Aspire2 Blog

Ten Things 2011 Taught Us

2012-01-27T17:53:00.000-06:00

With 2011 now about a month behind us, we can look back witha bit of perspective on what some of the last year’s top ten stories (accordingto non-scientific ranking) revealed to us, taught us, or reminded us:

The earth is the Lord’s. The 9.0-magnitude earthquake onMarch 11 in Japan, followed by a tsunami and nuclear disaster, brought enormoushuman losses. And deadly tornadoes and endless days of triple-digit summertemperatures again reminded us that we rely on a perfect symphony of God’sprovidence for our safety.
Exorbitant debt enslaves. Remember when S&P devalued theU.S. after the eleventh-hour raising of the debt ceiling? It served as areminder that the lender controls the borrower.
Work is a gift from God. Unemployment remaining stubbornlyat 9.0 has a way of forcing us to recognize again that skilled, hard-workingpeople can find themselves stuck at home sending endless resumes and updatingtheir LinkedIn profiles ad nauseam. Steady income is not a “given.”
Greed leads to injustice. And money is the root of all sortsof evil. No matter what our opinion about Occupy Wall Street, the movementdemonstrated what can happen when people feel disempowered and ripped off bythose lacking in financial scruples.
Some things money can’t buy. The death of Steve Jobs tocancer at 56 reminded us that even if you’re about the most creative person onthe planet and you have pretty much all the money a person could have in thisworld, you still can’t purchase your own life. You can’t spend enough onresearch to stop disease. And you can’t stop humanity’s greatest enemy: death.Only One conquered it, and he had no place to lay his head.
Life is sacred. We held our breaths awaiting news on thecondition of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head at a publicevent. Oh, the value of one human, created in the image of God!
Power shifts. North Korea got a new president. And the ArabSpring spread from Tunisia, bringing down regimes in Egypt and Libya. Rememberthat pivotal statement, “Another king arose who knew not Joseph” (Exodus 1:8;Acts 7:18)? Only one government will last. Sadly, revolution rarely ushers in amore stable, sane form of rule.
Depending on how you define victory, love wins. But thediscussion about it isn’t always loving. Of course I’m not referring to theroyal wedding of Kate Middleton to Prince William. I’m alluding to the book byMichigan megachurch pastor Rob Bell.
When the wicked perish, people rejoice. The day U.S. commandos stormed Osama binLaden’s Pakistani compound, Proverbs 11:10 showed up on many tweets and FBposts: “When the righteous do well, the city rejoices; when the wicked perish,there is joy.” The same verse got quoted again when Muhmar Qaddafi was killed.And when Kim Jong Il died.
The world as we know it will someday end. Now we’re on to the newyear, when people already disagree about what we should expect on Dec. 21,2012. That’s when the Maya's "Long Count" calendar marks the end of a5,126-year era. Wait—we’ve seen this sort of date-setting before. How aboutthat California evangelist Harold Camping, announcing the world will end inMay. Or maybe or October. Or…? Perhaps in 2012 Jesus will indeed return on May21. Or October 21. Or December 21. The big question is this: No matter when,will we be ready?

And the Oscar Goes to...

2012-01-24T07:55:00.002-06:00

The Academy has spoken, and the nominations are out this morning. See if you agree:

BEST PICTURE

"The Artist"
"The Descendants"
"Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close"
"Hugo"
"Midnight in Paris"
"The Help"
"Moneyball"
"War Horse"
"The Tree of Life"

BEST ACTOR

Demian Bichir, "A Better Life"
George Clooney, "The Descendants"
Jean Dujardin, "The Artist"
Gary Oldman, "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"
Brad Pitt, "Moneyball"

BEST ACTRESS

Glenn Close, "Albert Nobbs"
Viola Davis, "The Help"
Rooney Mara, "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"
Meryl Streep, "The Iron Lady"
Michelle Williams, "My Week With Marilyn"

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Kenneth Branagh, "My Week With Marilyn"
Jonah Hill, "Moneyball"
Nick Nolte, "Warrior"
Christopher Plummer, "Beginners"
Max Von Sydow, "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close"

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Berenice Bejo, "The Artist"
Jessica Chastain, "The Help"
Melissa McCarthy, "Bridesmaids"
Janet McTeer, "Albert Nobbs"
Octavia Spencer, "The Help"

BEST DIRECTOR

Woody Allen, "Midnight in Paris"
Michel Hazanavicius, "The Artist"
Terrence Malick, "The Tree of Life"
Alexander Payne, "The Descendants"
Martin Scorsese, "Hugo"

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Woody Allen, "Midnight in Paris"
JC Chandor, "Margin Call"
Asghar Farhadi, "A Separation"
Michel Hazanavicius, "The Artist"
Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, "Bridesmaids"

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Alexander Payne, Nat Faxton, Jim Rash, "The Descendants"
John Logan, "Hugo"
George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Beau Willimon, "The Ides of March"
Aaron Sorkin, Steven Zaillian, "Moneyball"
Bridget O'Connor, Peter Straughn, "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy"

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

"A Cat In Paris"
"Chico & Rita"
"Kung Fu Panda 2"
"Puss in Boots"
"Rango"

BEST FOREIGN FEATURE

"Bullhead"
"Footnote"
"In Darkness"
"Monsier Lazhar"
"A Separation"

Six Developments in the World of Bioethics

2012-01-21T08:42:00.000-06:00

‘Three-person IVF’technique moves closer . Public opinion will help decide the future of a controversialgenetic technique to stop serious conditions being passed from mother to child(read about it in the BBC News). The technique involves takingmaterial from two different eggs and combining them to produce a healthy one.Would you want to be the human who gets to be the “trial” to see how well itworks? Me, either.

Brain Support Cells From Umbilical Cord Stem Cells . For the first timeever, (adult) stem cells from umbilical cords have been converted into othertypes of cells, which may lead to new treatment options for spinal cordinjuries and nervous system diseases, including multiple sclerosis. (See thearticle at Medical News Today.)

Artificial Testicle Could Make Sperm for Infertile Men . Researchers inCalifornia are attempting to make an artificial testicle that will producehuman sperm (see ABC News). But the director of the fertilityprogram at USC said it won’t be easy. “The processing of DNA is very complicated to go from aregular cell to a germ cell” like sperm, which have half the number ofchromosomes as other cells in the body. Not only do you have to split thechromosomes in half, but you also have to package the DNA in a very specificway. I think it will be quite challenging.”

Stop gendercide. Selective abortions are prompting a call forultrasound rules . Such rules would require waiting until after 30 weeks or pregnancyfor a fetus’s gender to be revealed. According to an editorial in the CanadianMedical Journal (CBC News), in countries such as India, China, DeKorea, and Vietnam, female fetuses are commonly aborted because of a preferencefor sons. Though by no means widespread, the practice is also carried out bysome immigrants to Canada. Waiting to disclose gender till 30 weeks or latercould help prevent discrimination against females.

U.S. doctors and researchers have too many conflicts ofinterest. That’s the opinion of the U.S. government, which is now poised to require drug companiesto disclose the payments they make to doctors for research, consulting, speaking,travel, and entertainment (see story in the NY Times).

Abort half a pregnancy? Abortions—selective reductions—to reduce twin pregnancies down tosingletons bother the consciences of many pro-choicers. The Slate explores why.

iTextbooks

2012-01-20T09:11:00.000-06:00

Did you catch Apple's announcement yesterday about creating interactive iTextbooks? Check it out here.

Coming Soon!

2012-01-17T02:30:00.000-06:00

Reading that Transforms

2012-01-16T03:30:00.000-06:00

Every Sunday afternoon I try to disengage from work and electronictechnology to engage in nap-taking, kitchen-puttering, and/or spiritualreading. By spiritual reading I mean reading that helps me think more deeplyand theologically about a topic. For the past few months I’ve been meanderingmy way through two books during this time—John Dyer’s From the Garden to the City and Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts.

Voskamp’s book focuses on making gratitude a way of life.The author often has astounding insights, but to be honest I have to limitmyself to one chapter per week because she has a nasty habit of writing purpleprose (i.e., writing passages with such flowery language that the words drawattention to themselves, thereby distracting the reader from thinking of theconcepts they illustrate). But it’s worth the work to discover how she sees gloryin the ordinary. In the past forty-eight hours, for example, I have relishedthe taste of hot, homemade crock pot applesauce; marveled at the beauty of mydaughter’s smile; appreciated the design in a pair of Tom’s shoes; noticedwhimsy in cloud formations; and marveled at the fur of my cat. Voskamp takesthe reader one step beyond such discoveries, though, to the point of gratitudefor them. It’s tough to stay angry about something when we’re giving thanks.

Dyer’s book, which I finished this past Sunday, is of a different sortfrom Voskamp’s. It’s subtitled, “The Redeeming and Corrupting Power ofTechnology,” and it provides insight regarding how to think rightly about technology.

In this week's chapter (my favorite) Dyer likened our constantchecking of webtracking stats to King David’s numbering his troops (2 Sam. 24;1 Chron. 21). “What was once available only to kings,” Dyer argues, “is nowavailable to all of us. At any moment we can get up-to-date statistics on ourfans, friends, and followers. Again, the statistics themselves are not sinful.The problem is that the more we use it, the more tempted we are to value whatthe technology values—numbers—over what the Scriptures would have usvalue.” (Or, I imagine, the flip side of devaluing ourselves when these numbers stink.)

Dyer also made application from how the elder John viewedthe technology of his day—letter writing. In 2 John 12 we read, “Though I havemuch to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead I hope tocome to you and talk face to face, so that our joy may be made complete.” A letter, Dyer notes, typically goes from oneisolated individual to another. And the elder John’s joy was never “complete” with such isolation. Joy came only when he had face-time with the community. Clearly he viewed technology-mediatedrelationships as inferior to embodied relationships.

I immediately thought of a parallel. I love keeping upwith my niece Heather through Words with Friends, Facebook, and blog comments,but none of that came close to the joy I experienced last month sitting in herkitchen in Portland and later sharing a meal with her and her husband. And it bugs me when I call on someone in their living room and they constantly check out of the conversation to check email on the smartphone. Or students check email during class discussion time.

Bothbodied and disembodied forms of communication are real, Dyer argues, but onlythe face-to-face contact offers real joy. The danger for us, then, is to allowvirtual communication to replace “the kind of life-giving, table-oriented lifethat Jesus cultivated among his disciples.” We should use technology, then, inservice to the embodied life and not the embodied life in service totechnology.

Interestingly the two books have one application or "take away" in common for me: to live fully right where I am. To embrace face time with people instead of checking emails when they're present. And to notice the beauty and give thanks for it in the "today" rather than always looking toward tomorrow.

MLK Jr Day

2012-01-16T02:30:00.000-06:00

Happy birthday, Dr. King! Thanks for not giving up on your dream or resorting to violence to pull it off.

Terrific Documentary

2012-01-15T04:30:00.000-06:00

Remember the Robert Redford movie, "Horse Whisperer"? The protagonist in that film is patterned after Buck Brannaman, the real-life wrangler who ended up coaching Redford in the role. "Buck," the documentary about Buck and his work, is much more than a profile It reveals a lot about human nature and the choice to overcome an excruciating past. Look for this little flick to to pull off an Oscar nomination. It already won the "Audience" award at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Good Stem Cell Research

2012-01-14T09:10:00.000-06:00

Have you seen this video of the skin gun, the latest technology for helping burn victims? This flick has gone viral, and it's mostly true. Note that it's a dramatization, and not consisting of actual before-and-after photos. You'll also note the glaring lack of any mention of clinical trials. So it's future, not current tech. That means you won't find the skin gun in your local hospital or derma clinic--yet. But it's on the horizon and amazing to consider. By the way, the stem cells used are adult stem cells taken from patients' own skin. No embryos were killed in the healing of this man's burn.

Bioethics In the News

2012-01-13T17:05:00.001-06:00

Let's Limit Embryo Transfers:
A new fertility-treatment study has found that women who receive three or more embryos have no better odds of giving birth than those who receive only two embryos. (Washington Post)

FDA Warning: About Illegal Stem Cell Treatments
The FDA announced this week that patients' hopes for cures leave them vulnerable prey for providers of illegal and potentially harmful stem cell treatments. (Medical Daily)

Surrogacy: A Growing International Injustice
International surrogacy is a growing business thanks to Westerners hiring poor women in developing countries to carry their babies. But media attention could change that. (Slate)

Skipping the Banks, Making Online Deals
Women are increasingly making online connections with men willing to donate sperm for free, skirting the expensive option of using a sperm bank with all its regulations, tests, and verifications. (ABC News)

Midnight in Paris

2012-01-11T22:16:00.000-06:00

So this engaged couple, Gil andInez, tag along with her parents on Inez’s dad's business trip. To Paris. And as their story unfolds, we learn that Gil(Owen Wilson) is a Hollywood writer, successful financially with an elite joband an elite address. But of course he’s unsatisfied in his work because helongs to write the GAM. Doesn’t everybody? But he’s struggling to make thestory work.

The city of Paris inspires him. Hesees beauty everywhere, even in the rain. Maybe even especially in the rain. Hecan imagine what the place must have been like in the 1920’s, which heconsiders Paris’s Golden Age. So he tells his fiancée (Rachel McAdams) theyshould move there after they get married. And that flies over like a stainless steel baseball.

Not only does Inez disagree withGil’s romanticized view of the city; she also doesn’t share his assessment ofthe golden age. In fact she doesn’t actually share any of his views. On anything. Nor doesshe seem all that excited to be with him.

So she takes off dancing with herfriends. And while she’s hunting excitement, Gil takes a walk at midnight—hisfirst of several. And each time he does, along comes a 1920’s vintage car thatpicks him up. Next thing you know, the guy is meeting T. S. Eliot, GertrudeStein, Pablo Picasso, Cole Porter, the Fitzgeralds (as in F. Scott), andEarnest Hemingway. To name a few.

The excursions don’t exactly drawthe couple together. And that’s where I’ll leave their story. Though it comes to a satisfying resolution, their flawedrelationship isn’t the cool thing about this film.

And cool it is. Though I’m not ahuge fan of His Strangeness, Woody Allen, about once every decade he creates atruly great flick. And this is one of those. What makes it terrific is art andlit. First, he introduces Paris in its beauty. The camera lingers. Even theopening shots of the city last longer than your typical pans across alandscape. He provides the viewer with a visual feast. Or perhaps I should say a movable one?

Second, the viewer has the pleasure of meeting all thesegreat visual and literary artists, getting to know them through their own wordsin their own contexts and relationships. The personalities come complete withthe individual quirks for which they are known, like womanizing (Picasso), machobravado (Hemingway), and melodrama (Zelda Fitzgerald). So much art and creativity all in one place. Love.

2012-01-11T19:02:00.000-06:00

Today is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. You'll find lots of resources here. Linda Tomczak's article has lots of helpful ways the average person can do something.

2012-01-10T09:36:00.005-06:00

Today's my day to post over at Tapestry. My topic: No Girls Allowed?

Did you see the Youtube video, “Riley on Marketing” that went viral? Diane Sawyer later interviewed little Riley, who ranted right in the middle of the toy store about how little girls like her get relegated to only pink princess toys while boys get all the other colors—and only the boys get to be superheroes.

Riley, who loves to dress up as Batgirl, pushed back against the kind of thinking that says “girl = only princess; boy = superhero.”

In a related conversation, my friend Rhonda expressed frustration that Crayola had a similar marketing mentality for their Story Studio™. Crayola’s web ad featured only boys for the superhero story lines. Rhonda wrote, “Of course, there is a princess story line. In pink. You know. For the girls. I think I should send Crayola Riley's marketing advice.”

I see a similar version of gender stereotyping in the church. Two examples come to mind: first, only boys were made to be the communicators of truth; and second, that husbands only are designed for final decision-making.

First off, if only men are content providers and women made to receive content, why did any women in 1 Corinthians 11 exercise the gift of prophecy in public? Why did Paul assume women would speak truth at all? And why was it considered a beautiful sign of the Spirit’s presence when women prophesied on the Day of Pentecost (Joel 2, Acts 2)—a sign that will reach its fulfillment in the future? Was it only to men that Paul exhorted, “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and exhorting one another with all wisdom” (Col. 3:16)? Was it only about males that the writer to the Hebrews lamented “By now you should be teachers” (5:12)?

As for the husband making all the final decisions, a lot of Christian marriage conference instructors tell couples who habitually make mutual decisions that the husband needs to man-up. As part of such teaching the couple is told that the husband should listen to his wife’s input and then make the final decision as “head.” Such instructors understand “head” as the top of an org chart, not a head connected to a body, operating as one unit with the goal of unity. (Notice sometime how Paul differentiates between “head of” and “head over.”) The teachers even sometimes explain their logic behind “man has final say” teaching by insisting that the couple would have a hopeless power struggle if they shared equal authority, so somebody has to make the decision. Yet some of these same teachers are elders in churches where all elders hold the same level of authority. And these groups of elders somehow manage to come to a consensus.

I saw an example recently of two mature Christians disagreeing. “You sit in the front seat next to the driver,” the husband told his young wife.

“No,” she said. “You sit up there.” She opened the door to the back seat.

They went back and forth another time, each insisting the other have the better seat. Seeing they were at an impasse, they both agreed that the husband should take the front because it had more leg room. That is how a mature disagreement looks. Both consider the other as more important. And they can work it out and come to a place of mutual agreement.

Let’s consider the only New Testament examples given for when a couple actually needs to make a decision. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul says the husband does not have final say about his own body; his wife does. And the wife does not have final say about her own body; her husband does. No hierarchy there. In fact it sounds a lot like mutuality. And when it’s time to abstain so they can devote themselves to prayer, the husband as the spiritual leader determines they should do so. Right? Wait. No. What? That’s not what Paul says?

The apostle assumes a mature couple can decide mutually, doesn’t he? He says nothing about the male taking spiritual initiative, being the spiritual leader or priest, having final say, manning up, or exerting his masculine influence. We see no princess and Superman here. It’s more like Batboy and Batgirl.

Some use Romans 5:12-21 as their basis of the idea that the husband has more spiritual authority than the wife. In this section of scripture, Paul talks about how the entire human race sinned through Adam. From Paul’s silence about Eve, people conclude she was held less responsible because Adam takes the heat. But that’s not at all the argument Paul is building! Instead, he is making a case about the first man and the Second Man—with the Second overturning the legacy of the first. Adam and Jesus were both sons of God in ways no other humans can claim. Both had their generation directly from God: Adam had no need for a belly button; Jesus’ biological Father was God. And the Second shall be First.

May we as women be filled with the Word so we may teach and exhort with all wisdom. And may the wives among us be all about unity with our husbands, standing side by side together with them. As we honor one another by Word-filled teaching and decision-making, we will do a better job of glorifying our Lord, who is the Head over all things (Eph 1:22).

Violence Heats Up in Nigeria

2012-01-09T16:50:00.000-06:00

One of our students at DTS is from Gombe, Nigeria. At Christmas he went home to see his wife and three children under age 10. He must now move his family eight hundred miles away to Lagos because of severe persecution of Christians by radical Muslims. Please pray for the safety of this student, his family, and for wisdom as they deal with the situation.

Compass Direct News is reporting that the number of Christians killed in an Islamic extremist attack in Gombe on Thursday (Jan. 5) has risen to nine, and over the weekend the same terrorist group killed at least 21 Christians in neighboring Adamawa state, sources said.

Members of the Boko Haram group that seeks to impose sharia (Islamic law) on Nigeria emerged from a mosque near the Deeper Life Bible Church in the Boso area of Gombe, capital of Gombe state, at about 7:30 p.m. and shot Christians attending a weekly meeting known as “The Hour of Revival,” area sources said. Silas Ugboeze, who was in coma for three days at the Federal Medical Centre in Gombe, died 20 minutes after Compass arrived on Saturday (Jan. 7), bringing the death toll to nine and the list of those wounded in the attack to 19. Ugboeze’s son Gideon was also killed, and his 12-year-old daughter, Victoria Silas Ugboeze, was wounded in both breasts. She has thus far survived along with her brother Daniel, who was also shot.

Boko Haram had published an ultimatum in a newspaper on Tuesday (Jan. 3) threatening violence if Christians did not leave predominantly Muslim northern Nigeria in three days. Since then, the group has claimed responsibility for killing at least 44 people in four states. In Adamawa, on Friday night (Jan. 6), 11 people were killed and many others injured at the Christ Apostolic Church (CAC) in the Nasarawa area of Yola, the state capital. Earlier on Friday, 12 persons were reportedly killed when armed men claimed by Boko Haram shot a gathering of Christian traders holding a prayer session before opening their shops in Mubi, Adamawa. The gunmen also shot at another group of Christians meeting at a town hall to arrange for the transportation of relatives slain the previous day, bringing the total of those killed in Mubi to 21.

Jerry Johnson, one of the Christians shot in the Gombe attack, was shot in the legs. (The photo of Jerry appears courtesy of Compass Direct News.)

The Tree of Life

2012-01-05T17:27:00.000-06:00

Over the holidays, my hubby and I watched “The Tree of Life, a 2011 drama written and directed by Terence Malick. The flick had some big stars: Sean Penn, Brad Pitt, and Jessica Chastain. I liked it; Gary didn’t.

The film begins with the question God asked Job when challenged about the “why” of suffering: Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? And you’ll recall God’s answer, as revealed in the Good Book: He took Job on a nature walk; He never gave a prose response. He just reminded Job of evidences that reveal God’s wisdom and power—attributes far beyond humans’ ability to comprehend. Which is probably where the answer to suffering lies.

“The Tree of Life” explores the same question and answer as Penn’s character reflects on his childhood living in Texas in the 1950’s. Interspersed with that chronology, the viewer also sees footage of outer-space galaxies and an artist’s rendering of the world’s origins.

When the movie finally released at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival after missing ’09 and ’10 release dates, it won the festival's golden prize. But not everybody loved Malick’s artistic images and all-over-the-map narrative with its unclear chronology. Hence hubby’s thumb’s down, and my thumb’s up. Guess you’ll have to see it and decide for yourself. Don't miss the gorgeous post-scoring. A soundtrack worth purchasing.

Golf Flick

2012-01-05T16:51:00.002-06:00

Got a review copy of "Seven Days in Utopia" and watched it with my husband last night. It has a thin plot: Golfer with temper messes up his game and rediscovers it during a week in small-town Texas. Robert Duvall, a terrific actor, carries the film. The script-writing is awful in places; and a lot of the acting, marginal. Safe for kids. Full of good values and pretty scenery (though as someone who has lived in Oregon, I found it tough to swallow the characters' exclamation that the Texas scenery is "magnificent!"). I wanted to like this film. Really, I did. And it wasn't a total waste of two hours. But "Seven Days in Utopia" is unlikely to be anybody's "favorite film ever." Sorry. Two stars.

Fascinating article

2012-01-04T11:03:00.003-06:00

The New York Times recently ran an interesting article profiling a young couple with Aspergers seeking to navigate a relationship. The piece put into words why I bristled recently at a restaurant when the owner expressed frustration that some people just don't have the courtesy to look a waiter in the eye and place an order. Not everybody who has trouble doing that is being rude....

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T16:32:00.005-06:00

Every year I list ideas to help readers be intentional about enriching their new year. Here’s my 2012 version:

. Visit a friend who moved away.

. See an ocean.

. Donate your used cell phone to charity.

. Plant something. (I plan to re-try on the basil the 2011 Texas summer killed.)

. Switch from one less healthy to one more healthy option. I'm thinking less red meat, more fish.

. Make a plan for Bible study. I like anything by Crickett Keith at bible.org (free).

. If married, read a book on improving communication. I love Mike Mason’s The Mystery of Marriage.

. If you have kids, read a book on parenting.

. Write regularly to the child you support overseas.

. Read aloud to someone.

. Catch up on your magazine reading—then take your stack of used mags to Half-Price books or a re-sale book store.

. Choose one book from the best-seller list and order it.

. Choose one classic and read it, too. Have you ever read Uncle Tom’s Cabin?

. Take a class. Want to learn to cook French food? Go for it. Learn Photoshop? Do it! Write for publication? Find a teacher who'll assign deadlines.

. Take everything out of your freezer. Make a list of all you have and figure out a plan to use it all before expiration dates.

. Write a letter to a public official saying something nice.

. Make somebody breakfast in bed.

. Clean your closets and donate last year's (decade's?) fashions, including jewelry, to an organization that can use them.

. Go local. Read a local author; visit your farmer’s market; patronize one of your town’s family-owned restaurants; switch from a bank to a credit union.

. Donate unused books to your public or school library.

. Donate old eyeglasses to an organization that can use them.

. Replace plastic water bottles with a reusable bottle.

. Put bags in your car so you won’t need more plastic next time you go grocery shopping.

. Befriend someone who thinks totally differently from you. Ask lots of questions and really listen. Try hard to understand.

. Soften your tone. If you can’t stand Mitt Romney, read something he’s written and try to see his point of view. If you’re a complementarian, read an egalitarian book with an open mind.

. Load into your MP3 player some songs outside of your normal category. A polka number? A hymn? Some Turkish folk music? The Eagles? I just added 10 songs from the "Majors and Minors" TV show.

. Read a book (or listen on tape) on the history of China or scientific findings since Mt. St Helens erupted or a graphic novel—something about which you know little to nothing. If you can get a friend to do it with you, all the better.

. Attend a lecture.

. Park at the far end of the parking lot and walk.

. Take a meal to someone in need. Not a close friend—someone who will be truly surprised.

. Memorize a poem. How about Milton’s “On Blindness"? Or something by George Herbert or Emily Dickinson?

. Resolve to take one photo per day. Select a theme for 2012. Doors? Trees? Faces?

. Make a plan to get out of debt. Tell someone and ask him or her to help you stay accountable.

. Plan ahead for baby showers, birthdays, and weddings. What would you give if you didn’t have to rush?

. Turn your cotton remnants into pillowcases for the homeless. Or send them to me so my sister can.

. Write a letter longhand and send it by snail mail.

. Take a walk through your neighborhood. Stop to chat with anyone you find outside.

Share other ideas you have!

Austria bans donor gametes in IVF

2011-12-31T15:05:00.002-06:00

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) upheld Austria's ban on the use of donor sperm and eggs during in vitro fertilization procedures. You can read more here. Earlier the same court ruled against destroying human embryos for scientific research.

Girls Like Superheroes, Too

2011-12-30T12:47:00.001-06:00

Christmas in Cali

2011-12-29T10:21:00.019-06:00

After our Aussie friends promised to bring the homemade "crackers" for Christmas Eve dinner in Mesquite, I phoned to find out if crackers were appetizers or with-dinner fare. I learned they're neither--they're noisemakers...part of why I love having international students around!

For the first time ever we did the big feast and stockings on Christmas Eve, because...

We rose at 4:15 AM on Christmas morning and joined my sister Mary and her family at the airport for a 7:15 AM flight to San Jose (one big family gift this year). Several months back, we found steal-deal rates, and as Mary's in-laws' health kept them from coming to Dallas, we all went to them.

The pilot was apparently eager to get us to our destination, because he shaved fifty minutes off our flight time. We arrived at Dick and Bernice's in Stockton just in time for (Pacific time) Christmas brunch and "socks." D&B had created a sock/stocking for each of us with fun stuff inside. Following a big dinner late in the afternoon, we worked a puzzle and rediscovered the art of conversation. Oh, and our girl developed some serious muscles sword fighting on the Wii.

I had a fab birthday on the 26th. Our family and my sis's made the gorgeous two-hour drive over to Lake Tahoe. There we had superb weather and enjoyed a lakeside picnic followed by a walk in fresh, mountain air. On our way back to Stockton, we watched the sunset and the moonrise over silhouetted fir trees. And Dick made me a birthday cake complete with a sparkler-fire crazy candle that opened and played "Happy Birthday."

On the 27th my sis, nieces, and husband drove up to Sutter Creek for more beauty and meandering through fun little shops. That night our little family slid into the hot tub and enjoyed watching the moon and stars through fir branches as steam rose from our bodies.

Yesterday morning Dick made us sourdough waffles (my dad always made those on Sundays for us when Mary and I were little). I picked oranges and a lemon from front-yard trees and squeezed a pitcher full of tart juice out of them. Yum.

Our family departed yesterday, but while en route to the airport, we received notification from American Airlines that we had a two-hour flight delay. Perfect. The airport is right on the way to Santa Cruz, so we headed straight for the coast. Dazzling weather. A beautiful drive through more fir trees. And surfer-watching. Our daughter loves all things surfing, and a couple of kind wave-cutters accommodated her request for a photo opp.

We fell into bed last night around 2 AM Dallas time, so we're all dragging a bit today. But we feel so thankful for great family and friends, and a chance to get a West Coast beauty-fix. Ahhhh!

Last night at Les Mis

2011-12-23T09:39:00.003-06:00

We have a Christmas tradition of catching a show as a family. So last night we saw the 25th Anniversary production of Les Miserables. Our friends Kelley and John Mathews joined us for a double date. Fantastico!

The fam at Dev's graduation

2011-12-23T09:38:00.000-06:00

The Fighting Bronte Sisters

2011-12-23T09:07:00.002-06:00

One of my former students sent me this. Hilarious!

Papa Murphy's - Finally!

2011-12-20T06:51:00.008-06:00

Our town, Mesquite, has long needed a bake-your-own pizza place. And finally we have one. Papa Murphy's has arrived, and it fits the bill.

My parents have been in town since Thursday for my niece's college graduation. (They return to the Pacific Northwest [PNW] today.) But on Saturday, the day of graduation, we all returned from an overnight in College Station (a three-hour drive) too late to start cooking dinner for eight. So we checked out the new Mesquite Papa Murphy's Take-and-Bake pizza place.

Not only did we feed eight people with yummy food for $17 (good product, good price); we also came away with something for my mom, who needs gluten-free everything (and soy-free and dairy-free). It's not that the Mesquite Papa Murphy's sells gluten-free pizza. They don't. They told us they can't because there's too much risk for contamination, what with all the flour and dough around. (Integrity.) But in response to our sad faces, the manager loaded us up with a container of sauce, Canadian bacon, and pineapple. And he gave it to us for free. FREE. (Good service.)

Two employees told us they can sometimes accommodate customers' unique requests if they're not swamped. Yet they gave us these extra goods at a time when the pre-Cowboy's game crowd kept the place hopping.

Welcome to town!

(Across Belt Line from Tom Thumb in Mesquite)

Top Ten from 2011

2011-12-16T14:46:00.002-06:00

The New York Times has announced their top ten most notable books for 2011. Their list includes four first novels, along with Stephen King’s fifty-second book.

The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach

11/22/63, by Stephen King

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

Ten Thousand Saints, by Eleanor Henderson

The Tiger’s Wife, by Téa Obreht

Arguably, by the newly late Christopher Hitchen

The Boy in the Moon, by Ian Brown

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, by Manning Marable

Thinking: Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman

A World on Fire, by Amanda Foreman

A Bit of an Update

2011-12-16T08:26:00.002-06:00

My parents arrived last night from Oregon. My niece graduates tomorrow from Texas A&M, so over the next few days we plan to celebrate an early Christmas with everyone together. What a blessing!

I'm making progress on the dissertation. My committee chair recommends a summer or fall graduation, rather than spring. Now that I have only one paper left to grade and a few grades left to enter to close out the semester of teaching, I hope to buckle down soon and get after what's left. Then I'll need some readers to help me find typos.

In the spring I am slated to teach Advanced Creative Writing and Journalism. The latter is full with a waiting list, but I still have some openings for the ACW class. Gary is putting together a February trip to Africa that focuses on working with kids. It's open to public participation, if you want to think about joining his team.

We decorated the tree last night. Wherever we travel, we buy an ornament. So when we decorate, it's fun to remember backpacking the Grand Canyon, the 20th anniversary trip to Maui, visiting the Guggenheim Museum, waterskiing on Lake of the Ozarks, and hunting through bazaars in Istanbul. Our tree stands as a reminder of wonderful experiences shared and years of blessing as a family. One ornament has a photo of our daughter in her toothless stage. I believe we took that shot only last week.

Benefit Charity While You Shop

2011-12-15T06:13:00.003-06:00

Just a gentle reminder--if you order stuff on Amazon for Christmas (or anytime!), please swing by here and use the Amazon link box in the right column of this blog. A percentage of your purchase--at no extra cost to you--will benefit our work in East Africa. Right now one of our national co-workers has requested a digital camera, so he can photograph kids needing sponsors. Gary plans to see him in February, which would be a great time to make a camera delivery.

2011-12-15T02:05:00.001-06:00

On October 1, 2011, an unprecedented historic event occurred—one that all biblical scholars and professors need to be aware of. Dr. Bart D. Ehrman, James A. Gray Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and Dr. Daniel B. Wallace, Professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary and Executive Director of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, debated the reliability of the text of the New Testament before nearly 1,500 individuals at the McFarlin Memorial Auditorium on the campus of Southern Methodist University. The debate was moderated by Dr. Mark Chancey, the Religious Studies department chair at SMU, who earned his PhD under Ehrman’s tutelage.

Ehrman and Wallace were seeking to answer the question, Can we trust the reliability of the New Testament? Dr. Ehrman throughout the debate constantly argued that the text of the New Testament was corrupted beyond repair. Dr. Wallace countered by stating that much evidence exists that affirms the reliability of the text—including from the first 200 years. This was the largest debate over the text of the New Testament in history. A professional film crew recorded the debate, which is now available for sale. In this exciting and historic dialogue you have the opportunity to listen to two leading scholars talk about this issue from opposing viewpoints—and they do it in terms that non-specialists and students can understand.

You can purchase the DVD by clicking on this link— www.csntm.org. The DVD is priced at only $15.50 plus shipping and handling. It is available in both U.S. (NTSC) and international (PAL) versions.

Christmas, According to Paul

2011-12-14T09:07:00.008-06:00

Yesterday was my day to post on the Tapestry blog. Here's what I wrote:

Often when we read biblical accounts of the first Advent, we go to the Gospels especially Luke 2 (“And there were shepherds abiding in their fields…”), which is great. These accounts provide the point of view of the nativity events from earth’s perspective.

Yet another passage shifts the point of view and allows us a glimpse of the incarnation from the perspective of heaven. We don’t often think of it as a Christmas text, yet it helps us comprehend what was involved in God becoming human:

2:5 You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had,

2:6 who though he existed in the form of God
did not regard equality with God
as something to be grasped,
2:7 but emptied himself
by taking on the form of a slave,
by looking like other men,
and by sharing in human nature.
2:8 He humbled himself,
by becoming obedient to the point of death
– even death on a cross!
2:9 As a result God exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
2:10 so that at the name of Jesus
every knee will bow
– in heaven and on earth and under the earth –
2:11 and every tongue confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord
to the glory of God the Father.

Did you notice that little phrase, “he existed in the form of God” (2:6)? The Son of God existed before his own birth! That’s why we say of Christ that he was “begotten not created” (the very phrase that appears in “O Come, All Ye Faithful”). God created you and me from egg and sperm, but Christ was not created. “In the beginning the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1). He was and is and is to come.

The Second Person of the Trinity, fully God, demonstrated His humility in “not clinging to equality,” but emptying Himself. In doing so he, who had never known what was to obey, learned to do so by submitting his will to the Father’s. He took on the form of a slave and did for humanity what we could not do for ourselves.

What does it mean when it says that Jesus existed in the form of God? The word “form” inPhil. 2:6 is translated from "morphe," from which we get the word “metamorphosis.” Though sometimes in English we use “form” to mean the outward shape of something—as in, “The cake has a round form”—that’s not how Paul uses it. He’s speaking of Christ’s essential nature or actual substance rather than only His outward appearance. Paul was saying that in Jesus’ nature, He was God. Yet Jesus took on the form, or essential nature, of a servant.

Bear in mind the point Paul is making here in the broader context—that of the absolute humility of the Son and how we are to share the same attitude. The Son was God, yet He humbled himself. And how far his humility bent him low!

The nature of Jesus Christ has been the subject of past councils, and orthodox theologians have written volumes on it. Heretics have said Jesus was fully human but not fully God; that He was fully God but not fully human; that he was half-human and half-God; that he had a human body, but a divine mind and spirit; that he had two separate persons, one divine and one human; that he had only one nature, the human absorbed into the divine; and that He is below the Father in a hierarchy. All such ideas are erroneous. The Chalcedonian Council was convened in A.D. 451 to articulate orthodox theology, and together the world’s top Christian theologians, after searching the scriptures rigorously, wrote the Chalcedonian Creed:

We, then, following the holy Father, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man; of a reasonable/rational soul and body; consubstantial (having the same nature or substance) with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of the natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one person and one subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God, the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning have declared concerning him, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has been handed down to us.

The one who is “very God of very God” left heaven to become human. He was rich, yet He became poor for us. O come, let us adore Him!

(Excerpted and adapted from Frappé with Philippians (AMG), by Sandra Glahn.)

Christmastime in the PNW

2011-12-11T16:18:00.008-06:00

I just returned from spending four days with my sister Carrie's family, parents, brother David, niece and neph-in-law in the PNW.

We watched the Christmas Ships parade on the Columbia River, went out for ice cream in 27-degree weather (they also served marionberry pie), and caught my nephew's dramatic production of "My Son, Pinocchio." I drove in snow, too.

On the way home, I had the luxury of being the only person on the entire plane who had a free seat next to me--and that meant I could scoot over by the window and catch breathtaking views of the Cascades, and later a moonrise over Jackson Hole, Wyoming. What a show!

My Top 5 Christmas Movies

2011-12-05T01:00:00.000-06:00

In order of preference:

Holiday Inn
White Christmas
It's a Wonderful Life
Charlie Brown Christmas
Elf

Got a fave that's not on my list?

From Mt. Sinai to Dallas

2011-12-04T01:21:00.001-06:00

I found this info worth noting and passing on:

The Center for New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM) recently hosted Father Justin, librarian at St. Catherine's Monastery in Mt. Sinai, Egypt.

Born in El Paso into a Baptist home, Father Justin discovered the world of Greek Orthodoxy in college at the University of Texas. After serving twenty years at a monastery in Brookline, Massachusetts, he became the first non-Greek to live in St. Catherine’s Monastery. Now, many years later, he has been appointed to the position of librarian there.

Father Justin’s duties include photographing the 1,200 manuscripts discovered in 1975 in a hidden compartment at the monastery. This number increased St. Catherine’s holdings to 3,300, making its collection of ancient manuscripts the second largest in the world, second only to the Vatican.

According to CSNTM, "Among the 3,300 manuscripts housed at St. Catherine’s Monastery, the most important and well known is Codex Sinaiticus—the oldest complete New Testament in existence. The history of this manuscript is wrought with mystery, politics, and perhaps even some deception as the bulk of it was taken from the monastery in the mid-1800s. With this codex, along with the thousands of others, it becomes difficult to overestimate the value of St. Catherine’s Monastery to textual research."

As Father Justin's role and CSNTM's goal overlap, CSNTM hopes to continue partnering with Father Justin and St. Catherine’s in the work of digitally preserving the text of the New Testament.

African Cuisine

2011-12-03T12:35:00.003-06:00

Gary’s nephew and his new bride, Almaz, were in town yesterday on their way to San Angelo. And since Almaz is Ethiopian and the happy couple have purchased a one-way ticket back in January, we took them out for Ethiopian food last night. After reading some reviews, we opted for a restaurant called “Ibex” (I found a great discount for Ibex from restaurant.com—check it out). Following dinner we made a drive-through of Dallas’ über-rich Highland Park with its amazing Christmas lights.

The restaurant sits on the ground floor of what looks like a plain office building on Greenville, barely north of Forest Lane. But inside we found a nice atmosphere with pleasant Ethiopian music playing loud enough for Almaz to understand the lyrics but low enough that we could talk without feeling like we had to talk over anything.

Fortunately we had Almaz to order for us, but that also means I’m not totally sure of all the choices on our combo dish for five. I can say only that it came with compartments of sauces, salads, and beef tips (everyone’s fave) along with a perfectly cooked chicken thigh. It also contained the traditional hard-boiled egg in red wot. Everything lay on a base of injera, the spongy-bread staple of the Horn of Africa. Carefully rolled and laying atop the smorgasbord were eight rolled-up injera pancakes so we could each tear off pieces to sop and scoop our food. The less experienced of us required two hands. Apparently the pro’s do it all with their right hand only—which Rob and his bride proceeded to do. I wiped my messy mitts frequently on napkins; they had the self-control to wait till they’d finished eating to clean up.

We had our choice of the usual square restaurant table or the beautiful Ethiopian Messob table, which is weaved and where traditional meals in Ethiopia are served. Of course we opted for the full experience. The top lid was removed and our waitress brought our large, round tray of food and placed it in the middle so we could sit around and eat “family style.” This setup is much more conducive to intimate conversation. But then, Ethiopian food, with its oversized platters, is made for socializing.

The service was excellent till we needed our bill. Then it took four requests and two get-up-and-asks before we could depart. So I recommend it, but if you go, make sure you have nothing else on your agenda for the night.

Ibex Dallas
1255 Greenville Ave. Dallas

Women's History: The Pendulum Swings

2011-12-03T01:20:00.000-06:00

Recently in my Role of Women class we had guest speaker Dr. Barry Jones, who teaches at DTS and serves on the preaching team at Irving Bible Church. He shared with our group the process of how his church moved toward a stronger affirmation of women’s public ministry and what they learned—pro and con—in the process.

As part of our discussion, he provided some historical information from Women, Ministry, and The Gospel, by Tim Larson at Wheaton. He showed how at the time of first-wave feminism, the church was more committed to gender equality than the culture at large. People such as John Wesley, George Whitfield, D. L. Moody, A. J. Gordon [Gordon College/Gordon-Conwell], A. B. Simpson and John Roach Stranton all affirmed women’s public teaching ministries. Even the wife of conservative W. A. Criswell, architect of the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Church, spent years of Sundays teaching a mixed-gender Sunday school class for several hundred people. (I remember a time when I could hear her teaching that class on the radio.)

So, what happened? Why did the pendulum swing back toward limiting women’s public speaking in the church? Dr. Jones offered three reasons:

. Men returned from war. Post-WWII, men displaced women as they returned from combat and wanted their factory jobs back. The culture at large saw the need to re-establish the role of men, and part of the accompanying dogma was that a women’s “place” is in the home. I would add to this the influence of Sigmund Freud. The concept of “penis envy” was applied to women who liked their jobs and wanted to keep them. Such women were told that they were not fully sexualized, and their desire to work demonstrated something amiss in their sexual development.

. Second-wave feminism. Once women gained the right to vote, the movement had splintered, as people differed on what to do next about injustices to women. Should they fight for literacy? Go after equal pay? Some in the movement saw reproductive rights as the next step. The church reacted, and we see this reflected in more conservative translations of the Bible (compare the KJV’s 1611 translation of 1 Tim 2 with later translations), and with a push toward more of a one-size-fits-all view of masculinity and femininity.

. Twentieth-century Pentecostalism. Pentecostalism, born as a movement in 1901, had made great gains worldwide, and conservatives reacted. The result was a marked difference in how scholars viewed various forms of the word “prophesy.” Since some of the “woman” texts in the New Testament contain this word, a more conservative view meant less freedom for women to impart content in public settings.

2011-12-02T08:43:00.000-06:00

A quick guest at Carlos and Karla's wedding grabbed a short video of the flash mob. The groom is the guy wearing the white tie.

Christmas Devotional Reading

2011-12-01T21:50:00.001-06:00

Happy December 1! Twenty-five days 'til Christmas.

Members of the Dallas Seminary faculty teamed up with our Advancement, Creative Services, and Web Development departments to provide Christmas devotionals that direct our worship of and reflection on the King of Kings. You can find a new one each day at http://advent.dts.edu/ (and you'll find my contribution on December 11).

Disinherit the Wind

2011-12-01T04:58:00.006-06:00

Recently we watched a review copy of “Alleged,” a romantic drama based on events that occurred behind the scenes of the famous Scopes “Monkey Trial” of 1925.

In this flick Charles Anderson (Nathan West) is a talented young reporter who feels trapped in Dayton, Tennessee, at a time of decline. The trial happens in his town (actually the trial's created to infuse some income into the place), and he can’t resist when he lands a once-in-a-lifetime chance to break into the journalistic big leagues as the protégé of influential Baltimore Sun editor H.L Mencken (Colm Meaney).

At the "Trial of the Century," the great Clarence Darrow (Brian Dennehy) defends evolution against the popular statesman William Jennings Bryan (Fred Thompson), whose beliefs were actually not all that fundamentalist. (For example, he believed the six days of creation were six geological periods.) Charles finds himself torn between his love for Rose (Ashley Johnson—“What a Girl Wants”) and the ethical compromises Mencken expects him to make.

“Alleged” uses the fictional Charles and Rose to present actual conflicts that boiled over in 1925 and continue to simmer today — evolution and creation in the public schools, the role of science in society, and media sensationalism motivated by religious and political biases on both sides.

“Alleged” is not a retelling of the famous Monkey Trial, yet the trial provides a real-life backdrop to reveal biases, controversial issues, and character flaws. The film is less about the trial and more about honesty in journalism and telling the truth. Oh, and a romance.

"Alleged" has some A-list actors and decent production values. But the plot is disjointed in places, making it difficult always to follow what’s going on and who believes what. A number of characters seem more like caricatures than real humans. But the film raises important issues and it's worth overlooking some flaws. Here are a few facts I found when digging around after I saw it:.

. More than 60,000 Americans were sterilized in America against their will in the name of eugenics.

. Stanley Kramer's classic film, Inherit the Wind (1960, with Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, and Gene Kelly), was loosely based on the events of the Scopes Monkey Trial, but names were changed and other modifications made such that the movie didn’t adhere reliably to the facts of the trial. While “Alleged” is not a remake of Inherit the Wind, Kramer's film fits the premise of "Alleged" to the extent that certain political and religious biases held by the writers of Inherit the Wind motivated them to modify the actual events into an alternative story that is now largely believed.

. Various "lies" about the actual Scopes Trail that are largely believed to be true include:

The State of TN outlawed the teaching of evolution in 1925. (It permitted the teaching of 99.999% of Darwinian theory.)
The textbook used by Scopes in 1925 was a "Christian" version of biology and excluded evolution. (It was 100% evolutionary.)
Clarence Darrow performed brilliantly in Dayton. (The ACLU sought to have him removed from the case on appeal due to his strategies and conduct at the trial.)
Bryan feared allowing evolutionary scientists at the trial. (It was Darrow who kept the scientists off the stand when the Judge determined that they could be cross-examined on the stand.)

For a comparison of the movie Inherit the Wind with the facts of the actual Scopes trial, you can see www.themonkeytrial.com. But first watch Alleged. It'll make you think. And isn't that the point?

I Like Oak Cliff Restaurants

2011-11-30T17:44:00.007-06:00

I made another trek today down to the South Dallas suburb of Oak Cliff at the invitation of Sharifa, who finds the best indy places to eat. If I lived near her, my nickname would be “dirigible,” for sure.

Sha wanted me to meet a friend who is exploring role-of-women issues, and since that happens to be one of my passions, it was a natch. Only problem was, I set up the appointment more than a month ago, delaying till I had my dissertation finished. Or so I thought. Oops.

We met at Oddfellows. I couldn’t find it at first because I remembered the name as Goodfellows. So that was tough on the confused GPS, which also missed a major turn because it’s outdated. Note to self: Update the GPS if you dislike getting lost. Once I got that little name detail corrected, I found Oddfellows without any trouble, though the noon traffic in Dallas was a bear.

The place is known for brunch. I had the grilled chicken club sandwich, which came with hardboiled egg, bacon, tomato and avocado inside. Oh. My. Goodness. Sha ordered buffalo mac and cheese, which she liked a lot, but I think I said, “mm-m-m” over my lunch way more than she did. I wish I could remember what her friend had, because she said she orders it every time.

Prices were reasonable and the wait for food was short. Also the wait staff was fun and friendly. If you live near Dallas, check it out.

Art and Thought

2011-11-30T06:54:00.005-06:00

Near the end of every semester of my Creative Writing class at DTS, I take my students down to the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA). During our time there, they write about one piece they encounter.

The DMA is kind enough to let us in an hour before opening—when it’s quieter and we can congregate more easily around specific pieces without disturbing anyone. They also let us in free, let us park free, and give us free entrance to special exhibits.

This year one of the art preparers, Mike, has led our private tours, and he does much more than show us around. He plans ahead and introduces us to specific pieces that raise issues we should think about. And he's never in a hurry for us to answer, giving us time to consider. (He also always gives me a good TV or movie recommendation along the way—last time it was the Foyle’s War BBC series. This time it was “The Tree of Life” movie. But I digress.)

This semester Mike led us in a tour that he called, "Sacred or Profane?" He had us consider three works in which ostensibly secular artists have appropriated biblical stories or imagery. We began with a piece titled "Mexican Adam and Eve" by Alfredo Ramos Martinez. We considered how the artist’s version focused on the loss of innocence and suggested an accusation against Western powers for destroying their “garden.” And we talked about how that “take” on the story differs from the biblical account in which humanity sins against their creator.

Next we looked briefly at a beautiful, traditional 16th-century depiction of the Virgin, probably an altar piece. This we compared with a photograph of pop tart Kylie Minogue as "The Virgin with Serpents" in the Jean Paul Gaultier show, here till Feb 12 ("The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk"--if you don’t know his name, you might recognize him as the designer of Madonna’s cone-breast bodice). We also looked at some of the dresses and gowns in Gaultier's "Virgins" collection that incorporate Roman Catholic imagery.

We finished with "Detail," Mark Bradford's monumental steel and wooden ark, and a related video (here's a DMA time-lapse sequence, which took about five days: http://youtu.be/gIDIEfi5VnQ) describing the construction of the original piece in New Orleans following hurricane Katrina. (Notice in this video how the artist explicitly links the work to the story of Noah's ark: http://www.dmovies.net/prospect1/index.html )

Some of the questions our guide had us consider were, “In a secular age, is it even possible to successfully appropriate biblical or religious imagery, stories, and symbols?” and “What happens when this imagery is being derived second- or third-hand via pop culture, as opposed to direct engagement with the Bible or theological reflection?” And “What happens when artists attempt to critique or subvert this type of imagery? Is that possible, or do the symbols and stories carry so much weight that they in turn end up as a critique of the artist?”

We considered whether Gaultier's use of Christian imagery in his clothes is any different from or less reverent than any number of items we could find in a "Christian" book or gift shop.

Between the tour and lunch, we wandered for an hour. I checked out the entire Gaultier show, which was fascinating. (But it’s R-rated, so don’t take your kiddies. Some of the school children there today caught a glimpse of some naked full-grown female angels depicted on dress fabric, and they were giggling and gawking—and that was in the room with the tame stuff.) The DMA also had a good exhibit on African head wear that I checked out, in addition to the rest of the Bradford exhibit.

We finished our time with lively discussions over lunch at the Museum café, which always has good food. DMA, we love you!

Keep Christ in Christmas: Ten Steps to a Saner Season

2011-11-29T14:40:00.005-06:00

Today's Tapestry post...

It doesn’t have to happen again—the insane pace, the big-dollar debt, and the no-time-for-the-main-thing rush in the hustle and bustle. With a little forethought, about 30 minutes today, you can get it right over the twenty-six days between now and Christmas. Here are some suggestions.

. Make a spiritual reading plan. Think ahead about what you plan to read, when you’ll read it, and why it’s important to carve out some quiet time. If you want specifically Christmas-related content, you can find numerous options online for holiday-themed meditations, many of which you can have sent to your in-box daily.

. Be intentional in your giving. First, there’s the charitable giving. Over the next month worthy causes will bombard you with requests. Rather than grumbling, be grateful so many good organizations exist. Pray about how much and to whom you can give. Then there’s the personal giving. For the people on your Christmas list, look for ways to give of yourself. For example, a family member might appreciate receiving Grama's holiday recipe in a basket full of all the ingredients. Also, give to benefit others. Purchase fair-trade jewelry. Or donate a goat to an impoverished family and give it in honor of someone who doesn’t need another necktie. Give books that inspire, CDs that lift the heart, and even cooking, knitting, or art classes instead of expensive junk. If you have no money, consider how to offer the gift of your time—redeemable in January. Or perhaps you can sell some used books or that old bike in the garage? Take ten minutes now to plan ahead. One friend wrote me, “We are skipping Christmas gifts this year and saving our money to take a family trip. I feel so free from all the glitzy Christmas marketing. It's liberating, I tell ya. (And wait until the kids find out where we're going. It's totally gonna be worth it.)”

. Write to encourage. If you sponsor a child, write him or her a letter and tuck inside a bookmark or Christmas stickers. Send a card to a member of the military who’s far from home this year: Holiday Mail for Heroes, P.O. Box 5456, Capitol Heights, MD 20791-5456. If you teach a Sunday school class or Girl Scout troop, write a group letter. As for cards or letters to your own friends, do you really want to send those this year? If so, think about how to keep them simple, warm, and humble.

. Embrace a free tradition. Consider adding a practice that deepens the season’s meaning. For example, you could place your crèche in a central location, but leave the cradle empty until Christmas morning, when you make a grand celebration of the baby’s arrival. Or read one chapter of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol at the dinner table every night. “God bless us, every one!” (Last time I checked, that story was available as a free Kindle download. But I’m sure your public library has a copy or two, also.) Or schedule a family night of popcorn, root-beer floats, and “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

. Fill your life with pleasant sounds. Christmas brings a great opportunity to publicly and privately listen to inspiring music. Pull out the Handel’s “Messiah” CD. Select your own faves and carry a few out to the car. Replace the droning TV and the sound of honking horns with melodies of the season.

. Think about who needs you to listen. It’s been said that “listening is the new apologetic.” In the craziness of the season, some deeply hurting people get overlooked. Consider who would appreciate one phone call or an invitation to an event you’re already attending, such as your church’s musical. Joy energizes, and there’s joy in serving.

. Lower your expectations, or “prune your perfectionism.” Make your holiday party a dessert thing and forget cooking a full dinner. Promise yourself you’ll focus on time with loved ones, not clean bathrooms or presents.

. De-clutter and donate. Take a load out of your purse and go prepared to encourage that Salvation Army bell ringer with lots of pennies clinking. Send your stack of extra Bibles to Bibledonate.org, 601 S Washington, Suite 200, Stillwater, OK, 74074. Collect your extra bedding, pillowcases, and coats, and set them aside to deliver to a women’s shelter—in January.

. Decide what you want for Christmas. When people ask, “What can I get you?” provide them with the name of your favorite charity. Or direct them to your Amazon gift list (you can create one for free, for yourself and every member of your family—and include on your lists items requested by charities). If you think ahead, you’re more likely to receive what you can really use, instead of one more fruitcake.

. Cut back. Really do it. Defy commercialization and give of yourself. Start with scheduling “down” time in the same way you would schedule cooking and football time—go ahead and mark off those days today. (Maybe this would be a good time to find out when the church parties, office parties, kids’ concerts, and musicals will take place, so that I-need-a-costume demand doesn’t catch you by surprise.) De-stress with prayer, stretching exercises, hot peppermint tea, and sticking to your boundaries.

One factor that will help significantly in making this holiday season less insane is allowing yourself some quiet think-time so you can be intentional. To think further (more than the 30 minutes I promised) about this important topic, you can find lots of great ideas at adventconspiracy.org.

Prepare for Advent

2011-11-25T06:32:00.000-06:00

This coming Sunday is the first of the Advent season--when we prepare our hearts to celebrate the coming of Christ. Consider following the lectionary this year. For more information, you can go here, to the Transforming Center site.

Give Thanks

2011-11-24T06:43:00.004-06:00

Today I'm thanking God for God. Where would we be without the Eternal Presence walking with us through the ups and downs? How can an infinitely holy God deal justly with our selfishness while also showing infinite love? I'm grateful that an infinitely creative God made a way...

I'm thankful for my loving husband and our fun girl. For my family of origin and so many I love who have known and loved me for decade upon decade.

I'm thankful for my friends who have carried us through seasons of "gives and takes away," made us laugh, cried with us when it hurt, and even occasionally sent chocolate.

I'm thankful for a body that fully recovered from a fall that left me in a wheelchair six years ago--for a shoulder that works great, a hip that works fine, and the ability to walk and swim. Not to mention that I can see, hear, smell, feel, and taste.

I'm thankful for our church, where people love and serve one another and our community.

I'm thankful for meaningful work and great administrators, colleagues, and students who make it a joy to do my job. I'm grateful for employee benefits that provide health insurance and health-club access for this recovered body of mine.

I'm thankful for the faith of friends and family exercised in the midst of trauma. It inspires me to do the same.

I'm thankful for my city, my county, my country and those who work to make it a safer, more just place.

I'm thankful for a full pantry, for the bounty of a full refrigerator, for the fact that we have so much abundance that we need a word like "leftovers" in our language.

I'm thankful for the beauty I have seen this year in Venice and Vicenza and Rome; and that I got to see it with my little family.

I'm thankful for an education system that allows women to study alongside with men.

There's so much more I could say! And I know you're thankful, too, aren't you? We are so rich! Can you add something to the list?

Wordless Wednesday

2011-11-23T06:35:00.000-06:00

November 22

2011-11-22T06:17:00.005-06:00

Today is the anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the event for which Dallas is probably best known. A fascinating mini-series took a scientific look at the evidence, and The History Channel followed up. But the info implicated LBJ, and the episodes were never allowed to air, thanks to the intervention of some powerful people (like past presidents Carter and Ford). You can still watch them on Youtube.

Black Friday's Coming

2011-11-21T04:22:00.002-06:00

Are you thinking yet about Christmas shopping? Maybe, like one of my friends, you've already finished. (Must be nice, huh?)

This year if you plan to make any purchases from Amazon (including Kindles, clothing, and toys), please consider swinging by here and going to Amazon through the special Amazon link on the right column of this site. It costs you nothing extra, and our work in Africa benefits from affiliate commissions. No, Amazon doesn't donate the money to East-West. They give us a gift certificate. And we have committed to using that certificate to benefit the work. So far we've been able to order free backpacks for school kids, a digital camera to photograph orphans needing sponsors, office supplies, and English-Swahili dictionaries for our African partners.

Spread the word!

Documentary Storm

2011-11-19T10:04:00.003-06:00

Love documentaries? Now you can watch thousands of them--like "Born into Brothels" and "Around the World in 90 Minutes"--for free online. Check out the possibilities at Documentary Storm.

National Book Awards 2011

2011-11-17T11:36:00.005-06:00

The 62nd National Book Awards were held in New York City last night, with awards going to Thanhha Lai for Inside Out and Back Again (Young People's Literature), Nikky Finney for Head Off and Split (Poetry), Stephen Greenblatt for The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (Nonfiction), and Jesmyn Ward for Salvage the Bones (Fiction).

In Inside Out & Back Again (Harper) a 10-year-old Ha, whose young life is changed when the Vietnam War comes to her home of Saigon, flees when Saigon falls, and starts a new life with her family in Alabama. Salvage the Bones is about a looming hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, and the twelve-day framework around it.

The Flame Project

2011-11-16T04:46:00.000-06:00

Check out East-West's new humanitarian aid initiative in Kenya, over which Gary is now field director.

The Flame Project from Tim Miller on Vimeo.

Social Networking Video

2011-11-15T14:35:00.001-06:00

From yesterday's technology panel:

Like to Think?

2011-11-15T13:13:00.001-06:00

For a great library of podcasts on topics such as Nazism, violence, genetics, check out the "Unbelievable?" site.

Stats about Women

2011-11-14T03:40:00.000-06:00

Created by: Educational Leadership

Wedding Memories

2011-11-13T13:24:00.010-06:00

It was the coolest day.

It began with me hanging out with the bride, mother of the bride, and bridesmaids as we got hair and make-up done. I met up with my family at the church, and my handsome hubby was decked out in a tux. (No photos of him or us yet—he was taking all of the few pictures we do have.) While our daughter stood by the guest book, we had about 20 quiet minutes before the ceremony in a private room. Carlos slipped in and spent his last few moments alone with us. We received his gratitude, and prayed over him. Then we told him to go have a blast celebrating and enjoying the fact that he was surrounded by people who loved him and wished him well.

He escorted his biological sister and then Mrs. Mabry, the “grandmother of the groom,” then me down the aisle. And as we walked, I had some special words prepared for him about the love of his late mother and grandmother (whom I did have chance to know).

Dr. Charles Swindoll officiated. He began by telling the couple's story. The father gave away the bride, and the couple exchanged vows they had prepared—breathtaking.

Carlos washed Karla’s feet to symbolize his commitment to serve her.

They also did a Mexican “Lasso Ceremony.” In such a ceremony, a special couple place a large lasso (in this case, a silver cord with a cross hanging down) in a figure-eight shape around the shoulders of the couple after they have exchanged their vows. Carlos and Karla were kneeling in prayer as they received the loop, symbolic of God’s love, which will bind them together every day.

At 7:28, Dr. Swindoll pronounced them husband and wife, and Carlos kissed the bride enthusiastically, adding a tender kiss on the forehead.

The reception (Mexican food, of course!) included a bride-and-groom dance that ended with a Tango-flair including a big dip. Then from nowhere, a flash mob appeared, performed by Carlos’s coworkers at Insight for Living as the live orchestra rocked to “Everlasting Love.” Carlos was front and center for that. (It reminded me that he once led one of our teams in similar choreography to The Macarena at the Culicán zoo. It made the lions roar at us!) I was seated next to Dr. Swindoll during the reception, and he denied any knowledge of a flash-mob rehearsal on company time.

Sparkling grape juice was delivered to each table and toasts were made. Carlos’s biological brother expressed his wonder that sixteen years ago Carlos volunteered to translate for a bunch of American missionaries, when he hardly even knew English. (At this point, the groom looked at me and sheepishly shrugged with a big smile on his face.) A mariachi band followed.

The whole day was a beautiful mix of cultures, languages, and traditions, and such a picture of "exceedingly abundantly," when I consider that it all started when “Dr. Bill,” our then-pastor, had a heart condition that required him to change the church's first mission-team destination from Ecuador to somewhere at sea level—which turned out to be Culicán. Many members of our original team were able to be present for the ceremony, including Dr. Bill, who was picked up at the airport by Kelly Wagoner, one of those members, and whisked through traffic to arrive on time. Kelly said the look on Carlos’s face when he saw Dr. Bill was priceless.

We sent off bride and groom through an arch of sparklers on a warm November night. Today they should land in Malta.

11-11-11 Was a Great Day!

2011-11-12T15:42:00.004-06:00

We didn't shoot a ton of photos--we were too busy partying! But Gary shot a few. What a wonderful, joy-filled day!

Here, while our daughter looks on (me, too, in blue from the back), the bride and groom greet the beloved Mary Mabry, "grandmother" of the groom. We provided short-term (summer school) housing, but when Carlos needed long-term housing upon his arrival to attend seminary full-time, "Miss Mary" opened her home.

Eleven Eleven Eleven

2011-11-11T01:01:00.001-06:00

Today is one of those days you spend years praying and waiting to see. Carlos Zazueta and Karla Brand are getting married, and Gary and I are the mother and father of the groom. To hear part of the amazing story, you can watch my DTS chapel message.

"This is the day that the Lord has made; let us be glad and rejoice in it!" (Psa. 118:24).

Moody Radio on "Sumatra with the 7" Airing Today

2011-11-10T01:49:00.001-06:00

A Moody Radio feature I pre-recorded about Sumatra with the Seven Churches is scheduled to air today on Moody Radio’s 36 stations. I'm told the segment will run twice, once around 5:43 AM CST, and then again at around 8:43 AM CST – give or take ten minutes).

Here is the link to listen to the show online: http://www.mbn.org/GenMoody/listenlive.asp?station=WMBI&rate=32

If that doesn’t work, you can Google Moody Radio or Mark Elfstrand and you’ll find the show.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-11-09T08:28:00.002-06:00

Evaluating Art

2011-11-08T11:45:00.004-06:00

Frances Shaeffer, influenced by the Dutch art historian Hans Roomaaker "proposed that we should look at works [of art] individually. Rather than asking, Is the artist saved? ask,

Is this piece of work technically excellent?
Is it a valid expression of the artist's view of the world?
Are form and content well integrated?
Is truth communicated?

--Steve Turner, Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts

10 Apps That Defined 2011

2011-11-07T00:01:00.001-06:00

I have a guest blogger today, Kathleen Hubert, who writes on a variety of different sites. You can find more of her work at ledtv.org:

With tablets and smartphones hitting record sales in 2011, it comes as no surprise that this past year has been considered the year of the app. Both Android's and iPhone's app markets are now filled to the brim with nearly a half-million apps of all shapes and sizes. Here is a glimpse at ten of the top apps that helped to define mobile technology in 2011.

1. Pandora

Pandora is the premier music app. Users create custom stations based off of their favorite songs and Pandora does the rest.

2. Mint

Quicken was the leading finance app until Mint came along. Mint combines information from all bank accounts, credit cards, loans, and investments into a single, straightforward portfolio.

3. ZamZar

With so many operating systems and manufacturers, smartphone owners need files of all types. ZamZar can change any type of file to a similar format. Files fewer than 100 MB are completely free.

4. Angry Birds

No app list is complete without Angry Birds. The top sellers of this physics game are Angry Birds: Seasons and Angry Birds: Rio.

5. Splashup

Photoshop is simply too unwieldy to use on most mobile platforms. This is why Splashup offers a similar look and feel as Photoshop in a condensed user interface.

6. TV Show Stream

The TV Show Stream app scours the internet for thousands of mobile-friendly TV shows and even a few movies. Is your data plan reaching its limit? Seamlessly swap over to your LED TV and use this app to look up interesting facts about your favorite shows and actors as you watch them.

7. Skype

Redefined for 2011, the Skype app offers a huge number of free services, including text messaging, local calls, voice mail, chat rooms, and video calls.

8. Evernote

The Evernote app allows users to store notes, Word documents, movies, pictures, and songs on an offline server. Users can then access and save them on any sync'd device.

9. Kindle

Kindle is the top reading app on the market. Individuals can access any of the books on their Amazon account in seconds.

10. Remember the Milk

The Remember the Milk app syncs all calendars, emails, mobile devices, computers, and even social networks so that users will never forget those important tasks.

So Maybe Van Gogh Didn't Kill Himself?

2011-11-06T05:15:00.005-06:00

First Stacy Schiff concludes that Cleopatra didn't die of an asp bite. And now Van Gogh's biographers say he didn't off himself? (Quick! Somebody notify Don McLean!) To hear them talk firsthand, check out this event:

Vincent Van Gogh and Jackson Pollock: Changing What Art Is

Monday, November 14, 7:30 p.m.

Simulcast, C-3 Theater, Dallas Museum of Art

Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith are the talented pair that wrote Jackson Pollock, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, finalist for the American Book Award and a New York Times bestseller. The Detroit Free Press says of Jackson Pollock, it is “a superb biography....lavishly illustrated, it reads with the fluid grace of a fine novel....(Naifeh and Smith) succeed at making art history a good read.... In a period of many fine biographies, this ranks among the best."

Here's what the DMA says: "On this evening, they will be discussing their forthcoming book, Van Gogh: The Life, the first complete biography of Van Gogh featuring new information on one of the world’s most popular artists. Already praised as 'the definitive biography for decades to come' by the curator of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, this new biography reshapes our knowledge of the artist’s incredibly turbulent life, thanks to a wealth of primary sources never before available. It is the account of an extraordinary and at times emotionally convulsive life but also the first book to trace the workings of an artistic genius in such graphic, gripping, and ultimately inspirational detail.

"Naifeh and Smith have re-created Van Gogh’s life with an astounding vividness and psychological acuity that bring a completely new and sympathetic understanding to this unique artistic genius whose signature images of sunflowers and starry nights have won a permanent place in the human imagination.

"At this event, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith will discuss their new book on Vincent van Gogh and will spend some time sharing similarities they have found between van Gogh and Jackson Pollock."

USA Today described their new work, “As imposing as a history book, as entertaining as a novel, and as close as the reader may ever come to sharing the breadth—and sensing the madness—of artistic genius and the genesis of a masterpiece.” Publishers Weekly says the authors "argue that the great and tortured impressionist ran afoul of a couple of bizarre teenage boys on a long walk home, ending in his accidental shooting death."

The event in Horchow Auditorium has sold out. There will be a simulcast showing in the C3 Theater. Upgrades will be available the night of the event at Will Call. Will Call will open at 6:30 p.m.

Simulcast Ticket Prices:

DMA members, Free

Full, $5

Students, Free

Purchase tickets online or call 214-922-1818.

Helping the Poor--Really Helping

2011-11-05T08:00:00.003-05:00

We want our charitable giving dollars to matter, right?

In his new book, Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It), Robert Lupton proposes a new “Oath for Compassionate Services” that embraces six guidelines:

Never do for the poor what they can do for themselves.
Limit one-way giving to emergencies.
Empower the poor through employment, lending and investing, using grants sparingly to reinforce achievements.
Subordinate self-interest to the needs of those being served.
Listen closely to those you seek to help.
Above all, do no harm.

Short-term mission trips are a case in point. We spend between $2.5-3 billion annually to produce little lasting change. Such trips often displace local labor and distract indigenous leaders from more important work. That’s not to say, “Don’t do them.” But we need to do them “smarter.”

Years ago when our church planned to take one international trip annually, our friend/son Carlos (whom we met on a short-term mission trip) advised us to choose one sister church within driving distance and partner with them rather than going all over the world. And we took his advice.

Over time, more than half of the members of our church in Dallas worshiped in the sanctuary of our sister church in border-town Nuevo Laredo, Mexico—an eight-hour drive away. Each year we returned, at their request, with a Christmas-box project similar to what Samaritan’s Purse does with Operation Christmas Child. And through the partnership of the American and Mexican church, we developed a give-and-take relationship.

In the process we discovered it offended them when we stayed the night on the U.S. side of the border rather than living among them. So we started staying on the Mexico side.

We learned that Spring Break—our most convenient time to go—was a terrible time for them. And a week was too long for them to have to make sure we got fed. They asked if we’d come over Christmas (our least convenient time) and stay four days. They explained that it was easier to feed our group when their own families were home for the holidays and a few extra mouths meant simply “throwing more beans in the big pot.” In March our presence distracted kids from school work; but over Christmas, we could provide needed events when the nationals’ family members were in town expecting Christmas programs and special dramas. In short, we worked on serving instead of being served. The result was that in the ten or so years we returned to Nuevo Laredo, we saw a mission-church planted in a high-poverty area. Last time we were there, that mission had its own building and their children presented a lovely musical Christmas program. Our sister church planted a church.

In Kenya instead of putting a widow on monthly support, we get her a cow and help her find ways to provide her own support by selling the extra milk. And we’re not taking teams to help build a school, because they have their own laborers seeking work who can do a fine job of building a school. We do provide tuition for poor kids, because it's something they can't do for themselves.

We’re still figuring it out, thinking through it, talking with the nationals, trying to assess the best way to help. But our experience suggests that Robert Lupton knows what he’s talking about.

It's Just a Test

2011-11-04T12:33:00.003-05:00

Government employees received this memorandum today:

On Wednesday, November 9, 2011, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Weather Service (NWS) will conduct the first national test of the Nationwide Emergency Alert System (EAS) test. This nationwide test will kick off at 2:00 p.m. (EST) and run concurrently across all time zones. This system test is the first of its kind designed to broadcast a nationwide message to the American public. As you may be aware, there have been tests in the past, but not of this magnitude encompassing all regions of the nation simultaneously. The 30-second test will run concurrently on all radio and TV band stations. For more information, please see the following link:  http://www.fema.gov/emergency/ipaws/eas_info.shtm

There is some concern from local police and emergency management circles about undue public anxiety over this test.  The test message on TV might not indicate that it is just a test.  There is a fear that lack of an explanation regarding the message might create panic.  Please share this information with your family, friends, and co-workers, so they are aware of the test.

That Ain't Right

2011-11-04T06:18:00.000-05:00

Half the Christian community in Iraq now lives in ghettos in Damascus, Lebanon, and Jordan.
Coptic Christians in Egypt cannot work at government jobs, and they can't join the military.
In southern Sudan 2.1 million people have died--mainly those who profess Christ, but also some Muslims and animists.
In China roughly thirty Catholic bishops have been arrested. Hundreds of Protestant pastors and house church leaders are imprisoned and persecuted.
A week ago in central Vietnam, thugs said to be acting at the direction of local authorities attacked a pastor and his family with iron bars and wooden clubs.

I'd like to see our elected officials speak out again, in the traditions of Carter and Reagan, calling attention to human rights violations.

Sources: Compass Direct News, Christianity Today, Congressman Frank Wolf (R-Va).

Writing Resource

2011-11-04T01:30:00.001-05:00

Looking for good resources on writing? Here's one to add to your list: Jeff Goins's writing site.

Six Reasons Young People Leave Church

2011-11-03T08:51:00.001-05:00

A new book by David Kinnaman, You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving Church and Rethinking Faith, explores Barna Research findings about young Christians abandoning church. The project included eight national studies comprised of interviews with teens, young adults, parents, youth pastors, and senior pastors. It focused on people who attended church regularly during their teen years but disconnected after age 15.

The research uncovered six themes why nearly three out of five young Christians (59%) disconnect from church life after age 15, either permanently or for an extended period:

· Churches seem overprotective.

· Teens’ and twentysomethings’ experience of Christianity is shallow.

· Churches seem antagonistic to science.

· Young Christians’ church experiences related to sexuality are often simplistic, judgmental.

· They wrestle with the exclusive nature of Christianity.

· The church feels unfriendly to those who doubt.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

2011-11-02T09:50:00.002-05:00

In the Image of God: Male and Female

2011-11-02T03:37:00.002-05:00

Evangelicals affirm the orthodox belief that God is not sexual and is neither male nor female—or perhaps better, that God is imaged in both male and female human beings together. We affirm that doctrine readily, and then go ahead and depict God as male. Not “mostly” as male, the way the Bible indeed does, but always as male. As a rule, it seems, evangelicals never depict God as female, even metaphorically and rarely even as transcending the categories of male and female. But the Bible does. Where are the women? More basically, where is the female, the feminine, the “not male” in the Bible, in our churches and families, and in God?

--John G. Stackhouse Jr., Finding a Home for Eve

Sometimes we fear to do what our Lord has done: equate God with the feminine:
I am like a weaned child (Psa. 131:2)
"You must be born from above." --Jesus to Nicodemus
"I would have gathered you to me as a hen gathers her chicks." --Jesus to Jerusalem
"Born of God..." --1 John 5:1
Parable of the woman with a lost coin in which the woman represents God (Luke 15:9)

Vivaldi's Four Seasons

2011-11-01T13:14:00.009-05:00

On Thursday I flew to Maryland with my friend Katherine. Last semester she served as my intern, and during that time we got "booked" to do a women's retreat in Pennsylvania. We went a day early so we could spend time with my dear friend Erin and her family before major reconstructive surgery following breast cancer. (Excuse the cell-phone quality on the photos.)

Erin pulled out all the stops for us. Hot apple cider, homemade applesauce, a drive through fall colors in the Maryland countryside, steaming Maryland crab soup in bread bowls. You get the picture. During our drive we listened to Vivaldi's Fall Suite as we oohed and ahhed over the majesty of it all.

Three women from the church in Pennsylvania came down to pick us up from Erin's and whisked us north. On the way they drove us through Gettysburg. Picture green fields surrounded by trees dressed orange, yellow, and red. Here's a shot of one of the hundreds of monuments.

While in Pennsylvania, we had a great time speaking and talking and eating with a great group of women. And then the snow started. Big, fluffy flakes fell and fell and fell. The place looked like a snow globe. On Saturday night we finished early so everyone could scurry home, but three women took Katherine and me for coffee at Panera till they closed early, and then over to Olive Garden for dinner. Everyone kept pushing free food at us! Southern hospitality has some serious competition up north. (It took the sting out of the Texas Rangers snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.)

Fortunately, Katherine had seen a weather report, so we came fully prepared and embraced the world of white. It's a strange sight seeing colorful trees with snow at their bases. Pumpkins wore ermine hats. And people even dressed one snow man as a Halloween witch, complete with broom and black cape. The ride back to the airport gave us a beautiful day with melting snow on rolling hills dotted with farm houses.

Back in Maryland, Erin and her girls played in snow. She wrote that it seemed strange to do Vivaldi's Fall one day and Vivaldi's Winter the next.

When we stepped off the plane in Dallas, we walked into 70-degree temps. We got fall, winter, and summer in the span of four days. That's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it, uh-huh, uh-huh!

UpdateI

2011-10-26T22:00:00.005-05:00

FaithVillage.com ran my article, Create in Me A Green Heart, today--my thoughts on environmentalism. Check it out.

Last weekend both Aggie nieces were in town along with a boyfriend, and we all carved pumpkins. The proud dad is responsible for the A&M-o-lantern. We carved while watching the Rangers play in the World Series!

My intern and I are headed to Maryland and Pennsylvania this weekend, spending time with my friend Erin T. and her fam, and then doing a women's retreat for Calvary Baptist in Hanover, Maryland. The fall colors in the Northeast should be gorgeous. But it's supposed to rain...if it doesn't snow. I find it difficult to wrap my mind around that, since the sun brought us 85 degrees in Dallas today, where the trees still look like summer--well, better than summer, since this summer they looked dead.

This semester I'm teaching two classes--one on women in ministry and the other, Creative Writing. Love both.

I'm gearing up for the wedding of Carlos, our "son" on 11-11-11. In the future he has no excuse for ever forgetting his anniversary date. Not that he ever would. After the wedding, we have the DTS women's conference. I'm set to participate on a technology panel. To sign up for the conference, go to www.dts.edu/ccl.

My dissertation is coming along. I'm aiming for a November 15 date to have the first draft finished on the novel portion. Feel free to pray I make it!

I found out last month that I get to go to Australia with my Aussie friend Felicity in May if all goes as planned. Do a little speaking and see if I fall off the world.

Looks like the next Coffee Cup book is Christmas Chai with Malachi, but don't look for it in December of 2011!

The Future of Books

2011-10-25T14:13:00.001-05:00

Friday Movie Date?

2011-10-21T15:15:00.005-05:00

Several months back I had the fun job of watching a preview screening of “The Mighty Macs.” I loved this film! And it releases today.

It tells the story of Immaculata University's Mighty Macs, three-time National NCAA Women's Basketball champions from 1972, 1973, and 1974.

See this flick because it's great, but also because it'll make you laugh to see how scary girls' uniforms looked back in the day when only boys' sports received funding.

Exotic Animals: It's a Problem...

2011-10-20T11:32:00.000-05:00

What Does It Take to Write Full-Time?

2011-10-20T11:07:00.004-05:00

Only about 2-3% of authors make a living as a writer. Want to join that group? Generally, you have four options for doing so:

1. Write at least one best seller—preferably several.

2. Write several books annually—or actually, more like three to five per year. If you can crank out a lot of quality words, you can make a steady income.

3. Continue to write and get lots and lots of books on publishers’ back lists. About half of my writing income I derive from royalties received for a book that’s more than ten years old. It didn’t sell so great its first year, but it has continued to do well. The same is true of my Coffee Cup series. The first four launched at the same time and did all right. But as I have continued to release new books in the series, people who started with the latest one have gone back to check out what’s on the backlist.

4. Have an anchor client or part-time job and freelance or hold full-time employment in a writing/editing job.

Most writers don’t work full-time simply by selling books they’ve authored, and frankly most wouldn’t want to do so. If you want to make it writing full-time as an author, consider that most publishers will desire a new book every six to eight months. It takes me at least nine months to write a novel, and another three months’ minimum to fix the mess I've created.

If you can crank out well-crafted ideas quickly under pressure, you might find yourself in that 2-3%. If not, consider the alternatives for making a living doing what you love.

Do you E?

2011-10-19T16:43:00.004-05:00

Is it possible to read Kindle e-books without owning an an e-reader? Absolutamente!

Click this link on Amazon to download a free Kindle app for your computer or your phone.

Then you can read any e-book.

A sampling of today's free books:

Treasure Island

Alice in Wonderland

Tale of Two Cities

Pride and Prejudice

Crime and Punishment

Great Expectations

A Midsummer Night's Dream

And for a mere $2.99, you can download Mary DeMuth's wonderful novel, Watching the Tree Limbs.

Christian Teen Beheaded for His Faith

2011-10-19T13:58:00.003-05:00

NAIROBI, Kenya, October 19 (Compass Direct News) – Militants from the Islamic extremist al Shabaab beheaded a 17-year-old Somali Christian near Mogadishu last month, a journalist in the Somali capital told Compass. The militants, who have vowed to rid Somalia of Christianity, killed Guled Jama Muktar on Sept. 25 in his home near Deynile, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Mogadishu.

The Islamic extremist group had been monitoring his family since the Christians arrived in Somalia from Kenya in 2008, said the source in Mogadishu, who requested anonymity. The Islamic militants, who are fighting the transitional government for control of the country, knew from their observations of the family that they were Christians, the source said. “I personally know this family as Christians who used to have secret Bible meetings in their house,” he said.

Based on talks with the boy’s parents and their neighbors, the source said al Shabaab members arrived at Muktar’s home at 6 a.m., when his parents, whose names are withheld for security reasons, were already at work at their retail space at the Hamarweyne market on the outskirts of Mogadishu. Neighbors informed the parents of the murder, and they hurriedly returned home and buried their son’s body quickly, fearing the militants would kill them as well. They then fled to an unknown destination, the source said. “When the incident happened, the parents called to tell me that their son had been killed and that they feared for their lives,” the source said. “Since then, I have not heard from them.”

Note: I hope my readers will be careful to distinguish between the religion Islam and Islamism, a political ideology that calls for countries to be governed by Islamic religious law. Even within the latter, we find a stratification of beliefs, with violent jihadis on the fringe. When we lump them all together, we push Muslims into our enemies' arms.

Backgrounds Matter

2011-10-18T20:59:00.005-05:00

Today was my day to blog over at Tapestry, the Christian Women in Leadership blog. My topic was first-century backgrounds. Here's what I wrote...

Last week I picked up a newly released second edition of a book on the role of women in ministry. Written by a well-known theologian, it was acclaimed as the latest in scholarship on backgrounds. And I was surprised to discover its chapter on the first-century Greek and Roman world drew on only one secondary source later than 1980.

Though this author downplayed the importance of culture for understanding 1 Corinthians 11 and 14, and 1 Timothy 2—some of the Bible’s “woman” texts—he went on to talk of women in the ancient world being under male authority for life (which was not always the case), women veiling the fronts of their faces (probably not ever the case, except on wedding days), and other long-outdated information. Unfortunately, his historical understanding, based on old information, greatly affected how he understood the texts.

Yet especially when it comes to understanding backgrounds on the “women” texts, much has changed, particularly in the past half-century.

First, the field of women’s and gender history has exploded as women have joined men in the academy. And women’s involvement has added a new emphasis on social history. Whereas much of political history focuses on emperors and kings, social history asks all sorts of questions about commoners such as, “What was the average life expectancy?” and “What sort of work did men and women do?” and “Did women sit or lie down during childbirth?” Gender analysis also has us asking, “What did first-century Romans consider feminine?” and “What made a Greek man manly?”

With new emphases in history departments have come new methodologies, including a reconsideration of primary sources. In the past when an ancient writer criticized women for being too talkative, scholars have tended to take such assessments at face value. But today's historian would look for additional clues. So when reading a writer such as Cicero, who used “woman” imagery to insult Antony in The Second Philippic, a contemporary scholar would consider how the author is using gender as part of a rhetorical strategy. Is Cicero including his negative assessment of women as part of a scheme of insulting Antony’s enemies?

Second, the academic field of semiotics has seen monumental growth. “Semiotics” is the study of symbols and signs as elements of communicative behavior. Consider what a ring worn on the fourth finger, left hand communicates in the West, or what some think of a man who wears a baseball cap to a funeral. And a white dress on a woman’s wedding day says something different from what a red one would express. In terms of the ancient world, that would include knowing how and where a woman covered her head, with what she covered it (a veil or hair and/or fillets) and what doing so expressed in her context. Any explanation of the head-covering debate that ignores recent findings in semiotics is bound to be based on erroneous cultural information.

Next, a deeper reading of ancient texts has also led to finding data about women hidden between the lines. Since Octavian passed laws allowing exemption from manus (male supervision) for citizen mothers of three children, the historian today will observe that “exemption as incentive” indicates women preferred freedom to being under authority. But the law itself also indicates that not all women lived under such authority all their lives.

Today’s scholars are also more apt to consider the number of years separating an ancient writer from the event he (it was usually a “he”) describes. In the first century Strabo reported on cult prostitution in Corinth’s distant past (from his perspective). But archaeologists today are seriously challenging the accuracy of such hearsay. Yet how many of us were taught that Roman religion was filled with temple prostitutes?

Add to all this the wealth of additional literary, archaeological, epigraphic, and iconographic evidence uncovered in the past half-century. The wording of many inscriptions is now available for search in a massive online concordance, making it possible for scholars to search by word, phrase, and geography without having to pore over books in a distant library or read them at the actual sites.

All of this has greatly aided us in reconstructing visions of first-century life in family, religion, and society. And because most people in the early church were non-elites, historians interested in early Christian backgrounds have greatly benefited from these developments.

So next time you’re browsing titles on the role of women, check out the footnotes and bibliographies. Are the sources up-to-date? The fundamental truths of Christianity will never change, but how we view biblical living may. Our understanding of the contexts in which texts were written has increased exponentially. And we often base applications today on our best parallels to what was happening in the world at the time.

World Food Day

2011-10-16T01:32:00.001-05:00

Today is World Food Day. I encourage you to make a contribution to and/or volunteer hours for your favorite charity that is reaching the hungry.

My Girl Got Bullied

2011-10-15T08:35:00.007-05:00

A few weeks ago, my daughter received a text from a female Facebook friend of my daughter’s male childhood friend. The girl was his new girlfriend, and this chica informed my daughter that the neighbor she used to love playing with had been killed in a car accident. The girlfriend went on to announce she was committing suicide. She then went silent.

My daughter sent desperate pleas to the girl and to family members of the guy. But she heard nothing back. She cried all night.

My husband called the girl’s number and left a message asking about funeral arrangements. I looked for the kid’s name on Twitter and found no mention. As the hours passed, no one posted messages on his Facebook page like “RIP, dude.” We had no way to verify, but we had serious doubts about the story's veracity.

The following morning the girl texted to say it was all a hoax. Then she called my daughter a "snitch," in addition to some nasty names I won't repeat. A few hours later, she claimed (by text) that someone borrowed her phone for a week, and she herself had not sent those messages. See? Bullying can now be more anonymous than it used to be. How could we verify that “someone borrowed my phone and did it”?

Looks like the whole fiasco was motivated by sheer old-fashioned jealousy. The girlfriend saw my daughter listed as a “family member” of this guy and that probably grated on her.

Through the girl's Facebook links, my husband tracked down the parents and informed them about what happened. He also contacted the guy’s mom, our former neighbor, who was furious and said they would deal with it in person.

Thanks to social media and the Internet, kids can now bully each other 24/7. Four years ago, about 4 percent of 12- to 18-year-olds reported experiencing cyber-bullying during the school year. Considering the recent suicides over bullying, I have no doubt it’s on the rise.

Unfortunately it’s tough for parents to protect kids. My girl is almost seventeen. I can’t screen her every message for what looks suspicious, nor do we feel we should supervise every person who “friends” her. But we did all agree she would remove every Facebook "friend" of a friend that she had no chance of ever meeting. “Don’t talk to strangers” applies to the Internet, too.

We also now have our girl’s password. We can check out her connections any time and ask about them. At first it felt like we were invading her privacy. But a little accountability is good for us all. My husband and I know each other’s passwords, too—so accountability is not just a “kid” thing. We all need to know we’re responsible to others and also that somebody else has our back.

E-book = (Mighty Contagious)2

2011-10-14T14:40:00.001-05:00

Publishers Weekly reports today that despite the strong July performance, adult hardcover sales were down 17.8% for the seven month period, while e-book sales were up 152.8%.

News in the Lit World

2011-10-13T13:26:00.002-05:00

The 2011 National Book Award finalists have been released. Adult nominees are:

Fiction: Andrew Krivak, The Sojourn (Bellevue Literary Press); Téa Obreht, The Tiger's Wife (Random House); Julie Otsuka, The Buddha in the Attic (Knopf); Edith Pearlman, Binocular Vision (Lookout Books); Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones (Bloomsbury USA).

Nonfiction: Deborah Baker, The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism (Graywolf Press); Mary Gabriel, Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution (Little, Brown and Company); Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (W. W. Norton & Company); Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (Viking Press); Lauren Redniss, Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout (It Books).

Poetry: Nikky Finney, Head Off & Split (TriQuarterly, an imprint of Northwestern University Press); Yusef Komunyakaa, The Chameleon Couch (Farrar, Straus and Giroux); Carl Phillips, Double Shadow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux); Adrienne Rich, Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Poems 2007-2010 (W.W. Norton & Company); Bruce Smith, Devotions (University of Chicago Press).

Winners will be announced November 16.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-10-12T06:37:00.002-05:00

The Latest Target: Coptic Christians

2011-10-11T06:49:00.019-05:00

The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan does not recognize any citizens of their country as being Christian. They also disallow any citizens from legally converting to Christianity. There is one legally recognized church congregation in Afghanistan, located within the diplomatic enclave and closed to Egyptian nationals. Yet an underground church worships in the country. The U. S. Department of State estimates the size of this group at 500 to 8,000. And reports coming out of the country say life has been increasingly difficult for them in the past decade.

Then there's Nigeria, driving Christians from the North.

And when I visited Jordan several years ago, a moderate Muslim leader told our small group of journalists that Christians were leaving their country in droves, finding it increasingly difficult to raise families in a hostile environment.

And then there are the Coptic Christians struggling with intense persecution in Egypt. Unlike many denominations, the Coptic Christians must identify their religion on official papers. And Compass Direct News has reported that yesterday funeral services were held for some of the victims of a Sunday military attack against Christian protesters that left 26 dead and hundreds wounded.

"In the wake of what could be the worst act of violence against Egyptian Christians in modern history, leaders of the Coptic Orthodox Church have called for three days of fasting and prayer for divine intervention, along with three days of mourning.

"Leaders from other faith traditions among Egyptian Christians reported similar efforts among their congregations.

"Samia Sidhom, managing editor for the Coptic weekly Al Watani, said Copts across Egypt are distraught about the attack and the future for Christians across the country.

"The attack started late Sunday afternoon (Oct. 9) when Christian protesters marching through Cairo began getting pelted with rocks and other projectiles near an overpass that cuts through downtown Cairo. By the time the protesters were able to make it to a television and radio broadcasting building commonly known as the Maspero Building, the army began shooting into the crowd and ramming riot-control vehicles into the protesters.

"Witnesses at the scene reportedly said attacks left body parts scattered at the scene. Amateur video at the scene shows two riot-control vehicles plowing into the crowd of protesters.

"The protest came in response to a Sept. 30 attack in Upper Egypt, where the Mar Gerges Church building was burned down along with several Christian-owned homes and businesses in Elmarenab village in Aswan.

"The church building, which was being renovated, was attacked by local Muslims who claimed the congregation had no right to build it, despite legal documents parish priests put forth to the contrary. The local Muslims claimed the structure was a hospitality house.

"Before the attack, parishioners of the church took down crosses outside the building. When it was being destroyed, contractors where removing domes that local Muslims held to be offensive.

"The Mar Gerges burning was the third church in Egypt in seven months to be burned down by a mob.

"Sidhom said Christian protesters were particularly upset about the church attack because the government blamed them for it, claiming the building was a hospitality house with illegal construction taking place.

"Coptic Christians, once a majority in Egypt, now make up 7 to 10 percent of the country’s 80 million people."

More on this story in today's New York Times. Link to today'sTimes photo essay.

What I'm Reading Now...

2011-10-07T18:40:00.003-05:00

Hoffman is coming to Dallas as part of the Dallas Museum of Art's "Arts and Letters" Live series. For more information, go here.

A Good Day for Women

2011-10-07T08:12:00.002-05:00

The New York Times has announced that Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee and Tawakul Karman of Yemen have won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee honored these women “for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.”

For the longer story, go here: http://www.nytimes.com/?emc=na

For a previous post on the documentary about Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and her work to "pray the devil back to tell" in Liberia, go here.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-10-05T06:06:00.002-05:00

Left-Leaning Bible Readers

2011-10-02T00:37:00.002-05:00

Aaron B. Franzen, a grad student in Baylor’s sociology department, reported some interesting survey findings in the October issue of Christianity Today. LifeWay says 89 percent of American households own a Bible, and the average home in the U. S. has 4.1 Bibles. So we have lots of access to the Bible. But while not everyone reads the good book, people who do tend to lean toward the left.

A 2007 Baylor Religion Survey asked people to gauge on a five-point scale how often, if ever, they read the Bible. Possible options ranged from “never” to “several times weekly.” For each increased level of Bible-reading…

. support for the Patriot Act decreased 13 percent.

. support for abolishing the death penalty decreased by about 45 percent.

. people were about 22% more likely to believe the Bible and science are compatible.

. people were more likely to agree that it’s important to actively seek social and economic justice (i.e., “social justice”) to be a good person.

. people were about twice as likely to say that reducing consumption is part of ethical living.

Famous Failures

2011-10-01T17:15:00.002-05:00

Ever feel like a failure? If so, take heart. You're in fab company. Check out this list of famous failures.

Egg Freezing = Experimental

2011-10-01T11:01:00.003-05:00

An August article for BioEdge explored egg-freezing as an uncertain business. In one estimate fewer than 10 babies have been born from eggs frozen for women aged 38+. So we don’t know the ramifications of freezing and thawing older eggs. Of special concern: women seeking such services are typically over 38.

Even members of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) –the US fertility industry’s self-regulating arm—offer such services to older women, despite the fact that the guidelines they drafted state they should reserve egg-freezing for younger women. These guidelines also say clinics should consider egg-freezing experimental and conduct it as research governed by an institutional review board (IRB). Most clinics don’t classify such practices as “experimental” so they don’t reduce fees, submit to review boards, or monitor research. All this leaves patients vulnerable.

A related article in Nature News described most people who freeze eggs as aging single women seeking to “buy themselves time.” Yet fewer than ten babies have been born worldwide from eggs frozen for women aged 38+. We know little about the success of freezing and thawing older eggs.

According to an industry insider, some chemicals used in the freezing process are toxic to embryos, and no one knows how much the eggs absorb. Also, no one has done systematic follow-up of children born from frozen eggs.

Greed seems to be the motivation behind leaving patients at risk. In a competitive industry, clinics hesitate to share knowledge. Clinics must report IVF-related data to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART), as sister organization to ASRM. But when it comes to egg freezing, reporting is virtually non-existent.

Other countries tend to be more careful than the U. S. The Netherlands, for example, had a parliamentary vote in April that ended non-medical egg-freezing for women up to age 45. So if a woman has cancer and her ovaries at risk, she can freeze. But a woman delaying childbearing cannot.

It’s much easier to freeze sperm and embryos. Human eggs are large, aqueous, and permeable. But advances during the past few years have significantly increased success rates, and now as many as 50–90% of eggs can survive slow-freezing and thawing. Still, researchers share concern that “cryoprotectants can be toxic to the egg, and that freezing and thawing might affect the egg's meiotic spindle, although spindles are generally thought to reform several hours after thawing.” What we don’t know is if older, more fragile eggs, have more difficulty recovering.

Fewer than 2,000 people worldwide have been born from frozen eggs, with 400 of those in the U. S. But again, most of these were born using eggs from younger women. Italy has the highest number of such babies, as only recently has embryo-freezing been allowed.

The cost of stimulating ovaries and freezing eggs can exceed $10,000. Add to that an annual cost of $500 to keep them frozen and $1,000 for the thaw. So the cost per child runs about $20,000. With fresh eggs, a single IVF attempt gives a 38- to 40-year-old woman a 22% chance of a live birth. By age 43 or 44, the rate drops to 5%.

Many clinics offering egg freezing have limited experience in thawing the cells. One researcher contacted every U. S. clinic, of which 64% responded. Of the 140 providing egg-service info, 45 had never even thawed a client's frozen eggs. At least 30 clinics had zero live births from thawed eggs, and 11 more had only one. Only 8 clinics had 10+ live births.

Medical Progress

2011-09-30T18:39:00.003-05:00

The BBC reports that a woman is one of the U. S.'s first patients to have part of a limb artificially regrown in a lab and transferred back to her body.

Of Whom the World is Not Worthy...

2011-09-29T04:17:00.000-05:00

ISTANBUL (Compass Direct News) – Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani refused to recant his Christian faith yesterday at the fourth and final court hearing in Iran to appeal his death sentence for apostasy (leaving Islam). Applying sharia (Islamic law), the court in Rasht gave Nadarkhani, 35, a final chance to recant Christianity and return to Islam in order for his life to be spared. Nadarkhani refused.

At an appeal hearing in June, the Supreme Court of Iran upheld Nadarkhani’s sentence but asked the court in Rasht to determine if he was a practicing Muslim before his conversion. The court declared that although Nadarkhani was not a practicing Muslim before his conversion, he was still guilty of apostasy due to his Muslim ancestry, a source close to Nadarkhani’s family told Compass.

A defense lawyer told Nadarkhani’s family and friends there is a way to take the case back to the Supreme Court or extend Nadarkhani’s prison sentence, but the source said the directives of the Supreme Court were clear and he didn’t think there was much hope. It is critical for foreign governments to negotiate and engage in diplomacy with Iranian authorities about Nadarkhani’s case, the source said, adding that advocates in the international community fear that authorities may execute Nadarkhani as early as midnight tonight or any time in the coming week. The court said a verdict on Nadarkhani would be issued within the next week. “They probably won’t kill him today, but they can do it whenever they want,” the source said. “Sometimes in Iran they call the family and deliver the body with the verdict.”

Cat Theology

2011-09-29T03:05:00.003-05:00

I had the privilege of speaking in chapel at DTS Tuesday. Here's a link to the video.

Also, thanks to all who go through this blog to access Amazon (sidebar on right) to make any purchases there. It costs nothing extra to the buyer, and we use the commission Amazon pays to benefit our work in Africa. This week we purchased a needed digital camera for our partners in D. R. Congo. They plan to use the camera to photograph children still in need of sponsors. And the camera cost us less than $15 because of Amazon credits we had from you. Thanks!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-09-28T05:39:00.000-05:00

Thinking about History, Gender and Race

2011-09-25T18:54:00.004-05:00

The latest issue of Smithsonian Magazine has a couple of fascinating articles. One on Madame Curie profiles this fascinating character in the context of her times, providing an interesting picture of gender, history and physics. Another celebrates 50 years since the publication of Black Like Me.

What You Won't Read in Mainstream Media

2011-09-22T20:24:00.004-05:00

More than 100 Christians Killed in Nigeria’s Plateau State
By Obed Minchakpu

JOS, Nigeria, September 22 (Compass Direct News) – A rash of attacks by armed Muslim extremists on villages in Nigeria’s Plateau state in the past month have left more than 100 Christians dead, including the elimination of entire families, sources said.

In a guerilla-type “hit and run” attack on the Christian community of Vwang Kogot, Muslim attackers at about 8 p.m. on Sept. 9 killed 14 Christians, including a pregnant woman. Survivors of the attack said the assailants raided the village with the aid of men in military uniforms of the Nigerian Army. Many of the victims were members of a single family surnamed Danboyi.

“We heard gunshots in our village and realized that the sound was coming from a neighbor’s house, so we quickly ran to find out what was happening but saw a soldier at the entrance of the house with a gun ready to shoot at anybody who comes around, and at the same time preventing those inside from escaping,” village resident Markus Mamba told Compass Direct News. “We couldn’t get any closer because we were hearing gunshots at random, and we had no weapons with us to use to withstand the might of those soldiers, as there were quite a number of them around the house.”

“After the soldiers and the Muslims left, we rushed into the place to see the destruction they did,” he said. “We discovered that 14 people were killed. Among them was a pregnant woman who died with a child in her womb – bringing the number of deaths to 15 persons. We also observed that the victims died from gun and machete wounds.”

Gyang Badung survived the attack, but his wife, four children, mother, grandmother and a nephew did not, he told Compass.

He jumped through his bedroom window and ran to a farm behind his house, he said. “I waited in the bush, helpless, not knowing what to do until they left,” he said. “I saw more than nine people who came to attack us leaving into the bush and going away from our village. When I returned home, I found out that my whole family had been killed except for two sons, who were injured but survived, and my father who also narrowly escaped and ran into the bush.” The ages of the children he lost were 15, 9, 5, and 4. His two injured sons are receiving hospital treatment.

Vou Mallam, another survivor of the attack, was with her husband and children when the raiders broke into their house. She escaped death when she found a hiding place in one of the rooms. Her husband, only son and grandchildren were killed. She said she heard the assailants speaking the Fulani language. Ethnic Fulani are primarily Muslim nomads in Nigeria whom militant Muslims appear to be enlisting to attack Christian communities due to the Fulanis’ expert understanding of the terrain of rural communities, area Christians said.

Dachung Dagai, pastor of a Church of Christ in Nigeria congregation in Vwang Kogot, told Compass that the village has been attacked three times since he arrived eight months ago. “No help or relief from the government has been received by our people,” Dagai said. “We’ve just been living with the horror of not knowing what will happen next.” Dagai said their main concern is that Nigerian army soldiers have been involved in each attack.

Photo of grave with several murdered Christians in Vwang Koget courtesy of Compass Direct News, www.compassdirect.org.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-09-21T08:35:00.001-05:00

You Are Invited...

2011-09-20T10:32:00.001-05:00

RSVP at alarm-inc.org/RSVP