Lift Up Your Hearts!

This day in 1918 marked the end of the War to End All Wars.  Less than a handful of veterans of that war remain to be honored.  But where there are people, there will be wars; where there are wars, there will be veterans; and where there are veterans, they deserve honor and respect.  In any conflict there will be some, to be sure, who serve dishonorably, for their own gain, with evil intent, or with twisted logic, as recent events attest.  The hanging scene in Shakespeare's Henry V is intense, and shocking to our modern sensibilities, but makes the point that in a civilized society wrongdoing in members of the armed forces is even more offensive than civilian crimes.

Horrendous exceptions to the contrary, soldiers and sailors, be they enemy or ally, are standing "between their loved home and the war's desolation."  As J. R. R. Tolkien reminds us in The Return of the King:  "It must often be so ... when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them."

Thank you, veterans and current members of our Armed Forces.

Where were you 20 years ago today?

My own journal entry is remarkably filled with the mundane details of life with two young children.  There is one exclamatory sentence, "Would that every day could be like this!" but it was referring to Heather's having awakened with her alarm clock, showered, dressed, made her bed, cleaned her room and finished all her chores before school.  Not as momentous as events on the other side of the world, but a personal triumph. (More)

What do hippies and Christians have in common?  A lot more than you might think.

The stereotypes:  Hippies are free-lovin', goddess-worshipping ultra-liberals who rebel against society's norms and customs; Christians are moralistic, hyper-conservative corporate capitalists; and never the twain shall break bread together.

Quite the contrary.  Christians and hippie types alike tend to look at society's conventions with a skeptical eye. (More)

Today's Stone Soup says it all.  Far from being boring, the people I know who are not active on Facebook are choosing instead to live their First Lives.  :)

More from the backblog . . .

The Strange Double Standards of Abortion  John Stackhouse muses on the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller, vigilantism, and hypocrisy. (More)

Despite my efforts, my backblog appears to be growing faster than I can deal with it.  Here's a quick look at several interesting health-related issues that have come my way recently.  (Where "recently" is defined as "sometime within the last year or two"; that's how old some of my backblog is.)

Acknowledging Preindustrial Patterns of Sleep May Revolutionize Approach to Sleep Dysfunction  Do you worry when you awaken in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep?  Your body may be rebelling against unnatural sleep patterns imposed by artificial lighting and our frantic schedules. (More)

Recently I enjoyed the position of Grandma-in-charge for Jonathan and Noah while the rest of the family spent the day in Pittsburgh.   It was loads of fun, but by the end of the day I could identify with Zoe in the Baby Blues comic below.

Jonathan discovered language early, and has been exceedingly verbal ever since.  He also shares with his Aunt Janet a vivid imagination and an endless capacity for story-telling.  Unlike his aunt, however, his stories have a decidedly Y-chromosome twist.  (More)

This actually seemed like a good idea at the grocery store.

V-Fusion, by the same folks who brought you, "I could have had a V-8."  (More)

Funny how things click together in this world.

I would never have heard of the award-winning Swiss movie, Vitus, had it not happened to be featured in an article in the Hartford Courant when our daughter's Swiss in-laws happened to be in Connecticut, and happened to look through the newspaper.  (Why, O why does English not have a word for the "our child's in-laws" relationship?  I have need of it often enough.)  Knowing my interest in Swiss German, her father-in-law cut out the article and sent it to me.  (I am going to have to invent my own term, I can see.)

That was months ago, and only recently did I have the sense to see if trusty Netflix could provide the movie.  Much to my surprise, they could!  We watched it this afternoon.  Our intention had been to watch part during lunch and finish it during dinner, but we couldn't bring ourselves to turn it off.

I've deliberately not included any links to Vitus, because they contain spoilers that I certainly would not have liked to have known about before seeing the film.  But I do recommend it, as we thoroughly enjoyed it.  It's PG, with a few words I wouldn't want the grandkids to pick up, but that would require reading the subtitles.  I'd say they'd probably lose interest in a foreign-language film, but Swing Girls was a hit even though in Japanese.

Vitus combines some of my favorite themes:  brilliant children, music, and loving families.  Sure, I could complain about one or two things, but overall it was a delightful movie.  Actually, the main disappointment was the language, which was falsely billed as Swiss German.  I caught a few Swiss German words (and felt for the student being told by his teacher to speak High German only), but mostly I'd say I understood far too much of the German for it to have been anything other than High German throughout most of the film.  I'd be interested in the verdict of those who know better, however.  The characters freely mix English words and phrases in their speech, so maybe they are equally freely mixing the two Germans, and I'm only catching the few High German words and the much fewer Swiss German phrases I know.  Or Swiss German words similar enough to High German that they sound familiar to my ear.

One question I had from the beginning was how they managed to get the actors to look so much as if they were really playing the piano—it looked far too good to be fakes.  Here's the answer:  Teo Gheorghiu, who plays the older Vitus.

How do we know this is really a Swiss film?  The characters carry their cut flowers upside down!

Studies showing that teachers will form expectations of a student's character and ability based on nothing more than his or her name are unfortunately nothing new.  Students with "traditional," common names are more likely to receive higher ratings on both academic performance and behavior than those with names perceived as odd.  What makes this article worth commenting on is not the results of the study, but the names themselves.

The study reveals that . . . traditional names such as Charlotte, Sophie, Marie, Hannah, Alexander, Maximilian, Simon, Lukas and Jakob are consistently linked to strong performance and good behaviour. Non-traditional names such as Chantal, Mandy, Angelina, Kevin, Justin and Maurice, on the other hand, are associated with weak performance and bad behaviour.

 (More)

When we first moved to Central Florida in the mid-1980s, the region was setting record lows.  Freezes, and the subsequent descent of developer-vultures, killed off most of the local citrus industry.  No one who was not here during those times can believe we had fired up the furnace by the end of September—we, who were fresh from the north country and happy to keep our home cooler than was comfortable for our neighbors.

I won't be tempted to cite our current heat wave as evidence of global warming, because I understand Central Florida experienced a similarly miserable October back in 1961, but our experiences here certainly attest to the variability of climate.  It's hot.  And humid.  And miserable.  (More)

My recent visit with our grandchildren reminded me of why I don't like video/computer games. I don't mean I don't like to play them; I know all too well how addicted I can get if I allow myself to get started.

It began, of course, with television.  When the technological wonder entered my home when I was seven, I was already familiar with its delights, thanks to the generosity of our neighbors.  We matured together, television and I, and with such a sibling it's no wonder we bonded strongly as the years passed.  It was not a healthy bond, and I'm thankful that I went to college before televisions were ubiquitous in the dormitories, because those four years of abstention were the beginning of my liberation.  It would be many years and much struggle before I could declare myself free, but never again would the glowing opium box control my life. (More)

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, physician Scott Gottlieb blames governmental overcaution for the shortage of H1N1 flu vaccine.  Unlike Europe, the U.S. (1) does not allow additives to the vaccine that stimulate the immune system and make a smaller dosage effective; (2) requires single-dose syringes, which require less of the mercury-containing preservative thimerosol than do multi-dose vials; and (3) continues to use the slower, egg-based manufacturing system rather than a new procedure using mammalian cells.

President Obama, the doctor believes, should be pushing us forward, dropping the precautions put in place to protect us.  Perhaps the doctor has forgotten 1976, when President Ford's swine flu vaccination program resulted in an unacceptable level of fatal or debilitating side effects.  Perhaps he has also forgotten the thalidomide tragedy, in which our cautious Food and Drug Administration's refusal to approve the new drug largely spared our children the horrible birth defects that afflicted the Europeans.

My hat's off the the president on this one.  Or it would be, if I were wearing one, which I hardly ever am.

School at the Daley household could hardly have been called normal, since Grandma was there as a distraction and Mommy was sick for the first part of my visit.  Nonetheless, I enjoyed my glimpse into the official, sit-at-the-table side of their 24/7 educational process.

Jonathan is not at the moment as excited about math as he is about reading—unlike his Aunt Janet at that age, for whom reading was all right but math was a bowl full of candy.  He's doing well, though, with basic addition and subtraction (and even some simple multiplication and division), and enjoys the "math paths" that Grandma sends him in the mail, problems like this one:

Both boys also like using their Cuisenaire rods, base-10 blocks, and bucket balance.  The Cuisenaire rods are from our own homeschooling days.  We also had a set of base-10 blocks that I had made out of cardboard.  They disappeared somehow, probably in one of our moves, and trust me, buying a commercial set is well worth the $16 investment.  I can't get over the resources available to homeschoolers these days!

The fun is the same, though.  There are few thrills more sublime than observing the "ah ha!" moment in your child's (or grandchild's) eyes.

The Advent Conspiracy has nothing to do with my favorite computer adventure game.

Advent, celebrated during the four weeks before Christmas, is a season of the liturgical church year, a time of repentance and reflection in preparation for the coming of Christ, both as God who became man in a particular time and place (Christmas), and as God who will return to judge the world at its ending (the Second Coming).

That's the theory anyway.  In practice, it's a hard season to observe in a culture where Christmas events start before Hallowe'en* and the celebrations—instead of extending from Christmas Eve until Epiphany on January 6^th—end abruptly about noon on December 25^th.  Between Hallowe'en hype and Christmas hype, Advent—like Thanksgiving—gets lost.

Someone told me last year about the Advent Conspiracy, and I hope whoever it was will forgive me for not remembering.  I've searched all my e-mails and family blogs and come up empty.  This year, however, it was my sister-in-law who brought it up; her family is spearheading their church's incarnation of the idea.

I have a natural suspicion of "movements" and bandwagons, but so far I've seen nothing wrong, and much good, about this one.  It's a simple formula for making Christmas more delightful:

Worship Fully  It starts with Jesus. It ends with Jesus. This is the holistic approach God had in mind for Christmas. It’s a season where we are called to put down our burdens and lift a song up to our God. It’s a season where love wins, peace reigns, and a king is celebrated with each breath.  It's the party of the year.

Spend Less  We like gifts. Our kids really like gifts. But consider this: America spends an average of $450 billion a year every Christmas. How often have you spent money on Christmas presents for no other reason than obligation? How many times have you received a gift out of that same obligation?....We’re asking people to consider buying ONE LESS GIFT this Christmas. Just one.  Sounds insignificant, yet many who have taken this small sacrifice have experienced something nothing less than a miracle: They have been more available to celebrate Christ during the [A]dvent season.

Give More  God’s gift to us was a relationship built on love. So it’s no wonder why we’re drawn to the idea that Christmas should be a time to love our friends and family in the most memorable ways possible. Time is the real gift Christmas offers us, and no matter how hard we look, it can’t be found at the mall. Time to make a gift that turns into the next family heirloom. Time to write mom a letter. Time to take the kids sledding. Time to bake really good cookies and sing really bad Christmas carols [or really good Christmas carols]. Time to make love visible through relational giving.

Love All  When Jesus loved, He loved in ways never imagined. Though rich, he became poor to love the poor, the forgotten, the overlooked and the sick. He played to the margins. By spending less at Christmas we have the opportunity to join Him in giving resources to those who need help the most. When Advent Conspiracy first began four churches challenged this simple concept to its congregations. The result raised more than a half million dollars to aid those in need. One less gift. One unbelievable present in the name of Christ. 

Advent Conspiracy accepts no money and encourages participants to share a variety of ideas on how to give presence this Christmas.  But they also have a particular concern for the millions of people who suffer and die for lack of clean water, and for three years have supported the work of Living Water International.

The solution to this problem is directly beneath our feet. Drilling a fresh water well is a relatively inexpensive, yet permanent solution to this epidemic. $10 will give a child clean water for life. That's not an estimate. It's a fact. And here's another fact: Solving this water problem once and for all will cost about $10 billion. Not bad considering Americans spent $450 billion on Christmas last year. Our hope is that, by celebrating Christ in a new way at Christmas, the church can serve as the leading movement behind ending the water crisis once and for all.

LWI earns a four-star (highest) rating from Charity Navigator.  So does World Vision, one of my favorite charitable organizations, which has a Gift Catalog filled with ways to help, from water wells to farm animals to (one of my favorites) microfinance loans.

Your church doesn't participate in Advent Conspiracy?  You don't have a church?  Not to worry!  Participation in this conspiracy is open to all.