August 9

This has been a very headache-y week! Yesterday, I woke up with one that kept me down all day. Yikes. I'm back on my previous antidepressant, so I'm sleeping much better, and my mood is better. I'm pretty hungry, so I'm having to watch what I eat very carefully. But, I'd rather by hungry than depressed.




Knitting update:

I finished the rug! It took lots of T-shirts, though, so I won't be able to make another one for awhile. I think that I have enough old jeans to cut up, though, to make a small rug to go under my footwarmer that sits in front of my rocking chair.

Kid updates:

The kids have been spending lots of time with Grandma this week. Grandma got an apartment a few blocks from here, so she'll be spending some of the year here and some of the year down South, and the rest of the time travelling the globe! Anyway, the kids have both been able to sleep over. Grandma has also let each of them edit some video to make a movie. Wild Man edited some footage that Grandma took at one of his baseball games. Ga'Hoole Girl edited footage that Grandma took of her bathing the cats. Yes, Ga'Hoole Girl bathed the cats. The 4-H cat and dog showing is in two days. Sassy did OK with her bath; she just cried a little near the end. Sassy has long hair and really needed the bath. She could have stood some conditioner, but Ga'Hoole Girl decided that would be pushing her luck. Sophie was a whole different story! She put up quite the fight during her bath. But, she is soooo nice and soft now that she's clean.

My camera died this week. It's five years old, so I guess it was time. It would give me a great excuse for a new camera except that the money isn't in the budget for it! In any case, the kids decided to learn about the inner workings of a camera. Wild Man (and Mr. Math Teacher) took it apart and Mr. Math Teacher showed Wild Man the different circuits, chips, etc. Then, Ga'Hoole Girl scavenged some wires and a switch to make a circuit with a little light bulb. Here's what the camera looks like now:

Book Reviews:

A Return to Modesty by Wendy Shalit - Wendy Shalit addresses the current state of modesty in our culture. She makes a compelling argument that the sexual revolution has sold our daughters a bill of goods. Sexual freedom was supposed to make us all so much happier, but, instead, we have a society of girls who are anorexic, bulimic, self-mutilating, and profoundly depressed. Shalit argues that returning to modesty allows our young women to regain the self-respect that they have lost during the "revolution". As a Christian, this makes a lot of sense. We have abandoned God's plan for sex, and our society (particularly our girls) are paying the consequences. The chapter that affected me the most was Chapter 11 "Pining for Interference". She argues in this chapter that young women really do want (and need) adults to care about them in their dating and courting. So many adults use the phrase "as long as you're happy" without thinking about whether what the child is doing is good for them. Throughout the book, Shalit makes the point that the lack of modesty has had negative consequences throughout society: our young men treat women as chattel, relationships though all society are seen as temporary, children have lost the security of two loving parents, and girls are left wondering if anyone really loves them. I highly recommend this book for anyone with daughters. Shalit has another book coming out that I also plan to read: Girls Gone Mild.

A New Kind of Christian by Brian D. McLaren - This is my first foray into the Emerging Church culture and theology. McLaren writes in the form of a dialogue between two friends. He starts with the supposition that my generation is caught between modernism and post-modernism. History has been largely made of modern thinkers from about 1500. Modern thinking is generally linear, rational, and scientific. For a modern thinker, there is only one Truth. If what I believe about God is true, then what you believe about Him must not be true if it is different from what I believe. Post-modern thinking, though, has come about since about 2000, although you can see traces of it before that. Post-modern thinkers are perfectly capable of holding two opposing ideas in their minds - and don't see a problem with it. Post-modern thinkers have less faith in science. They tend to think in narrative and not linearly. McLaren is trying to present how we can be Christians in this post-modern world. He is trying to develop a picture of how we can love Jesus in this post-modern world. Unfortunately, everything gets pretty fuzzy - which, I think, is part of the whole post-modern thing. McLaren talks a lot about post-modern thinking and how to be a Christian, but talks very little about Scripture. Certainly, God reveals Himself through nature and the Church as well as Scripture, but I would have preferred a more thorough grounding of his ideas in Scripture. That being said, I didn't find anything really objectionable in the book. I do recommend that people read something by McLaren or by Rob Bell because the Emerging Church is affecting Christianity and we need to know what it's all about. Unfortunately, I don't really "get" it from this book. I'm going to read some of Rob Bell's stuff and see if that clears it up any. I'm also in the process of reading MacArthur's Truth War, which is basically a polemic against the whole post-modern movement. More on that in a few days when I finish it. So, my conclusion on McLaren is this: the jury is still out. I'm gathering more information before I make any conclusions.