4/27/09

Facebooking 101

Last Friday was family visit day at Cornerstone University, where Katie will begin her college career next fall. Upon arrival, we were ushered into a room where we could sign up for optional activities during an hour in both the morning and afternoon. The three of us decided it would be interesting to sit in on a class, and we signed up for a required course: Intro to Fine Arts.

After attending what felt like an eternal chapel service (all praise and worship music) that seemed to be a tangible example of what Michael Horton is writing about in Christless Christianity (another blog post perhaps), Henry and I set off to find Intro to Fine Arts.

Let's just say college just isn't what it used to be, back when I was attending courses like Intro to Fine Arts. One of the perks for Cornerstone students is that they receive a notebook computer upon arrival to campus, so everyone has one. As we took our seats, we noticed all the students around us, waiting for the professor to come in, and that part is pretty much the same. But while in my day we would have been pulling out our spiral-bound notebooks and digging for pens while having a conversation with a friend, these students were . . . Facebooking.

Yes--WiFi has made its way into the hallowed halls of Cornerstone. To be fair, not all of the students were Facebooking. Some appeared to be randomly surfing the Net, hitting sites that had nothing to do with higher learning. As the professor took his place at the front of the classroom, I expected that students would now pull up the screen where they typed their notes for Intro to Fine Arts. The student sitting in front of me, though, spent the hour checking course options at Hope College, Calvin, and Cornerstone and recording his findings on his Google calendar. It appeared, briefly, that he was going to work on a paper for another class, but thought better of it and sent a couple of emails instead. The two girls sitting a few chairs down from us seemed to just be surfing, with occasional visits to their Facebook pages.

The professor was discussing some of the differences between Renaissance art in Italy and in Northern Europe. The discussion was interesting, and Henry and I were impressed with his lecture. At one point, the professor asked the students what important event occurred in late October 1517. No response from the class. He threw out a couple of other clues: it had to do with a monk . . . Wittenburg . . . I was crying inside, using every ounce of strength I had not to scream out, "Come on!" Finally, one student said, "Oh!" and started making a gesture as if he were hammering something. The poor professor finally managed to get the response he was looking for: the Reformation.

In a lunchtime conversation we had with a philosophy professor, I brought up the issue of WiFi in the classroom. He told us that this fall, he would be banning computers from his classroom. A co-worker at DHP who teaches freshman composition at Cornerstone tells me he plans to do the same thing. There are still some voices of reason, apparently.

Dear Cornerstone Administrators (because I can't imagine that professors would ever go for this):

What are you thinking, putting WiFi in the classrooms? Do you not know that it is an irresistible force, akin to the gravitational pull? Do you not know that it has a force greater than Renaissance art, Old Testament history, chlorophyll, the respiratory system, Isosceles triangles--pretty much anything that might be discussed in a university lecture hall?

Perhaps this is your secret plan to collect more tuition as students fail classes while checking their messages, writing on someone's wall, or taking a quiz to find out which Disney princess they are most like. If so, it will probably work, and fewer and fewer people in this world will know that Renaissance art in Italy was more idealistic while the art of Northern Europe was more realistic. On the other hand, they will know if they have Belle's independent spirit or Cinderella's work ethic. And that will get you a long way toward an accounting degree.

I do know, though, that the professors are on to you, and they are getting tired of lecturing to the wall and having no response to their questions. Most of them realize that notes can be taken with paper and pen, that technology is not always the answer. There is a life--indeed, a world--beyond Facebook.

Thank you for your efforts to encourage higher learning.

Sincerely,
Annette Gysen

And that was our day at Cornerstone.

4/23/09

The Witness of the Prophets

This week I've been working on one of those obligatory reads--a biography for my book group. Let's just say that it's not my favorite, so I've nothing to share with you from it.

However, I've continued my goal of reading Calvin's Institutes in a year (I fell behind a few days during spring break), and I have to say that for me, to read him is to love him even more. I'm working on book 2, chapter 10, where Calvin writes about the doctrine of the covenant in the Old Testament. In this section, he explains how God gradually revealed, from Adam's day to Malachi's, at the end of the Old Testament, the salvation that would be fully revealed in Jesus Christ. I love the poetic, descriptive language he uses here:

"Accordingly, at the beginning when the first promise of salvation was given to Adam [Gen. 3:15} it glowed like a feeble spark. Then, as it was added to, the light grew in fullness, breaking forth increasingly and shedding its radiance more widely. At last--when all the clouds were dispersed--Christ--the Sun of Righteousness, fully illumined the whole earth [cf. Mal., ch. 4]." ~Institutes, book 2, chapter 10, section 20

"But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings" (Malachi 4:2).

4/20/09

Leah and Rachel . . . and Susan

I was filled with theological insight last night as I was reading Genesis 29. I turned from my reading and said to Henry, "I don't think I would have liked Rachel very much. I feel bad for Leah."

Rachel--the pretty one. The one with great form. The one Jacob immediately fell in love with and worked seven years of his life for. Nowadays Rachel is the cheerleader, the homecoming queen, the one the guys turn around and look at when she walks through the mall, the one who has absolutely no problem at all finding clothes that fit, the one who looks like she has never been pregnant as she leaves the hospital with her new baby in her arms. These are the women who often have many admirers, but often, sadly, no real friends.

And poor Leah, whose name means "cow." The "mistake" wife. The one with weak eyes, whatever that means. No matter how many sons she bore for Jacob, she just couldn't capture his attention. I was gratified to be reminded by my Reformation Study Bible, however, that she bore Levi, head of the priestly tribe, and Judah, head of the tribe from which Jesus would come. God did not forget her.

And then there is Susan. Unless you live under a rock, you've seen the amazing video of this 47-year-old frumpish Scottish woman who shut Simon Cowell up with her stunningly beautiful rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream" on Britain's Got Talent. A Christianity Today writer entitled her article with the question of the week: "Why Do We Love Susan Boyle?" There are many reasons Susan Boyle's admirers love her--the underdog that no one expected to succeed. Even now as I type this and am listening to the video in the background, I feel gratified to hear the gorgeous British judge telling Susan that it was a privilege to hear her sing. Honestly, which one of us Leah/Susans hasn't fantasized about having the "pretty girl" express admiration for us at one time or another?

I love Leah and I love Susan because I've been Leah and Susan and have been friends with lots of them--from grade school on. A little overweight, with less sparkle in our eyes than the Rachels, feeling a little frumpishly dressed at times, and definitely not with a great form or a beauty that would make someone work for us for seven years--these are the girls I relate to. And clearly, while being Leah or Susan can have its challenges, it can have its rewards too--and they are glorious rewards when they are finally achieved.

4/16/09

Herb

I've made a recent discovery. One of my current responsibilities at Discovery House has involved going through archives of Our Daily Bread, the daily devotional published by RBC Ministries, the ministry we're affiliated with. My discovery has been the devotional writings of Herb Vander Lugt, a man who worked for RBC from 1966 until his death in 2006. I didn't get to know Herb well, but I do know that he was well respected by everyone.

I think that it's probably a much more difficult task than it would seem, writing a devotional for ODB. The authors must convey something significant, something of a devotional quality, in about 225 words. To a student assigned a research paper, 225 words might as well be an encyclopedia. But to a writer, someone who has something to say, it isn't much. As I've gone through articles, though, I've been impressed by Herb's consistent ability to convey something meaningful every time. The following is one of my favorites, entitled "The Beauty of Silence."

Written on the wall behind the pulpit of the church we attended in my teens were these words: “The Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before Him” (Habakkuk 2:20). And keep silence we did! All eight of us boys said nothing to one another as we sat waiting for the service to begin.

I loved this quiet time and often succeeded in pushing thoughts about girls and the Detroit Tigers out of my mind. The best I could, I tried to reflect on the wonder of God and His salvation. And in the silence I often sensed His presence.

Today we live in a noisy world. Many people can’t even drive without music blaring from their car, or the beat of the bass vibrating their vehicle. Even many church services are marked more by noise than by quiet reflection.

In ancient times the pagans cried out in a noisy frenzy to their idols (1 Kings 18:25-29). In sharp contrast, the psalmist saw the wisdom of silence, because in quiet reverence God can be heard. In the stillness of the night under a starry sky, in a hushed sanctuary, or in a quiet room at home, we can meet the living God and hear Him speak.

The psalmist’s words are relevant today: “Wait silently for God alone” (Psalm 62:5).

4/13/09

A Blonde and a Redhead Went Shopping ...

It's been a long time since Katie and I have enjoyed an "incident" together, one of those moments when our antics become a LaVerne and Shirley wannabe episode. Part of that, unfortunately, is because we don't have many opportunities these days to do things together. Katie is growing into her own life, complete with play practices, Madrigals rehearsals, and the various social activities that high school seniors involve themselves in. And I now have Henry, an actual live-in date who is nearly always available for my own social needs.

And yet spring break found Katie and me doing one of our favorite mother/daughter activities: shopping together on State Street in Chicago. Guys and girls split up--with guys spending the day at the Museum of Science and Industry, exercising their brains, and girls shopping downtown, exercising their fashion skills. The car safely parked at the museum, Katie and I hopped CTA bus #10 in front of the museum and comfortably rode to the shopping area.

We had some early success and hit some of our favorites: H&M and Forever 21 for Katie and Nordstrom Rack, where I found the most amazing collection of size 5 shoes ever--something that is a rare find here in the home of larger feet, Grand Rapids. I dug through the Nordstrom rejects on one side of the rack while Katie checked out the other side until I uttered what Katie calls the "cute shoe gasp." There were the cutest pair of navy shoes that I could have ever hoped to own, the perfect accessory for the outfit I bought last spring.

And so the shopping went on. Katie made more purchases than I did and had more bags. Eventually, I had two--my shoes and a cute top I found at another shop. I stuffed the shoes into the shirt bag so that I was carrying only one. The afternoon wore on, and I became concerned about finding out where and what time we should catch the #10 bus back to the museum so that we could meet the guys at the designated time.

As we left the last shop, I remember placing my bag on the counter while I buttoned up my coat. We walked out, and I told Katie that at this point we needed to form our bus strategy. We approached a bus stop with a large map tracing the different routes. I really couldn't figure out what I needed to know from the map, but we were right in front of the State Street Macy's, and I remembered that Macy's had a tourist department and wondered if they might have some bus information.

Sure enough--the Macy's directory told us that the seventh floor had a tourist information department. And even better, there was an express elevator that would take us right to the seventh floor. We got on and pressed 7. Somewhere between that first floor and seven, I realized that I no longer had my bag. All I could think was that maybe I had left it in the last store when I had buttoned up my coat. Katie didn't think so. She thought it was more likely I set it down when I was looking at the map at the bus stop, in which case, I knew that the adorable blue shoes would now be dead to me.

As soon as we got to the seventh floor, the doors opened, and another guy got on and looked at us as though we were strange for not getting off. Apparently he had never thought he left a shopping bag with cute blue shoes somewhere. We immediately rode down, ran through the first floor, and started rushing off down the sidewalk toward the bus stop and the last store. I really had lost all hope at this point.

We were nearly at the store when Katie said, "Mom, look!" Breathless I turned to find . . . Katie holding my bag along with hers. To this day neither of us remember when I handed her my bag. But the blue shoes did look adorable with the outfit, which I fear may have met its demise, yet another tragic fashion story as of Easter Monday. Another time . . .

The good news: We did catch bus #10, made it back to the museum with time to spare, where we collected our men and then had pizza at Giordano's. All's well that ends well.

4/9/09

TMI

I've jokingly told people that since I've been married, I've adopted an Amish lifestyle. Basically what that means for me is that I (a former borderline TV addict) really don't watch TV anymore. Otherwise, I'm still as electricity- dependent as I've ever been, I'm not at all close to trading in my car for a horse and buggy, and I'm not setting aside huge blocks of time to can strawberry jam. There are several factors that have contributed to my personal TV fast, but probably the biggest one has been just having another adult around in the evening to talk to, which I've found so much more entertaining than American Idol or Lost. No one is more surprised at this turn of events than I am.

A frequent TV watcher when I was growing up, I dreaded the rare occasions when the network would interrupt programming for an “important announcement.” This didn't happen often, but when it did, I knew that something huge had happened: someone important had died, some disaster had struck, there was a major development of some sort in Washington. And while I resented the intrusion into my TV enjoyment, I could tolerate it, because this was something that the grown-ups definitely needed to know. I can remember watching some of those significant events: the first moon landing (I can even remember that it interrupted Brady Bunch), President Nixon's resignation, the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger--truly memorable breaking stories.

The past few days, though, I've been on a brief spring break getaway with my family, and I've been exposed to more TV than usual. In the three days that I was gone and in the brief interludes when I was in a place where a TV was on, there were three breaking stories. I began to wonder if there truly is breaking news anymore when nearly every story is labeled “breaking news.” Monday evening 's breaking story was about a stolen Cessna that had been chased down until it landed on a dirt road somewhere in Missouri. From the attention the incident was receiving at the time, viewers might have thought this was some sort of act of terrorism--certainly something with international implications. Could it have been that a person simply stole a Cessna? During breakfast on Tuesday morning, reporters went on and on with the breaking story that the president had made an unscheduled stop in Baghdad. Newsworthy, probably. But since the stop was unscheduled, the media didn't have any details, like why the president was there and with whom he would be meeting, and no video footage of anything, really. And yet this did not stop CNN from going on for a very long time . . . about nothing. And Wednesday morning, the third breaking story we heard in three days was about Somali pirates that had hijacked an American merchant ship. Certainly newsworthy, but certainly not on the same level of significance as some of the past breaking stories, such as a president's resignation, an assassination attempt that left a president seriously injured, or a jet flying into the Twin Towers.

It seems to happen all the time in current culture. Our outrageous appetites for information require constant feeding, and the quest to know drives the information “feeders” to grab for anything to satiate our appetites. And in our informationaholic state, we no longer distinguish between fruits and vegetables and whole grain breads and candy bars and potato chips. We want information “food,” and it doesn't matter whether it is healthy or not. Perhaps the clearest case of this is Twitter, where, in one instance, I can read the tweets of a major publishing executive and find out the minute details of his life--who he's had dinner with and how many miles he's just run in the gym--along with the books and articles he'd recommend that serious businesspeople read. And the result is that the four miles he has run this morning become just as significant as the next tweet, where he recommends some book about marketing strategy. No matter how interesting a person is, no matter how savvy, it's hard to believe that anyone can have something truly significant to share with the world every few hours.

Which leads me to the news media. When every news story becomes a "breaking story," how do we know what truly is important, life-changing, and history effecting? And eventually, when every event becomes significant, then nothing is significant anymore because nothing stands out. Nothing makes us leave the “junk food” of the Brady Bunch to sit up and take notice of a situation that truly requires our attention. And we're just as satisfied to read that Mr. CEO had dinner with Mike and Carol Tuesday night as to learn that our new president is adopting radical administrative policies that will change the way medical people may exercise choice in their jobs according to their consciences. What a reporter is calling a breaking story becomes his or her attempt to fill twenty-four hours of air space seven days a week.

Wanting stuff—and lots of it—has brought the world to a serious financial crisis. What will wanting information—and lots of it—end up costing us? What has it cost us already? Quality no longer becomes important in the rush to deliver and receive quantity. Too much information--like too much of anything--is not good for consumers or for producers. Consumers become numb to the product, and the producer simply keeps churning out more of the same in a vicious cyle of meaninglessness. And we find ourselves reading that Mr. CEO ran only three miles this morning because he overate last night when he had dinner with Lucy and Steve. And, unfortunately, we're satisfied with that.

4/4/09

Doctrine and Application

Often, the current tendency among today's Christians is to downplay the importance of doctrine and emphasize doing. In an insightful, brief online article this week from John MacArthur,he explains why application of Scripture cannot be divorced from doctrine.

Now and then someone tells me frankly that my preaching needs to be less doctrinal and more practical.

Practical application is vital. I don’t want to minimize its importance. But the distinction between doctrinal and practical truth is artificial; doctrine is practical! In fact, nothing is more practical than sound doctrine.

Too many Christians view doctrine as heady and theoretical. They have dismissed doctrinal passages as unimportant, divisive, threatening, or simply impractical. A best-selling Christian book I just read warns readers to be on guard against preachers whose emphasis is on interpreting Scripture rather than applying it.

Wait a minute. Is that wise counsel? No it is not.

There is no danger of irrelevant doctrine; the real threat is an undoctrinal attempt at relevance. Application not based on solid interpretation has led Christians into all kinds of confusion.


You can read the rest of this great article, "What Does It Mean 'to Me'", here.