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12/28/2009

Up

Finally saw "Up" - the Pixar movie. One of my boys received it as a Christmas present. Just a really well done movie; I finish seeing a Pixar movie and I feel respected, catered to, challenged. It is so unlike the feeling I get from most entertainment. I don't think I've ever seen a movie for children whose main point is that it is the workaday things in life that are our adventures and that grand acts may be respected and celebrated, but they are nothing compared to the little bits of living. From The Incredibles we learn that not all gifts and talents are equal and that the world needs exceptional people who have to break a few eggs from time to time to make omelettes. From Up we learn that little moments can be exceptional; that these are the heroic moments for most of us. The disgraced adventurer in Up says "adventure is 'out there'" and the movie's whole point is that adventure is embedded in the mundane. Something I wish I would have known as a younger person. If a child is unusually gifted, he or she needs to cultivate an appreciation for the ordinary and a suspicion of high achievement which too often comes at an unacceptable cost.

12/21/2009

Christmas Poll

12/19/2009

Ballet Shoes

If you have little girls, be sure to rent "Ballet Shoes" - a movie. It has Emma Watson in it. Just really a nice movie, I thought. I don't have little girls, but Netflix thinks I am one, so it recommended the movie to me. I should clarify that Netflix thinks I'm a little girl who loves sci-fi.

12/12/2009

English Comparatives

Always a tangle with comparatives. We have great words with "er" and "est" in English, but we also have "more" and "most" and sometimes both can be used.

Just ran across one - my advisor marked my use of "likeliest" - said I should use "most likely." Obviously, both are acceptable, but I will do what he recommends without hesitation. And yet sometimes using "most" and "more" just sounds ignorant. Think of "more clear" vs. "clearer." Surely, "clearer" sounds better. I usually notice this during sermons, that's about the only time in my weekly schedule where a formal attention to grammar couples with speaking. And I always hear when preachers use a "more" or a "most" when a "er" or an "est" would sound better to me. But what sounds better to me is probably just a function of the books I read and not of some kind of standard.

Anyway, of course grammar changes and standards are stipulated, but this area of comparatives seems especially subjective.

12/02/2009

Me and the Fantastic Mr. Fox



I saw this taxidermy fox a few days after seeing The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Great movie, by the way, and very cleverly executed. Even the departures from the book felt like things from other Roald Dahl books. It was also very funny; all four of our boys really enjoyed it and they range from 5 years old up 13 years old. Their grandmother took all of us to see the movie over the Thanksgiving break. I haven't been to a movie in a coon's age, so it was a great treat. Anyway, hope you guys all had good Thanksgivings too.

11/21/2009

Saturday Entry

Well, got things ready for our Thanksgiving doings today. Changed the valve cover gasket in our minivan. Been needing to do it for a while, but just took a while to build up the courage. It went okay; not that difficult of a repair. Changed the oil also. Fixed the backyard gate, tried to fix the front porch railing. Those things went okay too. Bagged all the leaves in the front yard too since all my neighbors have now raked up all theirs. We have no trees in our front yard, so I'm technically raking up all their leaves. It's a trade-off, though, because I love their beautiful trees. Washed the van. Prepared for teaching Sunday School tomorrow. All normal stuff, except I usually try to spend 9 hours on my dissertation on a Saturday, so I'll need to make that up tonight and tomorrow if possible.

Just got the album "The Last DJ" by Tom Petty from the library and it has this wonderful song called "You and Me" on it. Just a really good song. Also, just checked out ELO's greatest hits. I never was an ELO fan - I remember my brothers - one of them anyway - had an ELO album that was transparent vinyl. Anyway, I wanted to hear the song "Mr. Blue Sky" and the greatest hits had it. I also was surprised by all the other songs on there that I remember from the seventies and eighties but that I didn't know were ELO songs. They weren't the best band in the world, but some of their stuff sounds like the Kinks and you can't do much better than sounding like the Kinks.

Don't know if I've mentioned this, but we've decided to participate in a church plant here in St. Louis. Our church is planting a new church in the Carondolet neighborhood. It will be called "Resurrection Presbyterian" and we've already secured a place to meet - an old Lutheran church down there. It is a beautiful building with stained glass. Its congregation will meet at 9:00 for worship and we'll meet at 11:00. Seems like a good fit for us. It was hard to decide whether or not to go because, well, inertia. But it felt like the right thing to do. The pastor who is planting the church is our assistant pastor at Providence and he was a classmate and neighbor of mine in seminary.

I've been working hard on my dissertation, going back through all the chapters and making them better, making sure they meet the formatting requirements, etc. It seemed so within grasp a few weeks ago and now it seems like I have a lot to do. I think both things are true, but it is hard to believe both characterizations at the same time.

Saw the movie "Seven Pounds" with Will Smith the other day. A really good movie, but don't watch it if you're prone to depression. It has the ultimate depressive fantasy as its centerpiece and I won't say anymore so as not to spoil the plot for all my non-depressed readers. Hah hah. Smith's a good actor.

Well, gotta run. Saturday night and all that. Have a good Sunday, dear readers.

11/18/2009

Casimir Pulaski Day

What is this Sufjan Stevens song about? I can't figure out what the father finds out they were doing. Discuss.

11/14/2009

Jacob and Esau

It's weird how this sunday school curriculum wants me to teach the kids that Jacob was evil and tricked Isaac when he should have waited and let God give him the birthright in his own way. But God clearly told everyone that Jacob was to be blessed above Isaac. Everyone should have known this. Isaac's unwillingness to follow God's decree on the matter meant that somebody had to force him to do the right thing. In this case, Jacob and his mother cook up a good plan to trick Isaac into doing God's will. Why should I tell the kids that this was a wrong thing to do? Would it have been better for them to tie up Isaac? Coerce him with bribery? One of Joseph's brothers tricks his brothers into selling Joseph rather than killing him by appealing to their greed for the slave price. Was that wrong? Rebekah tricks the spies into going the wrong way. Tamar tricks Judah into fulfilling his promises to her and his duties to God. What does it look like to "wait on God" in Jacob's situation? The early church fathers had a theory about Jesus's death, that it was a kind of trick - Satan takes the bait and ends up caught on his own hook - the way the white witch messes up by killing Aslan. Anyway, whether that theory of atonement holds water or not, the bible is chock full of righteous trickery, and Jacob's whole life is one where he has to trick evil people into doing the right thing - right down to his own father in law who won't keep his promise about Jacbo's marrying the right daughter.

Postscript: So I think I figured out how to present this. The curriculum wants the point to be that God's promises cannot be thwarted, ergo Jacob should have waited on God. My version of this will be: Throughout Jacob’s life, God puts him in situations where people will not follow God’s word, and yet God’s promises cannot be thwarted. He enables Jacob to overcome the will of wicked men by trickery, and his promises are secure.

11/11/2009

Mystery on Outer Island

Just read a decent book to the boys called Mystery on Outer Island by Foster Kennedy. Its original title was The Disappearance of Mr. Allan and it is juvenile fiction. It's probably not in print, but there are used copies on Amazon for 20 cents, I'm sure. It reminded me a little bit of Nathan Wilson's book Leepike Ridge in that it involved mystery and archaeological discoveries. In the book, four friends who live on an island near St. Augustine, FL find a vault buried in the sand while camping, tell their teacher, Mr. Allan, about it, and then Mr. Allan disappears. Some shady characters show up in a fancy yacht, the vault is empty, they make more discoveries, etc. It is not the best book ever written, but it will hold the attention of normal kids from 3rd grade on. I enjoyed reading about kids who grow up near the ocean, take swimming at night for granted, eat a lot of seafood, and go camping together.

I just started reading Great Expectations to them last night and so far it is going okay. I don't know if all of them are listening to it; the prose is a bit old fashioned, but the writing is so funny and lively. Hopefully they are enjoying it. It is impossible to find a book that will appeal to a 5 year old all the way up to a 13 year old, but you just kind of have to push on, I guess.

Last night, we got to the part in Exodus where Moses is worried the people won't listen to him and so God gives him the ability to perform a sign where he throws down his staff and it turns into a snake. I just noticed tonight that the sign is for Moses's fellow Israelites and not for the Egyptians. How I missed that all this time, I'll never know. Anyway, really interesting detail.

Well, gotta run. The grindstone never rests.

10/31/2009

Brendan Ryan in Da House






Ann made the Jersey; I made the moustache. God made Brendan Ryan.

10/29/2009

I Will Go Sailing No More

10/25/2009

Anglican / Roman Catholic News

In a New York Time editorial, A.N. Wilson argues that the new plan to allow Anglican priests to become Roman Catholic will result in the complete secularization of Britain. Of course, "official" disestablishment lags the de facto disestablishment. We have the opposite situation here in the USA. America is much more officially secularized, but we have a lot more unofficial influence from the various churches. Watch any reality show - some percentage of the contestants will be religious. Same with sports - you never see as much praying as you do from baseball players who are kissing medals or giving skyward glances. We're still a pretty religious people.

This plan to allow Anglicans to retain their prayer book and liturgy and join officially with Rome is probably the most significant event to happen this year. It's astounding, really. I think a lot of Anglicans would be tempted if their piety is at all like Roman Catholic piety - you know, statues, a personal affection for Mary stuff, a desire for visible unity of the church. It is very interesting. I don't think opposition to women's ordination is really enough; there needs to be some kind of affinity with Roman Catholic church culture or you're just going to end up being a poser. Anglican rite catholics - what an interesting development.

As someone who has been studying the Anglican church during the 17th century for my dissertation, I have an appreciation for what happened in England. A great deal of diversity was tolerated in the English church for a long time. Arminians and Calvinists were able to co-exist, even if not very comfortably. That's attractive to some part of me. But another part of me likes the openness of sectarianism. We stipulate our picky differences and move from there. Though I regret the energy that gets expended on boundary maintenance, I like knowing that when I go to church, I'm not going to have people speaking in tongues around me or someone asking me to walk the aisle. It is too hard to combine devotion with minute-by-minute discernment. At some point you have to quit looking at your feet and just dance. Only sectarianism allows the dance to proceed with a predictable soundtrack.

Alright, have a great week folks. I'm almost finished with my dissertation, so perhaps I'll have more time to post by Christmastime.

10/19/2009

Halloween Decorations at Grant's Farm

09/26/2009

Perkins on Improving Our Baptisms

From the same commentary, pg. 133-4:

"We are to take occasion to consider and to bewail the hardness of our hearts, who do not relent from our evil ways, and turn unto God upon the consideration of his love in Christ. The waters of the Sanctuary have long flowed unto us, but they have not sweetened us, and made us savory: therefore it is to be feared lest our habitations be at length turned to places of nettles and saltpits."

We treat God like a Pawn Broker Treats his Customers

From William Perkins, easily the most famous of English theologians in the late sixteenth, early seventeenth century:

"We put too much confidence in means. If we have good callings, house, land, living, we can then trust in God: but when means of comfort fail, we are like the Usurer, who will not trust the man, but his pawn: even so we trust not God upon his bare word, without a pawn. If he comes to us with a full hand, and with the full pawn of his good gifts, and blessings, we trust him; else not."

From William Perkins's Commentary on Galatians, Edited by Gerald T. Sheppard. New York: Pilgrim Press, 1989. p 132. (I updated the english spellings of words.) Originally published Cambridge, 1604.