Have you ever gone through a corn maze? I don’t remember hearing much about them until the last couple of years … and this year especially. The Pumpkin Patch we went to several weeks ago while in Cincinnati for the weekend had a 7-acre corn maze that looks like the United States from an aerial view. Though the visitors could go through it that day, we didn’t since there were other activities that we thought we’d rather do.

I take it that farmers have begun to do corn mazes for some off-season tourist business in the fall. Our daughter Nora went to a huge corn maze here locally this past week with friends and said it was really fun and scary. I decided to see what I could learn about corn mazes (or “maize mazes”) online and was surprised to find all kinds of pictures and sites. If you’d like to learn more about corn mazes, you can go to http://www.cornfieldmaze.com or to http://www.brownielocks.com/cornmaze.html. You can even try to locate a corn maze near you by going to http://www.cornmazedir.com

Here’s a picture of a neat patriotic corn maze…

Yesterday a student sent me a picture of a corn maze tailor made for one group of visitors….

On this day after the elections here in the USA, I am thankful that the Lord does not have us going though life as if we were in a maze. He knows exactly what He’s doing, and He has most definitely not lost control as everything moves towards His ultimate prophesied end. I’ve had a song going through my head all day and was so pleased that we sang it in church this evening - not once, but twice! It’s a great reminder of the Biblical perspective on things. Here are the lyrics…

There Is a Higher Throne
Words and Music by Keith & Kristyn Getty
Copyright © 2003 Thankyou Music

There is a higher throne
Than all this world has known,
Where faithful ones from ev’ry tongue
Will one day come.
Before the Son we’ll stand,
Made faultless through the Lamb;
Believing hearts find promised grace -
Salvation comes.

REFRAIN
Hear heaven’s voices sing;
Their thund’rous anthem rings
Through em’rald courts and sapphire skies.
Their praises rise.
All glory, wisdom, pow’r,
Strength, thanks, and honor are
To God our King, who reigns on high
Forevermore.

And there we’ll find our home,
Our life before the throne;
We’ll honor Him in perfect song
Where we belong.
He’ll wipe each tear-stained eye
As thirst and hunger die.
The Lamb becomes our Shepherd King;
We’ll reign with Him.

REFRAIN
Hear heaven’s voices sing;
Their thund’rous anthem rings
Through em’rald courts and sapphire skies.
Their praises rise.
All glory, wisdom, pow’r,
Strength, thanks, and honor are
To God our King, who reigns on high
Forevermore.

You can read a great article for believers after the election by clicking here.

Yesterday I put out a new poll question in the sidebar about Daylight Savings time and you. There were also some good punchlines for the most recent blog post.

I hope that some of my readers have gone through a corn maze or maybe some have even constructed one. Please comment away about that or anything else in this post.

quotation…

“Problems in society are just a symptom of the core problem - man’s estrangement from God.” - Dr. Drew Conley

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Rob

Opportunities are not lost - they just go to someone else.

Just peeking out…. I normally post to my blog on Monday evenings and Thursday mornings, but I just noticed in my blog stats that yesterday’s blog post was my 250th. Wow, one-fourth of the way to 1,000 posts! I thought that that was worth a special post. A friend whom I considered the patron saint of the blog when I began my blog reminded me the other day that I told her at first that I didn’t think I would enjoy blogging and would have nothing to write about. It was one of those “never say never” moments. Thanks for your encouragement, Bet!

Another thing I’d like to share is a link to Radio France Internationale. One of their bureau chiefs, Anne Toulouse, came to BJU recently as part of a study she was doing for a report about the evangelical vote. I was asked if I was willing to be interviewed since it could be done in French. Anne was very kind and did not have any kind of axe to grind. Her “reportage” seems to be quite fair - mainly just reporting what she learned from the many people she interviewed. What a concept - a journalist who simply reports and doesn’t editorialize! I’ve read several good articles lately about the death of journalism. You can see them by clicking here and here. You can listen to report on RFI - le poids du vote évangélique - by clicking here.

Back to general lurkdom….

This past Friday my wife Becka, our daughter Nora, and I headed north for Cincinnati, Ohio, after my last class ended. Our older daughter Megan, our son-in-law Jim, and our grandson Drew headed south for Cincinnati and arrived earlier in the evening than we did. We all thoroughly enjoyed our quiet weekend together. One of our activities on Saturday was to go to the Pumpkin Patch at Blooms and Berries Farm Market in Loveland, Ohio. We did not do all the activities available there since several members of our party were not feeling their best with colds. We did enjoy seeing all sorts of fall produce on display and for sale and a hayride which included a stop at their pumpkin patch. Here are a few pictures from our afternoon there.

On the way up to Cincinnati and back we saw a number of questionable drivers and interestingly loaded vehicles. Some people did not let having no truck keep them from hauling whatever it was they wanted to transport. This practice is known all over the world, though, as the following pictures readily testify to what people will do when they have no truck.

During our summers in Asia we saw similar scenes, to our amazement! I am very thankful for my little pickup truck which has come in very handy for hauling all sorts of things.

Even though I have a truck, there are some things with which I have “no truck.” Having no truck comes from the French verb “troquer” which means swap, trade, barter. So when someone says he “has no truck with something,” it means he refuses to have dealings with something. For instance, I have no truck with the Marxist ideal of “redistributing wealth.” I also have no truck with abortion.

On purpose, I try to steer clear of politics on this blog, since the answer to mankind’s problems is the Lord, not politicians. I have to say that I am not wildly enthusiastic about either of the two major candidates in the presidential race, so please do not misconstrue what I’m saying as tacit approval of either candidate. Once again this election year, I will have to plug my nose and vote for one person mainly as a vote against the other person. As much as a third party vote would make me feel good, I need to be able to sleep at night.

This past Friday two young pastors whose blogs I follow both did a blog post which I feel compelled to pass on to my readers in light of our elections in two short weeks. I would really like to urge you to check out these two posts, which I pass on without comment - one on a blog called Pensées and another on a blog called My Two Cents.

I would appreciate your comments on our weekend, the people with no truck, and the matters with which I have no truck. I’ve added a new poll question in the sidebar about your predictions concerning the outcome of the presidential election.

quotation…

“God’s plans will not fail to be accomplished.” - Dr. Drew Conley

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Rob

He who runs behind truck is exhausted. He who runs in front of truck is tired.

Who wants to be the bearer of yet more bad news with all the financial gloom and doom already out there? But something has come to my attention that I feel duty bound to share with my readers. (Here at ivman, we’re known for tackling the hard things as well as doing the fun things.) I’ve just read that uncertainty has now hit the Japanese banking sector. Read on, if you can take it….

In this past 7 days the following has happened in the Japanese banking world:

Origami Bank has folded.

Bonsai Bank announced plans to cut some of its branches.

Sumo Bank has gone belly up.

Yesterday, it was announced that Karaoke Bank is up for sale and will likely go for a song, while today shares in Kamikaze Bank were suspended after they nose-dived.

Samurai Bank is soldiering on, following sharp cutbacks.

Ninja Bank is reported to have taken a hit, but they remain in the black.

500 staff at Karate Bank got the chop, and analysts report that there is something fishy going on at Sushi Bank where it is feared that customers may get a raw deal!

All right, so I’m an incorrigible punster. Some would say, don’t laugh at him - it only incorriges him. But it does do the heart good to chuckle when times are unsettling. Here in America things are so bad that they’ve printed a new dollar bill:

But all joking aside, these financial woes are indeed worldwide and serious, particularly right before the elections here in the USA. There are so many huge issues out there at this time, but this one seems to be front and center, as it should be. As good as it is to be able to laugh a little, it’s definitely no fun at all to watch the stock market roller coaster, knowing that what little we have towards retirement is being affected by what’s going on in the market. That said, we know that God’s promises to care for His children are not dependent on or at the whim of this world’s economics.

What are some of you doing at this time in reaction to the financial situation? Do you have any words of wisdom to share?

quotation…

“I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread.” Psalm 37:25

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Rob

Q: What is the difference between a banker and a pigeon?
A: A pigeon can still afford to put a deposit on a Ferrari.

I received a cartoon from a reader that got me thinking about the current sensation known as social networking. Although it’s primarily a rage among the younger generation, many older folks are into it as well. Some readers might remember my telling earlier this year about a long-time family friend (and ivman reader, I might add), a widower in his eighties who met a widow in her eighties using eHarmony. They are now happily married.

Anyway, below is the cartoon I received:

Facebook is a intriguing concept and being “friends” on Facebook is an interesting phenomenon. People are able to get back in touch with people that they have known but with whom they’ve lost contact. It’s been great fun to find an old acquaintance on Facebook or to hear from someone out of the clear blue and get caught up on their lives. Once in a while, though, when someone asks me to become friends on Facebook, I really have to think hard to come up with how we know each other. If I can’t think of it, I just confirm, rather than hurt someone’s feelings. As of this writing, my “friend” count is 632! One colleague (and ivman reader) is 41 friends shy of 2,000! It was fun last week to have over 80 friends “write on my wall” to wish me happy birthday in at least 4 languages, some even offering condolences! Most of those people, however, would never have known or remembered it was my birthday, had it not been for Facebook. There are all kinds of other forms of social networking out there, some better than others, and some far worse than others.

One form of social networking that I have not explored and am not sure I would even want to is Twitter. This fall I attended a workshop during Faculty In-Service called “To Twitter or Not to Twitter.” The presenter of the workshop has a business where he requires all his employees to Twitter. I cannot imagine that there would be that many people who would be interested in wanting to get frequent updates on my every movement and thought. Do any of you Twitter? If so, what do you like about it?

I saw a cartoon a while back that kind of sums up what I’ve seen happen on several blogs I used to visit….

I don’t want that to happen to my blog!

Living in an age of technology and almost instantaneous communication, we might be surprised to learn how advanced some older societies actually were….

Ancient Social Networks

After having dug to a depth of 10 meters last year, Scottish scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 100 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 100 years ago.

Not to be outdone by the Scots, in the weeks that followed, English scientists dug to a depth of 20 meters, and shortly after, headlines in the English newspapers read, “English archaeologists have found traces of 200-year-old copper wire and have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network a hundred years earlier than the Scots.”

One week later, “The Kerrymen,” a southwest Irish newsletter, reported the following: “After digging as deep as 30 meters in peat bog near Tralee, Paddy O’Droll, a self-taught archaeologist, reported that he found absolutely nothing. Paddy has therefore concluded that 300 years ago, Ireland had already gone wireless.”

One of the fun things about Facebook is viewing and accessing pictures posted by your friends. Our daughter Megan recently posted some pictures of our grandson Drew who enjoys pointing to his facial features to show he knows the words. I’ve put them together in a collage….

We’re looking forward to some wonderfully real social networking later this month when we rendez-vous for a weekend in Cincinnati with our daughter, son-in-law, and grandson. I’ll tell you all about it in a future blog post.

I cannot begin to list all various social media, but here are a few - online social networks (like Facebook), blogging, e-mail, text messaging, instant messaging, Twitter, etc. In many ways social networking strikes me as paradoxical - it focuses on relationships and community, but it also seems to encourage our human bent towards narcissism. The whole concept brings many questions to my mind. What are your thoughts about some of the various forms of social networking? Do you participate in it? Does it strengthen or weaken relationships? Does it deepen or cheapen friendship? How many close friendships is it possible to maintain at once? Are there dangers in today’s social networking? I look forward to some good discussions in the comments to this post.

quotation…

“Our hearts are idol factories.” - John Calvin

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Rob

Your secrets are safe with me and all my friends.