I found this great website, Made By Joel, last week and have been going through the archives looking at projects we might like to do.
Cowboy Cutouts (Deirdre is asking for one of these right now)
There’s more, but Deirdre wants her cowboy. It’s a pity I’m feeling too tired to actually make or do any of these today!
I wrote the following this summer as a part of a discussion of Tim Keller’s very worthwhile book, “The Prodigal God.” For the past few years I’ve been thinking a lot about legalism and antinomianism and how to navigate between the two, but it’s too huge a topic for one blog post. Here’s a stab at a beginning.
Tax collectors and sinners were coming to hear Jesus. He was even eating with them and the Pharisees were appalled. After all, the Bible tells us to avoid the company of evildoers and strange women and the like, and here Jesus was hanging out with them. In answer to their mutterings Jesus told three parables about lost things: the parable of the lost sheep, the parable of the lost coin and the parable of the lost son. The three parables all describe the joy of finding lost things, but the parable of the lost son introduces another element, the character of the elder brother.
I’m not sure how the original hearers would have taken these parables. Obviously, the Pharisees would have sympathized with the elder brother, which, I guess, is why Jesus emphasizes the joy of finding lost things in the first two parables. They needed their perspective changed on their brethren before they could be confronted with their own sin. Possibly, they had the idea that once you’ve fallen into sin you can’t ever be restored to good society, or maybe only if you really prove yourself by many years of righteous living or undergoing some sort of horrible penance.
So Jesus told them the story of a young Jewish man who goes off into a far country and squanders his inheritance in profligate living. At first, I thought the issue of his Jewish identity, whether or not he was a covenant child, was irrelevant. Isn’t the rejoicing in heaven just as great for a Gentile sinner as for a Jewish one? Of course it is, but the point of the parable isn’t just about the joy of finding lost things, it’s also about the attitude of the older brother. And the fact that the elder brother despises his own flesh and blood, just as the Pharisees despised their Jewish brethren, is a significant detail in the story.
The character of the elder brother is included to illustrate their selfish, self-centered and uncaring hearts. He needs to welcome back his brother. And his refusal to participate in the celebration shows that, beyond his proud and unloving attitude toward his brother, he’s not really concerned with his father, either. He’s completely wrapped up in himself. His strategy has been all about looking good to his father, without any real affection or love for him. The Pharisees, in not welcoming the repentant tax collectors and sinners, are the elder brothers, more concerned with projecting the image of godliness than actually following the two greatest commandments of the Law: loving God and loving their neighbors.
The parable doesn’t tell us what happens to the elder brother, but the Pharisees go on to participate in the killing of Jesus and the persecution of the Church. Even those who embrace the Gospel end up causing problems in the Church, turning people away from the Gospel of Faith and toward a Gospel of Works. The attitude of the elder brother is a very dangerous one, because the person who thinks he has it all together can never see his need for repentance. So, I can see a case being made for the attitude of the elder brother being the greatest danger facing the Church today.
But I think that to call anything the greatest danger is a great danger in and of itself. As C.S. Lewis said
He always sends errors into the world in pairs-pairs of opposites. And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse. You see why, of course? He relies on your extra dislike of the one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one. But do not let us be fooled. We have to keep our eyes on the goal and go straight through between both errors. We have no other concern than that with either of them.
At the end of Galatians, after Paul has spent several chapters dealing with the legalism of the circumcision party, Pharisees who insisted that all Christians had to follow the Law, he reminds them that avoiding the elder brother mentality does not mean that anything goes.
13You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature[a]; rather, serve one another in love. 14The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”[b] 15If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
Selfishness can come in all sorts of manifestations. In the story of the Prodigal Son, both the brothers were selfish in their own way. We need to examine our own hearts, to make sure that we aren’t trying to substitute our own Laws for Gods’ and we need to look at all our brethren with eyes of love, the ones who have too many rules, and the ones that have too few.
Stuff I want to do in the New Year, anyway.
1) Entertain myself less – reading fiction and magazines, playing computer games etc.
2) Improve at painting
3) Improve my Spanish
4) Make the apartment beautiful
5) Memorize some more Psalms
6) Work on Christmas presents/crafts throughout the year so I’m not working feverishly at the end
7) Be diligent about Spanish with the kids
I know that if I’m disciplined I can do these things, and if I use the time gleaned from reading and playing less for painting and Spanish, I should automatically make progress. It’s just a matter of remembering that these things are priorities and not re-reading novels or playing Scramble.
A couple of weeks ago a group of Evangelical, Catholic and Orthodox Christians came out with a document called “the Manhattan Declaration.” It’s a couple of page long declaration of common historical Christian beliefs on the sanctity of life, marriage and religious liberty and a promise to uphold those beliefs and oppose any laws that would change or ask Christians to violate these beliefs. Sounds pretty good, right? So far, over 25 thousand people have signed it, and you can too, but I don’t think I’ll be doing so. Maybe I’m cynical, but I’m not sure what the point of this is, a sort of flexing of Christian political muscle to make a demonstration of power? Is that how Christians should behave? Should we be spending our time at all on political solutions to cultural problems?
I have to say that there is something about this that reminds me of the Israelites at the time of Eli who marched out with the Ark of the Covenant as if it were some kind of talisman, presuming that God would be on their side against the pagan Philistines, when in fact God was sending the Philistines as a punishment for the Israelites’ sin. Why do these people think that America is seeing these kinds of cultural issues? And why do they think that political petitions are an effective way to deal with them?
I know why I think that we’re seeing these issues. Romans 1:21-32 spells it out.
24Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: 25Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. 26For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 27And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
28And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; 29Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: 32Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
The Bible says that when men stopped worshiping God and start following idols, he gave them over to all sorts of sin, including the sins outlined in the Manhattan Declaration. These sins are not the root of the problem, but the fruit of deep rebellion. Oddly, the book I am currently reading, a secular biography of missionary Matteo Ricci to China in the 1500′s, recognizes this connection, saying, “To Isaiah… sodomy was the punishment for idolatry,” yet how often have you heard any of these cultural conservatives link them? We see these things in our culture because God, as a sign of his judgment, has allowed them. And if God has allowed them, if we fight them by political means, are we fighting against God’s will, just as the Israelites did with the Philistines? Can we legislate away God’s judgment? It’s kind of a doomed strategy, isn’t it?
The only strategy that works in the Bible is repentance. And although the writers of the Manhattan Declaration mention repentance once (“Insofar as we have too easily embraced the culture of divorce and remained silent about social practices that undermine the dignity of marriage we repent, and call upon all Christians to do the same.”) they don’t really strike to the heart of the matter. They don’t address the idols and sins of the church. They seem to point outward at others as the sinners and causes of our social problems, while claiming for themselves the mantle of Christians in times past who did noble things in rescuing abandoned babies, ending slavery and the like. Maybe it’s not nice of me, but it calls to mind the Pharisees saying that if they had been there they wouldn’t have killed the prophets like their fathers did.
I’d feel a lot better about the future of the causes of sanctity of life, marriage and religious liberty in America if the divorce rate in American churches wasn’t nearly the same as the rest of the US, if nearly half of “born again” males hadn’t looked at internet porn in the past week, if most Christian teens weren’t having sex before marriage, if Christians weren’t buying useless, made in China junk with crosses on it or putting bumper stickers on their Cadillac Escalades that say “Don’t be fooled, my real treasure is in Heaven.” I’d feel better if the Atlantic couldn’t run an article about the role Christians preachers played in creating the housing bubble.
Ezekiel 16:48-50 says” ‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.” Does that at all describe America? American churches? Are we really in the position to assume the mantle of those Christians in the past who changed their culture through their cultures? Are documents like the Manhattan Declaration the way to do so?
I feel like I ought to have something earth-shattering or incredibly funny to share on my Xanga. Alas I have nothing. Life in Puerto Rico is mostly tolerable, occasionally very difficult and almost always very sunny.
In many ways being in Puerto Rico is just like being in America, but in Spanish. Driving, however, is not one of them. When it comes to behavior on the road, Puerto Rico is much closer to the third world.
Red lights are mere stop signs. Running the red is so common because apparently there is no prohibition against it. At least, the other day I saw four cars run a red light right in front of a police car without any repercussions. In and of itself, this would not be amazing, I suppose. What does amaze me is when I see people make a right turn from the left turn lane, across two lanes of traffic while running a red light. Or a right turn from the left lane across two lanes of traffic. It’s not an uncommon occurrence.
You have to push yourself in to make turns a lot of places because there’s tons of traffic, especially when getting out of parking spaces (unless you just park in the middle of the road and block traffic.) For some reason this pushing out makes certain persons extremely irate, which is completely incomprehensible to me as it’s just such a common occurrence. But they’ll be flipping people off for doing what everyone does, and what everyone has to do in order to keep moving.
The roads are terrible and full of potholes. In many places the markings have been obliterated. There are storm drains which are set very low. This all has the very welcome effect of at least keeping people from driving too fast.
So far, wherever I’ve had to drive, there is actually enough room for two cars to pass each other on the road. And they drive on the right side of the road. After two years of not driving much at all I am so thrilled to be mobile once again, who cares what the driving is like!
As I mentioned before, we are sending Conall, Aidan, Aine and Mairead to school so that, hopefully, they will learn Spanish. I do not know if we’ll do it for the entire time we’re here in Puerto Rico. We’ll just have to see how it goes.
Kevin and I had to endure the mind-numbing parents orientation, in Spanish, yesterday. It gave me a headache. It might not have given me a headache in English, but going over calendars, payment procedures, uniform dress codes and policies for dealing with H1N1 is hardly scintillating in any language.
The school we have chosen uses the ACE curriculum. It’s an independent study course where the children work through their workbooks at their own pace. It’s bilingual in the lower grades, but Conall’s will all be in English. I think Mairead, Aine and Aidan will all do fine, both academically and socially. Conall, on the other hand, being a little older, and kind of nerdy space cadet, I’m not so sure about. I hope and pray he’ll do well.
There’s so much to do to get kids ready for school, and so many things to buy! They all need uniforms (and PE uniforms, even though they only get PE on Fridays.) I hope two sets will get them through the year if I make sure they have a little room for growth. At least they don’t need both winter and summer uniforms. And there the lists of books and supplies. They each (except Mairead) need a Spanish-Spanish dictionary, English-English dictionary and Spanish-English dictionary. Of course, they could share those, and their scissors, colored pencils, glue and other supplies as well if they were still at home. And I could just buy things as needed throughout the year, instead of all at once.
Expenses aside, there’s the issue of handing over my responsibilities to other people. On the whole, I’m glad to do it for a bit, since it gives me a chance to concentrate on Brendan and Fiona for a while. If I weren’t homeschooling anyone, it might be a little harder. While I love teaching all my children, keeping up with them all is a challenge (which certain children know how to take advantage of.) It will be nice to have only two, who are going through the same material, to keep up with.
The first day of school is August 11th, which is now only nine days away! If you think of us, we’d appreciate your prayers that the transition goes smoothly!
We’ve been here in Puerto Rico for just a little over three weeks now. It’s great! Hot, but hey, after Ireland, a different kind of discomfort is at least a change.
We arrived the 30th of June and spent the first night at the Holiday Inn in Isla Verde. It felt like a vacation for a bit, but the next day the real work began. Our container arrived the next afternoon and we had the joy of unloading it and carrying everything up to the third floor in ninety-four degree heat. Everyone worked really hard, but if it weren’t for the hard work of Conall, Aidan and Aine, it would have been impossible. The three of them made about forty trips apiece, carrying even the heavy loads of books! (A monetary incentive was a big motivating factor here.) We were all really glad that we had gotten rid of so much stuff before we came!
Unpacking half the stuff also took a lot less time than previous moves, another plus. In a matter of days we had made big strides in setting things up, to the point that we felt pretty settled. We also bought a minivan the first weekend, so we were able to get to church on Sunday.
We love our new church! Our pastor is not only a good teacher, but he’s also really interested in health and nutrition. When on the first Sunday he asked me if I knew how to make kefir, I knew that God had sent us to the right place. Sometime I’m supposed to teach them all how to make kefir! The pastor’s wife is from New York, so she, and some of the other people speak English, but mostly we’re trying to get along in Spanish. I understand the sermons pretty well, and some of the people. Others just talk too fast. And I’m still not very good at speaking, but I’m trying. I suppose three weeks isn’t enough to achieve fluency, though I wish it were.
We’ve also decided to put Conall, Aidan, Aine and Mairead into school so that they can learn Spanish. It seems the best way for them to take advantage of the opportunity of being in a different country. There’s a small Christian school close-by that uses the ACE curriculum, which seems like a good fit. Next week they’re supposed to take placement exams to see where they should start.
Brendan and Fiona are still going to be homeschooled. They both want to go to school in Northern Ireland so we are preparing them to take the AP exams, which the universities there look at as equivalent to A levels. I don’t know how much Spanish they’ll pick up, but hopefully they’ll be able to get along. They went on an outing with the church youth group last weekend and had a good time.
Kevin starts school the third of August. He’s spent most of his time trying to get ahead in his studies and trying to tie up all sorts of loose ends with taxes and health care and other icky things that I am thankful that he’s dealing with and not me!
I have been hanging pictures and curtains, taking the kids to the gym and the pool, going to Costco and trying to learn as much Spanish as I can. I’m on my second time through “The Hobbit” in Spanish, though maybe I ought to get some other books. Now that I’ve got internet I guess I have to start working on a curriculum for Brendan and Fiona. I’m enjoying having only 1300 square feet to clean, no outside maintenance and other benefits of condo living and I’m excited to see how our time in Puerto Rico goes.
Since people seem to never know where we are living, where we are moving and what we’re doing. Some people thought we had already moved to Costa Rica (no, we’re not going to Costa Rica.)
Where are you living? For the moment, Galway, Ireland.
How long have you been there? About seven months.
How much longer will you be there? Until the middle of May.
Where are you going next? Puerto Rico.
Why? For Kevin to attend medical school.
Do you have a place in Puerto Rico? No, not yet.
How long will your goods be in transit? About six or seven weeks.
When will you get to Puerto Rico? At the beginning of July.
How firm are these plans? Hanley plans are always subject to change until the very last minute.
What are your plans for the six or seven weeks while your goods are in transit? Brendan, Fiona and I are hoping to take Chem 101 at NVCC and stay at my parents’. Kevin is planning on staying up in New Jersey with the other children.
Do you speak Spanish? I took two years of Spanish in college. I read it well, but my brain still tends to freeze when I’m trying to speak. Kevin speaks very well, as he has worked in Latin America and with Spanish customers. The kids are just beginning to learn.
Is the instruction at the school in Spanish? Yes, the instruction at the school is in Spanish, but I think the tests and textbooks are in English as the course is geared toward the US Medical Leaving Exam.
Any other questions?
It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, and it may be a while more.
For those of you who don’t know, Kevin got into medical school in Puerto Rico, so we have a lot of changes to think of.
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