Sunday Wrapup--8/11/2013

My dad has passed his one-year anniversary since his initial cancer diagnosis and surgery.  He is feeling well, and today began his first long-distance trip since then.  Uncle Ollie is providing help with driving, and they are headed to Labette County, to my brother Ronald's place for the night.  Tomorrow they will strike out for Ohio, where Dad is planning to participate in a CASP board  meeting.  We're happy that he can continue in this work for now, and grateful for God's healing.

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The Kansas Youth Chorus gave a program at Center this morning.  I'm sorry for those of you who missed it.  Worship happened, and praise, prayer, and peace abounded--all related to the main theme:  suffering.  Oren referenced a timely quote about how life is:  "Pain is a given, but misery is optional."

I loved having the words of the songs printed in the program.  Maybe I've gotten slow in my old age, but I find that recorded  vocal music often feels like noise (pleasant noise, sometimes) until I've had a chance to read through the lyrics paper as I listen. Words to live music are a bit more accessible since lip reading is also possible--at least if you sit close enough to the presenters, and see well enough.  This morning's program was a great combination, allowing the audience to participate fully in the service.

I noticed something that is probably standard in printed programs for such presentations:  Only the composer's name was given with the songs--not the writer of the words.  Why?  I've never written the words or the music to anything presented in a program, but if I had written the words to a song being performed, I think I'd feel a little cheated if only half the work were credited.  Explanation, anyone?

In this morning's program, Lyle Stutzman's name was given with one song, and the conductor announced that the writer of the words was Mrs. Rachel Miller, also from our church.  I would have been sorry to not have been informed of that, so thanks to John for telling us.

P.S. Lyle and Maria moved last week to Indiana, to help with the new school being established in the Elnora area, so he's not technically any longer from our church quite in the same way Rachel is.

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The news from Tulsa, where Marian is being treated for cancer, was not good this week.  Her cancer spread further during chemotherapy.  The good news is that she is now receiving IV nutrition therapy, and concerted efforts are being made to discover what is keeping her stomach from accepting and digesting food.  It is apparently not blocked by a tumor, so something else is going on.

Marian stayed at Cottonwood (Marvin and Lois' place) for the past few weeks, and, when she returns from Tulsa, she will likely go to Barbara Yoder's and her daughters' home, down the road from Marian's home.  A nurse lives there, it's a quiet and unstressful environment, and several caretakers stand ready to help.

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The principal at Pleasantview Academy gave members of our feasibility committee a tour.  They noted, among other things, that the parking space there is limited.  I note that only limited parking space is needed during a school day, and that there is a 10-acre plot across the road already owned by the people who might occasionally need extra parking area.

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Our area is still under a flood warning.  At our place, we're not greatly inconvenienced by standing water, but that is not true along natural waterways.  Cattle are often pastured along these natural waterways, and now they may be stranded, with very little or no land area visible.  Shane's cattle, in LaVerne's pasture, had only a small island left on Friday morning when he checked on them.  Yesterday was a sunny day, and we had no rain today, but a new round of potentially heavy rain over the next few days could return small creeks to wide-river status in short order.  The rain will likely begin overnight here.

High temperatures in the 70s and 80s sweeten the prospect of more rain.

Between several of the last rains, I planted some fall crops.  The process actually went something like this.

--Slap mosquitoes throughout the following process.
--Find a hoe and use it to scratch a straggly line in the mud.  (No time for stakes and strings.)
--Dribble or place seeds in the muddy line.
--Drag a little mud into the tiny furrow.
--Press on the mud with the flat side of the hoe.
--Escape to the house before the rain starts.
--Ignore the project for several days.
--Put on "mud shoes" to check on the project.
--Note with joy that most of the seeds have sprouted.

Getting fall garden plants started is hardly ever this easy.

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Last week we received and distributed an order of goathead weevils.  We've always called goatheads sandburs.  Puncture vine is another name for them.  If you've ever stepped into the burs with bare feet, you may have called them by any number of other uncomplimentary names.  Also, if you're a biker traveling through territory where they grow, you've learned first hand what they can do to a bicycle tire.   It ain't pretty.  
 
The package of weevils contained two different kinds.  One burrows into the burs, and the other into the stems.  A weevil-infested bur will not germinate the following year.  A weevil-infested stem will die beyond the point of infestation.  The adult form of the weevils look like tiny bugs, half the size of a pinhead.

Several problems with using weevils as the main sandbur control strategy are that they may not always overwinter here, and when they are finally successful in eradicating the sandburs, they will not survive long without a food supply.  Their feeding habits are very specific, so some spot where sandburs are allowed to thrive is always needed to sustain the population.

Goatheads are thought to have come to the US in the wool of sheep imported from the Mediterranean region.  If the sheep had been shorn before shipping, it might have saved us a lot of trouble.

Check out goatheads.com if you have an interest in learning more about this nasty plant, or the weevils that can help control them.

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I feel inspired after following up on a series of links acquired from Facebook correspondence.   Dwight Gingerich started the process by linking to this article on how to teach Bible stories.  The writer's concern basically is that we often err by failing to focus on the author's intended central message, substituting instead one of the following teaching errors:

1)      Promotion of the trivial. 

2)      Illegitimate extrapolation. 

3)      Reading between the lines. 

4)      Missing important nuance. 

5)      Focus on people rather than on God. 

Each of the above points is further explained in the original article.  I found the article thought-provoking and shared the link.

Tryphena S. (a.k.a. Trippy) read the article from  my post and responded in a private message that started me along a different route--reading Bible texts in entire-book blocks instead of as isolated chapters and verses.  This is facilitated by using texts with those divisions removed.  Each book of the Bible would appear like a chapter in a book, with paragraphs and sentences written in prose form, except perhaps for the poetry sections.

Trippy pointed me to this article  which advocates repeated deep reading over fast reading--up to seven times before moving to a new book.  Trippy also mentioned having read James Gray's book How to Master the Bible, which advocates reading through each book in one sitting.   She tells me it's an old book that has been reprinted and is available on Amazon.  Gray's advice is to start in Genesis, so that's what Trippy did.  She used The Books of the Bible by Zondervan, which is an NIV prose-form version.

I located a prose-form KJV Bible online, and Hiromi told me about the Reader's Digest Bible which Bruce Metzger wrote in RSV prose form.  (Metzger feels like an old friend ever since he very kindly wrote the foreword to the book Hiromi and I co-authored on Greek Bible texts.)

Hiromi's simple solution to reading without chapter/verse distinctions was "just ignore them."  I tried it when reading the book of Mark and it actually worked better than I thought it would.  My first read-through was in KJV, in the Bible I usually carry to church.  It took me two sessions, and I really enjoyed the reading.  My study Bible had an overview/introduction that was very helpful.  The next read-through will likely be in a different version--one of a number we have in the house.  Hiromi's favorite is NRSV, which Metzger contributed to extensively.

I requested most of the books referenced above through inter-library loan.  The Reader's Digest Bible is the only one in the local library's collection.    This will let me decide what books I want to purchase.

One of the things I remember from a Bible class I took in college is that most of the other gospels seem to draw on Mark.  It's also the shortest gospel, and seemed like a good place to start in test-driving my new Bible reading effort.  I learned that Mark was written primarily to a Roman Gentile audience, and that it must have drawn heavily on the account of Peter, who was a close friend of Mark's--also known as John Mark, of missionary journey fame.

At the risk of repeating one or more of the errors in "How to teach a Bible Story," I note that John Mark's rejection by Paul did not disqualify him from writing a gospel that no one protested for inclusion in the canon of Scripture.  John Mark may have failed, but he did not thereby become permanently un-useful or unqualified for kingdom work.

It also helps me read the gospel a little differently to know that Mark was apparently from a well-to-do family.  At least they lived in a house large enough to host gatherings of believers.  Yet he became indebted (and apprenticed?) to a fisherman who had walked closely with the God-man Mark also worshiped and followed and wrote of.  I think I like this man who could move across strata in society to embrace another Christ follower.

Can you tell I've not completely figured out how to teach Bible stories perfectly?  I think it's probably possible to become afraid to notice or share almost anything at all if there is too much emphasis on focusing only on the central message.  Yet I'm certain it's possible also to trivialize the story by not focusing on the central message.  I have a lot to learn.

Does anyone out there have something helpful to pass on?

Trippy was a Pilgrim student during the year I was on sabbatical, so I interacted with her mostly as the teacher of the Sunday School class she was a part of.  This recent interaction has been a great blessing for such a small earlier investment.

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One likely effect of more emphasis on whole-book Bible teaching is that expository preaching becomes more common than topical preaching.  Does that seem like a good thing to you?

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One of the bits of trivia I picked up is that the epistles in the New Testament are simply arranged in order of size--largest to smallest.  Some of the prose Bibles arrange them in the order in which they were written.  I can see that this would be very helpful in acquiring a big-picture view of Scripture.

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Tristan had a very grumpy time here the other evening when Shane and Dorcas took an evening to celebrate Shane's birthday and their anniversary.  He really wanted his Mommy and Daddy by turns, and was not amused by much of anything for very long.    Having awakened at 4:30 AM and then not having taken a decent nap no doubt figured into the equation.  I think if he hadn't been too upset to eat, his mood would have improved a lot sooner.  Blood sugar in the cellar does not foster elevated mood.

He was still eating when his parents arrived, and by that time, he wasn't all that desperate anymore to see them.

Who knows what bothers little guys to keep them from sleeping, which then keeps them from eating, which keeps them from being happy with almost everything else?  And yet, we love them to bits.

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The DLM family has a new bit of drama to entertain us, courtesy of Christopher.  He and Rachel Y. have begun a courtship.  It's about as non-long-distance a friendship as could be imagined.  We're pleased at this development.

Another recent DLM drama also involved Christopher and dating.  He really wanted Hannah to call him before she left on a long trip, so he texted her saying that he's having his first date on Friday (or whatever day it was).  She was so consumed with curiosity that she made sure to call him back for the details at the first opportunity.  It was then that he admitted it was a ruse to get her to call, and no date was planned.

Grant and Clare know now that their baby is a Clive instead of an Ermy.  I'm thinking that Arwen left the country just in time to avoid being overwhelmed with boy cousins.  The Iwashige family surname is going to be famous some day--or numerous, at least, if all these boys marry and have families.

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This is the proper time of year to transplant irises, or to mow them off, if you're so inclined.  Actually a few weeks earlier might have been a better time, but it's not too late yet.

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I have been busy washing and sorting clothing, towels, and bedding--a little to keep and a lot to donate.  If you're local, and you need any such things, please feel free to check with me to see if what you need is one of the things I have in abundance.

Linda suggested that I have a rummage sale and let people decide what to donate for my excess things, letting everyone know that it will go to a "Bangladesh trip" fund.  It sounded like a great idea, except that I just don't have it in me to manage all those details.   I think I'll have to grow a Bangladesh trip fund by another means.

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I guess I've never donated enough stuff before to struggle with the questions I often deal with these days?  What is worthy of donation and what is too disrespectful of the recipient to bestow on another?  The shocker for me came when I realized that I was disqualifying for donation a number of items that my family would have used happily ourselves.  We do and did so, in fact.  So is it really necessary to avoid passing on something that is slightly imperfect?  A tiny hole or a small stain or a dingy cast in an otherwise good sheet or towel, for example.  If I would use it as is, and it's not welcomed by someone else, what is really going on?  Are my standards far below "needy people's" standards?  If they are, do mine or theirs need adjusting?

I recalled something I heard a friend say cautiously one time when she told me she was sewing for children in an orphanage.  She added that they already had lots of nice clothes, but someone in charge thought they needed more.  She was not upset--just thoughtful about the same thing I'm thoughtful about now, I suspect.  She continued to busy herself sewing for the orphans.

We've probably all heard the story of the "tea-bags used only once" donation, which we all know crosses a line that none of us want to be on the wrong side of.  If only all lines were that clear.