Whenever people begin to ask, “Does it fit our rules,” rather than, “Does it serve our mission,” then you have a bureaucracy.
— Matt Perman, How Do You Know When You Have a Bureaucracy?
So Thanksgiving is not what we fight for. Thanksgiving is what we fight with. Take your celebration of Thanksgiving out of the scabbard.
— Doug Wilson, Deep Peril, Deep Thanksgiving
[B]efore we think about getting a job, we need to train the next generation how to get a life….You need to understand the world before finding your place in it. If you just start by finding your place in it, then, unreflectingly, you are aspiring to become a cog in the socialist industrial machine. You are aspiring to be a worker bee in the great Hive of modern society. And if you get bored standing there on the assembly line of the new civilization, they will give you an MP3 player, so that you can have something to think about.
— Doug Wilson, College as a Counter-Revolution
A man who is to do much with men must love them and feel at home with them. An individual who has no geniality about him had better be an undertaker and bury the dead, for he will never succeed in influencing the living….A man must have a great heart, if he would have a great congregation. His heart should be as capacious as those noble harbors along our coast, which contain sea-room for a fleet. When a man has a large, loving heart, men go to him as ships to a haven and feel at peace when they have anchored under the lee of his friendship. Such a man is hearty in private as well as in public; his blood is not cold and fishy but he is warm as your own fireside. No pride and selfishness chill you when you approach him; he has his doors all open to receive you, and you are home with him at once. Such men I would persuade you to be, every one of you.
— Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, 169.
[T]rue fruitfulness requires constant, year round attention. It requires taking risks. Making a truckload of apples to throw in a ditch out in the country somewhere. It is kind of funny to think about, but God does not tell us to necessarily be strategic with our fruit. We do not need to know what will happen to the fruit. Will someone check on it every day, harvest the best to make a pie? Or will there be a junior high kid sweating around among the yellow jackets trying to pick it all up - wishing that we were not quite so bountiful? What happens to all of our fruit is not our problem. That doesn’t mean that we are not to care about the fruit. While it is on our branches, it is our life work. It is an offering to God, and we ought to care intensely about the quality of our fruit. But the branches are our responsibility, the ground is not.
— Rachel Jankovic, Heavy Branches
[W]e each have a container of a different size, and we can only take in so much before we start to spill all over floor. Some have a teaspoon that is threatening to spill over any minute. Others have a gallon jug that can take quite a bit of jostling before it slops over.
—
Nancy Wilson, Large Hearts
Originally sent to me by hobbsandbean on 2008-10-08. Though aimed at wives and mommas, the application spills over for anyone, including me, trying to live in community.
All Suffering in One Pot? →
One last question: I have lumped all affliction in one pot and used it everywhere I saw suffering in the New Testament. Is this right? When Paul talked about suffering did he mean cancer or being treated badly? I have them in one pot because I think the Bible has them in one pot. Here are three reasons why I lump all affliction in one pot:
- Paul seems to do this. In 2 Corinthians 12:10, Paul lists his sufferings twice and then says that “for the sake of Christ [he is] content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, calamities … .” And in 2 Corinthians 11:23-28 he mentions imprisonment, beatings, stonings, danger from rivers, danger from robbers, toil, hardship, cold, etc. The pain that happens to you in the path of obedience to Christ is suffering with Christ.
- When I try to distinguish them it doesn’t work. Paul’s back was lacerated five times. Where do you draw the line between what was persecution and what was illness when a bad back is connected to sickness and pain months or years down the line.
- All affliction in your life—from man or nature—has the same potential to destroy your faith or make Christ look good. Will Christ be enough—when my health is failing or when my friends are failing? The magnifying of Christ is the issue whether it’s cancer or persecution.
Missed the Boat. Probably not exactly how it went down.
Agassiz and the Fish
It was more than fifteen years ago that I entered the laboratory of Professor Agassiz, and told him I had enrolled my name in the scientific school as a student of natural history. He asked me a few questions about my object in coming, my antecedents generally, the mode in which I afterwards proposed to use the knowledge I might acquire, and finally, whether I wished to study any special branch. To the latter I replied that while I wished to be well grounded in all departments of zoology, I purposed to devote myself specially to insects.
“When do you wish to begin?” he asked.
“Now,” I replied.
This seemed to please him, and with an energetic “Very well,” he reached from a shelf a huge jar of specimens in yellow alcohol.
“Take this fish,” he said, “and look at it; we call it a Haemulon; by and by I will ask what you have seen.”
With that he left me… . I was conscious of a passing feeling of disappointment, for gazing at a fish did not commend itself to an ardent entomologist… . .
In ten minutes I had seen all that could be seen in that fish, and started in search of the professor, who had, however, left the museum; and when I returned, after lingering over some of the odd animals stored in the upper apartment, my specimen was dry all over. I dashed the fluid over the fish as if to resuscitate it from a fainting-fit, and looked with anxiety for a return of a normal, sloppy appearance. This little excitement over, nothing was to be done but return to a steadfast gaze at my mute companion. Half an hour passed, an hour, another hour; the fish began to look loathsome. I turned it over and around; looked it in the face—ghastly; from behind, beneath, above, sideways, at a three-quarters view—just as ghastly. I was in despair; at an early hour, I concluded that lunch was necessary; so with infinite relief, the fish was carefully replaced in the jar, and for an hour I was free.
On my return, I learned that Professor Agassiz had been at the museum, but had gone and would not return for several hours. My fellow students were too busy to be disturbed by continued conversation. Slowly I drew forth that hideous fish, and with a feeling of desperation again looked at it. I might not use a magnifying glass; instruments of all kinds were interdicted. My two hands, my two eyes, and the fish; it seemed a most limited field. I pushed my fingers down its throat to see how sharp its teeth were. I began to count the scales in the different rows until I was convinced that that was nonsense. At last a happy thought struck me—I would draw the fish; and now with surprise I began to discover new features in the creature. Just then the professor returned.
“That is right,” said he, “a pencil is one of the best eyes. I am glad to notice, too, that you keep your specimen wet and your bottle corked.”
With these encouraging words he added—
“Well, what is it like?”
He listened attentively to my brief rehearsal of the structure of parts whose names were still unknown to me; the fringed gill-arches and movable operculum; the pores of the head, fleshly lips, and lidless eyes; the lateral line, the spinous fin, and forked tail; the compressed and arched body. When I had finished, he waited as if expecting more, and then, with an air of disappointment:
“You have not looked very carefully; why,” he continued, more earnestly, “you haven’t seen one of the most conspicuous features of the animal, which is as plainly before your eyes as the fish itself. Look again; look again!” And he left me to my misery.
I was piqued; I was mortified. Still more of that wretched fish? But now I set myself to the task with a will, and discovered one new thing after another, until I saw how just the professor’s criticism had been. The afternoon passed quickly, and when, towards its close, the professor inquired,
“Do you see it yet?”
“No,” I replied. “I am certain I do not, but I see how little I saw before.”
“That is next best,” said he earnestly, “but I won’t hear you now; put away your fish and go home; perhaps you will be ready with a better answer in the morning. I will examine you before you look at the fish.”
This was disconcerting; not only must I think of my fish all night, studying, without the object before me, what this unknown but most visible feature might be, but also, without reviewing my new discoveries, I must give an exact account of them the next day. I had a bad memory; so I walked home by Charles River in a distracted state, with my two perplexities.
The cordial greeting from the professor the next morning was reassuring; here was a man who seemed to be quite as anxious as I that I should see for myself what he saw.
“Do you perhaps mean,” I asked, “that the fish has symmetrical sides with paired organs?”
His thoroughly pleased, “Of course, of course!” repaid the wakeful hours of the previous night. After he had discoursed most happily and enthusiastically—as he always did—upon the importance of this point, I ventured to ask what I should do next.
“Oh, look at your fish!” he said, and left me again to my own devices. In a little more than an hour he returned and heard my new catalogue.
“That is good, that is good!” he repeated, “but that is not all; go on.” And so for three long days, he placed that fish before my eyes, forbidding me to look at anything else, or to use any artificial aid. “Look, look, look,” was his repeated injunction.
This was the best entomological lesson I ever had—a lesson whose influence was extended to the details of every subsequent study; a legacy the professor has left to me, as he left it to many others, of inestimable value, which we could not buy, with which we cannot part… .
The fourth day a second fish of the same group was placed beside the first, and I was bidden to point out the resemblances and differences between the two; another and another followed, until the entire family lay before me, and a whole legion of jars covered the table and surrounding shelves; the odor had become a pleasant perfume; and even now, the sight of an old six-inch worm-eaten cork brings fragrant memories!
The whole group of Haemulons was thus brought into review; and whether engaged upon the dissection of the internal organs, preparation and examination of the bony framework, or the description of the various parts, Agassiz’s training in the method of observing facts in their orderly arrangement, was ever accompanied by the urgent exhortation not to be content with them.
“Facts are stupid things,” he would say, “until brought into connection with some general law.”
At the end of eight months, it was almost with reluctance that I left these friends and turned to insects; but what I gained by this outside experience has been of greater value than years of later investigation in my favorite groups.
New Technology: The Book →
Introducing the new Bio-Optic Organized Knowledge device, trade named: BOOK.
BOOK is a revolutionary breakthrough in technology: no wires, no electric circuits, no batteries, nothing to be connected or switched on. It’s so easy to use, even a child can operate it.
BOOK is constructed of sequentially numbered sheets of paper (recyclable), each capable of holding thousands of bits of information. The pages are locked together with a custom-fit device called a binder, which keeps the sheets in their correct sequence.
Decorating Camels →
This is a good summary of the church’s options for approaching culture from Doug Wilson, Decorating Camels.
Your options are: decorate camels pointlessly, abandon camels, or turn the camels into stallions.
There are other good things in his post too, and he reduces the options toward the reasonableness of postmillennialism. But, while I’m thinking hard about what my premillennial exercise and expectations should look like, I’m still not buying all his reductions.
While I was thus afflicted with the fears of my own damnation, there were two things would make me wonder; the one was, when I saw old people hunting after the things of this life, as if they should live here always; the other was, when I found professors much distressed and cast down, when they met with outward losses; as of husband, wife, child, &c. Lord, thought I, what ado is here about such little things as these! What seeking after carnal things by some, and what grief in others for the loss of them! if they so much labour after, and spend so many tears for the things of this present life, how am I to be bemoaned, pitied, and prayed for! My soul is dying, my soul is damning. Were my soul but in a good condition, and were I but sure of it, ah! how rich should I esteem myself, though blessed but with bread and water; I should count those but small afflictions, and should bear them as little burdens.
— John Bunyan, Grace Abounding, #85
