High Fliers

Hope and I Buried Together

2012-02-17T04:22:00.002-08:00

""If family reunion means going six feet under, and the only family that shows up is worms, Do you call that hope? Who on earth could find any hope in that? No. If hope and I are to be buried together, I suppose you’ll all come to the double funeral!”” (Job 17:14–16, The Message)

Eugene Petersen captures the lament of Job so well in this passage. Job has no explanation from God on why calamity has suddenly arrived. His children have all been killed. His possessions gone. His body suffering. His only expectation is an eventual (soon!) meeting with worms in the ground. Truly, in Job's mind hope and he are to be buried together.

So poignant. So human.

The World is Broken

2012-02-12T22:39:00.000-08:00

The fact that the world is broken hardly needs arguing; there is empirical evidence ubiquitously running throughout our lives so plainly that even the most hardened skeptic is hard put to deny the fact. I was reminded of this again the other day when I received an email from Michigan State University saying that one of the students there had developed a sudden illness and been taken to the hospital. She died within hours. They suspect she had the illness that leads to bacterial meningitis. We found out later that night that she was the roommate of some friends of ours from Laingsburg (as far as we know their daughter did not catch the illness). So supremely sad. A family suddenly devastated.

Their is something wrong with that isn't there? We all know this intrinsically. 19 year old college students shouldn't die from sudden illnesses; people shouldn't get cancer; car crashes shouldn't cut short lives. When these things happen we know; we feel! that the fabric of the universe has been torn unexpectedly; that something went terribly awry.

The fact that the world is broken is not a challenge to the worldview of the Christian faith. Three chapters into the structure of the Bible and one already has an explanation for this. The world is broken because of sin. Bad things happen because "In Adam's fall, we sinned all." Death, destruction, devastation, lives cut short, all due to the creation being under sin. No other worldview besides Judeo-Christianity has an adequate explanation for why we all know that the world is broken.

This fact is of great comfort in times like these. Yes, the world is broken. People get diseases; people die before their time; there is much heartache, much sorrow; but, God's purpose is to set it all right in and through Jesus Christ. We wait, along with creation, for that time when God will set all things right.

Come, Lord Jesus. Heal this brokenness.

Conscience and the Government

2012-02-10T02:54:00.000-08:00

I've spent a little time thinking about the current conflict between the Obama Administration and the Catholic church over the mandate for Catholic hospitals and charities to provide health coverage that goes against Catholic teaching on the subject. Whether or not we agree with Catholic teaching on contraception, we should be interested in the notion that the government can tell the Catholic church when it can follow its conscience and when it cannot. If the government is allowed to do this, it will not be too long before it is forcing others to do the same.

Linda Greenhouse wrote a blog on the conscience claim for the New York Times (no big surprise there), so I will use her blog as my foil. She summarizes the whole issue (and goes immediately wrong) by stating:

While the policy grounds are fully persuasive – the ability to prevent or space pregnancy being an essential part of women’s health care, one that shouldn’t be withheld simply because a woman’s employer is church-affiliated.

No one, of course, is withholding anything, the Catholic church does not want to be forced to provide services that it holds are wrong. They are not trying to prevent their workers from getting contraception; they do not wanted to be forced to provide them. Ms. Greenhouse is content to overlook this fact because it would make the rest of her column useless, not to mention meaningless.

Her arguments go something like this:

1. Catholic women in general do not follow Catholic teaching in regards to contraception. -- So what? So the church should "adapt" its beliefs to the current trends? This is a silly argument.

2. The Catholics are saying that their right to conscience trumps the law, but the law does not embrace that principle. -- Duh! She seems to think that the Catholic bishops are saying that the law says that conscience trumps the law. They are saying no such thing. They are saying that when it comes down to conscience or law, they will obey conscience and suffer the consequences. Meanwhile they are using the law (as they should) to appeal this decision in an effort to overturn it. All within their rights as citizens of these United States.

What I find interesting is that Ms. Greenhouse's conscience trumps the law, but that is okay. Obviously, she feels strongly that contraception and abortifacients should be provided by every employer and she thought this before the directive was announced in which case her own conscience was trumping the current law. Apparently this is okay because she agrees with it, but when someone else's conscience trumps the law and she does not agree with it, that is not okay. An inconsistent position if there ever was one.
Despite many other words, this pretty much sums up Ms. Greenhouse's poor argument against the conscience claim in regards to this ill-advised directive.

Anyone who is interested in liberty should be disturbed when the government begins mandating rules that would force citizens to act against their faith convictions. Whether or not one agrees with Catholic teaching on this issue, one should support and encourage their efforts to get this administration directive overturned, because next they will be coming for you and your convictions.

A Happy Journey

2012-02-06T03:18:00.001-08:00

Cherie and I spent the last week slowly traveling down to Atlanta for training. We left on Monday and drove down to my brother's apartment in Virginia and spent Tuesday hitting 5 museums in Washington, DC. Wednesday morning we were off to Chesapeake, VA, to see my brother, Buck and his family. Friday morning we drove down to Fayetteville, NC, to spend a couple of days with our son, Matt. It was a happy journey.Of the approximately 24 hours driving time, Cherie drove 22 and I drove 2. I hate to drive, it is boring and restricting; Cherie loves to drive. When we travel by car I get what I want—I can look around, read, count hawks (38 the first day) and generally not pay attention—and Cherie gets what she (sort of) wants—driving privileges. It is a happy union.Which gets me around to thinking about marriages. It is possible to have a good marriage and not share interests; my contention is that it is just harder; it takes more work and causes more conflict. When one shares interests with one's spouse, or one's interests mesh with one's spouse's (like driving for us); it makes for an easier go at marriage. In general there is less conflict.Which is all to say that God was good in giving me Cherie.

Go Down Together: The True Untold Story of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow

2012-01-28T04:40:00.000-08:00

I'm just finishing Go Down Together, by Jeff Guin, a biography of the short, and according to the author, inept criminal lives of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.

To sum it up quickly, Barrow grew up in poverty-stricken West Dallas, which is where he met Bonnie Parker. Barrow took to petty theft and especially auto theft at a young age and was more or less in trouble with the law for the rest of his short life. Perhaps the seminal influence on him was time he spent at Eastham Prison Farm in Texas; this is where Texas sent the most hardened of criminals.

While there, Barrow was repeatedly sexually assaulted by another inmate. Barrow would kill him by cracking his skull with a length of pipe and another prisoner, who was in for life, agreed to take responsibility for the killing. When Barrow got out of prison, he vowed never to return, and he lived up to that vow, being gunned down along with Bonnie Parker on the morning of May 23, 1934 in Louisiana. They were ambushed by 4 Texan officers and 2 Louisiana officers who fired 130 rounds into their stolen Ford. So they indeed went down together.

While Bonnie Parker was present at more than 100 felonies, she took part only as a getaway driver, although her reputation at the time, and some photos that the law discovered, showed her as a gun-toting, cigar-smoking aide to Barrow.

The gang does appear to have been mostly inept, committing a string of mostly minor robberies of gas stations and stores, a few bank robberies, and dozens and dozens of stolen cars. The chief result of these felonies was the trail of blood left behind, including several lawmen who ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sad story. Sad book. Sad, wasted, and useless lives.

Lessons from the Life of Abraham Lincoln: Part III

2012-01-21T04:15:00.000-08:00

Lesson 3: We are in the Hands of Providence

Even though Lincoln wasn't a Christian (although my college professor Ron Rietveld thinks he might have come to faith after his son died during his term), he had a very strong belief in Providence. His thinking went something like this. The North says that they are fighting for what God wants. The South says that they are fighting for what God wants. Both sides cannot be right. Perhaps both sides are wrong. Perhaps God is on his own side and has his own plans and purposes for the terrible war that was upon the United States.

Lincoln believed that God did have his own side and his own aims for the war, and that was to end slavery because it was a great evil. Accordingly, God was going to work out the ends of the war to do just that, to end slavery. Lincoln's side would be wise to get on the side that God was on.

It was this thinking that led to the Emancipation Proclamation, although Lincoln was wise enough to get the politics right---he only freed slaves in the rebellious states.

Lincoln believed that God was going to accomplish what he set out to do, no matter what man thought or did. He had a very strong view of providence, despite the fact that he was generally dismissive of Christian doctrine, at least in his younger years. His view was so strong that it almost bordered on fatalism, that it didn't matter what man did, because God was going to do what God wanted to do, no matter what man wanted or did. In a weird sense this is true, but not perhaps exactly how Lincoln worked it out in his own mind. Unfortunately, Lincoln did not live long enough to write down and systematize his thinking in regards to his belief in providence.

The takeway lesson seems to me to be, rather than assume that God is on your side in a conflict, it is best to ensure that, as nearly as you can figure it, you need to work to be on God's side because he is in ultimate control and has the power to work the outcome to his own purposeful ends.

Seven Reasons Leaders Fail

2012-01-19T02:35:00.000-08:00

An interesting blog post from Thomas Rainer, president of Lifeway Christian Resources. Why do leaders fail? He lists seven reasons. A good thing to read and contemplate if you are in leadership or ever plan on being in leadership (hint: if you are every going to have a family, you are going to be in leadership, so READ THE POST!).

Some points are obvious; some are not as obvious. One of the points that I am thinking through was number 3: They fail to grow. Here is how Mr. Rainer puts it: Some of these leaders were great – in the past. But they fail to change and failed to grow. They are leaders from another era that is no longer relevant. They are analog leaders functioning in a digital world.

We live in a world of change, so if you are going to lead, you're going to have to grow. What I'm wondering is what this looks like. What does it look like if you are leading, or help leading a church?

My answer would be that first you give attention to growing as a leader, for growth will certainly not come by assumption. Growth would also seem to include the ability to change and adapt to an evolving situation. This takes a lot of conscious effort because first you have to realize how a situation is evolving, before you can adapt to it. I guess I would think of this as recognition and then action; understanding how a situation is changing and then acting to lead the organization as it faces change.

Lessons from the Life of Abraham Lincoln II

2012-01-14T05:44:00.000-08:00

The second lesson that I take from thinking through the life of Abraham Lincoln is:

The Big Picture is the Most Important

The professor, Allen Guelzo, says that Lincoln had a "coup de l'oeil," which I would explain as an ability to focus on the big picture. The North, after some initial minor victories, faced setback after setback in the war; Stonewall Jackson rolling up the Union army flank at Chancellorsville; the loss of the Second Battle of Bull Run; General McClellan's endless dithering and astonishing ability to overestimate the numbers that opposed his army; holding the field at Antietam, but with unthinkable casualties; the machinations of cabinet members (Seward, Chase, etc.) behind his back; it was enough problems to make even the strongest leader into a mass of quivering jelly. How did Lincoln handle all this?

He had an amazing ability to focus on and understand the big picture. Despite the many setbacks, Lincoln kept a list of the overall picture that was positive in the long run. Total troop strength in the North always outnumbered the South, and by a large margin. The Union owned the high seas. The Union owned most of the manufacturing capability, and on and on it went. The big picture never looked completely bleak, despite temporary setbacks. Lincoln was almost alone at understanding this, and that was part of his genius. He could see what other men could not see.

It is of vital importance, no matter what one is doing, to not get completely distracted by the worry or setback of the moment. The broader picture is of ultimate importance, no matter what seems important at the time. If you don't have a genius at doing this; find someone that does. One person who sees the big picture, is of more importance than 20 engineers who are caught up in solving the problem of the day.

Lessons from the Life of Abraham Lincoln

2012-01-12T09:25:00.000-08:00

I'm listening through the Teaching Company's excellent course on Abraham Lincoln [We bought it as a Christmas present for our neighbor, then borrowed it from her after she had listened to it. How brilliant is that?]. I've been thinking about Lincoln's life as I listen and writing about it, helps me organize my thoughts into something useful, which is the point of all of this.

First Lesson: The Tides of History are Strong

I once heard the Civil War historian Shelby Foote assert that the two geniuses which the Civil War revealed were Abraham Lincoln and Nathan Bedford Forrest. I would agree with his statement. However; had Lincoln not become president at a crucial time historically, we would not be talking about him today. He would have been an above average, poilitically-connected lawyer in Illinois to the end of his days. Even if Lincoln had become president, had the Civil War not happened, he would have been an interesting president, in a long line of other presidents, but nothing special; think of James Buchanan or Bill Clinton. So Lincoln would not have been considered "great" and literally thousands of books would not have been written about him, had he not been president during the Civil War. He was swept up by the tides of history and it was the tides that exposed his greatness [by tides, both Lincoln and I would argue, that this is the Providence of God; but I am thinking from a human standpoint].

The point that I'm trying to make is that greatness comes from being exposed to great, crucial, historically relevant events, and being great in those events. As an example, Albert Sidney Johnson was one of the South's most experienced and admittedly great leaders. Jefferson Davis considered him the greatest general in the southern armies [which he probably was]; however, Johnson was killed at the battle of Shiloh [for lack of a tourniquet, sadly], and is barely remembered today, because he was killed so early in the war.

Lincoln had absolutely zero control of the great events that swept him [almost by accident - think Providence] into office in 1860. Indeed, at the time, it was considered crass to campaign for office [oh for history to go back to that model]; so how is it that Lincoln was elected? One can explain the events, but behind those events are the strong tides of history in which Lincoln was swept up along with everyone else, and which swept Lincoln to presidential victory.

This is particularly relevant because we are living in very crucial historical times, perhaps as crucial in the hindsight of history as the Civil War. Choices, decisions, and actions that are made now, will have far-reaching historical consequences [think of President Bush's decisions to go into Afghanistan and Iraq; think 9/11; think financial crisis; think Greece]. We are living in perhaps as critical historical times as we've had in this nation. How will history look back and judge the big movers and shakers; the people who happened to be in a place to make decisions at the time? We can only guess, because we will not be here then. I will propose some guesses as I make my way through Lincoln's life (there are interesting parallels).

Praying and Swimming

2012-01-09T06:29:00.000-08:00

I like to swim; no I love to swim. I'm willing to drag myself out of the bed on a freezing cold morning at 6 am, and drive 25 minutes so I can go swimming (it helps that Cherie likes to swim also). There's nothing quite like the sensation of chlorinated water coursing along your body while you glide along the surface propelling yourself along. It's kind of like what it might feel to fly...if we could fly without aid. The only problem with swimming in a pool is that it can get a little boring, especially if you are counting laps.

After about lap 7, you begin to wonder, "am I on lap 8 or 7?" I keep track in tens, but I confess, sometimes I get finished and wonder if I did, 10...or 9...or 11 (Ah!!!!!! Too few is fine, too many is torture!).

Enter Cherie with an elegant solution. She prays for one prayer request per lap. If you start with 10 prayer requests and pray one per lap, when you finish, you've swum ten laps. I tried it this morning and it worked well. I did 40 laps, and had 36 prayer requests prayed for (yeah, I forgot this plan until lap 5...).

So if you're doing something boringly repetitive, perhaps some praying while you're doing it? Who knows what the results might be.

Following the Emptys

2012-01-05T03:13:00.000-08:00

So I'm watching through a Teaching Company course on classical archaeology that I borrowed from my pastor. From start to finish it has been a fascinating course. Indeed, I found it so fascinating that I ordered the new course on the archaeology of the Holy Land.

At any rate, in one lesson the professor was talking about how they wanted to figure out if sailors in the classical period, hugged the shoreline of the Mediterranean, as everyone assumed, or if they navigated out of sight of land. They were able to answer that question by following the emptys.

What they did was get some submersible cameras fitted on diving platforms. They knew that over the years, much traffic had gone between Rome and Carthage. So they set out from the island of Sardinia, with these cameras and monitored them 24 hours a day. Sardinia is roughly halfway between Rome and Carthage.

After a time period in which they found nothing, they suddenly began to see amphoras on the ocean floor. They soon discovered more and more and found that the empty amphoras tracked a straight course between Rome and Carthage, proving that ancient sailors were fully capable of sailing out of sight of land. The theory (which seems correct to me) being that, if you were sailing a cargo of amphoras of wine between Rome and Carthage, you were probably going to get into the cargo on the way, and toss the empty overboard. Over the centuries and centuries of classical period, a veritable treasure trove of empty amphoras traced a straight line from Rome to Carthage.

And that is how they discovered that ancient sailors were not afraid of leaving the sight of land, and could navigate over open water.

Quotable Quotes: The Message

2012-01-05T02:33:00.001-08:00

"Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable." (Matt 5.11)

Your heart can be corrupted by lust even quicker than your body. Those leering looks you think nobody notices—they also corrupt. (Matt 5.28)

You have to choose to live one-eyed or else be dumped on a moral trash pile. (Matt 5.29)

“That convinced them. They called the apostles back in. After giving them a thorough whipping, they warned them not to speak in Jesus’ name and sent them off. The apostles went out of the High Council overjoyed because they had been given the honor of being dishonored on account of the Name.” (Acts 5:40–41, The Message) - The honor of being dishonored on account of the Name. I like that.

Snappy Quote of the Day: The Message

2012-01-04T04:32:00.001-08:00

Beat it, Satan - Christ to Satan during the great temptation (Matt 4.10, The Message).

The Pharisees: Slithering Snakes

2012-01-03T06:34:00.000-08:00

John the Baptizer's blunt words to the Pharisees when they come to witness him baptizing the people, as paraphrased in The Message: "Brood of snakes! What do you think you’re doing slithering down here to the river? Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to make any difference? It’s your life that must change, not your skin! (Matt 3.8)

Notable Phrases from The Message

2012-01-02T05:49:00.000-08:00

I'm reading through The Message this year in my devotions, so I'm hoping to capture some of Eugene Petersen's brilliance at paraphrase. Some fine examples:

The Man said, Finally! (Gen 2.23) - Adam's reaction to seeing Eve for the first time. Love it!
It was so good, so very good (Gen 1.31) - God's reaction to his own creative genius.
Murder Meadow (Acts 1.19) - The place where Judas died.
I've pitched my tent in the land of hope (Acts 2.26) - Peter quoting David. "Come, Brothers of Israel, pitch your tents in the land of hope." Love it, love it!

Van Gogh: More Thoughts

2012-01-01T10:37:00.000-08:00

The wise of heart will receive commandments, but a babbling fool will come to ruin, Prov 10.8 (ESV).

I'm only a little over halfway through Van Gogh: A Life, a massive and fascinating look at the life of Vincent Van Gogh. When I think about Van Gogh's life, the passage from Proverbs comes to mind. Van Gogh had a curious inability to see life from any other framework besides his own. Incorrigible from a young age, he got so bad that his parents shipped him off to boarding school. He carried this same incorrigibility into his adult life.

He ended up moving home to Nuenen after his ill-fated attempt at being a missionary to Dutch miners, for all intents and purposes homeless. He quickly became a thorn in the flesh of his parents, relentlessly accusing his father of not understanding or supporting him, and helplessly unable to see his father's perspective. The stress on his father was so great, that it ended up killing him, for all intents and purposes. Van Gogh's amazing lack of empathy or any feeling of responsibility for the death of his father was summed up by a statement he made to someone who came to view the body, "Dying is hard, but living his harder still."

His perspective on life had changed radically as well since he returned to Nuenen. He did a drawing of the church tower, entitled The Old Church Tower at Nuenen, 1885. His comment about the drawing was, "Those ruins tell me how a faith and a religion moldered away, strongly founded though they were."

Having read about his life, I would argue just how strongly his "faith" was ever held, but his life from this point continues to spiral downward. His sister, Anna, essentially kicks him out of the house; he moves to Antwerp where his chief desire seems to have been looking for prostitutes to "paint," or to put it in a modern sense he wanted them to be "models for his paintings (with benefits for him)." He gets treated for syphilis, picked up from a prostitute; he continues not to sell any paintings. Eventually, he moves to Paris to be a thorn in the side of his brother.

The more I learn about Van Gogh's life, the more he reminds me of the fool, so prevalent in the book of Proverbs. Unable to see life from any perspective but his own; unwilling to change his life to suit anyone but himself; willingly indulging whatever sensual desires came to mind; he is a perfect picture of a man given over completely to himself and his own desires without any regard for anyone or anything; truly a fool. A sad life, as we shall see.

How I Made My Own Private Michgan State University News Feed

2011-12-28T06:22:00.000-08:00

So I stumbled across a guy explaning how to make a hyper-local news network and figured I would try it with Michigan State University since my daughter goes there. That way I could keep up with what was going on in Sports, Arts, etc. at MSU. In the space of a few minutes, I had created my own personalized MSU news and information network.

Naturally, I'm going to share the love. Here is how you can make your own private news/information network on whatever it is you happen to be interested in, like football, a specific college, the place you live, any subject you happen to be interested in.

1. What you will need:
    a. An iPad or an iPhone or an iPod Touch, or maybe even a Mac, I haven't checked yet. - anything that can run the application "Flipboard."
   b. The application "Flipboard," you can download it from the App store (very cool app!)
   c.   A Twitter account

2. What to do
    a. First you need to install "Flipboard" on your iOS device and then launch it.
    b. Connect "Flipboard" with your twitter account by giving it your twitter name and password
    c. Next we are going to create a List in twitter. I will explain how I created my twitter list for MSU.
        1. Sign into Twitter and on the home page find the dropdown menu "Lists."
        2. Click on "Lists" and then select "Create a List."
        3. Fill out the name of your List (for me it was Michigan State University)
        4. Put in a description of what the List is about: "All Things MSU."
        5. Select the "Make List Public" box and then click on "Save List."
        6. Now you go to a page where you find twitter feeds to put into your list. I just searched for "Michigan State University" and got more than enough hits.
        7. As you find Twitter feeds to include in your list; don't click on Follow or you'll clog up your Twitter feed. Click on the outline of the head next to Follow and select "Add to List."
        8. Keep adding as many Twitter feeds as you want until you have a sufficient amount.
    d. Now we are going to head over to "Flipboard" and create our newspaper.
        1. Open the App "Flipboard."
        2. Find the first blank space (in the first page or two) that as a grey "more" in it. Click on this.
        3. Click on Accounts; then Twitter; and then Your Lists. After a minute your new list should come up. Click on your List and then give Flipboard a minute or two to populate your new information page. When it is finished, if you like what you see, you just click on the "Add" button in the upper left hand corner and now you have your own personalized information feed.
     e. I'm attaching a screenshot of my new MSU information magazine (with many pages) to give you an idea of what it ends up to be.

Van Gogh:The Life

2011-12-20T05:40:00.000-08:00

I'm also reading a book called Van Gogh: The Life by White and Smith. It was just published this year and it is an excellent read. Through the magic of modern technology I can check the book out for Kindle from my library. I've checked it out twice so far because it is a long book and I can only check out a book for 14 days. On the bright side I didn't have to leave my house to check it out. Ah, the wonders of modern technology!

Full disclosure: I love Van Gogh's painting. I'm not exactly sure WHY I like it, I mean I could articulate it, but admittedly it would be a very subjective articulation. I've seen Starry, Starry Night at MOMA, and a self--portrait at DIA and the MET (the MET has a fantastic collection of Van Gogh) and his painting is just endlessly fascinating to me.

Two things stand out about Van Gogh so far (I'm to the point where he has started to become an artist in The Hague - after failing spectacularly as an art dealer, teacher, preacher, and missionary). The first is his rebellious nature.

It's quite obvious that Van Gogh was born a rebel because he demonstrated these tendencies from a very young age. He got so bad that he was sent away to a boarding school for a time, which only seemed to entrench his solitary and rebellious nature. He wanted no one telling him what to do; he would decide that, although at the same time he craved his family's approbation.

His family (and I think this is key to understanding Van Gogh) knew that he was a quirky individual, but never really figured out how to handle him so that he flourished in his quirkiness. He failed so many times and so spectacularly, and his family certainly saw all of that, but they never really "got" him; not that this would have been an easy thing, because so far in the book it's not clear that Van Gogh ever really "got" himself.

The second thing that stands out clear as a pikestaff from Van Gogh's life is the number and intensity of his failures. He started off working for an uncle in The Hague; failed at that (because of interpersonal conflicts (another recurring theme from his life); got transferred to Paris for awhile, where he again was sent away to London. Lasted in London (same business) for a while before being dismissed from there. Went home to Etten for a short time, then back to London as a teacher. Failed at that; went back to Holland to study to become a preacher, like his father (he had started preaching some in London). Studied to become a preacher, but was judged unfit (and lost interest) inside of three months; decided to become a missionary. He ended up a complete disaster as a missionary and was dismissed after a short time due to excessive zeal (read psychological problems). At the behest of his brother (and lifelong benefactor) Theo; he took up drawing.

I haven't gotten there yet, but Van Gogh was able to sell only one painting in his lifetime, so from a success viewpoint, even as a painter he was a spectacular failure.

What I began wondering as I read through Van Gogh's life is, "how does one handle a person like a Van Gogh; or can they be helped to flourish at all?" I don't really have an answer for that yet.

Depression: A Stubborn Darkness (1)

2011-12-20T05:12:00.000-08:00

I stumbled across Ed Welch's book Depression: A Stuborn Darkness, while looking for a resource for a good friend who was struggling with depression. I ordered the book for my friend, but it looked so interesting that I figured I would read it myself. I am not, character-wise, inclined to depression; pessimism? Yes. Depression? No. Of course this does not mean that I will never struggle with depression, there are plenty of scenarios that might lead me there: the death of someone close to me; health struggles; financial struggles; life circumstances, all of these things can lead one into depression, which is why I think it is wise to read through books like this even when one is NOT struggling with depression at the moment. Indeed, it might be better to read it when NOT struggling with depression because it sounds like when one is depressed (depending upon the severity) one is not I inclined to do much of anything, least of all, trying to understand one's depression.

I think the most interesting thing (through chapter three) that Mr. Welch has said is that depression ought to be understood as a type of suffering (I have come to agree with him). Too often we view depression as a malady to be "fixed," rather than as suffering to be endure. Someone who is depressed (we think) needs to "do" something so that he will no longer be depressed because a depressed Christian is a lousy Christian (so the thinking goes). This attitude would include half of the psalmists as depressives who need to get their spiritual walk in order (Ps 42 and 43 come immediately to mind).

As Mr. Welch puts it:

It is common for spiritually mature men and women who feel depressed to think that they are doing something wrong. After all, Scripture is filled with words of joy and happy hearts. When they aren't feeling happy, they feel that they must be missing something or that God is punishing them until they learn some hidden lesson.

Yep. I think that sums up a lot of Christian thinking quite well.

Mr. Welch's sort of summary statement is: With all the debate about the causes of depression, it is easy to miss the obvious: depression is painful. It is a form of suffering.

It is this concept of depression as a form of suffering that has been firing my thinking lately. I believe it has profound implications for how the church understands and helps those who are depressed.

The Art of Nothing

2011-12-14T13:11:00.000-08:00

Wow. I've got to think that this is a total joke on the idiotic, lemming-like art community. All of the art critics pontificating on "nothing." Yep, pretty much the Emperor's New Clothes.

Great "Art" 1

2011-12-14T12:56:00.000-08:00

Here is a particularly good example of what passes as "art" these days. Anything apparently. This one is entitled "Chariot du Monde"

God in the Gallery: Final Installment

2011-12-14T12:54:00.000-08:00

Mr. Siedell's final installment of his thought-provoking book is a discussion of art criticism. I was particularly interested in this section because it seems to me that art criticism, perhaps even more than the art itself, is what gives art such a bad name (the art critics that find something "artful" about an old, tossed out urinal come to mind). It is at art criticism that the wobbly wheels of this book, by its own subtitle "A Christian embrace of modern art," break completely down.

Here is Mr. Siedell's thematic statement on art criticism: The history of art criticism suggests that the ultimate goal of the art critic is to achieve and then sustain authority as an art critic. Think about that for a moment. The aim of art criticism is not to illuminate art, or find anything meaningful in art, or to advance appreciation for art, it is totally self-centered. It is mainly about gaining authority for oneself! What other branch of knowledge is so totally self-absorbed? I cannot think of one. One could imagine how the world would react if the goal of a newspaper reporter was not to report the news, but to make herself more important in the newspaper field. (I'm not saying that they do not do this in the newspaper field, I'm saying that don't say that they do it, which makes all the difference. At least they give the appearance of actually trying. In the art critic field? No, it's just about making ourselves look good!). Wow. Stunning.

Mr. Siedell also points out (although does not go into much detail, presumably because it makes art look bad) the incestuous relationship between artists, curators, and art critics, or as the he puts it the transformation of criticism and art criticism into various forms of marketing and promotion.

The book ends by calling Christians to be involved in the art world as artists and critics and curators. A call with which I agree. I can't help but think that, much like the last stage of sculpture in the ancient world, most of the "art" of this century will, in the light of history, be recognized as poor art, masquerading as excellent art. Time will tell.

God in the Gallery Part 4: Marcel Duchamp

2011-12-10T12:56:00.001-08:00

Mr. Siedell proceeds next to a discussion of Marcel Duchamp. He submitted a urinal to the jury of the Society of Independent Artists in New York in 1917 for exhibition. The "work" was rejected. It is quite telling that the actual piece of "art work" disappeared shortly after it made a stir (presumably into a trash bin). We can only see what it looked like because Alfred Stieglitz happened to take a picture of it.

Mr. Siedell spends three pages or so explaining why this is such a great work of art. This alone should illuminate the wasteland that is modern art. One supposes that had Mr. Duchamp brought in a pile of dog feces, some brilliant curator would have gotten around to explaining how THAT was a great work of art.

Some of Mr. Siedell's comments:

"Duchamp's readymades affirm that art is not merely an object, it is an institutionalized way of making, looking, experiencing, and interpreting." Seriously? This would seem to qualify dog feces as art, as long as an artist brought it and not a normal person.

"Despite the fact that Duchamp did not make Fountain, but found it, it still possesses an "esthetic echo," which is a complex harmony of sounds derived both from the object itself and its circumstances of presentation."

This is a fine example of words that mean nothing. By this standard anything that Duchamp found and presented as art was ipso facto "art." This is just silliness, and Mr. Siedell plays (willingly one presumes) into the caricature of every art museum curator as someone desperate to be accepted and approved by the art world and willing to do or say or write anything to do so.

It's difficult to take contemporary art seriously when nitwittery like this masquerades as academic discussion.

God in the Gallery Part 3: The Wheels Begin to Come Off

2011-12-10T12:18:00.001-08:00

After two excellent, thought-provoking chapters that begin God in the Gallery, the wheels begin to come off when Mr. Siedell begins to talk about the actual...you know...art.

The first huge weakness of Mr. Siedell's book is that he rests so much of his theory of modern art and Christianity on what he calls Nicene Christianity. What he means by that is the branch of Christianity that accepted and formulated the allowance of icons in the church. As he reminds us over and over again, iconography to "Nicene Christianity" is a necessity. The only problem with this is that if iconography is wrong, then his whole theory falls. Mr. Siedell never bothers to defend iconography from the Scriptures (presumably because he does not find it there). He "finds" it in a council of the church (Council of Nicea in 787). This is a shaky foundation indeed.

Mr. Siedell begins to discuss his Christian embrace of modern art by weaving it around a discussion of specific works of art. He begins with a whole chapter on "Thing and Deception" by Enrique Celaya.

One wonders if he does so because the gallery of which he is the curator bought the work, so while it may look like a broken and reassembled chocolate bunny in cellophane to you and I, Mr. Siedell has to make sense of it because he bought it, if you know what I mean.

At any rate, here is what Mr. Siedell writes about this particular work: "It is not what it appears on the surface; it affirms and negates interpretation; it invites yet frustrates free associations; it attracts and repels. It seems simultaneously banal and profound."

I have learned that these are code words in modern art for: I really have no clue what this piece is all about but I have to say something so people will know that I "get" the art. Again, this to me is the story of "The Emperor's New Clothes" writ large in modern art.

Mr. Siedell spends a lot of time on Jackson Pollock's (in)famous drip paintings. He writes a lot of words about the paintings, but none of them ultimately mean anything. Here are some examples:

"These pictures offer a vertiginous variety of foreground and background shifts and changes, so much so that such relationships, such dichotomies, seem to dissolve."

"These remarkable paintings transcend the dichotomy between form and content; they can be read either as all form or all content."

"Pollock's barn thus became the sacred space within which the priest Pollock worked and the context within which his actions had meaning. The paintings were the by-product, the residue, the aftermath of certain sacred actions at a particular moment in time in a particular context."

Oh, NOW I see, the important thing was not the painting, that was the leftover, the residue, it was all about his barn. He was a priest and the cathedral was his barn. I am enlightened!

God in the Gallery: Part 2

2011-12-08T04:47:00.001-08:00

Chapter two in the excellent little book God in the Gallery is a quick history of modern art. Perhaps the funniest thing that Siedell writes in this chapter is one art critic's reaction to Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase. He said it looked "like an explosion in a shingle factory," which is at once brilliantly funny and perhaps a little too close to the truth (although I kind of like that particular painting).

Siedell defines what he means by "modern art" and then discusses its founding and what cultural and philosophical forces are driving modern art. The most illuminating part of this chapter to me was the author's rejection of the secularization theory of modern art. Put simply it is the theory that modern art totally rejected any foundation in the spiritual and is devoted only to the secular. He quotes one art historian who espoused the secularization theory only to change his mind: The world today is massively religious, is anything but the secularized world that had been predicted (either joyfully or despondently) by so many analysts of modernity. This was new to me, but I think Mr. Siedell does an able job of arguing that this is exactly the case in contemporary art. It never did detach itself from its spiritual moorings even when it wanted to!

Mr. Siedell writes in his conclusion to the chapter. The history of modern art is not simply the history of sexual liberation and licentiousness...and attacking traditional values and mores. It is the utopian projection of a new world, a better world, a perfect world, redeeemed, perhaps saved. These asperations presuppose a relationship between the aesthetic and the spiritual.

Yes, it would seem; they do.

God in the Gallery: Thinking about Contemporary Art

2011-12-06T19:09:00.001-08:00

In my ongoing effort to understand what contemporary art is all about I'm reading through an excellent little book called God in the Gallery by Daniel Siedell. It is a discussion of contemporary art from a Christian perspective. It's unusual in that the author is a professor of Art History at the University of Nebraska. He has a deep commitment both to Christ and also to art in general and contemporary art in particular. This is both a strength of the book, but perhaps a weakness as well. If one has dedicated one's life to the study of contemporary art and then one writes a book about its relevance to culture, isn't one bound to "discover" that it is very relevant and valuable, especially to Christians? In some sense if Mr. Siedell had any other conclusion, it would sort of negate his whole life's work. This is not a criticism per se, it is merely an observation.

Mr. Siedell begins his book with a chapter introducing the whole topic and with a short investigation of what art is, and then how theology might relate to that. Mr. Siedell is not a theologian and (as we shall see) is as vulnerable to proof-texting as any other Christian who wants the Bible to say what he wants it to say.

He links the production of contemporary art to the eastern church's history of iconography. This was unexpected. Obviously when anyone starts talking about icons, a protestant's neck hair is going to stand on end, but Mr. Siedell does an admirable job of laying out his case, and it is something I'm going to have to give more thought to. I'm not sure that I agree with him, but it is an interesting argument, that I'm not simply going to throw out. His thesis statement is this:

This study takes seriously Marion's observation that the theory of images articulated in the Second Council of Nicea––which in AD 787 reestablished the orthodoxy of icons, the holy images of Christ, Mary the Theotokos, the angels, and the saints for use in church worship and private devotion, and reversed the iconoclastic council of 754––can make a significant contribution to the study of contemporary art. (p. 30)

Why does he think this is important to understanding contemporary art? As he writes: Spiritual power––real presence––has been perhaps the driving force of the history and development of modern art (p. 32). Oddly enough, I agree completely with him here. This is a fact that has been overlooked by both Christians and secularists in their zeal to either condemn as degenerate or flaunt the excesses of modern art.

Another fascinating part of this chapter [and one which intrigues me] is that he compares modern art's search for meaning to the Athenians altar to an unknown god. One can excoriate contemporary artists for their opaqueness and lack of (obvious) meaning, or one can engage them and say, "What you articulate but do not understand, the Christian faith addresses with meaningful answers." And this, I think, is the most important point in Mr. Siedell's first chapter. I believe he may be correct here.

Unfortunately, Mr. Siedell nearly ruins his first chapter with an unnecessary proof-text at the end. He writes:

Many works of modern and contemporary art manifest this reality. They are poignant altars to the unknown god in aesthetic form. The challenge for the Christian art critic is to name them and testify to what they point toward, however haltingly, tentatively, and incompletely. [So far, so good] As the psalmist Asaph observed: "When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny. (Ps. 73:16-17)

Unfortunately, that particular verse is in a passage describing the sudden destruction of the wicked, which is nothing close to the point that Mr. Siedell wants to make. Indeed, it is almost the opposite of the point he wants to make. An error, but not a fatal one.

The Wasteland that is (much of) Contemporary Art

2011-12-03T18:07:00.001-08:00

I've been thinking about contemporary art after my nephew said that I was making fun of something I didn't understand when I sent out a tweet that said: "Much (not all, but much) of contemporary art is a steaming pile of manure. Exhibit A: #catellan "All" at the #guggenheim." This is my effort to explain my attempts to understand contemporary art, and then explain why so much of it is a wasteland of imitation, and a modern example of the old story of the Emperor's New Clothes.

I wanted to like contemporary art. I really did. I realized some time ago that I did not have a good grasp of what contemporary art was all about, so I set out to remedy my lack of knowledge. I began to read art history books (My favorite so far is called The Shock of the New, by Robert Hughes, an art critic whom I respect). I visited SFMOMA MOMA The Getty Museum and the Detroit Institute of Art, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Guggenheim Museum with a main goal being to look at contemporary art and try and understand it.

Some of it is very good. I love Modigliani (He's probably pre-contemporary) and Edward Hopper. I'm also a huge fan of Andrew Wyeth, Ansel Adams, and Georgia O'Keeffe. I even like Makoto Fujimura (Did an illuminated Bible. Very cool.) My sister-in-law, Joyce, pointed out the Chinese artist Zao Wou Ki, he is an abstract painter, but I like his work, so I don't hate on contemporary art solely because it is abstract.

My disillusion came when I began to investigate the paintings of Jackson Pollock. He is best known for his works where he dripped paint onto canvas, and his paintings look pretty much like he...dripped paint on canvas. Here is an example: It's called "Lavender Mist."

I went looking for an art critic to explain this Jackson Pollock masterpiece to me and found a couple who were talking about it on YouTube. They were going on and on saying truly inane things about it, which made no sense at all (think of the people commenting on the emperor's non-existent clothing and you'll get the picture), and one of them said, "If you flip the painting over, the whole thing falls apart." I happened to have Pollock's painting on my iPad, so I flipped it over and...you guessed it, you couldn't tell which side was supposed to be up. It suddenly occurred to me that these "critics" weren't saying anything meaningful, but they felt like they had to appear to understand Pollock so as not to look stupid to the art world. And here you come upon much of the commentary that masquerades as art critique. It is people saying inane things about incomprehensible "masterpieces" because they don't want to say, "This thing makes zero sense." They are afraid to say that.

In an effort to try and find someone who could explain Pollock to me, I talked with my nephew Tim, who is a cultural expert. Music, art, or literature, if you have a question, he can probably answer it. I asked him if he could explain Jackson Pollock to me. His response was: "I wish someone could explain a Pollock painting to me with words that meant something." Which I felt got right to the heart of so much of contemporary art. There are a lot of words said about it; a lot of commentary made; but the words don't mean anything.

A (Short) Day at the MET

2011-12-01T18:07:00.001-08:00

So I got into NYC early enough today to head down to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Central Park. Wow! The place is humongous. It would take probably three days to see everything well. Fortunately, I am mainly interested in paintings, so I narrowed down my viewing and saw most of what I wanted to. I like Rembrandt, Matisse, Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne, and guys like that. The MET had an ample collection of all of these artists, and obviously more.

Perhaps the most striking painting to me was one by Jules Bastien-Lepage. It is of Joan of Arc at the moment that she receives the vision to recover her homeland from the British. Sadly, the picture does not do it justice.

The painting is huge (Joan herself is lifesize, so it is probably 9 x 9 feet or so) Her eyes are done particularly well, which you can't tell from such a small reproduction; they reproduce her no doubt shock and surprise in a very believable way. I loved the painting. Done brilliantly.

William Bougureau is rapidly becoming my favorite portrait painter. The MET had one of his called Breton Brother and Sister. You can see his knack for catching people in direct and striking, yet appealing ways.

My favorite by him is at our own Detroit Institute of Art; It's called "The Nut Gatherers."

He is adept at creating an intimate, appealing moment, as if the two girls are sharing a secret together.

Perhaps more on the MET visit later. I got to see some excellent paintings by Renoir and Van Gogh that I liked, as well as some other odds and ends.

"Our Father which art in Heaven"

2011-11-27T05:32:00.001-08:00

In God's providence, in my daily reading on the very first day that I began to take notice in the Scriptures of God as father, I read through Luke 11.2 in which Luke recounts Christ teaching the disciples to pray. He tells them to begin this way: "Our Father, which art in heaven" (KJV).

Christ is revealing something very important here. God is a lot of things. He is creator-God; he is Lord of the universe; He is sovereign; he is the redeemer of men; he is master; he is a lot of things, but when we come to him, we are to come to him as our father. Why?

I think to emphasize the personal connection between God and his [individual or collective] children. A father is personally concerned for his children and takes special interest in them. He–as Christ himself points out later in this chapter–knows how to give good gifts to his children. What kind of father would hear a plea for help from his child and not respond with every possible fiber of his being? If an earthly father responds that way, how much more God the father?

When we pray to God the father it is a powerful reminder to us of the personal connection and concern of our God.

Do You Know God as Father?

2011-11-27T05:23:00.001-08:00

David Platt got me thinking. He posted to the Brooks Hills Global Blog yesterday, working out the subject "Do You Know God as Father?" [Very good read, which I highly recommend].

As I thought about his question, my immediate answer was, "of course I know God as Father," but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had assumed the fact that God is my father, but never worked through what that might actually mean to me. In other words, I had a very shallow understanding of what it means that God is my [for me when I say my, I am thinking very personally] father.

This called for desperate correction. Especially in light of J. I. Packer's comments, as quoted by Mr. Platt:

What is a Christian? The richest answer I know is that a Christian is one who has God as father. If you want to [know] how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child, and having God as father.

[Gulp!] Kind of guilty on that account. I could wax eloquent on what it means for God to be my father, but honestly, did I make much of that fact? No.

This called for a serious effort to think through and grasp what it means that God is my father. So for the next year [well 13 months], as I do my McCheyne Bible reading plan, I'm going to focus on how the Scriptures reveal God as our Father.

NBA Season On!...Yawn...

2011-11-26T03:11:00.001-08:00

Apparently the millionaires and billionaires who make up the NBA finally realized that no one cared if they cancelled the entire season (except my nephew-in-law, Junior). I'm sure that they will all give platitudinal soundbites about how they "stuck to their guns" and "stuck it to the man," but let's face it, the reality is that they were staring down the barrel of lost wages and an apathetic public. Wouldn't you settle if that were the case?

Let the NBA season began...so I can continue to ignore it.

A Legacy Destroyed

2011-11-10T05:23:00.000-08:00

For better or for worse, deserved or undeserved, Joe Paterno, ex-coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions, will be known for being involved in what is obviously the worst scandal in college football history. The most wins in history; longest tenure in history; all-around nice guy; they all amount to nothing now. He is well and surely disgraced.

The facts can only get worse from here (which is why Penn State had to fire him immediately). The alleged criminal was apparently still lifting weights in the Penn State weight room last week! Even after Coach Paterno and his other enablers were dragged before a grand jury as witnesses. Imagine that. What does one do, drop in on his weight lifting session and tell him that he might be in a little trouble, but not to let it ruin his workout? Amazingly callous and inept and, words fail to describe the nitwittery behind the handling of these allegations.

The interesting thing to me is that, had Coach Paterno retired when he should have, say 73 or 74 years old (2000), his sterling reputation would still be intact. However, Coach Paterno didn't retired, indeed it appears to an outsider that he COULDN'T retire, that he had nothing else of value in his life to which he could dedicate his time, so he stumbled through the first decade of the 21st century, even throwing out his hip demonstrating an onside kick, which resulted in hip replacement surgery. Yet he still couldn't go.

What else can this be if not hubris? The thinking that one man is so important that he must stay well past his prime because...because why exactly? There were no coaches equal to Joe Pa? Penn State needed Joe Pa? No and no. Because in the end, all of his value and meaning was wrapped up in being in charge of Penn State football and he couldn't let go. And so...this.

I once heard Matt Millen, football commentator and Penn State player and graduate, recount a conversation he had with Joe Paterno. He suggested that Coach Paterno at least have a succession plan in place for the benefit of Penn State football. Coach Paterno told him in no uncertain terms to mind his own business. Too bad Mr. Paterno didn't listen to Matt Millen, or anyone else for that matter, but that is how hubris works.

Goodbye, Coach. You needed to go. Sic transit gloria mundi.

A Lesson from the Life of Haydn

2011-11-09T02:15:00.000-08:00

I'm listening through Robert Greenberg's excellent Teaching Company course on the life and music of Franz Josef Haydn. Haydn was a faithful follower of Christ and Mr. Greenberg had a great quote from his life. Haydn once said, "God has given me a cheerful heart, he will forgive me for serving him cheerfully."

I love that quote. We ought to serve God with the abilities and character that he has given us, and not according to man's preconceptions of how we should serve God. Are you naturally cheerful? Good. This is God's grace to you, serve him cheerfully. Are you naturally melancholy? Also good. Melancholic people are often the one's who go deepest with God, who think about the riches of his character the most. God will forgive you for serving with melancholy as long as your melancholy steers you (and others) towards him. An example? See the life of David Brainerd.

Two Views of Mt. Rainier

2011-11-08T01:33:00.000-08:00

I had the privilege of flying out and back to Seattle from Salt Lake City three different times on my last trip, and we were blessed enough to see Mt. Rainier every time. I managed to snap a few photos of the great mountain as we flew by, Seattle approach and departure procedures allowing us to fly pretty close to it (a safe close) every time.

The first photo is a shot looking towards the east as we flew by after takeoff from Seattle. It is in the afternoon so we got an appropriately lit picture (with a little help from Camera+, an excellent iPhone camera application, that allows you to do some minor photographic adjustments right on the iPhone).

The second photo is taken looking south (if memory serves) as we flew into Seattle in the morning. The photo is taken looking into the sun, so I had to pull down the Airbus window shade in order to get any sort of photo. As you can see it gives a different perspective of Rainier.

My son, Matt, and I hope to climb Mt. Rainier some day. I think you have to take a one day ice and snow instruction course and then it is typically climbed in two days. Sounds fun!

His Awesomeness: Haman

2011-10-13T07:16:00.000-07:00

"One of my chief regrets during my years in the theater is that I couldn't sit in the audience and watch me." John Barrymore

I think Haman would have agreed with Mr. Barrymore, yes, THAT Haman, the one from the book of Esther who is a nasty, murdering, megalomaniac. I can't think of a character in history with less redeeming characteristics than Mr. Haman (which is no real surprise for he is surely a type of the Anti-Christ to come).

Just think about the scene in Esther 5:10-11 where Haman, after being invited to the banquet with only Xerxes and Esther goes home and calls all of his "friends" and his wife together and begins to recount how awesome he is. Can you imagine that? I ring you up and invite you over to my house. "What for?" you ask. "So I can tell you how awesome I am." Would YOU come over? I think not, unless I was a man of great influence who could either make or break you; then you might come over, but not because you liked me, simply because you must.

Haman seems blissfully unaware that his "friends" are most certainly giving him only feigned friendship. This is the sign of a megalomaniac, a man filled with pride.

Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool, than for him. Prov. 26:12. How certifiably true. While Haman plots to kill the Jews, God plots to kill Haman. Who do you think is going to win?

Steve Jobs: The Secular Prophet

2011-10-09T05:42:00.001-07:00

I've read a lot of comments on the passing of Steve Jobs, most of it pathetically shallow, then along comes Andy Crouch in this article from the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Crouch gets the limits of Mr. Jobs secular philosophy very well. A must read.

A Lesson From the Life of Steve Jobs

2011-10-09T05:25:00.001-07:00

The Steve Jobs before cancer was quite different from the Steve Jobs after cancer. I read a news account where Mr. Jobs was boasting in an interview from long ago about how hard everyone worked at Apple, with many nights and weekends spent away from family (with the expected collateral damage of broken families and destroyed relationships). He even seemed to boast that somewhere in the world Apple people were working through Christmas just to get products right.

Why then, did Mr. Jobs seek out Walter Isaacson, the famous biographer to write a biography of him, given that he'd spent his life in so much secrecy publicly? Mr. Isaacson asked Jobs that question. His answer was that he had spent a lot of his life neglecting his family because he was focused on Apple and he wanted his kids to know why he had neglected them and what things were important to him.

You only have one opportunity in life to get things right. Your kids grow up; they move out; day-to-day interaction with them is over. You can't get back the time you spent neglecting them.

Mr. Jobs tried to make up for this after the fact, which is admirable. One suspects that on his deathbed he wasn't asking for all the cool products that he helped create to be placed around him so he could see and admire them, as if that would give him comfort. No. His family was around him when he died, as they should have been and as he no doubt wanted.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

Two Good Buddies

2011-10-07T03:27:00.000-07:00

We had one cat, Myst, that my wife hated. Indeed, she was complaining to me that she would NEVER have another cat and that she HATED cats! Two weeks later she returns from a bike ride to Owosso with...you guessed it, a cat!

But I thought you said you hated cats! That was like, what, two weeks ago?

She stares at me like a kid whose hand is firmly stuck in a cookie jar. "Well, it was so little and it looked like it needed a home..." And so Ninja came to live at our house.

He's actually a pretty good cat, for a cat. He's not as finicky as Myst and a lot more friendly. Indeed, he has become Copper's buddy, buddy friend. They wrestle together all the time and when they're done wrestling? Well...see for yourself.

"The Dead Bodies of They Servants"

2011-09-28T04:19:00.000-07:00

Every once in awhile the Scriptures are just shocking. Never more so than in Ps 79.1-5. Here Asaph (or a descendant of Asaph?) describes what Jerusalem looks like after it has been destroyed by the Assyrians (or Babylonians?). God's people lie dead in the streets in such great numbers and without any burial, that they are food for the buzzards of the air.

Notice that the protagonists here, the ones who do the killing, are a country that does not believe in God, indeed that is dismissive of the God of Israel.

So we have the picture of God's people slain, by pagans at God's will and plan! If that doesn't shock you, not much will, I'm afraid.

Imagine living through this experience. Do you think it would shape one's theology of God just a little? Imagine trying to explain this, theologically. Yes, it happened due to the sins of God's people, but still the result is shockingly unexpected.

Some Thoughts on Honduras

2011-09-21T04:07:00.000-07:00

I had the distinct privilege of flying from Atlanta to San Pedro Sula, Honduras, on my last trip, my first ever visit to the country of Honduras. We flew into San Pedro Sula, the only other (in)appropriate airport for Honduras is at the capitol city of Tegucigalpa, high in the mountains. Why is Tegucigalpa inappropriate? Take a look at this video and tell me if YOU ever plan on flying in there.

We flew south over the Gulf of Mexico until we hit Cancun, then roughly followed the eastern coast of Mexico south past Belize before reaching Honduras. San Pedro Sula sits up a valley that leads to the coast, so if the wind is cooperating (it was) it is a nice easy approach. Fly down the valley, past the numerous vultures, and land on runway 22. The scenery was beautiful, resembling, as my co-pilot pointed out, Vietnam, with green fields inundated with water and what appeared to be a lot of sugar cane fields. Do they grow sugar cane in Honduras?

We got to stay at a nice Hilton in downtown San Pedro Sula, which was a little unfortunate, because I wanted to be closer to the forest/trees so I could see some Honduran birds. San Pedro is a typical Latin American big city, with areas of grinding poverty as well as more upscale areas. Most of the houses had fences with concertina wire and electrical fence on top of them. When I was out in the morning looking for birds, it seemed like every business had a private security guard, including the one lugging a double-barreled shotgun. As I came to find out, Honduras has a slight crime problem.

I did get to see a few new birds. I think a new (for me) species of pigeon as well as dove, several new vultures/raptors that I couldn't identify (no Honduran field guide) and a fascinating black bird that looked and acted like a robin.

All in all it was a fun visit, although I was only there for 24 hours.

Plumb Tuckered Out

2011-09-06T05:23:00.000-07:00

A photo I snapped of Dakota at the end of 330 miles, lounging in Mackinac City waiting for the bus. Poor guy, he is all in.

DALMAC Day 4: A Nice Day!

2011-09-04T15:27:00.001-07:00

Sure, I was up at 3am due to the incessant rain on my tent, but I did manage to get my devotions done before we left at 7am.

Leaving Boyne City we had a nasty long climb to warm us up, then we wound our way up to Petoskey and into Harbor Springs. We rode through the tunnel of trees and stopped for lunch in Good Hart. We were making excellent time, doing 46 miles by 10.30 with only about 25 to go.

The only small glitch in the day was that we had a choice of routes on the Tunnel of Trees. I chose the upper route because it had a fun downhill with just a couple of small climbs to get there. Or so I thought. Did you know that hills seem much easier when you drive them in a car?

Up one hill and then up another; then another; and still another before reaching the mother of all climbs. By this time I had to stay ahead of Cherie and Sue because they wanted to kill me. The other route turned out to be shorter with only one hill. Who knew?

We rolled into Mackinaw City just before 1pm. DALMAC complete. 70 miles on the day.

For the complete ride we did about 330ish miles, 4 flat tires, one drenching in a thunderstorm, rain, heat, wind, and a great feeling of accomplishment. I love DALMAC.

DALMAC Day 3: Rain, Bike Troubles, The Wall

2011-09-04T01:13:00.001-07:00

Day 3 welcomes us with rain as we break camp (par for the course I suppose). The rain quits as we start off. Blessings!

We ride 25 miles to our first rest stop. A Methodist church is selling homemade goodies (Bless you, Methodists!). I eat two pieces of pie. Life is good.

The sky is getting dark. Uh oh.

We ride for Kalkaska hoping to make it before the rain starts. We don't make it. We are engulfed by rain, thunder, and lightening. Not good, but there is no place to take shelter. By the time we straggle into the McDonald's at Kalkaska we are soaked to the bone. I wring all of my clothes out in the bathroom, including about a cup worth from each of my Gore-Tex socks. The rain won't stop and we have 60 miles to go. We have to ride.

We make it about 400 yards. Cherie has a flat. We seek shelter under the awning of a church (bless you little church). We install a new spare tire. We inflate it....it has a hole!?! Seriously? We install Cherie's last spare. I overinflate it and it blows. Uh oh...

I try and patch the original tube. It doesn't work. We send Sue back to McDonald's to see if the traveling mechanic is there. He is! He sells Sue 3 tubes. We install one and off we go after about an hour and 3 tube changes. We get 5 miles down the road. Cherie flats again. We finally discover a tiny piece of rock that was causing the flats. We lose more time. We still have 55 miles to go. We are wet. We are not happy.

We ride over hill and dale before stopping in Bellaire for lunch. Just 30 miles to go...most of it hills. It is cloudy as we ride up and down, up and down, but it's not so bad, at least it's not hot. The Wall looms ahead, steep and foreboding.

We stop for a short break in East Jordan. Cherie and Sue elect to bypass The Wall, Dakota and I will have a go at it. The Wall is the steepest 600 meters of paved road in Michigan. The whole climb is about 1.5 miles with the brutally steep part at the very end. It's so steep it's hard to walk up. Seriously.

We climb and climb and finally round the bend to the last 600 meters. We go slower and slower. This is insane. Who put a road here? What were they thinking? A car zooms by us. We are probably going less than 3mph at the steepest part. Dakota tops out slightly ahead of me. We both make it! The Wall is conquered.

We ride the rest of the way into Boyne City. It's been such a long day that our soaked cycling clothes are all dry now. We are tired. We are happy. We conquered The Wall.

93 miles; four flat tires; one nasty thunderstorm. Our hardest day is finished.

DALMAC: Day 2 - Dogs, Thunder, Heat, Wind

2011-09-03T15:12:00.001-07:00

I'm comfortably ensconced in my tent at 12.20am the morning of the second day of DALMAC. I get up to go to the restroom. Weatherman says 0% chance of rain.

I get back to the tent and a dog starts barking, and barking, and still barking. Two hours later [yes, he is STILL barking] I hear a jet engine in the background? A jet...at this hour? Couldn't be. Thunder? But weatherman says 0% chance of rain.

I pull up the radar on my phone. There is a huge line of thunderstorms headed straight for Vestaburg!?! It hits 40 minutes later and what a light show. If I wasn't trying to sleep it would be beautiful. The storm passes through and I get up 15 minutes later. Total sleep 2 hours.

We start off with a southwesterly wind which pushes us rapidly up the road towards our lunch stop. We get there about 10.30, a good time, but now it's getting hot. We turn west and get smacked in the face with a strong wind. We creep along at barely 7 mph. The friendly wind is now our enemy. We hate the wind. Did I say it was hot? Scorching hot. We pass some bikers who have retreated to some shady trees. We think about joining them.

Another leg into the wind, we are creeping along, a little girl on rollerblades could keep up with us.

It finally begins to cloud up. Blessings! But what is this? Now it's raining. Yet another west leg into the wind. Now we are creeping along at 7mph AND getting soaked.

We finally make Lake City. Everyone is exhausted. 92 miles, heat, wind, rain, 2 hours of sleep. Got to LOVE DALMAC.

DALMAC: Day1.5

2011-09-02T00:42:00.001-07:00

I'm lying in my tent listening to the crack of thunder and constant drumming of rain on the tent; lightening creates instant daylight every few seconds; it's all quite beautiful. Now if only I could get some, you know, sleep tonight.

Well I am exaggerating, I DID sleep from 10pm to midnight, then listened to a dog bark constantly from midnight until the storm hit. At least I only have 90 miles to do this morning, so I got that going for me.

Got to love DALMAC.

DALMAC Day 1

2011-09-01T02:49:00.000-07:00

I'm excitedly finishing off my devotions (reading the story of Abigail and Nabal) this morning, waiting anxiously for morning light so Cherie, Ben, and I can set off on our latest DALMAC adventure. This will be four years in a row for Cherie and I. Four days to ride from Lansing to the Mackinac Bridge. It looks like the weather won't be as epic as last year when we got rained on 5 days in a row and had one day in which we rode 100 km in cold, windy, rainy northern Michigan. By the time we finished last year, half the riders had dropped out, we'd had to spend a night in a gym because the winds were gusting to 50mph, and our Bass Pro Shops tent was finally consigned to the dustbin after serving us well for 18 years.

Today we will ride from our house to Vestaburg, Michigan. It's a little town in the middle of nowhere (actually a lot like Laingsburg). It will be about 70 or 75 miles for us today. When we get there we'll pitch our tents and hang out with the other 550 people who are riding our route. It's a LOT of fun!

Candidate Romney Proves Frugal

2011-08-30T01:20:00.000-07:00

It's nice to know that these presidential candidates feel the pain of the little guys. For instance, Governor Romney will only double the size of his estate in La Jolla, CA, not quadruple it, when his renovations are all complete.

Well, technically, yes, it will quadruple, but that includes the garage...

He's got my vote.

Petoskey: Day 1

2011-08-10T04:26:00.000-07:00

Cherie, Kelly, Ben, Ashley, and I are on our annual week in Petoskey, camping out at the state park. We've done this several years in a row, maybe 10 or 11, maybe more. It's my favorite spot in Michigan. The campground is on the shore of Little Traverse Bay, surrounded by pine trees, sandy beach, great swimming, and great biking country.

We arrived in the afternoon to find wind, sun and clouds scudding along at a rapid clip. We got the campground set up quickly, took the dogs for a walk, and then Dakota, Kelly, and Ashley went swimming. I waited for later because it was too windy to set up an umbrella for shade on the beach. After a 2 mile run, Dakota and I went swimming.

It started to rain as we got ready for bed and rained pretty hard for part of the night, although when I woke up and walked to the restroom at 4.30 it was brilliantly clear with stars everywhere.

It's supposed to be windy today, but we hope to ride our bikes this afternoon anyway. My first stop this morning (after Glen's for devotions and coffee) will be Johann's for their cream cheese danishes! It's going to be a great day!

Book Review: The Heart and the Fist

2011-08-08T05:56:00.000-07:00

This book is by Eric Greitens and is sub-titled: The Education of a Humanitarian; The Making of a Navy SEAL. I loved the book!

Mr. Greitens attended Duke on an academic scholarship and while there had the opportunity to travel overseas on humanitarian/cultural work, first in China, then in Albania, and finally in Bolivia. He does an excellent job of making the reader feel the plight and difficulties of those dispossessed by war and/or poverty. Perhaps the most heart-wrenching part of the book is the time that he spent in Bolivia where he works with kids who have been living off the streets. In Albania, the kids had families and a family structure; there was reason for hope. In Bolivia, for the most part they did not have families and were addicted to sniffing glue with its attendant long term brain damage and addiction. He says some very complementary things about the couple (who I believe were Christians) working with street kids in Bolivia.

Over time, Mr. Greitens comes to the conclusion that sometimes the powerful must come to the aid of the powerless, and if necessary, use force to do so, or as he puts it: "My travels took me from Cambodia to Chiapas to Albania...I continued to believe that aid alone was not enough. I had become an advocate for using power , where necessary, to protect the weak, to end ethnic cleansing, to end genocide."

He gets a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford for two years where he does more traveling (Africa for one), and eventually is offered an academic position at Oxford AND a financial position which will set him up for life. What does he do? Decides to become a Navy SEAL!

He does an excellent job describing the path to becoming a SEAL (barely 10% of his class survive) and it makes for excellent reading. He eventually is deployed to Afghanistan, the Philippines, Kenya, and is almost killed when a chlorine-filled truck bomb is rammed into the barracks in which they are staying in Fallujah.

By the end of the book he is off of active duty and has started an organization called "The Mission Continues" which helps wounded/disabled veterans continue to serve their country/fellow humans in any of a number of practical ways.

Mr. Greitens notes the excellent job that Christian missionaries/aid workers are doing in places like Bolivia and Africa, although he himself is not a Christian.

How does one balance love of other humans, indeed the neediest of the needy, with protecting them from the very things that have caused them to be needy (oppression, war, poverty, etc.)? Mr. Greitens gives an excellently nuanced treatment in his book balancing humanitarianism with active protection of those who are powerless to protect themselves.

"The world needs many more humanitarians than it needs warriors, but there can be none of the former without the latter." Eric Geitens

A Visit to SFMOMA

2011-08-05T19:52:00.000-07:00

So I had a trip into San Francisco today and with a little time in the afternoon was able to run over to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. My timing was pretty good because the traveling exhibit is part of the collection of Leo and Gertrude Stein which meant a lot of Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. Naturally, this section of the museum was packed, but manageable and I spent almost two hours wandering through it. I like both Matisse and Picasso so it was pretty interesting. I think my favorite Matisse is "The Woman with a Hat." The image doesn't do it justice, but Matisse was more interested in vibrant colors than he was in reproducing reality, and "Woman with a Hat" is nothing if not vibrant.

I also got to see a very famous portraitof Gertrude Stein done by Pablo Picasso. When Mrs. Stein saw the finished product she supposedly remarked, "but it doesn't even look like me. To which Picasso supposedly responded: "Just wait. It will." That made me laugh. Poor Mrs. Stein, Matisse did a portrait of her and she doesn't look any better. I fear she was as unphotogenic as myself.

After finishing with the Stein collection, which was definitely the highlight of the visit, I wandered through the permanent collection. Some of it is great, some of it is just trash. It's hard to see how some of the stuff that they waste space on is going to stand the test of a century or more. Will we be looking at Jackson Pollock's nonsensical "art" in a hundred years, like I was looking at Matisse and Picasso? I can't imagine so, because Pollock's "art" has nothing to grab us. Indeed, part of the fun of going to the Modern Art museum is to the hear the curators try and explain something unexplainable like a Pollock piece. As my nephew wrote once, "I wish someone could explain a Pollock painting to me with words that meant something." Just so. The curators had a lot of words to say about Pollock, but altogether they meant nothing. The same could be said for some (but not all) of the whole modern art collection.

Take Clifford Styll. There was a whole room of his paintings that all looked something like this one. Is there meaning here? Can you explain that meaning with words that mean something? I didn't think so.

There is a whole room of Styll's stuff and people wandered through it very quickly because there was nothing to hold them, nothing to think about, no transcendent meaning, just modern "art." This is the stuff that to me is a waste of museum space (and don't even get me started on the pile of newspapers in one corner that was super cool "art," that is nothing but a sad joke).

Much of the floor space was allocated to stuff that will be on the junk heap of history in 100 years, like the display that was a video of an "artist" getting plastered by paint spray. Yeah, now THAT is quality art.

I do enjoy the art of Edward Hopper and the Museum had one of his pieces called "Bridal Path."

Some of modern art is interesting and worthy of study. A lot of it is junk which won't stand the test of time. All in all it was an interesting visit and a good day.

Rest in Peace, John Stott

2011-07-28T02:14:00.000-07:00

John Stott died yesterday. He was a pastor and teacher and writer and bird-watcher and probably my most influential spiritual mentor from afar. The world has lost a great man, but the gospel goes on. He has run his race. He has finished the course. He has kept the faith.

The one and only time I ever heard John Stott preach live was at the Urbana Missions Conference in 1979, which I attended with Jeff Barneson, who was then at the University of Colorado in ministry. If memory serves, Stott was teaching each day in Isaiah. I had never heard anyone preach like John Stott preached; it was electrifying. The only way I can describe it was that Stott took God seriously (if you want a modern day example, listen to the preaching of John Piper or David Platt). Stott's preaching that week had a profound impact on me, not so much for what I learned in Isaiah, but for his demonstration of how one preaches the gospel. He preached with blood earnestness.

The first book I ever read by Mr. Stott was then entitled "Christian Counter-culture," it was a commentary on the Sermon on the Mount (I think it has since been published as "The Sermon on the Mount"). Wow! John was absolutely brilliant at grasping the theme and structure of a passage and walking idiots like me through them to a full understanding. I don't know of any other Bible commentator who was better at explaining the structure and thought of a New Testament passage. If you are studying or preaching through a New Testament book and Stott has written a commentary on it, his is probably the best there is, or one of the top few.

John was one of the first influential pastors who drew evangelicalism back to its lost ministries of mercy roots. It's hard to understand how radical this was back in the '50's, but when Stott started to minister, evangelicalism was interested mainly in preaching the gospel, it did not have much of a social conscience. Mr. Stott did not see how one could separate the gospel from ministries of mercy, so he called the church back to a healthy desire to serve the poor and needy and orphans and widows and the uninfluential and powerless. Stott had a powerful influence on my own thinking in this area.

I could go on and on, but you get the point. John Stott influenced me tremendously from afar by his written words. Thank you, Mr. Stott, for being faithful to the Scriptures and for working hard to interpret them correctly.

Rest in Peace, Sir, until the resurrection.

These Guys Are Tough!

2011-07-12T10:57:00.000-07:00

You've got to love professional bike riders. Johnny Hoogerland is sent flying by a nitwit car driver into a barbed wire fence...

He is torn to shreds by the barbed wire, but gets up to finish the stage and claim the polka dot jersey for best climber in the tour. Unbelievable.

The Eye - Soli Deo Gloria

2011-06-30T05:24:00.000-07:00

Wow! Just wow. Cosmos magazine has a fascinating article on the discovery of highly developed eyes in ancient fossils. Evolution posits that the eye evolved over millions of years, so the discovery of highly developed eyes dating back 500 million years would be something difficult for evolution to explain, right? Not at all apparently. Check out the very first paragraph:

Highly complex eyes have been found in half-a-billion-year-old rocks from South Australia, suggesting that vision evolved rapidly with the arrival of early modern

animals.

Seriously? This suggests that "vision evolved rapidly" only if you can accept no other explanation of origins. Kind of funny that Charles Darwin himself understood how difficult it was to explain how the eye evolved. It happened really, really quickly!

The newly discovered eyes have a dense and regular hexagonal array of over 3,000 large lenses. The design turns out to be just as advanced as the compound eyes of modern arthropods, Paterson said.

Isn't that strange, THIS fossil is consistent with the rest of the fossil record which is stasis. The eye is just as advanced as modern arthropods implying, if you don't have your evolution blinders on, that THE EYE HAS NOT CHANGED in 500 million years of evolution, AND THERE IS NO EVIDENCE, that it changed before that.

Given the advantages conferred by sharp vision for avoiding predators and locating food and shelter, there must have been great evolutionary pressure to refine visual organs. The new fossils are consistent with the idea that the development of advanced vision helped drive the great evolutionary event known as the Cambrian explosion.

The Cambrian explosion, according to this theory, is due to the rapid evolution (sorry it was so rapid we don't have any intermediate forms, just trust us) of advanced vision. Which is about as good an explanation that evolutionary science can come up with for the sudden appearance of thousands upon thousands of new animals in the fossil record. The eyes did it!

The discovery shows arthropods achieved sophisticated vision in the earliest stages of their evolution.

I love it! The discovery shows no such thing. That is your interpretation of data which doesn't fit into your theoretical framework so you have to pound it in so that it fits.

Poor evolution, you're always trying to explain away the evidence for design.

Thomas Sowell is Brilliant; Editor of Time Magazine? Not so Much

2011-06-28T04:48:00.000-07:00

Mr. Sowell weighs in on the current debate concerning whether or not the Constitution is still relevant. Just the fact that someone (Time magazine editor, big surprise there) is asking that question demonstrates a toxic blend of fundamental nonunderstanding (yeah, that's the "created" word I want) of history and nitwittery masquerading as reason.

A favorite part of the article:

In Mr. Stengel's rehash of this argument, he declares: "People on the right and left constantly ask what the framers would say about some event that is happening today."

Maybe that kind of talk goes on where he hangs out. But most people have enough common sense to know that a constitution does not exist to micro-manage particular "events" or express opinions about the passing scene.

Corn Con

2011-06-26T03:37:00.000-07:00

Why turning food into gasoline (supported by government subsidies) is a stupid (and probably immoral) idea, and how spineless, pandering politicians support it.

John McCain stands out as particularly impressive: "John McCain and John Kerry were against ethanol subsidies, then as candidates were for them. Having lost the presidency, Mr. McCain is now against them again." Way to go Mr. McCain, way to stick to your principles.

Driscoll welcomes Westboro Baptist (sort of)

2011-06-20T03:55:00.000-07:00

You've got to hand it to Mark Driscoll, at times the guy is brilliant. Westboro Baptist the "church" that goes around making itself obnoxious is going to picket Mars Hill in Seattle. Driscoll's response? "You guys want some doughnuts?"

Driscoll:"They need Jesus too, maybe as bad as anyone on the Earth. As a church, we're called to love people. They're people, so they make the list."

Got to love it. This is probably the best way to handle that family...um, I mean church.

The Triple Agent

2011-06-20T03:46:00.000-07:00

A sad story of the guy who murdered 7 CIA agents in Afghanistan by killing himself. As one might suspect, the CIA had multiple failures leading up to this, most of which were caused by their hurry to (possibly) get Zawahiri. As usual, they ignored several memos from the field detailing why they were going at this guy wrong. I still can't believe they allowed his car onto the base without an inspection.

Deer Dropped on Power line...By Eagle

2011-06-19T16:22:00.000-07:00

Those eagles are pretty tough folks. This one dropped a deer onto a power line!

So Much for the Sugar High

2011-05-31T11:43:00.000-07:00

The Case-Shiller index of housing prices has turned down again, contrary to the expectations of Ben "Let's Try Throwing 2.7 Trillion at Housing" Bernanke. This would be a double-dip in housing prices, which obviously does not bode too well for the economy. As the author points out, if you take out the Fed's 2.7 trillion "sugar boost," housing has been dropping for 3 years straight. All Mr. Bernanke did was delay the inevitable bottom while adding 2.7 trillion to future liabilities for we the tax payer (thanks so much Chairman Ben).

Kelly at Grad Night

2011-05-17T15:16:00.000-07:00

Kelly was easily the most articulate of the graduating seniors (and I'm not just saying that because she says how great I am, hahaha). We were really impressed.

With Reverence and Godly Fear

2011-05-07T09:26:00.000-07:00

In Heb 12.28, this morning (well, afternoon, I had a redeye from LAX to TPA). The writer to Hebrews says that our desire ought to be to receive the grace of God so that we may serve God "with reverence and godly fear." It's interesting that he connects grace with the ability to serve. Our service comes from the grace that God provides and it should be marked by reverence and godly fear. Our culture tends to play down the reverence and godly fear stuff and we like to approach God as if he were our buddy, buddy friend (witness the rap song lyrics: "Who's in the house? J.C."). We fall short here, I think because our age does not understand the weightiness of God and the gravity of serving him. How do I know this weightiness? I certainly didn't figure it out myself. The very next words penned from the author of Hebrews: "For our God is a consuming fire."

Hardened...By the Deceitfulness of Sin

2011-04-28T06:42:00.000-07:00

I'm reading in Heb 3.13 today. The writer of Hebrews warns his readers to beware lest they be "hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." The word "hardened" translates a word that means "to cause to be unyielding in resisting information." This seems like just the right word here.

Frank Turek gives a pretty good illustration of hardness in action:

My friend David has a knack for cutting through the smokescreens people throw up when they’re trying to avoid making commitments, be they commitments to God or to other people. Last week, with one comment, he blew away all the smoke that a young agnostic was hiding behind. It was a demonstration of tremendous insight, and it required some courage to say.

For several weeks David was teaching through a series on Christian apologetics, which involves providing evidence for the truth of Christianity. In addition to the biblical mandate to provide such evidence, David thought it would be wise to do so because 75 percent of Christian youth stop attending church after age 18. Many of them abandon the church because they’re bombarded by secularism in college and they’ve never been taught any of the sound evidence that supports Christianity.

Last week, after David finished a presentation refuting the “new atheists”—Dawkins, Hitchens and the like—a young man approached him and said, “I once was a Christian, but now I’m an agnostic, and I don’t think you should be doing what you’re doing.”

“What do you mean?” David asked.

“I don’t think you should be giving arguments against atheists,” the young man said. “Jesus told us to love, and it’s not loving what you’re doing.”

David said, “No, that’s not right. Jesus came with both love and tuth. Love without truth is a swampy, borderless mess. Truth is necessary. In fact, it’s unloving to keep truth from people, especially if that truth has eternal consequences.”

David was absolutely right. In fact, if you look at Matthew chapter 23, Jesus was more like a drill sergeant than he was like Mister Rogers.

But the young man would have none of it. Without acknowledging David’s point, he immediately brought up another objection to Christianity. David succinctly answered that one too, but again the kid seemed uninterested. He fired a couple of more objections at David, who began to suspect something else was up—something I’ve noticed as well.

I’ve found that the machine-gun-objection approach is common among many skeptics and liberals. They throw objection after objection at believers and conservatives but never pause long enough to listen to the answers. It doesn’t matter that you’ve just answered their question with an undeniable fact—they’ve already left that topic and are rattling off another objection on another topic as if you hadn’t said a word. They don’t really seem interested in finding answers but in finding reasons to make themselves feel better about what they want to believe.

After all, a skeptic of one set of beliefs is actually a true believer in another set of beliefs.

David recognized that’s exactly what was happening in his conversation. So after the kid fired off another objection, David decided to end the charade and cut right to the heart. He said, “You’re raising all of these objections because you’re sleeping with your girlfriend. Am I right?” Continued...

All the blood drained from the kid’s face. He was caught. He just stood there speechless. He was rejecting God because he didn’t like God’s morality, and he was disguising it with alleged intellectual objections.

This young man wasn’t the first atheist or agnostic to admit that his desire to follow his own agenda was keeping him out of the Kingdom. In the first chapter of his letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul revealed this tendency we humans have to “suppress the truth” about God in order to follow our own desires. In other words, unbelief is more motivated by the heart than the head. Some prominent atheists have admitted this.

Atheist Julian Huxley, grandson of “Darwin’s Bulldog” Thomas Huxley, famously said many years ago that the reason he and many of his contemporaries “accepted Darwinism even without proof, is because we didn‘t want God to interfere with our sexual mores.”

Professor Thomas Nagel of NYU more recently wrote, “It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that. My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time.”

Certainly the new atheists such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins have problems with cosmic authority. Hitchens refuses to live under the “tyranny of a divine dictatorship.” Dawkins calls the God of the Bible a “malevolent bully” (among other things) and admits that he is “hostile to religion.”

It’s not that Hitchens and Dawkins offer any serious examination and rebuttal of the evidence for God. They misunderstand and dismiss hundreds of pages of metaphysical argumentation from Aristotle, Aquinas and others and fail to answer the modern arguments from the beginning and design of the universe. (Dawkins explanation for the extreme design of the universe is “luck.”)

Instead, as any honest reader of their books will see, Hitchens and Dawkins are outraged at the very thought of God. Even their titles scream out contempt (god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything and The God Delusion). They don’t seem to realize that their moral outrage presupposes an objective moral standard that exists only if God exists. Objective morality—as well as the immaterial laws of reason and science—cannot exist in the materialist universe they attempt to defend.

In effect, they have to borrow from a theistic worldview in order to argue against it. They have to sit in God’s lap to slap his face.

While both men are very good writers, Hitchens and Dawkins are short on evidence and long on attitude. As I mentioned in our debate, you can sum up Christopher’s attitude in one sentence: “There is no God, and I hate him.”

Despite this, God’s attitude as evidenced by the sacrifice of Christ is: There are atheists, and I love them.

Wow, Is This Powerful!

2011-04-26T06:49:00.000-07:00

There are some SERIOUSLY creative people in the world. (Me, not being one of them)

See What a Morning!

2011-04-24T04:17:00.000-07:00

Yeah. He is risen!

By Faith

2011-04-24T04:07:00.000-07:00

I really, really like this song. The Lord has been teaching me about living by faith recently. Uncomfortable lesson.

Orni-Theology: Anhingas—Accepting What the Lord Gives

2011-04-23T06:20:00.000-07:00

I was birding in West Palm Beach on a layover (yes, I know it's freezing in Michigan, but what was I supposed to do, stay inside?). I was at a little pond when I came across a bird that looks like the little guy on the left. It seems like he's being held up by someone out of the picture to the left. "Hey, buddy, stick 'em up!" This is a sure sign of an anhinga.

Anhingas are water birds; they eat fish like cormorants do. They have one disadvantage from other water birds though. Most water birds have oil in their feathers that makes them essentially water proof (thus the expression, "like water off a duck's back"). The poor, little anhinga doesn't have waterproof feathers. This means that he spends a lot of time getting his waterlogged feathers dry.

If you ever seen an anhinga out of water, he will probably look a lot like this one. He'll have his wings spread out, drying his feathers in the sun. Mr. Anhinga doesn't waste a lot of time complaining that God made him without waterproof feathers, he just adapts to how he is made and even uses what seems like a handicap for an advantage. Water logged feathers make him less buoyant, which actually makes him a better swimmer.

Anhingas are beautiful spiritual lessons for us. They willingly accept how God made them. It's easy to look around at other people with greater gifts and wish that God had made you like them. Or perhaps you are handicapped and you look at people that aren't and wonder why God created you with a handicap. When you're wondering why God made you the way he did, or why he put you into a situation in which you do not wish to be, just think of Mr. Anhinga. God in his all-wise purposes put you into your situation for good reason. Accept what the Lord gives willingly and find out how you can glorify God in your situation, or with your handicap.

Christians should be the anhingas of the homosapien world. People should see us and say to themselves, "those Christians sure look funny, but you never see them complaining about their situation, they just willingly accept who they are and make the best of it."

South Sanniku: Tsunami Video

2011-04-18T03:44:00.000-07:00

Five minutes and a city is reduced to a pile of rubble. Especially dramatic at the end where people are literally running for their lives.

Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the Titanic

2011-04-15T03:46:00.001-07:00

Here's a bleak prognosis for America's future. I like at the end of the article how he says, "eventually a leader will arise who will solve this." When Germany had these kinds of problems it led to the rise of Hitler. One wonders what awaits us.

"I'm Going to School with Doogie Howser!"

2011-03-28T00:59:00.000-07:00

One classmate's response at attending university classes with a twelve year-old genius. That is what one would call a kid who learned calculus, algebra, trigonometry, and geometry in a week! He has a mild form of autism and apparently can't sleep very well because he "sees numbers in his head." Ya think?!?

I love his mom's comment: "Speaking to the paper, Mrs Barnett said: 'I flunked math. I know this did not come from me.'"

The Indianapolis Star has a much more in depth article on this interesting lad. I find his comments about the big bang theory especially fascinating. Scientists accept the established dogma until someone comes along who doesn't have any stake in the game and all of the sudden scientific ideas are turned on their heads.

Laura Story - Blessings

2011-03-23T06:24:00.000-07:00

Wow. Speechless.

QE 3 Coming to a Country (The US) Near You

2011-03-21T07:46:00.000-07:00

While QE 2 is winding down, what do you want to bet that QE 3 is on the way? One good excuse we find in the paper today. QE 1 did not work, as I wrote here (if it did, why did we need a QE2?). QE2 will not work (if it did, why are home sales falling?). All the Fed has left is to pour more and more money on the fire and hope it keeps burning. QE3 will work...for a short time. As we learned from the excellent little book Fiat Money Inflation in France, the half life of these interventions keeps getting shorter and shorter until all the money in the world won't save you.

You (didn't) read it here first. (Didn't because we are not fools, we understand that no one reads this blog. Hahahaha).

How Germany Postponed Global Warming...for Seven Hours

2011-03-20T09:54:00.001-07:00

This article is actually about the irresponsible (and one might argue immoral) use of food to power vehicles (attention ethanol lobby).

What struck me is how often policies have unintended consequences, often times negative unintended consequences. The author points out one such consequence in the course of the article:

Germany led the world in putting up solar panels, funded by $75 billion in subsidies. The result? Inefficient, uncompetitive solar technology sitting on rooftops in a cloudy country, delivering a trivial 0.1 per cent of Germany's total energy supply, and postponing the effects of global warming by seven hours in 2100.

Hahahaha....I like this guy.

Zune Bites the Dust

2011-03-16T04:09:00.000-07:00

Yet another Microsoft product with a stupid name bites the dust. Microsoft will no longer produce the (non)selling, unfortunately named Zune. They have decided to focus on the much more succinctly and brilliantly named "Windows Phone Seven."

Note to Microsoft: Fire whoever names your products.

An Interesting Interview of Rob Bell

2011-03-16T03:19:00.000-07:00

Justin Taylor links to a video interview of Rob Bell on MSNBC and boy does Martin Bashir make him squirm. I'm willing to bet that none of Bell's other MSM interviews went like this.

Turns out that Mr. Bashir is a Christian. Thanks, Mr. Bashir for asking some hard questions that I assume no one else was willing (or able) to ask.

Sex, Romance, God's Glory II

2011-03-02T17:05:00.001-08:00

"Your children should be able to look at your life and have the great privilege of knowing that they are the most important people in the world to you...right after their mother."

Now we are getting somewhere, and yes, I am enjoying the book. C. J. nails it here. I've always believed that the best thing you can do for your child is to love their mother. The above quote is Mr. Mahaney's way of saying that.

How do I love their mother effectively? C. J. is glad you asked. You love them by studying them so that you know them intimately. What they like; what they don't like; what they fear; what they love, etc. You get the point. It is exactly here that most men fail. Why do they fail? Well, let me put it in C. J.'s words: "It should be no mystery why, gentlemen [we fail]. We have a tendency to be lazy and selfish."

Ouch! That hurt. Probably hurt because it is so correct. Guilty as charged Mr. Mahaney.

Where do we go from here? C. J. doesn't leave us hanging but that is for next time.

Dear C. J. Mahaney...

2011-02-28T16:21:00.000-08:00

I really WANTED to like your book (Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God)—after all, I did pay $7.99 for it. I actually think I WILL like your book, unfortunately, the wheels came off from the get go. You give me five reasons why you are going to try and persuade me that the Song of Solomon is all about sexual intimacy within the covenant of marriage.

Reason One: Solomon's topic was obviously sex. Um, C. J. did you take a lit course in college? Have you ever read "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost? It's all about stopping by the woods on a snowy evening and watching snow flakes, right? No! It's poetry. Stopping by the woods is a metaphor for life and the ever present pressure of time and life moving on and...well, I won't bother with a literature analysis but you (don't) get the point. It's poetry! It's metaphorical. Poetry is SUPPOSED to be metaphorical. It's supposed to reach below the surface to some deeper meaning (and no, I do not spiritualize every little part of the Song of Solomon).

Reason Two: The Bible never suggests that this book isn't primarily about sex. Seriously? An argument from silence? The Bible never suggests that it IS all about sex because the rest of the Bible NEVER REFERS TO IT! This is a terrible argument, you should have just stuck with four.

Reason Three: God's relationship with man is not sexual. Point granted. Let me see, if I were the wisest man who has ever lived, specially gifted by God with wisdom and I wanted to come up with some type, some metaphor that best worked out the intimate relationship between Israel and God, what might I think of? Wait a minute. There is one that is all around; that everyone immediately identifies with; that everyone intuitively understands, the relationship between a man and a woman. What a perfect metaphor!

Reason Four: Spiritualizing the book doesn't work. Agreed, and as anyone who has ever studied poetry knows, one doesn't have to make metaphors of every possible word in the poem. Indeed, one of Robert Frost's poems hung metaphorically on one line of perhaps 25. Were it not for that line, we might really think that Mr. Frost was speaking of orchards, and autumn leaves, and the smell of apples; as my English Lit professor correctly pointed out, Robert Frost won't let us take his poem literally. If thus Robert Frost, even more so Solomon.

Reason Five: We Need Instruction on Sexuality. But, this C. J., is the brilliance of the Song of Solomon. We receive a beautiful look at the intimacy involved in marriage—and are thereby instructed—when the metaphorical meaning of the eastern love poem goes far deeper. It's brilliant! Only Solomon could have come up with it and carried it off, but then you missed the deeper meaning. So sad.

Oh, and by the way, I have a couple of questions for you.

Question one: Can you name one commentator who agrees with your position that was born before 1900?

Question two: Solomon uses the term "my beloved" again and again in the Song of Solomon. Did you bother seeing how that term is used in the rest of the Old Testament. I'm willing to bet you didn't. I've never heard anyone who holds the "Marriage Manual" interpretation of the Song of Solomon address it.

I'm going to finish the rest of the book, and I suspect I really will like it. But here we have the wisest person who has ever lived write poetry and he does not have any metaphorical purpose in mind at all? Really?

Your friend,

John

Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God

2011-02-28T15:59:00.001-08:00

To show my wife that I was really interested in working at marriage—yeah, after 27 years...I'm a Marine, we are slow learners—I vowed that I would blog my way through C. J. Mahaney's book, "Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God."

As a side note, I once met C. J. Mahaney on an elevator. He didn't know who I was, of course I knew who he was. He was funny and friendly. Seems like a good, genuine guy, fun to hang out with. But I digress...

So I promised her I would read the book and downloaded it immediately from Kindle. Yes, in less than 60 seconds. The first chapter looks promising: "Great Sex to the Glory of God." Hmm...this might be a good book after all. I settle in to read...

When Christians Approve of Young Men Wrestling Young Women

2011-02-25T05:32:00.000-08:00

As if our culture weren't already insane enough, along comes a Christian to "argue" (in quotes because what argument there is appears to be driven by culture rather than Scripture) that Christ would not only approve of young men wrestling young women, but he would probably join in!?!

What can one say other than that it appears that some Christians have happily accepted the current worldview which seems intent on getting us to the bottom of the slippery slope as quickly as possible.

Al Mohler does the best job of explaining what this means. He succinctly sums it up: "This is insanity masquerading as athletic competition."

Agreed, Mr. Mohler.

The Fall of the Invisible Empire

2011-02-25T03:11:00.000-08:00

This is a pretty good analysis from a Brit concerning the upheaval of our interests in the Middle East. He points out the hypocrisy of, on the one hand encouraging democracy everywhere, and on the other hand supporting corrupt dictators like Mubarak and Ghadaffi. He also points out this obvious fact about America:

"It is certain that America will, in due course, be forced into a massive adjustment both to its living standards at home and its commitments abroad."

True enough.

Another Stupid Microsoft Name

2011-02-24T01:21:00.000-08:00

Who names things at Microsoft and why do they still have a job? Next up is the NoDo phone, due in March. NoDo? How do you even pronounce that and what does it mean? No Dough, as in, these things will surely bomb? I think you can assume that anything that begins with "No" is probably not going to be very successful consumer product. At least they're paring this with the succinctly and cleverly named "Windows Phone 7 software."

Libya: It's About the Tribes

2011-02-23T01:53:00.000-08:00

Finally! An article that points out what is really going on in Libya (and most of the other Arab nations). The tribes are revolting. This is why Libya can go from peaceful to nightmarish overnight. There are several different tribes in Libya and Ghadaffi can only count on the loyalty of his own tribe now. He's in deep trouble.

I Like a Daytona 500 Winner?

2011-02-22T04:57:00.000-08:00

Yes. Not because I've suddenly fallen in love with NASCAR. I like a guy who uses opportunities he has, to support ministry to orphans. Rock on, Trevor Bayne.

30K Per Household

2011-02-18T05:17:00.000-08:00

The amount that the Obama administration (and Congress) has borrowed per household since the economic stimulus was signed into law two years ago (and no, I do not excuse the Bush administration which was no more interested in fiscal sanity than the Obama administration). Obviously this is unsustainable and will lead to serfdom for all but the ruling and financial elites. Welcome to the reign of Louis XIV.

Iraq to US - You Owe Us 1 Billion Dollars

2011-02-17T07:11:00.000-08:00

One billion dollars seems to be the damage done to Baghdad by the U. S. invasion. Of course we are going to have the last laugh. Ben Bernanke and his cohort at The Fed, will print one billion more worthless dollars and ship them to Iraq. Net cost to us? Zero. The bills are worthless anyway.

Wall Street = Marie Antoinette

2011-02-17T03:50:00.001-08:00

Finally! Someone sums up the crimes and misdeeds of Wall Street for which they were sent to...um, they were punished...um, for which they were handsomely rewarded by the government so they could go out and continue the same practices that led to the financial crisis.

Wall Street is the Marie Antoinette of our time: "Let the peasants eat cake! While we rack in billions of dollars of profit. Oh, but if we lose our shirts you taxpayers will pay for it."

Lost City of Atlantis: Found?

2011-02-09T04:42:00.000-08:00

This is an interesting news article. I checked out the location with Google Earth and there IS something there. It will be interesting to see if it is man made or not. Fits all the criteria. Outside Gibraltar. As large as Wales. We shall see. Is it the lost city/country of Atlantis?

Army Base Locked Down

2011-01-27T02:53:00.000-08:00

Apparently the Dugway Proving Grounds have been locked down—no one in or out— due to "serious concerns." This would be the base that does research on chemical and biological warfare. Uh oh...

Thinking About Mordecai

2011-01-25T06:36:00.000-08:00

I'm slowly working my way through the book of Esther (while posting thoughts on it in no particular order, other than what my mind is trying to grasp). I come today to the first glimpse we have of Mordecai. He doesn't show until the second chapter (or in original, i. e. "non-chapterized" form until after Vashti is deposed). We are told only that he is "the son of Jair, son of Shimei, son of Kish, who had been carried away from Jerusalem among the captives" (Esther 2.5,6).

As a side note, we understand the "who" there to refer to Kish, not Mordecai, who was carried off to exile.

Mordecai is an enigmatic figure in Esther, we never quite understand his motives. He is a prime mover, and yet opaque and difficult to understand. What stands out to me in the narrative where Esther is trying to become queen is how involved in all of it that he is. Surely, it must have been Mordecai who suggested that Esther be taken to the harem at all. We definitely know that Mordecai takes an intimate interest in what is happening to Esther (Esther 2.11).

What stands out to me about Mordecai is that he seems to be the only person in the narrative who understands the import of what is going on. Why should the Jews care that a pagan king deposed his equally pagan wife? How will it affect their lives one way or the other?

As it so happens it will affect their lives tremendously because in short order their very existence as Jews will be threatened. Whether or not Mordecai understands that fact in Esther 2, we can't be sure. What we can know for sure is that Mordecai seizes on an incident which will not affect the Jews in order to take an opportunity for the Jews to have influence at court. His actions will end up saving the Jews in exile in Persia.

We begin to see here that Mordecai is indeed a wise and thoughtful man with a gift of foresight. We do not mean to say a miraculous gift, but a natural gift of being able to look ahead and plan far in advance.

Where is God in the book of Esther?

2011-01-18T02:25:00.000-08:00

Short answer: Nowhere to be found...and active everywhere.

One of the conundrums of the book of Esther is that there is no reference to God, prayer, worship, the synagogue, or any other evidence of interaction with the faith that the exiles brought with them from Jerusalem (or lack thereof since they were exiled because of idolatry). In fact there is a Greek addition to Esther which makes up for this obvious lack. It adds a lot of material, most of it having to do with worship and devotion, presumably because later readers were appalled at the lack of reference to God and wanted to "fix" things.

This omission is so obvious and stands out so clearly, that one must ask the question, "what was the author thinking?" which is exactly the question that it would seem, the author wanted us to ask. In other words, the lack of reference to the faith is a literary device that the author used on purpose. I don't see how anyone could conclude anything else because the omission of reference to God is so glaring.

Why then? Karen Jobe, in her excellent commentary on the book of Esther is very helpful here. Her explanation is that the big question for exiles was: "Where are we at in terms of our faith here? We have been exiled because of idolatry, and now what is our relationship to God? Has he abandoned us? Is he still active? Does he love us?" This was the crucial question of the day for the exiles. While the answer seems obvious to us in hindsight, it would not have been so obvious to them at the time. Sure there was God's promise that the exiles would return, and indeed some had returned 50 years before, but what about those who had remained in Babylon? Were they out of the Lord's will and so abandoned by God, like the ten lost tribes of Israel?

Karen Jobes points out what we find from Esther: The great paradox of Esther is that God is omnipotently present even where God is most conspicuously absent.

This is what we find in Esther, and I think it is what the author of Esther wanted us to find.

Difficulties in Esther

2011-01-17T05:10:00.000-08:00

So I've been plodding slowly into the book of Esther (through the introduction and into chapter one) and what stands out in introduction after introduction to the book are the difficulties that underly it. I suppose this is to be expected since it is different from most other Old Testament documents. Esther does not mention the word "God" anywhere in the book. There is no New Testament writer that quotes Esther. The attitudes and actions reflected from both Mordecai and Esther in the book are at times questionable. Why did Mordecai refuse to bow down to Haman, it's not like there was a biblical prohibition against bowing down to superiors? Why does he seem to manipulate Esther into the queenship? Why does Esther go along? And the wholesale killing of 75,000 opponents of Jews, how is that justified? Not to mention Esther asking the king if they can have one more day for more bloodshed?

We could go on, but you get the point. The difficulties are great and this is undoubtedly part of why there is this whole discussion of whether or not Esther belongs in the canon from both the Jewish side and the Christian side.

I do not plan to answer the difficulties just yet, only to lay them out as I see them. Part of the joy of undertaking difficulties like this is when one comes across a surprisingly satisfying answer to them.

Oh, and for what it's worth, Karen Jobe's commentary on Esther is fantastic!

Glenn Reynolds on the Arizona Shooting Tragedy

2011-01-10T03:56:00.000-08:00

The best thing you'll read on the politics of the shooting.

From the article:

When Democrats use language like this—or even harsher language like Mr. Obama's famous remark, in Philadelphia during the 2008 campaign, "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun"—it's just evidence of high spirits, apparently. But if Republicans do it, it somehow creates a climate of hate.

American journalists know how to be exquisitely sensitive when they want to be. As the Washington Examiner's Byron York pointed out on Sunday, after Major Nidal Hasan shot up Fort Hood while shouting "Allahu Akhbar!" the press was full of cautions about not drawing premature conclusions about a connection to Islamist terrorism. "Where," asked Mr. York, "was that caution after the shootings in Arizona?"

To be clear, if you're using this event to criticize the "rhetoric" of Mrs. Palin or others with whom you disagree, then you're either: (a) asserting a connection between the "rhetoric" and the shooting, which based on evidence to date would be what we call a vicious lie; or (b) you're not, in which case you're just seizing on a tragedy to try to score unrelated political points, which is contemptible. Which is it?

True Grit

2010-12-29T03:54:00.000-08:00

Stanley Fish has an interesting review of the movie remake True Grit in the New York Times. I find his review compelling. There is a since in which True Grit is a religious movie, not overtly of course, but religious nonetheless.

One of my favorite lines is given by the film's heroine, Mattie Ross, early on in the film while she talks about tracking down her father's killer and bringing him to justice, You must pay for everything in this world one way and another. There is nothing free with the exception of God’s grace. Apparently the novel of the same name continues on, You cannot earn that grace, or deserve it.

Mr. Fish comments: While the Coens deprive us of the heroism Gagliasso and others look for, they give us a better heroism in the person of Mattie, who maintains the confidence of her convictions even when the world continues to provide no support for them. In the end, when she is a spinster with one arm who arrives too late to see Rooster once more, she remains as judgmental, single-minded and resolute as ever. She goes forward not because she has faith in a better worldly future — her last words to us are “Time just gets away from us” — but because she has faith in the righteousness of her path, a path that is sure (because it is not hers) despite the absence of external guideposts.

Air India Copilot Sends Aircraft into Nose Dive

2010-12-28T04:16:00.000-08:00

This is a bizarre story from start to finish. The copilot did not know how to pull the aircraft out of a dive? Are you kidding me? There is more to this story than they are letting on.

Europe Crosses the Rubicon

2010-12-28T04:13:00.001-08:00

An interesting analysis of European events in the WSJ. The implication is that the crisis for the Euro and the European countries will bring them into closer union, and one with which I would agree. Either they will end up becoming the United States of Europe, or they will break apart. I suspect U. S. of Europe.

More Nitwittery from the Fed

2010-12-22T05:47:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure why I keep posting these criticisms of the Fed because they all seem to read the same way and it's a bit like pounding my head against concrete. I may think it is necessary, but it's not going to make me feel any better. History will look back and point out the Fed's many missteps (both from Greenspan and Bernanke) which made the difficulties we faced even worse than they were. As I felt at the start of this financial crisis (well, actually before it) government intervention is predictable and will make a situation which might have caused us a year or two of severe grief, into a situation that will affect us for decades to come as the powers that be fight the inevitable all the way into the economic dump heap of history.

The Afghanistan Quagmire

2010-12-18T12:05:00.000-08:00

My main concern about getting into Afghanistan was the historical realization that it has been the graveyard of empires dating back to before Alexander the Great. I sure wish George Bush would have understood this, perhaps we wouldn't be there 9 years after the war started which is now even longer than the Russian occupation! Patrick Cockburn points out the depressingly obvious truth: We are in a quagmire in Afghanistan and not even those who are on our side like us. This is not going to end well.

China vs. USA in Geopolitical Chess Match: Gary Kasparov vs. Donald Duck

2010-12-18T12:03:00.000-08:00

A fascinating article pointing out that China is playing a global chess match with long term goals and a strategy to match. The U. S. is playing tic-tac-toe. Who do you think is going to win that chess match?

Nutshell View of Where We are Headed ... Off a Cliff

2010-12-15T06:46:00.000-08:00

If you want a simple, one article explanation of where we are going, read this article. Simple. Direct. Easy to understand.

From the article:

There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom expansion brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved. - Ludwig Von Mises

A step-by-step explanation:

So the process by which the Von Mises prophecy is fulfilled can be generalized like this:

The economy has an upswing.
The upwsing starts to falter, as is natural to the business cycle.
Politicians say “Hey, let’s keep this thing going.”
The system is juiced with leverage-enhancing liquidity.
Via stimulative reinforcements, a boom mentality takes hold.
The boom continues, now in an unnatural state.
The “can’t lose” mentality sets in. Greed and hubris run amok.
Via risky marginal investments, unproductive debt accumulates.
After a period of years (or even decades), cracks reappear.
The “mountain of debt” now casts a long cold shadow.
That same mountain threatens to topple and collapse.
The authorities panic. They know the debt will crush them.
To circumvent the avalanche, the debt is monetized.
Via monetization, the economy experiences temporary relief.
But the relief is not enough… the problems persist…
…and so more monetization is applied.
As alternative to full collapse, the currency is destroyed.

Notice where we are in bold. The debt is monetized, the economy experiences temporary relief. This was QE1. But the relief is not enough...the problems persist...and so more monetization is applied (QE2,3,4...)

Happy Sailing.

Spain Circa 1550 Equals US Today?

2010-12-12T07:33:00.000-08:00

My bro pointed out this column comparing Spain's world empire with that of the U. S. It is frighteningly similar. I don't hold out much hope that we will not repeat Spain's mistakes.

Jon Stewart and Ben Bernanke and QE2

2010-12-08T13:46:00.001-08:00

Wow! Jon Stewart catches Ben Bernanke in an outright lie. Got to love The Daily Show.