Meanderings, 25 March 2023
Our favorite water fowl was spotted this week on our small little lake — Wood Duck. Friday AM we spotted some new arrivals for the summer.
https://a-z-animals.com/blog/wood-duck-vs-mallard-what-are-the-differences/
How classical literature nurtured and continues to foster the hypermasculine:
Greek heroes were clearly not role models for good behavior—not by modern standards, and often not by ancient standards either. However they did embody and glorify a certain ideal of masculinity, a physical and mental excellence which they proved by pitting themselves against worthy opponents, whether friend, foe, or fiend. Greek culture was consumed by the idea of competition (agon, in Ancient Greek). Greek myths and history are filled with athletic contests, music contests, theatrical contests, not to mention the ultimate contest: war. Even rhetoric and philosophy were viewed competitively. Aside from the occasional weaving contest (looking at you, Arachne), these competitions were the means by which men, specifically, could show that they were better than other men. Therefore war, like boxing or racing, or slaying the unslayable, or hunting the unhuntable, became a matter of personal pride and a means of proving fulfillment of a hypermasculine ideal.
Hiking is one of the best ways to spend time in the great outdoors. With more than 400 national parks across the country, the opportunities to get out and take a hike are nearly endless. Whether you’re hiking alone or in a group, be sure to follow the written and unwritten rules of the trail. Proper hiking etiquette helps instill respect for other trail users, and it promotes stewardship of the land.
The best thing you can do when hiking is to remember the “golden rule”: treat others the way you would want to be treated.
Here are some main points of hiking etiquette.
Know your right of way. Check signage for the trail you are hiking, and follow the correct right of way yields. Signs may vary from park to park, but these are the general guidelines of yielding on the trail
Hikers coming uphill have the right of way. If you’re descending the trail, step aside and give space to the people climbing up.
Bicyclists yield to hikers and horses or other pack stock. Come to a full stop and step to the side to give the right of way. Be mindful of the plants or animals that are near the trail if you must step off the trail. Bicyclists should always ride within their abilities. Before your visit, check individual park regulations to see if biking is allowed.
Hikers yield to horses and other pack stock. Slowly and calmly step off to the downhill side of a trail. If you approach from behind, calmly announce your presence and intentions. Horses and other pack stock can frighten easily, so avoid sudden movements or loud noises.
Make yourself known. When you encounter other hikers and trail users, offer a friendly “hello” or a simple head nod. This helps create a friendly atmosphere on the trail. If you approach another trail user from behind, announce yourself in a friendly, calm tone and let him/her know you want to pass.
Stay on the trail. Don’t step off trail unless you absolutely must when yielding. Going off trail can damage or kill certain plant or animal species, and can hurt the ecosystems that surround the trail. Always practice Leave No Trace principles: Leave rocks, vegetation, and artifacts where you find them for others to enjoy.
Do not disturb wildlife. They need their space, and you need yours, too. Keep your distance from the wildlife you encounter. Some parks require you to stay a certain distance from wildlife, so check park regulations before your visit. Never leave the trail to try and get a closer look at an animal because it can hurt the habitat and the animal and put you in danger. For more information about safely viewing wildlife, check out our 7 ways to safely watch wildlife.
Be mindful of trail conditions. If a trail is too wet and muddy, turn back and save the hike for another day. Using a muddy trail can be dangerous, damage the trail’s condition, and damage the ecosystems that surround the trail.
Take time to listen. When hiking in the great outdoors, let nature do all the talking. Be respectful of both nature and the other users, and keep the noise from electronic devices at bay. Not only will other visitors appreciate the peace and quiet, but so will the wildlife. Many wildlife species rely on natural sounds for communication purposes, and disrupting those sounds can hurt their chances of survival.
Be aware of your surroundings. Always be aware of your surroundings when hiking in our national parks. It will help keep you and any members of your group safe, and it will help keep wildlife and their habitats safe and healthy. Know the rules for hiking in bear country, and know what to do if you encounter a bear on the trail.
Should pastors be writing books? Katelyn Beatty enters some important insights into this discussion:
Starting at about min. 16:00, we talk about whether pastors should write books, have podcasts, and pursue other extended forms of teaching beyond their particular, in-person community. In other words, are screens and stages perpetuating a pastoral model that takes pastors away from the primary people they are directed to serve?
Like you, I’m sure, I have personally benefited from books written by leaders with wisdom in pastoral ministry, preaching, spiritual formation, biblical studies, and the like. (I have also acquired and edited a few pastors!) Think, for example, if Eugene Peterson had never taken pen to paper. (More on Peterson soon.)
But I believe the vast majority of pastors are not called to write books. Here is what I shared on the podcast:
…I think the vast majority of pastors are called to take the time and energy and invest their primary calling into the physical and embodied manifestation of the body of Christ in their particular context. Because if proximity is the way to counter the temptations of celebrity, the people in front of us should be all of our top priorities….
As I argue in C4J, celebrity is social power without proximity. It’s the ability to shape hearts and minds from the distance of the stage and screen. In that distance creeps all sorts of temptations: the evade accountability, to avoid difficult conversations with the people who actually know you and are invested in your spiritual and mental health, to create a false persona, to start thinking you can get away with things that others can’t because you’re just that big and important.
I mean, what sounds better to you?
Option A: Walking onto a stage in front of thousands of people who have paid to hear what you have to say and are primed to send applause and adoration your way?
Option B: Walking into a pulpit to try to faithfully preach the Word week in and week out, before complex people with complex lives, many of whom will project onto you their parental wounds and disappointment with God, and a few of whom will faithfully email you every Sunday to tear your sermon to shreds?
To be sure, publishing a book lets pastors share wisdom with many more people than attend their church. I believe this can be done in a healthy way. But book publishing, as an industry and business, has a way of distancing shepherds from the sheep, of confusing primary and secondary callings, and of rejiggering the pastorate to be a job where leaders dole out spiritual “content” from afar, rather than sit — I mean physically sit —with people in their longings, questions, and suffering.
Infallible text vs. infallible interpretation of a text? Chris Gehrz:
From my Evangelical Covenant upbringing, I absorbed the belief I still hold: the Holy Scriptures, the Old and New Testaments, are the word of God and the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine, and conduct. “In all we believe, do, and say,” explained the Covenant’s resource paper on the Bible (2008), “we place ourselves under the authority of God’s written word and seek its direction.”
But it’s Scripture that’s our perfect rule, not any person’s, group’s, or institution’s interpretation of Scripture. As the resource paper’s authors immediately added: “Scripture itself is our compass, not formulations about Scripture or about its inspiration.” Indeed, they warned that
the record of misreadings in Christian history is cause for humility in our own reading of the Bible. It should cause us to pause before we make authoritative statements about a particular interpretation of a passage—especially if it is an interpretation on which Christians authentically disagree. Simply put: we sometimes get it wrong. When reading faithfully, we will often find the Bible challenging the way we live rather than affirming it.
Again, easier said than done. For a variety of reasons — from a faithful yearning to stand for God’s revealed truth to the fearful instinct to wield God’s word against enemies internal and external — interpretations of the Bible can take on such fixed status that we’d rather disbelieve that other Christians are reading the same texts than accept the possibility of our own interpretive error.
Who were the women behind the Montgomery Bus Boycott?
The Montgomery bus boycott lasted from December of 1955 through December of 1956. What people often remember of that moment in history is that when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, it sparked a bus boycott that was led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But what that retelling leaves out are all the women who organized for years to make that boycott a reality and who helped sustain it for 13 long months.
Here you can can meet the women who's voices you hear in the podcast, see their faces and read their stories. Together, these women created a turning point in American history.
JERUSALEM (AP) — One of the oldest surviving biblical manuscripts, a nearly complete 1,100-year-old Hebrew Bible, could soon be yours — for a cool $30 million.
The Codex Sassoon, a leather-bound, handwritten parchment tome containing almost the entirety of the Hebrew Bible, is set to go on the block at Sotheby’s in New York in May. Its anticipated sale speaks to the still bullish market for art, antiquities and ancient manuscripts even in a worldwide bear economy.
Sotheby’s is drumming up interest in hopes of enticing institutions and collectors to bite. It has put the price tag at an eye-watering $30 million to $50 million.
On Wednesday, Tel Aviv’s ANU Museum of the Jewish People opened a week-long exhibition of the manuscript, part of a whirlwind worldwide tour of the artifact in the United Kingdom, Israel and the United States before its expected sale, on Wednesday.
“There are three ancient Hebrew Bibles from this period,” said Yosef Ofer, a professor of Bible studies at Israel’s Bar Ilan University: the Codex Sassoon and Aleppo Codex from the 10th century, and the Leningrad Codex, from the early 11th century.
Only the Dead Sea Scrolls and a handful of fragmentary early medieval texts are older, and “an entire Hebrew Bible is relatively rare,” he said.