Lift Up Your Hearts!

Modern American Christians know so little about worship, and I include myself as chief of sinners. I find it a difficult concept because we have few practical referents. Being in Japan has opened my eyes just a little to what we are missing.

Experiencing, albeit briefly, a culture where it is natural to show respect and give honor by bowing gives much more meaning to worship practices like kneeling, bowing, and genuflecting. If we Americans knew more about physical acts of respect in everyday life, we might know more about worship.

And if we lived with Mt. Fuji dominating the landscape, we might know more about awe and reverence. Seeing her suddenly appear, as the haze lifted, was an experience that made me understand a bit why she is seen as a goddess. Fujisan towers with indescribable splendor over the other, much closer, and otherwise quite impressive mountains that ring Janet's Kofu Valley. Seeing her first thing in the morning, from Janet's balcony window, makes my knees weak and causes involunatary exclamations of amazement. I feel like greeting her personally.

And yet we (I) claim to worship, not a spectacular mountain, but the Creator of that mountain, of all moutains, of all that is, was, and ever will be. How often is that evident in our church services, let alone our lives? Truly our understanding is minuscule and our faith paltry!

Chronological stories from our trip to Japan will have to wait until I have more time, but I'll try to fit in an occasionally tidbit here and there.

Many people have heard of the really fancy Japanese toilets, the ones with heated seats and more buttons than a DVD player, including Cover-Up Sound, Wash, and Blow Dry. I haven't had the opportunity to try anything but the warm seat feature (especially nice in unheated bathrooms), but we'd certainly have one if they were readily available at a reasonable price in the United States. I suppose we could special order one for an outrageous sum, but they aren't that wonderful.

It would take not money, but a societal attitude change, to make another of the great Japanese toilets available in the United States: the "squatty potty." Nearly flush with the ground (pardon the pun), these toilets are particularly great for public places, as they are much easier to keep clean than the kind we are accustomed to. They are also surprisingly easy to use. Before I tried one, I couldn't picture using it successfully, but it's really no problem at all.

My favorite Japanese toilet is the kind in Janet's apartment. It's a "normal" toilet with one fabulous feature: the tank lid is a faucet/sink arrangement. Flushing the toilet causes water to pour out of the faucet for handwashing purposes; the water drains into the toilet tank and is used for the next flush. What an economical, ecological idea!

There were any number of reasons why we shouldn't have gone to the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra's A Celtic Fantasy concert last night. We have a huge deadline looming, and delightful out of town company as well. However, a commitment to a friend kept us from taking the logical course and giving away our tickets, and are we glad we didn't miss the performance!

When the OPO brought renowned flutist James Galway to town we enjoyed that concert tremendously. Last night’s Celtic Fantasy, featuring OPO principal flutist Aaron Goldman was every bit as delightful, if not more so. As Galway had done, Aaron played both flute and pennywhistle with grace and beauty and skill. Memo to the Orlando Philharmonic: James Galway is no doubt a very busy and expensive performer. Forget the big names: give us more Aaron Goldman!

(In the interest of full disclosure: I've been introduced to Mr. Goldman but can't say I know him. He does automatically gain a place in my heart by being a graduate of the Eastman School of Music. Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also," and a great deal of our treasure, not to mention one of our Greatest Treasures, went to Eastman. The other Greatest Treasure went to Carnegie Mellon University, which was also honored in this concert, though the orchestra may not have been aware of that fact.)

Featured on the program:

• Four Scottish Dances (Malcolm Arnold)
• Irish Rhapsody (Victor Herbert)
• Gaelic Love Songs for Flute (Edward McGuire)
• Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise (Sir Peter Maxwell Davies) (With a bagpiper at the end!)
• Scotland the Brave (More bagpipers; for a while, I thought I was back at Carnegie Mellon's graduation.)
• O'Sullivan's March from "Rob Roy"
• Danny Boy (A good arrangement but nothing can beat Greg Barker's.)
• Itsbynne Reel (Say that out loud.)
• Island Fiddle Suite (Scott MacMillan) (With Irish dancers! My heart leaped when they came out, and I noted the curly wigs and the crowns. :) I know they were Irish dancers because they're from a school of Irish dance, but I wish Janet had been there to explain some things. I recognized some of the dances, though I couldn't name them, and noted that the dancers' hands were straight at their sides, as I expected. But at other times their hand were on their hips, or above their heads, or linked with those of other dancers, which I didn't expect.)
• Invernia
• Riverdance (with whistle)
• and an encore, with whistle

There was so much in the concert that made us think of our wonderful girls, and wish they could have shared it with us. The whole performance was bathed in what Porter calls "favorable emotional circumstances," and so perhaps our reaction was a bit prejudiced. But it really was an excellent concert.

Forget the green beer. After having discovered genuine Irish ancestors in my heritage, I'm even more convinced that any good celebration of St. Patrick's Day must include singing his very own hymn, usually called St. Patrick's Breastplate or I Bind unto Myself Today. The words are attributed to St. Patrick himself, with the modern, metrical version provided by Cecil Frances Alexander.

The challenge in St. Patrick's for first time singers is finding the flow; the first verse is shorter than the rest, one or two verses (depending on the version) are sung to a different tune, and usually you must turn the page to complete this hymn. (In my favorite hymnal it covers four pages!)

The tunes are Irish and easily singable, however, and the words packed with theology, beauty, and joy. Do yourself and St. Patrick a favor, and honor him on this day by becoming acquainted with this grand and glorious expression of ancient Celtic Christian faith.

The Oremus Hymnal includes the commonly sung verses and page numbers for St. Patrick's Breastplate in a large collection of hymnals.

The Cyber Hymnal includes two additional verses that are rarely sung but give even more of a feel for the ancient Celtic culture out of which which it arose.

This Irish Culture and Customs site has a non-metrical translation of the poem.

We should visit restaurants more often when they are closed! My post about the Sake Moon tells how we discovered that fine restaurant because the one at which we had intended to eat was not open. Ironically, our next great discovery came because the Sake Moon was closed when Porter was in the mood for pho.

Switching hemispheres, we decided instead to use a $10 coupon to check out the new the Habana Grill Cuban restaurant. How excited we were to discover that it was our old Don Pepe’s renewed! We had enjoyed Don Pepe’s for years, having been introduced to it when Heather was taking Spanish in high school. However, the plaza in which it was located underwent major demolition and reconstruction, and Don Pepe’s disappeared, we feared forever.

The new version is bigger, and I dare to say better. I had the Shrimp Habana (grilled shrimp and pineapple, with a mango mustard sauce), and Porter had the special of the day, which was a very substantial, spicy fish soup. Although I rarely drink soda, I ordered my own Ironbeer after tasting Porter’s. Even better than the food, though, was the atmosphere. I haven’t had so much fun in a restaurant in a long time. Music was provided by a man at an electric (Korg) keyboard, and if it was too loud at least it was not so loud as to inhibit conversation. When he played familiar songs some of the staff and many of the customers joined in—even I sang parts of Guantanamera. Whether the other customers were of Cuban descent or not I couldn’t tell, but most of the conversations were in Spanish. This was as far removed as possible from those horrible experiences at other restaurants where some poor birthday “honoree” is subjected to loud clapping and off-key singing by waiters who enjoy the experience no more than the customers. The feeling was closer to the atmosphere I’ve felt in an Irish pub, though much more amateur and informal than a Seisiún.

posted by sursumcorda on Tuesday, March 14, 2006 at 10:00 PM
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Category Reviews

Two recent articles on homeschooling were brought to my attention; specifically, they are about unschooling, that branch of the homeschooling movement that seeks to liberate students from the oppressive assumptions and restrictions of schooling as much as from schools themselves. Each article was reasonably positive, yet was too short to be of much use, and included a few blood pressure-raising statements.

From the Orlando Sentinel (originally the Chicago Tribune):

A significant part of the growth in home-schooling has been among Christian conservatives who shunned public and private schools for reasons that included curriculum, school violence and social trends. These parents often seek highly structured curricula suited to their conservative beliefs.

But those who practice unschooling tend to do so because they think the school system does not allow children to learn to their full potential.

This ranks right up in fatuousness with such statements as "blacks do better at athletics, and Asians do better at academics." As a Christian conservative who chose to homeschool because the school system does not allow children to learn to their full potential, and whose educational philosophy leans much more toward unschooling than not, I find the characterization insulting.

And from CNN:

"There is nothing like the texture of kids having contact with each other, making friends and relating to different adults in a school setting," said David Tokofsky, a longtime educator and member of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education.

He may be right; there is nothing like it. Making friends and relating to people of all ages outside of a school setting is so far superior to what goes by that name in school that I'm surprised he dared mention the subject.

For many years before he died, my father would come visit us for a month each year around February (usually a good month to exchange Pennsylvania for Florida temporarily). Once a week he would take us to lunch at the Sakura, the best Japanese restaurant in our experience, including the time when all the restaurants of Boston were at hand.

Alas, when we returned from Massachusetts we were able to enjoy only one more meal at the Sakura before it closed. We've spent the last three years searching for a substitute, to no avail. The Asian restaurant that took its place isn't bad, however, and that's where we headed last Monday night. We remembered too late that it is closed on Mondays, but that disappointment quickly turned into a blessing.

We decided instead to try out a new (to us) restaurant called the Sake Moon. Or maybe Saikyo; it appears to go by both names. Whatever it's called, I call it fantastic. At last we are consoled for the loss of the Sakura. We ordered the Sushi Boat for One—it was more than enough for the two of us—and were treated to the best sushi I've had in at least three years.

What's more, Sake Moon serves not only Japanese but also Vietnamese food. The owners are Vietnamese, as I discovered when I attempted some of my newly-acquired Japanese phrases. (They graciously then taught me to say "thank you" in Vietnamese.) We returned today for lunch, and were nearly as pleased with the summer rolls and pho as we had been with the sushi. We did not dine in Vietnam alone, but mixed our Asian cuisine today; the vegetable tempura was served with delightful accompaniments of California roll, goyza, Japanese egg roll, soup, salad, and rice, all delicious. And I learned to say "hello" in Vietnamese.

We'll be back; Sake Moon is close to home and reasonably priced. Besides, I have a lot more Vietnamese to learn....

Here's a picture from a subsequent visit of the Sushi Boat for Three (which easily served five).

Photo credit Roger Winters. Click on the picture to see a larger image.

Happy Pi Day, everyone! Since I don't habitually use the 24-hour time format, or more truthfully, since I have better things to do (sleep) at 1:59 a.m., I choose to mark the occasion at 1:59 p.m. Too bad I don't have time to make a nice strawberry-rhubarb pie today....

Our local newspaper includes Parade Magazine in its Sunday edition. I find it generally to be a waste of paper. (A judgment almost equally true of the whole paper, now that it has gone to a format that emphasizes pictures over words, but that's another blog post.) However, I ususally find Marilyn vos Savant's column interesting, and this week it was especially so.

Marilyn answers questions sent in by readers, and last Sunday featured two that have been high on my list of Questions I Wonder about but Have Been Too Lazy to Investigate.

The first one was why entertainers play their music at such a high volume, to which I would add churches, theaters, theme parks, skating rinks, and many other places. I had thought perhaps it was because the rest of the world is deaf, but here is her very interesting answer:

They’re trying to generate excitement, and a high level of decibels accomplishes that goal. Subjected to such intense sound, listeners’ bodies produce adrenaline, noradrenaline and more. These substances make the heart pound and give an impression of increased muscle strength. Not surprisingly, some people become psychologically addicted to this hormone rush, which is implicated in thrill-seeking behavior.

I'm not sure the churches would take that conclusion very kindly, but some might think it worth considering.

The other question concerns the number of people (specifically, Americans) killed in automobile accidents, as compared to wars. I've often wondered how the automobile-related death rate would stack up against other causes of death, not just wars, but crimes, illnesses, and the like. Here is the answer for war:

Since the start of the Revolution in 1775, about a million Americans have died in wars. And since Henry Ford introduced the mass-produced motorcar in 1913, more than 2.5 million Americans have met their deaths on the road.

Not the sort of statistic that makes me want to jump into the car and drive off. Nonetheless, we leave soon for choir rehearsal.... Which explains why people don't pay much attention to automotive risks: as yet there are few of us who have a reasonable alternative.

Last year I was well prepared for Ash Wednesday, with a rather extensive personal program planned out for Lent. This year, what with company and an intensive two weeks devoted to reroofing our house (and not done yet), it came as a shock this morning to realize that February is over. We were thus saved from having to decide with which of our two churches to celebrate Shrove Tuesday, a small blessing but one we could have done without. No crawfish gumbo, no pancakes.... :(

Maybe I'll dust off some of last year's ideas...they worked pretty well.

It is nearly as dangerous to base life's decisions on individual scientific studies as it is on Bible verses taken out of context. Nonetheless, I enjoy reporting encourging news, and this morning's is about chocolate. This Scientific American article reports on a study of the cocoa consumption (in any form) of 470 elderly Dutch men, which found that those who ate the most cocoa were half as likely to die of cardiovascular or any other disease as those who ate the least. They haven't identified the protective mechanism yet; maybe it was the antioxidants, maybe the men were just happier. :)

Still, there's no need to go overboard on the Ghirardelli. The average daily cocoa consumption of the highest group was "more than four grams." Four grams is not a lot of cocoa, even in its pure form.

What is worse, dying because you can't afford medical treatment, or dying because the cogs in a socialized medicine system decide they can't afford to treat you? Or because someone else thinks you would be better off dead than alive?

A high court in the United Kingdom has ruled that two year old Charlotte Wyatt's life belongs in the hands of the hospital where she is being treated; her parents cannot force doctors keep her alive if the doctors decide it would be in the child's best interest to die.

Whatever your views on what would be best for Charlotte, and whatever confidence you might have in your own doctor, this court precedent should terrify you. The chasm between trusting the advice of a doctor who has treated your family for years and proven his compassion and competence, and submitting to the decision of a medical bureaucrat (be he doctor, judge, or accountant) that the patient does not deserve to live, is that between heaven and hell.

Affluenza, by John de Graaf, David Wann, and Thomas H. Naylor (Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, 2001)

affluenza, n. a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more

Many years ago I was walking through downtown Wayne, Pennsylvania with my father, and we stepped into the Encore bookstore. While browsing, I came upon The Plug-In Drug, Marie Winn’s indictment of television. It was a life-changing book.

When I learned about Affluenza, I was hoping for a similar experience. Although I was disappointed, it’s still worthwhile reading. There are some squirrelly parts, to be sure, but The Plug-In Drug had those, too, and they don’t need to detract from the basic message, which is basically one of Stop! Slow Down! Re-think! and Re-prioritize! because our consumption-driven lives are spiraling out of control. The book does a reasonable job of presenting the problems and some of the causes, though it is inexplicably silent on the social and personal consequences of the rise of the dual-income family and our dependence on daycare. Less surprising, but just as glaring, is the lack of any acknowledgement that the institution of school, itself, and not just commercialism allowed into the schools, breeds and trains unthinking consumers.

Where Affluenza really falls down, however, is in the area of practical application. I was hoping for inspirational stories of families who have succeeded even partially in reining in consumerism and returning sanity to their lives. There is a small amount of this, but the book’s focus tends to be on what the authors think individuals should pressure the government to do, rather than on personal changes.

It’s hard not to accuse the authors of naiveté in places. While I understand the motives behind their hope that one day organic food from sustainable agriculture will cost no more than factory farm products, in practice I know that changes must come carefully and slowly if people are not going to be badly hurt. Right now we have a system, as unhealthy and as unsustainable in the long run as it is, that produces a tremendous amount of inexpensive food. If our food is healthier, but more people starve, have we gained anything?

Although it was good to score well on the "Affluenza Self-Diagnosis Test," it was somewhat unsatisfactory. Somehow it reminded me of those articles that tell me I can gain much more time in my day by not watching television, or save tons of money by giving up cigarettes. What if I've already done that?

I’ve been more negative than I intended to be; it’s easy to use a review as a platform for bringing up points I’d like to discuss with a book’s author! Although Affluenza was disappointing, it covers a vitally important subject, and is perhaps a good beginning.

Fixed ideas, even if later discredited, are hard to dislodge. This is why urban legends and Internet rumors must repeatedly be quashed. Either we like what we "know" and don't care enough to be concerned about its veracity, or a new generation comes upon the outdated information and unwittingly embraces it. Or both.

This, I'm afraid is what will happen in the case of obstetrical practice. Several years ago a study (the "Term Breech Trial") led to the conclusion that it was safer for breech presentations to be delivered by Caesarean section, rather than vaginally. Consequently, this has become standard, established practice.

However, an article in the January 2006 issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology reports serious flaws in the Term Breech Trial, and concludes that the recommendations from that study should be withdrawn.

Most cases of neonatal death and morbidity in the term breech trial cannot be attributed to the mode of delivery. Moreover, analysis of outcome after 2 years has shown no difference between vaginal and abdominal deliveries of breech babies.

Because Caesarean sections are considered to be more convenient than vaginal deliveries (nature is so messy!), and because people seem less inclined to sue doctors for interventions than for not intervening, I don't expect to see a rise in the number of women allowed to attempt vaginal deliveries of breech babies. Nonetheless, it is important to note yet another instance of major life decisions being made on the basis of erroneous data.

I haven't yet managed to post my review of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but I'll let End of the Spear sneak in ahead while it's fresh in my mind, because I'm afraid if you don't see it soon, you'll have to wait for the DVD. Not that we had a hard time finding a showing yesterday, but it had already come and gone at our first choice theater.

Half a lifetime ago I read Elizabeth Elliot's Through Gates of Splendor. Subsequently I lost track of the story of the five American missionaries who were killed in Ecuador, but I could never totally forget it, especially since we have several friends in Ecuador—including some who were there at the time—and even sang in choir for a while with one of the children of the slain men.

Despite these connections, the story seemed "long ago and far away," so it was almost shocking to have an opportunity to learn "the rest of the story." Particularly because at last I could hear it from the other side. As I sat in the theater, the movie critic in the back of my mind starting saying things like, "That's all speculation; they don't know what really happened on the beach [where the killings occurred]." Suddenly I realized I was wrong: At the end of Through Gates of Splendor they didn't know—but they do now.

End of the Spear does a particularly good job of depicting the two clashing cultures respectfully and realistically. So often in tales of that sort one is ennobled and the other villanized; here both the Waodani and the encroaching outside world are shown to be nothing more nor less than human: virtuous and foolish, comic and tragic, quick-witted and bull-headed.

One concern I always have about movie versions of real events is how much liberty has been taken with the truth. I understand that some details were altered to fit the movie format, but I was reassured to note that Steve Saint, son of one of the missionaries, said, "seeing it, this is more of 'a true story' than 'based on a true story.'"

A moving story from the film's website (see "Behind the Spear") tells how the Waodani's first reaction to the idea of the film was negative. On being told about the Columbine tragedy, however, they agreed to make the movie in hopes the story of their escape from senseless and brutal violence will help others who seem just as trapped as they were.

End of the Spear is well worth the time, effort, and money to see. I don't say that about many movies. Be sure to stay through the credits to learn a Waodani view of why Americans are so fat.