I'm now the designated Guardian of Orthodoxy at my church. How did I aquire such an august and pretentious title? Well, we're starting a small church library, and we're asking people to donate (non-fiction) books. The pastor recommended me to the project leader as someone who could weed through the donations and throw out all the heresy.

This is an amusing situation. As a college English teacher, I do, in fact, teach banned books. And I take a bit of self-congratulatory pride in it, striking a blow for intellectual freedom against the fascist book-burners. And yet, here I am, deciding what is and is not appropriate reading for our congregation members. (And what will I do with the rejected books? Burn 'em, probably.)

So, how do I handle this strange contradiction? Wouldn't it be enough to (say) put warning stickers on the books to the effect of "This book does not necessarily represent the position of our church. Read prayerfully and at your own risk!"? Well . . . no. I see my role in church as very different from my role as a college professor. As a college professor, my role is to teach college students how to (among other things) think for themselves. But I know the people in my church - while we do have a number of college students and college graduates, we also have many who never went to college, and some who never finished high school. We have many who seldom or never read books. I have a responsibility to them - a responsibility to guide them to those books that will be the most spiritually helpful, and remove unnecessary obstacles to their spiritual growth. (Of course, spiritual growth can happen through surmounting of obstacles - but when reading itself is a difficult obstacle, greater obstacles are usually detrimental to growth.)

I don't even really view it as censorship. I see a very stark difference between censorship and sponsorship. Nobody's telling the congregation that they can't go to the library or the bookstore and read these books. We're simply saying that we will not use church time, energy, funds, or space to retain and distribute them. And the fact that most of the congregation will not go to the library or bookstore to read those books indicates that they are perfectly willing to trust my discretion in the matter.

Yesterday I acquired a Commodore 64 computer secondhand. The Commodore 64 was an early personal computer, first manufactured in 1982. It was known for its amazing (for the time) sound and graphics, which (naturally) made it the ideal personal computer for video games. I got one in fifth grade, and had massive amounts of fun with it before it burned a resistor (or something) and stopped working.

The man I got the computer from yesterday was a man in my church who first taught me how to use my computer back when I was in elementary school - so now the circle is complete! Today I dug out all my old 5.25" floppy disks from the basement and am getting ready to engage in some serious old-school gaming.

Well, now that this semester is thoroughly underway, I'll give a report on my Christmas. Unfortunately, I didn't get around to reading Wuthering Heights. I did read Dante's Inferno, Purgatorio, and got partway into Paradiso, but my time ran out. I also finished five books that I had begun earlier and never got a chance to finish, and read David McCullough's 1776.

I didn't just read, though. I had a really good time with my family.

Here I am with my sister sitting in our parents' living room. Behind us it the Christmas tree.


Here we are sitting down to Christmas Eve dinner. That's the back of my head you're looking at, and my sister is taking the picture. Our custom is to turn off all the lights except the Christmas tree lights and some lights on the mantel, then light two dozen or so candles and have dinner. (This year we had three dozen candles!) We break out the good china and have a really good, traditional Southern meal - of fried chicken!

The next night, Christmas night, my Uncle Larry, Aunt Kathy, cousins Brad and Tralee came for dinner. (They're my mom's side of the family.)

Brad didn't make it into this shot.

After Christmas, we went to stay with my sister and visit my dad's side of the family in Alabama. A number of us took a hike out in the Alabama backwoods.
Here's my dad. (In the background you can see my sister's German shepherd, Kajsa.)

A couple of days later, I went rock climbing with two of my cousins, Dan and David.
It was a good way to close out the visit before we returned to Georgia.

January was hectic. I went to my seminary for a week-long winterim intensive class, Biblical Foundations of Leadership. (Book recommendation: Courageous Leadership, by Bill Hybels) I stayed in the guys' dorm, because it was about half the price of the Super 8 in town, but I had forgotten two things: College guys are 1) stinky, and 2) loud at night. Still, I did okay. The class involved me sitting in lecture taking notes for about 8 hours, then doing two hours of homework. After that, I had a little time for reading - I wound up buying Church Planting Movements (by David Garrison), a textbook for another class going on at the same time, and reading it. (Highly recommended!)

After that week, I had the first week of classes to teach - and that's always hectic, with students dropping and adding classes, and getting everything ironed out. Wrapping that week up, I headed down to IHOP-Atlanta on Friday for a weekend conference for those planting houses of prayer in their towns. It was really, really good - I finally got to meet Dave Sliker, author of End-Times Simplified, and got to talk to Kirk Bennett, an old acquaintance from when I used to live in Kansas City. I was encouraged and challenged, but the net result is that I'm pretty worn out.

Today was a day off - I woke up this morning to something like four inches of snow on the ground, so (knowing Georgia) I just went back to bed.

Thank goodness for snow!

And for level-headed Southerners who know good and well the only thing to do in such a case is cancel classes!