what are you reading?

Here’s what I’ve been reading lately:

1) Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God’s Will OR How to Make a Decision without Dreams, Visions, Fleeces, Impressions, Open Doors, Random Bible Verses, Casting Lots, Liver Shivers, Writing in the Sky, Etc. by Kevin DeYoung

I finished this about a 2 months ago and thought it was great.  What a breath of fresh air to the frivolous, often ridiculous ways we try to figure out our future before it happens.

2) Middlemarch by George Eliot

I’ve always loved Eliot’s Adam Bede and never took the time to read Middlemarch.  I’m glad I did.  She has an insight into the workings of the mind and heart of her characters that is enlightening and convicting to the reader who identifies with them.  Plus, it was the first book I read on my iPhone via Kindle and just finished.  Very handy.

3) Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

I just started this and am only a few chapters in, also being read on my iphone.  So far, it has all the charming markings of an Austen novel.  It was her first book, published after many of her other works.

4) Intellectuals and Society by Thomas Sowell

Sowell is one of my favorite minds on politics and culture.  I’ve just started this book and it examines the influence of intellectuals on society and the often disastrous effects thereof.  Thanks, Tom, for surprising me with it!

5) Home Comforts : The Art and Science of Keeping House by Cheryl Mendelson

I pulled this one off my bookshelf a month ago and got sucked into re-reading quite a bit.  I use it as reference book and disagree largely with her take on why it’s important to keep house, but nonetheless, you will not find a more thorough book covering every aspect of home management.

6) A Sweet & Bitter Providence: Sex, Race and the Sovereignty of God by John Piper

I loved this look at Ruth, Naomi and Boaz.  The book of Ruth has long been a favorite for me and Pastor John offers his usual poignant understanding of the big picture in relation to this story.  Reading it made me love God’s designs more.

7) The Liars’ Club: A Memoir by Mary Karr

I was assigned to read this in college and did a half-read, half-skim.  I was prompted to remember it when Tim Challies reviewed it a while back.  I’m about a quarter in so far and find it riveting and very gritty.  I probably wouldn’t recommend it.

8) The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

This book was a gift and I completed it a few months ago and thoroughly enjoyed.  It is a book of fictional letters written just after WWII.  The style is enchanting and the content is sober without being sober.

What are you reading?

*Note: The Bible is the most important reading we can do each day.  I hope that’s understood.  I use our church’s Bible reading plan, in case you were curious.  The reading listed here is my “escape” or nighttime reading.

what were you supposed to do?

So often we have what we want to do, then we have what we train to do, and finally we have what we actually do.

It’s great if the first and last match up, regardless of what comes in the middle.

I wanted to do a great many things, but mostly I wanted to be a wife and a mom.  And that’s what I am.  But what was I supposed to do according to my training?  I have degrees in writing and political science.  I worked briefly at a pro-life lobby and education group after I graduated, which fit my training perfectly, as I did writing and research for them (along with any other menial jobs that were around to do).

Then I started having babies and that part of life was done.  At least in the work-for-pay realm of existence.

Lots of people train for one thing and end up doing something entirely unrelated.  Some people long to be something, but feel the need to have a practical degree.  Women who desire to be homemakers often get degrees that they feel will be practical if Mr. Wonderful doesn’t show up.

And for those who do end up with the coveted Mrs. degree, they are sometimes made to feel that their education was a waste, since now all they do is stay home.  I’ve never felt that way.  I think my education has been useful in every way, even if I don’t earn money under the pretense of it.

Mr. TommyD has degrees in computer science and physics, but he really doesn’t use either.  He runs a business, and although it is in the technology industry, he doesn’t work on computers himself.

So, what were you supposed to do?  Does it line up with what you really do?  How do you account for it?  Does it feel like a waste or a kind Providence?

what keeps you up late at night?

I am frequently up late at night.

By late, I mean past 11 or midnight.  I know for some of you, that isn’t late.  And for others that’s very late.

Here are some things that keep me up late at night:

1) The olympics. duh.

2) Laundry. Another duh.

3) Researching baby strollers.  This could be considered an obsession.

4) Planning out homeschool for next year.  This could be a never-ending job if I let it be.  I feel as though I’ve researched every curriculum available to mankind.  I mean humankind.  I actually enjoy learning about them all and getting my hands on them, but at some point, I’ve got to quit and make a decision.

5) Downloading apps for the iphone my husband got me for Valentine’s Day.  Way. too. cool.

6) Reading books, articles and blogs.  I’m an information junkie.  I believe it will soon be recognized as a diagnosable condition.

7) Talking.  Once the kids are in bed and we have put away whatever we’re working on, we talk.  And talk… and talk.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I am so glad I married a man who wants to converse about all the stuff of life.

So, what keeps you up late at night?  How late do you stay up?

Anybody else out there watching tonight with a kind of strange fascination at the subculture that is men’s figure skating?

do you want to live to be 100?

An interesting article from the UK’s Daily Express says that in three years you may be able to take a pill that gets your body to mimic the “super-genes” found in people who live to be 100+.

The breakthrough has come after scientists identified three “super-genes”.

People born with the genes are 20 times more likely to reach a century – and 80 per cent less likely to develop the senility disease Alzheimer’s.

Even being overweight or a heavy smoker does not stop a third of those with the genes living to 100.

Now US researchers are working to produce a drug that can mimic the genetic benefits and hope it will be ready for testing within three years. Their work features tonight on a BBC TV ­documentary.

First off, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to live to be 100.

I can’t say that with complete certainty.  How I feel about it at 28 and how I’ll feel later in life may be very different.  BUT, have you ever spent time with someone in their late 90′s or older?  My experience has been that they want to be done.  They’ve outlived all their friends and lots of family.

I hope that if I have been given the “super-genes” that I’ll wear old-age gracefully and with purpose.  I pray I won’t wish it away.

However, just pondering what my thoughts are on an ideal time of death, prior to 100 sounds good to me.

One thing I love about this article is that it acknowledges that for 1/3 of people with the super-genes, weight and smoking have not kept them from reaching 100.

This flies in the face of most of the conventional wisdom out there that has pervaded our culture and our church.  This wisdom says that we have ultimate control over our health if only we do this, don’t do that, eat this, don’t eat that and on and on and on.

Oh, and by the way, the rules for perfecting your health change every year or month or week.  So, you better spend a significant portion of your time researching and following all the health experts.  And if you do everything they say, viola: you will have good health.

Except for when you don’t.  Except for when you get a cancer diagnosis, or discover you have high blood pressure, or seem to catch every cold virus that comes around.

So maybe the discovery of these “super-genes” will knock some common sense into us in regard to our health.  Maybe it will help us to stop obsessing about every piece of hard candy we consume.*  Maybe.  But I doubt it.

It’s too enticing to believe that we have control over our long lives and then we also get the credit for maintaining our good health.  But if we accept the credit, we also have to take the heat for everything gone wrong.  I just can’t live that way.  Talk about a prescription for anxiety!

So I resolve to do what I can to make my body useful to the Lord, while embracing the Biblical worldview that says our bodies are under a curse until their final redemption.  Whether I’ll be granted to do this 5 more years, 50 more years or 75 more, that’s up to the Lord.  He has numbered my days.

*Shameless jab at Jamsco’s post from a few days ago.

What kind of evangelical are you? Or, what do you do for Halloween?

Russel D. Moore provides these funny (and accurate) definitions of the many types of evangelical:

“If John Mark is right that an evangelical is “a fundamentalist who watches The Office,” then I’m written out of the definition since I’ve never seen the show. But, still, I think he’s on to something. Here’s an alternative try.

An evangelical is a fundamentalist whose kids dress up for Halloween.

A conservative evangelical is a fundamentalist whose kids dress up for the church’s “Fall Festival.”

A confessional evangelical is a fundamentalist whose kids dress up for “Reformation Day.”

An emerging evangelical is a fundamentalist who has no kids, but who dresses up for Halloween anyway.

A revivalist evangelical is a fundamentalist whose kids dress up as demons for the church’s “Judgment House” community evangelism outreach.

A fundamentalist is a fundamentalist whose kids hand out gospel tracts to all those mentioned above.”

A couple years of my growing up, we fell into the “conservative evangelical” to “revivalist evangelical” range.  We dressed up for our  church’s “unhaunted house.”  Many kids dressed up as Bible characters.  It was an outreach to the community as well as a way for Christians to still have fun and do a few scary things on Halloween without feeling (too) guilty.

Most years, however, we just stayed home, had friends over, ate popcorn and watched a movie.

With young kids of our own, we haven’t celebrated Halloween.  Not a judgment on people who do, it’s just where we’ve come down.  We did talk about Reformation Day last year though, although no one dressed up.  I like having the kids dress up.  They do it so often, it hardly seems like depriving them not to do it on Halloween.

See, here’s one-year-old Elianna dressed up in full costume.

I realize most people think I’m being a big stick in the mud and I’m ok with that.  My kids (and I) get plenty of fun and neighbor interaction in their lives.  They can do without it on one night of the year.  We have our reasons, and that’s enough for me.

But, back to the point, what kind of evangelical are you?  Elianna obviously ascribes to the ever popular cowboy evangelism.

what have I gotten myself into?!!

Well, as most of you know, I’m now an “official” homeschool mom.

Whoa.

Even though I’m very familiar with homeschooling and know lots and lots (and lots!) of people who do it, I still feel very intimidated by the task and frequently question our decision to homeschool.

And, if you know me at all, you know that I’m the anti-crafty lady.  Crafts run away when they hear me coming.  They know I’ll butcher them and they will end up in the trash.  As much as I try to like scrapbooking, (and have heard-tell of the joy of scrapbooking retreats) it is my arch nemesis.

Cutting, pasting, finagling: I’m no good. (I do like to color, however.)

So, I can’t help but laugh when I see pictures of the science project (read: glorified craft) the kids and I did last week.  They loved it.  And I loved that they loved it.  Even though cutting that cardboard was some form of hand-in-scissor torture.

Now, my sweet Eliza could do crafts all day.  And she is slowly helping to redeem the craft cynical side of me.

She and Seth watched with great anticipation as we took our homemade weathervane out to the front sidewalk.  We set it on the ground and held our breaths.

Apparently the wind was holding its breath too.  Barely a breeze to be felt.  Finally someone must have exhaled strongly enough to cause the weathervane’s arrow to wiggle and look as though it might spin. Squeals of delight abounded.

So, with a weathervane under our collective belt, I now dub us a real homeschool family.  Which makes me a real homeschool mom. (OK, OK, enough snickering).  But seriously, what have I gotten myself into?!!

do you have a favorite Bible verse?

James 1: 2-4 have always been favorite verses of mine.  

Also, Lamentations 3: 21-27 are frequently in mind. 

Along with John 10:27-30; those bring continual comfort and rest.

Do you have a favorite passage?  Or, if “favorite” isn’t the right word, how about one that is especially meaningful to you recently?

I found this humorous video about life verses..  enjoy.

And here are the actual texts, for my (and your) benefit:

James 1:2-4

Count it all joy, my brothers, [2] when you meet trials f of various kinds, 3 for you know that g the testing of your faith h produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be i perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Lamentations 3:21-27

But this I call to mind,
and k therefore I have hope:

22 l The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; [2]
l his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new m every morning;
n great is your faithfulness.
24 o “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
k “therefore I will hope in him.”

25 The Lord is good to those who p wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.
26 q It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
27 r It is good for a man that he bear
the yoke s in his youth.

John 10:27-30

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 o I give them eternal life, and p they will never perish, and q no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, r who has given them to me, [1] s is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of t the Father’s hand. 30 u I and the Father are one.”

 

 

an ipod for a Bible: yea or nay?

Tim Challies (with whom I often agree) wrote this article, “Don’t Take Your iPod to Church.”  

I’m having a hard time agreeing with his reasoning.  

He asserts that,

“the method we use to convey information is inseparable from the content of that information. And even more so, every medium carries with it both content but also a worldview. When we read the Bible electronically, we read the very same words, but in a way that influences us toward a different worldview, a different way of understanding the reality of those words.”

So, to recap, he is saying that reading the Bible electronically influences our worldview and even influences the way we interpret or understand the Bible.  

He sums it all up with this: 

“So where does this leave us?  It leaves us wondering what ideological bias, what predisposition, is carried in the book and in the electronic book.  It causes us to wonder what skill or attitude is amplified in the book and what skill or attitude is amplified in the iPod.”

As much as I love real books, (meaning printed-with-ink, pages-bound-together books) I just can’t agree with him.  At least not yet.  He promises to follow-up this article with another one next week offering (I hope) more logical and foundational reasons as to why the printed Bible is better than the e-Bible.**

The point of the Bible is the message it provides.  Not the medium by which the message is given.  Is the Bible less powerful in oral form?  Does it’s worldview change when read from a scroll?  

The power of the message of the Bible, cannot be in anyway subdued or watered down by the medium it is presented in.  It is the very power of God.  Printed ink on pages holds the precious message, as do spoken words, as do pixels on a screen, as do tablets of stone.  

Confusing preference and worldview is a bit dangerous.  The assertion that medium guides and influences worldview I could swallow if it were in regard to anything other than the Bible.  But the Bible contains God Himself, the glorious Gospel.  

It is a message that cannot be bound by medium.  No, it cannot even be influenced by medium.  If it is the unadulterated message and Word of God, medium is of no consequence.  That is the beauty and power of the Word.  

The worldview of the hearer is already in place when he is using an iPod to read God’s Word.  As is the worldview of the person reading it in ink.  

The medium doesn’t shape the worldview, it is an indicator of it.  

And the power of the Word of God reaches through that medium to radically transform both the worldview of the one reading pixels and the one reading ink.  Whether I read it on a screen or a page these words contain the same persuasive swaying power, “God demonstrated His love for us in this: while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”

So, as much as I love Challies’ blog, I’ll go ahead and say it: bring your ipod to church and let the Word of God in pixels transform your iPod-loving worldview.  And bring your printed bible to church and let the Word of God in ink transform your ink-loving worldview.  

The Word of God has the power to shape and change our worldview and will not be influenced by or secondary to pixels or paper or preferences.

**I am looking forward to hearing his next article on the topic.  I went ahead and responded to this first one because I had some foundational disagreements.  But I’m willing to listen and be open to his forthcoming arguments for the negatives of an ipod Bible in church.  I could agree that the ipod Bible might be distracting and would entertain not using it for that reason, but that isn’t the premise he’s working with.

What say you?  Do you read the Bible on your ipod or blackberry?  Do you think doing this has influenced your worldview in “understanding of the reality of those words”?

what do you dream for your kids?

We all have hopes for our kids.  

Mine are very big and very small at the same time.

I want big things: that they will know God, love God, serve and worship God and His Son Jesus.

And on the smaller side, I want them just to be better than me.  I want them to master the things I’m not mastering.  I want them to be a better spouse, a better parent, a better person, than I am.  

The hardest and surest way to that happening is for me to be better than I am, by God’s grace.

And probably the majority of my parenting (75%?) is fear-based (mostly God-fearing, but some man-fearing too).  I parent to avoid what I don’t want them to be.  With fear and trembling I realize that without God’s grace and His strong tools of discipline, instruction, and love (ie their parents) my kids will be left to themselves and their sin nature.  

I want to keep parenting in fear (the Godly, right kind).  But I also want to dream great and Godly dreams for my kids.  I want to expect the best and be ready for God’s blessings in their lives.  He is a good God.  He gives good gifts to His children.  

It’s ok to eagerly hope for and expect God’s working in their lives.  And dream big dreams for them.

What are your fears and dreams for your kids?

what should a pro-life Christian think about abortionist George Tiller’s murder?

It’s a sad story.

Late-term abortionist George Tiller was gunned down and killed at his church on Sunday.

It shouldn’t have happened.

But what’s a Christian to think about such an event?  We fight for saving the lives of those George Tiller killed: the unborn.  Now he will kill them no more.  How should we be feeling?  Should we put that all aside and pretend he was a normal guy?

No, Christian, you shouldn’t ignore the fact that he was a baby-killer and feign outrage because you sense that if you don’t, the pro-life movement will be doomed (although you’d be right, it would be doomed if we weren’t truly outraged).  

Christians should be outraged, for many reasons.  And we shouldn’t ignore any of the outrageous parts of this story.

Here’s a look at how things should have gone, or put another way, things to be (rightly) outraged about:

1) George Tiller should have been forced to stop practicing abortion, or killing babies, long ago, by the gov’t., whose primary job it is to protect and defend the people (especially the littlest and weakest ones) of our country.

2) If George Tiller had refused the gov’t's demands and continued to kill innocent human life, he should have been put in prison or even faced capital punishment, where the law deemed that the correct course.

If that had been done, hundreds (thousands?) of babies would then have been spared his murdering, profit-hungry hand.  

3) A Kansas man should not have taken the law into his own hands in order to try and right this unspeakable wrong.  George Tiller was a law-abiding citizen, even though I believe he was a murderer.  And Tiller’s wrongs have not been righted by the Kansas man’s murderous act.  

The wrong has simply been added to.

It is a sad story indeed.

So, Christian, don’t pretend that because George Tiller was murdered that he was not a murderer himself.  And don’t think for one second his being a murderer in anyway justifies or mitigates his own unjust death.

 It doesn’t.  

His was a death wrought by a murderer apart from law or sanction.  Laws matter.  Laws matter to Christians.  We obey the law.  There is only one thing that would keep a Christian from obeying the law and that would be a law that would keep us from our worship of the Lord.  

We are not there yet, by God’s grace.

We walk a fine line, Christian pro-lifer.  We must cling to all we know of Christ.  We must do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.  

We must heartily condemn the murdering of George Tiller, even while we acknowledge his murderous ways and pray that those like him will become outlawed in our land.