• Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian (re-read). This series of 20 novels is my favorite collection of fiction, and I decided during the recent snow days to begin reading them again. Though I've read them through twice before, I still find the stories fresh, engaging, and excellently written. (10)
• Post-Captain by Patrick O'Brian (re-read). (10)

March 7 Genesis 3:8-24 -- Deliver us from evil... (worship theme: redemption)
March 14 Genesis 4:1-16 -- A brother’s keeper (theme: accountability)
March 21 Genesis 4:17-26 -- Civilization as we know it... (theme: cultural redemption)
March 28 Genesis 5 -- The curse (theme: death)

As we've studied the first couple of chapters of Genesis in these last weeks, I was reminded of a stark comparison: God devotes two chapters of His Word describing how the entire universe was created. Later, in the book of Exodus, He devotes 12 chapters of His Word to describing how the Tabernacle (basically the house of worship for the desert-wandering Israelites) is to be built.

If God views these two in that proportion, which do you think should be more important to us: our devotion to apologetics about why Creationism is superior to evolutionism? Or our devotion to becoming better worshipers?

I'm afraid that so many believers take for granted their abilities and skills as worshipers, and believe that their time is best spent learning how to argue others into belief-- when, in fact, I think both Scripture and history is clear that, when Christians are wholly devoted to learning how to worship and how to live their lives as worshipers, those around them are inevitably drawn into curiosity, even longing, about what those Christians have that they don't.

When the Westminster Shorter Catechism teaches us that the chief end of man is "to glorify God and enjoy Him forever" I don't think we should neglect evangelism or even apologetics as an aspect of "glorifying God" but neither do I think we should place them as higher in priority than our duty to learn how to better worship Him. I've met many Christians who could effectively defend their beliefs, theology, and/or worldview but whose manner seldom suggested that they knew anything of worship other than self-worship. On the other hand, I've never met a Christian who had devoted himself/herself to becoming an ardent worshiper whose manner didn't disarm, and therefore their "defense" or answers for the reason for the hope that they have, however poorly- or well-developed, weren't more acceptable by those asking.

That's the sort of worshiper I want to be.

• How the Letterman-Leno-Oprah Super Bowl ad came together-- if you saw this ad, you probably thought two things: first, that's the funniest ad so far tonight; and second, how in the world did Letterman convince the others to do it? This little piece tells the story.
• Five iPhone Apps for Caregivers-- I have to say, this whole iPhone apps thing just keeps getting better. The iPhone (and soon the iPad) is a great tool for mobile information management and retrieval.
• Top 10 "Star Trek" Technologies that Actually Came True-- fun stuff. There have been a lot of news stories in the past few years about technologies that Trek inspired; this is just a summary of a few.
• Olympics FAQ-- does curling require skill? What's the difference between an axel and a salchow? Why is the Whistler luge track so fast? These and more, answered by the Explainer at Slate magazine.
• 17 Best Lego Creations Ever-- at least, according to the Huffington Post. These are, admittedly, pretty amazing.

There has been a ton of "buzz" in the past couple of years about the coming changes in book publishing and in the print-publishing industry in general.

eBook readers are being touted as the next step in publishing technology. Sony has been marketing their eBook reader for years; Amazon jumped into that market a couple of years ago with the Kindle, which now also has a larger edition (presumably for newspaper and magazine consumption-- Sony has one too). Barnes & Noble dipped their toe in last fall, with the Nook. Now Apple has announced that the soon-coming iPad will have an eBook reader and a store, similar to iTunes and iPod.

In fact, that is the analogy that is so frequently tossed around: eventually, eBook readers will do for books what the iPod did for music.

I'm not buying that-- at least not outright. Here's why: the content publishers aren't ready. (Most of them, anyway.)

If the iPod had come out in the 80s, it would have sunk like lead. Why? Because there would be no easy way to get content from a cassette tape or vinyl record (both analog) into the iPod (a digital platform). There would not have been a straightforward path to converting existing libraries of music into the format(s) needed for the iPod (or any other MP3 player). By the end of the 90s, though, most people had shifted from tapes and vinyl to CDs, and had even re-purchased much of their libraries in the new format.*

Sure, Apple did a great job of promoting the iTunes music store as the one-stop solution for "filling your iPod" with digital music, and they (in cooperation with the recording industry) certainly stemmed the tide of online music piracy with iTunes. They also single-handedly changed the way we think about music-media consumption, from thinking in terms of whole albums/tapes/CDs to thinking in terms of single tracks.

But Apple's iTunes music store wasn't the thing that sold the iPod-- it was the fact that anyone could take their existing libraries of CDs and "rip" them into their iTunes library, thereby giving them a freedom for listening to the music they already owned on their iPods.

This was true for me with music. I had a library of almost 1000 CDs, and all of them are now boxed and stored in my attic; everything is ripped into iTunes, and thus distributed to my various iPods, iPhone, Apple TV, etc.-- a whole new music eco-system. I haven't bought an actual CD in probably five years, and have purchased hundreds of dollars' worth of media through the iTunes store-- yet by far the larger part of my library still is made up of content I owned prior to my first iPod.

This factor is the missing piece in the eBook puzzle. Book readers already own books! And we want/need some way to ensure that we will continue to have access to some or most of that content in the new eco-system, if we commit to it. Just as the music industry had modified their published content enough to allow (technologically, at least) the adaptation of other eco-systems beyond the traditional home or car stereo, book publishers must modify their content enough to make it more technologically adaptable.

I look at Thomas Nelson's "NelsonFree" program as a prime example of this. With this program, if you purchase a book (that is enrolled in the NelsonFree program, that is) in one format, then you automatically have access to others. For example, if you buy the print copy, you can also download the audio and eBook copies for no extra costs. (Check out Thomas Nelson CEO Michael Hyatt's blog post about this program for more.)

This-- or something very like it-- has got to be the direction that the print media industry goes if they hope to see the digital shift widely embraced. Magazines and newspapers should automatically give their subscribers total online access, perhaps while limiting access to non-subscribers (as opposed to, for example, Consumer Reports: my mother-in-law has given me a gift subscription for years, and I find the print copy interesting-- but what I'd really love is to have access to the online content, which actually requires a separate subscription!). Book publishers should figure out a system at least similar to Thomas Nelson's program.

It's not the cost of eBook readers that's so daunting, in my view. Folks didn't mind paying hundreds for an iPod, and they wouldn't mind paying good money for an eReader-- IF ONLY the content is easily available. They don't have to give new books away, either-- but at least acknowledge the fact that I've already bought the book at least once!


*The reason they had migrated to the new format, though, wasn't simply because it was new. This is a key part of understanding the history here: the new format (Compact Discs) offered superior quality to the older formats, and that quality improvement was quantifiable-- better frequency range, crisper and clearer sound, easier to use, longer-lasting without wearing out, etc. All of these were necessary for the shift to take place; just a few of them wouldn't have won the day (witness the 8-track tape, which offered minor improvement in sound quality and greater portability than vinyl, but didn't last nearly as long). People bought CDs because they were simply better in almost every way-- and they were willing to re-purchase their entire library (or at least most of it) for that improvement.

Once again, we're on our way to Chicago for Abbey's cleft palate repair surgery. If I haven't taken this post down, then we're en-route right now-- perhaps even as you read this.

Our schedule this time around should go like this:
Monday, 2/22-- Ed, Marcie, and Abbey travel to Chicago; Jack, Molly, and Caroline stay in Tennessee with Ed's mom and Marcie's mom.
Tuesday, 2/23-- Abbey checks into the Shriner's Hospital of Chicago. Marcie will stay in the hospital with Abbey, while Ed stays at the Ronald McDonald House.
Wednesday, 2/24-- Abbey has surgery to repair her cleft palate.
Thursday, 2/25-- Abbey recovers from surgery; the moms left Tennessee, and folks from church take care of Jack, Molly, and Caroline until Ed's sister Ann Louise and her fiancé Dave Schmitt arrive that evening.
Friday, 2/26-- Abbey might be released, and Ed, Marcie and Abbey return to Tennessee.

After that, it's a couple of weeks of recovery (including "arm imobilizers" for poor Abbey), liquid diet, probably much discomfort, etc. In four weeks or so, Marcie will return to Chicago with Abbey for a follow-up visit (probably just a day-trip by plane).

Please be in prayer for us as we go through this. It's traumatic to think of our 1-year old daughter having surgery, as well as leaving behind our other three for most of a week. I'll do my best to post updates through the week, as I am able.

Thanks for your prayers!

Over-the-top weather forecast (HT: Matt):

Toronto Raptor eats cheerleader (HT: Jeff):

If you're unfamiliar with the idea of a "kludge" it's a repair, so to speak, that employs a certain level of mis-placed creativity. Here are some first-class examples, from the website There, I Fixed It:

Billy Tries to Cleverly Deflect the Blame


Screw-Tool Safety


Laptop Budget on a Sliding Scale


Lesser-Known Cousin of the Spork Is the Duct-Foon


You Took Apart My Epic LEGO Tower for This?


A Small Step for Man, a Giant Step for Obesity


The Boss'll Never Notice


Bed-Ta Carotene


Adult Advent Calendar

I posted before about what liturgy is; today I want to discuss why liturgy is helpful.

Liturgy helps us get comfortable in worship; it lets us break free of the form and structure, or rather, break past them, and to worship more freely and without distraction. I think of it this way: if you've ever prepared a meal in someone else's kitchen, you know how it can be hard to focus on the job. The act of cooking is hindered by the difficulty of finding your way around in the order, setup, and layout of the strange kitchen.

Worship is the same way: if the liturgy is unfamiliar, you're fumbling around looking for what's next, whether you'll need to find something that you don't know where it is, etc. You're distracted from the worship itself, because you're consumed with the form and structure of worship.

This is the case, often, when you visit a church you've never been to before; their liturgy is unfamiliar. It's also the case, sadly, in many churches that want to offer a variety and novelty in each worship service. They won't settle into a patterned worship because they fear the familiarity instead of embracing it. C.S. Lewis called this the "liturgical fidget".

Hughes Oliphant Old offers these thoughts on the value of liturgy:

“In the first place liturgical forms are a good means of teaching the essentials of the Christian faith. When familiar liturgical forms and texts are used again and again, it gives the opportunity to meditate on them and to penetrate their meaning more deeply. When there are well established procedures with which everyone is familiar, it makes it easier to concentrate on content rather than on outward form. Any athlete understands the importance of mastering form. Such simple things as breathing must be done correctly, but this is essential so that eventually they can be done spontaneously, without effort, without thinking about them. The concentration must be on other things. Forms are a means to an end, and if they are constantly changing they obscure the end rather than lead to it.”

~Hughes Oliphant Old, Worship That Is Reformed According to Scripture, Guides to the Reformed Tradition (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1984), p.162. [HT: Jeff Meyers, in The Lord's Service for pointing me to this quote.]

Liturgy is vital to worship, and we do well to recognize the benefit of it's known and familiar qualities, rather than suspecting them.

Our family likes to watch the show "The Biggest Loser" on TV together. It's (relatively) clean and it teaches our kids about setting physiological health as a priority-- but it's a fun show.

One recurring element of the show that surprised me at first, but actually makes a lot of sense, is how much emotional, mental, and psychological change (and I would say also, spiritual change) is required in order for the contestants on the show to really lose the quantities of weight that they want to-- and to keep those pounds off. Almost every episode features at least one of the contestants working with one of the two trainers at that level. I'd be remiss if I didn't note here just how good at this aspect these trainers are, as well.

The bottom line: in order to lose the weight and get healthy, it isn't just a diet change or even a simple lifestyle change (as in, now they go to the gym on a regular basis). Those are present factors, but the real changes take place in the actual identity of the people. The don't think of themselves in the same ways. They aren't punishing themselves, or soothing themselves, or medicating themselves, by using food as a tool for those. They are truly different people once they have finished the course of the show.

(Interestingly, they have recently started going back to contestants from previous seasons to check on them, and it's fascinating to see what happens to those who DON'T really change in who they are: they eventually put much of the weight back on.)

So here's my curiosity: could a similar thing be possible for spiritual change (think, "The Biggest Sinner")? So many of the people I come in contact with need something like "The Biggest Loser" for real, substantive spiritual identity change.

I'm not thinking of a competition like that show is, but simply a "boot camp" of sorts for spiritual growth. Maybe it would involve bringing in counselors, teachers, trainers of a different nature. Maybe it would look like an extended retreat, or maybe it would be something very much like the setup on "The Biggest Loser" but for spiritual rather than (or in addition to?) physical health.

What would such a project/event/conference/center look like? What do you think?