Sermon Helper: Hagar

Starting now, I’ll be selecting sermon helpers from milepost100.com and digging to them for more insights or just interesting tidbits. This won’t be every week. I’ll pick the ones that I think stand out. 

The second Sunday of Lent in Year C

I didn’t link to the sermon from Cedric Lundy before, but I’m glad it was easy to find. He’s funny, he’s smart, and he brings a new point of view on inclusiveness, a broader one that we could all take a moment and hear. He jumps off from Hagar feeling like an extra in this Genesis story and relates it to an experience from his own youth of going to a movie with two friends and realizing those two are on a date. He looks at how the church has worked in America for some time now; where young people are put into the youth ministry and learn to see themselves as part of a group defined by age. So, they move on to look for the student group, then the singles, and so on until old age. Then he gets to the heart of the sermon, talking about the narrow societal focus we have for people in heterosexual relationships who have children before they are thirty.

Hang on, this is way more than just another preacher telling us to be inclusive. In the passage, Hagar sees where she fits in and doesn’t like it, and leaves for the desert. This is early in the Bible, so the nation of God’s people is just Abram and Sara, and now a pregnant servant. God isn’t even named yet, but when an angel appears to Hagar, she calls it “a god of seeing” or, maybe it’s “The God of seeing”. With that, she returns to this dysfunctional relationship despite there lack of a promise that it will get better.

It could be Hagar rethought her situation; she was risking death in a time when there were no support systems for single mothers, let alone escaped slaves. It could be she believed this angel would help her offspring be “seen” for generations to come. Cedric doesn’t comment directly on whether that worked out, but it’s obvious to me when I see ancient promises like this, unfulfilled. He relates this to the “sexual minorities” we have today when we let everyone remain somewhere in the system, but not as the central focus of it, to put it lightly. He doesn’t limit this to LBGTQ, rather it’s everyone outside of those perfect nuclear families.

Cedric is careful to clarify that he is not suggesting that we blow-up the current system and make it illegal to make anyone feel uncomfortable or police the use of language. What he is suggesting is a community where intimacy is not based on identification with a group that has had certain sexual acts performed in a certain way or time in our lives. Instead, considering that sitting down at a meal with people who are different is something that gives us strength.

I quoted him almost directly at points and added my own thoughts in others, so take the half-hour to listen and see what you think. 

When Time is Sacred

In one of my more recent past lives, that is, a part of this life that I am living, I looked for traditions within religions that could and maybe should be kept. It was sometimes challenging. Sam Harris does it like he's ordering coffee. 

Sam Harris on Deep Time

He and Oliver Burkeman discuss the simple topic of time management but in the context of the not-so-simple question of the meaning of life. In the last ten minutes or so, they get to the topic of how difficult it is for any three adults to arrange an evening together or even a lunch (unfortunately, you need to subscribe to get past the 37 minute mark). This includes times of pandemic but it was around long before that, with the demands of work that includes beepers and emails and being on-call, even if you are self-employed. 

Oliver brings up the idea of rules of temporal organization that exists in religions, the calling to prayer, the holy days that we sometimes dread but bring us into contact with the community. They are somewhat arbitrary, an interruption to the things you think you need to accomplish in life, but serve as a reminder that you never finish all the tasks or complete all the goals of that lifetime, that you never win the battle with time. 

The Sabbath is supposed to be about anything except "getting things done", aka work. If you don't fill it up with mindless entertainment, contemplation can emerge, something spontaneous that wouldn't occur while your mind is focused on a task. As Sam says, "There are social norms and structures, some of which we've inherited and need to give a modern, non-embarrassing gloss to, and some of which we need to invent. That would punctuate all of this."

Or, as Hunter S. Thompson put it,  “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”

A parent's view of existentialism

 A philosopher facebook friend had a baby a few years ago. While trying to figure out what that baby needed one day, he took some notes:

So, basically the routine with baby is pretty simple. I pick her up and sit down and hold her and talk to her and smile at her until she smiles back. We stay like this for as long as possible until she starts expressing agitation. Then there's basically a rundown of options. First, check the diaper and if it needs changing see if we can go back to normal after that. If not, a bottle if it's been more than two hours. If it's not been two hours, I try burping her, putting her on the playmat and trying the bouncy seat. If none of that works, I try to put her to bed. If that won't work, I put her in the carriage and walk her all around the park until she falls asleep.

If none of that works and she's still upset, I accept that even she has no idea what she wants so there is no way to satisfy her. She has an insatiable and unbearable emptiness that lacks any recognizable means of being filled. It's essentially an existential crisis. So we read some Camus together while she screams. Which doesn't fix her problem any more than it fixes anyone else with an existential crisis---since he is better at confusing people into nihilism than getting them out of it with his lousy misrepresentation of the human condition. But I figure Sophie is French and she should learn the vacuity of 20th Century French philosophy sooner rather than later so that we can get her on to better things in preschool.

His son probably understands the vacuity of Camus better than I do by now, but I did come across this, a speech by Albert Camus, reflecting on the world after World War II. It is still relevant now. Perhaps more, as we struggle to determine if we have prevented another massive conflict or are on the brink of one. 

I know we are all busy, so here is a summary of the part where he answers, "what are we to do?"

1.       Reject acquiescent and fatalistic thinking.

2.       Eliminate capital punishment and torture and reduce anything that increases fear in the world.

3.       Put politics behind reflective thought, and focus on our own values and aspirations.

4.       Create expressions of positive values.

5.       Speak your truth, while being aware of when your values are shared, and when they are not.

Superior Hiking Trail Lismore Rd

 Previous Section                  4 miles               Next Section

Two campsites not far from the Lismore.
Rural area with some housing nearby
Mild hills

https://superiorhiking.org/trail-section/duluth-to-two-harbors/#section_0 

Lots of warnings and notices that this is no longer a trailhead with overnight parking. We parked on the edge of the road near the driveway and felt safe. The landowner is making improvements, including a house. You walk right through his yard for the first hundred feet or so, south of Lismore Rd. This is timber country. It's easy to stay on the trail but you will cross a lot of four-wheeler trails. You will also see signs about the timber section you are in. It's kind of interesting because the signs tell you when it was last logged. So, lots of young forest. 

Water looked good near the campsites. Mud wasn't bad on a warm mid-October afternoon. One of the best sites was a few hundred tamaracks growing just north of the Bald Eagle campsite. You don't often get to walk right up to those. 

As I mentioned in the previous section, this trail splits with SHT on the west and a snowmobile trail on the east. At the northern end, the snowmobile trail was wide and looked inviting. At the southern, 4 miles later, it's full of weeds and branches on the ground. I don't know where the maintenance changes but the two trails are not close together, so you can't just change your mind later and switch. You would be trespassing if you tried that anyway. 

Superior Hiking Trail Traditional Start

Previous Section                 3.1 miles            Next Section

First campsite since Jay Cooke State Park, about 4 miles from Martin Rd.
Many road crossings, but no stores or parking.
Steady mild uphill climb north from the lake. 

https://superiorhiking.org/trail-section/duluth-to-two-harbors/#section_0 

Not much to say about the first 3.1 miles of this section. When we first set this goal of hiking every section of the SHT, there were 4 maps. The first one started in Two Harbors and included a note about future plans. We're now over 50 miles from the terminus and still a ways to go before connecting to this old map. 

At Martin Rd. it's snowmobile trail, so it's wide. The grass can get high, but we were hiking at the end of a drought so it wasn't a problem. There was always at least a single path that was smooth with the occasional rock or tree root. 

There are many businesses and houses. The University farm has a tall barb-wired fence for a while. There was the most specific directions I've ever seen on the trail at the crossing of Martin Rd. The snowmobile parallels the road through what looked like a ditch. We took the pavement.

On my Cairn app, it showed the trail splitting, then coming back together at the Lismore trailhead. It also called the SHT option a "spur". But at that split, it was clear that one way was foot travel and the other was for snowmobiles. We did this out and back, and we'll cover the Lismore section next. The Martin Rd trailhead is listed as a shuttle pick-up point, but all the road crossings are odd locations, even the Lismore Rd trailhead, with possibly difficult addresses to explain to a driver. 

Lismore is not an "official" trailhead. Overnight parking is NOT recommended. 

Superior Hiking Trail Up the Hill

 Up the hill

Back to the Zoo                 3.2 miles to Haines         Forward to the Silos 

https://superiorhiking.org/trail-section/mnwi-border-to-duluth/#section_8
https://superiorhiking.org/trail-section/mnwi-border-to-duluth/#section_9

Non-SHT lodging is available right on Westgate Blvd.
This is a steep climb, rising a few hundred feet, and many gorges going back down so you end up climbing nearly 1,500 ft. Rocky, with many stream crossings. Duluth closes these trails sometimes during rainy periods.
Lots of quaking aspens of all ages. Scattered cedar and maple and occasional oak. Some city noise.

2021 in the middle of a drought turned out to be not such a bad time to take a hike. We picked up where we left off at the end of Greene St. after it crosses N. 64^th Av W. Take the path north following Interstate 35, avoiding any of the turns to the left. You will have to cross Cody St, which has some high-speed traffic, and walk along Westgate Blvd. for two blocks. Signage is very good throughout this hike. When we came to the loop near Haines Rd we could not miss the intersection. You will be constantly reminded of a bike trail that parallels you, it is not intrusive or confusing.

After a few blocks in the neighborhood near the highway, you are back into the woods and join up with Keene Creek where you start climbing. Rocks in the creek were easy to find as we crisscrossed, but we were in a dry period.  A trailhead with a nicer parking lot than Greene Street is not far up, on W Skyline Pkwy. This is the Highland St trailhead on SHT maps.

Follow the creek a little longer and you’ll see steps and even wires to help you climb the steep section that lies between a switchback in Skyline Pkwy. You will cross the Pkwy, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. There is no way to safely park here and start a hike! Things flatten out a little at this point. If you have the Duluth Trails Map, you will see quite a few rock-climbing icons around this area. You stay above them, which lends the one nice scenic vista on this hike. It is on the official SHT part of Brewer’s Loop. The north part of that loop is still nice and it’s shorter if you want to get to Haines Rd trailhead.

Lots to offer on this little section.

Understanding CRT

 I'm seeing many articles that make some pretty nasty claims about Critical Race Theory. It's a legal theory, stating that people are not inherently more criminal or less intelligent based on their skin color or any other biological factor. However, we see a disparity of incarceration and educational achievement correlated to those factors. The theory then, is that there is something in our laws and our culture that is causing these disparities. I find this non-controversial. Many do not. 

Here is a recent article that was linked to me to make the anti-CRT case. 

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/should-public-schools-ban-critical?fbclid=IwAR2-hejN6gyQXvCFZKYFDQLFnjq75n5cxNR9JJHfgjRmgtOY2tKENH-tqc0

I could take it on face value, accepting the half dozen or so anecdotes as evidence. My experience is that information presented like this usually misses much of the data behind it. I'll drill down on one of them to demonstrate this.

This article gave examples, claiming they made up a case against CRT. Here’s one:

·  California’s Department of Education is proposing to eliminate opportunities for accelerated math in the name of “equity.” That means discouraging algebra for eighth graders and calculus for high schoolers. 

 The "eliminate opportunities" goes to Reason magazine. I would call this a "polemic". If I accepted the opinion of the author, I could have stopped there. This research was fairly easy because it had the report in this article. Although, it is long. I haven't read the whole thing, but if anyone would like to point out something in it, I'd be glad to respond. I'll respond to one of the quotes in Reason magazine below.

https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/cf/

https://reason.com/2021/05/04/california-math-framework-woke-equity-calculus/

This one reminded me of The National Enquirer, repeating the words in the title in a subheading, then again in the first paragraph. It quoted a report, and picked out some of the evidence for how it made it’s case. I’ll give them credit that they linked to the full report. It claimed the “entire second chapter is about connecting math to social justice concepts”. I downloaded that chapter and could not confirm that. I was hard pressed to find mention of social justice, let alone a theme.

The Reason article quotes the report, "To encourage truly equitable and engaging mathematics classrooms we need to broaden perceptions of mathematics beyond methods and answers so that students come to view mathematics as a connected, multi-dimensional subject that is about sense making and reasoning, to which they can contribute and belong."

Robby Soave, the Reason author, follows up with the comment, “This approach is very bad.” He makes some general statements about people having natural abilities to excel at math and how we should encourage them. He cites no data, no studies. In the next paragraph, he says, “young people who aren't particularly adept at any academic discipline might pick up art, music, computers, or even trade skills.” I have a computer degree. Calculus was required because of the way it teaches you to think about problem solving. I have trouble trusting Robby after this comment.

There is still a lot of that report to read, but so far, I’m seeing how it encourages a method of engaging young people in reasons for using math and working with others to solve a problem. The “discouraging” that is mentioned in the Bariweiss article is probably one of many possible recommendations to consider, not a main theme.

 

Here's one of the vignettes in Chapter 2 of the report. Not sure how farming is a social justice issue.

Vignette–36 Fences

Lori, a high school geometry teacher, introduces a problem to students. Lori explains that a farmer has 36 individual fences, each measuring one meter in length, and that the farmer wants to put them together to make the biggest possible area. Lori takes time to ask her students about their knowledge of farming, making reference to California’s role in the production of fruit, vegetables, and livestock. The students engage in an animated discussion about farms and the reasons a farmer may want a fenced area. While some of Lori’s long-term English learners show fluency with social/conversational English, she knows some will be challenged by forthcoming disciplinary literacy tasks. To support meaningful engagement in increasingly rigorous course work, she ensures images of all regular and irregular shapes are posted and labeled on the board, along with an optional sentence frame, “The fence should be arranged in a [blank] shape because [blank].” These support instruction when Lori asks students what shapes they think the fences could be arranged to form. Students suggest a rectangle, triangle, or square. With each response, Lori reinforces the word with the shape by pointing at the image of the shapes. When she asks, “How about a pentagon?” she reminds students of the optional sentence frame as they craft their response. Lori asks, the students think about this and talk about it as mathematicians. Lori asked them whether they want to make irregular shapes allowable or not.

After some discussion, Lori asks the students to think about the biggest possible area that the fences can make. Some students begin by investigating different sizes of rectangles and squares, some plot graphs to investigate how areas change with different side lengths.

Susan works alone, investigating hexagons––she works out the area of a regular hexagon by dividing it into six triangles and she has drawn one of the triangles separately. She tells Lori that she knew that the angle at the top of each triangle must be 60 degrees, so she could draw the triangles exactly to scale using compasses and find the area by measuring the height.

Niko has found that the biggest area for a rectangle with perimeter 36 is a 9 x 9 square—which gave him the idea that shapes with equal sides may give bigger areas and he started to think about equilateral triangles. Niko was about to draw an equilateral triangle when he was distracted by Jaden who told him to forget triangles, he had found that the shape with the largest area made of 36 fences was a 36-sided shape. Jaden suggested to Niko that he find the area of a 36-sided shape too and he leant across the table excitedly, explaining how to do this. He explained that you divide the 36-sided shape into triangles and all of the triangles must have a one-meter base, Niko joined in saying, “Yes, and their angles must be 10 degrees!” Jaden said, “Yes, and to work it out we need tangent ratios which Lori has just explained to me.”

Jaden and Niko move closer together, incorporating ideas from trigonometry, to calculate the area.

As the class progressed many students started using trigonometry, some students were shown the ideas by Lori, some by other students. The students were excited to learn about trig ratios as they enabled them to go further in their investigations, they made sense to them in the context of a real problem, and the methods were useful to them. In later activities the students revisited their knowledge of trigonometry and used them to solve other problems.