Redwoods National Park

The last time I was in this park was when I was twelve years old and my parents were bringing me out to California from Denver on our big move. We took the scenic route.

I remember being awed by these trees then, but today was an overwhelming joy.

In his tribute to the national parks, Dayton Denton says something fascinating. He says that in these peculiar beautiful places, we are reminded of Eden, a time when we were not in conflict with nature, but when we were a part of nature. Nature ceases to be something to control and becomes something for our enjoyment and nourishment. I think that captures what we experienced today.

Our encounter took us due north out of Eureka early in the morning through a dense shroud of fog to the various long stretches of majestic redwood forests that line highway 101 in the northernmost portions of the state. I insisted that there be no video devices of any kind during this time of hushed observance. The girls obliged without complaint and drank in all the scenery. Trinity became my photographer for various scenes along the road (see some of her work below).

We meandered our way up through the park to highway 199, where we diverged to the northeast. There we encoutered a small logging road with the most pristine grove of redwoods I’ve ever seen. We all managed the 1 mile hike along a riverbank until we were rewarded with The Stout Grove.

It is hard to believe that you are still in the normal workaday terrestrial world up here. One feels that one has crossed over into Narnia or some other magical land. There is no waste here and everything reverberates with life. Elk amble through mountain meadows. Birds of prey wheel overhead. The gentle Klamath River drains into raging ocean waters. What amazes is that one cannot fully ingest it all; it is all interwoven, active, and lit with the smoke of fog pouring over mountains and emerging through dense coverage of massive trees. It’s beauty one moment is supplanted only by it’s beauty the next moment.

Many people describe their experiences of such places as “beyond words.” This place does seem to demand a higher reverance than words can provide. Here are a few pictures of our time:

From the Passenger Seat by Trinity Rose

I'm afraid the hair is not "mommy approved"

First glimpses of Stout Grove

Felicity Loves to Hike

The fog really messes with the hair... haha.

Trinity playing with the camera

Creating Memories En Route, Eureka, CA

How responsible are parents for creating the memories of childhood? I think of my grandparents and what I know of their parents and prior generations, people who worked the land, lived hard lives, but loved well and enjoyed their lives. Children in those homes adjusted to the normal that existed there. Most rural families didn't venture far from their homes and their kids came to know very little of the world. And yet in our fast paced world we think that we live better, that our kids are better off because we can afford to expose them to more of the world. Are our children better off because they are exposed to more of the world? Are they really living better lives than those simple children in simpler times, who lived deeply in their world rather than living widely as "people of the world?" They knew nothing of Budapest, but they knew the land and they knew each other. Our generation of mobile young people know Budapest and have a thousand facebook friends, but don't know those people placed by providence at arms length away from them. I think I'll just leave that question alone, except to say that I hope these travels never replace depth of relationship.

The events in our lives shape who we become. Perhaps that is a controversial claim to some, and surely there is more to be said regarding the psychological complexity of humanity, but I think it is fair to say that if a person is never shown grace, then she will find it hard to show grace. If a person is never exposed to natural beauty, she will find it hard to love, or even recognize, the beauty of the natural world. If she is never, or seldom, exposed to intelligent people, then she will find it hard to care much for thoughtful dialogue, etc.

The events that are most important in shaping our lives turn out to be the earliest events. This makes simple sense really. Tell a child she is worthless and she will come to think that she is worthless. Tell an adult that she is worthless, when she has been utterly convinced of her worth by countless messages of approval and love in childhood and beyond, and she will yawn at you. Tell a child that ugly things are beautiful and she might adjust to the thought and believe you. Tell a person whose senses have been trained to recognize and respond to the sublime from an early age that the ugly is beautiful and she will laugh at you.

And so why this trip? It is an appointment between three little girls and their father in places where their attention will be captivated, so that I can say to them without distraction that while God made these beautiful places, he intended far more for them, that they are far more beautiful than the most sublime scenes in nature, and that their purpose is infinitely more important than the purpose of a redwood tree, even if the tree in question is Hyperion (the tree that stretches farthest toward God of any living thing on the planet at 380 feet). It is a time to see what breezes, rushing rivers, streams and mountain wildlife have to say when we listen. It is a time to shut out the vapid static of the culture and be tuned to God's deeper and stronger voice. It is a time for the development of soul and for the development of the love that exists between a father and his daughters.

Tomorrow look for pics from our trip to Redwood National Park.

A few shots from the journey north today:

Fog was a welcome site for us Bakersfield folk

Our view at dinner

Great dinner spot in Eureka, CA

Why does anyone drive a hybrid when turbo diesel gives you this?

Sequoia and King's Canyon

We are blessed to live close to two spectacular national parks. For father's day I requested that we stay for one night in Fresno and then drive up highway 180 into King's Canyon National Park, and then down the road to Sequoia National Park. This trip became a kind of preview of the grand national parks road trip that I am chronicling here.

In these two majestic parks, one finds the mighty Sequoia trees. One of the joys of parenthood is that you are presented with the honor of showing your children the world, of introducing them to wonders they have never seen, and could not have imagined. 

Dimensions of General Grant

There are encounters in this world that make us feel small. They make us feel that way because we tend to measure our lives in terms of years (or at least accomplishments that outlive us) and grandeur (how "large" we can make our lives). What about a living thing that outlives us by 2000 or more years and whose physical stature is so impressive that it ranks as the world largest living thing? Here is a tree that was around before America, and before Christianity. Here is something taller than a 25 story building. Here is something that evokes the elusive virtue of true humility. In the presence of "General Sherman," we understand what Sergeant Joyce Kilmer said in his famous poem, "Poems are made by fools like me; but only God can make a tree." We can build buildings that soar far beyond 25 stories, but they aren't alive! Their glory compared to this tree is like the glory of a candle to that of the sun. 

I hope that you will take in the acute joy of witnessing the eyes of a child at first beholding something so immense, so real, so simply breathtaking, as General Sherman. When you do, you get to see the beauty of the world with fresh eyes. 

General Grant, The Third Largest Living Thing on Planet Earth

General Sherman and Me and My Girls
275 ft. tall,  103 ft. circumference,  37 ft. diameter

Me and My Girls, National Parks, II

Last year I was able to take my girls on a trip to two glorious national parks: Zion and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. I have a strong desire to teach them the beauty of nature, to build memories of childhood that center around lovely, noble and true things. We all feel a certain native curiosity in childhood, and while we rambled about in Zion last year, they demonstrated the kind of wonder one feels when everything seems new and possible. They even enjoyed (endured) a 2 mile hike with daddy (and I only carried the twins part of the way).

Daddy Showing Felicity the Beauty of the Natural World

This year my plan is quite ambitious: 6 national parks, and possibly 7 (if we have time and money for Bryce Canyon). We already visited Sequoia and King's Canyon (post to follow this one), but will venture far north and west in our pursuit of beauty. We begin our trip going north out of Bakersfield to San Jose for a short stay with grandma and grandpa. From there, we will continue north, this time on highway 101 over the Golden Gate and up to Eureka, CA. We stay for a little while there and then spend some time in our first national park: Redwood National Park, where reside the tallest living things on planet earth. 

After our time in the Redwoods, we meander our way through the coast mountains into southern Oregon to visit with Nancy's dad in Klamath Falls. We will venture with him to Crater Lake National Park, where we will discover the deepest and purest water in the US. 

Then we travel to Billings, MT, where we pick up mamma and head south to Yellowstone. There we plan to stay a few days and see the many sights. 

Our last night in Wyoming will be spent in Jackson Hole, after which we plan to see Grand Teton National Park before heading south for home. 

I plan to upload pictures here to my blog of the journey and our memories of each day, along with a pithy and even perhaps mildly poetic description of the scenes we beheld that day. Stay tuned.

Atheist Superbowl Commercial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0ZqQznblZo&sns=fb

A former student alerted me to this Superbowl commercial that was sponsored by an atheist group. She wanted me to write a post about it, so I am.

A disclaimer comes first. No self-respecting atheist thinks you should consult a commercial to find representation for the atheist position, but since obviously several atheists put this thing together, it might be amusing to respond to it, with approximately equal brevity.

The way I will do this is to address a few of the assertions in the ad because clearly there are no arguments in it. Syllogisms make for uninteresting commercials.

The ad begins with a series of statements addressing the elite that are in the family of the skeptics, atheists, agnostics, etc. The ad called them "non-conformists" and "free thinkers." Let us begin there.

Why on earth should anyone think that an atheist is anything other than a conformist? The broader culture seems to be nominally religious, usually possessing some vague belief in a mystical "other" out there. But what if one considers the decidedly anti-Christian liberal college environment, and the decidedly anti-Christian pop culture environment? If it is true that such places are aligning rather nicely with atheism, then please tell me how becoming an atheist is some bold departure from cultural norms. As a resident of California, it sure looks the other way round to me--that it is far more non-conformist to be a Christian than to be a proud college grad, armed with a degree in something terribly fashionable from someplace even more fashionable, whining about how Christians and Christianity are ruining everything, especially all the liberal goals.

I think the typical atheist/"non-conformist" should ask himself or herself this simple question: Have I ever had a relationship of any substance with an intelligent, informed Christian, or have I ever read a substantive book written by a Christian? If the answer is no, then probably they should abandon the notion of being a persecuted cultural loner striving fruitlessly against a massive tide of ignorant cultural opposition. These are the clone wars, and the modern university is the assembly line.

And another thing, the ad praised "free thinking," which I take to be utterly meaningless in the lips of an atheist. In the context of the ad it seems to advocate asserting one's own ideas. But what if my idea is to kill a bunch of people? Isn't that non-conformist, free thinking and the like? I guess I don't have much to say here except that ads are poor places to promote philosophy since there is no ground for understanding what on earth the atheist can mean by "free thinking." As soon as he starts defining it, we realize that there are a lot things he wants to do to restrict us. Think Stalin, Mao, Hitler and the gaggle of other advocates of atheistic "free thinking."

We are assured that the fuel of the passion of the atheist is "not belief in magic," but the quest for knowledge. What I want to know here is why the atheist believes the unitive act of knowledge is at all meaningful in a universe thrown together by chance and destined for material particularization? Crane, an atheist himself, is a stout enough critic of such an idea:

A man said to the universe: 
"Sir I exist!" 
"However," replied the universe, 
"The fact has not created in me 
A sense of obligation." 

A last thought and then I leave the subject: Note the two terms so celebrated by atheists, logic and truth. Atheists love logic and truth and hate magic and the Easter bunny. So if you want logic, you had better become an atheist and if you want to protect the habitat of the Easter bunny, then remain a simpleton Christian. See how simple these choices can be.

But surely any logical reductio analysis of atheism will demonstrate that logic makes absolutely no sense in a godless, mindless, purposeless universe in which we are merely adrift amid universal debris; in which we ourselves are nothing more than universal debris. Many atheists themselves want to know if logic is merely a human adaptation and was not itself intended and is not therefore necessarily universal or objective. If that is the case, then one cannot proclaim that logic is the "one truth." Many atheists have become postmoderns, and if one is to be consistent with their systems, then logic is nothing more than a "western notion." How are we to claim that our western notions are better than African tribal notions, where logic may play a far less significant role?

In the end, the commercial is ironically amusing but not particularly coherent.

Grad Speech

Recently I was given the honor of sharing the keynote speech at our graduation ceremony. Here is the transcript:

What I’d like to do today is to offer a simple message of encouragement and challenge to our graduates. As I was thinking about the many things that can be said at an event like this, and the many things that have been said and forgotten, I decided to describe what I hope every eagle will be that we graduate from this place. What do we want the characteristics of a BCHS Eagle to be?

We want our Eagles to have keen vision.

Your parents and your teachers here have tried to give you insight into the philosophical issues of our day and training that will prepare you for the intellectual challenges you will face. We have also tried to help you see your culture for what it is, in contrast to the culture of Christ. Many of you, perhaps even most of you, have accepted this training and have prepared well. I commend you.

Some of you have worked the system. Sorry to be so blunt here, but some of you have only jumped through the minimalist hoops we have designed for you to jump through and you are not in the least prepared to face thoughtful representatives of other worldviews and stand your ground.

One of three things could happen to you, and to any who are not prepared to face cultural and intellectual challenges to the Christian faith.

One, you could be overwhelmed and assimilated. You will perhaps sit in a lecture hall and hear compelling words artfully denouncing your beliefs, and you will not know what to say or even what to think. Perhaps you will conclude, “if I can’t beat them, why not join them.” And you will drift away.

Perhaps you will sit in your dorm hall and see glamorous, outrageous and fun people boldly and colorfully flouting God’s moral standards, and apparently getting away with it. And without an ability to articulate the emptiness of it all, you will end up living exactly as they do.

A second result may follow from a lack of preparation. Perhaps instead of joining them, you will separate wholly from them. You will descend from the evil of the culture and the dangers of intellectual challenges into the safe confines of the Christian subculture. Here you will surround yourselves with Christians, buy Christian music, Christian books, and Christian products of all kinds. Perhaps here you will remain a Christian, but you will be an impotent one, unable to meet thinking people on their ground and bring the truth of the Christian worldview into the marketplace of ideas.

But there is a final possibility. Perhaps if you haven’t prepared, on facing these challenges firsthand, you will wake up from your intellectual slumber and begin your training. This would be my prayer for any Eagles leaving this place today unprepared.

We also want our Eagles to mature rapidly.

The challenges of nature are urgent and that is why actual Eagles must mature so rapidly, but perhaps it is no different for our Eagles.

The writer of Hebrews similarly charges Christians to mature more rapidly than they were. He says to them, “by now you should be teachers, but you need someone again to teach you the elementary principles of God’s word.”

What is a mature Christian? According to Scripture, it is one who has learned in order to be a teacher. It is one thing to learn in order to navigate a test or dupe a teacher into thinking you read a book. It is quite another thing to learn so well that you become a resource for the next generation. And so I ask each of you solemnly: Have you learned well enough to be a teacher? Can you articulate the faith once for all handed down to the saints? Can you model it well? The time is coming when you will encounter people who will need more than Mr. Martin’s notes… as good as they are. They will need you to be a living witness to the reality of God in the world, both in word and in deed. I know by God’s grace you will be that for people.

We like our Eagles to be Aggressive.

You may remember the words of Dr. Bahnsen: “We set for the absolute necessity of Christianity in order to make sense of human reason, moral law, human dignity, love and every other intelligible human experience.”

That’s an aggressive statement. We see nothing here of the possibility or the probability of Christianity. We see no hedging or hemming and hawing. We see a gauntlet thrown down in the midst of all available worldviews. “Let Jesus be true and all else shown to be liars.”

But as you have learned here, this aggressiveness requires confidence in one’s understanding of one’s own faith and the deficiencies within other worldviews, and also grace in communicating both.

I challenge you to go forward from this place confidently proclaiming that education, morality, human reason, science, unity and diversity, and therefore love—are all our intellectual property as Christians.

It is time to play offense, to assert the superiority of Christ in the world loudly, and to insist that burden of proof is a shared burden when it comes to worldviews. We must insist that the atheist or pantheist, Muslim or postmodernist, demonstrate to us how their worldview makes sense of human reason, love, individual dignity, moral law, science and the like.

In the end, we need to be able to address the gaping philosophical emptiness of other worldviews, and demonstrate that Christianity is the only philosophical position that can suffuse the human experience with beauty and meaning.

We want our Eagles to Soar.

You are probably familiar with the parable of the eagle and the chickens… It goes something like this:

An eagle egg falls from its nest into a chicken coop, where it hatches. The eaglet is then raised by chickens and learns to behave like a chicken, scratching and pecking at the ground. And as I recall there are two interesting endings to the story; one in which the chicken sees an eagle in flight and after a certain length of time mounts to the skies to live among the clouds as nature designed him to live. The other, and less happy ending, has the eagle content to live the remainder of his days on the ground among the chickens though he was made for so much more.

My prayer is that you will soar higher than your culture.

That you will, in the words of Dr. Horner, “out-think and out-live your culture.”

My prayer is that you will lead in the arts, in science, and that our culture will be deeply affected by your various contributions in it.

In closing, let me say this: We love you! You are ours. You are our “living epistles, written on human hearts.” We have a vested interest in you. If you need us, you know where to find us.

Lady Blah Blah

I know... really clever title to this blog, right? What I'm interested in discussing today is the argument in Lady Gaga's new song, "You Were Born This Way."

The key line is, "... you're on the right track, baby, you were born this way..." And it goes on to talk about gays, bisexuals, transvestites, etc. Real shocker that she has this kind of message and agenda.

But here is the latent argument within the song:

Premise 1: If you are born to do ... X , then it is acceptable for you to do X.
Premise 2: You were born to do ... X.
Conclusion: It is acceptable (morally) for you to do X.

My response here is a simple question regarding premise 1: Why should we believe it is obvious that if we are born a certain way that it must be morally acceptable for us to be that way? Does it really follow?

Let's play with a few examples:

Premise 1: If you are born to be a pedophile, then it is acceptable to be a pedophile.
Premise 2: Some people are born to be pedophiles.
Conclusion: Therefore, it is acceptable to be a pedophile.

Or...

Premise 1: If you are born to be a sociopath, then it is acceptable to be a sociopath.
Premise 2: Some people are born to be sociopaths.
Conclusion: Therefore, it is acceptable to be a sociopath.

Or...

Premise 1: If you are born to be homophobic, then it is acceptable to be homophobic.
Premise 2: Some are born to be homophobic.
Conclusion: Therefore, it is acceptable to be homophobic.

Now, of course Lady Gaga is no professional philosopher, but that doesn't mean we should accept muddle headed nonsense simply because it is accompanied by a driving beat.