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We spent our vacation week at Maranatha; thus we got to hear a number of good Bible lessons. Maranatha is like the Christian Reformed Conference Grounds, but it’s non-denominational and you get to stay in real buildings with all the amenities (i.e. there’s no camping). Oh, and the pool is at the beach, for what that’s worth.

The topic for the week was from Acts, mainly focused on the start of the early church. The speaker was Ron Cline, a man with a great voice for speaking. That makes sense, since he has a radio show (Beyond the Call). His voice is low and clear. When you meet him, that’s what you first notice.  If you listen to his podcasts, you will not get the full effect. They do not accurately represent the bass in his voice.

Just how low is his voice? He makes James Earl Jones sound like a little girl.

Okay, maybe not so much.

The one thing that sticks in my mind the most, from the content of the messages, was the statement that “you are a witness.” Not that you should be a witness, but that you already are one. If you are a Christian, that is your one main job – to tell others what God has done for you and what He means to you. “Now,” he said, “you may be a crummy witness” and never tell anyone anything, or you may be a great witness.

Our responsibility, as Christians, is to tell other people about what God means to us (but individually, not collectively). You choice is not whether to be a witness but rather what kind of witness you will be.

Ron Cline had a number of stories from his work with HCJB. The stories were about people who are doing God’s work and the amazing things that happen to people who are committed to serving God. And there is a lot of work to be done.

Much of the world is in bad shape, and much of the work involves taking care of basic needs (clean water, hygiene, education, etc.) that are unmet in country after country. It was hard to go eat lunch or go to the beach after hearing some of what other people’s lives are like, since our hardships (“what? that restaurant closed? Great, there go our dinner plans…”) are nothing compared to even a good day in a lot of places.

But feeling guilty won’t help anyone. Anyway, HCJB trains people to minister to their local communities. The people who are best suited for an area (language, culture, etc.) are those who are already there. I am just to be faithful to God by introducing Him to the people whom He brings in my life. That’s the big picture.

“For you will be a witness for Him to all men of what you have seen and heard.”
– Acts 22:15

Every year, I try to read one book. If blogs counted as books, then my tally would be much much higher. During most of the year, life goes on without much book-learnin’ on my part. In the evenings after the kids are in bed, I do computery stuff while my wife breezes through a few books a week.

Summer vacation is a different story – I know I have a week with multiple chances to read, so I eagerly anticipate (are you allowed to use the word “anticipate” without the adverb “eagerly” accompanying it?) choosing the one book that I know I will complete this year. I know I should set better goals (“Slow down there, are you sure you can handle one whole book?”), but with a 4-month-old and our other children along on the vacation, I keep it realistic.

Also, I bring along several magazines that I would like to read but wouldn’t be disappointed if I didn’t. Since the reading times are 15-30 minutes lulls in the action (e.g. after the beach but before dinner), I find that magazines are good filler if I need to read.

This year, while I was contemplating which book to pick, my wife decided for me. And it wasn’t even a book I was considering. I usually aim for the classics. Two years ago, my book was Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo. I was disappointed by Google’s feelings about that book. When I was researching that book, Google asked me if I really meant “toilets of the sea”. I am glad to see that Google’s opinion of the book has improved, as it doesn’t ask that anymore.

I forget what I was considering this year, as I hadn’t narrowed it to any finalists yet. My wife had recently read Same Kind of Different as Me (henceforth known as SKODAM), and she highly recommended it as the book I should read on vacation. She had read SKODAM because my sister had recommended it. My sister’s exact words were “You must read this.”

SPOILER ALERT

I had heard about the book, read the thingies on the back cover, and so I knew just a little bit about the book. As I was reading, the story sounded too cliché.  Part of the story is set in Texas in the early 1960s, so of course they had to work in JFK’s assassination in there.  Although claiming that the protagonist had a front-row seat to the assassination was pushing the envelope of believability for a novel.  It’s written by some Christian guys, so of course the guy goes to church and finds Jesus.  Of course the rich guy had an affair – that’s the standard back-sliding Christian sin of choice in novels, I would think.

Of course the black guy was oppressed (and oppressed is putting it mildly) growing up – that’s also a standard story in novels.  But come on, working the plantations in the 1950s and ’60s?! I mean, the story was written as a first-person account of life, and they almost had me believing it could be a real story if they had gotten the dates right. They forgot that slavery was a few decades earlier. And kids working the fields without being able to go to school?! Not even knowing there is school?! That’s not mid-20th century America.

It wasn’t until halfway through the book, when I got to the “after” pictures, that I realized the story was real. When I saw the pictures, it hit me that these were real people and this was their true story. At that point, I remembered that I already knew the story was real. I had heard it from my sister and even the book mentioned it somewhere on the cover or flap. But once I started reading, the story did seem so improbable that my brain had dismissed that little fact and latched onto the more believable description of the book as fiction.

END SPOILER ALERT

That book will get you thinking. About spiritual matters. About physical/material matters. About people matters. And about yourself.

Once I started reading that book, I finished it rather quickly. That left five days in the vacation and my book was already done. Right around the same time that I finished SKODAM, my wife finished reading one of her other books, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (by Alan Bradley, ISBN 978-0-385-34230-8, henceforth known as TSATBOTP). It is copyrighted as 2009 and lists the print date as May 2009, so it is quite new.

Even though it was a new book, the cover made the book look like it was decades old. I like the cover design – it was very well done, from the font to the coloring. That’s what made me pick it up and start reading it – I thought it was an older book. It wasn’t until later that I saw it was printed this year.

It is a murder mystery. Not being well-versed in murder mysteries, I have no reference to say it was better than something or like something else. I just know that it was a good book. The story was captivating and it’s the kind that makes you feel smarter for having read it. And it was clean – no gore, no romance. It’s written from the first-person view of an 11-year-old girl in England in 1950, so that should help ensure that future books (set for publishing in 2010 and 2011) are also clean.

If you’re looking for a novel to read, you should put TSATBOTP near the top of the list. To whet your appetite, I am including a couple of snippets from the book.

• If poisons were ponies, I’d put my money on cyanide.
• … I inhaled the camphoraceous steam of poultry eucalyptus, and somewhere up inside the sticky caverns of my head I thought I felt my sinuses throw their hands up into the air and surrender. I was feeling better already.

Maybe those scant fragments from the book don’t interest you. In that case I have done the book an injustice. Read it anyway.

“But beyond this, my son, be warned: the writing of many books is endless, and excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body.”
– Ecclesiastes 12:12

In cooperation with LaanyKidsMom, here are some real entries for this week.

• Puppy Chow
  A church friend (that’s a friend from church, not a friend who is a church) made some Puppy Chow because she was to bring dessert to our 4th of July gathering. There was a lot (more than a gallon) of Puppy Chow left, mainly because there were so many other desserts. Competition is good. She decided she didn’t want to take any of it home, so we were cursed blessed with the leftovers.

  I had the joy this week of eating handfuls of Puppy Chow every night for dinner dessert after dinner.  But it was not just any Puppy Chow (officially called Muddy Buddies by the Crispix people, but that name is officially ignored by everyone). No, it had a secret ingredient that made it extra fattening tasty.

  Butterscotch.

  Add it to your next batch of Puppy Chow and be amazed.  I don’t know how much butterscotch to add, but I’m sure someone somewhere has a recipe for the Scotch Terrier breed of Puppy Chow.

  (Isn’t this little trick of leaving in the text you would like to say but striking it out so that people get an idea of the thought process behind the writing annoying great?)

  What else has brought me joy this week?

• Our Baby
  The baby (4 and a half months old) has started rolling over. Yesterday was the second time. When I would check on him before I leave for work, he would always be in the same position in which I put him the night before. A few mornings ago, he was on his back, looking up at the world. We tried, but he didn’t repeat it despite our efforts and coaching.

  Then that morning, he was looking up at me again, having rolled over from front to back. He did it again this morning. Apparently he likes to roll over only in the morning, because he won’t do it any other time.

  One more

• Golf Balls
  I don’t golf, but for some reason it’s fun to collect golf balls. Free golf balls. I certainly wouldn’t pay for any. Nor would I want any for a present, in case someone tries to get that idea. I don’t really collect them. If you want to help, then what I’m trying to collect is $20 bills.

  I go for the golf balls because my road borders a golf course. I’m sure if my road bordered tennis courts I’d collect tennis balls. But no, I got a golf course.

  I have now found golf balls on all of my runs this week so far. Since I run every other day and take weekends off, that’s only three runs. This morning I found not one but two golf balls. Extra joy!

  It’s like a prize for going running. Because, despite what other people may say, running itself is not a real prize.

Joy Found. Mission accomplished.

or “Have They Not Seen Mr. Holland’s Opus?”

My family went to the local Independence Day parade. The children, ages 5, 3, and 4 months, enjoyed the parade except for one part – the fire engines. The only time the baby cried during the parade was whenever a fire engine sounded its siren or horn. Why do the drivers of the fire engines insist on running their sirens during parades? The police cars don’t do it. Some classic cars honk their horns, but in those cases it is a song and the horns are much quieter than a fire truck’s siren or horn.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you this:

An Open Letter to the Fire Departments of America

In looking at a few other articles, I found what is now my favorite analogy on the subject: excess or gratuitous noise is the audible equivalent to second-hand smoke. It doesn’t bother the one producing it, but innocent bystanders suffer the consequences.

No one would be bothered if the fire engines don’t blast their horns or sirens at full volume during a parade. If anyone noticed it, I bet he would be pleasantly surprised (something like “Hey, that was nice that they went by without jolting us out of our seats.”). But most people would probably like to just observe the fire engines like any other parade entry.

A siren is about 120 decibels at 10 feet. That 10 feet is about the distance from the fire engine to the parade spectators. That means that permanent hearing damage will occur in about 10 seconds.

It is interesting to note that many fire departments now have the sirens at the trucks’ bumpers, rather than on top of the cab as was the custom for so many years. The reason was to reduce the noise level in the cab. So now the sirens are aimed right at the parade spectators – about the same height as a 3- or 5-year-old child. Even more reason not to sound off during the parade.

Keep the sirens for emergencies only, please, and horns only to catch the attention of people inside cars, with glass and metal to shield them from the noise.

“He who has ears, let him hear.”
– Matthew 13:9

That headline means “toys that are annoying”, not “how to annoy toys”. I don’t know that inanimate objects can be annoyed, which makes it even more frustrating because they don’t even know or care how bothersome they can be.

Our basement is used mainly for storage. As a set of toys phases out of daily or weekly use by the kids, we will put the toys in the basement. Sometimes we will pull them out again, and the kids will be pleasantly surprised by the “new” toys, or they might remember them and be glad to play with them again.

Other times, usually as a threat an enticement to clean up a room, we will say something like “Whatever is still on the floor when I come back is going down to the basement.” The kids don’t go down in the basement by themselves (too many spiderwebs), so sending toys down there is equivalent to banishing them from the house. “Them” being the toys, not the children.

I just reinstated one toy that had been put down in the basement. It had been put down there because it wasn’t being used much, and it took a lot of floor space. But for fun, I brought it up. My wife and I quickly remembered the other reason it had quietly disappeared into the basement one night: the songs.

There are four buttons on this toy, and they play a random assortment of songs. Loud songs. Loud songs that last way too long. The buttons are touchy, so that the toy is easily set off. Not as touchy as the radio controls in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (waving a finger near them would change stations), but pretty sensitive nonetheless.

And then a thought occurred to me: we have never replaced the batteries on that thing.

So I am proposing some sort of a law, like Murphy’s Law or Muphry’s Law or something: The battery life of a toy is directly proportional to how annoying it is.

The more annoying the toy, the longer the batteries will last. The more you want something to wear out so it will stop bothering you, the more it will just keep working. Conversely, the more you like something, the more quickly its batteries will die.

“He who blesses his friend with a loud voice early in the morning,It will be reckoned a curse to him.”
– Proverbs 27:14

There are normally two times of the year that promote wistfulness: the beginning of school and Christmas.

The beginning of school is a nostalgic time because I am not in school anymore. It reminds me of all the good parts about the end of August / start of September: cross-country camp, band camp, shopping for school supplies, shopping for clothes, new football season, etc.

But I am not involved in those things anymore, other than watching football on TV. That’s not the same, though, as being in the marching band at the game, going through the pre-game drill, playing for the tunnel through which the players run, etc. The same with cross-country and all the other school activities – the “back to school” days reminds me that part of my life is past and makes me sentimental. I’ll get to go through those days again, in a different sense, once my kids are old enough to be involved in those things. Right now, with kindergarten, there’s not much as far as extra-curricular activities.

And Christmas is obvious – the nostalgia evoked by traditions, family gatherings, and the end of a calendar year make one reflect on what happened or was done during that year. The non-obvious trigger for the wow-where-did-the-year-go wistful thinking is the summer solstice. June 21st or so – the longest day of the year.

Starting in January, I begin reminding myself (subconsciously) that the days are getting longer and that reinforces the thought that the year is starting and there are oh so many things that we can do this year. I know it really starts several days earlier around December 21st, but Christmas takes priority.

Then after June 21st, the days start getting shorter. They’re still long enough so that it doesn’t really matter, but it’s the thought that counts. You know the days are getting shorter, that means the year is waning.

They should move the summer solstice, or maybe move the calendar months. Really, the longest day of the year should be in the middle of July, so that the longest days of the year are evenly distributed throughout the whole summer. Or maybe even better, move the longest day of the year to be at the end of August, so that the days start decreasing in length once school starts.

Hmm…then the warmest days of the year would be during school. Cross-country would not be fun at all because it would be during the hot season. The wool marching band uniforms would be even worse.

Never mind.

“He made the moon for the seasons;The sun knows the place of its setting.”
– Psalm 104:19

I had my first experience with government-run health care, and I am very unimpressed. No, worse than that – I am worried that anyone wants to expand this level of service.

Our oldest child will be starting kindergarten this fall. One of the state’s requirements for children starting school is that they have a vision test on record with the school.

“Not to worry,” says the local county government, “we provide free vision screenings for any county resident.” I thought that was fine, so my wife called the county to schedule an appointment.

A little background information first:

This was last week, in the first half of June. We registered our child for kindergarten back in April or so. The school district said that he was penciled in but would not be officially registered until we provided the results of the vision screening. The students are assigned to teachers in mid August, and school starts right after Labor Day, in early September.

So the county health division was glad to sign up our child for a free vision screening, but the first opening they had was August 24th, only two weeks before school started. What good is that, if I want my child to be registered before the classes are setup?

I didn’t want to wait that long. I wanted to get everything set and out of the way. And I’m sure the school district wouldn’t want us to wait that long. They need to plan the classroom sizes and move teachers around if there are too few or too many students. They don’t want kids registering at the very last minute, after they have setup all the classrooms.

We called the doctor’s office. “Yes,” they said, “we offer vision screening. It should be covered by insurance, so it should be free to you.” Oh, and they could get us an appointment next week, while it is still June.

So we setup an appointment with the privately-run doctor’s office and will pay for it with our private insurance. I’m glad we have the private insurance and don’t need to use the free already-paid-for-by-my-taxes government services.

The government health department might be fine for those who really need it, but if you do use them, you need to be very prepared and schedule your appointments well before you normally would since they are so slow.

For a non-emergency situation like a vision test, it’s not that big a deal. What if there were an medical problem that needed attention? I would hope that the government service could act quickly enough to help. But so far, in both this country and others, government is big and slow. That’s fine for regulations and taxes and stuff, but not good for medical care.

“We waited for peace, but no good came;For a time of healing, but behold, terror!”
– Jeremiah 8:15