A weekend for lovers of discussion, worldview, film...and food--that is how we are billing the Second Annual King’s Meadow Film Conference on October 27-28, 2006. We will be watching Eat Drink Man Woman, Mostly Martha, Babette’s Feast, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Our theme is festivity, naturally--how a Christian should embrace the call to joy and celebration even amidst all the woes of this poor fallen world. Discussions and lectures will be led by the brilliant Greg Wilbur, the marvelous filmmaker Thomas Purifoy, and me. The conference nicely coincides with the Franklin Pumpkin Festival. So come watch, eat, drink, and be merry! For more information, read our conference brochure or download our most recent ministry newsletter.
Wednesday, September 27
Film Conference
A weekend for lovers of discussion, worldview, film...and food--that is how we are billing the Second Annual King’s Meadow Film Conference on October 27-28, 2006. We will be watching Eat Drink Man Woman, Mostly Martha, Babette’s Feast, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Our theme is festivity, naturally--how a Christian should embrace the call to joy and celebration even amidst all the woes of this poor fallen world. Discussions and lectures will be led by the brilliant Greg Wilbur, the marvelous filmmaker Thomas Purifoy, and me. The conference nicely coincides with the Franklin Pumpkin Festival. So come watch, eat, drink, and be merry! For more information, read our conference brochure or download our most recent ministry newsletter.
September Newsletter
The September King's Meadow ministry newsletter is now available for download from our website. You won't want to miss the articles by Greg Wilbur, Susan Sadler, Sophia Wilbur, and Dave Raymond on the subject of feasting and festivity. Not coincidentally, that is the subject of our upcoming film conference--you can read all about that event and all the other happenings at King's Meadow in the newsletter.
Tuesday, September 26
17 Days Until the Uttermost
Yes, you read that right. Three days. 175 miles. And yes, I am going to attempt to do all of it. With the students of Franklin Classical School and Artios Academy, I will be running (about 70 miles of the total), walking (about 10 miles), and cycling (the remaining 95 miles) in an effort to raise support for some of the most remarkable missions organizations I know of--including Servant Group International, African Leadership, Blood: Water Mission, and Mercy Children's Clinic.
Won't you help us attain our goal? Visit our Uttermost website, read about our mission, and pledge your support today!
Monday, September 25
Islam and the Modern World
The greatest conflict of the past century has not been between Communism and Democracy. It has not been between Liberalism and Conservatism. It has not been between Socialism and Capitalism. It has not been between Rich and Poor, Proletariat and Bourgeoisie, Industrialism and Agrarianism, Nationalism and Colonialism, Management and Labor, First World and Third World, East and West, North and South, Allied and Axis, or NATO and Soviet. All of these conflicts have been important, of course. All of them helped to define the modern era significantly. None of them should be in any way underestimated.
But while every one of these conflicts has pitted ardent foes against one another and as a result, has actually altered the course and character of recent history, none of them could be characterized as the most convulsive conflict of the past century. The most convulsive conflict of past century--and indeed, the most convulsive conflict of the past millennia--has undoubtedly been between Islam and Civilization; it has been between Islam and Freedom; it has been between Islam and Order; it has been between Islam and Progress; it has been between Islam and Hope. While every other conflict pitting men and nations against one another has inevitably waxed and waned, this furious struggle has remained all too constant. The tension between Islam and every aspiration and yearning of man intrudes on every issue, every discipline, every epoch, and every locale--a fact that is more evident today than perhaps ever before.
The recent hubbub over the Pope's much-maligned comments served only to underscore this reality once again.
Despite all this, most people today actually know very little about Islam. Certainly, most Christians know only the most rudimentary facts about this extraordinarily potent adversary, this extreme cultural threat to everything they hold to be good and right and true. The conflict between Islam and the rest of the world may dominate the headlines, define our foreign policy, and give new urgency to the day-to-day mission of our churches, but why that is the case is still not very well understood.
It is for that reason that my good friends at Vision Forum asked me to spend some time developing a Christian Worldview perspective of the conflict at their recent History of the World Mega-Conference. To purchase my Islam and the Modern World lecture--as well as the other audio recordings from the conference just visit the Vision Forum webiste.
But while every one of these conflicts has pitted ardent foes against one another and as a result, has actually altered the course and character of recent history, none of them could be characterized as the most convulsive conflict of the past century. The most convulsive conflict of past century--and indeed, the most convulsive conflict of the past millennia--has undoubtedly been between Islam and Civilization; it has been between Islam and Freedom; it has been between Islam and Order; it has been between Islam and Progress; it has been between Islam and Hope. While every other conflict pitting men and nations against one another has inevitably waxed and waned, this furious struggle has remained all too constant. The tension between Islam and every aspiration and yearning of man intrudes on every issue, every discipline, every epoch, and every locale--a fact that is more evident today than perhaps ever before.
The recent hubbub over the Pope's much-maligned comments served only to underscore this reality once again.
Despite all this, most people today actually know very little about Islam. Certainly, most Christians know only the most rudimentary facts about this extraordinarily potent adversary, this extreme cultural threat to everything they hold to be good and right and true. The conflict between Islam and the rest of the world may dominate the headlines, define our foreign policy, and give new urgency to the day-to-day mission of our churches, but why that is the case is still not very well understood.
It is for that reason that my good friends at Vision Forum asked me to spend some time developing a Christian Worldview perspective of the conflict at their recent History of the World Mega-Conference. To purchase my Islam and the Modern World lecture--as well as the other audio recordings from the conference just visit the Vision Forum webiste.
Sunday, September 24
Desperate for Permanent Things
On this day in 1904, after several years of experience publishing quality books at popular prices, Joseph Malaby Dent (1849-1926) began to flesh out an ambitious vision for a series of reprints he would call the Everyman’s Library. It was to be a massive and diverse selection of one thousand classics--practically the whole canon of Western Civilization’s great books--sold at affordable prices.
Though the experts had decreed that the classics were dry, uninspiring, and hardly suited for the fast-paced industrial world of the twentieth century, Dent believed that properly presented, the great books would prove to be as appealing as ever. He was convinced this was due to the fact that while the classics exhibit distinguished style, fine artistry, and keen intellect, they also create a whole universe of imagination and thought. In addition, unlike the simplistic nursery tales manifest in the literature of modernity, he believed the classics portrayed life as complex and multifaceted, depicting both negative and positive aspects of human character in the process of discovering and testing enduring virtues. He also believed that the classics had an inevitable transforming effect on the reader’s self-understanding--stretching, shaping, and confronting him.
He thought they invited and rewarded frequent rereadings--they were ever new. They had the uncanny ability to adapt themselves to various times and places and thus provided a sense of the shared life of humanity over the course of space and time. And finally, he held that their mere endurance across all the varied times and seasons of human experience demonstrated an interminable permanence amidst modern temporality that was simultaneously comforting and challenging.
Though the venture was obviously a commercial risk, Dent was confident that the very thing that made the classics classic would ensure success for the series. He was right. Public demand for books in Everyman's Library exceeded every expectation. Production began in 1906 and more than a hundred and fifty titles were issued by the end of that first year.
Wartime inflation and shortages of supplies more than doubled the price of each volume during the First World War. After the conflict, inflation and shortages actually worsened. Dent responded to the setbacks by expanding book sales to international markets. He expanded distribution to North America by setting up a Canadian subsidiary and by allowing E. P. Dutton to distribute Everyman titles throughout the United States. In addition, Dent hired agents to sell Everyman titles in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and most of continental Europe.
The Everyman’s Library finally reached the millennial volume with the publication of Aristotle’s Metaphysics in 1956. In just fifty years total sales of the Everyman’s series had exceeded sixty million copies of the classics. Though his company was finally sold by his heirs in 1988, almost exactly a century after he founded it, the impact of the little publisher that dared stand against the tide of the modern conventions of uniformity, conformity, and efficiency is still felt.
I love the Everyman’s Library volumes--especially the small, pocket-sized, older editions. I find them in antiquarian bookshops at very reasonable prices. Beautiful, inexpensive hardbacks in a clean typeface and crisp acid-free papers: what more could an inveterate reader want? I have two whole bookcases of them. Indeed, I often tell students that these are the best and most immediate way to begin building a substantial library of great books.
Joseph Dent’s literary habits reintroduced the pertinence, puissance, and propriety of the classics to a world all too desperate for permanent things.
Though the experts had decreed that the classics were dry, uninspiring, and hardly suited for the fast-paced industrial world of the twentieth century, Dent believed that properly presented, the great books would prove to be as appealing as ever. He was convinced this was due to the fact that while the classics exhibit distinguished style, fine artistry, and keen intellect, they also create a whole universe of imagination and thought. In addition, unlike the simplistic nursery tales manifest in the literature of modernity, he believed the classics portrayed life as complex and multifaceted, depicting both negative and positive aspects of human character in the process of discovering and testing enduring virtues. He also believed that the classics had an inevitable transforming effect on the reader’s self-understanding--stretching, shaping, and confronting him.
He thought they invited and rewarded frequent rereadings--they were ever new. They had the uncanny ability to adapt themselves to various times and places and thus provided a sense of the shared life of humanity over the course of space and time. And finally, he held that their mere endurance across all the varied times and seasons of human experience demonstrated an interminable permanence amidst modern temporality that was simultaneously comforting and challenging.
Though the venture was obviously a commercial risk, Dent was confident that the very thing that made the classics classic would ensure success for the series. He was right. Public demand for books in Everyman's Library exceeded every expectation. Production began in 1906 and more than a hundred and fifty titles were issued by the end of that first year.
Wartime inflation and shortages of supplies more than doubled the price of each volume during the First World War. After the conflict, inflation and shortages actually worsened. Dent responded to the setbacks by expanding book sales to international markets. He expanded distribution to North America by setting up a Canadian subsidiary and by allowing E. P. Dutton to distribute Everyman titles throughout the United States. In addition, Dent hired agents to sell Everyman titles in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and most of continental Europe.
The Everyman’s Library finally reached the millennial volume with the publication of Aristotle’s Metaphysics in 1956. In just fifty years total sales of the Everyman’s series had exceeded sixty million copies of the classics. Though his company was finally sold by his heirs in 1988, almost exactly a century after he founded it, the impact of the little publisher that dared stand against the tide of the modern conventions of uniformity, conformity, and efficiency is still felt.
I love the Everyman’s Library volumes--especially the small, pocket-sized, older editions. I find them in antiquarian bookshops at very reasonable prices. Beautiful, inexpensive hardbacks in a clean typeface and crisp acid-free papers: what more could an inveterate reader want? I have two whole bookcases of them. Indeed, I often tell students that these are the best and most immediate way to begin building a substantial library of great books.
Joseph Dent’s literary habits reintroduced the pertinence, puissance, and propriety of the classics to a world all too desperate for permanent things.
Saturday, September 23
Harvest Home
Traditionally, the people of medieval England began the fall harvesting on this day, at the "Feast of Gathering" or "Harvest Home." To celebrate, wagons were decorated with fruits of the harvest and displayed in the village square amidst celebration, thanksgiving, and song:
Harvest-home, harvest-home
We have ploughed, we have sowed,
We have reaped, we have mowed,
We have brought home every load,
Hip, hip, hip, harvest-home, hurrah!
Harvest-home, harvest-home
We have ploughed, we have sowed,
We have reaped, we have mowed,
We have brought home every load,
Hip, hip, hip, harvest-home, hurrah!
Thursday, September 21
Oxfordian Wonder
Few provincial cities anywhere are more crowded with incident and achievement than the English university city of Oxford. In a short stroll visitors may pass the house where Edmund Halley discovered his comet; the site of Britain's oldest public museum, the Ashmolean; the hall where architect Christopher Wren drew his first architectural plans; the pub where Thomas Hardy scribbled his notes for Jude the Obscure; the track where Roger Bannister ran the first sub-four-minute mile; the meadow where a promising young mathematician named Charles Lutwidge Dodgson refined The Formulae of Plane Trigonometry, An Elementary Treatise on Determinants and, of course his famous children's trifle called Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.Walk down the broad and curving High Street, thought by many to be the most beautiful in England, or through the maze of back lanes that wander among the golden, age-worn college buildings, and you will be able to follow in the footsteps of Samuel Johnson, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, Jonathan Swift, John Donne, Roger Bacon, Cardinal Wolsey, Oscar Wilde, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Arthur Quiller-Couch, Indira Gandhi, Hilaire Belloc, and Margaret Thatcher, to name just a few who have lived and worked and studied here.
The heart of the city is Carfax. The name comes from the Latin quadrifurcua, or “four-forked.” It is from here that the city's main streets run to the four points of the compass. This was the center of the walled medieval city--built on the foundations of an early Saxon trading settlement which was located near the ford in the river there for the cattle and oxen (hence the name "ox-ford").
It was in this remarkably rich environment of Oxfordian wonder, on this day in 1921, that the esteemed professor of etymology, J.R.R. Tolkien, began to recount the stories of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, Hobbits of Middle Earth--one of the most remarkable achievements in English literature.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, was born in South Africa in 1892. After a brilliant undergraduate career, he became a medieval scholar, philologist, and professor at the university. His scholarly work at concerned Anglo-Saxon and medieval literature.
His depth and breadth of scholarship is most evident in the epic works he created about the fantasy world he called Middle Earth. He wrote The Hobbit in 1937 as a children's book. Its sequel, the trilogy entitled The Lord of the Rings--finally published after much anticipation in 1954 and 1955--included The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. The work is an imaginative masterpiece that has captured the imagination of generations ever since. It is a profound tale of the conflict between good and evil told against a backdrop of rich cultures, vibrant characters, and stunning prose and poetry. And just for the record, the books are far better than the blockbuster films.
Tolkien’s close friend and fellow professor, C.S. Lewis, commented, “such a tale, told by such an imaginative mind, could only have been spawned in such a place as Oxford.” Oxfordian wonder, indeed.
Wednesday, September 20
Change of Heart
Although the nomination and election of the dark-horse candidate for president, James Garfield, surprised many Americans, the nomination and election of Chester A. Arthur (1830-1886) as his running mate was even more of a shock. Many a citizen feared the worst when Garfield was assassinated with three and a half years of his term remaining. And for good reason.
Arthur, who loved fine clothes and elegant living, had been associated with the corrupt New York political machine for almost twenty years. In 1878 he had even been removed from his post as Collector of the Port of New York by President Rutherford B. Hayes, who had become alarmed at his brazen misuse of patronage.
But in spite of his questionable record, Arthur was nominated to run for vice-president--largely to appease the powerful party establishment. Thus, when Arthur became president on this day in 1881, following the death of Garfield, there was every expectation that the free-wheeling spoils system that had reigned in New York would be firmly established in Washington.
But Chester Arthur fooled everyone--friends and enemies alike. Somehow, the responsibilities of that high office seemed to transform this corrupt, petty politician into a man sincerely dedicated to the good of the country. Courageously, he established his independence by vetoing a graft-laden rivers-and-harbors bill, by breaking with his former machine cronies, and by vigorously prosecuting members of his own party accused of defrauding the government. And, most important, instead of a spoils system, he supported a Federal Civil Service based on competitive examinations and a non-political merit system.
By his change of heart--evidenced by these courageous acts--Arthur won over many who had first feared his coming to power, but he lost the support of the political bosses. Although he was not an inspiring leader of men, he earned the nation’s gratitude as the champion of the Civil Service system.
Arthur, who loved fine clothes and elegant living, had been associated with the corrupt New York political machine for almost twenty years. In 1878 he had even been removed from his post as Collector of the Port of New York by President Rutherford B. Hayes, who had become alarmed at his brazen misuse of patronage.
But in spite of his questionable record, Arthur was nominated to run for vice-president--largely to appease the powerful party establishment. Thus, when Arthur became president on this day in 1881, following the death of Garfield, there was every expectation that the free-wheeling spoils system that had reigned in New York would be firmly established in Washington.
But Chester Arthur fooled everyone--friends and enemies alike. Somehow, the responsibilities of that high office seemed to transform this corrupt, petty politician into a man sincerely dedicated to the good of the country. Courageously, he established his independence by vetoing a graft-laden rivers-and-harbors bill, by breaking with his former machine cronies, and by vigorously prosecuting members of his own party accused of defrauding the government. And, most important, instead of a spoils system, he supported a Federal Civil Service based on competitive examinations and a non-political merit system.
By his change of heart--evidenced by these courageous acts--Arthur won over many who had first feared his coming to power, but he lost the support of the political bosses. Although he was not an inspiring leader of men, he earned the nation’s gratitude as the champion of the Civil Service system.
Sunday, September 17
Endurance 50
Dean Karnazes has done some amazing things during his forty-three years of life. Somehow this San Francisco businessman, husband, and father of two has found time in his busy schedule to set virtually every long-distance running record imaginable. He has won all the big ultras--up and down the mountains of the brutal Western States 100-Miler and through the withering heat of the Badwater 135-Miler; across the crushing crests of the Vermont 100-Miler and across the barren wasteland of the Antarctica Marathon. Once he ran 350 miles straight--over the course of three days and two nights--without stopping! No wonder he has earned the moniker of the “ultra-marathon man,” which not coincidentally is the title of his New York Times best-selling autobiography.Beginning today, Karnazes tackles his toughest challenge yet: 50 marathons in 50 days in all 50 states. Really! 50 in 50 in 50! Over the course of those 50 days, Karnazes plans to run 1,310 miles at about a 10-minute per mile pace--burning over 150,000 calories. I honestly don’t see how such a feat is possible. But then, I really don’t see how it is possible for a human being to do what he has already done.
During the course of the North Face Endurance 50 Karnazes will tackle some of the most famous marathon routes all across the US. Today for example, he runs the Lewis & Clark Marathon in St. Louis. Tomorrow, he will be in Tennessee to run the St. Jude Memphis Marathon in Memphis. Then on Tuesday, he’ll be in Mississippi for the Mississippi Coast Marathon. Wednesday brings him to Arkansas for the Little Rock Marathon. Next, he’ll be in Kansas for the Wichita Marathon. Then it is to Iowa for the Des Moines Marathon on Friday. On Saturday, he will be in Omaha, Nebraska for the Lincoln Marathon. Then on Sunday, he runs the Boulder Backroads Marathon in Colorado.
And that is just week one! He will then criss-cross the entire country in a tour bus running 26.2 miles day after day for six more weeks!
Along the way, he’ll run in the LaSalle Bank Marathon in Chicago and the Boston Marathon from Hopkinton to Boylston Street. Finally, he will finish in New York City on November with the ING New York Marathon.
Now of course, these big marathons are run on weekends. So, Karnazes is not running in the actual organized races during the next month and a half of Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Instead, he will run the official race routes those days--along with runners in each city who have volunteered to pace him along the way. During the weekends though, he will have the opportunity to run in the actual marathons.
In the process, Karnazes will be supporting running clubs and runners across the nation and raising funds for a non-profit organization he founded to support, encourage and motivate youth to get outside and become more physically active. He hopes to make marathon running, the ultimate individual sport, a symbol of what people can achieve if they aspire to explore their personal limits.
However you cut it, Karnazes is doing something more than a little remarkable. Its enough to inspire us ordinary Joes to tie on our trainers and head out around the block a couple of times. You can visit either my Run Blog or the official Endurance 50 website to follow Karnazes' progress.
The Constitution
Though they did not have the formal authorization of Congress and were thus, technically in violation of the laws of the land, the Constitution of the United States was completed and signed by a majority of delegates attending the constitutional convention in 1787 on this day in Philadelphia.
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