Geeks at Play

Son John is working on trigonometry with wife Melanie this morning. I had to share the Beaver cheer with them:

I'm a Beaver,

You're a Beaver,

We are Beavers all

And when we get together,

we do the Beaver call!

E to the U du dx

E to the X dx

Cosine, secant, tangent, sine,

3.14159

Integral radical mu dv

Slipstick, sliderule, MIT!

Go Tech!

Not that I have any claim to it, I just appreciate the poetry of it.

(The title of the post is borrowed from a website where I read it some time ago)

Updating Scott

Friend Scott Somerville has stopped posting on his old Homeschool Blogger site, Somerschool (a good title, sorry to see it go!) but has moved his mission over to "The K-Dad Network". I've updated his link accordingly here.

New Links

I've added a few new links for easy reference:

Bible Gateway is an excellent tool for checking nearly any translation or version of the Scriptures and the one I use to link passages for this blog.

The Online Parallel Bible links to a number of useful study tools though it doesn't have my translation of choice, the New King James Version.

Monergism is a Reformed website with numerous useful pages, including doctrinal articles, translations, classic Christian books, confessional statements, and many historically-proven commentaries, all available and searchable online.

The Utility's Lament

While I was working with the power company, I found that we all watched the weather -- not just to see if a hurricane or a winter storm was going to disrupt our weekend plans, but longer-term, if the mild weather was going to cut into the expected revenues from air conditioning and heaters. It's been so unseasonably warm this winter, I sketched out this doggerel ... and now that we have a prediction of winter precipitation of the wrong kind today, I thought I'd better go ahead and post before it's overtaken by events ...

=====

Oh, the weather outside's displeasing
'Cause it's hardly got to freezing
And we've got to make the meters go --
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

When the weatherman says there's ice,
Oh, we hate going out in the storm
But a little snow would be nice
People stay home and stay warm!

But our profit will be declining
If the sun continues shining
And the PSC persists with "No" --
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

Howdy, Grampa! What's for supper?

My teenage son is leaving for work carrying his own special dinner: ranch baloney salsa cheddar wrap.

I refer to this as "Tex-Hex" cuisine because he'll be haunted by the decision the rest of the evening, I'm sure. And he thought I ought to blog it, so here it is.

Poetry is where you find it

Someone wrote a book on the unintended poetry of Donald Rumsfeld. There is unintended poetry in the Combined Federal Regulations, too. This one is entitled, "Prohibited Threads" -- I've reformatted it slightly to for reading purposes:

Prohibited threads

Cotton thread,

and monofilament thread

of any composition,

will not be accepted

for use

in structural applications

unless demonstrated

to the Commandant

to be equivalent

to standard thread

in durability

in all foreseeable

conditions of use

and stowage.

46 CFR Ch. 1 Sub 164.023-5,

“Thread for Personal Floatation Devices: Performance; standard thread”

(10-1-04 edition)

A later couplet rings with hidden meaning:

Each thread

which complies

with all of the requirements

of a specification listed in table 164.023–5(a)

is assigned Use Codes

1, 2, 3, 4BC, 4RB, and 5 (any).

Got to dig the "5 (any) " conceit.

Really, is there a Use Code 5(any) to be aware of? And did it come out in the floor debate in the House?

Creeping in on little cat's feet

Apologies to Carl Sandburg's poem "Fog", but it came to mind in a recent discussion of "regulatory creep".

The following quotation is from "The Interest of the Few and the Rights of the Many," an essay by John F. Mercer, a Maryland delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He said that many of his fellow citizens were not ready to defend their liberties or to exert "a watchful jealousy of the great and unnecessary grants of power and changes in a state of society which we know to be mild and free":

The people, long unaccustomed, in a good and guarded government, to bold and selfish designs in their rulers, look up with an unsuspicious confidence to any alteration which those entrusted with power may propose. However unconstitutional the changes, if recommended by men used to govern them, they seem to come forward under the sanction of legal authority. [This is especially so if the changes are] prepared in secrecy, the public mind taken by surprise and every engine previously set in motion, [and if] the unconceited and unconnected defense of individuals is branded with the opprobrious epithet of opposition and overwhelmed in the directed tide of popular clamor ...

-- The Annals of America, vol. 3, p. 276. (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1976)

A time to speak, and time to be silent

I maintain a section of NCHE's website for statewide news and events, including an "Upcoming Events" entry which lists NCHE functions or outside occasions where board members will be speaking and representing the organization. We're on the list, too, so I thought it would be interesting to pull the last two years' archives and add a couple of non-homeschooling events we did, too. Although I'm doing fewer homeschooling events now that someone else is in charge of NCHE, I am preaching at our church on a fairly frequent basis. John did a couple of presentations in here, too.

2006

Hal & Melanie
Fayetteville, NC - HOME Support Group
Winston-Salem, NC - 22nd Annual NCHE Conference and Book Fair
Clayton, NC - Johnston County Home Educators Graduation and End of Year Promotion
Sumter, SC - S. C. Home Educators Association 2006 Convention

Hal
Raleigh, NC - Leadership Raleigh
Garner, NC - Bountiful Harvest Homeschoolers
Wilson, NC - Sallie B. Howard Charter School
Smithfield, NC - South Smithfield Baptist Church

Melanie
Sanford, NC - Christian Home Educators of Central Carolina, Homeschool Conference and Book Fair
Clayton, NC - Johnston County Home Educators Books

2005
Hal & Melanie
Wilson, NC - Wilson Area Home Educators
Winston-Salem, NC - 21st Annual NCHE Conference and Book Fair
Sumter, SC - S. C. Home Educators Association 2005 Convention
Clayton, NC - Johnston County Home Educators Book Fair and Conference
Greenville, NC - HOME Homeschool Orientation and Mini-Conference

Hal
Wake Forest, NC - Lighthouse Christian Homeschool Association
Raleigh, NC - Leadership Raleigh
Raleigh, NC - John Locke Foundation

Melanie
Clayton, NC - New Support Group, Hocutt Memorial Baptist Church
Smithfield, NC - Public Library of Smithfield and Johnston County
Lumberton, NC - Robeson County Home Educators Expo
Wilson, NC - NCHE Eastern Support Group Leadership Conference
Montreat, NC - NCHE Western Support Group Leadership Conference

Link to a friend

Our friend Ken Porter just let us know about his blog, The Handsome Doorkeeper, which he's running to keep in touch with friends while he's in preparation for the Ecuadorian mission field. It looks good so far so I've added a link on the sidebar -- thanks, Ken, and say hi to Robin for us.

I'm sorry, he's in conference

It's time I start doing my year-end reviews of things. Last week I was looking over our family pictures for the year and was struck by the remarkable number of conferences I attended in 2006. Here's my wrap up:

Men With Vision Leadership Summit
Oklahoma City, OK -- February 9-11

This was a new event but a number of old friends attended. Christian Home Educators of Colorado put together this men's summit to discuss the future of the homeschooling movement from a Christian perspective. Speakers included old acquaintances Doug Phillips of Vision Forum, Michael Smith of HSLDA, and Rep. Kevin Lundberg of Colorado. I had an opportunity to interview CHEC's executive director Kevin Swanson (another speaker and author of an excellent new book, Upgrade), and ate dinner with Norm Wakefield of Elijah Ministries on the way home.

My friend Davis Carmen from NCHE's board attended (we shared a room) as did our elder David Auge and pastor Scott Brown; we had an excellent time of fellowship and encouragement both in sessions and between.

North Carolina Conservative Leadership Conference
Durham, NC -- February

This is the first of these events sponsored by the J.W. Pope Civitas Institute. I registered at my own expense since I thought it might be too partisan in its politics to count as a legitimate NCHE homeschooling interest. As it happened, the educational focus was almost exclusively about charter schools and "choice" options than home education. I did see several political and policy acquaintances while I was there and made some contacts which could be helpful for homeschooling in a general sense. The big keynote speaker was Sen. George Allen of Virginia, though Rep. Sue Myrick and Rep. Virginia Foxx spoke as well as the head of the American Conservative Union.

One good takeaway was watching the live bloggers in action in the lobby; it inspired me to set up something like it for NCHE's conference later in the spring. They also had an interesting schedule for workshop sessions -- identical for both Friday and Saturday, so you could either get to every session, or else have the full range to choose from if you only come one day.

HSLDA Legislative Summit
Washington D.C. -- May


Home School Legal Defense Association sponsors this meet-your-Congressman event for state homeschool leaders every second year, and as the president of North Carolinians for Home Education, I was invited to come this time. Speakers included Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and about a dozen other legislators from both parties. These are my friends Bruce Shortt of Exodus Mandate and Joyce Burgess of the National Black Home Educators; the man who lives here sends me Christmas cards but didn't invite us in the day we came by.

North Carolinians for Home Education Annual Conference and Book Fair
Winston-Salem, NC -- May

My last one as president. This one had some interesting changes and surprises; the new owners of the convention center had installed WiFi through the whole facility so we set up a live blog for the NCHE website and had several guest bloggers posting throughout the weekend. This can only get better, I think.

We had some friends over for a late night drop-in at our hotel suite (we have seven kids, we need that much space) and a couple of the speakers came by, too. Here's an old acquaintance, Rick Boyers of Virginia (author of Yes, They're All Ours and The Socialization Trap) and a new friend, Vodie Baucham (author of The Everloving Truth and the most talked-about speaker at the conference).

Melanie and I spoke about four times each, including one on homeschooling travel which we put together on short notice when one of our scheduled speakers cancelled for health reasons.

National Conference for Christian Homeschool Leaders,
Nashville, TN -- September

We look forward to this event every year. HSLDA brings together leaders from the Christian homeschooling movement from all over the world; predominantly, of course, it's Americans, but there are nearly always representatives from HSLDA Canada, the German organization Schulunterricht zu Hause, Mike and Pam Richardson from El Hogar Educador in Latin America, and people from somewhere in Central Europe. We have a number of friends that we've known for years through this networking opportunity; here are Melanie and Valerie Monk of Arizona Families for Home Education, at Andrew Jackson's home, "The Hermitage", where we had dinner the opening night.

Uniting Church and Family Conference
St. Louis, MO -- October

My friend Scott Brown, elder of Hope Baptist Church in Rolesville, NC -- and also the director of the National Center for Family Integrated Churches -- invited my son John Calvin and I to attend as guests of Hope. We took a fifteen passenger van of men and families representing five current or future congregations and had a fantastic trip of fellowship, encouragement, and challenge. John and I shared a room with Eddie Burroughs, a local pastor who recently resigned his post to start a new fellowship when his deacon board decided not to support his vision for a more family-centered model for their church.

I didn't take a lot of pictures because I spent most the time blogging. I did finally realize that if I was going to be meeting authors as often as I do at these events, I ought to at least get their books signed, too; I was able to get Alexander Strauch (Biblical Eldership), Arnold Pent (Ten P's In A Pod), and Voddie Baucham (The Everloving Truth) on this trip. Kevin Swanson was nice enough to inscribe Upgrade when we met in St. Louis.

Incidentally, this only covers the state and national "convention" type conferences I was able to attend. There are several ongoing projects I've been involved with, such as the new Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina group that I meet on a regular basis and a smaller summit sponsored by the South Carolina Home Educators Association, but those are both more focused on particular issues.

Charter school uses educational travel

My article for the January '07 print edition of Carolina Journal got an early publication in today's Carolina Journal Online.

Charter Uses Travel to Educate
School in Wilson makes educational travel centerpiece of programs

RALEIGH — Sallie B. Howard, a native of Wilson and a black schoolteacher, was once stopped at the border of Saddam-era Iraq. The guards demanded to know why she was trying to enter the country without a visa. Undeterred, she explained she wanted to see the Hanging Gardens of Babylon; she had made several journeys to visit the Seven Wonders of the World, and this was next on her list. She managed to talk her way in.

The Wilson charter school that bears her name has adopted some of her philosophy and boldness as its own. ...

While other schools may sponsor trips to Florida, New York City, or even a senior cruise for their high school students, Sallie B. Howard School just took 10 middle-school students and six chaperones 7,000 miles to China.

They've got a neat story; I hope I did it justice. My version of it is online here.

UPDATE 1/1/07: Dr. Woodard at the school emailed to let me know that the article also appeared in the weekend edition of the Wilson Daily Times, 12/30/06.

Christmas Cards We Received

A few notable Christmas cards on our mantle this year:

 

A painting of the White House with wreaths in the windows and snow on the lawn:

"Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.  Psalm 119:105

May the light of the season shine bright in your heart now and in the new year.  2006"

George Bush, Laura Bush

 

A drawing of Washington landmarks with a Santa figure in the foreground

"Wishing all of our friends a Merry Christmas and Joyous Holiday Season"

Ken Mehlman, Jo Ann Davidson, Kelley McCullough, & The Staff of the Republican National Committee

 

A photo of the extended family standing on the Senator's front porch

"'Do you not know? Have you not heard?  The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.  He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.' - Isaiah 40:28  '... the just shall live by his faith.' - Habakkuk 2:4

Wishing you every happiness this holiday season and throughout the coming year - Merry Christmas"

Ginny and Fred Smith

 

Packages wrapped in patriotic paper

"Greetings of the Season:  May the Spirit of the Season remind you of the strength and perseverance of our nation and its people"

Bob Crumley and family

 

 

Done!

Not settling our brains etc. yet

Just an observation that even those who are working for a low-key, Christ-centered Christmas celebration are sharing the great American holiday ritual of the late-night Christmas Eve wrap session. I am amazed and humbled that my most excellent wife manages to collect so many gifts, and some of pretty substantial weight, for our children over the course of a year -- and for so little cash outlay. God truly blesses her efforts.

Okay, off to the wrap mines. We've already wished "Merry Christmas" to our family in China, which has already reached lunch time on December 25.

This, however, may be a bit much

The merchandise section of Old Lutheran is ... how to say it ... a phenomenon of its own.

For example, I am not ready for socks with the Luther rose and the motto, "Here I Stand", even in navy, or the "Clergy Girl" doll with collar. Nor the Martin Luther bobblehead doll, bundled with the Luther DVD.

Ach du lieber.

(HT: Purgatorio)

A little diversion

Ready for a bit of humor? See the new link on the right sidebar. Let me recommend The Sacred Sandwich with a Pepsi (be sure to slurp up the top couple of inches as soon as they hit the ice).

"Their main interest is liberty"

"I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed in their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is 'needed' before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents' 'interests,' I shall reply that I was informed their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can."

-- Barry Goldwater, Conscience of a Conservative

HT: Mitch Kokai at The Locker Room

Signs of the times

There's a little give and take with my friends on The Locker Room this afternoon, about an economist's electrical analogy. The end result, if considering the "power" of government, might be symbolized by this sign on one of my former employer's substations.

Thoughts on graduation

When God led Moses and the nation of Israel out of Egypt, He set in motion the fulfillment of a promise made to Abraham more than five hundred years before – the promise of a land for His people.

When they arrived in that land, God gave them markers, both for boundaries and for memorials. Joshua had the elders of Israel build a marker at the point where they crossed over the Jordan, so that “when your sons ask in time to come ... you shall answer them, 'The waters of the Jordan were cut before the ark of the covenant of the Lord ... and these stones shall be for a memorial to the sons of Israel forever.'” (Joshua 4:6-7)

They were warned not to remove a neighbor's landmark, “which those in the past have set in your inheritance, which you shall inherit in the land which the Lord your God gives you to possess it.” (Deuteronomy 19:14)

Four hundred years later, Solomon counseled his son, “Do not remove the old landmark which your fathers have set.” (Proverbs 22:28;)

Tonight we celebrate a milestone. This is the end of an academic year, for most of you students, and the completion of high school studies for these graduates.

Landmarks are important, but landmarks are not the land. When God gave memorials and landmarks to the children of Israel, those were not the promise. The landmark is not the land, it is just a marker. The promise was not for a memorial – the memorial was for the promise. In the same way, a diploma is not the education. It simply represents the completion of part of the journey. It is a memorial of many years of study, of teaching, of learning, of plain hard work.

But as homeschoolers, we know that the diploma is not the goal. The goal is not preparing for tests, or completing time in classes, or collecting certificates. The goal of homeschooling is an education, and that is never complete until we receive it in heaven from our Lord, the one true Teacher of us all.

The Lord says, “Do not let the wise glory in his wisdom, nor let the mighty glory in his might; do not let the rich glory in his riches; but let him who glories, glory in this – that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord, doing kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth; for in these I delight, says the Lord.” (Jeremiah 9:23-24)

Because ultimately, our purpose in life is not in reaching milestones. Our purpose is to glorify God, in our study, in our instruction, in whatever work He calls us to do; and to live our lives in such a way as to enjoy Him, now and forever.

But along the way to forever, this is an important night. We have reached a milestone. God Himself gives us milestones so we can see our progress and reflect on His care and provision. This is better than a mountain top, because from mountain tops we always come down. From where we stand tonight, whether as graduate or continuing student, God calls us to continue upwards and onwards, to understand and know Him, and to enjoy Him forever!

These are remarks given at the Johnston County Home Educators graduation ceremony in June of this year. It's now time for December graduations so it's back in season again.

A Pastoral Scene

My grandmother's maiden name was Miles, a family with deep roots around Alexander and Leicester townships in western North Carolina. Grandma once told me about playing with her grandfather, Andrew Jackson Miles, when she was very little and he was very old, and her grandmother Malinda chiding him for being in his second childhood. This must have been one of her very earliest memories, since she was born about 1909 and he died sometime about 1911.

The Miles family has a long association with French Broad Baptist Church in Alexander, N.C. In fact, the earliest Miles ancestor I've found was an elder in that church 181 years ago. This item appeared in The American Baptist Magazine in 1835:

On the evening of the 28th of August, in Buncombe county [sic], (N.C.) during the session of the French Broad Association, brother William Roberts and brother Isaac Miles were ordained to the work of the Gospel ministry. The presbytery consisted of ten ministers, viz. Holland, from South Carolina, Meeks, from Georgia, Center, from Tennessee, Taylor, from Missouri, and Posey, Byers, Morgan, Ring, Dewees, and Freeman, of North Carolina. The ordination sermon was preached by Elder Holland; the Bible was presented, and charge given by Elder Posey. The season was solemn and deeply impressive. [1]

Isaac's grandson John Miles is listed in the 1860 census as a Baptist preacher, and John's son Andrew Jackson Miles was also ordained after the War Between the States. For obvious reasons, I considered titling this post “Miles of Pastors”. Quite a heritage, even at this distance.

UPDATE 2/14/07: Although this sequence of elders skips a generation in my direct ancestry -- Levi Miles, the son of Isaac Miles and father of John Miles -- I since discovered that my uncle in that generation, known only to me by his initials, was likewise an elder. Isaac's wife Sarah Doe survived him by a number of years and died in Union County, Georgia, in 1851. Her obituary appeared in the minutes of the Hiwassee United Baptist Association for that year, 1851, on page 563:

Sarah Miles, the widow of Elder Isaac Miles. She was a Baptist for 50 years, and died at age 75. She was the mother of Elder A. N. Miles. [1A]

A matter of historical interest, too

Another fact caught my eye in the orgination article. Although it is a Baptist gathering, it speaks of elders and a presbytery as if it were a modern Presbyterian meeting (though both Baptist and Presbyterian would agree that the terms are biblical, not denominational, distinctives). This is evidence of what church historian Tom Nettles describes in By His Grace and For His Glory -- that the early Baptist churches in America were largely Calvinistic in their doctrine and Reformed in practice, as were the founders of the Southern Baptist Convention.

However, it's clear that there were conflicts over these doctrines even then. The French Broad Association was formed in old Buncombe County, N.C., in 1807, starting with six churches which had been part of the Holston Association in Tennessee and the Broad River Association in South Carolina. As time went on and the French Broad Association grew, several other associations formed, including this one:

[The Big Ivey Assocation] is an immediate offspring of the one last named [the French Broad]; it was organized in 1829, and appears to have been the first colony which went off from this mother body, and not in the most agreeable manner. This has been called a Free Will Baptist institution; how it came to be so denominated, is explained by one of my correspondents for this region.

“About the year 1828, an unhappy split took place in the French Broad Association, on principles; the one party inclining to the Calvinistic, and the other to the Arminian side of the controversy. The Arminian party went off and formed themselves into a Free Will or Liberty Association; since that time, it has changed its name to the one it now bears.” [Letter of James Blythe to the author, 1846] [2]

[1] The American Baptist Magazine (N.P.: Baptist General Convention Board of Managers, Massachusetts Baptist Missionary Society, 1835), p. 347. One of John Miles' brothers was named after pastor Humprey Posey, a man who must have been well loved, given the number of Humpreys and Poseys that appear in the census and the Civil War records of that time. Posey was commissioned as a missionary to the Cherokee as well as his charge in Alexander, and he finished his race in North Georgia at the head of a school for the Indians. The Georgia Baptists claim him with pride in their publications. Cousin Humphrey, as it happens, enlisted in Co. C, 29th N.C. Infantry, in 1862 with several of our kinfolk (including Andrew Jackson Miles); was captured outside Atlanta in the Battle of Peachtree Creek in July 1864; and subsequently died in a federal POW camp, Camp Chase, in Ohio early the following year.

[1A] Footnoted on "Ancestors of Annie D. Roberts" by Judy Fisher (Ancestry.com, 11/25/2002), s.v. Sarah Doe.

[2] Benedict, David, A General History of the Baptist Denomination in America and Other Parts of the World (New York: Lewis Colby and Company, 1848), p. 698.