Short Update on the Twin Boys

The boys are eleven weeks old today. We took all four kids to a "Harvest" event at a local church tonight. It has become something of a traditon for us. The eldest boy had a fine time as a pirate, and he really wanted to ride one of those carnival rides where everyone stands up around a central cylinder and then spins like crazy. He was too short, but we were proud considering he was too afraid to ride the mini-train last year. Twin B made a startling step foward last week. It was as though he had been sleepy since he was born, but now he is tracking us with his eyes, smiling like crazy, and trying to talk. His face lights up when he finally focuses on me. If you sing to Twin A, he will try to sing along by moving his mouth, but he hasn't quite figured out many sounds yet.

Here is Baby B tonight. Picture taken by my wife.




The sky this morning as I pulled into work.


Peace

Idiotes: updated

Earlier this week I was lecturing on civil participation and used some old lecture material that I written several years ago. I was delighted to see my notes on the origins of the word idiot. According to my notes, the term descends from the classical Greek idiotes (id-ee-o'-tace) which means one who does not vote or take an interest in civic affairs. The Greeks took their politics very seriously and could not abide a citizen who took his civic duty lightly. Citizens were a select group, and citizenship was not a guaranteed right. They understood the value of citizenship, not primarily as a guarantor of personal freedoms, but as a duty necessary to preserve the freedom of the state. Anyone who didn't take their duty seriously was an idiot. Americans have the opportunity to go to the polls on the 1st Tuesday after the 1st Monday of November (November 7). The Greeks would argue that the many millions who do not vote on that day, "idiotes." I will leave it to them to say it. I will make no judgments.

During my lecture, a couple of students thought I was making up my entire account of idiotes. Looking at my old, handwritten notes, I realized that I didn't have a source and couldn't remember where I got the information. I told them I would check my source and get back to them. As soon as class was over, I Googled the term. My search took me here. The definition on the website is one for New Testament days, hundreds of years after Athenian Greek, and does not exactly match mine. At this point in my research and discouraged at not getting immediate satisfaction, I got distracted by the features of the site and started browsing around until I got here.

If you are too busy to click over and back again, let me summarize. This section of the website is the "Sermon Jazzers" section. It provides free topical quotes and "illustrations" (essentially comedy routines). The free jazzers are, of course, given away in hopes that the high quality of jazzing will lead one to buy the entire book, "101 Humorous Sermon Illustrations." You can also click on a link for a free preview of "Sunday's Sermon." I find this very sad.

I am not so naive as to believe that pastors have never used aids and resources to assist in crafting sermons. In fact, I was quite young when I realized that the "I was on my way to the seminary when..." or the "My precious little one looked up as me and asked 'Why did Jesus' let Snowball die?'..." or the "A preacher friend of mine told me that one of his flock was going through a tough time when...." or the "...That's when he turned around and the hitchhiker had disappeared..." stories were most likely made up or heavily edited to fit the day's topic. I began to assume that every joke, anecdote, and personal story told by a preacher was faux. I guessed that they rationalized it by arguing that one of Jesus' strategies was parable so they should follow His example.

Sadly, this has been one of the things that has turned me off of most churches. The disingenuous calculation of pastors who pass off purchased stories as their own or the knowledge of others as their own really bothered me and continues to bother me. I have caught preachers quoting a famous thinker because the quote fit the sermon when I am sure that the pastors had no idea of the philosophies that that thinker actually espoused. If he had known that he was quoting an atheist he probably would have had to find another quote. Increasingly, I am distraught when I enter a church to hear a sermon opening that consists of a long, humorous story connected to the sermon itself only by the fact that the chief character in each is the preacher himself. The pattern has become as predictable as Atlanta gridlock: Get 'em laughing, then a short devotional.

I believe that a sermon should instruct, convict, inspire, and edify. It does not need to entertain. If I wanted to laugh, I could stay home and watch re-runs of the Daily Show or the Colbert Report. If I wanted to see made-up stories of personal tribulation and triumph, I could watch C-SPAN or the Lifetime Network. Preaching Truth does not require "jazzers". This type of preaching is making us all idiots. Rationalizing using comedy shtick as a way to reach unbelievers only serves to water down the Gospel and presumes that weekly Sunday services will never serve to instruct the believers in the benches.

Teacher: Instruct me. Please.

UPDATE: Wikipedia confirms my definition of idiotes.: "Idiot" was originally used in ancient Greek city-states to refer to people who were overly concerned with their own self-interest and ignored the needs of the community. Declining to take part in public life, such as (semi-)democratic government of the polis (city state), such as the Athenian democracy, was considered dishonorable. "Idiots" were seen as having bad judgment in public and political matters. Over time, the term "idiot" shifted away from its original connotation of selfishness and came to refer to individuals with overall bad judgment–individuals who are "stupid". No, I did not personally edit Wikipedia to confirm my definition (though I could have).

Peace

Monday Miscellany: A Day Late But Not Too Short

My posting has been light lately. This is not for any lack of postable material, but for a real lack of time and energy to complete the task. There are so many things to say and so few alert brain cells to compose them. Here are a few.

I recently had a birthday. It brought to mind the best gift my wife has ever given me for my birthday: my HP Photosmart R707 Digital Camera.

When I was younger and much less wise, I had delusions of becoming a writer. I thought I could be the next Tolkien. If not that, maybe the next C.S. Lewis. Well, I would settle for becoming the next George MacDonald. If I had to, I would become the next Stephen Lawhead. Surely, I could write better than Lawhead. My dreams never quite worked out the way I wanted them to. To become a "writer" one has to, well, write. To become an "author" on has to write well (can one "auth"?). I had neither the discipline to write consistently nor the gift to write well (as readers of this blog can well attest).

My wife's gift of a digital camera was a stroke of genius. My wife is a bit of a genius anyway with two possible exceptions: choice of husband and giving of gifts. My wife tends to either reveal the gift to me way too soon, use the gift more herself than I do, or get me something so obvious that I guess what it is just by looking at the expression on her face. She has gotten me some fine gifts in the past, but, in her words, "I never know what to get you." The camera was brilliant. Yes, I gave her a harsh glance for spending so much money on something, but it has become one of my favorite possessions and an outlet for my spirit of creativity past.

In the past year I (mostly I, some by my wife) have taken over 2,400 photographs. Sure the bulk of the photos are deletable, but we haven't had to pay to have any of those professionally processed. I have found that I have to take 10-20 pictures to get one good one. I have to take at least a hundred to get one that I am truly happy with. Sure, digital photography is easy, but creating an image that I find attractive has been a great joy for me in a trying year. Now I feel that I am ready to move up to a "real" camera. As soon as I win $700.00 in the lottery, I am getting this.

I know I am no artist, but here are some of my favorite photos from the last year. I cannot share all of my favorites with you as many of them reveal more of the faces of my children than I am willing to share publicly on the Internet. I will be happy to e-mail information to any friends and family who want to see my "private" photos on my flickr account.

The captions for each photo are above the photo being described.

This is one of the first pictures I took that I really liked. There is a lovely patch of daylilies that bloom quite vigorously each spring. This one waited until the fall. It was as though it was waiting for me to get my camera. I must have take thirty to forty pictures of this one flower. I caught this one the first time I experimented with black and white. It was a beautiful, late autumn afternoon. I love the creamy quality of the pedals against the stone.



This is my "most viewed" photo on my flickr account. It has been viewed 34 times (that means someone saw it and thought enough of it to click on it to get a closer view). Two people have even been kind enough to "favorite" it. I took the photo early this spring when the maple behind my house produces approximately 17 billion of these little beauties. All of them land in my gutters. This is not one of my favorite photos, but I feel I owe it to the 34 people who have made it my most popular photo. By comparison, real photos by real photographers on flickr get thousands of views.


This is my second most popular photo on flickr. It also has 34 views, but no favorites. It looks like my son is being very solemn and patriotic before this veterans' memorial at Veterans' State Park; in truth, he was looking at the water fall.



This is one of my favorite photos of my boy. He was wearying from his first day of fishing and was wishing he could be a rider in the boat in the distance.


This is my favorite "accident". I was trying to get a good photo of this mystery flower (read about it here). I like trying to take "macros" (photos of small things, or extreme closeups) and I saw my girl come into the picture. I said her name disapprovingly, but it was too late to stop my finger from clicking the button. You can see her looking over her shoulder at me as though to say, "What did I do?" She is quite lovely. The flower came out pretty good too.


This is one of my favorites. It was early spring, and I had been trying to take pictures of dandelions for a week. I had gotten a couple of decent ones when I went out at sunset one day and saw this one standing all alone and proud. I have not changed any of the coloration on this photo. I like the bare trees against the sky as frames around the dandelion illuminated by the sunset.


Thanks for the gift my love. If any of you want to see more, please feel free to go to my flickr site. Almost all of the pictures look better big. If you want me stop slowing down your computer with silly pictures, feel free to comment.

Peace

Lonely Girl

On the way to the football game on Friday, we stopped at a local park to run off some energy. I snapped the photo below. It seems to fit with Monday's post about my daughter's adjustments to the changes in our lives.



She had a good time that night. I think she was so happy to be out with her daddy that she didn't complain once (even when we had to use a very unsanitary bathroom). It was her brother who whined (and he only a few times when he was quite tired and cold).

Peace

Monday Miscellany: Homecoming

I have a lot to say, but not enough time to say it, so I will keep it short.

Earlier this summer I was worried about how my son would adjust to having to go to Kindergarten for the first time, get two new brothers, and have his dad go back to work all within the space of a single week. I was worried about the wrong child. My daughter has not adjusted well to the changes. She has been overtly rebellious and is draining what is left of her mother's enengy right out of her. She must be quite lonely.

My wife bought herself Lego Star Wars II for the PS2. It is a very fine game.

Last week was Homecoming. I took the boy and girl to the football game (the entire family got in free). They lasted through the first half. They both profess to wanting to go again. Football is hard to explain to a five year old. He figured out on his own that they went into the huddle to make a plan. He was most impressed when the cheerleaders did a stunt, "Cool, I didn't know they could do that!" He also liked the punts because the ball went really high.

I got my first search result for "Striplings Butt Rub". It took the searcher here. My site came up first on the list. I don't know whether to be pleased or queasy. The good news is that it was probably the only seach to my site that may have gotten information useful to the searcher.


Peace

The Price of a College Education: Dumb and Dumber

Recently, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute issued a Civic Literacy Report titled, "The Coming Crisis in Citizenship. In it, the ISI claims that not only do students learn little about American history, economics, and government in college, in some cases they actually exhibit "negative learning." In other words, they knew more when they were admitted then when they graduated. Testing of incoming freshmen was compared with testing of graduating seniors; this testing showed a remarkable lack of progress. This held true for both Ivy League and "lesser" colleges (or "Elite" and "Non-elite" schools as the report calls them). Students at Yale scored 1.5% less as seniors than they did as freshmen!

Two days ago, CNN reported, "Harvard University, founded 370 years ago to train Puritan ministers, should again require all undergraduates to study religion, along with U.S. history and ethics, a faculty committee is recommending." The article went on to reveal that:

The State University of New York and George Mason University have adopted general education requirements that include mandatory American history.

In the Ivy League, Columbia University has a significant core curriculum with courses that include material on religion, and Dartmouth currently requires a course in the analysis of religion, though that will change next year, according to its Web site. But Harvard would be the only school in that group requiring students to take courses in both religion and U.S. history.

Public colleges in Colorado, along with Ohio University and Arizona State, are among the other universities currently reviewing general education requirements, said Anne Neal, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a generally conservative academic group that has urged universities to toughen general education requirements.

SUNY and George Mason "have adopted general education requirements that include mandatory American history"--it wasn't required before? No wonder the ISI Report found what it did.

I have read with interest the response to the ISI Report. As a high school AP US history and government teacher, I have often noted the happy tragedy that occurs whenever one of my students does well on the AP US History exam. It validates my teaching and his or her learning, but it also means that they will not be taking US history at college. While it is true that many colleges do not accept AP credit, it is easy to see how an advanced student could take enough AP exams to avoid taking any college social science (history, economics, government).

I have always been secretly disappointed that my best students would not be talking a “real” college class in US history. I am not enough of a statistician to know how AP plays into the ISI Report, but it does not appear to my near-sighted eyes to have been addressed as a factor in the report. I think it could be a factor that merits study; until then, I will continue to prepare my students as though they will not be taught a thing in college. It is the prudent thing to do either way.

Today in the WSJ and fresh on the heels of the ISI report, Naomi Schaefer Riley asks, "Test Question: Why is high school the new college?" Her answer, they aren't learning anything useful in college, but the enforced rigor of test-based high school courses (especially AP courses) actually gives students useful knowledge and skills. In her words:

Why? Because college increasingly offers a crazed social experience at the expense of rigorous study. But high school does better: It is often the last time that students are forced to learn something. Parents make their kids show up at school. More than a few teachers convey basic skills and knowledge. After-school life centers on burnishing a college application, not binge drinking. AP courses, where they exist, exploit these structured years for maximum learning.

I'll try.


Peace

October

The calendar has rolled down to October again. Some random reasons why October is my favorite month:

Summer has been left behind in September; the air is cool and the days are still long enough to enjoy the sun.
Baseball playoffs and the World Series
College football
My birthday is this month.
Holiday season will be here soon.
My cooling bill and my heating bill will both be very low.
The grass will stop growing soon.
Orion guards the clear night sky.
Flannel and hot chocolate are socially acceptable again (both together and individually; I had my first cup of steaming cocoa today)



Peace