Briars and Thorns

Growing Pains

2011-09-22T23:30:00.000-04:00

"Aslan," said Lucy, "you're bigger."
"That is because you are older, little one," answered he.
"Not because you are?"
"I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger."

--from Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis

I was thinking about this a lot last night at Bible study. We were studying the relationship between sin and grace. We started with a diagram that looked something like this:

On one hand, I have my awareness of God's holiness. On the other, I have my knowledge of my own sin. (These both tend to increase with time.) When one first becomes a Christian, the Cross tends to just barely bridge the gap. How could our understanding of God's grace exceed our knowledge of the gap between? For Christians like me, who converted at a very young age, the cross tends to start out very small. Unfortunately, sometimes it stays that way.

As time passes, the cross can seem to diminish in size. Sin not only fails to disappear after conversion - it growls and snarls and grows more rapidly than a hydra. God is not only as inaccessibly perfect as we had known at first - he is more so. And yet the cross too often fails to bridge the gap. So what do we do?

We fill the gaps artificially. We try to do good deeds - or have regular Bible studies - or pray - or something - to cover that extra gap between the top of the cross and God's holiness. We become increasingly dishonest - either with ourselves ("I'm not that bad") or with others. Oh, how very good I am at that last. I don't and wouldn't lie, of course. I just sit there uncomfortably silent when people ask for prayer requests when I desperately want prayer for x embarrassing spiritual problem in my life. (Note that I can't bring myself to specify a specific example even as I discuss the problem.) I just quietly despair as I compare my own lack of faith with my neighbors' faith. I can grow resentful of others' success and peace of mind; I can become peevishly convinced that everyone is a bunch of similar hypocrites anyway (or something like the world through the devil's mirror). It gets ugly.

You might notice how I flit around between "I do this", "one does this", and "we do this" in this post. It's because I'm still working through which applies where. Hey, let my confusion be reflected in stylistic confusion. One thing I wonder - is the fact that my first thought is of Aslan a sign that "Aslan" hasn't grown big enough for me? Have I failed to get to know him sufficiently in my own world? How can I get to where the cross is sized appropriately?

One thing's for sure: John 3:30. "He must increase, but I must decrease."

What Is Right and What Is Easy

2011-09-13T14:23:00.000-04:00

I find myself in an awkward position regarding the Church and social morality. Well, it's not awkward on all fronts: I find that any "Christian" agenda which fails to provide for the poor and despised in our society is no Christian agenda at all. That's simple. I can even feel a bit smugly (self-?)righteous in the "caring for the despised" category, because not everyone is able to see this obvious point. But in the field of sexual morality, things get complicated. Largely because I can see traces of smug self-satisfaction in both the major visible camps, traces I can see in myself whichever stance I take.

I have grown up in a conservative environment. I've long understood the arguments against abortion, and I agree with them. I've long understood the arguments in favor of limiting sexual relationships to a heterosexual monogamous context, and I cannot disagree with them. Abortion is bad because it kills humans. God created sex for a purpose, and that purpose is clearly outlined in the Bible. Fairly simple.

Unfortunately, it got more complicated when I encountered a liberal environment. I understand the arguments against-against abortion (few, I find, are simply "for" it), and I agree with them. I understand the arguments in favor of permitting sexual relationships in a variety of contexts, and I cannot entirely disagree with them. Abortion can save lives. I find myself disgusted by finding some "pro-life" arguments which show exactly the sort of misogynistic anti-choice logic which I had dismissed as abortionist anti-life caricature. (But I never would argue for the life of the fetus over that of the mother without the mother's consent!) (But some would.) (But I would never demand that an unviable fetus be carried to term at the risk of the mother!) (But some would.) (But I don't want to punish women for promiscuity by refusing birth control, demanding they raise the baby, while permitting the man freedom from judgment! That would be totally contrary to even the Law of Moses!) (But some would.) As for alternatives to heterosexuality (yes, alternatives plural, for those concerned about a monolithic "homosexual agenda") - well, here's where I get into the really murky waters.

It is easy for me to condemn the sins which tempt me little.

It is easy for me to condemn the sins which I have buried in shrouding denial.

It is easy for me to condemn the sins which, condemned, still permit me to maintain my familiar lifestyle.

It is easy for me to condemn the sins which permit me to pretend love and Christian concern.

It is easy for me to condemn the sins which permit me to hate my enemy, curse them that curse me, do evil to them that hate me, and pray against them which despitefully use me and persecute me.

It is easy for me to condemn the sins which permit me to hate my neighbor as I hate myself.

I find that it is easy for most Christians to do these things. We want to take bold stands for Christ and stand for the right thing in despite of the World, the Flesh and the Devil, but we want to do so at the least possible cost to ourselves. History demonstrates that Christians have always been divided sharply when the time came to choose between right and wrong. I will be the first to point out the large role of the Church in abolition - but other members of the Church used the Bible, with more ease, to justify slavery, because abolition would involve change, discomfort, and an admission of sin. I will be the first to point out the large role of the Church in the Civil Rights movement - but other members of the Church used basic common sense to show how "unnatural" such indiscriminate Christian brotherhood would be.

I cannot take the liberal step of assuming the heterosexuality issue is identical to these previous issues. I cannot say that that which is inborn is inevitable. But I can and must note that conservatives have long declared homosexuality (let alone other sexualities) so impossible that it is invisible in much of the conservative community. It's one of the easy sins of the "other". Abortion is redefined as the lazy, cowardly, or callous slut's easy way out, and becomes one of the easy sins of the "other". So, conservatives: how do we know the Lord's will on sexuality is more literal and obvious in the Bible than His will on slavery or racial mixing? And every frickin' person debating abortion: how do we know the point at which the cells transform into an independent human being? Because those who assert the answer without considering it are less concerned with human rights than with the rights of the human they choose to like better.

I know, it's a set of tired, tired debates. But I worry that the divide in the Church is largely along the lines of what is easy for each side to declare right, and therefore making it possible to make what is easy = what is right. And what is right is rarely the same thing as what is easy. And the right way to determine what is right in a heated debate is rarely the same thing as the easy way to determine what is right.

Regarding the London Riots and Responsible Society

2011-08-10T11:58:00.000-04:00

This was posted as a series of tweets by Tony Evans of The Times around noon British Summer Time today, and really struck me with truth. (Thanks to JoshR commenting on this interesting Mightygodking article for bringing it to my attention!)

First off, I don’t know what’s best. But this is what I do know. Unlike most of you, I’ve fought with police, I’ve thrown missiles at them, I’ve kicked in shop windows and looted stuff. I was born into an area that people told me was full of ‘the dregs of society’. I’ve been young, poor and angry. I’ve felt there was no opportunity in life and all that stretched in front was a bleak, penniless future. And I know that most people with happy, fulfilled lives don’t go on rampages of violence. I also know that successive Governments have put the pursuit of wealth ahead of maintaining a sense of community. When you’ve been told there’s no society, why would you care about other people? When you see the bankers nearly destroy capitalism and still get their bonuses, what do you think of personal responsibility? The key is making people believe they have opportunities in life, not opportunities to loot. And maybe the money spent intervening in a civil war in Libya would be better spent on schools. I could go on, but most of you have made up your minds. You get the society you create. Enjoy it.

AD- Ooh, Shiny!

2011-07-18T15:41:00.001-04:00

I’m fairly certain I have ADHD – or, as a friend taught me to prefer calling it, ADOS (Attention Deficit – ooh, shiny!).

One of the things that most helps me to make sense of the rapid-fire thoughts in my brain is writing. Although I cannot string together five coherent thoughts in my brain, I can keep track of five coherent sentences (if only because I can reread what I’ve just written). Parentheses and dashes figure prominently, if only so I can interject – wait, I was supposed to put some crazy random idea there, but honestly the trees outside aren’t that random and attempts to write a stream of consciousness have generally been disastrous.

If there were a god of ADHD, it would surely be Mercury, the ever-changeable god of thieves, travel, and messages. And sometimes medicine. And pranks. And athletes. You get the idea. Mercury, the origin of the word for "mercurial", unpredictability, and the element once known as quicksilver...

Quicksilver-thoughts
Droplets rolling, roiling, pairing, parting
Never-still never-same – patterning poorly
Irregular, unexpected
Interjected
Accepted, rejected, undetected
Beautiful impossible shiny fishes slithering away
Flipping flippantly fluidly ungraspably
How does one order?
How can one make them line up straight and neat
Like iambs marching meekly in a row,
Not one undone, not one left incomplete
Each clearly placed just where it ought to go?
How does one trim the tangled skein of knots
To show a web of tidy tied-up thoughts?
And then the volta's early, out of place
Throwing off the rhythm and the rhyme
Uncertainty comes running on apace
Off-kiltering the slightly twisted line
The yarn unravels, raveled at the ends
Fibers fraying every which-a-way
The rhythm falters, breaking as it expends
Fails the ordering, all thought gone astray.
Empty
Gone
Ashes, dust, decay
Order drives quicksilver thought away.

That poem, by the way, makes more sense if you’re familiar with the sonnet form. (English teacher here; English class is, at least, good for helping you understand an English teacher’s metaphors!) The lines in between “How does one order?” and “Empty” are a warped sonnet. A classic sonnet is fourteen lines, each line in iambic pentameter (iamb: da-DUM beat; pentameter: five such beats) and following a fairly rigid rhyme scheme (multiple options here). The two most popular sonnet forms, Petrarchan and Shakespearean, both usually have a volta, or switch in tone, toward the end. The volta is usually after the eighth line or twelfth…

I miss the classroom.

This is why I’m a teacher, employed or not. I find this stuff so incredibly interesting, I can go on for ages.

And I adore sonnets. It’s doubtful I’ll ever consider myself a poet, but the organization of thought is wonderful.

And this whole post I’m typing in Word in my car on the way home, and I’ll probably edit it heavily before posting, but sometimes… sometimes it’s necessary to think out on paper. Even if thoughts come in ADHD-disorganized fashion. Squirrel!

Note: Didn't end up heavily edited at all. Although I did do a bit of fact checking; on what, I dare not reveal. ;)

The Magic Chord Progression

2011-07-07T16:00:00.001-04:00

This is a real digression from my usual blog topics, and given my readership (limited, I believe, to various friends and relatives countable on fingers and toes) I'm unlikely to get any useful new info, but hey...

I love playing around with music. I've even written a song or two. And yes, most popular music is very limited in chord structure. (Have I scared you with the words "chord structure"? It will get more technical. Perhaps now is the time to bail out.) Most songs use the same three or four chords in any of the dozen different major keys. Being a keyboardist first and foremost, I tend to think of them in the key of C: C, F, G, maybe some Am or Em action, D7 if you want some variety... but you can get a lot of mileage out of just C, F, and G if you can get the song in that key.

Despite the fact that there are only a few chords, however, the potential variety of chord progressions is pretty good. "Rock Around The Clock" has F C G and a final resolve to C on its famous chorus (averaging to one chord per line - and yes, I transposed it), while "Blowin' In The Wind" just repeats CFGCFGCFG on its verses... I'm sure that there's a technical term in music theory for these patterns, but the point is, same chords do not equal same chord structure. Same chord structure is much rarer.

I don't know when I first noticed the magic chord progression, but it was some time before I wrote my first proper song. In Roman numeral notation, it goes vi-IV-I-V - in the key of C, it comes out A minor - F major - C major - G major. And it's my theory that songs with this progression are inclined to Awesome.

It's in the chorus of "All You Wanted". It's in the whole dang song "Save Tonight". It's in the verse of "Lord Have Mercy". It's in the chorus of "My Savior My God" and "Defying Gravity". It's in the chorus of "Our God" and "Better Than A Hallelujah" and "One Of Us".

The feeling is just one of moving from smallness to greatness, wavering between pain and indescribable joy. And I love it.

So, if I have any readers with whom I have not discussed this ad nauseum in real life: can you think of any others? And can you think of any which somehow fail the Awesome criterion (except possibly on the basis of lyrics)?

ETA: How could I have forgotten "Save Tonight"???

Dear Prospective Employer

2011-06-29T16:53:00.001-04:00

Dear Prospective Employer,

I'm looking for a job. I'm looking specifically for a job teaching the English language (such as is useful for students with a working fluency already) and literature published in the English language. And your school looks like one I'd really love to work at. I can't say how badly I want to work there. Or else your school looks like one I'd tolerate working at in preference to giving it all up to become a stock trader. (I hate complicated money issues, competition, and regular risk-taking. Stock trading rates below digging ditches on my potential job interests.) Sadly, I can't tell you if you're merely tolerable, and if your school is one I love, the praise sounds like flattery. There's no winning there.

Of course, I can't tell you why I'm no longer at my last job; I'm not too clear myself. The only thing I'm clear on is that it wasn't my choice, and I'm pretty sure you don't want to hear that. Not sure you want to hear that "I'm a potentially amazing teacher if I get some help in these areas", but it's true. I have a ton of assets that I can bring to the job. I'm just not entirely self-sufficient.

But you don't want to hear that, do you? You want to hear about my exquisite perfection as a potential employee. You want to hear about how great I am, how flawless I am, etc etc. And I guess I could brag on myself some more. Thing is, though? I'm much more aware of my faults. I spend a lot more time worrying about them.

But enough about me. Let's see what you want to know. Sadly, those of you who fall into the "love" category have not told me much; all I know is what the "tolerable" folk want to know:

Explain how you will provide ... students with the skills they need to succeed as 21st century learners, workers and citizens.
I'll teach them. Simple enough. How? Well, what skills are you concerned about? Because the first thing I think of in terms of "valuable 21st century skills" is do not feed the trolls. Of course, like all skills needed to help succeed as 21st century learners, workers, and citizens, the skill is truly applicable in any era. If you mean to ask, "What groovy new techniques do you know that we can tell people our employees have so that everyone knows we're totally hip with it?", my answer is twofold:

1. I look to teach high schoolers, not be employed by them. Please worry less about cool new technology (much of which I'm good with, btw) than ways of teaching the students. A good teacher can teach with almost no props; a bad one cannot teach with all the props in the book.

2. If you're genuinely concerned about my ability to teach and genuinely understand technology as one tool among many, please demonstrate a 21st century understanding of the available tools and their potential usefulness. I refuse to explain myself to an organization that doesn't understand why Internet research is now usually at least as valid as book research.

List your special abilities, interests, community activities, high school and/or college activities, including athletic coaching, student activities, unique or special achievements.

Activities? Really? I thought I was done with worrying about these when I finished my college applications. Ummm... I standardized test extremely well? Highly qualified general geek (some basic Trek; moderate to serious LOTR, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Firefly; can quote Monty Python and the Holy Grail almost as well as The Princess Bride; a little weak on hard scifi but abundantly familiar with fantasy and medieval stuff). Knitting, religion, philosophy. Singing, especially tunes from Disney movies. Or were you just interested in my nonexistent athletic abilities and/or the National Merit/ SAT status that have proved utterly irrelevant to anything since I no longer needed a college scholarship?

I'm pleased to say that I found a site that tells the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow. Should I ever be king, it will be important for me to know these things.

List your professional activities, including professional or honorary organizations, research studies, publications and/or presentations.

From "questions best applicable for people just out of school", we jump to "questions best applicable for people with years in the field." N/A.

Please provide any additional job related information you wish to share.

I just want this bloody 20-page application to end. Why would I want to add anything else? Especially in the middle, when I don't know what other job-related information you're going to request? Surely it would be better to review a far shorter form and then ask these sorts of questions in an interview? Does anyone on earth read all this? Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

Cite an innovative instructional practice that will engage every student in meaningful, authentic and rigorous work while motivating students to be self-directed and inquisitive learners. Describe how you will use this practice in your classroom.
...
...
So do I need to repeat points 1 and 2 from the first question you asked, do I need to repeat the "this would work better as an interview" point, or are you trying to get free labor off of hapless applicants? I wish I didn't think it was the last.

After a bad day...

2010-10-21T20:30:00.000-04:00

He appeared to be a singularly ill-used man. His parents had never appreciated him and none of the five schools at which he had been educated seemed to have made any provision for a talent and temperament such as his. To make matters worse he had been exactly the sort of boy in whose case the examination system works out with the maximum unfairness and absurdity. It was not until he reached the university that he began to recognize that all these injustices did not come by chance but were the inevitable results of ...

-C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

I cut the quote where it stopped being remotely relevant to me (digressing into political issues), but the remainder might be summarized as "two further pages of displacing all responsibility."

Feeling this today. I am exactly the sort of girls in whose case the examination system works out with the maximum unfairness and absurdity - in my favor. It is all the fault of the system that my childhood and adolescence taught me that hard work and responsibility are legendary things which, in my own case, are entirely useless for anything but spoiling fun. It is the fault of the system that I now lack the discipline and willpower to do everything needed in my life.

It's the fault of the system entirely.

In other news, taught my students about irony today. Hope this is recognizable as verbal irony.

Fair Use and Film

2009-12-02T15:44:00.000-05:00

"In thinking it through, I made the analogy that if a student had written a paper that utilized four cleverly selected quotes from significant novels to make their point [instead of using four video clips], I would be exceedingly impressed by their literacy skills." -Quoted in The English Teacher's Companion by Jim Burke, page 326

This line struck me like a thunderbolt as I was reading for class. Since the inception of copyright law, fair use clauses have permitted people to quote limited amounts without any concern for copyright. I don't need to pay the author to lift a line or two, as long as I don't claim that author's work as my own; I can quote for reviewing or academic purposes freely, and no one cares if I quote a few lines in an original work of my own (again, as long as I give credit where credit is due).

So what's the deal with fair use for films? A quick Google search yields no regulations about film use, but there's a certain illicit feel to film clips and screencaps. Am I legally liable if I arrange a bunch of film "quotes" from copyrighted works into a new work? If I use a series of screencaps for a show? Why is there a distinction, and why are companies permitted to employ DRM which prevents even fair use of their works?

I don't deal in music and video editing, so the relevance to my life is limited. But with YouTube becoming increasingly regulated re: copyright, I can't help wondering whether anyone will remember the vital use of fair use in analysis, study, and creativity.

A tale of two puppies

2009-11-20T08:01:00.000-05:00

My beloved dog has lived with our family for almost all of her fourteen years. Even though she is now old, graying and arthritic, she is still Puppy to me. When we take her for walks, she is still mistaken for a puppy (she's vaguely the size and shape of a half-grown Lab, enough that someone who doesn't know dogs well will think she is one despite a rather different build), so I guess I may be a bit justified in my opinion.

Which makes it hard to think of how to compare her to my sister's six-month-old boxer/pit bull mix. He is far more a puppy than Puppy, but is probably ten to twenty pounds heavier and altogether on a different scale. Already I'm calling him Beast. Last night went something like this:

Beast-Puppy: Play!
Old-Puppy: Yay! I feel young!

*five minutes later*

Beast-Puppy: Play harder!
Old-Puppy: Gettin' tired...

*five minutes later*

Beast-Puppy: Play?
Old-Puppy: Sleepin' now in bed. Go 'way.
Beast-Puppy: Play? Wait...
Old-Puppy: GO 'WAY, PLZ.
Beast-Puppy: ... Joy! Rapture! You have prizes buried!
(Old Puppy has never had much interest in toys - she'll play with them when they're new for about half an hour, then abandon them. We then toss them in her basket under her pillow. Beast was fascinated.)
Beast-Puppy: Scooch over. Nose-digging for prizes!
Old-Puppy: Humans? Little help here? Please I am such a good doggie and so patient and I don't know what to do with this shover HELP!

Humans: *yank Beast away with stern injunction to Leave Her Alone*

Beast-Puppy: *pitiful* Play?
Humans: ...Okay. *retrieve toy from bed with minimal fuss*

Beast-Puppy: ... More prizes?
Old-Puppy: GO 'WAY! HUMANS!
Beast-Puppy: Lemme look little more! Little more!
Humans: NO.

Old-Puppy: Food, plz.
Beast-Puppy: FOOD!
Old-Puppy: GET AWAY FROM MY FOOD, INFANT, OR I KILL YOU.
Humans: Okay, Beast, you go upstairs.
Beast-Puppy: Play?
Humans: ... okay. (He's so pitiful when he begs.)

Beast-Puppy: Bored. Sidle over to see if More Prizes? *shovels Old Puppy halfway into the air*
Old-Puppy: THAT IS IT, I HAVE HAD ENOUGH. *stalks upstairs and demands master bedroom door be opened*
Humans: One of us had better keep her company.
Old-Puppy: YAY door between Beast and me and other-bed and beloved comforting Human! *sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeps*

Various other activities ensued, but that was pretty much the last Old Puppy had to deal with Beast before both went to bed for the night. This morning:

Beast-Puppy: Need out!
Sis: *grumble grumble* too early *grumble grumble fumble for leash*
Beast-Puppy: Yay, we go walk!
*few minutes later*
Sis: Need more sleep...
Beast-Puppy: Play now!
Sis: NO. *goes to bed*
Beast-Puppy: Day now! Go play! Go explore! Let out of room! Go play? Go play? Go play? Go play! Go play? Go play?! GO PLAY?
Sis: ENOUGH! *drags down to crate* *stalks back upstairs alone to sleep*

Old-Puppy: Hello, Stefanie. You look comfy in my favorite human bed. I share! *settles down*

Beast-Puppy: I sorry. Let out? Let out? Let out? Oh please oh please oh please let out, please let out, PLEASE LET OUT...

Old-Puppy: Huh. The kid is unhappy. Now do I actually worry about him, or do I stay here...

Beast-Puppy: LET OUT! LET OUT! OH FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD, LET OUT!

Old-Puppy saunters downstairs to check it out. There is a short silence. Then she returns upstairs to casually saunter back onto my bed as the whining renews.

Old-Puppy: Ahhh, comfy bed. Enjoy the cage, kid. *smugly settles in to sleep*

Christianity And

2009-10-08T12:42:00.002-04:00

My dear Wormwood,
The real trouble about the set your patient is living in is that it is merely Christian. They all have individual interests, of course, but the bond remains mere Christianity. What we want, if men become Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of mind I call 'Christianity And'. You know -- Christianity and the Crisis, Christianity and Faith Healing, Christianity and Psychical Research, Christianity and Vegetarianism, Christianity and Spelling Reform. If they must be Christians let them at least be Christians with a difference. Substitute for the faith itself some Fashion with a Christian colouring...

That would be the introduction to the 25th Screwtape Letter, and if you don't know what that means, please see the link. C.S. Lewis at his finest.

I have grown particularly sick of the current Fashion in America to describe Christianity as Christianity and Conservatism, or Christianity and Republicanism, or the battle cry "For God, America and St. George W. Bush!" (or whomever shall replace said fallen idol). While God may have opinions in American politics, I doubt very much that He has anointed any particular political party or political organization with the whole measure of His blessing and favor; democracy leaves little room for the divine right of kings, after all, and if God favors America, He surely favors democracy. The inherent conflation of "religious" and "neither left nor center" in "Religious Right" worries me, especially the gnawing suspicion that some members see a different "right" in that phrase - "We are the ones to the right; therefore, we are the ones IN the right!"

Still, I know plenty of people who belong to the Religious Right who place their faith in God first and foremost, who are wonderful, decent Christians and possibly better in their faith than I can ever be. The movement, therefore, is not spawned of Satan, whatever I would like to believe when Religious Right spokespeople appear on television. I've learned to view quite a lot of fallacies as either merely amusing or fallacies on the part of the liberal interpreter rather than the conservative speaker.

Therefore, I was shocked to learn about the Conservapedia Bible Translation Project. Now, my link is to an outside source. This is intentional. I do not wish to encourage the project by diverting any traffic its way, and this article does a fairly good job describing and quoting it. If, like me, you find it unbelievable, an exaggeration or joke, there is a link to the actual project inside the article. The link to the actual project may not work at the moment; Stephen Colbert set the Colbert Nation to work last night vandalizing the project, and probably-not-coincidentally the servers for the Bible Project are currently unreliable. But you know. You can figure it out.

This project, ladies and gentlemen, proposes that the Bible itself is too liberal as received and needs to be adjusted accordingly. There appears to be some restraint; excisions are technically limited to later additions to the text and the suggested word replacements have at least a shred of validity. But any "translation" which works by adjusting the KJV by fiat rather than learning and interpreting the original languages... does not deserve the name "translation". At best, it is a paraphrase; at worst, a retcon. The guidelines look suspiciously like a retcon. (I was not aware, for instance, that Jesus' parables were supposed to be a clear and unambiguous statement of support for the free market.) This is considerably beyond Christianity And. This is getting into And Christianity. Or, Is Christianity. We can change the Bible, because if God Himself supports our ideology, we are justified in putting words in His mouth to clarify His position.

This is exactly the kind of thing I hate. Christianity is loving the Lord thy God and loving thy neighbor as thyself. Christianity is doing unto others as thou wouldst have them do unto thee. Christianity is not defined by capitalism, small government, military spending, the death penalty, or harsher jail sentences by any logical stretch. Christian politics ought to have priorities in line with Christ's. To me, this means that homosexual marriage is a nonissue; divorce is a more pressing one. If abortion is to be a priority issue, for the love of all that is holy, hold politicians accountable - don't permit a politician to buy your vote with an entirely empty promise to "support" abortion prevention, and don't permit a politician to give lip service to that ideal while performing unChristian acts in every other area.

Got that?

Now here's the hellishly tricky part for me. It's incredibly tempting to fight Christianity and Conservatism by becoming Christianity and Anti(Christianity and Conservatism). I have friends who entice me into Christianity and Liberalism - which, with some idiot Conservapedia people thinking that forgiveness is a Liberal concept (fine, I caved and linked directly), seems awfully tempting to believe. If being forgiving is inherently liberal, wouldn't that mean that Christianity is inherently liberal? The only judgment and damnation I recall in the NT was on people who claimed to be believers but acted falsely. There I go, buying into the Christianity And Anti-Anti-Christianity again.

It comes back to learning to stand - learning to follow God Himself, to stand for God rather than against something else. I am not called to rant about the follies of legalism. (Howevermuch fun Paul might have had doing so. So, so much fun.) I am not called to go out of my way to confront fringe elements, and it's not like I have any erring high authorities to correct in the daily course of things. I have to drop "Christianity And", even when the "and" is fighting "Christianity And". Of course, this can create an infinite regression of Christianity And Anti(Christianity And)...

I see only one thing to do at the moment. Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to the fact? All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them, but this is specially true of humility. Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, 'By jove! I'm being humble', and almost immediately pride - pride at his own humility - will appear. If he awakes to the danger and tries to smother this new form of pride, make him proud of his attempt - and so on, through as many stages as you please.

Oh, Number 14, how thou knowest me.

New look

2009-10-06T18:11:00.000-04:00

Look! A shiny new template. I'n'it pretty?

Screw introspection, dangit

2009-10-01T17:30:00.004-04:00

And the question pops up again, making me want to tackle innocent bystanders until it gets answered.

Did you click the link?

No?

I can wait till you do.

Okay, hopefully you clicked the link and hopefully it took you to Johnny the Tackling Alzheimer's Patient. If not, look it up. It's worth it. Best Scrubs-joke-to-become-a-running-family-joke ever.

Who am I?

At the moment, I'm not terribly concerned about the deep philosophical implications. I feel like I know myself pretty well. The whole existential who-are-we-as-human-beings thing? It's an interesting question to pursue, but not one I have a pressing need to figure out at the moment. I'm good with self-knowledge and pretty happy with my current level. 'S all good.

But apparently, it's not enough to know myself. I have to explain myself to everyone else - within the space of a single piece of paper. Or multiple pieces of paper. You see, I'm doing a job application which involves not only a resume, but also an autobiographical statement. Simultaneously, I'm having to revise my "Who am I?" essay for my teaching class. I have to figure out, not who I am, but how best to project my identity onto a few pieces of paper - and not even my identity, but that part of my identity which is acceptable for introducing myself to a stranger who may wish to employ me. So I have to figure out the balance between honesty and reserve - as Hitch would say, "not show it all at once, but show the real you." What part of me is the part that needs to go on that paper?

And do I really care?

I'm irreverent and flippant and silly, because I'm passionately, fervently and intensely dedicated to things that either don't interest or outright scare other people. (Old stories and language would be in the former, religion the latter.) I'm slow to commit and I keep my commitments few on the ground, because I'm intensely loyal and I'll give my all once I'm committed. I follow the rules meticulously when I agree with them and break them spectacularly when I don't - which makes me an unpredictable employee. Don't get me wrong, I don't randomly break rules - I go through discussing, disputing, etc if something really doesn't work for me. I'm just going to do what I think is right, and if negotiation doesn't work...

Well, that's not something you put on stuff for an employer to see. "Creative," "determined," what have you, but not "occasionally stubborn as a mule." Also, "laid back" and "adaptable" can be good, but "lazy" really can't. Not that I'm okay with laziness, but if I'm talking about myself...

Also I have a possible addiction to ellipses...

But I'm not sure...

Gah. This doesn't even get into detailing accomplishments for my resume. I hate resumes.

And I don't wanna talk about me. Don't wanna talk about "I". And if I want to talk about Number One, that's some other Guy. Why? Why? Why?

Screw introspection. And linguistics, while we're at it.

Nothing to say

2009-09-30T17:30:00.002-04:00

I really don't have anything to say as I start this post. I've simply had my fill of reading, reading, reading for my class on Differentiating Instruction and must transition to writing somehow. Of course, the ideal outlet would be to write on my reading in the class forums, but I find I am disinclined to acquiesce to that suggestion.

This taking-classes-online thing is tricky, especially for an unemployed person with poor natural time-management skills. I also find myself with far too little time to write, too little time to talk, too little time to connect with people - because the natural connections of work and class have been broken. I suppose I could still write (look! I write! I'm a writer!), but I'm always left with the feeling that time could be better spent doing homework.

Perhaps this time could be better spent journalling ...

*glares at spellcheck*

You know, there is no law in the English language which definitely governs whether one does or does not double the final consonant when adding a verb ending. This little Microsoft Word convention seems to have caught on everywhere, but doubled final consonants are traditionally just an alternative, albeit more common in British usage than American. "Journalling" ought to be as acceptable as "journaling"...

...oh.

It is? Equally unacceptable?

Then learn a new verb. And learn also the word "spellcheck." You might find it useful.

There. Done. Where were we? Ah, yes, I could be journalling or working on fiction as well, but that requires that I actually feel like talking to myself (hmm, most of my recent journal entries are discussions of what I'm learning in class) or that I have an idea for a fiction story. Perhaps I should start a blog, even less frequently updated, wherein I publish my short fiction and poetry. It would be eagerly mobbed as people marveled (fine, I didn't double it, are you happy spellcheck?) at my brilliant ideas, then abandoned (or torch-and-pitchforked; maybe I should invest in a ruined castle or old windmill?) as everyone realized that I never get beyond ideas into an actual finished work worth reading. Except in essays where teachers insist on my finishing. Perhaps I should try reworking old essays for blog posts? But this of course will not interest many people. I find it brilliant that I pitted Beowulf against St. Andrew and brought in Sir Gawain to comment on the balance of faith and physical strength, along with Unferth making snide comments about Beowulf and St. Augustine pulling for Andrew, but few people will have both the knowledge base and the right sense of humor to appreciate it.

There's really only one solution. Post, and wikilink it to death so that everyone will learn more about these important topics! Now if only I can find a text of Andreas online.

And now for something completely late

2008-12-19T22:14:00.006-05:00

As a junior in high school, I wrote an essay of which I was rather proud. I was given two months to write a comparison/contrast essay on a topic of my choice. I chose men and women. I learned a vitally important lesson: never choose the topic covered by the Dave Barry column you read in class. Your essay will not measure up.

We had to write multiple drafts, and I realized my mistake by the end of the first draft. Unfortunately, I then had only one night left to complete my remaining four required drafts. I was panicking (my notes show that I was considering comparing/contrasting Batman with Larry-Boy). Then, in a moment of inspiration, I discovered a topic and wrote one of my favorite compositions.

I typed it at the school library and failed to save a copy, which distressed me for years. Then, cleaning out my room one day, I discovered a folder full of schoolwork that I had considered important. Inside was my essay! There was much celebration. I determined to transcribe it as soon as possible. It has been a few years since.

In the frantic atmosphere of the end of the semester, I thought of this paper often. Now, having finished my last take-home final, I think it is time to transcribe the essay. Call it deep, call it important, call it thought-provoking - if you can do so with a straight face. And now, after nine years, I present my well thought-out Englilsh paper:

The Procrastinator and the Planner

There are two kinds of time managers in this world: those who procrastinate and those who do not. Those who procrastinate are maligned by our ignorant society while those who plan are upheld as an ideal. I feel it to be my duty to rectify this alarmingly erroneous image.

At the deepest level, procrastinators and planners have a strong similarity. Both desire to make the work load as light and feasible as possible. Both have systems - often called work ethics - established to make assignments as easy as possible to complete. The differences arise in which systems they believe to be most effective. People can usually be easily identified as either a planner or procrastinator by some of their other characteristics.

Planners, for instance, are usually recognizable by their timidity. The planner is incapable of facing a deadline. He fears the deadline and attempts to distance it by engaging it for only a few minutes at a time. He will not consider attempting to battle the foe without his trusty tinfoil-like armor of pocket planners and calendars. Stripped of these props, he is liable to run from the battlefield in screaming terror.

The procrastinator, on the other hand, is cool and calm. She is always willing to try to beat the odds. Like a true warrior, she will face the deadline with nothing but her will, pen, and paper (or computer, depending on the circumstances). However near the deadline may grow, she will not flinch. She is willing to risk all to defeat the foe.

The planner will inexplicably pair his fear with rashness. He will plunge into an assignment without first learning the field and will thereby come to disaster. While attempting to conquer the deadline, he will be besieged by additional requirements and flounder, possibly to the point where he will have to start over.

The procrastinator is wiser. She understands the fickle ways of the world and waits. In this way, when the foe advances (in the form of a new essay format or research requirement), she is secure in her fortress of patience. Let no one doubt the strength of her will.

Related to the intelligence and patience issue is flexibility. The planner is tragically flawed in his rigidity. Any changes in format cause a panic mode to set into his mind. Like a tower of single Legos stacked one on top of the other, he in his stern inflexibility will topple at the slightest pressure.

The procrastinator is saved from this fault. She more resembles a tree, which digs and feels out the ground before slowly rising in supple strength. She is able to adjust to pressures and changes in pans and even flourish as a result.

The planner's chief fault is his intrinsic laziness. He wishes to work only intermittently, ignoring the fact that he ought to work as much at one time as possible in order to maintain his train of thought. He categorizes and boxes ideas into a small segment of time as an attempt to avoid them. After a short amount of time, he is much less alert and diligent than his counterpart. As a result of his laziness, the planner is left with inferior workmanship and coherence in his assignments.

In direct contrast to her counterpart's chief flaw lies the procrastinator's chief virtue of tenacity. She will continue to work at a problem until it is finished, regardless of temptations in her path. Her main reward is the superior skill with which her work is crafted. She has a concise, clean work which flows nicely from conception to completion.

In spite of the clear superiority of the procrastinator as a worker in most respects, society insists on supporting the planner by "time management" sessions and "go-getter" ideas. Still, there is one field in which most people agree that the procrastinator excels out of necessity: rationalization. For a proof of that, please reread the above essay, completed two minutes before the deadline.

In point of fact, it was thirty seconds, as I was printing as the warning bell rang for class. But that is not the sort of thing one admits to teachers, even if they are the sort who put a little smiley face after such a sentence.

Snapshots of Stefansdom

2008-05-04T20:23:00.002-04:00

Flipping through my Bible, I notice that God is described in many ways, often with contradictions or complications. It's very hard to get a bead on the details of who this God person is. Sometimes, he is outraged by sin, reduced to sputtering name-calling by the offenses of his people. Sometimes he insists that he can never lose patience, never leave, never forsake. Sometimes God is just, and sometimes God has no patience for those who insist on justice over mercy, nor for those who ask for signs of justice in a horrible, unjust situation. David begs God to stay near, because God's presence is a comfort and strength; Job demands God leave him alone, because God's presence is agony. Sure, the loving God comes out more often, but these various portraits don't always line up, and no amount of theological explanation will ever truly fix the fact that we live in a world with evil and ugliness that simply do not fit with our beautiful Savior.

I see the same disjointedness in people discussing God. Sure, a lot of attributes overlap, but some people mostly notice that we fall short of God's glory - the whole "and God saw that it was very good" and "we are God's workmanship" are anomalies. Some people just love their Jesus and their Jesus loves them, and it seems like their Jesus is an exceptionally huggy teddy bear to those of us who feel our dry spells more keenly. Some people fear God's judgment, others feel God's compassion for the needy, and some people seem to think that God is a cosmic boss who sort of checks in now and again to make sure you're making quota, but doesn't notice much as long as you're doing your job okay.

(An unrelated note: why does this spellcheck not like "okay", or "spellcheck" for that matter? Fine, "spellcheck" is a dubious word, but "okay" has been with us for decades. Learn it, o dictionary.)

We work very hard trying to consolidate and piece together these different concepts of God, adjusting for bias, etc. But forming a detailed AND coherent picture seems impossible. It reminds me of my attempts to piece together my snapshots of Stefansdom.

I visited Stefansdom, or St. Stephen's Cathedral, in Vienna in 1996, and I was awed by its Gothic grandeur. From the courtyard, I started frantically taking pictures with my boxy Barbie camera, working my way ever so carefully from the foundation to the top of the steeple, planning the overlap, so that when I got home I could reconstruct the entire view of this impressive structure. I believe eight pictures were needed. A few months later, I was nearly in tears. For some reason, the lines simply wouldn't line up. The collage was fractured, an image collected through shattered glass. I didn't understand - I hadn't walked around or anything.

It wasn't until my high school photography class that I learned exactly what had gone wrong. Careful as I had been, I'm only human. To collect pictures and have even a chance at assembling them neatly, the camera needs to be held at exactly the same point, swiveling and tilting from a perfectly fixed center - and even then, the photos will fit together far better in a three-dimensional space than in a flat scrapbook.

Now try applying this to our image of God! Our lenses aren't anywhere near big enough to grasp the whole thing. We have to be content with assembling snapshots from different perspectives, different distances, different times - and then pulling them together in a small, flat space to look at. Of course the result is going to be crazed. From a hundred feet away, a matter of seconds and the tilt of my twelve-year-old head from a fixed point was enough to shatter Stefansdom. The difference from those close to God, those far, those hiding, those now and then is enough to cause a lot more confusion.

Still, those snapshots do serve a purpose. Shattered though the image may be, I can still recognize Stefansdom when I see it in my pictures. If we collect enough snapshots, maybe we can reconstruct God enough to recognize him when we see him. Once we see him, the snapshots can be filed away. They are nothing to the sight we see before us in life.

Religion in schools

2008-04-21T18:15:00.003-04:00

I was required to write on a "contemporary issue" for my secondary experience class, and we've been talking about religion and schools. Guess what I ended up writing on?

Bear in mind that I'm writing to an audience of scientists very dismissive of religious priorities, and I'm wishing I could address my fellow Christians. My tone gets kind of confusing otherwise.

I've discussed religion frequently in the eJournals, but I can't help bringing it up again. Perhaps it is in part because I wish I could explain to the fervent fundamentalists how much a thoroughly secular education has helped my own faith. I also grow tired of defending my love of God and my love of scholarly analysis; it seems I am expected to choose one or the other. The culture wars are just as much an issue in the modern church as in any secular sphere, and as hotly debated. So much for "if it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone"! And, of course, at least one college friend has asked condescendingly how I can be so smart and still be religious. So much for open-mindedness!
Religion is at the core of our lives, and defines us if it is itself defined. This is the crucial understanding for a secular school. We do not want to deny that which defines many of our students in a positive way. Imagine if all mention of football or art were forbidden at school! Yet to truly allow religion, we cannot advocate any one religion. My test has always been this: would I be happy if the same lesson were given with an equally Muslim/Jewish/Hindu/Buddhist slant? If we are discussing the history of the Reformation or the influence of Christianity on literature, yes, I generally would be happy. It would be beneficial to learn more about the Sunni/Shiite split or the Eastern influence on Modernism. I actually came up with my idea for a religion/philosophy class because of the variety of philosophies I've encountered in debates. It's impossible to understand how reasonable minds can differ if we do not understand the other reasonable minds. Fundamentalists ought to recognize the value of knowing their demographic if they view all other faiths as merely the unconverted awaiting conversion. Non-fundamentalists know that intolerance can be broken only by understanding and empathizing.
In the humanities, it's easy enough to stick to factual ground - "x people believed this and acted thus". Ironically, it's the sciences where religion gets dodgy. And again ironically, it's the immense respect which the ignorant have for science which causes some of the problem. Creationists fear evolutionary theory not because they think science is worthless, but because they think science proves truth. Knowing truth cannot contradict truth, and knowing the Bible is true, they think the science supporting evolution must be faulty. The creationists I know earnestly believe that credible science must prove the Bible, and that the creation science must therefore be more credible than evolutionary science. It then becomes a simple question of whether we intend to teach real science or a flimsy excuse to support atheism.
Isn't it lovely how the problem gets inverted? Therefore, the biggest mistake any teacher can make, the biggest mistake any other person can make, is to treat it as simply a religious debate - because we don't want to cede the religious debate to the godless atheists. Similarly, it's silly to think we'll persuade everyone that science could draw a conclusion that might contradict the infallible Word of God.
In a broad-minded community, I don't think the problem would get too severe. In a narrow-minded community, I might encourage biology teachers to teach the entire course through the lens of evolution, to allow time to deal with all the objections. I would introduce the course with a discussion of Bacon and secondary causes - the idea that science started with the assumption that God did it, but that "God did it" is not a sufficient answer, and that science is about examining secondary causes - if God did it, how God did it. The class could then examine the evidence for evolution themselves. Parents could be allowed to participate. What is our best guess for how God did it? Plenty of intelligent design folks would be happy to provide evidence that young earth is unlikely, and coming from a source designed to combat godless evolution, a religious community might be more ready to accept the flaws in young earth theory. Gaps in evolutionary theory could be admitted with the caveat that just because we don't know, it doesn't mean we'll never figure out a good reason for this. Children inclined to explain this with intelligent design could: though intelligent design is an unscientific theory (because it involves God, not just secondary causes), it is not problematic as a philosophy. The problem could be a marvelous opportunity to examine what science is and isn't, and how conclusions are reached. However, it would require a great deal of time, because creationism delights in posing complicated questions and demanding simple answers.
Prayer in schools, the Ten Commandments in schools... honestly, if people can't tell the difference between their faith and the trappings of their faith, they're in trouble. No person's right to pray in school should be abridged. No person's right to display religious teachings should be abridged. I'm inclined to think that if someone wants to say a prayer at a commencement, as long as it doesn't include terms of "and smite/enlighten the godless heathens here present" or "give us faithful victory", it should be considered acceptable; good wishes should always be acceptable, and those good wishes expressed through prayer can be the more earnest. If the Ten Commandments are on display, it had better be for a comparison with Hammurabi's Code or some such, because otherwise one might as well post the rules on kosher or the five pillars of Islam. Again, if a similar thing involving another faith would be offensive, your faith shouldn't be privileged.
As for abstinence and other questions of sexuality, I think a little pragmatism is vitally important. Parents need to take the responsibility to teach their children their values on sex and drugs; it is the duty of the school only to teach what is wise and foolish according to secular standards. In secular America - well, I almost typed "sexular America" there, and I'm not sure that Freudian slip isn't accurate. If parents do not wish their children to learn what can be discovered everywhere in America, those children should be kept safely at home. If parents do not believe even in safe sex outside marriage, they should be able to explain to their children why. It might be wise for schools to include the emotional aspects of sex in sex education, but the responsibility for transcending the secular standard lies at home. Perhaps youth group Sunday Schools should start sex ed!
This paper may have been more of a description of my beliefs than an action plan, but what can I say? My beliefs will be integral to how I act on this issue. I may as well know what they are. I don't think America's future depends on solving our religious conflicts. Conflicts, smart and stupid, have been here throughout America's history, and this fight causes less damage than some. I think the future of the faithful, though, looks grim if they can't stop fighting for God to follow God.

I'm a teacher! I teach! - The First Hurdle

2008-04-18T18:27:00.002-04:00

Today was a very important day. Today, for the first time, I faced down a class of high school students and taught them a lesson. I am officially a teacher!

(That is, until I'm flushed with triumph about teaching with my first official lesson plan in my methods course next semester. Or until I'm student teaching next spring. Or until I get my license. Or until I have my own classroom. Or until I've finished my first year. Or until that magic day when the class REALLY gets it. I reserve the right to name any and all future days The Official Start Of My Teacherness.)

How did I manage? Heroically, considering my deep dislike of presentations. I took presenting an old Scottish ballad to a bunch of apathetic, academically indifferent teenagers, looked it squarely in the eye, and... got myself good and drunk first, my old coping mechanism for nerve-wracking assignments.

Those who do not know me will have entirely the wrong impression now; those who do will be utterly confused. I do not use alcohol or any other foreign chemicals to get plastered. I simply distract myself working or surfing the Net or reading till the not-so-wee hours of the morning, and fatigue poisons do the rest. I used to think it was just procrastination; now I wonder if it's a half-deliberate attempt to hit an altered state of consciousness where I no longer feel nervous or frustrated, only euphoric or depressed.

Anyway, I chose my poem well. I managed to get the kids discussing the nature of fairies, and I managed to stop them at the point when they were looking at me funny by explaining that I wanted to discuss the magical kind. And they stuck with that! The first two verses, I let 'em struggle with the original poem. Then I asked them what they thought it meant, when the last stanza warns "'And nae maid comes to Carterhaugh /And a maid returns again.'" They seemed to agree with the girl who decided it must mean no maid ever comes back alive. All attention was riveted on me when I explained that the second time, "maid" was being used in the sense of "virgin". :-D It's sad how predictably it works, actually - load on the sex, and the kids are completely involved. After that point I gave them my quick translation so they could follow without getting utterly lost.

I lost their attention during the lengthy passage on how to free Tam - in retrospect, I should have emphasized more the odd situation of the man being the damsel in distress. Overall, I felt like I did an adequate job, but I could have done better. I also felt like I was getting off easy. This class was taught by an extremely experienced, competent, and deft teacher whose students were polite and well-behaved for this stranger while their teacher was watching. The teacher had also gotten their sympathy for me by comparing my student teaching to their senior exit presentations. The teacher also covered what would have been a woeful lack if I had been going solo - I completely neglected to review, highlight important points, take questions, etc. The teacher covered for me so naturally that I doubt the students noticed. I'm just glad it wasn't a formal lesson assignment. The review is the part where you actually hammer the lesson home; otherwise, odds are it'll be forgotten by nightfall. The teacher also improvised an excellent assignment: allow the students to write their own ballad. I would have spent more time collectively plotting before splitting the students into groups to work on different sections, but then, I would have planned this in advance or I wouldn't have been able to think of it at all. The teacher was improvising brilliantly with the time I left over.

I'm not being too hard on myself; I did well for what it was, and it's okay that I still have things to learn to pay attention to. (Dangling prepositions will be permitted in my class, thank you very much.) Still, it did get me thinking. I did a fraction of what a teacher needs to do, and I got the following review from a teacher who knows enough to know the lack:

"Ms. [gosh, it's weird to be called by my last name] taught a lesson on ballads (emphasis on "Tam Lin") on April 18. She had a class of 17 English IV Standard students in the palm of her hand. When she completed her lesson, the class decided she should be their teacher until the end of the year. :)"

Is it blasphemous that I spent the latter half of the period thinking about how God covers for us? We're allowed to stand or fall for the part we're ready to play, but for the rest, He covers so deftly that we look like we did something we can't. Here, a teacher made it look like I can teach a class. (Actually, God was probably involved too. Three hours of sleep following a sleep-deprived week, then no caffeine... but then, adrenaline does something too.) Another time, I might hold my temper with that complete and utter idiot, or I might offer good emotional support, or some sudden insight... but the minute I think I'm really doing well, that it's my contribution that's making the most difference, I'm kidding myself.

Still lots to learn and grow into!

The Terrible Trivium

2008-03-01T16:09:00.003-05:00

Yes, I'm starting with another quote. Let's face it: quotes are how I frame the world.

The Humbug whistled gaily at his work, for he was never as happy as when he had a job which required no thinking at all. After what seemed like days, he had dug a hole scarcely large enough for his thumb. Tock shuffled steadily back and forth with the dropper in his teeth, but the full well was still almost as full as when he began, and Milo's new pile of sand was hardly a pile at all.

"How very strange," said Milo, without stopping for a moment. "I've been working steadily all this time, and I don't feel the slightest bit tired or hungry. I could go right on the same way forever."

"Perhaps you will," the man agreed with a yawn (at least it sounded like a yawn).

"Well, I wish I knew how long it was going to take," Milo whispered as the dog went by again.

"Why not use your magic staff and find out?" replied Tock as clearly as anyone could with an eye dropper in his mouth.

Milo took the shiny pencil from his pocket and quickly calculated that, at the rate they were working, it would take each of them eight hundred and thirty-seven years to finish.

"Pardon me," he said, tugging at the man's sleeve and holding the sheet of figures up for him to see, "but it's going to take eight hundred and thirty-seven years to do these jobs."

"Is that so?" replied the man, without even turning around. "Well, you'd better get on with it then."

"But it hardly seems worth while," said Milo softly.

"WORTH WHILE!" the man roared indignantly.

"All I meant was that perhaps it isn't too important," Milo repeated, trying not to be impolite.

"Of course it's not important," he snarled angrily. "I wouldn't have asked you to do it if I thought it was important." And now, as he turned to face them, he didn't seem quite so pleasant.

"Then why bother?" asked Tock, whose alarm suddenly began to ring.

"Because, my young friends," he muttered sourly, "what could be more important than doing unimportant things? If you stop to do enough of them, you'll never get to where you're going." He punctuated his last remark with a villainous laugh.

"Then you must -----" gasped Milo.

"Quite correct!" he shrieked triumphantly. "I am the Terrible Trivium, demon of petty tasks and worthless jobs, ogre of wasted effort, and monster of habit."

And, to follow this with a related obstacle earlier in the story, with the Lethargians:

"Well, if you can't laugh or think, what can you do?" asked Milo.

"Anything as long as it's nothing, and everything as long as it isn't anything," explained another.

"There's lots to do; we have a very busy schedule-

"At 8 o'clock we get up, and then we spend

"From 8 to 9 daydreaming.

"From 9 to 9:30 we take our early midmorning nap.

"From 9:30 to 10:30 we dawdle and delay.

"From 10:30 to 11:30 we take our late early morning nap.

"From 11:00 to 12:00 we bide our time and then eat lunch.

"From l:00 to 2:00 we linger and loiter.

"From 2:00 to 2:30 we take our early afternoon nap.

"From 2:30 to 3:30 we put off for tomorrow what we could have done today.

"From 3:30 to 4:00 we take our early late afternoon nap.

"From 4:00 to 5:00 we loaf and lounge until dinner.

"From 6:00 to 7:00 we dillydally.

"From 7:00 to 8:00 we take our early evening nap, and then for an hour before we go to bed at 9:00 we waste time.

"As you can see, that leaves almost no time for brooding, lagging, plodding, or procrastinating, and if we stopped to think or laugh, we'd never get nothing done."

"You mean you'd never get anything done," corrected Milo.

"We don't want to get anything done," snapped another angrily; "we want to get nothing done, and we can do that without your help."

"You see," continued another in a more conciliatory tone, "it's really quite strenuous doing nothing all day, so once a week we take a holiday and go nowhere, which was just where we were going when you came along. Would you care to join us?"

"I might as well," thought Milo; "that's where I seem to be going anyway."

Those are from The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster. Shel Silverstein seems to have heard of the Lethargians:

I've been working so hard you just wouldn't believe,
And I'm tired!
There's so little time and so much to achieve,
And I'm tired!
I've been lying here holding the grass in its place,
Pressing a leaf with the side of my face,
Tasting the apples to see if they're sweet,
Counting the toes on a centipede's feet.
I've been memorizing the shape of that cloud,
Warning the robins to not chirp so loud,
Shooing the butterflies off the tomatoes,
Keeping an eye out for floods and tornadoes.
I've been supervising the work of the ants
And thinking of pruning the cantaloupe plants,
Calling the fish to swim into my nets,
And I've taken twelve thousand and forty-one breaths,
And I'm TIRED!

I'm astounded at how literature can be so aware of my busy schedule! It forgets blogging and Internet surfing for quotes, though. Also meticulously editing invisible HTML to clean it up where it won't be noticed.

Handy trick

2008-02-26T22:42:00.003-05:00

My roommates and several other people I know memorize Scripture by writing verses on cards or slips of paper and sticking them where they will be frequently seen.

I have begun to set the appropriate passage as my browser's home page.

Because gosh darn it, as often as I want to quote I Corinthians 1:18-29, I ought to memorize it.

Wisdom and foolishness

2008-02-26T21:39:00.005-05:00

A line from Pride and Prejudice is ringing in my head: "We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room..."

I've always loved and identified with Elizabeth. Not that, you know, my infrequent blogging has ANYTHING to do with a disposition disinclined to discourse with a disinterested audience. Perhaps I need to set myself a schedule to offset the genius impulse. And moving on to tonight's topic, I apologize for its incoherence; I'm running on far too little sleep. But where would I be if I posted only when I wished to say something which will amaze teh interwebs? (Yes, Mom, that "teh" is intentional. Remind me to explain net slang sometime.)

20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.
-I Corinthians 1:20-25, NIV

I'm very fond of this passage of Corinthians - from around 1:10 till the end of chapter 2. I Cor 1:25-28 or so is quoted in Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle In Time, and is possibly my favorite part of that whole book. (One of these days I'll figure out whether the psalms in that book are Scripture or her originals.) When I discovered the source, I kept returning there. I liked to read and reread it; it's about how God chooses flawed instruments to reveal His glory. I still love that quote. I have not quoted it above. Because the part I quoted seems more relevant tonight.

Last week I had the privilege of watching Dr. Francis Collins, head of the now-completed Human Genome Project, give a lecture on science and faith (huzzah for people in favor of ending a fruitless, misinterpreted conflict!). Shortly thereafter, my mother lent me What's So Great About Christianity by Dinesh D'Souza, an interesting book that seems interested in being the Mere Christianity for the scientific mind. Today, a coworker brought up a scenario from his philosophy class challenging the right of Christ to forgive sins. All in all, the ideas wrapped up in the intellectual defense of Christianity are front and center in my mind.

Maybe the reason I like this section of Corinthians - that 1:10 or so through around the end of chapter 2 - is that it contains one of the rare mentions of intelligence. "The intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate", in 1:19 - how encouraging! It seems that intellect is an ultimately insufficient means of understanding God. "Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age?" Frankly, spread across the board. It seems one can divine truth neither by opposing nor by agreeing with the psychologist, the professor, the scientist. No, one must abandon all hope of reaching true wisdom or power without the aid of God.

It's interesting to me the way people read this sort of thing - the Biblical warnings about Christ appearing foolish to the world, etc. I suspect the atheist would simply say Christianity foolish, a historical misunderstanding ranging from laughable to lamentable. Many Christians seem to react by smugly believing that we'll show them someday! They laugh now, but we'll get the last laugh! They're the fools!

I don't like either reaction. I don't think God's wisdom is foolishness only to the world. I think that as long as we are in the world, even we who say we follow God's wisdom will find it foolish. I also think a lot of foolishness is justified by claiming to be God's wisdom. Unfortunately, while even the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, the foolishness of men is not. To react to this passage in any way other than with profound humility is to become the philosopher of this age with all the answers. (I would also love to reiterate the parallels I see between the Jewish/Greek conflict in the early Church and the conservative/liberal conflict in the modern Church, but that's another topic and I'm already wandering a fair bit.)

All this to say I like a reminder that being a fool for Christ is more than accepting humiliation - it's accepting humility.

I mentioned Mere Christianity above. Lewis is one of the greatest apologists for the Christian faith since Augustine. His strong intellectual arguments are popular to repeat in Christian circles. Unfortunately, they (like all arguments with subjects as all-encompassing as Life, the Universe and Everything) are flawed and fallible. Lewis himself was stricken by a loss in a debate on the subject later in his career. I wish I knew the details or the line of the arguments presented! I wonder sometimes if this blow shook his faith in any way, a faith closely tied with his faith in logic ("why don't they teach logic in these schools!"). I like to imagine that he went through a period of wrestling with God and questioning his faith in the intangible. I also like to imagine that this led to his creating my favorite defense of Christianity:

"One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as ever I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for the Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."
Puddleglum, The Silver Chair*

It is a divine foolishness, this search for Overland. And now that I'm done quoting more than Mrs. Who in A Wrinkle in Time, I'm going to bed.

*I suspected I wouldn't have to type this out for myself, that I'd find a quote by googling "Puddleglum four babies" (on the grounds that "four babies" is a rather unique part of the quote). I am happy to report that this worked beautifully. Except for the sloppy transcription on the first couple sites I tried. Linking turned out to be impractical.

Shamelessly literary ramblings

2008-02-08T22:36:00.000-05:00

A HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER.
by John Donne

I.
WILT Thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.

II.
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallowed in a score?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.

III.
I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore ;
But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore ;
And having done that, Thou hast done ;
I have no more.

I have a deep and abiding love for John Donne which will probably crop up repeatedly if I keep writing here. An intellectual trying to grasp incomprehensible truths, a pious man with a positive fascination with sex, a believer who often felt no faith whatsoever - the contradictions are delightfully puzzling and familiar. After four years of study and seven years of love, I forget how incomprehensible his language can be for modern readers.

Be glad I'm not posting an analysis of Satire #3 or Sonnet 14: "Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God;" that I as yet but seek to study this one song of Donne's.

Anyway, this poem can be paraphrased thus: "God, will you forgive me for being a sinful human? Will you forgive me for sinning perpetually? Will you forgive me for getting others to sin? Will you forgive me for falling into that sin I thought I never would fall into? Hey, there's more I can list! Will you forgive my doubts, too? If you'll swear that it's all good, we're good."

But I love the refrain, because it's part of Donne's perpetual punning. Ordinarily I loathe punning with the fire of a thousand suns, but Donne's so dang good at it. "When thou hast done, thou hast not Donne, for I have more."

It's speculated, however, that there's another pun in that poem. See, his beloved wife's maiden name was More. "When thou hast done, thou hast not Donne; for I have More." The last line of the poem is usually rendered "I fear no more", but I prefer this obscure alternate version - "I have no more" - because I suspect it's what was on Donne's mind. His wife died a few years before this poem was written, and it broke his heart and almost killed him. "And having done that, thou hast Donne; I have no More."

Long, vaguely comprehensible rambling? Yes. But it comes down to this: this poem is, for me, a potent reminder of all the things I cling to before God. "I have More." This is the same guy who shamelessly wrote "For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love..." and is famous for his mingling of the sacred and the sexual. It must have been very, very hard for him to remember God with his wife, and harder still to face Him having lost his wife. How many good things do I put before God? Shamelessly? Nakedly? Will he forgive the sin through which I run, and do run still, which I ought to deplore? And when will I learn to deplore it? (Donne was also the Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral; I suppose he was probably quicker on the deploring front than I.)

A fancy way of saying I've been prioritizing terribly lately. I've got to get on that tomorrow.

An explanation of the shiny new tags

2008-02-06T19:42:00.000-05:00

I'm going through and tagging my entries, and thought I'd explain a little something.

Most of the tags are intuitive and sensible. "Briars" and "thorns", though, are not, and there is a distinction between the two.

"Briars" are impersonal or inhuman forces which cause anything from headaches to tragedy.

"Thorns" are personal, human forces which do the same.

And it may be noted that some of my "briars" are human, and some of my "thorns" are indistinguishable from those briars. Since I like neat categories, I thought I'd apologize up front for this shamelessly subjective distinction between "forces comprising humans which achieve inhuman immutability" and "people who ought to be able to behave better, darnit".

And now that I have thoroughly lost everyone, time for the revived blog to go! Expect more ranting about the education system in the new blog, by the way. I'm learning all kinds of interesting things about educational theory.

A New Leaf

2008-02-06T18:43:00.000-05:00

I confess, I've forgotten about this thing. But as my sister starts a new blog, I figure it's only fair to join her in posting *waves to her sis over at Introspect*. If you've been here before, you may notice a few changes to my profile. Since the original Kir is being open about her identity, and since I don't see hoards of Internet stalkers beating down my door, I have opened up and admitted my first name. Also, I've updated my profile a bit, since in the past year I've gotten a little direction in my life.

Speaking of my sister, I wish to apologize for deleting your comment in a fit of "you revealed my secret identity!" panic prior to deciding on these changes. I'm keeping it in my email though, so if you want me to repost it I can do so verbatim.

Calling All Samaritans

2007-01-14T14:55:00.000-05:00

I expect no one will read this, seeing as how I haven't updated in almost a year, but I have to write anyway.

We did the parable of the Good Samaritan in church today, and quite wonderful it was. I got intrigued when the pastor began describing how Samaritans were viewed by the Jews. Oh, I knew the two groups hated each other - loathed each other - despised each other; I didn't fully understand why.

You see, the Samaritans were simply not good enough. They were the bastards, the half-breed descendents of Jews who had compromised the true faith. Some synagogues would close their services with a prayer that God would exclude the Samaritans at the resurrection - basically, "Damn them, O Lord." Worse than pagans, these people had known the true faith but adulterated it almost beyond recognition.

At least, according to the Jews.

It occured to me to wonder what sort of unholy practices these Samaritans accepted. Perhaps they embraced the legitimacy of other faiths. Perhaps they accepted homosexuals. Perhaps they allowed women a place of power. Perhaps they despised the self-righteous hypocrisy rampant among the Pharisees and Sadduccees of the day. Perhaps they simply challenged the status quo.

Probably not.

But still. The Jews had a violent hatred of the Samaritans because they regarded them as second-class, illegitimate members of the same faith; the Samaritans had a violent hatred of the Jews in response. It sounds awfully familiar. It sounds, in fact, like Christianity in modern America, where anyone much to the left is a heretic and anyone much to the right is a fanatic - at least in the eyes of whoever speaks. Having moved to the left of the traditions in which I was raised, I feel very much like a Samaritan at times. And hatred of the self-righteous can get so very, very easy.

So I want to issue a call to all Samaritans: Let's see how we can imitate the Good Samaritan. So we are despised, rejected, hated; so what? We still follow a God who calls us to respond to hate with love, to bigotry with charity, to coldness with warmth. And that call does not extend only to those outside the faith, but to those so far in that they're heading out the other side. And perhaps we can remember that while Jesus spent a lot of time attacking the Pharisees and teachers of the law, while His only encounters with Samaritans were friendly ones, He nonetheless considered Himself a Jew and not a Samaritan. There is a place between fanaticism and heresy.

Oh, and that great line from the movie Luther: "It is easier to hate evil than to love good." But not better.

Blessed are the poor in spirit

2006-02-26T13:03:00.000-05:00

Two-by-four, head; head, two-by-four. So nice to see you two getting reacquainted. Mind you keep the plank away from the eye.

This week has been an interesting one, insofar as Bible stuff goes. Wednesday I went to a study which was going over Luke 7, the week after it went over Luke 6. The sermon this morning was on Luke 4, with Jesus reading from Isaiah at Nazareth. See if you can find some subtle similarity among these various verses emphasized from those passages:

"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. [...] But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort." Luke 6:20, 24

"Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor." Luke 7:22

"Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will live him more?[...] I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven - for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little." Luke 7:41-42, 47

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Luke 4:18-19

These are most of the verses that got any emphasis from the various lessons. All lessons pointed out that in these passages, financial poverty is not the issue; spiritual poverty is. All lessons pointed out as well that when we do not recognize ourselves as being the poor, we're deceiving ourselves and deceiving ourselves out of the gift of grace into the bargain.

I always have to wonder how God defines this recognition. I'm a pretty bright girl; I can look at my life and figure out objectively that I don't measure up to God's standard. Do I feel impoverished? No. There are a couple verses that I always feel are tailor-made for me:

Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
-Isaiah 55:1-2

You say, "I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing." But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.
-Revelation 3:17-18

I'm pretty good about rejoicing in my blessings, but also pretty good at ignoring anything that makes me uncomfortable. This includes my own shortcomings. I know they're there, but I'm enjoying my material, mental and emotional riches even when I'm aware that my spiritual debts have reached an all-time high.

So, here's a puzzler: how does a girl learn to become greedy for spiritual riches while still enjoying contentment in other areas? Better figure out the right answer soon, because I think God may be trying to send me a subtle little message with these lessons.

Inside out and upside down

2006-02-26T12:27:00.000-05:00

"Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased." - Luke 3:21 KJV

"The LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee." -Psalm 2:7

"Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth..." - Isaiah 42:1

My study NIV has failed to mention the connection between the first verse and the second two. This is what sermons are good for, pointing out connections.

We spend a lot of time these days worrying about self-esteem, self-respect, etc, and with good reason. There seems to be an inherent poverty in the human soul, a persistent belief in our own meanness, our insignificance in the universe. How many people really believe, in their heart of hearts, that they deserve any good thing? If I were REALLY known, we think, it would be impossible for anyone to love me.

Of course, most of us know this isn't our biggest problem. Our biggest problem is that we tend to think too well of ourselves. Maybe because we feel insignificant, we feel a need to impress others (and ourselves) with our strength, our wisdom, our intelligence, our power. Low self-esteem? That's the last thing I need to worry about. My besetting sin is pride, didn't you know that? That's WHY I'm so unlovable. I'm one of those bloody Pharisees, completely on top of the world, nowhere to go but down.

The two messages seem conflicting, but they obviously work well in tandem: I'm worthless, so I'd better go increase/show off my worth, but the fact that I'm doing that shows how worthless I am, etc. There's a phrase oft repeated in my church which applies here: "It's a lie from the pit of Hell, and it smells like smoke."

The thing is, God has told each of us that we are His beloved children. If we are Christians ("little Christs"), then the words of Psalm 2 and Luke 3 apply to us as well. "Your are my son; today I have become your Father. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession," he invites us. I know, it's hard to believe in good news without strings attached - especially for those long in the Church, which seems to fear that preaching grace to the saved will result in orgiastic sin and chaos. You and I are God's creation, His pearl of great price, His beloved bride, His sons and heirs. This, not poverty, is our natural state, the inheritence which is ours since creation began.

But if we are Christians ("little Christs"), then the words of Isaiah and Luke 3 apply to us as well. "Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight." We are called to be servants, to be willing to demean ourselves before others, not despite our inheritance but because of it. We should have an outlook "the same as that of Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant" (Philippians 2:5-7).

I think this is some of the foolishness of God that Paul talks about in I Corinthians 1:20-30. It's foolishness to ask people to give up their rights, to let themselves be pushed around, to place others above themselves. It's all very well in moderation, but really! There are limits.

Perhaps there are limits. I don't believe God asks women to wait hand and foot upon a husband whose idea of marriage is to keep wives barefoot, pregnant and thoroughly battered. I don't believe God asks men to sit idly in slavery and oppression, fawning at the feet of the oppressor, reveling in captivity. But I think God does call for submission nearly as radical. When someone takes your cloak, give your coat as well. If someone makes you carry something a mile, go the extra mile for them. In Christ there is neither slave nor free, but we should be willing to take on thankless tasks for one another even to the point of servility. We should give of ourselves, our time, and our money lavishly and with joy. This is not because we're worthless, because we deserve slavery, but because we are princes and princesses who have something to give, something which is needed.

Humans are inherently worthless, and should therefore work hard and push for their rights to achieve worth and recognition, to gain the acknowledgement of the masses. Humans are inherently priceless, and therefore can afford to work hard without pushing for rights, without human recognition or acknowledgement, with nothing but a "well done, good and faithful servant." If one of these ideas is true, the other is completely inside out and upside down.

Contentment

2006-02-25T18:54:00.000-05:00

...is a nice cup of tea, a good book, family around, and the smell of homemade cinnamon raisin bread baking in the oven.

Actually, the first is contentment, the first two happiness, the first three joy, and the last alone is ecstacy. Having a father who's an amateur baker is a definite plus. I'm never moving.

When I'm depressed, I find myself worrying that depression is simply my natural state of being. My writing usually reinforces this impression; I'm at my most articulate when describing the soul-baring anguish of despair. It's easy to come away convinced that happiness isn't meant for me, that such snatches of freedom and joy are only brief highlights. It reminds me of one of the most poignant passages in the book Return of the King. Sam and Frodo are in Mordor, driven to despair and ready to give up. Sam remarks that if he were in front of Galadriel again, he wouldn't ask for anything fancy - just water and sunlight, two things sorely lacking in the hobbits' journey. Suddenly, the clouds part, and a sunbeam illuminates a stream the hobbits had missed. That's how my happiness seems, sometimes - a rare moment of brilliance in the midst of despair, just enough to continue the arduous journey of life.

But this is worth chronicling. Firelight and tea, cinnamon bread, family, laughter. A week in which I got two afternoons off. A good book just completed. For the better part of this week, I've been enjoying a peace and happiness at least as strong and inexplicable as any depression I've experienced. God provides moments of extravagant grace here, and if that's all I need to reach Mount Doom and gain passage into the West, that's what I'll take.

Thread Breaks

2006-02-20T17:35:00.000-05:00

At the moment, I'm earning my daily bread in an embroidery shop. It's nice working with my hands after working with my brain all through college, but some days make me want to scream.

Like today. Our embroidery is done with some marvelous computer-run machines which, once set up, are supposed to run automatically through the intricate patterns to produce yet another stunning work of art (or, more often, simple logo or monogram). The worker, in theory, goes about her business setting up the next run, doing small chores, etc while the machine plugs away. The only thing which can stop this beautiful process is a thread break. I leave it to the reader to imagine how rare this event is in this age of miraculous technology.

Today we got to run a 43,000-stitch design. This is about ten times as long as a typical design - tricky to start with, because the machines are more prone to thread breaks the longer they run. (Not that I'm implying that these marvelous machines ever have thread breaks.) This is, however, doable; we ran this design on Friday in under an hour. So it's time to make it more challenging, and do it on a leather vest! Leather is about the least embroidery-friendly substance in the known world, at least out of the things anyone would ever consider embroidering. (And I'm an expert on that list. Our customers have had us embroidering everything from car covers to interesting segments of men's boxers.) And just in case we might get bored, the design would run right over two seams on the back of the vest - seams done blue jean style, only thicker because of the leather. The needles almost burst themselves with, er, joy.

But how many thread breaks? you ask, being too clever to be fooled by my bitter sarcasm. How many thread breaks? I lost count. But to give you an idea how this was running... well, I said we got to do this "today." In reality, we started this thing at 1:30 PM on Friday. At 4:45, it was a little over halfway done, and I was nearly stark raving mad. How many thread breaks? I must remember to ask the marvelous computer that was running the machine. Given that the average time to fix a thread break is 2 minutes, and the average running time between thread breaks was 20 seconds, it ought to be mathematically possible to figure it out right now. Even so, it was running better than today: the last third took from 9:30 AM to 1:00 PM.

By the end, my biggest peeve was not the thread breaks. I understood that the leather was tricky (and probably sticky, from the point of view of a rapidly running machine). What drove me mad was the machine's attempt to take care of them itself. It would detect a thread break and stop immediately - even if the thread break was nonexistent, or something that would quickly take care of itself if the machine would run through it. At other times, I would watch the thread fray to nothing before my eyes, and yet the machine would keep running, determined to make it work. In either case, I would have to back the machine up and make it do twice as much work to make up the mixed-up section. Sometimes, the tangled mess would fray the thread still more, and I'd have to redo a section three, five, ten times.

Being the ~~wonderfully spiritual~~ obsessively analogizing person I am, I distracted myself by trying to find Great Lessons in the mess. It started out seeming obvious: Listen to the operator. However smart your programming might be, however adjustable you might be, you will be wrong often enough that the operator's opinion ought always to come first. And ignoring that will lead to a lot of mess, and a lot of fuss that could be avoided the second the operator is heeded. Good good. Excellent idea. Then I realized the analogy breaks down at the point where the operator feels an intense desire to take a sledgehammer to the whole operation after a certain point. And especially when the operator starts hating the whole business. I don't think God's patience is so finite.

So, make of it what you will. I will settle on spiritual warfare. Demonic interference is the only explanation for the machine managing to get still worse when I started humming "It Is Well With My Soul." They're out to get me, I tell you.

Tidings of Comfort And Joy

2005-12-28T20:51:00.000-05:00

Another Christmas has come and gone, much the same as every other Christmas. Family comes, family goes, gifts come and go, the feast comes (and comes... and comes... we'll be working through leftovers for the next couple weeks here). Our church had a service on Christmas, but with a dress code ranging from evening wear to blue jeans. The sermon was a marvelous illustration of Jesus as our hero, using comparisons to Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, Return of the King, Superman, and the Matrix - mostly Return of the King. It's wonderful having a pastor with similar rabid hobbies.

But before he got to the story comparisons, our pastor went on a nice riff about heroes in general. He talked about how people come up to him a lot with problems, and ask, "Am I doing something wrong?" He says terrible things happen without our doing anything wrong, and we don't have to be strong enough to deal with them. We don't have to be big enough, or special enough, or smart enough to deal with every obstacle. It's as ludicrous as trying to stop an airplane from falling. And yet we've got a Superman ready to dash away from his day job at the first sign of distress. We might be stuck in a castle surrounded by a cage of thorns and beset by a dragon, but we've got a Prince fighting his way through. We have horrors in our lives, but we have a Beautiful Savior whose healing love can cover them. We have a King whose sword drives back the inexorable juggernaut of evil, a King whose hands bring healing in the aftermath, a King whose reign brings joy to the edge of darkness. And we have the One who will truly set us free.

It might have been observed that I'm fond of Isaiah. Aside from the passage that gives this blog its name, I particularly like Isaiah 59. It begins with an unshirking look at the utter injustice of this world. Then, midway through verse 15,

The LORD looked and was displeased
that there was no justice.
¹⁶ He saw that there was no one,
he was appalled that there was no one to intervene;
so his own arm worked salvation for him,
and his own righteousness sustained him.

God has seen, and He's said "Enough. I'm coming down there, and if anyone's interested in making a world of hurtin', they'll be getting one." Christmas Day is about our newfound opportunity for peace on earth, about our hero winning the battle, about the fact that we can leave this bloody mess to God and just collapse in a good cry and a rest while He takes care of it. It's about tidings of comfort and joy.

Learning to stand

2005-11-11T18:36:00.000-05:00

I was recently ranting my mom about my frustrations with the evolution debate, and my mother, being a wonderful lovely person whom I do not deserve to have as a parent, listened politely and said little in disagreement, despite the fact that we agree on almost nothing in that field. We batted back and forth about whether intelligent design belonged in the classroom at all, whether strict division of instruction along subject lines is desirable, and the general nature of science as a subject. We had hammered out some rough truces, which was roughly satisfying, and then I fumed:

"Why do so many people waste so much time with this intelligent design in science class thing? It's not the end of the world to leave it out, nor to put it in."
"Some people just need to fight, I think."

And this is very true. I named this blog after a Bible passage which I feel expresses this desire to argue, to debate, to test. But for some reason this made me think.

There are a number of Great Debates at the moment in which Christianity figures prominently. Evolution. Abortion. Homosexuality. The boundaries of "freedom of religion." Actually, in each of the above Christianity is not only a player, but it's generally assumed that God's position (if there is a God) is set out in genuine Mt. Sinai stone for the world to see in, er, gray and gray. And Christians (on both sides) will claim that their desperate struggle is part of a desperate stand to protect God's interests, or at least God's interests for His people. Christians will bemoan the lack of spine which keeps fellow believers from standing against the prevailing winds of unbelief.

Certainly there are a lot of people in this world who could stand to learn a thing or three about standing up for the right thing. But being involved in a debate is not an indication of standing, or even swaying with the wind. It's hard to believe, I know, because it's so rarely observed, but humans can be contrary critters. There are actually people out there who prefer to lean against the wind. I know, I'm one of 'em. And some of us like to lean into the wind so hard that when the wind stops blowing, or we're taken into shelter, we fall flat on our faces.

I've wondered why I was born into privilege, into comfort, into a loving home in a relatively safe and prosperous country, and I think this is why. I need to learn to stand independent of the prevailing wind. I think the truly strong person is able to stand for what they believe without needing to push or pull against anyone or anything else, and I think God moves us away from the props which inhibit this. Now I just need to push everyone else into understanding this, and getting along while appreciating diversity of opinion, and then corralling everyone into the Right Point Of View as soon as my studies ascertain exactly what this is. Yeah.

Impressions after a tragedy

2005-10-10T22:17:00.000-04:00

6You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8All these are the beginning of birth pains. -Matthew 24

18I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

26In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.

28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8

38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8

14For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3

I don't know how much the Pakistanis will appreciate expressly Christian prayer, but they have it. They and all the other victims of this mess of a world. Would God care to explain if He has any particular message in mind, before He gets drowned out by the explanations of His self-appointed spokesmen?

Secondary Causes

2005-09-28T22:37:00.000-04:00

I've been seeing a lot of stuff from the anti-evolution forces these days, and I've come to a conclusion: I'm heartily sick of the terms in which the whole debate is framed. I have gone from creationist to ID to evolutionist and back.

The various groups pushing alternatives to evolution under such names as "creationism" and "intelligent design" usually do so for at least one of two reasons. The first, and more annoying, is the belief that if God ever becomes unnecessary to explain our existence, God will Himself be disproven. The second, and more understandable, is the belief that God did indeed create the heavens and the earth, and that it would be wrong to teach anything less than the Truth.

But science isn't about Truth. Science isn't about God. Science is about God's handiwork. Science is about secondary causes.

Secondary causes are the causes after God. Secondary causes are the things we learn to understand more about the cause and effect. For instance, the first cause for a baby might be "when a mommy and daddy love each other very much...", but the secondary causes are the biological mechanisms which actually complete the intent of the first cause, and without understanding the secondary causes, our understanding of the process is incomplete. It's fine to summarize "Mommy and Daddy made a baby" or "God did it", but it leaves a lot less room for awe at the complexity.

Think about it! What glories of creation would we not know if we summarized with "God did it" or "God does it"? The heavens declare the glories of God in supernovae, in black holes, in quasars, in the faint whisper of microwave radiation broadcasted across time. God made the heavens so that light travels at a constant rate in a vacuum (or does it?), so that the moon holds the Earth safely steady on her axis, so that the sun governs the days and the stars govern the seasons. The God who knows the movements of each quantum particle is far more than the God who can chart only the fall of each sparrow or the hairs of one's head, and the God who can number the days of a galaxy far more than the God who can number my days alone.

We discover these things when we ask things like "Where does light come from?" and "What force keeps the planets in motion?" and refuse to accept "God did it" as an answer. We discover what a marvelously well-designed Creation this is when we consider it apart from its designer.

Neither creationism nor intelligent design follow this pattern. The first, as a scientific movement, falls apart entirely: it cannot work without a Creator. There is no way to explain, for example, how light and vegetation could exist prior to heavenly bodies except "God did it, it's a miracle." This is about as scientific as the Resurrection: It may be true, but it's a miraculous theological truth and not a scientific one. And no, there's no need to be insulted by that; since science is only concerned with secondary causes, why worry if it doesn't answer Primary questions? Intelligent design is similarly out of bounds. Where we cannot say how the Designer did something, it says merely "the Designer did it." Perhaps true, but scientifically cheating.

And this is why I'm going to try to drop from the scientific debate. It's a mess of science and theology and philosophy with no ground rules, no common ground, and little interest in disinterested truth. I've gone from "creationist" to "intelligent design," and now seem left with "evolutionist," which describes my scientific persuasion, but who will side with my theological persuasion that Genesis is an absolutely truthful (if not scientific, if not factual) account of creation? And who will take the time to discern among them? It's an unholy mess, and may God free us from it to spend more time doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with Him.

Katrina

2005-08-31T21:26:00.000-04:00

What's in a hurricane?

I'm a little callous about natural disasters, generally. Possibly because most of my memories of surviving Hurricane Hugo are quite pleasant - Dad buying ice cream (which had to be finished immediately in the power outage!), camping out in the hallway, playing on the new jungle gym of fallen trees. So when a disaster strikes with warning, I kind of tend to assume that everyone will be okay, that everyone will sensibly and safely evacuate, and if not, well, maybe they can go swimming a lot closer to home than usual.

Then today I was informed that, in my town in North Carolina, gasoline was going to be out of supply from 6:00 PM tonight until at least Monday, thanks to Katrina. That slightly cloudier, slightly windier day we had the other day had spent itself wrecking our nation's petroleum ports and refineries.

I've never heard of one storm having such a wide effect in the States. It started me wondering about the depth. I'd been avoiding the news stories, you see, because I've been sticking to reading every moment I'm not working. But tonight I look it up, and discover that the death toll is likely to be in the thousands.

In the thousands.

One storm. And this isn't a tsunami striking without a decent warning system. This is one we've been watching approach for days. We've known for at least two days that it was likely to hit New Orleans and the surrounding area. We have sophisticated communication and transportation systems. Why couldn't we avert the tragedies? Property damage is painful, but loss of human life is ...

is...

.

And I can't understand it. Why should rescue missions even be necessary? Why in Heaven's name were there more than a tiny handful of people left, and why were any people left outside, say, the Astrodome?

It probably has to do with logistics and complications I don't know about. Who knows what kind of glut was on the highways out? How many stubborn souls simply refused to move? Who was forgotten, left behind as evacuees streamed by on every side...

I recall hearing that people will be dying of dysentary and dehydration because of the impossibility of maintaining a supply of drinking water. How little it takes for our society to crumble. I may not see my sister this weekend, because her roommate may not be able to refill her tank upon reaching this place. Suddenly, a few hundred miles have grown from a few hours away to an impassable distance. I'm trying to imagine how it is where there are no roadways left above water.

And I'm imagining floating in a little boat on a lake, with maybe some treetops and alligators, but fun enough in the end, right? *sigh* I really am too callous about disaster. Now to go get that stupid song (I'll let you guess which one specifically) out of my head.

Thinking in italics

2005-08-27T12:51:00.001-04:00

And this was right. And it was fate that had let Edward recognize this just when he'd got his Plan. And it was right that it was Fate, and the city would be Saved from its ignoble present by its glorious past. He had the Means, and he had the end. And so on... Edward's thoughts often ran like this.
He could think in italics. Such people need watching.
Preferably from a safe distance.
Terry Pratchett, Men At Arms

I love Terry Pratchett. Very perceptive man. Okay, so the Discworld books are silly books, meant to be taken lightly. I'm going to commit the grievous sin of taking this seriously. Because it's true.

Thinking in italics is a very dangerous talent. Although truth be told, if all those without the talent tried to watch all those with it, those without would find themselves severely outnumbered. Most people think in italics at least some of the time. The right way to live. The best literature/theater/food/wine. If nothing else, we find ourselves thinking along the lines of how wrong it is to always think in italics, the way everyone [else] does.

Thinking in italics ought to be treated as carefully as morphine. It's addictive, it's dangerous, and in large quantities it's poisonous. One is tempted to ban it entirely. Yet in some extreme cases, it's the only solution. If slavery isn't wrong, it will be tolerated for its many economic conveniences. If honest dealing isn't right, Enrons will abound.

I'm not good or wise enough to say exactly how italics should be allocated. I do say that we should try to be aware of our italicized thoughts, and subject them to particular scrutiny.

And now I shall return to Discworld and silliness.

Screwtape Writes Again

2005-07-25T22:23:00.000-04:00

C.S. Lewis discovered a valuable trove of correspondence between Screwtape, a rather important infernal bureaucrat, and Wormwood, his nephew, a junior tempter. These Screwtape Letters provide useful insight into the inner workings of Hell.

I believe I may have found a fragment of another letter of Screwtape's, though to a different tempter. (Wormwood had but one patient, a male, before he failed and was fed to his superiors.) I record it below.

... You complain that your patient is self-aware and dedicated to thwarting her own faults. You complain that this makes it impossible for you to introduce subtle sins of sloth, self-indulgence, etc. You complain, in short, that this self-awareness and dedication render your job impossible.

My only reply is to wonder yet again what Slubgob is teaching you young fiends. How can you fail to notice the delightful possibilities inherent in her trying to thwart her faults? All you need do is bring her faults to her attention, and she will try to thwart. Humans are always worse than they think they are; I am sure that you will be able to surprise her with enough genuine faults (and even flagrant sins) that she will spend the greater part of her day trying to thwart. Her self-awareness simply means that she will do half the work for you. Soon she will become so engrossed with thwarting that you will be free to introduce imaginary sins and failings to the burden as you please. The result is a veritable banquet of misery, self-hatred and doubt.

Now this is a delicate point. You must never allow her to pause and ask herself, "But didn't Christ say that He came not for the righteous, but the sinners? Is not His sacrifice great enough for even my sin?" Our side have lost many to the Enemy in such circumstances, and those who have got past this obstacle can become deadly weapons in His hands. But I think the danger negligible. Any activity which focuses the patient away from the Enemy is to be desired. And if it is disguised in a noble package such as self-examination, so much the better.

It may surprise you to learn that this is one activity where revealing your influence can be helpful. The knowledge that she is (or has been) vulnerable to you may drive your patient into a still-deeper frenzy of negative soul searching. Never allow her to see the difference the Enemy has had in her life in the same time period. If she does ask that very obvious question, ask in return whether she has made as much progress as she ought. Then focus her not on her progress, but on the distance remaining (which, as I have said, is always greater than these humans suppose). Try convincing her that the sin is too great to be forgiven - a nice dash of pride and hubris which increases despair nicely. If all else fails, make her aware of how much time has been spent wrestling with such silly things as self-doubt and despair, and convince her that she must fix herself before anyone discovers how wretched she has permitted herself to be. Then of course you may trot out her failings again for her review, and begin the cycle again.

The great joke, of course, is that humans are always at least as wretched as your patient believes herself to be. The Enemy had taken this into consideration when He made His atrocious offer of amnesty, just as He considered how His people would fail after accepting Him. (Remember Peter's denial?) And yet He still promises that He, "who began a good work" in each of His people, "will be faithful to complete it". This is all part of His mysterious plan, which He calls "unconditional Love". Our top fiends are even now working to unmask this fiction, but until the facts of the matter are revealed, we must content ourselves with the Enemy's term. At any rate, this is the reason why contact with the Enemy is so dangerous. It might begin all sorts of pursuits of His "Love", which are never desirable.

Posted for the benefit of two friends - one literal, one proverbial. I hope it's coherent enough.

Rescue Stations

2005-07-01T11:23:00.000-04:00

I saw an entry in Dry Bones Dance today which reminded me of a parable I love.

There was once a treacherous stretch of shore which caused deadly shipwrecks on a regular basis. People drowned almost every day.. Then one day, a group of people decided to build a rescue station on the shore, from which they could go out and save shipwrecked people. The station was small and primitive, but as more and more people were saved from the water, more and more people made contributions to it for the benefit of others. Bedrooms and hospital facilities were added. Comforts were added one by one, such as fine dining and rec centers. Soon, people became more concerned with the station than with rescuing the shipwrecked people. The rescue station became a sort of country club for a very exclusive clientele.
A few people in the group were outraged at the change. They demanded a return to their original mission - people were drowning once more. These few were not heeded, so they went and made a new rescue station next door.
Unfortunately, within a few years the process repeated itself. And repeated itself again. Until now, the beach is famous for its stretch of exclusive country clubs, just in sight of the rocks where people drown almost every day. And no one is left to do anything about it.

Sometimes I feel like the modern Church spends a lot of time worrying about minutia, or disproportionately worrying about certain sins. How many of us beg God to have mercy, dance joyfully in His grace, or lavish His love upon the world He made, upon the people He redeemed with His Son? How many of us act to seek and save the lost, rather than search and destroy?
Love should be the chief hallmark of the Christian. We should in humility consider others better than ourselves. If we are not self-seeking, if we keep no record of wrongs, if we always hope, always trust, and persevere in these traits, we should have no cause for bitter battles with our brethren. Doctrinal issues become a mere question of theory, when the real question is how we can help heal a fallen world.
I'd almost be happier if I saw the church bitterly arguing about which way to help the poor, to feed the hungry, to succor those in misery. Or how to draw all peoples to God. Arguments about which political party to support or how badly we should hate a particular sin seem like a waste of time, and I'm tired of it. It seems like a great many other people are tired, too. I wonder if we're due for an Awakening soon? Only unlike the previous Awakenings, one more interested in the summons of heaven than escape from hell.

Offense of the Cross

2005-06-12T14:50:00.000-04:00

We would rather circumcise ourselves, we would rather do penance, we would rather crawl on our knees through the desert beating ourselves than acknowledge the offense of the cross.
-D. Williams

I heard this in church this morning and was stunned. I'm accustomed to hearing "the offense of the cross" being used (and abused) by evangelists as an excuse for all evangelical offensiveness. I have this vague impression of the offense of the cross as "the offense of the righteous condemning sinners." But the context is quite different:

Galatians 5:¹¹Brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished.

The context says that the offense of the cross is that righteousness - obeying the law - is worse than useless. The offense of the cross is that we don't need to mess with these things, because we don't save ourselves. In fact, we can't save ourselves. The offense of the cross is its affront to our dignity and pride - our good deeds aren't necessary.

So when Mr. Williams (no, not a famous writer/thinker, just a guy in my Sunday School class) spoke up, it just put things in perspective. I would rather do just about any kind of penance rather than face the fact that I have to put my trust in God, and not my righteousness. Still... kinda refreshing, to be able to cancel my plans for the flagellant retreat. It was for freedom that Christ set us free. :)

But to avoid these paradoxes...

2005-05-03T17:03:00.000-04:00

I love history and old literature. They seem to me more relevant to daily life than many another topic. For instance, reading Democritus again (and I must offer apologies to Burton, whose first name is Robert not Richard), I'm running across the Great Debate of Science vs. the Bible.

Our author (who shall now be BB for Bob Burton) is discussing the debate between the Church and such men as Kepler and Galileo. He notes that many philosophers "accuse the Mosaic cosmology of being a crude popular account, far removed from true philosophical learning. For Moses makes mention of but two planets, [the sun and moon], no four elements, etc... But to proceed, these and such-like insolent and bold attempts, prodigious paradoxes, inferences, must needs follow, if it once be granted [...] [that the earth] is a planet."

These and such-like insolent and bold attempts. Moses will be open to a perilous level of criticism if we dare accuse his account of being less than entirely scientific.

It's interesting to me on a number of levels. For one thing, the church and Bible have not collapsed on account of its being proven that the earth is indeed a planet, and orbits the sun. No one bothers to worry about the fact that Moses fails to detail celestial movements, and those portions of the Bible which were once used to prove that the earth was the stable center of the universe are now considered metaphorical. Also, the mathematics even at this time clearly indicated that the earth could not be the center of the universe. Planets would wander hither and yon, now forwards, now backwards along their course - if the earth were the center. The mathematicians aligned with the church were unable to look at the simplest solution: that the earth and all planets orbit the sun, and such back-and-forth motion comes from the earth now passing, now being surpassed by its fellow travellers.

BB has some conception of this: "But to avoid these paradoxes of the earth's motion (which the Church of Rome hath lately condemned as heretical [...]), our latter mathematicians have rolled all the stones that may be stirred: and, to solve all appearances and objections, have invented new hypotheses, and fabricated new systems of the world, out of their own Dædalian heads."

Because the solution the facts point to is unthinkable, the scientist must needs fabricate new solutions without simple use of fact. BB goes on to list the myriad theories proposed by the geocentrists, all of which are laughable by modern standards.

To avoid these paradoxes, these contradictions between the Bible and science, these scientists chose to avoid the facts rather than challenge the way the Faith read its most sacred text - and in so doing, embraced falsehood. The opposite sin, that of faithlessness, may be more heinous - but is it good to step away from The Truth (and the Way, and the Life) for any reason?

You may have guessed that I'm one of those wicked creatures, a Christian evolutionist. What I have seen leads me to believe that Moses' purpose was to convey the truth of Why we are here, What we are and Who made us, while the details of How, When, and Where are best answered by the clues left in Creation. But there is a cautionary note in here for the science-oriented.

The philosophers who did not adhere strictly to Scripture as understood laughed at Moses for making no mention of the four elements. But today we laugh at them for making so much mention of them. The fundamental basis of natural philosophy - elemental theory - has since been proven as ridiculous as a geocentric universe. Perhaps this is why Moses makes so little mention of any scientific fact: if he listed the history of the universe to the last accurate detail, every age would laugh at him for failing to agree with its own inaccuracies.

Perhaps the lesson is simply that we need to pursue truth, whether it trashes our old scientific concepts or our old religious ones. And we need to avoid simply laughing at our foes, lest we ourselves prove the ridiculous ones in the end.

Addendum

2005-04-25T23:51:00.001-04:00

When Hamlet says "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy," could we also take it to mean that more things qualify as heavenly and earthly (rather than infernal) than we might expect? Not that Hamlet's exactly a source of divine truth, but a point worth pondering. Or so it seems to my sleep-fogged brain.

Madness and musings

2005-04-25T22:36:00.001-04:00

I really should have picked another time to start a blog. The end of my senior year of college, with its research papers and exams, is not the ideal time to have a distracting hobby.

The better part of my focus now is on my 20-page paper on fairies in seventeenth-century English literature. You'd think that would be specific enough, but no, there are a lot of possibilities to be narrowed down. I'm comforted by the fact that my authors were in something of the same predicament. You see, they lived in a time when understanding of the world was becoming increasingly scientific - or trying to. Alchemy, magic, philosophy, and natural history were all intermingled with theology and ancient literature, all trying to find a Theory of Everything. The medieval world had gotten it down to a fine art, explaining how the influences of the stars, plants, angels, animals, elements, and humans all interrelated and danced to the music of Divine Providence, to the rhythm of the music of the spheres. Copernicus had hammered this worldview in the sixteenth century. Philosophers began to question their fundamental premises, and came away frightened by the realization that many things could be explained by "secondary causes" - not everything was a divine miracle kept going only by the constant direct intervention of God. An attempt began to restructure everything, to take the pieces and put them back together in a new shape.

There was little division of labor in academia at this time. One man might be physicist, chemist, biologist, theologian, psychologist, sociologist, economist, historian, linguist... the list goes on. On one hand, it meant that any given writer tends to have a wide range of expertise. On the other hand, it means that any given writer tends to have a wide range of expertise. This is how a doctor creating An Anatomy of Melancholy (basically, a treatise on clinical depression) came to be one of my sources on fairies, in his Digression of the Nature of Spirits. (This doctor was named Richard Burton, but wrote under the pseudonym Democritus Junior. We'll call him DD, for Dick Democritus.)

DD is pretty clear on the subject of my thesis, i.e. the nature of fairies. Quite simply, they are devils. In fact, it's rather hard to discern the spirits known as fairies amidst the demons, pagan gods, classical heroes, and ghosts. Among his (demonic!) water spirits, for example, DD lists succubi, Diana, Ceres, "water Nymphs or Fairies," and the witches with whom Macbeth and Banquo had their friendly chat. "Terrestrial devils, are those Lares [Roman household gods], Genii, Faunes, Satyrs, Wood-nymphs, Foliots [DD claims they're Italian sprites], Fairies, Robin Goodfellowes, Trulli [trolls], &c." Linnaeus would be proud. Each kind of spirit known to man is neatly categorized and labelled. (There are also sections on fire and air spirits, as well as subterranean and superlunerary; I'll leave that digression to DD.)

All, however, are demons. It doesn't matter that brownies and Lares seem to exist only to serve humankind without serious reward. Nor does it matter that a great many of the water Fae in medieval and Renaissance literature are portrayed as helpful to mankind, rewarders of virtue (think the Lady of the Lake).

Is this a universal trait? Do we take all people who don't readily fit into our preexisting categories of "angels" and "humans" and consign them to be "demons"? I don't want to demonize DD. He had likely never met a brownie and might have revised his opinion of them if he had. But demonizing is so easy, so natural with that which we don't understand.

How many people would demonize God if they understood how little we understand Him?

EDIT: I find that I misremembered the name of my source. Democritus ought to be ROBERT Burton, not Richard, and therefore Bob Democritus. Or Bob Burton, BB. Or whatever.

Constants

2005-04-22T09:37:00.000-04:00

I'm a shameless magpie when it comes to ideas. That's why the bulk of this post is someone else's work. But it's good work!

My friend has been musing of late about constants. He started out thinking about how hard it would be to simulate air in a computer program, because it's too chaotic and doesn't lend itself to neat mathematical constants. He then continued to think about other things which aren't constants:

There are a lot of them. We make assumptions. We ignore variety in favour of a simpler, unified outlook. It's actually not a bad thing, really -- it's necessary to deal with the chaos of reality. I remember the first time I did wallpapering -- okay, the only time -- and it surprised me. The walls weren't straight. The bathroom wasn't a perfect block, but more trapezoidal. It makes sense once I realized it, but until then ... well... I'd just picked the nicest, easiest numbers, and assumed they were so.

The same thing happened when people studied the orbits of planets. They wanted them to be circles. Not ellipses, as they turned out to be. Except, wait a sec -- ARE they ellipses, or is that just the nearest equivilant -- once more, we make things nice, smooth, and homogeneous when they're probably not -- not really.

So, what's my point?

Groups aren't people.

Let me run that by you again. Groups aren't people. People aren't groups.

An example, maybe?

The ACLU does not have a anti-christian agenda. The ACLU does have a anti-christian agenda. Republicans want war and dictatorship. Republicans want freedom and peace. I could go on, but ... eh.

All four of those statements are true. (Five if you include my ability and lack of desire to go on). Contradictory, but true. Why? Because the ACLU has thousands of people in it. There are millions of Republicans. Some of them are this; some of them are that. Groups are not constants. Groups aren't people -- they CONTAIN people. And yes, people have agendas, and some of them are hateful and some of them are loving and some of them don't even know who they are or why they're in a group to begin with... but to indicate that a group is one thing or another as if every member of the group is the same as every other is akin to racism, sexism, or any of those other discriminatory things that people tend to frown on.

So, I get a bit annoyed when people talk about a group as if it were a single entity; a single will, a single purpose, a single group-mind controlling everything. It's a tactic of hate, usually, because it's easy to hate groups -- and it's easy to assign them motives, because there's bound to be someone like that in the group, somewhere.

So -- groups of people? Not a constant.

People are people.

Credit goes to the Pirate Pope.

Drug Treatment Courts

2005-04-20T13:43:00.000-04:00

I started this blog because I was tired of seeing hate becoming the main language of truth. I feel like it ought to be possible to love the sinner and hate the sin at the same time. I'm hardly an expert at it. But I can see some awesome work on that front being done by my father. He's currently doing a lot of work with Drug Treatment Courts, in North Carolina in particular but also in the world at large. It's a radical way of looking at the system. We have a problem with drug addicts turning to crime to fuel their addiction, and returning to crime after punishment. The Drug Treatment Courts are concerned with treating the disease of drug addiction so that these people can stand a fighting chance at living a decent, healthy life.

Why am I bringing this up? Because today I got an email from my father with this information:

Drug Treatment Courts, among other worthy court and intermediate
sanction programs, are on the legislative chopping block this year. It is just wrong to continue to underfund treatment, the courts and worthy programs while expanding prisons. In 1995 the President of the American Bar Association spoke to the first drug court conference and spoke these words that are sadly just as relevant today. Please read and follow the attached infromation. I once heard that in order to triumph, evil only needs good people to do nothing...

"My how we love prisons. Forget the extraordinary costs we incur today. We love prisons so much we are threatening to steal any available funding from education system in most states just to build, staff and operate our prisons. As Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has so eloquently pointed out: 'We must not view our collective ability to build more prison space as a sign of success in our society.'

Yet the public continues to respond to harsh and superficial rhetoric. And worst of all, far too many of our fellow Americans continue to operate under the delusion that we can shock, scare or punish people into abandoning drugs. We make it sound so easy. And we want it to be easy, for the sad truth is that it suits our convenience. For if we simply put people away for using drugs, we never have to deal with the underlying desperation which drives so many people to the hopeless and painful life offered by narcotics.

But each of you has seen the hopelessness of our current policies. You have determined that a simple, basic human act the act of compassion and understanding may well hold the key to this problem. You have seen or you would like to see this nation deal with the narcotics problem on medical as well as criminal terms.

And, at the very least, you are willing to try something else other than a re-hashed version of the failed policies of the past. And so, it will take courage and persistence to keep going, to seek new partners in your communities for your efforts. But, please, please, I implore you to keep trying, to keep fighting. For what you do is more than dispensing justice. You're saving lives!

Most importantly of all, you are giving people hope: hope to those who thought they'd been forgotten, hope to those who don't feel the goodness of life, hope to those who think they are all out of chances. You give hope, you give opportunity and you restore dignity.

That is as close a definition to doing justice as one could ever
find."

Later in the letter, there is a forward outlining effectiveness and strategies. Feel free to skip to the "What Can I Do?" section - the rest is included for the statistically-minded.

The Drug Treatment Court (DTC) Programs are in jeopardy of losing funding. Your advocacy is needed to ensure continuation of these vital programs. DTCs began in Mecklenburg County 10 years ago (02/09/95). These programs have been so successful that they have now grown to 30 such adult, youth and family treatment courts throughout North Carolina. Please note the following program features:

What are Drug Treatment Courts?

- Adult DTC: Works with non-violent repeat offenders facing prison time

- Family DTC - Works with parents/guardians who are in danger of permanently losing custody due to abuse or neglect charges.

- Juvenile DTC - Works with non-violent juvenile offenders whose drug/alcohol abuse is impacting their lives at home, school, and within the community.

- DWI Court works with individuals convicted of Levels 1, 2, and 3 or multiple DWI offenses.

DTC Facts – Recidivism

- 80% of criminal offenders in the justice system are drug and/or alcohol involved. Most are addicted.

- Over 75% of abuse and neglect cases have parental drug and/or alcohol abuse as a major cause.

- An independent evaluation of NC DTCs shows that DTC graduates are rearrested at half the rate of non-graduates. 18% of DTC graduates were rearrested in the 12 months after discharge compared to 44% of the comparison group members.

DTC Facts - Cost Effectiveness

- It costs approximately $2,000-$2,500 annually to provide community treatment and supervision as compared to $23,000 annually to house an offender in a NC prison.

- A recent St. Louis study showed that for every dollar in added costs to operate DTCs, taxpayers realized a savings of $6.32. This represents the expenses that would have been incurred by the taxpayer over a four year period had the DTC client been placed on regular probation

What Can I Do?

The time has come to institutionalize funding for drug treatment courts. Their value has been well established and the best interests of the community require the requisite level of support be provided. For offenders who can meet the program’s requirements, the DTCs offer a way out of the costly, dehumanizing spiral of substance abuse that ruins lives and costs taxpayers a bundle. To help preserve the Drug Treatment Court Programs in this community your advocacy is needed. Please take a moment to:

1. Visit the following web address and log your support for Drug Treatment Courts.

http://www.petitiononline.com/savedtc/petition.html

2. Send a letter, E-mail or make a phone call to your local elected officials expressing your support for the Drug Treatment Court Programs and ask that they examine the record on DTCs and create a sustainable way to provide permanent, recurring funding for North Carolina’s Drug Treatment Courts. You may find the members of your local delegation by going to the North Carolina General Assembly page and selecting “House” and/or “Senate” and then “Member List.”

Thank you for considering support of this very worthwhile and cost effective program.

Janeanne Tourtellott

If you're not North Carolinian, you can still express support. Then get out there and find out what your state is doing. Because far too many places are abandoning the hard, effective method of love for the easy, ineffective method of Institution.

Continuing with an explanation of the title

2005-04-19T23:05:00.000-04:00

I'm an English major. I pay attention to spelling. So when I noticed that my NIV spelled a certain key word "brier," I noticed. I noticed that it wasn't "briar," which I'd always thought was right. The faithless Oxford English Dictionary likewise gave preference to "brier," though it admits both are right. Still, I decided to go with the flow.

Now I've changed my mind. Dangit, I like the letter "a" in there and it is acceptable and I'll keep it. Unfortunately, it complicates things to change the URL, so it'll stay. And I want to quote the Bible without editing, so I'll leave that spelling. But I'm gonna be bold and change the title.

Yes, it's inconsistent. It's English. Ain't it glorious? (Don't worry, I won't get this technical most of the time.)

Welcome, Pope Benedict XVI

2005-04-19T15:58:00.000-04:00

Ratzinger, if you cause my Catholic friends half the frustration they're expecting, I'm going to have to hunt you down.

May God bless your reign with miracles of divine love and Solomonic wisdom.

Starting with an explanation of the title

2005-04-19T05:40:00.000-04:00

Last night, I wrote in my LiveJournal,

I've been trawling the blogosphere again. I should start a blog. I always like to shout and contradict people. The only trouble is, I'd be forced to be quiet and agreeable. Because that's the only way to contradict all of them.

Then I realized that I don't have to contradict everyone. I can contradict one person at a time! I can debate to my heart's content!

This would have delighted me to no end four years ago, a freshman starting college, ready to take on the errors of the world. Lately, though, I'm noticing a troubling trend in my contradictions: they seem to come from a single source. I've actually started to believe something, something bigger than a mere desire to always show the other side of an argument.

That something is rooted in one of my favorite passages of Scripture, Isaiah 27:2-5. NIV specifically - most other translations come across somewhat differently.

2In that day -

"Sing about a fruitful vineyard:
3 I, the LORD, watch over it;
I water it continually.
I guard it day and night
so that no one may harm it.
4 I am not angry.
If only there were briers and thorns confronting me!
I would march against them in battle;
I would set them all on fire.
5Or else let them come to me for refuge;
let them make peace with me,
yes, let them make peace with me."

I've always been stunned by this God who is so fiercely protective of his own, yet willing to make peace with all. And I realize this is one good impulse I have: to fight evil where I see it, and yet to make peace afterward. I like peace. I like faith, hope, and love; I like love, joy and peace; I like all these things so short in supply in most blogs.

And yet I keep thinking - in Philippians 4:8, we're told what sort of things to think about. "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things." Truth tops the list. So if some ugly truths have to be faced before we can get to what is lovely and admirable - well, bring it on.