Be Careful

I was reading the chapter six in my stats textbook which is an introduction to probability. I didn’t think I needed an introduction to this word having been a teacher and a mother for more than 20 years:

Mom, can my friend spend the night?

Probably.

Teacher, if it stops raining can we go out for recess?

Probably.

See what I mean? I have used the word well over the years. My life experience caused me to approach the practice problems in the back of the chapter with unusual confidence; until I saw question number three:

3. What is the probability of selecting a score greater than 45 from a positively skewed distribution with M=40 and SD=10?

The question itself is more of that stats gobbled-gook that I happily ignore but it was the warning after the question that caught my eye:

(be careful.)

The author of my stats text does not have to worry. I am doing my best to be careful in that class.

In my Bible reading for today I found the following verse that has its own warning:

Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and He relents from sending calamity. Joel 2:13

Because our God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, we can be careful to rend our hearts and not our garments. The stats question was a trick question but God does not trick. He doesn’t want actors who make a show of repentance; tearing clothes and dramatically vowing to repent only to proceed to repeat previous behavior. He wants us to rend our hearts. He wants us to expose ourselves to Him. He wants us to be vulnerable to His love and grace. Then we can feel His abounding love.

I have some good friends sitting in a hospital family room making decisions about a loved one’s care. The statements of probability they hear from the doctor are not good. Their hearts are exposed to their God and they are vulnerable to His love and grace. The decisions they will make are serious and real and so they are being careful.

They are a large and loving family. Their father is being tended to by doctors and nurses and their mother gathers with her daughters and sons. They have each other and this is no small thing: together they pray for their husband, father and grandfather. Together they explain to their children what is happening and together they share their strong faith. Together they work and plan and and sigh and cry as new news from the doctor brings new decisions to be made.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God, Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Hebrews 12: 1-3

They are not alone. This family forms a cloud of witnesses around their husband and father and their friends gather around them in prayer. Hovering above, around and in, this circle of children of God is their heavenly father loving and caring for them. This verse does not tell them to “be careful.” It tells them to throw off their coats and run. It tells them to do this with their eyes fixed on Jesus. He knows how they feel, He knows what they need to do, and He runs the race with them.

How does the universe conspire

I had the joy of 20 plus years in a job where I was required to share my faith in everything I did or said. Now I find myself in a school where I am strongly discouraged from expressing myself from the core of my being. My faith expressions have to be compartmentalized into a cordoned off area of my brain. I must look for new ways to express parts of my philosophy that have been a great influence on what I have said and come to believe. Sometimes it is impossible to rewrite the answers to suit a secular world. How do I reword something that begins “I am a precious child of God . . .?”

I was working through an assignment for my seminar class when I came across a question that began: “How does the universe conspire . . .?” I couldn’t quite believe my eyes. I am not a student of the universe. I know God made it but I wasn’t there to know if He did it quietly or accompanied Himself with a big bang. I know the universe is huge, much bigger than what my puny brain can imagine. I hear that it is always expanding, but then again, it might be contracting. However, I have never been able to assign human characteristics to the universe. Does it really conspire? Can it even think, much less plan and orchestrate our futures? More importantly, why am I seemingly studying astrology in my Psychology seminar class?

I know that I am guaranteed freedom of speech in the classes I take. I have the right to answer that question by asserting that my Heavenly Father plans my life, but I also know that assigning god-like characteristics to my God’s creation will be somehow better accepted. What I don’t understand is why this is true. If Humanists want a world without my God then why do they keep creating gods out of their world or the people who live in it?

Guess what? Mother Nature isn’t a mother and she doesn’t conspire either! Although, it has not escaped my notice that I have had to work for every major snow and ice storm this year, so I am not so sure about the weather. It definitely seems to be conspiring against me. This week will be the test. Yesterday, after church, someone walked off with my coat. If the temperatures drop below freezing I might have proof that the weather is out to get me. I’ll keep you updated.

It fascinates me how we as humans live a life that is so insecure that we conspire to create a god while simultaneously denying the God who does exist. We have a God who is all powerful, complete, all-knowing, benevolent and deeply interested in every aspect of our lives. Yet, we set Him aside and work to create some other supreme and mysterious being who guides our puny lives. I used to wonder why the Israelites would set aside God to worship a chunk of gold in the shape of a cow but I see evidence of this same behavior all around me. More importantly I see evidence of that behavior in my life.

The calf – a craftsman has made it; it is not God. It will be broken in pieces the calf of Samaria. They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. Hosea 8:6-7

Whenever I think I am responsible for my talents and the opportunities I find to use them - I create a golden calf. Whenever I worry over my life decisions - I give that calf a place of honor in my heart. Whenever I am sure that the world needs me to fix things - I kneel down and worship the idol I have put into my own heart. If I wonder why secular humanists create gods out of the universe and why scientists create gods out of nature, then I must ask myself, someone who ought to know better, why I create false gods too.

My God is powerful and all knowing and He can and does orchestrate His will in spite of me and not because of me. It is a true blessing in my life when He uses me to accomplish His will. It is not the weather or the universe that conspire either for me or against me. It is my God who loves me unconditionally.

Abba, Father, Amen.

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone – while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? Job 38: 4-7

Beating the system

One thing that I have lost in the process of leaving teaching to become a student, is the sense of community. I don’t have people I see on a daily basis who become an important part of my life because of our care for each other, because of our sharing of joys and sorrows and humorous moments. I haven’t lost any friends; in fact I have made some new ones, but I have lost the fellowship of a regular group of people. My friends and acquaintances change with the semester. It is a new way of being a friend.

One such friend and I meet on a weekly basis. We do not have class together but we both wait for our next class in an empty room. I share my cookies (my class is a 3 hour late night class that requires a snack for survival) and he shares his confession. He is an undergrad and I am obviously old enough to be his mother but not related enough to hold him accountable for what he confesses. It can get interesting.

The other week he told me about a scheme he has for passing mastery tests for a class he is taking. These tests are offered on computer and the students need to keep taking the tests until they have demonstrated “mastery” via a minimum score. My friend has found a way around the built in safeguards. He takes the test and marks each multiple choice question with an “a.” The computer then tells him what he got wrong and he takes the test again and marks all of those answers with a “b.” After repeating this procedure four times he has achieved a 100% score without reading any questions. Given the fact that I teach an undergraduate test and assessment class, and due to my many years working in early childhood I harbor a particular distrust for this kind of assessment, I had the best laugh I have experienced in years.

I enjoy talking with him, but let’s just say I am glad I am not his mother or his professor. The teacher in me wanted to suggest that he just read the questions and possibly learn something; however, he went on to confess that the only book he has read in the last four years was one he reluctantly read to combat boredom when he spent 2 days in jail. Somehow I didn’t think that my suggestion would be helpful.

Any parent or teacher finds this kind of story familiar. We all know people who will go to great lengths to avoid what they need to do to learn or even to get on with life. We have used familiar phrases like “quit complaining and get it done!” or “if you put half the effort into the task that you put into the avoidance of it you would be done by now.” My dad used to sum it all up in “girl, you’d cut off your nose to spite your face.” A phrase he used with me almost as often as “you’d lose your head if it weren’t attached.” I was an interesting, troubled child.

As a student I have assignments I do not want to do because I know at a gut level that they will not work with my learning style. I hate busy work; I hate papers written only to please the professor. When I am learning I create my own busy work and I learn best when I am allowed some choice in what to include in my writing or project. However, I am a mature (read: old) student and I buckle down and do the work, useless as it may be. I suppose this is why, as a teacher, I prefer to work with adult students to help them design a project that shows me what they have learned. It is a time consuming way to teach, but hopefully an effective method.

I have been thinking about the mastery quiz story and giggling over it for a week or so. The fact that it replays itself in my head suggests I have something to learn from it besides: don’t give mastery tests to students who really, really don’t like to read. Since my father assures me that I have a long history of “cutting off my nose to spite my face” I suspect I have aspects of this syndrome in my faith life. I can’t identify the issue quite yet; I am still mulling over it all in my head. However, I bet it has to do with some issue that I needlessly fight over and over; one of those “bang your head against the wall” situations. I am the rat in the maze that refuses to learn that I need to turn LEFT to get the cheese. I am just certain that I am RIGHT.

As a teacher I make mistakes all the time. As my Teacher, God never makes a mistake. The lessons He has for me are always what I need to learn about my faith and my relationship with Him. If I am struggling with an issue it is not because God has given me the wrong assignment. It is most likely because I am trying to beat the system, I am trying to get out of the lesson, I am complaining about the time and effort instead of just following His will or because I am certain that I am right.

If I could just stop struggling, complaining, insisting, whining and trying to wiggle out of things, then maybe I could manage to just be still and know that He is God.

Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. Psalm 46:10

Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. Fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear Him lack nothing. The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing. Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. Psalm 34:8-11

Mean, median and more

I’m living in a statistics fog. I have an arduous study schedule for each chapter of the text for my stats class:


1. Read the chapter and take notes
2. Complete sample problems in the chapter
3. Go to supplementary web site and study with the tools offered there
4. Complete online quiz
5. Complete sample quiz in the chapter
6. Go to the professor’s on-line site and complete the sample quiz
7. Cry and eat chocolate
8. Struggle through class, anyway
9. Start all over for the next chapter


Things just don’t stick in my brain. I love words. I love the experience of losing myself in a good description, of precise analogies rolling across the page; I love tasting the words in poems and savoring the blessings of a well written devotion. I especially love God’s Word and how it teaches and heals.


I just don’t get numbers. They are only numbers, to me; they do not conjure up symbols as they are intended to. Numbers just stand there and mock me; reminding me that they will always be outside of my reach. For brief moments I think I understand, and then the feeling passes. In statistics talk, the frequency of my distribution is skewed negatively toward panic.


Right now I am managing to stay at a “B” level with the practice quizzes. However, the practice quizzes are easier than the graded quizzes which are easier than the unit tests which are easier than the final. I am also painfully aware that I need to do better than a “C” on this class or it will be strongly encouraged that I repeat the class. Then, I mistakenly look ahead and see at least two other harder stats classes that I need to take looming in the future. I am left standing dejected and forlorn.


It is really hard to keep myself from chuckin’ it all out the window and going to the kitchen to bake brownies. Of course, if I did that, my textbook would probably crash through the heat pump and then I would be dejected, forlorn and cold . . .but, I would have brownies.


Empathy is a strange thing. We look at the struggle of our neighbor but we cannot understand unless we can connect it to something we ourselves have experienced. When I struggle to understand my text or to keep my focus on the professor when his words mean little to me, I get a small taste of what my son deals with everyday in most of his classes. He is an intelligent person with a brain that works differently than the way his teachers teach. When I give myself a break to do some reading and writing, to remind myself that it is possible for me to think in a coherent manner, I get a small taste of why Joel loves computers.


When I look ahead to the seemingly impossible task of passing this 800 level class only to find that I am merely at base camp for the real climb of two 900 level stats classes, then I get a small glimpse of what my young friend feels on a daily basis when he wishes he didn’t have to be in a wheel chair. When I feel like crying in class because I look around and see the faces of classmates who all seem to understand, I know, a little bit, how Elliot feels when he races to catch up with friends on the playground.


When my own brain causes me to fail and fail again in the minor task of learning how to interpret formulas with Greek letters, I get a small glimpse into the life of my friends and family members whose bodies attack themselves in the form of MS and Alzheimer’s. I can’t know what they are feeling, or what their lives are like, but I can get a small glimpse into the struggle that will hopefully help me to love them better.


It is true that we cannot love except that God loves us first. It is also true that we cannot empathize except that God first had empathy for us. He sent His Son to live with us, to feel with us, to struggle and succeed with us. He sent His Son to BE us. He is able to perfectly empathize and to perfectly love us. In this way we know that when we go to Him in prayer, when we drop all of our struggles, pain and sorrows in His lap, He really does know how we feel. More importantly, he knows how we can feel better. Sometimes He takes the pain and struggle away from us, and sometime He walks us through it. He gently reminds us that He did not walk away from the pain He endured for us.


I just need to be reminded that God invented statistics; He invented statistics to help me and not to harm me. My text book may only give me the answers to the even numbered questions, but God has all the answers. God will lead me to pray and study, to find friends who can help, and pray again. He will also lead me to pray for, and serve, the loved ones who struggle in their own lives so I don’t center myself on my insignificant struggles. Then He will lead me to pray some more.


After that, I will bake brownies (with sprinkles on top.)

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you;
I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 36: 26

Hope in the face of serious math

After 25+ years of teaching young children and 15+years of teaching adults, I understand the importance of hope as it relates to learning. I have seen the research that says that children who have confidence that they can do something are more likely to achieve their goal regardless of ability. I have taught many, many children how to tie their shoes; I could predict which children would learn this skill in a short amount of time based primarily on how confident they were. I even realize that “hope” is a strong emotional skill that promotes a healthy life and effective learning.

I know all of this in my head but my heart is faltering. I am struggling with a lack of hope.

I am taking a statistics class. I actually took this class about 20 years ago for my Masters program. My Dad was the teacher and he graciously passed me. I distinctly remember the day he told us we did not have to worry about completing the math calculations when we did research because our computers would do that for us. I remember a curious whooshing sound coming from my brain. I suspect it was the sound of my brain’s hard drive purging itself of everything it had struggled to learn. Now, I think to myself: “why do I have to prove on quizzes and tests that I can do this math if I won’t have to do it later? Really, I can just trust the experts that it works.”

My current professor is very much like my Dad: he talks very slowly and distinctly as if that will help us to understand, (bless his heart) he tells the same kind of jokes, (all of my Dad’s former students can recite his favorite jokes) he took each person’s picture so he can remember names (my Dad even took my picture) and he is missing the tip of a finger just like my Dad. I realize that this is a rather small sample of the whole population of statistics professors but I hope a fingertip is not the price of working in this field. As a writer, I really need the tips of all of my fingers. And for this class I need all of my fingers to do the math.

I sit in class and do my best to not allow my mind to wander in between the slow easy cadence of his words. I work hard to focus, I take notes, and I read and reread the chapter, check other sources, do the practice quizzes and bring the professor chocolate chip cookies. Yet, I don’t feel that anything I am learning is sticking with me. I definitely lack hope. It is a blessing that I have many people praying for me. Not only do I have to pass this class, but I have to take two more just like it.

Our president-elect knows about hope. His hope is audacious. His hope comes from surviving a difficult up-bringing and going on to achieve great things despite a world that struggles with prejudice and hate. He will need this hope as he heads into his presidency. This country will need his hope, also. Keep him in your prayers.

The hope we have as children of God is audacious in a different way. It is not a hope based on our own goodness or abilities. It is not a hope derived from our own struggles or accomplishments. It is definitely not a hope that rises up from our past. It is a hope based on a God who loved us so much He sent His one and only Son. Our hope is an assurance born of the Resurrection. It is audacious because we do not deserve it. We are math idiots in a graduate level statistics class with no chance that we can learn on our own. We are sinners who are assured heaven even though we do not deserve it and could never attain it on our own. Yet, we have hope; God will do what He has promised.

In my daily Bible reading I just finished Jeremiah and Lamentations and am currently working through Ezekiel. Talk about a time without hope. Israel was in trouble, big trouble, and a just punishment was raining down hard and fast. But, just as a child being sternly reprimanded by a loving parent, Israel had the hope of God’s love and favor and the assurance of the Messiah’s coming. This is a truly audacious hope. This hope is not a maybe, but complete assurance.

The chance of passing this class does not look good to me. I am very glad that I do not need to pass it on my abilities. I will work as hard as I can and continue to bribe, I mean gift the teacher with cookies, but learning this material and passing this class is in God’s hands. How wonderful that He loves me and cares about my puny little needs.

This week I pray for an audacious-assured-sudden-clarity-of-thought-and-math-ability-hope.

I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end He will stand upon the earth. Job 19:25

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’S great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; and great is Your faithfulness. Lamentations 3: 21-23