The Donkey

Here's a wonderful poem by the amazing writer/philosopher/theologian G.K. Chesterton. Remember, poetry is always best when read aloud!


"The Donkey"

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born;

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.


Isn't that a great poem! Maybe we need a Part II that talk about Balaam! It was a great reminder to me that God uses even the most foolish, the most unlikely animals (and people) to bring him glory. May we be as the donkey and glorify our Lord this Holy Week.

Why "Studies" (especially government ones) are Illogical

Many of you may have heard about this new "study" that says in 1 out of every 4 teenage girls in America has an STD (Here's a link). I heard about this yesterday, and my first thought was, "there is no way." And then, "There is no way that the information in that study is accurate. Someone's doing something illogical." I agree with Justin Taylor who remarked that when he was in junior high, lots of people bragged, but most people were still afraid to even talk to someone of the opposite sex, much less do anything that put them in danger of an STD.

So this morning, I saw an article on the study in the Houston Chronicle, and I began my investigation. Here the important points I found:

1. The government did this study (first suspicious clue).
2. Gov. Rick Perry is citing this study as evidence why the state should FORCE all 12-year old girls (at least in public schools) to take a vaccination for cervical cancer (second suspicious, and sinister clue).
3. Planned Parenthood cites this study as evidence that abstinence-only education isn't enough. Of course, that's ridiculous. The problem isn't the education. The problem is that people aren't following it. If EVERYONE remained abstinent outside of marriage, then NOONE would have an STD (third suspicious clue).

And then I got to the big points that show this study for what it is.

1. This study was done in public clinics, you know, the kind that young teenage girls use when they're already having sex outside of marriage, and are wary about either being pregnant or having an STD.

2. They tested only 838 girls. Yes, your read that right: 838. Just over 210 of the 838 had an STD. Of course, they say that logically, this translates into 3 million teenage girls having STDs! There are an estimated 12 million teenage girls in this country! That means that they tested only .00006% of the population.


Allow me to quote from C.S. Lewis's The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe:

"Logic!" said the Professor to himself. "Why don't they teach logic at these schools?"

This study is a grand example of all things illogical. I have an idea. Why don't we do a test of our own, except our pool of teenage girls won't come from public clinics; it will come from those who stand outside of Planned Parenthoods praying and those who volunteer at Hope Pregnancy Centers. Then, if we find out that only 10 out of 838 have an STD, we can make a silly "logical" statement that only 1% of girls are infected.


I hope you enjoyed this rant on all things related to government studies, Planned Parenthoods, and ridiculous examples of illogic. If you ever want more, I'm sure I can think of something!

The Tree

Several people have mentioned the new picture of the tree at the top of my blog, so I thought I'd give a little info:

I have no idea what kind of tree that is, but it is located in the main public park in Bangalore, India. That's me and my best friend Randy hanging around the base there. One of our friends in India took us to the park on our last week there as a treat. Their were amazing amounts of plants that I had never seen before.

One of the funny moments was me marveling at all of the bamboo. Everywhere I looked, there were small groves of dense bamboo. I had never seen so much, and I remarked to Randy that it was like we were in Asia.
In a confused, questioning manner, Randy replied, "Uhhh, we are in Asia."
"Riiigggghhhht. I knew that."

The other funny part of that excursion was seeing all of the young couples flirting together on park benches (you can spy a couple under the tree in this picture). What was funny (and a little odd for India) about this was that we had seen no such physical contact between males and females the entire five weeks we had been in India. There, it is considered a little rude and out-of-place for men and women to show any kind of physical affection in public, even if they're married, and even if they're simply holding hands. It is, however, perfectly acceptable for people of the same sex to show physical affection to one another. So, it was perfectly common to see two men walking down the street with their arms around each other, or to see two women sitting down, holding hands - and all purely platonic.

Of course, there was that one time when we were with some friends and pastors in a home praying. We got in a circle and decided to join hands to pray for someone. Pastor Mark reached for Randy's hand, and...interdigitized. You know, the way men and women who are romantically involved hold hands - not just hand holding, but interdigitized hand holding. Randy silently freaked out, and quickly adjusted the hand-holding position!

Here are some more pictures of cool things from the park in Bangalore and from the wildlife reserve/zoo just outside of the city:

Home Study!

Finally, we had our home study on Saturday. The psychologist was very nice and non-confrontational (Everybody can thank Mr. Lee for his keen sense of the English language. Who would've known that "confrongational" wasn't a word if he had not brought it to our attention!). He seemed to be comfortable with the idea of us taking care of a child. When he asked, "You know things, like that he'll have to be potty-trained, right?," I was able to answer with a resounding yes! Clearly, we are ready!

Janelle wrote a good summary of the interview with lots more details. You can check that out on her blog.

Poor snowball...

The aforementioned snowball may have melted a little today. The home-study has been moved...to Saturday at 11am. Hey, what did you expect? Did you actually expect that something would get done when it was supposed to get done!? Ha! Silly people.

We'll update soon to let you know how everything goes.

Today, snowballs would have had a good chance in Hell

Finally - praise God - we have a home study scheduled! A social worker will be coming to our apartment on Friday at 4:00 to interview us. I have no idea what all the questions will be, but I'm sure that it will involve making sure that we don't have a terrible criminal history or plans to beat our children.

This morning, I called Janelle to recommend that we schedule our date tonight (which we just had - a nice evening of coffee and books at Barnes & Noble), since we didn't know when or if our home study would be scheduled later this week. I said that since there was hardly a snowball's chance in Hell of getting a call to schedule it today, we might as well go ahead and have our date. That way, I thought, we won't have to cancel our date later in the week if it conflicts with a home-study.

Janelle replied, "Well, I guess that snowball has a good chance today...because the home-study guy just called and scheduled!"

Leave it to CPS to wait until 4:00 on the last day possible to actually conduct the home-study. I'm at a loss in understanding how he'll get the information back to Odessa by 5:00, but that's another story.

Old News

Three pieces of old news:

1. Charles Spurgeon was a cool guy. I've been reading through Spurgeon's autobiography for the last year, and I've enjoyed just about every minute of it. He was such a bold preacher and a tireless worker. He would go for weeks on end, traveling and preaching every day to huge crowds. And for all his life, he fought against the pride which naturally comes from becoming such a national superstar.

One impressive reason he was able to fight pride was that he wasn't concerned with earning the favor of the so-called important people of his day. In a letter to a friend in 1856, he reported on all the people that had been coming to hear the Word preached. He was glad to see the Mayor and the Chief of Police, but he was most excited to see the many "vagabonds, harlots," and other sinners present. He deeply cared for the common person more than he cared for fame. I need to remember that every day that I try to impress my academic community for my own sake. God has given me gifts for His glory, not mine.


2. Here's a cool story on a sea monster much older than Spurgeon (but probably not quite as old the article suggests). Don't you think that the one getting eaten looks like he's smiling???


3. And the last bit of old news: no news from CPS yet. Home study is supposed to be done by Friday, so let's keep praying that something actually gets done!