hearts — matters of the heart

Some scripture and wisdom for us

On 07/23/2024, in faith, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, relationships, religion, society, by Daniel Christian

⁹For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, ¹⁰and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority.

Psalm 36:5-7 New International Version

5 Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the skies.
6 Your righteousness is like the highest mountains,
your justice like the great deep.
You, Lord, preserve both people and animals.
7 How priceless is your unfailing love, O God!
People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

Matthew 16:15-16 New International Version

15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Matthew 19:14 New International Version

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

Students Speak Out: How to Make High Schools Places Where They Want to Learn — from the74million.org by Beth Fertig
Too many high school students complain that school is boring. Students share what makes school enjoyable.

.

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

.
Solving chronic absenteeism involves tackling big structural problems like transportation and infrastructure. But we also have to make our schools places where young people want to learn. Too many teens, in particular, had negative feelings about school even before the pandemic. Yale researchers conducting a national survey of high school students found most teens spent their days “tired,” “stressed,” and “bored.” Fewer than 3 in 100 reported feeling interested while in school.

Decades of research prove that students learn more when they experience high levels of academic engagement and social belonging in school.

Students at all four schools experience internships, work-based learning and partnerships with community organizations, which they said make classwork feel more relevant.

Some scripture/wisdom for us

On 07/11/2024, in faith, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, relationships, religion, society, by Daniel Christian

⁴For the word of the Lord is right and true;
he is faithful in all he does.
⁵The Lord loves righteousness and justice;
the earth is full of his unfailing love.

Psalm 34:8 New International Version

Taste and see that the Lord is good;
blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.

Jeremiah 32:17 New International Version

“Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.

Proverbs 14:34 (New International Version)

Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin condemns any people.

Ephesians 3:20-21 New International Version

²⁰Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, ²¹to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

DSC: I can not stay silent on Trump. He is dangerous to our democracy.

On 07/03/2024, in Daniel S. Christian, ethics, hearts -- matters of the heart, Legal operations, legal reform, legislatures / government / legal, morals/values, policy, political science, society, sociology, surviving, United States, by Daniel Christian

DC: So as the world watches how America’s judicial system works (or doesn’t work), we tell them, “Trump is above the law, at least in many circumstances.”
https://t.co/ehjBFKcA2I

— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) July 2, 2024

From DSC:
I realize I lose a lot of readers on this Learning Ecosystems blog because I choose to talk about my faith and integrate scripture into these postings. So I have stayed silent on matters of politics — as I’ve been hesitant to lose even more people. But I can no longer stay silent re: Donald Trump.

I, too, fear for our democracy if Donald Trump becomes our next President. He is dangerous to our democracy.

Also, I can see now how Hitler came to power.

And look out other countries that Trump doesn’t like. He is dangerous to you as well.

He doesn’t care about the people of the United States (nor any other nation). He cares only about himself and gaining power. Look out if he becomes our next president.

From Stefan Bauschard:

Unlimited Presidential power. According to Trump vs the US, the “President may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for his official acts.” Justice Sotomayor says this makes the President a “king.” This power + surveillance + AGI/autonomous weapons mean the President is now the most powerful king in the history of the world.

Democracy is only 200 years old.

Some scripture for us

On 06/10/2024, in faith, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, relationships, religion, society, by Daniel Christian

¹⁷so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

1 Chronicles 29:11 (New International Version)

Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all.

Proverbs 30:7-9 (NIV)

⁷“Two things I ask of you, Lord;
do not refuse me before I die:
⁸Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.
⁹Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God.

2 Corinthians 9:6 (NIV)
Generosity Encouraged

Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.

Colossians 3:13 (New International Version)

Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

Romans 12:12 + other scripture

On 05/11/2024, in faith, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, relationships, religion, by Daniel Christian

Romans 12:12 (New International Version)

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

¹⁴if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

³²Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Some wisdom for us

On 05/01/2024, in faith, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, relationships, religion, society, by Daniel Christian

Romans 14:11

It is written: “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’”

Job 19:25

I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth.

Psalm 5:1-3

For the director of music. For pipes. A psalm of David.

¹Listen to my words, Lord,
    consider my lament.
²Hear my cry for help,
    my King and my God,
    for to you I pray.
³In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice;
    in the morning I lay my requests before you
    and wait expectantly.

A portion of King David’s prayer from 1 Chronicles 29 and Psalm 2:1-11

On 04/19/2024, in Emotion, faith, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, history, relationships, religion, by Daniel Christian

1 Chronicles 29:10-11 — from biblegateway.com

David’s Prayer

¹⁰David praised the Lord in the presence of the whole assembly, saying,

“Praise be to you, Lord,
    the God of our father Israel,
    from everlasting to everlasting.
¹¹Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power
    and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
    for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, Lord, is the kingdom;
    you are exalted as head over all.

¹Why do the nations conspire^[a]
    and the peoples plot in vain?
²The kings of the earth rise up
    and the rulers band together
    against the Lord and against his anointed, saying,
³“Let us break their chains
    and throw off their shackles.”

⁴The One enthroned in heaven laughs;
    the Lord scoffs at them.
⁵He rebukes them in his anger
    and terrifies them in his wrath, saying,
⁶“I have installed my king
    on Zion, my holy mountain.”

⁷I will proclaim the Lord’s decree:

He said to me, “You are my son;
    today I have become your father.
⁸Ask me,
    and I will make the nations your inheritance,
    the ends of the earth your possession.
⁹You will break them with a rod of iron^[b];
    you will dash them to pieces like pottery.”

¹⁰Therefore, you kings, be wise;
be warned, you rulers of the earth.
¹¹Serve the Lord with fear
and celebrate his rule with trembling.

“Do We Need Emotionally Intelligent AI?” [Watkins] + other items re: AI in general

On 04/04/2024, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, communications, content development, aggregation, repositories, creativity, design, Emotion, engagement / engaging students, graphics, hearts -- matters of the heart, Open AI, the downsides of how people use tech, tools, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Do We Need Emotionally Intelligent AI? — from marcwatkins.substack.com by Marc Watkins

We keep breaking new ground in AI capabilities, and there seems little interest in asking if we should build the next model to be more life-like. You can now go to Hume.AI and have a conversation with an Empathetic Voice Interface. EVI is groundbreaking and extremely unnerving, but it is no more capable of genuine empathy than your toaster oven.
…

- You can have the eLLM mimic a political campaign and call potential voters to sway their vote. You can do this ethically or program it to prey upon people with misinformation.
- An eLLM can be used to socially engineer the public based on the values someone programs into it. Whose values, though?
- Any company with a digital presence can use an eLLM like EVI to influence their customers. Imagine Alexa suddenly being able to empathize with you as a means to help persuade you to order more products.
- An always-on, empathetic system can help a student stay on track to graduate or manipulate them into behaviors that erode their autonomy and free will.
- Any foreign government could deploy such a system against a neighboring population and use empathy as a weapon to sow discontent within the opposing population.

From DSC:
Marc offers some solid thoughts that should make us all pause and reflect on what he’s saying.

We can endlessly rationalize away the reasons why machines possessing such traits can be helpful, but where is the line that developers and users of such systems refuse to cross in this race to make machines more like us?

Marc Watkins

Along these lines, also see:

Student Chatbot Use ‘Could Be Increasing Loneliness’ — from insidehighered.com by Tom Williams
Study finds students who rely on ChatGPT for academic tasks feel socially supported by artificial intelligence at the expense of their real-life relationships.

…
They found “evidence that while AI chatbots designed for information provision may be associated with student performance, when social support, psychological well-being, loneliness and sense of belonging are considered it has a net negative effect on achievement,” according to the paper published in Studies in Higher Education.

Editing your images with DALL·E — from help.openai.com via The Rundown
You can now edit images you create with DALL·E

Some scripture for us

On 03/31/2024, in faith, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, relationships, religion, by Daniel Christian

Isaiah 53:3-6 New International Version

³He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

⁴Surely he took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
    stricken by him, and afflicted.
⁵But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.
⁶We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.

Matthew 27:45-51 New International Version

The Death of Jesus

⁴⁵From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. ⁴⁶About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli,^[c] lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).^[d]

⁴⁷When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.”

⁴⁸Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. ⁴⁹The rest said, “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.”

⁵⁰And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.

⁵¹At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

What is the Significance of the Curtain Tearing in Two in the Temple? | Breaking Down the Bible

Luke 24:1-8 New International Version

Jesus Has Risen

24 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. ²They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, ³but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. ⁴While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. ⁵In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? ⁶He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ⁷‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” ⁸Then they remembered his words.

Psalm 62:5-8 New International Version

⁵Yes, my soul, find rest in God;
    my hope comes from him.
⁶Truly he is my rock and my salvation;
    he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.
⁷My salvation and my honor depend on God^[a];
    he is my mighty rock, my refuge.
⁸Trust in him at all times, you people;
    pour out your hearts to him,
    for God is our refuge.

Some scripture/wisdom for us

On 03/21/2024, in faith, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, relationships, religion, by Daniel Christian

Jeremiah 17:7-8

7 “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
whose confidence is in him.
8 They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.”

Deuteronomy 6:6-7

⁶These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

Isaiah 25:1

Praise to the Lord
25 Lord, you are my God;
I will exalt you and praise your name,
for in perfect faithfulness
you have done wonderful things,
things planned long ago.

James 1:17

¹⁷Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

John 3:27

27 To this John replied, “A person can receive only what is given them from heaven.

Psalm 139:23-24

23 Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

Wisdom from scripture

On 03/03/2024, in Daniel S. Christian, Emotion, faith, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, relationships, religion, by Daniel Christian

1 John 3:18 (New International Version)

Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

Psalm 120:1 (New International Version)

A song of ascents.
I call on the Lord in my distress, and he answers me.

[For student teachers out there] This Teaching Routine Takes Just 5 Minutes. Its Impact Lasts Much Longer [Heubeck]

On 02/29/2024, in digital learning, education, Emotion, hearts -- matters of the heart, history, K-12 related, Learning Experience Design, pedagogy, relationships, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, writing, by Daniel Christian

This Teaching Routine Takes Just 5 Minutes. Its Impact Lasts Much Longer — from edweek.org by Elizabeth Heubeck

Second grade teacher Kaylee Hutcheson greets her students as they enter their classroom to start their day at Hawthorne Elementary School in Mexico, Mo., on Feb. 14, 2024. |Lisa Krantz for Education Week

Teachers, what if someone told you that engaging in a daily classroom ritual with your students that takes less than five minutes and requires little to no training could improve your students’ mood and behavior immediately, make them more likely to engage in learning, and maybe even elevate your own teaching skills?

Yes, it sounds like a gimmick. But it’s not.

It’s a simple practice that involves greeting each student individually as they walk through the classroom door.

Despite what we may see or hear, life is precious. [Christian]

On 02/15/2024, in Daniel S. Christian, Emotion, engagement / engaging students, faith, future, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, ideas, lifelong learning, morals/values, parents/guardians, relationships, religion, society, student-related, vision/possibilities, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
After reading the book entitled “Love & Hate” by Bill Halamandaris — a book about Henri Landwirth, the founder of the Give Kids the World Village — and “On Purpose” by Pamela Landwirth, I was struck with several thoughts. Below are just some of them:

There is enormous power in a vision.
People want purpose and meaning in their lives. They want their lives to count. To matter.
People want to work for an organization that is concretely making the world a better place in which to live.
People want to buy from businesses that are making a positive contribution to the world.
Both love and hate are powerful. But let’s choose to go forward with love.
Parents, grandparents, and/or other guardians of critically-ill children carry enormous, hidden burdens. Let’s try to notice those burdens and help them out.
Life is precious.

Let's remember this -- Despite what we may hear and see, life is precious.

From DSC:
Recently, a group from our church went to serve down at the Give Kids the World Village, in Kissimee, Florida. I wanted to relay the specialness of this place and say a few words about the Founder of the Give Kids the World Village: a man by the name of Henri Landwirth. Over the last few weeks in the Orlando area, the Holy Spirit helped me to think about the power of a vision, as both Walt Disney and Henri Landwirth were visionaries.

But first, it’s important to note that Henri survived FIVE concentration camps during WWII. He had no name there. He was known only as B4343.

Henri:

Was in concentration camps from ages 13-18
He lost both of his parents to acts of mass murder
Henri survived FIVE YEARS of hunger, torture, and horrendous conditions
He faced what looked like certain death several times

Yet as I was reading the book entitled “Love & Hate”, I kept wondering if I was seeing the fingerprints of God on Henri’s life.

After the war, Henri went in search of former Nazis, for whom he was filled with hatred. And while I don’t have time to relay the fateful day that changed Henri’s perspective and his life, the bottom line was that he didn’t want to become like his former captors the Nazis. Surprisingly and amazingly, he chose love, not hate.

Fast forward to Henri’s coming to America, working very hard, and climbing up the ladder of the Holiday Inn organization.

Then fast forward even further to the time Henri was looking for a location to build his vision. Quoting from page 139:

Henri took his checkbook and began looking for a location for Give Kids the World Village. He found it almost immediately in Kissimmee. When Henry looked at the lot, he could already see the Village there. Where others might have seen rows of burned orange trees and wetlands, Henri saw villages, a place for kids to fish, and a castle. “I could see it all,” Henri says, “as if my dream had already come to life.”

A few last notable things about the Give Kids the World Village:

According to the book by Bill Halamandaris, the Village was built with ZERO CONTRACTS and NO ADVERTISEMENTS from those who helped create the village! This is underheard of for $60+ million worth of facilities and the millions of dollars’ worth of donated services.
The Village has thousands of volunteers and it takes 160 volunteers per day to keep it running
Since 1986, Give Kids The World Village has welcomed more than 188,000 families from all 50 states and 77 countries.

So I want to leave you with the idea that we were witnesses of – and participants in – the tremendous power of a vision.

Some wisdom for us

On 02/13/2024, in faith, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, relationships, religion, society, by Daniel Christian

⁴For the word of the Lord is right and true;
he is faithful in all he does.
⁵The Lord loves righteousness and justice;
the earth is full of his unfailing love.

Proverbs 31:8-9 New International Version

8 Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
for the rights of all who are destitute.
9 Speak up and judge fairly;
defend the rights of the poor and needy.

John 3:16 (New International Version)

¹⁶For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 13:34-35 (New International Version)

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

Learning Ecosystems

Some scripture and wisdom for us

Some scripture/wisdom for us

DSC: I can not stay silent on Trump. He is dangerous to our democracy.

Some scripture for us

Romans 12:12 + other scripture

Some wisdom for us

A portion of King David’s prayer from 1 Chronicles 29 and Psalm 2:1-11

Some scripture for us

Some scripture/wisdom for us

Wisdom from scripture

Some wisdom for us

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