Beaudet Chiropractic reception area installed

Bathrrom vanity in cherry and mahogany
w/black walnut trim.
MacIntosh repro brass pull.

Double-click on pics for a larger view.

Nearly done with this nearly endless project. The place looks pretty snazzy. The flooring is this recycled (rubber tires!) one-inch-thick slightly springy stuff, just amazing. More pics:

Truly, You are a God who hides Himself

Isaiah 45:15. Ed Tingley, following Pascal, uses it as the basis for a great apologetics essay against atheism and agnosticism in a recent article in Touchstone magazine.

Writes Tingley:

Unbelievers think that skepticism is their special virtue, the key virtue believers lack. Bolstered by bestselling authors, they see the skeptical and scientific mind as muscular thinking, which the believer has failed to develop. He could bulk up if he wished to, by thinking like a scientist, and wind up at the “agnosticism” of a Dawkins or the atheism of a Dennett—but that is just what he doesn’t want, so at every threat to his commitments he shuns science.

That story is almost exactly the opposite of the truth.

Using Pascal's Pensees as a guide, Tingley posits that atheists, by insisting on limiting the scope of inquiry to what can be measured or experienced by our senses, fail the test of being true skeptics. Tingley defines a "skeptic" as

"a person who believes that in some particular arena of desired knowledge we just cannot have knowledge of the foursquare variety that we get elsewhere, and who sees no reason to bolster that lack with willful belief."

Along the way he throws in little tidbits about Blaise Pascal, such as that he called himself one of those creatures who lack the humility that makes a natural believer. Tingley comments, "..We are pretty much all like that now...".

Later Tingley goes on:

When the smart scientist of the seventeenth century was asked, “Is clear water pure?” he did not go with his gut and answer “yes” or “no.” “The naked eye says yes,” he answered, “but is there an instrument better than the naked eye with which to see?” We need to listen to the scientist who claims that there is, and that scientist is Pascal.

And later still:

Ask any sensible person if it is possible that God exists, does not present himself to us by way of material evidence, and yet seeks our acknowledgment on some other basis, one in which we are more deeply invested. Could there be a God who does not want to be known the way the facts of nature are known or sums are known? The rational person will say, “Yes, it is possible.”

You can see where this is going, and Tingley/Pascal still have work to do to flesh it out. The main approach they take is to agree with the atheists: "Indeed, if there is a God, he is not in evidence to us." But then don't allow the atheists to stop there. Force them to see that they themselves have made a commitment to a belief--the belief in sensory evidence as the only means of knowledge. Better to stay a skeptic, and keep searching for "non-dogmatic routes of assault" upon the truth. Read the article, see what Pascal concludes.

SCARE TACTICS

This is getting a little ridiculous.

ABC news is gettin' 'er on.


In 2015, somebody is going to remember to ask these people why the only real change they managed was the destruction of the world's economy and the death of a lot of poor people.



They'll say. "Oh. Never mind!"


UPDATE: Here's a nice little rebuttal.

And The Winner Is.....

Welcome to the People's Republic Of Madison, WI, where they think they know what hate crimes are.

BUMPER STICKER REDUX

PICK YOUR POISON

My Nephew The Cinematographer

My sister's son, Sean Conaty, is nearing completion of a graduate degree in film at USC. Check out his webpage here.

JOB'S WISDOM

IT was back to the prison , for another Friday night Bible study. We've been having as many as eight and nine men come to these; tonight there were four. Three have been regular attendees, but we had a new arrival--Rhodes--passing through on his way out of this way of life and back home in July.

We're reading our way through the book of Job--that ancient and timeless text with so much to offer and explore. I have wanted these men to stop and savor the language of the writing, its rich metaphors and poetry. "By day they meet with darkness, and grope at noon as in the night". Yeah, they nod. Been there, understand that.
There is something resonant about Job for men kept in prison for many years. "When I lie down I say, 'When shall I arise?' but the night continues, and I am continually tossing until dawn." "I will speak in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul."

Bildad, growing restless with the lukewarm words of his buddy Eliphaz and the spirited defense of the pathetic Job, uses words as needles to prick the oppressed man: "How long will you say these things, and the words of your mouth be a mighty wind?...If you were pure and upright, surely now He would rouse Himself for you..."
But in his zeal he errs: "Lo, God will not reject a man of integrity, Nor will He support the evildoers..."

Ah, says Job, speaking truth to error even from the pit of despair: "In truth I know that this is so, but how can a man be in the right before God? If one wished to dispute with Him, He could not answer Him once in a thousand times..." Bildad is mistaken in thinking he or Job or any man is righteous before God on the strength of who he is and what he has done. And Job proceeds to magnify the Lord, taking away from his friends their pet idea that God is their pal. "It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God," we reminded each other. And Job anticipates Christ when he laments at the end of chapter nine: "For He is not a man as I am that I may answer Him, that we may go to court together. There is no umpire between us, Who may lay a hand upon us both." Thus, Christ.

We'd read several verses, but I would make them stop to go over them again. "What is being said here?" I asked over and over. And much of the time, they didn't know. So we unpacked the metaphors and analogies, trying to grasp the meaning for such questions as: "Can the papyrus grow up without a marsh? " Yes, ah, the paths of those who forget God! I spoke of how much truth is spoken by Job's friends, and yet how in the end they conclude wrongly. False teaching is 90% accurate, sometimes more. Can we spot the heresies of Job's friends? And so we dig into it.

At some point, one of the men mentioned he had something on his mind he needed to talk about. We ended our study with enough time to hear him out. This is a white man, the scars of a hard life in his bearing. He began by saying he'd gotten a letter that day from his Dad, apologizing to him for raising him poorly. He didn't think his Dad had done that. He said, "I was the oldest kid. My Dad told me after he messed up with me, he just gave up on the other kids. I gotta write to him; tell him it isn't true."
The other thing on his mind was a growing conflict he'd had with other inmates. There is a cultural rule in this prison that, though the shower room has six stalls, guys shower alone. The only one who breaks this rule is this guy, who is slowly coming under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit but still maintains some old and powerful tendencies toward aggression that are what landed him in prison in the first place. So this guy breaks the rule and showers when he likes--"Hey! It's a stupid rule!"-- and it pisses off some of the other, more pugnacious inmates. Men bristle at him, and he bristles back.
So what to do? He has been having thoughts , since he's an ambassador of Christ, that he shouldn't really break a guy's nose, as he would naturally do. Actually, the tendency would be to try to kill the other guy. I mean, he frankly stated that if he went down that particular road with this particular dude, the dude would end up dead.
And, he remembers his daughter, living with a Baptist pastor awaiting his release. If he followed his instincts and the path he'd gone down throughout his life, he'd never be free to know her and help to raise her.
So we talked about it. The black guys were saying, "Hey, just walk away, dude. I'm just walking away from it." At one point I asked if the guy he wanted to kill was worth saving. I mean, we had to laugh. My guy chuckled and said frankly, "No, I want him to rot in Hell!" It was so pathetic, we all cracked up. Yeah. Know how you feel. Having confessed that, my guy was able to hear a little more clearly when I moved into the really hard-nosed words of Christ: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'
"But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."

Jesus takes the gloves off when it comes to the impossible expectations he has for us. My guy realizes this. I pointed out to him that even though his thought process during this latest confrontation was confusing to him, his actions were ultimately guided by the Holy Spirit, and attested to by his little thoughts about his witness, and his daughter. And we all agreed we would pray for him even as he--and this was the big thing--decided to pray for the jerk he wanted to kill. I also suggested maybe, just maybe, finding a different place, at the end of a long and wearying day, to take a shower.