Meanderings, 25 September 2021
Good morning friends! We’re heading straight into Fall around here.
Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
I don’t do promotions but I will do this one by my Bishop, Todd Hunter, about the new Center for Formation, Justice and Peace:
Dear Friends,
Millions of people experience their daily lives as harsh and oppressive—anything but peaceful.
What if the Church was an agent in this very work, forming people well to then love the world well? What if spiritual formation led to a life guided by the Spirit to do works of justice for all people?
This question reawakened me to a lifelong passion. I’ve often imagined a community of Christians activated to do the true good in the world. A community that includes all denominations, races, ages and political persuasions, intentionally formed to extend agape love into the hurt and injustice that surrounds us.
This passion led me to start The Center for Formation, Justice and Peace. The Center’s work is helping people develop the inner character they need to consistently seek justice and peace in the manner of Jesus, so that all people may be made whole.
Will you join me? Sign up for our 10-Day Deep Peace Challenge to start the journey!
Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook to learn more!
Grace and peace,
Bishop Todd Hunter
TOPEKA, Kan. (KSNT) – It was a normal day for 11-year-old Braden and 10-year-old Jayden Harper as they helped their aunt, Brittany, clean her vehicle at a car wash in Junction City, Kansas.
Normal, until they heard the first screams.
“At first we thought it was just kids playing on the trampoline or in a pool cause it was a pretty hot day. Then the screaming got louder and louder and more intense,” Jayden Harper said.
After hearing the screams come from a home neighboring the car wash, they decided to peer over the fence to get a better look. They discovered that the noise was coming from two young children, twin boys between the ages of 6 months and 18 months, barely bobbing above the water’s surface of a backyard pool.
“I ran up and tried to hop the fence. Braden’s already over, so I had somebody help me hop the fence,” Jayden said.
Once the boys were over the fence, they ran to rescue the children from the pool, then kept them occupied until police arrived at the scene. Thankfully, both the young children were fine thanks to the brave young boys and their actions.
“They got recognized at school for being heroes,” said Brittany Harper, the boys’ aunt. “The police department is supposed to be recognizing them also.”
Vision training when the pitchers throw gas.
It is, perhaps, with just a hint of satisfaction that the Dutch office for national statistics has confirmed that the men and women of the Netherlands remain the tallest people on the planet. But the government’s statisticians have had cause to report a further potentially humbling twist: the Dutch are shrinking.
For the last six decades, the people of the lowlands have stood imperiously at the top of the world height league table, with the latest data suggesting the average 19-year-old man stood at just over 6ft tall (182.9cm) in 2020, while women born in the same year measured in at 5ft 6 in (169.3cm).
The finding by the Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (CBS), a government institution, means the Netherlands maintains its lofty spot, which it has held since 1958, excusing a blip in 1967 when the men born that year came in at a miserable second place in the rankings.
But based on surveys of 719,000 people aged 19 to 60, the CBS has had to report that after a period of stagnation and now clear contraction, Dutch men born in 2001 are on average 1cm shorter than the generation born in the Netherlands in 1980, and Dutch women are 1.4cm smaller. And further analysis suggests it cannot all be explained by people coming into the Netherlands from other countries.
“The decrease is partly related to the increased immigration of shorter new population groups and the children born from these populations in the Netherlands,” the government statisticians explained.
Countries like New Zealand do not fall under the category of “Christian nation,” yet their responses parallel a number of Christian qualities, commitments, and values. Jones lists seven of these.
Taking science seriously: “public health and allied measures contribute to a partial restoration of creation, including the partial redemption of the bodies of human beings” (73).
The supremacy of truth: “Christians should be the first to oppose falsehoods … and conspiracy theories, as they are grateful for the scientific abilities made possible by God as a reflection of his providence” (73).
Good leadership: “Leaders who act in ways that protect and provide for God’s creation are a sign of God’s blessing” (73).
Valuing human life: protecting the health of others “depicts a willingness to put to good use means provided by God to overcome a destructive and debilitating force. For Christians, this is an apt illustration of the integration of science and faith” (74).
Living for others: “Alongside kindness can be placed other fruits of the Spirit, including forbearance, goodness, gentleness, and self-control” (74).
The enduring relevance of vaccination: “Most Christians accept that, historically, vaccination has been transformative for whole societies. They rejoice as they recognize God working through the creativity of scientists and the expertise of the medical profession. … In this regard, the pandemic fits into a long tradition of illnesses that Christians have had to face over the centuries, and have developed tools to combat them. Any society that appears to readily accept the death of large numbers of its citizens demonstrates that it has lost touch with the possibilities opened up by God, who never wants any to perish needlessly. There is no virtue in suffering if remedies are available, vaccination included. Refusal to accept the principles of public health and virology, and now vaccination, amounts to rejection of means made available by God; it is the antithesis of a mark of spiritual maturity” (74–75).
Lockdown and consequences for mental health: “[I]t has become apparent that lockdown as a protective measure has debilitating effects on educational, psychological, and developmental attainment, especially for children with preexisting mental health conditions, and also on the economically underprivileged. Christians should welcome the message that the less lockdown the better, even as they strive to protect children and their parents from the ravages of a pandemic” (75).
Like others before him, Jones recalls Martin Luther’s famous letter, “Whether One May Flee from a Deadly Plague,” in which the famous reformer prioritized caring for one’s neighbor and community. “For Luther, people are bound to each other and are not to forsake others in their distress, and this led to an obligation to assist and help others. As a result, Luther urged people to take medicine, to disinfect their homes, and if at all possible, to avoid people and places in an effort to confine the disease. … His biblically based actions aligned remarkably well with the scientifically based measures underlying contemporary public health policies. In his own way, he was demonstrating the close alliance of science and faith” (67–68).
NEW LONDON, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut restaurant is taking an unorthodox approach to addressing staff shortages: robot servers to serve meals.
The operator of the New London location of the Shaking Crab told The Day that the ocean-themed restaurant will use regular waiters and waitresses to explain the menu and take orders but that the robots will deliver the meals to the tables.
Gulshan Soni told the newspaper that the robots can be summoned with a bell and said the innovation is partly for showmanship and to draw in customers with something unique, and partially to address staffing shortages being experienced across the industry. The four robots cost between $6,000 and $22,000, he said.
The restaurant is scheduled to open to the public in early October. The Shaking Crab has more than two dozen locations in the northeastern U.S. and China, according to its website.
A kind of bird that not that long ago was so rare in Illinois that people traveled hours just to catch a glimpse of one have lately been winging their way through the Chicago area.
Snow-white 30-pound birds called the American white pelican are on their semiannual migration through Illinois right now. It is a trip that means hundreds of them stop to rest near the Four Rivers Environmental Education Center in Channahon, 50 miles, southwest of Chicago. Thousands more stop for a bit about 150 miles beyond Channahon at the Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge in Lewistown.
There are a number of reasons this might be happening. For starters, decades of wetland restoration across the country have helped increase the number of birds from about 40,000 in the 1960s to 180,000 today.
As to why Illinois has seen so many more, American Birding Association webmaster Greg Neise tells the Chicago Tribune that perhaps the birds that traditionally breed in Canada and the Great Plains and migrate to the Gulf Coast every winter started breeding in northern Wisconsin.