MUST READ: Breaking Free of Suburbia's Stranglehold

Families Simplify Lifestyles in Quest for Meaning That Constant Hustle Obscured

By Annie Gowen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 3, 2007; Page A01

Jennifer McNelley's life felt like one big errand -- an endless series of Target runs and school drop-offs and commuting to two jobs from her Loudoun County home.

McNelley, a single mother of a 6-year-old, was feeling "overwhelmed and hopeless" when a flier appeared in her mailbox announcing a sermon series at her church called "Death by Suburb." The congregation would spend five weeks talking about the suburban lifestyle -- the consumerism and the overcaffeinated schedules, and how it all can choke the life out of you if you're not careful.

Click here for the rest of the article.

Mr. I'll do anything for the company guy

Priceless

Context- This was created by one of my best friends (well, at least prior to this posting) whom I also work with to promote an annual company meeting within our firm.

Links, Federeral Vision, etc...

Couple of interesting links (well at least if you're a presby):

Covenant Radio-Covenant Radio is a joint venture of the Reformed Theology Resource Center and The Apologia Book Shoppe designed to address the issues of the covenant as it pertains to various topics in the life of our modern Church. These issues are related closely to our approach to baptism, communion, eschatology, and worship.

Reformed News- An independent news source covering the small (but growing), conservative world of Reformed Christianity.

Also, the PCA came out with its report on the Federal Vision a few weeks ago. It seems like the committee was pretty well stacked to come out against. I understand there was not a single FV friendly man on the committee. I can't really even articulate exactly what the FV is, but I know enough about Christian charity and basic right and wrong to know that these men should get a fair hearing. Also, the report was not completed in time to be distributed to the attendees of the PCA general assembly in advance. It all seems fishy.

I've found very little discussion about it online until this was offered by Jeff Meyers, a PCA pastor in St. Louis. As you can probably tell, I tend to be sympathetic to many of his assertions (not necessarily sympathetic to the FV, but to his reasons for not acting on this report right now) and am wary of a subset of men with very particular theological bias determining what is and is not acceptable, especially when many other courts in the denomination have investigated and found no wrong. I've experienced the some of the less admirable aspects of Southern Presbyterianism and it would be unfortunate if the PCA were to execute a theological cleansing that demanded that every man held to a precise SP theology.

Anyhow, please pray for the leaders of the PCA- that they would have charity, wisdom, mercy, fairness, gentleness and self-control as they consider and debate the merits of this report.

B

Holly comes through again

I turned 32 today.

Celebrate (ahem) paying your taxes and my birthday all at once. I'm sure there are some folks out there who can't decide which annual event they're more excited to commemorate.

None-the-less, Holly put together an absolutely fantastic day of golf with the boys here in Houston yesterday. I along with 12 buddies teed off beginning at 2PM at Clear Creek Golf Club, just south of Houston. It was a brilliant idea that was only tarnished by the weather- cool, cloudy, 20 mph sustained winds with gusts that felt like 30+. I played 6 holes with each group of 4 guys.


We capped off the day by gathering at a great pub here in the Montrose District, The Black Labrador. I enjoyed the company of great friends, an excellent Steak and Kidney Pie, Smithwick's (one of my favorite beers), some fine scotch and a few rounds of darts.


Thanks to all who were able to be a part of this birthday celebration. And many, many thanks to Holly for putting all of this together.

Maundy Thursday

The 2007 lenten season coming to a close as today is Maundy Thursday, a day when Christians celebrate Jesus' last supper with the Apostles.

"Its annual commemoration thus begins the three-day period or triduum of Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday, days of special devotion that celebrate as a single action the death and resurrection of Christ, the central events of Christianity."

That is excerpted from an informative description from wikipedia: read it in its entirety here.

And below is an excerpt describing Maundy Thursday from John Armstrong's blog.

Today is a church day called Maundy Thursday. The term is derived from the Latin mandatum, which means "command." The origin of this particular day is found in the footwashing ceremony that the Gospel of John describes as a part of passion week.

You may read the entire post here.

Pearls Before Swine: Unified Theory of Existence = Beer

Easter Sunday

Mixing Jackass, lighter fluid and genitals causes trouble

I'm not making this up.

Associated Press

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. — Attempts to duplicate a movie stunt landed one man in the hospital with burned genitals and another facing criminal charges.

The men were trying to do a stunt from one of the Jackass movies, in which a character lights his genitals on fire.

Jared W. Anderson, 20, suffered serious burns to his hands and genitals, according to the criminal complaint. Randell D. Peterson, 43, who sprayed lighter fluid on Anderson and lit him on fire, was charged with felony battery and first-degree reckless endangerment Tuesday in Eau Claire County Court.

Witnesses told police that Anderson, who was drunk, volunteered to do the stunt Sunday after watching the movie, the complaint said.

After Peterson ignited Anderson, he ran into the bathroom, jumped into the tub and put the flames out, according to the complaint. He was taken to Luther Hospital, and eventually treated at the Regions Hospital Burn Unit in St. Paul, Minn., for second-degree burns.

Anderson told police that he didn't want anyone to get in trouble because of the stunt.

Peterson was freed on a $2,000 bond. He has a hearing scheduled April 16. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison.

Ouch.

TR, BR, CR?

If you're presbyterian/reformed and reading here, among the following three categories (defined below), how would you classify yourself? Please leave a comment and if you're comfortable doing so, identify yourself enough that I'll know who you are as you respond. Also, comment on how you perceive others in your circle of influence/observation to be.

• TRULY REFORMED
• BARELY REFORMED
• CATHOLIC REFORMED

And if you're not presbyterian/reformed and reading here, let me know what your impressions are of these different categories and how they relate to your own beliefs.

THE TRULY REFORMED (TRs)

The TRs are conservatives of the most intense sort; and they are fervently committed to the scholastic, Reformed orthodoxy of the 16th and 17th centuries. Almost all are “strict subscriptionists,” holding that statements of faith like the Westminster Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Canons and Decrees of the Synod of Dordt, the Belgic Confession, or the London Baptist Confession are virtually summary duplications of Biblical teaching. They are strongly committed to the scholastic formulation of Calvinist doctrine as it comes to the fore, to take an example, in the Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms.

THE BARELY REFORMED (BRs)

This group within the Reformed camp is much more committed to a broad evangelicalism than the confessional form of the Reformed Faith. The BRs are pragmatists (and sometimes admittedly so). They are strongly committed to reaching the unsaved, and therefore the evangel, the gospel, means a great deal to them. They often pastor or attend the largest conservative Reformed or Presbyterian congregations in the United States, and they are tireless in their efforts to win souls and increase the size of the congregation. They tend to be less concerned with what they consider secondary doctrinal disputes over literal, six-day creation; women in the ministry or in other church leadership roles; the inroads of Arminianism; evangelistic strategies; the nature of the sacraments; and so forth.

THE CATHOLIC REFORMED (CRs)

Catholic Reformed does not denote Roman (or Eastern) Catholicism, but the manifestly Biblical notion of the universality of the Faith and church (Eph. 4:4) and their description in the Nicene Creed and among the patristic church as “one, holy, catholic and apostolic.” CRs agree with the TRs in identifying three main problems in the modern church as evangelical Arminianism, Protestant liberalism, and Roman Catholicism. We agree that evangelical Arminianism has undermined the gracious character of the gospel; that the European Enlightenment, joining later with Romanticism to produce Protestant liberalism, precipitated a great crisis in the Western church; and that Roman Catholicism undermined the catholicity of the church by insisting on its hegemony and subverts a gratuitous soteriology by insisting that man in some way merit salvation. CRs agree with the BRs, however, in wanting to focus attention on the preaching of the evangel, the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We agree that incessant dispute over comparatively secondary doctrines to the exclusion of the energetic preaching of the gospel has things just backwards, though CRs by no means consider any Biblical doctrine unimportant.

The author is in the 3rd of these categories and is making a case for it. I am curious to know how each of you might classify yourself.

These categories are excerpted from an article I'm reading right now and I'm curious where different people I know fit into or respond to these ideas. You can read the article in its entirety here:

Disclaimer- Links to Internet sites are provided for informational purposes only and do not imply endorsement of the content of those sites or organizations.

We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.

And all the time—such is the tragi-comedy of our situation—we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more 'drive', or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or 'creativity'. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.

C.S. Lewis- The Abolition of Man

On Keeping a Holy Lent

Excerpt from a paper by Craig Higgins, Trinity Presbyterian (Rye, NY) on Lenten observance.

Appendix: Questions for Self-Examination
1. Have I been fervent in prayer? Was there warmth? access?
2. Have I prayed at my stated times? with my family?
3. Have I practiced God’s presence, at least every hour?
4. Have I, before every deliberate action or conversation, considered how it might be turned to God’s glory?
5. Have I sought to center conversations on the other person’s interests and needs and ultimately toward God, or did I turn them toward my own interests?
6. Have I given thanks to God after every pleasant occurrence or time?
7. Have I thought or spoken unkindly of anyone?
8. Have I been careful to avoid proud thoughts or comparing myself to others? Have I done things just for appearance? Have I mused on my own fame or acclaim?
9. Have I been sensitive, warm, and cheerful toward everyone?
10. Have I been impure in my thoughts or glances?
11. Have I confessed sins toward God and others swiftly?
12. Have I over- or under-eaten, -slept, -worked?
13. Have I twisted the truth to look good?
14. Have I been leading in my home, or only reacting to situations?

In his set of questions for self-examination, the late Jack Miller gets right to the point: *
1. Is God working in your life?
2. Have you been repenting of your sin lately?
3. Are you building your life on Christ’s free justification or are you insecure and guilt-ridden?
4. Have you done anything simply because you love Jesus?
5. Have you stopped anything simply because you love Jesus?

If we are honest, the answer to all these questions is no.
This simply helps us name what we tend to ignore.

Two to One

Ephesians 5:31- "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."

Recently, I converted the blog to use Blogger's new software. In that process, all of the previous posts were attributed to me (Batch).

In truth, many of them are Holly's. Just know that as you read anything prior to 2007 that it may say I wrote it, but it could well belong to Holly.

In a sense, I guess two have become one flesh blog.

Happy Pancake Day

From wikipedia.com

Shrove Tuesday is the term used in the English-speaking countries of the United Kingdom^[1], Ireland^[2], and Australia^[3] to refer to the day after Collop Monday and before Ash Wednesday (the liturgical season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday). In these countries, and amongst Anglicans in Canada, this day is also known as Pancake Day, because it is customary to eat pancakes on this day.^[4][5][6] In other parts of the world—for example, in historically Catholic and French-speaking parts of the United States and elsewhere—this day is called Mardi Gras, and in areas with large Polish-immigrant populations (for example, Chicago and Detroit) it is known as Paczki Day.

Click here for the full explanation. Thanks to Barlow for the heads up.

She doesn’t always love you back

Southern authors such as William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, and Willie Morris often wrote of the ambivalence that native Southerners feel for the South. We Mississippians, perhaps more than other Southerners, feel for our state a tension between love and hate, fascination and rejection.

William Faulkner spoke for many Mississippians when he wrote: “Home again, his native land; he was born of it and his bones will sleep in it. . . . Loving all of it even while he had to hate some of it. . . . He knows now that you don’t love because; you love despite; not for the virtues, but despite the faults.” As Willie Morris said, “You can love Mississippi but she doesn’t always love you back.”

• Charles Sallis: Mississippi as a Prodigal Daughter

Those words penned by Charles Sallis, a Mississippi Native & professor at Millsaps College in Jackson, MS, quote two of the more famous literary Mississippians. I couldn’t find a better way to summarize my thoughts and feelings about leaving (again) the place I’ve always thought of as home.

I first moved away from Mississippi in January of 1998 upon graduation from Mississippi State. Driving the big yellow truck, I wept from the time I left 1712 Lisa Lane until I arrived in Atlanta, GA. Everything significant I’d ever known was there; my future wife, my friends, my family, high school, college and a lifetime of memories. I loved Mississippi dearly and was determined to move back again some day.

After a series of moves around the Southern United States and one stay abroad (Atlanta, Birmingham, Houston, London, Houston), I accomplished that goal in November 2003. A confluence of family events seemed to necessitate our being nearer to family so we packed up and left friends, work and church in Houston, TX, put our belongings in storage and split time between Starkville, MS with my family and Hammond, LA with Holly’s family. Around that same time we had dear friends who lived on the Mississippi Gulf coast and after spending many weekends crashed on their floor, decided that we would give coastal Mississippi life a try.

Our experiences there over the past three plus years have been diverse to say the least; frequently challenging, sometimes joyful, often maddening, occasionally frightening, usually instructive. Now that we are leaving Mississippi again, my prevailing emotions regarding ‘home’ now include sorrow, anger and disappointment.

In retrospect, we likely didn’t need to relocate to be with the family. I was eager to get ‘home’ and am afraid I used those circumstances for my own selfish devices to expedite getting back to the Magnolia State. Don’t get me wrong, it is not that I regret the move as we really have learned a tremendous amount; but my perspective about Mississippi has changed. Again, Willie Morris captured it very well:

There is much of the South, I unhesitatingly confess …, that I wish I could escape forever. I wish I could escape the smoldering malevolence behind a … prolonged racial tirade …. Escape the tenacious righteousness of the "seg academies." … Escape every manifestation of institutionalized, right-wing, fundamentalist religion, richer and more pervasive than it ever was. Escape the ennui of the morgue-like Sundays….

• Willie Morris- Is There A South Anymore?

Yesterday, I wept again as I crossed over the Pearl River on Interstate-10 from Mississippi to Louisiana, unsure if I’ll ever live in my home state again. The “tension between love and hate, fascination and rejection” for Mississippi is somewhat new for me and I am just beginning to understand it. It is clear to me though that you can indeed love her, but she doesn’t always love you back.