The young Christian was eating lunch in the cafeteria when he noticed a classmate off to one side of the room, apparently upset. As he considered what to do, the young Christian prayed. “God, he looks like he needs a friend. I’m going over there to talk with him, and if you want to come along, that would be OK, too.”

The young Christian was eating lunch in the cafeteria when he noticed a classmate off to one side of the room, apparently upset. As he considered what to do, the young Christian prayed. “God, he looks like he needs a friend. If you want me to talk with him, pick me up and set me down over there beside him.”

It’s funny how these two comical extremes illustrate our awkwardness in befriending others, particularly when it might lead to talking with someone about Jesus. However, are they really that unusual? One of my Christian friends shares the Gospel freely and easily with a wide range of people. Yet this friend is “so tired of hearing about doctrine;” so tired of reminders about what Christians believe and why. They have God’s love to share, and if God wants to tag along, well, that’s up to Him. Another friend speaks and teaches God’s word with scrupulous attention to doctrine and truth. Yet this friend sees no point in sharing what God’s word has to do with a personal, day to day life. If God wants to make the discussion personal, well, that’s up to Him.

1 Peter 2:9-10 says that we are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” God’s words and deeds are still as profoundly alive and active today as they were at the birth of Jesus more than two millennia ago. Some say we need to be more missional while others say we need to be more confessional. Some call for more outreach; others call for more theology. Regardless, God unites His children in Christ. God transforms us into His people, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, and united at the foot of the cross. We have His good news to share, His truth to tell, and His praises to sing! Happy new year, and happy new life!

Mapped: Food Production Around the World

For the map nerds among us, what could be better than a new map? How about an interactive map? The article above links to an interactive map that allows us to select a food commodity (e.g., almonds, corn (maize), wheat, or beef) and then compare different parts of the world in terms of production, use, or sometimes even waste. For some commodities, the maps can show relative levels of productivity (not just annual production).

At this festive time of the year, it might be interesting to kick back and look at where food comes from and where it is used. Or, for the more serious-minded, think about how climate, land resources, and even type of governance might affect food production, and how local or national customs might affect food consumption. Enjoy!

P.S. My grandfather used to say that a nation is only as wealthy as its farmers. Of course, that was in the day before large agricultural corporations and international land purchases distorted the picture, but the idea that prosperous family-owned farms make a strong contribution to a prosperous national economy still has a ring of truth to it.

Mapped: Economic Freedom Around the World

Between taxes, user fees, restrictions on property use, and the ever-increasing number of laws imposed at federal, state, county, and local levels, we may not feel very free. As the article linked above suggests, the US is gradually losing ground in terms of economic freedom, but we are still rather well off compared to much of the world. Perhaps this kind of freedom is only relative and best understood in comparison to other countries, although small differences in “freedom score” (e.g., between the US and Canada) may not matter much. Still interesting to consider, though. So how (or why) does Ireland do so well?

Our previous post shared a number of North Island highlights from our 2017 visit to New Zealand. Here are some photos from New Zealand’s South Island:

A friend recently asked about our visit to New Zealand a few years ago, so I thought it might be fun to post a few photos. Here is a selection from New Zealand’s North Island in 2017.

Stay tuned for a set of photos from South Island!

The Most Commonly Spoken Language in Every U.S. State (Besides English and Spanish)

The article linked above racks up the next-most-common language (after English and Spanish) spoken at home in the fifty states of the US. The article is worth five minutes to read and consider, and it contains a surprise or two. But let’s consider a further point or two.

First, the US Department of Defense runs the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC) in Monterey, California in which they provide language and related cultural training for military officers and other government officials. There are over 7000 languages spoken world wide, but some are much more common than others. If you had to choose which to teach, how would you decide? As it turns out, the DLIFLC (can’t do government without acronyms) teaches about a dozen languages at any given time. Their course offerings include:

Category I&II languages – 36 week-long courses:

• French
• Spanish
• Indonesian

Category III languages – 48 week-long courses:

• Hebrew
• Persian Farsi
• Russian
• Tagalog

Category IV languages – 64 week-long courses:

• Modern Standard Arabic
• Arabic – Egyptian
• Arabic – Iraqi
• Arabic – Levantine
• Chinese Mandarin
• Japanese
• Korean
• Pashto

No surprise, but the length of the class reflects the difficulty of the language. But if you were to develop a language institute for some other purpose, perhaps to support missionary outreach, which languages would you choose? The menu might look a little different, depending on your purpose.

This gives rise to a second consideration: the original article linked at the top of this post asserts that the US is a very diverse country when it comes to languages and cultures, but how diverse are the ingredients in our national melting pot of a society? At one extreme, English, French, and Spanish were the only languages I heard while growing up in southeast Missouri. At the other extreme, there are between 185 and 225 (depending on your data) different languages spoken in homes in the Los Angeles area. We could expect similar levels of diversity in the San Francisco Bay Area, Chicago, Houston, New York City, Miami, and other major cities. Even smaller cities and towns may be more cosmopolitan than we might expect. So how would you decide which languages to teach to be able to work in those situations? Or is there an alternative strategy for working with those populations? Food for thought, and interesting to consider.

Draining the World’s Oceans to Visualize Earth’s Surface

For those of us who love maps or geography or landforms (or all of these), the linked article above shows what you would see if the oceans were somehow drained to expose the seafloor. For best effect, watch the animation on a larger screen if available.

The image above, representing a partial exposure of the seafloor, uses a golden mustard color to show the mid-Atlantic Ridge, the continental shelf and slope around each landmass, and a number of other features. The image portrays only a partial draining of the oceans, so the really deep parts of the ocean are still covered by water, represented by black.

Speaking of depth, the article notes that the deepest known part of the ocean, the Challenger Deep, is about 11,000 meters below Mean Sea Level (MSL), while the tallest mountain, Mt. Everest is a bit over 8800 meters above MSL. This makes for a total relief of almost 20 km between the highest and lowest points on the Earth’s crust. 20 km sounds like a lot until we realize that the radius of the Earth ranges from about 6357 km at the poles to about 6378 km at the Equator. So the amount of relief happens to be almost equivalent to those differences in radius. If we use a global average radius of about 6371 km, we see that the relief on the Earth’s surface is only about 0.3% of the radius, meaning that the Earth is really rather smooth (I would have said flat, but didn’t want you to think of me as a Flat-Earther!). Not as smooth as a billiard ball, but perhaps more like the pebbled surface of an orange.

All of this leaves us with a sense of awe as we begin to appreciate the shear scale of what we see around us. And it brings to mind Psalm 95:1-6:

Oh come, let us sing to the LORD;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
For the LORD is a great God,
and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!

Our Thanksgiving holiday was both busy and blessed. Part of our family arrived for the holiday from about 2000 miles away, which made our time together even more special. Now we are well into Advent, with Christmas looming ahead on the calendar. Even though it is over two weeks past Thanksgiving, I would like to pause and note some obvious and perhaps less obvious things for which we give thanks:

Family and friends: we have family scattered across at least six or seven states, with friends spread even further, even including friends in other countries. Family by blood relation and by marriage; they are all special. Friends from high school, college, work, neighborhoods, and church; they are all special, too. Every one of them is a blessing.

Immediate family: we are blessed with three children by birth, three more by marriage, and six (soon to be seven) living grandchildren. They add spice to our life, and don’t leave much room for a dull moment. As the Psalmist said, children are a heritage from the Lord. We give thanks for these riches.

Music: this may peg me as older than dirt (don’t believe it!), but I grew up listening to music on an AM radio or played on LP records, complete with static, hiss, pops, and crackles. I still remember my first time hearing a good recording of emotive classical music; it came from a record on a turntable that fed my first-ever high-quality stereo amplifier. Today we have high-quality music of any variety we care to hear, easily available by streaming online, from our own digital libraries, or sometimes even in live concerts. And we even have digital recordings of some of our old LP albums, complete with the hiss, pops, and crackles. Brings back memories…

Good English translations of the Bible: I don’t read or speak Hebrew or Aramaic, and the only Greek I know comes from equations in math and science. Therefore, I truly appreciate the ready availability of good English translations of the Bible for reading and for study. The New American Standard Bible, English Standard Version (used in The Lutheran Study Bible), and the 1984 New International Version are three of my favorites.

Photography: my first camera was a little Kodak box camera that used clumsy rolls of film. We had shoeboxes of old black-and-white family photos, many of which seem to have been lost or damaged over the years. With time I graduated to a good SLR Pentax, then a Nikon, and eventually a series of digital cameras. But as with music, technology is not the main point. What we cherish is memories, the beauty of God’s creation (God makes the best colors), and the ease of sharing these things with each other via photography.

Other things come to mind: I am thankful for our God-given freedoms, for opportunities to travel, for the beauty of God’s creation, and for knowing the God to whom we give thanks. Giving thanks resets our perspective on life, and I am grateful for the reset!

Mapped: The Geography of Global Literacy

The linked article provides a quick look at literacy rates around the world, and highlights the areas that need more work to bring their population closer to a 100% literacy rate. Another chart, embedded in the article, shows worldwide progress towards 100% literacy since 1800. We are still making progress, but the rate of improvement is slowing and taking on an asymptotic approach. A few observations are in order:

The article defines literacy simply as the ability to read and write, presumably in a person’s native language. But we can define different kinds of literacy. For example, literacy might involve familiarity with classic writings, such as the Bible or the works of Shakespeare. Language and culture go hand in hand, to some extent, so it might include experience with different aspects of culture, or even with multiple languages or cultures. Literacy relates to communication skills and thinking skills, since how can you share an idea or evaluate a thought if you can’t put it into words? And, if you compare the maps in the article above with maps of economic activity or prosperity, you might even conclude that literacy is part of the foundation for economic success. All of this is food for thought, particularly since we have framed some observations and questions with our words.

One more idea: it might be worth exploring how to strengthen literacy, but we should also beware of factors that could corrode literacy. Communicating in soundbites rather than complete sentences? Neglecting classic writings? Teaching politicized history rather than complete accounts, warts and all? Neglecting our critical thinking skills? All of this ties together in our individual and collective learning experiences. We are blessed with the greatest easy access to information the world has ever seen. Let’s not hesitate to invest the time and energy to use it! More musings as food for thought.

Computers! What did you think I had in mind?

We have been busy since Thanksgiving, but this week already arrived at a new level of busy because our laptop and desktop computers have each been a little troublesome. Particularly the desktop computer.

Whenever a new operating system comes out, we usually wait a week or two, or even a month, before installing it. This gives bugs (if any) time to show up for the Apple engineers to squash them. The latest Mac OS is Monterey, also known as OS 12.0, so we waited until OS 12.0.1 had been out for a couple of weeks before installing it on our machines. Sadly, it still came with a bug or two that show up sometimes on our laptop computer but afflict the desktop computer big time.

Over the course of three on-line chats with Apple, we ran disk repair utilities (no problems found), reinstalled the OS (did not help), and now erased the entire machine and started an OS installation from scratch. This takes time, and reminds us of a screenshot from years ago when we installed El Capitan”

Fortunately, the El Capitan installation finished much more quickly than the screen indicated, in a matter of two or three hours, as I recall. Our current clean install for Monterey looks like it will take about six hours or so. The OS itself installs reasonably quickly, but since we started with an erased disk, we need to transfer our photo and music libraries (about 300-350 GB) from backup to complete the installation. Fun times, particularly if it all works as intended!