Kohl's run!!!

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Independence Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Office

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

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

classroom quips, 5-3-10

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

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

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")

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

Brian McLaren

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

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

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

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

classroom quips, November, 2008

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

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

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

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 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

I will be reading this book.

classroom quips, 1-10-07

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

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.