The Descending Blue

Chaucer on Humility

2012-02-05T20:39:00.000-08:00

"Humility is true self-knowledge."

Top 11 Books of 2011

2012-01-02T13:17:00.000-08:00

11. Awash in a Sea of Faith, Jon Butler

This is an important work for anyone wanting to understand Christianity and colonial America. He is very secular in his approach but he paints a detailed picture that Christians need to understand before they try to jump into any discussion about the Great Awakening.

10. The Fabric of the Cosmos, Brian Greene

This book explains in great detail the modern scientific discussions on time, matter, and space. This work reinforced the fact that scientists are not just talking about time and matter; they are also talking about how we view the world and what it is made of and how we know what we know. In other words, scientists are always philosophers and theologians even if they deny it.

9. Reclaiming Adoption, Dan Cruver

A great read on the depth of adoption and how it relates to the life of the Trinity. It also re-enforced the fact that adoption is one of the most un-evolutionary acts in the world. Another one for our team.

8. The Iliad, Homer

I read this again this summer. Good stuff as always. I think I am finally coming around to see how it is just as poetically interesting as its counterpart The Odyssey.

7. The Odyssey, Homer

I read this also this summer. I still think this book works better and is a more compelling story than The Iliad. It also has more depth to it. Odysseus and Penelope are awesome as always.

6. Lectures on Calvinism, Abraham Kuyper

This was a great read. I was both surprised and not by that fact. His chapter on Calvinism and Art was incredible. The first author to show how Calvinism gives art its universal appeal: art is for the everyman because art is about the everyman. Art also sweeps our suffering up into the reality of the cross. Something the pomos can only dream of having.

5. On Grief and Reason, Joseph Brodsky

This was a surprising read. I pulled it off the shelf for one lecture and it has proven to be deep in a very refreshing way. He was a Jew but he was very well read and his depth comes from his breadth of reading. “How to read a book”, “In praise of boredom,” and “Uncommon Visage” are all worth the read. He also likes poetry.

4. Over Sea, Under Stone, Susan Cooper

A great fantasy adventure for kids. It hints at a hidden world that gives it a spookier feel than it actually has, but kudos to the author for the great style. Well worth the read.

3. How to Read a Poem, Edward Hirsh

This is another example of how the well-read makes the well-written. This is an amazing book. I get the feeling that he is not a Christian, but I can’t tell. There are times when it is like: Yes! But then there are times that make me pause and wonder where he is. He says great things but he doesn't know why. If only.

2. Reading like a Writer, Francine Prose

I picked this up on a whim and it was a jack-pot. Never done that before. The author moves through several modern writers and authors starting with the smallest of things,words, and then moves all the way up to dialogue and gestures. It would probably be better titled as Reading for Everyone. This should be on everyone’s shelf.

1. Planet Narnia, Michael Ward

Simply amazing. Ward handles Lewis in a way that lets Lewis shine through on his own. Ward also has a deep understanding of Lewis’s vision of the world and this book fully reveals it in a brilliant and clear way. Great scholarly research and writing by Ward. I will return this book in the future.

Lew Klatt on Christian Poetry

2011-11-22T10:12:00.001-08:00

Here is a lecture from Lew Klatt of Calvin College. Good stuff all around.

http://vimeo.com/32081290

For Election Day

2011-11-06T19:09:00.000-08:00

As we approach election day, here is one way to evaluate our political leaders.

“There is no doubt in my mind that, had we been choosing our leaders on the basis of their reading experience and not their political programs, there would be much less grief on earth. It seems to me that a potential master of our fates should be asked, first of all, not about how he imagines the course of his foreign policy, but about his attitude toward Stendhal, Dickens, Dostoevsky.”-pg. 52

From On Grief and Reason by Joseph Brodsky

Over Sea, Under Stone

2011-10-30T19:57:00.000-07:00

Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So far, it has all of the marks of a good fantasy adventure: a mysterious old uncle, exploring an old house, an old map with Latin(!), searching through books, and a few kids who actually act like kids. I'm reading it to Kate right now. Good stuff.

Update:
Finished it and I still think it was pretty good. It made me think that we would get into more of the fantasy realm but it never quite made it there. It was all very veiled and hidden. The hints were awesome but opening the curtain a little more would have made the story even better. All in all a good adventure story.

On to Book 2!

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Links

2011-10-22T10:01:00.000-07:00

Does the Sun Rise?

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2011/10/does-the-sun-rise/peter-j-leithart

Good discussion from Peter Leithart on how science has dominated theology and how the study of astronomy can free students.

Against Hitchens

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2011/09/08/simply-incoherent/

Douglas Wilson at some of his best. Pithy and fun to watch him thrash Hitchens (in a very gracious and friendly way).

Plato Quote

2011-10-22T09:48:00.000-07:00

"For that which is ever in motion is immortal."

Plato, Phaedrus

Chesterton must have heard this and was paraphrasing it when he talked about God as having an infinite and childlike appetite for things such that He can never stand still, which is why He doesn't just make one snowflake but separately makes each and every one of that innumerable host; God never grows tired of doing the same thing over and over again. We, however, have grown old and cannot keep up with His immortal burst of energy.

Auden Quote

2011-10-22T09:45:00.000-07:00

"Blessed be all metrical rules, that forbid automatic responses, force us to have second thoughts, free from the fetters of Self."

W.H. Auden

Marriage in Heaven?

2011-10-18T21:41:00.000-07:00

Here is a portion of a response that I sent to one of my Omnibus students who asked about marriage in heaven. Mostly thoughts that don't lead too far.

First, I think at this point I would probably say that I believe what Jesus said in the gospel that there will not be marriage in heaven, but I do think that there will be something like it in heaven. As it has been pointed out, what if someone marries twice in this life, how can that person be married to two different people? I also think it is important to remember that a marriage covenant is "til death do us part." Which means that once we die, the covenant is null and void which is why, if one spouse is still alive, he/she can remarry and God says that's fine. So I think I would have to say that the marriage covenant that we have in this life will no longer exist in the resurrection.

However, I would add, that just as the Trinity is made of three persons who live in covenant with each other so in the resurrection there will still be a covenant community of people. Which means many of our relationships will continue in a similar way as they do here. We will have friends and coworkers and bosses and mayors. Does this mean that we will have spouses? I don't know. According to Genesis, Adam needed a helper even before the fall so that he could do his job. Will a man still need a woman to help him in the resurrection to complete his task to fill the earth and subdue it? Maybe not to fill the earth, so again, I don't know, but it makes me wonder. If God lives in community with Himself, then man will have that too, with God and other people. Will there be something like that between a man and a woman?

I probably have more questions than answers at this point. I think the only thing I am willing to argue for is that there will be something like marriage in heaven, but will it be the exact same? Probably not. Which means we don't know a lot and it could be very different than what we have here (Can we even call it "marriage" for in stance?). But nothing is impossible with God, so who knows?

Boethius on Discipline

2011-10-17T22:08:00.000-07:00

“So when the wicked receive punishment they receive something good, the punishment itself, which is good, because of its justice; but when they go unpunished they acquire some extra evil actually going scot free, which you have agreed is bad, because of its injustice.” –pg. 98, bk 4, 4, The Consolation of Philosophy

This is why it is so important for Christians to discipline: it is deliverance from evil and a restoration of justice. This is why the proverbs say that a father hates his son when he does not discipline him. This is why Church leaders must discipline the wayward members of the flock. This is why our heavenly Father disciplines us.

Students on the City of God

2011-10-07T08:40:00.000-07:00

Here are some highlights from papers by a few Omnibus students about The City of God.

One student mentioned that the city of man will ultimately be destroyed and the city of God will reign supreme, but this does not mean there will be no city of man. Instead, when at last the city of God has been fully established, then the city of man will also finally come into true being. This means that the city of God comes not to abolition the city of man but rather to be the True city of man. Only in the city of God can the city of man ever exist.

Another student mentioned how Christ is the archetype of humility for the city of God. We usually think of this when we talk about how He became humble to the point of death on the cross, which is true, but then Paul adds in 1 Corinthians that the Son will reign until everything is subjected to Him and then the Son will hand everything over to the Father. This is another act of humility. Who ever heard of a prince handing the kingdom over to the king? But here we have just that. Christ cleans the place up and then gives it away. If this is what the king does, how much more ought the subjects to do so also?

Another student pointed out that the city of man can't be a true community because the men inside that city are selfish; this is their highest virtue. This selfishness ultimately drives the members apart so that they become pure individuals, autonomous and divided. Everyone suppresses all others; there is no room for the sharing. But the world doesn't work this way. The world is made to reflect the true community of the Trinity. This means that the city of man is headed to destroy itself by its pride. On the other hand, the city of God is built on humility. This means that each person looks out for all the others so that their needs and desires are met first. And if this is put into practice, then that one person does not have to worry because even as he looks after another person all others are looking after him. It is only in giving yourself away for others that a true community can be built and held together. A city can only stand by humility; it will always fall by pride.

Dionysus: Civil Madness

2011-08-04T17:14:00.000-07:00

In The Bacchae, Pentheus learns the lesson that man is limited and if he tries to overreach those boundaries then he will be punished for his folly. The Chorus sings,

Unwise are those who aspire,

who outrange the limits of man.

Briefly, we live. Briefly,

then die. Wherefore, I say,

he who hunts a glory, he who tracks

some boundless, superhuman dream,

may lose his harvest here and now

and garner death. Such men are mad…

Man is not made to discover and learn everything; man is made for a place and that place has limits. If man reaches beyond those limits then he will be hurt and reap death. True madness is grasping for more, wisdom is being content with what one has.

But Pentheus does not believe this and so he reaches for “some boundless, superhuman dream” and defies Dionysus. Dionysus says this about Pentheus,

[He] now revolts against divinity, in me;

thrusts me from his offerings; forgets my name

in his prayers.

Pentheus has reached beyond his limits and is now judging gods. He does not honor Dionysus because he deems Dionysus a fake and denies that Dionysus was born of Zeus. Pentheus thinks he knows better than others.

This belief, that he knows better, drives Pentheus to gain more knowledge, even knowledge of things that he should not know, like seeing the bacchae women in the mountains. He tells Dionysius, who is disguised as a man, “I would pay a great sum to see that sight.” Pentheus is so curious that he even dresses up like a woman, at the suggestion of Dionysus, which reveals how foolish Pentheus really is. He thinks he can deny not only a god’s nature but also his own nature, but his efforts are futile; he is still a man. Ironically, he cannot disguise himself like Dionysus does; only the gods can truly hide. When Pentheus reaches the Bacchae, they are able to learn his true identity and kill him. Thus, Pentheus does not have the power to deny the truth in the world and like the Chorus said, if he tries to deny his limits, then he will become mad and that will lead him to death.

This foolish desire to exceed limits corresponds to the theme of city versus nature. There are things in the world that man is not able to understand, like the gods. Man should not try to rise above them and judge them. Instead, man should just believe them. This means man is not made to control, but to obey because only obedience will lead to peace in the city. Defiance, on the other hand, will lead to destruction like with Pentheus. However, this way of peace is paradoxical because the gods are not always civil; sometimes they are wild and hidden like Dionysus, which means that the city needs a little wildness inside it in order to keep the city civil. Without this good wildness, the city will become untamable like nature and the city will be destroyed. Thus, there are two options for the city: it must either embrace the madness of Dionysus which leads to life or it must embrace the madness of pride which leads to death outside the city.

Hospitality in The Odyssey

2011-08-04T17:11:00.000-07:00

In the story of The Odyssey, hospitality is not merely a background setting for the action of the story, but rather it plays a central role in the narrative. Eumaeus, the loyal swineherd, explains why he is caring for the disguised Odysseus, even though he doesn’t recognize him:

It’s wrong, my friend, to send any stranger packing—

even one who arrives in worse shape than you.

Every stranger and beggar comes from Zeus

and whatever scrap they get from the likes of us,

they’ll find it welcome. That’s the best we can do…

Eumaeus believes it is an important virtue to care for strangers because strangers come from Zeus and if a person fails to do this, then Zeus might get angry. Often the host has to offer this care even before he knows the stranger’s name. This happens with Odysseus throughout the story. One example is Alcinous and Arete, who are so hospitable, that they host Odysseus for a whole day before they ask for his name. They are so welcoming, in fact, that they give him gifts even though they don’t know him.

In sharp contrast to this generous abundance, the suitors of Penelope are oppressive to strangers, particularly Odysseus, even before they know who he is. At one point, Antinous, is angered at Odysseus begging at the palace and says,

What spirit brought this pest to plague our feast?

Back off! Into the open, clear my table, or you,

you’ll soon land in an Egypt, Cyprus, to break your heart!

What a brazen, shameless beggar! Scrounging food

from each man in turn, and look at their handouts,

reckless, never a qualm, no holding back, not

when making free with the next man’s goods…

This comment is full of irony that Odysseus realizes immediately although it is lost on Antinous. Antinuos thinks that he is better than this mere beggar wondering around the palace looking for handouts. He even calls that kind of behavior reckless because it is making free with the next man’s goods. However, the real beggar is Antinous, not Odysseus, because Antinous is literally eating Odysseus out of house and home, which means that Odysseus is the true and good host and Antinous is the guest, and a bad guest at that. This scene is also ironic given that Antinous is able to eat because he has a good host, but he does not know how to return the favor to another guest. In other words, Antinous is stingy compared to Alcinous.

The irony deepens when Antinous gets angry at Odysseus and throws a stool at him. The other suitors see this deed and, knowing proper etiquette, instantly warn Antinous,

That was a crime, to strike the luckless beggar!

Your fate is sealed if he’s some god from the blue.

And the gods do take on the look of strangers

dropping in from abroad…”

This warning is ironic because Odysseus is not a god but he is disguised by a god. And like a god he will seek vengeance on these bad suitors. These remarks also relate back to what the swineherd told Odysseus: every stranger comes from Zeus so hosts need to be good hosts. But as seen with Antinous, the suitors don’t understand this principle of hospitality which means a key turning point in the narrative will be the correction of their corrupt behavior, which is the climax of the story.

A foray into the paraphrastic

2011-07-25T19:59:00.000-07:00

"The Word of God is thus God at work." -J.I. Packer

This is the case because that is how God works in the world. We see this from the beginning: He creates by speaking the world into existence. John, in his gospel, tells us that Jesus is the Word by which the Father speaks the world. This means that God works by means of His word. And even more importantly, God creates by His word. This means, as Packer drives home, that God creates and recreates by His word, both spoken and written. As we hear the Word proclaimed on a Sunday morning, we can rest assured, even if we can't see it, that God is about the creation of His world yet again. Which means we should keep the hard-hats close at hand. Anything could happen.

Eragon

2011-07-19T10:29:00.000-07:00

Eragon by Christopher Paolini

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Two stars for being 15 and writing something this big. I am sure the next series he writes will be better, but I probably won't read it. I thought the story itself was alright; it was interesting and creative. But Paolini understands very little about the sound and meaning of words, especially the difference between Anglo-Saxon, Latin, and Modern cognates. He mixes these up freely (like most modern fantasy authors) and it made his prose clunk in ridiculous ways. He also uses awkward similes and metaphors. For example:

"A terrible energy and strength began to grow in him. It grabbed his emotions and forged them into a solid bar of anger with one word stamped on it: revenge." pg. 93

"A leather strip encircled her brow, restraining her voluminous black hair, which tumbled behind her shoulders in a lustrous cascade." pg. 458

"Engaged in a fiery dance, their bodies were linked and separated by the flashing blades. At times they nearly touched, taut skin only a hair's breadth away, but then momentum would whirl them apart, and they would withdraw for a second, only to join again." pg. 460

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The Lost Soul of American Protestantism

2011-07-15T11:44:00.000-07:00

The Lost Soul of American Protestantism by D.G. Hart

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a really important read. Hart shows how American Protestantism has been dominated by, what he calls, Pietism (personal spiritual experiences that are often emotional, individualistic, and low church). Hart says that there is another tradition, Confessionalism (high church, emphasizes the creeds and sacraments of the church) which goes back a ways in American history but it is not as influential in American culture as Pietism has been and is. Hart argues that Pietism is what is wrong with American Protestantism because Pietism is trying too hard to be relevant in the culture which warps the practices and theology of the church. Pietism has lost its soul: creeds, sacraments, high church, etc. Hart also shows how Pietism shapes questions about church practices in ways that we are not often aware. For example, should a church shift from singing hymns to contemporary worship songs? The broader Protestant culture says contemporary music, but if a church decides to keep with their hymns they are swimming against the stream, a stream that is everywhere we look. So it's not easy.

Hart's introduction is well worth the price of admission because he asks all the right questions: How does the church stay relevant without losing its traditions and practices? How do we reach the masses with the gospel without dumbing it down? How do we reach the intellectuals without losing the masses?

The one downside is that Hart makes a really sharp divide between church and culture to the point where he says the church should not be relevant in the culture because if we try to be relevant then that will pull us away from important church practices which in turn will weaken the church. He ends with the thought that if we had stayed true to our tradition then the American culture might have degraded faster but at least the Protestant church would have remained faithful to its tradition. He seems to have a really hopeless vision of the church's influence in the world: at best we can only save the frozen chosen. And in that way he seems to diminish the power of the gospel in all the world. His answer then is pretty weak and not really as satisfying as it could be. But his questions hit the bull’s-eye, for what it's worth.

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Art and Joy

2011-06-30T17:19:00.000-07:00

Enjoying art is a way to enjoy the world. At base then, art affirms that the world is made to be enjoyed.

Total Truth Review

2011-05-31T21:26:00.000-07:00

Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity by Nancy Pearcey

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an important and comprehensive book. Nancy Pearcey is well-read and easy to read. The book breaks out nicely into three sections: diagnosing the problematic worldview of today’s society, the rise of this dominant paradigm, and the history of Christianity’s slow acquiescence to this paradigm. Stated simply: the dominant paradigm is evolution (and a few others: atheism, modernism, and postmodernism) and Christianity gave up the battle because we’re Gnostics. The book was a good over view and history of a lot of the popular discussions on worldviews and how worldviews work and why they are important. These things are foundational and good, especially for those who are new to the idea of worldviews. There were a few parts that intrigued me (her chapter about the Industrial Revolution and the divide of mothers and fathers in the home was insightful, although there were not a lot of answers provided). I also found her summarizes of Francis Schaeffer’s works helpful since I had never read any of his books before. On the hole, this was a detailed summary of the culture war at the philosophical level and it provided a call to arms for those who have yet to join up.

However, it would have been nice to see some more interaction about how the church as a body can fight the diseases around us. What does a church community do? How should the church live together? What does liturgy have to do with worldviews? For a work answering those questions see James K. A. Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom which applies the head knowledge more to the arena of church. As a side note, at one point Pearcey talked about Eastern Orthodoxy as a different religion. That surprised me given her scholarly work. But I will give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that it was an editing error. Who knows?

In the main this was a good, thoughtful, easy to read, book.

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Book Review: Reading Like a Writer

2011-04-09T09:54:00.001-07:00

Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them by Francine Prose My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is an amazing book. The author starts by talking about the tiny details like words and sentences and then moves on to the larger parts of writing like paragraphs, narration, and dialogue. She covers all the important things like: making your characters interesting, talking like real people, including details that matter, giving characters gestures that are important, etc. She also includes several great first paragraphs. The best part of the book is that it is both talking about writing and talking about reading all the way through. She looks at lots of different stories and authors who employ the techniques that she describes which not only explains her point but also gives her readers a broader base of modern English literature to look at. About 90% of the books she talked about I had never heard of but after reading her quotes and descriptions I now have another 10-15 books to put on my to-read list. Essentially, the book is a highly detailed review written from the perspective of a writing teacher who loves what she reads. Some of the stories to note: Freedomland, We Didn't, Lolita, The Marquise of O-, Loving, The Wonders of the Invisible World, A Ship Made of Paper, and The Portrait of a Lady. View all my reviews

Book Review: Reclaiming Adoption

2011-04-09T09:35:00.000-07:00

Reclaiming Adoption: Missional Living through the Rediscovery of Abba Father by Dan Cruver My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book has important and insightful thoughts into the trinitarian nature of adoption and what it means for all christians. And some great quotes from Keller, Ferguson, Plantinga, Macdonald, Piper, and Torrance. Quote: "In grace God has moved outward in mission to bring us into his communion of love forever. You may not have thought about it this way, but God's missional movement into the world IS his adoptive plan at work." The one down side is that the best essays are the first two or three; the rest are just variations or copies of those ones. But the first three are worth the price of admission. The world is about adoption. Pure and simple. View all my reviews

Against Rhyme; For the Black Eye

2011-03-11T16:10:00.000-08:00

I was reading about Chesterton's poetry the other day and the idea occurred to me that one of the flaws with poetry is that rhyming is too thoughtless and easy for the true poet. I think that there has been many, many years of good poets who have used rhyme in their poetry and their work is really good. Better than anything I've written. But if we want to define poetry by saying that it must rhyme then I think we have lost what real poetry is.

Poetry is always about picking the right word to express exactly the right idea or feeling. But rhyming does not teach you to pick the right word. Rather it teaches you to pick the first word that comes to mind.

Example:

Here is my dog
He eats a.......

There are two options:

The first is to use the word that comes to mind first: "Frog!" And most people would choose that word and run with it. It came to mind first therefore it must be the best. Hardly.

The second is to say we have to make it rhyme with the word "dog" and then start going through all the words that rhyme: bog, log, frog, cog, blog, etc. And frog rhymes so we choose it. This is a little better but it is still lacking because choosing by rhyme is too simplistic and thoughtless.

Why choose according to rhyme, I say. It limits you too much. What if your dog eats rocks? But that doesn't rhyme someone will say. So what. I would rather have an unrhyming poem that expresses exactly what the poet wanted rather than some silly rhymed poem that doesn't capture his vision.

An unrhymed poem at least means the poet had to wrestle the language to the ground and give it a black eye before it came to me. With a rhyming poem, it usually means that the language beat the poet to a pulp.

Therefore, I am against rhyme.

Why Latin is the Only class we need in school

2011-03-10T15:11:00.000-08:00

Here's a brief sketch of a conversation I have been having with my online students about classical education. I am now applying it to Latin.

Classical education is about creating leaders for our generation and culture. Leaders have to know where they are going in order to lead. They need to know what the road looks like and where the end is. If they don't know those things then they can't lead others. Period.

The illustration I used with my students was a maze. Life is like a maze. We walk through it and we don't know which way to go all the time. Sometimes we run into a dead end and have to back track. But if we had a map we would know right where to go and we wouldn't get stuck. That map is classical education because classical education gives you the principles of how this world works so that you know where to go and how to find the end.

Sometimes in life we have to hit dead ends in order to learn the right way but thanks to the old books we can see where others have been and how they went wrong and hit dead ends. We don't have to make the same mistakes they did and we don't have to be as foolish as the culture around us. We can see the principles, the rules for the world, and we can live according to them so we live rightly.

This is where Latin comes in. Latin is about learning the right rules and then applying them to sentences. If we know that subjects and verbs must agree in number then we can apply the rule to all sorts of sentences. If we don't know that rule we could spend a good day or two just trying to figure it out by trial and error. But we don't have to try every option before we get the right answer if we know the rule. If we know the rule then that is a short cut to the answer. We don't have to go down every dead end. We can find the answer quickly and the right one every time. There's no need to be wrong. That is why Latin is so important to classical education. It teaches principles to students that they can apply to language and then they can apply that idea to the world.

The world runs on principles that we can know. Therefore we can know how to live in the world and we can succeed. If we know the rules and principles, as we see in Proverbs, then we can lead and be leaders and rulers like Solomon. That is what he is doing in Proverbs. He is teaching the next generation of kings the principles of the world so they can lead the rest of the world because not everyone understands how the world works and they need people who know how to lead them. The world needs kings.

Eucatastrophic Eschaton

2011-01-14T17:11:00.000-08:00

In The Silmarillion, Tolkien claims that the eschatology of stories will be one of instant creation and reality. Our wants and wishes will not be delayed as they are now but will be fulfilled in tangible and real ways because we will understand what God's will is and what our part is in His designs for us and others. So we will want what He wants and it will fit perfectly with His plan. Which means that our desires will be given Being as Tolkien says in his book. It is not only that our stories will be true, but they will be real. In a sinless world, we will be free to not only tell stories, but make stories.

The Untold Story

2011-01-04T06:59:00.000-08:00

In a letter Tolkien wrote, he says to his son, “A story must be told or there’ll be no story, yet it is the untold stories that are most moving.” He goes on to describe the untold stories as if one were looking at a mountain range that would never be climbed, always seen at a distance, but never known up close. This is the feeling that Bilbo expresses in The Fellowship of the Ring, when he says, “I want to see the wild country again before I die, and the Mountains.” This desire to see the mountains illustrates the effect that the layers of narrative in the story have on the readers of Tolkien’s works. There is a depth and a history behind his stories that he is able to capitalize on—the effect of the untold story—simply because he has stories written that he cannot tell in full but merely alludes to as his main narrative unfolds. This is particularly true in The Fellowship of the Ring given the history of the ring that Gandalf and others recount in order to understand what the ring is and how to deal with it. In this essay I will not recount this history but rather focus on the levels of narrative that Tolkien employs and briefly outline how he achieves the effect of untold stories.

First, there are at least three narrative levels that Tolkien employs in his stories, and in keeping with his own geographical analogy, they are the Mountain level, the Hill level, and the Valley level. Each of these has a unique narrative quality which he mixes most effectively in his trilogy.

The Mountain level is best defined as the one where the reader sees characters and stories from a distance, almost a bird’s eye view. The reader can see that there is a grand narrative at work, but the exact details are fuzzy and a bit unclear although bits of it are clear. This occurs when names are mentioned in passing like Queen Berúthiel and when Tolkien uses lines like: “…and he came there never again as living man.” These are hints and wisps of stories hidden by years and other narratives which pull the reader out of the little particular narrative he is reading and gives him a moment to pause and look at the mountains. The reader is suddenly struck with an otherness; there are other characters in the story that he will never fully meet. This device also works in Tolkien’s stories because we as readers know that even if we have never met these characters, Tolkien has and he knows what he is talking about. In other words, there is a real story there; he is not just throwing names around, but Tolkien is not going to tell us. Instead, he leaves us with only a glimpse.

The Hill level story is one where the story is told, but only with the briefest or most important details. There is little direct dialogue; the reader is held at a distance and never fully meets the characters named. There are no little character traits and actions that are memorable (e.g. Sam, Gimli, Gandalf, etc). This kind of narrative would include stories like Beren and Luthien and Of Turin Turambar. These stories hint at the mountains beyond, but give a little bit too much detail to invoke the awe of distant peaks.

The Valley level story is one that brings the reader directly in contact with the characters, their words and actions. It makes the characters human and personal. Details are everywhere. This is where readers can meet characters and “escape” into the world that is made. Here belief is kindled and for a time the reader walks with Sam and Frodo, Bilbo and Gandalf, Gimli and Legolas. It is also in this detailed story that Tolkien reincorporates his Mountain level narrative with lines like, “…and he came there never again as living man” and others which create this sharp effect that he mentioned in his letter. It is like for this briefest of moments the shades are pulled back and a mountain or two is revealed in the background, sweeping the reader up in a vision of ages gone by and futures unseen.

It is this effect that captures the kind of story that Tolkien likes to tell. He is fascinated by the intermingling of the small and particular with the great and universal and he enjoys drawing them in sharp contrast to each other because it is when they are set beside each other that the effect is most pointed. It is like Tolkien is telling the story of one little ant while hinting at how he is like Alexander the great. And this reveals an insight that other writers miss: this is what center stage looks like for Man. He is always on the edge of an epic adventure about to climb some mountain but before he does he picnics with a few of his friends on a quiet grassy lawn in the sun, almost as if the mountain were not there.

Kennings

2010-12-20T09:05:00.000-08:00

I had a conversation about Anglo-Saxon last night with Wes and Luke and we got on the topic of Kennings. For those who don't know, a kenning is a metaphorical device that uses two or more words as a name for something which is not mentioned in those two words. In short it's a kind of simple circumlocution. e.g. whale road: sea, bone house: body. The basic form is that two words are combined which suggest a third one in some way.

We then tried to think of some examples in English. The best was river bed: a place where water flows. It is neither a river nor a bed. We also created some of our own.

Light Skirt: Christmas Tree
Lightning House: Clouds

New English Words

2010-12-17T17:40:00.000-08:00

For my Latin 9 Final, I had my Latin 9 students select from a list of Latin words and make a new English word. They had to give a definition and use it in a sentence. Here are a few of the highlights. I think it's a toss up between piscisolicide and perscholarity. Kind of makes you realize how weird words really are.

Perdentitude: The state of being eaten; My hamburger is in a state of perdentitude

Piscisolicide: A fish sunburn something fish die from; The fisherman brought the fish out of the water and waited for the piscisolicide to for it's work.

Exovumation: The act of coming out of an enclosed space; the bird lept up with joy after his exovumation.

Umbrarium: A place where umbrellas are made in large quantities. Albert told me he bought one thousand umbrellas from the umbrarium in the town next to ours.

Inumbrorium: A dark room where one can concentrate. Enter the inumbrorium and clear your mind.

Postmortitudinal syndrome: Coming alive after dying; "Oh, man! That zombie was totally in postmortitudinal syndrome."

Sinevitality: without life or energy; The young girl turned to a state of sinevitality after the death of her mother.

Perscholarity: The act or state of completing one's education; The graduate was very happy after reaching persholarity, knowing that this was the end to homework and finals.

Sound of Music

2010-11-15T20:36:00.000-08:00

My wife and I just watched the Logos drama production of the Sound of Music on Saturday. And one scene was especially poignant on a couple of levels. It was the scene where the family is at the music competition that Max puts together and the Captain is singing Edelweiss, right before the family makes their quick getaway. At this point in the story the family knows that they need to flee the country and their home and they are fearful for their lives. As the father is singing the song his voice catches at one point, which we interpret as a longing for his old home, the one that was Nazi free, and Maria and the rest of the family join him in the song. In the movie, Maria motions to the audience and they sing the song with the family; for the play there was no audience except the one watching the play so Maria motioned to us and we all joined in the song, which drove the emotion of the moment home in a way that the movie version could never achieve. It is one thing to watch an audience join in singing a song; it is quite another to join in yourself. The really intriguing part was that with such a simple act the audience ceased being the audience of a high school play in 2010 and became the audience watching the Von Trapp family during the beginning of World War II. In that instant, the audience was a part of the drama of the play. We were extras in the drama. In my mind, that little moment puts the play version of the story above the movie version.

It also struck me that this was a great example of the dramatic nature of a worship service. I have always been fascinated by the similarities between drama and worship and how a worship service is like a play: everyone has parts to play. This scene brought home the participatory nature of worship. We are not just watching a scene unfold, like a passive disconnected audience. Rather we are invited into the drama to be fellow actors in the story of redemption. We are not just watching the Creation story; we are in the Creation story. We are not just watching the Israelites leave Egypt; we are leaving Egypt. We are not just watching Christ die and be buried and then resurrected; we are doing those with Him. We are the actors in the drama. We have voices and hands and feet that join the action. We are literally swept up into the drama of the Trinity and the story of redemption that spreads across history and space.

Last thought, when we are invited to the drama of God, often it is not that we are taken out of the story that we are in and then plopped down into a different place and time. Rather, it is more like the subtle shift that occurred in the Logos drama. God meets us right where we are and we are invited to play the part that we have in the drama of God and this part is often the one that we were already playing. For the play we were the audience; when Maria motioned to the audience to join the song we were still an audience. If we are businessmen in the drama of our life, then God will usually make us businessmen in His drama. If we are artists, then artists. There are no missing parts in God’s drama.

Against Christianity

2010-11-13T10:14:00.000-08:00

In Against Christianity, Leithart pointedly clarifies the issue of Church and State relations: “Will the king always refuse to listen? Says who? And, when the king begins to listen, must the Church fall silent, so as to avoid becoming a chaplain? To keep her integrity, must the Church refuse to succeed?”

At some point, and it has happened before, the king will listen to the Church. How does the Church respond when that happens? Because it will.

Spiced Hot Cocoa

2010-10-01T20:02:00.000-07:00

For one cup:

2 scoops of Hot chocolate mix (Dairy Free, of course, or Jesse Free as some have come to call it)

1/4 tsp of clove and ginger

1/2 tsp of cinnamon

Stir all into a cup of hot or boiling water.

It has a nice zing and for a variation you can add 1/4 a cup of hot coffee.

Enjoy!

Mencken on Teachers

2010-09-24T18:42:00.000-07:00

"A man who knows a subject thoroughly, a man so soaked in it that he eats it, sleeps it and dreams it--this man can always teach it with success, no matter how little he knows of technical pedagogy." -pg. 242

"...that in the average college or high school, and especially in the elemetary school, most of the subjects taught are so bald and uninspiring that it is difficult to imagine them arousing the passion I have been describing--in brief, that only an ass could be enthusiastic about them." -pg. 243

"This objection, at first blush, seems salient and dismaying, but only a brief inspection is needed to show that it is really of very small validity. It is made up of a false assumption and a false inference. the false inference is that there is any sound reason for prohibiting teaching by asses, if only the asses know how to do it, and do it well. The false assumption is that there are no asses in our schools and colleges today." -pg. 243

"The truth is that the average schoolmaster, on all the lower levels, is and always must be essentially an ass, for how can one imagine an intelligent man engaging in so puerile an avocation? And, the truth is that it is precisely his inherent asininity, and not his technical equipment as a pedagogue, that is responsible for whatever modest success he now shows." -pg. 244

"There are fanatics who love and venerate spelling as a tom-cat loves and venerates catnip. There are grammatomaniacs; schoolmarms who would rather parse than eat; specialists in an objective case that doesn't exist in English; strange beings, otherwise sane and even intelligent and comely, who suffer under a split infinitive as you or I would suffer under gastro-enteritis."-pg. 246

"The best teacher of children, in brief, is one who is essentially childlike."-pg. 248

"The truth is that all the education rammed into the average pupil in the average American public school could be acquired by the larva of any reasonably intelligent man in no more than six weeks of ordinary application, and that where schools are unknown it actually is so acquired."-pg 259

Chesterton on the Rich

2010-09-23T19:06:00.000-07:00

"Only the Christian Church can offer any rational objection to a complete confidence in the rich. For she has maintained from the beginning that the danger was not in man's environment, but in man. Further, she has maintained that if we come to talk of a dangerous environment, the most dangerous environment of all is the commodious environment. I know that the most modern manufacture has been really occupied in trying to produce an abnormally large needle. I know that the most recent biologists have been chiefly anxious to discover a very small camel. But if we diminish the camel to his smallest, or open the eye of the needle to its largest--if, in short, we assume the words of Christ to have meant the very least that they could mean, His words, must at the very least mean this--that rich men are not very likely to be morally trustworthy. Christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags. The mere minimum of the Church would be a deadly ultimatum to the world. For the whole modern world is absolutely based on the assumption, not that the rich are necessary (which is tenable), but that the rich are trustworthy, which (for a Christian) is not tenable. You will hear everlastingly, in all discussions about newspapers, companies, aristocracies, or party politics, this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has already been bribed. That is why he is a rich man. The whole case for Christianity is that a man who is dependent upon luxuries of this life is a corrupt man, spiritually corrupt, politically corrupt, financially corrupt. There is one thing that Christ and all the Christian saints have said with a sort of savage monotony. They have said simply that to be rich is to be in peculiar danger of moral wreck."
-pg. 141, Orthodoxy

Great works should be protected from the young

2010-09-11T12:55:00.000-07:00

"It is arguable that all very great works should be strictly protected from the young persons; they should at any rate be spared the indignity of having their teeth and claws blunted for the satisfaction of examiners. It is the first shock that matters. Once that has been experienced, no amount of later familiarity will breed contempt; but to become familiar with a thing before one is able to experience it only too often means that one can never experience it at all."

"We can only pray to be saved from murdering delight before it is born."

-pg. vii, Sayers, Further Papers on Dante

Advertising as Community Narrative

2010-08-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

Here is a clip from PBS "The Persuaders" explaining how advertising agencies are not only selling a product, but also an image and an icon that people can embrace in order to be part of a community. These products are supposed to fulfill the need people have for life together. A kind of mini congregation.

Desiring God

2010-08-09T12:58:00.000-07:00

Piper in his Desiring God nicely explains why we must praise our Triune God. Piper says that God's ultimate gift to man is Himself because God is ultimate perfection and joy; to withhold Himself is to deny man the only thing that would truly satisfy him. Thus, God gives Himself to us and our response is to praise God for giving Himself to us, but this is not some arbitrary demand by God that has no impact on us. Rather, as Lewis says in the quote from his Reflection on the Psalms, we only reach our fullest satisfaction when we have expressed in praise our enjoyment of God. We can't not praise God because our joy would not be complete until we voiced it. Piper explains that God's creatures are required to praise Him because it is only in our praise of God that we find highest satisfaction and joy. Thus, God's command brings together our calling to praise Him and His desire to please Himself into the same act: praising God. At the same time, and Piper doesn't mention this, God delights to sing over His people and praise them because that too is the highest fulfillment of His joy. We express our joy because God expresses His. He delights in us as we delight in Him and we both can't get enough of it. We have to talk about it.

Lewis on Praise

2010-08-09T12:52:00.000-07:00

"I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with (the perfect hearer died a year ago)." -Lewis, Reflection on the Psalms, "A word about praising"

Rain Party

2010-08-02T16:14:00.000-07:00

Imagine two guys: Joe and Frederick. If one day Joe walked outside and Frederick chased him down the street spraying him with a water gun, we might laugh and consider it a middle school joke. If Frederick did it again the next day, we would think it rude and ill mannered. If Frederick proceeded to do it a third day in a row, we would call foul and consider him one of the worst criminals alive.
However, if God decides to spray us with water three days in a row, we invent books and blankets, fireplaces and mugs, galoshes and rain coats. For all practical purposes we consider it a rain party, with invitations sent via the weather man. Not because it happened only once, but because it routinely happens. So routinely in fact, that we often forget we were invited or worse, we consider it on the level of a water attack from Frederick.

One drop of water appears to be an accident. A million drops of water look like a conspiracy.

Thanks to Nate Wilson and a Credenda article for some of this.

The Teacher

2010-07-24T09:33:00.000-07:00

"The first essential of good teaching, then, is that the teacher must know the subject. That really means that he must continue to learn it." -pg. 17, the Art of Teaching

I don't think Gregory makes that second point in his book.

Being Disconnected

2010-07-21T08:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I heard an interview with William Powers about his book "Hamlet's Blackberry". He observed that the internet consumes large portions of time in a person's life: checking facebook, reading blogs, watching youtube, etc. All of these things are fast paced, allowing little or no time to stop and evaluate their goodness or value. Instead the internet encourages jumping from one thing to the next. And this applies to people as well: if you get bored talking to this person, go talk to that one. Lots of one minute conversations do not produce deep friendships. Speed of information does not mean meaningful communication. In fact, some things need more time than others because they need to be thought about it and discussed at a slower pace. The internet is like a happymeal: fast and forgetable.

Powers also said that this lack of reflection does not allow the user to be as creative as he possibly could. The internet is mostly pop culture at high-octane speed which means that the internet user is fairly passive: receiving what is out there, not necessarily processing it and reshaping it with creativity and so on. In contrast, the Great Books, the classics, are not shallow like pop culture; if you are going to be passive and sitting at the feet of someone, the great authors of history are worthier of the time than the Internet blog. And books allow the time to stop and to think. They allow the reader to evaluate and then to respond in a meaningful way, to be creative.

The internet does not necessarily need to be this way; some people are blogging in meaningful and thoughtful way and are influencing the internet in a positive way, but this is a ditch that needs to be recognized. Being disconnected from the internet for a little while is not a bad thing. Spending time with real people is a good thing. Having time to be creative and thoughtful is important in shaping culture in a meaningful and good way.

Augustine on Commonwealth

2010-07-15T12:32:00.000-07:00

"I shall do my best to demonstrate that that commonwealth (i.e. Rome as a true commonwealth) never existed, because there never was real justice in the community. Now it certainly was a commonwealth to some degree, according to more plausible definitions; and it was better ruled by the Romans of antiquity than by their later successors. But true justice is found only in that commonwealth whose founder and ruler is Christ." -bk 2.21

The only true city, commonwealth, or society is the Church. Because only in the Church is found true justice, the basis of true community.

Quips on Translating a Text

2010-06-26T12:43:00.000-07:00

From In the Beginning by Alister McGrath

"The translator is a traitor." pg. 217

"Translations are like women: if they are beautiful, they are not faithful; if they are faithful, they are not beautiful." pg. 217 (I agree with the author's judgement: "Perhaps a nugget of truth lies hidden in that outrageous statement.")

Lewis on Learning a Language

2010-06-26T10:34:00.000-07:00

"He appeared at this stage to value speed more than absolute accuracy. The great gain was that I very soon became able to understand a great deal without (even mentally) translating it; I was beginning to think in Greek. That is the great Rubicon to cross in learning any language."-pg. 136

"Those in whom the Greek word lives only while they are hunting for it in the lexicon, and who then substitute the English word for it, are not reading the Greek at all; they are only solving a puzzle. The very formula "naus means a ship" is wrong. Naus and ship both mean a thing, they do not mean one another. Behind Naus, as behind navis or naca, we want to have a picture of a dark, slender mass with sail or oars, climbing the ridges, with no officious English word intruding."-pg. 136

"In the evenings there was French with Mrs. Kirkpatrick, treated much as her husband treated Homer. We got through a great many good novels in this way and I was soon buying French books on my own."-pg. 139

"Later in my career we branched out into German and Italian. Here his methods were the same. After the very briefest contact with Grammars and Exercises I was plunged into Faust and Inferno. In Italian we succeeded. In German I have little doubt that we should equally have succeeded if I had stayed with him a little longer."-pg. 139, Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis

Lewis on Education

2010-06-26T10:29:00.000-07:00

"In those days a boy on the classical side officially did almost nothing but classics. I think this was wise; the greatest service we can do to education today is to teach fewer subjects. No one has time to do more than a very few things well before he is twenty, and when we force a boy to be a mediocrity in a dozen subjects we destroy his standards, perhaps for life. Smewgy taught us Latin and Greek, but everything else came in incidentally." -pg. 108, Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis

Wit

2010-06-17T15:13:00.000-07:00

I recently saw this HBO movie and it was impressive. One review I read, said it was a "rare beast." Not to give too much away, the main character, a John Donne literature professor, learns how to read the world rightly. She thinks she knows how the world works because she can understand the complicated writings of a metaphysical poet, but she is blind to her own blindness, a modern pharisee who needs a bit of dark grace in order to see her true condition. Her wisdom is actually foolishness; her strength is really weakness. It is not until she is fully weak and she knows her own weakness is she made strong, although it does not look like she is strong because she becomes a little child.

This movie is now in my top five.

Great One Liners

2010-06-04T17:41:00.001-07:00

My wife read this one to me just a second ago.

"The natives passed biblically with their donkeys."

-pg. 156, My Darling Clementine: The Story of Lady Churchill

For Logos Graduates, Class of 2010

2010-05-27T15:03:00.000-07:00

Class of 2010, my exhortation to you is: be amateurs.

Amateur, as many of you know, comes from the Latin, and being a Latin teacher I couldn’t resist getting some Latin in. It comes from the word Amo, which means to love. An amateur then is one who does something because he loves it. So when I say be amateurs, I am exhorting you to be men and women who love, in particular, who love the world.

But, why be amateurs? Why love the world? Three reasons.

1. First, because God does. God loves the world. As sons of God you are called to be like your heavenly father. So love the world.

2. Second, love the world because the world is messed up and it needs to be made right. It is a broken down old garden and it needs a gardener. It has been said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and modifying this a bit I would say that loveliness is in the eye of the lover. That is you need to know what the garden is supposed to look like and then work to make it look that way. Thus, it is your task to look the world back to grace. To love it back to its ancient loveliness.

One word of caution: it has been said that the true contrast to love is not hate, but rather boredom: that is, the feeling that nothing is important. As Christians, you should never be bored with the world because, as you have been growing up, you have learned the solid and deep truths of God. You know what is important; you know what the garden is supposed to look like, therefore love the world back to grace.

3. Last, being amateurs is a call to fight. Chesterton once said “Loving the world is the same thing as fighting the world.” If you want to fight the world, if you want to make it right, you must first love it. But loving the world is not a light task; it is a call to action, a call to sweat and blood, a call to do battle the way Christ does. But Christ does not use the simple weapons of the world like fists and guns. No, those weapons are too weak; Christ’s weapons are stronger and so must ours. We must appear to lose in order to win. We must become servants in order to rule. We must die in order to live. And this means that we must love the world even while it is still ugly and full of trash. We must love it because Christ already loves it. And He loved it while there was nothing to love in it.

Therefore, Class of 2010, as you go from Logos, be amateurs like Christ. Love the world back to its ancient loveliness.

Gift from my wife

2010-05-27T12:38:00.000-07:00

For the end of the school year my wife purchased the complete set of the "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" by Edward Gibbon. Picture provided. I just looked up the set on Amazon and brand new it costs $175. However, my wife (oh best beloved) found it new at a thrift store and in its wrapping; she paid a mere $4. Amazing. Is it possible for a person to buy something and steal it at the same time?

Posts on Gibbon will follow at a later date.

Art

2010-05-26T21:50:00.000-07:00

Art is made to move people: make them laugh, cry, act, etc.

If that is true, it seems that you should also ask: move people where or to what end?

Art moves people to consider their lives or to learn something or just simply to laugh, but it seems that art can also be said to move people so they view the art and the surrounding context (e.g. the world, the family, the club, the school, etc.) in a certain light. Simply put, the art draws people to the context and praises it so people appreciate the source of the art. Art makes the surrounding context more good, more true, and more beautiful. At least it is suppose to. Art is supposed to give the person greater enjoyment in the place they are, whether they are looking at a painting, a picture, listening to a choir, or seeing a movie. These things are saying that this specific location is worth being in at this time because these things are moving.

Art makes life enjoyable.

It makes the familiar seems strange; it makes us say "I have seen this a thousand times, but I have never seen this."

Seeing the World Aright

2010-05-06T21:18:00.000-07:00

"And--to say this also once more--all this involves no folly or denial of the girl's faults or sins. The vision of the perfection arises independently of the imperfection; it shines through her body whatever she makes of her body. Thus chastity is exhibited in the lecherous, and industry in the lazy, and humility in the proud, and truth in the false." -pg. 64 The Figure of Beatrice, Charles Williams

Useless Things

2010-05-04T21:47:00.000-07:00

It seems like parents/adults are the only ones who worry about the usefulness of something like Latin. Students don't care. They would play X-box and Halo all day, if they had the chance. What could be more useless?

Being as Surprise

2010-05-04T06:21:00.000-07:00

True personality is revealed when the person is surprising.

It is the surprising response, act, gesture, or look which shreads all appearances and reveals that the familiar is not; the predictable is not; the tame is not.

In reality, the person is other.

To not die

2010-05-03T19:31:00.000-07:00

From Augustine's Enchiridion:

"But in the future life he will not have the power to will evil; and yet this will not thereby restrict his free will. Indeed, his will will be much freer, because he will then have no power whatever to serve sin." -Pg. 79

The last part could be likened to having no power to die. The freedom to not sin is like the freedom to not die.

Which would immediately cause someone to complain that the powers higher up were chaining everyone to life.

Music

2010-05-02T19:21:00.000-07:00

I have been getting into Alexi Murdoch over the weekend. His "All My Days" has the best acoustic sound I have heard in a long time. He also has a very earthy, rich voice which carries well with the guitar. Check it out.

Words that Shape Worlds

2010-04-26T20:31:00.000-07:00

Recently, it has struck me that people are drawn to other people who talk about the world in a certain way. It is not so much the ideas or the things that they are talking about, but the way that they describe them. Some people are gifted with the ability to use words to shape the way people look at the world around them. There is a vision, if you will, that these people are constantly giving others a chance to glimpse. And this vision does more than float away; it shapes the reality in front of them. I think it has to do with the force of naming. This is the vision, so live the vision. This is who you are, so live who you are.

Augustine on Baptism

2010-04-23T09:02:00.000-07:00

When Augustine went up against the Pelagians of his day he appealed to baptism in a way that some parts of today's church cannot. He argued that one of the things Infant Baptism affirms is the doctrine of Original Sin. If the kid ain't a sinner, why else would he need the water?

Another thought: Does credo-baptism lend itself to a Pelagian view of original sin?

How about a bit of logic? If the guy is a sinner, then he needs baptism. He does not need baptism. Therefore the guy is not a sinner.

Chesterton on Poetry

2010-04-20T19:56:00.001-07:00

"And poetry without philosophy has only inspiration, or, in vulgar language, only wind."

pg. 126, Saint Thomas Aquinas: the dumb ox

Building Project in Mark

2010-04-20T17:22:00.000-07:00

My Logos Greek students and I are reading through the first bit of Mark and it struck me today that the beginning of the book sounds a lot like a building project. Mark 1:2-3:

"Behold, I send My messenger before Your face,

Who will prepare Your way before You.”

The voice of one crying in the wilderness:

‘ Prepare the way of the LORD;

Make His paths straight.’"

Especially the word "prepare": it is the Greek word: kataskuazo. This word shows up later in the New Testament in Hebrews as "build or built": Hebrews 3:3-4:

"For this One has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as He who built the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God."

In this passage the context is one of a building project, foreshadowed in the tabernacle and looking forward to the time of Christ. Connecting the dots with Mark, the beginning of Mark is the start of a new building project, a new house is being prepared, not like the tabernacle which Moses built, but a new house which is being built by Christ.

Chesterton on Humility

2010-04-15T11:51:00.000-07:00

"Pride flings frail palaces at the sky,

As a man flings up sand.

but the firm feet of humility

Take hold of heavy land.

Pride juggles with her toppling towers,

They strike the sun and cease,

But the firm feet of humility

they grip the ground like trees."

Augustine's Enchiridion

2010-04-13T17:37:00.000-07:00

"For when we ask whether someone is a good man, we are not asking what he believes, or hopes, but what he loves." -pg. 87

"For whatever one does either in fear of punishment or from some carnal impulse, so that it does not measure up to the standard of love which the Holy Spirit sheds abroad in our hearts--whatever it is, it is not yet done as it should be, although it may seem to be."-pg 90

"Moreover, passion decreases as love increases until love comes at last to

that fullness which cannot be surpassed, "for greater love than this no

one has, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Who,

then, can explain how great the power of love will be, when there will

be no passion for it to restrain or overcome? For, then,

the supreme state of true health will have been

reached, when the struggle with death shall be no more." -pg. 90

The Great Tradition

2010-04-10T20:37:00.000-07:00

From the Intellectual Life

"We must give ourselves from the heart, if truth is to give itself to us. Truth serves only its slaves."-pg. 573, A.G. Sertillanges

"Disraeli's saying that you may do what you please, provided it really pleases you."-pg. 573, A.G. Sertillanges

"Only we must search down into the depths where liking and spontaneous impulse are linked up with the gifts of God and His providence."-pg. 573, A.G. Sertillanges

"Genius is long patience."-pg. 575, A.G. Sertillanges

"Every truth is practical; the most apparently abstract, the loftiest, is also the most practical."-pg. 577, A.G. Sertillanges

Common Sense 101

2010-04-04T20:10:00.000-07:00

The Eschatological Economy

2010-03-31T15:35:00.000-07:00

"We are bringing one another into being or preventing one another from coming into being." -pg. 6

On Christian Doctrine

2010-03-27T11:54:00.000-07:00

Augustine writes:

“Whoever, then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought.” 1.36.40

“(From Song of Songs): 'Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are shorn, which came up from the washing, whereof every one bears twins, and none is barren among them.' Does the hearer learn anything more than when he listens to the same thought expressed in the plainest language, without the help of this figure? And yet, I don’t know why, I feel greater pleasure in contemplating holy men, when I view them as the teeth of the church, tearing men away from their errors, and bringing them into the Church’s body, with all their harshness softened down, just as if they had been torn off and masticated by the teeth….I recognize them under the figure of sheep that have been shorn, laying down the burthens of the world like fleeces, and coming up from the washing i.e. from baptism, and all bearing twins i.e. the twin commandments of love, and none among them barren in that holy fruit.” 2.6.7

“Whatever there is in the word of God that cannot, when taken literally, be referred either to purity of life or soundness of doctrine, you may set down as figurative.” 3.10.14

Martin Luther

2010-03-26T19:15:00.000-07:00

Alister McGrath's "In the Beginning: the story of the King James Bible" is an interesting read so far. He's covered the story of Gutenberg's printing press, which Gutenberg used to print indulgences to make the most bang for his buck.

McGrath also covered some of the political tensions surrounding the use of English vs. Latin/French. Latin and French were used by kings and those in authority while English was used by the laity and more common folk. In the 15th century this began to change when Henry V began to used English in various ways as king; this led various groups to follow his lead and use English in their gatherings and dealings. The other key shift toward English occurred with popular English literature: Canterbury Tales and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. This laid the groundwork for English to become the language of all English people.

McGrath has just dipped into the beginning of the Reformation and Luther's influence. He recount the infamous scene where Luther realizes that righteousness is imparted to sinners by God's gracious kindness and not by earning His favor by good works and such. The story goes that Luther discovered this in a room abbreviated with the Latin cl. Most people have assumed that it stands for the Latin word cloaca which is a sewer or in this case probably a privy. However, McGrath argues that this probably stands for the heated room in the monastery where monks would frequently stay during the winter when it was cold. So, the cl could stand for calidarium.

Chesterton

2010-03-25T17:30:00.000-07:00

So Kate and I have been reading selections from a book about G.K. Chesterton called "Common Sense 101: Lessons from G.K. Chesterton" by Dale Ahlquist. The author has grouped Chesterton into various topics and then write a sort of narrative which borrows heavily from Chesterton and then inserts direct quotes from him. It's a great collection to have if you want to be introduced to the great man by reading simple snippets and summaries from him. Here are some of our favorites from the last few reads:

In a letter to his future wife: "He wanted to have a simple house, a sofa for her, and no chairs, for he preffered sitting on the floor. There would be a box of chocolates, and the rest would be bread and water. They would have bad things in their house and make them good things. They would invite an occasional dragon to dinner."-pg. 258

On wonder: "The effect of this staleness is that same everywhere; it is seen in all drug-taking and dram-drinking and every form of the tendency to increase the dose. Men seek stranger sins or more startling obscenities as stimulants to their jaded sense. They seel after mad oriental religions for the same reason. They try to stab their nerves to life...they are walking in their sleep and try to wake themselves up with nightmares." -pg. 32

"Pride does not go before a fall. Pride is a fall." -pg. 33

"The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost. In one of my feet I can feel how strong and splendid a foot is; in the other I can realise how very much otherwise it might have been." -pg. 34

"If you wish to perceive that limitless felicity, limit yourself if only for a moment. If you wish to realise how fearfully and wonderfully God's image is made, stand on one leg. If you want to realise the splendid vision of all visible things--wink the other eye."-pg. 35

"The child is positively in love with limits. He uses his imagination to invent imaginary limits. (for instance, he has never been told that it is his moral duty to step on alternate paving-stones. And yet that's what he does.) He deiberately deprives this world of half its paving-stones, in order to exult in a challenge that he has offered to himself."-pg. 37

The author comments on this by saying: "This game of self-limitation is the principle behind every game. It means drawing a line and staying within it. It is one of the secret treasures of life. It begins with a child stepping on alternate paving-stones. It means sometimes standing on one leg. It means appreciating something more becuase you have given something else up. There is a theological term for this, too: sacrifice."-pg. 37

On Riddles of God: "We all feel the riddle of the earth without anyone to point it out. The mystery of life is the plainest part of it. The clouds and the curtains of darkness, the confounding vapors, these are the daily weather of this world. Whatever else we have grown accustomed to, we have grown accustomed to the unaccountable. Every stone or flower is a hieroglyphic of which we have lost the key; with every step of our lives we enter into the middle of some story which we are certain to mistunderstand."-pg. 40

Desiring the Kingdom 2

2010-03-08T20:15:00.000-08:00

In Desiring the Kingdom, James Smith makes some very insightful points about how the culture around us is full of liturgical practices which shape our desires and form how we view the world. We are primarily loving and desiring people as Augustine says: “My love is my weight, where it goes I go.” We can’t avoid our desire for things, we can only give them shape and direction. This is where malls and movies and the Church come into play. These places have a set of practices which they use to shape what we love and form us into certain kinds of human beings. If I hand a cashier an item and some money the cashier knows what to do with it, we don’t have decide what we are doing; we both know because we have done it a thousand times. Smith also points out how these liturgical practices take hold of us in ways that we are not perhaps aware of: bodies and imaginations. The mall doesn’t have a greeter handing out tracks about what the mall is aiming to do with us (no mission statements); the mall is mostly a place of doing, that is shopping. In some ways these cultural liturgies fly under our mental/world view radars because there are no words being used to set up an argument. There are bodies and pictures and habits and actions. No syllogisms. In this way, these places take hold of our guts. Overall, this discussion was very insightful and helpful in all the right ways.

The one critique that I have of this book, after some thought, is that Smith doesn’t discuss how people shape people. It seems like he missed another level of liturgies that can be found in our culture. People shape each other’s desires and practices by how we talk about the culture and about how we live with each other. There are liturgies within the broader liturgies which orient us and our desires, as we enter into the broad cultural liturgies of the mall, movies, and the Church. These liturgies are called families and friends. The people closest to us often have a greater liturgical force on us than the more distant liturgical places like the mall. Simply walking around in the mall isn’t enough for the mall to grab our guts; the people we walk around with at the mall push us in a far greater way than the mall could ever do. The same goes for movies and the Church. Our friend’s reactions to a movie shape our own reactions; our friend’s joke about how stupid the mall is shapes our view of the mall. This taps into an important part of man; man is liturgical which means that man is shaped by practices and by others who can be imitated. This also means that we more commonly love people first before we love places and institutions. We love our friends before we love the mall. We love our friends before we love a movie. We love our parents before we love the Church.

The Church is the Mother of Repetition

2010-02-12T15:35:00.000-08:00

It recently occurred to me that if the Church insists on a non-liturgical formula for worship, a sort of make-it-up-as-you-go approach, then the Church is missing a huge opportunity to train its people. If we look at the church service as a place of training, then the willy-nilly approach looks rather strange. It would be like a basketball coach holding practices, but never running the same drill more than once, or rather attempt to not run the same drill twice. As an athlete, I would get frustrated pretty fast.

The scenario might look like this:

Player: “Wait, I don’t know how to dribble the ball, how am I supposed to get it from this basket to that one?”

Coach: “Sorry. No repeats. You might get too comfortable with dribbling the ball and you might do it mindlessly. You always need to be thinking about how to dribble the ball otherwise you won’t really mean it.”

If the Church runs around doing random things in an unorganized fashion, then no wonder Christians don’t know how to be Christians. Nobody trained them. To go back to our analogy: we have a huge team that can’t dribble, but we really mean it when we have the ball. For those brief seconds. No wonder people leave our team: they get more training from the other team, than they get from their own team.

Repetition is the mother of all learning. And in the name of authenticity we have taught no one.

Desiring the Kingdom

2010-02-12T15:33:00.000-08:00

In Chapter 3, Smith points out that “going through the motions” is not as empty as some may think. If we are liturgical animals who are deeply shaped by what we do and practice, then even if the action is mindless, our bodies and imaginations are still being shaped and taught about how to view the world. He uses the example of Wolfe’s I am Charlotte Simmons to illustrate his point that bodies are more important than we think and that some things are not so much learned as absorbed, almost a kind of social osmosis. Smith points out that there are not three R’s in education but four: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and Rituals. He also argues that we don’t create desires; we simply point them and give them direction.

For Logos School

2010-01-30T19:58:00.000-08:00

Jesus School

It might come as a surprise but Logos is in

The business of healing the sick.

Healing is a high calling;

It’s what Jesus did most of his life.

Although, when he worked,

He didn’t have the air-conditioning

Or the polished basketball court

And the people he healed

Didn’t wear ties and jackets

Or skirts and blue sweater vests.

But none of that bothered Jesus;

He simply walked all over the country side

Like he owned the place

Telling people what to do:

Telling the blind to see walking trees,

Telling the lame to run the mile,

Telling the deaf to hear His disciples,

Who seemed to enjoy counting all those baskets of loaves and fish.

He even told the dead to open their eyes

And roll out bed

So they wouldn’t be late for school.

And yes, back in the day, Jesus was a student too.

He even attended a Greek class taught by the Apostle John

And on the first day of classes John told him:

“Jesus, in Greek class, your name is Logos.”

And it stuck.

So, here we are today, Jesus School,

Where the hungry are fed,

Where the crooked handwriting is made straight,

And where Mr. Garfield and Mr. Whitling sit with

First and Second graders at lunch time

Just like Jesus, who feasted with little boys

Who ran around at recess using sticks for guns.

And it’s the same everyday:

The ears of the deaf are opened to hear the Holy Sonnets.

The eyes of the blind are taught to see Classical Allusions.

The mute’s tongue is loosed to give a Confirmatio.

The feet of the lame are taught to run in Lacrosse.

The hands of the cripple are taught to shoot free throws.

And the bodies of the dead are given new life.

Leithart on Worship and Mercy

2010-01-24T19:38:00.000-08:00

Pastor Leithart had a great Eucharistic Meditation this morning on Worship and Mercy found here.

In short, he said we sometimes think the church is called only to preach the gospel and worship God or we sometimes think we have to choose between worship and mercy. But in reality that is a false choice. Mercy without Word and Sacrament is empty of life and worship without hospitality is like the Pharisees.

Water and Creation

2010-01-16T22:03:00.000-08:00

That water has an early entrance in the creation account of Genesis is a detail, in my opinion, worth considering. For why is water the chosen element? Why not fire or rock or nothing? It appears to be something of a workbench for the Creator as He begins His work. He doesn’t even do something with the water until the second day. Instead, He looks around and acts as if He needs a light so He can see what He is doing. It is as if God were wanting us to dip our toes in the water for a little while and enjoy it. Or perhaps that is what He did on that first day.

Packer on the Restraint of the Son's knowledge

2009-12-06T19:02:00.000-08:00

J.I. Packer, in a slick argument, sets forth a rather winsome and elegant explanation of the Son's limited knowledge even though He was also fully God. Here it is in a quick one-two punch:

"The God-man did not know independently, any more than He acted independently."

"His knowing, like the rest of His activity, was bounded by His Father's will. And therefore the reason why He was ignorant of the date of His return was not because He had given up the power to know all things at the incarnation, but because the Father had not willed that He should have this particular piece of knowledge while on earth, prior to His passion." -pg. 55, Knowing God

This is a great way to explain how Jesus didn't fully know that He would rise after His death, but that He had believed what His Father told Him. Jesus had have faith (had to trust) in His heavenly Father just as we need to have faith in Him too.

My Wife, My Home

2009-11-19T16:59:00.001-08:00

To Kate on her 24th Birthday, 2009.

My wife is my home,
Wherever we go, wherever we roam.
In our living room while she sits and she reads
I sit in my blue chair and consider her deeds.

Sometimes we are in the jungle, and she uses a machete
Cleaning out our bedroom, always on the ready.
She swings it high and she swings it low
She cuts up spiders in a single blow.
Then she picks up my clothes and swings out on a vine
Leaving our bed made and the room clean by nine.

Sometimes we are in a fairy tale, and she uses her magic skills
She plants every bean she finds, from here to the hills.
Then she waves her hands and she waters it all
And then she dances around, until the corn is nice and tall.
Then she whistles a tune and all the rabbits come out to see
As the amaryllis grows big and blooms prettily.

Sometimes we are at a construction site, and she uses big machines
They rumble and they growl and they blend food to smithereens.
Sometimes in the kitchen, food will fly as she cooks
So, she wears a pretty apron, just like all the books.
This makes her the boss and she tells me what to do:
Dice that onion and whip the moisture out of that potatoo.

Sometimes we are in a garden, and she weeds our house
She plucks up the chairs and vacuums and cleans like a mouse.
Then she rakes in my study and moves piles from here to there
So that when she is done, everything is in its place, even my hair.
Last she puts on a breathing mask and sprays down the shower
Calm and collected she blasts it clean in less than one hour.

This is my wife, this is my home.
Wherever we go, wherever we roam.

Teaching Quote

2009-11-04T16:54:00.000-08:00

"Even in order to understand we have to invent, or, that is, to reinvent, because we can't start from the beginning again. But I would say that anything is only understood to the extent that it is reinvented." -Jean Piaget

If by reinvent he means rethought, rediscovered, thought out by oneself, then I think he has a good point. If he means tearing the old down and discarding it for the reinvention that might not be accurate to the original, then he needs to be qualified.

An additional thought: the next generation is able to reinvent what came before in a faithful way that accurately represents what that older generation was doing only by the ever present loving guidance of God.

Language Quotes

2009-10-24T14:42:00.000-07:00

"Surely, learning the dictionary, as Gouin discovered, would never lead to the mastery of a language, and lists of disconnected words would not be helpful either toward the master of a language--if we consider mastery the ability to express one's own thoughts. " -pg. 107

"When the grammar-translation method was labelled tradional, old fashioned, and obsolete, both of the words, grammar and translation, took on a negative connotation and many teachers accepted the concept that 'language is something you do'. Therefore, they attempted to develop solely automatic responses and asked the students not to analyze what they were saying."-pg. 108

"We live in a system-oriented society where even the most humble worker needs to have a modicum of understanding of the system in which he is involved."-pg. 109

"Teaching the grammar of any language for grammar's sake is, hopefully, a thing of the past. There seems to be little value in memorizing rules verbatim, and the modern emphasis is better placed on the application of the rules: Nobody wants to eat the recipe, everybody prefers the cake!" -pg. 109

Teaching a Living Language, Ralph Hester ed.

Augustine

2009-10-21T10:38:00.000-07:00

"Everything which does not decrease on being given away is not properly owned when it is owned and not given." -Augustine.

Is there a pithier way to say this?

The gift that is truly possesed is one that grows when it is given.

The Beginning of Knowledge

2009-10-21T10:33:00.000-07:00

In order to become wise, you must first become foolish.

In order to learn, you must first be stupid.

The way up is first of all the way down.

From Infant to Lover

2009-10-11T18:01:00.000-07:00

In order to speak about something, one must love it.

In order to love something, one must know it.

In order to know something, one must study it.

In order to study something, one must be with it.

In order to be with something, one must have leisure.

Boredom

2009-10-11T17:59:00.000-07:00

"The true antithesis of love is not hate, but rather dispairing indifference; the feeling that nothing is important."

"A silent lover is one who doesn't know his job."

My Wife

2009-10-11T17:57:00.000-07:00

The lightning behind all this thunder.

Augustine on Different Interpretations of Scripture

2009-10-04T20:34:00.000-07:00

"How can it harm me if I understand the writer's meaning in a different sense from that in which another understands it? All of us who read his words do our best to discover and understand what he had in mind, and since we believe that he wrote the truth, we are not so rash as to suppose that he wrote anything which we know or think to be false. Provided, therefore, that each of us tries as best he can to understand in the Holy Scriptures what the writer meant by them, what harm is there if a reader believes what you, the Light of all truthful minds, show him to be the true meaning? It may not even be the meaning which the writer had in mind, and yet he too saw in them a true meaning, different though it may have been from this."

Confessions, St. Augustine, pg. 296.

Tolkien on Songs

2009-08-28T07:30:00.001-07:00

"As they sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and jealous love, the desire of the hearts of dwarves. Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick."-pg. 15, The Hobbit

Tolkien chalks the hobbit's feelings up to the music that the dwarves make and the things that they sing about. This shows how winsome music can be.

Lewis and Integration

2009-07-23T19:21:00.000-07:00

"The very power of Gaius and Titius depends on the fact that they are dealing with a boy: a boy who thinks that he is 'doing' his 'English prep' and has no notion that ethics, theology, and politics are all at stake. It is not a theory they put in his mind, but an assumption, which ten years hence, its origin forgotten and its presence unconcious, will condition him to take one side in a controversy which he never recognized as a controversy at all."-The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis, pg. 20.

Water and Creation

2009-06-17T16:33:00.000-07:00

“How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

Nicodemus famously raised this somewhat childish objection to Jesus’ declaration that he needed to be born a second time in order to see the kingdom of God. And often Nicodemus is written off as being a little slow on the uptake, that he didn’t realize Jesus was talking metaphorically. Come on, Nick. Jesus is not talking about real birth; he’s trying to use a picture to help you understand. Don’t you get it? Perhaps Jesus’ answer to his question is not “Whoa, where did that come from?” but rather “You’re thinking along the right lines, consider this: ‘unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.’” The problem is not that Nicodemus is looking for a womb, but rather where he is looking for that womb. He thinks he should look for a womb found in a mother, when in reality he should look for the womb found in the Spirit.

And where is that womb found? Look for the water. Where the water is, there the Spirit hovers. Genesis records it nicely: “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” There in those first waters the Spirit brought forth the creation. This was the first great birth. And now we have Jesus declaring that man needs to be born a second time. And that includes the creation. That same creation in the beginning needs those waters of the Spirit again. The world needs a new womb of water.

Fittingly, the Lord created the world to be filled to the brim with His grace and so it reflects His creative work in very tangible ways. This includes wombs and births. The common signal that a birth is about to happen should come to mind: “My water broke” is what women say. Technically, this is Amniotic fluid, which is mostly water and surrounds the new creation from two weeks after conception to a short time before delivery. It is not an accident that water plays a hand in this birth. Nicodemus would have known about this and so he is right to be looking for a womb.

This brings us to Baptism; the event we have been circling around without naming, particularly, immersion Baptism. What an elegant way to tie these threads together. The answer to Nicodemus’s question: “Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb?” is not far from the truth. Yes, the man must enter the womb a second time. He must enter the womb of water so the Spirit can hover over him and bring forth a new creation. And this is visibly and tangibly shown in immersion Baptism. The man was out of the water; now he is in the water; now he is fully covered by the water.

“Look, Billy there’s the creation story. See the water? The Spirit hovers over the water because He is at work on a new creation. Watch the man as the Spirit brings forth the new creation. See, the man is being born a second time. That’s what Nicodemus was asking about. And this is what Jesus meant.”

And so Nicodemus might seem to be a little childish with his question, but is that really so bad? We must become as little children in order to enter the kingdom of God and the only way to do that is to be born a second time.

The Great Emergence

2009-06-11T20:28:00.000-07:00

I just plowed through the first half of the newest book by Phyllis Tickle (What a name). In the first two chapters, she provides a simple scope of Christian history for the last two thousand years, hitting the key events that occurred every five hundred years: The Great Reformation (1517), The Great Schism (1054), and Gregory the Great/The Council of Chalcedon (540/451). (Notice they all have the word great in them; she notes this too) Her brief sketch makes more connections than I have seen in a while; her work here is worth the price of admission.

In this section, she briefly highlights three key developments in all three events. First, a more vital form of Christianity emerges. Second, the organized expression of Christianity is reconstituted into a more pure and less ossified expression of its former self. Third, Christianity spreads dramatically further.

For example, in the Great Schism the the East and the West divided and the East continued on its own path with out the Western church. The Eastern church has continued strong; the Western church reestablished itself and was strengthened also. Ultimately, Christianity spread. In the Reformation, the Church again divided and a more vital form of Christianity emerged: Protestantism. The Roman Catholic Church was changed and reconstituted itself in a better way with its Counter-Reformation. Christianity again spread: America.

It appears that this pattern holds well in these events. She walks through the Reformation in greater detail because of its proximity to our time. She highlights the influence of technology on the spread of the Reformation. She mentions the printing press and intrigingly the the fall of Constantinople in 1453 as two key events that pushed the Reformation. The Fall of Constantinople was important because it forced Eastern Christians into the West away from the Muslims coming in. This brought Greek and more of the classics to the West: Homor, Aristotle, Euclid, Ovid, Cicero, etc. This is another key pattern in each of these great events in history.

In this study, the question of Authority comes out of each movement: who is the authority? Tickle says that the same question is being asked in our time in two ways: What is human consciousness and what is the relation of all religions to one another.

The Voice of a Character

2009-06-04T11:48:00.000-07:00

When creating a character, choosing the right words is important because words show and reveal the character of the person. Words do this in two ways: first, which words the character uses and second, how those words are put together.

For example:

Know-it-all, Smart person: “It is a well known fact that birds congregate in the early autumnal light for the purpose of exploration pertaining to insects of a nutritional value.

Down-to-earth, Farmer: “Those birds like to get up early so they can catch some big, juicy worms for themselves.”

Urgent, emphatic, short choppy sentences: “The birds are eating the worms. They got to them early this morning.”

Pleasant, humorous, witty, comic tone: “That birds rise early in the morning to eat worms is a phenomenon beyond my expertise. It sounds about as delightful as getting up in the morning to give an elephant a bath. Not that I have ever experienced this thing called early morning. And, come to think of it, nor have I ever left my pillow during this thing called morning. I leave that sort of thing to the birds, as the saying goes.”

Notice the use of commas in the last one. Pauses reveal character too.

Tree of Tales: Mythopoeia

2009-05-29T07:33:00.000-07:00

Mythopoeia: "Story out of which ever varying meanings will grow." -Tolkien.

Kristin Johnson in "Tolkien's Mythopoesis" found in Tree of Tales, recounts Tolkien's view of story (mythopoeia) and how it shapes those who study and read them. How the old stories teach their readers to view the world as a story, leading their readers to understand the story they are in with a more keen vision. She sets forth that the wise and good characters in Tolkien's great work are the ones who read the stories and remember them so that they can understand what the Ring is and what to do with it and ultimately, how to defeat the Enemy. It is those characters who study and love the old stories who can resist the Ring's power and can perceive the world a right.

"The book begins with a Middle-earth from which story is rapidly being lost. One of Bilbo's distinguishing features is that he is both a story collector and a storyteller: a story lover. The reason Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry are able to journey (Tolkien repeatedly reminds us) is because they have benefited from Bilbo's love of stories and likewise love those stories. Although they, like all hobbits, also love stories about themselves, there is something more in many of Bilbo's tales. Knowing and believing the elves, for instance, not only makes these hobbits somehow different from other hobbits but also causes them to look about with different eyes." -pg. 34

"Celeborn, "the wisest of the elves," propounds: "Do not despise the lore that has come down from the distant years: for oft it may chance that old wives keep in memory word of things that once were needful for the wise to know." And thus a fragment of a rhyme, "repeated without understanding" by an "old wife" in Gondor, teaches Gandalf of the healing powers of the wild herb kingsfoil--thus saving the lives of Faramir, Eowyn, and Merry." -pg. 35

"Tolkien goes to some length to make clear that Boromir, brave and good as his initial intent might be, severly handicaps the Fellowship because he "care[d] little for lore, save the tales of old battles." Faramir was "otherwise in mind...a lover of lore and of music, and therefore by many in those days his courage was judged less than his brother's. But it was not so...He welcomed Gandalf at such time as he came to the City, and he learned what he could from his wisdom." -pg. 35

Thoughts on Economics in One Lesson

2009-05-28T09:37:00.000-07:00

Hazlitt’s book sets forth capitalistic economics in a very simple format. He starts with a very basic illustration and then walks through several more complicated examples from various parts of the economy, anything from Public projects to Minimum Wage Laws. He wrote the book in 1946 and republished it in 1979, adding one chapter about the economy at that time. Even though it is dated by a few decades, his thoughts are very applicable to today’s economy, especially the economic problems facing the nation right now. Overall, it is a good introduction into basic practical problems an economist faces when considering how wealth moves around in society. A few helpful examples from his book.

First, his lesson: when looking at the economy two important factors need to be considered before trying to solve any problem. First, the economist needs to indentify all the ramifications of any economic action. Second, the economist needs to identify every group involved in the situation and not just focus on the special interests of one group. These two principles can be summarized by saying: every economist needs to understand the whole picture and recognize the implications of any action not only on this little area directly in front of him, but also on other groups today and in the future. This principle may be simple to understand, but as Hazlitt begins to apply it, he makes it clear that economics is not about quick and simple solutions. Rather, it is a long and hard process which requires wisdom, skill, and time; something most people do not want to work at or wait for.

Second, one of Hazlitt’s applications: Federal loans. He starts the discussion, showing how these violate the lesson of his book. These loans focus on one particular group’s needs and issues while at the same time forgetting the effects this has on the other groups in the economy. Simply put: Where does the loan come from? Any loan supplied by the government is a loan coming not from the government, but from the people whom the government taxes, which means the people really making the loan are the taxpayers.

This action Hazlitt says hurts the economy in two ways: first, it pulls money from the person who has a good business and is helping the economy, and second, it gives money to a person who has a bad business and who is not helping the economy. This means that the government is taking money away from the good business, which could be using the money to buy more products and encourage more business in the economy. Instead, the money is being redistributed by the government to another business which is hurting the economy. And the important thing to realize is that this bad business is a risky investment and may not be able to repay the loan back, which means that the taxpayers’ money probably will not come back to the taxpayers. This means the good business just lost money it could have used in the economy. Instead of the good business using the money, the government took it and buried it in the bad business. Not the smartest may to handle money. Hazlitt makes the point: “This is only another way of saying that the government lenders will take risks with other people’s money (the taxpayers’) that private lenders will not take with their own money” (42). A good private investor would realize the risks involved in loaning to a poor business, but the government doesn’t see that because the government does not have a limited income; if it loses money it can get more money by taxing. There are no consequences for the government’s actions.

This issue is very applicable to today’s situation. This morning on the radio I heard about GM’s possible bankruptcy and the $20 Billion that the government had lent to them to keep their business going. The news reporter explained that the company was making more cars than people were buying: they sold only 2 Million cars in 2008, 1 Million less than 2007. What is interesting, as the reporter noted, is the government is handling the situation by giving money to this company in order to keep it afloat and that money is coming from taxpayers. Essentially, the taxpayers are being forced to buy cars which they will not have or use. The alternative is to let the company do its thing and hope the public begins to buy more cars. This tactic is long term looking and means that the company will probably fail. The government can “solve” the problem now and so everyone is gung-ho for it. But this violates Hazlitt’s principle of looking at all who are affected and looking long term before trying to fix the situation.

A key question that Christians need to be asking themselves is how much of Hazlitt’s principle is good and what needs to be tossed? Should we really allow a company to sink if it is having financial problems? What about all those people who are losing their jobs? Often Hazlitt comes off sounding like an economic evolutionist: survival of the fittest is the only the way the economy succeeds. Even though he wants to look at every aspect of the economy when a problem arises, he is very individualistic and autonomous when talking about businesses failing. There is more at play than just a company going down: there are real people who are losing jobs and money. What should the Church do in such a situation? How does the Body of Christ help in this hard circumstance?

Hazlitt, Henry. Economics in One Lesson. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1979.

Thoughts on School

2009-05-27T21:10:00.000-07:00

At recess, I feel a little like Gandalf, walking among the Hobbits of the Shire. Everyone is intent on playing and having fun, but I can’t join in because I am suppose to be busy, puffing smoke rings and looking wise.

Dreams of Flying

2009-05-24T23:39:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures by an artist named Jan Von Holleben. Check out his website some time for more pictures like these: http://www.janvonholleben.com/index.php.

Haiku To Read on the Playground

2009-05-04T20:36:00.000-07:00

A warm cup of tea
And the ticking of
The clock.

Kneeling on the floor
A brown jacket
In my face.

Water up to his waist
A camera flash lightens
Both of their faces.

Gilead: A Novel

2009-03-09T20:30:00.000-07:00

"This is an important thing, which I have told many people and which my father told me, and which his father told him. When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think. What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation? If you confront insult or antagonism, your first impulse will be to respond in kind. But if you think, as it were, This is an emissary sent from the Lord, and some benefit is intended for me, first of all the occasion to demonstrate my faithfulness, the chance to show that I do in some small degree participate in the grace that saved me, you are free to act otherwise than as the circumstance would seem to dictate. You are free to act by your own lights. You are freed, at the same time, of the impulse to hate or resent that person. He would probably laugh at the thought that the Lord sent him to you for your benefit (and his), but this is the perfection of the disguise, his own ignorance of it." pg. 124

Melanchthon: Praeceptor Germaniae, 1497-1560

2009-02-18T17:14:00.000-08:00

I have recently been reading a biography on Philip Melanchthon and the author, Joseph Stump, points out at the beginning where Philip got is last name. He was of German descent and so he had a German last name: Schwarzerd, which means Black Earth. Apparently Philip's teacher suggested that he change his last name into its Greek equivalent, which was a common practice during the Reformation. Thus, he took μελα for black and χθον for earth, which made μελαχθον.

Pretty sweet idea. It sounds cool too.

Children of Grace

2008-12-31T08:56:00.000-08:00

“To feel sacrifice consciously as self-sacrifice argues a failure in love.” –pg. 134

“When a job is undertaken from necessity, or from a grim sense of disagreeable duty, the worker is self-consciously aware of the toils and pains he undergoes, and will say: ‘I have made such and such sacrifices for this.’ But when the job is a labor of love, the sacrifices will present themselves to the worker—strange as it may seem—in the guise of enjoyment.” –pg. 134

“It is because, behind the restrictions of the moral code, we instinctively recognize the greater validity of the law of nature, that we do always in our heart of hearts prefer the children of grace to the children of legality.” –pg. 135

“A passion of this temper does not resign itself to sacrifice, but embraces it, and sweeps the world up in the same embrace.” –pg. 136

From:
Sayers, Dorothy L. The Mind of the Maker. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1979.

Augustine on Love

2008-12-27T12:27:00.000-08:00

“My love is my weight, where it goes I go.”

Quoted from:
Augustine, Confessions, 13.9

Teaching: Shaping Loves

2008-12-27T12:25:00.000-08:00

“The vocation given to Christian institutions is the same one given to Christians individually. It is, in the words of the encyclical Vertatis Splendor, a “vocation to perfect love.” Such a vocation is not voluntaristic in character; it is not realized by human effort alone. Therefore perfect love does not imply a kind of naive perfectionism. It does, though, personalize the end or goal of education. The purpose of education is not only to acquire knowledge or skills, important though these are, but to become a particular kind of person.” –pg. 139

“One cannot force love; love comes as a gift. Yet as a virtue, love is also a habit, a way of being formed. And all education is ultimately formation in love of something. As Augustine states, “Whether for good or for evil, each man lives by his love.” –pg. 140

“In the words of Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper, “The true antithesis of love is not hate but despairing indifference, the feeling that nothing is important.”” –pg. 140

“In fact, as David B. Hart has emphasized, divine beauty inflames desire, stretching one “out toward an ever greater embrace of divine grace.” Thus, the “Trinitarian love of God—and the love God requires of creatures—is eros and agape at once.” Education has to do with cultivating the right kinds of desires, the right kind of loves. Hart thus rightly concludes that for Christian thought “delight is the premise of any sound epistemology.” –pg. 141

“In his Panegyric in praise of Origen, Gregory focuses not so much on his teacher’s erudition as on recounting how Origen “in accepting as his students Gregory and his brother first made friends with these young men—and did it as if it were a valuable achievement on Origen’s side to have such friends. Gregory felt like Jonathan embraced by this academic David.” That Origen saw friendship as a cornerstone of education indicates that he understood education as formation in a way of life. “The teachers of Alexandria were not interested solely in conveying knowledge or transmitting intellectual skills. They were interested in moral and spiritual formation….the school of Alexandria was a school for training in virtue.” Such formation in fact led Gregory to drop his career in law; he went on to become a well-known bishop.” Pg. 142

Quoted From:
Newman, Elizabeth. Untamed Hospitality: Welcoming God and Other Strangers. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2007.

And Yours are Mine

2008-12-23T15:32:00.000-08:00

The Modern world is awash in Envy.

The body of Christ is no less free of this poison. Some strive to have someone else's position; some wish they had thought of that ministry or work first; some wish they could be as skilled in speaking or singing. This kind of thinking is destructive not only because it divides, but also because it falls into the Modern belief that people are autonomous and can choose what they want to be or do. This thinking makes people believe that if they had that position, talent, salary, car, or fill-in-the-blank, then they would be equally effective with that talent as that other person or just as happy with that car or salary. This thinking says that if you want something then you just have to go out and take it.

But this thinking completely undermines one of the foundational principles of the Body of Christ. In the High-Priestly Prayer, the Lord prayers to the Father for those "Whom you have given, for they are Yours. And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine." This is how we should view the Body of Christ and the talents and offices that each member has been given. We need to understand fundamentally that what each member of the body has, we all have together. If one person is a good speaker, we all are good speakers. If one person is skillful in music, then we all are skillful in music. There is no exclusive copyright on the gifts that our Heavenly Father has given to the Church because we follow the example that He and His son have set. Yours are Mine. Your gifts are my gifts. My gifts are your gifts. We are one in Him just as He and His Father are one. We have because He first gave His Son and then He gave His Spirit and then He gave each of us to each other. There should not be any envy in the Church because we are being built into the Body of Christ and if the Body has a mouth, then whole Body has a mouth. If feet, then the Body has feet. And this understanding exposes any place that envy might hide because there is no such thing as envy if we already have the thing that we want. And we should thank our Heavenly Father for the other members of the Body, specifically because we have them and we can enjoy having them and their gifts and abilities. After all, if we didn't have feet where would the walking be?

Movie Review: Oasis

2008-12-09T20:02:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, I got to watch "Oasis." A Korean film written and directed by Chang-dong Lee. He has a couple others that I now want to see.

As I say about every Flannery O'Connor story, the story is like eating rocks and it makes you enjoy it. This movie hunts the viewer down and drags him into the light of truth. It will rub you all the wrong ways and make you like it.

To cut to the chase, the movie is about a young man who is socially ackward, stupid, insulting, and just plain disgusting. You hate him from the start. The other main character is a woman who suffers from cerebral-palsy (the actress does not in real life, but she played the part amazingly). The young idiot meets this woman and somehow they begin to build a friendship (I am skipping a lot of the details so as not to spoil it for those who have not seen it yet). Two quick observations: first, the director crafted the movie in such a way that by the end the audience cares deeply for the two characters and the friendship that has developed. The movie stacks it that way. The audience can't not like these two people. It's amazing. Second, throughout the movie the cerebral palsy woman is seen in these magical realism moments where she is not handicapped, but can walk around on her own. And it dawned on me the other day that these are vital scenes for the movie because the director is trying to convince his audience to see this cerbral palsy woman not as less than human, but as a person with hopes, feelings, and loves. What is really amazing is that the director is trying to guide the audience into using its imagination rightly to visualize this woman as a person.

I don't think the director is a Christian, but what an important thing Christians can and should learn from this movie; how to view those who are disabled. And I believe Christians should take it to the next level; we should view these ones who are handicapped through a Christian Imagination recognizing the eschatological hope of the already/not yet of the Resurrection. These ones, if Christians, are already perfected humans, but they are not yet fully healed.

The other profound truth of the movie is just how shocking sin is and how disgusting sinners really are. We don't really understand the grossiness of sin. How much it hurts. How much it burns. How much it kills. This movie does not hold back at all. And some how the audience is given this strange perspective of watching two creatures who are in some way freaks and then the audience falls in love with them and their story. This must be a small glimpse of what the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit see when they look down on humanity in all its screwed up mess. And the Son took that mess and walked in it. What a strange God.

Warning: This movie is not rated and it has some pretty graphic sex scenes, which are not shot erotically, but can be very disturbing; I left at those points. I actually think the movie would have worked just fine without these scenes. Just a warning.

T.S. Eliot on Literature

2008-12-05T16:50:00.000-08:00

“For literary judgment we need to be accurately aware of two things at once: of “what we like,” and of “what we ought to like.” Few people are honest enough to know either. The first means knowing what we really feel: very few know that. The second involves understanding our shortcomings; for we do not really know what we ought to like unless we also know why we ought to like it, which involves knowing why we don’t yet like it. It is not enough to understand what we ought to be, unless we know what we are; and we do not understand what we are, unless we know what we ought to be. The two forms of self-consciousness, knowing what we are and what we ought to be, must go together.
It is our business, as readers of literature, to know what we like. It is our business, as Christians, as well as readers of literature, to know what we ought to like. It is our business as honest men not to assume that whatever we like is what we ought to like; and it is our business as honest Christians not to assume that we do like what we ought to like.”

“Religion and Literature” by T.S. Eliot, in Religion and Literature: Essays in Theory and Criticism, pg. 28-29

Pieper on Leisure: The Argument of Wonder from St. Thomas

2008-11-13T17:18:00.000-08:00

I was just flipping back through Pieper's Leisure and found the slickest proof for the Incarnation of Christ supporting the fact of His humanity. It comes from St. Thomas who is arguing against the Apollinarians.

Pieper, first, establishes the argument that God does not feel wonder because He knows all things intimately and also because wonder can only be felt by a person who knows that he doesn't understand a thing fully, like existance.

Then, St. Thomas cites Luke 7:9 "Jesus heard this and was astounded or wondered." Pieper continues, "But if Jesus could be astounded, then, there must have been something in Him, 'apart from the Divine logos and the sense-perceiving soul.'" Thus, He must have been fully human with a human reason which could feel wonder.

Pieper on Leisure: Wonder

2008-11-13T17:03:00.000-08:00

"The commonplace mind, rendered deaf-mute, finds everything self-explanatory. But what really is self-explanatory? Is it self-explanatory, then, that we exist? Is it self-explanatory that there is such a thing as "seeing"? These are questions that someone who is locked into the daily world cannot ask; and that is so because such a person has not succeeded, as anyone whose senses (like a deaf person) are simply not functioning..." pg. 101

"Rather, wonder is the beginning in the sense of the 'principle, the abiding, ever-intrinsic origin of philosophizing." pg. 106

"In wonder, there is something negative and something positive. The negative aspect is that the person who feels wonder does not know something, does not grasp something--he does not know, 'what is behind it all'; as Thomas put it, 'The cause of our wonder is hidden to us.' He who feels wonder, does not know, or does not know completely, does not comprehend. He who knows, does not feel wonder." pg. 106

"It could not be said that God experiences wonder, for God knows in the most absolute and perfect way." pg. 106

"The one who wonders is one who sets out on a journey, and this journey goes along with the wonder: not only that he stops short for a moment, and is silent, but also that he persists in searching." pg. 106

"Wonder is defined by Thomas as the Desiderium sciendi, the desire for knowledge, active longing to know." pg. 107

"We are essentially viatores, travelers, pilgrims, 'on the way,' we are 'not-yet' there." pg. 107

"We are not, but we hope to be,"-Pascal. pg. 107