Ruth: Overturned expectations

  I'm doing some studies in the books of Judges and Ruth, and I am currently reading a commentary written by a Jewish scholar on Ruth, Yehoshua Bachrach; it's called Mother of Royalty. It's got a variety of helpful insights, but two that I found particularly interesting come from Ruth chapter 2.

  This chapter starts out by introducing Boaz, the wealthy, "mighty man of valor" and relative of Naomi's dead husband, whom one might naturally expect to take up the slack and fill the needs of Naomi and Ruth which were known to the town and which Boaz can intuit from what he has been 'fully told' (2:21). Yet, he does nothing apparently. Then 'by chance', Ruth ends up gleaning in his field, and when he speaks to her, he allows her to continue as one of the poor who glean in the corners of the field and offers her water. Her response to him contains a rebuke: "I am a foreigner. Why do you even care about me?" (2:10) He should have already cared and shown it:

Ruth’s remarks contained an unintentional reproach – a rebuke to the kinsman, the redeemer, who had ignored his own relatives and had allowed Naomi to sit at home, alone and hungry. Here was Naomi’s daughter-in-law. She had come to gather food for her aged mother-in-law. […] Was she not instead crying out in protest at all the humiliation inflicted on the entire house of Elimelech, so cruelly treated in Beth-lehem? (pg 85, emphasis mine)

  Whether or not the reproach is intentional, Ruth is suddenly rebuking the 'mighty man of valor' who has not taken responsibility for his aged relative's poverty and has instead allowed a foreigner to do so! Indeed, Ruth's being a Moabite almost certainly told against her being socially accepted in Bethlehem according to the understanding of the Mosaic Law, but did it require others' inaction to care for her poor mother-in-law? Here was a 'foreign woman' who had acted upon YHWH's Law better than YHWH's people.

 A bit later (2:19-20), we find another reversal of our expectations regarding this 'man of valor'. Instead of the wealthy man blessing the two widows, it is the two widows who have here blessed him, and one of them is a Moabite! Citing Yalkut Shim’oni, Ruth Rabba 5.9, Bachrach quotes:

More than the householder does for the poor man, the poor man does for the householder, for so Ruth said to Naomi: “The man’s name for whom I wrought.” She did not say “who wrought for me” but “for whom I wrought.” I wrought him many benefits in return for the one morsel of food which he gave me. (94, emphasis mine)

 Even if Ruth is not quite as bold as the above comment suggests, this is still a remarkable set of verses as the order of blessing is unexpectedly overturned. Over and over in the LORD's system, we see that the weak, the poor, the unworthy, or the unknown are only so labeled in the eyes of those who don't see clearly. May we grow in seeing and being properly, as the One does!

CoTESOL - What I still want to remember 4 months later

 Last November, I got to go to CoTESOL, Colorado's TESOL conference; it was a great experience with a healthy variety of speakers. Many of the sessions focused on a different area of language learning than I usually do, cross-cultural K-12 English users. Due to this, some of the most interesting sessions were connected to the presenters' stories of migration, emigration, and immigration (or their families'). I thoroughly enjoyed many of the speakers' sessions: Lulu Buck, Emily Francis, Don Vu, and Beth Skelton are all people to learn from and enjoy it. But I want to mention a few other sessions that I found particularly interesting. 

 But before that... For any non-teacher Americans who have gotten this far, some statistics might be the most interesting takeaway. In the USA, 10% of K-12 students have a home language other than English. 80% of those multilinguals speak Spanish. After Spanish, the next four most common additional languages in US schools are Arabic, Vietnamese, Russian, and Mandarin. Overall American schools have a rich diversity with over 300 different languages being spoken in its K-12 schools nationwide. 

 Specific to Colorado, in 2022, there were 110,000 multilingual learners with 280 different languages. Here Amharic (#4) is added to the above list of commonly spoken home languages. All of this suggests why it's possible to see monolingual people as somewhat limited. 😳😬🙊 (This data also suggests why it could be reasonable and beneficial to expand the amount of translation that is done in official spaces since only 4-6 additional languages would be needed in most states, not 300. Oops, this is beginning to sound political... 😳😬🙊, again.)

Carol Salva 

-  I don't have a long list of quotes from Dr. Carol, but she talks about teaching in the way I want to teach. She exudes love and hope for her students. If you get a chance to hear her or follow her on FB, I'd highly recommend it. Her ideas are practical and caring and focused on the students' potential. Also, she's humble enough to ask for help and then talk about it publicly...

- "[Students] aren't going to believe anything more than what I believe." (for and about them and their abilities)

Monica Lara

- "When you're a second language learner, you're a second language learner for life."

-  quoting Luis Moll, "The concept of 'funds of knowledge is based on a simple premise: people are competent and have knowledge, and their life experiences have given them that knowledge."

- She also talked about the QSSA strategy for conversations; it seems like a valuable riff on think-pair-share.

Jamal Khlifat - "Cross-linguistic Syntactic priming between Levantine Arabic and English in bilingual speakers"

- This presentation sounds incredibly complex, but it was extremely interesting. Basically, Dr. Khlifat's study shows that exposure to greater complexity moves students to express themselves with greater complexity. This is true even if the exposure occurs in the learner's native language! In other words, if you give a language learner a relatively complex text in their own language and then have them write in the target language they are learning, they will write with relatively more complexity than if you prime them with a simpler text (in their own language). The research was done between Arabic and English, but studies to explore this in other languages are ongoing.

- This study seemed to me to both support the concept of grammaring (showing grammar in real contexts instead of starting from the textbook with definitions and prescriptions), and it also "could serve as a counterargument to monolingual-immersion  teaching/instruction." This was one of three pedagogical implications given. The other two were "A learner's native language should be viewed as a resource, rather than a problem for educators to circumvent." and "Priming texts in a learner's native language serve[s] as a scaffolding tool."

Sonia Felix Naix - regarding "Ilots bonifiés" - "Collaborating to Maximize Participation in EFL Classrooms"

- This presentation was fascinating and presented a beautiful system for encouraging participation. She shared the main form needed to implement the system as well. The major challenge with learning the system was that one needed to know French as it was developed by a French teacher, Marie Rivoire in 2012. Little to nothing about it seems to have appeared in English before this presentation. Ms. Felix Naix was most interested in hearing from anyone who tried out the system.

Chutzpah vs. Chutzpah

 My favorite living storyteller is Malcolm Gladwell; his books are the only books that my wife and I have consistently listened to together. I am looking forward to listening to his most recent book soon. Recently I listened to an episode from his podcast, Revisionist History. It was fabulous, just like I hoped; Gladwell is basically peerless in his ability to weave a narrative together.

 Due to changes in the way I commute, I have started to listen to stuff on my way home. This was quite rare until the last 18 months and still sporadic until the last several months. Because I am just trying this out, there's a lot of experimentation involved... I've tried audiobooks (Chesterton's Orthodoxy has been fantastic so far), podcasts, and lectures (English in America: A Linguistic History by Natalie Schilling was very informative, especially as an English teacher).

 Anyways, this episode of Revisionist History "Chutzpah vs. Chutzpah"was fantastic. It included the mafia and The Godfather, which I've never seen, but which my students assure me is the greatest movie ever made. It included Hogan's Heroes which our family secretly enjoys, while hoping it doesn't offend our German friends! It included a wonderfully winding story about the meaning(s) of 'chutzpah' practically (There is some inappropriate language from an interviewee.) It includes discussions of shame and shamelessness, Abraham's intercession for Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18, cross-cultural differences and acculturation, immigration, and more!

 It also includes insight on modern culture, particularly American culture. Online and from a distance, I see increasing acknowledgement that the brokenness in American politics reflects the society, not causes the society's polarization. This episode essentially avoids the specifics in order to deal with the larger picture. The question it suggests  is "Have we confused [America's] chutzpah with [Israel's] chutzpah?"

All in all, this episode touches on a ton of areas that are important to me! I highly recommend it!

PS Even the ads are interesting and informative since even they are interviews done by Gladwell with business executives.

excerpts on "Language" from Lost in Translation

No, I’m no patriot, nor was I ever allowed to be. And yet, the country of my childhood lives within me with a primacy that is a form of love. It lives within me despite my knowledge of our marginality, and its primitive, unpretty emotions. Is it blind and self-deceptive of me to hold on to its memory? I think it would be blind and self-deceptive not to. All it has given me is the world, but that is enough. It has fed me language, perceptions, sounds, the human kind. It has given me the colors and the furrows of reality, my first loves.

***

The very places where language is at its most conventional, where it should be most taken for granted, are the places where I feel the prick of artifice.

***

Telling a joke is like doing a linguistic pirouette. If you fall flat, it means not only that you don’t have the wherewithal to do it well but also that you have misjudged your own skill, that you are fool enough to undertake something you can’t finish – and that lack of self-control or self-knowledge is a lack of grace.

***

So each language has its own distinctive music, and even if one doesn’t know its separate components, one can pretty quickly recognize the propriety of the patterns in which the components are put together, their harmonies and discords.

***

When I speak Polish now, it is infiltrated, permeated, and inflected by the English in my head. Each language modifies the other, crossbreeds with it, fertilizes it. Each language makes the other relative. Like everybody, I am the sum of my languages – the language of my family and childhood, and education and friendship, and love, and the larger, changing world – though perhaps I tend to be more aware than most of the fractures between them, and of the building blocks.

Hoffman, Eva. Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language (p. 74, 106, 118, 123, 273). 

And, a thought from this immigrant child, concerning writing "home"...

There is no way, I know, that I can convey the nature of my new life to her, and besides, she is one of the many affections that are only causing me the pain of nostalgia, and that I therefore try to numb or extract from myself like some gnawing scruple, or splinter lodged in a thumb.

Hoffman, Eva. Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language (p. 23). 

Consumerism, Zen, and this TCK

 Ewa Hoffman's Lost in Translation is assigned reading for my MA class; overall, it is excellent, but Part 2 "Exile" has been especially poignant to me, as a TCK who rejected the torturing consumerism of American culture when he was ten. (Technically, the author is a CCK, cross-cultural kid, not a third culture kid, but that's beside the point.)

 She also describes many of the feelings of lostness within and disengagement from a culture graphically. Yet, it was at the point where she began describing her response to materialism that the book really grabbed me. I don't recall having read anything so near to my own feelings about materialism. Finally, she speaks of being alone in a dorm over the holidays in a way that vividly recaptured that experience for me.

Concerning Her Reponse to Materialism and Consumerism:

  After battering myself again and again on the horns of lust and disgust, I begin to retreat from both. I decide to stop wanting. For me, this is a strange turn: my appetites are strong, and I never had any ambitions to mortify them by asceticism. But this new resolution is built into the logic of my situation. Since I can’t have anything, if I were to continue wanting, there would be no end to my deprivation. It would be constant, like a never-ending low-level toothache. I can’t afford such a toothache; I can’t afford to want. Like some sybarite turned monk who proves his mettle by placing himself in seductive situations, I can now walk between taffeta dresses and silk lingerie without feeling a shred of temptation. I‘ve become immune to desire; I snip the danger of wanting in the bud.   By the same sleight of consciousness, I’m becoming immune to envy. If I were to give vent to envying, there would be no end to that either. I would have to envy everybody, every moment of the day. But with my new detachment, I can gaze at what my friends have as if they lived in a different world. In this spatial warp in which I have situated myself, it doesn’t make any difference that they live in big houses with large yards and swimming pools, and cars and many skirts and blouses and pairs of shoes. This way, I can be nice to my friends; I can smile pleasantly at their pleasures and sympathize with their problems of the good life. I can do so, because I’ve made myself untouchable. Of course, they might be upset if they guessed the extent of my indifference; but they don’t.

[...]

 In my lush Western Sahara, I’m confronting a tantalizing abundance that doesn’t fill, and a loneliness that carves out a scoop of dizzying emptiness inside.

Concerning Eastern religions in American culture:

Two decades later, when the Eastern religions vogue hits the counterculture, I think I understand the all-American despair that drives the new converts to chant their mantras in ashrams from San Francisco to Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The gospel of detachment is as well suited to a culture of excess as it is to a society of radical poverty. It thrives in circumstances in which one’s wants are dangerous because they are surely going to be deprived – or because they are pulled in so many directions that they pose a threat to the integrity, the unity of one’s self.

[...]

...America is the land of yearning, and perhaps nowhere else are one’s desires so wantonly stimulated...

Concerning lonely breaks:

...in my nearly empty dorm during a holiday break, I forget my ascetic techniques, and the desire for the comfort of being a recognizable somebody placed on a recognizable social map breaks in on me with such anguishing force that it scalds my spirit and beats it back into its hiding place.

Hoffman, Eva. Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language (pp. 136-140). Plunkett Lake Press. Kindle Edition. (Emphases added.)

Understanding, Attacks, and Faith

 Often I wish that I could improve understanding between the cultures that I have lived in and love. My life has been spent mostly among three vastly different cultures, with a number of smaller variations or visits. Cultures do not easily or naturally understand each other. More accurately, people do not desire to listen to those whom it will be difficult to understand or who are easier to 'wonder about.' Here is an article from a Turkish newspaper that expresses commonly-held thoughts from the media here; at the center it says, "Attacks on Muslims at 2,800 separate points." It then goes on to list attacks in Canada, the USA, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, and Greece.

 Do you feel threatened by those of a different religion or culture than you? Maybe they are just as scared of you. Have you met them or talked to them? Have you prayed for them or welcomed them to your neighborhood? Have you made sure they know you are a safe person for them? Are you a safe person for them?

"A Balance Sheet of Islamophobic Attacks in the West"
"(2016 - Jan. 2017 Data)"

 A day after that article came out, this article was published in a Turkish English-language daily, concerning the difficulties faced by Christians (particularly Turkish nationals) in this country. This is the other side of the same coin, and none of this is new. Or, in an unrelated country and demographic, here is another article: this one is about anti-Semitism in Britain.

 This is the world we live in: fear is easier; violence is real; our impact feels impossibly small. But, in whatever country or culture we live in, at least for Christians, we are to supersede politics - whether we agree or disagree; we are to overcome fear with love - whether it is safe or not; we are to enter the realities of others' fear and darkness (and hopes and dreams and joys!) - whether we find it comfortable or not. Whenever I hear someone fearing and judging someone from a different culture or background, I always want to know if they have at least one friend whom they love from that background. It makes a difference! A few years ago, I had two friends who are atheists tell me that they would come be with me (as a Christian) if I ever felt threatened. That meant a lot, a whole lot.

'A world of languages' - VISUALIZED

  As a student of language, I'm not sure which statistics in the graphic below are the most amazing... (See all 4 charts.)

1.  Chinese as a larger language group than the next three largest ones combined.
2.  English having nearly 20 times the number of language LEARNERS as any other language.
3. India for having 5.5 of the most widely spoken languages in the world.
4.  America for having the fourth highest number of living languages in the world - still a nation whose strength is her immigrants.

Source: https://cdn3.scmp.com/sites/default/files/2015/05/27/languages.png (click to enlarge)

  I also didn't realize that Spanish was the second largest natively spoken languge in the world.

The LORD's Unbelieving Messiah

  In considering, on this election day, what Scripture passage(s) should be instructing my thinking concerning whatever God has elected for our nation as we move forward, my mind quickly went back to Isaiah 44-45 where I quite recently spent significant time.  God anoints a messiah for His purposes, and twice (45:4, 5) He says that this messiah has not know Him.  He also says in 45:3 that at least a part of His purpose in this is that this messiah will come to know Him.

 But consider, this divinely-elected ruler smashes nations through empire-building and accumulates vast wealth, by the sending of God - not exactly activities we'd condone in our leaders typically.  But, the point of the entire passage is missed if we simply say fatalistically that 'God's will will be done.'  That is true, but this passage is part of a lengthy and powerful argument for the absolute greatness of God compared to the futility of idols.  In other words, the point of this prophecy/appointment which was given long before Cyrus breathed is to demonstrate that the LORD Does/Causes/Chooses/Effects/is THE LORD!  So, we trust Him, regardless of what unbeliever He elects for our nation and what devastation that may cause here and elsewhere, in God's plan.  God's plan goes forward unhindered and unhinderable - worship Him, place full confidence in Him, His greatness, His goodness.

*******

 Also, an unrelated but excellent post on a wonderfully different perspective on our elections from some grateful, not-yet Americans...

Evangelicals and Muslims Together?

  Sunday, CNN featured this article on its website, "How Evangelicals Could Grow to Love Muslims." I agree with the guy's basic premise that evangelicals could get over their prejudices against Muslims, just as they got over their one against Catholics from 50 years ago.  The subplot is that they would also make natural allies for Republican social conservatives since many Muslims are socially conservative.  (This same would apply to Latino immigrants; if the Republicans would compromise on the immigration issue, they could gain a powerful constituency that would be a very natural alliance.)

 Anyways, I considered posting the article on Sunday because I thought it said a useful thing.  The  'need to hate [or simply, be against something]' which the article matter-of-factly mentioned is certainly not a Christian ideal.  So, there ought to be some question as to what has hijacked our thinking so that the outside world doesn't even know us by our love!  

 But it was the headline article on Hank Williams Jr.'s tirade against President Obama, mentioning Islam, today which made me decide to blog.  Now, the President has attempted to make it clear that he is a Christian in his own understanding.  Obviously, he could be lying.  But, that's not really the issue.

  Would it be a bad thing if he were a Muslim?

  No.

  Not from a Christian perspective, other than in regard to his soul - followers of Jesus have usually lived under unbelieving rulers.  From an American perspective (which should be secondary for followers of Christ), it would also be a positive outcome of our values to elect someone who was not from the majority faith.  It would be the most basic expectation of our values to say that someday someone of another faith would lead this country which claims to hold freedom of religion as a core tenet.  Otherwise, we undermine the core of the word freedom and relegate those of other beliefs to second-rate status ...if it would be 'un-American' to have a President who claimed something other than Protestant-ism.  But, that's a sidetrack.

 To return to the original article, it is noteworthy that all sitting justices on the US Supreme Court are Catholic or Jewish in faith.  (Remember that this religion was formerly vilified in US politics.)  Now, of the four Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates, only one (Barack Obama) claims to be Protestant - the others are confessedly Roman Catholic or Mormon.  Politics is an odd world, but amid the many shades of gray which it creates, Christians should try to live out their Lord's commands, not become party to one earthly agenda or another.

 As for Americans generally, it is vain to decry one who 'takes away your freedom' and at the same time say that that one has no right to power, when it is the freedoms you cry for which he champions by being in the position he is in.  Neither race nor religion nor gender are sufficient to disqualify someone from office based on American values.  I do not speak for Christian values here, though if the freedoms that are being championed truly were derived from Scripture as many claim, than that also must be considered.

on a Christian approach to immigration

Daniel Carroll Rodas shares briefly about how we as Christian's must think Christianly about the Immigration debate, no matter our political stripe or personal feelings.

Immigration, politics, the Constitution, and two parties

back to politics and immigration:

"Illegal Immigration and the Rule of Law" - a fascinating article with some balancing thoughts on the aspects of the debate that get conveniently ignored by both sides

"Why I'm Leaving the GOP" - an article by a fiscal, constitutional conservative who happens to be Muslim and Coloradan, and also happens to be going to the Democratic party because of his basic conservativeness... fascinating as well.

  I didn't agree with portions of both of these articles obviously, but always good to really listen to what's being said.

Theological perspective on immigration - with a link

"We must never deny that illegal immigrants are breaking the law. Yet these immigrants’ law-breaking is no reason for the church to remain uninvolved in North America’s largest mission field today consisting of fifteen to eighteen million people, many of whom tremble in the shadows of our society. Civil law is written on soft paper and constantly evolves. God’s law was chiseled on stone tablets and has remained unchanged." - Alejandro Mandes in "Thinking Theologically About Immigration"

Arizona

This post and others on this blog present a constructive view of the immigration law passed in Arizona, for people of faith.

Some of the boycotts going on regarding Arizona are rather ridiculous, but while Arizona certainly has the right to seek to enforce its borders, I do think that everyone else has the right to expresss their dismay about how it does so... that's what we are doing to N. Korea and Iran...

NHCLC blog - enlightening

The blog for the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference is an excellent way to educate yourself about the issues facing our Latino brothers and sisters.  These two most recent posts are very enlightening; I haven't gotten to the rest yet.

More info on the NHCLC is available here at their website.

Toward a more Christ-like way of thinking...

Christians at the Borders, Literal and Metaphorical

   A couple of friends have already blogged about this, but I thought I'd add a few thoughts to the immigration discussion.

 Tonight, I finished Dr. Danny Carroll's book Christians at the Border, which I think can best be described as a quietly reasoned plea for Christians of all origins in the United States to base their thinking on the volatile topic of immigration on the Word of God, not their political, economic, or social backgrounds.

The purpose of the book is not to solve the myriad of real problems found in the immigration discussion; it is to re-orient believers to what the Word says.  Personally, I have long felt instinctively that there was a Gospel way of approaching this topic which was being completely ignored; this book helped throw some light on why I sensed this: the Bible is a book that is completely relevant to the discussion, starting from Genesis 1, not just from Romans 13. 
I would highly recommend the book to anyone seeking to consider this issue as a Christian.

   Finally, I will add a few of my own thoughts on the topic.  Is it ok to break the laws of a nation where you are not a citizen?  If so, why are we concerned about the illegality of Central American citizens crossing into our country?  If not, is it right to smuggle Bibles into countries where that is illegal, or to witness there?  You will say that those are things commanded in the Bible, but I would ask whether it is not commanded in the Bible to feed and protect your family.  Does it not say that the one who does not provide for his own family is worse than an unbeliever (1 Timothy 5:8)?  You will quibble, and I certainly have not made an exact comparison, but maybe you should pause and reconsider.  Are the laws you defend just?  Does God call for you to defend all of the laws of this (or any) country?  As one Latino brother in Christ said, "Do they think we LIKE running across the desert?!" Nay, it is of necessity.  Do not "shut up" your "bowels of compassion" before you have had the opportunity to interact and feel the need and pain of your brothers and sisters!  And especially remember that many of these immigrants are in Christ together with you and me; do not judge rashly for they stand before the same Judge and call Him Father and Savior and Lord!  Search the Scriptures, my friends; and if you desire some aid, read Dr. Carroll's book.

   Incidentally, my previous post concerning The Good Mexican was spawned by a comment Dr. Carroll made in a sermon at Providence Bible Church.

If china - a thought-provoking poem from Baranczak, a Polish author

If china

If china, then only the kind

you wouldn’t miss under the movers’ shoes or the treads of a tank;

if a chair, then one that’s not too comfortable, or 

you’ll regret getting up and leaving;

if clothes, then only what will fit in one suitcase;

if books, then those you know by heart;

if plans, then the ones you can give up

when it comes time for the next move,

to another street, another continent, or epoch,

or world.

Who told you to settle in?

Who told you this or that would last forever?

Didn’t anyone ever tell you that you’ll never

in the world

feel at home here?

– by Stanislaw Baranczak, 'Jezeli porcelana, to wylacznie taka.'

Current Politics

Well, since I've started to blog for the evening, I might as well continue. And I've been doing some reading and thinking about politics recently, so I guess I'll post about that, since I haven't for a while.

Two big issues in US political news right now (there could be others (like Iraq), but these are the ones I feel like mentioning.) :)
1. Immigration - Is the current bill any good? Well, do you mean the old current bill or the new one? This is just my opinion, but: close the border tight; set up penalties that must be paid by the illegals; have them learn English; and then let them be citizens. Amnesty happens every time someone new sneaks over the border and we don't stop them. The issue is not amnesty per se; it is whether we are willing to close the border. I don't think any of the "anti-amnesty" crowd REALLY think that we can ship 12-20 million people out of our country. Just think about what percentage of our workforce that is, and then decide that we need those workers. However, we have to close the border and keep it that way, including backing the Border Patrol agents when they enforce the border.
2. November 2008 - The '08 campaign is already on, unfortunately.
Regarding the Democrats, I've been quite surprised how popular Barrack Obama has been. I don't know if he can keep it up (Howard Dean, anyone?), but if he can, he can beat the other Democrat candidates.
Regarding the Republicans, I've been disappointed in those who are officially running. I think the most I can say is that I would think about voting for some of them. However, former Senator Fred Thompson will most likely announce his candidacy soon, and he seems to be a true conservative. He talks conservative at every level that I've heard; he is a thinker; and he is electable. Plus, he has a career in law and government before his time in acting. So, for now, I think he's the best choice, and here's his website. Maybe third-party won't be the best choice after all.