http://edushyster.com/joy-is-the-new-grit/

How Joy Became the New Grit

by 

Schools are increasingly manipulating students’ emotions in the name of achievement—and that’s wrong says University of Pennsylvania education professor Joan Goodman…

By Joan Goodman
*No excuses* charter schools face a teaching predicament. Their long school day/year with few diverting extra-curricular activities and heavily rule-governed pedagogy is tough on students. Inevitably, strict behavior restrictions, aimed not just at controlling common misbehaviors but also behaviors that might lead to misbehavior, result in a gulf between student desires and teacher demands. To close the gulf and avoid constantly admonishing students, charter management organizations have layered onto their culture an expectation that learning is to be approached joyously. Indeed, joy has been elevated to a central value at many CMOs. 

The j-factor
Uncommon Schools promotes *joy* as one of its five values; Democracy Prep advertises a *joyous culture* with enthusiasm as one of its DREAM values; Mastery lists *joy and humor* among its nine core values; and Achievement First includes the child’s joy in its assessments of  student progress. Success Academy says that, along with rigor, its schools stress *humor (joy)…making achieving exhilarating and fun!* Meanwhile, KIPP includes joy’s close cousin, *zest,* as one of the seven character strengths on its Character Growth Card. Chicago’s Noble Network has likewise embraced *zest.* According to Doug Lemov, a major source of CMO pedagogy, the Joy Factor, one of his 49 essential techniques, is *a key driver not just of a happy classroom but of a high-achieving classroom…. people work harder…when their work is punctuated regularly by moment of exultation and joy.*

When I first began visiting no excuses schools, I was struck by the striking juxtaposition of teachers presiding over silent class periods during which children diligently followed instructions, only to interrupt them periodically with the demand for reciprocal clapping, rhymed motivational cheers, and choral responses that seemed more appropriate to an athletic or marching event than an academic environment. The effort of schools to whoop up excitement appeared artificial and disingenuous given the often tedious tasks students were assigned, and the passive/receptive role they were, for the most part, expected to assume.

Stimulating this shallow ‘joy’ is, then, just another control technique designed to foster high achievement. Joy has become a ‘character strength,’ like grit, because of the results it produces, not for its own sake.

The intentional artifice is particularly clear in teacher training videos, when leaders like Lemov, or Doug McCurry of Achievement First, talk about how teachers must be skilled at quickly turning arousal on and quickly turning it off so that it serves its purpose – aiding their academic objectives. Stimulating this shallow *joy* is, then, just another control technique designed to foster high achievement. Joy has become a *character strength,* like grit, because of the results it produces, not for its own sake.

Just add sparkle
To elicit joy, the CMOs use emotional arousal techniques such as choral chanting, finger snapping, and gestural sequences. For instance, to lend *sparkle* to a lesson, Lemov advocates the Vegas Technique. This entails breaks from instruction, as brief as 30 seconds, for a ritualized routine loosely associated with the lesson. Students might, for example, do an action-verb shimmy, clap a routine to accompany a pronoun, or perform a vocabulary word charade. Achievement First’s McCurry advises teachers to plan *joyous interludes* by using four chants accompanied with gestures and 10 cheers per class. One chant, for example, is: *hey hey hey, I feel all-right,* followed with a stomp. The phrase is repeated with two stomps, then three stomps and finished off with: *I feel motivated to learn. And graduate college.* 

KIPP defines chanting as a key component of *KIPPnotizing,* the process by which students come to identify with the school and its culture. As this student-family handbook from KIPP Triumph Academy, St Louis Middle School explains:

Chanting at KIPP Triumph begins in summer school, where all new students learn a series of school wide chants. For 5th graders, learning to chant their multiplication tables during summer school is an essential part of their KIPPnotizing. Since many of our students arrive so far below grade level, they often have significant deficits in terms of their multiplication facts. However, when set to a chant, students—even our most struggling students—are able to learn all of their times tables in a few weeks.

The following jingles from KIPP are illustrative:

A is for audacious
What could be wrong with teachers using stomps, chants and *sparkle* as a means of generating *joy* in their students? For one, the chants, like those from KIPP have little to do with learning and less to do with education; indeed, they may work against it. Education is not recitation; it is becoming knowledgeable and curious about our human heritage—physical and cultural—about the properties of the universe from atoms to galaxies, about the heights and depths of civilizations, about current threats to the biosphere and the dignity of living beings. History is a dramatic story of events and dilemmas, brave and principled heroes, vain and villainous deeds that should stir reason and emotions. Claps and jingles get in the way of this pursuit. A better antidote to low interest is a fascinating rather than fast-paced, even frantic lesson. 

Emotional manipulation?
But there is something more disturbing at work here than abetting memorization rather than deeper learning. Educators at no excuses schools assume the authority to manufacture emotional states in students in the service of academic achievement, while at the same time disallowing genuine emotional states – anger for example – when they interfere with teaching. They stimulate *joy* so that their students will greet the strict codes of discipline and daunting academic expectations at these schools with eagerness and excitement.  But genuine joy cannot be canned or imposed. As C.S. Lewis described it, true joy is experienced as descending upon us, stabbing us unexpectedly; unlike pleasure, it is not in our power to procure. Real joy must come from within.  While it is possible to set the stage for a joyous experience, it is inauthentic, even manipulative, to demand, regulate, and use *joy* to improve a test score or make students pliant to authority figures.

That is not to say schools shouldn’t plan for fun, have games, skits, songs as a release from work, or sometimes to facilitate rote learning. It is also true that through such activities there is important social learning and opportunities for inventiveness.  But that is qualitatively different from stimulating a culture that imposes bursts of joy, excitement, zest. The harder, more essential, task is to stimulate genuine intrinsic interest in students rather than externally induced transient excitement. We’ve known since Piaget that without significant and authentic input from students themselves, without engagement through interaction, learning will be a collection of evanescent bits and pieces; hardly joyous.

Joan Goodman is a Professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania and a psychologist. She did an interview with EduShyster in 2013 about The High Cost of No Excuses.

Send tips and comments to jennifer@edushyster.com.

Sent from my iPhone

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/next-supreme-court-justice/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paid&utm_content=100716g&utm_campaign=scalia

The Next Supreme Court Justice

July/August 2016 • Volume 45, Number 7/8 • Scott Pruitt

Scott Pruitt
Attorney General, State of Oklahoma

---

Scott Pruitt was elected Attorney General of Oklahoma in 2010. Prior to that, he served for eight years in the Oklahoma State Senate. A past president of the Republican Attorneys General Association, he established Oklahoma’s Federalism Unit to combat unwarranted regulation and overreach by the federal government. Mr. Pruitt received his B.A. from Georgetown College and his J.D. from the University of Tulsa College of Law.

---

The following is adapted from a speech delivered on June 30, 2016, at Hillsdale College’s Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C., as part of the AWC Family Foundation Lecture Series.

When Justice Antonin Scalia passed away this February, talk turned almost immediately to who would replace him—although in a large sense he is irreplaceable. Even those who disagreed with Justice Scalia acknowledge his profound impact. His scholarship and judicial opinions, through brilliance and wit, transformed how we think about the law and the Constitution. He inspired a generation of law students and lawyers. He provided a foundation for the work of judges and legislators, as well as attorneys general like myself. And all who knew him personally will attest that his brilliance was matched only by his warmth, cheer, and grace. He will be deeply missed.

In thinking about the kind of person who should take his seat on the Court, it is worth reflecting on Justice Scalia’s principles of jurisprudence. One of the chief principles he championed, as a scholar and as a judge, is that the law, whether statutes or the Constitution itself, must be applied according to its text. In other words, judges should not apply the law based on what is good policy or what they suppose Congress may have intended (but did not express) in passing legislation.

In addition, Justice Scalia believed that the words of the law should be understood as they were understood by the people when the law was enacted. For example, if you strike a bargain with someone, and later there is a dispute about that bargain, how do you interpret the words of your contract? Do you look to what the words of the contract meant at the time you agreed to them? Or do you look to what those words mean ten or 50 years after the fact? There are some who believe that the meanings of words change over time, untethered from any objective measure. Thus what is legal one day may be illegal the next without any textual changes to the law. Justice Scalia rejected this notion. He held fast to the idea that the meaning of laws is fixed by the meaning ascribed to their words at the time they were enacted.

These two principles, textualism and originalism, are rooted in a third characteristic of Justice Scalia’s jurisprudence: an unwavering respect for the idea of popular government. Laws, including the Constitution, receive their legitimacy from the people. The Constitution is not an autonomously evolving document that spins out new “rights” and obligations to which the people have not given their consent. Rather than discovering new rights in the Constitution, judges should respect the constitutional prerogative of the people to pass laws through their representative legislatures, limited by the restraints imposed by the Constitution—which was itself ratified by popular means.

Along with this opposition to creative interpretation of the Constitution, a fourth characteristic of Justice Scalia’s life work was a conviction that the rights actually guaranteed in the Constitution should be tenaciously defended, from the right of free speech to the rights of criminal defendants. Beyond these enumerated rights, Justice Scalia recognized that the Constitution’s primary protection of liberty is its structure of checks and balances between branches and its division of powers between the federal government and the states.

In short, Justice Scalia rejected the judicial activism of inventing law while embracing judicial engagement by ensuring that the limits on government are strictly enforced.

Ensuring that the next justice appointed to the Supreme Court is someone in the mold of Justice Scalia is surpassingly important. Not since the New Deal has the country had a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. For 60 years, the Court has been either decidedly liberal or split between liberals and conservatives. For 25 years, the Court’s most controversial and closely-divided cases sometimes had a liberal outcome, sometimes a conservative one. At the time of Justice Scalia’s death, the Court consisted of four unwavering liberals (Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan), three solid conservatives (Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito), a fourth who votes with the conservatives much of the time (Chief Justice Roberts), and one swing vote (Justice Kennedy). Replacing Justice Scalia with a liberal would fundamentally alter that balance, creating a solid majority of five liberal justices that would ensure liberal outcomes to all controversial decisions.

Make no mistake: the liberal justices on the Court nearly always vote as a bloc. Whereas the conservative justices occasionally depart for reasons of judicial philosophy from what some might consider the conservative outcome—as Justice Scalia often did—one is hard-pressed to find decisions where a liberal justice’s vote is in question. To illustrate the point, in the Supreme Court’s 2014-2015 term, the four liberal justices agreed with each other over 90 percent of the time—more agreement than between any two conservative justices. For example, Chief Justice Roberts agreed with Justice Thomas in only 70 percent of cases. If the liberal wing of the Court is given a five-justice majority, we should expect that no controversial decision of the Court will ever be in doubt.

Let me provide a survey of the important issues the Court might decide in coming years, once a ninth justice is appointed.

One of the issues coming before the Court will concern a basic liberty essential to democracy: freedom of speech. Under assault these days is the freedom to spend (or not spend) money on political speech. For example, before Justice Scalia’s death, the Court voted to grant review of a case called Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, in which public sector employees wanted the right not to pay compulsory union dues. This case raises an important question about free speech: can the government force you to contribute money to a political cause you oppose? Without Justice Scalia’s vote, the Court split evenly, leaving the issue to be resolved by a future Supreme Court—the deciding vote to be cast by the future ninth justice.

On the other side of the free speech coin is the continued vitality of the Court’s Citizens United decision. Let me clarify a common misconception: Citizens United did not hold that corporations are allowed to give unlimited amounts to political candidates. In fact, the laws limiting the amount of campaign contributions to a few thousand dollars are still valid and in place. Rather, in Citizens United, the Court held that the government may not limit the amount of money spent—whether by individuals, unions, or corporations—on their own independent political advocacy. This case was decided 5 to 4, with Justice Scalia in the majority. If he is replaced with a liberal, Citizens United will likely be overturned, and the right to free speech will be greatly diminished.

The First Amendment also protects religious liberty, another of our endangered core rights. Before Justice Scalia passed away, the Supreme Court granted review in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Pauley, a case which will decide whether certain state laws called “Blaine Amendments” are constitutional. Blaine Amendments are provisions added to state constitutions during a time of anti-Catholic fervor—they date back to the 1870s—that prevent any state funds from being used to benefit a church or a religion for any reason. This means that states running programs that provide resources to private institutions must discriminate against religious institutions, even if the program being funded is not religious. In the Trinity Lutheran case, a Missouri program was providing scrap tires for flooring in playgrounds to make them safer for children. Because of a Blaine Amendment, the State refused to provide tires to church schools. With other attorneys general, I filed a brief supporting the effort to get these Blaine Amendments struck down. The new justice is likely to cast the deciding vote on whether to remove this legacy of legal hostility to religion.

Freedom of religious conscience also hangs in the balance. We have seen this in the Hobby Lobby case, where the Court protected the right of religious employers not to fund abortions. So too in the Little Sisters of the Poor case, where the Court has, for now, narrowly avoided the question of whether Catholic nuns can be required to cover contraception in their health insurance plan. Other cases regarding freedom of conscience are on the horizon. The Court recently declined to review a case that upheld a Washington law that requires pharmacists to sell abortion drugs despite religious objections. Similarly, a case may soon reach the Court to decide whether civil rights laws can be used to force, for example, a Christian photographer to use her artistic skills to celebrate a same-sex wedding.

« Previous page 1 2 3 Next page »

Sent from my iPhone

Very interesting...

https://grandstandnews.com/2016/10/10/eating-honey-and-pulling-down-pillars/

Chosen by God: The Man Who Ate Honey, but Pulled Down Pillars

Grandstand News October 10, 2016 Image Blog

He doesn’t drink wine, he has a tendency to lie, he has a weakness for women and his hair is sort of a big deal. No, I’m not talking about Donald Trump.

I’m referring to Samson, God’s appointed judge over Israel.

The biblical book of Judges chronicles a 300-year period of the nation of Israel’s history. In this book, we are introduced to a man named Samson.

Then the woman gave birth to a son and named him Samson; and the child grew up and the Lord blessed him. ~ Judges 13:24

Samson was appointed to serve as judge over Israel at a time when the people were absent any consistent, strong or righteous political leadership. The story of Samson takes place before the reign of kings in Israel, and during a time when everyone “did what was right in his own eyes.”

Samson is an interesting character, to say the least. He’s not your traditional Moses or David or Daniel. Moses was “more humble than any man on earth,” David was a “man after [God’s] own heart,” and Daniel was delivered from extreme persecution on a number of occasions because of his unwavering faith toward God.

Samson, on the other hand, often chose the easy route. Whether it be by lying, deceiving or direct disobedience, Samson usually found a way to get what he wanted without acting righteously.

My guess is Samson – who slept with a prostitute and was a womanizer  – probably wasn’t a role model that Israel’s parents told their children to imitate.

So why did God appoint someone like Samson, when at other times he raised up Othniel, the son of Caleb; or Deborah, the prophetess; or Gideon, the general? Surely somebody with qualities more similar to these individuals would have made for a better role model and judge to lead Israel back to God.

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, declares the LORD. ~ Isaiah 55:8

To answer that question, we must go back to the very beginning of the story. In Judges 13, an angel of the Lord appears to Samson’s mother. The angel tells Samson’s mother that she will be blessed with a son and that he “shall begin to deliver Israel” from their enemies. (Note: the angel does not say that Samson will deliver Israel from their enemies, but that he will begin the process – this is important).

The angel told Samson’s parents that their son would be a “Nazirite to God from the womb.”

The Nazirite vow was taken by individuals who dedicated themselves to the Lord. The vow prohibited a person from consuming wine or “strong drink,” cutting their hair or coming in contact with a dead body. This means that the Lord was sanctifying Samson for a special purpose.

As a blessing, God endowed Samson with incredible strength. The source of his great strength came from his hair. But while Samson’s strength allowed him to accomplish great feats, it also often led to terrible misery and tragedy in his life.

On one occasion, Samson was attacked by a lion while traveling with his parents. He used his great strength to overcome and kill the wild beast. Continuing on his journey, he came across a foreign woman who he described as “right in his eyes.” He demanded that his father “get her” for him. His parents were displeased with his request and implored him to choose a righteous woman from among his own people. Samson refused. But the Bible tells us that his parents “did not know that it was of the Lord.” His parents failed to remember that God always has a plan. 

God is always in control.

Get her for me, for she is right in my eyes. ~ Judges 14:3

Later, Samson returns to the dead carcass of the lion that he had killed. Starving, Samson noticed that there was a swarm of bees and honey in the body of the lion. The Bible says Samson “scraped the honey into his hands” and went on his way eating. Unfortunately, this means that Samson broke his Nazirite vow by touching a dead body. Samson had sinned against God. It is not recorded that Samson ever asked for forgiveness of this sin – in fact, the Bible tells us that he kept this a secret from his parents.

On another occasion, Samson falls in love with a woman called Delilah. This woman enticed, betrayed and sold Samson into the hands of his enemies. Instead of choosing a woman who would have pleased God and his parents, Samson chose a woman who cared nothing for his well-being. He may have suspected this, because he lied multiple times to her to cover up the source of his great strength. Finally, he became so annoyed with her that he succumbed to the pressure and told her his secret. This was one of Samson’s great failures – and it would ultimately cost him his life.

Up to now you have deceived me and told me lies; tell me how you may be bound. ~ Judges 16:13

After being betrayed and sold into the hands of his enemies, Samson would have his eyes gouged out and be forced into hard labor in a foreign land. God’s plan had failed because Samson was the wrong man for the job. He had broken his Nazirite vow, lied on numerous occasions and chosen women who were not pleasing to God. Realizing that the situation was hopeless, and that Samson was a lost cause, God forsook his chosen leader.

Wait… that is how the story ends, right?

Actually, no, it’s not.

I will never leave you and I will never abandon you. ~ Hebrews 13:5

While in captivity, Samson’s hair began to grow again. And as his hair began to grow, he began to regain strength. On a certain day, when his captors were feasting, they called out Samson to amuse them.

To them, he was nothing more than a clown; an entertainer.

They chained him between two pillars and “looked on” while Samson entertained them. Samson was humiliated by his enemies, who believed that they had defeated him. They never suspected for a moment that he would be able to avenge himself. But then again, they had not factored in God.

God heard Samson’s plea for help, and He answered him. Samson regained his miraculous strength and used it to bring righteous vengeance upon the enemies of the Lord. With one giant heave, Samson pushed on both of the pillars he was chained to, and collapsed the temple on top of all of his enemies. The number of people he killed that day were more than he had killed in his entire life. As a warrior, that says a lot. Samson died – but he died on God’s terms. He had judged Israel for 20 years.

O Lord God, please remember me and please strengthen me just this time. ~ Judges 16:28

You see, God has a plan. And His plan is perfect. We have a very narrow view of the world in which we live, and we are often confused why things transpire around us the way that they do. We see something that looks dangerous, and we run. We see someone who looks flawed attempting to ascend to the highest office in the land, and we ridicule them.

We say, “He can’t be president – he’s nothing like Christ!” Or, “He can’t be my child’s role model – he has said nasty things about women! On TV, no less!”

Who said a ruler had to be like Christ? No man is devoid of sin like Jesus was. While others are living better lives, and perhaps obeying the Word of God more faithfully than others, that doesn’t give us the moral high ground, as Christians, to discount a leader’s ability to rule over us. A person’s ability to govern a country is not predicated on his religion.

Is it? 

According to Scripture, the kings of ancient Babylon and Persia – Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus – believed in God. One sinned mightily on numerous occasions; the other was “appointed” by God. Both served God’s purpose of preserving His people.

Of course, as disciples of Christ, we should all be striving to appoint leaders who are morally upright and sound in spirit. Our mission in life is to bring sinners to Jesus, so it would be nice to have a righteous ruler who loudly echoed our message. But what about Samson? He turned to the Lord in the closing moments of his life, but where was his godly and spiritual example – as judge over Israel – the other years of his life?

Donald Trump is a sinner.

Donald Trump is not perfect.

Donald Trump is not a great spiritual role model.

Check, check and check. Now let’s look at his policies:

• Appoint conservative Supreme Court justices
• Destroy radical Islamic terrorism
• Secure our country’s borders
• Restore law and order
• Negotiate fair trade deals
• Lower taxes on the middle class
• Repeal and replace Obamacare
• Bring back American jobs from overseas
• Make America energy independent
• Get rid of political correctness
• Protect the Second Amendment
• Balance our federal budget
• Preserve Social Security
• Repeal the “Johnson Amendment”
• Bring education back to the states (abolish Common Core)
• Take care of American veterans

As voters, we should cast our vote for the individual who is most capable of improving and protecting our country. As Christians, we should be out on the streets spreading the good message to those lost in sin. As we accomplish our task, Lord willing, society will draw closer to God. As society improves, so will our presidential nominees.

Trump will not infringe on our rights to worship and peaceably assemble. Trump will appoint Supreme Court justices “in the mold of Justice Scalia.” As Christians, this should comfort us. And yet, while the Supreme Court does have great authority over the law of the land, Christians should not put all of their faith in man. Our faith should be in God.

How much more do I need to say? It would take too long to recount the stories of the faith of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and all the prophets. ~ Hebrews 11:32

In spite of his sins, Samson was given a spot in the “Heroes of Faith” chapter in Hebrews. In this chapter, Samson is listed alongside Abraham, Moses and David. Sadly, you wouldn’t know that Samson had great faith in God by just looking at the life that he lived. Samson was misguided about many things, which is evident by the many mistakes and shortcomings he committed. But no one can take away Samson’s spot in Hebrews 11. The inspired author of Hebrews lists him with the other great heroes of faith for a reason.

Yes, Trump has eaten “honey” – but who’s to say he won’t also pull down “pillars?”

Sent from my iPhone

http://dailysignal.com/2016/10/14/watch-the-21-prageru-videos-that-youtube-is-censoring/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=tds-fb

Watch the 21 PragerU Videos That YouTube Is Censoring

Rachel del Guidice /@LRacheldG / October 14, 2016 /

PragerU believes YouTube to be censoring these 21 videos. (Photo: Jenny Tobien/dpa /picture-alliance/Newscom)

YouTube is currently restricting 21 educational videos from PragerU, a conservative advocacy organization.

According to YouTube, videos that are restricted contain vulgar language, violence and disturbing imagery, nudity and sexually suggestive content, and portrayal of harmful or dangerous activities. Videos that fit this description are not available to logged-out users, those who are under 18 years of age, or those who have activated restricted mode, according to YouTube.

PragerU believes YouTube to be censoring these 21 videos, according to a press release from PragerU.

The list below contains all of the videos currently under question by YouTube.

The Daily Signal is the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation.  We’ll respect your inbox and keep you informed. 

1. Are The Police Racist?
This video explores the debate that the police are targeting African-American communities.

2. Why Don’t Feminists Fight for Muslim Women?
Why do feminists claim to be champions of women’s rights everywhere, but do not fight for women facing oppression in Muslim countries? This video attempts to answer that question.

3. Why Did America Fight the Korean War?
Due to just slashing its military budget, why did America choose to get involved in this fight?

4. Who’s More Pro-Choice: Europe or America?
This video examines the fact that western Europeans are much more conservative about abortion than American progressives.

5. What ISIS Wants
What is the Islamic State? Where did it come from? What does it want? This video examines all these questions and more.

6. Why Are There Still Palestinian Refugees?
Israel is a nation of refugees, and especially refugees from Arab countries. This video examines why.

7. Are 1 in 5 Women Raped at College?
According to many gender activists, academics, and politicians, college campuses can be promoters of a “rape culture.”

8. Islamic Terror: What Muslim Americans Can Do
This video examines how American Muslims can lead a winning fight toward radical Islam.

9. Did Bush Lie About Iraq?
This video clarifies the belief that President George W. Bush lied his way into the war in Iraq.

10. Who NOT to Vote For
Without naming parties or names, this video talks about what one should keep in mind when heading to the ballot box.

11. Do Not Murder
Out of all the 10 Commandments, one would think that “do not murder” would be the most self-explanatory of all. PragerU President Dennis Prager examines why this is not the case.

12. Is America Racist?
This video discusses President Barack Obama’s claim that “racism is in our DNA.”

13. Israel: The World’s Most Moral Army
Is the Israeli military “a paragon of morality and wartime ethics” or “an oppressive force that targets innocent Palestinian civilians and commits war crimes as a matter of policy?” Col. Richard Kemp, a commander of British Forces in Afghanistan, answers this question.

14. Radical Islam: The Most Dangerous Ideology
In the earlier part of the 20th century, the answer to this question was fascism. Raymond Ibrahim, author of “The Al Qaeda Reader,” examines why the answer to this question today is radical Islam.

15. The Most Important Question About Abortion
Dennis Prager, president of PragerU, discusses the most critical question of this debate.

16. Why Do People Become Islamic Extremists?
This video examines what drives a person to become an Islamic extremist and even a suicide bomber.

17. Don’t Judge Blacks Differently
How come the election of this nation’s first African-American president did not usher in a “new era of racial harmony”? This video examines why.

18. What is the University Diversity Scam?
Are colleges places of “racism, sexism, and homophobia?” This video talks about why some believe this to be college culture today.

19. He Wants You
This video discusses the differences between how men and women perceive each other.

20. Israel’s Legal Founding
When Israel was founded in 1948, it was approved by the United Nations. With this being the case, why do Israel’s enemies relentlessly attack this nation’s existence?

21. Pakistan: Can Sharia and Freedom Coexist?
Is is possible for freedom to coexist in a country based on “religious Sharia Islamic law?”

 

Sent from my iPhone

http://www.faithgateway.com/makes-come-alive-2?utm_source=devosdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=devosdaily20161012&spMailingID=52509539&spUserID=OTk4NTkyMTE1OTIS1&spJobID=1022173240&spReportId=MTAyMjE3MzI0MAS2#.V_33a4b3aEc

What Makes You Come Alive?

John Eldredge•

Ask the Right Question

Several years ago I was thumbing through the introduction of a book when I ran across a sentence that changed my life. God is intimately personal with us and he speaks in ways that are peculiar to our own quirky hearts — not just through the Bible, but through the whole of creation. To Stasi he speaks through movies. God’s word to me comes in many ways — through sunsets and friends and films and music and wilderness and books. But He’s got an especially humorous thing going with me and books. I’ll be browsing through a secondhand bookshop when out of a thousand volumes one will say, ”Pick me up” — just like Augustine in his Confessions. Tolle legge — take up and read. Like a master fly fisherman, God cast His fly to this cruising trout. In the introduction to the book that I rose to this day, the author (Gil Bailie) shares a piece of advice given to him some years back by a spiritual mentor, Howard Thurman:

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

I was struck dumb. It could have been Balaam’s donkey, for all I was concerned. Suddenly my life up till that point made sense in a sickening sort of way; I realized I was living a script written for me by someone else. All my life I had been asking the world to tell me what to do with myself. This is different from seeking counsel or advice; what I wanted was freedom from responsibility and especially freedom from risk. I wanted someone else to tell me who to be. Thank God it didn’t work. The scripts they handed me I simply could not bring myself to play for very long. Like Saul’s armor, they never fit.

Can a world of posers tell you to do anything but pose yourself?

As Buechner says, we are in constant danger of being not actors in the drama of our lives but reactors, “to go where the world takes us, to drift with whatever current happens to be running the strongest.” Reading the counsel Thurman gave to Bailie I knew it was God speaking to me. It was an invitation to come out of Ur. I set the volume down without turning another page and walked out of that bookstore to find a life worth living.

I applied to graduate school and got accepted. That program would turn out to be far more than a career move; out of the transformation that took place there I became a writer, counselor, and speaker. The whole trajectory of my life changed and with it the lives of many, many other people. But I almost didn’t go. You see, when I applied to school I hadn’t a nickel to pay for it. I was married with three children and a mortgage, and that’s the season when most men completely abandon their dreams and back down from jumping off anything. The risk just seems too great. On top of it all, I received a call about that time from a firm back in Washington, D.C., offering me a plum job at an incredible salary. I would be in a prestigious company, flying in some very powerful circles, making great money. God was thickening the plot, testing my resolve. Down one road was my dream and desire, which I had no means to pay for, and an absolutely uncertain future after that; down the other was a comfortable step up the ladder of success, a very obvious next career move and the total loss of my soul.

I went to the mountains for the weekend to sort things out. Life makes more sense standing alone by a lake at high elevation with a fly rod in hand. The tentacles of the world and my false self seemed to give way as I climbed up into the Holy Cross Wilderness. On the second day God began to speak. John, you can take that job if you want to. It’s not a sin. But it’ll kill you and you know it. He was right; it had False Self written all over it. If you want to follow Me, He continued, I’m heading that way. I knew exactly what He meant — “that way” headed into wilderness, frontier.

The following week three phone calls came in amazing succession. The first was from the Washington firm; I told them I was not their man, to call somebody else. As I hung up the phone my false self was screaming, What are you doing?! The next day the phone rang again; it was my wife, telling me that the university had called wanting to know where my first tuition installment was. On the third day a call came from a longtime friend who had been praying for me and my decision. “We think you ought to go to school,” he said. “And we want to pay your way.”

Two roads diverged in a wood and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

What Are You Waiting For?

Where would we be today if Abraham had carefully weighed the pros and cons of God’s invitation and decided that he’d rather hang on to his medical benefits, three weeks paid vacation, and retirement plan in Ur? What would have happened if Moses had listened to his mother’s advice to “never play with matches” and lived a careful, cautious life steering clear of all burning bushes? You wouldn’t have the gospel if Paul had concluded that the life of a Pharisee, while not everything a man dreams for, was at least predictable and certainly more stable than following a voice he heard on the Damascus road. After all, people hear voices all the time and who really knows whether it’s God or just one’s imagination.

Where would we be if Jesus was not fierce and wild and romantic to the core? Come to think of it, we wouldn’t be at all if God hadn’t taken that enormous risk of creating us in the first place.

Most men spend the energy of their lives trying to eliminate risk, or squeezing it down to a more manageable size. Their children hear “no” far more than they hear “yes”; their employees feel chained up and their wives are equally bound.

If it works, if a man succeeds in securing his life against all risk, he’ll wind up in a cocoon of self-protection and wonder all the while why he’s suffocating. If it doesn’t work, he curses God and redoubles his efforts and his blood pressure. When you look at the structure of the false self men tend to create, it always revolves around two themes: seizing upon some sort of competence and rejecting anything that cannot be controlled. As David Whyte says, “The price of our vitality is the sum of all our fears.”

For murdering his brother, God sentences Cain to the life of a restless wanderer; five verses later Cain is building a city (Genesis 4:12, Genesis 4:17). That sort of commitment — the refusal to trust God and the reach for control — runs deep in every man. Whyte talks about the difference between the false self’s desire “to have power over experience, to control all events and consequences, and the soul’s wish to have power through experience, no matter what that may be.”

You literally sacrifice your soul and your true power when you insist on controlling things, like the guy Jesus talked about who thought he had finally pulled it all off, built himself some really nice barns, and died the same night.

What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? — Mark 8:36 NKJV

You can lose your soul, by the way, long before you die.

Canadian biologist Farley Mowat had a dream of studying wolves in their native habitat, out in the wilds of Alaska. The book Never Cry Wolf is based on that lonely research expedition. In the film version Mowat’s character is a bookworm named Tyler who has never so much as been camping. He hires a crazy old Alaskan bush pilot named Rosie Little to get him and all his equipment into the remote Blackstone Valley in the dead of winter. Flying in Little’s single-engine Cessna over some of the most beautiful, rugged, and dangerous wilderness in the world, Little pries Tyler for the secret to his mission:

LITTLE: Tell me, Tyler… what’s in the valley of the Blackstone? What is it? Manganese? (Silence) Can’t be oil. Is it gold?

TYLER: It’s kind of hard to say.

LITTLE: You’re a smart man, Tyler… you keep your own counsel. We’re all of us prospectors up here, right, Tyler? Scratchin’ for that… that one crack in the ground… and never have to scratch again. (After a pause) I’ll let you in on a little secret, Tyler. The gold’s not in the ground. The gold is not anywhere up here. The real gold is south of 60, sittin’ in living rooms, facing the boob tube bored to death. Bored to death, Tyler.

Suddenly the plane’s engine coughs a few times, sputters, gasps… and then simply cuts out. The only sound is the wind over the wings.

LITTLE: (Groans) Oh, Lord.

TYLER: (Panicked) What’s wrong?

LITTLE: Take the stick.

Little hands over control of the powerless plane to Tyler (who has never flown a plane in his life) and starts frantically rummaging around in an old toolbox between the seats. Unable to find what he’s looking for, Little explodes. Screaming, he empties the toolbox all over the plane. Then just as abruptly he stops, calmly rubbing his face with his hands.

TYLER: (Still panicked and trying to fly the plane ) What’s wrong?

LITTLE: Boredom, Tyler. Boredom… that’s what’s wrong. How do you beat boredom, Tyler? Adventure. ADVENTURE, Tyler!

Little then kicks the door of the plane open and nearly disappears outside, banging on something — a frozen fuel line perhaps. The engine kicks back in just as they are about to fly into the side of a mountain. Little grabs the stick and pulls them into a steep ascent, barely missing the ridge and then easing off into a long, majestic valley below.

Rosie Little may be a madman, but he’s also a genius. He knows the secret to a man’s heart, the cure for what ails him. Too many men forsake their dreams because they aren’t willing to risk or fear they aren’t up to the challenge or are never told that those desires deep in their heart are good.

But the soul of a man, the real gold Little refers to, isn’t made for controlling things; it’s made for adventure. Something in us remembers, however faintly, that when God set man on the earth He gave us an incredible mission — a charter to explore, build, conquer, and care for all creation. It was a blank page waiting to be written; a clean canvas waiting to be painted. Well, sir, God never revoked that charter. It’s still there, waiting for a man to seize it.

If you had permission to do what you really want to do, what would you do? Don’t ask how; that will cut your desire off at the knees. How is never the right question; how is a faithless question. It means “unless I can see my way clearly I won’t believe it, won’t venture forth.” When the angel told Zechariah that his ancient wife would bear him a son named John, Zechariah asked how and was struck dumb for it.

How is God’s department. He is asking you what.

What is written in your heart? What makes you come alive? If you could do what you’ve always wanted to do, what would it be? You see, a man’s calling is written on his true heart, and he discovers it when he enters the frontier of his deep desires. To paraphrase Thurman’s advice to Gil Bailie, don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive, because what the world needs are men who have come alive.

Excerpted with permission from Wild at Heart by John Eldredge, copyright John Eldredge.

* * *

Your Turn

What makes you come alive? Come share with us on our blog! We want to hear from you what God planted deep in your heart that the world needs! ~ Devotionals Daily

Sent from my iPhone

http://www.myajc.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/citizen-journalist-fights-felony-charge-in-north-g/nsmr6/

Citizen journalist fights felony charge in north Georgia

Posted: 7:09 a.m. Friday, Oct. 7, 2016

Citizen journalist Nydia Tisdale was in Dawson County Superior Court this week for a pre-trial conference on charges that could send her to prison for up to five years.

Tisdale was arrested while attending a political rally at Burt’s Pumpkin Farm in Dawsonville two years ago when she questioned instructions to put down her video camera. She was there to record speeches from Gov. Nathan Deal, then-Senate candidate David Perdue and Attorney General Sam Olens, among others.

When she didn’t comply immediately, Dawson County Sheriff’s Capt. Tony Wooten twisted Tisdale’s arm behind her back and “frog marched” her out of the rally and pinned her to a counter before telling her she was being arrested.

People who were there say Tisdale never should have been arrested, that she was caught up in campaign paranoia over video “trackers” from competing campaigns. For years, Tisdale had been attending political events and government meetings, recording them and putting them on YouTube without commentary.

Tisdale said she never knew Wooten was a law enforcement officer. Prosecutors don’t believe her. Wooten had a gun and badge. Tisdale said she was looking through her video camera view finder and did not see either. In the video she recorded, one hears her breathless cries, “What is your name, sir? Let go of me!”

Wooten charged Tisdale with obstruction of an officer, claiming she resisted her arrest. Defenders of the First Amendment say the charges against Tisdale are disturbing and a threat to press freedoms generally.

Read the full story on Tisdale’s arrest and her fight for freedom here.

Sent from my iPhone

Between a Rock and Hard Place

https://www.frcaction.org/get.cfm?i=WA16J18&f=WU16J06

October 11, 2016 - Tuesday

Between a Rock and Hard Place

In the race to recapture the White House, Donald Trump’s biggest obstacle has never been Hillary Clinton. It’s been himself. Saddled with baggage from years of crass comments, Trump has been his own worst enemy. Those self-inflicted wounds continued last week, when footage surfaced from 2005 of the GOP nominee making contemptible comments about women. Now, with 27 days left until the election, the Trump campaign is in the unenviable position of not only trying to win people’s votes -- but keep them. Caught between a candidate who doesn’t share their sense of decency and a woman who stands against everything they believe in, evangelicals have some difficult decisions to make.

In an election between two people who have said and done things that stand in contradiction to biblical values and truths, Christians are intently wrestling with what they should do. I know, because I’m one of them. For some, the temptation to throw in the towel and walk away has been overwhelming. As an individual, I publicly supported and campaigned for a candidate in the primary with whom I had shared values and a shared worldview. He didn’t prevail. So now, faced with choosing between two candidates that are far from ideal and a nation on the brink, what are Christians called to do?

Number one: exercise our moral responsibility to vote. When Jesus was asked whether or not a Jewish person should pay taxes or tribute to Caesar, a man who declared himself to be a god, Jesus responded, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” Our Republic is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people as Abraham Lincoln said. Number two: we are instructed to be salt and light, to be agents of transformation in the broader society. Now, I’m not suggesting that political engagement is the source of that transformation, but I am saying that it should be transformed by the truth just as every other realm of society is transformed.

The choices we have before us in the presidential race are disappointing, but they’re also a reflection of who we've become as a country. Too many Christians have become comfortable sitting in the safety of the sidelines rather than being in the battle for the heart and soul of America and her future.

I respect that there are some very frustrated evangelicals out there who are having difficulty reconciling Donald Trump’s personal failings with his political potential. But, like other Christians, what brought me to support Trump wasn’t common values -- it was common concerns over the Supreme Court, abortion, religious liberty, and our nation’s ability to protect itself. Are his comments from 11 years ago disturbing? You bet they are. Am I excusing them? Absolutely not. But as distasteful as the past is, he can’t change it. He needs to own it, apologize for it, and learn from it. In the meantime, our country hangs by a thread over a raging fire. And as much as I believe that there are good people on both sides of this question, I cannot stand by and watch other Christian leaders mislead Christians by suggesting they should abstain from voting in the presidential election.

Paul talks about the Church being a body with many members. Like a human body each part has a vital function to play, and each is equipped for performing its duty. My team and I at FRC are parts of the body focused on these issues day in and day out. These issues aren’t always at the forefront, but they are now. God called me to the political realm 20 years ago and to FRC over 13 years ago. With your prayers and your support, we are here in our nation’s capital representing biblical truth and helping Christians across America integrate their faith with the cultural and political engagement. We carry this responsibility with great solemnity knowing that our actions have consequences, but more importantly knowing that we will give an account to God for the decisions we make and the people we influence.

---

Tony Perkins' Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC Action senior writers.

---

Also in the October 11 Washington Update:

A Supremely Important Election

---

Previous Washington Update Articles »

FRC Action Blog

A Hillary Clinton Presidency: The Radical Revolution
After a lengthy race and the winnowing of a deep political field, America is faced with just two legitimate choices for the presidency in 2016. For voters committed to “sitting this one out,” the full picture of a Clinton presidency makes clear the urgent case 

Instagram

Sent from my iPhone