An Opinion About Formal Education

It's difficult for me to try to be succinct about a large subject  in a forum such as this, as succinctness can tend to come across as over-simplification. But when it comes to how we view higher education in the church, let me use one example--algebra.

Somewhere along the way, basically every institution of higher learning accepted the fact that teaching algebra was a way to train a person's mind to "think critically," and therefore made a certain amount of algebra required for any accredited degree of higher learning. But some people's brains simply aren't "wired" in such a way that algebra makes sense to them. Yet these people aren't necessarily therefore less intelligent, but they are at an extreme disadvantage in academia.

I've been told over and over again that algebra isn't so much about the math for most people as it is about training the person to think critically. I argue that algebra is training a person to think via a certain process. In other words, it's almost as though saying, "Follow this pattern, as it is the best pattern to think properly."

At the same time, it is my observation that woefully little attention is paid to history--not necessarily names and dates but causes and effects.

This is not to say that algebra is bad or that history is better, but rather illustrating that the education establishment--not so much different than other entities do--has fallen into a pattern of saying that "this is the correct way, and everybody must do it this way in order for their work to be recognized."

In the church, I am concerned if we hold too rigidly to that pattern. We need to allow room for the Holy Spirit to work in the lives of people, regardless of whether or not those people have formal educations.

Basaball's Playoff System

I confess, I have been a Cubs' fan for as long as I can remember back into my childhood.  This 2015 season has been one of the rare good seasons in Cubs' baseball during my lifetime.  The 97-win season equals the most wins the Cubs have had in a season during my lifetime.  The last time the Cubs won more than 97 games in a season was back in 1945.

For the record, I am writing this prior to the Cubs' playoff game vs. the Pirates, so this post really has nothing to do with the outcome of the game.  The two teams are quite evenly matched, and so I do not have a prediction as to which team will win.  Besides, this post isn't about that; this post is about how the current playoff system could be changed for the better.

In a one-game playoff, anything can happen.  Weather can be a factor.  A home plate umpire can have a wide/narrow/high/low/inconsistent strike zone throughout the game.  A ground ball can take a bad bounce off of a pebble.  A key player can have an illness on the day of the game.  Baseball isn't like pro football where there are only 16 regular season games per year.  Major League Baseball's season has over ten times more games to a season than does the National Football League.  It doesn't seen right that after playing baseball games on an almost daily basis for six months, two teams such as the Pirates and Cubs--who have better records than all but one of the eight MLB playoff teams--should face playoff elimination after just one game.

The first suggestion I'd like to make about the wild card playoff is that it be changed to a best two out of three.  The team with the best record of the two teams would play the first game on the road, then return home for the second and (if needed) third games.

The second change I'd like to suggest is that each league's playoffs should be based primarily on team records while making a division secondary.  The current system doesn't take into account a team's overall body of work throughout a season.  It reminds me of the strike-interrupted 1981 season that ended up being divided into two halves, with the teams with the best record in each half making the playoffs.  That year, the Cincinnati Reds had the best overall record for the entire season, but didn't make the playoffs.  That was just wrong.

A team's overall season record should trump a division title if the team with the division title had a lower winning percentage than a wild card team.  This season, it wouldn't have made a difference in the American League, as all three division winners had better records than both of the wild card teams.  But in the National League, I believe that the playoffs should have been this way: the Western Division winning Los Angeles Dodgers (with a .568 winning percentage for the season) should have been in the first round of the playoffs with home field advantage over the Eastern Division winning New York Mets, who had a .556 winning percentage for the season.  The winner of that round should then face the team with the best winning percentage for the season (the St. Louis Cardinals, at .617), while the Pirates (.605) should have home field advantage against the Cubs (.599), each for a best-of-five series.  If, in the event a division winning team ends with an identical record to a wild card team, the tie breaker would go to the division winner.

As I said, this is being written prior to the Cubs-Pirates game, so regardless the outcome of that game, I hope that in the future these types of changes are implemented.  I believe it would make a team's overall body of work throughout the 162-game season more meaningful than it is with the current system.

To Attend or Not To Attend; That Is the Question...

I've been a baseball fan for as long as I can remember.  Some of my earliest memories from my childhood involve baseball.  Having grown up in the Chicago area, I began following the Chicago Cubs, whose home games (and most away games) were televised on WGN Television (Channel 9).

I had my first opportunity to attend a Cubs game in person when my parents took my brother and me to Wrigley Field during the 1969 season.  When we attended the game (which the Cubs won, by the way, on a late-inning, go-ahead home run by Billy Williams) on August 3rd, the Cubs had been in first place the entire season.  From our seats in the grandstands down the left field foul line, we watched Ron Santo after the game run to the Clubhouse door (at that time located near the left field corner at Wrigley) and click his heals 3 times.  Everything was good for Cub fans at that time.  But by September 10th, the Mets had passed the Cubs in the standings, and the 1969 season for the Cubs has since that time lived in infamy in the minds of most Cub fans who experienced it.

1969 for me began a personal streak of attending at least one (and often many more than one) Cubs game in person annually.  That streak lasted 15 years, until I was on the road full-time with a ministry team, and was unable to attend a game that season--in 1984. I found it ironic that the first year I didn't get to attend a game was the first year in my lifetime that the Cubs actually made it to the playoffs.

Over the next four years, I found ways to attend at least one Cubs game per season in person--even if they were away games for the Cubs in Cincinnati (the closest Major League Baseball venue to where I had re-located), with my streak again stopping in the 1989 season--the next time (and second time in my life) the Cubs had made the playoffs.

After that, my ability to attend Cub games dwindled, and I've probably seen less than 10 Cub games in person in the ensuing 25 years.  I do know, however, that during none of the seasons that I was able to attend a Cub game did the Cubs ever make the playoffs (despite the Cubs having made the playoffs several seasons during that time period).  It got to the point where I almost felt that if I wanted the Cubs to get to the playoffs, I shouldn't attend a game.

Fast forward to 2015.  The Cubs have already clinched a playoff spot.  I didn't know that this would be the case a couple of months ago when my son had the opportunity to get tickets to this evening's scheduled game in Cincinnati where the Reds are to host the Cubs.  I told him that sure, we should get tickets and go to the game.  So, Lord willing, this evening I will get to see a Cubs game in person during a season when they are going to the playoffs--a first in my approximately 50 years (in other words, as far back as I can remember) of being a Cubs fan.

Is There Truly a Difference?

It is a tragedy.  A woman in Ohio has been indicted for murdering three of her children in three separate incidents over the course of about 13 months.  The indictment by the grand jury was handed down yesterday, with the most recent death having occurred a week earlier.

The indictment says that the woman killed one of her children when the child was 3-months old, in July of 2014; that she killed the second child when the child was 4-years old in April of 2015; and that she killed the third child when the child was 3-months old earlier this month.  It is a tragedy, and under Ohio law, the indicted woman could face the death penalty.

I have heard no one say that if this woman indeed did kill her three children (we must preserve the presumption of innocence unless and until she is found guilty), it is OK.  On the contrary, I've heard only negative comments regarding this woman's alleged deeds.

But here's what I find ironic: if this woman had chosen just about 90 to 120 days earlier to allow a doctor to terminate her pregnancies (speaking specifically of the first and third children who died) before the children were born, many people would have said that would have been perfectly fine.

OK, this is an honest question, one that I would like people who say that it would have been OK to terminate the pregnancies at 8-9 months of gestation, but prior to birth, to answer: what is the difference if the pregnancy was terminated or if the child was killed by the mother 3 months after birth?

I am looking for an honest discussion.  No name-calling, no vulgarity, no condescension.  Just discussion.

Is there a difference?  If so, why?

They Must Have Been Stupid

They must have been stupid. 

They let their kids ride bicycles in the street—without helmets!  They fed their kids bologna sandwiches on white bread.  They let their kids drink small amounts of beer and wine—and even champagne on special occasions.  They let their kids light fires in outdoor fire pits, and let them eat the hot dogs and marshmallows they cooked over those fires.  They let their kids shoot BB guns—at birds!  They let their kids have sleepovers with friends in tents in the back yard.  When the kids were playing outside in the hot summer sun—without sunscreen—and got thirsty, they told the kids to drink water out of the garden hose.

They told their boys that if other students picked on them at school, to not be afraid to fight—but not with girls, because boys shouldn’t hit girls.

They told their kids that certain things were right—or good, and other things were wrong—or bad.  Their kids understood that breaking of the rules would likely result in spankings—and even in slaps in the mouth if the rules broken included things such as saying bad words or back-talking.  When the kids got to be about age 11 or so, the parents would go out at night and leave the kids home by themselves.

But these parents have finally been exposed and are in the process of being punished for their misdeeds.  

They were my parents—and they were the parents of many of the people of my generation.  Our parents are being punished by our society’s showing them how wrong they were. This society is more and more invalidating the things our parents taught us. 

I guess that’s the legacy with which our parents have been left, because according to the developing mores of our current society, our parents must have been stupid.

I Concluded I'd Been Dreaming

I concluded I'd been dreaming.

I had been sound asleep, and heard something that sounded similar to the tones of the Emergency Broadcast System coming from my wife's cell phone which was next to her side of the bed.  My wife didn't even hear it; she was still sound asleep.  So I got up, picked up my wife's cell phone (which was next to the digital clock that read 3:03) and looked for what the issue might be.  I saw nothing on her cell phone indicating anything except that a relative of ours had made a couple of Facebook posts several hours earlier.  We've been through a rainy period of time with sudden thunderstorms over the past 6 weeks or so around here, so I looked out the window to see if it might be storming--or at least if a storm was approaching.  The sky was clear and I could see the moon.  So I went into the living room and turned on the TV to one of the local channels that shows news--at least scrolling it on the bottom of the screen if it's something really important.  There was nothing there.  That's when I concluded that I must have been dreaming...

...Until late this afternoon when I was  at work and someone had mentioned that there had been an Amber Alert issued at 3:03am.  A number of people heard that comment, and several of them mentioned having been awakened by the alert.  I now realized I had not been dreaming.  I found it odd, though, that my wife's phone would sound that alarm, but not show anything.  People said that the Amber Alert was for someone in a town almost exactly 200 miles away.

When I got home, I mentioned it to my wife, who--as I stated before--had slept right through the alert.  She confirmed that she hadn't heard it, but said that it was on her old cell phone--the one that is no longer connected to our cell phone plan, but on which she sets the alarm clock in the event her regular cell phone alarm has a problem (something that has indeed happened a couple of times).

Odd.  Only the cell phone that is not connected to our cell phone plan received the alert (my phone did not receive the alert either), and it was for a situation 200 miles away at 3 in the morning.

As of this time, I don't know any more about the Amber Alert (I honestly haven't tried to look it up this long after it was issued).  I hope that the person has been located and is safe.  But if these Amber Alerts are going to be effective, they should generally be more localized, should have information about them at least scrolling at the bottom of local television station programming, and should be going to phones that are active--not ones that are no longer connected to any plan.

I'm sure I'm missing something here, but in all honesty, waking people up at 3:00am 200 miles away is likely to cause more resentment towards Amber Alerts--and get people to ignore them more and more--than it would by concentrating on getting the message to people who are actually awake (i.e., maybe watching TV) and who are not so far away.

A Hodgepodge Overdue? How About Pizza?

Today, the blog I set up a number of years ago came to mind.  So I looked today and found that it had been over five years since I posted anything to it.  That really surprised me; I didn't think it had been more than a year or so.

Well, I thought I'd post something today--just for the fun of it--about pizza.

Today is Sunday night.  As it happens, I have now had pizza to eat three days in a row.  This wasn't done intentionally.  We ate a fairly early dinner on Friday evening before heading out to the Dayton Dragons baseball game.  By the time we were heading home from the game, my wife and I both said we were feeling a bit hungry, so I suggested that we get a pizza--especially since our son and daughter-in-law were coming over too.  I figured a pizza would be a good thing to get for everyone to be able to have a little snack.

The next evening, we went to our other son's house for our grandson's birthday party. The main food at the party was pizza. Then today after the worship service, the person who provided lunch (we have a lite lunch every Sunday after the morning worship service) provided pizza.

You'd think I might have been burnt out on pizza, but not so! One of the great things about pizza is that one pizza can be very different than another.  Not only can different toppings make pizzas taste different, but different brands can taste very different.  Friday night it was Little Caesar's (only $5 for a large pepperoni; I splurged and paid $6 because I decided I wanted Italian sausage instead).  Saturday during the birthday party it was Pizza Hut.  Today at church it was frozen boxed pizza (I think someone said it was Tony's).  They were all completely different.

What's even better about pizza is that I personally think it often tastes better cold after having been refrigerated at least overnight.  Cold pizza tastes different than hot pizza.  Therefore, when it came time to eat something tonight, what was here to eat?  The pizza from Friday night--only cold this time.  Yep.  I had pizza again this evening.

I'll probably skip at least a day of eating pizza tomorrow.  But I guess I can say that generally speaking (unless it has too many ingredients--especially if it has mushrooms and vegetables, which I simply do not like on pizza), I like pizza.