It's OK to be Covetous...

...as long as it's about spiritual things, right?

The folks up at HBC-Rockford are sending a bunch of people up to Minneapolis for this fall's Desiring God Conference September 29th - October 1st. Besides John Piper, speakers include Mark Driscoll, Tim Keller, Voddie Baucham, D.A. Carson, and David Wells. I won't be able to go. Sad. I'll be getting ready for MICU... and I'm freaking out.

Taking a road-trip to go listen to some of my heroes magnify the glory of God sounds like the best way to possibly spend a weekend.

You should go.

What the L?

We got some mail yesterday for the old owner of our house. It was some Scientology literature, titled "Life after Ls." Yikes. Here's the beginning:

OT Power and the L Rundowns
What are the L Rundowns?
Word of the famous L Rundowns led to the worldwide demand for Flag services and this expansion precipitated the move to a land base in 1975. Today, 31 years later, the Ls are still the pinnacle of Flag auditing, bringing Scientologists from around the world to experience their OT power. These rundowns were born out of Ron's upper level research in the early 1970's.

Thanks for "clear"ing that up, guys. It says I can get 1 "Intensive" lasting 12-1/2 hours for only $12,100. At that price I can't afford not to take the plunge. After all,

"After finishing L 11, I feel like a lion, tiger, and bear all in one!"

Roar!

Stuff like this reminds me of 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12:

"Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness."

Movie Brief: Pirates of the Caribbean II

We went and saw Pirates last night. Most of it was entertaining. The action scenes were very well choreographed and executed. Johnny Depp was pretty funny again. The only problem that the move didn't make any sense (which seems to be a trend lately). There were several things I didn't understand:

1) Somehow Davy Jones and his crew have become half-men/half-sea-creatures.
2) For some reason, Captain Jack owes Davy his soul.
3) Davy's heart somehow ended up in some chest.

All of these were explained during the course of the movie, but you never could really understand what the characters were saying because of background noise, unlcear speech, etc. On the way home I told Katie that I felt like an old person: "What was going on? I'm confused! I couldn't hear what they were saying!"

Now, I'm willing to accept a little confusion and a lack of internal consistency in a summer blockbuster. (Would any explanation suffice for how someone became a half-man/half-squid after cutting out his own heart?) But the most irritating thing about this movie was that, after 150 minutes of swashbuckling, they dropped an ending which was supposed to feel like a cliffhanger, but instead just felt tacked-on and confusing. It was like they were 98% done with the film, then realized that they could probably milk the franchise for another couple-hundred million dollars with a third installment.

I was trying to think of comparison's last night as far as segues between installments. Back to the Future ended with a similar last-second cliffhanger opening the door for a sequel, but it also felt like the end of a chapter. Empire Strikes back was the same way, as were both of the Lord Of The Rings segues. The closest thing I could come up with was the transition between BttF 2 and 3. BttF 2 also represented the middle link of a three movie franchise and also couldn't stand on it's own plot-wise. The difference of course being that BttF 3 came out only a few short months after 2, thereby assuaging somewhat the mediocrity of the second movie.

In summation: PotC2 is entertaining in parts, tedious and confusing by the end.

Movie Review - Lady in the Water

I was going to call this post "Lady in the Water - an Apology." The movie has been getting some really bad reviews and I thought I'd chirp in. I won't rehash the plot, since I don't think I could if I tried. Katie and I went to see this movie last weekend. Let me just say up front:
1) This movie didn't make any sense.
2) Dwarf, Hobbit, Elf, etc. seem to have caught on and are here to stay. "Narf" probably won't stick.
3) I don't think Asian mythology uses words like "Narf."
4) I liked in anyway.
This movie is based on bedtime stories M. Night Shyamalan told/tells his children. That's about as seriously as this movie is intended to be. If you take it as seriously as some critics seem to, you're going to be disappointed. If you don't, there are worse ways to spend $8. The acting is good. The plot doesn't make sense, but it's entertaining. The moral is vague, but positive. I'd say this movie is like waking up from a dream that felt meaningful and important and hopeful, even though you can't quite remember why. I like that feeling.

It was a quiet week in Morton, IL....

My friend Brian just sent me photos from the wedding of our friends Josh and Julie. It was in New Hampshire. I was disappointed that I couldn't go. It was actually the first night of my residency. Josh and I have been friends for a long time and I've always loved Julie. Curiously, I only see Julie at weddings.

I made sure to get the weekend of October 7th off to go to Adam & Ashley's wedding.

Other news: It's a boy! Katie and I found out yesterday that we're having a boy. I've said that I want to have at least one of each gender, but I admitted to Katie the other night that I was secretly hoping for a boy. It turned out that she'd been secretly hoping for a girl. My parents had been openly hoping for a girl. As the US was being placed on Katies abdomen, I suddenly stopped caring about the gender, but was really just hoping and praying that there would be nothing wrong with the wee babe. As far as the name, there's a little uncertainty, but currently we're leaning towards Hazen Henry Tuck III, a.k.a. "Trey."



Hmmm... maybe we should go with something a little more wholesome, like "Hank."



Or maybe just "Hazen."

Which reminds me: my brother Andy was originally named after my mom's dad, John. When my mom told him, he said something grumpy like, "I don't care, it's your kid, name him whatever you want." So she changed his name to Andrew Jacob. Hilarious.

David Brainerd's Striving to Enter the Narrow Gate

I just finished reading The Life and Diary of David Brainerd for the fourth time. It was better than I remembered. I thought I'd type out a few highlights from his conversion experience.

The puritan forefathers excelled in (and maybe even obsessed over) self-examination. In our day, any young person who grows up in a Christian family, makes a credible profession of faith and does not make a habit of gross sin is rarely challenged to question the reality of their own new birth. One can in fact have no spritual light and yet be a member in good-standing at most evangelical churches. Indeed there may be enough manipulative pressure exerted to get people to "repeat this prayer after me" that little-to-no emphasis is placed on genuine piety.

This was not so in Brainerd's day. He grew up on a diet of justified-by-faith-alone, you-must-be-born-again, and the-natural-man-cannot-please-God. He knew there was a great difference between outward profession and genuine piety, and that the latter is what must be aimed at in ourselves and in those to whom we minister.

From living in this environment of intense self-examination and genuine piety, Brainerd recognized the importance of seeking "what must I do to be saved?" Here is a taste from his journal of what life was like before the scales fell from his eyes (written at the age of 22):

My manner of life was now exceeding regular and full of religion; for I read my Bible more that twice through in less than a year, spent much time every day in prayer and other secret duries, gave great attention to the Word preached, and endeavored to my utmost to retain it.

Though hundreds of time I renounced all pretenses of any worth in my duties, as I thought, even while performing them, and often confessed to God that I deserved nothing for the very best of them but eternal condemnation; yet still I had a secret hope of recommending myself to God by my religous duties.

...I flattered myself that it was no so very difficult [to enter the narrow gate], and hoped I should by diligence and watchfulness soon gain the point.

I daily longed for greater conviction of sin.

And though my distress was sometimes thus great, yet I greatly dreaded the loss of conviction, and returning back to a state of carnal security, and to my former insensibility of impending wrath; which made me exceeding exact in by behavior lest I should stifle the motions of God's Holy Spirit.

Here's one that deserves to be quoted at length (italics mine):

The many disappointments [with my efforts to be born-again], great distresses and perplexity I met with, put me into a most horrible frame of contesting with the Almighty; with an inward vehemence and virulence finding fault with His ways of dealing with mankind. I found great fault with the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity; and my wicked heart often wished for some other way of salvation than by Jesus Christ. Being like the troubled sea, my thoughts confused, I used to contrive to escape the wrath of God by some other means. I had strange projects, full of atheism, contriving to disappoint God's designs and decrees concerning me, or to escape His notice, and hide myself from Him.
But when, upon relection, I saw these projects were vain and would not serve me, and that I could contrive nothing for my own relief; this would throw my mind into the most horrid frame, to wish there was no God, or to wish there were some other God that could control Him. These thoughts and desires were the secret inclination of my heart, frequently acting before I was aware. But, alas! they were mine, although I was afrighted when I came to reflect on them. When I considered, it distressed me to think that my heart was so full of enmity against God; and it made me tremble, lest His vengeance should suddenly fall upon me.

...my heart rose against God as dealing hardly with me.

...the corruption of my heart was especially irritated at the following things: 1. The strictness of the divine law....I thought if it extended only to my outward actions and behaviors I could bear with it; but I found it condemned me for my evil thoughts and sins of my heart, which I could not possibly prevent.... 2. Another thing was, that faith alone was the condition of salvation;...I found faith was the sovereign gift of God, that I could not get it as of myself, and could not oblige God to bestow it upon me by any of my performances (Eph 2:1-8)...I could not bear that all I had done should stand for mere nothing, who... had, as I thought, done much more that many others who had obtained mercy... 3. I could not find out what faith was;... 4. I found a great inward opposition [to] the sovereignty of God.

You're probably getting the idea. There does end up being a payoff to all this struggle though, and it's a payoff that some people are still talking about. The dawn was coming:

Now I saw there was no necessary connection between my prayers and the bestowment of divine mercy;... and this because they were not performed from any love or regard to God. I saw that I had been heaping up my devotions before God,... and indeed really thinking sometimes that I was aiming at the glory of God; whereas I never once truly intended it, but only my own happiness.

(I don't think this means that David Brainderd would be anti-Christian Hedonism. Christian Hedonism is always a pursuit of pleasure in God, and is therefore actually is an aiming at the glory of God)

I saw that as I had never done anything for God, I had no claim on anything from Him but perdition, on accound of my hypocrisy and mockery. Oh, how different did my duties now appear from what they used to do! I used to charge them with sin and imperfection; but this was only on account of the wanderings and vain thoguhts attending them... But when I saw evidently that I had regard to nothing but self-interest, then they appeared a vile mockery of God, self-worship, and a continual course of lies

(what a great internalization of Isaiah 64:6 "all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment"!)
And now God says, "let there be light!"

... as I was walking in a dark thick grove, unspeakable glory seemed to open to the view and apprehension of my soul. I do not mean any external brightness, for I saw no such thing... but it was a new inward apprehension or view that I had of God, such as I never had before, nor anything which had the least resemblance of it.
I stood still, wondered and admired! I knew that I never had seen before anying comparable to it for excellency and beauty; it was widely different from any conceptions that ever I had of God... I had no particular apprehension of any one Person in the Trinity... but it appeared to be divine glory. My soul rejoiced with joy unspeakable to see such a God, such a glorious Divine Being; and I was inwardly pleased and satisfied that He should be God over all for ever and ever. My soul was so captivated and delighted with the excellency, loveliness, greatness, and other perfections of God, that I was even swallowed up in Him. At least to that degree that I had no thought (as I can remember) at first, about my own salvation and scarce reflected there was such a creature as I...I felt myself in a new world... I wondered that all the world did not see and comply with this way of salvation, entirely by the righteousness of Christ.

This all took place when he was 21 years old, and it launched him upon a remarkable life of service. Hopefully I'll get to type some more highlights of his further adventures.

The Eagle Has Landed

Well, Katie and I are in Peoria and are starting to feel settled. We closed on our house is lovely Morton, IL on June 2nd. Big thanks to my Dad, my MIL, Andy Gilbert, Charles Jackson, and Adam Eng for the help moving. We spent the next few days frantically unpacking, organizing, and blowing lots of money.

That Sunday we went down to Naples, FL with Brian and Aimme Bement and Jeff and Sarah Thompson. We rented a nice little condo with its own pool. Naples was wicked hot and there weren't that many people around since it's off-peak season. Our group was made up of people from the whole spectrum of "People who need to be doing something all day every day on vacation" to "People who just like slothing about doing nothing while on vacation." Brian is far on the activities side (Clipboard of Fun), while I'm on the slothing about side (Please roll me every few hours). Everyone else was scattered in between. I think that the vacation was overall a mix of both. I got to read all of To Kill a Mockingbird and a lot of David Brainerd's Journal, two of my favorite books. I lost half my body weight in sweat one morning when I went running. I went golfing with Brian and Jeff one day. I bought 6 golf balls before the round, figuring that, since I was a little rusty, I might lose a few. Little did I know that there was out-of-bounds and/or significant water hazards on EVERY SINGLE HOLE. Plus I was a little rustier than I thought. I shot 120, which wasn't all that horrendous considering I lost 10 balls. At least I didn't get bit by a gator.

Another day, while Brian and Jeff were golfing, I escorted the ladies on a nature tour of the everglades, including a fanboat ride. My Mom told me the fanboats were a waste of time/money, but we enjoyed it.

Here we are on our fanboat. The top two people on the left are some Brits who were with us:
Here's a Manitee we saw on the fanboat ride:
Before the fanboat ride, we went up to a little nature observation area and saw some gators:

This was the coolest thing we saw that day. It's hard to see in the picture, but it's a dead & bloated gator upside down being eaten by a buzzard while floating down the canal:
Believe it or not, that was not the nature hightlight of the trip. On our last full day, we rented some kayaks just north of Marco Island. After paddling about for about an hour, we decided to start heading back. Just as Katie and I were heading out from a little beach, I heard Katie say "Jay, is that a .... AH! It's a Dolphin it's a Dolphin!" Actually it was three Dolphins. They let us get real close and were swimming around/underneath us. I was freaking out. We followed them for a while, and then caught up with our fellow humans who had also happened on a group of dolphins. I tried to jump in and swim with them. I wish I'd had my snorkle. Here are some pics:

Afterwards we had some lunch. Mmmm Gator nuggets!

We got home late Saturday night and drove to Rockford to pick up Rinkle, who was with my parents. We had a great time in Naples with our friends.

My orientation started that Wednesday and concluded just this past Friday. During orientation Katie and I also worked on house stuff. Ashleigh came for a visit last Monday. My first shift was the "night float" shift from 7 p.m. until 9 a.m. Sunday morning. It was a long night and my brain felt like mush by the time I collapsed in bed for 8 hours on Sunday. Plus people kept calling me doctor all night.

Morton is a town of about 11,000 and is about 12 minutes on the interstate from the hospital where I work. It's famous for the annual Pumpkin Days. I hope to run in the 10k this year.

Well, I better get back to my 4th of July celebration. I look forward to watching the hot dog eating contest.