Bible Reading 2007, Week 46

The Bible Reading for the week of November 11-17 is in Ephesians; Philemon; and Psalms 107-110.

Children's Story: Blind Spots

Props:

• A half-sheet of paper for each person
• Pens or pencils

Outline:

• Introduce the subject of blind spots
• Pass out paper and pens/pencils
• Have each person draw a large dot on the left and an "X" about 3 inches to the right
• Have each person hold the sheet of paper out at arm's length
• Have each person close their left eye, and then with the right eye look at the left dot
• Slowly move the paper in toward the face
• At some point, the "X" should disappear, and then reappear as the paper is moved closer in
• Talk about the fact that we all are born with physical blind spots (due to the optical nerve connection, no light receptors are present at that point, resulting in the blind spot)
• Switch gears a bit and discuss blind spots as they relate to driving
• Start with walking and how there really aren't any blind spots because it is easy to turn around and see everything behind
• Move up to a bicycle and observe that it is still relatively easy to look all around
• Now move to a small car and all of sudden, there are areas which cannot be seen no matter how hard one turns about and regardless of how well the mirrors are adjusted
• Move to a large pickup/van, an 18-wheeler -- the blind spots get bigger and bigger
• Relate these ideas to the concept that as a person becomes more self-absorbed, self-centered, selfish, and proud, the box they live in become bigger and bigger, and their blind spots bigger and bigger
• As the spiritual blind spots get bigger, it becomes more difficult to see the needs of the world and its people, and a person becomes less and less loving and caring, and consequently less and less useful to God
• The Bible doesn't say anything about God or Jesus riding with us in chariots (since cars and such hadn't been developed yet), but has a lot to say about walking with him.
• (Perhaps a bit too much of reading something into the Bible, but hey...) Maybe that's because God wants to remove the blind spots that plague us and the only way to do that is to slow us down and make us travel at a pace and in a mode where we are fully aware of the world around us.

Sermon: Am I Also Blind?

(Click HERE for MP3 sermon audio.)

Today's sermon is based on John 9. This is the story of the blind man from birth whose sight is restored by Jesus.

This sermon discusses the relationship of blindness to a person's response to Jesus and what he says and does.

Sermon: Two Great Sinners

(Click HERE to listen to MP3 sermon audio.)

(The web hosting provider that hosts my sermon audio files has been moving their servers over the weekend. That's why this is being posted today and why if anyone has tried to access audio over the weekend, it wasn't working.)

I started the voice recorder about a minute into the sermon. What happened before the recording starts is I asked a couple of questions: Have you ever been misunderstood? Have you ever misunderstood someone? And then I gave a couple of examples of cross-cultural misunderstandings. Where the recording starts, I'm struggling to find some other examples -- which is why you hear a lot of long pauses.

The sermon itself is based on Luke 7:36-50. This is the story of the sinful woman who washes, kisses, and anoints Jesus' feet during a dinner at a Pharisee's (Simon) house.

I discuss some of the cultural nuances I learned about this story from reading Kenneth Bailey's Through Peasant Eyes. These details help explain and amplify the significance of the woman's actions and the contrast between her and Simon. It also helps show Jesus was quite a counter-cultural person.

The message brought out in the sermon is nothing new. My reason for speaking on this topic is to present a relatively familiar story in a fresh light to discover some motifs that we might have missed earlier. And by doing so to find new ways to incorporate the messages of the story into our daily lives.

Bible Reading 2007, Week 45

This week we will be reading through 1 and 2 Corinthians.

Recipe: Navy Bean Chowder

Today was one of those "happy accident" days. I was looking around trying to figure out how to prepare some dry navy beans that I had purchased. I found a recipe that gave me some inspiration. I did some major alterations to it, and then I overcooked the beans so that it was too mushy to be useful as a side dish item. But hey, it looked like it could be turned into decent soup... which is what I did.

---

Makes about 4 cups
Serves 6 to 8

Ingredients

• 1-1/2 cups dry navy beans
• 1 medium yellow onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp. each dried thyme, rosemary, and basil
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 tbsp. unsalted butter
• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• Salt (1/2 to 1 tbsp.) and ground white pepper (1/2 - 1 tsp.) to taste

Instructions

1. Soak dry beans according to bag directions. Drain and rinse.
2. Place beans into a medium pot, fill with water so that beans are covered by 2-inches of water on top. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for 30 to 60 minutes until slightly less than desired tenderness is reached.
3. While the beans are cooking in step 2, chop onion and mince garlic (or use garlic press). In a mortar and pestle, finely grind thyme, rosemary, and basil.
4. When ready, place chopped onions, minced garlic, and ground spices into pot. Stir to mix, bring back to slight boil, then cover and continue to simmer for another 20 minutes.
5. Reserve 1/2 cup of cooking liquid and drain the rest. Place beans and reserved liquid back into the pot, and add 1/2 cup of heavy cream, butter, and olive oil. Stir to mix and bring to boil on medium heat, then simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, for about 5 more minutes.

Time change snafus and such

I woke up this morning and as I normally so, wonder what the time is. Now earlier, Elise's alarm had gone off (presumably at 5:30 a.m.) because she works today. My alarm had gone off at 6:30 a.m. (again, presumably), because I like to be up and about by 7 a.m.

So when I started to reach for the clock, I suddenly realized that the time had changed from Daylight Savings to Standard Time during the night. I looked at my clock (which gets its time from the atomic clock radio signal) and it was off by 2 hours. Elise's clock still read the old DST time.

I finally gathered that it was actually about 6:30 a.m. I wondered if Elise had figured out the change. Since she was no longer in the house, I assumed she had gone off to work an hour early. Just a little while ago, she called and part of the conversation was that indeed, she had gone in early... as did the other day shift nurse. So the night shift nurses got to go off work early this morning.

I've never been a fan of DST. I've always thought it was a dumb idea and couldn't figure out why it was supposed to "save energy." I got part of an answer in Friday's WSJ column. The whole exercise is based on stale data and assumptions that have likely changed since the research was last done over 3 decades ago.

This year was particularly annoying because of the extra 4 weeks of DST -- 3 weeks in the spring, and 1 week in the fall. Quite a bit of time-based electronics (such as VCRs) are hard-wired in their DST changes and the VCR at our church missed recording a program because it changed the time back one week early this year. I have a sneaky suspicion this wasn't the only unit that experienced this particular snafu.

We are having a bit of dry-ish days here. The constant, heavy rains over two weeks resulted in quite a bit of water to seep up into parts of our basement. That is now finally receding with the help of the dehumidifier that runs 24/7.

All of us are suffering, to varying degrees, the cold that was gifted to us a week ago. It feels like I'm over the worst of it, which was nowhere near what our girls experienced. They had some nasty coughts, but I haven't had that and hopefully will not.

I don't like upgrading PCs

Yesterday, I was forced into upgrading our oldest desktop PC. For quite a while now, whenever we'd try to start it up, the boot process failed early and it would try to boot up from the floppy drive. I tried changing the CMOS battery but it didn't make a difference. The thing has been getting progressively worse. It used to only take a dozen or so startup attempts before it would recognize that there was a bootable hard drive and boot up. Lately it was getting to 20 and 30 tries. Yesterday, it exceeded those numbers and I finally decided to bite the bullet and do a motherboard upgrade.

In anticipation of having to do this, I had a case and power supply brought up some months ago. Because I've always found motherboard replacements to be so unpredictable in what happens to the operating system, I was holding off on this upgrade as long as I possibly could.

The hardware part of the upgrade was actually quite painless. The instructions for the case were pretty good, and the diagrams in the motherboard manuals were also quite good. I got everything hooked up, the CPU and heat sink installed, the video card installed, and was amazed that when powered up, the boot screen appeared. (I've had more than one instance in the past where the initial power-on did not succeed, for various reasons.)

Then the troubles started. I moved the hard drive from the old PC to the new. I also moved the CD-RW drive over. I booted the computer again, and Windows actually came up. It started encountering new hardware and asked for driver disks. Uh, oh... I had forgotten plug in the CD-RW power cable... I shut Windows down so I could plug it in...

That done I booted up -- and Windows almost started. Right before the login window, it popped up an error about the Registry having problems flushing its writes, etc. Ha! I've written error messages like that before in software I've worked on. It's one of those error messages that really says, "I haven't a clue what went wrong, but something did, and I can't continue," but in more technical terms. I searched the web for a solutions but couldn't find any. So I went to bed, annoyed and frustrated at being so close, yet so far.

This morning I started working on it again. This OS, being an upgrade from Windows ME many years ago (though the drive is only a few years old, having had to replace it at one point), the main file system was still FAT32. I'll get back to this in a little while.

I first tried a repair install of Windows XP, but I couldn't even use that option because the OS partition didn't have enough free space left. I then tried the Recovery Console to attempt to salvage the Registry files. That too, was not successful. I tried to install an upgrade of Windows Vista, but the upgrade I have requires the upgrade to be started from within Windows XP... Catch-22!

I'm sure I tried a few other things. Oh, and in the process of all this, Windows activation expired. Normally when major hardware changes are made, the OS gives you 3 days to re-activate. My mucking with trying to recover the Registry and such caused an immediate activation. I was not able to activate at startup because, as I later suspected, I have a web filtering program that requires sign-on before it allows Internet connectivity. If activation is required before applications start, but an application is needed before activation can access the Internet... Another Catch-22.

Throughout all this, Windows would occasionally boot up. That's how I encountered the immediate activation requirement. I finally used the phone to call in the activation, and that was successful. I still didn't have much hope for Windows to successfully boot up consistently.

But I decided, what the heck, I'll convert the FAT32 partitions to NTFS (because NTFS is more reliable) and see what happens. Of course that requires a restart. So I did that and went away to let the conversion happen.

After quite some time, Shelley informed me that something was happening on the PC. I looked and the restart worked and Windows was at the login screen. Well, maybe the darn thing is really working, I thought.

There were numerous updates that had to be applied, and some of them required restarts. And what do you know? The computer has been working now without error.

Adding up the time, I think I spent a good 7 hours on this upgrade. Which is why I was holding off on it, and which is why I don't like performing major computer surgery. And no, I still have no idea why it didn't work last night and it is working this afternoon.

Some thoughts on The Golden Compass

A couple of months ago, one of the pastors in town brought attention to a movie, The Golden Compass, coming out in December. It is based on a book of the same title, first the His Dark Materials trilogy.

At that time, I decided to find out for myself what Philip Pullman, the author, really wrote. When something can be of such controversial nature as this book trilogy and movie are, I believe it is important to not place too much faith on information from other sources (which are far too often biased in one extreme or another). I checked out all three volumes and read through them, in the span of around 15 hours.

I bring this up again because today, I received an e-mail (a forward of a forward) from the Alaska Conference regarding the upcoming movie release. In the forwarded section of the e-mail, a reference was made to The Golden Compass being anti-Narnia and also it about being "killing God."

Mr. Pullman, in interviews and in his own essays, has voiced his disdain for C. S. Lewis and the Narnia Chronicles. However, to leap from that to saying that his trilogy is anti-Narnia seems a difficult logical leap... I suppose one can say it is anti-Narnia because Narnia is based on the presupposition that divinity exists and the supernatural is at work, whereas Pullman's work presupposes only naturalism (as any good atheist would).

In regards to "killing God," if God was really like the god described by the trilogy, and if religion was really like what it depicted in the books, I would be an atheist and anti-religion also. In my opinion, the trilogy isn't about killing God or gods... Based on the presupposition that God and gods don't exist anyway, it's about putting away the notion that divinity exists.

If Christians believe that this world was created and is sustained by God, Pullman believes that science (naturalism) can and will eventually explain everything. If Christians have faith in God's workings, Pullman places his faith in the workings of science and nature.It's just the object of faith that is different. Just as Christians seek to understand more the object of their faith, the characters in Pullman's work also tries to understand better their objects of faith. In this respect, my opinion is that the trilogy is very much about the need for humans to have faith in something. For Pullman, again, it is naturalism.

Another major criticism laid against Pullman, the trilogy, and the movie is that it is anti-Christian, and particularly anti-Catholic. I'll agree that it can easily be interpreted that way. But primarily, Pullman is writing a polemic against religion's abuses and about how (religious) systems seek to serve and protect itself. Throughout the trilogy I found myself nodding in agreement with Pullman's criticisms of religion, religious systems, and one of their specific examples: Christianity. Catholicism, being the largest, most visible, and having the longest history in Christianity, naturally bears the brunt of criticisms. It's not that the Catholic church is necessary worse than any other religious system -- it's one that is most easily identified and criticized.

One final point to consider before moving on to how I think Christians ought to respond...

Some of the online criticisms I've read note that Pullman is trying to "evangelize" children into atheism. That may be true. And if so I believe he has as much right as anyone else to try to "evangelize." If the Christian belief system is so fragile that it cannot withstand the assaults of atheism, then Christianity has no business claiming to be a worldview, let alone claiming to be the best.

I don't ever recall Jesus asking his disciples to go into all the world and "defend me and the Father." What I see recorded in the Bible is Jesus saying, "Go into all the world and speak the truth about me -- speak about how I've changed your life." I'm reminded also of Daniel 3 -- the story of the three Jews in Nebuchadnezzar's furnace on the plains of Dura. Their response was basically the same: Nebuchadnezzar, your challenge is against our God. We don't need to defend him. He is powerful enough to defend himself. But even if he chooses not to, we will remain loyal to him.

I think what I mentioned in the previous paragraph should inform and shape our response as Christians. If we react impulsively (and in fear)against the movie and the trilogy, we only prove the author (and other atheists) correct in their arguments that Christians (and other people of faith) are narrow-minded, judgmental, opposed to freedom of information and choice, controlling, seek to quash anything that threatens their beliefs, etc.

My opinion is that Christians should use incidents and works of this nature to inform us, to instruct us where we might deserve criticism, and to open dialogue with those who might think differently. We should use these opportunities to humbly admit that we as individual Christians have failed to live up to Christ's standard, that we as a group (the Church) have also failed to live up to Christ's standard. And then we should try to direct the conversation to the ideal of love.

Underneath all that Pullman writes in the trilogy, the main theme is the importance of love and compassion. (This comes through in the third book, at least in my mind.) I don't know if what he writes is his personal belief, but I read somewhere regarding authors of novels that they are revealing their inner self in their works. If that is true, then Pullman wants to believe that the universe runs on love and compassion. When these are violated, the universe falls apart. This is common ground that true Christ-followers share with Pullman, and perhaps many other atheists. Rather than attacking and criticizing them, this can be a starting point for further conversations.

An interesting additional point, particularly for Seventh-day Adventists is in regards to the Christian beliefs of the body, soul, and spirit. Many Christians believe in these three being distinct and, as the teachings about the spirit going to heaven right after death show, the implication is that each can survive separately. The first book in the trilogy takes this doctrine to its logical conclusion. If the body is evil and the soul is good, why not actively bring about their separation? (Where the spirit goes is addressed in the second book.)

Adventist Christians (most -- I leave room for those that don't) believe in the wholism of the person -- that the soul described in the Bible consists of both the body and breath of life (spirit) -- that one cannot be separated from another, and together form the living entity that we call soul. As soon as one element disappears, all cease their existence, except in the mind of God. In a backwards way, Pullman's work shows the absurdity of believing in the idea of separate body, soul, and spirit; and affirms the Adventist belief on this matter.

I end this series of thoughts on The Golden Compass with the warning I began: If you are going to discuss this topic with someone, I encourage you to personally and carefully examine the primary materials (i.e., all three books of the His Dark Materials trilogy) and reach your own conclusions. Depending on hearsay (or hearsay of a hearsay) will undermine your own credibility and the credibility of Christians in general. (And that goes for using my thoughts here. These are meant to encourage you to examine the work for yourself.)

Halloween visitors

Since today is November 1, yesterday must have been Halloween. When we moved into this house, we were warned to have plenty of candy available on Halloween. The street on which we live is one of the traditional trick-or-treating avenues. This being Petersburg (which means it's usually wet), most of the kids get driven from one section of the street to another, where they pile out, knock on the four or five doors about, get their treats, then pile back in and drive a few more yards down.

We lit a few candles in the windows, and turned down the lights to give a bit of ambience. I didn't keep count, but my guess is that we probably had around 50-60 youngsters, from tots to teens, visit us last night. The city sets an official trick-or-treating period of 2 hours, from 6 to 8 p.m. During that time, homes that are giving treats out are to turn on the porch light. That is really convenient for everyone because it means that those who don't want to participate don't have to, and those that do know when to start and when to cut off.

Elise's mom called during that time and we were reminded of how different things were back in the Portland area. I recall that there wasn't much in the way of trick-or-treating by small children anymore. Most of them were taken to shopping malls to go around the different stores to collect their goodies. Those that came around to houses were typically those within the neighborhood. Older kids might come around, but they weren't really dressed up.

Here, Halloween is still similar to what I recall from my kid days. It still has an innocent fun and a community feeling to it. (The bars have parties for adults.) Our kids were down with nasty colds, so they stayed home last night.

Gift of Colds

Grandpa Tom and Danny came last Thursday and left yesterday. It was wet the entire time. But they and Amy spent quite a bit of time wandering about outdoors, getting wet and muddy (and cold...)

While here, Grandpa Tom developed a cold. (I think it came from the Lower 48... Someone forgot to quarantine it...) Anyway, Amy is down and out with it today; and Shelley is also starting to feel it.

Since I know I've been exposed to this bug, the question now is a matter of if I come down with symptoms, and if I do, how long and severe it will be. I've been using Zicam Oral Spray in hopes that it will reduce both the length and severity.

Bible Reading 2007, Week 44

This week we are reading through Romans and Psalms 96-101.

Sermon: Righteousness and Mercy

(Click HERE for MP3 sermon audio.)

Today's sermon comes from Daniel 4. This is the story of (actually a proclamation by) Nebuchadnezzar about his dream of a great tree and his humbling experience.

The scripture reading was Matthew 5:7, and the key text within the sermon was Daniel 4:27.

In this sermon I explore a possible response to the question, "What kind of worship does God want from us?"

In attempting to find a response, I explore several related areas:

• What does it mean to "not sin" or "stop sinning?"
• What is righteousness?
• What is true conversion?

Responses to these questions help provide a response to the main question. (Hint: I end the sermon with Micah 6:8 which I find to be an apt summary of Daniel 4.)

Morning Snow Pics

As dawn breaks across the landscape, here's what I saw. (Our front windows face the northwest.)

"No Accumulation?"

Here's the current short-term forecast (emphasis mine):

Nowcast as of 9:00 PM ADT on October 23, 2007 Now Rain mixed with snow tonight. No accumulation expected. Patchy fog forming by midnight. Visibility decreasing to less than 2 miles at time. Wind variable with gusts to 20 mph becoming northwest 10 to 20 mph around midnight.

 

The forecast gets it wrong again! I don't know what you see, but I see accumulation... Maybe it won't stay long, but it's there.

I had been reading and had just turned out all the lights. The thought crossed my mind: I wonder what happened to the snowfall? Even though the blinds are all down, there is some light (from the streetlight) that comes through around the edges. And they sure seemed brighter than usual. I peeked around the blind at the head of the bed (to the backyard -- no lights) and I could see the lawn... or what used to be lawn (okay, there's a lot of moss, too). It was of a much lighter color.

I got up to take a look at the front of the house... Yup, snow. I walked into Amy's bedroom (has the best view out) and could definitely see snow blanketing the landscape. And of course I couldn't just let it go and try to go to sleep without first recording it. So here you have it.

Checking my blog records, the first snow like this in 2006 was November 5. If the city was hoping for a less severe winter, tonight is not a good omen of the winter to come...

Winter approaches Is Here

Just now, while driving about I noticed that some of the raindrops falling onto the windshield wasn't quite smooth. They looked downright slushy... Not very many, but a few. Autumn is quickly making way for winter. Everyone here is hoping that this winter won't be nearly as snowy as last.

Well, the occasional slush has turned into actual snow tonight. It's very wet and mixed with rain so it isn't sticking. (Except for a bit of slush coating the roof surface.) But we are seeing the first snowfall of the season in October. I just checked my blogs from last year and this year the first snow is a week earlier. Last year, I noted that the first snowflakes were seen on October 30.

Stormy Day (video)

The wind has picked up even more. I don't know if there's been a more windy day than today since we've been here.

Click HERE to download a 26 sec. Windows Media video clip of the trees violently swaying in our backyard.

Stormy day

Yesterday was dry, very clear and cold. It all changed by this morning. Today it is still chilly (thought not quite as cold), but very windy and quite wet. There is a wind advisory posted for the remainder of the day, and for good reason. The Narrows are very choppy with whitecaps where it joins the Sound.

Yesterday, when we were out walking, Shelley decided it was warm enough to be out in a sleeveless shirt. The thermometer read 40F. And then later, back inside, she is wearing a jacket. She says it's all about expectations -- since she expects it to be cold outside, it doesn't actually feel that cold. It's supposed to be warm inside, but it isn't, so it feels cold. I'm not quite sure what to make of this...

Elise is on her way to Anchorage today to attend an Alaska nurses' convention. I'm sure the weather will make the flight quite interesting (and not in a good way).

A doe and her fawn (no spots anymore) have been lazily strolling and resting in our yard, feeding on various plant bits. The salmonberry canes are dying off for the winter. The skunk cabbage leaves have all died off and are quickly rotting away. The huge fern leaves are also dead and brown, though being of harder material, they don't decompose quite so quickly. Nearly all the deciduous trees have shed all their leaves.

Bible Reading 2007, Week 43

This week's readings are in the book of Acts. (Chapter 7 was read during week 10.)

Sermon: Truth Is Life

(Click HERE for MP3 sermon audio.)

Today's sermon concludes John 8 by going through verses 31-59. This is the section where Jesus and some of the Jewish people argue about what it means to be Abraham's son, and at the end they try to stone Jesus.

Elise told me afterwards that she couldn't quite figure out the point I was trying to get at; that the sermon was a bit too technical. I was afraid that might be the case. I thought I emphasized the key points I was trying to communicate, but apparently it did not come through as well as I had hoped.

The key points of the four sections that I broke up today's passage is as follows:

1. Abiding (verses 31-37)
2. Imitating (verses 38-41a)
3. Belonging and Identity (verses 41b-47)
4. The previous three illustrated (verses 48-59)

And the primary point of the whole sermon was to emphasize that #1, abiding, is the key to everything else that follows.