Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Friday, April 26, 2013
Relationship-building
“His road of thought is what makes every man what he is.”
-Zora Neale Hurston
-Zora Neale Hurston
Ali and Fannie Lou Hammer
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Sunday, April 21, 2013
To live as disciples of Christ
As followers of Christ, we strive to live in a way that visibly attests to the work of God in our lives. Yet it’s easy to feel timid or reluctant about displaying our faith—especially if we’ve failed before. Abram knew what it was like to fail in trusting God fully. In Genesis 12, he acted out of fear and self-preservation in the face of danger instead of trusting in God’s promise (Gen 12:10–20). Yet God remained faithful to him. In Genesis 14, when Abram learned that his nephew was in danger, he didn’t hesitate to act. Emboldened by God’s promise, Abram confidently set his eyes on the armies of the Mesopotamian kings, and with his band of trained men, he took down an army of giants.Our past failures or lapses of faith do not prevent God from using us to accomplish great things, whether in witnessing to His work in our lives or defeating armies of giants (see Psa 118:6; Rom 8:31). Abram’s life shows us that God can and will use us despite our weaknesses and failures (see 1 Cor 1:26–31). This encourages us, like the Apostle Paul, to recognize that God’s grace is sufficient and that His power is made evident through our weakness (2 Cor 12:9).
In Colossians 3:17, Paul wrote, “whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus” (ESV). Paul recognized that when we live out our faith, others notice—and they benefit from our efforts. This was true in Abram’s life: The Canaanite priest-king Melchizedek recognized Abram’s courage and, more importantly, God’s hand in Abram’s victory. Our faith should not only affect us, it should affect those around us as we respond to God’s call to live as disciples of Christ (see Col 3:12–15).
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
- Creative Classes -
And I'm Melissa Block. Over the years, there have been a lot of claims about the benefits of the arts on the mind. Listening to Mozart makes you smarter or playing an instrument makes you better at math. This week, we're going to take a closer look at the intersection of the arts and education. We begin with an effort funded partly by the government to turn around eight low-performing schools using an intensive arts program.
NPR's Elizabeth Blair reports.
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: The program is spearheaded by the president's committee on the arts and the humanities. The eight schools are in low income neighborhoods in Des Moines, Denver, New Orleans, on a reservation in Montana, among others. The committee's director is Rachel Goslins.
RACHEL GOSLINS: They were schools where kids seemed defeated and resigned. There wasn't a lot of motion or purpose or energy in the halls. They were schools that had failed for a long time.
BLAIR: Third-grader Jionni Anderson remembers what it was like. She's a student at Savoy Elementary in Washington, D.C., one of the schools selected for the program.
JIONNI ANDERSON: In first and second grade, we had white walls and that didn't look right in our school. So that's when our art teacher, Miss Hayes, and the art club, they painted different colors on the walls.
BLAIR: Bold colors - greens, oranges and reds. There had been an art teacher at the school but there wasn't any money for supplies or an art club. That all changed when Savoy became part of the Turnaround Arts Initiative, the official name for the program. Over the course of two years, each of the eight schools gets between 70 to $80,000, either in monetary or in-kind support.
Walk the halls of Savoy and you might wish you'd gone to school here yourself. In one class, kids are learning to play music on new keyboards donated by Yamaha.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: One, two, ready, and - stop.
BLAIR: There's a movement class taught by a professional dancer.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Clap, circle and clap, right. So then we go down...
BLAIR: Second-graders are playing hand bells.
(SOUNDBITE OF HAND BELLS AND CHILDREN CHATTERING)
BLAIR: Now, Savoy Elementary isn't trying to turn these students into great artists. Ultimately, they're trying to get them to improve their math and reading. But before that can happen, they need to feel good about coming to school, says Savoy principal Patrick Pope.
PATRICK POPE: So there is that internal, individual motivation that has to do with, where do I find success and is school a successful place for me? And I still may not be the best reader in my class, but I can certainly produce a song or be in a musical piece or learn a dance that everyone in my whole grade does equally well.
BLAIR: And now, when they experience success at Savoy, a lot of people notice, beginning with a famous actress who's on one of the most talked about shows on TV, Kerry Washington, who stars in "Scandal." She recently checked up on the students via Skype.
KERRY WASHINGTON: Hi. Can't you see me?
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP OF CHILDREN: (In unison) No.
WASHINGTON: Let's figure out how to make that happen.
BLAIR: As part of the Turnaround Arts Initiative, big-name artists, like Washington, Forest Whitaker and Yo-Yo Ma, have each adopted one of the eight schools. They visit the students in person, mentor them, give master classes and encouragement.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Our assessment test scores went up.
WASHINGTON: Whoo.
BLAIR: Well, some of those assessment test scores at Savoy have gone up, but mostly, according to the principal, the good news is that they haven't fallen, as they've done in recent years. Like most of the schools in the Turnaround Arts Initiative, the good news is that school attendance is up and visits to the principal are down.
But if scores do improve at these schools, should the credit go to the arts? Child psychologist Ellen Winner says no.
ELLEN WINNER: We could not find any studies that convinced us that there was a causal link between teaching the arts and performance on test scores. And we thought that this made a lot of sense because the kinds of thinking skills and habits of mind that students learn when they study the arts are a far cry from what's tested on multiple-choice, standardized tests.
BLAIR: Ellen Winner is the chair of psychology at Boston College and the co-author of the book "Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education." She says the Turnaround Arts Initiative still has a chance to succeed.
WINNER: The most plausible hypothesis in my mind would be that the arts lead to engagement and attendance and interesting teachers and engaged teachers. And it's that which would lead to test scores, not directly going from arts to test scores.
BLAIR: These eight schools are getting intense intervention: more staff, supplies, professional development, partnerships with local museums, dance companies and theaters. Rachel Goslins of the president's committee on the arts and the humanities admits this pilot might be hard to replicate at hundreds of schools. At the same time, she says, a strategy this aggressive might be what it takes to bring a school up from the bottom.
GOSLINS: We're spending a lot of time in these schools. We're really getting to know them and we're watching them blossom.
BLAIR: At the end of this two and a half year program, these eight schools and the Turnaround Arts Initiative will be judged by the same criteria as almost every other public school - how well they do on test scores. Elizabeth Blair, NPR News.
Copyright © 2013 NPR. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to NPR. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.
NPR's Elizabeth Blair reports.
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: The program is spearheaded by the president's committee on the arts and the humanities. The eight schools are in low income neighborhoods in Des Moines, Denver, New Orleans, on a reservation in Montana, among others. The committee's director is Rachel Goslins.
RACHEL GOSLINS: They were schools where kids seemed defeated and resigned. There wasn't a lot of motion or purpose or energy in the halls. They were schools that had failed for a long time.
BLAIR: Third-grader Jionni Anderson remembers what it was like. She's a student at Savoy Elementary in Washington, D.C., one of the schools selected for the program.
JIONNI ANDERSON: In first and second grade, we had white walls and that didn't look right in our school. So that's when our art teacher, Miss Hayes, and the art club, they painted different colors on the walls.
BLAIR: Bold colors - greens, oranges and reds. There had been an art teacher at the school but there wasn't any money for supplies or an art club. That all changed when Savoy became part of the Turnaround Arts Initiative, the official name for the program. Over the course of two years, each of the eight schools gets between 70 to $80,000, either in monetary or in-kind support.
Walk the halls of Savoy and you might wish you'd gone to school here yourself. In one class, kids are learning to play music on new keyboards donated by Yamaha.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: One, two, ready, and - stop.
BLAIR: There's a movement class taught by a professional dancer.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Clap, circle and clap, right. So then we go down...
BLAIR: Second-graders are playing hand bells.
(SOUNDBITE OF HAND BELLS AND CHILDREN CHATTERING)
BLAIR: Now, Savoy Elementary isn't trying to turn these students into great artists. Ultimately, they're trying to get them to improve their math and reading. But before that can happen, they need to feel good about coming to school, says Savoy principal Patrick Pope.
PATRICK POPE: So there is that internal, individual motivation that has to do with, where do I find success and is school a successful place for me? And I still may not be the best reader in my class, but I can certainly produce a song or be in a musical piece or learn a dance that everyone in my whole grade does equally well.
BLAIR: And now, when they experience success at Savoy, a lot of people notice, beginning with a famous actress who's on one of the most talked about shows on TV, Kerry Washington, who stars in "Scandal." She recently checked up on the students via Skype.
KERRY WASHINGTON: Hi. Can't you see me?
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP OF CHILDREN: (In unison) No.
WASHINGTON: Let's figure out how to make that happen.
BLAIR: As part of the Turnaround Arts Initiative, big-name artists, like Washington, Forest Whitaker and Yo-Yo Ma, have each adopted one of the eight schools. They visit the students in person, mentor them, give master classes and encouragement.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Our assessment test scores went up.
WASHINGTON: Whoo.
BLAIR: Well, some of those assessment test scores at Savoy have gone up, but mostly, according to the principal, the good news is that they haven't fallen, as they've done in recent years. Like most of the schools in the Turnaround Arts Initiative, the good news is that school attendance is up and visits to the principal are down.
But if scores do improve at these schools, should the credit go to the arts? Child psychologist Ellen Winner says no.
ELLEN WINNER: We could not find any studies that convinced us that there was a causal link between teaching the arts and performance on test scores. And we thought that this made a lot of sense because the kinds of thinking skills and habits of mind that students learn when they study the arts are a far cry from what's tested on multiple-choice, standardized tests.
BLAIR: Ellen Winner is the chair of psychology at Boston College and the co-author of the book "Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education." She says the Turnaround Arts Initiative still has a chance to succeed.
WINNER: The most plausible hypothesis in my mind would be that the arts lead to engagement and attendance and interesting teachers and engaged teachers. And it's that which would lead to test scores, not directly going from arts to test scores.
BLAIR: These eight schools are getting intense intervention: more staff, supplies, professional development, partnerships with local museums, dance companies and theaters. Rachel Goslins of the president's committee on the arts and the humanities admits this pilot might be hard to replicate at hundreds of schools. At the same time, she says, a strategy this aggressive might be what it takes to bring a school up from the bottom.
GOSLINS: We're spending a lot of time in these schools. We're really getting to know them and we're watching them blossom.
BLAIR: At the end of this two and a half year program, these eight schools and the Turnaround Arts Initiative will be judged by the same criteria as almost every other public school - how well they do on test scores. Elizabeth Blair, NPR News.
Copyright © 2013 NPR. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to NPR. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.
Monday, April 15, 2013
Thursday, April 11, 2013
~ The Codeblack Life ~
A positive outlook on LIFE, DOCTORS, TEACHERS, LAWYERS, and BUSINESS MEN. These are the positive role models that are not traditionally represented in the media or Hollywood.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Pray Together..
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Sheep Are Led-Rev. M.D. Rogers
Sheep Are Led
Cattle are driven; sheep are led; and our Lord compares His people to
sheep, not to cattle.
It is especially important that Christian ministers know the law of the
leader—that he can lead others only as far as he himself has
gone....
The minister must experience what he would teach or he will find himself
in the impossible position of trying to drive sheep. For this reason he
should seek to cultivate his own heart before he attempts to preach to
the hearts of others....
If he tries to bring them into a heart knowledge of truth which he has
not actually experienced he will surely fail. In his frustration he may
attempt to drive them; and scarcely anything is so disheartening as the
sight of a vexed and confused shepherd using the lash on his bewildered
flock in a vain attempt to persuade them to go on beyond the point to
which he himself has attained....
Friday, April 5, 2013
“While You Wait” pt.2
The second estate was that of church: established by the Word of God which set limits upon them “You shall not eat!” while at the same time giving them everything they needed “You may eat freely…” The third estate was that of government and came after they’d been expelled from the Garden. Force and coercion was now necessary to restrain sin; read how God handled Cain after the death of Abel.
Jesus himself points to the household as the arena of proper preparation for the coming of the Son of Man. In the verses immediately following our gospel text for the day, Jesus declares: “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes.” (Matthew 24:45-46) The household—the family—is the first estate established by God and endorsed by Jesus as an arena for our labors while we wait.
Essential to the establishment of the family is the coming together of man and woman as husband and wife—the one flesh of Genesis chapter two. Just as scripture declares in Genesis 5:2—“He created them male and female; when they were created, he blessed them and named them “humankind,”” so too does it declare: “and the two shall be one flesh.” Marriage is the foundation upon which the estate of family—and subsequently all the activity of economy—is built. As Luther sees it, the biblical understanding is simple: strong marriages equal strong families, strong families equal strong communities, strong communities equal strong commerce between them. Marriage, family, community, commerce—in each of them humanity has a variety of vocations: husband, father, citizen, boss.
Each vocation is a God-given duty so that we are some benefit to our neighbor. In the carrying out of these various duties we are doing the work of being “wholly-human”—that’s with a “w” and two “l”s—wholly. This is the “wholly-ness” which inspired Luther to declare a mother with babe on her knees and the servant with a mop have a work more holy than any bishop in his robes.
When he comes, Jesus Christ can find us employed in no better and greater task than in doing our duty.
A black poet -- French E Oliver, 1921 writes:
“There’s a king and a captain high,
And he’s coming by and by,
And he’ll find me hoeing cotton when he comes.
You can hear his legions charging in the regions of the sky,
And he’ll find me hoeing cotton when he comes.
There’s a man they thrust aside,
Who was tortured till he died,
And he’ll find me hoeing cotton when he comes.
He was hated and rejected,
He was scorned and crucified,
And he’ll find me hoeing cotton when he comes.
When he comes! When he comes!
He’ll be crowned by saints and angels when he comes.
They’ll be shouting out Hosanna! to the man that men denied,
And I’ll kneel among my cotton when he comes.”
“While You Wait” pt. 1
Greetings to you on this day that the Lord has made—a day for us to rejoice and be glad! Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
The Apostle Paul declared: “Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.” (Romans 13:11) When you don’t know the hour or the day of the appointed time, you have to settle for just knowing that the time of waiting is getting shorter. None of us like waiting. One of the funniest comedy routines I’ve ever heard was by Ken Davis on waiting. One beauty salon, he said, was capitalizing on people’s impatience. They’d posted a big hand-written sign announcing: “Ears pierced while you wait.”Though waiting for the main event—that is, waiting for the coming of the Son of Man arriving on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory to gather the elect—though waiting for that event wears us down, Jesus warns: “You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” Be watchful, be ready, be prepared—these are the qualities expected of those who wait. Just like disaster preparedness, there is no end to the experts who are willing to sell you advice or market their products to you so you can be appropriately watchful, ready, and prepared for the coming of the Son of Man and be numbered among the elect.
For two thousand years there’s been one religious prescription or another as proper preparation for the end times. Various times in church history have called for retreat to the desert; isolation in monasteries, holy pilgrimages, sacred duties, giving your heart to Jesus, working for peace and justice, etc. Martin Luther saw through the pretense of all these sorts of labors to their uncomfortable truth: these prescribed labors were more about the maintenance of the religious institution and its enrichment than about doing God-given work. Luther lumped all the labors prescribed by the religious leaders into one category: self-chosen works—that is, those things people choose to do as demonstrations of their own holiness or preparedness for their being one of the elect.
In contrast, Luther held that we do not get to choose our works but that God gives work to do while we wait. He called for people to be busy doing the things God had created humanity to be doing. This work is delivered through the three estates God established: family, church, and government. These things were readily available in the first chapters of Genesis. The first people, Adam and Eve, had been given three estates—three arenas or “institutions”—in which to be doing the things God had given over to them. The very first estate was that of family: established with the “marriage” of Adam and Eve and continued through the instruction to them “Be fruitful!” The second estate was that of church: established by the Word of God which set limits upon them “You shall not eat!” while at the same time giving them everything they needed “You may eat freely…” The third estate was that of government and came after they’d been expelled from the Garden. Force and coercion was now necessary to restrain sin; read how God handled Cain after the death of Abel.------
Thursday, April 4, 2013
James Madison, Federalist Papers
It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed? -- James Madison, Federalist Papers 62
10 Things You May Not Know About Martin Luther King Jr. — History in the Headlines
10 Things You May Not Know About Martin Luther King Jr. — History in the Headlines
On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was fatally shot as he stood on a balcony outside room 306 of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Forty-five years after his assassination, explore 10 surprising facts about the civil rights leader and 1964 Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
St. Joseph, pray for us.
St. Joseph, pray for us.
I watch my children and revel in their individuality. I teach them, read to them, figure out what makes them tick. I talk with my children's friends, or at least their parents on what they do, discipline techniques, hobbies, activities. My own children are not the first ones I've observed; between substitute teaching, summer programs, and full-time teaching, I had almost a decade of experience before my first was even born.
I've noticed some trends in all of this. It's going to drive the gender deconstructionists nuts, but I've lived it. Here's what I've come up with: Boys and girls are different.
There. I said it.
Boys have more energy and require more direction. They are paradoxically more easily distracted and more tunnel-visioned; have you ever tried to talk to a male of any age while there's a screen in the room? Extremely focused on the screen, less so on the person. Sitting at a table or desk with a book? Not so focused.
Girls, on the other hand, will sit and follow printed directions. We will color, or decorate, or scrapbook for hours without leaving our seat. Hence the depiction of women tatting lace, or quilting, or doing needlework. I haven't quilted but frankly, I can't imagine it's a terribly strenuous activity until you're putting all of your squares together to finalize the project.
"Boys need something to muck," states a friend of mine with six sons. "Boys need something useful and physical, and if it's not useful then competitive," say I. If they don't have that, they get... squirrelly. Random examples that have stuck with me are Edward Lewis' (that's Richard Gere's character) observation in Pretty Woman: "We don't build anything. We don't make anything." All of the work Almanzo does in Farmer Boy. The prevalence of men who have come to my house to fix the furnace, the washing machine, the electrical system; those who fix my car, tear up and rebuild our street, resod the lawn.
Where did this come from? Well, I'm reading Matthew Crawford's book and it just makes sense. So many occupations now involve marketing in ideas; it reminds me of Douglas Adams and his comments about moving "little green pieces of paper"--"on the whole, it wasn't the little green pieces of paper that were unhappy." Or something like. Even books now can exist entirely electronically--typed on the computer, emailed to an editor, published and downloaded to one's Kindle or Nook or phone app. There's something vaguely wrong about that, not having a product you can hold in your hands.
Boys, and by virtue men, when they make something it has to be useful. They're goal-oriented. They'll make you a bench, and while it may be beautifully painted or have artistic carving on the side, you'd better be able to actually sit on it. The shelf better be able to hold something when it goes on the wall. Even the art they make must have some greater purpose than decoration--it must tell a story, symbolize some greater event or idea.
They want to do something they can hold in their hands.
Girls will put a vase of flowers on the table for no reason besides to make it look pretty. We will cross-stitch a sampler of the alphabet, put it in a frame, and hang it on the wall. Everyone who sees it will already know the alphabet; it will not be covering a hole in the wall. Its sole purpose is to look pretty. Men rarely will do such a thing.
Sure, men buy flowers for women, but if you think it's just because they think the flowers will look pretty on the table, and have nothing to do with the woman's attitude, you're kidding yourself. Like I said, goal-oriented.
I believe this trend away from such activities, for all of us, is a loss. And yes, I do believe it is happening. How it is affecting our culture, my children's education, and what to do about it is another entry.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
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