tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-197399562024-03-14T03:31:53.714-05:00The Abell SixChristianity, Books, Heroes, Barbecue, Life, Friends, Stuff, etc.Jabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.comBlogger378125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19739956.post-46867176274760056682013-04-25T17:04:00.001-05:002013-04-25T17:04:36.658-05:00Washington ParkI ran across this poem by Gerald Costanzo the other day and it made me long for the Pacific Northwest. I grew up just outside of Portland, but my dad lived there and we would often go to Washington Park. We walked the train tracks between the park and the zoo, jumping out to scare the train goers. We would read the names and dates of all the Queens of Rosaria. In 2011, I took my family and we spent an afternoon in the park. I realized again how beautiful it is.<br />
<br />
<b>Washington Park</b><br />
<br />
I went walking in the Rose Gardens.<br />
It was about to rain, but the roses<br />
were beginning to bloom. The Olympiads,<br />
<br />
some Shreveports, and the Royal<br />
Sunsets. This was in the beautiful<br />
city I had taken away from myself<br />
<br />
years before, and now I was giving it back.<br />
I walked over the Rosaria tiles<br />
and found Queen Joan of 1945. I sat<br />
<br />
on the hillside overlooking the reservoir<br />
and studied the Willamette and the Douglas<br />
firs. I learned the traffic<br />
<br />
and the new highrises as the rain<br />
came down.<br />
<br />
This leaving and returning,<br />
<br />
years of anger and forgiveness,<br />
the attempts to forgive one’s self—<br />
it’s everybody’s story,<br />
<br />
and I was sitting there<br />
filling up again with the part of it<br />
that was mine.<br />
<br />
—Gerald Costanzo, from <i>Nobody Lives on Arthur Godfrey Boulevard</i>, Rochester NY: BOA Editions, Ltd., 1992. [chapter 9]<br />
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<br />Jabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19739956.post-69496347100937739352013-04-22T13:26:00.000-05:002013-04-22T13:26:26.696-05:00Piper on Grieving the Loss of a Child“But there is another way God is honored in our grieving. When we taste the loss so deeply because we loved so deeply and treasured God’s gift — and God in his gift — so passionately that the loss cuts the deeper and the longer, and yet in and through the depths and the lengths of sorrow we never let go of God, and feel him never letting go of us — in that longer sorrow he is also greatly honored, because the length of it reveals the magnitude of our sense of loss for which we do not forsake God. At every moment of the lengthening grief, we turn to him not away from him. And therefore the length of it is a way of showing him to be ever-present, enduringly sufficient.”<br />
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—Read the <a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DGBlog/~3/dG8taY6R0i8/letter-to-a-parent-grieving-the-loss-of-a-child">whole thing</a>.Jabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19739956.post-44557143233706136892013-04-10T11:55:00.000-05:002013-04-10T11:56:28.670-05:00Trueman on Thatcher and the Teenage YearsRecently, two connected thoughts have entered my conscience. First, that at 42, an end approaches. Second, that I still live much of my life in my teenage years. Carl Trueman, quoted here before, touches both of those thoughts.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Yet she is dead. The woman who defined the teenage years of many of us—and we all live a lot of our lives in our teenage years—has gone. As I thought of Hill today, I also thought of the film, <i>The Iron Lady</i>, an elegy to the erosion of power and of life itself that aging brings with it. The powerful woman laid low by old age. Her story beckons us all. When Thatcher ruled the waves, I was a teenage boy; and like all teenage boys, I thought I would live forever. Now, approaching the age Mrs T was when she became Tory leader, I am not so sure of my immortality any more. This is the land of lost content. </blockquote>
Read his whole <a href="http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2013/04/all-that-is-iron-comes-to-rust.php">post</a>.Jabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19739956.post-44028204843326738652013-03-30T11:22:00.001-05:002013-03-30T11:22:58.647-05:00The Art of Saying NO“Time is the raw material of creation. Wipe away the magic and myth of creating and all that remains is work: the work of becoming expert through study and practice, the work of finding solutions to problems and problems with those solutions, the work of trial and error, the work of thinking and perfecting, the work of creating. Creating consumes. It is all day, every day. It knows neither weekends nor vacations. It is not when we feel like it. It is habit, compulsion, obsession, vocation. The common thread that links creators is how they spend their time. No matter what you read, no matter what they claim, nearly all creators spend nearly all their time on the work of creation. There are few overnight successes and many up-all-night successes.”<br />
<br />
— <a href="https://medium.com/thoughts-on-creativity/bad7c34842a2">Kevin Ashton in Thoughts on Creativity</a>Jabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19739956.post-20220941769396383792013-02-26T13:11:00.001-06:002013-02-26T13:13:59.197-06:00Page CXVI JubileeFrom the <a href="http://www.pagecxvi.com/">Page CXVI</a> and <a href="http://www.theautumnfilm.com/">Autumn Film</a> announcement:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
To celebrate 7 years of making music together, the members of Page CXVI and The Autumn Film are giving away their entire music catalog for 7 weeks. Between re-arranging the classic hymns, to creating beautiful emotive indie pop music, the band has recorded 11 albums together. Please join them in celebrating this jubilee by catching up on the records you’ve missed or download the entire catalog.</blockquote>
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Note: the link associated with the image won't be live until Friday, March 1.
Jabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19739956.post-9818422959862063962013-02-23T18:23:00.002-06:002013-02-23T18:23:19.037-06:00Why I Like ApplePeople think I am just an Apple fanboy, which I am, but it is because of people like Joni Ive. <a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2013/02/20/jonathan-ive-on-apples-design-philosophy/">TUAW</a> recently wrote this:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In a May 2012 interview with the Telegraph, Ive said, “We’re keenly aware that when we develop and make something and bring it to market that it really does speak to a set of values. And what preoccupies us is that sense of care, and what our products will not speak to is a schedule, what our products will not speak to is trying to respond to some corporate or competitive agenda. We’re very genuinely designing the best products that we can for people.”</blockquote>
Jabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19739956.post-53710211256733585722013-02-23T13:23:00.000-06:002013-02-23T13:23:32.450-06:00Even in a World That Can't Stop Talking<br />
“All of these approaches can help achieve Lahey’s aim of giving shy students the confidence to speak up for themselves. But none of this necessarily means we should grade students based on their class participation, since that effectively penalizes children for their fears. In other words, shy kids should be helped with a carrot, not a stick.<br />
<br />
I’m also old-fashioned enough to believe that grades should assess a child’s proficiency at math or science or history, not their ability to speak in front of a large group. Knowledge matters. Deep thought matters. Mastery of a subject matters — even in a world that can’t stop talking. It is not irrelevant that American schools, which value verbal confidence at least as highly as quiet study, are falling behind their international peers.”<br />
<br />
—<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/02/help-shy-kids-dont-punish-them/273075/">Help Shy Kids—Don’t Punish Them</a>. The tyranny of the extraverts strikes again.<br />
<br />
—Reposted from Alan Jacobs’ <a href="http://ayjay.tumblr.com/post/42965838977">More Than 95 Theses</a><br />
Jabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19739956.post-78800452429917263262013-02-02T19:55:00.000-06:002013-02-02T19:55:03.669-06:00Three Fantastic SentencesMy <a href="http://preciseandtowering.tumblr.com/">friend</a> bought me <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Reamde-Novel-Neal-Stephenson/dp/0062191497">Reamde</a></i> for Christmas, a massive 1,044 page techno-thriller written by Neal Stephenson. It is brilliant. I am only 169 pages in and loving it. I had to stop and write this post, because on pages 168 and 169—an open book without turning pages—were three brilliant sentences. The first two are brilliant without explanation. The third is brilliant because I have lived in the the Pacific Northwest and smiled knowingly as this fabulous description of a precise problem one has with slow, constant drizzle and adjustable wiper speeds.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Oddities due to the choices made by players were attributed to “strange lights in the sky,” “eldritch influences beyond the ken of even the most erudite local observers,” “unlooked-for syzygy,” “what was most likely the intervention of a capricious local demigod,” “bolt from the blue” or, in one case, “an unexpected reversal of fortune that even the most wizened local gaffers agreed was without precedent and that, indeed, if seen in a work of literature, would have been derided as a heavy-handed example of deus ex machina.”</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The “Meat” were there because of REAMDE, which had been present at background levels for several weeks now but that recently had pinballed through the elbow in its exponential growth curve and for about twelve hours had looked as though it might completely take over all computing power in the Universe, until its own size and rapid growth had caused it to run afoul of the sorts of real-world friction that always befell seemingly exponential phenomena and bent those hockey-stick graphs over into lazy S plots.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Just wanted to bend your ear a little,” C-plus explained, fussing with the intermittent wiper knob, trying to dial in that elusive setting, always so difficult to find in Seattle, that would keep the windshield visually transparent but not drag shuddering blades across dry glass.</blockquote>
Thank you, Matt. I am truly enjoying this book on every level.Jabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19739956.post-70531734405567802662013-01-24T20:37:00.002-06:002013-01-24T20:37:38.178-06:00Andy Naselli<a href="http://www.bcsmn.org/">BCS</a> recently announced that we are hiring <a href="http://www.bcsmn.org/index.php/news/item/naselli-joins-bcs-faculty">Andy Naselli</a> as our new Assistant Professor of New Testament and Biblical Theology. I am very excited about him coming on staff and his family being a part of our community at BCS. I really like Andy and look forward to years of service together for the furtherance of our mission.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, I laughed out loud when I read the following sentences on his <a href="http://www.andynaselli.com/">blog</a>, where he was describing <a href="http://andynaselli.com/were-moving-to-minneapolis-5-reasons-were-excited-to-serve-at-bethlehem-college-and-seminary">five reasons</a> why he was coming to BCS.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
On Christmas Day 1998, I read <i>The Pleasures of God</i>. I was riveted.</blockquote>
Riveted? I’ll say. I would have been starving. And tired. And late for work. Probably a week late.Jabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19739956.post-82372700153017889682013-01-01T11:39:00.000-06:002013-01-11T12:04:44.602-06:00Books Completed in 2012Here is the list of books I completed during the calendar year 2012. My goal is a minimum of 12 books completed per year, or an average of one per month. If I start a book in one year, and finish it in the next, it counts in the year it was completed. My sights are set low, but this way the goal is attainable. (Obviously, I am not shooting for stars and hoping for the moon: I am settling for clouds.)<div>
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<div>
Caveats: 2012 was a difficult year, and I had great difficulty focusing on anything deep, difficult, or serious outside of work, which accounts for the proliferation of novels on this year’s list. Yes, I do feel a bit sheepish that the novels I read were more on the side of escapist fiction than classic literature, but I think G.K. Chesterton had it right <a href="http://theabellsix.blogspot.com/2011/08/hero-among-dragons.html">here</a>, <a href="http://theabellsix.blogspot.com/2011/09/slay-dragon.html">here</a>, and <a href="http://theabellsix.blogspot.com/2011/03/what-do-we-choose-to-imagine.html">here</a>.</div>
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<div>
I also previously posted on books read in <a href="http://theabellsix.blogspot.com/2012/01/books-completed-in-2011.html">2011</a>, <a href="http://theabellsix.blogspot.com/2011/01/books-completed-in-2010.html">2010</a>, and <a href="http://theabellsix.blogspot.com/2010/12/books-read.html">2008/2009</a>.<br /><br /><i>Cover Her Face,</i> by P. D. James<br /><i>The Hunger Games</i>, by Suzanne Collins<br /><i>Catching Fire</i>, by Suzanne Collins<br /><i>Mockingjay</i>, by Suzanne Collins<br /><i>The Summer Tree</i>, by Guy Gavriel Kay<br /><i>The Wandering Fire</i>, by Guy Gavriel Kay<br /><i>Where the Sidewalk Ends: The Poems and Drawings of Shel Silverstein</i>, by Shel Silverstein<br /><i>Writing Magic: Creating Stories That Fly</i>, by Gail Carson Levine<br /><i>Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone</i>, by J. K. Rowling<br /><i>Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets</i>, by J. K. Rowling<br /><i>Graphic Design: The New Basics</i>, by Ellen Lupton and Jennifer Cole Phillips<br /><i>The Chronicles of Amber, Volume 1</i>, by Roger Zelazny<br /><i>The Chronicles of Amber, Volume 2</i>, by Roger Zelazny<br /><i>Hannah Coulter</i>, by Wendell Berry<br /><i>The Bourne Identity</i>, by Robert Ludlum<br /><i>The Bourne Supremacy</i>, by Robert Ludlum<br /><i>The Bourne Ultimatum</i>, by Robert Ludlum<br /><i>100 Cupboards</i>, by N. D. Wilson<br /><i>Dandelion Fire</i>, by N. D. Wilson</div>
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Jabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19739956.post-73466844046329946312012-05-25T09:03:00.000-05:002012-05-25T09:03:47.959-05:00This is not progress“What follows when a belief in objectivity and truth dies away in higher education? In time an educated person comes to doubt that purpose and meaning are discoverable—he doubts, finally, that they even exist. It’s no mystery why fewer and fewer students in higher education today bother with the liberal arts, preferring professional training in their place. Deprived of their traditional purpose in the pursuit of what’s true and good, the humanities could only founder. The study of literature, for example, was consumed in the trivialities of the deconstructionists and their successors. Philosophy curdled into positivism and word play. History became an inventory of political grievances.<br />
<br />
Into the vacuum left by the humanities comes science, which by its own admission is unconcerned with the large questions of meaning and purpose. Even so, on campus and elsewhere, science is now taken as the final authority on any important human question—and not always the rigorous physical sciences, either, but the rickety, less empirical, more easily manipulated guesswork of behavioral psychology, cultural anthropology, sociology, developmental studies, and so on. Nowadays, if we seek insight into the mysteries of the human heart (not high on the academic agenda in any case) we are far more likely to consult a neurobiologist or a social psychologist than Tolstoy or Aristotle. This is not progress.”<br />
<br />
—Andrew Ferguson, “<a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/book-drove-them-crazy_634905.html?nopager=1">The Book That Drove Them Crazy</a>”, The Weekly StandardJabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19739956.post-41287044773376561312012-05-08T16:49:00.002-05:002012-05-08T16:50:38.403-05:00Tuition Craziness: Enslaved to Student DebtI wrote an article for Bethlehem College and Seminary that can be read <a href="http://www.bcsmn.org/index.php/news/item/tuition-craziness-enslaved-to-student-debt">here</a>.Jabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19739956.post-8122143603888584842012-04-25T18:39:00.000-05:002012-04-25T18:39:00.432-05:00Thoughts on Romans 5:1–5<br />
<i>1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.</i> (Rom 5:1-5 ESV)<br />
<br />
V1a — This verse begins with a “therefore” which shows that it is tied to the previous four chapters. The previous four chapters articulate justification by faith. Chapter 1 says that we are sinners, sinners who have exchanged the glory of God for a lie. Chapter 2 shows that even the Jews were guilty, even though they are the chosen of God. Chapter 3 unites all people, both Jew and Gentile, into the same sinful boat. We are all guilty and deserve wrath. Yet, towards the end of Chapter 3, Jesus Christ shows himself to be our propitiation with God and we are saved by him through faith. Chapter 4 argues that this salvation comes by faith. Justification is by faith alone, and the example of Abraham proves it. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith…<br />
<br />
V1b — The inference to this reality of being justified by faith is two-fold. First, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This peace is an amazing reality. The truth is that before we were justified by faith, we were at war with God. He was set against us. We deserved hell. But, since we have been justified by faith, we are at peace with God. Second, we can have peace in our own hearts. There is both an objective outward reality to the peace we have and a subjective inward reality to the peace we have.<br />
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V2a — Paul can’t seem to stop himself and further elaborates something that we have through Jesus Christ. We have peace through Jesus Christ, and by the way, we also have obtained access into the grace in which we are standing. We are no longer standing in a place where grace doesn’t occur, but we are physically in a new realm. The entire world is in a realm of common grace; it rains and the sun shines and doctors heal our bodies. But for the Christian, there is another realm, a realm of grace. A realm where particular grace happens. This other realm can only be entered one way, by faith in Jesus Christ. So, our faith not only justified us in a past tense sense, but also in a very present sense, our faith is the means to our present standing in grace, our present sanctification.<br />
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V2b — That was really an aside, though, because Paul comes back to the second major inference from the reality that we have been justified by faith. That second inference is that we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. This is the future reality. The word rejoice comes from the Greek word that is literally boast. We boast or we glory in the hope of the glory of God. We revel in it. There will come a day when we will fully and finally see and partake in the glory of the living God. What a wonderful day to look forward to. Yet, this hope, this boasting in hope, is only a reality because we have been justified by faith.<br />
<br />
But wait, there’s more!<br />
<br />
V3a — I have not been able to wrap my head around this fully, but I will try. Paul says, literally, “Not only this, but also…” He really says, wait there is more. Amazingly, though, the more doesn’t seem as helpful as we would like. The “more” is that we rejoice—which is the same word used in v2—we boast, we glory in our sufferings. Tribulations and trials happen. Suffering happens. Friends lose babies. Many have questioned their faith or have doubted the goodness of God. A dear friend of mine gives one definition of suffering as anything that shakes ones faith or causes one to wonder at the goodness of God. But, Paul, here says “since we have been justified by faith, we glory in our sufferings.” That is stunning. It is not an easy saying.<br />
<br />
V3b–4b — Paul does not leave us without a reason though. I think he anticipates the what and why questions that we ask. So, he says, “knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” My reaction when I first read that is so what? What do I care about endurance or character? I would rather not suffer. Obviously, that is a very crass thing to say. Jesus says that you must endure to the end to be saved. We want to have a deep, Godly character so that we honor Christ. Notice that the third piece of the chain is hope. Peter writes, “be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” So, then, this chain—endurance, character, hope–is extremely important and valuable. It is Christ-centered and God-glorifying. But is it really “not only this, but also”?<br />
<br />
V5a — The ESV simply says “and” at the beginning of v5. I think it should be “<i>Furthermore</i>, hope does not put us to shame.” In other words, there is a lot more to this hope. Suffering does not just make you a better person who can endure and who has a good character. I believe that suffering can do the first two things for a non-Christian. Non-Christians can gain endurance and character from suffering. The thing that makes suffering as a Christian different is hope. Hope does not disappoint. Hope does not put you to shame. Hope is something different entirely. Hope is not an “O boy, I really hope it happens…”, but hope is something sure, a settled belief that what God says is true. Hope is sure that the last Adam, Jesus Christ “has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor 15:20–22). We hope in <i>that</i>.<br />
<br />
V5b — Paul does not leave us with no argument for why hope does not put us to shame. He gives us a reason, “because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” The love of God in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. This brings us full circle back to our justification by faith. This love is both God’s love for us and our love for God. Our ability to look on Jesus in faith, to hope in him, indeed, to love him, is his work in us. We will not be put to shame, fully or finally, because it is his love in us that he put there by the Holy Spirit. Hope is no small thing. Hope is a certainty of the future resurrection, of the future glorification, that we know to be true, because God’s love is in us via the Holy Spirit. We have the stamp of final salvation upon us. We will endure to the end. Our character will be proven in suffering.<br />
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<br />Jabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19739956.post-48601794978906392642012-04-24T18:36:00.000-05:002012-04-24T22:22:15.846-05:00Last Weekend’s Grilling<b>Friday</b>: Mesquite Smoked Cheeseburgers (Sorry the pic is a bit blurry. Can’t take another picture, though, the burgers are all gone.) The salsa included mesquite smoked Roma tomatoes (yes, on the grill) along with fresh onions, garlic, cilantro, chipotle chili peppers in adobo sauce, and lime juice. The burgers were grilled in mesquite smoke and topped with smoked Gouda. Absolutely fantastic.<br />
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<b>Saturday</b>: Hickory Smoked Baby Back Ribs. These babies were seasoned with kosher salt, chipotle pepper powder, cumin, garlic powder and black pepper (plus some others I can’t remember right now), then sat for a little over an hour. I prepared a three-zone fire for indirect heat and tried to keep the internal temperature between 300 and 350 degrees. They were on the grill about 3 hours, basking in hickory smoke for the first two. They were very good, maybe the best I’ve grilled so far, but I think I still have a long way to go to make perfect ribs.<br />
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<br />Jabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19739956.post-56855954617495336972012-04-21T11:19:00.001-05:002012-04-21T11:22:37.654-05:00Middle-aged Git Goes to SwitchfootI may be a middle-aged git, but I also love rock-n-roll (especially the classic rock genre; I’m in good company, so does <a href="http://www.reformation21.org/carl-trueman/">Carl Trueman</a>). Therefore, I jumped at the chance to take my awesome kids to see <a href="http://www.switchfoot.com/">Switchfoot</a> on Thursday night.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J8uD0_Os1_0/T5LbZlFEoBI/AAAAAAAAAO0/lBYPYxBut_I/s1600/Switchfoot-Drew.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J8uD0_Os1_0/T5LbZlFEoBI/AAAAAAAAAO0/lBYPYxBut_I/s400/Switchfoot-Drew.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />Jabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19739956.post-67644901192351141692012-04-03T18:25:00.000-05:002012-04-03T18:25:00.893-05:00On Doubts and QuestionsFrom <a href="http://www.dougwils.com/">Douglas Wilson</a>:<br />
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“The point is that questions, even tough questions, can be answered. And when they are answered, the questioner grows in his knowledge and understanding. Don’t worry whether the Bible can stand up to your questions. It is an anvil that has worn out many hammers.”<br />
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Read the <a href="http://www.dougwils.com/Previous-Publications/the-difference-between-doubts-and-questions.html">whole post</a>.Jabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19739956.post-75477610128534437162012-03-16T14:34:00.000-05:002012-03-16T14:34:22.217-05:00The MoonTaken with my iPhone through the eye piece of a $30 telescope.<br />
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<br />Jabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19739956.post-34311258269762069352012-03-16T12:23:00.001-05:002012-03-16T12:23:48.498-05:00Daughters<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Jabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19739956.post-3247657530867127172012-03-16T10:08:00.001-05:002012-03-16T10:08:57.746-05:00Warfield on the Essence of ChristianityQuoted from Carl Trueman’s <a href="http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2012/03/warfield-on-the-essence-of-chr.php">post</a> of the same name:<br />
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It belongs to the very essence of the type of Christianity propagated by the Reformation that the believer should feel himself continuously unworthy of the grace by which he lives. At the center of this type of Christianity lies the contrast of sin and grace; and about this center everything else revolves. This is in large part the meaning of the emphasis put in this type of Christianity on justification by faith. It is its conviction that there is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all. This is not true of us only “when we believe.” It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in Christian behavior may be. It is always on His “blood and righteousness” alone that we can rest. There is never anything that we are or have or do that can take His place, or that can take a place along with Him. We are always unworthy, and all that we have or do of good is always of pure grace. Though blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ, we are still in ourselves just “miserable sinners”: “miserable sinners” saved by grace to be sure, but “miserable sinners” still, deserving in ourselves nothing but everlasting wrath. That is the attitude which the Reformers took, and that is the attitude which the Protestant world has learned from the Reformers to take, toward the relation of believers to Christ.</blockquote>
(HT: <a href="http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2012/03/warfield-on-the-essence-of-chr.php">Reformation 21 Blog</a>)Jabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19739956.post-15655036203383264732012-03-10T22:30:00.001-06:002012-03-10T22:42:42.892-06:00Waking UpWhy is waking up so hard to do,<br />
When the day is work and not play,<br />
And the bed is warm and<br />
The room is cold?<br />
Why is the alarm hard to hear<br />
And the sleep so deep?<br />
But on Saturday, O for shame!<br />
My eyes open and thoughts begin<br />
It’s too early, why can’t I sleep in?<br />
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—AnonymousJabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19739956.post-26965045341020113812012-03-09T18:42:00.000-06:002012-03-09T18:42:01.441-06:00Harry Potter and Magic—The Best I Have Read on ThisBy <a href="http://ayjay.tumblr.com/">Alan Jacobs</a>, of course, from the January, 2000, <i><a href="http://www.firstthings.com/">First Things</a></i>. His last two paragraphs follow, but you really ought to read the <a href="http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/01/harry-potters-magic-28">whole thing</a>.<br />
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In this sense the strong tendency of magic to become a dream of power—on the importance of this point Lynn Thorndike, Keith Thomas, and C. S. Lewis all agree—makes it a wonderful means by which to focus the theme of <i>Bildung</i>, of the choices that gradually but inexorably shape us into certain distinct kinds of persons. Christians are perhaps right to be wary of an overly positive portrayal of magic, but the Harry Potter books don’t do that: in them magic is often fun, often surprising and exciting, but also always potentially dangerous.</blockquote>
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And so, it should be said, is the technology that has resulted from the victory of experimental science. Perhaps the most important question I could ask my Christian friends who mistrust the Harry Potter books is this: is your concern about the portrayal of this imaginary magical technology matched by a concern for the effects of the technology that in our world displaced magic? The technocrats of this world hold in their hands powers almost infinitely greater than those of Albus Dumbledore and Voldemort: how worried are we about them, and their influence over our children? Not worried enough, I would say. As Ellul suggests, the task for us is “the measuring of technique by other criteria than those of technique itself,” which measuring he also calls “the search for justice before God.” Joanne Rowling’s books are more helpful than most in prompting such measurement. They are also—and let’s not forget the importance of this point—a great deal of fun.</blockquote>
</blockquote>Jabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19739956.post-8431173149685141982012-03-02T14:42:00.000-06:002012-03-02T14:43:05.394-06:00Trying to decide if I should read Cormac McCarthyTwo completely unrelated quotes:<br />
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“This gives his novels a relentlessness, barreling the reader through his gloomy worlds. If one theme is consistent to McCarthy’s work, it’s depravity and darkness. His stories usually follow characters who venture into desolate places, where humanity is descending into something devious and dark: the brothels of <i>Cities of the Plain</i>, the roving murderers of <i>Blood Meridian</i>, the cannibals who haunt the margins of <i>The Road</i>. Through this frightful landscape, McCarthy’s lead characters do their moral wrestling, wondering if anything good remains in the darkness. His books all answer that question differently, though (I would argue) rarely without some measure of hope.<br />
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...<i>snip</i>...<br />
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John Piper once said on Twitter ‘Cormac McCarthy is to the American literary canon what Judges is to the the biblical canon.’ I couldn’t agree more.”<br />
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— Mike Cosper, <a href="http://thegospelcoalition.org/">The Gospel Coalition</a>, <a href="http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/02/09/cormac-mccarthy-judges-in-the-american-canon/print/"><i>Cormac McCarthy: Judges in the American Canon</i></a><br />
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“If what’s always distinguished bad writing— flat characters, a narrative world that’s clichéd and not recognizably human, etc.— is also a description of today’s world, then bad writing becomes an ingenious mimesis of a bad world. If readers simply believe the world is stupid and shallow and mean, then [Bret Easton] Ellis can write a mean shallow stupid novel that becomes a mordant deadpan commentary on the badness of everything. Look man, we’d probably most of us agree that these are dark times, and stupid ones, but do we need fiction that does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is? In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements of what’s human and magical that still live and glow despite the times’ darkness. Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it’d find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it.”<br />
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— David Foster Wallace, posted by <a href="http://ayjay.tumblr.com/post/17207284764">Alan Jacobs</a>, via <a href="http://kadrey.tumblr.com/">kadrey</a><br />
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The first paragraph is written by a Christian for a Christian institution about an author who writes dark and violent novels that John Piper says are comparable to the biblical book of Judges. The second paragraph is written by an author and has nothing to do with Cormac McCarthy. But it does give a sort of argument for writing about light shining through darkness.<br />
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I have not read any Cormac McCarthy, who many of my friends say is great. Clearly his work is dark. Most of the literary society thinks his work <i>could not</i> be characterized as bad writing. The questions I have are whether 1) he finds a way “both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibiliites for being alive and human in it”? and whether 2) it is sufficiently good writing for me to read it?Jabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19739956.post-68598679436010454262012-03-02T14:10:00.000-06:002012-03-02T14:10:48.278-06:00A Kernel of Truth at the Heart of a Story“My job as a writer is to whittle my story down to the bare truth at its heart and then build around it the best illusions I can muster, illusions that support and even illuminate without distracting. The failure to understand this is precisely why so many films fall flat—the storyteller is enraptured by his own illusion and forgets to paint the truth. If there’s not a kernel of truth at the heart of the story, then all the action sequences, precise prose, and emotionally manipulative music on earth can’t save it.”<br />
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—Pete Peterson, <a href="http://www.rabbitroom.com/">The Rabbit Room</a>, <a href="http://www.rabbitroom.com/2012/03/truth-in-the-guise-of-illusion/"><i>Truth in the Guise of Illusion</i></a>Jabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19739956.post-33614450073957242572012-02-15T20:48:00.001-06:002012-02-15T20:48:55.226-06:00*That* Day Has Finally Arrived<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Oy.</div>Jabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19739956.post-32886141745031836592012-02-10T19:50:00.000-06:002012-02-10T20:38:58.308-06:00Taking Things into My Own HandsGrilling has been a significant delight now for several years. As my skills have increased (marginally, I know), I have desired to grill a wider variety of foods; foods that would require hours of “low and slow” goodness.<br />
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Yet due to my impatient personality, I have focused most of my grilling on relatively quick and super-hot cooking techniques. (Yes, I just wrote <i>super</i>-hot, but I didn’t mean it like <i>super</i>-cute.) After all, it is pretty easy to build a hot fire and quickly sear meat. To my shame, I have not attempted to cook many meats that require hours or even all day in a smoky, low temperature fire. The longest meal I have ever cooked has been the turkey on Thanksgiving, which only required about 2 hours.<br />
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I knew that in order to barbecue cuts of meat that needed six or eight hours I would have to manage the heat of the coals better than I typically manage my Saturday mornings. Frankly, I have not been happy with my success in cooking ribs, so my desires have leaned toward having a thermometer built into the grill lid. I tried using an oven thermometer with little success as it always got in the way of the actual food on the grill, not to mention turning a dark shade of dirty orange from the smoke.<br />
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My eyes started to wander away from my faithful grill towards one of those pretty models in the store that had a built in thermometer. I love Weber and want to stay with the brand. At the same time I realize that the brand name is expensive and they designed their line of charcoal grills to pull as much money from my wallet as possible. Hence only the most expensive models include the relatively cheap thermometer.<br />
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As much as I wanted a grill with a thermometer, I could not justify spending $300 on a second grill with a thermometer. Don’t get me wrong, I <i>can</i> justify a second grill; just not a $300 one.<br />
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Well, I explained my dilemma to the helpful men at <a href="http://frattallones.com/">Frattalone’s</a> Ace Hardware in Arden Hills and we landed on an inexpensive, if somewhat DIY solution. Weber does sell a replacement thermometer for their gas grills, which would do the job perfectly.<br />
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So, I took things into my owns hands, in the suburban American weekend warrior sort of way.<br />
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Mission accomplished.<br />
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<br />Jabellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14301071588026632633noreply@blogger.com0