Les Miserables 36: The Water Question at Montfermeil

So what happened to Jean Valjean after he fell into the ocean?  We will find out all in due time.  But first Victor Hugo takes us back to Montfermeil and turns our attention toward Cosette’s plight.

Victor Hugo begins this section of the story by discussing the water situation in the town of Montfermeil.  Montfermeil was a sprawling village on the outskirts of Paris by the time Victor Hugo wrote this story.  If you look at Montfermeil on Google Earth now, you will see that much has changed since Victor Hugo’s day.  Montfermeil is just outside the A86 perimeter highway (Paris’s version of I-285).  All of the towns in the area which Hugo mentions (Gagny, Lagny, Chelles, etc.) are still there, but they have long ago been overtaken by the outward growth of the Paris metropolitan area.  There is virtually no green space between these communities (except for a few parks); it has all been built up.  As a matter of fact, these communities are deep inside the city of Paris and very close to its center, just as Buckhead, Decatur, and Virginia Highlands are very close to downtown Atlanta.

If you look near downtown Montfermeil, you will find a church called Sts Peter and Paul, which may be the church that Victor Hugo talks about.  You will also find a park named after Jean Valjean.  (This may be the area where Cosette had to go to draw water.)

In 1823, when the story was taking place, Montfermeil was simply a small town in the woods, a haven for retirees who wished to live quietly and in luxury without having to spend a great deal.  There was just one problem:  Water was hard to come by.  This was because Montfermeil was situated on a high plateau, far away from the nearest sources of water.  If you lived on the end of town where the Thenardiers’ inn was located, the nearest source of water was a small spring located deep in the woods, a couple of miles outside of town.

The Monday Melange 02.08.10: J. D. Salinger, Bobby Hebert, Rudy Gay

–Urban renewal, ATL style:  Look what has gone up where my grandparents’ house used to be.  By Atlanta standards (where everything gets torn down every twenty years), that house had a pretty good run.

–RIP J. D. Salinger.  We hardly knew ye…  What’s in that secret vault?

–New Orleans won the Super Bowl.  And now the line to get into Pat O’Brien’s is all the way back to Fairburn, Georgia.  That’s right:  It stretches all the way out of the French Quarter, all the way up on to I-10, all the way up I-10, I-65, and I-85, all the way through Mississippi, Alabama, and into Georgia.

–Football is a very rough game which results in lots of head injuries and concussions.  If you get banged up in the head enough, it can really mess you up.  Want to see evidence of this?  Take a gander at what has happened to Bobby Hebert as a result of his having taken one too many shots to the head:

–While we’re looking at videos, check out this video of Rudy Gay of the Memphis Grizzlies lofting a half-court desperation shot, which of course is a brick.  But get this:  There were seven seconds left in the quarter when he took the shot.  Need I say more?  (Luckily for Rudy Gay, the Grizzlies would come back to win the game.  Otherwise, he would have been the goat of the year.)

–In retrospect, it now seems that Taylor Swift should thank Kanye West for that little thing at the MTV awards.  Because of it, Taylor Swift is getting a lot of exposure that she otherwise would not have gotten.

–Lots of people are now hearing what Taylor Swift sounds like when she sings, and many are thinking that maybe Kanye was right after all.

Chaplain Mike: It’s “Holy Week” in America

With the Super Bowl today, I would like to direct your attention to a post by guest blogger Chaplain Mike over at Michael Spencer’s site, entitled “It’s Holy Week in America”.  The post is all about America’s obsession with sports and how the church here in America does very little to engage this in a constructive fashion.  Sometimes our engagement is to say that sports is not a God thing and that if you want to follow Christ seriously you must give up a career in sports in order to minister in the church.  But more often than not our approach is simply to accommodate the culture in this respect and say nothing about it whatsoever.  This is evident in the fact that very few, if any, churches that usually have evening services are having services tonight because of the Super Bowl.

Is this right?  Are we dishonoring God by conforming to a culture that is so obsessed with sports?  Or is this sports thing something which it is okay for us to enjoy and let others enjoy?  This is something which we as Christians need to at least talk about.

Unsolicited Advice for Those of You Who Have Kids or Work With Them: The Georgia Standards

Those of you who know me well know that for a time I was an education student.  My hope was to become an elementary school teacher.  Unfortunately this did not work out; after a series of setbacks I was ultimately forced to abandon the education thing.

But I have no desire to see all of the knowledge that I acquired over the last couple of years go to waste.  So my idea is to put things out there that will be helpful to those of you who are involved in the world of education, whether as a teacher or as a parent, so that others will be able to benefit from the knowledge and training that I have acquired, even if I cannot.

Here is my first bit of unsolicited advice:

Georgiastandards.org.  This site has a full listing of the Georgia Performance Standards, which detail everything that students in Georgia public schools are supposed to be learning, in every subject, at every grade level, from kindergarten all the way to the end of high school.  If you are a parent, it would behoove you to spend some time looking at this and familiarizing yourself with the standards for your child’s grade level.

The GPS (No, that’s not the map thing in your car that talks to you when you’re making a wrong turn–it is an acronym for Georgia Performance Standards.  The education profession is rife with acronyms, and I will be dropping a whole lot more on you before it’s all said and done) came about as a result of NCLB (another acronym–No Child Left Behind).  NCLB is a piece of legislation passed back in 2001 which made drastic changes to the way education is done in the public school system.  As part of this, each state was required to develop a set of standards which explicitly listed all the things that students were supposed to be learning, at every grade level, in every subject (if it did not already have one in place), and to develop standardized tests to see if students were learning what they were supposed to be learning, according to the standards.  Schools are required to administer these tests on a yearly basis.  If the score (school-wide) falls below a certain level, then bad things will happen to that school.

(By the way, these are Georgia standards–they only apply to Georgia public schools.  If you are from another state, then your state has a similar set of standards; you will have to find these on your own.)

Georgia already had a set of standards in place:  the QCC (Quality Core Curriculum), which had been developed during the late 90’s.  Over the early to mid part of this decade, the QCC was phased out and replaced with the GPS.

Every lesson that is taught in a Georgia public school is required to address at least one GPS standard for the subject and grade level in question.  By the end of the school year, all of the GPS standards for all of the subjects in that grade level are supposed to have been addressed at least once.  Teachers and school administrators are required to keep careful records showing which standards have been addressed over the course of the school year, and when they were addressed.

The upshot is that the GPS is there for you.  It tells you what your children are supposed to be learning in school, and what your children’s teachers are supposed to be teaching.  Familiarize yourself with it; this will only help you to be a more informed participant in the process of your child’s education.

Les Miserables 35: The Ship Orion

After resolving the part of the story that relates to Fantine, Victor Hugo took a long pause to relate the battle of Waterloo, along with an important scene at the end involving two characters we will see later on down the road.  Now it is time to return to the main action of the story.

Jean Valjean was arrested in Paris.  Hugo does not actually tell us what happened from Valjean’s point of view; instead, he gives us some newspaper clippings and conjectures of the local authorities as to what happened, in order to give his story a feel of true-to-life authenticity.  Apparently Valjean had time enough to withdraw all his money from Lafitte’s (we will recall from earlier that Valjean had his money deposited there with the special condition that he could show up to withdraw all of it and have it available in no more than ten minutes), and to find a safe place to stash it somewhere in the woods near Montfermeil (we suspect).

This plays into a local superstition held by the people of Montfermeil which Victor Hugo relates.  They believed that occasionally the Devil would show up in the woods outside their town.  If you happened to see him you would die within a year at the most, depending on how you responded to him.  The preferred method of responding to him was to watch him bury his treasure, and then attempt to steal it when he left.  You would die within a month, and the treasure would turn out to be some worthless object.

A road worker and former convict named Boulatruelle started going into the woods with his pickaxe.  The villagers saw this and thought that he had seen the Devil and was attempting to steal the Devil’s treasure.  But some suspected that there was something more substantial to it than that.  They plied Boulatruelle with wine and he told the story.  One day he had seen a stranger walking into the woods with a box of something, and then emerging from the woods later with a pickaxe and spade.  He spent the next several nights trying to find whatever was buried there in the woods, but to no avail.  In time everyone forgot about it; when they did mention it they said that Boulatruelle must have been trying to rob the Devil.

Book Review: George Cunningham, Decoding the Language of God

Can a scientist really be a believer?  George Cunningham answers this question with a resounding No.

An accomplished geneticist, Cunningham now writes for a broader audience in this rebuttal to Francis Collins’ 2006 book The Language of God.  Cunningham deconstructs the chief arguments used by Collins to make the case for belief in the Christian God, and attempts to show that these arguments don’t necessarily lead to the same conclusions that Collins has reached.

Cunningham does an excellent job of presenting complex scientific concepts in a manner which is accessible to the layperson.  His points are well laid out, and it is easy to follow the flow of his arguments.

Cunningham begins with an account of his own personal faith journey–how he grew up in the Catholic church, how he studied science and found it to be inconsistent with religious belief, specifically the question of miracles and the problem of evil, and how he ultimately stopped believing.

One of the key issues here is the problem of evil.  How can a good God permit evil in this world?  A goodly portion of the evil in the world exists because God gave humans free will.  But what kind of God would give humans free will, knowing the evil and suffering that would result?

Next, Cunningham turns to morality–the idea that some things are right and others are wrong.  Cunningham takes issue with the idea that there is a Moral Law created by God which guides humans’ views of what is right and wrong, and argues instead that this is a product of nature and culture.

Next, Cunningham looks at cosmology.  Does the Big Bang point inexorably toward God?  Do the finely tuned physical constants of the universe point inexorably toward a God who is working things for the creation of human life?  Not necessarily.

Next Cunningham questions the validity of the Bible and concludes that the weight of scholarly analysis shows it to be unreliable as a historically accurate description of events.  Looking at the New Testament alone, there is a gap of at least thirty to fifty years between the events depicted in the Gospels and the appearance of the first portions of what would ultimately become the New Testament.  Cunningham contends that this is ample time for legends and fantastic distortions of the truth to crop up (don’t know if I would agree with that).

The debate between belief and atheism is one which has been taking place between people much smarter than myself for a very long time.  It is not the place of this book review to attempt to settle this debate, or to provide the definitive response to the arguments for atheism–or for belief, for that matter.  Collins’s book did not settle the debate between belief and atheism, and neither will this book.

Christians, you would do well to consider this book because the arguments which Cunningham makes are arguments which you will come across at some point in your life, if you have not already.  You need to engage this material honestly and know why you believe what you believe.  And even if you read this and become convinced that it is no longer reasonable to believe in God…well, better an honest unbeliever than a believer who is lying to himself or herself.

[The reviewer was furnished with a copy of this book.]

The Monday Melange 02.01.10: Klaas Hendriksa, Tim Tebow

–Klaas Hendriksa (wouldn’t you love to have a name like that?) is our man of the day here at Everyone’s Entitled to Joe’s Opinion.  This guy is an atheist pastor over in the Netherlands.  He says:  “The nonexistence of God is to me not an obstacle but a precondition to me believing in God.  I am an atheist believer.”  Whatever, dude.

–A group of high school kids in Kansas played a prank on their girls’ basketball coach.  They brought him out to midcourt and had him shoot a half-court shot blindfolded.  They told him that if he made the shot he would win tickets to the Final Four, and they instructed the crowd at the game to cheer wildly even if he missed the shot, so that for a moment he would think that he had won.  Great idea for a prank.  Just one problem:  He made the shot.  Watch the video here.

–About that Tim Tebow Super Bowl commercial that all of evangelical Protestant-dom seems to be up in arms over:  Look, I am just as pro-life as the next person.  But I believe there is a time and a place for everything.  The Super Bowl is neither the time nor the place to be trying to get the pro-life message (or any other political message, for that matter) out there.

Quick Hit: Am I The Only One Who Believes It Won’t Be The End of The World If They Don’t Show That Tebow Commercial During The Super Bowl?

It’s that time of year again.  The Super Bowl is upon us, and you know what that means:  Time for all of America to choose which side they will be on.

Of course.  New Orleans or Indianapolis, right?

Uh…not exactly.  The burning question this week is:  Are you with the pro-life crowd who wants that Tim Tebow commercial to be shown during the Super Bowl, or are you with the pro-abortion forces who want to keep that commercial off the air?

Back when I was in college (the first time around), my dorm put on a “Stupid Human Tricks” event, modeled after the recurring “Stupid Human Tricks” feature on David Letterman in which people get up and showcase unusual talents.  For those of you who have never seen it, here is a sample of what “Stupid Human Tricks” is like:

My roommate at the time thought about participating in this event.  His “Stupid Human Trick” was going to be giving a speech entitled “Religion as a Social Institution”, part of a speech which he had given at a literary society that he and I were actively involved in.

Can you imagine what it would have been like and how it would have gone over if he had attempted to give such a speech at such an event?  Heads up:  It would not have been very good.  (Fortunately, I was able to talk him out of this.)

That is what I think it would be like if they air that Tebow commercial during the Super Bowl this week.

The Super Bowl is a football game.  People who watch the Super Bowl are thinking about football, beer, hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, or whatever food they happen to have on hand (gumbo and/or jambalaya if they are from Louisiana).  They are not thinking about politics.  They are not in a mood to be thinking about politics.  They are there to eat good food, watch a good football game, have a good time with friends, and cheer for whichever team they have chosen as their favorite.  They are not expecting to be asked to choose their side in some super-contentious political issue.  (And yes, I feel the same way about the Obama commercials that aired during the Super Bowl two years ago:  They were a very bad idea.)

Yes, I am just as pro-life as the next person, and I believe just as heartily that the pro-life message needs to be spread.  But PLEASE:  Not during the Super Bowl.  Let people have their fun and enjoy the game.  Save it for another day.

Pat Kyle: A Lutheran Take on Confession

Today I have written enough for a full-length post that could stand alone in and of itself.  I don’t normally do this when I am linking to material from other people’s blogs, but the issue of confession and how it is done in the Lutheran church is one that lands pretty heavily with me, particularly in light of what we are talking about right now in my church.

My church is currently in the middle of a sermon series entitled “Taking Responsibility for Your Life”, which is all about…well, exactly what it sounds like.  This week the message dealt with the issue of when it is time to stop praying and start doing the very thing that you have been praying about.

Today I would like to direct your attention to a couple of posts from blogger Pat Kyle of New Reformation Press which deal with this issue, specifically as it relates to confession of sin.  Kyle is a Lutheran giving the Lutheran take on confession–which, believe it or not, actually makes sense to me.  His posts are entitled “How the Confession of My Sins Kept Me in the Church”.  (Part 1) (Part 2)

Part 1 deals with corporate confession of sin during the church service.  This is how the Lutheran church service begins:

Pastor: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Congregation: Amen.

Pastor: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

Congregation: But if we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

After a period of silence, the Pastor continued: Let us then confess our sins to God our Father.

Congregation: Most merciful God, we confess that we are by nature sinful and unclean. We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We justly deserve your present and eternal punishment. For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us. Forgive us, renew us, and lead us, so that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Holy Name.

Pastor: Almighty God has given his Son to die for you and for His sake forgives you all of your sins. As a called and ordained servant of the Word, I therefore forgive you all of your sins in the name of the Father, and of the, the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Congregation: Amen.

Imagine a church service where this is the very first thing that happens, right out of the chute.  No announcements.  No words of welcome.  No popular song, funny skit, or video to lead off the service.  Instead, you just jump into this thing right from the giddy-up.  Now imagine a room with a few hundred–perhaps even a thousand or a couple of thousand–people reciting this thing in perfect unison.  Imagine how powerful that would be.

And how Gospel-centered.  We evangelicals talk a good game when it comes to the idea of confession–”confess your sins, one to another” and “God is faithful and just to forgive us” and other such buzzwords–but our practice of confession is anything but Gospel-centered.  Any confession of the “big sins” (sex outside of marriage, drinking, drugs, stealing, etc.) is a sure ticket to ostracization from the community of believers.  We talk about grace, but our talk of grace is always watered down with warnings about “cheap grace” and possible abuses.

Revenge of the Peanut Butter Moron

Seems there was a little excitement at last week’s Georgia-Tennessee basketball game.  Apparently some kid got the bright idea to cover himself with–get this–peanut butter.  Why?  you may ask.  Maybe he needed something to snack on during the game?  Maybe he was pledging a fraternity?  Or maybe he was just a moron?  Well, the answer quickly became apparent as the game ended and he came rushing out onto the court.  The security guards just let him go; it wasn’t worth it to them to get all gooey and icky trying to restrain him.  You can read all about what happened here, courtesy of the good people over at Deadspin.com.

Apparently somebody out there has WAY too much time on their hands.