When I teach middle schoolers the Bible, it can be a real challenge.  A challenge I relish, understand, but a challenge.  Not because they're "that age" or "act like that," or anything. It's because many of these kids have heard the Word of God so often, all their lives, that they do not ask themselves what it means beyond overall "do what is right" or "don't do what you know is wrong."  (Yes, they get a bit more specific than that, but this is a broad generalization.)

Which is why it is, to me, enlightening to discuss what some words and phrases mean with them when I teach them.  They haven't thought about what these words MEAN, only what they should make them do.  And really, knowing the meaning of words is important.  Yes, those results are necessary, but when one has a better grasp of the "what" the "how" is often made more plain.  At least, in my experience.


I helped teach the "children's part" of a family seminar at church this past weekend.  Any time you have one of these, the above verse will be part of what you teach the kids.  Now, I was supposed to have fifth graders.  No fifth graders came. Instead, I got middle schoolers that parents felt were too young to go to the "regular" seminar and too young to stay home alone for hours and hours.  Why no other provision was made for this age at church, I don't know. But they came to me.

Which, of course, was extremely cool.  They're my best group. :)  I was allowed to modify some of the stuff we were doing (on the fly, which is always fun, but I got my first Varsity letter for Impromptu Speaking in competitive forensics...) and we spent Friday evening and Saturday morning hanging out together while their parents were in the main seminar.

So. We had that verse.  Honor your father and mother.  "What's that mean?" I asked the kids.

"Um. Obey."

First thing out of their mouths. Obey.

Nothing wrong with obedience, you understand. And yes, the Lord God Almighty does appreciate it when we do obey...but...that's not the end-all, be-all meaning of "honor your father and mother."

"What does it mean to show honor?"  I asked my group.  Honor is a word that comes up and I consider it to be a personally important concept, after all.  Has no one taught these young people what it means?

They hemmed and hawed and looked at one another uncomfortably. And then, one of the lads sat up straight and offered me a salute.  "Honor!" he said, a goofy look on his freckled face.

Thing was...he was right.  And it was my great pleasure to show him.

What did he do? He presented his best self in that salute. (Even though he was messing around, the kids understood "salute.")  He was tall, straight, and focused.  He presented me, his teacher, with the best self he had, and gave me his undivided attention.  Even if only for the time it took for me to grin at him.

See, he'd given the others something to take away with them.  Not that they should salute their parents, as I told them, but that when we show someone -- anyone -- honor, we should present them with the best we have, give them our focused attention and...then...sure, we should obey if they request it. But that other stuff should be there with or without the need for immediate obedience.

So, a middle-schooler's goofing off moment turned into one of the coolest moments of my Friday night.  I love it when kids toss stuff like that out.

The boy, when I had used his example as "the" example of this word, and incorporated all of the above into a lesson on how to interact with our parents, could only say, "Wow."

            I’m reading 2 Corinthians these days, and I’m noticing some things that seem important to Paul, although they aren’t things that he explicitly teaches—they are part of his value system.

 

            There are several interesting—from my point of view, anyway—examples of these kinds of “sub-textual” things in the Bible.  For instance, have you noticed that the only ones who got it right consistently about who Jesus was in the Gospels were demons?  The religious leaders didn’t—although some may have.  Nicodemus, in his visit at night to Jesus, said, “We know You’re from God.”  But His disciples didn’t, almost all of the time.  His family clearly didn’t.  But demons?  “I know who You are!  You’re the Son of God!”  “Did you come here to torture us before the time?”

 

            However, I digress.  Back to Paul, and please excuse me if I don’t go into a thorough explanation here.  What seems to be important to him as he addresses the followers of Jesus in the Greek city of Corinth is being proud of them for their service to the Lord and to the saints, as well as the corollary, not being ashamed of them.  This had to do particularly with their generosity and hospitality.  This interests me, because we don’t often talk about these values this way in the evangelical Church.  The values we tend to exalt are the ability to preach, how large the church has grown, and the fact that we’ve managed to not fall into sin.  Of those three, the last one is the most biblical.  The first two are scarcely mentioned in the context of being praiseworthy.

 

            Paul wanted to please Jesus.  He wanted to honor Him and his desire was that those he ministered to would do the same.  He wanted to be proud of them for how they generously followed Jesus in helping other Christians in need.  It had nothing to do with how many people had been converted or how big the church was.  Should we be evangelistic?  Of course.  Evangelism flows from the life of someone who is fully in love with Jesus.  Our job as the church is to help His followers abide in that love so their lives out in the street, on the job and in the marketplace will naturally draw people to Him.      

This goes out to all the gamers and geeks out there!!

I found this posted on the Troll Lord Games message board, and I think it's a great idea. 

This was brought up on another board as a way to honor Gary, and I think its a great idea. We've already had folks sign up on RPGnet, theRPGsite, SJ Games, ENWorld, and others! So if you plan to sling the dice this weekend, let everyone know! If you haven't in a while, dust those books off and get your game on! If you know of a board, site, or blog where you suspect there are some gamers who'd want to know about this, or perhaps hadn't played in a while, take the initiative to post it to one other website and encourage them to play! Let's make this a gaming weekend across the globe for Gary!!!

Quote:

By now most of you have seen the news about Gary Gygax. I suggest that as a way of honoring Gary Gaygax we have a "GaryCon" across the globe this Friday and Saturday night. By "We" - I mean every gamer possible who plays RPGs. Everywhere. All of us play either Dungeons & Dragons this Friday and Saturday night -OR- We play the RPG rules system of our choice - but we do a typical D&D-type dungeon crawl. ...either Friday or Saturday night. Everywhere....every city or town possible. - Ed Charlton

Links:

http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9322

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=11208127045

http://rpgblog2.blogspot.com/2008/03/garycon-across-world-this-weekend.html

(For those that may not have books readily available, I mentioned a few free games at my blog. Feel free to add others on your own).
_________________
I believe in a GM, not a system, controlling the game.

Medal of Honor given to Sioux for heroism

Nation's highest military for valor in North Korea; sergeant died in 1982

 

 

WASHINGTON - President Bush apologized Monday that the country waited decades to honor Master Sgt. Woodrow Wilson Keeble for his military valor in Korea, giving him the Medal of Honor more than 25 years after he died.

 

 

Keeble is the first full-blooded Sioux Indian to receive the nation’s highest military award. But it came almost six decades after he saved the lives of fellow soldiers. Keeble died in 1982.

“On behalf of our grateful nation, I deeply regret that this tribute comes decades too late,” Bush said at the White House medal ceremony. “Woody will never hold this medal in his hands or wear it on his uniform. He will never hear a president thank him for his heroism. He will never stand here to see the pride of his friends and loved ones, as I see in their eyes now.”

 

 

But, Bush said, there are things the nation can still do for Keeble, even all these years later.

“We can tell his story. We can honor his memory. And we can follow his lead, by showing all those who have followed him on the battlefield the same love and generosity of spirit that Woody showed his country every day,” the president said before a somber East Room audience that included three rows of Keeble’s family members.

 

 

'Soldiers watched in awe'

Fellow soldiers, family members and others have been pushing Congress and the White House for years to award Keeble the medal. They said the man known as “Chief,” a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux tribe, deserves the medal for his actions in Korea in 1951, when he saved the lives of other soldiers by taking out more than a dozen of their enemies on a steep hill, even though he himself was wounded.

“Soldiers watched in awe as Woody single-handedly took out one machine gun nest, and then another,” Bush said. “When Woody was through, all 16 enemy soldiers were dead, the hill was taken, and the Allies won the day.”

 

 

Pentagon officials had said the legal deadline had passed to award the medal to Keeble unless Congress specifically authorized it. Sens. Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad, D-N.D.; Tim Johnson, D-S.D.; and John Thune, R-S.D., introduced legislation to award Keeble the medal, and it was signed by Bush last year.

Keeble was recommended twice for the medal in the 1950s but the applications were lost both times. He instead received the Distinguished Service Cross.

 

 

“Some blamed the bureaucracy for a shameful blunder,” Bush said. “Others suspected racism — Woody was a full-blooded Sioux Indian. Whatever the reason, the first Sioux to ever receive the Medal of Honor died without knowing it was his.”

 

 

'Woody never complained'

His friends felt he was cheated, Bush said, “yet Woody never complained. See, he believed America was the greatest nation on earth — even when it made mistakes.”

 

Seventeen members of Keeble’s family, along with soldiers who served with him, attended the ceremony. Keeble’s stepson, Russell Hawkins, accepted the award along with Keeble’s nephew. He said after the ceremony that he does not believe it was racism that delayed the honor.

 

 

“I think it was truly lost,” he said of the original recommendations. “I don’t think Woodrow would say it was discrimination. He didn’t see racial colors, he didn’t see racial barriers.”

 

Hawkins said the family has been pushing for the medal since the early 1970s.

Keeble, who was born in Waubay, S.D., moved to North Dakota as a child. He was also a veteran of World War II and received more than 30 citations, including four Purple Hearts.

 

 

Bush saluted Keeble for his military heroism, but also for his conduct in his personal life — pursuing a woman he loved, becoming “an everyday hero” in his community and maintaining cheerfulness — despite his own grief and physical suffering. The wounds he suffered in Korea would “haunt him the rest of his life” and strokes paralyzed his right side and took away his ability to speak, but he mowed lawns and gave money to down-and-out strangers.

 

 

“Those who knew Woody can tell countless stories like this — one of a great soldier who became a Good Samaritan,” the president said.

We all know that God is great and powerful, we also know that God is much bigger then we can imagine, but what you might not know is how infinitely small God is as well. God is in all things, so that means, God is within the most minuet things in our world. Think of a cell, a simple ameba cell; it lives, breaths, eats and discards its waste. It communicates with other amebas and travels, it lives and dies. Our God feeds and supplies all for the ameba, and is its God as well, are you no better than an ameba?  

 

            We as children of God not only carry our souls within our bodies, but we also carry a piece of God within us as well. We were given the gift of a soul by our God to walk with him and be his children, just as you walk with your own children, but we have strayed from our father in search of ourselves never knowing that only with him are we complete. We search our whole lives for that one thing that will make us feel whole, when all along, God is walking behind us picking up the pieces we leave behind in our search for that which we have walked away from. God is the beginning and the end, he is where we start, and where we will eventually return. Find yourself in God, and you will find God in you.