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“Too many steps; that’s just too many steps.” (Sydney, after watching Bethel Lady Pilots basketball on Saturday, and apparently listening carefully to Bobby Morton as P.A.)

“Papa, I wanna go down stairs and watch ‘The Office.’ I like Michael Scott."

What's a papa to do but drop everything and fulfill such a worthwhile wish?

A man, standing in front of classroom full of MBA students, rips pages from an economics textbook.

“Papa, what is Michael Scott doing?” (Sydney)

Beginning in 1959, Umberto Eco contributed a monthly column of wit and parody to an Italian literary journal. In the 1960’s the columns were collected and went through two editions. Some of them have now been translated by William Weaver and will be published in paperback in May by Harcourt Brace & Company as a Helen and Kurt Wolff Book under the title “Misreadings.” The excerpts below are taken from a piece titled “Regretfully, We Are Returning Your . . .” – reports from professional readers of manuscripts submitted to publishers by agents or hopeful authors.

“The Bible.” Anonymous.

I must say that the first few hundred pages of this manuscript really hooked me. Action-packed, they have everything today’s reader wants in a good story. Sex (lots of it, including adultery, sodomy, incest), also murder, war, massacres and so on.

The Sodom and Gomorrah chapter, with the transvestites putting the make on the angels, is worthy of Rabelais; the Noah stories are pure Jules Verne; the escape from Egypt cries out to be turned into a major motion picture. In other words, a real blockbuster, very well structured, with plenty of twists, full of invention, with just the right amount of piety, and never lapsing into tragedy.

But as I kept on reading, I realized that this is actually an anthology, involving several writers, with many – too many – stretches of poetry, and passages that are downright mawkish and boring, and jeremiads that make no sense.

The end result is a monster omnibus. It seems to have something for everybody, but ends up appealing to nobody. And acquiring the rights from all these different authors will mean big headaches, unless the editor takes care of that himself. The editor’s name, by the way, doesn’t appear anywhere on the manuscript, not even in the table of contents. Is there some reason for keeping his identity a secret?

I’d suggest trying to get the rights only to the first five chapters. We’re on sure ground there. Also come up with a better title. How about “The Red Sea Desperadoes?”

“The Odyssey.” Homer.

Personally, I like this book. A good yarn, exciting, packed with adventure. Sufficient love interest, both marital fidelity and adulterous flings (Calypso is a great character, a real man-eater); there’s even a Lolita aspect, with the teen-ager Nausicaa, where the author doesn’t spell things out, but it’s a turn-on anyway. Great dramatic moments, a one-eyed giant, cannibals, even some drugs, but nothing illegal, because as far as I know the lotus isn’t on the Narcotics Bureau’s list. The final scene is in the best tradition of the Western: some heavy fist-swinging, and the business with the bow is a masterstroke of suspense.

What can I say? It’s a page turner, all right, not like the author’s first book, which was too static, all concerned with unity of place and tediously overplotted. By the time the reader reached the third battle and the 10th duel, he already got the idea. But this second book is a totally different thing: it reads as smooth as silk. The tone is calmer, pondered but not ponderous. And then the montage, the use of flashbacks, the stories within stories. . . . In a word, this Homer is the right stuff. He’s smart.

Too smart, maybe. I wonder if it’s all really his own work. I know, of course, a writer can improve with experience (his third book will probably be a sensation), but what makes me uncomfortable – and, finally, leads me to cast a negative vote – is the mess the question of rights will cause. In the first place, the author’s nowhere to be found. People who knew him say it was always hard to discuss any changes to be made in the text, because he was as blind as a bat, couldn’t follow the manuscript, and even gave the impression he wasn’t completely familiar with it. Did he really write the book or did he just sign it?

“The Divine Comedy.” Alighieri, Dante.

Alighieri is your typical Sunday writer. (In everyday life he’s an active member of the pharmacists' guild.) Still, his work shows an undeniable grasp of technique and considerable narrative flair. The book, in the Florentine dialect, consists of about a hundred rhymed chapters, and much of it is interesting and readable. I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of astronomy and certain concise, provocative theological notions. The third part of the book is the best and will have the widest appeal; it involves subjects of general interest, concerns of the common reader – salvation, the Beatific Vision, prayers to the Virgin. But the first part is obscure and self-indulgent, with passages of cheap eroticism, violence and downright crudity. But the greatest drawback is the author’s choice of his local dialect (inspired no doubt by some crackpot avant-garde idea). We all know that today’s Latin needs a shot in the arm – it isn’t just the little literary cliques that insist on this. But there’s a limit, after all, if not in the rules of language then at least to the public’s ability to understand.

“Critique of Practical Reason.” Kant, Immanuel.

I asked Susan to take a look at this, and she tells me that after Barthes there’s no point translating this Kant. In any case, I glanced at it myself. A reasonably short book on morality could fit nicely into our philosophy series, and might even be adopted by some universities. But the German publisher says that if we take this one, we have to commit ourselves not only to the author’s previous book, which is an immense thing in at least two volumes, but also to the one he is working on now, about art or about judgment, I’m not sure which. All three books have more or less the same title, so they would have to be sold boxed (and at a price no reader could afford); otherwise bookshop browsers would mistake one for the other and think, “I’ve already read this."

There’s another problem. The German agent tells me that we would also have to publish the minor works of this Kant, a whole pile of stuff including something about astronomy. I would advise against getting involved with a man like this; we’ll end up with a mountain of his books in the warehouse.

“The Trial.” Kafka, Franz.

Nice little book. A thriller with some Hitchcock touches. The final murder, for example. It could have an audience.

But apparently the author wrote under a regime with heavy censorship. Otherwise, why all these vague references, this trick of not giving names to people or places? And why is the protagonist being put on trial? If we clarify these points and make the setting more concrete (facts are needed: facts, facts, facts), then the action will be easier to follow and suspense is assured. Genuine writing has to keep in mind the old newspaperman’s five questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? If we can have a free hand with editing, I’d say buy it. If not, not.

“Finnegans Wake.” Joyce, James.

Please, tell the office manager to be more careful when he sends books out to be read. I’m the English-language reader, and you’ve sent me a book written in some other, Godforsaken language. I’m returning it under separate cover.

This week’s column is written by Alvera Mickelsen, a founding member of Christians for Biblical Equality.

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24, TNIV).

Genesis chapter 2 begins by telling how God created the garden of Eden; how God created man from the dust of the ground, giving him the work of caring for it and the command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil lest he die; and how God brought the animals he created to Adam to be named. This is followed by the account of God creating Eve from the side of Adam and bringing her to Adam, who said, “This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman for she was taken out of man” (v. 23).

Then comes an astonishing statement that has been ignored from the beginning of time. Genesis 2:24 says “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (emphasis added). This seems to imply that the husband will become part of the family of his bride which, in the society of biblical times, probably meant joining her community.

Yet, beginning after the fall in Genesis, the woman was expected to leave her parents and become part of her husband’s family. In the story of Isaac and Rebekah, for example, Rebekah left her family to go to the land of Isaac. This pattern is repeated over and over in the Bible and carries on today. Consider our contemporary wedding ceremonies, which often include the line “Who gives this woman to be married to this man?” The bride’s father then answers “I do” or “Her mother and I.” The implication is that the bride leaves her family and the protection of her father to go with her husband and become part of his family.

Most of the world follows a patriarchal social order—where a male is recognized as the head of the family and kinship is traced through the male line. Inheritance of material possessions usually follows the male line. The stronger this pattern is, the greater the prevalence of wife abuse and violence toward women. For evidence we need only examine strongly patriarchal societies such as those in India and in the Middle East.

But this is not what God designed. Suppose that our world practiced the command in Genesis 2:24—given even before sin entered the world. How would marriages look different? Wouldn’t a married couple who came under the care and supervision of the bride’s family be much less likely to experience wife abuse? Her family, including her father, would be nearby to protect her!

Interestingly, the command in Genesis 2:24 was important to the Apostle Paul, who quoted it in Ephesians 5:31 directly after his instructions to husbands to love and care for their wives as they do their own bodies (v. 29). Yet, this command in the creation story is rarely mentioned in our churches. In my scores of years going to church, I have never heard it discussed—even though it is repeated in the chapter of Ephesians that talks at length about submission. I have heard dozens of sermons on the importance of a wife submitting to her husband but never once about a husband leaving his parents to be united with his wife!

We all need to try to read the Bible with fresh eyes—not assuming that whatever interpretation we have heard in the past is the only valid one. Romans 12:2 reminds us, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world [such as patriarchy?], but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (emphasis added).

Alvera Mickelsen

…101st blog entry of 2009, and my 150th total entry on this blog.

Wow. Should this even count?

In my ENGL 101 class today I had my students do a writing warm-up exercise, something we do every day at the start of class. Usually I post a prompt of some sort up on the screen—a picture, a quote, a question—and invite them to write a response. There are not right or wrong answers to these prompts; the point of the exercise is to get in the habit of thinking on the page. It’s a ritual, a way of practicing the discipline of writing our way into our feelings and thoughts. Last class the prompt was this: “Writing is like…” I invited the class to think metaphorically, and then to elaborate on their comparison(s), encouraging the exploration of their analogy. Today’s prompt was this: “Writing is like praying.”

This sparked a good conversation about the ways in which writing is like prayer, its practice, its purpose, its effects. I would like to see us explore the connections between prayer and writing in the days ahead.

One of my course aims is this: "To write Christian-ly." I'm not entirely sure what I mean by that. I think I have tried to encourage my students to write ethically, to respect and empathize with the reader, to writing charitably, to examine their subjects through the lenses of their Christian faith. But what about an approach to the practice of composition that is prayerful? Might that not be an even better skill to foster and facilitate? Can I teach it unless I practice it myself?

Next class I'm going to show them the steps of St. Ignatius Loyola's "Examen"—a method of prayer that may have some connections to writing. Does writing well require us to begin from a position of hope and gratitude? In the epic tradition, the poet always invoked the gods—"Sing Muse, and through me tell the story…" That's how the Odyssey begins. Why not, even if I don't explicitly state it in the piece itself, begin my own essay (or blog entry) with that sort of invocation? Would I write more clearly if I began by asking God to make me aware of my writing "sins" and to cast them out? Does writing well involve and examination of my conscience? What would asking pardon for my "sins of composition" look like, and what effect would such confession have on a writer and his writing? Is revision like repentance? Would I write better if I entered the process trusting the Holy Spirit to guide me, and not merely leaning on my own understanding?

Anyhow, here's Ignatius's Examen. I see links; but I see through a glass darkly. I'm going to experiment with it for awhile, and be alert to its connections with and implications for the writing (and reading, too) process.

METHOD FOR MAKING THE GENERAL EXAMEN

It contains in it five Points.

First Point. The first Point is to give thanks to God our Lord for the benefits received.

Second Point. The second, to ask grace to know our sins and cast them out.

Third Point. The third, to ask account of our soul from the hour that we rose up to the present Examen, hour by hour, or period by period: and first as to thoughts, and then as to words, and then as to acts, […]

Fourth Point. The fourth, to ask pardon of God our Lord for the faults.

Fifth Point. The fifth, to purpose amendment with His grace.

They don’t make ‘em like this anymore.

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The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they’re okay, then it’s you."

• Rita Mae Brown

“Fiction is history that might have happened. History is fiction that did happen."

- Andre Gide

MUTUAL SUBMISSION IN SELF-SACRIFICIAL LOVE

This week’s column is written by Allison Young, as part of the “Short Answers for Challenging Texts” series. Allison holds a BA in Biblical and Theological studies from Bethel University and an MDiv from Princeton Theological seminary. She served as a theological intern for Christians for Biblical Equality in the summer of 2007.

Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, people have never hated their own bodies, but they feed and care for them, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband (Eph. 5:18-33, TNIV).

With great gusto, and over, and over, and over, Sydney sings…

"Go Cubs go, Go Cubs go—

Hey Chicago whaddya say

The Cubs are gonna win today."

Maybe next year, Syd. Maybe next year.

Herta Mueller wins 2009 Nobel literature prize
(AP) – 10 hours ago

STOCKHOLM — Romanian-born German writer Herta Mueller has the won the 2009 Nobel Prize in literature.

The Swedish Academy, which has picked the winner annually since 1901, said Thursday that Mueller “who with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed."

The prize includes a 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) prize and will be handed out Dec. 10 in the Swedish capital.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Americans Joyce Carol Oates and Philip Roth join Israel’s Amos Oz at the top of the buzz surrounding the Nobel Prize in literature, especially after the most prominent judge broke from his predecessor and said U.S. writers are worthy of the coveted award.

True to tradition, the secretive Swedish Academy won’t even reveal who has been nominated ahead of the announcement Thursday.

To avoid leaks academy members avoid discussing candidates in e-mails or in public. When they must — such as when they dine out together — they use quirky code names, like “Chateaubriand” for last year’s winner, Jean-Marie Le Clezio of France.

Britons Doris Lessing and Harold Pinter, winners in 2007 and 2005, were “Little Dorrit” and “Harry Potter,” while Orhan Pamuk — the 2006 winner — was simply dubbed “OP,” initials that Swedes associate with a domestic brand of liquor.

“It’s sometimes when we meet in public spaces and public environments and then we have to resort to code words but it isn’t that frequent,” Peter Englund, the academy’s permanent secretary, told The Associated Press in an interview.

Academy members have also been known to use fake covers to camouflage their books whenever reading in public.

Sometimes even those feints aren’t enough. The academy suspected a leak last year when Le Clezio surged to No. 1 in Nobel betting a day before the announcement.

“We have taken a number of measures to see that it isn’t repeated this year,” said Englund, who used to work in military intelligence. He declined to describe the measures.

This year British betting firm Ladbrokes is giving the lowest odds to Oz, German writer Herta Mueller and a trio of Americans: Oates, Roth and Thomas Pynchon.

The academy keeps nominations secret for 50 years but nominators — language professors, former Nobel laureates and members of literature academies worldwide — sometimes make their submissions public.

This year, Danish literature professor Anne-Marie Mai revealed she had nominated Bob Dylan because she was upset about Englund’s predecessor’s critical remarks about American literature.

Before last year’s prize announcement, outgoing permanent secretary Horace Engdahl said the U.S. was too insular and ignorant to challenge Europe as the center of the literary world.

Englund struck a different tone, telling AP Tuesday that in most language areas “there are authors that really deserve and could get the Nobel Prize and that goes for the United States and the Americas, as well."

On Thursday Englund will announce the winner at the academy’s headquarters in Stockholm’s Old Town.

The last American winner was Toni Morrison in 1993. No writer from South America has won since Gabriel Garcia Marquez in 1982. The last North American writer was Canadian Saul Bellow, who won in 1976 and was a resident of the United States for much of his life.

Dylan is believed to have been nominated several times before, but doesn’t quite fit the profile of a Nobel literature laureate. Besides primarily being a songwriter, his mass following could also be considered a minus by the Swedish Academy, which often chooses writers who are unfamiliar to the everyday reader.

However, Dylan is considered by many prominent literary critics to be a major poet, his song lyrics worthy of serious study.

Dylan’s literary merits aside, Nobel watchers note that anyone can be nominated for the six Nobel awards in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature, peace and economics, but that doesn’t mean they have any chance of winning.

The list of unsuccessful peace prize nominees includes dictators Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler.

“There are some completely crazy nominations,” said Mans Ehrenberg, who sits on the chemistry prize committee. He said occasionally committee members get e-mails “from people who think they should get the prize."

That violates a key Nobel rule: you can’t nominate yourself. New Zealand literature professor J.M. Brown tried to get around that rule in 1905, when he nominated Godfrey Sweven, which turned out to be his own pseudonym.

British wartime leader Winston Churchill missed out on the peace prize despite two nominations, but his oratory and his works of historical scholarship earned him the literature prize in 1953.

Spanish poet Angel Guimera y Jorge was nominated for the literature prize 17 consecutive years, but never won.

The Swedish Academy receives hundreds of literature nominations every year, whittled down to a shortlist of five names by May. Those authors are studied carefully before a winner is selected in a majority vote.

Known in Swedish as “De Aderton” — the Eighteen — the academy members are Swedish writers, book critics, linguists and literature professors.

Right now there are only 15 active members. One seat is vacant and two members have boycotted meetings since the 1990s because of internal disputes, including over whether the academy should condemn death threats against British writer Salman Rushdie.

Englund said there usually is animated discussion between academy members before the vote, though they try to keep things civil.

“There are never sort of cutthroat debates and people getting really angry and storming out of the room,” he said.

Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair falls out and the teeth decay.

-Flannery O’Connor

How quickly they forget the lessons of Sunday school
LEONARD PITTS JR.
The Bellingham Herald 9-22-2009

“Thou shalt not bear false witness …” — Exodus 20:16

Jim Wallis wants to take Glenn Beck to Sunday school.

On occasion, the Fox News host has spoken of his daughter, who was born with cerebral palsy. According to Sojourners, a faith-based organization Wallis co-founded and leads, Beck recalled last month how doctors warned that the baby, if carried to term, might never walk, speak or feed herself. That was 21 years ago and she is now a miraculous young woman who defied the dire expectations.

Beck has suggested that under health-care reform, the government would be empowered to euthanize children like his. But who is Washington to decide whether a life is worth living? “That’s for God to decide,” he is quoted as saying. “Not the government."

From this, we learn two things. The first is that Glenn Beck believes in God. The second is that Glenn Beck lies. You’d hope those things would be mutually exclusive.

For the record and for the umpteenth time: no version of health-care reform being contemplated by Congress mandates death for the old, the disabled or the infirm. That’s a canard. It is mendacity, prevarication, bald-faced lie.

In other words, politics.

The art of the untruth is, after all, the life’s blood of governance. As a brief spin through PolitiFact.com, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact checking Web site will attest, no party, ideology or politician has a monopoly on lying. Lying is as bipartisan as it gets.

And yet, the lies that have characterized the debate over health care are in a class all their own — not simply because they are outrageous, but because they are designed specifically to enflame and terrorize. As such, those lies are deserving of special rebuke. Last week, they got it.

Sojourners, which calls itself the nation’s largest network of progressive Christians, says its members sent out thousands of e-mails to five of the biggest offenders: Beck, his fellow Fox personalities Sean Hannity, Steve Doocy and Bill O’Reilly, and radio host Rush Limbaugh. Each e-mail said the same thing in essence: stop lying. Wallis, a celebrated theologian and author of “The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post — Religious Right America,” says Sojourners is trying to redeem things people “really should’ve learned in Sunday school.”

“For example, Sean Hannity said we’re going to have a government rationing body that tells women with breast cancer, ‘You’re dead. It’s a death sentence.’ That’s just not true. So instead, in our e-mail we told the story of a real person, a real woman who was denied her breast cancer surgery because of her health provider’s discovery of a pre-existing condition called acne.”

He adds, “A lot of the things the talk-show hosts say will happen are ‘already’ happening because of the behavior of the health-care providers. They’re not true because of health-care reform, they’re true because of the present system.”

It is not, says Wallis, his intention to accuse everyone who opposes health-care reform of lying. Nor, he says, is it his intention to promote a given proposal. All he’s trying to do is reframe health care as the moral issue it is, and restore verities we all learned in Sunday School. Or Hebrew School. Or Islamic School. Or, heck, kindergarten.

That it’s wrong to lie, wrong to pick on the vulnerable. And that we have a duty to care for those who cannot care for themselves, the ones Jesus called “the least of these.”

Those are simple, sacred and profound principles. But you wonder if the simple, sacred and profound still have power to sway us. Obviously, Jim Wallis has faith they do. I hope he’s right. Yet what a spectacular leap it takes to believe the tiny whisper of conscience might be heard over the shrill outcry of America screaming at its mirror.

That is in itself a sobering measure of how far we’ve wandered from the things we once knew as kids.

… and with enormous gusto, Syd sings:

“Don’t let Satan Whoof it out,
I’m gonna let it shine!
Don’t let Satan Whoof it out,
I’m gonna let it shine,
let it shine,
let it shine,
let it shine!!"

And ten thousand angels, and one grandpa, listen in. Laughing.

We get to carry each other…

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgZ4ammawyI&hl=en&fs=1&hd=1&w=640&h=505]

I wanna tear down the walls / that hold me inside.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQxl9EI9YBg&hl=en&fs=1&&w=425&h=344]

It will be…

Magnificent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUgj5_bNCpk

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEGOb48gIe4&hl=en&fs=1&&w=560&h=340]


Magnificent
Magnificent

I was born
I was born to be with you
In this space and time
After that and ever after I haven’t had a clue
Only to break rhyme
This foolishness can leave a heart black and blue

Only love, only love can leave such a mark
But only love, only love can heal such a scar

I was born
I was born to sing for you
I didn’t have a choice but to lift you up
And sing whatever song you wanted me to
I give you back my voice
From the womb my first cry, it was a joyful noise…

Only love, only love can leave such a mark
But only love, only love can heal such a scar

Justified till we die, you and I will magnify
The Magnificent
Magnificent

Only love, only love can leave such a mark
But only love, only love unites our hearts

Justified till we die, you and I will magnify
The Magnificent
Magnificent
Magnificent

Three days on the “gold coast.”

Milton Bradley is 6 of his last 7.

As much as I hate to admit it…

the Cubs are lousy. Which makes September a considerably less interesting month for me.

I have no memory of my first day of college classes. I sort of remember my first day of freshman orientation. I think that’s because they made us play those goofy “get to know you” ice-breaker games in the gym, and I really hated games like that when I was eighteeen.

Tomorrow is the first official day of college classes for about 400 freshman at Bethel. Twenty-eight of those will be in a class I co-teach. If my experience is indicative of anything, twenty years from now they won’t remember anything about this day. Unless they save the journal I make them write.

Or,unless something horrible happens.

So I’ll try not to let something horrible happen.

State Champions
Michigan Men’s Fastpitch
2009

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHVpJGXZ21o&hl=en&fs=1&&w=425&h=344]

In a way, each of us has an El Guapo to face. For some, shyness might be their El Guapo. For others, a lack of education might be their El Guapo. For us, El Guapo is a big, dangerous man who wants to kill us. But as sure as my name is Lucky Day, the people of Santa Poco can conquer their own personal El Guapo, who also happens to be the actual El Guapo!

--Lucky Day, The Three Amigos (1986)

Article published Jul 30, 2009

Teacher licensing rules eyed

Schools chief wants changes; board slows plan.
By DEANNA MARTIN Associated Press Writer

INDIANAPOLIS – A state licensing board put the brakes on state Superintendent Tony Bennett’s plan to revamp teacher licensing rules Wednesday after some complained the changes would downplay the importance of learning how to teach.

Bennett wants to eliminate some requirements for teacher licensing and says the process should ensure potential teachers have a deep understanding of the subject they will teach. He said current requirements focus too much attention on teaching methods.

“We need folks who understand rigorous content,” Bennett said.

Under the proposed changes, elementary education majors would take no more than 30 college credit hours in teaching methods and would have to have a minor in a content subject area such as science, math or English. It’s unclear how the limit on credit hours would work, and members of the Professional Standards Advisory Board said they wanted to clarify that and other issues before voting on whether to move forward with the changes.

The proposed rules also would allow anyone with a bachelor’s degree to become a teacher if they pass a test from the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence. Currently only seven states allow teachers to be licensed with that online program, according to the group’s Web site.

Opponents of some of the changes said future teachers need to understand teaching methods, not just be brilliant in their respective fields.

“How you teach does make a big difference,” board member George Van Horn said. “The ‘how’ is critical."

Bennett also wants to allow anyone with a master’s degree to become a district superintendent if they pass a school leader’s license test and get state approval.

Bennett said school districts need the flexibility to hire people from outside traditional education channels. The change would give local school boards more options, he said. If a board wanted to hire someone with a traditional educational background, they could do so, but if they needed an acute business manager to handle district financial problems, they could choose someone from outside the education field.

Opponents said not anyone can become a superintendent.Stephen McColley, the superintendent of Wes-Del Community Schools in Delaware County, said he was a teacher before becoming a bank executive and later a superintendent. His experience in business helped him understand the financial side of running a school district, but that was just a small portion of his job, he said."

Can I be a brain surgeon because I want to be a brain surgeon? No,” McColley said. “School superintendents must be educational leaders, not a business person who looks at the bottom line.“Several board members complained they had little time to read and review the proposed changes. Some said they got the extensive proposals 4 p.m. Tuesday, and a revised copy was given to them shortly before the meeting Wednesday afternoon.

Pat Mapes, director of the Office of Educator Licensing & Development, suggested the board meet again later to discuss the proposed changes and tweak them before voting on whether to advance them. The changes are subject to approval by the board, the Office of Management and Budget, the attorney general and the governor. If the proposals are approved, they would take effect next July.

“They’re trying to kill me,” Yossarian told him calmly.
“No one’s trying to kill you,” Clevinger cried.
“Then why are they shooting at me?” Yossarian asked.
“They’re shooting at everyone,” Clevinger answered.
“They’re trying to kill everyone."
“And what difference does that make?”

the Cubbies are in first place…

“For we are as tree-trunks in the snow. Apparantly they are merely resting on the surface of the snow, and a little push would be enough to knock them over. No, that’s not the case, for they are firmly attached to the ground. But see, even that is only seemingly the case.”

Yesterday I hit Morgan in the eye with a golf ball sized wiffle ball–a line shot from about fifteen feet away, as I practiced batting using my little wiffle ball pitching machine. He typically goes berserk, running to and fro, barking frantically, every time I turn that stupid machine on. I’ve hit him with line drives many times and he hardly reacts; he just keeps barking and running. But this time, he yelped a little and scratched a bit at his eye, and then went back to running back and forth and barking. Last night, though, once the adreneline high wore off, he could scarcely open that eye, and I could tell he wasn’t feeling well.

Can you imagine the guilt I felt? This creature has given me more joy these past eight years than I could ever document. And now I’ve blinded him with a wiffle ball?

Is it misguided for me to pray earnestly for healing–to lay hands upon a dog and ask God to make him well?

No sir. For the breath of life is in him even as it is in me.

The good news is that Morgan is a quick healer, and today, his eye, while still a little bloodshot, seems much better. I trust that all shall be well.

That’s a little more like it.

The U.S. Open on Thursday, day one, was virtually a washout. They did play three hours worth of golf. But people paid to see twelve hours. Many of these people wanted to come back Friday, and they were not happy that they were told that would not be an option nor would they be getting any cash refunds.

The USGA announced this morning in a sane move to appease ticked-off Thursday ticket holders that those tickets would be honored Monday, if there's Monday golf.

Last year there was Monday golf, and it (too) was priceless.

Morgan has an ear infection in his right ear. Not the first time. Common in Labradors, in part, because of their floppy ears and their love of the water. So we give him some ear drops a couple times a day for the next week and keep the ears nice and clean and all will be well. Ear medicine, office visit, heart worm medicine for 8 months, flea and tick medicine for 7 months, epi-otic ear cleaner: $196.09.

Healthy Morgan playing ball in Lake Michigan all month of July: priceless.

“But the whole point of God, at least in the viewpoint of us human beings, is that He does not stand above or apart from the world. He inspires men to fight when attacked and for justice and freedom, sustains them in trouble, and consoles them in days of defeat. Indeed, the God of Our Fathers took sides and played favorites. He wiped out the Egyptians pursuing the Hebrews, to give just one example. He made a covenant with the Children of Israel; then He made a covenant with the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which turned in 1776 into a covenant with the entire United States of America, as it expanded across the continent, and even to places beyond."


As the kids say when they text or instant message: WTF!!!

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/616mwpgh.asp

Sydney, singing at full blast from the other room:

“What’s gonna work? TEAMWORK! What’s gonna work? TEAMWORK!"

Amen.

Smalltown Fastpitch, winners of the “Ed White Memorial Fastpitch Softball Tournament” in Petoskey, Michigan; June 5-7, 2009.


Online Publication, Copyright © 2007, Petoskey News-Review · 319 State St., Petoskey, MI 49770 · (231) 347-2544 · Fax: (231) 347-6833
Softball: Smalltown Fast Pitch wins White Memorial



Monday, June 8, 2009 3:12 PM EDT

Smalltown Fast Pitch of Riverside defeated the Cheboygan Merchants, 8-1, Sunday to finish undefeated and win the Ed White Memorial Men’s Class D-E fast pitch softball invitational at Bayfront Park’s Ed White Field.

Smalltown pitcher Browning Chabot tossed a two-hitter, striking out one and walking one, in the championship game.

Lance Northstine, who was named the outstanding hitter in the tournament with a .571 average, had three hits including a double in the final to lead Smalltown, while Robby Prenkert homered and doubled.

Ben Schley’s RBI double and Mike Barber’s single were Cheboygan’s lone hits. Barber allowed seven hits and struck out one in taking the loss.

Smalltown finished 4-0, while Cheboygan and Flynn’s Excavating of Petoskey each finished 3-2. Priority Mortgage of Grand Rapids finished 2-2, BASES of Charlevoix went 1-2 as did Hadeed Dentistry of Ludington. Quizno’s and B.C. Pizza, both of the Petoskey league, finished 0-2.

Chabot was the winning pitcher in all four of Smalltown’s games and was named the tournament’s outstanding pitcher. allowed five runs, 12 hits, struck out 22 and walked four in 21 innings.

Schley and Barber were also named outstanding players. Schley hit .545, while Barber hit .500.

Smalltown opened with a 3-1 win over Flynn’s; then downed Hadeed, 8-5; and topped Cheboygan, 11-3, in a semifinal game. Cheboygan downed Flynn’s in the elimination-bracket final, 11-5, to reach the title game.

Other tournament scores: Cheboygan 10, B.C. Pizza 9; BASES 11, Priority Mortgage 7; Hadeed 7, Quizno’s 6; Priority Mortgage 9, B.C. PIzza 5; Flynn’s 6, Quizno’s 5; Flynn’s 13, BASES 6; Priority Mortgage 10, Hadeed 7; Flynn’s 7, Priority 2; Cheboygan 5, BASES 0.

“Men vs. Wild”
Tuesday, 10 p.m. on Discovery

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=453WwRG265I&hl=en&fs=1&w=560&h=340]

Family axes wedding plans, Egyptian cuts off penis
By SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press Writer

Sunday, May 31, 2009

(05-31) 14:48 PDT CAIRO, Egypt (AP) –

A 25-year-old Egyptian man cut off his own penis to spite his family after he was refused permission to marry a girl from a lower class family, police reported Sunday.

After unsuccessfully petitioning his father for two years to marry the girl, the man heated up a knife and sliced off his reproductive organ, said a police official.

The young man came from a prominent family in the southern Egyptian province of Qena, one of Egypt’s poorest and most conservative areas that is also home to the famed ancient Egyptian ruins of Luxor.

The man was rushed to the hospital but doctors were unable to reattach the severed member, the official added citing the police report filed after the incident.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the press, added that the man was still recovering in the hospital.

Traditionally, marriages in these conservative part of southern Egypt are between similar social classes and often within the same extended families — and are rarely for love.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/05/31/international/i135406D17.DTL

“A good sermon is one side of a passionate conversation. It has to be heard in that way. There are three parties to it, of course, but so are there even to the most private thought–the self that yields the thought, the self that acknowledges and in some way responds to the thought, and the Lord. That is a remarkable thing to consider.”

- The narrator (Rev. John Ames) in Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

I don’t think I can name a single individual player in NCAA Division I college softball, but I still manage to spend hours upon hours every year watching the women’s college world series. Watching my fourth game of the day right now. I love this game.

Sydney and I sang this song, radio blaring, on the way to the park. Lyrics way ahead of their time, dude.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyCCTgk0Y60&hl=en&fs=1&w=425&h=344]

5. Gunshots from the shooting range half mile away.
   4. Train whistle from the tracks half mile away.
   3. Birds chirping.
   2. Sprinkler system watering the lawn.
   1. Sydney talking and singing to herself as she plays bubbles in the back deck.

(and indirectly, of a major in Humanities).

19 May 2009 10:03 am

In Defense of the Liberal Arts
By Lane Wallace

We’re entering commencement time, which means all kinds of notable people (the President and First Lady included) will be giving well-crafted speeches about the importance of education and a college degree. But is one kind of degree better than another? Much has been said about the importance of science and technology degrees in terms of keeping the U.S. competitive with the rest of the world. And as the economy has worsened, and fears of joblessness have risen, the voices advocating pursuit of more “practical” degrees have grown in both number and volume.

A recent New York Times article noted that Humanities now account for only 8% of all college degrees, and that proponents are having to work harder than ever to justify the worth of a humanities, or liberal arts, course of study. The article quotes Anthony T. Kronman, a Yale law professor, as saying, reluctantly, that the essence of a humanities education may become “a great luxury that many cannot afford.”


I passionately disagree.

(Full disclosure: I graduated from an Ivy League university with a liberal arts degree in Semiotics, which most people would consider a highly frivolous subject. Although I have to say, the degree did turn out to be useful in getting me job interviews in all kinds of fields, simply because nobody knew what the word meant.)

However. Three points worth considering in the debate:


First … I figured out the true value of a college degree not in the lofty halls of Brown University, but in a corrugated cardboard factory in New Zealand. I’d taken a “leave of absence” as they call it, after my sophomore year, to figure out if I really wanted to pay all that money learn things that seemed, well … a tad non-essential, at best. I packed a backpack and took off for the romantic frontier-land of New Zealand with nothing but $500 and a working visa in my pocket. The six months I spent there were a far cry from what I thought the adventure would be, but it was educational. Culminating in my job at the cardboard factory–where I was surrounded by people who hated their jobs but had no other viable option.


In a flash, I grasped the true value of a college degree. It didn’t matter what I majored in. It didn’t even matter all that much what my grades were. What mattered was that I got that rectangular piece of paper that said, “Lane Wallace never has to work in a corrugated cardboard factory again.” A piece of paper that was proof to any potential future employer that I could stick with a project and complete it successfully, even if parts of it weren’t all that much fun. A piece of paper that said I had learned how to process an overload of information, prioritize, sort through it intelligently, and distill all that into a coherent end product … all while coping with stress and deadlines without imploding.


I also realized that I’d do far better at all that if I studied what I was most passionate about learning, practicality be damned. Hence my switch to Semiotics (which, for anyone wondering, is a four-dollar word for communication). If you want to be an engineer or physicist, you’d better major in the subject. But only if that’s what you truly want to study and do. Pro forma dedication is discernible from 100 paces away.


Second … In an increasingly global economy and world, more than just technical skill is required. Far more challenging is the ability to work with a multitude of viewpoints and cultures. And the liberal arts are particularly good at teaching how different arguments on the same point can be equally valid, depending on what presumptions or values you bring to the subject. The liberal arts canvas is painted not in reassuring black-and-white tones, but in maddening shades of gray.


What’s the “right” solution to the conflict in Sudan? What was Shakespeare’s most important work and why? Was John Locke right in his arguments about personal property? Get comfortable with the ambiguities inherent in a liberal arts education, and you’re far better equipped to face the ambiguities and differing viewpoints in a complex, global world. (The late David Foster Wallace expanded on this point in his acclaimed 2005 Kenyon College commencement address, which, if you missed it at the time, is worth taking the time to read.)


Third … Yes, the U.S. needs technical expertise to keep pace, economically and technologically. But we also need innovators and entrepreneurs creating break-through concepts and businesses. And while knowledge in an area is important, I’d argue that the most important trait a pioneering entrepreneur needs is the confidence to buck convention; to believe he or she is right, despite what all the experts say.

Last year, I interviewed Alan Klapmeier, founder and CEO of the Cirrus Design Corporation, which revolutionized the piston-airplane manufacturing industry with its composite Cirrus aircraft (discussed at length by James Fallows both here at The Atlantic, and in his book Free Flight. I asked Klapmeier what gave him the idea, back in the mid-1980s, that he could take on an industry as conservative and entrenched as general aviation. His answer:


“I think it was my college education. I went to Ripon College, which was a liberal arts school. And that kind of school teaches you how to think for yourself. My professors didn’t tell you you were wrong. They convinced you you were wrong. And if they couldn’t, you might end up changing their minds on something. Figuring out for yourself what right and wrong is builds a huge bit of confidence. The kind that makes you think maybe we can take on an industry.”

Worth thinking about.

“Papa, look, there’s a robin-bird over there.” (Sydney, age 2 years, 11 months, 362 days)

As a deer strolls out of the woods and onto the path thirty yards ahead of us, Sydney, riding on my shoulders says, “Papa, look at that moose.”

What if we were to frame this not in terms of needs but relevance? Many Christians hope to speak to generation X or Y or postmoderns, or some subgroup, like cowboys or bikers—people for whom the typical church seems irrelevant.

When you start tailoring the gospel to the culture, whether it’s a youth culture, a generation culture or any other kind of culture, you have taken the guts out of the gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not the kingdom of this world. It’s a different kingdom.

My son Eric organized a new church six years ago. The Presbyterians have kind of a boot camp for new church pastors where you learn what you’re supposed to do. So Eric went. One of the teachers there said he shouldn’t put on a robe and a stole: “You get out there and you meet this generation where they are.”

Eric, being a good student and wanting to please his peers, didn’t wear a robe. His church started meeting in a high-school auditorium. He started out by wearing a business suit every Sunday. But when the first Sunday of Advent rolled around, and they were going to have Communion, he told me, “Dad, I just couldn’t do it. So I put my robe on.”

Their neighbors, Joel and his wife, attended his church. Joel was the stereotype of the person the new church development was designed for—suburban, middle management, never been to church, totally secular. Eric figured he was coming because they were neighbors, or because he liked him. After that Advent service, he asked Joel what he thought of his wearing a robe.
He said, “It made an impression. My wife and I talked about it. I think what we’re really looking for is sacred space. We both think we found it.”

I think relevance is a crock. I don’t think people care a whole lot about what kind of music you have or how you shape the service. They want a place where God is taken seriously, where they’re taken seriously, where there is no manipulation of their emotions or their consumer needs.

Why did we get captured by this advertising, publicity mindset? I think it’s destroying our church.

But someone else might walk into Eric’s church, see him with his robe, and walk out, thinking the whole place was too religious, too churchy.

So why are they going if it’s not going to be religious? What do they go to church for?

Of course, there’s another aspect to this. If you’re going to a church where everybody’s playing a religious role, that’s going to be off putting. But that performance mentality, role mentality can be seen in the cowboy church or whatever—everybody is performing a role there, too.

But we’re involved with something that has a huge mystery to it. Are we going to wipe out all the mystery so we can be in control of it? Isn’t reverence at the very heart of the worship of God?
And if we present a rendition of the faith in which all the mystery is removed, and there’s no reverence, how are people ever going to know there’s something more than just their own emotions, their own needs? There’s something a lot bigger than my needs that’s going on. How do I ever get to that if the church service and worship program is all centered on my needs?

Some people would argue that it’s important to have a worship service in which people feel comfortable so they can hear the gospel.

I think they’re wrong. Take the story I told you about this family in front of us on Sunday. Nobody was comfortable. The whole church was miserable.

And yet, they might have experienced more gospel in going up and putting their arms around that poor mother, who was embarrassed to death.

(For full interview, see http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/march/26.42.html)

Why do I always feel guilty when I’m asked that question? I don’t have any big plans. I’m not writing a book. I’m not teaching summer school. I’m not traveling Europe for six weeks. I’m playing softball. I workout every day. I read novels. I root, root, root for the Cubbies. Is there something else I should be doing?

Today, as I type this, Sydney eases into her morning by watching a cartoon on the Disney channel. Morgan sleeps on the floor in the living room. The birds sing joyfully outside under the bright morning sky. It’s cold out. I recline on a love seat and type words that maybe ten people will read–more than usually read the crap I write.

People who ask me this question typically think of work as something you go to 8 to 5 every day, and then you come home and forget about it. For the next three months or so, I get up, stretch, read the newspaper, shower, read the bible, play with Morgan and Sydney, eat, workout, scribble thoughts in a mead composition notebook, shoot hoops in the driveway, read 19th century European masterpieces, weed whack the lawn, check the vegetables growing in the garden, walk down the street with “mama”, Syd, and Morgan to look at frogs and turtles in the pond, clean out my closet, reorganize my office, and so on and so forth.

Sometimes at night Sydney asks for some dancing music, and I turn it up loud and we dance.

Why should anyone feel guilty about this?

Life is the tree of art. Death is the science of trees.

Life is the death of trees. Science is the art of trees.

Tree is the death of life. Art is the tree of science.

and so on…

“Art is the tree of life. Science is the tree of death."

-William Blake

When Jesus made me Kosher
When I drank the sweet new wine
I felt like a new creature
Really felt like one fine swine
Stark, cold, wet reality
Came and nearly quenced my fire
`Til I heard God speak to me
I was right back in the mire

Chorus:
You´d have to see it to believe it, still God´s Word is true
Swine flew, swine flew
It gives grace a whole new meaning in a sky of blue
Swine flew, swine flew

He said “I haven´t left you,
Hang tight and hope in Me,
I´ll reinvigorate you
Give you strenght and energy”

Up on my feet and moving
Got a strange new runner´s high
See me sprouting eagle´s wings
This pig is gonna fly

You´d have to see it to believe it, still God´s Word is true
Swine flew, swine flew
It gives grace a whole new meaning in a sky of blue
Swine flew, swine flew
Slipped the surely bonds of Earth, in a way few do
Swine flew, swine flew
You can join me in the air, or just sit and stew
Swine flew, swine flew

Swine flew, swine flew, swine flewswine flewswineflewswineflew…

(Look, up in the sky!!! It´s a bird?! It´s a plane?! It´s Superman!
No man, it´s not Superman. It´s ONE BAD PIG!)

Swine flew

Music from the bathtub…

“yes, Jesus loves me… the Bible tells me so”

and…

“Jesus loves the little children…"

“Jingle bells, jingle bells, …” (my favorite part of this is the “HEY”)

And the angels must be singing along.

“After all manner of professors have done their best for us, the place we are to get knowledge is in books. The true university of these days is a collection of books."

-Albert Camus

This is a good week. A slim chance of snow this week, certainly the last of the season. Good chance of the first 80 degree temp of the year. Gotta love April in Northern Indiana.

A New Narrator in Town

I was certain of one thing, and this one thing gave life its meaning. I was no character in someone else's story. I was free.

The giant eraser appeared, hovering over my backyard, and I began to lose faith. When a massive thumb and index finger blocked the sun, I …

He changed his mind.

… the Cubs win 2/3 of their games all year long, they should be ok. In fact–while I’m no mathematical wizard–I think it would be all but impossible for them not to win the world series if they did this.

Then again, they are the Cubs, and if the season ended today, they wouldn’t even be in the playoffs.

p.s. If Soriano continues this pace, he will hit 108 homers this year.

A more prolific blogger would have far more than a mere 95 blog posts by now. What seems to be my trouble?

Not much to say.

Here’s everything that comes to mind in the next five minutes. Buckle your safety belts, kids…

1. The Master’s golf tournament is a little bit full of itself.
2. As much as I love watching major league baseball on tv, sometimes, I must confess, I watch women’s college softball instead simply because I enjoy seeing slap-hitting by lightning fast left handed batters, and because I want to keep learning how to do that better than I have.
3. I rolled my lawn the other day, but I’m not sure if that really does anything of any great value.
4. We went to an easter egg hunt, puppet show, and mini-petting zoo today at church. Sydney said she liked petting the bunnies, goats, and ducks best of all.
5. Four weeks until my first fastpitch softball tournament.
6. We bought a new washer and dryer. Yikes.
7. A whole bunch of people from my mom’s church came to her house yesterday and did a ton of work in the yard. They got more done in half a day than we could have in a summer worth of weekends.
8. I gotta get me one them tomato trees.
9. The Cubs are 2-2, but could just as easily be 4-0.
10. Tonight we’re going to cook hot dogs and marshmallows over a bonfire at my mom’s house.
11. I like “Forensic Files” on TruTV.
12. I plugged in the sprinkler system the other day. Apparantly it remembered the program I had set up last year, because when I woke up this morning, my lawn was being watered. It was cold enough that some of the water froze on the blades of grass. I didn’t really mean to start watering the lawn yet, but I just left it go.
13. I’m glad Bishop D’Arcy told people not to demonstrate.
14. Randall Terry strikes me as a complete lunatic. So do the following: Rush Limbaugh, Keith Olbermann, most university professors, Bill Maher, Laura Schessinger, Sean Hannity, and that dude from Roseland.
15. We got bomb pops from the ice cream man the other day. Summer’s coming.
16. I can’t see a single cloud today.
17. I take glucosomine. Apparantly this stuff is good for your joints. My joints hurt less since I’ve been taking it.
18. The barber uses a #4 and a #2 clipper guide when he cuts my hair.
19. Sydney is talking about the ice cream man and elephants. In fact, she just said that he’s a dinasaur elephant. I don’t know why.
20. Maybe post #96 will be more interesting than this one.
21. Maybe not.

Possible readings:

1. A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest Gaines
2. Where I’m Calling From: Selected Stories by Raymond Carver
3. Home by Marilynne Robinson
4. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
5. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

Anyone interested?

“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt."

• Margaret Atwood
  

Today is a day of hope for Cub fans everywhere—thinking this, at last, is the year.

Of course it may not be, but you can't tell us that today. All we cling to this day is the dream that what lies ahead are the one hundred sixty-two opportunities, one hundred sixty-two days of hope—of hope that one hundred years of failure can be redeemed, day by day, inning by inning.

Best of all, for me, it starts six (and I hope seven) months of singing these words--"so it's root, root, root for the CUBBIES. If they don't win it's a shame"—every day, with the sweetest little blond Cub fan that ever graced the earth.

One day last fall, after the season had ended, as we lay in bed flipping channels, she said, "Papa, I wanna watch baseball." I almost cried, and thought to myself, "next year, baby; next year."

I went to Bethel’s track meet at Goshen today. These have nothing to do with the individual people who compete in these events; these are just the events I like watching the most.

5. Hammer (weight, for girls) throw

4. Pole Vault

3. 400 hurdles

2. Any relay event

1. 800 meter run

By the way, we have an unbelievably great men and women’s track program.

5. Jose Arcadio

4. Aureliano

3. Colonel Aureliano Buendia

2. Jose Arcadio

1. Jose Arcadio Buendia

LeBron’s extra edge: Cavaliers star’s devotion to yoga training helps keep James healthy

CLEVELAND -- Over the last year, hotel guests in various NBA cities have likely been a little jolted to see the Cavaliers' LeBron James out by the pool in the mornings. Not so much because he's a celebrity, but because he just might be standing on his head.

When James first came into the NBA at the age of 18 he didn't even tape his ankles, sometimes ate McDonald's an hour before tipoff and his main use for ice was cooling beverages.

As he's matured, part out of necessity and part out of pride, he's serious about preparing and maintaining his body for the rigors of an NBA season. That includes a wide range of measures from diet and recovery techniques to the Vajrasana, Virasana and the particularly stunning Salamba Sarvangasana.

They are yoga poses and they are also an essential part of James' routine every week.

"Yoga isn't just about the body, it's also about the mind and it's a technique that has really helped me," James said. "You do have to focus because there's some positions that can really hurt you at times if you aren't focused and breathing right."

From the "thunderbolt pose" to the "hero pose" to even "downward facing dog," James has become a devout believer in the benefits of yoga. He and assistant athletic trainer Mike Mancias have been developing a regimen over the last two years.

James got serious last summer when Mancias was with him for much of the Team USA events in Las Vegas and China. During the season, they carve out time at least once a week and sometimes more for the practice. Often it happens at team hotels on the road and the two prefer to do it outside if possible. The two also do some pilates exercises.

"He tries to focus on things that will help him and that the body needs, especially for balance and to strengthen his core," said Mancias, who is in his fifth year with the Cavs.

It can be a topsy-turvy world in the NBA, but James has plenty of practice at keeping his balance, regardless of where he finds himself.

A TYPICAL LEBRON GAMEDAY
Morning
Stretching
Strategy sessions, drills and shooting with teammates and coaches
Film work
Afternoon
Lunch and hydration
Nap
Pregame
Small meal
A mixture of weight training, massage therapy, stretching, ankle taping and shooting
Postgame
Ice bath for feet, lower back and sometimes shoulders
Small meal, often chicken, sushi and/or fruit with recovery drinks

"Yoga is an activity that encompasses all that. It's total body and it helps him mentally, too. Flexibility is important to him and we've tried to incorporate all of that into a routine."

Basketball players have been experimenting with yoga for decades. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was perhaps the first high-profile player to embrace it. In recent years, Shaquille O'Neal has used it at times to increase flexibility in his legs. Phil Jackson, who is famous for his alternative techniques, used it as a player to help with back problems and had the Bulls go through a series of yoga classes throughout the 1997-98 championship season.

The theory is that basketball players tend to be strong in certain areas, such as the legs and arms, due to the nature of the game. But all the repetitive motion can build up tension and limit flexibility in some joints and large muscles.

James started getting into the importance of stretching during his third season. Partially inspired by then-teammate Alan Henderson -- who extended his 12-year career by using elastic bands and a large inflatable ball in a stretching routine -- James began to devote himself to making sure he was limber.

At the time he was also bothered by some lower back spasms, which nearly forced him out of a playoff game against the Wizards in 2006. That and a couple of nasty ankle sprains got James focused on doing things to maximize his physical tools. Stretching with bands after practices and games slowly developed into using yoga.

The positions increase flexibility in areas athletes don't always pay attention to but basketball players need. Such as ankles, shoulders and hips. Fans can surely remember times when James appeared to have suffered serious ankle injuries only to shake them off. Some of that may be due to the freakish size of James' joints, but some of it may be from those targeted workouts.

Two weeks ago, for example, he flipped backwards over his neck chasing a loose ball in Phoenix. It looked like he may have hurt himself doing it, but in reality it was sort of like the Salamba Sarvangasana, or shoulder stand, he'd worked on a day before.

"It is something that really can help your balance," James said. "I had some lower back problems a few years ago and once I started to do the yoga, it has helped them go away for now. Of course we can stretch but stretching only goes so far."

It's part of a package James now employs. He gets massages on most game days, gets his ankles heavily taped and wears a padded vest under his jersey to protect his ribs, and ices his feet and lower back after every game and contact workout. It includes an overall better series of eating habits and weight training, which James is now more devoted to than ever.

"People don't see everything that he does, he's focused on doing everything for his body that will help him succeed," Mancias said. "The proof is what he's been showing on the court."

Recently James held a special event for some students from Holy Cross Elementary in Euclid at the Cleveland Clinic Courts to promote yoga and its benefits. At first he seemed a little shy in talking about yoga; brute athletes in the past have not always been lauded for work with such finesse arts.

But as James has experienced the benefits, he's become an advocate of yoga, pilates and massage therapy that he does with the Cavs and their support staff.

"I've been blessed with a lot of physical talent and a strong body," James said. "I have focused on working hard to maximize those gifts."

“In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.” (Leo Tolstoy)

‘‘What obsessed Tolstoy, what obscured his genius, what now distresses the good reader, was that, somehow, the process of seeking the Truth seemed more important to him than the easy, vivid, brilliant discovery of the illusion of truth through the medium of his artistic genius. Old Russian Truth was never a comfortable companion; it had a violent temper and a heavy tread. It was not simply truth, not merely everyday pravda but immortal istina - not truth but the inner light of truth. When Tolstoy did happen to find it in himself, in the splendor of his creative imagination, then, almost unconsciously, he was on the right path. What does his tussle with the ruling Greek-Catholic Church matter, what importance do his ethical opinions have, in the light of this or that imaginative passage in any of his novels?''

–Vladimir Nabokov

5. Eating only one big meal a day.
   4. Poor eye contact.
   3. Taking forever to return homework/papers.
   2. Coke.
   1. Talking to myself.

5. Rob, “High Fidelity”
   4. Juno, “Juno”
   3. Sonny, “The Apostle”
   2. Ulysses Everett McGill, “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou”
   1. Alex, “Everything is Illuminated”

5. Hector
   4. Nausicaa
   3. Eumaus
   2. Odysseus
   1. Penelope

Top five characters in American literature:

5. The Grandmother (“A Good Man is Hard to Find”)
4. Huck Finn
3. Willy Loman
2. Humbert Humbert
1. Scout

Basketball, as a game of skill, is totally compromised when referees don’t protect shooters by calling the bumps to the body and especially the seemingly insignificant knocks to the elbow or forearm. But players need to learn that when you initiate contact with a defender, the refs don’t call that anymore. William Walker gets fouled virtually every time he turns around to shoot, but most of the time it doesn’t get called. Meanwhile, referees in college love calling these idiotic offensive fouls where the defense appears to set and then flops backwards. College basketball has become too much of a wrestling match in the past ten years, and the only hope for skilled basketball players (rather than over sized troglodytes) to reclaim the graceful purity of the sport is to turn the game into a 94 foot contest. The mid-range jumpshot needs to make a return, and players need to be able to make the shot even when well defended. It’s easier to make a fifteen footer with a defender in your face while not being fouled (and they still do call it when a jump shooter gets hit) than to muscle your way to the basket, bumped the entire way, and force up a shot hoping for the foul that should be called. When they let the defense get away with so much holding and bumping, the only thing left to do is run and shoot, run and shoot, run and shoot.

MCC Tournament: Championship Game

Bethel 74
Indiana Wesleyan 70

Pilots head into the NAIA national tournament with a 30-3 record. We (how long are you allowed to think of your former team as “we”?) have a very good chance to win a national championship this year.

Tonight’s game was fantastic. My dad would’ve loved it.

The Counterfeiters by Andre Gide

"The diary of a novelist who is writing a novel [to be called The Counterfeiters] about a novelist who is keeping a diary about the novel he is writing." - Harry Levin

One.

5 school days.

But who’s counting?

I’m too tired for strong opinions. How about just some simple declarative sentences and maybe a rhetorical question?

#31 Greif makes you feel perpetually weary.

#32 Most of the time there’s just nothing to say.

#33 I wish there were a restaurant that served roadhouse food (steak, burgers, ribs) in a non-roadhouse (i.e. quiet) environment.

#34 Slam dunk contests are much less impressive these days because of the dunks Lebron James is able to pull off in games. I mean, why watch a dunk contest when you can watch this guy dunk in a game?

#35 I wonder if all teachers wonder as much as I do if anybody is learning anything.

#36 If I were president I would un-holiday president’s day.

#37 For some reason, writing what appears below in the previous post (“The Walk You Remember”) was easy.

#38 Most of life is aftermath.

#39 The lights in my office hum loudly.

Kip Prenkert’s Funeral

Wakarusa Missionary Church

12 February 2009

Robby Prenkert

The Walk You Remember

He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6:8

My dad had a distinctive walk. I suspect that some of you noticed this.

His heels scarcely touched the ground when he strolled from the garden to the back door, down a wooded trail in Ludington, from his car in the parking lot to his spot in the bleachers (omnipresent book in one hand) to watch me play some game.

At times it looked to me as if he were treading delicately on the earth, trying to avoid leaving any imprint in the soil, tip-toeing gently but purposefully to his destination.

His tip-toe walk became more pronounced at times. In the driveway shooting hoops, after he'd made twenty or so in a row, realizing he was "on," he would get an extra spring.

Once when I was very young, we were in the midst of witnessing some dramatic comeback in one of his church league fastpitch softball games at the prairie campgrounds. He was cheering a big hit that drove in a couple runs, extending the rally. He walked past me as I sat, taking it all in on the bench.

On the bench, an awestruck boy who only ever wanted to be like his hero. On the bench but allowed to be a part of the team, witnessing his father nearly levitate, heels five inches off the ground, his face aglow with a joy that can only be known by grown men at play.

My dad had a distinctive walk, and I have a theory about it.

I can see my dad, left hand on left knee, gloved right hand on right knee, waiting and watching from his spot in Right field. He had the uncanny ability to know exactly where a flyball hit his direction was going land a split moment before the batter made contact. They call that getting a jump on the ball.

I can still see him pivot and run, dark hair blown off his forehead, eyes glued to that ball—running. Running on his tip toes. Gliding, it seemed, on the top of the grass.

Many years later I played outfield, too—and I realized something that my dad showed me rather than told me, for that was more his style. I learned that if you run on your toes and not your heels, you land, with each stride, much more delicately. Land on your heels and your head jars and the ball you're chasing starts to bounce, making it considerably more difficult to catch. But run on your toes and you'll see the ball fly smoothly toward its home in the deep pocket of your glove as you make that final graceful reach over your shoulder to grab the inning ending out.

When he was a boy, he spent hours just tossing a ball up in the air and chasing after it to make a catch. He and his closest friend, Mike, spent countless hours hitting the ball to one another, chasing down flies. At an early age he learned to run on the balls of his feet, and that must have carried over into his walk, and all the days of his life my dad tread lightly on God's earth and this kept his eyes clearly focused.

My dad had a distinctive walk, but I don't know if you ever thought about why.

At sixty five, he still had that spring in his step. I suspect he kept it after knee surgery, back surgery, prostate surgery, heart surgery, multiple kidney stones, and who knows what other aches and pains that inevitably come with age—I suspect he kept it not simply because he had learned how to chase down a ball the way they teach major league outfielders to do it, but because he loved being alive.

He kept that soft bouncing walk because he knew my mom and one way his passionate and voluntary love for her was involuntarily, habitually evidenced was by a spring in each step. You walk with a woman like her for more than forty years and you, too, would retain the spring.

My dad had a distinctive walk, and I want for you to know and remember this.

My dad was an outrageously joyful person, even if he did not express it the same way others might have. But you could see it if you watched his walk. With each step his head bobbed heavenward. Because he enjoyed life, the abundant life offered those who know the ONE who is the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE.

When I was a boy all I wanted to do was to shoot a basketball like my dad. I wanted to hit a ball the way he did; I wanted to chase after and catch a ball and do it with his grace and style. I still do.

I do not think I walk quite like him, but I have learned a great deal about walking rightly by watching his "walk." All of us could learn something from the joyfully contented way he walked humbly with his God.

We are sad today and we mourn our loss. But we are also comforted, knowing that now dad runs on those toes without ever growing weary, and walks without ever growing faint.

I know one thing. My dad, like his LORD, would like nothing better than for each of us to "walk on" faithfully, humbly, joyfully, until we, too, are called home.

More strong opinions:

#28 Super Bowl halftime is too long.

#29 But if the halftime has to be so long, thank God it’s Bruce Springsteen (or U2, or Tom Petty) and not Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake.

#30 I’d rather watch a regular season baseball game any day than the Super Bowl.

(p.s. I think I mentioned something like #30 earlier, but who cares?)

Strong Opinion #27:

This is one of the worst constructed sentences I’ve ever read (from A Secular Age by Charels Taylor).

“Thus among some peoples, agents fall into trance-like conditions which are understood as possession; among others (sometimes the same ones), powerful portentous dreams occur to certain people, among others, shamans feel themselves to have been transported to a higher world, with others again, surprising cures are effected in certain conditions; and so on."

The rest of the paragragh doesn’t improve things.

One strong opinion about a basketball rule that need to be changed:

#26 You should not be able to call timeout while the ball is in play. Timeouts should only be allowed after a made basket or on a dead ball.

A borrowed opinion:

#26 “Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.” (F. Scott Fitzerald)

Right on, F. Scott!

Some meta-opinions:

22. I don't have enough strong opinions to write thirty-nine interesting theses.

23. In my opinion, being opinionated is not a good thing.

24. Having a strong opinion about opinions qualifies one to be entertained, and not just angered, by the Opinion page of the daily newspaper.

25. Having an opinion about strong opinions about opinions approaches absurdism.

A strong opinion in the form of a strong recommendation:

21. Do yourself a favor (on this frigid winter day) and re-read these five short stories:

    1. "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver.

    2. "The Nose" by Nikolai Gogol. http://h42day.100megsfree5.com/texts/russia/gogol/nose.html

    3. "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" by Flannery O'Connor.

    4. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" by Joyce Carol Oates. http://jco.usfca.edu/works/wgoing/text.html

    5. "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=the+handsomest+drowned+man+int+he+world+full+text

More opinions:

18. The worst part of winter is the static electricity.

19. The best part of winter is a crackling fire in the fireplace.

20. The Color Purple is a much better film than novel.

A very strong opinion:

17. Every student at Bethel should consider a second major in Humanities.

Another S.O.:

16. I agree with James; “peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.”

A few more strong opinions:

13. A grade for a course is little more than a letter on a piece of paper (or in a computer file somewhere) that no one will ever pay much attention to.

Strong Opinions #8-10:

8. If you want comments and requests for elaboration on your blog series called “thirty-nine theses,” make your claims as pompously pithy as possible.

9. If Tim Tebow can’t be a quarterback in the NFL, the problem is with the NFL.

10. A book must be an ax for the frozen sea inside us. (Kafka)

Strong Opinion #7:

A professor should not pass out a hard copy of the syllabus the first day of class.

Strong opinions, the first six:

1. My harmonica playing does not hurt my dog's ears. He's not whining; he's singing along.
2. If it comes to a choice between watching major league baseball or NFL football, only a vulgarian would choose the latter.
3. There's a fine line between the genius of postmodern pastiche and plagiarism.
4. There are no stories that are not true.
5. Double negatives can be an effective rhetorical device.
6. I don't want to know what I or anyone else ranks on an empathy scale, and I really, really don't want to know why some unimaginative nitwit decided we needed numbers to assess our empathy level.

Well, now that I got those thirty-nine memories out there, now what? I had this conversation with Jeanie the other day. Once my series ended, what was I going to write about. I said:

How about “thirty-nine strong opinions”?

I didn’t really like the idea. I don’t think I even have 39 strong opinions. But she liked the idea. Maybe I should call them, as Martin Luther would have, “theses."

Well, whether you want to think of them as opinions or theses, that’s what you’re gonna get. Thirty-nine of them. They’ll be brief–they’ll be theses. And a thesis, my little lovers of composition terminology, is a simple, brief claim–typically a sentence or two.

You’ll have to give me feedback if you want them developed in greater detail or supported with an argument. Here’s one.

thirty-nine theses (example): School Uniforms

Bethel professors should wear uniforms.

Memory #39: She’s Got a Way

39 things I like about my wife:

1. Her eyes
2. Her relentlessness
3. Her tenderness
4. Her roasted chicken and rice cooked in chicken broth (with gravy)
5. Her mind
6. Her heart and soul (that's two things, I know)
7. The look she gives me when I say something off the wall or mildly offensive
8. The scrapbooks she keeps (she has one dedicated entirely to Morgan!)
9. The noise her yawns make
10. Her lips
11. Her hips
12. Her quirks
13. Her wiffleball skills
14. The way she looks when she's running
15. Her walk
16. That her favorite movie is "The Cutting Edge" because when she was a little girl she dreamed of being a famous ice skater
17. Her singing
18. Her compassion for the weak, for the downtrodden, for the lonely
19. The way she scolds me
20. Her cry
21. The many voices she conjures when reading to Sydney
22. That she is a morning person
23. Her dancing
24. Her sarcasm
25. The way she drives like a Jamaican, though we now live in America
26. Her "can do" attitude
27. Her artistic sense
28. Her artistic ability
29. Her appreciation for good food
30. Her passion for teaching 2nd graders
31. The way she shoots a basketball
32. Her love of the outdoors and walks in the woods
33. The satisfied look she gets on her face when she closes her eyes to the sun on a lonely stretch of beach in Ludington
34. Her ears
35. Her putting up with me
36. The way she smells
37. Did I mention that she's relentless? That you cannot stop her once she puts her mind to something (I love that!!)
38. Her laughter
39. That I have no idea how she will respond to all that I have written in this blog entry, but that I know it will be priceless

None of those are memories, precisely, so here's one.

When I was in a kind of shooting slump my senior year in college, getting frustrated over not playing very well for a stretch during the first semester, she asked me something that I've never forgotten.

"Are you looking at the rim?"

This might seem silly and I did laugh when she asked it. But I also thought about it. And I still do. Sometimes, because I have taken umpteen gazillion shots in my life, I just sort of look in the general direction of the basket and rely on muscle memory to help my (and I don't mean to brag here) picture perfect jumpshot to find its mark.

But you really ought to look at the rim. Zone in on the particular. If you aim at nothing, you'll probably hit it.

So I try to remember, when I'm shooting hoops, to look at the rim. Make your own metaphorical connection here, gentle reader. Seriously.

So you can see why I love this person. I didn't write this song, but it might as well have been written from me to her. After all these years, she's still got a way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw-_zLkGn5s

Memory #38: Top Five Basketball Memories

5. The summer I was seventeen, playing by myself, in my driveway, every day of that summer for hours on end. I improved more in those three months than at any other time in my life.

4. I don’t mean to brag, but playing with (arguably) the best starting five in Bethel history my sophomore year: Jody Martinez, Dave Troyer, Bob Knebel, and Pat Adkins.

3. I don’t mean to brag, but the night (with that team above) when I didn’t miss a shot–12 for 12 FGs and 5 for 5 FTs for 33 points. When you play with two all-american post players, you get some good looks at the basket.

2. Scoring 46 points against Jimtown my senior year in high school. I don’t mean to brag, but I think I had a stretch where I made nine shots in a row. It was my mom’s birthday, 1988.

1. NCCAA National Champions, 1992. I don’t mean to brag, but we broke the ice with the first basketball national championship, and the 1990s came later to be known as a “decade of dominance.”

Memory #37: Birthdays

When your birthday falls less than two weeks after Christmas, one of two things can happen. One, you can get screwed in the presents department by people who write “Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday” on some card. Or, two, you can have a mom like mine who made sure that your birthday was always a big deal.

When I was a kid, the entire extended family always came to my house on or near my birthday to celebrate me. That was a lot of people. My mom did that. She made sure that I knew I was important and loved. On your thirty-ninth birthday you care a lot less about this sort of thing. But when you,re eight or twelve, this stuff matters. My mom knew.

Memory #35: Yoga, etc.

Today I did an entire 90 minute yoga workout. Is it a workout or a routine? Anyhow, the whole time I was doing it, I was looking at the people in the video that I was trying to follow and thinking things like: “I have got to be doing this wrong”; “Wow, that’s an uncomfortable position”; “Breathe? Are you serious?”, and so on.

And then, incredibly enough, when I was done, I was stunned at just how good I felt. I felt strong. I felt limber. I felt amazingly relaxed.

That’s not much of a memory. Here’s a memory. I can remember a time when people I knew well and thought pretty highly of thought yoga was some sort of instrument of the devil to get us all to become wierded out new age hinduist hippies. I think they might have been some of the same people who encouraged my entire youth group to burn our satanic records in a giant pyre outside the church one Sunday night. When the wind whipped up and it started to storm, it was taken as a clear sign that the devil didn’t want us to burn our records. But lots of people did anyhow.

I didn’t have any records. But that presentation by some vagabond youth minister, with all those backward masked records and creepy album covers, sure got me curious. So curious that I went to the drugstore day after day and thumbed through albums, looking for devilish symbols hidden in the cover art.

I remember my best friend Dave telling me that one of the stupidest things he ever did was to burn all of his Doors albums in one of those cultic record burning/smashing youth group sessions so popular in the late seventies and early eighties.

I wonder if those records, given up in a moment of misguided zeal, have come back to him ten or a hundred fold where he resides now?

I remember the day she was born: 3:06 p.m. on May 18, 2006. I remember the day she came home from the hospital, tiny and helpless, and Morgan kissed her gently. I know her first word was “no,” which doesn’t really trouble me at all. I hope she remembers that word when the inevitible peer pressures come some day.

I do not remember the first time she called me “papa,” but she still does, and I hope she always will.

She’s playing “Hungry, Hungry Hippos” behind me as I write this, talking non-stop to no one in particular. I tell Jeanie regularly, with wonder, with affection, with pride, “That girl never shuts up.”

I adore this little miracle child–so much so that I can scarcely recall what it was that, for all those years, terrified me about being a papa.

Memory #32: Buncha Bethel

I’ve been around Bethel a fairly long time, now. This is actually my seventeenth year on campus. Here’s a buncha Bethel memories.

I remember when…

• the acorn was in the dining commons, which was then called the campus center.
• the campus center doubled as the chapel three days a week.
• Reflection Pond was a mud volleyball pit.
• there were two dormitories on campus--Shupe and Oakwood.
• there was one computer in Oakwood, and no one knew what the Internet was.
• you had to get to a Bethel basketball game at least thirty minutes before tip-off if you wanted to get in.
• the soccer field was a sort of garbage dump.
• the tennis courts were a soccer field.
• the parking lot by the soccer field were tennis courts.
• Wiekamp was a parking lot.
• the Wiekamp parking lot was a practice soccer field.
• the fine arts building was a terrifying wilderness.
• God showed up at Spiritual Emphasis week, 1991.

Memory #31: Three Pages a Week

When I was fifteen and a sophomore in Mrs. Yoder’s English class, I started to keep a journal. Not because I thought it would be good to keep a journal or because I had a lot to say. I did it because it was an assignment. Mrs. Yoder made us write three pages a week, every week, all year in a little spiral steno notebook. There were no other requirements for the journal. You just had to write three pages a week about anything you wanted to write about.

I will be thirty-nine years old next week, and I have been writing in notebooks (sometimes in notebook computers, but more often in notebooks) for twenty-five years. It is a habit that borders on obsession.

You got bonus credit in Mrs. Yoder’s class if you wrote more than three pages a week. For most of the weeks during the past twenty-five years, I would have gotten a lot of bonus points.

I would thank Mrs. Yoder, if I knew where she was. I wonder whether any of her other students took the gift she gave us–the gift of habitual journaling–and ran with it as I have.

Old journals sit in a big box in my basement office, piles of them.

And just today, while writing in my journal, I figured out what to do with them.