"Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Paul to the persecuted at Philippi (2:5-11)

27 November 2015

Musings on Nutrition

The way I see it, pumpkin pie is the world's first "superfood."

Think about it. Now keep in mind, I was raised in the days of food groups. These food groups were primitive, not capable of organizing themselves to build food pyramids. They were just groups. All groups were equal. No discrimination here. Except for the fruit and vegetable group which was considered more equal than the other groups, especially the vegetable subgroup, for the sole purpose of driving children crazy.

I really didn't understand how brussels sprouts and strawberries were the same "group" but if they were, why did my mother not consider them interchangeable in my diet? I would happily have substituted.

But that's neither here nor there.

So considering. A serving of the meat-eggs-nuts-protein group.... and a serving of the vegetable group, mashed up together with cinnamon which we know has health benefits. Top it with a visit from the calcium rich dairy group. Serve it up on an ambassador from the wheats and grains group, unless you're gluten free... then we have a gluten free option for you.... lower carb, too for you moderns... skip the crust. I do. And voila pumpkin pie. Allergic to dairy, skip the whipped cream (poor fool). No teeth? No problem. Soy free, nut free, and artificial ingredient free. We've got this.

So today I had pie for breakfast. A little post-thanksgiving tradition. Tomorrow its back to normal, cold cereal and warm coffee. But today, it was pie.

I feel healthier already.

24 September 2015

Adulting. Yes, its a verb.

There's a meme going around the internet these days with the theme "can't adult today..."  and another that says something like "that moment when you look around for an adult and realize you are an adult so you look around for someone adultier than you." 

My eldest son is an adult.  I'm not sure when it happened.  It wasn't turning eighteen.  He was just the same at seventeen and 364 days as he was at 18, only he was eligible to vote and his signature was binding.  There is nothing developmentally magic about a birthday; it is just a transition from one day to the next, like any other.  It didn't happen at high school graduation either.  I was still fussing at him about the condition of his room, the lateness of his going to bed, and the manner in which he treated his brothers on the first day (week, month) after graduation.  Graduation, since he was homeschooled, was in itself a random thing, a "hey, you're out of assignments so congratulations and here is your grandfather's math book as a gift" thing.  We took him out to dinner.  That's about it. 

I can guess that some of the adult came along when college classes started.  Suddenly he had homework and there was no one to tell him to do it.  No one told him to go to church on Sunday either, but he did.  More adulting.  (Adulting... a word so non-existent that its giving spell checker fits right now.)  I suspect that more of his adultiness came along when he caught that first college cold the second week of class and there was nobody to tuck him in and bring him apple cider.  Doing his own post-cold laundry to get the germs out, hoping his roommate didn't catch his cold, this also was probably a transition point. 

But I can only guess.  Because I wasn't there.

And maybe that's the point.  It is when our parents aren't there that we become adults. 

I'm looking forward to a long friendship with my adult son (and his two not-yet-adult brothers eventually, too).  Sending him into the world where I am not there was about the hardest thing I've ever done.  Everything we do as parents leads up to this, and its a fine thing.  But in the end, when the caterpillar comes out of his homeschooled cocoon, mamma butterfly doesn't get to see the magic moment. 

And that's fitting, because it isn't our moment.

When I dropped him off at college, I realized that this is about him.  I was excited for him, how could I be sad for me?  This was his call, his life, and he was grasping it for the first time.  How could I mourn?  And I said to him that I realized that this was right, that if I had raised him to be mine, for my sake, I was treating him as a pet, not a person.  It was an off the cuff moment but it was the moment when I realized the truth in everything we always say, everything that the years have known. 

Our children are not ours.  They never were.  They're only entrusted to us until they no longer need that cocoon and are able to fly. 

But I do look forward to every time the boy will fly back home, to stretch our wings from time to time together, I hope, as long as mine have strength. 

08 July 2015

Flags... really, people? They're flags.

I swear, if I see one more controversy about a flag, I may do something goofy.  Maybe I'll sew a bunch of them together into a big old quilt with all the ones that represent groups that don't like each other next to one another.  A public art installation.  Except I don't sew.  And really, I am past the point of wanting to learn.

But I guess "past the point of wanting to learn" is kind of what sums up America when it comes the the flag debates.

Gosh, folks.  I'm FROM the South.  Let me tell you something about the Confederate flag.  Its the flag of a dead nation, however a beloved one.  But the one thing that still holds true about the South is, as Lewis Grizzard said, "we don't care how you do thing up there in Cleveland."  Don't tell the South what to do with that flag.  For some it is the flag of hate, for some it is the flag of heritage.  But nobody south of the Mason Dixon wants to hear what that flag means in Cleveland, or Philly, or New York.  The South doesn't like being told by outsiders what to do.  That's the story behind that flag's origins.  That's the "restoration" story that followed it.  That is the only meaning behind that flag we all pretty much agree on.  Its a flag, let it go.

But I am from the South and I am also a Christian.  If it causes your brother to stumble, throw it out.  The voice that says "throw it out" has to be a Southern one, and mine is as good as any, though I've lived away half my life and never had much of an accent.  I grew up on sweet tea and know what "bless your heart" really means (and it isn't what you Yankees have been told it means).  I knew from the time I could walk "what's the difference between a Yankee and a damn Yankee."  My daddy tol' me.  And so I will say, that flag, though it means a lot of things and not all of them hurtful, causes our brothers to see hate they have received and causes others to see hate they'd like to dish out.  Let the flag go.

And just when I think all this hooplah is fading away, while everyone looks to the flag of a dead nation and fails to notice live burning churches, live hurting hearts, live difficult discussions.... just when I think we've set it all aside... some yahoo decides to fly a "Christian" flag over a US flag on church property in North Carolina.

Do not get me wrong, I'm not offended by the order.  The church is, at its best, a foreign embassy on US soil.  The state does not reign nor does it give us the authority to be the church.  I'm offended instead by the presence of the US flag at all under it.  The US flag likely has no use at all on church property, but less so flying in a way that intentionally provokes our  neighbors.  Again a flag causes our neighbors to stumble.  Throw it out.   Your idea may be technically correct, but it is not helpful.

The church has never been without controversy, but only this modern church seems to enjoy causing controversy for its own sake.  Poking at dragons.  I'm not saying hide your faith under a bushel; but I am saying that loving your neighbor is the opposite of provoking him.   Its time we stopped flying banners and hollering about colors and opened our eyes to our neighbor, our brother.  Its time we started seeing that our brother under the banner of Christ is suffering the world over, including in our back yard.  Churches are burned, the faithful are outcast, martyrs are made daily the world over.  Unwrap yourselves from the flags that bind you and like Lazarus, come out of the grave, Christians.  Come out.

25 May 2015

Seasons change....

My first child graduated from homeschooling this weekend. 
Done.

I find it hard to believe that: I could be this old, he could be this old, we finished the race, he's going away to college... all of the above. 

My second son is firmly entrenched in Catholic school.

My third may go to Catholic school too, not this coming year, but possibly the next.

And I find it hard to imagine myself not homeschooling.  And I find it liberating at the same time.  What will I do?  Of course, always the planner, a few ideas have crossed my mind. 

Become fluent (really fluent) in a foreign language.  French first, then maybe Korean.
Get a full time job?  A PhD and a real teaching gig?  Plant an Anglican high school in western PA?  (Anybody want to help with that??)  Start a non-profit organization for language and cultural exchange with people in nations who have no other access for cultural exchange but need good English skills in an ever changing business world?  Again, all of the above.  Really.  but no, that's impossible.

So maybe over the course of the next year, if you'll indulge me, I might wonder aloud about who I need to be for the next phase of the journey.  And am I too old for this (whatever "this" is).  I never realized I'd still be in the process of "becoming" after 40.

23 April 2015

Advice for Students

Coming up on final exams in so many school contexts has me thinking about what advice I would give to today's college and seminary students.  A word from the other side of the desk or computer screen, perhaps, is in order.  So if the reader would allow me to be so bold:

A word of advice for students (especially online students, especially my online students):

1.  Do not be afraid to ask questions.  Ask me to clarify an assignment or an idea.  Your success is my success, quite literally in this field.   Your questions enable me to succeed and my answers should do the same for you.  An instructor who doesn't understand the difference between being an active question-asker and being a nuisance has no business teaching human beings.

2.  Do not be afraid to disagree and read critically.  Your grade may be lowered by knee-jerk responses, but a well thought out and crafted disagreement should be respected by any instructor who hopes some day to welcome some of his students as peers and colleagues.  You do not have to love the textbook I assigned.  In fact, I may not have loved it either to have considered it important for you to read. 

3.  Show your enthusiasm.  Students who are excited about the material and want to discuss it with their professors and classmates are not pests, they're why we are excited to start work every day.  Be one!

4.  Turn in papers early and often.  If your instructor has time to give you feedback before the due date (we don't always, but many of us will try) take it!  Papers where the instructor has invested his time and expertise will always be better papers and be more kindly graded.

5.  Engage your senses.  When material is hard to understand, read it out loud.  It slows you down and engages both the eyes and the ears in reading so that your brain can marinate more in the material.  Best advice I ever got from the meanest professor I ever endured.

6.  Seek relationship.  Even (perhaps especially) in online classes.  Don't just come to class, do your thing and leave.  Connect with your classmates.  Kvetch with them if you like.  It lets you know you weren't the only one who found that last quiz to be a challenge, that last paper a bear.  Stay after class to ask the prof a question if you have one.  Find a study buddy, even if that person is in another state or country.  Read your instructor's and fellow students' biographies in their online profiles; learn what you have in common outside of class.  Connections like that will keep you at the table when the going gets rough.

7.  If at first you don't succeed, swallow your pride and ask what you did wrong.  Teachers who "bleed" all over your papers do so because they care enough to see you do a better job next time.  If you don't get timely feedback from your instructor, it is your right and responsibility to request it.

8.  Not all red ink is criticism.  I love to talk to my students in the margins of their papers.  Some of it is a serious show of enthusiasm.  And I do grade in red.  I'm old school, and I like my words to stand out.  Don't just look at the final grade and the length of comments and toss the paper aside.  I cared enough to read your paper, you can care enough to read my comments.

9.  Despite the old saying, it is better to ask permission than forgiveness.  If you need an extension on a paper ask for one, don't just turn it in late.  If you have a serious cause, many instructors are gracious and will work with you so that you can keep the standard of the course and your sanity, both.  Do not expect a free ride, but in serious cases you can expect us to facilitate your best work.  If you ask, the worst that can happen is a "no."  If you don't ask, the best that can happen is a late penalty.

10.  Google with caution.  The internet is a vast clearinghouse for material that could not be legitimately published anywhere else.  There are some amazing resources out there, but also a lot of junk.  Online students often suffer from a lack of access to a good scholarly library and good internet resources can be like finding a needle in a haystack.  Ask your instructor for trustworthy direction and for goodness sake stay off of Wikipedia.

04 March 2015

A weather sijo.

Looking out my window, I watch the soft, white, heavy snow
Drip, drip, drip, melting away into nothing, little by little.
Victory at last!  At least until I check the forecast.

Mercredi le 4 mars 2015 : Un sijo de la météo.
Je regarde hors de la fenêtre, la douce neige blanche et lourde.
Goutte par goutte, en train de fondre à rien. La neige disparaît.
Finalement, victoire ! Au moins, jusqu’à ce je regarde la météo !