living in antithesis

I'm Lame Now

2010-04-13T14:10:00.001-07:00

But I will start posting here again soon.

Wind

2009-05-12T15:03:00.001-07:00

And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Hush, be still." And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm. - Mark 4:39

When was the last time you licked your finger and thrust it into the air to see which way the wind was blowing? Or when was the last time you shrieked upon seeing a windsock indicating an East wind? And if that windsock were to change to indicate a West wind, would you breathe a sigh of relief?

Throughout the Scriptures, an East wind was predominately a precursor to destruction. Whether this destruction was to come by famine (Gen 41:27) or locusts (Ex. 10:13) or captivity (Isa. 27:8) or withering (Eze. 19:12) or drought (Ho. 13:15), an East wind rarely meant anything good. Every once in a while we get the East wind parting and drying seas to allow the people of God to pass through safely.(Ex. 14:21) A West wind on the other hand should remind us of deliverance. Feel that wind on your face and rejoice that the locusts are being swept into the sea. (Ex. 10:19)

If you are not used to tracking where the wind is actually coming from, this might be a difficult exercise. But while you are developing your wind-direction-sense, you can always remember Noah and the wind that dried the floodwaters. (Gen 8:1)

You should also remember that the Spirit of God is like the wind, blowing wherever he wishes. He invades rooms (Acts 2:2) and he invades souls. (Joh 3:8) He does not relent until he gains entrance. The wind can make palm trees bow to the ground and in a like manner the hearts of men follow suit. Always remember though that the wind shakes the trees; the trees do not create the wind. This truth tends to destroy spiritual pride.

Do not chase the wind though, for that is vanity. I am not, of course, referring to the Spirit of God now. Instead I am speaking of the wind as the fleeting pleasures of this life. Just as the wind blows once and is gone, so is life apart from the hope of resurrection. The wind is the pursuit of fools (Ec. 1:14) and the inheritance of the disobedient (Pr. 11:29) Men who spend their life accumulating and becoming weightless things will be swept away by the wind like so much dust and chaff.

The same wind that can bring wreck to a ship and its crew is speechless at the rebuke of Jesus. Those who were there began to see the implications: “Who is this that the wind and the waves obey him?” (Mr. 4:39-41)

If you decided to be driven along by every wind that came your way I imagine it would not be long before you were locked up. So is the man who has his doctrinal finger moistened and pointing skyward. He never wants to be a step behind the latest theological trend. However, if a man would be rooted in the Truth, the winds will blow themselves silly, while he stands unmoved. (Eph. 4:14)

And finally, lets us not forget the angels. (Ps. 104:4) The wind ought to remind us that God is active in his world; many times through his messengers and servants, the angels.

Go find some wind and tell your kids what it means.

Rocks

2009-05-06T13:18:00.000-07:00

"For their rock is not as our Rock; our enemies are by themselves." - Deuteronomy 32:31

I little while back I picked up a cubic yard of gravel for my yard. And when I say "picked up" what I mean is that I had a bobcat tractor dump three loads of gravel into the bed of my truck. I guess I hadn't thought about how much this gravel might actually weigh but whatever I had been thinking wasn't even close. Thankfully the quarry yard was only about 2 miles from my house because my full size truck was literally groaning under the weight of a bed full of gravel. My tailgate has never been the same since. It wiggles slightly when it is closed and every once in a while, if I slam it shut, a few pieces of gravel trickle down from some unknown hiding place. Ever since this experience I have wondered how much the Earth weighs.

When you think about it, this giant ball spinning through outer space is basically one big rock with a little water splashed here and there. If you took all of the rocks in the worlds and weighed them, to what could you compare that number? And would that number actually mean anything to you?

I just Googled the question, “How much does the Earth weigh?” The first website that popped up was a science website called “howstuffworks.com”. They tell me…strike that…they first correct me and then tell me that, “it would be more proper to ask, "What is the mass of planet Earth?" The quick answer to that is: approximately 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (6E+24) kilograms.” Being an American, kilograms make no sense to me. Here is that number in pounds: 13,227,735,720,000,000,000,000,000 lbs. And apparently, the Earth is gaining 100,000 pounds per year. I blame fast food.

All that to say, rocks are generally pretty heavy. They can break windows handily. Even if they are “light” rocks. You just have the throw them harder.

God made rocks for a reason though and breaking windows probably wasn’t at the top of the “Proper Usage of Rocks” list, if there was such a thing. I think that one of the main reasons that God made the earth weigh about 13 trillion, trillion (actual name for that number) pounds is that he wanted the statement ,“The LORD is my Rock” (Ps. 18:2) to blow our minds.

When I pick up a rock in my yard and turn it over in my hand, feeling its weight and texture and solidarity, I ought to remember that God is my Rock. He is sure and solid and weighty. Winds don’t move him and water won’t float him. In other words, he is faithful forever and worthy of my trust. (Isa. 26:4) My Rock is my security and refuge during a storm. (Ps. 31:2)

My Rock, along with his glorious Gospel, is worth building my house upon. Winds and rains will come and my house will stand. (Mt. 7:24-25) No building code in the world could hope to require the strength of that Foundation. The Rock is required and nothing else will do.

Rock in hand; I should try to imagine water flowing forth. I love the smell of a wet rock but only the most insane among us would imagine the wetness coming from within the rock. I have a staff around here somewhere; and I think that if I banged on rocks all day long the water within would stubbornly refuse my beckoning. And yet, Moses struck the rock and water came-a-gushin’. Rocks should remind us that God provides for his people. Even by water from rocks. Even when they lack faith. But he does not only bring water from rocks, but also honey. (Ps. 81:16) In other words, rocks should also remind us that God is not stingy with his provisions.

And if we could not think of a more contrary thing than water coming out of a rock, God decided to make fire spring up from a rock for Gideon. (Jud. 6:21) And that was in spite of Gideon’s ridiculous requests for proof.

I should also be warned that a rock is also biblically analogous to a hardened and unrepentant heart. I should be warned that if the soil is too rocky, the plant may flourish for a moment but then be scorched by the sun. (Lu 8:6,13)

I should remember Peter. A lesser rock to be sure, but definitively useful in the formation of the early church. (Mt. 16:18)

Rocks are amazing things. They can be used as anchors. They can be used as walls and buildings. They can be used as altars and memorials. They can be used for jewelry and weapons. They can be used to seal tombs. However, they have the hardest time staying sealed. And we should be thankful for their colossal failure in this regard.

I have an idea

2009-04-20T21:26:00.000-07:00

I teach Sunday School for 8-12 graders every Sunday. It is one of the highlights of my week. There was a 4 year stretch of my life when I was teaching the Bible 6 days a week (sometimes 7 on the odd Saturday) to teenagers. I believe that the Lord has gifted me towards this sort of thing and I really can't imagine another thing I'd rather be doing. To paraphrase someone (don't recall who), "I teach for the same reason dogs bark."

Over the course of the years I have been doing this, I have taught a whole lot of things from the Bible. I used to teach an OT Survey course and an NT Survey course so I suppose you might even say that I have taught the whole bible a couple of times through. That is not to say that I have taught everything the Bible has to say (not even close), just that I have taught through the book of Obadiah at least 4 times and if you have taught through Obadiah 4 times...well...

Before this begins to sound more puffed up than it already does, I wanted to say that I have been brainstorming for my next Sunday School series. I just finished a couple of weeks on Biblical Friendship and I have committed the next couple of weeks to Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. After that, I have been drawing a blank. Until today.

My carpool partner, Devin, and I spend about 60 minutes a day either talking or listening to talk radio. We've been doing this for the past 4 years and I will tell you, you talk about a lot of different things over the course of that many hours. He has truly challenged my thinking in ways I cannot even account for and has brought things to my attention that I don't believe I otherwise would have ever seen. I guess I should be honest and admit that this idea was birthed by him, in case he reads this and tries to sue me for copyright infringement.

You should also know that Devin and I have planned to write many books, the latest of which I am now stealing for my own Sunday School use. We are planning (always planning rarely doing) on writing a book about the biblical significance of objects in the world around us. Things like bread, wine, blood, rain, fish, stars, sand, and trees. It is my conviction that some of the FIRST things a Christian should think about when he thinks about stars is NOT all the scientific "facts" about stars that he learned in school. His FIRST thoughts should be something along the lines of God's Creation, His covenant with Abraham, His power, Psalm 8, Shepherds heading to Bethlehem and the like. The world is full of symbols and metaphors that are freely and gladly used by God and the writers of Scripture to describe, explain and remind us of who God is, who we are, why we are here, why the world exists, where the world is going, etc.

This is the heart of worldview thinking that has been sorely neglected. I imagine that if I took a survey of my students (probably even myself) and asked them what they think of when they think of "seeds" they most likely would not immediately think of the seed of the Serpent, the Seed of the woman and the Sower in the field. Heck, I am just beginning to train myself to think biblically about the world and all the glorious stuff in it. We should think this way though. And so that is why I am going to teach them (and me) how to think about things like water, fire, rock, river, garden, milk, sun, moon and as many others as I can think of. In fact, I already have a list going.

I am writing this here because I want to test fly my lessons on this here blog and maybe do a little spit and polish before I launch them at my kids on Sunday. I suppose this means that I will have to begin blogging more than once a month. Maybe even 4 times a month. Here's to hoping.

Chet

P.S. I also have a backlog of stuff about Owen. That may be appearing as well.

Raising Owen Part II - The Importance of Naming

2009-03-19T22:26:00.000-07:00

Raising Owen Part II - The Importance of Naming

I wonder what was the first thing that came to Adam's mind when he saw a hippo for the first time. God was in the middle of wowing him with a parade of animals and then BAM! A hippo. What do you do with that sort of thing? Adam was exercising dominion over the earth. One of the most significant parts of this exercise was that of naming the animals. God named Adam, Adam named that animals. Throughout the bible, there is a tremendous significance attached to names. Whether the name was Isaac, because of laughter or Israel for striving. Whether it was a renaming from Abram to Abraham, Levi to Matthew, or Saul to Paul, names meant (and mean) something to God and something to parents. Which is why we have named our son Owen Baxter.

The name Owen is tricky. You see, my family are rabid San Jose Sharks hockey fans. Owen Nolan used to be their captain. Naturally, my brother Steve assumed we were naming him after a former hockey player. My mom instantly thought of Owen Wilson, the actor. Aside from the fact that his nose makes my nose hurt, I could not think of a poorer namesake. Actually, that isn't true. I probably could. I digress. Owen does a nice poetic quality and is phonetically a "strong" sounding name. Both of which I like but not the reason why we chose it.

We chose Owen for two reasons. In my mind (perhaps not Kat's) neither of these reasons is the "main" reason, so pay no attention to the order of presentation. We named Owen because Kat had read somewhere that it means "desire born." This obviously has resonance with us because we have deeply desired a family for a couple of years now. Owen will be a young man born to fulfill a deep desire of both Kat and I for parenthood. We also named Owen because one of my heroes was a man named John Owen. John Owen was a theologian and Renaissance man in 17th century. He was a man who new what he believed and was willing to stand up for it no matter what odds were against him. He served as Oliver Cromwell's chaplain and as the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University for a number of years. He is widely know as one of the most brilliant theological minds of the last 500 years.

Owen had a profound religious experience (much akin to our modern "conversion" experience) while listening to a sermon on Matthew 8:26: "And [Jesus] said to them, 'Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?" Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm." Given our love for all things ocean, we couldn't have picked a better man to be moved by a better verse.

Baxter is a different story. Nobody likes Baxter. But we do. It means, "baker." That is not why we chose it though. We chose it because of a man named Richard Baxter. Richard Baxter was a Puritan pastor who was a contemporary of John Owen. I read his books The Reformed Pastor, Saint's Everlasting Rest and Call to the Unconverted to Turn and Live while in college and they had a major formative role in shaping my theology of ministry and God's call on my life. His books, along with one significant conversation with my pastor, are the main reasons why I am a teacher.

An interesting historical tidbit - Owen and Baxter disagreed over their theology of Christ's atonement (Owen was right, in my humble opinion) and spent a number of years in controversy over the doctrine. When they were both expelled from the Church of England for being Non-Conformists (too long of a story for too short of a blog) they ended up putting aside their controversy for a time in order to minister together for the good of countless other Christians who had been expelled along with them. It paints a pretty awesome picture for my son that his two namesakes, who disagreed and fought over some very important (yet non-salvific) issues were able to put aside the disagreements for the good of others.

The name Owen Baxter means something. I look forward to explaining to my son where his name comes from.

Chet

P.S. Not to mention that the name Owen Baxter just rolls off the tongue.

Raising Owen

2009-03-16T19:01:00.000-07:00

So Kat and I are adopting a little boy. Owen Baxter is going to be born on June 8th and in the kind providence of God we will be there to take him home from the hospital. It is hard to describe how excited we both are about this whole process. I could recount dozens of "small" providences that have culminated in the arrival of our son but suffice to say that again and again, we are completely floored by the perfect timing and goodness of God.

As this is a relatively uncommon way to become a first time parent, I am thankful for the many lessons already learned and anxious for the future lessons that God will teach me through this unique experience. The desire for adoption has been on my heart since I was much younger. The last 3 weeks of pursuing Owen Baxter specifically, have given me much to think about. I wanted to write down a few thoughts about parenthood and raising kids (specifically sons). While I have not yet done any of these things, I do have some ideas and hopes that I would like to share...even if it is for my own benefit.

My students just turned in their process essays and one of the prompts was: "How to raise children." They initially questioned me as to how they were supposed to know how to raise kids since they have obviously never done so. In turn I asked them, "what good is it to know how to raise kids after you are done raising them?" They nodded, obviously in awe of my incisive Socratic question and the majority proceeded to write their essay on the process of raising children. I suppose that in order to do anything well, you have to have an idea of what you want as a result. Once you have that firmly (more or less) established, you work backwards in considering how in the heck you are going to get there. So here is my process essay (of sorts) on how to raise a son (as told by a zero-parenting-experience-28-year-old man.) Take it or leave it.

Rasing Owen

Three weeks ago my wife and I got a phone call. A friend, who has been a friend for the better part of a decade, had an opportunity for us. She had known that we were in the process of getting certified for foster/adoption care. She had been working as the director of a maternity home for a while when a woman had come to her desiring to give her baby up for adoption. She called us. This woman, whom we now know and love, was carrying Owen in her womb.

As the reality has sunken in over the past 3 weeks, becoming a father for the first time, raising a son, adopting a child, and many other thoughts like these began to bang around in my skull. I immediately did two things. First, I tore down all the drywall in Owen's future nursery in order to install some insulation before re-drywalling. This, you see, is my way of celebrating. My wife buys onesies. I destroy walls and rebuild them. (There has got to be a metaphor in their somewhere.) Second, I ordered some books on parenting. I finished the first book in two days. I was too impatient for the second book (as it just arrived in the mail today) so I borrowed it from a friend. Three days later I was ready for another. This has been my routine for the last two weeks or so. Not the drywall thing; the book thing. The drywall was a one time deal.

This obviously was not the first time I had ever thought of being a dad or adopting and raising a son, but it was a good time to focus my attentions more specifically on the topics at hand. As I read on the couch and meditated while mudding, priming and painting drywall, I began to develop a sort of "vision" for what I was going to shoot for in raising Owen.

I want him to be a man who honors his mother and father, serves his church, wonders at the world around him, gives thanks, loves mercy, acts justly, walks humbly, and most of all, cherishes his Savior. I want him to believe and teach his children, my grandchildren, to believe. I want him to know the Scriptures, to do them and to instruct others. I want him to be a good husband, a loving father, an honest and diligent employee and a respectable employer. I want him to love the faith of his spiritual forefathers and love his spiritual lineage. I want him to look you in the eye, shake your hand firmly, open doors for your daughter and stand up when your wife enters the room. I want him to experience the freedom of liberty in Christ and the blessed slavery to righteousness. I want him to work hard in his vocation and earn an honest living. I want his future father-in-law to unreservedly rejoice when he asks for his future wife's hand. I want him to see and trust the hand of God in everything. I want him to exercise a faithful dominion over the world. I want him to love music, books, surfing, stories and good food. I want him to love The Bread and The Cup. I want him to be a man whose word is trustworthy. I want him to refuse to make excuses. I want him to ask for forgiveness and give it as freely as he has received it from God. I want him to be courageous and to know when he must fight. I want him to be thoroughly and gloriously masculine. I want him to love learning and pursue wisdom and virtue. I want him to know and rejoice in the Lordship of Christ over all things. I want him to find his identity and self-worth in the fact that he is made in the image of God. I want him to be a man who laughs long and hard.

Needless to say, it is a long list of expectations and I do know that it is all too easy to exasperate a young man with such an imposing list. I also happen to know that it is not unrealistic as I know many men who meet such a description. The big question is, of course, "How do we get there?" It all sounds well and good but where and how does the proverbial rubber meet the proverbial road? Thankfully, this list is much shorter. Unfortunately, it is simultaneously much more difficult.

I need to pray. I need to consistently love and discipline. I need to wrestle him. I need to make sure he gets dirty. I need to love my wife more. I need to teach my son to believe. I need to insist on dignity, honor and respect in all that he does. I need to educate him under the Lordship of Christ. I need to bring him to The Water and The Table. I need to love what I want my son to love and hate what I want him to hate. I need to tell stories. I need to laugh more. I need to repent. Often. I need to be the man I want my son to become.

Thank God for grace.

There is much more to be said about adoption but if you are still reading this post, you have stuck with me long enough for now.

Slumdog Millionaire

2009-01-02T23:56:00.000-08:00

I went to see Slumdog Millionaire tonight. It was fantastic in every way except the most important way. It had believable characters, compelling style, fascinating settings, a coherent structure, balanced humor/romance/drama/suspense, a great plot with engaging rising action, conflict, climax and resolution (in other words it told a wonderfully Christian story) and then it ended by chalking the whole thing up to "destiny."

How an obviously intelligent writer could write such a wonderfully personal story with very personal characters and personal conflict and personal resolution only to end the whole thing with an impersonal force behind it all absolutely baffles me. How a story can be so Christian in so many glorious ways and then do a backflip off the wagon of coherence when it comes to the question of ultimate meaning is very frustrating.

I highly recommend the movie for the many aforementioned qualities but I ask that you simply remember that the reason why you will enjoy this movie is because it is retelling God's story very well in many ways. Do your best not to be distracted by the hypocritical fatalist writer's lame attempts at a godless explanation after he just ripped off of God's story without so much as a footnote or "Work cited" reference.

Serpents and First Principles

2008-11-22T09:50:00.000-08:00

I know, I know... Two posts in one month. If I keep this up I might set myself up for disappointment. But this is an easy post because it is actually an email that I sent to a former student yesterday. He attends UCSD and is in their literature program. It is a sort of Great Books type of deal and right now they are going through John Milton’s poem, Paradise Lost. He professor was challenging the class to prove that the Serpent in Genesis is actually Satan. My former student cited the texts in Revelation 12 and 20, along with John 8 and 2 Corinthians but the professor insisted that in order for it to be reliable it had to have come from Moses himself within the text of the book of Genesis. This whole email conversation was forwarded to me and this was my response:

It sounds like your professor's problem is that he is a hopeless Modernist. Is there are place in Genesis that says, "The Serpent is Satan?" No. But in all of literature (and God is the greatest Author of the greatest piece of Literature), when things like serpents keep popping up in terms of deceit, lying and being crushed under a foot, one time is a coincidence, two times may be intentional, but anything over 3 and the author is grabbing your shoulders and giving you a hearty shake.

Think of any excellent piece of film or literature and this exact technique is used all the time. In Orson Wells' classic movie Citizen Kane the sled "Rosebud" shows up in the beginning of the movie and then frequently reappears throughout the story and finally has its meaning revealed in the end. If the Orson Wells would have directly identified the meaning in the first five minutes, all dramatic tension would be lost and the critics would call it "hokey." I could give you a hundred more examples but what you will see continually is that the Bible is damned if it does and damned if it doesn't with all modern skeptics. If Moses had identified Satan as the Serpent in Genesis, they would have criticized the hokiness and the fact that he didn't makes them criticize the obscurity. Can't win for losin' man. It reminds me of when someone asked Bertrand Russell (famous Atheist) what would be his one question if he died and ended up standing before God. He responded, "I would ask him, 'Sir, why did you go through such pains to hide yourself?'"

On a side note: Let's do a quick thought experiment (a chicken or egg sort of thing) to reveal some of our presuppositions. Consider that there are two men arguing about literary devices in the Bible.... One might say that the Biblical authors are borrowing powerful literary devices (allusion, foreshadowing, etc.) to create what even the most hardened skeptics might call a beautiful piece of literature. The other man might say that the reason these literary devices are so powerful is rooted in the fact that they are God's literary devices as revealed in the Scripture. They are powerful for Shakespeare and Homer because God wove them into the fabric of humanity through His Story, the Story of Redemption and being woven in such a way that they speak to us at the deepest levels. You could have spotted the presuppositions as a freshman in high school so I am sure you see them now.

Now that our presuppositions are revealed lets do a little poking and prodding. I hope you have already asked the question, "Which presupposition have a coherent foundation?" In other words, which make sense all the way back to First Principles. If the first man in our thought experiment were to be challenged with a simple question, "Why are these literary devices so powerful?" He could not give a coherent answer all the way back to First Principles. At some point he would have to say, "They just ARE!" (Ah, the glory of self-authentication) You see, the Modernist will forever be unable to answer why-questions at the deepest levels. Of course, they will condemn us as reductionistic and mystical for answering ultimate why-questions with "God" but I say, "Let them eat cake." Everyone has First Principles so it is not whether but which. Which will be your First Principles, your Uncaused Causes? The Modernist must say Reason and thereby has made Reason his god. The Christian says God and recognizes God for who he is. We can doubt all claims of authenticity but to be consistent we would have to ultimately doubt our doubts. Of course we don't do that (or those who do end up committing suicide) or at least we don't live that way. God is ultimately the only legitimate self-authenticator because He is the only one who has the authority to do so.

Back to the issue of the text of Genesis.

We can always talk about the so-called problem of, "a text of later provenance co-opting an earlier text for its purposes" if we are talking about different authors but the problem is that the Bible is written by a Meta-Author: God. This particular post-modern criticism falls short if God wrote the whole Bible. In fact, in spite of the numerous different authors from a variety of backgrounds, we manage to have a perfectly cohesive piece of literature, full of all the things that you would expect in a piece of literature.

In the end, your professor is looking at it all wrong. He is looking at the Bible as if it is a compilation of many texts when if fact it is much more than that. It is One Text from Genesis to Revelation. It is telling One Story. It just happens to have been recorded over the course of 1500 years by 40 different authors. Fun stuff.

I also think that the serpent in Genesis 3 was a dragon. Maybe that'll help. On second thought, maybe not.

And of course to the (paraphrased) question, "Why do we need to say the serpent was Satan? Is salvation at stake?" My answer: For some it is.

What I mean is that some say it is not Satan so that they don't have to believe, and some say it isn't Satan so they can believe. Those in the first category are the ungodly, and are damned. Those in the second category are mistaken Christians.

This is a fundamental worldview question that I am glad you are wrestling with. Questions like, " Do I really have to believe ___________________ to be a Christian?" can be both good and bad things depending on your commitment to your First Principles. Hopefully those have been properly vetted so that you are actually working with something. Nothing is more frustrating and pointless than arguing about issues without having cognitive awareness of your own presuppositions.

Hope this helps.

Hervey

P.S. and don't be intimidated by the Greek talk as if it is going to reveal some "special knowledge." Gnosticism failed in the 5th Century.

Floods and Insulation

2008-11-02T22:19:00.001-08:00

This is a long post. Technically it is two posts that happen to be closely related. I decided to post them together because they are both funny and I would forget at least one of them by the time my monthly post rolls around in December. I even make some applicational points at the end if you care. You can read them at two different times if you feel like drawing out your reading experience or if you are lazy and require a bookmark for a greeting card...

I have too much experience with two things: Floods and Insulation.

My mom says it is the Hervey curse to have houses flood. My parent's house flooded when the washer valve got stuck open when it was filling. The washer must have said to itself, "Ya know...I am much more capable of cleansing goodness than I can prove on a measly load of handtowels. I think I will try my hand at hardwood kitchen floors."

My brother Mike had his condo flood but I don't remember how it happened. I know it required all new floors. Hardwood again I believe.

I had a house flood the weekend before Thanksgiving last year when a pipe broke from cold weather. Apparently the pipe said to itself, "You know what would be awesome? A hockey rink." One more hardwood floor replaced.

I am currently building a master bedroom/bathroom addition onto my house in Somis. One phase of this building project has required me to peel back some of my existing roof to tie in the new roof. I just finished framing on Thursday so needless to say I do not have anything resembling a proper roof. The problem came when it rained yesterday. I had put some plastic down over the bare plywood but the wind said to itself, "Oooooo! Check it out! Its a parachute!" Thankfully no hardwood floors this time, just a 4 x 10 foot section of drywall.

The best part about this little leak in my plastic parachute was that it soaked all the insulation in the existing attic. Needless to say when I saw my ceiling drywall bulging in the most non-aesthetically-pleasing way, I panicked. I ran around to the other side of the exposed wall in my addition, got on my ladder and began pulling the sopping wet insulation out of a small crack. Ten minutes later I was itching from my fingertips to my armpit. Then I went to bed. Good times.

Laying in bed last night with no small amount of itching going on reminded me of another experience I had with insulation. I was about 11 years old and there was a bunch of construction going on in my neighborhood. This gave my brothers, my neighbors and myself an abundant source of scrap wood and nails. This abundance was naturally (notice I did not say "safely") fashioned into scores of ramps. One day I will have to do a post on the plethora of ramps that I have had built in my lifetime. Suffice to say for now that The X Games would be green with envy at the sheer volume of ramps constructed by a hoard of 10-13 year old boys who would all go on to fail Geometry.

One ramp, however, is important to this story. My next door neighbor Gus, along with myself and my older brother George built our most wicked-awesome (spoken with a think Bostonian accent) ramp to date. It was about 2 feet wide, 4 feet long from and made from 3/4 inch plywood set on about 24 inches worth of 2 x 4s nailed together. We had learned our lesson about 6 ramps earlier that it was important to support the middle of the ramp (another story for another time. I will say it involved me mangling my bike and tearing my pants from the crotch down to my knee.) so we did so with more 2 x 4s. All in all it was an amazing ramp. So amazing that I think we even spray-painted it with a skull and crossbones, an arrow and our initials. So amazing that we were all scared to try it at first. And this is where the insulation comes in.

While scouring a job site for the materials for our ramp we noticed a giant pile of what looked like that loose fill cotton that you stuff pillows with. It was pink and looked heavenly. As we stood fidgeting nervously in a semi-circle around our new ramp engaging in an unspoken game of chicken over who is going to jump off the ramp in rollerblades first, Gus came up with a great idea...

"Dude, we should go get all that cotton and make a big pile after the ramp so when we jump off we can have a soft landing."

George and I looked at each other and immediately decided that Gus was a genius.

With the giant pile of "cotton" in place I decided that I would be the first test subject. We placed the ramp and our pile at the bottom of the hill in order to get sufficient speed. It was a cakewalk. You could jump as far and as high as you wanted and it was like landing in a giant ball of cotton candy. George, Gus and I spent the next couple of hours fearlessly enjoying our new ramp.

After dinner that night I felt itchy. Actually, it was so itchy it hurt. My mom (who was a libertarian when it came to our complaints over physical discomfort) decided to investigate after hearing George and I complain for the better part of 2 hours. We lifted our shirts and both of our backs, stomachs, arms, hands, necks and everything else was bright red. The investigation was a short one. We told her about the ramp and our pile of cotton. I think she laughed. She made us take long warm baths to open our pores so the little fiberglass insulation fibers would work their way out. I think I itched for a week.

I love the way my mom dealt with this kind of stuff when I was a kid. She never panicked. She never freaked out when we came home bloody or injured. We were free to be boys and we all have the scars and bad knees to prove it. That is the way I want to be as a dad. Boys need to jump off of ramps into piles of insulation and itch for a week. Boys need to wrestle and build tree forts. Boys need to eat dirt just to see what it tastes like. Boys need to throw rocks. Boys need to play three flies up and butts up. Boys need to skin their knees and get their baby teeth knocked out (only girls teeth should fall out.) Boys need to play football in the street until the game ends in road rash and a bloody nose. They need to do all these stupid and dangerous things so that they will not end up as passive, fearful, cowardly melvin milktoast men. They need to be taught how to harness their manhood for the glory of God. They need to be taught how to break conventions but keep commandments. They need to be taught that being daring is not a sin and the fact that "something might go wrong" is rarely a good reason to do nothing.

I am convinced that the reason why so many boys/men are effeminate poofters these days is that their moms never let them get injured and their dads never insisted on it. They spent their childhood in too much padding. Too much Madden, not enough football. Too much Tofu, not enough Pb and J. Too much talking, not enough grunting. And that is tragic. It also explains a lot about our culture at large. Sometimes you gotta run before you can walk and sometime you gotta grunt before you can talk.

The Early Bird Gets Beat Up

2008-10-07T16:38:00.000-07:00

This month I am being preemptive in my posting. It is only the 7th and my monthly post is here. Another story or two.

I saved my brother's life once. I am a good brother. We came home from the lake one Sunday afternoon and my mom said we could jump in the pool because it was really hot inside our house, we already had our bathing suits on and we needed a shower anyway. My older brother George and I ran through the house into the back yard and jumped into the pool. By the time my chubby younger brother Steve got to the back yard George and I were already getting out of the pool so we could jump in again. Steve ran and jumped in.

He forgot that he didn't know how to swim.

We had been wearing life jackets all day at the lake and I guess he didn't realize he wasn't still wearing one. I immediately jumped in from the other side of the pool and swam with all my might toward him. I remember opening my eyes underwater and faintly seeing him on the other side of the pool. Thinking about it now makes me think of that old Nirvana album cover of the baby in the swimming pool. He was frozen with fear floating there. He was in the shallow end of the pool and but couldn't touch.

When I got to him I promptly put my hand under his butt and pushed him up and towards the steps. He coughed a bit but was fine. And thus I saved him.

I suppose that makes up for all the times I almost killed or maimed him, my other brothers, family members or neighbors. Like the time I hit George right above the eye with a hockey stick. One inch lower and he would have been wearing a pirate patch over his left eye.

Or the time George and I pushed my youngest brother Mike down a hill in a wagon as the "test driver" for our "race car." Three barrel rolls and not even a scratch. We did put him in full hockey gear before doing it.

Or the time I let my cousin Matt ride down the same hill on my bike. I neglected to mention that the brakes didn't work. It was only a broken arm... big deal.

Or the time I made Steve bite through his lip on a trampoline. You know how you can make someone's knees collapse if you time your jump just right? Well I did. My parents were on vacation and we were staying a some friends' house. That was the only time my mom ever forgot to leave a release for medical care.

Or the time I almost lit Mike on fire when my friend Ben and I were making a flame thrower with a Bic lighter and a can of WD40. How was I suppose to know he was going to walk through the garage door right at that moment?

Or the time that I almost lit my neighbor on fire when George and I tried to make homemade dynamite with PVC, gasoline and duct tape.

Or the time I performed a DDT (ala Jake "The Snake" Roberts, WWF) on Steve while wrestling on my neighbor's front lawn.

I could go on and on. I was one of four brothers who lived on a street with 17 boys and 1 girl. Nuf said.

I Used to be Retired

2008-09-24T20:35:00.000-07:00

Seeing as how I am on pace to post one blog a month and September is almost over I figured I ought to post something...My students are writing Narrative Essays and it has gotten me into story mode so I think I will tell a story:

When I was 15 years old I bought a hat at Kmart. It wasn't just any old cap though. It was a wide-brimmed straw type of thing with a brown band around the base of it. There was a plastic gold kangaroo shaped pin that held the band together on the overlap. It was $3.99 and I couldn't resist. I wore it to school frequently and when people would ask me about it I would tell them, "I'm retired."

One day I was in a Salvation Army shop and found an old Members Only jacket. It was a grayish blue to varying degrees all over. It probably used to be blue blue but it had come to a point where it looked like someone had left it outside a couple of times and the sun had faded the parts that were exposed quicker than the other parts. Or maybe someone's dog had slept on it. My dog Velzy can wreck a towel faster than I can run.

It kind of smelled like it had been in the trunk of an old El Dorado for a couple of years before finding its way to an old dresser that didn't have liner sheets in the bottom of the drawer. Perhaps during a fateful spring cleaning it was discovered in its stronghold at the bottom of the drawer underneath an old train set. I like to think that its owner pulled it out of the drawer and smiled at the many memories in that old jacket before stuffing it in a garbage bag to take to the Salvation Army.

No doubt that it had been on the rack for quite some time when I found it. The musty Salvation Army smell was in a tooth and nail fight with the dank wood smell of the dresser drawer. I reluctantly washed it because my mom made me but it still (much to her chagrin and my delight) retained a great deal of smell. After setting my kangaroo laden retirement hat upon my pate I donned my glorious new prize. It completed the look perfectly.

Mr. Dunne, my history teacher, asked me why I wore my hat and Members Only jacket. He told me he used to wear one in college. I told him that I was retired. He nodded sagely. Janet, who sat next to me in Mr. Dunne's class requested that her seat be moved because my jacket stunk and I wouldn't take it off. Everyone's got a threshold.

Coach Webb asked me if I planned on coming out of retirement to attend spring football practice. I asked him if I could wear my hat during warm ups. He said he was worried about me but that wouldn't stop him from killing me if I wore the hat to practice. I didn't.

Mrs. Berry, my neighbor, told me that being retired is boring. I told her that working for 50 years sounds more boring than waking up at 10, putting on a hat and drinking iced tea while sitting in a hammock. She told me that I was romanticizing retirement and that it also entailed worrying about having a fixed income, going to frequent doctor visits and talking about politics. I told her that I already had the hat and jacket. She told me that sticking feathers up your butt doesn't make you a chicken. I nodded sagely.

Greg bought the same hat a couple of weeks later and started telling people that he was retired too. I gave my hat and jacket to Goodwill. Retirement was much more fun alone.

Shame and the Catechesis of Wine

2008-08-23T22:28:00.000-07:00

Seeing as how I didn't even last a week at the task of being an "occasional" blogger I have come into this here courtroom with a look of contrition (possibly even shame) on my face. The judge asks me, "What have you been up to that has kept you from blogging?" I really don't have a good excuse but I nervously open up my briefcase and I eyeball a paper I wrote for my Christian Worldview class at New Saint Andrews. I look upon the title with what is probably too much pride, "A Comparison and Contrast of Antithetical Worldviews: The Drinking Habits of Secularists and Christians." It crosses my mind to pull this paper from my briefcase and slap it down with a satisfying thud in front of the judge. As if the sheer sound of said "thud" would explain everything. Knowing this will probably be a futile gesture I sigh, flip through the paper, tear out a sheet, close my briefcase, bring my little sheet to the judge and say, "Here's what I got."

The Catechesis of Wine
“In meditating on Christ’s miracle of creating wine, Augustine lamented that we accept the normal creation of wine as any less miraculous, for even as water ‘turned into wine by the doing of the Lord, so in like manner also is what the clouds pour forth changed into wine by the same Lord. It has lost its marvellousness by its constant recurrence.’” (Wilson and Jones, p.83) If a man who had never had any clue as to how wine was made were to sit and think about what he would expect if someone were to leave a vat of crushed grapes out in the open air for about two weeks, his first answer would most definitely not be, “Wine.” More likely his first word would be, “Yuck.” Or its equivalent. A man would no more expect wine from two week old, unpreserved crushed grapes than a man would expect a chicken to pop out of an egg if he weren’t so used to seeing it or hearing about it.

Of course the naturalist will swoop in and tell us that there is this natural process by which the natural sugar in grapes naturally transforms into natural alcohol. It is called fermentation. This naturalist would likely be smug and say something like, “There, I have dispelled the mystery of grapes transforming into wine. Now we can put away all this silly superstitious talk of some Ultimate Being doing it.” To which a stout man ought to respond, “Sir, all respect, but you did nothing of the sort. All you did was describe what happens. You didn’t explain anything.” The naturalist may heave a great sigh and launch into a detailed explanation of the chemical processes involved in fermentation. After thirty minutes, the same stout man should restate, “Again, all respect but all you did still was describe what happened, just in fancier terms.” The naturalist in desperation may scream, “Don’t you see that it MUST happen! Natural Law demands it!” To which are stout man ought to chuckle, take a sip of his wine and ask, “Why?”

the point

2008-06-30T15:33:00.000-07:00

I think I have figured out what I am going to do on this blog. In my first post I made a list of all the things I am, the things I do or am doing and the things I am interested in (for a composition teacher, that was a lousy sentence...I digress.) Since my wife keeps everyone updated on her blog with the goings on in the less-than-wild world of our life I do not feel any pressure to do a running autobiography here. Instead I am going to apply antithetical thinking to each of those things one at a time. Sine I have adult ADD, these posts will probably be short and poorly argued (i.e. overgeneralizations, anecdotal evidence, massive presuppositions on first principles, etc... in other words, all the things I will try to beat out of my Critical Thinking students) but hopefully mildly entertaining.

I will make my first post a little description of what "antithesis" actually is and what it isn't. I will also outline a few of the presuppositions I am working with. I will not argue for them, I will just assume them. I figure that if the modern intellectual establishment gets to take all sorts of things for granted, why can't I? After all, it wasn't until about 200 years ago that my presuppositions that ruled the world for a few dozen millennium, were cast aside for a series of ephemeral fads (fads that had changed every three month or so ever since.) Alas, I am jumping ahead of myself. More on all of that later.

Chet

another blog

2008-06-26T21:21:00.000-07:00

I think I have started about 8 blogs at this point in my illustrious blogging career. Only one has lasted and really only because it is a group blog. This will probably see a flurry of action for a month or two and go down as Jon Bon Jovi has so eloquently put it, "in a blaze of glory." Oh well, low expectations begets blessed satisfaction....or so I've heard. I suppose I ought to introduce myself:

I am Chet. I live in a little slice heaven called Somis, California. Also know as "God's County," where indeed milk and honey flows.

I am a husband to a pretty little lady. She smells like coconut and finds me mildly humorous. We have travelled to a bunch of places and are planning on travelling quite a bit more but still find Somis better than anywhere.

I am a high school teacher at a Christian school. I use to teach the Bible but now I am teaching Critical Thinking and Composition. Not because I don't like the Bible anymore...because I do...

I am going to grad school. I am getting a Master of Studies in Classical Christian Studies from New St. Andrews College. I start in August and just got my 1000+ pages of books today. Latin, Plato and Aquinas...Fun stuff.

I am a photographer (for a little extra coin.) I do all sorts of different types of pictures. If you look at the Proctor Surfboards ad in the latest Surfer Magazine, you can see one of them.

I am a surfboard maker. Accumulating a legion of surfboards would be too expensive if I did not make them myself. Not to mention that my neighbors love the smell of resin wafting through the air as it mingles with the smell of their pot roast at dinner time.

I am a farmer (of sorts.) I actually have a modest garden that I derive entirely too much pleasure out of tending. I am growing tomatoes, which I do not like. I am also growing corn, which I love. I was growing strawberries until my dogs ate them. I was also growing radishes until the local Somis rabbit posse ate them. I plan on planting a vineyard and making my own wine.

I am a builder (again, of sorts.) I am building an addition onto my house. Mostly learning as I go and bribing people who know already with beer and surfboards.

I am interested in: theology, beer, philosophy, dachshunds, Notre Dame football, G.K. Chesterton, music, poetry, ukuleles, 1965 Dodge Darts, surfing, The Reformation, agrarianism, the hookah, spy novels, Mexico, the kinesiology of ankles, the Middle Ages, the NHL, barbecuing, satire, Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe, hummingbirds, old Bibles, mowing my lawn, The Great Books, and collecting and drinking wine...the list goes on and on.

To tell you the truth, I don't have any real goal in mind for this blog. It'll probably have something to do with, or at least relate back to the title of blog. "Living in Antithesis" is basically the desire to live by principles from God's Word. As these principles are more often than not set in direct opposition to the world, Christians ought to find themselves living in antithesis. I want to do that.

Chet