Volume XX, Issue XXII: Books to Inspire Young Hearts
The Power of Great Stories
Live the life that unfolds before you- love goodness more than you fear evil.”
– Jonathan Rogers, The Bark of the Bog Owl
Imagination is what convinces us that there's more to the world than meets the eye. And isn't that the first principle of faith?”
– Jonathan Rogers
Discovering The Wilderking Trilogy[1.] is like finding a whole new trove of J. R. R. Tolkien manuscripts hitherto fore undiscovered. As Tolkien and C. S. Lewis sought to write myth for their day, I really think this is exactly the kind of literature they intended to encourage. Jonathan Rogers masterfully presents elements of a very old story in a very fresh way, inviting a journey of the imagination. In a world all too ready to offer our youth dystopia and despair, Rogers offers noble heroism, Faith and faithfulness. His stories inspire, encourage and enlighten. I heartily recommend them!
The Power of True Stories
When I was thirteen, my uncle gave me a copy of Endurance to read one Summer. The heroic story of Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton and his men surviving the entrapment by ice and crushing of their ship riveted me. The men pile supplies into lifeboats and drag them like sleds across the ice, then set to sea in the hopes of reaching land hundreds of miles away. Finally the men reach land... but it is a harsh land, and they live under the shelter of the lifeboats as they ponder what to do next. The story of the aptly-named Endurance is one EVERY thirteen year old boy should have handed to him. In it are many lessons for life ahead.
Unbroken, the story of Olympian Louie Zamperini and his wartime comrades was written by Laura Hillenbrand. Her telling of Louie's story was as riveting as Endurance had been so long ago. Unbroken follows Louie through his troubled childhood to a place where he finds purpose in running. It follows him through the trials and terrors of the great war in the Pacific, to a place where he finds a far greater place of redemption. The story deals with the powerful theme of human dignity... given and taken away. It deals with the place of hopelessness and resources unseen.
It is a story that must take its place in literature for young adults and indeed for all of us. I am sure that I am not alone in seeing much of myself in Louie Zamperini. His turbulent youth, his disappointments and his struggle will resonate with a lot of us. Follow this great story to this conclusion and you will indeed find a 'Pearl of Great Price.' -- Matthew 13:45-46
B-24 cockpit.
Ball turret.
The plane's radio.
Louis Zamperini Honored
Greg Laurie interviews Louis Zamperini.
The Power of Forgiving
The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when they make their tormenters suffer." -- Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken, p. 373.
Ouch! Louis Zamperini delivers a blow to the ego. Having suffered the most dehumanizing and degrading treatment at the hands of his captors, he finds the strength to forgive. In doing so, he reflects the best in humanity... IMAGO DEI, and the inference is powerful! Any of us can find that place of strength that Zamperini discovered. The freedom Louie Zamperini found is there for the taking! Here is a story where the end is truly the beginning.
The Power of Giving
The story of Dr Prajak Arunthong. ht/Kristina Elaine Greer.
It has been forty years since the release of Sylvester Stallone's classic movie about a washed-up fighter taking his unexpected opportunity and 'Going the Distance.' Here is some insight into the making of the film and Stallone's daring to tell his story:
The long shot story of Stallone and his alter-ego: 'Rocky.'
Everyman's struggle! Rocky Balboa has come to represent the struggle we all relate to. Unknown actor Sylvester Stallone Stallone quickly wrote out the eighty page screenplay in a spiral notebook and pitched it in a last-ditch effort to make his mark in movies. The rest is history.
Who hasn't intensified a workout to the music of 'Gonna Fly Now?' The song captures something of the American Spirit... the drive to overcome in the face of unbeatable odds. It is a quality we need to nurture.
Gonna Fly Now!
Rocky I
Rocky II
Rocky III
Dr. Katherine Johnson Part of the Inspiration for 'Hidden Figures'
Dr. Katherine Johnson. NASA Photo
A new film debuts at the end of this year about the ladies who made up a special mathematics group at Langley Research Center. I must confess that I had heard discussion long ago about a group of women who had actually calculated the launch windows and trajectory information for Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, but I never knew much about them. Fortunately their story was too good to be left untold and the film is based on a nonfiction book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly, who grew up near NASA's Langley Research Center, where Johnson and her colleagues worked.
As a girl, Johnson says that she loved to count. She was fascinated by numbers. Her father worked at West Virginia's Greenbrier Resort and wanted his children to go to college. He worked all the overtime he could to pay for it. Johnson Graduated from High School at fourteen, college at eighteen. Her High School Principal would walk her home and show her the constellations above. He literally showed her how to 'reach for the stars!' An article in 'Business Insider says: "Later, she was mentored by Dr. William W. Schiefflin Claytor, who suggested she aim to become a research mathematician. He created the classes he knew she would need to succeed, including one in which she was the only student. Throughout her education, she says she succeeded in part because she was always asking questions — even when people tried to ignore her, her hand stayed up."
After college, Katherine became a math teacher. She was hired in 1953 to work for NASA — then called the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). In those days, human mathematicians were essential to aerospace engineering. My Mother had done the same kind of work at the Martin Company in Baltimore in the 1940's. Computers would take a while longer to catch up with these slide-rule wizards. Dr. Johnson and her colleagues performed the calculations that literally paved the way for man to go to the moon.
The Place of Faith in Education A Unique Perspective on the Issue from CIVITAS
Iris.
Education is only adequate and worthy when it is itself religious… There is no possibility of neutrality… To be neutral concerning G-d is the same thing as to ignore Him… If children are brought up to have an understanding of life in which, in fact, there is no reference to G-d, you cannot correct the effect of that by speaking about G-d for a certain period of the day. Therefore our ideal for the children of our country is the ideal for truly religious education." -- William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury in 1942.
Here is a very interesting report from CIVITAS [1.], on The Place of Faith in Schools [click to read] byProfessor David Conway. It adds a new dimension to the debate now raging in America between those who would impose a strictly secular criteria and those who consider Faith an essential component of learning.
A nation which draws into itself continuously, and not merely in its first beginnings, the inspiration of a religious faith and a religious purpose will increase its own vitality… Our own nation… has been inspired by a not ignoble notion of national duty to aid the oppressed – the persecuted Vaudois, the suffering slave, the oppressed nationality – and it has been most... characteristically national when it has most felt such inspiration…
We offend against the essence of the [English] nation if we emphasise its secularity, or regard it as merely an earthly unit for earthly purposes. Its tradition began its life at the breast of Christianity; and its development in time, through the centuries… has not been utterly way from its nursing mother… [I]n England our national tradition has been opposed to the idea of a merely secular society for secular purposes standing over against a separate religious society for religious purposes. Our practice has been in the main that of the single society, which if national is also religious, making public profession of Christianity in its solemn acts, and recognising religious instruction as part of its scheme of education." -- Ernest Barker, Cambridge Philosopher
Professor Conway Concludes: "All would stand to benefit from such committed forms of religious education in the country’s state-funded schools, not simply because it would be likely to improve the educational performance, behaviour and well-being of the nation’s schoolchildren. They would also all benefit because, I believe, only by continuing to provide it can this country be assured of remaining the independent and united liberal polity that it has for so long been and from whose continuing to be such all its diverse inhabitants would derive benefit, even those who do not share that faith or any other."
My aunt used to live in Paris.
I remember, she used to come home and tell us these stories about being abroad and I remember she told us that she jumped into the river once, barefoot.
She smiled...
Leapt, without looking
And tumbled into the Seine
The water was freezing
She spent a month sneezing
But said she would do it again
Here's to the ones who dream
Foolish as they may seem
Here's to the hearts that ache
Here's to the mess we make
She captured a feeling
Sky with no ceiling
The sunset inside a frame
She lived in her liquor
And died with a flicker
I'll always remember the flame
Here's to the ones who dream
Foolish as they may seem
Here's to the hearts that ache
Here's to the mess we make
She told me:
"A bit of madness is key
To give us new colors to see
Who knows where it will lead us?
And that's why they need us"
So bring on the rebels
The ripples from pebbles
The painters, and poets, and plays
And here's to the fools who dream
Crazy as they may seem
Here's to the hearts that break
Here's to the mess we make
I trace it all back to then
Her, and the snow, and the Seine
Smiling through it
She said she'd do it again
Volume XX, Issue XIX: The Redemptive Power of Story II
Hayley Mills in 'Tiger Bay'
When Walt Disney decided to make a film adaptation of the 1913 novel by Eleanor H. Porter, Pollyanna, he was concerned that the lead actor might be too much of a ‘Pollyanna.’ Fearing that the role would become way too saccharine, he considered it very carefully. Upon viewing the film debut of John Mills’ daughter Hayley in ‘Tiger Bay,’ Disney knew he had someone who could add a dimension of reality to the character.
Hayley Millsand her father star in this gripping film.
Tiger Bay, released in 1959, marked the film debut of 12-year-old Hayley Mills and few actresses have had such an extraordinarily impressive start to a film career. This is a crime thriller but it’s also a bit more than that - it’s a film about friendship and loyalty and duty and moral dilemmas. (read more)
Through the Eyes of a Child
Eleven year old Gillie lives in a world of troubles and dashed expectations. Her parents are gone and she deals with life in the care of her aunt, street bullies and the need to fend for herself. Wonderfully portrayed by Hayley Mills, Gillie is a study in the child who builds a world of lies to protect herself perhaps from the brutality of life. Mills is brilliant in her role, often saying volumes with facial expression and simply with her eyes. A lot of us fell in love with Hayley in Pollyanna. Here I came to fully appreciate her depth as an actor.
Though my childhood was in no way as bleak as Gillies,’ I remember my own response to leaving the idyllic world of home and backyard building of little paper houses with my sisters, and entering the world of endless waxed hallways – the industrial school of the mid-Twentieth Century! I did not fit in well there. Just like Gillie, I ‘created’ in my mind my means of escape. Adults would call it lying and some of them were not amused. I had one teacher who would not allow us to erase anything. I remember once making a childish mistake in the marbled copybook. In my anger and frustration I blacked out the entire page with my pencil! My dad came to the rescue with an Exacto knife and cut out that entire page so skillfully that it could not be detected. He cheered me on as I ‘recreated’ the work.
Next to the pencil, the eraser would become my favorite tool! Now you wouldn’t think that one destined to design could get in trouble with a pencil – think again! In first grade we were issued those fat pencils meant to fit our chubby hands. I unthinkingly picked up a regular #2 pencil (I had been drawing and writing with thinner pencils for some time) and the teacher saw me. She broke the pencil over my hand! I began to believe the true lie: “I was a BAD KID!”
Later, a teacher, no doubt frustrated with me, tore up a very nice drawing of a T rex that I had done. I began to hide my drawings in a box under the bed. Later, not being drawn to athletics, I became the target of school bullies. Life was a series of gauntlets to be navigated. I loved to escape by myself to the beauty of the woods. My mother had to ring a cowbell to get me home for dinner. Sometimes I didn’t hear it and returned to a plate of cold victuals. To this day I do not complain about cold food!
All this is to say that in the character of Gillie I saw a wonderful portrayal of how we as children handle the complex dilemmas that the world presents to us. We ‘create’ a narrative that helps us navigate things. Those of us who work with children would do well to study this creative mythology.
And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them.” – Mark 10: 13-15
Teaching People to Dream
Sometime in our past Century, we ceased to see the people. We saw the poverty and despair and attempted to solve the problem institutionally. Government programs could muster so many resources and initially they could indeed create new housing and feed the multitudes. But the truth is that the same despairs followed people into their rebuilt communities. Excerpts from the Redemptive Compassion DVD present a biblical call to holistic help by Lois Tupyi.
At six o’clock each morning, the alcoholics, addicts, and mentally ill residents of San Donato Val di Comino, Italy, emerge from their homes and congregate—sometimes together, but mostly alone—in the cafés around the town’s main square. Some of the hardened alcoholics order an espresso with a shot of liquor, then climb into work trucks and head out to farms and construction sites. The mentally ill—who suffer predominantly from depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia—order cups of coffee or sit at the patio tables emptyhanded, an indication that they have run out of cash for the month. (read more)
The lesson for Americans: culture matters. If we want to reverse the destruction of human life through addiction, mental illness, homelessness, and violence, we must reimagine our moral and cultural possibilities and seek to reestablish familial and communal bonds that can prevent the most vulnerable from falling into the abyss. No doctor, pill, or public policy can replace a truly compassionate society—one that loves the mad and the addicted but restrains them from harming themselves and their neighbors.”
Photo by Samuele Tocci.
Further Up and Further In
ByBob Kirchman
Fiction inspired by The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis.
A new painting byKristina Elaine Greercaptures the magic of a journey to Narnia!
Tearfully, she held the family photo close and remembered the happy times. Indeed, there had been joyous times with her three siblings in their small London home. Then followed the terrible sirens and explosions. Neighbors perished and gaping holes smouldered in once-quiet neighborhood's. The evacuation came next, which meant leaving Mum and Dad behind; we siblings boarded a train and headed for the safety of the countryside and extended family.
Don’t love anything too much,” she had whispered to herself back then. “It will be taken away from you.” She missed Mum and Dad terribly but held it in.
Gradually, she and her siblings found adventure in the great, countryside house— particularly, in one great, wondrous wardrobe—but a seed had been sown: people and the things you love go away. That held true many years later when, growing up way too fast, she had believed a young man loved her. But he, too, went away, taking a part of her with him.
Her teachers at school had told her that reason was a virtue and belief in unseen things was folly. She resisted at first, but, gradually, she embraced the notion that reality was composed of what could be seen. Reason was something one could get their hands around. Faith was fickle.
Is there a fine line between faith and foolishness?” she wondered.
Her thoughts went to the latest stir over the Cottingley Faeries. Two young girls had borrowed a camera and gone down to a creek where they photographed what they said were faeries. She’d seen the photographs. They looked like paper cut-outs to her. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the master detective Sherlock Holmes, believed the faeries were real. Many other adults were fooled as well.
But what of her fantastic adventures with her siblings and that wardrobe? They could only have been the product of an elegant myth—one they had created as children to ease the stress of war.
Youth,” she mused, her thoughts turning to more contemporary events. “Joys are fleeting. Only life’s sorrows last.”
Indeed, what people in London simply referred to as “the wreck” had come as a shock. A signal malfunction had set two British Rail trains on the same track, destined for a horrible head-on collision. Coaches crumpled into one another, and many were killed. Susan had lost not only her parents in that wreck but all of her siblings as well.
The accident had left her quite alone. She caressed the photograph. Everything warm and wonderful in her home had been reduced to black and white. That, too, would fade with time.
A distant aunt had taken her in, but she soon went off to university. More logic and reason were taught in the lecture halls. She felt empty, but neither did she have an antidote.
She visited a church but found it dry. Yet, the new world developing around her offered different experiences, and a new myth would embrace her and bring true happiness. Myth, she would discover, was not an untrue fantasy so much as a vehicle for inexpressible concepts.
She had ended up registering for Medieval Literature to fill her schedule. She had done so with an inward groan.
This stuff will be colossally boring,” she had confided to her friend Alastair.
He had readily agreed. “I’ll bet the professor is some horrid old goat who smells of tobacco and brandy!”
When the class commenced, the two freshmen were surprised. The “old goat” turned out to be a young woman who seemed not much older than they, but she must have been. She was the kind of teacher who brought her material to life. She painted book covers on the wall of her classroom and took her dog on long walks around the campus lake. Susan and Alastair met her one day, and they walked together. This became a regular thing.
One day, Susan said to her professor, “It is a shame that all the great myths are just that. MYTHS! None of them are true!”
Oh, but they are, for they communicate great truths!”
How can that be?” Susan wondered. As they walked along, a bit of wind lifted some leaves, sending them spiraling in flight.
Unseen truths need a special language of their own,” the professor answered. Susan’s change of heart towards the world of the unseen was not quick, but, like many great thinkers, the change was gradual. Dying gods, heroism, and unconditional love were the stuff of things imagined. But her professor had said that if one could imagine something in this world, the possibility must necessarily exist for its fulfilment.
Her thoughts turned to lions and then the fact that, for one who was not so athletic, she was a fine archer. That puzzled her. The stories of her youth, though myth, still felt more real than the things she was chasing after in everyday life. But, were those youthful experiences, like the Cottingley Faeries Sir Doyle felt were only visible to virginal young girls, no longer possible for her?
Surely, it is too late. For me, truth must be simply that which I see before me. Reconciliation with the Divine cannot be possible.”
The silence engulfed her. But, was that a growl she imagined? No, it was a voice, a kind, low voice!
The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9 NKJV).
She could choose the silence and loneliness. But, might there be the promise of another—hidden—path? Clearly, the truth was more complex than it seemed. Cracking it would require some hard examination.
The Meaning of the Miraculous For many Centuries man has acknowledged the miraculous. The Jewish community celebrates their deliverance from Egypt and the beginning of their journey to the Promised Land A dialogue set in a meals has all generations together consider the preservation of their people that could only be seen as a work of G-d. Previous generations always saw G-d, or some miraculous force as Creator. The Patriarchs saw Him as Provider and Deliverer! The relatively recent concept of Evolution (Charles Darwin in the Nineteenth Century) has created a philosophy of Naturalism that either outright rejects or quietly diminishes the Theistic explanation.
I once attended an Easter service at a large church in Richmond. The minister asserted that the Resurrection was not important! I don't remember anything else he said. I was astonished because Christ's Resurrection would seem to be a cornerstone of Christianity. Many voices today denounce Faith. They may not directly denounce it, but in the academy it is the subject of "open discourse" such as that experienced by Ryan Rotella at FAU [click to read]. Rotella was asked to leave a class. His "offense" was refusing to participate in an excercise where students were required to "stamp on Jesus."Dennis Prager [click to read] has more details. Though the school ultimately apologized to Rotella, it justified its so-called "open discourse" in doing so.
Running from the Resurrection
In fact, among many in academia today you are likely to hear some variation of the following: "There are other reasons why I consider Christianity to be an
ill-chosen creed, such as the morals actually taught in the Bible,
many of which are abhorrent to a compassionate and just man, or other
details of its theology which run counter to observable facts." writes atheist
Richard Carrier in introduction to his argument against Jesus' resurrection from the dead.
Here in his introduction, Carrier gives what I believe is his real reason for being
uncomfortable with a physical resurrection. A G-d who can so control
the laws of nature can ask 'unreasonable' things of us as well. A
'Compassionate and Just Man,' in Carrier's world can support abortion
on demand because it is not 'abhorrent' to his viewpoint that abortion
is a kind response to the needs of women with unplanned pregnancies. The beating heart of the unborn child need not be seen here as an 'observable fact.'
Likewise, the 'restrictive' definition of marriage as a relationship
defined by Scripture in specific terms may be viewed as archaic and
discriminatory.If G-d didn't design it, He cannot write the specifications.
The elimination of Christianity as an authoritative source allows us
to personalize moral decisions. In a culture that elevates
self-actualization, this is virtue. It spares us the heavy lifting
required to weigh moral absolutes with human frailty.
Jesus, meeting a Samaritan woman at a well, is a prime example of what
I mean by this heavy lifting. Balancing compassion for the woman with his observation that
she has not been a faithful wife, Jesus creates a constructive
dialogue. He does not condemn her, nor does He overlook the complexity
she has created in her relationships. He speaks truth and ultimately
the dialogue that results sets her free. Here Absolute Love and Absolute Truth are in no way mutually exclusive. In the end her search for 'Living Water' trumps her desire to live as she pleases. [2.]
A G-d who can part the Red Sea, Create worlds and has power over death is pretty much to be respected. A G-d who changes human lives in intimate communion with his Creation is amazing.
Before Jesus appeared, the concept of Resurrection is found in Scripture. Sometimes it is very clear and other times it is a logical assumption consistent with the text.
Resurrection Foretold
And he made his grave
with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no
violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord
to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days,
and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He
shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his
knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear
their iniquities. Therefore
will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the
spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death:
and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors." -- Isaiah 53:9-12 The famous Messianic text above talks of triumph after death. Other texts that may be seen as prophetic of Resurrection are: Genesis 3:15, Psalm 2:7, Psalm 16:9-11, Psalm 22:14-25, Psalm 30:29, Psalm 40:13, Psalm 110:1, Psalm 118:21-24, Hosea 5:15-6:3, Zechariah 12:10.
Resurrection Documented and Verified
I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by
better, fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair
inquirer, than the great sign which God hath given us that Christ died,
and rose again from the dead." says Dr. Thomas Arnold, formerly Professor of History at Rugby and Oxford Universities. Simon Greenleaf, one of the most skilled legal minds ever produced in this nation, top
authority on the question of what constitutes sound evidence, developer
of the Harvard Law School, after a thorough evaluation of the four
Gospel accounts from the point of view of their validity as objective
testimonial evidence, concluded:
It was therefore impossible that they could have persisted in affirming
the truths they had narrated, had not Jesus actually risen from the
dead, and had they not known this fact as certainly as they knew any
other fact." [3.]Dr. Henry M. Morris PhD writes more onThe Importance of the Resurrection [click to read]. His point is that the foundational truth of the Christian faith has plenty of evidence to support it.
A G-d who can part the Red Sea, Create worlds and has power over death
is pretty much to be respected. A G-d who changes human lives in
intimate communion with his Creation is amazing.
Leonardo da Vinci's Portable Bridge
A Message of Hope for the Youth of Our Community
Last year Augusta Christian Educators studio art classes built a model of Leonardo da Vinci’s portable fastenerless bridge. Amanda Riley and Bob Kirchman fabricated the pieces of the bridge structure which the students assembled. The piece calls to mind this poem by Will Allen Dromgoole:
The Bridge Builder
Poem byWill Allen Dromgoole
Bridges
Paintings bySavhanna Herndon
But between them and the foot of the sky there was something so white on the green grass that even with their eagles’ eyes they could hardly look at it. They came on and saw that it was a Lamb. “Come and have breakfast,” said the Lamb in its sweet milky voice. Then they noticed for the first time that there was a fire lit on the grass and fish roasting on it. They sat down and ate the fish, hungry now for the first time for many days. And it was the most delicious food they had ever tasted. “Please, Lamb,” said Lucy, “is this the way to Aslan’s country?” “Not for you,” said the Lamb. “For you the door into Aslan’s country is from your own world.” “What!” said Edmund. “Is there a way into Aslan’s country from our world too?” “There is a way into my country from all the worlds,” said the Lamb; but as he spoke, his snowy white flushed into tawny gold and his size changed and he was Aslan himself, towering above them and scattering light from his mane. “Oh, Aslan,” said Lucy. “Will you tell us how to get into your country from our world?” “I shall be telling you all the time,” said Aslan. “But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it lies across a river. But do not fear that, for I am the great Bridge Builder. And now come; I will open the door in the sky and send you to your own land.” – C. S. Lewis, Voyage of the Dawn Treader
