Author Archives: mhick255

Looking on the Bright Side

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Lifehacker points to at least two blogs see the current financial troubles as a golden opportunity to improve your do-it-yourself skills. Can’t afford a new car? Just repair your old one! Don’t have money for new furniture? Build some out of scrap lumber! Can’t afford a hat? Knit one using cut-up beer cans for decorations (as my grandmother did on many an occasion).

Here’s one sample quote:

We can invest in hobbies that will give back, like electronics, woodworking, and DIY in general. Being able to make, fix, repair, and build might be the most important skills to develop. We really only have each other, and I think we’re all better off when we’re able to be self-reliant when we need to be.

Mr. Rogers vs. Teletubbies

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Tom Grosh tipped me off to the end for Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood on many PBS station. (Tom, in turn, was tipped off by Scot McKnight’s blog.) Tom also posted this great video paying tribute to Fred Rogers, who, I am glad to say, my children have gotten to know.

A while back, on a random Wikipedia reading spree, I read up on the Teletubbies. Their entry contains this statement regarding the show’s relatively short production run (only 4 years of new shows were ever created):

However, since the four years of production had exceeded the target audience’s age span, it was deemed that continuation was unnecessary,[citation needed] and the existing 365 episodes will be played in re-runs for years to come.

Compare this attitude to that of Fred Rogers. Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was produced from 1968 to 2001, over 33 years. From 1962 to 1968, Fred Rogers had a similar show in Canada. As many people know, Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister, specifically charged with ministry to children through television. (Would that all those in “secular” industries could receive theological training and be ordained to work in their particular vocations!)

Fred Rogers’ personal concern for the children who watched him shine through in every episode, and I cannot imagine him ending production because no 30-year-old would be expecting a new episode.

Consider the Raven

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Today I was reading one of my favorite (and most challenging) of Jesus’ teachings: do not worry.

Here is what Leon Morris has to say about Luke 12:24:

Jesus reinforces this [teaching] with an appeal to the ravens (or ‘crows’, Goodspeed, GNB), mentioned here only in the New Testament (they are the objects of God’s care in Ps. 147:9). Birds do not engage in agricultural activities, but they do not lack for all that. God feeds them. There is possibly significance in the fact that ravens were unclean (Lev. 11:15). God makes provision even for these unclean birds. And Jesus goes on to remind his hearers that they are of more value than birds (cf. v. 7)

Here is a poem I wrote about a parallel passage, Matthew 6:34:

Matthew 6:34

It’d be too easy to assume
You were talking to me, so
Who? Your disciples? They
Seemed to worry more about
Fish than God (then anyway).
The crowds, hungry and poor
And the soldiers stealing their cloaks?
Maybe. And maybe yourself,
Reminding yourself of what
You already knew: the times
Were short, the work was long
From Capernaum down to Judah, and
The coming trial must not
Darken the day too soon.

Each day has trouble enough.

Photo credit: Raven and the First Men at UBC’s Museum of Anthropology, by bRONTE dIGITAL