This is the home that we are purchasing in Canton, GA. Mark will be in one of the two upstairs bedrooms, and the ceiling is high enough to accomodate his loft bed.

There is some unfinished space in the basement for Ed's power tools.

The neighborhood has a "green space", a large green field behind the home maintained by the neighborhood association. The green space is in the flood plain zone, and so will never be developed. The previous owners loved flowers, and the house is surrounded by perennials like daylilies and azaleas.

The home is 5 minutes from Mark's school, Creekland Middle School.

Yes, the swing on the front porch comes with the house.

Asymmetric Information?

I was so excited when I saw the schedule request form for Fall semester. One of the courses offered is a full semester on preaching Deuteronomy. A whole semester studying Deuteronomy sounded so appealing, a great opportunity to get into the text. When I turned in my course request form, Deuteronomy was ranked as my number one selection.

While waiting to learn which courses were scheduled, I started to worry a bit. The more I thought about this, the more certain I was that by the time my registration request was processed, the Deuteronomy course would be filled with 2nd year students and this newbie would be passed over.

I was so excited when I received my schedule, and saw that I was enrolled in the Deuteronomy course.

Curious about the instructor and class size, I found the course information on the registrar's website. The course limit is 12 students and so far there are 11 remaining seats. It's been over a month. No one else has registered for the course. Hmm...What does everyone else know that I don't know?

Schedule for Fall 2005

Tuesday / Thursday
Introduction to History Of Christian Thought
9:30AM - 10:50AM

Bible & Sermon (Deuteronomy)
1:00PM - 2:20PM

Wednesday / Friday
New Testament Greek I
9:30AM - 10:50AM

Interpretation Of The Old Testament 1
1:00PM - 2:20PM

Wednesday
Contextual Education Ia
2:30PM - 4:30PM

Dad's Driving Advice

(This is a reprint of a devotion I wrote for the CUMC website.)

When I was learning to drive, my Dad gave me the following words of wisdom: When you are driving on the expressway, if you use the brakes, someone made a mistake.

I still think of this advice and learn from it. Whenever on the expressway, if I use the brakes I ask myself, "who made the mistake?".

Usually it's me, following too closely to the car in front of me.
Sometimes the mistake is daydreaming instead of paying attention to the traffic around me. Sometimes it's another driver making one of these mistakes, and I have to brake as a result of them.

There are many checks that could be used to do the same thing for each day. What are the red flags that should make us ask "Did I make a mistake?"

In one of his books, John Ortberg describes calling a spiritual mentor to ask advice. After a long pause, the friend said, "You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life."

Ortberg had his note pad out and in lightning speed he jotted that down. There was another long pause, and Ortberg became a little impatient, so he said: "Eliminate hurry from my life. That's good. I've got that. What else?"

Ortberg said that his mind was already sending anxiety signals to him about things that needed his attention, and this was a long-distance phone call and he wanted to cram as many units of spiritual wisdom
into the least amount of time possible.

Another long pause. "There is nothing else," the friend said. "You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life."

John Ortberg's story reminds me of my Dad's driving advice. My response to hurrying should be the same as my response to braking on the expressway--whenever I hurry I need to ask myself "What's really going on? What's the real problem?"

Am I in a rush because I did not take the time to prepare adequately? Is that because I don't really care about that next appointment? Am I hurrying because deep down I really don't care about the person trying to talk to me?

Am I hurrying because I am self-absorbed in my own little world?

Stress

An interesting quote from a FlyLady fan's testimonial. There's a lot of truth here!


".. Much of the stress that people feel doesn't come from having too much to do, it comes from not finishing what they sarted.." David Allen

What a resource! I find the Blue Letter Bible overwhelming! Commentaries, Greek interlinear, Strong's ... lovely!

Lines in the Sand - Glenn Miller provides a lovely discourse as to why we cannot draw lines in the sand (i.e., you must believe this to be "saved").

The net: The concept of a 'minimum set' of propositions that must be accepted is probably a strange way of looking at this process...it is much more an issue of 'how must one respond as a person to the truth they are gently confronted with about God'

Children's Prayer: A friend emailed the following description, sounds lovely!

One Sunday the pastor of my (then) church called all the adults up to the front and we all stood in a big circle (small congretation.) Then he had all the children form a corresponding inner circle, rotating and standing before one adult and then another as we prayed for the children whatever was in our hearts. The kids absolutely loved it! They resembled little honeybees, buzzing here and there for their "nectar". It was great!

CS Lewis’s famous statement at the end of The Weight of Glory:
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long, we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortals, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we live with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. . . . Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.”

From the CFSF list. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if my students could say the same about me?"

"What gave [Francis] extraordinary personal power was this; that from the Pope to the beggar, from the Sultan of Syria in his pavilion to the ragged robbers crawling out of the wood, there was never a man who looked into those brown burning eyes without being certain that Francis Bernardone was really interested in him, in his own inner individual life from the cradle to the grave; that he himself was being valued and taken seriously, and not merely added to the spoils of some social policy or the names in some clerical document...He treated the whole mob of men as a mob of Kings."

-- G.K. Chesterton, St. Francis of Assisi (1923)

A man and his wife were having an argument about who should brew the coffee each morning. The wife said, "You should do it because you get up first. Then we don't have to wait as long to get our coffee."

The husband said, "You are in charge of the cooking around here and you should do it because that is your job. I can wait for my coffee."

She replies, "No, you should do it. It's in the Bible that the man should do the coffee."

Husband replies, "I can't believe that. Show me."

So she fetched the Bible and opened the New Testament and shows him at the top of several pages, that it indeed says..... "HEBREWS."

I feel like a dufus. I never connected the prayer of St Patrick with "put on the full armor of God".

Christ beside me
Christ before me
Christ behind me
Christ before me
Christ beneath me
Christ above me...
Christ in heart of all who meet me.

Oh the truth hurts!

I'm was reading the prayerfoundation.org description of steps to take for a more disciplined (read disciple) life, Growing in Christ, and nodding my head in agreement, and then the writer described the how to find time for these practices...and as usual, the writer suggested less time could be wasted watching television, and I nodded my head in agreement, as I am so proud of how little time I watch television... but then the writer added time wasted on the computer.

And I was so proud of how little time I spend watching television. :-) I never even considered how much time I waste online!

From Andrew Murray,
Lesson 13 in With Christ in the School of Prayer:
Prayer is the reaching out after God and the unseen; fasting, the letting go of all that is of the seen and temporal. While ordinary Christians imagine that all that is not positively forbidden and sinful is lawful to them, and seek to retain as much as possible of this world, with its property, its literature, its enjoyments, the truly consecrated soul is as the soldier who carries only what he needs for the warfare.

From Gordon MacDonald in Leadership Journal
A monk was brought up before the brotherhood for having committed a grievous sin, and it was decided that he would be excommunicated. As the monk left the sanctuary, his head bent in shame, the esteemed Abba Bessarian stood up, fell into step behind his fellow monk and in a clear voice announced, "I, too, am a sinner."

Mark was writing a report on Ulysses S. Grant.
Matt changed the "autocorrect" feature in word so that when you type the word Grant that word word correct it to be "Hi Mark!".
Hilarious!

I always hate to predict how well I did on a test...but I felt so much better after today's Greek quiz than previous tests this semester.

Last night, after hours of studying, it seemed to start to come together (at least I was able to remember the verb stems and endingings better than previously). I shared this with Matt. Then I told him that I had only finished chapter 16 (quiz is for 16 & 17).

Matt's response? He asked if my quizzes have a time constraint. :-)

I really enjoyed this quote in a recent TechNewsWorld's Interview:
From Technology and Religion: An Interview with the Episcopal Church's Tom Ferguson

TNW: How do you explain the concept -- or even the believability -- of god in the context of a digital world, in terms of cause-and-effect science and the general consensus among the technology community that the concept of god is untestable voodoo?

Ferguson: Of course god is untestable voodoo. And that's what most non-IT people think of IT. Ever try to explain to your grandfather how to open an e-mail attachment? But IT folks know IT isn't voodoo, just like I know god isn't.

No, I'm not suggesting fasting as a means of weight control.

This idea reminds of something I once heard:
"There's a special spot in hell for those who attend church because they've heard that church attenders have lower blood pressure."

From Wesley's Sermon 116
It would be easy to show, in how many respects the Methodists, in general, are deplorably wanting in the practice of Christian self-denial; from which, indeed, they have been continually frighted by the silly outcries of the Antinomians. To instance only in one: While we were at Oxford, the rule of every Methodist was, (unless in case of sickness,) to fast every Wednesday and Friday in the year, in imitation of the Primitive Church; for which they had the highest reverence. Now this practice of the Primitive Church is universally allowed. "Who does not know," says Epiphanius, an ancient writer, "that the fasts of the fourth and sixth days of the week" (Wednesday and Friday) "are observed by the Christians throughout the whole world." So they were by the Methodists for several years; by them all, without any exception; but afterwards, some in London carried this to excess, and fasted so as to impair their health. It was not long before others made this a pretence for not fasting at all. And I fear there are now thousand of Methodists, so called, both in England and Ireland, who, following the same bad example, have entirely left off fasting; who are so far from fasting twice in the week, (as all the stricter Pharisees did,) that they do not fast twice in the month. Yea, are there not some of you who do not fast one day from the beginning of the year to the end? But what excuse can there for this? I do not say for those that call themselves members of the Church of England; but for any who profess to believe the Scripture to be the word of God. Since, according to this, the man that never fasts is no more in the way to heaven, than the man that never prays.

15. But can any one deny that the members of the Church of Scotland fast constantly; particularly on their sacramental occasions? In some parishes they return only once a year; but in others, suppose in large cities, they occur twice, or even thrice, a year. Now, it is well known there is always a fast- day in the week preceding the administration of the Lord's Supper. But, occasionally looking into a book of accounts in one of their vestries, I observed so much set down for the dinners of the Ministers on the fast-day; and I am informed there is the same article in them all. And is there any doubt but the people fast just as their Ministers do? But what a farce is this! What a miserable burlesque upon a plain Christian duty! O that the General Assembly would have regard to the honor of their nation! Let them roll away from it this shameful reproach, by either enforcing the duty, or removing that article from their books. Let it never appear there any more! Let it vanish away for ever

16. But why is self-denial in general so little practised at present among the Methodists? Why is so exceedingly little of it to be found even in the oldest and largest societies? The more I observe and consider things, the more clearly it appears what is the cause of this in London, in Bristol, in Birmingham, in Manchester, in Leeds, in Dublin, in Cork. The Methodists grow more and more self-indulgent, because they grow rich. Although many of them are still deplorably poor; ("tell it not in Gath; publish it not in the streets of Askelon!") yet many others, in the space of twenty, thirty, or forty years, are twenty, thirty, yea, a hundred times richer than they were when they first entered the society. And it is an observation which admits of few exceptions, that nine in ten of these decreased in grace, in the same proportion as they increased in wealth. Indeed, according to the natural tendency of riches, we cannot expect it to be otherwise.