It has been well over a month since I posted last. That has not been so much by design as it has been a result of just being busy. It was summer break from school, which would certainly make one think that the schedule would be less hectic, but that was not the case. In addition to all of the things that go on around a school during the summer months to prepare for the start of a new school year, I took two graduate courses this summer and between two different trips with my family was away from home for three weeks, putting seventy-five hundred miles on our car and traveling through seventeen states. It was a great summer, and while I did on occasion think about things I would like to blog or blog about, it just never happened.

Now, however, the summer hiatus is over, school has resumed and, oddly enough, I think things may actually slow down a bit and fall back into a routine. Hopefully that will also mean I will have an opportunity to resume blogging more regularly, too. Stay tuned!

Last year I looked at my reading over the previous five years, since I had started to keep track. I figure it will be easier to look back annually now rather than wait another five years. So, what did I read in 2012? The total was sixty-one books (not counting all the books I read to my children!) and here is a brief overview…

I started the year with Tullian Tchividjian’s Surprised by Grace. This is a short book but provides an interesting look at the book of Jonah, and brings some perspectives I had never before considered. Tchividjian also includes a number of artistic works that have been inspired by Jonah over the years, and weaves those into the text, providing another unique perspective on its own.

Next was John Paul Stevens’ Five Chiefs, a look at the history of the Supreme Court and, in particular, the Chief Justices that Stevens served under. I found the book to a fascinating look at the behind-the-scenes workings of the nation’s highest court.

Both of those books were Christmas presents, which is probably why I started with them. One thing that is a guaranteed perfect fit for me anytime is a book (or a giftcard for books).

I read my share of fiction throughout the year, as I usually do, mixing it in with my other reading. I read the latest offerings from several authors I enjoy, including David Baldacci’s Zero Day, Tom Clancy’s Locked On (written with M. Greaney), John Grisham’s Calico Joe (a departure from what Grisham most often writes, but consistent with his occasional foray into sports-themed stories, and a pleasant read for a baseball fan), Jeffrey Archer’s The Sins of the Father (part two of a series set to continue early this year), the third installment in Grisham’s detective series for teens, Theodore Boone: The Accused, and Baldacci’s The Innocent. Elizabeth George’s This Body of Death is another installment in her Inspector Lynley series, though I don’t know that it was the most recent one. James Patterson’s Private Games used the London Olympics as the setting for a private detective agency that was in charge of Olympics security dealing with the assassination of several athletes. By way of classic fiction I read Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory, an interesting look at the Mexican persecution of the Catholic church, and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird, an excellent book. A few other fiction selections were sprinkled in, as well.

In the area of history, several excellent books made my list in 2012. Laurence Bergreen’s Columbus provides a thorough yet entirely readable look at the life of Christopher Columbus, from his early years to his efforts to find backing for his voyage heading west from Europe, to his resulting multiple voyages made under the Spanish flag. Robert Seager II’s And Tyler Too is a nice biography of president John Tyler–the vice president who became president just one month into his term after William Henry Harrison got sick on inauguration day and never recovered. Black Hills Believables by John Hafnor is a short book, easy to read, and full of fun and interesting facts about South Dakota’s Black Hills. I had no idea that the Black Hills has been considered as the site for UN headquarters. Michael Lind’s What Lincoln Believed is a book that I found to be not only not well written, but difficult to accept as accurate. Lind introduces many things about Lincoln’s faith and attitude toward religion that I have never read anywhere else or ever heard, and given the overwhelming number of books that have been written about Abraham Lincoln it just seems to stretch plausibility that Lind has access to materials, or some profound insights, that no one else has. Edward Larson’s A Magnificent Catastrophe is a fascinating look at the election of 1800, the first presidential “campaign” in American history. William Hallahan’s The Day The American Revolution Began provides a unique perspective of the events leading up to the Revolutionary War from various angles and in various geographic locations. Thomas Fleming’s The Perils of Peace makes clear that life in America was not all fine and dandy after the Revolutionary War ended. In fact, there were major struggles that the young nation faced, sometimes threatening its survival. Jeffrey St. John’s Forge of Union, Anvil of Liberty is the last in his three-volume work on early American history. Written in a journalistic style, the book is full of short “reports” from the perspective of live reporting. And Robert Merry’s A Country of Vast Designs is an extensive but very good look at the presidency of James K. Polk, the process of American annexation of Texas, the war with Mexico, and the expansion of the U.S. to include not only Texas, but most of the southwest and northwest.

In biography and autobiography my reading included William Hague’s William Wilberforce, an exhaustive look at the life of Britain’s strongest opponent of slavery; David Barton’s The Jefferson Lies (I think I come down somewhere in the middle on the controversy surrounding this book; I don’t think Barton made up some of the “facts” in his book, as has been suggested by some, but I think he may have taken unjustifiable liberty with his interpretation of some of them); Ira Stoll’s Samuel Adams: A Life, a good biography of one of the more important yet often overlooked founders of the country; and the autobiographies of two Olympic gymnasts, Off Balance by Dominique Moceanu and Winning Balance by Shawn Johnson. The difference in experiences presented in these two books is incredible. Johnson grew up doing gymnastics for fun, with parents who were supportive but not focused on world-level success and a coach who was understanding, caring and recognized that Shawn was a teenage girl, not a machine. Moceanu, on the other hand, grew up with a domineering father focused almost exclusively on seeing her become an Olympic gymnast. She loved gymnastics, but it is nothing short of incredible that she did–and still does–after what she went through because of it. Her book also provides a very different perspective of Bela and Marta Karolyi than comes through in the NBC vignettes during the summer Olympics and reveals serious flaws in the selection process for Olympic gymnasts in the U.S.

I read a variety of books in the area of spiritual and personal growth, too. Erwin Raphael McManus’s Soul Cravings is a collection of essays that read like journal entries and focuses on the fact that only God’s love can fulfill the cravings of our souls; Bob Lepine’s The Christian Husband is a good overview and reminder of what it means to be a Christian husband; A.W. Tozer’s classic The Knowledge of the Holy is a classic for a reason; John MacArthur’s Worship: The Ultimate Priority is a good reminder of some things that seem to get lost at times in the world of PowerPoint slides and praise teams; Louie Giglio’s i am not, but i know I AM is a short and easy to read yet profound book that very powerfully points out how little we are, how awesome God is, and yet the relationship that is still available between Him and us; Jerry Bridges’ The Pursuit of Holiness is another classic book for good reason, and is, like most of Bridges’ writing, short while packing a theological punch; John Piper’s Think is an excellent reminder of why intellectual strength is so important for believers; Joshua Harris’s book Dug Down Deep is a good reminder of the importance of really knowing what we believe and why, even though Harris and I do not agree on every detail; James Dobson’s Bringing Up Girls was a helpful reminder for me as the father of a daughter, though I do not remember anything earth shattering in the book and, overall, I thought it was an unimpressive product for something that he claims to have spent five years working on; John MacArthur’s Twelve Unlikely Heroes provides interesting looks into some of the less-well-known heroes of the Bible; and Brennan Manning’s The Ragamuffin Gospel was a good reminder of the fact that we often fail to grasp how awesome God’s grace and mercy are and to remember that there is truly nothing we can do to merit it.

There were a few books that did not fall easily into any of the above categories: Lighthouse Families was written by a husband and wife team and contains fascinating looks back at the lives of lighthouse keepers and their families; Ronald Davis’s The Gift of Dyslexia and Brock and Fernette Eide’s The Dyslexic Advantage both provided unique and interesting insights into what it means to have dyslexia and why that is not necessarily a disability; Gerald Twombley’s Funding Your Vision is an easy-to-read primer for anyone involved in fund raising and development; Larry Sabato’s A More Perfect Constitution offers a stimulating look at the Constitution and possibilities for improvement–I did not agree with all of them, but the book is very thought-provoking; Oliver Van DeMille’s A Thomas Jefferson Education provides a fascinating look at what education could be like if approached completely differently than it usually is (though I found it interesting to learn after reading it that DeMille is no longer with the school he founded and the school denies any remaining connection with him); Peter Schweitzer’s Throw Them All Out provides a startling overview of how our elected officials (in Washington) leave office much more wealthy than they enter it; Rick Santorum’s American Patriots offers a brief look at some of the influential but lesser-known figures in America’s founding era; and Marita Littauer’s Wired That Way offers insight into how the personality types impact our behavior, our interactions with each other, and even our spiritual development–though little in the book will be new to anyone who has read other books analyzing the personality types.

This list doesn’t name all sixty-one books (though it comes close) but it gives a good idea of what interest me and what I thought of the books I read. Probably the only one I would not recommend (or, more accurately, would recommend not reading) is Lind’s look at Lincoln. Happy reading!

My last post marked my 100th since I launched this blog last fall. The number 100 has a certain appeal to it, I think. I always hoped to see a 100 on an assignment in school. I try to give one hundred percent in any task I take on or any game I play. I can still remember the first time I saw a $100 bill, when my Grandma Watson took me shopping to buy Christmas presents for my parents and brother. And, ever since FDR, the First 100 Days is seen as a bit of a trial period to see what a new president will be able to complete during that initial honeymoon period when (presumably) public approval of him is high and good will is still present in the Capitol.

So, it would seem amiss not to note the achievement of reaching my 100th post, and to reflect on what, if anything, I have accomplished in those posts.

First, I have to pause and ask myself if I am surprised that I made it this far. To be honest, the launch of this blog was sort of a whim. I had been reading some blog postings for a blog that one of our high school teachers was using to engage his students in thoughtful discussion through technology. It was their posts that got me to thinking about doing some blogging of my own. I had blogged before, but sparingly. And though I tend to have plenty of opinions and ideas, the possibility of typing them out on a regular basis is not something I had ever seriously considered. Any efforts I have made to journal over the years have fizzled in short order, and I suspected a blog might end up the same way. One major difference, I think, is that the blog is not for my own consumption. Others read it, and, frankly, it has been the feedback that I have received from those who have read it that has probably kept me going. I have ceased to be surprised at who might find this little corner of the web and take the time to read my musings.

Second, I have to pause and ask myself whether I have accomplished anything through the blog–or maybe a better question would be is accomplishing something necessary in order to continue? To answer the second question first, I think there needs to be more purpose in it than simply spouting off about current events, and I think I have succeeded in addressing current events but not doing so in an offensive or overly partisan manner, and not in such a way that would tend to turn this site into another political blog. (If you disagree, please feel free to comment and set me straight!) That does not mean that I have shied away from current events that I felt required addressing, nor will I do so in the future.

Third, though, I think I have learned through blogging that my own thoughts and experiences and, dare I say, insights, can be an encouragement and a blessing to others. Simply sharing what I have learned and am learning as I walk along the road of life can be a means of ministry. I think that blogging has proven to be an ideal venue for me to do this because I am more comfortable expressing myself in writing than in conversation in many instances. I am not as shy as I once was in interacting with others, but, for whatever reason, I rarely need conversation and I still tend to avoid small talk. If someone asks me a question I am happy to answer, and if I have something to say I will certainly say it, but I do not go out of my way to strike up a conversation very often. So for those of you who do interact with me “in real life” please don’t be offended by that! I do not intend to be standoffish or unapproachable, and I’m not mean (I promise!)…I just don’t feel the need to talk!

However, the Lord has revealed to me over the last fifteen to twenty years that things that I might not think are that important or that meaningful sometimes are to someone else, and therefore, if any erring is to be done, I should probably err on the side of sharing rather than not. I can still recall many a Sunday evening church service when the song leader or pastor would ask for people to share praises or testimonies, and many times that my mother would speak up and share something that had happened during the previous week and how the Lord had worked in the situation. It saddens me to say that there were quite a few times that I would sit in my pew thinking, “Who cares, Mom? Big deal!” I mean, compared to someone being delivered from a drug addiction or healed of a life-threatening illness, overcoming the challenge of a flat tire is really not that important, right? Well, wrong, I have learned. While there are dramatic and exciting instances like the drug addicts and cancer survivors–and those are important and valuable examples of the power and mercy of God–God does not only, or even usually, work in such big ways. God is in the details. He cares about the little things in life, and He does desire that we talk to Him about the flat tires of life. He can reveal Himself through those seemingly minor inconveniences–when we let Him and take the time to seek Him. I’m hard-headed, I guess, but I hope I have finally learned that my mom was right; sharing those testimonies are important, too. So if my comments on a book I read, a recent news story, a personal experience or a truth I have gleaned in my own walk can encourage you, praise God. I am humbled that people are reading and benefiting from my rambling.

And Lord willing, I’ll still be at it after another hundred entries….

Wow…I cannot believe more than a week has gone by since I last posted a blog entry! I’m still around…things have just been very busy with the end of the school year and all of the activities that go along with that. Today is the last day for teachers to work, and so I should start to see things slow down a bit, meaning I should have time to blog again! Good thing, too…because I have plenty of ideas for things to blog about.

I suspect we may be able to find more than one, but let’s suppose we could find only one thing that everyone reading this has in common. Every one of us, from the youngest to the oldest, has hopes and wishes for the future. There may be absolutely nothing that we can do to make some of them come true no matter how hard we might try. There’s nothing wrong with wishing for those things, but we ought not to spend too much time thinking about them either. Instead, we should focus on those things which we can influence.

I have always been a fan of Mr. Rogers. He had this to say about wishes: “What makes the difference between wishing and realizing our wishes? Lots of things, of course, but the main one, I think is whether we link our wishes to our active work. It may take months or years, but it’s far more likely to happen when we care so much that we’ll work as hard as we can to make it happen. And when we’re working toward the realization of our wishes, some of our greatest strengths come from the encouragement of people who care about us.”

Mr. Rogers hits a couple of very important points. First of all is our willingness to actively work toward the accomplishment of a goal or a wish. In “the real world” wishes only come true by hard work, dedication and self discipline. No matter how long it takes to make the wish come true, it is much more likely to come true when “we work as hard as we can to make it happen.”

The other important thing that Mr. Rogers said was that, “some of our greatest strengths come from them encouragement of people who care about us.” Never underestimate the importance of the people who care about you. The people who care about you are the people who will be there with you and for you through the rough times and through the good times. When you want to give up they’ll be there to help you keep going. When you reach the top they’ll be there to help you celebrate your success. When your success goes to your head they’ll be there to remind you where you came from. When you start to lose your temper they’ll help you stay cool. When you feel like you’ve reached the end of your rope and no one cares anymore they’ll be there to remind you otherwise.

We all have dreams and wishes. Some of them are more realistic than others, but what they all have in common is that we will have to work for them. Mr. Rogers also tells the story of wanting to learn to play the clarinet when he was eight or ten years old. “I just didn’t practice the clarinet,” he wrote, “so I didn’t learn. I think I wanted to learn by magic. I think that I had the idea that if I got the clarinet I would somehow know how to play it. But magic doesn’t work with learning, not with anything worthwhile.” Anything you’ll ever accomplish in life that is worth accomplishing will take hard work, self discipline and dedication. Don’t give up. Don’t stop dreaming. But don’t limit yourself to dreaming, either. Be willing to work to make your dreams come true. And don’t forget the people along the way who help you get there.

This week is national Teacher Appreciation Week. As an school administrator I take note of this week specifically because it serves as a great reminder to tell the teachers in my school how much I appreciate them, but it also prompts to think about the importance of teachers.

Yesterday I was reflecting back on my own teachers, trying to see how many of them I could remember. I can remember, by name, every teacher I had for every subject through sixth grade. For seventh through twelfth there a handful whose names I cannot remember (and in some cases even whose faces I cannot remember!). Like anyone else, I could tell stories of teachers that I loved, and teachers that I loathed. The first teacher I remember loving was Mrs. Irwin, my second grade teacher. I can remember a lot of things about my second grade year, from the layout of the classroom, to some of the spelling words I had, to how I somehow managed (with a little help from my mom) to plan a surprise birthday party for Mrs. Irwin, complete with cake, balloons, and a gift that the entire class contributed toward. I can still clearly remember playing “Around the World” with vocabulary words in second grade. I always did quite well, but for some reason that year I had a mental block on the word “head,” and every time Mrs. Irwin would flash that card I would say “heed.” It got to be a bit of a joke in the class, actually.

I could also tell stories of teachers I did not expect to like, but did. Ms. Nelson, my third grade teacher, was one of those. My elementary school had an open design, so there were no walls between classrooms. Their spaces were delineated by changes in carpet color and by shelves and cabinets on wheels that were arranged to provide semi-walls between classes. Thanks to this arrangement, though, I could hear Ms. Nelson quite often while I was in Mrs. Irwin’s class, and I thought Ms. Nelson was quite possible the meanest teacher in the school. Turns out I very much enjoyed her class, though, and she wasn’t mean at all so long as I did what I was supposed to do.

I had some wonderful teachers in middle school, high school, college and graduate school, too. I also had some that were not all that great. Or at least I didn’t think they were. Quite possibly some of those teachers were able to connect well with other students. The worst teacher I ever had is a no-brainer; my fourth grade teacher, hands down. In order to protect the guilty, though, she shall remain unnamed. But it was the teachers like Mrs. Irwin, Mr. Urbain (one my high school history teachers), Mr. Marty (one of my college professors, who had his doctorate but preferred to be addressed as Mr.) and Dr. Jones (one of my grad school professors) who immediately come to mind as the best teachers I ever had.

Why were they the best? For one or both of two reasons, I think. They took an interest in me as an individual, not just as a student, and they loved what they did. All of them were very knowledgeable in their field, but knowledge by itself is not enough. I have been through lectures given by teachers who were undoubtedly brilliant, but they had absolutely no personality, no enthusiasm, and/or no inclination of how to make whatever it was they were droning on about relevant to me or anyone else in the room. Great teachers connect with their students, get to know them, care about them and not just about their grades. They also teach their classes in a way that makes their students look forward to finding out what they will learn next.

It was not until college, in Mr. Marty’s classes, that I ever had a teacher give any indication that he desired to learn from his students, not just to have his students learn from him. That, too, is a mark of a great teacher. A great teacher is well aware of the fact that he does not know everything, and is not afraid to say so. He never stops learning. He learns because he enjoys learning, and he teaches because he enjoys sharing what he has learned with others, and helping them learn, too.

Great teachers also stretch their students. They take them outside of their comfort zones. They do not do it obnoxiously, and they do not put students on the spot and embarrass them, but they do help their students expand their horizons. Mr. Marty was really good at that, too. He had high expectations for each of his students, and he would not let them shy away from a challenging task or take the easy way out when he knew they could do more. He never did let up on me when he learned that I had taken the easiest math class the university had to offer to satisfy my math credit requirement. During one honors class, entitled “Lincoln at Gettysburg: Propositions of Equality,” Mr. Marty instructed us to bring to the next class a question about Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. It could be any question, so long as it was something we thought it would be interesting to know about Lincoln and the speech. Well, truth be told, I did not put a lot of planning or forethought into the assignment. At the next class, we had to write our questions on a 3×5 card and turn them in to him. He then read them out loud to the class. Before doing so, though, he said that we were going to use the questions submitted as the topics for a research paper that we were to write. We could select from any of the questions submitted. At least that’s what he said. Then he came to my question: “Lincoln’s speech includes the line, ‘The world will little note nor long remember what we say here.’ How, if at all, would Lincoln have changed his address if he knew that it would still be studied and quoted more than century later?” Guess what? After reading that, and commenting that it was a very interesting question, Mr. Marty looked and me and said that he was going to require me to write my paper on that question. Wow… I was less than thrilled. Quite frankly, I thought it was an interesting question for a parlor game discussion, but I could not imagine trying to actually answer it. And yet, I did manage to answer it. I got an A on the paper, too.

Great teachers also help their students find answers without necessarily giving them answers. Another of my college professors did this most memorably after TNT aired a movie called Andersonville, about the Confederate prison of that name that held Union POWs. I asked Dr. Summerhill one day if he had seen the movie, and he said he had seen some of it but had not watched it in its entirety. I said I had asked because I was curious as to the historical accuracy of the film. His response? “Why don’t you do some research on Andersonville and then you can tell me how accurate it was.” See, I had wanted the quick and easy answer, and he called me on it. So, I did. And three or four books later I had learned that movie actually did a respectable job of sticking to the facts. My mother used this approach, too, from as long ago as I can remember. “Mom,” I might ask, “how do you spell [whatever the word was I needed at the time]?” Her response? “Look it up.”

So I am grateful for the great teachers that I have had, and I have admiration and respect for every teacher who goes into teaching for the right reasons and does his or her best to provide an excellent education for the students in his or her class. If you happen to still be in touch with any of the great teachers you had, perhaps this would be a nice occasion to make a phone call, send an e-mail or drop a note letting them know how much you appreciate how they influenced your life. Next time I will talk more about teachers, and Christian school teachers specifically.