Lessons for Living | Ain't Complicated

Reading: Choose the Best!

Earlier today I called attention to the sacrifice of right reading.

Now I get this in my email: Choose the Best (alas, I didn’t/haven’t):

The printing press puts into the hands of parents a means of good, which they may use to the greatest advantage in the culture of their home-life, and in the shaping of the lives of their household. But they must keep a most diligent watch over the pages which they introduce. They should know the character of every book and magazine which comes within their doors, and should resolutely exclude everything which would defile. Then, while they exclude everything whose influence would be for evil, if they are wise they will bring into their home as much as possible of pure, elevating, and refining literature. Every beautiful thought which enters a child’s mind, adds to the strength and loveliness of the character in after days. The educating influence of the best books and magazines is incalculable, and no parent can afford to lose it in the training of his family.

That was written in 1882!

I’m grateful for what J. R. Miller wrote way back then. Just as I’m grateful to The Berean Call for calling my attention to it.

But what will I do about…

…my own personal reading matter?

…the other reading matter I allow in my home?

…any teaching opportunities I might take (or make)?

Knowing me, probably nothing. 😥

Tony Snow

He died this morning.

I just stared at the headline.

I knew he had cancer. I knew he’d fought it off at least once. I didn’t know he was that bad off, though.

He had a good radio show before he went to the White House as press secretary. I enjoyed listening to him. And I was glad to hear him once in a while on The Radio Factor after he retired from his WH job. But I didn’t know him personally. So why should his death matter to me?

I don’t know.

And why should it matter any more than the young man in Somalia that died at about the same time Tony did? (I assume one did.)

I don’t know that either.

In any event, I keep wondering what Mr. Snow learned after he died.

What will you learn after you die?

And I?

So…what should we learn before we die?

And when shall we try to learn it?

“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).

“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).

May the Snow family find the Good Shepherd’s comfort and peace and strength and courage.

I Almost Bid $2.50

Then I realized my true bid would be $3002.50!

No way!

Pastor and His Family for Sale

I’m not even going to Google it, but I wonder how many male bloggers are having a hey day with the idea of buying the family and keeping the wife and/or daughter.

And, vile being what vile is, how many other male bloggers are fantasizing about keeping the boy.

Not a wise move on Chad’s part.

Sure, he’s an unconventional pastor, but still . . . .

Like a Mother. (And a Father.)

Over at Life in the Shoe, Dorcas Smucker as a short-but-excellent post on Looking Like a Mom:

Obviously the implication here is that looking like a mom is a bad thing. Maybe that’s because the popular perception is that looking like a mom is all physical, and all moms are sloppy and out of shape. At least that’s the impression I get when people meet me and insist that I can’t possibly have six children, which is flattering in its way, but I think the essence of a real mom shows up on her face and I hope that’s what people can see in me.

I am proud to be a mom, and I hope people can look at me and tell right off that if they have a problem they can tell me about it, that I’ve survived enough crises to know what to get upset about and what not to, that I’ll happily dispense advice, that I believe in better things for them, that I’ll drop everything to make them a cup of hot tea, that I’ll happily mother anyone who needs mothering.

And if someone stops me in a store to ask what to buy for a ten-year-old, I’ll feel honored.

Way to go, Dorcas!

While I do not wish to look like a mother (or a grandmother), I want to “feel” likewise honored in looking like a father or even a grandfather.

After all, that’s what I am.

Whether or not I look like one, let me be the best at both that I can be.

Long ago I wished for a father’s heart like the Father’s heart. My wish was sincere. And intense. And quite ignorant.

Ignorant because I didn’t know the breaking and restructuring the granting of such a wish would require.

Ignorant because I didn’t realize the fragility of such a heart. (No, that doesn’t make God fragile!)

Do I now have a heart like the Father’s? Not even close. But I’m far closer than I was before making that request of Him.

And I think I understand His heart better than I used to.

So — again — I ask: Let me look and love and lead and live like a father should.

And like the Father does.

WWW: Wild Wild Web

I use the Internet.

I depend on the Internet.

But I’m very wary of it. Or if not of it, of the way it can be used and is used by people (as individuals, as corporations, as governments, as other people groupings).

So three headlines caught my attention earlier this morning:

Congress studies how people track your online use

Executives from major Internet players — Microsoft Corp., Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. — are due for a grilling about online privacy in a Senate committee Wednesday, but the company likely to get the most scrutiny is a small Silicon Valley startup called NebuAd Inc.

NebuAd has drawn fierce criticism from privacy advocates in recent weeks for working with Internet service providers to track the online behavior of their customers and then serve up targeted banner ads based on that behavior.

[…]

“This is analogous to AT&T listening to your phone calls all day in order to figure out what to sell you in the middle of dinner,” said Robert Topolski, a technology consultant to Public Knowledge and Free Press, two other public interest groups that have raised concerns about NebuAd.

[…]

Besides NebuAd, Wednesday’s hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee may also examine Facebook’s “Beacon” monitoring tool, which tracked online purchases made by Facebook members and sent alerts to their friends on the site.

For the record: Congressional hearings don’t rank highly with me either. 🙂

Anyway, I’ll say it again: Trusting the Web to maintain privacy requires the willing suspension of disbelief.

OK, on to Story Number Two:

Internet flaw could let hackers take over the Web

Computer industry heavyweights are hustling to fix a flaw in the foundation of the Internet that would let hackers control traffic on the World Wide Web.

Major software and hardware makers worked in secret for months to create a software “patch” released on Tuesday to repair the problem, which is in the way computers are routed to web page addresses.

“It’s a very fundamental issue with how the entire addressing scheme of the Internet works,” Securosis analyst Rich Mogul said in a media conference call.

“You’d have the Internet, but it wouldn’t be the Internet you expect. (Hackers) would control everything.”

The flaw would be a boon for “phishing” cons that involve leading people to imitation web pages of businesses such as bank or credit card companies to trick them into disclosing account numbers, passwords and other information.

Attackers could use the vulnerability to route Internet users wherever they wanted no matter what website address is typed into a web browser.

[…]

On Tuesday the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT), a joint government-private sector security partnership, issued a warning to underscore the serious of so-called DNS “cache poisoning attacks” the vulnerability could allow.

[…]

“Consequently, web traffic, email, and other important network data can be redirected to systems under the attacker’s control.”

[…]

Automated updating should protect most personal computers. Microsoft released the fix in a software update package Tuesday.

[…]

Hackers using the vulnerability to attack company computer networks would also be able to capture email and other business data.

And “they” want me to trust the Internet for data storage and data back-up?! Ha!

And “they” think I’m paranoid for warning even about plain ole email communications?! Hmph!

And “they” still think I’m a TechnoPetriefied Kook. Fine. Here’s Story Number Three:

Google ventures into virtual reality with ‘Lively’

…Google Inc. hopes to orchestrate more fantasizing on the Web.

[…]

Google thinks Lively will encourage even more people to dive into alternate realities….

The Lively application already works on Facebook, one of the Web’s hottest hangouts, and Google is working on a version suitable for an even larger online social network, News Corp.’s MySpace.

[…]

Lively’s users will be able to sculpt an avatar that can be male, female or even a different species. An avatar can assume a new identity, change clothes or convey emotions with a few clicks of the mouse.

The service also enables users to create different digital dimensions to roam, from a coffeehouse to an exotic island. The settings can be decorated with a wide variety of furniture, including large-screen televisions that can be set up to play different clips from YouTube.com, Google’s video-sharing service.

Lively users can then invite their friends and family into their virtual realities, where they can chat, hug, cry, laugh and interact as if they were characters in a video game.

As a precaution, Google is requiring Lively’s users to be at least 13 years old — a constraint that hasn’t been enough to prevent young children from running into trouble on other social spots on the Web.

“As a precaution…” — oh, please!

Anyway, Lively is further good news for those wishing to exploit and expand the depravity of man. Stay away from it!

OK, now you may virtually stick your virtual head back in the virtual sand.

Push a Christian

Over at WorldMagBlog, Andrée Seu has done it again. Here are some pieces to entice you to click the link:

Beyond “mere men”

Is there anything about you that, if people only knew, they would not judge you so harshly?

A little benefit of the doubt please.

We all want to be understood and accepted. But most of us have learned not to expect much from one another in the way of understanding and patience. How sad. We have learned that people are pretty much the same — Christian or non-Christian: they’re nice when you’re nice or when you appeal to them, and not nice when you sin or you look like a loser. Push a Christian more than an inch and he will react pretty much like a pagan.

But God has called us to be extraordinary. Paul chided the Corinthians for behaving like “mere men” (1 Corinthians 3:3). The place where God is glorified is the distance our love pushes through beyond where the world stops loving. Let us beseech the Lord for unkillable love. Let the world “[take] note that these men have been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).

Ouch!

Anabaptists During the Revolution

Ironically, once the fight for liberty started, the freedom of nonresistant Christians became sharply limited.

Anabaptists During the American Revolution

The Liberties of Nonresistant Christians. Some Americans supported neither side in the Revolution. Instead, as Mennonite and German Baptist leaders said in 1775, “We have dedicated ourselves to serve all men in everything that can be helpful to the preservation of men’s lives, but…we are not at liberty in conscience to take up arms to conquer our enemies, but rather to pray to God, who has power in heaven and on earth, for us and them.” Chief among these nonresistant Christians were the Quakers, Mennonites, German Baptists, Moravians, and Schwenkfelders.

Most nonresistant Christians were quite content with their lot as British subjects. As three Mennonite bishops in Pennsylvania wrote in 1773, “Through God’s mercy we enjoy unlimited freedom in both civil and religious matters.” Ironically, once the fight for liberty started, the freedom of nonresistant Christians became sharply limited.

Militia Duty. The first issue that peace-promoting Christians faced was militia duty. After Lexington and Concord, patriot committees called all able-bodied men to join a voluntary association “to learn the art of war.” The associators noticed that the nonresistant Christians did not join in the drills. They demanded laws requiring everybody to serve.

In November 1775, Mennonite and German Baptist ministers sent A Short and Sincere Declaration to the Pennsylvania assembly. They suggested an alternative to militia duty. They would donate money to help poor families left destitute because their men were off fighting. Instead Pennsylvania passed a law levying a special war tax on all non-associators. Later it said nonresistant Christians could hire substitutes or pay a fine. Most nonresistant Christians refused to do either, because as the Short and Sincere Declaration stated, they found “no freedom in giving, or doing, or assisting in anything by which men’s lives are destroyed or hurt.” Therefore, Patriot officials confiscated their property to pay the tax and fines.

Who is Caesar?

Independence created another problem for the nonresistant Christians. Was King George III or was the Continental Congress the Caesar they were to obey? Many of them had promised obedience to the king when they came to America. Breaking their word was seen as a serious sin. Also, the king had protected their liberties. Now the patriots were taking them away.

In the end the nonresistant Christians put their trust in the words of the prophet Daniel in the Bible, “He removeth kings and setteth up kings” (Daniel 2:21). They patiently waited for the outcome of the war to find out who God would set up as Caesar. In the meantime they followed a pattern of strict neutrality. They refused to help either side to fight.

However, when hungry, sick, or wounded soldiers, whether patriot or redcoat, needed aid, the nonresistant Christians gave it. As a Hessian officer said, “They are the most hospitable to us.” The patriots did not understand this impartial love. They threatened men like Mennonite Christian Weaver with a whipping for feeding runaway British prisoners even though he had done the same for Continental soldiers.

Source: US Anabaptists during the Revolutionary War (excerpts from the fifth grade social studies course produced by Christian Light Publications)