Megan Wildhood:

Women in church leadership is not a secondary issue because women are not secondary citizens in the reconciliation world, what Scripture calls the kingdom of heaven.

In Philippians 3:20 Paul refers to his brothers and sisters who are pressing hard after the goal, which is Jesus Christ, as “citizens of heaven”, and makes no gender qualifications in the context of the verse. His aim is to spur followers of Christ to keep their eyes only on Him; the division is between those living as enemies of the cross and those who have attained God’s revelation (Phil. 3:15-18).

Those at the front of the Church should represent the face of God as the Church does its work in the world, which Paul urges us to do as mature people of the same mind.  The Body of Christ will not do its best work in the world if its leadership is missing parts or there are rifts between them; it will not be able to obtain and maintain all of its parts if it does not mirror the nature and character of God.

Ultimately, women in church leadership is not a secondary issue because the image of God is not a secondary issue.

R2D2 Bot for protection:

Get Silicon Valley’s newest crime fighter: the K5 robot.

As the world grapples with the onset of drones and trembles at the increasing likelihood of sentient machines, a 300-pound bot is being deployed in places like corporate campuses and shopping malls. Like something out of a science fiction movie, the K5 is part of a broader effort to predict and prevent illegal activities.

While they are not quite artificially intelligent, these autonomous robots can see, feel, hear and smell, the man behind the bot told CNBC in an interview this week….

The machines are equipped with 3-D panoramic high-definition cameras, microphones, GPS, weather sensors, lasers, electric motors and alarms. They can also check temperature, barometric pressure and carbon dioxide levels.

However, don’t expect robots to take over human jobs. Instead, they free up humans to do more strategic activities, Li said.

“Humans aren’t all that great at reviewing raw data, raw data footage, video footage,” he said. “So what we like to do is have the machines do the monotonous, dangerous and computational heavy work.”

For a company or a mall interested in the K5, the prices for a “machine as a service” are as rock bottom as it gets. Knightscope offers a “basic version” of the unit at $6.25 an hour—but has a preference for clients that want them 24 hours a day for a year or longer.

April Diaz interviewed by Kara Powell:

You and your husband, Brian, are deeply committed to multi-ethnic ministry and relationships. How have those types of relationships benefitted your family? How, if at all, has your commitment negatively impacted your family?

Being part of a multi-ethnic community has utterly changed our understanding of God and the Gospel. Our family is also very multi-ethnic. I’m your boring white, Midwestern girl who married a 1.5 generation Puerto Rican (meaning his parents were born and raised in Puerto Rico, and Brian was born outside the US but moved here as a kid), adopted a couple Ethiopians, and have one biological mixed baby. Our family is quite the picture of diversity. As our family has grown in diversity, it’s been very important for us to surround ourselves with others “not like us.” After all, the story of the Good Samaritan is really a story about being a neighbor by going toward someone who is not like you. It is in that uncomfortable place where we can lean more into the grace and character of God.

The incarnation even becomes more miraculous through that perspective. As we’ve interacted with and grown in relationships with cultures unlike our first culture, we can see the fullness of God more. It’s allowed our kids to see the family isn’t only about bloodlines but it’s about love and commitment to one another. I believe each person is created in the image of God.

We are his imago dei. And just as each person reflects God’s image, I believe each culture embodies a characteristic or attribute of God. We’ve seen more of how different cultures and ethnicities understand God through their environment, strengths, and especially their pain.

Too confused to choose health insurance? A report about Jonathan Ketcham, one of our regular readers:

That’s why when people cite choice overload as a reason to restrict choices in the name of consumer protection Ketcham winces.

“We’re seeing efforts by influential academics to move psychology and behavioral economics into public policy,” Ketcham says. “What’s been missing is research on how, and how well, people actually make important decisions in markets.”

Certain experts say government regulators should help consumers make better choices by limiting the number of available options. For example, Jonathan Gruber also researched Part D and stated that “Consumers simply err … due to a lack of cognitive ability,” and the complexity of facing so many options. On that basis Gruber concluded, “… consumers would be better off if there were less scope for choosing the wrong plan.”

Another leading proponent of restricting choice is Barry Schwartz, author of “The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less.” Professor Schwartz weighed in on Medicare prescription drug plans specifically, saying “when there are a large number of plans from which to choose, decision-making quality suffers … because the relevant features are too complex to evaluate.” But then he tried to back away, saying, “Has anyone ever suggested that the sensible alternative to too many options is a single option? Absolutely and unequivocally not.”

Ketcham says Schwartz was mistaken. A prior article authored by influential academics and members of the current federal administration called for exactly that. They recommended the government establish “regional monopolies,” where only a single company could offer drug plans, “much like utility companies of the past,” says Ketcham.

But Ketcham’s research found that adding plans to the market didn’t dampen people’s attention but in fact increased the odds that they would switch to a different plan.

The study demonstrates that people choosing Medicare Part D plans are not overwhelmed or confused by too many options. Instead, consumers pay attention to cost and choose new plans when their current plans become more expensive than the others available.

Ketcham concludes, “People looking for a justification to restrict consumers’ choices will have to look elsewhere.”

For Paul interpreters, Andrew Wilson has a nice summary of the major SBL session with NT Wright and others.

Reasons to exercise outdoors in the winter:

Let’s face it — it’s tough to find the motivation to exercise outside these days. During the work week, sometimesboth legs of our daily commutes are completed in utter darkness. And while weekend sunshine is appreciated, it doesn’t do much to warm up our wintry surroundings. But before you throw in the towel and restrict yourself to the crowded, stuffy gym for the next few months, it may be worth giving the idea of a winter workout a second thought.

Exercisers are often concerned about the internal safety hazards that come along with chilly sweat sessions, but there is surprisingly little to worry about. Simply suiting up appropriately with enough layers made of moisture-wicking fabrics keeps the body at a healthy temperature and functioning the same way it would in any other workout environment. Sure, a slippery moment on an icy running path could lead to injury, but circumstantial (and potentially clumsy) moments aside, exercising outside during the wintertime actually boasts benefits that may not be achieved as efficiently elsewhere.

If you can pull yourself away from that cozy seat in front of the fireplace, you’ll reap these seven bonus benefits of sweating it out in the cold weather — and you might even learn to love it.

Is “Exodus” a white-wash? Yes. Does that matter? Yes.

CNN) — The new biblical epic from director Ridley Scott, “Exodus: Gods and Kings,” has a race problem.

We’ve known since the moment the full cast was announced: nearly every major role in the movie is played by a white actor.

What makes it worse for many observers is that, on the flip side, virtually every black actor in the movie is playing a part called “Egyptian thief” or “assassin” or “royal servant” or “Egyptian lower class civilian.”

In the weeks before “Exodus” opens, on December 12, a number of people, from African-American activists to Jewish journalists, have called for a boycott of the potential blockbuster.

“As much as I love a good Bible movie, I’m going to go ahead and boycott this one,” wrote Sigal Samuel in the Jewish Daily Forward. “And I invite my fellow Jews to join me.”

If “Exodus” were a tale set in the antebellum South, such a disparity might be historically justifiable. But this story is set in Egypt (which was part of Africa even back then), with characters of exclusively Middle Eastern origin. According to the Bible, Abraham, and therefore all subsequent Jews, were of Mesopotamian — that is, Iraqi — descent.

Before we start skewering Scott too thoroughly, we should probably remember that the whitewashing of Bible movies is a well-established tradition. Cecile B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments” should probably get a pass, as it was made in 1956, before Hollywood was integrated to any substantial degree.

Ferguson, Staten Island:

There are two major dimensions of systemic racism in the USA: diagnosis of the reality so that is laid bare before all eyes, and prescription of solutions, for which there is not one but many — in all directions. Anthony Evans below does the first and Michael Emerson points toward one solution.

For the most part, black clergy and Christians have appreciated the response of their white brothers and sisters in Christ, but few see it as leading to any widespread change in America’s persistently monochromatic pews. Rev. Anthony Evans, president of the National Black Church Initiative, thinks the integration of American churches won’t happen, “until Jesus comes.”

For Evans, the divide comes down to a perspective on police brutality.

“The white church does not have the moral intuition to stand with the black church on this issue,” he said, calling for a legal boycott of any voluntary cooperation between clergy and law enforcement in this country, which he describes as unambiguously evil, beyond what is required by law. “We know the white church won’t follow us on this, but until they give up that notion that the law is always right, we will always have a moral and philosophical problem with our white brothers and sisters.”…

For [Michael] Emerson, the consequences are clear and dire. In an email he wrote, “Integrated congregations would dramatically alter the overall racial conversation. There will be no racial healing in this nation as long as we have racially divided churches.”

Bill Gates’ top ten books.

Very sad but true reality about our oceans. Colossal garbage dump.

What never happens? This!

Saying good-bye to “Hurry up!”

When my daughter and I took walks or went to the store, I allowed her to set the pace. And when she stopped to admire something, I would push thoughts of my agenda out of my head and simply observe her. I witnessed expressions on her face that I’d never seen before. I studied dimples on her hands and the way her eyes crinkled up when she smiled. I saw the way other people responded to her stopping to take time to talk to them. I saw the way she spotted the interesting bugs and pretty flowers. She was a Noticer, and I quickly learned that The Noticers of the world are rare and beautiful gifts. That’s when I finally realized she was a gift to my frenzied soul….

Whether it’s …

Sno-cone eating

Flower picking

Seatbelt buckling

Egg cracking

Seashell finding

Ladybug watching

Sidewalk strolling

I will not say, “We don’t have time for this.” Because that is basically saying, “We don’t have time to live.”

Pausing to delight in the simple joys of everyday life is the only way to truly live.

(Trust me, I learned from the world’s leading expert on joyful living.)

What makes a place great to work for?

Entrepreneur of the Year:

SAN FRANCISCO – A company founder focused on helping Americans nurture the growth and evolution of their biggest asset – their homes – has been named USA TODAY’s Entrepreneur of the Year.

Matt Ehrlichman, 35, CEO of Seattle-basedPorch.com, won the honor after a team of USA TODAY editors sorted through 10 finalists that ranged from a Virginia software engineer focused on improving the user experience in dealing with the Affordable Care Act to an Indiana brewer whose distinctive ales have mushroomed in popularity and attracted a cult following.

“I’m surprised and humbled, and all credit really goes to our team,” says Ehrlichman, whose company rocketed from 30 to 300 employees this year.

Yes, let’s do it! The Steffen method of boarding a plane.

In this approach, often called the Steffen method, adjacent passengers in line will be seated two rows apart from each other. The first wave of passengers would be, in order, 30A, 28A, 26A, 24A, and so on, starting from the back. (For a typical airplane there would be 12 such waves, one for each seat in a row and for odd and even rows.)

Pic credit.

Do you eat eggs for breakfast?

Katie Zezima, liberals and conservatives agree on this one:

Controversial court rulings are often followed by protests. Or confrontation. Or social unrest. This week’s decision by a grand jury not to indict a New York City police officer in the death of a Staten Island man added an unexpected entry to the list: rare bipartisan consensus.

Opinions on a grand jury’s decision not to bring charges against a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer who shot and killed an unarmed black teenager were largely split along party lines. Republicans generally approved the decision, while many Democrats did not.

The political reaction to a New York grand jury’s decision not to indict a police officer in the death of Eric Garner, who died after the officer put him in a choke hold, has resulted in a rare consensus, with both conservatives and liberals reacting with outrage to the decision.

“There is no excuse that I can think of for choking a man to death for selling illegal cigarettes,” wrote Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. “This is someone being choked to death. We have it on video with the man pleading for his life. There is no excuse for that I can even contemplate or imagine right now.”

Jon Merritt’s excellent collection of black leaders responding to Ferguson and NYC.

SMcK: I make one point. The national conversation in Ferguson was about racism; the national conversation in Staten Island became police brutality. Justice can move forward in the USA if we reduce police brutality and those most to gain are African American males. By reducing violence we establish less racist and unrestrained violence.

Pete Enns has a nice post about passages about God in the Old Testament that have helped him in his faith. [HT: JS]

Sing or dance?

Jessie Eisinger and Justin Elliott:

The American Red Cross regularly touts how responsible it is with donors’ money. “We’re very proud of the fact that 91 cents of every dollar that’s donated goes to our services,” Red Cross CEO Gail McGovern said in a speech in Baltimore last year. “That’s world class, obviously.”

McGovern has often repeated that figure, which has also appeared on the charity’s website. “I’m really proud” that overhead expenses are so low, she told a Cleveland audience in June.

The problem with that number: It isn’t true.

After inquiries by ProPublica and NPR, the Red Cross removed the statement from itswebsite. The Red Cross said the claim was not “as clear as it could have been, and we are clarifying the language.”

The Red Cross declined repeated requests to say the actual percentage of donor dollars going to humanitarian services.

But the charity’s own financial statements show that overhead expenses are significantly more than what McGovern and other Red Cross officials have claimed.

In recent years, the Red Cross’ fundraising expenses alone have been as high as 26 cents of every donated dollar, nearly three times the nine cents in overhead claimed by McGovern. In the past five years, fundraising expenses have averaged 17 cents per donated dollar.

A good reason to know about Excellence in Giving.

Walk or run? 

Statement of the week: Don Lemon, in an interview on CNN with Chris Cuomo, when Chris was pressing against (almost) the legitimacy of Charles Barkley’s Ferguson comments — unvarnished articulation of his sometimes unpopular opinions — said “We have to stop demonizing people for telling us what they think.” [Approximate words.] Don Lemon is right and importantly right. To silence the voice of some will make them go underground and wait for an opportunity to erupt.

I’m sorry, but it’s hard for me (an outside observer) to see how this is consistent with Pope Francis.

At a time when Pope Francis is calling on clergy to live more simply, a Chicago-based abbey has purchased a lakefront Sheboygan mansion as a hermitage for its last remaining monk and a private retreat center for a small society of priests who work to preserve the Latin Mass and other traditional rites of the Roman Catholic Church.

Christ the King Abbey, a once schismatic Alabama monastery that reconciled with the church in 2011, bought the 7,112-square-foot estate at 2528 N. 3rd St. for $700,000 earlier this month.

It will be home to Brother Sebastian Glentz, one of two Benedictine hermits who brought the Alabama abbey back into communion with Rome; and a spiritual refuge for the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius in Chicago, a traditionalist community with whom he now lives.

Glentz — who is known as “Father,” though he is not a priest under church law — said he does not consider the 17-room home overlooking Lake Michigan ostentatious, given its intended purpose as a retreat center.

And the Rev. C. Frank Phillips, who heads the Canons Regular in Chicago’s River North neighborhood, said the purchase is “not really” out of step with Pope Francis, who himself lives in a suite of rooms in the Vatican guesthouse.

[HT: PEP]

Excellent professor Ken Schenck’s review of the revision of Don Dayton’s important book. Worth a good read. [HT: JS]

Camp Bow Wow and non-compete clauses for workers, yes, that’s right:

It’s so absurd it almost seems like a Woody Allen-esque meditation on the limits of capitalism. But here it is: Camp Bow Wow, a dog-sitting chain, makes its workers sign non-compete agreements that bar them from plying any of the “trade secrets” they learn walking dogs at any other animal day care centers for up to two years, according to the Huffington Post. The company declined to discuss the matter with HuffPo.

Sue Manning:

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Some silken-haired beauties are eager sidekicks to motorcycle riders, wind whipping their thick locks as passers-by watch the wild ride with envy. That is until the slobber starts.

These passengers are pooches – mastiffs, Labradors and Chihuahuas often clad in goggles and tiny leather jackets that fly along in blimp-shaped buckets attached to the side of motorcycles. They are set apart from other pets by speed instead of breed.

They are also the stars of “Sit Stay Ride: The Story of America’s Sidecar Dogs,” a documentary that was largely funded by an online crowdfunding campaign and gives a quarter of its proceeds to shelters and rescues. The movie is also available for free to any animal welfare agency wanting to screen it as a fundraiser.

The documentary by filmmaking couple Eric and Geneva Ristau is the unique story of 15 dogs and 18 riders who spend all the time they can on three wheels.

Allan Bevere, Ferguson, churches and racial reconciliation — let the pastors show the way:

Many of us know the old adage– Sunday morning is the most segregated time in America. We Christians have been very comfortable staying within our “own groups.” Those groups are not only racial, but that is my focus in this post. The followers of Jesus Christ who have the ministry of reconciliation have failed to show the culture around us what that reconciliation looks like in Christ between people whose skin colors differ. We have worked to change laws, but not hearts; what we ultimately have is a heart problem.

The day after the grand jury decision to acquit Officer Wilson, I placed a phone call to an African American pastor I met several weeks ago at a luncheon. We exchanged contact information to schedule a time to meet for lunch. But I suppose with the busyness of our days, neither one of us contacted the other.

So, on Wednesday of last week I called him and we are going to meet for lunch. I want to talk with him about Ferguson and the larger issues that have once again bubbled to the surface. I will do some talking, but first and foremost I will be listening. I will be listening to his story because I know that is the only way I am going to learn. And I also hope we can discuss how our two communities of faith might get to know each other, that we might listen to one another, and to share our different stories in the larger narrative of the story of the gospel that all of us embrace.

And not only do I want to build relationships in general, I want to build relationships as Christians who gather for worship and who gather around the Table of our common Lord. I believe that reconciliation can be found at that Table. As Christians it’s time for us to step back somewhat and focus a little less on doing (though that should not be neglected) and work on just being– just being the one Body of Christ in all our diversity, knowing that our common faith puts that diversity in divine context.It’s time for the church of Jesus Christ to take seriously its ministry of reconciliation, including racial reconciliation in the church itself. Only then can we be that witness, that city on a hill shining forth to the world that racism, even in its most subtle forms is not the way of God.

Nancy Beach, Mary and women during Advent:

This is why all of us would do well to return again and again to the moments described in the gospels as Jesus ennobled and treasured the contributions of women. Jesus was a radical on many fronts, including his view of women.  So as we approach Christmas, I urge women to be inspired by Mary. Know that our God SEES you, that He will not abandon you, that He has a vital role for you to play and will equip you with what you need. The road may be extremely difficult on many days, but please do not despair and do not give up!  Take your seat at whatever table you are invited to join. Find your voice and speak up with that rare combination of grace and truth. Lean into other women (and men as well) for support and understanding – do not do this journey alone! 

Emily Yahr, on sleep:

1) Although there is debate about the magic number of sleeping hours, experts here recommend a solid eight. That said, 40 percent of American adults are sleep-deprived; the average American sleeps less than seven hours per night during the week. Meanwhile, 70 percent of adolescents also fall behind the recommended amount.

2) Lack of sleep is a serious problem in our constantly moving, 24/7 society: People are getting thousands of hours less sleep than they once were. As the documentary puts it, sleep is being “decimated” by our overstimulated culture with so much technology and gadgetry that distracts everyone all the time. Plus, people are overworked, so they no longer have enough time to do the things they want during the week. As a result, they stay up even later on weekends so they can compensate.

The Best (Six) Years of Your Life — college:

College, as the saying goes, is supposed to be the best four years of your life. But there’s increasingly a new norm for students: spending six years getting a degree.

Even the government now measures whether students graduate on time if they do it within six years, rather than four.

Taking longer to graduate isn’t cheap. It costs $15,933 more in tuition, fees and room and board for every extra year at a public two-year college and $22,826 for every added year at a public four-year college, according to anew report by the nonprofit Complete College America.

At a time when total student debt has surpassed $1 trillion, getting students to graduate on time has become critical.

So what’s the reason behind students spending so much extra time getting their degrees?

Colleges have added too many unnecessary degree requirements and remedial courses that keep students in school for much longer than needed, according to the report.

How long did it take you to graduate? Your children? 

What to say?

Americans are obsessed with parenting advice. Bloggers, magazines, whole Web sites urge us to do more. Or less. Be more Chinese, they implore. Or more French.

But despite this constant flow of advice, we have very little idea how to make kids happy. Quantitative measures show that American children areamong the most miserable in the developed world, and there’s a growing gap between our kids and those in other nations. America’s teens “trail much of the world on measures of school achievement, but are among the world leaders in violence, unwanted pregnancy, STDs, abortion, binge drinking, marijuana use, obesity, and unhappiness,” according toadolescence scholar Larry Steinberg.   

At their core, a country’s policies and practices are driven by belief systems. And while other developed countries are taking a supportive attitude toward their future citizens, America seems mired in the ancient, dehumanizing beliefs about children that will continue to hold our kids back, and eventually the country as well.

On Ferguson there are so many things to say about racism and injustices — and have been said by many and said well and I will be posting my own thoughts next week — but two clips about media accountability — constant coverage, repeating rumors and not facts, drawing conclusions too early, keeping the process under constant scrutiny — have me thinking about the importance and problem of media coverage of an event like this.

The first is by our friend Karen Spears Zacharias: (And I would add to her observations that media have become “judges” and “prosecuting” and “defense” attorneys well before the full evidence from both sides is known — and this distorts the story and complicates the process.)

Forgive me for harping, I know I keep repeating myself on this matter, but Media seems to have forgotten its role in society. Making good TV is not the role of Media. Reporting is the role of media. Reporting means to focus on facts, not spouting opinion. Someone noted that one of the news anchors took to the airwaves and declared during a major newscast that the Grand Jury had “failed” in its job to indict the police officer.  As if an indictment was a forgone conclusion.

Everybody has an opinion these days.

To hell with facts.

Now I may be of the opinion that an injustice was done, but I  have very little knowledge of the facts of the case. I might have an opinion about whether I think an indictment was in order but it’s just an opinion. I have nothing to base that opinion on other than that which has been reported to me by Media. I am not qualified based upon my limited access to the facts of the case to make an informed decision.

Media these days is too unreliable a source. They rely too much on rumor and innuendo. Gossip and yapping heads.

They have forfeited their reporting skills in order to be the first with a story, any story.

Sometimes Aaron Sorkin’s Newsroom seems more documentary than fiction.

In the past, Media has taken its role of responsibility seriously. They pursued the rumor until they had the facts, then reported Watergate and My Lai and yes, on Birmingham and Selma. They took seriously their job to inform us, but never assumed it was their job to work us into a lather of civil disobedience.

These days far too many of our so-called journalists are newsmakers, not reporters.

But, we need media to keep the process under scrutiny, as these two paragraphs from Naom Scheiber illustrate:

My own view is that St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch had two legitimate options following Wilson’s killing of Brown, neither of which he chose. The first would have been simply to decline to indict Wilson for the reasons McCulloch’s defenders posit—that the law would have made it very difficult to secure a conviction. The second legitimate option would have been to obtain an indictment against Wilson from the grand jury, which McCulloch almost certainly could have done had he sought one. But McCulloch chose a third option—using the grand jury process to establish Wilson’s innocence—which is deeply unfair.

Why? Because grand juries simply aren’t equipped to adjudicate guilt or innocence. As The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin points out, prosecutors have enormous sway over grand juries. Typically, they cherry pick the evidence that establishes probable cause, helping them obtain indictments in almost every case. But in this case, McCulloch clearly didn’t believe an indictment was deserved. So he used his influence in the opposite direction—stacking the deck in favor of a non-indictment. Specifically, he inundated the grand jury with “every scrap of evidence [he] could find,” in Toobin’s words, at which point “the grand jury threw up its hands and said that a crime could not be proved.” [UPDATE: This New York Times story goes even further, showing how McCulloch’s team essentially cherry-picked evidence establishing Wilson’s innocence. It describes how they accepted Wilson’s account at face value, even leading him toward exculpatory statements through their questioning, while going out of their way to point out flaws and contradictions in alternative accounts from other witnesses.]

And another view, one focusing on moral responsibility, by African American Baptist pastor Voddie Baucham:

Rest assured, I do believe there are systemic issues plaguing black men. These issues are violence, criminality, and immorality, to name a few. And all of these issues are rooted in and connected to the epidemic of fatherlessness. Any truly gospel-centered response to the plight of black men must address these issues first and foremost. It does no good to change the way white police officers respond to black men if we don’t first address the fact that these men’s fathers have not responded to them appropriately.

There is indeed an epidemic of violence against black men. However, that violence, more often than not, occurs at the hands of other black men. In fact, black men are several times more likely to be murdered at the hands of another black man than they are to be killed by the police. For instance, in the FBI homicide stats from 2012, there were 2,648 blacks murdered. Of those, 2,412 were murdered by members of their own ethnic group. Thus, if I am going to speak out about anything, it will be black-on-black crime; not blue-on-black. I want to apply the gospel and its implications in a way that addresses the real issue. If a few black men being killed by cops requires a national “dialogue,” what in the world does the overwhelming number of black-on-black murders require? If the police do not see black men through the proper gospel-centered, image-of-God lens, what does the black-on-black murder rate say about the way we see ourselves?

A wonderful, and sad, story by John Rosengren about African American football player — the first ever — at Iowa State College: Jack Trice.

Meghan O’Gieblyn on her own spiritual journey and hell.

Like so many formerly oppositional institutions, the church is now becoming a symptom of the culture rather than an antidote to it, giving us one less place to turn for a sober counter-narrative to the simplistic story of moral progress that stretches from Silicon Valley to Madison Avenue. Hell may be an elastic concept, as varied as the thousands of malevolencies it has described throughout history, but it remains our most resilient metaphor for the evil both around and within us. True compassion is possible not because we are ignorant that life can be hell, but because we know that it can be.

H0w trendy was the apostle Paul? Nijay Gupta:

And yet, and this is perhaps the most important thing to know about Paul as apostle at large, he was remarkably un-trendy in his perspective on honor and power. You see, in Paul’s world, the hottest commodity was honor or reputation. It wasn’t dying with the most toys that mattered – it was dying with the highest number of honors recognized by the most number of people, popularity through status and virtue. Sometimes a concern with honor can be a very good thing, like a business “priding itself” on fine craftsmanship or excellent, trustworthy service. However, good “pride” can all-too-easily turn into greed and self-absorption wrapped up in the paper of “reputation.” While many first century people tried to position themselves as superior in the great race for honors in culture, Paul was far too busy being untrendy in the work of the gospel. Here are four ways Paul was noticeably “untrendy.”

Elahe Izadi, on broken hearts:

Yes, love is grand and can heal all wounds, as they say. But bad marriages can do just the opposite. People in unhappy marriages are at a much higher risk for heart disease than people in more joyous unions, according to a first-of-its kind study released this week.

“Married people seem healthier because marriage may promote health,” said lead study investigator Hui Liu, a Michigan State University sociologist. “But it’s not that every marriage is better than none. The quality of marriage is really important.”

That negative effect on cardiovascular health was even more pronounced for women and older adults, as found in the National Institutes of Health-funded study published this week in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior. It’s one of the first to take a nationally-representative sample of adults and examine the impact of marriage quality on heart health over time.

Poop cruise:

Move over, poop cruise.

There’s a new poop-related form of transport on the road, and this one is more neat than nasty.

A “Bio-Bus” that runs solely on the biomethane gas generated by treated waste (of the food and human variety) is up and running as of this week in the UK, where it’s following a Bristol-to-Bath route.

The BBC reports that the 40-seat bus can go 186 miles on a single tank of gas; creating that tank requires the equivalent of five people’s waste for one year. (It’s unclear if that’s sewage waste only, or includes a person’s food waste, too.)

The bus emits 30% less carbon dioxide than a comparable diesel engine would.

Jessica Cilella:

On a recent Tuesday morning, Bernard and Margaret Sloan got flu shots, had their blood drawn and discussed medications with their doctor.

The couple — married 67 years — had their procedures done by a nurse and Dr. Paul Chiang, home health care provider extraordinaire, while they sat on a red, floral sofa in the comfort of their Wheaton home.

“There’s just something unique being in the home that you can’t get in the hospital, ER or doctor’s office,” Chiang said. “I’m going into your world. I’m stepping into your life.”

This summer, Chiang completed his 25,000th house call since 2000, when he started working forHomeCare Physicians, a Wheaton-based medical house call program.

He may not carry the same black bag as did doctors who routinely made house calls in the 1950s and earlier, but Chiang’s motivation and mission are the same.

“The heart of medicine is about service. It’s about caring for my patients,” he said. “I have such an opportunity to get a better feeling and a better understanding of my patients, their families, their joys and their struggles by being at their house.”

Rachel Feltman:

This weekend, Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoferetti will travel to the International Space Station with precious cargo in tow — a specially designed espresso machine that will produce the authentic Italian brew in zero gravity. In addition to being Italy’s first female astronaut to go into space, she’ll be the first astronaut in history to sip real espresso while orbiting the Earth.

Until now, the intrepid explorers who circle high above us have had to make do with instant. Those dark days are finally behind us.

ISSpresso was custom-made by LavAzza, an Italian coffee company, along with Argotec, an aerospace firm that specializes in creating space food.

But how does it work?

Exercise and brain health:

By Kathryn Doyle

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Children who participated in a physical activity program after school did better on thinking tasks than kids who didn’t take part in the program, according to a new study.

Participants in the nine-month program performed better on tasks that tested their abilities to block out distractions, focus and multitask, said Charles H. Hillman, the study’s lead author from the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Those skills, he added, are needed by people throughout their lives.

“Kids and adults do these things all the time,” said Hillman.

Additionally, the findings suggest that physical activity has a direct effect on brain health. If that’s true, then cutting back on physically active times of the day like recess may have unintended consequences, the researchers write in the journal Pediatrics.

Previous research has found that inactivity affects adults’ brain health, but there have been few studies to test the connection between inactivity and brain health among children, the researchers write.

Meg Murphy on marriage — is it changing?

The overall forces of biology, social needs, and economics will never let some form of long-term partnership fade away, according to Bentley University’s Dean of Arts and Sciences Daniel Everett.

The definition of marriage has been fluid over time and between cultures, he said. “In American marriages, as they have evolved, the ideal is to marry by mutual consent and build first and foremost a relationship,” said Everett.

“Among some Amazonian societies, the marriage relationship is first an economic partnership, with clear division of labor, from which a relationship may develop,” said Everett.

“Among more religious societies, such as rural Catholic in southern Mexico where I have done field research among the Tzeltals, there is some overlap with the Amazonian — and American rural — model as economy first, relationship second, with clear division of labor, but with the added sanction of religion,” said Everett.

Will the millennial generation usher in a new era that saves American marriage by allowing it to evolve? Radical as it may seem, they just might.

Bathrooms and those air dryers:

First things first: When you go to the bathroom, wash your hands properly when you’re done. Seriously. This is not a drill.

But what to do with those wet hands? Putting them under a hand dryer could end up spreading bacteria in public restrooms, according to research conducted by University of Leeds scientists and published in the Journal of Hospital Infection.

Researchers coated subjects’ hands with Lactobacillus, a harmless bacteria that you don’t typically come across in a public bathroom. The idea was to mimic hands that hadn’t been washed properly. After drying hands, researchers went in and conducted 120 air-sampling tests. They found that Lactobacillus counts in the air were 4½ times higher near high-powered jet dryers than around warm-air dryers. And bacteria counts were 27 times higher near warm-air dryers than when subjects used paper towels.

Inspiring story of the week: Sarah Reinertsen:

As a child, I didn’t get to play a lot of sports in school. I was often excluded from games on the playground and struggled to keep up with my friends in gym class. This was due to the fact that I didn’t actually know how to run.

I was born with a tissue disorder that ultimately led to the amputation of my left leg above the knee when I was 7 years old. During rehab, I received several sessions of physical therapy. However, this instruction did not include running. More than 30 years later, this lack of training is still the norm.

After my amputation, I joined my peers back at school. However, because the basis of almost every sport is running, I was at a serious disadvantage. I often dreaded gym glass and would daydream of having two “real” legs so I could play with everyone else.

My perspective all changed one weekend when my father, an avid roadrunner, dragged my brother and I to the Aspire 10K road race on Long Island. My father had signed up for this particular event because he had learned that an amputee runner from Manhattan was going to be there. As my brother and I watched from the sidelines, cheering everyone on, I caught a glimpse of this woman on a prosthetic leg running fast and smoothly. I stood there mesmerized as she ran past me so strong and gracefully. I was now 11, yet this was the first time I had ever seen an amputee run.

I rushed to the finish line to meet this amazing woman. Her name was Paddy Rossbach and, just like me, she had her leg amputated as a young girl. Paddy was now in her 40s and had run several marathons, including the New York City Marathon. I knew that if Paddy could run, I could learn to run, too. I didn’t have to be on the sidelines, I could be in the race like Paddy, my Dad, and everyone else. I had a role model.

Paddy introduced me to her coach, David Balsley, a physical therapist who volunteered his time to teach me how to run. It took me multiple sessions with David to figure out how to run, but, once I mastered it, I felt strong and powerful. For the first time in my life, I felt whole.

Nearly three decades later, I am still running.

If you didn’t see Chaplain Mike’s post on the church calendar, check it out:

Last Sunday I gave five primary reasons why I think it advantageous for Christians to form their spiritual lives — their walk with God through Christ — around the liturgical year.

1. It enables us to live in God’s story.
2. It keeps the main thing the main thing.
3. It recognizes that one’s calendar forms one’s life.
4. It links personal spirituality with worship, family, and community.
5. It provides a basis of unity and common experience for Christians everywhere.

Three big awards in science.

Majoring in fear — Mark Shiffman’s nice essay. [HT: JS]

Three steps in de-radicalizing:

It is one thing to observe that de-radicalization can occur, and quite another to understand how it came about. Simply put, de-radicalization depends on three Ns: need, narrative and network.

The first step toward de-radicalization involves recognizing the needs of jihadists, which shape their motives, beliefs and reality. Often we only see what we want to see and believe what we want to believe. Valid arguments, however strong, are can be utterly unpersuasive if they run counter to our needs.

The second step is to devise a narrative that acknowledges a person’s need for relevance and respect and provides a nonviolent means to address that need. That is why current de-radicalization programs in Muslim countries, or countries with significant Muslim populations, employ much more than theological arguments against violence. Programs in Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Iraq address detainees’ need for significance by providing them with vocational education, finding them jobs and, in some cases, even wives.

The third step is to recognize that the social network in which militants are embedded is crucial to their radicalization — and de-radicalization. People’s attitudes and beliefs are firmly anchored in the shared reality of their group. Radicalization occurs in a social context that is shaped by family, friends and charismatic leaders. De-radicalization cannot take place in a social vacuum, either.

Parents packing lunches for kids — not all that healthy, folks.

It might be time to reconsider the lunchbox.

A new study (pdf) carried out by researchers at Virginia Tech concluded that preschoolers and kindergartners tend to eat healthier lunches when the food is chosen by their school, not their parents. The study, which surveyed more than 1,300 lunches at three schools in Virginia, found that parents frequently pack things like chips, sweets, and sugary drinks—all of which are not allowed under the National School Lunch Program.

“I wasn’t expecting there to be such a strong difference between school meals and lunches packed by parents,” said Alisha Farris, one of the study’s authors. “We thought that parents would send lunches that reinforced the sort of healthy habits we hope they are trying to establish at home.”

Parents, it turns out, appear to do just the opposite. More than 60 percent of meals packed at home had one dessert (nearly 20 percent had two or more); just under 60 percent had savory snacks, like chips; and roughly 40 percent had a soda or sugar-added juice. School meals, meanwhile, were more likely to contain fruits, vegetables, naturally sweetened juices, and milk.

I have long been a fan of Von Hildebrand, and Carl Trueman does that man’s central opposition to Hitler a good turn because Von Hildebrand had a sound moral compass.

Emily Esfahani Smith on what makes for a “master” vs. “disaster” relationship:

In one study from 2006, psychological researcher Shelly Gable and her colleagues brought young adult couples into the lab to discuss recent positive events from their lives. They psychologists wanted to know how partners would respond to each other’s good news. They found that, in general, couples responded to each other’s good news in four different ways that they called: passive destructive, active destructive, passive constructive, and active constructive.

Let’s say that one partner had recently received the excellent news that she got into medical school. She would say something like “I got into my top choice med school!”

If her partner responded in a passive destructive manner, he would ignore the event. For example, he might say something like: “You wouldn’t believe the great news I got yesterday! I won a free t-shirt!”

If her partner responded in a passive constructive way, he would acknowledge the good news, but in a half-hearted, understated way. A typical passive constructive response is saying “That’s great, babe” as he texts his buddy on his phone.

In the third kind of response, active destructive, the partner would diminish the good news his partner just got: “Are you sure you can handle all the studying? And what about the cost? Med school is so expensive!”

Finally, there’s active constructive responding. If her partner responded in this way, he stopped what he was doing and engaged wholeheartedly with her: “That’s great! Congratulations! When did you find out? Did they call you? What classes will you take first semester?”

Among the four response styles, active constructive responding is the kindest. While the other response styles are joy-killers, active constructive responding allows the partner to savor her joy and gives the couple an opportunity to bond over the good news. In the parlance of the Gottmans, active constructive responding is a way of “turning toward” your partners bid (sharing the good news) rather than “turning away” from it. [HT: JS]

Austin Hatch, enough said.

Lisa Aliferis:

The average American consumes the equivalent of 19.5 teaspoons a day in added sugars, but there are no federal guidelines recommending a limit. SugarScience suggests the same limits advocated by the American Heart Association and the World Health Organization: no more than 9 teaspoons a day for men and no more than 6 teaspoons a day for women.

But knowing how much sugar you’re eating can be challenging. Here are some key facts from the SugarScience website.

• Added sugar is hiding in 74 percent of packaged foods. (Proposed changes to the nutrition label would change this by including a separate line for added sugars.)

• Fructose, a common type of sugar, can damage your liver more than other kinds of sugar — just like too much alcohol can.

• One 12-ounce can of soda a day can increase your risk of dying of heart disease by one-third.

The site also includes tips on concrete steps that people can take to cut down on sugar. Themost straightforward way is to stop drinking sugar-sweetened drinks, like sodas, sports drinks and energy drinks, the researchers say. More than one-third of added sugar in the diet comes from sugary drinks.

Top 10 archaeological discoveries.

James Carroll on Pope Francis and Jesus:

SOMETIMES, when I kneel alone in a pew in the far back shadows of a church, face buried in my hands, a forbidden thought intrudes: You should have left all this behind a long time ago. The joyful new pope has quickened the affection even of the disaffected, including me, but, oddly, I sense the coming of a strange reversal in the Francis effect. The more universal the appeal of his spacious witness, the more cramped and afraid most of his colleagues in the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church have come to seem.

It is easy to love Pope Francis for his resounding defense of the poor, his simplicity, his evident large heart. But the moral grandeur of his personal triumph throws into stark relief the continuing pettiness of the institution over which he presides, a pettiness that inevitably seeks to impose itself on him. What magic, actually, can Francis’s singular magnanimity work on the church’s iron triangle of bureaucracy, dogma and male power?

The intruding voice in my head keeps asking, for example, why has Francis, too, joined in the denigration of American nuns?

Why is the culture of clerical immunity that unleashed a legion of priest-rapists being protected instead of dismantled?

….
Most emphatically, that reform must be centered in a critical rereading of the Gospel texts, so that the misremembered anti-Jewish Jesus can give way to the man as he was, and to the God whom he makes present in the lives of all who cannot stop seeing more than is before their eyes.

Such retrieval of the centrality of Jesus can restore a long-lost simplicity of faith, which makes Catholic identity — or the faith of any other church — only a means to a larger communion not just with fellow Jesus people, but with humans everywhere. All dogmas, ordinances and accretions of tradition must be measured against the example of the man who, acting wholly as a son of Israel, eschewed power, exuded kindness, pointed to one whom he called Father, and invited those bent over in the shadowy back to come forward to his table.

It was the table, I suddenly recall, that brought me here in the first place. The lights come up, the people arrive, and I stand.

45 uses of lemons — no kidding.

A lawyer fighting the violent hits to the head in football:

Luckasevic’s files include medical and neurological assessments of his clients that would have been used if the case had moved toward a trial. He sent me one of them, with the name redacted. The player had a lengthy N.F.L. career and suffered blows to the head “too numerous to recall.” He had been knocked unconscious in games but never hospitalized. Now in his late 50s, he suffers chronic headaches, has stopped taking medications prescribed to alleviate them because they were ineffective, can’t concentrate long enough to hold down a job or maintain relationships and lives alone in the house he grew up in, where he passes his time watching TV. He has developed a tremor in his left arm and leg and is having difficulty swallowing.

The settlement class includes only retired players, not current ones. In an interview with The New Yorker earlier this year, President Obama, an avid Chicago Bears fan, said that if he had sons, he would not let them play football but he would remain a fan of the sport. “At this point, there’s a little bit of caveat emptor,” he said of the current N.F.L. players. “These guys, they know what they’re doing. They know what they’re buying into. It is no longer a secret.” When I talked to Luckasevic about the president’s remarks, he said: “But my guys didn’t know. That’s the whole point. They didn’t assume this risk.”

When he was a child, Luckasevic said, Sundays in his household were for “church and football.” His family had a couple of Steelers season tickets at about the 40-yard line, behind the visitors bench. “They were actually too low, but it was sort of neat because you were so close to the players.”

His father would always take him or his brother. When it was his turn, Luckasevic would take his camera, and he has snapshots of some of the men he now represents. He no longer watches any football. He has lost his taste for the game.

I’ve enjoyed five weeks in a row of teaching at Northern and also, in the middle of each week, on the road about Kingdom Conspiracy so I’m just plain grateful I, with Kris’ help of course, we got these meanderings up each week. So here goes…

And, by the way, next Saturday we have a special Kingdom Conspiracy event at Northern Seminary sponsored by Missio Alliance. I’m so grateful to JR Rozko for his behind-the-call-of-duty while-doing-his-doctorate and being-a-dad-and-husband to organize this event at Northern.

Nice essay by our Northern student, Derwin Gray, on “stuff first century Christians fought about”:

Was it over Calvinism, Arminianism, or Molinism?

Was it over speaking in tongues, prophecy, or healing?

Maybe it was over worship music styles? Those Jews just couldn’t stand those Greek worship leaders wearing tight, skinny-leg jeans.

The first major church dispute actually was over how fast multiethnic churches were growing outside of Jerusalem. These ethnically diverse congregations were blowing up the mental and cultural circuits of the Jewish believers in the holy city.

“Archbishop Cranmer” on feminism and feminist theology, and enough here for all to agree and disagree:

The cause of feminism is deeper than all this pressure-group piffle. If there is no longer any male-female distinction in God’s plan of salvation (and there isn’t [Gal 3:28]), there is spiritual parity and eternal equality. Christians don’t need to wear a T-shirt to proclaim the righteousness of feminism: Christ has clothed the female Gentile slave in the redemptive robes of the freeborn male Jew. We are all one in Jesus.

Out of this revolutionary declaration springs a feminist theology, or, if you prefer, a feminist theo-sociology or feminist socio-theology. And, to be honest, the Church hasn’t been very good at expressing it or living it. While Christianity has traditionally taught the eschatological equality of souls for Christ and in the world to come, it has manifestly perpetuated an inequality of the sexes in the Church and the present world. Throughout most of its history, the Church has been a dogmatically patriarchal institution based on an anthropology in which man is the “head” and woman subordinate. Augustine of Hippo asserted: “Woman does not possess the image of God herself, but only when taken together with the male who is her head.” That sort of attitude doesn’t go down very well today.

The Church has for centuries legitimised laws and structures in society which secured male dominion. Feminist theology has sought to challenge this and has, in a sense, existed as long as there have been women who have reflected upon their faith in a way that differed from the patriarchal tradition of interpretation. Barth observes: “Different ages, peoples and cultures have had very different ideas of what is concretely appropriate, salutary and necessary in man and woman.” So, before you dismiss the whole notion of a ‘feminist theology’, it is important to consider a bit of history and agree terminological definitions.

LZ Granderson on Mia Love:

(CNN) — I hope President Obama called to congratulate Mia Love.

The way he called college student Sandra Fluke after Rush Limbaugh called her a “prostitute.” The way he called the NBA’s first openly gay player, Jason Collins. The way he called the San Francisco Giants after they won the World Series.

I hope he called Mia Love because her story is every bit as unlikely, courageous and yes, inspirational, as his own. Love — the first black Republican woman elected to Congress — will not be his political ally and that’s OK. I spoke with membership services and blacks are no longer revoked for voting Republican….

For if the sexist/racist/anti-immigration narrative that has long dogged the GOP can, at the very least, be challenged by her presence at a campaign, what will Democrats use to fire up low-information liberals? 

Creepy, but cool — how big is that spider web?

How many spiders does it take to creep you out? 10? 100? How many spiders make an “extreme spider situation”? The Baltimore Wastewater Treatment Plant put out a call for “extreme spider” help in 2009, when a giant spiderweb covered almost 4 acres of their facility. Scientists eventually estimated over 107 million spiders were living in the structure, withdensities of 35,176 spiders per m³ in spots.

Nina and Bentley.

Splendid piece by Randy Balmer about turning 60:

Six decades into my tenancy on this planet, I find there are things I still don’t understand. Mild salsa, for example. Why would anyone eat mild salsa? Isn’t that another term for ketchup? Or light beer. Especially in a region frothing with craft breweries, why would anyone order a PBR or that dreadful liquid something-or-other from St. Louis?

NASCAR is something else I don’t understand. Seems like one long left turn to me. And how about the NASCAR analysts on television? “If Bo Dieter and Team Waffle House are going to win at Talladega next week, they’re going to have to be faster than the other cars.” Well, yes, I suppose that’s true. I do like the proposal, however, that members of Congress should wear NASCAR-style suits on the opening day of each session emblazoned with the logos of the corporate sponsors — Aetna, Exxon/Mobil, Bank of America, Koch Industries — that put them in office.

I confess that I don’t understand the allure of Florida or the durability of the Reagan mystique. I find Twitter and tattoos utterly confounding, but I’m sure I’m simply showing my age.

Other things remain puzzles to me. Why is the number of departing flights posted in airports always more than double that of arriving flights? I’d like to figure that out one of these days. Why do baseball players spit, thereby defiling what is otherwise an ethereal game? I used to wonder why, in that clever semantic turn of phrase, people park on a driveway and drive on a parkway.

I’m aware that people tend to view those of us on the far side of 60 as irascible, and I suspect that I may have crossed the threshold of crankiness a couple of paragraphs back, somewhere between light beer and Florida. I must be more careful about that.

Sixty is the age when most people start thinking seriously about retirement. I confess it crosses my mind now and again, especially during faculty meetings or when I stare at a fresh pile of student papers or when grade grovelers stop by to argue about the B- they so richly deserve.

Still, I’m not sure what I would do with myself. How would I pass my days? My father retired an apparently healthy man at 67; he died months later. My father-in-law, by contrast, retired nearly 20 years ago and is still going strong. “Teach us to number our days,” the Psalmist writes. He doesn’t offer a whole lot of direction about what we should do with them.

If I had grandchildren, perhaps I’d take another look at this retirement thing. For now, though, I’d better get back to tomorrow’s lecture.

Keith Gessen’s full study of Amazon and the publishers.

A longer story about Vicky Beeching.

Finding love has been surprisingly easier than finding a church that feels like a place she can belong. “The churches that feel like home, with music and drums and singing, their theology is not my theology. It actually tends to be the most traditional, high church, places which have a more liberal outlook. I have yet to find a guitar and drums church which aligns with my theology.

“There are places that will say, you can worship here if you are gay and be welcome but you can’t preach, you can’t get up and sing, you can’t lead. That feels patronising, I need to be fully accepted or not at all.”

Allan Bevere on learning to preach to the audience in front of you, not the audience not listening to you!

My suggestion is that we mainliners let non-mainline preachers critique their fellow non-mainliners, and let’s look to the log in our own mainline “eyes.” There are plenty of strange and weird things happening in our own UMC to keep us Methodist preachers in sermons for the rest of our careers.

Moreover, I would request that those pastors outside our tradition, allow us to deal with our own house as you deal with yours. Fundy churches have issues too, and we will trust you to deal with them; trust us to handle our situation as well.

Good story about Peter Boling:

Boling’s experiences, though, convinced him that there is still a role for medicine in the home, particularly for the frailest of the elderly. These patients need more attention than a 15-minute clinic appointment affords them. For many, just getting to a clinic is a struggle. So a slight complaint is allowed to fester into a crisis, an ambulance and an expensive emergency room visit.

“The idea is to deliver health care where it’s best for the patient,” Boling says. “If the clinic is the right place for them, then come to the clinic. If it’s hard for them to come to the clinic, short-term or long-term, we’ll go to them.”

Diamond engagement rings a thing of the past?

More brides to be are choosing non-traditional engagement rings over the standard white diamond solitaire that has adorned women’s left hands for so long.

ewelers across the country are reporting an increase in couples looking for alternatives like colored diamonds, gemstones and bands to symbolize their commitment.

New York-based jewelry designer Anna Sheffield said the shift has been a main driver to her business’s success. “People want something that is unique and specific to them,” she said.

Unlike most trends that are fueled by young shoppers, Amanda Gizzi from Jewelers of America, said older women are leading the charge. “They know more of who they are and want something that doesn’t fit the norm and what all their girlfriends have.” Rings without an elevated diamond are also more comfortable and fit in better with an active lifestyle, she added.

The dogs of the Canadian slain soldier paying tribute.

A Texas-sized spider in Guyana:

(NEWSER) – Strolling through a Guyana rainforest one night, a scientist heard some rustling and thought he’d encountered a furry mammal.

Well, he was right about the furry part.

The creature was actually a Goliath birdeater spider,LiveScience reports — the world’s biggest type of spider, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. It can weigh up to 6 ounces. For comparison, National Geographic reports a black widow weighs roughly .035 ounces; that’s 170 times lighter.

Scientist Piotr Naskrecki writes its weight is “about as much as a young puppy,” while its leg span can be a foot long, comparable with a kid’s forearm, notes LiveScience. The body itself is fist-sized, Naskrecki says. The fangs? Two inches long. The thing won’t kill you, but its bite feels “like driving a nail through your hand.”

And when it rubs its legs on its body, it can fire out hairs carrying tiny barbs, which can really hurt and itch if they get you in the eyes. Ultimately, however, it seems the spider is just unpleasant, and not too common: “A chicken can probably do more damage,” Naskrecki notes, adding that he’s only seen one three times in as many as 15 years spent working in South America.

Global warming and your backyard bird feeder.

To get a good look at the effects of climate change, look no further than your own backyard: There might be some unexpected birds among the flock you’re used to seeing hovering around the birdfeeder, lured north by winter’s warmer temperatures. A new study finds that warm-adapted species — birds that prefer the warmer winters typically found in southern states, such as cardinals and Carolina wrens — are now wintering farther north than they did 20 years ago.

One of the best fingerprints of global warming is the poleward movement of the world’s animals. But few studies have looked at more than a single species at a time.

Ashlea Ebeling:

The Treasury Department has announced inflation-adjusted figures for retirement account savings for 2015, and this year there’s extra room for savings for wage and salary types and the self-employed. If you have a 401(k), a SEP-IRA, or a SIMPLE, pay attention and if you can swing it, bump up your contributions to the new max. You can stuff $18,000–or $24,000 if you’re 50 or older–into a 401(k), for example. Here are the details.

Amazon and “incumbent” publishers:

Here’s a little real talk about the book publishing industry — it adds almost no value, it is going to be wiped off the face of the earth soon, and writers and readers will be better off for it.

The fundamental uselessness of book publishers is why I thought it was dumb of the Department of Justice to even bother prosecuting them for their flagrantly illegal cartel behavior a couple of years back, and it’s why I’m deaf to the argument that Amazon’s ongoing efforts to crush Hachette are evidence of a public policy problem that needs remedy. Franklin Foer’s recent efforts to label Amazon a monopolist are unconvincing, and Paul Krugman’s narrower argument that they have some form of monopsony power in the book industry is equally wrongheaded.

What is indisputably true is that Amazon is on track to destroy the businesses of incumbent book publishers. But the many authors and intellectuals who’ve been convinced that their interests — or the interests of literary culture writ large — are identical with those of the publishers are simply mistaken.

Speaking of selling books, here is a story about the world’s best bookshops.

Grade school and play:

“There is no evidence-based research that I know of that ensures these privileged kids success later on,” she says. But there is research about poor, at-risk kids and early childhood education, some of it from FPG; those in high-quality play-based preschools do better in grade school and on standardized tests and have higher educational achievement as adults.

“These preschools that claim to get children into Ivy League schools…would they get in anyway?” she wonders. “It’s hard to tease this apart.”

What’s sad here is not so much Imprescia’s litigious bent, but the state of affairs in the Big Apple and elsewhere that has led to early childhood becoming steeped in the rigors of academia rather than the joys of dressing up and building block castles. (More on Time.com: “Mompetition”: Why You Just Can’t Make Mom Friends)

“Play is the best context in which children learn,” say Gallagher.

But the Times describes “costly consultants and test preparation materials” for preschoolers, many of whom attend programs that dangle promises of test scores “high enough to catch the attention of elite private schools.”

I have a preschooler of my own who has been tasked with a bit of quiet time as I write this. She’s in the room next to me, so I can hear her “reading” We’re Going on a Bear Hunt to her stuffed dog, Cooper. Her preschool is proudly play-based. On Friday, when I dropped in and stayed for a while, they were vigorously mashing potatoes for snack and creating spin art. The kids dance, they sing, they read books and act out stories.

When my oldest started preschool six years ago, I distinctly remember asking the preschool director what I could expect my son to learn. She gently but firmly set me straight: He will learn about self-control, taking turns and following instructions, about make-believe and making friends and making messes. He will not be drilled on his multiplication tables or pushed to learn to read. Um, okay, I said. What did I, a first-time parent, know anyway?

I’ve since become a disciple of the power of play, which just happens to be the title of a 2007 book by David Elkind, professor emeritus of child development at Tufts University.

Quirky Portland may be but it is a cool kind of quirky:

PORTLAND — Of all the Very Portland things that exist in Portland, there is a plot of land next to City Hall, right outside the building’s front portico, where the city is growing its own Swiss chard.

“And on a place that used to be a parking lot!” exclaims Mayor Charlie Hales, adding a detail that actually makes this story even more Portland.

When Hales was first elected as a city commissioner in 1993, the ground in front of City Hall that has become a vegetable garden contained a  parking lot with reserved spaces for the mayor and city commissioners. “Those of us on the council then said, ‘that’s not consistent with our values and our rhetoric,'” Hales recalls.

And so they gave up their spaces for a bit more of the city’s famed green space. “That’s not the only place in Portland,” he adds, “where we took out a parking lot and put in a little piece of paradise.”

Those sugary drinks and aging:

You knew that drinking sugary sodas could lead to obesity, diabetes and heart attacks — but, according to a study published in the American Journal of Public Health, it may also speed up your body’s aging process.

As you age, caps on the end your chromosomes called telomeres shrink. In the past several years, researchers at the University of California at San Francisco, have analyzed stored DNA from more than 5,300 healthy Americans in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from some 14 years ago. And they discovered that those who drank more pop tended to have shorter telomeres.

The shorter the telomere, the harder it is for a cell to regenerate — and so, the body ages.

What to know about people who want to be alone.

The Bishop steps up his game:

Dallas Bishop Kevin J. Farrell said that he followed the teaching of Christ and stepped in to house the fiancée of Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan and three others for several weeks at a diocesan facility when no one else would.

The bishop’s acknowledgement on Oct. 20 coincided with the lifting of the 21-day quarantine for nearly four dozen people being screened for the Ebola virus with none showing any signs of the disease. It also capped nearly a month of a scrambling by local, state and federal officials in trying to both combat the virus and calm the public’s fears about its spread.

Nicholas Farrell:

An Italian government that really meant business would make urgent and drastic cuts not just to the bloated, parasitical and corrupt state sector, but also to taxes, labour costs and red tape. Yet even now only Beppe Grillo, a modern comic version of Benito Mussolini, and the separatist Northern League advocate Italian withdrawal from the euro. Most Italians still don’t get it: the euro is the problem, not the solution — unless, that is, they go for real austerity in a major way, which they will not do unless forced to at gunpoint.

Italy, more even than France, is the sick man of Europe — and it is also the dying man of Europe. Italian women used to have more children than anyone else in Europe. It is common to meet old men called Decimo (‘Tenth’). Yet for decades the birth rate in Italy has been among the lowest in the world, and if it were not for immigration the population would be in decline. When Italian women refuse to make babies, it is a clear sign of a terminally sick society.

Kirsten Powers — we broke Iraq — read these sobering words:

Colin Powell famously told President George W. Bush before the Iraq invasion, “If you break it, you own it.” Well, it’s safe to say we broke Iraq.

That’s the story I heard last week from two people who live there. I met with the Rev. Canon Andrew White — “The Vicar of Baghdad” — who serves as the chaplain to St. George’s Anglican Church in the heart of Baghdad. We were joined by Sarah Ahmed, a director at White’s Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East. Ahmed was born and raised in Iraq. White has lived there for 15 years.

“I was in favor of the U.S. invasion,” White told me. “But we are literally 5,000 times worse than before. If you look at it, you can see it was wrong. We have gained nothing. Literally nothing. We may have had an evil dictator, but now we have total terrorism. We used to have one Saddam. Now we have thousands.”

Ty Grigg on children in church:

The story in Mark, if it were set in the present day, might sound like this: People were bringing the little children to the Sunday worship so that Jesus might touch them. The pastors did not want the congregation to be distracted by the noise and unpredictability of the children, so they created a separate children’s church. Or maybe…. the church was okay with the children being in the service as long as they were quiet and sat still.

We are okay with children being with us as long as they act like adults. Including difference means conforming to the culture of the dominant group, in this case, the culture of adulthood. Children are tolerated more than welcomed. Adults do not ask for their contribution to the work of the people, that is the liturgy.

Maybe we look to a few specialists to support and care for our children and then we segregate the children out of most our corporate worship time. The children’s minister becomes the proxy who receives the little ones on the church’s behalf. Except hospitality can never be experienced by proxy….

We see children as problems to be solved.

Jesus sees them as forerunners who lead us into the kingdom.

Paul sees them as indispensable members for the life of the body.

Most “Googled” universities?

Google has revealed the most popular searches for people around the world looking for universities.

This ranking of online searches is very different from the traditional map of the global powerhouses of higher education.

There is a strong interest in online courses, rather than traditional campus-based universities, says Google.

And there are five Indian institutions in the top 20 of most searched-for universities.

The top search worldwide is for the University of Phoenix, a US-based, for-profit university, with many online courses and a sometimes controversial record on recruitment.

The University of Phoenix, founded in the 1970s, comes ahead of famous US academic institutions such as Harvard, Stanford and Columbia.

Darrell M. West:

Billionaires can be fascinating — and not just because of the fortunes they amass. Theybuy islands and media organizations, experiment with space travel, and have larger-than-life personalities. They also become proxies in national political debates about economic growth, inequality, taxes and fairness. Misconceptions abound about their beliefs, businesses and influence. Let’s explore five of the most common myths.

What your children may not see in the wild:

In their losing battle with television and digital devices, conservationists have urged parents to get the kiddies to the great outdoors. But even if parents managed to pull their children away from cellphones, what would they find in America’s wilderness?

A new report by the Endangered Species Coalition, an alliance of 10 environmental activist groups, says they’ll see fewer things in nature than their parents did. Many are listed as threatened or endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife. Here are 10 plants and animals the groups say your children might never see.

LaSalle Street church gives money to parishioners:

A Chicago church came into some money following a decades old real estate deal. What to do with the extra dough weighed heavily on the pastor’s mind. Then she decided to do something crazy.

She wanted the church to tithe and give 10% of the money away. That may not sound so crazy, but here’s the hitch, she gave it back — all $160,000 of it–to the congregation. Anyone who is “actively engaged in LaSalle Street Church” got a sizable check. Not $5 or $50 – we are talking $500 a person. Personal checks made out directly to the parishioners to go forth and spend, invest or give away as they see fit. No strings attached.

Pastor Laura, as she’s known, is beaming–ever since she announced to her congregation of 300 back on Sept 7th that they would all get $500 from the church.

“Some started to cry,” she said. “Their mouths started to drop. I started to sweat because it sounded so crazy.”

All-time low in marriages from Pew:

After decades of declining marriage rates and changes in family structure, the share of American adults who have never been married is at an historic high. In 2012, one-in-five adults ages 25 and older (about 42 million people) had never been married,according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of census data. In 1960, only about one-in-ten adults (9%) in that age range had never been married.1 Men are more likely than women to have never been married (23% vs. 17% in 2012). And this gender gap has widened since 1960, when 10% of men ages 25 and older and 8% of women of the same age had never married.

The dramatic rise in the share of never-married adults and the emerging gender gap are related to a variety of factors. Adults are marrying later in life, and the shares of adults cohabiting and raising children outside of marriage have increased significantly. The median age at first marriage is now 27 for women and 29 for men, up from 20 for women and 23 for men in 1960.2 About a quarter (24%) of never-married young adults ages 25 to 34 are living with a partner, according to Pew Research analysis of Current Population Survey data.3

The evolutionary processes of notochords and our slipped disks.

Recently, Detlev Arendt, a biologist at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, and his colleagues investigated the evolution of an important but  overlooked feature in our bodies, known as the notochord. It’s a stiff rod of cartilage that develops in human embryos, running down their back. Later, as the spine develops, the notochord transforms into the disks that cushion the vertebrae (and sometimes slip later in life, causing much grief).

Other mammals also develop a notochord as embryos. And so do birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Even our closest invertebrate relatives, such as lancelets, have notochords. All animals with a notochord belong to the same group, known as the chordates.

Unlike most vertebrates, lancelets keep their notochord into adulthood, using it to stiffen their bodies when they swim. Early chordate fossils also have a lancelet-like anatomy. So it’s likely that 550 million years ago, the notochord evolved in chordates first, and then the skeleton evolved later. In fish, the spine took over the body-stiffening job, but the notochord still had other work left to do.  In the vertebrate embryo, the notochord releases chemical signals that tell the surrounding cells whether they should become nerves, blood vessels, or other tissues.

Arendt and his colleagues wondered how the notochord first evolved. Squid don’t have a notochord. Neither do clams, or cockroaches, or tarantulas. The notochord, in other words, seems to be unique to chordates. So where did it come from? Did it emerge right at the dawn of chordates, or did it have deeper origins?

Lawson Stone’s clear sketch of “beer” in the Bible:

My point here, other than to share some fascinating information with you, is simply to show that the Old Testament’s statements about wine and beer fit directly into the universal ancient cultural context. It’s appreciations of “adult beverages” mirrors directly the common feeling of all in the ancient Near east. So does this mean then that folks seeking to live according to the Bible should drop their inhibitions about alcohol, belly up to the bar and order their favorite brew?

With the Bible, things are seldom that simplistic. While wine and beer were indeed a regular part of the life of the ancient biblical characters, and while its benefits were known and celebrated, that is not the whole story. The biblical text has a dual relationship with its surrounding culture. It arises from that culture and mirrors it, but it often at times stands over against the culture in various ways. The “trick” in good biblical exegesis is to discern the cutting edge, the distinctive witness of scripture that emerges from its being both in and against its environment.

Ted Gossard on the importance of keeping gospel front and center:

Good liturgy and regular participation in the Eucharist (the Lord’s Table, or Holy Communion) weekly in our church gatherings can help us keep the gospel front and center. I need the gospel myself, everyday. I  need to be not only encouraged to keep on keeping on because of that gospel, but I need to be confronted by the demands of that gospel as well, the call to regular confession of sin with the forgiveness in Jesus that accompanies that. And the call to take up my own cross and follow Christ to the end, and the many details involved in that.

The gospel is the vantage point from which I see all of life. I can’t explain everything in light of it, but I seek to view everything in its light, and I find whatever good is in anything (excluding sin) is fulfilled in the gospel to be realized in some measure now and completely later in and through Jesus.

Rachel Feltman on chimps and “grooming”:

When chimps are raised as pets, they lose their ability to form strong social bonds with other members of their own species — even if they appear to thrive in sanctuaries as adults.

It goes without saying that a chimpanzee raised to interact with humans will act differently than other chimps. But according to new research, those effects can last for decades after a chimp is moved to a healthy sanctuary — and being the pet of a loving family (which is legal in most states) could actually be worse for the animals than working as performers….

It wasn’t all bad news: Surprisingly, the researchers didn’t find increased aggression or anxiety in the chimps towards the human end of the spectrum. But they saw big differences in social grooming behavior (that is, where chimps groom each other), which scientists believe to be of incredible importance in chimpanzee communities….

For chimps, grooming is an expression of friendship and a way of getting to know new individuals. To a chimp, Ross said, a failure to reciprocate grooming behavior would be like a failed attempt at a handshake in the human world.