Cow News

I am a little late in sharing this, but it warrants mention all the same:

The search for Yvonne, the six-year-old cow that dashed to freedom just before she was to be transported to a slaughterhouse in southern Germany, has been called off. The cow has become a star, drawing international attention to Zangberg, the Bavarian commune where she made her escape.

Yvonne has been at large since May 24. But she made headlines in late July, when she ran across a highway and nearly collided with a police car. That led authorities to deem her a threat — and they issued a call for hunters to shoot the cow on sight.

That order was later suspended, partly due to a public outpouring of support for Yvonne. But Monday, the local government made the suspension permanent — and forbade anyone to hunt her with deadly force.

I am glad they found her and delighted that the police came to their senses. It would be a shame to have executed this brilliant creature (which activists have called "as nimble as a weasel" in alluding capture). I encourage you to read the rest of Yvonne's amazing story.

Tentative Description of a Dinner Given to Promote the Impeachment of President Eisenhower

After it became obvious that the strange rain would never stop

And after it became obvious that the President’s general was doing everything in his power

And after it became obvious that the President’s general staff was still in contact with the President deep in the heart of Georgia while deep in the heart of South America the President’s left-hand man was proving that all the world loves an American

And after it became obvious that the strange rain would never stop and that Old Soldiers never drown and that roses in the rain had forgotten the word for bloom and that perverted pollen blown on sunless seas was eaten by irradiated fish who spawned up cloudleaf streams and fell on our dinnerplates

And after it became obvious that the President was doing everything in his power to make the world safe for nationalism his brilliant military mind never realized that nationalism itself was the idiotic superstition which would blow up the world

And after it became obvious that the President nevertheless still carried no matter where he went in the strange rain the little telegraph key which like a canopener could be used instantly to open but not to close the hot box of final war if not to waylay any stray asinine second lieutenant pressing any strange button anywhere far away over an arctic ocean thus illuminating the world once and for all

And after it became obvious that the law of gravity was still in effect and that what blows up must come down on everyone including white citizens

And after it became obvious that the Voice of America was really the Deaf Ear of America and that the President was unable to hear the underprivileged natives of the world shouting No Contamination Without Representation in the strange rain from which there was no escape – except Peace

And after it became obvious that the word Truth had only a comic significance to the Atomic Energy Commission while the President danced madly to mad Admiral Straus waltzes wearing special atomic earplugs which prevented him from hearing Albert Schweitzer and nine thousand two hundred and thirty-five other scientists telling him about spastic generations and blind boneless babies in the strange rain from which there was no escape – except Peace

And after it became obvious that the President was doing everything in his power to get through the next four years without eating any of the crates of irradiated vegetables wellwishers had sent him from all over and which were filling in the corridors and antechambers and bedchambers and chamberpots in the not-so-White House not to mention all the other various Golf Houses scattered thruout the land of prosperity

And after it became obvious that the Great Soldier had become the Great Conciliator who had become the Great Compromiser who had become the Great Fence Sitter who actually had heard of the Supreme Court's decision to desegregate the land of the free and had not only heard of it but had actually
read it

And after it became obvious that the President had gone to Gettysburg fourscore and seven years ago and had given his Gettysburg Address to the postman and so dedicated himself to the unfinished task

Then it was that the natives of the Republic began assembling in the driving rain from which there was no escape – except Peace

And then it was that no invitations had to be sent out for the great testimonial dinner except to politicians whose respected names would lend weight to the project but who did not come anyway suspecting the whole thing was a plot to save the world from the clean bomb from which there was no escape - except Peace

And women who still needed despair to look truly tragic came looking very beautiful and very tragic indeed since there was despair to spare

And some men also despaired and sat down in Bohemia and were too busy to come

But other men came whose only political action during the past twenty years had been to flush a protesting toilet and run

And babies came in their carriages carrying irradiated dolls and holding onto crazy strings of illuminated weather balloons filled with Nagasaki air

And those who had not left their TV sets long enough to notice the weather in seven years now came swimming through the rain holding their testimonials

And those came who had never marched in sports car protest parades and those who had never been arrested for sailing a protesting Golden Rule in unpacific oceans

And Noah came in his own Ark looking surprisingly like an outraged Jesus Christ and cruised about flying his pinion and picking up two of each beast that wanted to be preserved in the strange rain which was raining real cats and dogs and from which there was no escape – except Peace

And peddlers came in lead jockstraps selling hotdogs and rubber American flags and waving petitions proclaiming it Unamerican to play golf on the same holy days that clean bombs were set off on time

And finally after everyone who was anyone and after everyone who was no one had arrived and after every soul was seated and waiting for the symbolic mushroom soup to be served and for the keynote speeches to begin

The President himself came in

Took one look around and said

We Resign


(Lawrence Ferlinghetti)

The Wisdom of J. C. Ryle: An Appendix

While J. C. Ryle's The Duty of Parents interested me primarily as a corrective for modern trends in child-rearing, I was surprised to find myself engaged and inspired by other quotes in his work which often had nothing to do with raising children. So, in addition to some extra quotes on children that did not make it into the previous post, I would like to share a few other quotes from Ryle's work that I found interesting.

More advice on raising children:

A true Christian must be no slave to fashion, if he would train his child for heaven. He must not be content to do things merely because they are the custom of the world; to teach them and instruct them in certain ways, merely because it is usual; to allow them to read books of a questionable sort, merely because everybody else reads them; to let them form habits of a doubtful tendency, merely because they are the habits of the day. He must train with an eye to his children’s souls. He must not be ashamed to hear his training called singular and strange. What if it is? The time is short, — the fashion of this world passeth away. He that has trained his children for heaven, rather than for earth, — for God, rather than for man, — he is the parent that will be called wise at last.

Never listen to those who tell you your children are good, and well brought up, and can be trusted.

Fathers and mothers, you may take your children to be baptized, and have them enrolled in the ranks of Christ’s Church; — you may get godly sponsors to answer for them, and help you by their prayers; — you may send them to the best of schools, and give them Bibles and Prayer Books, and fill them with head knowledge but if all this time there is no regular training at home, I tell you plainly, I fear it will go hard in the end with your children’s souls. Home is the place where habits are formed; — home is the place where the foundations of character are laid; — home gives the bias to our tastes, and likings, and opinions. See then, I pray you, that there be careful training at home.

On human nature:

Believe me, we are not made for entire independence, — we are not fit for it.

No created being was ever meant to be idle. Service and work is the appointed portion of every creature of God.

...there is an alphabet to be mastered in every kind of knowledge...

The active moving mind is a hard mark for the devil to shoot at.

On Christian practice:

Prayer is the simplest means that man can use in coming to God. It is within reach of all, — the sick, the aged, the infirm, the paralytic, the blind, the poor, the unlearned, — all can pray. It avails you nothing to plead want of memory, and want of learning, and want of books, and want of scholarship in this matter. So long as you have a tongue to tell your soul’s state, you may and ought to pray.

Strive rather to be a living epistle of Christ, such as your families can read, and that plainly too.

And still more:

The Bible tells us that God has an elect people, — a family in this world. All poor sinners who have been convinced of sin, and fled to Jesus for peace, make up that family.

Children have ever been the bow from which the sharpest arrows have pierced man’s heart. Children have mixed the bitterest cups that man has ever had to drink. Children have caused the saddest tears that man has ever had to shed.

The Wisdom of J. C. Ryle

An incident recently brought to my attention has reignited my interest in a 19th century child-rearing manual that I had set aside for more challenging reading. When I heard about the family who had taken a contemporary manual and applied its teachings to the terminal detriment of their adopted daughter, I began to see in a new light the restrained, even-handed suggestions of Anglican bishop J. C. Ryle. In The Duties of Parents, Ryle offers seventeen suggestions for raising a Christian child that have a timeless quality to them. While his theology, apparent in some of his advice, takes a decidedly Calvinistic bent which may not sit well with everyone (myself included), the pedagogy Ryle outlines has the benefit of transcending the modern tendencies to polarize to the extremes of permissiveness or, in the case of the family in the news, cruelty. So, I offer these seventeen training tips now (with the full knowledge that I am someone without children of my own) both in the form of quotations from Ryle and my own translation of his advice into a modern idiom.


1. Left to his own devices, your child will screw up with tremendous acuity. You must actively train a child in what is right or he will incline toward what is wrong.

Remember children are born with a decided bias towards evil, and therefore if you let them choose for themselves, they are certain to choose wrong. The mother cannot tell what her tender infant may grow up to be, — tall or short, weak or strong, wise or foolish he may be any of these things or not, — it is all uncertain. But one thing the mother can say with certainty: he will have a corrupt and sinful heart… for pity’s sake, give him not up to his own wayward tastes and inclinations. It must not be his likings and wishes that are consulted. He knows not yet what is good for his mind and soul, any more than what is good for his body. You do not let him decide what he shall eat, and what he shall drink, and how he shall be clothed. Be consistent, and deal with his mind in like manner.

2. Raise your child with a love and affection that is both genuine and apparent.

Love is one grand secret of successful training. Anger and harshness may frighten, but they will not persuade the child that you are right; and if he sees you often out of temper, you will soon cease to have his respect… Try hard to keep up a hold on your child’s affections. It is a dangerous thing to make your children afraid of you. Anything is almost better than reserve and constraint between your child and yourself; and this will come in with fear. Fear puts an end to openness of manner; — fear leads to concealment; — fear sows the seed of much hypocrisy, and leads to many a lie.

3. Remember that you are the greatest pedagogical force in your child’s life. Embrace that reality.

We depend, in a vast measure, on those who bring us up. We get from them a colour, a taste, a bias which cling to us more or less all our lives. We catch the language of our nurses and mothers, and learn to speak it almost insensibly, and unquestionably we catch something of their manners, ways, and mind at the same time.

4. Don't let momentary concerns cause you to lose sight of eternal ones. A child's soul is in your charge no less than his body.

Precious, no doubt, are these little ones in your eyes; but if you love them, think often of their souls. No interest should weigh with you so much as their eternal interests. No part of them should be so dear to you as that part which will never die. The world, with all its glory, shall pass away; the hills shall melt; the heavens shall be wrapped together as a scroll; the sun shall cease to shine. But the spirit which dwells in those little creatures, whom you love so well, shall outlive them all, and whether in happiness or misery (to speak as a man) will depend on you.

5. Begin to teach a child the Scriptures even while he is young. Let them be the bedrock of his developing character.

See that they read [the Bible] regularly. Train them to regard it as their soul’s daily food, — as a thing essential to their soul’s daily health. I know well you can not make this anything more than a form; but there is no telling the amount of sin which a mere form may indirectly restrain. See that they read it all. You need not shrink from bringing any doctrine before them. You need not fancy that the leading doctrines of Christianity are things which children cannot understand. Children understand far more of the Bible than we are apt to suppose.

6. Teach a child to pray, and thereby to confer actively and personally with God.

Prayer is one great secret of spiritual prosperity. When there is much private communion with God, your soul will grow like the grass after rain; when there is little, all will be at a standstill, you will barely keep your soul alive. Show me a growing Christian, a going forward Christian, a strong Christian, a flourishing Christian, and sure am I, he is one that speaks often with his Lord.

7. Instill in a child the value of being a regular participant in the life of the Christian community. He should know that to be a part of God's family and to participate in its formal life is a blessing not a chore.

Tell them of the duty and privilege of going to the house of God, and joining in the prayers of the congregation. Tell them that wherever the Lord’s people are gathered together, there the Lord Jesus is present in an especial manner, and that those who absent themselves must expect, like the Apostle Thomas, to miss a blessing.

8. Teach your child to have faith in your instruction, and give him no reason to doubt that trust.

...you should train them up to believe what you say. You should try to make them feel confidence in your judgment, and respect your opinions, as better than their own. You should accustom them to think that, when you say a thing is bad for them, it must be bad, and when you say it is good for them, it must be good; that your knowledge, in short, is better than their own, and that they may rely implicitly on your word. Teach them to feel that what they know not now, they will probably know hereafter, and to be satisfied there is a reason and a needs-be for everything you require them to do...No doubt it is absurd to make a mystery of everything you do, and there are many things which it is well to explain to children, in order that they may see that they are reasonable and wise. But to bring them up with the idea that they must take nothing on trust, that they, with their weak and imperfect understandings, must have the "why" and the "wherefore" made clear to them at every step they take, — this is indeed a fearful mistake, and likely to have the worst effect on their minds.

9. Ensure that your child knows the virtue of obedience, because a habit of disobedience spills over into unexpected and dangerous quarters.

Teach them to obey while young, or else they will be fretting against God all their lives long, and wear themselves out with the vain idea of being independent of His control. Reader, this hint is only too much needed. You will see many in this day who allow their children to choose and think for themselves long before they are able, and even make excuses for their disobedience, as if it were a thing not to be blamed. To my eyes, a parent always yielding, and a child always having its own way, are a most painful sight.

10. Make sure your child always speaks the truth not merely that he doesn't lie.

Try to keep this continually before your children’s minds. Press upon them at all times, that less than the truth is a lie; that evasion, excuse-making, and exaggeration are all halfway houses towards what is false, and ought to be avoided. Encourage them in any circumstances to be straightforward, and, whatever it may cost them, to speak the truth.

11. Do not give much time to idleness, even though your child's idleness may be convenient for you.

Reader, I ask you to set these things before the minds of your children. Teach them the value of time, and try to make them learn the habit of using it well. It pains me to see children idling over what they have in hand, whatever it may be. I love to see them active and industrious, and giving their whole heart to all they do; giving their whole heart to lessons, when they have to learn; — giving their whole heart even to their amusements, when they go to play. But if you love them well, let idleness be counted a sin in your family.

12. Avoid over-indulgence. It is an easier and deadlier trap to fall into than small excesses in austerity.

It is natural to be tender and affectionate towards your own flesh and blood, and it is the excess of this very tenderness and affection which you have to fear. Take heed that it does not make you blind to your children’s faults, and deaf to all advice about them. Take heed lest it make you overlook bad conduct, rather than have the pain of inflicting punishment and correction...Do not, I pray you, make your children idols...

13. God has a family over which He is the Father. He is the ultimate model for righteous parenting.

Now, reader, notwithstanding all these things, did you ever hear of a single child of God who thought his Father did not treat him wisely? No, I am sure you never did. God’s children would always tell you, in the long run, it was a blessed thing they did not have their own way, and that God had done far better for them than they could have done for themselves. Yes! And they could tell you, too, that God’s dealings had provided more happiness for them than they ever would have obtained themselves, and that His way, however dark at times, was the way of pleasantness and the path of peace. I ask you to lay to heart the lesson which God’s dealings with His people is meant to teach you. Fear not to withhold from your child anything you think will do him harm, whatever his own wishes may be. This is God’s plan. Hesitate not to lay on him commands, of which he may not at present see the wisdom, and to guide him in ways which may not now seem reasonable to his mind. This is God’s plan. Shrink not from chastising and correcting him whenever you see his soul’s health requires it, however painful it may be to your feelings; and remember medicines for the mind must not be rejected because they are bitter. This is God’s plan. And be not afraid, above all, that such a plan of training will make your child unhappy. I warn you against this delusion. Depend on it, there is no surer road to unhappiness than always having our own way...Reader, be not wiser than God; — train your children as He trains His.

14. Your child is watching you, and no matter what you say, he will learn first and best from what you do.

Instruction, and advice, and commands will profit little, unless they are backed up by the pattern of your own life. Your children will never believe you are in earnest, and really wish them to obey you, so long as your actions contradict your counsel. Archbishop Tillotson made a wise remark when he said, "To give children good instruction, and a bad example, is but beckoning to them with the head to show them the way to heaven, while we take them by the hand and lead them in the way to hell." ...Fathers and mothers, do not forget that children learn more by the eye than they do by the ear. No school will make such deep marks on character as home. The best of schoolmasters will not imprint on their minds as much as they will pick up at your fireside. Imitation is a far stronger principle with children than memory. What they see has a much stronger effect on their minds than what they are told.

15. In raising your child, never underestimate the pervasive power of sin.

You must not expect to find your children’s minds a sheet of pure white paper, and to have no trouble if you only use right means. I warn you plainly you will find no such thing. It is painful to see how much corruption and evil there is in a young child’s heart, and how soon it begins to bear fruit. Violent tempers, self- will, pride, envy, sullenness, passion, idleness, selfishness, deceit, cunning, falsehood, hypocrisy, a terrible aptness to learn what is bad, a painful slowness to learn what is good, a readiness to pretend anything in order to gain their own ends, — all these things, or some of them, you must be prepared to see, even in your own flesh and blood. In little ways they will creep out at a very early age; it is almost startling to observe how naturally they seem to spring up. Children require no schooling to learn to sin.

16. Do not be discouraged when your efforts at first appear fruitless. There is no way to know how a proper raising will carry on even after you are gone.

You may not see with your own eyes the result of careful training, but you know not what blessed fruits may not spring from it, long after you are dead and gone. It is not God’s way to give everything at once...Many children, I doubt not, shall rise up in the day of judgment, and bless their parents for good training, who never gave any signs of having profited by it during their parents’ lives.

17. Entreat God constantly on behalf of your children. Do not delude yourself into thinking that you are up to the challenge of raising them on your own.

The Lord is far more willing to hear than we to pray.

A Touch of Confusion

Explain something to me: if a state university cannot be sued for breach of contract because of "sovereign immunity," then what is the point of universities signing contracts with individuals at all? And should professors, administrators, coaches, and custodians really feel safe with the supposed protections built into their contracts with the state?

Progress in Turkey

There has been some recent, encouraging news to come out of Turkey:

The Turkish government said it would return hundreds of properties that were confiscated from religious minorities by the state or other parties over the years since 1936, and would pay compensation for properties that were seized and later sold...Many of the properties, including schools, hospitals, orphanages and cemeteries, were seized after 1936 when trusts were called to list their assets, and in 1974 a separate ruling banned the groups from purchasing any new real estate.

There are still significant strides to be made, including (perhaps most significant of all) the re-opening of the Halki Seminary which is necessary for the continuation of Christianity in its historic homeland. An opinion article in the Egyptian Gazette explains why:

The problem, felt acutely as a source of deep pain by both the Patriarch and by Greek Orthodox Christians throughout the world, is that their seminary, where their students for the priesthood are trained, has been closed since 1971, under a law prohibiting private institutions of higher education and designed to bring universities under state control.

Turkish Law, though, requires that Orthodox priests in Turkey be Turkish. Put very bluntly, without Turks being able to train as priests, the Church in Turkey cannot function and its future is grim.

Situated one hour by boat from Istanbul on Heybeliada, one of the Princes islands, the Halki Seminary was founded in 1844, on a Christian site founded one thousand years earlier. It is a place of great importance for the Greek Orthodox Church throughout the world, since many of its greatest leaders, including Bartholomew himself, were themselves trained there.

Throwing reasonableness to the wind, it might also be nice if the Turks returned properties that were seized prior to 1936. (After all, some of the most important Christian holy sites were confiscated long before then.) But that is probably wishful thinking.

Happy Green New Year!

At the initiative of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, September 1st--in addition to being the first day of the liturgical year--has been declared a day to prayer for the environment. The so-called "Green Patriarch" has issued an encyclical chastising humanity for its "extreme exploitation" of the environment and linking environmental failures with spiritual short-comings:

Therefore, today, we praise the holy name of God for granting to humanity the gift of nature, which he preserves and sustains, as the most suitable environment for human beings to develop in body and spirit. A the same time, we cannot remain silent about the fact that humanity does not properly honor this divine gift and instead destroys the environment through greed and other selfish ambitions...After all this, it is clear that our good relationship with the environment develops parallel to our proper relationship with God.

Meanwhile, in Japan, the dolphin hunting season is set to begin, sparking worldwide controversy and protest.



Today is as good a day as any to remind Christians that the human thirst for violence extends beyond merely our lust for war. We do violence to God's order when we allow greed, self-indulgence, or apathy to govern the way we interact with His creation. He made this world to be inhabited and governed by humanity, not to be consumed by it. The patriarch rightly notes the parallel between the rise of our consumer society and the advent of large scale ecological violence. Christians have an ethical and social duty to stand as an ordained alternative to a culture which in the same breath deifies the natural world through its materialism and destroys it through its consumerism. Christians ought to be at the ideological forefront of environmentalism. Neither the church nor the environment can afford for that to be ignored.