Two weeks ago I loaded up my 1997 Honda Accord and moved to Boston. A lot has happened in two weeks but I will try to provide something of an update of sorts.
Ian, Nathanael and I are moved in to our apartment in a suburb of Boston called Winchester. We are approximately ten miles from downtown Boston. In this area everything is very close in proximity. We are only about seven miles from the lower school, where Nathanael and I will teach, and about five miles from the upper school where Ian will teach. Unlike West Michigan though, this means absolutely nothing as far as times goes. Very quickly I learned you would need to double, triple, quadruple, etc the projected time to and from places. Traffic is very heavy especially at peak times during the day. Driving here has actually not been too terrible. I refuse to drive downtown Boston since the roads are absolutely not meant for modern day vehicles and the parking can be anywhere from $10-$40 an hour. Boston does have a nice transportation system which is much more affordable and convenient if you want to get downtown.
As far as the actual driving itself goes, the drivers here are somewhat strange. They can be either friendly or really unfriendly. Sometimes when you are trying to make a left turn and the oncoming traffic has the right of way, traffic will just suddenly and for no apparent reason, yield to you.... even if they have a green light! Merging into lanes is also never a problem. Cutting people off is common and people are relatively patient... it is as if they expect people to end up in the wrong lane. Which is another interesting thing about Boston roads... they sort of add, change, and drop lanes without any warning whatsoever. Perhaps this explains the patience of the drivers being cut off. The other side of Massachusetts drivers is that they are FAST. The speed limit is 65mph on the highway, but once you get on, you quickly realize that the outer three lanes are all going 75-85mph... and there are essentially no cops on the highway. Traffic signals do not mean much to Massachusetts drivers either as I already pointed out. Just because you have a green light, does not mean a driver will turn left in front of you or that oncoming traffic will stop. It is kind of a different world out here but I am getting used to it. And of course, we will try to avoid the really busy times.
Winchester, Massachusetts is a beautiful, high income "village." Village not in the Borculo, Michigan sense, but in the population of 22,000 people sense. The average home in Winchester costs $830,000. The average household income is $120,000. The average income per person is around $65,000. Needless to say, when we tell people that we live in Winchester, they naturally assume we have money. The town itself is very beautiful. They have a small, quaint downtown with lots of neat stores and a river that runs in the middle of it. Winchester is also known for its excellent schools and low crime rate. Even though we lock our doors, the landlord basically told us that we shouldn't feel the need to do that. For a city ten miles from Boston, it is remarkable how safe it is out here. We are very thankful to have found a place to live here for a very affordable rent. Even with utilities, we estimate that it will cost us all about $700 a month for each person to live here. We would probably be hard pressed to find that good of a deal in this area.
The three of us plan on commuting together to work every day. Since the high school is on the way to work, we will drop Ian off to work first and then Nathanael and I will take the car to the lower school. I think Ian and I are planning to alternate driving sine we both have cars... the commute is anywhere from 15-30 minutes.... and we have to be to work at 7:30am. So there will be early mornings.
Now a little about the school.... Mystic Valley Regional Charter School began in 1998 as a K-6 school. It has now grown to about 1,500 students... roughly 1,050 in the lower school (K-8) and 350 in the high school. This year's graduating class is the first K-12 class so they are very excited about that. We are ranked in the top 1% of charter schools in the country... #278 to be exact. For the record... I turned down the #3 charter school in the nation to come to Mystic Valley which shows why I think highly of the school. Mystic Valley is named for the river valley it is located in... the Mystic River shockingly flows right through this area. Technically we serve five different towns outside Boston. Kids are selected by an impartial lottery and there are over 2,000 kids on the waiting list to get into the school. We are a high performing, academically based school. Of our 31 graduates last year, every one of them is in colleges including Harvard and other prestigious universities. Our mission statement is to provide the best education possible to our students while teaching them how to be a good human and give back to the community. This sort of well-roundedness is similar to what we do so well at Hillsdale for we look at each student as a whole person. Thus, the school does not just emphasize academics, but also extra curriculars, sports, and good character. We have what we call Character Education classes in which students are taught virtues by which they should strive after in order to become a better person. You have to remember that while many of our kids are from white and blue collar families, some of them are from very poor, low income families... some of which lack a parent or any sort of structure in their family. These students would likely be lost in the inner-city public school system which continues to fail thousands of our nation's children each year. Although charter schools are not perfect, it seems that schools like Mystic Valley gives these types of students, and all their other students, a far better chance at success and opportunity than your typical public school.
Mystic Valley believes in order and structure to their system of schooling. Students are praised for good actions, even if it is as simple as following the strict uniform code. Or for looking at the teacher during the lecture. Or for opening the door for another student. They are reminded gently to emulate these types of actions if they are not doing so... but if they do not abide after their first warning, there will be detention and other consequences. The school, however, strongly emphasizes a positive attitude as the best way to motivate students to do the right thing. The K-6 schools use a brilliant system of note cards in which each kid gets a card and depending on whether or not he does anything wrong, he gets a different color card. It sounds crazy but after hearing the training on it this week, I am convinced it is the most brilliant thing I have ever heard.
At Mystic Valley, the teachers and administrators strive to be firm, fair, and consistent. Most of all we are trained how to love the kids... not as their friend, but as their teacher. Although all of us new teachers are a bit overwhelmed right now, we are excited to meet our students. Orientation stared this past Wednesday and goes for one more week. School begins August 23.
I hope to tell more about the school but this update is plenty long enough. I will end by saying that for this upcoming school year, Mystic Valley now has five Hillsdale graduates on their faculty. Three of the six or seven English teachers are Hillsdale graduates. Two of the six or seven History teachers are Hillsdale graduates. I think this reflects very well on the strengths of our college. As for me, I will be teaching one character education class every morning and one class to help students prepare for their standardized tests every Monday. My main duties will be the 120 seventh grade students divided among four classes. I will be teaching American History from the Colonial Period through Reconstruction. As many of you might know, this is the area of history I know and love the best so I am really excited to begin.
For now I apologize for the really long update and I hope I did not put any of you to sleep. Please let me know if you have questions... and I will hopefully try to post again sometime soon.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Sunday, July 18, 2010
"Changing" the World?
What are the "buzz words" of mainstream evangelical Christianity? I'm sure there are many which probably change quicker than you can say "evangelical." But I cannot help but note a few in particular that have lately been on my mind.
Perhaps I run in the wrong circles (very possible) or my mind zones in on a few particular words or phrases within most of modern day Christianity, but it seems like the more "radical" or "extreme" you can "transform" culture, or your life, or your neighbor, or your nation, or your church the better. Such conversations and ideas filtered strongly into a class my senior year at Hillsdale... I then realized that yes such people actually exist hoping to "make the world a better place." This is what a certain professor of history at Hillsdale calls the "transformational impulse" found within American Christianity.
Naive youthful optimism perhaps? Maybe... it does not take much to get carried away with this language. You can find it all over the world and it's desires. Transform your career, dating life, personal fitness, heck even your pet into something amazing and incredible and most importantly, irresistible. The world has much to offer in terms of temporary comfort and happiness which when based on empty promises for one to "just do this or that" brings "hope" or "change" into the lives of people looking for meaning and fulfillment.
I fear this might be an instance of the worldly culture and vocabulary influencing the church and not vice versa. Certainly Christians experience some sort of "transformation" upon receiving grace. The promise of Romans 12:2, however, does not seem to be one of dramatic weight loss or a Republican controlled Congress. Rather it is one of surrender and conformity to the will of God and our place and calling in His image.
Perhaps the most radical, extreme, or transformational action would be to accept our calling and responsibility within the realm or place God has immediately called us to. We are all sons and daughters, brothers or sisters, and for many of us future husbands and wives, fathers and mothers. Each day we interact with many people from co-workers to friends to the lady who rings up your beer. Most importantly we have the church, the Body of Christ which has been given specific instructions of how to carry out the work of Christ on earth while keeping in mind our ultimate purpose. Perhaps the truly radical idea would be to live the truth of God's word without placing our own conditions on what that means.
I refer to two quotations to finish my post. First Kevin DeYoung is a newer name in the reformed evangelical movement. The epilogue in his most recent book offers some noteworthy thoughts on living a "radical" Christian life:
Our jobs are often mundane. Our devotional times often seem like a waste. Church services are often forgettable. That’s life. We drive to the same places, go through the same routines with our coworkers, buy the same groceries at the store, and mow the same yard every spring and summer. Church is often the same too—same doctrines, same basic order of worship, same preacher, same people. But in all the smallness and sameness, God works—like the smallest seed in the garden growing to unbelievable heights…. Life is pretty ordinary, just like following Jesus most days. Daily discipleship is not a new revolution each morning or an agent of global transformation every evening; it’s a long obedience in the same direction.
Second, C.S. Lewis is always a great way to conclude right? This is the final sentences from his essay titled "The Weight of Glory."
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealing with another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit- immortal horrors and everlasting splendours. This does not mean we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously, no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner- no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latita the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.
Perhaps I run in the wrong circles (very possible) or my mind zones in on a few particular words or phrases within most of modern day Christianity, but it seems like the more "radical" or "extreme" you can "transform" culture, or your life, or your neighbor, or your nation, or your church the better. Such conversations and ideas filtered strongly into a class my senior year at Hillsdale... I then realized that yes such people actually exist hoping to "make the world a better place." This is what a certain professor of history at Hillsdale calls the "transformational impulse" found within American Christianity.
Naive youthful optimism perhaps? Maybe... it does not take much to get carried away with this language. You can find it all over the world and it's desires. Transform your career, dating life, personal fitness, heck even your pet into something amazing and incredible and most importantly, irresistible. The world has much to offer in terms of temporary comfort and happiness which when based on empty promises for one to "just do this or that" brings "hope" or "change" into the lives of people looking for meaning and fulfillment.
I fear this might be an instance of the worldly culture and vocabulary influencing the church and not vice versa. Certainly Christians experience some sort of "transformation" upon receiving grace. The promise of Romans 12:2, however, does not seem to be one of dramatic weight loss or a Republican controlled Congress. Rather it is one of surrender and conformity to the will of God and our place and calling in His image.
Perhaps the most radical, extreme, or transformational action would be to accept our calling and responsibility within the realm or place God has immediately called us to. We are all sons and daughters, brothers or sisters, and for many of us future husbands and wives, fathers and mothers. Each day we interact with many people from co-workers to friends to the lady who rings up your beer. Most importantly we have the church, the Body of Christ which has been given specific instructions of how to carry out the work of Christ on earth while keeping in mind our ultimate purpose. Perhaps the truly radical idea would be to live the truth of God's word without placing our own conditions on what that means.
I refer to two quotations to finish my post. First Kevin DeYoung is a newer name in the reformed evangelical movement. The epilogue in his most recent book offers some noteworthy thoughts on living a "radical" Christian life:
Our jobs are often mundane. Our devotional times often seem like a waste. Church services are often forgettable. That’s life. We drive to the same places, go through the same routines with our coworkers, buy the same groceries at the store, and mow the same yard every spring and summer. Church is often the same too—same doctrines, same basic order of worship, same preacher, same people. But in all the smallness and sameness, God works—like the smallest seed in the garden growing to unbelievable heights…. Life is pretty ordinary, just like following Jesus most days. Daily discipleship is not a new revolution each morning or an agent of global transformation every evening; it’s a long obedience in the same direction.
Second, C.S. Lewis is always a great way to conclude right? This is the final sentences from his essay titled "The Weight of Glory."
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealing with another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit- immortal horrors and everlasting splendours. This does not mean we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously, no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner- no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latita the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Two Months
In just two months I'll be in Boston. Unbelievable. These two months will go quickly whether I want them to or not... and although I want them to go quickly they certainly don't need my help.
I need to make a list of the things I have to do before I leave...
I need to make a list of the things I have to do before I leave...
Monday, May 24, 2010
grace
this past semester i learned the meaning and practice of grace.
grace is one of those funny things we all grow up hearing about, and believing. in one sense, it's the most tangible expression of our relationship to God. How could we live with hope if it were not for grace?
grace is a paradox. it is something ordinary and something miraculous. something universal and particular. perhaps it was learning to see grace in the ordinary that made me finally realize that I did in fact know what it was all along.
if every human is an immortal (thank you clive staples) then maybe all of our interactions are filled with grace... maybe our relationships are signs of this grace. maybe friendship, established on the idea of an attitude that models the love set by our Lord is one of the finest manifestations of grace in the fallen world.
so this past semester i am very glad I took the time to notice this...
grace is one of those funny things we all grow up hearing about, and believing. in one sense, it's the most tangible expression of our relationship to God. How could we live with hope if it were not for grace?
grace is a paradox. it is something ordinary and something miraculous. something universal and particular. perhaps it was learning to see grace in the ordinary that made me finally realize that I did in fact know what it was all along.
if every human is an immortal (thank you clive staples) then maybe all of our interactions are filled with grace... maybe our relationships are signs of this grace. maybe friendship, established on the idea of an attitude that models the love set by our Lord is one of the finest manifestations of grace in the fallen world.
so this past semester i am very glad I took the time to notice this...
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Irregular posting is the way of the future...
Seems to be the fate of every blog... including this one.
First thought in my mind this morning-- "Did I really just graduate two weeks ago???"
Factory work for now; Boston in August.
I would never want to relive this past week over again...
First thought in my mind this morning-- "Did I really just graduate two weeks ago???"
Factory work for now; Boston in August.
I would never want to relive this past week over again...
Friday, January 8, 2010
Why am I posting?
I hate blogging. No one really cares about your day or what is on your mind. Blogging is for those people who have nothing better to do. So they rant and rave and try to be funny. Unfortunately for me I've been that guy before... and from the looks of it... not too long ago!!! Although in my defense, I started up the blog again so my family could try and keep track of my summer in D.C.!
Forrest has inspired me to post again. Blasted Norwegian. I can not and will not promise any future posts but if one shows up who knows what the reason may be?
Hillsdale tomorrow! This semester is going to rock... I hope!
Forrest has inspired me to post again. Blasted Norwegian. I can not and will not promise any future posts but if one shows up who knows what the reason may be?
Hillsdale tomorrow! This semester is going to rock... I hope!
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Summer Recess
Relatively speaking Rayburn and the rest of the Hill is DEAD right now with the House out to recess as of last week Friday. The Senate is set to head out this week Friday ending a busy legislative summer that seemed to give the Republicans some momentum.
Cap and Trade barely passed the House but its fate is even more uncertain in the Senate. Health care barely made it out of committee in the House. Momentum and public opinion is certainly helping those who oppose the President's plan. I am looking forward to seeing the Republican plan which will be introduced after recess. We can only be the party of "No" so long before we need to present our own ideas for true reform.
The week has been really slow in the office... making me only more anxious to get out of D.C. It has been a wonderful summer and I am thankful I had the opportunity to come down here and work. Each day I get a little bit more ready to head back to school.
Cap and Trade barely passed the House but its fate is even more uncertain in the Senate. Health care barely made it out of committee in the House. Momentum and public opinion is certainly helping those who oppose the President's plan. I am looking forward to seeing the Republican plan which will be introduced after recess. We can only be the party of "No" so long before we need to present our own ideas for true reform.
The week has been really slow in the office... making me only more anxious to get out of D.C. It has been a wonderful summer and I am thankful I had the opportunity to come down here and work. Each day I get a little bit more ready to head back to school.
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