Reading reading reading

As you all have probably guessed, I've been subbing all week this week. And if I had wanted to, I could be working tomorrow, too. But I decided when I planned on working today that tomorrow would be my free day. So I turned down a job. Hopefully, I'll get more next week. For some reason, Bellevue has been very busy this month! I guess everyone has flu or some training classes. So when I have free periods or classes that are busy with tests or other individual work, I get to read. I finished From Hope to Higher Ground about Mike Huckabee. It was his plan for America, but not only for him, but ideas for us to make America a better place ourselves. Each chapter was an admonition to stop doing something. The end of the chapter had a list of practical things to do to stop doing the particular activity. He is very positive and upbeat throughout the whole book. Makes me realize that I could be more practical and positive every day. For example the first chapter is "Stop being cynical". Some of his suggestions at the end of the chapter are: Don't believe bad reports without documentation. Read the Bible more; blogs less. Read biographies.Do volunteer work with impoverished, disabled or ill. He also shares many of his accomplishments during his ten and a half years as governor.
Another book I'm reading is Boom! by Tom Brokaw. It is his memories as a reporter during the 60's. You know he began his career here in Omaha? I've gotten up to the Democratic Convention of 1968 and the Chicago riots. America was a pretty desperate place back then.
The other book is one I'm rereading since I first read it probably 8 years ago. It is Christianity, Education and the State by J. Gresham Machen. It is a compilation of several lectures that he gave in the 20's and 30's!!!!! In his lecture on the necessity of the Christian school (from 1934) he says:

It is this profound Christian permeation of every human activity, no matter how secular the world may regard it as being, which is brought about by the Christian school and the Christian school alone. I do not want to be guilty of exaggerations at this point. A Christian boy or girl can learn math, for example, from a teacher who is not a Christian; and truth is truth however learned. But while truth is truth however learned, the bearing of truth, the meaning of truth, the purpose of truth (even in the sphere of math) seem entirely different to the Chrstian from that which they seem to the non-Christian; and that is why a truly Christian education is possible only when Christian conviction underlies not a part, but all, of the curriculum of the school. True learning and true piety go hand in hand, and Christianity embraces the whole of life-those are great central convictions that underlie the Christian school.

You'd think he was living in the 21st century!