Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: Christianity

  • Misrepresenting Science in God’s Name

    The Smithsonian magazine online has an article Dinosaur Shocker, talking about the work of Mary Schweitzer who has found preserved soft tissues in fossilized dinosaur bones. The topic has been picked up by young earth creationists and used as an evidence for a young earth. This has already been discussed on the web, but if you have not read it, here are a couple of key articles:

    Though I was interested in the article, I was more interested in the way in which the material had been used and I want to comment on that briefly, because I have seen it done very often.

    The Smithsonian article made the follow comments on this use of Schweitzer’s material:

    Young-earth creationists also see Schweitzer’s work as revolutionary, but in an entirely different way. They first seized upon Schweitzer’s work after she wrote an article for the popular science magazine Earth in 1997 about possible red blood cells in her dinosaur specimens. Creation magazine claimed that Schweitzer’s research was “powerful testimony against the whole idea of dinosaurs living millions of years ago. It speaks volumes for the Bible’s account of a recent creation.

  • In and Around God

    I found a wonderful post on the relationship to which God invites us over at connexions (via the the Methodist Blogs Weekly Roundup), titled Living in God. The author, Richard Hall, brings to us the word “perichoresis” used by early church fathers to describe the union of the human and divine in Jesus and then the trinity (details in the post and comments to it.

    It’s not the big word that made me like this post so much, but the discussion of it. I rarely like the use of a Greek word in preaching and teaching. If you’re teaching in English, teach in English. Generally. Here, the very mystery of the word, and the mysteries it can be used to describe combine to help us think about mysterious things. And the trinity is indeed a mysterious thing, and so is the closeness of the relationship to which Jesus calls us. Often we forget that. One of the benefits of the doctrine of the trinity is simply that it makes us think constantly about relationships. It forces us to try to imagine relationships that are closer than any that we experience.

    At the same time, it illustrates how much more there is to the atonement than substitution and the paying of debts. I do not reject the notion of substitution in the atonement. I think that substitution is a metaphor that can convey to us some of the meaning. But it is a metaphor, and it conveys only part of the picture. If we allow ourselves to spend time thinking about some of these other aspects, and taking seriously Biblical materials that reach beyond that point, we will find a richness in atonement and reconciliation that will enrich our relationship with God, and flow out into our relationship with others.

    Our hope in both divine and human relationships should be this: They can be better.

  • Liberalism and Diversity

    A couple of weeks ago while teaching I was asked about the title of my book Not Ashamed of the Gospel: Confessions of a Liberal Charismatic, and what I meant by “liberal charismatic.” Now this isn’t an ad for my book–no, really, it’s not!–but that title was not one I gave myself, but rather one I picked up from an opponent, someone who didn’t like either liberals or charismatics. But I have had both titles used about me from time to time by people who were not intending to insult me. I prefer to call myself a “passionate moderate” but I really don’t mind being called liberal or charismatic.

    I also had my attention called to the case of an individual who is a candidate for ministry in the United Methodist church. This individual has a mentor who is very liberal, while the candidate is evangelical. Things aren’t going well. Now I don’t have good, objective statistics on this sort of thing, and because of slippery definitions I’m not sure anyone can get them. But I have heard conservatives, evangelicals, liberals–people from pretty much every perspective–talk about the people that they cannot tolerate in one position or situation for another. I’m sure that a liberal mentor in the situation I mentioned might ask me something like, “But do you think I should help someone who will judge and exclude homosexuals from ministry become a pastor?”

    That’s an excellent question. It falls into a general category of questions that help us define the boundary of what we are each willing to tolerate, or the diversity that we are willing to celebrate. It’s much easier to celebrate diversity in general than it is to celebrate individuals who are very different from you. No matter how liberal you perceive yourself to be, there are probably some group of people, perhaps many groups of people, that you just can’t deal with.

    For me, it’s the true fundamentalist, such as King James Version Only advocates, and people on the fringes of the young earth creationist movement. Some of those folks I just find annoying. So what happens to tolerance?

    Let’s put it this way. For me, tolerance is a value. It is not an absolute belief that I must tolerate everyone and anything that anyone might happen to want to do. I value tolerance fairly highly. In fact, so highly that I would rather be a little less annoyed by the people I mentioned who get on my nerves. I want to treat them more fairly. But my tolerance is not absolute. Paul Hill had freedom of speech. I certainly didn’t like the way he used it, but it did not make me want to eliminate freedom of speech from the constitution. At the same time, I have no tolerance for the way in which he used his speech. I would have no difficulty condemning it in the most forceful terms. As for his actions, when he killed a doctor and a clinic escort in pursuit of his anti-abortion views, I definitely do not find it appropriate to tolerate those. I would note that I also think some of his speech prior to his act at a minimum came very close to incitement, and might have been dealt with on that basis.

    All of us have limits to our tolerance, and all of us should. What I value is the idea of making our circle of tolerance as broad as possible. We need to find a way to accept into our lives people whose views and culture differ greatly from our own. We will benefit from doing so. Our communities will benefit when we do so. Often accomplishing this is simply a matter of learning to look at similarities rather than differences. I have found that with groups of Christians one can often find common ground simply by listing similarities. As long as we’re thinking about those things, we seem very much the same. If we choose to list differences we will tend to feel different.

    There is good reason to look at things both ways. Comparing and contrasting work together. But when we are trying to accomplish something good in our churches and in our communities, very frequently we need to make looking at our similarities the primary goal.

    But does tolerance and diversity mean that one has to agree with what everyone says? There are people who seem to work that way. “Well, that’s OK for you, even though it doesn’t work for me,” someone says. Such people often regard totally contradictory beliefs as equally valid. This type of thinking elminates our critical faculties, at least from our interactions with other people. What we need to do instead is accept and celebrate that there are people who are different, even when I disagree vigorously with their beliefs. In debating those beliefs I can improve my own skills and expand my own knowledge. And yes, horror of horrors, I might find out I was wrong about something and have to change my mind.

    When we exercise tolerance in a community, there is also a need for boundaries. One problem I frequently see with church groups, and especially with the United Methodist Church of which I am a member, is that people attempt to be in community without bothering to define what it is that defines them as a community. Let me use this as an example. In the United Methodist Church we have a fairly substantial and well-defined body of doctrine. When I first joined a United Methodist congregation, I had the notion that people actually had some comprehension of what those doctrinal statements said, and that there would be discussion of such things in the church. I was even concerned that in some cases my views were too liberal for the doctrinal statement while in others, such as with the social principles, my views were too conservative.

    What I found in practice was that there was a huge amount of ignorance, and a general idea that we ought to be tolerant. Since nobody had any idea what the doctrines were, they never questioned me about my positions, and they looked puzzled when I questioned them. As I’ve taught Bible classes in Methodist churches, I’ve found that the dominant feeling is one of confusion. I think this confusion is the result of an attempt at undefined tolerance. The United Methodist Church needs an agreement on what is required, and what is optional, and then we should expect that the required items be accepted by all those who are part of the community, while the optional items are open to one’s personal opinions. This wouldn’t mean mind control; one can always join another denomination. Unlike citizenship in a nation, one doesn’t have to leave the country because one changes one’s church.

    As a passionate moderate, I would like that number of doctrines that we say are essential to be very small. In a pamphlet I publish, Understanding Christian Apologetics, I list just four items, derived from Elgin Husbheck’s book series Consider Christianity. A particular denomination should have more items than those, but nonetheless should be certain that what is listed is what they want to have defining them as a religious community. There can be a larger list that is of commonly held beliefs that are open to disagreement and individual opinion. I believe one could be tolerant and still expect someone who could not be defined by the standards of such a community to find a community where the standards are more congenial.

    People in such a community could still cooperate with others on points of agreement. I think this is an essential for a functioning society, particularly a democratic society. I am always delighted when movements in our two political parties get together across party lines. I wish we did that sort of thing more. We could come together for a period of time on some specific issue, and work separately when we disagree. In such a community the pastoral mentor I mentioned could be held to a standard: There are certain doctrines that must be accepted for ministry in our community, and if someone is within those limits they should be accepted.

    I’m using the United Methodist Church as an example. In the broader community, the key is viewing tolerance and celebration of diversity as a value. It is not a binary condition–one is tolerant or one is not. We may have more important values that will override it. We may even find people who we do not celebrate and who we do not want in our society. That’s all part of living. Provided that we deal with those options appropriately, there is nothing wrong with this.

    I’m going to go forward being tolerant over a large range, but expressing firm limits to my tolerance.

  • Bible Translation and Literary Style

    One thing second or third year Greek students notice, at least those who manage to start actually reading the Greek New Testament, is that various books have different levels of Greek grammar and vocabulary, and different literary styles. There’s a reason why most early reading exercises from the New Testament are from John or Mark. When I first started to read Luke/Acts I wondered what happened, and the first time I plowed through the first four verses of the book of Hebrews I wondered if I’d actually skipped all those Greek classes and just dreamed I’d been there learning.

    I think we can appropriately ask just what a translator needs to convey in terms of literary style, particularly the complexity of the language does a translator need to convey. Surely these elements convey something to somebody, and they are very easy to lose in translation. For example, if Matthew or Mark use a simple and common term for something but Luke uses a rarer or more sophisticated term for the same thing, should the translator reflect this by using a simpler English term for Matthew or Mark, and a more complext term for Luke?

    Translators often give different answers, at least based on their practice in their translations. For example, in my blog entry on translation issues in the passage, I examined how various translations dealt with this issue and some reasons why one might try those various options. Recently I gave a preliminary review of a new translation, The Scriptures, and found that they actually translate the full Greek sentence as a single long English sentence. Some good questions to ask their translation team would be: “Does that long English sentence convey the same idea to English readers as the long Greek sentence would to Greek readers?” and “Is the long English sentence similar in comprehension level to the long Greek sentence?”

    Let me give my answer first this time, and then try to justify it. I think that almost any variety of translation is acceptable and sometimes useful, provided that translators and readers understand the method and purpose. Bible translators need to be more careful on this point because people often naively expect to get “the Bible” no matter what translation they use, while the fact is that each translation will convey some, but not all of the meaning of the text in the source language. This is why I offer a seminar for churches, especially lay members, about Bible translation.

    If you believe that the message of the Bible is worth communicating, then translations to meet the needs of particular audiences are of value. I would especially mention children’s Bibles. The NCV offers easy to read, short sentences and simple vocabulary to children or to those with more limited reading skill. Personally, I find that version hard to read because of those short sentences. But there are people for whom this is the best way to receive the gospel message. My personal preference is the REB, but many people turn up their noses at the loftier language it uses. It communicates to me, but not to those people. And that is the key.

    There are those who ask me why I don’t condemn The Message. After all my own charts show that is extremely low on the formal equivalence scale. (Frequently people just assume that I would accept that having a low score in formal equivalence means a translation is inaccurate. But that is not my position at all, as I have stated repeatedly. The assumption that more literal is the equivalent of more accurate is simply false.) They can point out to me how hard it is to find verses, how word studies would be impossible using that version, and how many liberties Peterson has taken with the text. But what they miss is that Peterson has also wonderfully conveyed other portions of the meaning by his method. Like every translation, regardless of translation approach, The Message conveys some of the meaning of the source and fails to convey other elements.

    In order to determine how a translation “should” be done, you need to know the audience, and what are the critical elements to be conveyed to that audience. Don’t assume that you can get everything, or that you can get everything that’s important, because you can’t get everything, and what is important varies with the audience and the purpose. This is a question I fight regularly. “What Bible version do you use?” someone will ask. Or alternatively, “What Bible version is best?” They are very impatient when I say that I use many Bible versions in answer to the first, and to the second, that I have to know the audience and purpose before I can give an answer. But those answers are correct.

    Advocates of translations that are strongly formal equivalent often use the argument that word studies are much easier to do and that one can better see the relationship between various texts on the same topic when words are translated consistently. But if I may be blunt, these people are talking to a dwindling group of Bible students who actually do that kind of work, and many of those who do use word studies based on English translations do such a lousy job that they are more of a danger than a help. The pressing need is for an acquaintance with the Bible story and the Bible message. If you spend time teaching as I do, I imagine you’ve experienced the fading of Biblical knowledge. Literary references such as to the stories of Daniel and the “law of the Medes and Persians” (for those who miss it, that law can’t be changed), the books of Ruth, Esther, and Jonah, or major episodes in the history of Israel are no longer safe. All we do by limiting the range of meaning we translate to the desires of a small group of people, for example those who wish to dig into concordances and do word studies, is to limit Biblical knowledge to people who do those sorts of things.

    Translating literary style could be an excellent goal. But the translator needs to ask a question when translating Luke, for example. Is it more important for me to convey the fact that Luke writes in a more sophisticated style of Greek than Mark does, or should I focus on conveying the story? I would suggest that in most (but not all) cases you’ll want to convey the story.

  • Praying to be Seen

    A few years ago a number of my students in an introductory Bible study class arrived very excited. There was a town coucil here in Florida (I forget precisely where), that had invited a Wiccan–a witch!–to offer a prayer opening a public ceremony. My students were discussing what they would have done about this obviously heathen prayer, and were cheering folks who had turned their backs on the person offering it.

    “I bet you would have done something good!” said one of them to me.

    “I would have stood silently and respectfully as she prayed,” was my response.

    Why is it so difficult to respect someone else’s spirituality, their prayers, or any other religious activity they pursue? Now we have a story of a school at which one student did not want to sit through a Christian prayer at the commencement, and the ACLU filed suit on his behalf and got an injunction to prevent it. I understand the student’s position. It can be very uncomfortable to be in the minority, especially a minority of one. At the same time, I must say that I have a problem with the ACLU position on this one. I think student initiated, student led prayer, even in a public ceremony should be regarded to some extent as free expression, though at the High School level there would be some limits to this. (See the story at Judge Blocks Prayer at High School Graduation, thanks to Ed Brayton, Religion and the Majoritarian Impulse for calling my attention to this.)

    I think that there are much better ways to deal with a situation like that, including finding ways during the year and at various school ceremonies to acknowledge the beliefs of students who are in the minority. I’ve been in the minority religiously, growing up as a Seventh-day Adventist. “Do you go to church on Sunday?” asks someone. “No,” I reply, intending to continue with “we go to church on Saturday. But I see the “you heathen” look, and I know this is not a person who is interested in hearing about alternatives to the expected Sunday spent in church. That, of course, is very minor, but Seventh-day Adventist businessmen often had considerable problems with Sunday blue laws. Their faith required them to stay closed on Saturday, and the law required them to stay closed on Sunday. The majority felt it had the right to enforce its brand of spiritual life.

    So back to this high school. What do the students do? About 200 of them stood up during the principals opening remarks and recited the Lord’s prayer. Now I have a serious problem with this. Whether the judge was right or wrong about the law, his injunction was the law. Those students said that they didn’t really care about that, they were going to make their prayer demonstration anyhow, disrupting the ceremony. They announced loud and clear that they were the majority and they didn’t much care what the minority thought, or what a federal judge ordered. Others at a rehearsal booed the student involved in the suit.

    Now how does a prayer demonstration fit in with Matthew 6:5: “But when you pray don’t be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray in synagogues and standing on street corners so people can see them. I tell you truly, they have their reward.” How does the attitude of rebellion stand up against Romans 13:1-7? I do believe there is a proper time to protest, but is the use of prayer as a mode of protest really something we want to do?

    But I have a better idea for us as Christians. Consider Philippians 2:4: “Let each person not look after his own interests, but after the interests of others.” What would the Christ-like attitude be in this situation. I’m not talking about the law here. What would our Christian standard be? I would suggest that Christian students–or better Christ-like students would seek to find a way to make the one in the minority feel more comfortable. Perhaps they could acknowledge his faith in some way during the ceremony. Such an approach might prevent a case like this from going to court in the first place.

    The Christian majority in this country is whining about persecution quite a bit these days. We’re dealing with words, folks, and as Christians we’re in the majority. No, your own little sect, or big sect, whatever that may be, and my sect, are not all by ourselves in the majority, but Christians are. We are mostly putting up with one another, and most of the claimed persecution seems to be cases in which we don’t get to do precisely what we want, or what we’ve always done, because there is someone pesky outsider to object.

    It’s not that we’re not free to pray; we are. Our children can pray in public school right now! They can do it legally. What is not permitted is having the state sponsor it. So the real problem is not that your child can’t pray. It’s that you can’t have the teacher force him, and other people’s children, to pray in some specified way.

    But prayer as a demonstration is just noise. I suspect, based on the words of Jesus, that God is not particularly pleased with that sort of noise.

  • A Step for Abiogenesis?

    In a short article, ScienceNOW Daily news discusses some new research that may shed light on how life first emerged on this planet. I want to call attention to the article for a couple of reasons, but primarily because this, in my view, is how real science is done, and how it sounds when announced. No, they don’t know that this is an element of the formation of life, no, they don’t have the rest of the process, even the next step, figured out. What they have done is provide one more option, and filled in one more blank in the unknown.

    Michael Behe, in his book Darwin’s Black Box describes structure after structure and process after process, recounting how we have discovered new complexity as we continue to learn more about how the function. What is a black box at one point in the history of science will not necessarily remain so. Unfortunately, Behe uses all this skillful writing to produce an ode to ignorance, and complains that evolutionary pathways have not been found. He believes they never will be. But as things get more complex, one simply has to work harder to learn the details that are part of the complexity of nature. In this case, there is now a new reaction that opens up possibilities for study. Does it resolve the problem? No! But it suggests new research and provides more options for continuing the search. That’s how science works.

    Some may be wondering how I, a “theistic evolutionist” got onto the topic of abiogenesis. After all, the expected method of argument for theistic evolutionists is to distinguish evolution of life from abiogenesis. I do believe they should be regarded as distinct. But I also believe that abiogenesis will be solved, and an pathway for the origination of life will be formed. How then can I relate this to my belief that God is the creator of life? Actually, I believe God is the creator of everything. I believe God created the universe as a system, a system that works.

    Let me use the analogy of my car. I don’t regard periodic maintenance requirements for my vehicle as a sign of the wisdom of the engineers. Sure, they did well to warn me of those requirements, but I would be happier if they were less frequent, and if it were practical to produce a vehicle that never required maintenance, that would be even better. I also don’t look at the simple parts of my car and determine that they did not require an engineer, while the more complex parts must have been designed. I know that each element was put there as a part of the design strategy of the car. That they work together (mostly) seamlessly, and that I cannot find parts that are “more designed” than others is not a defect.

    Now as all analogies, this one has it’s limitations. My car is very little like a universe. But I think it does illustrate my point. If God designed the universe correctly, then it should work. If it requires periodic maintenance, like my car, it gives evidence of manufacture by a less-than-perfect creator.

    I don’t like the idea of tinkering, whether it comes at the time of speciation or when life first came into existence. I creidt life to God whether intervention was required or not, but I suspect a competent God of getting it right the first time (A “fully gifted universe” to borrow Howard Van Till’s phrase).

    So folks, I think this one will be solved in the next few years, and if you hooked your faith in God to the impossibility of life being formed from non-living matter without special miraculous intervention, you will be disappointed.

    But make no mistake, no matter how thick the gloves are on God’s hands, no matter how many processes supposedly separate him from his handiwork, it is still God that does it. An omnipresent God is not less present when working through process (and consistent processes at that), than he is working directly. The evidence suggests that he prefers working through consistent processes.

  • My Reaction to the Da Vinci Code

    There are some things you just can’t get away from no matter how hard you try. The Da Vinci Code, book, movie, or simply passing comment, is one of these. I have a friend who is much more interested in these things than I am, and I’ve even promoted his willingness to talk about it, and his published materials (the Consider Christianity Series, by Elgin Hushbeck, Jr.). Today I got an e-mail from Christianity Today, wondering if I was making the most of it. (No, I’m not personal friends with someone over at CT–it’s an e-mail notification I’ve subscribed to.) Now Christian groups in Asia are protesting the movie, and in at least one country, Thailand, have gotten it cut.

    So here comes my short response to the DaVinci Code, book, movie, or casual comment. You may wonder how I’m responding this morning, when the movie is released today. Again, I have no special friends. I haven’t gotten a preview of the movie. In fact, let me confess–no, let me proclaim–I haven’t even read the book!

    I’m not in any sense trying to say anything bad about those who have read the book or seen the movie, or want to do so. My bottom line on this book is that it is entertainment, it’s fiction (wow! whoda thunk it?), it’s supposed to be fun. If you think it’s going to be fun, go see it. If not, stay home, like me. If you think you can share your faith through discussion of the movie, go ahead and do so. That’s not my style, but I think it’s good that people do so.

    So if I think it’s fine to read the book, watch the move, to discuss it both literarily and historically (to the extent one can), what’s my problem. Let’s see. Oh yes . . . it bores me. That’s all. I’m just not interested. I’ve read dozens of books on the historical Jesus, ranging from volumes by authors who claim Jesus never existed, to fundamentalist defenses of the finest details of the story. I’m interested in that type of thing, but over time I’ve gotten to the point where I need something that challenges me intellectually. Books as wide ranging as John Dominic Crossan’s The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant and Darrell Bocks Jesus According to Scripture have great interest for me, as they both challenge my way of thinking and my understanding. But it just happens that right now I don’t want yet another theory about Jesus presented as fiction.

    I don’t know how good of fiction it will be, but the indications I’m hearing aren’t all that good. I’m absolutely not saying, “This is a bad movie, which is why I haven’t seen it.” I’m just telling you it’s OK not to find the whole thing all that interesting and to just continue to live your life. If The Da Vinci Code is your kind of movie, enjoy it guilt free. Use it in witness. Discuss it historically or literarily to your heart’s content. If, like me, you don’t plan to bother, don’t feel guilty. There really are people who just aren’t that excited about it.

  • Adventists and Spiritual Gifts

    A friend of mine drew my attention to a blog entry about spiritual gifts and I think it provides some interesting fodder for thinking about gifts. The entry is Adventism, the Holy Spirit and Spiritual Gifts, written by Paul Whiting. He was surprised, and perhaps dismayed that his class was largely unable to identify their own spiritual gifts and the way in which they were used. As an ex-SDA I’m always interested in this type of discussion.

    These days I approach this topic from another perspective, as a United Methodist with a substantially charismatic lean. I’ve even written a program for church members to use in discovering their gifts (Identifying Your Gifts and Service). But I find that many people in many churches either have trouble identifying their gifts, or are afraid to speak about them for fear of displaying pride. It can be very important, even critical for a church to identify and use the spiritual gifts of those members.

    Seventh-day Adventists have an interesting perspective here because of the ministry of Ellen White, or at least they could have such a perspective. It’s interesting that many SDAs have explained the gift of prophecy in the modern church as being limited to Ellen White, while some of the same arguments that were used against Ellen White are now to be used against other manifestations of similar gifts.

    Whatever your position and your denomination, I recommend reading Paul Whiting’s discussion as a help in thinking about this important topic.

  • Book: 52 Weeks of Ordinary People – Extraordinary God

    Let me warn you that I’m all kinds of biassed on the subject of this little book, just 68 pages long. My wife wrote it, and I publish it. In addition, it fulfills a niche that I think is very important in devotional books–materials designed for study, action, or prayer groups that meet on a weekly basis.

    It grew out of an experience at our home church at the time. There was a group of ladies who met on Wednesday nights, but did so very informally. They called themselves the “pointless sisters,” but they weren’t really pointless at all. They were some of the Martha’s of the church, busy with many things. Jody discovered that they were normally printing out one of her e-mail devotionals, and reading it as the devotional part of their gathering. For them, the study and prayer portions of their time were fairly short. They needed something to charge them up and get them started, and Jody’s devotionals were just the thing.

    My wife is the master of the five minute devotional. I find it tough to work within a small time frame. Those who read this blog can testify to that! But Jody can get right to the point, heading straight for where the rubber meets the road. In fact, she says that if you are convicted reading one of her devotionals, you can be sure that she was convicted by it first. She tells you what God has been telling her as she studies.

    Nearly 18 months ago now, we published the big book, Daily Devotions of Ordinary People – Extraordinary God with a year of daily devotions selected from the ones she had sent out of the last couple of years. After this experience of seeing how some devotionals were used, I asked her to select just 52 weekly devotions for use by small groups. She then added thought questions to each one, along with some suggestions for additional reading, to provide some material for discussion. The result was 52 Weeks of Ordinary People – Extraordinary God.

    The advantages are simple. It’s a bit much to expect all the members of a small group to buy a $19.99 devotional book. But a $7.99 book is another matter. Further, precisely because of my commitment to small groups, Energion Publications offers quantity and non-profit discounts, and there are a number of retailers who also discount from the retail price.

    If you’re not spending devotional time with God each day, consider starting. If you have a small group looking for a way to start their meeting with a challenging devotional thought, consider this book.

    (I also wrote about devotions in my series on your very own continuing education program on the Pacesetters Bible School Newsletter Blog.)

  • Tee-Ball and Perspective

    I rarely post something just to point to another entry, but this one is so good, I can’t resist: Adam Roberts posts a bit about Tee-Ball and the perspective of parents and kids at SOTHBLOG, in a post titled Little. I found it via Wesley Daily, to which I give thanks!

    I was particularly touched when he mentioned the group of 16-17 year olds playing without much in the way of parental support. It’s easy to forget that our teenagers, college age youth, and young adults need support. They’re so anxious to be seen as independent, and they can make it to and from their own games, so it’s easy to take the lazy way and let them take care of themselves. But if you do, you’re going to be wondering why they take the lazy way when it comes to keeping in touch with you. I was reminded of the day that my stepson James, then 15 and playing freshman basketball, was headed out to a game. For some reason his mother was not in town, and he informed me that since the game was in another county, and “wasn’t important anyhow” that I didn’t need to go. I went. I cheered. When he got home he said, “Thanks for coming to my game.” When I saw the look on his face (James was very expressive–his looks were paragraphs at least), I was glad I hadn’t accepted the excuse.

    You only get these chances once! Thanks to Rev. Adam, Coach Adam, or whatever he’s being called at the moment for a fine reminder!