Sun Spotted

I updated the side bar to a add new zine started by a college friend. Congrats on all you're accomplishing, Joffre!

Also this web site is a must visit. Amusing and Thought Provoking.
http://3trillion.org

Paul writes in Philippians from jail that the church of Philippi should make his joy complete (because Paul is crazy about Jesus he has joy even in jail!), “by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in the same spirit, intent on one purpose.” And this is a good word for the church today. And by church I DO NOT MEAN American Baptists or American Evangelicals or American Fundamentalists. By church I mean Christ Followers. I mean Chinese Christ Followers and Russian Christ Followers and Mexican Christ Followers even those who may be “illegally” living in America. We may speak different languages, eat different foods, or sing different songs. We may even come down on different sides of the free-will vs. pre-destination theological argument but we all believe that abundant life here and after here comes through a resurrected Christ. Amen?

When I go global like that it makes sense to come up with a pretty broad bottom line. So why in America do we expect Christians to all fit within one tight definition of Christianity and refuse to vote for or serve with Christians who are (gasp) more liberal or (gasp) more conservative? The church I attended in NC was willing to do ministry with fellow Christ-followers intent on one purpose regardless of denomination. This Baptist church partnered/partners with an Episcopalian Ministry for all its mission trips in Mexico. Awesome. BUT other local churches didn’t want to partner with us, didn’t want to have their youth group kids hanging out with our youth group kids because we did stuff like this. We were too “liberal.” Suddenly the bottom line isn’t abundant life through following Christ; suddenly the bottom line is something bizarre and political.

When Dobson’s camp speaks out against Obama’s camp (and in turn the Call to Renewal camp) we are very clearly not “intent on one purpose.” If you really, truly think someone is off theologically then by all means go to him, discuss your concerns, but do it over dinner. Break bread together while watching your kids running around together – I think it will put the weight of your religious disagreement in better perspective. Don’t issue a press release. Blech. It just makes Christians look so angry, proud, and pompous.

Speaking of that… Now I’m irritated at Mark Driscoll. Because of this YouTube video I saw posted on someone else’s blog. Kevin and I like Driscoll... sometimes. We know that he’s more conservative than us and he’s seems to fall somewhere on the Calvinist side of things, and we don’t, but his church comes up with some really funny t-shirts (seriously) and we’ve downloaded some of his sermon series to listen to on road trips because he’s got some wise things to say. (We like Matt Chandler out of Dallas much better though.) And even in this video I think he makes some good points but it’s HOW he does it that gets to me.

Driscoll is against the current hit novel, The Shack. And he starts off by asking the audience if they’ve read it. He then says, “If you haven’t, don’t” Right there, I’m irritated. The artist in me just can’t handle censorship. I understand that you’re a religious leader placed in authority, Mark, but let’s use scriptures to speak to modern concerns and let the spirit move in your congregation to bring conviction where it needs to bring conviction.

He then says, “This book is about the Trinity.” And I was startled. And then I thought, yes, I guess so – but I wouldn’t have called that the focus of this book. In my opinion, the primary theme of this book is forgiving those who are hardest to forgive (in the case of this character that meant forgiving his daughter’s rapist and killer and his abusive father). The secondary theme is about how the development of deep relationships is crucial to practicing Christianity as seen in God’s own relationship with Himself through The Trinity. But honestly I never considered this book to be a how-to for understanding The Trinity. But Driscoll does. And he has four points to make on why that’s bad to the point of heresy. His first two I don’t agree with (another post, another day?) and his second two seem valid, but again because I don’t think this is the central theme of the novel, it’s not quite as important as he’s making it all out to seem. In one case he has a single line from the entire book that to him represents this bad theology. One line. A line that maybe just needed a better edit, a tighter re-write, it might not represent the theology of the writer at all. Because my own problem with the book is that it doesn't seem to be written by the most controlled and capable pen. So I'm more inclined than Mark to question what the author meant exactly before branding him a heretic. But that's just me. (To be fair to Driscoll the clip I watched isn't the whole sermon so maybe he ended up having more than one line for this point. I don't know for sure.)

The clip ends with Mark Driscoll saying, “Who Is God? Might I submit to you that’s the biggest question there is?” EXACTLY! And that’s why the The Shack is selling so well. This is why The Shack is being so promoted by so many Christians (I can’t personally promote it because I am a terrible literary snob.) So instead of banning a book why not tell your congregation something along the lines of: There’s a new book out there and it’s exciting because it broadens our perspective of God. It forces us to reevaluate the question, who is God? Who is He in my life? Is He big enough to heal my deepest pain? Is He big enough to bring me to forgiveness? Is He good in spite of the event that caused my deepest pain? (And on and on…) But this book also has much to say about The Trinity and on this level the theology is off. etc. etc.

To me this would be a good way to address a cultural issue that in his opinion (and hopefully out of his prayer life) needed addressing without insulting the intelligence of the audience or stepping into an arrogant zone within his position as a religious leader.

I still consider this my follow up to my Obama/Dobson post. How? Why? Because Dobson’s remarks a week or so back are part of the ugliness that exists within the Church of Texas, the Church of North Carolina, the Church of… And this could come out more and more between now and November. And this Driscoll clip is an example of a religious leader stepping into an arrogant zone even if what he’s saying is right. I just want the Dobsons and the Driscolls to stay out of the arrogant zone.

Because when our religious leaders seem to be in this place because of what they release to the press or preach to their congregations and post on YouTube, it doesn’t seem like we're intent on the purpose of Christ. His gospel preached. His love proclaimed. His hungry fed. His naked clothed. It seems instead like we’re just interested in shouting very loudly the mission of a ministry (that may or may not have anything to do with Jesus).

We don't need a new letter from Paul. We need to sit down at the table, read the old stories, break bread, invite those who can't afford bread to come, break more bread, talk about the books we're reading, talk about who we may or may not vote for, disagree, pour the sweet tea or the wine or the coffee... The media won't get their story. They won't get the next Falwell, but the Christians of America will be closer to fulfilling Paul's vision and Christ's purpose.

I'm most annoyed at my "news" provider.

It's as though they need to find someone and turn him into the next Jerry Falwell. I've never had anything against Dobson. I've never read anything by him and I don't know much about his ministry because the title of it alone, Focus on the Family, gives me pause. I know many, many Christians who are excellent at being insular in this way and selfish with their resources because they focus too much on their own family. In our family we work very hard to expand our definition of family. So no, I've had no interest in Dobson or his ministry. Not even Bringing Up Boys (I think that's the title) which I've had recommended to me 9,000 times.

But now because of my "news" provider I don't like Dobson. I think he's a self-righteous, pompous, and in my privacy of my own living room I added a cuss word to that line when I relayed this "news" story to my husband. What I read that Obama said was actually refreshing and very much in line with my own theology. It's also in line with what I'm reading. Last night while reading Jesus for President I enjoyed the quoted pages from Gary Wills' book What Jesus Meant a farcical letter written by someone who takes everything in the old testament literally, "I know from Leviticus 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?"

What annoys me most is that my "news" provider published an ok article but under a sensational headline with a menacing picture of poor Dobson. Well, other aspects of the article annoyed me as well: they refer to the Christian group Call to Renewal as liberal. Why? These days, this is just divisive language. The group themselves uses the much happier term "progressive" to define themselves, why not use this description? And where is the quote from someone within this group, another representative from the Christian camp as varied as we are, backing Obama's speech? It's as though the secular news doesn't know what to do with that wacky other type of Christian, they're too busy trying to create the next Jerry - it makes for better headlines.

Personally I think Obama's line about the Sermon on the Mount, "a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our Defense Department would survive its application," is much more exciting than what Tom Minnery, the Focus on the Family's senior vice president for government and public policy had to say: "Evangelicals are people who take Bible interpretation very seriously, and the sort of speech he (Obama) gave shows that he is worlds away in the views of evangelicals." To me, one is actually talking about the Bible and the depth and breadth of its power to shame what we complacently accept. The other is just digging his heals in his defense of some book I know nothing about.

I guess I too am worlds away from evangelicals, but since we're supposed to be part of the same family, I find that depressing.

It just gets worse between now and November.

I'll end with the opening of Jesus for President:

We in the church are schizophrenic: we want to be good Christians, but deep down we trust that only the power of the state and its militaries and markets can really make a difference in the world. And so we're hardly able to distinguish between what's American and what's Christian. As a result, power corrupts the church and its goals and practices. When Jesus said you cannot serve two masters," he meant that in serving one, you destroy your relationship with the other.

Ever since I bombed the PSAT in high school I’ve had a love/hate relationship with the subject of “IQ.” That experience gave me both a fascination with everyone who aced such tests—including many in my own family—and a depression over the fact that I was not among them.

It was a big, horrifying surprise for me—that I was not “smart” after all. I always got high grades. Teachers pointed to me as a model student, and asked me to answer questions they knew no one else knew. And other students seemed to see me as smart. In geometry class I was awarded the knick-name “smart man.” I wore it with pride and confidence; I thought it was deserved.

But then I sat in the counselor’s office to get my test results. It was like a doctor’s visit where he says you have cancer, and it’s bad. My counselor showed me my scores and told me there were various things I could do to improve them. The mood was somber. Her countenance seemed to say, “We thought you were smart. We had hopes for you. But now we know it’s not true, so we’ll have to focus on other students from now on. Thanks for playing.”

For many years after that experience I basically trusted the implications of my scores. Sure, I could study really hard and probably improve them a little. But never a lot—aptitude or IQ is something you either have or you don’t. How harsh a reality it is then that this unchangeable attribute would govern my future! Low scores were an academic death sentence.

But somehow this didn’t keep me from working my hardest in school and going for the highest academic achievements in college. Perhaps my high school testing experience accelerated my academic ambitions—to somehow prove the test wrong, or at least make up for my areas of intellectual weakness.

My fascination with IQ drew me to read a certain magazine column religiously: “Ask Marilyn.” The author, Marilyn vos Savant, has an IQ of 228—the Guiness World Record. In her column she answers various questions written to her by everyday people.

Somewhat ironically, Marilyn’s column became instrumental in helping me to think differently about IQ. Someone asked her once what her worst subject in school was. She replied, “Art. I completely under-whelmed everyone around me.”

Hmm. The person with the highest IQ in the world sucks at art. And I was trying to be an artist. I was attending a college of architecture, and had been increasingly surprised and delighted at how I so often excelled even beyond people I knew to have SAT scores far higher than mine. People were still calling me “smart.” I seemed to have special instincts for visual composition. Students and professors alike enjoyed just looking at my drawings. My pastel drawing of a purple cloth “indelibly glows,” according to one professor, and the color mix I used reminded another of Beethoven’s Ninth. (I still don’t know what that was about.) And I had insights about various philosophies of art and architecture that I wrote about in papers for seminars. One professor spoke to me in his office about my writing, saying that while most students are confused by these topics, “You just got it.” Another professor called them “overwhelming.”

How can this be? How can I excel in an academic discipline with my shabby IQ? After all, the SAT is supposed to be the measure of how well you will do in college—nay, in life. The universities seem to agree.

In another “Ask Marilyn” column the topic of different types of thinking came up. Marilyn said that it’s better to be able to think deeply rather than just quickly. Well, thinking quickly is what IQ-type tests are all about. You have a very short amount of time to solve a very large number of questions. And the questions don’t ask you to think deeply; there is no time to think deeply. So you have to answer a string of brainteaser-type questions in a tiny amount of time. Then it occurred to me: I don’t think quickly. I think deeply. And thinking deeply takes time. And time is precisely what IQ tests disallow.

What then is the practical benefit of a high IQ? What field of work do you go into if you can solve brainteasers in a remarkably short amount of time? The only one that comes to mind is the emergency medical profession. If you’re a paramedic or an emergency room doctor, you’d better be able to calculate in eight seconds the precise amount and mix of medicines to give this snake-bite victim, or she will die. Okay, so I want people with high-IQs in our ambulances and ERs.

But it seems that most other professions grant their workers sufficient time to mull over a problem. Even the sciences. Albert Einstein is usually considered to have had an extremely high IQ (though as far as I know he never took a test). But why? He had all the time he wanted to meditate on the mysteries of the universe. There seems to be no indication that he could think especially quickly. Besides, his achievements are not evaluated by how long he took to complete them. E=mc2 is an ingenious equation whether it was derived in 20 seconds or 20 years.

And as an architect I have days, weeks, months, even years sometimes to reflect on a design problem before drawing a solution. My best insights about design come to me in the oddest places—on the soccer field, at the laundry, in the bathroom. If IQ tests allowed bathroom breaks, I could score much higher.

Actually, I have scored much higher than usual on practice tests when I gave myself more time than was allowed. So, does that mean I’m smarter when I have more time? Not according to the test—only what can be completed within the time constraint counts. But shouldn’t the point be whether or not you can answer the questions—period? How did the ingredient of time become so crucial to measuring intelligence?

And it’s not like the questions on IQ tests are what most people would consider inspiring, or even interesting. I don’t really care how many muffins Sally had three years ago when her brother Dick preferred scones. And neither would Einstein. But you won’t find questions about the relationship between mass and the speed of light on the SAT, because that takes too much time, even for the quickest minds among us. But alas, it’s precisely the questions that are not fit for IQ tests that are truly meaningful.

Someone asked Marilyn if she had a higher IQ than Einstein. She replied, “Does it matter?”

I understand that IQ tests are about measuring raw intellectual ability. They are not meant to show what practical skills or talents a person has, or what profession they would be best suited for. But then what’s the point of them? High schools and colleges have given them so much weight that I was under the impression they had everything to do with success in life in general. Your scores basically determine what kind of school you can go to, what kind of job you can get—regardless of whether you want to be a singer or a doctor.

Isn’t the IQ test just another case of humankind inventing rules to evaluate itself and then awarding those who excel at them and condemning those who don’t? It’s a lot like sports: “If you can do these activities we made up in the time we give you, then you can be on our team.”

I haven’t read the book criticizing the IQ testing industry by Steven Jay Gould, but the title says it all: “The Mismeasure of Man.” The test privileges quick thinkers and penalizes deep thinkers. It awards people who can suffer through a hundred pointless problems and ignores those who prefer to daydream about really big issues facing real people in the real world.

And in particular it is biased against artists—precisely because it says nothing about them. Say I have just taken an IQ test. Now tell me, will I sing like Pavarotti? Will I draw like Da Vinci? Will I compose like Bach? Will I design like Wright? You have no idea. You may only be able to say whether I should work in the ER. Ignoring something is the harshest form of criticism. Simply not speaking about an issue conveys to impressionable minds that it simply doesn’t matter. The IQ test is a slap in the face of art.

How ironic then that the word “genius” was originally used for people who accomplished great creative feats—whether in painting, music, philosophy or physics. The usage of the term predates the concept of IQ by centuries. But after IQ became a common measure, one of the definitions of “genius” in our dictionaries became anyone with an IQ over 140. So, now you can be a genius either by composing music that reflects the beauty of God and stuns the ages—or by answering a bunch of brainteasers in 30 seconds.

Now I view people with high IQs in much the same way as I view tight-rope walkers: Wow, that’s cool. Not many people can do that. You’re special. So… what are you doing for the world?

I did very well as an undergraduate architecture student. I wanted to go to graduate school. My professors encouraged me to aim high, really high—namely, Yale. I took the GRE. I did better than I did on the SAT, but still not close to the average at Yale. But—and this is something that gives me much hope for our institutions of higher learning—test scores were only one of 10 items I had to submit to apply. I submitted my best designs and papers and recommendations from professors. I was accepted. I excelled. And I graduated.

Now I work on real problems, such as housing for the poor. I think about solutions day and night. I take breaks to play ping-pong. Then I sit down and sketch for three hours and get nowhere. I go to a coffee shop to chat with friends and somehow end up with an idea for a house. I research similar ideas online and in magazines. Then I go to the bathroom and come out with a vision for natural lighting. I sit down and crunch numbers and get nowhere. Then I go grocery shopping and return with a financial plan to develop a community.

Inspiration is spotty, and does not care about place or time. It does not respect arbitrary deadlines; in fact, it seems to hate them. I have chosen to work on big, disturbing problems that cannot be solved in five minutes. They must be lived with. And—in time—I am inspired with big, glorious solutions.

Christianity Today just posted an article here, entitled, "Willow Creek's 'Huge Shift': Influential megachurch moves away from seeker-sensitive services."

A highlight: "After modeling a seeker-sensitive approach to church growth for three decades, Willow Creek Community Church now plans to gear its weekend services toward mature believers seeking to grow in their faith."

Sounds like an odd change for a church to make, does it not? So the Apostles had it right 2000 years ago?

Another highlight: "the analysis in Reveal, which surveyed congregants at Willow Creek and six other churches, suggested that evangelistic impact was greater from those who self-reported as "close to Christ" or "Christ-centered" than from new church attendees. In addition, a quarter of the "close to Christ" and "Christcentered" crowd described themselves as spiritually "stalled" or "dissatisfied" with the role of the church in their spiritual growth. Even more alarming to Willow Creek: About a quarter of the "stalled" segment and 63 percent of the "dissatisfied" segment contemplated leaving the church."

Perhaps Willow has finally realized that if you design your church service to cater to non-Christians, the Christians in attendance are not fed. It's a bit discouraging that Willow ignored 2000 years of church history demonstrating that the mission field is outside of the Sunday morning gathering - but listened to a survey. Oh well, whatever works.

I’ve been down on myself and I’m not going into why because I’m working really hard to take every thought captive so there’s no use dwelling on the springboard to this particular Bout of Insecurity.

But, insecure I’ve been, doubting my abilities as a teacher, doubting myself as… intelligent. And when, one evening earlier this week, I curled up to my husband in bed and tearfully said, “I need more affirmation,” and he said something about dinner being really good, I most certainly did not feel better. In fact, I felt worse. And I said to him through my sniffling, “That makes me want to shoot myself in the head.”

No, I’m not on suicide watch. But sometimes domestic accomplishments just don’t feel like accomplishments. They just don’t. Every mom is doing it and posting the recipe or craft how-to on her Mommy Blog. I know. I have one of those too.

It’s especially bad timing because before this blow came to my professional life I was already working on my domestic life through prayer. Essentially I’ve been praying that I’ll find more joy, true fruit of the spirit joy, in my domestic life. Because as it is, I tend to get caught up in the tasks of it, or focus on the irritations, (Kiddo! How many times do I have to TELL. YOU. THAT!) and I fear I miss the humor and the joy. In fact that's one of the main reasons for the Mommy Blog these days - to celebrate all the little things and find the humor in my life worth reporting.

To get a blow to the non-mommy part of me, the reader, thinker, teacher part of me, well, bad timing. Because without these components where is Faydra? Without this stuff, being K and B’s mom is the entirety of my identity. I’m ok with that coming from the point of view of my kids’ friends, but for this to be the sum total across the board? I so did not sign up for that.

But two things occurred today that are pushing me through this particular Bout:

1. This morning while walking the dog I decided that if all I ever accomplish in this life is adopting K, saving him from that orphanage, and restoring his health. If I never publish a novel, if I never become an esteemed professor, if I never get paid again for an article or story. If I end up not even being a very good mother because I just don’t ever get a handle on this whole patience thing, if I start burning all my dinners, if I stop the mommy blog and the annual scrapbooks… Even so. Plucking K from Volograd and a world of nothing but porridge and doctors who did not understand his breathing problems and putting him in a world with amazing food and doctors who fixed his breathing problems – if this is my life’s only accomplishment, if this is why God made Faydra. Good enough. Worth it. Getting to parent K now? Icing. Love from K in return? Icing. All that we get to do now with and for Blue, our current foster son. Icing. If we get to adopt Blue in the future? Then clearly God will have put me just below Angelina Jolie in the ultra-cool, ultra-special, plucked out for greatness category of people.

2. I’m in training for one of my summer teaching jobs and today in a phone conference I got every allusion. I got every reference. The trainer told a story about once being assigned to read The Invisible Man by Wells but instead reading Invisible Man by Ellison and I got the craziness of that mistake. I marveled at her example and totally understood why she was too young for Invisible Man by Ellison. Because I know about novels. Now of course there are a gazillion books I haven’t read and know nothing about, but today in a phone conversation with all readers I got it all. And that’s what I needed.

Before today, I’ve been dwelling on the words, “Marvelous are Your works. So who am I to criticize?” Seriously. I’ve repeated this phrase in my brain like a mantra. And this has helped, but I am also grateful for my dog-walking thoughts/prayer time and a confidence-boosting experience.

Mother’s Day is here. (When will I start going to bed at a decent hour?!) I've got much to celebrate.

So far my Earth Day is off to a bad start. I figured the best way to observe Earth Day would be to NOT drive to Tyler this morning. I prayed and prayed that my foster son's visit with bio mom would get canceled. Seriously. In honor of earth day I prayed for this. I said, God, it would be so nice to get a call Monday evening saying bio mom's got a cold or can't get a ride or some other non emergency that would still cancel the visit and then Blue and I could have saved gasoline and spent the morning at story hour at the library.

No such cancellation. We drove 40 miles there, found out that bio mom was a no show, and drove 40 miles home. Um, hello, God, it's me Faydra not understanding the point of that one.

In better environmental news... we are holding strong and NOT turning our AC on and are still relying on fans and open windows. So far so good. Can't wait for our next set of gas/electric bills since it's been just over a month and we haven't run heat or air. Not sure we'll make it through this month as the forecast is calling for things to be in the 80's and climbing here on out but I'll try to stay strong in the car at least through the end of this month.

I'm trying to think of other ways we can cut back... and honestly for our household the answer is to keep doing what we're doing and do it even a little more.

I read this article and short of buying a hybrid and investing in green stuff (we have no money) - we do everything else. Yup, everything else. We've got a new model fridge and put in the electric thermostat. AND I encourage others to as well, not just through blog posts but by doing things like buying Siggs for friends' kids and explaining why (no more water bottle waste). We also preach our gospel of BUY LESS STUFF through our kids' bdays (no presents, we pick a charity) and for the last bday party my son went to we gifted a voucher for a day of fun where I'd pick up the friend take the boys to play and then to lunch and then bring him home. AND today I'm answering my phone: Happy Earth Day. I know, I'm hard core.

Ok - I did think of an area where we could be better. Sunday mornings my church has coolers of free water bottles out for the taking and about half the time I take one. If I would get up 5 minutes earlier I'd have time to make my tea and put in a travel mug (which is what I do 1/4th of the time, the other 1/4th of the time I go without.) And the other thing I can do is bring my own cup when I eat/drink at places like Chick Fil A and Starbucks.

Other ideas for the mostly green household (with a tight budget!) to be even greener?