Crafts for how many??

This past Saturday I did another presentation. This one was a stretch for me compared to other ones I've done, for several reasons. First, I was the only one presenting. Second, it was a two-hour presentation. And third, complicating matters on all kinds of levels, there were 73 daycare providers in the audience, some of whom hold an early childhood ed degree, some of whom have been in this field way longer than I. The number itself was intimidating, plus it was held in the MGMC auditorium, which holds 120 and is set up like a coliseum, with the speaker at the bottom of a steeply sloped array of rows of seats and tables. Which meant that I had to take an elevator to get from the back of my room to where I spoke, since I had so much stuff (books, toys, CDs, supplies) I had to take a rolling cart.



Once I was down there, I felt like I was at command central--I had to toggle back and forth between the DVD player to play my CDs, the computer to show my powerpoint, and the ELMO to show my handouts. All while looking up at the audience.



To fill up 30 minutes of my time, I brought crafts for them to make--a touch-and-feel book, and bathtub clings. (If anyone wants instructions or a picture, let me know.) That seemed like a good idea, but it did take hours of my and Alex's time to assemble their packets. The picture above is less than a third of them.



All in all, though, it was a rewarding experience. I enjoyed sharing about early literacy skills and how playing with babies is actually an educational experience for them. I shared a lot of action rhymes and songs with them, and that was the best part. They all brought dolls along (I'd asked them to), so they did the actions with me and sang along, which was great. Sam (my doll) got to float up in the air (instead of lying on the floor like he usually does in storytime) so he could be seen by all the women. I think he liked the experience, and so did I.

Food reviews

I wanted to share a few more supermarket items that I've found to be quite tasty. I share these because I find so much of the boxed/canned/frozen items to be unpleasant to taste, as well as nutritionally deficient. And yet their siren song calls to me--I'm easy! I'm quick! I will solve your dinner woes!









Well, these items won't completely solve your dinner woes, but they may handily fill a niche for you sometimes as they do for me.

These are the chicken strips made by Fareway's happy meat men. Have I mentioned how much I love shopping at Fareway? So efficient, so cheap, with such helpful people who bring your food right to your trunk....

Anyway, these are very tasty and I'm sure they have fewer preservatives and fillers than the ones you buy in the bags. They're available in the frozen food endcap, and you just heat them at 350 until they're warm (about 15 min, I think).

These are some of the new handy frozen veggie mixes that are available in bags and pouches that steam right in the microwave. I am a big fan of these--fewer dishes! Also, these are easier to find in my freezer than a balled-up tiny portion of a bag of peas that might not see the light of day for many moons. I've decided I'm willing to pay for these conveniences, and I also think that "brand name" veggies taste better than store brand. For example, I had given up buying the "carrots/peas/corn/beans" mix, but gave the Green Giant brand a try last week. It was quite nice. My last comment on frozen veggies (other than to say any of them are easier than fresh and often have more vitamins left in them) is to say these particular boxes shown are so hearty that they are almost a meal. The legumes in them add protein, so I will take these to work and eat up with a muffin, yogurt and fruit. Yum!

Sushi in Ames

A couple weeks ago we finally made sushi (california rolls, to be exact), with the results above. Alex had given me a "how to make sushi" book/DVD/bamboo mat kit at Christmas 07, and we didn't do anything with it until a couple weeks ago.

Anyway, I'm not going to post a recipe here b/c I wasn't crazy about the one we used (partly b/c ingredients were listed in grams, which are hard to translate to American measurements), but I will post a couple hints from our experience.

• It helps to watch a DVD (or short video on the web) of how to do the rolling part; seek one out.
• Contrary to our recipe, you do not need to make a whole bag of rice for two people.
• Cooling and vinegaring the rice takes quite a long time (especially with a bunch of rice).
• Next time, I'll spread the rice thinner so as to give the other ingredients a chance to shine.
• For presentation, it is nice to have both black and white sesame seeds. I also added some red roe (available in little jars at Fareway for somewhat reasonable prices).
• You can get decent California rolls in Ames, from at least four places (in descending order of quality): Fuji Steakhouse, Shogun, Super WalMart, and Hyvee.

I've become quite a lover of sushi over the past few years. I think it started when I was in a chicklit bookclub and all the heroines lived in Manhattan and got takeout sushi all the time. I guess I learned one good thing from those books! :)

not me! Monday

I've decided to try a "not-me Monday" post where I flagrantly lie about what I have done that I wished I didn't do, and didn't do, that I wished I did ... or something to that effect. (Sounds apostle-Paul like, doesn't it?) I got the idea from my friend Anna over at just to name a few; it was created by MckMama--head to her blog to see what she and many others are NOT doing on Monday! Without further ado ...

I do NOT have dead flowers hanging and sitting in pots all around my house attesting to the fact that I couldn't take the time to clean out the pots in the fall.

I do NOT have an overgrown rosemary bush that's 2/3rds dead, overtaking my office, and scattering needles everywhere.

I am NOT blogging instead of proofreading my dear husband's paper on John Locke that he worked so hard on.

I did NOT make him help package 75 craft bags for a presentation this weekend (more later).

I did NOT miss a dear friend's bridal shower yesterday because I have a nasty habit of piling up mail instead of reading it. (I have NOT missed at least 2 other showers in this same manner!)

I do NOT still let dirty dishes pile up, even though we now have a dishwasher.

I did NOT spend 15 minutes trying the links and picture on this post to work.

I did NOT just overbake my cheesecake. :(

You get the idea....

the reaction continues

One wrinkle I forgot to mention with me and clothing is that the absent minded professor stereotype is fairly accurate with me and I tend to lose things. At the time of my last post, the new earmuffs were already missing and on Thursday I took off my gloves in the department mail room and left them there all day and by the time I was ready to go home they apparently found new owners who would be more attentive. So when I get new clothing that doesn't stay on me at all times, I normally need to factor in replacement costs as well.

New Year's Resolution--Weight Loss

The title of today's post links to an informative article about 10 principles to consider when working toward weight loss or weight maintenance. I thought since we're still in the spirit of keeping resolutions, I'd offer some thoughts on the subject.

Over the years, I've gone through a few periods of weight gain, most notably the freshman 15 (as a result of eating french fries at every meal they offered them--which was most of them!) and twice during my life when illness has caused a long period of inactivity combined with medicine that made me gain weight.

After those times, the principles I used to get the weight off were as follows.

• Exercise. I put it on my schedule--I usually take scheduled aerobics classes (step is my favorite) so I feel obligated to go and don't have to decide whether or not to go. I also like working out with people and having someone tell me what to do.
• Calorie log. This is time-consuming but valuable. I learned a lot about what foods "cost" in terms of calories by looking them all up and totalling the day's amount. I've heard recently that just writing down "1 medium baked potato" or whatever you had to eat, even without the calorie amount, can be helpful.
• Being careful of what you eat. For one month, I gave myself a green star for each day I made good eating choices.
• And the new one this year: strength training. I'm including strength/toning exercises in my workouts twice a week (I do three total), and it's helping with weight and general slim-lookingness, which is a big part of the motivation, isn't it? ;)

Misc. Bible translations and software

I haven't discussed the King James in this series of blogs. I do use it sometimes, mainly for historical purposes. For my job I actually read a lot of 17th century English prose, which happens to be what the KJV is. So when I read works from that time that reference the Bible (and the generally did so a lot back then) the KJV is what they tend to quote. So oddly enough I use the KJV for work more often than for personal use. I can read that style of English fairly well, but it makes reading the Bible seem like work and the KJV is not based on the more recent manuscripts. Sometimes I use the Strong numbers that go with the KJV to look up a greek word using my Bible software.

The main Bible software program I have, Logos, I got probably 12 years ago for about $70 and it has been one of my best investments. I don't know if Logos is the best value for the money or not, but it gives me the NIV, the old American Standard, and the KJV indexed to the greek and hebrew originals. I can search words and phrases and it has some other tools that I occasionally use. I sometimes use e-sword which has the ESV available for free and some other nice free downloads.

If I had known where things were going with Bible software, I would not have invested in some of the books I own. I have a NT word study, a couple of greek new testaments, a parallel greek-english NT, and a greek lexicon (dictionary). All of this I could have on a CD if I were willing to pay for it. Eventually I will probably break down and upgrade, by I keep assuming that some next generation software will come out so I am waiting.

I also have some parallel Bibles. One is a NT only that has 8 translations side by side (4 per page on facing pages). It has the New King James, the ESV, the HCSB, the NIV, the TNIV, the NLT, the New Century, and The Message. If I could replace the New Century with the NASB it would be perfect. There is also a parallel bible that is NASB, NIV, KJV, and NLT that I like. I don't own it, but I have it checked out from Parks Library most of the time and it sits in my study room at the library. The big downside to it is how much it weighs, but I never have to carry it so that is not a problem. If you have an ISU card you can recall it if you would like to use it.

I think that is a good overview of the Bibles I use. Let me conclude this particular series by emphasizing something I said at the beginning, which is that what the translations have in common is far more important than the differences. With so many good translations around, the real question is how we respond to what we read.

Bible Translations and gender

In our inventory of Bibles we also have two TNIVs and one NRSV. One issue that these translations raise (the NLT also) is how to translate masculine pronouns and words like "brothers." If you are trying to do a very literal bible translation, this is an easy call. You just keep the words as they are in the original language. The problem comes if you are trying to do a thought for thought translation instead of a word for word translation. TNIV stands for "Today's New International Version." I guess they thought that sounded better than "ENTV" (Even Newer International Version). When the new testament writers were writing to the churches they would typically address them by saying "brothers." I have never met anyone who thought they were only talking to the men. It was just the way their language worked that you could say brothers and be talking to everyone. To an extent you can do this in English now with "guys." Through most of the 20th century, English worked the same way as Greek. When you said "good will to men" everyone knew you meant mankind and so the communication wasn't garbled. Over the last 40 years or so, there has been a protest against this type of language and a desire by some to move away form using masculine pronouns and words to address men and women simultaneously. This creates the problem for new Bible translations that are trying to go thought for thought. If you say "brothers" someone today might really think that only men were being addressed if they are used to people using inclusive language when talking to women as well. In other words, as contemporary English changes (whether for better or worse) thought for thought translations will have to change to reflect the way people speak now.

I know a lot of people have strong feelings on both sides of this issue. Some see the TNIV as an attack on Biblical teachings on gender while others see the older translations as sexist. My own view is that the substantive issues of what the Bible teaches about gender roles in the family and church are very important but that it is a mistake to get too worked up over the translations. Try the following experiment. Look up one of the controversial passages like Ephesians 5 or 1 Timothy 2 in the TNIV or NRSV and ask yourself whether it says anything different from the NIV. For the issues that really matter, it has very little to do with the translations and everything to do with how people interpret the translations. I think the TNIV actually does a pretty good job of discerning whether everyone is addressed in a passage or only men and translating accordingly.

The TNIV is actually Anastasia's current favorite translation. Setting aside the gender issue, the other changes they made to it actually do make the text slightly more accurate and readable. I got the NRSV back in grad school when I was getting ready to backpack across Europe. I only had room for a couple of books, so I went with "Let's Go Europe" and a Bible. I wanted to have a Bible with me and I wanted something new to read while I traveled and so I figured "I have never read the apocrypha, why not?" The NRSV was my best option for a paperback bible that also had the apocrypha. I don't particularly like the flow of it, but it is still easier to read than the King James.

Less literal Bible translations

You reap what you sow. Even in Iowa, no one actually talks about reaping and sowing. They talk about planting and harvesting. It is sometimes hard for those of us who have been hearing the Bible for a long time to notice ways in which the language is very different from how we talk now. The less literal translations give themselves even more freedom to understand what the author was trying to say and say it the way we would now. Compare the beginning of Hebrews 8:1 "The point of what we are saying is this" (NIV) with "Here is the main point" (NLT). Honestly, I think the NLT is better here even though the NIV is closer to the original Greek. Free translations are best when you are simply listening to the Bible rather than doing close study of a particular passage. Every night before bed, I read to Anastasia from the Bible and the NLT has become our preferred translation for that. Sometimes the NLT will even throw in a little detail that is not in the text because it is something that would have been obvious to the original audience. Several of these examples were given to me by my father in law who also likes this translation. There are some other good ones as well. I gave away my Contemporary English Version (CEV) which is similar and has worked on getting the cadence and word order right for oral reading. Right now the difference between them isn't enough for me to justify going out and buying another one. I think I also gave away my copies of The Message. It is one of the most interesting but has the disadvantage that it was all done by one person and is very free. Think of it as Eugene Peterson's commentary on the Bible with no explanation for why he understands the passages the way he does. That said, it is very good. If there are parts of the Bible that are hard for you to understand and so you never read them, it might be worth trying again with one of these translations. I still have both the CEV and The Message for the New Testament as part of a parallel Bible I will talk about later.

More literal Bible translations

The biggest weaknesses of the NIV come from the fact that it is not as literal. Sometimes I think that it interprets things wrongly. I don't, for example, like "sin nature" as a translation of a Greek word that means "flesh" in Romans 6-8. I understand why they did it. They didn't want people to think God hates bodies or that we should hate our bodies. But in the process they make it hard to see how much "body talk" is going on in those chapters. Paul talks about bodies, flesh, and "members" (body parts) constantly. I discussed this in a talk I did for Salt Company in November. Sometimes there is a repeated word or phrase that an author uses and if the word is translated several different ways you won't notice it as much. The word "walk" in Ephesians is a key word that the NIV translates "live a life." Thus "walk in love" becomes "live a life of love" and so on. "Live a life" is a more natural way of saying it in contemporary English, but sometimes that phrasing seems forced and so the NIV picks another one. All of this is why when I am teaching a passage I try to look at one or more literal translations.

For a long time my main Bible for this purpose was the New American Standard Bible, which is as literal as they come. I still think it is a very good one for that purpose. When Anastasia does "Precept" studies, she uses our NASB. But there are a few other options now that I like as well. The two new Bibles I got for Christmas were the English Standard Version (ESV) Study Bible and a $5 Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB). I got the ESV because 1) My current study bible is falling apart 2) A number of people at my church are using it now and so I wanted to be more familiar with it and 3) there is some logic to having a more literal translation when I am in "study" mode. I am going to be teaching a course this semester on the Old Testament and am planning to go through the ESV Study Bible to check it out as I do so. I had a paperback copy of the HCSB but I gave it away in Zambia. I like it because it feels like someone took the NIV as a baseline and then make it a little more literal. "Flesh" is "flesh" and "walk" is "walk." It also has extensive notes on alternate translations of verses. This is the translation I used for teaching Romans 7 last semester because it was literal enough to get the points across but still as readable as possible. I picked the ESV over it for the study bible not so much because the translation is better but more because it looked like the notes, maps, etc. for the ESV were better.

clothing chain reactions

A year or two ago, Anastasia finally convinced me to replace the beat up brown leather satchel and get something that looked nicer, so I got a black laptop carrier instead. But then she observed that my 8 year old green winter coat that doesn't even zip anymore didn't fit well with the more suave book/computer carrier. So a year ago I got a nice black wool overcoat to go with it. But it turns out my old gloves, my old hat, and my old scarf do not go well with the new coat. I like all of them, they do look better than what I had before, and since they were basically all Christmas and Birthday gifts I am happy to wear them. But I also realize this is what happens. We are convinced that we always need one more thing to attain the look or make the impression that we want to make.

generosity

I have been thinking about how one measures generosity. One way of measuring it is by how much a person gives, but the problem with that is that people have very different amounts to start with. Another way of measuring it is by how much it hurts, but the problem with that is that it means the more materialistic or selfish you are to start with the more generous you can be. If one person is content living a simple life and giving generously and another person is traumatized by not getting an iphone but does it anyway, the second person is more generous in the sense that it "hurts more." I think that is why in Colossians 3 after describing lots of virtues Paul says "over all these virtues put on love with binds them all together in perfect unity." Like anything else the measure of anything we do eventually comes back to love. That is why giving all one has to the poor is useless if it comes from another motive 1 Cor 13. I realize how easily in money as in other areas of life I try to make something else the criterion.

Bible Translations, NIV and RSV

The translation I have used most is the NIV. I grew up with it, so it is familiar and it is the most commonly used one in evangelical circles so when I teach or preach it is the least distracting for the most people. People who use other translations even though the preaching is from the NIV are generally people who like comparing translations anyway. I am not sure if it is the "best" translation. Sometimes things become the standard because they are in the right place at the right time. In the 1970s there was a strong demand for a more readable translation then the King James which was written in the early 17th century and was not based on the earliest original manuscripts. Then once people get attached to something it is hard to change. Most of the scripture I have memorized is in the NIV and that is one of the main reasons for being reluctant to change. The NIV is somewhere in the middle of the translation continuum between being ultra-literal and being a mere paraphrase. It flows well for reading aloud and silently and generally does a very good job of capturing the author's point.

The only stretch where I was not primarily an NIV person was in college and grad school. I wanted a more literal translation but thought the New American Standard Bible (NASB) was too stilted for every day use. I also wanted a study bible. So I ended up using the Revised Standard Version which was the most common alternative to the King James before the NIV came out. At the time I also remember wondering whether the NIV was "biased" in that evangelicals translated it in such a way to cover up "problem" passages. When I moved to Iowa I switched back to the NIV. It is easier to read and memorize and easier to teach from. I also decided my fears were overblown. I almost never use my duct tape repaired RSV study bible anymore but keep it around for sentimental reasons and because when I went to Zambia I was trying to take easy to read translations.

So I have an NIV study Bible that I have had for a while and is falling apart. I also have the NIV "student bible" that was given to me in high school and that I keep at my office at work. Then there is the NIV text that I have downloaded onto my PDA so that I can have it in my pocket where ever I go. I also have a simple $4 hardcover NIV that we call the "preaching bible" because I normally only use it when I am teaching large groups at church. It is not distracting and it is a nice size to not fall off the music stands they give us to set our bible and notes on. I also have a wide margin NIV that is for marking up and making notes. I just got it last year so it is still in the early stages of getting marked up, I go in stages. The NIV is also on my Bible software (more on that later) and is the translation for the CD audio bible I got several years back. Plus I think there is a falling apart paperback that we keep upstairs when I occasionally want to check a different translation against it late at night before bed (I'll explain that later too.)

Bible translations part 1

My last blog talked about getting a couple of new Bibles for Christmas even though I already have a bunch. The three reasons were that sometimes they wear out, sometimes a particular translation helps with a particular function, and sometimes it is just a matter of convenience. So in the next few blogs I am going to do a tour of the Bibles we have around since people are often interested in what the differences are.

Let me start with the big picture. I think of a translation as being like a map of the world in the sense that the world is in three dimensions but maps are in two dimensions. That is why all maps are a distortion of reality. Some make Greenland look as a large as South America, others make the countries at the equator look bigger than they actually are. Now we can either get frustrated by the fact that our maps are not perfect or we can be happy that we have lots of maps available that are perfectly adequate for what we need to do. The distortion on your map is not the reason you missed a turn or got lost the last time you went driving.

Bible translations, at the most basic, have to choose between trying to translate the original Hebrew or Greek word with a single English word each time so as to be as literal as possible or trying to capture the thought the author was trying to express and expressing it as clearly as possible in contemporary English. Both involve some distortion of the original. But the bottom line is that all of the translations I will talk about are, on the whole, good translations. As long as you are able to understand the language a major translation is using, it will be adequate for clearly communicating the main themes of the Bible. What they all have in common is far more important than the differences among them. Sometimes with "translation wars" we emphasize what makes our translation better to the point where minor differences are overshadowing the common truth that they all proclaim. When we get to heaven and are rewarded by our Father, I don't think "nice translation choice" will be in the top 10 for any of us. Far more important is really believing the gospel and orienting our lives in gratitude to obey what we understand. Our mistakes in applying the Bible often have far more to do with the way we read it than with the translation.

So with all that as a disclaimer, there really are differences. Airline pilots use different maps than the ones in your car atlas because for the task at hand they need to minimize a particular type of distortion. In the next post I will start breaking down our inventory and the functions the different translations have.

Bibles and Tennis Shoes

For Christmas this year I got two new Bibles and I am planning to get at least one new pair of tennis shoes. One obvious question would be why I want these things given that I already have more than one Bible and more than one pair of tennis shoes. One answer is that things to eventually wear out. I am more attached to falling apart bibles than tennis shoes, but I don't like completely getting rid of either because I always think they might come in handy for something someday. Sometimes they do. When I went to Zambia I went through the house and found more than a dozen Bibles and New Testaments that we have accumulated from various sources (old pew bibles from when Anastasia's parents' church got new ones, the ames library book sale, the used christian bookstores in Springfield, MO, and of course Christmas gifts in years past) and took them with me to Zambia and gave them away to people who had never had a Bible at all. I often had people see I was an American and come up and ask me if I could get a Bible for them. So of course now that the stock has been thinned out a little bit, I am back to accumulating. The other reason I tend to accumulate both tennis shoes and bibles is the American obsession with specialization. I have the cleats for soccer or football, high tops for basketball, and running shoes for distance running. Same thing with Bible translations. More on that in the next post.