Archive for March, 2009
Friday, March 27th, 2009
March 24, 2009
The stimulus money is finally hitting, but the thoughtful public (and if you are reading this you are, no doubt, thoughtful) is asking, “What pray tell is the stimulus stimulating?” Is it producing jobs or is it, as a friend (Graham) recently said, “Liberal Christmas”? The early returns are in and I am afraid the answer is, well, both troubling and downright comical. I will give only one exhibit here: the
McCaskey
School District
—that is the School District of Lancaster City for those of you unfortunately born outside of Our Fair County. Proof has arrived that the McCaskey District, long on spending short on productivity, needs stimulation. A few years ago I remember seeing a billboard in the city hailing this great progress with the District (read the statistic careful):
46% of McCaskey students not in the bottom quartile of PSSA testing.
Read it again. They were advertizing this as success. Yikes! So, they need stimulating. Here is the good news on that score—the money is on the way! Here is the story from the Intelligencer Journal (here is the story and the chart):
Over 12 million dollars are headed to the District. Maybe now stimulation will occur…maybe…perhaps. Ok, it will not. Here is what I saw posters for this week—see the musical on the middle of the first page of the newsletter below (Only click this link if you want to lose all hope in stimulation):
Somehow I thought stimulation would be less angry.
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Monday, March 23rd, 2009
March 23, 2009
Recently, Mr. Dennis and I went to speak for the Blackburn Study Center Conference out in
Pittsburgh
. They were nice enough to post our speeches online. If you would like to listen you can click on the link below and it will show you your choices. I would also highly recommend
Dr.
Paul Munson’s talk in Masculinity and the Arts. Dr. Munson is a professor at
Grove City
College
. Here is the link: The Blackburn Study Center Conference
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Friday, March 20th, 2009
March 20, 2009
Last night, Bill Ayers, the former Weather Underground protestor/blower-up-of-things, spoke at
Millersville
University
, a public university here in
Lancaster
County
. He was paid with public money that was taken from good folks here in
Lancaster
County
, given to the folks at Millersville and then handed to, the no doubt thankful, Ayers. This caused quite a hubbub, but nothing blew up. Interesting, isn’t it that Ayers opponents did not stoop to his tactics. It would have been hilarious if they would have. Can you imagine the irony of someone sending in a note to Millersville that to protest Ayers speech they had planted a bomb in the building, that they were not trying to hurt anyone, and that they would be open to coming to Millersville to speak next year—at half of Ayers honorarium? That would have made the evening a blast! (Sorry, I could not help it.)
A few observations are in order . . . .
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Thursday, March 19th, 2009
March 19, 2009
I just finished Wendell Berry’s Andy Catlett: Early Travels. It contains the tales of a young boys travels to his grandparents during summer break in 1943. Everyone is holding their breath waiting for some of the men of the community to return from the Second World War. I loved the book because I remember spending so much time at my own grandmother’s house growing up. I remember the stories that were told and the tasks that I did. I remember receiving ice cream at odd times for little or no reason. So, yes, for me this was a trip into nostalgia. I will not ask forgiveness. The perspective of the book comes from a grown up Andy Catlett. He writes knowing who is going to return from
Europe
and what is going to happen to his small, quiet world. He makes this diagnosis of our economy—fyi
Berry
wrote this book in 2006:
Increasingly over the last maybe forty years, the thought has come to me that the old world in which our people lived by the world of their hands, close to weather and earth, plants and animals was the true world; and that the new world of cheap energy and ever cheaper money, honored greed, and dreams of liberation from every restraint, is mostly theater. This new world seems a jumble of scenery and props never quite believable, an economy of fantasies and moods, in which it is hard to remember either the timely world of nature or the eternal world of the prophets and poets. And I fear, I believe I know, that the doom of the older world I knew as a boy will finally afflict the new one that replaced it.
The words about our economy ring too true in this time to ignore particularly in light of the fact that the answer that our government seems to be wheeling out is too build fantasy on top of fantasy to keep the economy moving. The deeper we drink in a lie the more repentance will hurt.
Anyway, I have found nothing in
Berry
that I do not like. I should not surprise you that I recommend this as well. It is short. It will bring back good memories. It will raise those troubling questions that
Berry
, for me, best raises.
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Wednesday, March 18th, 2009
March 18, 2009
This weekend I was blessed to read an article from the 2004 (Ok, I am behind) Dante Studies Report on the context of The Comedy written by Jo Ann Moran Cruz from
Georgetown
University
. It helped me set The Comedy within an historical context that I had completely missed. The events in The Comedy occur in or around Easter on the year 1300. Dante writes The Comedy later while he is in exile, but the story is about Easter 1300. The timing is important. During that year Pope Boniface VIII had declared a plenary indulgence for pilgrims to
Rome
who performed certain actions. This Jubilee indulgence declared that if a pilgrim did what Boniface VIII said then all of his sins would be forgiven. Boniface amplified this indulgence by making it retroactive to Christmas 1299 and by extending it to people who had the intention of coming to
Rome
and were kept from it by death or illness or circumstance. This, of course, is rotten theology. It gets worse. As part of the indulgence meant to bring pilgrims and wealth to
Rome
, Boniface also used this declaration as a tool against his political and ecclesiastical enemies. He listed particular people who were not allowed to have their sins forgiven. Yikes!
But the plot thickens from here. . . . .
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Monday, March 16th, 2009
March 15, 2009
My life revolves around tables. When I teach, I prefer to teach and sit with students at tables. Desk—though useful in many situations—never feel write in my classes (except Greek). I spend time with my family around the table. It is some of the most challenging and joyful time of my life. We have a boisterous family. Yesterday, at the Veritas Academy Open House, a worried father asked me if our grammar school turns students into regimented, robotic sorts of people because it is structured. I assured him that as a father of three young girls that I have not noticed such an effect. On the contrary, they seem to be livelier each day. Around the table we have had to institute certain rules—from the mundane: “One person talks at a time”; to the respectful: “Do not interrupt Mommy or Daddy”; to the odd: “No individual singing at the table.” We love to sing, but four different songs by four different girls is…well…less than joyful. Bad table manners or behavior destroy the joy and fellowship of the table. The tables are important to us.
Still, there are these tables—nay four that interest us particularly. . . .
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Monday, March 16th, 2009
March 15, 2009
This Saturday I and a number of other guys from my church went to see the movie Gran Torino. This is my attempt to praise it without ruining it for you. It is full of bad language—realistic, vulgar, profane language. The language is highly charged racially—it was like Dirty Harry had been mixed with Archie Bunker. That said, the movie and its message are almost the opposite of the language. I was blown away by the movie. It demonstrated more about love, self-sacrifice, dignity, respect and culture than any movie I had seen in a while. It also revealed Eastwood as a master of the craft. The end of this movie completes, revises, alters and perfects Eastwood’s career. It brings peace and finality to the form of films for which he has become a legend. He finally completes and brings peace to the form by transforming Pale Rider and Outlaw Josie Wales (movies that I loved but which deserve far less praise than this film) into something strikingly Christian. Does anyone know if he has recently become a believer?
I and the other men left the theater misty eyed (I saw you guys). You will too. It is not a film for young children, but young children will be blessed if their parents watch this film and take its message seriously. (It also has the most positive portrayal of a clergyman that I have seen in recent memory.)
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Tuesday, March 10th, 2009
March 10, 2009
I just finished Malcolm Gladwell’s intriguing book called The Tipping Point. If you have not read it, it is definitely worth your read. It is all about the necessary conditions for epidemics. By epidemics, however, is does not just mean diseases (although he includes some interesting studies on disease). Epidemics occur when an idea or a product or a practice becomes extremely influential, trendy or effective. He studies everything from a rash of suicides amongst young men in
Micronesia
(no kidding) to the drastic decrease in crime in
New York City
. He tries to draw out common principles and comes up with three:
- Epidemics start when the right few people get involved in an idea or movement. These people are Mavens (the group I understand least, but seem to be helpful people who have a deep field of knowledge in a particular arena), Connectors (who tend to spread the word throughout their vast networks) and Salesmen who get people to buy into an idea.
- Epidemics spread when ideas or practices are “sticky” or easy to remember, mind catching and effectively communicated.
- Epidemics finally spread when the context of the idea, product or practice makes the idea palatable and palpable.
As someone in a movement that would like to see it grow, I was interested in his take. I think that there are things that can help our school, classical Christian education and maybe even churches in this book. It leaves you with a lot to ponder. (After you read this book, you will also get angry whenever you see some types of ads aimed at getting teens to stop destructive behaviors because he proves, fairly effectively, that they do not and will never work.)
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Wednesday, March 4th, 2009
March 4, 2009
Dietrich Bonheoffer, a German pastor who led resistance against—and even tried to assassinate—Hitler, has a wonderful and well known book called The Cost of Discipleship. During these challenging economic times, I tend to think about costs a lot. I am confident that you do too. When we think about cost sometimes the cost of discipleship seems high. The grace of God is free and it costs everything. To receive it you must drop every other bauble from your hand. You must prize it more than all else. You must lay down your burden and take up your cross—your own death. As a school that seeks to train disciples, I ponder this often. Remember, however, that costs can not be judged in a vacuum. The best question to ask is about a purchase is often not “How much does it cost?” but “What is its value?” Some things are costly, and they are worth it. Christian discipleship must be viewed through this prism. It costs everything, but its worth is priceless.
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