How my son makes me jealous

This is how my youngest makes me jealous-- he texts me pictures from his trip to the British Museum in London today!

Wednesday with somene else's words...

I have no new photos to post, so instead I offer Dave Ramsey's thoughts on the Affordable Care Act:

Five for Friday

On this first (and hopefully, but unlikely, last) Friday of government shutdown, I offer five things our government ought to do, but does not. And if we hit another Friday, I will try to offer five things our government ought not to do, but does...

1. Pass a yearly budget.  But, of course, that would mean making actual decisions and putting it down in writing for posterity.  Better to pass a series of continuing resolutions, avoid those tough decisions, and enjoy the limelight of the media-feeding-frenzy and name-calling and dysfunction that a shut down can bring.

2. Spend within its means. People of good intent can disagree on with how our money ought to be spent. But does anyone outside of ivory-towered Keynsians or high-ranking government officials really think going into ever-increasing debt as a nation is a good idea?  It does not take a rocket scientist to know that it can be fun to run up debt in the short-term, but devastating in the long-term. 

3. Pass laws that apply to all.  It only seems reasonable that if you are going to pass a law for your constituents, it ought to apply to you as well, and indeed, apply to all citizens equally.  A law ought to apply to business tycoons and labor unions, rich and poor, without favoritism.  That is the only way the rule of law can actually be the rule of law.

4. Refuse to use lawful government institutions for political purposes.  No one who is lawfully paying taxes should fear the IRS.  No one should fear that the oval office will bug their campaign headquarters.  Such abuse of power should always be heinous to us and shock us.  And it should be unconsciounable to our elected officials.

5. Place the welfare of the poeple as their highest priority. I can see that our form of govenrment will of necessity require difference of opinion, and even, at times, a break down that would cause disruption in services while the differing views in this representative government work out their differences.  But when that happens, real leaders look for how to bear the brunt of the suffering themselves and spare those they serve.  They don't look for ways to shut down things that will get the most bang for the buck, despite the suffering it causes (ending NIH clinical trials for children with cancer comes to mind.)

Quite honestly, Gentle Reader, I am non-partisan in my current disgust with out "leaders", and will work to keep all of my elected officials from returning to congress. But even more than that, I am disgusted by us for putting up with them and not requiring more. 

Five for Friday

Today I'd like to share five items I have recently been enjoying listening to.  I hope you will enjoy them as well.

1. I recently completed listening to the Librivox version of Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens, and thoroughly enjoyed it.  There are such wonderful characters and plot twists in Dickens that I am always willing to put up with his occasionally annoying wordiness and repetition.  And this is a really fun story. I enjoyed it while sewing.

2. After completing the Dickens, I began listening to The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams, also from Librivox, during my sewing time.  I love his beautiful language and fascinating history so far, though I am only several chapters in. He is the great-grandson and grandson of presidents, and knew all the political and intellectual world of the Eastern seaboard at a pivotal time in history.  He writes about the changes from the 18th to 19th centuries, and his word play often makes me smile.

3. Before bedtime, Dave usually reads to me: first from Spurgeon, then from some fun novel or other.  We just finished Orson Scott Card's Earth Afire. We had listened to the first book in this series, Earth Unaware, on a recent trip.  The third book in the series is not yet out, and we likely need to wait at least a year for the end of the story-- always a bit frustrating.  These are the prequel novels to the Ender series.  We enjoyed the stories here, but were a bit dismayed by the writing.  Mr. Card had a co-author here, and I wonder if that was partially responsible, or if there is a rush to have these books out before the Ender's Game movie arrives.  Whatever the case, these are classic Card stories that are compelling, told in less-than-perfect grammar and prose that sometimes disappoint.  They have been enjoyable stories nonetheless.

4. I have also started the new online course from Hillsdale College on Economics.  This is apologetically free-market, Austrian economics, presented by the college president, Larry Arnn, and economics professor Gary Wolfram.  I have only listened to the introductory lecture by Dr. Arnn so far, but it is interesting.  When I was teaching more, I signed up for several of these courses, but didn't have the time to complete them.  Hopefully I can do more of that in this year of rest.

5.  I have also recently found and been enjoying The Briefing, a daily podcast of news and cultural analysis from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Albert Mohler.  I have signed up to receive an e-mail when a new podcast comes out, and I tend to listen to this 20-minute-or-so podcast as I begin the day. I find Dr. Mohler's take on things biblical, refreshing, gracious, and balanced.

What have you been listening to or reading, Gentle Reader?  Any recommendations you want to send my way?

The power of myth

And no, I have not been reading Joseph Campbell.  Instead I have been pondering the power of the moral imagination, and revisiting one of my favorite books about classical education.

We live in an age of technology and interpersonal disconnect.  We live in a time when our cultural literacy (as Hirsch would call it) is practically nil, and children grow up with dark "realistic" or dystopian literature and have never elevated their eyes to what is noble, so are incapable of articulating  noble dreams. Many live alienated, harsh lives, where early pregnancy takes the place of love, and gangs replace families. I am reminded of the imprisonment of the human soul in minds that are ignorant and uneducated (as Dalrymple would say.) And I sigh at that heart-breaking reality. After reading a recent article about young adult fiction, and watching part of a provocative Fontline show, I have been pondering the importance of good literature and well-formed moral imagination. And here are some wise words from David Hicks on the subject:

A good myth, like a good map, enables the wanderer to survive, perhaps even flourish, in the wilderness.  To this end, classical education, like Hebrew education, carefully preserves the best myths within its tradition and insists that each new generation of students learns these myths, imprisoning them in their hearts....
...[O]ne's chances of survival in a wilderness are greater when one is not alone...Myths provide each member of society with something to dignify and lend coherence to his life, as well as something of quality he can share with the other members of his community.
~David V. Hicks, Norms and Nobility: A Treatise on Education, pp.29-30

A sense of shared cultural literacy leads to some coherence in the culture, and fuels the moral imagination of a child.  It is a gift we can give our children and our students, Gentle Reader.

Thursday thought: Barbarism

The sunflower (pictured at left) is in my back yard. It sprouted underneath my apple tree, probably planted by a bird that took refuge in the branches.  Because of its stubborn insistence to grow where it could not thrive, it spends much of the day shut tight to the daylight, thinking it is night. What a perfect picture of our culture.

Years ago, when my eldest was in college, an English professor of his pointed out to the class that the rise in tatoos and strange-colored hair was just a small sign of our culture's return to barbarism.  The class, to prove that they were victims of their culture, arrived at class en masse the next day with blue hair and henna tatoos. While I now laugh at this rather ingenious prank, I think the professor was prescient in his assessment. Barbarians are all around us, and sometimes we are them. We rush through our lives consuming, following the latest trend or tweet, and often never stopping to ask why.  We just follow the herd. We ignore that many around us have no notion of beauty or goodness or truth, justice, liberty, or equality.  And as old Socrates said long ago, the unexamined life is not worth living. 

Western civilization chooses to live in the slums of ignorance while the great mansion of our cultural heritage crumbles into dust.  We keep adding new subjects in our schools, but never understand that without a moral foundation, whatever we build cannot stand for long. We prize animals over babies, noise over music, static over content. I wonder what kind of culture our grandchildren will live in, Gentle Reader.  And I pray our heavenly Father will show mercy and bring revival.

Five for Friday

For some time now, I have been contemplating a post each week which has some kind of category and a list.  Because I am a bear of very little brain, a top-10-type list was too much.  But Five for Friday sounds about right to me.  I invite any of my blogging friends to join me in this Friday posting idea.

Let me start with five things worthy of reinstating the stocks and the pillory.  You know stocks and pillories, Gentle Reader-- those places where depraved persons would be forcibly tethered and their fellow citizens could throw rotten fruits and vegetables at them and discgrace them in public?  It seems to me that there are a few categories of people for whom this would be a just, nay even a gracious, punishment.  And here they are:
1. Computer hackers, who wreak havoc with the time of others for sport.
2. Identity theives, not content to steal from others, but set on ruining lives of others.
3. People who riot.  Whatever the supposed "spark", anger is never a righteous justification for wholesale destruction of property and the livlihood of others. When it comes to people who inflame others to riot,  I am not sure the stocks or pillories is actually sufficient for those folks.  Inflaming emotion rather than reasoning with others and seeking reconciliation is evil.
4. People who vandalize and destroy things of function or beauty just for the sake of the destruction.  Such people are barbarians, and need to be taught what it means to live in a civilized society.
5.  People who write (articles, books, research papers, homework) for others to claim as their own, and the people who pay them to do it.  This is a type of moral theft and deep dishonesty that ought not to be countenanced

What would you add to my list, Gentle Reader?

In the end...

Last weekend we attended a family conference at our church.  Two take away ideas for me were these:

1. The best day of my life will be my last, because I will enter into the presence of my Lord on that day. My time here is short, so I should use it for those things that count.
2. Your priorities are what you actually do, not what you talk about doing.

This song and these ideas are running through my mind this morning, so I thought I'd share.

Amazing Grace

This morning, from the comfort of my chair, I enjoyed the talk that Eric Metaxas gave at the National Prayer breakfast.  I found him funny, winsome, and challenging.  Give it a listen! (HT: Amy)

The One who reveals deep and hidden things...

This morning I read the following passage from Daniel during my quiet time.  It seems particularly appropriate for Election Day.  I hope you are voting today (or have voted already), Gentle Reader.  It is our duty and our privilege.

"Blessed be the name of God forever and ever,
   to whom belong wisdom and might.
He changes times and seasons;
    he removes kings and sets up kings;
he gives wisdom to the wise
   and knowledge to those who have understanding;
 he reveals deep and hidden things;
 he knows what is in the darkness,
    and the light dwells with him..."
~Daniel 2: 20-22

When Helping Hurts...

Tomorrow a new series of webinars will begin from the Chalmers Center at Covenant College. Given by the authors of the book, When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor... or Yourself, the webinars last only one hour each, and will cover topics like "The Church and the Concept of Poverty". I sat in on a previous webinar these gentlemen did on relief work in Haiti, and it was excellent, so I am excited about tomorrow. They will lay a foundation of Biblical concepts for dealing with redemptive life in a fallen world. I can't wait!

All the information is listed and free registration can be handled at the webinar site here. The registration is free, but you must register and receive a code to attend. I hope to see many of you there, Gentle Readers. Tomorrow, 1-2 PM EST. Be there, or miss out on excellent teaching!

Get a "Lives"...

I'm sure my son, Ben (the Classicist) would be impressed if he knew I was spending some time contemplating Plutarch today. Plutarch, of course, wrote The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: a collection of stories and comparisons of great Romans and Greeks.

A friend on my classical education loop asked today why she should consider adding the reading of some Plutarch to her already busy homeschool. I answered off the top of my head that I thought reading Plutarch was the next thing to do after reading mythology: he tells us of the virtues of great men from early Western culture. Reading Plutarch helps us to understand Western Civilization. I plan to use some Plutarch in my composition class this year, as a matter of fact.

Later, I discovered that George Grant says it even better (no surprise about that!) in his essay on "Why Read Plutarch?".
In part, Dr. Grant says:

It was the primary textbook of the Greek and Roman world for generations of students throughout Christendom. It was the historical source for many of Shakespeare's finest plays. It forever set the pattern for the biographical arts. It was the inspiration for many of the ideas of the American political pioneers--evidenced by liberal quotations in the articles, speeches, and sermons of Samuel Adams, Peyton Randolph, Patrick Henry, Samuel Davies, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Henry Lee, John Jay, George Mason, Gouverneur Morris, and Thomas Jefferson. Indeed, after the Bible it was the most frequently referenced source during the Founding era. For these and a myriad of other reasons, Plutarch's Lives is one of the most vital and consequential of all the ancient classics...

...But why [is reading Plutarch so important]?

First, a classic worth reading is one that has influenced our own day to some extraordinary degree. If we are to understand why people think as they do, act as they do, or feel as they do; if we are to comprehend the foundations of our institutions, the tenacity of our traditions, or the precariousness of our policies then we need to have substantive background information. Plutarch's Lives has been the primary lens through which western intellectuals, educators, artists, musicians, dramatists, and historians have viewed the Greco-Roman world. If for no other reason than to grasp the significance of that influence, the Lives is vitally important. But the influence goes even beyond that, extending to the form and function of all the "Social Sciences." Plutarch's Lives is seminal.

Second, good books should make us think. Great books are those that provoke us to think in great ways. The Lives certainly fills the bill in that regard. For hundreds of years, great minds have wrestled with Plutarch's ideas and ideals. And that wrestling has given rise to many of our greatest freedoms. It was only as the American founders for instance, struggled with the ideas of a benevolent dictatorship like that of Lycurgus, or of a military tyranny like that of Sulla, or of a fractious anarchy like that of Antony--all of which were presented in the pages of the Lives--that they were able to hammer out their peculiar notions of liberty.

Third, good books should be artistically beautiful. Great books should epitomize glorious art. As Leland Ryken has asserted, "Any encyclopedia can give us facts but art gives us truth." In other words, a book that gets its facts wrong--as Plutarch undoubtedly does--can nevertheless sometimes lead us to the truth. There is no question that Plutarch's prose styling and his literary construction is brilliantly artistic. We can learn much from his pioneering efforts.

The whole essay is very convincing. So, Gentle Readers, as Dr. Grant says, "Get a Lives..."

Of walking and words...

This morning as I went on my morning walk, I took the path that runs along White Rock Canyon, overlooking the Rio Grande. It is a beautiful, if rocky, walk, and for the hour-plus that I trod the trail, I listened to the end of a P. G. Wodehouse book of short stories, entitled, My Man Jeeves. The thing about Wodehouse is his amazing ability to capture the exactly perfect word to paint a whole picture of a scene. He is ironic and funny and a master of the human condition. He can make the word "Chappy" replete with a thousand nuanced thoughts. I laughed aloud, and marveled at his use of the language.

My friend Cindy is marveling about words today, too. She has been imbibing Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet, and says in part:

After watching Hamlet last night, I found myself wondering if Shakespeare was a mere mortal. The words, the beautiful words. How did he do that? How did he fill every single line with meaning and substance and pictures and ideas? Were the Elizabethans the final height of civilization? Why in 500 years is the closest thing to a William Shakespeare, PG Wodehouse?

Why, indeed.

Redemptive tweets and other thoughts...

After reading this excellent reflection this morning (thanks, TC), I am pondering my twitter posts of late. Dr. Sills write in part:

Someone has said that humility is not thinking less of yourself, just thinking of yourself less. Enter Twitter and Facebook. Humility used to guide believers to wait and let others praise them and not do it themselves. The heroes of yesteryear who reluctantly received the crowd’s adulation have been replaced with shameless personal promoters who peddle their self-made brand to as many as possible by all means possible—under the guise of social networking. I will admit that these folks seem to be larger than life superstars with all the news that’s fit to tweet, if it’s all true, but seriously, all this genuflecting is making my pants baggy...
...Remember Jesus? I have tried to imagine Jesus tweeting and sending Facebook updates like many that I see.

“Just healed a blind man.”

“Lunching today with chief tax man in Jericho @Zacchaeus.”

“Walked on water this evening, disciples amazed I could calm a storm. lol.”

“Fed 5,000 men and their families with a boy’s lunch today.”

“Washed the disciples feet. Being intentional to exercise and model humility.”

“Check my reviews from the crowds last Friday. #Jerusalem”...

This makes me wonder if my posting of my apple productivity is bragging. How do we redeem this medium, anyway? Do I honor God in my tweeting?

In the latest version of the Mars Hill Audio Journal (I highly recommend subscribing if you haven't, and they have a very affordable downloadable version now!) there is a fascinating interview with Makoto Fujimura. One of the topics included his thoughts on blogging, and how those taking part in blogging now have an opportunity to mold the media. That is a redemptive thought.

How do I redeem my twitter and blog posts to reflect Christ and encourage others to follow him instead of just me? Something good to ponder.

Mid-week miscellany

Some thoughts on marriage: Here is a bit of good, practical advice for those of us in the estate of wedded bliss. Though we've been married less than half the time of the couple mentioned here, it resonates with me! And Al Mohler has some interesting thoughts about the changes our culture is pushing for in the area of marriage. And this piece by Ross Douthat in the NY Times is excellent, too.
Some thoughts on babies: This is an amazing new technology to help doctors and others visualize what's going on in the womb. And they are little works of art! Be sure and flip through the photos! Here are some thoughts on population control from a carbon-footprint perspective. And here are some excellent thoughts from a doctor about handling the painful death of a child in-utero. Well worth reading and considering.
Just for fun this week: Fun sandwiches, anyone? These little works of art would delight your children...

Practical Atheism

Today I read an excellent article in World Magazine about our tenuous times and the fall of Christianity as reported widely in the media. Tony Woodlief makes excellent points about what our real problems are as a culture and as the Church. He sums up his case this way:

What we are in danger of—in our country, in our churches, in ourselves—is practical atheism. This is not a considered embrace of godlessness. It is instead the slow slide into lives where God is irrelevant. The people who walk away from churches likely haven't pondered Christian theology and rejected it; they simply haven't been exposed to theology in the first place. Absent knowledge of—and communion with—the living God, why would anyone in his right mind keep coming back?

Practical atheism isn't limited to people who abandon church; it extends to all we who drift from Christ, even as we dutifully attend Sunday services. It's in the brief morning prayer that eventually becomes no prayer at all. It's in the way we emulate men rather than the God-man. It's in the way we brood, as if the things that vex us don't pass through the hands of a loving God. I don't know if practical atheism afflicts you, but I slip into it every day. Surveys tell us more people are forgoing the Christian label. What ought to concern us is how many—perhaps most of all ourselves—are willing to keep the label without fully living the life it requires.

Excellent reminders. Read the whole thing here.

Red Envelope Day

Today, Gentle Readers, I am participating in a gentle protest, and wanted to give you the opportunity to join me. As a way of increasing the current administration's awareness of the devastating effects of abortion-on-demand in our nation, many are sending red envelopes to the President today. Here's what to do:
~Get any red, letter-sized envelope.
~Address it to:

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

~Be sure to include your return address.
~On the back of the envelope, write:

This envelope represents one child who died because of abortion. It is empty because the life that was taken is now unable to be part of our world.

~Put first class postage on the envelope, and mail it today.

It's that simple. And let's pray that our President will have a change of heart in his promotion of the culture of death in our nation.

Our continuing culture of death...

Gentle Reader, as you know, I usually post family news here: updates on my health, my family's health, or the doings of various family members, or reflections on the doings of our great God in our hearts and lives. I usually save my rantings for my other blog. But I am so concerned about the turn of policy in this country with regards to the use of embryonic stem cells in research, that I felt obliged to write not only about it on my other blog, but here as well.

On Monday of this week, President Obama rescinded the ban on federal funding for certain types of embryonic stem cell research. He did so without ever addressing any of the moral question surrounding such research, and public funding of it. I have grave concerns for the broad approval President Obama has given. Even the Washington Post and the New York Times, not normally places I look to for my moral compass, discuss the problem. Andrew Kern over at the Quiddity blog asks the question fairly:

The natural sciences are not morally neutral, they are subservient to morality. They are mere knowledge, which, in turn gives power. Knowledge may conceivably be regarded as morally neutral (I don’t think I see it that way, but I can see how people would). Power cannot. Power enables action. Action is always moral.

Therefore the moral sciences provide a higher order of knowledge than scientific knowledge...

The last century has, practically and philosophically, made clear that scientific knowledge is not morally neutral if only because human beings possess it and are empowered by it.

Let us grant, then, for the sake of argument, that science should be freed from religious constraints. Should it also be freed from moral constraints? And where do those morals come from? Historically, I can only see two options: metaphysics (philosophy) and religion.

The trouble with metaphysics is its practical instability. Plato made it rather obvious that only a few people can attain to the level of metaphysical clarity that can order a society. That is at least one reason why he never opposed religion per se.

For this reason, a democracy could never survive a scientific age in which morality is based on metaphysics. If, then, we have eliminated metaphysics (philosophy) and religion, then what will we base our decisions on?

This question cannot be dodged.

You can read the whole thing here (only slightly longer than this excerpt) here. President Obama's claim that science is morally neutral is absurd, as is aptly pointed out here. Robert George and Eric Cohen state the case much better than I can. They say in part:

For those who believe in the highest ideals of deliberative democracy, and those who believe we mistreat the most vulnerable human lives at our own moral peril, Mr. Obama's claim of "taking politics out of science" should be lamented, not celebrated.

In the years ahead, the stem-cell debate will surely continue -- raising as it does big questions about the meaning of human equality at the edges of human life, about the relationship between science and politics, and about how we govern ourselves when it comes to morally charged issues of public policy on which reasonable people happen to disagree. We can only hope, in the years ahead, that scientific creativity will make embryo destruction unnecessary and that as a society we will not pave the way to the brave new world with the best medical intentions.

You can read the whole piece from the Wall Street Journal here.

If you would like to learn more about this whole issue, I suggest you read this piece by Yuval Levin of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, or read this List of the Media Myths about stem cell research. The truth is, there have been no applied cures from embryonic stem cells, even though a life is destroyed. Adult stem cells have had much more success in actual treatments, and are available without the death of the donor.

I am afraid that the research and morality involved in this issue is being ignored in favor of promulgating the idea that we are free to do whatever we wish. And the culture of death we are creating will be a frightening place to try to live. May God have mercy on us, and cause us to both follow Him and protect the lives of the helpless.

All a-Twitter

Yesterday I watched Charlie Rose while I ate my lunch. He was interviewing Evan Williams, the CEO of Twitter. It was interesting, and made me wonder what all the fuss is about, so this morning I got onto Twitter, and you'll see my experiment in the side bar.

I appreciate the many good things all of these cyber-relations can do for us. Having access to family far away, opportunities to build communities around a particular topic, etc. is all great. But I have to wonder if is retards our ability to have or value real-life relationships.

So, I am experimenting with Twitter. I'll let you know what I think.

The commodification of life

Yesterday as I was resting, I found myself flipping through the pages of my mother-in-law's copy of Good Housekeeping Magazine. In its pages I found an article about a couple who had conceived a pair of twins via in-vitro fertilization. When the woman's eggs were harvested (after the hormone treatment to boost the number of follicles), the doctors harvested 18 eggs, which were then fertilized by sperm donated by her husband, and frozen. For this moment, let's leave aside the fact that if life begins at conception, which I believe is the only tenable position, we now had 18 human beings frozen in some sort of limbo. I find that horrifying and gruesome, but let's leave that aside for the moment.

The couple had three embryos placed in the woman's uteris, and two implanted: the twins she bore as a result of the process. Let's also leave aside for the moment the troubling fact that a life was created in a test tube that then died immediately, as a high percentage of these embryos do. That is also horrifying, but that is not my point, either.

This couple did a really rather commendable thing, and they are lauded as heroes in this article. When it came time to "dispose" of the remaining frozen embryos, the clinic gave them three options: they could either donate their embryos for scientific research, or donate them to an anonymous pool of embryo donors to be used for infertile couples, or they could pay a few hundred dollars to keep them in frozen storage. In the end, they found two specific families to donate the eggs to, and arranged a sort of "open adoption" for the embryos, which resulted in the births of two more sets of twins. I appreciate that this couple took some responsibility for these embryos, and tried to do a good thing in blessing other families. Again, let's forget for the moment that out of 18 babies, only six survived.

What amazed me was the following paragraph. Having been quoted by journalists, I would not presume that these words actually came out of the mouth of the egg donor, but either way, this is what was expressed:

Keeping their frozen embryos indefinitely did not seem a viable option to Glenda. And they were not the kind of people to throw money away on things they weren't going to use. She didn't have a moral objection to donating them to science. However, she and Scott had not made the embryos for research.

I had to read the paragraph three times before I could believe it. It's that second sentence:

"And they were not the kind of people to throw money away on things they weren't going to use."

The "things they weren't going to use" were babies.

I have read in the abstract about the commodification of human life: how we are beginning to think of our very selves and other human being as consumable items (commodities to be bought and sold). I have read about the pragmatism (if it's useful, it's good) that degrades the inherent worth of people, and heard philosophers and theologians moan about the pragmatic approach to human life. But I've never seen such a mainstream statement of it. It took my breath away.

I am not trying to pick on this couple. They tried, within their own framework, to "do the right thing". I understand the desire that leads to fertility treatments, and can empathize with the pain of infertile couples. But where is the Church? Why aren't we howling over the moral morass that has come from our immoral fertility business? Why aren't we leading in a better way?

I'm afraid God will send judgment on us, and deservedly so. How can so many people who claim the name of Christ see no problem here? That sends me to my knees.