What a beautiful full Moon it was tonight.
"Greatest of all her burdens was the burden of herself. Though she was learned...she knew her faults and dangers and that, still young and of passionate heart, she could be betrayed by her own desires. Well she knew that she was not all of a piece, one woman molded whole. A score of various women hid within her frame, and not all were strong and calm. She had her softness, her fears, her longing..."This is a quote from a book that Kate is reading called, Imperial Woman. I shudder when I think of my own ability and indeed my own proclivity to sin as a man. Tis also very scary to think that the ones we love have those same abilities, those same proclivities. Dostoyevsky is correct: mankind suffers in sin-- not just me, not just men, not just women...we suffer in sin.
Is this not why love must be founded upon faith in Christ? And is this not a large portion why marriage is chosen as the metaphor-- indeed the type-- for our union with Christ? Just as our love for another is founded on faith that the other will be faithful and just, so is it that we trust the Christ, and that He is the fulfillment of Jehovah's promise from ages past. It is faith, it is trust through which salvation comes; so too in love. Again I ask, is true love possible where trust in Christ is absent? Indeed not. For if we put faith in ourselves as a primary we are bound to fall.
May God Almighty see to it that His blessings flow, that our paths are straight, and that we remain good and faithful servants. For if we remain, we know with even more assurance that He remaineth.
public education
The juxtaposition between Japanese education and American education has been a long standing rivalry-- always, it seems, with America playing catch-up. We've been watching Japan's performance in math and science for years now. We've cataloged thousands and thousands of hours of video taped Japanese classrooms (one study recently completed had over 30,000 hours of video taped material; one study). We've analyzed and reanalyzed stats on everything from Japanese/American test scores, to their respective television veiwing habits.
It seems that after all the work thats been done there are some factors that are starting to rear their head over and over. In short, there are a few practices of Japanese teachers that DO seem to have a high correlation to excellent performance.
Those practices are the following. 1. Nationalized Standards (every student in Japan is expected to learn the same thing). 2. Nationalized tests (every 8th grade student, for instance, takes the exact same test every week, for the entire year). 3. Learning Teams (teachers are required to partake in intensive professional development on a weekly basis).
Of these practices the United States has shyed away from them all. There are many reasons for their fear, of which I do not want to go into here, but I did want to comment on the first Japanese practice and its relation to our system in the future.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that national standards would mean Federal oversight in education. Further, it isn't hard to see that Federal control over all public education would be a highly sought control by those in politics of liberal persuasion (unfortunately, this includes some Republicans). From this evidence, which is just recently becoming more and more appearant to the general populace, based on the numerous studies we've done on Japanese education and what is only now becoming "common knowledge" in the education upper eshalons, the push to nationalize education in the United States will increase in furvor and potency.
Soon we will be hearing a redoubled plea to nationalize education...otherwise, we'll be told, "the Japanese will take over..."
I write this as a warning. We need to watch and be careful. We who value our capitalistic, republic democracy based on the Constitution must stand watch. If Americans do not continue to go back to their roots in the Constitution- where we see that education is to be a state right, and only a state right- then the socialist movement in America will overtake yet another hallmark of what is considered to be a democraticly free nation.
air check
For those of you, and I know you're out there, who are either tired of the same ole' AM talkshow programs, or for those who are worse off and are FINALLY tired of FM radio (with the same songs played hour after hour, day after day, week after week) I've got a solution for you...at least between 4-7pm. His name is Michael Savage and he's on NewRadio 830am. Here's his website The Paul Revere Society.
Not only is he articulate, intelligent, insightful, and witty, but for all of you single conservative guys out there, he has a "conservative cuties" picture page. (no I didn't bother to look at it). Promise sweetie.
Godspeed.
On The Author
Some of you may think I'm Dostoyevsky crazy (my gosh, I call him "The Author," I seem to quote him more than I quote scripture, I bought Kate a teddybear; upon my suggestion we named it Fyodor, and I use Russian money to decorate my desk)...but I'm not alone.
[Dostoyevsky], a super-sensitive giant of the imagination projects a uniquely poignant vision of the plight of man and the power of God. If it makes you weep and worship, you will be the better for it. If it does not, that will show that you have not yet seen what you are looking at, and you will be wise to read the book again. ~~J. I. Packer
Dostoyevsky was a truly prophetic figure, plunging down frenziedly into his kingdom of hell on earth and arriving at Golgotha. He had a tremendous insight into the future and foresaw the world we have today.~~Malcolm Muggeridge
...An incomparable writer... ~~Philip YanceyYet The Author himself does not harbor conceit, for he knows who the real author is. Dostoyevsky says of THE BOOK, and THE AUTHOR:
"...He read it. 'True,' he said, but with a bitter, ironic smile. 'Yes,' he said after a pause, 'terrible are the things one comes across in those books. To shove them under someone's nose is easy enough. But who wrote them? Surely not human beings?' ...'The Holy Ghost did,' I said." (From The Bother's Karamazov)
An incredible passage from the incredible author
The speaker is a miserable drunkard who has recently deserted his family (his deathly ill wife, her children, and his daughter barely past her teen years). The speaker had just that morning, out of morbid desperation, accepted 30 dollars from his daughter, who he knows had to recently begin prostituting herself to support the family he abandoned.
"Why am I to be pitied, you say? Yes! there's nothing to pity me for! I ought to be crucified, crucified on a cross, not pitied! Crucify me, oh judge, crucify me but pity me! And then I will go of myself to be crucified, for it's not merrymaking I seek but tears of tribulation!... Do you suppose, you that sell, that this pint of yours has been sweet to me? It was tribulation I sought at the bottom of it, tears and tribulation, and have found it, and I have tasted it; but He will pity us Who has had pity on all men, Who has understood all men and all things, He is the One, He too is the judge. He will come in that day and He will ask: 'Where is the daughter who gave herself for her cross, consumptive step-mother and for the little children of another? Where is the daughter who had pity upon the filthy drunkard, her earthly father, undismayed by his beastliness?' And He will say, 'come to me! I have already forgiven thee once... I have forgiven thee once....Thy sins which are many are forgiven thee for thou has loved much...' And He will forgive my Sonia, He will forgive, I know it... I felt it in my heart when I was with her just now! And He will judge and will forgive all, the good and the evil, the wise and the meek...And when he has done with all of them, then He will summon us. 'You too come forth,' He will say, 'Come forth ye drunkards, come forth, ye weak ones, come forth, ye children of shame!' And we shall all come forth, without shame and shall stand before Him. And He will say unto us, 'Ye are swine, made in the Image of the Beast and with his mark; but come ye also!' And the wise ones and those of understanding will say, 'Oh Lord, why dost Thou receive these men?' And He will say, 'This is why I receive them, oh ye wise, this is why I receive them, oh ye of understanding, that not one of them believed himself worthy of this.' And He will hold out His hands to us and we shall fall down before Him...and we shall weep...and we shall understand all things!...Then we shall understand all! Lord, Thy kingdom come!"So is the Mercy of God! And so is the insight of Dostoyevsky (Crime and Punishment)
A question for my freewill friends
Today in class studying ancient Israeli history, we came across the story of the 10 plagues that were called upon Egypt just prior to the Exodus. As some of you may know, the tenth plague (the plague that finally got Pharoh's attention), was the dreadful Passover. The Angel of the Lord passed over all of the land; those households that did not have sacrificial blood on their doorposts found their first-born son dead the next morning.
One of my students said aloud, rather intently, "God is a murderer."
I thought for a moment, started to respond, then simply chose to ignore the comment.
It wasn't until just now that a question came to my mind for my "free-will" friends: my friends who claim that the reformed doctrine of predestination makes God out to be a sinner (and therefore untennable).
Here's the question: From a "free-will" perspective, is not God, in the act of the Passover, actively (primary cause) killing persons who may or may not have had the opportunity for salvation? In other words, does not this act of God clearly entail that God, at least once, acted in a manner that could be called, and if entailed by the Calvinist position certainly would be called (by our free will friends) "God sinning"?
It seems to me that God's sovereignty over all acts in history, including acts that WE would consider "sinful" can be attributed still to none other than God acting himself. How is it the anti-predestination bunch salvages God from being a direct cause in the Passover event? It seems they would be unable to do so. If that's the case, then how is it their position "frees" God from the sining entailment that they heap onto Calvinists?
Is not the "Angel of the Lord" Jehovah himself?