Brian Stipp's page

music of 2011

2012-01-04T21:16:00.000-06:00

I've been looking for a good excuse to write about some of the music I've been listening to lately. I still haven't found one, but I've decided that the end of the year is occasion enough. So what you've got here is a list of the top 6 albums that have impacted me over the course of this year. I limited it to 6 because that's the exact number of albums that I've engaged in over the year. Before I get into the specific albums, I just want to comment that a few years back I decided to stop listening to isolated songs and instead listen to whole albums. I've found that in listening this way I start to know the artist's heart, and can find themes of thinking running across albums and even across artists' careers that bring much more meaning to the music.

#6 Sara Groves, Invisible Empires.

Sara Groves is one of those artists whose albums I've listened to over time. Some of her work over the years has been brilliant. I wouldn't put Invisible Empires in that category, but I respect her as a poet, and as one who is thinking seriously about God and society, and so I keep listening. She ends the ablum with a song called "Finite" about being a woman in this world of ours, and it's a good'n.

#5 Randall Goodgame, Slugs and Bugs: Under where?

This kids album is about 8 parts goofy, and 2 parts serious. I am thankful for the messages it sends through my home, and hope that they seep into and form my kids understanding of the character of God. The goofiness is about holes in socks, making oneself dizzy, and going pee in the potty - communicating that silliness goes with being a kid, and celebrating that fact. The seriousness is no joke: its about the fact that kids are loved specially by God, and it teaches kids what to do with their own sin. The song "God made you Special" has choked me up more than once. And even though its an album for kids, the instrumentation and production of the album makes it enjoyable for me, too.

#4 Paul Simon, Surprise

This album took me about three hearings to like, and about ten to love. And the more I listen, the better it gets. Each song deserves to be studied for meaning, and enjoyed for it's ambitious production. The album makes me think of a letter that Paul Simon has written to America. He asks the big questions with these songs, and ventures to answer them, too. This review, I think, gives a good picture of the album, if you're interested in reading more.

#3 Josh Garrels, Love and War and the Sea in Between

Like all of Josh Garrels's albums, this mostly sounds like hip-hop, with occasional meanderings into ballads or waltzes. You read that right. Josh's lyrics are truly mind-blowing. What intrigues me most about him is just how deeply Christian he is. He isn't boiling Christianity down to some take-home truths to apply to life. He is clear about the fact that Christ Himself, and not self-denial, or beauty or justice, is the center of our hope and the source of our being and joy.

Give the song below a listen. Notice how in the first verse, he casts a vision of resistance to society like someone who knows that we have to fight the systems that oppress in order to pursue justice, but in the second verse it becomes clear just how Christ-centered his vision is.

<p>&amp;lt;a href="http://joshgarrels.bandcamp.com/track/the-resistance"&amp;gt;The Resistance by Josh Garrels&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;</p>
The album is free. Go get it.

#2 Mumford and Sons, Sigh no More

I've already written quite enough about this album. I still can't help popping it in when I've got a long trip by myself. The album always reminds me what I care about and inspires me to be who I am.

#1 Ben Shive, The Cymbal Crashing Clouds

Ben Shive plays piano and produces music for Andrew Peterson and several other artists around Nashville. His best work, though, is what he's done with the songs he, himself has written. I met Ben last February and I told him that his first album, The Ill-Tempered Klavier, was my favorite. This is his second work, and it has been no disappointment. This is music like none you've ever heard before. He is producing Christian music that is not a spin-off of any sound a secular artist has made. His music wont gain popularity for just that reason, but I bet he's okay with that. His albums will be most appreciated by people who have ventured to make music or make poetry.

In this album, he's dug every instrument out of the closet. It's clear that beauty and the "right sound" trumped timeliness in every decision. He may use a choir of violins and an electric guitar for just a bridge, and a horns and woodwinds only for a second verse. There are times in the album where it's hard to pick apart how many sounds are coming at you at once, and he still somehow maintains unified themes and variations. Stylistically, he's all over the board. He jumps from sounding like Ben Folds to the Beach Boys, from folk to pop. Lyrically, the songs are about everyday life on their surface, with deep theological meaning underneath. In short, Ben Shive music stretches me in all sorts of ways, and I love it. Maybe you will, too?

Below is a youtube video you can play to hear the song he starts the album with, "Listen!" It's about waiting for a train to come in the middle of the night in a small town. And it's about the second coming of Christ. I suggest you throw some headphones on before you hit play so you can hear all sounds he strings together, and all the biblical allusions, too.

Honorable Mention: I'd also like to add an honorable mention category for the music of Eminem. My students adore him because he seems real to them and because he sings about their lives and their pain. They might not now what life is like outside of their neighborhood, but they know the pain they feel inside, and Eminem's eloquent acknowledgment of his pain somehow validates them. The kids have encouraged me to watch some of his videos, and I have been impressed. Eminem is clearly a deeply unhealthy man, but that is not stopping him from shepherding some of our nation's most needy, lonely and fatherless youth, who are growing up like he did.

so why did you decide to homeschool?

2011-12-22T13:38:00.000-06:00

In the middle of answering Math questions about clutches of python eggs, another question came to him. And because no one else was there, and because we were in a safe place, and because there was no reason why not to, he just asked it. "Dad, was Jesus really God's only son? I mean, what about the Holy Spirit?" So we talked about it for a few minutes. And then it was back to the clutches.

Now I'm not trying to get all Ann Voskamp on you. (mute your speakers before you click!) But here are some other cool moments from our three week long homeschooling stint.

To know a place

2011-12-14T16:07:00.000-06:00

Beth and I moved to Little Village just shy of 10 years ago. We've reflected lately just how in-over-our-heads we were when we came here, without having realized it. The following paragraphs from Wendell Berry's essay, "People, Land and Community" resonated with me in thinking about the work and time it has taken to know this place.

"One's connection to a newly bought farm will begin in love that is more or less ignorant. One loves the place because present appearances recommend it, and because they suggest possibilities irresistibly imaginable. One's head, like a lover's, grows full of visions. One walks over the premises, saying, "If this were mine, I'd make a permanent pasture here; here is where I'd plant an orchard; here is where I'd dig a pond." These visions are the usual stuff of unfulfilled love and induce wakefulness at night.

When one buys the farm and moves there to live, something different begins. Thoughts begin to be translated into acts. Truth begins to intrude with its matter-of-fact. One's work may be defined in part by one's visions, but it is defined in part too by problems, which the work leads to and reveals. And daily life, work, and problems gradually alter the visions. It invariably turns out, I think, that one's first vision of one's place was to some extent an imposition on it. But if one's sight is clear and if one stays on and works well, one's love gradually responds to the place as it really is, and one's visions gradually image possibilites that are really in it. Vision, possibility, work, and life - all have changed by mutual correction. Correct discipline, given enough time, gradually removes one's self from one's line of sight. One works to better purpose then and makes fewer mistakes, because at last one sees where one is. Two human possibilities of the highest order thus come within reach: what one wants can become the same as what one has, and one's knowledge can cause respect for what one knows."

He explains a couple paragraphs before this excerpt that though he is talking directly about farming, he is talking indirectly about marriage, too. Go ahead, read it again.

Here, also, is a link to a a recording of Berry reading the whole essay 30 years ago.

A Thanksgiving Poem

2011-11-22T22:32:00.000-06:00

Andrew Peterson is a singer, novelist and purveyor of high quality Christian art who has had about as much influence on my life as anyone I don't know. I'm currently reading his first novel, On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness to my 7th grade class. The kids keep asking me if it's been made into a movie yet. Here is a link to a poem he wrote about this week's holiday. Happy Thanksgiving.

The Immanual Appraoch

2011-11-19T23:16:00.000-06:00

Last weekend I went to Jackson, Tennessee to learn about the Immanuel Approach to prayer - a method people are using to recognize the presence of Jesus in their past as well as in the present. I wont get into specifics on this post, but I will say that one week in, I've found the Immanuel Approach to prayer and to life to be a very good antidote to the problem most Christians I know have had in accessing and recognizing Jesus' presence in day-to-day life. It's been a good week for me. Karl Lehman is the guy who's spreading the good news of this approach to prayer and inner healing. Here is a link to his website, where you can find all sorts of articles that explain this further.

Ann

2011-09-29T22:45:00.000-05:00

If you're a woman, you might like reading you some Ann Voskamp. I like reading me some, despite my not being a woman. Beth and I get her blog posts sent to our e-mail address almost daily, and everytime I open them, I feel like I'm looking through my mom's Better Homes and Gardens magazine, but enjoying it.

This is the post she sent out today, writing about some of the same things I've tried to write about on this blog, but writing about them better and womanlier than I ever could.

Classroom Quips, 9-21-11

2011-09-22T20:07:00.001-05:00

The BFG by Roald Dahl has some pretty pacifistic teachings. I decided to turn these teachings into a little 6th-grade debate. The kids went to one side of the room if they could not see a justification for war and the other side if they could. Bernardo, who until today I thought to be one of my lowest-level thinkers, placed himself with the pacifists. He looked across the room, shook his head and muttered under his breath, "You people are sick."

And also from this week...
Me: I'm gonna tell you guys a scary story. One time I was in Florida,
Lalo: (leaning forward) Oh yeah, Florida's scary.

Me: I've got a point for anyone who can tell me what I'm thinking right now.
Hugo: Man, these kids are getting annoying.

And a couple others that I didn't post from last year...

Javier farted. He looked around for who he might blame, but there were only 2 other students in the room. Realizing he was caught, he said "awww," disgusted, and waved his hand behind his seat to push away the smell.

Me: Who can tell me the capital of Alaska?
Arturo: A
Me: Mmmm, heh heh, and the capital of Virginia?
Arturo (with growing confidence): V!

Javier: Why doesn't this school buy 100% milk stead of just 1%

Javier was supposed to be reading the sentence, "The dog in the bathtub is a mess."
Javier: "The dog in the bathtub is a mouse."
me: Whoa! The dog is a mouse?
Javier: apparently

Given

2011-09-10T06:45:00.001-05:00

I recently finished working through Given, a collection of poems by Wendell Berry. The poems are stinging, funny, prophetic; it's as if they come from a wisdom beyond our age. The second half of the book consists of what he calls "Sabbaths," - poems he writes in the woods on Sundays - broken up by year, from 1998 through 2004. The following is one of the Sabbaths from 2003 (a year in which Berry's Sunday walks resulted in one fine poem after another). Go ahead and read it aloud and slowly.

Look Out

Come to the window, look out, and see
the valley turning green in remembrance
of all springs past and to come, the woods
perfecting with immortal patience
the leaves that are the work of all of time,
the sycamore whose white limbs shed
the history of a man's life with their old bark,
the river under the morning's breath quivering
like the touched skin of a horse, and you will see
also the shadow cast upon it by fire, the war
that lights its way by burning the earth.

Come to your windows, people of the world,
look out at whatever you see wherever you are,
and you will see dancing upon it that shadow.
You will see that your place, wherever it is,
your house, your garden, your shop, your forest, your farm,
bears the shadow of its destruction by war
which is the economy of greed which is plunder
which is the economy of wrath which is fire.
The Lords of War sell the earth to buy fire,
they sell the water and air of life to buy fire.
They are little men grown great by willingness
to drive whatever exists into its perfect absence.
Their intention is to destroy any place is solidly founded
upon their willingness to destroy every place.

Every household of the world is at their mercy,
the household of the farmer and the otter and the owl
are at their mercy. They have no mercy.
Having hate, they can have no mercy.
Their greed is the hatred of mercy.
Their pockets jingle with the small change of the poor.
Their power is in their willingness to destroy
everything for knowledge which is money
which is power which is victory
which is ashes sown by the wind.

Look out your windows and go out, people of the world,
go into the streets, go into the fields, go into the woods
and go along the streams. Go together. Go alone.
Say no to the Lords of War which is Money
which is Fire. Say no by saying yes
to the air, to the earth, to the trees,
yes to the grasses, to the rivers, to the birds
and the animals and every living thing, yes
to the small houses, yes to the children. Yes.

And it Shone Through a Banana...

2011-08-30T22:24:00.000-05:00

It's always this way. It's always a mixed bag. We're always mixed bags. There are successes and failures, love and hate, virtue and vice, whizzing around us and out of us more quickly than we can label them.

Even though it was a day in which one of my 7th graders was pulled to the hallway so a dime bag could be pulled from his shoe. And even though the kid who had given him the dime bag begged the principal for mercy because he was earnestly trying to help his mom pay the bills. And even though another of my students is resisting school and guidance because she is worn out with her reading disability and appears more and more to be biding her time until she can drop out, the virtue still shone through today. And it shone through a banana.

You see, there's this brother and sister at my school. The brother is about as rough as they come, and he and his little sister are late every day, which means they miss the universal breakfast that the other kids get. And it means that the two kids stay hungry most days 'til their 12:00 lunchtime. Well, in between 1st and 2nd period, as the sister walked out of my Special Ed. room, and her brother walked in, the brother took out a banana that he'd gotten from who-knows-where, and split off half for his sister. And before I thought to ask the boy why he was eating contraband food in the hallway, the sister offered an answer to a more important question, "He's my brother, he takes care of me."

Safe Families needed

2011-08-22T17:00:00.001-05:00

After the news of Dashiyah's death, we decided it was time to get back into Safe Families again. So last week we had two boys for five days. On Wednesday we will be taking a 2-year-old. Safe Families of Chicago is still looking for a place for his 3-year-old brother. The placement is for 6 weeks.

If you live near Chicago, you can get signed up to be a Safe Families host family for a child or a set of siblings. It's a pretty simple process, and you can dramatically impact a child's life. This video shows Katie Curic's take on the program.

Katie Couric on Safe Families for Children from John Norton on Vimeo.

Our Dashiyah

2011-08-09T22:03:00.000-05:00

Two years ago we helped a family by keeping their daughter, Dashiyah for about six weeks, while her parents found a home that was suitable for their large family. Our close friends, the Kimballs, took care of her brother, Joey, who was 3 at the time.

We found out on Sunday that Dashiyah, Joey and one other brother died in a house fire back in April.

We are all deeply grieved and rattled by this news.

Here are some picture of this sweet and playful little girl.

Man, we miss her.

Arrabon

2011-07-31T22:00:00.000-05:00

Sunday, July 31, 9:45 am, Chicago, Illinois

Back home, between the last of the summer trips, and glad to be here. Eli's trying to dribble a full-sized basketball between his four-year-old sized legs, and sticking with it, despite the impossibility. Leeli is sound asleep and almost one. Suzy is on the tire swing under the shade of the swing set, thinking and mumbling thoughts and imaginations. Her words never stop. Isaac is a vampire or a t-rex - he can't decide. His fangs are the outer tongs of a plastic fork, whose inner tongs are surely the newest of our house's perpetual supply of clutter. And for the moments when all we can do is long for the day of All Shall be Well, there are these, the blessed foretastes.

How to Be a Rich Christian (To Remind Myself)

2011-07-22T22:06:00.010-05:00

I. Jesus said that it is hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of god. So if you can avoid it, do.

II. If you can’t avoid it, accept it. Don't buy the nonsense that we're "'middle class." It is the global economy that has made us rich, so it is by global standards that we must compare ourselves.

III. When you make your budget, do it with a picture of a poor child propped up next to your spreadsheet. Keep that picture in your wallet. Make every big, out-of-the-ordinary purchase after you look at her desperate eyes.

IV. Give, give, give. Understand that it's not your money. The Old Testament is full of reminders that all that is is God's. Jesus told one rich man to give everything he had, just to enter into Jesus' kingdom. The early Christians, who were ready to be martyred, gave all they had. We, too, should be known by our giving. Give far beyond the traditional 10 percent, and to multiple recipients. Offer to God even the money in your savings or retirement accounts. If you don't have cash, give your time, give your space, give your thoughts.

V. Know the names and stories of many poor people. Always be owed something. When someone you forgot you knew comes up and tells you they'll be paying back that money you forgot you lent, you're on to something.

VI. Do not compare yourself to other rich people. Keep in mind that anyone who appeals to the "standard of living" is trying to assuage their own discontentment with riches, which runs directly against the teaching of Christ and Paul.

VII. Remember: In our country, rich and poor used to live together. Sometimes on neighboring farms, other times within the same small town, other times on the same plantation. It was impossible for the rich to forget the poor existed. Now, it requires significant effort for us to remember them. Living isolated from the poor, a man forgets what it's like have a hungry family next door, to his own peril.

VIII. Read yourself into the parables as villain, or the warned. Watch how Jesus describes the hearts of the rich. Don't beat yourself up, just be warned and live accordingly.

IX. Understand this: The human mind is fickle. We can only think about what's in front of us. If the poor are not in front of us regularly, we will forget about them. After we've forgotten about them, after years surrounded by so much wealth, we as a people will forget how loving our neighbors and loving the poor were often one and the same. Reverse this trend in your own life wherever you can.

X. Read books and stories written by the poor. Read about their lives. Pick up news magazines and watch documentaries.

XI. If a news source offers easy answers to poverty, doubt their motives. If a news story lets you feel smug or justified in your wealth, know that they are vying for your vote or your money.

XII. Remember that to suffer is to be human. Reject all thoughts that suggest that comforts produce the abatement of suffering. It is by comforting ourselves that we can most assuredly insulate ourselves from our need for God. Accepting discomfort is an act of trust, and enables us to walk in faith. Consider that in the Bible, our spiritual ancestors, elected by God to do his work, always suffered. In the Bible, we always suffered. Like it says in Hebrews,

(The people of faith)...were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while sill others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated - the world was not worthy of them."

XIII. See monetary gain as just as likely to harm one's soul as to help it, and beware un-Christian uses of the word, "blessing." The account of the blessings Isaac offered to Jacob and Esau show an understanding of "blessing" that is common throughout the Old Testament. To Jacob, "... May God give you of heaven's dew and of earth's richness - an abundance of grain and new wine. May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you..." And to Esau, "Your dwelling will be away from the earth's richness, away from the dew of heaven above. You will live by the sword and you will serve your brother. But when you grow restless, you will throw his yoke from off your neck." This passage is typical of the Old Testament's and America's usage of the word. Those who are blessed are the rich, and those who are not are poor. Material gain and moves towards wealth are blessings.

Jesus turns this idea on its head, by saying that in His Kingdom, the blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the poor, those who hunger now, those who weep now. These “blessed are the…”statements, are not instructions, but instruction. Jesus is not saying, "try to be poor in spirit, or hungry," or even calling the rich to serve the poor. He is teaching us about the way things are. He is teaching us that in the Kingdom of God, those who suffer are in fact, blessed. He is showing us that sufferers are already close to His heart in ways we who are rich do not know. In the Beatitudes and elsewhere He is telling the Jewish people that they missed the boat on what blessing is all about. We who are rich Christians have mostly missed it, too. Know that the fulfillment of the simple wish, "God bless you," may require the loss of much that you hold dear.

XIV. Trust the Lord. Jesus never told the rich to solve poverty. He did warn us again and again what will happen to our souls when we ignore it and wrap our lives around ourselves. Your job is to be faithful to Him. If He asks you to sell all you have and give it to the poor, trust that He loves you and don't worry about the consequences. If you take any of these steps outside of a relationship of trust in God, you will have done something good, but not as a Christian. Do whatever good you do with Christ, and find His peace as just one of the fruits.

A message from Paco Amador

2011-07-21T16:19:00.001-05:00

If we are to believe Google images, the guy in the picture is named Paco Amador. So is my pastor. The Paco Amador who is my pastor preached an excellent message last Sunday about keeping the Sabbath holy. Give it a listen, here.

A post in which I conclude with an obvious thought...

2011-06-27T22:28:00.000-05:00

I have walked or ridden my bike to work most days for the last 8 years of teaching. I enjoy the walking and what it means: that I live close enough; that I get to walk the same paths as my students; that my own footprints and not carbon's are the only ones I'm leaving. I remember one of my former delinquent students giving me a lift in his car which smelled densely of weed. I see the grin of Frank, a former student whom I'd worked hard to get into a therapeutic school, as he flagged me down to introduce me to his own son. I hear a rooster's crow one winter morning, welcoming the sun and the day and filling me with thanksgiving.

On top of these moments, I enjoy the sense that I'm a part of something larger than me. When I get to see third-world level poverty, drug deals and police hold ups it feels like I'm part of a movement of heroes of mine who have joined with their neighbors pain, and walked alongside them. The walking pace is important, too, because it binds me to consider my neighbors and their lives for longer than my fickle, self-gravitating mind would allow me if I drove. In short, walking to work allows me to live out some ideals that are important to me.

But this school year, the one that ended last Friday, has been different from the others. My group of students was the hardest I've ever taught - the most emotionally needy, the most resistant to authority and instruction, the most directly challenging. The gang violence and influence in my classroom and on my route has been more pervasive. And I know that every bit of un-health in the streets and in our schools is just a fraction of what exists in peoples homes. My walks are often laden with the weight of my students' pain and questions of how I or anyone might reach them. With each dysfunctionality and violence I come across, my footsteps grow heavier.

Just last week as I walked up my front stairs after a long day of work, a pair of 9-year-old boys yelled "suck my dick" and added gestures for clarity, to a pair of girls, probably 10. The girls yelled equally offensive things right back. Friday morning's particular heaviness started around 8 o'clock, as I walked by the home of a former student, Sara, whose gang-banging brothers were up early, looking down the block, at some commotion. I followed their gazes and found Frank (the proud dad) held up against a chain-link fence while two cops waited for back-up. His niece, who graduated from 8th grade this week, was held up right next to him.

I shook my head, as my feet banged like bricks on the pavement. I trudged on past a group of early-arrived students, greeted the office ladies, ascended to my classroom and plopped down at my teacher's desk. As I stared at the black screen of my computer, all I could think was, "I gotta get a car!"

As much as I am a man of ideals, I'm seeing a limit to the extent to which I can embody them. A crucial part of my teaching job is bringing fresh energy to students, who already at age 12 and 13, have given up. But if walking past their houses each day brings me to despair before I even get there, well, I suppose something's gotta give.

It's the same with our chickens. In November we bought 4 ISA Browns (like Rhode Island Reds), and have enjoyed all sorts of benefits from them. The amount of waste we had to have hauled to garbage dumps each weeks was cut drastically. We were able to better appreciate the work that goes into food production. And It gave the kids some meaningful chores, and an understanding of how breakfast got to their plates. There were lots of other benefits, too, but when the rats showed up in May and wouldn't go away no matter how carefully we managed the coop, it was time to give them up.

So I'm learning that in one life, in my one life, I can't do everything I care about. When I write that statement it feels laughably obvious, but I think it's worth saying anyway: We can only do what we can do.

N.T. Wright talks about reading the bible

2011-06-14T15:06:00.000-05:00

My friend Tony posted a link to this video on his blog. It's so good and intriguing and instructive that I'm just plain stealing it. He wont care.

Slow me

2011-05-17T15:43:00.003-05:00

I've been writing short poems lately. Here's one.

Slow me: Thoughts from A Midday Break

Draw me in to what's not new or news.
Envelope me in what could never be hawked or branded.
Touch me with the oldest truths.
Slow me.

Show me the dust that I was and will be.
Let me hear the unending song,
and glory in whatever notes I can hear.
Open my ears.

Give me eyes to see beyond the here and now
so that I can see the now and here for what they are:
fractions, negative exponents of time and space,
and at the same tiny time and in the same tiny space, somehow,
filled with meaning.

On Mumford

2011-04-25T21:50:00.005-05:00

The British band called Mumford & Sons has lately overtaken the space in my brain that furnishes the songs I hum. Stylistically the band is a mix of folk, rock and bluegrass. They write lyrics like philosophers and poets, drawing themes and lines from the likes of Shakespeare and Steinbeck. I aim in this quick review to examine the lyrics of a few songs on their only album, Sign No More, for what seems to me a close alignment with the Christian faith.

The album begins with its four singers slowly and pleadingly lamenting the way life is: full of pain; disappointment; hurt; bruises. Mid-song, they then seem to have found hope. The song changes styles; the banjo slung, the tempo rises, the toes tap, and it feels like they're possessed by the idea that the pain doesn’t win.

“Love, that will not betray you

Dismay or enslave you

It will set you free

Be more like the man, you were made to be.

There is a design,
An alignment to cry,
At my heart you see,
The beauty of love
as it was made to be.”

Man and Love being made, even designed, for a purpose; the notion that this purpose can be re-found; salvation from life’s pain; a future when sighing will cease…all persistent themes of the Bible’s story, all present in the title track, Sigh No More.

The vision for renewal of the "ought" comes back to us in the final track of the album, After the Storm. The Bible’s final track, the last chapters of Revelation, could have the same title. It says:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

Mumford & Sons looks forward similarly,

There will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

Here again we have the Bible’s theme of salvation, and the new order of things, but this time with the addition of grace in the center, a distinctly Christian understanding of salvation. The idea of grace comes back over and again in the album, and each time it sounds Christian.

Mumford & Sons seem to use friendship as their canvas. Roll Away Your Stone sounds like one man inviting another to full life. The singer is the friend who in the end rejects the invitation. But the honesty of the conversation itself is a thing of beauty, highlighting the fact that giving up control of one’s life is not a decision that everyone can take. More clearly Christian lines come from this song:

Seems that all my bridges have been burned

But you say that’s exactly how this grace thing works

It’s not the long walk home that will change this heart

But the welcome I receive with the restart

The Cave sounds like another conversation in which one man calls another to shake his friend alive. The final stanzas of the back and forth, sung on top of break-neck banjo picking, read:

And I will hold on hope
And I won't let you choke
On the noose around your neck

And I'll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways
I'll know my name as it's called again

These guys may not be believers. One line asks "How can you say that your truth is better than ours?" Their recurrent use of the "f" word in Little Lion Man is a sign that if they are Christians, they wont be guests on Focus on the Family anytime soon. Whether or not they follow Jesus, though, there is something alive in their hearts and in their music that has been a help in my own Christian walk.

While I sat on my couch writing this review, I heard gunshots out my living room window, part of a recent uprising in traded blows between the rival 26 and Latin King street gangs in our neighborhood. Somehow the bald pain that Mumford & Sons acknowledges and owns, gives backbone to the hope they proclaim. Hope that promises the gunman and victim that there is a purpose for their creation, and that there is a love that can restore them to the men they were made to be. Hope that dares them and me to awaken our souls. Hope that relies on grace and not on a way we might try to save ourselves. Even as I write, it seems like a fool’s hope. But it is this old Christian hope that we hold to nonetheless.

In Deed

2011-04-24T08:47:00.000-05:00

Today's Chicago Tribune highlights Christians who have lost family members to murder, and who oppose the death penalty. One said:

"Easter is always such a reminder that violence and death are not the last word," she said. "They don't have power over us. Love and the love of God is the most powerful force on Earth and are eternal. This year as never before, I'm seeing that I not only need to love Nancy and Richard and the baby, I need to love the person who took their lives, love them the way God loves them. That's so brand new to me and makes me see so many things differently. … I feel a stone has been rolled away from my heart."

You can read her's and others' stories here.

Rob Bell's new book

2011-03-11T15:36:00.000-06:00

The bad part about Rob Bell is that he's so dang cool. He dresses trendy and makes cool videos and cool Christians everywhere know him to be cool.

The good part about Rob Bell is that he raises really good questions, he's an excellent teacher and that he reads a lot of N.T. Wright, who isn't so trendy.

He wrote a new book called Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. This is a link to a video in which his cool self talks over cool music and cool video footage about some really important age old questions. If you want to explore some of these questions without feeling like a geek, this may be a good book for you.

swiping out, part II

2011-03-07T22:11:00.002-06:00

You may have noticed that I’ve been posting less often. This here’s an explanation…

The last time I posted I said I'd be taking a break from media for 25 days as a part of my church's 25-day fast. It was to celebrate our church's 25th year. (Boy, was I glad we're not Catholic!)

During the fast I found surprising communion with God, inner peace and efficiency at work related simply to not using the Internet, reading, or listening to music. As if my soul was taking a much-needed deep breath. And like I often do during fasts, I asked God, “How can I keep this going after the fast, in normal life?”

I sensed a clear response that I should limit my Internet usage to one hour per week. So for now, that’s what I’m doing. The result of this change has been continued efficiency while at work, far greater presence of mind when I’m at home with my wife and kids, and a surprising amount of enjoyment at the simplicity. I went from hopping on to check any number of sites whenever I pleased throughout the day, to saving all my Internet business to one sitting. And you know what’s weird? The same sites I used to go on multiple times per day, I don’t even care to look at anymore when my new hour quota recharges on Sunday. Nothing on the Internet feels urgent. Nothing is.

So at least for now, I’ll be blogging less often. My wife, my kids and my soul are glad.

Just this...

2011-03-05T21:08:00.000-06:00

swiping out

2011-01-02T00:38:00.000-06:00

I'll be starting a 25-day media fast on Monday, so that means no Internet for me and no blog posts for you. How we'll suffer.

If you've never rested for a while from reading and hearing, I strongly encourage it. I do it a couple times a year, and it's something I've come to look forward to. The space that I generally cram full with information or entertainment will stay empty for a while. The quiet is hard to get used to at first, but after a week or so, it grows beautiful. Before long I will see and hear things that I wouldn't under "normal" circumstances. If past fasts are any indication, the Lord will speak. Rather, I will hear.

Upon returning to consumption of media, my first order of business will be to listen to an album by Mumford & Sons that I bought and loved tonight. They caught my attention because they have a song called "Timshel." The word forms the heart of East of Eden, John Steinbeck's masterpiece, and one of my favorite books. I'm right now finishing my second bout with the book. Maybe someday I'll write about the book and the word, Timshel.

For now, though, here's a video of a different Mumford & Sons song, The Cave. Maybe you'll love it too.

A 5-year-old's monologue

2010-12-27T22:18:00.000-06:00

My Suzy doesn't realize she's recording, so she thinks her camera clicks are snapping pictures.

The Sadness of Christmas

2010-12-23T11:30:00.005-06:00

As a kid, I looked forward to Christmas with the best of 'em. 3 huge gift receivings awaited me each year, and I would be getting most everything I wished for, plus some pleasant surprises, too. In my mind, Christmas was the time to get set. All my problems, from acne to holey underwear, from boredom to nerdy clothes were on their way out the door. Satisfaction was just around the corner. Jesus had come, Santa was coming, and life would be better.

Looking back on those days, I recognize a recurring theme of sadness that crept to my heart in opening gifts. I would realize as I stacked the final presents onto my impressive mound that I was not, in fact satisfied. Even with my super-cool new Reebok windsuit, my Kirby Puckett rookie card (pictured), my silk shirt and my Steven Curtis Chapman CDs, I was still Brian. I would haul my wares happily to my room, admire them Gollum-like, and then feel the sadness come on.

As I got older I came to understand the sadness as greed's melody. So I reacted by trying to forget my own presents. I'd try not to think about what I might get, or to focus on others' happiness. As I failed in this effort, the sadness would come again, but with guilt as its dissonant accompanist. In opening presents, I found a limit to the fulfillment I longed for on Christmas day, and this in itself left an emptiness.

But it wasn't just the giving times that left a hollow. It was the fun with grandparents and cousins that I longed for all year that had to come to an end. It was the last game of bumper pool or Carroms. It was the race to see which cousin would get the last of Grandma Stipp's chocolate covered peanut-butter cracker sandwiches, or my Grandma Flint sneaking me a few coconut and cream cheese snowballs for the ride home. As joyous and peaceful as these days were, they came to an end. And I remember feeling something more than sadness that comes when things don't go one's way. It was grief that seemed to always come with Christmas's end.

I think I know why.

As an adult, by celebrating the week's before Christmas during Advent, I have come to understand that Christmas day is only one part of the holiday. The whole Advent season celebrates the day of His first coming, but also points to Christ's return as the time when the world will finally be judged and put to rights; the time when my own greed would be gone, when the surrounding of profound love and safety would not end. We look forward during this time to Chirst's second advent, which means looking past today, dreaming of a new reality. He will come again, but He has not yet.

I believe there is a grief and longing native to this Holiday and even to our religion. All is not celebration and praising. While the greed, the guilt and the loneliness that little boys and girls will feel this weekend will someday be wiped away, while the beautiful vision cast for us in Revelation 21, when he finally crushes once and for the forces that leave us empty is to come, it has not yet. And for that we have only to look forward.

So when the sadness comes these days, I urge you to take it in stride. Look beyond the day to the future God has promised.

The Christmas Wars

2010-12-22T20:17:00.000-06:00

I like this article's perspective on "Merry Christmas" vs. "Happy Holidays." It says that pressuring people who don't believe in Christ to use His name may be at the very heart of what it means to take the Lord's name in vain. Yet another suggestion from Evangelicals for Social Action's E-pistle.

On the way to Montgomery

2010-12-11T21:15:00.004-06:00

We’re driving down the country headed to Motgomery, Alabama to see our friends, the Jecks. We’re going in a way that runs against many of our ideals. Instead of taking the trip slow and drinking our country in with long drafts, we’re zipping along. We’re sticking to the unnatural and boring interstates opposed to the beautiful, intriguing countryside. Right now, in fact, we’re in Louisville, just 30 minutes from Wendell Berry’s Port Royal, Kentucky, a place whose beauty and significance I have read and thought much about. But we’re not stoppin’ to see, baby. Not this trip. We’re blazing right past at 70 miles an hour. Instead of packing meals or getting supplies at small-time grocery stores we ate at a Dairy Queen and got coffees at McDonalds. Our Days Inn is within earshot of the zooming cars of I-65.

At some point, our interests and the kids’ needs come into competition. Here on this trip, their needs win. We find that as much as we need to live out what we believe, our kids have greater and more urgent pulls on our energy. They desperately need our training – a big job that takes all our attention. Suzy needs to feel protected and to be heard by her mommy and daddy. Eli needs to learn that apologizing first and then biting his brother just doesn’t fly. Isaac needs to hear when told to change his undies, “I already changed them once this week” isn’t an acceptable stance. And Leeli needs to stop every few hours for her mama’s milk, which means that the trip is long enough even on the interstates.

So instead of beholding the beauty outside our van, we’re focusing on the beauty within it. And there’s is a beauty as breathtaking as any we’re passing. And it is ours to nourish.

Christmas music suggestions

2010-12-05T01:08:00.012-06:00

The existence of the Christian music industry boggles my mind. Not that Christians shouldn’t be making music, or singing about the Lord. We always have, and should. But what we find on the radio, benefiting from the industry, has been a poor imitation of secular pop music since I’ve been old enough to compare the two. The following are examples of good music that celebrates the coming of the Christ. Its singers’ discipleship is an inspiration to me moreso that their musicianship, which is also quite good.

1. Sara Groves is giving away copies of a live Christmas show she did in a women’s prison here in Illinois. This live album is good not for its sound quality but for the statement she is making by giving the concert in the first place. When my kids asked whose were the voices singing along with Sara, it was a joy to answer them, and let the joy-filled voices of women who did God-knows-what fall our ears together. Singing of Christ’s hope with inmates. That is both a proclamation and an enactment of the Kingdom.

2. Andy Gullahorn and Jill Phillips are a husband and wife team, and their first album together is called "Christmas," the unoriginality of which sounds like a sad conclusion to a marital argument to me. The album is good, but their rendition of "Nations that Long in Darkness Walked" is great. It adds a bridge that shows how this old hymn captures the central message of the gospel, and the Christian's Advent longing.

“Nations That Long In Darkness Walked” by Andy Gullahorn

3. Randall Goodgame made a very fun kids' Christmas album, A Slugs and Bugs Christmas to accompany his and Andrew Peterson's Slugs and Bugs and Lullabies. Very good stuff. On the song the Happy Birthday Jesus, the "lump in my throat," is what I hope my own kids get as they realize all the hubbub is about the most important event in history.

4. And if you've never heard Peterson's Behold the Lamb of God: The True Tall Tale of the Coming of the Christ, it's the best. And you can hear the whole album here.

Items 2-4 can be purchased at the Rabbit Room Store, which I (obviously) frequent.

Family Pictures

2010-11-08T21:56:00.000-06:00

A friend of ours from church gave us a family photo shoot as a welcoming gift to Rozalie. Here's a link to her blog where you can see a sampling.

N.T. Wright, on hell, my thoughts

2010-11-02T21:28:00.004-05:00

I just wrote a long response to the N.T. Wright excerpt. Then I re-read his excerpt and found that I had pretty much written the same things as him, but not as well.

So very briefly, I really liked his tone on hell, "I am well aware that I have now wandered into territory that no one can claim to have mapped." And his suggestion that sin does more than separate us from God but threatens our very humanity was a new idea to me, and I think he's wright. (sorry)

Also, If you were too lazy to read the original post, or if you dig British accents, here he is saying many of the same things.

N.T. Wright, on hell: The Excerpt

2010-10-26T22:08:00.000-05:00

Part 1 gives some context for this rather long excerpt from N.T. Wright about hell and final judgment. I hope you'll take the time to read it and give it some thought.

God is utterly committed to set the world right in the end. This doctrine, like that of resurrection itself, is held firmly in place by the belief in God as creator, on the one side, and the belief in his goodness, on the other. And that setting right must necessarily involve elimination of all that distorts God's good and lovely creation and in particular of all that defaces his image-bearing human creatures. Not to put too fine a point upon it, there will be no barbed wire in he kingdom of God...

For "barbed wire," of course, read whichever catalog of awfulnesses you prefer: genocide, nuclear bombs, child prostitution, the arrogance of empire, the comodification of souls, the idolization of race. The New Testament has several such categories, functioning as red flashing lights to warn against going down a road that leads straight to a fenceless cliff. And in the analysis offered by early Christians from Paul onward, such patterns of behavior have three things to be said about them.

First, they all stem from the primal fault, which is idolatry, worshiping that which is not God as if it were. Second, they all show the telltale marks of the consequent fault, which is subhuman behavior, that is, the failure fully to reflect the image of God...Third, it is perfectly possible, and it really does seem to happen in practice, that this idolatry and dehumanization become so endemic in the life and chosen behavior of an individual, and indeed of groups, that unless there is a specific turning away from such a way of life, those who persist are conniving at their own ultimate dehumanization.

This is at the heart of the way in which I believe we can today restate the doctrine of final judgment. I find it quite impossible, reading the New Testament on the one hand and the newspaper on the other, to suppose that there will be no ultimate condemnation, no final loss, no human beings to whom, as C.S. Lewis put it, God will eventually say, "Thy will be done." I wish it were otherwise, but on cannot forever whistle "There's a wideness in God's mercy" in the darkness of Hiroshima, of Auschwitz, of the murder of children and the careless greed that enslaves millions with debts not their own. Humankind cannot, alas bear very much reality, and the massive denial of reality by the cheap and cheerful universalism of Western liberalism has a lot to answer for.

But if there is indeed final condemnation for those who, by their idolatry, dehumanize themselves and drag others down with them, the account I have suggested of how this works in practice provides a somewhat different picture from those normally imagined.

The traditional view is that those who spurn God's salvation, who refuse to turn from idolatry and wickedness, are held forever in conscious torment. Sometimes this is sharpened up by overenthusiastic preachers and teachers who claim o know precisely which sorts of behavior are bound to lead to hell and which, though reprehensible, are still forgivable. But the traditional picture is clear: such human beings will continue to be, in some sense, human beings, and they will be punished in an endless time.

This account in then opposed by the universalists. Sometimes they suggest...that God will be merciful even to the utterly abhorrent, to mass murderers and child rapists. Sometimes they modify this: God will continue, after death, to offer all people the chance of repentance until they finally give in to the offer of his love.

A middle way is offered by the so-called conditionalists. They propose "conditional immortality": those who persistently refuse God's love and his way of life in the present world will simply cease to exit. Immortality, such theories point out, is not (despite the popularity of Platonist!) an innate human characteristic; it is something that, as Paul says, only God possesses by right and hence is a gift that God can choose to bestow or withhold. According to this theory, then, God will dimply not confer immortality on those who in this life continue impenitently to worship idols and thereby to destroy their own humanness. This view is therefore sometimes known as annihilationaism; such people will cease to exist. That word, however, is perhaps too strong, suggesting that such people are actively destroyed rather than merely failing to receive a gift that had been held out to them and that they had consistently rejected.

Over against these three option, I propose a view that combines what seem to me the strong points of the first and third. The greatest objection to the traditional view in recent times - and the last two hundred years have seen massive swing toward universalism in the Western churches, at least the so-called mainstream ones - has come from the deep revulsion many feel at the idea of the torture chamber in the middle of the castle of delights, the concentration camp in the middle of the beautiful countryside, the idea that among the delights of the blessed we should include the contemplation of the torments of the wicked. However much we tell ourselves that God must condemn evil if he is a good God and that those who love God must endorse that condemnation, as soon as these pictures present themselves to our minds, we turn away in disgust. The conditionalist avoids this at the apparent cost of belittling those scriptural passages that appear to speak unambiguously of a continuing state for those who reject the worship of the true God and the way of humanness, which follows from it.

Using that analysis, though, presents us with the following possibility, which I believe does justice both to the key text and to the realities of human life of which, after a century of horror mostly dreamed up by human beings, we are not all too well aware. When human beings give their heartfelt allegiance to and worship that which is not God, they progressively cease to reflect the image of God. One of the primary laws of human life is that you become like what you worship: what's more, you reflect what you worship not only back to the object itself but also outward to the world around. Those who worship money increasingly define themselves in terms of it and increasingly treat other people as creditor, debtors, partners, or customers rather than human beings. Those who worship sex define themselves in terms of it (their preferences, their practices, their past histories) and increasingly treat other people as actual or potential sexual objects. Those who worship power define themselves in terms of it and treat other people as either collaborators, competitors, or pawns. These and many otehr forms of idolatry combine in a thousand ways, all of them damaging to the image-bearing quality of the people concerned and of those whose lives they tough. My suggestion is that it is possible for human beings so to continue down this road, so to refuse all whispering of good news, all glimmers of the true light, all prompting to turn and go the other way, all signposts to the love of God, that after death they become at last, by their own effective choice, beings that once were human but now are not, creatures that have ceased to bear the divine image at all. With the death of that body in which they inhabited God's good world, in which the flickering flame of goodness had not been completely snuffed out, they pass simultaneously not only beyond hope but also beyond pity. There is no concentration camp in the beautiful countryside, no torture chamber int eh palace of delight. Those creatures that still exist in an ex-human state, no longer reflecting their maker in any meaningful sense, can no longer excite in themselves or others the natural sympathy some feel even for the hardened criminal.

I am well aware that I have now wandered into territory that no one can claim to have mapped. Jesus, Christians believe, has been to hell and back but to say that is to stand gaping into the darkness, not to write a travel brochure for future visitors. The lat thing I wants is for anyone to suppose that I (or anyone else) know very much about all this. Nor do I want anyone to suppose I enjoy speculating in this manner. But I find myself driven, by the New Testament and the sober realities of this world, to this kind of a resolution to one of the darkest theological mysteries. I should be glad to be proved wrong but not at the cost of the foundational claims that this world is the good creation of the one true God and that he will at the end bring about that judgment at which the whole of creation will rejoice.

N.T. Wright, on hell: A Preface

2010-10-26T17:18:00.000-05:00

I finished Surprised by Hope. It took me reading a simpler N.T. Wright book, several starts and stops, and 2 1/2 years, but I got through, and it was worth it.

I want to offer a long excerpt that he wrote about hell, but in doing so I'll be cutting out the most important part of the book to share what was to me the most interesting. I read an interview where he said he almost wrote the book without this hell section, but so many people wanted to read his thoughts on the matter that he decided to include them. Before I get to the excerpt, let me share what the rest of the book's about.

Wright starts by showing all the ways that the myriad Christian churches are confused about what happens after death, and that much of this confusion can be cleared up with some good understandings of history and early Christian thought. He explains the same point he made more thoroughly in Simply Christian: that the Bible's first readers understood heaven not as a place apart from earth, but as the place God's realm intersects with us. He devotes a whole chapter to the Jewish idea of bodily resurrection; explaining that the earliest Christians' hope was never to be in a heaven that was removed from this world, but to be raised with Christ after death, in an earth renewed. He delves into how early believers and non-believers both would have understood the first Easter, and applies sound thinking to the problems that some skeptics have with believing in His resurrection.

Here is a decent summation of what he has to say on life immediately after death:
"My proposition is that the traditional picture of people going to either heaven or hell as a one-stage postmortem journey...represents a serious distortion and diminution of the Christian hope. Bodily resurrection is not just one odd bit of that hope. It is the element that gives shape and meaning to the rest of the story we tell about God's ultimate purposes. If we squeeze it to the margins, as many have done by implication, or indeed if we leave it out altogether as some have done quite explicitly, we don't just lose an extra feature, like buying a car that happens not to have electrically operated mirrors. We lose the reason for working. Instead of talking vaguely about heaven and then trying to fit the language of resurrection into that we should talk with biblical precision about the resurrection and reorganize our language about heaven around that. What is more...when we do this we discover an excellent foundation, not, as some suppose, for an escapist or quietist piety (that belongs more with the traditional and misleading language about heaven), but for lively and creative Christian work within the present world. (p. 148)

So all of that is the point of the book.

But there's this really interesting part on hell, and that's why I'm writing this post. Why, I wonder, does hell so intrigue me?

I think because I long from deep inside me for judgment against the forces of evil that now reign in this world. And the evils of the world must surely not get off scotch free. Also, I think the way hell is "used," in the evangelical circles I tread must be wrong. Used, I mean like bait to get someone to say a sinner's prayer. Or used with certainty, like the speaker knows who's going and who's not.

This passage by N.T. Wright on hell is the best I've read on the subject. I think it gets to the heart of what the language in the Bible about judgment is all about. It has a ring that I find congruent with the scripture. I'll finish typing out the rather long excerpt and I'll post it soon. I recommend printing it out, reading it with others, wrestling with it until it sinks in deep.

3 things, totally unrelated

2010-10-19T21:04:00.000-05:00

This is a picture of my Eli, who just turned this many:

This is a very good piece of writing about Halloween. It's by Jason Gray, a singer whom I've never heard sing, but who is a very good blogger.

This is another very good piece of writing on Christians' relationship to homosexuals. It's by Ron Sider, with whom I almost always agree about politics. He is the founder of Evangelicals for Social Action, which puts out the weekly "E-pistle," whose name I find very corny, but whose content I like.

Before 6 this morning

2010-10-14T20:39:00.001-05:00

This morning, at 5:50, I pulled my mini-van into a gas station. It was still dark out; cars and people were sparse.

My credit card wouldn't work so I headed inside to empty my wallet of cash for as much gas as it would buy. On the way in, the owner of a new, blue, Buick Rendezvous asked me if I had any spark plugs. I told him I didn't and asked what was wrong. He told me he needed a jump. I could hear from his speech that he was from the streets, and because this sort of talk just comes out sometimes I told him, "I gotchu when I come back out,"

"Alright, coo" he replied.

Once I started pumping, he double-checked anxiously, "Yo, chico, you outta here in a hurry or what?"

"Naw, man, I told you I gotchu. I'm just gonna pump here, then I'll pull over."

"Alright, then," he replied, and he went to pop the hood.

It took him a few minutes to connect the cables because he wouldn't put down his thin, brown cigarillo. But we finally got it going, and I put the cables back in my nifty little white-boy, mini-van jumper cable bag.

As I moved towards my car, he raised himself up on his and thanked me the best he knew how. "Hey man," he shouted, "anything you need, I can get it for you."

My terse thanks made him think I didn't understand what he meant, which was drugs. So he called me over to his rolled down window, and he said to me, "Listen man, I can get you anything. Anything! Money, drugs, bitches. I can getchu bitches, man!" I guess he was right; I hadn't understood.

"Whatever you want, man. I mean, how's a man gonna turn down bitches?"

He misinterpreted my smirk as interested. "You want some bitches, don't you. I'm gonna getchu a bitch."

"Naw, man, actually I don't," I told him, "I'm happily married."

"Really, man?" he asked, "that's coo den." He paused a moment and thought, "You know what, man? Tha's coo. You wanna know how I really feel from da bottom of my heart? I wish I was happily married, too. Man, I respect you for this, fo real. This means you just did this for...for...for..."

He searched for words, it seemed he didn't have a category for this sort of behavior. I finished his sentence. "just tryin' to help out a neighbor."

"Yeah man, thank you," he said. And we drove away to our worlds.

Classroom quips, 10-13-10

2010-10-13T15:20:00.000-05:00

As I've shared before, this has been a rough year so far in the life of this Special Ed. teacher. I took some time over my 2-week break and prayed over what to do about it. God gave me a few specific ideas, and already the first two days after returning from break have been far better. I'm back in the driver's seat, which means I'm in a generally better mood, which means I've been able to enjoy the kids more.

So with this good news as the backdrop, I present the first classroom quips from the 2010-2011 school year, all of which happened today.

Mr. Stipp: Does anyone know what a miner is?
Javier: Yeah. Like if I win $50,000 in Gold/Cash prizes from the gas station, they'd probably take it away because I'm a minor.

Henry (reading out loud): Ovary and Wilbur Wright were born in Dayton, Ohio.

Mr. Stipp: Stephen, why were you absent yesterday
Stephen: Oh, I fell out of a tree.

teh affexts of mediu on the braain

2010-10-04T21:51:00.000-05:00

I heard this radio show a few weeks ago that gave me some desperately needed insights. It was during my 7 posts in 7 days blogging binge, and my brain was strung out with blogging and arguing with some people I'd never met on someone else's blog. Rozalie wasn't even a month old and I couldn't stop thinking about my online conversations long enough to enjoy her.

It's a Fresh Air episode where Terri Gross interviews a New York Times reporter who researches the affects of cell phones, smart phone, multi-tasking and internet usage on our brains. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his work. It was clear as I listened that my ability to be present where I was had been worn thin by my involvement in the cyberworld and in all the other thoughts I was trying to cram into my brain. So I decided to fast from media, and after a few days of detoxification remembered how to marvel at new life again.

You should listen to this radio show when you get the chance.

A night of Reconciliation

2010-09-29T13:30:00.002-05:00

Last week Beth and I drove to Elgin to witness our friends' reaffirmation of their marriage vows. These friends had had some marital problems that will most likely in the end be the saving of their marriage.

About a year ago, the husband confessed that he had a sex addiction. He decided to deal with the issue the right way, or a least a right way. He sought and found healing by going to a church-led group similar to SAA. And he went through a 9 month program called Redeemed Lives, started by a man (Mario Bergner) who came out of a homosexual lifestyle. He lives on the east coast now, but has ministry that deals with healing in sexual brokenness. The program incorporates Scripture, small groups, healing prayer, solid psychological teaching (family origins, maladaptive tendencies, etc.) He also spoke with a friend about his addiction and the process of reconciling his marriage every day for about two months. The couple separated for several months, too. The last year has been full of sadness and loneliness; a long painful journey for them both. It's also been full of relying upon God and their community of believers for strength and wisdom.

That night we who were witnesses celebrated their courage to not hide their problems or hide from them. It was a deeply joyous occasion devoid of pretenses. No one there thought the couple had it all together. Personally, the all-too-familiar pull to put on a public image other than my real self simply stopped its pulling. Their vulnerability made us all more vulnerable; more real; more human.

I'm sharing this story as a model of Christian discipleship. We should expect that following Jesus will include one stretching, faith-building and humbling step after another. By facing their problems head-on and relying upon the help of Christ and the church, our friends have put themselves on the journey of reconciliation and marital health.

The night of reconciliation stood in opposition to the the powerful notion that Christianity involves an arrival; a being set; having our house in order. Our faith does involve working towards holiness, but my experience tells me that when we think we've arrived we haven't. Working towards holiness is always an undressing, and there is no Christianity without that undressing. My prayer for our friends is that they don't understand this last year as an unseemly anomaly in their Cristian journeys or in their marriage, but as the pattern to be expected until death do them part.

MY MESS Part 2, A Boon on the Road

2010-09-20T22:45:00.004-05:00

One of the things that has been hardest about these first 6 weeks of school is their juxtaposition with the last 4 years. I have been used to success. I haven't had a behavioral problem that really worried me for a long time. Experiencing failure at work, even temporary failure as I hope this is, is foreign to me. Last year I worked towards the prestigious National Board Certification and all my co-workers were sure I would achieve. My school's reading coach told me I was one of the best teachers she'd ever seen, and she made sure I knew she was serious. The compliments rained in. And now, at a new school, failures are bountiful.

So last Wednesday morning I took some time to pray about school. That's when the notion began that I should pray for salvation. Right after I did, as I was brushing my teeth, a Sara Groves song lyric popped into my head, "I pray for an idea, and a way I cannot see."

The lyric's song is "The Long Defeat," and I believe God has given it to me to pray during this season of my life. It is my prayer for salvation.

I have joined the long defeat
that falling set in motion
all my strength and energy
are raindrops in the ocean

so conditioned for the win
to share in victor's stories
but in the place of ambition's den
I've heard of other glories

I pray for an idea
and a way I cannot see
It's too heavy to carry
and impossible to leave

I can't just fight when I think I'll win
that's the end of all belief
and nothing has provoked it more
than a possible defeat

I pray for an idea
and a way I cannot see
It's too heavy to carry
and impossible to leave

We walk a while we sit and rest
we lay it on the altar
I won't pretend to know what's next
but what I have I've offered

I pray for a vision
and a way I cannot see
It's too heavy to carry
and impossible to leave

I pray for inspiration
and a way I cannot see
It's too heavy to carry
and impossible to leave

MY MESS, Part 1: A Cry for Salvation

2010-09-17T22:00:00.001-05:00

I have normally stuck with blogging about overarching principles: society, or God, or some political issue. It's the stuff my mind gravitates towards, and it interests me, and I could spend more time than I should writing about it. But I'm sort of consumed these days with what are for me some major challenges at work, and I think it's time after spending most of my posts weighing in on the world's problems that I share my own.

I'm having a hard school year.

For the last four years, at my previous school, teaching 4th and 5th graders to read took most of my time and energy. I taught about 10 kids to read each year, which was deeply gratifying, life changing, and really fun work.

The group of sixth graders I have this year is overwhelming. I've spent hours designing and implementing behavioral plans that aren't producing any noticeable result. I have a boy who calls me names and refuses or resists doing his work, or anything appropriate, all day. Today he showed up to school at 11:30 without a book bag and acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Everyone at the school knows his family and tells me he'll just get worse as the years go on. I have a girl who within the first six weeks has spread the rumor that she herself is pregnant, slapped and pushed two other girls, and come to school with hickies (sp? I've never needed to spell that til now!) She got suspended today, so I have a one week reprieve. I have another boy who is full of potential but doesn't like to work. He just mopes around the room as slowly as you can imagine, and starts looking for his materials right when everyone else is finishing. I have another boy with impulsivity issues; he shouts out whatever comes to mind. I don't know how well you remember sixth grade, but the things that run through a sixth grader's mind should not be shouted.

Yesterday things boiled to a head. I lost control of my own classroom. I could not teach and did not know how to respond to how the kids were acting. This is my 7th full school year as a teacher and it felt like my first week. I have no answers.

I've been praying for salvation. You know how David constantly asks for or thanks God for His salvation throughout the Psalms? Well that's what I'm asking for. I don't know if God will save me from this situation, or if He'll bring me an idea that will save me from it's messiness. I don't know if He will save me by strengthening me to endure or if He will save my students from their hellish lives. I do believe that it is He who saves, and I know that I have no idea how to go forward.

And that's where I am

Coming soon: MY MESS, Part 2: A Boon on the Road

The Joy of Sales Resistance

2010-09-10T22:42:00.002-05:00

I just re-read this little essay by Wendell Berry called "The Joy of Sales Resistance." I first read it about a year ago and it has changed me, and I'm glad for having been changed. Here, you can read it for yourself. It's better to read Berry from a book, but I can't put a link to a book in my blog, so just read this instead.

The Old Way

2010-08-26T21:25:00.000-05:00

My great grandmother, Birdena (Healey) Flint, was born in 1901 near Wolcottville, Indiana, where she lived most of her life. She worked on a farm, raised her children, served as her church treasurer and taught in a one room school house. I never knew her husband, Truman, who died months before I was born. But she I was privileged to know. She died at the age of 106 just two years ago.

I remember visiting her home as a kid in the 1980s. Some of the things I saw just didn't fit into my thinking. Her ways were weird. Most of her front yard was taken up by an enormous garden (what a waste, I thought). She saved Ziploc bags, and even stored used Saran Wrap in her unused dishwasher. You couldn't eat from the boxes of cereal she had, because it had been in the cupboard for so long (probably left from the last person who had visited). And strangest to me, she would only use one square of toilet paper per "sitting." Somewhere along the line someone explained to me that a lot of her ways could be attributed to the fact that she lived through the Great Depression.

My thinking has wandered towards the depression lately. More accurately, I've been thinking about how we have framed the depression. I've wondered how people who knew life before the depression thought, especially those who hadn't migrated to the cities yet. I've wondered if, without the roaring 20s, the depression would have felt like much of a dip in rural America, where life had always been very hard. I've wondered if people who entered those years, having endured many other hardships, chalked it up as something to be expected. If we thought of our nation as bi-polar, could a depression be one swing, whose opposite is a manic episode? Will the past few years of indiscriminate waste be looked upon by our children as the Great Mania?

These are all wonderings, mere meanderings. They started with Wendell Berry, who started on me right before my Great Grandma's death. Berry has instilled in me a deep appreciation for the "old way." He has given a rudimentary understanding of the patterns and necessities of life that produced in my great grandmother, her ways.

The most recent novel I have read is called Andy Catlett: Early Travels. Others of Berry's novels (Memories of Old Jack, Jayber Crow and Hannah Coulter) tell the whole life of one person who is a "member" of the life of Port William, Kentucky, and in so doing, tell the story of the changing of America through eyes of these lovable characters. In Andy Catlett: Early Travels, Berry takes a snapshot of one week in the life of a nine year old boy at the end of 1943. Andy is Berry's alter-ego throughout his fictional series.

Thoughout the week, he goes to visit his two sets of grandparents, and joins as much as he can in their way of life. The grandparents' way of life, is the way Berry refers to throughout his writing as the "Old Way." Andy is coming from Hargrave, where he lives with his parents; a world given to the new way. Narrating as an old man looking back on the change from the old way to the new, Andy says,
"That those two worlds were in mortal contention had never occurred to me. When in a few years one had entirely consumed the other, so that no place anywhere would ever again be satisfied to be what it was, I was surprised, and I am more surprised now by the rapidity of change than I was then. In only a few years the word of pavement, speed, and universal dissatisfaction had extended itself into nearly every place and nearly every mind, and the old world of the mule team and wagon was simply gone, leaving behind it a scatter of less and less intelligible relics."

More valuable to me than his social commentary, though, this book is full of descriptions of the old way. You can see and hear how everyday life was before electricity and cars. Not only in the patterns of doing, but in the patterns of thinking. And he paints it as beautiful, as I'm sure it was.

a clash of titans

2010-08-25T20:09:00.003-05:00

Andrew Peterson went to Wendell Berry's house, and wrote about it. Nothing could interest me more. He wrote about it in the Rabbit Room in this post. I have a review of Berry's Andy Catlett: Early Travels in the works, but I think both titans would agree that it's more important that I spend time listening to my wife. Maybe tomorrow.

A review of Capitalism: A Love Story

2010-08-24T21:42:00.002-05:00

I watched Michael Moore's latest, Capitalism: A Love Story a few weeks ago. If you know Michael Moore at all, you'll probably guess how he handled the matter. He blamed all of our societal problems on Republican presidents, the Right-leaning, fear-mongering media, and Wall Street fat cats. He oversimplifies and over-vilifies; he twists facts, and uses strategic camera angles and loud music to underscore his points.

Knowing all of this before sitting down, I still find his movies entertaining and thought provoking, even if I do disagree with him time and again. Plus, there are a lot of people watching his films, and it's good to see first hand how the far left (often over-vilified themselves) thinks.

Before I get into the film, a few words on capitalism.

I like the system, in theory. On paper, I see how more real wealth is created when people and nations have the ability to specialize their efforts and provide the goods or services that are most advantageous for them to provide. Capitalism has tremendous potential to fight world poverty and inequality. What plays out, though, I think is deeply damaging to the people who benefit from the competition and those who lose. On one side we have people rewarded and encouraged towards greed and selfishness, and on the other we have people either poor or dependent on the rich.

I don't think the problem is the fallen-ness of man, selfish business people or bad politician. I think the problem with our current system is its size. The world economy as we know it is too big for conscience or neighborliness to enter our thinking as we make economic decisions. I could envision capitalism working for many if we knew and cared about the people who we were trading with. But we don't know them, and we can't know them.

In my neighborhood there is a coal-powered electrical plant run by a large corporation, Midwest Generation. The electricity the plant produces does not even power the homes in our neighborhood. It powers homes in Michigan, I've heard. This article explains, "A 2001 study by professors at the Harvard School of Public Health correlated emissions at nine Illinois coal-burning power plants with health data. The study estimated that the plants in Pilsen and Little Village together are responsible for 41 premature deaths, 2,800 asthma attacks and 550 emergency room visits per year." ( The article also explains that due to recent pressure, the plant claims to have recently cleaned up their act). The problem here is that the good people who are running their air conditioners in Michigan have no idea what their actions are doing to my recently born Rozalie's lungs.

And it is a safe bet that every time we buy anything from a large corporation, whatever they're selling, that somewhere along the supply chain, profit, efficiency, leverage, and competition is put above humanity and creation. We can buy almost nothing with a clear conscience. Did capitalism do this? I don't think so. I think it's more capitalism + globalism + isolation of individuals that has exploded the system into something that subtracts thoughts about our fellow man and the earth from the equation. The marketing industry has taken the sum and made us fully trusting buying machines, thoughtless of our consequences.

Capitalism: A Love Story has a simpler bent. Throughout the film, Moore shows eye-popping disparities of income and lifestyle between rich and poor. He makes the case that our society will be judged by future societies because of these disparities. He shows real estate vultures and how they go after properties that they can flip for massive profit, without a thought for the people involved. And a story of a privatized juvenile home that bribed a judge, who would sentence youth to stay there to the home's immense profit. He did a segment on Dead Peasant Policies, which are life insurance plans that many large companies buy and then collect from when their everyday employees die. He actually used the Bible to make the point that care for the poor and care not to become rich are of deep importance. I was pleasantly surprised that he did a nice job with the Bible (not taking verses out of context, not saying more that it does).

He showed this story.

I appreciated his depiction of these and other very real issues. All results, at least in part, to our current system.

The solutions he offered, though, were far too simple. From what I could tell, Moore thinks that if our businesses are run as co-ops and if we elect politicians who will put limits on free trade and distribute the wealth a little more, we can all sit back and watch society mend itself. Moore is sort of a populist, in that he doesn't blame anything on the decisions that common people like you and me make.

It seems to me, though,, that our problems run much deeper than politics and business, and right into our lifestyles, which create our daily economic decisions. We cannot become a responsible society in spite of ourselves. There is no short cut. We must make responsible decisions each day, and in so doing engage in the long and grueling work of mending our world, deeply frayed though it is.

work

2010-08-23T20:59:00.000-05:00

My pastor sent me a link to his friend's blog, which discusses work in relation to Christian discipleship. After reading a few (good) posts, I wrote these thoughts about work. I saved this post to expand further, but never got to it.

One major problem with work is that in the post-industrial revolution world is that home and work are now separated. When people used their homes and land as work space, both places were of utmost importance, to keep orderly and maintained, fertile and healthy. People depended on the land they owned to provide for their existence, so of course they took great care of their workplace. Maintenance of one's house and one's outbuildings and fields was all in a day's work.

Now our work has very little connection with where we live. Home is an oasis; a place of leisure, where the real enjoyment of life is supposed to take place. "Home is where the heart is," and because the two are apart, people don't put their heart into their work. Our workplaces are burdens; a price to pay for getting back home to the real stuff. This mentality can only result in shoddy workmanship - only doing our best on that for which we are held accountable; doing just enough to not get fired.

In agricultural days, many people owned, lived, and tended small pieces of land. Today, most everyone works for someone else, and people do not "own" their work. Lack of ownership is a problem for which I see little end in sight. If you are not doing work that you want to last for years to come, but just getting your paycheck, your mentality of work will be treating it as something inferior, to be rushed through.

The way forward here, I think, is to find the meaning in what we do, and to work with that meaning in mind. But also, we must abstain from doing work whose only meaning is the paycheck that awaits us; from allowing ourselves to be cogs in meaningless wheels.

Kohl's run!!!

2010-08-22T08:00:00.004-05:00

A few years back, Beth decided that she would stop buying clothes from retail stores, and would only get our clothes second hand. This started because we were frustrated and troubled that it is nearly impossible to trace who made our clothes, or in what conditions. The thought of buying clothes made in sweatshops that abuse their workers is repulsive to both of us. There's also the constant frustration and waste of buying cheaply made clothes from clothing stores, and the fact that we could save some money, but the main reason for the change was that we do not want to support the global clothing industry, at least not directly. Well, today we made an exception. I needed a belt and some white t-shirts for work, and Beth had come up empty on her thrift runs, so off to Kohl's we went. Today I was shocked with the world of the department store. And amused and sickened, too by what I found on our trip.

The first thing that struck me was how much extra stuff there is in this country. Rows upon rows of all kinds of clothes, and jewelry, and underwear, and everything, just sitting there unused. If that Kohl's shuts down tomorrow, everyone who lives around it will be just fine. The store is serving no otherwise unmet purpose, except, I suppose increasing shareholder profit.

Then there was the over-the-top signage and displays, all designed to persuade me: back to school displays; stoic or overly happy models; 75% off; extra amounts to take off if some requirement or other is met. There was no respect for me that I was willing to pay what something was worth, or buy only what I need. There is obvious intent from the sign-hangers to manipulate me into buying as much as they can.

Then comes the soothing music, with frequently intermittent interruptions about ways to save even more money. And at the end of the message, just when you think you've heard enough they say it: "The more you know, the more you Kohl's." I won't say more about that.

When we paid for my belt and a pack of white t-shirts, the lady (who had already tried to take ahold of my address and credit rating in exchange for an additional 10% off) informed me that I just saved $24.25. I won't say more about that, either.

On the way to the car, I told Beth that I imagine a shareholder meeting in which one guy stands up and says, "You know, if we spin the truth a little, we sell more product... I wonder if we make our entire store revolve around spin...," at which point some other guy interrupts excitedly and finishes his evil sentence. Beth thought it more likely that the shareholders spend there meetings just sitting around and laughing.

We humans can get used to anything, and we Americans are very much used being controlled by the hangers of the signs. If you've never abstained from going to a department store for an extended period of time, I strongly encourage you to do so. It takes some adjusting, but buying less, buying only what you need, and thinking about where it comes from are habits worth getting used to.

7 posts in 7 days

2010-08-21T04:06:00.003-05:00

I've dropped blogging since my Leeli was born and I started a new job (two days later). Leeli's great and the job is squeezing me. My friend told me that if you squeeze a tube of toothpaste, toothpaste comes out, and when a Christian gets squeezed, Christ better come out. I liked that. Christ hasn't come out, though, but that I need Him has.

So I have 4 blog posts that are half done, and a couple more that are floating around in my head. As a way to kick start this SOB, I'm gonna commit to you, my faithful reader(s), to post these posts, however edited and coherent, one-a-day, for the next week. This may mean not going back to delete possibly offensive swear-word abbreviations; it may mean publishing thoughts offensive to everyone I love; it may end up an offense to the written word. But there's no going back, friend(s). This here, is my commitment to you(s).

Rozalie Hope Stipp

2010-08-03T09:53:00.001-05:00

Here she is.

Rozalie. Beth's grandma on her mom's side was born Martha Rosalie Polka. She was a wonderful, humble mother to her five daughters. Her husband, Joe Dhondt taught driver's ed. and coached football at a High School in East Moline, Il. When she was in her 40s Martha had a stroke that took away her movement on the right side of her body and her speech. Her life that was only half over was to finish far differently than she had expected. She became dependent upon Joe in nearly every way. Joe took on the responsibility of caretaker, cook, communicator, and sole breadwinner, all with the grace and joy of one who had loosed his life and found it. Joe died five years ago, and Martha has kept on, giving the sweetest smiles, the juiciest kisses, and the most joyful laugh you'll ever find.

Hope. We are raising our family in Little Village, a Mexican neighborhood with many good qualities, but a place also where the presence of evil is thick. We stick out here - sometimes like a beacon, and other times like a sore thumb. We came here not because we like evil or sticking out, but because we have sensed from the beginning of our marriage a call to bring light to the darkness that reigns in Little Village. Satan uses all sorts of principalities in here. Alcoholism, cycles of poverty, prostitution, witchcraft, drug abuse, domestic violence, inequitable education and health care, joblessness, marital infidelity, gang warfare, inadequate places for children to play. The list goes on, but what Satan does with these things here in Little Village (and elsewhere, of course) is bring people to their knees in despair. It is against despair in Little Village that we aim our lives. Saying the name Hope will be a reminder to us that darkness does not get the final say here, or wherever she goes.

Stipp. Even though Rozalie is as much Polka, Dhondt, Dame, Witt, Flint, Mitchell, and Remole as she is Stipp, she is named Stipp, and I am glad. Being a Stipp will first mean that she is raised in our home with her brothers and sister, who already understand themselves deeply as Stipps. This reality will sink down deep into her bones. She is sure to pick up on our laugh that consists mostly of noisy inhalations, our honesty, our love for one another, and our commitment to Jesus, all of which we Stipps have been given by our forbears. We will all tell her that "Stipps are tough," and "Stipps don't quit," just as my dad told me and his dad told him and on and on. And the name Stipp will be a gift, tying her to the past, and telling her who she is.

Ever feel like skipping church?

2010-08-02T06:20:00.000-05:00

One time looking through my dad's bookshelf, a book caught my eye because it was prefaced by C.S. Lewis. The book was "A Faith of our Own," a collection of essays by an English theologian named Austin Farrer. I promptly stole the book. One essay in particular has stuck with me over the years. It's called, "Sabbath and Sunday," and I've never heard the points it makes anywhere else. I think they are important points for everyday, non-pastor type Christians like me. Important enough that I summarize them here for your benefit. (I'd recommend you buy the book, but it's not easy to come by.)

Farrer writes,"When Christ died and rose on the first day of the week, he made a revolution of all things, and among others, of our attitude to time. Before Christ we used to keep the seventh day, but Christ rose on the first and now we keep that...The Jew saw himself giving the seventh day to God, we see ourselves giving the first, and there is all the difference in the world between the two. The Jewish system seems very sensible. Do not indulge yourself, do the slogging first; fulfill your practical duties, get your work out of the way, and clear a block of time for God."

He explains that the Jewish thinking held that once one's house was in order, one could approach his maker. This, he says, is a religion of merits; Pharisaism. "No one's house ever is in order, that is the trouble, and so the time for appearing before God never arrives. If you were an ancient Jew you were at least forcibly stopped putting your house in order, and dragged into the divine presence by the dawning Sabbath. But if you are a modern Christian living that bad old Jewish principle, there isn't even Sabbath, and the day when you have caught up with your conscience and are fit to appear before God's altar never arrives at all."

This is one reason some Christians find it hard to go to church. Their conscience condemns them, and they misunderstand that approaching the Lord has to do with proclaiming a clean conscience, instead of receiving from Him.

"But what are we to do about the yawning gulf which opens between this Christhood of ours and our actual performance - between our laziness, selfishness, uncleanness, and triviality and the painful absurdity of our prayers? This gulf which yawns between what Christ has made us and what we make of ourselves?...What else but the very thing Christ's disciples did from the first: early in the morning on the first day of the week reassemble the whole body of Christ in our community - not a member lacking - when the sun has risen, and have the resurrection over again. In that moment, dead to the past and trusting him for the future, bathed in his blood and strong by his victory, united by his person, loved and forgiven by his Father - in that moment at least we are what he has made us; the gap is closed.

Here, another reason Christians don't want to go to church (or communicate, as Farrer calls it). We don't see the importance of remembering, celebrating and drawing from the resurrection with "not a member lacking" as the early believers did. And we don't understand that something really important happens to us at church - the gap being closed.

So some of us don't want to go because our conscience condemns us. Others stay home because we don't understand the importance of celebrating and drawing from the resurrection weekly. But others skip because of our feelings: either we feel like doing something else, or have real, emotional pain that repels us from "communicating." In most of life, getting in touch with our feelings is a healthy thing. But in regards to going to church on Sunday, discussing our feelings related to church shows that we've missed the point of church.

"What do you think St. Peter or St. Paul would have said if you had told them that you feared always to communicate, lest it should go stale on you? They would not have known what on earth you were talking about. It would have been all you could do to bring them to conceive the possibility of such emotional frivolity, such reckless individualism in a Christian man. What, is the body of Christ to lack a member because you are not feeling soulful? Don't you know that Christ wants you there, that he has died to give you what you there receive, at what is the weekly resurrection of the body of Christ?

A beautiful movie

2010-07-24T22:43:00.003-05:00

Just wanted to pass along a recommendation for the movie, Children of Heaven. Created by Iranian filmmakers and set in an Iranian city, the film shows the life of a family that is as dependent on one another as it is joyous. It shows the hardship and blessedness of poverty. It's bright colors against gray and brown backgrounds, and its sound, which was done almost completely without music, are as much a part of the art as the story itself.

Seeing kids so full of love for one another as the siblings in this film, changes my expectation for what is possible for the relationships between my own children. As soon as they are able to read subtitles, I will show them the movie, too.

Dancing in the Minefields

2010-07-19T13:47:00.003-05:00

Few songs address the beauty and difficulty of love within marriage. I burned a CD of about 10 of these songs for my girl last Valentine's Day. This song, by my longtime hero Andrew Peterson, wasn't out when I burned the CD, but it would have made the cut. If you're married, wait to watch it with your girl or guy. Enjoy.

more on fire boats

2010-07-10T15:31:00.007-05:00

I have more to say about fire boats.

Fire boats were used by the US coast guard to put out the flaming oil rig in the gulf of Mexico at the end of April. Fire boats were our collective response to our collective problem, which in this case was oil dependency. Of course the fire boats did not stop the oil leaking or even hope to cure us of oil dependency. They just responded to the emergency.

I've been thinking since I wrote my rant last night that our political debates center around such fire boats. Democrats advocate fire boats, and that the government should provide them, with an underlying tone that they will solve our true problems. I'm talking here about welfare, unemployment insurance, VA hospitals, after-school programs, controlling guns. The sense from the democratic party is that by responding with fire boats, our problems will go away. But without the underlying causes of poverty, joblessness, war, poor education and violence lessened, the interventions advocated for by democrats spray problems while the gushing oil exacerbates underneath.

Republicans rightly understand that the democrats' fire boats are incapable of solving our problems. But often I find that the policies the Republicans advocate worsen the fires, instead of push against their causes. Pushing most often in the direction of leaving the needy to fend for themselves, corporate interests, attacking our enemies, tax cuts for the very rich, and access to semi-automatic weapons, the Republicans often widen the gaping, gushing holes.

What's on my mind

2010-07-09T21:58:00.009-05:00

I'm done. I give up on the status quo. Western society as it is known is a lost cause; a failed experiment; a flop.

Look at us. We are more emotionally and physically unhealthy than anyone has ever been. Depression, diabetes, PTSD, asthma, suicide, obesity, autism, alcoholism. These are not flukes. They are the results of lifestyles we as a society lead. Some of these issues (like autism, diabetes and depression) are hard to connect with specific causes, but I can't think about them without thinking that generations now of sedentary, fast food, unnatural light, 69 degrees, rat-race lifestyles is messing with the way our bodies are composed.

But we can't stop. We are on an unstopping roller-coaster ride that we didn't choose to get on, and can't get off. Do you see those fire boats in the picture? The fire boats are part of the roller coaster. To every problem we create, we throw solutions. We spill oil because we use so much, but no one is really gonna stop using so much. All we'll do is spray the results with water. Another example: our carbon emissions from plane trips is ruining the atmosphere, but we wont really stop flying. We will hope for another fire boat when catastrophe comes. We will hang on for the ride.

I want off. I will question as many decisions as are in my power to question. I will question work, spending, consumption of food, clothing, waste, travel, war, the use of money, food, care for creation, where I shop and eat out, entertainment, the origin of every item that enters my home. I will monitor as best I can my time, my spending, my patterns of life, my consumption of art. I will not buy any gadget that is the latest thing, and laugh at the notion that it could have made me happy. I will read the Psalms every day. When something breaks, I will do without it for awhile, and enjoy having life a little simpler. I will not work on the Sabbath. I will not be too busy to help someone in need along my way.

I am not trying to be holier than you. I am trying with all my might to resist the schemes of the evil one; to throw off all that hinders and run with perseverance the race marked out for us; to test everything and hold on to the good.

Funny and True

2010-07-05T21:27:00.000-05:00

Happy Independence Day

2010-07-03T10:05:00.005-05:00

This song puts our holiday into proper perspective, I think. You can hear other great songs from Ben Shive's website. Just scroll over the music player. His only album, The Ill-Tempered Klavier, is one of my favorites.

4TH OF JULY
Words and Music by Ben Shive

The first star of the evening
Was singing in the sky
High above our blanket in the park

And by the twilight’s gleaming
On the 4th day of July
The city band played on into the dark

And then a canon blast
A golden flame unfolding
Exploded in a momentary bloom

The pedals fell and scattered
Like ashes on the ocean
As another volley burst into the blue

But the first star of the evening never moved

We stood in silence
The young ones and the old
As the bright procession passed us by

A generation dying
Another being born
A long crescendo played out in the sky

Yeah

This nation, indivisible
Will perish from the Earth
As surely as the leaves must change and fall

And the band will end the anthem
To dust she will return
So the sun must set on all things, great and small

But the first star of the evening
Will outlive them all

Wyoming Trip, day 9

2010-06-27T22:28:00.007-05:00

We're having a great time. I have made it my goal to learn about this country, specifically about the 351-person town of Meeteetse, Wyoming. The land where the town sits was originally a seasonal hunting site for the Crows Indians. It was not settled by white Americans until 1877. This is a town and state completely given to the life of ranching. Everyone is in some way connected.

I got to meet a young 2nd year college student, home for summer, and helping her mom run their ranch. She was brilliant and seemed twice her age. Several points stuck with me from our conversation. One is that four years ago, she and her mom decided to raise cattle that will only eat grass, called Heritage Herefords. They are some of the only cattle in the country that don't get sent to corn-fed feed lots, and because they are relatively small, can be maintained on a small amount of land. They can't afford getting the organic label put on their beef, but she was impassioned about raising healthy, natural cattle. One of the many striking things about the conversation is that even though she did not personally agree with the ranching practices employed by her neighbors and family, she supported the industry as a whole. She did not try to tell others why they were wrong. She just lived her life acting upon her ideals, and enjoying good, sustainable farming. She could have been one of the good guys on Food, Inc. We cannot buy her cattle in the Midwest. They sell only locally.

We had a good time horse-back riding with Holly's sister, Faith. Suzy for some reason found that horse-back aroused some affinity for the third reich!

Eli enjoyed himself.

Yesterday we went hiking in the Rockies. We didn't take a gun. Someone we met today said this is a bad year for grizzlies, and we were dumb to have not taken a gun. Maybe my fears weren't that far off base, after all.

We went to Meeteetse Community Church today. The pastor is Chad and Holly's brother in law. It was a small group that deeply loved the Lord and their town, and that shines with light. The Kingdom of God is among them.

Wyoming Trip, Day 7

2010-06-24T15:08:00.012-05:00

We drove across South Dakota in bewilderment. I didn't know there was anyplace so unpopulated in the world. For one stretch we drove for 3 hours on state roads and didn't pass a single habitated home.

We drove through The Badlands, to which Isaac commented, "these badlands are terrible."

And we saw Mount Rushmore.

And we drove through the Bighorn Mountains.

And we drove and drove and finally, stopped just East of Yellowstone, to this town of 351 people, called Meeteetse, Wyoming, the outskirts of which will be our home base for the next week or so.

So I sat on this hill this morning sandwiched between Meeteetse and the Snowcapped Rockies, and wrote. Here is an excerpt from the thoughts that came out of my pen.

Being out West, I come from Back East. Back East I've got a lot of control on what goes on in my life. I get things. How life works, what people do with their time, who to trust, where to go and when. I'm in the driver's seat Back East. In a sense I'm like a Humanist, who can make decisions, and situate my life to make things happen to my advantage. There's safety and comfort in that reality.

In many ways, these next five weeks represent a period of transition for me and my family. A new baby is to come, I start a new job with new challenges and opportunities, I begin to construct post-National Board life pattern.

And here I am in Wyoming. In more ways than I anticipated, away from it all. On the cusp of the Rocky Mountains, I feel like a grizzly bear could come and tap me on the shoulder -- and then maul me. I'm confronted with unfamiliar fears and insecurities. In a culture wholly different from mine, with stores, and people, and land, and animals, and music, and beautiful landscapes, and sounds, and wildflowers, and customs and rhythms of life, and jokes, and shared struggles of which I can only be a students, with no hope of real participation.

And the humanist in me from back East says, "Why the did you come here? How does this help?" But up from my heart, the Christian reminds me, "watch and listen, He will show you why."

Wyoming Trip, Day 4

2010-06-21T22:19:00.007-05:00

My blog is gonna change directions a little for the next week or so. I'm gonna do more status-update type stuff over the course of our Wyoming trip. Read along if you're so inclined.

The plan has been to camp 3 days with my parents and sister, Carolyn, drive two days to Wyoming, stay there with the Kimball family in a cabin for about a week, and be back in Chi-town around the 1st of July.

We finished our fun camping adventure with my parents and sister this morning.

Bein' that I got sick Sunday Night, and that Beth's 8 months pregnant (except her ankles, which are 10 months pregnant), and that Iowa is beautifuller than expected, we decided to turn a 2 day trip into 3.

We drove through Iowa today, most of the way off the interstate. It was great. In hilly country like Iowa's the interstates feel all the more obtrusive. Pieces of land that God made one have been severed by us. With interstates we force land's natural curves and peaks to bow to our will. County and state highways are humbler. And beautifuller.

Two Radio Shows

2010-06-14T10:00:00.002-05:00

I want to pass along a couple episodes from shows that have been rattlin' around in my head.

The first is called, "Island Time," from the show This American LIfe. It's about the current state of Haiti and our (Americans) involvement versus some of the Haitian nationals involvement. The show left me wrestling with the wisdom/folly of supporting agencies and people who are in the business of helping the poor. And it makes me wonder: Does anyone know a sound way to support very poor people (like people groups dealing with AIDS and starvation) without paying for a missionary or aid worker's plane ticket or 401(k)? I guess I want to grow up a bit in my giving. It's clear enough that as Christians we are to sell all we have and give to the poor, but I find it hard to give to organizations or people who are paid well to care for the poor, especially after hearing this show. On top of raising these questions, the show highlights Americans who are there doing some really good work. The good ones are not presented as the rule, but the exception, which lines up with what I saw and heard from all sorts of missionaries when in Latin America in 2000. Hear it by clicking here.

The other show I listened to tonight. It's called, "Land, Life and the Poetry of Creatures," from another NPR show, Speaking of Faith. It features one of my oft-quoteds, Wendell Berry, and Ellen Davis, a biblical scholar whom I knew nothing about until tonight. Davis said that as she began to read the bible with "agrarian eyes," she found "there was a huge gap between the kind of exquisite attention that the biblical writers are giving to the fragile land on which they live and the kind of obliviousness that characterizes our culture...in respect to our use of land."

I've noticed the same thing in reading the Old Testament. The land and its care is all over the place. I noticed it most recently, and for me most powerfully, in reading of the Year of Jubilee in the book of Leviticus. In this passage (chapter 25), God grants the land a Sabbath rest(!), and establishes distributive justice by ensuring that none of his people become too rich/powerful/corrupted by thinking the land they have accrued is truly "theirs." Verse 23: "The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants. Throughout the country that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land."

Which gets me back to the radio show. Davis talks later in the show about the way city dwellers can become more agrarian in our mindsets. She recommends being conscious of the sources of our food. I think, and I'm sure Davis and Berry would agree, that this food-source-consciousness is a crucial step in the redemption of our land here in America. And here's a link for that show.

You can download the podcast from both shows at the iTunes store.

I really am curious how others give to the very poor in the world. Please share.

Crude

2010-05-29T23:10:00.002-05:00

This movie creates a good back-drop for the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill. I recommend it.

The Office

2010-05-13T12:34:00.003-05:00

I think TV stinks and sucks. It causes parents to neglect their kids. It robs us of creating our own entertainment.The commercials try to sell us things we don't need. They also try to shape our thinking so that we will think we need what they sell. They warp children's minds by lying to them about 1.) what sex should be like, 2.) what will make them valuable, and 3.) what happiness looks like. And then they tell the same lies to adults. People's marriages are messed up because of these TV lies, especially the ones about sex. On top of all the destructive stuff, it is most of the time, just really bad entertainment.

Ok. End of rant. All of that being said, I really like The Office.

The characters in The Office are true. They are oh-so-shallow, and selfish, and the Writers show that as much as they can. Not, I think, as a celebration of shallowness, but as a poking fun. And poking fun at the flimsy fabric of our character and shallowness of our thought as Americans is to be appreciated. As crazy and maddening as they are, the people on the show are very much like real people. It is made clear that Michael Scott mainly, but others, too, are motivated to act like lunatics because of their own insecurities. Here is Michael talking about his desire to be liked (which motivates him to do be the odious man he is):

I like to be liked sound bite The Office (US) sound bites

The show is also well-written. There will be 4 straight episodes of plain old goofy scenarios, when something strikingly poignant will happen. Like when Pam came clean about her feelings she'd been harboring on the beach in front of everyone. I thought the writers showed a good understanding of human nature when they then showed the freedom the coming clean gave her. They do a good job with taking moments everyone knows are coming, like the engagement or the announcement of Pam's pregnancy, and playing them out in a believable, but not-too-cheesy way. I also appreciate how the Writers take characters who at first seem normal, like Jan or Ryan, and show how if you watch for long enough, they turn out to be just as crazy as the rest. And I think the inclusion of the 'Nard Dog took the show to a whole new level.

And here's another good Office memory:

I appreciate that its dirtiness is not glamourized. The show jokes about things that I wouldn't let my kids see for many years to come. But its wanton immorality is not done in a way that makes immoral behavior look attractive. And I think without immoral and thoughtless behavior from everyday people, the show would lose its ring of truth.

So it's a good show. Don't tell me what happens in Season 6, because it's not out on Netlix for another couple months.

A Mother's Day Poem

2010-05-08T05:31:00.002-05:00

I don't know anything about Billy Collins, but I really like this poem.

classroom quips, 5-3-10

2010-05-04T05:28:00.003-05:00

Suriel: I hate sensible people.

Mr. Stipp: Hmm, me too. Why do you hate them?

Suriel: Ya know, they're always getting their feelings hurt.

This next one's from home, not school.

My three year old, Eli, has the unfortunate combination of a scab on his knee, a speech impediment, and red-green color blindness.

Eli: Daddy, I gotta ouchy it huwts so bad. It's wight thewe on my knee. It's gween, gween, gween, or wed, wed, wed!

parenting thoughts

2010-04-22T06:18:00.000-05:00

Like many parents, Beth and I sometimes worry that influences from outside our home will infect our kids. A friend of ours, whom we both respect as one of the holiest people we know, recently assured us that her kids have picked up on her values - even those she hasn't explicitly taught them. This had the ring of something true and got me to thinking.

If kids will pick up on who we are, is there any sense in talking about how to parent well independent of talking about how to live well? Isn't the best advice to parents to get their own lives in order? to rid themselves of unhealthy behaviors and thinking? to be holy?

And then I came across a similar idea in a Barbara Kingsolver short-story, called Quality Time. Miriam, a single mother, is reflecting on a conversation she had with her sister-in-law Janice back when she was pregnant.

According to Janice, parenting was three percent conscious effort and ninety-seven percent automatic pilot. "It doesn't matter what you think you're going to tell them. What matters is they're right there watching you every minute, while you let the lady with just two items go ahead of you in line, or when you lay on your horn and swear at the guy that cuts you off in traffic. There's no sense kidding yourself. What you see is what you get."

Miriam had argued that people could consciously change themselves if they tried, though in truth she'd been thinking more of (her ex-husband) then herself. She remembers saying a great many things about choices and value systems and so forth, a lot of first pregnancy high-mindedness it seems to her now. Now she understands. Parenting is something that happens mostly while you're thinking of something else.

And here's a picture of my boys picking up on their mother's delight in creation, and my girl watching her mother mother.

Think with no words

2010-04-14T20:43:00.000-05:00

This morning as my son Isaac sat on my lap and said nothing, I had the notion to use that time to teach him something. I thought better of it, though, and just let the silence be. Before Isaac interrupted the silence by telling me how great he was at something-or-other, most of these thoughts came to me. I thought they'd work as a poem.

Think with no words

Strain to hear silence
Listen, with alert ears
to the wind blow;
to the robin sing
Hear what has been heard by your brothers who traversed this land before it was America

Watch, but do not classify
The beauty
A pear tree’s buds;
A father and his girl
See and wonder at resilient creation, unscathed by this modern experiment, at least until now

Think, with no words
For just a moment, discover truth deeper than language, culture, religion, time
Like God, have only creation with which to concern yourself

More thoughts from Simply Christian (which I always type "simply christina")

2010-04-08T06:32:00.005-05:00

Sometimes a barrel of truth can run off of you like water off a ducks back, like it could have stayed in the barrel, and you would have been fine either way. Sometimes a drop of truth can change your life.

“At the heart of the Christian ethic is humility; at the heart of its parodies, pride. Different roads with different destinations, and the destinations color the character of those who travel by them.”

-N.T. Wright, Simply Christian

This idea has become one of those hugely-important drops of truth for me. Last summer I underwent a period of intense doubt. My self-talk sounded like this: If we are longing for Him to come again, what good did His first coming do for us now? I need something more than heaven and hell. What is the evidence of His salvation now? How do I know that my experiences with God have not been self-fulfilling products of my longings?

A good friend helped me through this doubt, and I clung to one thing that came up in our conversations. He explained that He has known many Christians, with lives full of compelling morality and care for others on one hand and with radiant inner beauty, peace and humility on the other. He explained that he had known very many non-Christians who lived admirable moral lives, but there were very few who along with this morality were characterized by inner beauty, peace and humility. The idea struck me as something new that I hadn’t considered, something that seems true, and something that points to the gospel as true; as a proof in the pudding.

So just last week I came across this same idea from N.T. Wright, which confirms to me the truth of what I’ve been suspecting for almost a year now. The idea responds to my doubt as follows:

If we are longing for Him to come again, what good did His first coming do for us now?

Jesus saves us now and changes our lives now, not just for some future destination. He takes the good we try to do and makes it better than we could hope. At the same time, He makes us to be more moral. All the while, He gives us peace and humility as we travel our paths following Him.

What is the evidence of His salvation now?

a. The peace He has put in me. I might be able to do some of the same good things I can do as a non-Christian, but I could never provide myself with peace and humility. My efforts to manage life on my own, without God have been laughable.

b. The change He makes in other people’s lives now. Not just the change in right behavior I see when someone “gits religin,” but the change that happens on the inside of converted people that shines out and that they couldn’t hide if they wanted to. The friend of mine who came to Christ and heard the birds sing for the first time since he was a boy; the lady at our church who just two years ago looked like the embodiment of depression and whose face and hugs now light up our little congregation.

How do I know that my experiences with God have not been self-fulfilling products of my longings?

I suppose “knowing” in the objective sense is not an option for me, here. I must take the evidence in front of me, including my experiences with God and either believe or not believe. When I try hard to look at Christianity objectively, as if I had nothing to do with it, Christ being God seems far-fetched. But when I look at the world around me and the daily miracles that are popping out like buds on a tree, I find this world itself to be just as far-fetched. The types of miracles, gifts and mercies I have found to be the heart of creation, run parallel to those found in the Bible, and I do believe they come from the same Source.

I’m getting off the subject. The subject is this idea that Christians are on a better path, a path that ultimately makes them better people than they would have been if they were not Christians. The subject is also that this idea holds tremendous import for my doubt. It suggests that Christianity is more than just a defensible “rival conception of God,” but is actually true. For me, it is something like proof.

The thoughts going on in my head right now sound something like this:

Is it true that the path of following Christ takes our good works and begins to play behind them an accompaniment of humility, peace and joy? Is it true that doing these same good works, but on a different path, leads one to pride, self-conceit and despair?

I invite your input.

A book worth Wrighting about

2010-03-29T22:41:00.005-05:00

I just finished and thoroughly enjoyed a book called Simply Christian, by N.T. Wright. I can’t talk about the book without comparing it to Mere Christianity, which is perhaps its wiser grandfather, consisting of the same marrow, but written to a different world. Making this comparison consistently earns me responses of disbelief at my audacity from faithful fans of C.S. Lewis, but the two books are so alike that it is the only place I can think to start. The books have the same purpose, which is to explain the basics of Christianity, common to all of its true manifestations.

They both talk about the inner conscience as a hint to the fact that justice is a real thing in the universe, that there is something that makes us long for it, and that this something is the same God that the Bible talks about. Wright adds that the knowledge of spiritual reality, the enjoyment of beauty, and the longings for community are also signs that point to Christianity being true. They give a lot of time to problems they find in the rival conceptions of God. They both conclude that the God the Bible talks about is the most coherent understanding of the universe available on the market, and beyond that, that He was and is God. They both talk about central Christian acts (baptism, the eucharist, prayer). Yet for those of us who have spent a lot of time with Mere Christianity, Simply Christian is not redundant. It adds a lot to the conversation.

Simply Christian talks more than Mere Christianity about the Jewish understanding of God and how Jesus fits into that understanding. Wright’s background as a New Testament scholar is helpful here. He explains that “heaven” was understood by Jews to mean “the realm/dwelling of God.” Important to this notion is that throughout the Old Testament, heaven and earth come together. So Jews did not understand heaven and earth as always-separate realms, but that God consistently brought His realm to ours. Through God’s election of the Israelites to be the instrument of God’s blessing, through the temple, and through the reading the Torah, God meets with the Jewish people, bringing “heaven” to earth, reminding them who they are and of their purpose.

Wright has helped me wrap my mind around this notion of “heaven” as central to understanding the thinking of the Old Testament people, and how early Christians (who were also Jews) understood Jesus’ coming. Early Christians understood that the God who had seen fit to overlap the two spheres of heaven and earth in a limited way, through his calling the temple and the Torah, had now come with the message that the kingdom of heaven was among them.

As a New Testament scholar, Wright speaks with authority about the Bible, and with how we should understand the words “inspired,” “infallible,” “inerrant,” “literal” and “metaphorical.” If I had read these chapters 10 years ago, it would have saved me a lot of headaches in trying to understand the Good Book. If someone has serious questions about how Christians should approach the Bible, these chapters (13 and 14) would be a good place to go looking for well-thought answers.

In his last chapter, discussing morality and justice, Wright says the following:

“At the heart of the Christian ethic is humility; at the heart of its parodies, pride. Different roads with different destinations, and the destinations color the character of those who travel by them.”

This idea struck me as an affirmation that Wright is not a wishy-washy “we’re all the same, follow your own path, and it’s all good” kind of thinker. And the point he makes has hung onto me more than any other idea the book offered. I will delve more into this idea in the sequel to this post. Stay tuned.

Safe Families

2010-03-23T06:57:00.005-05:00

Here is a link to an article and video about Safe Families. They are an organization we have worked with to take care of babies in need. They are making the world more of what it was intended to be.

classroom quips, 3-9-10

2010-03-12T06:27:00.002-06:00

Antonio: Hey, Mr. Stipp, we got big problems at home. Our power went out. Someone's at the house fixing it right now.

Mr. Stipp: (with all the sarcasm I could muster) Oh no, what did you watch instead of TV?

Antonio: Oh, it was no problem. My dad has a DVD player in the van, so we just went out and watched that.

Disaster Averted. Whew.

on limitedness

2010-03-02T06:10:00.006-06:00

There are a lot of options available for explaining what’s gone wrong with our society. Blame it on the break down of the family, or on the influence of television, or our glamorization of sex and violence in media. Blame it on turning our backs on God, or on the federal government. Blame it on materialism, racism, sexism, feminism, classism, or egotism. I do not want to negate the vailidity of any of these options, but to offer another option, that I think underlies and perpetuates any problems that we already face: unlimitedness.

God created limits. He created springtime and harvest. He created day and night. He gave us the earth and our families. He created the Sabbath. A detrimental effect of industrialization and globalization has been the obliteration of our consciousness of such limits.

Hear me out.

Our country and its wealth were built upon the folly of unlimitedness. Colonialism, imperialism and slavery draw deeply from the unbridled lust for more. These forces say, “It is conceivable to make more money, to have more land and to spread our influence further…Do it.” It is clear to me that our enslavement of Africans came not from a hatred toward people with dark skin, but from an inability to recognize limits. We saw that more money could conceivably be made in a growing season, and we did it, with conscience as our only limit. And conscience doesn’t often put up much of a fight against cash. Now we have gotten rid of slavery, but unlimitedness is more alive now than ever. The symptom is gone but the cause remains. Unlimitedness is an axiom that defines us. And as a people unlimited, we will always enslave and oppress.

There is a natural, God-created order in seasons. The Bible’s wisdom literature tells us, “There is a time for everything.” Because of our technological and globalizing leaps, though, we now know that truth only in theory. We can have food which is out of season, grown by farmers in lesser-developed countries, ready for us to consume whenever we want, year round. Our homes are heated and cooled to a “perfect” temperature, so that regardless of the season, it always feels the same inside. Our knowledge of the limitations and structure that seasons bring to our lives is gone. Developed countries re-write the biblical passage to say, “Now is the time for everything.”

Another limit God gave us was dependence on land and on our families. We were all born somewhere, from some woman, and in that moment were given community and a place. Modernization and globalization have made us isolated individuals committed to no place and no one else. Getting up and leaving the place and people that brought us up is expected. I’ve written more on this here.

God created day and night, and I believe he did so as a gift that told His creatures when to start and stop work. Because of electricity, we are now capable of operating outside of the naturally created day-night boundary we were given. And the more we operate outside the natural boundaries, the more we forget there are boundaries at all.

And this must be the deepest problem. Not that we are unlimited in the particular ways that I am highlighting (and in dozens others as well), but that we have no knowledge that limits can and should restrain us.

All affronts on limitedness require counteraction to lessen their consequences. Our independence of land and manual labor has made us weak. To offset the weakness that urbanization and its resultant sedentary lifestyle have wrought, we can buy memberships at gyms to use machines, which can replace work, which used to keep us healthy and strong. It's a run-on sentence. Air travel breaks the earth-sky separation that God created. Counteracting its effects on our atmosphere will require the energy of our most brilliant scientific minds before it demands restraint on we who ruin the atmosphere.

I believe the beginning of much wisdom is saying “no” to the things we are told we have to have, the things we have to do, and the full-throttle pace we have to keep. We are wise to limit ourselves. And I believe a good place to start in keeping limitations is with the Sabbath. The Sabbath is different from the other creations, because it is also a command. There is nothing we can invent to counteract a command, as we can, say, seasons or place or community, or day and night. No matter how far we advance (or retreat) as a society, the command to keep the Sabbath holy; to rest, will still be there. I think one point of the Sabbath is that we recognize our own limitedness. Wisdom says, “work six days, and rest the seventh, even though there is more that you could do. Stop. Rest. Go this far, and no further.”

The tower of Babel was built by a people who did not understand where they should stop. But God’s limits humanize us. They remind us who we are as creatures subservient to Him, and that all we do must be done with a head not cocked to our glory, but bowed to His.

winter? what winter?

2010-02-20T15:48:00.008-06:00

We in the Stipp house are longing for the great thaw that means Spring and Easter and life beating death and hope beating despair. Longing so much that we sometimes forget it hasn't yet come.

my first song

2010-02-16T06:04:00.000-06:00

I Googled my name yesterday morning to see if my new blog would show up. And for the first time in like 50 searches since the history of the internet, there i was, on the top of the search page.

It freaked me out. I felt exposed. I felt scared of all the scrutiny that most people around the globe were probably putting me through.

Moments like these of intense illogical fear only come to me when I am not relying on Jesus. They only hit me when others' responses are defining me and not Him. Since doing the Google search I have felt like I am panting for air and hiding. These emotions are the same ones I felt once when I wrote this song about the fear of being exposed; of putting myself out there. Here are the song's lyrics.

I'd rather succeed at nothing
Than fail at trying something at all
There's a safety in staying in safety
I'd rather not fly than fall

Like the first time I jumped off the high dive
Or asked Jaime Zaidjzeck to the prom
Or the first that I kissed my wife
Or sang you this my first song

Now I'm glad I did all of these things
I'm more of a man for it
But the throat-bump I feel as I sing
Forces me to admit

That I'd rather succeed at nothing
Than fail at trying something at all
There's a safety in staying in safety
I'd rather not fly than fall

Proof of the Beatitudes

2010-02-13T20:21:00.003-06:00

Brian McLaren

2010-02-11T17:11:00.009-06:00

I will forever be indebted to the book, A New King of Christian, by Brian McLaren. Though I haven't read anything by him in the last 5 years, his books gave me a framework for understanding world history that I still draw from. Here are some of his thoughts.

So what do you think?

a few more classroom quips

2010-02-05T19:52:00.004-06:00

Part of the deal with teaching special ed. is you have kids working way below their potential, not just in a skill like reading, but in analytical thinking. A lot of my job is waking kids from their mental slumbers. One way I do this is by asking them questions that require active thinking. Because it's true that if you expect kids to respond intelligently consistently, most will. I actually had a kid who'd been with me two years tell someone else, "man, when i came to this class, i used to be retarded."

So in asking kids some questions I get some off-the-wall answers from kids who think they're retarded. Like these:

Mr. Stipp: Where do babies go to the bathroom.
(students responded in rapid fire)
student 1: in the toilet
student 2: outside
student 3: in the kitchen
student 4: in the diaper bag

Mr. Stipp: Is 47 closer to 40 or 50?
student 5: (exuberantly) yes!!!

Mr. Stipp: Write about what you want to do when you grow up:
student 6: Mr. Stipp, how do you spell FBI?

Mr. Stipp: I want to talk about the word "voyage." Does anyone know what "voyage" means?
student 4: (as if he's meeting me half-way) I know what aluminum foil is.

The worst book i'll ever recommend

2010-01-29T09:36:00.002-06:00

There are many reasons not like the book, To Train Up a Child, by Michael and Debi Pearl.

Their tone is proud, and they paint the world in too-broad strokes. The authors underline their own most important points. Egregious. And they proof-text like it’s goin’ out of style, which is bad practice (Matthew 4:1-11).

Also, they say some really stupid things. Like this: “Gender role distinction is demeaned in modern education. Don’t let a coven of Sodomites and socialists…reprogram your natural feelings on male and female distinctiveness.” (I wonder if in their co-authorship group think pushed them past the edge of reality).

But this book has made Beth and me better parents. His main points are that to train children we need to be consistent, calm and severe as you would be if you were training an animal. They say, "Parent, you can't blame your children if you have trained them to obey only after several warnings, threats, an ultimatum and finally a gesture of force. It's not their fault, it's yours." I’ve kept reading this book because I haven’t yelled at my kids in the month since I started it. My own kids are happy to have me not yelling at them, and seem to prefer occasional hard spanks to whole days of pleading with them to decide to do what is right.

I’ve never read any books on parenting in the past because of my own sinful pride. I always understood it to be a real organic thing, like child birth (or how I imagine child birth); something that God has sown within us that if we listen attentively enough we will find out how to do as well as the child-rearing experts. But I’m learning that child rearing is more like marriage. It is a learned art for which we need the help of those who know what they’re doing. I’m learning through the experience of listening to the Pearls about my training my kids that we won’t find the answers to our parenting problems by looking at our kids or at ourselves. It seems simple to write, but it really is an important lesson for me.

So I’m open to suggestions on other good books about training children.

the truth about Haiti

2010-01-20T07:12:00.002-06:00

This article sheds some good light on Haiti's history.

classroom quips, November, 2008

2010-01-19T07:00:00.000-06:00

In a diabetes in-service, a teacher asked the facilitator what "hello" means on the test meter. The facilitator corrected the teacher that meters do no say "hello," but "hi," meaning that the child's blood sugar is over 500.

This was about the time I decided to start watching "The Office."

a review North! Or be Eaten

2010-01-13T22:00:00.002-06:00

North! Or Be Eaten

I love stories. I love stories that have fantastical elements. I do not love fantasies.

On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, Andrew Peterson’s first novel, was an excellent story. It’s characters were totally believable yet fully fictional. It’s villains were horrible, like the nameless evil named Gnag the e and the horrid Fangs of Dang. Dang. It was laugh-out-loud funny more than 20 times. The insights one knowing APs music would expect were all over. It was a great story that included fantastical elements.

In North! Or Be Eaten, Andrew seemed to tinker with his winning formula some. It became a fantasy with good elements, instead of a novel with good elements, one of which was fantasy. Also, the story felt a bit too action-packed. There was danger at every turn, but I found that the characters were not given enough time to breathe and pick up the pieces between near-death

I mentioned the insights that APs consistently delivers in his music or books. I wanted to share one from North! that hit me hard as a I read.

One of the characters is Artham P. Wingfeather, whose job is that of Throne Warden. His purpose is to protect the true King of Anniera, who at this point in the Wingfeather Series is his little boy nephew. At an earlier point in his life Artham has been tortured and inculcated with lies about himself. The following is written as Artham is being tortured again and ready to give in to his captors, but then has an awakening:

The voices in his head that cried "coward: and "weakling" drew back into the shadows. He knew he was those things but feared them no longer. Then another voice spoke. It called him "throne warden" and "protector" and "uncle," and at last he believed it.

It was resounding insights like these and a relationship I now have with the characters that kept me going, even though the fantasy elements don’t suit my fancy.

I did enjoyed reading North! Or be Eaten, but I hope he goes back to his Dark Sea of Darkness ways for his next addition to the Wingfeather Saga.

classroom quips, 2-5-07

2010-01-11T07:00:00.001-06:00

One day Ismael did a really bad impromptu rap for the class.

Mr. Stipp: Wow, Ismael, that was a great rap. Did you write it?

Ismael: No, I made it up.

Amy Stipp = my hero

2010-01-09T22:59:00.002-06:00

My sister Amy shared with me this week that a colleague of hers came to her to gripe about some work situation or other. Amy’s response to this colleague has jolted me. She said, “Can I pray for you?” The co-worker said “yes.” They prayed together and went their separate ways.

Amy explained to me that she realized as she listened to her friend talk, that she did not have any hope or wisdom to offer her. All she had was Christ, and so she shared him the best she knew how.

Also, she said, if the lady was offended and didn’t want to keep coming to her to complain, that would be ok, too.

I was struck by this story on a couple levels.

Amy understands that the starting point to accepting to the gospel is our nothingness. In her journey as a Christian she has not fallen into the trap of becoming wise. I know Amy had thoughts she could have shared with her friend; she wasn’t using prayer as a cop-out. She knew, though, that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, and that her own thoughts really could not do much long term good for her friend.

I also am inspired by Amy’s story to share God in ways like my sister did. Amy did not discuss theology, or where this lady had attended church in the past, or her conceptions about Christians, or try to build a friendship that could hopefully one day lead to evangelism. She very simply went straight to the Source. I get the feeling she’s letting God deal with the other details.

Finally, I see in my sister’s faith an answer to the question, “what difference does it make whether or not we are the People of God?” I see this answer, too, when I read the Old Testament or in my Friday morning men’s group. We as God’s People are not primarily people who agree on politics, music and entertainment. We are not always a group that is comfortable with one another. We are not always exceptionally good. An important way of defining who we are, though, is in our posture. We are a people who look to God. We are a people who know our wisest wisdom will run us around in circles. We bow. We hope.

Thanks, Amy, for these reminders.

The value of nothing

2010-01-06T06:38:00.003-06:00

I will be reading this book.

classroom quips, 1-10-07

2010-01-05T21:35:00.002-06:00

Dan Burke is a white Illinois Congressman, whose seat is being challenged by Rudy Lozano, a Mexican American from Little Village. The majority of the people in Dan Burke's constituency are hispanic, which is why some people think it will be hard for him to win.

Yesterday I had this conversation:

me: Jose, what did you do during the break?

Jose: I made a commercial

me: wow, what was the commercial about?

Jose: I don't know. Me and my brother just said, "thank you, Dan Burke" for the camera. Who's Dan Burke?

New Decade's Resolutions

2010-01-03T21:57:00.001-06:00

New Decade’s Resolutions

Writing New Decade’s Resolutions will allow me just 1/10 of the opportunities for failure were I to write New Year's Reslutions each year. It just so happens that my 40th birthday will fall a month before my ten years are up, so these are also goals I want to accomplish by the time I’m 40.

Family
1. I resolve to take my wife on weekend getaways 20 times.
2. I will coach a baseball team that with Isaac, Suzy and Eli on the roster.
3. I resolve to live with with my family in a poor country for an extended period (a month or more).
4. I resolve to try to teach each child to play an instrument.
5. I resolve to allow my children to learn to grow and raise food on a farm (I would say to teach them, but I don’t know how to do this myself).
6. I resolve to take the family camping 10 times.

Community
1. I resolve to develop meaningful relationships with 4 families (not just the kids) on our block
2. To lead a Bible Study or discussion group with neighbors
3. To train one neighbor as a Christian disciple
4. To become a board member for the Little Village baseball league

Spiritual
1. To fast for two weeks from media 10 times
2. To fast for two weeks from food and media 10 times
3. To do a 40 day food fast
4. To study 10 books of the Bible (like with commentaries and what-not)
5. To focus study on Theophostic prayer, and develop a ministry of prayer with others

Physical
1. To bat .500 for the Little Village Lugnuts
2. To pitch a no-hitter for the Little Village Lugnuts
3. To beat Siri Greeley in ultimate Frisbee once
4. To work out for a period of 6 months, once

The Arts
1. To practice my cello 20 days out of one month.
2. To finish the canons of: Wendell Berry (just his fiction), C.S. Lewis, Leslie Newbigin and Frederick Buechner
3. To read the Koran and the Catechism of the Catholic Church
4. To write 10 songs
5. To add 100 postings to this here blog
6. To send 20 hand-written letters

Work
1. I resolve to continue working as a Special Education teacher for these ten years
2. To achieve National Board Certification.
3. To come up with some more goals for work.

healthcare debate

2009-12-28T22:39:00.003-06:00

I am glad that during the coming weeks our nation’s healthcare system will be overhauled. I do not wholly support big government, but I’m growing more and more to see unchecked capitalism as evil. Capitalism must run on people acting to their own best interest, which would work fine for a nation of people grounded in love for their fellow man. But let’s face it: we are a nation most firmly grounded in making our own lives as comfortable as we can and keeping away from the riff-raff who interfere with that goal.

Capitalism on a small scale seems like it could work; I actually like it on paper. But capitalism married with globalism is the dangerous terrain we now tread. Big corporations sell products they make as cheaply as possible, which is to say, as environmentally and irresponsibly as possible. But they also sell the lies of consumerism; creating in us a sense of need for their products and the sense that having what they’re selling at tremendous savings will make us happy.

If capitalism has caused us to be self-focused, and unconcerned about our communities, global capitalism has intensified this trend. We now have the capability to live our lives independent of communities, but also to neglect people we never even see, by employing them at sweatshop salaries or by eating the under priced food of their land, both at minimal savings to us. The more globalized the world becomes, the richer we in the developed world become; yet the less cognizant of the effects of our actions.

In our own country, the problem of inequality still plagues us. Again, I get to see the disparities first hand, even as I walk from my healthy, educated home to the homes of my students who have been failed by the poor educational and intimidating health insurance systems. I don’t think equality is just goal for the poor or minorities of our country. We will all be better off the more equality we can achieve. Huge disparities in health or in education like we now see will ultimately create unrest and derision among us.

That a broadening of the government for something like expanding healthcare coverage takes money out of people’s hands and puts it into others’ is okay with me. Living in Little Village, Chicago as a middle classer, I get to see a lot of people who are very rich and a lot of people who are very poor, and I always have the sense that if the rich just knew what the poor endure, they would live differently. But the rich continue to focus on themselves, and I don’t see that trend curbing on a large scale.

So I welcome the news that more people will get healthcare, even if it is at my own expense. I think this government shift that includes healthcare to those cannot get it in on their own is good for all of us.

bellies et cetera

2009-12-24T17:41:00.001-06:00

I wrote this on the early morning November 21st. I'm delaying posting it until we officially announce that Beth is pregnant. Beth is pregnant! It is half prayer/half journal entry.

I got a letter from my Grandma Stipp yesterday. I wonder how many more of those I'll get.

Thanksgiving is Thursday. I'm thankful for coffee this morning. I'm thankful for the abundance that I often thoughtlessly consume. I'm thankful for the baby doubling itself in size in Beth's belly as she lies there peaceful in calm. I'm thankful for the lady whose belly it is that bears the next fruit of our love and your love. I'm thankful for the bellies that once carried Beth and me and the bellies that birthed those innocent, unscathed bellies 50 some years ago. I'm thankful for my grandma, whose belly has seen it all, and now functions partially to strengthen her belly laughs, which are straight from the heart, which is to say straight from the belly.

And the belly that bore hers? Whew. I never knew that person - I think maybe I barely remember her. Grandma Remole. I remember Grandpa Remole, who likely rubbed and held that belly in the days before my Grandma's birth and in a time far different from ours.

What did he do for work during the day, the night he came home and planted the seed that kept giving life and that even now is germinating 10 feet from where I sit? Was he tired that night? Hot with passion? Trying to prove himself or please his wife?

Did he drink a cup of coffee the next morning as he sat and thought, and sang a hymn of thanksgiving?

creating a new budget

2009-12-15T21:30:00.000-06:00

I'm trying to create a new budget. I'm starting from scratch because I feel led to give more away to the world's very poor, and i've felt led by God to make my budget with the image of a starving child staring me in the face.

So I watched this video.

Then I wept.

Then I watched another video that was less emotionally disturbing mainly because the presenter has such entertaining eyebrows. I think the presenter speaks to my budget making, too. I'm not sure what the eyebrows speak to.

I don't know how my budget numbers will end up, but they will be made with a new heaviness.

classroom quips, 9-12-07

2009-12-12T23:07:00.000-06:00

Ismael: hey Vince, spell I CUP

Vince: I (long pause) C (long pause) O...

rethinking city life

2009-12-12T21:40:00.002-06:00

We as Americans are an uprooted people. We are disconnected from our families and from any place on earth. This is resultant from and contributive to the exploitive attitude toward the earth and the people around us that characterizes our nation. This is why we middle-classers go to college and then move wherever we want without much consideration of going back home to the place and the people who raised us. This is a brand new phenomenon in world history – that people leave their families during their youngest and most useful years of life and set off on their own. And it is a bad phenomenon. We need one another. Our families need us. My family needs me. My kids need their grandparents, and someday these kids should be using the strength of their youth to care for their grandparents.

Also, we need the earth. We as a people have no idea how to get food from the land. The art of husbandry has been lost on us. We are at the mercy of agribusiness to look after us and they couldn’t care less about us. I was thinking on the way to work this morning that our vast urbanization can’t be sustainable. More than half of the world’s population now lives in an urban area, meaning they don’t grow their own food. I don’t think this can last. I think the urban thrust will eventually lessen as our mental and physical health deteriorates. (I’ve read that studies that have shown that living in the city is actually clinically depressing). The urban setting is so thoroughly un-natural. I walk around and think “acre upon acre of concrete and story upon story of dwelling can’t be what God intended this land to be used for?”

So I feel a need to be in a place less scathed by man. And I feel a need to learn to grow some food because I don’t trust agribusiness. I want my kids to have the option of being farmers if they want to. And I feel the need to be near my family. And there’s one other thing.

I have a longing to go to a place where my family will live for the next 500 years. I want to settle down, and dig roots deeply. I want to buy a house to live in until I die and pass it off to one of my granddaughters to upkeep its land eat its fruit with her husband, or something. I know it’s not likely, but I don’t think the city is much of a place to pass on.

things are bad; light shines through

2009-12-09T09:40:00.001-06:00

Things are bad.

Light shines through.

As i think about blogging, and trying to categorize and catalog some thoughts, many of them fall into these containers. The two theses are fed daily by experiences and by the media I consume, and I believe them both deeper by the day.

Things are bad. A mother of a student came into my classroom for the first time since her son joined my class in October. She explained that she sees him only on weekends because she works during the week, and that she already knows all about him. She knows he's impulsive and hits other kids. She has trained him to fight because she knows that we teachers wont protect him. She knows he can't sit still and pushes kids down the stairs on purpose. And she explained that she doesn't punish her son, because, well, he's her son. Also she was trying to hide something.

Light shines through. I spent the afternoon with a 26 year old man and his two year old son, who see each other only 4 court-mandated days a month. The rest of the time the boy stays with his mom, who's strung out on drugs. Taking them home after playing with my kids and their toys, the little boy shouted out in a tone of perfect contentment, "Papi."

Wendell Berry illustrates Things are bad, Light Shines through more beautifully than i've ever seen it in ¨Jayber Crow."

(enjoy this by reading it slowly)

Faith is not necessarily, or not soon, a resting place. Faith puts you out on a wide river in a little boat, in the fog, in the dark. Even a man of faith knows that...we've all got to go through enough to kill us. As a man of faith, I've thought a considerable amount about a friend of mine (imagined, but also real) I call the Man in the Well.

The now wooded, or rewooded, slopes and hollows hereabouts are strewn with abandoned homesteads, the remains of another kind of world. Most of them by now have no buildings left. Everything about them that would rot has rotted. What you find now in those places when you come upon them are the things that were built of stone: foundations, cellars, chimneys, wells. Sometimes the wells are deep, dug to the bedrock and beyond, and walled with rock laid up without mortar. Virtually every rock in a structure like that, if it is built right, is a keystone; it can't move in or out. Those walls, laid underground where there is no freezing and thawing, will last, I guess, almost forever.

Sometimes the well is the only structure remaining, and there will be no visible sign of it. It will be covered with old boards in some stage of decay, green with moss or covered with leaves. It is a perfect trap, and now and then you find that rabbits and groundhogs have blundered in and drowned. A man too could blunder into one.

Imagine a hunter, somebody from a city some distance away, who has a job he doesn't like, and who has come alone out into the country to hunt on a Saturday. It is a beautiful, perfect full day, and the Man feels free. He has left all his constraints and worries and fears behind. Nobody knows where he is. Anybody who wanted to complain or accuse or collect a debt could not find him. The morning that started frosty has grown warm. The sky seems to give its luster to everything in the world. The Man feels strong and fine. His gun lies ready in the crook of his arm, though he really doesn't care whether he finds game or not. He has a sandwich and a candy bar in his coat pocket. And then, not looking where he is going, which is easy enough on such a day, he steps onto the rotten boards that cover one of those old wells, and down he goes.

He disappears suddenly out of the lighted world. He falls so quickly that he doesn't have time even to ask what is happening. He hits water, goes under, comes up, swims, or clings to the wall, inserting his fingers between the rocks. And now, I think, you cannot help imagining the way it would be with him. He looks up and sees how far down he has come. The sky that was so large and reassuring only seconds ago is now just a small blue picture of itself, far away. His first thought is that he is alone, that nobody knows where he is; these two great pleasures that were his freedom have now become his prison, perhaps his tomb. He calls out (for might not somebody chance to be nearby, just as he chanced to fall into the well?) and he hears himself enclosed within the sound of his own calling voice.

How does this story end? Does he save himself? Is he athletic enough, maybe, to get his boots off and climb out, clawing with fingers and toes into the grudging holds between the rocks of the wall? Does he climb up and fall back? Does somebody, in fact, for a wonder, chance to pass nearby and hear him? Does he despair, give up, and drown? Does he, despairing, pray finally the first true prayer of his life?

Listen. there is a light that includes our darkness, a day that shines down even on the clouds. A man of faith believes that the Man in the Well is not lost. He does not believe this easily or without pain, but he believes it. His belief is a kind of knowledge beyond any way of knowing. He believes that the child in the womb is not lost, nor is the man who's work has come to nothing, nor is the old woman forsaken in a nursing home in California. He believes that those who make their bed in Hell are not lost, or those who dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, or the lame man at Bethesda Pool, or Lazarus in the grave, or those who pray, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani."

Have Mercy.

classroom quips, 9-6-07

2009-12-01T23:03:00.000-06:00

I teach special ed. to 4th and 5th graders. My students say funny things.

Here's one from 9-6-07.

me: You'll understand when you're 27.
Luis: Man, we wont be 27 'til like 2009!