Opus 2016-257: On the Street: Vocabulary Lesson

I am constantly shaken by what my students don’t know.  I read though the text book looking for words I don’t think they will understand and we spend time going over the vocabulary I come up with.  This week I had several students call me over and as what “superior” meant.  I must admit I missed that one. Can you picture someone twelve years old who does not know the meaning of “superior”?

I guess that explains why so many of their parents will be voting for Hillary.

homo unius libri

Opus 2016-256: Should-a-Beens

We are not just superior animals.  Take a wolf from 3,000 B.C.  Move it in a time machine 5,000 years into the future.  It still hunts the same.  It sleeps the same.  It breeds the same.  It dresses the same, no wait, it still doesn’t dress for winter, just grows more hair.  It lives no differently except that it is easier to hunt confined sheep than running deer. 

You cannot say the same for human beings.  I will admit that the sinful nature is still there and that people are still self centered but aside from that we have made a lot of progress.  Wolves have not developed hospitals or zippers.  They have not organized into political parties.  Okay, some things are not necessarily progress, but you get the idea.

Why is it that people are the only animals that have “evolved”?  Could it be that we are more than animals?  Of course when I look at the students I have at school I sometimes wonder.

homo unius libri

Opus 2016-255: Ode to Old: It Isn’t My Fault, Really

Why does my coffee cup only leak on mornings I am wearing a light colored shirt?  It wasn’t a senior moment.  I hit my mouth square with the cup.  In spite of my protests, I still have a stain on my shirt and a day facing middle school students ahead.

It happened when I was half way to work.  I had been drinking from the cup for 20 minutes.  Suddenly I felt an unexpected warmth on the thumb wrapped around the bottom.  It was a trickle that made my shirt look like I had been dribbling my soup.  Why didn’t it leak when I pulled out of the driveway?

I guess it is just a way in which the coffee gods are trying to teach me humility.  It wasn’t my fault, really.  If it was I would remember, right?

homo unius libri

Opus 2016-217: Petty Prayer

Unless you live in LA you probably don’t have any idea of what real rush hour traffic is.  I was at a walking pace on freeway, literally.  I thought of praying my way out, you know, “God get this traffic moving”.  That seemed a bit arrogant to me but it goes deeper.  I have a real reluctance to bring petty wants before God.  Why would He rearrange traffic so I could get somewhere quicker.  Why should He turn off the rain so I don’t get wet?  Why would He make my gas go further when I was too lazy to fill the tank?

Is it just me? 

homo unius libri

Opus 2016-254: Thanks Thoughts: Extended Tolerances

My car started.  Again.  And again.  I shudder to think of all the things that could keep it from happening.  And it keeps running.  Again.  And again. 

It ran all the way to work.  Again.  And again.  I can think of times sitting in traffic with a dead vehicle.  It should happen more often with my old cars and sloppy maintenance.  I salute the engineers who designed and the God who sometimes extends expected tolerances.

So many little things to be grateful for in the midst of social and political chaos.

homo unius libri

Opus 2016-253: Discernment Watch: Those Pesky Judges Are At It Again

Since we have at least four members of the Supreme Court who salute the laws of other countries over the Constitution, we have some dangerous precedents being set, this time in Kenya.  The story is in World.

If it is on your radar you know that the Anglican church in Africa has split from the world wide communion of the Anglican church over the issue of homosexuality.  The African church has read their Bibles and determined that since they are supposed to be Christians they should follow what the Bible says.  Thus they removed three priests for their homosexual activities.  Now something called “The Employment and Relations Court” has ordered the church to reinstate the priests and pay them their back salaries.  This is a dangerous step for freedom of religion in the world.

Read your First Amendment. 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

In order to keep the government from establishing the requirements of such things as church attendance, tax supported churches, government appointed pastors and government mandated doctrines those little things called “the establishment clause” and the “free exercise clause” were inserted.  If you look at the remaining freedoms mentioned in the First and Second Amendments and know anything of the religious wars of England you can see how all of those are necessary to guarantee freedom of worship.  The Progressive leaning courts are committed to undermining and destroying that freedom. 

The reason free worship is such a problem to the Progressives is that it places God above the elites of congress and education.  It says that there are limits to government power.  It maintains that the rights we have are “endowed by their Creator” and not granted at the whim of bureaucrats. 

What is a guarantee of freedom for citizens is a threat of limitation to the power of elites.

Be aware of the courts working to take away all of your freedoms.  Keep in mind that it is just to keep you safe.  If is for your own protection.  You need mature, Progressive adults to limit your choices so that Utopia will arrive. 

homo unius libri

Opus 2016-252:  Headlines:  Awesome Threads

My first reaction to the picture was that African pastors dress well.  I saw a man in a blue suit with a congregation of well dressed men behind him.  Then I looked a little closer because I thought he had rolled his sleeves up.  I was wrong.  He was wearing a dress suit that was fashioned with short sleeves.  With a matching bow tie it was an interesting combination.

I don’t know if it will catch on.  I don’t know if it will spread to California from Nigeria.  It seems strange to me because I have never seen it before but I am sure it is no more strange than any of the other fashions that have passed in the night.  It certainly shows more class than what most people wear to church here every Sunday.

Short sleeves may go white tie some day.

homo unius libri