New Pantagruel: Hymns in the Whorehouse

the best article i've read in a while

quote for today

"Neil Postman on the Listserv" "From Lance Strate: "We all know about Neil being identified as a neo-Luddite, and his criticisms of our use of computers, e-mail, and the Internet. But many of you may be unaware that Neil did once send a post to the media ecology listserv. This happened during the very early days of our list. It was only about a month old, there were only a dozen or two subscribers, and most were from NYU. Neil was not subscribed to the list, of course, not having e-mail, but his colleague Chris Nystrom was on the list, and showed him the messages we had been exchanging. Neil's response, which I have pasted in below, was classic Postman--witty, imaginative, a brilliant bit of writing. And there is also something ironic now, reading it after his passing, in his put on of a voice from another world. As he was channeling McLuhan, through the Internet we can now channel Postman: ============================================================================= Archive-Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 15:37:46 EDT Subject: Observing the Law 'This is the Ghost of Marshall McLuhan speaking to you. I don't have to tell you from what world I come. I am using Chris Nystrom's facility in order to reach you. I will say what I have to say only once. You will not hear from me again unless you persist in your foolishness. 'Does the word "books" mean anything to you? Do you have so much time on your hands that you can afford to waste yourselves on this infernal machine? Have you already accumulated so much wisdom that you no longer need to read the best that has been thought and written? Is this the way you honor the work and life of my great friend and disciple, Neil Postman? Do any of you actually know how to spell? 'I have now read all of your idiotic messages. Hear, now, The Law: Every medium taken to its furthest extent flips to its opposite. Thus the written word, which is the source of all the intellect we have, when used in this unholy fashion becomes a medium for the expression of all our stupidities. This, you have demonstrated amply. Enough, I say. 'I must now return from whence I came. Remember what happened to the Hebrews when they did not follow the Law. Ghost" --from this site

Iris Chang

A big hello from the sunny side of Bedford! We are now in British summer time, and it seems the English are coming out of their winter moods. My message is simply to ask whether any of you readers have read Iris Chang's, "The rape of Namking(?)" It was a recommended read from the back of a Dallas Willard book. Any takers? Many thanks.

My Dear Mogslopper,

How do they let ones like you free to roam the Earth while the rest of us are tethered to desks? Youth is wasted on the young. Did you not learn the first thing about the difference between Life and politics in the Academy? Of course politics serve our Cause, but not in the way you would think. And besides, you had better mind your own business. Politics is not in your domain. The course of politics, on the continent your patient inhabits or any other, is the charge of the Third Circle--Slorvenarque and her crew, I believe. That portion of the Lowerarchy is set up to handle elections, assassinations, insurrections, general oppression, and acts of Congress. You are to keep your claws in your own patient. If you will, please stop sending me your reports of this year's election campaign nonsense. It makes no difference to me and it should not to you either. As far as your patient is concerned, it makes all the difference in the world; as far as you are concerned, it means nothing. Politics is an excellent point of attack on your patient. If you can begin to conflate the importance of his socio-political standing and his spiritual standing with the Enemy, you will take him down a winding and fruitless path. He will begin to take sides, you see. And sides are just what we want him to take. Don't mistake my words: a Christian who understands the social implications of their religion is highly dangerous. They may take seriously the injunctions to "love their enemies" to such an extent that they change the hearts of their enemies and their comrades. You will see a frightening ripple effect should one of them integrate their actions and orientations around the Enemy's religion. However, an able Tempter can make some good work out of this otherwise undesirable condition. There is almost no case that I know of where a sincere disciple of the Enemy held fast to the complete doctrines of a worldly political party. Certainly, there were some Causes taken up by the Enemy's Elect--like the abolitionist cause in the nineteenth century, for instance--that became inconveniently enmeshed with otherwise harmless Federalist politics. Ages before that, you may recall that hideous Luther fellow was able to translate his faith into an active political position. And don't get me started about Mother Theresa or Brigid of Kildare or Dietrich Bonhoeffer or Bernard of Clairvaux! But by and large, the Enemy in His Incarnation confounded our expectations and those of His closest companions by eschewing all political power, focusing instead on the condition of flimsy (yet scrumptious) human souls. After it was revealed that the Enemy was waging all out assault on the spiritual destiny of the humans themselves, rather than merely their organizational power structures, we were forced to change our strategy. We tell them that politics are important, but we know they are just an afterthought. Through political situations, we can cause lovely quantities of suffering, but it gives way to far too much Seeking and Knocking. We cannot abide a spiritually curious patient. Lull your patient into a politically charged but otherwise pointless self-indulgence and, though plenty of hot air and ambition may be generated, you will find yourself a tender, well-basted human in only a few short decades. Jargon and confusing priorities in your patient's two-party political system go a long way toward helping us entangle them and castrate their Faith. Take for instance those they call "liberals": with their talk of social justice and helping the disenfranchised, you would think this was paragon of social virtue, a veritable Enemy's party. Fortunately, the last few decades have also moved them toward a deification of all laws protecting personal rights--even as they infringe the lives of unborn humans who need rights the most. Yes, we hate abortion and infanticide for keeping so many juicy souls away from us, but the cumulative suffering caused by such mass death sends perpetual shudders of glee down to the Throne itself. On the other side then you have the "conservatives": concerned about issues of individual freedom and moral righteousness. It would be enough to make a devil sick if they were also free of continual hypocrisy, lack of practical sympathy for those different than themselves, and a general disrespect for anything that doesn't put more wealth in their own overstuffed pockets. Again, through the work of the organized efforts of Hell, we've been able to render them fat with self-interest and mostly harmless. Your patient, however, knows none of this. He, no doubt, has issues in his past--perhaps something as arbitrary as the economic condition of the neighborhood where he grew up--guiding his feelings about a particular political direction. Remind him of the obvious injustices he experienced or witnessed on television. Thanks to extensive propaganda produced at all levels Downhere, he cannot have been exposed to anything close to a fair and balanced perspective on any political issue over the years. Begin to show him the correctness of "his side." In fact, rhetoric like side, position, party, and people are primary means toward the end of conflating the man's politics with the man's religion. If you tempt him correctly, your patient will begin defending his political position with venom. As a long-time Christian, he will probably not believe his retorts to his political opponents have made them "enemies" to him but watch him, Mogslopper. They have! In the moment of greatest heat, have him throw off all fetters of charity and good will toward his fellowman (even fellow Christian!), drop any pretense of logical argument, and passionately go for the throat. Admittedly, he may go to the Enemy in prayer, loaded down with his guilty feelings later, but he's caused great harm already; as a side effect, deep down you will hardly have to tempt him at all to make him believe that his actions were wholly justified. He will feel ashamed and smug at the same time. That cache of spiritual Pride, when you tease it out of him, is a savory dish indeed. You will have managed to truly confound your patient when he begins to refer to modern day political topics by referring to what the Enemy would want. "God would want lower taxes," they might say, or "He never would have squandered the natural resources of Earth the way you Republicans are now." It is ridiculous, I know. Their puny minds have yet to grasp their own insignificance. In their arrogance they believe they can make correlations between these superficial suggestions, which they have picked up from the comic book journalism and third-rate philosophizing of their television programs (another gargantuan achievement of ours), and the history of the Enemy as revealed in the scriptures and the Incarnation. (I know you believe the history of the Enemy is also revealed in His Church throughout the last few thousand years, but your patient's era cares nothing for the wisdom of the saints and therefore are largely ignorant of this aspect of the Enemy's continuing Revelation. You needn't fear any influence from this direction.) Your patient?s closest friends will likely reinforce your patient?s desire to speak in terms of the divinely defensible political position--since most men will only gather a cohort who will see eye-to-eye with them on crucial political and religious topics. With a little prodding, your patient may view anyone who approaches politics differently than him as inferior in some way?ignoring the haphazard amalgamation of situations and subjective experiences that led your patient to this stance. Once he exhibits this heart condition, you can relax in confidence knowing you have worked your man into a warped, proud, comfortable place. He will be pleasantly pliable to you thenceforth. I have lacerated but the surface of the issue of politics. Unfortunately, I have an appointment to attend to shortly and must close. Remember, the wider political world means barely more than zero to us or the Enemy, except to the extent politics infects the faiths of our patients. It would thrill me to watch you mold your patient to be a vicious, adamant defender of some political position and lukewarm in matters of personal sacrifice, hospitality, work ethic, love for his neighbor, and the use of his money--any area where the Enemy really is making demands on his life as it relates to the volkpolitik, the politics of the common man. But by all means steer him clear of nonchalant ambivalence toward politics if he is passionate toward his own social responsibility. Your patient should be growing in anger and frustration with the assertions of those on the other side politically while at the same time growing lethargic and dispassionate about a lack of his own others-centered attempt (no matter how mundane) at curing the world of its injustices and social ills. Affectionately, Your Uncle

quote for today

"An enormous conflict between words and deeds is prevalent today: everyone talks about freedom, democracy, justice, human rights, about peace and saving the world from nuclear apocalypse; and at the same time, everyone, more or less, consciously or unconsciously, serves those values and ideals only to the extent necessary to serve himself and his "worldly" interests, personal interests, group interests, power interests, property interests, and state or great-power interests...So the power structures apparently have no other choice than to sink deeper into this vicious maelstrom, and contemporary people apparently have no other choice than to wait around until the final inhibition drops away. But who should begin? Who should break this vicious circle? Responsibility cannot be preached but only borne, and the only possible place to begin is with oneself." --Vaclav Havel

can't...stop...losing...money

try this

one good thing...

...about otherwise mediocre coffee: the new starbucks commercial

another quote for today

I couldn't pass this one up. ______________________ "It is surely a fact of inexhaustible significance that what our Lord left behind Him was not a book, nor a creed, nor a system of thought, nor a rule of life, but a visible community. He committed the entire work of salvation to that community. It was not that a community gathered round an idea, so that the idea was primary and the community secondary. It was that a community called together by the deliberate choice of the Lord Himself, and re-created in Him, gradually sought--and is seeking--to make explicit who He is and what He has done. The actual community is primary; the understanding of what it is comes second." --Lesslie Newbigin, The Household of God (1953). pg.20

sympathy for the Cure

with all the talk about terrible canadian bands, we've forgotten a good british one. "monday, you can fall apart. tuesday, wednesday, break my heart. thursday doesn't even start. it's friday, i'm in love."

quote for today

I stole the inspiration for this quote from scott's post. It's from a John Piper sermon preached more than twenty (!) years ago. I'm wondering if the "emerging church" is taking note of the foment of "their" ideas that actually began in the minds of Wimber and Piper and Packer and others a half-generation ago (and arguably are "original" to Peter, Paul, Matthew, Andrew, Philip, etc.). ___________ The quote: "We are coming out of an era in American church life in which it has been possible for evangelical Christians to give a tithe to the church and then devote themselves financially to building the good life and all the while keep a clear conscience. It was an era in which for conservative evangelicals ethics meant primarily the avoidance of certain sins rather than the pursuit of good deeds. It was an era in which well-fed, well-clothed, well-housed, well-entertained evangelicals were able to maintain a distance and a communications blackout between themselves and the misery and destitution of our cities and many third world countries. But that era is ending. It is ending whether we want it to or not. The main reason it's ending is that the world has shrunk and will continue to shrink through worldwide media systems and sophisticated assistance channels until we can no longer convince ourselves with impunity that the urban masses and starving Ugandans are not our neighbors whom Jesus told us to love as much as we love ourselves. (To seek the good life for others with as much zeal as we seek it for ourselves). "That era of isolation and comfort is ending also because some of its cherished Biblical defenses are crumbling at the foundations. For example, I actually heard argued on the floor of the Baptist General Conference annual meeting two years ago that the resolution to simplify our lifestyles so that we could give more to alleviate world hunger was unbiblical because when 1 John 3:17 says, "If anyone has the world's goods and sees his brothers in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?" it means that we should be so concerned only for Christians because that's what "brother" means. Arguments like that are crumbling at the foundations because they are wrong. Galatians 6:10 says: "As we have opportunity let us do good to all men, especially to those of the household of faith." 1 Thessalonians 5:15 says, "See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all." Romans 12:20 says, "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink." And Jesus said, "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you." "The era of comfortable isolation for us American evangelicals is ending, because its justification is crumbling and because the misery and destitution of the world is coming too close now to ignore. And as it approaches, local churches in whom the Spirit of God dwells will feel themselves drawn to some fairly radical reorientations of lifestyle, reorientation calculated to maximize good deeds for all men and especially for those of the household of faith. And I am optimistic that Bethlehem with its manifest compassion for refugees and for missions and with so many people who really are zealous for good deeds--that Bethlehem will move with the Spirit in these years ahead whichever way he blows. God willing we will not be content with minimum church. We will become a great church, a great servant church, filled with maximum good deeds in the name of Jesus. That's the local church we have to be if we want to display the wisdom and power of God to the principalities and powers. That's what we have to be in our new era if we want to hear a credible witness that moves people to glorify our Father in heaven." --John Piper, "The Local Church: Minimum vs. Maximum" (March 29, 1981)

Word of the day

Word of the Day for Wednesday March 24, 2004 perorate \PUR-uh-rayt\, intransitive verb: 1. To conclude or sum up a long discourse. 2. To speak or expound at length; to declaim. These people don't talk, they perorate, pontificate, bombast. Since you are going to ND Erik, I thought you might require a new word to describe some of the amazing traits of your boss.

coming hemi-clean

(1) I absolutely loved this movie. (2) this site now makes me question the above assertion. (3) The HPS program at Notre Dame gave me the thumbs up and the moolah that we were hoping for. After much prayer, hand wringing, and asking people if they felt this was God's way of pushing us into an area he's called us to or our way of manipulating the situation to make ourselves feel important, the decision is to go to Indiana. (4) I'm terrified of Indiana. (5) We're only about 4 weeks out from being parents. T & T Conrad helped us set up a baby bed and the stroller over the weekend. On top of the baby room (furnished by the love and cash of family and friends), we have only to pack our bags and initiate labor before we're officially parents. (6) I'm terrified of infants. (7) I'm okay with toddlers. I really, really like older children and teenagers. I feel more comfortable around college-age young adults than older people. But the infants thing...the constant pooping and crying...the lack of any discernible motivation other than to eat and crap and sleep.... Wow. Can't wait. (8) Tooth-loss, bike rides, long discussions under the stars, cartoons, seashells, Christmas, Monopoly, Risk, youth sports, parent/teacher conferences....these are the things I am excited about. (9) Anyone want a 3 bedroom Clintonville house, cheap? (10) I have a shiny new G4 laptop. I caress it. I hold it close when I sleep. I keep soda miles away from it. I am typing on it now and the little tap-tap of the keys sounds like a lullaby. I want to set my TV on fire and clip any internet connection, so concerned I am about the prevalence of porn or corn or televangelism or marketing foisted upon my soon-to-be-impressionable child. Technology sucks because it sucks us in; it is self-affirming. I fear its affect upon my child. I don't want them to become the technology slave that I am. I want them to run barefoot and free in the fields with other children...not attached to laptops or cellphones or any of our other accoutrements. (10) I want to run. (11a) I want to hide. (11b) I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside. (12) (a) I want to reach out and (b) touch the flame. (13) Jeff, you can't blame this one on sleep depravity. (14) Stream of Consciousness is a euphemism for "I'm no good at forming coherent thoughts, so instead of putting in a few hours really assembling my thoughts or constructing an argument, I'm going to arrogantly force you into trying to read my schlock, make sense of it, and still consider it meaningful." (15) fin

My Dear Mogslopper,

You are correct, the middle way, the way of moderation--that is the path we should be leading them away from. All of our tempting is in vain if, after months and years of slogging it out in the stinking trenches of Earth, your patient is still a tempered, self-controlled gentleman. In regard to their employment, they should be nigh unto enslaved to it by choice. Indentured servitude in the name of love or self-sacrifice is no good to our Cause; the work-a-day slug putting his nose to the grindstone eighty hours a week, foregoing all significant time with his comrades, unable to put any energy toward concentrated time with the Enemy or with his own wife--primarily because he would like to purchase a vacation home--this is the man we want. Your patient should be stretched tight like an elastic band, all in the name of advancement or material gain, of course. In matters of the Enemy, however, we expect the opposite strategy out of you. The spiritual arena should be one of great mediocrity for your patient. An apt Junior Tempter such as yourself should be expending great efforts in keeping your patient from expending any of his. As I've discussed at length already, distraction is a primary way of keeping your human unaware of greater spiritual realities. But there are other even more appetizing perversions to drive your patient toward once his eyes have been opened to the Real World. Keep in mind your patient is a Christian and, therefore, has been exposed. Temptation to ignore This Side will be largely ineffective; it is unlikely that your man could be made a true materialist. It is not impossible, but it is also unlikely that your man could become a magician, handling the Reality instead of being subject to it. This would be a violation of the Rules of a lovely magnitude, but a waste of your talents. Your method should instead be directed at making your man a Pharisee. The Leaven of the Pharisee is an acquired taste but, once you've had a sprinkle of it, you'll never go back to plain Lust or Gluttony. Baked in the hot ovens of religion, Pharisee Leaven contains a luscious core of Pride and Vanity subtle up front and like a strong liquor in the finish. And it has an interesting side effect: once let out into the open, the leaven spreads from human to human like a virus. Of course, the Enemy will be constantly at your patient's side through the trials and tribulations you put him through. You cannot make the mistake of allowing your patient's guard to go down for even a moment. If you play him right, his soul will be shiny and reeking of religion on the outside but hollow and filled with the ossified remains of a dark, half-remembered faith on the inside. The glory of it all is that your patient will barely sense the nothingness creeping over formerly vibrant aspects of his communication for and with the Enemy. For His part, the Enemy loathes Pharisee Leaven and will throw all available resources at untwisting your patient. Since His resources are lamentably larger than ours, it will take creative footwork on your part to ensure your patient's demise. There is little I can tell you to prepare for the innumerable battles that you will face other than that I, for one, fought with the wiles of Our Enemy and won the feast, er, human. His great weakness (which He asserts is a strength) is that He will not directly overpower His creation. He will not force it to do His bidding. That would be antithetical to "Love", as He puts it. Happily, we are not constrained by such an abstract and, frankly, useless concept. Bend him, Mogslopper! Affectionately, Your (hungry) Uncle

My Dear Mogslopper,

Though I have been disappointed in your tempting of late, I am greatly encouraged by your latest news. Work, at least the way that your patient means it, is not simply a means of procuring food or land or ordering the world to look more how the Enemy originally planned. Thanks to your very able tempting of late, not a bit of that sickeningly noble idea has ever entered his puny mind. Instead, your patient means by work the entire lifestyle of productivityóthe ìrat raceî as they call it. This is a mighty distance away from the original intention of the Enemy, but still has on it an odor of Design. I now shall instruct you how to keep any intentions of the Enemy toward a proper view of work quite foreign to your patient. Originally, the Enemy fashioned the universe ex nihlio, or so the old myths goóas if you believe any of those. Though according to the Official Story He needed no help, He employed the talents of angelic spirits such as ourselves. (Enslaved is more like it.) And then, as if working with the greasy dirt and inert gas of the universe wasnít ignominious enough, He decided to let these hairless apes in on the deal. Our Father Below immediately protested. Predictably, his rational perception of the situation was ignored by the majority of the Enemyís angelic slaves as well as by the Enemy Himself. Consequently, Our Father took it upon himself to remedy the situation. Though all of our current efforts fall along those original lines, the seemingly inevitable, intervention of bipedal nincompoops must spell eventual doom for Earth, just as Our Father Below envisioned. I echo the general bewilderment of Hell when I wonder why the Enemy has refrained from completely destroying His human creation. (Although, donít forget He was moved to great anger a number of times and, long eons ago even regretted that He fashioned the two-legged beasts. We should keep His little slip-up tucked away for a more opportune time.) In general, then, the Enemy wishes man to get to work. He wishes their efforts to be tiny versions of His. They should be using creativityófor He has made them in His Image in their desire to createóto improve in some small measure the harmony of the universe. Our efforts, therefore, have always been and will continue to be in the exact opposite direction. Where the Enemy desires a symphony, we desire cacophony. He wishes for order; we wish for Chaos. By and large, we have been far more successful in our attempts to create a vast Noise through the ineptitude of the humans than He has been in creating Music through them. But without proper and consistent tempting, it would not be so. As I see it, you possess several options when dealing with your patient and work at this stage. You could tempt him to see work as a necessary evil, a nasty means to a desirable end. Generally, at this time and in this place, the "end" is the accumulation of wealthóas symbolized by numbers written out on a small piece of paper they call "paycheck". This viewóI have dubbed it the begrudging accumulation viewóis common and effective. Another option would be to have your patient view his workplace as a time for social climbing. Usually it is best to avoid friendships where humans are concerned, but in this circleólimited in its perspective but regular in intervalóyou can produce a veritable popularity contest or "inner circle" wherein your man is a large fish in a very small pond. Hilarity ensues, as Iím sure you can imagine. But the best option for your patient, the option that will tangle him, plump him, roast him slowly over deliciously agonizing decades, is the one I have dubbed the Productivity Trap. Productivity, in and of itself, is neither good nor wicked. As an overarching concept of work ethic, however, it is much more useful. The productive man (according to our definition of "work" and "productive") is lodged firmly on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, your patient perceives he is valuable because he is working. On the other hand, his value persists only as long as he is productive. He is, whether he knows it or notóand likely he doesóa commodity. A thing. A machine that fulfills a necessary task. And yet he does not feel like a mere machine. His productiveness is what earns him respect, wealth, security; to lose the one is to lose the others. Or so he thinks and, if you are tempting him rightly, should persist in thinking. Tempt your patient to take pride in the sheer volume of work he can accomplish, phone calls he can make, paper he can push. Tempt him to despair both of the tedium and ultimate meaninglessness of the work he does and (this is the secret) of his inability to escape the tedium, lest he lose the respect, wealth, and security he craves. In all of this, you should toss him from one temptation to another: tempt him to view prayer as ineffective, to continue to hope for a brighter future, to dull his senses over the years of routine, to forget to ask why he does it in the first place, to see the wealth as an essential end, to calcify himself with momentary diversions of spending or drinking or flirting with co-workers. The opportunities for further vice are nearly endless. Cordially, Your Uncle

Indirectly Fatal

I write at this time, perturbed by the fact that I have an inability to process constructive criticism in a way that does not cause a part of me to scream. How does one respond to any form of criticism in a way that solely addresses the issue concerned without throwing part of the soul into rebellion. For a short time I thought that my inability to view the issue through an objective lens was, in part, due to my lack of maturity or understanding. I remained there for a long time, carefully documenting the issues that were raised by various people (usually women in authority). However, I am now at a point where I recognise a serious character flaw, and know that it must be dealt with. I cannot forever be entangled in the web of selfishness that takes every comment, aimed at building me up, and spins it into a personal attack on my integrity or ability. Yet, there are so few people around to show me any different. Part of my disdain for receiving criticism from women stems from the fact that I am so pissed off that men have never called me out...and so in line with a popular song of the late 90's...I discover with great ghusto that 'the female of the species is more deadly than the male' (Catatonia?). How I wish it to be different.

quote for today

"One might well imagine a scene at the Last Judgment, before the throne of God. There, side by side in the [witness stand], are the state and the church. God addresses the state first, demanding an account of its crimes: 'Why did you tolerate the exploitation of the poor? Why have you oppressed, persecuted, tortured, and murdered? Why did you make war on other nations, devastating their cities and killing by the millions?' The state will bow its head, knowing it has sinned, and will ask for pardon. It will also plead an extenuating circumstance. 'The church here,' it will argue, 'never translated your commandments into practical deeds. It never prophesied or showed the way. Instead it became rich. It became an institution where earthly concerns tempered its zeal. It collaborated with me and gave me its blessing. It was because of its blindness that I went astray. I accept your judgment, but also ask that the church be more severely condemned...' "There is yet hope for the church. The little oil lamps of Jesus' time were not very bright. Still, the difference between the total darkness of an unlighted house, and the light shed by a single lamp is the difference between night and day. As Jesus said, 'It gives light to everyone in the house.' Here is good news for Christ's disciples! We need not worry about the effectiveness of our preaching or of our example of nonresistance and gentleness. Our voice, if we would but speak, our example, if we would but put love into practice, is not lost in the night. "But Jesus sounds a warning: 'See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness.' Politics per se are not the church's business. The church is not to preoccupy itself with results. It has not even to practice 'pacifism,' that is, reject arms with the object of stopping war. No, God expects only one thing of it: that it walk in obedience to the gospel, refusing violence in whatever form because of that obedience, without concerning itself with the consequences, good or bad, that such refusal may involve. Such faith puts into practice the justice that marks God's kingdom. The church's business is not to establish peace between the nations, but to bear witness to the love of God, to live in his peace and righteousness." --Andre Trocme, Jesus and the Nonviolent Revolution

quote(s) for today

"It is true now as it has ever been that the relationships we have in our lives are what give our lives meaning and purpose. It is also true that communities are what keep vulnerable people safe, and there is no alternative to this. The idea that we could build caring services, which would replace the need for cohesive social communities, has proved to be false." --Micheline Mason, Incurably Human "In Albania there was life but no money; here there is money but no life." --An Albanian immigrant to the USA "I feel the weight of the world on my shoulder As I'm gettin' older y'all, people gets colder Most of us only care about money makin' Selfishness got us followin' our own direction Wrong information always shown by the media Negative images is the main criteria Infecting the young minds faster than bacteria Kids wanna act like what they see in the cinema Yo', whatever happened to the values of humanity Whatever happened to the fairness in equality Instead of spreading love we spreading animosity Lack of understanding, leading lives away from unity..." --Black Eyed Peas, "Where Is the Love?"

brian's problem

You wonder why he's distracted...? Here's what's on today's playlist: Broken wings by Mr. Mister Ashes to Ashes by Bowie Can't Fight this Feeling by REO Speedwagon Let's Go Crazy by Prince Promises, promises by Naked Eyes Break my Stride by Matthew Wilder Blister in the Sun by Violent Femmes Hazy Shade of Winter redone by the Bangles Don't Stop Believing by Journey Heart and Soul by T'Pau In the Air Tonight by Genesis Winds of Change by the Scorpions Freedom by Wham It must have been love by Debbie Gibson Heat of the Moment by Asia Under the Milky Way by The Church My Hometown by Bruce Springsteen Hurts So Good by John Cougar Mellencamp Jesse's Girl by Rick Springfield She Blinded me with Science by Thomas Dolby Like a Prayer by Madonna Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel Let's Go All the Way by Sly Fox Mexican Radio by Wall of Voodoo Say you, Say me by Lionel Ritchie Message in a Bottle by The Police We Built This City on Rock and Roll by Jefferson Airplane Wipe Out by the Fat Boys Our House in the Middle of the Street by Madness Owner of the Lonely Heart by Yes The Flame by Cheap Trick Turning Japanese by The Vapors Wild, Wild West by Escape Club Blue Monday by New Order Don't Dream it's Over by Crowded House Shout by Tears for Fears I am Superman by R.E.M. Don't You forget about me by Simple Minds London Calling by the Clash Push it by Salt n Peppa Luka by Suzanne Vega Tainted Love by Soft Cell Rock me Amadeus by Falco One Night in Bangkok by Murray Head Beat it by Michael Jackson Who Can it Be Now? by Men at Work In a Big Country by Big Country 867-5309 by Tommy Tutone A Celebration by U2 One More Night by Phil collins Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream) by The Icicle Works Come On Eileen by Dixeys Midnight Runners Blame it on the Rain by Milli Vanilli All She Wants to do is Dance by Don Henley Major Tom (coming home) by Peter Schilling What You Need by INXS I Love Rock n Roll by Joan Jett The Final Countdown by Europe Hold Me Now by the Thompson Twins All I need is a Miracle by Mike & the Mechanics

can't...stop...taking...pointless...personality tests....

Born in 1963, You are possibly the original colossal death robot, being one of the patriarchs of the current crop, and definitely an advocate of old-skool enemy-bashing. Why use a clumsy particle weapon when you can create supernovas just by flexing your arms? Your one minor weakness is that you are entirely dominated by some kid with a remote contol - still, don't let it get you down. You can sink a nuclear submarine with jazz music. Which Colossal Death Robot Are You?

"they didn't know that music saved my soul"

Happy St. Patrick's Day. Here's to American music from the 1980s, strong drink, legendary holidays based on some event that probably never happened and lends no credibility to a day of debauchery. But, we (I) rationalize, after a day of fevers and blah, we (I) need a day of heavy drinking. Yay, St. Patrick's day! Just kidding. We actually need a day of 80s music. That, I think, we can handle. Two years ago today, Mike and Pat and B and I were in Dublin, Ireland, attempting unsuccessfully to sleep above the world's loudest pub. Whoever told me that St. Pat's day in Ireland wasn't as big of a deal as it is here was full of it. In fact, it was a city-wide frat party--complete with bar fights, drunken people of all ages puking in the gutters, random hook-ups, and terrible, greasy bar food being served by every restaurant, even in little carts roaming up and down the narrow brick streets. Bono wasn't anywhere to be found, but I certainly saw his inspiration for "Trying to Throw Your Arms Around the World." On that day at least, Dublin was replete with traditional negative stereotypes of the Irish--fighting, drunk, unable to save enough money to pay the rent. The next day (an unofficial national holiday as well) the drug stores were stuffed to the gills with post-partiers needing remedies to headaches, toothaches, bellyaches. All in all, it was a great time. Actually, I get pretty down thinking about it. We had such amazing times together. I got pissed off at them plenty, for irresponsible living above all. But I realize that they were God's instruments letting me know that there are more important things than being responsible all the time. Love means doing stupid stuff sometimes. However, I still think the significant question is whether or not being stupid or irresponsible sometimes is in service of a greater context of selflessness. Take the parable of the lost sheep, coin, and prodigal son, for instance. There the sacrifice of the one is an unacceptable loss. I guess that one sheep, coin, person is worth everything. So we're supposed to (seemingly irresponsibly) go after the one. Or maybe that's not prescriptive but descriptive of what God does to/for us. Either way, that selflessly irresponsible act is something we should take seriously. A problem with self-focused irresponsibility, though, is that it knows no bounds--anything can be rationalized in self-interest, perhaps the ludicrous more easily than the responsible. Given that the human heart can be deceptive, self-focused, it still seems more wise to do the rational thing, to not give in to the irrational. It seems inconceivable that the couple that we went to Ireland with--who we laughed and cried with, who we saw through every imaginable stress of finances and differences of opinion, whose daughter we are godparents to, who we cut down Christmas trees with every year, who we downed Guinesses with every St. Patty's day--are no more. Their road to destruction was paved over the muddy path of least resistance, of "good enough for now" fixes to long-term problems. And lots and lots of self-focused, irrational decisions. So here we are, two years wiser. I hope that if they would stumble across this one day that they'd see it the same way. Perhaps they already do. Happy St. Patrick's Day. Blame it on the rain. Yeah, yeah.

10 minutes per page

The UK edition of Rennovation of the Heart, by Dallas Willard is one of those books that immediately strikes at the core of who I am; and more poignantly, at the degree of my selfishness. 'I'm not okay and you're not okay. We're is serious trouble,' says it all. Willard writes at a depth and pace I find hard to keep up with. Indeed I am led to think back to my initial reading of Mere Christianity, or indeed my failed attempt at reading The Cost of Discipleship; and as I cast my eyes over the words and try to conceptualise what is being conveyed...I find myself unable to flick the pages without completely re-reading the page in its entirity. Does anyone else suffer from such intellectual frustration? It jabs me because I recently finished a Yancey book in record time, and feel I grasped the essential points. In the case of Willard, I feel as if I am dealing with an intellect that my mind cannot contend with in real time. For that reason I am thankful for the printed word. How great must our God be!? "God being God offends human pride. If God is running hte whole universe and has first claim on our lives, guess who isn't running the universe and does not get to have things as they please?" - Augustine.

take that, america!

The Triplets of Belleville exists on some imaginary hyperbolic scale where insanity and genius teeter at opposite ends of the spectrum but closer to each other than either is to the midpoint. I really can't say I loved it. But I can say it was a 'good' movie--if by 'good' you mean something that was visually stunning, beautiful in its legend-fashioning story, and something that challenged you intellectually as well as charged you emotionally. At least it blew the doors off of Nemo (which I also saw recently). Throughout, I was reminded both of Terry Gilliam's Monty Python animation (and subject matter) and of the Grimm fairy tales--gory and vivid and somehow not as much 'fairy' as 'tale'. The whole time, I was struck by the negative portrayal of unadulterated progress, America/NYC (Belleville), and dehumanizing--at times criminal--capitalism. In the movie, unabated progress led to further and further isolation, working against love and relationships. France was itself subject to the destructive and graying development, but Manhattan (a.k.a. Belleville) was the dystopia of massive structures, roaring cars, unthinking automation, and grotesquely obese, essentially bovine Americans. The two main characters, Grandma Souza and Bruno the dog confront the technopoly in opposite but equally tenacious ways: the old woman silently plods through each scene, never truly worried, never letting up the search for her grandson, the kidnaped Tour de France bicyclist. Bruno barks insistently at each passing train, follows his nose to his master, wins by affection and persistence more than brains. Their accomplices are the formerly famous vaudevillian Triplets--the only other thin people in Belleville--who, while doting and friendly are markedly backwards. Notably, they subsist by eating frogs caught in a nearby swamp--not coincidentally, "frog" being a derogatory term for the French. Also noteworthy is the lack of any positive male characters in the movie. You have on the one hand Champion, the hapless, insipid biker who gets captured. On the other hand, you have the all-male French mafia (united under the telling "In Vino Veritas") and a clip right at the beginning of the movie of well-to-do men becoming monkeys and chasing down a scantily clad African stage performer. There isn't a united theme, per se, but there are subtile and not so subtile undercurrents of message running through, inviting a wide variety of interpretations about the meaning of the movie. The lack of dialogue is distracting at first but then becomes hugely effective in forcing us to deal with the awkwardness and unfamiliarity of this broken, impoverished French family and their elderly sidekicks. If there is a directed message, it might be that the old ways--the European foundation of both France and the United States (as symbolized in the corpulent Statue of Liberty)--has been eroded and marginalized by all this so-called progress. The tension obvious throughout the movie--we know that the poor French people are not going to be able to defeat the strange, inhospitable dangers of Belleville or the Franco-American criminal element that kidnaps Champion (perhaps himself a personification of the French obsession with bicycle races, now hijacked by the American sports industry)--is unresolved by the end of the movie. The audience is left with a bittersweet taste. The characters themselves, animated or not, are not ageless myths. They die. They win the battle but lose the war against the hegemonic consumer-state intent on telling us what our dreams are and then selling them to us at ever increasing, more frantic rates. And it is hinted at--though not explicitly stated--that even our patriotism is not to a national identity as much as it is a product of this consumer-state mentality (e.g., "Freedom" Fries). To writer/director Sylvain Chomet, we American pig-dogs must say touche!

quote for today

"A troubling phenomenon recurs among young Christians reared in solid homes and sound churches. After living their early years as outstanding examples of Christian faith, many become spiritual dropouts. Did they fail because they concentrated on the exterior, visible Christian life? Did they learn to mimic certain behaviors, nuances of words, and emotional responses? Crayfish-like, did they develop a hard exterior that resembled everyone else's and conclude such was the kingdom of God, while inside they were weak and vulnerable? "When Christianity is an external exercise, it can be cast aside in the manner of a crayfish flinging off its shell. In fact, many crayfish perish from the molting ordeal, either because of exhaustion or because of their vulnerability to outside enemies. "An outside shell can seem attractive, trustworthy, and protective. It certainly has advantages over a dead, useless skeleton or over no skeleton at all. But God desires for us a more advanced skeleton that serves as it stays hidden." --Paul Brand, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

another perspective

Feeling less impressed by The Passion than your conservative Christian friends? suspect there's more in the movie than meets the eye--or exactly as much as meets the eye, but more than the simple diatribes of both promoters and detractors see or say in their reviews...? have incorrigible impulses to fashion a whip from several cords and drive the moneychangers out of the temple? read this

i guess i'm...

You're Watership Down!
by Richard Adams
Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.
Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

inspirational

anyone want to go in on this with me this summer?

only 11 minutes, 29 seconds of fame left

check out nearly everyone's favorite semi-fast mexican food restaurant's website: chipotle. then follow the following directions. 1. click on the chip surrounding the central chile that says "Feel" 2. click on "Music" (you don't necessarily need your sound on) 3. continue to click back and forth on the "music" link and the other links to get other "dancers" to appear. 4. look for the blonde female dancer dressed entirely in black about halfway across the record player--slightly right of center. 5. contact me with a frantic "dude, that's your sister!" 6. about the dancing. i know. we went to a public school...okay?

quote for today

"I must say that among educated people, politics occupies far too great a proportion of time. All the periodicals, all the newspapers are saturated with politics, although many of the objects they are discussing are very transient and short-term. Of course, many people do occupy themselves with higher themes...But in general, modern humankind is characterized by the loss of the ability to answer the principal problems of life and death. People are prepared to stuff their heads with anything, and to talk of any subject, but only to block off the contemplation of this subject. This is the reason for the increasing pettiness of our society, the concentration on the small and irrelevant." --Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

quote for today

"If we are honest, we have to say that we cannot reach the goal. We cannot become what we ought to become, true men and women. Many let the matter rest there; they confess it, but take no action. They make themselves satisfied with half because they cannot have the whole. God demands all, not just half. And this "all" we are not capable of giving. What is impossible for us is what God wants--all love to him and to our fellow humans. If this is true, it would seem that we can have no good conscience, no trusting relationship with God, no inner peace, and no freedom of the soul. "But God has in his mercy shown us a different way. 'You cannot come up to me, so I will come down to you.' And God descends to us human beings. This act of becoming one of us begins at Christmas and ends on Good Friday." --Emil Brunner, "I believe in the living God"

My Dear Mogslopper,

Ah, my dear nephew. I have been away conducting the 2356th Annual Conference on Devilry. I thought you'd be overjoyed to know I was the M.C. for much of the event, and was also adequately rewarded for my efficiency in the last several centuries. Any thought you had of finding a replacement mentor has been delayed for a time; you will need to learn to work under my yolk, if you know what is good for you. I might add that Slemminus has forwarded me the e-mails you have been sending his way. All of your requests for review and promotion on account of infernal conduct have hereby been denied. Please do not feel that you can worm your way out of any punishment you will receive for trying to circumvent the Belowcracy. But on to less demanding topics: I trust you have kept busy with your patient over these last few days. Getting on splendidly are you? An absolute cesspool of unrighteous by now? Rotten to the core, I hope? I fear from your reports that not much has changed for the worse. Firstly, though this is indeed an election year, and though we do have a vast interest and influence over the political system in America and other world governments, your primary concern with your patient has little to do with his political affiliation, with one important exception. While the swine lives in a democracy, we know, and the majority of them suspect, that their measly vote for a federal election means precisely beans in comparison to the overwhelming responsibility that the humans have for their neighbors. It is partly because we have tuned their media in to the importance of the national-level debates and candidates--and your patient is stuffed full of immense quantities of hyperbole and misinformation via these media--that your patient believes these things not only matter but are of far more import to his life than simple acts of charity displayed toward his neighbor. So, please, focus his attention on the national reports, work up his attention surrounding these seemingly pressing issues, do not allow him to place the proper amount of attention on the individuals he crosses every day or every week on the sidewalk, in church, at their homes. But please spare me, Mogslopper. I am not so naive as to believe these elections have any bearing on your patient's responsibility or behavior toward his fellowman. And this brings me to my second point. Secondly, the issue of conspicuousness is important to our Cause. Anonymity is a tool of the Enemy. We want our patients as conspicuous as possible. We want them in the limelight. We want them to be up front, pedantic, larger than life, unteachable. We want others to be in awe of their stage presence. But there is a subtle hair to split over the issue of being noticed or popular amongst others. Please pay attention to these important facts. Fact #1: Humans love to be noticed. They believe from youth that recognition is more important than authenticity, fame more rewarding than anonymous servanthood. Fact #2: notoriety usually makes a young human self-reliant. This self-reliance can, with proper tempting, lead to a lack of sacrificial relationships. Fact #3: The Enemy knows that sacrificial relationships are the life-blood of His Plan. At least, that's what He states. We suspect there must be something else behind this Plan. Fact #4: The Enemy warns His followers that notoriety and self-determination are usually to be avoided. "Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, " and "I do not permit you to call each other 'leader' for you have but one Leader..." come to mind as only two among the many proscriptions the Enemy uses to admonish His followers to this effect. But you should know by now, Mogslopper, that humans are weak. They have forgotten their Creator and they, like us, long for fulfillment and mastery. To them, despite obvious evidence to the contrary, popularity and notoriety are indicative of potential peace and fulfillment and self-reliance--they have been accepted by someone they approve of, as if the approval of men foretold anything reciprocal regarding the approval of the Enemy. We understand that men approve each other often simply to assuage guilt, to aggrandize their own mastery of themselves and others, and to build a large and impressive house of popular opinion upon the shifting sands of subjectivity and mutual back-scratching. When their will to rely upon the Enemy dims, they shove forward a human leader to be their mediator; both because they understand the talents placed upon the chosen individual and because they find the Enemy to be too demanding a Master. They wish to hand over the difficult, unruly parts of their lives so He can approve of them. Yet He cruelly demands all. Not so that He can approve them as they stand, blemished, but because He sees the vermin as He would remake them and is satisfied in His handiwork. He asks for surrender and sacrifice of their will and their desire to see themselves high and lifted up (even if that state of being lifted up is tenuously suspended only by another man who is higher and more exalted than they). He desires humility because He knows only when they stop attempting to scramble up the man-fashioned heap of rubbish acknowledgments will they allow Him to lift them to a plateau of unwavering firmness and others-centeredness unlike anything this world of sham affirmation can offer. Mogslopper, you must prod your patient into these sorts of relationships if we are to save him from the Church. When situations of difficulty arise within his body of Enemy-followers, as they always will, you must whisper that somewhere else there is a place of ease and rest where people will feed and care for him tenderly--as they ought, for he deserves it!--where all his needs and desires will be met with popular affirmation and approval. Give him a vision of this group, this clique, this cabal, wherein he is accorded a place of high esteem amongst his fellow humans. You see, do you not, how easily this will transition into feelings of entitlement? Soon, he will believe that it is his right to be well-liked, unchallenged, affirmed, lifted to places of acclaim, even fame. Of course, if he has been a follower of the Enemy for too long, you must not mention "fame" right away--he will surely remember the words of the Enemy: "He who would be first must be last; your leader must be the servant of all." Servanthood of course means anonymity and sacrifice. Servants do not receive acclaim. At least, not from non-Masters. Help him to believe that he can handle the pressures of popularity and leadership--by which he probably means the increased weight and number of administrative or institutional duties. He will completely disregard his humbling service to his neighbors--to those Enemy followers and non- that surround him. He will see the place of ill-ease with one group of people as a sign that he needs to "move on" rather than as a cross for him to bear in order to follow the Enemy more closely. And he will gladly take on the mantle of leadership as, in regards to his relationships with his neighbors, it affords him less taxing, not more taxing, work. He will find it easy to hold reciprocal relationships at arm's length; all of his time will be spent instructing those who cannot hurt or instruct back, cannot offer him anything lasting other than their approval, acclaim, admiration, perhaps a hand-shake. In this area of popularity and notoriety, our major point of contention with the Enemy is not that He thwarts pain but that He allows it. We so love the shrieks and moans of human suffering. But so often this thing that is most enjoyable for us also jars the humans from their spiritual stupor, wherein they are content to tell pleasant lies to one another if it avoids any relational pain. When the pain arrives, we are forced to suggest to our patients that somewhere pleasure exists (a despicable resort, I know) and that if only they distanced themselves from these other pain-inducing humans, they would be happy. It is all indefensible fabrication, obviously. But we must construct such houses of cards to draw the humans away from the other Churchmen--even if it means making some patients into reverends and pastors. In many cases, we must first work on isolation from sacrificial relationships with one's neighbors before we can truly begin to plumb the depths of human sin--an important matter that, I'm afraid, will have to wait for another entry. Keep yourself in line, Your Uncle

The Things They Carried

Sometimes I like books too much--more than the real world. If they're well written--and so many of them aren't--they leave me with a specter of themselves after I've closed the covers. They create this sense of an alternate existence: one where the world is organized by plot and character, where the universe is a manageable size, where the consequences and situations are themselves remarkable. Remarkable enough to write about, anyway. So I just finished The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. I'm ashamed that, though I was assigned the book twice in college, I never read it before. I don't know how I bs-ed my way through the papers or tests or whatever enough to get away with not reading it for two separate classes, but I did. But now I've read it. Now I know why it was assigned: the book kicks you in the guts. It is the first book I've read discussing the Vietnam war that was neither flag waving nor condemning. TTTC merely lays it out there like it was, but completely unlike. It made me hate the war, love the warriors. Through O'Brien's short, sometimes repetitious descriptions of situations and events and people, I didn't just experience what he wrote about...I got eaten by it. But it sounds so lame to just dryly say "what a good book." Here's a passage that will give you some feel for his voice and the way he handled the terrible topic of aging and death. Oh, by the way, buy the book. ___________ "In Vietnam, too, we had ways of making the dead seem not quite so dead. Shaking hands [with the dead bodies], that was one way. By slighting death, by acting, we pretended it was not the terrible thing it was. By our language, which was both hard and wistful, we transformed the bodies into piles of waste. Thus, when someone got killed, as Curt Lemon did, his body was not really a body, but rather one small bit of waste in the midst of a much wider wastage. I learned that words make a difference. It's easier to cope with a kicked bucket than a corpse; if it isn't human, it doesn't matter much if it's dead. And so a VC nurse, fried by napalm, was a crispy critter. A Vietnamese baby, which lay nearby, was a roasted peanut. "Just a crunchie munchie," Rat Kiley said as he stepped over the body. "We kept the dead alive with stories. When Ted Lavender was shot in the head, the men talked about how they'd never seen him so mellow, how tranquil he was, how it wasn't the bullet but the tranquilizers that blew his mind. He wasn't dead, just laid-back. There were Christians among us, like Kiowa, who believed in the New Testament stories of life after death. Other stories were passed down like legends from old-timer to newcomer. Mostly, though, we had to make it up on our own. Often they were exaggerated, or blatant lies, but it was a way of bringing body and soul back together, or a way of making new bodies for the souls to inhabit." --Tim O' Brien. The Things They Carried (1990), pp. 267-268.

quote(s) for today

Recently, I've had a number of people talk to me about love and suffering. I want to tell them that if you get married or have children that the love makes you galvanized so the suffering just slides off of you. but that would be a huge lie. i think the truth is that love makes you less self-conscious when you do it right; that self-consciousless-ness makes the pain bearable. But the pain that comes from adding people to your life through marriage, birth, or community also increases exponentially. I'm either forced to withdraw from those relationships to lick my wounds alone or to dive into the relationships loving as authentically as I can, as unself-consciously as possible. But enough from my yap. Here are the quotes: "We must not think that our love has to be extraordinary. But we do need to love without getting tired. How does a lamp burn? Through the continuous input of small drops of oil. These drops are the small things of daily life: faithfulness, small words of kindness, a thought for others, our way of being quiet, of looking, of speaking, and of acting. They are the true drops of love that keep our lives and relationships burning like a lively flame." --Mother Teresa "To love is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one?Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries, avoid all entanglements, lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfish?ness?The only alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers, all the perturbations of love is hell." --C. S. Lewis

quote for today

"Marriage today is often nothing but a fraud. Modern husbands are proud that they don't treat their wives like doormats, and modern wives are sure that they are more independent than their mothers were. Still, women have never been sexualized as blatantly as they are today, and men have never been so casual about treating them as objects of desire. No other culture has celebrated promiscuity as openly as ours, or been so cynical about domestic abuse and neglect. Never before have people spent so much on weddings--or made such a complete mockery of them. And though the usual scapegoats are Hollywood and MTV, Christians (including pastors) divorce just as often as other people do, and adultery and abortion are just as commonplace among churchgoers as among non-religious people... "So what is at stake, and what should we do, if gay marriage is wrong, and traditional marriage is in such a mess? To me the answer is plain enough: if we call ourselves Christians, we need to step back from all the commotion and rediscover the simple truths of the Gospels. They describe, in perfect clarity, the one form of marriage worth defending and saving. More important, they mirror the unchangeable order that God established for each of us at the very outset of human history: Haven't you read that at the beginning he made them male and female? For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh...Therefore what God has joined together, let no man separate. (Matt.19:4-6) Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the churchÉHusbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy...and blameless.... In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies...After all, no one ever hated his own body. (Eph. 5:22-23) Husbands, be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers. (1 Pet. 3:7) "Grappling with these verses should spur us to examine our own lives. After all, even if we are opposed to the Massachusetts ruling, its rhetoric of equality touches on an important truth. We are all equally sinners; every one of us has strayed from God's order. Man or woman, gay or straight--we all have plenty of work to do. "To begin with, we can turn the tide and show a sex-crazed world that there are still such things as loyalty, commitment, and faithfulness. If married, we can lead our wives--not by bossing them, but by loving them and turning them to Christ. If single, we can prove that there are other goals worth pursuing besides sex. We can model true manhood (or womanhood) through self-discipline and service, and show that happiness is not dependent on physical relationships. Even if scarred or embittered by divorce, we can still learn to forgive, and need not be victims forever. Even if marriage was hell for us, we can remain loyal, and pray for our ex-spouse..." "Finally, we must witness to the fact that no matter the advances of science or the morals of our time, each of us was created in the image of God, and must one day answer to him. If the furor around the Massachusetts ruling helps us to rediscover this, it may turn out to be a blessing in disguise. But let's resist the temptation to see it as a soapbox on which to stand and label others, or judge and condemn them. Instead let's use it as a chance to point to Christ, and to marriage as he spoke of it--a mystery no court on earth can define. "Forget about sexual politics. Let us rather put our energies into helping every person to find Christ. He offers the water of life to everyone who thirsts for him." --J. C. Arnold, from this site

quote for today

"It's a remarkable thing, the idea that there's some sort of hierarchy to sin. It's something I can never figure out, the idea that sexual immorality is somehow much worse than, say, institutional greed. Somewhere in the back of the religious mind is this idea that we reap what we sow [that] is missing the entire New Testament and the concept of grace completely." --Bono in Relevant, March/April 2004; pp. 44.

quote for today

jnf, thanks for this site. My life has new meaning. Here's an excerpt: "The Lord of the Rings as if it were an episode of the X-Files." (by FranticMad) [Phone rings] "Scully here." "Scully, remember the Hobbit who said his ring was stolen by a wizard." "Uh, yyyeah, I remember some old guy with a highly active imagination and absolutely no evidence, Mulder." "After the theft another Hobbit, named Frodo, was seen talking with that same six foot tall wizard named Gandalf." "First of all Mulder, anyone over 4 feet tall will look like a wizard to these people. They live a secluded rural existence and don't have a scientific culture that enables them to question old superstitions about wizards. All we know is that some tall guy with a cane showed up at their village." "How do you explain why Frodo and three of his friends suddenly disappear on some journey with vague and mysterious itinerary." "Mulder there could be a hundred explanations. Maybe they're going on a weekend of drinking and gambling and don't want their wives or girlfriends to know. Really, I don't see why this is an X-file." "For hundreds, or thousands of years, there have been stories about 9 rings of power, and how the one ring that ruled them all was lost, but destined to be found. And when it is found, it will enslave all creatures to its will." "Okkkaaay...so you believe that a Hobbit had this supposed 'ring of power' for years and just kept it on a shelf beside his pipe and smoking weed?" "He said the wizard used some kind of psychic influence to make him hand the ring over, which is consistent with other stories of wizards' parapsychological abilities manifested in times of impending global conflict between forces of good and evil." "Mulder. No one has ever seen a wizard--it, it's just a figment of the imagination, based on paranoia, primitive cultural beliefs, or even dementia from old age or malnutrition. I mean, this Hobbit was, what, a hundred and ten years old?" "Eleventy one. A hundred and eleventy one." "Whatever Mulder, there are lots of cases of lonely people creating stories just to get companionship." "But what about the reports coming in from all over about faceless Wraiths riding at night in search of a Hobbit who carries a ring?" "Wraiths? What wraiths?" "Scully, I've couriered a plane ticket to you. My flight's boarding now. I gotta go." "Mulder, where are you going? Have you cleared this assignment with Assistant Director Smeagol?" "Keep this under your hat, Scully. I'll explain later when we meet. Bye." [click] "Mulder. Where are you--where AM I going? Mulder? MULDER?? Mulder!"

saddle, to be back in after being removed from, etc.

As an aside (which is against the Rules, I know, since I haven't started writing anything to get aside of), I'm finding it very difficult to blog again. Seeing all of the other blogs, sometimes more valuable, sometimes less so, I am tempted to do a danfox and just delete the whole thing...except for a thin candy shell. Part of the problem is the glass darkly sort of thing, as john has commented on more eloquently. Then I reflect on the wisdom of jnf and am reminded that we are just pointers; in our best moments, we reflect light emanating from a Source the way the moon reflects the sun. Or we imitate the Source (but probably not through a blog) and momentarily become tiny candles, lamps on a hill. So for now, here's more schlock to fill the metaverse. My two day trip to interview for the Notre Dame HPS program was not as harrowing as I expected. Nor was it definitive. I thought I would walk away knowing for certain whether I was 'in' or 'out' and what that meant for the future. Alas. I must wait. Eventually the call or the letter will make its way to me and I'll know. But for now, more waiting. I don't like being away from my wife for two days. I don't like sharing a hotel room with a complete stranger. I don't like being put on the spot over and over again (11 times, in all) as a kind of test on whether I would fit in to a program or not. I know that on paper individuals come across a certain way that doesn't necessarily correspond to their 'real selves.' It is akin to the problem with blogging--you sense something of me by reading what I write. But without the non-verbal communication, which some sociologists and communications scholars like Neil Postman believe account for almost a full half of the actual "communications package" that we convey when relating to one another, much of what we're trying to say gets left behind. I hope the interviews helped bolster my case rather than detract from it. Notre Dame itself is...well...it's a real school. It is self-consciously an institution of higher learning. It knows it represents both academia and Catholicism. ND is a much more effective Catholic institution than, say, Boston College which did not feel very Catholic. And ND is not simply ethnically Catholic or nominally Catholic, like I expected. Mass is regularly attended--not compulsory, but popular. The Grotto, a famous ND landmark, is a prayer "patio" where even at 9pm on a cloudy, cold Thursday night, students went to kneel and presumably pray. Then they lit their candles and did those hand gesture things that, raised in a fundie school, I learned to suspect at a very early age. Watching it done in front of the Grotto, by otherwise completely innocuous college students made me realize that it is less superstition than identifier: "I do this to remind myself I am not here just because I want to be or I am a good student," etc. "With God's help..." my aunt Kathy, devoutly Catholic, reminds me all the time. And I wonder if my Protestantism has any helpful corollary, other than the decidedly unhelpful "God helps those that help themselves." But I'm not converting any time soon--just bi-curious, as they say. The more troubling thing is that I might be tri-curious. That probably goes too far. But the more I begin to understand about the whole eugenics thing, the more I see that Protestants are usually in favor of it. Or at least they were sometime in the past, while the Catholics were ardently protesting that children were born that way because God's in charge and we're not. The eugenicists--many Bible-thumping Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, Brethren--were also very in favor of utilizing God's gift of science to "relieve suffering" and "create more perfect humanity" by sterilizing, imprisoning, and even euthanizing those who were seen to be genetically weak, criminal, alcoholics, or simply poor. It's like Dylan said: with God On Our Side, we do lots of things that make Him weep and build up more wrath to pour out on us.

quote for today

"But I understand all of a sudden that my family is like an old sweater--it keeps unraveling, but maybe someone knows how to sew it up; it has lumps and then it unravels again, but you can still wear it; and it still keeps away the chill." --Anne Lamott, from this article (you could say the same thing about christian community, as Lamott has many times)