, and keep it with your shopping bags (you do use cloth shopping bags, don't you?) or in your purse. Each time you go to the grocery store, pick up one or two of the items, or more if you can find them on sale. You're going to be saving money by using my shopping plan anyway, so you'll be well able to afford those few extra items -- and they're cheap items!

The next time you're in the neighborhood of an ethnic grocery (there are Indian, Korean, and Mexican groceries close to me, so that's where I go), pick up some of those ingredients as well. Indian groceries are a fantastic source for cheap spices, lentils, and basmati rice. Mexican groceries often have canned and dried beans that are much more reasonably priced than a regular grocery store. An Asian market is obviously the best place to buy your everyday rice, and is a surprisingly reliable source for fresh, unique produce.

If you're a meat-eater and own a deep freeze, look into sourcing meat directly from local producers. If you put half a beef or a whole pig -- butchered and custom cut, of course -- into your freezer once a year (almost always at a dramatically lower price per pound than comparable meat at the grocery store), you can keep eating the meat you enjoy while saving literally hundreds per year.

Now, how much to buy? The answer to that involves three considerations: how much money can you save by buying in bulk, how much space do you have, and how quickly will you go through pantry items?

I have a very small kitchen, and all of my pantry items are in one standard sized cupboard and one small cupboard above my stove. Plus, I'm cooking for one most of the time. So buying beans or rice or flour in fifty-pound sacks isn't practical for me. I don't have any place to put that amount of food, and there's no way I could get through it all before it got bugs or went rancid and I had to throw it away, which negates any savings I could get by buying such large amounts.

But let's say you have six kids, your house has a root cellar, and you bake all your own bread and eat rice and beans twice a week. For you, buying rice and beans and flour in fifty-pound sacks would probably be a great plan, and the best use of your money!

Here are some good rules of thumb for determining how much to buy:

1. Buy as much of the product (rice, pasta, beans, flour, etc.) as you can store, in the largest package possible. It's more economical to buy staple foods in large quantities than small, not to mention the environmental benefit of reducing packaging materials.
2. Balance that with how much you can use before the item gets rancid (a consideration with whole grains and nuts), attracts bugs, loses potency or flavor (as with baking powder, herbs and spices, tea and coffee, etc.), or gets freezer burn in the case of your "freezer pantry."
3. Plan. I cannot over-emphasize this. PLAN to use each item in turn as you plan your meals. Focus your meal plans on your pantry stocks rather than on meat -- in other words, if you use a flex-plan like I outlined in my Shopping post, plan to have rice one day a week and pair it with a meat that was on sale at the grocery this week (or go meatless and do rice and beans!). Another day, have pasta with another meat that was on sale (or, again, go meatless). Have a meal that puts a homemade bread at the center, like pizza, crusty bread with soup, or hot sandwiches.

Whew! That was a LOT of info, but I hope it was helpful!

Kitchen Keeping Tips #4 -- Making the Most of Your Pantry (Reference Edition!)

2009-01-30T13:09:00.000-05:00

So now the question is, what's in a well-stocked pantry?

The answer varies depending on what you enjoy, but in general, this is what I wouldn't want to be without:

Dry goods:

several kinds of pasta, including long (like linguine) and short (like ziti) and whatever other kinds blow your skirt up.
brown and white rice. I also include jasmine and basmati, just 'cuz I like 'em.
several kinds of legumes (a.k.a. "pulses"). Lentils are the quickest-cooking and don't require soaking, so I keep two or three kinds on hand. Right now I have plain brown lentils and red split lentils. I also keep white beans, black beans, and chickpeas. flour. This is such a no-brainer that I hesitate to list it, but you ought to have at least All-Purpose flour on hand. You're fifteen minutes from biscuits, at minimum. I also have whole wheat flour, rye flour, and bread flour.
sweeteners, including at least brown sugar, white sugar, and honey. I also keep molasses. I really love raw sugar in my tea, but it's a bit pricey, so I don't always keep it around. Real maple syrup is another rare indulgence.
cornmeal. Being in the South, grits are also a pantry staple.
rolled oats
miscellaneous: I also keep steel-cut oats, walnuts, various breakfast cereals, and homemade baking mix (like Bisquick, but I make it). Onions and garlic are also absolute necessities that keep well for long periods of time -- they're halfway between dry goods and produce.

Canned goods:

Never, ever, ever let yourself run out of canned whole tomatoes. EVER!! They are the foundation for awesome and cheap Italian, Mexican, and Indian dishes.
Canned meat, like tuna, salmon, and chicken. These are economical and incredibly versatile.
Canned beans. If you can get these for a good price, they're really good to have on hand. Canned beans were some of the first "convenience" foods, and there's hardly anything else that you can use to make a ten-minute supper that tastes great.
That's it. I don't use canned soup, I rarely use pre-made pasta sauce. I have other things on hand (coconut milk, canned pumpkin, etc.) now and then but I wouldn't call them staples per se.

In your freezer:

A variety of frozen vegetables. Must-haves for me are spinach, green beans, and peas -- incidentally some of the most-delicious frozen veggies. Others I sometimes have (depending on price at the grocery store) include corn, broccoli, cauliflower, stir-fry or other blends, frozen hashbrowns, etc.
A few frozen fruits. I always have blueberries, which I eat nearly every day. In warmer weather, I keep frozen strawberries and mixed frozen fruit to make smoothies and sorbets.
Ginger root. Random, I know, but it keeps basically forever in the freezer, in a plastic bag or just tossed into the door, if you're lazy like me.
Meat, if you're a carnivore. I happen to have a vacuum sealer, so I can keep things for a pretty long time in my freezer. The key for this is to PLAN to use EVERYTHING you freeze. Do NOT put meat in your freezer until you write on your calendar when you'll use it.
Cooked rice. This is a lifesaver! Next time you cook rice, make a huge batch -- it doesn't take any longer. While still warm but not hot, put into quart-size plastic bags, flatten out, squeeze out as much air as you can, and stack in your freezer. Then when you need rice for a quick weeknight meal, there it is, ready to be nuked for 30-60 seconds. Sound lame? Masaharu Morimoto, the famous Japanese Iron Chef, uses this trick. Hugely credible.
Your stock bag. Take what would otherwise be throwaway odds and ends of vegetables and meat and turn it into culinary gold that will take your cooking to a whole new level of deliciousness.

Spices, herbs, and flavorings. This is where you'll have to customize depending on what YOU like to make. In general, this is what I need, in order to be able to make what I like:

The basics for cooking: dried oregano, thyme, rosemary, bay leaves, celery salt, red pepper flakes, black pepper and kosher or sea salt.
Baking: cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, vanilla
For Mexican food add: cumin, chili powder, cayenne pepper
For Indian food add: coriander, cardamom, garam masala, hot and mild curry powders, turmeric
For holiday cooking add: whole cloves, poultry seasoning and/or sage

Now, you can do just about anything.

Kitchen Keeping Tips #3 -- Shopping Wisely

2009-01-30T12:06:00.000-05:00

So I lied.

I'm not doing pantry stuff next. As I was putting the pantry post together, I thought, "Where are you getting this stuff? There has to be some shopping involved FIRST!" So here goes:

There are two general philosophies, if you will, of meal planning and grocery shopping, each with strengths and weaknesses.

First is to plan specific meals and buy only the items necessary for those meals. Simplicity is this shopping style's major advantage: it's a no-brainer to buzz through the grocery store looking for a very specific list of stuff. The main disadvantage? Inflexibility. When you're chained to a list, you run the risk of overspending because you don't have the freedom to buy chicken if it's on sale or get the produce that's on manager's special or to buy seasonally.

The other method is the "no-plan" plan. In this method (or... um, non-method), you go up and down every aisle putting into your cart everything that a) is on sale, b) looks good, or c) you think you might use in some dinner this week. The benefit of this method, if there is one, is that you are free to buy what looks good in the produce department, what's on sale, etc. Wastefulness keeps this from being a tenable long-term method, however. Inevitably you'll end up with fresh food in the trash because you don't have a plan to use what you buy. Overspending is another obvious danger, of course.

The best strategy for meal planning and grocery shopping, in my experience, is somewehre in the middle. It involves three very simple steps:

1. Make your meal plans "flex plans." Plan in advance generally what you'll have for weeknight dinners (like meatless Monday, pasta Tuesday, soup Wednesday, crock-pot Thursday, pizza Friday).
2. Shop with an eye out for sales. Learn what is a reasonable price to pay for the items you buy regularly, and develop a mental "high number" that you won't go over (like, "I won't pay more than $1.29/lb for apples"). Never, EVER buy meat that isn't on sale. There is always something on sale that you can incorporate into your flexible meal planning strategy.
3. Plan to eat from both pantry and fresh food storage during the week, with a specific plan to eat or freeze (and, again, plan to eat later) all leftovers before your next trip to the grocery store. Planning is key here!

As I said in the first installment of Kitchen Keeping, the biggest hurdle in frugal cooking is a mental one! The actual steps are simple, once you change the way you think about your kitchen!

Just as a side note, let me answer the question that may be nagging at your mind right now: Why bother? Let's say that you and your spouse spend $500 per month on groceries. If you could save $200 per month by implementing these strategies, that is $2400 in your pocket (or bank account, or toward your mortgage) by this time next year. So we're not talking about working hard, feeling deprived, and ending up with not much to show for it. That is real money, people! It's worth it.

Um...Yeah... Totally Unrelated to Kitchen Keeping at All

2009-01-30T00:44:00.004-05:00

So, the movie He's Just Not That Into You comes out February 6th in the U.S. Having read excerpts of the book and knowing the general premise (namely that a man who likes a woman goes after her, therefore if he doesn't go after her, he isn't interested in her), I'm predisposed to like it already.

Potential pros of this movie:
good plot premise
awkwardness
Justin Long
Ginnifer Goodwin
seriously, Ben Affleck is in this movie? Where the crap has he been the last five years?

Potential cons of this movie:
cheesiness
over-awkwardness
Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore is a terrible actress
She also is awkward
She's also not very bright-seeming
Also Drew Barrymore.

But anyway...

This video definitely increased the probability that I will drop ten bucks to go see HJNTIY. It's about six minutes long, and it's called "10 Chick-Flick Cliches You Won't Find in He's Just Not That Into You."* It stars three of the male leads, who act out the ten chick-flick cliches, complete with soaring violins and green-screen backgrounds. Classic!

*Caution: N particularly SFW as it contains one bleeped but still recognizable off-color remark.

Kitchen Keeping Tips #2 -- Getting Ready

2009-01-27T11:33:00.001-05:00

Once you've become aware of what you buy, food's true cost, how you cook, and so-called "scraps" in your kitchen, you're ready. Well, almost.

I've been in the kitchen a looong time -- from the time I could reach the counter on a step-stool, Mom put me to work stirring, measuring, rolling, mixing, and peeling. I still hate peeling. Anyway. In all that time, I've learned that there are some things that you really need, and a whole lot of things you really do NOT need.

Here are my absolute essentials. In other words, these are things you'd find it pretty tough to cook extensively at home without:

two knives -- one 8 or 10 inch chef's knife and one small paring knife. There's almost nothing you can't cut with these two. Knife sets are a HUGE rip-off -- you can get a good chef's knife for $30-40, and a paring knife for $5, and that's absolutely all you need. Buy your knives (both of 'em!) individually from a place where you can actually hold them and see if they fit your hands and feel comfortable. And keep them sharp. Repeat after me: "A sharp knife is a safe knife!" You can use the bottom of a coffee mug to hone your blades. Then a couple times a year, take them to a cutler and have them professionally sharpened. It should only set you back a few bucks per blade. If you have funds for a third knife, make it a good serrated knife, which will serve you well for bread, chicken carving, tomatoes, and anything delicate.

two or three cooking pots -- 1) a large dutch oven or oven-safe stock pot for soups, making stock, boiling pasta, doing braises, etc. The heavier the better. 2) A 10-12 inch skillet with a heavy base, nonstick or not, cast iron if you can find one. This you'll use for browning, stir-fries, sauteing, making sauces, and on and on. It's your everyday pan. Get an oven-safe one if you can. 3) A 3-4 quart saucepan, again with a heavy base. Useful for steaming veggies, cooking short pasta, making sauces, etc.

a few baking items -- a couple of bread pans, a 9"x12" glass or porcelain baking dish, a muffin tin, and one or two sturdy half-sheet pans, which are DIRT CHEAP at Sam's Club, Costco, and restaurant supply stores.

a few (FEW!!) utensils -- a couple of wooden spoons, a whisk, a pancake turner/flipper thing, a garlic press, a vegetable peeler, a bottle opener, a can opener, a rubber spatula, kitchen shears, and a pair of tongs. I cannot live without my tongs -- they're by far the most versatile utensil in my kitchen.

some miscellaneous stuff -- a medium-sized and a large mixing bowl, a couple of big cutting boards (one for raw meat, one for everything else), a good set of measuring cups and spoons (or a scale), and a big glass liquid measuring cup.

In the "maybe" or "when you have the money" category:

a roasting pan. I got one for $20.

a meat thermometer

an oven timer

a square baking dish

an electric kettle (this is an essential for me as a tea drinker, and it has lots of other uses, but for most Americans it's not really crucial)

an electric hand mixer or a stand mixer (like a KitchenAid)

a food processor

serving pieces

In the "heck no, what are you thinking" category:

citrus juicer

egg slicer

anything from an infomercial

knife sets (see above)

anything that only does one thing (a "unitasker") like mango slicers, avocado forks and other absurd drawer-space-wasters.

Next up: stocking that pantry!

Kitchen Keeping Tips #1 -- Mindfulness

2009-01-26T11:06:00.006-05:00

Ok, ok. "Mindfulness" is a totally granola, Oprah, new-agey word. I got it.

But when it comes to kitchen keeping, the first step is just that -- being aware, mindful, of what you already do, and becoming aware of the areas where you most need to change. I had an acquaintance who spent $500 or $600 per month on food for just two people. I'll give you Aussies a sec to do the conversion there, but can we all agree it's way too freaking much money to spend on food?

And why did she spend that much money? Because she had no idea how much she was actually spending or what she was going to do with what she bought. She just wandered into the grocery store, looked at her list, and threw things into her cart. She never looked at a price tag, never compared prices, found the best deal, or substituted a lower-priced item for a higher one. And then at home, she just cooked whatever she wanted to eat without planning to use leftovers, so she wound up throwing food away every week.

Don't be like that.

Become aware of what you buy. If you think your grocery budget could stand a trim, go through the grocery store and, as you pick up items on your list, ask yourself: Why am I buying this? Is it just a habit (I always get bananas when I grocery shop, etc.) or do I have a plan to make sure I use it before it goes bad? Is this the best use of my money?

Become aware of the true cost of things. Not just the price per ounce (or gram, perhaps?), though that is also extremely important, but the cost to Creation and to your body as well. A cheap cut of meat that comes from an animal that was raised on a super-polluting factory farm, treated cruelly, pumped full of antibiotics and chemicals, slaughtered inhumanely, and butchered carelessly is not as "cheap" as it seems.

Become aware of how you cook. Do you find yourself spending money to buy recipe ingredients that you never use again? Can you improvise with what you have in your cupboards and fridge, or are you chained to a cookbook every time you step into the kitchen? Can you creatively re-use leftovers or are you constantly either repeating the same meal or throwing out old food?

Become aware of scraps. Seriously. I mentioned my "stock bag" in my last post. It's full of the odd bits of vegetables that I would otherwise have tossed-- onion and garlic skins, parsley stems, carrot ends, celery tops, etc. -- plus the giblets and neck from the last chicken I roasted. When the meat gets picked off that chicken, his skin and bones will go in the stock bag too. When the bag is full, I'll soak the bones in acidic water to get the calcium and magnesium to dissolve, and then I'll cook the veg ends along with the chicken bones and skin to make a rich, nutritious stock. Why should all that goodness go in the landfill? And what else are you throwing out that could have another use?

Frugal frugal frugal

2009-01-23T09:32:00.001-05:00

When I was growing up, we lived on a pastor's salary while my mom stayed home. So... you do the math and figure out if we were the kind of family that ate out three or four times a week. Hint: no.

We had a garden. We bought ingredients instead of prepared food and cooked all our meals from scratch. We bought beef once a year from a local rancher. We didn't waste food, ever.

For my mother, it wasn't such a stretch. She, like many in my parents' generation, was raised by folks who grew up during the depression, whose frugality wasn't an affectation, but a characteristic learned by bitter necessity. But somewhere in the prosperity of the last thirty years, my parents' generation struggled to pass the skills of frugal living and frugal eating along to my generation. And for many people my age, we had little motivation to learn those skills. In times of unparalleled economic growth and national wealth, it seemed unnecessary to many of us to learn how to bake our own bread, how to plant a garden, how to make a roast chicken stretch into three meals, how to can and preserve food.

But I'm blessed to have a stubborn mother whose dad was the youngest of eleven and grew up on a farm. Gardening, baking, canning, and generally saving money were second nature to her. I basically grew up in her kitchen. And now that we seem to be in for a long haul with this recession, I'm more glad than ever for that fact. I can bake bread (and I do!). I can make delicious meals with frugal ingredients. I can home-can produce and beans. And these skills are saving me money.

I was talking with my awesome, gorgeous sister-in-law last night and, on the topic of stretching grocery budgets and feeding ourselves and our loved ones with less meat and more love, I said, "By golly, if our grandmothers could do it, so can we!"

Too often what hinders people (especially women) in my generation from really mastering domestic frugality is just plain fear: fear that it's too hard, that it's not worth it, that we really can't do it even if we try. But that's just not true! We can do everything our grandmothers did to steward our finances and care for our families. We truly can.

A glimmer of hope on a dim horizon

2009-01-12T20:24:00.002-05:00

Flame. LeCrae. Shai Linne.

If those names don't sound familiar to you, they should. They are men who preach the whole Gospel boldly, who aren't afraid to talk serious theology while dropping some serious beats and spitting some serious rhymes. It's crazy stuff, and y'all need to get all over it right now.

While you're waiting for your shiny new Shai Linne album to come in, hop on over to the man's blog and check out what he has to say about serving the Lord with fear and rejoicing.

Go on.

Roundball, Baby.

2009-01-10T12:09:00.002-05:00

So, you thought Davidson v. Oklahoma was exciting back in November? Or that nailbiting Tennessee-Gonzaga game last week? Or U of L taking up the bitter fight against UK over the Christmas holidays? Well, you would be wrong.

NOW is when the roundball matchups get really exciting. Take a look at the games today. Louisville-Villanova, for example. That's not just sweat rolling off those youthful foreheads. It's determination, even desperation. Rage. These are the games that matter -- a major loss for either of these teams, currently ranked 21 and 17, respectively, in the second half of the season means being pushed back to the bottom of a hill far too steep to climb between now and the start of March Madness.

The play gets uglier now. Uglier, and bolder, and riskier, and much, much better. Defensive players who watched, stultified, while the offense took three or four shots now light up under their opponents' basket, fighting for rebounds, stealing passes, risking goaltending calls to knock the ball back.

And on offense, even the most prima of prima donnas suddenly realizes that there are four other guys on the court. Passing gets cleaner and more creative. Players cut better, and shot selection improves. Even musclebound, Shaq-esque lugs get their feet moving to get open.

It's the purest form of the purest form of the game of basketball.

If you haven't been watching up to this point... well, what exactly are you waiting for?

And one more thing. Tyler who? Steph Curry is the best basketball player in the NCAA. Don't even try to argue with me.

Ask the Question.

2009-01-07T14:53:00.004-05:00

Linked to a really interesting article today by Carl Trueman on what he calls the "shibboleth" of cultural relevance in Evangelicalism. He describes a conversation he had with a student about Mel Gibson's uber-blockbuster, The Passion of the Christ. "We then," he recalls, "entered a discussion about whether it was right to depict Christ visually on the big screen." The upshot? Take a look:

At the end of the discussion, he said that he felt sorry for me because my qualms about the visual depiction of Christ were making me irrelevant to ministry in the modern church. [...] What shocked me in this encounter, however, was not that we had different views on the matter, but that the student could not even see that there was any question to be asked. For him, the question of the meaning, relevance, and application of the second commandment was not even a question. He just thought it was obvious that anything which generated interest in Jesus was a good thing; thus, my concerns about the visual depiction of Christ revealed me as an irrelevant old hack, a superannuated puritan who simply didn't get it. [...T]his student did not even have the categories to see that there was any question to be asked.

Yesterday my eighth graders and I talked about worldview. I admit it's a hard line to walk, to explain the importance of living Christianly while not pushing my students toward total neurosis about the Christianness of each decision. I've quoted Luther on the subject of living an ordinary life that God makes extraordinary, and Trueman references Pascal's similar views on the blessing of relaxation and even entertainment.

I guess I don't really have any concluding thoughts about this -- I just want to emphasize my agreement with Trueman that we must ask these sorts of hard questions about culture, but without allowing ourselves to turn into whack jobs who have a "theology of vacuuming" and the like.

Read the article for yourself. It's a nice little rant, with a lot to ponder.

OK, It's late, but...

2009-01-06T23:21:00.002-05:00

Quick rant:

What is up with guys doing covert ops on girls they're interested in? You know what our parents called it when a guy was getting to know a girl he was interested in? They called it DATING. Because they were DATING. Gosh.

Is it really so hard to walk up to a girl and say, "Hey, would you like to have a coffee this Saturday afternoon?" Surely it cannot possibly be as complicated as spending six months scoping her out, trying to get the skinny on her from all her friends via your friends, hemming and hawing around, sending her name out to the prayer committee at your parents' church, confessing to your accountability partner that you think she's hot, casually and vaguely mentioning group outings in her presence... all the while planning to ambush her with a carefully scripted speech. It's like sleight-of-hand dating: Now, look here, nothing in my hand, look closely, and... PRESTO! I pulled a coin from your ear! I mean, WE'RE DATING!

Just. Say. No.

Amen!

2008-12-18T15:41:00.000-05:00

Blessing over Beer from the Rituale Romanum:

Bless, O Lord, this creature beer, which thou hast deigned to produce from the fat of grain: that it may be a salutary remedy to the human race, and grant through the invocation of thy holy name; that, whoever shall drink it, may gain health in body and peace in soul. Through Christ our Lord.

Whoo! Preach!

2008-12-16T17:55:00.003-05:00

Check out these videos of John MacArthur, tearing it up Reformation-Style on TBN. That's right, people, THAT John MacArthur. And THAT TBN. Can you make it through both of them without saying, "Amen!" or letting out a whoop? I doubt it.

(HT: Pastor T)

Seriously? (and a few random notes)

2008-12-12T09:33:00.005-05:00

Whoa. I just scrolled down through this page and realized I've written almost nothing of theological significance in the last several weeks. Zoinks. It's probably one of two things: either I am a hopeless sinner blinded the trivialities of daily life, or I spend every day talking about God's precious word and his sovereignty in human history, teaching third, fourth, and eighth graders about this beautiful, broken world God will one day redeem, and by the time I get home, I'm all theologied out. Or maybe both.

So... there's a sizable kerfluffle in the blog world over the issue of whether or not Christians should celebrate a particular holiday with supposedly pagan roots. A holiday whose celebration, detractors claim, sends Christians inevitably down an idolatrous spiral of demon-worship. A holiday whose practices are outlawed by chapter and verse in Jeremiah. Pagan worship! Outright idolatry! Animism!

Well, good heavens, you might say! What is this pernicious, godless event that we've thoughtlessly allowed into our homes, welcoming with it the very blackest forms of paganism?

It's not Halloween. It's Christmas.

No, seriously.

Apparently, Jeremiah 10:2-4 condemns the practice of putting up and decorating Christmas trees. Leaving aside the kinda comical levels of anachronism we've got here, let's not be hasty. Judge for yourself:

Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.

OK. So what we have here is... God telling the people not to put up Christmas trees? Huh. Weird.

Because it seems to me that what's actually happening is that Jeremiah the prophet is warning Judah that their sin is fixin' to bring down God's wrath and judgment, and this passage is part of God's case against them. It just so happens that last week's Bible lesson at school was "The Ministry of Jeremiah." So tell me, third and fourth graders, what was the main sin of Judah that caused God to send judgment on them?

Idolatry.

And why is idolatry not only sinful but also stupid? Because, as Isaiah says, idolaters take a log, carve half of it into a statue they bow down to, and throw the other half onto the fire to make their dinner. Because, Jeremiah reminds them, the idols are mute, they're nothing, they can't even move from place to place but have to be carried (10:5). Condemnation of Christmas trees? Ummmm... I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that that's NOT a responsible exegesis of this passage.

There are more legs to their argument (the only birthdays mentioned in the Scriptures are those of pagans whom God struck down so we have no business celebrating Jesus' birthday, Yule celebrates demonic pagan deities and harkens back to weird druidy times, etc.), and I could pick each one apart, but I just can't... be bothered. It's all so silly! Surely there are other things we could focus on, right?

(Incidentally, this is a great example of what one blog I recently read called "The Arithmetic Method" of theology. Thought-provoking article. Check it out.)

So, here are a couple things you could focus on if you felt like it:

1. Listen up, Church. (I'm about to get fired up here, so watch out!) Stop letting Joel and Victoria Osteen off the hook. Stop justifying their heresy. Stop nurturing the notion that they're merely addled -- like that sweet but dim-witted cousin everybody loves while being slightly embarassed about -- and get it in your head that they are preaching a different Gospel. Go read Galatians 1:8. (Go ahead, I'll wait...) The Osteens are inviting a curse on themselves. Stay far, far away from their "ministry" and, if you love your brothers and sisters in Christ, warn them about it too.

2. Open iTunes (or the legal online music acquisition apparatus of your choice) and download the following albums immediately: Shai Linne's Storiez, Flame's Our World Redeemed, and LeCrae's Rebel. Then revel and rejoice in the work God is doing through these warriors of the faith and their bold Gospel preaching.

Davidson vs. West Virginia

2008-12-10T09:23:00.003-05:00

U.G.L.Y.
You ain't got no alibi--
You ugly! Yeah, yeah, you ugly!

M.A.M.A.
I know how you got that way--
Yo' mama! Yeah, yeah, yo' mama!

Man. Last night's Davidson vs. West Virginia game, the first of the Jimmy V double-header, was the ugliest basketball game I think I've ever seen. The Cats made the Mountaineers look like the JV squad in the first half, ripping up the WVa defense and sending their coach's blood pressure (which seemed to be an issue anyway) through the vaulted ceiling of Madison Square Garden. The balance of the game tipped seriously in Davidson's favor when the Mountaineers' only remaining guard, who had been tiptoeing around the court trying not to re-injure the shoulder that kept him out of WV's last game, slumped off the court toward the locker room six minutes in, with another shoulder contusion.

Then Davidson spent the next twenty minutes trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, as Curry went cold for more than a dozen field goal attempts and the team battled against a reinvigorated WVa defense.

The Wildcats (whose roster boasts players from five states plus Quebec, Sussex, Turkey, and Nigeria) seemed to be trying to give up a win to a team playing without their two starting guards, a team that missed 12 of their 29 free throws, and who never had more than a four point lead. But the Mountaineers snagged a massive 32 offensive rebounds to the Cats' 12, which kept them in the game -- though, as a Davidson fan, I'll of course chalk this up to the fact that West Virginia is a taller team at every position.

It was a weird game. Davidson's coach, Bob McKillop, who is a cool character in most situations, exploded at his team during a mid-second-half time out. Even the unflusterable Curry grimaced and shook his head after missed shots, while his cowed teammates tried to keep him fired up.

Finally, in the last five minutes, the Cats gelled, turning up their defense, using clever inbounding strategies, bouncing off screens, and feeding the ball to Curry, who at last sank three after glorious three. I ask you: can that kid cut, or can that kid cut? He's smart, he's fast, and he can stop on a dime; WVa's defenders didn't have a blessed chance against his quickness and shot selection once he remembered how to play basketball again late in the second half. A drive, some fancy ball handling, two steps back... and voila. A hard-fought win.

File Under "Shocker"

2008-12-06T18:30:00.003-05:00

According to this AP article, the city of Amsterdam is preparing to close up to half of the sex shops, brothels, and hash bars crowded into its city center. Why? You're never going to believe this, but it turns out that drugs and prostitution are... brace yourselves... associated with organized crime!!! I KNOW, RIGHT?

If I may, I'd like to borrow one of Mike's stupid awards and pass it along to the geniuses who finally figured this out.

Theology Matters

2008-12-02T08:16:00.004-05:00

If you're not already reading Bob Kauflin's blog, Worship Matters, get your butt over there. It is, hands down, the best online resource out there for worship leaders, church musicians, and pew-sitters. I absolutely cannot recommend it highly enough. Not only does he provide incredibly pertinent, godly counsel to his brothers and sisters in worship ministry but he also, as part of Sovereign Grace Ministries, makes videos, notes, chord charts, mp3s, and all manner of other resources available for free, following the (totally awesome) trend among Reformed-types to give everything away.

In a recent post, Bob discusses why theology matters to Christian musicians. I only wish every worship leader in every Christian church in America could read it! Check out an excerpt:

[W]hy theology should matter to Christian musicians.
1. You’re already a theologian.
Every Christian, musical or otherwise, is already a theologian. The question is, are you a good theologian or a bad one? We’re good theologians if what we say and think about God lines up with what Scripture says and affirms. We’re bad theologians if our view of God is vague, or if we think God doesn’t really mind sin, or is we see Jesus as a good example and not a Savior, or if we our god is too small to overcome evil or too big to care about us.

2. God reveals himself primarily through words, not music.
Because we’ve encountered God profoundly during times of musical worship, we can wrongly start assuming that words restrict the Spirit, while music enables us to experience God in fresh and powerful ways. If God had wanted us to know him primarily through music, the Bible would be a soundtrack, not a book. Music affects and helps us in many ways, but it doesn’t replace truth about God. By itself, music can never help us understand the meaning of God’s self-existence, the nature of the Incarnation, or Christ’s substitutionary atonement. Simply put, truth outlasts tunes.

3. Being good theologians makes us better musicians.

Theology teaches us what music is meant to do.
Theology teaches us that worship is more than music.
Theology teaches us that Jesus is better than music.

Dude. Good stuff. Check it out.

The Best Christmas Anecdote Ever. EVER.

2008-11-29T21:15:00.004-05:00

The Most Hilarious thing happened today. I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things to help with leftover management, and as I was walking in the doors, I heard this... weird music. Like an old electric organ.

Hmm. Electric organ piped through the sound system seemed like an odd choice for the inevitable Christmas music that will be playing for the next month. But, as it turned out, it wasn't exactly what I thought it was.

Organ? Yes. Sound system? NO! INSTEAD, IT WAS A DREAM COME TRUE: Old lady. Hammond B2. SERIOUSLY BAD Christmas music. No, no, no... I don't think you understand how bad it was. Shockingly bad. And every time she played, there was somehow a synth drum in the background. "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus." On an ORGAN. With a SYNTH DRUM accompaniment. I was waiting for Dom DeLuise to pop out from beyond the grave and tell everyone at Kroger that they were on Candid Camera.

People. This was EPIC.

LOVE IT

2008-11-23T21:00:00.004-05:00

The "Prime Minister's Questions" part of C-Span coverage of the House of Commons, that is.

Here's how it goes down: The MPs don't address the PM directly, but ask the speaker, "Mr. Speaker, will the Prime Minister do such-and-such, or will he do such-and-such?" To which the PM replies, "Mr. Speaker, the Conservative members should remember this and that." And during all this, the MPs are shouting "No!" or "Hear, hear!" depending what they think of what's being said. They laugh loudly, boo loudly, insult each other (in the third person, since they don't speak directly), holler, and shout each other down, while the Speaker chastises them if they go on too long, all with the utmost of British structure and politeness.

It's brilliant.

Wulgum t'Straya

2008-11-23T10:22:00.007-05:00

Is it just me, or does Hugh Jackman's accent in the trailer for Baz Luhrman's new Australia epic sound like a joke accent? It's SO thick. Like Paul Hogan's. Or like Jimbo Mobbs'.

image (c) 20th Century Fox

PLUS the gorgeous Nicole "Botox" Kidman with the most pruny, tight-lipped, finishing-school voice ever put on film.

Baz can count on my 10 bucks for this movie. It looks deliciously melodramatic.

Clinton Loyalty in the Obama White House

2008-11-20T10:23:00.002-05:00

A fascinating chart of Obama staffers, plotted by experience and by loyalty to "Clintonism." Obama's made several good moves over the last couple of weeks as he vets potential appointees; he's shown a prudent desire to surround himself with "prickly, semi-autistic, and egomaniacal" geniuses, as this article states, and he seems unafraid to work with smart, hard-working people, even if they hold very different positions and opinions than his own.

Thanksgiving-Related Musings

2008-11-16T12:10:00.006-05:00

HUUUUURRRRRRGGGGHHHH!

Oh. Oh, no. Guys, you're never going to believe this. Sandra Lee, who is on TV as I type, has sunk to an all-time low, from the depths of crapitude to the Level Three Nuclear-Attack-Proof Sub-Basement of Crapitude. She is making "Thanksgiving leftover empanadas." Out of pre-rolled pie crust, leftover mashed potatoes and leftover green bean casserole, seasoned with packaged taco seasoning. TACO SEASONING!

Here's my T-day menu:

Turkey. (um... duh...)
Dressing. I'm a plain bread dressing kind of gal. I like cornbread dressing (and Carrie's chicken and dressing), but the dressing of my childhood is just white bread, celery, onions, poultry seasoning, and broth.
Mashed potatoes. Simple. No herbs, no roasted garlic, just mashed potatoes, milk, butter, and cream cheese, my secret ingredient.
Homemade egg noodles.
Gravy. Gallons of it.
Rolls.
Cranberry sherbet. My mom's family recipe. It's light, tart, sweet, crystalline, refreshing... basically everything that the rest of T-day dinner is not.
Pumpkin pie
Pecan pie

Did you know that there are people who don't like Thanksgiving leftovers? Those people are NUTS. What, I ask you, is not to like about having a fridge full of the best dang food of the whole dang year that you can re-invent into all sorts of delectable treats? Turkey pot pie! Potato cakes! Turkey noodle soup! White turkey chili! Not to mention the sheer joy of cold turkey sandwiches and hot fried dressing. COME ON.

Mmmm... I can't wait until next Thursday...

Food. Again. But Not Really Food Blogging, As Such. Just Read It, OK?

2008-11-11T12:08:00.002-05:00

Here's my latest revelation about my eating habits. Do I have the right to cheap food? I was standing in front of the meat counter at Whole Foods the other day, mentally grousing about the prices, when that question popped into my head, followed quickly by, define cheap.

Does "cheap" simply mean the price per pound? Or does cheap mean that the animals were raised, pumped full of antibiotics and hormones, on a factory farm, at whatever cost to the environment and to the health of the livestock itself, then inhumanely slaughtered by poorly-trained and -supervised hourly workers in a massive plant?

It's been something for me to ponder -- as a Christian, how does my God-given responsibility to live with an eternal, Kingdom perspective even now effect how I think about the welfare of creation?

I read a fantastic article a while back, by a woman who buys her meat directly from the "growers" whenever possible, even visiting the operations herself. She wrote about coming to terms with being an omnivore -- recognizing that, every time I bite into a hamburger, I am putting into my body something that was once alive. Ultimately, she's OK with that, and so am I. But the least I can do, she says, is to "look my food in the eye," so to speak -- to know where it comes from, how it was raised and slaughtered, and not simply purchase it in "nuggets" at the drive-through. That really resonated with me.

Any other thoughts?

Food Blogging!!

2008-11-08T20:39:00.007-05:00

My friend Kristen came over for dinner tonight, and I made this gorgeous recipe from "A Twist of the Wrist," courtesy of Food and Wine's new website, but discovered (by me) on the lovely Claudia's food blog: Nancy Silverton's lamb meatballs with chickpeas and piquillo peppers.

The original recipe called for lamb, obviously, but being unable to buy good lamb for less than the price of raising a child through college, I opted for ground beef. The verdict? Two very enthusiastic thumbs up. Seriously, it was so flavorful and complex and delicious, and the textures of the chickpeas and the meatballs together -- mmmmmmm... A very big thank you to Claudia for providing the inspiration.

I did make a few subs and additions (duh) since I can't leave well enough alone. I used dry thyme instead of fresh, and added a big heaping tablespoon of lemon zest to the ground meat. I think I also added enough garlic to repel an army of vampires. But it's ok. No handsome men were present at tonight's meal, so we're all good. Actually, no men. At all. I'm not bitter.

A main course this delicious called for a simple but equally delicious dessert. I've been looking for a good way to use up the currants I bought to make hot cross buns, and came across a few recipes for barm brack or tea brack -- fruit-studded Irish sweet breads -- and they were the inspiration for what I eventually came up with: Spiced currant cake. With freshly whipped cream. And a little nutmeg on top. Seriously, somebody stop me before I take over the world with my awesomeness. Did I mention I made up this dadgum recipe?? Because I did.

Oh, you'd like to know how I made it? I thought you'd never ask.

1 stick unsalted butter
1 cup raw (turbinado) sugar
3 eggs
1 T. lemon juice
3/4 c. milk
1 T. lemon zest

2 cups flour
4 t. baking powder
1 scant t. nutmeg
1/2 t. salt

1 c. dried currants

Cream together butter and sugar until very fluffy. Add eggs and beat until frothy, scraping down sides of bowl frequently. Add milk, lemon juice, and lemon zest.

Sift together flour and baking powder and stir in nutmeg and salt. Toss currants in flour mixture. Add to wet ingredients and mix just until moistened, about 30 seconds.

Pour into an 8 x 8 baking pan and bake for 45-55 minutes in a 350 oven, or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean but not dry. Serve with freshly whipped cream and garnish with a sprinkling of nutmeg. Devour. Repeat.

Aren't you glad we don't have to graze like cattle? I sure am. Yay food!

Fear-Mongering Is a Bad Rhetorical Device

2008-11-07T14:39:00.004-05:00

Let me just give y'all a little piece of advice: if you're reading an article about the future of America under Obama's leadership and you find yourself gripped with panic, stop reading the article.

Come out of the Closet With Me

2008-11-06T09:03:00.003-05:00

People, seriously. Let's reject the idea of race. Let's embrace diversity in ethnicity and finally forget about categorizing ourselves according to skin color. Here's an excerpt from today's article on Boundless from Thabiti Anyabwile:

This is not merely a problem of integration, of spiritual forced busing to churches. It's more serious than that. From Sunday to Sunday, month to month, year after year, Christians of every hue are abandoning one another in lovelessness. Because we are too often loveless, "race" overpowers us even though it is not real. Our love seeks the limits of convenience and familiarity, to be bounded by the ease that "race" offers, when Christ calls us to a largeness and breadth of love that is like His own, that assembles and gathers and loves and gives to every nation, tribe and language. And that's to be displayed in our churches. Christ has made us one and called us to unity, but we have filed a declaration of independence from one another and voluntarily enacted Jim Crow practices to reinforce it.

Wow.

Seriously, please go read the article I linked to yesterday, and today's installment too. Then if you're still interested, head over to T4G.org and listen to Thabiti's message on this very topic. You'll be blessed, and I hope you'll be motivated to erase the category of race in your heart and mind.

A Beautiful Rejection

2008-11-05T08:24:00.003-05:00

I'm about to come out of the closet here, people. Are you ready for this? Brace yourself.

I don't believe in race.

Still reading? OK! While you're in the mood to read, read this:

[F]or the Christian, there is an even greater basis for unity across ethnic lines and the abandonment of "race" as a part of our worldview and spiritual life — our union in Jesus Christ.
When the Christian walks into that lunchroom, she or he sees two groups and thinks, Descended from Adam — like me. Made in the image of God — like me. Fallen sinners — like me. And then if we find that any of those persons in the lunchroom are Christians, we are able to say, United to Christ — like me. Sharing His Spirit — like me. Received the promises of eternal life and everlasting joy — like me!

Catch the full article, by visionary pastor Thabiti Anyabwile, here.

Chill Out, Praise God, and Let's Pray

2008-11-04T23:42:00.002-05:00

OK, so it looks like Barack Obama is the next president of the United States. Lemme 'splain the title.

Chill out: Let's all just take things down a few notches -- liberals, dems, and Obama Girls, brotha is NOT Jesus. Conservatives, republicans, and Palinites, brotha is also NOT Satan. We've had a republican president for the last eight years; now we have a democrat. K. Let's roll with that.

Praise God: He's in control. "There is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God." Romans 13:1-2

Let's pray: "I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone--for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." 1 Timothy 2:1-4

Stuff

2008-11-03T18:51:00.003-05:00

Random list time!

Stuff Christians should stop freaking out about:

1. Halloween. Dude. What a bunch of wasted energy is poured into the anti-Halloween lobbying that happens every year!! Is Samhain a pagan holiday? Yup. Is Halloween a pagan holiday? Uh, no. It's primarily the Eve of All Saints, and secondarily a cutesy Hallmark-perpetuated candy orgy/ excuse for little kids to dress up and show off their dressed-up-ness. Let your kids trick-or-treat, don't let them trick-or-treat. Whatever. But please don't try to convince me that the Bible says it's wrong for Christians to let their kids put on Superman capes and go door to door asking for candy. Please.

2. Disputable issues like consumption of alcohol, R-rated movies, tattoos and piercings, birth control, etc. Read Romans 14, and remember that we're not to look down on people who don't feel freedom in these areas, nor judge those who do.

3. Politics. Christians can vote, be involved in their community political processes, argue passionately for their political positions, and even (in some circumstances) run for office. Should they hang all their hopes of their country being transformed for the better on a political party, politician, or ideology? Definitely NOT. The Kingdom of God isn't Republican or Democrat or Green or Labour or any other such thing, and it won't be advanced by the (conscious) efforts of secular political machinery. God will advance his Kingdom.

4. Anecdotes that "prove" our points. We're so eager to latch onto this or that bit of scientific or archaeological or historical or sociological evidence that confirms our positions (like in this Boundless article), but we roll our eyes when pagans and atheists do the same (like with the ossuary found a few years ago containing the bones of a dude named Jesus son of Joseph). We ought to take an attitude of quiet confidence when it comes to these sorts of discoveries. Of course history, archaeology, and the like will confirm and support the Scriptures -- God did, after all, create everything and all truth belongs to him -- but that's not why we trust the Scriptures. We trust them because God has, by his incomprehensible grace, enlivened our hearts and enabled us to see in the Scriptures the testimony of Christ, his perfect Son and our atoning sacrifice. So we should be glad, knowing that the Scriptures are true, when some new affirmation of their historicity comes to light, without placing our hope or confidence in those discoveries.

Stuff Christians should get more fired up about:

1. Nominal Christianity and twisted "Gospels." Benny Hinn, Joel Osteen, TBN, Katharine Jefferts Schori, Ann Holmes Redding (the Muslim Episcopal priest), and Jeremiah Wright should not be given a free pass by Christians and pastors around the world. Just because someone claims to be a brother in Christ and uses churchy-sounding words does not make him a Christian. And don't even get me started on hip-hop artists who give a shout-out to Jesus when they win a VMA for their hit single about making sure one ho don't find out about another ho.

2. Manhood, womanhood, and families. The Scriptures we (supposedly) hold dear are full of instruction about and examples of what godly men, women, and families look like. Something is not right when people who call themselves Christians divorce with impunity, reject and despise God's blessing of children, and in all other ways look just like the world in the way they live as men and women, and the way their families work. Early apologists and historians appealed to the morality and purity of Christian families as evidence for the truth of the Christian faith. Pretty tough to do that now, huh?

OK, that's enough ranting and randomness for the day.

Maybe one more thing. I'm watching NCAA basketball RIGHT NOW. AWESOME.

HAPPY REFORMATION DAY!

2008-10-31T09:22:00.002-04:00

This is the third year I've posted this tune on my blog. Enjoy! Sing Along!

The Reformation Polka

by Robert Gebel

[Sung to the tune of "Supercalifragilistic-expialidocious"]

When I was just ein junger Mann I studied canon law
While Erfurt was a challenge, it was just to please my Pa.
Then came the storm, the lightning struck, I called upon Saint Anne,
I shaved my head, I took my vows, an Augustinian!
Oh...

Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation
Speak your mind against them and face excommunication!
Nail your theses to the door, let's start a Reformation!
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation!

When Tetzel came near Wittenberg, St. Peter's profits soared,
I wrote a little notice for the All Saints' Bull'tin board:
"You cannot purchase merits, for we're justified by grace!
Here's 95 more reasons, Brother Tetzel, in your face!"
Oh...

They loved my tracts, adored my wit, all were exempleror;
The Pope, however, hauled me up before the Emperor.
"Are these your books? Do you recant?" King Charles did demand,
"I will not change my Diet, Sir, God help me here I stand!"
Oh...

Duke Frederick took the Wise approach, responding to my words,
By knighting "George" as hostage in the Kingdom of the Birds.
Use Brother Martin's model if the languages you seek,
Stay locked inside a castle with your Hebrew and your Greek!
Oh...

Let's raise our steins and Concord Books while gathered in this place,
And spread the word that 'catholic' is spelled with lower case;
The Word remains unfettered when the Spirit gets his chance,
So come on, Katy, drop your lute, and join us in our dance!
Oh...

How NOT to Give Advice to Single People

2008-10-27T21:23:00.009-04:00

So the other day, I met a really nice couple. The husband was friendly and asked me a lot of questions about my life. We chatted about travel, and I told them about my trip to Europe with my family.

"Husband and kids?" he asked.

"No, parents and brother. I'm single," I replied.

And then... such a speech. Here's what he advised me to do.

1. Make a specific list of everything you're looking for in a husband. This advice was accompanied by a lot of questions. Have you thought about what kind of things you're looking for? Really? Specifically? In detail? What about things you don't want? Really? Specifically? In detail?
2. Realize that that man exists. Pray specifically for him. He is the only man for you.
3. Recruit other people to pray for that specific man. Don't forget about the parable of the unjust judge. Pester God until he brings your husband along.
4. Remain under your father's authority.
5. If that doesn't work, join eHarmony.

I definitely wished I could have made the whole conversation just STOP, for the love of heaven and all its angels, STOP!! It basically sums up all the bad advice I've gotten about singleness -- not just the advice itself, but the context in which it was offered.

So here (as revenge) is MY advice to married people who feel tempted to say any of the above things:

1. Don't give advice to single people you just met. Relationship advice should be given in the context of -- surprise!! -- relationships. Most people would never give marital advice to a couple they just met, but the rules somehow go out the window when talking to single folks.

2. Think about your attitude before you offer advice. As Christians, we have to recognize that the problem of humans is sin, and the solution is the Gospel. Singleness is NOT a problem to be solved. Do I want to get married? DUH. But please don't see my life as something you can "fix" with some pithy tips.

3. Keep in mind that every person's situation is different. Again, folks get this ordinarily. But with singles, it seems like people are so much more tempted to say, "Well, such-and-such worked for _____, so it'll definitely work for you." It's not that your advice is necessarily wrong, but... for example, I have ZERO problem with online dating services. And the courtship model makes sense for younger singles who live near or with their parents. And I wish more of my married friends would be bold enough to set me up with some dudes. But not all of those things is right for every person. For crying out loud, one of my dearest friends emailed a guy from halfway around the world because he read her blog and jokingly called her a feminist and she didn't like it and then they started talking and fell in love and now they're married and she's pregnant with their first child. Good GRIEF. PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT. Ok. Rant over.

4. Please, please, please, don't perpetuate the idea that there's one ideal man out there for every single woman, and she'll never be happy until she finds him. The Prince Charming Myth has disillusioned and embittered countless young women, clinging to their "lists" while overlooking godly men all around them. Yes, in the grand scheme of God's sovereign plan, he knows and chose who I'll marry. But in my time-bound perspective, there are any number of godly, ministry-minded men with whom I could have a good, happy, sanctifying, Gospel-centered marriage.

OK, single peeps, any other advice for our married friends? ;)

Awesome Deal, People

2008-10-22T17:41:00.002-04:00

Seriously, check this out. My church, Sojourn, is packed wall-to-wall with talented musicians, some of whom worked on last year's Christmas album, Advent Songs. It's a beautiful, unique album that normally sells for a very reasonable $10, but leading up to the advent season, it's being made available for download fo however much you want to pay for it. OR, if you tell five friends about it, you can get it for FREE. Crazy.

Check out the details HERE at SojournMusic's website.

The Countdown Continues

2008-10-20T14:56:00.003-04:00

28 Days!! That's four weeks from tonight!

Go Wildcats!

2008-10-17T15:07:00.003-04:00

And Now For Something Completely Different...

2008-10-17T10:05:00.004-04:00

Michael Pollan's beautiful, sweeping, joyous, practical, intense, inspiring, provocative, stunningly magisterial open letter to the incoming president (whoever he may turn out to be) in the Sunday New York Times Magazine section, all about revolutionizing and returning to our agrarian roots.

It's nine pages long, wordy for a newspaper article, but is so thrillingly visionary that you'll be finished before you know it. Can't recommend it highly enough.

Rules/Rants About Blogs

2008-10-16T10:06:00.007-04:00

The "rules" bit:

1. If you don't have time to read or address reader comments, consider that you might not have time to blog.

2. If you have a strict disclaimer or instructions for commenters (what behavior or content won't be tolerated), but don't have time to enforce these policies, then really don't bother blogging.

Theologica and Boundless Line are two prime examples of what happens when you don't consistently respond to out-of-line or heretical comments, and in the case of Boundless, what happens when you don't enforce your comments guidelines. The moderators end up suborning heresy, the comments sections spiral out of control, and the constructive discussion gets choked out by confusing, contradictory comments by believers, unbelievers, and pseudo-believers.

So, do you 1. address and refute out-of-line or heretical comments, 2. delete them, or 3. let them slide?

#3 is irresponsible and foolish, and either 1 or 2 works. I lean towards deleting (although a blog that's turned into a public forum would want to be crystal clear about the standards for deletion). Heretics who find themselves being blocked will keep moving until they find somewhere else to comment.

And really, have you ever heard a new believer say, "You know, I was an atheist until I started commenting on this blog..."?

Questions and Answers, Part 9

2008-10-14T13:36:00.004-04:00

Hey Laura,

Here’s another theological question for you: theosis, deification, all that stuff. What’s going on there? I see great Truth in the Salvation by Faith alone and of course there is plenty of Scripture to back it up. I recognize my incapability to do good (without selfish motivation) and take joy in the Gift of Grace.

But there’s always been a lingering vision or motivation in my brain of “working my way towards Christ” for lack of a better phrase. I think perhaps I have a romantic idea of it. And I think it might come from bottomless cups of tea and hours of readings of Dostoevsky and the like. But I think it’s hard for me to dismiss the thought. And I think the idea of “I believe, I am saved, the end,” is repulsive.

I believe that we are required to do good works BECAUSE we are saved; that that should be our motivation. But frankly, sometimes that doesn’t seem like enough. Your favorite verse comes in handy here (work out your salvation because it is God who works in you). But then there are those verses in… Is it Timothy? Or James? “Faith without works is dead” and many more in that book. What do these mean?

And I suppose I see such a connection between our life now and Kingdom life. Although I don’t know what I’m talking about really. And although I believe in resurrection into new life… I do believe there is a connection between now and eternity. This seems to be further support for some idea of becoming more and more like Christ. Surely we have some part in this? Yes, God gives us Grace and works in us to be more and more confirmed. Yes, he will complete the good work he began. Yes, we do have responsibility though. How does our Protestant idea of this clash with this idea of “theosis”? The answer seems simple but then…. I’m not totally sure I know what it is.

Your Friend,

OK, first. Let's not get the idea (so often perpetuated among modern evangelicals) that Belief = Assent to a bunch of statements. As in, yes, I believe that Jesus died for my sins and that makes me a Christian. that is LAME. There are plenty of folks who believe that that's what "belief" means but it's completely not the biblical picture of faith. Faith/Belief/Trust is all wrapped up in that word. As in confidence in, reliance upon. So "by grace, through faith" doesn't mean "by grace, through agreeing with propositions" but rather "by grace (God's undeserved favor) through trusting, relying, leaning on Jesus Christ." And Ephesians 2:8-9 says that faith in itself is a gift -- in other words, the ability to trust in, rely on Jesus is made possible by God's grace -- that we never would have relied on Jesus for our salvation apart from the Holy Spirit working in us... we would have kept on relying on ourselves.

You are right that there IS a tension in the Scriptures about God's sovereignty and our responsibility. And I would venture a guess that most of the folks we know who call themselves "reformed" at Sojourn and elsewhere are really what we call "compatibilist," which means that God somehow works out that WE have a responsibility, in the midst of HIS plan, to do OUR part, enabled by HIM. That our choices are real and meaningful. That we have to work out our salvation.

Another thing too... we believe that the Scriptures even when they seem in tension, actually describe different aspects of the same reality. So James is talking about faith without works is dead. Right. Totally agree. He's talking about "faith" and FAITH. "faith" is that lame-o belief business, just assenting to propositions about Jesus. FAITH is robust, relying on God -- evidence of a changed heart. There's an old saying I learned as a teenager -- "We are saved through faith alone, but faith that saves is never alone" -- in other words, true faith, faith that saves, is never just assent. It's trust in a God who changes lives. So James is talking about the outward workings of an inward reality. Just like Paul talks about the inward and spiritual realities, and ALSO describes the outward "evidences" of true saving faith.

Paul also talks in 2 Corinthians (and other places) about how we are being saved. It's consistent throughout the NT to discuss salvation in three ways: (1) as an accomplished fact (Romans 8:24, for instance) -- "you were saved," (2) as an ongoing process -- "you are being saved," and (3) as a future reality to be hoped for and anticipated (Romans 5:10, which also contains some of #1)-- "you will be saved." It makes a lot of sense of how a Christian's spiritual life ought to look: Confidence in Christ and his finished work that purchased us, sanctification and the necessity of discernment and work and prayer and community, and a balance of humility and hope as we await the final salvation that sums everything up in Christ.

Part of the issue is how much we have a tendency to lean toward #1 in the reformed/protestant type circles! We think of salvation as an accomplished fact, something that happened in the past, and forget that the Bible talks about how salvation is not just an event, but a process. Now, I do think salvation happens. Paul talks to the Ephesians so much about what they were BEFORE they were saved and makes such a sharp contrast between you were like this but now you are like this in Christ, that it leads me to believe strongly that there is a time when a person is a pagan headed for hell and then God does a work and their nature is changed. But they are also being conformed to the image of Christ. It's a process, just as much as growing up and maturing in our natural lives.

And yeah, man!! The kingdom!! It's so rad. WE, us, the church -- we are the sort of pro-tempore kings of God's kingdom, the provincial rulers given charge over it while Jesus tarries. Jesus ushered in the Kingdom of God when he came in flesh, and our JOB as those who are becoming like him while we wait for him to return is to push the front lines of the kingdom forward! This is WHY we do mercy! It's why we "do" Church, for crying out loud. Evangelism is part of this! Environmental stewardship! Counseling! Raising kids! It's all kingdom work!!! That's why there is NO unimportant person in the Church or in the World. We build and create and love and civilize and settle and obey the cultural mandate (be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it) because all that stuff has found its ideal and its goal in Jesus! We're not just building a human kingdom like the Israelites were! Jesus is the True Israel of God and we are in Christ, so we push forward. So we see places where the Kingdom of God is NOT reigning, and we ought to grieve! We ought to see a Christian married couple with a crappy marriage and want to bring God's Kingdom rule to bear on their lives. We ought to see pollution and mistreatment of animals and say, huh-uh, that ain't the way it's going to be in the coming Kingdom! Let's work to make this not happen. I mean, what is the POINT of fighting against abortion -- I mean, all those babies go to heaven, right? -- unless we are WORKING to make THIS world look more and more like the world to come! The world to come won't have death, or suffering, or misery, or exploitation, or loneliness, or any of that crap. So we work and fight and strive to make our LIVES kingdom LIVES and our world like the Kingdom that is to come. THAT is a compelling vision of our future! We work now, hampered and thwarted by sin and the flesh and the devil and the world, but we look forward to the day when our work (which will be a continuation of our work now) will be perfected -- not held back by our own selfishness, not thwarted by sin, not made futile, not fruitless or weak!! SO. RAD.

Naw, what are you talking about? I'm not excited about that. Not at all.

;)

L

Questions and Answers, Part 8

2008-10-13T09:19:00.000-04:00

Hey Laura,

I guess the confusion for me still lies in whether those plans that “will definitely be carried out” necessarily involve details like marriage. You said, “If God's purpose is to sum up all things in Christ, like the Scriptures say, then whether or not I get married isn't all that important.” Yeah, and so it’s pretty easy to say, “Well, God doesn’t care either way, therefore whether or not I end up as a wife and mother is totally due to things like how attractive I am, how mature these boys are, the decisions I make in relationships, etc., etc.” Of course, this is a very anxiety-inducing way to think of it! It kind of makes things all my fault if they don’t go “right,” rather than being according to Gods Will. So, naturally, I don’t like that idea and it doesn’t sit right with me when I consider God’s goodness and love for us.

Your Friend,

Hey Girl,

It's a tough balance, for sure, because in one sense, it doesn't matter if you get married or not in the grand scheme, because God's purposes will be accomplished either way. But God is ultimately in control, not just of the overarching themes of history and your life and mine (although you're right, that is extremely helpful for perspective to keep in mind), but of the details of our lives as well. Look at Psalm 139, for example. God knit you together. He sees your going out and your coming in. He knows your thoughts. He "hems you in" from all around (a pretty amazing thought!). He wrote down all your days before you ever existed. That says to me that he is intimately involved (although mysteriously for sure) with the daily stuff of our lives.

The problem with, "God doesn't care either way. He's powerful enough to work with whichever way I go" is that it quickly becomes two things: one of which you've noted, which is Oh Crap, it's all up to me. But the other is, well, then, I can do whatever I want because God can work with whatever I give him. That's true in a way, but we're still accountable to him for our decisions. I'm not saying you're going that direction, but historically, that's where Christians have gone -- either to over-emphasizing our own responsibility in living a holy life or under-emphasizing our accountability to God to live rightly.

So... it's a tension, and something I get pulled back and forth on in a big way. Yes, God can work in spite of my deficiencies, but yes, I also have a responsibility to participate in my sanctification and move toward holiness, because God is at work within me. I think it's helpful to frame it like that. God's work is at both ends, making my work possible. Philippians 2:12-13 is basically my favorite verse because of this: "work out your salvation with fear and trembling, because it is God who works in you, to will and work according to his good pleasure." God is at work, so I can work (and live and pray and do my daily stuff) both with confidence in and awe of God, who works everything according to the pleasure of his will.

With the "marriage" issue, the balance (or tension, I guess) is in saying, OK, God cares. He is at work. I have a responsibility to grow in godliness, to strive for those qualities that make up righteous woman, and to seek him -- remembering that I can work because he is already working to sanctify me. Those godly characteristics won't make God bring me a husband (which I've actually heard -- "God won't bring you a husband until you've taken care of X issue in your life" which is incredibly lame). The truth is, if he does bring me a husband, then those qualities will help me become a wise and godly helpmate. If he doesn't right now or for a while or ever (although that's pretty statistically unlikely), those qualities will help me be content and joyful in whatever circumstance I end up in.

I don't think I've ever actually achieved that kind of balance, and I may never. But there it is...

;)

L

Questions and Answers, Part 7

2008-10-10T09:12:00.000-04:00

Hey Laura,

Now here’s a big question: how does God’s sovereignty really play into this whole deal? The fact is, we all know it, a lot of people are increasingly immature and delaying marriage, for example, because of their fear of commitment and… I don’t know, inordinate affection for X-Box or something. But God doesn’t force them to obey him, push them into marriage, right? Now I do believe that God works all things together for good. But I see this in the way of sanctification, which of course, is our ultimate goal in life. But in the details? What’s your take?

Your Friend, X

Hey Girl,

Here's where I start with the whole "free will" thing. I said a little bit of it the other night, I think. My fundamental premise is that we are perfectly free to act as our nature allows (for instance, I can walk and run and crawl and skip and do cartwheels... but I can't fly). Which means that

1. unbelievers, who have a sinful nature unchanged by the Holy Spirit, are perfectly free to behave according to their nature, which is marred by sin. That's what depravity means -- every element of human nature is touched by sin -- NOT that humans are as sinful as they could be. I believe that God in his mercy and love for his creation and for his people restrains human sinfulness.

2. believers, whose sinful nature is being mortified and replaced with the nature of Christ as we are conformed to his image by the Holy Spirit, are free to act according to our renewing nature. This is why Paul talks about the war within himself -- on the one hand, we desire to follow Christ, but on the other hand, our sinful nature is still fighting against us.

I also think there are two ways to look at God's sovereignty that are true simultaneously. From our perspective, since we cannot know the future, and because God actually operates within time in our lives, every choice we make has true, infinite possibilities until we make it. When I choose to turn left instead of right at the stop sign, or to take Job A rather than Job B, or to marry Joe and not Fred, those are real choices that limit and change my future choices. But from God's perspective, since he exists outside of time and knows all events in the scope of time because he created them, we also say that he is sovereign over those things. They don't happen apart from his purposes being fulfilled.

I think you're right to look at things from a "sanctification" perspective -- just don't forget the universal perspective too, that God's purpose is to redeem for himself a people, i.e. the Church, not just individuals, and to redeem and transform creation -- all through Christ. So in some sense, Jesus is the goal of all creation. That helps me put the whole "marriage" thing in perspective. If God's purpose is to sum up all things in Christ, like the Scriptures say, then whether or not I get married isn't all that important (which, uh... don't see me as one of those people who pretends not to care. Cuz I do). I believe God already knows each hour of my life, but not in a weird micromanagement way that turns me into a robot. Like I said, when we're talking about human life within the constraints of time and space, God's sovereignty and our (real, meaningful) choices look very different.

I DON'T think we're meant to spend our whole lives looking for "signs" of what we're supposed to do, or that we're supposed to pray about what color to paint the bathroom or where to eat dinner or stuff like that. I believe that God uses what he gave us -- our experiences, our education, our brains, our consciences -- guided by the Holy Spirit, to put our lives in line with his plan. I think that's one reason the Scriptures talk so much about wisdom and ALSO emphasize the inevitability of God's plan.

That's why I don't like to talk about "the man God made for me" or whatever. I think that, in that time-bound human perspective of God's sovereignty, there are dozens if not hundreds of men I could marry and be happy with and have a godly marriage and raise a godly family with. I can think of several off the top of my head -- not guys I would necessarily marry right now but men I know are godly Christians with a biblical understanding of marriage, guys who love God's church, who could lead me, who'd be good dads, etc. I don't think it's some mystical thing that we have to feel all googly about or panic about or spend four hours a day praying about. God uses means to accomplish his will -- means like the preaching of the Gospel, and our brains and hearts. Means like first dates, wedding ceremonies, and uteruses. Things don't usually spring fully-formed from God's mind -- he graciously brings us into his plan for all creation by giving us responsibilities and using our choices to accomplish the summing up of all things in Christ. Which I think is pretty awesome.

L

I Miss Tassie

2008-10-07T14:47:00.002-04:00

Specifically, at the moment, I desperately miss morning tea, which is an Aussie tradition so sacred that its omission at social or business gatherings of any kind is punishable by death. Or at least in theory, because who, really, would even dream of skipping a steaming cup of tea and a plate full of booze-soaked cake, scones with jam and cream, and chocolate slices?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go sob into my afternoon tea.

Questions and Answers, Part 6

2008-10-07T09:06:00.001-04:00

Hey Laura,

Thanks. Just wanting to make sure I’m knowledgeable rather than just uncomfortable. Thanks again for your input on all of this stuff. What do you think about Saint's Days and Feast Days -- and the church calendar in general? I've read up on some of those things too and I'm just wondering.

Your Friend,

P.S. I’m sorry, but I just love those Icons. They’re so gosh-darn beautiful!

Hey Girl,

You are right. They are SO beautiful -- I think much more dramatic and evocative than a lot of Western sacred art, although that may just be since I wasn't exposed to Eastern art as much. I would feel comfortable personally with icons of "saints" and men and women of old in a church building. I think it'd be hard to argue that it's a sin to do so. Maybe unwise in certain settings (if there are a lot of former Orthodox folks who have conscience issues, etc.), but not a sin. It's the depictions of God that I think just blatantly violate the "no graven images" thing and that I think we should avoid using devotionally.

I think feast/saint's days are rad. They started off in the church as commemorations of the martyrdom days of martyrs, which is SO cool, and which I think we should still do (like lots of other things -- the church calendar, for example). And I agree that the "saints" interceded for God's people while they were on Earth.

I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but the Orthodox view of the "communion of saints" is that the living and dead believers exist together -- that the dead aren't dead in the way we think of them as, and so they intercede for us before God just like they would have done on Earth. They deny that the living church and the "dead" church are separated. This makes the idea of the intercession of the saints make total sense. I deny that there is no separation between living and dead -- again, this is an example of over-realized eschatology. The perfect unity we will have in the age to come is not here yet! We look forward to it, but we are not now experiencing it. Making any sense?

Questions and Answers, Part 5

2008-10-06T07:01:00.002-04:00

Hey Girl,

Hmm… interesting… clearly you think “venerating” is the same as “worshipping.” Is it possible to show special honor without worshipping? Where would you personally draw the line?

Your Friend,

Hey Girl,

Here's my opinion about the "veneration of Mary" shown by Catholics and others: if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. A lot of people who worship Mary say they don't, but in their actions, they are giving her far more praise and honor and glory than are due to a person, even someone like Mary who is unique in all of history.

This is from an online Catholic encyclopedia:

This attitude [toward the "worship" of Mary -- and they actually use the word "worship"] becomes still more explicit in Tertullian and St. Cyprian, and the stress laid upon the "satisfactory" character of the sufferings of the martyrs, emphasizing the view that by their death they could obtain graces and blessings for others, naturally and immediately led to their direct invocation. A further reinforcement, of the same idea, was derived from the cult of the angels, which, while pre-Christian in its origin, was heartily embraced by the faithful of the sub-Apostolic age. It seems to have been only as a sequel of some such development that men turned to implore the intercession of the Blessed Virgin.

The (Catholics) have suggested that Mary's obedience undoes Eve's disobedience -- that she is a "substitute" for Eve in the same way that Christ substitutes for mankind in Adam. This is typical of Marian devotion -- ascribing to her the same salvation-related characteristics that the Scriptures ascribe to Jesus. Sinlessness is another one -- that Mary was born without sin, that HER mother (traditionally called "Anna") was a virgin when she was conceived. She's also frequently called "Co-redemptrix" and "co-mediatrix" with Christ. Eep. You can call that "just veneration" if you want, but saying that Mary is fully co-operative in REDEMPTION?? That's worship, and it's also blasphemy.

Here's a link to a set of actual prayers to Mary (the Virgin of Fatima) written in the 1980s. (Most RCs don't take it this far, but it's there, and more common in Latin America.)

As far as where the line is? Here's Martin Luther's opinion, which I can get on board with in general:

She is the highest woman and the noblest gem in Christianity after Christ ... She is nobility, wisdom, and holiness personified. We can never honor her enough. Still, honor and praise must be given to her in such a way as to injure neither Christ nor the Scriptures.

If our honor of her puts her on the same level as that of Christ, that's a major issue. If we're giving her salvific powers, that's a blasphemy issue. No one can save but God. The Scriptures say that Christ is out intercessor before God, and that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us in prayer. It says nothing about Mary. That's significant to me. She was a woman to be honored as one who obeyed God, whose very body was host of the Redeemer of the World -- HUGE deal. I want to imitate her, to set her as an example of joyful obedience in hardship and suffering, and even to recognize her as uniquely and spectacularly blessed! Our Lord loved her as his mother. So far, so good. But the minute we start saying she was perfect, she works together with Jesus to save us, she has the power to answer prayers or to influence God's will... that's when we've taken it WAY too far.

L

Questions and Answers, Part 4

2008-10-03T08:51:00.000-04:00

Hey Laura,

How long did the veneration of Mary and of icons and all that stuff go on before people really started to protest it? Was it first protested by Luther or was there disagreement before that? I Googled some of the basics of the ecumenical councils and found…

3. Council of Ephesus (431), of more than 200 bishops, presided over by St. Cyril of Alexandria representing Pope Celestine l, defined the true personal unity of Christ, declared Mary the Mother of God (theotokos) against Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, and renewed the condemnation of Pelagius.

7. Second Council of Nicaea (787) was convoked by Emperor Constantine VI and his mother Irene, under Pope Adrian I, and was presided over by the legates of Pope Adrian; it regulated the veneration of holy images. Between 300 and 367 bishops assisted.

I guess it’s still hard for me to understand why these people, after meeting and discussing over long periods of time (some of the same people who, while fallible, were able to recognize the heresy of Arius, etc.) were able to come to these decisions but we determine it not valid later? What's up with that?

Hey girl, great questions.

Number 3, the council of Ephesus, I would agree with those things. I don't have a problem calling Mary the Theotokos (which means "God-bearer" in Greek), because Jesus was and is God. Nestorius was a heretic who under-emphasized the divinity of Jesus -- so the God-bearer thing was really a Christology issue, not whether or not Mary was divine-like or worthy of veneration. Christians have ALWAYS viewed Mary as worthy of honor.

I think we (meaning evangelicals) have reacted too far against the misuse of Mary's life and example, and how Catholics especially have twisted it in a really sick way. So much so that we'll talk in over-the-top language about Elisha's miracles, David's passion for God, Esther's boldness and intelligence, but we won't talk about Mary's humility, joy, courage, and honor. We won't even say what the Scriptures say about her, which is that she was highly favored by God, blessed among all women.

Another thing to keep in mind is that we don't "decide" independently whether people were right. We make like the Bereans and search the Scriptures to see if the things they taught were in line with Scripture. Clearly it's out of line with Scripture to worship icons or images, or to pray to the dead, or to worship Mary, so we have to reject that teaching because Scripture says not to make a graven image of God, not to try to communicate with or conjure up the dead, and to give worship to no one but God.

There was a TON of disagreement about the veneration of Mary, indulgences, purgatory, praying for the dead, images/icons, the Lord's Supper all the way through Christian history. The problem was that the Roman church in the west and the Orthodox church in the east were in bed with the government which was often only nominally Christian, and so they could forcibly put down any dissent -- and they frequently did. Look up groups like the Lollards, and dudes like John Wycliffe and John Huss.

One of the major reasons Mary-worship popped up so soon (in the 4th and 5th centuries, spreading from there) is that it connected pagan goddess-worship to Christianity (incidentally, it's also a reason Catholicism caught on like billy-o in Latin America). When the Roman Empire was "made Christian" in the 4th Century, we're not talking about a mass conversion of hearts and lives. You still have all these thousands upon thousands of pagans who no longer have just Artemis or any number of other pagan goddesses to worship but also this "new" religion. So folks come up with the idea (unfortunately not corrected by some irresponsible church leaders) that, see, this "Mary" person is the Queen of Heaven like our goddesses! We can "venerate" her like we worshiped Artemis!

Now, it's obvious to me from reading church history that the worship of Mary became increasingly required over the years -- so whereas there seem to be pockets of Mary-worship surrounded by a lot of harmless if slightly overzealous Mary-honor beginning in the 4th and 5th centuries, over the years the institutional church began to demand it more and more, until it was considered heretical and punishable by death not to offer prayers to Mary and think of her as the chief intercessor for us in heaven. Which is jacked up, just in case you're curious.

Just because something is a long-standing tradition or really "ancient" doesn't make it right. One of the oldest "churches" in the world is the heretical Coptic "church" which sided with Arius over Jesus' nature. They believe that Jesus is less than God, that he was a created being that God elevated to divine status -- basically what the Jehovah's Witnesses believe only 1800 years before.

As far as the decisions being reached, you could probably find out about the votes on various subjects -- I don't know how good the records were that were kept of specifics. But some of the decisions provoked or were provoked by (in the case of the Icons thing) actual wars! So we're definitely not seeing total agreement amongst the folks at these councils.

Lunch break's almost over. Later.

L

Questions and Answers, Part 3

2008-10-02T08:40:00.003-04:00

Hey Laura,

What do you think of the Eucharist? I’ve always had a hard time seeing it only as a symbol but maybe that’s just because I’m such a sensualist!

Your Friend,
X

Hey Girl,

I totally do not think you're being a sensualist when you find yourself dissatisfied with a purely "symbolic" or "memorialist" view of the Lord's Supper. Not at all. I think that those two views are reactionary and flat, and don't accurately or robustly represent either the Scriptural presentation of communion or the practices of the church (which I find helpful here).

First, what do we call it? I don't think it matters. Eucharist just comes from the Greek word "eucharisto" meaning "to give thanks." The Lord's Supper is what a lot of evangelicals call it. The term communion just has to do with the fellowship and unity we share as we take the bread and wine.

Second, do we call it a sacrament or an ordinance? I think we can call it both or either. Typically evangelicals shy away from the word "sacrament" because of its association with the Catholic view of communion, but I don't think that's necessary. There IS something sacred about the body of Christ fellowshipping together over this meal. But it's also an "ordinance" because Christ ordained, or commanded, it. That's why we have only two sacraments/ordinances (baptism and communion) vs. Roman Catholics and Orthodox who have seven (confirmation, marriage, ordination, confession/penance, last rites/extreme unction) -- because we believe that Christ instituted only those two as commands for all believers.

Third, views of the Lord's Supper:
(ALL Christians believe that we take communion in memory of Christ's death, and that he commanded us to do so. The arguments arise from Jesus' so-called "words of institution" -- "This is my body, broken for you... this is my blood, shed for you" -- and what they actually mean in our communal lives as the church, and also from the effect of communion on the body of Christ.)

1. Catholic – the mass (celebration of the Lord's Supper) re-offers the sacrifice of Christ, who is bodily present in the elements. It is a continuous re-sacrifice of Christ. Transubstantiation means that the wine becomes the blood of Christ, in its very substance, once it's consecrated by a priest, and the bread becomes the body of Christ. Only the outward form remains but in every spiritual and actual way, Jesus is bodily present in the elements. This has been discussed and debated and refined and nuanced for hundreds of years. They really, really, really mean that the bread = flesh and the wine = blood. Period. They even claim to know how it all happens. For Catholics, participation in the Sacraments actually saves people. The sacraments are the means God uses to confer his saving grace.

2. Orthodox – the Divine Liturgy has the Eucharist at its center. Their view is very similar to the Catholic view in that they believe that the "real presence" of Christ is in the elements in a bodily, actual way, but they just haven't flogged it out to such a ridiculously complex extent as the Catholics. Same problems exist, though -- re-sacrifice, transubstantiation, saving element of sacraments, etc.

3. Anglican/Episcopalian – there is a "real presence" of Christ in the elements, but it's whatever Christ says it is. This is a typically vague Anglican position... ;) And there's a range of opinions on it. I'd say most faithful Anglicans avoid the Catholic view but don't go as far as the Protestants do in reducing it to mere symbolism. The elements are a means of grace.

4. Lutheran – Christ is present in a "sacramental union" with the elements. The typical way Lutherans talk about Christ's presence in the elements is that he is "in, with, and under" the elements. Luther utterly rejected the idea of the mass as a re-sacrifice of Christ, rightly arguing that it undermines the once-for-allness of Jesus' death on our behalf, and adds human works to salvation. God uses the sacraments to confer grace to us in the community of faith. (On a side note, I am strongly attracted to this view in many ways.)

5. Methodist – Christ's presence is real but a great holy mystery experienced by faith. The sacraments are an experience of Grace for the believer.

------------------------------------------------------------

Up to this point, the actual elements have to be guarded with some care and disposed of properly (or never, in the case of the Catholics and Orthodox, but instead stored and venerated or worshiped), because they contain the actual presence of the Lord. Beyond this point, that's not the case.

6. Calvinist/Reformed – The presence of Christ in communion is not "actual" but "spiritual." The body and blood of Christ, spiritually present in the elements, feed our souls, not our bodies, by faith -- but real nourishment and a real experience of the incarnate Christ occurs to those who have true faith and thus the Holy Spirit. Believers feast with Christ in heaven during the Lord's Supper, as though they were carried by the Spirit to his immediate presence there. Thus communion is an image of the unity and joy to be found at the marriage feast of the Lamb. When we participate in communion, the community of faith becomes the Body of Christ in a truer way. (This probably describes my view best, although I like to borrow from the Methodists and Lutherans too.)

7. Zwingli/many modern evangelicals -- Mere memorialist view, often called the "no presence" view. Christ is not present in any meaningful way in communion, and we participate in it because Christ commanded us to do so in order to remember his death.

I think we really miss out on a sense of connectedness and symbolism and mystery when we forget that Jesus Last Supper was the Passover -- that the bread he blessed and broke was the "bread of affliction," symbolizing the Israelite's hasty deliverance from their bondage in Egypt, and that the wine he lifted up was the "cup of salvation/redemption," which should have been blessed with the words, "This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you" but instead Jesus said, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, poured out for you."

I also think we have a pretty dim view of symbolism, representation, and memory -- those things are faith-building, deep, and real. Christ is present with us when we gather, and he has graciously given us these elements of bread and wine to stir our minds and hearts, lest we forget his sacrifice on our behalf. It's not "merely" a picture, it's a drama or a "story time" for our childish, stubborn hearts to hold on to in our moments of doubt and difficulty. It symbolizes the unity of the Body of Christ. It depicts Christ's death. It gives us a foretaste of the glory to come. It lets us feast with and on Christ for our spiritual nourishment. It's a beautiful, amazing, mysterious gift from God.

We must reject the idea that communion is a sacrifice in any sense -- which means we also must reject transubstantiation, because the two go hand in hand -- because it directly contradicts Scripture. But I think any view that doesn't contradict scripture, speak of the Eucharist as a sacrifice, or over-emphasize OUR works rather than remembering and giving thanks for God’s grace is fine for believers to hold.

Geez... it's like a book.

;)

L

Questions and Answers, Part 2

2008-10-01T08:39:00.000-04:00

Laura,

Can you tell me a little bit more about the ecumenical councils? When exactly were those formed? I guess I’m not fully clear why they’re invalid or why they wouldn’t be binding on the Church before all the schisms and splits (I assume those councils were before any split, correct?)

Your Friend,

Hey Girl,

What the Orthodox Church (and Catholic Church for that matter) tends to portray is this single monolithic set of seven councils, that all True Christians (i.e. Orthodox) have always recognized as authoritative, since the dawn of Christianity. That's not how they really went.

The councils were a lot like denominational conventions are today -- pastors got together to discuss issues that were arising in their churches, to talk about how to deal with the problems brought on by persecution, etc. We have this idea that they were some grand royal-type arrangement. We're talking about ordinary pastors who were doing their best to be faithful to their congregations and the Scriptures, meeting to deal with problems and doctrinal concerns and heresies and to encourage and promote the unity of the church. They were patterned after the Jerusalem Council which is mentioned in Acts 15, when the apostles met to discuss the management of the churches and the issue of circumcision -- and when Paul rebuked Peter for giving in to the Judaizers.

The "First Ecumenical Council," as it's called, was the council of Nicaea in 325. Constantine asked for it to be called (probably at the urging of his pastor) to settle some disagreements about the nature of Christ and the trinity, because a pastor named Arius had been teaching his church that Jesus was a created being who was not fully divine. Since that's not what the Scriptures teach, the council asked him to repent, and he refused. The important thing to remember is that the council didn't decide that Arius was wrong and his opponent Athanasius was right -- they recognized that Arius's teachings were out of line with what Christians have always believed, and so they called him to repent, and when he refused, they removed him from his position as pastor of his church in Alexandria and excommunicated him. We get the Nicene Creed from this council, which is just a clear statement of the beliefs Christians have always held.

The next council was the council of Chalcedon, which addressed similar issues with the humanity of Jesus. Again, they weren't deciding that Jesus was human; they were recognizing what the Scriptures teach.

There is general agreement among Eastern Orthodox on most of the Seven Ecumenical Councils. But some Orthodox recognize certain ones that other Orthodox don't -- so it's kinda 6 + one or the other, or 6 + 2. Also, some councils were considered ecumenical (universal) at the time but were later rejected -- usually because a so-called ecumenical council would promote heresy and then would be hard-core corrected a few years later.

There were schisms between the Assyrian church and Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox and Orthodox in the midst of the councils. The "Great Schism" didn't happen until the 11th century, but there had been major trouble brewing for about 400 years between the East (Orthodox) and the West (Roman Catholic). The Great Schism was kinda the last, "Oh yeah? Well I excommunicate you TOO! Take THAT!"

For me as a Protestant, there are two major areas of disagreement with the Orthodox (and Catholic) view of the Councils.

1. The creeds. Catholics and Orthodox see creeds (which came out of the councils) as authoritative because the council wrote them. I see the creeds as helpful, but not authoritative, summaries of what the Scriptures teach and thus what Christians have always believed. The Councils didn't "come up with" this statement of belief, they just wrote it down in a clear way to prevent heretics from feeling like they could teach something contrary to the Scriptures. Creeds are like mini-systematic theology texts. I don't take a Systematic textbook and call it perfectly authoritative, but I sure do find it helpful in organizing what the Bible says on a particular issue. That's all creeds are -- condensing down the essentials of the faith into a few easy-to-learn paragraphs. There's pretty good consensus that the organization and content of creeds came from "baptismal formulas" -- sort of like interviews: what do you believe about God the Father? What do you believe about Christ? What do you believe about the Holy Spirit and the church and the resurrection, etc.? -- to test the beliefs of a candidate for baptism.

2. The nature of the councils. Catholics and Orthodox look at the councils and say, "Those people got together to DECIDE Christian doctrine. Without them, we wouldn't KNOW what true Christian doctrine was!" Baloney. The Scriptures contain everything we need for life and godliness, and these godly pastors and overseers knew that. That's why they used the Scriptures to repudiate heresy and keep the church as a whole pure. That's why they used the methods of the Bible to exclude people who didn't teach in accordance with the doctrines all Christians have always believed.

Part of the reason we struggle to get our minds around these councils, I think, is that we see titles like "bishop" and think Oh, that sounds very official and serious! -- but that word translated as "bishop" by some Eastern Orthodox and Catholics is the word "presbuteros," which is the word we translate as "elder." So we are literally talking about pastors or elders, plus regional and national leaders, getting together to address problems and promote unity, not a bunch of Cardinal-types meeting to decide whether or not we should believe that Jesus is fully man and fully God. They simply affirmed what the Scriptures already taught.

There's such a temptation to desire that someone in an authoritative position would just tell us what the Scriptures mean. But two things about that. First, pastors are just as fallible as we are -- they're not our "high priests" who intercede for us, Jesus is, nor are they our perfect guide to God's word. The Holy Spirit is. Second, whenever the Scriptures are taught or prophecy or words of knowledge are spoken, Paul (for example) tells us to test what is right in what they're saying. He doesn't say, "If I come and preach to you, you better just accept what I way because I'm an apostle!" He instead commends the Bereans, for example, because when he came to them, they earnestly searched the Scriptures to see if what he said was true. We're never supposed to just go along with what a Christian leader says without being certain that they are in line with what we know to be true in God's word.

Look, nobody would have the nerve to say, "Last year's Southern Baptist Convention in Indianapolis is perfectly authoritative on the same level as Scripture for all Christians everywhere, and anyone who rejects its decisions is anathema." But for some reason we're tempted to think that a gathering of fallible humans can make perfect and perfectly authoritative declarations just because the gathering took place 1700 years ago. It's a crazily false view of history. We are no more or less jacked-up than they were. They had their hidden sins, their blind spots, their mistaken theologies -- for instance, the oldest creed we have is the Apostles Creed (from around the 2nd Century) and I disagree with one of the lines when it says that Jesus "descended into hell." I don't think the Scripture indicates that Jesus went to Hell! The worship of Mary began as early as the 4th century. Does that make it right? No way!

We get this notion in our heads that these "great men of old" had it together in a way that we don't, but that just doesn't reflect the picture of humanity that we get in the Scriptures. Luther hated Jews. Calvin allowed the state to execute heretics. Augustine thought sex was evil and abstinence was the only holy path for "serious" Christians. The first Baptists turned into political revolutionaries. Everyone, even those halo-sporting council guys, gets things wrong. Maybe God allows that to keep us humble. Maybe he allows it so we'll long for Christ's return and the perfect unity of God's church. I don't know. But it's the reality.

L

Questions and Answers

2008-09-30T20:17:00.005-04:00

One of my dear friends has been asking some amazing questions lately about church history, the canon of the Scriptures, the Lord's Supper, God's sovereignty... you know, little insignificant details like that. Some of our email discussions have been really helpful to me, since I am so prone to forget the great truths of our precious faith, so I asked her if I could re-word some of the questions and answers for brevity and clarity's sake and post them on my blog. Since I've gotten her gracious permission, I'll start posting her emails to me and my responses to her beginning this week.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I have!

Election

2008-09-30T17:54:00.001-04:00

"That is election: the Father in love pursues foolish, obstinate, disobedient children who have chosen death, and he decrees that more important than their will is His love. And anyone who is a Christian should thank God that not only did he call out to them, but he pursued them! And that in Jesus Christ he extended a hand, and he grabbed them, and he yanked them to himself. [...] If you are a Christian, you should praise God; you have a loving father who has grabbed you by the neck and spared you from Satan, sin, death, wrath, judgment, and conscious, eternal torment in Hell. He owes you nothing! But he has given you all things."

-- Mark Driscoll

No Comment

2008-09-24T12:30:00.002-04:00

The typical parent, when whacking a misbehaving child, doesn't pause to wonder: "What does science have to say about the efficacy of corporal punishment?" If they are thinking anything at all, it's: "Here comes justice!" And while the typical parent may not know or care, the science on corporal punishment of kids is pretty clear. Despite the rise of the timeout and other nonphysical forms of punishment, most American parents hit, pinch, shake, or otherwise lay violent hands on their youngsters: 63 percent of parents physically discipline their 1- to 2-year-olds, and 85 percent of adolescents have been physically punished by their parents. Parents cite children's aggression and failure to comply with a request as the most common reasons for hitting them.

--Alan E. Kazdin, "Spare the Rod," Slate.com

OK, maybe ONE comment.

AARRRRRGH!!

Doubt

2008-09-21T13:22:00.003-04:00

I ran across an interesting "combating doubt" post/link on JT's blog, and it reminded me of something Chandi Plummer encouraged me to do whenever I struggled with fear or false thinking. I found it to be a very helpful exercise in those areas and I'm sure it would be for times of doubt as well! I adapted the original using Chandi's suggestions.

(1) Identify the source of the doubt (fear, false thought) -- not just the immediate source but the ultimate source! Who is the father of lies? And what does the Scripture say about the deceitfulness of sin and the wickedness of our hearts?

(2) Identify the underlying assumptions about God's goodness, myself, the sufficiency of Christ, etc.

(3) Raise doubts about the doubt (fear, false thought). Challenge it. Say NO to it!

(4) Replace the assumption with a more biblical one. Remind your mind and heart of God's truth.

I'm Starting the Countdown Today

2008-09-19T20:42:00.006-04:00

It's official. Only 59 days until Davidson basketball.

I've written about Davidson before, first here, and then after their quarterfinal slaughter of Wisconsin, and then in response to an ESPN.com article about them... and then again after their soul-crushing defeat by those Kansas jerks whom I've sworn to hate until my dying day...

(AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

Ugh. That put me in a bad mood. Let's try something more cheerful, shall we?

AP Photo/Chuck Burton

Ahh. Much better.

Does this mean I have to get cable?

YEE-HAW!

2008-09-14T22:31:00.002-04:00

It's a blog roundup!

Of sorts.

Christine linked over to the Most Excellent "Making Home" blog not too long ago, and I've become addicted. Ladies, it's highly recommended whether you're married or single. Yes, as a married woman and one with a teaching ministry she does discuss marital intimacy with some frankness, but -- I have literally never come across someone who does so with so much tact, nor with so much joy. Her blog is neither preachy, nor clinical, nor wishy-washy, nor lewd. It's a realistic, encouraging picture of the life of an ordinary Christian wife and mother. (Oh, and gents, I'd recommend reading all the articles but the comments sections frequently contain some very honest woman-to-woman discussions that you might not find edifying.)

Please, if you haven't done so already, head over to Last Night's Dinner and check out Jenn's gorgeous photos and inspiration. While you're at it, swing by Cook Eat Fret and take a gander at Claudia's salivary-action-inducing caramel cake.

Tonight's dinner for me?

An Ommegang Hennepin that took me hours to drink
a dozen or so Sicilian olives (might go down and get some more, actually...)
a wedge of this award-winning, smelly, gorgeous goat cheese
a handful of "everything" cracker-bread
a scoop of Huber Farms peach butter

And a very satisfying dinner it was, I must say. Delish.

We were out of school Monday and Tuesday because of Hurricane Ike, which was still (strong) Tropical Depression Ike when it knocked out power for around 300,000 people in the Louisville-metro area Sunday. I was blessed to have electricity back by Sunday night (apparently our development is on the Valhalla circuits...), but many folks in the city will continue to live a compulsory Amish life for another week or more!

Go check out Mikey's blog. He's one of the elders of Crossroads, the church Mike and Christine are a part of, and where I attended while I was in Hobart. It's an amazing church and Mikey is a pretty awesome dude with some unique and interesting theological insights.

That's all I got.

Oversaved

2008-09-07T15:17:00.004-04:00

I saw a funny YouTube video by a Christian comedian about people who are "oversaved" -- folks you can't even have a normal conversation with without them spouting some pious-sounding platitude. (Example from the video: "It's hot out here, man. You thirsty?" "Yeah, thirsty for the LORD!!")

It got me thinking of a Jeff Foxworthy-esque "You might be oversaved..." kind of thing, which reminded me of Purgatorio's old "Help! I'm Going Hyper!" post, which was totally priceless and which STILL makes me laugh after nearly three years. Probably more now than when I first read it, since I now get all the references that I missed when I first read it as a Seminary virgin and raging Arminian. Sample:

23. You’re looking under your big kid’s bed and find

and you are way more upset then the time you found

If you've never seen it... well, what's the matter with you?

Ah, Douglas Wilson, how do I love thee?

2008-09-02T18:48:00.003-04:00

Douglas Wilson, for those of you unfortunate enough to be unfamiliar with him, is a great man. Not just as in a "great guy" but as in a Great Man. With capitals. Listing all of his many accomplishments here would be too much for my lazy brain and those of my lazy (and sparse) readership, undoubtedly. Highlights, in my opinion, are his work promoting classical education, his annihilation of oft-fawned-over atheist Chris Hitchens in a series of debates in Christianity Today, and now, his increasingly sharp and merciless satirical novel, Evangellyfish, the tagline of which ought to be, "Hahaha... Ouch."

Here's a brief excerpt from Chapter 1. Read the rest, as they say, at your own risk.

[Pastor Mitchell] surprised, and was in turn surprised by, Chad Lester, who was there with Cherie trying to . . . well, it was not at all clear now what he had been trying to do. But Mitchell had thought at the time he knew what Lester was trying to do. Words had been exchanged, including some bits of high volume exegesis and penetrating theological insight. Chad had stumbled on his way to the door, lurching into Mitchell, and Mitchell had taken that opportunity to unload a punch which connected with a less than perfect tenderness. But as punches go, analyzed merely in the interests of dispassionate science and apart from any ethical considerations, it had been exquisite.

Now. Boys and girls, that is what we call vivid writing -- vivid to the point of being actually painful.

Bloggy bloggy blog blog

2008-09-01T16:48:00.002-04:00

Well, a few things have been checked off my list of Things Which Must Be Done In The Next Two Months:

Start new job... check.
Survive first week of new job... check.
Move into James and Terra's spare room... check.
Make an offer on a condo... check.

The rest of my list looks increasingly manageable but still pretty hectic:

Continue new job
Read absolutely stacks of books for new job
Accept counter-offer on condo
Do innumerable closing-related condo tasks
Move AGAIN
Have nervous breakdown
Find time to go to Indianapolis and retrieve dining set and hutch of my Grandma's that now belongs to me and has home in condo

After that... well, I'm sure life in the asylum will be very peaceful. I wonder if they'll let me out every afternoon to teach my 8th graders?

I survived...

2008-08-28T07:49:00.002-04:00

And I was extremely encouraged and challenged by this series of articles by David Powlison at Boundless (where else?) this week. Here's a short excerpt to whet your appetite:

[...T]he Bible teaches that God actually arranges the stage on which you live. He is the Lord of history, including your local time and place, and your personal history. Your particular matrix of influences provides the context in which your faith (or your self-will) plays out, in which He meets you (or you shirk Him).
This awareness frees you. You can seek to understand any contributory influence as just that, as a factor and not the cause. You won't grant them too much credit, morphing them into root causes and excuses for your sins. But you also won't dismiss them as irrelevant, ignoring the actual situations and difficulties in which you need practical wisdom and practical mercies.

Check it out.

Yes, But the Real Question is, Can She Survive The First Day?

2008-08-22T14:45:00.004-04:00

7:30 - Doors open
8:00 - Recitation
8:20 - Planning time
9:00 - Bible
9:30 - History
10:00 - Recess
10:15 - Literature (third grade)
11:00 - Literature (fourth grade)
11:45 - Mid-Day Prayer
12:00 - Lunch
12:45 - Omnibus (eighth grade literature, theology, history)
1:45 - Latin I
2:30 - P.E. (Monday and Friday), Chorus (Tuesday and Thursday) or Study Hall (Wednesday)
3:00 - End of Day

I HAD to link to this one

2008-08-21T19:13:00.004-04:00

I recently, by God's miraculous provision and grace, was hired as the third and fourth grade teacher at Covenant Classical Academy. I'd been applying for teaching positions at private schools since the spring -- private schools were the only option for me because I didn't get an education degree in college and I'm not certified to teach in Kentucky.

State certification is a pretty arduous process. Education degrees can be pretty tiresome, too, which is why I dropped mine in favor of English. I don't regret it for a second. I don't think having an education degree or a teaching certificate would make me one iota more qualified for the job I've got. Letters and certificates don't make good teachers; teachers are born, and great teachers are shaped through the blood, sweat, and tears they shed in the classroom.

Turns out I'm not the only one who feels this way. Anthony Lombardi, the NYC public school principal whose heavy-handed methods rankled many teachers but turned around the once-dismal performer P.S. 48, seems to think that our entire system of certification allows too many mediocre teachers to keep floundering away at the blackboard while their students languish, all because they have union protection from the first day on the job. He sees child development classes at college and intense, subject-specific board tests as a waste of time -- straight A's in your Ed classes and high marks on your practicum simply do not translate to excellence as an educator.

So what's the solution? Lombardi says it's time to junk certification tests, forget about looking for education degrees on resumes, and implement the millenia-old method of preparing a greenhorn for a man's work: apprenticeship. According to Ray Fisman, writing for Slate.com, "new recruits would have a couple of years of in-school training. There would then come a day of reckoning, when teachers-to-be would face a serious evaluation before securing union membership and a job for life."

Good call.

Well...?

2008-08-21T18:24:00.003-04:00

I posted a version of this series of questions on the Boundless Line today (intentionally not linked; it's a very heated discussion and I wouldn't recommend wasting your time reading it unless you're a glutton for punishment). Anyone want to take a shot?

1. What does God say about children?

2. Is God in control of human fertility?

3. If God calls children a blessing to be welcomed and he is in control of fertility, than do I have the right as a believer (whose life is supposed to be conformed to God's ways) to say (if married), "I don't want kids," or "I want to put off children (or marriage and children) because ___"?

You don't really have to answer them... And I'm sure my answers are painfully obvious. Pondering these questions was what changed my attitude about this whole thing. I realized that I had absorbed the culture's attitudes toward marriage and children -- don't get married until you're settled in your career, put off having children as long as possible because they're a hassle, stuff like that. But throughout the centuries, Christians have always been counter-cultural in how they valued children -- the early Church fought against the pagan practices of child sacrifice and abandonment, for example, and Christians led the charge for the illegalization of child labor.

So why is it that now, even among Christians, having a child early in a marriage must have been an accident? And why having a large family (i.e., anything beyond three or four kids) means you must not have figured out how to work those birth control pills? And why Christian parents tell their sons and daughters that they must not get married before they've graduated college and settled down into a good career (never mind the tens of thousands in debt it took to get there)?

What do you think is at the heart of the problem?

The Omnivore's Hundred

2008-08-16T22:25:00.005-04:00

Thanks to Jen at Last Night's Dinner (my absolute favorite food blog -- check it out and you'll see why) for this fun meme, which she got from Very Good Taste. Instructions follow:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding (Sick. Blood and oats in a casing. Wrong.)
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns (Mmmm, my favorite thing in Hong Kong! Char siu bau!)
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes (Like every year since I was born… duh.)
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras (And it had exactly the same texture as the mushroom soup part of green bean casserole. I.e., not good.)
24. Rice and beans
25. ~~Brawn, or head cheese~~
26. ~~Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper~~ (That would just be stupid.)
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters (well… AN oyster, and it was not pleasant. It looks like a loogie floating in dishwater. The texture is the most appalling I’ve ever experienced. Really, there are no words to describe how disturbing it is.)
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly (would it taste like anything except sweet?)
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. ~~Whole insects~~
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more (not a crossout, but whisky = yuck)
46. Fugu (Meh. Bourdain said it was boring, and if you can’t trust Bourdain, who can you trust?)
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. ~~Sea urchin~~ (*shudder* Texture!!)
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone (see 50. But I’m curious, because what’s-her-name in Island of the Blue Dolphins ate it all the time)
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal (Oh, the shame! But never, ever again.)
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini (Cocktail lovers, turn your heads. I hate gin. It tastes like something you’d remove paint with.)
58. Beer above 8% ABV (Um, duh…)
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips (Unfortunately, and only because Guy Curlee was allergic to chocolate… and everything else.)
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads (Not a crossout, but somebody would have to convince me that they’re just divine, because those things are GLANDS. GLANDS, people!)
63. Kaolin (isn’t that a kind of clay?)
64. Currywurst
65. ~~Durian~~ (No, no, absolutely no. Never. Why would you eat a fruit that smells like feta cheese and ammonia?)
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis (Maybe one bite, on a dare.)
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette (“Chitterlings”? My, my, aren’t we fancy? I believe the correct term is “Chitlins,” y’all.)
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini (I’m not a huge fan of the caviar. Texture thing again, I think.)
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. ~~Roadkill~~
76. Baijiu (I have a weird feeling this wouldn’t be delicious
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant. (Where do I sign up for this?)
85. Kobe beef (Whatever. Trendy foods don’t really do it for me)
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. ~~Horse~~ (I seriously cried when Eight Belles broke her leg at the Derby and had to be put down on the track. I made my parents change the channel so I wouldn’t have to watch her owner, trainer, and jockey sobbing. Do YOU think I’d eat horse?)
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor (Lobster is just a meh for me. Maybe I just haven’t had the superlative lobster, but I dunno… seems like for something so expensive they oughta do the work for you.
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Wow! A lot more than I thought. Now you give it a go... Come on!

Things I love and things I love not so much.

2008-08-15T22:12:00.002-04:00

Things I love not so much right now:

People thinking their wedding is the perfect excuse to be the selfish brats they've always dreamt of being but were afraid to try. I'm going to write a book about this someday, I swear, and one of the chapters is going to be called, "Your Wedding Day: Celebration, not Extortion."

Allergies. How can my nose be stuffy AND runny at the same time? Hmm?

Having to move at the end of the month. Do you think that if I just pretend it's not really happening, my stuff will all just miraculously box itself up and find its way to the condo I'm hoping to buy? Hey! That'd make the house-hunting process a lot quicker! I'd just have to call around to the folks who own the places I'm looking at and ask if a whole truckload of stuff just materialized in their living room!

Things I love right now (so as to end the post on a more cheerful note):

The Dick Van Dyke Show. I actually love this all the time -- it's a truly one-of-a-kind show. A sitcom that portrays the American family as it might have been, if only: a smart, clever, successful husband with a loving, supportive wife, an unfailingly hilarious premise (comedy writer whose life is often funner than his job), and some of the best supporting characters ever to softshoe, sing, and hurl oneliners in the background make it my absolute favorite. The first two seasons are available at hulu.com for free streaming. Best Episodes: the "Walnuts" one, Richard "Rosebud" Petrie, the haunted cabin episode, and anything with a flashback to Rob and Laura's Army/USO days.

Having a job (see also: Classical education).

Michael Phelps. I know, I know... not very original. But have YOU ever found yourself spellbound by a swimming competition before? That's what I thought.

Tomatoes. For reeeeeeal. This week I've had an organic Brandywine and an organic Cherokee Purple from my friends Justin and Stacey's garden (both of which were delectable, but let's be honest. It's Justin's garden.), as well as a beautiful and exceptionally delicious tomato of some faintly heirloomish variety that I sliced, salted, and ate alongside a few tiny nubs of fresh mozzarella. For supper.

Discernment

2008-08-01T15:27:00.003-04:00

In the church, there seems to be an idea that "discernment" means "praying and waiting for God's specific, personal direction on every decision in my life" -- see John Eldredge's book, Walking with God for a classic example. But is that the view of Scripture? I think not. Such an understanding of discernment leads to several errors:

1. A separation between Christians who "know God's will," i.e. the super-Christians that God speaks to, and the "ordinary" Christians who seem not to hear from God about stuff like the color of their wallpaper.

2. Using "discernment" to excuse unwise behavior and even sin. I don't know how many times I've heard people say, "Well, I've prayed about it for months and the Lord has told me it was OK," even if "it" was buying a $300,000 house when you're $60,000 in debt, or living with but not sleeping with your fiance, or being slack in disciplining your kids. Those are not areas about which we ought even to pray. The best advice I can give people who encounter this "God told me" business from people is to remember that it's not a trump card. We have a responsibility to one another in the body of Christ, and letting someone off the hook just because they played the "God told me" card is hardly showing love to our brothers.

3. Total paralysis in decision-making, stemming from not using your brain and instead waiting for some sign or feeling to show you that God has given you direction. I strongly believe that for the Christian, the ordinary way of making decisions goes like this: Learn, study, and love God's word. Use the mind that God is sanctifying to make wise decisions. Rinse and repeat. But too many people seem to think that's just not "spiritual" enough. A Christian's life IS spiritual -- it's life IN the Spirit! And it can look very ordinary, but an ordinary life lived faithfully still results in "Well done, good and faithful servant." That's not to say that I don't think God sometimes uses other methods to reveal his will to us -- I certainly do believe that he does! But the ordinary way seems to be knowing God's word and living wisely in accordance with that.

2008-07-25T10:42:00.002-04:00

Take a minute to read this great excerpt, written by Sojourn's worship pastor Mike Cosper, and then head over to Sojournmusic.com and read the rest, from a three-part installment on the climate of modern worship in churches.

This is the landscape others see from the outside looking in - musicians who almost barely know how to play their instruments, music without roots or traditions, songs without dynamics, services with rock star worship leaders wearing faux-hawks and designer jeans. They look great, they sound okay, but don’t ask them to change keys. Contrast this with the classical traditions of the church, where musicians spend 15-20 years, starting in early childhood, studying music, studying musical performance, working with choirs, orchestras, and various ensembles throughout their educations, and then often continuing through a seminary “church music” education.

Of course, much of this is a caricature. I know many worship leaders and pastors in churches like this who have a deep knowledge of and love for music. I know many worship leaders whose humility guards them from the excesses of rock culture. I know many leaders who have a love of theology, hymnody, and scripture, and whose services reflect that love. But I also believe that this is the unfortunate exception and not the rule.

And the warning cries abound. It’s both redundant and fashionable to sit around and lament how devoid and barren our worship music is today. But what’s the way forward? Pastors have this dual responsibility in North America to be faithful and to be attractional (two forces that are often at odds with one another). And what attracts people to churches today more than the poppy music of contemporary worship?

As with so many places in our culture, we’ve severed the connections with traditions that can help inform, correct, and guard us from mistakes from great to small. While certainly, in the light of God’s sovereignty, we have to say that there is something good afoot in the radical shifts in worship culture in the US, there is also a road ahead so fraught with dangers that without some kind of roots, some kind of theological grounding, some kind of historical connectedness, we will SURELY lose our way.
What I want to ask is who will guide us? What will the reformation of church music education give birth to in twenty years? Will it look different, or will we simply look back in twenty years and laugh at our young foolishness? Worship leaders aren’t the only ones asking these kinds of questions.

Happy Birthday

2008-07-09T14:05:00.001-04:00

Katherine Elizabeth Grace Roberts
Born 7:42 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time
July 9, 2008
Sterling Regional MedCenter
Sterling, CO

8 lbs, 2 oz.
21"

My Epic Tassie Weekend, Part the Second

2008-05-25T23:47:00.011-04:00

Thousands of unemployed men built the road to the top of Mt. Wellington during the hard financial times of the 1930s:

...so that travelers could drive to the top and see this view:

I was one of those travelers. See?

More panorama:

I'm cold. Or possibly incognito. Can you tell?

Even more panorama. That's Hobart down there. Pretty cool, right?
Seriously, though... God made this beauty so we would worship him. Get to it!

My Epic Tassie Weekend, Part the First

2008-05-25T23:26:00.009-04:00

Saturday afternoon, Woodbridge, Tasmania:

Saturday evening, aboard the Peppermint Bay II, Derwent River, Tasmania:
Saturday Evening, aboard the Peppermint Bay II, Somewhere in the ocean near Hobart:
Saturday evening, Mt Wellington and surrounds, from Hobart Harbor:
And I was really there! Here's proof!

Imaginary Thoughts from an Imaginary Land

2008-05-20T03:16:00.006-04:00

THIS is Tasmania:

THIS is NOT Tasmania:

When I was telling people that I was going to spend 5 weeks in Tasmania, more than once I got slightly pitying looks, as if people were saying, "Oh, poor thing... she thinks that's a real place. Tsk tsk."

Well, despite how surreally beautiful it is here, what with the breeze and the sun and the apples and the falling leaves and all (it's Autumn...weird), Tasmania's not an imaginary land after all.

My Love-Hate-Love Relationship

2008-04-28T09:55:00.002-04:00

Yeah, it's complicated. Sometimes, I feel the strongest love and devotion, and other times nothing but pure hatred -- oh, the arguments! The stereotypes and cliches! The ignorance, the stupidity! But just when I think I'm over it, just when I think I couldn't possibly love again, I go running back.

Today, I think I'd be willing to propose. To Boundless, that is.

A few days ago on the Boundless Line I got into a rather heated debate with one of the writers about environmental issues -- see, he's one of those vitriolic global warming skeptics. And he somehow thinks that by insulting his opponents, he'll solidify his own position -- really, it just makes him look like a jerk.

But then, this morning, all was made right again in the sick, twisted little universe of my relationship with Boundless. Because I read this:

Dear Boundless Answers:

I had an interesting conversation with two older women of my church. I asked them if they thought that I was ready for marriage yet and they both said "no." They challenged me, asking me if I thought that I was being the "best that I could be" in every area of my life.
[...]
Should a woman totally overcome her insecurities before she gets married (to avoid bringing in that "excess baggage")?

And now, the response, from Candice Watters -- hang in there and read the whole thing. It's so great that it deserves being reproduced in its entirety here:

I don't know you beyond your e-mail, so I'm reluctant to challenge feedback from women in your church who presumably do. But I also know that if what they'd said was based on Scripture, I'd be more likely to agree with them.

What they said sounds cliché. Their assertion that you should be the "best that you can be" in every area of life before you get married scans like a positive thinking infomercial. It's based on the belief that we are not only perfectible, but also that we can perfect ourselves. It's certainly not rooted in what the Bible says about sin (that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God") and our need for a Savior.

Do you need to learn to love yourself before you can ever give your love to another person? Not according to Scripture. Jesus said "love your neighbor as yourself." This is something you can do immediately. No learning curve required. We're selfish by nature; that's why Jesus made self-love the measure for how we treat others. He knew we would get the shorthand of what He was saying.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, "What is the chief end of man?" and answers, "Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." The purpose of our lives is not to self-actualize, but to bring glory to God. How we feel about our looks, or weight, or job, or social life, or any other measure of success on any given day is, in the scope of eternity, irrelevant. Does God want us to be full of joy? Yes. Is that joy dependent on your self-image? Thankfully, no. His joy and peace are among the fruit of the Holy Spirit. They come by giving thanks in all circumstances, praying without ceasing, and cultivating the Holy Spirit's activity in your life. None of this hangs on what kind of "self-image day" we're having. Though I know in my life that the more I practice these spiritual disciplines, the more irrelevant my externals become.

What about their appeal to Adam and Eve as "worked on by God and therefore complete before they met?" It implies that somehow the first couple came "baggage-free" (a pop-psychology favorite). But you need to read only a few verses down to see what failure these "complete" humans were capable of after God was done making them. Beyond the reality that God put Adam to sleep until the surgery was over, and kept Eve that way until she was fully formed in flesh, I don't see any evidence that the two were perfectly ready for marriage, or any other serious undertaking, the way your friends implied. Adam and Eve were, as we are, fully human, with the freedom to obey or not.

I suspect when the two women you spoke with married, they still had growing and maturing to do. I did. And I do believe they meant well.

But what would be more helpful than telling you to stop thinking about marriage till you're perfect is to give specific areas of growth to be working on while you're praying for marriage and being intentional about helping it happen. Offering passages of Scripture for study (Titus 2, and Proverbs 31 for starters), examples of where you fall short on what the Bible requires, and relational support for helping you grow is the kind of mentoring you need. But it shouldn't stop there.

Titus 2:3-5 says:

"Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God."

This passage suggests that the younger women in need of spiritual nurture and practical training are already married. The passing on of wisdom from the one generation to the next is to take place in the context of marriages already formed. If, as is the case in our culture, the younger women are having trouble finding and marrying godly husbands, then helping them do that should be the first order of business on the older women's to-do lists.

When are you ready for marriage? When you're no longer a child; when you're ready to take on the adult responsibilities that marriage brings. That doesn't mean you can use that as justification for avoiding responsibility ("I'm just not ready"). Unless they're specially gifted for celibate service, Christian men and women should be gearing up for marriage in their early 20s. It's not only their best time for meeting mates, but also their most fertile time for forming families. If you don't feel ready or willing to take on adult responsibility, the solution isn't more passage of time, but likely, accountability from the older believers in your church.

Which brings us back to your dilemma. To get the most help from the women in your Bible study, I think you might need to re-tool your question. Instead of asking, "Do you think I'm ready for marriage?" you might say, "I believe, based on what I read in Scripture, that believers are called either to celibate service or marriage (Matthew 19:11-12). I know from my desires and drives that I'm not specially gifted for celibate service, so what I'm wondering is, based on your understanding of Scripture, what are the things I need to be working on to prepare for the responsibilities that come with marriage and motherhood?"

Then, based on what they answer, you might follow up with, "Would you be willing to pray with me about those areas and pray for me that God would make me more like Him and bring me a godly husband?"

It's not enough to seek out older believers. The goal is mentors who rightly divide the Word. It will be to your benefit and His glory.

OH, gosh, you guys. The advice this girl's older friends gave her used to drive me BONKERS. I knew far, far too many jacked-up people -- Christians who were FAR from baggage-free -- who'd made it down the aisle to believe that God only wills marriage for people who've learned to love themselves or become complete in themselves or whatever (puke).

If you have single friends, I beg you, don't give them this advice. Don't tell them they have to take time out of their search for a spouse in order to become more Godly. And don't let it slide if they say, "Well, I'm just going to take this time to work on myself, because I need to be content in myself before I try to look for a wife/husband." Challenge them. Remind them that God's in the business of using imperfect people in his grand story of saving a people for himself -- he even blesses imperfect people! He gives them the incomparable gift of salvation, together with every other spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus.

Furthermore, he uses our daily lives, our circumstances, and our relationships to sanctify us. Every part of our lives falls under God's sovereignty, and as Christians, every moment of our life is spiritual -- not just the times when we're reading our Bibles or sitting in church or talking about Jesus or whatever, but the times when we're stuck in traffic or reading blogs or talking about sweet vs. unsweet tea. In other words, we don't have to take a silent retreat or avoid complicated relationships to discover God's will for us as individuals or in community -- our Father guides us in our REAL LIVES to make godly, appropriate choices, and he transforms us into the image of His Son through our REAL LIVES.

Two Things

2008-04-23T15:41:00.003-04:00

1. BAH! I hate possums!! I was going to post a picture to give you an idea of how disgusting they are, but I didn't have the heart. They are SO foul. Last night while Katie and I were enjoying a lovely evening on the porch, a nasty possum tried to climb up the steps. Hang on, aren't they supposed to be afraid of people? Evidently not, because after Katie (my hero!) shooed it away while I tried to suppress the urge to shriek uncontrollably, the dang thing skittered through the bushes and tried to jump up on the other end of the porch, mere feet from us, with the porch light glaring away! SICK ME OUT! SICK ME OUT!! Dude, a possum is basically a R.O.U.S. It's a two-foot-long rodent with a ratty tail. RAT! SICK! That's right, everyone, a RAT (possum), a giant RAT (possum) tried to JUMP up onto my porch while I was sitting RIGHT THERE. AUGH! Am I making the trauma of this moment clear to you, folks? A RAT!! (possum)

2. I'm driving home a week from tomorrow. Oh, you'd like to see the route? I thought you'd never ask.

You Won't Regret Following This Link

2008-04-21T10:35:00.003-04:00

Actually, I kinda hope that none of the link-rabbit-holes I've sent you down have caused actual regret...

Anyway, it's a great article from Boundless on "thinking Christianly" about culture.

Two thumbs up.

This Has Absolutely Nothing To Do With Poetry.

2008-04-17T09:28:00.002-04:00

I was noodling around slate.com today reading "Dear Prudence" and an interesting article about Passover when I noticed a link to Slate's video website, the very cleverly named SlateV.com. The video is part of a series in which Emily Bazelon, one of Slate's senior editors, interviews her friend Dr. Sidney Spiesel, a pediatrician and immunologist, about various issues relating to children's health. The videos are usually about 5 or 6 minutes long and have been pretty interesting so far. Today's installment related to the ever-controversial topic of vaccines.

In the 1970s and 1980s, rumors swirled about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, particularly the DPT (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus; now replaced with DTaP, a so called "acellular" vaccine, purportedly safer) vaccine, which caused a spate of highly publicized adverse reactions in 1974. My aunt, with many others in her generation, opted out of having her kids vaccinated. Over the years, some folks have continued to opt out, their opinions bolstered by the incredible amount of information available on the subject that has seemed to link vaccines and autism, for instance. Since the late 1990s, the number of parents opting out of vaccinations has nearly tripled, from around 1% of the population to around 2.5% of the population.

Obviously this is good timing, and I appreciate the effort on Dr. Spiesel and Ms. Bazelon's part to put this together. But good heavens, if this video isn't an example of poor communication, I don't know what is! A friend and I were recently discussing vaccinations, since she opted out of the Hepatitis B vaccination for her son (reasoning: her hours-old infant does not need "protection" against a sexually transmitted disease), and we both agreed that there is just not enough objective information available for parents to make a fully informed decision. Either parents have to rely on slightly hysterical pronouncements from the anti-vaccination lobby, or they have to trust the government. That's a baaaaad choice to have to make.

Argh, this is getting too long. All I'm trying to say is this: throwing around phrases like "very bad research," "weird beliefs," and "very, very naive" doesn't advance your cause. Basically Dr. Spiesel didn't actually explain anything, he just said, in essence, if you refuse to vaccinate your kids, you're a naive sucker with weird beliefs, and I won't have you in my pediatrics practice. That's not an argument!

I'm not saying you shouldn't get your kids vaccinated; certainly not. Herd immunity is a powerful thing. Just look at the "Anti-vaccinationist" page on Wikipedia and you'll see a dozen examples of what happens when the vaccination rate drops -- you get outbreaks of diseases like measles and smallpox, which our generation has virtually no experience with. So, in theory, I'm very pro-vaccination.

But I am saying that, if vaccines (and their preservatives) are perfectly safe, if they cannot cause autism or neurological disorders, than the government needs to appoint a third-party research group to perform exhaustive, long-term tests, and release the study results in a form that parents can understand. Patting parents on the head and saying, "Look, trust me, I'm a doctor, and that's all you need to know," is not going to cut it. Not when we have Thalidomide and massive drug recalls in our not-so-distant past.

2008-04-11T18:58:00.002-04:00

Song for the Mofa Seven
Jamie Barnes

Lover of mine
It's time for us to leave
The age of subtlety is finally over
Lover of mine
You've got to give it up to God
Unfold out of the dark and make things happen

If we make it through security
We'll ask the Germans, the Japanese,
Rush the gates of every embassy

It won't always be
It won't always be this bad
It won't always be.

You've got to push the kids in first
Get a foot on forgiving land
And I'll push away the bayonets
And push away Satan's hand
And go past the walls and past the filth
Past the dogs of Kim Jong-Il
Cross the waters up on rotted stilts

It won't always be
It won't always be this bad
It won't always be

Lover of mine
You've got to show me where you are
Hang out your bloody star from the hooks of heaven

And I will take you out with a grieving spoon,
Smuggle you out behind black balloons,
And we'll take the victory lap around the dying moon.

It won't always be
It won't always be this bad
It won't always be

it's a blog.

New Blog!

Theology

Ch-ch-check it out...

Evangelism and the Single Girl

...and this is why I love classical education.

A Mixed Bag of Randomness

Does God Change His Mind?

*Sigh*

What's Up With Those Old Guys?

Books, Thunderstorms, End of the School Year, and Other Miscellaneous Musings

Ummmm...

What's On Laura's Mind Today?

An Open Letter To My Aussie Friends

Kentucky Mountain Boys

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!

I am in possession of ...

Why Em and Gwyd Will Love the American South

Grrrrrrr...

From "The Knowledge of the Holy"

Random, and Taking Bets

Thoughts on Congregational Church Music

Single Women in the Church

Abstinence or Chastity?

There is A Fountain

The Funniest Video I Have EVER Seen

Praying and Waiting!

Introducing MadEnough Tips!

Kitchen Keeping Tips #5 -- Waste Not, Want Not

Kitchen Keeping Tips #4 -- Making the Most of Your Pantry (Pantry Philosophy Edition!)

Kitchen Keeping Tips #4 -- Making the Most of Your Pantry (Reference Edition!)

Kitchen Keeping Tips #3 -- Shopping Wisely

Um...Yeah... Totally Unrelated to Kitchen Keeping at All

Kitchen Keeping Tips #2 -- Getting Ready

Kitchen Keeping Tips #1 -- Mindfulness

Frugal frugal frugal

A glimmer of hope on a dim horizon

Roundball, Baby.

Ask the Question.

OK, It's late, but...

Amen!

Whoo! Preach!

Seriously? (and a few random notes)

Davidson vs. West Virginia

More Awesome Linkage

File Under "Shocker"

Theology Matters

The Best Christmas Anecdote Ever. EVER.

LOVE IT

Wulgum t'Straya

Clinton Loyalty in the Obama White House

Thanksgiving-Related Musings

Food. Again. But Not Really Food Blogging, As Such. Just Read It, OK?

Food Blogging!!

Fear-Mongering Is a Bad Rhetorical Device

Come out of the Closet With Me

A Beautiful Rejection

Chill Out, Praise God, and Let's Pray

Stuff

HAPPY REFORMATION DAY!

How NOT to Give Advice to Single People

Awesome Deal, People

The Countdown Continues

And Now For Something Completely Different...

Rules/Rants About Blogs

Questions and Answers, Part 9

Questions and Answers, Part 8

Questions and Answers, Part 7

I Miss Tassie

Questions and Answers, Part 6

Questions and Answers, Part 5

Questions and Answers, Part 4

Questions and Answers, Part 3

Questions and Answers, Part 2

Questions and Answers

Election

No Comment

Doubt

I'm Starting the Countdown Today

YEE-HAW!

Sigh