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“Liberals: Ideas so good, they’re mandatory.”

Watching the MacMurchy team grow

May I have a 5 X 7 in the entryway?
Cracks me up.

Here comes the flower girl pulling the ring bearer down the aisle.
Amelia with cousin Weston Ray at Laura and Jason's wedding.

Amelia got a doll for Christmas.

What a day!

Danielle's book released Dec 1, 2016 in the year of our LORD
Topped the charts at Number 1 Hot New Release! 

She kept her promise, Sierra Phantom.
Your story is coming to a lot of homes.

Enjoying Uncle Robert's Gorilla state champ victory

The Stukel generations: Papa Ray with his great grandbaby 

Miss Mabel cheering Uncle Robert to victory
(Those children are angels: Linda Tulson at the game)

Amelia Margaret

Batter up!

   Isaiah Robert punching it into the infield

Storybook Adventures in Rapid City

“This world's no blot for us,
Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good:
To find its meaning is my meat and drink.” Robert Browning

Beats the heck outta me!

Scary photo bomber!

2 pics that tip me over

Love this!

Darling 4-year-old Morgan Jo kissing her Uncle Robert
who just celebrated his 18th birthday.
Happy bday, Robert! You've grown up to be something,
that's for sure.

Ode to the unseen

Music, verse, prose and poet

bid the Unseen show Thy face.
Let the gossamer shadows

display the Father's halloweds. 

Who's the weaver in the workshop womb

from whence thou was knit?

Where wisdom from on high was writ?

Pedestrian prose, break into song.

To weigh and quantify is not enough,

All sehnsucht hungry hearts 

know the sum exceeds the sundry parts.

Creation, as wondrous as can be,

gloriously reflects GOD's revelry. 

To weigh, observe and quantify 

shows one angle of the why.

Yea, the meter gives account

but wakens not the fount

of Living. Paramount!

Nature - fine as it can be - 

points toward God's revelry.

Within the dead stump,

dormant lies the seed. 

Take heed. 

Let all that breath

and some that don't,

Sing nature's glad song,

O happy throng. 

Nature's noiseless triumph-

the seed within the stump-

Gives nature's Maker - voice!

Rejoice!

Imagination wake

from your torpid sleep.

Our eyes redeem!

There's more to see

than is often seen.  

Letter to the editor

http://www.loudounnow.com/2015/12/07/school-leaders-disabled-minority-students-suspension-rates-still-a-concern/

After reading Danielle's Loudoun Now article, "School Leaders: Disabled and Minority Students Suspension Rates Still a Concern," I was struck with the foundational assumption that underlies the notion that "data does not lie." The assumption is that the disproportionate numbers of minority and disabled students disciplined with suspension or expulsion, indicates nefarious racism or angst against minorities and special needs students. I respectfully challenge that underlying assumption.

Data serves a purpose, but it does not tell the entire story any more than science quantifies virtue. Some parts of human life are not quantified, weighed, measured or neatly placed in an algorithm. Data serves a purpose but it does not accurately reflect the breadth of the school behavior anomaly. Can the virtue of courage be empirically discerned? No. Science has its limits.

I can decide to board an airplane, trusting that scientific data has determined the best possible wing span, navigation instrumentation, and the size and scope of the aircraft cabin. But do I know if the pilot slept well or had bourbon for breakfast? No? His integrity and wisdom are unknowns to me and cannot be scientifically discerned. What about his courage in the face of crisis? Has that data on that particular pilot been gathered and analyzed? In actuality, I board the plane understanding that both science and goodwill faith inform my decision. I trust the good work done in the construction of the aircraft and I trust the good Lord to take care of me through a well-disciplined pilot. We live and breath by faith.

My laborious point is that the data showing that Loudoun County schools have an imbalanced disproportionate number of minority and learning disabled students being suspended or expelled DOES NOT necessarily mean that teachers and principals are unfair to said students. The statistical data is not intended, nor can it, empirically verify racism among teachers and principals in Loudoun County. If the specter of racial discrimination is the ghost in the room, why aren't Asian students or Middle Eastern students on the disparate list?

This problem will never be fixed if we refuse to ask the right questions? Are there other factors that affect student discipline besides racial bias? Unstable home life? Parental involvement and parental priority of education? Enough rest? Upon entering the classroom, is it the first time the student has heard, "No?" Is the student diligent or lazy? The list of factors is nearly infinite.

For every child, there are any number of reasons for their behavior. It is not possible to get to the bottom of those myriad reasons for needed discipline. However, assuming that the gavel of justice drops with the data is naive and a gross misjudgment. Do parents bear some responsibility for their child's misbehavior? Do the children bear a yoke of responsibility for their words and actions?

These questions are where shoe leather meets the linoleum floor. As an educator, I probably swung toward favoring students of color or students with disabilities. Overcoming the hurdles of dyslexia are daunting. When the letters are moving, learning to read requires finely honed mental and physical adjustments. Not for the faint of heart. And mine always went out to the mentally challenged students I taught. But if Hezekiah - my beloved Native American student - needed discipline, I did not want to second guess decisions because the disproportionate minority data does not lie. I needed to do what needed to be done with appropriate charity and goodwill toward both Hezekiah and the students bothered by his disruption - or eruption. The truth is that Hezekiah never needed disciplinary action. Maybe that, come to think of it, is why he was one of my favorites. Is there truth-telling data for the fine teachers and administrators who go the extra mile with struggling students? If there was, it would tell a crucial part of the story.

The gold of human character

These excerpts on the divine balance of pain and pleasure are taken from Dallas Willard's "The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the faith in the manner of Jesus."
The parenthetical notes are added by me for clarity. 

God's purpose within human history, is to create for Himself a living abode - a community of free, conscious, living beings.  (To accomplish His high purpose both pleasure and pain are necessary.)  Pleasure and pain are, in a word, the positive and negative poles between which flow the currents of human life. Detach one pole, and this life will cease. People who ask for a painless world do not truly know what they are asking for.

It is only in the heat of pain and suffering, both mental and physical, that real human character is forged. One does not develop courage without facing danger. One does not develop patience without trials. One does not develop wisdom without heart and brain-racking puzzles. One does not develop endurance without suffering or temperance and honesty without temptations. 

These are the very things we treasure most about people. Ask yourself if you would be willing to be devoid of all these virtues: Courage, patience, wisdom, endurance and honesty. If your answer is no, then don't scorn the means of obtaining them. The gold of human character is dug from torturous mines. 

I'm not saying that we should go looking for pain, so that we can develop character. This is not at all necessary. All we need to do is make an honest and thorough effort to discover what is right and wrong, good and bad, and, when we are convinced on these points, then simply go out and face life for what it is worth. There will be plenty of opportunity to develop character. But you will never develop character by running from unpleasant situations, any more than you will develop your intellectual capacities by running away from study or tone up your six-pack abs by avoiding exercise.  

God allows people to suffer precisely because He is benevolent. It's for our best. I assume that God wishes to be able to write some epithet over the episode of human history other than, "And a good time was had by all." (Is God only good) if He is a Jolly Good Fellow, running to satisfy our every whim and fancy and ease our every pain?  Dallas Willard

On a personal note, when I think of the parents I most respect, they are the ones who do not give in to every whimper and whim of their children. They know and understand that both the rod of correction coupled with the staff of comfort and protection, provide the guardrail parameters needed to develop the character of Christ. Indeed, "The gold of human character is dug from torturous mines." And that gold is the coin of the Kingdom in the purchase of GOD's Good Life.

Sehnsucht

“The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.”

C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

Lucid thought of the day

The Hand of God is written with the ink of men.

Andrea Bocelli - The Lord's Prayer.

                   The way we start the day.

Worth pondering

Community journalism at its best

Loudoun Times-Mirror purchased Leesburg Today one day
and stuck a fork in it the next.
But, as Aaron so aptly described, "Like a phoenix from the flames,"
Loudoun Now took flight without missing a single news cycle.
***
Community journalism at its best!

Killer pics

Danielle & Aaron visiting Aunt Stu and Cuz Dylan
in Philly

Be still, my soul
(this is coming to a wall at 1001 43rd St)

Sense of Thai St,
favorite new Leesburg restaurant

Crazy sock day for our kindergartener

All are invited, but dress for success

Everyone is invited!  Few are chosen.

Jesus taught this reality in the Parable of the Wedding Banquet. In the parable, the king invites the first wave of  guests, but they have every excuse under the sun for not attending. When the invitation is broadly extended, the invitees mock and mistreat the slaves who invited them to the king's celebration.

"Everything is ready!"

The enraged king then instructs his servants to invite everyone with a pulse; the good, the bad and the ugly. The wedding hall is filled with guests.

The king, upon entering the hall, notices a man who is not wearing a wedding robe. Apparently proper attire is required to attend the wedding banquet. The inappropriately dressed man is tossed "into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Jesus is teaching two things: All are invited into His Kingdom where the effective will of the Father is done.  But to enter the banquet, there are conditions. One's dress should reflect the sacredness of the occasion. We tend to love the promise, but are appalled by the conditions.

Case in point: "… a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh."

God's pattern of blessing with a corresponding condition is seen in Genesis 2:24. 

Shouldn't gratitude be our response for the blessing of marriage? Why must we chaff against the one condition?  "…male and female He created them."

Many are called, but few are chosen.

A variation on The hand that rocks the cradle
rules the world.
Dear LORD, revive our families.