Category: Family

Forming Followers

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

I’m not inclined to hire a graduate from one of America’s elite universities. That marks a change. A decade ago I relished the opportunity to employ talented graduates of Princeton, Yale, Harvard and the rest. Today? Not so much.

R. R. Reno in The Wall Street Journal, “Why I Stopped Hiring Ivy League Graduates”

Reno argues that while elite institutions may graduate many fine individuals, these campus environments do not “add value” to job candidates who may want to write for Reno’s publication, First Things, a religious and socially conservative magazine and online outlet, even if the graduates of these institutions identify as religiously and socially conservative thinkers and writers.

Reno opines that on elite campuses, “Dysfunctional kids are coddled and encouraged to nurture grievances, while normal kids are attacked and educationally abused. . .Deprived of good role models, they’re less likely to mature into good leaders themselves.”

Absent conservative perspectives and a healthy campus environment where a vigorous discourse is fostered and encouraged, religiously and socially conservative students often choose instead to go along in order to get along, keeping their head down and doing what’s needed to get by. Why speak up if it will only earn you further marginalization, ridicule, and exclusion?

This means conservatives often cede the field, acquiesce, and steer clear of trouble. Reno observes that this is not good, and that over time this choice has a formative effect. He states, “I don’t want to hire a person well-practiced in remaining silent when it costs something to speak up.”

Reno concludes:

A few years ago a student at an Ivy League school told me, “The first things you learn your freshman year is never to say what you are thinking.” The institution he attended claims to train the world’s future leaders. From what that young man reports, the opposite is true. The school is training future self-censors, which means future followers.

In a few years my children will likely consider a college education, and as they explore their options our primary evaluative factors will not be the prestige or social connections a given institution may secure by way of attendance and/or a degree. Rather, we will be asking about the quality of education and the type of person the institution has as their formative end. We won’t only focus on things like post-graduate job prospects or overall campus climate, but what the institution views as their understanding of human flourishing and how they encourage students to pursue “the good life.”

Clint Patterson on the Baylor Mascot Program

Here’s Joy, one of Baylor’s mascots, in my apartment back in 2002.
The Tires Plus shirt? Thrift shop purchase.

My friend Clint Patterson was on the Waco History Podcast and spoke about the Baylor mascot program. This is a direct link to the episode. Clint is a Baylor treasure.

I’m mentioned a few minutes into the podcast, a pleasant surprise. Back when I was a student I got to be around the mascots. My roommate Ryan Fitzhugh was the Bear Coordinator, my friend Tyler Sellers was the Bear Trainer at this time, and I was a member of the Baylor Chamber of Commerce who served on the Bear Committee.

One of the other roommates in the apartment was willing to make their space available for the first couple of months Joy was on campus. We decorated with scrap carpet and cinder blocks.

I don’t think I was around most of this summer. I had an internship back home at Green Acres Baptist Church in the children’s ministry. But I drove back over to Waco a few times to see our new mascot. Such a cool experience.

“Why do I like it? You made it.”

We recently did a family tie-dye project. My kids had made me a shirt a few months ago. I wanted more gear.

I asked my daughter, “You know why I like this stuff?”

“Because it’s art?” she said.

“Yes, that,” I replied, “Also, every thing we made, there’s not another one like it in the world.”

“But you know what else?” I asked.

“What?” she said.

“I like it because you made it.”

A Grammar for Forgiveness

My kids had a fight back in December.

Molly did not hear the exchange. She only knew that feelings had been hurt.

“Work it out,” she said.

Later, we found a letter exchange.

A great start. Here’s the reply:

Where did my children learn this grammar, this way of negotiating hurt feelings and pain? Where did they learn how to seek, grant, and extend forgiveness?

Home, sure. But anything we’ve passed on at home we learned first from Christianity.

Joy says she is sorry. She admits to having done wrong. She names the transgression. She asks for forgiveness. She expresses love.

David, likewise, admits an error. He says he is sorry. He grants forgiveness. He asks for forgiveness. He expresses love.

Colossians 3:13 says, “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

The grammar of forgiveness is learned.

Once learned, it must be practiced.

When practiced, it is wise to remember the grounds for forgiveness, the work of Jesus himself.

An Expression of Christian Hope

Children when you come to my silent grave to see where your lifeless mother was laid,
remember how I loved you and how I worked and labored and patiently waited on you.
But remember this grave can’t always hold this lifeless body of your mother, but when Christ, who is my life shall appear, that this lifeless mother, the body of mine, shall appear with Him in glory.

Children, my labor of works and patience of love, I leave with you.
Be at peace among yourselves.
Behold the love of Jesus.

This is the grave marker of Dora L. Keith, born October 5, 1871, and died February 16, 1917. She is buried in the Round Grove Cemetery, Dublin, Texas.

Dora Keith was my great-great-grandmother. She died when my great-grandmother, Nellie Hazzard, the youngest of her eight children, was six years old.

Dora Keith knew she was dying. She wrote this letter while living, addressing her children. Her convictions fortified her in the face of death. Her hope was in Christ. Her final exhortation, “Behold the love of Jesus,” are words of deep wisdom. To know of and about Jesus is one thing, and a good thing, at that, but to behold him and his love has the power to transform us.

This memorial now stands as a testimony to me, her great-great-grandson over a century later. It also stands as a testimony to you. Above, we read an allusion to Colossians 3:4, which in the King James Version says, “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.” She clung to hope in the resurrection. I do, too.

LEGOs: Custom Builds by the Kids

These are from Valentine’s Day 2019, the gifts our kids made for Molly and I, which was way better than anything they could’ve purchased at a store. Molly was given the heart, and I was given the three-headed dragon.

I took pictures to preserve the memory, to document the ways my children use their imagination and make stuff.

Simple stuff. But cool stuff. You might notice the LEGO spacemen. My parents hung on to my LEGOs from when I was a kid. Now, my kids make stuff with those same LEGOs.