Einstein on Education

Einstein wrote, "It is essential that the student acquire an understanding of and a lively feeling for values. He must acquire a vivid sense of the beautiful and the morally good. Otherwise he-with his specialized knowledge-more closely resembles a well-trained dog than a harmoniously developed person."

I wonder what he would think about modern education in America?

William Wallace

Today we celebrate the life, and death, of William Wallace who was hanged, drawn, and quartered after being convicted of treason. His crime? Leading the resistance against English occupation of Scotland. He was convicted because of his conviction that men should "live free" of the oppression of unreasonable taxation and occupation by a power structure not of his own peoples choosing. May god give us more men like William Wallace in our day who live by their convictions and change their world. May He make us men of conviction and passion willing to risk all for the glory of God and the good of our neighbors. Amen.

Death of an Icon

Brooke Russell Astor March 30, 1902 - August 13, 2007

"I had a wonderful life" is the epitath Mrs. Astor requested for her grave. Her funeral program is here. This had to be one of the all time beautiful funerals. As she had instructed it came directly from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.

At the funeral her son recited his mother’s statement of faith, which included the following:

I want the creatures, the animals and the birds to be a little less afraid of human beings, because I have blessed them and loved them, and far from doing them any harm, I have done them good. I want to leave trees rustling with my thoughts, trees that one day, long after my form has disappeared, shall still, in some mysterious way, cherish in their very beginnings their secret knowledge of me, so that when others seek shelter from the rain, or seek shade under their branches, they shall catch the peace that went from me. I want to leave the whole of nature nearer to the whole of man. I want to store up riches in the wind, and leave blessings traveling upward to the stars. I want to leave my roots in the grass, I want the tears that I have shed for the sake of high love to come again as dew. I want to leave nature richer for having known me. I want to leave my fellow many more sure there’s a divinity that shapes his end. I want to leave him with a wider vision and a greater sense of purpose. I want to leave him with the knowledge that death is nothing and life is everything. When I go from here, I want to leave behind me a deeper sense of God.

Mr. Marshall concluded, “Yes, New York and her many friends have lost a wonderful person, but I have lost my mother.” His voice cracked, and he broke into tears.

After the mourners stood to sing a third hymn, “Love divine, all loves excelling,” Canon Andrew delivered the homily, starting at around 3:15 p.m.:

There are comparatively few people in the English-speaking world who haven’t heard of the Astor family, and certainly in the United States and Britain, the name of Brooke Astor. We are not here to recount a long life of brilliant social connection, or of wealth, or even to begin to summarize the length of her extraordinary reach into the lives of the important and the powerful. Countless newspaper articles regaled the doings, the dress, the friendships, the social and civic activities of this woman. People have read books she has written, and at least one book about her. And here let me observe the truth can go beyond factual exactitude.

We are here to give thanks to God for a woman who spanned a century and five years, and in it, had an extraordinary effect for good in countless hundreds of lives she came across. The energy of her curiosity, and interest, was personified in a marvelous vitality of imagination. Brooke had what the psalms call a ready heart. She was ready to meet, ready to explore, ready to discuss, ready to read, ready to write, ready to decide, and as her priest I can tell you that she was ready to listen — and give of herself. I can tell you more. Brooke, I suspect, would have found it easy to recite with the psalmist in Psalm 108, “O God, my heart is ready.” The ready capacity for friendship which graced her for its diversity always thrilled me. I have seen her captivate, on the one hand, a member of the British royal family, whom I had introduced to her, with a stunning remark, “I am 95, sir, and never had a facelift,” and on the other, be taken by a great big Afro-American janitor at the Metropolitan Museum, taken into his arms, in a loving embrace, as she got out of a car, and my God, did she return that embrace. One lovely May morning — evening — in the 80s, when Tiffany’s had magnificently opened its doors for a fund-raising dinner, the St. Thomas boy choristers had walked in a line down Fifth Avenue in their scarlet cassocks, in order to sing there for the generous and the glitterati. They were met by Brooke, who monopolized them. And captivated them, in preference to the important. It was spontaneous. Let me tell you, it was magic.

She never shirked responsibility. She accepted it with a ready heart. And wielded it with a wise one. Look how she made it her duty to be proactive when causes for her foundation were brought to her notice. She would go there, talk there, ask questions there, make contacts there, friends there, having done her homework earlier. Her prudent generosity with what she had to give stemmed from a heart ready to imagine. This is why her touch was so sure, she came. She saw, she conquered, in her shrewd assessment of need. If any — if ever money were well-spent, it was in part to do with her readiness to spot priorities. And I can attest to hear readiness to sing and give praise with the best member that she had, as that psalm so poetically puts it. I’m not one for disclosing the secrets of the heart of a soul I minister to. Suffice it to say that she told me much that will die with me. Her assessments of people and situations were often seasoned with salt, startlingly frank, and unsparing of herself. It came from a heart ready to try for the truth, before the Lord, whom she loved plainly and with unsentimental honesty. So for Brooke, there was a quiet commitment based on a lifetime of experience of God’s priorities and regular worship. When the mists began to gather about her, and her faults began to fade, the disciplines of worship never left her, she never wanted to surrender her readiness to worship. And now that the mists have cleared, and she is young, and well again, her readiness to explore the mansion Christ has promised her is renewed. Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven, she is ready now to see God’s face.
Brooke,

God rest you.
Praise well.
Until we meet again.Amen.

A Lasting Legacy (a story of an unknown world changer)

Taken from the blog of the 'all knowing' George Grant -

By almost any modern definition, Jan Comenius (1592-1670) was anything but a success. Though Herman Bavink called him “the greatest figure of the second generation of reformers” he is practically forgotten today.

Though Andrew Bonar said he was “the truest heir of Hus, the chief inspiration of Chalmers, and the first model for Carey,” he is rarely mentioned alongside such men. Though J. Hudson Taylor said he was “the single greatest innovator of missions, education, and literature during the Protestant Reformation,” his is hardly remembered. And though Abraham Kuyper said that he was “the father of modern Christian education,” his vision of substantive and systematic discipleship is only infrequently practiced.

He was astonishingly diverse in both his interests and his endeavors. Comenius helped to shape the educational systems of Holland, Sweden, Prussia, Scotland and Puritan New England. He launched missionary outreaches to Jews and Turks, Gypsies and Eastern Orthodox, Catholics and Liberals. He initiated projects to create a comprehensive Christian encyclopedia, a translation of the Scriptures into the Turkish language. He wrote and published a veritable library of books of inspiration, educational theory, cultural criticism, history, practical devotion, exposition, and theology. He was asked to lead both King’s College in Cambridge and Harvard College in America. He served the Swedish king as a chaplain. He developed innovative plans for a Christian university program. And he was able to do all this despite suffering a series of personal tragedies and living most of his life in uncertain exile.

As his contemporary Cotton Mather argued, he was a man of “extraordinary accomplishments amidst inordinate adversity.” It is a marvel then that he is not remembered as such.

Jan Comenius was born in eastern Moravia, the heir of a rich Czech Protestant legacy that traced its roots to the reforming work of Jan Milic (1313-1374), Jan Hus (1371-1415), and Jerome of Prague (1365-1416). He was catechized and educated in the rich Reformed tradition of the day by godly parents. Alas, the first of many tragedies struck his happy home when Comenius was just twelve. Both of his parents died in a virulent outbreak of the plague. Nevertheless, shortly afterward he went to Heidelberg to study theology. In 1616, having completed his studies, he returned home to teach in the little parish school where he had once been a student. Less than eighteen months later, he was ordained into the Hussite Reformed church and served a small congregation in Falnek—where he married his childhood sweetheart and began his family.

The second great tragedy of his life struck just two years later. The first decisive battle of the Thirty Years War was fought at White Mountain, near Prague. The Hapsburg Catholics overwhelmed the Protestant Czech forces and a fierce new persecution was imposed on the Reformed community throughout the land. Comenius, like most of the other pastors, was forced into hiding. The next month, another outbreak of the plague took the lives of his beloved wife and their two young children.It was just the beginning of a life marked by suffering, sadness, and exile.Shortly thereafter, Comenius led a large contingent of displaced Protestant refugees across the mountains into southern Poland in order to begin to rebuild their lives, their families, and their churches. It was then that Comenius began writing such classics as The Labyrinth of this World (a beautiful allegory of the Christian life written more than half a century before Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress) and Man of Sorrows (a classic meditation on the substitutionary work of Christ on the cross). He also began to travel to other Protestant lands to advocate the cause of his Moravian brethren, uprooted from their homeland, impoverished, and harried. The genius of Comenius was soon recognized—not only by the grateful community of Reformed exiles huddled together in the mountain villages of southern Poland, but also by the wider church. In the years that followed, he entertained invitations to teach and live in the cities of London, Boston, Stockholm, Paris, Amsterdam, Wittenberg, and Geneva. He was called on to devise universal Christian curricula, to reform educational systems, to administer colleges, to oversee theological projects, and to supervise publishing efforts. He corresponded with the infamous Cardinal Richelieu as well as with the philosopher Rene Descartes, Cotton Mather, Oliver Cromwell, Charles X of Sweden, and the industrialist Louis de Geer.

He was among the most influential and sought after men of his day. But the pastoral responsibility for his little, beleaguered flock always remained his first and foremost concern. He attempted to utilize every opportunity, every contact for their sake. Meanwhile, despite the insecurity of living in exile on very limited resources, his vast vision for missionary outreach and educational reform was never dimmed. Always the optimist, he continued to devise new plans, to hammer out new strategies, and to formulate new projects.

In 1656, after a lifetime of hardship and opportunities deferred, tragedy struck Comenius again. Polish troops burned and looted the Moravian villages harrying the survivors across the border. They had lost everything. Again.Comenius and the other refugees were scattered across Europe, on estates throughout the German and Dutch provinces. There, they would live out their remaining days as strangers in yet another strange land.

Comenius, energetic as always, set his hand to a host of new projects. Though he had lost a dozen unpublished manuscripts, his printing press, and all of his worldly goods, he was unshaken in his confidence in the Gospel to change the course of both men and nations. He had set his ultimate hope on the day that Christ would make manifest His New Heavens and Earth. But he was also steadfast in the certainty that a deposit of that future glory would be made in the tired domains of the old heavens and earth.

To his dying day he lived in accordance with that notion, planning for the evangelization of the Muslims and Gypsies, undertaking the first complete translation of the Bible into the Turkish language, and refining his vision for a “Pansophic College.”When he died at the age of seventy-eight, he left behind a glorious legacy, not of this world, that would inspire the likes of Whitefield, Wesley, Zinzendorf, Chalmers, and Kuyper as well as providing a powerful reminder that success in the Kingdom rarely looks like success in the world.

May we walk in his footsteps and stand on his shoulders as we seek the kind of success this great man sought.

Great Truth Sustains Us

“To live in the presence of great truths and eternal
laws, to be led by permanent ideals—that is what
keeps a man patient when the world ignores him, and
calm and unspoiled when the world praises him.” —
Honore De Balzac

When I think of what kept Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandella, Dietrich Bonhoffer, Joseph in prison, and so many of my heroes and brothers and sisters lives focused and serving faithfully I can only suggest that they new of what De Balzac spoke. The interesting thing about De Balzac, a great French novelist, who wrote over 100 novels, is that he struggled with great anxiety and a deep desire to become famous and wealthy. Perhaps some of our most profound thoughts and statements are derived from our weakness?

What keeps you patient when you work in virtual obscurity? And perhaps even more important, if you do someday receive the praises of those around you, can you/we remain calm and unspoiled by the praise of others?

Our culture is full of 'self-made' men and women who are 'rugged individuals' who made their fame and fortune 'by the sweat of their brow'. In Franklin, Tennessee we are surrounded by Christian entertainers who have no real friends any more than Lindsey Lohan or Paris Hilton because their 'fame' or 'fortune' has left them isolated and without the ability to have deep relationships with others who can love them and tell them the truth concerning who they really are. It is amazing that we desire fame and fortune at times without counting the cost. If God does grant you/us the luxuries of this world or the approval of men, may we honor the One who provides our gifts and very next breath and 'stand' on 'solid ground' in community and humility.

Thomas Carlyle said: "For every one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred who'll stand adversity." That's because hardship limits your options; it forces you to focus on surviving. But prosperity can complicate your life by increasing your perceived "needs", and testing your integrity. Why else would David say, "If you gain... riches, don't... trust in them?"

Should we be afraid of success? Only if it comes without character and a firm foundation and knowledge of who we are and where we are going.

Another Reason to Honor the Past

Who is this man (on right)? His home country's most famous holiday is named after him and still celebrated. I'm quite positive I missed the day we studied Jon Hus in Western Civ. at Ole Miss. Strange though, Hus died because the powers of the day - the church leadership - couldn't stand what we now know as orthodox christian thought. He followed in Wycliffe's footsteps and Luther and Calvin followed in his. May we be so wise as to learn from their thoughts and journey.

His great prophetic quote:

“In 100 years, God will raise up a man whose calls for reform cannot be suppressed.” Jan Hus 1411

Ever Wonder How Much Your House is Worth?

Go to: www.zillow.com to find out.

Jesus on Leadership

All of my old ideas on leadership 'go down hard' in light of the One present and responsible for the creation of the universe sliding across the floor on His knees scrubbing the filthy feet of those who called Him Lord. This is the point: They, like us, rejected this as we do. They, like us, could not stand for the Kingdom to be turned upside down. Is it possible for us to escape our natural notion of power, pride and what it appears to mean to be a leader?

How are those of us who have been so caught up in the greed and economic systems in which we operate to live and act (or react) when confronted with The Truth? Can we live according to the economic system of the Guy with the towel?

What's in Your Head Today?

G. K. Chesterton wrote: "It is important to listen to the democracy of the past." As you look in scripture you see that as Gods people got into trouble they generally went to scripture and the voices of the past for comfort. One wonderful voice from the past is Isaac Watts, who in 1719 wrote "Oh God, our help in ages past" using the text of Psalm 90. He also wrote:

• Joy to the World
• When I Survey the Wondrous Cross
• Alas! and did my Savior Bleed
• Come Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove

Think about the following hymn, that mirrors Psalm 23, with words written a in 1719 for a moment:

My Shepherd will supply my need: Jehovah is His Name;In pastures fresh He makes me feed, Beside the living stream. He brings my wandering spirit backWhen I forsake His ways, And leads me, for His mercy’s sake,In paths of truth and grace.

When I walk through the shades of death His presence is my stay; One word of His supporting grace Drives all my fears away. His hand, in sight of all my foes, Doth still my table spread; My cup with blessings overflows, His oil anoints my head.

The sure provisions of my God Attend me all my days; O may Thy house be my abode, And all my work be praise. There would I find a settled rest, While others go and come;No more a stranger, nor a guest, But like a child at home.

It isn't about going back to the Puritan days, I enjoy the creativity of modern praise music as much as the rest, but the richness of this is awsome, don't you think?

A Great On-line Art Gallery

The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque periods (1100-1850), currently containing over 17.300 reproductions. Commentaries on pictures, biographies of artists are available.

http://www.wga.hu/

The Gospel Really Does Change Things

Read about how the gospel of Jesus Christ is changing a culture among a group of gypsies in Bulgaria. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6692881.stm

It should not surprise us that God is at work and if we follow him our lives, and that of our culture, will be changed.

Is Steve Jobs a Modern Day Franklin?

Steve Jobs, a modern day Franklin type recently said the following concerning the conundrum of charting his future as a young man:

"Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever--because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference."

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become."

Jobs continues:

"My third story is about death. When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important thing I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life, because almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctors' code for "prepare to die." It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next ten years to tell them, in just a few months. It means to make sure that everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope, the doctor started crying, because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and, thankfully, I am fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept. No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don't want to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

Jobs finishes with these words from a 70's magazine:

"Stay hungry, stay foolish." May we all.

Junto Anyone?

“If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.”

Benjamin Franklin

In 1727 Benjamin Franklin was an ambitious young man and had recently been made manager of Keimer’s, one of two printing companies located in the city of Philadelphia. At just 21 years of age, he oversaw five men, including Hugh Meredith, Stephen Potts, and George Webb, who were soon to form the nucleus of a club, the Junto (Latin for meeting). Franklin was an outgoing, social individual and had become acquainted with some of the businessmen at a club called the Every-Night-Club. This gathering included prominent merchants who met informally to drink and discuss the business of the day. Franklin’s congenial ways attracted many unique and learned individuals, and from these, he selected the members for the Junto, a club that was to be dedicated to mutual improvement and knowledge. All members lived in Philadelphia and came from diverse areas of interest and business. Along with Meredith, Potts and Webb, they included Joseph Breintnall, merchant and scrivener, who also loved poetry and natural history. Thomas Godfrey was a glazier, mathematician and inventor, and Nicholas Scull and William Parsons were both surveyors. Scull was also a bibliophile and Parsons a cobbler and astrologer. William Maugridge was a cabinetmaker, William Coleman a merchant’s clerk, and Robert Grace a gentleman. Grace’s wealth meant he did not have to work, but apparently he brought an intellectual element to the group, plus a fine library. The club met Friday nights, first in a tavern and later in a house, to discuss moral, political and scientific topics of the day.

Clearly the Junto was his creation, and Franklin led the group by example. Surrounded by men of similar intellectual interests, he recognized that the unifying force of this diverse group was an inquiring spirit and devotion to self-improvement. To guide and focus discussions, Franklin formulated a series of questions that included asking for reasons why local businesses were succeeding or failing, whether a citizen had done something praiseworthy and, if so, how might this be emulated. Common readings in literature were regularly assigned and used to debate topics related to morals, philosophy, and civic life. Members were required to write essays that would be critiqued by the group in the form of suggestions, hypotheses, and polite questions. Franklin required that any member who became harsh and assertive in his comments would receive a small but embarrassing fine. While being more of a skeptic than a rebel and refraining from disagreement just for the sake of argument, this fine was meant to keep him in line as well. He was one of the youngest members of the club, had no wealth or position to speak of, and yet, his leadership skills shone through in his intelligence and moral force.

The Junto was to continue for over 40 years, and as the members, including Franklin, assumed positions of leadership in business and society, their influence on the city of Philadelphia became broad and far-reaching. Acquisition of books and sharing of established personal libraries led to the establishment of the first lending library in the United States in 1731 and was key to the evolution of the American Philosophical Society in 1743. As a lasting testament to Franklin’s interest in life-long education, an academy of learning was formed in 1751 that went on to become the University of Pennsylvania

Why We Love This Stuff

I love these things!



Question: What is wrong with that statement?

Lately I have had conversations with a unusually large group of friends who just can't seem to get past the feeling or thought that though they are moving along in life and career but something is still "missing". It's not that they lack the 'stuff' they/we once dreamed they/we would possess, it is more that they lack the 'life' they/we once dreamed they/we would live. As a matter of fact there is plenty of 'stuff' and very little joy, contentment and happiness going on in the lives of men and women who profess to follow Christ and be 'different' because of their 'called' status - but would a jury really convict them, or us, of being truly different in the way we live? What is the status of the church? Not the building, but the body? Are we really different as we have been "called"? If not, why?

As I look around I see us living in bigger and bigger homes while driving newer and more expensive automobiles while sending our children to increasingly expensive private schools and for what reason are we doing these type of things? Why are you living and committing your resources this way? Unfortunately, a few of my friends had never been asked that question.

I have an idea the answer is pretty disappointing for many of us. Could it be we are not really that different than those who don't claim to be followers of Christ?

Are we stressed financially and emotionally to the max because we have bought into this worlds philosophies and not the philosophies as prescribed for us in scripture? I think, frankly, we (the church) live culturally and consider/make educational, financial, family and most of our decisions through a framework set up by a godless adverting model - not the one that is given us by the One who knows the futility of man's search for meaning. Let's ask Solomon what he thinks! Perhaps the Law and prophets could speak to us? What about Jesus on the Mount of Olives?

Are we spending our lives to achieve a life that we think will bring joy and contentment by having more things? Is it possible that helping someone in need with the money we spend on ourselves would bring us more happiness and contentment than a a new HD flat panel TV?

I'm challenged to reassess why I do what I do and how I live today. Is there a better way? I think so...Are you challenged?