Matching Tracksuits

Day: December 11, 2017

Lost Acquaintances

Monday 11 December 2017

At some point in the day, I often look at the “Time Machine” module at the bottom of this blog to see what was going on one year, two years, ten years ago. The other day, this one popped up: L’s fourth birthday party.

Fourth

I clicked through and read. It was the party we had at the horse farm near our house. A fun party that involved lots of brushing horses, talking about horses, and even riding horses.

A picture from L’s fourth birthday party stopped me.

DSC_8765

I didn’t recognize a single person — not one adult or child — other than family. It’s not that I looked at a child or a parent and thought, “Yeah, I remember her. What was her name?” It was as if I was looking at people I’d never seen in my life. Complete strangers.

I find that lots of commenters that visited the site in the early days, when I promoted it, have not maintained their own hobby-horse blogs — sometimes for over ten years. Some of them were simply one-time commenters, probably leaving a comment just with the hope of a follow-up visit to their site. But some of them were regular commenters who have completely disappeared, and their own blogs with them. And here I am, fourteen years later, still plugging away at it, not promoting it, writing for myself as something of a journal replacement, but occasionally wondering where everyone went.

Christmas Tree

Monday 11 December 2017

It’s really such a silly idea, positively kitsch in a lot of ways: we cut down trees, bring them into our home, and hang silly baubles on it. For many, it’s more than that: it’s positively evil. Some Christians look at Jeremiah 10:2-5 as something of a condemnation of the Christmas tree. One religious group explains it thusly:

This passage states, “Thus says the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good.”

These verses illustrate an idol made out of wood. However, idols were also made out of other materials, such as stone, marble, etc. So this is not a comprehensive description of idol-making. More specifically, it speaks of Christmas tree-making, even as it is still done today.

A reference to the signs of heaven in verse 2 is better translated today as the winter solstice. Most people are unaware of the connection between Christmas and the winter solstice, and that the origin of the holiday is pagan. They observe it because of the customs in our society. We need to be aware of what some of the customs signify. In fact, we read in verse 2 above, “learn not the way of the heathen.” God commands us not to follow that way.

Although the scripture above undoubtedly reflects the ancient practices during Jeremiah’s time, we know that the book is also prophetic. Therefore, we ought to take it as an instruction for our day and age as well.

The use of such a tree amounts to idolatry. This is a transgression of God’s law, stated in Exodus 20:4-6. To learn more, you may wish to request our free booklet The True Origin of Christmas.

So it’s far from a harmless bit of cheesiness for some.

In The True Origin of Christmas, the author, David Pack, explains it thus:

No booklet about Christmas is complete without some explanation of the “Christmas tree.” We have touched on it without directly focusing on it. The modern Christmas tree originated in Germany. But the Germans got it from the Romans, who got it from the Babylonians and the Egyptians.

Like many articles from Pack, he fails to provide any documentation for the assertion that the Romans got it from the even more ancient sources. To be fair, there is something to Pack’s assertion:

The ancient Egyptians worshipped a god called Ra, who had the head of a hawk and wore the sun as a blazing disk in his crown. At the solstice, when Ra began to recover from the illness, the Egyptians filled their homes with green palm rushes which symbolized for them the triumph of life over death.

Early Romans marked the solstice with a feast called the Saturnalia in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. The Romans knew that the solstice meant that soon farms and orchards would be green and fruitful. To mark the occasion, they decorated their homes and temples with evergreen boughs. In Northern Europe the mysterious Druids, the priests of the ancient Celts, also decorated their temples with evergreen boughs as a symbol of everlasting life. The fierce Vikings in Scandinavia thought that evergreens were the special plant of the sun god, Balder. (The History Channel)

But Pack believes we’re just supposed to take his word for it. He is the authority.

By and large, it seems to be a tempest in a cliche. So it has pagan origins. So Christmas is a Christianization of solstace celebrations. So what? I find it hard to believe that an omnipotent being would care much about such relatively petty matters when I take into consideration all the other things he should be worried about.

Such considerations fail to take into account all the good that comes from it, the joy my family experiences sharing those couple of hours as we set up the tree, haul out the decorations, and get busy with hot cocoa and ornaments.

Games

Monday 11 December 2017

The kids stayed home today, and so I stayed home. What to do on a day off? Simple — play games.

First, Sorry. I love how this game teaches patience: you get all your pieces moving around the board, making real progress, and suddenly someone draws an 11 and switches places with you, destroying the work of the last few moves in an instant. Or worse: your opponent draws a Sorry card — back to the beginning for you. Then there’s the opposite problem: you’re right at the entrance to your safety zone, and you draw a 12 card.

“Time to make another lap,” I told E when it happened to him. He was frustrated, but dealt with it well. (Yes, I see it. I choose not to acknowledge it.)

The real surprise for me these last few days has been our children’s desire to play chess with each other. I’ve been teaching the Boy to play chess, and since L already knew, she decided to take it upon herself to teach him the final pieces (king and queen) and start playing with him.

Naturally, she beats him as badly as I would beat her were I to play seriously against her, not pulling my punches, so to speak. Still, Magnus Carlsen began taking chess seriously at about E’s age because his older sister kept beating him and he didn’t like losing. Now he’s the world number one, with an astronomically high rating, and by and large seems unstoppable. Doubtful, but one never knows. The love of the game and the patient critical thinking it encourages are enough .

Two Versions

Monday 11 December 2017

My model response in a Romeo and Juliet online discussion forum at school. The question: We watched two versions of the balcony scene (2.2). Which one more-realistically shows two people in love? Provide three pieces of evidence from the video that touches on pacing and/or tone of voice. Additionally, you might want to use body language.

Of the two versions of the balcony scene, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s interpretation shows more realistically that Romeo and Juliet are in love simply because the actors’ performances are so natural as opposed to the wooden, flat way the BBC actors appear. This is first most noticeable in the famous lines, “O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? / Deny thy father and refuse thy name.”

The way she says “Deny thy father” makes it clear that she thinks this is an absurdly impossible idea and yet says it as if she were suggesting he change his mind about what he’ll have for lunch. She looks down and laughs just before she continues as if she’s laughing at her own absurdity.

This continues to the point where she says, “Be some other name,” which she says so slowly that it emphasizes her frustration with the situation.

A final touch that makes it all seem more realistic is the way they interrupt each other during the passage about swearing to the moon.

Twice Juliet begins her lines before Romeo has finished his, and that is a much more natural way of speaking. We often talk over each other in our excitement or frustration, and by talking over each other here, it highlights the excitement they feel about each other and the frustration they feel about their situation.