Theme and Variations

Mundelein Power Point Presentation

2011-08-08T12:56:00.003-04:00

If you were at the recent conference at Mundelein, and are interested in my PowerPoint presentation, I'm happy to send it your way. I'm not certain how to upload this to my blog, so please email me at mattsond@msu.edu if you would like to have a copy of this. I recorded my talk, and will make a video format of the presentation, as well as having just the Power Point presentation as well, which anyone is free to use.

You'll notice that I haven't been very active on my blog, and that it doesn't deal directly with the topic of our recent conference, but I have written quite a bit about suffering on my blog over the years--this blog essentially was a working out of the issues of pain associated with the topic of our conference.

I have several "tags" which would apply to the topic, if you're interested in viewing the archives of my blog.

Here is a link to all of my posts which I wrote having to do with suffering.

For a link to anything concerning the book I'm writing, click on this link.

Please pray for my ex-girlfriend Meg and her salvation. She's a wonderful woman, but who has now embraced atheism, sadly, and I continually pray for her salvation. Much of the consolation from the talk about wine which I talked about this past weekend was in response to losing this woman from my life, and hoping at the time that she would become my wife. All of my posts dealing with me confronting the pain of losing her can be found here.

Thank you for coming to the conference. I will keep you all in my prayers, and covet yours. God bless you, and thanks for coming to the conference.

The End of a Chapter

2011-02-23T23:21:00.005-05:00

Call me shallow, but I happened to have a drink with my former girlfriend, and found great relief in the experience. I haven't seen her in about two and a half years and enough time had gone by where I realized that if I saw her again, I wouldn't fall madly in love with her all over again, as had been the case for the first year and a half after we dated. We had some email contact a few months ago, and decided to grab a drink sometime, and that sometime was yesterday.

It was very good to see her, and though I didn't fall madly in love with her again, I saw clearly again what I had loved about her so much. We filled each other in on our lives, what we had been up to in the long time we hadn't seen each other, and eventually our discussion turned towards relationships. I told her that I had embraced the bachelor life, that I was no longer expecting to be married, and that I was done with dating websites, or even asking anyone out. (Which is true--I'm such an itinerant blogger these days that momentous decisions like that aren't blogged about. Bottom line: I'm tired of looking, so I'm giving it up, and choosing to be single. God will have to speak from a cloud or something for me to get married. The search is a pain in the ass, and I'm done.) Anyway, I asked her if she was still with the guy she had been dating when we last saw each other, and she told me that yes, indeed she was. I have to be honest, that was a bit of salt rubbed into a wound which I thought was completely healed, but the moment passed quickly enough. She then proceeded to tell me that he has been unemployed for two years, and that he was even fired from Barnes and Noble, where they had met, because, in her words, "he makes bad choices," which I interpreted as meaning that he got himself fired. For awhile, he was living with her, because he had nowhere else to go, but now is living with his aunt and uncle. The guy's 39.

I suppose it's a reflection on me that I take some satisfaction in the fact that my replacement is a loser. I had manufactured all kinds of things about this guy in my mind, and none of them are true. She didn't choose an upgrade.

I do find it sad, however, that she hasn't kicked this guy to the curb. It seems in my mind that she doesn't feel she deserves a good man, but all I can do about that is pray for her.

Random Thoughts

2010-10-08T23:18:00.003-04:00

I had a strange and surprising dream the other day. I dreamed about Meg for some reason, and in this dream, I learned that Meg was about to get married. In my dream, this filled me with an aching feeling, and much sadness. It seems strange to me that I would dream this, after being apart for four years, far longer than the year and a half we were together. I wasn't sure what to make of it, but the feeling I had in that dream has lingered ever since. I suppose it's never possible to excise a person from your psyche. Which is probably a good thing.

On another note, I've lost 20 pounds in three weeks. This Optifast program really works, but man, I am often hungry! I've gone off the program a few times, but I'm still losing, so this is encouraging. It's nice to fit into pants that once fit, but haven't for quite some time, and soon I'll be out of XXL shirts, and back into XL...then on my way to L. God help me, I want to be an L again!

The Gym

2010-09-23T11:38:00.003-04:00

I'm not a fan of "the gym." I'm filled with all kinds of prejudices wrapped around the whole milieu of "going to the gym," or "working out." I remember in college hearing guys talk about working out, or how they needed to get to the gym, and within me I silently judged them for being so shallow and self-absorbed. I quietly mocked them in my own mind, all the while celebrating my lack of concern over such things.

I think this all began in school, when phys ed class seemed like the biggest joke on the planet. Even from a young age, I viewed the cultural focus on sports to be silly, and that sports were unimportant to society as a whole, and in fact the whole world of sports in my mind seemed at times idolatrous. (I still believe this, to a certain extent, and find it obscene that sports figures earn multi-million dollar contracts, when I question the actual positive contributions professional sports makes to society as a whole. I think, overall, the influence of professional sports is a negative one, but that could still be part of my bias--but a bias I'm willing to hang onto, even though I'm attempting to shed others).

After going to the gym yesterday for the first time in ages, I still don't like it. But I'm going to go and stick it out. I had a rough time yesterday, only because this diet I'm on is so low in calories that my body didn't react well to what I was putting it through. Several times while doing some work with the machines, I felt as if I was going to pass out or puke. No pain, no gain, but I was shocked at how light headed I was. I had to stop short because I was afraid I was going to pass out. I was the object of concern from the trainers, and the women in my class--a little humbling, to say the least, but I couldn't really help the condition it put me in.

I'm going to try and reboot my relationship with exercise, and the gym. Through some strange manifestation of pride in my life, I have wanted to always shun any association with going to the gym, or working out, but I realize now that this has only been detrimental to me. 100 years ago people got plenty of exercise living their lives--lifting hay bales, feeding cattle, sowing corn. I get paid to sit on my arse all day, and play trombone. That's it. If I'm not moving my body, I'm not honoring the image of God within me by striving to be healthy. I suppose the gym is the place where most people who care about staying healthy go these days, so apparently this needs to include me.

I am getting the "eye of the tiger" with this weight loss program. I'll be involved with the program for 18 weeks, and I asked the doctor the other day what's possible in those nearly five months. He told me that the program will be as effective as the effort I put into it. This resonates with the musician in me--I'm a professional because I worked at it, hard, to become one, and didn't let go of the dream I had as a high school student. I can be neurotically myopic with things in my life, when I want to get something accomplished, and I'm going to try and be this way with this part of my life. I'm tired of living this way, at weighing this much, and I want to change the remainder of my life on this earth, and never again be above 200 lbs., Lord willing. The doctor told me that he's seen people like me lose 100 lbs in five months. That's a goal worth aspiring towards, and I'm going to do everything in my power to make it happen.

My program will be completed on January 19, 2011. I'm aiming for 100 lbs. loss in that time, which is a huge and daunting task, but I want to reach that goal more than anything. May God give me the grace to continue on. My plan as a reward for all that effort is going to the Caribbean or South America in the first part of February. Costa Rica has some adventure tours, which require a lot of physical activity, and that sounds like a hell of a lot of fun...especially for a guy that weighs 185 instead of 285.

Weight Loss: First week.

2010-09-22T18:07:00.004-04:00

The first week has been pretty dramatic. I had my first weigh in today, and I've lost 12.4 lbs. I know such a dramatic drop won't happen next week, since today, I already saw less than a pound loss from the day before. The first week apparently the water that one's body has been hanging onto is ejected from the body, and now, the slower, more steady weight loss will happen. The doctor is hoping for three lbs. off next week...I'm going to be motivated to exercise to get that up to six pounds, if I can. I'd like to have 20 pounds off in three weeks--what a boost in morale that would be!

This fast weight loss is something I like about this program--and I know it's safe, since I'm going to the doctor's office once a week, and they also do lab work on me as well. I'm going to be working with a personal trainer tonight for the first time, and I going to really pick her brains about what I should be doing when I go to the gym.

I have a bit of an arrogant attitude about the gym. I've always in my mind mocked people who flock to the gym, and who are so concerned about their appearances that they have to "work out." That hasn't worked out well for me! It's a strange shade of pride that has kept me from wanting to be "one of them," and I know I look down on those I perceive to be "gym rats."

I hope to reformat my view of exercise through this program, and I really want to avail myself of the resources offered to me, such as the gym and the personal trainer. I'm coming to view this as a rebirth of sorts. I'm living off of a liquid diet. One could say that I'm not mature enough for solid food, but hopefully through this reenvisioning process, I'll finally grow up concerning food, and use it responsibly. I want to enjoy food again, in all its varied wonder, but I can't use it as a medication any longer. God help me, I want to succeed!

Long time, no post!

2010-09-18T17:29:00.004-04:00

It's been quite awhile since I've swung by Theme and Variations. It's a little dusty from wont of use, I suppose, but I've decided to begin posting a few thoughts on a new development in my life. I'm on a serious diet, and a serious bootcamp that will last for 18 weeks.

I began this new program this past Wednesday. I have decided that as far food is concerned, and my relationship with it, I need a complete reboot of the system, and a reformat of the hard drive. In my 40 years of life, I've come to be an abuser of food, not merely a user of food. Food was given by God in part to be enjoyed, through our senses, but just all things sensual, there can easily be abuse of the good gifts of God. This is the story of my relationship with food.

I'm viewing these three or so months as a bit of penance for abusing food for so long, and in that context, I'm thinking I'll be able to stay on the straight and narrow. It's also one of those programs where you drop weight like you're jumping out of an airplane, which is tremendously exciting, and according to most research, the fast weight loss is the loss that stays, contrary to popular sentiment that "slow and steady wins the race." I've been on this program since Wednesday, and I've dropped quite a few pounds, and I think by next Wednesday, I will have dropped at least ten pounds, and probably a bit more, if it keeps at this rate.

The other reason I decided to go with this program is that it requires you to go into the doctor's office once a week for a check up, to make sure all is well. They routinely check blood levels and the like, so though it's a very low calorie diet, they keep track of how you're doing, so you know you're being healthy. They also require participants to attend a two hour meeting/work out once a week, since it's important that any lasting change becomes a lifestyle reboot as well. I've come to the realization that I've never allowed myself to view myself as a "fit" person, for some bizarre psychological reason that escapes me, but is really unimportant. I'm choosing with my rational mind to view myself as someone who can indeed be fit, and gain control over food again, through the grace of God. And as St. Augustine says, the grace of God operates through "secondary means," and so the choice to invest in this weight loss program I feel is a direct expression of God's grace in my life. I firmly believe that this three month crazy diet is the kind of Draconian measure that I need in my life to gain mastery over this part of my life.

I've been thinking a lot about my relationship with food, and I suppose the next three months the particular "variation" I'll be focusing on will be my musings on weight loss, food, gluttony, and the grace of God.

An Update

2010-06-24T00:58:00.003-04:00

It's been ages since I've updated my blog. I suppose blogging has lost a bit of its appeal, for whatever reason. Perhaps Facebook has taken its toll, but I also think that for a time, my blog was a needed outlet for a lot of rumination that apparently now takes place in other ways.

I spoke with a priest for about 45 minutes today about the talk I'm going to be giving at a Catholic conference this July. I'll be speaking about my journey "back to Rome," and then the next day, I'll be talking to a bunch of clergy from the Diocese of Chicago. Rumor has it that even Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago, and the leader of the United States Conference of Bishops, will be there in attendance. This is very exciting, and humbling, all at the same time. One thing I know for sure: I'm the closest I've ever been to being in the center of God's will, and that's a darn good place to be.

Russian Music, Culture, and the Pope

2010-05-23T00:45:00.003-04:00

I just stumbled on this fascinating article on some words of Pope Benedict which followed a concert of Russian music that was presented in honor of his birthday. He's spot on with his reference to some of the great Russian composers and how they incorporated Russian liturgical music into their compositions. He's a brilliant man!

Modern Culture Risks Forgetting Christian Heritage
VATICAN CITY, 21 MAY 2010 (VIS)

Yesterday evening in the Vatican's Paul VI Hall, Benedict XVI attended a concert in honour of his birthday and the anniversary of his election as Pope, offered by Kirill I, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. The concert, which included pieces by nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian composers, was played by the National Orchestra of Russia conducted by Carlo Ponti, with the Synodal Choir of Moscow and the Horn Capella of St. Petersburg.

At the end of the concert, which was part of the initiative "Days of Russian Culture and Spirituality in the Vatican", the Holy Father listened to a message sent by Patriarch Kirill and was greeted by Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk, president of the Department for External Church Affairs of the Patriarchate of Moscow and composer of one of the pieces played during the concert. The Pope then pronounced a brief address.

"Deep in these works", he said, "is the soul of the Russian people, and therewith the Christian faith, both of which find extraordinary expression in divine liturgy and in the liturgical chants with which it is always accompanied. There is, in fact, a close and fundamental bond between Russian music and liturgical chant. It is in the liturgy and from the liturgy that a large part of the artistic creativity of Russian musicians is released and expressed, giving life to masterpieces which deserve to be better known in the West".

Such nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian composers as Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov "treasured the rich musical-liturgical heritage of Russian tradition, re-modelling it and harmonising it with musical themes and experiences of the West. ... Music, then, anticipates and in some way creates encounter, dialogue and synergy between East and West, between tradition and modernity.

"It was of just such a unified and harmonious vision of Europe that the Venerable John Paul II was thinking when, referring to the image of the 'two lungs' suggested by Vjaceslav Ivanovic Ivanov, he expressed his hope in a renewed awareness of the continent's profound and shared cultural and religious roots, without which today's Europe would be deprived of a soul or, at least, victim of a reduced and partial vision".

"Modern culture, particularly in Europe, runs the risk of amnesia, of forgetting and thus abandoning the extraordinary heritage aroused and inspired by Christian faith, which is the essential framework of the culture of Europe, and not only of Europe. The Christian roots of the continent are, in fact, made up not only of religious life and the witness of so many generation of believers, but also of the priceless cultural and artistic heritage which is the pride and precious resource of the peoples and countries in which Christian faith, in its various expressions, has entered into dialogue with culture and the arts".

"Today too these roots are alive and fruitful in East and West, and can in fact inspire a new humanism, a new season of authentic human progress in order to respond effectively to the numerous and sometimes crucial challenges that our Christian communities and societies have to face: first among them that of secularism, which not only impels us to ignore God and His designs, but ends up by denying the very dignity of human beings, in view of a society regulated only by selfish interests".

The Holy Father concluded: "Let us again let Europe breathe with both lungs, restore a soul not only to believers, but to all peoples of the continent, promote trust and hope, rooting them in the millennial experience of the Christian faith. The coherent, generous and courageous witness of believers must not now be lacking, so that together we may look to our shared future, a future in which the freedom and dignity of all men and women are recognised as a fundamental value, in which openness to the Transcendent, the experience of faith, is recognised as an essential element of the human being".

Shakespeare and Chastity

2010-05-20T02:26:00.002-04:00

Here is a terrific article on Shakespeare and chastity that I read tonight at First Things that I think is worth sharing.

Socializing

2010-05-02T01:35:00.002-04:00

I went out with some friends from work tonight for drinks, in celebration of my 40th birthday. I'll say this: without Christ, life is vacuous and bereft of any meaning at all. If we don't view life from the context of eternity, banality rules the day.

Papist Matters

2010-05-01T01:11:00.003-04:00

As I'm now a dyed in the wool Papist, I suppose from time to time this blog of mine will be the home of matters concerning Rome. Including this post.

One thing that has been an interesting facet of my conversion to Catholicism has been the veneration of the saints. That's one of those aspects of Catholicism that always caused me to scratch my head, and say, "what's the point of that? We've got a direct line to the Creator of the universe, so why should we bother with intermediaries?" I never viewed it, however, as worship of saints--I had been to too many midnight Masses not to understand that veneration of the saints meant asking them to pray for us, but it still didn't make much sense. I knew that, as crazy as Catholics might seem to my Protestant views, no one espoused worship of anyone but God, so it was an oddity that didn't make much sense to me.

Now, naturally, as a Catholic, I see it as an extension of the "Communion of the Saints," and more like a conversation with a Godly man or woman who's gone before us. I ask my brother to pray for me, and what I like about Catholics is that if I've got a problem, let's say, with making up a recipe in the kitchen for a baking competition, I can now appeal to the Patron Saint of Bakers, who happens to be Saint Honore, and plead with him to pray that I get some insight into why my cake keeps flopping. And I don't say that in jest--I view the saints now as my brothers and sisters, and since I believe in eternal life, I believe that they are the literal "holy host" around us, and I believe that the saints honestly still have the capacity to care for us, just as we care for those who are alive and present with us today. The next time I enter a baking competition, I'll appeal to Saint Honore to help pray for some special graces, which I just happen to think is very, very cool. And theologically sound.

The relics and bones of saints are another rather Catholic thing which seemed a bit macabre to me. If my understanding is correct, most every Catholic parish named after a particular saint, has, if at all possible, a relic of their patron saint. This, at times, has stretched credulity for me, but my young Catholic mind is starting to wrap my head around it.

One naturally wonders as well, when all of this came about. Tonight, I was doing some readings of the Church Fathers, (my favorite authors, EVER, mind you), and I was looking at how they talked about some passage in Romans. And I stumbled upon a rather interesting little piece from Gregory the Great that blew my nascent reconciled Catholic mind, and I share it below. It is an excerpt from a letter of Gregory, Bishop of Rome, to Augustine, newly appointed Bishop of the "Angli," which of course now Britain.

Augustine’s request.

I request that the relics of Saint Sixtus the martyr may be sent to us.

The grant of Gregory.

We have done what thou hast requested, to the end that the people who formerly said that they venerated in a certain place the body of Saint Sixtus the martyr, which seems to thy Fraternity to be neither the true body nor truly holy, may receive certain benefits from the most holy and approved martyr, and not reverence what is uncertain. Yet it seems to me that, if the body which is believed by the people to be that of some martyr is distinguished among them by no miracles, and if further there are none of the more aged who declare that they had heard the order of his passion from progenitors, the relics which thou hast asked for should be so deposited apart that the place in which the aforesaid body lies, be entirely blocked up, and that the people be not allowed to desert what is certain, and venerate what is uncertain.

Apparently this stuff has been going on in the Church for centuries. Whoa, Nelly!

Reflections on the Remaining Days of My Third Decade

2010-04-25T01:14:00.003-04:00

I'll be 40 in a few days. This has, I am chagrined to admit, hit me in a surprising way. As it has approached, I consciously chose to be a person who embraced the coming of being a year older, and said, "bring on 50!" Life takes us by surprise often, and I think it's safe to say that with the advent of 40, I've hit a bit of a mid life crisis. It will come and go, and all will be well, but this will not be as easy a passage as my intellect would like it to be. My psyche and emotions tell another story, influenced by dashed dreams of companionship which remains unfulfilled at 40.

However, after an evening spent with my good friends Dave and Torey, preceded by spending a night with my brother Jim's family, and anticipating a family birthday party tomorrow, along with a night spent with my other brother's family, I'm reminded of a favorite quote of C. S. Lewis:

If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place of training and correction and it’s not so bad.

This weekend, this world has been far more than a place of training and correction--it's been a place of happiness, and for that I'm grateful.

A Quote from St. Athenagoras

2010-04-19T23:49:00.001-04:00

From of old it has been the custom, and not in our time only, for vice to make war on virtue.

--A Plea for the Christians, Chapter XXXI

Speaking...

2010-04-17T01:32:00.002-04:00

Apparently I'm going to be the opening speaker of a Catholic Conference this summer, attended by a few hundred people. Pretty exciting!

A Great Quote...and Article

2010-04-08T13:51:00.002-04:00

"I'm always reminded of Plato, when he speaks of man as a thoroughbred who needs a stinging fly to get him galloping across the field, so that he can realize he is a thoroughbred."

--from an interview with Barbara Nicolosi-Harrington, a Hollywood screenwriter and professor at Pepperdine University.

A New Member of the Family

2010-03-29T18:50:00.004-04:00

I just adopted this cutie from the animal shelter. She's about 10 months old, and still has some pup in her. She'll be coming home a week from tomorrow. They're calling her "Darla," but I don't really like that name. I think I'll be naming her "Ebba" after a great aunt we affectionately called "Grandma." She's a playful little pup, and I'm looking forward to bringing her home!

2010-03-10T23:16:00.002-05:00

Things went very well today. I did my talk in Toledo, then drove all the way back to Kalamazoo at the end of the day to play a solo tonight at WMU. I'm exhausted. It's been a 15 hour day, all told, and after I finish this Bourbon, I'm off to bed.

Thanks to those of you who prayed!

The Speech Is Done!

2010-03-09T00:27:00.002-05:00

I just did a dry run of my talk for Wednesday, and it clocked in at just a little over a half an hour. I'm supposed to be at around 35 minutes, so it gives me a little breathing room. There will be a ten minute or so question and answer period following. I tell you...I was planning on speaking extemporaneously, but I decided when speaking before a Bishop, I wanted to have planned exactly what I was going to say. I've probably spent about ten hours on this thing! It's good to be done. I've got a little tweaking to do tomorrow, and a little editing, but all in all, it's in the can, and that feels good.

Words

2010-03-08T15:37:00.002-05:00

The editor today mentioned that if I were to publish a book, it should be in the neighborhood of 35,000-40,000 words. That's not very big, honestly, and I suspect I've already written around 100,000 words. I suppose pithy is good. From what I've read online, 40,000 words is about a 100 page book, and according to one source online, from a literary editor, "40,000 words is half a book."

I'm going to be sending her a portion of my writing that is most cohesive, and it's 20,000 words already, and I had envisioned that to perhaps be two chapters. She said she wouldn't expect my book to sell many copies, so perhaps that's why the word count would be so low, since it is cheaper to publish a smaller book.

It's all in God's hands anyway.

2010-03-08T12:23:00.002-05:00

I spoke with an editor today about my book, surprisingly with mixed emotions. We spoke for about 45 minutes, and it's very exciting, but at the same time, according to her, the topic of my book isn't one that really is very saleable. She emphasized something that I already new as well, that one should have a platform upon which to promote a book, and I do not have that platform at all, though speaking to the Bishop of Toledo and some of his priests is a start, I suppose.

I told the editor that I put that all in God's hands, and though I have always dreamed of writing a book, this book isn't the book I dreamed of writing. If it's going to be published, it's in God's hands, and part of me would be OK if the book isn't published. It's all in God's hands.

More Details on the Talk

2010-03-03T17:49:00.004-05:00

I just learned that the Bishop of the Toledo diocese will be present for my talk, with about 25 of his priests. I'm very, very excited by this opportunity. What is even more exciting is that this past Sunday I was very discouraged by the progress of my book, and how slow going it was, how overwhelming it all seems at times. I prayed on Sunday for some sort of encouragement.

On Monday, the call came to speak about the topic of my book the following Wednesday.

I'd say that's a very powerful answer to prayer, and a big encouragement to me!

Please pray that I'll have the right words to say!

Time to Talk...apparently.

2010-03-01T23:27:00.002-05:00

Well, I've just been asked to speak to a group of priests next Wednesday about the subject of my book. I'm excited and nervous, all at the same time, but really mainly just excited.

Please pray for me that I will have the wisdom to say what I should say, and not worry about saying too much in too little of a time. It will be about a 40 minute talk, and a 15 minute Q & A session.

I'll let you know how it goes...

Church Fathers Under the Roof

2010-02-27T02:25:00.002-05:00

I just ordered all 38 volumes of the Church Fathers! Though I can read them online, I want them in my hands, in hard copies. It was a great deal--64% off the normal price. These men and women were in large part what drew me back to the Catholic Church. I want their words in my house, under my roof, and in my hands. I think we'll become best of friends. And, they'll be used for the Book...which makes them deductible too!

Book Stuff

2010-02-27T00:47:00.002-05:00

This thing is overwhelming. I think about it all the time, and I continue to read and write, but it's gotten to the point that I've collected so many things from my reading that I wish to somehow incorporate into the meat of the book, that I feel like I'm collecting confetti and putting together a jigsaw puzzle from the bits and pieces falling from the sky.

It's daunting to me, and it seems like very slow progress. I lost about a year of writing as well, through my own fault. I'm reminded of Moses when he broke the tablets--I lost my writing because of my rage about something completely unrelated. The sad thing is that I don't even know what I lost, but as I think back on certain things I wrote, hoping that I had printed them off, I realize that I lost a year of a lot of hard work, and what I felt to be rather good stuff.

Sigh.

Ah well, all one can do is throw oneself on the mercy of Christ. I hope that I will write what I need to write. And may God forgive me for being so rash.

A New First...

2010-02-19T01:37:00.003-05:00

New "firsts" don't often happen to 30 something trombone players, but today, I was able to do something for the first time in my life: picking off a previously unreachable high note several times in a row.

That's huge. Like...really, really huge.

It was a good day on the trombone front.

Onward and Upward

2010-02-15T20:26:00.005-05:00

It's been a productive day. I've been writing for about five hours straight. I think that might equal about a little over a page an hour, to be honest. There's a lot of reflecting going on as I write, and a lot of research of Scriptures or quotes that come to mind, but even so, I feel that I'm making good progress. It's beginning to take a more concrete shape in my mind, which is good, since I feel an urgency to finish this book. I still haven't heard from the editor, but as my priest friend said, I'm sure I'll hear from her "in the fullness of time."

I've decided to pray a few prayers of St. Thomas Aquinas each time I sit down to write:

Prayer Before Study or Reading

Grant to me, O merciful God, that I might ardently love, prudently ponder, rightly acknowledge, and perfectly fulfill all that is pleasing to you, for the praise and glory of your Name.

Prayer Before Lecturing, Writing or Preaching

Ineffable Creator, from the treasure house of your Wisdom you have created the three Angelic Hierarchies. In marvelous order you established them above the Empyrean Heaven, and splendidly arranged all the parts of creation.

I ask you, true Fountain of Light and Wisdom, the only creator of all things, to mercifully pour forth into my shadowed understanding the radiance of your love, that it might purge the twofold darkness of sin and ignorance into which I was born.

You, who have given voice to the tongues of infants, instruct my tongue also, and pour forth the grace of your blessing onto my lips.

Grant me prompt understanding, sure memory, direct and easy comprehension, insightful interpretation, and graciousness in speaking.

Launch, O Jesus, my beginning, guide my progress, and let my end be only yourself, who are true God and true Man, living and reigning through all the ages of ages. Amen

Update

2010-02-04T01:34:00.004-05:00

It would seem that my long held belief that I won't have any luck on the woman front until this book is finished is once again proven. I had a remarkable time on my silent retreat this past weekend, and I mentioned my book project with one of the priests. As he heard about the project, he told me that this book was greatly needed, and that I needed to finish it.

When I arrived home Sunday night, I had an email awaiting me from the lovely Claudia, telling me that she wasn't interested in any romantic involvement with me, and that she only wanted to be friends.

On Monday, I heard from another priest whom I have been communicating with, who then gave my name to a publisher who is supposed to be calling me this week. He also wants to see this book published, and wants to encourage me in this.

I just turned off my match making service. I think it's absolutely pointless for me to even think about dating until this book is finished. I don't think God wants me dating, or married, while I'm writing the book. Which is a darn good motivation to get writing!

I'm a bit disappointed by Claudia's news. She seemed like an ideal candidate for a wife. God's will be done.

Exciting News!

2010-02-01T16:23:00.001-05:00

I'm going to speaking with an editor at a publishing company this week about my book.

God be praised!

Community of St. John, Princeville, IL

2010-01-31T23:23:00.000-05:00

Winter Break

2010-01-29T16:43:00.002-05:00

I'm going on a retreat this weekend, with some men from our youngish adult community. It's about five hours away, at a retreat center of the Community of St. John. I'm looking forward to it.

Progress of another sort...

2010-01-21T00:25:00.003-05:00

I wrote someone tonight who can help me publish this book I've been working on. I feel that with a new year, I really would like to see this project come to fruition and completion, by the will of God. We'll see how it proceeds.

Bathroom progress? Really?

2010-01-11T19:51:00.003-05:00

Do you remember that I was doing a bathroom remodel awhile back? Which began, oh, um, let's say, while back? If you recall, this is what the bottom layer looked like, after ripping two layers out which were on top of this.

Yesterday, I finished ripping up that layer, in preparation for a tile guy to come and do my floor, which he did today...

...as you can see in this picture. Ladies and gentlemen, I have a tiled bathroom on the first floor of my house. Unbelievable, really. The guy's coming tomorrow to grout the floor, and then it's off to do the rest of the remodel, which won't take too long at all. This floor was a huge, massive obstacle to me. I was honestly stymied by a fear of screwing it up. The money I spent having a guy who does this every day of his life is worth every penny I will spend.

New Year's Resolutions, and a Winter Walk

2010-01-10T17:28:00.003-05:00

It's a New Year, and since December, I've shed ten pounds. This is a good thing.

I took a winter hike in a nearby park yesterday, and it was incredibly beautiful. I used to post a lot of photos here, before the age of Facebook, but I've decided to place some here again.

Well, it happened again...

2009-12-16T14:30:00.003-05:00

I got banned from another forum. It's not a badge of honor, certainly, but I think it reflects more on the particular forums that I'm involved with than it does about me.

I go to these forums in part because I want to find out the sorts of things I need to include in my book, to counter what I perceive as lies being foisted upon very susceptible individuals. I spoke pretty boldly about what Scripture talks about certain things, and then was challenged for doing so.

Some people felt insulted, apparently, with what I said, though what I shared reflects 2,000 years of Christian tradition. Another individual suggested that I apologize to those who felt offended by what I wrote, and I refused to do so, and quoted the following passage from John 8:

⁴²Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me. ⁴³Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. ⁴⁴You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. ⁴⁵Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! ⁴⁶Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don't you believe me? ⁴⁷He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God."

If someone has become a heretic, and teaches lies, I don't believe that they belong to God, and indeed are serving the father of lies.

I got banned for a month for saying so, apparently. It's a dark corner of the web, so I'm not sure if I'll go back anyway.

An Interim Report

2009-12-06T18:43:00.002-05:00

Well, I have a date set up from the Hail Mary website, with a lovely woman named Claudia. She's coming over to my side of the state for a Nutcracker performance, and probably because of the weather, and because she has bad night vision, it'll be a very long first date, since I expressed a willingness to drive over there and pick her up. Trust me, she's worth it to have a chance to get to know.

She's sort of seeing a guy right now, so it's a full court press that's on right now. I'll be making her chocolates, very soon, and recently found out what kinds she likes. There should be some at her door in about a week.

Chocolates have helped me woo one other woman--I think it's very useful in wooing a woman's heart!

I'll keep you posted...

Online dating, take....10, maybe?

2009-11-30T23:30:00.002-05:00

It's probably the result of the holiday single man's blues, but I decided to pull the trigger and do another online dating service, this time solely for Catholics with a rather Popish sounding name: Ave Maria Singles. I must admit, ashamedly, that I'd probably be embarrassed to share that with anyone but Catholics and my closest friends. I'd probably stick with a "Catholic online dating service." Regardless, it's a matchmaking service designed for and by Catholics, and it seems that the vast majority of members are drawn to it for the same reason: to find other Catholics who believe the fullness of Catholicism, which is the camp in which I have rather unexpectedly found myself.

We'll see how things go, but I feel that it is rather blogworthy to state that the first woman I wrote is an English teacher, and so I pulled out all of the stops with my writing, and the first words that I read in response were these: "Your writing style is absolutely delightful! I don't know many people who know what assonance is though I would have used 'arguably assonant' because, it's more and alliterative and, to me, more accurate. :)" Yes, I was able to drop the word assonant in the first email I sent to this woman, and it flowed rather naturally. That's the way to an English teacher's heart...or at least getting a response.

For some reason, she seems to think that I'm sophisticated as well. That will change when I tell her that I dropped food on the floor of the American Consulate in St. Petersburg, Russia. Thrice.

A Letter

2009-11-29T01:16:00.003-05:00

Dear __________

You wrote this below:

"I know from experience that a person can't give themselves inner peace no matter how hard they try. The devil can't give it either because he doesn't have it to give....Some people think that we humans are able to ignore God even when he has been trying to speak to us. I think some people can and those are the ones who have somehow walked away from God and who don't bring their desires subject to him. I don't believe that Christians who are in constant prayerful communication with God can ignore him. I think that the God of all the universe and of every living thing has the unquestioned ability to give us a message whenever he wants. In other words, if God wanted to tell me to behave a certain way, he could do it in a million different ways and i would see it. My ability to "tune off" to God doesn't override his ability to get through to me one way or another...."

As I think about what I excerpted from above, I would say that Scripture is filled with examples where God communicated His will to Godly men and women, persistently even, and yet they chose to ignore Him. God's promises to Abraham come to mind.

As to this,

My ability to "tune off" to God doesn't override his ability to get through to me one way or another.

I would have to say that because God loves us, we do have the ability to "tune off" God, despite constant attempts to communicate with us. We know that,

A) God is all powerful,

B) God is all good,

C) God continually is working to draw all men and women to Him, i.e., communicating with them,

D) A vast number of men and women neither believe in God, believe in another god/goddess, such as Hindus do, or blatantly have jettisoned Him from their lives, or choose to believe in a modified version of Christianity, such as Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses do.

If these men and women do not have the power within them, from their free will given them by God, to "tune off" to a God who is constantly pursuing them, either God is not as powerful as we believe Him to be, or else God does indeed give us the freedom to tune Him off, even though we believe we are listening to Him.

This speaks to our human nature, more than anything else. If we didn't have the power to "tune off" to God, then we'd be mere automatons, incapable of making any other choice than that which God dictates for us. But God loves us enough that he desires for us to choose, freely, to follow Him.

I think daily we are confronted with the challenge that Joshua gave to the Israelites, "Choose this day whom you will serve." Joshua chose to follow the God of Abraham, while others chose to "tune off" God, and followed another path.

All this to say that I don't believe that it's justifiable, both logically, nor from Scriptures to say that "God wouldn't allow us to be deceived." It would be evil of Him not to allow us to choose for ourselves. It is a good and benign and loving God who allows us to choose what we believe about Him, even if they are lies...it was love that stayed His hand in the Garden of Eden, for He wanted his children to be completely free. What gods of the Old Testament would have ever allowed this? That we have a choice in the matter points to His goodness!

You address this in a particularly poignant portion of your most recent reply:

God doesn't mislead and if we're truly searching with all we have, it would be evil to allow us to be deceived if we are trying so hard to hear from him. That isn't God's characte

You are so right: God cannot deceive. However, how do you explain all the instances in Scripture where men and women were deceived into believing something that was a lie? Clearly God didn't deceive them, and clearly, in every case, those who were deceived, (such as Adam and Eve) were seeking hard to find the truth. In the case of the Garden, they believed the lie of the Serpent that was so compelling, and believable. They were not seeking to be deceived, were they? They were seeking what they perceived as good and right, knowing the difference between good and evil. I don't think anyone in the history of the world truly ever seeks after things that they think will bring them harm, or that they think are falsehoods, particularly in religion, yet we know emphatically that men and women do choose falsely, even though they are "trying very hard" to see truth, or to do what is in their best interest.

Ultimately, what you are relying on is the ability of your heart and mind to determine what is true. Is that the most reliable source, and are your feelings of peace the best arbiter of what is true and right?

Christ was in the middle of the will of God in the Garden of Gethsemane, but from a subjective human standpoint, Christ wasn't having a "peaceful" experience, since He sweat blood! He was engaged in a great internal battle. His peace was a peace that "surpasses all understanding," because it was the peace of knowing that He was completely and fully within the will of His heavenly Father, but I don't think the human side of Him felt peace at all. To run from the Cross would have been the path of peace, from his human perspective. The "peace that surpasses all understanding" can often be a peace that the world would never call peace, because they cannot understand it! The peace of Christ is often found in a place where we are dueling with the two natures within us, just as Paul speaks about. He describes an internal battle between his flesh and spirit, in terms that speak of warfare, more than of peace, yet all Christians would say that Paul was living in the peace of Christ. Therefore, as Christians, sometimes feeling "at peace" isn't necessarily the same as experiencing the "peace of Christ." Perhaps our "feeling" of peace is a sign that we're not actually experiencing the peace that surpasses all understanding.

I think Jeremiah 17:9 has much insight to give us on the reliability of our heart, and of the peace we "feel" sometimes about the decisions we make:

The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.

Who can understand it?

In light of the stories of Scripture, and of your knowledge of human nature, I urge to consider the reliability of the human heart to tell us what is true, if that is the basis upon which you are choosing to live your life. I know I can't trust myself very well to tell me the truth about the way to live my life!

May God bless you as you continue to pursue Him!

2009-11-29T01:02:00.004-05:00

I seem to be wasting time. I don't think it's awful, since I am writing, and writing a lot, but it's not working on my book. I've been spending a lot of time hanging around on some internet forums, raising points that I will be raising in my book, defending positions I will be defending in my book, but it's not writing the darn book!

The appeal of writing three or four paragraph comments is that they are concise and easily crafted. This book is DAUNTING, and it's not an easy subject to tackle and dig into, from an emotional stand point. I feel that I have much accomplished already, but all it feels like to me are loose strands, strewn all over the place, and to bring them into a cohesive whole is overwhelming to me. As I've spent time on these forums, however, I've become more and more convinced that my particular voice will be a very valuable addition to the conversation, and that God has indeed called me to write it.

I don't feel like I can do it, however, but I suppose that's exactly where God wants me to be: completely reliant on Him.

Please pray that I'll start work on it. As Anne Lamott said, it's "bird by bird." I just need to start again.

First Lines

2009-11-17T23:44:00.005-05:00

I don't like this kind of writing, though it's the kind of writing I often find myself doing:

After she died, it was as if I had broken my arm. A part of me ached all the time, and something that had been functional was now useless, and everything about my daily routine needed to be navigated differently. It was difficult, for instance, to stand in line at the post office or buy groceries or make dinner. Nothing seemed to matter anymore.

A lot of writing opens up with lines such as these, designed to lure the reader into the heart of the article or story, causing them to wonder what the rest of the story is about, and in this case, who the "she" who died is, and what her relationship is to the author.

I've had very similar opening lines when I've contemplated certain chapters of my book, such as, "I didn't know it was possible to feel such pain." It's not a bad opening line for a chapter on something that was difficult, but at the same time it seems to be of a certain class of writing that is formulaic, and I don't like that. It seems melodramatic to me, and perhaps hinting towards narcissism.

As I was writing this above, I decided to do a Google search on the "Best Opening Lines" of novels. There is always something mysterious about the first lines of a book or of a chapter that should draw us in, but what I don't like about the excerpt I quoted above, is that it's so obvious that the author is indeed trying to draw us in. We know that the particular details will slowly be illuminated for us, as if someone is pulling back a curtain slowly, though of course we don't know what insights the author will bring to us, but it's so clear what's going on. I think writing should be like slight of hand, wooing seductively in such a secretive way that before the reader knows what's happened, you have him or her in the palm of your hand.

I think good writing always surprises, and never goes where we expect it to go, and an opening line should grab us, by surprising us.

A few great opening lines that surprise me:

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

I am an invisible man.

The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.

It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not.

There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.

I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.

We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall.

A story has no beginning or end; arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.

I think surprising lines, and surprising directions are what make for good fiction. In my case, writing non-fiction, I suppose there is less room for this, but I still want to make it a good read, and I do believe that there is still room for the surprise, or slight of hand, or sending someone in a direction that they hadn't considered before. I like using common phrases, but contorting their meaning in such a way that reveals another way of looking at something. I think Chesterton is my inspiration in this regard.

All this musing about writing, and writing a new entry on my blog is merely procrastinating from the job at hand: working on this book, which has been sitting dormant for nearly five months. The truth about first lines is this: you don't need to write the first line first. It's time to get crackin'.

God Is My Judge

2009-11-16T00:13:00.003-05:00

As I was driving away from church today, for some reason my thoughts turned towards my first and middle names and their meanings. As a child I had a plaque hanging in my room that told me that my first name, Daniel, meant "God is my judge." I never fully comprehended what that meant, but usually when I thought of God being my judge I realized that I didn't really live up to the expectations that I thought were needed from a child of God. It was always a bit ominous--a dire warning, and "the fear of the the Lord" type of thing. But today, somehow I saw it from a new angle, from a completely different perspective. For the first time, the idea of God being my judge was a promise of comfort.

With God, there is only justice and mercy. With Christ's death, I no longer live under condemnation, by the grace and love of God! Over the years, I have found great solace in the the late twenties and early thirties of the Psalms. When I have been mired in sin, the enemy of our souls has been quick to point the finger of condemnation and accusation against me. I find this to be best described in Psalm 35. Verses 11-21 are below.

Ruthless witnesses come forward;

they question me on things I know nothing about.

They repay me evil for good

and leave my soul forlorn.

Yet when they were ill, I put on sackcloth

and humbled myself with fasting.

When my prayers returned to me unanswered,

I went about mourning

as though for my friend or brother.

I bowed my head in grief

as though weeping for my mother.

But when I stumbled, they gathered in glee;

attackers gathered against me when I was unaware.

They slandered me without ceasing.

Like the ungodly they maliciously mocked^b;

they gnashed their teeth at me.

O Lord, how long will you look on?

Rescue my life from their ravages,

my precious life from these lions.

I will give you thanks in the great assembly;

among throngs of people I will praise you.

Let not those gloat over me

who are my enemies without cause;

let not those who hate me without reason

maliciously wink the eye.

They do not speak peaceably,

but devise false accusations

against those who live quietly in the land.

They gape at me and say, “Aha! Aha!

With our own eyes we have seen it.”

This is the way of life of those whose judge is not God. This the way of life of those who live under the condemnation of the Prince of this world instead of under the benevolent grace of our Creator. Today I saw the comfort we can take in having God as our judge, and the freedom from condemnation that comes from grace and Christ's death on the Cross. How often we allow ourselves to listen to those voices that say, "Aha! Aha! With our own eyes we have seen it."

As I think of my first name now, having God as my judge is a message of freedom and grace. With my middle name, meaning "Christ bearer," it suggests to me that bearing the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that frees us from condemnation and to do the will of our Heavenly Father is my calling. Which means that I must begin work again on this book, in great earnest!

2009-10-29T14:33:00.004-04:00

This blog of mine has collected some dust. I have been woefully inattentive, but life has been filled with a myriad of other things. I just returned from a tour of Russia, and tonight I play a world premier performance of a triple concerto for brass. Prior to that, life was filled with preparation for a recital and completion of our negotiations. It's been a very busy summer.

Today I also received an email from an eHarmony woman who has decided to move on. Not a big deal--there was very minimal interaction, but I was anticipating getting to know her on the heels of this concerto performance. I was looking forward to it quite a bit since my life has been so consumed with work related obligations.

It seems to me that all that we desire, and all of the promises of God that we long to have fulfilled are the very things God asks us to place on the altar. I believe that God has called me to a married life. Each day I hope that my wife will enter my life. There are glimmers of possibility that emerge from time to time, but for two decades, every door that has ever opened with hopeful possibility has been slammed shut. I do not understand why this is so, yet the only answer that I can find is that this is God's will.

When I think of Abraham's willingness to offer his son Isaac on the altar, the son who represented the fulfillment of God's promises to Abraham, I realize that I must follow his example. I am beginning to believe that God calls me to live in daily hope that today might be the day, but that I must place that hope on the altar each and every day. Unlike in Abraham's case, however, God doesn't always give us back what we place on the altar, at least in the way we expect, or in the same way that Isaac was given back to Abraham.

There are times when I become cynical and wish that I could excise this desire I have for companionship, since life would be easier. I believe that God has placed this desire within me, and I realize that it would be sinful to shut it down, or to eliminate the daily hope and prayer I have that I might meet my wife today. We all carry daily crosses, and I'm becoming to realize that perhaps my vocation right now is to be a man who desperately longs to be married, and nurture the hope that it will happen, while living with the possibility that it may not happen for a long time, and the subsequent disappointment that comes from actively pursuing women with the hopes that perhaps "this is the one." If that's the case, then for some divine reason, I'm better off to the Kingdom as a man who is single and longs for marriage.

Though I'd like to be married yesterday, I've read someplace before that God's ways aren't our ways.

2009-10-03T00:49:00.002-04:00

I was on Facebook tonight, as is my wont, and had a friend request. It turned out to be one of my high school students who is a very talented kid--he could have a great career as a trombonist, and I enjoy challenging him and encouraging him along the path. He makes me laugh besides, and we have a great time in lessons.

Anyway, I checked out his "Info" on his profile, and saw that under his favorite music, surprisingly, there was my name, right next to Yo-Yo Ma. (I think merely because we'd be close to each other in the phone book).

Under his "About Me" section, he wrote this:

If there was no music
I would be screwed.
Music communicates what i think and feel.
Music makes me feel alive.
Makes me feel like "hey i can be kick ass at something".
There are no words to describe what music has done for me and how it has changed my life.

I'm going to help him become as "kick ass" as I can.

40 Days For Life

2009-09-30T20:26:00.004-04:00

I'm going to be praying outside an abortion clinic this Friday, from 9:00-10:00. I've never done anything like this, and indeed never knew where the primary abortion clinic was in Grand Rapids, but now I know. One of the members of the adult community group I've joined couldn't be there during the time he signed up for, and so I offered to do it. We'll see how it goes, but I certainly would love your prayers...and if any of my GR friends would like to join me, please do so!

A Bonus for becoming Catholic: more Scripture!

2009-09-27T00:16:00.002-04:00

Sirach 2:1-11

My son, when you come to serve the LORD, prepare yourself for trials.

Be sincere of heart and steadfast, undisturbed in time of adversity.

Cling to him, forsake him not; thus will your future be great.

Accept whatever befalls you, in crushing misfortune be patient;

For in fire gold is tested, and worthy men in the crucible of humiliation.

Trust God and he will help you; make straight your ways and hope in him.

You who fear the LORD, wait for his mercy, turn not away lest you fall.

You who fear the LORD, trust him, and your reward will not be lost.

You who fear the LORD, hope for good things, for lasting joy and mercy.

Study the generations long past and understand; has anyone hoped in the LORD and been disappointed? Has anyone persevered in his fear and been forsaken? has anyone called upon him and been rebuffed?

Compassionate and merciful is the LORD; he forgives sins, he saves in time of trouble

Seasons

2009-08-29T20:36:00.004-04:00

I am convinced that there is something about the cyclical passage of time that resonates deeply with our psyche, in the same way that we feel the change of the seasons. I have dreamed about Meg this week, which is something that never happens to me, and she has been on my mind far more frequently than is normal. I awoke today, wondering why she was haunting my dreams, something I don't want, since I wake up with sorrow in my heart. As I pondered this, I realized that the end of August and the beginning of September marks the time when I told her that I wanted to share my life with her, and her response to me that this would never happen.

I think it's a pain that may probably haunt me this time of year for the rest of my life, like an old war wound of a soldier that achest at the coming of a cold front.

2009-08-27T00:18:00.003-04:00

It dawned on me last week when I was on vacation with my brother that it's been almost exactly three years since Meg and I broke up. That's twice as long as we dated, and it's safe to say that it has taken me nearly that much time to be over her, though I'm not 100% there even today. I still think about her often, and still find myself missing talking to her and spending time with her, but at the same time, I don't really want to see her again. It's been since October of last year since I've seen her, and I suppose that's for the best.

I would so like to be married though. May God bring a wife to me soon! It's a rough week at work, and it sure would be nice to be able to come home to someone. As it is, there's a steak at Texas Road House, followed by a few beers at home, with The Pink Panther on in the background. Life is good, but it sure would be better with a wife.

2009-07-28T22:32:00.001-04:00

I think I'm about to banned from another forum. Surprise, surprise. Just preaching the truth of the Gospel! :-)

2009-07-20T00:36:00.002-04:00

Scott...here's the big news: though I've been kicking and screaming the whole way, I'm Catholic now. Those Church Fathers got to me after all...

2009-07-10T23:05:00.001-04:00

This has been one of the best days of my life. Just for the record.

2009-07-08T01:43:00.003-04:00

I'm off tomorrow for a conference where I will be able to meet with some Godly men and women and talk about my book. I'm very excited about the prospect, and as I lie here tonight, it's strange how excited I am about this book. I'm itching to get it done, and look forward to when I actually have time to dig in again and get down on paper all of the thoughts that have been whirling through my head for the past several years. Tonight, the thought of writing this book gets me as excited as the thought of going to Cedar Point did as a kid.

Please pray for me that the conference this weekend will be beneficial, though I already know it will.

2009-06-25T01:13:00.003-04:00

Just for the record, I grow weary of the continual belief that somehow truth is something that is up for debate, particularly with regards to morality. This is particularly egregious in the Christian community.

As I surfed through the blogosphere today, I found that today marked a "synchroblog" on the subject of "Bridging the Gap" between the Church and the gay community. Over 70 bloggers came together to discuss ways in which the two parties could come together and "bridge the gap."

Brian McLaren's blog is one of the participants, and it's clear that in his upcoming book, he'll make the claim that all of the prohibitions against homosexuality in Scripture have nothing to do with the modern view of homosexual relationships. Apparently, he's "bridging the gap."

"Bridging the gap" is primarily the aim of homosexuals who attend Church to seek out other Christians who are sympathetic to blessing their way of life. Talk of "judging not," and "doing unto others as you would have them do unto you" is par for the course for these discussions.

The call of Christ, however, is a call to charity. Is it chartiable, by any stretch of the imagination, to encourage broken men and women to continue to live in something that God has clearly described as immoral, as an expression of sympathy and love for them? Those who have compassion for men and women who choose to live out their gay desires can easily be misguided, and their compassion can be transformed by a world that says that everyone deserves earthly happiness and companionship.

Where have convictions gone? And how can love be so easily distorted into something that merely blesses the way anyone chooses to live? The conversations on these blogs tend to focus on Christ and his interaction with sinners, but they often miss that within the love of Christ was a firm, and insistent call to return to the fundamental dignity of each sinner, most clearly expressed in the phrase, "go, and sin no more."

God help us!

Book Update

2009-06-20T01:03:00.005-04:00

I've had a hard time sticking with my writing this week. Last week was very productive, but this week hasn't been. Today, however, I got back into the swing of things, and am anxious to get back in action.

Last week, I decided that it's time to actually begin writing the chapters, not merely random writings on various themes. I made good progress on one chapter last week, but got bogged down, and I think felt in some ways that come what may, I needed to work on that chapter and finish it before working on anything else. I'm not going to worry about doing that any longer, and realize that working on different chapters all at once will work just fine.

That being said, I've kept last week's chapter on pause, and today finished a workable introduction and compiled about 12 pages of my first chapter, which I really hope to have completed by the end of next week. We shall see.

2009-06-18T03:01:00.000-04:00

Damnit all, if I still don't miss Meg. Why is that?

Team PHAT!

2009-06-18T00:11:00.002-04:00

Man, I had a great time tonight! Dave P. and I have joined forces with Team PHAT for a BBQ competition. "Team PHAT" is a name that is funny to me...I'd never have picked it, but I get a kick out of being involved. We're thinking about T-shirts with a Buddha on it eating ribs.

The captain of the team, Eric, cooked a brisket for about 20 hours or so, and I made two different sauces for the team to try. It turned out that we liked them combined together, and we've decided that this will be the perfect sauce for the brisket. I was a bit nervous about the sauces, but I was happy to hear that they liked them after all.

Our next team meeting is next Wednesday, where we'll be working on ribs and chicken.

Here's the deal: this is going to be a blast!

Oh, and I'm in charge of desserts. I brought the chocolate Guinness/Irish Cream cake tonight, and they liked it, but decided to work on a different presentation. Next week, I'm going to make some individual three berry tarts or pies, to see what we think of those.

It's all a recipe for fun.

2009-06-15T02:14:00.002-04:00

A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old vice.

--G. K. Chesterton

More on the Summa

2009-06-15T00:20:00.005-04:00

I just reread my last post, and was thinking more about these strange prohibitions, and it has come to my thinking that many of the ceremonial prohibitions were instituted by God not as an immutable and self evident moral obligation, (as we see in the Ten Commandments), but actually in contrast to man's nature, and the societies and forms of idolatry man had created. Based on Thomas Aquinas's thinking, certain aspects of God's prohibitions were prohibited because they were in opposition to the religious practices of those societies out of which God was calling Abraham and Israel, such as this example regarding why certain foods such as pigs were to be forbidden to the Israelites:

Another reason was detestation of idolatry: because the Gentiles, and especially the Egyptians, among whom they had grown up, offered up these forbidden animals to their idols, or employed them for the purpose of sorcery: whereas they did not eat those animals which the Jews were allowed to eat, but worshipped them as gods, or abstained, for some other motive, from eating them, as stated above.

There are a few prohibitions that I was unaware of until I read Aquinas. Deuteronomy 22:6 says, "If you come across a bird's nest beside the road, either in a tree or on the ground, and the mother is sitting on the young or on the eggs, do not take the mother with the young." Yet another commandment tells the Jews not to prevent an ox from eating some of the grain that he might be treading at the time, which seems reasonable to me. Aquinas makes two points: God desires His people to have compassion, and being compassionate to animals will inculcate compassion and pity towards men. And secondly, these practices were directly opposed, once again, to idolatrous practices on the parts of gentiles, which can be seen in the following excerpt:

It may, nevertheless, be also said that these prohibitions were made in hatred of idolatry. For the Egyptians held it to be wicked to allow the ox to eat of the grain while threshing the corn. Moreover certain sorcerers were wont to ensnare the mother bird with her young during incubation, and to employ them for the purpose of securing fruitfulness and good luck in bringing up children: also because it was held to be a good omen to find the mother sitting on her young.

It becomes clear to me that some of the perceived oddity of the ritual laws, results not from a strange and bizarre god, but, on the contrary, are indicative of how bizarre the practices of men had become in the world of Abraham! The very argument against a rational, sane and reasonable God gets turned on its head, and the oddities become indictments of men.

I find this fascinating.

An Example from the Summa Theologica

2009-06-13T00:21:00.002-04:00

Have you ever wondered about some of the very strange prohibitions written in the Old Testament? Like the one about not mixing wool and linen? Or not cooking a goat kid in the milk of its mother? Or prohibiting bacon and shellfish? For me, it's always been hard to understand why God would have made commandments that seem nonsensical and absurd from the perspective of modern man. Of course we as Christians must have faith that there was a reason, since His ways are higher than ours, but despite this, these beg the question of why, don't they?

Well, as I meandered my way through the Summa Theologica today, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that these were questions that Thomas Aquinas anticipated...and summarily answered. As I said, nearly everything I've ever heard as an attack upon Christianity can be found within the scope of this massive work. Here is an example:

From the First Part of the Second Part, Question 102, Article 6:

As in every section of the Summa, Aquinas begins with the question he will debate:

Whether there was any reasonable cause for the ceremonial observances?

Next is a list of numbered objections, mapping out the false arguments he will momentarily destroy.

For example, let's take Objection 1: It would seem that there was no reasonable cause for the ceremonial observances. Because, as the Apostle says (1 Tim. 4:4), "every creature of God is good, and nothing to be rejected that is received with thanksgiving." It was therefore unfitting that they should be forbidden to eat certain foods, as being unclean according to Lev. 11

I think modern man would agree with this objection: we don't understand why there was any need for ceremonial observances, at least regarding some of the more bizarre demands strewn throughout the Old Testament. But after listing the 10 Objections Aquinas will oppose, he naturally has an answer. And it's a good one.

He begins every answer with these words, echoing what Christ said to Satan: On the contrary, It is written (Dt 18:14): "But thou art otherwise instructed by the Lord thy God": from which words we may gather that these observances were instituted by God to be a special prerogative of that people. Therefore they are not without reason or cause.

Next follows his general answer, to the larger question he poses, before dealing with the specific objections one by one.

He always begins his general answer with the same phrase: I answer that, The Jewish people, as stated above, were specially chosen for the worship of God, and among them the priests themselves were specially set apart for that purpose. And just as other things that are applied to the divine worship, need to be marked in some particular way so that they be worthy of the worship of God; so too in that people's, and especially the priests', mode of life, there needed to be certain special things befitting the divine worship, whether spiritual or corporal. Now the worship prescribed by the Law foreshadowed the mystery of Christ: so that whatever they did was a figure of things pertaining to Christ, according to 1 Cor. 10:11 "All these things happened to them in figures." Consequently the reasons for these observances may be taken in two ways, first according to their fittingness to the worship of God; secondly, according as they foreshadow something touching the Christian mode of life.

This opened my eyes to the well-reasoned understanding that Israel was set apart, from out of all of the nations, to be the Chosen People of God and that it stands to reason that God would impart to them a sense of holiness which marked them as Chosen by God. But it still doesn't explain the bizarre prohibitions. Hold on, because Aquinas is just getting started!

I will not excerpt his answer to Objection 1, because it is so lengthy, other than to share briefly his explanation of a few of the reasons why certain animals were considered unclean. In the Summa, Aquinas explains that there are symbolic reasons for not eating certain animals, that reflect to very specific vices within mankind that we must attempt to avoid. It is almost as if eating or not eating certain foods are a reminder of the way of life Israel was called. (Aquinas was the first to posit that man was both soul and body, and that both were indivisible from the other. This leads to the implication that what we do to the body impacts our soul, for they are inextricably intertwined in our nature. In this sense, it seems to me that what Aquinas reveals about the significance of eating or not eating certain animals has an iconic quality to it: it taught how Israel was to live and be.)

The animal that chews the cud and has a divided hoof, is clean in signification. Because division of the hoof is a figure of the two Testaments: or of the Father and Son: or of the two natures in Christ: of the distinction of good and evil. While chewing the cud signifies meditation on the Scriptures and a sound understanding thereof; and whoever lacks either of these is spiritually unclean...The screech-owl, which seeks its food by night but hides by day, signifies the lustful man who seeks to lie hidden in his deeds of darkness...The cormorant, so constituted that it can stay a long time under water, denotes the glutton who plunges into the waters of pleasure...The bittern is a bird of the East: it has a long beak, and its jaws are furnished with follicules, wherein it stores its food at first, after a time proceeding to digest it: it is a figure of the miser, who is excessively careful in hoarding up the necessaries of life.

This gives a new understanding to Romans 1:20: "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."

Regarding the bizarre prohibition against cooking a goat kid in its mother's milk, Aquinas gives an answer that explains fully and completely why God would have prohibited this:

Reply to Objection 4: Although the kid that is slain has no perception of the manner in which its flesh is cooked, yet it would seem to savor of heartlessness if the dam's milk, which was intended for the nourishment of her offspring, were served up on the same dish. It might also be said that the Gentiles in celebrating the feasts of their idols prepared the flesh of kids in this manner, for the purpose of sacrifice or banquet: hence (Ex. 23) after the solemnities to be celebrated under the Law had been foretold, it is added: "Thou shalt not boil a kid in the milk of its dam." The figurative reason for this prohibition is this: the kid, signifying Christ, on account of "the likeness of sinful flesh" (Rom. 8:3), was not to be seethed, i.e. slain, by the Jews, "in the milk of its dam," i.e. during His infancy. Or else it signifies that the kid, i.e. the sinner, should not be boiled in the milk of its dam, i.e. should not be cajoled by flattery.

There are significant meanings to each prohibition--these prohibitions are not the commands of a bizarre or strange god, but rather reveal to us more clearly how profoundly He has tied all of creation into his redemptive plan, so that such a strange prohibition is linked to his Incarnation!

I will share one more argument from Aquinas, regarding the seemingly absurd prohibition of mixing two different kinds of thread:

Reply to Objection 6: It is said of a man in Ecclus 19:27 that "the attire of the body . . . " shows "what he is." Hence the Lord wished His people to be distinguished from other nations, not only by the sign of the circumcision, which was in the flesh, but also by a certain difference of attire. Wherefore they were forbidden to wear garments woven of woolen and linen together, and for a woman to be clothed with man's apparel, or vice versa, for two reasons. First, to avoid idolatrous worship. Because the Gentiles, in their religious rites, used garments of this sort, made of various materials. Moreover in the worship of Mars, women put on men's armor; while, conversely, in the worship of Venus men donned women's attire. The second reason was to preserve them from lust: because the employment of various materials in the making of garments signified inordinate union of sexes, while the use of male attire by a woman, or vice versa, has an incentive to evil desires, and offers an occasion of lust. The figurative reason is that the prohibition of wearing a garment woven of woolen and linen signified that it was forbidden to unite the simplicity of innocence, denoted by wool, with the duplicity of malice, betokened by linen. It also signifies that woman is forbidden to presume to teach, or perform other duties of men: or that man should not adopt the effeminate manners of a woman.

These were all symbolic of the need for the Chosen People to reflect their Chosen status, separating them from the rest of the world, so much so that by the very kinds of clothing they wore, or didn't wear, there was a constant reminder to them of their status of being set apart.

It's fascinating to me. If you are as intrigued as I am by this, you can read the entire passage here.

Summa Theologica

2009-06-12T13:51:00.003-04:00

It would seem that Aquinas's title, "the Sum of Theology" is apt. I think there is hardly anything under the sun that man has either thought or invented in contrast to God's word that Aquinas didn't confront, and eviscerate. I've been reading the Summa for the past few hours, and I'm stunned.

Aquinas and the Hallelujah Egg

2009-06-11T22:18:00.005-04:00

I've become a fan of St. Thomas Aquinas. I have almost completed G. K. Chesterton's biography of him, and have been overwhelmed, learning about his contribution to Christian thought. His was one of the most powerful intellects to have graced the world, and praise be to God, he used it to defend the truth of the good news of Jesus Christ.

I continue to be amazed at how God leads us. As I was tackling a portion of this chapter tonight that I'm working on, I didn't want to continue. I wanted to move on to other parts of the chapter, and felt that the section I'm working on was really just grunt work that had to be done. I dug in, however, and started to do a little research about Natural Law. I clicked on a website that looked like it would have a decent summary of the history of the concept, and from the start, the article chose to use Aquinas and the Summa Theologica as the sine qua non of Natural Law, around which all discussion must be based. Within the first few paragraphs, they referenced a section of the Summa, and I went to find it, and there I found exactly what I need to have to be able to refute some falsehoods that I am attempting to argue against. In black in white, in the words of one of the greatest thinkers of Christendom, there it was. God directed me right there. It's mind blowing.

(The Hallelujah Egg reference is a reference to family tradition: the Hallelujah Egg is the mother lode on the Easter Sunday egg hunt. The difference with me tonight is that I didn't even really know that I was hunting for this--I was led to it!)

Plugging Away...

2009-06-11T10:35:00.002-04:00

I'm making some progress on this chapter. Slow, but it's progress nonetheless. It's satisfying to see all of the disparate thoughts writings I've had on this particular chapter begin to coalesce into a complete unit. I've been writing a lot, perhaps too much. I can tell that my right wrist is getting tired from the way I rest it on the keyboard. I essentially have a goal to be done with this chapter, and at least one more, by the end of this month. That means a lot of writing needs to be done!

It feels very good, however, to begin to see the vague vision for this book begin to solidify. It's exciting. I'll probably be writing for about three hours today, and then teaching, and to avoid writing all night long, I've arranged to go see the new Terminator movie, which will be a welcome distraction!

Off to go write...

Bird by Bird

2009-06-09T13:46:00.003-04:00

I'm taking a break from sifting through everything that I've either written or photocopied for inclusion in one pivotal chapter of my book. I was a bit overwhelmed by the task before me, so took to heart advice that Anne Lamott gives in her book, Bird by Bird. I have sat down with papers and scissors, after tagging every paragraph with up to three possible large categories where it might best belong, and am in the middle of sorting through them all. It's a bit tedious, but I think if I continue to plug away at this throughout the rest of this week, I will have a workable rough draft of this chapter, which is encouraging, to say the least.

I have a goal before me to have at least two, (hopefully three), chapters in a presentable rough draft by the end of this month. I am attending a conference in July where I will be able to meet some individuals who I believe will be able to help to steer me towards a publisher as well as give positive feedback, and ultimately, provide endorsements for the back of the book.

It's time for a lunch break, and then back at it!

Sparrows

2009-06-09T01:34:00.003-04:00

We are facing difficult times at work, and as a lead negotiator, I'm in the thick of it. We had three days of intense negotiations this weekend, and tonight we shared with the rest of our colleagues the shockingly regressive proposal we received from our management over the weekend. In essence, with cuts in salary, weeks and increases in health care costs, the cuts would equate to nearly 25% of our income.

I find myself at peace, and I realize that this is solely the result of the grace of God, and as a result of the journey I've been on the past few years. I used to be a constant worrier, but now, thanks to God, I am learning to trust more in Him. It doesn't matter if my income is lowered: it's all for my betterment. If I lose 25% of my income, God cares more for me than the sparrows. He will provide, and as Paul says, "I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." The truth of the matter is that the board, and our management, honestly has little control over my life. God oversees all!

When I arrived home from the meeting, I found myself smiling as I walked into my house, thinking that nothing that management can do can truly impact my life in a negative way. If their regressive proposal causes financial hardship, well, that will be a gift from God. So be it. I'm in His hands, and I thank God for the perpetual desire on His part to cause us to turn towards Him, and how hardships are often used as the tools through which we realize our need for Him. We're all in His hands, thanks be to God. I feel a strange sense of joy, since in these difficult times ahead, there's nothing to do but to take each day as it comes, and trust in Him. That's a good place to be, and exactly where I believe He wants us to be.

Three Berry Tart

2009-06-08T14:45:00.002-04:00

I made another three berry tart yesterday. It's sort of turning into my signature dessert I think. I used my deep dish tart pan this time, and I like the extra bit of crunchiness the extra height provides. I didn't have quite enough filling, however, so next time I need to up the filling to seven cups of berries, instead of six. I made an almond cookie crust, with 1 cup ground almonds, 2 cups of flour, maybe a 1/2 cup of sugar, two sticks of butter, 1 egg and an egg yolk and some cinnamon--perhaps a tsp. Next time, I think I'll add some almond extract to kick up the almond flavor. In the filling, I used the usual suspects: three different kinds of berry port wine, as well as vanilla, lemon, and almond extract. Next time, I need to not use the vanilla extract. It doesn't work so well, and I think avoiding lemon would be a nice try. It didn't have enough tart, however, so I added a splash of red wine vinegar, which I think is OK. I need to make one tart, however, with no added flavor other than the port wines and see how that turns out.

Anyway, it was tasty!

Grey Wolf

2009-06-06T00:55:00.001-04:00

I was fortunate to be able to film this wolf, which I stumbled upon on the road home from Canada! It was amazing!

The Finished Product

2009-06-02T23:44:00.004-04:00

This is the finished oven we made this past weekend:

We all took turns doing all of the various tasks, but the four bricks on the right of the arch are my handiwork. Apparently a restaurant in Grand Marais is thinking about buying this oven to bake their bread. This oven will last 100 years...I think it would be great fun to go back sometime and take a look at how this thing is holding up!

Lot's more pics and stories from my trip when I return. Right now, I'm about four or five hours west of the Bridge. The north shore of Lake Superior is amazing! Pictures to follow...

Exciting Stuff...

2009-05-26T23:00:00.003-04:00

Now that I have parsed out most of my writing and reading into chapter categories, I am now beginning the rather overwhelming task of organizing each chapter into some sort of cohesive whole. It's daunting and exciting all at the same time. Throughout this process, I've had in the back of my mind something than Anne Lamott wrote in her book about writing, Bird by Bird. She had a novel that she had been working on for a long time, and it didn't seem to have the right feel or flow. She finally dedicated a weekend to organizing it, then cut every paragraph a part, with scissors, and literally reassembled the novel on the floor, moving one paragraph from the back towards the front, some from the middle towards the end, and so on. I feel that's what I'm doing right now. I've spent the past couple of hours labeling and tagging every paragraph in my notebook, and when I'm done, I'm going to literally cut them out, and put them back together. I'll then know what's there, and what's lacking, and begin working on fine tuning this particular chapter.

I have a sense of urgency, since I have some exciting possibilities of meeting some individuals who I believe can give me great insight into my book, as well as helping me find a publisher. This will be taking place at a conference this July, and I hope to have at least two chapters written in a fairly polished form, as well as a complete outline of the rest of the book, with excerpts. It's daunting, but I've been blessed with five weeks off from work. There's a lot of time to write in five weeks time!

Some of that time, however, will be spent in Minnesota, learning how to build a wood fired brick oven. I leave on Thursday for my trip, and can't wait! This is what I call a vacation! I found a very cool one room cabin to stay in, within walking distance of Lake Superior, and it's only $60 a night, since it's still somewhat in the off season. I hope to do some reading and writing in the cabin when I'm not busy mortaring bricks, stirring concrete and having fun building a brick oven with some other passionate foodies like myself. I'll be posting pics of the progress too, if I can find some wifi up there that's easy to get to.

2009-05-21T00:11:00.002-04:00

Three poems of Paul Murray, that fit my current state of mind.

A Note on Human Passion

Sacred or profane
--it does not matter--
one must not anaesthetize
or dull the pain
but instead sustain
the splintered heart's
helpless yet terrifying
and sharp desire
never to be healed
of the wound of living.

--Paul Murray in The Absent Fountain

Seasons

In quick or in slow succession, frost
into fire, fire into frost,
the seasons of the year return
and leave us numb with cold
or warm us, like the seasons of the heart.

But that last season you endured
--your heart’s dark winter—
was so bleak and cold that still
to this day, to this hour,
the frost remains in your blood.

But now is the moment of change,
now the apocalypse.
Today, swept by the winds of another
season, the blossoms
of the fruit trees are ablaze with colour.

Surely it is the end of spring,
the promised summer?
So say “yes” and “yes” again
to this moment
while it turns, for soon it will be gone.

And soon the trees of spring
will become the trees of memory,
and will be shaken by the powerful winds
of memory, cowering
like blown candles and blazing askew.

----Paul Murray in The Absent Fountain

In the Making

The gift, when it comes,
comes always from where
you least expect: either

from that hurt void you feel
after actual loss
or from mere absence

of a longed-for music,
from a line or a theme
you cannot seem to recall

or a phrase of a poem
you cannot complete.
But then with an instinct

born from that lack
or that need--suddenly,
out of the side

of the poem, another music
begins, another song.
And there it is on its feet,

bone of your bone and yet
free, flesh of your flesh
but not yours, a theme

like a new Eve emerging.

--Paul Murray in These Black Stars

2009-05-19T21:11:00.004-04:00

I am writing again, after taking a bit of a break to organize into some sort of cohesive whole all that I have written and highlighted in my reading. Now that I'm back writing after a break, I'm realizing that writing is like practicing the trombone. If I take a few days off, things might be rusty, but they come back fairly quickly. If I take longer, as I did with this most recent break, the flow and ease with which use and practice brings takes awhile to come back. I'm having a rough start getting back into the flow.

I also find the same internal battles that I have when performing trombone coming to my mind while I write: "Who are YOU to be telling this story? Do you really think YOUR writing will even remotely come close to the writers you emulate? Your "book" is a little farce--just close the laptop and chalk it up to good life lessons for yourself. No one wants to read your supposed 'wisdom.'"

Of course we all know those are lies that come from the Pit. And actually, surprisingly, as I've spent the few minutes typing them, and see these accusations in print, it's even clearer now to me what's going on.

Onward and upward. I have learned from my trombone playing that when the voices of doubt come, I say, "I'm glad you showed up--I always play well when you're here, so thanks for swinging by." Though I don't believe that the vast majority of my doubts about trombone playing stem from any sort of spiritual warfare--certainly some do--in the case of this book, I have no doubt.

In light of this, this is what I'm going to say from now on, "Well, since YOU showed up, with all of that doubt, it just proves that I'm onto something, and doing God's bidding. Thanks for the confirmation. Now beat it. I've got work to do."

As James said, "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." I don't think we realize the power we have against our enemy because we are Sons and Daughters of the Most High God. It's time to keep on keeping on in the resisting department. Fight the lies, baby, fight the lies! God help me!

I feel better already.

Tolkein Reads Tolkein!

2009-05-19T10:47:00.001-04:00

Chesterton's The Everlasting Man

2009-05-18T23:28:00.003-04:00

Below is a rather lengthy excerpt that concludes a pivotal chapter in G. K. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man. This is the book that convinced Lewis that Christianity was true, and as I read it, I can see why being confronted with the intellectual depth of GKC's case could be so compelling. I'm blown away by the inexorable force of Chesterton's thinking and logic. I've been thinking quite a bit about my atheist friend, who believes he has found the "Truth of Rational Thought." He would be overwhelmed at the power of Chesterton's rational thought, and find it very hard to dispute his conclusions. I think often atheists think that Christians are merely superstitious rubes: GKC is far from that, and would quickly disabuse any of them of that notion!

This excerpt features some remarkable writing, and lays the foundation for the final section of the book, where Chesterton writes "On the Man Called Christ." At this point, he has led us through the history of the world, from cavemen to the pinnacle of the Roman empire, which despite it being the apex of man's achievements, it is declining. I was blown away by this passage, especially the description of early Christendom in the last chapter, told in a poetic manner, as if it's a tale being told to a friend of a strange breed of people.

I don't know if this will strike any of the readers of my blog as powerfully as it did me, but I share it with the hopes that it will.

There was nothing left that could conquer Rome; but there was also nothing left that could improve it. It was the strongest thing that was growing weak. It was the best thing that was going to the bad. It is necessary to insist again and again that many civilisations had met in one civilisation of the Mediterranean sea; that it was already universal with a stale and sterile universality. The peoples had pooled their resources and still there was not enough. The empires had gone into partnership and they were still bankrupt. No philosopher who was really philosophical could think anything except that, in that central sea, the wave of the world had risen to its highest, seeming to touch the stars. But the wave was already stooping; for it was only the wave of the world.

That mythology and that philosophy into which paganism has al ready been analysed had thus both of them been drained most literally to the dregs. If with the multiplication of magic the third department, which we have called the demons, was even increasingly active, it was never anything but destructive. There remains only the fourth element or rather the first; that which had been in a sense forgotten because it was the first. I mean the primary and overpowering yet impalpable impression that the universe after all has one origin and one aim; and because it has an aim must have an author. What became of this great truth in the background of men's minds, at this time, it is perhaps more difficult to determine. Some of the Stoics undoubtedly saw it more and more clearly as the clouds of mythology cleared and thinned away; and great men among them did much even to the last to lay the foundations of a concept of the moral unity of the world. The Jews still held their secret certainty of it jealously behind high fences of exclusiveness; yet it is intensely characteristic of the society and the situation that some fashionable figures, especially fashionable ladies, actually embraced Judaism. But in the case of many others I fancy there entered at this point a new negation. Atheism became really possible in that abnormal time; for atheism is abnormality. It is not merely the denial of a dogma. It is the reversal of a subconscious assumption in the soul; the sense that there is a meaning and a direction in the world it sees. Lucretius, the first evolutionist who endeavored to substitute Evolution for God, had already dangled before men's eyes his dance of glittering atoms, by which he conceived cosmos as created by chaos. But it was not his strong poetry or his sad philosophy, as I fancy, that made it possible for men to entertain such a vision. It was something in the sense of impotence and despair with which men shook their fits vainly at the stars, as they saw all the best work of humanity sinking slowly and helplessly into a swamp. They could easily believe that even creation itself was not a creation but a perpetual fall, when they saw that the weightiest and worthiest of all human creations was falling by its own weight. They could fancy that all the stars were falling stars; and that the very pillars of their own solemn porticos were bowed under a sort of gradual Deluge. To men in that mood there was a reason for atheism that is in some sense reasonable. Mythology might fade and philosophy might stiffen; but if behind these things there was a reality, surely that reality might have sustained things as they sank. There was no God; if there had been a God, surely this was the very moment when He would have moved and saved the world.

The life of the great civilisation went on with dreary industry and even with dreary festivity. It was the end of the world, and the worst of it was that it need never end. A convenient compromise had been made between all the multitudinous myths and religions of the Empire; that each group should worship freely and merely give a sort of official flourish of thanks to the tolerant Emperor, by tossing a little incense to him under his official-title of Divus. Naturally there was no difficulty about that; or rather it was a long time before the world realised that there ever had been even a trivial difficulty anywhere. The members of some Eastern sect or secret society or other seemed to have made a scene somewhere; nobody could imagine why. The incident occurred once or twice again and began to arouse irritation out of proportion to its insignificance. It was not exactly what these provincials said; though of course it sounded queer enough. They seemed to be saying that God was dead and that they themselves had seen him die. This might be one of the many manias produced by the despair of the age; only they did not seem particularly despairing. They seemed quite unnaturally joyful about it, and gave the reason that the death of God had allowed them to eat him and drink his blood. According to other accounts God was not exactly dead after all; there trailed through the bewildered imagination some sort of fantastic procession of the funeral of God, at which the sun turned black, but which ended with the dead omnipotence breaking out of the tomb and rising again like the sun. But it was not the strange story to which anybody paid any particular attention; people in that world had seen queer religions enough to fill a madhouse. It was something in the tone of the madmen and their type of formation. They were a scratch company of barbarians and slaves and poor and unimportant people; but their formation was military; they moved together and were very absolute about who and what was really a part of their little system; and about what they said. however mildly, there was a ring like iron. Men used to many mythologies and moralities could make no analysis of the mystery, except the curious conjecture that they meant what they said. All attempts to make them see reason in the perfectly simple matter of the Emperor's statue seemed to be spoken to deaf men. It was as if a new meteoric metal had fallen on the earth; it was a difference of substance to the touch. Those who touched their foundation fancied they had struck a rock.

With a strange rapidity, like the changes of a dream, the proportions of things seemed to change in their presence. Before most men knew what had happened, these few men were palpably present. They were important enough to be ignored. People became suddenly silent about them and walked stiffly past them. We see a new scene, in which the world has drawn its skirts away from these men and women and they stand in the centre of a great space like lepers. The scene changes again and the great space where they stand is overhung on every side with a cloud of witnesses, interminable terraces full of faces looking down towards them intently; for strange things are happening to them. New tortures have been invented for the madmen who have brought good news. That sad and weary society seems almost to find a new energy in establishing its first religious persecution. Nobody yet knows very clearly why that level world has thus lost its balance about the people in its midst; but they stand unnaturally still while the arena and the world seem to revolve round them. And there shone on them in that dark hour a light that has never been darkened; a white fire clinging to that group like an unearthly phosphorescence, blazing its track through the twilights of history and confounding every effort to confound it with the mists of mythology and theory; that shaft of light or lightning by which the world itself has struck and isolated and crowned it; by which its own enemies have made it more illustrious and its own critics have made it more inexplicable; the halo of hatred around the Church of God.

Thoughts on Atheism and Prayer

2009-05-13T17:08:00.003-04:00

This was written in response to a friend's blog, who formerly was a believer, but who now, through the "The Truth of Rational Thought" has arrived at "ultimate truth": that there is no God. He had a recent post on the "power of prayer," as a response to those in his family, and those of his friends who are praying for him. He closed the post with these words: "If you are reading this, and you are one of the ones praying for my salvation, thanks, but no thanks. Why don't you instead go for a walk in nature, or help feed a hungry person, or teach some child to read, something, anything that would be constructive. While I appreciate the concern, you should know that no amount of prayer for me would/could never work, because your prayer's are unheard by anyone but you."

Two thoughts come to mind regarding what appears to be naïve and irrational thinking of people who “excuse” unanswered prayers by saying that “God’s answer is no,” or that “God has something else in store.” It is often caricatured by atheists as being absurd, as well as being inconsistent with a God who said, “Ask and you shall receive whatever you ask for in my name.”

It all runs into the example of Christ, who for any Christian, obviously needs to be the example and source of all thinking on prayer. As you know, when he was asked by the disciples how to prayer, the fundamental request was, “Thy will be done.” All other requests, in the Christian tradition, have this single caveat above all considerations.

When you look at the most poignant prayer that Christ prayed as well, we are confronted with unanswered prayer: “May this cup pass, but thy will be done.” Christ, the self-proclaimed Son of God’spetitional prayer was not answered, but his overarching prayer was, i.e.,, "Thy will be done," so why should the belief that God sometimes says, “no,” be absurd or naïve, in relation to determining whether or not Christianity is true or not? It may be absurd, but it is no case against Christianity since his example is clearly the Christian ideal, and contained within that ideal is unanswered petitional prayer. In his case, it’s clear that the answer was “no,” and it is also clear that God had something better in store, namely the redemption of the world.

It has always seemed strange to me when atheists attack Christian beliefs in prayer because their experience with it is completely consistent both with what Christianity has always taught, and secondly, that it consistently follows the very example that Christ showed in the Garden of Gethsemane. It seems that usually, atheist attacks on prayer stem from arguing against what atheists think prayer should be, if it means anything at all, rather than on what Christendom, stretched out over 2,000 years has always believed and taught about prayer. It seems to be the case in your post as well.

As to suffering, in the prayer that Christ prayed in Gethsemane can be found the answer to suffering that alluded Bart Ehrmann in his book, particularly in his chapter on Redemptive Suffering where he finds the belief that “others might need to suffer for my salvation” as personally repugnant. What he doesn’t get, despite his lauded position at Princeton Theological Seminary, is that “redemptive suffering” has nothing to do with others and their suffering for me, it has everything to do with my personal response to suffering, and what my suffering can do for others. The view of redemptive suffering is an invitation to the sufferer to find a purpose and a dignity in his suffering. He has flipped the entire history of the Church’s teaching on suffering on its head, and so of course it seems absurd to him and his expose against suffering is against something other than the Christian view of suffering.

Christ suffered for the redemption of the world, so the Christian answer is the best and only answer to the question of suffering that has ever vexed the world: out of suffering can come the greatest good, and the only surety that this can, and will happen, is contained within the heart of the sufferer, which in the Christian tradition, as you know, calls the sufferer to unite his suffering with Christ’s. Being a “living sacrifice” entails suffering, so within Christianity, even a man suffering from Ebola virus can rejoice in the very suffering he endures, for the redemptive good that can come from it, for others he loves, just as Christ willingly endured the travails of the Cross out of His love for us.

Outlines

2009-05-11T01:10:00.005-04:00

The effort I've been undertaking recently to sort through all of the stuff I've written and collected over the past couple of years has been very productive and helpful for me. A rough shape of the book is starting to form in my mind, and tonight is the first time I made an outline of the entire project.

It's all still quite malleable, but the bones are there, and the flesh is starting to take shape. I think I have figured out how I'm going to open the book, which has always been a question for me. I'm going to relay a personal story which really started me on this path of thinking about the whole topic of suffering, and then use that as a bridge to entering into the rest of the book. I think it's valuable to put a face to the story, and to share a poignant story that invites the reader in. Hopefully it will be intriguing enough to cause the reader to keep reading.

Though I plan to begin with a personal story, this book won't feature tons of personal memoir--only enough to share about the whole topic from the occasional perspective of my personal story. My story is not the book, but rather what God and his people have taught about suffering throughout history, and how this applies to my particular situation and others like me, with the hopes that what I've learned can be helpful to others.

On a related note, I celebrated Mother's Day with both my mom and my Godmother, and after dinner with the two them, as well as my dad, my Godfather and my brother Steve, all of us headed over to my Godparents' house and enjoyed dessert. We spent quite a bit of time talking about this book, and its basic thrust and I'm encouraged by what they said, and by their support for the endeavor. It was very valuable to talk with them about what I've been writing, and it's the first time I've spoken so much about all of this. I feel like I've reached another step in the journey: to begin speaking with people about what I've written, and to receive some wise counsel and help along the way.

I'm also excited by the contacts that my Godparents have, which will undoubtedly help in the publication and promotion of this book, if indeed it is God's will that it be published.

It was a good day today.

Cool Stuff!

2009-05-07T15:10:00.001-04:00

This is very, very cool!

2009-05-05T22:34:00.002-04:00

I just got booted off of a forum. I don't think they liked what I had to say. I've been censored, for the first time in my life. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, considering what I was talking about.

2009-05-04T01:04:00.004-04:00

I'm up late tonight, thinking about life and love, joy and sorrow, dreams fulfilled and dreams delayed, of hope and disappointment. I'm thinking about the past, the future and the present, and how all are part of this huge mountain I'm attempting to climb in writing this book. I desire to be finished with it, and so want to work in earnest to complete it this summer, or come as close as I can. I have two months off, and I want to write, read, and write some more.

I've read so much, and underlined so many things in so many different books that when I read one book, I hear echoes of another in the wisdom that's being shared by someone else. I've decided that my next assignment is to mine everything that has earned an underline, or for me, the ultimate sign of a passage's importance: stars next to it in the margin. I'm going to sift through all of the books that I've read in the past two years, and organize them all into the different themes that I've seen emerging throughout this process. I can't possibly remember all of the passages that have held meaning for me, and some of them blow me away again and again whenever I reacquaint myself with them. These are gems that I feel are hidden away, and now it's time to pull everything together to see if it's a piece of the puzzle or not, and if it is, where it fits.

I find that of late, all I ever want to do is to hurry home and work on my writing. Much of the urgency comes from the desire to be finished, but I have come to cherish the times where I can write and read in solitude. I'm grateful for the time to focus on such things. It's a time of solitude that I want to fully engage in, because I do not know what the future may hold--perhaps in the next chapter of my life, times of solitude will be few and far between. If one of my dreams is fulfilled, that of being a father, times like this will not be often in my life. These times are a gift that I want to embrace fully and I realize that in some ways, part of the reason I am single is so that I will have the time to write this book.

Pray for me, please, to keep on keeping on.

A Few Random Thoughts On Suffering

2009-05-01T17:07:00.004-04:00

The following comes from Irenaeus' Demonstration of the Apostolic Teaching, from the second century:

Now this world is encompassed by seven heavens, in which dwell powers and angels and angels and archangels, doing service to God, the Almighty and Maker of all things: not as though He was in need, but that they may not be idle and unprofitable and ineffectual.

In my mind, this is closely linked to Pascal’s teaching that prayer was given to us so that we might have "the dignity of causality," as well as Lewis’ poem about prayer, that says that when we pray, “for a moment, He enfeebles His power.” I believe that a strong case can be made that if we are invited to partake in the redemption of the world, through our suffering, it is not because Christ is in need, but rather it is a gift given to us that we “may not be idle and unprofitable and ineffectual.” The redemption of the world comes solely through Christ, but through his grace, He allows us to carry our daily cross on behalf of the rest of the world, as Colossians 1:24 teaches. This is a hard sell for a lot of Protestants, but C.S. Lewis believed it, Elisabeth Elliot believes it, and so do a lot of other Protestants, including me.

I stumbled on a quote from Jane Eyre a day or two ago:

I cannot deny that I grieved for his grief, whatever that was, and would have given much to assuage it.

Everyone has said something similar in our lives about someone we love. That's the love of Christ reflected through us, and it finds its most noble expression in being willing to lay down our life for a friend, just as Christ did. Though today that rarely takes the form of actual death, there are examples where this is exactly what God allowed. The most poignant example that I can think of is from A Severe Mercy, where Davy offered her life on behalf of her husband, Sheldon Van Auken. God viewed her as a "living sacrifice, holy and acceptable," and it was through the "severe mercy" of her death that Sheldon came fully to Christ.

We can endure almost anything, when we believe that by enduring it, we can somehow "assuage" another's grief, and even more so, when we know that we would do anything to work with Christ for another's redemption. Whenever we sacrifice anything, for anyone, we are closest to who we are as children of God, made in His image, in the image of perfect Love. Mother Theresa's example is a powerful one. From Come By My Light: "She had insisted that it would be 'worth going through every possible suffering just for one single soul.'" Mother Theresa carried much pain and despair in her life, and continually offered it up on behalf of the poor and lost in Calcutta, and counted it as worth the cost.

In his book, Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl relayed a story that took place in a deep moment of despair at the Theresienstadt concentration camp. He was asked by some in his barracks to speak any encouragement that he could. He "told them of a comrade who on his arrival in camp had tried to make a pact with Heaven that his suffering and death should save the human being he loved from a painful end. For this man, suffering and death were meaningful; his was a sacrifice of the deepest significance. He did not want to die for nothing." For the men in the camp, Frankl understood the truth of Nietzche's words, "He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how."

The most powerful quote I've read on suffering comes from Merton, who proclaims that our suffering is "something demanded by our own personal destiny." It is "the sacramental gift of Christ's love, given to me by God the Father along with my identity and my very name."

Our suffering is unique. We alone can carry it, and to run from it, at all costs, by deadening it in unhealthy ways, is to run away from God's plan for our lives and from the grace which He desires to pour out, in and through us. I am amazed at how Frankl's words resonate so closely with Merton's: "When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden." The call and invitation of Christ is to bear our particular burden, on behalf of our brothers and sisters, just as Mother Theresa--just as Christ did on behalf of us all.

Jerome

2009-04-30T18:49:00.003-04:00

I had a fun confirmation today. I've been thinking about one part of this book, and an absurd argument that some have espoused about a certain part of Scripture that just makes no sense at all to one imbued with a rational mind. I started thinking about the meaning of it, and arrived at something that seemed to make sense to me, but wanted to try and get confirmation from a reliable source who could hold credibility.

As I snooped around today at one of my favorite websites, the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, I found confirmation that what made sense to a layman in the 21st century is something that echoed exactly what Jerome, a Doctor of the Church, wrote 1600 years ago. There are a lot of absolutely preposterous interpretations of Scripture in the world today, and I for one would rather listen to a Doctor of the Church than I would to some yahoo attempting to do "violence to Scripture," (as Clement would say), to justify immorality. I'll take the tradition of Jerome over modernity, any day.

To quote Chesterton:

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father. I, at any rate, cannot separate the two ideas of democracy and tradition; it seems evident to me that they are the same idea. We will have the dead at our councils. The ancient Greeks voted by stones; these shall vote by tombstones. It is all quite regular and official, for most tombstones, like most ballot papers, are marked with a cross.

Now This Just Kicks Ass!

2009-04-23T20:20:00.004-04:00

I'm going to take a class to learn how to build a wood fired brick oven, on the north shore of Lake Superior, and on my way home, I'll be driving home, via the northern route in Canada. I've been on the waiting list to take at the North House Folk School, in Grand Marais, MN, for several years now, and have always been disappointed. I got a call today that one of the members of the class this summer couldn't make it, and I was the first one on the waiting list! At the end of May, I'm heading north! This will be my journey: 1,500 miles! Giddy up!

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Working on the Puzzle

2009-04-22T23:25:00.003-04:00

I've got the week off of work, and I've been doing a lot of writing and reading and trying to get some work done on this book I'm hoping to finish. I've done a lot of disparate writing over the past two years or so, and have usually written on themes and topics that are pressing on my mind on a particular day. It feels like a jigsaw puzzle, and honestly I don't have a clear picture of all of the pieces. As a result, I decided to buy a dozen three ring binders and organize all of the different files that exist on my computer into several general themes. I wanted to try and get some sense of the big picture and to hopefully begin to see a coalescing pattern. I just finished the task of printing off all of my files, and over the weekend I plan to read everything.

Just for curiosity's sake, I decided to count how many pages of writing that I've done. I mined my blog for a lot of writing as well, and between the work that I've done for my book, and the blog entries that I think may have benefit, I have about 230 pages of writing.

It feels good to have all of these various pieces of writing compiled into rough categories, and it's very satisfying to know that there is something tangible to see after all of the many hours of writing and reflecting that I've done. I know that very little of it will survive, as is, but there is more then a mere skeleton of this book. There's flesh on the bones. I also know that there are certain parts of this book that I have planned that I haven't yet begun, so I'm hoping that as a result of reading all of these pages this weekend, I'll be able to focus my attention on areas that I still need to develop. For now, however, it's very satisfying to see a stack of three ring binders. It gives me hope that perhaps this dream will become a reality.

Athanasius

2009-04-21T20:30:00.004-04:00

I'm doing a little light reading--reading about Arianism. Go figure. Regardless, I've stumbled on a description of a man that is very admirable. If more people could be like this, I think the world would be a better place:

"But the faith of Nicaea, though silenced, was not dead. Athanasius played a leading role: one clear head is enough. He was a whole Church by himself, as certain generals are worth an army. The people recognized him as 'a good Christian and a true bishop.' His mind was clear and could clear other minds. His character was like steel. He was impervious to threats, subtleties, tricks or compromise. He drew fresh strength from every obstacle. He never yielded. In the teeth of the seeming success of the powers and of seemingly unanimous false decisions, in the teeth of the seeming 'dialectic of history' he stood up to defend 'pure quality', the truth. By his intelligent loyalty to the past he shaped the future. His voice was clear and steady and never dismayed, though he was condemned again and again in psuedo-councils."

A couple of phrases from this paragraph appeal to me. "By his intelligent loyalty to the past he shaped the future." This resonates with a passage in Chesterton that I like immensely, and have quoted here before: "Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about." This has direct implications to the book I'm working on, where traditional viewpoints about a particular area of life have been completed turned on their head. I desire, in part, to point out, in intelligent ways, how the past can inform our way of viewing a certain part of modern life today, and to hopefully make a case to defend "'pure quality', the truth," as understood by the church for two millennia, at least one particular area.

I think it's a good thing to have an intelligent loyalty to the past. And all Christians owe a debt of gratitude to Athanasius for defending the faith. It's clear he was a 'good Christian and a true bishop.'

OK. Back to reading.

...and I've come to modify this.

This is the author's conclusion about Athanasius:

"The feat of Athanasius is astounding. Clear-headed, intuitive, and indomitable, he looms across the distance of history like another Abrahan, the man in whom the future resided, and who stood alone."

I think we'll all need to go shake his hand and say thank you when we meet him on the distant shore.

An Epiphany

2009-04-21T02:47:00.003-04:00

As I lay here in bed in the wee hours of the morning, as is my usual wont, I have reached a rather peaceful epiphany. I am done striving to lose weight, done trying to change myself into a svelte, lean, mean fighting machine. My battle to attempt to shed the pounds is over. I have learned that I am utterly powerless to change myself in this area, and so I have decided to put it completely into God's hands.

And with that, there is peace. No more worrying about the scale, no more worrying about what clothes will or won't fit, no more thinking that women may find me more attractive if I could merely get below 200 lbs. again. If women aren't attracted to me, because I am overweight, then that is a gift from God, for it is His will that I be single for as long as I am single. If God ordains that I should be married, and in order to be so, I need to be thin and svelte to be attractive to a woman, then He will provide me with the grace to change my eating habits. Or else He will bring to me a wife who doesn't mind a man with some love handles.

In the meantime, I am choosing to live in the peace that comes with self-abandonment to the will of God in the area of my weight. I'll lose weight when and if God wills it--then, and only then.

I suppose that seems strange, and a copout, but I have become convinced that is the way of our lives. Anytime we overcome any weaknesses in our lives, it is because God has granted us the grace to do so, even in the times when we are convinced that it is our self-discipline that has enabled us to change. Even that is a gift of God's grace.

So I'm done worrying about my weight. I'm done worrying about fitting into Larges again. I'm done worrying about whether or not women are put off by my belly. I've lost weight before, and now I'm basically back where I started. I have proven this: I am powerless to effect any significant or permanent change with my eating habits on my own. I have lived most of my life worried and consumed by concerns over this. I choose the path of freedom from self-condemnation in this regard, and submit myself fully and completely to the will of God, recognizing that I have absolutely no power to change anything in my life, unless God grants it to me to do so. I do hope and prayer that He will give me the grace to change, but may His will be done.

In the meantime, I feel tremendous peace about this, for the first time in years. And I accept the fact that I will be as I am for as long as God wills it. Conquering this particular demon will only happen if He does it.

What a relief that is.

2009-04-20T16:20:00.002-04:00

I've been a writing fiend today. I think I've probably gotten in about five hours or so, and it feels good. I feel like I'm on a bit of a roll, and I feel an urgency to be mostly finished with the rough draft of my book by this summer. I feel like it's what I'm supposed to be doing, and I've also become convinced that I can only write this as a single man, who's continually desirous of marriage. It gives a certain poignancy to the writing that simply wouldn't be there if I was dating, or married.

It feels good to be writing in earnest again. I wrote nearly 3500 words today, and unfortunately, I need to leave, and I don't really want to. I'd like to keep trucking!

A New Snickerdoodle

2009-04-20T11:38:00.001-04:00

I created a new cookie last night, or rather, a variation on an old favorite. I was sniffing around in my spice cupboard last week, and noticed that coriander has a very lemony scent to it. It's got a subtle, earthy spiciness that I sensed immediately would go incredibly well with lemon. It's been rattling around my brain for long enough that last night I had no choice but to try my hands at it.

I didn't know what kind of cookie I wanted to try and come up with, and so I pulled out my trusty companion when I want to reinvent the wheel: Cookwise, by Shirley O. Corriher. Her book goes into the whys and hows in ways that no other cookbook has done. I looked through the section on cookie making, trying to figure out the kind of recipe that I wanted to use to create this new cookie. Then the thought dawned on me that it would be an easy thing to simply adapt a tried and true recipe and make it new with a completely different character. I thought through all the types of cookies I like, and thought about sugar cookies, which often are already lemon flavored. Then I thought about Snickerdoodles and knew that I'd arrived at the right cookie. There's a built in tartness to Snickerdoodles already with the use of cream of tartar which I knew would compliment the cookie well. It's all about the alchemy of flavors, and I knew that when I combined coriander, lemon and the tartness of cream of tartar, I'd have a winner.

This cookie is amazingly tasty. It's a lemon cookie with an adult sensibility. I highly recommend trying it. Find your favorite Snickerdoodle recipe, then add to the creamed egg and sugar 1 1/2 tsp lemon extract, or about the same amount of lemon zest. To the dried ingredients, add 1 1/2 tsp of coriander, and bake how you normally would, but instead of using cinnamon sugar to roll the cookies in, use a 1/4 cup of sugar with 1 1/2 to 2 tsp of coriander.

Very, very tasty!

Diane

2009-04-17T16:25:00.003-04:00

The visitation for my neighbor Diane was this afternoon. I heard from her children that she had one last request of me. Her exact words were, "tell Dan to trim that damn Rose of Sharon bush!" She threatened to come and knock pictures off of my wall until I took care of it.

That's just like Diane...she was perpetually hounding me about my gardening skills, and my rose of Sharon bush has grown into an unwieldy behemoth that has blocked her lilac bush from getting enough sun.

I'm going to the funeral on Saturday, and then coming home and doing some serious pruning.

2009-04-16T18:40:00.002-04:00

I have come to the conviction that if we live alone, it is our vocation. If we suffer from loneliness, it is our calling, to be carried until God says otherwise, because I firmly believe that in our loneliness, while we are called to be single, we are of far better use to the Kingdom of God than if we were no longer in that state. God calls us to be married, because then we are of far more use to His Kingdom than if we remain single. To constantly chafe at either state, and attempt to escape at whatever cost the barren loneliness one feels as a single person, or to escape what one might feel is a loveless or constrictive marriage, cheats us of the grace God desires to pour out in our lives, and prevents us from using that very struggle and pain for the betterment of the world, and the furtherance of the Kingdom of God.

My Neighbor

2009-04-15T10:53:00.003-04:00

I awoke this morning, looked out the window and saw on my neighbor's porch signs that she had passed on. All of the equipment that was used to make her last days comfortable was sitting on the porch, waiting to be picked up. Her family is busying themselves, packing things away, filling the painful minutes with activity. It's sad, but Diane is indeed in a better place. Having so much time at home, knowing she would be passing soon was a gift, to her, to her family, and to all of us who knew her.

Pray for her family, will you?

She has entered into joy, unimaginable. Praise be to God!

Aelred of Rievaulx and C.S. Lewis

2009-04-15T00:09:00.005-04:00

From the Mirror of Charity, by Aelred of Rievaulx (1109-1166):

What are you doing, O human soul, what are you doing? Why are you seized by so many distractions? One thing alone is necessary. Why so many? Whatever you seek in the many exists in the one. If you long for excellence, knowledge, delight, abundance, all is there, there to perfection and nowhere else but there. Can real excellence exist in this swamp of misery and miry bog? Or perfect knowledge in this realm of the shadow of death? Or real delight in this place of horror and vast solitude or genuine abundance amid so many hardships? Again, in this world, what excellence exists which fear does not overthrow? How great is man's knowledge when he does not even grasp himself? If you delight in the flesh, so do the horse and the mule which have no understanding. If you delight in glory or wealth, you will not take it all with you when you die, nor will your glory go with you. Real excellence exists where there is nothing higher to strive for, real knowledge exists where nothing remains unknown. That delight is real which is not lessened by boredom and that abundance is real which is never exhausted. Woe to us, Lord, because we have withdrawn from you! Alas for me, that my stay has been prolonged. When shall I come and appear before your face? Who will give me the wings of a dove that I may fly away and be at rest?

Chapter 22. A rational creature rests only once he attains happiness; he hopes for happiness, but unhappily avoids the path by which he may arrive at it.

62. This privilege of rising above the physical senses to strive for higher things is reserved for you, O rational soul, in preference to other living things. You will never satisfy your desire until by a felicitous curiosity you reach what is highest and best, what nothing surpasses and nothing excels. Wherever you stand below that, however high or great or pleasant it may be adjudged, you will doubtlessly remain miserable. Miserable, because needy. Needy, because ahead lies what you seek; ahead lies what you are panting for; ahead lies that happiness towards the achievement of which a natural force drives the rational soul. Wherefore, since the conscience of each and every individual testifies that all humans want to be happy and since this will can in no way be destroyed, obviously a rational creature can attain the rest desired by all humans only by attaining happiness.

63. Moreover, the blind perversity of miserable man is lamentable enough. Although he desires happiness ardently, not only does he not do those things by which he may obtain his desire but rather, with contrary disaffection, takes steps to add to his misery. In my opinion, he would never do this, if a false image of happiness were not deceiving him, or a semblance of real misery frightening him off from happiness. Does anyone not see that poverty, grief, hunger, and thirst are no slight part of misery? Yet through them real misery is frequently averted and eternal happiness pursued. Blessed are you poor, said Jesus, for yours is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you who weep, for you shall be comforted. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. Poverty, then, is rewarded with eternal riches, grief is changed to eternal joy, for the hungry eternal satisfaction is in store. No one doubts that all these, riches, joy, and satisfaction, are not lacking in happiness. But because an appearance of joy deludes any wicked person by some attachment to his will, his false delight disappears with the satisfaction of his desires, while in his misery he does not know what consolation there is for the elect even in oppression and what rejoicing in hope.

64. The wicked [man]...is like a sick person who earnestly hopes to recover but because of the immediate pain shuns an amputation or dreads cauterization. Lured by immediate relief he demands the fomentations of an oil poultice, though his disease is a kind that rages more on this gentle treatment and does not abate without the pain of cautery or amputation. So man is miserable, or deceived, as long as he thinks that happiness is something it is not, or allured by agreeableness of present things that fool him. He gets used to misery, and indeed never loses his longing for happiness; and, as if struggling unhappily in this circle, never rests. Now since God alone is superior, and an angel equal, to a rational soul, and all other things are considered inferior, what is closer to madness than to abandon the superior and to pine for rest in beings inferior to oneself?

As I picked up this book this evening, thumbing through pages that I marked with Post-It Notes many months ago, I didn't know how valuable it would be for me to read. One of my favorite passages from one of my favorite authors, Clement of Alexandria, says this: “The best means towards understanding of the truth and the performance of the commandments is to follow those others who have already been through the test with flying colors.” Aelred of Rievaulx was a man who, like Augustine, passed the test with flying colors after a life that began by seeking happiness in ways, and in places, where it couldn't be found. I needed to hear these words of Aelred tonight. As I read the passage above, it seems to me that it sums up the fallen nature of man as accurately as any piece of writing ever has. We seek happiness where it can't be found, and we need the pain of surgery to fix it. It made me think of Eustace as a dragon in C.S. Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and the passage below:

"Then the lion said - but I don't know if it spoke - 'You will have to let me undress you.' I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know - if you've ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.

Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off - just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt - and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me - I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on - and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again. You'd think me simply phoney if I told you how I felt about my own arms. I know they've no muscle and are pretty mouldy compared with Caspian's, but I was so glad to see them.

After a bit the lion took me out and dressed me - (with his paws?) - Well, I don't exactly remember that bit. But he did somehow or other: in new clothes - the same I've got on now, as a matter of fact. And then suddenly I was back here. Which is what makes me think it must have been a dream."

It's no accident that the truth of our need for God's grace in our lives resonates in the exact same manner with a monk living in the 11th century, an English don in the 20th century, and a trombone playing bachelor in the 21st century. I think the difference between them and me, however, is that I haven't yet fully submitted to the surgery. May God help me, for how I'd like to be able to see my reptilian skin lying on the grass next to me, and feel as smooth and clean as a peeled switch. Alas! I still cling to things that my rational mind knows will lead only to misery, and yet that a part of me falsely believes will bring me happiness. I am deceived by the "agreeableness of present things that fool" me on a daily basis, and sometimes it's harder than at other times to see the truth.

May God give me the grace, and us all, to see things as they really are. Only by the grace of God will it be so.

My neighbor, Diane

2009-04-04T22:48:00.002-04:00

I believe that I spoke with my neighbor, Diane, for the last time today. She's dying of cancer, and the doctors gave her 6-12 days to live. Today is the 12th day, and tomorrow, I'm off to Minnesota with my brass quintet. We won't be back until Good Friday. It's rare to actually know that a given moment, and a conversation, is the very last one you'll have. At least on this earth.

Please pray for her and her family this week.

I think that Holy Week is a good week to finish your journey in this world.

I think I'm in business...almost!

2009-04-03T16:09:00.002-04:00

I just found out some very good news: it's possible, according to state law, to have a commercial kitchen in one's basement. I could easily convert my laundry room into usage for this purpose! I had feared that one needed to have a separate entrance, but though this is preferred, it is not the law. The question now only concerns zoning, which is covered by the City of Grand Rapids.

I'm very excited by this prospect, and if this is possible, I'll definitely be starting up a little baking business in my basement, and start selling things at the Farmer's Market this summer, followed by chocolates in the fall.

Giddy up!

2009-03-31T22:58:00.002-04:00

It's very hard being patient with God. It's one thing to recognize that you are in the palm of God's hand, and to know this in a cerebral way, and to have faith that it is so. It's another thing altogether to rest in that knowledge and completely allow your desires to become wholly subservient to the will of God.

I grow impatient with God, and desire so much to be married. The longer I have lived as a bachelor, I find that there are times when I wonder if God's plans for me don't include a wife. I know that if that's the case, then I will ultimately be happiest and most fulfilled by remaining single, but the death of the dream to be married would be a long and painful one. I sometimes muse that perhaps if God's will is for me to be married, maybe I'll only be married when it becomes irrelevant to me whether I become married or not, because at that point I would have learned to trust in God's plans for me in this area completely and fully.

I'm not sure if I'm man enough to do that, however. I take comfort in the knowledge that God knows our weaknesses, and He knows what my desires are, and He indeed knows that though I wish to leave it all completely in His hands, that I have a very hard time doing it.

I'm accustomed to this single life, and I don't really wish to remain so, but on days like today, it seems very conceivable to me that this will perhaps be my lot in life. I hope not, but God's will be done, right? Even if I'm wrestling with Him, and myself, while I say it.

I do believe this: that I'm supposed to be single right now, since I am. It's clearly God's will for me, even if I don't like. God help me, but I don't like it.

Henri Nouwen Quotes

2009-03-30T20:38:00.002-04:00

I'm having a great evening at home. I finished watching a film about Henri Nouwen which was excellent. I decided to sit down and transcribe a few of the segments, since I found them moving and valuable, and so I thought I'd share them. The first is an excerpt from his writing. The other three are transcripts of interviews. For me, that final paragraph is the most powerful.

At the core of my faith belongs the conviction that we are the beloved sons and daughters of God. One of the enormous spiritual tasks we have is to claim that and to live a life based on that knowledge, and that’s not very easy. In fact, most of us fail constantly to claim the truth of who we are.

Loneliness—this is a wound, this is a pain, when you don’t run away from it, but feel it through, and that sort of in the middle of the pain there is some gift hidden. And I more and more in my life have discovered that the gifts of life are often hidden in the places that most hurt.

I was very, very convinced from the very beginning, that ministry is to lay down your life for your friends. OK? Like Jesus said: being a shepherd is the one who lays down his life for his friend. But laying down your life you have to have first a life to lay down, you know? You have to know who you are, and by laying down your life I don’t’ mean physical martyrdom, I meant your pain, your anguish, your doubts, your confusion. How can you really enter into that and discover there God’s healing grace, and to make that experience, that adventure with God in your own life, as the source of your ministry.

Conversion is claiming again and again and again the truth of myself. And what is the truth of myself? That I am God’s beloved child, long before I was born, and my father and my mother and my teachers and my church got involved, and I will be God’s beloved child long after I have died. I go from God’s intimate embrace into God’s intimate embrace. God says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love, I’ve love you before you were born. I’ve knitted you together in your mother’s womb, I’ve molded you in the depths of the world, I was there long before any human being was there, and I love you, I love you and I’ve written your name in my hand—you’re safe in the palm of my hand, long before you were born. And I’m sending you into this world for a little time—20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 years—that’s just a little bit—so that you’ll have the chance to say, “I love you too.”

LVB, CSL and GKC

2009-03-30T16:09:00.005-04:00

I am spending the afternoon reading some C. S. Lewis: The Abolition of Man. I had a discussion this morning at my quintet rehearsal about what I believe is the universality of Beethoven's Ninth symphony. My argument is that Beethoven was able to create, in some mysterious manner, a work of art that fundamentally resonates with the human spirit. I was immediately rebuked by one of my colleagues who said, "speaking of universality is tricky business. You have to be really careful there."

This then led into a ten minute discussion about art. My position, and firm belief, is that good art, whether it's music, drama, poetry, sculpture, or anything else, is good because it connects us with our humanity, and that some artists have the ability to do this more than others. My colleague stated to me that Beethoven's Ninth is recognized as "good" because our society and culture has decided that it is, so thus it is. I find that absurd. She's of the rather liberal streak of academia that is critical of western culture, of dead white men and much that they taught, created or espoused. I find it all unfortunate, and as I listened to her this morning, I thought back to my reading of Chesterton, and it made me want to come home and read The Abolition of Man.

I am of the belief that many in academic circles suffer from an insidious creeping cynicism that masquerades as enlightenment in their minds. The simple pleasures of life, or what has generally been lauded by most people in most places are seen, through the lens of academia, to be merely sentimental drivel, so out of a desire to leave aside "childish things," the academe often excises from his or her life the simplest of pleasures that the common man seems to think is delightful. She informed me that when she performs Beethoven Nine, she never has overwhelming feelings of emotion, which never fails to happen in my case. She then told me about a book that she felt I needed to read, with a title like "Deconstructing Beethoven," which apparently has convinced her that Beethoven's place in history is more an accident which resulted from western society deciding that he should be lauded, rather than the fact that his music is intrinsically and objectively good music. I think that many college professors are very easily be swayed by a new book that espouses a theory that says something like that, and then embrace the theory so as to themselves feel enlightened and educated, which results in this maxim: to love Beethoven Nine is to be a fool.

I think this happens all the time, and it's one of the reasons I love Chesterton and Lewis so much, and the rest of their company. The older I get, the more clearly I see the side that I desire to align myself with: those who love story, beauty, wonder and awe as gifts to be embraced and encouraged, and within these gifts can be found be reflections of our very humanity. I think what Lewis writes in The Abolition can easily apply to the way some professors I know view the world: "They see the world around them swayed by emotional propaganda--they have learned from tradition that youth is sentimental--and they conclude that the best thing they can do is to fortify the minds of young people against emotion. My own experience as a teacher tells an opposite tale. For every one pupil who needs to be guarded from a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be awakened from the slumber of cold vulgarity. The task of the modern educator is not to cut down the jungles but to irrigate deserts. The right defence (sic) against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head."

I love that! And as I read that last line, I saw a direct corollary to a line that I had underlined in Chesterton's Orthodoxy just last week: "Every man who will not have softening of the heart must at last have softening of the brain." The context is different: GKC is talking about madness, but I wonder if Lewis inadvertently used this idea of GKC's.

Back to my reading now, to think more about the universality of humanity's love and appreciation for beauty and that which is sublime. I knew this morning that Lewis would give me insights into what I find to be an incredibly silly position to hold.

2009-03-28T11:02:00.003-04:00

I'm dogsitting this weekend for a couple of friends. This dog is in need of therapy...I've never met a more skittish, nervous dog. I awoke last night to the sound of her puking in my bedroom, the poor thing. (I'm fearful I'll have a permanent record of the scene of the crime). She's often whining, looking up at me with expectant eyes, and I have no idea what to do with her. Right now, thankfully she's sleeping comfortably on the living room floor.

I'm a dog lover, but without having a fenced in backyard where I can send the dog out to go do her business, I've decided I don't want a dog. Having to leash up a dog every time he or she would want to go pee is a huge deal breaker for me.

On a somewhat related note, I'm wondering how she'll manage having my buddy Steve over today, who's coming to help work on my bathroom. We'll be making noise, drilling things, and I'll be curious to see how she handles all of the noise. I'm thinking not well.

The good news is that the bathroom is going to be making some major headway this weekend.

Choice Chesterton

2009-03-25T23:02:00.002-04:00

One of the many books I'm working my way through right now is Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton. He's worming his way into my affections, and I suspect by the time I'm done with this book, he'll be one of my favorite authors. I expected this to happen as soon as I picked up a book by him, but I didn't fall in love with his writing right away. The book that I'm currently reading was one which Lewis said influenced him to become a Christian, and because of that, I thought I would love it instantly. There wasn't instant chemistry however, to stretch the analogy further, but as I slowly spend more time with GKC, I'm becoming a big fan.

He's definitely a great thinker, but at times I feel he allows pithy comments to overwhelm the defensibility of his point. For example, one paragraph will show what I mean:

It is quite easy to see why a legend is treated, and ought to be treated more respectfully than a book of history. The legend is generally made by the majority of people in the village who are sane. The book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad.

He's speaking about the value of legend and myth, as opposed to what is supposedly "true," the teachings of scientists. He makes a good point, but the line that "the book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad," makes me think of partisan lines used in political speeches to arouse applause from the proverbial choir: he's hearing cheers from those who already hold his view, applauding the pithiness of the line. It's not defensible to say that books are written by madmen, and he didn't need to write that to defend his point. I think he was very satisfied with the line, so kept it in. I have seen several similar moments where I have to scratch my head and say, "it ain't necessarily so."

Unfortunately, in my mind, one of the central foundations of the book is based on something that "ain't necessarily so." He makes the case in the first chapter of the book that one should really put their faith in the artist, or the storyteller, more than he should place his trust in someone who is a slave to logical thinking. He argues that creativity rarely leads to madness, but that rigid, logical thinking is the path to insanity:

Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists, very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination.

What bugs me about this is that Chesterton's case for Christianity is very strong, but his premise is based largely on a thesis that stems from the statement above, a thesis that isn't really defensible. History is fraught with artists who've gone mad. He uses the argument above to lead into a defense of fairy tales as telling more truths than science does, and urges a view of the world that is formed more by creativity and imagination than it is by rational thinking. I happen to agree with this view of Chesterton's, and as I read more of the book, I'm beginning to understand why his writing resonated with Lewis so profoundly. The current chapter is fantastic, entitled "The Ethics of Elfland." That fits Lewis well, but unfortunately, I feel that the book wouldn't help a modern reader find Christianity, if they were reading with a highly critical and rationalistic mind, which of course is something GKC would have railed against.

Regardless, here's one of the best passages in the book:

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.

And another passage that got several stars by it in my reading:

The sense of the miracle of humanity itself always should be more vivid to us than any marvels of power, intellect, art or civilization. The mere man on two legs, as such, should be felt as something more heartbreaking than any music and more startling as any caricature.

I'll probably add more thoughts on GKC as I keep reading. If you haven't read him, give it a whirl. He's making me think about things I've never thought about, in ways I've never imagined. That's a good writer, if you ask me.

The Search Continues...

2009-03-17T00:17:00.002-04:00

Sarah and I are no longer an item, and for that, I'm thankful. Though I was hopeful, it turned out that we would not have been a good match. She's a bit uptight, and last night, as I drove home from David and Torey's after an incident that kept me laughing in the car my entire trip home, I couldn't possibly see her laughing over what happened. I think she would have viewed my hijinks as being far too juvenile.

When I talked with her, she said that she really learned that she needs someone who's "mature" and who is as "professional" as she is. My thought in response to this was something I shared with one of my colleagues today at work: one can by playful and yet mature, or be serious and and yet be immature. Seriousness is no indication of wisdom or maturity, nor is playfulness an indication of childishness. I think she construes my playful side as immaturity, which is unfortunate. She could use a little playfulness in her life, but I for one am glad that I escaped a relationship with her.

Shipwrecked on Pastries

2009-03-13T00:49:00.004-04:00

I didn't want to go to bed just yet tonight, and wanted another beer, so I decided to grab a good book, sit in a comfortable chair and pick up some writing by Clement of Alexandria, who I haven't had the pleasure of reading for quite some time. I decided to thumb through his book, Christ the Educator, and stumbled on a passage that I found rather humorous.

There is no limit to the gluttony that these men practise (sic). Truly, in ever inventing a multitude of new sweets and ever seeking recipes of every description, they are shipwrecked on pastries and honey-cakes and desserts.

To me, a man of this sort seems nothing more than one great mouth. 'Be not desirous,' Scripture says, 'of the meats of the rich. For these belong to a false and shameful life.' These men hug their delicacies to themselves, yet after a while they must yield them to the privy. As for us, who seek a heavenly food, we must restrain the belly and keep it under the control of heaven, and even more that which is made for the belly which 'God will destroy,' as the Apostle says, intending, no doubt, to curse gluttonous desires. 'Food is for the belly,' and the life of the body, belonging completely to this world and made for corruption, depends upon it.

What would dear Clement think of my Willy Wonka ways, I wonder? I'll go with the words of the Apostle Paul on this one: As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. ...For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.

Whew! I still see chocolates in my future. And some of them will be yielded to the privy.

(Well, I suppose all of them will.)

Just Me...

2009-03-06T15:40:00.002-05:00

More Thomas Merton

2009-03-05T22:48:00.003-05:00

I'm reading an anthology of Thomas Merton's writing, on the topic of writing. I recently read the passage below which comes from a letter he wrote to a friend in 1948. It parallels an idea that is fundamental to Merton's understanding of "who we really are," and which has been tremendously helpful in my personal understanding of who I am, and why we're all here.

Because my own individual destiny is a meeting, an encounter with God that He has destined for me alone. His glory in me will be to receive from me something he can never receive from anyone else--because it is a gift of His to me which He has never given to anyone else & never will. My whole life is only that--to establish that particular constant with God which is the one He has planned for my eternity!

Incidentally, I think if I ever have a son, I'd like to name him Christopher Thomas. Christopher, since it's such a powerful name, which also happens to be my middle name, and Thomas, in honor of two Thomas's I hold dear: Thomas Merton and Sir Thomas More. I hope one day I'll get to meet Christopher Thomas M. God willing.

Funny Stuff, My Friends

2009-03-04T00:38:00.001-05:00

This is honestly one of the funniest things I've ever seen. I'm laughing out loud, as a result of watching it. I've got to share it.

The Star of Bethlehem

2009-03-02T14:56:00.002-05:00

OK...if you're a Netflix user, you should put something into your queue right away. I just finished watching something that I approached rather skeptically, as is my wont, but now I'm blown away. I mean, really blown away.

You should put this in your queue.

A lawyer decided to decipher all he could about the Star of Bethlehem, and concludes, convincingly so, that from the very foundations of the universe, God knew when He would redeem mankind, the exact moment when His Son would enter earth as a man, and the exact moment when He would die, for all of it was written in the skies. The lawyer calls it celestial poetry, and it's goose bump producing stuff that he uncovers.