Monday Miscellany: The Queen is Dead

I have shared before some of my family's continuing battle to keep beasts of the field from grazing in the fields of our home (see here and here). Our efforts have not always been successful though this has been the first year in several that I have been able to walk to my car in the dark without fear of becoming ensnared in the web of a spider large enough to eat me.

It now appears that our home, indeed our entire neighborhood, sits over a raging hellmouth of Formicidae (ant). One of our new bus stop friends has informed us that the entire neighborhood struggles with ant intrusions. We have battled occasion invasions for several years, usually with Max Attrax or Ant Kil. During times of rain, they take shelter in our cars. During times of dry, they invade our home looking for water. They rarely invade the kitchen. Frankly, I am a bit offended that they do not plunder the kitchen for food. Too good for our grub, indeed! Perhaps the phenomenon is merely a critical commentary on the relative rarity of food preparation in our kitchen. Lately, they have invaded our bathroom. Specifically, they have demonstrated a preference for our bathtub.

After a couple of weeks of intense battle, I thought I had them licked on Friday. Their numbers had trickled to a few stragglers when I noticed that several of them were huddled in the corner around a rather large mass. Large for ants that is. I looked closer and noticed that it was not a mass, but a super ant. The Queen. Had she come out to parlay or had I interrupted her and her attendants during their daily bath? My terms were unconditional surrender, but I don't think she heard me as a stream of hot water and shampoo washed her down the drain. I went to school elated in victory and sure that the ants would not soon return.

Today they returned en masse. I came home to multiple tracks of ants in the bathroom. Their chief objective seems to be the homemade soap. Dejected, I destroyed several tracks and laid out the baits again. The battle between man and nature goes on. At least I can rest assured that our ants are clean ants.


Peace

Genius Has No...

This week we were discussing the rise of the women's movement during the 19th century in my AP US History class. I mentioned writer Mary E. Bryan's argument that "Genius has no sex." One of my students made a knowing, "Uh huh" under his breath. Chuckles of a few followed. I immediately amended my lecture notes. They now read, "Genius has no gender." The rewriting of history goes on...

Peace

View from my Window

My AP US History class has been a lot of fun this year. The biggest surprise about them has been that they actually read and process the textbook. I have never had a class that has consistently read the assignment and brought that knowledge to class with them. Indeed, they have caught me in three minor errors so far this year.

The view from my classroom windows makes it difficult to focus somedays. I would much prefer camping or hiking in the mountains to the growth of absolutism under Louis XIII. I wish the angel of the Lord would say to me, "Run for your lives! And don’t look back or stop anywhere in the valley! Escape to the mountains, or you will be swept away!" (Genesis 19:17, taken badly out of context). Sadly, the master plan for the school calls for the magnificant hardwoods to be cut down and replaced with parking lots and sports fields. Alas the price of growth.

Here are some quick pics I took outside my window:







Peace

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