r_0 Sigma

Stephen Hawking’s “The Grand Design”

2010-09-02T14:41:00.000-07:00

I am planning a longer review, but in case anyone is wondering what I think about Hawking’s new book, which is reviewed (e.g. here and here) with titles like “God did not create the universe, says Hawking”, let me just say for now, like one of my colleagues did earlier today:

“Hawking did not create the universe, says God.”

Stay tuned to hear more about the book’s dismal display of extreme philosophical and theological naïveté.

[Note - Quotes in my remarks below are from the pre-publication edition, and may be different from the published edition.]

For example, they characterize the notion that “the laws were the work of God [as] no more than a definition of God as the embodiment of the laws of nature.” (p. 29), “scientific determinism is the modern scientist’s answer” to the question of miracles (p. 30), “we are no more than biological machines and…free will is just an illusion.” (p. 32) Clearly the authors have never bothered to have even a quick glance in the pages of any academic journal on these topics, for they write, “philosophy is dead. …Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge” (p. 5) and ask very poorly formulated questions like, “Did the universe need a creator?” (p. 5)

Half of the The Grand Design’s chapter titles invite, but disappoint, the curious reader: The Mystery of Being, What Is Reality?, Choosing Our Universe, The Apparent Miracle. Hawking & Mlodinow approach deep spiritual, metaphysical, ontological, existential questions but instead of seriously engaging them, apply superficial physical-reductionistic answers. This is not surprising, given Hawking’s habit of ridiculing of religion as outmoded myth, but sad nevertheless as one could hope that he and Mlodinow could have learned from both atheist and Christian critiques of Dawkins and Hitchens. Apparently there remains a significant market for sloppy dismissal of anything to do with faith.

My review is planned for Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith.

Reformed Academic

2009-04-15T10:09:00.001-07:00

Since 2007, I've basically stopped blogging, and moved over to Facebook.

But, there's a new collaborative blog I'm contributing to. Check it out: Reformed Academic . You'll have to scroll down to find the first post .

Joystick-Controlled Etch-a-Sketch

2007-08-27T16:42:00.000-07:00

Today my son designed, built, and programmed a joystick interface for an etch-a-sketch using Lego Mindstorms RCX. What did you do on your summer holidays?

Total Lunar Eclipse tonight

2007-08-27T09:08:00.001-07:00

Our family plans to get up in the middle of the night tonight (wee hours of Tuesday 28 August) to see the total lunar eclipse. Here are all the details. The moon enters earth's full shadow at 1:51am (PDT) and leaves again at 5:24am, being totally within from 2:52am to 4:22am. (See under "Lunar Eclipse Diagrams" for other time-zones.) The moon is expected to be red during this time, as it collects refracted light from all the sunrises and sunsets occurring around the world! You should also be able to see the curved shadow, and witness in one of the most direct fashions possible that the earth is round and not flat.

Enjoy, and give God the glory.

Making the Most of University

2007-07-27T10:47:00.001-07:00

Some of my readers are university students (or perhaps, college students). Let me highly recommend an ongoing series - called "Making the most of college" - in Comment, a newsletter of the Work Research Foundation. This organization is driven by a desire to work out into daily life the many wonderful consequences of a Reformed, Christian worldview and philosophy. Here are some titles in the series. I haven't read them all, but I like what I did read, and you university students will appreciate and perhaps be challenged by them.

Business, balance, and learning to live
Appreciating the arts
Courts, diamonds & gridirons
The importance of dressing well
Finding your coffee community
Recovering the lost logic of church
Learning with friends
Preparing for leadership

The Sun Is Back

2007-07-23T20:39:00.001-07:00

After about a week of rain and dreary cool weather, the sun is back! It suddenly came beaming in our front windows, and noticing the rain coming down, we expected - and found - a rainbow. A beautiful double-rainbow, a complete semi-circle as the sun was about to set. We ran out front to make a few pictures. Doesn't Valerie look happy?

Oma Timmerman - 1914-2007

2007-07-17T16:49:00.001-07:00

Today, at the age of 92, my maternal grandmother ("Oma in Holland", Hendrikje Timmerman-Doornbos) completed this earthly journey and went home to be with the Lord. She's pictured here with three of her six sons (there were also three daughters, including my mother of course) and five of her over 50 grandchildren (I'm wearing the tie), on the last day I saw her, which was Sunday 14 August 2005, as I was in Holland for a conference. I visited her in 1994 and 2003 as well, but before that, from as early as I can remember (say, 1972?) until 1988, Opa and Oma came to Canada for six to eight weeks once every two years. I thank God for her, and for the many wonderful memories. We in Canada (only two of her children are here) were very privileged to have their frequent lengthy visits. After Opa's ill health, they didn't come to Canada together again, but Oma came to my oldest sister's wedding in '96, after Opa died in '94.

My Oma had long black hair, which only in the last few years included any signs of grey. She also had amazing abilities: she could tell body temperature by hand, as well as accurately determine the weight of bundles of newspaper (she helped us tie them up in the 70s and 80s when our Christian school in Fergus/Guelph made $50 (?) per truckload). Plus, she could "divine water"; in fact, reaching over from behind me, holding my wrists with her strong hands, the Y-shaped willow branch would turn when we walked past the waterline running from the house to the barn. She knew all kind of cures, including this one for my sunburnt & blistered back (I mowed the Bouwman's lawn with no shirt for three or four hours when I was about 14): a tea-towel soaked in buttermilk was placed on my back. And my favourite memory of Opa were his sing-song mealtime prayers in Dutch.

Praise God for her life and leadership and service!

Orchid blooming after a year

2007-07-16T08:56:00.000-07:00

Last year on our fifteenth anniversary, I bought my wife a couple of orchids. Now, I must say the garden centre was somewhat reluctant to sell them to me, and at first claimed they didn't have any orchids. Well, I had my sister-in-law with me (who, of course, also grew up at Dufferin Garden Centre) to help me pick out the orchids, and she found some in a dark corner of the store. But, since they weren't blooming, they had figured no one would be interested. Far from it! Since my wife is a horticulturist, she would enjoy the challenge! So, 11 months later (about two weeks ago), the plant started to send up a flower stalk, and this morning, on her parents' 41st anniversary, the first one revealed its glory. Here's a close-up. The first flower still has a wee bit more opening to do, and the second is about a day behind the first. The other picture shows the full plant on the kitchen table, with slingers hanging on the ceiling to celebrate our youngest's graduation from single-digits, and the "grow-op" plant stand in the background in front of the patio door, above which is strung our stephanotis which hasn't yet bloomed since we moved back to BC from Iowa two years ago. You can also just make out two other orchid plants under the lights behind the railing.

Orchids are amazing! Instead of soil, they grow in a humid moss-mulch mix to mimic their natural environment in hollows of trees in tropical rain forests.

"If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?"

2007-07-13T14:27:00.001-07:00

I have often heard this (Psalm 11:3) raised up as a banner by Christian organizations concerned about where culture, or the church, is headed. But today when we read it at lunch, I saw the context and realized that we have a simple response to this kind of appeal.

Here's Psalm 11:1-3 (NASB):

In the LORD I take refuge;
How can you say to my soul, "Flee as a bird to your mountain;
For, behold, the wicked bend the bow,
They make ready their arrow upon the string
To shoot in darkness at the upright in heart.
If the foundations are destroyed,
What can the righteous do?"

So, what should be our response when we're told, "If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?"

Simple: "In the LORD I take refuge - how can you say that to me?"

Conrad Black - dangerous criminal?

2007-07-13T12:01:00.001-07:00

I haven't followed the Conrad Black story very closely, but with his guilty verdict, the sentencing is soon to follow. Here's a post I submitted to CBC's Your View.

Here the concept of jail-time for white-collar crime comes up again. Do we really have to lock up this dangerous criminal to protect society? Instead of having him be served by the tax-payer for the duration of his sentence, let's have him pay restitution and serve others. There should be plenty of community-service opportunities for him. Take away his wealth, let him live in a little apartment somewhere, and put him to work - using his intelligence and skills - full time (for free) in the public library or a homeless shelter, and monitor his finances and his location to make sure he doesn't pilfer or enjoy exotic vacations.

Baby, It's Hot Out There

2007-07-11T16:55:00.001-07:00

While the Fraser Valley is supposed by many to sport a mild climate, today's temperature reached 38 degrees Celsius here. Without air conditioning, but with a picnic blanket over my office sky-light, blowing in "cold" air since 5am, and then closing the windows at about 8am, we've kept the indoor temperature to a mere 28 deg! But, I must say, it's still much more comfortable inside and outside than a typically summer day in Iowa, where the humidity would be 60 to 80%.

Global Warming speaker at Regent

2007-07-10T10:50:00.001-07:00

It's going to be a hot week here, the weather forecasters say. And the publicity on global warming (or, when it's cold or stormy: "climate change") has, with its attendant confusion and rhetoric, increased dramatically in the past year or so. You will therefore certainly be interested to note that Sir John Houghton (Oxford atmospheric physicist, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and an outspoken Christian) will be delivering a Regent College public lecture entitled "Global Warming: A Challenge to Scientists, Policymakers and Christians" on Wednesday 18 July at 8pm. I expect I'll see a number of you there, traveling by carpool of course! Information about Regent's public lectures is available here.

Graduation from CCES

2007-07-09T20:51:00.001-07:00

Our eldest daughter and second child graduated from elementary school in June. Here's a photo taken just beforehand in our backyard. Hair by Christina, flowers by my wife, gold earrings her surprise graduation present given moments earlier. A beautiful child of our covenant God - what a blessing!

This makes her our first child to graduate from elementary school. Our son started high school two years ago without having the ceremony of graduating, since he finished grade six in Iowa (and grade eight was the last grade of elementary there) and entered grade eight here (which is the first high-school year) because that put him into his peer group. He's not really big on ceremony so he was OK with that.

And below is a picture of the graduating class, with their diplomas and NIV Study Bibles, and the girls with a long-stemmed red rose. Not the greatest photo, as I didn't notice at the time that most students in the front row hid two others diagonally behind!

Canadian Reformed String Camp

2007-07-09T07:17:00.000-07:00

Last week (July 3-7) our two violinist children were blessed to be involved with the first annual (?) Canadian Reformed Strings Camp which was held right here in Langley (with participants from BC, Washington, Alberta, and Ontario). Directed by Kent Dykstra and Roxi Dykstra (both graduates of Trinity Western University), and run behind the scenes by their mother Jenny, it was an excellent programme of rehearsals, master classes, private lessons, chamber-music groups, outings, and fellowship. The two concerts on Saturday and Sunday evening were amazing! With just five days together, and no music provided in advance, they pulled off stunning performances. The Sunday concert filled the Yarrow church to capacity, ending with a standing ovation after one of Kent's several string arrangements of the Genevan Psalms (they did Pss. 136, 75, 17, and 8). The creativity, encouragement, enthusiasm, and dedication of the entire Dykstra family was clearly evident throughout the week. With skill levels ranging from just a few months of lessons (the seven-year-old pictured above) to over a decade of experience, the entire orchestra played Autumn from Vivaldi's Four Seasons, the 2nd movement of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto #3, the first movement of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik by Mozart, Pirates of the Caribbean, plus about 10 chamber music quartets. [Our children are the middle girl (turning 10 this week) in this foursome plucking Ps. 136 and the 14-year-old fellow barely visible between the boy and girl of the four.] Kudos to Kent (band teacher at Parkland Immanuel Christian School in Edmonton) and Roxi (soon to begin graduate studies at Université de Montréal), as well as Jenny, for a wonderfully successful week!

Below is a better shot including our son, who has been playing for seven years.

The Drama of Scripture

2007-06-25T11:59:00.001-07:00

"we find ourselves in a world that, despite all the power of sin, is led to restoration and perfection. Israel is the preparation, Christ the center, the church the consequence, and the parousia the crown --- that is the cord that binds the facts of revelation together." --Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics [Gereformeerde dogmatiek, 1896], Translated by John Vriend, edited by John Bolt (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), p. 376.

This expansion of the "redemption" part of the common "creation-fall-redemption" theme of the Reformed worldview gives it the character of a six-act drama: creation - fall - Israel - Jesus - church - consummation. (At a Regent public lecture in May 2007, Marva Dawn further divided "church" into two acts, with the early church and us as acts five and six of a seven-act play.) This six-act drama is explicated in Goheen & Bartholomew, The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Story of the Bible (Baker, 2004); see Goheen's lecture "Reading the Bible as One Story" for a good overview, including a brief connection with Tom Wright's five-act drama. Our task is to fill out the unfinished act of this drama by being familiar with the already revealed acts.

No surprise, I'm PCA

2007-06-05T21:11:00.001-07:00

You scored as Evangelical Presbyterian, You're an Evangelical Presbyterian, probably a member of a PCA church. Sound theology and reverent worship are important to you, but so are outreach and ministry to the community. You are likely to be from the deep South, and perhaps at one time you were Southern Baptist.

Evangelical Presbyterian

90%

Moderate Evangelical

70%

Reformed Baptist

65%

Presby - Old School

65%

Conservative Evangelical

55%

Baptist

55%

High Church Nomad

45%

Fightin' Fundy

25%

What Kind of Evangelical Are You
created with QuizFarm.com

New York to London via Google Maps

2007-04-18T09:03:00.001-07:00

This is priceless. I picked it up from a blind man's blog.

Here's how Google Maps shows you the way from New York to London. Enjoy!

I love Google!

Music in Motion - May 4 & 5

2007-04-17T20:49:00.001-07:00

Our son's orchestra, the Abbotsford Youth Orchestra, is putting on an amazing concert in a few weeks. See below for details if you want to get in on the fun. Of the three shows, we're attending the 2pm Saturday one.

Music in Motion
Songs Strings & Steps 7
Friday, May 4th, 7 p.m.;
Saturday, May 5th, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
Abbey Arts Centre, 2329 Crescent Way, Abbotsford
Tickets: $20 - House of James or Kings Music
(Students: Half Price)

Get your motor running! It's retro with Route 66, swashbuckling with The Pirates of the Caribbean, exploding into space with the Return of the Jedi, and cruising with the award winning song Life is a Highway as Songs Strings & Steps presents their 7th multi-media, multi-faceted event of stunning music, dance - and fun. Looking for adventure? Head on down to the Abbey Arts Centre for Music in Motion , a highly entertaining family show featuring a parade of brilliant local talent, cool antique cars, surprises and more!

Joy of Pi

2007-03-22T15:15:00.000-07:00

Math is fun, says my daughter! Today she's memorized the first 37 digits of pi, and legofied them!

Doctrinal Bones

2007-03-17T13:35:00.001-07:00

I read this great quote of Eugene Peterson as soon as the Jan/Feb 2007 print issue of Modern Reformation arrived in our mailbox. But then the issue disappeared and was found this afternoon during house-cleaning. It's on p. 35 (vol. 16, no. 1).

"Christian faith without doctrine is kind of like being a jellyfish. There's no bone structure. We need some bones. But, here's the thing: When you look at a person, you don't see the bones. And if you do, there's something wrong."

Lunar Eclipse Saturday (if you live far enough east)

2007-03-01T12:39:00.001-08:00

Tell your friends and family back east!

Unless you live near the west coast, you get to see the upcoming total eclipse of the moon immediately after sunset on Saturday, March 3. (Europeans and Africans can see the whole show!) As the sun goes down (around 6pm Eastern near Hamilton, earlier further east and north, later further west and south), you look in the opposite direction (east), and you will see - if the sky is clear - that the moon, which should be full, is in the shadow of the earth. In fact, it will likely be a dim red due to all the collected and refracted sunrises and sunsets of the whole world. (If you're in the central time zone, sunset will be somewhere between 5:30 Central (eastern end of the time zone) and 6:30 (western end), and the moon may already be emerging from the shadow. Read on.)

At 6:58pm Eastern (5:58pm Central) the moon will begin to leave the earth's full shadow, and leaves the full shadow by 8:11pm Eastern (7:11pm Central). During this period of 73 minutes, the curved shadow of the earth on the moon should be visible. This is the single best direct evidence most people can have that the earth is actually round. I often engage in an exercise in my class where I challenge my students to explain why they think the earth is round, without having to rely on other agencies or people to support their position.

All the details are here (note that Eastern time is UT minus 5 hours, Central is UT-6). The moon begins to enter the earth's full shadow at 4:30pm EST (before it rises) and completes its departure at 8:11pm EST.

Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards, in The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery, suggest that the apparent sizes of the sun and moon in the sky were designed to be close to one another so that eclipses would be visible and so that we could discover more about the universe.

Enjoy and give God the glory!

B.B. Warfield: True Light Lighteth

2007-03-01T11:05:00.001-08:00

We must not, then, as Christians, assume an attitude of antagonism toward the truths of reason, or the truths of philosophy, or the truths of science, or the truths of history, or the truths of criticism. As children of the light, we must be careful to keep ourselves open to every ray of light. If it is light, its source must be sought in him who is the true Light; if it is truth, it belongs of right to him who is the plenitude of truth. All natural truths must be--in varying degrees indeed, but all truly--in some sense commentaries on the supernaturally revealed truth; and by them we may be led to fuller and more accurate comprehension of it. Nature is the handiwork of God in space; history marks his pathway through time. And both nature and history are as infallible teachers as revelation itself, could we but skill to read their message aright. It is distressingly easy to misinterpret them; but their employment in the elucidation of Scripture is, in principle, closely analogous to the interpretation of one Scripture by another, though written by another human hand and at an interval of an age of time. God speaks through his instruments. Prediction interprets prediction; doctrine, doctrine; and fact, fact. Wherever a gleam of light is caught, it illuminates. The true Light, from whatsoever reflected, lighteth.

Let us, then, cultivate an attitude of courage as over against the investigations of the day. None should be more zealous in them than we. None should be more quick to discern truth in every field, more hospitable to receive it, more loyal to follow it whithersoever it leads. It is not for Christians to be lukewarm in regard to the investigations and discoveries of the time. Rather, the followers of the Truth Indeed can have no safety, in science or in philosophy, save in the arms of truth. It is for us, therefore, as Christians, to push investigation to the utmost; to be leaders in every science; to stand in the van of criticism; to be the first to catch in every field the voice of the Revealer of truth, who is also our Redeemer. The curse of the Church has been her apathy to truth, in which she has too often left to her enemies that study of nature and of history and philosophy, and even that investigation of her own peculiar treasures, the Scriptures of God, which should have been her chief concern. Thus she has often been forced to learn from the inadvertent or unwilling testimony of her foes the facts she has needed to protect herself from their assaults. And thus she has been led to borrow from them false theories in philosophy, science, and criticism, to make unnecessary concessions to them, and to expose herself, as they changed their positions from time to time, to unnecessary disgrace. What has the Church not suffered from her unwillingness to engage in truly scientific work! She has nothing to fear from truth; but she has everything to fear, and she has already suffered nearly everything, from ignorance. All truth belongs to us as followers of Christ, the Truth; let us at length enter into our inheritance.

This is from Selected Shorter Writings of Benjamin B. Warfield, vol. 2, Edited by John E. Meeter, published by Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1970, as provided at http://incolor.inetnebr.com/stuart/incarnate.htm, of which the above is about a tenth.

Three New Toilets

2007-02-27T20:50:00.000-08:00

After living in a house with just one bathroom for eight years, we now have a home with three toilets. [Actually, in the States they’re called “restrooms”, as the locals don’t even know what a “washroom” or “bathroom” is. And in Arkansas, they’re called “necessary rooms”.] One had a small crack in its rim and was leaking a bit onto the floor, and one had a trickle running from tank to bowl. We found a water-saving dual-flush toilet at Home Depot ($99), and I spent one Saturday morning replacing the leaking one. It worked so well that we bought two more, one to replace the trickling one, and one to replace the one with no problems except that it used three times as much water as these new ones. It seemed a stewardly thing to do: flushing only 4 Litres for a #1, and 6 L for #2. So this past Saturday morning was the third of a series of toilet replacements. Yippee!

Apparently dual-flush toilets are hard to find in North America, though they’re popular in Europe. One big problem with ours is shown in the photo: it’s not particularly clear how to flush it. There is a little symbol on the handle which is actually ambiguous, so we had to put up a note to remind ourselves and to inform our guests. But in Europe they have creative solutions for such things; relatives in the Netherlands have one which is flushed by either pressing a large oval button or by pressing a smaller circular portion of this button: no language is needed to communicate the idea.

The Dawkins Delusion

2007-02-26T20:26:00.000-08:00

Oxford University Reformed theologian and expert in science & Christianity Alister McGrath (together with his wife Joanna Collicutt McGrath) has published his rebuttal to Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion of 2006. It's entitled The Dawkins Delusion: Atheist fundamentalism and the denial of the divine, currently only available in the UK until Inter-Varsity Press publishes it in May. Should be a good read, as McGrath is known for his incisive critique. In the meantime, you could also listen to a lecture by McGrath on Dawkins's book available at the website of the CiS, where numerous other resources are collected, including the text of a recent presentation by McGrath. It is interesting to note that while McGrath and Dawkins live near one another in Oxford, they apparently interact mostly through their books, including McGrath's Dawkins' God of 2004.

Reformed epistemologist Alvin Plantinga has a great critique of Dawkins in the Mar/Apr 2007 issue of Books and Culture.

Saturday at "A Rocha"

2007-02-12T09:13:00.000-08:00

We spent a few hours volunteering at A Rocha on Saturday. Forgot the camera, but this one is from last March, and the weather was about the same: 14-15 degrees C and sunny. My wife gave advice on their new native plant nursery, and the rest of us cleared some gardens. An excellent family/community day, and a great way to help out this organization of Christians in conservation. Plus, delicious soup and bread and good Christian fellowship at lunch. They have a volunteer day the second Saturday of each month, from 10am-1pm.

The First Copernican - a Regent public lecture

2007-02-08T17:06:00.001-08:00

I'm planning on going to a public lecture by Dennis Danielson, who will be speaking on the topic of his new book The First Copernican: Georg Joachim Rheticus and the Rise of the Copernican Revolution. Thursday, February 15, 7:30pm under the green roof. Details here. Interested in carpooling?

To Kill or to Save: Which is it?

2007-02-01T17:51:00.000-08:00

The BC government stepped in to force blood transfusions on the surviving sextuplets, against the wishes of their parents, saying the best interests of the child must be taken into account. But before they were born, government-funded doctors counseled the parents to "terminate" two of the babies. It would be good if they made up their mind: do they want to save life, or take life?

"A Canadian Remembers"

2006-11-11T08:28:00.000-08:00

A CANADIAN REMEMBERS

by Valerie Kegel, 1983

I remember years ago...
When I was just a boy
I remember...
A war
I remember...
A present
A chocolate bar
I remember...
Orange
Forbidden orange
Armbands, hankies, carrots
I remember...
A big smiling Canadian
Convoy trucks
Fleeing Germans
Stench of burning straw
I remember...
FREEDOM

Six years later
When I needed space
When I had to leave home
I remembered...
Soldiers who died for me
Canadians
Canada
I would go to Canada

Today
I own a business
I have a family
I prosper
In Canada
And...I remember

(Awarded first prize in the 1983 Literary Composition Contest [Category 1 - Poem] sponsored by the Ontario Command of the Royal Canadian Legion.)

Trinity Western University: The Only A+

2006-11-01T11:04:00.000-08:00

If you didn't already see it in yesterday's Globe and Mail, check out the story at TWU's website. We're the only university in Canada given an A+ for Quality of Education! Aspiring students should apply now, while space is available.

First Flat in Two Years

2006-10-03T13:02:00.000-07:00

I have this amazing flat-preventing slime in my bicycle tires, and today - after riding over a staple - lost air for the first time since I got my new Giant Cypress two years ago. Another cyclist who takes the same 8-km route gets at least one flat per month, so I'd say the slime has saved me a lot of inconvenience, not to mention patches and inner tubes. I checked out their website and found that the slime lasts two years, which in my case is uncannily precise - to within a few days! So for today that was the main excitement of my daily commute, instead of the occasional rude car driver who thinks I'm supposed to be on the sidewalk or the willow branches which reach out and slap me. So after preparing my bike for the winter season with new flashers and batteries, I'll need to be re-sliming my tires as well!

Summer in the Rear-View Mirror

2006-09-01T17:09:00.000-07:00

OK, so all good things must come to an end. "End" here does not mean it's over, but "telos", or purpose, hopefully! This summer our family (in whole or in part) entertained 15 family members, visited family in Ontario, hiked (Vedder Mountain Ridge, Mount Baker's Kulshan Cabin, several trails in the Golden Ears, Campbell Valley, Cathedral Grove, part of the Baden-Powell Trail, Derby Reach's Houston Trail), camped (two nights each at Rathtrevor Beach and in the Golden Ears), walked, biked, and picked wild blackberries along the Nicomekl River, picked strawberries and blueberries, made jam and dill and bread-and-butter and apple (!) pickles, installed a new laminate floor in a bedroom (my biggest home-renovation project to date!), watched fireworks and a Vancouver Canadians baseball game, read novels, painted a garden shed, etc. This represented about a month off for me, and I spent the rest of the summer doing research (phase transitions and emergence mainly) and course preparation. It was a great summer, and we're looking forward to using our newly refreshed status to energetically launch into the academic year of 2006-07! Blessings to all similarly positioned!

I've been tagged - book meme

2006-08-21T16:09:00.000-07:00

I’ll second Paul’s disclaimer that the Bible fits every category below, but here goes:

1. One book that changed your life: John Polkinghorne, Faith of a Physicist (Princeton University Press, 1994), which I read while in graduate school. This book started me off in the field of “science and Christianity” before the Templeton Foundation really got rolling, and while I do not accept all of Polkinghorne’s views (e.g. on the nature and impact of the fall), I continue to appreciate the Christian orthodoxy of the theoretical physicist turned Anglican priest over-against many other contributors to the field, as well as his clear opposition to panentheism.

2. One book that you’ve read more than once: I rarely read books more than once, except when I read them to our children. I’m reading C.S. Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia (the full set) to our youngest now, which will be my third time.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island: Stretching the definition of “book” a little, I’d want The Collected Works of John Steinbeck, if such a volume exists. I’ve read a couple of his books, but (unfortunately) not all. And I would want to read something new on a desert island, not only repeats.

4. One book that made you laugh: My wife will attest to the fact that I laughed out loud several times recently while reading Yann Martel’s The Life of Pi. The writing is particularly colourful and uses surprising similes, and the main character’s situation is utterly exotic.

5. One book that made you cry: Me, cry? Well, I got a lump in my throat quite a few times while reading Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance for its clear depiction of the slums of India and for the horrors and injustices experienced by its characters. (Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, about Kabul, affected me similarly.)

6. One book that you wish had been written: How To Smoothly Move Between Canada and the US. Both times we did it (south in 1996/97 and north in 2005), there were lots of surprises (some quite costly and inconvenient), and there doesn’t seem to be a single resource which would help avoid them. But surely it’s much more difficult between any two other countries, except within the EU.

7. One book that you wish had never been written: Andrew Dickson White, A history of the warfare of science with theology in Christendom (New York, 1896), for because of it far too many people believe that science and Christianity are opposed to one another, or at least are two separate entities. And the myth it propagates about Calvin continues unabated, despite clear debunking by articles such as Keith Sewell, “Calvin and the stars, Kuyper and the fossils: Some historiographical reflections”, Pro Rege v. 32 (September 2003), pp. 10-22 (online here).

8. One book you’re currently reading: Tim Morris & Don Petcher, Science & Grace: God’s Reign in the Natural Sciences (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2006). Actually, I just finished reading this excellent book by two Covenant College science faculty who are squarely in the Reformational tradition, offering excellent analysis of the impact of Modernism on our habits of mind as well as solidly Biblical ways of thinking in a Trinitarian way about science. In fact, I highly recommend this to any academic, because many aspects of its discussion of “science” can be applied to “scholarship” in general. I’ll publish a review in the March 2007 issue of Pro Rege.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce. (We bought this book in the same order as buying Larry Crabb’s The Marriage Builder as a wedding gift for a friend, and I hope the amazon.com box-stuffer raised an eyebrow!) If you’ll allow me another one, I should read David Snoke’s brand new (August 2006) A Biblical Case for an Old Earth.

10. Now tag five people: Rick, Wes (hoping he gets his blog back up soon), Sarah, George, and David.

Vedder Mountain

2006-08-08T14:19:00.000-07:00

Monday afternoon, while the three girls were on the beach at Cultus Lake, we boys climbed Vedder Mountain via the ridge trail. The 18-km round trip was rewarding in many ways, particularly in reaching the summit to this view of Mt. Baker (the white stuff above the other mountains, near the centre) and in discussing how mountain-hiking is a metaphor for life.

15 years and counting

2006-08-08T14:12:00.000-07:00

Saturday was our 15th anniversary! We spent the evening in Vancouver: Indian take-out and Italian ice cream at Granville Island, watching the crowds and the fireworks, zipping among the pleasure-craft on the False Creek Ferries, and recounting our blessings. Little did we know when we moved out to BC during our honeymoon that we would have had two children in BC, one in Florida, spend eight years in Iowa, and return to BC for this chapter of our lives. God is so good to us!

Paris & London

2006-07-26T20:47:00.000-07:00

During our recent vacation, here we were on the way to Paris and London. Anyone who E-mails me with the precise location of this photo and our destination at the time, not counting those who live at that destination, will get a prize!

In-Laws' 40th Anniversary

2006-07-16T11:19:00.000-07:00

Today is my in-laws' fortieth anniversary. Here's a picture of the happy couple taken on 16 July 1966. We had a great celebration dinner yesterday with family and friends, with our children and nieces and nephews (i.e. the grandchildren) providing live music: flute, piano, violin, clarinet.

Long Beach

2006-07-13T13:30:00.000-07:00

Today our youngest daughter turns 9! Here's a shot of her at Long Beach two days ago during our three-day trip to Vancouver Island with two other families - a great vacation! Rathtrevor Beach with its crabs and clams, Cathedral Grove and its huge trees, and strong winds on BC Ferries were other highlights.

Another Happy Eloquip Customer

2006-07-07T22:08:00.000-07:00

Today, in Langley BC, we experienced serious mechanical breakdown with some of our Eloquip equipment built in 1995. Within moments of our service call (about 15 seconds, to be precise), a representative from the national production facility in Elora, Ontario was on site evaluating repair options and after picking up a part from the local hardware store, we'll be on the road for another 10 years of heavy industrial use.

Opoe's Clivia is blooming!

2006-07-05T11:59:00.000-07:00

My wife's maternal grandmother ("Opoe"), a Dutch immigrant in the early 1950s, took a Clivia miniata from Holland. Three years ago, we obtained a small shoot from it; it survived the move, and today we noticed that it has a bud! We've moved it to a prominent position in the family room, and are looking forward to its opening over the next few weeks.

Pictures on the wall and The Giver

2006-07-04T17:04:00.000-07:00

After having packed up our pictures over a year ago for our move, and having lived in our new home for seven months (and before that renting a furnished house), we have just put pictures on the walls. It makes a real difference, but I'm not surprised. Being surrounded by images of our (distant) family members, of ourselves in earlier stages of life, gifts received, our university diplomas, and even some artwork, helps place ourselves in our context and gives us encouragement. The aesthetic dimension of our life has been taken up a notch, and we thank the Creator of beauty. I just read Lois Lowry's The Giver to our two oldest kids, and having pictures allows us to see beyond, to pass on memories, and to dispense with "sameness".

My sister-in-law's new blog

2006-07-03T22:55:00.000-07:00

One of my seven sisters-in-law just started a blog - hopefully she'll keep it up during their upcoming vacation!

r0 Sigma self-portrait

2006-07-03T22:43:00.000-07:00

I thought this was a cool self-portrait I took while my wife and I were walking with Paul & Lynn in Newberg, Oregon on Easter Sunday 2006. The original photo had all four of us, but I didn't get their permission to post them along with me here. Besides, then it wouldn't be a self-portrait anymore.

r0 Sigma

2006-04-11T21:59:00.000-07:00

My blog name is a bit of math:

pronounced r-naught sigma. This was dreamed up for me by a UWaterloo'91 classmate.