HSC Installment No.2

The Highlands Study Center has a publication, entitled Every Though Captive. In times past, at the end of each issue was Dr. Sproul's "Chicken Report" a monthly update on his successes and failures in poulty production. This post is about how I made it into the Chicken Report.

As a student, living with the Sprouls, I had obigation to perform a certain number of hours' labor each week. The labor varied from chopping firewood to polishing the family van to taking care of chickens. By taking care, I don't mean the default assumption of feeding and watering. That was involved, and being the resident expert, my knowledge of poultry biology was inquired of not infrequently.

One day, Dr. Sproul approached me with a problem. He had five chickens, the first he had ever raised. He loved those chickens, but they just weren't producing. Something had to be done. Being his first, he didn't have the heart to eat them or kill them, but economics dictated their removal. Hence, my services were procured. I was to be the grim reaper, the one between them and their end: The eternal garbage can.

So, I set my face to my task, and proceeded to it in the cleanliest fashion I knew. I would grab one by the neck, swing it round and round, and snap its neck. A quick, clean, though dizzying, painless death. I had done three, and was proceeding to the fourth, when I heard an exclaimation to my right. There was the little Sproul boy watching wide eyed in wonder. At that moment I snapped the chicken, and to my surprise I found myself holding only the head. I looked, and there was the rest of the chicken running around the other side of the pen.

After that I was the hero of many stories, not the least of which was one installment in "The Chicken Report."

Dragons

Not all dragons
are armed in scales,
With fiery breath
and thorny tails.

Not every knight,
is borne by a steed,
He is known by his heart,
and judged by his deeds.

Distinctions

A bit of a sidetrack... I have beeen thinking a lot lately of church community and familial relationships. The question seems to come up, though, of indivuality. It is, of course, posed to avoid the impression of indivualism. How can I know who I am, if I find my identity in another entity? Am I not then defined by who, or what, I associate with? It seems difficult to focus on indivuality outside of indivualism. I cannot be obsessed with who I am, or I won't get any deeper than myself. Indivualism doesn't go anywhere. The body of Christ is made up of many parts. If I am a little pinkie toe, my distictiveness, the definition of my indivual being, is found, not in my pinkie-toe-ness, but in my being a pinkie toe on a foot on a body. If all I am is a cute little pinkie toe, outside of the body, I have lost definition and individualality. All the sudden I'm just another non-conformist. Paint it black. In a family, a husband is such only because he has a wife, a father because he has children. Indivuality is lost on indivualism. To look into myself to define who I am, I find only what I am; a supersized bundle of filthy rags. It is through the definition of who Jesus Christ is, and what He has done that we become dinstinct, because we are no longer alone.

Highlands Study Center, installment 1

It seems that it might be of interest for me to write of my times as student at the Highlands Study Center. That it is a convenient source of blogging material is also rather handy.

Around October of 2002, I had been looking for a sort of discipleship program for a while. I had applied, and been rejected (although I was a 'prime candidate'), for Vision Forum's discipleship program. I had intended on applying again at Vision Forum, but they took a sort of sabbatical on the program. Around that time a friend told me about RC Sproul Jr.'s ministry, with the disclaimer that he is 'a presbyterian, and a bit radical.' Sounded rather interesting (we were going to a reformed baptist church). Having grown up listening to Sproul Sr., I was interested. I started reading on the HSC website. I liked this kind of radical. So, I talked to my parents, and I contacted Dr. Sproul. We had some questions for each other. After some email exchanges, mostly about myself, he told me that it sounded like my family was more presbyterian than most presbyterians. We arranged that I would come up shortly after Thanksgiving of '02.

I left home Monday, December 2nd, in a little brown 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass, my family in the rearview. It was my first roadtrip away from home, alone. I was to call home every couple hours. That night I happened to find one of the only hotels in America that would give a room to someone under 21, but that's another story. I pulled up to the Sproul domain Tuesday afternoon, rather naive, a little lonely, and quite nervous. Dr. Sproul was kind, warm, funny, and quite interesting in shorts and calf socks. The adventeur had begun.

The Sands of Time...

This week marks the 3rd anniversary of my term as student at the Highlands Study Center. I was interested to read Dr. Sproul's squiblog this week. I remember sitting on his couch as he shared with me what he wrote there. The look in his eyes, the excitement, the sincerity, as he told me I could indeed change the world. There I first began to understand that it is faithful living that God uses to accomplish His will through us, that heroism is only accomplished with a firm foundation of faithfulness.

I look fondly on my time as student. It is wonderful to look back and see the grace of God, and the events and people He uses to shape our lives.

Good Christian Men Rejoice

Friday, as I was driving home, I came across the mother of all Christmas lines. It ran about 7 miles long. I knew there had to be something deeply philosophical about all this, and my mind began to wander. In all reality, there was a bad accident that caused the interstate to shut down in both direction for a collective 20 miles. This made my 45 minute commute almost 3 hours long. It did give me plenty of time to think about life, the universe, and everything.

There were several shoulder runners (those annoying folks who actually think they'll get somewhere by driving up the shoulder). The one that cought my attention was an older guy with a sticker beneath the driver's side window that asked the all important question, "Are you saved?" In a hurry to get to heaven, I guess.

I also saw a few houses all strung out with a couple million watts worth of Christmas lights, and those cute silohouettes of Frosty looking over the "Child" with longing eyes.

Already in a thinking mood, I put the two together: How easily our Christian witness is distorted, and the celebration of the Christmas season. I then applied one of the new words I've been learning: Antithesis. Here's my result.

The world has taken one of our most sacred holidays and distorted it almost beyond recognition, and Christians have complied on wholesale levels. So, good conservitive Christian consider pulling out all together. But I wonder if the Christian witness wouldn't be better served, if Christ wouldn't be better served, if we instead reclaimed Christmas. What if we studied and understood the traditions, the symbols of new life and love, and taught them to our children, and celebrated them with all our hearts. Not because the word does, not because we always have, but because God came down to earth, in the form of a man, to take on the sins of man, to redeem for Himself a people. Let the people of the Lord rejoice!