Author: Glen

Preggers

We got back in from D.C. last night, and Paula vis­it­ed the doc­tor today. She received con­fir­ma­tion of what we strong­ly sus­pect­ed while on the road–she’s preg­gers!

Based on what we know now (which isn’t a whole lot), the expect­ed deliv­ery date is April 3, 2004.

Per­son­al­ly, I’m hop­ing she deliv­ers a lit­tle ear­ly on April 1st (just so that no one believes me when I call them on my cell phone to deliv­er the good news)… 🙂

On The Road

We’ll be in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. for Gen­er­al Coun­cil.

This one will actu­al­ly be an impor­tant one–we’re decid­ing on some pret­ty vital inter­nal leg­is­la­tion (how we plant church­es, for exam­ple). Noth­ing should make nation­al news, how­ev­er.

All that to say this: if you send either of us an email, it may be a while before we get back to you. We’re not sure how sol­id our con­nec­tiv­i­ty will be on the road.

“It’s bulletproof, practically.”

I found this quite fun­ny: “It’s bul­let­proof, prac­ti­cal­ly.”

Cheryl Toep­pen, man­ag­er of design ser­vices for Res­i­den­tial & Din­ing Enter­pris­es, describ­ing the fab­ric she bought for seat­ing in the lounge of the new­ly ren­o­vat­ed all-frosh Bran­ner Hall. The mate­r­i­al is 10 times more durable than reg­u­lar uphol­stery fab­ric. [source]

Stanford On The Diamond

I just learned that there’s a web­site list­ing all 35 cur­rent pro base­ball play­ers who are Stan­ford grads: see the ros­ter.

Just found it inter­est­ing…

Mom’s Visit

I haven’t been updat­ing the site much late­ly because my mom has been vis­it­ing. It was a good visit–we went to some beach­es, ate at some restau­rants, and relaxed.

Of par­tic­u­lar inter­est to my father (who stayed back in Louisiana) will be the fact that not only did we eat Dun­ge­ness crabs, but we cooked them our­selves (as good Cajuns ought). Here they are in the bath­tub await­ing their fate!

Another Little Way Stanford Is Changing The World

I was recent­ly informed by one of our XA stu­dents that 2 of the new 15 appointees to the New York Times edi­to­r­i­al board are Stan­ford grads: Philip Taub­man (deputy edi­to­r­i­al edi­tor) and Andres Mar­tinez (Eco­nom­ics, For­eign Affairs & Fed­er­al Reg­u­la­to­ry Issues).

You can read the full bios at http://nytimes.com/ref/opinion/editorial-board.html.

Why does this mat­ter? Because every­one in pol­i­tics reacts to and com­ments on what’s being said in the NY Times edi­to­ri­als.

Unexpected Support For An Obscure Biblical Aside

I noticed some­thing odd when I was read­ing some news recent­ly: [in response to claims of nigh-immor­tal­i­ty for humans in the near future] Out­side the con­fer­ence, many sci­en­tists who spe­cial­ize in aging are skep­ti­cal of such claims and say the human body is just not designed to last past about 120 years. Even with health­i­er lifestyles and less dis­ease, they say fail­ure of the brain and oth­er organs will even­tu­al­ly con­demn all humans.[source]

120 years? Inter­est­ing…

Then the LORD said, “My Spir­it will not put up with humans for such a long time, for they are only mor­tal flesh. In the future, they will live no more than 120 years.” Gen­e­sis 6:3, NLT

Noth­ing con­clu­sive here (we’re not talk­ing about data pub­lished in a peer-reviewed jour­nal or any­thing), but I did think it was wor­thy of com­ment.

A Living Legend Has Passed

I just learned that Bill Bright died yes­ter­day. Even though he and I would have prob­a­bly dif­fered quite strong­ly on some points had we talked in per­son (one of the rea­sons I min­is­ter with Chi Alpha instead of Cam­pus Cru­sade), I still held him in the high­est esteem pos­si­ble and would like to pub­licly hon­or him.

In case you aren’t famil­iar with him, Bill Bright found­ed Cam­pus Cru­sade for Christ, wrote an extreme­ly influ­en­tial book­let called The Four Spir­i­tu­al Laws, and was respon­si­ble for the cre­ation of The Jesus Film–arguably the most effec­tive evan­ge­lis­tic tool in his­to­ry.

Cam­pus Cru­sade for Christ is a tremen­dous min­istry, and the fact that it will con­tin­ue strong is a tes­ta­ment to Bill Bright and his lead­er­ship.

May the peace of God be with his fam­i­ly and friends…

Moral Confusion

I’ve had a nag­ging thought for a while now, some­thing about how our soci­ety is begin­ning to view risk (or lack there­of) to be a cen­tral part of moral­i­ty (and how this is not a good thing). I’ve nev­er been able to artic­u­late it as well as I would like, which is why I was so pleased to run across this essay by Den­nis Prager: Would You Rather Your Teenag­er Smoke Or Cheat?

.

Here are his open­ing para­graphs, I encour­age you to read the whole thing: Decades of lec­tur­ing around Amer­i­ca and of speak­ing with par­ents on my radio show have led me to an incred­i­ble con­clu­sion: More Amer­i­can par­ents would be upset with their teenage chil­dren if they smoked a cig­a­rette than if they cheat­ed on a test.

How has this come about? This is, after all, an entire­ly new phe­nom­e­non. Almost no mem­ber of my gen­er­a­tion (those who became teenagers in the 1960s), let alone a mem­ber of any pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tion, could ever have imag­ined that par­ents would be angri­er with their teenage child for smok­ing than for cheat­ing.

There has been a pro­found change in Amer­i­can val­ues. In a nut­shell, health has over­tak­en moral­i­ty. Or, if you pre­fer, health has become our moral­i­ty.

Read the whole essay.

College Matters

I just read this para­graph in the Ivy Jun­gle’s Cam­pus Min­istry Update and thought it worth post­ing here: In her recent book, Hillary Rod­ham-Clin­ton describes her­self as a Gold­wa­ter con­ser­v­a­tive pri­or to her col­lege years. The daugh­ter of a staunch Repub­li­can, it was in col­lege that she changed her polit­i­cal views. One cat­a­lyst for the change, she says, was the “MOTIVE” mag­a­zine pub­lished by the Methodist Church. The mag­a­zine, which ceased cir­cu­la­tion in 1968, was designed for col­lege stu­dents and helped her see the cause of social jus­tice. Regard­less of polit­i­cal your polit­i­cal views, this reminds us that col­lege min­istry mat­ters. Press on.