Natal & 2016-2017

Feliz Natal e Blessed 2017 - From Narnia - Cair Paravel (under construction)

We have had a busy, blessed, full of beauty and challenges in 2016

Trips, children, work, flowers, birds, true friends, pains, heart attacks - - -

"Come out, look back, and then you will see... this astonishing cataract of bears, babies, and bananas: this immoderate deluge of atoms, orchids, oranges, cancers, canaries, fleas, gases, tornadoes and toads. How could you ever have thought this was the ultimate reality? 

How could you ever have thought that it was merely a stage-set for the moral drama of men and women?

 Nature [and life] is herself. Offer her neither worship nor contempt."

And in this context we celebrate Christmas - - The Myth That Became Fact

"Now as myth transcends thought, incarnation transcends myth. The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the dying god, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history. It happens-at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences. We pass from a Balder or an Osiris, dying nobody knows when or where, to a historical person crucified (it is all in order) under Pontius Pilate. By becoming fact it does not cease to be myth: that is the miracle. I suspect that men have sometimes derived more spiritual sustenance from myths they did not believe than from the religion they professed. To be truly Christian we must both assent to the historical fact and also receive the myth (fact though it has become) with the same imaginative embrace which we accord to all myths. The one is hardly more necessary than the other.

A man who disbelieved the Christian story as fact but continually fed on it as myth would, perhaps, be more spiritually alive than one who assented and did not think much about it. The modernist-the extreme modernist, infidel in all but name-need not be called a fool or hypocrite because he obstinately retains, even in the midst of his intellectual atheism, the language, rites, sacraments, and story of the Christians. The poor man may be clinging (with a wisdom he himself by no means understands) to that which is his life. - - -

Those who do not know that this great myth became fact when the Virgin conceived are, indeed, to be pitied. But Christians also need to be reminded—that what became fact was a myth, that it carries with it into the world of fact all the properties of a myth. God is more than a god, not less; Christ is more than Balder, not less. We must not be ashamed of the mythical radiance resting on our theology. We must not be nervous about "parallels" and "pagan Christs": they ought to be there-it would be a stumbling block if they weren't. We must not, in false spirituality, withhold our imaginative welcome. If God chooses to be mythopoeic-and is not the sky itself a myth-shall we refuse to be mythopathic? For this is the marriage of heaven and earth: perfect myth and perfect fact: claiming not only our love and our obedience, but also our wonder and delight, addressed to the savage, the child, and the poet in each one of us no less than to the moralist, the scholar, and the philosopher."

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. Is. 9:2

Merry Christmas - Feliz Natal


2016-2017

"We ought to give thanks for all fortune: if it is good, because it is good; if bad, because it works in us patience, humility, contempt of this world and the hope of our eternal country."

“There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”

Cheers to you all

Paulo and Adriana - just celebrated 40 years of our blessed marriage.

ELE 101 - Introdução a Engenharia Elétrica - UNIFEI - 2016

Imagens das Apresentações Finais 

Final Presentations - Introduction to Electrical Engineering

“The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.”
CS Lewis

“It often happens that two students can solve difficulties in their work for one another better than the master can. When you took the problem to a master, as we all remember, he was very likely to explain what you understood already, to add a great deal of information which you didn’t want, and say nothing at all about the thing that was puzzling you. I have watched this from both sides of the net; for when, as a teacher myself, I have tried to answer questions brought me by students, I have sometimes, after a minute, seen that expression settle down on their faces which assured me that they were suffering exactly the same frustration which I had suffered from my own teachers. The fellow-student can help more than the master because he knows less. The difficulty we want him to explain is one he has recently met. The expert met it so long ago that he has forgotten. He sees the whole subject, by now, in a different light that he cannot conceive what is really troubling the student; he sees a dozen other difficulties which ought to be troubling him but aren’t.” 
CS Lewis

The following impressive list of projects is a clear demonstration of the ability of undergraduate students to learn via independent study and research.

These projects were developed as a partial requirement for an Introduction to Electrical Engineering course.  Each group selected a topic of interest within the topics of alternative energy and emerging technologies and met with the instructor on a regular basis. Progress reports were required for monitoring the process and reporting via a webpage or blog for the project.

The instructor has used this research approach many times, and despite possible short-comings of the less structured classroom situation, the results and amount of learning for the student and instructor is very valuable, and worth of new attempts. The variety and depth of the topics speak for itself. It is expected that some of the projects will be submitted as articles to IEEE and other Engineering Education conferences and publications.  

https://ddpizo.wordpress.com/

http://smarthouseunifei.wix.com/2016

http://photovoltree.wix.com/photovoltree

http://aeruunifei.wix.com/aeruunifei

http://telhadovegetal.wix.com/greenroof

http://unifeies.wix.com/unifeies

casecounifei.wix.com

http://hydroenergy.wix.com/unifei

Aniversario de Nicole em Narnia

Imagens do Dia

ABU - Itajubá - Encontro Planejamento 2016 - Em Narnia

Images of the Meeting
ABU (Intervarsity) 2016 Panning Meeting at Narnia

 Empowerment is vital for effective leadership. It is core to most of our relationships… Leading People to Not Need Us - -
In discussing love and giving, C.S. Lewis implicitly engages the practice of empowerment and writes:
“The proper aim of giving is to put the recipient in a state where he no longer needs our gift. We feed children in order that they may soon be able to feed themselves; we teach them in order that they may soon not need our teaching.”
“Thus a heavy task is laid upon the Gift-love. It must work towards its own abdication. We must aim at making ourselves superfluous. The hour when we can say ‘They need me no longer’ should be our reward.”

 Caracteristicas de um Lider

1 •A Leader is one who values clear thinking and the ongoing process of self-education.

2 •A Leader puts high value on building meaningful friendships with those who can help him beyond his own limitations.

3 •A Leader values the insights of wise men and women who have gone before him.

4 •A Leader is who allows his creativity to help him see old truths in a new way.

5 •A Leader knows that pain has much to teach us and that times of struggle are usually pregnant with insights for his life.

6 •A Leader recognizes the danger of pride and power of a humble spirit.

7 •A Leader knows the power of well-chosen words to influence the mind and move the heart.

8 •A Leader refuses to lead his life based on the changeable state of his emotions.

9 •A Leader understands the value of humor.

10 •A leader recognizes his own sinful nature and the human propensity of self-deception.

11 •A Leader knows that he or she can be either stupidly stubborn or inconsequentially liberal and that is why they need to test and submit their decisions to the Lordship of Christ.

12 •A Leader lives his/her life in the light of eternity.

Qualidades de um Lider - Quotes from C.S. Lewis

• You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.

• Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.

• Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.

• Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.

• Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.

• The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.

• We are what we believe we are.

• Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.

• The next best thing to being wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are.

• If a man thinks he is not conceited, he is very conceited indeed.

• There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.

• Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.

• The Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays.

• No good work is done anywhere without aid from the Father of Lights.

• It is not your business to succeed, but to do right; when you have done so, the rest lies with God.

• You must ask for God’s help. … After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again.

• God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way.

• Don’t let your happiness depend on something you may lose.