Andree Seu talks about singing, “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus,” and other dicey hymns.
Story City Story
It was a good weekend. I’m sunburned, stiff, dehydrated and exhausted (I can tell my hemoglobin level still isn’t up to specs), but I had fun.
The drive down was an adventure. I had to get up at 4:30 a.m. to be in Story City, Iowa in time to set up, and it was a three-hour drive directly into a vicious south wind. But I made it on schedule. There were only three of us there, two guys and a woman, but our friend Sam from Missouri also came up with his Viking boat, which raised the tone of the encampment considerably: Continue reading Story City Story
“Again, the Opposite Meaning”
The Conservative Intelligencier points out a report on National Geographic’s Gospel of Judas. As you might expect, it is not as it appears, but I must ask what would it matter if it was as it appeared. What if a manuscript from 150-200 AD said Judas was a hero with noble motives? Would it really change anything? It would be fiction, even if old fiction.
Harvey Doesn’t Like Her Coffee
This commercial for Folgers is remarkable, but is it not also realistic (the attitudes, not the acting)? I don’t have this problem at home, and it’s not because we drink Folgers Instant. My sweet wife makes a great cup of coffee as well as many other great things, both edible and non. Great home, great chicken pot pie, great kids–all kinds of great things.
Arrested for Proselytizing
I got an email yesterday passing on this prayer request:
Pray urgently for our dear brother Argyris Petrou, a minister and missionary serving in Athens, Greece teaching and church planting. Argyris was arrested for proselytizing, which is against the law there and will stand trial this Wednesday, 11 June. Argyris could go to jail for 2-3 years. Imagine that in the land Paul evangelized so long ago! Pray for wisdom and peace for Argyris and his wife Dena, as well as their three sons. Pray also for the solicitors who will represent Argyris as well as the judge who will hear the case, that God would protect and deliver Argyris.
UPDATE: The court Argyris ‘not guilty!’ Praise the Lord.
Not Their Experience
I didn’t see this article when we were talking several weeks ago about Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, but I think it’s important to link to it. The scientists at Reasons to Believe (RTB) say they haven’t seen the type of blacklisting described in the movie. Of course, they aren’t employed by these universities either. “RTB believes that God has miraculously intervened throughout the history of the universe in various ways millions, possibly even billions, of times to create each and every new species of life on Earth.”
In Reasons To Believe’s interaction with professional scientists, scientific institutions, universities, and publishers of scientific journals we have encountered no significant evidence of censorship, blackballing, or disrespect. As we have persisted in publicly presenting our testable creation model in the context of the scientific method, we have witnessed an increasing openness on the part of unbelieving scientists to offer their honest and respectful critique.
Tell Me Six Things
How about a little comment meme? Tell me the first thing that leaps to your mind when you read each of these things?
- Excellent source of calcium
- New and improved
- 75% off
- New York Times Bestseller
- Get ‘Em While They’re Hot
- Y2K Compatible
With the corrected spelling on this post, you may comment at will. No, please comment. I will add this post to my list of good reasons for flushing myself. I can hear the drain coming now.
You Take the Fig Newton. I’ll Make Do with This Cookie
I saw the picture of compromise or making do this week. In a hot parking lot (our highs were in the low 90s) a little water had collected. Three ducks sat by this quart-sized pond, perhaps imagining the 1,000 lakes of Minnesota.
Speaking of making do, I see that copy editors are ecspected to0 now everthing. Where do you go to make sure you are spelling or correctly using a phrase or word you don’t readily use? Language Log posts some facts on making do, which is not making due, akin to paying your dues or anteing up. It’s making a situation do, which is what we say with almost every post here. Eh, we’ll make this post do . . .
Next Conference is on Wallace and Gromit
Henderson State University is holding an academic conference on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and other works by scholar and all-around nice guy Josh Whedon. No joke.
Among the papers: “Buffy and Feminism,” “Buffy and Identity,” “Gender Stereotypes and the Image of Domesticity in ‘Firefly,'” “‘Firefly:’ The Illusive Safety of Big Damn Heroes” and a Durand favorite by a British scholar, “Hero’s Journey, Heroine’s Return: Buffy, Eurydice and the Orpheus Myth.”
Have the conferenced on Harry Potter, I’d like to know? How about “The Simpsons?”
Writing about Food
Writer Lara Vapnyar teaches at City College in New York, and this NY Times article reports that “her students often turned in work filled with sex and gore. One assignment she gave them was to write about food and how characters responded to it, to teach them how preferences, memories and quirks could make up a personality on the page.
“‘Beginning writers often don’t give their characters enough particulars,’ she said. ‘Food is something that readers can understand.'”
Doesn’t this sound like a good assignment? I’ve wanted food in my stories ever since I read something about the rich diets found in French fairy tales. Take “La Belle et la Bête” or “Beauty and the Beast.” Belle is trapped in the castle and does not see her ugly suitor except over a meal. Of course, he’s so pathetic she finally gives in to him, and voila, a happy ending. What a great story.