The Clockwork Boy - Chapter 1 - New

Chapter 1: NEW

 Whirr… Click. Whirr… Click.

(muffled voice) … “... could you…”  (muffled) “... to the baker?”

Whirr… Click.  Whirr… Click.

Tommy blinked his eyes. Before him stood the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She had dark brown hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. Her eyes were blue-green and sparkled with the glare of the sun that shone between the leaves of the tree that overshadowed her features. She had the most pristine little lips that seemed to be saying something to him. 

“Hello?” said the lips. “I said, ‘Could you please take this to the baker?’”

Whirr… Click. Whirr… Click.

Thoughts on Deconstructed Faith

De-Construction of one's childhood faith is a thing. The numbers of people who are dismantling their faith and abandoning it are significant. If you Google statistics on deconstructing faith, you will not find that the numbers are zero. Our Christian youth are leaving Christianity. I'll leave it to you to research this, but some of the most recent research claims that 42% of adults have deconstructed the faith of their youth. 

For those who are unfamiliar with the term, deconstruction is what it is called when an individual dismantles their beliefs (usually their Christian beliefs), leading to an abandonment of those beliefs. It does not always end with one walking away from their faith, but for the most part, when it is labeled as such, that is precisely what has happened. 

There are always those in the public eye that have taken this route. They usually tend to get a decent amount of attention, especially when their "celebrity" status is rooted in their Christian life. Such is the case with Christian authors and speakers or pastors. There are also those on the fringe of Christian Culture (like Rhett and Link), and much could be said concerning these deconstructionists and their impact. In fact, I believe that there are probably a few really good books out there that address this in a truly helpful way, so I am not going to attempt to address any of that in this post. Instead, I'd like to offer a few thoughts from my own experience, rooted in my own encounters... I'll leave the analytical breakdown of famous deconstruction stories and their impact for the famous people to write about. 

Ch-Ch-Ch- Changes

Before I get into my announcement, I can't help but share an announcement made by Bilbo Baggins on his a-hundred-and-eleventh birthday. (This is the version from the book, not the movie.)  If you are not a lover of excellent literature, feel free to skip it and go directly to my announcement. 

My dear People, My dear Bagginses and Boffins, and my dear Tooks and Brandybucks, and Grubbs, and Chubbs, and Burrowses, and Hornblowers, and Bolgers, Bracegirdles, Goodbodies, Brockhouses and Proudfoots. Also my good Sackville-Bagginses that I welcome back at last to Bag End. Today is my one hundred and eleventh birthday: I am eleventy-one today!

I hope you are all enjoying yourselves as much as I am. I shall not keep you long. I have called you all together for a Purpose. Indeed, for Three Purposes!

First of all, to tell you that I am immensely fond of you all, and that eleventy-one years is too short a time to live among such excellent and admirable hobbits.

I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

Secondly, to celebrate my birthday. I should say: OUR birthday. For it is, of course, also the birthday of my heir and nephew, Frodo. He comes of age and into his inheritance today. Together we score one hundred and forty-four. Your numbers were chosen to fit this remarkable total: One Gross, if I may use the expression.

It is also, if I may be allowed to refer to ancient history, the anniversary of my arrival by barrel at Esgaroth on the Long Lake; though the fact that it was my birthday slipped my memory on that occasion. I was only fifty-one then, and birthdays did not seem so important. The banquet was very splendid, however, though I had a bad cold at the time, I remember, and could only say 'thag you very buch'. I now repeat it more correctly: Thank you very much for coming to my little party.

I wish to make an ANNOUNCEMENT.

I regret to announce that - though, as I said, eleventy-one years is far too short a time to spend among you - this is the END. I am going. I am leaving NOW.

GOOD-BYE! 

~ Bilbo Baggins' Birthday Speech, The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien

Intelligence

When I meet someone who believes in any variety of Darwinistic Evolution, I just think of this in my mind. 

And then I go. "Yeah. Right."

Education is Fundamentally Religious

The following is an excerpt from The Case for Classical Christian Education by Douglas Wilson, pages 21 and 22. 

---------------------------------------------

The NEA knows what it wants and is willing to dedicate its resources to get it. Sad to say, on the other hand, most Christian parents do not know what they want and are not willing to sacrifice anything. Many within the system still have a biblical view of morality, and so they want to work against this sinful agenda and try to restore "traditional" morality to American schools. 

On what moral basis shall the teacher who wholly suppresses all appeal to religion rest that authority which he must exercise in the classroom? He will find it necessary to say to the pupil, "Be diligent. Be obedient. Do not lie."  This must be done so the student may acquire his secular knowledge. But on who's authority? By what standard?*

Education is fundamentally religious. Consequently, there is no question about whether a morality will be imposed in that education, but rather which morality will be imposed. Christians and assorted traditionalists who want a secular school system to instill anything other than secular ethics are wanting something that has never happened and can never happen. 

Because all truths converge towards God, the teacher who cannot name God must have fragmented teaching. He can only construct a truncated figure. In history, ethics, philosophy, and jurisprudence, religious facts and propositions are absolutely inseparable from the subject at hand. The necessary discipline of a schoolroom and secular fidelity of teaching require religion.*

If they converge toward the Christian God, then He will be acknowledged, and His Word will be honored. If all "truths" converge on the Sinai of another God, then we will see his law/word imposed. And that "law" will in our day amount to some variation of catering to the powers that be.

-----------------------------------------------------

* These two quotes are from R.L. Dabney, On Secular Education (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 1989) pg 19,24 

Good Bye to a Dream (a sonnet)

Here now the time has come to say good bye.

It came to me the way the night arrives. 

O let the dusk remain like a long sigh. 

Alas but now in darkness my dream dies.

No breath or life does dream have of its own, 

but life it has within the dreamer's lungs. 

So when a dream its final breath has blown,

the dreamer feels like final song has sung.

Good bye my dream I know you were not meant

to live beyond the constraints of my mind.

Imagination now forever sent...

I leave you now on trail I've left behind.

Eulogy now spoke the deed is done,

I lift my eyes and pray new dream will come.

Where is the back of my room?

 

Are looks more important than personality? No, Actually. (My Son)

 He worked on this for almost a year. 

I'll admit two things regarding this video.  The first is that it speaks to an audience that I am (mostly) unfamiliar with.  He uses terminology that I've not heard. Mewing... Looks-maxing... etc. He acknowledged this audience, for sure, but as I learned what the words meant and who this audience is, I realized that the terms might be different, but the audience is age-old and permeates most other audiences. 

The second is that... and I've told him this... I don't think he goes far enough with his answer. Now, for the record, he goes as far as he wants to go with the video. He doesn't want to answer the question with an entirely new solution, he is primarily (as he has told me) sought to destroy the concept that looks are of primary importance. 

It is a long video, documentary movie length... but I think it is interesting... and so I share. 

The Field of Christianity is the World

Furthermore, the field of Christianity is the world. The Christian cannot be satisfied so long as any human activity is either opposed to Christianity or out of all connection with Christianity. Christianity must pervade not merely all nations, but also all of human thought. The Christian, therefore, cannot be indifferent to any branch of earnest human endeavor. It must all be brought into some relation to the gospel. It must be studied either in order to be demonstrated as false, or else in order to be made useful in advancing the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom must be advanced not merely extensively, but also intensively. The Church must seek to conquer not merely every man for Christ, but also the whole of man.

J. Gresham Machen (Quoted by Douglas Wilson in The Case for Classical Christian Education)

Into His Gates and Into His Courts

 

source: https://x.com/uribrito 

What was it this time?

 

An Educational Challenge

Ok. I have an educational challenge for you. Here are the stipulations of that challenge... and I would like to see if anyone can come up with an ongoing, workable solution to this challenge. 

(This challenge is purely theoretical. Any resemblance to actual challenges -- persons, places, or schools -- is purely coincidental.)

Teacher Stipulations: 

• You must teach Geometry to a new group of students (or new groups of students) every year for 25 years. 
• You must gradually decrease the amount of material you cover over the next 25 years, so that you are covering no more than 40% of the original material. You must do this in such a way that it will still be considered a course on High School Geometry. 
• You must cover all of the material in the 180 days of school allotted to you. In those 180 days, your class time can range from 50 minutes to 45 minutes on average, with multiple days in the school year limited to around 15 minutes. 
• You may assign the student's practice for the material being covered for when they are not in the classroom, this may be titled "homework."  Over the 25 years of time, you must gradually decrease the amount of practice assigned as homework. (By the end of year 20, there will be at most 20% of students who complete any assigned homework.  See Population Dynamics for further details.)
• By the end of year 10, you must begin to learn how to use and incorporate new technologies each year. These technologies may or may not remain in use, and could at any point become irrelevant. Upon the demise of any particular technology, any work you have poured into that technology, creating e-learning experiences for your students, will no longer be available, and you will need to learn a new technology. 
• By the end of year 15, you will begin to duplicate all student materials into a digital format. These materials must be updated and hosted online for any student to access at any given time. Any work that has not been duplicated and hosted -- as well as posted in an easy to find format, will not be work that the teacher can require the students to complete. 
• By the end of year 20, you will be required to regularly create "gamified" versions of all practice materials that were originally considered homework. Eventually there will not be any practice given that doesn't have an element of fun attached to it. Anything that is purely work, though not prohibited, will be frowned upon by all colleagues and will be attributed as a potential cause for any failures. 
• You must post all grades in a program that students and parents can access at any given time. 
• You may not expect students or parents to be aware of the posted grades, so you must regularly contact both students and parents to update them on the status of their current grades. The contacts must be documented as evidence of parent contacts. Contacts must be attempted via phone calls, e-mails, and text messages. It is the teacher's responsibility to figure out each parent's preference on how and when they are contacted. 
• When you begin this challenge, any math instruction may be delivered in the form of direct instruction via lecture and the modeling of examples being worked on in front of an entire class. As the challenge continues, you must employ this method of instruction less each year, until around year 20. Direct instruction, though permitted, will be increasingly frowned upon as backward, unhelpful, and potentially oppressive.  You must research and/or create a myriad of methods for delivering content. Limiting delivery methods will not be permitted. 
• Around year 15, you must begin to offer additional opportunities for students to demonstrate competency with any unit of material presented. These additional opportunities will begin as simply "second chances" for a few students, but by year 20, you must anticipate that at least 30% of your students will be, not only utilizing these multiple attempts, but planning on them as a regular method of engaging in their classes. Additional attempts will eventually need to fall during regular class time, no student can be expected to offer up additional time outside of class for these additional attempts. 

Student Dynamics:

As the student dynamics change, you will not be allotted any additional time to compensate for any missing skills or any added distractions, but must find a way to include all required teaching into the given class time. 

• Basic Math Skills: In the first few years of teaching, 99% of all students will already be proficient with basic math skills. Each year this percentage will decrease until there are at most 50% of students proficient with basic math skills. The teacher must compensate for these missing skills by offering additional instruction during class time. 
• Basic Math Skills: Additionally, at the beginning of this teaching challenge, no more than 30% of problems may contain fractions or decimals. This percentage must decrease each year until year 20 when no student will be expected to engage with a problem that either contains fractions or decimals or has an answer that would require fractions or decimals to be considered correct. 
• Essential Algebra Skills: In the first few years of teaching, 99% of all students will already be proficient with basic math skills. Each year this percentage will decrease until there are at most 10% of students proficient with essential algebra skills. The teacher must compensate for these missing skills by offering additional instruction during class time. 
• Student Independence: In the first few years of teaching, 99% of students will be able to work independently of teacher assistance, once a new skill has been demonstrated. This percentage will decrease until there are at most 20% of students who will be able to work independently, without teacher assistance. 
• Student Independence: In the first few years of teaching, the 1% of students who will not be able to work independently, will only require additional assistance from the teacher 50% of the time. As that percentage of students gradually increases to 80%, there will also be an increase in the amount of time that those individual students will need individual attention in order to complete any work.
• Student Engagement: In the first few years of teaching, all students will be expected to engage in the lessons, regardless of your presentation style. By year 20, no students will be expected to be engaged, unless your presentation is engaging to that student. You will be expected to determine each student's preferred engagement and "differentiate" all experiences in order to properly engage each student. 
• Student Engagement: Starting around the 10th year of teaching, random students will begin to be given electronic devices that can play videos, play music, and the students can play games or contact their friends at any time. Each year, more and more students will be given these devices, until around year 20, 99% of students will have one or more of these devices regularly available.
• Student Responsibility: At the beginning of this educational challenge, the responsibility for student failures will rest on the student and the parent/guardian of that student. Responsibility for this will gradually shift, until year 20 when the student will no longer be held responsible for their failure, unless the teacher has completed every aspect of this challenge to its fullest. The parent / guardian will be relieved of all responsibility by year 25. 

The reward for accepting this challenge will be additional paperwork to complete each year, additional conferences to attend, and the opportunity to learn special stylized fist-bumps.

Again... I repeat, this is a purely theoretical challenge, meant to be humorous and silly, not meant to be offensive to anyone, and not meant to make any personal claims by me, the author of this challenge. In fact, my response to this challenge is... Challenge Accepted!

I believed...

I believed, even when I spoke:

“I am greatly afflicted”;

I said in my alarm,

“All mankind are liars.” 

 Psalm 116:10–11 (ESV)

Reign In Us: A Prayer of Bernard of Clairvaux

 

What It's About

Below is a clip from the Light and Truth Podcast from Desiring God. It is a clip from a sermon that was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church by John Piper on December 1st, 1996. 

The clip should start at 5:31. If it doesn't, I encourage you to forward to that time. (Obviously, you can go back and listen to the first 5 minutes of it later.) I share this clip, because I believe it needs to be heard. ... Really heard. 

Transcript from 5:31 to about 7:18... 

Now let's just get this real clear and real straight because I have the feeling we live in such a kind of touchy-feely day that Christianity is being so psychologized and so therapeutized that we really do believe this book was written for our mental health. It wasn't.  It was written to help us get right with a wrathful God. 

God is one great massive fire of Holiness. He hates sin and cannot abide it. We are little ant-like sinners of sin. And if we got within 10 trillion miles of this God we'd be consumed. 

The problem in the universe is not our frail marriages. The problem in the universe is not my failing health. The problem in the universe is not my wayward children. The problem in the universe is not the conflicts at work. The problem that the Bible was written to deal with is I have no hope of drawing near to God without being consumed: because I'm a sinner. And unless there is some kind of asbestos-like priest who can wrap me around with all he is and take me into the center of this fire there's no hope for me at all that's what the Bible is about.

There is much more here, and the whole thing, the whole series is worth listening to, but this portion might be an important clip for YOU to hear today. It might be the reason why you have been confused about the Bible and what it is telling you. It might be the reason why you have felt disappointed with God or resentful about how your life has played out. It might be the reason why you are depressed or discouraged about the world, whether big-scale or your own little world that you interact with. 

If you have been going through life, not realizing that your biggest need and your biggest problem have a solution, created by God the Father, fulfilled by God the Son, and made available by the Power of God the Spirit, then you could easily meander through this life down and discouraged. The Bible offers incredibly good news... good news that doesn't make sense until you know the bad news... and your future could be incredibly bright, and anyone can get in on this.