Another year

I put the garden to bed for the winter the other day. After a cool fall, the last few weeks were unseasonally warm. We had a hard frost in September, two weeks earlier than normal and a month earlier than last year. Then, it stayed cold for a while before warming up.

They say that Halloween was the warmest in 22 years! And my Brussels sprouts loved it, as did my kale. I had forgotten to pull out the growing tip on the Brussels sprouts at the end of August. You do that to stop the plant from putting all its energy into growing taller; it redirects that energy into fattening up the existing sprouts. I didn't do it until the frost, so three-to-four weeks late. I figured I wouldn't get very many this year. But, the warmer weather in late October and early November sure helped! I ended up with over double what I thought I was going to get! (You can leave them on the stock until late December–early January, but I usually harvest them in early November in case of snow—the garden gate won't open once it snows.)

The only thing in the garden now is some late-planted kale that I'll keep harvesting for my soup each day until snow blocks the garden gate. It might survive the winter and be around for early spring; that's happened before. But, I don't count on it and start some in the basement in March to transplant in April. Meanwhile, I've frozen enough to keep me supplied until May.

In general, it was a good garden year. I froze sufficient broccoli, beans, tomatoes, summer squash, and bok choi for the winter. We ate more than our fill of peas fresh off the vine; the raspberries gave us enough to eat, but not enough to freeze. I have onions and garlic enough for most, if not the whole winter. We ended up with around twenty delicata, so we'll be eating that until the end of December. I have rhubarb in the freezer, too, for some nice tart rhubarb sauce on a cold winter morning.

So, the garden to bed, last night I started looking through the latest Johnny's catalog, making a list of stuff I need to try or reorder. Next, I'll go through Fedco's catalog and compare. I like to order my seeds before January—for two reasons: (1) to avoid stock-outs in the spring (this year my green beans were back-ordered until just before planting date; I was concerned), and (2) so I can start stuff in the basement in March.

I also like to order from other seed companies, like Baker Creek, and a few others I can't recall right now.

A hymn for a Thursday in November

I'm having a lot of fun randomly reading through this 1870 Methodist hymnal. Here's one that jumped out at me today, under the heading of "His Priesthood and Intercession":

158 C. M.
King of kings and Lord of lords.

THE head that once was crown’d with thorns,
   Is crown’d with glory now;
   A royal diadem adorns
   The mighty Victor’s brow.

2 The highest place that heaven affords,
   Is to our Jesus given;
   The King of kings, and Lord of lords,
   He reigns o’er earth and ‘heaven—-

3 The joy of all who dwell above,
   The joy of all below,
   To whom he manifests his love,
   And grants his Name to know.

4 To them the cross, with all its shame,
   With all its grace, is given;
   Their name—an everlasting name,
   Their joy—the joy of heaven.

5 They suffer with their Lord below,-——
   They reign with him above;
   Their everlasting joy to know
   The myst’ry of his love.

The more things change

The more they stay the same. Take, for example, these verses from Revelation 16:

and they cursed the name of the God who had power over these plagues. But they didn’t change their hearts and lives and give him glory.… and they cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and sores; but they didn’t turn away from what they had done.… They cursed God… (Rev 16:9b, 11, 21b, CEB)

Nope, nothing has changed. Blame God, but don't change your life. How's that working for you? Yeah, that's what I thought. It never has worked.

Consider repenting—changing your heart and mind, as the Common English Bible translates it.

Friday's hymn

As I mentioned the other day, I've been randomly reading in an 1870 Methodist hymnal lately. You can see why most of them haven't survived in today's hymnals, but there are some real gems of theology in most of them. Today's is one of them.

483 C. M.

The good pleasure of his will.

I KNOW that my Redeemer lives,
And ever prays for me:
A token of his love he gives,—
A pledge of liberty.

2 I find him lifting up my head;
He brings salvation near;
His presence makes me free indeed,
And he Will soon appear.

3 He wills that I should holy be!
What can withstand his will?
The counsel of his grace in me
He surely shall fulfil.

4 Jesus, I hang upon thy word;
I steadfastly believe
Thou wilt return, and claim me, Lord,
And to thyself receive.

5 When God is mine, and I am his,
Of paradise possess'd
I taste unutterabie bliss,
And everlasting rest.

By the way, in case you don't know what the notations are next to the hymn number: In the old hymn books they don't have music, just lyrics. Nowadays a hymn usually has become attached to a particular tune, but back then, they would just use one that had the same meter. And the tunes also had names (even in today's hymnals, you can usually see the tune name and composer listed). So, to use today's as an example: It is C.M., which means common meter, so the music leader would say, let's sing hymn number 483 to (some tune with a common meter, like "O, For a Thousand Tongues to Sing"). Another common one is L.M., which means long meter, or S.M., which means short meter. You can find a short explanation on this Wiki page, explaing what the poetic feet are, if you're into that. The hymnbook I'm reading has about thirty "peculiar meters." I'm not sure where they list what those are, but an experienced music leader in those days would know them.

Lord, haste the day!

Reading in Revelation this morning and this verse jumped out at me:

And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea—I heard everything everywhere say,

“Blessing, honor, glory, and power
belong to the one seated on the throne
and to the Lamb
forever and always.” Rev 5:13 (CEB)

Note that it says "everything, everywhere" is praising God. Lord, haste the day!

Necessary but not sufficient

There's a saying that I learned while I was a manager, "Necessary, but not sufficient." It means that without that quality/substance/whatever, the business won't function. But, that by itself is not sufficient. You need that plus something else.

Scot McKnight posted a devotional excerpt on John 2 from his next book. He ends with this paragraph:

Why did Jesus refuse to commit himself to these people? Because he perceived like no other what was in humans (2:25). His signs divide the audiences (9:16; 11:45-48; 12:37). Some surrender to him because of signs (2:11; 3:2; 6:2; 20:30-31); others accept the reality of the miracle but do not see through it to the identity of Jesus; yet others repudiate him completely. To see his miracles as signs one must perceive the identity of Jesus beyond the material miracle itself. One could say then that sign-faith is a first but not final step in the journey of true faith (Thompson, John, 67–68). True faith abides over time in trusting Jesus who abides over time in nurturing the believer.

In other words, necessary, but not sufficient. I fear that's where a lot of "signs and wonders" Christians are at. They see the signs and wonders, and they believe them, but don't press on further to the point of abiding in Christ. They sit by the door, admiring, but don't go "further up and further in" to quote from The Last Battle.

It would make an intersting DMin project for someone to follow up on those who were converted via a signs and wonders presentation and see what percentage stuck with the faith. And then compare it with a control group who were converted via a mass presentation like a Billy Graham crusade.

The Billy Graham people used to say that less than 5 percent of the "decisions" made at a crusade stuck. Do you think the number would be higher in a signs and wonders presentation?

I honestly don't know.

Both or neither

Written well over a century ago, but still true (sadly, and not just England!). From Wilde's A Woman of No Importance:

if a man and woman have sinned, let them both go forth into the desert to love or loathe each other there. Let them both be branded. Set a mark, if you wish, on each, but don’t punish the one and let the other go free. Don’t have one law for men and another for women. You are unjust to women in England. And till you count what is a shame in a woman to be an infamy in a man, you will always be unjust, and Right, that pillar of fire, and Wrong, that pillar of cloud, will be made dim to your eyes, or be not seen at all, or if seen, not regarded.

Hymn for a Tuesday

484 C. M.
The believer's rest.

LORD, I believe a rest remains
To all thy people known;
A rest where pure enjoyment reigns,
And thou art loved alone:

2 A rest where all our soul’s desire
Is fix’d on things above;
Where fear, and sin, and grief expire,
Cast out by perfect love.

3 O that I now the rest might know,
Believe, and enter in:
Now, Saviour, now the power bestow,
And let me cease from sin.

4 Remove this hardness from my heart;
This unbelief remove:
To me the rest of faith impart,—
The Sabbath of thy love.
(Charles Wesley, 1840)

Hymn for "the Lord's day"

701 C. M.
Safety in union

JESUS, great Shepherd of the sheep
To thee for help we fly:
Thy little flock in safety keep,
For O! the wolf is nigh.

2 He comes, of hellish malice full,
To scatter, tear, and slay;
He seizes every straggling soul
As his own lawful prey.

3 Us into thy protection take,
And gather with thine arm;
Unless the fold we first forsake,
The wolf can never harm.

4 We laugh to scorn his cruel power,
While by our Shepherd’s side;
The sheep he never can devour,
Unless he first divide.

5 O do not suffer him to part
The souls that here agree;
But make us of one mind and heart,
And keep us one in thee.

6 Together let us sweetly live,—
Together let us die;
And each a starry crown receive,
And reign above the sky.
(Charles Wesley; from Methodist Hymns, 1870)

Hymn for the day

I have a small, saddlebag-sized Methodist hymnal from 1870 (the 1848 edition) that the local bookstore gave me a while back. I've been reading a hymn or two a day out of it for about a week. Today I ran across this one. I hope you enjoy it.

126 26th P. M. '76, '76, 76, 76.
The glory of His kingdom.

HAIL, to the Lord’s anointed,
Great David’s greater Son!
Hail, in the time appointed,
His reign on earth begun!
He comes to break oppression,——-
To set the captive free;
To take away transgression,
And rule in equity.

2 He comes, with succour speedy
To those who suffer wrong;
To help the poor and needy,
And bid the Weak be strong;
To give them songs for sighing,——
Their darkness turn to light,
Whose souls, condemn’d and dying,
Were precious in his sight.

3 He shall descend like showers
Upon the fruitful earth,
And love and joy, like flowers,
Spring in his path to birth:
Before him, on the mountains,
Shall peace, the herald, go,
And righteousness, in fountains,
From hill to Valley flow.

4 To him shall prayer unceasing,
And daily vows ascend;
His kingdom still increasing,-—
A kingdom without end:
The tide of time shall never
His covenant remove;
His name shall stand forever;
That name to us is Love.
(by James Montgomery, 1821)

Morning praise

The other day I woke up with this hymn running through my mind:

1 When morning gilds the sky,
our hearts awaking cry:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
in all our work and prayer
we ask his loving care:¹
May Jesus Christ be praised!

2 To God, the Word on high,
the hosts of angels cry:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Let mortals too upraise
their voices in hymns of praise:
May Jesus Christ be praised!

3 Let earth's wide circle round
in joyful notes resound:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Let air and sea and sky
from depth to height reply:
May Jesus Christ be praised!

4 Be this, when day is past,
of all our thoughts the last:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
The night becomes as day
when from the heart we say:
May Jesus Christ be praised!

5 Then let us join to sing
to Christ, our loving King:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Be this the eternal song
through all the ages long:
May Jesus Christ be praised!

¹ The United Methodist Hymnal has "To Jesus I repair," which I like better, but maybe that's because I grew up singing it that way. My favorite hymnal is The Book of Hymns, copyright 1964, 1966 and published by the Board of Publication of The Methodist Church, where it occurs as #91. (This is the hymnal that has "O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing" as #1; the hymnal I remember the most has "Holy, Holy, Holy" as #1, but I don't have that one anymore; it fell apart many years ago.)

There's a bit of history on this translation here. The lyrics shown above are from hymnary.org, which also offers a bit of background on the translator.

As an aside, this time of year, morning gilds the sky pretty late; today the sun rose at 7:41, and according to my weather app, dawn was at 7:13. But because of the bluff out our back window, it doesn't actually start looking like dawn until about 7:30.

James 1:5

The word order in the Greek of James 1:5 has always fascinated me. It just doesn't come across very well in any English translation. But, today I was reading it in the Common English Bible and it jumped out at me. I've read it in the CEB multiple times, but for some reason today I realized it did the best job of any of catching the nuance of the Greek word order. Enjoy!

But anyone who needs wisdom should ask God, whose very nature is to give to everyone without a second thought, without keeping score. Wisdom will certainly be given to those who ask.

Jesus loves me, but…

I follow Seedbed. Among other things, they have a daily devotional. Today's really spoke to me. Here's the relevant paragraph that I found the most meaningful, but as always, do read the whole thing.

Jesus’s awareness of and attention to us precedes our awareness of and attention to him. In fact, the former is what germinates and generates the latter. His love for us precedes our love for him and for others. This is perhaps the most fundamental place of our brokenness. We can imagine Jesus’s awareness of, attention to, and love for someone else, just not for ourselves. This is what fuels all striving—the deep-seated, distorted belief that we must do something to generate Jesus’s awareness of us and to win his attention to us. Most, if not all, of this comes from our broken family systems. We carry a deeply ingrained and even generational belief that the attention, affection, and secure attachment of our parents is the fruit of our striving, achievement, and advancement in life.

<idle musing>
That hits pretty close to home, doesn't it? God loves everyone unconditionally, but… God is in control, but…

I read somewhere, many years ago, about the "holy but"—where we state a scriptural truth, and then immediately qualify it with "but…" That's just plain unadulterated unbelief.

There's other good stuff in that little post, so do go and read it. Just an
</idle musing>

A Warning

Seedbed has been excerpting from Jack Deere’s new book. Today’s pointed out something I never noticed before in 1 Sam 18.10.

The next day an evil spirit from God came forcefully on Saul. He was prophesying in his house, while David was playing the lyre, as he usually did. Saul had a spear in his hand and he hurled it, saying to himself, “I’ll pin David to the wall.” But David eluded him twice. 1 Samuel 18:10–11

Did you catch that? I had to check the Hebrew and other translations to make sure he got it correct. He did. Saul was prophesying in a bad/evil spirit!

The excerpt also has some good advice on other stuff, even if you don’t especially believe in the way modern “prophets” act, which would be yours truly. I firmly believe in the gift of prophecy and that it is active today; I think I’ve even experienced it personally. But, the more I see it being used/weaponized today, the more I think 1 Sam 18.10 is a good warning...

By the way, the first time I experienced the Spirit give me a prophetic word, the Lord also directed me to Jeremiah 28, specifically Jer 28:17 (look it up). It was a warning that I've never forgotten. Hananiah gave a false prophecy with national ramifications—and he died for it later that year. May today's crop of "prophets" take heart.

Seventeen years!

Saturday marked seventeen years of blogging, all on Blogger, all under "Idle musings of a bookseller." I've posted over six thousand times; deleted only two of the posts that I put up (although I probably should have deleted a lot more!), and seen most bloggers that I followed either quit or migrate to either Facebook or Twitter, which is too bad. I miss their voices (I don't do social media).

And I've been less consistent in blogging this year. For a while I even considered quitting. I still might. My posts get read by fewer and fewer. But, if that's why I'm blogging, then I should quit! It shouldn't be about who reads or doesn't read them. Plus, I find it a handy "day book" for thoughts. And I, at least, refer to my copyediting post quite frequently. It's sometimes easier than consulting and digging through CMS or SBLHS2.

Promise for some, trouble for others

Those who pay close attention to the poor are truly happy!
    The Lord rescues them during troubling times.
2 The Lord protects them and keeps them alive;
    they are widely regarded throughout the land as happy people.
    You won’t hand them over to the will of their enemies.
3 The Lord will strengthen them when they are lying in bed, sick.
    You will completely transform the place where they lie ill. Ps 41:1–3 CEB

<idle musing>
And that's not an isolated example, either. The Bible is full of concern for the poor, the widow, and the orphan. But, if you listen to the spokepeople for the modern US evangelical movement, you wouldn't know it, would you?

Fear, while it might sell and motivate people to your cause, clouds your vision. You start seeing enemies where there aren't any. You start closing people out and excluding them. Fear consumes you and doesn't give anything back. Fear will kill you.

Love, on the other hand, sees needs and meets them. Sees problems and helps solve them. Love cares about people—yes, even "those" people, whoever "those" might be. As John says, love casts out all fear. And, as Paul says, love never fails and never passes away.
</idle musing>

Writing history

Ancient history is a messy, uncertain enterprise. We cannot claim to be revealing the definitive, objective truth about the past. Rather, as my graduate mentor Bill Murnane told me, we are having an ongoing conversation, offering up a “best guess” about what may have been and how it might have occurred. We must accept that most of the distant past is lost to us, and be thankful for what we have.—Ramesses II, Egypt's Ultimate Pharaoh, x–xi (forthcoming)

Differences between CMS and SBLHS in multiple authors

This is a reminder to myself more than anything, but you might find it helpful. This is for bibliographies, not notes!

First, CMS (§14.76):
1. For books/articles with up to six authors/editors, list them all.
2. For books/article with more than six authors/editors, list the first three and then et al.

SBLHS2 handles things a bit differently (§6.2.3):
1. All names are generally listed in the bibliography—but…
2. Using et al. following the first author's name is permissible.

With some of these archaeological articles that have forty-two or more authors, I think I'll go with option 2 if I'm following SBLHS2!

Table of contents for copyediting stuff.

Updated as an afterthought:
One publisher I work for has a general rule of thumb that if the list of authors is more than ten, they use et al. I think that's a handy one and I use it when following SBLHS2, regardless of the publisher, unless their style sheet says otherwise.

Am I Balaam?

Recently, I was given the opportunity to copyedit a manuscript that they were willing to pay me almost double my normal rate. I heard the Lord say that it wasn't for me. It wasn't that the manuscript was bad or wrong, and it was even in an area that I have an interest in. It was just not for me.

But, I struggled to turn it down. Why? Because of the pay. Bottom line. Was I going to follow the example of Balaam, and go for the gold? Or would I obey?

Again, let me say that the analogy is not direct. Balaam was asked to do something wrong. There was nothing "wrong" with the manuscript. It was a matter of obedience, nothing more (this sentence is doing a lot of work!).

Long story short: After a bit of struggle, I said no.

I hadn't become Balaam, but I can now understand his struggle a bit better.

Another reason to restrict hand guns

I haven’t even mentioned the biggest example of how our inability to understand suicide costs lives: roughly 40,000 Americans commit suicide every year, half of whom do so by shooting themselves. Handguns are the suicide method of choice in the United States—and the problem with that, of course, is that handguns are uniquely deadly. Handguns are America’s town gas. What would happen if the U.S. did what the British did, and somehow eradicated its leading cause of suicide [coal gas/town gas]? It’s not hard to imagine. It would uncouple the suicidal from their chosen method. And those few who were determined to try again would be forced to choose from far-less-deadly options, such as overdosing on pills, which is fifty-five times less likely to result in death than using a gun. A very conservative estimate is that banning handguns would save 10,000 lives a year, just from thwarted suicides. That’s a lot of people.—Talking to Strangers, 276 note

No real conflict

That means, however, that there are points of conflict between Christian faith, understood as a worldview, a metaphysical vision of reality, and certain theories proposed and even claimed as knowledge by scientists and philosophers. None of those, however, are necessary, provable, or certain. And Christian scholars, working within Christian organizations dedicated to Christian faith as a worldview, ought to avoid teaching them as truth insofar as they actually do conflict with and undermine it. What it does not mean is that every interpretation of the Bible or traditional belief held by Christians is sacrosanct and impervious to criticism and need for revision in light of the material facts of science and logic. Faith-learning integration depends on Christians holding lightly to traditional beliefs and interpretations that are not crucial to the metaphysical vision of reality required by the biblical story.—The Essentials of Christian Thought, 248 (emphasis original)

<idle musing>
And therein lies the rub, doesn't it? Far too many people hang onto their interpretation of the Bible as what the Bible must say, little realizing how culturally conditioned it is. And that's where a liberal arts education is so important—as is the willingness to be instructed. And, most importantly, to listen to the Holy Spirit in a humble, teachable way.
</idle musing>

Oops!

I forgot about the appendix. There are two good snippets there. Here's the first; the second will appear tomorrow. Enjoy!

There is no necessary conflict between faith in revelation and proper use of reason; conflicts between faith and philosophy arise when philosophy claims to answer life’s ultimate questions relying on reason alone. Brunner’s whole point was that there is nothing essentially, necessarily wrong with secular reasoning in science and philosophy in and of themselves; where they go wrong and create conflicts with Christian truth is in their hubris, their tendency to place sole faith in reason alone and forget that, for example, reason alone, including both science and philosophy, cannot answer life’s ultimate questions (including about evil).

What it all comes down to, then, is that the integration of faith and learning does not preclude genuine scientific (wissenschaftlich) research or real philosophical analysis and even speculation—so long as these do not claim absoluteness, overstep their boundaries, or make metaphysical claims that cannot be proven and conflict with essential elements of the Christian view of life and reality rooted in revelation.—The Essentials of Christian Thought, 248

Free!

In the biblical story, then, humans are damaged goods. Their nature is good because it was created by God in his own image and likeness with a supernatural destiny, but they are damaged by their own infidelity to God’s calling and purpose for them. They are responsible for their damaged condition, not because they violate reason with rebellion, but because they devise rebellion in their hearts and their minds, and actions follow the disposition their hearts have created. Tresmontant, Cherbonnier, Brunner, and others intent on going back to the source—the biblical story—for Christian metaphysics and anthropology agree that responsibility requires freedom. Cherbonnier spoke for all of them (and numerous other Christian thinkers) when he wrote that

The Bible consistently acknowledges human freedom. It is presupposed by all its key words, such as sin, repentance, forgiveness, love, and covenant. Consequently, though not intentionally philosophical, it contains by inference what is probably the most thorough understanding ever written of what it means to be a free agent.

According to Brunner, freedom and responsibility together comprise the “formal image of God” not destroyed by or lost in the fall of humanity into sin. He distinguished this from the “material image,” which he defined as “right relationship with God.” Sin, beginning freely in the heart, alienates the human person (and all of humanity in general) from God against reason. Therefore, the material image is forfeited responsibly. But the formal image can never be destroyed; it is why the human person is able to hear and believe the Word of God and it is what makes him or her full of dignity and value above the rest of creation.—The Essentials of Christian Thought, 212–13 (emphasis original)

<idle musing>
That's the final snippet from this book. I hope you enjoyed it. As I said back at the beginning, the book is a very good introduction in that it assumes very little knowledge of theology. Consequently, if you do know something, it can feel redundant at times. And there were times I wish he had gone a bit deeper—but that's not the book he set out to write! He wrote an introduction to Christian thinking. And using that as the standard, he did a very good job.

I highly recommend it to anyone desiring to understand what it means to "think Christianly" about life. If you haven't also read The Universe Next Door, by James Sire (now in its 6th edition!), then I recommend you read that and this book in order to get a better view of what a Christian worldview looks like.

Of course, once you've read both those books, then you should jump into Brunner : ) But that's just an
</idle musing>

Meritocracy in the university setting

The Atlantic has an interesting article about the myth of meritocracy in the university setting. It got me to thinking. Read the article to understand my

<idle musing>

No doubt a mixed bag, at best. I’m not sure where I stand. Both my parents taught at a state university, but hardly an elite one; my dad regularly gives to his alma mater, a state school. I went to multiple undergraduate schools: University of Wisconsin-Stout, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Asbury College (now University), as well as graduate schools: Asbury Seminary, University of Kentucky, and University of Chicago. I regularly receive donation requests from about half of them. I’ve never given, feeling my cash goes further in supporting homeless shelters, etc., than in supporting the already upper-middle-class attendees of those schools.

But, I wonder if I believe in meritocracy? I think I do, to an extent. But, I also have no doubt that there is someone currently working a low-paying job who, with the options I had would be much better than I am at what I do. There was a study back in the 1980s (I forget now where I read it—it was years ago) where some college professors went into the inner city and ran a summer program for disadvantaged youth and uncovered multiple people with genius-level intelligence who would never get the opportunity to develop it because of cultural limitations. And the current admissions scandals don’t exactly encourage belief in meritocracy, do they?

I had read elsewhere about the just-world hypothesis. I see it, but NIMBY tendencies keep anything from happening to fix it. Common good seems to be a diminishing commodity : (

Just a Sunday morning
</idle musing>

Both and

Most thoughtful Christians, reflecting on the biblical story, would say that God’s purpose for creation is both to display his glory and to display his love. However, inquiring minds tend to move in one direction or the other—as the controlling or main purpose. Those in the Augustinian-Calvinist tradition tend to read Scripture as emphasizing God’s glory and power and the world as the place for displaying them. The result can be an interpretation of everything in the world, even evil, as purposed by God for his glory. Those in the Arminian-Wesleyan tradition (and also going back to the Greek church fathers before Augustine!) tend to read Scripture as emphasizing God’s love and desire for relationship and the world as the place for experiencing them. The result can be a softening of God’s lordship and a sentimentalizing of God as needing the world for his own fulfillment. The solution, of course, is to hold the two purposes of God in creation together in tension.The Essentials of Christian Thought, 192 (emphasis original)

<idle musing>
I tend (who am I kidding—I do!) read scripture through the Wesleyan-Arminian lens. But, I don't soften God's lordship! God created the world because he wanted to, not because of any need on his part!

And, the fact that prior to Augustine's arguments w/Pelagius, no church father (or mother) read it through a predestinarian lens just confirms in my mind that it is the correct one. But that's just an
</idle musing>

Stop it!

And God intends to liberate the world from this “bondage to decay,” which is evidence of God’s continuing care for creation. In the meantime, humans live out their likeness to God by having dominion over the world, which means nurturing it, not dominating and exploiting it. The ecological crisis, insofar as it is humankind’s doing, which science indicates it is, is a violation of the ethical implications of the biblical narrative even if caused partly by Christians. Christianity itself, understood as what the Bible reveals about God and the world, forbids rape of the environment.—The Essentials of Christian Thought, 189

But don't worship it!

Ethically, then, the point of the creation story of Genesis and the entire Bible’s witness is the call to care for God is good creation while avoiding worshiping it. Idolatry is a major theme of the biblical narrative; it is the very root of sin and evil—setting creation or some part of creation up as God and worshiping it is wrong because God alone is Lord and creation belongs to him. At the same time, denigrating nature or any part of it as evil and/or exploiting it is wrong because it belongs to God and caring for it is part of what it means to be human.—The Essentials of Christian Thought 188 (emphasis original)

<idle musing>
And this is the flipside of Friday's post. We don't exploit, but we don't worship creation either. We are stewards, called to care for it.
</idle musing>

Stop the exploitation!

God’s assignment of the human to have dominion never hints at permission to exploit, let alone ruin, nature; it remains part of the “image and likeness of God” and there is a call to care for creation and be God’s created cocreator in restoring it to its original intention.—The Essentials of Christian Thought, 188

<idle musing>
Indeed. I have never understood the mindset that thinks that because it is all going to go up in smoke anyway, let's assist in the destruction. From the time I was young, I was taught to conserve nature, to treat it with respect, to leave things better than I found them.
</idle musing>

And the greatest of these is…

All of this presupposes something that sets biblical-Christian metaphysics radically apart from other belief systems about ultimate reality. Tresmontant stated it most concisely: “Christianity is a metaphysic of love." This is something speculative reason alone cannot know about ultimate reality—that its very being is love. And this is the reason behind and Within God’s self-limitations, self-determinations, and self—actualizations: God’s being as being-for-others. Does that mean, then, that God must create to have “others” to love? Not at all. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity, itself rooted in biblical narrative, even necessitated by it, means that God’s creative activity, including his self-limitations in relation to creatures, is a free expression of the fullness of the love between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in eternity. If God were not triune, however, then creation would be necessary for God insofar as God is conceived as love.—The Essentials of Christian Thought 169 (emphasis original)

So, can God really change his mind?

Classical Christian theism, born in the cauldron of philosophized Christianity in the second and third centuries in the Roman Empire, reached its zenith in Anselm and Aquinas. Aquinas agreed that God, being absolute and ultimate in terms of reality, cannot change in any way and therefore cannot suffer—including feeling emotions such as compassion and sympathy. But classical Christian theism is not limited to early or medieval Christian thought; it still has its defenders in the twenty—first century in spite of being embattled. Very few Christian theologians except out-and-out liberal Protestants (e.g., process theologians) reject classical Christian theism entirely. Rather, following Dorner—a pioneer in attempting to return the Christian doctrine of God to biblical thought, separating it from Greek metaphysics that conflicts with that——many simply want to adjust Christian metaphysics “back to the Bible.” Most, this writer included, gladly affirm broad areas of agreement between the best of Greek philosophical theology and biblical revelation of God. At the same time, however, together with Dorner, Brunner, Cherbonnier, and other Christian critics of classical theism, I believe it important to base Christian metaphysics on the biblical narrative and not allow Greek or any other metaphysical thought to draw it away into extrabiblical speculation.—The Essentials of Christian Thought, 132

What do you believe?

The biblical narrative holds within itself an original, organic, synoptic worldview that answers life’s ultimate questions differently than numerous alternatives—most of which are still swimming around in our pluralistic culture and too often being soaked in by Christians and inappropriately mixed and mingled eclectically with their own native, biblical—Christian worldview.—The Essentials of Christian Thought, 82

<idle musing>
This is the foundational thesis of the book: There is a biblical metaphysic, and it is discernable. And that biblical metaphysic does not align with most secular metaphysics. Despite the fact that most Christians seem to think they can adopt whatever metaphysic they want, that is not a true Christian metaphysic.

I would say that most US Christians, of whatever variety, are default natualists in their metaphysic. They might say that they believe in God and Christ—they may even pray—but their default way of life betrays them. They don't really expect God to "show up." And when he does, they are surprised.

If you pray and don't expect to see an answer, what does that say about your faith? Or, worse yet, you don't bother because you think it's too trivial for God's attention, what does that say about your faith?

Ponder that as we continue through the book…
</idle musing>

About that unmoved mover of yours…

A most interesting narrative in Isaiah is about God’s responsiveness to a king’s plea to extend his life (chapter 38). God sends the prophet to inform King Hezekiah of his impending death. The king begs God for more years of life and God listens and relents, changing what he decreed would happen, giving Hezekiah fifteen more years to live (38:5). Again, this is often chalked up to anthropomorphic speech by philosophically minded interpreters who bring to the text baggage borrowed from extrabiblical philosophies. According to most extrabiblical metaphysical schemes, ultimate reality cannot be affected by finite beings. Plato’s “Form of the Good,” Aristot1e’s “Unmoved Mover” and “Thought thinking itself,” Hegel’s “Absolute Spirit”—a1l are incapable of changing his (or its) mind in response to events in time, space, and history. But God, the ultimate being, the absolute person of biblical revelation, is intensely personal, self-limiting, and self-determining, and can voluntarily change his mind in response to his covenant partners’ pleas.—The Essentials of Christian Thought, 60

<idle musing>
The key here is "self-limiting." God is omnipotent and omniscient (and the other omni-s!), but he willingly self-limits himself to allow his creatures genuine self-determination. Truly amazing!
</idle musing>

It's personal!

The Bible presents a different picture of ultimate reality than extrabiblical, rational, speculative metaphysics. It elevates personhood (as described earlier) to ultimacy: the source of all finite reality, of nature and all it contains, is revealed as irreducibly personal and not just an impersonal (or even suprapersonal) force, power, or principle. Can reason alone establish this? Perhaps not. But one deleterious effect of depicting ultimate reality as impersonal is the demeaning of personal reality, of relationship and community, and a tendency to elevate as “like the ultimate” the isolated, static, unchangeable individual.—The Essentials of Christian Thought, 56

How do you describe ultimate reality?

I've been reading through Roger Olson's The Essentials of Christian Thought recently. As I said to a friend, it's a good book, but at times a bit redundant, as he wants to make sure his reader understands what he is trying to say. It would make a good introductory text paired with something like The Universe Next Door, a book he references. He also, to his credit, frequently cites Emil Brunner, probably the best twentieth century theologian (as you know if you have been reading this blog for very long, I prefer Brunner and Bonhoeffer to Barth).

I'll be excerpting from the book for the next two to three weeks. Here's the first one:

Nothing could be clearer to the unbiased Bible reader than that it depicts ultimate reality as not a thing or object or mere force or power but as someone who thinks, deliberates, acts, enters into relationships with others, and has freedom to determine himself. And it depicts ultimate reality—that which is beyond appearance, upon which all else depends, the source of all that is—as more than nature, not part of nature, even the author of nature who is free to intervene in it. What words are better suited to describe such an ultimate reality than personal and supernatural—even if they are inadequate and problematic?—The Essentials of Christian Thought, 54 (emphasis original)

Thought for today

This is the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were proud, had plenty to eat, and enjoyed peace and prosperity; but she didn’t help the poor and the needy. (Ezek 16:49 CEB)

Let those who have ears to hear, hear!

Understatement of the year

Blurb on the back of a massive commentary (700+ pages!) on the Aeneid, book 6:

This is Horsfall's fifth large-scale commentary on the Aeneid, and as his earlier commentaries on books 7, 11, 3, and 2, this is not a commentary aimed at undergraduates.

Yep. I would say that it gives grad students a good run for their money, too!

Canoe ride!

Four weeks ago, Ryan (our son) and I took my 90-year-old dad for a canoe ride down the Red Cedar River again. Unlike last year, when the water was so low we had to do a few lift-overs, this year the only thing that happened is that Ryan missed seeing a rock and we ended up being turned around and going backward for a bit. Fortunately, it was an isolated rock, not part of a rough water section (which is probably why he missed seeing it!), so no danger.

Here are a couple of pictures.

Ready to go

On the water

Mission accomplished!

That river has many good memories for both my dad and me. We have canoed it countless times over the years, both as a family and as a scout. It's been fun the last two years to canoe it again with him. Besides, it's not every son who can say that he and his 90-year-old dad went for a canoe trip together!

Thought for the day

Your prophets gave you worthless and empty visions.
They didn’t reveal your sin so as to prevent your captivity.
Instead, they showed you worthless and incorrect prophecies. (Lamentation 2:14 CEB)

Let those who have ears to hear…

Thought for the day

4b “The Lord proclaims: I’m breaking down everything I have built up. I’m digging up that which I have planted—the entire land. 5 You seek great things for yourself, but don’t bother. I’m bringing disaster on all humanity, declares the Lord, but wherever you go I will let you escape with your life.” (Jer 45:4b–5 CEB)

Gripe

Just a comment: I don't like the new layout of WorldCat. I buries all the important information and makes it more difficult to find the various editions.

Sometimes the old terminal layout approach is better. But, I'm on the losing end of that battle and have been for years.

Sure you will…

5 Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we fail to do everything that the Lord your God tells us through you. 6 Whether we like it or not, we will obey all that the Lord our God says. We will obey the Lord our God, to whom we’re sending you, so it may go well for us.”
…
20 You are putting your lives at risk by sending me to the Lord your God, saying, “Pray for us to the Lord our God; tell us everything the Lord our God says, and we’ll do it.” 21 Today I have told you, but you still haven’t obeyed all that the Lord your God has sent me to tell you. 22 So know without a doubt that you will die by war, famine, and disease… (Jer 42:5, 20–22a CEB)

The enemy of the church

From the forthcoming Kerux commentary on Acts from Kregel (not yet posted on their website):

The great, insidious enemy of the church is not persecution but comfort, not want but plenty, not beatings and arrests but being ignored. It might be difficult for the church in free countries today to imagine the constant anxiety of immanent persecution at any moment in the apostles’ day. Our persecutions will be light in comparison.

<idle musing>
Both points are true: comfort is the enemy, and any persecution is light. The second point needs to be highlighted. Some would have you think that the sky is falling because some small discomfort has to be incurred because you identify w/Christ.

Of course, there is also the sentence that makes me cringe: I've heard people say: "I'm a Christian, so I don't have to do X," where X is something not core to the faith, but core to their comfort in the faith. As if that is a witness to the goodness of God!

The scripture is true: "As it is written: 'God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.'” (Romans 2:24 NIV, quoting from Isaiah 52:5 LXX)
</idle musing>

The year of the Jubilee (sort of)

Lots of press, largely negative, about the loan forgiveness plan announced yesterday by the Biben administration. I freely admit to not being an expert, but I agree with John Hawthorne's take, as well as the first look by Bob on Books.

Now, for those of you who whine about your loans being paid by yourself over the course of x years and not getting any forgiveness, let me share my story. I finished classroom work on a PhD in ancient Mediterranean studies in 1988 from the University of Chicago. Even with a full-ride and stipend, I still was the equivalent in today's money of over $100,000 in debt.

I couldn't find a job in my field, so I went back to warehouse work, which is what I had done during college on the breaks (among many other things!). After about three months, I got a job as a warehouse manager making the equivalent of less than $50,000. This is with two kids. We chose for Debbie to be a full-time homemaker. (Several reasons for that, some financial—she would have had to make more than the going wages to cover the overhead—and others because we both felt it was important for our kids to have someone at home for them. We don't regret that decision.)

I consolidated all my loans into a Sallie Mae one that was for thirty years. It took us twenty years to pay off the loan—and the only reason we paid it off that early was because when I got hit by a truck on my bicycle, the insurance settlement gave us an extra $10,000, which we put toward the student loan.

The irony is that up until the time the loan was paid off, I had only worked five years in an area that was related to my college education (Eisenbrauns). BUT—and this is extremely important—the skills I learned in the course of my college education enabled me to excel in the jobs I had. It enabled me to apply critical thinking to problem solving that others were stumped by. It enabled me to look at the entire picture and formulate a plan before just diving in. It enabled me to save the companies I was working for many thousands of dollars. My goal was to save the company double my salary every year in cost-savings—but not by cutting employees wages. In fact, I was always fighting for better wages for my employees, showing management that it was cheaper to pay a higher wage to avoid high turnover than it was to keep rehiring and retraining all the time. (It was an uphill battle…)

Do I wish that the loan forgiveness program had existed back then? Sure. Do I resent the fact that others are "getting off easy"? No.

Is the loan forgiveness plan perfect? No. It has many problems, but as John Hawthorne points out, it's a good start. Now we need to start improving it and taking a serious look at the whole model of higher education, as Bob on Books says.

Face it, our country has a serious problem investing in its infrastructure—people and physical infrastructure. But what else do you expect when the prevailing attitude is that of a couple of grade school kids fighting over something, saying, "Mine! Mine! Mine!"

Just an
</idle musing>

Thought for the day

11 House of Judah! This is what the Lord says:
12 House of David! The Lord proclaims:
Begin each morning by administering justice,
    rescue from their oppressor
        those who have been robbed,
    or else my anger will spread like a wildfire,
        with no one to put it out,
        because of your evil deeds.
13 I am against you,
    you who live in the valley,
        like a rock of the plain,
            declares the Lord,
    and who say, “Who will come down to attack us?
        Who will breach our fortresses?”
14 I will punish you based on what you have done,
    declares the Lord.
I will set your forests on fire;
    the flames will engulf
        everything around you. (Jer 21:11–14 CEB)

<idle musing>
I'm reading through Jeremiah right now, and it is truly amazing how many times he rebukes the Judeans for their conduct. Well, let me reword that. It is amazing how many times he rebukes them for their mistreatment of the most vulnerable: the immigrant, the orphan, the widow, the day-worker (the equivalent of our hourly wage employee). Sure, he takes a few side swipes at the loose sexual morals, but that is a minor theme. Repeatedly, it is the way the most vulnerable are treated that is the focus.

I think it might be time for me to break out Heschel's The Prophets again and reread for the nth time his first chapter. It's a classic and I need to be reminded of it every so often. Do yourself a favor and grab a copy from your local bookstore (under $20) or library (it's in 1819 libraries according to WorldCat).
</idle musing>

Truly counter-cultural

From yesterday's French Press

But the call to counterculture is much more comprehensive. When the world is greedy, you are generous. When the world is cruel, you are kind. When the world is fearful, you are faithful. When the world is proud, you are humble. How do you know we’re Christian, by our love.

Yes, we say. Yes to all of this. Right until the moment when we think that our kindness, our faithfulness, or our humility carries with it a concrete political cost. We think we know what’s just, and we can’t do justice without power.

And so, in our arrogance, we think we know better than God. We can’t let kindness or humility stand in the way of justice. Yet we’re sowing the wind, and now we reap the whirlwind. The world’s most-Christian advanced nation is tearing itself apart, and its millions of believers bear much of the blame.

Do take the time to read the rest of it; it's not very long and will reward you more than watching one more TikTok video!

Thought for the day

9b If you remove the yoke from among you,
the finger-pointing, the wicked speech;
10 if you open your heart to the hungry,
and provide abundantly for those who are afflicted,
your light will shine in the darkness,
and your gloom will be like the noon.
11 The Lord will guide you continually
and provide for you, even in parched places.
He will rescue your bones.
You will be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water that won’t run dry.
12 They will rebuild ancient ruins on your account;
the foundations of generations past you will restore.
You will be called Mender of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Livable Streets. (Isa 58:9b–12 CEB)

The joys of lack of connectivity

Read this for a look at one person's experience of a week w/out internet. And how hard it was to avoid connectivity. Oh, and the joys of actually being with someone instead of connected to them virtually.

There's a lot to be said for the lack of connectivity. Used to be you could head out into the backwoods and disconnect; not anymore. It’s practically impossible to avoid it. Even the North Shore of Lake Superior has connectivity all along it now. You can lose it if you go behind the ridge, but even there, it is beginning to be found : (

I’m going on a bike trip w/Ryan (our son) and his oldest son, Samuel, this weekend. Unfortunately, there will be connectivity the whole time. So how much time will we have w/each other? And how much will the connectivity seduce us so that we don’t talk to each other?

We’ll see…

How to avoid being an abusive overseer

“The one who is in line with Paul’s charges [to the Ephesians in Acts 20] and exercises leadership graciously, eagerly, and humbly will manifest a kind of leadership that the world—with its concern for money, prestige, and power—does not know but desperately needs to know.” (William Larkin, Acts, IVPNTC [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995], 300).

Thought for the day

“Any Christianity worth its salt will be a challenge to the pocketbook, the flag, and the shrine” (William Larkin, Acts, IVPNTC [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995], 283)

Read this!

My voice isn't very large, but I feel strongly that the message in today's post by Kristin Du Mez needs to be read by everyone. Here's the paragraph that caused this post:

Scholars who study political violence often identify a period where resistance is possible, but too often during those periods, people perceive the risks as too great and end up going quiet when it matters most.

Definitely read the whole thing and ponder her message—and then live it out! Words matter. Don't demonize or dehumanize others. They are made in the image of God; they might be wrong, but they are human. They need to know the love of God through Jesus just as you and I do.

Thought for the day

From the preface to Scandalous Witness: A Little Political Manifesto for Christians, by Lee C. Camp.

For those of you old enough, it reminds me of The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again." You can see all the lyrics here. Here's the refrain:

I'll tip my hat to the new Constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

Yep. I've been around the block a few times in the last 66 years and I've learned they are correct. But, perhaps even truer, is Qohelet (Ecclesiastes):

1 Remember your creator in your prime,
before the days of trouble arrive,
and those years, about which you’ll say, “I take no pleasure in these”—
2 before the sun and the light grow dark, the moon and the stars too,
before the clouds return after the rain;
3 on the day when the housekeepers tremble and the strong men stoop;
when the women who grind stop working because they’re so few,
and those who look through the windows grow dim;
4 when the doors to the street are shut,
when the sound of the mill fades,
the sound of the bird rises,
and all the singers come down low;
5 when people are afraid of things above
and of terrors along the way;
when the almond tree blanches, the locust droops,
and the caper-berry comes to nothing;[a]
when the human goes to the eternal abode,
with mourners all around in the street;
6 before the silver cord snaps and the gold bowl shatters;
the jar is broken at the spring and the wheel is crushed at the pit;
7 before dust returns to the earth as it was before
and the life-breath returns to God who gave it.

8 Perfectly pointless, says the Teacher, everything is pointless.

12b There’s no end to the excessive production of scrolls. Studying too much wearies the body. 13 So this is the end of the matter; all has been heard. Worship God and keep God’s commandments because this is what everyone must do. 14 God will definitely bring every deed to judgment, including every hidden thing, whether good or bad. (Eccl. 12:1–7, 12b–14 CEB)

I'm not quite at the stage where the sun and light have grown dark, and I can still here the birds, and most of my teeth are intact. But, I'm on the second half of my life (at best, probably the last third or quarter), and it's all pointless aside from worshiping God.

Just an
<idle musing>

Some good advice

Allan Jacobs, a Baylor professor and author of numerous books is also a thoughtful blogger. Of late he has been addressing the digital media/always on culture and its associated problems. Today, he posted some very good advice. Here's an excerpt, but it definitely is worth your while to read the rest of the (short) post:

1. You can stop reading Twitter and Facebook, you can stop watching TV “news,” you can stop listening to loudmouthed podcasters.
2. You can change your news consumption to a weekly cycle rather than a daily – or hourly – one.
3. You can spend more time with monthly or quarterly periodicals; you can read books — even old books.
4.You can also listen to music, ideally music not served up to you algorithmically. Buy one CD or vinyl record per month and listen to it all the way through, multiple times. Retrain your attention.
5. Go outside as often as you can, ideally without devices. Work in the yard, or just walk around. Pause occasionally to take a few deep breaths. When you come back in, do not head straight for your device; instead, make a cup of tea, straighten your shelves, or pray.

This, in conjunction with his advice earlier today (reposted from a year before):

A year ago I wrote: “Wondering how to decide what to read? Here’s a simple but effective heuristic to cut down the choices significantly. Ask yourself one question: Does this writer make bank when we hate one another? And if the answer is yes, don’t read that writer.” The same rule applies to TV, radio, podcasts. If their clicks and ratings and ad revenues go up when we hate one another, flee them like the plague they are.

Yep. Don't feed the trolls; they will get bigger and eventually will be able to eat you. You deserve better than that! You were made in the image of God; don't live like you weren't!

Thought for today

10:1 Doom to those who pronounce wicked decrees,
and keep writing harmful laws
2 to deprive the needy of their rights
and to rob the poor among my people of justice;
to make widows their loot;
to steal from orphans!
3 What will you do on the day of punishment
when disaster comes from far away?
To whom will you flee for help;
where will you stash your wealth?
4 How will you avoid crouching among the prisoners
and falling among the slain?
Even so, God’s anger hasn’t turned away;
God’s hand is still extended.

13 He said, “By my own strength I have achieved it,
and by my wisdom, since I’m so clever.
I disregarded national boundaries; I raided their treasures;
I knocked down their rulers like a bull.
14 My hand found the wealth of the peoples
as if it were in a nest.
Just as one gathers abandoned eggs,
I have gathered the entire earth;
no creature fluttered a wing or opened a mouth to chirp.”

15 Will the ax glorify itself over the one who chops with it?
Or will the saw magnify itself over its user?
As if a rod could wave the one who lifts it!
As if a staff could lift up the one not made of wood!
16 Therefore, the Lord God of heavenly forces
will make the well-fed people waste away;
and among his officials,
a blaze will burn like scorching fire.
17 The light of Israel will become a fire,
its holy one a flame,
which will burn and devour
its thorns and thistles
in a single day.
18 Its abundant forest and farmland
will be finished completely,
as when a sick person wastes away;
19 its forest’s remaining trees will be no more than a child can count. Isaiah 10:1–4, 13–19 (CEB)

Thought for today

14 I hate your new moons and your festivals.
They’ve become a burden that I’m tired of bearing.
15 When you extend your hands,
I’ll hide my eyes from you.
Even when you pray for a long time,
I won’t listen.
Your hands are stained with blood.
16 Wash! Be clean!
Remove your ugly deeds from my sight.
Put an end to such evil;
17 learn to do good.
Seek justice:
help the oppressed;
defend the orphan;
plead for the widow.

18 Come now, and let’s settle this,
says the Lord.

22 Your silver has become impure;
your beer is diluted with water.
23 Your princes are rebels,
companions of thieves.
Everyone loves a bribe and pursues gifts.
They don’t defend the orphan,
and the widow’s cause never reaches them.
24 Therefore, says the Lord God of heavenly forces,
the mighty one of Israel:
Doom! I will vent my anger against my foes;
I will take it out on my enemies,
25 and I will turn my hand against you.
I will refine your impurities as with lye,
and remove all your cinders. Isa 1:14–18, 22–25 (CEB)

About those memories

On today's NIH Director's Blog there is a fascinating post about the brain and memory. One paragraph jumped out at me:

After any new memory is formed, there’s a period of up to about 24 hours during which the memory is malleable. Then, the memory tends to stabilize. But with each retrieval, the memory can be modified as it restabilizes, a process known as memory reconsolidation.

This ties in with a book I just finished reading (sorry, didn't extract from it), The Invisible Gorilla, where they cover the malleability of memory and how even those indelible memories, like 9/11, the explosion of the Challenger, JFK's assassination, are actually quite malleable and not impressed as indelibly as we would like to think.

Food for thought…

Over-exercising

This post talks about overexertion and the dangers of conflating our cultural workaholism w/athletic improvement as opposed to athletics just for the joy of doing it. Here's key paragraph, but do read the whole thing:

Of course, athletes and their coaches have known about this sort of thinking for a long time [the necessity of recovery time]. Maybe, if I had been less of an indoor cat, I would’ve learned it as a teen. Or maybe it would have been warped by the lens of competitive organized sports, and I would’ve burned out entirely and developed even worse disordered eating habits, and never have been able to do something exercise-related without feeling like I had to win, and an old and devastating injury would haunt every movement. I truly don’t know. I do know that I wasn’t ready for sports, mentally or physically, at that age. And that right now, this year, this week, I am arriving at this feeling of a very certain sort of athleticism — of being an athlete! — entirely on my own terms.

I recall one time, about 17 years ago now, being on a long 60+ mile bike ride, fighting the clock for a better average speed. I felt God nudging me and asking me if I was enjoying the ride. I wasn’t. I wasn’t noticing the world around me, which was beautiful. That’s the day I stopped recording mileage and average speed. And I started enjoying bike riding again.

That’s also why I got the Fitbit this year, to keep me from working too hard. As anyone who knows me can attest, I’m pretty intense : ) And Debbie was concerned (rightfully) that I was pushing myself too hard again. So now, I watch the heart rate, but for a different reason. And surprise, my resting heart rate has dropped because I’m not overexerting myself. There’s a parable there, I’m sure…

About plagiarism, and more…

Via Publishers Weekly, some very good thoughts that start w/plagiarism, but go into the whole process of writing and publishing. Mainly relevant to fiction writing, but transferable to writing/publishing in general.

But how to fix it?

The new Anxious Bench editor/contributor Malcolm Foley has a very good post up today: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2022/07/but-what-do-i-do-on-race-and-political-economy/

Here's an excerpt, but please, as always, read the whole thing—as a seminary professor of mine used to say, "You owe it to yourself":

The primary historical point that must drive coalitional work for racial justice is this: racism’s foundation is neither hate nor ignorance. Its foundation is the desire to dominate and exploit. Even when we do see racial antipathy manifested in hate, it is often a symptom of deeper political and economic anxieties. Because this is the case, communities ought to consider racism not in terms of thought nor in terms of discrete, hateful actions, but in terms of political economy. For the Christian, that means that recourse to the Apostle’s language about Christ breaking down walls of separation by His incarnation and resurrection is good but incomplete; it must also be coupled with the Old Testament calls to Jubilee and debt forgiveness. It is not enough for me to say that I love my neighbor; I must actually invest in their material well-being.

<idle musing>
I just finished editing an article for this fall’s Vergilius (a Classics journal about all things Vergil—what a surprise!) that takes a look at the reception of the Aeneid in the South via a novella entitled Eneus Africanus (link to Project Gutenberg). I’d never heard of the book before, but it was eye-opening.

Once the article gets published I’m going to be recommending it with evangelistic zeal (I'll post a link to it here). The bibliography alone is invaluable. even though I lived in Kentucky for six years and saw a lot of systemic racism—I worked for a moving company in the summer and on breaks among genuine rednecks (or as they were called in Kentucky, “white socks” because they always wear white socks, even with dress shoes)—this opened my eyes to places I hadn’t noticed it before.

Back to the Anxious Bench post, that was just the first in an installment. I highly recommend that you subscribe to it via your RSS feed or however you keep track of blogs. It should be highly informative, hopefully convicting!

Remember, the North was complicit to much of this—remember "sundown laws"? Basically, get out of town by sundown. And where I grew up, in the Indianhead of Wisconsin, the KKK was extremely strong in the 1920s through 1940s… There are more than a few skeletons in people's closets!
</idle musing>

A warning

Editing an article for a Classics journal (to appear later this year), and ran across this statement, which I think could also be expanded to include intertextual references (and allegorical allusions, as well!):

and the acrostic catcher always runs the risk of reeling in one too many.

Yep. Or two too many…

Divine Christology

Richard Bauckham, arguing against a late Christology that

supposes that a Christology which attributed true divinity to Jesus could not have originated within a context of Jewish monotheism. On this view, divine Christology is the result of a transition from Jewish to Hellenistic religious and, subsequently, Hellenistic philosophical, categories. Nicaea represents the triumph of Greek philosophy in Christian doctrine. This way of reading the history seems to me to be virtually the opposite of the truth. In other words, it was actually not Jewish but Greek philosophical categories which made it difficult to attribute true and full divinity to Jesus. A Jewish understanding of divine identity was open to the inclusion of Jesus in the divine identity. But Greek and Platonic understanding of the relationship of God to the world made it extremely difficult to see Jesus as more than a semi-divine being, neither truly God nor truly human. In the context of the Arian controversies, Nicene theology was essentially an attempt to resist the implications of Greek philosophical understandings of divinity and to re-appropriate, in a new conceptual context, the New Testament’s inclusion of Jesus in the unique divine identity. (Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008], 58)

Cited in a book I'm currently editing (not yet posted on the web).

Hymn for today

1 *All creatures worship God most high,
lift up your voice in earth and sky,
alleluia, alleluia!
Thou burning sun with golden beam,
thou silver moon with softer gleam,
O sing ye, O sing ye, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

2 Thou rushing wind that art so strong,
ye clouds that sail in heav’n along,
alleluia, alleluia!
Thou rising morn in praise rejoice,
ye lights of evening, find a voice,
O sing ye, O sing ye, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

3 Thou flowing water, pure and clear,
make music for thy God to hear,
alleluia, alleluia!
Thou fire so masterful and bright,
that givest all both warmth and light,
O sing ye, O sing ye, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

4 Dear mother earth, who day by day,
unfoldest blessings on our way,
alleluia, alleluia!
The flow’rs and fruits that in thee grow,
let them God’s glory also show,
O sing ye, O sing ye, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

5 And ev’ryone, with tender heart,
forgiving others, take your part,
alleluia, alleluia!
Ye who long pain and sorrow bear,
sing praise and cast on God your care,
O sing ye, O sing ye, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

6 And thou, most kind and gentle death,
waiting to hush our final breath,
alleluia, alleluia!
Thou leadest home the child of God,
as Christ before that way hath trod,
O sing ye, O sing ye, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

7 Let all things their Creator bless,
and worship God in humbleness,
alleluia, alleluia!
To God all thanks and praise belong!
Join in the everlasting song:
O sing ye, O sing ye, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

*Or, “All creatures of our God and King, / lift up your voice and with us sing” (this is the version I grew up with, from the Methodist Hymnal of 1964 [published in 1966])

Lyrics from Hymnary.org, a wonderful resource for hymn lyrics and background information on the composers, authors, and translators of hymns.

The Internet Archive vs. the American Association of Publishers

This is a case to watch. The AAP says that the IA controlled digital lending (CDL) program is a violation of copyright. IA disagrees. This one will go all the way to SCOTUS—unless one side blinks or runs out of money. Given the stakes, I doubt either will blink and the librarians are definitely able to find funding.

You can read the summary on the Publishers Weekly website.

Personally, even though I work in publishing, I’m w/the IA on CDL. And I’ll lay you money that those who work in publishing for the companies filing suit use CDL. I use it all the time to check references when I can’t find what I need in Google books or on the open internet (or don’t own it). And as much as I hate academia.edu’s commercial exploitation, it’s a wealth of information that I use all the time, as well.

Ideally, publishers would publish books at a reasonable cost so real people could afford them; they would publish e-books for libraries at a reasonable cost; and publishers would establish a 12–18 month window on posting offprints on the open web (Lockwood has an 18-month window).

No. I take that back. Ideally, information would be free and society would recognize the value of knowledge and begin to transform that knowledge into wisdom! OK, that’s probably too idealistic. But if we spent as much on non-defense-related stuff … I won’t go there.

just the idle musings of an underling in the publishing world.

Thought for the day—on education

Great post on what's going on in the perennial "education wars" on the Curmudgucation blog. The penultimate paragraph is a good riff on a (misattributed) quotation from Alexis de Tocqueville:

A nation is great because its people—its persons—have the chance to become great. Not just the ones who believe The Right Thing, not just the ones who come from The Right Background. Education is not a commodity sold to parents, but a public good and a societal responsibility shared by us all because we all have to share in the results. That's the promise of public education that I believe in and that I will continue to argue for—that it is a debt we owe to every young human in this country to provide each and every one with a free quality education that empowers them and builds a better nation for all of us (not just the fortunate few).

Getting rid of resentment

I just ran across this again as I was looking through some things. It seems appropriate for the times. It's by E. Stanley Jones; I think it's from one of his devotionals. I forgot to write down the reference, though.

THE STEPS OUT OF RESENTMENTS

We now come to the steps we are to take to get rid of resentment. Breathe a prayer. You are not just reading a page; you are ridding yourself of a plague.

1. Remember that resentments have no part nor lot with a Christian. You cannot hold both Christ and resentments. One or the other must go. Do you want to go through life without Christ, chewing on resentments, a bitter, crabby, poisonous person? That’s what you are headed for if you allow resentments to fester within you.

It may be that your resentments are justified: someone has mistreated you; you have been disappointed in a life plan or ambition; you have met with a bitter calamity; there are those who rub you into soreness; you have to live in an uncongenial environment—al1 of these things may be very real and apparently justify your resentments. But whether justified or unjustified, resentments are disastrous to the inner life——they are poison. The probabilities are that the resentments are not justified, that they are rooted in a touchy self-centered self, a self that is full of self—pity. Those who harbor self-pity haven't the key, for life will back good will and only good will. Decide that resentments are going to have no part nor lot within you.

2. Remember that no one has ever treated you worse than you have treated God, and yet He forgives and forgets. God isn’t asking you to do something He himself is not doing. Here is one of the most wonderful passages in literature, “Treat one another with the same spirit as you experience in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 2:5, Moffatt). He forgives you, graciously and without reservation. You must do the same. If not? Then Jesus tells what happened to the man in the parable who was forgiven a debt of “three million pounds” and then went out and refused to forgive a fellow servant who owed him “twenty pounds”—he was handed “over to the torturers, till he should pay him all the debt. My heavenly Father will do the same to you, unless you each forgive your brother from the heart.” (Matt. 18:21–35, Moffatt). The “torturers”? They are within you—resentments mean inner conflict, division, unhappiness, torture.

O Christ, I know how Thou hast treated me: forgiveness, gracious and undeserved. Help me to treat others with the same spirit. Only as Thy spirit takes the place of my old spirit can I do it. Amen.

AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Today I shall treat everybody as Christ treats me.

How much time are you willing to give?

From the Curmudgucation blog:

I see this thread from time to time, this insistence on denying that students are bad at something. "No, you just weren't taught that well" or "Your teacher lacked the right tools" or "You are the victim of too-low expectations" or "You just needed more opportunities to master the material and concepts." Sometimes these ideas make it all the way into policy: if you are a teacher of a Certain Age, you may well remember sitting in a PD session in which you were told earnestly that "All can learn all."

No. Some students are bad at some things. This should not come as a surprise; all human beings are bad at something.

…

We have a finite number of hours to invest, and we all make choices about how to invest them. It's a weird brand of age-ism to imagine that students do not make similar choices. I don't believe in lazy students, but I absolutely believe in students who will sit in your class and make a rational decision that they do not want to invest the kind of time in your subject that judge would be necessary.

Go read the rest for the full scope of what he is saying. It's worth your time.

<idle musing>
Yep. Time and energy, as well as innate capabilities. In graduate school, with two kids, I had to budget my time, so at the beginning of each term, I decided which class I would settle for a B in. If I had the extra time after assuring an A in the other ones, then I would attempt for an A in that one too. I rarely did, and sometimes I didn’t get an A in some of the ones I was aiming for an A in.

And when it comes to Akkadian, I suck at the signs. Never could wrap my head around the multivalency of them. I enjoyed Hittite because the multivalency was much more limited and the sign list was manageable. I did fine in the grammar and reading of Akkadian once it was transliterated, but the signs? Yuck.

And when I was in engineering, before seeing the light and becoming a humanities major, I hit a brick wall in linear algebra. I just couldn't wrap my head around the concept of six, seven, or nine space. Matrices just blew my 20-year-old mind. Now, I understand the concept, but I'm forty-six years older…
</idle musing>

So, what's the answer?

Maybe you want to know the question first? What's the best way out of the current high degree of wealth inequality? The Atlantic takes a look at how we got where we are. Hint, it started back in the late 1970s, but the real problem was our response in the 1980s and beyond. Read the whole article for context. Please! Read the article. Here's the penultimate paragraph, but please read the whole article for context.

The answer to our unequal age lies not in better monetary policy. It lies in better fiscal and regulatory policy. The central bank has enormous influence, but primarily over borrowing costs and the pace of economic growth. The power to alter the distribution of wealth and earnings—as well as expand the supply of child care, housing, energy, and everything else—lies with Congress. It could spend huge sums of money to hasten the country’s energy transition and make it less vulnerable to gas-price shocks. It could overhaul the country’s system of student-loan debt, helping Black families build wealth. It could break up monopolies and force companies to compete for workers and market share again. It could task states and cities with increasing their housing supplies, so that regular families could afford apartments in Queens and houses in Oakland and condo units in Washington, D.C. It could implement labor standards that would mean the middle class could afford to buy into the stock market too. Yet it remains hamstrung by the filibuster, and by a minority party dedicated to upward redistribution.

Strawberries!

OK, one strawberry, but it is the promise of more to come. I picked our first strawberry of the season yesterday, and it reminded me of why fresh strawberries, not even an hour from the plant, are the best. We'll get another one today and for the next few days until the main bunch starts ripening. Meanwhile, we savor that one strawberry each day.

I also picked the first peas of the season yesterday. A handful of them and more will be ready each day. The second crop, from a slightly later variety will come in when the first plants are done. And the snow peas will be starting soon, too.

Meanwhile, I've been chomping down on fresh chard and radishes for a couple of weeks now. The kale is pickable, but I'm trying to use up the stuff I have frozen from last year, so I'm letting it get bigger.

And the raspberries are blooming and the bumblebees and honey bees are thoroughly enjoying them. You walk by the patch and you can hear their contented buzzing.

And, something I forgot in the initial posting, I've been enjoying summer pita sandwiches, consisting of broccoli raab, chard, chive blossoms, and Mustard Girl garlic mustard. Delicious and the sure sign that summer is here!

About those celebrity bookshelves

Via Publishers Weekly, an article on books by the yard, from The Millions: "Is It So Wrong to Accessorize with Books?"

I had read about it a few years back, but it seems to be a real thing now.

Not sure what I think, but I lean toward this sentiment: “But this kerfuffle is not about the use—or misuse—of books as fashion accessories, home décor, or branding tools. Call me Pollyanna, but I don’t think that Ashley Tisdale and Dior and Gigi Hadid are trivializing books. They’re doing precisely the opposite: they’re reminding us of books’ outsize power to shape our perceptions of their owners. You want to understand someone? Peruse the contents of her medicine chest, her garbage can, and her bookshelf. One’s literary tastes can reveal not just aesthetic preferences but aspects of character. This is because of the investment books require—not only of money, but of time and psychic energy.”

Or, as I read many years ago, our bookshelf tells people what we want them to think we are. I hope my bookshelves do more than that, though. I hope they are an actual reflection of who I am—or am trying to become anyway. I certainly don’t read Ethiopic or Coptic, and my Syriac is terrible, but maybe someday… that’s what those books on my shelf are for. They beckon me and someday, someday, yes someday I will answer the call. Or at least, I hope I do.

Train up a conscience…

OK, an intentional misquote of the proverb.

Not sure where I ran across this link, so if you’ve seen it, apologies, but it is well-worth your time. The title of the post doesn't do it justice: Secret Tentative Intimation

For me, these two paragraphs/lines were the heart of it:

What I learned from my time at Guantanamo is that the time to deliberate, seek advice, and reflect for long periods of time in prayer so that we have a conscience that can stand on solid footing “just when it matters” exists only ahead of time, when one can’t foresee the curveballs. Conscience is, after all, not a rabbit one can suddenly pull out of a magic hat. It is something that must be cultivated and developed over time so that it is available and ready to go when one of those “just when it matters” moments comes our way.

and

Textbooks are important, but we cannot expect them to do the long, hard work of awakening and forming the consciences of the young (and the not-so-young as well). Our Catholic [and not just Catholic!] institutions need to prepare students for real life, not just for careers. There will always be curveballs.

I’ve run across a few curveballs in my life, and only by God’s grace gotten through them. And I firmly believe it was because of intentional cultivation of an internal spiritual life training me to depend on God. I’ve still got a long way to go on that, but God is patient, even when I’m not!

Plant a garden!

This excerpt from Braiding Sweetgrass stands on its own and is too good not to post:

People often ask me what one thing I would recommend to restore relationship between land and people. My answer is almost always, “Plant a garden.” It’s good for the health of the earth and it’s good for the health of people. A garden is a nursery for nurturing connection, the soil for cultivation of practical reverence. And its power goes far beyond the garden gate—once you develop a relationship with a little patch of earth, it becomes a seed itself.

Something essential happens in a vegetable garden. It’s a place where if you can’t say “I love you” out loud, you can say it in seeds. And the land‘ will reciprocate, in beans.—Braiding Sweetgrass, 126–27

<idle musing>
Indeed! That's been true in my own life. Do yourself a favor, plant a garden. Start small, though or you will be overwhelmed.
</idle musing>

What's happening here?

I've been silent here for a few days, and it's likely to continue. Right now I'm in the process of reading Braiding Sweetgrass, a fascinating book. It's a collection of short essays by a Native American biologist trying to integrate her ancestry with the scientific approach. Well, actually, it's much more than that. Fascinating book and challenging at the same time. It appeals to my gardening instincts and my mystical bent in Christianity (she's not Christian, but some of her insights are very easily adapted).

The essays are short; the storytelling is great. But, it doesn't lend itself to extracts because that would destroy the narrative that makes them so powerful.

All that to say, this blog will be relatively quiet for a while until I pick up the next book that lends itself to extracts, which could be as soon as today or as late as a month from now.

Meanwhile, we have a pileated woodpecker attacking a stump outside my study window. It's doing a great job of scattering wood chips all over and grabbing grubs. But, it kind of wreaked havoc with the marigolds I had planted there, so I transplanted them : )

Here's a picture that Debbie took yesterday. Enjoy!

Counter-factual

Suppose Abraham had not been silent. Suppose he had been so sure of the mercy of God that he could wrestle with God, arguing back, challenging God—interceding for his son. Or suppose Abraham wasn’t sure of God’s mercy but took the risk to lament anyway. He might have come to know the compassion of this God, who hosted (and affirmed) Job’s complaint——which brought job comfort in the end.

Yet despite Abraham’s failure to lament, God was gracious and kept faith with Abraham, continuing to work through this fractured family——ultimately to bring redemption to the world.

And the God of Abraham continues to welcome lament even today.—Abraham's Silence, 240 (emphasis original)

<idle musing>
Well, that wraps up this book. It's been an interesting ride, hasn't it? I found lots to mull over. And I'm sure I'll be thinking about some of this for a long time.

Not sure what's up next. Right now, the book I'm reading doesn't lend itself to excerpts, but I said that a while back and ended up pulling stuff from it.

We'll see what happens. Meanwhile, I might write an excursus on a section of Naming Neoliberalism: Exposing the Spirit of Our Age that I found troublingly inaccurate. Again, we'll see...
</idle musing>