The State Fair of Texas:

After extensive consideration of the current landscape related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the health and safety of all fairgoers, staff, business partners, and overall community, the State Fair of Texas Board of Directors has voted to cancel the 2020 State Fair of Texas. 

 “This was an extremely tough decision. The health and safety of all involved has remained our top priority throughout the decision-making process,” said Gina Norris, board chair for the State Fair of Texas. “One of the greatest aspects of the Fair is welcoming each and every person who passes through our gates with smiles and open arms. In the current climate of COVID-19, there is no feasible way for the Fair to put proper precautions in place while maintaining the Fair environment you know and love. While we cannot predict what the COVID-19 pandemic will look like in September, the recent surge in positive cases is troubling for all of North Texas. The safest and most responsible decision we could make for all involved at this point in our 134-year history is to take a hiatus for the 2020 season.” 

I'm not surprised, but seeing the news still makes me sad.

This won't be the first time in the Fair's 134 years that it's been cancelled.

The State Fair of Texas has previously canceled Fairs because of World War I (1918), planning for the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition and 1937 Pan American Exposition at Fair Park (1935 – 1937), and World War II (1942 – 1945). 

The 2021 State Fair of Texas is scheduled to run Friday, September 24 through Sunday, October 17 in historic Fair Park.

I look forward to being there.

If you want to look at historic homes in Dallas, there are a a few options of places to look. You could visit the Dallas Heritage Village. Located on what used to be Dallas's first city park, the Dallas Heritage Village is a collection of 21 historic buildings that functions as a glimpse of what life used to be like in Dallas in the late 19th century.

Your other option would be to visit one of Dallas's designated landmark districts. These are neighborhoods protected by ordinances with preservation criteria, specific to each district, administered by the the city's Landmark Commission. These ordinances preserve the homes within the districts by protecting them from willful neglect, demolition, and any renovations that aren't appropriate for the time period.

Visiting either DHV or a landmark district will be like taking a step back in time. You will get a sense of how things used to be (for better or for worse) and learn a little about our history.

There is however, one crucial distinction between DHV and a landmark district. While DHV is a collection of actual buildings, it functions as a large outdoor museum. Those buildings exist to educate. Landmark districts, however, are functioning neighborhoods. You can learn some history from these buildings, but they primarily function as homes for families today.

This distinction influences how these buildings are maintained. DHV's main concern is preserving every historical detail possible with their buildings. Any renovation work needs to be carefully done, so the final product still looks like a preserved historical artifact.

Homes in landmark districts are, well, … homes. The families that live in them have 21st-century needs and expectations. You can't live in a preserved historical artifact. These building need modern amenities like electricity, plumbing, central air conditioning, and internet access. They need bathrooms, kitchens with modern appliances, etc. Maintaining a home in a landmark district means finding ways to add these modern affordances while still maintaining the original character of the building.

I am familiar with this because my family lives in a house inside a landmark district, and we are currently renovating the kitchen.

And while it would be fun to dig into the details of our kitchen project, this is actually a blog post about software.

For the past several years I have been maintaining a software project called Frontier. I'll save the story of how I came to be doing this for another time. I also hesitate to use the word maintain to describe my actions. Mostly I've been tinkering, reading the source code, learning, and doing the bare minimum to keep it running on modern computers.

If you read through the source code, you can get a sense of the time of when this application was built. Frontier started it's live as a (classic) Macintosh application. Most of the design decisions in the code seem to be built around the constraints of that computing platform. In the late 1990s it was ported to Windows, and in the early 2000s the application was Carbonized to run natively on Mac OS X. You can see all those layers in the source code.

Sadly, Frontier doesn't run at all on the latest version of Mac OS X macOS. While software doesn't wear down or rot like physical structures, computing platforms do change, and if the software doesn't change with the platform, it will eventually stop working.

So I've been thinking about how to approach "restoring" Frontier, and this ties back to the beginning of this post. What is Frontier today? Is it a historical artifact that needs to be preserved "just as it was", or is it a functioning application that caters to the needs of modern computer users?

If it's the former, then I don't think there's much more to do. Frontier runs fine under emulation. I could put together some documentation for how to emulate a classic Macintosh system that runs an older copy of Frontier. I would keep the source code up on GitHub for people to study and that would be it.

If it's the latter, then there's a lot of work to do. I basically need to strip the structure down to the studs and begin to rebuild. I would need to find a way to build a modern application that meets the needs of modern computer users while still preserving the "character" of the original application.

Anyway, these thoughts have been swirling around in my mind lately. Does this comparison make sense to you? Are you familiar with Frontier? If so, which category does it belong in today?

In a post on GitHub, Dave Winer asks, “What do promises do/make possible that callbacks don’t?"

This is a great question, and one, IMHO, that is not often addressed or answered well. It often seems that developers embrace new patterns and API, taking for granted that they are better simply because they are newer.

This question brings me back to when I first had to work in a Promise-heavy codebase. It was five years ago, and I had very similar questions. The answers I got at the time weren’t very convincing. Here’s some sample code that uses the callback pattern:

request.get('http://api.someurl.com/api/resource', function (error, data) {
  if (error) {
      console.error('An error happened', error);
  }
 
  console.log('Response received:', data);
});

Now, here’s the same code using the Promise pattern:

request.get('http://api.someurl.com/api/resource').then(function (data) {
  console.log('Response received:', data);
}).catch(function (error) {
  console.error('An error happened', error);
});

It’s different, but is it better? It really doesn’t seem to do anything that couldn’t be done with callbacks.

Where Promises started to shine for me was when I needed to compose multiple asynchronous responses. I provided code examples on the GitHub thread.

Dave replied with a link to some code he had written that had some pretty hairy logic involving many levels of nested callbacks.

I decided to refactor this code to use Promises, and then provide it as an example for further discussion of whether the Promise code is better or not. Along the way, I decided to take it a step further and I used some async functions and generator functions. I recorded my screen while I was making this edits. The finished product is on GitHub, the video is below.

Let me know what you think. Is this better or just different?

It is exactly what it says on the tin.

www.youtube.com/watch

Delightful.

Ten years ago today:

• I carried a Samsung flip phone
• My primary computer was a Windows PC
• I had a full beard
• I owed over $50k in debt
• My website looked like this:
• I began the day a single man.

Ten years later, things are unquestionably much better. Yes, I like my iPhone and MacBook, it’s nice to be clean-shaven, it’s wonderful to be debt-free, and my site design skills have improved I still have a website. But the one thing that unquestionably made me into a better person is being married to the woman that, ten years ago, drove me wild.

I met her 21 years ago. I fell in love with her 11 years ago. Over the past ten years, I have learned what it means to truly love someone. Together we have dreamed, we have worked, we have grown. Together we survived graduate school and a startup. With gazelle intensity, we became debt-free and laid the foundation that allowed us to own the home we live in today. Together we wrestled with our faith and what it truly means to follow Jesus in this world. Together we are raising two beautiful boys.

Looking back, I wouldn’t want to have lived my life with anyone else. Looking forward, I’m still just as excited and thrilled as I was ten years ago at the prospect of spending the rest of my life with her.

Happy anniversary Megan! I love you.

There are many words that Christians use today that I feel have lost their original meanings. Christianity took a common word and used it to explain a uniquely Christian concept. Over time the word fell out of the common vernacular, but the church kept using it. When such words are used today, they come with theological baggage: a specific understanding of the concept is implied whenever the word is used.

Today, I’d like to talk about the word ‘holy’.

NOTE: This blog post was adapted from a sermon I preached this past Sunday (May 4, 2014). The sermon was recorded, and that recording is embedded at the bottom of this page.

As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy." 1 Peter 1:14-16

Using the context of the passage above, you might reach the conclusion that to be holy, you must adhere to some moral code (instead of conforming to evil desires). Is this what ‘holy’ actually means?

Holy Etymology, Batman!

If we restrict out search to the English language, then, yes, holy has always had a religious definition. Let’s look further. The Hebrew word that is translated to the English ‘holy’ is ‘qadesa’ “which encompasses the idea of separateness and differentiation from the normal."¹ It’s first use in scripture is when God is speaking to Moses through the burning bush.

"Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." Exodus 3:5

To be holy is to be different, set apart, special. But the word itself does not specify what makes something holy. It’s just like the word special. If I were to talk about special food, I could be referring to high quality, farm fresh foods, or I could be refering to McDonald’s special sauce. That’s quite a range.

What Makes One Holy?

The 1 Peter passage I quoted above says, “… it is written: ‘Be Holy, because I am holy.'” It turns out, the author of 1 Peter is quoting from Leviticus:

You are to be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own. Leviticus 20:26

Just one paragraph earlier, we read this:

"Keep all my decrees and laws and follow them, so that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. You must not live according to the customs of the nations I am going to drive out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them. But I said to you, 'You will possess their land; I will give it to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey.' I am the Lord your God, who has set you apart from the nations." Leviticus 20:22-24

So, it would appear that keeping the commandments of God is what sets us apart, what makes us Holy. Did I really do all this study² just to end up with the definition I started with?

There’s (at least) one more question left to ask:

Which Commandments?

The Torah³ contains 613 commandments. The rest of scripture contains countless stories of God’s people failing to keep his commandments.⁴ Is it reasonable to ask if there are a subset of commandments that we could keep and still maintain our status as holy?

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Matthew 22:34-36

2,000 years ago, someone who was considered an “expert in the law” asked Jesus which commandment was more important than the others. Pay attention to Jesus’ reply. He doesn’t question the premise (that some commandments are more important than others). He doesn’t say that all commands are equal in God’s eyes. Instead, he answers directly:

Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." Matthew 22:37-40

Jesus is saying that all of scripture is to be understood and interpreted through these two commandments. The most important command is to love: love God and love people.

If the command is to love, and the thing that sets us apart (makes us holy) is obedience to the commands, then the thing that makes us holy is our love. In programming terms: holiness == love.

Am I stretching here, perhaps reading too much into the text? After all, if Jesus really meant to redefine holiness as love, wouldn’t he have been more explicit?

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. John 13:34-35

In other words, we are set apart as his disciples (made holy) when we love each other as he loved us.

To be Holy is to Love

Pause for a second and let your brain re-wire itself: holiness == love_for_each_other.

Good, now let’s revisit the passage from 1 Peter.

As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you ~~is holy~~ loves you, so ~~be holy~~ love each other in all you do; for it is written: "~~Be holy, because I am holy.~~" "As I have loved you, so you must love one another."

What are these evil desires? What does it mean to live in ignorance?

When I see phrases like this, my brain connects them with other phrases like ‘sinful nature’ and ‘flesh’. When the Apostle Paul refers to “desires of the flesh” he often has a list of vices:

• sexual immorality, imputity, and debauchery
• idolatry and witchcraft
• hatred, discord, jealosy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions, and envy
• drunkenness, orgies, and the like

I don’t think this list is what the author of 1 Peter had in mind. He is contrasting ‘evil desires’ with being ‘holy’, which we now know means loving others.

What are these evil desires? Let me illustrate this with a story:

It’s 3am. You’re sound asleep. The phone rings. You wake up, and immediately you get an anxious feeling deep in the pit of your stomach. You answer the phone. It’s a collect call.⁵ You know who it is. You accept the charges.

It’s your son. He’s in jail. Again. He promised that the last time would be the last time. You believed him because you desperately wanted needed to believe him. What is it this time? Alcohol? Drugs? Is he high now?

What do you feel? How do you react?

• Anger: "Do you know what you're doing to this family?!"
• Guilt: "How could I allow this to happen? I've failed as a father!"
• Frustration: "That's it! I'm done with him! I can't do this anymore. He can bail himself out of jail, for all I care!"

Any one of those reactions seems reasonable and justifiable to us, but I would suggest that they are the “evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.”

Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply from the heart [from a pure heart]. 1 Peter 1:22

Loving from a Pure Heart

What does it mean to have a pure heart? First, a pure heart is not dependent on the behavior or approval of others for happiness or validation. In the story above, the father needs his son to act a certain way in order for him to be happy and feel validated as a father. When the son deviates from the accepted path, the father is incapable of happiness and feels guilt and shame.

When your happiness is dependent on the behavior of others, it’s impossible to truly love them. Our happiness and validation should come only from God. He created us in his image. He gives us our existance and our purpose. We are loved and valued by God unconditionally. When we can truly believe this, we become able to drop the baggage of co-dependency and truly love others with the love of God.⁶

This kind of love is supernatural. You will not be able to just grit your teeth, work harder, and will yourself to love another. The only way to love like this is to drop your baggage at the foot of the cross. Give your life over to Jesus, truly believe that he loves you, that you have a God-given purpose in this life. Only then, through the power of his Holy Spirit, you will be able to truly love as he loved you. You will truly be holy.

[audio mp3=“https://tedchoward.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/2014-05-04-redefining-holiness.mp3”][/audio]

Download MP3

Yesterday, I posted a link to an article by Rachel Held Evans on walking the second mile. It was re-posted by a few people and generated several comments on the different people’s posts.

One of the themes I saw in the comments was the idea that serving at a gay wedding is equivalent to “bowing to an idol of sin” and that Christians shouldn’t be forced to do so. I spent some time thinking about this. I began to craft a response in the Facebook comments, but I quickly realized that I was writing too many words to be a comment¹. I decided to make it a blog post.

For the sake of this argument, I’ve decided to just take the following assertions at face value²:

• Gay marriage is sinful.
• It is a compromise of belief for someone to serve at a gay wedding.
• Gay couples are targeting Christian wedding service providers by attempting to hire the providers for their weddings and then suing said providers when they refuse service.

Let’s say all those things are true. Christians being targeted for their beliefs and sued sounds like legitimate religious persecution to me. What should the Christian response be?

Should we try to change the law to prevent this persecution? Should we hire lawyers and defend our constitutional right in court? Should we take a public stand for our beliefs and “fight back” against the culture?

Here’s what Jesus has to say:

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Matthew 5:11-12

We’re supposed to be persecuted. If we really believe that serving at a gay wedding is a compromise of our moral beliefs, then we should graciously refuse and then welcome the persecution (e.g. lawsuits) that comes our way without fighting back. Not fighting back probably means settling out of court and paying whatever amount of damages are requested (if not more). Again, Jesus said, …if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.³

We need to remember that those of us who are called to follow Jesus are called to follow him above all other things. We should be Christian primarily and American secondarily. It is very American to want to stand up and defend our rights, but the Christian response is to lay down our lives (the rights go with our lives). The American founders fought their oppressors, our founder told us to love our enemies.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

Dave Winer:

...they show us our fear of ourselves. The realization that we equate youthful and sexy appearance with benevolence. Our value system fails. The input does not equal the output. Does not compute.

Go read the full blog post (it’s not very long). This is a brilliant assessment of both the outrage over the Rolling Stone cover and our misplaced cultural values.

This is just brilliant. With the new Les Misérables movie, I’ve often thought of resurrecting Les Buffet, but I’m not sure I could best this.

[youtube youtu.be/k9QbC41oQ…]

I don’t like national elections. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in and understand their importance. In fact, I think it’s great that every citizen gets a vote in choosing national leaders. The problem I have with national elections is that it over-inflates the importance of our national leaders. They trick us into putting our hopes and dreams into one candidate. The one candidate who has all the answers for the economy, military, society, etc. It’s easy to get caught up in this contest, even if you try not to.

It happened to me this year. I didn’t like either candidate. I felt neither one of them represented me, so I checked out. I voted, but did so almost begrudgingly.

I began to believe the lie that I had no influence in this world.

The truth is, every one of has influence. Influence works like a radio signal. It’s strongest when you’re right next to the tower, and the further away you get, the weaker the signal gets.

I have the most influence on those closest to me: my family, my friends, my coworkers, my neighbors. I have the least influence on those I see or speak with rarely.

What am I doing with this influence?

When you believe the lie that you have no influence, you absolve yourself from any responsibility to this world and those around you. Once you accept the truth (that you have influence), you must also accept the responsibility.

I want to spend some more time unpacking this concept, but first I think we need to live with these questions:

1. What is the scope of your influence?
2. What should you do with it?