Doing church
February 28, 2006
One phrase of church-speak that really irritates me is talk of “doing church.” I’ve never thought too much about why it does until I read the following on the Kruse Kronicle:
Kruse Kronicle: Toward an Evangelical Public Policy: Chapter 3
So, if I may be forgiven from cribbing a quote from a quote from a book review, which practically guarantees losing its original context, here is what author Paul DeVries says about Presbyterians, compared to Lutherans.
While Lutherans believe that we should obey the Lord in our daily occupations, Calvinists believe that we should seek to obey God through our daily occupations, because we cannot blindly assume that our occupations actually serve the common good.
This neatly captures one of the reasons why I am a card-carrying Calvinist. I see a clear distinction between what we churchgoers do and who we really are (or should be). I, for one, don’t want to be known as a do-gooder. Maybe some day I will try to elaborate on that thought, after I calm down.
Dave, mostly irritated with himself.
Ephesians 2:1-3
February 27, 2006
New Life Individually
2:1And although you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2:2 in which you formerly lived according to this world’s present path, according to the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the ruler of the spirit that is now energizing the sons of disobedience, 2:3 among whom all of us also formerly lived out our lives in the cravings of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest…
“New life” for the Christian is at the same time the simplist of things and terribly complicated. I can’t presume to know others’ Christian experience, so perhaps my observations on this passage will not make much sense to many.
It took a long time (I’m a slow and stubborn learner) for the truth of living to please an invisible God, as opposed to living in and for the world, to really sink in. Even as I write these words, I wonder how much sense they make. All I can reasonably say is that this truth is important to me, as I dare hope it will be for you. -sdg-
Anti-senescence
February 26, 2006
Aha! Now here’s an article that is right down my alley. Senescence just isn’t much fun.
Ageing | How to live for ever | Economist.com
Humans are certainly living longer. An American child born in 1970 could expect to live 70.8 years. By 2000, that had increased to 77 years. Moreover, an adult still alive at the age of 75 in 2002 could expect a further 11.5 years of life.
Much of this change has been the result of improved nutrition and better medicine. But to experience a healthy old age also involves maintaining physical and mental function. Age-related non-pathological changes in the brain, muscles, joints, immune system, lungs and heart must be minimised. These changes are called “senescence”.
I just gotta ask: Why would I ever want to live forever? Why would I want to prolong the kind of fun and games that aging brings? Tell me! Why?
Research shows that exercise can help to maintain physical function late in life and that exercising one’s brain can limit the progression of senescence. Other work—on the effects of caloric restriction, consuming red wine and altering genes in yeast, mice and nematodes—has shown promise in slowing senescence.
On the consuming of red wine I will keep an open mind; as for the rest, well, it sounds to me like a lot of nonsense.
Dave, willing to let the mice and nematodes reap the benefits.
Food for thought
February 25, 2006
The Kiplinger Letter, February 24, says that after sixty years supermarkets have just about run their string of being at the top in food sales. I’m getting old enough to remember both ends of certain economic cycles. There were no supermarkets when I was a boy, and I remember the neighborhood grocery store, mostly for the candy counter.
The reign of the supermarket is nearly over. By 2007, the stores will claim less than half of all food sales, ending a 60-year run as the top sellers. Just as big supermarket chains crushed local grocers in past decades, they’re now being squeezed between huge discount clubs and mass marketers and small convenience and specialty food shops. Consolidations threaten other local businesses… dry cleaners, gift shops, hair salons… that depend on the foot traffic generated by supermarkets anchoring their shopping centers. Smaller, nimble supermarkets will come out best, carving out niches in nearby urban neighborhoods or catering to local tastes…ethnic or gourmet.
Who would have guessed that a Wal-mart would rise up to challenge the supermarkets?
Dave, not he!
Navigating the Ship of State
February 23, 2006
Thanks to Michael Kruse for pointing out this insightful article in the New York Times. For me it sharply underscores the difficulty, perhaps the impossibility, for coherent navigation of a mammoth U.S. Ship of State.
After Neoconservatism - New York Times
Churning around in what passes for my brain are thoughts about the many cross-currents that existed at the beginning of World War II. I recently finished reading the memoirs of Winston S. Churchill, which contained many transcripts of correspondence and minutes of conversations btween the world leaders of the 1930s and 40s. Policies evolved as events shoved the decision-makers this way and that. Without a Churchill around to gather it all together and give an on-the-ground report of the era, I wonder how future historians will make us out.
Neoconservatism, whatever its complex roots, has become indelibly associated with concepts like coercive regime change, unilateralism and American hegemony. What is needed now are new ideas, neither neoconservative nor realist, for how America is to relate to the rest of the world — ideas that retain the neoconservative belief in the universality of human rights, but without its illusions about the efficacy of American power and hegemony to bring these ends about.
Dave, waiting for those new ideas.
What’s not to like?
February 22, 2006
I doubt that our health care system gets back on an affordable track anytime soon, which says something about my confidence in our legislative process, but I would like to read a reasoned liberal response to the administration’s ideas about Health-Care Savings Accounts.
WSJ.com - Big Health-Care Ideas
But in fact HSAs are what health insurance would have looked like all along if the employer-insurance tax exemption never existed. That is, insurance for catastrophic illness to prevent destitution but not for routine care. (Think of it this way: What’s the deductible on your car insurance?) And with more than three million HSA policies already in existence, there is plenty of data showing high customer satisfaction among policy holders of all ages and incomes.
The editorial goes on to point out other desirable features of a well-designed HSA policy, like portability and ease of purchasing. What’s not to like about HSAs?
Dave, waiting for someone to tell him.
Sheep dumplings
February 21, 2006
It’s time for another Forgotten English revelation, meaning that I can’t think of much else to write about. Although I don’t think I have ever used the term “sheep dumplings” in polite conversation, I might.
The human urge for a magic pill to cure whatever is currently ailing us seems to be universal. I believe it to be an urge mostly cultivated by the drug companies, but maybe I’m wrong about that. According to my infallible Forgotten English calendar, an author named Vance Randolph wrote Down in the Holler: A Gallery of Ozark Folk Speech in 1953, and he informs us that “sheep dumplings” are sheep droppings that were used in the home treatment of measles and certain other ailments.
Dave, popping a more convenient pill for certain other ailments.
Shalom
February 20, 2006
Shalom is the Hebrew word that covers many aspects of what is commonly called “peace.” In this essay, Michael Kruse makes a most interesting connection between shalom in the Garden of Eden and the glory of the New Jerusalem.
Kruse Kronicle: Theology and Economics: Shalom
Shalom is the best descriptor for the state affairs at the end Genesis 2. Shalom is also the best descriptor for the state of affairs at the end of time as evidenced in the last two passages. While shalom is not primarily an economic concept, economic issues are integral to the concept. God’s primary mission for us is to care for creation and enhance it in ways that reflect, as eikons of God, what God values. Work is of God. The development and distribution of resources is integral to God’s mission for humanity. There can be no shalom without economics that honor God.
Oh, how we all do yearn for peace (in all its aspects)! Such yearning is no doubt one of the results of the Fall, not to be remedied until Christ returns. I’ve heard the term “God’s economy” many times without a clear idea of its meaning. Linking it with the idea of shalom helps a lot.
Dave, usually pretty peaceful.
Ephesians 1:15-23
February 19, 2006
Prayer for Wisdom and Revelation
1:15 For this reason, since I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 1:16 I do not cease to give thanks for you when I remember you in my prayers. 1:17 I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you spiritual wisdom and revelation in your growing knowledge of him, 1:18 –since the eyes of your heart have been enlightened–so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 1:19 and what is the incomparable greatness of his power toward us who believe, as displayed in the exercise of his immense strength. 1:20 This power he exercised in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms 1:21 far above every rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 1:22 And God put all things under Christ’s feet and he gave him to the church as head over all things. 1:23 Now the church is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
This is an eloquent passage picturing the church as the bride of Christ, with Jesus Christ the Bridegroom. Paul reveals his pastor’s heart here as he does in so many of his letters. He wishes for his beloved flock nothing less than the spiritual wisdom that comes only from loving God. Paul knows that “the eyes of their hearts” have been opened to see even into the age to come.
I would like to experience what a congregation can become when the Holy Spirit really grabs it and shakes it. -sdg-
Let’s go lunting
February 18, 2006
John Mactaggart’s Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, 1824 says that lunting is walking and smoking a pipe. This gem was the Forgotten English calendar entry for January 30, the Feast Day of St. Aldegard, the patron saint of lung cancer, if I read the fine print aright.
Tobacco I love and tobacco I’ll take,
And hope good tobacco I ne’er shall forsake.
‘Tis drinking and wenching destroys still the creature,
But this noble fume does dry up ill nature.
Dave, missing his pipe but missing his teeth more.
