Intellectuelle

A couple weekends ago in Philadelphia I spotted the following historic marker before City Hall, across from the old Wanamaker's building:

(photo credit: KYW Newsradio 1060 Philadelphia)

MOTHER'S DAY Founded by Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia. First officially observed in 1908, it honored motherhood & family life at a time of rising feminist activism. An early supporter was John Wanamaker, whose store stood opposite. Mothers' Day was given federal recognition, 1914.

There is also a marker in Albion, Michigan attributing the founding of Mother's Day, at least in Albion, to Charles and Moses Blakeley and the Albion Methodist Episcopal Church, in the 1880s.

According to the West Virginia State Archives, Anna Jarvis' mother, Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis, daughter of a Methodist minister and wife of the son of a Baptist minister, set up work clubs to improve health and sanitary conditions in communities of West Virginia near her home in the mid-to-late 1800s. During the Civil War, these clubs provided aid to soldiers on both sides.

After her husband's death, Jarvis moved to Philadelphia to be with her children. She died in 1905. Her daughter Anna was responsible for the institution of Mothers' Day, officially recognized at Andrews Methodist Church, where her mother served in Grafton, VA, and at Wanamaker's Department Store, on May 19, 1908.

Only four of Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis' twelve children lived to adulthood.

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Just wanted to throw in that, while I was making the final edits to the previous post, my kids marched through the house playing their parts to "Stars and Stripes Forever," preparing for the local Memorial Day parade when they will march with their dad's school band. (Now you know the secret to my great writing, ha.)

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I can't remember the last time I found the introduction to a book so completely and delightfully satisfying as the one in Gregory Vlastos' Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher. Really. I hope to someday read the entire book, though I may never fully understand it, as it is part of a body of scholarship with a history that can only be apprehended substantially by the lifetime student of the specific discipline of Socratic study. (Which is part of my point in telling you about the introduction. But I'll get to that.)

"How This Book Came to Be" starts off like this:

Socrates' "strangeness" (ατοπια) is the keynote of Alcibiades' speech about him in the Symposium. The talk starts on that note (215A); and reverts to it near the end:

Such is his strangeness that you will search and search among those living now and among men of the past, and never come close to what he is himself and to the things he says. (221D)

This book is for readers of Plato's earlier dialogues who have felt this strangeness, have asked themselves what to make of it, have pondered answers to its enigmas, and are willing to work their way through yet another. What I offer should not distract them from their encounter with the Socrates who lives in Plato's text. It should take them back there for a closer look.

By this time there are two long footnotes, together about two-thirds the length of the text I just quoted. The 20-page Introduction has more footnotes than some books I've read (74). But I'm glad, because they explain and support the text and provide sources. (When it comes to scholarship, thoroughness is a cardinal virtue.)

In as abbreviated form as I can manage (these are, after all, blog posts), I will synopsize the story:

Continue reading "Feminization and the church, part III: "humanism" and integrity in scholarship, part I"

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Like everyone else, I reacted to Eight Belle's demise following the Kentucky Derby with shock, sadness, and dismay.

I'd like to open a thread for your comments: is such a fate an inevitable risk of the sport? How much risk is too much -- are the stakes too high?

Consider this statement:

"You've really got to look at the whole picture," said trainer and former jockey Art Sherman. "Years ago you didn't have as much racing; now you have it year-round and horses don't get a break. To turn one out (let the horse rest a while) is not feasible to a lot of owners because it's so expensive even on the farm. The game has got to the point that it's just so hard to maintain them at their peak all year long. Racing is so rich for younger 2-year-olds that people push younger stock and then when they are three they're more apt to get hurt."

More commentary from Sports Illustrated.

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This past weekend I attended a Veritas seminar held at my church, led by Dr. John Wenrich of the Evangelical Covenant Church. Veritas: Telling the Truth About Revitalization helps church leaders "confront [their] current reality with faith, honesty, hope, and courage." In reference to the seven churches of Revelation, Wenrich, speaking truth in love, outlines four general categories of church health and presents ideas for assessing one's own church and improving its health.

A few nuggets from the seminar:

* Vitality is not the goal - it is the by-product of doing good ministry, and of the movement of the Holy Spirit.

* Conflict is normal and natural, especially as churches confront the need to change. Churches do well to adopt a "Behavioral Covenant" based upon Colossians 3:12-17 and I Thessalonians 5:12-26.

* There is no resurrection without death. Dysfunction (human sinful attitudes and practices) must die for a church to experience revitalization.

*Many churches are in denial about their state of health (Romans 12:3); their church has become an idol.

* "Attracting people" is the wrong focus. "If only..." thinking is fantasy.

* The church ought "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."

* The less healthy a church, the greater the cost to change

* Crisis decisions tend not to be wise ones. Short-term fixes become long-term liabilities.

* To "break out," there must be awareness of what's needed, brokeness (willingness to change), commitment, and a sense of urgency.

* The bottom line is that spiritual health is a matter of spiritual discernment.

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(turn sound up)

Five-minute video of the full story

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From The Friendships of Women by Dee Brestin:

* Point your friend towards God
* Encourage your friend to depend upon God, not upon you (and vice-versa)
* Make sacrifices for your friend (give a thing up so that they may have it)
* "Dream dreams" for your friend
* Pray for and with your friend
* Be honest with your friend
* Be knit together in soul with your friend

Cicero is quoted: "What is in fact sweeter than to have him with whom you dare to speak as with yourself?"

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Chocolate, shoes, coffee, clothes, purses.....these are some of things most common indulgences among women. Some of us--yes, me too--regard these things flavors and fashions as guilty pleasures, looking only briefly for ways to justify partaking of these sacraments. Furthermore, Christendom has found a way to harness the power of these little demons, to use them as a way to draw women into a closer relationship with Jesus. We are probably only weeks away from Purpose Driven Gucci or the Prayer of Godiva. I beg you to pardon my sarcasm. No matter your perspective on this issue, it's raised an important matter for myself--and hopefully for you as well. Far from being a guilty pleasure, how can we conceive of God with a desire greater than our desires for the smooth, sharp flavor of dark chocolate or the stylish luxury of a Coach bag? As those things meet some self-perceived need for personal gratification, can we arrive at the point of desiring God with a greater passion than we do those things? My assertion is that getting to God through the fashionable and flavorful sacraments is an over-contextualization. At the risk of sounding legalistic, I suggest that to focus on God through these indulgences is to give more power to the indulgences and less to God.

The Bible engages our minds with food-related metaphor and stories that aid us in how we think about God and what it means to be a Christian. We are told that Jesus is the bread of life, that those who hunger and thirst after righteousness will be satisfied, and Paul compared the nature of his teachings to milk and meat (1 Cor 3:2). Even our remembrance of the redemptive work of Christ is located in the partaking of communion....the sharing of the bread and the cup. But this way of orienting our minds to God can not to be likened to the power of creamy double-shots and trendy department store labels.

How much sway does God hold within each of us, or do we need more than a metaphor to relate to Him? Finding as much joy in our Lord as we do in our favorite shoes or desserts is a challenge. Is it God in whom you really want to indulge?

We connect with God through prayer, corporate worship, fellowship, bible study, and in our thoughts as we walk through each day. It is through the study of Scripture that we come to know who he is and what he has done for us. It is what we know of Him, what he has done on our behalf that causes us to love him. He created us, he died for us. Does this knowledge--this relationship with God--function as your ultimate indulgence? Do you crave more of God as you continue to know him?

As we look at examples in Scripture, we see women who indulged in God. I think Eve indulged in the idea of God, but missed the boat. Ruth indulged in God as she desired to know the God of Naomi. Esther indulged in God as she sacrificed herself for her people. Two excellent examples of women in the New Testament are Pricilla and Mary. Pricilla indulged in God as she demonstrated an ability to know doctrine and correct others in their understanding of it. Mary of Bethany indulged in Jesus at his feet, first in the role of student and then in an act worship, anointing his feet with oil with the locks of her hair.

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I've long been of the opinion that, when it comes to deeply-held beliefs, people are driven, not by reason, but by feeling. What's in their heads, i.e., the beliefs that lead them, are formed, ultimately, by what's in their hearts. Rarely if ever are these beliefs held dispassionately. The rational reasons for those beliefs, while grounding them, don't seem to drive them.

In commenting on a recent USAToday poll which showed slightly greater Republican support for McCain than Democratic support of Obama, identical support of each from members of the opposing party, and slightly higher Independent support for both Clinton and Obama than McCain, Democratic strategist Bill Carrick says,

Some of it defies the philosophy or ideology of John McCain and gets into John McCain the American hero, John McCain the maverick Republican, John McCain the antithesis of the Democratic and independent voters' stereotypes of Republicans. He looks much stronger in these polls than any other imaginable Republican nominee would be.

I'm not sure that, hypothetically, another Republican nominee couldn't appear stronger in the polls, but the point remains that it's a thumbs-up/thumbs-down approach that drives the polls and politics in general -- in a word, approval. And rarely are either approval or disapproval expressed dispassionately. It's not a tide of ideology or philosophy per se that people tend to ride, but one of "what-tickles-me-now." Principles? Nah. Integrity? Nah. Stereotype? Yeah. Uninformed opinions? Yeah. Stereotype means someone is written off, and "principle" or "integrity" means "does stuff I like."

These are some of the reasons I'm stymied by elections. It's hard to know just how and what any given candidate will do in office, even if one spends a lot of time studying the issues and candidates and following all the media reporting. It's hard to find actual substance upon which to base one's vote. Although one must try.

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Hmmm, things like chocolate, maybe? Eclexia has written what might be the ultimate "feel-good" post...ok, I exaggerate, but not by much! It's got beauty, it's got something to educate you, it's got chocolate, or at least pictures and references thereof.

Which got me thinking... as "women who think" what makes us feel good? Like most women, many of us like beauty tips, we like beauty in our homes and experiences, we like to eat well and enjoy a shared recipe or two... but what really makes us feel good is to learn something. And that makes all women potentially "women who think", women of intelligence. There is joy in understanding something new from a new perspective, and in the creative sparks that come from engaged discussion. That is what I love about today's blog reading experience... and what I love about this experiment called Intellectuelle.

What makes you feel good?

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Give me a candle and a Bible and shut me up in a dark dungeon, and I will tell you everything that the whole world is doing.

I don't know the origin of this quote, but it seems apropos to one who would study apologetics or approach the lost, or the world, with such a bent. (I prefer not to use the term "culture," rather than "lost" or "world," because to speak of Christ vs. culture creates a false dichotomy and promotes a false notion that all which makes up culture is bad. Or at the very least, it fails to draw lines in the proper places.)

I used to despair, or at least feel inadequate, at being unable to keep up with the news, or with current cultural streams. Now I often fail to do so because of being too busy keeping up with my life. Of course it's helpful to know what's going on in the world, but not necessary. Why? Because what's most important is that I take care of myself, my family, and my friends, and do the work in front of me as well as I can. This requires wisdom not so much of current events but of the ways of both God and the world, and knowledge of my own heart and the hearts of those whom I contact. Yes, I need a modicum of social and cultural awareness. But beyond this, all that's essential is to know what's in my Bible and to be transformed, in the Spirit, by this knowledge. Then I will live an apologetic in any situation I face. And a lived apologetic is the best kind, don't you think?

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