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As you may know, today is the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. I won’t go into all the history and details of the reformation, as there are many other knowledgeable sites with good information if you’re so inclined.

Today’s topic is actually better suited to John Wycliffe than Martin Luther, but I think they would share the same sentiment, along with a bit of Aldous Huxley.

Luther (and Wycliffe) was fighting against church officials and the rules they imposed. Not because they rules per se, but because they were not part of the Bible. Luther’s cause was to obey God, and if man’s rules didn’t comply with God’s then it was man’s rules that lost out.

The reformation started by Luther and continued by Wycliffe included putting God’s words in the hands of the people. Rather than needing a priest to tell the people what God thought, the people should read the scripture for themselves. The main point being that people should read the Bible for themselves, pray to God themselves, and generally interact with God directly rather than through a middleman.

Luther was known for writing songs that were to be sung by the congregation, rather than sung by a choir and heard by the congregation. Wycliffe was known for translating the Bible into the common language of the people, rather than keeping it in the fancy academic languages of Latin/Greek/Hebrew.

What do we see happening today? Rather than church leaders forbidding people to sing themselves or read their own Bibles for themselves, we have the Brave New World approach: have an entertaining worship band that is so loud that it doesn’t matter if the congregation sings or not, and put the Bible verses on the screen so the congregation doesn’t need to look in their own Bibles.

I don’t think it’s being done on purpose to make lazy/uninformed Christians, but it can get there pretty easily. Make things so convenient that congregants don’t need to practice any individual disciplines.

To throw a little bit of Orwell here (more Animal Farm than 1984), what’s to keep the pastor from rephrasing the verse he puts on the screen, to better make his point? What’s to keep him from dropping Bible verses from the slides after a while? Put something on a giant screen, and people will pay attention to it.

We’re coming full circle from the start of the reformation in that people are happy to have a middleman do the work of reading, singing, and praying for them so they don’t have to.

I recently read this sentence in a publication:

In life’s darkest moments, when nothing can minimize the unveiled devastation of a terminal diagnosis, news of a loved one’s death, a wayward spouse, drug use turned into addiction or crushing debt, do you value the offer of rescue?

You know what I thought when I read that?

How does drug use turn into crushing debt?

I realize debt usually goes along with drug use, as people waste money they have, run out, and still have to find money to continue their addiction. Plus, as we all learned in school, Drugs Are Really Expensive.

But I think that was not the idea they wanted to convey with that sentence. And I think the Oxford Comma would have helped clarify their thoughts. Here’s how I would re-write the sentence:

In life’s darkest moments – when nothing can minimize the unveiled devastation of a terminal diagnosis, news of a loved one’s death, a wayward spouse, drug use turned into addiction, or crushing debt – do you value the offer of rescue?

See how there is a comma between each separate item in the sentence, leaving no ambiguity for the reader. I see why they thought they should avoid the comma – it made for too many commas because of their clauses. But using hyphens to separate the clauses frees up the commas so that one can be used for the list.

We took a week to visit famous places in Pennsylvania and New York (specifically Philadelphia and Manhattan).

Day 5

Had some breakfast in the hotel room. Cereal and milk, because of the fridge. Plus some other items that didn’t need to be heated.

First stop of the day – the subway station. It was located two blocks away. An uneventful walk there, and then we were down in the station. First order of business was to buy MTA cards for the family. However, subway stations are not setup to be the starting point of a family journey. The MTA agent in her tollbooth-like enclosure said she could help me if I had a problem with my card, but to buy a card I had to use the self-serve kiosk. The self-serve kiosk lets you buy one card at a time, and requires a number of menu selections.

I waited until there was no one in line, then I started. Bought a card, bought another card, then it wouldn’t let me buy a third card. I switched credit cards – my guess was the credit-card fraud department figured more than two swipes of a credit card at a self-serve kiosk means that someone’s card was stolen and the thief is looking to quickly convert it to different currency. So I switched credit cards and slogged through two more transactions.

At this point, I felt sorry for the people who had lined up to use the kiosk, so I stepped aside to let them use the thing. Then I returned with a third credit card for the last two MTA cards. I handed them to Alpha and Beta, who liked the feeling of responsibility and freedom with an MTA card, but I kept Gamma’s and Delta’s cards because I had a feeling they wouldn’t hold on to them very well.

So Some Wife and Alpha and Beta swiped themselves through to the platform. I lined up Delta and Gamma in front of the turnstile. Swipe one card: “Go”, swipe the next card: “Go”, swipe the third card and walk my self through.

It would be a lot easier if they’d let you combine riders on one ticket. On the plus side though, some of our stops were short enough that they were considered legs of one trip and so we weren’t charged for them.

Our hotel was up by the Lincoln Tunnel, and our first stop was the World Trade Center. It was early enough in the morning that there were a bunch of people on the subway trains. The boys enjoyed the whole process, especially getting to stand and hang onto things in a moving vehicle.

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We took a week to visit famous places in Pennsylvania and New York (specifically Philadelphia and Manhattan).

Day 4

Woke up and went down to the main floor for breakfast. The breakfast had a lot of options, including a few microwaves so you could heat things to your own satisfaction.

Then we got ready for the day. The plan was to pack up and head out of Philly, spend the day at Diggerland USA, and end up at our hotel in NYC for dinner.

It took a few trips to the parking garage to get the van loaded. Kids were well-fed from the hotel breakfast, and it was only 30-45 minutes away, so we were in good shape.

Only problem – it was about 100 degrees out.

When planning the trip, I saw that walk-in prices were $37 per person, but $32 if you buy online. I waited to buy online and was going to do it on the trip, since I could show them my phone or whatever instead of having to print out tickets. But while we were in Philly, we grabbed a brochure for Diggerland and it had a $27 admission coupon. So I grabbed 5 more, in order to get the whole family’s tickets for that price.
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We took a week to visit famous places in Pennsylvania and New York (specifically Philadelphia and Manhattan).

Day 3

Woke up and went down to the main floor for breakfast. The breakfast had a lot of options, including a few microwaves so you could heat things to your own satisfaction.

Then we got ready for the day. The plan was to spend the day taking in the historic district: the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, the US Mint, and Ben Franklin’s grave.

The historic district was several blocks from the hotel. There wasn’t a good public transportation option, and I didn’t want to have to deal with traffic and parking, so we walked. It was good for the kids after spending all that time in the van the previous two days.

On the way there, we happened to pass another district:

Being part Asian, the family wanted to make a quick detour down that road and see what we could see.
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We took a week to visit famous places in Pennsylvania and New York (specifically Philadelphia and Manhattan).

Day 1

Get to eastern PA. Nothing fancy here.

Stayed at a local place (not a chain) because I thought it would be interesting – a greater chance of something memorable compared to a national chain.

The place was called the Hershey Farm Inn, and I chose it because they had a buffet-style restaurant that was open for breakfast (and free for hotel guests). Plus it had a pool. And some nice grounds: a pond, some goats, some geese, a flower garden, walking paths, and a giant statue of an Amish man. I didn’t know about that last item until we arrived though. The place is not related to the Hershey Chocolate Company – it’s just near the town of Hershey.

It fulfilled my expectations in that it was unique and therefore memorable. I can’t recall the details/layout/features of the various chain hotel rooms we’ve stayed in, but our accommodations that night were half of the top floor of an old farmhouse. It was setup to sleep 8, I think, so two of the kids didn’t even have to share a bed like usual.

I took the kids on a walking tour of the grounds while Some Wife got dinner ready in the room. She brought it from home so we wouldn’t have to go out that night. We ate dinner, then we all went to the pool. Outdoor only, slightly cold, but it worked. After the pool, the kids played on the boat-like play structure and chased the geese. Then winding down in the room with some home-improvement show on HGTV, then off to bed.

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Only three more weeks until Reformation Day. This is the big one, being the 500th anniversary of Luther’s uprising. Start planning your festivities now.