Given my previous post, I just have to share this next photo with my readers. The Christian School some of our grandchildren attend had a Dr. Seuss celebration today too, and my daughter made some special clothing for Chloe and Logan today. These are the fruits of her labors. I think they’re pretty special – not just Thing 1 and Things 2 to us! O, the fun of being a child! And, by the way, they are both good readers! Keep it up, Chloe and Logan!
Seussville Read Across America.
Today is Dr. Seuss Day and because his books inspired so much love for reading and fun we mark the day! Who of us has not grown up with The Cat in the Hat, Horton Hears a Who, or Green Eggs and Ham? Don’t you remember reading “pale green pants with nobody inside them”, and being truly frightened yourself? March 2 was Theodor Seuss Geisel’s birthday and he would have been 108 this year.
Tied to this celebration of Dr.Seuss’ birthday today is the second annual “Read Across America” program. A great day to read to a child – and why not make it a Dr.Seuss book!
“You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child.”
What better way to celebrate Dr. Seuss’s birthday than reading to a child? On the evening of March 2nd (Dr. Seuss’s birthday), Random House and the National Education Association (NEA) urge you to participate in the second annual Read Across America and read to a child.
WHY CELEBRATE DR. SEUSS?
Dr. Seuss epitomizes a love of children and learning. Also, his use of rhyme makes his books an effective tool for teaching young children the basic skills they need to be successful. When we celebrate Dr. Seuss and reading, we send a clear message to America’s children that reading is fun and important.
From one of my library emailings came this link to a PowerPoint presentation put together by a teacher for last year’s celebration (it’s in pdf form now). It’s worth working your way through. Lots of fun facts and pictures of Dr. Seuss and his books.
So, grab a Dr.Seuss book, take your child or grandchild on your lap, and have fun making reading fun for yourself and others!
*Update! And if you want to have some more fun with your child today, take them to Seussville.com!
3 Story Tower Made of 15,000 Books About Abraham Lincoln.
All I can saw is, Wow! The headline says it all. Go to the link to witness an unbelievable tower of books. Here’s a brief note about it from the link:
This 3 story tall tower of books features 15,000 different titles about President Lincoln. The tower is on display at the new Washington DC Center for Education and Leadership, a museum focused on Lincoln’s legacy. The museum will open later this month. It is across the street from Ford’s Theatre, the site of Lincoln’s assassination.
And if you want to see another such sculpture of books – called “The Tower of Babel”, go here. Here’s the description of this one:
“Tower of Babel” by Argentinian artist Marta Minujin is a seven story tall sculptural structure covered in 30,000 books from all over the world. The tower resides in Plaza San Martin in Buenos Airies, and celebrates the city’s nomination as World Book Capital 2011 by UNESCO. On May 28, The Tower of Babel will be disassembled and the books will be given away to the public.
6 everyday things seen really close up | MNN – Mother Nature Network.
It’s Friday Fun time! I missed posting Thursday, so we will have an extra one today. Think you can identify these small objects that are part of our every day life? Believe it or not, when they are viewed this close up, it gets harder. So have fun! This was posted Feb.19, 2012 on the Mother Nature Network, a fact that does not detract from the truth that five of these objects show the amazing design of our Father Creator.
“What makes sin sin” by John Piper | Tolle Lege.
From the wonderful book reading blog “Tolle Lege” (“Take up and read”) comes this quote from pastor John Piper. Worth printing and posting, so that we may keep this always before our mind’s eye.
“What makes sin sin is not first that it hurts people, but that it blasphemes God. This is the ultimate evil and the ultimate outrage in the universe.
The glory of God is not honored.
The holiness of God is not reverenced.
The greatness of God is not admired.
The power of God is not praised.
The truth of God is not sought.
The wisdom of God is not esteemed.
The beauty of God is not treasured.
The goodness of God is not savored.
The faithfulness of God is not trusted.
The promises of God are not relied upon.
The commandments of God are not obeyed.
The justice of God is not respected.
The wrath of God is not feared.
The grace of God is not cherished.
The presence of God is not prized.
The person of God is not loved.The infinite, all-glorious Creator of the universe, by whom and for whom all things exist (Rom. 11:36) – who holds every person’s life in being at every moment (Acts 17:25) – is disregarded, disbelieved, disobeyed, and dishonored by everybody in the world. That is the ultimate outrage of the universe.
–John Piper, “The Greatest Thing in the World: an Overview of Romans 1-7,” as cited on www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/the-greatest-thing-in-the-world-an-overview-of-romans-1-7 (accessed February 23, 2012).
Leon Wieseltier: Washington Diarist: Voluminous | The New Republic.
A marvelous tribute to traditional books and libraries by the literary editor of The New Republic (posted Feb.22, 2012). Listen to these words:
This is the other variety of significance that attaches to books, the subjective sort, which transforms them into talismans. Many books are read but some books are lived, so that words and ideas lose their ethereality and become experiences, turning points in an insufficiently clarified existence, and thereby acquire the almost mystical (but also fallible) intimacy of memory. In this sense one’s books are one’s biography. This subjective urgency bears no relation to the quality of the book: lives have been changed by kitsch, too. What matters is that one’s pores be opened, and that the opening be true. “What is the Ninth Symphony,” Karl Kraus declared, “compared to a pop tune played by a hurdy-gurdy and a memory!”
THE LIBRARY, like the book, is under assault by the new technologies, which propose to collect and to deliver texts differently, more efficiently, outside of space and in a rush of time. If ever I might find a kind word for the coming post-bibliographical world it would be this week, when I have to pack up the thousands of volumes in my office and reassemble them a short distance away—they are so heavy, they take up so much room, and so on; but even now, with the crates piled high in the hall, what I see most plainly about the books is that they are beautiful. They take up room? Of course they do: they are an environment; atoms, not bits. My books are not dead weight, they are live weight—matter infused by spirit, every one of them, even the silliest. They do not block the horizon; they draw it. They free me from the prison of contemporaneity: one should not live only in one’s own time. A wall of books is a wall of windows. And a book is more than a text: even if every book in my library is on Google Books, my library is not on Google Books. A library has a personality, a temperament. (Sometimes a dull one.) Its books show the scars of use and the wear of need. They are defaced—no, ornamented—by markings and notes and private symbols of assent and dissent, and these vandalisms are traces of the excitations of thought and feeling, which is why they are delightful to discover in old books: they introduce a person. There is something inhuman about the pristinity of digital publication. It lacks fingerprints. But the copy of a book that is on my shelf is my copy. It is unlike any other copy, it has been individuated; and even those books that I have not yet opened—unread books are an essential element of a library—were acquired for the further cultivation of a particular admixture of interests and beliefs, and every one of them will have its hour….
Could it have been said better? Makes me never want to go back to my Kindle. Ah, the tug on my heart between technology and tradition. But then the modern book was itself the product of new technology. I’ll keep my Kindle and strike a balance 
Our loosely organized book reading club meets tomorrow night for the second time. This year we may be called the “BBC” – Bonhoeffer Book Club – because all our readings are being done in the German pastor/theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. We went through his Letters and Papers from Prison and now we are working our way through The Cost of Discipleship (first published in German in 1937; first English edition appeared in 1948). It has been a number of years since I read this title. I believe it was assigned to a class I had at Calvin College back in the late 1970′s. But I remember being impressed with it then, and I am more so now.
And because 35 plus years have gone by, my perspective has changed. Reading it then I was struck by the call he makes to costly discipleship (really the theme of the book). This is the “costly grace” of which he wrote, which he believed the church in his day had thrown away for a form of “cheap grace” – a grace without repentance, without godliness, without sacrifice, and therefore without true commitment to Jesus Christ. Here in his own words is how he describes this “cheap grace”:
Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate (p.36).
In contrast to that, Bonhoeffer said the following about “costly grace”:
Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again….
Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: ‘ye were bought at a price’, and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.
…Costly grace confronts us with a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: ‘My yoke is easy and my burden is light’ (p.37).
That distinction – indeed great gulf! – between cheap grace and costly grace still strikes me, and is a much-needed message in our own day. And when it comes to this call of Bonhoeffer, most modern Reformed and evangelical Christians give a hearty “amen”. But what strikes me even more now as I read The Cost is the call Bonhoeffer makes to live the antithesis, that spiritual separation between the believer and the ungodly world and between the church and the unbelieving world. Repeatedly throughout this book he chastises the church and the professing Christian for giving in to the spirit and ways of the world, all the while claiming to be following Christ. And repeatedly he calls the church and the believer to live the life of spiritual difference from the wicked world. Not indeed, world-flight, but world-fight! Living In the world, we live not OF the world. That too is costly grace.
And that makes me think about “common grace” too. It seems to me that many Reformed and evangelical Christians do not want to take this part of Bonhoeffer’s call in The Cost. I mean his call to live the antithesis. Because they have this “sacred cow” called “common grace”, which no one may touch and no one may sacrifice. Abraham Kuyper with all his supposed “wisdom and wonder” about “transforming” culture by common grace gets all the attention, while Bonhoeffer with his call to spiritual separation gets left on the shelf – at least on this part of his teaching. I ask you, which is the cheap grace and which is the costly grace? I think you can guess where I am in this, and where I believe Bonhoeffer was. But more on this tomorrow, D.V. I’ll have some more quotes on the antithesis then.
Israeli Library Uploads Newton’s Theological Texts – ABC News.
ABC News posted this news item Thursday, Feb.15, 2012. It is an interesting report about Israel’s National Library digitalizing and posting online a number of works by Sir Isaac Newton, famed Christian scientist who is also noted for his theological studies and writings. Here’s part of the story; read the rest of the story at the ABC News link above and visit the digital collection here:
He’s considered to be one of the greatest scientists of all time. But Sir Isaac Newton was also an influential theologian who applied a scientific approach to the study of scripture, Hebrew and Jewish mysticism.
Now Israel’s national library, an unlikely owner of a vast trove of Newton’s writings, has digitized his theological collection — some 7,500 pages in Newton’s own handwriting — and put it online. Among the yellowed texts are Newton’s famous prediction of the apocalypse in 2060.
Newton revolutionized physics, mathematics and astronomy in the 17th and 18th century, laying the foundations for most of classical mechanics — with the principal of universal gravitation and the three laws of motion bearing his name.
However, the curator of Israel’s national library’s humanities collection said Newton was also a devout Christian who dealt far more in theology than he did in physics and believed that scripture provided a “code” to the natural world.
“Today, we tend to make a distinction between science and faith, but to Newton it was all part of the same world,” said Milka Levy-Rubin. “He believed that careful study of holy texts was a type of science, that if analyzed correctly could predict what was to come.”
I have been preparing for a panel discussion on “Battling Temptation” at Byron Center PRC’s upcoming men’s conference (next weekend, March 8-9!) and doing some readings from various sources. But I also came across a couple of fine articles in this month’s Tabletalk while finishing up the issue. Both are special weekend devotionals, and both touched on how we learn to battle the continued presence of sin in our lives.
Writing about how the devil uses clever marketing tools to get us to “buy into” sin, David Murray had this to say about how we fight these attempts to “brandwash” and “brainwash” us:
God has provided His Word to protect and purge us from the Devil’s brainwashing. The Bible helps us see the existence of diabolical brainwashing. It gives us a second sense, an ability to discern, a faculty of seeing that enables us to distinguish reality from perception.
The Bible also teaches the easiness of brainwashing. It explains and demonstrates how weak and seducible we are. That’s painful and humbling. But at least it puts us on the alert; it shows us our need of outside help.
The Bible analyzes the elements of brainwashing. It uncovers a number of the Devil’s strategies and by fearful examples. It helps us detect his first advances before he gets a foothold in our minds.
The Bible underlines the evil of spiritual brainwashing. We don’t just risk losing a few dollars as a result of succumbing to a marketing technique. We risk losing our own souls. The stakes could not be higher.
The Bible shows the way of escape from the Devil’s brainwashing. When we hear the world’s cry, ‘Conform! Conform! Conform!’ we turn to our Bibles and read not only ‘do not be conformed’ but also ‘be transformed by the renewal of your mind’ (Rom.12:2). In fact, if we read the Bible with faith and prayer, our minds will be so renewed that we can eventually say with the Apostle Paul: ‘We have the mind of Christ’ (I Cor.2:!6).
And then in his weekend devotional for this past weekend, Mark E. Ross wrote about fighting sin with singing, i.e., singing the song of David in Psalm 40:
Recurring sins and the problems they bring, as well as problems of unknown origin that others might cause us, seem to mock the newness of our life in Christ. We hear the exclamation of Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:17: ‘Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.’ Yet too often we find ourselves with Paul in Romans 7:19: ‘For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.’ We cry out: ‘Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? (v.24).
It is right here that we must join with David in Psalm 40. Where did he go when he found himself once again assailed by foes without and tormented by sins within? He cried out to the Lord. Looking back, he recalled the great deliverances of the past, singing of them (vv.1-10). Set in poetry and supported by music, the memory of what God had done was preserved in his heart and mind. It provided a foundation on which he could face the problems of the present and deal with the uncertainties of the future.
Exhibition: “Reading between the Lines: Rare Books from the Hope College Collection” | Hope College.
Here’s an excellent opportunity for those in West Michigan to view some rare books and learn about the history and production of books. Hope College in Holland, MI is having a month-long exhibit at its DePree gallery titled “Reading Between the Lines”. The exhibit opened last Friday and runs through March 23. I also notice a special presentation by the curator this coming Friday afternoon (Can you guess where I might be?). Besides, this is a Dutch deal – no cost whatsoever! Here are further details from Hope’s “events” page:
Titled “Reading between the Lines: the History and Production of Books Highlighted by the Hope College Rare Book Collection,” the exhibition will open on Friday, Feb. 24, and continue through Friday, March 23. Related activities on Friday, March 2, will include a curators’ talk from 4:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. followed by a reception in the gallery.
The public is invited to all of the exhibition events. Admission is free.
“Reading between the Lines” features rare books dating from the 15th through 20th centuries, and reflects on the art and technique of printing across time as well as on the origins and roles of the pieces. The exhibition was curated and designed by Hope students participating in the “Special Projects in Art History” class taught in the fall semester by Dr. Anne Heath-Wiersma, who is an assistant professor of art and director of the De Pree gallery.
The approximately 40 works in the De Pree gallery exhibition have been drawn from the 1,400 in the college’s Rare Book Collection, which is housed in the Van Wylen Library. The library’s collection contains a mix of books related to art, history, literature, mathematics, science and theology.
