Majestic in Holiness

Who among the gods
is like you, lord?
Who is like you—
majestic in holiness,
awesome in glory,
working wonders?

This passage is found in Ex 15:11, NIV.

4-16-12: A Free Generation

Reblogged from Maryland Morning with Sheilah Kast:

http://s0.wp.com/wp-content/plugins/audio-player/player.swf

Most of us are shocked that slavery still goes on around us. “Human trafficking” is enslavement: forcing or tricking someone into a commercial act, be it sex or labor. The National Human Trafficking Resource Center says Maryland generated 265 calls to a hotline last year, providing investigators information in 24 cases of potential trafficking across the state.

Read more… 406 more words

We have to make those who are victims, and who perpetrate, sexual violence visible. Let us pray for them, and all those who are working diligently to do God's work of caring for this community.

#CENS #participatorysensing demonstration

Think-alouds shed light on how students grapple with content (

This week, I received an email from Faculty Focus with the above title. I recommend you check it out for yourself. Here’s a short excerpt that might provide modest motivation for learning how to apply this technique:

Even if you didn’t want to use it in a rigorous study design, the idea of listening to students as they try to deal with content has got to be revealing. In the cognitive psychology research, think alouds have been used to differentiate expert and novice knowledge and thinking processes. As I have pointed out in previous posts, it is so easy for faculty experts to forget how novices think about the content. Yes, it can be depressing, even frightening, since most students do not think all that deeply about our content. But knowing where they start allows for a more efficient journey to where they need to be. As Calder’s experience shows, you can then design a course, in his case one where he used the content to explicitly teach six cognitive habits: questioning, connecting, sourcing, making inferences, considering alternate perspectives and recognizing limits to one’s knowledge.

The rest can be found here.

Are you two-faced like Hezekiah? Ask God for courage to confront your heart…

While struggling to read through Isaiah before the year ends (don’t think I’ll make it), I have come to one of its historical sections that painfully reminds me of the dissonance in my own heart and life.  In Chapters 37-39, we find something in Hezekiah that we see in ourselves all too well: a prideful self-righteousness that keeps us from fully pleasing the God of the heavens.

In Chapter 38, we find Hezekiah’s claim that he has walked faithfully before the Lord throughout his life:

Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD,
and said, “Please, O LORD, remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
(Isaiah 38:2-3 ESV)

This was a valid claim, because in the next verse God Himself restores Hezekiah’s health (he had been sick and told he was on his deathbed), granting him 15 additional years of life.  Clearly, God had been pleased with Hezekiah and changed His plans on account of Hezekiah’s faithfulness and adherence to righteousness.

Unfortunately for the nation of Judah, Hezekiah’s heart was two-faced.  In Chapter 39, Hezekiah receives some visitors from Babylon:

At that time Merodach-baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent envoys with letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that he had been sick and had recovered. And Hezekiah welcomed them gladly. And he showed them his treasure house, the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oil, his whole armory, all that was found in his storehouses. There was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them.
(Isaiah 39:1-2 ESV)

This must have been quite close to his healing, because the passage indicates that the king of Babylon sent messengers to celebrate Hezekiah’s recovery.  Hezekiah proceeds to show them all in his kingdom.  Note, however, that the passage neither does indicates Hezekiah showed the envoys the temple, nor attribute his wealth to the favor of God.  Hezekiah is chastened sharply for this presumptuous gesture:

Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD of hosts: Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the LORD. And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”
(Isaiah 39:5-6 ESV)

Hezekiah’s actions demonstrated a smug self-reliance in his own efforts, and an indulgent pride in his acquisitions.  In addition, Hezekiah put his nation at risk by revealing to visiting emissaries the storehouses and repositories of wealth in the kingdom.  Not only was this a matter of national security, but this was an act of brazen pride in the face of the Lord.  Isaiah delivers God’s verdict to Hezekiah, and a naive reader might expect the Hezekiah of Chapter 38 to repent before the Lord of His actions, and ask forgiveness.  He might also ask that God’s wrath not fall on the house of Judah after his passing, but that God might relent from his anger.  Instead, the reader is shocked by Hezekiah’s comparatively wicked response:

And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the LORD that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “There will be peace and security in my days.”
(Isaiah 39:7-8 ESV)

Is this not what we do? When it is the consequences of sin or hardship affecting us our our own sphere of influence, we fervently seek God’s mercy. But if we find ourselves separated from the punishment, we find that acceptable.  Even more astonishing in this passage is the fact that this verdict falls on Hezekiah’s own family–and Hezekiah indicates, at best, indifference to the disgraceful plight of his own sons.  Hezekiah was, in fact, one of the kings of Judah who walked in the ways of his father David, though clearly not wholly.  While Hezekiah did what was right, his heart was not fully converted.  Does Hezekiah not show us ourselves: our focus on salvation in the next world indifferent to the disgraceful verdict falling on our neighbors.  Sometimes, we even claim membership in God’s family on account of a confession of faith when things are bad, but we distance ourselves from our responsibilities to others–especially when those responsibilities happen as a result of our own wrongdoing.  We also see Hezekiah in ourselves when we celebrate God in our local communities of belief while ignoring the cultural, ideological, and economic systems which devastate our fellow men.

Let us ask God for courage to confront our divided hearts when the moment of truth comes.  As the New Year approaches, ask God to help us search our hearts and pursue His ways.

Who is the student’s most appropriate audience?

Admittedly, I am having trouble developing a title for this post.  Broadly speaking, the idea behind my thoughts is that most of my education has been done under a paradigm characterized by two things:

1. I am a consumer of information.
2. I am a producer of information only for the professor.

Now, obviously most professors and students alike understand that the professor is ultimately not the final evaluator of the quality of a student’s preparations.  This privilege belongs to those who will consume whatever the student produces in their professional (or personal) life.  Moreover, the student will probably have the ability to largely select the audience to whom their work will be offered.  Although many professors and students will readily acknowledge these truths, ultimately, our approach to classroom pedagogy does not prepare students to be producers of information for the audience of their choosing.

Honestly, there seems to be much room to modify the classroom experience for students such that they become not merely consumers of knowledge, but that they might also be producers of knowledge for an audience of their choosing.  Certainly, there is not total freedom in this respect, as one of the most important responsibilities of a professor is ensuring the students have mastered the requisite body of knowledge.  So, there probably will remain some aspects of the “professor as audience” characteristics of the current classroom.  I do believe, however, that education can be greatly enhanced if the transition from receptor to transmitter can be facilitated in the classroom.  In this regard, I am reminded of something I read recently that makes this point: “Program or be programmed...” [OK, so the idea is the title of Douglass Rushkoff's book... Reviews welcome!]

To this end, I wonder if there’s not also room for explicitly incorporating production into more engineering classes.  We have some aspects of the production model in place for capstone and senior design courses, and much ado has been made about problem- and project-based learning.  But what about the use of communications as a way to ensure mastery?  I was recently reading an old blog post on Academhack about changing the approach to teaching writing.  In this post, a professor had been assigned to a class that had shown difficulty learning to write effectively.  While the professor had been advised to provide “more structure” for the students, the students were directed instead to write and produce a short documentary. [This killed about 50 birds with one stone, but I won't get into that here...]  Because the students were given control in an assignment that built on their skills and interests, their attention remained sharp during the entire semester and the pedagogical results were encouraging.

I’m thinking that requiring students to produce media for the broader public, or whatever audience interests them, will help them internalize mastery of the subject material in a way that is well situated into their increasingly media- and information-saturated lifestyles.   In my experience, I have found it to be widely accepted that teaching a subject is the most effective way to ensure mastery of it.  Why not incorporate some of these aspects into the student’s experiences in the lower-level or fundamental engineering classes?  Admittedly, engineering curricula are very demanding, and such approaches may be too risky.  In the interest of full disclosure, I do not plan on routinely using these ideas to teach my courses [yet]. Furthermore, we often have design aspects explicitly incorporated into our curricula, so this may be a moot point in the eyes of many students and professors.  But certainly, such approaches may hold out promise for ensuring students understand the broader social, policy, and economic implications of the technologies they are developing…

Empirical tests for assessing a baby’s hunger level…

So, I’ve tried to create a test for determining whether my son is hungry. This is necessary because it can often be difficult to determine what the reason for his fussiness truly is.

Let me know what you think…

Walking while waiting

This post comes while I feel God is leading me through a transition in both my family and professional lives. And since I haven’t been on the trails, I don’t have running to help me process this season as I would have liked.

Sometimes we see a vision of ourselves and become excited to touch the objects of our hope. In my case, I want to be a man whom God uses freely, a father to my kids in every way, a husband, a nonprofit founder, and an influential professor.  At the time the objects of our hope become tangible, we see that there is some distance between where we stand, and where we would be if our hopes were instantiated. It is this distance that motivates us to undergo the changes necessary to touch what’s in our hearts,  but this distance also makes it difficult to keep pursuing specific plans because we may be discouraged by the gulf between our reality and our hopes.

I am reminded of when I was training for the Baltimore 10-miler earlier this year to counter the stress of teaching.  While I can run 10 miles now on minimal training, at the time 10 miles was more than double the longest distance I’d ever run in my life.  I created a 3 month plan starting at 3 miles and working all the way up to 10.  At the beginning, I was starting from my current station, with my mind on the place where I wanted to be.  Covering all that distance made me reflect on how gracious God is to give us the discipline and ability to faithfully take the little steps that will allow us to ultimately reach our biggest goals.  Although 10 miles was well beyond anything I’d ever run, and the long runs were just long enough to make me consider quitting, each successful run propelled me towards my ultimate goal and gave me a sense of joy that God had rewarded faithfulness to the smaller goals.

The only difference between life goals and fitness goals is the wait.  In fitness goals, we control much of the circumstances that permit us to attain the goal.  We set a fixed time period, and re-evaluate our status at the end of that time.  With life goals that are meaningful, we often control only our reactions to the circumstances we find ourselves in.  While many things about life are frustrating, often the most frustrating thing to us is the wait for our hopes to be realized.  We cannot control the time that we will be held accountable to the standard that we have set in our hearts.  Unlike fitness goals, where the schedule and itinerary are often fixed according to our agenda, we can often attain life goals only while walking in a state of suspended preparedness, waiting to avail ourselves of an appropriate opportunity.  Those of us who continue walking find ourselves at the right station at the right time: those of us who stop find ourselves stopping just short of where we need to have been.

As we prepare to share the holidays with family and think about what we will plan as families and individuals, let us remember to bless God for the ability to meet individual goals, while setting ambitious targets that will make us rely on Him.  Let us remember that we cannot manipulate our friends, families, and colleagues to satisfy our ambitions; but we can prepare, walking faithfully on the path God has set until we come to the right station.

my hope for my son? that he be greater than his teachers [read: parents]

There has been some talk about how this generation will be the first American generation in some time that will not be better off than their parents’ economically. Much has been made about the youth unemployment rate, and the difficulties of today’s college graduates in the job market with underemployment.

While I cannot promise my son he will be more financially or materially successful than me in the same way my parents may have hoped for me, Psalm 119 allows me to confidently instruct him to be wiser than I, and stronger in the Lord, by being careful to be instructed by God’s statutes and His Holy Spirit:

“97 O how I love Your law!
It is my meditation all the day.

98 Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies,
For they are ever mine.

99 I have more insight than all my teachers,
For Your testimonies are my meditation.

100 I understand more than the aged,
Because I have observed Your precepts.

101 I have restrained my feet from every evil way,
That I may keep Your word.

102 I have not turned aside from Your ordinances,
For You Yourself have taught me.

103 How sweet are Your words to my taste!
Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

104 From Your precepts I get understanding;
Therefore I hate every false way.”

(Psalm 119:97-104, NASB)

God be praised that no credential or pedigree is required for instruction by His Spirit. I love that he will not need to wait until he is older than me to expect to walk in greater paths than his teachers. If God’s law is his subject, and God’s Spirit his tutor, I am both excited and nervous to witness the power of his soul.

My prayer now is that He may strengthen my character so that I will not hinder His fulfillment of this promise, but that I might rejoice in my son’s superior blessing.

when blessing comes in like a flood

Some folks may recognize the play on Scripture I’m making, but sometimes we have to reflect on God’s love being shed abroad in our life. This morning, I was especially reflecting on the similarities between the glory of God and a waterfall.

God’s glory is raw and majestic, full of power, and wonderful to behold. His glory and character cannot be contained or usurped, except at inevitable danger to ourselves. A couple of examples about this came to mind while I was showering.

One way to capture the glory of God is to try and jump into the waterfall. But we know that this is incredibly dangerous, and one survives only if the glory of the waterfall is no glory at all (e.g., a very small waterfall). However, everywhere God’s glory shows up in human lives, we see only a glimpse. Its like visiting Niagara Falls and feeling the spray of the falls, or like looking from behind a great waterfall as if protected by the glassy wall of water. We only see humans survive the full glory if God invites us into His protection, while He passes by. If we presume to enter His glory unprepared, or we attempt to usurp it for ourselves, it is like trying to ride the falls in a barrel: we will surely perish.

The other way we place ourselves in danger relative to His glory is when we try to harness the power of God’s glory for our own purposes. This is like building a dam to produce hydroelectric power, or create a recreational water body. On human time, we may reap great benefits from this harnessed power. Just like manmade dams, however, our lives become full of the silt and mud that accumulates behind even the most well constructed dams. Ultimately, the depth of the water behind the dam will become too shallow to allow continued safe operation. It will either fail structurally, placing in great danger all who are downstream, or it will need to be replaced, rendering in vain all those who were displaced to allow us to reap our own satisfaction and glory from the work of our hands. In both cases, the costs of decommissioning or destruction of the dam may greatly outweigh those required for its construction.

This is not to mention the appearance of power and depth on the surface, while all of the dirt and silt accumulates beneath the surface. For a while, our plans will avail us of much, but we must be careful not to replace the raw majesty of God’s unchanging glory with the temporal designs of our desires to gain glory at God’s expense.

Let us allow God’s love to be shed abroad into the uncharted and wild courses of our lives as he dictates, and avoid the costly, inevitable destruction of attempting to contain our Father’s authority.