Sunday Songs: The Church

I hate those cheese-ball alliterative day-of-the-week titles people use on their blogs (Friday Funnies, Mixology Monday, Thursday is for Thrombosis, or whatever), but I thought it would be fun to post the lyrics to some of my favorite hymns and songs on Sundays.  So here goes.  Note that songs about God's people pretty much invariably make me cry (see: The Church's One Foundation, especially verse two about the "elect from every nation"... definitely getting choked up just typing those words).

I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord

I Love thy kingdom, Lord, the house of thine abode,
The church our blest Redeemer saved with His own precious blood.

I love thy church, O God: her walls before thee stand,
Dear as the apple of thine eye, and graven on thy hand.

For her my tears shall fall, for her my prayers ascend;
To her my cares and toils be giv'n, till toils and cares shall end.

Beyond my highest joy I prize her heav'nly ways,
Her sweet communion, solemn vows, her hymns of love and praise.

Jesus, thou friend divine, our Savior and our King,
Thy hand from every snare and foe shall great deliv'rance bring.

Sure as Thy truth shall last, to Zion shall be giv'n
The brightest glories earth can yield and brighter bliss of heav'n.

-- Timothy Dwight, 1800

Ha. Legalism, in your FACE!

So, remember way back two posts ago when I said I was going to try to blog every day during Lent except Sundays?  Yeah, well, apparently that statement had a caveat which goes something like, "And except when I choose to do stuff with people rather than sit in front of my computer."  Not like there are that many people reading at the moment, but in case you're incredibly offended by my failure to live up to my (sorta) word, this one's for you:

You're a legalist.  So am I.  Let's knock it off, mmkay?

I mean, I know that's a great big Easier Said Than Done, but take it under consideration with me.  I grew up in the church, and when I say "in" I really do mean in.  I only recall staying home sick from church one time in eighteen years.  Being an oldest child, female, and blessed/cursed with a temperament prone to caring a great deal about others' opinions, what do you think was a bigger danger: that I was going to go buck-wild and rebel against everything I had grown up believing?  Or that I was going to become a total pharisee, Now With Lightning-Fast Judgmentalism (TM) and Turbo-Powered Self-Righteousness (TM) Built Right In!

There's been a lot of hand-wringing in the last few years about how many kids who grow up in the church turn away from it when they leave for college.  I'm not diminishing the importance of examining the reasons behind that phenomenon, but I think we can get so worked up about the ones who leave that we forget to notice the ones who stay. 

A couple months ago, I told a friend of mine who grew up Roman Catholic and was converted in college that I had never had a mentor.  To say she was aghast would be putting it mildly.  "Well," I explained, "No one ever thought I needed one." 

See, I was the kid who had all the right answers in Sunday School.  I came to church, sang on the worship team, went to youth group, got good grades, stayed out of trouble, spoke politely to adults, seemed happy and well-adjusted.  And I was, for the most part.  But as time went on, I became obsessed with knowing the right answers to everything.  I had to show my parents and the other adults at church that, even though the vast majority of kids in my age group had dropped out of youth group, there was ONE "good Christian" left in the bunch.  I was one miserable little moralist.

Let me tell you from experience that legalism is just as deadly, just as crippling, just as dangerous as license, because both of them cheapen and diminish the Gospel.  While license says, "Well, God will just let it go, it's no big deal," or, "God's love means he wouldn't want me to give up what makes me happy," legalism says, "Grace isn't enough, Christ's death doesn't really count in this situation, being right is all that matters."  License takes Grace for granted; Legalism forgets Grace altogether.  License imagines God as a jovial, wealthy uncle who winks at your mistakes and doles out presents now and then.  Legalism imagines God as an angry, loveless stepfather, waiting for your next mistake, threatening to disown you if you can't get it together.  Lies! 

I don't know who, but an obviously wise and perceptive teacher once said, "God is as dissatisfied with you, Christian, as he is with Jesus."  What a freeing concept for the person struggling with the false guilt of imperfection!  What joy to know that I am in Christ, and that not only has he taken my sin upon himself and dealt with it at the Cross, but his perfect righteousness is credited to me!  He has fulfilled the whole law of God where everyone else has failed, and by God's mysterious grace he has given me the righteousness that he earned.

So no, I don't feel guilty for not blogging yesterday.  Thanks for asking!  :)

Stick Figure Theology: Regeneration

One of my students today got a Miss Roberts' Patented Five-Minute Bonus Lesson (tm).  Seems a friend of hers had been given some pretty half-hearted and misleading information about a pretty dang important theological concept, so we talked about regeneration, salvation in general, and perseverance, for about an hour this morning.

I love my job.

So, in the course of the conversation, I drew a little stick figure guy running away from Jesus (you know, as one does*) and said to myself, "I shall turn this into a blog series."  Way to go, self.  So.  Gather 'round, boys and girls, time for Stick Figure Theology!**

 This is Joe.  Joe is unregenerate.

Because Joe is unregenerate, he hates the things of God.  Though burdened with sin (look!  A bag of sin!  Or... a... Samsonite carry-on suitcase full of sin!), Joe runs from Jesus, and refuses to hear the good news of salvation.  He loves and cherishes his sinful nature, and wants nothing more than to follow his own path.

Joe is SCREWED.

Something must happen for Joe to turn to Jesus for salvation.  So because God has set His love on Joe from the eternal, timeless past, God sends the Holy Spirit to give Joe a completely new heart and nature.  This new heart desires the things of God, hates sin, and wants to be like Jesus.  While Joe's old nature was insensitive to conviction of sin and the voice of the Spirit, this new nature hears and responds to God, and feels the Holy Spirit's conviction.

That is supposed to be the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove.  I am clearly not an artist.  Moving on.

Joe's new heart causes him to want to cast off the sin that burdens him, and to turn to Jesus.  So, when he hears the Good News of a Savior who took his sin and gave him perfect righteousness, he does just that!  Joe repents and believes the Gospel.

Lemme sum up.  Joe, in his unregenerate state, neither desires to worship God nor is able to.  In a miraculous action of undeserved grace, God's Spirit replaces Joe's sinful nature with a new nature -- one that desires salvation and longs to worship God, and that actually CAN worship God.  Joe then responds when he hears the Gospel, something he could not and did not want to do before.  He turns from sin and turns to Jesus, his only hope.

That's Stick Figure Theology: Regeneration.  Stay tuned for more Stick Figure Theology updates.







*Actually, one DOES do this all the time.  Just ask one's students.
** Please excuse the crudity of these drawings.***
*** I have always wanted to say that.

Blogging Lent

Well, welcome to phase three of my blogging life, friends.  This layout will change over the next few weeks undoubtedly, but the content, Lord willing, will be consistently AWESOME.

I gave up Facebook for Lent.  Lame?  I submit that yes, yes it is.  But Facebook is a time-suck in a huge way, and for someone like me with a slightly obsessive personality, it's a distraction from other, more important disciplines.

I read a quote today by Francis Bacon that went something like, "Reading makes a full man, speaking makes a quick man, writing makes an exact man."  I neither read enough nor write enough, though God knows I speak enough!  Precision is the pen's daughter, and I hope to cultivate more of that precision in my writing over the next forty days.

So.  Day one of Lent is Ash Wednesday -- for you modern evangelicals, no, that's not just "something Catholics do".  The Church calendar has been around far, far longer than a certain central Italian bishopric, and the observance of Lent (the forty days, not counting Sundays, leading up to Easter) has been part of the rhythm of the Christian year for many hundreds of years.  My church observes Lent in the same way Christians always have -- not as an effort at achieving right standing before God, but rather as a season of reminder, to help our all-too-forgetful hearts remember the mercy of God upon undeserving sinners.

For at least 1200 years, the practice of the Imposition of Ashes has been a part of the observation of Lent.  Participants receive on their foreheads the sign of the cross in ash, typically the ashes of the palm fronds used in the previous year's Palm Sunday celebration. 

Why ashes?  In the Scriptures, they connote grief, mourning, and repentance.  They remind us of our mortality -- "ashes to ashes and dust to dust."  The ashes used on Ash Wednesday call to mind the hypocrisy of the Palm Sunday crowd whose shouts of praise turned to "Crucify Him!"  As we receive them we remember that we too easily turn from our victorious King and casually reject his Kingship with our sinful lives.

We receive the ashes in the sign of the cross to remind us that, for Christians, death does not have the last word.  The Cross of Christ "speaks a better word" than the condemnation our sin deserves.  Out of death comes life because of the Savior whose power the grave could not contain.

I only had to explain that whole thing about ten times today when I showed up to school this morning with a very large black cruciform smudge on my forehead.  Which is down from last year, so that's progress, I guess!

I find great joy in this time of renewal and remembrance.  It is good for us forgetful Christians to be confronted with the "uncomfortable" doctrines and practices of the Christian life as well as the "happy" ones.  Mourning, confession, repentance -- these must find a place in my own life, lest I hold cheap the mercy of God.  One Puritan pastor told his people that unless sin is bitter, grace will never be sweet.

I pray that this will be a time in which I taste the bitterness of my sin, and know deeply the sweetness of God's grace.  My goal is to write every day, probably briefly, except Sundays, which are traditionally celebrated as miniature Feast Days during which Christians can -- in view of the Great Feast to which we look forward -- break the solemnity of their Lenten fasts.

Praying that you'll enjoy this journey toward Easter with me!

Theology

I overheard some ladies at the Chinese restaurant where I picked up lunch yesterday, grumbling about how the men in their Bible study were just so obsessed with the little details of the Bible that they missed the big picture. "It's just all that... theology. Ugh."

I felt very pleased with my self-control that I managed to keep my wails of dismay to myself, and very pleased indeed that I also held back the lecture on the fact that everyone has a theology, it's just either a good one or a bad one, that theology just means "the study or knowledge of GOD," for crying out loud, and everyone on the PLANET possesses beliefs about God (even atheists!) and if you think theology is about arguing over whether Martha and Lazarus were half-siblings or if the punctiliar emphatic aorist in the Greek indicates a completed action, YOU NEED HELP! AUGH!!! But I didn't say it. Nope! Self control, right there.

So I'm just saving THAT rant for my students. HA.

In the words of a wise friend: "You [ought to] study theology the right way, where truth moves your heart to joy and praise. If more of us would do it this way, maybe it wouldn't have such a bad rap in some circles. Theology should not intimidate the uninitiated, but cause them to want more of it, like a thirsty man who finds water in the desert. "

Ch-ch-check it out...

My buddy Paul is an awesome writer and wicked smaht. So do yourself a favor and head over to his blog, where he's doing a series on whose job it is to train pastors. Get movin' and join the conversation!

Evangelism and the Single Girl

I stink at evangelism. Really. I can't remember the last time I shared the Gospel, or even had a spiritual conversation, with an unbeliever who wasn't a) related to me and under age ten or b) my student. No, I can, it was probably with one of my neighbors in the apartment complex I lived in two and a half years ago. The only reason I knew my downstairs neighbor, Jasmine, is because she liked to listen to hip-hop while studying at 1 a.m., and the only reason I knew my across-the-hall neighbor is because he was completely insane, not unlike several of the other people who lived there. I don't think I ever told you about the time that one of the downstairs residents kidnapped (catnapped?) my next-door neighbor's cat and refused to return it.

Anyway, I digress.

I live by myself in my condo, which I totally love about 75% of the time, particularly when I don't feel like cleaning. The other 25% of the time, I feel either like a cloistered nun (who, uh, is on Facebook) or a weird recluse. Good thing I don't have any cats. I've met a few of my neighbors, and they're nice people, but I haven't felt comfortable going door-to-door and introducing myself or trying to form relationships with them. And herein lies my problem.

I totally believe that God has put me in this place for this time. It's not an accident that I live here, or that I have the neighbors I have. But what's a single girl to do? This is a pretty good-size metropolitan area I live in, and while it's quite a safe neighborhood, you just never know. I honestly don't feel right about going out by myself to knock on doors -- apart from the safety issues, what do you do with the propriety issues that arise, like finding yourself on the front steps of a house full of college-age boys? But how else besides meeting my neighbors am I supposed to even be in contact with adult non-Christians?

It's a very angsty issue for me, really. I want to be wise and safe, but I must be obedient.

I don't have any concluding thoughts, because I haven't concluded my thinking on this subject. If anyone has any suggestions, insights, or practical considerations, I'm all ears. Or whatever the online equivalent of ears is.

A Mixed Bag of Randomness

Bit of randomness #1: I rarely watch The Simpsons, but I happened to be home when this week's episode ran. It was my favorite kind of Simpsons' episode, made up of a handful of mini stories that the characters tell each other. While The Simpsons' sharp political critique has been blunted of late, this episode leveled some mid-range missiles at public education, showing the brilliant Maggie's efforts at daycare creativity being thwarted and suppressed by a mediocrity-obsessed headmaster who knocks over her block sculptures and ruthlessly enforces conformity. Good stuff.

Bit of randomness #2: Chowhound, a foodie-type message board that is priceless for seeking out info and advice about everything food-related -- grilling burgers, sourcing uni, pairing wine, finding a great Lebanese restaurant in Sydney, using an immersion blender -- you name it, you can find it on Chowhound. One of the recent topics asked what typically "foodie" foods we just will not eat. Here's what I came up with (partially):

Pate and/or liver mousses and/or meat-based terrines
Sea urchin
Raw bivalves in general
Offal (except maybe sweetbreads. MAYBE)
Raw seafood in general
Pork belly (except in bacony form)
Caviar
Blue cheese
Washed-rind cheese
Mushrooms, unless chopped so finely that I can't detect them

Now, dear friends and sharp-eyed readers will recognize a common theme here: texture! 95% of the time, if I dislike a food, it's not the flavor that puts me off, but the texture! Anybody else have texture "issues"?

Bit of randomness #3: In the last few months, I've watched a half-dozen French movies (yay, Netflix!). I couldn't tell you what any one of them was about, but I can tell you that I liked them all. What is it that is just so satisfying about French cinema? Languid, unhurried pace? A decided lack of the overwrought melodrama that pervades even the best American movies? The deliberate avoidance of the obvious? Yeah, it's probably all that, but the verdict is that French movies are teh awesome.

Bit of randomness #4: I am at last getting around to that blasted no-knead bread everyone was going on about all over the interwebz last year. I'm not what you'd call a "joiner" with the latest fads, and besides, I was pretty sure you needed a big covered enamel cast-iron pot with a lid that doesn't have a plastic handle on it, in which to bake the bread, and I was just not willing to go out and buy one. I'd love one. I'll probably get one eventually. But just so I can bake one kind of bread? Probably not.

Bit of randomness #5: Yay! School! As much as I am enjoying my summer (and I am!), I'm really feeling ready to get back in the groove of teaching. I function much better with a schedule, and I struggle to finish tasks when I have days and weeks of unscheduled time to kick around in -- I can always excuse my laziness with, "Oh, I can just do it tomorrow, right?" Strangely, when I have more to do, I can get more done at home. Hm, maybe I should get started with lesson plans? That's an idea.

Does God Change His Mind?

An email from my favorite theologically minded friend started this post. Recently, Craig Blomberg, a well-known New Testament scholar whose work on the historical accuracy and reliability of the Gospels has been of great help to many a student, pastor, and layman, wrote an article explaining why he is a "Calminian" -- a jokey riff on the "Why I Am/ Am Not a Calvinist" books of recent years. Blomberg is basically trying to put himself clearly outside the Reformed mindset once and for all. I've read a few expressions of disappointment, and an article agreeing with his position, which is basically what I'm going to attempt to respond to today.

First of all, let me point out that Craig Blomberg is way smarter than I am. I don't pretend that I can tangle with him intellectually. But despite that, I still think he's wrong. Second, let me point out that Craig Blomber is also a brother in Christ, despite what I think are his mistakes on this front. I'm not denigrating his faith or his commitment to the body of Christ, nor am I trying to write off his contribution to the Christian community. One of his books sits on my shelf, and it's staying there! But anyway, here goes.

At one point in his article, Blomberg refers to the story of Joseph's brothers coming to him in Egypt for help during the great famine. Joseph's famous line, "You intended it for evil, but God intended it for good," Blomberg insists, is not a declaration of God's sovereignty, but a mere statement of fact. He says: "Two separate agents, two separate wills, at cross purposes with each other, neither described as logically or chronologically prior to the other. Neither is said to cause the other; they occur simultaneously." What's really happening, he says, is that both wills operate at the same time, without one being over the other.

Well, hold up. I get what he's saying. Joseph says to his brothers, "You sold me into slavery out of a wicked intention, but God's power trumped your evil desires." In fact, God's purposes to preserve his people included the brothers' evil plans and actions. God is so powerful that he can even use human evil -- the condition of our fallen nature! -- to accomplish his purposes. That's comprehensive sovereignty. This is a copout. Blomberg's a great guy, and his work on the historical reliability of the Gospels is priceless, but he just does NOT want to be in the "God is totally sovereign" camp AT ALL. (Plus, calling himself a "Calminian" is cute, but the fact is that there isn't a responsible Arminian on the planet who wouldn't totally acknowledge God's sovereignty in human history. So he's really a Cal-Open Theist-ian. Which isn't quite as cute.)

Moving on to broader arguments about God's sovereignty, I often encounter people who point to the word "relent" in the Scriptures and say, "See? That means that God goes back on his word! If he really is completely sovereign over everything, how can he appear to be influenced by the prayers of his people?" I used to use this argument myself! Well, yes, "relent" means that he will not do what he said he would do, out of a gracious desire to preserve and defend his people. But a couple things:

1) This DOES NOT MEAN that God changes his mind or that he's fickle or doesn't know what he's ultimately going to do. The problem with the argument here is that, while they're trying to just draw a line around the Reformed understanding of God's sovereignty, they END UP basing their whole view on the idea that God actually changes his mind. Listen up: this is where guys like Greg Boyd and Clark Pinnock got started, and where they end up is saying that God takes risks, that he doesn't even KNOW the outcome of certain events, and that in some cases WE have more sovereignty over circumstances than the creator of the universe. That's a pretty stupid place to end up and still call yourself a Christian. It's just like how the Mormons use the methods of 19th century German liberal philosophers to convince people that the Book of Mormon is ok -- the argument might convince people, but you're cutting off the branch you're sitting on!

2) Check out this article. There's some uncool argumentation happening here, and this isn't the only place I've heard this line of reasoning, not by a long shot. You ever hear of "weasel words"? They're little words or phrases that a speaker or writer slips in, sometimes without even knowing it himself, that unfairly denigrate the other position -- it's like straw man + ad hominem all at once. The one that popped out to me was "real relationship." Yates and others imply that, unless God limits his own foreknowledge or sovereignty in some way, it's impossible for him to enter into "real relationship" with his creation. This is nonsense. We don't get to make up the rules for how God interacts with us based on our experiences with each other. The scriptures are full of the truths of God bringing the dead back to life both literally and figuratively. But does that one-sided interaction, that ultimate demonstration of total sovereignty, mean that God has some kind of counterfeit relationship with those he raises to life? Did Jesus have a more or less "real relationship" with Lazarus when he raised him, single-handed, from death?

3) There's also some plain old ridiculousness that gets shoveled around. To quote Yates, who is taking up a common anti-sovereignty argument: "The statements that Yahweh will harden the Pharaoh’s heart at the beginning of this process (cf. Exod 4:21; 7:3) are an expression that Yahweh’s purposes will ultimately prevail in this struggle but not that he dictates or determines the Pharaoh’s responses." Uh... what? What part of "I will harden his heart" is the tough part to interpret? "I will" meaning it's gonna happen, "harden his heart" meaning that's what he's gonna do. Yup. You have to do some pretty sexy contortionism to get around the plain meaning of that sucker.

4) The kicker is the "only a really sovereign God could accomplish his purposes in a universe where he has limited his sovereignty," also known as the "it's true because it ain't" argument. A God who can accomplish his purposes in such a give-and-take, unresolved universe that anti-sovereignty folks try to set up, is truly sovereign? Huh? So only a God who is truly sovereign and omniscient could operate in a universe where somethings are outside his sovereignty and beyond his omniscience? Yeah, that makes sense. What's the purpose of prayer if the God we're praying to has chosen this event to be one of the hands-off parts of world history? How are we to know the difference? Or does he wait until we pray and then decide to re-institute the sovereignty he's chosen to put on hold?

Unlike Blomberg and lots of other people who use these kinds of arguments, I'm happy to live knowing that my choices are BOTH really choices that I really make with my time-bound will and mind AND are mysteriously part of God's plan. It's called paradox, and we have to embrace it, largely because our finite brains can't fathom the depths of God's will. Let's not try to eliminate paradox by making God more like us. That's a pretty dumb Bible study method. Dig?

*Sigh*

Have you ever done this? Taken an accidental two-month sabbatical from your blog and then just wracked your brain fruitlessly for days, trying to come up with something really, really profound with which to break the silence?

It's just me, then?

I have had six thousand or so ideas sliding around half-formed in my summer-gelatinized brain. (Here's a sampling: The reason many pols and bureaucrats support abortion is that they're unwilling to tackle the more difficult task of dealing with pregnant women and the emotional complexities behind unwanted pregnancies. Modern American labor and delivery practices are sickeningly barbaric, and we've got the stats to prove it. Barbara Mouser's The Five Aspects of Woman is great, and I learned a bunch of stuff about womanhood listening to it. Why is U2 SO INCREDIBLY POPULAR?) But none of them, shockingly, have made the cut so far -- I just can't get stuff to congeal into anything coherent.

Once my schedule and my brain are working a little less... uh... Summer-time-ish-ly... I'm sure I'll develop one of the above topics (or, I mean, you know me, something completely different) into an actual post.

Tune in next time to see if I go for the controversial, the political, the theological, or the utterly vapid and meaningless! WOO!!!

What's Up With Those Old Guys?

The brilliant Mikey Lynch posted (AGES ago now) a couple musings on a post at The Sola Panel (har har) about the younger generation's responsibility in engaging the older generation. As I pondered his ponderings, I was reminded of what has been happening in the SBC over the last few years.

For those of you who don't know, the SBC went through a pretty dramatic and trying time in the 1990s. The denomination as a whole had really slipped doctrinally -- the seminaries were getting increasingly liberal (and not in a good way but in a "the Bible? Meh." kinda way), the missionary zeal that had characterized the SBC for generations was getting lost, and the whole thing was generally not going in a good direction. So a group of bold, courageous men decided that they were going to do whatever they could to put conservative leaders in positions of influence in order to steer the ship around, so to speak. Did they do everything with perfectly pure motives and methods? No. But the upshot of the whole "conservative resurgence" as it came to be known was a recapturing of the centrality of the Gospel and of the historical foundations of the SBC.

But that was almost two decades ago. So what's a veteran of the conservative resurgence to do? In too many cases, it seems, the answer to that is sitting around nursing war wounds, talking about "kids these days" and generally being grumpy. Which wouldn't be worth wasting bandwidth on, except that many of them are still in those positions of leadership they worked so hard to get in pre-resurgence days! Their grumpiness can't just be laughed off -- it's grumpiness with the power and influence to, for example, de-fund church plants that don't have such a hard line about alcohol as many SBC churches do. Or to carpet-bomb an entire state with anti-Calvinist propaganda dvds. Or to fire a trustee of the International Mission Board for not toeing the party line.

What's up with that?

Anyhoodles, the SP article and following discussion, as well as the discussion on Mikey's blog, are enlightening and interesting. Check 'em out.

Books, Thunderstorms, End of the School Year, and Other Miscellaneous Musings

Last night I went browsing at a couple of bookstores to try to find the Anne of Green Gables series in box set. The school has a few of them, and I've been reading (or, devouring) them this last week. Have you ever thought of books as friends? The Anne books are that for me -- dear old well-beloved friends. Monday night, when I was finishing up Anne of Green Gables, I sobbed -- sobbed! -- through the last four chapters, and laughed at myself for crying so hard, and then cried some more. If you've read it, you probably understand. It's been wonderfully restful to come home from school and sit in my comfy chair and just read for hours. I haven't done that in far too long.

On my way home from the bookstore, I got caught out in the worst thunderstorm of the year so far. Rain was coming down, hammer and tongs, with lightning streaking across the sky and downbursts of wind from the edge of the storm. When it started hailing, I pulled over in front of the Lyndon fire station, got in the rain shadow of the building, and prayed that the doors wouldn't suddenly open and a fire engine come roaring out! I listened in dismay as the hail pelted the back end of my car, and when it subsided, I pulled around to the side of the building just in case and waited for the rain to let up. It was wild! The hail turned out to be in the half-inch to two-inch range -- definitely the largest hail I've seen since I've been here.

I have two more academic days left at school, and then three fun days which will involve a baseball game, a field day, a talent show, an awards ceremony, and a picnic! And then three glorious months of Summer stretching out in front of me, waiting to be filled with cook-outs and visits from family and afternoons when it's too hot to leave the house and days by the pool and sunburns and hot, muggy air, and melty ice cream and all manner of other delights.

Do all teachers get a panicky feeling about how much hard-fought learning their students will inevitably forget between now and next year? Ooh. That reminds me. I need to get my hands on a couple copies of the books I'm assigning my 8th graders (almost 9th graders! Imagine!) over the Summer... Mwahahaha...

Ummmm...

*tap, tap*

Ahem.

This thing on?

Uh, sorry. I'm probably the worst blogger who ever blogged. It has been approximately seven million years since I blogged. My excuse is pretty decent: long school days followed by mental exhaustion compounded by zero inspiration to write. But.

I just couldn't resist blogging about the most boring subject in history, something so boring it's actually code for boring -- the weather.

Last "spring" (ha) we didn't really have much of a spring. We had a soggy winter, followed by a few half-heartedly springlike days, followed immediately by 24-hour-a-day air conditioning weather. It was hideous. But apparently God has been smiling on Kentucky these last couple of months and, boy howdy, have we had some unbelievable weather. Cool, breezy nights, and warm, sunny days, punctuated by big beautiful thunderstorms and enough days of soaking rain to keep us all from taking those sunshiny mornings and long languid evenings for granted.

Because the nights have been staying so cool, the flowers have hung on the trees much longer than in years past, and for one glorious week we had gorgeous, lacy dogwoods AND daffodils AND irises AND tulips AND the first azaleas. Cheeky azaleas -- I just can't get enough of them. They're like the girl at your first school dance who wears a sparkly, low-cut dress and makes all the boys stare. Brazen, those hot-pink azaleas, I tell you!

Hooray! It's supposed to get down to 49 tonight! It's a marvel, this weather. I wish it'd go on forever.

What's On Laura's Mind Today?

Hooray, I am done with my bloody taxes finally. Yuck. I HATE doing taxes. Luckily I've found an inexpensive (and relatively idiot-proof) online way to do everything, and e-filed both my state and federal returns. No trip to the post office! Woot! Also, refund! WOOT!

Top Gear. Seriously. I would love to watch this show every week, but the only way to get it in the U.S. is to pay major ducats for turbo-cable with seven billion other channels. Which, I mean, I'm not gonna lie, I would totally love, but it's bordering on a hundred bucks a month. And I love Top Gear, but really.

My students are the BESTEST. I wish I had the time to go into detail about why each one of them is so precious to me, but I don't want to try your patience with that many words. As crazy-making as kids can sometimes be, not a day goes by when I don't laugh with total delight at something one of them does. I mean really. My eighth graders especially are just the joy of my life.

Passover! My community group had a great time doing a little Passover seder this past week. It was a blast -- everybody came over to my house and we rigged up as many spots as we could and did an extremely abbreviated version of a typical Messianic seder, since a normal one can last 3 or 4 hours! Good food, good company, and a cool insight into the last meal Jesus ate with his disciples.

Did you know that Deadliest Catch is Discovery's most popular show? If you've watched it, you probably understand WHY it is, and if you haven't, you're seriously missing out. It's got the perfect reality-show alchemy: honest-to-goodness peril + salty, interesting characters + million-dollar rewards. Crab fishing in the Bering Sea is truly one of the world's most dangerous jobs, and not a season goes by without the captains hearing the crushing news that one of their sister ships has gone down in a storm. The captains themselves are hilarious -- tough, smart, foul-mouthed, third and fourth generation fishermen. And the million-dollar payout isn't a prize sponsored by advertisers, but the actual earnings of the captains and crew. Watch it! It's seriously addictive.

Spring in Louisville is gorgeous when it actually shows up. Last year, we had the shortest spring EVER -- freezing cold followed by two weeks of nice weather followed by blazing hot summer. But this year... it's been rainy and fickle and crazy, with thunderstorms and cool weather. Great stuff! The dogwoods are starting to bloom right now too. Ahhh...

An Open Letter To My Aussie Friends

There are a few things you should know before Em and Gwyd get back to 'Straya in a few weeks' time. I thought it would be best if you had a bit of preparation for the stories, rumors, and inside jokes they'll be armed with upon their return.

Here's what you need to know:

1. Em and Gwyd are both pregnant with babies made (Mighty-Boosh-like) from barbecued ribs, Indian food, and Dr. Pepper. The appropriate response to this: jealousy.

2. They will definitely try to explain something called an "orc Elvis" or "orc Elvis impersonator." The explanation will probably involve snippets of Elvis tunes, snarling, and discussions of bouffant hairdos. The correct response to this is mildly-amused puzzlement.

3. They have perfected their imitations of American homeschool kids. The correct response to this is to ask them whether or not the Balrog has wings, if Hobbits can be found in Mammoth Cave, or if the economy can survive without the contribution of Wood Nymphs.

4. Speaking of Mammoth Cave, Gwyd has developed a theory about how Mammoth Cave was built. If you ask him about this, be sure he replies in his American homeschool kid voice.

5. The next time you are around them while they're eating, their "Mmm" noises in response to the tastiness of the food will likely turn into an "mmm"-punctuated laugh fest. They might wipe tears. The appropriate reaction to this is awkward silence. I'm sure you can manage it.

Also be sure to ask them about Andrew's reaction to seeing Androdgo, and who carried the food down to the tuberculosis patients in Mammoth Cave. You have a few weeks to prepare yourselves.

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!

They're both doing quite well in America and enjoying themselves. But Gwyd's... found a few American foods he really likes. Yeah, let's go with that:


Yeah...

I am in possession of ...

... two Aussies.

Why Em and Gwyd Will Love the American South

So, I've come up with a little theory about why I think my Aussie friends Em and Gwyd are going to love the American South. Incidentally, this theory also helps explain why I loved Tasmania so much.

Both Tassie and Kentucky:

• have profound, and often unappreciated, natural beauty
• are looked down upon by the "cooler" parts of the country
• have a whole set of jokes directed toward them -- jokes relating to inbreeding, ignorance, etc. (Seriously, name one thing you know about Kentucky that's not a) the movie Elizabethtown or b) about hillbillies marrying their cousins)
• have a sort of homey, mellow coolness all their own
• have a legit, growing indie music/art scene

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it. We'll see if my theory is correct.

From "The Knowledge of the Holy"

"The mind looks backward in time till the dim past vanishes, then turns and looks into the future till thought and imagination collapses from exhaustion: and God is at both points, unaffected by either."

-- A.W. Tozer

Thoughts on Congregational Church Music

If you haven't visited Sojourn's music blog, you need to do a couple things. First, repent. Second, get over there. And third, as penance, post a link on Facebook, email links to everyone you know who is even vaguely connected to music ministry in churches, and go back to the site every Wednesday for the next ten weeks.

Bobby Gilles, one of Sojourn's lyricists and the blog's moderator, is going to be posting a series of short videos every Wednesday -- videos of a round-table discussion with Mike Cosper, Sojourn's worship/arts pastor, Chip Stam, founder of the SBTS school of church music and worship, and Harold Best, a well-known author and the former dean of Wheaton college, best known for his books Unceasing Worship and Music Through the Eyes of Faith.

This week's video clip is all about congregational music -- ranging from style questions to thoughts on tradition. Check it out!