Advent Conspiracy

Robinson Crusoe

Last night I finished reading Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel, in which a castaway spends twenty-eight years living on a tropical island off the coast of South America. There he encounters a variety of unfortunates before his rescue.

Defoe was probably inspired by an earlier (true) castaway story, and his tale inspired a Swiss version, known to us as Swiss Family Robinson—not to mention such modern retellings such as “Gilligan’s Island” and “Castaway.”

My family also watched the disappointing 1999 movie by the same title starring Pierce Brosnan. The Hollywood version added both a romantic/sexual interest and the death of two of the protagonist’s friends at his own hand. Further, the script writer twisted the spiritual sub-plot to make it communicate the exact opposite of what Defoe’s creation said.

In the author’s version the castaway has rebelled against his parents and gone to sea seeking excitement. After several years of solitude, he reads a Bible left on the ship and encounters the grace of his Creator. Later he saves a cannibal from being eaten by fellow flesh-eaters, and this cannibal, whom he names Friday, comes to recognize Christ as superior to the alligator-god who demands such abhorrent practices. Not a PC story, but one with which numerous tribal peoples today still identify.

Replacing Defoe’s humble, compassionate character, Brosnan portrays an angry, arrogant man who yells demanding that Friday accept the love of God (words contradicting actions), but later comes to accept Friday’s prayers to the alligator-god as “just another way to the same truth.”

More like, just another case in which the book was better than the movie.

Funny

A few years ago Adrian Plass (whose writing is wildly popular overseas) spoke at the Evangelical Press Association national meeting. When we invited him, we envisioned him as the keynote speaker and someone else as the humor speaker, but we ended up with two humor speakers that night. He was hilarious. Today an audio version is posted at the EPA web site. You can have a listen here.

Favorite Christmas Traditions

· Every year as a family gift to each other, we choose a Christmas show to see together such as the Nutcracker Suite, the Dallas Symphony Christmas show, or the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. This year we plan to see Manheim Steamroller.

· I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, where one of my sisters still lives. Every December she sends us a “box of Oregon,” complete with Tillamook cheese, dried salmon, and a wreath for the door. Every time the doorbell rings, we inhale that fresh Douglas fir and think of home.

· Wherever we travel, we purchase a decoration for the tree. Now when we decorate, every ornament reminds of us of a place we’ve visited together. Decoration day is full of "Hey, remember our vacation in Sedona?" or "Here's the one from the year we backpacked the Grand Canyon."

· We wait until midnight on Christmas Eve to set the baby Jesus in the manger scene, and we wait until December 6 (Epiphany) to place the wise men on the scene—after we’ve removed the shepherds. From early December through January 6, the wise men can be seen slowly inching their way toward the crèche (on a nearby window sill or counter).

· When sending Christmas cards, we make it a point always to write something personal at the end. Every friendship deserves at least one line per year.

· On Thanksgiving and Christmas a new puzzle appears on the breakfast-nook table—provided either by our family or my sister’s. After the big meal, we all sit around that table and visit while putting it together. Sometimes if we don’t finish it that day, my brother-in-law will ask if he can come over and keep working on it.

· Our church prepares Christmas boxes (like Samaritan’s Purse boxes) for our sister church in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, as well as the mission they run. About every other year our family makes the trek down to the border (seven or eight hours) to deliver them. Even before my daughter had taken Spanish classes, she could communicate. As she told us, “A smile works everywhere.”

· Dessert between Christmas and New Year's Day always includes steamed pudding cooked in a #1 coffee can and drenched in rum sauce, just like my great grandmother made it.

Do you have a favorite tradition or two?

Rethinking "Persistent Vegetative State"

Did you see this news story/short video about the patient who was diagnosed as being in a coma for twenty-three years, but was actually totally aware of what was going on around him?

Thankful...

Our friends in D. R. Congo who named their baby after me sent a photo recently. I'm thankful for her safe delivery.

Today I'm also thanking God for God. Where would I be without the Eternal Presence walking with me through the ups and down? How can an infinitely holy God deal justly with sin while also showing infinite love? I'm grateful that an infinitely creative God made a way...

I'm thankful for my marriage and our girl. For my family of origin and so many I love who have known and loved me for decade upon decade.

I'm thankful for my friends who have loved us through thicks and thins, made us laugh, cried with us when it hurt.

I'm thankful for a shoulder that works great, a hip that works fine, and the ability to walk and swim, to see, to hear, to smell, to feel, to taste.

I'm thankful for meaningful work and great administrators, colleagues, and students who make it a joy to do my job. I'm grateful for employee benefits!

I'm thankful for the faith of my sister and her kids in the midst of the trauma they are experiencing.

I'm thankful for my church--a supportive community.

I'm thankful for my city, my county, my country and those who work to make it a safer, more just place.

I'm thankful for a full pantry, for the bounty of a full refrigerator, for the fact that we have so much abundance that the word " leftovers" is commonly used in our language.

I'm thankful for the beauty I have seen this year from The Tetons to Istanbul to the Aegean to the Dead Sea.

There's so much more I could say! And I know you're thankful, too, aren't you? We are so rich!

Wordless Wednesday

The Status of Women

Read this post by Judy Douglass, and think about what you can do about the status of women. FYI, the book she recommends is co-written by one of my favorite journalists, Nicholas Kristof. He is with the New York Times and frequently covers justice issues worldwide, including the plight of women.

Free Education

Did you know you can download DTS lectures on iTunes? Check it out here.

Dallas, November 22, 1963

Forty-six years ago today I was a month shy of my fifth birthday playing under the dining room table on our friend's rug. Suddenly her son, Peter, an elementary-school kid, came running through the door mid-day and announced that President Kennedy had been shot.

About twenty years ago my husband and I went skiing in Colorado with about six couples from our church in Dallas, one of whom were "the Kennedys." The husband told us how he was the last person to shake JFK's hand. A child at the time, our Kennedy friend apparently stuck out his hand and said, "My name's Kennedy, too." And after greeting that boy, the president got into his convertible.

Small world, Dallas. People here still talk about that fateful day so deeply embedded in the city's psyche. And when such conversations came up, for years I thought the conspiracy theorists were too cynical. The kind who are suspicious about everything. But then this and that piece of evidence would trickle in. More and more deathbed confessions started rolling in to the point that six years ago CBS news reported that seventy-four percent of Americans believe there's been a cover-up of the JFK assassination, and only 10 percent think the gunman acted alone.

Something happened a few years back that convinced me all the more to question the Warren Commission's report. I attended the visitation for Dick, a friend from church who died. And his widow sat down with me right there in the middle of the crowd at Dick's visitation and unfolded for me how he witnessed JFK's assassination. For years Dick worked for the U. S. Postal Service, and the P.O. was across from the Book Depository in downtown Dallas. So when Dick heard the president was coming, he watched from an upper window as the president's motorcade made its way down the street. Then Dick heard shots and saw the president's slumped form. But Dick's testimony about the shots fired didn't fit the evidence in the official report. Still, when Dick saw what happened to some of the people whose stories he knew to be true, he decided to keep quiet.

Then last year I was doing a women's retreat for a church in a Dallas suburb, and I met a woman, Beverly, who told me she was married to a mob boss before she came to Christ. (He was later shot to death.) She was a nightclub singer for Jack Ruby, and she said Jack introduced her to Lee Harvey Oswald. She also told me she filmed the president's motorcade, but some guys who identified themselves as government agents confiscated her camera two days later. (Remember, back then stuff had to be sent off to be developed before viewing.) She never saw it again. If you look at the woman under the arrow in the picture above, which she says is her, she looks, indeed, like she could be filming. And in the years since, no one else has claimed to be this woman in the photo. (You can read more here.)

I find it quite interesting that her testimony and Dick's don't contradict each other's...

Make a Living (or not) at Writing

Reality check time.

One of my former students, Jeff Wofford, sent me links to two stories in which a NY Times bestselling author tells the truth about a writer's income:

Last April:
http://www.genreality.net/the-reality-of-a-times-bestseller

Recent followup:
http://www.genreality.net/more-on-the-reality-of-a-times-bestseller

Summary: Don't quit your day job.

Glahn's maxim: If you love to write, get at least a part-time job as an editor or writer. (Don't expect to make it by writing books, even if you have a breakout novel.)

Another One Down

Faulty Towers Meets the Academy—that’s my TV Guide description of Lucky Jim, the latest on my PhD reading list.

The story follows an inept British university lecturer bumbling through a series of social and academic disasters. His bumblings are not due to a lack of intelligence, mind you, but rather to complete disregard for academia’s absurdities such as the publish-or-perish mentality and cut-throat colleagues.

Some describe the book as hilarious, which I suppose was true forty-some years ago when it hit the shelves. But today that assessment seems overrated. Still, I did laugh out loud twice. Though it took me a full fifty pages to “get into” the 150-page book, the moments of whimsy made for a “not completely unfortunate” read.

Pregnancy Loss: Free Bible Study

For the past decade friends at Threads of Hope have been selling a Bible study for those experiencing pregnancy loss. Now they have decided to make it available for free via download. It's intended for both group and individual use. You can download it here.

Population Ungrowth

The Economist has an interesting article on world fertility rates dropping, titled "Go Forth and Multiply a Lot Less." You can check it out here.

U Nebraska Considers Tighter Stem Cell Rules

Here's a new twist: The University of Nebraska is weighing whether to set tighter limits on stem cell research than those allowed by the government. If so, they would be the first such institution. You can read the story, which appeared in this morning's New York Times, by going here.

The Sot-Weed Factor

So I'm working my way through the PhD reading list...

I spent the past week reading a 750-page historical-fiction work published in 1960 by John Barth titled The Sot-Weed Factor. Because Time Magazine included the novel in its 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005, I expected an excellent read.

“Sot-weed” is an old term for tobacco, and a “factor” is a middleman who buys for re-sale. The phrase, from which the novel takes its title, is from an actual poem by the same name published in London (1708) and signed Ebenezer Cooke.

The story is set in the 1680s in London and on the east coast of Maryland. Drawing on his mastery of Maryland’s history and the few pieces of actual information available about Cooke and his family, the novelist weaves a story of his protagonist’s adventures on his way to and in Maryland. Along the way Cooke composes his poem, which is originally intended to sing Maryland’s praises, but instead relates Cooke’s disillusionment with the place.

Sadly, the story has entirely too much coincidence, including one character's ability to maintain for months numerous disguises that make him unrecognizable to those closest to him. Then there's the constant inclusion of gross sexual references (think incest, animals, VD, prostitution), which left me with the impression that the author had a scholar’s education with a bawdy school-boy’s fascinations. He also seemed too enamored with his own cleverness and too ready to jar the reader with authorial intrusion. Seven-hundred-plus pages of seventeenth-century English also made for laborious reading.

Henceforth, methinks I shalle be me more skeptical of Time’s lauding recommendations.

Your 'Net Worth: Communicating in a Virtual World

Yesterday at Dallas Seminary's women's conference I did a couple of workshops titled, "Your 'Net Worth: Communicating in a Virtual World. You can read today's blog post on the topic at the Tapestry site here. To access my notes with links, go here.
Angela Thomas was both deep and hilarious. My neighbor, Reiko, went with me, and I thoroughly enjoyed her company, too. Now we're on break for two weeks. Whew!In other news, my 89-year-old father just returned from a rigorous Rotary trip to Thailand. Way to go, Dad!

Plan Ahead

I know it's not even Thanksgiving yet, and don't think I'm rushing you! But please keep in mind that anything you order from Amazon can benefit our friends in Kenya if you use the Amazon link from this blog to place your order. It costs you nothing and it benefits others. So if you order from Amazon this Christmas, please swing by here on your way.

Freebie articles

Through my eleven or twelve years as editor of Kindred Spirit, I've written some articles and had book excerpts posted on the DTS web site. Here are most of them. Anything here of interest to you?

Jordan: Encounter God as Storyteller
A great narrative needs a great setting. And God has often set His redemption story in Jordan.

The Gift God Still Wants
From the time of Cain and Abel until today God has been asking for only one gift. (Christmas focus)

Informed Consent
Read an excerpt from Informed Consent, a novel that considers a compassionate response to AIDS and end-of-life issues.

Premium Roast with Ruth
Book Excerpt: In the face of famine two women journey to the “house of bread.”

Vindicate the Villain?
This brief overview will introduce you to the fundamentals of Gnosticism, the philosophy behind the Gospel of Judas.

Espresso with Esther Click here to read this excerpt

Empty Arms, Heavy Burden
One in six couples struggles with infertility during their childbearing years. But they are not alone. Read a book excerpt from The Infertility Companion.

Storytelling: The Twelve Ways of Christmas
What other time of year can we walk into the mall and hear music that directs us to worship Christ the Lord? When else can we stroll through business offices and see strings of cards depicting nativity scenes? Let’s take advantage of the seasonal opportunities, keeping our focus on Christ and sharing the gospel in the process.

Why We Honor the Human Embryo

Handful of Dust

Tonight I watched "Handful of Dust," based on Evelyn Waugh's novel by the same name.

Apparently Mr. Waugh's book was terrific. He also wrote "Brideshead Revisited," which I loved in the long BBC version. But this film left me constantly asking "Huh? What just happened?" I had to read a plot summary online to figure out what I'd just seen. Eh.