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The Native Tourist
reformed/biblical observations on Christianity and culture

Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Landscape Origins
According to one source, the two most used words in English taken from the Dutch language are aparteid and landscape. Here is the etymology of landscape from American Heritage Dictionary via Answers.com:

[Dutch landschap, from Middle Dutch landscap, region : land, land + -scap, state, condition (collective suff.).]

It would be interesting to probe more the meaning of "scap" in Dutch.

Here is an additonal note on the origin of "landscape" fom Answers.com:

WORD HISTORY Landscape, first recorded in 1598, was borrowed as a painters' term from Dutch during the 16th century, when Dutch artists were pioneering the landscape genre. The Dutch word landschap had earlier meant simply “region, tract of land” but had acquired the artistic sense, which it brought over into English, of “a picture depicting scenery on land.” Interestingly, 34 years pass after the first recorded use of landscape in English before the word is used of a view or vista of natural scenery. This delay suggests that people were first introduced to landscapes in paintings and then saw landscapes in real life.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Postumous Accolades
for Larry Norman's resently released (after his death in February) The Anthology (Rebel Poet, Jukebox Balladeer) which has received a review in Rolling Stone .

Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Friday, June 06, 2008
Work: Back to the Basics
as in forming a biblical view of work. Work Research Foundation has just published a fine article on this from Ray Pennings. Here's a snippet:


Reformed, Calvinist teaching regarding work can be summarized as follows:

1. God works, and we are called to bear His image;
2. God derives satisfaction from His work;
3. God provides for us through our work;
4. God has commanded man to work, and to work within the framework of His commands;
5. God holds us accountable for our work and expects to be acknowledged through it;
6. God provides particular gifts designed to meet particular needs in the advancement of His kingdom;
7. The Fall has radically affected our work. Work became toil; thorns and thistles frustrate our efforts. Fallen man seeks to glorify himself rather than his Creator through work;
8. Work is an individual as well as a social activity;
God takes pleasure in beauty, and the Scriptures do not focus simply on the functional and utilitarian aspects of work; and
9. Christ worked as part of His active obedience, and the believer's work through Christ is part of that obedience.

A nice summary, dontcha think?

The article is also really worth reading for the excerpts from William Perkins "A Treatise of the Vocations or Callings of Men" which I had never heard of before. Perkins - the quintessential Puritan - sound like a Kyperian when he says:

Every particular calling must be practiced in and with the general calling of a Christian. It is not sufficient for a man in the congregation, and in common conversation, to be a Christian, but in his very personal calling, he must show himself to be so. For example, a Magistrate must not only in general be a Christian, as every man is, but he must be a Christian Magistrate, in bearing the sword.

Thursday, June 05, 2008
More Busy Times
This is going to quite a summer! Our oldest daughter is getting married in July (to the son of neo-Calvinist history prof at George Fox University here in Newberg). My oldest son is busy gearing up for college applications next fall to a program in industrial design (we visited U of O Product Design program on Monday). And there is the usual array of house projects: I hope to install a retracting attic stair next week.