Month: June 2007

Day 38

There’s an investment ad I’ve been hearing on the radio lately that starts out with this (probably government-mandated) warning: “Investments and securities involve the risk of loss.” When anything related to money, business, or economics comes up, I tune out. I’m not concerned with rising stocks, bull and bear markets (?), or any of that. Probably because I don’t get them. This morning, though, that little warning line I’ve heard a dozen or so times really grabbed me.

It wasn’t so much the investment part that made me think. I know you can lose out with bad investments. But securities involve the risk of loss? Granted, I don’t have a clue what securities are. But securities? Come on, now – how can you call something a security if there’s a risk of loss? Seems a little strange.

Maybe that’s because I’m so used to God’s economy: Nearly 2000 years ago he bankrupt heaven to make an incredible investment in the destiny of lost sinners: his Son, Jesus, died on the cross, fully paying our sin debt, so that if we simply believe in him, we receive the free gift of everlasting life, which is an eternal security that involves no risk of loss.

And that, my friends, is the way security should be.

Day 39

Back a dozen or so years ago, which was a while before the internet reached our town in Kenya, it was rather hard to follow American sports of any kind. That’s completely understandable. I mean, do U.S. papers keep track of cricket scores in Australia? Of course not!

So I’ve gotta give the Daily Nation (one of Kenya’s newspapers) credit on that point – they did make an effort to keep us baseball fans informed. To an extent. Every day, I’d go to the library and flip through the sports to find the baseball “section”. Now granted, sometimes they did have the full standings – American League & National League, all six divisions. But in other cases, they’d only print say, the NL West and AL Central. Maybe that’s all they had room for. But when the NL East Phillies were in the thick of the pennant race (hey, I can dream), the sporadic coverage could be a tad frustrating.

These days, thanks to the wide world web and satellite TV, it’s a lot easier to follow sports. You can find out who won the Super Bowl in real time, rather than huddling around a shortwave radio the next morning to find out the results from BBC. You can listen to Phillies announcer Harry Kalas’s lively description of another Chase Utley home run (“That ball is WAY outta here!”) if you don’t mind the  game’s 2:05 AM E. Africa start time.

Indeed, people do go to great lengths at times to catch their teams live.

For example, in December 2005, a Monday Night Football game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Seattle Seahawks was being broadcast live by ESPN (or someone) in Africa. Thrilled to be able to go watch “our team”, my 2 youngest brothers, who were on break from school, got up in the wee hours of Tuesday morning to go to the video room to watch it. Mom went along (as an adult needed to be present) and apparently got her grocery list and the whole week’s menu done during the game. She’s definitely the queen of multi-tasking.

Anyways, you can guess what happened. Murphy’s Law took over. The Eagles were utterly shellacked. 42-0. I remember watching part of the game here in Milwaukee, but I gave up on them before the first half was over and went to bed. Noah and Daniel stuck it out to the bitter bitter end. I guess when you only get to see a live game of your team every few years, you do that.

But they didn’t even get to see an Eagles touchdown. Sigh.

Onward.

Here’s the benediction Grandpa mentioned in his comment yesterday. It was the one read at their wedding nearly 56 years ago.

Hebrews 13:20-21 Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Day 40

Yesterday and today my diagnostic partner and I conducted our first evaluations. They were about as different as 2 sessions could be. Yesterday’s evaluation consisted of two and a half hours of chasing a two and a half year old girl around the room with testing materials. We were a just a leetle tired after that one. Nothing really went as planned, the video only got half the session, and we didn’t formally complete all the tests. But it was fun and we managed to get what we needed. Also, our client had quite the excellent attention span for a person her age – it was better than mine. Almost.

Today, we had an accent reduction evaluation. Foreign accent clients are always an interesting challenge because they aren’t disordered, they have a “difference”. We get a lot of teaching assistants from overseas who learned English mainly from books (which, in case you were wondering, is among the worst ways to acquire a language). They arrive in Milwaukee, start teaching, and their students struggle to understand them. So they come to us for help. (I’m thinking I’ll write a post on accents at some point – it is quite an interesting topic. Nerdy, yes. But interesting.)

Anyway, that evaluation also was successful  – it was two hours of sitting with a very-easy-to-talk-to adult. Everything went according to plan. It all flowed nicely with no hiccups. Rather pleasant, actually.

I was thinking about how absolutely opposite (Can you have something that’s “absolutely opposite? Or is “opposite” superlative enough on its own?) the sessions were, yet how we came out of both of them saying, “Hey, that went pretty well.” Truly, variety is the spice of life. And also, apparently, of my chosen profession.

Onward.

Jude 24-25 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

I think this is my favorite benediction in all of Scripture. I love the way Jude describes not just the incredible attributes of the Lord, but also our position in Christ, and his tender grace toward us. Awesome, in the truest sense of that word.

Day 41

Today I would like to suggest for your reading pleasure, a classic: The King’s Stilts by the venerable Dr. Seuss. This tale of noble King Birtram of Binn (as well as his stilts), courageous page boy Eric, and dastardly Lord Droon is, in my opinion, Seuss’s best and enjoys a long and honored history in my family. In fact, it is the first book I ever remember being read to me. My father actually recorded a cassette tape of his rendition of the story, and that tape has been listened to countless times.

I was just perusing some Stilts excerpts at Amazon, and with each line I read, I could hear the echo of Dad’s enthusiastic narration in my mind, pulling me back to Walnut Street, Catasauqua, PA, circa the mid-1980’s. Twenty or so years later, these memories serve to enhance my enjoyment of the adventure which includes Binn’s constant battle against predatorial birds called nizzards, the borderline-treasonous theft of King Birtram’s stilts by the evil Droon, and Eric’s dire quest to retrieve them (Before It’s Too Late, of course).

Eventually, all is set right. The kingdom is saved, and when the villian is locked up, we are given an account of his prison menu in what is one of my favorite lines of the book: “Stewed nizzards for breakfast. Cold nizzards for lunch. Fried nizzards for supper. And every other Thursday, they served him nizzard hash.”

Try it. You will like it, you will see. (The book, my friends, not the hash.)

Onward.

I definitely want this sung at my funeral. If I have one, of course.

Some day when the toils of life are over/And the saints are caught away/We will gather ’round the throne of Jesus/For his coronation day.

Chorus: I want to be there when we crown him King of kings/I want to be there when the court of heaven rings/With the happy song the angel chorus sings/I want to be there when we crown him King of kings.

All the universe will be assembled/Numberless the gathering there/Angel hosts and all the ransomed army/Glorious sight beyond compare.

Only those who put their faith in Jesus/Trust the work of Calvary/Will behold that crowning day in heaven/Day of final victory.

Hallelujah! I’m going to be there.

Day 42

I was lesson planning for tomorrow’s session with my 3-year-old client (Side Note: He’s the one who, totally unprompted, gives me a hug and a kiss on the cheek after each session – talk about serious heart meltage.) in which we will be focusing on correct production of the cluster “sn”. For part of the session, I’ll be reading 15 “sn” words to him, so this morning I had to come up with my list.

Now, “s” by itself is a very nice. “N”, too, is lovely alone. But put the two sounds together, and somehowly you get (deep breath): snooty, sneer, snort, snit, snore, snot, snarl, snide, snicker, sneak, snoop, snake, sniffle, snap, snarky. Hmm. For whatever reason, our language seems to like using “sn” to convey our not-so-nice ideas. I tried to find more neutral “sn” words to share with Richie, and there are some, such as snack, sneakers, snail, snow, and sneeze.

Still, we English speakers are quite obviously biased in our use of “sn”. Kinda interesting.

Onward.

Some Thoughts from the Proverb of the Day:

Proverbs 6:6-11 Go to the ant, O sluggard, observe her ways and be wise, which, having no chief, officer or ruler, prepares her food in the summer and gathers her provision in the harvest. ⁹ How long will you lie down, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? “A little sleep, a little slumber, A little folding of the hands to rest “– your poverty will come in like a vagabond and your need like an armed man.

Day 43

That’s the comment I overheard when I passed two girls last night leaving the library. I didn’t hear anymore of their conversation – you know how you catch bits ‘n’ pieces of others lives as you pass by – but that was a very interesting bit ‘n’ piece my ears grabbed as I walked home.

In my mind, I thought, Me too. I get in this tunnel vision rut, or I’m like a Kentucky Derby horse with blinders securely fastened. I hardly see what’s going on in the world besides what takes place in my own little corner of Milwaukee, and more specifically, in my own little life. This feels especially true during these busy summer weeks – it’s get up, go to clinic, go to work, go home, go to bed, repeat. I’ll get irritated when someone interrupts my rut, ahem, my routine. My routine. As in, it’s all about me. Hoo boy.

Last night, I was graciously and gently convicted of my self-absorption. And the Holy Spirit used a “random” comment by a stranger to do it. 

Philippians 2:3 “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves.”

Yes, regard one another. Thanks for the reminder, Lord.

Day 44

This is my 100th blog entry, so I thought it appropriate to share some thoughts I wrote . . . on writing.

Word Wrestling – 16 September 06

        Writing is not easy for me. It’s hard work. More often than not, I find the process frustrating.  It usually goes something like this: I’ll wake up in the middle of the night with a half-baked idea – it’s getting crusty around the edges, but it’s still a little raw inside. There’s a great (even brilliant, I think) first line and a snazzy ending. The middle part needs some work, but I fall back asleep certain that everything will be sorted out in my brain by the time I crawl out of bed.

      Of course, it rarely is. In the morning when I sit yawning at my computer, that brilliant first line isn’t quite so shiny, the finale is shabby rather than snazzy, and the muddled middle sits and stares up at me unsympathetically with all the Times New Roman indifference it can muster. I can’t hit the delete key quickly enough. Sometimes, I only type a dozen words before realizing the futility of the effort. Other times I’ll trudge along through a paragraph or two or three, hoping with each keystroke that it’ll somehow get better, that I’ll somehow be able to salvage the mass of banality I’ve created. In either case, the end result is the same: a blank screen.

      Are there people out there for whom writing comes easily? Are there wielders of words whose essays and poems and stories always hit the target, who never face writer’s block or need a thesaurus, whose thoughts spill from mind to pen to paper in an uninterrupted flow of wit and wisdom? Or are they all like me, a word wrestler who goes to battle with grammar and semantics, challenging amorphous thoughts to become coherent and yes, even beautiful, to the world outside my head?

      I often, too often, come out on the losing end of the fight, with the score reading: Pristine Page – 1, So-Called Writer – 0. Yet, in spite of the disappointments, I can’t help myself – I keep coming back for more. Because on those rare occasions when I do emerge victorious, when oft-unsubmissive syllables and sentences stand in perfect order, when words become a backdrop for my ideas and not a distraction from them, I delight in language. I delight in its Creator. I delight in the joys of written communication. I delight in the gift of being able to share thoughts that cause people to ponder, to laugh, or to cry.

      And because there are such delights, I wrestle on.

Day 45

Going to heaven has absolutely nothing to do with one’s lifestyle, character or behavior – ever.

(Query shamelessly stolen from Ian’s facebook profile.)

This question was brought to the forefront of my thinking yesterday when I was reading a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel opinion column. Steve Paske wrote about how some kids in this city seem unconcerned about committing violent crimes because they believe in God and think that that will get them to heaven in spite of their actions. The author was advocating for more “brimstone” teaching in Milwaukee churches to strike fear into the hearts of the youth. While I’m all for bringing up hell in the context of witnessing – people need to know what they need to be saved from– I find some of Mr. Paske’s premises troubling.  Here’s the link: http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=613596

And a response to a couple of points in the article:

“Perhaps if our city’s preachers took on a more punitive persona, perhaps if city sermons reminded Christians that violent acts will result in a violent afterlife – even if they don’t think that is the case – then perhaps fear of eternal punishment might actually get kids to think twice before they pull the trigger of a gun leaving a 4-year old-girl dead.”

I am one of those who do not think that violent acts of necessity equal a violent afterlife, and I could not stomach listening to a teacher who proclaimed that.

“Perhaps the Christian God is so forgiving that you could kill someone and still stamp your ticket to heaven.”

Yes, sir. He is so forgiving.

You see, we are not saved because we are good. We are not even condemned because we are bad. Our sins truly do make us worthy of hell. But Jesus Christ paid the price for our sins on the cross – all of our sins: past, present, and future. The question that now stands before a sinner (i.e. everyone on this planet) is “What do you think about Jesus Christ?”

John 3:18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

So, it is not, “Are you a ‘good enough’ person, or a ‘too bad’ person?” It’s, “Do you believe that the work of Christ alone was sufficient to save you, or are you still trusting your ‘good works'(which according to the Bible are filthy rags before a holy God)?”

Am I defending or condoning the rapes and murders committed by these young people mentioned in Mr. Paske’s article? Absolutely not. Sin is always anathema. God hates sin. I am saddened by foolish and wicked acts such as the murder of 4-year-old Jasmine. Am I saying the ones who commit these crimes are going to heaven? I don’t know. I don’t know their hearts or beliefs. There’s a lot of unsaved monotheists running around today. And their actions certainly do not line up with the Christ-like life that should be the believer’s aim; in fact they are the opposite. Based on these people’s deeds, I would seriously doubt their claim to salvation. But based on Scripture, I cannot say that these sinners, whose criminal acts at times defy belief, are not indeed saved.

Because those sins were paid for on the cross, and if they trusted ALONE in that work of God’s Son, their eternal destiny is settled. Heaven is a gift for sinners; it it is not a reward for good people.

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Oh, and by the way, the answer to the question at the top is true.

Day 46

“See ya next month!”

(This entry was scheduled for yesterday, but was preempted by the speling be.)

Since the calendar rolled over to June 2007, I was able to say that to my sister last night. For my family, it’s no longer see you the year after next after next, or next year, or later on this year sometime. It is, in fact, see you next month. After 34 months apart, that sounds awfully good.

I have refrained from bringing up The Reunion too often (aside from the countdown at the top of each entry) in order to keep from boring my faithful readers. But this milestone is a bigger deal than usual, so I took the liberty of mentioning it. Thanks for understanding.

Onward.

Free salvation now He offers/Take His gift, O hear His plea/On the bloody cross behold Him/Join His shout of victory. “It is finished,” loud He cried/O what love- for me He died/In my stead He bled on Calvary/Once for all Christ rescued me. – Ron Hamilton

In what other circumstance would a dying man’s final cries be a true shout of victory? On the cross, our sin-debt had been paid completely; the Son of God had done all the work. Satan’s head was crushed.

And so forevermore, there is victory in Jesus.

Day 47

Yesterday was the National Spelling Bee finals. Kids from across North America, all amazing spellers, competed. The winning word in 2007?

“Serrefine”. That’s a small forceps for clamping a blood vessel. I’m definitely going to try to incorporate this new vocab word into my conversation.

Also yesterday, Mrs. Clinton campaigned for the presidency:

Guess at least one event organizer wouldn’t have won the spelling bee, eh? The timing of the error is pricelessly ironic, and hearkens back to Dan Quayle’s “potatoe”.

Speaking of ironic spelling errors, one of my undergraduate linguistics textbooks was entitled Analyzing the Worlds’s Languages. Perhaps a cursory analysis of English possessives would have been helpful as well.

Onward.

Proverbs 1:32b “the complacency of fools will destroy them.”

The American Heritage Dictionary defines complacency as a “feeling of contentment or self-satisfaction, especially when coupled with an unawareness of danger, trouble, or controversy”.

How terrifyingly apt a term for our world today, especially here in America. People in this country are self-confident, self-trusting, self-absorbed. They are settled and happy in the life they’ve created, in the empty dreams they are chasing. They live purposely ignorant of the fact that their lives are fragile, that they are separated from hell by a heartbeat.

When it comes to eternity, these ones in such a dire situation are indeed complacent. And if they continue in that path, it will destroy them.

Believers are the ambassadors. We are the warners. We are the ones Christ has called to shake the lost from their complacency, to show them from God’s Word that they are hopeless, helpless, hell-bound sinners in need of the salvation provided through faith alone in Jesus, the unique God-Man, who died the death we all deserve and rose again.

We dare not be complacent ourselves.