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Brenden the Scholar

Sep 3rd, 2010

| Posted in Brenden, School

Thursday was Brenden’s first day of school at Colleyville Christian Preschool. By all accounts, he had a blast! I stayed up late after work to go along. We arrived a bit early and looked around outside, checking out the playground’s array of jungle gyms, seesaws, and tricycles. I tried to take pictures in front of the school, but he was more interested in looking around at all the cool stuff at the school than in posing for Daddy. He’d already been there a couple of times before and knew right where he wanted to go once I opened the front door: the train set in the central play area.

Jenny visited with his teacher, Miss Jennifer, while I chased him down and took him back to his room. Miss Jennifer is very nice and very tall. She reminds me of my sister’s lifelong friend Brittney, who teaches elementary school. Once in his classroom, he didn’t waste time with teary goodbyes or whining. Instead, he went straight to the Magna-Doodle and began to draw. His classroom is filled with the things you’d expect for a preschool classroom: short tables, tiny chairs, a tiny toilet in the attached bathroom, lots of toys and posters. Brenden seemed right at home, so engrossed that he pretty much forgot we were there. No drama this time on either side!

Pics from B’s First Day of School (and Fingerpainting)

Afterward, Miss Jennifer said he’d been very good and had a great time. He played well, ate most of his lunch (a concern of ours, since he can be picky), got along with the other kids, and even napped on the nap mat that YaYa made him. Our main fear was that he wouldn’t nap. After he left babyhood, he never napped with other people in the room, so we didn’t know how he would handle naptime in an exciting room full of toys and other kids. We sent Chilly, his stuffed polar bear, with him, and Chilly did the trick. He came home asking when he could see his “boys” again, so I guess he made some friends. We are very thankful that Brenden had such a good time and for such a great school.

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Highway from the Comfort Zone

Sep 1st, 2010

by Andy

| Posted in Faith, Poverty, Social Issues

On Monday I finally went out to Mission Arlington to volunteer for a few hours. I’d meant to go for several weeks, but the timing is difficult due to my weird sleep schedule and other issues.

Dragging My Feet
Truth be told, I was also a little nervous, for two reasons. First, I’m used to being the veteran, not the new guy. I’m a trainer at work. I’ve been married for years. I’ve been a Christian for nearly two decades. I’ve even been a father for a while. I’m not an expert at any of these pursuits, but I’ve done them enough to be fairly comfortable doing them. Being the new guy means trying new things, being subject to superiors and taking direction, and making mistakes – things that make me squirm.

The second reason is harder to admit: despite all my talk about helping “the least of these,” actually doing so in person is way outside my comfort zone. I am painfully aware that my world is very different from theirs. I’m no better or more worthy than they are, but for whatever reason, God has chosen to bless me and my family with a comfortable middle-class life in which all our needs and most of our wants are fulfilled. I’ve never gone hungry because we couldn’t afford food. I don’t worry about whether we’ll make our mortgage payment each month. I only have to work one job, and it pays enough for my wife to stay home with our two healthy, happy sons. We eat strawberries and drink organic milk. I sometimes feel deprived because we can’t afford to eat sushi more often.

Coming face-to-face with real people who have real unmet needs fills me with a mix of emotions. Guilt is the main one, and I’ve struggled with it on and off for most of my life. Self-consciousness is another. Profound gratitude is a third.

Getting to Work
I checked in at the volunteer office. This time I entered through the side door instead of the front door where all the clients are waiting. When I came a couple months ago for the tour, it felt weird to barge in and waltz through the waiting room to the back like I was somebody special. I checked in and got assigned first to the food warehouse.

Mission Arlington has done an amazing job of integrating itself into the Arlington community. Restaurants and other businesses from all over the city donate leftover food and other supplies every day. My first job was to help process the Starbucks and Olive Garden donations. They send mass quantities of leftover scones, muffins, lasagna, cookies, sauces, and more. MA volunteers count the donations and send the counts back to each business so it can write off the donation. Then the volunteers distribute the goodies as able. The Starbucks goodies were going to the Mission Arlington Bible studies that occur all over the area, mostly in apartment communities, many of whose residents are lower-income and don’t always get enough to eat. While I was there, two different people arrived with dozens of free Pizza Hut pizzas that also went to the Bible studies.

My other job was helping in the food pantry. Throughout the day, families come to Mission Arlington looking for food. I believe each family can get food once a week. I helped pack the bags – a few cans of vegetables, a can of meat, some beans or pasta, peanut butter, and drink mix, all donated by individuals or local businesses. Each family could also get some bread, a cake or cookies, and diapers or toiletries if any were available. Most of the diapers and all of the shampoo were already gone for the day, but more could have arrived the next day. These small bags contained a significant portion of the weekly food for many of these families. Some of the bags (also donated) came from Target, where we shop. If we use those bags, rather than our eco-friendly reusable ones, a typical grocery trip involves at least four or five of them.

I got to pass out one of the bags to a middle-aged man and woman. The man told me, with a mixture of relief, shame, and pride, that “we just got our electricity turned back on.” Their faces bore the fatigue of struggle. I gave them a choice of bread (a loaf for sandwiches) and cake (chocolate). The woman asked if we had any powdered milk, but we didn’t that day. They thanked us and left. I helped another woman, probably 70-something with a bad hip and unsteady walk, carry her bag out to the car. She was missing her top three or four front teeth. She drove a white Caddy, similar to one that my great-aunt drove back in the 80s when it was brand new.

It felt odd to limit the number of items in each bag or the number of bags to give to each person, to tell someone they can only have one can of tuna this week.

The Volunteers
Although Mission Arlington has a staff, much of the work is done by hundreds of volunteers. Some are college students or members of churches both local and faraway. Many of the volunteers work for court-mandated community service and must log their hours. I found it interesting and encouraging that a secular government would send minor criminals to a faith-based organization to repay the community for their crimes. It’s possible that they have wronged some of the very people they are now serving.

The leader of the food pantry for the day was named a nice, hardworking woman named Juanita. Due to some serious medical problems, she’d had several surgeries, missed a lot of work, lost her job, and gotten in some minor legal trouble. She was logging community service hours, but she planned to keep coming because she believed in the work of Mission Arlington. She thought it was cool that I’d stuck around to help out with my kids instead of leaving like her boyfriend had done. We had little in common except a passion for helping people and for our young children. That was enough. We made a good team.

Did I change the world that afternoon? No. But I did get to play a small role in a play that is much, much bigger than myself. I hope to go back when I can. I hope you go, too. Just show up, and they’ll put you to work. It’s probably out of your comfort zone. That’s a good thing. Go anyway. You’ll be glad you did.

Also, please pray for a job for Juanita. Thank you.

PS…for more about working with “those people,” check out this post on Rachel Held Evans’ blog.

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Haiku Tuesday 3 – Food

Aug 31st, 2010

by Andy

| Posted in Haiku

Today’s theme is food.

Frosted Mini Wheats
Fiber, sugar, crunchy joy
One bowl every morn!

Your turn!

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What the New Testament Says About Hell

Aug 28th, 2010

by Andy

| Posted in Faith

A few days ago, I wrote about the Old Testament’s portrayal of the fiery place that most Christians call hell. In a nutshell, it doesn’t really exist in the OT. Instead, after death everyone goes to a mysterious, vague place called Sheol in the original Hebrew. Sheol contains no rewards or punishments. Those issues are handled during one’s lifetime on earth.

Use of the Word in the New Testament

Depending on which translation you use, the word hell could appear up to 23 times in the New Nestament, as in the King James Version. However, three different Greek words are translated as hell in the KJV, and all three have different meanings (check out this site for more info):

Hades - This is the Greek version of the Hebrew word sheol, making it a morally neutral holding place for the dead. It appears ten times in the Greek NT. Note that the Greek word already existed prior to the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek before the time of Jesus. Hades is the underworld in Greek mythology.
Tartarus - The Greeks’ Hades had a special section (the smoking section, perhaps?) reserved for punishment of evil spirits. This word is used only once in the NT, in 2 Peter 2:4 to describe a place of punishment for angels.
Gehenna - This word literally referred to a valley south of Jerusalem. In Jesus’ day, it functioned as a landfill. The Jews kept a fire burning there constantly so they could burn dead animal and human bodies and other trash, which helped to prevent the spread of disease. Gehenna appears twelve times in the NT, with eleven uses coming from Jesus. (visit this site for more info with some interpretive commentary)

As far as I know, there is little debate among Biblical scholars regarding the literal meanings of these three Greek words. However, significant disagreement exists regarding the interpretation of the associated passages and others that seem to address the afterlife.

Different Views of Hell

Based on these three words and other passages in the Bible, Christians have developed at least four distinct views of hell.

Eternal Fire
Most conservative evangelicals and many others view hell as a place of eternal fire as described in the old sermon called “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God“. This view has three main components that RealLivePreacher.com laid out nicely:

Hell is a literal, real place.
Hell is not necessarily for “bad people”, but for people who do not choose to believe in Jesus in this lifetime (“non-Christians”).
Hell is eternal. Many refer to it as “eternal conscious torment” to reflect the endless suffering of its inhabitants. The Lake of Fire in Revelation seems to reflect the nature of this suffering.

The Christian Courier details this view at length.

Believers in eternal hell often cite Jesus’ references to Gehenna, such as Mark 9:45-49: “If your foot should cause you to offend, cut it off: it would be better for you to enter into Life crippled, than remain in possession of both your feet and be thrown into Gehenna where their worm does not die and the fire does not go out.” Billy Graham and numerous Baptist preachers are in this camp. Some of these people believe that the unsaved go straight to hell after death, while others believe the unsaved wait in Sheol until Jesus returns to deliver his ultimate judgment.

A State of Separation
Others, including many Catholics and mainline Protestants, view hell as more of a state than a place. Rather than a lake of eternal fire, hell is a state of being eternally separated from God, perhaps in eternal “outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12) as punishment for the unredeemed. Some Orthodox believe that hell and heaven will be in the same general location in the presence of God. Based on the state of one’s relationship with God on earth, being in his presence will itself be a reward or a punishment. This site has more information. Catholics also believe in a place called Purgatory that is separate from hell but involves some punishment and purification for those who aren’t quite ready for heaven. Pope John Paul II was in the separation camp, although Pope Benedict seems to view hell as a literal place.

Annihilation
Some believe that those who don’t reach heaven simply cease to exist rather than being tortured eternally. They often cite Romans 6:23, which says, “for the wages of sin is death,” not eternal punishment. They believe a loving God wouldn’t torture the children he created for all eternity for the mistakes we made during our short lifetimes. Wikipedia summarizes this view well. All Scriptural references to Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, or Tartarus are figurative.

Universal Salvation
Christian Universalists believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven, but that he really did reconcile everyone to God. Some accept his gift in their lifetimes on earth, and others choose to do so at some point after death, perhaps after a period of limited punishment in Sheol or a place similar to Gehenna. In other words, hell is either figurative or a literal but temporary place. Like the annihilationists, they believe a loving God cannot torture his children forever, but they also believe that he both wants all to be saved and will not allow our own sinfulness to prevent him from getting his way. They point to 1 Tim 4:10, which says God is “the savior of all men, especially of those who believe“. Tentmaker.org defends this view in detail, as does The Beautiful Heresy. This view was common in the early church but fell out of favor after a few centuries, due in large part to the writings of Augustine.

Which Is Correct?

Based on the poll results from several weeks ago, I know many of you hold the eternal fire view and probably always have. You might be right. I imagine that some of you add exceptions to the eternal fire view that make sense but aren’t specified in the Word, perhaps for children who die before the “age of accountability” or people with mental disabilities. I certainly would.

Regardless of your current views, if you haven’t already, I challenge you to really think through and pray about the question of hell based on what the Bible actually says rather than simply accepting what you’ve been told. A brief look at history reminds us that the collective Church hasn’t always interpreted the Word in the same way over time and has been dead wrong on some issues, such as the sale of indulgences that helped prompt the Reformation.

I know which view I want to believe – that everyone, from Mother Theresa to Osama bin Laden, from the Pope to the hunter in the Amazon who never hears of Jesus, will be in heaven forever. Why? Because we are all God’s beloved children, flawed in our own way. I don’t think anyone deserves to burn forever no matter how terrible they are. I want the Good News to actually be Good News to everyone, not just those who happen to be born in the right place at the right time and believe the right religion. Yes, we all deserve justice for the lives we have lived. Yes, I want bin Laden punished. But eternal fire isn’t justice in my book, even for him. Obviously, that’s not my decision to make, and just because I don’t like something doesn’t make it wrong. But given the chance, I would vote for everyone to be saved in the end.

Nothing would make me happier.

However, I can’t tell you which one actually is correct because I don’t know. There are Biblical arguments both to support and to refute all these views and more. Some parts of the Bible are literal, while others are figurative, and it’s not always clear to me which parts are which. I hit many of the websites above and others trying to figure out the truth. I’m still working on it. Really, no one knows except God and the dead. All we have is belief in one view or another.

What are your thoughts?

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Introducing My New Nephew

Aug 27th, 2010

by Andy

| Posted in Family

On August 26, Jenny’s sister Katy and brother-in-law Eric welcomed their first child, Ethan Edward. Mom and son are doing well. He packed 8lb 15oz into his 20″ frame and has tons of dark hair like his daddy. Welcome to Earth, Ethan!

Pics of Ethan

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Is Cursive Writing Obsolete?

Aug 26th, 2010

by Andy

| Posted in School, Social Issues

During elementary school, I remember thinking that learning to write in cursive was a big deal, a sign of maturity and progress. I liked the weirdness of the cursive Z and getting a new way to write my name. I practiced and practiced in school to get all the letters right. Unfortunately, handwriting of either form has never been my strength. My mother and her parents have beautiful handwriting, but I guess I missed that gene. The first time I ever got less than an A on a report card was an A- in handwriting, which was probably generous on the part of Miss George. I wrote in cursive for a while, certainly in elementary school and junior high. Then, at some point in high school or college, I switched back to printing.

I can’t remember why I switched. Perhaps my printing was a bit easier to read. Perhaps I could write faster that way. For some time I think I did both, switching arbitrarily based on my mood. Then I simply quit writing in cursive altogether except for my signature, which is a crude and ugly hybrid of printing and cursive, much different from my handwriting textbooks. Miss George would give me a solid F, or maybe a D since she liked me.

These days, I write very little by hand. When I must, I print. At work I fill out my time sheet. Sometimes I add a few things to the grocery list. When forced to snail-mail something that doesn’t have a pre-printed address, I begrudgingly write the address on the envelope. Perhaps once a month, I write a check for some weird expense. That’s pretty much it. I hate to write by hand. I can type much faster, and the result is much easier for everyone to read.

A question simmers in my head: is cursive writing even necessary anymore?

It seems odd that we teach two different forms of writing, especially when the cursive form is so bizarre in some cases (upper-case Q, anyone?) and so seldom used today except in signatures. Wouldn’t a typing class be more useful, even in elementary school? Perhaps things have changed since I was in grade school, but I didn’t take a typing class until eighth grade. By then, I had already taught myself to type using about five fingers (left index and thumb plus right index, middle, and thumb), and using all ten just felt weird to me. I’m pretty fast with five fingers and can mostly type without looking, although I’m sure I could be better using proper technique.

As our society becomes increasingly dependent on technology, it seems that we type more and write by hand less. When is the last time you hand-wrote an actual letter to someone – not a thank-you note or brief message on a birthday card, but an actual letter? I can’t remember for certain, but it was probably in college under compulsion, a long thank-you letter to the donor of one of my scholarships. I probably printed it.

What do you think? Do you still write in cursive? Is it still worth teaching to our children? If so, how long should we keep teaching it?

I’m leaning toward giving up on it in our schools within the next 5-10 years. My main concern is that future generations won’t be able to read some documents from previous generations that were written in cursive. Some are also concerned about signatures on legal documents, but there’s no requirement for signatures to be in cursive. In truth, many signatures would be much more legible if they were NOT written in cursive.

Here are a few articles about the debate:

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