Phone Calls and Such

Has anyone seen Veith's post on phone conversations? Thought provoking.

I admit to feeling embarrassed calling specific people. Most of the embarrassment, though, seems to stem from a fear of being annoying or unwanted. I am alright with business calls, for the most part. One is expected to call about business, to straighten out one's affairs, and then to hang up. It's straightforward and no one objects. I enjoy getting personal calls, even though I'm often stilted, stammering and awkward on the phone. Personal-social calls tell me that the caller cares a lot. I mean, a TON. (It takes effort to carve out time for a call, and effort to maintain a conversation. It takes courage to reach out across the invisible miles to the unseen other and poke him/her in the shoulder. "Hey! Talk to me a bit. Please.")

Don't get me wrong. I like email. I appreciate email for the very reasons that at times I prefer phone conversations to email. With email one can precisely formulate one's words with deliberation, while phone conversations necessarily disallow deliberation. With email, one has a copy of what was said and can review the message at will to reassure one's self of the content and sender's meaning. With verbal messages, the words are distorted through memory. With email one has the opportunity to say much without interruption - to paint a landscape that takes concentration. A conversation necessarily involves a back and forth, a give and take. With email I personally am less inclined to hold back what I wish to talk about for fear that the other doesn't want to hear it. In a phone conversation or face to face conversation, I feel rude if I talk of myself uninvited, or talk long. The insidious little voice in my ear whispers that it doesn't really matter to anyone but me anyway - the listener is probably smiling and nodding politely with closed ear and thoughts afar. I could babble as well as any, but when I do, it leaves me feeling the emptier and more foolish because there is seldom a response that indicates anything other than the polite listener. Those who ask more, who draw me out, who respond genuinely, give me the best gift any humans have and I love them with a sinner's love (Even the pagans love those who love them). Among these are my father.

To sum up, I like phone calls because they are risky, unchoreographed, and pure grace. One must remember them in faith. I like email because I can control it, prepare it, return to it for (relative) certainty, and participate with low risk of rejection. Phone calls are dangerous because they put you in direct contact with another human being, their ambitions, aspirations, vocations, loves, hates, moods, babbling. Emails buffer you from all these things and put you in contact only with a mind - an almost disembodied mind - that can deal with you coolly as and when it will in a disembodied and removed manner.

As in the days of my infancy, blood and gore are more beautiful than unruffled clothes. The rag doll is more exciting than the stiff china maid. The fragile china makes one tingle with delight, while the disposable paper plate does not.

No Girl Left Behind: some initial thoughts

Ok guys, so I'm gullible. It's one of my lesser, but more dangerous delinquencies. Earlier today, I was directed to this website and being the aforementioned gullible person, took it mostly seriously, and seriously engaged it in a blogwritten argument. About 10 minutes from completion of this 2 hour blogpost, I found I was sticking pins in a chimera: it melted, leaving a pile of pins. Having spent two hours on it, I figured I'd let you see the pins, before I sweep them up.

I'll admit, when I first read it, it struck me as a tad incredible, but I believe in taking people seriously, when they appear serious. If they turn out to be joking, I've only enlarged the joke. Hence what follows.


What I write here is preliminary: some quick reactionary thoughts after skimming this website. But I think there is more in this topic worth discussing.

Will the reader be pleased to peruse the writing upon this site as the discussion below doth pertain thereto: http://nogirlleftbehind.99k.org/

Many of the statements and lines of reasoning followed on this site make me nod and say, "I know exactly what you are talking about. I can see it. I watch it regularly in friends I love."

More than half of my close personal friends who are greater than 5 years my senior are unmarried - none of them from choice. Male and female. I know the females more intimately and have heard their longing for love, for a family, for children. (Almost every girl experiences these feelings for some period, age aside. I am no stranger to these.) Some of us have talked at length about how this comes about - that a number of Christian women are waiting for husbands who never come, while a number of young Christian men fool about or wait for the "perfect woman" who doesn't exist.

I've wondered to myself - what is the answer? Is there one in this earth? Shall we "leave the matter" to the hands of God? But are not His hands on earth, human hands? The hands of fathers, pastors, family, friends?

So, I am sympathetic, yea, even tentatively in favor of proposed arrangements as I read down the list of "Things You Can Do". But a few notes of the site strike a discord in my soul and unease in my mind.

1st. The treating of marriage as a "right".

No one has a "right" to marriage. If there is any such thing as a "right" (I admit to conflicting thoughts about "rights", not to be discussed here), then surely it is something that is universal to all in a set (eg, a human right is universal to the set of all humans)and the absence of it (the right) is an evil which denies the member of the set a part of her nature. To say that all humans ought to be free from ownership by another human is one thing: to say that all women ought to be married is another. God gives some to be eunuchs for the kingdom of God. (Matthew 19:12) The one who can accept marriage, should, Christ says; yet Paul apparently did not marry and speaks to the Corinthians of the ways in which the celibate may serve the church even more vigorously. To say that all women have a right to marriage is to say that to live singly as a women is to be less of a woman, to which all Christians must cry, "error".

Further, marriage is a gift, not a right. Yes, first it is a gift of God. But it is also a mutual gift between husband and wife. It is beautiful because it is grace, undeserved love, promise. Now, if it is by right (or merit) it is no longer by promise (or grace). Where would the tenderness be if a woman could say to a man, "It is my right that you love me. By right, I require you to die for me everyday in everyway." It is absurd, but when one says, "all young women are naturally entitled to marriage" (I quote from the site linked above) that is what they are saying. It could as well be rendered, "all young women are naturally entitled to have a fellow human being lay down his life for them". But the reality is more like the reverse: It is the precious responsibility of every young man to lay down his life for the neighbor Christ gives him, and the closest neighbor is his wife, whom God gives him because it is not good for him to be alone. No human deserves love of himself or herself, but is made lovable and loved by God as a gift; loved through humans and by humans as a precious gift of God and man. God grants us to be like himself in the giving of this love. To treat marriage as a "right" of a young woman robs the young woman of the astounding joy of unmerited love. And it robs young men of the only truly God-like gift they can give their wife (other than forgiveness).

2. Where did the chain of command fly off to? Hello! When it comes to "what you can do" to help solve the problem of unwedded matrimonially aspiring maids, we see an array of advice bewilderingly out of keeping with biblical precedent. Sure, talk to your friends if you want. Blog if you want. Raise awareness if you have time, energy, and an iron to burn. But please, please, don't get the government involved. The bill mentioned just about makes me ill. Why are we going to the Gentile courts? Have we not competency to judge these matters in the church of God? The only truly sensible piece of advice on this 'action' page is communication with your pastor - but in the misguided form of "harangue".

If anyone should be consulted, any external body employed in correcting a problem of unweddedness, it should be parents and the church. Parents are given the governance of their children till they reach adulthood. Even after majority, a father who carries out his vocation will remain a protecting, guiding head for his unmarried daughter. This includes helping her to find a spouse if marriage is what daughter and father discern is her vocation. If a girl's father has died, a mother or brother may well facilitate this process. Failing this, or if family is uninvolved, or in addition to family, a girl should have recourse to her church in matters of marriage. In a more hierarchical church structure (by which I intend the type of liturgical/sacramental church in which a girl's clergy is [or should be] a close spiritual father to her, this can be a matter of personal guidance, advice, and activism by that father. In a less hierarchical setting (for example, numerous nondenominational churches)there are plenty of mature Christian couples who could take a girl under their wing and seek a husband for her if necessary. Mayhap church leadership would need to assign a fostering parent set to a girl, but there are ways these things could be arranged within any church.

3. Rights become Force.

But the idea of "external pressure" (I quote) to "force marriages" (I quote again) is a more grievous violation of human rights than any so-called "right to marriage". These phrases show clearly how warped the American idea of "rights" has become: If you have a right, we will force you to claim it. You must be married, whether you like it or not. It is like as to saying, "You have a right to freedom of speech. Therefore, if you will not express your political opinions, we will put you in jail."


4. The Government as Enforcer

To place the enforcement of rules coercing matrimony in the hands of the state is a recipe for disaster as well as a travesty. I'm sorry, the Bill is stupid from start to finish. Those of you who know me know that I never use the word "stupid", because it indicates a sort of brainlessness. But I do believe this whole thing demonstrates a remarkable failure of the speculative intellect. I sense that a point by point rebuttal would be a slap in the face to my readers' intelligences.

Indeed, it is at this point that I felt a bit mocked myself, just reading the piece.

************************************************************************

I realize that this website may be satirical, a farce, or a joke. Nevertheless, the satire is so perfect and comical because the topic is serious. So, I don't consider the exercise of writing this post wasted, though I critique a paper man. The paper man is a caricature of a real one, and like all caricatures, the features are exaggerated, but not fabricated. Thus, there are real concerns which I could only think about clearly by meeting their ultimate hyperbolic incarnations. But my reasoning is the better for encountering them, fencing with them, and being humiliated by their vaporization.

Be gentle: I'm gullible.

Bones

This Post Not For the Squeamish. Death and Decay discussed.

Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?

Today I gathered bones.
***********************************************
In August, Chatter, my 2nd original goat died. I heard her cry out from the barn, but I thought nothing of it for the sound ceased as abruptly as it rang out. My goats often cry when they hear people's voices and I was busy. On a "rough day" scale of 0-10, it had been about an 8 already(one of those days where in order to keep my mind and body from pathologic thoughts and acts I hurtle myself into the woods to run till I cannot breathe and movement requires more than will). I was barely holding together as it was, dead tired from readying projects for entry to the county youth fair the next day. So, when conscience pricks drove my weary feet toward the barn, my foggy mind only considered it a routine animal check.

Her body still and bloated. Limbs outstretched. She did not answer my call. A glance told all.

When a foggy mind is slapped with something it is unprepared to handle, it goes haywire, shrieks, calls for help, pleads. But only for a moment. Negative feedback kicks in and the mind goes numb, for one must be able to act logically in crisis, even an emotional crisis.

Dad summoned, I returned to the barn. I touched her; stroked her face, her flank. The children came weeping. Perhaps I was a bit short with them. Dad sighed. It was already growing dark outside. Every piece of equipment capable of digging had broken down. We'd never manually dig a large enough hole that night. But something had to be done. It was warm and there would be no time the next day or the next week to shovel dirt.
"Sarah," he said, "It's the only good choice."
"Alright," I said. "I'll help you drag her."
******************************************************
We laid her 14 year old frame on a hillock under a single tree at the lake farm. Heavy but frail she seemed: I could not help but remember the stubborn, strong doe I first met. I touched the reddish black curls for the last time under the stars and glanced into the darkness. Were the coyotes already gathering?

I had not wept.
******************************************************
Today I gathered bones.

The leaves rustled beneath my feet. I carried a white cardboard box - probably used for bulk foods. The chill wind nipped around my ankles and the edges of my sweater. I thought of nursing and giving life. I pondered dirt, things that live, that grow, as weeds tangled my feet. Toward the tree fled my feet, my thoughts far away.

My feet stopped. I sniffed the air and set down my box. Clean, crisp autumn filled my nostrils as I pulled on vinyl gloves. Though I appreciate physical contact with my work, somehow, even symbolically, I didn't want this dirt on my skin or under my nails.

White, brittle pieces of mineral. The scavengers and elements cleaned well. Gently, I gathered every bit - some bones had been carried a few yards away. Some were missing altogether. Into the box, rib by rib, every tooth and chip, every dried scrap of sinew. Even three hooves remained. For some odd reason, this brought a joy to me, remembering how much difficulty Chatter had given me during hoof trims. Three locks of the glorious red coat also lay preserved, finding their way to the box as well. Last of all, I found the skull. Off all the bones, this was the only one I could clearly visually identify as Chatter's. I could see the smooth grove I used to stroke my fingers along while her eyes closed and head relaxed, the prominent ridge I used to itch for her. I laid it atop the pile. Having combed a 50 foot radius around the spot where we laid her, I broke off dry grass plumes and cushioned the rest of the box.

It's not that Chatter is in her bones, but they once were in her. I understood why we left Chatter's body to the birds, dogs, wind, sun and rain. It was sensible. It was necessary. Yet, part of me had always planned to bury her on the farm, next to Darey (my first goat) when he passed. When we left her clay on the hill, I thought of returning for her bones. One voice inside me pointed out that such action would be sheerly childish and sentimental, that there was no need. Yet another part of me quietly rose up, and, as if in defiance, resolved to go for the bones for the sake of practicing the childish and sentimental even while recognizing the sensible. I do many irrational things in my spare time which one could regard as silly - why not this as well?

******************************************************
There is nothing so much like a freshly plowed garden as a newly dug grave.

Two mounds near the pasture. Two more near the woods. The original herd and cat have passed. Even the doe I raised from a kid shows her years. The herd is unfamiliar to me now - I even have to ask the names of the younger ones.

My brother brought me two crosses. I was tempted to be annoyed, theologically. But the same part of me which brought back the bones squelched it. He meant kindly; he felt bad about the deaths, even though I do not. I laid them on the dirt for him, an adiaphoron. Even if Christ did not die to earn forgiveness of sins for animals, He certainly renewed all Creation by death and resurrection. Goats too belong to that created order.

Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?

Their Creator knows.

Cross as Noose, Noose as Symbol

Finally I'm getting this post finished! I can't believe how long this is taking me and how busy I have been!

As for the bishop, the sight of the guillotine was a shock to him, from which he recovered only slowly. Indeed, the scaffold, when it is there, set up and ready, has a profoundly hallucinatory effect. We may be indifferent to the death penalty and not declare ourselves, either way so long as we have not seen a guillotine with our own eyes. But when we do, the shock is violent, and we are compelled to choose sides, for or against. Some, like Le Maistre, admire it; others, like Beccaria, execrate it. The guillotine is the law made concrete; it is called the Avenger. It is not neutral and does not permit you to remain neutral. Who ever sees it quakes, mysteriously shaken to the core. All social problems set up their question mark around that blade. The scaffold is vision. The scaffold is not a mere frame, the scaffold is not an inert mechanism made of wood, iron, and ropes. It seems like a creature with some dark origine we cannot fathom, it is as though the framework sees and hears, the mechanism understands, as though the wood and iron and ropes have their own will. In the hideous nightmare it projects across the soul, the awful apparition of the scaffold fuses with its terrible work. The scaffold becomes the accomplice of the executioner; it devours, eats flesh, and drinks blood. The scaffold is a sort of monster created by judge and carpeter, a specter that seems to live with an unspeakable vitality, drawn from all the death it has wrought.

Thus the impression was horible and profound; on the day after the execution, and for many subsequent days, the bishop seemed overwhelmed...One evening his sister overheard and jotted down the following: " I didn't believe it could be so monstrous. It's wrong to be so absorbed in divine law as not to perceive human law. Death belongs to God alone. By what right to men touch that unknown thing?"

Good Evening, Dear Reader.

The preceding excerpt flowed from the pen of Victor Hugo in his epic work Les Miserables, Fantine, Book One, IV (Works to Match Words). Reading to my brother several days ago (now a week and a half ago), this passage re-awakened a personal sadness over impoverishment of symbols and their meaning in the full sense of the word "symbolic."

Imagine wearing a guillotine or a scaffold around your neck. Imagine hanging a picture of a corpse swinging from the gallows on your wall. Imagine tracing a noose around your neck with your fingers. Imagine praying before a rack or torturer's wheel. Are you feeling nauseated yet?

Yet, as Christians, we do many of these things (their equivalent, at least) quite regularly.

For what is the Cross but an instrument of torture and death? And it was as much a symbol as the guillotine of Hugo's day to the Roman world. What was said of the guillotine and scaffold above that could not be said of a cross?Before God died upon it, the cross was a horror, the embodiment of shame and excrutiating, prolonged death. And for the Jewish and Pagan world encountered by Christianity in it's early years, the cross was still such a symbol. Hence "the reproach of the cross" and the "foolishness of the cross" and the "shame of the cross."

Now, culturally, it's merely decorative. We arrange flowers on it. We put it on our walls, on our shirts, in our churches, around our necks in silver and gold, stick it to our cars, even tattoo it on our bodies without even stopping to think about what we're doing.

But the Cross "is the law made concrete." It is not pretty. It is gory and revolting. One can talk all one wants about crucifixion and remain unaffected - just as I could mention "drawing and quartering" until I saw Gibson's Brave Heart. Now even the words sicken me. (For those who have read Saint Joan by Bernard Shaw [a perfectly frivolous work except for some delightfully profound lines] one might think of "the Chaplain"'s reaction to Joan's burning.) Would we be as silly, unthinking, and irreverent today in our use of the Cross if it were still the norm in criminal punishment?

Though we have never witnessed crucifixion ourselves, we nevertheless confess the Cross as the means by which Christ won salvation for the whole world by incalculable suffering. What does it say about our God and His sacrifice to lightly treat the symbol of His agony in our flesh?

I think of the days prior to my awakening to orthodox catholicity when I was party to mockery of Roman Catholics using the Sign of the Cross. (Yes, Confession time) Sure, I can plead ignorance - the "Romophobia" (term borrowed from an Anglican friend at Hope) of the circles in which I revolved in my early life. But that doesn't diminish the significance of the act. In fact, it almost underscores a new sort of shame which attaches itself to the cross these days.

1. There is a sort of shame among the Protestant contingent when it comes to any relation between the body and spirituality. For many of them, there's a disconnect between spirit and body, the two are treated separately, and the idea that something done to the body could have any spiritual significance is often spurned as false and superstitious. * Thus the water of Baptism and the bread and wine of the Eucharist cannot have any effect upon the soul, besides being "bodily" signs to remind the Christian of "spiritual" things.

2. As said above, the cross, culturally, has become almost "merely" decorative. There is a deliberate, if ignorant of the purport of the action, impetus to separate the cross from its function. (Perhaps there is a link to Modernism and Post-Modernism here that needs to be explored.) People (generic populace) do not automatically think, "grotesque death" when they see a cross. They think, "religious," "christian," "jewelry," or any number of other categories (which they also often incorrectly define). This is especially aided by the Protestant de-body-ing of crosses. Remove the corpus and you've got two perpendicular lines intersecting. With the corpus, the average yokel might think, "Catholic," "Jesus," "church," or even "corpse," before he gets going on the aforementioned list.
People simply don't see a cross as a cross anymore. The sign is no longer symbolic of its function .
This "de-body-ing" the cross does away with the shame of death. But somehow, effacing the shame of the corpse of true Man from the cross, does not mesh with an understanding of the true God who truly became incarnate of the Blessed Virgin bodily, truly suffered bodily, truly died bodily, and was truly raised bodily.

So, on two counts, the mockery of the Sign of the Cross went awry. First, it operated on a false confession that what is done in the body does not matter. A sign doesn't do anything, therefore it is superstitious. Never mind whether it can confess the faith - that's done "with the mouth." Second, it failed to even remotely recognize the intrinsic meaning of the symbol as relating to either death or Christ. Both in the secular and sacred senses, none of the little "sitters in the seat of mockers" made any further connection with the bodily tracing of the fingers than "superstitious Catholics." We felt no shame, because we recognized neither shame nor glory in the simple geometric shape of the cross.

What is left of the glory if the shame never was?

I mean, if there was no intrinsic shame in the cross, why is it such a wonderful thing that Christ has made this tree glorious?

At any rate, there's a lot to chaw on. I'm more and more convinced that words and actions mean and do things - they aren't meaningless, even when they are misunderstood and misused. The spirit is not separate from the body. Rather the spirit lives in the body - not in an alcove, but permeating and filling the material in such a way that both together constitute one being, "the reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting." Even so, (if not quite so precisely) signs and symbols are not mere combinations of color and line, words not mere combination of sound. But each contain within themselves a fullness of history and usage. (This is why I'd often rather have a used book than a new one. Used books bring love with them in dirt and scuffs, in yellowed repair tape, and reglued pages.) This culture has cheapened our words and symbols by both a reductionistic approach and an approach that denies a real reality. To weed a garden is not the mere mechanical motions by which a hand grasps a plant stem by means of muscular contractions and extracts it from the earth, but rather an action comprehending and participating in the weeding of all gardens by all women, the nurturing of family, the tending of soil, yes, even suggesting an icon of the work of the Ministry and unseen Spirit. In the same way, a cross is not two intersecting lines alone, but comprehends every crucifixion and death, justice and injustice, pain, ridicule and shame, culminating in the one great crucifixion which implicates life, justification, vindication, glory, and resurrection in the one word or symbol of a simple cross.

As Hugo says of the Guillotine, the Cross is a living thing, three dimensional in its function, physically and metaphysically. And more than that. In each dimension, the Cross is a paradox as justice meets injustice, sin enounters holiness, glory transforms shame, life conquers by death, perishable is raised imperishable, as the immortal God-who-is-Man dies in order that He might not live without us and that we might live as He lives, sharing the same body.

And Arg! It's 11:57pm. It so annoying to have a brainwave the night before church. I so hope I'll still be alert tomorrow for the sermon. Someone, just slap me. :P

*Luther (in The Freedom of the Christian does say, " And so it will profit nothing that the body should be adorned with sacred vestments, or dwell in holy places, or be occupied in sacred offices, or pray, fast, and abstain from certain meats, or do whatever works can be done through the body and in the body... On the other hand, it will not at all injure the soul that the body should be clothed in profane raiment, should dwel in profane places, should eat and drink in the ordinary fashion, should not pray aloud, and should leave undone all the the things above mentioned, which may be done by hypocrites."
But to say that this passage corroborates the prevalent Protestant position refered to above, is to ignore the sentence which sits between these two preceding and clarifies them: "Some thing widely different will be necessary for the justification and life of the soul, sincethe things I have spoken of can be done by an impious person, and only hypocrites are produced by devotion to these things."

Luther does not say that the soul and body are disconnected or that nothing done to the body can affect the soul and vice versa. He was not so foolish. Indeed, we are saved body and soul by Baptism - a sacrament of water accompanied by the Word and Spirit of God applied to the body to convert the whole person, marking them as redeemed by Christ Crucified for the life everlasting. (See Luther's Catechisms on Baptism) No, the simple point Luther aims to make is that justification is not meritoriously gained by a man's actions. Man is justified by faith - not a belief he works up for himself, but the gift of God which simply receives the forgiveness freely given into its hands by Christ. It is not a striving or reaching for, but a bodily open mouth into which another delivers sustenance. The soul is not removed from the body, but lives in the body and through the body.
Would we assert that what is done in the body is unrelated to the soul we might expect Luther to respond, "Not so, impious men, I reply; not so. Tht would indeed really be the case, if we were thoroughly and completely inner and spiritual persons; but that will not happen until the last day, when the dead shall be raised. As long as we live in the flesh, we are but beginning and making advances in that which shall be completed in a future life," etc. Not that in heaven we shall be bodiless, for what then would be the purpose of confessing that we believe in "the resurrection of the body"? As Hugh of St. Victor says (refer to Treasury of Daily Prayer, Writing for Friday, Easter 7), "But if I shall rise in an ephemeral body, then I shall not be the one who rises. For how is it true resurrection if the flesh cannot be true? Therefore, clear reasoning suggests that if the flesh will not be true, without doubt the resurrection will not be true. So also, our Redeemer showed His hands and side to the disciples who doubted His resurrection He offered them His bones and flesh to handle, saying: 'Handle and see: for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me to have.'"
All that to say that this Protestant idea is by no means an orthodox one nor can it be properly ascribed to Luther.

I Would Not Be Afraid.

I do not want to be afraid any longer.

Pain, I will endure - it is my lot here on earth.
Longing, I will contain - it sustains my hope.
Love, I will give and not withhold - it nourishes the spirit

But Fear,
Fear corrupts Love, kills and squelches it.
Fear twists Longing, by strangling hope of fulfillment without abating the yearning.
Fear manipulates Pain, diverting it from it's proper end, and sealing lips that should pray.

Where shall I run from fear?

When I was small, I would run to my mother's arms, snuggle beside her in bed to escape nightmares. But she would always send me back to my own bed after the initial calm. Now I am too old to snuggle up in her lap. The fears I have now, my mother cannot calm.

But I am still a child of God. And I still have my Mother the Church. What then shall I do? Shall I run to her? I would - inasmuch as I am still a child. For only as a trusting child can I receive her comfort. And here is the sadness of it all. When I think myself begun to be wise, I begin to doubt my Mother. When I begin to doubt her, her gentle ministrations fall on skeptical ears. Ears which would believe her, but into which the wisdom of the world has whispered doubts concerning the wisdom of God. Kyrie Eleison!
So the child in me would cling to her skirts, would cry out to the Virgin's Son for His forgiveness - and does so. But when He bestows His blessed mercy and forgiveness, why does the upstart fool in me scorn His grace by doubting His absolution?

Our God's mercy is infinite, but how if I should fail to see Him? How shall my eyes be turned from seeing my own sin to beholding the righteousness of Christ? How shall I cease to call "unclean" what God has declared "clean"? And how shall I trust His Word that it is so?

God has not given us a spirit of fear. God the Holy Spirit drive out this fear which does not fear, love, and trust in God above all things, and fill the vessel of earth.

Comic Relief!

Dear Reader,

As I am in need of and currently enjoying little comic relief at this time, I thought I share some.

First, you simply must head over to Snap's place and read the history test! It's priceless.

Secondly, that Pine Cone Boy has given me permission to post quotes he took from Augustine. I stealed them from his blogses. Editorial Note: if there is a "me" in the following it signifies Zack. I must have forgotten to change it. Also, Bladerunner is Dr. Bloedow. And Metelsk is Dr. Metelski. And the funniest quotes are at the bottom so you really do have to read the entire thing!

Kyle: When I say there are seven students in my class, people ask, “You mean seventy, right?” “No, seven.”
David: “It’s kinda like seventy…”
Kyle: “…only divided by ten.”

Joel: Please tell me we have internet.
Zack: Nope.
Joel: Gah! My life is over!
Kyle: That was short.

Zack: I bet I know more Swedish than you do.
Kyle: (pointing at IKEA package) Then tell me what “Malm” means!

Zack: Fudge’d!

Joel: We have to make up a name for the frat we started five seconds ago. What rhymes with “frat”?

(On Joel’s strangely constructed closet)
Kyle: I can just imagine you sitting up there, reciting poety and thinking up rhymes for “frat”.
Joel: It’s like Narnia back here… ‘Oh, hey Aslan. Can you think of a rhyme for “frat”‘?

Me: Malm’d!

(This was a hypothetical dialogue Dr. Tingley was describing)
Torturer: Tell us who your accomplice is!
Victim: I like sardines.

Samantha: (on a fuzzy picture Tingley wanted us to indentify) It looks like a bat with a cleft lip.
Tingley: (on the same picture) Only one student has ever guessed it without any hints or prompting. He was one of the worst students that year, but he guessed it.

Tingley: People used to read Plato after supper, whereas now they read John Grisham or… Harry Potter. (looking at Zack's weird expression) I’ve probably offended some people already.
Zack: No, I just wish everyone would stop staring at me!

Kyle: Is there somewhere I can park around here without getting one of these? (holds up parking ticket)

Zack: The Basement People are on an excursion. Get all your hammering done now!

Harold: (on whether or not the Basement People would steal our stuff) I don’t think you’ll have any problems with them. (pause) I’m a little worried about your laptops.

Kyle: Also, when it’s raining, that tree tries to kill you.

Zack: (on Joel’s techno) Is that the song or are you rewinding?

([Zack]'d sat down next to Kyle with a creepy smile on [his] face)
Kyle: I thought you were trying to get me to drive you somewhere.
Zack: No. I just like being insane and enjoying every minute of it.

(later)Kyle: (on Joel) He’s insane and enjoying every minute of it!
Zack: Hey, at least I’m not smellily insane.
Joel: What?
Kyle: I think he doesn’t like your dreadlocks.
Joel: You’re a shameless antagonist!

Zack: (pointing at David’s cereal) Can I have some of that?
David: No… listen, my cereal is like your ice cream.(pause)
Zack: I’ll trade you.(Joel and David laugh)
Joel: I guess it’s not… that was really funny. (laughs some more)
Zack: OK, I guess I’ll have to write that one down…

Kyle: Huh? (opens a book cover which folded out without anything on it) I don’t get it. Why?

Dr. Patrick: Atheism explains nothing and leaves you with all the problems. At least Christians can blame God, and he doesn’t seem to mind.

Dr. Patrick: Do the hardest thing you’re capable of.
Joel: What?
Dr. Patrick: Do the hardest thing you’re capable of.
Joel: Oh. I thought you said, “Do the hardest thing and your head will blow up.”

Janice: Do you want anything to eat?
Clement: No, I’m fine.
Dr. Patrick: You don’t look it.

(Sarah was telling how she RA’d for another college once, and contrasting the guys’ disgusting residence with the girls’ lovely one)
Sarah: The girls’ house smelled really nice, with cookies and brownies…
Dr. Patrick: And not an intelligent word to be heard.

Bladerunner: In this course, you will never, never be allowed to say, “There is two”.

Kyle: (on his church) Most of the congregation is Chinese. And then you have a few token Caucasians such as myself.

Joel: Choir was mandatory, so I took that for a few years. Can’t read music. Then in high school I took band, and I was the trumpet. Still can’t read music.

Rev. Hayman: There have been a few people over the years who have gotten away with calling me “Dougie”.
Joel: Can I be one of those people?

Kyle: The rain is deceivingly wet.

Dr. Tingley: (reading Hegel) “To pit this single assertion, that ‘in the Absolute all is one,’ against the organized whole of determinate and complete knowledge, or of knowledge which at least aims at and demands complete development — to give out its Absolute as the night in which, as we say, all cows are black — that is the very naïveté of emptiness of knowledge.” (pause) Hwat?!?

(We were trying to translate the Latin idiom “Si vales, valeo” into a corresponding English expression. Various attempts included, “If you’re well, I’m well,” “If you’re fine, I’m fine,” “How are you,” and others)
Bladerunner: (clarifying) HI!!!

Dr. Tingley: Sorry I’m late today.
Joel: We’ll forgive you. Well, I will, anyway.

Dr. Tingley: If the fart, I mean, the heart… I’m really sorry these lectures are recorded.

(Emily was telling us how she abbreviated words like “tradition” and “delicious” to “tradish” and “delish”)
Zack: Gah, I HATE it when people do that!
David: Oh, it doesn’t mat to me.

Metelsk: Everyone has a book at home?
(we nod) Good. It has nice pictures.

Kyle: (on his Literature notes) I put down here on the timeline, “William the Conqueror does his thing. CONQUER’D!” And then later, here’s Christopher Marlowe. STABB’D!

Metelsk: (explaining Anaximander’s theories) That was his thinking. Well, good try.

Karen: Deer are so stupid! *sigh* We should just shoot all of them.

(I mentioned I was planning to bring an axe to the Ranch)
Janice: An axe? A hatchet maybe, or a tomahawk…
Karen: I love throwing tomahawks. (mimes doing so)
Sarah: See, this is what makes me afraid of Americans. Americans and Zack.
Zack: I like weapons.

Zack: (finishing drying pot lid) Here’s your LID.
Joel: Put it on the pot, please.
Zack: Never. I’ll die first.
Joel: That can be arranged.

Bladerunner: (coming out of a long tangent about Roman history) No, we didn’t do the verb… why am I talking about this? We’re supposed to be doing Latin…

Bladerunner: A noun in the nominative plural.
Karen: …Virorum?
Bladerunner: Oh no, no, no, don’t do that to me, Karen.

Bladerunner: First verb.
Joel: Amicos…
Bladerunner: Now Joel. Now Joel, don’t ruin my day.

Bladerunner: The verb?
Kyle: Iram… no, what am I doing…
Bladerunner: I don’t know what you’re doing. It puzzles me.

Bladerunner: “Caecilianus has a lovely dinner-guest.” (pause) A pig.

Bladerunner: Direct object.
David: Leonidas.
Bladerunner: Now David, don’t make my life miserable.

Bladerunner: The verb?
David: Salvi?
Bladerunner: What are you trying to tell me.

Sarah: The next chapter is exactly the same as the last one, except with masculine endings.
David: But that’s not exactly the same, then!

Joel: They look young and stupid. Why aren’t they in school?

Karen: (watching a beatboxing video) Can you imagine how much spit is in that microphone?

Prof. Warren: I won’t read all this; I don’t want to kill your brain cells.
Zack: You already have.
Prof. Warren: Yes, well, hopefully we’ve created a few along the way…

Kyle: I’ve decided to form a club called, “Paradise Lost: WTF?”

Joel: (on the Cyclopes) They’re irreparably nucleic.
Prof. Tucker: Now there’s a phrase.

Zack: I’m pretty sure I’m the metalhead of this residence.
Joel: Yeah. (pause) Actually, I’m not sure you are…
Zack: You’re right, I’m just a poser.
Kyle: Wow, that was a quick confession.

Rev. Hayman: (making some kind of Biblical illustration) If you hear a loud roar outside… (a bus rolls by loudly outside) …well, that’s not quite what I was thinking of…

Tingley: Something in my brain is upside-down.

Joel: Why won’t it just get cold?
Zack: Zeus is angry at us. We must make hecatombs.
Joel: We’ll pour out libations and slaughter a cow. Except I don’t have any cows. (looks out window) I hope that guy will do.

Tingley: We’ll be able to end early today. Mercifully. For once. (we didn’t, btw)

Tingley: (on a bust of a philosopher) What’s different here?
Samantha: He looks insane.

Tingley: (on a sculpture of Aphrodite and Pan) She’s got a slipper here, and she’s going to whack him. “Oh, you naughty thing!”

Emily: They’re probably in numerical order. Two coming after one, etc.

Clement: So how’s everyone tonight?
Zack: Peachy. I’m just peachy!
Sarah: I think we need to stop giving Zack sugar. And caffeine.

Note attached to plant: I’m drowning. Don’t water me, please!

David: (telling a joke) What do white children turn into when they go to heaven?
Joel: Black people?
David: No, angels.
Joel: Same thing.

Emily: (dramatically speaking of the alleged Beowulf movie) As Grendel’s arm was ripped from his body, so the plot of Beowulf was ripped from the poem!

Joel: (on Beowulf) He killed seven people before he was born.
Emily: Yeah. “I ate my twin!”

Karen: That’s not the question I was expecting…
Tingley: Deal with it.

The following bracketed quotes are from a film Dr. Tingley showed us:

[Narrator: Each man puts forth his own definition of love until finally, Socrates annihilates them all.

Teacher: Beautiful speech. Beautiful. But of course... it has to be demolished.]

Me: I have a possible solution to the subjective dilemma you find yourself in.

Karen: That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!
Joel: You don’t hear much, do you?

Kyle: I learned all this reading Tom Clancey novels.
Prof. Tucker: Yeah, they teach pretty much everything in those except character development.

Zack: Look, did you have some kind of weird drink at that party?(pause)
Joel: (in really weird voice) The weirdest.

Tingley: That’s a good question, and we should answer it — just not now.

Sarah: I’m a horrible person.
Kyle: But it’s such a nice horrible.

Bladerunner: And who do you think Ovid is speaking to?
Kyle: Umm… who’s Ovid?

Prof. Warren: Well, we’re finishing up Gregorian chant today, believe it or not.
Zack: I don’t believe it.

(the following exchange took place on MSN)
Zack: Where are you?
Joel: I’m listening to MM in hermitude.
Zack: Hermitude? I think you mean the Hermitage, my friend.
Joel: No, hermitude. It’s like solitude, but with a beard.

Rev. Hayman: What’s the word you use for a people like this? Common lineage, common language, common goals…
Joel: …communists?

Prof. Tucker: (on Buechner) His theology is not orthodox, but… y’know. Who cares.

Tingley: Plato called Aristotle “The Reader”. Which is a good thing to be called. (pause) Better than “The Gamer”.

Tingley: Please excuse the proximity in that sentence of God and a dung beetle.

Prof. Tucker: …the reign of King Elizabeth.
Zack: Umm… isn’t that Queen Elizabeth?
Prof. Tucker: No, King Elizabeth sounds right to me.

Prof. Tucker: “Interactional synchrony.” Sounds like a Police album.

Prof. Tucker: “Most drafts can be cut by 50 per cent without losing any information or losing the author’s voice.”
David: Wow. That’s a lot of per cent. That’s almost, like, half.

Sarah: Does Wolsey get his head chopped off?
Prof. Tucker: No, I think he just dies.
Kyle: I’d like to point out right now that those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.

Kyle: I think you really need to revise your definition of “feet”.

(Joel’s laptop starts making a weird beeping noise)
Tingley: Where is that noise coming from?
Joel: My laptop. And it’s never made that noise before. I didn’t think it was capable of making that noise.(pause)
Tingley We — we don’t have to flee the building?

Bladerunner: The Rape of Lucretia, that’s a nice story…

Dr. Patrick: (to Zack) Yes, your veins are fairly prominent!

Joel: Sir, if you had a knife, would you beat someone with it?
Rev. Hayman: I’d be inclined to use a hammer.

Dr. Patrick: So since you got the Templeton Prize, how has your life changed?
Dr. Heller: It has been RUINED.

Dr. Heller: Cosmology is more narrow. Cosmology is concerned with one thing only: the universe.

Joel: (on his scarf) It’s like a day-long hug from a very fluffy man.
Janice: Or an attempt to strangle you from a very weak man.

Tingley: When you hear people talk about art, what do you think of?
Zack: I think of film, actually.
Tingley: Well, you would, wouldn’t you.

Rev. Hayman: What does “amen” mean?
Zack: (remembering that we’d looked this up, but I couldn’t remember what it meant) …aw, crap.
Rev. Hayman: It does not mean “aw, crap”.

Tingley: Now, some people don’t like the word “argument”.
Zack: I like the word argument.
Tingley: We know you like it, Zack. That might be the first thing we learned about you.

Prof. Tucker: (on the Rime of the Ancient Mariner) First reactions?
Dave: I liked it.
Prof. Tucker: OK. Why?
Dave: Uhhh… it was cool…

Tingley: …the forum here was populated only by pigs, deer, and vegetables…

Bladerunner: What case is “tibi,” Kyle?
Kyle: Umm… dative?

Bladerunner: Dative. Dative, David. (pause) David dative. Dative David. (chuckles)

Karen: (on how she’d been using Emily’s method of abbreviaysh) I was doing the Scriptures reading and I thought, “justificaysh”.
Zack: Heh, and sanctificaysh.
Dave: Whoa, guys. That’s not funny. It has to do with your salvaysh!
Joel: (coming over) Hey guys, I really enjoyed that talk on the Transfiguraysh.

Kyle: I like carnage, OK? Nothing wrong with that.

Kyle: What did I tell you about dreamworlds of magic? No more dreamworlds of magic!

Tingley: Does everyone agree with that? Or do we have… dissenters?

Tingley: In a syllogism, two negatives don’t make a positive, they make a big nothing.

Tingley: Is it valid?
Joel: No. Yes.
Tingley: I got a “no” and a “yes”… FROM THE SAME PERSON!

Tingley: (speaking of Zack) I just wish we could dial the irony knob down, though…
Dr. Patrick: No no, rack it up!

Dave: I dunno… is there such a thing as too much Bach?
Prof. Warren: (immediately) No.

Joel: (on the garbage) It sounds like some fruity tree gone wrong.

Emly: I need something abrasive. Can I borrow your personality?

Nova: I feel like one big frozen nose.

Tingley: (looks at Joel’s tea) Looks like Joel’s poured himself a nice scotch.

Joel: Accept my hospitality or I’ll KILL YOU!!!

Nova: Somehow proximity to the food makes me feel safer.
Emly: You clearly haven’t seen me cook.

(watching Andrei Rublev)
Cyril: It’s like Ottawa: always winter.
Nova: But never Christmas!

Zack: Some people don’t think squirrels will be in heaven.
Emly: (in silly voice) Well, the people who think that are probably not going there anyway.

Rev. Hayman: Were you saying something, Samantha?
Samantha: Oh, I was just gonna say what Dave said.
Rev. Hayman. Oh. You might want to change that… I was about to rip him to shreds.

(Tingley rings “bell” for quiet in the class)
Joel: Every time you do that it makes me think of a wedding.
Tingley: What do I have to do to shut you up.

Cyril: (to Jesse) Ah, you Eastern Orthodox weren’t REALLY worshipping God this morning because you were praying in a language you could understand!

(Cyril says something about the pope)
Jesse: Who you worship.
Cyril: We VENERATE the pope, we do not WORSHIP him…
Jesse: Yes you do.

Liturgy is Like Maccaroni and Cheese?

Every family makes Maccaroni and Cheese a little bit differently. And each member of the family fixes the family recipe a bit differently.

Some cook it out-of-the-box and some cook it "out of the box." Some make it from scratch. Some use oddly shaped noodles. Some put in veggies and some put in meat. Some put in extra cheese. A few put in hot sauce. Some sprinkle on parsley or offer it as an optional side. Some eat it as is.

Among the veggie adders, one may encounter the advocates of brocculi, carrots, peas, tomatoes, and stranger animals. Among the meat includers one might meet mixers-in of hot dogs, sausage, ham, or weirder substances. And the advocates of cheese besprinkle the mac with breeds as various as the possibilities of that fungal growth.

Those are more of the purist cooks. Then you get the ones who like to experiment and mix. The ones who throw in all the leftovers from the fridge and hope no one notices the incompatible tastes. Or the ones who change the recipe every week, startling the tastebuds into a sort of annoyance.

But even this is still Maccaroni and Cheese.

There are still the noodles and there is still the cheese. Other little practices more or less compatible with the noodles and cheese may be added, but the basis of the Maccaroni and Cheese remains the same.

It's when the cooks start forget about the noodles and the cheese that the eater of Maccaroni and Cheese should get nervous. When the dish becomes more about how many colors of veggies can be fit into it, or how many leftovers can be used up in the process, or how different it can taste from Mrs. X's maccaroni and cheese, the eater fights an urge to panic and go back to plain noodles and cheese - no embellishments.

I like fried perch - but please don't put it in my Maccaroni and Cheese. Hot dog chunks, in the right proportion and right context, can serve and bring out the flavor of the cheese and texture of the noodles, but not always. Sometimes the hot dogs can distract from the dish itself. Even brocculi in the wrong amount, or cooked incorrectly, can simply deter a child from eating and enjoying his Maccaroni and Cheese. Something about the stringy green against the yellow disgusts him - he just can't bring himself to put a spoonful in his mouth. Brocculi, most often a wonderful addition to any dish of Maccaroni and Cheese, has become a stumbling block keeping the child from eating his dinner, or enjoying it if he does taste it.

Embelishments are supposed to enhance the eating of the Maccaroni and Cheese. Where they don't, oughtn't they be left out or introduced gradually, so that the eater's tongue may come to find them palatable?

On the other hand, noodles and cheese cannot be disposed of and ought to be of the finest quality if they can be had. If one were to make Maccaroni and Cheese without noodles or cheese, it would cease to be the dish it was meant to be. Elbow maccaroni is good, but bowties set off the dish as a work of genuine art-cookery. Processed Cheese-Food is satisfactory and suitable for simple lunches, but genuine Cheddar suggests an entree of special quality and excellence for an occasion of the same.

Am I going crazy? If not, what have I forgotten in this nice little comparison?

Pathetically Out of Context: Reposted

It's been a long 3 days. The family is family, but Nova must squish back into Sarah. I'm not Sarah Antigua anymore, try as I might to return. Sarah Nova thinks differently; thinking differently, she must act differently, but how?

So far, Sarah Nova has been trying with all her might to move her body and mouth in accordance with Sarah Antigua's vaguely-retrieved will. But the Thought of the New will not fit the Old, nor does the Old dance to the new tune. A new patch on an old garment, new wine into old wineskins: tears become worse, skins spit from fermentation.

Tonight I couldn't help myself; I looked up the Augustine College website and skimmed the info, dwelling on the professors' mini-bios. I looked up St. F. X. University on whim, just to see if they had a Nursing Program. I shouldn't have: they do. (Shoots self in foot) I should really head to bed, but instead I introspected a tad. All I could think of was the word "pathetic." Sarah, thought I, that part of you neither Antigua nor Nova, you are pathetic.

Then I stopped short (as I have frequently done in the recent past concerning things of this sort). What had I said? What does "Pathetic" really mean? Ought I not be pathetic and if not, in what sense not? I called upon Dictionary.com.

–adjective
1.
causing or evoking pity, sympathetic sadness, sorrow, etc.; pitiful; pitiable: a pathetic letter; a pathetic sight.
2.
affecting or moving the feelings.
3.
pertaining to or caused by the feelings.
4.
miserably or contemptibly inadequate: In return for our investment we get a pathetic three percent interest.

Hmm. In my present state, I surely ought not be 1. I've no reason to evoke pity or sorrow on anyone's part, except perhaps by my ignorance and presumption. I've certainly been blessed in every way possible. What is left in my condition that I should be pitiable, except that I do not appreciate my riches?Number 2. is irreduceably vague. Number 3. is an impossibility.

Number 4. however, strikes me as woefully accurate. Miserably or contemptibly inadequate. Yep. Not that I'm feeling miserable - nothing of the sort, just tired and a trifle confused, wearily trying to search out among my acquaintances a confidante for things my soul would say just now. But I am inadequate: miserably and contemptibly so. I, who once thought myself capable, skilled in communication, able to build and repair comfortable (or at least supportable) interpersonal relationships, adept to adapt, find a portion of myself isolated from the rest of myself. I have split my life between two poles which do not yet understand each other and who have either no time (even if interest) or opportunity to attempt to understand each other. I find myself unable to communicate between myselves.

I find myself unsure. Unsure not of who I am, but of what the shell of me should do, act, comport itself. People see the shell and think they recognize it, that they know it internally. Sarah Nova wears the crust of Sarah Antigua. It is exhausting enough to become aquainted with one person; once aquainted we humans tend to forget that change is imminent and unavoidable. What shall we then do but attempt to recognize that the person who spoke to me yesterday is the same, but different. What we shared we may not still share except in memory. If we don't face this fact, if we attempt to employ the past in the present, we will fail to share the present; for the past cannot bridge a gap unless one lives in the past. If we would live in the present, we may summon the past to memory and learn from it, cherishing it, and building from it in the present, but the present must be carved with its own tools.

In memory, one does not have a person, but what a person was. It is in the present that a person is. Memory is beautiful because it treasures up a present in the past which still operates upon things which are. But memory cannot join two people in the present except by both persons gazing into the past. The past "present" is not present in the present, but informs the present.

And I dig the hole deeper. Someone push me in. :D I'm not sure if I'm making any sense to anyone but me.

I guess I'm trying to say something like this:We change. Instead of denying change in practice (even while we affirm in theoretically), let's try to understand the people that are now, even if that glimpse may be altered in a year.

And this:I'm not sure how I am able to act currently. If I'm a bit awkward or unintentionally rude, please, please be patient with me and chalk it up to reverse culture shock. All the same, do chide me and direct me how I ought to relate to you. I'm not very good at contextual hints anymore since I've been totally thrown out of my context, aclimated to a new one, and have been thrown back into an altered one.

I'm like a quote out of context right now. Please put me back into the right context. Treat me critically. I'll try to figure out your context too.

Meltdown Mode

So, (trying hard to comment objectively, aloof from myself)

I'm kind of in emotional meltdown mode today. I should be studying, but I'm not. I know it will pass, it always does (Praise be to Christ!), but that doesn't make it any easier when it does come, this churning sea of emotional turmoil. Maybe it's the fact that I discussed these pieces of art (among) in my art exam this morning.

The Justice of Emperor Otto III - Dirc Bouts the Elder
Venus and Mars Bound by Love - Paolo Veronese

Morning in the Riesengebirge - Caspar David Friedrich

On the Sailboat - Caspar David Friedrich

Or maybe I chose to discuss them because of this mood. At any rate, they were the paintings I found most simple to explain at length last night and today.

Good grief! I think I just want to cuddle into some solid warm sympathetic something and weep a little. I'm not sad, I'm just, I don't know. It sounds very silly and childish, but I've come to accept tears as an honorable outlet rather than a shame. They are substitutes for the words I can't say, don't even know how to say.

Some day, maybe I'll learn to be the strong woman I've tried to be since I was little. Back then, it was so easy to be Joan of Arc, Molly Pitcher, or other female patriots or saints of my fancy. Then, bang, something hit me at about 13 years old, started throwing me around at 15, and totally disoriented and hung me up by my thumbs at 16-17. Coming out of 17, I learned to ride the waves, predict them, and even to occasionally keep my mouth shut when the sea starts pitching. Now, I've become familiar to the point that the emotional upheaval is like an old annoying aquaintance. I know each feeling and what sorts of things it feels when it comes. I've learned to recognize that my reason does not control my "rational" thought during certain phases of my life. I'm becoming better at riding out the torrent, and waiting for a better day.

This is perhaps, my biggest point of contention with the Thomists I know: namely that man's thoughts and actions are rational (This may or may not reflect Aquinas: I can't even think about him right now.). You see, my thoughts were once rational. But sometimes, it is as if something else has hijacked my mind and completely turned my senses haywire. I'm in control, but it's not my rational me, or at least, it's a different rational me that's not rational. Then, say those Aristotelian men who've probably never undergone such an ordeal, it's your passions getting the better of your reason. But it's not. It's not a drive or a desire or a seeking the good. It's a whole different way of reasoning where logic doesn't satisfy or console, where this unreasonable reason takes control of one's mouth while the other reason cries in the background, "I don't really mean that. I'm so sorry. How, why does this other reasoning control me for these brief spans?" Deep down inside, I realize that my thoughts are incoherent and my words even less so.

It is so frustrating to live with two reasons - a reasonable and an unreasonable. Right now the unreasonable one wants me to unreasonably mourn a road I didn't take. But even that will pass, by God's grace.

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost.

Thanks to ODLBN for his wisdom and encouragement.

Save me from Mrs. P!: Or, I'm so, so sorry and guiltily ashamed of myself...

I'm upstairs cringing in a corner. Yes, I am, all 18 years of me.

Worse than that, it's not even my own corner I'm hiding in, it's Samantha's room. I'm too scared to hide by myself.

Why, you ask, am I - a college student - shamefacedly hiding in an upstairs room?

Because I didn't do my kitchen chores.

Laugh if you will. I can't help laughing myself, even while I feel a strange mixture of shame, apprehension, and sorrow. I'm so, so, so very sorry, Janice. (Though she can't hear me.)

You see, dear reader, there was to be a meeting of the college faculty this very evening (which is in fact, going on whilst I furtively type). Accordingly, we were asked to tidy things up a tad bit before they all arrived. Our R.A., Janice, had dinner engagements and as things ended up, only Samantha and I were left at the college. Being the lazy, slovenly sloths we are, we tidied up a minimum in the living room and class room, went on a walk, bought two very large luscious brownies from a local baker, came back, cooked brussel sprouts and cabbage and ate pickles, requiring me to open the perpetually smelly downstairs refrigerator which seemed unaccountably stinky tonight, left our dirty dishes in the sink, and headed upstairs to make a halfhearted attempt at homework as faculty cars arrived.

Of course, none of the faculty would walk through the kitchen, I reasoned as I laid down my pickle and cabbage stinking utensils. It would prove a much rued thought in retrospect.

I had barely bestowed myself in my room over various parchments, electronic and otherwise when I heard the door open and several persons enter. Suddenly, I heard a voice that halted my heart and seized it as in a chill ever tightening vise.


"Thomas [name changed]! What is that horrible smell!?!" A high woman's voice rose in what seemed an English strain of disapproval and concerned shock.
"It's cooking, my dear," a heavily British male voice replied calmly.
"Are you sure it's not the drains?!?" Every word carried easily into my room. I could not decipher his response.

It was the Mistress of the Establishment: Mrs. P, herself. Not that she would think of herself that way - she wouldn't - but being herself, she was the unconscious chatelaine of our group of young females to whom the thought of imminent encounter with Mrs. Dr. P would hurl into a frenzy of cleaning, sweeping junk under rugs, tidying, and de-odorizing. Never had I dreamt this day of Her entering the kitchen, our mess exposed to her eyes.

I shivered. I heard her voice beneath me, her steps toward the kitchen. I thought of the cluttered counter, the unwashed pots on the stove, the dishes in the sink. I saw in my minds eye, Janice, innocent, receiving a scolding for a catastrophe she did not create, domestic dirt she had dutifully consigned to our care. I shivered again and shuddered. Suddenly I was overwhelmed by an insurmountable desire for human company - for the commiseration of fellow sinners.

Ever so silently, I crept out of my room and tapped soundlessly on Samantha's door. "Samantha," I whimpered. "Come in," I heard her whisper, and I did. We looked at each other, the horror of realization visible in our faces. "That's S. isn't it," she said. I nodded, wishing with all my might that it were any other lady. "It never crossed my mind that she would come tonight," I offered, whispering, and we continued in soundless interjections of repentence and guilty confession recounting all the multiple things which were out of order on the floor below and which must perforce meet with disapprobation the cultured senses of M' Lady.

"Oh, if she should come up the stairs!" I gasped, and shivered with the horror of the possible event - horrible in it's possibility, possible on account of it's horror. I will not burden you, dear reader, with an account of the current state of the upstairs domain of the women, only suffice it to say that the current state is the past state under the effect of the Thermodynamic Second Law and as no outside force has acted upon it, it has with rapid, unfaltering motion careened in the direction of increasing entropy.

Noises from the kitchen indicated a busy cleaning and tidying. A new horror. And shame. Now we couldn't even sneak down and set all to order while everyone was in the meeting.

"Samantha," I whined, "can I come hide in your room with you?" We had both concluded that neither of us would be leaving the room while the Entity was busy below. She assented, and here have I remained, curled taunt in a corner, typing out the circumstances of my hilarious miserable guiltiness.

********************************************************************
I heard Janice's footsteps on the stair. Furtively, I crept from Samantha's corner and intercepted her near her room. Red of face, I confessed our...urm...situation at which Janice laughed soundlessly, silently shaking from amusement. Relieved, I laughed with her. No, she hadn't expected us to clean up any more, yes, Mrs. P would see a speck of dust anywhere. Still snickering, she padded down the stairs to the meeting.

I felt as if a load had dropped from my shoulders. It had. But I'm still not going to go downstairs until my lady leaves....
Pardon the cowardice. :P

Sing a Song of Sixpence

Actually, the title has nothing to do with the post. Well, almost nothing. :D

I hesitate to blog anything which relates to plans because if I do, the plans will most definitely change! Have you ever played Pin the Tail on the Donkey? Remember how they tied the blindfold around your eyes, then spun you around until you were disoriented, then pointed you in a direction completely different from your target? You swayed from side to side, trying to catch your balance. Arms out in front of you, you took one small tentative step forward, hoping to feel a bit of wall in front of you. Behind you, someone giggled. Someone cheered, "keep going! You're almost there!" Encouraged, you moved forward, reaching eagerly. Then you heard another whisper. "She's going in the wrong direction. She's going to walk into the other wall." Instantly, you halt, uncertain where to go next. From all around you advice inundates your ears:
"Right!"
"Turn left!"
"Straight forward - you've almost got it!"
"They're lying - turn around."
"No, no. Let her figure it out by herself!"
"Be quiet. We're helping her."
"No, you're not!"

You are unsure of everything but one fact: you are making a humongous fool of yourself and everybody is watching you do it.

Remember wearing the same blindfold a few minutes later as you swung a club in frustration at the pinata just beyond your reach. You knew it was there - within feet of your stick - but somehow you couldn't make contact with the silly wad of papermache! Newspaper and goo! The desire to smack that, that thing, surged through you as the frustration mounted. You searched the unvisible air for the pinata. Finally, the tip of bat encountered something hard and hollow. Winding up for your hardest stroke, your arms sliced through the air with all the force you could muster. But something was wrong. Where did it go? No! It was there, it was! Next instant you hear and feel a thud, and your dad yelps. Sorry. You turn and make another go at it, longing to the the crack of hardened newspaper splitting asunder, doubting whether you ever will. If only you could see!

Both of these scenarios have one very beneficial aspect in common: they're both games, playthings, diversions. You can end them whenever you want. How each turns out may affect a day, a week, perhaps even a month if your dad teases you about the bruise, but ultimately do not have a significant impact on the course of your life. There are more important things to living, and there will be more games.

I feel as though I am blindfolded with bat or tail between my fingers ... only to find that this is not a game.
I've been blindfolded and spun. Streams of instructions overwhelm my ears. I've pinned the donkey's tail to the ears instead of to the rump and now it's got to stick there. I've got a couple more tails, but they're a lot smaller. Someone gave me a club to swing, but I'm not sure where that blob of papermache got to. Canada? Michigan? I'm itching to smack it, but I've got to find it first.

And it's not a game. My future swings with the bat and sticks with the tail. Ouch!

I am, of course, speaking of college(s). What I look at is cost-effective nutrient-density. Most institutions charge a pretty sixpence. And it appears that pence of any amount are becoming more and more difficult to come by.

One thing for certain: I'm not going back to Hope. Dad's authority there. And there's no point: the Greek is gone, Nursing I can take here for less.

We've got some interesting developments on the horizon. Basically, two main tracks. I can go to Hillsdale for four years and come out at the end in debt with a degree in something really interesting that basically only equips me for grad school. Or I can go back to community college for two years to finish an RN and add another year at a co-operating school to achieve a BSN. Just two years to a well-paying job that is pretty secure even in economic decline. Three years to a bachelor's which would allow me to go to enter CTSFW's Deaconess Program, if God so wills.
I'm torn. Enter $. Quality four-year liberal arts colleges are expensive: that's just the way it is. Community colleges are much less. Hmmmm.
If Hillsdale now, I'll be out of sequence for freshman classes. If back to community college, I can't enter the Nursing program till fall. Either way, it can't hurt to postpone the final decision which will determine the course of the next three years till summer. (Or can it?)
But what about this coming semester? I don't want to do nothing. I need to be engaged in useful learning. For this, I have the same two institutions as options, plus a third. I may be headed to Canada.

Time is running out as I wait for pieces of the puzzle to fall into place. Yet, I'm excited too. Ok, so I'm a little scared as well. Mostly I'm just tired of uncertainty. Ah, well, this is life under the cross. At least we know that Christ is certain and will continue to be.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Something remotely obscure and meant to befuddle your mind while my mind is otherwise occupied.

If you can read this, you are too far away.

Pray, interpret.

Must there be an interpretation?

What if there is no interpretation?

And no, I am not depressed. I am simply relatively elated and exhausted. Which means that I should not be typing. And which further means that I should not publish this post which I will proceed to do anyway.

I suppose that to make this post worthwhile I ought to document some of the circumstances which have precipitated the lack of anything of substance being published to this blog for the past few weeks. I am playing cook/nurse/chambermaid/servant/secretary/glass-breaker/lemonade spiller/ clothes washer/annoyer/abandoning-er/and whatever else is needed. I can't say that I've done a very good job. (Come one, I've only broken one glass. You'd think I could drop at least five!)

The Only Fabulous Harrison Person is at home, more or less both in my charge and acting as commanding officer. So far she has not had much to do. The first few days, people dropped by, but today she has seen no other face than mine (and of course, the talking heads squished flat on the talking screen).

The tasks to which I am put are not difficult, but they are consistent and regular, though not constant. This leaves me considerable time for day-dreaming and for late night, email loitering.
Today, I put the house in order, helped Karen wash her hair, did general cleanup, let in the Physical Therapist and the Nurse, made lunch, then bid OFHP farewell for the afternoon. I ran into town, bought rabbit feed, had keys made, (ran another secret errand for which I may later be loudly berated: Let the reader understand), arrived at home, and was immediately set to emptying my room into the living room. So now, all my earthly possessions - every single last one of them - are sitting in disorderly heaps and more orderly box stacks in the middle of family living quarters. I shed a few tears while packing things away. Jaff, my Giraffe has seen better days as has my Lady Bunny.

It almost seems as if I am putting to rest a section of my life. As if a volume has been completed and a sequel may shortly be written. What strikes me as so strange is the fact that many of the "laws" if you will, which governed the previous book, and if not the laws, then definitely the "rules of thumb", are no longer binding. My former thoughts, and dreams, and plans now seem either fulfilled or ... gone! And look where I will, I cannot find them again.

Another way in which I seem to be between sections of my life struck me tonight. All the specific plans and dreams I have ever made have dealt with the portion of my life between Kindergarten and the beginning of college. College was a goal - an endpoint. But now I find myself standing on the brink gazing at a horizon I cannot understand, thinking many thoughts which utterly amaze and abash me, trying to get my balance before I plunge into the storm looming ever nearer.

I am not at all what I thought I would be at this age and stage in life. I had dismissed many of the feelings of literary characters as sentimental extravagance meant to delight the imagination of the writer and reader, rather than actual emotions and thoughts when I was younger. Now, I begin to question my youthful preconceptions.

When I was a child, I thought like a child. I created schemas for interacting with peers and adults. I manufactured frameworks for understanding not only how adults would behave, but why they behaved in certain ways. In my mind, I thought I understood how my parents and others felt, thought and acted in response to various circumstances. According to what I thought I understood, I determined to act. In other words, I decided beforehand, what I would think, how I would feel, and how I would act, when I became the age I am now.

What do you know? It isn't working. Should I be surprised? No.

But since a book has closed tightly shut and no more can be written therein, and I find that I still have enough loose leaves left between that volume and the one to come, I ought to find out the rules and laws which govern the pages I am about to turn. There is just enough room left in the torn out pages to take notes. I am eager to learn. I hope to find time to feel out the lay of the land with my parents, pastors, friends before the next scene opens.

But some things do not change. They continue from one book to the next, from one age to another, and from the beginning to the end. Christ is He who was, and is, and is to come. He sharpened the pen, prepared the ink, brought the paper. He wrote the first word on the first page. He dedicated it to his Father and wrote His own Name across the cover. He bound the pages together. He wrote the chapters; and even when I tried to tear the pen away from Him and spilt the ink across the page, he turned the smudges into designs I could never have imagined. Many times I wept over the pages, for to me it seemed that what He had written stripped me of my heart's greatest desires. But then He turned the page and the story continued, and my heart was healed. Often I thought I understood where the tale was headed, so I planned the next chapter. But when He finally penned that portion, it was nothing like what I had thought or imagined. Were my imaginations then for nought? I do not think so, but that is not the topic at hand. Now at last, it seems He has finished the manuscript, and lo! I find it was only a prologue - a precursor to another volume. I am confused, and impatient. Do you call that a story? Where is the ending? What did that girl whose life you have written do? Wait! Perhaps this is the story of the Writer not of the Page that was written upon...

And there is another parchment being unrolled - the same as the previous, and yet different. I am not to be the writer of this book just as I was not the writer of the last. Too often I think of the previous scroll as merely a good example so that now I can take control and pen a good tale myself. That is a dangerous lie! For if I could spill so much ink on the pages when I had less guile, what grevious damage I should do now were I to hold the pen solely in my own faltering grasp! These coming pages differ from the previous ones only in story written upon them: the Writer and the Page remain the same.

The afterword of the first volume and the introduction to the second are being written. The content of those pages I cannot tell.

But I do not need to know! There is comfort here. The Author of my life knows what He will write. His name is on the book and that is enough. Nothing will end the story until He lays down His pen. His work is faultless. What have I to fear? Even the moments which seem so useless - the paragraphs which seems so nonsensical - are His gift, His pen flourishes.
Why should I be discouraged that I have done so little to make Another's story grand and glorious? What cause have I to despair over my lack of works, when no works of my own are needed?

My life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is my life appears, I also will appear with him in glory!

So ends a period of my life and begins another. But Christ continues. My baptism marked me at the beginning and will still mark me at the end. My sustenance is still the same Body and Blood of my Lord. My clothing is still the righteousness of Christ: His forgiveness. My life is still only in Jesus' Word. What else do I need to know?

I am naive and know not what to expect. But that is okay. I'm content to walk next to my Daddy with my hand in His. He knows the way even though I don't. He won't hurt me. He loves me. I am content.

They That Sit in Moses Seat.

http://crazyvogelhaver.blogspot.com/2008/03/i-thought-i-was-sick-before.html

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, "The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so practice and observe whatever they tell you - but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger." Matt.23:1-4

Just a thought.

A hardened cultural view of death

O God, O Lord of heaven and earth, Thy living finger never wrote that life should be an aimless mote, a deathward drift from futile birth.


What is wrong with our world? The callousness is abominable. Cruel, systematic removal of all shame, all emotion, all associations between value and life. O abhorrent media!

Today, for reasons beyond the scope of this post, I ran to class ten minutes late, only to be stopped by a fellow student and assured that there was no need for haste. Our professor, it seems, had become stuck in her driveway so the Dedicated Tutor was showing a movie instead of lecture. We could watch if we wished, or not. I elected to watch.

The first section was extremely well done. It was clear from the first few minutes that the film was British made. The narrator could possibly have come from the US, but all other persons featured were possessed of extremely British accents. Even the cliches and phraseology were British.

In the first section, we were shown how the body repairs itself in youth. A young girl falls from her bicycle and fractures her radius. The film lead us sequentially through every minute step of the healing process. For some reason, the makers seemed to emphasize the amazing abilities and potential of youth. At first that stress on youth seemed to be a proper thing.

But then we began to watch the second half of the movie. And then the callous systematic God-lesness began to emerge. I would not necessarily say that this aspect is essentially British, but I opine that this element of candidly laying out facts is characteristic of that culture.

The second half of the movie began with octogenarian "Bob". Bob was once young. Bob was once valuable to society. But now Bob has fulfilled his evolutionary purpose. He has reproduced, passed on his genes and now is just biding his time till death. He is dispensible to society. His body isn't working as well, so Bob's "quality of life" is diminished. In other words, there's no reason for the guy to be around anymore.

After cooly stating these facts (and others) the makers go on to show Bob lovingly interacting with his dog, his son, his grandson. During all these familial interactions, the film flashes inside Bob's body and explains how his organs aren't working and why their malfunction will kill him. It's just sickening. You could tell from about ten minutes into it that the film would end with Bob's death.

What made the experience even more troubling for me was that two of my fellow students had brought their little children to class. Two small girls, not over the age of 8, were hearing in the plainest terms that this kindly, gentle, grandpa-like elder had only one destiny in life: to die. And they listened wide-eyed while the film explained step by step the reasons Bob's life would end. Oh heartless world! To show to your young impressionable children the horror of death, without feeling, without emotion, simply stating the facts. Have you no pity? Are you so calloused that you yourself feel no pain?

So we watched as Bob went from playing games with his grandson, to having a ruptured artery spill blood into his stomach. From there, step by step we learned the processes by which a human being, (a soul, not just a body) dies. We heard about neuron death, heart death...I can't and don't want to remember everything this film discussed. It ended by showing Bob stop breathing.

And to top that all off, this is supposedly the best thing for society, to get rid of dispensible members. Following this statement, we see Bob's grandson finding a note from his 'grandad' which reads, "Every dog has his day..."

Will no one weep with me over our heartless culture?

I have no problem dealing with death. Death for the Christian is joyful. But the view advocated in the film was neither Christian nor joyful.

I weep at death. It is the result of 'one man's sin'. Death is not a good thing. God did not intend for us to die. In His mercy, however, he has made death "but the gate to life immortal". But though I will not despair at death, I do not love it. Whether we wish it or not death is connected to emotion. I cannot but feel emotion at the end of a person's earthly life.

For a culture to treat death as a good thing - still more, to treat the death of the elderly as the greatest good for society - is sickening. To systematically desensitize oneself of all emotion about this event, is only to numb and blind oneself to evil and to sin. When we look insensibly at death without facing the question of sin and suffering, we simply hide another skeleton away in a closet.
As a culture we are desensitizing our children. If we succeed, they will be left without shame, without feeling, without conscience. They will view fellow humans as disposable.
Lo and behold, they do!

This is a plague on our western culture.

I need to eat lunch, so I will end my rantings now.

Review of a Review

Ordinarily, I tend pacifically to remain neutral, gentle and self-abnegating. But inwardly, I must confess, I am a foul, furious, ferocious, fell, fiend. On instances where an unwary soul delves too deeply into the inward recesses of honor and dignity without consideration of subject and suitability of content, I revert to this inner state of sarcasm which few but those who know me best are ever shown. This is not to excuse what follows. I must preview this post with a prior apology: offense was not the intent. Indeed, if a certain personage had contented himself with decrying the abominably poor substance of the narrative in question, rather than creating statements about chefs and his own unquestioned modesty, I would have applauded his insight and good taste in matters of literature. As the matter stands, however, I can only answer in kind. The review was "mostly harmless" but so is a goblet that is 90% wine and 10% arsenic!



I beg the reader to consider two items before proceeding to observe what follows.

http://onewhoputshisarmoron.blogspot.com/2008/02/chaos-in-court.html

and

http://nbmh.blogspot.com/2008/02/review-or-stylized-publicity.html



"Every now and then, when I consider that I have seen and tasted food from nearly every country of this planet, I feel tempted to succumb to the blissful idea that there are no new ways for a given delicacy to disagree with my impeccable senses. Alas, upon my experience this evening, this must remain only a dream."


Sir, you are not too young to be disenchanted. Perhaps this experience will do those "impeccable senses" a little bit of good.

"A sense of foreboding came over me as I began to cut the dish, a sense which would not leave me for the entirety of its consumption."
May that 'forboding' swell to a ripe juicy plum of dread!

"Its stiff, flat texture seemed more susceptible to actual ripping than cutting."
True enough! If one must feed the dogs, one must expect them to rip meat rather than cut it.


"However, unlike others in my profession whom I could name, I am not a barbarian, and my sharpest knife made short work of it."
Very short work, as I have not yet become aware that any work has been accomplished at all!


"As the first bite approaching my acutely-sensitive tongue, I hesitated, and then, knowing never to accept defeat, I took the plunge."
Sir, your editor has been remiss. Note that in the current sentence construction, it appears that you sir, are the first bite approaching your own delicate tongue. Why you would lower your excellent morality by self-cannabalism, I cannot imagine. I assume that the answer lies in that you cannot accept defeat. Not to be outdone by those who would eat you, you have resolved to consume yourself first. Had you not been weakened by hunger at the beginning of this ordeal, you would have recognized the insanity of this type of reasoning.


"It was dry stuff. In a moment of weakness I half-rose, looking to procure one of my better sauces to improve it - but I was stayed. After all, a comestible must be judged on its own quality. To do otherwise is to do a favor to the chef, and if there is one type of person who does not deserve our favors, it is chefs."

Certainly chefs do not deserve your favors anymore than you deserve theirs. But there is an old proverb which states, "Do not bite the hand that feeds you."


"They exist to do favors for us."

Your humility, sir, is overwhelming! Surely, you are the fountain of meekness! First you assume that the work of a chef is a favor, and then you decide that this favor is meant solely for your personal pleasure! [author kneels] "To hear is to obey, your lordship. My life is yours. Here is my neck for the severing at your will. The purpose of my existence is to do favors for you. I demand nothing else." [author spits] "Bah! Ugghh!" [shivers]


"But I am nothing if not a martyr, and I bore the sacrifice soberly."
You are not yet a martyr, therefore you are, as of yet, nothing.


"Without waiting the usual period, I immediately had my permanent book brought forth to pen this review, and in the back, where all is written in indelible pen, I made a note never again to accept a meal from said personage."
Your wisdom, sir, is indeed to be commended. It is seldom that one makes so swift a choice that leads to so much benefit for both himself and the object of his rejection. The author must then presume that these words will never reach the ears, or rather the eyes, of the said 'fountain of meekness'.



"It is only with a heavy hand that such skookum words down which I thusforth set, but there are some things which must be done."
Does the heaviness of hand result from an iron grip of fist?
Yes! Some things must be done. What you do, do quickly!


"A good read is precisely what I could use, now."
As a good chef, existing only for your favor, I must object. What you could use at the present moment is a square meal of bread and water followed by a sound night's sleep on a cot of unplaned warped boards. This would improve your worldview immensely.



"Just be glad I refrained from commenting on every post. ;)"
Apparently, the author need not fear such comments. It has been plainly stated that you sir, do not wish to devour, consume, or otherwise ingest any other course proffered by such an incompetent chef. But if you dare to sacrifice the honor of your word, be sure of this: One who puts on his armor should not boast like one who takes it off! You are forewarned!

Concerning Heresy!

Disclaimer:Unless otherwise noted, the author considers her writing orthodox. In cases of heretical content, please notify the author. Posts of horrific heinous heresy may be submitted to Pr. Stuckwich, in which case it may be hoped that appropriate measures will be taken for the curbing of falsehood and a return to sound doctrine.

Note: Cruel and unusual punishment INCLUDES (but is not limited to) burnings at the stake, seizure of property, torture, uncalled for snowballs, and (yes Magsplat) DROWNING. Besides being contrary to the Gospel, these methods are ILLEGAL! (well, maybe not the snowballs.)

Not that anyone would ever actually consider such things.....