As a Christian, undoubtedly one of the most difficult things about sharing God with people is that we are so unworthy to discuss his majesty.  The yawning divide between the infinite glory of God and our finite existences is truly beyond our grasp to reach.  Yet, is there anything, anything at all in this temporary world, that can compare to the enjoyment and happiness that can come through a relationship with the Goodness himself?  He is the end of all our existences, and we try to make ourselves happy with people, events, causes, and all other distractions.

It depresses me to venture out into the wasteland of the internet, and read about people's lives on the blogosphere, where so many people are struggling through life focused on the mundane and temporary for their own sake.  It's a depressing thought because God has reached out to draw us to live in everlasting love and happiness in communion with him, and we are equipped by his grace to do so.  While the gap between God and us is certainly unbreachable on our own merits or powers, God is gracious. 

I pray that in my life, my prayers and my works would ascend to the throne like incense from a swinging censor.
And that in my community, the sacrificed body and blood of Christ would be a ministry to all that I know through his Grace given freely to me.

It is strikes me again how beautiful Christianity is, and how Christ has provided such a clear light in our world.  The light of grace is clearer and more radiant than the most refined diamond.

Christ have mercy upon us.

After Reading Dante's Episode of Paolo and Francesca, A Dream

by John Keats

As Hermes once took to his feathers light,
When lulled Argus, baffled, swooned and slept,
So on a Delphic reed, my idle spright
So played, so charmed, so conquered, so bereft
The dragon-world of all its hundred eyes;
And seeing it asleep, so fled away,
Not to pure Ida with its snow-cold skies,
Nor unto Tempe, where Jove grieved a day;
But to that second circle of sad Hell,
Where in the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw
Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell
Their sorrows. Pale were the sweet lips I saw,
Pale were the lips I kissed, and fair the form
I floated with, about that melancholy storm.
 
Being a Dante fan, this poem is fascinating to me.  What is Keats point of writing a poem about a dream about the second circle of the Inferno?  This last semester we discussed somewhat the pitfalls of eros, and the considerable power in the dream of pagan love's beauty, yet so far from the consuming love of God.  I wonder what Keats take on the issue is?

Off on vacation in a few hours! Woo-hoo!

No posts since Monday because I have nothing interesting to say.

I finished that fragment of Hyperion today by Keats. It was awesome. It looks like Keats was setting up a conflict between Apollo and Hyperion, the old and new sun gods, but there isn't enough to really get a glimpse of where he was going. Instead there are well written scenes where gods fallen from glory reside together in brokenness. The poem ends with Apollo on an island going through some sort of inner conflict that's manifesting itself in glory and spasms. I wish that Keats would have gotten a lot more done than he had.

It's inspiring me to read Paradise Lost again. Not really time, though.

My life is rated PG-13.
What is your life rated?

I got my life rated according to the MPAA guidelines.

My weekend so far:

Saturday was a fun party where I watched The Two Towers again. First off contract party over 21! My friends at the Cellar put on a great party. They've cleaned out their garage into an excellent TV room. It was a lot of fun. It was also the first party I've been to where I've run into family I didn't know was coming. My brother and his wife showed up a little after me.

The highlight of Saturday was a short phone call from Libby. Missing her.

Watched some Avril videos for some reason.

Today I went home to celebrate the Fourth. Watched the nation's 228th birthday celebration in D.C. on PBS and went outside to see all the fireworks that were going on. Tonight there were more illegal fireworks than we've ever seen on a Fourth. Rockets and starbursts were all over the neighborhood. Sounded like a war-zone. On my way home I saw a bunch of cars parked on the side of the 5 to watch the fireworks from Disneyland. That struck me as a pretty awful idea if anyone had a blow-out, as the shoulders were solid with cars. I hope the CHP finds out about it so they can prevent it next year.

Interspersed I've been nursing a sick toe, reading Keats and playing some Knights of the Old Republic on the X-Box.

Keats is a Romantic poet not only in the literary sense but in the modern sense of the word. He seems quite concerned with male and female relationships whith ethical values paralleling our modern society's pretty closely in the area of sex. The poems I've read, Isabella or the Pot of Basil and the Eve of St. Agnes both have fiery lovers pining fiercely away for the one that they love. They're good poems. Isabella is especially powerful and shocking. I read a little of Hyperion and it resembled very closely a pagan version of Paradise Lost, with Saturn acting a convincing Satan. It was very good.

Anyway, happy Fourth of July.

Hello.

Free things rule. For example, my roommate just found this little metal object sitting atop a door jam. Totally free of COST!

MALE LACTATION

The pressing question of the day is:
Can male human beings produce milk from their nipples?

On the pro side:

The milkman says that yes, men can milk!

Yael and Don
say that, yes, perhaps they can, but what would be the point?

Fact Index weighs in wonderously.

href="http://www.teenhealthfx.com/answers/1712.html">http://www.teenhealthfx.com/answers/1712.html

And that's enough on male lactation. It sounds like guys probably can lactate, but I think it's nasty. So I'm not going to think about it anymore.

*shiver*

And now begins my boring weekend.

I think I should try and watch a Brando movie this weekend. I haven't seen Streetcar. I loved him in The Godfather, though.

Speaking of movies, saw Fargo the other day. It was a well made movie, and quite engrossing. This despite slow and steady pacing and a deliberately understated mood. The Coens used different elements of the movie effectively to create an atmosphere that made even the most heinous of crimes seem every day. That disturbed me at the end, but I'm not sure whether or not it was completely morally bankrupt. I certainly understand why so many people love it. It was pretty funny, too.

dum de dum

Added a link to Lem's blog on the side panel. Check it, yo.

Got the computer hooked up to the internet for a little today. So I can post.

It is now summer.

Let the mindless work begin! Let the mind take a break.

And then, after that, I will begin to read the Summa Theologica.. Shall I try to finish it? All blog readers: you can read along with me.

To join in the fray, I guess I'll do a top-ten book list, too. The criterion on Dr. Reynold's blog was: "To make the top ten list (or the close 20) is to have read the book more than five times, carefully, and not for work. The top ten list must have influenced my life for more than five of my forty years. Books in the top ten list should still be meaningful, thus giving some slight preference to the grown up me."

That's a little tough for a 21 year old, and eliminates all the books that I have read in Torrey. So I'll tweak it a little, since eliminating all of the books in Torrey neuters my reading depth severely. My criteria is this: that it has shaped my paradigm or aided my process of sanctification significantly.

Top Ten:

1. The Bible. My whole life has been shaped by this singular literary masterpiece. The thoughts and concepts in it make up the sum of my thoughts, taught to me regularily from a very young age. I believe that most of my aptitude for learning came not from public school, but from Sunday School.

2. The Dawn Treader. Lewis was a staple of what my mother read to me at night before I went to bed, but for some reason this book's romantic tale resonated the most powerfully with me. The vision of the noble Reepicheep sailing into the end of the world over liquid light has been a model of manhood for me my entire life.

3. The Lord of the Rings. I've read this epic at least every other year since second grade. I love the vision of courage in the face of evil, and the battle for a waning civilization ennobles my mind to facing the task before us today.

4. The Divine Comedy. I read this the first time only two years ago, but it is the kind of book you fall in love with not because it's easy reading, but because it's hard reading, and it takes discussion and thought to milk the rich concepts out of it. The impression I receive from it is that same impression I receive from the last chapters of the Dawn Treader, a poet sailing through a sea of liquid light. Its beauty is astounding.

5. Le Morte d'Arthur. Hic Iacet Arthurus, Rex Quondom Rexque futurus. My heart is the resting place of this great king, and the Senegral is the most beautiful part of the book. Galahad beats his father at being a knight because he beats his father at being a man: he is perfectly virtuous.

6. Winnie the Pooh. I imagine this betrays the lack of depth in my reading, youth and shallowness of soul, but this, along with Peter Pan, has had a profound impact on my concept of the imagination and its role in my life while growing up. I still return from time to time to that magical place at the top of the Hundred Acre Woods.

7. The Opuscula of Saint Francis. Anything by Francis I love. I love books written about Francis. I find him the most delightful of all the saints, and his spirituality the most impactful on my own. I would be have joined the Franciscan order if he were alive today, so that I could serve God under him in simple holy love, and his theology of nature allows my own great love to thrive.

8. That Hideous Strength. When I read this book in high school, I learned to love things for what they really are. When it spoke of Logres, I understood the Ideal Britain, and yearned to understand the true America (Columbia, perhaps?).

9. The Aeolian Harp. Coleridge's poem's vision of beauty captured me. I love many of his poems, but this one and Kublai Khan especially. They've helped me to refine my imagination to see beauty. I don't know if this one will stay on here for my whole life, for I hope to find better and holier poets.

10. Hamlet. It's a toss up between The Life of King Henry V and this play, but no English speaking person should deny a Shakespearean influence on their life. Shakespeare taught me politics and the duty of the individual to the state.

Alexander the Great the movie is coming out, by Oliver Stone. I don't know if it will be any good, but it will be worth seeing, anyway. Another big Grecian epic! Only this time the Greeks get wiped by someone from their northern boondocks: Macedonia.

The trailer is out, too: you can find it at The trailer at quicktime.com

Colin Farrel never struck me as the sort of refined princed, educated by Aristotle himself, to take over the entire world.

"What a mystery is this, that Christianity should have done so little good in the world! Can any account of this be given? Can any reasons be assigned for it?"

You are John Wesley! When things don't sit well with you, you make a big production and argue your way through everything. You complain a lot, but, at least you are a thinker and not afraid to show it. You are also pretty liked by people, and pretty methodological about your life and goals. You know where you're going. Some people find you irritating, so watch out for people leaving you out of things they do.

What theologian are you?

A creation of Henderson


Yeah, this is sorta accurate. I like Wesley, though, so that's ok. REPENT! Almost Christians have no place in the kingdom, Christ's death has real power!

I really need to work on a lot of problems in my life, it's pretty easy for me to see that any truly meaningful accomplishments in my life will come only through the power of the Holy Spirit. Pray that God will be merciful to me.

Gasparo Contarini and Dante would have gotten along really well.

Belated happy Feast of the Ascension. Tonight (er, a few hours ago during Thursday night), I went to the first service I have ever gone to that focused on the Ascension. This, I learned, is one of the most important feast days of the Church year. The Ascension ushered in a new era in our relationship to Jesus Christ, and was the culmination of his time on earth. Not many people were at the service, unfortunately.

The way Fr. David, the priest at Blessed Sacrament, described the event's significance was that Christ's relationship to man went from particular to cosmic. While on earth Christ was more evidently present than he is now, he was also only available to those few hundred people who actually saw and talked to him. Now, outside of our realm, he is available to all mankind. Much of the rest of the sermon Fr. David talked about the means God has provided for us to reach Christ now that he is available for us, but less evident. Ultimately this is through faith, but involves the reading of scripture, the sacraments, and other Christians' love.

An interesting Biblical thought that I came away with, as well, was from the Old Testament reading from the cyclical. It was the ascension of Elijah. Elijah's ascension in the fiery chariot was more dramatic than Christ. But Christ will come again in martial glory. I thought that Elisha might be reckoned as the Church, and that Elijah might be reckoned as Christ in an allegorical interpretation with edifying results.

Holy crap! This is so pathetic it's beyond the scale of comprehensible patheticness.

Tired of your friends and family telling you to get a girlfriend?
Want to make that certain someone a little jealous?
Need a confidence boost? Just feeling lonely sometimes?

With an Imaginary Girlfriend, you can carry on a completely fictitious, yet authentic looking relationship with the girl of your choice.

www.imaginarygirlfriends.com

There can be no greater desire for a man than to see the face of God. In Him the end of all our loves is met, for He is the only infinite end of love. All other objects will be exhausted by love, we can come to the end of them. But God is the origin of all things, and never changes.

I think we can all benefit from asking ourselves a simple question: Is there anything in my life that I desire more than seeing the face of God?

There are two approaches to remedying such a misguided problem, it seems. First, that we might grow in love with God. This must be done by increasing our faith. And second, that we can eliminate our false loves. We'll find them again after we lose ourselves in God.

This is a picture that Luke Shackleford, my friend on the Doulos (a two year trip on a library boat ministering the cause of Christ around the world), sent to me this week. It's taken from the bridge, I'm assuming, and you can see Luke's head at the bottom. Forgive the amateurish compression, it was a big file.



In the letter he talks about standing at the front in choppy water and jumping, timing his leaps with the movement of the ship to get higher. This is a very Luke-like thing to do, for those of us who know and love him. He can also grab you with his shoulder blades.

Luke Shackleford is a remarkable man!

Troy

I really enjoy the Iliad. It's a great story, and great poetry (in the translations I read, anyway) crafted by an obvious genius.

Because of this I really wanted to go to the movie, and I was curious not only to see if it was entertaining, but to see their interpretation of the book. It was entertaining. It's almost 3 hours long, so buckle your seat belts. Some kids in my theater thought it was boring. Brad Pitt was pretty good as Achilles, most everyone I talked to before the movie thought he was perfect for the role (including myself), but I was a little irritated by his flatness in this movie. His voice just doesn't go up and down the way voices ought. Eric Bana suffered from a similar problem. O'Toole, of course, did excellently, as did Sean Bean in his limited role as Odysseus.

The tricky thing with the Iliad is making it enjoyable for an American audience used to redemptive stories. It's just not hopeful. The end of the book comes before Achille's death, but after Hectors: there's really no hope in it at all. The war has been going on for 10 years, and the end is not in sight.

In the movie, so far as the director was able, there was loads of hope and a somewhat happy ending. Homer moans from beyond Styx at that.

Silly quibbles that I have with the movie:
What was up with all that iron in a bronze age society?
What was up with all those people riding horses to battle?
No Diomedes? Bummer.
Aeneas' role is too small, and he won't be king anyway.

So.. I guess I'd recommend it if you like the Iliad or war movies. It's worth the student price.

Gaspar Contarini is an interesting person from the Reformation. He was a Roman Catholic whose view of Justification was more in line with the Reformers than with the Roman Catholic church's, however, he was very active as a cardinal in seeking reform from inside the church, and not from the outside. This weekend I start work in earnest on a paper that will seek the answer to why Contarini stayed in the Roman Church despite his reading of Romans.

Another interesting hisotrical study that I've been flirting with is the Colloquy of Regensburg, which was attended by Contarini, Gropper, Eck, and Pighius from the Roman Catholic side; and Melancthon and Bucer (the successors respectively to Luther and Calvin) on the other. These are big names! The agreement they came to was that there were two justifications: one forensic, and one internal. The agreement was rejected by both the Pope and by Luther, so it came to naught.

Some ecumenical movements today are based upon this colloquy, and unity minded Christians seek to exploit it. I doubt it would work, though Anglicans and Lutherans seem to find it helpful, but I don't think the Church will ever be unified again until the coming of Christ. This is unfortunate, for Paul calls us to be Christ's spotless bride. How can a bride be spotless if she is disunified?

This article is worth reading, I found the link on Dr. Reynold's blog. It's good to put the administration and our country in perspective.

Chesterton's works on-line!

This site is attempting to collect the complete works of G.K. Chesterton in one wonderful web-site of wisdom and wit. Worth some time perusing works that otherwise might not be found.

There's also a blog on-line called G.K. Chesterton's blog. It is not updated very regularily.

And here's a self-portrait of Chesterton:

6 months of bliss with this wonderous lady today:

Last night I finished my semester long class on Virgil/Dante and the Divine Comedy. At the end of it I felt compelled once more to abandon all vain pursuits for my proper end: to see the face of God and exist in communion with Him forever.

What more is there to life than this simple goal? What felicity is there on earth that compare to the felicity of divine love?

And yet, I am continually reminded of my weakness, my unworthiness to complete the cause I was created to complete. Certainly unable to climb the steps on my own, God will provide the light that shows the way to the Empyrium, and the point about which the entire cosmos revolves. He has provided the wings, and gives the breath that fills them. Only by recognizing our complete dependence on Him, assured by His own desire for us to see Him, and succored by the blood of our Lord on the cross, may we come to eternity prepared.

Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

The semester's winding down, and I've been gone most of this weekend, so the posting is going slow.

So here's a post. Blogger's set up a new format. It's quite nice.

My 17 year old cat is being put to sleep tomorrow. I'm losing a less-than-human friend that's been part of myhome for most of mylife. I can still remember picking her up from the breeder when I was four, and now she can hardly move because of heart failure.

Pippin was a remarkable Siamese cat who comforted me through the vast majority of my life through her subtle, gentle, and consistent presence. Her watching eyes, prideful bearing, mischevious spirit and constant loyalty will be remembered by every one of my family as long as our memory's last.

I took some pictures of her tonight with Phil's digital camera to remember her by. Once I download them I might post one here. Cats are good pets, I highly recommend having one.

CNN Report on the Prisoner Scandal

The government's response to the prisoner abuse scandal seems appropriate. In an Arab world that already hates America, images of Americans dehumanizing Arabs will be humiliating and infuriating. It's about the worst thing that could happen public opinon wise in this conflict. When we claimed the moral high ground in deposing a corrupt dictatorship that commited crimes like this regularily, we can't go and do the same thing.

The American soldiers involved in these horrific acts, therefore, sinned not only against the people that they were abusing, but against the very country that they were serving. And that should be sobering to their consciouses. May God have mercy on them, as He does on us, and may America excersise His Judgement upon them.

Happy Monday!

Bah humbug.

R.A. Torrey's voice! Listen to the Biola founder's sermon on the Bible being the word of God from www.sermonindex.net.

Basically, The testimony of Jesus Christ that it is the word of God. Old Testament: Mark 7:13, Matthew 5:18, John 10:35, Luke 24:27, 44, John 5:47. New Testament: John 14:26, John 16:12-13, Curiously, J.P. Moreland made a similar argument in a context lecture a few years ago.

5 divine testimonies to Christ in support of the authority of Jesus:

1. Christ accredited to us by the divine light that lives, for he lived as never man lived. Read gospels, and see that Christ did live.

2. Jesus Christ is accredited to us by the divine word that he spoke.

3. Jesus Christ was accredited to us by his divine actions. (the miracles)

4. Jesus Christ is also accredited to us by his divine influence on all subsequent history.

5. Jesus Christ is accredited to us by the Resurrection from the dead.

He then compares these testimonies to parrallel claims that might be made by progressive Biblical critics, which is pretty rich.

Very cool to hear the voice of one who influenced Biola firmly. He says "where" funny though. Listen to his pronunciation of everywhere. everywhARE!... I dunno, could be the recording.

Check out this link to see what music was topping the charts in England on your birthday!

Since I can't find the link and somehow it got messed up in the whole copy/paste routine, you may now click on that hyperlink to go to Google. Google something cool and let me know about it. Word.

More on the oil-for-food controversy from the Wall Street Journal editorial page here.

I got a Gmail address!

It's big... and, it's ... big!

So, yes. It's true. Gmail will have big e-mail accounts.

You may now e-mail me at jonathan.james[at]gmail.com, if you so please.

Jonathan, your subconscious mind is driven most by Love

Your instinct to love and be loved is rooted very deeply in your subconscious and affects most of the decisions you make in life — whether you are aware of it or not.

You inspire people to experience their true feelings of love and act kindly towards others. You also value your personal relationships more than most people.

Your unique capacity to love may be greater than those around you, which means you may have more to give in relationships than your friends or romantic partners do.

Your psyche is very rich; the more you learn about it, the more you will understand who you really are.

This from my tickle inkblot test. I took it because Animaniacs always inspired me to take one of these tests, and I saw it on Leslie's blog and thought "hey, that looks like fun!" I don't agree with it, though, I'm too selfish of a person for this to be true.

This post is to record my Bubbs home page address.

This is my home.





Isn't it beautiful?

Good news!

This is both edifying as a potential political blow to Kerry and as an admirably constant stance by the Roman Catholic Church. Not that the bishops will always do what the Vatican says, of course...

This brings new information to the French/Russian resistance to an Iraqi war. I read another article recently fingering bank accounts closely related to Chirac himself as being part of this oil-for-food scandal.

The U.N., being a group full of people, is destined to have many other scandals beyond this one. People sin. They do wrong things. And thus they must be held accountable. Any organization of people without accountability shouldn't be trusted. That's one of the US's main objections to the world court that we won't take part in, and it's a good one. Laws limit people's sinful potential, but the executors of the law must not be above it.

There are some awful diseases out there. Just a few weeks ago I spent a few hours reading up on all the CDC's information on rabies. This way, I'll know if I have it! It makes me feel sick reading case reports of victims, though. It's tragic when people die, especially when it's from an unpleasant disease. Here's a link to their information on it. Fortunately, treatment of rabies is very successful and is now much less pleasant than it used to be. Used to be you got a long series of shots right in your stomach. Now there are fewer shots.

The CDC's website is just in general interesting reading, though. You can find information there on biological weaponry, plagues around the world, and other delightful disease related subjects.

Another disease that I find frightening, and thus interesting, is hantavirus. I've heard from my family friends living in the Eastern Sierra that people are so afraid of this disease that they are now burning down sheds that they own rather than cleaning them out. That way they don't have to worry about catching this disease. The CDC recommends taking a lot of precautions to keep rodents out of your house that might carry the virus. Here are some suggestions for prevention, and then for cleaning up. The cleaning up section gives a good idea of how seriously this disease is taken by health authorities.

Diet Mountain Dew tastes gross.

But it keeps you awake.

This is clever and funny. I'd check it out...

They call it,

Lord of the Peeps

It's clever, because it's peeps in Lord of the Rings scenes, from the movie. Worth taking a peep at, anyway.

Wow! I got another question in my e-mail box just tonight, so I'll answer it before I go to bed. I don't like to keep anybody waiting.

Juno writes:

If you had ONE WISH, what would it be? To be pampered? To experience ultimate relaxation? For Jenna Rink, played by Jennifer Garner in the upcoming release "13 Going on 30", it's the chance at being pretty and popular. Sign up today for Juno MegaMail for a chance to make your wish come true!

Dear Juno MegaMail,

First off, Juno, I just want to compliment you on your rare name. Not many girls are named after the wife of Zeus now-a-days, since paganism has lost its powerful grip on our culture. I'm edified to see that your parents haven't forgotten their hellene roots, and are paying tribute to the goddess of the hearth.

Now I'll address your questions, one at a time.

What would be my one wish?
Wow! I'm a little uncomfortable answering questions that are about me, with me being here to help you and all. Seriously, though, if I had one wish it would be to see Christ. Either that or to be Holy, so that I might see Him. I guess just asking for that without the work is sort of evil, though. On a less serious note, though, I'd sure like a twinky!

I don't really want to be pampered, although this "ultimate relaxation idea" sounds interesting. Man... ultimate relaxation. I'm seeing rows of corpses at a resort or something like that. Nobody's moving. Plastic smiles and pasty white faces. Hmm... although it does sound enticing I think I'll pass on that for now.

And thanks, Juno, for the valuable info on this dangerous character, Jenna Rink. I'll be sure to be looking out for her and for her by her alias, Jennifer Garner. I'm sorry to hear that she wants to be pretty and popular. Those are very unnatural things for someone to want, and I hope that she's seeing a doctor about it.

Finally, Juno Mega-Mail, thanks for the offer, but I already have a girlfriend, so I'll be passing it up.

-Jonathan

Wow, check out this story on the world's tallest man. He's a tall one!

Click on this cool article about scientific testing on the durability of peeps. It's entertaining enough to read!

Phil Hagelberg writes:

What do you think about the oppression of the geckos that is so prevalent in our culture? What can we do about it?"

Wow, Phil. Thanks for the e-mail. I love to answer hard questions like this one, and I'm sure my readership loves it, too.

Geckos have a special place in our collective consciousness. This is for two reasons: First, they're lizards. As we all know, we were once lizards too. Second, that Geiko direct commercial spokesperson gecko was really cool, and everybody wanted to be like him. I mean, I wanted to be like him because of his ultimate coolness factor.

However, even this special place in our consciousness is not enough to protect the lowly gecko. As he scurries around on the ground people sometimes step on him, and other times they don't. Although I hear that happens less often. The reason for this is geckos are just nasty. Suction cup feet? What's that all about? It's like those toys that stick to the inside of your car window, but it moves. That just freaks me out, and I know it freaks out other people,t oo.

So, I guess I'd ask you: what SHOULD we do about it? It turns out we should actually oppress these geckos more, because they're nasty freaks of nature.

Coincidentally, this same reasoning works for justifying the oppression of the French.

Hopefully that helped, Phil! Send me more e-mails at askruthie@hotmail.com, addressing them "Dear Ruthie" and get them answered! Or you could send it to jrrowley[at]juno.com and address them to me. Either way, something will happen, and I'll bet you like the result.

-Jonathan Rowley

I wish that the Catholic Church would stick to their guns. Kerry is a joke Catholic. He strikes me much more as a wishy-washy ritual "this makes me feel good and gets me votes so I'll continue to do it" kind of person.

If you are a Catholic, you should follow the dogma of your church. And the dogma of the Catholic Church states that politicians can't oppose Church doctrine. Kerry does this! He's apostated himself, alienated himself from the keys. Be consistent, Church, deny him the sacrament. Pray for his soul, that he comes back into the fold. You've excommunicated far better men than Kerry.

One of the things that makes the Roman Catholic Church what it is is its emphasis on heirarchy and submission. This is an asset, and I find it attractive. But the way they use it is so messed up that it pains my soul. I guess it bothers me in general when I see a high and lofty ideal that would be wonderful stepped on and spat on. If you really thought the Pope was the Vicar of Christ on earth, wouldn't you give him a little more respect than Kerry gives him?

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/16/kerry.catholics.ap/index.html

I found this on some high schooler's blog who claimed Einstein said that 98% of the world's population couldn't solve this puzzle. That's silly, unless he just meant that because most people can't speak English. Anyway, you can try your hand on it. I figured it out in 10 minutes, but it's 10 minutes straight of work, and it is kind of hard to keep track of all the information in your mind during that time. So I used notepad. Maybe that's cheating, and that's why it's considered so hard, because I would have a really hard time doing it all in my head. You can post in the comments if you solve it. I think there's room if you use abbreviations. I haven't seen any answers, myself, though, so we can argue about it if you think I'm wrong on something. I'll post the answers if anybody replies.

I take it as an implicit premise that the houses are lined up on one side of the street.

On a street, there are 5 houses painted 5 different colors. In each house lives a person of different nationality. These 5 people each drink a different beverage, smoke a different brand of cigar, and keep a different pet.

Question: Who owns the fish?

Hints:

1. The Briton lives in a red house.
2. The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
3. The Dane drinks tea.
4. The green house is on the left of the white house.
5. The owner of the green house drinks coffee.
6. The person who smokes Pallmall rears birds.
7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
8. The man living in the center house drinks milk.
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
10. The man who smokes Blends lives next to the man who keeps cats.
11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
12. The man who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Prince.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.

Hey hey hey hey hey!

I got answered by the Ribman meister, as well. So check it while you still can, eventually you have to pay to access the archives at ucomics.

Let's just say mine was about mullets. I think that's more than enough to peak people's interest.

Ribman answers my question here!

I've realized that I enjoy very much watching chick flicks with my girlfriend.

:)

Well, Holy Week is over, and it went pretty well.

Hurrah for Christ and His redemptive ministry!

This is the funniest e-bay description that I've ever read. I have some tears in my eyes from reading it. That might have something to do with being really tired, too, but my roommates agree it's funny. So, my point is, read it!

This is a story. I'm sitting down at my computer to write a story.

This is a story about salt. Salt is great. Sometimes I eat salt. Othertimes, salt eats me, if you know what I mean.

Mostly, though, I am the eater in my relationship with salt. It seasons all of the foods that I eat. I partake in the grand parade of sodiumness. Other times, though, I am the seasoning on the meals of the salt. This story is about one of those times.

During a long hot spell, people got really thirsty and then they sweated. Lots of sweat filled lots of bottles in dingy floors around a room of steamy vinyl couches and old coffee tables peppered with moldy magazines. It was the salt collection agency's main office, where the government collected sweat-salt for study and later reclamation and commercial use. The people who worked there, of course, were a little weird.

One of them was named Sal. Sal used to walk to work every day, even when it was 100 and the humidity condensed on the shop windows' edges that lined the way he walked. By the time he reached the room where he worked, his shirt was soaked, and he smelled pretty bad. But the smell didn't really matter, because he worked in an office that was full of jars and other containers, some with poor lids, that were full of wonderfully odored sweat. And he could always wring off his shirt into a jar and add to his personal collection of salt jars. He really liked his jars of salt. A lot of the salt in the office was from his body. The truth was that Sal sweated profusely almost every day of the year.

The office itself didn't have any air conditioning. Instead it had old foggy windows, slid open to allow in whatever breeze the stifling atmosphere created, swaying the broken and bent faded yellow blinds that kept the blazing sun from baking the inside. Two 50s styled circular fans on tall stands swept the room with their breath too far away from the windows to affect any effective air circulation. One of them had a few streamers attatched. The colored streamers flowed and danced in the current, the happiest element in the beauru.

Sal walked into the office late a Monday morning some time in the middle of week. "It's hot outside. Should be good for business," he said.

Sal spoke not to a person, but to a large pillar that he had erected from reclaimed salt in the corner of the room. He was currently in the process of working this salt into a human figure during his lunch breaks. It was something to keep his mind off of his boring job, anyway. And it was good company. The only other employee that worked in his office was a small round lady that cleaned the office every weekday afternoon from 3-6, and a supervisor that came down from the main office in the state capital once a week to check on his collection progress.

In general his collection progress was good. He was efficeint at his job, no matter how much he hated it. He had a few regular sweat collection routes that he ran, depending on the day. Wednesdays he started the day at the local gym. There he would receive whatever sweat the showers' filters had caught the day before. There was usually quite a lot of it, sometimes up to 5 gallons. After the gym he'd drop by the post office where recent clothing alterations in the postal carrier uniform had upped the production and conservation of sweat per person quite a lot. He had maybe 10 gallons from the entire postal workers union. Then he would go off to the police department: 2 gallons. His last stop Wednesday and every day was at the sweat drop off point. There local conscientious citizens would drop off their personal sweat collections. This was quite a lot, and would take maybe an hour to fill his tanks with it and take it back to the office. There he would work on draining the salt, and start on the refining process to reclaim the valuable salt.

I visited it once. Only once, though. Remember that statue that he was making in the corner? Well, it turns out she didn't like me very much. So she ate me. Fortunately she was just salt, so I broke my way out and walked home.

And that's the end of my story.

This is truly very, very frightening. Christian influence in culture will be wrenched from our hands, whether or not we like it.

http://www.californiarepublic.org/archives/Columns/JohnsonH/20040405JohnsonScoutophob.html

Phil got a letter answered by Captain Ribman! So that's just plain awesome.

www.titanicsociety.com

This is an interesting website that glorifies sacrificial courtesy done by men for women and children. It has good ideas, I think, of saving history from revisionist doctrine. That makes me happy, someone needs to make sure that history is represented in a light that will edify and teach people to live better lives, rather than merely tear at the fabric of our society and the traditions we hold dear.

Chernobyl created a dead zone of empty cities and villages as people were evacuated out of the area in the days following the meltdown. Here's a website by a Russian woman who goes to Cherynobyl to drive around on her motorcycle. She takes pictures and has put them up. It's the image that all those apocalyptic novels foretell in doom and gloom, but real. It happened.

From the Dead Zone

A source for more information on the Chernobyl disaster can be found here. This is dry, but good to read for fairly solid and very dry thoughts on the issue. Here's a much more readable report that says most of the same things without all the documentation.

It's impossible, it seems, to establish just how much this has effected the world and people. But let's hope nothing like it happens again.

Us protestants ought to make our fundamental writings more accessible on-line for all to read. It can only be beneficial, right? The Roman Catholic Church has New Advent, which has a ton of Church fathers' writings in English, and even the whole Summa Theologicae. The whole thing! And the supplementary material that completes it, written after the death of Aquinas! I mean... that's awesome, and I take advantage of it all the time. But there's no website that I can find with a collection of all the early reformers' writings for free. There should be, we have enough money. We just need someone to organize it.

For example: Ulrich Zwingli. I did find the 67 Articles on-line in English, but that was only because I knew the first line and entered it into Google. This is the man who is responsible for beginning the revolution that resulted in the doctrine followed by mainstream Evangelicalism in America. Someone should be interested him!

Oh, that gif about Saturn reminds me of one of my new favorite sites. It's space.com, but more specifically the subsection titled NightSky. For example, did you know that there are going to be two comets visible to the naked eye this spring? That's the prediction, anyway. There are also 5 planets visible at one time in the same sky for a little while.

So you can check out either www.space.com or skip to the more practical information at spacewatch in the same site.

Something that sounds really interesting is the Venus transit of the sun April 8. Unfortunately it will happen before the sun rises here out West, but if you're on the east coast it might be worth getting up early to see. It only happens in 8 year intervals every 243 years.

Happy Monday night. Soon it will be Tuesday: a good thing, generally.

It's sad only having Torrey one night a week now-a-days, and doing it on Monday night is a bummer because it means that you don't have it to look forward to. Monday is just hard to look forward to during a nice restful weekend, no matter how much I know I ought to be looking forward to it.

Watch the winds on Saturn in this gif file.

I'm adding a link to my friend Sean's site. It's cool, so... that means you should look at it. Alright, so... go look at it now.

I added comments. That was sort of rediculously easy, using Haloscan. And here this whole time I thought that maybe it was hard and stuff... so yeah, this computer thing is nice when others do it for you.

Marsiglio of Padua, a fairly controversial thinker from the Rennaissance argued from an Aristotelian framework for a weighted democratic form of government. While it is a similar conception to the American experiment, he was not really all that influential in the formation of this country. And I'm going to hijack from him an argument that has implications on the gay marriage debate. Of course, he claims to hijack the argument form Aristotle, so I'm just following in his own footsteps.


The controversial presupposition would be that "every whole, or at least every corporeal whole, is greater in mass and in virtue than any part of it taken separately." I think this flies.

Historically the parts of the state may be seen as increasing degrees of community: that is: marriage -> family -> clan or village -> City-state -> State

In this way marriage can be seen as a microcosmic part of the state.
If marriage is a microcosmic part of the state it is an essential element to the state's correct function.
Marriage in its unique relationship to the state, as a microcosmic part, must be protected by the state in order for the state to operate successfully.

I think that the current marriage debate is actually an effor to un-define marriage into a meaningless social contract, bereft of all true meaning. In effect, destroying marriage is breaking a leg off of the state's stool. I'm afraid that it only has three legs.

Oh, yeah, as I just posted, Dr. Reynolds has a new blog. I'll put a link to it over in my link section so that you can read it. He posts a lot! I'm not really trying to keep up, but sometimes it's fun to read some of it.

Here's a neat article by Tom McClintock. He ran for governor here in California during the Recall Election as the conservative Republican Candidate. Dr. Reynolds posted some interesting thoughts that seem to apply to the conundrum California Republicans faced during that election on his new blog.

I think this is a neat argument, and the implications are pretty wide reaching. The natural question that arises for me is: what is the place of an atheist in the government? And the answer seems to be a pretty resounding "nowhere" because a government run by a consistent atheist would be dangerous.

This is a good website if you're interested in following the Palestinian Conflict. Seeing as it's heated up to such a fiery temperature in the last few days, this may be a good idea. I think everyone is waiting with bated breath for the other shoe to drop, and there to be a disasterous terrorist attack on Israel in response to the assassination of Yassin.

Haaretz

Have you heard of the wondrous Rev. Dale Owen? Here's an example of his beautiful thoughts:

"Today I heard a young man say, "You don't understand me" to his mother in the grocery line. This lad wanted some candy. The mother stood there over him with all the authority given to her by years of oppressive culture and said, "No." How I dread those words! I went forward in the line and put a gentle hand on the lad's shoulder, "Here, young person. Here is your candy. God wants you to have it." He looked at me with tears streaming down his face, "Thank you, mister." he said. "No thanks to me," I said. "God never says no to you."

The lady in line began to become upset. "You will spoil the boy!" she cried. "Yes," I said, "just as God spoils us with rainbows, roses, and kittens." She looked at me with incomprehension and took away the candy. "No." she said. The boy understood. He began to cry. How I wished I could have helped him, but the state protects abusive parents."

So beautiful that it brings a tear of joy to my eye. If only more people understood life like he does. Use this link and read his blog, as well. Good stuff.

http://www.revdaleowen.org/

This is amazing!

http://www.hugi.is/hahradi/bigboxes.php?box_id=51208&f_id=681

Just copy and paste it into your browser window and enjoy the fruits of high class French culture.

Ummm... so yummy!

Must read article! This contains critical information about the food making industry!

I totally just drew a robot on my computer. I am an artist. Our apartment may have to have a robot war, in order to settle the dispute between Phil and my robots.

Dan Peckham's posted his wedding pictures now on his site. You can access it in the links to the left. Hurrah for Bill and Becca!

I saw the Passion tonight. It is a very good movie.

I don't know how to describe the feelings the movie creates in me, nor do I know how to accurately comment on it. I think that its best quality is that it creates a means of experiencing the sacrifice of Christ. This kind of knowledge has been revered through the history of the Church as an edifying way of non-analytical knowledge of God. A lot of people seem to have come out of it joyful, I felt subdued.

One interesting goal of Gibson's was to create opposing emotions in his audience. Often he would try and portray an evil character, such as Satan, as beautiful, so that you are drawn to it, and then reveal its wickedness. I think that he does this with the Roman soldiers as well. I think that's why the scourging scene was hard for me, the Roman soldiers seemed like real people. They were doing a job that to them was an athletic event of types. They had enough good to not repulse you entirely but at the same time, you were angry at them for the amazingly wicked work they were doing on the body of Christ. It was interesting.

Anyway, I'm pretty drained, so I won't try and write anything intelligent. Good night all.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/02/23/offbeat.maggots.antibiotics.reut/index.htm

Somehow I think this trend won't quite catch on. Most people just won't want to have bugs in their skin. I know I don't want bugs in my skin, but I might do it if my doctor prescribed it.

Perhaps there will be a new wave of prescription drug commercials for maggots. Maggotex is recommended by doctors everywhere and is known to be extremely affective as a method of helping to heal wounds, while cutting down on antibiotic use! It'll have pictures of smiling people all happily doing death defying stunts, because they're not afraid of being wounded. They'll just use their maggotex, and it'll get all better!

Also: Lem is an uncle! You can see pictures of his new nephew using the link to his pictures, and then clicking on his link to his brother's main site. Once there it won't be too hard to find, they're pretty proud of the new addition to their family, no surprise there.

And also: My brother got married this weekend in Colorado Springs! So good for him. The church he got married in was beautiful, and so was the ceremony. Nobody fainted and I think they even got the fingers right for the rings. By now he should be flying home or driving north to Santa Barbara for the rest of his honeymoon. The wedding itself was beautiful, and the reception was fancy fun. If you want to see pictures, Dan Peckham took a bunch and may post them, so you can check that out if you'd like.

Here's where he and Becca stayed the first two nights of their honeymoon: http://home.navigators.org/us/gleneyrie/index.cfm They had the best room in the whole castle. Very nice!

Here's a link to the church where he got married. It has some links to "Sights of Grace" and you can see the actual building. Not great pictures, but you can get a good idea of how beautiful the buliding is. And the inside is amazing, too. It has a high vaulted ceiling made of wood resting upon stone pillars that go up two stories or so and run down the length of the building. Very nice as well!

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/world/7968114.htm

I really should make this a hyperlink, but I'm just that lazy that I'm not going to. I haven't done that with any of my posts, and by golly, I'm not planning on starting all over again now.

This is cool, though. Although I think the achievement is somewhat empty because it doesn't sound like any one person can claim to have read the entire corpus of Shakespeare's works in that one night. But perhaps that's my horrible individualism showing. Perhaps the community's achievement is really something special. I suppose it would be impossible to read all of Shakespeare in one night if you were going to have every person hear every piece of work that he wrote.

I wonder if they read them really quickly, too. Did they slur their words? Did they enunciate? The world will never know.

In conclusion: Shut up, kid!

"Where have you gone, Joe Demaggio?
Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson?
"Joltin' Joe has left and gone away"

http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Music/02/12/people.garfunkel.ap/index.html

Not at all surprising, but you'd think age would make people more sensible.

Not for the faint of heart:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000519.html

This is an article on the Candiru Fish. It frightens me greatly. I think we should call our Congressional representatives regarding this problem, and see if it can be removed from existence.

Not much to say, just felt like saying something.

Here's a project to work on: look for people's functions. Why did God make them? Why do they exist? How will they be at the end of their life, or perfected in heaven? The Way of Affirmation doesn't focus on looking at people merely as we perceive them at first glance, but attempting to peer into their sinful souls to find the potentiality they possess. Williams says that we exist for our function, not our function for us: but this is Dante's idea. This explains how Dante says amazing things about Beatrice and believes them to be true. Because she will be perfect, and if you look at her in perspective of her telos, then she is right now.

And I wonder what love is other than this conception of Dante's: if love is a desire for the good. If this is the case, then Dante's Way of Affirmation works by following functions further up and in to their ultimate source, the End of all things, the Final Cause of the world, who is God everlasting.

And then apply Dante's worldview to Christology. I don't know how to describe it, but it looks heart-stopping from here.

The Way of Affirmation

Charles Williams, in his famous work The Figure of Beatrice distinguishes between two ways for Christians to approach the world. Is the entire world an image of the Father? Or is the world a distracting sea of false images distracting from our conception and sight of the sole source of our pleasure: God? The Way of Affirmation, the latter view, sees the entire world as pointing to God. The pleasure we find in "things" is Godly pleasure, when experienced correctly. Dante takes this view to its furtherst conclusion, following the image of God in the eyes of Beatrice whilst spiralling upward through the nine celestial spheres. Ascetics take the other opinion. Williams includes a poetic account of renunciation by Dionysius the Aereopogite

Both are pious ways of seeing the world. Both center on God as the center of the universe, and both are difficult for man to live out well. However, the Way of Affirmation appears neglected in modern day Evangelical protestantism. This is disturbing, because I think that the way of Affirmation is a powerful tool in creating beautiful art, which will aid in spreading the kingdom of God on earth. Dante's Comedia is the most powerful testimonial to this, and is, in itself, a full catalog of the Way.

Something I'll be wondering about from now on is how the two ways relate to different theologies. Is any theology adaptable to either one? I'm not sure.

This Monday I thought like a Medieval, which was thrilling.

Statement by NFL Executive Vice President Joe Browne regarding the Super Bowl halftime show:

"We were extremely disappointed by elements of the MTV-produced Halftime show. They were totally inconsistent with assurances our office was given about the show. It's unlikely that MTV will produce another Super Bowl halftime."

Now this is good news. Although the Super Bowl itself was entertaining, the half-time show was not. In fact, I don't think I was entertained at all for the entire 12 rushed minutes of horrendous music and hideous dancing and costumes. Please, please, please, don't subject us to this again, halftime people! The finale, the disgusting disrobing of Janet Jackson, truly fit the show's degenerate feel. Kid Rock's performance that desecrated the flag (although I suspect that was not his intention), the feminine male dancers, the ugly hip-hop music performed by P-Diddy and Nelly, all of it was a summation of our culture's widest spread evils. Bah humbug!

Football, on the other hand, is hardly evil or dark and twisted. It's a wonderful intelligent game. It reminds me of chess. Brilliant minds think out complicated strategies consisting of different plays and emphasis that result in actions on the field. The players train to fulfill their part as best they can, and then implement the strategies, hopefully with the guts to rise above the limitations of their humanity through gigantic efforts of soul. It really wants me to study it now, because watching the different defensive formations and movements and how the offense responds to and causes them is very interesting. And the fundamental question is so basic: how do you get the ball to the other end of the field while staying within the parameters of how to play set out by the rule book? But there's a lot of humanity involved in fulfilling that role, a lot of minds and bodies and hard work, both on and off the field. I think that our ability to work on hard on accomplishing goals like this is one of America's strengths, if we can persevere, and so I see good reasons to hope on, I guess, and maybe, like the game, the wickedness and depravity of our nation is just the half-time show in our game of success.

*yawn*

Just "got back" from a retreat that wasn't too far away to begin from. I suffered from dehydration! I vomited and had a fever everything. Oh, so much fun!

But the retreat served well to refresh the mindset that I'd like to live in. Now it's time to get back to living in a community. Right now we're trying to find times to meet. :-)

I'm back at my apartment now, and am very busy listening to chapels to catch up with where I ought to be! Woo!

They're pretty good, but it's tough to get them this concentrated. So far I've only listened to a few, and it's going to take much longer than I would like it to take. Oh well!

And this after taking 4 hours to go to the airport to try and pick someone (cough... phil!) from the airport only to not be able to find him and wander around and around the pick up area at LAX with a beautiful girl. (the beautiful girl part was actually quite a plus, I'll admit, but the whole airport experience I'll have to pass on from now on.)

Airports are nice, they're big, and they're flat, and airplanes come in and out of them.

Also nice is dancing in the rain, something I did for the first time ever last night. Lucky for me to find a pretty girl to do it with! It wasn't raining very hard, though, which was nice, because it was pretty warm outside.

Speaking of it being warm outside, just got back from the Sierras. It was colder up there, at 9,000 snowy feet. Very beautiful, of course, it was all I expected to be and a real treat to be able to go there. I love those mountains, a lot. As we drove home, the giant ridge of mountains lining the road had a blanket of cloud spilling over the passes and peaks. Mount Whitney was entirely obscured by cloud, but mountains like Williamson were islands in the giant rolling snowy wave breaking into the Owens Valley.

But now it's time for school to start again, and so I"m here! With a fast internet connection!

Tonight's my last night in the apartment for awhile. Good semester. I am afraid my blog be less attended to during the Interterm than it was during the last part of this semester, but we shall see. We shall see.

Merry Christmas! It's a wonderful time of the year!

I am staying awake now to find out whether Saddam Hussein was caught. The reports seem to indicate that he was, so I'm crossing my fingers. This could be great news.

Also, Easy Cheese + sharp cheddar cheese + cheez-its makes a divine cheese experience. Lem was totally having a seizure from the overflowing taste goodness experience!

I'm also going to spend this time learning about the connection of women to the moon!
http://www.menstruation.com.au/pubertyplace/moonmoods.html
Interestingly, the moon has long been thought to be related to insanity. Hence "lunatic." Not that I'm implying these subjects are connected...

Easy Cheese.

Food of the gods.

Yum.

I recommend to you all today that you go out and buy easy cheese. As I stay up tonight late musing on the wonderfulness that is al-Andalusia, you may ponder in your dreams the significance and beauty that is Easy Cheese.

Scrumpdiddlyumptious!

Put it on a cracker... but have more cheese than cracker. The flavor will sweep you off your feet!

I just got home from a trip to Reno, Nevada.

Not my favorite city. Nor is Nevada my favorite State. But we got to see family, and that was good. And we drove along the Sierras for miles and miles, which I attempted to sleep through, which is always nice. Good to see them, even if only in passing.

Ask Captain Ribman!

Check this out!

Watch out for fire breathing salamanders of death.

Hmm...

I haven't abandoned my blog, I've merely had nothing at all to say on it right now!

Peter Pan is a great book. I haven't read it for awhile, but getting back into it is refreshing and exciting. I mean, Neverneverland really IS like its portrayed in the book. I think that would be the perfect imaginary world for a child to live in. Great fun for everyone.

i remember when i came to biola, i met this wonderful beautiful young woman. And I thought, "she's cool," and so I liked her. And then, things happened. Lots of them. But now I finally have had the priveledge of being her boyfriend!

I'm a lucky guy.

This is actually the third (now fourth!) time I've begun to write on this post. Two times so far I've wiped it clear. Nothing is coming out right tonight at all. First I wrote about the moon, and how it is the sad light of our heavens. Then I wrote about ice, using it as a metaphor for depression. Not bad images, but poorly portrayed they were worthless, so I deleted them. They're true, though, and if someone else thinks. Rain's another good image for depression, because it's like tears. And dew dripping from a mossy, overgrown forest of dark firs. That might be a good one. Imagine pressing through a forest where the trees block all the sunlight, and in the dim overgrown brambles and tree branches you are drenched by an ever present dripping wetness. The green has to be right, though, because it's a relaxing color. So you'd have to portray the image as containing dark, blackish-brown needles: maybe a forest of dead firs. Have it at night, actually. A moonlight forest shows no color, and if you're alone it would be scary as heck. But then, that's not the concept that I was thinking about, either. The third manifestation of the blog was a soul bearing lament. Hardly appropriate for a blog.

Anyway, this is going nowhere, also. I'll leave it as a testament to my creative inabilities.

I saw a sad movie tonight, an Israeli government point-of-view on the history of the current Palestinian infantada and Oslo accords. It had lots of images of people dying, very tragic. Lots of blood, and sick people rejoicing over death. They had the video of the Isreali soldiers, off duty, who were lynched after straying into Palestinian territory. They were arrested, but the police didn't try to protect them when the mob stormed the building. After they were finished, they threw the bodies out of the window into the crowd, where they were desecrated. It makes one sick. Another video showed a man dragging the body of a Palestinian who collaborated with the Israelies through the street by a rope tied to his heel, Achilles and Hector. I don't remember if it was this body, or another one, but they took and hung one by its foot by a tower so that people wouldn't make the same mistake he did. It could make someone sick.

Aren't humans pleasant?

Ah, Plato, the cool breeze of frustration, passing over the intellect and leaving disturbed thoughts in his wake. Thank God for good authors like him.

This weekend has been Platonic. On Friday night Dr. Al Geier, professor at the University of Rochester, came to speak at Biola. He gave a speech on the winged nature of souls. Both Plato, in the Phaedrus, and Dante, in The Divine Comedy, speak of winged souls. Souls that mount up on wings, among the intelligible world.

It's difficult, after reading a book like Phaedrus, to write my own opinions on this blog. It is a dangerous thing to state this or that, because what does anyone learn from reading? If I tell you something, will you believe it? What will you do with the words that I write? What should you do with the words that I write?

I think that by reading this book and having a discussion about it and the Divine Comedy with some other students, Dr. Geier, and Dr. Reynolds, I've come to more of an understanding of the importance of the Torrey system of learning. It was a good reminder of things we hear Freshmen year, and then forget.

I had a good discussion with a good person Saturday. It illustrated the experience that Plato talks about in the Phaedrus. Really neat. I can't describe it. It's the sort of thing that poets try to describe. So I'll leave it to them.

A good movie to watch: Brother Sun, Sister Moon

It's a movie about Saint Francis of Assisi. It follows his life up to his meeting with Pope Innocent III. Made by Zepherelli during the Hippy Era, it reaks of a humanistic view of life and interprets the life of Francis in such a way that God might be excusable, or at least made weaker. That in itself is inexcusable.

However, it is more than possible to see the piety and Christ-driven goodness of the true character of Francis throughout the film, and I found it not only very spiritually edifying passively, but a motivating and driving film that really tugged at my desire to do good works in the world and love God more.

Francis is just such an amazing person. I often have wondered how a person such as myself could combine my great love for nature with my relationship with God. God, having made nature, is definitely evident in it. The first way that I considered when I was in high school was science. Biology would provide a means of understanding the order of the universe and God's intelligence in it. But something seems wrong with it to me. You have to take apart the things you love, divide them from their essence, to understand their function. You cannot enjoy a bird's heart as you can enjoy a living bird. I need not know that a bird has hollow bones to wonder at its mystery of flight. As Gandalf says, "he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."

So the tack of Saint Francis, who sees the work of God in all of nature, is a valid alternative to enjoying nature in our Truth starved culture. Francis enjoys the bird for itself. He wonders at Brother Sun, and Sister Moon in an engaging canticle. He blesses all of creation as he sees it struggling to praise God. He even gives a sermon to the birds that he loves. He's bizarre, in short, but he's bizarre because of how much he loves God. He simply and humbly submits to his place in creation, trusting wholly on the provision of God to live, and follows without question his understanding of God's universe.

There are a lot of great scenes in the movie, if you can stand the campy 60s ballads that accompany them. One of these is Francis' renunciation of the world. He takes all of his clothes off as he stands in the middle of the town square, in front of the Bishop, and gives them to his father. Then he walks out of the town butt naked! It's great. The best scene of the movie, however, takes place in Rome. When Francis meets the Pope, wonderful things happen. But I won't say anything about them. Further proof, though not in the movie, of Francis' holiness, is the gift of Stigmata bestowed upon him by the Lord.

I need to read Chesterton's book on Francis, and Bonaventure's Life of Saint Francis as soon as I can. Unfortunately I haven't the time with 3 papers due soon and Phaedrus being my only reading for entertainment that I have access to.

salmonella...

good word.

bad disease.

A good character can really captivate you. I remember as a child comparing all experiences to what I read in books. The mundane becomes epic if taken in the right mindset. I was thinking about this today because I was re-reading The Man Who Was Thursday and I really want to be like Gabriel Symes, the main character. He's a poet, wandering through life with the mindset that makes the mundane epic, continually. He can take an ecclesiastical lantern, and angrily confront the horrors of anarchy, using the cross-marked flaming symbol to bolster his rhetorical outburst of righteous indignation. Check this out, read it with the anger it needs. Outloud! Trust me, it's worth it.

"Judas before Herod!" he said, and struck the Colonel down upon the stones. Then he turned to the Secretary, whose frightful mouth was almost foaming now, and held the lamp high with so rigid and arresting a gesture that the man was, as it were, frozen for a moment, and forced to hear.
"Do you see this lantern?" cried Syme in a terrible voice. "Do you see the cross carved on it, and the flame inside? You did not make it. You did not light it. Better men than you, men who could believe and obey, twisted the entrails of iron and preserved the legend of fire. There is not a street you walk on, there is not a thread you wear, that was not made as this lantern was, by denying your philosophy of dirt and rats. You can make nothing. You can only destroy. You will destroy mankind; you will destroy the world. Let that suffice you. Yet this one old Christian lantern you shall not destroy. It shall go where your empire of apes will never have the wit to find it."
He struck the Secretary once with the lantern so that he staggered; and then, whirling it twice round his head, sent it flying far out to sea, where it flared like a roaring rocket and fell.

The passion of the scene is arresting as the gesture that Chesterton describes. Boy, this man can write.

And he writes good things. Chesteron inspires me to submit to the Church wholly in the intellect, as I wash tired and achy back to shore from my constant struggle for knowledge of the inexhaustible Divine. "Mystery, tradition, love," she whispers motherly, gathering me in her arms.

But I'm a protestant, so I feel like I'm fighting on against the unbreachable tide, riding terrible breakers extending high over my head, constantly at risk of being plunged beneath the dangerous deep that is Revelation.

Two things happened yesterday worth telling:

One, I came to a critical point in understanding the organizing and central purpose behind G.K. Chesteron's The Man Who Was Thursday. This is quite an accomplishment - one Isaac Pletcher was a big help.

Second, we pulled a desk chair around a parking lot behind a car at night.... with people sitting on the chair. That was fun: not getting caught was also quite an accomplishment.

Here's something to check off my to-do list:

Tonight I went for a walk barefoot in the Halloween rain. At first I just stood there, and let the icy pin-pricks of the rain pepper my face and legs. Then I ran back upstairs and got Coleridge. What better way to read a Romantic, I thought to myself, than by the crinkled yellow light of a street lamp in a snow-drop cold rain? When I returned, though, it was raining harder. The rain dimpled the pages of my book, lifting the paper into little smile-wrinkles. I sketched a few short lines into my mind, but it wasn't enough and I wasn't willing to ruin the book, so I put it away, turned left, and started walking. I say, if you can't read the Romantics, live the Romantics.

So, wandering down the street in front of our apartment, I mused melancholy on the dark night, lit gaudily by street, stop, car and house lights. The dark pools of water settling into the middle of the street seemed an ample metaphor for the emotions of my heart. But something odd happened to me tonight: despite my best efforts, melancholy couldn't set in. Instead, to keep warm in the deluge I had to hurry on my way. If I took quick steps, walking briskly, I would warm up, and as my body warmed, my heart and mind warmed as well, gently nudging me involuntarily into a light heart. Soon I was dashing the dark puddles, spreading glittering drops of water across the sheening surface of the street, each reflecting the many lights that belong to a cloudy city night.

As I approached campus, my destination, I stopped and turned around. It was cold, I thought, and this experience, as marvelous as it could be, is not worth catching my death of cold. So I started down the side street that runs behind Tropicana, avoiding a few rushing cars, illuminating the flutter of a thousand drops in the beams of their headlights, each headlight a tiny meteorshower captured for a moment, then gone. The street became dark and empty; as I was crossing the lane, and as I reached the center, I turned, and gazed straight up the middle of it. It enticed me, drew me, unexplainably. Perhaps that's how the spawning salmon feels, facing the rushing current with mighty strokes of his tail. I can't really speak for him, but as for me, I turned up the middle of the street and started running. I threw my head back, let my bare feet thud a quick rhythm on the black asphalt, and inhaled dewy drops of rain, steeped in sweet poesy. My hair, soaked in the wine, lifted from my forehead, and streamed behind me as I grinned a foolish gaping smile and let myself go. Each step was exhilirating, mixed pain and pleasure, water splashing all around my feet, water stinging my face in a tatoo rythm, increasing as I gained speed. It was a moment of pure youthfulness, Peter Pan taking off from amongst the Lost Boys, swooping wildly through forest and glade, bent on the rescue of an Indian Princess.

The problem with running is that it gets you where you're going faster than when you walk. In a minute I was home, warm, and wet. My face was plastered with water, my heart beating warmly in my chest, as I burst open the door of my apartment. I put on water for hot chocolate, opened Coleridge, and read some empty poetry for a few minutes. And I realized that it was over. I couldn't go back outside again. All these kinds of ecstatic experiences end.

It's funny how running can be such a childlike thing. Childhood is a time of more energy, enthusiasm, and innocence than we have now. When we run for no reason, or for no apparent reason, we revisit the times when we always ran, attempting to outpace our peers in a mad dash to nowhere.