Stirling Engines

Have you ever heard of a stirling engine? They are really cool. They use difference in temperature to do work. Imagine a chamber that is tube shaped and has a piston in it. You create a difference in temperatures from one end to the other, either by heating or cooling or both. You might stick one end in your fire and the other in cool water, for example. When the hot air expands, it moves the piston one way, then a displacer pushes the hot air to the cold end where it contracts so there is less resistance for the piston to reciprocate. A flywheel carries the momentum.

Unfortunately, the work it does, is not cleaning the house.

She Must and Shall Go Free

By Derek Webb:

Lyrics:
Mercy speaks by Jesus’ blood
Hear and sing, ye sons of God
Justice satisfied indeed
Christ has full atonement made

Jesus’ blood speaks loud and sweet
Here all Deity can meet
And, without a jarring voice
Welcome Zion to rejoice

"All her debts were cast on me,
And she must and shall go free"

Peace of conscience, peace with God
We obtain through Jesus’ blood
Jesus’ blood speaks solid rest
We believe, and we are blest

Should the law against her roar
Jesus’ blood still speaks with power
"All her debts were cast on me,
and she must and shall go free"

Desiring God

Can "Desiring God" be just another thing you are trying to do in your own strength? If I don't desire God, where do I turn? Do I start with the emotional part of yearning and work to whip that up, or do I start with the cold hard facts about the desirability of God, and let my emotional chips fall where they may, while putting my feet in the steps that follow the reality of who God is and who I am.

I know that God says that to love him and each other is the highest law, and the way of the spirit is love. Surely desire is an aspect of love. But our relationship with God is responsive in its essence. No one comes to Jesus unless the Father draws him. Our entire walk with God is on HIS initiative, and Faith is our response to his lead. But even our response, our faith is a gift from him. He has prepared in advance good works for us to do. All the glory is his, all the goodness is His, and good things crafted in our life are by His hand, whether they be desire for God or righteous actions.

Just Clean the House

My husband is mad at me (again) because of the house. He has reasonable expectations, just wants it all clean once a month. I got it done last Christmas and it hasn't been all done since. This is a chronic ongoing issue for us. I am extremely distractable and I move slow, which means that my work time is not very productive, but all seven of us are very productive at taking things out!

I don't know why I don't keep a nice house. Lots of possible reasons--having mess means that I have a reason to get up in the morning (to clean it), leaving a bit of mess is a request for someone to step in and help me because I want to be rescued. Rebellion: I shouldn't have to perform to earn your approval, you should just love me because I'm me. Perfectionism: it isn't going to be perfect anyway, so why try? Distractable: I forgot I was cleaning the whatever. Mess filter: I don't see the mess, just whatever particular article that has drawn my focus. (I can't tell if my outfits look good either, because all I see is an earring, my hair, my make-up, my shoes one at a time.) There are various amounts of truth to each of those, but at this point in life, I just don't even care about the reasons. I don't see that understanding these reasons has gotten me any closer to a clean house.

They tell me that I'm "performance oriented." I think that is psychobabble for "legalistic." I want to prove that I'm something by my own actions. Unfortunately, all I've proved is that I'm nothing. And this, for some reason, is worse than the end of the world to me. I mean, duh! Of course I'm nothing! Isn't that why the grace of God is so miraculous?

The most productive season of my life (in terms of managing our home) came at a time when things were externally difficult. I was pregnant with number 4. God came to me in the middle of a movie. The image on the screen was just a man hugging a woman (a friend.) And God, in that moment, just revealed his love to me. I went an laid on the floor for I don't know how long. He satisfied my longing to be both the center and to be hidden. He convinced me in a moment that I was to Him, the Bride. The golden one. He revealed me as the adored daughter, swinging in her Father's arms. And he hid me in the folds of his robes, so close that I could twine my fingers in his beard and breathe his scent. I was protected and covered.

From that center of acceptance, running my race was so easy. All those reasons just fell by as irrelevant. For months, I could just do it, walking in peace. But then, my mom came and helped me out when my son was born, and something in that season washed it all away.

But the truth is still there. I wish I could find it again. My husband's anger and my desire to please, and my offense at his coldness trip me up in embracing truth. Yet there is always a way around temptation. Faith is always possible.

Draw Near

I haven't been on here as much. A few days ago a pair of scriptures kinda stuck to me, the first was this, from Mathew:

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

The second one, now that I look, I seem to have misremembered. What I recalled was a rebuke to those that ask questions and don't listen to the answers.

I have fussed and asked and wrestled and wondered about many things. But here is the quiet and simple answer of Jesus: "Come to me." I am weak--unable to understand, unable to make up for my debts, unable to give something of real value on my own. And I'm weary and worn with the effort of doing so. I long for the rest Jesus offers. His yoke--walking in the steps he lays--makes me smile.

So, that's where my striving has been the last few days--not in wrestling with questions, but with being more quiet and drawing near in simpleness. On the inside. On the outside, I've been crazy busy with events and homeschool stuff AND reading a lovely novel.

Development of the Status Quo

I've been thinking more about the History of American Education. While I wouldn't doubt that public education was begun with mixed motives (creating unity/conformity from diversity, making good workers, benefitting the poor, etc.), I think that the history of public education is highly flavored with reactions to a changing culture. Our family life has broke down considerably in the last 150 years. The collective ability to focus has been severely eroded by entertainment and leisure. The concept of discipline has been vilified. The traditional leadership of a. men and b. adults is openly scorned. While these changes have brought some good things, the cumulative effect has been to dump a lot of kids in the school system who are insecurely rooted in their families, accustomed to information presented in flashy 15 second soundbites, and burdened with "let the children lead" pressure. The public schools have scrambled to deal with these realities, but there is no way for them to fix these problems. It is neither within the appropriate place of government to address them, nor within its effective power, because they are matters of the heart.

We, the people of America and the parents of the next generation, have the responsibility to create stable homes, to provide meaningful work, and to bring our kids into the freedom of healthy submission. So, if I were running for president, that's what I'd angle for. ;-)

Agenda of State Schooling

I am having a mini crisis over schooling my kids. My oldest two daughters participate in a state run school at home program. They are loaned laptop computers which run a fairly inane curriculum with click the bubble questions after each reading. A teacher comes to our home every few weeks to chat with us—she monitors their progress remotely the rest of the time, much more loosely than I do myself.

The problem is that I have begun reading The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto. It is a scathing indictment of the American compulsory school phenomenon, holding that public schools took a population that was nearly completely literate and dumbed them down to the point where average spelling is at the level of text messaging abbreviations. Gatto’s opinion appears to be that this was no accident: a large number of dumb, minimum wage workers are required to make the U.S. economy go, so the schools produce them in quantity. The thought makes my stomach turn. It makes me want to avoid every trace of participation in “school” as the government conceives it.

I have believed all along that I could easily fulfill the government’s goals along with my own. But if the goal of state schooling is to sap passion for learning from my kid’s brains and take away their time for real life, then that is a conflict of interest I can’t ignore.

My 12 year old gets up before everyone else in the family because she likes the quiet morning hours for doing her schoolwork. I require her to do her math work before she logs on to the online textbooks, and she is often done with all of it by 8:30 in the morning when the rest of the house gets up and begins breakfast and chores. She spends the rest of her day doing as she pleases: doing crafts, reading, making butter and cheese, cooking things, reading to her brother, sewing, etc.

My 10 year old is a sleepy head and is often last up. She milks the cow, and mosies through breakfast and is often just starting school at noon. Her math takes her forever, and she zooms through her computer school. She reads plenty. She is reading the Lord of the Rings Trilogy for about the fourth time in two years, and grabs other quicker reads as I bring them from the library. She spends her spare time making clay pots, frolicking with her pet goat, playing songs with her sister on her guitar, and most recently, working with a hide she is tanning.

All that to say, I don’t think the inane curriculum time has caused their brains to leak out of their ears yet. I am afraid if I read the rest of this book, however, I may be utterly unwilling to participate with the system at all. In any case, I think it is time to revisit my goals for these children again.

Church Life

We had a great day today. We went to a farm that was having an open house. The owners had sent word out on our homeschool communication loop, so there were a number of familiar faces there. The kids had a blast competing in sack races, throwing raw eggs, painting pumpkins and eating soup and milk shakes. I enjoyed the live music and quality conversation with a friend from high school.


From there, we visited friends that allowed us to use their cider press (and apples!) to make cider, while our kids helped and played. More good conversation and just life sharing.


This is what I want my kids to think of when they hear "church." The community of Called Out Ones. But without the religious structure, they don't seem very "called out." It has a sanctified feel to me, but if there are no worship songs, praying or bible stories, will the kids realize God's role in it?

Please, Not Hell!

"Oh, PLEASE! Don't go looking into whether Hell is real! If we question hell, we will NEVER find a church!" This was my response to my hubby bringing home printouts on the history of the ideology of hell.

How sad for me. What are we coming to if we can't look honestly at the faith we profess and promote? What is the point of our gathering if we can't talk about ideas like these? I think that the branding of Christianity is one of the biggest stultifiers of growth. Branding--the idea that you can put a Baptist or Episcopal or Presbyterian sticker on a church and know what they believe. There can be little dynamic growth and revelation. It is assumed that by the time a man is old enough to graduate seminary that his beliefs are in line with orthodoxy and will not require any major adjustment until Jesus returns. This idea borders between optimism and arrogance.


The creeds that we all mouth do little for maintaining orthodoxy. What do you mean by One? What do you mean by Created? And what the heck is up with "I believe in God the Father, maker of Heaven and Earth" when John says Jesus was the creator--and without him nothing was made that has been made?

The real application of this is the idea that if you are part of a body, and discover the denomination is "holy cow" wrong about some big things, what do you do? If love and unity are the highest laws, perhaps it does not then matter if we functionally preach "another gospel," so long as we are generous and kind to one another.

This all hinges on what the Main Things are. Obviously, Christ is central. It is the essence of being in Christ that makes a Christian and creates fellowship. But there are lines around what this means. A Mormon will tell you that they believe that Jesus Christ died for their sins. Does that mean we have fellowship with them? They may go on to quote you the book of Mormon where it says that once you are REALLY good, THEN you will be given the Holy Spirit--a complete violation of the gospel, as I understand it. And shades of this same heresy are ubiquitous in religious circles. God can only act if you do X. To receive the Holy Spirit, you must not eat for three days, then pray for six hours, then mumble incoherently for an hour to prove you are serious. And make sure you really are sincere, because like a horse, God can smell fear.

In more conservative circles, independence is encouraged by books like The Purpose Driven Life, which tells you figure out why God made you and walk in it. Christians cry for this kind of book, like the Israelites chafed against the theocracy God gave them. They want a King: a visible standard to follow so that they can follow and measure how they are doing. God would lead our hearts, but we want something we can see. It's the difference between feeling the beat of the music and moving to it and following the numbered footsteps on the floor. If we are possessed by the Great Dancer, why are we stomping through numbered footprints?

I believe Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation. Most people believe the Bible teaches that if you don't put faith in Him, the result is eternal, conscious suffering. Is this a main thing? If I look in the Bible and find more evidence that the damned are destroyed, do we have fellowship? In my mind, we have fellowship if we remain grounded in Christ. If we are more attached to our denomination than we are to seeking what is true, we will be torn. If we are more attached to being right than we are to loving each other, we will be torn. If you believe in hell and I don't, we can still share Christ. And really, it ends up being a very secondary issue. Because the foundation is faith: are we walking in our own strength and wisdom or by the Spirit's leading and power. You can violate or fulfill that AND believe or disbelieve in hell, I think.

It feels very vulnerable and dependent to stay open to God rewriting my inner story. I would like to camp on a denominational standing--or even my own--and stop asking if it is true and how the pieces fit together. I just don't think I have that freedom.

Searing the Conscience

Sometimes in Christian circles, you hear the phrase "a seared conscience" and it is used as the result of ignoring God's word and disobeying. The concept is that if you ignore God enough, you lose the ability to hear him, you become insensitive. That may be true. But the actual scripture that this phrase comes from has a rather different lesson:

1 Tim 4:1-54:1 The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. 3 They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. 4 For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

So those with a seared conscience, are they ignoring godly boundaries? No, they are creating a stricter morality. How can being stricter sear the conscience?

Woe

The kids and I are reading Luke at breakfast time (on a good day). I read a section aloud, then each person gets to ask a question, and answer a question. It's fun.

Today we read part of Luke 6. The kids are pretty familiar with "Blessed are the hungry, for they shall be filled," because that's the scripture I quote to them when they whine for snacks. This section comes after and stuck with me today:

Luke 6:24-26
"But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets. "

I don't know what Joel Osteen does with this passage. Is this a passage that is flatly against being happy? Is it fair to take this as spiritual instruction, or is it more literal? I feel a sense of dread when I read this, for fear that I will lose all good things I currently enjoy. But I have to believe that if it says "Woe to you" that there must be some way to repent. Being rich, well fed, and laughing are morally neutral. Being well spoken of is a good thing throughout scripture--proverbs says that a good name is to be desired above all things, and a NT requirement for an elder/decon is that they have a good reputation in the community. So surely these things are not actually bad.

What's wrong with all those things? I think it must be self-sufficiency. Rev 3:17-18 says "You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see."

So how do I "buy" gold? I think the white clothes are righteous acts...but what is salve for the eyes?

Lessons in Housekeeping

Six weeks ago when the weather was still balmy, I was snuggling my 4yo off to sleep. Her six year old brother was wandering around the room getting ready to be snuggled too. He picked something up off the floor and asked me what it was, handing it to me. I didn't really know, but when someone hands you something vaguely furry next to your face in the dark, you throw it--far and fast. And turn the light on. What was it? A bat. We have cats, and they drag things in. And this kitty gift was a tiny fruit bat that had breathed its last.

Well, we homeschool, and we were currently doing a unit on flying things. After looking at the little bat briefly (since it was bedtime), I promised the kids we would study bats "tomorrow" and sealed the bat in a ziploc baggie and put it in the fridge to preserve it until then.

You know where this is going, don't you? Well, tomorrow never came. And this morning, while cleaning out my fridge, I got a lovely lesson in "Do it Now." If you ever wondered what a bat that died six weeks ago looks like, let me tell you, you don't want to know. Ziploc baggies and refrigeration only go so far in preserving small mammals. Another lesson: never wait so long to clean your fridge that a bat could rot in there. Someone should put that on one of those helpful plaques.