Quote of the Day

George Burns…

“Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.”

When God Brings Together Beautiful and Terrible Things

This Chilean volcano got in the way of a magnificent thunderstorm.  Here’s the story.  Here are three pictures.

HT: Buffy Moody

Quote of the Day

Aristotle says what hopefully is true for your kid’s teacher:

“Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.”

Medieval Help Desk

This is what they used to look like (and maybe how it will be again soon).

The Truth

about oil.

She’s Been Pregnant 135 Months. When Do They Get Their Own Zip Code?

The Duggars are serious about kids being a reward…and they want more.  Discovery even built them a cool website.

Educational Wound-Binding

Some churches/individuals have real issues amongst the families who chose different educational options, and it’s a great idea for pastors to address the big idea.

Josh Harris did.

Jonathan Edwards

I just read the books, tell you and leave the summaries to others. Here is a book review of Marsden’s great biography.

Ideas About Classical Education

Five ideas that distingiuish Classical education from conventional by Andrew Kern:

1. A unifying principle that orders all learning, thus an integrated, proportioned course of learning
2. Recognition of the transforming power of ideas, thus an emphasis on training students to contemplate ideas rather than merely retain content or master processes
3. Virtue as the end of education, rather than mere application, thus a concerted and rigorous effort to cultiavate every human faculty in every student
4. Recogntion of the need for mentors, models, examples, etc. who are masters of their area of knowledge and who are the kinds of people we hope the students will grow up to become. In a word: honor and recognition to genuine authority.
5. Endless emphasis on reality over mere appearance, thus the recognition that perception is powerful, but it is not necessarily reality. When one is taught that perception is reality, accountability and the need to grow are either relativized, trivialized, or removed altogether.

Quote of the Day

John Milton Gregory on education…

“The first object of teaching, then, is to stimulate in the pupil the love of learning, and to form in him the habits and ideals of independent study.”

The Reading Mother

I had a Mother who read to me
Saga of pirates who scoured the sea,
Cutlasses clenched in their yellow teeth,
“Blackbirds” stowed in the hold beneath.

I had a mother who read to me the things
That wholesome life to the boy heart brings-
Stories that stir with an upward touch,
Oh, that each mother of boys were such!

I had a Mother who read me lays
Of ancient and gallant and golden days;
Stories of Marmion and Ivanhoe,
Which every boy has a right to know.

You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be-
I had a Mother who read to me.

I had a mother who read me tales
Of Gelert the hound of the hills of Wales,
True to his trust till his tragic death,
Faithfulness blent with his final breath.

– Strickland Gillilan

Do People Bore You?

This is a section from an upcoming John Piper book.  I’m presenting it for your digestion because of the stellar C.S. Lewis kernel (and Piper’s surrounding commentary).

Find People Interesting

“Be encouraged that simply finding people interesting and caring about them is a beautiful pathway into their heart. Evangelism gets a bad reputation when we are not really interested in people and don’t seem to care about them. People really are interesting. The person you are talking to is an amazing creation of God with a thousand interesting experiences. Remember the words of C. S. Lewis:

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would strongly be tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. (The Weight of Glory, 14-15)

“Yet, most of us don’t think this way. The gods bore us and we return to our video games. Very few people are interested in others. If you really find their story interesting, and care about them, they may open up to you and want to hear your story—Christ’s story.”

About

In honor of two years of happy blogging and 26,000 visits, I’ve finally succumbed to add an About tab. Read it if you want. It’s up there next to the Home button.

Now you finally have a way to send me a note. Your third and final wish has come true.

Every Time I Try This I End Up Removing My Spleen

Story

Boom!

Mourn and Pray

The death toll in Burma may reach 63,000.

How does that fit into your scheme of reality?

Quote of the Day

John Adams…

“I wander alone, and ponder. I muse, I mope, I ruminate. We have not men fit for the times. We are deficient in genius, education, in travel, fortune, in everything. I feel unutterable anxiety.”

HT: VonDo

Adrenaline for Breakfast

I’ve been to London. These escalators are un-OSHA approved; they are long and steep. I saw some craziness in the Tube, but I missed this guy.  I was too busy Minding the Gap.

To Help Us Love God More

Why Christians Should Learn Big Words

Quote of the Day

Piper said that books don’t change people, paragraphs do, sometimes even sentences. Here’s what Mortimer Adler said about book ownership in How to Read a Book.

“There are two ways in which one can own a book. The first is the property right you establish by paying for it, just as you pay for clothes and furniture. But this act of purchase is only the prelude to possession. Full ownership comes only when you have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it is by writing in it. An illustration may make the point clear. You buy a beefsteak and transfer it from the butcher’s icebox to your own. But you do not own the beefsteak in the most important sense until you consume it and get it into your bloodstream. I am arguing that books, too, must be absorbed in your blood stream to do you any good.

“Confusion about what it means to “own” a book leads people to a false reverence for paper, binding, and type — a respect for the physical thing — the craft of the printer rather than the genius of the author. They forget that it is possible for a man to acquire the idea, to possess the beauty, which a great book contains, without staking his claim by pasting his bookplate inside the cover. Having a fine library doesn’t prove that its owner has a mind enriched by books; it proves nothing more than that he, his father, or his wife, was rich enough to buy them.

“There are three kinds of book owners. The first has all the standard sets and best sellers — unread, untouched. (This deluded individual owns woodpulp and ink, not books.) The second has a great many books — a few of them read through, most of them dipped into, but all of them as clean and shiny as the day they were bought. (This person would probably like to make books his own, but is restrained by a false respect for their physical appearance.) The third has a few books or many — every one of them dog-eared and dilapidated, shaken and loosened by continual use, marked and scribbled in from front to back. (This man owns books.) …

“But the soul of a book “can” be separate from its body. A book is more like the score of a piece of music than it is like a painting. No great musician confuses a symphony with the printed sheets of music. Arturo Toscanini reveres Brahms, but Toscanini’s score of the G minor Symphony is so thoroughly marked up that no one but the maestro himself can read it. The reason why a great conductor makes notations on his musical scores — marks them up again and again each time he returns to study them—is the reason why you should mark your books. If your respect for magnificent binding or typography gets in the way, buy yourself a cheap edition and pay your respects to the author.”

HT: Justin Taylor

A Very Good Story Turns into A Stellar Story With a Little Profound Background Music

These stories are too infrequent.

Absolutely Astounding

I strongly commend to my friends this lecture by Sam Storms explaining what Jonathan Edwards wrote about Heaven. You can watch it or listen to it, but do it. It’s an hour that you will spend whetting your appetite for eternity like you never understood it before, and it will teach you to live better now in expectation of it. This is what this blog is all about. A pilgrim is a person who lives for another time and another place. Heaven is that place.

You like this blog. Hear this sermon. Love that God. Await that home.

Joy’s Eternal Increase: Edwards on the Beauty of Heaven

Please consider leaving a comment about or a quote from the lecture here when you have heard it.

Where to Turn for Life’s Big and Little Urgencies

Karsten’s not sure this kid sounds four. I don’t know many four years old dealing with these problems, but let’s take a look anyway.

Quote of the Day

Jonathan Edwards…

“As the saints will love God with an inconceivable ardency of heart, and to the utmost of their capacity, so they will know that he has loved them from all eternity, and still loves them, and will continue to love them forever.”

I Hope You Know…

…about Sermon Audio. The USA Today just found it.

It’s a true treasure trove, including their Rare Recordings where you can hear actual recordings of D.L. Moody reading Scripture, Ira Sankey singing, Billy Sunday railing against booze, the preaching voice of Jim Elliot, and more.

Quote of the Day

John Piper wrote this on Sunday for an upcoming marriage book:

“The most fundamental task of a mother and father is to show God to the children. Children know their parents before they know God. This is a huge responsibility and should cause every parent to be desperate for God-like transformation. The children will have years of exposure to what the universe is like before they know there is a universe. They will experience the kind of authority there is in the universe and the kind of justice there is in the universe and the kind of love there is in the universe before they meet the God of authority and justice and love who created and rules of the universe. Children are absorbing from dad his strength and leadership and protection and justice and love; and they are absorbing from mother her care and nurture and warmth and intimacy and justice and love—and, of course, all these overlap.

“And all this is happening before the child knows anything about God, but it is profoundly all about God. Will the child be able to recognize God for who he really is in his authority and love and justice because mom and dad have together shown the child what God is like. The chief task of parenting is to know God for who he is in his many attributes, and then to live in such a way with our children that we help them see and know this multi-faceted God. And, of course, that will involve directing them always to the infallible portrait of God in the Bible.”

For Real

I’m looking for a picture I took of an overcrowded subway car in NYC a year or two ago. That was nothing.

Quote of the Day

Thomas Chalmers got me thinking that everyone should have at least one friend to turn to who always speaks important, well-considered, hopeful, God-besought thoughts to you. God keep me chock full of hope.

“Regardless of how large, your vision is too small.”

HT: George Grant

Narnia At Home

This oil painting is a special gift to our family from good friends (the artist and her family). The paint is still not dry but it’s cherished already.

Here is more of Alyssa’s work. Check out this incredible 24′ x 7′ mural she painted for an upcoming school program.

Well, At Least There is Free Shipping