|
moufanny
|
read my profile
sign my guestbook
Name: Fred
Birthday: 7/22/1975
Gender: Male
Interests: heckling my friends especially kenn because he secretly likes it
Expertise: appropriate and inappropriate (by western standards) public displays of affection with the same gender
Occupation: Student
Industry: Other
Message: message me
MSN: moufan@hotmail.com
Yahoo:  ecc57b@yahoo.com
Member Since:
11/12/2003
|
|
| Haircuts
Took the three oldest to get haircuts today. Micah was brave and
volunteered to go first. This was Abby's first professional haircut -
we got her bangs and her hair evened in the back. she looked so cute
sitting in the big chair and she didn't cry at all. This is my first
time telling someone what to do with a girl's hair. And of course,
they got candy after it was all over. | | |
| The ShackI've been hearing a lot of hype about this book and seen it prominently displayed at Borders and as the #1 fiction bestseller on Amazon.com. So I was pretty excited when Jean Fong gave it to Judy as a gift (she bought 10 copies to give to people). I was stoked because I knew I would read it before Judy got around to it. It took me a awhile to finish. I read the back and it send shivers down my spine. You could tell it would be a tear-jerker and that's part of the reason I often avoided to read it. Most of the time, especially when I'm tired and restless, I do not feel like crying and you just know this is the kind of book that is going pull on your heart-strings. And it really did. I partly refused to go along with it but the neat thing about the story is that its not that cheesy which I was very afraid it would be - a major reason why I avoid so-called Christian fiction. It is somewhat cheesy and overly sentimental at times but its kind of unavoidable - I could hardly imagine doing a better job). Towards the end of the book, you can kinda predict what is going to happen but that actually enhances the emotional impact. The guy is a decent writer but not extraordinary and his goal through the book is ambitious but so worthy- to totally re-vamp our perception of who God is. Specifically, Willie Young is trying to help us capture a view of the Trinity that we rarely (if ever) preach about. However, it has been preached and taught about and according to my former theology professor, is almost two thousand years old. His review (which is excellent) is here. He references David Eckman (not by name) in his post, another former seminary professor whom my family has been learning from since the early 90s. Listening to his tapes when I was on vacation in high school was the first time I heard about the idea of the Trinity being relational and it echoed back strongly in this book. Its a great book and the picture it paints of who the Trinity is pretty imaginative and powerful. I wrote Eckman about his thoughts on the book and he told me he wished he wrote it - that it's view of the Trinity was delightful, sophisticated, and way better than what we teach in our churches. I've been wrestling now with how to teach this view and I think I will continue to but I think its a good thing. It is so vitally important for people to have this relational view of who God is.
| | |
| Book ReviewsInspired by this person's blog, here are some books I've read in the past couple months, in the sequence of how they impacted me, from greatest to least:
Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservatism by James Q. Wilson => This is a book about charitable giving by Americans. When I first graduated from college, I considered myself a moderate politically. When I started working and noticed how much of my paycheck went to the government, I became a conservative (registered Republican). About four years into seminary, after taking some church and society classes and going into full-time ministry, I gradually became more liberal. Then I got to know Fred Gilham and considered (and am still considering) libertarianism. And now this book has me swinging back towards being politically AND socially conservative. Wilson writes how politically conservative Americans tend o contribute to charitable organizations in greater frequency and amount than liberals. This means everything else being equal - age, sex, income, gender, and race - that the person who is conservative is more likely to give to charity and more likely to give more than a liberal person. The same applies to those who are religious. The group of people who are both religious and conservative donate the most to all charitable causes, including non-religious ones. Wilson posits the difference is due ot how people view the role of government. If one views income equality as first priority and sees the government as responsible for re-distributing income than that person is far less likely to give to charity because theoretically, they see government hand-outs as charity. Wilson goes on to show that government aid is NOT charity since it is not voluntary (at an individual level) and government aid actually reduces the charitable impulse of those receive aid. Its a pretty interesting book and its kinda moving to see how the belief in Jesus (among other religions) impels people to give. There's a section in the back for all the statistical work but I wish he put it more in the body of the book. Also, he seems to imply that giving makes us happy when I would tend to disagree. Giving is a result of how you see yourself and its how you see yourself that makes you happy.
Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser => I saw this on the bookshelf at the Almaden Library and it looked pretty interesting - I mean how do you turn down a book called Fat Land? The book reads fast and talks about changes in the agricultural industry, fast food (the invention of the happy meal and meal combo), psychology of making gluttony morally neutral, cutting of exercise programs in school, and health risks associated with obesity and maybe he should have talked about video games too. But the big thing I got out if was this: STAY AWAY FROM HIGH-FRUCTOSE SYRUP. Its not fat that makes Americans fat - its sugar. And in the 70s, corn growers found a way to make food sweetened with a corn product, that increased shelf life and tasted really good. The only problem was that it had dubious nutritional value. The net here is that our bodies are not good at breaking down certain types of sugar especially concentrated amounts of fructose and it very easily becomes fat and leads to type 2 diabetes. Almost everything has high-fructose corn syrup - pretty much every soda, almost every snack (oreos, etc.), cereal, and the list goes on. So I'm not eating that stuff anymore. One interesting thing too is they did a study in San Jose and instead of telling kids to exercise, they just got them to commit to only watching like 30 min. of TV a day and it had a tremendous effect because 1) they exercised more because they weren't in front of the TV 2) they snacked less because something about the boob tube makes you want to eat 3) they ate healthier beacuse they weren't exposed to advertising of junk food.
Can I Keep My Jersey? 11 teams, 5 countries, and 4 years in my life as a basketball vagabond by Paul Shirley => this book is not very good. its like turning an SNL sketch into a movie - its funny for like 5 minutes and then it just gets repetitive and boring. Paul Shirley was a scrub NBA basketball player who wrote a blog on espn.com and some of the entries were pretty hilarious because he had this intelligent, abrasive white man's perspective to everything happening - kind of like the Dr. House take on things. But as you're reading the book, you realize his life is not that exciting and that he's kind of a superficial, bitter and very self-centered person. I have personal experience with this so I don't need more of it unless he can provide some insight about it that I don't normally see. It is somewhat helpful though to see how someone who is atheist/agnostic views professional athletes who are Christians (not very positively).
The Scoundrel Worlds by Chris Bunch ==> This is a sci-fi novel and not a very good book. Its not even worth reviewing. I read this because I loved the Sten series by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch. yeah, so I read them in junior high and they seemed really good to me at the time.
| | |
| The Truth of ChildbirthI wrote awhile ago about an interview in which I was told that truth has a close relationship with pain. For the past month or so, I've been thinking about this and how it concerns childbirth. Two weeks ago, I sat next to Judy, held her hands, and watched as contractions pulsed through her body. Each one ruptured inside her like an earthquake and as they shook her, she would moan and drive her head into my chest. The aftermath of each tremor would leave her sweating and quietly shaking.
There was more pain there than I can imagine. And yet there's incredible joy throughout this process because of the end result. I know the bible talks about labor pain being a consequence of the fall. But perhaps the pain exists to help us fallen creatures recognize how close to God's heart certain truths are - the entry of a person into the world being one example. And pain is a type of cost - because some truths are only accessed by costing us something. Because of the pain, I wonder if childbirth might be closer to truth than anything a man can experience.
| | |
| Praise SongI've been listening to imeem.com with the kids. I found some 80s songs that take me back - way back. The other day, one of my favorites I Hate Myself for Loving You came on by Joan Jett. Micah heard it and said "Hey, I like this song dad." I told him that's cool. And then he said, since we listen to a lot of Christian music, "Is this a praise song?" Priceless.
| | |
|
