Hither and thither 12/30/11

I wish I had a rafter of deep thoughts for this year-end edition of Hither and Thither, but I don't. Okay, I do have a few, but they're self-censored. Dang that trying-to-be-mature thingie.

But I will say: I so appreciate all of you reading, commenting, loaning your time and attention. And your tips! I don't take a bit of it for granted. Thanks!

And now, enjoy.

• Giving new meaning to "Here, kitty kitty":

• Note to self: consider career in politics. Or at least presidential primary campaigning in Iowa.
• Dog-lovers will enjoy this Golden Retriever who loves him some guitar music.
• Wow, I had no idea. I watched the Johnny Weismuller "Tarzan" movies when I was a kid. I would have guessed that the chimp, Cheetah, had died long ago. Nope. Just died at age 80. (Um... or not?)
• Oh, and for my beloved Canadian readers: belated Happy Boxing Day.

• I think this is a first: Nancy Pelosi and I want the same thing, for Nancy Pelosi. If the report is true, that is. Pelosi's tics deny it.
• And now a Gee, I Wonder Who The MSM Want The GOP To Run! Alert: any article featuring the phrase "the growing fervor for Romney... is palpable" is kind of a clue.

• On which subject...
• With the grilling the MSM have been giving all the GOP candidates on a wide variety of red-hot (and not-so-hot) issues... won't it be something when they begin doing the same thing for the first time to the other candidate for the presidency, that Obama feller? Yessiree, that's really going to be something, innit? Yep yep yep, any day now. Beginning to hold breath in 3... 2...
• Late (or very early?) for Christmas, Phil Johnson found an extra-cool, quirky list of geeky gifts.
• Perfect food?

• Susan points us to a bacon-jam recipe that the author rhapsodizes is "core-shakingly good."
• Amongst the many, many literary categories that are Out There (in both senses of the phrase), did you know that there was such a thing as Mormon horror? Yeah, me neither. The imagination staggers. Like, what... an eight-headed coffee-spewing monster? someone who actually knows his Bible answering the doorbell and being willing to talk only about the Gospel?
• Among the things you have to say about this blog: we've never really been caught up in Kim Kardiashian mania.

• Marvin Olasky talks about "movie eisegesis" among Christians, the notion of reading-in a Christian theme. He does it, himself, with "Field of Dreams." Some in my family do it with "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," and "Nutcracker." Do you?
• When DAOD was even smaller, she was a Girl Scout, and Valerie was the leader. We were troubled back then at the leftward lean of the Girl Scouts. Now Rick Pearcey notes a fifteen-year-old girl who left out of concern over GS' leftward bias, and who started her own web site lifting the cover on that bias.
• Hm; the bad publicity seems to have had some effect.
• With a forward eye, Scooter found our coming robot overlords' violinist, as well as their early attempts to build fortresses. Warning: it's pink.
• And now, out of the blue and apropos of nothing, a cute clip with Phils Driscoll and Keaggy.
• Well, all that was fun. Now, to prepare for the new year:

• And these lovely parting gifs:

THE USUALS WILL BE OBSERVED

Frank Turk and a lesson in respect

I write about the important subject of respect.

It is something that God says should matter to every child who has a parent, to every wife who has a husband, to every man who has a superior. It turns up in the Bible all over the place. Every one of us is supposed to learn it from Mom's breast and onward (Exod. 20:12; Eph. 6:1-3; etc. ad inf.).

Yet I observe that few of us do understand it, and I observe that it isn't really preached on or written about as it should be.

So I offer a couple of bite-sized thoughts, and I do it in this spirit: I am a guy watching a raging fire with a glass of water in his hands. That's all I've got. It isn't much, and I'm even less. I'm not expert on either theory or — God knows! — practice. But there's this raging fire, and I've got something, I think, and I see a lot of other people just watching the fire (at best) or toasting marshmallows on it (at worst), so I'm going to throw my glassful on the blaze.

And I'm going to use Frank Turk to do it! Whee! What's not to love?

So I heard a bit back that Frank planned his last Open Letter of the year to be an open letter to Jesus. When I heard that, I had a visceral reaction. I did not like it. In fact, I really kinda hated the idea.

It wasn't in the least because I hated Frank's Open Letters. I've thought they were an absolute stroke of genius, and were brilliantly executed. When prissy souls fluttered their hands and cried "Oh, la!" and "Please, pleeease make it stop!" I thought these were bad signs of what was inside of the objectors, not the letters; and, sadly and to my disappointment, subsequent history reinforced that fear.

No, I just didn't like the idea of an open letter to Jesus. It just seemed.... ew. How could that go well? How could it not be pretentious, or silly, or artificial, or treacly, or just... ugh?


Well, the answer is simple: because Frank was going to write it.

Now, follow this next bit carefully, please, because this is my point. Do I mean that Frank is perfect? No; he's perfecter than I, but I know he's not perfect. Do I mean that Frank never makes mistakes? No; he makes fewer than I, but he does make them. Do I mean that I always "get" everything Frank does? No, not always, though when I don't it's probably me being slow-witted, dull, ill-informed, or all three. Do I mean that Frank never sins? Again, he probably sins less than I, but I know he does.

So what do I mean? Well, I mean that I respect Frank. I know Frank loves Jesus very much. I know Frank would never do anything to dishonor Him or, if he did, he'd make it right. I know that Frank's heart — his priorities, his guiding principles, his convictions — is in the right place.

Thus, I had my initial visceral response ("Agh! No no no, bad idea!"), and then I took that response and held it up against the deeper principle ("But it's Frank, and I respect him"), and I reasoned from that principle ("...so he has a plan I'm not privy to, and I can give him the benefit of the doubt in trusting that it's a sound plan").

And now, having read the post, I note without an atom of surprise, that (to my mind) I was right.

Let's take this apart a little. In my case, unlike the case of a child towards parents, and so forth, I am not under a command to respect Frank beyond 1 Pet. 2:17 and the loving 1 Cor. 13 principle of hoping for the best. In my case, Frank has earned my respect. When I first "met" him, as Frank correctly observed, I didn't know what to make of him. In fact, the degree of my not-understanding of Frank made for frequent merriment at Casa Phillips. ("I do not get this guy.") At that point, Frank was running off of my respect for Phil, that Phil must have had some reason for choosing this wild, charging, bull-in-a-china-shop of a man to write on his blog.

But it wasn't long at all before I began to see how right Phil was, and what a cornucopia of pleasant surprises Frank was. He earned, and has, my respect.

So here's where respect does and does not come to play.

Respect does not work when you already know, understand, and approve of everything someone is doing. That's just a tricky form of self-respect and self-love. It's, "Ah, good, you're doing what I want you to do. I approve!"

Respect works when one of those elements is missing. It comes to play when I don't know what someone is about to do, or I don't understand everything about it, or I don't initially approve.

Now, understand: I would have been free to write Frank and say, "Oh, wait, dude, are you sure about this?" In fact, Frank would have welcomed my doing so, which feeds my respect of him. In fact, he'll probably be peeved with me for not voicing my initial brr-r-r-r. But in this case, for me, just remembering who it was who was about to do this thing that rubbed me the wrong way was sufficient.

Suppose I'd ended up hating the post? First, I'd've had myself to blame for not saying something beforehand. I wouldn't have been a very good friend, if even remembering my respect for Frank, I'd still had serious misgivings. And second, I would have been free to talk to him — but not as to a clueless jerk who'd just gone and done it again as I knew he would, but as a basically really good guy who at worst had made a misstep — and then, unless it was a Biblically-defined sin, only in my opinion.

Which brings me to just about my last point. Giving another respect requires humility. Do you see that? Once again, I write as a theoretician and piker, not as an expert. But saying in effect "I relinquish the demand for prior inspection, assessment, and approval, because I don't know everything and my approval is not essential" takes a degree of humility. By contrast, it is the height of arrogance to assume that X dare not act without my sign-off.

And that's where we fall short. If the Bible said "Respect yourself!" our culture would be right there. It would be a Bible-believing culture! If the Bible said "Love yourself first above all," we'd be right in the groove. But the Bible doesn't say any of those things, and the fact that the world isn't dancing to God's tune shouldn't surprise us. What is surprising, and shocking, and shameful, is that professed Christians continue to dance to the world's tune and feel just fine about it.

If you're not consciously seeking God's grace to cultivate humility, then forget respect. You can't do it. You can't get there from here, if we define "here" as unmortified pride.

Having said that, I'm pretty much done. I'm not going to try to get preachy, or preachier. If you read all that and don't see applications for your relationship(s), I'm probably not going to be able to help you. So let me close with a few pointed thoughts for application. Think of those whom God calls you to respect.

1. Do they have to do everything your way in order for you to respect them? Good luck with that. That isn't respect.
2. Do you have to approve of everything they do, have done, or are going to do, in order for you to respect them? Good luck with that. That isn't respect.
3. Do they have to do everything the way you think you'd do it if you were they, in order for you to respect them? Good luck with that. That isn't respect.
4. Do they have to do accept and obey your criticisms, in order for you to respect them? Good luck with that. That isn't respect.

Postscript: I really don't want the meta to be given to a debate over what Frank did in this or any open letter. Do you dislike it? Go tell him, under his post. He'll listen, though he may not agree. This is about respect, honor, what must happen in the heart for that to be happening. Talk about that.

Post-postscript: I developed this at length in a marital context here.

Something you didn't know about Denny Burk (or: the things I learn on Twitter!)

(And this, Virginia, is how rumors are started)

(c;

Why the Magi were late

(Thanks to a tip from Mizz Harpy)

Monday music: "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen," Chicago and Cetera

No, not back together, unfortunately for both and for fans. But two distinct approaches, each respectful in tone. Chicago's is more upbeat:

Peter Cetera's is particularly thoughtful, reflective. Sorry about the Santa-image.

Christmas medley flash mob

(Thanks to Tom Westervelt)

Beatbox Nativity

Pretty clever; thanks to Pastor McMasters.

Hither and thither 12/23/11

Well, friends — if anyone shows up this Friday before Christmas! — I do have a tidy little package for you. There are also posts planned for Saturday and Sunday. I wish you all a merry, joyous, Christ-centered Christmas!

• This blog isn't one of the Big Boys. And maybe yours is even smaller. But don't forget: it isn't the size, it's the 'tude.

• Right at the top: DO NOT MISS Frank Turk's absolutely lovely, stirring reflection on Christ and the event of His birth, "the moment that the world was made for." In an "evangelical" blogiverse where what should matter does matter, this post would be linked and re-linked a dozen, two, three dozen times or more.
• Staying with thoughtful essays, Denny Burk points to an absolutely brilliant essay by Rod Dreher on a recent sort of wannabe "spiritual bio" written by Supreme Court associate justice Stephen Breyer's daughter Chloe, an Episcopalian "priest." It is dead-on accurate and instructive; one however feels an ongoing sadness that Dreher himself, in targeting Breyer's preaching of a false Gospel, himself advocates for an institution devoted to the preaching of another false Gospel.
• In book-related news, I just had a terrific time chatting with Chris Rosebrough on Pirate Radio about The World-Tilting Gospel — and a bunch of things.
• Both books continue to do well on the year-end lists of folks who've read them, like our Fred Butler.
• Jared Moore also interviewed me on SBC Voices about the state of evangelicalism, and about both books.
• If you're keeping score at home, Mitt Romney has flipped again. This time on Iraq. What next?
• Ooh. Vertigo much?
• Angie found us an amazing set of Lego reproductions of the Lord of the Rings. (Can't vouch for text, only looked at pix.)
• In less happy Lego-related news, however, Robert Sakovich noticed a mother who's ticked off at the new Legos for girls. Why? Read the article. Special bonus for TWTG readers: what do you flash on when you read the Editor's Note?
• Randy Talley tells me he's a better person for seeing this; and now, we can all be better people, too.

• So when you hear Michelle Obama say, in so many words, that she puts herself at the top of her priority-list, are you (A) Very surprised, (B) Somewhat surprised, (C) Not at all surprised, or (D) Amazed that this could be news to anyone?
• And when you hear (in that same clip) that her husband is happy enough when Michelle is "not as mad at" him — same questions.
• And when you hear Michelle's husband say he has no pet peeves about her, and then hear Michelle say that her list of pet peeves is "too long" to relate — same questions.
• Bonus round for historians: has there ever been an angrier First Lady with a bigger chip on her shoulder?
• (If I could do PhotoShop, I'd do one of Hillary and Bill saying "Miss us yet?")
• Uh-oh. I was just emailed this:

• From the author of Death Panels to the Death Star:
• Idle kids? Set them to making Star Wars snow-flakes. They're really pretty wonderful.

• Susan points us to 25 creative ideas to make (some aspect of) life easier. I bet you'll see at least one that will move to you say, "Oh, huh... yeah!"
• Just... oh, dear. Twelve actual sermons that use sci-fi. No, I can't bring myself to watch any. Not yet, anyway.
• WOW. In time for a late Christmas gift, Paula directed me to a veritable Bacon-palooza. I mean, dude: bacon chocolate peanut brittle, bacon toothpicks,  bacon maple bar cake,  baconnaise,  bacon peanut butter cups,  bacon moon pie... dang, I'm hungry.
• Again wow, but in a different way. I doubt my BSIL will soon forget our first serious conversation when he took an interest in my daughter. She was and is, after all, my DAOD, and I was going to make it count. And I think I did, poor lad. That he hung in there afterwards spoke well of him. But I say that to say this: it could have been even just a tad more intense! Now you fathers of D's have some more arrows in your quivers.
• Of course, nothing can completely replace the classic 10 Simple Rules for Dating My Daughter.
• A brief, passing burst of sanity. In a court. In a California court. Upholding the right of a Lutheran preschool to fire an employee for "shacking up." Enjoy it.
• Instead of visions of sugar plums, here's what's haunting FedEx exec's dreams these days:

• Here's a little more info, from FedEx.
• Here's my FedEx story. Valerie had just returned from the hospital some years ago. I got her home, got her in bed and settled, and she just needed to rest quietly. Kids were at grandparents. So I wrote a note, saying in large plain print something like "DO NOT RING doorbell! Knock quietly." I taped the note over the doorbell, with the word NOT positioned right over the bell. The note completely covered the doorbell.
• You know what happened next. The doorbell rang! Furious, I stormed over to the door and snatched it open, only to see a FedEx driver give me a cheery wave, hope into his truck, and drive off. In other words, he had to push the note that said DO NOT RING, in order to ring the doorbell!   I called FedEx, got the manager, and he apologized, saying, "Yeah, that driver is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, if you know what I mean." Yeah, no kidding. That's... dude, that's just KJV-Only level of stupidity.
• And, in a very slick segue...
• Ooh, this is cool:

• Mmm. Quest for the perfect food may be over. My Food Looks... Scrumptious!

• Well, if it isn't that, it may be Marla Beale's find in a post titled If I die a Bacon-related death, I'll blame you. It does look delicious. Maybe add some olives, onions, guacamole...?
• The Headline of the Week is not a joke: 12 Members Of Breakaway Amish Group Charged In Beard-Cutting Attacks. What's more, the rogue barbers are charged with Federal "hate crimes." Wait, I'm not even done. The ringleader's name is Samuel Mullet. Again, I kid you not.
• Whoa. Durable pen. Too bad we don't know the make. You know, stocking-stuffer.
• Yeah, sorry.
• So Sam Knisely found a seasonal article claiming that an ancient document sheds light on the Magi. This is where the doctrines of inspiration and sufficiency comes into play. Evangelicals have shifted to trying hard to find this and that historical detail to explain the text, effectively forgetting that it is the text that is inspired, not the event. The text gives us what we need to know.
• Jared Compton over at the DBTS blog has a more edifying and helpful essay on the Magi's star.
• Christopher Carney notes that there actually are school textbooks worse than ours. They're in Saudi Arabia, thanks to "the religion of peace."
• Relatedly, Robert Sakovich found an essay and photo essay concerning the persecution of Christians in Pakistan by the Muslim majority.
• I leave you with this thought: our coming robot overlords are now working on agility.

• ...and these:

THE USUALS WILL BE OBSERVED

"Hallelujah Chorus" flash mob from Simpson College

Thanks to m'man Chris Brauns for that.

The sound quality isn't the best, but actually it adds to the experience, I think. But I did have a rueful chuckle at how, after this glorious and un-erasably Christ-exalting marvel of a song, they conclude with a gutless "Happy Holidays"!

Still, my favorite "flash mob" version stands as this one from last year.

Terrific concept, glad it's still being done.

Primary perspective

Word.

Glenn Reynolds, 12/20/11.

Sugar Plum Fairy by P.Tchaikovsky - Glass Harp LIVE

I'm kind of funny, in that I don't tend to categorize "Christmas" music as Christmas music unless it has something to do with, you know, Christ. So I've never perfectly understood what "The Nutcracker" has to do with Christmas.

But my family likes it, it's Christmas-season music, and this is pretty terrific.

(Thanks to reader Philip Priddy for the tip; others followed)

Monday music: "Gabriel's Message," Good Shepherd band

(h-t Bayly Bros, whom also see for backstory)

Hither and thither 12/16/11

How was your week? Mine started off nasty. I'd had Friday off, and returned to work only to find out that the manager who hired me some 7+ years ago had been abruptly and unceremoniously laid off, no chance to say "thanks" or "goodbye." (Thankfully, I had an external email address, and wrote him.)

Then the next day, BANG! a very competent contractor I'd trained was let go.

What is up with doing all these layoffs and salary-cuts just before Christmas? Seriously, I know the "Grinch" meme is overused, but... dude! Well, for the nonce at least, we can turn our eyes together to our weekly assortment.

But before the mixture of frivolity and sobriety, we will note sadly the death — or, to use the unintentionally more sobering word, passing (Heb. 9:27) — of Christopher Hitchens, famous for atheism and general contrarianism. Everyone will be linking to Douglas Wilson's reflections, ironically including those whose hearts beat with that very lust for respectability that Wilson criticizes in passing.

For my part, I doubt that I will produce an additional essay; but I might refer you to my reflections on the death of Hunter Thompson, and — given the inevitable praises that will be lavished on Hitchens for "bravely" facing the end, resolute in his atheism — the then-impending death of Senator Ted Kennedy. They are analogous.

• To warm up, you will stare and stare at this:

• The week featured some nice World-Tilting Gospel developments. Pastor Phil Siefkes finished his seven part review, saying:

  This is a book that I will continue to recommend to the members of our congregation. This is a book that I will turn to again and again as the leading book on the Gospel message. This is one of the rare books that I can recommend without a caveat. This is a must read book, and you will do yourself a serious disservice for not reading it. 

• Sheldon Clowdus also reviewed the book, saying that it "addresses the single biggest need in evangelicalism today," and that it "will show you that God and His gospel clearly, sufficiently, and eloquently."
• British pastor Andrew Roycroft offered a marvelous, full review, saying that deep and central Biblical "issues are handled in astonishing detail for a popular book, but the truths are expressed in terms that are at once orthodox and freshly phrased." In fact, I now see that the Banner of Truth site has published Andrew's review. May God use that to spread the book's ministry.
• Finally, among those who read it, TWTG did well in year-end book-lists, such as those of Stan McCullars and Kim Shay. And though it wasn't exactly a list, Nathan Machel says that TWTG and God's Wisdom in Proverbs are his top two favorite books of the year.
• For the geek in your life, here are 26 sci-fi weapon replicas. I actually have one of these, thanks to a generous gift from my parents-in-law some years back. It's in a (relatively) famous profile-picture of mine that shows up now and again.
• Possibly even cooler: 21 steampunk gifts. I think the steampunk fingernails are possibly the coolest... but when would you wear them, sister? Church pot luck? Mm... if that's the theme, I guess.
• Kerry Allen found us some famous bacon art: van Gogh's Starry Night.

• And if you buy it framed, Kerry knows just what you can wrap it in.
• While you're wrapping, Fred has picked his gift.
• It is nice to be able to say something true and positive about an A-list Hollywood actor. Christian Bale actually got himself roughed up attempting to visit and raise visibility of the plight of Chinese anti-forced-abortion activist Chen Guangcheng.
• For our younger readers, Kerry also brings the Star Wars alphabet:

• Reader Jack Wickwire found a family that makes massive secular Christmas Lego projects, of which the latest is a "Christmas" Dalek!
• From Sacred Sandwich:

• Your life. You think it's missing something. I do too. And I know what it is. It's... THIS.
• So, what's the semantic opposite of "Christian anti-Semitism"? Would it be Jewish anti-Christianism? Well, whatever it is, this rabbi's got it bad. He's afraid, he's very afraid, of... of... of TIM TEBOW! AHHHHHH! (UPDATE: the Jewish Week just disappeared the column without a word. Classy... not. So I updated the link to the cached version being hosted by Human Events.)
• ...and Seth Mandel finds the column silly, offensive, and shameful to Jews.
• UPDATE: reader jmb alerted me that Jewish Week and the rabbi apologized. More or less.
• Hobbies are nice. But there is such a thing as overcommitment.

• Well, you can't even turn around without bumping into Tim Tebow, so why should HT abstain? Thanks to reader Susan, here's a deft touch of autotuning: All he does is win.
• Dear wife might like this a little too much:

• At this festive time of year, it is customary for MSM outlets to scrape bottoms of barrels and elevate "scholars" with names like Philobilius G. Steinkraut to explain why the virgin conception is pious nonsense best left with fairies and cave trolls. So it's nice for Al Mohler to ask and correctly answer the question of whether Christians must believe the Virgin Birth.
• More briefly: if you believe Gen. 1:1, there is no reason not to believe Isa. 7:14/Matt. 1:18-25. 
• Then there's this from Triablogue:

• Substitute "Peet's" for "the coffeeshop" in the following, and my Josiah will love it:

• Chris Carney may have found one of our coming robot overlords being demo'd.
• In this week's Search for the Perfect Food... is this a nacho cheese smoothie in a bacon mug?

• So, still with the Perfect Food category, my DAOD notes sadly the passing of a number of potential candidates. (Warning: one bad word a few times.)
• Randy Talley found the place you could find my wife and DAOD:

• ...perhaps eating these:

• Um... is this true?

• Randy also found what we hope is a satire; or a serious parent FAIL.

• I've saved what I have to say is probably the best bacon feature for last. Reader Keith Lamborn found a gent who designed himself a bacon Viking helmet.
• Well, so... buh-bye!

• Finally:

THE USUALS WILL BE OBSERVED