”I hope to over-hope and over-believe any troubles.”
“Grace withereth without adversity.”
“I see grace groweth best in winter.”
“Your rock doth not ebb and flow--but your sea.”
“I know no sweeter way to Heaven than free grace and hard trials together.”
“Dry wells send us to the Fountain.”
Saturday, July 24
Often Affliction
“Often the same thing that makes one person bitter makes another better.” J.C. Ryle
“God often digs wells of joy with spades of affliction.” Isaac Watts
“To scale great heights, we must come out of the lowermost depths. The way to heaven all too often leads through hell.” Herman Melville
“Affliction is often that thing which prepares an ordinary person for some sort of an extraordinary destiny.” C.S. Lewis
“God often digs wells of joy with spades of affliction.” Isaac Watts
“To scale great heights, we must come out of the lowermost depths. The way to heaven all too often leads through hell.” Herman Melville
“Affliction is often that thing which prepares an ordinary person for some sort of an extraordinary destiny.” C.S. Lewis
Caedmon’s Coffee
Meditating on the strange ironies of Nehemiah 6:1-9, I could not help but remember a poignant, similarly-themed song by Derek Webb and Caedmon’s Call:
I am small; I've seen things far beyond these city walls
The land is flat and it rolls for miles
I don't know much
I know I've many places yet to see
I know I've been here for a while
Wouldn't you know just when I thought I had this figured out
I'm back at my first day at school
Trying not to think too loud
I raise my hand to scratch my head
I've no ideas of what to do
'Cause something's changed today
And what it is I just can't say
And if I don't seem okay, well I'm okay
So sue me! Sue me!
If I just don't want coffee tonight
Back in this coffee house where we just met a week ago
Now we've been friends since we were young
But all our conversations are hitting walls we can't ignore
We can hide but we can't run
And I can't run from you
Or what we've run into
Now regardless what I choose, we both lose
It must be getting late
Where's my head
Where is my head
Where is my head
I still hear you telling me what a big mistake I've made
Funny that's what I've been telling you
I can lead a horse to water
You can even make him drink
But you can't change his point of view
Tonight as I was driving home I passed a coffee shop
You know I wrestled with the truth
And how I'd explain to you
What you could never understand
And how I'd keep my mind from you
But that's the price I pay
Your way is not my way
Today's another day and it's okay
So sue me! Sue me!
If I just don't want coffee tonight
Back in this coffee house where we just met a week ago
Now we've been friends since we were young
But all our conversations are hitting walls we can't ignore
We can hide but we can't run
And I can't run from you
Or what we've run into
Now regardless what I choose, we both lose
I think I need some rest
Rest my head, arrest my head
Rest my head, arrest my head
Rest my head, arrest my head
I am small; I've seen things far beyond these city walls
The land is flat and it rolls for miles
I don't know much
I know I've many places yet to see
I know I've been here for a while
Wouldn't you know just when I thought I had this figured out
I'm back at my first day at school
Trying not to think too loud
I raise my hand to scratch my head
I've no ideas of what to do
'Cause something's changed today
And what it is I just can't say
And if I don't seem okay, well I'm okay
So sue me! Sue me!
If I just don't want coffee tonight
Back in this coffee house where we just met a week ago
Now we've been friends since we were young
But all our conversations are hitting walls we can't ignore
We can hide but we can't run
And I can't run from you
Or what we've run into
Now regardless what I choose, we both lose
It must be getting late
Where's my head
Where is my head
Where is my head
I still hear you telling me what a big mistake I've made
Funny that's what I've been telling you
I can lead a horse to water
You can even make him drink
But you can't change his point of view
Tonight as I was driving home I passed a coffee shop
You know I wrestled with the truth
And how I'd explain to you
What you could never understand
And how I'd keep my mind from you
But that's the price I pay
Your way is not my way
Today's another day and it's okay
So sue me! Sue me!
If I just don't want coffee tonight
Back in this coffee house where we just met a week ago
Now we've been friends since we were young
But all our conversations are hitting walls we can't ignore
We can hide but we can't run
And I can't run from you
Or what we've run into
Now regardless what I choose, we both lose
I think I need some rest
Rest my head, arrest my head
Rest my head, arrest my head
Rest my head, arrest my head
Cantankerous
“Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world, there is no cant to me more hateful than the cant of an ostentatious and affected liberality.” Thomas Chalmers
Wednesday, July 21
Suffer the Children
"There is a certain gentleness about really great Christians. There are many ways to observe this, but perhaps one of the best is to notice the tenderness for children in the great spiritual warriors of the past." Francis Schaeffer
Redemptive Optimism
"It is not enough for a prophet to believe in his message; he must believe in its acceptability. He must have confidence in God and in the image of God." G.K. Chesterton
Monday, July 19
When the New York Times Was Pro-Life
On this day in 1871, Augustus St. Clair was given an extremely dangerous undercover investigative assignment for the New York Times. He was to infiltrate and ultimately expose the city’s prosperous and profligate “medical malpractice” industry--the common euphemism for the abortion trade. For several weeks, he and a “lady friend” visited a number of the most heavily trafficked clinics in New York, posing as a couple facing a crisis pregnancy. They were shocked with what they saw.
It wasn't that the clinics were sordid back alley affairs. They weren't. It wasn't that they were operated by shady or seedy quacks. They weren't. It wasn't that they were dark, dangerous, and disreputable. They weren't. On the contrary, it was that the rich splendor of the entrepreneurial abortuaries—fine tapestry carpets, expensive mahogany furniture, elegant decorations, and spacious parlors--contrasted so sharply with the desperation, helplessness, and poverty of their clientele. It was that the smug complacency of the proprietors—men and women who made quite an opulent living out of the sordid trade—contrasted so sharply with the dispiritedness of their patients. It was that their frank and forthright commerce—advertised openly in all the magazines, newspapers, digests of the day—contrasted so sharply with the secretive shame of their customers. It was that the dens of iniquity were simultaneously dens of inequity.
As a result of his discoveries St. Clair wrote a hard-hitting three column article which the Times published in late August. Entitled The Evil of the Age, the article opened with a solemn warning, “The enormous amount of medical malpractice that exists and flourishes, almost unchecked, in the city of New York, is a theme for most serious consideration. Thousands of human beings are thus murdered before they have seen the light of this world, and thousands upon thousands more of adults are irremediably robbed in constitution, health, and happiness.”
Skillfully, St. Clair portrayed virtually every dimension of the slick and professional abortion industry: from its bottom line economics to its medical methodologies and from its marketing savvy to its litigal invulnerability. Told with passion and insight, the story hit the city like a bombshell. Almost singlehandedly, the young reporter put child-killing on the public agenda for the first time in decades.
Being on the public agenda is not enough in itself to bring about widespread social change however. Something more is needed--an incident to galvanize the concern of the public. Just such an incident occurred in New York just days after St. Clair's article appeared in the Times. The body of a beautiful young woman was discovered inside an abandoned trunk in a railway station baggage room. A police autopsy determined that the cause of death was a botched abortion.
A spontaneous national campaign was launched that eventually made abortion illegal in every state, condemned by the American Medical Association, and vilified by the national press. And it all began with St. Clair's story in the New York Times--of all places.
It wasn't that the clinics were sordid back alley affairs. They weren't. It wasn't that they were operated by shady or seedy quacks. They weren't. It wasn't that they were dark, dangerous, and disreputable. They weren't. On the contrary, it was that the rich splendor of the entrepreneurial abortuaries—fine tapestry carpets, expensive mahogany furniture, elegant decorations, and spacious parlors--contrasted so sharply with the desperation, helplessness, and poverty of their clientele. It was that the smug complacency of the proprietors—men and women who made quite an opulent living out of the sordid trade—contrasted so sharply with the dispiritedness of their patients. It was that their frank and forthright commerce—advertised openly in all the magazines, newspapers, digests of the day—contrasted so sharply with the secretive shame of their customers. It was that the dens of iniquity were simultaneously dens of inequity.
As a result of his discoveries St. Clair wrote a hard-hitting three column article which the Times published in late August. Entitled The Evil of the Age, the article opened with a solemn warning, “The enormous amount of medical malpractice that exists and flourishes, almost unchecked, in the city of New York, is a theme for most serious consideration. Thousands of human beings are thus murdered before they have seen the light of this world, and thousands upon thousands more of adults are irremediably robbed in constitution, health, and happiness.”
Skillfully, St. Clair portrayed virtually every dimension of the slick and professional abortion industry: from its bottom line economics to its medical methodologies and from its marketing savvy to its litigal invulnerability. Told with passion and insight, the story hit the city like a bombshell. Almost singlehandedly, the young reporter put child-killing on the public agenda for the first time in decades.
Being on the public agenda is not enough in itself to bring about widespread social change however. Something more is needed--an incident to galvanize the concern of the public. Just such an incident occurred in New York just days after St. Clair's article appeared in the Times. The body of a beautiful young woman was discovered inside an abandoned trunk in a railway station baggage room. A police autopsy determined that the cause of death was a botched abortion.
A spontaneous national campaign was launched that eventually made abortion illegal in every state, condemned by the American Medical Association, and vilified by the national press. And it all began with St. Clair's story in the New York Times--of all places.
Sunday, July 18
Beautiful Mathematics
"A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns. And just as in poetry and painting, the mathematician's patterns must be beautiful. Beauty is the first test. There is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics." G.H. Hardy
Saturday, July 17
The Invention of Greco-Roman Culture
The great biographer James Boswell once asserted that Plutarch was “the prince of the ancient biographers.” Indeed, our conception of the heroic men of ancient Greece and Rome owes more to Plutarch than to any other writer or historian—perhaps more than all the others put together. Thanks to his carefully researched labors we have access to intimate details about the careers, struggles, enmities, and passions of Caesar, Alexander, Demosthenes, Antony, Solon, Cato, Pericles, Cicero, and Lycurgus. Without them, the era would be a virtual blank.
Interestingly, though Plutarch wrote prolifically on the lives of others, he left very little to indicate the course of his own. He threw the searchlight of understanding upon the achievements of others, but his own remain shrouded in conjecture.
This much we do know, he was born just after the time of Christ in 46, on this day, in the small Greek province of Boeotia—the broad and fertile plateau northwest of Athens. He came from an ancient and renowned Theban family, and thus was given access to the finest educational opportunities. He excelled in his wide-ranging travels and studies in Athens, Corinth, Alexandria, and Ephesus. He later became a respected member of the imperial diplomatic corps and made his mark as a wise and effective adjudicator. In Rome, his reputation as a scholar earned him a number of influential contacts, friends, and opportunities. He served every Emperor from the accession of Vespasian until his death in 126 during the reign of Hadrian. He was even granted an honorary consular rank.
Despite all these cosmopolitan experiences, he never lost his deep affection for his hometown of Chaeronea. Though a loyal supporter of the Empire, he remained a Greek patriot throughout his life. He was both a firm believer in and a committed practitioner of the ideals of the ancient city-state. Thus, he held a succession of magistracies in Chaeronea and nearby Delphi. His attachments at home were evidently reinforced by the sublime happiness of his marriage and family. It appears that his tender devotion to his wife, Timoxena, and their five children defined his mission and focused his philosophical vision.
It is this fact—the commitment of Plutarch to hearth and home—more than any other, that illumines his work--especially his work in his magisterial Lives..
His beloved homeland was a shell of its former self. Many Greeks had all but forgotten the glories that once attended their land. The heritage of his community—and thus, of his own progeny—was very nearly lost. The splendor of the Roman Empire seemed to overshadow all that had come before.
But Plutarch believed that the achievements of Rome were merely the extensions of those of Greece. All of his historical and literary work was therefore aimed at showing the foundational role that Grecian greatness played in the Roman ascendancy. In fact, it was his thesis that there was direct continuity between the culture of Caesar, Brutus, and Antony with that of Pericles, Alcibiades, and Alexander. The entire parallel structure of the Lives was aimed at demonstrating this. And thus was created the notion of Greco-Roman culture.
Interestingly, though Plutarch wrote prolifically on the lives of others, he left very little to indicate the course of his own. He threw the searchlight of understanding upon the achievements of others, but his own remain shrouded in conjecture.
This much we do know, he was born just after the time of Christ in 46, on this day, in the small Greek province of Boeotia—the broad and fertile plateau northwest of Athens. He came from an ancient and renowned Theban family, and thus was given access to the finest educational opportunities. He excelled in his wide-ranging travels and studies in Athens, Corinth, Alexandria, and Ephesus. He later became a respected member of the imperial diplomatic corps and made his mark as a wise and effective adjudicator. In Rome, his reputation as a scholar earned him a number of influential contacts, friends, and opportunities. He served every Emperor from the accession of Vespasian until his death in 126 during the reign of Hadrian. He was even granted an honorary consular rank.
Despite all these cosmopolitan experiences, he never lost his deep affection for his hometown of Chaeronea. Though a loyal supporter of the Empire, he remained a Greek patriot throughout his life. He was both a firm believer in and a committed practitioner of the ideals of the ancient city-state. Thus, he held a succession of magistracies in Chaeronea and nearby Delphi. His attachments at home were evidently reinforced by the sublime happiness of his marriage and family. It appears that his tender devotion to his wife, Timoxena, and their five children defined his mission and focused his philosophical vision.
It is this fact—the commitment of Plutarch to hearth and home—more than any other, that illumines his work--especially his work in his magisterial Lives..
His beloved homeland was a shell of its former self. Many Greeks had all but forgotten the glories that once attended their land. The heritage of his community—and thus, of his own progeny—was very nearly lost. The splendor of the Roman Empire seemed to overshadow all that had come before.
But Plutarch believed that the achievements of Rome were merely the extensions of those of Greece. All of his historical and literary work was therefore aimed at showing the foundational role that Grecian greatness played in the Roman ascendancy. In fact, it was his thesis that there was direct continuity between the culture of Caesar, Brutus, and Antony with that of Pericles, Alcibiades, and Alexander. The entire parallel structure of the Lives was aimed at demonstrating this. And thus was created the notion of Greco-Roman culture.
Tuesday, July 13
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