Daily Archives: February 2, 2012

Churl-rella (or Jesus is not your matchmaker).

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Whaleoil on why women make bad choices Chur is local slang. Mokopuna is Maori for children.

All the Chur-derellas out there in the heaving, pathetic underclass are thinking they are going to marry a Prince and have many mokopuna and live happily ever after. Sadly for them the fairytale of Chur-derella is a nightmare that ends in pain.

The good Captain has some excellent linkage today as well. Following around… it looks like at least one trial of distance learning has succeeded.

This past fall Thrun and Peter Norvig, research director at Google (where Thrun also works, designing cars that drive themselves), teamed up to teach online and free of charge one of their regular Stanford courses, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, not just to Stanford students but to anyone who wanted to take them. Not only would the online students sit through Thrun and Norvig’s lectures, but the two instructors would test them via quizzes and written assignments, grade their work, and assign them a class ranking. Only Stanford students would be eligible to receive Stanford credit for the course, but non-Stanfordians would receive a “statement of achievement” that, together with their grades and class rankings, could be used to demonstrate that they had mastered the Stanford-level material in the course.

Thrun and Norvig’s bricks-and-mortar course, designed for graduate students and advanced-level undergraduates, had always been one of Stanford’s largest and most popular, with nearly 200 students from a range of disciplines signing up every time the two instructors offered the course. But the enrollment in last fall’s online version was exponential: 160,000 students from 190 countries registered, with about 20,000 of them completing the coursework and receiving grades that were generally on a par with those of the 175 Stanford students who took the bricks-and-mortars version.

My issue with this is marking. It takes me about 90 minutes to mark 30 students essay questions each quarter… per question. When I have to (every second or so year) mark final written exams (where the class approaches 400) it takes me a few days. After around 90 minutes the quality of my marking decreases.  The only way I can see you can grade 20 000 people is by using computers… and multi-choice tests simply do not tell you if someone has mastered the task at hand. (It tells you that they can remember the book, which is another thing). Teaching might scale, but training and mentoring does not.  Stanford may have a bunch of graduate students they use as slave labour to mark things, but my workplace thinks that is (a) exploitative (b) decreases the quality of feedback (to the teacher and student: you know how well you taught by the answers you get).

The other limiting factor, in medicine (and nursing) — and I think also in apprenticeships — is access to hands on time doing the job. You have to make the students part of the clinical team who take histories “for real” and do procedures “for real” under supervision (initially, but they should be able to do this well without you checking everything before they sit finals). That is the true limit to class sizes — the number of services that can support students and use them to improve the quality of care for patients.

Another link is to Dr Helen, who talks about Nagging being toxic. Will S. used this to produce a word study on nagging, on which nothing good is said about the practice. Elspeth, who read the same article, expands on this.

My husband recently shared with me a conversation he had with a gentleman at work. This husband said that his Bose headphones are his best friend. That there is  no way he could live with his wife without them. She nags him all the time. He puts them on after dinner in his office and cranks them up even though he knows it’s bad for his auditory health. They are his refuge from her nagging.

Several other men joined in to share the sentiment. Since my husband works in a male-dominated field, the men often feel free to say what most every man is thinking but would never say in mixed company. Out of the 9 men present, only my husband and one other married man testified that they could not relate to having a nagging wife. They were both greatly envied for their good fortune. It goes without saying that this talk did nothing to make the 2 single guys look forward to married life.

Elspeth simply does not accept that this is appropriate wifely behaviour, and she has been consistent on this for a while. The commentariat (mainly women) noted that they did not like being nagged… and most of them had learned not to do it. Which is one of the reasons I enjoy TC.

[As a complete side note, WordPress spells American. I spell British. WordPress needs a plugin that spells the Queen's English correctly. And handles my deviations into pompous, indeed querulous, erudition]

Onto some hopeful things. In this time of economic difficulty, there are people who continue to have the human impulse of charity.

While all I’ve said above is the usual (of my experience), there have also been instances of amazing grace and Christlike giving that have blown us away. At our darkest, deepest time of need, when we had lost our home and were moving into our current two-bedroom house with five children, a dear Christian sister offered my college age daughter to live with her, rent free. Months later, a group of friends insisted we go out to dinner with them, and before we could make any excuse, they made clear the meal was “on them”. When we hesitated, they made our presence seem so desired, we couldn’t say no. That evening, I saw my husband more relaxed, and truly enjoying himself, than I had in months. Another dear brother gave us a very large sum of cash to help us get through. He and his wife said said they so loved us, and wanted to help, that it was an actual ‘relief’ for them to give to us. That was a while ago. When I recently mentioned the gift to this same friend, he looked confused, and then said, “Oh. I completely forgot about that.” He FORGOT?!?!?! Didn’t hold it over us, or didn’t judge us, didn’t shame us. Just helped, and then forgot about it. But not about us, as they are dear friends.

Bonald has just given me a warning about what to expect if the photo blog takes off. (This site uses WordPress but is hosted elsewhere, and costs me a multiple of $30 a year, but the photo blog is “free”, and there is a risk it will be hit by advts. as Bonald was).

“I’ve just paid WordPress 30 bucks to keep the porn off my site for a year.” So much for “If you don’t like it, don’t watch it”!

I’m glad he did do this, because his discussion of the rhetorical tactics in dealing with contraception is masterful.  Now, I disagree with him about contraception itself being a total evil: it is a relative one. Humanis Vitae argues, as Bonald did, that the use of artificial contraception is an offense against natural law and increases the moral hazard of young women and men engaging in immoral acts. As the limerick says.

There was a young lady named Wilde

Who kept herself quite undefiled

By thinking of Jesus

and social diseases

And the fear of having a child.

I see some uses for hormonal manipulation:(a)The control of symptms within the menstrual cycle, including pain, heavy bleeding, acne, and the symptoms of oestrogen withdrawal during menopause. (b)The spacing of children, so women recover properly from pregnancy (c) the prevention or amelioration of the consequences of sexual assault (the morning after pill) (d) At times the management of moods — although alternatives exist.

However, there is a risk. And that is that people will see sex (of any type) as safe.  It is not, for it is an intimate act in which any bacteria you have will travel to the other. It is designed to make children, which indeed is one of the reasons for Marriage in the first place, as the Bard said

The world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.

Now, when the pill was released, it was given to married women only, and the Catholic Church advised against it (as it had other forms of contraception, such as condoms). It took the sexual and feminist revolution to open the floodgates, which lead (in part) to the current raunch culture. So there is some good in contraception, but a moral hazard.

(I guess I have to say this, but I am not Catholic, I’m reformed. But if you are Catholic, you cannot pick and choose. You have said you will follow the teaching, because you see the Roman church as the true church and believe they are guided by the Holy Spirit.  You cannot argue against clear teaching and say you are Catholic).

I’m going to finish this by quoting some very wise words from Ordo Amoris about the current meme that a man should court — ie. ask permission to see a woman for marriage without really having spent time with her.

I find it incredibly selfish that young girls expect these elaborate rituals and I wonder how many real men find that compelling.  As Anna said on Downton Abbey last night, “I’d rather have the right man than the right wedding,” and I would add the engagement to that.

Then perhaps the most controversial thing of all in the article is this:

“God has prepared one special person for you to marry. That’s right: Jesus is our heavenly matchmaker. You don’t need to actively search for a mate; simply pray and God will plop that perfect person down in front of you one day.”

I am a reformed Christian who believes in God’s sovereignty and yet I see that this attitude causes great mischief.  The worst thing is that it keeps young homeschooled girls from trying, from showing interest or even keeping up with themselves, even to think more highly of themselves than they ought.

This is not wise. In fact it sounds like a Christian version of Churl-rella.

 

Let go of dross: hold onto the good.

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Image from Panantheniac Amphora, courtesy BBC

Yesterday the younger son was in my office at work when I finally got away from the ward. He is not happy with his new Physical Education teacher, who made him do an endurance test: step-ups onto a high box, push-ups, burpees — to number, and to time. This morning he came into my room saying his legs hurt.

He has some sympathy. I’m back in the gym after the break, and despite walking most days, restarting any exercise programme is painful. (And I did warn him, when he chose to stay in the hotel room rather than go swimming and walking , that he would suffer around now. Pain is truly a teacher).

Today the writer of Hebrews uses an analogy of athleticism. You do not run a race in your suit, encumbered with a few kilos of gear. You run dressed lightly: in fact, in the time of the early church, the athletes were naked.  And there were enough Greek cities and Hellenized  Jews that the analogy would work.

Hebrews 11:32-12:2

32And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets — 33who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, 34quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. 35Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. 36Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented — 38of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.

39Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect. 1Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, 2looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

We are told to get rit of the extra stuff, keep things light: not be stuck down and tied down with cares.  One of the things you learn when you travel is to leave much at home: you literally pack, then edit it down to half the size.

In our editing we are to look to Jesus, who clearly threw the idea of being popular away as not needed.

John 6:60-71

60When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” 61But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? 62Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. 65And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.”

66Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. 67So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” 68Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”70Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.” 71He was speaking of Judas son of Simon Iscariot, for he, though one of the twelve, was going to betray him.

I have been taught on the first of these passages over many years. The individual message of simplification and clinging to the faith is one that needs to be taught, and is taught. But most of us do not thing of this as occurring to us as a congregation, as a group.

This brings us back to worship and liturgy. For here I agree with what Brendan commented about a post I wrote a couple of days ago.

The thing about liturgy, just to respond here instead of in the thread of a few days ago, is that it has to be something of “integrity”. In the Catholic/Orthodox world, there are actually many liturgical “rites” (by which is meant liturgical families, rather than specific rituals) of which the Roman Rite and the Byzantine Rite are only the two largest. There are quite a few others, such as the Coptic and Ethopian, the Armenian, the Jacobite Syrian, and so on. There also used to be other rites in the West as well, such as the Sarumite and the Gallican.

In the context of non-Catholic and non-Orthodox communities, it seems to me that what some seem to be striving for is some greater degree of liturgical integrity similar to what one sees in the “rites” of the high liturgical churches. That doesn’t mean it has to look the same as the Byzantine or the Roman Rite. Conceptually, there could, for example, be a “Reformed Rite” that would encompass an integral, historical Reformed liturgical tradition — rather than the ad hoc liturgies that tend to be present in a lot of the more popular non-denominational Protestant communities (at least here in the US). Ad hoc is “relevant” at the expense of “integrity”

I am less sure about the Baptists, but I am fully aware that there are prayers and a structure for worship in the Presbyterian Book of Order and enfolded in the Westminster Confession.  The Anglicans have the most developed and beautiful rites. And the truth within a liturgy that functions is that it is truthful and requires the verbal proclamation of scripture. Which has a power of its own.

But Brendan said something quite astute. Being relevant is an encumbrance. It is like trying to be fashion forward: a huge amount of effort for a net reduction on beauty.  We need to be aware of the fashions of this world — and stand against them when they are evil.

For the world will never see the truth as relevant. They want a message that will comfort, soothe, make them feel spiritual, and leave them damned. For all eternity. This is an issue to serious for intellectual fads. Our salvation was bought by the blood of Christ and witnessed by the blood of the ancient prophets and martyrs. We need to preserve its integrity.

And the deep irony is that my branch of the church, which criticized the Romans for their accretion of statues, art, and made their rites and churches plain, have abandoned this in a fruitless search for acceptance by the intellectual elite. We need to learn again to hold fast to the words and life of Jesus, and here the Orthodox and Catholic example must instruct us.