Hillsdale College President Dr. Larry Arnn

This was the best video I've seen so far of Hillsdale's President Arnn.
It is informative on many levels!

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Feeding the Mind, the Heart

I'm enjoying pictures of my girls' early days. There is a beauty about young innocent children. They capture the heart, don't they! I'm so thankful God helped me (through books--of course the Bible being the foundation--and videos and advice from other parents) to put every ounce of energy I had into my girls when they were little. It continues to pay off. 

I would encourage young parents to go at this all-important job with all your might. If you don't understand something, ask someone! If your toddler, child, or teen is throwing fits, self-focused to the point of causing the atmosphere of your home to not be peaceful, you can do something about that. You are either training your children to be self-willed and disobedient, or you are training them to obey and not give in to their drive to have their own way. 

I have been on a non-stop house cleaning rampage over the past few weeks. It's like an early spring-cleaning urge or something. That, along with myriad other obligations, has kept me away from my computer more than usual.

I have considered numerous blogging topics as I've work around the house and traveled in the van, but all seemed so huge and beyond my ability to adequately address. 

I've listened to lectures on my iPod from The Teaching Company as well as talk-radio: Rush, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, and our local KMOX's Mark Reardon, and my mind has struggled to sort through the mess of our nation. 

Yesterday afternoon, when coming home from violin in St. Louis, Rachelle and I listened to the Mark Reardon show. At one point, he and a co-worker, Carol Daniel, were lamenting the problems they and most everyone--according to them--are having with raising children. The consensus was: children are spoiled and maybe the best parents teach them to say please and thankful, but overall, they are self-focused, ungrateful, and rebellious. I found myself saddened by this. It's such an obvious product of a world where people (even though they may label themselves "Christian") don't have a clue about the Biblical definition of human kind and the innate nature that has to be dealt with as Jesus demonstrated. They are blindly trying to glue good behavior to their children with deplorable results.

Last night we watched a 1950's sitcom, Father Knows Best. As I watched it, I was aghast at how this so-called innocent and wholesome show was filled with perspectives that have lead to the degradation we now see. No wonder, I thought! No doubt, there were Godly people in the 50's who--if they watched anything at all, and they probably didn't waste their time--saw the issues and cried out, "This is not going to produce a healthy nation!" Needless to say, we won't bother watching Father Knows Best again. It was a perfect example of people who kind of know what is right and wrong but don't have a clue as to the real heart issue of man, and so nothing is treated seriously in the light of eternity.

As I've noted before, we are constantly in a process of filling our mind with something. What we fill it with is either pushing us toward God or pulling us away. We can be fooled into thinking something is just funny and not immoral, therefore, harmless. But the subtle (temporal vs. eternal) perspective of the world around us--seen in the works of most scriptwriters, composers, and authors--can easily lull us into numbness, slowly bringing us to accept the worldview that is completely in opposition to the perspective of Christ. I do not want anything in my life that pulls me from HIM.

In contrast, Curt, Rachelle, and I are listening to G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy every morning. Now, that is some food for thought that makes me cherish my Savior! 

May your day be filled with only what keeps you close to HIM, and if you are a parent, don't be lazy, don't be proud, thinking you can handle it on your own; you'll never regret seeking advice, being diligent, following in the footsteps of Jesus as you surrender your will to God and then train your children in like manner.

Blessings, my dear readers,

 

"What does it mean to be human?"

Slice of Infinity is good this morning; had to quickly post it!

A Valentine's Day ... not all that long ago

What Is Human?

"What does it mean to be human?" has been the inquiring theme of more than a few journals, conferences, and special reports. It is a question that is considered from anthropological, theological, and biological perspectives, from within medical, ethical, and spiritual circles. Yet regardless of the examiner, any plumbing of the depths of the nature of humanity is a discovery that the implications are as far-reaching as the subject itself.

Generation after generation, voices that have spoken to the question of human nature often reflect something of the paradoxical character of humanity. Plato described human life in terms of the dualistic qualities he observed. While the mind is representative of the intellectual soul, the stomach is an appetitive beast that must be tamed. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote of the human propensity for both compassion and cruelty at once. "The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being."(1)

Speaking in the 17th century, Blaise Pascal made note of further dueling extremes present within humanity. "For after all, what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing, a central point between nothing and all—and infinitely far from understanding either... He is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness out of which he was drawn and the infinite in which he is engulfed."(2)

What does it mean to be human? The seeming paradoxes in and around us make the question difficult to answer. We sense at times within us contradiction and inconsistency—a desire to be a good friend beside the wherewithal to manipulate or exploit, the intention to be a good neighbor beside the tendency to walk away without helping. I find it reminiscent of Aslan's response to the children in Prince Caspian: "'You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve,' said Aslan. 'And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor in earth.'"

As a Christian, I understand my own inconsistencies by the explanation given in the Christian story. Humans are bearers of God's image, made with the intention and care of a good Creator. But it is a reflection that has become blurred. The image of God in humanity is an image tarnished. We have been made in God's image, but it is an image that needs restoration, reviving, resuscitation.

In the company of Pascal and Solzhenitsyn, I find Christian doctrine to provide the only framework that makes sense of the contradictions within us. But far more than this, it is also the only framework that redeems the tension within us, the tension between my identity as a child of God and a daughter of humanity. New Testament writers have assured the promise is ours: "Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven." For Christ is not only at work redeeming a fallen humanity, cleansing us from the sin that corrupts our nature. Christ came to unite humanity with God so that we can be truly human.

This is far more hopeful news than other worldviews or self-help plans impart. For if true humanity is a humanity fully united to its creator, then the possibility is ours. Acting on our own power and authority, independent of God, we merely expose our alienation from God and from our true selves. We fail to know what it means to be fully human. But united to Christ through faith we are united to another nature entirely. Writes one disciple, "[God] has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires" (2 Peter 1:4).

While Christ is the one who makes our resuscitation possible, the one who restores in us the image of God, the process of reviving is also something we actively take hold of as human beings united to the Son. In other words, to live as children made in God's image and united to Christ is not a static hope, but an active calling. "So then," in the words of Paul, "just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness" (Colossians 2:6-7).

What does it mean to be human? Perhaps we only begin to answer this immense inquiry when we turn to the one who shows us the very meaning of the word.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956 (New York: Harper Collins, 2002), 75.
(2) Blaise Pascal, Pensess (New York: Penguin, 1995), 61.

 

Valentine Heart "Wreath" from Garland

Curt made me a heart "wreath" from a couple strands of garland.

Life has been so busy for me lately. I'm looking forward to getting back to blogging again, but

if I don't get a chance to get back online before Tuesday, 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Self-interest bringing about Public Good

 This is my favorite "Introduction to the Constitution" video so far. Dr. Arnn suggests that our natural self-interest can be harnessed to bring about the public good. He argues that the founders of our great nation, understanding the natural human condition, intended to accomplish such.

 

As goes a leader ... so go the people

This video introduces you to Dr. Arnn, the President of Hillsdale College. It is the first in a series on YouTube, both informative and educational.

There really must be something to the old saying where the leadership goes so go the people. While there are certainly those in any group that deviate from the overall character of the majority, as I observe different college campuses where I know the President--at least to some extent--I see a connection.

Dr. Arnn comes across as a humble yet intelligent man with a winsome sense of humor. While he is driven to understand and make sense of the world, he does it with a smile, seeming to remember his place in the search. He is not pompous or stuffy, but the students and faculty appear to hold him in highest esteem. He has no need to demand respect; what he really is--from all appearances--naturally draws it out of you.

What I find on the Hillsdale campus is a reflection of his attitude. Friendliness is the number one attribute. While the work load for students is heavy and demanding, and while the requirements set the students up to apply for the highest graduate scholarships available in our present world, they are friendly and helpful, and carry a sense of delight in their pursuit of understanding the world.

You just might enjoy watching Dr. Arrn as he shares some of his perspective on the founding of our nation and the philosophy behind our Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

 

Happy Birthday, LaRae!

Eighteen years ago today this little bundle arrived--much to our delight!

Her arrival changed me more than any other event in my life.

The realization that this was a never-dying human soul sobered me

 and caused me to see life in many new ways.

It wasn't long (two years to be exact) before she became "the big sister,"

and what a precious one she is. While it took some time for her to learn how to be

a "precious" one, once she understood, she embraced the responsibility, and to this day

she delights Curt and me beyond words.

This is LaRae with her little sis and her Aunt Carma just a few years later.

She and Carma share the same birthday month.

May your day be lovely, LaRae, and may your 19th year be the best so far!

Love you, 

Momma

As Much Peace As We Want

We can have as much peace as we want, 

through hundreds of correct choices every day.
~paraphrased from Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

Music like this reflects the peace of God.
Most of the pictures are highly edited--

 you might not want to waste your time on them.

I listen to the music while I am working.

I actually have this Adagio on a CD and have it on iTunes.

But naturally, to post it, I looked it up on YouTube.

May HIS peace fill our hearts this day
and be reflected to those around.