Pirating "American Gangster"

In a post earlier this week, I described overhearing on MetroRail two young men discussing a pirated version of American Gangster. The movie opens today, and there is a very favorable review of the film in the WSJ.

In a related article in the WSJ, the movie is also discussed, along with several others that, according to the writer, are part of "Hollywood's Quality Glut" this fall. In that article, the "inside track" on American Gangster is this:

Veteran produce Brian Glazer calls this film, in development since 2000, the "hardest movie I've ever made". Under director Antoine Fuqua, the budget started to spiral upward, and Univeral Pictures shut the picture down after sinking $30 million into the project. Then Ridley Scott took the helm. The latest misfortune: Copies were leaked onto the Web more than 10 days before the film opened.

Remember, you heard it here first.

"Jesus Died for MY SPACE in Heaven"

T-shirt on a young, Asian male in SBUX this morning. PTL.

Goya in Miami

Last night Carol and I went to a reception for Davidson College alumni and parents of alumni and students. Dr. Shaw Smith, a professor in the art history department, spoke on Goya. The event was presented at the Freedom Tower, a few blocks from our office, where an exhibit of Goya's engravings is being presented. You can read about the exhibit here. We had time to see part of the exhibit after the reception, but Carol and I want to go back and see it all.

Goodbye, Central Baptist, Hello . . .

At Government Center Station, I transfer from MetroRail to the MetroMover. The MetroMover is an elevated, Disney World-like automatic train that loops around the downtown area. Each weekday morning it takes me by my Alma Mater, Central Baptist Church.

Today the gold-leaf lettering on the side of the main building, the lettering that announces "Central Baptist Church", is down. The signs at street level have been taken down as well. In their places are temporary banners that announce "Downtown Christ Fellowship".

Baptist churches all over Miami have made these sorts of name changes. Post-modern, post-denominational Christendom is here. The old has passed away, the new has come. But part of the old was some serious theology, and I fear we are trading those inconvenient truths for something that simply feels better.

But I have to add this.

I got off of the MetroMover with a man who is a security guard in my building. He is a small man, but somehow impressive physically, "coal-black" (as my mother from Atlanta used to describe such people) with a face that is almost fierce. But that face, I have noticed, will break into a smile, and over the last several years we have learned to say hello to one another. I believe he is a Haitian.

So today I fell in beside him as we walked to our office building. I asked him how he was, and he said "I'm perfect". So I said, "Well, then, you must be a Christian, and so you are perfect in Jesus." And he said, "Yes, I am a Christian, I know Jesus", and he said that proudly and with his smile. "Well", I said, "I'm covered in Jesus blood, and I'm perfect too!" He smiled again, and we wished each other a happy day, and parted in the lobby.

UPDATE ON CENTRAL SITUATION:

A friend of mine (who to my surprise looks at the blog now and then) reports that "Christ Fellowship" is formerly First Baptist Church of Perrine. So old Central Baptist seems to have become part of that organization. As I recall, at one point a retired minister from FBC Perrine served as interim pastor for Central. FBC Perrine has a great history. I would hate to analogize the network of Baptist congregations under the Christ Fellowship umbrella to a sort of post-modern presbytery. But, then, why not?

Small Time Pirates on MetroRail

As I looked in on various football games over the weekend, I saw a number of commercials for American Gangster, a movie with Denzel Washington and Whatzisname from Gladiator, which is opening in Miami on Nov. 2.

This morning, on the way in on MetroRail, two young men sat nearby me and discussed seeing the movie and then buying a DVD of it over the weekend.

"Portion Distortion"

Carol and I had supper at the Panera restaurant in Doral and then continued with our Friday night date by going next door to Publix for grocery shopping. (Carol hit a home run in the romance department, obviously.)

The Panera restaurant serves food that seems to be pretty healthy. Carol had a salad that had a 3 oz. piece of grilled salmon on it. I had a Mediterranean salad of some sort - it had Gorgonzola pieces as its protein: really tasty.

I noticed that there were some very overweight people there, however. It seemed like the older the people appeared, the more they were overweight. It seemed odd.

Maybe the answer is in this article that we read in Publix' Greenwise magazine, which you can pick up free each week. The thesis of that article is that portion sizes do us in, particularly when we go out to eat. This is a truth that the Weight Watchers program tries to pound in our heads.

Why would Publix be concerned, other than it wanting to be a good citizen that is involved in the food industry? I think it might be that we might be less likely to over-eat when we eat our meals at home. Publix wants to sell us the fixings for those home-cooked meals. Fair enough.

On the other hand, maybe the Social Security crisis will be avoided if we continue on our course of weight-gaining. For the article includes this statement:

Experts warn that being oversized may slash our life expectancy and harm our health in the meantime due to diabetes, heart disease, and other complications of excess weight. "The 20-year-old person with a Body Mass Index of 40 [a measure of the ratio of weight to height, in this case 265 pounds at 5'8"], will live 12 to 14 years less than his counterparts who are lean," says Philip R. Schauer, M.D., director of the Cleveland Clinic Bariatric and Metabolic Institute. (Note that the CDC defines obesity as a BMI at or above 30.)

The Lion of the Masai

Van finished up with John 6 today. In verse 65, concerning the matter of belief Jesus says " . . . no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him." He says the same thing in verses 37, 39, and 44-45, my handy NIV Study Bible notes remind me.

Van closed his sermon with a great story, which I tracked down in the blog of the Christian Century Magazine and a post there by Duke Divinity School Professor Jo Bailey Wells:

Allow me [Wells writes] to indulge in a favorite story from a book that never seems to become dated: Christianity Rediscovered, by Vincent Donovan. Donovan was a Roman Catholic priest-missionary in Tanzania in the 1960s. Exasperated with conventional forms of Catholic education , he persuaded his bishop to let him simply wander among the Masai tribes, sharing their life and talking about God.

Initially he wrestled with his own doubts about how the particular story of Jesus’ cross and resurrection translated into the Masai culture all around him. But a Masai elder converted Donovan by contrasting the faith of a Western hunter with the faith of an African lion. The Masai elder showed Donovan that his notion of faith was a profoundly Western notion: it was merely intellectual assent. “To ‘believe’ like that was similar to a white hunter shooting an animal with his gun from a great distance. Only his eyes and his fingers took part in the act.” The Masai elder said, “‘For a [person] really to believe is like a male lion going after its prey. His nose and eyes and ears pick up on the prey. His legs give him the speed to catch it. All the power of his body is involved in the terrible death leap and single blow to the neck with the front paw, the blow that actually kills. And as the animal goes down the lion envelops it in his arms. . .pulls it to itself, and makes it part of himself. This is the way a lion kills. This is the way a [person] believes. This is what faith is.”

The Masai elder went on. “You told us of the High God, how we must search for him, even leave our land and our people to find him. But we have not done this. We have not left our land. We have not searched for him. He has searched for us. He has searched us out and found us. All the time we think we are the lion. In the end, the lion is God.”

"Gotta Serve Somebody"

You may be an ambassador to England or France,
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance,
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world,
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

You might be a rock 'n' roll addict prancing on the stage,
You might have drugs at your command, women in a cage,
You may be a business man or some high degree thief,
They may call you Doctor or they may call you Chief

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

You may be a state trooper, you might be a young Turk,
You may be the head of some big TV network,
You may be rich or poor, you may be blind or lame,
You may be living in another country under another name

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

You may be a construction worker working on a home,
You may be living in a mansion or you might live in a dome,
You might own guns and you might even own tanks,
You might be somebody's landlord, you might even own banks

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride,
You may be a city councilman taking bribes on the side,
You may be workin' in a barbershop, you may know how to cut hair,
You may be somebody's mistress, may be somebody's heir

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

Might like to wear cotton, might like to wear silk,
Might like to drink whiskey, might like to drink milk,
You might like to eat caviar, you might like to eat bread,
You may be sleeping on the floor, sleeping in a king-sized bed

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

You may call me Terry, you may call me Timmy,
You may call me Bobby, you may call me Zimmy,
You may call me R.J., you may call me Ray,
You may call me anything but no matter what you say

You're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody.
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

-Bob Dylan

But Not Huckabee.

John Fund in the WSJ.

UPDATE: Huckabee responds.

Stokes in Ireland

Sean, what do you think about Cousin Whitley? Or Cousin George? Or, for that matter, Cousin Mary?

(More Mary.)

Awkwardly Sitting Watermelons

Another problem solved!

Frozen Embryo Adoption

Back in the early 1990s, a partner of mine brought me one of his clients to help with his estate plan. The client was a "fertility specialist", a physician the focus of whose practice was in vitro fertilization. As I had already learned, the practice was to "harvest" from the female several eggs, and then to fertilize them with the male's sperm. This process was calculated to produce more fertilized eggs than one could implant, but this over-fertilization, if you will, was seen to be efficient, because the harvesting and fertilization process was expensive. This, of course, produced embryos that were never used, a situation that has been repeated thousands of times by now, a situation that ranks with abortion as a stunning defect of the national character.

My partner was a Jew and attended a Reformed congregation. We often talked about morality, ethics, and the important things that his faith and mine have in common. He was troubled by this client's work, by the relegation of the unused embryos to a frozen status. I thought it a coincidence that the client was a German doctor, and wondered whether that fact was of any importance to my friend's point of view. Later, the ethicist Jerome LeJeune referred to the frozen embryo container as a "Concentration Can". Did my friend ever see that?

If one Googles "frozen embryo adoption" a host of pertinent links shows up. Couples are adopting these embryos and implanting them in the female's womb. Apparently there are agencies established for assisting couples who wish to adopt, applying standards similar to those who wish to adopt babies and children.

Some Great Church Music

Visiting Austin is a feast of pleasure, one of the courses is attending Westlake Hills Presbyterian Church, and one of the treats is the hymn singing there with its great pipe organ. This last visit, the congregation sang a hymn I have heard very little over the years - I believe it is "Lutheran" if one is to apply a tradition to it - and that is Open Now the Gates of Beauty. I found an MP3 of the tune here.

The lyrics are here.

We get a steady diet of "Praise Music" at our church. It has attracted some people and driven away others. I enjoy that music, but it takes a visit to WHPC to remind me of how rich is the tradition from which the popular church has turned away. I drank in that hymn like a thirsty man, as I did the singing of Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty! just prior to it. During the singing, I was off to the side, on the very front row (we were there for Aidan and Honor's baptisms), and beneath a rank of pipes, so that I could sing out without annoying anyone (at least I don't think I did.) Oh, that was fun! What a blessed background to seeing your grandchildren baptized!

Having said all that, there was a lovely song that Donna, Ginger, and Rick, the core of our praise team, sang for us today at our service, In Christ Alone. This contemporary work is hymn like, especially in the depth and extent of its lyrics, and the tune recalls "Oh Lamb of God" (lyrics here), a favorite of mine that I have solo'd a number of times.

So let's have both, why don't we?

Nightstand Report

I took to Austin with me last weekend and read Jack Goldsmith's misnamed book, The Terror Presidency: Law and Judgment Inside the Bush Administration. Goldstein is a former U of Chicago Law School professor, now at Harvard, who spent 10 months as head of the Attorney General's "Office of Legal Counsel". This is the office that gives legal opinions to the White House, opinions upon which, according to Goldsmith, one can rely and avoid war-crimes indictment, etc. It is in the genre of Beltway self-justification books, but it is worth reading and pretty well written. I got onto the book as a result of an interview of Goldsmith by Glenn Reynolds and Helen Smith that is available via podcast.

I am reading right now a great WW II book about Gen. E.R. Quesada, whom I had the privilege of knowing. The title is Over Lord: General Pete Quesada and the Triumph of Tactical Air Power in World War II. It's been a hard book to put down this weekend and I'm nearly finished.

While at Macon's house, I pulled from his well-stocked bookcases Donald G. Bloesch's A Theology of Word & Spirit: Authority and Mehod in Theology. This is the first volume in a seven volume work of systematic theology by Bloesch, a professor at Dubuque Theological Seminary. I read the introduction and the first chapter, and Bloesch's forthright and confident approach to his subject and his muscular (to say the least) writing style captured me.

I just finished reading maybe the best single investment advice book I've seen, Armstrong's The Informed Investor: A Hype-Free Guide to Constructing a Sound Financial Portfolio.

I am still reading Meredith's The Fate of Africa: Fifty Years of Independence, Oren's Power, Faith & Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present, and Dungy's Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices & Priorities of a Winning Life. I'm always reading Allen's Getting Things Done. Mary gave me Casona's La Barca sin Pescador, a short book that I read in college but a book whose thesis has stayed fresh in my mind since then, so I thought I would read it again, Spanish-English dictionary in hand.

I would love to get away with these books and others for about ten days in the deep woods of the Blue Ridge Mountains!

Sunday Paper as Kettlebell

This morning's Sunday Herald had the 370 page Ikea 2008 catalog included as a supplement.

Manna Packs in Austin

Carol and I were riding with Walter and Morgan to Macon and Kellsey's house in Austin last weekend when we came to a busy intersection and stopped for the light. There was an apparently homeless person standing just off the street, with a dog and with a sign asking for food. To my surprise, Morgan asked Walter to grab a "survival pack", which Walter then slid out from somewhere under the seat, and handed it out the window to the fellow with the dog. Carol and I were in the back seat of the car, and I looked down and saw more such packs underneath the front seat. Morgan said that people at their church pack these things to give to people like the one we saw at the intersection.

Because we have so many "homeless" in the downtown Miami area, this very much interested me. I asked Morgan if I could have a pack, and she gave me one. I took two photos, as you can see. One is of the kit all ready to hand out, packed inside the gallon size Ziploc bag. The second is of the contents of the kit unpacked so you can see them.

The kit contains, as I think you can mostly see, a bottle of water, a granola bar, a can of Vienna sausage, a pair of white socks, a big garbage bag, the kind that stretches, a tract with "Selected Bible verses from the book of Romans that leads us to new life", and a paper with a list of agencies in Austin that address the needs of these sorts of people.

My idea, maybe, is to pack a couple of these in my brief-case and have them ready to hand out. Not that, on an emotional basis, I really like those people. Because I don't. I also see hand-outs as giving them an incentive to hang around. But this is sort of a bargain that I may be interested in: I give you this kit and you, maybe, will read the tract and go to one of the local agencies. (I had thought about including a one-way bus ticket to Austin, but discarded the idea.)

UPDATE: Make that "manna pack" rather than "survival pack". (Thanks, Walt.) As in John 6: 57 and 58:

57As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.

58This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.

But Giuliani?

"Since 1973, over 14 million black babies have been aborted, which is equal to the combined populations of eight midwestern states". Attributed to Day Gardner, president of the National Black Pro-Life Union by Nat Hentoff in "The Next President", published in the November 2007 issue of First Things. You have to wonder how the Civil Rights leaders who worship at the altar of the Democratic Party so utterly lost their way.

Meanwhile, over at the Republican Party the front runner is hardly a pro-life candidate. I've heard some very conservative friends of mine say they are ready to vote for Giuliani because he will be tough on the "terrorists". After all, the rationale goes, if we don't have a country, the rights of the unborn won't make much difference, will they?

Please.

Those of you who think that God might have something still to do with history and that he may in some respects resemble the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, may recall how He dealt with national sin in the case of his chosen people. My question would be whether a persistent pro-abortion policy will finally lead to something like Babylon wiping Judah nearly off the face of the earth.

Miami has an Ethiopian Restaurant

Name of Sheba, of course.

The Cake!

Aidan's birthday cake was the traditional brown cake with the brown frosting, also known as a "Texas Sheet Cake". This is its particular story, illustrated.


















Photo 1 shows daughter-in-law and mother-in-law baking away in Kellsey's Austin kitchen on Saturday afternoon, getting ready for Aidan's birthday party on Sunday afternoon.

Photo 2 shows the work of art that emerged from the oven, actually one of two. This one, however, had the covering of sprinkles and the sugar baked ornaments from the Disney epic Cars, which decorations young Aidan picked when he went with Kellsey to a party store in Austin. The other was your straight Texas Sheet Cake, which was for the adults.

The stage is set. Photo 3 is Sunday afternoon at the park, just before Aidan's friends and their parents arrive. The table is nearly spread. The birthday cakes are under the tin foil, and Aidan hasn't seen them yet. Aidan is thinking about what is getting ready to happen. I'm wondering how I can sneak a finger under the tin foil hiding one of the cakes and get a scoop of icing.

The gangs all here! Photo 4 shows the crowd arrived and gathering around the great cake unveiling.

Photo 5 shows Birthday Boy in a Zen-like attitude, presiding above the Cake upon its unveiling.

But beneath that placid exterior an imp-like presence lurks, and the magic of a lightning quick shutter finger catches it, as Photo 6 indicates.

There was another sweet presence at that table, straight across from young Aidan. But give him another 12 years to figure out that sort of thing. So, Photo 7.

All of this gets to be too much for the young man, and he is seen in Photo 8 walking off with his piece of cake, to eat it quietly on the edge of all that noise and attention. I recognize that gene.

The last photo wasn't even taken at the birthday party, but she is the icing on her brother's birthday cake.

Hello from Austin!

Carol and I are at Macon's house in Austin, getting ready to go to church. Aidan and Honor will be baptized there at the main worship service this morning, so I packed my lawyer's uniform (suit, white dress shirt, red power tie, shined shoes that lace up), and today's is Aidan's birthday, and last night was Morgan's high school reunion. We also talked to Mary on the phone yesterday from here. Wow, what a weekend!

The weather is FINE in Austin, a bit of fall, dry, temp in the high 70s - low 80s in the day, night in the high 60s. For a Miamiano, this is really different. And really swell.

The first photo is of Macon, Honor, and Aidan first thing this morning. We gave Aidan his birthday gifts. It was sort of like Christmas. He woke up Carol and me, and then we went in the living room to open the presents from his mom and dad and us. He also got his "gift bag", one of a number we packed last night. The "gift bags" will be given to the other little children at the birthday party this afternoon.

The second photo is of Aidan trying out his new bike. This is called a "Skuut", and Macon and I put it together last night. It is sort of an introduction to the concept of balance and forward motion. Aidan did well with it. Next year he will be ready for a "piki" (scroll down the link).

The third photo is of me getting ready to be overrun.

Shotgun Marriage Building

I'm not talking about weddings here. (Thanks, Glenn) View the video to the end.

Jury Duty Scams

Mary Ann alerts us to this.

Thanks, M.A.

Up a Tree

Friends of ours have given us a Carrotwood tree. Its about 5 feet high, and makes a good shade tree, doesn't drop a lot of leaves, and we could use it on the west side of our house, to shade us from the afternoon sun.

But I looked it up, and I find it is an exotic and harmful to the Florida ecosystem. So now, what to do?

Our friends come over to our house a good bit, and they will see if we don't plant it. They know that it's an exotic, however.

I think we are going to give it back to them.

Following in my father's footsteps

though more technologically advanced, natch as one would expect from the post-modern, web2.0, tech-geek, hipster-wannabe that I am.

EDITED: to avoid the second use of a form of "naturally," in consecutive posts.

Blogroll Additions

Under "Commentary", naturally:

Undependent Blog

A new blog about, variously:
-- creators who connect directly to their audiences via the internet
-- the general dis-intermediation of content thanks to the webernet
-- the new economics of the new media enabled by the intarwebs

Despair Blog

The most trenchant commentary on the universe you'll ever find within one link of this blog.

This Hurts. This Really Hurts.

Tom Wolfe to write a book on Miami?

That would be fun.

"Stand up for America! Bean American!"

I saw this on a bumper sticker in the church parking lot. It was red, white, and blue, with the Stars & Stripes as a background.

I stood there for a few moments looking at it, trying to figure it out. "Bean American!" What did that mean? Was it some sort of ad to buy American vegetables? Were we suppose to bean people who didn't stand up for America? I just stood there looking at it.

Then I realized there was slightly wider space in the word "Bean" betwen the "e" and the "a" than the spaces between the other letters.

Stupid bumper sticker.

Emirates Airlines Coming to Miami, Maybe

The Miami Herald reports that the Dubai-based airline may come to Miami, with a non-stop flight from here to there. That would make it one more hop to Nairobi.

No date is set for Miami, but the article reports that the airline will have a flight from Houston in December. So the Austin based family may find it an easier trip than the one through Heathrow.

Not Quitting my Day Job

Van is out of town this weekend, and he asked me to preach this morning. I worked hours on my sermon. Hours. This is not an easy thing to do, by any stretch, at least not for me.

I did have a topic rattling around inside my head: how to deal with the Sabbath, the Fourth Commandment.

You can read my notes here.

Maybe not so bad for a first draft.

The Little Church that Could

Adrianna reports this in our church's most recent newsletter:

This will be our ninth (9th) year receiving shoe boxes [for Operation Christmas Child] from other groups around Miami as a Relay Center (3 yrs) or Collection Center (6 yrs). Our first year we collected almost 1,000 boxes, last year over 17,000. This year we will collect in excess of 20,000 boxes from around Miami-Dade and The Keys. How much over 20,000? Jesus knows, I cannot even guess.

Not the Best, Anymore

We noticed this several years ago. What a shame. (Hat tip to Glenn for noting this.)

The Trinity International Foundation Replies

This came in an email to our home in response to Carol's email to TIF that protests the sale:


Dear partners in ministry,

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us on the Spirit FM
web site. We are encouraged to hear how God has greatly blessed so many lives
through the ministry of Spirit FM. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that
some reactions have been strong in response to the announcement to sell Spirit
FM. We respect your comments and are addressing in this email the principal
concerns expressed.

In recent years, Trinity International University received several unsolicited
offers to buy the radio station. As a result of these offers and in order to
fulfill their fiduciary responsibility, the Board of Regents engaged a brokerage
firm in 2006. The broker began a process of assessing the value of the station
and determining the level of interest in the market. This process was a quiet
one because the outcome was uncertain and we did not want to interrupt the radio
ministry of Spirit FM. We saw no wisdom in making this professional inquiry
public and thereby open the door to questions the station staff could not answer about a topic under
exploration by the board.

We are extremely grateful to the thousands of listeners who have supported
Spirit FM financially and in prayer for so many years. We believe that God
places people in leadership in specific situations at specific times. Those
leaders are sometimes called upon to make tough decisions. Trinity’s board takes
seriously its responsibility as stewards of the resources of Trinity
International University and approached this decision with much deliberation and
prayer. In the end the board believed, before God, that this was the best
decision.

Many of the matters involved in the board’s inquiry and ultimate decision are
sensitive and confidential. However, we do want you to know that our desire was
to sell to a Christian organization, and we attempted without success to do so
with several different organizations.

A significant portion of the proceeds will be
placed in the TIU endowment. The endowment is like a long-term savings account that cannot be spent without action from the
board. The annual interest from endowment will be used to further the mission of
the university. Trinity College, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Trinity
Graduate School, and Trinity Law School make a huge impact on our culture for
Christ. The board’s vision is to do more through the educational programs these
schools offer, including our programs in South Florida.

We believe that we are blessed with some of the most talented radio staff in the
nation. These faithful servants were informed of the process several weeks
prior to the signing of the Purchase Agreement on September 24, 2007. In spite
of this news, they continued to minister in a professional and effective manner.
After September 24 all parties agreed that it would be impossible for the Spirit
FM staff to continue their on-air duties as usual. Generous severance and
placement assistance for
the staff are being provided.

We ask you to join us in prayer that:

1. The sovereign Lord will pour out His Spirit on South Florida in order to
fill any void that may be left by closing Spirit FM
2. A strengthened unity in Christ will be demonstrated among churches and
believers with a shared purpose of reaching the lost in South Florida
3. The staff of Spirit FM will be sustained by God’s grace as they seek the
Lord’s will for future ministry.

One of the listeners responded as follows:

"...I am encouraged in my heart to pray for your ministry as a Christian entity
of education. I pray that the next Billy Graham will come from your school. I
pray that the seed that is now being sowed with tears by our community grows and
develops into a life-giving tree that will touch, not just the thousands the
radio touched here in South Florida, but the millions that are hungry and in
need of the love of God."

We join in these sentiments with this listener and ask you to join us in this
prayer.

Seeking God in all things,

Trinity International Foundation Board


As even a first year law student would say, res ipsa loquitur.

WMCU Update

Two very fine litigators called me today, both Christian, one a solo personal injury lawyer and the other a partner in the largest firm in Florida, and both determined either to stop the WMCU acquisition or claim the proceeds of the sale for the South Florida Chrisitan Community.

This is going to be interesting.

Winning in Iraq

OpinionJournal publishes an opinion piece that appears in today's WSJ, the thesis of which is that the Iraqis "on our side" and the Allies are now winning.

"Save WMCU"

Fasten your seatbelts.

The Post-WMCU World in S. FL is NOT one without Christian Radio

I emailed Rob Robbins, the President of CallFM, and asked him his view of the world in South Florida after WMCU. Here is his response:

The two priorities for The CALL right now are program development and expansion. Ultimately the goal is a full-time live staffed operation 24/7, reaching lost and unchurched teens and young adults between the ages of 13 and 25.

1) We are currently expanding in Naples and Bonita Springs (as far north as Estero, FL) with new translator stations that are installed and waiting on some county permits. The translator coverage, by FCC rule, will rebroadcast the WMKL programming.

2) WMKL is working to relocate to a tall tower out on US-41 as early as next month to increase the audience by another 70%. There is an FCC filing freeze in effect until October 19th which is delaying the grant of the construction permit until later this month. The current WMKL broadcast is at less than 50% power under special temporary authority because we decided not to replace the existing antenna that is designed for 91.7 instead of
91.9 MHz.

3) Later this year/early 2008 we will be building and operating a new full-power station in Palm Beach County.

4) We are pursuing a potential opportunity to broadcast in Highlands County, FL within the next year as well.

We have absolutely no plans to change or modify The CALL's programming in the future. It has been more than thirteen years of a journey to get to this point, and I am truley excited about the opportunities for growth that God has brought us over the past year and for what the coming months will bring for our ability to impact more young adults, and to develop the programming to make it most effective.

In terms of the loss of WMCU, it is a real travesty. The only potential response that we might consider as we prepare for expansion is the potential to build the new WMKL facility and the WPSF facility as digital (HD) stations. HD Radio consists of the normal analog signal and first HD-1 digital channel required to contain the programming of the analog signal, and then an HD-2 and HD-3 channel each with unique CD-quality programming.

This would allow us options to lease the 2 extra channels to other Christian broadcasters for addition program revenue or to program ourselves with adult contempory Christian music or preaching/teaching format (which really isn't our mission as an organization). You can see more information at www.hdradio.com, and a working example of WPOZ, Orlando (www.zradio.com).

Just think, God used myself and several guys in their early 20's to put this radio station on the air, against everyone's advice that it was impossible.
I can speak from first-hand experience what it is like to wait night after night for 5-6 years pursuing a calling on nothing more than faith and prayer, and to see God accomplish his purposes. I am confident that God is able to bring that type of Christian radio ministry back to Miami if He chooses. It will not be easy, and probably not overnight unless a Christian radio network finds the opportunity to move into Miami.

Security Contractors in Iraq

In today's WSJ, an opinion column, available on OpinionJournal, defends the use of private security contractors in Iraq, and, to my mind at least, does so persuasively.

About a year ago, Carol and I ran into one of our children's contemporaries, who had just returned from Iraq after a year of working with one of those contractors. He worked in the office in Bagdhad and was not one of the professional, armed people. He did wear a flack jacket, he said, when he went outside, and I believe he said that he had been given some training of the self-defense sort and carried a side arm. He said that he had a great time, but did not intend to return.

He said that the State Department, other government people, and civilians whom the private security forces protected, preferred their protection to that of the regular armed services. He said that the private security forces knew exactly what their mission was, protection, a mission that was not the primary mission for government forces. He said hat the protection that the government forces provided was simply inferior to that of the private security contractors.

There is a sort of free market principal at work here, and that point is implicit in the WSJ article. The private security contractors depend on preformance in order to continue to be employed. They compete with one another. Their pricing is market driven, and turns out to be less expensive than that of a soldier. The article describes the controls that our government has in place to prevent "rogue" activity by these contractors, and they seem reasonable as described by the writer.

Things to Do with a Law Degree: #1826

Sue the Patriots.

In Honor of my Father's Banjo

and the Florida game that I'm watching, here's another Dropkick Murphys video for you.

one of these things

is not like the other....

I'm not sure who put the new subtitle on the blog, but I have a suspicion.

adjective, adjective, adjective, noun?

WMCU Going Out of Business

Radio Station WMCU, Spirit Radio, 89.7 FM, is on all the time at our house. It is owned by Trinity International University, based in Deerfield, IL. Under the TIU umbrella is also, for example, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School ("TEDS"), a famous place in certain Evangelical circles. On Tuesday morning, a recorded announcement on WMCU said that the "Trinity International University Foundation" had sold the radio station. In the Miami Herald that same day, an article appeared indicating that a national non-profit had purchased the station for $20,000,000 and intended to establish a classical music radio station at 89.7, of which there has been none in the South Florida area for several years.

It is definitely a reverse for South Florida to have the radio station close down. There are so few unifying institutions in our part of the Christian world, the community here is so riven with the disarray that comes from exotic cultures washing up against each other, that closing WMCU seems contrary to what one would think God's will would be.

Because of my position on the board of a foundation that supports TIU here in South Florida, I may be able to find out the "inside" story on this event. There may be good reasons for the decision. I would be interested in knowing what they are.

Law School Lies

The lead article in yesterday's WSJ trumpets "A Stingier Job Market Awaits New Attorneys". This is news? The article has a graph that compares the growth in GDP with the growth in legal services; it shows that the disconnect has been at work since the early nineties. For years I have been advising young people not to go to law school unless they simply had the itch, and to stay away from the expensive schools unless they were ready to compete for elusive, spirit grinding jobs at the elite firms with starting salaries now at $160,000 (and starting billable hour requirements at 2000+). With those jobs, if one lands one, the graduate could at least start to pay off his or her debts. Go into public interest law? Start with a small firm or hang up one's shingle? Forget it, if you have $100,000 of college debt and another $100,000 for law school.

The article describes the duplicity of law schools in what they say about the salaries of their graduates. Many, especially the "second-tier" schools, simply lie. They simply lie. I am waiting for a class action to be brought against the law school industry by struggling young law graduates. Why do they lie? For universities, the article reports, "law schools are money makers."

UPDATE: Juan pointed me to the WSJ lawblog. This article generated a lot of comment, and Juan tells us to look here and here. The WSJ article that I discuss can itself be freely accessed here. Thanks, Juan!

Playing Together

Our Blossoming Arteest!

Aidan has been working on this painting for months now. Whenever he wants to paint, we take out the same canvas and let him add whatever color he wants whereever he wants to put it. So, there are many layers of paint here. This weekend, he decided that he wanted to try to use finger paints on top of the acrylics I had been letting him use. So, we thought we'd see how that worked. While it was still wet, it looked great! HOwever, now that it has dried, almost everything just looks muddy. Fortunately for you, the pictures were taken while it was still wet.

Enjoy!

New Dropkick Murphys is out

For all you many fans - here's "The Rocky Road To Dublin" back from Sing Loud, Sing Proud to tide you over until you get the new album:

Mary's September Newsletter is Up

Over here.

Blessed Assurance

Hernan, one of the men in our Bible study, was born and raised in Chile, baptized and raised a Catholic, attending Jesuit schools. I have known him for many years. He is a charming man, outspoken, and inquisitive. The idea that God offers salvation, once and for all, has persistently eluded him. "Why can't Hernan get it?" we ask.

The other night, he made reference to the Council of Trent as we were discussing some topic - I don't remember which. But this morning I was thumbing through the Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, and came across the following:

Chapter XII - That a rash presumptuousness in the matter of Predestination is to be avoided.

No one, moreover, so long as he is in this mortal life, ought so far to presume as regards the secret mystery of divine predestination, as to determine for certain that he is assuredly in the number of the predestinate; as if it were true, that he that is justified, either can not sin any more, or, if he do sin, that he ought to promise himself an assured repentance; for except by special revelation, it can not be known whom God hath chosen unto himself.

I think I begin to understand the hurdle that has been built before Hernan.

Good Press

With photos, even.

It ain't the New York Times, but I count that as a good thing.

Leave the feeding tubes in

The Vatican has reaffirmed its position that nutrition and hydration should be maintained for persons in a "persistent vegetative state", except in rare situations. The rationale is simply that in such a state, the patient is not dying.

Under Florida law, on the other hand, "artificially provided sustenance and hydration" are part of the definition of "life-prolonging procedures". Such procedures may be withheld or withdrawn in certain circumstances, among them the circumstance of the patient being in a "persistent vegetative state".

God and Evolution

Last night at our men's Bible study, Hernan spoke of a teacher who demonstrated a proof of God as creator to a class in which Hernan was a student, by bringing in a clock. The demonstration, Hernan reported, was in response to a student who said that he believed that life was not created, but that everything we see is the result of chance.

The teacher disassembled the clock into its many pieces. Then he gathered up the pieces and threw them all up in the air. They clattered to the floor in a mess of parts and pieces. "How many times," he asked, "would I have to do this before the pieces fell together into the working clock, not only properly assembled, but wound and set?"

So much for chance.

I am reading an article written by Avery Cardinal Dulles, S. J., in First Things magazine, entitled "God and Evolution". It is a very helpful overview of this matter, written by a former Presbyterian who not only became a Roman Catholic but a Cardinal who commands great respect inside and out side that church. The link will take you to the article.

Hello on Sunday!

Mary writes over on her blog a great post about things she does in Kenya that she doesn't do in the states.

Carol and I had a double date with a new couple from church. We went to Dolphin Mall and ate at a Mexican restaurant called 100% Natural. We learned that this is a chain from Mexico, and Miami has the first one in the states. We knew that the place was algo differente quando no encuentre corn chips. The food was very good.

Rob is married to Gretchen. They have two young children, and we realized somewhere during the evening that we are old enough to be Rob and Gretchen's parents. (Sigh). Rob did five years in the Peace Corps. He was born and raised in NY, grew up in the Bronx, and went to Dartmouth. His parents are from Jamaica. Gretchen is from Montana and they met here in Miami, where he is an investment advisor and she works for FedEx. They live in the Harden's old house.

Friday night we went to see an undergraduate production of the Fantastiks at UM's Ring Theater with Austin and Linda, also a couple from our church with kids too, but two of theirs are (at least!) out of the house. The production was fun. This musical was popular when Carol and I were in college. She had had a date to see it when it came to Duke, but she got the flu and had to miss it. (Good, I thought; the date wasn't with me. It is far too romantic a play to think of your wife going to it with someone else.)

Van asked me to preach the sermon when he goes out of town in a couple of weeks. I'm mulling that over and I'm not sure. That's not something I do. I do have a topic that I have been mulling over for years, "Nowadays is there any point to the Sabbath?"

The new TV came from Abe's of Maine. A Sony flat screen HD, 32 inch. I told Mary yesterday on IM that everyone will think of me as a hypocrite after what I say and write about TV. What I write stands, however. It certainly is an improvement on the picture, and works great with the rabbit ears I took off the old one, but Carol thinks that arrangement looks a little strange. For some reason, the programming from broadcast TV remains the same. I had a DVD of Miami Vice I had not seen and looked at that for awhile, but the movie was so lame that I ejected the thing about 20 minutes into it (Michael Mann was having a very bad day that day. On the other hand, I saw Carol and me in the Tubbs & Girlfriend couple. They were and we are so Miami).

No to Growth Hormone in Milk

Let's hear it for Publix! (More on this issue at Wiki.)

UPDATE: I fixed the "Publix" link. Thanks, Kellsey.

Sean on Education

Good post over there.

Further on the Cable Issue

In the earlier post, I identified risks to treasure, time, and soul arising from cable. But Carol mentioned a fourth, and maybe it trumps all the rest. The risk she identified, moreover, will not fade as "cable" fades and is replaced by the internet. That is the risk of occasioned by choice, the risk that arises from too many choices.

We see that problem everywhere we turn in our culture. Variety as a value seems to replace substance. We want many friends, not a treasured few whom we have the opportunity to really know and they us. There can be no such opportunity for knowledge with too many friends. Having too many friends means having no friends at all, finally.

And so it goes, whether we are dealing with running shoes or kinds of spaghetti sauce or a pantheon of deities. Or things to watch on on cable or the internet. Variety is the spice of life maybe, but too much variety threatens it. A mile wide and a inch deep? Or "drilling" deep into a single matter? Which shall it be?

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." There's the perfect solution to the problem of singularity and variety, and a good way to end this post on my 37th wedding anniversary.

Swingin' and diggin'

The joy is so evident in them. And, seeing it, I find it spills over leaving me covered in their sticky gooey joy.

She Crawls!

There's no going back now, baby!

Happy Birthday Mary!

I wish we could all (the entire Kith & Kin community) celebrate in person with you!

Bobby Jindal of Lousiana

Post Katrina hope.

Again, No to Cable

Carol and I went through the process of thinking through the purchase of a new television this weekend. (Watching 300 on the 19-inch CRT we've had for many years pushed me over the edge.) Maybe, we thought, we should approach this from the perspective of what our video inputs will be, that is, shall we continue to rely mainly on broadcast TV and the DVD player, or should we go to cable or satellite (to which I will hereinafter collectively refer to as "cable")? If we make that decision, we thought, maybe selecting the kind of new TV will be easier.

We made the "cable or not" decision first when our children were small and cable was new. After a year or so we cut it off. Even with the "basic" plan, MTV came with it, and, besides that, we just watched it too much. From time to time thereafter we went through the "cable or not" analysis and weighed the risks to time, to budget, and to our souls. Each time we Just Said No to cable.

On the decision we made this weekend to say no again, I was fresh from reading about the new HBO series, "Tell Me You Love Me", in a review the WSJ ran last week. Who needs the Internet for a pornography fix when that thing will air each Sunday night? And, yes, HBO is an extra to which we never subscribed when we had cable, but why should we support the medium that makes HBO possible? So, really, the "cable or not" decision was again, when we thought about it, an easy one.

We are, then, back to a broadcast antenna and DVDs (thanks to NetFlix) and back to the question of what sort of unit to buy. (Actually, we did decide on the unit to buy.) But the "cable or not" exercise was a good one, if a familiar one: how shall we spend our time and our treasure? How shall we help ourselves spend our time and our treasure in the right way? Questions that, when you think about it, are fundamentally existential ones.

Finally Saw 300

I finished seeing it last night, after Carol went off to scrap-booking with Juliet. Carol has been patiently watching the I, Claudius series with me (which gets bloodier and bloodier), but 300 would have been too much to ask. So I saw it via DVD in two sittings, the last sitting last night.

The medium of our old fashioned, rectangular-screened tv with a letterbox video is not the best way to see this movie. Carol agrees we should seriously upgrade our television set, but deciding which model to get looks like homework and we haven't found the time. (Any suggestions out there?) This was definitely one to see on the silver screen, or at the least on Sewell quality video, and I'm sorry I missed seeing it that way. Maybe one day I will.

But it was still good, if a little strange. Sean has a link to a review of the movie, which was generally favorable.

The review, however, criticizes the grotesque presentations of Ephilates and Xerxes, among others, and the other liberties that the graphic novel genre would allow. I thought that criticism misplaced, a little like criticizing Van Gogh for how unrealistic his panoramas are, if I can make that comparison.

Clearly it was not the artist's intention to present those characters as how they "were", as if one had a photograph of them. I think he meant to show them as how they saw themselves. Thus Xerxes was drawn as a sort of god, because he saw himself that way. Ephilates was repulsive and acted that way, because he saw himself that way. The Spartans were drawn as mythic heroes because they saw themselves that way, and that's the way they behaved. How do you look to yourself? Isn't that how you often behave, whether or not you see yourself as God sees you?

Anyway, I had no problem with that issue nor with much else in the film. I enjoyed it, and I continue to think about it.

Mr. Davidson Cake Race

The first event of Saturday was a 1.7 mile run on the traditional cake race course.

Troy Redux

A little something for the Classics majors out there.

Miami vs. Oklahoma!

The Miami Herald has a fine article in its sports section today about the Sooner-Cane rivalry. One game in the Orange Bowl back in the 1980s found the Stokes clan in the cheap seats watching the Sooners, led by its fine linebacker Brian Bozworth, wilt in the heat and humidity of South Florida's idea of a fine fall day for football.

Back from the Mr. Davidson Competition

. . . and am pretty excited about my tied-for-second finish. Nobody could touch Hayes Trotter, the new Mr. Davidson. He finished the weekend ~20 points in front of second place. Unbelievably awesome. But enough about him, I ended where I did by clawing my way back from from last place, which is where I was after the first event (Spelling).

Waking up on Monday morning, I felt almost exactly like I felt the day after running a marathon. I had to grab my leg with my hands to lift my foot higher than 3 inches off the ground.

Sadly, I have no pictures, since the thief stole our camera. I'm waiting for my competitors to post some, at which point, I'll take 'em and show you.

Finally: am I past my prime? Kellsey says, "no," which is good enough for me. :-)

The next Mr. Davidson is in 2012. I'm totally winning that one.

Havabanana

We love 'em, and they're good for you.

Glenn Reynolds: Annoying Illiteracy.

I wonder if he can make the connection between Stalin's godlessness and the tyranny he condemns. I doubt it.

"Quiet Strength"

This is the title of a book, a "memoir", by Tony Dungy. He writes in the introduction that people had been after him to write a book for years, but he resisted it. But finally he relented. This is the last paragraph of his introduction:

This book is not only about me, either. It's about the priorities, choices, approaches, and habits that lead to being a winner, to experiencing true success. It's about you and me and our journey in this world together. It's about the things I've learned, the mistakes I've made, and the heartaches that have made me lean into the Father's presence. I hope that when it's all said and done, you'll see that it's really all about Him.

Are we all agreed on this global-warming thing?

In the past few years there has been increasing concern about global climate change on the part of the media, politicians, and the public. It has been stimulated by the idea that human activities may influence global climate adversely and that therefore corrective action is required on the part of governments. Recent evidence suggests that this concern is misplaced. Human activities are not influencing the global climate in a perceptible way. Climate will continue to change, as it always has in the past, warming and cooling on different time scales and for different reasons, regardless of human action. I would also argue that - should it occur - a modest warming would be on the whole beneficial.

-S, Fred Singer, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, in Imprimis, author of Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years.

MeeSheeGin! Right!

Good column over on Sporting News.

Are You Kidding?

FIU plays Penn State today in the season opener for both teams.

Oh, Darn!

The Miami Herald reports that

Democratic presidential contenders Bill Richardson, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd have pledged not to campaign in states like Florida and Michigan that moved up their primaries in violation of party rules.

Blog Despair

Despair has a blog! (Obviously, we are way ahead of them on the internet curve but we are happy they have joined us in the blogosphere.) Walter gets my vote as best-supporting actor in the video that is first up on the blog.

BREAK-IN

It's 5:45 on Saturday afternoon, and Aidan, Honor and I have just enjoyed a great spend-the-night time at Pa-Pa's and Sue-Sue's ranch. We are driving into our street to come home when Aidan says, "Mom-ma, is our house broken?" I stop the car and look at the house, "well, let's see, does it look broken?" "no, Mommy, it doesn't."

I then turn into the driveway and down into our carport where I find that our house was in fact "broken." Our kitchen door window had been smashed with a large rock and there was glass everywhere.

In the meantime, Macon is about to board a flight from Seattle to Austin. He has been away for work over the last couple of nights. I call him, "Love, our house has been broken into".

"what?"

"our house has been broken into. The kitchen door is smashed and the door is unlocked"

"call the police"

"okay, and I'll take Aidan to our neighbor's"

"good idea"

"Love you"

"love you, too"

Poor Macon. He boarded the flight and had to wait at least 4 hours before he found out anything else.

Our neighbors were wonderful. They took Aidan, fed him, bathed him and put him in their son's pajamas. Back at home, I have gone through the house with the police and many other neighbors have shown up to help. I called my parents and they come out to help fix the door and to pick up Aidan and bring him home.

Eventually, my dad had put up a piece of plywood over the hole in the door, I put the kids to bed an hour late, my neighbors all went home, Walter and Morgan came over and we all hung out until Macon arrived home around 10 or 10:30.

I was so glad to see him.

The burglar got my laptop, our new camera, macon's briefcase, my new ipod, our ipod dock, old ipods, a diaper bag (yes, a diaper bag), and an airport extreme--not to mention that they destroyed my kitchen door. We think they used the diaper bag to haul the ipods in, but who knows? Maybe they felt the need for some huggies size 5's?

I am so glad that they did not make off with any of my Fuzzi Bunz or my Bum Genius AIO's! YEA!

Strangely enough, I did not ever feel super shaken. I know that I was somewhat shaken as I could not remember all the words to Honor's lullaby that night, but mainly I think I felt the peace of God and thankfulness that my children and husband were all okay.

we'll see if I was just in shock and will have an emotional melt-down later. I certainly did have some nerves when i was trying to fall asleep after getting up to nurse Honor.

crazy times, people, crazy times...

Unhold the French Fries

While Republican Senator Warner of VA is moving left on Iraq, the French, according to WSJ's Saturday edition,

may be prepared to provide assistance to Iraqi troops and police, part of Sarkozy's effort to improve relations with the U.S.

Yes, I will have fries with that. In fact, please make them French fries. (And no VA ham in that McMuffin).

(By the way, is there any meaning anymore to the word "Republican" insofar as it applies to a political party? I raise this as a registered Democrat, throwing a rock, as it were, from a fragile glass house. [The country is ripe for a radical political party realignment. Please get on with it.])

UPDATE: Super-size those FRENCH fries!!

MORE UPDATE: Here.

In Seattle

attending the PennyArcadeExpo.

I saw this on the way over:


I'm used to seeing 30somethings and below in that pose: gathered around one of the few power outlets. But these were grownups! Weird.

Jonathan Edwards, Corporate Prayer

Foster, in his discussion of corporate prayer to which I refer in the previous post, cites, in addition to direct scripture references, a "slender book with a bulky title" by Jonathan Edwards. The title is, indeed, bulky: An Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of God's People, in Extraordinary Prayer.

Could I find a copy of that "slender book" on the interent? Of course!

Corporate Prayer

I mentioned earlier the Caldwells and their prayer program at Windsor Village UM Church in Houston. It has set me thinking about prayer in a way I haven't thought about in years. The Caldwells showed a series of photos during their presentation at the PGF meeting of about 500 of their members parading down the grassy median of a 4 lane highway through the heart of some acreage the church was acquiring to build a gigantic new church building, establish certain commercial centers, including a bank, and develop a tract of housing. The members lined up, left shoulder to left shoulder, right shoulder to right, so that the line had people facing both sides of the street in alternating fashion, as the subject property is on both sides of the street. Then the people prayed about the vision that they had for the real estate, prayed according to a script that had been written by the church leadership.

It all seemed a little regimented to me, maybe manipulated by the church leadership, but that's what they did, and apparently that is standard fare for this struggling little church of now 17,000.

I came home and looked at the books I have, now plainly visible on this great wall of books that Macon constructed for me while he was here (more on that in a future post), and among them was Richard J. Foster's Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home that was published in 1992, which was when I bought it at Montreat. The index had an entry on "corporate prayer", and here is part of what Foster writes there:

[A Korean pastor] brought me a newspaper article (complete with his excellent translation, for it was written in Korean) that describes the story of the Myong-Song Presbyterian Church, located in the southeastern part of Seoul. The Korean churches are well known for their early morning prayer meetings, but even so this story is unusual. This is a group that began about ten years ago with forty people, and today twelve thousand gather each morning for three prayer meetings - at 4:00 A.M., 5:00 A.M., and 6:00 A.M. Jung-Oh [the Korean pastor] explained to me that they must shut the doors at 4:00 A.M. to begin the first service, and so if people arrive a little late, they must wait until the 5:00 A.M. meeting.

* * *

There are indications that, as we approach the twenty-first century, the greatest prayer movement in living memory is already under way. In much smaller but still significant ways the story of Myong-Song Presbyterian Church can be repeated many times over. One congregation I know has forty prayer meetings per week involving a total of a thousand people. I am acquainted with churches in which anywhere from 15 to 24 percent of the congregation are engaged in organized, corporate, intercessory prayer weekly. I have met with national prayer leaders, and none of them has seen anything like what is now beginning to occur. It is too early to tell how significant this new awakening toward prayer will be, but the signs are encouraging.

More on the Myong-Song PC here UPDATE: This link is to an essay by Danie Vermeulen. He is the director of "Dawn Ministries" in Africa, and did church planting in South Africa. The Dawn Ministries Africa website has this reference to Kijabe (scroll down to "God Brings Somalia to Kenya"). Small, small world.

Who are these people?

Find more videos like this on www.truveo.com.

Bum Genius is Bumtastic!

I just wanted to update everyone on one of my new favorite diapers. Yes, I know, "diapers again". well, I am a mother of two children under the age of three, so give me a break, alright? ;-)

I still love my fuzzi bunz, and would consider fuzzi bunz the backbone of my cloth diaper collection, but these Bum Genius 2.0 All-in-one diapers ROCK! They are as close to disposables as you can get: they don't have to be stuffed with anything, they don't have to be pulled apart to wash, and they have stretchy tabs on the side that make for a great fit.

My mom really likes using these with Honor. Macon says that he thinks they are easier since you don't have to figure out which snaps are the right ones so that the FB's are not too loose (and leak) or not too tight (and hurt). So, if you are in the market for some cloth diapers, but fear how difficult they can be, then these are the gateway drug for you...did I say drug? I meant diaper, although I must admit that once you get started on cloth, it can be addicting.

Baby Legs

On Sweetpea's Blog there was a recent mention of a product called Baby Legs. Basically these are leg warmers for babies...because the 80's are never really gone.

One of my best friends, Lindsay who also has a blog, gave us a couple of pair of these when she found out we were having a girl. Yea! for baby presents!

Honor looks adorable in these red and white striped Baby Legs. She also has some light blue ones with snowmen on them, but she had spit up her carrots on these earlier in the day. I especially like how her red fuzzi bunz go with her baby legs. SO CUTE!!!

My Problem, Your Solution

One of the speakers at the PGF conference was Alex Gee. He told the story of a young man who was somehow connected with his church family but who was a cocaine addict. Word came to Gee that the young man was out of his mind at a crack house and desperately in need of intervention. Gee got one of the biggest men in his congregation to go with him to the place. They broke the door down, went in, found the young man, and carried him out.

Later, when the young man came around, Gee said that he shook his finger in the young man's face and said "We've got to get ahold of your drug problem."

The young man said, "Drugs are not my problem. Drugs are my solution. You've never asked me what my problem is."

Gee said that the light suddenly went on.

And it went on for me as well. I have been thinking about that story ever since that talk. People who are problems to me may be people whose "problems" are really their way of working out things that I don't take the time to see. Maybe if I took the time, I would be less of a judge and more of a friend.

John West Thatcher

John Thatcher is one of the best men I have had the privilege ever of knowing. A Davidson graduate, Korean War combat veteran (grievously wounded but by God's grace survived), brilliant businessman, outstanding philanthropist, a rock solid Christian and great friend. Carol and I had the privilege of attending a birthday lunch for him at his home on Monday. (Carol and I are dressed up because we came from the office. That's not how normal people dress in Miami in August when they are being sociable.)

Building Trains

Lately, Aidan has taken to building things with his blocks. Usually, he builds his "house" and then he builds a Starbucks. (insert all your snide comments here about our family addiction to the 'bucks). Anyways, most recently he built a train--a train that was going to Starbucks. ;-)

Here's photos of his train.

Carrots, Anyone?

Wow. Just thought I'd compare Aidan's experience with carrots alongside Honor's experience of carrots. When i took Aidan's photo, he was probably 6 1/2 months old. Honor is 7 months old. So, the ages are pretty close.

Man, they are so definitely siblings!

Kirbyjon and Suzette Caldwell

These two people, husband and wife, spoke at the PGF conference that we attended. Kirbyjon Caldwell is the pastor of the largest United Methodist Church in the US, the 17,000 member Windsor Village UM Church in Houston. Wikipedia has quite an article on him here.

His wife Suzette T. Caldwell also a pastor at the church, has a prayer ministry, the Kingdom Builder's Prayer Institute.

The Caldwells presentation at the conference jarred us. We were rocking along, swinging with the fairly moderate though challenging curricula, when WHAM these folks appeared and hit us with what sounded like a "name it and claim it" Gospel in the context of a Super Target church program, raising eyebrows and some hackles in our group. I have to confess, though, that they fascinated me.

Here is the question: Would you prefer a church where there was virtually no prayer ministry? Just the prayers during the worship service and the prayers at the beginning and the end of church meetings? Where individual prayer was left to the hit or miss convenience of the members? Or would you prefer a church that has a highly structured, deliberate, and consistent corporate prayer discipline, mainly top down in its content, and maybe over the top from time to time, maybe a lot of the time?

Would you prefer a prayer theology that viewed prayer as essentially a means for us to conform our wills to God's sovereignty, whatever that sovereignty might turn out to be? A sort of view that believes that God's will is mostly unscrutable, and so the more general and hedged we are in our prayers, maybe the better.

Or would you prefer a prayer theology that moves from praise and worship to a search for God's will in a given situation, with particular confidence that his will is not inscrutable but is a will he will allow us to discern; that once discerned for that given situation holds that God's will as it is in heaven so shall it be on earth, specifically, here and now, a specific will for that situation that one can then declare; that moves from there to seeking forgiveness for self and others, thence to a petition for protection; and closing with more praise and worship?

The Caldwells left no doubt as to where their positions are on these questions.

"Are You Man Enough?"

We attended the Presbyterian Global Fellowship meeting in Houston at the end of last week. It began Thursday night and ended about noon on Saturday. The Stokes clan there included Walter, Morgan, Mary, Carol and me. The program was quite challenging and, in some parts, disturbing. But its OK to be disturbed, I think. I am still reflecting on what I saw and heard.

One of the speakers, Michael Frost, read a poem that absolutely blew me away. It's by Adrian Plass, and a copy of it is posted here.

Rove to Run Hillary's Campaign

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