Dropping some lines from Kinmen

Hi from Kinmen. 

I neglected to post that I was coming here, so now you know. I'm part of a new bilingual program at a small school in Kinmen, ROC. Basically, I'm here to teach first-through-sixth graders and give them the motivating conditions for learning to listen, speak, read, and write in English. Students who have exposure to only ten-or-so foreigners within a distance short of boat or plane. That's a big, and cool, task, which my friends who have volunteer-taught here for years have prepared them for in some ways, but such an intensive program of English (8-10 hours per week per classroom) is breaking really new ground here.

I just arrived yesterday about noon, settled in with my hosts, the Tsai family, within walking distance of the school. Most of all, I'm overwhelmed with the nice place they've got for me. It's a new 3-story house with granite floors, I have a good-size room on the first floor. The family has 2 girls and a boy... the eldest girl, Yicheng, and the boy, Bingcheng, are in Jr. High, and had a math tutor and an English tutor over last night from the college. The youngest girl, Susan, is one of my students. She's really outgoing, and is the most willing of any of them to communicate in English.  Mr. Tsai is a roofer and a carpenter; he builds roofs for temples and such, and he also makes or installs doors, and makes furniture out of wood.  Mrs. Tsai is really welcoming, too.

The kids at school don't speak hardly any English at all... most are at a first-grade level of English. They're a lot of fun in Chinese, though, once they know you understand some of what they're saying. Most of the girls are telling me I'd look more handsome if I shaved my beard. Hmmm.  And now they were just making fun of my because I was tilting my head to one side while I was typing. "Hold your head straight!" (in Chinese) haha

I visited Teresa yesterday afternoon. She, and everyone there on the team, was very sleepy from such a stressful week last week. She's looking pretty skinny, but she's eating and that's the important thing.  She was happy to get the health-food I brought in my suitcase, since she's become allergic to so many things. It was really natural, and still really a welcome thing, to see her for the first time since this spring.

I start teaching tomorrow, so I've got to get some lesson-planning done. Catch ya later!

Joe Dallas, Answering the "Gay Christian" Position. Christian Research Institute, Article DG238.
Highly, highly recommended. 

unknown | nwonknu

I just realized, thanks to an ad for American University's College of Arts and Sciences, the origin of "wonk".  The ad read, "wonks know art... wonks know education... wonks know social sciences... be in the know." Merriam-Webster's says the origin of "wonk" (1954) is unknown. That might be truer than they know.

Wonk is know spelled backwards.

David Brooks on California's golden age

David Brooks, in a New York Times editorial, recasts the California of 1911-1960 as a city on a hill for the state to follow today.  A restoration to pro-market progressivism in support of immigrant entrepreneurs is his way to prosperity and salvation from government bankruptcy.  He does a really good job of it, too, since most of his readers won't remember the old California except from the old Hollywood movies like John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, which he references in the title: Tom Joad Gave Up.  At that time, thousands streamed into California to find work. Now, thousands stream out of California to find work. What changed?

Conduit or liaison

Right now I'm taking an online course in ethics for paralegals. This question came up in one of the quizzes. Notice the similarity and difference between the two words "conduit" and "liaison", and how they are used to frame the issue.

What do you consider the difference between a conduit and a liaison?

Lyonnet on 1 John 3:8

Usually, when a good writer uses block quotes, it's for a good reason. I'm not talking about someone like Voline, who quotes chapters of another author because it's his only source. I'm talking about someone like Colin Kruse, who in his commentary on 1 John quotes the following paragraph from Stanislaus Lyonnet.


Colin Kruse, The Letters of John pp. 122-123.

Just as a Christian lives under the influence of God living in him, so do sinners live under the influence of the devil and allow themselves to be seduced by him. Consequently, just as he who is born of God and in whom God dwells does what God does, or concretely, 'lives the same kind of life as Christ lived' (1 Jn 2:6), that of a son of God, so the 'children of the devil' can only do what their 'father wants' (Jn 8:44), those very deeds which the Son of God came to undo. (1 Jn 3:8)

 1 John 3:8 says "He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work."

Da Vinci on human worth

Here's what Leonardo Da Vinci wrote on the back of one of his drawings. Notebooks p. 1140. The link has his notebooks transcribed and syndicated by RSS, if you're looking for a genius to add to your reader.

And you, O Man, who will discern in this work of mine the wonderful works of Nature, if you think it would be a criminal thing to destroy it, reflect how much more criminal it is to take the life of  a man; and if this, his external form, appears to thee marvellously constructed, remember that it is nothing as compared with the soul  that dwells in that structure; for that indeed, be it what it may, is a thing divine. Leave it then to dwell in His work at His good will and pleasure, and let not your rage or malice destroy a life--for indeed, he who does not value it, does not himself deserve it.

 I'd put the same argument to someone who kills to steal great art, to someone who ignores his family responsibilities while writing a blog post, or to someone who tells his mistress that the Mexican Revolution failed and it's not his fault.

Lakoff video on politics and cognitive linguistics

George Lakoff is a cognitive linguist at UC Berkeley. He, like his old teacher and erstwhile enemy, Noam Chomsky, has had a lot to say about politics. Here's a link to a ninety-minute video where he introduces his book The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st-century Politics with an 18th-century Brain. It deals with political narratives and metaphors from the perspective of neuroscience.

In recovery!

Cross-posted from Straubs4Christ:

Dear Family, Friends, and Fellow Prayer Warriors,

Thank you for your prayers on behalf of Teresa.

Today we received word that she felt the best she has in a long time. That is a direct answer to
many prayers. Praise be to God, the great healer. He is to be praised!

We do not know what her situation will be long term or how long of a road she has to full
recovery, but we know that God answered our prayers and performed a miracle today. Praise the
name of the Lord.

She went from being too weak to sit or stand, to being able to sit up and eat pain-free.

She is currently under the care of a doctor in Taipei. She is being treated for a serious bacterial
infection in her stomach, as well as inflammation in her intestine. It appears she also has some
severe allergies to certain foods.

We count it a blessing to have you praying for her. Will you continue to lift up Teresa in prayer?

All because of Jesus,

Tim & Janet Straub

Messrs. T

I can't seem to keep straight A.T. Robertson, John A.T. Robinson, and N.T. Wright.

One was, one now is not, and the third is hurrying to catch up with them. Does initial prestige fade with ambiguity or does it increase when one's identity is merged with someone a little more famous?

Kaczynski

I wish I had the patience to read the Ted Kaczynski's Unabomber Manifesto. It, and his life, looks fascinating.

Update on Teresa

Since yesterday, Teresa has reportedly gotten much better.  She is a lot more comfortable and happy, in answer to all your prayers. I'm still waiting to hear the results of more tests, and hoping that she will get lots of rest and take in plenty of nutrients and water. Praise God.

Urgent prayer needed for Teresa

Dear Family, Friends and Fellow Prayer Warriors,

Will you join us in praying that God would intervene in Teresa’s health?  Some of her basic organ functions are shutting down.

Here is a note from a fellow teammate who flew with her to Taipei to seek more advanced medical help.

All Because of Jesus,

Tim & Janet Straub

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

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Straub,

I am Teresa's teammate and friend, Bekah. I am sure you are aware that we are in Taipei doing some tests and trying to find out what can be done to bring about her healing. In the past few days it has been brought to our attention just how severe her illness is and that something must be done immediately to help her. 

Because of the intense pain in her stomach, she hasn't been eating or drinking, and this has been over a very long period of time. As a result her body has slowly started to shut down some basic organ functions, simply from a lack of nutrients and enzymes. Also because she has not had food in a long time, her body doesn't know how to handle food and her digestive system is not functioning at top notch. 

She has been severely dehydrated, and we gave her an IV for that, and we have found a few foods that we are experiementing with to see if maybe we can build back her body's strength and give her the nutrients and enzymes needed to fight the infection in her stomach and intestine....

She is a very sick girl but we are seeking our Father's help and healing. I believe that He is going to help us find some answers. I will do my best to keep you updated as I learn new things.

His

Bekah

Spence on the research-writing balance

Jonathan Spence wrote one of my favorite books:To Change China: Western Advisers in China, 1620–1960 (Little, Brown, 1969). He has been at Yale for more than fifty years and due to his prolific writing for trade presses, has become known outside the academy as a leading scholar in the history of modern Chinese civilization. Nicholas Basbanes interviewed him for a history of Yale University Press.

Nicholas Basbanes, A World of Letters: Yale University Press 1908-2008. Yale 2008. Pp. 184-185.

“I think the Press is always aware of the presence of some kind of audience, or the lack of one,” he stressed in one of the first interviews I conducted for this book. “They do need to have people read their books, after all, and if possible to buy them, maybe not on the scale of trade books, but even nonprofits have to break even in some way or another.” One way of assuring this is to have “two or three titles each year which can carry a lot of much lower-selling monographic studies,” he said. Yet for all that juggling of material, Spence added, “scholarship is still very hard to gauge,” and he cited his own work as an example. Around the time that Yale published his first book, Ts’ao Yin and the K’ang-hsi Emperor: Bond servant and Master, in 1966, Spence said he began to consider writing for a broader audience, especially as a number of trade publishers approached him with invitations to write for them.

“I got interested in the interconnection between scholarship and the more general readership. I used to ask myself why scholarship had to be arcane. That may be the wrong question to ask, but that’s how I phrased it myself. My feeling was this: that instead of spending years and years on the research and then just trying to write it up and get somebody to take it, supposing you spent half the time on the research and half the time on the writing? Just really concentrate on that; just shut yourself away and go on and do it — and then see who wants to publish it and who wants to read it. That’s what I did. I got involved in a different world.”

Shouldn't our presentation be just as careful as our preparation?

Related post: From Monograph to Gem of Scholarship (Aug. 24, 2010).

Mounce on the new NIV and accuracy

Bill Mounce, a Greek scholar who worked on the ESV Bible translation committee, is now on the committee for the revision of the NIV. In this post he blogs about "What constitutes an accurate translation".

Go over and read it!


HT: Better Bibles Blog

Migratory coconuts

Over the course of today, I've confirmed my personality orientation as primarily INTP, not INTJ. To celebrate, I submit to you a conversation I would love to have been in on, from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.




Aspects of the INTP personality in the tower guard:
1) Seeing straight through facades
2) Picking up on irrelevant details
3) Hammering a random topic to death or distraction

McHugh on the introvert identity

At SIL-UND this summer, introverts vs. extraverts was a big topic -- mainly since we introverts were in the uncomfortable majority. A friend named Allison introduced me to the Myers-Briggs personality test, which became a minor passion of mine (since I'm an INTJ).  Keith Slater gave a very candid talk on being an introvert in overseas ministry.  Then, yesterday I noticed a post by Jon Winslow on a book called Introverts in the Church (IVP, 2009) by Adam McHugh.  The following paragraphs are clipped from an interview of McHugh on Crosswalk.com.
 

What are the qualities of an introvert that may be overlooked?
Put bluntly, I think most qualities of an introvert are prone to be overlooked!  In our extroverted society, we value aggressive, action-oriented, gregarious people, and  I think this extroverted bias has bled over into some of our churches, where often the "ideals" of faithfulness are strikingly extroverted. We praise people who are social and expressive, eager to participate in a wide variety of activities, have an overt enthusiasm, share their faith with strangers easily, assume leadership positions quickly. But introverts do not usually fit this profile, and our lives of faith may be a little slower, a little quieter, a little more solitary. We are often calm, thoughtful, reflective types who may be invisible to others if they are not looking or listening.

Yet I think that introverts have tremendous gifts to bring to others. In the book I start with our listening abilities. Because introverts process internally, we can offer people a non-judgmental presence that helps others open up to us. There is also something about being intimately connected to our inner worlds that produces a great deal of creativity. Many introverts are gifted writers, artists, musicians, and even actors. I also think that having a rich inner life lends itself towards a deep compassion for others, something I have seen in many introverted pastors and chaplains I have worked with. Further, we are capable of an insight that is borne of self-awareness and listening, a peacefulness that spreads to others, and a servant mindset which is often expressed in behind-the-scenes service.

How can introverts be evangelists?
As I was exploring this topic, I had someone ask me whether an "introverted evangelist" is an oxymoron.  But I firmly believe it's not that introverts are ill-suited to evangelism; rather, many of our common strategies for evangelism are ill-suited for introverts.  Even though teaching on evangelism is (thankfully) changing, there are still some prevailing models that are very difficult for many introverts. One of those models is the spiritual salesmanship model, to borrow an image from evangelism professor Rick Richardson. We must be fast talking experts, armed with answers to all the questions, able to persuade others and "close the deal." Or another common mode of evangelism is debate - we need to prove that our worldview is superior to that of others. Most introverts will struggle with these methods, since we're not naturally aggressive or chatty and our internal processing slows us down in situations of conflict or debate.   I think there are different methods and images for evangelism that are more suited for introverts. One of the things I suggest is that introverts, instead of radically stretching themselves to initiate with strangers in uncomfortable situations, should start with the people who are already in their lives and ask how God is already at work in them.  Evangelism is always a response to what God is already doing in people, as he works on people's hearts in ways that transcend even the most profound words we can muster. We can come alongside of our friends and partner with God in teaching and embodying the gospel of Jesus. And we can use our gifts as introverts - especially listening and compassion - to demonstrate the love and the presence of God. By listening to people, and really giving them space to express their questions and doubts, we ensure that when we do speak we are addressing the real needs and concerns of a person.     

         

What is the gospel and how can it specifically be applied to the main issues you raise in the book?
This isn't a comprehensive definition, but I would start by saying that the gospel is the reality that in the person of Jesus Christ - in his life, death, and resurrection - God has reclaimed the world as his own and has broken the powers and strongholds that ensnare and divide people. In Christ we have been adopted as God's beloved children - our new foundational identity - and God is rescuing us from the false identities we have constructed and freeing us to be the people he created us to be. The body of Christ is comprised of unique, diverse members who have different gifts and strengths, and we are intended to work together, bringing all that we have, for the glory of God. We are of different cultures, genders, social status, and temperaments. My book explores in depth the introverted temperament, and how the church doesn't always value what introverts bring to the table. People who fall on the introverted side of the personality spectrum can love God and love others authentically, bringing their God-given gifts to bear on their communities.   

On defending Muslims

Ms. Khakpour, an Iranian-American, captures well the experience of protecting people while disagreeing with their ideology. Her editorial was published in the New York Times yesterday, on the anniversary of the day a group of Muslims plotted to wreck the World Trade Center in New York City.  Her example of taking up someone else's reputation can apply to Muslims, Amish, Mormons, ATI-ers, Democrats, Tea-Partiers, or anyone. It also dignifies un-anonymous (onymous?) relationships, where you know you're talking to a real person who knows how to blush.

Porochista Khakpour, "My Nine Years as a Middle-Eastern-American." New York Times, September 11, 2010.

The hilarity started to curdle at the moment I was also feeling the most euphoric: during Mr. Obama’s bid for the presidency. It was around then that I began murdering whole days on the Internet, and not just on the Internet but in its dirty basement, the comments sections of blogs. There, an angry tribe of fake names spoke in misspelled obscenities and declaimed the true, evil nature of Middle Easterners and their intentions in this country. This is silly, I’d tell myself, these trolls aren’t representative of my neighbors or of Americans.

Then I’d go on Facebook, and engage in more online warfare with friends of friends, real flesh-and-blood people with real-life names, who a bit more politely and grammatically stated the same. And there was me — a non-Muslim, who has publicly criticized certain Islamic practices — flaccidly battling for Muslims worldwide. It got to the point that I was telling people I didn’t even know that their opinions were making my life downright “unlivable.”

It reminds me of how I used to experience so many mixed emotions when I’d see women in full burqa in Brooklyn: alarm at the spectacle (no matter how many times I’d seen it), followed by a certain feminist irk, and finally discomfiture at our cultural kinship. And then it would all turn into one strong emotion — protective rage — when I’d see a group of teenagers laughing and pointing at them.

Porochista Khakpour, the author of the novel “Sons and Other Flammable Objects,” is a professor of literature at Santa Fe University of Art and Design.

My newest reading

Here's a summary of my newest reading in books, which doesn't include articles and blogs.

Krister Stendahl, Paul Among Jews and Gentiles. Fortress Press, 1976.
(Stendahl was bishop of Stockholm, Sweden, and dean of Harvard Divinity School.)
I'm reading this with my youth pastor, Bill Douglas, and we're planning to discuss it soon. Stendahl argues that we missed something by extracting our theology from Galatians and Romans without making the relation between Jews and Gentiles a major feature and motivating factor as it was for Paul. Thus we applied the law to make our own consciences guilty and the gospel to make them clean and then to fight off the legalists, while Stendahl thinks Paul was more interested in Church unity and growth, or something. Because the Jews are now outsiders and Gentiles are insiders to the Church, we forget what the New Testament was about, and have a hard time repositioning ourselves into the first readers' view and thence to a responsible modern application. Stendahl is severely handicapped because he rejects Ephesians and the Pastoral Letters as genuine letters of Paul. This means he can't interact with "by grace are you saved... so that no one can boast". (Eph. 2:8-9)

Paul Nation, Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. Cambridge, 2001.
(Nation teaches applied linguistics at the University of Victoria, Wellington, NZ.)
Very interesting discussion of how many words are present in English. Nation goes through strategies for learning, remembering, testing, and using vocab in classroom and individual second-language settings. Most of all, it's fascinating in the scope of research, outlining the vastness of the language we grew up swimming in and shining into the depth of any new language we would start to learn.  Its biggest weakness is that it's grounded in lexicography, corpus linguistics, and classroom applications while remaining intellectually beyond your average teacher who would use it. Second, it sticks to the surface of memory and ignores research in the psychology of the mental lexicon or the "long road" of true participation in a host community.

Jean Aitchison, Words in the Mind: An Introduction to the Mental Lexicon. 3rd ed. Blackwell, 2003.
(Aitchison teaches language and communication at Oxford.)
A lucid book that I only started, and then flitted to something else. It's a step backwards from Nation's book, but it's more easily understandable. Aitchison does a good job of integrating psycholinguistics with reader-friendly illustrations.

Rod Ellis, The Study of Second Language Acquisition. 2nd ed. Oxford, 2008.
(Ellis teaches applied linguistics at the University of Auckland, NZ.)
An enormous book reviewing all the research on language learning from the last 50 years. I like it especially for the glossary, which answers my questions on terms I've picked up from scattered readings in SLA. I also like its encyclopedic quality, where I can pick it up and open to a chapter on any aspect or theory in the field, and get a satisfyingly deep discussion.  The many tables and charts orient you on the different experiments and movements in the field of Second Language Acquisition research. Confession: I use it sometimes just for the bibliography, to search for potential mentors.

James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. Oxford, 2010. (Kindle for PC)
(Hunter teaches about cultural institutions at the University of Virginia.)
I first read about this book in Christianity Today this summer. Finally it is out in Kindle for instant download, which I promptly did last night. Hunter paraphrases our dominant Christian strategies of cultural engagement in America: change the individual mind and heart, then influence politics and society. This is fun, seeing Adventures in Odyssey, Worldview Academy, Family Research Council, Jesus For President, and Sojourners side by side. Then he says conservatives, liberals, and Anabaptists have all three let themselves be defined by politics (or rejection of politics). The problem, he says, is that politics is such a narrow strip of life. Furthermore, individuals and big ideas are subordinate to the social networks that support them. So, he wants us to calm down and work on networking and participation with culture at the centers of influence in a way that gives off a "faithful witness". He wants us to be faithful and make for broad-based transformation rather than an election. It's a great call for reorientation. However, it ignores and writes off the work some of our favorite Christian groups and writers have done in exactly this direction. As Andy Crouch says, Hunter will need their impetus if he wants to have a lasting impact. In my opinion, motivation and understanding don't always come in the same breath. This is one hard look in the mirror at the efficacy of motivational groups I've hung around with for years. It's also fun to watch the liberals and Anabaptists squirm. To get what he's saying, you have to read the whole book, not just this interview and the responses in this issue of Christianity Today.

C. John Sommerville, The Decline of the Secular University. Oxford, 2006.
(Sommerville is professor emeritus of history at the University of Florida.)
This is a thin book I picked up off the back corner of the bargain shelf at the University of North Dakota bookstore. It addresses doubts I've had about integrating faith and academics. It says the state universities are fading in relevance to public thought, because they exclude discussion of religion on science and only wanly poke at comparative religion with a scientific perspective. Academics study how to improve human life without agreeing on what makes life good or what makes us human. Thus, religiously motivated students are alienated, and others let knowledge go in one ear and out the other, settling for a credential and getting relativism in the bargain as a substitute for wisdom. The solution is to let religious discourse in as one voice among others, in order to carve science a meaningful place in a worldview rather than trying to insert religion into a narrow scientific view of life. Then, Sommerville looks forward to professors and students taking time in campus worship centers to pray and reflect on the implications and directions of their work.

Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-critical Philosophy. Corrected ed. Routledge, 1962. (Kindle for PC) 
(Polanyi was a medical doctor from Hungary who taught chemistry, economics, and philosophy at the Universities of Manchester and Oxford.)
I first read about Polanyi in Francis Schaeffer's He is There and He is Not Silent, where Schaeffer crowed that this book blew positivism out of the water. His only complaint was that he remained a closet or almost-Christian and didn't come right out and build certainty of knowing on divine revelation after demolishing positivism. Sommerville also recommended this book in connection with Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), which stole some ideas from it. I downloaded it from Amazon last night, and read through the first chapter. It does seem to deal with important ideas, chief of which: scientists look at the world through theories, and sometimes make discoveries through intuition and "tacit knowledge," those skills and understandings that are caught more than taught. Theories stick when they delight the mind with their orderly pictures, and they persuade via peer pressure among scholars. So realizing the faith commitments your knowledge rests on, respect your personal observations, and try to develop them.

Charlie W. Shedd, Letters to Philip: On How to Treat a Woman. Spire, 1968.
(Shedd was a doctor and also wrote Letters to Karen, selling a ton of copies.)
My mom left this on my nightstand. :) Boy, I have a lot to learn, in spite of what she and my six sisters try to tell me. In these short 'letters' to his son, Shedd dispenses handfuls of marriage and dating advice in the teen-lingo of the sixties. He inspires confidence in the powers of kindness and genuine leadership of the kinds thought to have died in the sixties, to build mature man-woman relationships.

So there you have it! My browser crashed a couple times in the middle of drafts, which makes my reviews (thankfully!) shorter, and I kept noticing other books lying about my room to add. But if I'm learning anything in communication, it's that girls start the conversations and boys control the topics... yes, that, but what I was going to say was, saying something is better than saying everything. Because you can't say anything until you've said something, and you can't hear anything if you're saying everything.

What about you? What's on top of your current reading list?

A new metaphor for integrity

David Phillips Hansen, in a book review from 1988, gave me a new metaphor for integrity. That of a bone reconstruction.

David Phillips Hansen. Book Review: Resurrection and Moral Order: An Outline for Evangelical Ethics, by Oliver O'Donovan. Theology Today, Vol. 45, No. 1 (April 1988), p. 117.

The structure of a moral life, [O'Donovan] argues, depends on an ordered moral field of action and on an ordered moral self. The unity of the law, which orders the field, ensures the unity of the moral agent who respects it. The summary of the law is the double commandment to love God and neighbor.

Pray for me, because my integrity and follow-through is very immature right now.
HT to Matt Lee Anderson for sparking interest in O'Donovan's book.