"The riddles of God are more satisfying
than the solutions of man."
G. K. Chesterton, Introduction
to the Book of Job
___
If a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing at the last minute.
___
O how I hate the sinful ways I love!
___
Things to do today:
* repent of my sins
* believe the gospel
___
"I always think I'm right, but I don't think I'm always right."
___
"You have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have."
Gandalf to Frodo,
LOTR i.2
___
"Oh, miracle -- thus to be able to give what we ourselves do not possess, sweet miracle of our empty hands!"
Diary of a Country Priest
___
"This is not pleasant to you, Emma--and it is very far from pleasant to me; but I must, I will,--I will
tell you truths while I can; satisfied with proving myself your friend by very faithful counsel, and trusting that you will some time or other do me
greater justice than you can do now."
Knightly to Emma
___
My writing is like Shakespeare's. At lease in the sense that I use many of the same words.
___
Tennis: what I lack in control, I make up for by over-hitting.
These are the ARCHIVES of the OLD Presbyteer Blogsite.
Change your links to
http://www.presbyteer.blogspot.com
Last
Saturday morning I lost a close match. It was 100 degrees and not
even 11:00 am yet. I came from behind to win the first set in a
tiebreaker, but I was so miserable it was hard to care who was winning; I
just wanted to go home. After my opponent won the second set we
agreed to play just one tiebreaker game instead of an actual third
set. It may have helped him when he realized that I just wasn't
chasing any drop shots. At all. Short ball? Your
point. Next.
Last night I won an easier match, so I finish the season at 8-7 and hereby declare the season a success. I'll probably lose against an upper division guy in the first round of the league tournament, so the season is about over.
Ever
since I read that short blog piece on Liturgical Image-bearing (see below,
July 26), I can't stop thinking about the false boundary markers we use in
our churches. When I attend another church, especially one that is
organizationally associated with some other group, I am not sure how or if
I "belong," because I don't know what the group's boundary
markers are. What do you have to do in order to be "in" --
or, what might you do that will put you "out." I watch for
the kinds of clothes they're wearing, I listen to the kinds of music they
use, I check the order of worship to see if there's anything weird in
it. What lets me "in" and what keeps me
"out." As a rule, the more distinctive they are, the
harder it is to cross the boundary. And most groups will have those
who patrol the boundaries, checking newcomers for compliance.
It has to be Jesus that defines the boundaries of the church, which is his body. Nothing more; no additions. Those are the sectarians. Nothing less. Those are the sub-Christian liberals, Unitarians, and cults.
I made a spontaneous trip to Auburn Nebraska last night with daughter Anne to deliver the first load of stuff to her new apartment. She had been given an entertainment center and a coffee table, and once we got them into the van, it seemed like a good idea to unload them directly in Auburn rather than bringing them home and then loading them up again in a week or two.
This was my first look at the place, and Auburn looks like a nice little town. We're uncertain of the church situation. There are a couple of varieties of Lutherans, a Catholic, Churches of Christ, a big Methodist, a neat old PCUSA building across from the courthouse, something called a New World Life Outreach Center, and a tiny little EFree north of town.
It's also one hour to Lincoln, though that is not an attractive option; Anne wants to be part of the community where she teaches. In fact, we discussed her becoming Mayor so she could repeal the strange city ordinance against parking on the street after 10 pm.
This
is profound. I found it on a blog called Solemnibus
II, which I know nothing about, but which looks very promising.
There is a strange reflection of Romans 1 in the life of a church. A body not sufficiently embodying the personality of Christ as the true source of its unity will tend to set up alternative marks and means of that unity. In failing to honour the image of God, it will become subservient to another.
Then, because the image a church serves determines the way it patrols its borders, body-life will become self-reinforcing. Formally, through ritualisation on Sundays, and informally, through the subtle daily interactions that weave people, and character traits, in or out, the body will be given over to the image it values.
And if the heart of the church honours idols, then the body will recieve in itself the due penalty of its perversion.
More
thoughts on Harry Potter 6. Avec spoilers.
Good stuff. Er, I'm Hermione? [6] "As for me, I have set my King Hermione held her new baby tenderly in her arms and said,
"Isn't he adorable, Harry darling? And look, he's got a
scar!"
My first thoughts, with Major Spoilers here
... There is also a really intelligent discussion over at the BarlowFarms
blog...
Wonderful reflections on the goodness of the old style
animated cartoons in the Mere
Comments blog ... I
spent a good deal of time plugging my computer's CD drive to rip my way
through a pile of music around the house for the iPod. I'm finished
for now. I'm enjoying the music.
I has been hot and dry for quite a spell. Last night
the wind was stirring, so I sat on the porch for a good while to see if
anything would come of it. There was some lightening and the trees
tossed their branches about a bit; all very enjoyable such as it was, but
by 11:00 there had been only one 30-second rain shower and I went to
bed. But evidently there was more during the night, though I didn't
hear it. Things were wet this morning, with a few puddles still on
the tennis courts at 8:00.
I preached a pretty lousy sermon on Psalm 106 yesterday at
Faith OPC. It was kind of a last-minute request on their part, so I
have some excuse, but it doesn't feel like enough. I'm really
sorry. I plead incompetence.
Yeah, and my opponent beat me soundly in that tennis
match. It felt like having your pants pulled down around your
ankles, tied around your head as a blindfold, and being spun around in
circles. Plus I couldn't keep the ball in the court. Two
albums that are a true hoot: Cowboy
Bebop. This is really really fun up tempo loud crazy big band
jazz. It's associated with some Japanese anime stuff I've never
seen, but the music makes me laugh. Thanks to son Joe for putting me
on to this.
Swing
by Manhattan Transfer. This is close harmony jazz vocal music at
it's best. Listen to this clip of Down South Camp Meetin'
<listen>
Those are actual words they're singing, but it bounces around with such
rubberized energy, it sounds like scat. Too. Much. Fun.
I also have enjoyed some of the Bach inventions on
harpsichord. Some of that stuff would work well for a church bell
choir. I'm sure someone has already done the necessary adapting
somewhere. I'd like to have a weekly bell choir playing pre-service
music like that in my someday church.
I finally have my next Ace Bandage match tonight.
I'm 7-5 going against a guy who is 10-1 at last count and has rolled most
of his opponents in lopsided straight sets. I'd dearly like to bump
him off. A couple of weeks ago I beat the one guy who beat him, so
all things are possible. But I'm streaky. When I have an off
day, I may as well be playing with a broom handle. So we'll see.
The
best audio Bible version is Alexander
Scourby. No cheesy music. No sound effects. No
"dramatization." Just a guy with a good voice reading. You
might not like the King James, but when you start looking at modern
translations, beware audio versions with soothing background music and
affected narration. (Hank Hanegraaf
had an Bible elocutionist on his radio show once and his sample reading
helped me immediately decide to avoid that one with special care.)
If your computer has RealAudio, you can listen to a sample of Scourby from
Psalm 23.
It's going onto my iPod. James Earl Jones also has narrated
a version. This customer review from Amazon.com
made me laugh. Especially the last paragraph:
The Bible is probably the most influential book in
the world of sci-fi. And that's saying a lot .... Amazon.com
lists its top 25 best-selling authors for the last 10 years.
The number one has a book coming out THIS WEEK which I
have had on order. JRR Tolkein and CS Lewis make the list (yay), but
so do Dan Brown (Da Vinci Code -ugh) and Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins
(Left Behind, episodes 1 through 666 -alas).
Interesting too that the non-fiction tends to be secrets
of successful business and management.
Daughter Anne has secured a 2-bedroom accommodation in
Auburn and has a door key. So we'll be making trips thither and
hither to start moving her stuff. Teachers report in the middle of
August.
Son Joe finished Heinlein's Space Cadet and enjoyed
it. We shared our appreciation of the business about "I'll
answer for Dahlquist." The Roman Catholic church in Lincoln has scooped in some
nice neighborhood church buildings in the last few years. One was a
Reformed Church in America building -- that congregation moved out to the
west side of town and built something bigger and newer. The
Catholics are now using their old building for an Hispanic
congregation. Another was a Lutheran building; their congregation
built a pretty impressive new place out on the east edge. And the
Catholics also got a building right across from one of the High
Schools. That one goes to the Catholic's Vietnamese congregation. We lose something when a congregations just ups and moves
across town. We need to think about what it means to have an ongoing
neighborhood presence. Church leaders do their share of hand wringing
about how rootless their people are; they come and go without any sense of
belonging and community commitment. Well, that goes for the
churches, too. I don't know how this works in the face of the
culture's increasingly mobile population -- people move house and change
jobs much more nowadays than was common in generations past. But it
feels like the church should be doing something against that current
rather than floating along downstream with everyone else. So
I bought an iPod to replace my dead Creative
Jukebox Zen. The iPod feels
like an extravagance, but it is not a whole lot more expensive than the
competition and from what I can tell it has better features and promises
to be a solid, dependable unit. I particular, I like the way
that it automatically retrieves album titles and song names from the
internet when you convert an audio CD to MP3 for the iPod. (Other
conversion utilities make you type in the album name and then name the
songs Track01, Track02, Track03, or something about as helpful.) I do two things
with it. (1) MP3 recordings of conference and seminar
speakers. (2) Music. The conference messages fill my
brain. The music speaks to my heart. I listen to Gershwin's
orchestral pieces, and I tremble. I listen to an album called Basso
Profundo by a Russian men's choir and I am moved. I'm doing a short
pseries on pselected Psalms in our adult psunday pschool, and this week we
poked around in the dark corners of the Psalter's basement with Psalm
88. I used the iPod to play the class part of one of the Russian pieces which was
just about as dark and sad as anybody needs to be. It worked just
fine with a small pair of speakers (that originally were contrived to run
from a computer's sound card) plugged into the iPod's headphone connector.
Much of the weekend was spent on wedding affairs. My
niece Jessica married a feller named Nate. They are both very
unusually motivated Christians. At the rehearsal dinner, Nate's
college pals told stories of his deeds at Taylor University, including his
capacity and enthusiasm for scripture memorization. By one account
he has memorized eleven books of the Bible. At
the reception there was an open mike talent show / greetings
opportunity. I took a short turn with an original limerick
Sweet Jessica wanted to call a man Islam:
"A Religion of Peace" Part 2
To balance my comments of yesterday, if you do a bit of
hunting, you can find some Arab and Islamic denunciations of the London
bombings. Such as Shoura Council member Ihsan Bouhlaiga strongly
condemned the deadly terrorist attacks and offered his condolences to the
victims and their families. “The kind of horrific attacks that happened
yesterday must be condemned by all peace-loving nations and
individuals,” he said, adding that the attacks were a “terrible
crime” committed by the enemies of peace and humanity. Also [Saudi] Social Affairs Minister Abdulmohsen Al-Akkas
said: “It is a heinous act. I don’t know who did it. I condemn it in
the strongest possible terms and I offer my sympathies to the families.” Now I wonder if any PCUSA officials will denounce their
monkeyshines moderator. Islam:
"A Religion of Peace"
"Rejoice, Islamic nation.
Rejoice, Arab world. The time has come for vengeance against the Zionist
crusader government of Britain in response to the massacres Britain
committed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The heroic mujahedeen carried out a
blessed attack in London, and now Britain is burning with fear and
terror, from north to south, east to west." That is what the group responsible for the London bombings
posted on the web. Here is a list of all the fervent denunciations
and calls for the capture and punishment of the terrorists that I've seen
so far from the peace-loving Islamic leaders of the world:
.
.
.
.
Liberal Presbyterianism: "A Religion of
Peace" Just let a PC(USA) congregation make noise
about having it up to here with the apostate ways of the denominational
leadership, and the Moderator of the General Assembly shows up to disrupt
the worship service: Robert
S. Rayburn is a leading PCA pastor
in Tacoma Washington. He gave a series of messages at
Covenant Seminary for the Wilson Preaching Lectures in 1996.
Recently I listened to one of those that has really stuck entitled Preaching
the Poles. Basically Rayburn tells these seminary students
to stick with the text even when it is extreme. Let it be extreme,
preach what it says, and don't feel like you have to find some middle
ground. Thus, when the passage is about justification by faith apart
from works, preach just that, and don't try to drag in the rest of your
system. This may be especially hard when the text says that there
will be a judgment according to works. Don't chicken out.
Don't run to some other passage to "balance" things. Don't
shift around nervously trying to find a middle ground. God has seen
fit to speak to us in these polar extremes, and the preacher's job is to
say what the Bible says and let it speak as God speaks. So preach
the judgment according to works without apology and without
hesitation. Let that word speak and have its own full impact.
The Bible doesn't bother reconciling the poles and fitting everything
neatly into the system, and the preacher shouldn't either. The
people are not well served by the pastor who feels like he must explain
and qualify and find the middle somewhere.
Nothing
gets an "amen, brother" from me quicker than a well-reasoned
piece on church music. Read S. M. Hutchens piece on Grandpa's
Music over on the Mere Comments blog and tell me if you think he's
wrong at all. Even a little. In any way.
When Nathaniel meets Jesus for the first time he says, John 1:49
"Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!"
It's worth noting that those are the categories of Psalm 2.
on Zion, my holy hill."
[7] I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said to me, "You are my Son;
today I have begotten you. Psalm 2:6-7
We are told that J. K. Rowling has written the last
chapter of the last book already, and that the last word in the last
sentence is "scar." So here is my prediction:
I
finished the Half Blood Prince.
We got the Harry Potter book. Actually there are
about four copies floating around our house, each with a different bookmark or
two. Daughter Bess finished it first. I'm only as far as
chapter 13. I have been remarking how Rowling keeps a lot of plates spinning. She has a
ton of characters and situations, and she brings each one into the scene
just often enough to keep them in our minds so they'll be there later when
she really needs them.
The weird thing about this is its James Earl Jones reading it instead of
me reading it. (It's on a CD and you play it the same way you would a
music CD.) And when you hear him say: "Put up again thy sword into
his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the
sword," (St. Matthew, p 499) it kinda sucks. hearing Darth Vader
say [that]! ....
I'm getting tired, but I also noticed that all the things I didn't get
about band names like Judas Priest and some of the things Iron Maiden
said are all explained in this book. But, I goota say, even with bad
guys like a devil, the army of gays, the big cyclops and all that,
there's just not enough action, not enough monsters. But, it's old, so I
guess it was good for its time. ....
It also gets boring. And Lord Vader you can tell gets bored too...he
sighs during parts of it and says "yada yada" during this part
that just lists like who's the son of who's son. But, hey, my grandmama
is still a fan, the pope's a fan, that's saying a lot. Will Lord of the
Rings and Star Wars stand that test of time? Or not? Or will they stand
it?
Who'd wed her, the Bible way followin'.
Nate said he'd be ready,
But first had to study
And mem'rize the whole Song of Solomon.
Moderator
Ufford-Chase leads group intruding on worship service
The PC(USA) officials, who have led that denomination down
the path of disobedience and unbelief for many years, finally have
something to worry about. The PC(USA) has had a constitutional
provision that a congregation has no property ownership, and so a
congregation that wants to leave the denomination faces the loss of its
building. But a Methodist congregation, living under similar tyranny
in that denomination, recently won a court case where the judge ruled such
denominational claims on local property are illegitimate. So now the
denominational leaders are duly worried, facing as they do real costs to
their persistent apostate drift. The PC(USA) membership balloon has
been leaking badly for many years, and now they face the prospect of the
whole thing going phhhphphttt as one orthodox congregation after another
heads for the exits.
Remember your congregation, which you have purchased of old,
Very
sharp, pointy, uncomfortable observation on where
redefining marriage really began ...
It's
old stuff to marvel at the progress in technology. The first laser
printer I ever saw (circa 1986?) was an Apple LaserWriter that did 300 dpi
and cost something like $6000. Today at Office Max I saw a Brother
model that does 8 pages per minute with a 250-sheet paper tray for $99
after rebates. There is no longer any no reason to use an inkjet
printer for black and white printing. Photo printing, okay, but
nothing more. You can even get a color laser printer for $500.
My Creative Labs Jukebox MP3 player died. It was a
factory refurbish and lasted just a
year. I plug in the power
connector to re-charge the thing and it doesn't recognize the
connection. No little "charging" status icon. If it
were just an expired battery, you would expect it to at least *try* to
take the charge and then fail after a short time of playing. Anyway,
I miss it. Since it's basically a paperweight, I'm tempted to get my
little jeweler's screwdriver out and open the case to see if the problem
is something as simple as a loose wire. Failing that, I'm of a mind
to buy some kind of replacement ...
It
is good news in these times when a church body takes appropriate steps
against those in her number who flaunt God's law: It is somehow even
more satisfying when it is the African bishops who are saying they have
finally had enough of the smug apostate Americans.
East African Standard, Nairobi, Kenya By Samwel Rambaya The Anglican Church of Kenya has severed links with the Episcopal Church of
America and demanded its expulsion from the global communion. The announcement at the end of a three-day meeting in Nairobi was made
amidst revelation that the head of the parent church in England, archbishop
Rowan William would be visiting Kenya on July 20. The church made the move over ECUSA's endorsement of Dr Gene
Robinson a 59-year-old homosexual bishop who divorced his wife to live with a male
partner. Besides foregoing unspecified financial aid, the Kenyan Church would also
not send its clergy for training at churches that recognise lesbianism and
homosexuality. "Unless they repent and recant same sex marriage, we have nothing to do with
them," said archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi who chaired the meeting at All Saints
Cathedral, Nairobi. Nzimbi said Kenya's stand was communicated at last week's meeting of the
which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage!
Remember Mount Zion, where you have dwelt.
Psalm 74:2
Anglican Consultative Council, which is the top decision-making organ of the
Anglican Communion.
Saturday July 2, 2005
Kenyan Anglicans cut links with US church
"We have severed links with ECUSA and other churches which believe in same sex unions," Nzimbi said at a news briefing attended by bishops Stephen Njuguna, Gideon Ireri and William Waqo.
Archbishop William, who will be visiting Kenya on his way to Burundi, has been asked to request the 'offending' churches not to attend the 2008 Lambeth Conference, the largest gathering of Anglican bishops.
Waqo, who is the church's Provincial Secretary, could not give the exact funding to be rejected but said it would not affect the church's operation.
The church also rejected calls for legislation of abortion and supported the proposal to ban advertising of alcohol and cigarettes. It also demanded implementation of the Ndung'u Commission on Land report to resolve the land crisis and challenged the President to act on reported corruption.
"There should be no sacred cows or protection of a clique of trusted cronies," said Njuguna.
We enjoyed the production of Othello by the Nebraska Shakespeare Company in Elmwood Park Saturday night. They did a vaguely contemporary setting: the set was abstract, but the costumes were generically modern military. The play stands or falls on the Iago character. His villainy is the engine that drives the plot, and if you believe him, then the play works. And they certainly did have a good actor for Iago. My only quibble is that I would like to see more of a crescendo, or rather, more of a descent in the arc of his character. He starts out bitter and determined to do whatever evil he can; but then as the action progresses and it becomes clear what concrete forms that evil takes, I'd like to see some panic or some doubts or some personal horror ... something to show the human cost on Iago that his first selfish desire did not anticipate. You miss something if you play his wickedness at one unchanging level all the way through.
Othello is also a hard character to portray. He so completely trusts Iago and so quickly mistrusts Desdemona. It's hard to make that guy live without some careful thought to that complexity.
I also wonder if Shakespeare withholds the execution of justice on Iago on purpose. Iago has caused so much trouble, and they catch him and discover his evil deeds, but the audience is denied the satisfaction of hearing the report of his execution or suicide; there is no "just death." When I leave a play, I try to consider the overall effect: what did this story "do" to me? I think Shakespeare makes me want to see some recompense and then denies it to me in order to show me how much like Iago I am.
We
watched the 40th anniversary DVD of Mary Poppins. If Disney
ever made a better movie, I don't know what it is. Sure-footed and
delightful at every step. In the special features it was refreshing
to hear Dick Van Dyke laugh about his pretty awful Cockney accent.
Some group or other listed his as one of the all-time worst movie accents,
and he had the grace to report the fact with good humor.
INDEX
May 2004
June 2004
July 2004
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September 2004
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