Who are you praying for?

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?"
Matthew 5:43-47 (NIV)

Three times in the past two weeks, I have heard church leaders either request or utter prayers for the safety of Christians in Egypt. This is a prayer I understand: some congregations support missionaries who are serving in Egypt; some have family or friends who live in Egypt. The political unrest (and now violence) has left Egypt as an unstable and, in many ways, unsafe place to be.

What strikes me about the prayers I've heard, though, is that it is for Christians. What about the people there who are not believers? Why don't they merit our prayers?

When news of the shooting in Tucson, AZ, broke last month, my instinctive response was, "what a sad situation." But when I learned that it had happened just a few blocks from a PCA church-- and, in fact, that it was the church that a seminary classmate serves, and his daughters were in the bank adjacent to the lot where the shootings occurred-- suddenly I was motivated to pay attention and be more regular in prayer.

Why wasn't I motivated to pray before I knew this? Why does it take the proximity of someone we know to make us care about a tragedy or disaster?

I'm convicted by the passage above, from Matthew. I think when we pray for only the Christians in Egypt-- and not for those who have no eternal security-- then we are not doing anything the pagans and tax collectors would do. I think when we only care about tragic events-- and by "care" I mean something much more than morbid curiosity and tongue-clucking-- then we fail to love our enemies and pray for our persecutors.

I'm praying that the heavenly Father, who has called me His son, would cause me to be a "son of the Father" as Jesus speaks of in Matthew 5.

Bits and Tidbits, January 2011

Yes, please!: Space Invaders: why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period. This is probably the most unknown rule of typing and computer use around.
Privacy: How to Avoid Online Tracking. (Hint: You Can't.) I've been saying this for a few years now; the idea of privacy online is a myth.
Wow: How to Handle Your Daughter's First Date. I'm not sure quite what to make of this piece-- the advice is a bit thin, but that's not surprising. Maybe the biggest revelation is that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends that you insist on meeting your daughter's date!
So True: Why having a toddler is like being at a frat party. Very funny list; I didn't go to many frat parties, but I remember many parties in high school that had the same feel to them. I hadn't put 2 and 2 together on this one. (HT: Lydia)
Horrifying: Doctor Is Charged in Killing of Newborns. So many questions of ethical consistency are raised by this piece...

Snow Days

We had a snow day on Friday, so the kids stayed home from school-- the third snow day in two weeks. Thursday evening, about 2 inches of accumulation fell, and it basically closed down our town.

One of my midwestern friends (who is attending school in the south) pondered recently on Facebook, "why does a light snow close down the city?" Let me offer a few reasons.

First, it's due to a lack of equipment and supplies. Most parts of the southeastern U.S. simply don't get enough snow to make the purchase and maintenance of trucks, plows, and de-icing supplies economically responsible. It costs tens of thousands of dollars (hundreds of thousands, in larger cities) annually to buy snow plows, "salt" trucks, and de-icing chemicals. When they would only be in-use once or twice a year, tops, this is poor stewardship of tax dollars.

In the midwest and other regions, these expenses are justified and necessary-- but my hometown of Columbia, SC has gotten more snow in the past year than I can remember throughout the 27 years that I lived there. Most years, we saw NO snow. It's far more economically responsible just to close schools and businesses once or twice every couple of years than it is to treat the roads.

Second, it's true that southerners don't know how to drive in snow. Without much frequency, how could they be expected to? (It's also true that most city folk don't know how to drive in mud, but I seldom hear that thrown out as a derogatory comment!)

But I'll let you in on a secret: most midwesterners don't know how to drive in snow, either; the few times that I saw St. Louis receive a "surprise" snow (i.e., there wasn't time to adequately treat the roads before the snow arrived), the roads were filled with accidents and abandoned cars that slid out of the lanes and got stuck. The fact is, NO ONE can drive safely on untreated roads without special equipment. Those who live in climates that regularly require them to drive on snowy roads own snow tires and 4-wheel or all-wheel drive vehicles.

Finally, what's the fun in not calling off work and school? When it only snows in great quantities every now and then, even the adults want to enjoy it. When we had a snow day last week, all 6 of us got out and enjoyed the snow. A friend of mine in Oxford, MS posted a bunch of photos of his family playing with their friends and neighbors; there weren't many "proper" snow toys (sleds, discs, etc.) but they made do with tupperware, garbage can lids, and even a mattress!

Snow is part of life in some parts of the country, and an annoyance at times. But it is a novelty in the south, and most of the time a pleasant diversion.

Books for December 2010

Treat Your Own Neck by Robin McKenzie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A good book, and helpful for considering body mechanics and healthy ergonomic practices as well as useful stretches for both recovery and prevention of neck pain.





The Children of Men by P.D. James
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Very good story, though quite dark for much of the book. I had read that it had an apocalyptic angle to it, and it certainly does. James deals with matters of faith a little bit flippantly for my tastes, but not so much that it obscured the quality of the story.





The Subversive Copy Editor: Advice from Chicago by Carol Fisher Saller
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Very good book; an interesting look at copy-editing and the functional dynamics of the work. There are a lot of good workflow ideas and advice here, as well as fun anecdotes and a lighter approach to the work of publishing.



View all my reviews

Bits and Tidbits, end-of-the-year 2010

Funny: Help! My Half-Elf Is Pregnant! These are excerpts from a Dungeons & Dragons magazine advice column. Very funny stuff.
Strangely Beautiful: Lori Nix's Stunning, Tiny Dioramas Depict an Abandoned World. These are amazing, and betray a fascinating worldview as well.
Also Funny: Awkward Pregnancy Photos. It still surprises me what some people consider artistic and/or appropriate. (Warning: one pic has a bare booby.)
A Real Problem: Walking Santa, Talking Christ. A look at the real statistical differences between those who say they are active in church vs. those who actually ARE active.
Mayonnaise: The Guiltless Pleasure. I like this piece, not so much because I agree with his love of mayo, but because I love his writing style.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone. I pray that, as Advent comes to a close this afternoon, and Christmastide begins, the Lord will bless each of you with the joy of His coming and the hope of His grace and mercy.

Here are some especially delightful Christmas treats for your listening pleasure (video links-- click through to the blog if you're reading this on Facebook)-- some of the lesser-known, but absolutely beautiful, carols:

What's Christmas about? (Christmas Monologue #2)

Watch out for the Christmas Commie! (Christmas Monologue #1)

(HT: Weez)

Books for fall 2010

The "bad news is that I haven't done a very good job of keeping track of books I've read lately. The good news is that I'm using a new (to me) service called GoodReads that will clean up my reviews a bit. I'll make use of GoodReads's sharing tools to post reviews here.
Books I've read fairly recently:
Agnes, Daughter of William the Baptist or The Young Theologian by James M. Chaney
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was the “sequel” to Chaney’s William the Baptist: annotated edition, and follows Agnes, one of William and Dora’s children who wishes to be admitted to the Communion Table for the Sacrament. Like William the Baptist it is written in a dialogue style, and it is very readable.
Agnes is not quite as good as William, which may explain why it is so hard to find a copy. Still, it is a good book and worth the read, if you can find it!


Acts of the Apostles by John F.X. Sundman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A good, fun read. After a somewhat complicated start, this one will draw you in and keep you interested.
I read it as an ebook; I'm not sure if it is available in print. It reads well as etext, which seems a bit fitting given the subject (though it feels a little dated, set in the mid-90s). There were a few annoying artifacts which I am pretty sure are the fruit of using Smashwords, not poor editing. But overall, it was well laid-out and flowed well in iBooks.


A Guide to Biblical Commentaries & Reference Works by John Frederick Evans
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book is unlike any I have seen: while D.A. Carson and Tremper Longman both have offered similar bibliographies and surveys in the past, neither was as thorough nor as detailed as Evans. Furthermore, both Carson and Longman (understandably) focused on only one of the testaments.
Evans’s A Guide to Biblical Commentaries & Reference Works is the most comprehensive survey of commentaries around. It is very up-to-date, even including commentaries released in the second half of 2010. And it is extremely useful, offering guides for students of the Bible from every level.
Any seminary or Bible college student, pastor or ministry worker, or even professors who interact with the Bible will be grateful for this as a ready-reference.
(Full disclosure: I work with the ministry that publishes this volume.)


A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I didn’t finish this book, but I’m done with it, at least for now. I read a little more than 50% of it.
This is a strange book. It’s more of a collection of short stories, with the characters in the stories loosely connected to the characters in the other stories. It jumps around in a historical timeline with no evident rationale, and at the beginning of each chapter (which is actually a new short story) you’re disoriented and lost for a few paragraphs. There are some sections that are frank about adult ideas, but very little that is explicit.
Still, it was a reasonably good book (the part I read). I put it down for a few weeks, and when I came back to it I was completely lost. I didn’t start over, but I did have to work to regain a sense of who was who. After a couple of tries, I simply lost interest. I think a good bit of the reason why was that I had very little invested in the characters, as I had encountered each of them only briefly in one or two stories.
I think the writer is clever with much of what she does here, and this might be a great book for a vacation or holiday when it could be read straight-through over a few days.

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Video Tidbits, December 2010

(HT: Adam)