Only Wonder Grasps Anything

one does not love breathing

Here's another quote I ran across in "To Kill A Mockingbird." I take so many things for granted, and this is a good reminder of the Lord's constant sustaining work, even in giving breath. The context of the quote is that the speaker had just been told by her first grade teacher not to read at home anymore, and she tells the reader,

Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.

The visual corollary to that quote could be this picture from Tuggy's blog.

on South Alabama winters

I ran across this quote in "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee, and it seemed to apply equally well to Chattanooga winters.

There are no clearly defined seasons in South Alabama; summer drifts into autumn, and autumn is sometimes never followed by winter, but turns to a days-old spring that melts into summer again. That fall was a long one, hardly cool enough for a light jacket. Jem and I were trotting in our orbit one mild October afternoon...

After reading that passage to my mom, she's been telling our northern friends about it. I need to make a copy of it for her.

euthanasia and one congregation's response

Occasionally I glance at the St. George's Tron church website, the congregation in which I participated whilst studying in Glasgow (autumn 2001). I saw that they have links to a short paper by a member of the Scottish Parliament, advocating "Dying with Dignity", and a response written on behalf of their kirk session and congregation. This is an issues that we are already beginning to face here in America--think of Oregon with legalised physician assisted suicide since 1997, or the recent controversy over Terri Schaivo.

Please join me in praying that Christians in Scotland will be vocal in proclaiming clearly the truth of God's word on this issue, and pray that the Spirit will restrain the Scottish Parliament from this evil.

Here are the two papers:
Dying with Dignity - Paper by the Scottish MP
Dying with Dignity - St. George's Tron church response

the main point (take two)

Thanks to all who posted responses to my question below. When I asked, "What's the main point of the Bible..." below, the Westminster Shorter Catechism question four was lurking in the back of my mind: "What do the scriptures principally teach?" "The scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man.

A few weeks ago, we read that question in church, and it struck me that the answer given by the catechism is sorely lacking because it doesn't mention Jesus. Apart from him, what do we really know about God? Isn't it in seeing him, in knowing him, that we see and know the Father? If he had never come as God's fullest and final revelation of himself to us, would we have any basis for believing all the other stuff we believe about God? I think that Paul's argument in 1 Cor. 15 is that if Jesus hadn't come as the last Adam, and been raised back to life from the grave, we'd have no hope at all. Also, if the Son makes the Father known, and if all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in Christ (Col. 2:3), then it seems that apart from Jesus we know nothing of God.

The main point of the Bible:
in 3 words: Jesus, the God-man. (OK, so I'm using a hyphen to sneak in a 4th word. Sorry.)
in 20 words: God's fullest revelation of himself to us is Jesus, the Word, full of grace and truth, bringing salvation and judgement.

city by the ocean

These past few days I've been relaxing with my parents and grandparents (my mom's parents) in Ocean City, NJ. Yesterday morning Dad and I went bike riding on the boardwalk, and off on the city streets--we discovered that the northern end of the town has a neighborhood where all the streets are named after British cities, such as Edinburgh, Cardif, Aberdeen, Belfast, but I never saw London or Glasgow streets. I also got to run about four miles yesterday morning, and hope to run the boardwalk from end to end tomorrow morning--its five miles round trip.

Today was an odd day because after breakfast at Sindia's, Mom drove up to Atlantic City for a knitting conference in a casino--ok, so it wasn't a casino, it was in the convention center. In the meantime Grandma, Grandpa and I drove back to our house via the public library, so that Grandma could look up Dewey Decimal numbers for a few books, and the kind ladies at the library held onto Grandma's purse until we realized a few hours later it was missing. The librarians told Grandma they wondered when she was going to return to get her purse.

During the early afternoon, when we should have eaten lunch, I talked with Grandpa about his serving in WWII as a B17 pilot, and about ways he'd seen the Lord answer prayers over the years. I got some of his recollections recorded digitally to put onto CD. Then we ate a late lunch, and headed to the beach much later than usual.

Just as we were unloading our chairs and towels, a dark grey storm cloud rolled over and started pelting rain, lightning, and very loud thunder. We drove around for about a half hour and then returned to 12th Street once the rain had stopped, and after waiting on a boardwalk bench to be sure the storm was past, we hit the beach--around 5:00 PM.

The sky was partly cloudy, but the sun occasionally shone through, and the wind was constant. The waves were warmer than the air, but there were also jellyfish on the shore. After about an hour or so, we looked north a block and a half and there was a wedding party taking photographs on the beach, in the failing light. It was odd to see guys and a groom in black tuxes, girls in identical maroon bridesmaids dresses, and a bride in a wedding gown on a mostly deserted beach under a dark sky.

More later- we're heading out to the boardwalk.

oddities of travel

I went south to go north.

I'm in Atlanta tonight at Tim Larson's place, on my way to Philly and then to the NJ shore for a few days vacation with my parents and grandparents. My mom's dad is aging quickly, so in addition to enjoying vacation together my parents and I will be trying to access what we can do to help care for grandpa.

Hopefully I'll be able to find a grocery store with dry ice and a styrofoam cooler so that I can bring som Turkey Hill ice cream back down to Chattanooga--chocolate peanut butter is one of the world's greatest ice cream flavors, and Mayfield's doesn't make it. I also have a co-worker who wants to do a taste comparison between Mayfields and Turkey Hill vanilla. The other fun part about getting the ice cream is that I've had a $1.00 off coupon for Turkey Hill for almost a year, and I'm gonna get to use it now.

Now I'll sleep so that I'll wake in the morning.

Tschuss!

chronic book-starter

I've always know that I am often reading multiple books at once. If you asked me what I'm reading right now I'd tell you "The Open Secret" by Lesslie Newbigin, "The Liberated Imagination" by Ryken, "According to Plan" by Graeme Goldsworthy, and "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee. However, that's not the entire list. I glanced around my room this afternoon and found 21 other books I've "started" reading. By started I mean read at least the first two chapters, with an intention to finish reading the book.

This is a problem. With many of these books I'll have to re-read the parts I've already read because I read those portions a while ago. However, when I get an interesting new book, it takes far more will-power than I have to not start reading it, which usually means if I don't have time to read the entire book it will get set aside before finishing it, with my bookmark in place.

The list of the books I found this afternoon is in the extended entry below. Keep in mind this isn't my list of books I want to read (that pile could probably reach high into the atmosphere), its only the list of those I want to read and have actually started at one time or another.

"Of the making of many books there is no end..." - the Preacher in Ecclesiastes.

----- the books I've "started" -----

Science & Faith (Jack Collins)
Intelligent Design (William Dembski)
Beowulf (a bard a long long time ago)
Gödel, Esher & Bach
Visual Faith
Political Order & the Plural Structure of Society
Gulag Archipelago (Solzhenitsen)
With Love, Edith (Edith Schaffer)
Analog VLSI & Neural Systems (Carver Mead)
More Than Conquerors (William Hendriksen)
Biblical Theology (Vos)
The Coming of the Kingdom (Ridderbos)
The Holy Spirit & The Sermon on the Mount (Sinclair Ferguson)
Missionary Conspiracy (Vishal Mangalwadi)
He Shall Have Dominion (Gentry)
Crime & Punishment (Dostoyevski)
The TeXBook (Knuth)
The Justification Reader

free coffee

There just might be such a thing as a free cup of coffee--if you know the answer to the daily trivia question at Rembrandt's. Today I got luck and guessed the answer- the question was "What was BankAmericard renamed in 1977?" and I took a guess at one of the major credit card companies and got it right. Woo hoo...

Then they accidentally charged me for it anyhow with the food I was getting, and when I realized later, rather than the hastle of refunding my the money, they asked if I wanted a dessert that cost the same as the coffee, so that my coffee was free and I paid for dessert. It seemed like a good plan to me.

It a little while I'm going to hang out with Mark and Amy Rico, probably watch a movie or something like that. Good times.

the main point

What's the main point of the Bible, in 20 words or less? In 3 words or less?

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

We have gone over this question the last two weeks Sunday morning at church, and somehow the answer we've given seems lacking to me, or just too academic or scholastic, like we're obscuring what's clear in Scripture.

theology of evil

After WWII and the atrocities of the holocaust many people in Europe totally lost any faith in God. A huge part of that was probably because they'd already rejected the Bible as God's Word due to theological liberalism, but was this the only cause? Have we reformed believers been too quick to apply a pat answer to the problem of evil and the evil men commit? I know that God has a morally sufficient reason for allowing evil, and that He is sovereign over all his creatures and all their actions, yet not responsible for or the author of evil, but have we really taken the question of evil seriously enough?

Guiness Stout Ice Cream

Per Amber's request, here's the Guinness recipe I made way back on July 4th. It was OK, but I think the Guinness is better by itself. It does make for a unique flavor of ice cream, and its funny to listen to kids say, "Beer ice cream? Gross..."

GUINNESS STOUT ICE CREAM

Makes about 1 quart

c. = cup, T. = tablespoon, t. = teaspoon

1 c. water
2 T. cornstarch
1/2 c. sweetened condensed milk
1 1/2 c. evaporated milk
1/4 t. salt
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. Guinness stout

In a heavy saucepan whisk together the water and the cornstarch and simmer the mixture over moderate heat, whisking, for 2 minutes. Add the milks, the salt, and the sugar, heat the mixture over moderately low heat, whisking, for 1 to 2 minutes, or until the sugar is disolved, and remove the pan from the heat. Let the misture cool completely, stir in the Guinness, and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions.

our new pastor

The other part of my accidentally deleted entry was a comment about our new pastor's first Sunday. He started a sermon series on Ephesians, beginning with 1:1. We just finished a series on 1 John, and now hearing was Paul has to say will be good. I love how you can see John's and Paul's personalities in their writing, and yet the Holy Spirit worked through them to bring us God's word exactly as He wanted it. Both John and Paul loved Jesus and his people to whom they wrote, and this is evident in their letters.

It was sad to say goodbye to Kip, our former assistant pastor. Please pray that he and our former pastor Bob find employment. Though its sad, as I was helping our pastor and his wife move in, it struck me that we've got a new pastor and his wife to get to know and love.

God is good.

All the time.

Pray also for my friends Mark and Amy. Mark may not have a job come monday, and he just found out.

bummer

I just wrote a decently long entry, and accidentally closed the wrong window of my web browser, and lost it!

I had described my trip to Brevard, NC, last weekend to visit Currie and Abby, and to play piano for their evening service. Currie lead worship and preached on Psalm 110 (see his blog for his sermon outline & text), and then, after some birthday cake with their youth group and Currie's parents, we all played Kubb, a Swedish game. It was great fun, with Currie, his dad, and I shouting gutteral shouts and all manner of things in other Swedish and germanic sounding languages, and crossing our kastpinnar (throwing sticks) like swords.

But I've got friends meeting me here, so I've gotta go.

BTW, I'll post the Guiness Ice cream receipe when I remember to have it by the computer.