I smashed my left index finger yesterday, and was feeling sorry for myself because it was too swollen for me to play the banjo. I decided, however, that I had no cause for complaint after watching a video of Mountain Heart. The amazing Barry Abernathy plays banjo though missing all the fingers from his left hand. Incredible. I guess I'll just make do with three fingers for a while.
This link takes you to a CMT page. "I'm Just Here to Ride the Train" is a good one for watching the banjo player.
I showed the video to Katie, and she says, "Why would anyone want to play the banjo that much?" Banjo players are so misunderstood.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Sunday, July 23, 2006
The Door Destroyer
Recently I had the unique experience of replacing a door which had been kicked in by my client. Said client is at least six feet tall and built like a bull. Upon finding himself locked out of the house one day, he lost his temper and destroyed the back door. When I got there, I found bent and twisted pieces of the deadbolt and doorknob scattered on the ground, and a mangled steel door. In the interest of self-preservation, I decided to do what I could to stay on this guy’s good side.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Culture Change
This may surprise some, but I've been finding it hard to get very worked up about legislation dealing with moral and social issues like marriage, abortion, and drugs. Every victory looks good on its own, but over past years, we have seen a steady disintegration in the values of the American population in general. We have gone from fighting no-fault divorce to fighting homosexual marriage. Instead of trying to stop first trimester abortion, we are trying to keep doctors from removing feeding tubes from living adults.
The next generation of judges, legislators, journalists, and voters is one which has been taught that there is no creator, that there is no natural law, and that they owe no more allegiance to America than they do to any other nation. They have been instructed that every religion is equally tolerable unless one takes said religion so seriously that he believes it is the only true religion.
As long as we fail to train children with uncompromising Christian values, we will be fighting a losing battle. We may see a federal marriage amendment ratified, but on our current path, it will be repealed twenty years from now. We may have a ban on partial birth abortion, but eventually we will be arguing about whether to kill human clones to harvest organs. Passing moral laws without producing moral people is like taking cough drops to treat pneumonia. If our culture turns around, it will not be through good laws, it will be through changed people.
The best way to produce people of this sort is to have children and to have a lot of them. Children are blank hard drives just waiting for data. There's no way to estimate the impact of a man with many well-raised children.
The only other way is to retrain existing people. The fields of unbelievers are ripe for harvest. Evangelize. However, evangelization is not enough to create people who will take our country in the right direction. We need to be prepared to train younger believers on how the Bible applies to current events and politics. We need to teach them the implications of God being the Creator, and of the intrinsic value of human life.
Having said all that, I must point out that in all our endeavors, whether as lobbyists, evangelists, or housewives, we should not depend on success for incentive to persevere at our task. God may save our nation, but He may also decide to bring persecution to the church and to allow America to become a Babylon of immorality. Our part is simply to do what we know we must do.
The next generation of judges, legislators, journalists, and voters is one which has been taught that there is no creator, that there is no natural law, and that they owe no more allegiance to America than they do to any other nation. They have been instructed that every religion is equally tolerable unless one takes said religion so seriously that he believes it is the only true religion.
As long as we fail to train children with uncompromising Christian values, we will be fighting a losing battle. We may see a federal marriage amendment ratified, but on our current path, it will be repealed twenty years from now. We may have a ban on partial birth abortion, but eventually we will be arguing about whether to kill human clones to harvest organs. Passing moral laws without producing moral people is like taking cough drops to treat pneumonia. If our culture turns around, it will not be through good laws, it will be through changed people.
The best way to produce people of this sort is to have children and to have a lot of them. Children are blank hard drives just waiting for data. There's no way to estimate the impact of a man with many well-raised children.
The only other way is to retrain existing people. The fields of unbelievers are ripe for harvest. Evangelize. However, evangelization is not enough to create people who will take our country in the right direction. We need to be prepared to train younger believers on how the Bible applies to current events and politics. We need to teach them the implications of God being the Creator, and of the intrinsic value of human life.
Having said all that, I must point out that in all our endeavors, whether as lobbyists, evangelists, or housewives, we should not depend on success for incentive to persevere at our task. God may save our nation, but He may also decide to bring persecution to the church and to allow America to become a Babylon of immorality. Our part is simply to do what we know we must do.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Spider
I am buying time with this picture of a recently spotted creature. A more thoughtful post will be coming soon.
Monday, July 03, 2006
Dancing in Austin
Katie and I spent Saturday in Austin for an Israeli folk dance workshop. The teacher, Ya'akov Eden, was raised on a kibbutz in Israel, spent several years in a professional folk dance ensemble, and has spent the rest of his life studying Israeli dance. It's a really unique type of folk dance, because the Jews have only had their own country for sixty years. Most Israeli dances from before the 1940's feel very much like Balkan or gypsy dances. The dances we learned are from Israeli choreographers who wrote dances specifically for Israel during the early days of Israeli independence.
Katie and I decided we must be crazy about dancing. We went to our regular dancing in Houston Friday evening, had morning and afternoon workshop sessions in Austin, then went to Austin weekly dancing on Saturday evening, which goes from 7:30 to 11:00. Oh well, it was fun and worth it, and our feet and knees survived without injury.
Katie and I decided we must be crazy about dancing. We went to our regular dancing in Houston Friday evening, had morning and afternoon workshop sessions in Austin, then went to Austin weekly dancing on Saturday evening, which goes from 7:30 to 11:00. Oh well, it was fun and worth it, and our feet and knees survived without injury.
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