Here is my seventh post of links to what I’ve found intriguing, compelling or convicting lately. Perhaps you’ll find something of interest in what I’ve been reading online and in print!
Every time a FB friend mentions colds or flu are going through their family, I suggest Bone Broth, to the point that it’s a joke now! But we are great believers in The Healing Power of bone Broth. I roast two chickens every other week as part of our very easy meal plan. This provides dinner the night I roast, as well as an abundance of meat for a few other dishes like enchiladas, chicken alfredo, chicken soup, and chicken salad. Then Mr. Garner takes the chicken bones and such and makes Bone Broth which we store in the freezer and use instead of water when making rice and quinoa, and for our weekly Sabbath Soup or Stew. We have also made Turkey Bone Broth, and Beef Bone Broth over the last year, in the interest of capitalizing on The Healing Power of Bone Broth. I have to give credit to FB friend Sharra who writes over at the Homeschool Marm. She gives step by step instructions in her Frugal Kitchen Post.
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the skies proclaim the works of His Hand. This is THE BEST TIME to start learning your stars! There are so many easily identifiable stars in cold clear skies of Winter. To start, there is the Winter Circle which includes Orion and a few other very bright stars. Here is an article from EarthSky with a good sky map. Another great resource is Sky and Telescope. Download their free PDF Star Wheel. This will help you find and identify what you see in the Night Sky!
All of the millwork in our Craftsman Bungalow still sports the original finish. It is a frequent source of amazement from people who know arts and crafts and have visited our Craftsman Bungalow. After they get over the stone fireplace, they never fail to wonder how our woodwork survived 90+ years without being painted. Most of the homes in our historic neighborhood have at some point had their interior woodwork painted “to brighten things up!” Don’t get me started on the beautiful built-in bookcases and columns and solid oak doors I’ve found curbside on trash day, “to open up the space!” Blech! I loved this post about Woodwork and Finishes for the Craftsman home from Arts and Crafts Homes.
We know first hand that Anti-Bullying programs don’t work. I also know from first hand experience, as well as second hand parental observation, that Youth Groups Drive Christian Teens to Abandon Faith. The lack of Christ-focused problem solving from the “Christian school” and the utter lack of genuine and person discipleship within “church,” are two reasons we began to homeschool. Although I’m not the least bit concerned about naivete in The Daughter, and #1Son has none, I really like the way this article by Cindy at Get Along Home about Public Schools and Naive Kids, refutes those who erroneously believe that the average Christian kid can be an effective public school evangelizing tool in the current climate of anti-Christian Secular Humanism in education.
So we’re sending kids into these spiritual and emotional pressure cookers, even though in the “real world,” for which we are supposed to be preparing them, this stuff (bullying, sexual pressure, drug use, etc.), doesn’t happen among decent people? In the real world where grown-ups live, if these things happen, there are both practical and legal steps that a grownup can take to defend himself. He can simply choose not to go there; he can prosecute wrongdoing; he can find a new job; he can find new peers.
She closes with this, and it resonates:
I went to a public school, so I know how that naiveté we’re so scared to see in our children gets worn away,
and it is not through the maturing of a child’s spirit,
but through the breaking of it.
Canada is beginning to break through the secular media black out on the link between abortion and breast cancer. Barbara Kay reports on the Hard Truths about Abortion and the newest peer-reviewed study out of China. “The study’s researchers from the Tianjiin Medical University Cancer Hospital point to China’s one-child program, which has seen 336 million babies aborted since the 1980s, as the culprit. Their findings, described as a “dose-responsive relationship,” pegged one IA [induced abortion] to a 44% rise in risk of breast cancer, two IAs to 76% and three to 89%.” Yes. You read that correctly.
She also discusses that abortion is most often not really the “choice” that women make but the requirement, under force, that their male partners demand. She also recommends a new book Complications: Abortion’s impact on women, and in her closing paragraphs mentions this:
Soul-searching days lie ahead for ideologues invested in the notion that abortion is a minor, virtually risk-free procedure, without medical or psychological residue.
I usually read Gerald Nadal’s Coming Home blog because he’s written something for the pro-life movement. But I found this response to the Catholic Leader Cardinal Dolan exasperatingly true. I am not Catholic (although I thought about it for a while), but after spending the last several years watching our former denomination kick Christ to the curb in favor of what’s “least offensive” most “hip,” “relevant” and what “people want,” I understand his outrage at the thought that Jesus Christ must be “marketed” and appreciate his clarity in expressing it:
Without knowing it, Cardinal Dolan has identified the core of the problem. Our leadership, with few exceptions, have adopted the superficiality of branding and marketing as a cheap substitute for the grittiness and tenacity of evangelization. Worse still, while we have abandoned evangelization and hewing to the hard line of the Gospel, it is the other side who have been engaged in the grit and tenacity of evangelization.
As a result, same-age, multi-religious, peer socialization develops young adults who have no boundaries in regard to culture, religion, or sexuality—but along with this also goes implicitly (and explicitly in many cases) boundaries in regard to authority, traditional religious values, proper subordination, discipline toward tasks, delayed gratification, service to others, humility, etc.
And thus the outcome of the secularized, public schools’ “proper socialization” is being seen in increasing waves of students who cannot behave properly in a standard work environment. They can’t communicate, take orders, relate to clients, manage jobs, get along in teams or be trusted to have the self-discipline to complete tasks independently (thus they can’t work alone or with others), prepare written summaries or presentations, present persuasive arguments, or speak in public.
– See more at: http://americanvision.org/9710/final-nail-properly-socialized-coffin/#sthash.D4Dan74r.0g6jYbCX.dpuf
As a result, same-age, multi-religious, peer socialization develops young adults who have no boundaries in regard to culture, religion, or sexuality—but along with this also goes implicitly (and explicitly in many cases) boundaries in regard to authority, traditional religious values, proper subordination, discipline toward tasks, delayed gratification, service to others, humility, etc.
And thus the outcome of the secularized, public schools’ “proper socialization” is being seen in increasing waves of students who cannot behave properly in a standard work environment. They can’t communicate, take orders, relate to clients, manage jobs, get along in teams or be trusted to have the self-discipline to complete tasks independently (thus they can’t work alone or with others), prepare written summaries or presentations, present persuasive arguments, or speak in public.
– See more at: http://americanvision.org/9710/final-nail-properly-socialized-coffin/#sthash.D4Dan74r.0g6jYbCX.dpuf
Whatever your stance regarding the “culture wars” and the politics of higher education, it is undeniable that a great many graduating students have little idea of what genuine intellectual exploration involves. Too often, learning to think is replaced by ideological scorekeeping, and the use of adjectives replaces the use of arguments.
Such blinkered thinking has serious implications for civic culture and political discourse. It discourages finding out what the facts are, revising one’s beliefs on the basis of those facts, and being willing to engage with people who don’t already agree with you. What does that leave us with? A brittle, litmus-test version of politics. It is one thing if people move too quickly from argumentation to name-calling; it is another to be unable to tell the difference.
Whatever your stance regarding the “culture wars” and the politics of higher education, it is undeniable that a great many graduating students have little idea of what genuine intellectual exploration involves. Too often, learning to think is replaced by ideological scorekeeping, and the use of adjectives replaces the use of arguments.
Such blinkered thinking has serious implications for civic culture and political discourse. It discourages finding out what the facts are, revising one’s beliefs on the basis of those facts, and being willing to engage with people who don’t already agree with you. What does that leave us with? A brittle, litmus-test version of politics. It is one thing if people move too quickly from argumentation to name-calling; it is another to be unable to tell the difference.
Nadal states unequivocally that Social Liberalism and the GLBT movement have evangelized the church, and I think he’s nailed it.
The other side has been engaged in three decades of evangelization, while the majority of our priests and bishops have endeavored to be “non confrontational” and “nonjudgemental”…While the Church has been entirely kicked out of the public schools, with students being disciplined for wearing shirts bearing the word, “Christmas”, the other side has succeeded in getting complete acceptance in schools with gay/straight alliances, comprehensive sex education, and now state laws permitting transexual and transgender students permission to use whatever bathrooms they please. That’s not marketing. That’s evangelization.
If you didn’t read far enough in my last Nunc Cognosco Ex Parte to see the Wall Street Journal’s advice for holiday eating, here’s your second chance for chewing your calories away: Cut Calories With Better Chewing. I will be chewing, and chewing!
Life is better with poetry! Here are the Christmas Poems we are working our way through for our December Term 2013
Mr. Garner finished putting up our lights a little late this year. Normally it’s done the weekend after Thanksgiving. We considered not lighting things up, because most of our lights burned out last year which necessitated purchasing all new lights this year, and frankly, the budget is squeezed. But, of all things, Christ is the Light of the World, and in the darkness of our society, and with our nation’s political woes, and the longer nights that naturally come with December, Mr. Garner felt it was important for our little bungalow to be a “city on a hill,” and to let our lights shine to show our joy in Christ, with all glory to God.
Here is a lovely choral piece by Morten Lauridsen, one of my favorite contemporary composers. O Nata Lux, is a movement in his Lux Aeterna Sacred Setting and it relates to the birth of the Light who came from Light!
The Latin Text:
O nata lux de lumine,
Jesu redemptor saeculi,
dignare clemens supplicum
laudes precesque sumere.
Qui carne quondam contegi
dignatus es pro perditis,
nos membra confer effici
Tui beati corporis.
The English Translation:
O born Light of light,
Jesus, Redeemer of the world,
mercifully deem worthy and accept
the praises and prayers of Your supplicants.
Thou who once deigned to be clothed in flesh
for the sake of the lost ones,
grant us to be made members
of Your Holy Body.
The post title I’ve chosen for these sorts of posts is obscure on purpose. Meaning “now I know in part,” the phrase is found in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians towards the end of chapter 13. It refers to the fact that our knowledge of God and His mysteries unfolds only in part during our human existence. We must wait for full disclosure. This should instill a great deal of humility in our thinking…
Rabbit Trails 