Emmanuel - part 2

    A few posts ago I talked about similarities between life and stories.  It can be really interesting to think about people as characters.  Different characters have different sorts of roles, sometimes the same character will have two different roles in two different stories, but I think it is interesting to think of people as different types of characters.  Who are the sidekicks, the antiheroes, the foils, the eccentric bystanders?  I once did an activity for an acting class where we took a list of character types and tried to think of as many characters from different stories as we could that fit those character types.
    Recently I’ve been thinking about a particular character type.  I’m not aware of any existing terms that describe this type of character, but it is pretty common.  If you happen to be particularly skilled at nomenclature, you should recommend a name.  Here’s your opportunity to contribute to the field of literature.  I’m thinking of the characters who always seem to know what to do and to be able to do it.  The ones who show up when the situation is darkest and know exactly what to do.  When everyone else has exhausted their resources, this character always has another strength or skill or strategy.  Gandalf, Sir Percy, Father Brown, Aslan, John Whitaker, Orion, Mufasa, Sherlock Holmes.  (I didn’t put superheroes in the list merely because of perspective.  To other people, they look like these sorts of characters, but they know better.)  Maybe you can tell the most about these characters by their absences  When Mr. Whitaker is out of town, will Connie know how to solve Jimmy’s moral dilemma?  When Aslan is not in Narnia, no one is capable of fending off the White Witch’s winter.  When Mufasa dies, the Pridelands are left to the appetites of Scar and his hyena henchmen.  When they are not around, anything might happen.  Nothing is certain.  Nothing is safe.
    These characters might not always succeed. Three of them died, but they bring certainty.  I think the scariest thing in the world is uncertainty, and having a character who is confident for good reasin goes a long way.  Even if they are not around, as long as everyone follows their instructions perfectly, everything will work out.  Then of course, someone realizes that they might not be so trustworthy and decides to do their own thing rather than obey the über wise character. The funny thing is that it still works out. Maybe they knew something would go wrong ahead of time, so they planned for it.  Maybe they return or are resurrected like Gandalf or Aslan or like Mufasa it turns out that their influence continues through another character.  Maybe Sir Percy and Sherlock Holmes were there all along in disguise, but no one knew it or Father Brown was there, but no one noticed him.  Even if they have to pay a huge price to fix things, they will.  Then of course it seems obvious.  Everyone wonders why they had any doubts.
    Jesus had a lot of similarities to these characters.  Jesus was in some tight situations during His lifetime.  His disciples got pretty scared even when He was with them.  There was always a storm or a mob or a lack of resources that had the disciples worried, but eventually, they started to get the hang of things.  Something goes wrong and then Jesus just blinks and everything is okay.  Then just when the disciples are starting to get the hang of things, Jesus is gone.  He’s arrested, then He’s killed, then after He has come back to life, He floats away and disappears.  With Jesus there, they knew they could handle anything, but then suddenly, He was gone.  The über wise one who always knew what to do and made everything work out right wasn’t around anymore.  None of the disciples knew what to do or how to do it.  They just waited around in locked rooms or staring at the sky waiting for Jesus to come back.  His absence cut deeply.  The had been called out, chosen, taught, trained.  Why?
    I wonder what those early Jesus-less meetings of the disciples were like.  How long did it take them to figure out what the plan was.  “So Jesus said there was another guy coming right?  A helper?”  “Yeah, He said the helper would only come if He left.”  “And He said that would be to our advantage?   To have this helper guy?  How is that possible?” Did they have any idea what would happen at Pentecost?  How did they picture the “Spirit of Truth?”  I also wonder how much they missed Jesus presence after the Holy Spirit came.
    I think the Mufasa analogy fits best here.  Even though He wasn’t there physically, His influence continued through the teaching He had given His disciples.  I understand that personally.  I see things every minute in my house, my family, my thoughts that I attribute to my dad.  Even though he isn’t here, he still influences my life in a lot of ways.  I can’t even begin to imagine what my life would be like if I never knew my dad.  Imagine how the disciples felt after losing Jesus.  He was gone but He was still part of their lives.  That’s an understatement.  Their lives were still His.  The fact that they were sitting in that locked room talking to each other was because He had brought them together.
    Then, the Holy Spirit comes.  Not only do they have Jesus words and each other to guide them.  They have the ultimate guide, an internal guide.  They have God, Jesus, Himself living in their lives.  I can’t honestly say I understand how the Holy Spirit works better than the guy who first drew a shoulder angel, but if Jesus wanted Him to come so badly that He was willing to leave, it’s a pretty big deal.

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    I skipped over the first part of the Emmanuel story.  That’s the piece that most people are thinking about this time of year. at least I hope so.  It’s the part where Jesus comes to be with us, and not just with us.  He becomes one of us in almost every way beginning with infancy.  Anyway, I wanted to remind you of the rest of the story with this post.  To remember that Emmanuel wasn’t just for the first century.  God is still with us.  God is in us.  He’s also in the people around us.  The influence of Jesus is still here.  Look for it.  Look in your thoughts, your actions, your words.  Look for it in your friends’ and family’s words, thoughts and actions.  When you sit around your Christmas tree with your family tomorrow, think about Emmanuel.  Think about the awesome fact that God’s presence is there with you.  Think about the fact that the smallest figure in the manger scene came so you could rip colorful paper apart excitedly and eat ham and sip hot cocoa and listen to bells and caroling in peace.  And so that you don’t have to be afraid.  In fact He’s right there with you.  Always.  Even to the end.

Merry Christmas!

Appearance

    What do you think of me? What do you think of my hair, clothes, decisions, purchases, habits, speech?  Do you care what you think about me?  Probably less than I do.  It's almost like I have a responsibility to myself to carefully shape everyone's opinions about me.  Or maybe it's a responsibility to everyone else.  Should I shower because I want to protect you from unpleasant odors or because I don't want a reputation as a slob?
  I tend to be very aware of other's opinions of me.  Whenever I say something my subconscious kicks into gear and watches all the reactions around me. When I tell a funny story, even if it wasn’t meant merely as a joke, I feel self conscious and slightly embarrassed if no one laughs.  After I leave a conversation, I often think back to any awkward parts and replay them multiple times to think of how I could have communicated my point better. When I write a blog post, I generally pause for several seconds before I press publish and think about who will be reading the post and whether I should actually publish it. I still have some unpublished posts on my computer, mostly because they just aren't very interesting, but partly because I’m not sure what people would think if they read them.
  Maybe image is important. Having other people think well of you can't be a bad thing. It allows others to trust us and accept us.  What if we knew everyone's dark secrets? If we knew all the ways they were likely to let us down, we probably wouldn't give them the chance. Maybe we would. We know that everyone makes mistakes. Would it really make a difference if we knew specifically what mistakes those were? Here's a question: if we knew what mistakes we made ourselves how would that affect our self-image?  I know I have a blind spot for my mistakes.  I used to try to confess my sins as part of my regular prayer routine and would just sit still for a few minutes trying to think of recent sins to confess.  I couldn't think of anything.  Obviously I had. I honestly tried to remember my sins, but they just wouldn't come to me.  I think my idea of sin was off too, but I'll get to that in another post. The point is, we don't really see ourselves as we are.  Even people with poor self-image think of themselves poorly for the wrong reasons.  When I look backwards with minimal bias, I notice questionable  motives that I would have denied  vehemently at the time.  I think that if we understood our own motives and actions we would be more understanding of others. And if we gave others the benefit of the doubt regarding their motives, meanwhile realizing realistically that their motives likely aren't pure, but that it isn't our place to judge them if they aren't. How many conflicts could we avoid and how many broken relationships could be repaired if we kept this perspective?

X-Holidays

A lot of people get upset with replacement words for Christmas. I think that’s interesting. I understand that there was a movement a few years back to secularize the Christmas season and so there is an understandable opposition to this movement, which takes place largely in marketing and advertising. In any case, I find it ironic that the replacement words are actually Christian words as well. Take X-mas for example. I remember a children’s book about a place where they celebrated “X-mas” by selling manger scenes with Xes in mangers and watching tv shows about Xes. I used to think that “X-mas” was just an extreme way of avoiding using the name“Christ.” It turns out “X” isn’t actually an “x.” I mean it isn’t an English “x.” It’s actually a Greek letter pronounced “chi” which happens to be the first letter in the Greek spelling of Christ. In fact in a lot of C. S. Lewis’s letters he uses the abbreviation X in words like Xian (Christian). Not that it’s okay just because C. S. Lewis did it. My point is just that this supposedly secularized abbreviation actually stems from Christian tradition.

People also don’t like the word Holiday. I understand that it is can be less satisfying to see your favorite department store proclaiming “Happy Holidays” than “Merry Christmas” but think about this for a minute. Even when unbelievers say“Merry Christmas” they are usually celebrating Santa Claus and warm fuzzy feelings of goodwill which are inspired by colorful blinking lights rather than the good news signaled by the arrival of Immanuel. Do we really want to force people to celebrate pine trees, shopping and happy music?

That aside, I still don’t mind the phrase “Happy Holidays” because it still points back to Christian tradition. The closest thing to a homonym (there is probably a better word, for “sounds like…” but I don’t know it) for holidays is holy days. I’m fairly certain (I’m not connected to the internet to verify this) that this is because of the Gregorian calendar in which the days of the year were tied to the activities of the church. Monasteries had particular daily schedules as well. There were specific Psalms that would be read on a certain day at a certain time. The times of the day and the seasons of the year were tied to particular prayers, songs and readings to mark the day.

In my last post I talked about the way that music connects us to memories. The changing of seasons help to connect us to memories. Imagine living in a city with no seasons. Don't say Phoenix. We don't have snow, but we still have seasons. Seasons keep us from living purely linear lives. Even while we move forward, we remain in cycles. Think about if temperature was linear. Either it would never change, it would always be getting hotter or it would always be getting colder. Why is it that time is the only thing that never goes backwards? As time is always increasing, everything else loops around and rises and falls.

The calendar keeps us connected to other points in time. Think about life as a graph with a standard x-y axis with time as the x-axis and some thing else in the y-axis like the date. The date is always changing, but your y coordinate will sometimes be the same. So in one dimension, you go back and forth, in another dimension you are never in the same place twice. Now think of life as thousands of different factors, each one a dimension (of course it's impossible to picture, but you can understand the idea) thousands of dimensions are always changing, back and forth, up and down: weight, location, date, friends, emotions. Holy days are an interesting time in that sense because so many dimensions line up. We have traditions, which means that we like to go to the same places, eat the same food, sing the same songs, we spend time with the same people, decorate our house the same way, read the same books and think the same thoughts that we have every year in the past. In some ways we are living in the past. We replicate it genuinely. But time keeps moving on. Some things will never be replicated and the things that are different make us realize where we stand, to realize what has changed over the year and make us aware of the changes that are coming. Memories can also hurt us more deeply because the differences are sharper and more abrasive. Memories give us tantalizing pieces of the past, a melancholy sense of what has changed and never will be again. They also show us the things that have remained the same, and the things that never change. Those are the things that the Church reminds us of every year.

Remember the holy days.

The Narrative

    I love books.  I haven’t read many recently, but I assure you it isn’t from a sudden lack of interest in literature.  Anyway, I tend to read fiction faster than non-fiction, and I think it’s because fiction contains stories.  I realize that different kinds of things are significant to different people.  Every now and then I see beauty in mathematics and biology and paintings, but usually beauty is most apparent in those things when they fit appropriately into some kind of story.  For example, I have been experimenting with different artists and styles of music lately.  I have also been thinking about why I like certain songs and not others.  One observation is that I do not tend to like songs that I find.  I like songs that I have heard before at a concert, on the radio or especially if it was used in the soundtrack of a movie or a t.v. show.  Production teams often have members whose primary task is to select music for individual scenes.  I’m not talking about orchestral soundtracks here, I mean the pop, rock and melancholy acoustic genres that play in the background of the fun or dramatic sequences.  These songs fit better into our likings because they play a part in a story.  The notes and timbres themselves connect to certain moods, but they are particularly effective when they remind us of a time when the events that build the song’s context also formed our emotions into a corresponding mood.  If I know some of you, you’ve already started listening to KEZ, and if I know KEZ they probably started playing Christmas music around what?  Halloween?  Anyway, some of my friends have started listening to Christmas music on the radio, and I started thinking, what stations play Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Burl Ives, the Carpenters except at Christmas time?  Why is it that these artists have staying power for just one month of the year every year.  It isn’t as if they only performed Christmas music, but for some reason people still listen to them at Christmas time even though they are almost entirely forgotten the rest of the year.  Why?  I think it is because Christmas music tends to be associated with Christmas memories, and considering the cultural and familial significance we give to the holiday season it shouldn’t be surprising that we tend to have very fond memories of Christmas.  Our brains connect the memories with the patterns and shape of the song.  When we rehear those songs, our brains recall the pieces of our story that connected to that song.
    Dorothy Sayers and C. S. Lewis used analogies of stories to help visualize the way God works in the world.  They said God is like an author, and we are like characters in the story that he is writing.  I first heard that a few years ago.  It keeps growing on me.  If you take all the things that happen in day to day life and put them in the context of a story, it takes on a new significance.  Think about all the random events that happen in stories.  I can think of three types right now, the events that are clearly and immediately significant, events that seem insignificant initially but as a reader you later realize the event was key because of its connection to another event.  The third type depends a lot on the author.  Some authors do this well and others don’t.  These events are like scenery.  It really has no significance to the plot or story line, but it changes the tone or the pace of the story in a way that affects the reader.  I think Charles Dickens spends a lot of words setting scenes.  I think he does a great job, but I know people who love literature who simply cannot stand his pacing.  I don’t mind the fact that he spends words on scenery though because I think it adds emotional significance to the events that are inherently meaningful, even if they only force you to be patient.
    Significance is probably the most desired thing in today’s culture.  Everyone wants to be involved in significant charities, hold significant opinions, have significant friends.  The fear of an insignificant life followed by an insignificant death is probably responsible for a significant number of suicides.  If our lives are stories in progress being written and developed by an omnipotent, loving God, we should be fearless.  All this fear of insignificance must stem from our metanarrative about the world.  Are we worried that life is a roulette wheel and you just hope you throw your chips in the right cause or belief system?  Are we concerned that if we don’t find our identity and realize our full potential, we will have lost the game we call life?  I like the idea of the story because it strongly implies a sense of purpose behind everything.  Think about yourself as a character. Some characters react well to the events that occur to them and they find ways to improve the story.  Some characters are angered by the story they have found themselves in, so they make the story miserable for everyone else.  Some characters are just interesting and unusual so their antics and quirkiness make the story enjoyable.  Which kind of character are you?  Which kind do you want to be?




P.S. I've had this idea floating around in my head for a while, I guess a story post is a good time to act on it.  If you can think of any stories about my dad, could you send them to me?  I guess you could post a comment, or you could e-mail me.  I've just been thinking about how many memories and stories there are that I don't want to forget, and I know you have them too, so I'd really like to compile some, and hang on to them.  Anyway, I think you all know my e-mail address.  It would really mean a lot to me if you did this and maybe helped to spread the word.  Thank you.

Humility

    Somehow I ended up as a TA in the Physics department here. In a way it makes perfect sense because I’m studying Physics and education, so it seems like teaching Physics even if it’s just helping people with homework is a perfect fit. On the other hand, when I took Physics last year, I got a decent grade, but it wasn’t because I did a great job on homework.  Most weeks I spent hours staring at questions for time periods best measured in multiples of ten minutes, then wandering around campus looking for people who knew more than I did.  I’m hoping that being a slow learner might make me a better teacher because every time I learn something, I have to think about it ten different ways.  So when I try to describe something, I already know ten different ways to think about it.  It’s a theory anyway.  Last night I ran a help session which was admittedly a bit of a mess.  Everyone who came in had trouble with the same problem which was good because I practically had it memorized by the end.  Unfortunately, one student figured it out pretty quickly, but for some reason I thought he had done it wrong so I made him redo parts of his problem over and over again.  A few other students needed help with the same problem who described the method of answering correctly, but after they left, I realized they had come up with the wrong answer.  At the end another student came in for a few minutes, got off to a good start and then had to leave before she got very far.  Maybe you’ve had the feeling on a test where you know how to approach a problem, you had it figured out before and everything made sense, but then when you look at that paper and the miniature characters waiting for action, you realized that you really have no idea whether the answer is a or c.  You could guess, but there’s more at stake here than usual and you really don’t want to take that risk.  That feeling hit me when I was trying to explain how to find the x component of a hockey puck’s velocity.  There were too many options.  I knew our options were: original or complementary angle, sine or cosine, adjacent or opposite and horizontal or vertical.  For some reason I couldn’t decide which ones corresponded with the others.  Unfortunately, every time I changed my mind, bewildered freshmen flipped their pencils upside down and smudged out another set of figures which had just started to look promising.

    Today in my Thermal Physics class, Dr. Poelarends came prepared to give a lecture on Chapter T5 of our textbook.  Soon he realized that according to our schedule we weren’t supposed to have read a chapter, but we were supposed to be doing an in class activity.  We ended up doing the activity, but you could tell he was slightly embarrassed and not entirely comfortable.  I’m not sure how sympathetic I would have been under normal circumstances, but I can tell you that today, I could really feel I with him.

    I think Matt DuMee said it first in a speech at my graduation, either that or something he said in his speech made me think of it.  Regardless if this maxim is not already known it should be, that humility is the best defense against humiliation.  For Gregory’s sake I’ll define these terms to suit my purposes.  Humility is having a realistic opinion of yourself and portraying yourself honestly to others.  Humiliation occurs when other people realize that you are not as good as you want them to think you are.  For example, when you tell the guys at the park about that free throw contest you won, then you shoot the ball over the backboard… that’s humiliating.  If you had just shot the ball in the first place, without trying to impress everyone, no one would have been disappointed in your ability or lack thereof.  Two Biblical passages come to mind one from Proverbs, “let another praise you and not your own mouth” and the warning not to take the best seat in the house, but to sit on the floor and let the host move you to the seat of honor.  Interesting.  You go to the back of the line, and maybe you’ll get a free pass to the front.  It seems like your proper place has already been decided by the host, so you can either make her move you up or down.  You don’t get to decide your absolute position but you can determine your direction of motion.  For some reason, you’re both happier if you give her the opportunity to promote you rather than displace you….  But you should know your place about as well as the host does right?  I mean you should know whether you’re in her top ten list or whether you’re the guy who just fits in better at the kids’ table.

    I think just about everyone has an overinflated image of themselves.  All your strengths, weaknesses, struggles, inches, ounces and stories are bigger to you than they are to anyone else, except perhaps a lover.  It comes back to the idea of perspective.  From your perspective the universe really does revolve around you, because by definition, everything you see is from your point of view.  Really, it is just as likely to revolve around you as any other 2x1x.5 meter section of space, but no one else is going to see it the way you do.  You might say that a lot of people today have low self-esteem and don’t need any more humility.  On the contrary, if you have low self-esteem, humility is exactly what you need.  Your weight, zits and stutter are not as big as they seem.  They may seem like lakes that are deep enough to drown in, but it turns out they’re merely puddles.  Of course, you can still drown, but only if you bury your face in them and breathe deeply.  I’m not trying to minimalize self-esteem issues, I’m just saying that the problem may be based more in focusing on your own problems.  There may be exceptions to the humiliation rule at the point where human dignity is violated.  At that point, when you have reasonable expectations of image and treatment, a certain amount of indignation may be reasonable and dutiful when those expectations are violated.

    Humility in opinions is important.  When you arrogantly say that your opinions are unquestionably correct, you place your limited perspective above that of another person’s.  Refusing to give ear to another perspective is ridiculous because another limited human being is likely to have a better vantage point than I do.  On the other hand, humility is inappropriate in some discussions.  If you represent an authority on the subject in question, you really should not change your opinions very easily.  Simply giving in to everyone you disagree with is flat out wishy-washy.  For example, when I run a TA session, in theory I represent the Wheaton College Physics department, which is presenting the dominant view of physicists who have much greater authority than I do or the students currently taking the class.  I guess the fundamental juxtaposition here is one of humility and confidence, but in order to represent the department well, I need to study to show myself an approved TA with no reason to be ashamed of my position as it is founded on the authority of others in whom I have confidence. 

    You may have noticed this already, but the last paragraph may be applied to theological discussions as well by replacing most of the nouns.  The other day I was talking to Bryce about the word dogma.  I think dogma is any position you hold that is based on authority which you don’t think should be questioned.  Bad dogma is founded on flimsy authority.  Good dogma is based on good authority.

    I think this would be an appropriate post to mention that I really don’t know what I’m talking about.  These are just the directions my mind goes sometimes.  I’m not dogmatic about much that I say on this blog, but I’d love to know if it even sounds reasonable.  Comments and e-mails are a great method of contradiction.

Obsessionism

    It’s that time of year, that time just between the scintillatingly drowsy summer and the numbingly focused winter.  These are the days when I add event after repeating event into my calendar and marvel at how many blank spaces there are that I know will be filled by study time, casual social time, time spent wondering how to best spend my time and more time wondering why I didn’t spend my time as well as I should have.  Right now though, I’m cautiously optimistic, mostly because even if I am overwhelmed by the amount of work I have, I think I’ll enjoy my work and the people I work with.  As far as I can tell, there are only two things that are clear in foresight and hindsight, the quality of the work you do and how much you enjoy it.  I’m using a pretty broad definition of work.  It could include conversations, hobbies, and games along with manual labor and paper shuffling.

    As I schedule my next few months and make decisions about what is important enough to devote a few hours to every week, priorities are an unfortunate necessity.  I’ve never really liked prioritizing.  Of course I have preferences.  I like certain foods and flavors more than others. I have friends that are closer than others whom I feel more comfortable around.  Some topics interest me more than others.  But I’ll eat just about anything.  At a party I usually talk to the person within the shortest radius.  My bookshelf holds Emerson’s Essays, War and Peace, and Black simultaneously.  On the other hand, those are outliers and diverse bookshelves are pretty much standard issue at a liberal arts college like Wheaton. 

    There’s an exchange in National Treasure that goes something like this:

Riley: Anyone crazy enough to believe us isn’t going to want to help.

Ben: One step short of crazy, what do you get?

Riley: Obsessed.

Ben: Passionate.

    So let’s say passionate is one step short of obsessed.  It’s an interesting thought.  Passion is good, drive allows you to accomplish things, but somehow too much passion is no longer useful.  In fact, it’s annoying, counterproductive and dangerous.  We only use the word obsessed in extreme cases.  If someone is willing to remortgage their house to see a Hannah Montana concert we say they’re obsessed.  If it isn’t as extreme, we might say their priorities are out of order.  Or an economist like Andrew would say that they are not accurately balancing the costs and benefits.  It’s as if they picked one value and made it into a trump.  In card games if a suit is a trump it means it’s value is unnaturally inflated.  So a two of spades might beat a king of diamonds.  The king is really a higher card, but the two of spades is trumped so it can beat anything from another suit.  Most people think off houses as more valuable than concert tickets, but apparently somebody assigned trump status to Hannah Montana.

    Some trumping may be appropriate.  For example, heavenly priorities trump earthly priorities.  Regardless of the earthly benefits, if an action causes spiritual harm, the net affect is negative.  For example people have a spiritual element to them.   Money does not.  If your closest friend was going to die unless you paid all of your money to save their life, would the amount of money really make any difference?  Natural human perspectives blow monetary, physical benefits out of proportion.  To be really balanced, we have to compensate by underemphasizing things like financial success and personal achievement.  Physical training is of some value, but there are bigger obstacles out there than defensive linemen.

    I think any sort of “-ism” implies an obsession or at least an overemphasis.  For example, a nationalist will tend to put the good of the country above the good of the world or their community.  A pragmatist forgets that morality and aesthetics are valuable.  Relativism takes the true ideas that objects and ideas can be viewed from different perspectives and it declares that there is no universal perspective.

    I started thinking if I would classify myself as any kind of “–ist.”  Interestingly, no form of the words Christian or Evangelical contains the suffixes –ist or –ism.  However, in the third chapter of the Dictionary, I found some terms like “Calvinism,” “Conservatism” or “Constitutionalism” which didn’t bother me much.  Afterwards I started noticing a pattern.  In general, people who claimed the term “Calvinism” tended to place a lot of emphasis on the doctrines of predestination and depravity.  Meanwhile, others who held to the same beliefs but seemed to have their list of priorities in better order preferred to refer to themselves as “reformed” or as “believers in the doctrines of grace.”

    I’m not saying that it’s always wrong to be an –ist.  there probably are some good –isms that I’ve passed over.  In fact, I would love to see some counterexamples in the comments.  But in the English language –isms tend to be used for obsessions.  Meanwhile as evangelicals hunt for idols to tear down in their lives, might I humbly suggest that they double check their –isms to make sure they have not expanded beyond their proper place.

Dark Glasses and Dim Mirrors

All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change.
-Gilbert K. Chesterton

    What will the future look like?  Of course it’s difficult to predict because there are so many invisible factors in the present that will influence the future.  In fact, the present is so vast that regardless of our ability to perceive all the occurrences in the world we are unable to comprehend it all.  At best we can pick out certain pieces that apply to a situation and analyze them well enough to predict the outcome with varying accuracy.  Any occupation in the world can be interpreted in the light of influencing the future either by gathering, analyzing or applying information.

    Honestly, I don’t have a specific direction that I wanted to go from here, just a jumble of thoughts I’ve had in my head.  My method of writing is this: I retrace my thoughts since my last post and pick out the few that seem interesting or profound enough to share, then try to connect them and translate them into sentences and paragraphs.  Several thoughts converged on the idea of the future, but that means that since I used the future as a starting point, I can’t use it as a transition, because everything diverges from here.  The last few posts have been more personal but I think a few choice sentences will bring you up to speed.  Before July 11th, my future seemed too small.  When I tried to look ahead at the rest of my life, I couldn’t figure out how to fit all the things I wanted to do into one lifetime even if it meant a century.  Now one lifetime seems very long.  If I knew I would see dad again in twenty years, I would squeeze a lot into those twenty years and make a very good use of that time.  In a way they would be difficult, but in a way they would be easy.  It’s merely the infinite mass of a lifetime that is such an exasperating obstacle.  Of course it magnifies the image and desire for heaven, but it’s hard to catch a solid glimpse through the fog.

    Sometimes I think our view of the world is too small.  People like boxes.  I think it’s interesting that people say they don’t like Math and Science because they feel too limited by the laws and calculations and formulas.  They say that they like writing because they can express themselves in any way they feel like.  I think that’s interesting because I feel a lot more limited working on an essay than I do in a science lab.  In English, you have to follow very specific patterns of order, usage and punctuation and you have a limited set of words that you can use as determined by Merriam-Webster and his successors.  As far as I can tell science means observation.  In other words you can do anything you want and as long as you’re paying attention to what happens you are “doing science.”  And the world is so big that you could go on observing it for a hundred years and still not understand it.  In fact, you could pass your findings on to generation after generation of curious scientists and they would still find more and more questions to look into.  One major difficulty is that people like to think in boxes.  They impose rules on nature which look like they exist here but maybe they don’t exist there.  Until quantum mechanics, every turn of progress in science became more and more logical.  Every observation fit formulas and laws very strictly.  So of course, when scientists couldn’t find rules for a layer, they assumed that everything beneath that layer was random, in other words, the castle of the orderly universe is constructed by the building blocks of chaos.  There are libraries full of theories already written explaining this phenomena already.  But is it possible that the rules for the next layer are just a different kind of rule?  Maybe the next set of rules are written in a language more like English than a mathematical formula.  Maybe the rules are more like commands.  “Thou shalt act like a particle when thou art observed.” and “Thou shalt act like a wave when thou art not observed.”  Having said that, I hesitate to press the publish button because several philosophical and methodical objections have already occurred to me.  On the other hand, it’s about as likely to be right as any other theory, so it might as well be put down on the list of possibilities right?

More Pain and Healing

     Of course I can’t stop thinking about him.  I have probably never gone an entire day without thinking about him in my whole life, but it’s different now.  There are different ways of thinking about it, but at some point or another they all converge on the fact that as long as I live, I won’t see him or talk to him or listen to him or ask him for advice.  And no matter how I approach that point, it is incredibly painful.  A very dear friend of his came by yesterday and talked to me for a little while, he explained an Aramaic word to me that means “transfer” I can’t remember the actual word, but he said that it is a word that replaces death in the Middle East, particularly for Christians, because rather than death which is an ending, it is merely a transfer.  And in fact, he said, it’s like a promotion.  It’s hard to describe the impact of those words on me.  It was so encouraging, and so good, and so true, but it still hurts.  One coworker may be happy for another that they were promoted to a better position, but the fact that the coworker will no longer be nearby to encourage and advise and collaborate may still be saddening.  My dad’s friend said that it is a happy event and that it is a good thing for my dad, but that when Lazarus died, Jesus knew He would raise him again, and that Lazarus would be alright. Still, Jesus wept.

    Is it wrong that when I’m alone I want to be with company and when I’m with company I want to be alone?  Is it wrong that when I eat, I notice that the food is good as a matter of fact, rather than enjoying the food?  Is it wrong that one day I don’t care about hygiene and the next day I think about how I look?  Is it wrong that I avoid going to sleep by writing a blog post at night when I know I need rest for tomorrow?  Is it wrong that I sleep like a log as soon as I do go to sleep?  Is it wrong that I describe how difficult days can be in my blog and then tell people that I’m doing “all right,” but then add a little worried look to show that not everything is right?  Is it wrong that I’m so aware and so in control of my facial expressions until I realize that I’m going to cry if I’m not careful?  Is it wrong that one minute I feel like I can’t live another moment, and the next I know I’ll have to live a lot more, and the next I really do feel perfectly fine?

    Two good friends of mine lost their moms to cancer in the last few years.  I remember seeing one of them a few weeks afterwards.  I was hesitant to approach her because I wasn’t sure how to start a conversation with someone experiencing so much grief.  I decided the best idea was to put on a solemn, concerned expression and just say hello.  Much to my surprise, she smiled when she returned my hello.  Then she started talking about everyday things as if only everyday things had happened in the last month.  I think she even laughed during the conversation.  Something didn’t make sense.  How could someone experiencing enough pain for years smile or laugh only a few weeks later?  Doesn’t the massive grief outweigh the momentary amusement?  Only at times, thank God.

    Thinking about the past is easy.  Thinking about the present isn’t too bad.  Thinking about the future hurts.

    Another encouraging/painful thing people say is that his body is just an empty shell, that he has gone home to be with the Lord, and that what we saw after he left was just a broken body, but that my dad is no longer there.  Of course, I’m incredibly glad that he no longer needs the shell and that he is finally in the completed form God always meant for him to be.  But I loved the shell too.

Romans 8 and some other stuff

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.  For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.  For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.  To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.  For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.  Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.  You however are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.  Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.  But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.  If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through the Spirit who dwells in you.  So then brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.  For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.  For all who are led by the Spirit of God are Sons of God.  For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, “Abba, Father!”  The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may be glorified with him.  For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.  For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.  For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage and decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.  For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of together in the pains of childbirth until now.  And not only the creation but we ourselves who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.  For in this hope we were saved.  Now hope that is seen is not hope.  For who hopes for what he sees?  But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.  Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit interecedes for is with groanings too deep for words.  And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.  And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.  For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.  And those whom he predestined he also called and those whom he called he justified and those whom he justified he also glorified.  What then shall we say to these things?  If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare His own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things.  Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?  It is God who justifies.  Who is to condemn?  Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?  As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long: we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”  No in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers nor height nor depth, nor anything else in creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

-Romans 8:1-39

 

Scripture reading always seemed so academic.  Sometimes there seems to be a layer of misunderstanding between my mind and the words on the pages.  I always thought that I needed to make the words speak to me by slowing down and various comprehension methods.  It’s not true.  Even to a visual learner, in the right time, listening is completely sufficient.  No forced thinking is necessary.

 

When you cannot trace His hand, you must learn to trust His heart.

-C.J. Mahaney

 

“If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.  Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.  If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” but if Christ has in fact been raised from the dead, we, even in our sufferings, are most to be envied.

-Quotation from 1 Corinthians 15:17-19

Pain and Healing

    In a way, I like being cut.  I don’t mean that I enjoy the pain or that I cut myself intentionally, but there’s something fascinating about a cut.  Maybe I should say that I like observing a cut.  Imagine me dropping a glass on the floor, a nice glass that has been around for a while that is hard to replace.  Then imagine that instead of getting a broom to sweep up the glass, I try to pick up the shards with my bare hands.  So far, this sounds all too possible.  Anyway, let’s say I cut myself on one of the shards.  The thing is I know I would be more frustrated at myself for breaking the glass than for cutting myself.  Or ant bites, I hate ant bites, but I still clean up ant trails.  And burns, okay burns are a little worse because they hurt more and for a longer time, but still I’m okay with getting burned.  There’s just that little pinch of regret and then the, “Man, now I have to carry ice around for an hour” thought.  By the way, if you’re ever being tortured and offered a choice of burning methods, avoid peanut butter and ropes, just some friendly advice from personal experience.  Why is it that I don’t mind being cut, but I hate it when glass shatters or porcelain cracks or pages rip.  That pinch of regret turns into an ache of regret a stomach tightening that lasts a little longer than it should.
    Skin is incredibly designed for all kinds of great functions.  Did you know that the outermost layer of skin is all dead cells.  After skin cells die, they stay on your body, still attached to each other in a sort of hardened plating that covers the living, fragile skin.  When you get callouses, somehow your skin reacts by thickening that layer of dead cells forming a coarse, even more resilient shell.  When that barrier is breached, the circulatory system forms it’s own barrier called a scab, which supports the skin until it can fill in underneath and repair itself.
    The muscular system is fascinating too.  Almost every motion in your body is caused by different combinations of contractions of muscles.  They just pull, they don’t push, twist or turn, they just tense.  The system of muscles tensing throughout your body can cause any number of athletic maneuvers, facial expressions and even vocal sounds merely by combinations of muscular contractions.  When muscles are contracted often, especially against resistance, they gather extra resources to rebuild themselves, they endure stress by burning (literally) their energy resources, so they realize that next time, they will need to be stronger.  They prepare for next time by strengthening themselves and bulking up for the next round.
    The human psyche can also endure large amounts of stress.  Adrenaline rushes speed the mind to superhero levels.  A policeman under fire for the first time described firing several shots and noticing exactly where each bullet hit, which under normal circumstances is absurd.  We can endure physical trauma, distress, torture, disease, death of loved ones, displacement, rejection, feelings of failure, doubt and lack of sleep, hopefully not all at once.  Somehow, we emerge stronger than before.  We survive.  We get knocked down.  We get back up again.  We struggle.  We suffer.  We come out more prepared for the next fight.
    There exists, somewhere, a breaking point, a point of no return.  For a ceramic mug, it comes pretty quickly.  Every little crack is a breaking point.  It may be superglued, but it will never really be the way it was.  For a human arm, a thousand cuts might be healed, but if the arm is severed at any point, if even a finger is cut off, it will not grow back.  The damage is permanent.  A pirate who loses his leg must make do with a peg.  The skin and bone will not return.  Enough radiation will cause a tan.  Too much will cause a burn.  Enough scraping will cause a callous.  Too much will cause bleeding.  A small cut will heal.  A large cut will scar.  Soldiers return from duty more disciplined and more prepared for the difficulties of civilian life.  But sometimes they get post traumatic stress disorder and just can’t handle it.
    Pain doesn’t always make us stronger.  We’re susceptible to permanent damage.  Life doesn’t have a respawn button.  Our bodies and minds are not completely in our control.  We can be overtaken and overpowered by any number of things.  Permanent damage is a big obstacle.  Invincibility would make everything so much easier.  But the stakes have been raised.  We’re playing for survival.  But that’s not right, because that’s a game we will all lose.  We’re playing for something more.  Somehow, we have to lose that game to win another.  We have to surrender to that darkness to see the dawn.  The weight of glory comes after a “light, momentary affliction.”  That light momentary affliction is breaking points and fear and death.  But “though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.”  I don’t know exactly which parts of me make up my inner self or what a weight of glory looks like but I know there’s something in the body’s healing process, there’s something in the magnificence of the forests and constellations, and there’s something in selfless virtue that’s worth a lot of pain and suffering.

Naturally?

    I mowed the lawn today, but the mower ran out of gas about halfway through the lawn.  I checked the gasoline can to see if there were any fumes left that I could fan into the tank, but the can was empty as well.  I could have driven to the gas station to get some more but I figured I might as well just finish off the lawn with the weedwacker.  The effect was interesting.  The half near the street has a very uniform look with normal mown lines.  The section above it now has a natural pattern in it more like brush strokes than the standard layered look of a mowed lawn.  The juxtaposition of the natural and artificial patterns next to each other made me think about how we think of the word organic and how we call certain things natural and certain things unnatural and why we sometimes prefer one over the other.  Take food for example.  We like the idea of organic food.  I think it stems from the idea that we are what we eat, and we think of ourselves as natural creatures so we want our bodies to use natural minerals and chemicals to sustain itself rather than something formulated in a laboratory.  The funny thing is that anything made in a laboratory is made from natural ingredients, it has just been broken down into very small natural components and rearranged by humans, who in theory are also natural beings.  I think one of the most unnatural things that is fundamental to human life is the fact that we have built walls between ourselves and nature.  My guess is that anyone reading this is between four right now.  Houses are barriers to keep nature at a comfortable distance and we aren’t very happy when nature crosses that line.  I also spent a few minutes repelling an ant invasion in the kitchen today.  Dogs are a kind of emissary between the human and the natural, somehow they seem to speak our emotional language while retaining the label “natural.”  Haircuts are also interesting, and bring me back to the lawn.  Some people have very natural hair.  They might cut it, but for the most part they just let their hair fall naturally around their head.  Some people use ten different products simultaneously to get that businesslike, in control look.

    Anyway, one of the most fascinating things about nature as that I just can’t decide whether people are natural or not.  That’s why I think it’s a little funny that stuff made in labs and factories are the most unnatural things we can think of, because they were made with human ingenuity and we tend to think of human behavior as fairly natural and when we say someone is psychotic, we mean that they think or act unnaturally.  So there seem to be two kinds of nature.  The kind that’s the opposite of insanity and the kind that is the opposite of… well birds and trees and the sky.  Anyway, for my final paper in Western Lit. class I wrote about human nature and I figured that would make an easy blog post, especially since I had some extra thoughts on the topic today.  Dr. Lundin sent out the prompt for the essay two and a half hours before it was due, that way we didn’t have to spend a ton of time studying for it while we were trying to get ready for all our other finals.  Thank you Dr. Lundin.  I have a slight hesitation posting a paper I wrote for class on my blog.  Maybe it’s because it would be considered plagiarism to use something from a blog for a school assignment, and it just seems like the two shouldn’t mix.  Anyway, here it is in all its finals week madness, but perhaps there’s method in’t:

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Nature is a commonly used word that is surprisingly hard to define. It is easier to categorize things as natural or unnatural than to actually define the word. Trees and rocks fit pretty neatly into the “natural” category. Ghosts and demons generally fall into the “unnatural” category. The one thing that may be hardest to categorize is human beings, and even more specifically human nature. There are some things about humans that do not seem entirely natural. Human psychology is understood better now than ever before, but it is hard to believe that the entire function of the human mind can be whittled down to the firing of synapses. When someone is seen behaving strangely, someone may call it “unnatural.” But if humans are entirely natural, everything they do really is natural and there is no possible way for someone to act unnaturally. In Paradise Lost, Satan is disgusted with an uncorrupted state of nature and sets up his own definition of nature in a state of rebellion. As a result of this rebellion, both types of nature remain in conflict over human nature. For convenience I will refer to the two forms of nature as communal nature and independent nature. The conflict between them can be observed in human action.

This conflict between independent nature and communal nature is brought to a head in King Lear in which Edmund claims his independence from any claims on his loyalty and sets himself up as independently working to achieve his own advancement, while King Lear suffers for this new view of nature as he no longer receives the reverence that he considers natural. Edmund claims the side of nature in his first line in the play. The irony in this is that he was born out of wedlock and is considered an unnatural child. According to communal nature, having sexual relations outside of marriage is a form of breaking the faith of a marriage agreement. Therefore, according to the communal nature, Edmund is unnatural. Edmund is willing to be unnatural in the communal sense. However, he still claims nature as his goddess. Therefore, he must be thinking of some other kind of nature. “Why -------? wherefore base” he asks, “When my dimensions are as well compact, my mind as generous, and my shape as true as honest madam’s issue” (King Lear Act 1 Scene 2, lines 6-9). In his mind, because his physical features are not impaired, he is equally natural to his legitimate brother, and as he has sworn fealty to nature, he may even gain the upper hand. In the independent nature, rank and position are ends and not means. Independent nature does not give titles based on birthrights, it grants its honors to those who are willing to make use of nature’s tools and make their way up in the world by whatever gifts nature has given them such as strength and mental acuity.

King Lear’s daughters, Goneril and Regan also accept this new view of nature as an independent means to rank and wealth. Once their father has given them the keys to the kingdom, they lock him out of it. King Lear is literally left out in the cold as soon as he has given authority to his daughters. They do not see any reason to give aid to an elderly man who will be using their resources and undermining their authority. The fact that he is their father does not have any bearing on the subject. A few characters do cling to the communal view of nature. Edgar, Gloucester’s other son, guides his father once he is blinded. Gloucester risks his own position in order to give the king shelter. Cordelia, Lear’s daughter comes to Lear’s aid when he has been driven from his kingdom. Meanwhile Edmund, Regan and Goneril act unnaturally according to the communal nature. These characters act unnaturally according to the independent view of nature. In the communal sense, it is unnatural for Lear to be left in nature’s fury during a storm. In the independent sense, it is unnatural for Kent to retain loyalty to Lear after being banished by him. The two natures oppose each other and what is natural in one sense is unnatural in the other.

In Hamlet the two natures are harder to differentiate. Before the play even begins, Hamlet’s uncle aligns himself with the independent nature. He kills his brother, the current king, in order to take the position for himself. This leaves Hamlet in the uncomfortable duty of obeying his father by killing the king (his uncle). One question that may be haunting Hamlet as he tries to decide when and whether or not to take his vengeance, is which side of nature he would take by killing his uncle. In a sense, he would be advancing himself to the kingship by killing his uncle, and as a subject of the king, he owes loyalty to him. Regicide, especially of a relative clearly seems to be communally unnatural. On the other hand, Hamlet’s uncle has already turned his back on communal nature. If Hamlet did not kill his uncle, he would leave his duty to his father unfulfilled. As Hamlet ponders this predicament, he must be searching frantically for an option that does not require him to kill his uncle or live with the death of his father unavenged. Hamlet can escape nature entirely by ending his own life. In a sense, Hamlet’s life is no longer natural. His uncle has acted unnaturally, and Hamlet faces consequences because of it. Hamlet is now in an unnatural situation, which changes the status quo. Perhaps, in this situation, where there is no natural option, it would be more natural to end all his intercourse with this impossible nature and make his own life unnaturally short. Hamlet proclaims how deeply this condition disturbs him, “O that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon ‘gainst self slaughter! O God! O God! How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world” (Hamlet, Act 1 Scene 2, Lines 129-134). Now he has three options. He must either live knowing that he has not fulfilled his natural duty to his father. Or he can betray his duty to his uncle and king by killing him. Finally he can end his own life and turn away from the conflict of nature, but in doing so will be turning his back on nature and God’s command.

Milton gives a perspective on the origin of this conflict in Paradise Lost. To begin with Satan has decided to reject God’s communal nature and engage in his own quest for an independent nature. He does succeed in achieving independence, but he is unable to take authority over God’s creation. When Satan hears that God is forming a new creation, he decides to go and see for himself. As soon as Satan enters the world he ponders the nature of humanity. He observes that they are “earthborn perhaps, not spirits, yet to heavenly spirits bright” (Paradise Lost, book 4 lines 360-361). He sees that they are in a state of communal nature. They submit to the position that God has placed them in, which means fulfilling their duties to God and to each other. Perhaps Satan finds this unbearable, because he sees the incredible beauty inherent in this relationship. He has given up his place in communal nature to strive towards his own independent advancement. This sacrifice has cost him dearly. Perhaps he could return to community, but that would be unnatural from the position of rebellion where he now stands. Rather than attempt some sort of return, Satan decides to implement his new form of nature in this unperverted world. He tempts Eve and Adam to step out of their positions in community into individual, independent natures. However, the old nature still remains in some form and so both natures strive for control over individuals and groups of individuals to determine their actions. Everyone must choose which nature to claim as their goddess, the independent nature or the communal nature.

Methodical Madness = Prosaic Poetry?

    I like books.  I like to say that I like all kinds of books.  In a sense that is true.  To be honest, I mostly like fiction, more specifically adventure fiction.  I like Arthur Conan Doyle about as much as any author.  It’s fast paced, easy to read and it makes me feel like I’m learning.  The funny thing is, I never know whether I’m learning facts or not.  Historical fiction can be pretty confusing because you never really know which facts are made up and which are real.  Are there really giant white monster whales?  Were there really peg legged captains of whaling ships?  How many harpoons does it take to kill a real whale?  Anyway, I have a little more trouble with some different genres.  For example, I like poetry, when I understand it, but I rarely understand it… [complete syllogism here].  I also have difficulty with non-fiction in general.  There are definitely some exceptions, Paul Johnson and Malcolm Gladwell have an enthralling narrative writing style.  However, a lot of non-fiction seems to be intended for textbook style information downloads.  Although, some textbooks actually do a pretty good job of presenting information.  Anyway, as I was reading Paradise Lost this weekend and thinking primarily of the reading quiz, I had an epiphany.  I’ve been looking for the wrong things in the wrong places.  There are two things that we get out of reading: knowledge and enjoyment.  Pleasure in reading comes from two sources in my experience.  One is narrative that creates empathy or a connection with characters whether real or imaginary.  The second is simple appreciation of skill in wordsmithing.  We like Hamlet because we understand indecision and because his soliloquies and images are humorous and meaningful.

    The purpose of textbooks is almost entirely informational.  Of course it is nice when the information presented is interesting, or when we enjoy an authors style or wit, but there’s a reason why professors have to assign reading quizzes for textbooks.  Poetry is primarily intended for enjoyment.  After reading a thousand words under the title “The Raven,” you might expect to know something about the bird’s anatomy, migratory patterns, lifespan and nesting habits.  That is, unless you just finished Edgar Allen Poe’s famed poem, in which case, you would know that Raven’s are eerie black fowl.  You might even have the impression that they have the gift of speech.  The nice thing about fiction is that most authors are trying pretty hard to keep the interest of their readers and also throw in some tidbits about something that is interesting.  You can learn a lot from a Tom Clancy novel as you worry about Jack Ryan’s adventures.

    Everything I’ve said so far is pretty obvious I guess, but my epiphany was that I’m disappointed when I don’t enjoy textbooks and I miss the beauty of poetry when I try to catch a few facts for a reading quiz.  Maybe I read textbooks too slowly and poetry too quickly.  When I read a textbook, maybe I should try to take in the most important information, spend extra time looking at facts, tables and equations and skip over some of the text that may not contain critical information.  On the other hand when reading poetry, I need to overcome the urge to quickly skim over it in order to check it off the “I’ve read that one” list or pass a reading quiz.  Time to give Milton another shot.

Yes, it’s true.

    My first post started by explaining how this blog was a sort of alternative to facebook for me to keep up with all my friends whom I don’t see in person while I’m at college.  I thought it was only fitting to announce here that I now have a facebook account.  I know I’ve held out for a long time, but my reasons for changing my mind now are probably not what you expect.  There’s a rather long story behind it, but I think that I gave in for a good reason.  I have been wanting to tell you all this story for a while, but never felt like I had the time to do it properly.  Now, in order to justify my conversion to facebook presence, I will tell you the whole thing.

    It all started years ago when my dad would read stories to my brother and me before we went to bed at night.  He read a lot of different stories to us, but there were three that stand out in my memory and two that play a particular role in this story.  The first was The Chronicles of Narnia.  I think many of you know how much those stories inspired my enthusiasm and imagination.  There was a particular boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb whom I thoroughly disliked for a good portion of his first two books, but by his last battle, he felt like a good friend.  Shasta probably seized my affection more quickly, although I remember being disappointed to learn that his real name was as regal and simple as Cor. The other story was about something called a hobbit.  I remember specifically my dad’s particular affection for the round barefooted creatures with constant appetites.  Something about Bilbo made me feel like small, underestimated people could still do really cool stuff (I was not particularly tall until junior high). 

    I read the Lord of the Rings trilogy on my own several years later.  I’ll just say that it was one of the times in my life that I really understood how C.S. Lewis felt about the blue flower (Mere Christianity).  I remember a New Year’s Eve after a particularly tumultuous few months in 2007.  I had been reading the series gradually, and I was finally within fifty pages of finishing The Return of the King.  It was fairly close to midnight when I actually finished the book and Sam finished writing his narrative after so much had been lost, so much had been saved, and all was as it should be.

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    Fast forward one or two years.  I visited Andrew where he was in school at Wheaton College.  It was a long trip and I was tired from spending a night in the Atlanta airport.  One thing I was anxious to see was the Wade Center that I had heard about.  It was one of the first things Andrew told me about Wheaton after he had visited it.  And now I finally had the opportunity to see it.  For those of you who don’t know, C.S. Lewis’s wardrobe, which his grandfather built, that he played in with Warnie as a child in Belfast, and later moved to his home in the Kilns, is in the Wade Center.  The Wade Center also has C.S. Lewis’s desk, J.R.R. Tolkien’s desk, props from the Narnia movies, an original map of Narnia painted by Pauline Baynes and various items relating to other Wade Center authors.  And that’s just the museum.  There is also a reading room with various books, manuscripts, articles and letters written by and about the Wade authors.  If you’re curious about the survey/quiz from a few weeks ago, here are the answers.  The Wade Center authors are: Clive Staples Lewis, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Dorothy Leigh Sayers, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, George MacDonald, Owen Barfield and Charles Williams.  I could go into a lot more detail, but if you want details, you can ask me later and I’ll e-mail you or add another post.

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    Fast forward a few more years.  I was trying to choose a college.  I had applied to Wheaton, but I was leaning toward different schools.  I have to admit, one of my pregrets of choosing another school was that, if I went to Wheaton, I could go to the Wade Center all the time.  Long story short, I did end up choosing Wheaton.  After orientation there was a job fair on campus.  One of the booths was for the Wade Center.  I was thrilled at the thought of working there.  I think it was the next day that I received a call telling me to come in for training on Monday.  Now I can always tell people that my first real job position was archival assistant.

    Here’s a typical conversation when I tell someone on campus that I work at the Wade Center. 

Them: Really, I don’t usually see you there when I work out.”   

Me: Not the weight center, the Wade Center, where C.S. Lewis’s wardrobe is.

Them: Oh the Wade Center, I haven’t been there since connection.  I should come by sometime.  When do you work?

    (Connection is what Wheaton calls the weekend when prospective students visit)  Despite the fact that most Wheaton students have only been to the Wade Center once or twice, it is a Mecca of Lewis (and Tolkien, etc.) scholars.  Researchers from all over the world come to work on books and papers about the authors.  Again, I could talk for a long time about the Wade Center but technically this post is about why I got my facebook so I’ll fast forward again.

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    Laura, the archivist / reading room guru had been telling me about a Tolkien Society that might be starting at Wheaton.  She told me a bit about the constitution and some ideas for events and some of the technicalities of starting an official club on campus.  During a Tolkien Reading Day event at the Wade Center, there was a signup for info about starting a Tolkien Society.  Unfortunately, I missed that event because of my Glee Club concert, but Laura kept me posted anyway.  So I attended the first Tolkien Society meeting (last Friday I think).  During the meeting some great ideas were brought up.  But during the meeting, I realized that a large portion of group communication would be through facebook.  Those of you in HomeSTARs know that working around fb based communication has never been a problem for me, but then again, you also know that Miss Fitch is not particularly tech-savvy.  So to cut a long story short (or at least to cut out all the unnecessary details that I enjoy writing in blog posts like this) I was nominated and elected president/ringbearer of the brand new Wheaton College Tolkien Society.  It seemed that the time had finally come for me to get a facebook.

    I started writing this post before I actually got an account.  It has taken me over a week to actually finish it, but regardless, this is the story of how and why Daniel Flavin is now on facebook.  It is also the story of how I came to work at the Wade Center and why I enjoy it so much.  I still have a lot of excess thoughts on both topics, and maybe those will come later.  I would like to say that I haven’t changed any of my opinions on the benefits of face to face communication, or phone communication, or e-mail (I know, facebook messages are the same thing as e-mail).  There are good things about facebook, but I think that communication and forms of communication should be judged by the amount and quality of thought they include, the accuracy and clarity of the thoughts they convey and the extent to which they convey emotion along with thought.  I understand that most of these depend more on the person communicating than on the medium of communication.  However, I still think that facebook encourages laziness in communication.

    I also think that facebook encourages self-centricism, at least it does for me.  I’m not sure that my mini ego-boost every time I receive a friend request is healthy.  On the other hand, I don’t know if this blog is the best alternative in that sense.  I would be a bit embarrassed if you knew how often I check pageview data.  I also intended this to be more of a creative outlet than a series of life update essays.  I do plan to keep posting on this blog, but now that I can post pictures and status updates on facebook, maybe the nature of these posts will change a little in the future.

    So now to anyone who has read this far, thank you for your time and patience.  There should be a little comment button right below this.  It sounds cliché but I’d really love to hear what you think.

Live and Archived

    The last several weeks have been a little overwhelming.  Between my four classes and Glee Club, there seems to always be a test or paper or project or concert every week, sometimes two in one week.  The projects and tests are not particularly interesting to talk about, but the concerts may be a little more interesting to you.  For one, we performed Brahms’s Ein Deutches Requiem once again, this time in downtown Chicago at the Symphony Center, and the previous performance in Edman Chapel (on Wheaton’s campus last November) is now online: http://www.wheaton.edu/wetn/conservarchive.htm (November 20).  Also, our spring concert will be this Friday at 8:00 (6:00 AZ time).  The performance should be broadcast live, so if you want to watch it or part of it you can go to http://www.wheaton.edu/wetn and click the watch live link.  It should be a fun concert.  We have a really wide variety of songs in Glee Club.  We performed two in chapel today.

    I wanted to put some sort of picture in here, but this is the only one that I have taken recently.  This is Ryan Bilton carrying Josh Hershberger and Sam Cortez, and Bryce Walpus is touching Sam’s head.  A few comments.  Sam is going to be one of my roommates next year, Lord wiling.  In our last raid, Ryan played a significant role, and one of the other guys on our floor sang the song “Gaston” from Beauty and the Beast, replacing the word Gaston with Bilton. I also have been reading a few Father Brown stories for a reading group at the Wade Center, in one of them, detective Valentin mentions a caper of the extremely brilliant and athletic master criminal Flambeau in which he carried two policemen down the street, one under each arm.

    It snowed today….  Everyone here feels as if spring has betrayed us.  We had two weeks of very nice weather, then this afternoon, it got a bit chilly, just enough for me to contemplate wearing a sweater.  Then when I looked out the window a few hours later the snow had returned.  I don’t think any more than an inch fell, but it’s the principle of the matter.  The last remnants of winters hold on our campus had begun to disappear, the former eight foot mounds of snow had been reduced to tiny piles a few inches in diameter and then completely obliterated, but now reinforcements have come, and we must brace ourselves for one more skirmish against this foe.  We must keep our fleece armor at the ready and our heaters vigilant.

From the front lines,

Daniel Flavin

Homesick

    I’ve never entirely understood what the word “homesick” meant.  When I was younger, sickness meant a mixture of physical discomforts and disabilities.  It meant running noses, headaches, soreness, exhaustion, etc.  I still think of sickness in a similar way, but when I was younger I could not imagine how not being in a certain place could make someone feel physically sick.  I do remember missing home while on vacation and wondering if that was homesickness.  That may have been why I had trouble understanding homesickness: I had experienced sickness and I had experienced missing home, but in my experience there was very little connection between them.  In the time since then, both ideas have grown closer to each other.  As a child, when I was sick I don’t particularly remember longing to be well.  More recently, when I am sick I spend a significant portion of my time remembering what it felt like to be well and wishing I could be well.

    Sometimes in class, sometimes in a conversation, and sometimes walking across campus, I have had a sudden, vivid memory of a particular location.  The odd thing about it is that most of the time, it isn’t “home.”  It is not necessarily my room or my house or even a place that I would list as one of particular significance or emotional attachment.  It may be Freestone Park, the parking lot of Sam’s Club or Fiesta mall.  Somehow, even though that place does not seem to hold any particular meaning to me, I feel an intense longing to be there, not to do anything particular there, merely to be there.  You might say that this is merely my sub-conscious telling me to go somewhere warmer.  That may be part of it.  (As a side note, I have learned a few things about cold weather.  One: it is not hard to freeze hair, just walk outside with slightly damp hair and wait fifteen seconds.  Two: hoodies and beanies were not invented just to look cool.  Three: there are two ways to get rid of a farmer’s tan.)  But there's something about those familiar places that is comfortable and inviting.  Even though Wheaton is more comfortable than it used to be, it does not have the same level of memories and emotional attachment that places in Arizona do.  

Snow Day!!!

    In general Wheaton does not have snow days.  Normally, they just work extra hard to keep the sidewalks and roads clear enough for everyone to get to class.  However, Tuesday and Wednesday, classes were cancelled and campus was closed due to a blizzard.  The Wade Center closed at three today,, so I left an hour early and on the way back the wind blew the snow so fast and hard that it felt like a sand blaster blowing in my face.  Kody, my heavily bearded suitemate is on snow crew, so as he was outside shoveling, his beard became thickly coated in snow and ice, so that according to his roommate Jonathan, he looked like Santa Claus with a white beard.  Yesterday, some of my friends and I dug a tunnel in a snow bank, and then sprinted across a field of three foot deep snow, then started tackling each other into soft cushions of snow, then went inside because we were freezing.

    I’m still pretty swamped in homework, but I did want to share a few pictures with you.I posted a before, during and after photo.  Enjoy!