Weekly Meanderings, 27 February 2016

Last updated on: February 27, 2016 at 12:02 am by Scot McKnight

Weekly Meanderings, 27 February 2016 2016-02-26T12:12:34-06:00 Scot McKnight

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

“Mr. President, I’m Clark!”

Image

For 3-year-old Clark Reynolds, Thursday began like most others.

Morning preparations gave way to hours at school and then a visit to his mother’s office to change into a suit and tie. Clark’s mother, Nichole Francis Reynolds, is a former congressional staffer who now works in the private sector. Friends had secured an invitation for Francis Reynolds and her son to the White House’s Black History Month celebration, the final gathering of its kind while the first black president remains in office. But Francis Reynolds had told Clark only that he had earned a special treat. He is, after all, only 3.

What Clark does know is the president’s name, his face when he sees Obama on TV and the sound of President Obama’s voice when it comes through the satellite radio in his dad’s car. Then, there’s Clark’s favorite book, the one that he almost always picks when it’s reading time. Clark has been through the “The White House Pop-Up Book” by Chuck Fischer so many times that, almost as soon as Clark and his mother walked onto the White House grounds Thursday, Clark knew where they were.

He was excited. And once inside, he was in open awe. This, as Clark put it, is where the president lives. He met Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.). Someone snapped a photo of Clark and the first lady. Somehow, Clark made his way to the front of the a rope line as President Obama worked his way across the room. Then, Obama noticed Clark, too, touched Clark’s cheek and bent down to exchange words while he straightened Clark’s tie.

“Mr. President, I’m 106!”

From Fusion 8:

Her boisterous laugh warms the nearly empty sanctuary. She is flanked by three young black journalists who are wrapping up an interview for a TV station that airs out of Columbia, South Carolina.

It’s Dr. Betty Deas Clark’s fourth week as the first female pastor of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church, affectionately referred to as “Mother Emanuel.” The pew she grips while chatting with the young men belongs to the same set inhabited by the nine churchgoers massacred last June by 21-year-old Dylann Roof, a white supremacist.

“Hold on,” she tells me before we start the interview. Clark wants to switch up her attire. “I have an African outfit in the car,” she says with a beaming smile as she hastily exits the room.

Among the nine slain in last year’s attack was Clementa Pinckney, the church’s pastor and a South Carolina state senator. The church’s interim pastor, Norvel Goff, has been accused of mishandling church funds and not giving support to AME’s grieving congregants, according to the Post and Courier. (Goff has vigorously denied the allegations.) Clark has been hired to replace Goff and to fill the hole of the beloved Pinckney.

She returns to the sanctuary donning a lightweight coat with little figures of dancing people on it.

We take a seat in the middle pew, first row.

Moving and sad story about Debi Thomas.

The story of Rafi — HT: JS.

A word can matter, with Shana Lebowitz:

The way you speak not only affects how others perceive you; it also has the potential to shape your behavior.

Swapping one word for another could make all the difference in how you approach your goals.

That’s according to Bernard Roth, a professor of engineering at Stanford and the academic director of Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, the d.school.

In his new book, “The Achievement Habit,” Roth suggests several linguistic tweaks that can make you more successful.

A confirmation of the anthropic principle?

(Phys.org)—A small team of researchers, three with Swedish Institutions and one from the U.S. has created a computer model of the known universe and in using it to estimate the number of likely other exoplanets able to hold life, has found that there might be fewer Earth-like planets than has been thought. In their paper they have uploaded to the preprint server, arXiv (soon to be published in The Astrophysical Journal), the team describes how they went about creating their model and what it showed.

The team took a logical approach in creating their model, first inputting data that described as much as is known about the early universe—then next adding data about known exoplanets and also information describing the laws of physics and the way they would work on the elements that made up the universe, and how they would grow or change over approximately 13.8 billion years. They then took a virtual census and found the model had “created” approximately 700 million trillion exoplanets—but, to the surprise of the researchers, the vast majority of them were far older than planet Earth.

If correct, the models suggest that Earth is much more unique than other models have been showing in the past few years. This is because it is assumed that if life began on other planets far earlier than on Earth, because it would be much older, it should have matured beyond what we have here on Earth to the point that it would be not only noticeable to us, but likely dominant. But because we have not seen any sign of other life, it appears likely that none is there, or is close enough to spot, which suggests that Earth actually is much more unique than other recent models have been suggesting. The model also suggested that most exoplanets likely exist in galaxies that are a lot bigger than the Milky Way, and orbit stars that are quite different from our sun. To date, space scientists have identified approximately 2,000 exoplanets, clearly a very small proportion of the total amount if the new model is to be viewed as accurate.

Funeral rites, with Carl Trueman:

‘Celebrations of life’ and funeral liturgies which choose ‘My Way’ or ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ are interesting phenomena because they reflect the metaphysical superficiality of this present age and our childish inability to face up to the seriousness of death even when it is staring us in the face. They also represent the perfect paradox of an age built on so many fundamental contradictions. If the life was worth anything, then its end must represent a painful and permanent void for those left behind. Such a thing can surely not be celebrated with any honesty? And if the life was worthless or meaningless and ended without leaving a painful void in the lives of others, is it really worth celebrating at all?

Rites surrounding the dead demonstrate how seriously we take life. For a hedonistic society like ours whose primary purpose is personal pleasure and whose first priority is entertainment, death is a rather confusing, if somewhat unavoidable, embarrassment. ‘Celebrations of life’ are one of the results, both pitiful and incoherent. And that such things now even occur in Christian circles shows just how worldly we have become.

Julie Zauzmer:

Kennedy and Quincy, highly trained horses who have served in the Army’s Old Guard at Arlington National Cemetery, have finished their tours of duty. And both are up for adoption, free to a good home.

They have served in a role almost unique in the U.S. military, that of the caisson horse.

Caisson horses pull coffins to burials at Arlington, bringing former officers and service members killed in action in America’s wars to their grave sites with haunting uniformity and precision.

The choreographed procession, led by a riderless horse, is one of the most solemn and stylized rituals in the nation.

Moriah Balingit:

The children puffed out their chests and mimicked drama teacher Melissa Richardson, rehearsing their big, booming “rhino voices.”

“Giant steps, giant steps, big and bold!” the kindergartners yelled in unison in a classroom at Westlawn Elementary in Fairfax County.

In groups, the children were then cast as animals and bugs: Big, stomping rhinos; delicate lady bugs skittering across the tile; leaping kangaroos and tiny frogs. All made their way to the classroom’s imaginary “water hole,” formed with blue tape.

This giggly play session actually was a serious math lesson about big and small and non-standard measurements. Dreamed up by Richardson and kindergarten teacher Carol Hunt, it aims to get the children to think of animal steps as units of measurement, using them to mark how many it takes each animal to get from a starting line to the target.

Teachers call such melding of art and traditional subjects “art integration,” and it’s a new and increasingly popular way of bringing the arts into the classroom. Instead of art as a stand-alone subject, teachers are using dance, drama and the visual arts to teach a variety of academic subjects in a more engaging way.

Gabriella Boston:

Your fitness routine is in full swing two months into the year: You’re eating right and you’re exercising, but you’re not yet seeing the results you want.

What’s missing? It might be sleep.

So say an increasing number of studies that show sleep deprivation causing such negative outcomes as an increase in overuse injuries, weight gain, a decrease in muscle mass and a reduction in testosterone (which has a whole host of other negative effects, including low sex drive, depression and bone loss).

“You can have two people who are doing the exact same workout and eating the same good nutrition, but one is seeing huge progress and the other isn’t. A lot of the time, good sleep is the difference,” says Mansur Mendizabal, a personal trainer and kettlebell instructor in the District.

“Sleep is the only time the body is fully recovering and rebuilding,” he says.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

February 26, 2016

Koine Expo (not what you think "koine" means)

Next Post

February 27, 2016 Good for Denmark

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Acts of the Apostles Adam Advent Anabaptism Angels Anglican Apologetics Atonement Baptism BCP Prayers Bible Biblical Studies Birds Blogging Bloglossary Bonhoeffer Books Calvinism Christianity Church Church History Coffee Colossians Commentary Recs Conversion Creation Creeds Culture Death Ecclesiastes Economics Education Embracing Grace Emergent Emerging Movement Eschatology Essays Ethics Eucharist Evangelicalism Family Fasting Fathers Fellowship of Differents Footsteps Tour Fun and Whimsical Gospel Grace Happiness Heaven Hell Holy Spirit Irenaeus James Jesus Jesus Creed Job Justification Kingdom of God Law Lectures Lent Liberalism Love and Marriage Mabanteneni Manhood Mary Miracles Missio Alliance MissioLife Missional Missional Jesus Movies and Film New Perspective Northern Seminary OneLife Origins Project Orthodox Parables Pastor's Spouse Pastoring and Leading Pastoring and Preaching Patristics Paul Paul-John Tour Pharisees Pietism Political Theology Prayer and Formation Preaching Problems for Faith Psalm 119 Psalms Public Issues Purgatory Religions Resurrection Revelation Romans Rule of JCreed Science and Faith Sermon on the Mount Sports Ten Commandments Theology Third Way Top Ten Lists Translations Uncategorized Universalism University Ministry Way Out Weekly Meanderings Wisdom Women and Ministry Work Worship Writing & Blogging Youth Ministry

Select a Month July 2021 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 0000

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who said, "If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Daniel The high priest Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego Nebuchadnezzar