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	<title>Kata Iwannhn</title>
	<link>http://barach.us</link>
	<description>The Blog According to John</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Thu, 08 Jul 2010 23:27:58 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Cheese</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Cheese is a thing of sublime European importance, if only because of its antiquity. I do not intend any idiotic joke in speaking of the antiquity of cheese. Cheese and wine are the two things of which we can read in the remote pastoral poems of the Romans. And in connection with such really ancient [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://barach.us/2010/07/08/cheese/</link>
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		<title>Learning and Schooling</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In his discussion of hearing (vs. reading) the Word, Eugene Peterson says that we all suffer from &#8220;an unfortunate education,&#8221; which &#8220;has come about through the displacement of learning by schooling&#8221;: Learning is a highly personal activity carried out in personal interchange: master and apprentice, teacher and student, parent and child. In such relationships, the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://barach.us/2010/07/07/learning-and-schooling/</link>
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		<title>Ral Donner</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Yesterday, as I drove to the church, I was listening to Louisiana Public Radio&#8217;s &#8220;Old Gold&#8221; show. They played a song from the &#8217;60s in which the singer sounded to my ears a little bit like Elvis Presley. A stray thought drifted across my mind: &#8220;Who was the guy, a contemporary of Elvis, who sounded [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://barach.us/2010/06/04/weird/</link>
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		<title>Listening and Reading</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Some time ago, I learned from James Jordan that the sense of sight and the sense of hearing function in very different ways. With the sense of sight, who&#8217;s in control? You are. If you&#8217;re looking at a picture you don&#8217;t like, you can close your eyes or look away or turn the page or [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://barach.us/2010/06/03/listening-and-reading/</link>
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		<title>Invective</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Why read Patrick O&#8217;Brian? There are many reasons. I could mention the gripping plots, the interesting characters, the historical accuracy and the air of authenticity, the many hilarious passages mingled with ones that break your heart. But here&#8217;s another reason: the quality of the language. Where else (besides Shakespeare) can you find such enjoyable invective, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://barach.us/2010/05/27/invective/</link>
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		<title>Cut-Flower Prayers</title>
		<description><![CDATA[So if a minister ought not to be a shopkeeper, aiming at getting more customers to buy the church&#8217;s goods, what should he be doing? Eugene Peterson gives three answers: praying, reading (actually: hearing) Scripture, and giving spiritual direction. Working the Angles devotes three chapters to each of those tasks. When it comes to prayer, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://barach.us/2010/05/26/cut-flower-prayers/</link>
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		<title>Two Kinds of People</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The opening paragraph of P. G. Wodehouse&#8217;s novel Sam the Sudden, it seems to me, could well apply to southwest Lousiana &#8230; except that it starts in May, not August: All day long, New York, stewing in the rays of a late August sun, had been growing warmer and warmer, until now, at three o’clock [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://barach.us/2010/05/25/two-kinds-of-people/</link>
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		<title>Pastoral Training</title>
		<description><![CDATA[For a long time I have been convinced that I could take a person with a high school education, give him or her a six-month trade school training, and provide a pastor who would be satisfactory to any discriminating American congregation. The curriculum would consist of four courses. Course I: Creative Plagiarism. I would put [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://barach.us/2010/05/24/pastoral-training/</link>
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		<title>Revivals?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Any church which forsakes the regular and uniform for the periodical and spasmodic service of God, is doomed to decay; any church which relies for its spiritual strength and growth entirely upon seasons of “revival” will very soon have no genuine revivals to rely on. Our holy God will not conform His blessings to man’s [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://barach.us/2010/05/21/revivals/</link>
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		<title>Shopkeepers</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The pastors of America have metamorphosed into a company of shopkeepers, and the shops they keep are churches. They are preoccupied with shopkeeper&#8217;s concerns — how to keep the customers happy, how to lure customers away from competitors down the street, how to package the goods so that the customers will lay out more money. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://barach.us/2010/05/20/shopkeepers/</link>
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