Well, that makes my day

Scientists and historians have discovered and identified the remains of Queen Hatshepsut, a 15th dynasty ruler of Egypt and the only female Pharoah.

Apparently, guys like me can still find out cool stuff.

Me and my NASB

For the first time, I have become intensely irritated with the editors of the New American Standard Bible.

Here's why.

They follow modern pious-American rules of capitalization, in which all pronouns whose antecedent is a member of the Trinity are capitalized. This bugs me for a number of reasons. First, while I appreciate the intent, it's completely artificial and arbitrary. The rule only makes sense in a system that uses capitals (which no one did till modern times) and has only been adopted fairly recently: King James et al. saw no need to do it in 1611. It reminds me a bit of people who attempt to pray in "thees" and "thines": I get what they're trying to do, but question the manner in which they try to do it.

Second, it makes for really annoying reading in passages scattered with pronouns. Then He said to Him, "Sit Thou at My right hand." Or something like that.

Finally, and most seriously, it freezes the meaning of passages. I was reading in Isaiah today, in a passage in which an I-speaker, a servant of God, is conversing with the Lord. The editors decided that this speaker is Christ and, as a result, capitalized every pronoun referencing him. Part of this I don't mind--of course the speaker "is" Christ in some sense of the word. Shoot, almost everything in the OT is. Some verse in the NT claims that everything in the Old was given as a type or allegory. And that's just fine.

But the typological/figurative/metaphorical/prophetic meaning should never erase the literal, not if you can help it. Sure, the speaker in Isaiah is foreshadowing Christ and is a prefiguration of Christ. But he's not Christ simply so called: he has meaning in his own time, and in himself. The capitalization of the pronouns denies this: this character is Christ, and what is said of him cannot be predicated of anyone else. It flattens the meaning, and denies the multiple levels of significance it can carry. And this makes me irritated. Because simple, flattened texts are so much less interesting (and far less aesthetically appealing) than those that operate on multiple levels. And it also makes it seem that Christ is portrayed clearly and openly in the OT in a way that he's not.* He's a treasure hidden in the field--finding him there requires some digging.

And so, I'm irritated at my NASB.

*These simple readings cause a whole host of problems, most having to do with ugly anti-Semitic triumphalism. You get it, for instance, in the Left Behind books. The OT clearly says that Jesus would be born in Nazareth, of a virgin, of the line of David, have his hands and feet pierced, etc. Anybody to whom this was not immediately apparent, and who wasn't looking for such a Messiah, was obviously either wicked or stupid. The Jews did not see this; the Jews must be wicked or stupid. Except the OT is much more elusive and allusive than that. All the passages above, I believe, reference Christ, but this is clear only in retrospect. And even so, it requires some work.

New Blog for Regg

Go to ramblingbr.blogspot.com to find out more.

Ixtlan...the fun begins

So I arrived in Ixtlan yesterday and am working on adjusting to the rigors of Mexico. So far that has been a achingly long trip to the airport, flight to Guadalajara, and ride to the complex here in Ixtlan. I left home at 5:00 and arrived here in Ixtlan sometime around 6:00 or 6:30. I then went with Spencer Lewis and Matt Gerber to find some fresh Pina Colada. Very tasty. We mingled with the locals as we walked around and had a pleasant evening stroll through Ixtlan.

The weather is a nice perfect, 66 F. I am sitting in the guest house writing this blog and all the windows are open and outside I hear the bird singing, the natives talking back and forth and the stupid roosters are still crowing even though they have been at it since about 5:00 this morning. I know that Ben would have a great theory about commiting mass rooster murder, but at this point I haven't taken the time to come up with one myself.

Tomorrow is Sunday and after church and dinner, I will be boarding a bus, taking it to a nearby town changing buses and taking that bus to Morelia. Then I have to switch to taxi and take a taxi from the bus stop to my host family's house. So if something crazy and terrifying is going to happen to to me in the next week, it will probably be tomorrow.

Making a Fool of Myself

So, I think I was right about the fact that no one reads this anymore. The greatest aspect of the blog is that it conveys information to copious amounts of people with only a few click of the button. The only downfall is that people can disregard the information by simply not going to the website. I guess that isn't that entirely different than simply deleting the email or marking me as spam. So, that's a kinda depressing thought. Just don't tell me if you delete my emails. Of course with all the emails I send that should be a huge problem shouldn't it.

So I am sitting here thinking about leaving to go to Morelia on Friday. I have been a human yo yo for the past week. I get really excited about going to Mexico and how great it will be to come back and have all the experience and the knowledge of the language. Then I realize how little Spanish I know and that I will make a fool of myself, which I think is the point of learning a foreign language. I don't know. Perhaps that is some new philosophy of learning that I should employ. Learning is simply the process of making a fool of yourself and then not doing it again. The biggest flaw I have in this theory is that people have to learn from their mistakes and that is becoming less and less likely from what I have seen in the world. I'll have to study this in the next weeks.

Anyway, I probably won't be able to blog much the rest of this week so we will see what happens when I get to Morelia and such.

Revised Summer Plans

Yeah this actually is happening, I wonder who will actually read it though.

I had thought about going to language school before, never seriously and never about this summer. I thought it would eventually be helpful on many levels: school, some of dad's Mexican help, and trips to Mexico, maybe eventually some time spent down there. Like I said though, never anything serious. Then things changed, fast.

Last weekend was the Gridley World Invite. I wasn't going to go. I had just finished my last day of school and wanted to take a break, but at the last minute, about 11:30 on the way home from Rhett's I decided to go and we left Saturday morning at 8:00. The day was great, for all my bad expectations, it was a really great day that focused on prayer and mission, mainly the power of prayer in the Great Commission. After all the talking and things were over, I was talking to David. Jeff had told me he was going to Language school this summer and so I asked him about it. The first thing out of his mouth was "Yeah, I'm going. You want to come?" This took me back a little, but I didn't really think about it that much. Finished the conversation with him and nothing really happened. Later, I was talking with Jeff and I told him what David had said and he immediately lit up. His face was so hopeful and excited that my mind skipped a couple of times and I realized, suddenly, that language school wasn't out of the question and immediately my mind started to do the excuse thing.

Jeff and I talked for a little while and I shared what was going through my mind. I was worried about this summer ( I wasn't planning to go to Mexico). I worried that next year after school I would want to go to Mexico after all the portfolio work and things that I had to go through. What did God want me to learn Spanish for? What is His plan? I still don't know.

Anyway, when the everything was over on Saturday night, Jeff and I went to Roanoke to stay with our Grandparents. I went to sleep praying that God would 1) show me what he wanted me to do-quickly because the summer had already started and I needed to get going, and 2) that God would open the doors and make it work ( I didn't have ton's of obligations this summer, but enough to make things a little complicated for God. You know how it is, I wanted to test Him a little. Not a good idea as God is, well, God and He can pass any test (which he did with flying colors).

I woke up on Sunday, got ready for church and went to church thinking that everything was maybe behind me by now, maybe next summer. Well, John Bradle stands up to preach and first of all opens to some random Old Testament book and reads it. I don't think much about it. We sing, we pray and he opens to Acts 9, Annanias going to heal Paul after he was blinded on the road to Damascus. So, John proceeds to preach an entire sermon about how Annanias didn't understand why God was telling him to do this, it didn't make sense, it could even be very dangerous, but Annanias just trusted God and took the next step. I don't know if I have ever heard a sermon that was so directed to me nor felt so directed and led by God. Then Tom Hoffman stands up and finishes up telling a story of Magdalena and how God works in ways that we can't comprehend. Then he goes on to say almost word for word "If you feel that the Spirit is leading you to do something and it doesn't really make sense, you don't understand it, take the next step, just do it. Then they announce Ready to Go as the song to end the service. I didn't really have any argument for God at that point. It has been amazing.

So then I come home and get started with all the planning and well, just like I prayed, everything has fallen into place. My last school obligation is on June 14th, I will leave June 15th on the same flight as Rudy, Rosario, and Claudia. I will be able to go with them to Ixtlan and then go on to Morelia. I will get back on the 6th of August and my next school obligation is the 7th. Everything is falling into place perfectly.

I will be taking the individual/one-on-one classes, 4 lessons a day, for 7 weeks. I will be living with a family down there that the school places me with. I am excited, but scared about the transition.

Here are my Prayer requests as of now:

1. God would use this time above all else to glorify His Name
2. God would open my mind to Spanish and help me to learn and apply everything I learn
3. God would use this time to strengthen my relationship with Him on all levels
4. God would give me the grace and boldness not to balk at any chance I have to share his name and love with those I meet
5. Obviously, God would guide me and strengthen me as I transition to living in Mexico, essentially alone.

It encourages me to know that I will have your prayers behind me as I go through these next couple of months