I'm getting tired of always being on the road to go to class. It must be such a luxury to be able to stay on campus....
Although, THIS is the type of "traffic" I prefer, if I must travel.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Picture 87/365
I'm getting tired of always being on the road to go to class. It must be such a luxury to be able to stay on campus....
Although, THIS is the type of "traffic" I prefer, if I must travel.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Picture 86/365
The only nose in the household that pollen doesn't seem to bother. Chaos' throat is really sore this morning; more than the usual and so off to the doctor we go. I've been giving her over the counter stuff -- maybe we need prescription drugs.The traffic helicopter on TV just showed some aerial photographs -- the pollen is so bad that there is a yellow haze around Atlanta, it reaches up almost to the top of the skyscrapers -- they are coated with a yellow film and you can see it very clearly on the roads and the tire tracks the cars have made through it. The Loving Husband made the comment that if we get much more pollen, we can go skiing.
I've books to read by Hauerwas and Cobb. Funny, they are both Dukies. I think I'll spend time reading today. I've got to figure out how Hauerwas grounds his Ethics and how Cobb views Grace and Responsibility.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Picture 85/365
The Culprit. Pine Pollen doesn't really cause allergies; it's too big. It's the oak and other trees that's so bad. We are reaching the high pollen count for the year; it's getting near 6000 parts per million. It will hang there for a while and then eventually drop off. I'll be glad when it rains and gets rid of the horrible threat to my nose. I've a headache right now. Bleh.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Picture 84/365 (and more)
Mystery Substance
I'll give you hints.
Here are tire tracks in IT in the driveway.
Chaos' shoes covered in IT.
IT in the gutter at the bottom of the driveway.
IT on my car hood.
What could IT be??? At this time of year IT dominates my life. IT causes me to sneeze. IT is gritty on my face. The kids try to get IT all over each other. Wanna guess what IT is?
I'll give you hints.
Here are tire tracks in IT in the driveway.
Chaos' shoes covered in IT.
IT in the gutter at the bottom of the driveway.
IT on my car hood.
What could IT be??? At this time of year IT dominates my life. IT causes me to sneeze. IT is gritty on my face. The kids try to get IT all over each other. Wanna guess what IT is?
Monday, March 26, 2007
Picture 80/365
Part of the compensation of having to have class on Saturdays is that I get to eat where-ever I want to. And of course, in Athens that would mean the Varsity. Of course if it were near Tech, it would be the Varsity as well.
My dad's first date (in 1935) was a movie at the Fox and dinner at the Varsity. My grandfather used to eat there at least twice a week. Anytime we went downtown Atlanta or Athens, it was an opportunity to go to the V. I remember one of the car-hops singing the menu to us -- he knew what my grandfather wanted (because he was such a regular customer) and would sing it to just me -- his name was Flossie Mae and I miss that.
My pediatrician was downtown at Georgia Baptist Hospital and so to keep me from crying when I got a shot, my mother would promise to take me to the V and get ice cream or a Frosted Orange. When I purchased my first car, my dad insisted that we go to the V and "break it in." In fact, we broke all our new cars in at the V.
And the food's good too....
Picture 78/365
Henbit. It's invading my yard. It's considered a weed, but that's because it's just a plant growing in the wrong place. How many of us see others as "weeds" but it's just because they are growing in the wrong place?
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Picture 77/365
The cat. It's so boring to take pictures of this cat; she never moves to another place or changes position very often. She's old for a cat (19 years or so) and doesn't do much more than eat, sleep and enjoy some scritchies behind the ears. This picture is unique in that she's actually AWAKE.
Picture 76/365
A flock of crosses at a local Lutheran church. I love the variety of the shapes and sizes. Just like us. Each of our crosses will be different; the texture, the shape, the size; the density. Something to think about.
Picture 75/365
I can't remember if I blogged about this -- I've finished putting the head of Judas back onto my most current "Last Supper" find. Odd that it was the head of Judas that broke off. I've repaired the break (again), hopefully for the last time and I'm going to try to color in with a brown sharpie so that it doesn't look like Judas is wearing a muffler.
We can fix this plaque, but can we fix the basic brokenness underneath?
Friday, March 23, 2007
Rejection of Labels
I have rejected labels for a long time. In fact, I hate labels, especially "conservative," "fundamentalist," and "liberal." I'm not too fond of "progressive" either.
I know my label, but I hate using it. It's like putting myself in a box. Entropy has this silly frog toy that swells when you put in it water. If you put it in a small glass, it stays small. If you put it in a big bucket, it gets real big. It also takes on the shape of the container, sometimes round, sometimes square. (I'm not fond of the frog today, either.) I'm afraid I put myself in a box (label), I'll never know what my true size or shape would be.
Nonetheless, my label would be "Mystic." Not in that gooey New Age kind of way, but a robust Christian Mystic sort of way.
There. I finally said it.
I know my label, but I hate using it. It's like putting myself in a box. Entropy has this silly frog toy that swells when you put in it water. If you put it in a small glass, it stays small. If you put it in a big bucket, it gets real big. It also takes on the shape of the container, sometimes round, sometimes square. (I'm not fond of the frog today, either.) I'm afraid I put myself in a box (label), I'll never know what my true size or shape would be.
Nonetheless, my label would be "Mystic." Not in that gooey New Age kind of way, but a robust Christian Mystic sort of way.
There. I finally said it.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Talpiot
Once upon a time a little girl was going to test the existence of God. After breakfast one day, she took out of the breakfast dishes a handful of grapefruit seeds. She was of a scientific bent, so she took a half dozen old tin cans, filled them with dirt, planted a grapefruit seed in each and made herself a chart. She decided to pray over the first seed for one minute, the second seed a half minute, the third 15 seconds and so on until the last little seed got no prayer at all. She would graph the amount of prayer against the growth of the seed. “Dear Lord, if you exist, make this seed grow. Amen.” All well and good, right?
Problem was, the seeds never grew. Not a single one. She was crushed and decided that God didn’t exist. He mother noticed she was so very sad and discovered the whole story. She listened and made the appropriate noises and then she gently asked, “Did you water the seeds?”
“No, I decided God could do what ever God wanted to do.”
The little girl had decided to have her faith determined by these physical objects and when they didn’t grow, her faith was crushed.
Of course, there are problems with this little experiment – things like “Do not put the Lord your God to a test.” Things like that. And (yes, taken out of context but apropos) that verse about planting the seed, watering it and God giving the increase – maybe we have to do something too. I’m not talking your basic “Pelagianism” – pulling yourself up by the bootstraps, but we participate with God.
Later, this little girl was fascinated with the Shroud of Turin. There was an exhibit in the Omni International concourse in downtown Atlanta, near the World of Sid and Marty Croft – Come see the Shroud!! Slide down the Giant Slide!! She would go and stare at the photographs for hours, imagining the Resurrection. She read all the books and followed all the news releases – she just knew if the Shroud was REAL then Jesus just HAD to be real. She called herself a “Christian” on those days when the winds of fate blew in favor on the validity of the shroud and “Not a Christian” when they did not.
Many of her musings were about the resurrection itself – why was there blood on the shroud? Maybe the blood that Jesus shed before he died stayed on his body and rubbed off on the shroud. Did his fingernails continue to grow and his hair? Did he start to rot, like Lazarus? Did fluid begin to leak out of his body? What about that fluid? Since it leaked out after he died, was it included in the resurrection, somehow being slurped back into his body? Was the image a photo-flash of nuclear heat that seared the image into the fabric? Was it really old enough? Would Jesus have a complete set of DNA? Was it really the Shroud of Christ? The Devil sat on her shoulder, whispering and gibbering. She agonized, she doubted.
Back and forth she went until one morning her mother asked, “Well are you a Christian today or not?” That stopped her dead in her tracks. She was placing her trust in the immaterial world, her faith in a God both transcendent and imminent into a physical object, allowing that object to dictate her faith. If we use empirical science, could we EVER prove it was or was not the Shroud of Christ? And she came to the conclusion that no, we never would.
Science has deceived (innocently or not) many before her and will many after. 150 years ago, well-meaning scientists PROVED that you can distinguish “good people” from “bad people” by feeling the shape of their heads. It was a very well developed discipline and thousands of people had their heads analyzed. But the whole experiment was flawed; the scientists were making a moral judgment by using empirical science that had no vocabulary for morality or values. It was doomed to fail and fail it did.
Two separate questions: first we ask ourselves what data do we have today about the Talpiot Tomb? Then we ask, what are our theological claims? How can this data relate to these claims? Do they even fit together? In my humble opinion, debates about the existence of God and issues like the shroud or the Talpiot ossuaries swirl around each other and dance with each other but never enter the other’s sphere. The mystery about the existence of God is just that—mysterion, not to be known. And the not knowing is part of the entire mystery.
There are puzzles that have intrigued us for generations. People debated for centuries some of Euclid’s unsolvable problems. Generations of geometry students chewed on them, wrestled with them. The problems intrigued, they titillated the mind. Some people became obsessed with them. Most students of math could recite these famous unsolvable problems. Where are they now? Forgotten. The unsolvable problems were solved and now do not even enter our minds. They are not a part of our communal consciousness. They have been placed on a shelf: fini, finished, forgotten.
The question about God’s existence or lack of existence is part of the very mystery of God’s own self. God keeps us in suspense so that thinking about and talking about and debating about God stays fresh in our minds and not dusty on a shelf.
This data from the New East is intriguing. It titillates the mind. Does it matter? Yes. How does it matter? Will it substantively change Christianity? I think not. Will it change my faith or my faithing, my practice of faith? No. Will there be new data? Probably. Will this hypothesis stand? Who knows? So many times the theories just fade into obscurity and the debate withers up. Yet, no matter what the data is, what the debate is the mystery of God will remain, long after I am placed in a box and the flesh on my bones melts away.
The flowers fade and the grass withers, but the Word of our God stands forever.
Problem was, the seeds never grew. Not a single one. She was crushed and decided that God didn’t exist. He mother noticed she was so very sad and discovered the whole story. She listened and made the appropriate noises and then she gently asked, “Did you water the seeds?”
“No, I decided God could do what ever God wanted to do.”
The little girl had decided to have her faith determined by these physical objects and when they didn’t grow, her faith was crushed.
Of course, there are problems with this little experiment – things like “Do not put the Lord your God to a test.” Things like that. And (yes, taken out of context but apropos) that verse about planting the seed, watering it and God giving the increase – maybe we have to do something too. I’m not talking your basic “Pelagianism” – pulling yourself up by the bootstraps, but we participate with God.
Later, this little girl was fascinated with the Shroud of Turin. There was an exhibit in the Omni International concourse in downtown Atlanta, near the World of Sid and Marty Croft – Come see the Shroud!! Slide down the Giant Slide!! She would go and stare at the photographs for hours, imagining the Resurrection. She read all the books and followed all the news releases – she just knew if the Shroud was REAL then Jesus just HAD to be real. She called herself a “Christian” on those days when the winds of fate blew in favor on the validity of the shroud and “Not a Christian” when they did not.
Many of her musings were about the resurrection itself – why was there blood on the shroud? Maybe the blood that Jesus shed before he died stayed on his body and rubbed off on the shroud. Did his fingernails continue to grow and his hair? Did he start to rot, like Lazarus? Did fluid begin to leak out of his body? What about that fluid? Since it leaked out after he died, was it included in the resurrection, somehow being slurped back into his body? Was the image a photo-flash of nuclear heat that seared the image into the fabric? Was it really old enough? Would Jesus have a complete set of DNA? Was it really the Shroud of Christ? The Devil sat on her shoulder, whispering and gibbering. She agonized, she doubted.
Back and forth she went until one morning her mother asked, “Well are you a Christian today or not?” That stopped her dead in her tracks. She was placing her trust in the immaterial world, her faith in a God both transcendent and imminent into a physical object, allowing that object to dictate her faith. If we use empirical science, could we EVER prove it was or was not the Shroud of Christ? And she came to the conclusion that no, we never would.
Science has deceived (innocently or not) many before her and will many after. 150 years ago, well-meaning scientists PROVED that you can distinguish “good people” from “bad people” by feeling the shape of their heads. It was a very well developed discipline and thousands of people had their heads analyzed. But the whole experiment was flawed; the scientists were making a moral judgment by using empirical science that had no vocabulary for morality or values. It was doomed to fail and fail it did.
Two separate questions: first we ask ourselves what data do we have today about the Talpiot Tomb? Then we ask, what are our theological claims? How can this data relate to these claims? Do they even fit together? In my humble opinion, debates about the existence of God and issues like the shroud or the Talpiot ossuaries swirl around each other and dance with each other but never enter the other’s sphere. The mystery about the existence of God is just that—mysterion, not to be known. And the not knowing is part of the entire mystery.
There are puzzles that have intrigued us for generations. People debated for centuries some of Euclid’s unsolvable problems. Generations of geometry students chewed on them, wrestled with them. The problems intrigued, they titillated the mind. Some people became obsessed with them. Most students of math could recite these famous unsolvable problems. Where are they now? Forgotten. The unsolvable problems were solved and now do not even enter our minds. They are not a part of our communal consciousness. They have been placed on a shelf: fini, finished, forgotten.
The question about God’s existence or lack of existence is part of the very mystery of God’s own self. God keeps us in suspense so that thinking about and talking about and debating about God stays fresh in our minds and not dusty on a shelf.
This data from the New East is intriguing. It titillates the mind. Does it matter? Yes. How does it matter? Will it substantively change Christianity? I think not. Will it change my faith or my faithing, my practice of faith? No. Will there be new data? Probably. Will this hypothesis stand? Who knows? So many times the theories just fade into obscurity and the debate withers up. Yet, no matter what the data is, what the debate is the mystery of God will remain, long after I am placed in a box and the flesh on my bones melts away.
The flowers fade and the grass withers, but the Word of our God stands forever.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
As of today
53 days to graduation. I have a bunch of papers to write, my announcements to order, one final visit to my adviser, three classes in Greenville, one in Due West, about 6 weeks at Emory. I purchased my cap, gown and hood yesterday. I'm glad I'm graduating before I have to start collecting social security.... (kidding!) I think I'm pulling A's so far this semester. As someone joked yesterday, though, tell me I don't have to come back and give me C's. That would be fine. (Well, not really. I would like my GPA to stay sorta OK.)
Picture 73/365
My Karate Kids.
They now are going to four classes during the week -- two for traditional training and two to learn how to teach karate (they help with the preschool class and the white belt class). Aren't they cute!
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