I Was There – Five Years Later

The Pistons and Pacers brawled five years ago today. We had almost left a few minutes earlier when we had figured the Pistons were going to lose. In the final minute, things went really bad. Watching the video brings back the emotions of disgust.

Thirty minutes later on the drive home, there were still police cars racing to the Palace.

Here’s what I said a few years ago.

The Power and Danger of Iconography

I’ve never heard of this guy before. Good stuff. Can Christians use these principles in Kingdom work?

Editing Changes Everything

Behold the Lamb of God: The True Tall Tale of the Coming of Christ

Be introduced to our favorite Christmas CD, though it’s not literally Christmas music and we listen year-round without apology. We’ve had the CD for a year, and iTunes says we have played this on our desktop 140 times in the past. It’s a great work to have internalized in your heart, and I love that it falls so easily of our boys’ tongues.

Andrew Peterson wrote the music. Here is the backstory, the retelling of how this came to pass.

Need an introduction? You can listen to the story here for free. Then go buy it.

Trailer for The White Horse King (book)

Gorilla Poet Productions will make you want to read every book they produce a trailer for, so don’t bother watching unless you have the $10. I’ve heard good things about this book, the first by Ben Merkle. It’s just sitting in my wishlist, ready to be purchased.

On Terrorism and Those Who Terrorize

Good read by Douglas Wilson:

Nadil Malik Hasan and the Street Light

Actually It Was Superimposed

Tonight in a fast-food restaurant…

Had to Chrissy, referring to the large painting behind him: “Is that an abstract?”

Chrissy: “uhhh”

Me: “No, it’s not.”

Kar: “Well, I know it’s not a still life.”

One Year Later

Grandpa Hayward died one year ago today. I found these pictures in the last few months. Read here what I wrote last year after the funeral.

1982 - Grand Marais or therabouts

1984 - At the Piper wedding

Sexual Detox and False Messages

Some of you have never heard of Tim Challies. He is a one of a small handful of the Christian uber-bloggers (and of them, he’s the only one I read with any sort of regularity). He does his work here (Challies). He inspires me to read more, to consider more, to encourage more with my gifts as he does his. For a living he designs websites, reviews books, blogs, and more. In 2010, he has challenged himself to read ALL of the NY Times non-fiction, hardcover bestsellers. He is chronicling the feat at 10 Million Words. He has posted daily since October 1, 2003.

Besides the crowds who actually go to his website every day, over 6,000 people are subscribed to receive his feed through Google Reader alone (which is how I see his posts). He posts one article and one very short best-of-the-web type of post per day (called A-La-Carte). I’m glad to introduce you if you haven’t met.

Challies is a gift to the church-at-large. He is cogent, concise and is careful with his readers time. He just finished a gem of a series for men and young men (Sexual Detox). His wife entered the writing realm to craft a follow-up message for wives (False Messages). I strongly recommend that ALL of my readers take time to read ALL these messages (at least the ones directed to your gender) that affect us all deeply.

While it will take a little time to get through all the messages, they are immensely important and well-written summaries of the truths of Scripture related to the topics of pornography and sex. These topics are far too easily shunned in public because of the obvious discomfort that it takes to discuss these things out of private. Praise God for Tim and Aileen’s courage; they are spot-on. Thank God for His wonderful gifts.

Sexual Detox I: Pornifying the Marriage Bed

Sexual Detox II: Breaking Free

Sexual Detox III: A Theology of Sex

Sexual Detox IV: Detoxification

Sexual Detox V: Freedom

________________________
False Messages I: What He Really Wants

False Messages II: The Heart of Rejection

False Messages III: Desiring Him

Boom-Dee-Ah-Da

It’s back. A new version of Discovery’s “I Love the Whole World” commercial is being played:

Here is the original.

Some Interesting Notes About Spinach

How a typo and a cartoon changed the perception of shredded, soaked nasty. This link includes the original Popeye cartoon, and it’s a hoot.

Some Notes on Spinach

I’m Assuming this Was a Poem, Not a Hymn

Let dogs delight to bark and bite,
For God hath made them so:
Let bears and lions growl and fight,
For ’tis their nature, too.

But, children, you should never let
Such angry passions rise:
Your little hands were never made
To tear each other’s eyes.

Let love through all your actions run,
And all your words be mild:
Live like the blessed Virgin’s Son,
That sweet and lovely child.

His soul was gentle as a lamb;
And as his stature grew,
He grew in favor both with man,
And God his Father too.

Now, Lord of all, he reigns above;
And from his heavenly throne
He sees what children dwell in love,
And marks them for his own.

– Isaac Watts

A Great Read from an Unlikely Source

Thank You, President and Mrs. Bush!

Stop and Think about Stopping and Thinking

One thing I’ve learned is that a child should not be given this rope to hang himself if he does not have a mentor to guide him through it.

Short sentences should only be used for emphasis, especially in a philosophical text. That is Flesch’s fatal mistake. Because everybody seems to write this way, our minds are being reduced to simplistic thoughts, thoughts that cannot be extended beyond the immediate subject and predicate, thoughts that don’t demand that we recall the main idea for more than eight or nine words. The person who needs those sentences should not be studying philosophy. He should be studying grammar and learning how to read, two vital foundations for philosophy.

Please note that my primary concern here is not with philosophy but with writing. I’m arguing for the long sentence, contending that we have made ourselves stupid by refusing to express a thought that cannot be reduced to a single clause, by putting periods between every clause and sometimes phrase, by eliminating the semi-colon from the realm of comprehension, by compelling students, even in college, to think about matters for which the reading materials they have encountered have disabled them, by developing an attitude of resentment toward any writer that challenges their intellects beyond a single conjunction.

Have you tried to read Paradise Lost? The challenge is not the length of the sentence, though they are frequently immeasurable; the challenge is remembering the subject of the sentence. But if he had not written it that way, he would not have written the same poem, and the reader would have suffered for it.

We can write very well for business and advertising. Sometimes we get by on scientific writing. But to write about things that matter greatly: metaphysics, theology, ethics, politics, the arts, I say, to write about these matters demands that we be able to control more than a single clause at a time. We cannot think beyond the capacity of our syntax.

– Andrew Kern

You Fooled Yourself

Too many think they are wonderful with people because they talk well. They don’t realize that being wonderful with people means listening well.

Peter Drucker

Sobering

Last words from the Texas execution chamber.

HT: Challies

Redeem the Quiet

But you have to make time for it first. A busy body makes for a noisy soul. Time must be carved out to be refreshed by solace.

Surely there is something in the unruffled calm of nature that overawes our little anxieties and doubts; the sight of the deep-blue sky and the clustering stars above seems to impart a quiet to the mind.

Jonathan Edwards

Hasten Not

“In truth you cannot read too much in Scriptures;

and what you read you cannot read too carefully,

and what you read carefully you cannot understand too well,

and what you understand well you cannot teach too well,

and what you teach well you cannot live too well.”

– Martin Luther

What You Should Buy Your Child For Christmas

Let me not be a brow-beater. Let me just state plainly that you should buy your child, nay yourself, a copy of On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness for Christmas. Andrew Peterson has started his book-writing career with a full-tilt, high-charge adventure.

Let me go back a bit. I’m a fan of Lord of the Rings, but this is not that. I’m a much bigger fan of The Chronicles of Narnia, but this is not that either. Although it’s a fantasy adventure, it stands alone and different than either of those. It in no way pretends to be either of them either. It’s not a classic…but I think it might have the trappings to be one. It’s got a steady and sure plot, heaps of suspense, liberal doses of humor, adventurous and curious boys, a sweet and compassionate little girl, a stalwart mother, and really hideous bad guys.

Andrew Peterson was built by God for storytelling. He has a solid background (“All the Way Home”), cohesive overview of reality (“the world was good; the world is fallen; the world will be redeemed”), has the God of Heaven as his center (“Far Country”), and the beauties of redemption in his sights (“every breath is a mercy”). He feeds his family by traveling the country singing stories about those things. Andrew lives with his wife, two boys and a girl in Nashville, TN…where his house is.

The Story

Janner Igiby lives in the sleepy little town of Glipwood. Sleepy that is, except for the smelly and dangerous Fangs who wave the strong hand of control over the Glipfolk. Janner along with his younger brother Tink and their little sister Leeli live with their mother Nia and their grandfather Podo Helmer quiet, simple lives. Quiet and simple that is until we meet them. The quiet ease is disrupted when the Igiby children beginning discovering clues and truths about the real history of their country, their dead father, and the life that their family used to live before the domination by the Fangs and their evil ruler Gnag the Nameless. [I appreciate how unfair it is to summarize a story so succintly. Buy the book to promote justice.]

Prerequisites

You must be willing to read the story with the spirit of a child. That is, you must not be put-off to be immersed in a world where live Fangs (from Dang), thwaps who infest gardens, and toothy cows who are immensely dangerous and drooly. In new worlds are new places, games, names and creatures. Some, like horned hounds, are dreadful, and some are very pleasant, like sugarberries and gooeyballs, along with rhythmical ancient tunes, the beauty and grace of an upright mother, and the power of a common purpose and pull.

What to Notice Throughout

All throughout, Peterson is nudging from the background, trying to spread hints than the Igibys have weight and depth and import. They aren’t simpletons. They aren’t followers. They aren’t common. We can see it in the education that Nia is giving her children, the tugging at their hearts when the bard sings, the hazy memories of memories, and the way that bravado and pluck come to the surface when called on.

You Should Know

Each character is very well-developed. Janner wants to know and understand. Tink wants to see and experience. Leeli is just, plain sweet and compassionate. You will love each of them.

Peterson is a wordsmith and his metaphors and similes are top-notch at pulling you further into the story, except when he intentionally pulls your leg by makes comparisons between two things that are both fictional.

The footnotes are practically worth the price of the book as they reference you further in and further back into the world in which you are delved, making it all the more real.

You Must Know

While the story is entertaining, it’s also serious. In every good story, good must be good and then treated like good. Bad must be bad and then dealt with in the end as bad. And sometimes that fact is a little hard to stomach…just like in real life.

Building a world like Skree (Glipwood is just one town) and beyond is a process. Just as a table must be set and the food prepared before the eating takes place, so doth the story go. The setting takes a few chapters and is good.  Be patient; don’t blink; the goods are coming. You will want more when it’s over.

But It Gets Even Better

When you get to the end of this book, and your heart is racing, and your spirit is soaring, and the answers have been made plain(er), it will seem as if things have only begun. And they have. This book is “merely” the first installment. And……hang on……you’re going to love this……Book Two is already written and ready for purchase. I haven’t read it yet. I have my signed copy all ready to zip through, but…well, it will happen quite soon. The reviews I have read have said that Book Two, called North! Or Be Eaten!, is a little darker but even better than the first book is. I can hardly wait.

You should also know that this series (formally called the Wingfeather Saga) has it’s own official website that will give you lots of interesting background, maps, encyclopedia, beautiful illustrations, and more. You can find it here: Wingfeather Saga Online. It’s a great feature. C.S. Lewis would have used it if he could have.

Now, you absolutely must leave here to read this letter that Andrew wrote to you.

Then, you can come back here to spring over to Amazon to do what you know you should do.

Oh, and I would love to hear from you if you decide to purchase the book.

Last Comment

Things have been slow here while school has been getting going, and I have been micro-blogging on FB. So I go weeks without thinking of TBAP (egads!)

I noticed that the last comment here was a congratulations comment written in September by Dr. Wade Gladin. Dr. Gladin died toward the beginning of October when his heart and his lungs conspired against him simultaneously. He was my educational psych teacher (and other classes, too, I think) and I held him in high esteem as a man, although…after reading the text and listening to the lectures, I never could quite figure out where he was getting his test questions from.

Tribute Page

What a Cool Guy!

The opening paragraph of Jean Fritz’ biography Bully for You, Teddy Roosevelt:

What did Theodore Roosevelt want to do? Everything. And all at once if possible. Plunging headlong into life, he refused to waste a single minute. Among other things, he studied birds, shot lions, roped steer, fought a war, wrote books, and discovered the source of a mystery river in South America. In addition, he became the governor of New York, Vice-President of the United States, then President. This was a big order for one man, but Theodore Roosevelt was not an everyday kind of man. He was so extraordinary that when people tried to describe him, they gave up on normal man-size words. ‘A cyclone,’ that’s what Buffalo Bill called him. Mark Twain said he was ‘an earthquake.’ He was called ‘an eruption,’ ‘an express locomotive,’ ‘a buzz saw,’ ‘a dynamo.’

Do Life More Enjoyably

Opening Every Lawful Door

by Douglas Wilson

We are eager to establish and grow up into a genuine musical literacy as a congregation, as a community. But we have to take care to understand this process rightly. We obviously have to teach our children, and we have a great deal to learn ourselves in this process. And in this area, we have set our hand to the plow. But we must take care—there are certain things that are not meant by musical literacy promoted by the church.

We can understand this by analogy—the Protestant emphasis in the history of the West has been a great boon. Because we are people of the Word, it has been the most natural thing in the world for us to be people of words. Because we want our children to have access to the Word of God, we make a special point of teaching them all how to read. But of course, once we have opened up the Scriptures for them, they go on to read (and write) many other things. The Scriptures are the center, not the periphery. Because we know the centrality of the Word, we can enjoy many other kinds of literature—from haiku to The Lord of the Rings—throughout the rest of our lives. But when the centrality of Scripture is lost, then uninspired letters cannot avoid disintegration. This is why public letters in our nation is the in middle of a 5 spiral crash.

It is the same principle with the music of the church. Man was created to worship God, and to praise him with song. Because this is what we were made for, we want to teach our children how to do it. This is the central motive. We want them to be able to do much more as worshiping Christians than we have been able to do. The songs we sing here are the most important music in our lives, and should be treated that way. This is the center of our music. But when we have been equipped to do what God calls us to do here, we discover that the musical abilities we have acquired remain with us through the rest of the week. We don’t just retain the songs—we retain the literacy.

Do a thought experiment. Imagine a generation from now a community that has virtually a one hundred percent musical literacy rate. Suppose that all the children under the age of ten today are able then to read a new hymn or psalm at sight. Do you honestly think that this will produce a monotonous sameness in all the music that is sung by our people throughout the week? On the contrary, we are perilously close to a monotonous sameness now. But when church music recovers its rightful place, it will do for all kinds of music what literacy does for every book in the library. It will open every lawful door.

HT: Sam Gage

Today in History

Today in 1536, William Tyndale, “God’s Outlaw”, was martyred by strangulation and burning . He was an enormous impetus in the formation of future Bible translators and their translations.

Part of his legacy, includes the following (from Wikipedia):

“In translating the Bible, Tyndale introduced new words into the English language, and many were subsequently used in the King James Bible:

• Jehovah (from a transliterated Hebrew construction in the Old Testament; composed from the Tetragrammaton YHWH.
• Passover (as the name for the Jewish holiday, Pesach or Pesah),
• Atonement (= at + onement), which goes beyond mere “reconciliation” to mean “to unite” or “to cover”, which springs from the Hebrew kippur, the Old Testament version of kippur being the covering of doorposts with blood, or “Day of Atonement”.
• scapegoat (the goat that bears the sins and iniquities of the people in Leviticus, Chapter 16)

He also coined such familiar phrases as:

• let there be light
• the powers that be
• my brother’s keeper
• the salt of the earth
• a law unto themselves
• filthy lucre
• it came to pass
• gave up the ghost
• the signs of the times
• the spirit is willing
• live and move and have our being
• fight the good fight”

Today in History

Every day in assembly at JECA, I try to cull through history for bite or two to bring to those students, faculty and parents gathered. I find it’s a great way of broadly introducing things and names that should not be forgotten. It’s a good way to stem our chronological snobbery. Here is a great link to what George Grant wrote of a meeting that Rudyard Kipling and Mark Twain had today in 1889.

Because of my recent time constraints I’ve been blogging less, but have been micro-blogging more through my FaceBook statuses. I sometimes put these tidbits on my status. Meet me on FaceBook.

Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale

In Your Plenty, Steel Yourself for Trials of Life

Danielle shows us the hard side of medicine and life.

Gone for Now Feels A Lot Like Gone for Good

Every FIRST Breath Is a Mercy

Claire Danielle Boomershine is here. God graced our home with a little girl, a little leveler, a great joy. Karsten, Haddon, Lincoln and Knox are beside themselves. Christie is doing well and the induced delivery went normally, well…it’s difficult to talk about normal in the same breath that you should be talking about the wildly amazing and miraculous process. God has lavished the riches of His grace on us, and we rejoice in His way. It’s totally unlike anything we could imagined or designed for ourselves.

Claire was born Thursday, September 3, 2009 at 9:29p at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. She was 8 lbs. even, has a little bit of reddish hair and has been a sweet baby for these first days.

She has a soul that will never die. May God give us good strength and wisdom to train her in the best ways, to smother her soul in Gospel truth and hope.

Also, you can read here what we think about a girl living in OUR house and, especially, why we named her Claire.

It Takes Humility to Laugh

Gospel humility frees you from the need to posture and pose and calculate what others think, so that you are free to laugh at what is really funny with the biggest belly laugh. Proud people don’t really let themselves go in laughter. They don’t get red in the face and fall off chairs and twist their faces into the contortions of real free laughter. Proud people need to keep their dignity. The humble are free to howl with laughter.

– John Piper

National Debt Road Trip