Geek Quotient: 8.7

Okay, I've made no secret of it that I am a geek. I have officially rated my interest in this radio show (that's right, I said radio show) as a 8.7 on the Geek Quotient Scale. Similar to the Richter Scale, the GQS is logarithmic; therefore, a GQ of 7 is effectively ten times geekier than a GQ of 6. Don't ask what the GQ of rating according to the GQS is: it's too high to measure.

But what can I say? I'm a sucker for the tidbits and connections to life that Dr. John Lienhard offers up in this weekly radio series, Engines of our Ingenuity. A professor of mechanical engineering and history at The University of Houston, he brings an interesting and unique view to how technology has influenced our lives. This has been a long-time interest, dating back to an undergraduate class I took on the history of science - very enlightening. For example, the common notion that when Christopher Columbus sailed in 1492 the majority of the world disbelieved his notion that the earth was round, favoring a "flat earth" theory. Wrong! The first measurements of the circumference of the earth go back to at least 230 B.C. and Eratosthenes. The only argument Columbus had with scientists was that he was intentionally choosing estimates of the earth's circumference that were small enough to make it seem that sailing west from Europe to reach China would be feasible.

Anyway, back to the radio show. How can you not find it interesting that one of the first computing uses was in the tracking of tickets of the burgeoning airline industry? Or that marbles in something like a gumball machine was the big step up from acres of chalkboards, before computers came on the scene. Or that TWA spent almost a half billion inflation-adjusted dollars in an attempt to build a reservation system named George - as in "go ask George" - before it had to scrap the project and start over?

Consider shoes. A great study was done on the shoes worn by Ötzi, a Stone Age dweller whose preserved frozen body was discovered in the Alps in 1991. The shoes were complex. The leather on the bottom was from a bear, cured in a mixture of bears brains and fat from its liver. Deer leather formed the top. All this was mounted on a mesh of braided linden bark with bindings made of calf leather, straw for insulation, and moss as lining. Recreations of the shoes prove to be warm, even in cold water, with excellent traction and no opportunity for blisters. In fact, Ötzi may have been better shod 5300 years ago, than we are today!

Seriously, if you've any geek in you - even the slightest bit - you should check this out. Transcripts are available for all 2273 episodes, along with the audio for each. You can try to find Engines on a local PBS station. Or you can listen to podcasts of the latest episodes.

Now, go geek out for an hour and get lost in the history of technology.

(Maybe I should file this under "Posts that amply demonstrate why it is you should make a point of ignoring me"?)

Tags: Science, History, Engines of our Ingenuity, John Lienhard, Circumference of the Earth, Eratosthenes, Christopher Columbus, Airline Ticketing, Computers, Ötzi, Shoes, Geek, Red Green Show

Prayer time

I used to have a sidebar that listed current prayer requests. I found, over time, that they became less and less current and eventually removed it completely. However, I still want to bring up a few items for prayer, and I ask that you remember these.

Mrs. E's grandfather is in pretty bad shape. He had a section of his intestines removed about a month ago, and he has just not been recovering well. He's been a little sick, and more than a little depressed at his current condition. He is a man who loves the outdoors, and loathes being inside for any length of time. He cannot even sit still through a church service, and has to go stand at the back to have some motion and freedom. As a boy he would leave home and walk around, going to visit his sisters (who were much older) or just walking, for days at a time without telling his parents where he was. Even as he aged, he was always sitting outside rather than inside, and still took several walks every day. For a man like this to be confined to a hospital bed must be horrible. We're going up to Temple to visit him Thursday and Friday; we fear it may be one of our last visits, but pray that he recovers.

In the last few weeks, we have had a series of close friends move away. At the end of July, some of our oldest and closest friends left Houston for Tennessee. We cannot imagine not seeing them as often as we had, and already miss the game nights playing Clue. Last week was the first week we had to adjust to one of our newer friends, but who has become one of the closest, having moved. Her daughter is our daughter's best friend, and vice versa, and they still have not caught on that they won't be seeing each other as often. After her divorce, there was no real reason for her to stay here in a town where she knew very few people; she decided that if the chance arose she would move to be closer to her family. The opportunity came, and she is starting a new job there. We'll still see them periodically, as she brings her daughter down for visits with her dad, but not nearly as often. The move of this friend is also hitting Mrs. E hard, though she understands why it has happened and how it will be good for them. And another set of friends, also relatively new, are moving to Canada with his job (the bums!) sometime in the next few weeks. Honestly, we're at a bit of a loss with so many friends moving away at once.

Finally, Mrs. E and I are taking an intense marriage course right now called Dynamic Marriage (based around the books His Needs, Her Needs and Love Busters by William Harely). Over the next eight weeks we'll be looking at our marriage perhaps closer than we ever have. We already see some good coming from this, to strengthen and improve our relationship. We've watched too many close to us recently whose marriages have fallen apart, and we want to do all we can to make ours one that will last. Please pray for our growth through this process.

Thanks, everyone, for taking time to pray for us and our family.

Music Review: Tell Me What You Know from Sara Groves

Oh, tell me what you know
about God and the world and the human soul,
How so much can go wrong
and still there are songs.

In 2006, Sara Groves took a trip with Gary Haugen (of International Justice Mission) to Rwanda. What she saw there changed her – maybe not radically, but in an accumulation of subtle shifts. Her latest album, Tell Me What You Know, is in a way her conversation with us about what she experienced. Listening to Tell Me What You Know, I cannot help but believe she learned about hope; hope in the direst of circumstances, hope to endure and overcome.

At times stylistically a little different from her previous work, this album has an overall energy that pulls you from one song to the next as Sara explores this theme of hope. The album opens with "Song for My Sons" which is, as you would expect, for her sons (and daughter). As Sara liltingly sings her hope for her sons, you hear your own prayers for your children. But, to be honest, when I play the album I find myself wanting to skip through to the next song "In The Girl There’s A Room" – not because "Song for My Sons" is a bad song, but because I know what is coming up next. "In The Girl There's A Room", from which the above chorus and album title are taken, is a song that sticks in your head. Inspired by stories from IJM (and co-written with Charlie Peacock), Sara looks inside each of these people and finds hope in the face of sorrow and pain and horrors. "In our hearts and souls / an unstoppable refrain / hope stands in defiance". The chanted verses and catchy chorus pull you into the rhythm of the song and stay with you, and "In The Girl" is one of the highlights of the album.

Another highpoint on the album is found in "I Saw What I Saw". This was actually the first song I heard on the album, as a video of this song overlaid with clips of Sara in Rwanda was released on YouTube several weeks ago (the video can be viewed here). Sounding like the piano-driven work of Add To The Beauty, "I Saw What I Saw" recounts how her experience in Rwanda has changed her life.

your pain has changed me
your dream inspires
your face a memory
your hope a fire
your courage asks me what I'm afraid of
and what I know of love

Sara gives us a pair of songs serving as calls for action with "Love Is Still A Worthy Cause" and "When The Saints". In "Love Is Still A Worthy Cause", she addresses our frustration and desire to give up when things do not go as we would wish them; she implores us to press on in our work for God. "when you count the cost and all seems lost / love is still a worthy cause / when you're pressing on though your strength is gone / love is still a worthy cause." With "When The Saints", Sara takes a turn on the traditional song. Instead of focusing on the hope of marching into heaven to see old friends, though, she turns to marching into the battle we face every day to live for God. Beginning with a reference to Jeremiah 20:9 (which goes back to her song "Jeremiah" from The Other Side of Something), Sara talks about the passion to act in God's name and, again, the frustration of so much to be done. "I think of Paul and Silas in the prison yard / I hear their song of freedom rising to the stars." Dwelling on the courage and passion of those who have gone before, she calls us to join in step and join in the fight where we can. ("When The Saints" is already available as a single from iTunes and in retail stores.)

The songs "Honesty" and "Abstraction" look at just how well we know ourselves and how well we can know others. With the latter, Sara sings about how, no matter how well we think we know a person, there are depths that we cannot fathom. When we try to understand a person, even ourselves, there is too much for our limited humanity to take in and out of necessity we leave reality and enter the abstract, the simplified, to try to grasp the entirety of the person. In "Honesty", inspired by Dietrich Bonhoeffer's thoughts, she encourages honesty with ourselves as a step towards salvation "only the truth and truthfulness can save us now." Both are very compelling and deep songs requiring us to take a fresh look at our lives and our perceptions of those around us.

With the song "Say A Prayer", Sara is remembering the trials of a childhood lost (or taken away) in the struggle to survive. It was inspired by the prayers of a teenage girl, kidnapped from her home in Southeast Asia and sold into slavery in a brothel in a foreign country. She endured eight months of forced prostitution - with the others mocking her faith in God to save her from this life - before being rescued by an operative of IJM (a scene recalled in a line in "When The Saints"). Sara brings her sorrow and hope to life in this song. "The Long Defeat" is a call for endurance and encouragement in our daily struggles with sin – we've already lost the battle for perfection, but as we continue to strive for this goal we must not shy away from the fight that seems impossible. She prays for inspiration and guidance and relief. With "It Might Be Hope", Sara nicely summarizes the overall theme of the album, how hope lingers on and can still be found in everyone. She closes the album with "You Are Wonderful", an offering of praise to her Savior and friend, Jesus. Given the normal stylistic models of modern praise and worship songs, you might expect this to sound flowing and somewhat grandiose – you'd be wrong. Sara sounds like a girl talking to her good friend in a simply presented, almost bouncy lyric.

How good is the album? Some of the songs don't work for me as well as I would have hoped, "You Are Wonderful" and "Song For My Sons" being examples of this. (Not to say they are bad songs - I actually like the beat of "Song For My Sons", but for some reason it still doesn't work as well as I would like.) There are other songs that keep running through my head as I hear the melody and ponder the words and meanings, such as "In The Girl There’s A Room", "I Saw What I Saw", and "When The Saints". The rest, though not the songs I am first drawn to, I find grow on me more every time I listen to them (it'll take me a while to unpack everything in "Honesty" and "Abstraction"). I would recommend this album to anyone who likes to hear well-written music sung with passion and vibrancy. Overall, it is a very good album and continues Sara's proclivity for producing thought-provoking and entertaining music well worth listening to.

Tell Me What You Know hits the stores on November 6^th. You can hear more song clips, read the lyrics, and pre-order a copy at Sara Groves' store.

(P.S. I would like to thank Christy at INO Records for providing this pre-release. She's such a nice gal!)

Tags: Sara Groves, Music Review, New Music, Tell Me What You Know, International Justice Mission, Rwanda, INO Records, Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Public Service Announcement

For those who did not know and do care, the "Do Not Call" list of phone numbers that telemarketers have to consult and avoid is not a permanent list. When (if) you signed up, if was to be on the list for five (5) years; since the list is now five years old, the earliest adopters are about to be dropped from the list. If you wish to register for the first time or renew your phone number's presence on the "Do Not Call" list, you can register on-line at https://www.donotcall.gov. It may take as much as a month or two before the calls stop (as the companies only have to update lists monthly) but before long there will be more silence in the house. But, if you're really lonely and just want someone to talk to, don't sign up and chat away with the telemarketers - you have my permission.

In a related note, did you know that a similar list exists for credit card and insurance applications? Well, it does! It is not as thorough as the "Do Not Call" list, and only covers companies who get their lists from Equifax, Experian, Innovis and TransUnion; but, with these blocked, the number of applications for pre-approved cards and insurance should drop dramatically. Go to OptOutPrescreen.com and you can register to be excluded from lists for five years by filling out the on-line form. If you mail in the form, you have the option of having your name excluded permanently. They will ask for your name, address, social security number, and birth date - ick! BUT, you are only required to give your name and address; they ask for SSN and birthday to help "ensure and expedite" the process. Personally, I would say don't give them anything but your name and address.

Hope you find this helpfull!

Tags: Do Not Call List, Telemarketing, Telemarketers, Credit Card Applications, Pre-Approved Credit, Insurance Applications, Public Service Announcement, Annoyances

*awkward silence*

I don't know what to say. Don't be a Lindsey.

And don't forget our old friends, the Crash Test Dummies!

Tags: Ad Council, Bullying, YouTube, Crash Test Dummies, Game Show

Poll: What do you wear to work?

What do you wear to work?

How does it affect your personal attitude?

How does it affect how others at work respond to you?

Tags: Uniform, Clothes, Work, Attitude, Perception

Hypotheticals

Hypothetical Situation #1: You are driving down the road, when traffic slows to a stop at a red light. The person behind you, driving a truck and pulling a horse trailer, fails to slow down and rear-ends your car, doing non-negligible but non-critical damage to the read of your car. You proceed to do all the usuals, trading contact and insurance information, and only later find out that their insurance had lapsed. What do you do?

1. Talk to the person, and try to arrange for their reparations of your car.
2. Talk to the police and/or a lawyer and begin some form of legal action to recover damages.
3. Let it drop, since the damage is no-critical.

Hypothetical Situation #2: Same as the above case, with the exception that the person who rear-ended your car is not reachable (phones disconnected or unanswered, etc.). What do you do?

1. Talk to the police and/or a lawyer and begin some form of legal action to recover damages.
2. Let it drop, since the damage is no-critical.

Hypothetical Situation #3: You enter into a business relationship with a friend, investing a fair amount of money into the venture. As time goes by, you begin to realize that your friend was a poor choice as business partner and discover that bad management and actions of dubious legality are resulting in the total loss of your investment. What do you do?

1. Talk to your friend and either force him to straighten up or vacate the arrangement.
2. You cease your part in the business.
3. You begin legal action to possibly recover some or all of your lost investment.

Hypothetical Situation #4: Same as case #3, with the exception that the business partner is not a friend, but simply a partner. Same choices as above.

Hypothetical Situation #5: You discover, round about, that someone or someones at work have been talking badly about you - rumors, gossip, exaggerations, half-truths and outright lies which are both malicious and damaging to you personally and professionally. You quickly discover who has been doing this. What do you do?

1. Vocally denounce the rumors that have spread and try to clear your name.
2. Speak to the person/people who have initiated this to find out why they are doing this and try to get them to stop.
3. Quietly speak to your boss and/or their boss to clarify the matter and defend yourself.
4. Ignore the matter, though hurtful, and trust that your life will speak for itself.

Multiple answers for each question are allowed.

I propose these hypothetical situations as a continuation of the discussion begun in my previous post on Christianity and indemnification. "Defend" in the previous post seemed to be more narrowly defined by readers than I had intended. A good discussion was had on gun ownership, but I intended the topic to be a broad discussion of defense of self, possessions, honor, etc. What does it mean in our daily lives to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile? (Luke 6:27-36, Matthew 5:39-41) As to the above questions, I don't know that I have good answers - even though several have not been "hypothetical" in my life. As before, I have to ask myself why pursuit of justice ends and vengeance begins. Where is my forgiveness? Where does the legal system that we have, and the protections it allows - which are, mind you, ordained and allowed by Jehovah - cross the boundary of righteous behavior?

Thoughts?

Tags: Punishment, Retribution, Forgiveness, Forgetfulness, Repentance, Justice, Vengeance, Indemnification

Amoeba Soccer

Today marked the first soccer game in Lil'E's potentially fabulous career. Under 5 soccer is some of the funnest stuff to watch. You know they just don't get it. They try and try, but you have to tell them five times a minute which way to go and what to do. And they move around the field like an amoeba. Here's a shot of Lil'E doing the right thing. Yeah!

(She's the girl in green in the middle. The guy in green really tore up the field.)

It's a crazy process, if you've never been through it. The park had cops directing traffic in the parking lot. Since last week's game was rained out, she actually had a chance to practice before her first game. The uniform she got - sized "youth medium", aka it almost could have fit me, the chubby thirty something man. Crazy. About two minutes into the game, Lil'E got the ball and was moving it down field when someone on the other team kicked it away from her. She stopped, drooped her head, and ran to me on the sidelines crying. Four years of teaching her to share seems to have left its mark. Now I have to deprogram her for game-time only. Transform her from kind, gentle little girl to ruthless soccer fiend. Yeah!

Tags: Youth Soccer, Amoeba

Musical Mish-Mash

1. If you like free music, go to FreeCCM right now. For the exchange of your e-mail address (which they only use to tell you about when new music is available on FreeCCM) you can currently download songs from:
   • Phil Wickham - "Sailing on a Ship" from Cannons
   • Chris Rice - "It Is Well With My Soul" from Peace Like A River: The Hymns Project
   • Fee - "Grace Will Be My Song" from We Shine
   • Todd Agnew - "Our Great God" from Better Questions


2. I recently discovered that Charlie Peacock did a best-of album back in 2003, called Full Circle. Only he didn't just slap the old music on a new disk, he asked friends he's worked with to collaborate on re-making the songs with him. Good stuff! The opener is "In The Light" (for those who didn't realize, he wrote and recorded this song long before dcTalk was a band), with Sara Groves sharing vocal duties. The music is done by Béla Fleck and Phil Keaggy, whose interplay between banjo and guitar is wonderful listening. Here's a clip:
   


3. While we're talking about Sara Groves, Stephen pointed out that she has a video from her upcoming album Tell Me What You Know out. Watch it now.
   
   "I Saw What I Saw"
   


4. Last of all, while we're talking about Sara Groves' new album, I am expecting to get a pre-release copy in the next day of two. Look for a review to show up here sometime the last week of September.

That's all for now.

Tags: Phil Wickham, Chris Rice, Fee, Todd Agnew, Charlie Peacock, Sara Groves, Bela Fleck, Phil Keaggy, New Music, Free Music, YouTube

The quandary of Christian indemnification

I don't know if you have followed the story at all, but Mary Winkler appeared on yesterday's Oprah, talking about her conviction, her freedom, and her life. As a reminder, Mary Winkler is the woman who shot and killed her husband, Matthew, in May 2006 and fled with their three daughters to the beach. Matthew Winkler was the well-liked preacher at a small Church of Christ in Selmer, Tennessee; the defense that Mary presented shattered the perceptions of those who knew this couple. I have followed this story over the last year with some interest: I, too, grew up in a small Church of Christ in Abilene and my uncle, many years ago, preached with Matthew Winkler's grandfather. I could know this family, seen in a hundred others I've known in my life.

First, let me make it clear that I don't want to debate the conviction and sentence that she received: the courts evaluated the case, based on evidence, and decided that a charge of intent to kill was not appropriate; thus, manslaughter and the relatively light sentence (which, incidentally, Mary Winkler herself told Oprah was too lenient). This decision was made by people who did not have a vested interest in the case or in the people, but rather in the law, and I will trust and accept their wisdom. Clear? No rants from anyone (regulars or visitors) about how she should be locked away for decades, or the abysmal state of the American Justice system. If you want that, go somewhere else. Now. Thanks.

What I do want to discuss is something that I see going on in the aftermath, and how these actions pertain to the calling of Christ's disciples. (This case simply serves as a convenient example, but we've seen it happen in many others as well.) What is occurring, and what commonly occurs, is the family of the victim, Matthew Winkler's parents, are seeking to terminate her parental rights and are suing for $2 million in a wrongful death case. Basically, what it comes down to is that they are, intentionally or unintentionally, trying to make it impossible for her to move on with life. And this is an understandable reaction: their son is gone, even the image they held of him is broken by testimony in court, and all this was done by one of the people they trusted most. In a similar circumstance, I am confident that I would also have the strong desire to act in a similar manner. But, what I ask myself is this: should I, as a Christian, seek this kind of redress?

What cause do we, as Christians, have seeking punitive damages? The sin of the criminal action is (or should hopefully be) dealt with in a criminal proceeding. To my (imperfect) understanding, what passes in civil courts seems to fall squarely under application of such biblical commands such as found in Luke 6:27-36

²⁷"But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. ²⁹"Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either. ³⁰"Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back. ³¹"Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. ³²"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. ³³"If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. ³⁴"If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. ³⁵"But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. ³⁶"Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful."

Where, I ask myself, does indemnification fit into such teaching? How can we righteously scream "Make 'em pay!"?

Time and time again, I read news of a criminal given a long sentence or having his life taken for his crimes, and see that the victim's families are there nodding approval. It is rare, indeed, to find the families offer true forgiveness and sorrow over where the criminal's life has taken him. So I ask, where do our actions transition from pursuit of justice to pursuit of vengeance?

Does forgiveness end? All good Christians know the Lord's Prayer "Forgive us our sins, as we forgive others", and so we readily offer forgiveness. But does that forgiveness include forgetfulness? Are we willing to remove the stigma of an offense committed and truly accept with love a brother or sister? In this case, the Winkler's do not seem to be able to do this, as they seek to forever terminate Mary Winkler's parental rights. I don't know their motivations, and I realize that wise actions do include limitations (don't give a drunk a drink is the common example). But is this not, at it's basis, also a denial of complete forgiveness? Does God tell us "I forgive you, but I'll never trust or use you again"?

We ask of a person actions demonstrative of remorse (repentance) when they have committed a wrong. In fact, a big part of the lenient sentence for Mary Winkler was her sorrow over the death, whereas many others are tried much more harshly because they lack remorse. But, do we also ask for proof that they will never sin again before extending our trust and forgiveness? I think, often, that we do just that, judging their hearts to justify our own. This is as true for the murderer as it is for the panhandler on the street corner. We decide on their worthiness for mercy and grace, and we act in accordance with our desires to force them to be different - sinless, perfect, or at least trying really hard. But that's not who we are asked to serve: the Christian should love and serve their enemies as readily and joyfully as though loving and serving their Lord.

One final question I have is this: How should Christians seek to defend themselves? Even more basic than this is should we defend ourselves at all? I spoke about living the life of Isaac recently. He never defended himself, stood up for his rights or his property. No, he just moved on; Jehovah was with him wherever he went, not in the lands where Isaac had been but in Isaac himself. So I find myself questioning the righteousness of any type of suit for redress, be it against a believer (as Paul chastised the Corinthians for) or against an unbeliever.

I have many opinions on these questions, some more recently developed than others. But none are so firmly held that I will not reevaluate my theology in light of God's word and will. Elucidate me - what do you feel about these questions? More importantly, what do you believe is God's will in these matters (beyond personal feelings)?

Tags: Mary Winkler, Punishment, Retribution, Forgiveness, Forgetfulness, Remorse, Repentance, Justice, Vengeance