Weymouth Child Development Center

Recently one of the State Elementary Schools in Charlotte Mi. (Weymouth Elementary) was recently retired from housing Elementary school students and will now be used to run a Government school daycare center. Families who have young children where both parents work will drop their children off for the day while the parents go off to work.

Recently I was driving by Weymouth and I noticed that they put themselves up a brand new sign. And it is the sign that finds me writing a blog post.

The sign read,

“Weymouth Child Development Center”

My first instinct was to think, “Wow, I’m amazed that they are being so honest about it.”

Here we have a setting where parents will drop their children off for the day and while they are at work they can have the satisfaction of knowing that a bunch of strangers are developing their children for them. How will their children be developed? The parents won’t know. What will they teach the little children? The parents don’t know. But what they do know is that their children are being developed and they know that they get to pay those people good money for the privilege of having those strangers develop their children for them.

As I thought about it I thought the new sign said it all. All schools, whether schools that happen in the home, or private schools or state schools should be thought of as “child development centers.” Children, who are not yet shaped in their thinking, enter into these locales and are shaped and massaged in their thinking and character in a particular direction.

From Garden, To Tabernacle, To Temple To New Covenant Restoration

When we read of the Garden description in Genesis and then compare it to some of the descriptions of the Tabernacle and Temple in the Old Testament we find some interesting parallels.

1.) The Lord God walks in Eden as he later does in the Tabernacle (3:8 cf. Lev. 26:12).

2.) Eden and the later sanctuaries are entered from the East (Ezek. 41:1) and guarded by Cherubim (Gen. 3:24, Ex. 25:18-22, 26:31, I Ki. 6:23-29).

As a slight rabbit trail, throughout Scripture a literary technique is often used equating man moving East with man moving away from God. Adam and Eve were drove out of Eden moving East. Cain dwelt in the land of Nod, East of Eden. In Genesis 11 the men who will build Babel in defiance of God, are noted as “moving East.” In the New Testament there is a opposite movement of man to God as the Wise Men (representative of the Gentile nations who will come to Christ) move from East to West to come to Christ.

3.) The pair of Hebrew verbs in God’s command to the man to ‘work it (the garden) and take care of it (2:15) are only used in combination elsewhere in the Pentateuch of the duties of the Levites in the Sanctuary (cf. Numbers 3:7-8, 8:26, 18:5-6).

In light of this the garden tended by Adam and Eve should be thought of as a Temple Sanctuary. As in all environments where God and Man dwell together, what made the Garden the Garden was the presence of God and the intimacy known between God and His people. This presence was muted, or perhaps better put, constrained after the fall as God’s presence had to be mediated by the priesthood. But with the death of Christ the great symbol that communicated that restricted presence of God — the curtain — was rent in twain and once again God’s people could walk with God and enjoy His presence through the mediatorial work of Christ as brought by the Spirit. With the work of Christ men who trust in Christ are once again put in the garden that they were removed from in the fall and forbidden from in the shadow covenant.

Now, naturally there is a “not yetness” to this present re-establishment of God’s garden Kingdom dwelling but we should be mindful that Scripture teaches that we have been translated from the Kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom (garden) of God’s dear Son. Further Scripture teaches, in the book of Revelation, of the time when all the “not yetness” of the present now Kingdom garden is removed and when there will be no need for the sun for the Glory of God will be the light of God’s people.

** (1) (2) (3) are taken from Sidney Greidanus’ “Preaching Christ From Genesis.”

Take and Eat

Genesis 3:6 — “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”

I Corinthians 11:24 “And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.

Taking and eating in the fall were the verbs of death. With the death of Christ taking and eating become the verbs of eternal life. The first taking and eating was the proclamation of man that he would chance the grasp at Creator status. The new covenant taking and eating re-positions men in their creaturely dependence. The first taking and eating was the stuff of eternal death and separation from God. The second taking and eating is the food of eternal life and the drink of peace with God. The first taking and eating was the destruction wrought by Adam upon he and all his tribe. The second taking and eating is salvation wrought by Christ upon all His tribe.

Note that the disobedience that destroyed Adam and his race is a disobedience that, while spiritual, had a corporeal instantiation in the fruit of the tree. Likewise the obedience that blesses the tribe of God is an obedience that comes to us, through the corporeal instantiation in the fruit that comes from the vine and the grain that comes from the field. Salvation and condemnation alike are primarily spiritual but never so spiritual that they are disconnected with corporeal realities that reflect spiritual realities.

So simple was the first act of taking and eating. So hard the undoing of that taking and eating. God would taste poverty, know what it was to be railed against, would become familiar with sorrow and acquainted with grief before “take and eat” would become verbs of salvation.

News Coverage On The Funeral For Dr. Hannibal Lecter

Today, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, amidst solemn dignity and quite honor, was interred at Arlington National Cemetery. Lecter, youngest scion born to a import – export royal family, was posthumously feted by friend and foe alike. Born in 1932, Lecter toiled in the long shadow cast by his famous and self denying family. With great humility and self abnegation Hannibal served mankind with aplomb and earnestness.

Lecter eventually discovered the cure for Cancer and even those who tenaciously fought against his eventual discovery of Cancer’s cure eulogized him with great fondness. Dr. Orrin Snatch, one of Lecter’s competitors said; “I fought with him and loved him like a brother.” Dr. Ray Stanforth Quail, former Vice President of the AMA, and another of Dr. Lecter’s opponents rendered up this panegyric to Hannibal Lecter; “though we were enemies in the medical guild Hannibal was a man who took the time to remember the names of my children and the dates of their birthdays. My children still remember with fondness how Dr. Lecter had them for dinner on their birthdays year in and year out when they were small — always serving New England Lobster with fava beans and a nice Chianti chaser.” New York Times Magazine medical writer Dr. Fred Kline spoke of Hannibal saying, “It is just the most amazing thing about Hannibal that he could joke about his cannibalism. It’s not that he didn’t feel remorse about the death of his victims, but that he still always saw the other side of everything and the ridiculous side of things, too.” Dr. Don McLean, a peer of Hannibal’s but yet another man who opposed Lecter’s search for the cure for cancer offered this encomium to the memory of Lecter, “Hannibal was an institution within an institution. Whenever there was an event or anything like that, he had a remarkable way of sending out a little note or calling your family or something like that.” Dr. Moe Sliden, current Vice President of the AMA and co-laborer with Lecter praised him by saying; “In working with Lecter I was a witness to history.”

The unfortunate thing during this time of national grieving is that some hate filled people have not been able to look past the assorted vices of Dr. Hannibal Lecter, choosing instead to nurture their hatred by refusing to understand that a man of such greatness, like Lecter, must be allowed his occasional idiosyncratic behaviors. All these hate filled people can do, while looking at greatness, is to point out the speck in the great man’s eye. It is an open question, given the presence of these hate filled people, if America will ever be able to produce another Dr. Hannibal Lecter again.

Despite the haters and naysayers there is hope that the US will be able to pass a health care bill as a memorial to Dr. Lecter. In light of all of his work for the betterment of humanity, the realization of socialized Health care was long an aspiration of Dr. Lecter’s. Lecter’s lifelong hope was that victims would be well taken care of.

Senator Edward Kennedy Succumbs To Brain Cancer

U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy, responsible for the vehicular homicide of Mary Jo Kopechne, Senate floor manager for the 1965 immigration act which fundamentally and unalterably changed America’s demographics despite his then promise that, “our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually,” and annual water carrier for socialized health care in America has been reunited with Miss Kopechne in his death from brain cancer. Senator Kennedy outlived Miss Kopechne by just over 40 years dying at age 77.

Teddy Kennedy’s philandering and womanizing was consistent with the Kennedy family tradition. Father Joe, and brothers Jack and Bobby were legendary skirt chasers and Teddy followed in that family tradition. Another family tradition that Sen. Kennedy was involved in was national politics. His Father had been US ambassador to England during the Roosevelt administration and his Brothers Jack and Bobby each achieved high elective office with Jack serving as President and Bobby as Attorney General and US Senator from New York. Teddy Kennedy was the only son of Joe Kennedy to die of natural causes in his old age.

Edward Kennedy, despite ushering Mary Jo Kopechne to a watery demise went on to become an influential US Senator from Massachusetts. In 1980 Kennedy challenged incumbent Jimmy Carter for his party’s nomination to be the Presidential standard bearer but lost in a tight contest to the incumbent President. Kennedy’s political career also included his leading the way in crushing Robert Bork’s nomination to the US Supreme court. With adroit underhanded slime and malicious and misleading innuendo Sen. Kennedy almost single handedly tarred what had been Bork’s stellar personal and judicial reputation and in so doing help to create the current poisonous partisan climate that still prevails in Washington D.C. some 25 years later.

Speculation from Washington D.C. is that the Democratic party will use Kennedy’s death as a martyrdom in order to pass the current proposed socialized health care. Rumors are swirling that the Democratic party will label the pending legislation as the “Kennedy Memorial Health care legislation.”